The Alps: A Human History from Hannibal to Heidi and Beyond | 
#wondrouswednesday (for another 8 minutes, sneaking this one in under the wire!) Thanks @TheSpineView & @Eggs for the tag!
1. Tagged author. I loved this book so much I bought all the books he‘s written
2. Rebel; The Year of Magical Thinking (because I tend to be optimistic); Fahrenheit 451 (because I‘m always hot!)
3. Reading: to escape the moment; audiobooking: to do the housework
#two4tuesday
1. Tagged! That was easy!
2. Heck yea!! I love asking Littens for recommendations!
Thanks @TheSpineView for the tag!
1) homegrown tomatoes ❤️🍅
2) tagged, not so much “set” but the author does his driving tour of the Alps in the summer ❤️ 🏔
3) yes, dolphins, most recently in a fjord in Norway ❤️🐬
#thoughtfulthursday
Thanks for the tag @MoonWitch94 !
Join in @freeatlast1137 @TheSpineView @Scochrane26 ?
pickWell, now I‘m annoyed. Every blurb of this book mentions #liechtenstein, but in the book he doesn‘t actually go there...😠
Anyway, he did go to #slovenia (not for long) so I‘m counting that for #readingeurope2020!
The book was interesting, rather irreverent and amusing and not a serious travel guide. I didn‘t love the narrator though - I thought his tone was a bit monotonous, which meant he lost my attention a few times. Still a pick though.
This morning‘s project - one giant lasagne, finished. (It makes 8 portions). Listening to the tagged book, on the recommendation of @Texreader - thanks Karen!
I‘m liking the book, but not loving the narrator yet, although I just looked him up and he‘s won awards for reading audiobooks, so must just be me.... 😳
Now I‘m starving after spending all morning #audiocooking - it must be nearly lunchtime?!
Whoohoo! I sent the author of the tagged book a fan email and he responded. I recommended a photograph accompaniment to the book but alas that won‘t happen. And I suggested he check out Litsy! 😊
Here it is, the last post for this book. The author struggled with collective names for the motorcyclists who crossed his path, so he created his own, shown here and I loved it. There was also:
-a schnitzel of Austrian bikers (& a mini-schnitzel later on)
-a goulash of Hungarian bikers
-a bratwurst for short (we‘d come across so many by then)
And from this Canadian (now living in Rhode Island) author:
-an assault rifle of American tourists
pickTraveling through all the major passes in the Alps, we learn the deeply researched history—human & geographic—of the Alps. Learn what books were written & where, the same for movies made, all with a hilarious wit (but serious when necessary) referencing the most ancient & most modern of events, & the author‘s own misadventures on the road. I was endlessly fascinated & learned so many new things. Excellent, 5 stars! #readingeurope2020 ⬇️
I‘m so sad to say I‘ve finished this book. I don‘t recall ever being sad for a nonfiction book to end because they come to a natural conclusion. Not so this one. The author could have just kept driving around the Alps and finding more stories and history to tell. This is an incredible, truly great, well-written book that may be my fave read of 2020 so far. Review and more to come.
When books collide. Caesar was assassinated in the chapter I finished today in Cleopatra: A Life and the author in the tagged book is now near the mountain range known as the Julian Alps, named after the self-same man. Apparently this happens with nonfiction books too! #cleopatraalife
Have you ever heard or been to the mountain range called the Dolomites? I love this book! I just learned the Dolomites are actually a coral reef, formed back when Europe was submerged under an ocean! So I had to look them up on the internet. So beautiful!!
Do you do this? When you love an author so much, you‘re determined to read all his books? I‘m loving the tagged book, and the topics he has covered are right up my alley. So I‘m going to look for them.
Looks like our author is finally (but slowly) moving away from talking about the Nazis and regaining some humor. Here he‘s decided not to snap photos of Himmler‘s home which “would result only in postcards from the hedge.”
Ok the book has necessarily become darker and lo and behold, tomorrow is the anniversary of the Night of the Long Knives, when as the author explains, Germany learned its democratically elected leadership will henceforward engage without punishment in executions of its own people (even if those people probably deserved executing but preferably after a trial).
It‘s been a depressing day so of course I‘m depressed this book is leaving my most recent ancestors‘ country of origin, Switzerland (early 1900s), and now moving into Austria and Germany. Heaven knows a huge contingent of my ancestors are from Germany but I guess since the most recent immigrant was from the 1850s, I‘m having a hard time getting excited about it. But I have faith in this author. He‘s hilarious, so I travel on with him.
