Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Top Ten Character Names - Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl





Wow! Can’t believe I haven’t done a TTT since November 2017. Time to rejoin the fun

May 21, 2018:Top Ten Character Names

I knew immediately what #1 would be.

#1  Sal Paradise from On the Road  (I didn’t care for the book, but this is a great name)

--The rest in no particular order

#2  Squire Allworthy from Tom Jones  (an aptronym if ever there were one)

#3  Port Moresby from The Sheltering Sky  (not a great person, but a marvelous name)

#4  Bishop Jean Marie Latour from Death Comes for the Archbishop  (another aptronym, meaning of Latour – The Tower)

#5  Father Joseph Vaillant  (Latour’s right hand man. meaning of Vaillant – Valiant)

#6  Homer Simpson from The Day of the Locust  (D’oh! Long before THE Homer)

#7  Major Major from Catch-22 (as in Major[rank] Major[last name] who was promoted by accident, due of course to his last name)

#8  First Mate Starbuck from Moby Dick  (explaining the mermaid on your coffee cup)

#9  Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird

#10  Huckleberry Finn (do I really need to say what novel this is from?)

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Saturday, May 12, 2018

My Blog's Name in Books

I first saw this at She Reads Novels, but it was created by Fictionphile.

Simple Rules:
1. Spell out your blog’s name.
2. Find a book from your TBR that begins with each letter.
3. Have fun!

So here goes (all classic novels):

Tender is the Night     by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Hard Times     by Charles Dickens
Eye of the Needle     by Ken Follett


O Pioneers!     by Willa Cather
Nero Wolfe     by Rex Stout
Candide     by Voltaire
East of Eden     by John Steinbeck


Little House on the Prairie     by Laura Ingalls Wilder
One Lonely Night     by Mickey Spillane
Scoop      by Evelyn Waugh
Tobacco Road     by Erskine Caldwell


We Have Always Lived in the Castle     by Shirley Jackson
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland     by Lewis Carrol
Nausea     by Jean-Paul Sartre
Decameron     by Giovanni Boccaccio
Ethan Frome     by Edith Wharton
Rabbit (series)     by John Updike
Eugene Onegin     by Alexander Pushkin
Rebecca     by Daphne du Maurier



I also attempted this with books I’ve read. I couldn’t quite pull it off sticking only with classic novels. I don't think Roverandom or Ender’s Game can really be considered  classics, while Evidence that Demands a Verdict is non-fiction. 

The Great Gatsby     by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Heart of Darkness     by Joseph Conrad
Emma     by Jane Austen


On the Road     by Jack Kerouac
Nineteen-Eighty-Four     by George Orwell
Catch-22     by Joseph Heller
Ender’s Game     by Orson Scott Card


Lord of the Flies     by William Golding
One-Hundred Years of Solitude     by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Slaughterhouse Five     by Kurt Vonnegut
To the Lighthouse     by Virginia Woolf


Wuthering Heights     by Emily Brontë
Animal Farm     by George Orwell
Nostromo     by Joseph Conrad
Don Quixote     by Miguel de Cervantes
Every Living Thing     by James Herriot
Remembrance of Things Past     by Marcel Proust
Evidence that Demands a Verdict     by Josh McDowell
Roverandom     by J.R.R. Tolkien


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Thursday, May 10, 2018

My Favorite Classic - The Classics Club Monthly Meme (May 2018)


I’m very happy The Classics Club is reviving the monthly meme and I have to admit that the topic makes sense – it’s an obvious starting place to reboot the meme – But seriously?

What is your favorite classic book? Why?

You might as well ask which of my children is my favorite. Yes, I know that is not a very original phrase. I’m just reusing it because it makes the point so perfectly.

I just can’t.

But I want to support the return of the Monthly Meme, so I’m going to make an honest effort. For starters, I’ve given nine novels 5 Stars: The Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies, The Lord of the Rings, To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone With the Wind, David Copperfield, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Little Prince

I don’t give out 5 Stars easily, so I thought all these deserve mentioning. However, in my opinion, THE BEST of these Best are:

The Grapes of Wrath
Lord of the Flies
To Kill a Mockingbird
Gone With the Wind

Now it gets very hard. If asked, I might name any one of these at any given moment, but I think the one that would most often come to mind – To Kill a Mockingbird.




Why? It made me cry; it made me laugh. It filled me with rage; it filled me with hope. It moved my emotions to every extreme and it made me think. More than that – you may read my review. It isn't necessary to point out that in the review, I name The Lord of the Rings as my favorite; I’ve already confessed to being somewhat fickle on this subject.

So I did it. Now what is your favorite classic?

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Saturday, May 5, 2018

You should be able to guess by now - NOVA this week

Observations from my weekly wanderings, usually in Northern Virginia (NOVA).


If you’ve been reading this blog for very long, you should be able to guess the topic of NOVA this week.

First Saturday in May?, most exciting two minutes in sports? – no? My Old Kentucky Home? – nothing?

The Run for the Roses? 

It is Kentucky Derby Day!

Statue of the Great Barbaro


As usual, in token deference to the literary theme of this blog, I’ll start by commenting on the names of the runners, which are so often creative and intriguing. This year is a bit disappointing in those terms, no names I’m absolutely in love with, but there are a few with a bit of panache. 

Mendelssohn – after the German composer
Magnum Moon – cuz, ya know…MOON
My Boy Jack – I’m not really a fan of this name, but he is the son a horse with a magnificent name – Creative Cause, who won me some pocket change back when
Vino Rosso – (Red Wine)

But my favorite this year, with a subtle literary reference, is Good Magic, whose Dam (momma), was Glinda the Good

But now for what you’re really waiting for – who’s gonna win? Some people pay for this type of info – just sayin.

The favorites will be Justify and Mendelssohn, but I hate betting on favorites cuz they don’t pay. Of course, it doesn’t pay to bet on a horse that doesn’t win either (not quite true as you can bet on a horse to place (2nd) or show (3rd)), but my point, it doesn’t pay to bet on a loser either, no matter how long the odds. But, there are a couple longer odds horses that I believe have a good chance. This is handicapping now, nothing to do with their names; I like Vino Rosso, followed closely by Good Magic.

Vino Rosso because – this is a bit involved – Todd Pletcher (best trainer in the sport today), has four runners in the Derby. His #1 jockey, John Valazquez, could have his pick of any of these four. Valazquez chose to ride Vino Rosso. This says he believes HIS best chance to win is aboard Vino Rosso, and jocks know a thing or two about horses.

Good Magic, oh I don’t know just something unknown. I think he’s sitting on a big race. And he’s already beaten five of the other horses in the Kentucky Derby, but not getting much respect.

By the way, they’re not horses; they’re colts. Sometimes there’s a gelding or a filly in the field, but this year all 20 are colts.

Exacta Box 5-6-7-16-18 can’t miss.

And click HERE for a bit of prose I wrote about the Spectacle of the Kentucky Derby and the Greatest Race horse ever.