Month: September 2020

Top Ten Tuesday – 10 Favourite quotes from books

It’s Tuesday and I was so hoping to have lots of time to do my Top Ten Tuesday post this week. We are on holiday and there are few extra hours in the day for blogging. Alas… The hours aren’t the problem – It’s the wifi and cellphone signals. Luckily we have old stock that can be revived. If I had to make a brand new post today, I would rather have left it. And Todays prompt is one of my favorite topics to talk about, that’s why I have my weekly fortnightly Wednesday Wisdom post. Ten Favourite Quotes from books. I’ve made this post over 3 years ago and some are still relevant. Would have been great to update it! But I have books to read today and a holiday to enjoy….Uploading one picture/link takes at least 10 minutes. So nope, let’s just enjoy the original ones! 1. The One plus One by Jojo Moyes (this one is dedicated to those brainy guys who use numbers and equations to confuse us mere mortals ) The law of probability combined with the law of large numbers state that to break the odds, sometimes you have to repeat an event an increasing number of times in […]

Posted September 29, 2020
38 Comments

Five Qaurters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

Title: Five Quarters of the Orange Author: Joanne Harris Pages: 363 (Paperback) Published: 2002 (Black Swan) ISBN: 978 0552 998833 Genre: Historical Fiction (WWII), Food and secrets are main ingredients My Rating: Synopsis: Beyond the main street of Les Laveuses runs the Loire, smooth and brown as a sunning snake – but hiding a deadly undertow beneath its moving surface. This is where Framboise, a secretive widow named after a raspberry liqueur, plies her culinary trade at the creperie – and lets her memory play strange games. Into this world comes the threat of revelation as Frambroise’s nephew – a profiteering Parisian – attempts to exploit the growing success of the country recipes she has inherited from her mother, a woman remembered with contempt by the villagers of Les Laveuses. As the split blood of a tragic wartime childhood flows again, exposure beckons for Framboise, the widow with an invented past. “I know, I know. You want me to get to the point. But this is at least as important as the rest, the method of telling, and the time taken to tell. It has taken me 55 years to begin, at least let me do it in my own way.” […]

Posted September 28, 2020
7 Comments

Bestsellers around the world: South Africa and Australia

A couple of weeks ago my Mommy received her first EMAIL, not comment, from a fellow blogger. You can imagine the surprise and utter joy we felt. That email came all the way from The Land Down Under to be delivered in her inbox here on the Southern Part of Africa. Oh, how I miss the postal services! I would have loved to get a real letter from Australia! Anyway, Marg from the Adventures of the Intrepid Reader contacted my Mommy to ask if she wants to take part in a joint post regarding bestsellers and how they compare between our different countries. Over the next couple of weeks, we chatted a couple of times via email and we discovered that her husband is originally from South Africa and her in laws are still living here. What a small world we live in. I don’t as a rule follow the Best Sellers list in South Africa. I read whatever I want. My Mommy’s favorite Bookshop in South Africa, is Bargain Books. It’s one of the first shops on the right as you enter our local Shopping Mall and yes, she normally steers right upon entering the sliding doors. They usually have a display […]

Posted September 26, 2020
20 Comments

Weekend Book Friends #10

Good morning dear Friday Friends! By the time you are reading this, we are hopefully well on our way to our holiday destination for the next couple of days. Yes, Elza is sulking at home, but she will be fine and might just realize how unbelievably spoiled she is. I am looking forward to our holiday and hope that we will have adventures and wondrous discoveries just like Miss Benson in the book that I will be featuring today. Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce Margery Benson’s life ended the day her father walked out of his study and never came back. Forty years later, abandoning a dull job, she advertises for an assistant. The successful candidate is to accompany Margery on an expedition to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty is not who she had in mind. But together they will find themselves drawn into an adventure that exceeds all Margery’s expectations, eventually finding new life at the top of a red mountain. This is a story that is less about what can be found than the belief it might be found; it is an […]

Posted September 25, 2020
28 Comments

Wondrous Words Wednesday – Curmudgeon

I saw this very catchy blog title on Yvonne, over at Fiction Books‘ website, and it immediately caught my lover-of-language eye. I so wish I could talk like humans. Who doesn’t love all the different languages? Who doesn’t love a good alliteration? Wondrous Words Wednesday. I can definitely purr that. My Mommy started investigating and notice that this is actually a meme started by Kathy @ Bermuda Onion Blog. But Kathy is taking a bit of a break and just like Yvonne, I do hope she doesn’t mind that we still use her meme. English is not my first language, my Mommy mostly speak Afrikaans to me. So yes – we do come across some words that we’ve never heard or seen before in our reading endeavors. For last week’s Top Ten Tuesday, I utterly convinced you that The world does revolve around me. On that post, we came across a word that my Mommy has never seen before: CURMUDGEON It sounds like a terrible disease and I guess for some people (and a few cats), it might just be that. As you can see from our cover image, a curmudgeon is a bad tempered person – especially an old one. I know a […]

Posted September 23, 2020
12 Comments

The Classics Club (I finally did it!)

