Like the other thing by Henry Abbott I have read, this is also full of quaint nature observations such as:
“The bear will gorge himself on these cherriLike the other thing by Henry Abbott I have read, this is also full of quaint nature observations such as:
“The bear will gorge himself on these cherries, and he is no conservationist. He climbs a tree if it is a large one and breaks off all the branches. If it happens to be a small tree, he will tear it down and break it limb from limb, or he may pull it up by the roots, thus destroying the crop for another year. The bear is a typical American.”
As well as practical tips about the survival in the wilderness. This time I learnt a little about building different sort of shelters, from more sophisticated hunting cabins to simple lean-ins. Now I'm fully prepared for the apocalypse. Bring it on!
Even though I’m rather against modern day hunting which is just a pointless rich man sport, I’m always rather taken with those older books about hunting and fishing. In ‘Camping at Cherry Pond’ Henry and Bige go out to hunt deer but days go by and they are unsuccessful and reduced to diet of flapjacks and onions. Henry has nothing against neither flapjacks nor onions per se but such a monodiet eventually dampened their spirits. It’s when they almost give up hope to ever eat meat again, they see a family of deer frolicking about. The sight is so beautiful they completely forget to shoot them.
“This was a show worth the price of admission, and we sat and watched it for fully ten minutes, when a shifting breeze apparently carried our scent to the mother, who instantly sounded a note of warning, and the family party quickly disappeared through the brush into the tall timber, and we paddled back across Cherry Pond to our breakfast of flapjacks, syrup, and onions.
As we approached the landing place it occurred to me that the hammer of my gun was still up, and that the gun had not been lifted from my knees during the entire performance. As I let the hammer down and removed the cartridge from the barrel, I was conscious of a sense of relief that nothing had occurred to disturb the pleasant relations of the happy family.
After breakfast I went over on the Wolf Mountain tote road and shot four fine fat partridges. That night we had roast partridge for dinner. Have you ever eaten partridge that had been roasted in a Dutch oven before a camp fire? Well, say! "Jes take and have 'em stuffed with onions, baste 'em well, and roast 'em brown with a lot of gravy."”...more
Here I am, still alphabetically reading the books from the public domain which I have found on the Gutenberg Project website. This means I basically rHere I am, still alphabetically reading the books from the public domain which I have found on the Gutenberg Project website. This means I basically read things written by people whose last name was Abbott. I should rename it as my 'Abbott Project', rather than 'Gutenberg Project Project'.
This little marvel was one of 19 little tales written by Henry Abbott which concern mostly his hunting and camping expeditions up-state New York with his partner Bige. The whole collection is called 'Bitch Bark Books', although I think 'The Sketches from a Hunter's Album' would be more apt. That, however, was already taken by Turgenev.
What did I learn from Camps and Trails? I learnt that picnickers have always been littering, noisy assholes, even back in 1915.
I also learnt that goshawks are even worse assholes.
"Every guide and hunter of my acquaintance in the North Woods, is the sworn enemy of this bird of prey. No man is thought to have performed his duty if he allows one of these hawks to escape. The goshawk destroys many song birds, but his particular object in life is to kill partridges. The partridge is one of our most desirable game birds. He has many enemies among the four footed residents of the forest. The owl also, will kill a partridge at night, while he is roosting in a tree; but the goshawk (sometimes called partridge hawk) pursues a policy of frightfulness amounting almost to extermination of the partridge. He will sit all day, and day after day in a tree in that part of the woods where a flock of young partridges live, watching his opportunity to pounce upon and kill them one after another, until the last one is disposed of; when he will go on a hunt for another flock. [...] I suspect that our feeling of enmity toward the goshawk is not entirely due to sympathy for the defenseless partridge. Mixed motives may inspire us to acts of revenge. We, ourselves sometimes eat breast of partridge.
More usefully, I learnt how to blaze a trail which will come in super handy post the apocalypse.
But the most beautiful part of this tiny thing was this great paragraph about getting lost in the forest. Because getting lost in the forest is at the same time the best and the worst thing that could happen to you in the forest.
