Sunflowers. sunsets and soup....three of my favourite things

John and Carol brought the sunflowers over....

And the sun set as usual.

I'm still tasting this amazing hot and sour soup Grace made from scratch last week...stock from neck and back bones and she brought some chili threads so those who like it hot (like Jim and Richard) could make it hotter and something to sour it more for those who like it more sour (me). Yum, yum, yum.

From the Britsh Bookclub on FB...names of groups of animals

I brought this up when I googled how these names came about. It was was from Quora. Makes some sense, I suppose.

"The terms used for assigning names to groups of animals are called 'terms of venery' in formal language. These 'terms of venery' derive from the English hunting tradition of the Late Middle Ages. This so-called 'hunting language' came to the English via the French. During this time, a specialized hunting vocabulary developed which put emphasis on sometimes even assigning different names to the same parts of different animals! "

Austen in Austin

This looks like a wonderful exhibit at the Harry Ransom Centre in Austin. This is where Jim has spent many weeks researching Huxley. They have so many wonderful collections I'm not surprised they have these Jane Austen materials. They recently bought Ian McEwan's papers. Well, that's what oil money can do!

The Ransom Center has its own unique history of collecting. Its holdings of Jane Austen offer a single-author window onto the evolution of modern collecting practices during the past half century. The Ransom Center, learning of my research, gave me the opportunity to curate their Jane Austen materials to tell the story of modern collecting in a special exhibition titled Austen in Austin. In 1957, when the Harry Ransom Center was founded, first editions of major writers were an acquisition priority for a library with world-class aspirations. Soon, the Ransom Center owned an enviable number of Jane Austen’s novels as rare firsts. Then, and as great writers are great readers, all manner of Austen copies began to arrive among the books and papers of other authors. Elsewhere, such unexpected “duplicates” of titles already owned in loftier editions might have been culled, but the Ransom Center held on to these books. Lucky for us, because these incidental catches of Austen now track her influence on other writers and artists.

The Austen in Austin section of the Stories to Tell gallery irreverently mixes high-value and low-value items from the Ransom Center collections. There are plenty of jaw-dropping first editions as well as a surprisingly large number of Austen family books. But there are also ordinary reprints made extraordinary by former owners plus rare commonplace versions of Austen’s novels, not the traditional stuff of collecting, that entered the Ransom Center as part of other scholarly archives or projects. Austen in Austin is on view through Feb. 2, 2020.

https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2019/09/26/why-are-some-books-collected-and-others-merely-read/?fbclid=IwAR0LltaQRbDqZwh1bLItKTan7_xu3Quke1xDEymKJJya8IRmNgvYIM8PGIc

Manchester Libraries posted this in The British Bookclub

So, of course, I had to google "cakes and books"....

This came up...might be interesting to read. I'm not familiar with it.

Review from Goodreads:

Cakes and Ale is a delicious satire of London literary society between the Wars. Social climber Alroy Kear is flattered when he is selected by Edward Driffield's wife to pen the official biography of her lionized novelist husband, and determined to write a bestseller. But then Kear discovers the great novelist's voluptuous muse (and unlikely first wife), Rosie. The lively, loving heroine once gave Driffield enough material to last a lifetime, but now her memory casts an embarrissing shadow over his career and respectable image. Wise, witty, deeply satisfying, Cakes and Ale is Maugham at his best

Most cats...

And then there was Oscar who jumped up on everyone but Jim was his favourite. You can see how Jim is very accomodating to him. He was his "assistant editor".

The Little Free Library Project

The Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization that aims to inspire people and help build community by encouraging people to install book exchanges in their neighborhoods. Since 2009, the organization helped install over 75,000 libraries in 88 countries and exchange millions of books annually, spreading the love for books everywhere. Recently, inspired by this project, one librarian from Idaho decided to create her own unique little library.

