The full title of this non-fiction book by Albert Bigelow Paine is "The Ship-Dwellers - A Story of a Happy Cruise" and was first published in 1910.
You guessed it - it was one of the many free ebooks I downloaded from the Kindle store after I first got my Kindle for my birthday earlier this year.
I didn't know anything about the author, and wikipedia does not offer much information apart from the basics such as that he lived from 1861 to 1937, was a member of the Pulitzer Prize committee, became a full time writer after an initial career as a photographer and had a wife, Dora, and three daughters. He was a great admirer and friend of Mark Twain, and dedicated this book to him; in fact, one reason for him to undertake this ship cruise and write about it was that he wanted to walk in Twain's footsteps, who had been on such a cruise several decades before.
We may not learn a lot about Albert Paine from wikipedia, but the book gives insight into his way of thinking, how he looks at the world and the people around him, how he connects current events with history. His humour is undoubtedly there; his writing does sometimes feel more modern than what you would expect to find in a book from 1910, and he conjures up some beautiful pictures for the mental eye of the places he's seen and of the ship he lives on for months and its occupants.
I would have greatly enjoyed the whole book, had it not been for some very racist remarks which, in those days, were probably perfectly normal with nobody thinking any less of the author for it. In fact, he may have been considered a tolerant and open-minded man by many of his contemporaries, but in our day and age, he'd have caused a scandal by writing what he did (mainly about the Turkish people he came in contact with during his voyage).
Maybe I am confusing things here, but I seem to remember that Nan at Letters From A Hill Farm wrote in one of her many excellent book reviews that she had experienced something similar; reading a book that would have been great if not for the disturbing thoughts, carelessly and shamelessly published - because they were completely normal at the time - based on national and racial prejudice.
Don't get me wrong; I am not someone who strives for political correctness all the time, and in fact find it quite refreshing when people really speak their mind. But such deeply ingrained intolerance does bother me.
Nonetheless, there are some really beautiful and poetic descriptions and thoughts in this book. It does not aim to be a travel guide but allows an interesting look at what travelling for tourists was like in those days (for the well-off, of course) and what the countries and sights dotted around the Mediterranean were like back then.
This was one of the small stack of books I took home with me in May after visiting my mother-in-law in England, and it was a pleasant read.
Debbie Macomber's "The Shop on Blossom Street" is, as I found out, the first of a series of books set in the same Seattle neighbourhood. There is a lot of information about it (and of course, about the author herself) on her website, if you're interested.
The book centers around "A Good Yarn", a knitting shop opened by a young woman who has just overcome not one, but two bouts of cancer, and to her, this shop means an affirmation of life. She proceeds to start a knitting class at her shop for beginners, the first project being a baby blanket. By doing this, not only does she bring together three very different women who would have never met otherwise, but between the four of them, they form lasting friendships, and chains of events are set in motion that change the lives of all of them.
Sounds familiar? Yes, with the set up of bringing together people unlikely to ever meet and for them to become friends with life-changing effects is pretty much what Frances Garrood's "Basic Theology for Fallen Women" is about, a book I wrote about here and which I enjoyed very much. But while Frances has a lot more humour in her book, the drama in "Blossom Street" is more... dramatic, I'd say. Like Frances, Debbie Macomber has divided her book neatly into chapters, each of them dealing with one character at a time, taking turns. But while all of Frances' chapters are written from the character's perspective without being in the 1st person singular, in "Blossom Street", the lady who opens the shop is a 1st person narrator, and the other characters aren't. Another obvious difference is that Frances is English and Debbie Macomber American, something that of course reflects in their writing style. In American English, people look out windows and walk out doors, while I'd say they look out of windows etc. Enough of the (uncalled for) comparison, and on to the book.
When we first meet each character, their lives are not looking very good. While they come from completely different walks of live, from the very poor to the very rich, none of them are truly happy. As events unfold and friendships are starting to form, things look better - until they get, for a while, almost worse than before. There is some suspense as to what will happen next; some of the goings-on weren't much of a surprise, but I definitely had not expected what happens in chapter 46. All ends well (I think it is safe to tell you that without spoiling the book for you), and if my mother-in-law gets the next one in the series, I'll definitely be interested in reading it, too.
A lot of the book has to do with knitting, obviously. The author's website tells us that she has her own knitting shop in real life, and a brand of her own knitting yarn is available. When she talks about socks, I instantly thought of my Mum:
With the inventive new sock yarns on the market, socks were the current knitting rage. I carried a number of the European brands and loved the variety. My customers did, too. Several of the new yarns were designed to create an intricate pattern when knitted. I found it amazing to view a finished pair of socks, knowing the design had been formed by the yarn itself, and not the knitter.
