Day: November 30, 2019
Machu Picchu
24 Festive Tasks: Door 7 – International Day for Tolerance, Task 4: If you were offered an all-expenses-paid trip to one (one only!) of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites, which one would you pick (and why)? I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to visit a fair number of World Heritage Sites already — […]
Read MoreSt. Andrew’s Day – Task 12
Reblogged from: Moonlight Snowfall Sorry I’m late this morning! Husband and son & I were watching 1980’s rock concerts into the wee hours last night. Door 12: St. Andrew’s Day Task 1: Tell us: Who is your favorite Scottish (or Scots-born / -descendant) writer? Task 2: Ian Rankin likes to say that […]
Read More
Books With Antonyms in Their Titles
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Task 4: The South Korean flag features images of ying / yang (the blue and red circle in the center) and four sets of three black lines each representing heaven, sun, moon and earth and, in turn, the virtues humanity, justice, intelligence and courtesy. Compile a […]
Read More
24 Festive Tasks: Door 12 – St. Andrew’s Day
Door 12: St. Andrew’s Day Task 1: Tell us: Who is your favorite Scottish (or Scots-born / -descendant) writer? Task 2: Ian Rankin likes to say that the Scottish national diet is sugar, fat and alcohol. The traditional Scottish dessert – Raspberry Cranachan – contains all three of these (and of course the […]
Read More
Joy Ellis: Jackman and Evans & Matt Ballard Series
As a new discovery, this is a carry-over from 2018, when Ellis’s Their Lost Daughters completely knocked me sideways during Halloween Bingo. I’ve since read her entire Jackman & Evans series — my favorite entries still being Their Lost Daughters as well as, coming very close, book 4 of the series, The Guilty Ones […]
Read More
Royalty Moonlighting as Commoners in Fiction
24 Festive Tasks: Door 10 – Russian Mothers’ Day, Task 2: Towards the end of the 17th century, there was a Russian apprentice carpenter and shipwright going by the name Peter Mikhailov in the Dutch town of Zaandam (and later in Amsterdam), who eventually turned out to be none other than Tsar Peter the Great, […]
Read More
Hyeonseo Lee: The Girl with Seven Names
A riveting read and proof positive of the old adage that truth is vastly stranger than fiction: the true story of a young woman who defected from North Korea to China “by accident” right before her 18th birthday and, after ten years of trials and tribulations, eventually ended up in South Korea and, later, in […]
Read More
Michelle Obama: Becoming
Mrs. Obama may have chosen to focus on her charity work and on political education instead of seeking a career in party politics after she and her husband had left the White House (and who could possibly blame her?), but I am very glad she also decided to give us her deeply personal perspective on […]
Read More
Kofi Annan: Interventions: A Life in War and Peace
Mr. Annan was far and away the most influential and important Secretary General of the United Nations in its more recent history; his memoirs set forth with great passion and understanding how the experience of a lifetime, from growing up in post-WWII Ghana all the way to serving as Under-Secretary for Peacekeeping under Boutros Boutros-Ghali, […]
Read More
Lesley Cookman: Murder in Steeple Martin
24 Festive Tasks: Door 10 – Russian Mothers’ Day, Book: Read a book set in Russia, by a Russian author, featuring a story within a story (like a Russian “matryoshka” doll), or featuring a character who is a mother. Well, it turns out this book has a dual timeline (or at least significant flashbacks […]
Read More
2019: The Books I’ve Been Most Thankful For
24 Festive Tasks: Door 11 – Thanksgiving: Task 2 Tell us: Of the books that you read this year, which are you most thankful for, OR was there one that turned out to be full of “stuffing”? Alternatively, which (one) book that you read anytime at all changed your life for the better?”) With another […]
Read More
Arthur Conan Doyle: Danger
What a timely read: Much more than “merely” the author of the Sherlock Holmes books, Conan Doyle was an astute observer of the politics of his time, and he did not shy away from speaking his mind, even if that meant offending the highest in the land. Danger is a short story that he wrote […]
Read More