Inferno: two cents on reviews and comments

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. ~ Dante Alighieri

 
Hello, it's Miss Scatterbrain 'talking back' to reviews and comments on Dan Brown's latest book Inferno. Telegraph crime fiction reviewer Jack Kerridge observes that 'Dan Brown's take on Dante's Inferno is the thriller-writer's most ambitious novel yet – and his worst.' Kerridge then presents a review which to me sounds fair enough.

1. Brilliant reviews offer something to learn or in my case propels me to recognize who exactly has the authority to call a worldwide pandemic and be aware of what impact that could have on the planet, eg. how it takes only one person's advice and recommendations for drug industries to either hemorrhage profits or revise operational tactics. 

2. WHO ate chicken everyday during the 2003 avian outbreak and told everyone not to panic? That's right. The top guy of the WHO who is a she. Yes, girl power!

3. Do you wonder if those who give bad reviews ever wrote anything themselves other than their own reviews?

4. I sometimes scan reviewers' background or review repertoire; particularly those who give interestingly mean reviews and say why.

5. If it's Stephen King, well, I still think some bushel is left for analysis on his view that Stephenie Meyer could not write.

6. V.S. Naipaul slams women writers, singling out the very Jane Austen. My Jane Austen! Just where did he get his guts? From being described as the "greatest living writer of English prose"? I don't care. At least Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sounds kind despite writing to Newman that "Miss Austen has no romance."

7. Inferno entertains beside pointing readers to places they may want to visit in Italy. To me that's where I get my money's worth. Plus, the bit on the World Health Organization was quite amusing when you think of how it is not "just fantasy, but impossible," in the real world. So asserts a Special to CNN.

8. As an English major, my ears jut out on an aleteia review which questions the use of the word "enormity." I have yet to read this part. The Oxford Dictionary defines enormity as 'monstrous wickedness' or 'dreadful crime.' So you don't use it to describe an edifice or a statue, eg. Michelangelo's David.

9. Did Brown possibly have 'enormous,' which means 'vast, immense, tremendous,' in mind when he penned "the staggering force of the cathedral's enormity'"?

10. Some comments are a riot: "Da Vinci Code was a masterpiece / Digital Fortress was appalling..."  I'm going to buy a hard-cover Da Vinci and forgive a niece who stole my Digital Fortress.

11. It pays to go over comments for chances that another book may be mentioned which could make another read: "Jonathon Holt's Abomination is a real find. Clever, cultured, exciting and beautifully written."

12. "I don't understand it. I write at least as badly as Brown, and yet my novel isn't selling! How did he find an agent?" A cute joke perhaps.

13. Here's a no-holds-barred piece of someone's mind - "I think that it is very important to take the piss out of the not even semi-literate, nonsense disseminated by the incompetent Dan Brown, Tom Clancy and all who sail in them. It is not a matter of envy..."  Is it not? Don't we sound like specimens headed for the psychology lab?

Did you like Inferno? Have you read it or would you consider reading it? I will appreciate your thoughts.

Links
Thursday Thirteen
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Boys will be boys

It was a weekend night. And so because it was I allowed the kiddo to choose who to sleep with: me or Grandma or a friend's kids who were spending the night with us. Obviously he's gone creative with the grocery carton as his head board, homework notebook as his pillow, skateboard as his bed, Grandma's scarf as his blanket and with Snoopy his sleeping buddy, he nearly gave me a heart attack.

The Grandma woke up to go to the bathroom and to check on him, as she always does. Well, thanks to her instincts. The entire house was in muffled commotion at midnight before we all breathed back normally at finding this handful under the dining table.  Morning found him on my bed, and me - semi-conscious on a nearby swivel chair.

When you're a mom of a handful, you never get bored. If you are like me or know someone in similar shoes, here's a list of books I thought would help keep things sane.

1

How to be a happy mum: children behaving badly

Siobhan Freeguard

Netmums guide to stress-free family life

"Do you ever look at your children and wonder where you are going wrong? Do you sometimes feel if you're doing this parenting thing all wrong, and that just when you think you've got it all under control they press those buttons and it all comes tumbling down around you?" Netmum

2

Young gentleman's handbook(x): boys behaving badly
Jeremy Daldry
A book I may read for when Mr. Handful is a teenager.


