The catchphrase Keep Calm & Carry On has been appearing everywhere for the last couple of years.

I knew that it had been devised as a propaganda slogan in WWII Britain, but I did sometimes wonder how I had missed it for most of my life.

Well, now I know.

WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO AND YOU WILL TOO

I have put Northumberland (in “the northeast corner of England”) and this bookshop very near the top of my “Most Want to Travel To” list. (You have one of those, right?)

I think Keep Calm and Carry On has become a mantra for today’s society because it applies in just about every situation. As Rudyard Kipling said: “If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs (…) you’ll be a man, my son.” What do you think?

Bev over at My Reader’s Block is calling for a mountaineering checkpoint – that is, progress on my Mount TBR Challenge.

Truth be told, although I stuck to the TBR Double Dare for these past three months, most of what I read were library books that had been on my Reserved list on December 31st.

Of the “owned” books I read, 3 were picture books, 3 were children’s literature for the Books That Made Me Love Reading challenge, 6 were e-books (do these count?) and 4 were review copies that I received in December. I may count these in this challenge or I may not.

But for now, the only books that I’m recognizing as “REALLY” part of my long-time mountain were:

1. My Financial Career and Other Follies by Stephen Leacock and
2. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I’ve committed to the Kilimanjaro level of this challenge, which means I have to read 50 books from my TBR pile. Whether I count the picture books, children’s rereads, e-books & review copies or not, I clearly need to GET CLIMBING! Thanks for the check-in, Bev!

I’m guest-posting today over on Alyce’s blog At Home With Books. I hope you’ll visit me there and see what I consider the best and worst of Canadian author Richard B. Wright.

It’s the last Tuesday of the month, and time for the monthly poetry blog-along. Since Nova Scotia is shivering today in a frigid early-spring storm with strong northerly winds and blowing snow, I thought I’d make a call for spring by sharing this lovely classic of medieval poetry.

Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine?
Cryst, if my love were in my armes
And I in my bedde again!

Wikipedia says that this poem was used as lyrics to an early 16th century song which first appeared with words in a partbook of around 1530. Historians believe that the lyrics are a few hundred years older (‘Middle English’) and the words are a fragment of medieval poetry. (Here’s a sung version).

In a Globe and mail column several years ago, Fraser Sutherland pointed out that “twenty-five of [the poem’s] 26 words (the exception is “Christ”) have Old English, ultimately Germanic roots […] Twenty-four of the 26 words have one syllable, and the longest word has only seven characters.”

But, oh, what the poet did with those few letters! I have spent over 40 years wondering why these lovers were separated, and arriving at different conclusions at various times in my life.

What about you? Why do you think the author was apart from his (or her) love?

Last week marked the 160th anniversary of the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe in novel form. This seems like an appropriate time to give you my thoughts on the book (which I read in January.) And will you think me an utter barbarian to mark this anniversary by saying that I didn’t think Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a great book?

Nearly everyone is familiar with most, if not all, of the plot and the characters of this classic. The main character Tom, a slave, is sold by his current owner, Kentucky famer Arthur Shelby, to pay debts. He is bought by Augustine St. Clair of New Orleans, a benevolent man who recognizes the evil in slavery but is not willing to relinquish the wealth it brings him.

Tom befriends St. Claire’s almost-too-good-to-be-true young daughter Eva, who dies, causing her father to determine to free his slaves. Before he follows through on this, he’s killed in a bar altercation. Mrs. St. Clair reneges on her late husband’s promise and sells the household slaves to a trader. Tom ends up with Simon Legree. Legree is a tyrant who eventually has Tom whipped to death because he stood up to Legree and refused to stop practicing the Christianity he was taught at the Shelbys’.

There is also a subplot involving Eliza, a fellow slave of Tom’s. who overhears the plan to sell Tom & her son Harry and makes an escape to Canada.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was a puritanical Christian and an active abolitionist, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin reflects her values. The main theme of the book is an anti-slavery message. Stowe felt that “the most dreadful part of slavery (…) is the outrages of feelings and affections—separating of families, for example”, and she portrayed slavery as evil and immoral and as fundamentally incompatible with Christian theology.