As the author of the tagged book leaves Grindelwald, Switzerland, he makes this delightful “discovery.”
A number of Irish manuscripts reside in the monastic library mentioned in my previous post. I love the notes the copyists added to the manuscripts:
“My hand aches.”
And my favorite: “Tonight is a stormy night so we don‘t have to be afraid of the Vikings.”
I love this description of Switzerland‘s St. Gallen‘s monastic library, “a center of European learning back when the Dark Ages were pitch black.”
Yay! We‘ve finally made it to Switzerland, the reason I‘m reading this book, #readingeurope2020 #Switzerland & my most recent immigrant ancestors (about 1905) were Swiss. The author started in France, spent time in Italy, and is now in Switzerland. We will stay here awhile, and then it looks like we are on to Austria (a perfect book for this challenge) It‘s a fantastic book, with so many quotable and laugh-out-loud moments. #joysofjune #readathon
It‘s going to be a crazy hot day, but this morning not a cloud in the sky and lots of blooms and a baby lime in my yard. I‘ve been reading/enjoying immensely the tagged book this morning. Unfortunately the mosquitoes are out in force too so no reading outside. #joysofjune #readathon
“I knew in advance that the English would be here in force... they basically own the place. At an Italian pizzeria the night before, my Transylvanian waitress put the number of English proprietors ... at 80%. Then...in a Mexican bar, my Swedish server trimmed that to 50%. At the tourist office, a young Irishwoman cut his number by half. Whatever the true figure, they all agreed there were too many foreigners...”
This author is a hoot!
“A sign flashes past: MUSEE DE L‘HORLOGERIE ET DU DÉCOLLETAGE. Once again I am flummoxed. The translation in my head—Museum of Watchmaking and Plunging Necklines—seems an unlikely pairing.” ?
I got to visit my parents for the first time since Thanksgiving. They live a few towns away from the client I met with on my road trip. So dad‘s growing sunflowers now and they were gorgeous. And there was a wild turkey hen just waltzing across the front yard. During a small bit of insomnia I read more about the Alps. So wonderful to see my parents. They are doing well. 😃
I love this author‘s style and sense of humor.
For example: “the French language...completely loses its mind once the number seventy is reached.... But the asylum doors are fully breached when the number eighty arrives.”
My husband knows French and both my kids study French but they‘ve never told me one had to use math when counting past 70! No thank you! 🤣
When you go through a mountain pass, “[y]ou may have passed a national boundary, a ‘lard line‘ (pork fat vs. olive oil)…”
I‘ve already learned something new! There‘s a lard line that runs across Europe! 😃
Twenty years ago my mom & I went to Switzerland. My g-grandparents emigrated from a lovely town in the rolling hills of northern Switzerland, about an hour west of Zurich. We met family & took photos of records a newfound cousin shared with us. Then we toured Switzerland, taking a bus then a train through the Alps to Zermatt, where our balcony overlooked the Matterhorn. I‘m excited to “visit” again via this book. #readingeurope2020 #Switzerland
My daughter and I broke down and went to two bookstores today. Here‘s my haul. Not as many as usual but we were social distancing and left when we both got uncomfortable. A father was only halfway wearing his mask slid mostly down his face and letting his kids race the aisles. 😡
pickTravel & history, animals, languages & people (past & present) of the Alps. Details like a mountain named Wank; a snowboarding school at a monastery; a man using 3 sharp whistle calls to summon his wife in a crowded cathedral. Playful wordsmithing: "a towering triangle of geological gigantism." A little too much mention of flimsy guardrails & oblivious Dutch travellers. Entertaining #audiobook smoothly narrated by Robert Fass.
Things I've learned about St Bernards in this history of the Alps:
- They never carried little barrel flasks. (The origin of that myth is peculiar & too long to recount here.)
- They suffer from inbreeding (& were saved by crossbreeding with Newfoundland dogs).
- They've been replaced by German & Belgian shepherds in mountain rescue missions because of limited space in helicopters.
It's just as well that I didn't read this book before I went to the top of Mont Blanc last month: "Unfortunately, I have done my research on aerial tramways, and know of the disasters to which they have been prey."
I've been #audiogardening in my food forest - AKA my front yard - before the day gets too warm. It's been lovely seeing postings by other Littens of their homes, so here's mine. When I bought this Edmonton bungalow 31 years ago, this was all grass except for a mature spruce, a dying birch, and a lilac. Now, I've added apples, cherries, hazelnuts, raspberries and other edibles. 🇨🇦