"At the heart of this book is a simple, humane message: youth can be blissful and it can be nightmarish...." Books for Keeps

3

Also known as Harper

Ann Haywood Leal

A book to help explain the economy

"...Jacki is able to maintain her sense of humor though she is forced to learn some harsh realities about the economy when the recession begins to affect her own family and lifestyle." Scholastic

4

Hour of the Olmpics

Mary Pope Osborne

A kid's book about the Olympics

"Their magic tree house takes Jack and Annie back to retrieve a lost story in ancient Greece, where they witness the original Olympic games and are surprised to find what girls of the time were not allowed to do. Scholastic 

 5

Big dog...little dog

P.D. Eastman

A book about friendship

"This delightful book chronicles a day in the life of Ted and Fred-two dogs who are different in every way, but also the best of friends." Scholastic

6

Tuck Everlasting

Natalie Babbitt

A book with a female lead which is also perfect for boys

"History passes the Tuck family by... but though they live outside the rules of time, they never live beyond the rules of human compassion and feeling. Scholastica

7

Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good very bad day

Judith Viorst

A book for dealing with tough issues

 "a kid with an unruly crop of hair, who gets out of bed to face a day that seems to grow increasingly worse with each passing minute" Scholastic

8

Gus and grandpa at basketball

Claudia Mills

A book celebrating grandparents

A great intergenerational team.... They're lucky to have each other. Readers are lucky to have them." Scholastic

  
9

The giving tree

Shel Silverstein

A book about gratitude

 "Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy." Scholastic

10

The view from Saturday

E.L. Konisburg

A book for building confidence to face academic and social challenges

"Four students... develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition." Scholastic

11

When is a planet... not a planet?

Elaine Scott

A book for learning about life in space and reading about fun space adventures

"Because of the history-making reassignment of Pluto from "planet" to "dwarf planet" on August 24, 2006, all books on the solar system are now out of date." Scholastic

12

Weather whys

Mike Artell

A nonfiction book that will help expand your child's knowledge of the weather

"Why can't we see through fog? Why do I see lightning before I hear thunder? Why do some places have hurricanes?" Scholastic

13

If I ran for president

Catherine Steir

A book to help a child explore the drama of campaigning, voting, and competition

"The entertaining yet informative text is a good conversation starter for discussions on the election process." Scholastic

Links: Thursday Thirteen * Favorite Things * Sally's Blues

Watermelon hearts

One day I brunched on watermelon. The yellow variety is not common in Thailand so when I found some in the supermarket, I checked out a huge slice. And while I was at it, I looked around for mention of the fruit from different media; sources, origins, background. Guess my favorite would be no. 1. What's yours? If you know anything else about them, it would be lovely to hear that. 

 

1. "When one has tasted watermelon, he knows what the angels eat."  ~ Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

2. It had just struck nine from the cuckoo clock that hung over the mantel-piece in the dining room, when Victorine brought in the halved watermelon and set it in front of Mr Bessemer's plate. ~ Frank Norris, Blix

3. That night Flora wanted to eat watermelon. ~ Dorit Rabinyan, Persian Brides

4. What shall we do? All of us passionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with out mouths like caverns of teeth, our mushrooming brains, and watermelon hearts? ~ Francesca Lia Block, Blood Roses

5. There were happy days with watermelon and sad days of whiskey. ~ Lewis Nordan

6. The head is a clumsy, ill-proportioned monstrosity. It is the understudy in a watermelon-rolling contest. ~Bauvard, The Prince of Plungers

7. Her skin is pale as watermelon sucked free of its juices. ~ Jaclyn Moriarty, The Ghosts of Ashbury High

8. The deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar. ~ Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar

9. For me, Felleni was like a watermelon. It is there. A watermelon can not die. ~ Roberto Benigni

10. Most of my memories of Texas are of mosquitoes. Watermelons. Crickets. And my brother teasing me. ~ Robin Wright

11. Watermelon. It's a good fruit. You eat, you drink, you wash your face. ~ Enrico Caruso

12. Ivan had contrived somehow in the dark of night to replace every watermelon in the watermelon patch with a gravestone, and every gravestone in the engraver's lot with a watermelon. ~ Kristin Cashore, Bitterblue

13. A party without watermelon is just a meeting. ~ Julia Child (ed.)

Links: Favorite Things * Thursday Thirteen * Mellow Yellows

Tyranny of words

After The Wolf of Wall Street yesterday I had been subjected to enough expletives to fancy something I thought might have less or none of di Caprio's f******* screen awesomeness. Jordie is serving time while Charlie is spending time with his great grand kids.  I'll admit it: I'm a fan of the classics.

