Books I Have Loved -- narrative part one.

I find listing just 10 books much too limiting. Even sticking to only fiction, I cannot find a decent cut-off...
So, instead, taking a leaf out of Tiberius T. Kirk's book, I will "re-program" the question: instead of naming 'a book', a couple of suggestions are going to be a novelist. For me, when a book/story moves me, I seek out the author's other works and invariably, they move me too.
So, onwards :--
1. Jules Verne 's 'Journey to the Centre of the World' is an amazing fantasy. The descriptions are so vivid I could imagine the subterranean world as if I was watching a film. I read it when I was 12; loved it; saw that he had written more , so I searched them out and read them all.

2. Sherlock Holmes: saw Hounds of the Baskerville on TV, again when I was about 12 or 13. I went to the library and saw Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fantastic output. I loved the short stories.
I recommend Silver Blaze, I think that is the title. It has the famous sleuth's comment: "the curious incident of the dog in the night." (Hint: It did not bark. ) This simple but ingenious solution to the crime has been copied numerous times. It came up in a crime show on TV recently; It is the basis of Michael Haddon's novel and now a play.
A Study in Scarlet is the first story that introduced the public to the famous sleuth. It is great and also been filmed dozens of times.

3. The Rubiyatt translated b Fitzgerald.  My mum gave me a beautiful, illustrated version when I was 20. The language Fitzgerald used is amazing; it is transcendental.
A loaf, a book, a jug of wine and thou
and paradise is enow.
Also a book that is constantly quoted, but many are unaware of the source of their quote.

4. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens. I had to read this for my 'O' Level in English Literature and could not believe that I actually enjoyed the  book. Somehow I managed to write  a decent essay on it to pass. Thank goodness I did not have questions on Silas Marner another set text; I hated that one and have never gone back to it, whereas, I have re-read Great Expectations as an adult and still love it.

5. Space Merchants - Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth. This is a Sci-Fi novel from the 1950's where governments are irrelevant; Corporations rule the world and Advertising Agencies are the powerful manipulators of the population's desires and intentions. A prescient novel of our Global Economy of the C21st.

Books I have loved

1 -- Jules Verne all his books
2 -- Sherlock Holmes. Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
3 -- The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam. translated by Edward Fitzgerald
4 -- Great Expectations. Charles Dickens
5 -- The Space Merchants by Pohl & Kornbluth
6 -- Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
7 -- By Grand Central Station I Sat Down & Wept by Elizabeth Smart
8 -- Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
9 -- Winter: A Berlin Family by Len Deighton
10 - If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Cavino
11 - Dune by Frank Herbert

just can not make a top 10 list.. this 10+

My Halifax -- winter & fridays!

Ah, don't you love winter in Canada ? Ok, perhaps not love.. the piles of stacked up snow make it difficult to have fun, as it reduces the number of available parking spots. Certainly for me that becomes an issue as I need to get as near to the door as possible. In addition, the freeze, melt, freeze adds a glaze to the spots that appear clear of the fluffy stuff so that my cane slides all over the place and guess who slides with it -- and not very gracefully unfortunately!
Here I am again on a sunny Friday indulging in a Boomburger meal.
The great burgers (with hot sauce) and PEI potato fries make the effort worthwhile.

This is Propaganda by Tino Sehgal

THIS IS PROPAGANDA 


British-born, Berlin-based artist Tino Sehgal turns art storage on its head. Why? As performative work – executed not by Sehgal himself but by his trained ‘interpreters’ – it is completely immaterial. Unlike other artists in this field, Sehgal also stipulates that no record whatsoever remains of the work – no photos, no recordings, no press releases; only the experience. That rule even extends to institutional sales agreements of his piece – a sale like that of This is Propaganda, which Tate bought in 2005, is verbally executed. The artist, the buyer, a lawyer and a notary are present; all rules and regulations around the piece are committed to a designated person’s memory. So This is Propaganda (which sees a gallery guard singing “This is propaganda, you know, you know, this is propaganda, Tino Sehgal, This is propaganda, 2002” to every visitor who enters the space) exists only in the mind. Imagine that.


Fascinating- modern art, concept art, is art about the creative process or is "art" the outcome?

I don't know, but I do know artists themselves are interesting.

(Courtesy BBC website.)

Afterwards by Thomas Hardy

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, 
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, 
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say, 
'He was a man who used to notice such things'? 

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink, 
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight 
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think, 
'To him this must have been a familiar sight.' 

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, 
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, 
One may say, 'He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, 
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.' 

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, 
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees 
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more, 
'He was one who had an eye for such mysteries'? 

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom 
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings, 
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom, 
'He hears it not now, but used to notice such things'?




Read this as a schoolboy in England. Had a wonderful youth traversing Hardy's "Wessex".
As a kid in school, the poet's desire to be remembered struck me as an idea I could grasp. Alot of poetry , back then, was a foreign land for which I did not have a passport.

Mik's Halifax (2014) B

Here is a sight for sore eyes on a damp day. One of my favourite burger spots in Halifax; A new addition to our city and the developments at the top of Larry Uteck. I believe Boom Burger started in PEI and this is their first foray into an off island location. Naturally, great fries, too.

Mik's Halifax (nov.2014) A

So many people love the autumn season (Fall, in North America) especially because of the beautiful colours in the foliage in our northern latitudes. If you live or travel on streets with leaves that go through this annual parade you are blessed.

However, I have always felt that there is a special mood in the days after the peak of the colours have passed, but not all the leaves have fallen off yet. The streets have that sheen to them that I love.

Here are a couple of examples. Sorry that they are not high quality photos; they were taken from my car in Halifax with my cell phone, (mobile!)