Sasha Ermolenko Ermolenko itibaren Sučani, Bosna Hersek itibaren Sučani, Bosna Hersek

This Sunday morning before church I woke up slightly earlier than usual with an idea. I was feeling quite nostalgic for some reason- you know that kind of day- a make pancakes and watch teenage mutant ninja turtles or boy meets world kind of morning. And despite my initial desire to trudge along in my current enjoyable fiction endeavor, I was convinced to put the book down and pick up an old favorite: C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew. A classic book that I knew would not only be a quick read, but a real joy, and a deeply satisfying adventure to cure those spontaneous nostalgic cravings that sneak up on us from time to time. Most know the tale of Digory Kirke, and Polly exploring the row of terraced houses in London, only to stumble upon Digory’s magician uncle who has created rings with the power to transport humans into other worlds. Through Uncle Andrew’s deception, he drives the comical, bickering pair to puddle-hopping into different lands, meeting evil queens, and finally stumbling upon the creation of Narnia. Lewis’ voice in this installment of the Chronicles of Narnia seems so much more playful than it’s companions, and had me laughing aloud thinking about how well Lewis understood the mind of a child. This time around I particularly enjoyed the witty arguments between Digory and Polly: “It’s all rot to say a house would be empty all those years unless there was some mystery.” (Digory) “Daddy thought it must be the drains,” said Polly. “Pooh! Grown-ups are always thinking of uninteresting explanations,” said Digory. Or how about this one? And if you want me to come back, hadn’t you better say you’re sorry?” (Polly) “Sorry?” exclaimed Digory. “Well now, if that isn’t just like a girl! What have I done?” “Oh nothing of course,” said Polly sarcastically. “Only nearly screwed my wrist off in that room with all the waxworks, like a cowardly bully. Only struck the bell with the hammer, like a silly idiot. Only turned back in the wood so that she had time to catch hold of you before we jumped into our own pool. That’s all.” The Magician’s Nephew, while traditionally (since the 1980’s) has been placed 1st in the chronicles of Narnia Series, was actually published 6th, and after another read it is easy to see why. As your unraveling the tale you see the origins of different enigmatic elements within the land or Narnia: where does the lamp post come come from in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe? How does the wardrobe actually have the ability to bring the Pevensies into Narnia? Why is professor Kirke so willing to believe that the land of Narnia is real? The riddles presented throughout the books are satisfied in The Magician’s Nephew, and I would argue should be read six, because the reader will experience the excitement of understanding the compelling world of Narnia that so effortlessly draws you in to its adventures. Lewis (as always) has a power to make you feel the longing of something that I can never quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s adventure, or the simplicity of childhood, or the purity of Narnia character that I long for, or perhaps the way Lewis communicates theological ideas with such an unmatched emotional force through his creative fiction. Whatever it is, the Magician’s Nephew makes for a great read that will always be on the highest bookshelf I have. check out my book review blog: https://mephibosheth311.wordpress.com/

Dit vond ik maar niks. Ok, de auteur slaagt er in om een naargeestige sfeer te creëren maar de personages zijn van bordkarton en de plot vergezocht. Als lezer had ik de hele tijd het gevoel 'onderwezen' te worden door een vervelende leerkracht die met een vinger in de lucht staat te bewijzen dat het leven geen lachertje is...

if you liked lord of the rings you'll like this

We read this out loud together and loved it. It's such a smart book - an intriguing plot line, full of truly interesting characters, wonderfully clever and funny lines. I highly recommend it. The end wrapped up just a tad too "neatly" for my personal taste, especially since I know there's another one. It's magical in feeling without actually being fantasy at all. Just larger-than-life characters who do more than even they thought possible. Very fun read.

