Hey everyonhe and welcome to Book Club. We're excited to get this blog going and start reading and discussing books. Leslie and I have talked about it and we think that this is how the blog will work . . .1. I will be the blog administrator (basically that job is over now), but anyone who participates in our book club, will be a blog author, which means that you can log in and write a post.
2. Each month we'll take turns playing, "hostess." The hostess will choose the book for the month and then write a post about the book at the end of the month and the rest of will leave comments.
3. So leave a comment with your email address or email me (Catherine) at catherineguteATaolDOTcom, so we can add you as an author.
For those of you ready to get reading, our February book will be, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua. Leslie and I both felt like this would be a good place to start since most of us have all been discussing it. Do we have any volunteers to host March?
Oh hooray! Sailor and I are both joining up. I'd be happy to choose whenever you need me to. Thanks for kicking it off!
ReplyDeleteOhhhhh goood, I didn't even think about the kids joining. I told Brooke to tell her mom and now I will tell her to read, too.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to choose a month, birthday month? October? You always blog about books for Halloween. Would you like October? Let us know Erin, we are putting together the list for the year.
Ohhhhh.....I want to join too!
ReplyDeleteI'm in! I love the blog layout Catte! It's so cute! I will try my best to keep with everyone but please don't kick me out of the club if I inevitably fall behind. Thanks for putting the work into this.
ReplyDeleteCpurt,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you're going to read with us. We want you, to.
Tell your sisters, and your Mama.
Look how much we'll have to discuss while we're at the pool and lagoon this summer.
Tell Mc Kenna she can join in too whenever she wants.
Mare,
ReplyDeleteDidn't it turn out cute? Catherine did a nice job.
I knew she would.
You're in even if you don't read a page!
Catherine, You did a great job! I am happy to take a month, but please don't make me go next. I am terribly indecisive and it will take me at least a month to figure out what I want to pick. I think Valerie said she was in, now we need to get some other non-bloggers, so let's all put on our missionary hats and convert the reading masses to BOOK CLUB!!! I am so excited!
ReplyDeleteOH, I get it! Tiger music for our book. That Catherine! She thinks of everything.
ReplyDeleteThankyou everyone for all the compliments about the blog. I'm excited to get reading, too. I have email addresses for everyone who left comments so I'll make all of you blog authors.
ReplyDeleteErin, I couldn't come up with tiger music. It was all Leslie!
Catte Woman,
ReplyDeleteThanks for The Tiger music Nod. You know how I feel about proper credit and attribution.
It's one of my pet peeves, and can hardly stand it at church when people stand and say things without quoting who said what it is they are saying, borrowing and stealing. Everyone steals from the prophet and acts like they thought it up all on their own.
It just happened recently in RS, too. A woman was quoting Abraham Lincoln as if it were her very own. I would never raise my hand and call her out, but I did have to have a word with her afterward.
It's one of my quirks, and I really do think it's the writer in me.
I loved thinking of the tiger songs, tiger quotes, and even a tiger poem. "Tiger, tiger, burning bright"
Do you know it? It was one of Harper Lee's favorites.
There's been an onslaught in my mind of all things Tiger! Tiger this, and tiger that and it's still going on.
All right, Catte woman, thanks again.
"Hail Tiger!"
Did you know that poem (William Blake's "The Tiger" is considered the most popular poem in the world? (At least according to my top 500 poems book.) I don't think that many people have heard of it. I think many many more have heard of "The Raven," or Double Double Toil and Trouble," or "Oh Captain, My Captain," or even "Only God Can Make a Tree." What do you think?
ReplyDeleteErin,
ReplyDeleteI did not know it was considered one of the most popular, exactly. I should have since it's always in the big, thick, consolidated poetry books we check out from the library. I know that it was influential to Harper Lee. It is in one of my books I have about her, and I have a copy of it in our 2008 Poetry folder. I keep my folder in our car, and I just went out to get it.
The poem is in it. I knew it was, but wanted to make sure.
"Tiger, Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry."
I love all the other poems you listed, too. I read more serious poetry to my big kids than I do to The Littles. I've gotten silly in my old age and love to read them nonsense books and stories like those from Edward Lear. We adore him, and Annie was quoting The Jumblies to me yesterday while she was eating breakfast. "Far and few, far and few are the land where The Jumblies live. There heads are green and their hands are blue and they went to sea in a sieve."
Erin Leigh can't get over that they went to see in a sieve. We had a discussion about it once, and I showed her the collander to try and explain what a sieve was. She thinks it's hilarious and cracks up over that part because it's so ridiculous. So do I.
He is one of our favorites. We also love e.e. cummings.
And would you like to hear one more? This is one they love, and I think everyone will recognize it and love it, too.
Here it is.
"Tootie is a bad girl, Tootie is a fraud. Tootie is the worst girl I ever sawed."
So fun. Thanks for quoting poems with me.
I was just reading e. e. cummings this week. I love I carry your heart. It's the dearest, sweetest poem. Do you know it? Maybe I should print it here, but then again I will wait because I want to share others.
ReplyDeleteThis is my other favorite ee cummings:
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
Since I am getting old, this is my favorite poem this week, by Thomas Carew
He That Loves A Rosy Cheek
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires:
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
But a smooth and steadfast mind,
Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires:
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.
I want my kids to memorize it and burn it into their brains before they pick a spouse. Maybe I will pick poetry for my month. I will read some Edward Lear today and get silly with my kids.
Here is a poem that we heard at the poetry festival this week from a very small child:
Mary had a little jam
she spread it on a waffle,
And if she hadn't eaten ten
she wouldn't feel so awful.
Talk to you soon. E
Oh don't you love Edward Estlin? Little e, little e, - e.e. cummings.
ReplyDeleteI adore his poems.
We love to recite in just.
I have a book of his poems, and studied and read all about him years and years ago, in my early twenties. It doesn't seem that long ago but when I think about it, it was about 18 to 21 years ago.
It began when I saw Hannah and Her Sisters and they read an e.e.cummings poem. Well, then I had to know all about him and read everything I could. A movie will do that for me, you know; send me on a chase to fill my curiosity. If I hear a quote or also music or see something or see someone in a movie reading a book, or open a magazine and see in the background bookshelves, I get out a magnifying glass to read the titles, or suddenly have to order or check out the book they were reading in the movie. It's a widerange, freerange curiosity that must be satiated, but I love it.
It was Jean Kerr who made me study poetry and to read it to my children. Her children had to memorize it and recite it once a week for Culture Hour. I loved her tradition and tried to do it, too.
I know e.e. cummings poems but it is from a long time ago, really that I know them. But I have loved them.
The lines I love from this are "feeling is first and we are for each other then."
Actually, I love them all.
We also love Eugene Field and his silly poems, too.
Do you know the one about the calico cat and the gingham dog?
I told you I have gotten sillier. That's what happens when you live with a Funnyman!
I loved the Waffle poem. Please tell who wrote it and how old they are.
Did you speak to this young poet? Was he shy and embarrassed or did he enjoy the attention? Was it one of your children who wrote it and you're just being modest?
I wish I were funny. I'm not at all, but isn't that what we all want? To be funnier, smarter, thinner, richer,kinder and better than we really are?
That's what I want, anyway. All of the above.