Merry Christmas to All

I was introduced to this beautiful Christmas song last Sunday at my church. I wish I had a recording of the more contemplative version that the worship team shared with us on Sunday, but this video is good in its own way. Canticle of the Turning is a song written by Rory Cooney based on the Magnificat (Song of Mary). The melody is the popular Irish tune “Star of the County Down” which first appeared as the song “Gilderoy” from Pills to Purge Melancholy by Thomas d’Urfey, published between 1698 and 1720.

I hope all of my readers are having a lovely and joyful Christmas. Don’t forget to come back on Saturday to link to your end of the year book lists at the Saturday Review of Books.

Praise be to the Almighty, in His time, the world is about to turn.

Cybils YA Nonfiction Trio

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb.

The Nazi Hunters tells the story of how, in Argentina in May, 1960, a crack Israeli spy team captured the infamous Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews and other people during World War II, and took him back to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. The story could have been an exciting and thought-provoking read, but unfortunately the pacing of the story was uneven and off-putting. I never got to know the members of the Israeli team well enough to remember which was which, and the author was unwilling or probably unable to help to understand the mind and motives of Eichmann and his family members either. This book is adapted from Bascomb’s adult nonfiction book, Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World’s Most Notorious Nazi. Maybe more somehow would have been better, and I would have developed an interest in these characters by reading the adult version.I don’t think teens will be intrigued by this YA abridgment, and I’d point anyone who was interested in another direction.

Wild Animal Neighbors: Sharing Our Urban World by Ann Downer.

The author focuses on various animals, one per chapter, that have adapted to living in urban areas and tell the story of how they have managed to co-exist with humans in cities –or not. The animals Ms Downer highlights are: bears, raccoons, mountain lions, crows, coyotes, flying foxes, turtles, and alligators. The alligator chapter interested me the most because the gators in question live and sometimes stroll down the sidewalks in Houston where I live. However, her diagnosis of the “alligator problem” seems inadequate: “For the residents of Houston, the best weapon against gators may prove to be greater understanding and appreciation of these amazing creatures—and a lot of caution and common sense.” Really? I can agree with the “caution and common sense” part, but I plan to follow the Pearland (suburb of Houston) Parks and Recreation Department instructions: “Don’t tease the gators, don’t feed the gators, and if you hear an alligator hiss, you’re too close.” My appreciation for alligators, and other wild animals in cities, will be strictly photographic in nature, thank you. Other people’s photographs.

Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a World War II Special Agent by Pearl Witherington Cornioley.

If one were researching the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and/or the French Resistance during World War II, this memoir would certainly be a helpful resource. However, just for reading, it’s a little dry, and the author leaves out key transitions and information that would make her story more understandable. There’s an odd sort of summary at the beginning of each chapter, and then the chapter itself backtracks in time and fills in more detail for each episode in the life of this intrepid heroine. Fans of Code Name Verity might enjoy reading about a real WWII agent and comparing her adventures to the fictional ones. I just wish someone else had written and organized the story of Ms. Cornioley’s life as a resistance fighter to make it more coherent and more evocative of the spirt of the times.

The 22nd Gift of Christmas in Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1820

From Daniel Webster’s Plymouth Oration, delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December 22, 1820:

Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more widely; in the full conviction, that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity.

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating power of God, who shall stand here a hundred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country, during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New England’s advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas.

We would leave for the consideration of those who shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote every thing which may enlarge the understandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed affections, which, running backward and warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of being.

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed.

We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth!

Note that Mr. Webster assumed that future generations would value certain ideals: science, learning, good government, religious liberty, domestic life, rationality, truth, hope, and most of all Christianity. If he were to travel through time and see us here, what would he think of our stewardship of the pleasant land of the fathers and of the blessings of liberty and of the immortal hope of Christianity?

Today’s Gifts from Semicolon:
A story: about Daniel Webster, just for fun: The Devil and Daniie Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet.

A song: On this day in 1808 Ludwig van Beethoven conducted and performed in concert at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto (performed by Beethoven himself) and Choral Fantasy (with Beethoven at the piano).

A birthday: Edward Arlington Robinson, b.1869.

A booklist: Deliberate Reader with 31 Days of Great Nonfiction.

'Tombstone of Louisa P. Daugherty' photo (c) 2013, Bob Shrader - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/A verse:
A Happy Man by Edward Arlington Robinson

When these graven lines you see,
Traveller, do not pity me;
Though I be among the dead,
Let no mournful word be said.

Children that I leave behind,
And their children, all were kind;
Near to them and to my wife,
I was happy all my life.

My three sons I married right,
And their sons I rocked at night;
Death nor sorrow never brought
Cause for one unhappy thought.