It was created by Sharalee Armitage Howard, an artist, librarian and former bookbinder from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Her family recently had to chop down a 110-year-old cottonwood tree standing in their yard and decided to not let its trunk go to waste by installing a tiny library inside it. They carved it from the inside and decorated it with a tiny shingled roof to give it a cozy, magical look

I pass these sometimes on my travels in Vancouver so must keep some books in the car so I can contribute something.
https://littlefreelibrary.org/start/

Some other examples. I especially love the British Phone Booth design since I imagine these phone booths like all phone booths will be a dying breed.

"The Testaments" made the Booker Short List of 6 novels.

For more than 50 years, the Booker Prize has recognized outstanding fiction in the English-speaking world and is considered one of the top literary awards. Each year, a panel of judges selects one novel as the year's best fiction work written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.

This year's longlist of 13 books was announced in July. "If you only read one book this year, make a leap. Read all 13 of these," said founder and director of Hay Festival Peter Florence, who also serves as the chair of this year's jury. "There are Nobel candidates and debutants on this list."

The shortlist was announced Tuesday, leaving six authors and their books in the running for the 2019 Booker Prize of £50,000 or roughly $60,325. 

The winner for 2019 award will be announced on October 14.

Here's the list of the authors who made the 2019 Booker Prize's longlist along with their books. The short-list authors have asterisks.

*Margaret Atwood (Canada), "The Testaments" (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)

Kevin Barry (Ireland), "Night Boat to Tangier" (Canongate Books)

Oyinkan Braithwaite (UK/Nigeria), "My Sister, The Serial Killer" (Atlantic Books)

*Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), "Ducks, Newburyport" (Galley Beggar Press)

*Bernardine Evaristo (UK), "Girl, Woman, Other" (Hamish Hamilton)

John Lanchester (UK), "The Wall" (Faber & Faber)

Deborah Levy (UK), "The Man Who Saw Everything" (Hamish Hamilton)

Valeria Luiselli (Mexico/Italy), "Lost Children Archive" (4th Estate)

*Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), "An Orchestra of Minorities" (Little Brown)

Max Porter (UK), "Lanny" (Faber & Faber)

*Salman Rushdie (UK/India), "Quichotte" (Jonathan Cape)

*Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), "10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World" (Viking)

Jeanette Winterson (UK), "Frankissstein" (Jonathan Cape)

I got a laugh out of this

Adrian Raeside nails it again

Itty Bitty Book Review: "The Testaments"

"The Testaments" by Margaret Atwood

Well, of course I had to read this but I did approach it with a bit of trepidation since I thought it could be rather depressing. And also since I seem to have some depressing reading coming up for my two bookclubs. For October one is reading Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles and the other Hardy's Jude the Obscure. I have read both (albeit a million years ago) so I may just watch the movies:)

But back to "The Testaments". We know this is about the downfall of Gilead but how it all comes about is quite fascinating and Atwood uses quite a bit of humour surprisingly and it ends up being quite a thriller in the end. Like Kate Atkinson's "Big Sky", you know the bad guys are going to lose in the end but both authors spin a rather amazing yarn about how that happens.

I think the novel is really quite wonderful and an amazing achievement. I hope she wins the Booker and I really hope she will win the Nobel Prize for Literature at some time in the next few years. The Nobel Prize is only awarded to living authors. Her body of work and her contribution to Canadian Literature  deserves to be recognized with that honour.

I picked up Season One of the TV series of The Handmaid's Tale at the library today so will be interesting to view that. It certainly has had tremendous reviews.

Emily Carr: Fresh Seeing

We haven't been to the Audain Gallery in Whistler yet and now it's a must to see this wonderful new exhibit...can't miss that!

From The Vancouver Sun:

WHISTLER — When did Emily Carr become the Emily Carr loved by Canadians across the country?

A new exhibition at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler makes the visual argument that a big step in Carr’s transformation from someone with talent into one of Canada’s top artists occurred during her trip to France in 1910 and 1911. During those 16 months, Carr took lessons from artists who could teach her about a new approach to artmaking called modernism being followed by the avant-garde in Paris. The lessons paid off: Carr’s work was chosen for the 1911 exhibition in the city’s Salon d’Automne, arguably the top art show in the world at the time.

