Saturday Review of Books: September 3, 2011

Sep2

“Oh, how different my life would have been if I had not grown up in the house with my grandmother. How much narrower and blander. She was the reason I was a reader. And being a reader was what had made me most myself. It had given me the gifts of curiosity and sympathy, an awareness of the world as an odd and vibrant and contradictory place, and it had made me unafraid of its oddness and vibrancy and contradictions.” ~Curtis Sittenfeld in American Wife

SatReviewbuttonIf you’re not familiar with and linking to and perusing the Saturday Review of Books here at Semicolon, you’re missing out. 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 just write your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on 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.

Setting: Turn of the Century, 1900-1909

Sep2

Historical fiction is a great way to learn about history. In fact, I learned a lot of my history facts from novels. I’m often moved by a fiction book to go look up the story behind the story, to see if the author got her facts right. Here are a few adult fiction titles set in or around the turn of the century—nineteenth to twentieth, that is. No, I haven’t read all of these, but I have tried to give you a link to a review written by someone who has for each book listed. If you have reviewed any of these, leave a link in the comments, and I’ll add your review to the list. Or if you have read another book set in the early 1900’s that you liked, please share.

The Tale of Hilltop Farm by Susan Wittig Albert. Author Beatrix Potter solves mysteries in this book and the ones the follow in the series when she moves to Hill Top Farm after the death of her fiance. Reviewed by Allison at On My Bookshelf.

City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell. Highly recommended. A young Mennonite missionary in China meets and marries a fellow missionary and lives through the turmoil of civil war. Semicolon review here.

Anna’s Book by Barbara Vine. Mystery and suspense in early twentieth century London. Reviewed by Superfast Reader.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attempts to exonerate a falsely imprisoned man named George.

Beautiful Dreamer by Joan Naper. Chicago, 1900. Reviewed by Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past.

The Birth House by Ami McKay. A midwife in a Nova Scotia fishing village. Reviewed at Maw Books Blog..

Empire by Gore Vidal. Caroline Sanford runs a newspaper dynasty during the years 1898-1907–with insights into the Spanish-American War, the Hearst newspaper conglomerate, and the presidencies of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, among other historical events and persons.

A Flickering Light by Jane Kirkpatrick. In 1907, a fifteen year old girl dreams of a career in photography, a dangerous job reserved for men. Reviewd by Tracy at Relz Reviewz.

Jack London: Sailor on Horseback by Irving Stone. Biographical novel about the eponymous author.

Lake of Fire by Linda Jacobs. Romance blossoms in Yellowstone National Park, June, 1900. Reviewed by Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. Highly recommended. Will’s grandfather elopes with a woman half his age three weeks after his wife dies in 1906, causing a scandal in their small Georgia town. Cold Sassy Tree is on my list of the 100 Best Novels of All Time.

City of Light by Lauren Belfer. 1901 in Buffalo, New York as Niagara Falls is being harnessed for electricity.

The Outlander by Gil Adamson. Idaho and Montana, 1903. A nineteen year old woman murders her abusive husband and then runs away from his brothers who are thirsty for revenge.

The Quickening by Michelle Hoover. American Midwest in the early 1900’s. Reviewed by Caribousmom.

Painted Ladies by Siobhan Parkinson. A community of artists in Skagen, a fishing village in the north of Denmark, live a Bohemian lifestyle while producing great works of art. Reviewed by Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past.

For more historical novels of the twentieth century, look at HistoricalNovels.info.

Wednesday’s Word of the Week: Apophenia

Sep1

First, I read this post at Ace of Spades about how climate change may lead to an increase in mental illness because, as far as I can tell, schoolchildren tend to get depressed at a greater rate after experiencing a hurricane or cyclone. The post ends with the word “apophenia”. Isn’t that a lovely word? But I had no idea what it meant.

So, I went to my all-purpose, handy dandy, reference tool: Wikipedia. Yes, I use Wikipedia frequently to look up the stuff that I want to know, and so far I haven’t experienced any life-altering inaccuracies. Apophenia, quoth Wikipedia, is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. Ah, what a useful word in a world where conspiracy theories and seemingly random phenomena abound.

