Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel

Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel by Boris Akunin

I did not care for this book. I really enjoyed all four of the Fandorin books by Akunin, as well as the other two Sister Pelagia books that have been translated. I was really looking forward to getting this new translation; however, I soon found that it was not like the previous books. I found this book boring. I kept putting it aside. I had to struggle to finish it. It was not a fun, happy read for me. In addition, I also found the unnecessary and gratuitous violence and murders of innocent children and others to be uninviting. When I finally got to the end of the book and learned the storyline and plot, I found it so hokey that I could hardly believe that a writer like Akunin would write such a storyline. I have less excitement now about the next Akunin book that is translated. I don't recommend this book.

Stones into Schools, Greg Mortenson

Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson

The first book written about Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea, described how Mortenson became involved in building schools in rural Pakistan. The book became a world-wide inspirational best seller. This book follows up by describing how Mortenson and his "Dirty Dozen" employees work. The book describes how some of the schools -- now 131 -- actually came about. Mortenson describes how he and his men work with local community leaders to gain their acceptance and support, which he believes is vital to success. I found this book as inspirational as the first book -- it provides tangible methods to achieve success. Compared with the total number of schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the number of schools built by Mortenson is tiny, but they are vital to the villages and the children they serve.

As an unintended consequence, a much larger purpose has been served by Mortenson -- he has inspired the American military to take a completely different approach -- talking with elders in communities rather than simply bombing and killing innocent civilians. Military leaders have sought the advice of Mortenson, and Three Cups of Tea is now required reading by officers in the military serving in Afghanistan. At last our military is "promoting peace with books, not bombs", as Mortenson teaches, as shown by this quote:

"What Greg understands better than most—and what he practices more than anyone else I know—is the simple truth that all of us are better off when all of us have the opportunity to learn, especially our children. By helping them learn and grow, he’s shaping the very future of a region and giving hope to an entire generation." —Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Stones into Schools

New York Times Review of Stones into Schools

Bill Moyers Interview with Greg Mortenson

Bloomberg Night Talk Interview with Greg Mortenson (and numerous other YouTube videos of Greg Mortenson

Central Asia Institute

Greg Mortenson

Greg Mortenson's Blog

Three Cups of Tea

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

What goes on in the mind of a pedophile? How can this obsession be described? Nabokov imagined the thoughts, the feelings, of a man completely consumed by his addiction to a "nymphet" -- a 12 year old girl. To me, all fiction books can be judged by two criteria -- the quality of the story and the quality of the writing. This story was interesting in that it described the mind of a man with a particular insanity. The quality of the writing was outstanding for people who take delight in the use of words almost never used, mixed with the use of French. For me, I found the story to drag, and I found the book very easy to put aside; the story was too boring and the words too strange for me to enjoy. For years, I had postponed reading the book because I was too uneasy about the subject matter of the book. In retrospect, I found that I was simply bored too often by the book. By comparison, Gogol's short story, "The Diary of a Madman" is one of the most moving stories I have ever read. Gogol's writing is so mesmerizing that I sometimes found myself forgetting the story and simply marveling at the way he wrote.

Others, too, have noted the difficulties posed by the word play in the book, and find an annotated version of the book to be helpful.
"...the reader of Lolita attempts to arrive at some sense of its overall 'meaning,' while at the same time having to struggle...with the difficulties posed by the recondite materials and rich, elaborate verbal textures. The main purpose of this edition is to solve such local problems and to show how they contribute to the total design of the novel." --From the Preface by Alfred Appel, Jr.

The Annotated Lolita

Or, as stated in the Wikipedia article: "The novel's flamboyant style is characterized by word play, double entendres, multilingual puns, anagrams, and coinages such as 'nymphet', a word that has since had a life of its own and can be found in most dictionaries, and the lesser used 'faunlet'."

Lolita

Salute to Vienna 2010

Salute To Vienna, at Strathmore Music Center, January 2, 2010.

An evening of Strauss music. What an elegant, happy way to welcome in the new year and the new decade.

And a contest at the concert! Who is that girl? Can you name the woman in the painting and the artist who painted her portrait?

I was able to name the artist, but missed the name of the woman. The artist was Gustav Klimt, who some art historians call one of the 20 most influential artists of the past 500 years. His most famous painting is The Kiss.




So who is the woman? I guessed that the woman in the painting was Klimt's wife, Judith.


However, I was mistaken; instead, it was Emilie Flöge, painted at the request of her husband.

As You Like It, Shakespeare Theatre

Francesca Faridany as Rosalind and John Behlmann as Orlando in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of William Shakespeare’s "As You Like It". Directed by Maria Aitken. Photo by Scott Suchman.



As You Like It, Shakespeare Theatre