lunababymoonchild

This I do not know.

We sometimes get enquiries like this so I thought I'd post this article to see if it can help. How to Find a Book Without Knowing the Title or Author

This book starts out with a pregnant woman walking very long distances to find her lover. It's the second book I've read this year that starts out like that. The woman is Bella Ford and her long journey makes her very ill indeed. To the extent that she loses the baby. She is taken in by a hard working family who have three sons and one daughter and it takes Bella a very long time to recover. During this time she falls in love with one of the three sons and agrees to marry him. Just as she thinks that she can't get any happier tragedy strikes. This is a very well written book and the plot is well drawn, the characters are believable and it's not very long. It's a very gentle, easy to read book and very worth while. Recommended.

WHAT masque of what old wind-withered New-Year Honours this Lady? Flora, wanton-eyed For birth, and with all flowrets prankt and pied: Aurora, Zephyrus, with mutual cheer Of clasp and kiss: the Graces circling near, 'Neath bower-linked arch of white arms glorified: And with those feathered feet which hovering glide O'er Spring's brief bloom, Hermes the harbinger. Birth-bare, not death-bare yet, the young stems stand This Lady's temple-columns: o'er her head Love wings his shaft. What mystery here is read Of homage or of hope? But how command Dead Springs to answer? And how question here These mummers of that wind-withered New-Year? For Spring By Sandro Botticelli, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

It's good to hear from you too Momac. We fairly miss the forest bathing though.

Feast of July, H E Bates

It's good to get updates from both of Meg and Momac. We've had rain recently - good for a pluviophile like me, the wall to wall sunshine was getting to me - so I don't need to water my pots (how is that for lazy?). My brother is working from home except for today when he went out to work and me and my father are stuck in together. We both had a bad night last night so not very happy all day but we are fine for the most part. We go out for a walk most days and if I can get my father in front of a DVD he's happy (and quiet) so that I can get some crochet done. I'm making a blanket just now. I lost my concentration at the beginning of lockdown and was unable to read for a while but luckily got it back so I can now read but don't seem to be able to concentrate on non-fiction. Have taken up doing jigsaws which I do on my tablet and it drains the battery terribly but I love it and we do not have the space for a physical jigsaw. My father has the same app for his tablet and that keeps him quiet for a while too. We are running out of DVDs! Weather was very hot yesterday but not so much today, so grateful for that.

From Amazon : A humble clerk and his loving wife scrape out a quiet existence on the margins of late-Meiji Tokyo. Resigned, following years of exile and misfortune, to the bitter consequences of having married without their families' consent, and unable to have children of their own, Sosuke and Oyone find the delicate equilibrium of their household upset by a new obligation to meet the educational expenses of Sosuke's brash younger brother. While an unlikely new friendship appears to offer a way out of this bind, it also soon threatens to dredge up a past that could once again force them to flee the capital. Desperate and torn, Sosuke finally resolves to travel to a remote Zen mountain monastery to see if perhaps there, through meditation, he can find a way out of his predicament. This moving and deceptively simple story, a melancholy tale shot through with glimmers of joy, beauty, and gentle wit, is an understated masterpiece by the first great writer of modern Japan. At the end of his life, Natsume Soseki declared The Gate, originally published in 1910, to be his favourite among all his novels. This new translation at last captures the original's oblique grace and also corrects numerous errors and omissions that marred the first English version. Quiet, gentle and easy to read I found that I wanted to strangle Sosuke in the early parts of the book because of his lack of motivation and seeming spinelessness but the middle to end of the book explains why. Recommended, easy to read and of a slow pace it's just what's needed during Covid lockdown

The lightning spun your garment for the night Of silver filaments with fire shot thru, A broidery of lamps that lit for you The steadfast splendor of enduring light. The moon drifts dimly in the heaven’s height, Watching with wonder how the earth she knew That lay so long wrapped deep in dark and dew, Should wear upon her breast a star so white. The festivals of Babylon were dark With flaring flambeaux that the wind blew down; The Saturnalia were a wild boy’s lark With rain-quenched torches dripping thru the town— But you have found a god and filched from him A fire that neither wind nor rain can dim. Sara Teasdale The Lights Of New York Sorry that took so long!

The Gate, Natsume Soseki

My annual read of Faulkner and it's the best one yet. The prose is superb and Faulkner makes full use of his mastery of stream-of-consciousness, as a result of which it was joy to read. Amazon sums it up well : A landmark in American fiction, Light in August explores Faulkner's central theme: the nature of evil. Joe Christmas - a man doomed, of questionable race (change mine) and alone - wanders the Deep South in search of an identity, and a place in society. After killing his perverted God-fearing lover, it becomes inevitable that he is pursued by a lynch-hungry mob. Yet after the sacrifice, there is new life, a determined ray of light in Faulkner's complex and tragic world. Highly recommended

Books we have read and update as we go.

The Ruin of Kasch, Roberto Calasso

You click the bit inside the red circle, Hux

Light in August, William Faulkner