WIR: Judi Dench: Shakespeare, The Man Who Pays The Rent

 It's been a good while since I posted about what I'm reading.  This was a gift from a dear friend and IS a gift from a woman, I now feel is also a dear friend.  The contents are the transcribed interviews by Brendan O'Hea of Judi reminiscing about her many roles in Shakespeare plays over her long and storied career.  The result is an intimate portrait not only of this award winning actor and master of the Bard's words, but a coming to life of those very words.  Dame Judi explores both the considered meaning of Shakespeare's genius, but also the many places and people who have guided her journey.  The book is simply delicious.  A must read for anyone who admires Judi Dench, and a fascinating foray into the mind and magic of William Shakespeare, too.

Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver

 I haven't posted a book review in a long time.  If you enjoy entering into the lives of complex, imperfect people who's shared bonds both bring strength and constriction creating little prisons--little cocoons--from which the brave escape, you would enjoy this book.  Barbara has a way of connecting the dots in the lives of connected people and events that feels revelatory.  And she's adept at revealing the universal truths inherent in the human condition we call life.  

I Like Dinosaurs

Who doesn't?  I mean, they are just fascinating on so many levels.  Recently while exploring books at my elementary school's media center, I happened upon an older (well loved) book called "Living with Dinosaurs" by Patricia Lauber.  It comes with amazing paintings by Douglas Henderson.  The premise of the book is a snapshot of earth circa 75 million years ago in the region which today is the state of Montana.  75,000,000 years ago (11 million years before the earth of struck by a meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs) Monday was partially submerged by an enormous inland sea.  Lush swamps and primordial jungles gave way to higher plains and semi-desert uplands.  The illustrations are as much a celebration of the land as they are depictions of dinosaurs, and I think that's where their charm and beauty lie.  Here are just a couple of examples.

 Two Albertosaurs stand over a duckbill they have brought down.

 Plant-eating Styracosaurs have a fearsome appearance, with three horns and a spiked neck frill.

 Pteradons soar and glide above the shore of the inland sea.

Leptoseratops has no horns or neck frill, but the bones at the back of its skull form a peak.

 Beside a pond three Corythosaurs find cycads, pine needles, and magnolia leaves to eat.

A Plesiosaur swims near a large shark, which is apparently not hungry.

The Magician's Elephant

Winter break is here!  Finished my first book today.  Kate DiCamillo's "The Magician's Elephant".  What a wonderful little read.  Absolutely a perfect read aloud.  A range of interesting and odd characters drawn together by magical and bizarre circumstances into an adventure most amazing.  I can not wait to inflict it upon a class at school after winter break is over.

Dewey Decimal Class 800 - Poetry

I like poetry.  I like to read it.  I like to share it with friends.  And for the past 20 years or so, I've been collecting it.  Individual volumes of poets both contemporary and classic.  Poets who write in English, but also, Albanian, Armenian, Bengali, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Vietnamese.  303 poets.  431 books. 

Over the past several days, I've been cleaning all of them and reshelving.  Fortunately, they all fit on a single 6 ft tall shelf.  They fit because I have modified the shelf to be able to display them on both sides of an open design!

The project should have taken about 2 hours at most, but you can't disassemble shelves of books of poetry without stopping to visit, to read, to savor.  So it's taken the better part of a week, and even then, I felt rushed.  Such is the power of poetry.

Diane Ackerman to Constantine Cavafy

Christopher Cessac to Chris Forhan

Robert Frost to Frieda Hughes

Langston Hughes to Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel

Michael McFee to Sharon Olds

Mary Oliver to Joe Salerno

Carl Sandburg to Connie Voisine

Fred Voss to Paul Zimmer

'Tis the Season

Like a squirrel gathering nuts, I'm gathering books for winter.

Kramer Books

When taking the Metro to the theatre I have learned to pad the time by 30-45 minutes to be safe.  On this gorgeous afternoon I arrived with that time to spare and spent it in my favorite independent book store, one of the best in America, Kramer's Books on Connecticut Avenue.  My exploration ended in three whim purchases.

"The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places" by William Atkins.  Picked this up on a total whim and popped it open to page 137 and read: "The translation of "Taklamakan" favoured by Western explorers --"You go in and you don't come out"--bemuses the locals."  In one randomly selected sentence I knew two things: 1) Arkins is British, and 2) I wanted to know why they were bemused.  Sometimes falling in love with a book is just that simple.

"How to Walk" by Thich Nhat Hanh.  I've been thinking about my walking a lot lately.  Feeling how my body works in the moment.  The souls of my feet and my weight rockes across them from heal to toe.  The slack and pull of my lateral muscles in rhythm with my hips and arms.  Some call this mindfulness, but I am more interested in simply thinking of it as being alive.  Perhaps this Buddhist master will offer wisdom in this particular moment of thirst.

"Wild is the Wind" poems by Carl Phillips.  I have a couple of his earlier collections and in my opinion his is that uncommon poet that just gets better and better with time.  Reading the opening poem and again I was hooked.  The plain, yet evocative language and the obvious meanings of the words assemble in a way that suggests a labyrinth of meanings while still sounding lyrical to my inner ear.

COURTSHIP

--Both things, I think.  But less the hesitation of many hands
touching the stunned dethronement of the master's body, than
their way of touching it again; again. Each time, more surely.

~ Carl Phillips