Rae: Fun Diversion

I found this little vocabulary game through the website that Lynness referred to--go to www.freerice.com and you will be able to assuage world hunger through your immense vocabulary. Or not. It's addictive.

I love the Loganberry site and am contemplating a query myself. But I thought I would ask you ladies first. Does anyone remember a short story (I have always thought it was by Ray Bradbury, but I could be wrong) about a boy who collects insects or butterflies? I definitely remember that he has a luna moth inside a box or on the wall and at night he hears it trying to get out? I would love to find that story.

Hope you are all enjoying your foreign authors. Or not.

Happy reading!

Lynness: A poem on reading

This simple poem is posted in the children's section of one of our county libraries. 
I like it and thought I would share it...

Reading

A story is a special thing
The ones that I have read
They do not stay inside the books
They stay inside my head.

I also thought I would post this website that I love to browse through.  If you are trying to get information on a book but just remember bits and pieces about it, this is the place to ask to get a title or author or info.  Mostly I just like to browse through the "solved mysteries catalog" to get ideas for books other people have loved.

http://loganberrybooks.com/solved.html

Lynness: Odds and ends and October and November reads

I really opened a can of worms with my post about how I read. Someone asked if Nathan still speed-reads and he doesn't really. This is mostly because he doesn't have time (make time) to read for pleasure. He reads computer instruction/reference books for work and for working on his hobbies, and he reads the scriptures. Neither lends itself to speed-reading well. I have noticed that when I pay too much attention to how I'm reading that I slow down and start to subvocalize, and when I am trying to read my scriptures at 10:30 at night and falling asleep as I do so, I intentionally slow down and subvocalize so I get SOMETHING out of it. (Let's face it- Leviticus and Numbers are extremely repetitious and sometimes quite dull).
As for October, I picked out a book right after I joined the book blog on the 23rd called Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James R. Gaines. It's a history of the two men, of music forms, and of European history as well as the challenge that culminated in the creation of Bach's A Musical Offering. I got through close to half of it, and was interested and still plan to finish it, but there were several other books I wanted to read that I had gotten at the same time. This books doesn't really pull you along, so I wanted a break from it and I wanted to read Musicophilia, which I did. Books like that make me want to go back to school and take up neuroscience (or whatever the book I've reading happens to be about). There are so many things about ourselves that we don't know and even scratching the surface yields astounding results and even more questions. I remember Freeman saying something about how we only use 10% of our brains and (him) wondering what it will be like when we get beyond the veil and remember all that we once knew. Perhaps those artistic and musical and savant-like abilities are latent in all of us and will be brought to the fore, along with many other things.
In Musicophilia a footnote referenced Italian author Umberto Eco's "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" and I looked him up and have put that book on hold. That may be my November read, if I think it will be rewarding. If not, I'm considering something from the Polish section of the list Rae provided a link to (since Nathan went to Poland on his mission) or something from the Far East.

Abby: October's NOT-read and November's pick

Well, I made it through 100 of the 500 pages of Mozart: A Life. The one-fifth I read was very interesting and I really enjoyed it. But I really had to concentrate and it ended up being more work than pleasure. I'd like to revisit it another time.

I didn't think I would pick a book for November but after reading Beccy's post, I think I'll read Inkheart, the first in that series. There are so many fun juv. fiction books and I'm always up for trying another. I think it'll be fun to see if I can spot any of the "Germanisms" in the book since the author is German and these were written in German first.

Why is Stradivari so hard to spell?! sorry. . .

Beccy: October's read, November's pick

I loved Stradiveri's Genius. I suppose some might find his conclusion rather anticlimactic—that even with modern science and technology, we have yet to understand or duplicate Stradiveri’s mastery at producing such perfection in string instruments. The book begins in 17th century Cremona, Italy, which was Stradivari’s home and where violins became a dominant musical instrument (pardon the pun). I had never heard of Cremona before, but have added it to my mental list of places I want to visit in Italy!

I enjoyed learning about how violins are constructed and exploring all the abounding theories about why Stradivarius violins (and also others made by lesser-known luthiers of his century) are so superior: Is it his secret varnish recipe? Is it the European mini-ice age that affected the wood of that area and time? Is it the layer of volcanic sand discovered between the layers of varnish (discovered by modern high-power microscopes)?