That theology provides the secondary theme for the novel. It is this ancillary subject that gives Uncle Tom’s Cabin a “preachy” feel. At times, Stowe changes the voice of the story to be able to insert sermons on the saving nature of Christianity, and the evils of slavery. I’m not opposed to either message but the preaching irritated me at times. Especially did her Christians Tom and Eva have their heads in the clouds—and both received ‘visions’ before they died. That aspect was overly melodramatic for my taste.

Therein lies the biggest problem. This book is written in the style of a nineteenth-century sentimental novel. These types of books are characterized by wordiness (extreme at times) and outrages of feeling, both traits ever present in Stowe’s masterpiece. In fact, some critics have gone so far as to say that, if it had not been for the anti-slavery theme, Uncle Tom’s Cabin would have been just another sentimental women’s-lit novel of its day.

A second problem with this novel is, of course, the stereotypes it helped to popularize – the loving, all-knowing mammy or the pickaninny image of black children, set by Topsy. Stowe makes such sweeping generalizations as “cooking (is) an indigenous talent of the African race”, “the negro is naturally more impressible to religious sentiment than the white”, and “they are a race that children will cling to and assimilate with”. Uncle Tom himself had been criticized for his long-suffering devotion to his white master, and accused of “selling out” to whites. To be fair, and in fact, it’s a different master-slave relationship that drives Tom to suffer stoically as he does—that of his master Jesus Christ.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the top selling novel in the US in the entire nineteenth century. It was second only to the Bible in total sales. A book read by hundreds of thousands, and that spawned plays seen by millions most certainly affected the overall thought of society, for good or for bad.

Whether Lincoln did or did not actually say to the author “so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war”, it’s clear Stowe’s novel strongly influenced American society. It deserves to be read for that reason, if for no other.

This satisfies a whole passel of reading challenges including What’s In a Name, Classics with a Twist, Southern Literature, eBooks Reading Challenge, New Authors and Mammoth Book, as well as some alphabetical type challenges.

Kindle edition:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin FREE

Katrina over at Callapidder Days is hosting her sixth annual Spring Reading Thing. It’s a fun, low-pressure reading challenge open to anyone and everyone. It will take place March 20th-June 20th (which is, not-so-coincidentally, the spring of 2012).

To participate, I need to create a list of some books I’d like to read or finish this spring. I have to list specific books. I can feel free to set some additional reading, but that’s optional.

Until March 31st, I’m still participating in C.B.’s Double Dare where the rule is that from Jan 1 to April 1, 2012, I can read only books that were in my TBR pile on December 31st. (Library books were allowed only if they were in my possession or on my holds list at 12:00 A.M. on Jan. 1.)

But it’s that “Library Holds List Loophole” that’s kept this challenge from being as effective as I had hoped. I thought I thinned that list in December, but it seems that there’s always something (completely within the rules) from the library demanding my attention and keeping me from making any real headway on Mount TBR.

So for the Spring Reading Thing, I’m committing to read a number of books from my December 31st TBR pile. Two are chunksters; and since there are still a couple of books coming from the library, I’ve included those. AND I’m including some books that were wins since January and that I’ve been anxiously waiting to start.

Currently reading:
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

From Mount TBR
White River Junctions by Dave Norman
The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
The Canadian Food Guide by Pierre and Janet Berton
Stephen Leacock: His Remarkable Life by Albert Moritz and Theresa Moritz
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Mapping of Love and Death (Maisie Dobbs, Book 7) by Jacqueline Winspear
One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane

Library Books:
Broken Music: A Mystery by Marjorie Eccles
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor
Th1rteen r3asons why by Jay Asher

New arrivals (wins, gifts & ARCs)
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
African Love Stories: An Anthology edited by Ama Ata Aidoo
Oxford Messed Up by Andrea Kayne Kaufman
Manners for Women by Mrs. Humphrey
Murder: A Crafty Business by Lila Phillips

I’m doing my level best to have these all read by June 20th. I’m also committing to keeping up with my personal Bible reading schedule. Let’s see how I do!