But is it apophenia or the hand of God when I see answers to prayer, and meaningful encouragement in Scripture that speaks to my immediate needs? And what about this statement at the end of the Wikipedia article: “The popular TV show, Lost, involves extensive use of apophenia in its storyline, including Biblical and numerological patterns, mis-identified faces, intentional use of pareidolia, and more.” Were the writers of Lost saying that the numbers and the patterns and the way people came together and crossed paths was randomness perceived to have meaning, apophenia? Or was there really within the Lost world supposed to be a meaning behind the island and all the things that happened on and off-island? Or were some things “apophenia”, like Hugo’s fear of of the numbers and his perception that he was cursed, and other patterns and coincidences meaningful, such as the idea that certain people were “brought” to the island to work out their salvation in fear and trembling?

I think the world is like Lost island: there are true incidences of apophenia, such as gamblers who think they have lucky numbers, people who see climate change-related calamities in every change in the weather, and even Christians who believe they hear the voice of God in events that are simply serendipitous happenings with no special message from God embedded in them. However, we should be very careful about crying “apophenia” when God may very well be at work orchestrating events and people to do His will. Was it apophenia when Esther found herself in exactly the right place and time to save her people from annihilation? Or was it apophenia that Jesus came to a world that was prepared to deal with him in a way that would fulfill prophecy and work out God’s plan of salvation prepared from the foundation of the world? There may be such a thing as too much ascribing of all fortuitous events to God at work, but there is also the danger of being blind to the wonderful ways in which the God of the Universe designs each detail of His world to work out His purposes.

1909: Books and Literature

Aug31

Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter was published in August, 1909. It tells the story of Elnora Comstock who lives with her widowed mother Katherine on the edge of the Limberlost, a marshland in Indiana where Elnora plans to catch moths and other nature specimens to sell to collectors to finance her continued high school education.

Elnora and her mother have a troubled relationship. Katherine Comstock blames Elnora for the death of her husband, Elnora’s father, in the swamp many years before. A young man, Phillip, comes to the Limberlost, and he and Elnora become friends and work together to explore and to gather Elnora’s moths.

Nature lovers should enjoy this lovely story in spite of the somewhat high-flown and archaic language. In fact, what with the modern environmental movement, I would think A Girl of the Limberlost is poised to make a comeback. Maybe as a movie or a simplified or updated ebook? It’s in the public domain, and you can download it to your favorite ereader here. The movie’s been done a few times, but I’ve not seen any of the versions. Any recommendations?

Selma Lagerlof, a Swedish novelist, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909. Her most famous novel, Jerusalem, tells the story of a group of Swedish Christians who went to Jerusalem to join The American Colony, a Christian religious community whose members believed that if they were to do acts of service to humanity (feeding the hungry, caring for orphans, etc.) in Jerusalem it would hasten the day of Christ’s return. The leader of this community (before the Swedish Christians came to join) was Horation Spafford, the man who wrote the much beloved hymn, It Is Well with My Soul.

1909: Events and Inventions

Aug30

January, 1909. William Howard Taft is inaugurated president of the United States, and Teddy Roosevelt goes off on a safari to Africa to let the new president get to work out of his shadow. (Unfortunately, Teddy casts a big shadow, and even from Africa he begins to realize that he doesn’t like what Taft is doing as president.)

March 31, 1909. French film producers Emile and Charles Pathe begin to film the news. The brothers have sent cameramen to every continent to look for news stories of interest to the general public, and the resulting films, called newsreels, will be shown all over the world.

April 6, 1909. Robert E. Peary reaches the North Pole along with his assistant, Matthew Henson, and four Eskimo guides. Henson and two of the guides were actually the first to reach the Pole, and Peary arrived forty-five minutes later and confirmed that they were in the right place. Read more at Who Discoverd the North Pole at Smithsonian.com.

April 27, 1909. The Young Turks overthrow the sultan of Turkey, Abdulhamid II, and replace him with his brother who takes the title of Mohammed V. Abdulhamid II ruled the Ottoman Empire as an absolute monarch, but the Young Turks demand reforms and a constitutional government which begins to be implemented as Mohammed V becomes a constitutional monarch with very little real power.

May 1909. German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich produces the first successful drug to treat for syphilis.

July 25, 1909. Frenchman Louis Bleriot becomes the first man to pilot an aircraft 21 miles across the English Channel from Calais, France to Dover in England. You can read more about Bleriot and his adventures in flight in the picture book, The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot, written and illustrated by Alice and Martin Provenson. And Scholastic has some teaching suggestions for using The Glorious Flight in the classroom.

