Month: March 2009

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

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I've had Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster on my bookshelf forever and have been meaning to read it for even longer. It is considered a classic. The 100 books in 2009 book challenge motivated me to finally read it and I finished it a couple of days ago.

Phantom Toolbooth is my 9th book this year. It is aimed at young adult readers. I enjoyed it very much The picture on the cover is Milo meeting the Watchdog. Milo is a young boy who is bored with life. He receives a gift of a toll booth and uses it to go on an adventure to The Kingdom of Wisdom. It is hard to explain the attraction of this book so I'll just include an extract. I love the word play.

Milo is in a land called Ignorance and has just met a bird that looks like a dirty floor mop.

""I don't think you understand," said Milo timidly as the watchdog growled a warning. "We're looking for a place to spend the night."
"It's not yours to spend," the bird shrieked again, and followed it with the same horrible laugh.
"That doesn't make any sense. you see————–" he started to explain.
"Dollars or cents, it's still not yours to spend." the bird replied haughtily.
"But I didn't mean————" insisted Milo.
Of course you're mean, interrupted the bird, closing the eye that had been open and opening the one that had been closed. "Anyone who'd spend a night that doesn't belong to him is very mean."
"Well I thought that by——-" he tried again desperately.
"That's a different story," interjected the bird a bit more amiably. "If you want to buy, I'm sure I can arrange to sell, but with what you're doing you'll probably end up in a cell anyway."
"That doesn't seem right," said Milo helplessly, for, with the bird taking everything the wrong way, he hardly knew what he was saying.
"Agreed," said the bird, with a sharp click of his beak, "but neither is it left, although if I were you I would have left a long time ago."
"Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words———-"
"You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means, use them. You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now."
"Must you always interrupt like that?" said Tock irritably, for even he was becoming impatient.
"Naturally," the bird cackled; "it's my job, I take the words right out of your mouth. Haven't we met before? I'm the Everpresent Wordsnatcher. and I'm sure I know your friend the bug." And then he leaned all the way forward and gave a terrible knowing smile.
The Humbug, who was too big to hide and too frightened to more, denied everything.
"Is everyone in Ignorance like you?" asked MIlo.
"Much worse," he said longingly. "But I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context."
"Don't you think you should be getting back?" suggested the bug, holding one arm up in front of him.
"What a horrible thought." the bird shuddered. "It's such an unpleasant place that I spend almost all my time out of it. Besides, what could be nicer that these grimy mountains?"

Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin

My First Kindle Book!

If you follow me on Twitter or read the Twitter updates on the right hand side of this blog you know that I got a Kindle ebook reader for Christmas and it was just delivered. The Kindle allows you to download book samples to help you decide whether to buy a book. As soon as I got my Kindle I downloaded eight books and read the samples.

Steve Martin's new book – Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life – about his stand up comedy career has been on my to-read list for a while so after I read and really enjoyed the sample I bought the Kindle version of the book.

Kindle also allows you to highlight sections of the book just as if you were reading the paper version of the book but the Kindle can be attached to the computer and you can download your highlighted sections

The first sentence in Steve Martin's book is –

"I DID STAND-UP COMEDY for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success."

One of the most impressive things about Martin and his career is how long and how hard he had to work with very little success. He also says –

"I was not naturally talented—I didn’t sing, dance, or act—though working around that minor detail made me inventive."

and

"my growing professionalism, founded on thousands of shows, created a subliminal sense of authority that made the audience feel they weren’t being had."

How many people are willing to work on something for 14 years? I have a new found respect for Martin and what he has achieved. He created a new unique kind of comedy. When he gave up stand-up comedy cold turkey he went on to achieve significant success as an actor, a writer and a musician. He just released a CD of banjo music -The Crow New Songs for the 5-String Banjo which looks very good.

Born Standing Up is an example of what a good writer Martin is. It is entertaining and compelling. I really enjoyed this book. Steve Martin is inspiring!!

And I really enjoyed reading on the Kindle. I LOVE my Kindle!

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The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

The Madonnas of Leningrad is about a woman, Marina,  who survived the German blockade of Leningrad and is now remembering that time as she loses here current memories to Alzheimer's disease. That kind of a description would normally make me avoided reading  a novel because I find books about Alzheimer's too depressing. But this was the March selection for the Reno Newcomers club book club so I got the book from the library.

I am so glad I read it. It is amazingly not depressing but instead is a beautiful uplifting novel. Marina was a tour guide at the Hermitage, Leningrad's immense art museum. During the German bombing and the blockade she and other museum workers lived with their families in the basement of the Hermitage. Her detailed memories of the Hermitage and its art make them come alive. I especially loved the method one of the old Babushkas taught Marina to help her remember the art that had been evacuated from the museum.

"When I was a girl, we made memory palaces to help us memorize for our examinations. You chose an actual place, a palace worked best, but any building with lots of rooms would do, and then you furnished it with whatever you wished to remember."

As the winter and the starvation of that winter progressed Marina built a mind memory palace of the Hermitage and its art.

I missed the book club meeting because my grandson is here visiting but I'm really glad I read Madonnas of Leningrad. Its art, love and poetry  made me feel good.

This is my 7th book this year. My list is here.

Thomas Jefferson’s advice on how to be interesting.

One of the podcasts I really enjoy is the Thomas Jefferson Hour with Clay Jenkinson. Jenkinson portrays Thomas Jefferson our third president  and has been doing so for many years. A podcast I just listened to is an audio recording of a iChat video conference he did with a fifth grade class in Naperville , Illinois (episode 757). It is great fun to listen to the questions the fifth graders asked President Jefferson and to listen to his answers. I especially liked his advice to the fifth graders in closing.

  1. Read, read read – As a child Jefferson said he read 10 hours a day.
  2. Learn languages – at least two. Jefferson knew 8 languages
  3. Learn to play a musical instrument – Jefferson played the pianoforte and the violin

Jefferson said that if you do these things you can not help but be an interesting person.

Be interesting is one of my big goals in life and I was pleased to see that I am working on all three of Jefferson's suggestions.

  1. I love to read and have been doing a lot of reading lately
  2. I have studied French and I am currently studying Spanish
  3. I play the piano.