What about you? What are your spring reading plans?

If I had any wall space to hang a poster, I’d be sending hints about this out to all my friends and loved ones. As it is, I have to make do with recording it here on my blog and Pinterest. [sigh]

By Grant Snider, available as a poster. Via Bookshelf.

The Saturday Snapshot meme is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. Visit her blog to see more great photos or add your own.

My husband was on a business trip near Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland last week and snapped lots of photos of caribou. I think they’re an unusual combination: they’re a type of deer, yet have the shoulders of a moose, and legs and a head that look like a horse (to me anyway).

What do you think?

More of the park. They don’t call Newfoundland “The Rock” for nothing.

The Classics Reading Challenge hosted by November’s Autumn is the one I’m calling “Classics with a Twist” – the twist being that on the fourth of each month, Katherine posts a prompt to act as a basis for my discussion of the classic I’m currently reading.

This month, the prompt is LOCATION – and the classic I’ve most recently finished is Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

In 1845, Thoreau spent two years living in a small cabin in the woods near Walden Pond, Connecticut Massachusetts. (oops! See comments.) In his classic discourse, Walden, the author discusses in some depth the economic theory behind his experiment in living, as well as minute observations about nature, including the pond itself.

After the introductory essays, Thoreau doesn’t so much introduce the location, as he does analyze it throughout the book. In fact, location seems inseparable to the book. It is, after all, called Walden.

This is how Walden Pond looked about the time Thoreau lived there. It would have been nicer to see this in summer when there were leaves on the trees – that is how I imagined it even though Thoreau talks in depth about winter and spring at the pond.

Would the book have worked as well if Walden had been located somewhere else? The southern US? Above the Arctic Circle? The Australian outback? Surprisingly (to me, once I started considering this), I think the basic premise of the book – which was Thoreau’s experiment in opting out of established society – would be as strong no matter where it was set. Certainly, the description of the changing seasons would have been replaced by other observations of the natural cycles.

What do you think? Is Walden Pond inseparable from the book Walden?

A former owner had this streetlight installed on our property. I’m glad he did because otherwise it’s awfully dark coming from the car to the house, especially on moonless nights.

I snapped this last night as the light shone through the snow-covered but otherwise bare branches of the tree.

Emmanuelle’s challenge over at Words and Peace requires me to pick up and read books that were published in the first years of my life.

I originally thought I would complete this challenge by reading adult books, but the challenge logo puts me in mind of snuggling up with a book as a child – and so I’m reading some of the books I might have read then.

My birth year, 1954, saw the publication of Horton Hears A Who!, by Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Seuss. This is Seuss’ 11th book and the second (and last) in the series featuring the lovable elephant.

In the book, Horton’s huge ears, which have hearing superior to all of the other animals, hear a small voice emanating from a dust speck that floats by. The speck of dust is actually a tiny planet, home to a city called Who-ville, inhabited by microscopic-sized inhabitants known as Whos. He rescues the dust by placing it on a clover, but the news that Horton is hearing voices spreads throughout the jungle. In order to save themselves, the Whos must make themselves heard to the other animals, and that requires the efforts of every Who in Whoville.

Dr. Seuss’ books are beloved for their lively rhymes, wacky vocabulary, and beyond-imaginative drawings.

And while kids are enjoying all that, they’re learning life lessons. In Horton hears a Who, these include:
• the importance of not giving up, no matter how tired you might be;
• the value of each person’s contribution, no matter how small, to the overall effort of the group (although this bordered on promoting nationalism); and, of course,
• a strong anti-prejudice message, that could be applied to size, color, (dis)ability, or any other factor which could set anyone apart as “different”.

Geisel’s birthday, March 2, has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative on reading created by the National Education Association. Although I’m not a big celebrator of birthdays, I thought it an appropriate day to feature a book that I knew and loved as a child.

This past week, I mailed an animated video of Horton Hears a Who! to my grandson Steven. I hope that after he’s watched it, he’ll be open to hearing the story read to him over the phone.

