The book is the third installment of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency : Morality For Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith.

The author certainly created a magnet there for me and I’m quite sure I will read all the books in the series. But I’ve definitely learned my lesson about not reading them one after the other! Its like the term “comfort food” except for books – easy read, optimistic ending, etc. I finished it in 4 days (and that’s ony because I was busy!).

I’m treating myself to an audio book. Trouble is, now that I have all this choice, I can’t choose one!

At first I thought I would choose a non-fiction book which is harder for me to get at the library in English. Perhaps by Dan Ariely (have been talking to Vicky Loras about it) or a book by Bill Bryson. However, these are the kinds of books I often want to discuss with Roni and the boys and I can’t relate to anything when its an audiobook.

So, fiction it is. There are SO many titles, after 15 pages of browsing I got confused. There are, naturally, a lot of books which aren’t “my style”. So, I tried to look for authors I enjoyed in the past and try another book they had written.

The reviews for some of the books described the ones I HAD read by those authors as their best ones.

Some audio-books cost 45 dollars. I most certainly can afford it but it doens’t make sense to me to spend a sum that high. I could get 4 books for that price!

Some audio-books won’t download for Israel. The odd thing about copyright. I’m paying, so what do they care where I live?

But basically there is this feeling that is so different from borrowing a book from the library – I can’t just say oops, don’t really like this one after all. Lets pop over to the library and get a different one…

It’s been 3 days and still haven’t picked one yet!

It’s long been a family tradition to go to the annual book fair every June. We usually go to Tel-Aviv which has the largest fair, though I believe every city and town in the country has one. Every publisher has a stall (small country but many publishers and writers!), authors come to sign their books and some unrelated “festival” stuff.

As much as I love reading, I’ve always been the member of the family who gets tired of it most quickly.

When we were just a young couple I hardly read in Hebrew and this is the Hebrew Book Fair!

When the kids were small we would help them choose their book and sometimes even had an author sign it which was really exciting. Now they just disappear the moment we arrive.

Personally I am not fond of crowds and quickly tire of browsing when it is so crowded and noisy. My husband and I have cut back on purchasing books and frequent the library. But the boys delighted in the sales and came home with armloads of books! Their excitement and pleasure is worth it!

I was grumbling at the library this week. I know that at the English section of our library you have to come with an open mind and browse but I wasn’t in the mood for browsing. And the browsing wasn’t going well. It seemed that every book I picked up was created from the same mold of romance novel or was one I had read. I finally decided that this book  seemed different and took it home.

Good choice!

The book is really captivating and I find it difficult to stop reading! The heroine is the daughter of Lloyd, a giant potato farmer from Idaho and Momoko, a tiny Japanese woman with an extraoridnary green thumb. Her name is Yumi but everyone calls her Yummy! Though she is the heroine, the story is cleverly told from the different points of view of other characters.

This is certainly a book with an evironmental message but its not “preachy” – very readable. I’ve already read 154 pages!

The langauge teacher in me can’t help but point out this wonderful descriptive sentence about Momoko: ” After fifty years in Idaho she still spoke with the deliberateness of a foreigner, carefully pronouncing words, lining them up one after another and launching them tentatively in the air” (p-10).

Side note: I actually knew that Momoko’s name was related to the word “peach” – we have a children’s book about a boy who was found in a peach (The peach boy) and the boy’s name is Momataro. Funny how one suddenly remembers such things!

As you may remember, I really enjoy audio books. Particularly when I have to do housework!

As it has been a while since I finished listening to “Great Expectations” (Dickens) and haven’t gotten a hold of a new one, I’m listening to Coffee Break Spanish – Spanish Lessons!

Now, its not the same as having an audio book, as I don’t want to listen to too much new information at once. One lesson of 20 minutes is enough for a day (sometimes I listen to a lessson more than once, but not on the same day). Its not enough for housework!

But it is great fun. The course is from SCOTLAND and the characters speak English with a beautiful Scottish accent! I had to go back to the beginning of the first lesson becuase I was focusing on that lovely accent instead of the Spanish! But now I’m used to it – Mark and Kara are very pleasant to listen to. It’s tourist oriented and has lots of useful phrases.

It’s odd to learn a language without using any book or any written material at all. I plan to use Quizlet and I have the coursebook I once learned beginning Spanish with but haven’t gotten to any of that yet. I just listen!

It’s an interesting experiment to see how much I will retain simply by listening! I certainly remember how to say “Scotland” in Spanish!

All week I’ve encountered references to John Irving’s new book and it reminded me of the “The World According to Garp”.

This is one of the rare examples of seeing the movie first (I adore Robin Williams!) yet still really enjoying the book afterwards. All this was many years ago but that’s a tale that certainly made a mark in my memory!

