The Island of Books | 
pickA very interesting novel about the abbey on Mount Saint Michel. The writing is a fusion of history, mixed with fictional stories of a man who came to the abbey after the death of his lover and the story of modern day writer and her daughter as she tries to write this book. I enjoyed the entanglement of different times and people and places. A beautiful book to read.
#agameoffavorites
Dominique Fortier, who wrote the historical fiction books The Island of Books (my fave) and On the Proper Use of Stars, said in a CBC interview that her “Ultimate Literary Event” would include Marguerite Yourcenar. Since Ms. Fortier didn‘t name a specific book, I chose her book of poems entitled Fires.
Ms. Fortier‘s ultimate literary event also included Romain Gary, Victor Hugo, Cervantes, and Emily Dickinson.
so-soFinished my tour of France for #BackPackEurope with The Island of Books. While I didn't love this read, I did the love the rich history and legends surrounding Mont St. Michel the book described. The respect and reverence for books the monks in this story held was also incredibly beautiful. The way the author described the beautiful architecture built over thousands of years by thousands of hands adds visiting to my bucket list.
@JenP @BookwormM
Exploring Mont St. Michel in France for #BackPackEurope. The island has served as a source of fortification (where it was never conquered during the Hundred Years War), a prison under King Louis XI and an Abbey. The island draws in over 3 million tourists a year now.
pick#BackpackEurope I am leaving France and heading to Spain as I finished the tagged book today. This was a difficult book to review.
If you‘re so inclined, you can read about my adventure in France on my blog: http://wanderinglynn.com/2018/07/14/au-revoir-france-hola-spain/
If you just want to see what I thought of the tagged book, check out my review on GR:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2455621197
Sitting out in my complex‘s dog area reading while Dexter enjoys the warm, but surprisingly low humidity, weather. He loves being outside. #dogsoflitsy
Two great things about the #BackpackEurope reading challenge: (1) making me find and read fabulous authors I may have not otherwise known, and (2) getting me to update my blog on a more frequent basis.
New post about starting #BackpackEurope Week 2: http://wanderinglynn.com/2018/07/10/vive-le-france/
#BackpackEurope update week 2
Yesterday I said adieu to England & took the Brittany Ferry to Le Havre, Normandy, France.
I‘m starting the tagged book & will visit Mont Saint-Michel, which features in the book:
“No matter what angle you look at it from, you can‘t see exactly where the rock ends and the church begins.”
#bookmail + #jbmail makes for a great day!
Thank you @knittedgnome for the cute cat card! ☺️
And now that I have the tagged book, I can begin visit to France for #BackpackEurope.
My #BackpackEurope week 1 wrap-up is on my blog, including my review of Wuthering Heights. I‘m off to France now and the tagged book.
http://wanderinglynn.com/2018/07/08/backpackeurope-week-1-wrap-up/
Richly illustrated, a book of hours from the Middle Ages was intended for laypeople to follow the Liturgy of the Hours, the different services that punctuated the day and night. This sort of book is cruelly missing from our era: a sort of vade mecum to constantly remind us how to live not happily but peacefully.
(Image: detail from a psalter in the Bodleian Library.)
The most difficult thing in trying to write about the past is not trying to find the lost science, faith or legends, or making gargoyles & stone carvers reappear; it is forgetting the world as we know it. It means, in the present day, erasing everything that was not yet, everything that existed but escaped being seen or heard. How do you do without half of what we know & not suddenly feel half-deaf & half-blind?
Gutted walls, collapsed vaults, ceilings burned, towers levelled, passages filled, stairs condemned, clock towers felled, rebuilt, crumbled in ruins; like a manuscript scribbled over ten times that bears the remnants of stories, traces of scratching and illegible characters, Mont Saint-Michel is an immense palimpsest set in rock.
(Internet photo: Normandy tourism)
pickMain character is a place: the French island of Mont St Michel. There‘s also a writer (the author?) finding her way back to writing after childbirth, & a 15th-c painter finding his way back to art after devastating loss. Plus, an abbey library, subject to the collapse of stone walls, invading armies, severe weather, religious politics & individual whims.
Verdict: as quiet & introspective as a cloistered garden, told in poetic, dreamy fragments.
‘Blue‘ comes from the Old French blo, which means pale. Before the Late Middle Ages there was no word to designate blue in European languages. It was considered a shade of white, black or green, depending on whether it was light blue, dark blue or aqua blue. People at the time lived under a black sky and fished white fish from a green sea—or they lived under a green sky and fished black fish from a white sea.
“Cervantes and Shakespeare never met, but they both died on April 23, 1616. This is why April 23 is World Book Day. But the fact that at the beginning of the 17th c Spain had already adopted the Gregorian calendar, while England was still using the Julian calendar, was overlooked. The two greatest authors who ever lived indeed died on the same date, but ten days apart. It‘s what you might call a problem of translation.”
pickThis is just beautiful writing. The story is simply told but contains quiet thoughts on dealing with a broken heart, value of art, fear of technology, power, education, losing and finding oneself. Reading the book is a pilgrimage. As Fortier says, the book is not the destination but the midpoint--how does one leave the Island? How does one change their life?
Cozy Christmas night. A quote from current read is a gift to you, Littens: "Before houses of stone and wood, we live in cabins of words...we say I love you to feel warm; we say orange and we sniff our fingers; we say it's raining for the pleasure of staying inside, curled up next to the light of the word book."
A jammed book store on Sanibel Island with great prices, and literally piles of books... Gene‘s Bookstore. I could spend days here.
Another bookstore, just as lovely. Island books in Corolla, North Carolina.
We're not on an island but there's water out the back and I surely have books! Spring break read #2.
The quickly changing pov's in this is a bit of a challenge with no direction but I have a review copy.
I honestly can't stop thinking about this books. I just keep flicking back through it for the sheer pleasure of the writing of a kindred spirit 💙💚💛💜❤💖💟
#fortheloveofbooks
pickA thoughtful, beautiful book that weaves the story of the author with the history of the library of Mont Saint-Michel and a fifteenth-century portraitist who shelters there on the eve of Gutenberg's printing revolution. A real treat.
I didn't know this and I definitely should! #bookfacts #worldbookday
