I was reading a book called "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written By Herself", published just before the Civil War. The author is Harriet Jacobs. Harriet was born a slave in 1813 on the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina, and she spent about 10 years trying to escape. When she finally did,… Continue reading When evil overplays its hands
The Home is a book about a family in Sweden in the early 1800s. They have like 7 kids. The author is Fredrika Bremer. I got to know her through an exhibit I saw at the Swedish museum in Philadelphia. I found The Home in the Loserville Library, in Swedish. In the original Swedish, the… Continue reading The Home: a book from the year 1839 sounds like it was written today
I've been reading two books written in days of yore, both set in Scotland. One is Waverley, which was published in 1814, and one is Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, published in 1894. So they were both published on opposite bookends of the 19th century. I'm reading them because they are both books that Lucy… Continue reading Scottish-Swedish words
I am both re-reading Villette right now (by Charlotte Bronte), and reading The Home for the first time (by Fredrika Bremer). Charlotte Bronte is world famous, of course. Fredrika Bremer, an author from Sweden, may not be famous right now, but she was back in her day, even in the USA. The Loserville library has… Continue reading Charlotte Bronte and Fredrika Bremer
I'm reading "Pioneer Girl" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This is the first autobiography she wrote of her life, before she started writing the "Little House" books. I always assumed the Little House books were the truth and nothing but the truth, but based on "Pioneer Girl", I am finding out this is not the case.… Continue reading Welfare
I've been reading the Arabic translation of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone". I got it from the Loserville Central Library. The Arabic translation is very faithful, I have discovered, and in general it is a word-for-word translation. But if you look carefully, you'll find some deviations. Here's some examples all from the scene of… Continue reading Comparing the American and Arabic versions of Harry Potter
This is one of my favorite books. It's by the same author who wrote Anne of Green Gables. One thing that always intrigued me about this book is the food they are described as eating. According to "Magic for Marigold", which is set in the 1920s, all they ate back then was cake and pudding… Continue reading The food they eat in “Magic for Marigold”
I love the author of Anne of Green Gables. On a quiet, remote shelf on the eighth floor of Davis Library in Chapel Hill, I found her biography "The Gift of Wings" and read it all. And it described her marriage and how damaging it turned out to be -- to both of them. He… Continue reading Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote her husband into her books
The entire city of Loserville, I mean, Los Angeles, is a giant trashy dump. So imagine my surprise when I went to the main branch of the library and found it to be a very nice place. Los Angeles putting money and resources into something that you don't have to be rich to access??? How… Continue reading The central library in Los Angeles
Union Street is the main street of Concord, North Carolina. It's been partly closed off the past few months because they're doing construction. But on Sunday, both sides of the street were blocked from traffic. So towards sunset, we set off to see what the occasion was. Maybe some kind of street festival, now that… Continue reading Judy Blume movie in Concord
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