$3 in the clearance pile at Borders. Pre-bankruptcy. I liked this book, I did. It's a lot of history I wasn't alive for, so I come away thinking I learned quote a bit. It was interesting stuff, in particular that half the chapters while I was reading (albeit slowly.. you might notice the logjam in my "currently reading" pile here is just shy of thirty books...) were eerily relevant. There's a chapter on Khadafi, Quadafi, Ghadafi, whatever the spelling of that world leader's name may be this week. In the book it was Quadafi, but ABC news as of today (April 1 as I write this) Anyway, ABC news has moved to spelling his name with something whose lead-off batter is the letter 'G'. But it was oddly topical, considering the book is from 2005. There is the occasional formatting oddness (and a penchant for "try and (verb)" which I always cringe at, (I prefer "try to"--although there is one "try to" so it's not consistently line-edited) as well as a tendency not to format things the same between the abundant footnotes (really, a plethora) and the main text, (Al Jihad in the text three pages later is Al-Jihad, and a guy named el-Banna is al-Banna in the footnotes) (Is indisciplined a word? p. 297) and the occasional spot where the material is repeated in (a) the footnote (b) the lead off quote and (c) a previous chapter. Which was a bit much. (it's a quote from Lyndon Johnson about Diem). Typo-wise I found some stuff you could write off to house style (using out numbered not outnumbered, well protected for well-protected, eye witness, market place, and so on. A fair number of spots I feel the urge for a hyphen but there isn't one (blood soaked toga, noble minded, clear thinking, self respect, etc.) Bu then some guy that's not dead is referred to as a martyr, and I can't compute on that one. A footnote refers to "Al Qaeda suspects are always told...." when it's pretty clear to me that while they may be suspects to us, the folks who are receiving training from Al Qaeda are members, if not the presidents of the club, but they're not suspects, grammatically if they're receiving training from the terrorist group. Anyway. I'd say there are ten to twenty typos. Your basic missing words or bad verb tenses (one or two each), the weird missing hyphens, the non-compound words, and the "try and" and "try to" inconsistencies. The most glaring typo being the Champs Elysees minus the second 's'. For a UK book, that should have been seen and fixed. (p. 180), particularly considering this is a retread of the author's previous 'Princess Diana was assassinated probably by the Crown' material. That section cites all kinds of figures, one of them in English, the rest in metric. Why it's not consistent? A few statements are debatable word choice-- without Hirohito, "his successor would not have carried the same authority and the war would have dragged on," p. 247. I'd argue for 'could' here, but that's me. Would on my planet expresses greater certainty. Could is speculation. Elsewhere there's a usage of "casuistry" that doesn't work for me. The word he's looking for is smoke and mirrors or some kind of chicanery, not an examination of moral principles and arriving at a logical conclusion. (p. 152) There was also the interview from 2003 with Nabawy Ismail who said that Al-Jihad was dangerous in Egypt in 1981. (That's the year Sadat was assassinated, and here this guy is saying he knew they were dangerous a good twenty-plus years later. Wow. He's smart.) Anyway, Sadat's successor was... drum roll... the recently oustered Hosni (or Hosny) Mubarek. And what with the now-current U.S. - Libya intervention a la Bill Clinton's barrage of million-dollar cruise missiles--now Obama, and Reagan had something to do with Kadafi back when he had a 'K' in his name, and the other chapter alleging ties between Thatcher, Reagan, and a seemingly irrelevant chapter about PFC Yvonne Fletcher that is then tied into Libya when the Reagan administration bombed the back in the good old days... But there's a great quote about Libya being irrelevant (from Vince Canistraro) and it's the country "we" like to kick when we're mad at Syria, who is the real problem: "It's like kicking the cat." There is also a stunning Sadat quote having to do with Israel (his peace initiative, etc. He's the only Arab leader (as of 2005 obviously) to have spoken to the Israeli parliament) -- Israel could have peace if they would give back the lands taken in 1967 (correct me if I'm wrong this is the Yom Kippur War and the land includes the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights--the area still being settled and disputed), and if they would recognize the human rights of Palestinians. (think on this one, because the bar has now been raised to "recognize Palestine's right to exist), but think -- we could have had twenty plus years of peace in the area, or might have it Sadat had lived. And been listened to. There are also some fascinating parallels between the right wing killing of Yitzak Rabin and the right wing killing of Sadat. Both groups sought out approval from religious authorities and old doctrine was dredged up to justify it. They just happened to be different religions. We also get coverage of Al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda's second (Bellfield translates this as 'The Base' but I thought it was 'The Network' anyway). There's a mention or two of the Muslim Brotherhood vs. Gadhafi, the IRA, the British (vs. the IRA), Hitler, and Franz Ferdinand (not the musical group). According to this book, Kalid Sheik Mohammad started talking immediately. (which conflicts with the waterboarding stories based on my recollection.) Structurally, the book reminds me of Washed Up--as both are largely anecdotal and not a lot of historical order. And apparently the CIA was behaving badly in the 1960s. That was of course recent news as well. (to us).