Category Archives: Buying Books

For the first time in a very long time, I went on a road trip and came home with fewer books. I visited my parents and read and then returned two books to my mother: The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman and Knit Two by Kate Jacobs. The former was a sometimes heart-wrenching, yet somehow amazingly light-hearted, portrait of the family that lived at and ran the Warsaw Zoo at the time of the Blitzkrieg. Very sad…many animals were killed in the initial attack, but the zoo became a hiding place for Jews.

The latter–the sequel to Friday Night Knitting Club, which I also borrowed from my mother–was a good, if quick, read. It seems like there are just one or two too many characters to really keep track of and get to know them all very well. I’m not sorry I read it, and I may borrow the threquel when my Mom’s done with it.

I only came home with one book but it’s a doozy: Inwood’s three-inch History of London. I added it to the pile in the bedroom, not sure when I’ll read it.

One random note: I’m reading a National Geographic Society book called The Age of Chivalry. It is a lively overview that includes a pull out of the Bayeaux Tapestry. The end pages are a schematic of Beaumaris Castle, which is on the Isle of Angelsey in Northern Wales, one of the castles I visited during my trip last year. I got the classic castle picture there…the swan in the mote that you see here. You can view some more pictures, too. And, for fun, you can Create Your Own Tapestry.

I also got plenty of time to listen to audio books since it’s a five or six hour road trip to see my folks. On the way north, I listened to Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler. Excellent and perfect for the audio format because you can clearly hear the difference between the narrator’s voice and the voice of Jane Mansfield. The same is true for Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict that I listened to on the way home.  Not quite finished so I’ll have to take a walk or ride the bike! Well-narrated books are a combination of a audio-friendly prose accompanied by a pleasing voice.

I started my book group book: Why We Believe What We Believe, thinking I had until after Christmas.  But it turns out the meeting is Sunday afternoon.  Guess I’ll have to step up the reading schedule but I’m confident I’ll finish.

Since I last posted, I’ve read and listened to three books and made it half way through another…

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene: An interpretation of the Gnostic Gospel. I also read some of the other gospels in The Essential Gnostic Gospels by Alan Jacobs. These were book group selections. Most of the Gnostic Gospels were found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. The Gospel of Mary, however, was acquired in Cairo in 1896 as part of a codex that also included the Aprocrypha of John and The Sophia of Jesus Christ. These two were also included in the Nag Hammadi collections. With the exception of two short fragments found at Oxyrhynchus in Northern Egypt, this is the only copy of the Gospel of Mary. The extant text is missing about 10 pages. But what remains is something that is missing from the Bible: the voice of a woman. You can read the Gospel of Mary at the Gnostic Society. They also house the Nag Hammadi library.

In preparation for book group, I bought Elaine Pagels’ The Gnostic Gospels but haven’t had a chance to read it. During book group, I took advantage of the Kindle to purchase two more. I bought Pagels’ Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, which is evidently concerned with Pagels’ own faith and the battle between the Gospels of Thomas and John. I also bought Ron Miller’s The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice, recommended by a member of the group. They all look interesting but I just wonder when I am going to read all these books. It is easier to ignore the Kindle books so I’m going to work on the analog books first.

Which simply underscores the fact that I’ve been dealing with digital books almost exclusively for the past few weeks. I’ve been listening to audio books: wonderful recordings of Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy. I have finished the first two (The Amulet of Samarkand and The Golem’s Eye) and am almost done with the third. Just terrific…I am using them as an incentive to get some exercise but I’ve also had a couple road trips so I got through them quickly. Next up on the audio list is Confessions of a Jane Austin Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler.

On the Kindle, I’m reading Sharon Kay Penman’s riveting fictional account of a fascinating family: Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their four sons. It’s called Devil’s Brood, and it picks up where Time and Chance and When Christ and His Saints Slept, a book I read several years ago, left off. Penman brings these people to life, and I’m at the part where Henry and Eleanor are beginning to reconcile after their estrangement. She is still a prisoner but in a gilded cage. I was reminded of the scenes in Penman’s Welsh trilogy where she describes the relationship of Llewellyn and Joanna. That series was definitely the impetus for spending time in Wales last year.

Along with Penman, I’m browsing through one of the books I bought at the Harvest Festival, The Age of Chivalry, a book from the National Geographic Society. In includes a fold out of the Bayeux Tapestry.=, the graphic novel version of a momentous historical event.

I dug through the big pile of books in the bedroom and pulled out all the books related to English history:
Penman’s The Sunne in Splendor, the story of Edward IV and Richard II and the War of the Roses. The content goes along with a book on my Kindle, The White Queen, which focuses on Edward’s wife, Elizabeth Woodville. I can’t wait to see how Penman interprets the story of the two princes.

What else is on the list?
Here Was a Man, Norah Lofts
The Rose Without a Thorn, Jean Plaidy
Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe, Nancy Goldstone
The Wives of Henry VIII, Antonia Fraser

And, how could I forget? I did read an analog book: Queen’s Bastard by Robin Maxwell, a fictional story of the son of Elizabeth I and Robin Dudley, Earl of Leicester. It was fun and referenced another book I’ve read by Maxwell: The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn. I bought it in Hay on Wye at the Hay Castle Bookstore.

Another long weekend, this time with my old English-teaching colleagues. It’s nice to spend a few days with equally addicted book lovers and readers. My hostess and I make our annual pilgrimage to what I would probably say is my favorite book store: Baldwin’s Book Barn near West Chester, Pennsylvania.

I walked away with several treasures, including a second, but rare, printing of Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. This purchase was a direct result of the book to which I was listening on my trip up: The Tomb of the Golden Bird by Elizabeth Peters. Peters’ book is set during the season in Egypt when Tut was discovered. She gives some description of the political scene including the creation of Iraq. I wanted to learn more and Lawrence seemed like a good place to start despite the issues with his perspective.

What else is in my paper bag?

• The Maple Sugar Book signed by both Helen and Scott Nearing
• The Fetterman Massacre by Dee Brown
• Grania: She King of the Irish Seas by Morgan LLywelyn
• The Anglo-Saxon Chroniclesm translated and collated by Anne Salvage
• A Man and His Garden by George Thompson, a history of Longwood Gardens

By the way, if you’re looking for good audio books, the Elizabeth Peters’ mysteries are terrific with Barbara Rosenblatt as the narrator.

Now, we’re off to the movies…my hostess is kindly seeing Julie & Julia again so I can see it for the first time.