Danielle at A Work in Progress, a great blog on books, has started a meme where we receive a letter---mine, given to me by Danielle is the letter B-- and we tell our favorite book, author, song, film and object that begins with that letter.
So here goes:
Favorite B Book: I was really torn on this, it was either going to be Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie or Birds Without Wings by Louis Bernieres, and in the end Birds Without Wings wins. Though I'm only halfway through reading it I'm enjoying it more than any book I've read recently and I've read some good ones. The story takes place in the aging Ottoman Empire at the turn of the century and takes place in a small village there. I suspect that I'm enjoying it so much because I've lived in Turkey and the tone of the book is pitch perfect.
Favorite B Author: Bill Bryson, I've read a load of his books: Mother Tongue, Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, A Short History of Nearly Everything, A Walk in the Woods, but still have a few to do--my husband is a head of me, he's already read Bryson's Shakespeare, One Summer America 1927 and is currently working on his At Home. He's very funny and his books are so well researched.
I reread his Mother Tongue (about the development of the English language) nearly every year.
I came so close to choosing A.S. Byatt, I love her writing, but Bryson makes me laugh and that is rather special.
Favorite B Song: Even after all these years I still have to singalong whenever I hear it so, Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
Favorite B Film: Becket 1963 starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole. Mac always says it was miscast, that Burton should have played Henry II and O'Toole Becket, I think he's probably right, but I still think it's a great movie. Henry II is one of my favorite Plantagenet Kings.
Favorite B Object: Books, you knew it had to be books. They're queued up on my table next to the couch ( What Was She Thinking, I'm Not Complaining, Radnarok The End of the Gods, The Given Sacrifice, Bloodline, Watching the Dark, The Silkworm, The Flounder) and on my Kindle (
Written in My Own Heart's Blood, Refusal, Middlemarch, Secret Rooms, Wool, Dangerous Women, The Prisoner of Heaven, Oryx and Crake, Asylum, Oz Reimagined,
Your post made me think of a clip I saw on Youtube the other day, Arthur Askey singing the "Busy Bee Song" ! :)
ReplyDeleteOur book group recently read Birds Without Wings. I think some novels and non fiction can be more meaningful if you have some experience of the setting and culture.
ReplyDeleteThat could have been my answer. So many entries I would have written the same. I loved both Birds without Wings Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, I'm a huge Queens fan but I haven't seen "Becket".
ReplyDeleteI also have "Ragnarok" on my TBR file and I highly recommend Middlemarch and The Prisoner of Heaven next. Great books.
Have a good day,
Marianne from Let's Read