I'm Angry With You, Blogger

Google has imposed some sort of upgrade on us that's slowing down Blogger and YouTube and has given me a toolbar with way too many icons that I had to figure out how to get rid of. What really infuriates me,though, is that the screen jerked around when I tried to delete a duplicate post and I ended up deleting my mini-review of Kathryn Davis' Versailles instead. Now people will think I hardly read at all anymore.

Banned Books Week

"The freedom within us is larger than the jails that we're in . . . " Syrian poet Faraj Birqdar, a former prisoner of conscience

BookCrossing

A cool way to cull your collection:

BookCrossing.com is a labor of love that was conceived and is maintained by Humankind Systems, Inc., a software and internet development company with offices in Kansas City, Missouri, and Sandpoint, Idaho. Looking for a break from the doldrums of creating yet another e-commerce website (that's just what the world needs), or email server application (oooh, those are doubly exciting), Humankind partner Ron Hornbaker sought to create a community site that would be the first of its kind, that would give back to the world at large, and that would provide warm fuzzy feelings whenever he worked on it. BookCrossing.com was the result.

Author accused of literary fraud says: 'I am not a liar. And I am not running any more'

It is a tale of almost unbelievable horror - rather too unbelievable, say her critics. Don't Ever Tell, Kathy O'Beirne's memoir of childhood rape, physical abuse and incarceration in Ireland's notorious Magdalene laundries, has sold 350,000 copies around the world and reached number three in the British non-fiction charts. But this week the book attracted charges of fraud, when five of her eight siblings apologised to her readers, saying large chunks of the book were fantasy.

FRESH YARN presents

(I'm a biiiig April Winchell fan)
Clash of the Titans... by April Winchell:

Not everyone loved Lucy.
My mother, for example, couldn't stand her. And Lucy returned the favor.
In fact, they had a showdown on the set of The Lucy Show that remains the most artful display of bitchery I ever witnessed.
It all started when I was about six years old. I remember my dad getting off the phone and yelling for my mother. He had just been given a recurring role as Lucy's Grandfather, and he was as excited as I had ever seen him.
It was a demanding part. He had to dance quite a bit, and even learn to play the violin. And since he was only about 45 at the time, he had to do it all wearing heavy old age make-up and a full wig. He spent hours under the hot lights, sometimes getting lightheaded in his three-piece tweed suit. All things considered, it was probably one of the hardest jobs my father ever had.
And he loved every minute of it.
My dad, Paul Winchell, was a ventriloquist, and by this time, he was already a very successful man. He had been a radio star for years, segued into his own variety show on ABC in New York, and was currently the star of his own syndicated kids show.
What a lot of people don't know is that he absolutely hated his damned puppets. His success was bittersweet, because it was clear he would never get away from them. For an actor who worked on the stage with Peter Lorre and Angela Lansbury, being forever chained to a couple of fiberglass mascots was incredibly depressing....

The Tiny Pineapple Nurse Book Collection

Career romances for young moderns. There were always a lot of these kicking around the house when I was a kid. My aunt and grandmother, with whom I lived, were huge fans of the genre. I was a voracious reader but, strangely enough, these never appealed to me. Cool jackets though!

Just Read This

It appears that I'm not the only one who's interest in Marie Antoinette has been piqued.

Marie Antoinette is back in vogue. A two-hour Public Broadcasting Service documentary on the last queen of France will be broadcast September 25, followed by the premiere of Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette on October 20. There has been a remarkable spate of books on this subject: two works of historical fiction last year's The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette, by Carolly Erickson (St. Martin's Press), and Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, by Sena Jeter Naslund (forthcoming from William Morrow in October) plus a scholarly study, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, by Caroline Weber, a professor of French at Barnard College (Henry Holt, due out this month).

New Book on Nazi-Era Humor: "Did You Hear the One About Hitler?" - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

A new book about humor under the Nazis gives some interesting insights into life in the Third Reich and breaks yet another taboo in Germany's treatment of its history. Jokes told during the era, says the author, provided the populace with a pressure release. Hitler was the butt of numerous jokes during the Third Reich.
Hitler visits a lunatic asylum. The patients give the Hitler salute. As he passes down the line he comes across a man who isn't saluting.
'Why aren't you saluting like the others?' Hitler barks.
'Mein Fuhrer, I'm the nurse,' comes the answer. 'I'm not crazy!'
Via Grow a Brain

Confederacy of Dunces Tour

Dunces is one of my favourite books. I have a love/hate relationship with Ignatius. John Candy wanted to do a film at one point but his death screwed that up. I can see Candy as Ignatius - too bad it didn't happen,
Confederacy of Dunces Tour

Via Coudal

The Times obituary: Oriana Fallaci

SUBJECTIVITY and passion are characteristics not always conducive to successful journalism. But Oriana Fallaci made them her watchwords and combined them with a brutal honesty. It was as much her fiery and unforgiving personality that made her Italy's best-known and most controversial exponent of her trade as her record of revealing interviews with the likes of the Ayatollah Khomeini and Henry Kissinger.
It was her abundant rage and pride that in the last years of her life brought her both her widest readership and led to her being charged by an Italian court last year with the crime of denigrating Islam.

Banned Book List

Google Book Search: Celebrate Your Freedom to Read

The Alternative Dictionaries

Slang, profanities, insults and vulgarisms from all the world.

As an example for Swiss German:

uufgschtellt (adj.) open,optimistic,fresh,dynamic,interesting note lit. 'put-up' ( lit. german 'auf-gestellt'). used to characterize a person .(very common region Zurich)

Hot Library Smut

Now, coming upon this post as you are, unawares, I feel I ought to clarify the title (which was alternately going to be sex libris) straight away by telling you what this post is not, in fact, about. By "library smut" I am in no way referring to the photo books on native peoples, or the illustrated health manuals, or any of the other volumes which, in your childhood, you lurked about the library aisle to find with the sole purpose of sneaking guilty glances at naked bodies. Nor am I referring to the "risque" novels by Miller, Cleland, or Lawrence you leafed impatiently through as a teenager. No. What I'm talking about here is the full-frontal objectification of the library itself. Oh yeah.

Via Folderol

The Time Traveler's Wife

I read this delightful love story on a porch of the Hotel Tadoussac overlooking the St. Lawrence River and the Saguenay Fjord. Who could dislike anything in such an idyllic setting? I suspect, though, that I would have liked this novel no matter where I read it. It's very romantic with a bit of a sci-fi twist. The premise is preposterous - Henry has a genetic disorder (CDD) that causes him to be transported through time without notice, dumping him naked and confused in various time periods- but it works.

Claire has known Henry since she was six when he first appeared naked before her in a meadow near her home. She grew up knowing Henry and loves him deeply. She spends a lot of her life waiting for him to return from his travels, much as Penelope waited for Odysseus. Henry tries to remain with her in the present but can't control his time travelling which becomes ever more risky and damaging.

I know it sounds complicated but it doesn't read that way. Niffenegger pulls it all together beautifully and it's convincing and it makes sense.