I am so excited for this post today, I’ve been meaning to join The Classics Club for such a long time. When I first started blogging 3 years ago, I meant to do it. Never got round to it. This time around, I’m pulling an Eliza Doolittle on myself and move my bloomin ass. No time for too much chitchat here, there’s lots of books that need to be entered here. In case you also want to to join, here’s the fine print: – choose 50+ classics – list them at your blog – choose a reading completion goal date up to five years in the future and note that date on your classics list of 50+ titles – e-mail the moderators of the Classics Club blog (theclassicsclubblog@gmail.com) with your list link and information and it will be posted on the Members Page! – write about each title on your list as you finish reading it, and link it to your main list – when you’ve written about every single title, let them and everyone else know! It did take me some time to compile my list. I mostly made use of The Goodreads Classic Must Read List and I was actually quite surprised […]

Posted September 22, 2020
18 Comments

The Sunday Post #12

Greetings humans. No exclamation marks or smiling kitties today. My Mommy’s heart is a bit heavy and mine are just scared and confused. In my little, simply a kitten mind, I was under the impression that animals were placed under the care of humans. I’m sure I’ve read it in that Big Black Book next to my Mommy’s bedside. Not sure who’s mistaken here, but seeing that I’m from a species who cannot speak for themselves, it will most probably be us in the wrong. Ever noticed how humans can justify everything with spoken words? On Thursday, disgruntled employees at the Fairview Racecourse in Port Elizabeth (this is very close to where we live), went on a stabbing spree while venting their anger over the non-payment of UIF money. One horse was killed with a panga and several others seriously injured. Eyewitness News How terribly sad when innocent animals are slaughtered and abused due to greed and hate. It makes me very scared and my Mommy very sad. On Thursday it is heritage day in South Africa, but Mommy says she will not celebrate it. This is not her heritage. Let’s try to be a bit more cheerfully, shall we? […]

Posted September 20, 2020
28 Comments

Grensgeval deur Marita van der Vyver

Titel: Grensgeval Skrywer: Marita van der Vyver Publikasie: 2019 (Penguin) Bladsye: 293 Formaat: Sagtebank Beveel aan: As jy van Marita van der Vyver hou en weet hoe sy toor met woorde en stories – verseker ja. Moenie ‘n oorlogstorie of reisjoernaal verwag nie. My Gradering: Kort opsomming: Die brief wat Theresa tussen haar eksman Theo se besittings ná sy dood ontdek, skeur haar lewe oop. Jare lank het sy haar rug op Theo gedraai, ’n man wat sy laaste twee dekades in ’n inrigting moes deurbring. Só ook het sy die land se verlede weggestoot, die tyd toe tienerseuns gestuur is om aan die grens te veg – ’n plek en ’n oorlog waarvan mense tuis bitter min geweet het. Vir Theresa self was dit ’n tydperk van eerste liefdes, disko’s en vakansies by die see.Theresa besef gou die brief is deur ’n Kubaanse soldaat aan sy kind geskryf – iemand wat, indien hy of sy nog leef, nou minstens veertig jaar oud sal wees. Theresa weet in haar siel sy moet Kuba toe: om die soldaat se kind te soek, om die brief te besorg, om boete te doen vir Theo se dade en vir haar eie onkunde.In swoel, afgeleefde […]

Posted September 19, 2020
10 Comments

Weekend Book Friends #9

Not only is it Friday, but it’s also holidays! Jippie Yea!!!! Not that I think I’m going to see much of my Mommy today. She is off to school early in the morning and then she’s going for a well-deserved drink with her fellow teachers as soon as the bell chimes for end of day. I’m not complaining at all here. I know when she comes home, she will kick of her shoes and fall on the couch. With a book. And me of course. What will she be reading? I actually have no idea. But if it’s up to me, I think it’s time for something a bit lighter. And she still needs to finish her Alphabet challenge. I’m just going to go ahead and make the decision for her. She might thrown upon my choice, but a bit of romance never hurt anyone. Okay, I liked the cover. Someday in Paris by Olivia Lara 1954. Zara is fifteen the first time she meets Leon. During a power cut in a small French museum, the two spend one short hour in the dark talking about their love for art, Monet, and Paris. Neither knows what the other looks […]

Posted September 18, 2020
22 Comments

Wednesday Wisdom from The Rosie Result (Don Tillman #3)

I really didn’t think that I would have time for this post today. I actually DON’T, but what the heck. Steal a few minutes. Our school is closing on Friday for two weeks and we are busy with report cards. As I read through my teachers’ reports and comments, I constantly think of today’s book for Wednesday Wisdom. It’s the third one in the Don Tillman trilogy. Yes, I can share lovely quotes from all three, but due to my line of work, the last one is very close to heart. I am one of those over achieving, high functioning and always stressed out teachers you will meet at school. I work at a private, mainstream school where I am the Librarian, the Edublox teacher (extra learning and reading support), and I manage a wonderful class where we work with students who don’t function well in mainstream, due to various reasons. Dyslexia, lower cognitive abilities, epilepsy and of course, students who fall on the autism spectrum. It’s wonderful to work with these kids and my teachers are angels straight from heaven, it’s not always easy though. They are still part of the mainstream school, they […]

Posted September 16, 2020
12 Comments

Month: September 2020

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