This is exactly the kind of socks my Mum makes - you can look at what she currently has on offer in her Etsy shop at the top left hand corner of my blog, and of course you can read about her being "a sock-knitting maniac" in her own words here.
All in all, I'd say the book is well edited, but every now and then, the use of tenses could be somewhat better. Here is an example:
Dad's not here to help me anymore, and the sense of abandonment I experienced was overwhelming. I was furious with my father for dying. I'm so angry.
There is another quote about the main character's father I want to share with you, although for other reasons:
My father is the one I thank for giving me the courage to move forward with my life. His death taught me such vaulable lessons. I suppose the irony is that his death taught me about life. [...] in this last year I've learned to draw upon the inner strength he instilled in me.
Almost three years ago, my husband died; and although of course the circumstances were very different and the relationship between father and daughter is not the same as between husband and wife, Steve's sudden and untimely death taught me about life, too, and I drew some valuable lessons from it.
As mentioned above, this was a pleasant read; sometimes I found it difficult to relate to the behaviour of the characters, but we all know we don't always act in a way others (let alone ourselves) find logical. Recommended for anyone who likes to relax and be entertained by a book without too much of a challenge; it doesn't matter whether you are a knitter or not :-)
Mella at "Just a moment, please" has come up with this in her most recent post, and I liked the idea enough to adopt it for today.
Hasn't it been one of the big mysteries of humankind (especially for men) what ladies' handbags contain? Well, some of us are willing to lift the veil of myth surrounding our most beloved and important accessory (for some of us, handbags and shoes are on the same level there, while others couldn't care less), and I am one of them :-)
The handbag I currently use most days (but not every day) is the one I first showed you in my Fashion Calendar: September post. Its colours go so well with much of my autumn wardrobe, but the fabric is thin and "summery", so I guess I won't use this handbag for much longer this year.
Now for the contents:
As you can see, I carry all the obvious things around such as a few business cards (you never know), tissues, my keys, a pen (usually one of the freebies I get from hotels, banks etc. or at various events I attend), my wallet, phone, kindle (only when I know I'll be travelling or have to spend time waiting at a doctor's), and the tiny extra bag that came with the handbag is very useful to hold hand cream and lip balm.
Depending on where I go, what the weather is like and for how long I'll be out, I also carry my camera and a small bottle of water. This handbag is obviously too small to fit that in, but of course it is not my only one :-)
Occasionally, when transferring the contents from one handbag into another (to either match my outfit or the day's requirements better), I have forgotten to take out the small hand cream and lip balm. Therefore, in two or three of my handbags, there already are cream and balm in a smaller compartment of the bag. I find the creams you sometimes get for free testers very useful, and they last surprisingly long.
So, with some of my secrets revealed, what are yours?
...but what?
Several of you, dear readers of my blog, post "Weekend Reflections" every now and then, and I always like looking at your interpretations of the topic.
Although I do not participate in any of the numerous picture challenges that exist in blogland, the weekend reflections seen on other people's blogs clearly were inspirational to me for doing this post.
See that weirdly shaped reflection across the wall of my living room / home office?
I still don't know what created this; have a look for yourself:
This is the direction the light (obviously from the window) came in. So, what looks as if it could make such a "wave" of light on the wall?
Apart from this unsolved puzzle, I liked this pattern of light and shadow through the wickerwork on my old armchair very much:
In my recent post about "Trust", I mentioned that I had also been watching "The Ghost Writer" and found smiliarites between the two films, in that they are both more on the quiet side and both end not the way you'd expect your typical Hollywood ending to happen.
Something else they have in common is that they truly both live from the excellent performance of their actors and not from any technical gimmicks or special effects.
"The Ghost Writer" is based on "The Ghost", a novel by Robert Harris. The author has worked closely with director Roman Polanski, co-writing the script. Robert Harris also appears on the DVD's extras in interviews.
Ewan McGregor plays an English ghost writer who is asked to complete the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (played by Pierce Brosnan, who, like everybody else in this film, is just perfect for the role). The ghost writer's predecessor has died (apparently by accident), and to finish the work, the new man is sent to the house on Martha's Vineyard where Lang, his wife and a number of staff are staying.
Soon after his arrival, the ghost writer has the feeling that not everything (and everyone) is as it should be. Did his predecessor really die by accident, or was he on to something from the former Prime Minister's past that should have better be left undiscovered?
At the same time, Adam Lang is publicly accused by his former Foreign Secretary of having allowed terrorist suspects to be handed over to the CIA, in the full knowledge that these suspects were then subject to torture to gain information from them.
