AUTUMNAL READING 2015

Well its about time I started to blog again. I have been given so many books to read and write up from friends and fellow bookworms, and all i have done is READ them not adding anything to this blog.

I AM AIMING NOW FOR A FORTNIGHTLY BLOG SO PLEASE FORGIVE ME 🙂

I have been reading books in all forms: with my IPAD download, audio -books and books! Yep I still love the feeling and smell of old and new books and turning the pages, even when it comes to the enormous tomes of Tolstoy and The F.Scott Fitzgerald Collections. And believe me, it can be a killer exercise!

AUDIO-BOOKS  -STEPHEN FRY CHRONICLES

One of the delights of audio-books is when they are read by magnificent voices who put their heart and soul into the reading. This year Stephen Fry has kept me thoroughly entertained with his Fry Chronicles. Its a great way to get through this winter's horrible flu, which has left many of us flat out in bed, and just when you think you are okay, back revisiting your bedroom for yet anotherdose. You can Imagine Stephen sitting on the end of your bed, getting up every now and again to light his pipe, peruse your book collection, frowning at your taste in boudoir decor, or staring out your window into the night with a comtemplative gaze.

You can never imagine him actually soothing your brow, but he might bring you in a cup of tea occasionally, or interupt his own reading with some incredible fact about an obtuse subject, actually making eye contact. Its embarassing laughing out loud at his descriptions of personal ashamedness of lolly and sugary cereal addictions, of his petty school boy thievery from other boys lockers and his often woeful sporting attempts.

He admits his biggest addiction is with WORDS and his penchant for long rambling rich sentences in a world that loves plot driven books and movies, the spare, cut to the chase movies and books that leave you exhausted rather than enriched. 

Treat yourself to an audio-splurge of Stephen Fry's Chronicles, with numerous cups of hot chocolate and the occassional brandy (for medicinal purposes only)

" HAPPY FAMILIES ARE ALL ALIKE: EVERY UNHAPPY FAMILY IS UNHAPPY IN ITS OWN WAY"----Opening Lines

I dont know why i have suddenly changed to pink font but I have an overwhelming desire to do so.

Wow a perennial read that always has you spell bound. it was published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger.It appeared in 1878 as Tolstoys first true novel, when he came to consider War and Peace as more like a chronicle, than a novel. In fact in 2007, it was declared to be the finest novel ever written.

 This a very poor synopsis for such a wonderful and huge story-line, but forgive me.... its hard to put an epic novel into a nutshell!

It is the tragic story of a married aristocrat and her affair with the dashing Count Vronsky. Their story begins when she arrives in the midst of a family broken by the womanising Prince "Stiva" Oblonsky, who is married to Dolly. Vronsky sees her arriving at the railway station, (Classic scene)  and is immediately smitten by her and after the other classic scene, the Ballroom scene) they begin their complex romantic affair.

The irony is that she is bound by the heavy influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and society in general, while Oblonsky's shennanigans  are tolerated. 

She is shunned in Russian society so they travel to Italy, where their relationship unravels. Meanwhile there is a parallel story within the novel around Konstantin Levin, a wealthy country landowner, who is in love with Kitty, Dolly's sister... who happens to have a huge crush on Vronsky.

In the end Levin and Kitty happily marry while Anna.... well, its so tragic.

The novel explores a diverse range of topics over its 1000 pages: the feudal system of Russia, The influence of the government and its relationshi[p with the Church, gender and social class issues, but most of all the impact on families.

There are many films based on this novel, but for me the version with Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean is the most moving with the background of Beethovens glorious symphonies.

To be read in big chunks with the occasional White Russian and caviar blintzes (NO BORSCHT!!!) 

' For more than 3 centuries after his death, Rembrandt remains the most deeply loved of all the great masters of painting, his face so familiar to us from the self-portraits at every stage of his life, yet still so mysterious.

Like Shakespeare, the facts of his life are hard to come by: the Leiden miller's son who briefly found fame in Amsterdam, whose genius was fitfully recognised by his contemporaries, who fell into bankruptcy and died in poverty."

Through Simon Shama we follow through a huge succession of brilliant descriptions and interpretations of Rembrandts paintings threaded into this narrative. But this is not just a biography or art hisory, Shama is able to conjure up Rembrandt's world... its sights, its smells, its tastes and its politics. He ironically became so impoverished he was forced to sell his wife Saskias grave plot after her death."

Yet he was the greatest influence on Peter Paul Reubens ' The Prince of Painters and the painter of Princes "

Like everyone else, I seek out his works just to be absorbed into his mundane, yet ethereal world.

This is a huge text book that needs a table to rest on but is soo beautiful, with its reproductions of his glorious paintings, the common man and daily life. I bought it for my husband as a luxurious gift but this book really gives me so much pleasure and just makes me love art so much more.

A panini, a block of cheese and a glass of rough white (allergic to red)