July, 1909. Mohammed Ali, Shah of Persia, flees to Russia as forces favoring a constitutional government replace him with his twelve year old son, Ahmad Mirza. Persia (Iran) becomes somewhat more free with democratic reforms implemented, or at least suggested, by the Grand Majiles, Persia’s parliament.

October 26, 1909. Prince Hirobumi Ito of Japan is assassinated by An Jung-geun, a Korean nationalist opposed to the annexation of Korea by Japan. Prince Ito had been the Japanese Resident-General of Korea, and the Japanese used the assassination as an excuse to take total control of Korea and try to absorb it into the Japanese empire.

December, 1909. U.S. chemist Leo Baekeland prepares to market his newly invented plastic which he calls “Bakelite.”

Preschool at Home

Aug30

Since it’s that time of year, going back to school and all that jazz, I thought it might be a good idea to feature a post with a little information on my book, Picture Book Preschool. Also, it seems to me that Picture Book Preschool would be a good resource for all of you parents of preschoolers, homeschoolers or not.

Picture Book Preschool is a preschool/kindergarten curriculum which consists of a list of picture books to read aloud for each week of the year and a character trait, a memory verse, and activities, all tied to the theme for the week. You can purchase an updated, downloadable version (pdf file) of Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early at Biblioguides.

The book mainly consists of these lists, one for each week of the year. You should be able to find most of the picture books listed in Picture Book Preschool at your local library. If you can only find five out of the seven or six out of the seven for a given week, that should be enough to keep you busy. I have collected many of the picture books listed in Picture Book Preschool for my own children by browsing used bookstores. So when I read these books to Z-baby, I read some that we owned and some that I got from the library.

As far as comparisons go, I am familiar with the curriculum Five in a Row, and I like it very much. In Five in a Row you are encouraged to read one picture book, such as Lentil by Robert McCloskey, for five days in a row. (Children generally love to read favorite picture books over and over again.) For each day of the week this curriculum gives lesson plans related to the books of the week covering science, mathematics, history and geography, and language arts. Five in a Row is a fully developed curriculum with loads of activities to keep your homeschooled preschooler or kindergartner busy and happy.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) for my last preschooler (she’s ten years old now), I was also homeschooling six older children. I didn’t have time to do all the activities in Five in a Row, and I liked the variety of picture books we read with Picture Book Preschool. Picture Book Preschool introduces your child to the best of children’s picture books, and it takes only a few minutes each day to read the book for that day, talk about it, and see where it leads you. Maybe you’ll pretend to run away from home with Frances or stack caps like the peddler in Caps for Sale or make up a poem of your own after reading The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown. I suggest a few activities in Picture Book Preschool, but it’s left up to you and your child how far you want to go with each book and with the theme for each week.

1908: Events and Inventions

Aug28

February 1, 1908. Anarchists assassinate King Carlos I and his heir Prince Luis Filipe as the royl family are traveling in an open carriage in Lisbon, Portugal. This event is usually called The Lisbon Regicide. A shocked King Edward VII of England, a friend of King Carlos, said of the assassination, “They murdered two gentlemen of the Order of the Garter in the street like dogs and in their own country no one cares!”

May 16, 1908. Oil discovery at Masjid Sulaiman in southwest Iran (Persia). A British army officer sends a coded message to the British government telling them the news: “See Psalm 104 Verse 15 Third Sentence and Psalm 114 verse 8 second sentence.” Un-coded, the telegram read: “That he may bring out of the earth oil to make him a cheerful countenance … the flint stone into a springing well.”

April-July, 1908. The Young Turks, a group of reform-minded nationalists, force Sultan Abdul Hamid of the Ottoman Empire to restore the parliament and the constitution which had been suspended by the Sultan in 1878. This revolution is the beginning of the end for the Ottoman Empire. Map of the expansion and decline of the Ottoman Empire. I would like to read A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin, which gives the history of the continuing decline of the Ottoman Empire and tells how the changing borders and power adjustments made during and after World War II continue to affect the situation in the MIddle East today.

August 12, 1908. The first Model T Ford goes on sale for $850. Automaker Henry Ford has promised to “build a car for the multitude,” and he hopes by using the assembly line technique to produce 18,000 cars a year. Take a brief look at Henry Ford, the businessman and the man, in this post by blogger Aarti Nagaraju.