Here are 13 quotes from David Copperfield. I put together what I can relate with, like "there is Math in your future" (#1), my father who lived most of his life around #4,  when tempted to attempt too much multi-tasking (#5), my favorite vice (#6); favorite relaxant (#10) and so on. Does anything appeal to you?

Photo: Literature is my Utopia

1. “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”

2.   “Trifles make the sum of life. ” 

3.  “We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against their masters, so I think I could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words.” 

 4. “Least said, soonest mended”

 5. “I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time.”

6. “Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.”

7. “There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.” 

8. “We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, Trot!” 

9. “But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof.” 

10. “I could settle down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee.”

11. “This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life.” 

12. “It's in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.”

13.  “Are tears the dewdrops of the heart?”

THURSDAY 13

Christmas Favorites

1

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful." ~ Norman Vincent Peale

2

 Carol of the Bells by Celtic Woman

3

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly." ~ Andy Rooney

 4

 Miracle on 34th Street

5

"When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things, not the great occasions, give off the greatest glow of happiness." ~ Bob Hope

6

A little Christmas feast I made last year. I was all alone I thought I might as well make the culinary bit something I would enjoy. So I had salmon, chicken curry, beef steak, chocolates, cinnamon and nuts, shiitake

7

"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree." ~Roy L. Smith

8

My bookish Christmas tree

9

'"One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has gone and gone, and I didn;t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."' ~ J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

10

11

"The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. It's not for any religious reasons.  They could not find three wise men and virgin." ~  Jay Leno

 State of my dresser: getting ready to host a solo Christmas tea; I had Lady Grey with the orange, mint, lemon and bergamot flavors

12

13

"Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories, and love of kindred and we are better throughout the year for having in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time." ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

Visit Favorite Things and Thursday Thirteen

Bookish Thanksgiving

I am thankful for -

1. Beautiful libraries. Don't they just take your breath away?

The Library by Dr James Chapman and Will Pryce

2. Tsundoku: when life outside books and reading gets busy, here's what I do!

 Mediabistro: Illustrated definition of a book lover's problem

3. Authors; and I refer to not just my favorite ones

 Soucebooks

4. My job allows employees to read whatever and as much as they like so long as work is done.

5. People like David Rubenstein who plans to loan to libraries the Bay Psalm Book he bought at auction (reportedly the world's most expensive book at $14M)
 

6. Facebook Pages that provide my daily bookish fix:

The Book Riot  /  Literature is my Utopia  /  Classic, Words - Old Fashion  /  The Book Connections

7. Book-shopping. Nowadays I am loving book-shopping more than shoe-shopping (when I'm supposed to be a shoe addict too)

8. Places like this - a perfect stop in a literary tour. If I have any motivation to send my son to the US, having him explore Bookworm Gardens would be a wonderful purpose to put on the visa application form.

 Book Riot

9. Browsing, personal position style. This is the Central Bangna branch of Asia Books. They don't mind patrons looking weird while browsing their books

10. Being a bookworm. What joy!

 The Book Connections

11. Second-hand book shops. My apartment is running out of space because of them, and I'm enjoying the sight

12. Bookish brunches. This is Agalico, a lovely tea room; my weekend hangout where I read in peace

13. And finally, my parents who instilled in me a love for reading; showering me with books as gifts while I was growing up. I'm passing on the tradition to the son

Once upon a Valentine, I dated my kiddo in a bookstore...

Shared with: Favorite Things and Thursday Thirteen

In the wake of Haiyan

Moods have been subdued in the wake of Haiyan. And as the country this typhoon hit is mine, our fourth in 2013 alone, the horror and sorrow I felt have been rather raw. In my late teens I spent an entire summer in Tacloban, the place where devastation was center; the visuals torture. I work up my list around storms on things less graphic and comfortably manageable:

A couple of facts about Haiyan from USA Today
1. Super Typhoon Haiyan had winds of 195 mph and gusts of 235 mph. This is one of the highest wind speeds ever recorded in a storm in world history. The Philippines typically gets hit by more typhoons than any country on Earth, usually about six or seven each year.

