By: Powell's Staff,
on 5/30/2014
At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for [...]
By: Aline Pereira,
on 3/25/2011
It’s not too late to join this year’s Reading the World Challenge if you haven’t already – just take a look at this post for details.
In our family we have all joined together and read picture books set in Mongolia, which is our current focus on PaperTigers. I had to hunt around a bit but we came up with a good selection. I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail here as they are all gathered up in my Personal View, Taking a step into children’s books about Mongolia. We have really enjoyed delving into the culture and heritage of Mongolia and these picture books have been read all together and individually.
One bedtime Older Brother read Horse Song: the Naadam of Mongolia by Ted and Betsy Lewin (Lee and Low, 2008) to Little Brother – quite a long read and they were both engrossed. Watching them from the outside, as it were, I came to an added appreciation of the dynamics of Ted and Betsy’s collaboration, both in the energy of their shared enthusiasm and participation in the events surrounding the famous horse-race, and also of being struck by a busy, crowded scene one page and then giggling at the turn of expression on an individual study’s face the next.
And I’ll just share with you Little Brother’s reaction to Suho’s White Horse, which you can read about in a bit more detail in my Books at Bedtime post earlier this week:
It was a moving story. The governor made me angry because he broke his word and was cruel to Suho and his horse.
[Listening to the musical version played on the Mongolian horsehead fiddle, the morin khuur] Once you know the story, you can tell which part of the music is telling which part of the story. How do they make that music with just two strings? It fills me with awe.
I also read The Horse Boy: A Father’s Miraculous Journey to Heal His Son by Rupert Isaacson (Viking, 2009), an amazing story of a family’s journey to Mongolia in search of horses and shamans to seek healing for the torments that were gripping their five-year-old autistic son’s life: as Isaacson puts it with great dignity, his “emotional and physical incontinence”. If you have already read this humbling, inspiring book (and even if you haven’t), take a look at this recent interview three years on from their adventurous journey. Now I need to see the film!
And talking of films (which we don’t very often on PaperTigers, but I can’t resist mentioning this one), The Story of the Weeping Camel is a beautiful, gentle film that takes you right to the heart of Mongolian life on the steppe. Who would have thought a documentary film about a camel could be so like watching a fairy tale? Don’t be put off by the subtitles – our boys love this film. Take a look at the trailer –
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 12/21/2008
Years ago I had a next-door neighbor named Andree with whom I exchanged, on an often-daily basis, letters. I'd write a poem about a missing tooth (her daughter's) or a bird's nest (high in my rafters); I'd write a short story; I'd rail at something; and then I'd tuck whatever it was into an envelope, walk it up onto Andree's porch and leave it in her box—being careful not to creak the hinged thing open, for it was important never to get caught. In time, Andree would write her response upon the thinnest paper imaginable with a loopy blue or black pen, and, at some never-once detected hour, return the favor.
Writing letters gave us room to say what we actually meant to say—between raising children (the thing we most loved) and scouring sinks and cooking dinners and bemoaning the hedge that grew too fast. It gave us a shot at intelligence, when what so much of what we had to do was a drumming, a mind knock, a scrape against the knuckles.
It's funny that we never caught each other in the act, but there it is: We didn't.
In any case, we wrote letters. We wrote our ideas down, our stories down, our critiques and encouragements and disagreements down, and when I moved, we wrote some more, but the almost everydayness of the correspondence was gone, and my world was smaller for it.
I have been remembering Andree these past few days while reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, the beloved epistolary bestseller that has, in my opinion, earned its following, those four-one-star reviews on Amazon notwithstanding. The book charms, of course, but the word "charm" is like "precious," like "gem." It's like "cute," when applied offhandedly to women (believe me, I know; I've had my fair share of "cute"), and by all that I mean that the word "charm" diminishes. It doesn't go far enough toward the heart of this book, the research tucked within, the evocation of characters that—while certainly and deliberately contrived so as to steep Guernsey in Austen-ese—forced me at least to throw down my guard and get involved. Charm doesn't say enough about the power of letters, the back and forth, the honesty that rises up between the cracks. The mysterious marvel of questions asked, of answers eagerly awaited.
From Guernsey:
Do you live by the river? I hope so, because people who live near running water are much nicer than people who don't. I'd be mean as a scorpion if I lived inland. Do you have a serious suitor? I do not.
Is your flat cozy or grand? Be fulsome, as I want to be able to picture it in my mind. Do you think you would like to visit us on Guernsey? Do you have a pet? What kind?
Definitely need to move this one up the to be read list. love what you say charm. Too true.
It's worth a long, cozy morning, near Christmas.
So that's why I love rivers and oceans! :)
You've sold me on the book, I'll have to check it out.
Beth, what a very wonderful way to letter write...trying to scheme a similar plan of my own.
Isn't that a refreshing book? In a river kind of way.
I'm so glad we all love rivers (and the people who do and would live by them!). Refreshing is a perfect word for Guernsey.
I'm just enchanted by your story of letter writing with your friend/neighbor. What an enriching experience for both of you...I want someone to do that with right now :)
And no, I have not read The Guernsey Society as yet. I'm anxious to do so, more than ever after your lovely words about it.
I'm very fond of epistolary novels. I wrote one, actually, which lingers in the bottom drawer of my desk (and of my mind too, I suppose :)
That is such a wonderful idea. It is so much easier to say what one means in a letter...or at least for me to say what I mean.
Just when I bemoan the fact it is hard to find the sense of the old-fashioned neighborhood, where support and community go hand in hand, I read your delightful post.
I've heard a lot about this book, but haven't known anyone who read it until now. Thanks for your recommendation.
Becca: You cannot leave your novel in a drawer. YOu cannot. You have such a big blog following; imagine the following for your letter novel!
C and V: I think email has become our way of thinking on the page, and now these blogs, and this cherished conversation with the likes of you.