I also read the Hotel New Hampshire which was the author’s next book. I think pretty much the only things I remembered about the book was the phrase ” keep passing the open windows” (again, we’re talking many years ago!) . However, I just caught the movie on cable TV one holiday quite recently and I remembered a lot once I began watching. Certainly worth reading.

It isn’t as powerful a story, or as memorable one as Garp. I think the actor Robin Williams must have also been influenced by this tale because the theme of someone trying to do good, to be good to children despite difficulties, runs through a lot of his movies.

Always nice to remember a good book, even better when both the book and the movie were good!

I have to admit that until I heard that Maurice Sendak had passed away this week, I had never read anything related to his biography. As  I have “mused on” in a previous post, I’m not a big fan of looking for keys to understanding stories (or poems) in the authors’ biography. A piece should stand on its own merit.

“Where the Wild Things Are” most certainly stands on its own. I’ve met people who aren’t interested in children’s literature in the slightest, who may never have heard of Sendak, immediatly react to the name of the books. I encounter the book EVERYWHERE, in its Hebrew translation that is. By the way, the title in Hebrew is “In the Land of Wild Creatures”.

However, reading about Sendak in the New York Times article DID explain a few things. In particular, the part about how the abduction of the Lindbergh baby influenced him.

In short, Maurice Sendak has left a significant legacy. May his memory be blessed!

I just watched the third movie of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy with my younger son. It wasn’t the first time.

I read “The Hobbit” and the trilogy when I was a teenager. I also read many other fantasy books and some science fiction too, then and in the following years. The “Narnia” series, “A Never Ending Story” and “A Wrinkle in Time” are the examples which pop up first.

I accompanied my boys as they discovered the world of fantasy and learned from them about some books that hadn’t been around when I was their age. Books such as the “Artemis Fowl” series and “Good Omens“.

It didn’t seem to me that age was a problem when it came to enjoying fantasy.

However, tonight I felt less sure. Though it must be noted that I was watching the movie again, not rereading the book.

The third film includes the happy end. You see Aragorn being crowned and everyone is in white and all is splendid, beautiful and shiny.

That bothered me.

Of course they are happy. But they’ve just been through an incredibly horrific war with lots of dead and wounded, and great devastation. They couldn’t possibly be looking like that after what they’ve just been through, even though they are happy.

I’m being ridiculous, right? The tale is full of magic, so what’s my problem?! I didn’t have a “reality check” for the previous parts of the film but the ending bothered me.

I didn’t react this way before. Is this a sign of age? Is it harder to surrender to fantasy when you get older? I hope not…

The choice of picture on a book’s cover is never accidental. Yet I belieive it is the first time I’ve read a book that uses the picture on the cover (Roman Charity by Matthias Meyvogel) as a starting point for the story.I found myself going back to the cover several times to look at details I hadn’t noticed.

This author is an expert at quickly drawing the reader into the story. You begin with an aging film director, who was invited to Santiago de compostela (Spain) for a retrospection of his films, studying the painting in his room. Before you know it you realize there is a connection between the old city, the world of cinema, the painting and, of course, the hero’s life.

All that’s left is to find time to read, relax and see how it all unfolds!

“Oh the Places You’ll Go” is one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books.

While officially a writer of children’s books this book seems to be SO popular with adults that I really am curious as to how children rate it among the Dr. Seuss books.

This version, from “The Burning Man” festival gives the beloved words a great twist!

ENJOY!!!

Since I just finished reading Nathan Englander’s excellent collection of short stories (see last Saturday’s post) I was reminded of my mixed feeling about reading one short story after another, particularly by the same author.

I really enjoy reading short stories. One of the many nice things about reading the New Yorker Magazine is getting the weekly short story. There are so many different authors, including short stories translated from many languages. It’s a real treat to get one a week.

However, I sometimes feel that reading an entire collection of short stories by the same author impairs my enjoyment of the stories that appear later in the collection. As varied as the collection may be, the author’s distinctive style, or use of imagery remains and leaves less of an impact on me as I read.

In addition, after a powerful short story, I need a break of a day or two before I can continue reading. In short stories, words are often even more powerful than in novels and I need time to take in what I just read. Or sometimes I almost feel afraid that the next story will dispel a feeling that the previous story has left me with. This rarely happens with novels.

Despite that, there are distinct advantages to reading such a collection during the school year. It is great when you can read a whole story “at one go”, instead of forcing yourself to stop reading in the middle of a chapter because there are things to be done.

Nonetheless, I’m glad that the next book I’m about to read is a full length novel!

These were taken from our recent trip up North.

The Paeonia Mascula flower only blooms for two weeks a year. We are the southernmost point in the world where it blooms.

Those ARE Cherry Tree blossoms – right here, two hours away from home!