Eve's Garden of Books

I am returning to this Book Blog, started in 2011, with a renewed passion for reading & all things book related. In the early days of the Pandemic, I had great plans, but like all good intentions most did not go beyond the first month’s hibernation, followed by a few intermittent attempts over these past 5 1/2 months.  But lucky for me, I found BookTube and have since enjoyed many happy hours among fellow readers and book lovers.   First, I learned BookTube has its own lingo, but after several months, I now can speak confidently using terms like  TBR (To Be Read), DNF (Did Not Finish), Bookshelf Tours (a guided tour of BookTubers' bookshelves), Book Hauls (Whether virtual or in person, book buying), Book Tags (A challenge from one BookTuber to another) by which the reader in accepting the challenge needs to fulfill various criteria in selection of books (usually between 3-5 books).  [For instance, 1.  Choose a book with "Autumn" in the title or a ...

Oscar Hijuelos (photo by Dario Acosta) (1951-2013) When browsing the City University of New York alumni magazine, I learned of the sudden death of Pulitzer Prize winning author, Oscar Hijuelos at age 62 this past autumn.  Shocked and deeply saddened, I had looked forward with great anticipation to each new work from the Cuban-American author, whose mastery of language was intoxicating and whose storytelling dexterity was a reminder of the oral folkloric tradition of Latin American.  In my favorite of his novels, "The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien"  I recall Hijuelos describing the overwhelming feminine scent of the women in a small Pennsylvania house so overwhelmed a pilot that he is quite literally pulled from the sky to the ground below by his desire.  This piece of magical realism owes something to the master of that genre, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but Hijuelos is no less adept at the technique.  Every Hijuelos book was a joyous read and I...

The Poets http://www.citylights.com/  - Ferlinghetti outside City Lights Book Store & Publishing And The Beats Go On... Spent last summer and fall with Kerouac and friends, and what a wild trip it was from gritty New York to Denver (where Cassady's Dad is on the bum) to San Francisco (Ferlinghetti's City Lights open all hours), with stops in Chicago for jazz and New Orleans for some low down blues.  Across the Rio Grande a time or two and lost in Mexico.  Headed up PCH 1 for a rest in Big Sur and moved up to Salinas to sleep among the migrants and the stars, on a western beach under a cliff.  Later, in a surreal haze, a journey to Tangiers, with Burroughs, the mad genius, in search of the holy grail of opiates.  Then a flight of fancy back to Coney's boardwalk, where my father played as a boy.  I sat among drifters, hobos and wild men.  I saw my country through the eyes of a generation of children who ...

With a myriad of distractions, some that couldn't be helped, and others that should have been, I wandered far from my good intentions of keeping a regular blog.  That doesn't mean I stopped reading.  Not by a long shot.  When at last I decided to take matters in hand, I began with a recommendation from a dear friend.  A very fine way to begin any project, I should think.  Bolshoi Ballet in London - The New York Times Russian Winter is Daphne Kalotay 's first novel, in which she manages to combine classic romanticism; her characters ripe with mystery and allure, and historical fiction, with details of the era sharp and precise to the finest details of the weather and the articles of clothing worn.  She is a gifted story teller of the old school, for she knows how within a few pages to lure the reader in.  An old woman, a young woman and a solitary man.  What is their link?  Nina Revskaya, a prima ballerina come...