The ghost writer gets entangled in a mess of political and personal threads running through the past and present life of Adam Lang and his wife Olivia, and fears for his own life, which leads him to take action - and that then really sets things in motion.
At the end of the movie, we have three dead men (not counting the first ghost writer) and a finished book that is about to become a bestseller.
I won't say more about what is going to happen and what the ghost writer found out, because the film is well worth watching without me spoiling all the suspense.
And there is a lot of suspense - building up in a quiet manner, without a lot of the "action scenes" so typical for many Hollywood blockbusters. Even the one car chase is quiet, believe it or not.
The styling throughout the film is impeccable: the house on Martha's Vineyard, where much of the story takes place, is modern, cold, angular; the colours of everybody's clothing fits in with that atmosphere, the bleakness of the grey sky and landscape add to it, and nothing you see, nothing at all, is there by chance. The ghost writer is never named - something I didn't even realise until later. Unusual for a central character in a film not have a name, but it works!
When I watched the extras on the DVD and read up on the film, I found out that the scenes set on Martha's Vineyard were actually shot in Germany, on the islands of Sylt (North Sea) and Usedom (Baltic Sea). I read a few reviews and descriptions of the film and found that most of them mentioned the visual stylishness - but what amazed me is that nobody said anything about the extremely sparse use of music.
For a lot of the time, all you hear in this film are the sounds that you'd really hear if you were there, in that house, in those rooms, on your own on the beach, at a hotel bar where you are the only guest, and so on. And when there is music, it is not designed to quicken your pulse with suspension by dramatic crescendos, but it does so in a quiet, almost secret manner, adding to the atmosphere of secrecy surrounding the entire project of Adam Lang's memoirs.
The parallels to real life politics are certainly there, but not always intentional; when Robert Harris wrote the book, a lot of what we know now had not yet happened.
This was one film I can definitely recommend.
No, don't worry - this is not going to be yet another fashion post like the "Day & Night" one that I did back in February and which, strangely enough, still features as one of my most popular posts.
This time, it's all about the sky.
A few days ago, upon coming into the kitchen first thing in the morning, I saw this beautiful sunrise, and before I even started the kettle to make myself coffee, I went to grab the camera and take a picture:
Around the same time (not in terms of hour, obviously, but day) we had a dramatic full (?) moon again. I know I've shown moony pictures here on my blog before, but if you are anything like me, you're never bored of looking at the sky.
And, just to make this post complete, here is what the view from my kitchen window was like last Friday, at the end of September:
Soon, a lot of that green will be gone, but no matter the season or weather, I always like looking out across these gardens.
For as long as I can remember, I have always loved sunsets and sunrises, and views of the sky. When I was a kid, my bedroom window was facing West, and I often watched the sunset from there.
Have you ever heard of Caspar David Friedrich? He was a German painter (1774-1840) who is often cast aside as being overly romantic, but few have, in my opinion, managed to capture the colours and atmosphere of the sky in all its different appearances as well as he did. The above painting is from 1822, and I shamelessly nicked it from somewhere else on the internet.
Something I had not eaten in... oh, at least ten years: Polenta.
In case you're not familiar with it, Polenta is a dish made of maize/corn (whichever word you prefer) semolina. It is so easy to make even I manage to get it right :-)
It was on offer a few weeks ago at my preferred supermarket (Aldi), and I prepared some Polenta last week when the evenings were already chilly enough for me to feel like cooking.
We had a leafy salad with tomatos and a mixture of pine nuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds with it. Tomato season is actually over in Germany, and I was a bit skeptical about buying these ones coming from a greenhouse in the Netherlands, but they are surprisingly tasty and their scent is very aromatic (I still have two more left).
For the polenta, you need twice the amount of water (in relation to the amount of semolina); salt it, bring it to boil, and stir in the corn/maize semolina. Then leave it on very low heat so that it keeps bubbling every now and then (stay away with your face when you open the lid - it has a tendency to splash upwards), and stir it a few times over the next 15 minutes.
In the meantime, I was making my very basic way of sauce bolognese. All there is to it is frying some minced meat in a pan with a bit of olive oil, and once the minced meat loses the pink colour and turns all brownish, pour the tomato sauce (it is only squashed and sieved tomato, no spices or anything else added) over it, stir, and spice with salt, pepper, and whatever herbs you happen to find.
To make it more tasty, of course I could have added garlic and/or onions, but I didn't have either, and the sauce turned out nice nonetheless.
We had the polenta with sauce bolognese on Wednesday night, and on Thursday for my lunch break, I fried the left over polenta in a pan and put an egg over it.
I am sure this won't have been the last time this season I make polenta - quick, easy and filling, just how I like my food :-)