I enjoyed making connections between history, musical performers, people and places I had heard of (such as the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, who made grandma’s piano) and many I hadn’t heard of. I hope I someday have the now very rare opportunity of hearing a Strad played live. Yo-Yo Ma actually still owns The Davidov Strad cello, but does not play it exclusively. At least I could find some recordings that were made on Strads.

I loved the idea that
“A great violin is alive; its very shape embodies its maker’s intentions, and its wood stores the history, or the soul, of its successive owners. I never play without feeling that I have released or, alas, violated spirits.” – Yehudi Menuhin

As for naming my own violin, I’m still thinking. I have considered The Liahona, since it is to me an instrument of curious workmanship and “works” only by faith on my part. I do often have the feeling that I am trying to coax good sounds out of it. It is really a marvelous instrument—I am reminded of that whenever my teacher plays on it!

I asked Katie today what she has named her violin, and she said, “Bocci.” This really made me laugh, because it sounds Italian and I have no idea where she would have heard that (isn’t it a game?)! I told her she should name it Valentine, because we often need to remind her that it is not pronounced “biolin” but Violin, with a v- as in VALentine!

My November pick is Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke. It’s juvi fiction, but Curt really wants me to read it. I rather liked Inkspell and Inkheart and I’m in the mood for something light after this month’s nonfiction. Cornelia Funke is German and her books are translated from German (though you probably all know that).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Beccy: Thoughts on Reading, Language and Music

Lynness’s post and everyone’s responses to it gave me much delicious food for thought! I think I read pretty fast, but other than in grade school when you're told your reading grade-level, I’ve never been timed—like how many words/minute I can type. Have any of you? When I read fiction, especially something suspenseful or very compelling, my eyes take in several lines at once like Abby described. I read differently when I am reading non-fiction.

Is sub-vocalizing pronouncing the words mentally as you read—“hearing” each word in your mind? If so, I’m a sub-vocalizer for sure when I’m reading with learning as my specific intent; non-fiction reading such as the scriptures or The Art of Practicing, for example. It depends on my intent, though, because some parts of the scriptures I read more like a novel (the war chapters in the last part of Alma, for example).

For me, much of learning is fused with hearing. If I am given a list of seven unrelated words to memorize, I do it by sound, not by meaning or visualization. I often find I have unintentionally memorize scriptures because of their peculiar language and memorable sound (there are certainly better reasons to memorize them :).

Like Lulu and Rae, I love to read out loud (ask my kids) because I love the actual sound of the words. More specifically, I love human expression in spoken language. And, like all of us, I subconsciously judge people, or learn much about them by how they speak. I am delighted by accents, quirky speech impediments and colloquialisms. To my thinking, language—in an aural sense—is a form of music. For me, reading is taking in meaning from the music of language. Add to that the joy of imagination—no wonder we love it.

Aside from the sound of it, language captures so much of personality. I enjoyed acting in plays as a youth because I loved becoming a different person; talking differently than I talk and trying to convince listeners that the pretend emotions were genuine. When I read out loud to my kids I am just being a ham and indulging myself in that pleasure. My kids’ (when they were small, but Katie’s still) most requested picture book for me to read them is Eric Carle’s Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? because each animal has it’s own distinct voice and accent suggested to me by their appearance/type of animal. The more I exaggerate, the more we laugh.

Rae’s post about music and the brain led me to compare my mental process when writing words to writing music. When I write words, there is an idea I want to express, and I am accessing my vocabulary and emotions, trying to find words that capture the essence of my thoughts. Usually there is an initial “brain dump” and then lots of editing to clarify, capture subtle nuances, etc. When I write music (without lyrics), there is something to express, but I’m not sure what to call it. It’s some combination of idea, sound and emotion. There is an outpouring of musical mess as I try to convey the ‘idea,’ and then lots of highly-detail-oriented refining. I consider each note, constantly going from micro to macro to measure the value of the individual sound and its place in context. In writing prose or poetry, we do that with words, sentences, paragraphs, etc. It’s interesting to me that in both cases, the finished product is so much more than the sum of its parts. I suppose that is the essence of creation.

It’s lunch time and I’m still in my pajamas and slippers. I’m down with flu today and finishing Stradiveri’s Genius. I average about 3 nose-blows per page (on tissues, not the book). I’ll comment on that and my November book pick next post.