Now, and with no need of tears,
Here they leave me, full of years,–
Leave me to my quiet rest
In the region of the blest.

Saturday Review of Books: December 21, 2013

“Literature is a false representation of life that nevertheless helps us to understand life better, to orient ourselves in the labyrinth where we are born, pass by, and die.” ~Mario Vargas Llosa

SATURDAY December 28th, will be the annual special edition of the Saturday Review of Books especially for booklists. You can link to a list of your favorite books read in 2013, a list of all the books you read in 2012, a list of the books you plan to read in 2014, or any other end of the year or beginning of the year list of books. Whatever your list, it’s time for book lists. So come back on Saturday the 28th to link to yours.

SatReviewbutton

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

Poetry Friday: The 20th Gift of Christmas in France, 1917

Christmas Eve in France by Jessie Fauset
“Jessie Redmon Fauset (April 27, 1882 — April 30, 1961) was an American editor, poet, essayist and novelist.
Fauset was the editor of the NAACP magazine The Crisis. She also was the editor and co-author for the African American children’s magazine Brownies’ Book. She studied the teachings and beliefs of W.E.B Dubois and considered him to be her mentor. Fauset was known as one of the most intelligent women novelists of the Harlem Renaissance, earning her the name ‘the midwife’. In her lifetime she wrote four novels as well as poetry and short fiction.” ~Wikipedia, Jessie Redmon Faucet
OH little Christ, why do you sigh
As you look down to-night
On breathless France, on bleeding France,
And all her dreadful plight?
What bows your childish head so low?
What turns your cheek so white?

Oh little Christ, why do you moan,
What is it that you see
In mourning France, in martyred France,
And her great agony?
Does she recall your own dark day,
Your own Gethsemane?

Oh little Christ, why do you weep,
Why flow your tears so sore
For pleading France, for praying France,
A suppliant at God’s door?
“God sweetened not my cup,” you say,
“Shall He for France do more?”

Oh little Christ, what can this mean,
Why must this horror be
For fainting France, for faithful France,
And her sweet chivalry?
“I bled to free all men,” you say
“France bleeds to keep men free.”

Oh little, lovely Christ, you smile!
What guerdon is in store
For gallant France, for glorious France,
And all her valiant corps?
“Behold I live, and France, like me;
Shall live for evermore.”

Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior

My mom, my sister and I read Ms. Prior’s literary memoir for our GED Family Book Club in November. Karen Swallow Prior is a professor of English at Liberty University in Virginia. Her bio at the Liberty website says:

“She was raised in a strong Christian home and received Christ at a very early age. But it wasn’t until she was in her twenties that Dr. Prior was introduced to the concept of the Christian worldview. This was when her faith became real and she embraced the challenge of not only living biblically, but thinking biblically, too. Her life has never been the same.”

41nFjdCDnbL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_The memoir deals mostly with Ms. Prior’s growing up years, the years before “her faith became real.” She writes in each chapter about a particular author or work of literature and about how that literary work informed her thoughts and gave her food, real food, for spiritual and emotional growth. I liked how the author wove her own story through the stories she read and demonstrated the power of words and stories to change our lives, for better or for worse.

Ms. Prior starts with the premise that she takes from John Milton’s Areopagitica: “God uses the things of this earth to teach us and shape us, and to help us find truth.” (p.10) She paraphrases Milton, saying that “truth is stronger than falsehood; falsehood prevails through the suppression of countering ideas, but truth triumphs in a free and open exchange that allows truth to shine.” As Milton put it, “Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.” I tend to agree and have generally allowed myself and my children (within reason) to read whatever we thought might be of benefit to our minds and our education. I believe in this habit of “reading promiscuously” and believe it has been of more benefit than harm to me and to my children.

That’s not to say that reading with very few boundaries is not sometimes perilous, and scary for the parent in particular. Some ideas are dangerous and even evil. But I believe that Truth will prevail, as long as we are open to the truth. And it has been my experience that denying myself or my children access to certain books only makes us more curious and at the same time less prepared to encounter, apprehend, and interpret that idea that has been hidden and forbidden and made to seem alluring by its very proscription. Whereas discussion and reading and more discussion and reading and placing the ideas we read about in juxtaposition to God’s Word and then reading and talking some more—these are the best ways to learn and grow and become fully equipped for the battle of worldview and philosophy in which we are engaged.