Kiriko Watanabe is co-curator along with Kathryn Bridge of the AAM exhibition, Emily Carr: Fresh Seeing, which opens Saturday.

Watanabe said the exhibition brings together 64 watercolours and paintings from numerous private and public collections. They’re arranged chronologically and include works that Carr made in France, as well as works she did immediately after returning to B.C. and going on a summer trip up the coast to the remote Gitxsan, Wet’suwet’en, Haida and Kwakwaka’wakw communities.

“There was a window of time after she came back from France until she started visiting First Nations villages that summer,” Watanabe said at the museum. “That’s probably when she started looking at her old works, her watercolours, and started to incorporate colours and techniques she learned in France. You can see her confidence increasing.”

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/emily-carrs-trip-to-france-in-1910-11-led-to-breakthrough-for-artist

Bring in the clowns...oh, they're already here.

POSTED BY: DAVID MARRS JANUARY 14, 2019

Circuses are struggling to fill clown positions as top prospects are often heading into politics instead, it’s emerged.

The number of circus clowns has shrunk to a dangerously low level – and politics is being blamed for snatching up all the best prospects.

‘We used to have half a dozen clowns in our circus. Now we have just one because the rest have retired or gone into politics. And young prospects aren’t even considering a career in the circus any more,’ said Richard Majesty, a worried ringmaster.

‘You just have to look at the current political figures to see where they’ve snatched talent from us. Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Jeremy Corbyn all would have made excellent clowns. Even across the pond, they have Donald Trump,’ Majesty sighed.

Circuses have found they just can’t compete with the money and attention that surrounds politics. Instead, a group of circuses are considering joining forces to become their own political party.

‘Although I doubt anyone will notice anything different about us,’ said Richard.

Proof of Global Warming

I got a laugh out of this post to Linda's blog.

In full swing of political palaver...these made me laugh.

Seems a bit early for pumpkin carving jokes and even earlier to think about snow!

The cashier at IGA yesterday was talking about the snow last year around exam time at UBC last year. She took a long time on the bus to get to an exam that ended up being cancelled.  Ah...student life. I didn't mention we were in Palm Springs so didn't know about the snow. Apparently this winter is going to be mild and she's hoping for no snow. Well, I wouldn't mind a dusting on the trees.

Ken Burns Country Music documentary

Well, let's hope it helps to break down the divides in the US. 

(CNN)We're divided by culture as much as politics. The roots of red state vs. blue state tribalism reflect the different ways we live in rural and urban America. But while these divides run deep, they are also simplistic stereotypes that are reinforced by ignorance and insults. 

That's just one reason why the new Ken Burns documentary "Country Music" is essential viewing right now: It can help break down these divides by increasing understanding and appreciation of our shared American story.

Country music comes from the heart of rural America. But it is both a cruel and stupid mistake to dismiss it as hillbilly music. It is a cross-pollination of different traditions that has evolved over more than a century. It's the sound of Saturday night and Sunday morning, a music of love and loss. And like jazz, the subject of an earlier series from Burns, country music is an authentic American art form.

The series is arguably the best documentary series Burns has made since his initial epics on the Civil War and baseball.

Adrian Raeside always gets it right especially where the B.C. Ferries are concerned.

It seems you will be allowed one drink with a meal.

This is such a cool story!

I'm surprised I missed it last month in the Vancouver Sun. Brad Newell is the nephew of my friend, Linda. Good on him and this was when his business was just getting started.

Ever wanted to own a fire truck?

Able Auctions will be selling one Saturday in Langley as part of a giant “Vehicles, Buses, Industrial and More” auction.

The 1997 Freightliner was formerly part of Surrey’s fire truck fleet, which explains its distinctive lime-green colour. The “pumper truck” runs on diesel, has air brakes, and has travelled 255,686 kilometres.