In addition to the Books Published in the First Years of My Life challenge, this also qualifies for the Illustrated Year’s Picture Book Challenge, and several TBR & off-the-shelf challenges.

Afterthought: Wikipedia says:
Geisel’s pen name is regularly pronounced /ˈsjuːs/ SEWSS, an anglicized pronunciation inconsistent with his German surname.

He himself noted that it rhymed with “voice” (his own pronunciation being /ˈsɔɪs/ SOYSS) and Alexander Liang (his collaborator on the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern) wrote of him:
You’re wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn’t rejoice
If you’re calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice[37] (or Zoice)

Geisel eventually switched to the anglicized pronunciation because it “evoked a figure advantageous for an author of children’s books to be associated with—Mother Goose” and because most people used this pronunciation.

So what’s YOUR favorite Dr. Seuss book?

For Canadian readers:
Horton Hears A Who!

I got bogged down in the middle of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden this month (it’ll be in March’s batch since it’s not yet finished), and trying to catch up with reviews for the books I read in January. Add to that a shortened month, and the result is that my reading list is a little thin for February.

I’m trying hard to get caught up in my reviews because I don’t want to be playing catch-up for the rest of the year.

Here’s what I managed to read this month:

1. My Financial Career and Other Follies by Stephen Leacock
This collection of Leacock’s short stories written between 1895 and 1943 is the first five star book I’ve read this year. I loved, loved, loved it. Watch for the review. In the meantime, here’s a little taste. (5 stars)

2. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Macbeth is one of the Shakespeare plays that I am most familiar with. I read it for the Reading Shakespeare challenge which may have fallen by the wayside. I’m waiting a few more days for Risa’s prompts for the review. (4½ stars)

3. The Secret River by Kate Grenville
Set in Australia in the early nineteenth century, this is the story of William and Sarah Thornhill, a fictionalized account of the author’s ancestors’ settlement. (4 stars) I’ll be reviewing this in tandem with:

4. Searching for the Secret River by Kate Grenville
The non-fiction account of Grenville’s research of her family tree and then the book The Secret River. A look into the birth of a novel.(4 stars)

5. Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools by Victoria Twead
Subtitled “Tuck into a slice of Andalucían Life”. Non-fiction account of how two fifty-something Brits quit that rainy isle and retired to a mountain village in sunny Spain. Intelligent & amusing – plus luscious-sounding recipes! (4 stars)

6. Trixie Belden & The Red Trailer Mystery by Julie Campbell
This is another of the Books That Made Me Love Reading. It’s the second in this classic series that, while never achieving the cult status of Nancy Drew, had many, many loyal fans, of which I was one. (4 stars)

7. A Prairie Boy’s Winter by William Kurelek
Non-fiction illustrated memoir of winter on a Canadian prairie farm during the 1930s and 1940s. Kurelek is better known as an artist than a writer, and this book is really a narrative to explain a series of his paintings. (4 stars)

8. Seeing Trees by Nancy Ross Hugo & Robert Llewellyn
Subtitled ‘Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees’, this non-fiction book “invites readers to watch trees with the care and sensitivity that birdwatchers watch birds.” Llewellyn’s photographs are breath-taking and the information is fascinating, but only one of the ten trees looked at in detail lives where I live. Four stars minus half a star for not being relevant to me. (3½ stars)

9. A Shortage of Bodies by Dr. Gary D. McKay
This is the first novel for McKay who has co-authored 14 books and parent/teacher education programs. I think he should have stayed with the non-fiction. I’ll explain in my review. (2½ stars)

Is there anything in particular in my list you’re looking forward to hearing about?

For Canadian readers:
My Financial Career and Other Follies
Macbeth
The Secret River
Searching For The Secret River
Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools
Trixie Belden & The Red Trailer Mystery
A Prairie Boy’s Winter
Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees
A Shortage of Bodies

Kindle editions:
My Financial Career and Other Follies
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Searching For The Secret River: The Story Behind the Bestselling Novel
Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools
Trixie Belden & The Red Trailer Mystery
A Shortage of Bodies