2. The storm is known as Super Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines. The World Meteorological Organization officially assigns typhoon names, to have a consistent name for a storm, but other countries are free to create their own names too.

Books
3. Sandstorm by James Rollin
Keywords would appeal to someone who likes: antimatter, scientific expeditions, antiquities, secret societies, suspense fiction

4. Storm Chaser: a photographer's journey by Jim Reed
If you are interested in issues of global warming, stories about, and new research on the weather, 'Storm Chaser is a mesmerizing look at some of the catastrophic consequences of our planet's increasing temperature.' This book contains 'breathtaking photos, quotes, letters, and journal entries from climatologists, researchers, political leaders, spiritual advisors, and storm survivors.' "Storm Chaser chronicles photographer Jim Reed's most thrilling, beautiful, memorable, and dramatic adventures to date."

Passages from classic poetry 
5. Proud music of the storm by Walt Whitman

Blending, with Nature's rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;

You chords left us by vast composer! you choruses!

You formless, free, religious dances! you from the Orient!

You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts;

You sounds of distant guns, with galloping cavalry!

Echoes of camps, with all the different bugle-calls!

Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnite late, bending me powerless,

Entering my lonesome slumber- Why have you seiz'd me?

6. The Hurricane, William Cullen Bryant

What roar is that?-'tis the rain that breaks
In torrents away from the airy lakes,
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,
And shedding a nameless horror round.
Ah! well known woods, and mountains, and skies,
With the very clouds!-ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
The shadowy tempest and sweeps through space,
A whirling ocean that fills the wall
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all.

   

Photos 
7. Before the storm

 Peter Kratochvil

8. Tropical Storm

 Lee Wag

Quotes
9. “There's always another storm. It's the way the world works. Snowstorms, rainstorms, windstorms, sandstorms, and firestorms. Some are fierce and others are small. You have to deal with each one separately, but you need to keep an eye on whats brewing for tomorrow.” Maria V. Snyder, Fire Study

10. “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

 11. “It’s not a bad lesson to learn in the bleaker months: how you view a storm is a question of perspective; provided you find the right rock to watch it from, it could be the most incredible thing you’ll ever witness.”
―Dan Stevens 

12. “I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible and when I leave you will finally understand why storms are named after people.” ― Unknown 

13. “It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls.” ― Bruce Barton 

~ Thursday 13 & Favorite Things ~

Double trouble

Macbeth: witches chanting around a cauldron. Something wicked this way comes!  I enjoy associating the song with Halloween. But as I go through eye of newt, tongue of dog... I can't help thinking how gruesome they are, especially that I'm an animal lover, particularly dogs, and I hate it when animals are hurt.

There is an article though that I came across which suggests that these bats, worms or lizards are "likely just herbs by other names... the brew was "designed to gross out the masses; to stop them from practicing magic."

Now that I can accept. There are only 12 translations from The Literary Tourist. I did some research for the 13th. As I do not normally see these plants in my part of the world, I was also learning while putting them together. The photos are mostly public domain. The one above is my mother's cauldron but it's only jack fruit inside. A link to the photographers and sites follows.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

1. Eye of Newt - Mustard Seed
Deception Bytes
 

2. Toe of Frog - Buttercup
Максим Кукушкин

3. Wool of Bat - Holly Leaves

Petr Kratochvil

4. Tongue of Dog - Houndstongue
Reusable Art

5. Adder's Fork - Adder's tongue
The Flower Book

6. Lizard Leg - Ivy
Ivy on house in autumn by Petr Kratochvil

7. Hawk’s Heart - Wormwood
Pino Perino via Luirig

8. Ass’s Foot or Bull’s Foot: Coltsfoot
Peter Hager

9. Bear’s Foot: Lady’s Mantle
Herb Rowe

10. Calf’s Snout: Snapdragon
Rosendahl

11. Graveyard Dust: Mullein
Vera Kratochvil

12. Sparrow’s Tongue: Knotweed
All-Free-Download

13. Fillet of a fenney snake - arum
Luirig

Linking with Thursday 13 and Favorite Things