“They usually go for quite a good deal,” said Rob Kavanagh of Able Auctions. “This will probably sell for $5,000 to $10,000. For a small town, that’s perfect.”

Kavanagh said Able gets fire trucks in “every once in a while” when municipalities buy new trucks.

“Sometimes movie sets will buy them, small towns buy them,” he said. “A friend of mine, Brad Newell, the King of Floors, was at one of our auctions years ago. There was a small town bidding on a fire truck, and he ended up overbidding them. He bought it, then he donated it to the town, so that was nice.”

Raining in Vancouver yesterday..we're loving it!  We seem to love and then eventually hate the rain. Vancouver....mon amour.

Volunteers helping with the olive harvest at the Annenberg estate

How cool....wish we were there! It's always a wonderful place to visit. It sounds like you'll only be able to buy the olive oil on the estate. I wonder fi it will be ready when we are there in November. I don't know a lot about the production of olive oil.

From Sunnylands:
Sunnylands reopens in September with an invitation to the community to spend a morning on the historic Annenberg estate to harvest some of the 600 olive trees on the property.

On both Wednesday, Sept. 11, and Thursday, Sept. 12, as many as 100 volunteers will be allowed to drive onto the former winter home of Walter and Leonore Annenberg in Rancho Mirage to gather a crop of olives that will be used to produce Sunnylands Olive Oil.

This is the second time the public is being invited to take part in the olive harvest. The first was in 2014, the year the olive oil program was launched.

“We’re so excited to welcome the public back to the estate and into the process of making a Sunnylands product that will end up on people’s kitchen shelves and dining room tables,” said Michaeleen Gallagher, director of education and environmental programs.

The program is a result of various sustainability efforts the estate has undertaken since it opened as a high-level retreat center focused on societal issues in 2012. For decades, fruiting suppressants were applied to olive trees on the 200-acre estate. But the practice has since come to an end after the trees were first allowed to fruit five years ago. Once bottled, Sunnylands Olive Oil will be available to the public at the Sunnylands gift shop.

The 600-plus olive trees that dot the estate grounds were not fruit bearing until after the Annenbergs died."

Fred Herzog died Monday at age 88.

From the Georgia Straight:

"In his later days Herzog sometimes bemoaned the lack of colour on the Vancouver streets of today, compared to the time when he shot its streets.  “It’s boring now,” he argued, “because when you walk down the street you see only a grey concrete building with aluminum trimmings and a neat sign which you’ve already seen 200 times before because it’s part of a chain of dry cleaners or banks or sandwich shops.”

I do love his photographs and we are lucky he went against the current trend at the time to include colour in his photographs. Black and white was considered the standard for art and serious photographs and given the wonderful photographers working in black and white I can't really complain. I have taken down the book I have of his photography and will glance through it during breaks in the action in the Blue Jays games.

Another exciting new novel to read!

Margaret Atwood's sequel to The Handmaid's Tale is being released today and I'll be getting a delivery from Amazon. Amazon in the US messed up and sent out copies prematurely. It's getting pretty amazing press already from those reviewers who received copies and long listed for the Booker. She's appearing at the Chan Centre later this month but sold out.  I have seen her a couple of times so perhaps not getting a ticket gives those who haven't a chance. She is always amusing, entertaining, and thought provoking.

I expect Sept 11 as a release date was chosen deliberately. No one will forget that day.

Brexit explained...

If you've been wondering what the hell is going on in the UK this week, well, you wouldn't be alone. Even those of us who are literally in the UK are struggling to keep up with the political upheaval here. Here to make sense of it, Graham Norton kindly explained to The Late Show's Stephen Colbert what's going on in layman's terms. 

And over tequila, of course.

"In a sweet way, it's as if the United Kingdom was embarrassed for America, felt like you're all alone out in the world stage so we found our own angry Cabbage Patch Kid and made him the leader," Norton told Colbert, referring to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "I wouldn't trust him to water my plants when I was away but somehow he is the prime minister."