So, that’s just the first chapter. This memoir is really a book full of ideas and things to think about (or write about). In the second chapter (Charlotte’s Web) Ms. Prior discusses the power of words:

“All words are names, for all words signify something.
The power of naming is a subset of the power of all language. God spoke the universe into existence and, in giving us the gift of language He gave us a lesser, but still magnificent, creative power in the ability to name: the power to communicate, to make order out of chaos, to tell stories, and to shape our own lives and the lives of others.
The Book of Proverbs says that death and life are in the power of words. To choose a good word, to assign the right name, to arrange proper words in the best order: these are no easy tasks.”

So true, and so reminiscent of not only Charlotte, the spider with a talent for choosing the right word, but also of Madeleine L’Engle and her emphasis on the power of naming. We are shaped by the names we give and are given. If I call myself (because God first called me) a child of God, I become a new creation indeed.

I could write a paragraph or a page or even, in some cases perhaps, a book of my own about each of the following quotes from Ms. Prior’s book, but I will simply leave them with you to ponder and perhaps one or all of these excerpts will tantalize and impel you to read the book yourself. (WARNING: Some of Ms. Prior’s life experiences, having to do with growing up during the sexual revolution of the seventies, before “her faith became real” are more appropriate for mature readers.)

“To respond emotionally to God directly is more than I can bear. So God in his goodness has bestowed the gift of literature.”

“Indeed, the only thing that stands between me–or anyone–and tragedy is grace.”

“Well, I believe in a God who not only intervenes in human affairs—again and again–but one who also makes banquets out of stale bread.”

“Life is grounded in the mundane. But the mundane has a bad rap. The word simply means ‘world’; its origins are shared with the same root word for ‘mountain.'”

“God is nothing if not a poet. And nothing if not elaborate in both his imagination and composition. Elaborate, as the root of the word suggests, means brought about by labor and care, planned with painstaking attention to details or intricate and rich in detail. Just like a metaphysical conceit. To join the unlike–a man and a woman, reason and passion, physical and spiritual—is the work of the poet and of God.”

The books and literary works that Karen Swallow Prior discusses in the book are:
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.
The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, especial the poem “Pied Beauty”.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.
The metaphysical poetry of John Donne.
The poetry of Matthew Arnold and Thomas Hardy.

If you are a fan of any of the above, Ms. Prior’s very personal take on the meaning and application of these literary works to her own spiritual journey would be illuminating and engaging.

Preview of 2013 Book Lists #1

SATURDAY December 28th, will be a special edition of the Saturday Review of Books especially for booklists. You can link to a list of your favorite books read in 2013, a list of all the books you read in 2013, a list of the books you plan to read in 2014, or any other end of the year or beginning of the year list of books. Whatever your list, it’s time for book lists. So come back on Saturday the 28th to link to yours, especially if I missed it and it’s not already here.

However, I’ve spent the past couple of weeks gathering up all the lists I could find and linking to them here. I’ll be posting off and on between now and the 28th a selection of end-of-the-year lists with my own comments. I’m also trying my hand at (unsolicited) book advisory by suggesting some possibilities for 2014 reading for each blogger whose list I link. I did this last year, and I don’t really know if anyone paid attention or not. If you did read a book I suggested for you last year, please leave a comment, either negative or positive, so that I’ll know how well I did. I do know that I enjoy exercising my book-recommending brain.

If I didn’t get your list linked ahead of time and if you leave your list in the linky on Saturday, December 28th, I’ll try to advise you, too, in a separate post.

Here are few early booklists I found while looking around the book blogs.

Ivory Owl Book Reviews: Best Books of 2013. I think Rhiannon would like Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield; both books are similar to the ones she has on her list, and both books are by female authors, which she she says reads almost exclusively.

Things I Can’t Say: Best and Worst Books of 2013. Shell is a fan of The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak and of the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. I’m recommending that she try Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire, both Elizabeth Wein.

Life:merging: Best Books of 2013. Melissa, the librarian at this reader’s blog, enjoys animal stories and psychological thrillers and lots of other stuff. She should check out Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell and Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, because other books by those authors are on her “best of 2013” list.

The Well-Read Readhead’s Best Books of 2013. I see some familiar names on Ms. Redhead’s list: Wally Lamb, Jodi Piccoult, Michael Pollan, Gillian Flynn. And I see some authors I may want to check out. Looking at Redhead’s TBR list, I highly recommend The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, Watership Down by Richard Adams, and she’s never read any Agatha Christie? What’s up with that? Do it: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Delivering Grace: Best Books of 2013. SarahEizabeth Jones is a UK home educator, and for her I have a list of my favorite read-aloud books. For her own reading, SarahElizabeth might enjoy Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir by Carolyn Weber.

