Tuesday, September 30, 2014

about to start The Secret Place by Tana French



LIBRARY JOURNAL

LJ Reviews 2014 April #2
A year after the body of swoon-worthy Chris Harper was dumped at St. Kilda's, a girls' school in a Dublin suburb, student Holly Mackey gives Det. Stephen Moran a photo of Chris she's found with the words "I know who killed him" inscribed on the back. From the multi-award-winning and New York Times best-selling French.
[Page 56]. (c) Copyright 2014.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

what is the difference between the aristocratic and merely expensive? Penn Station,NYC


if you love Ebola,then this is the book for you:The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History by John M. Barry


The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place Berry, Julie,is on my reserve list at NYPL



VOICE OF YOUTH ADVOCATES REVIEWS

VOYA Reviews 2014 August
Imagine being a student at a girls' boarding school in 1800s England when suddenly, during the weekly Sunday dinner, the headmistress and her brother drop dead from veal poisoning. Interestingly enough, this alarming event does not cause sorrow, but merely stimulates a wave of curiosity as students wonder who could have perpetrated such a ghastly crime? In addition, if word gets out that Mrs. Plackett is dead, the students will all be sent home, so they all decide to cover up the two murders. This becomes most tricky as neighbors and other random visitors constantly stop by. Then, there is the dilemma of what to do about the party Mrs. Plackett is expected to attend. Therefore, until the students solve the identity of the headmistress's killer, life will be comprised of concocting clever stories and lies, with one of the students actually impersonating the old lady, and the rest stalling and redirecting nosy visitors This delightfully zany scenario embodies the premise of The Scandalous Sisterhood. While beautifully written with rich vocabulary, charming detail, spunky dialogue, and plucky heroines, this Victorian murder mystery farce tends to drag along as the feisty young girls devise madcap plans for how to conceal a double murder. For this reason, recommend it to patient readers who do not need constant white-knuckle suspense and can appreciate the gentle unfolding of a mostly sweet tale sprinkled with just a smattering of edginess and a few plot twists.—Suzanne Osman 3Q 3P M Copyright 2011 Voya Reviews.
http://www.julieberrybooks.com/

Saturday, September 20, 2014

about to finish: The Fire A Novel By Neville, Katherine



just started:Modern Poets By Giraldi, Lilio Gregorio, 1479-1552


from:Dean Keith Simonton's Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity


(1) Creative geniuses “harbor an impressive array of intellectual, cultural, and aesthetic interests.” This breadth and variety of interests gives them the content on which to draw analogies, make comparisons. It is their material. (I’d suppose that access to this material would be a differentially significant condition for outstanding creative work in different fields: teenage geniuses would be more likely to occur in music or mathematics than in philosophy or fiction.)
(2) Such individuals are “open to novel, complex, and ambiguous stimuli in their surroundings.” Openness takes their trains of thought to unexpected corners of experience.
(3) Creative geniuses are “capable of defocused attention.” I think of stories about Glenn Gould studying a score, carrying on a phone conversation, and listening to the news all at once — sounds implausible till you think back to how amazingly he could distinguish voices in a fugue. Typically, while creators are working on one problem, or are engaged in an apparently irrelevant activity, they will be carrying around with them another problem in need of a solution. Defocused attention makes creative connections more likely.
(4) Consistent with the above is a flexibility in work habits. It’s characteristic of the highly creative person to have a range of projects going simultaneously, a “network of enterprises.” Darwin was always working on several subjects simultaneously, dipping into “thirty or forty large portfolios” which he kept on labeled shelves, adding memoranda or reviewing them. This flexibility makes it possible to change course quickly and take advantage of lucky breaks and new ideas as they serendipitously present themselves.
(5) “Highly creative people are introverted.” Simonton means by this that, however affable they may be in social settings, they are given to “long hours of solitary contemplation . . . smoking a pipe in an armchair, taking a walk in the woods, engaging absentmindedly in some routine activity.” Social contact, for creative geniuses, is “subordinate to the internal ruminations of their eternally preoccupied minds.” This for Simonton explains why group problem-solving, so-called brainstorming, usually yields such dismal results compared to individual creative work.
(6) Finally, such individuals are usually “independent, autonomous, unconventional, and perhaps even iconoclastic.” They are willing to give unusual, or even preposterous, ideas a fair hearing.

Friday, September 19, 2014

a great artist: Anselm Kiefer













what is the difference between the aristocratic and merely expensive?


Barbour Dept. (B) Beacon Sports Jacket

Olive

Inspired by the Sports jacket designed by Japanese designer, Tokihito, which was worn by Daniel Craig when he played James Bond in Skyfall, the Beacon jacket takes all of the features of the jacket worn in the film in it's AW13 guise. The multi-functional garment draws inspiration from genuine vintage sporting pieces, fusing Barbour's functional design ethos with fabrics and details from their extensive archive. The result is a considered, modern jacket, ideal for the inclement British weather.
  • As worn by Daniel Craig in 'Skyfall'

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Willem van Genk: “Feel free to call me commandatore, I’m listening.”

Willem van Genk:“What now drawings and collages? These raincoats, I am much further with them…For the raincoats, people shout out at you in the streets, but not for the paintings… As long as you have many of them, then nothing can happen"






what is the difference between the aristocratic and merely expensive? Jenna Lyons of J. Crew


what is the difference between the aristocratic and merely expensive? Codrington Library, All Soul’s College, Oxford, 1751


The Long Way Home by Louise Penny is a book i'm looking forward to reading...the author looks attractive too!



LJ Reviews 2014 July #1
Penny's tenth book in her award-winning "Inspector Gamache" series (after How the Light Gets In) is another excellent character-driven mystery set in the village of Three Pines. After the explosive events in the previous book, Gamache and his wife have retired to Three Pines for peace and recuperation. But Gamache feels obligated to leave his refuge as one of his best friends, Clara Morrow, requires his expertise when her husband Peter goes missing. After Clara became a more famous artist than her spouse, Peter left to find himself, promising to be back in a year. But he has not returned. Retracing Peter's journey, Gamache, hoping to find his friend, instead encounters murder and madness. VERDICT As with all the author's other titles, Penny wraps her mystery around the history and personality of the people involved. By this point in the series, each inhabitant of Three Pines is a distinct individual, and the humor that lights the dark places of the investigation is firmly rooted in their long friendships, or, in some cases, frenemyships. The heartbreaking conclusion will leave series readers blinking back tears. Highly recommended.—Marlene Harris, Seattle P.L.