From The Good Life France

"And 6 September was also the birthday of the Loire Valley’s renaissance star, the glorious Chateau de Chambord, 500 years old, and hardly aged a day." 

In our first trip to Europe in 1972, we rented a car in the middle of Paris and amazingly found our way out to spend the first night in Versailles and then on to visiting various chateaux in the Loire Valley. The most memorable was Chambord. Of course, we had never seen anything like this before...quite magical. Of course, Verseilles was pretty amazing as well...almost too much to take in as I remember. We enjoyed the chateaux more. Perhaps because they were in very beautiful natural settings. 

We're not really attracted by formal gardens and all the ornate stuff that Versailles is all about. I guess that's why we're so attracted to the simplicity of mid century architecture.  

"Chambord is dazzling and unlike any other Chateau. The great French writer Victor Hugo said of it “All magic… all madness is represented in the bizarreness of this palace of fairy kings and queens”. And, he’s right, this really does look like a magical castle, with an ethereal air, almost delicate but over powering at the same time. Teeming with turrets and towers, gleaming white stone contrasts with its pointy black slate roof, it is a magnificent display of power and taste."

And we did just this Friday!

From the blog of Susan K.

This was only our second swim and I guess it will be our last for this season. Tides and weather just didn't seem to work out. I'm glad we packed a lunch as the concession was closed. The water was a bit on the cool side but lovely after a few minutes

Deux Chevaux

From the blog of John Denniston:

You know, I think I might actually be able to draw this. It's worth a try and I love all the colours! When we were driving around France on our first trip in 1972, the Renault 5 that we rented (the cheapest car available for rent) could only pass a Deux Chevaux.

Yes...some of the best words ever. Posted on the British Bookclub FB page.

I had to look up "cattywampus". adjective. The definition of cattywampus, often spelled catawampus, is not lined up or not arranged correctly, or diagonally. An example of something cattywampus are the positions of the items on the top of a coffee table after a two year old has been playing with them and moving them around.

"The Library Book" by Susan Orlean

For everyone who loves libraries you just have to read this book. A million holds, of course.  I know I'm going to have to return it before I finish it and I want to savour it so have ordered a copy. I want to have my own anyway.

It is partly about the Los Angeles Public Library fire that destroyed the library April 29, 1986 but also  about so much more. The library received notes of condolences from libraries all over the world.

At the moment when I wrote this blog post I just finished reading a section that deals with all the many book burnings all over the world and in various times in history. More than one could ever almost imagine, really.

Most will be familiar with Ray Bradbury's" Farenheit 451" which deals with book burning. Bradbury had four daughters and found it difficult to write at home and spent more time playing with his children than writing. He couldn't afford an office but knew of a room in UCLA's Powell Library, where typewriters could be rented for ten cents an hour. He like the idea of writing a novel about book burning in a library. Over the course of 9 days he completed his original story expanding it into a short novel which he ended up calling "Farenheit 451" instead of "The Fireman" which was his original working title. He spent $9.80 on the typewriter rental.

Just a taste of all the wonderful stuff in the book!

Pubic Libraries....amazing...and now you can borrow a dog.

For years, the VPL and the VPB have hosted a Poetry in the Park program, but this year, they’re bringing the activation to dog parks.Candie Tanaka, programming and event coordinator for the VPL, says that the idea is built off their popular “Paws 4 Stories” program,” which allows children to practice their reading skills in a one-on-one session with a therapy dog and its owner.

“The man initiative [for the Canine Library] is to foster better relationships between dog owners and non-dog owners,” says Tanaka. “With this program, you get to take out a dog and read it some poetry for 15 minutes, as well as interact with the dog and the owner.”

Princess Elizabeth in Canada

Princess Elizabeth square-dancing at something called a “cowboy dress party” in Canada - 1950