August 19, 1908. King Leopold of Belgium hands over government of the Congo Free State (Zaire, Democratic Republic of the Congo) to the Belgian government after thirty years of brutal dictatorial rule of the African colony by Leopold alone.

September, 1908. German mathematician Hermann Minkowski is the first person to define time as the fourth dimension. (LOST connection, anyone?)

October, 1908. Austria-Hungary takes over the Balkan states of Bosnia and Herzegovina by decree and with the help and approval of Russia.

October 5, 1908. Ferdinand I of Austria declares Bulgaria a fully independent kingdom, with himself as Tsar.

December 2, 1908. The two year old Prince Pu Yi ascends to the imperial throne of China, according to the wishes of Tsu-Hsi (Cixi), the Empress Dowager of China who recently died under suspicious circumstances. Emperor Pu Yi’s father, Prince Chun, will rule as regent in his son’s place for the time being. The movie The Last Emperor tells the story of Pu Yi’s life in a somewhat fictionalized, but fairly accurate, version.

December 28, 1908. The city of Messina, Italy is struck early in the morning by the most violent earthquake ever recorded in Europe. Estimates put the death toll at at least 75,000 people.

Movies Set In the First Decade of the Twentieth Century: 1900-1909

Aug27

Lagaan (2001). Bollywood movie actually set in 1893, but it shows the cultural mileau of India under British rule. Warning: it’s long, with subtitles, but well worth the time.

Finding Neverland stars Johnny Depp as playwright James Barrie. I wrote about my initial impressions of the movie here. I would like to see the move again, and I think it might make a better impression the second time around.

Miss Potter (2006). Fictionalized biography of authoress Beatrix Potter.

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Musical set in St. Louis, Missouri during the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904.

Fiddler on the Roof (1971). Another classic musical set in Tsarist Russia in 1905.

How Green Was My Valley. Based on a 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn, this film features a Welsh family and the mining community in which they live around the turn of the century. the movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1941.

Yankee Doodle Dandy. Biopic about American songwriter and composer George M. Cohan, starring James Cagney as Cohan. The song “Yankee Doodle Boy” was Cohan’s signature piece as a composer and as a song-and-dance man himself who performed his own work. The film came out in 1942, and production began on it just a few days before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. So the movie was purposefully patriotic to the max in order to lift the spirits of an American audience headed into war.

The Winslow Boy. We just watched this movie, set in Britain and based on a true story, yesterday. Well, I watched, and the urchins fell asleep. It’s not an exciting or fast-moving plot-driven picture. However, the script and the setting are intriguing. The story is about an upper middle class family who sacrifice everything—their savings, the daughter’s upcoming marriage, the older son’s career—to defend the honor of the younger son who is accused of stealing a five shilling postal order and is expelled from military school. The boy, Ronnie, says he didn’t do it, and the family honor is at stake. Such a different world, different values. You can read more about the movie, the play by Terrence Rattigan, and the historical incident that Rattigan mined for his play at Wikipedia.

My twentieth century history students are supposed to choose one of these movies set in the first decade of the century to watch and then write a reflection paper (kind of like a blog post, at least like my blog posts) about the movie. Which one would you suggest to them if they asked your advice? Do you have any other suggestions for movies set in this time period?

1908: Music and Art

Aug27

Sergei Rachmaninoff composed his Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 in 1906–07. The premiere was conducted by the composer himself in St. Petersburg on 8 February 1908.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? was a popular hymn, published in 1908, writen by Ada R. Habershon and Charles H. Gabriel.

And here’s an entire playlist of popular music from the first decade of the twentieth century. Please listen, especially if you’re in my class, and tell me what you think. Any favorites? (You may have to have a free Spotify account to listen, but I have Spotify invitations to give away if you want one.)

What about the art? Favorites, anyone? Or comments?

Saturday Review of Books: August 27, 2011

Aug26

“The best way to rear up a new generation of friends of the Permanent Things is to beget children, and read to them o’ evenings, and teach them what is worthy of praise: the wise parent is the conservator of ancient truths.” ~Russell Kirk

SatReviewbuttonIf you’re not familiar with and linking to and perusing the Saturday Review of Books here at Semicolon, you’re missing out. 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 just write your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on 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.