British author and blogger Tara Hanks: Best Books of 2013. I want to read Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell, one of the books on Ms. Hanks’ list of favorites. I wonder if Ms. Hanks might like to try Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior and/or something by one of Eldest Daughter’s favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor, perhaps Wise Blood or The Violent Bear It Away.

living read girl lists her favorite reads of 2013. I want to add a couple of these favorites to my TBR list, too, namely The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne and The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout. I’ll give “lady t” some book recommendations for her perusal: Crampton Hodnet or Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (because I think Pym is rather Austen-ish) Also “lady t” should check out Dorothy Dunnett’s The Lymond Chronicles, a series beginning with The Game of Kings. This series, set in the sixteenth century, is another of Eldest Daughter’s favorites. I haven’t read these yet, but I really plan to do so this year.

Be a Better Booktalker: My Favorite Children’s and Teen Books of 2013. Andrea Lipinski recommends Sure Signs of Crazy by Karen Harrington, which sounds like a middle grade novel that’s right up my alley. OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu sounds good, too. (What can I say? I read books about eccentric and mentally unbalanced people.) I’m not sure what to suggest for Andrea: maybe The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne by Catherine Reef? Or Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy.

51IDqyyYbhL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_Shelley Johannes: The Book Diaries. Best Children’s Picture Books of 2013. I want to read (and feast my eyes upon) all of Shelley’s picks. On the other hand, I really don’t know what to suggest to her since she’s an artist, that intimidating word, and seems to know all about the pictures. I will list a few of my favorite classic (and new) picture book illustrators, in case she hasn’t seen all of them: Peter Spier, Susan Jeffers, Roger Duviosin, Donald Crews, Trina Schart Hyman, Tasha Tudor, Lauren Child, Marcia Brown, Allen Say, Francoise Seignobosc, Robert McCloskey, Brett Helquist . . . wow, this list could go on and on. Who are your favorite children’s book illustrators?

Jared C. Wilson at Gospel Driven Church: 10 Best Books I Read This Year. I “know” Jared from way back: he’s been blogging at Gospel Driven Church and with the guys at The THinklings for a loooong time . . . almost as long as I’ve been blogging. One of his top ten for this year is a book that really impressed me, too, and made me cringe a little (and pray) every time I see Tom Cruise, namely Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and The Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright. However, for suggestions for Jared, I went back to his Top Ten Lists from previous years and saw that he read Pride and Prejudice a couple of years ago and really liked it a lot. I think it’s time for Jared to read Emma or Sense and Sensibility. I would also suggest the book we just finished studying in my Sunday School class, Echoes of Eden by Jerram Barrs.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all Happy Reading!

The 17th Gift of Christmas in Paris and in the English countryside, 187-?

“Everyone remembers the severity of the Christmas of 187- . . . ”

“Then they all went to church, as a united family ought to do on Christmas Day, and came home to a fine old English early dinner at three o’clock–a sirloin of beef a foot-and-a-half broad, a turkey as big as an ostrich, a plum pudding bigger than the turkey, and two or three dozen mince-pies. ‘That’s a very large bit of beef,’ said Mr. Jones, who had not lived much in England latterly. ‘It won’t look so large,’ said the old gentleman, ‘when all our friends downstairs have had their say to it.’
‘A Plum-pudding on Christmas Day can’t be too big,’ he said again, ‘if the cook will but take time enough over it. I never knew a bit go to waste yet.'”
~Anthony Trollope, Christmas At Thompson Hall, from Christmas Stories

Today’s gifts from Semicolon:
A song:

A poem:
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every ‘long-shore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china plates that stand upon the shelves.

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.
~from Christmas At Sea by Robert Louis Stevenson

The 16th Gift of Christmas in Surrey, England, 1815

From Emma by Jane Austen, chapter 16:

“To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma’s, though under temporary gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy, and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of softened pain and brighter hope.

Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to depend on getting tolerably out of it.

It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to disappoint him—that Harriet’s nature should not be of that superior sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive—and that there could be no necessity for any body’s knowing what had passed except the three principals, and especially for her father’s being given a moment’s uneasiness about it.

These were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of a great deal of snow on the ground did her further service, for any thing was welcome that might justify their all three being quite asunder at present.

The weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas-day, she could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas. The ground covered with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting in to freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse with Harriet possible but by note; no church for her on Sunday any more than on Christmas-day; and no need to find excuses for Mr. Elton’s absenting himself.”

Born on December 16th:
Ludwig von Beethoven, b.1770.
Jane Austen, b.1775.
Marie Hall Ets b.1895, author of many children’s picture books including Gilberto and the Wind and Nine Days to Christmas
Playwright Noel Coward, b.1896
Arthur C. Clarke, b.1917, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and other science fiction classics.

Who knew that Jane Austen and Beethoven were near in age and shared a birthdate?