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And this, a book that I'm looking forward to reading but I have yet to come across, yet I don't want to break down and give Amazon any of my hard-earned money. Not that Jeff Bezos needs it, or I have any:
Link: The First Ghosts - Irving Finkel
Lectures on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFPeOi5H6Zo
And this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNNaZ110ee4
He's an erudite and charming lecturer and host. If more professors were like him I'd still be in college.
(*NB I'd have embedded the videos but having upgraded my Joomla! installation I'm already paying the price of broken components. When they've ironed out the bugs I'll go back and fix. For now this is easiest.)
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"Big feet and a Mouth To Match"
Gifted to me by a friend who thought we'd have a lot in common, because, trappers, prospecting, what's the diff? Anyways...
This was surprisingly (to me) much easier to read than the cover would have led me to believe. Basically the childhood reminiscings of a trapper/guide/outdoorsman who grew up (and trapped) in and around White Rock and Vancouver.
A very droll way of looking at things, interesting characters, times, this would have made for an excellent kids book - a-la "The Great Brain" series - a favorite of mine when I was a certain age - were it not for a few (unnecessary) adult references.
Initially skeptical I soon found myself laughing out loud and managed to devour it in an afternoon. Once in a while it's a treat to read something light...
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This took a while to read, not least because of weekends and everything else getting in the way...
Ordered Chronologically, with the first written in 1947, and every couple of years thereafter, these are an interesting read in that Marquez would later go on to win the Nobel Prize. And while always recognizably himself, it's not until the 60's that I start to see the stories coming together in a way that I appreciate, and so in this you're given the chance to see someone get better at their craft.
So, it took a while to read, as it progressed more and more worthwhile, but I should stop this hunting down of favorite authors and move on to others, my desk is cluttered with more (and more) books to be read, and I'm all out of time...
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Anything to avoid Lowry...
In any event, I quite like Marquez, and this collection of short stories - vignettes - did not disappoint.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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...and Malcolm Lowry sits half-read on a shelf. I appreciate him, but, for the moment, not to my taste.
SO - Ann Radcliffe - I'm pretty sure I've read "The Castle of Udolpho", this didn't disappoint.
A Gothic Romance, with the usual variety of Star-crossed lovers, Ruined Castles, Estates, Monasteries, Convents and Dungeons (albeit poorly used...), caves, the rumor of ghosts, kindly governesses, evil fathers and stepmothers, Bandetti, convenient coincidences, mistaken identities, and the wrath of God plays out in the passions of the players.
If she didn't invent the genre she certainly perfected it, the quality of prose is fine, only the events - the story, is just that, a diversion to entertain, and at no point does the reader believe it. But that's a matter of taste...
Read up on her here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Radcliffe