"The first impulse of one who thinks he is lost in the forest is that of haste. One is always in a desperate hurry to get somewhere quick. If this impulse is obeyed and the now alarmed traveler rushes off at headlong speed, the danger is, not only that of going in the wrong direction, but in nine cases out of ten, the victim travels in circles. The psychology of deliberation is like first aid to the injured and the victim soon begins to realize that he is not really lost. He is only temporarily mislaid and will soon pull himself out and locate some familiar landmark."
"I have also, many times been misplaced in the forest while hunting or exploring and am always on such occasions reminded of Bige's advice to "never argue with your compass while in the woods." Whenever my compass tells me that camp is in a direction opposite to that which reason and memory and the lay of the land indicates, my practice is to sit down on a log, lay the compass on the log, stand the gun up against a tree far enough away so the steel of its barrel will not influence the compass needle and try to arrange in mind the topography of the country I am in. After a reasonable rest I am always willing to follow the pointing of the compass at least for a limited distance.'...more
In my quest to read most of Gutenberg Project books I get to read a lot of interesting and quirky things and I am not even past the ‘AB’ yet.
I have rIn my quest to read most of Gutenberg Project books I get to read a lot of interesting and quirky things and I am not even past the ‘AB’ yet.
I have read Eleanor H Abbott’s children short stories and her eight year old narrator was so authentic that I worried that she just genuinely wrote like an eight year old. Thankfully this is not the case.
I have to make sure I don’t ramble in this review as it is a very short novella/short story, so I wouldn’t want the review to be longer than the work reviewed – it would reek of academia. ‘Indiscreet Letter’ takes place on a train and I can’t think of a setting I like more, except maybe for a jungle. Does anyone know a book which takes place on a train which goes through a jungle?
Anyway, it’s 1915 or thereabouts and a few strangers meet on a train to Boston. Soon they start talking, as strangers on trains often do (especially in books and films, but also in real life – I highly recommend the night train from Warsaw to Budapest, the people I met on that train!). The discussion starts with the characters debating over the definition of an ‘indiscreet letter’, but, as expected, it then transforms into a general discussion about life, love and such. There is this part, which I wish was never true for anyone anymore, but is just as true now, a hundred years later:
“She don't follow you so much, I reckon, because you are her love as because you've got her love. God knows it ain't just you, yourself, she's afraid of losing. It's what she's already invested in you that's worrying her! All her pinky-posy, cunning kid-dreams about loving and marrying, maybe; and the pretty-much grown-up winter she fought out the whisky question with you, perhaps; and the summer you had the typhoid, likelier than not; and the spring the youngster was born—oh, sure, the spring the youngster was born! Gee! If by swallowing just one more yarn you tell her, she can only keep on holding down all the old yarns you ever told her—if, by forgiving you just one more forgive-you, she can only hang on, as it were, to the original worth-whileness of the whole darned business—if by—[…]”
And then there is this, at first very confusing, but then sort of clever and only mildly offensive, metaphor comparing women to golden retrievers.
I really don’t want to reveal too much of the plot, as this story is so short and I’d like to leave the pleasure of discovering it to you, so rather than discuss the characters and their problems, I will leave you with this quote:
"Oh, my God!" she cried out with sudden passion. "I wish I could have lived just one day when the world was new. I wish—I wish I could have reaped just one single, solitary, big Emotion before the world had caught it and—appraised it—and taxed it—and licensed it—and staled it!" "Oh-ho!" said the Traveling Salesman with a little sharp indrawing of his breath. "Oh-ho!—So that's what the—Young Electrician makes you think of, is it?" For just an instant the Traveling Salesman thought that the Youngish Girl was going to strike him. "I wasn't thinking of the Young Electrician at all!" she asserted angrily. "I was thinking of something altogether—different." "Yes. That's just it," murmured the Traveling Salesman placidly. "Something—altogether—different. Every time I look at him it's the darnedest thing! Every time I look at him I—forget all about him. My head begins to wag and my foot begins to tap—and I find myself trying to—hum him—as though he was the words of a tune I used to know."
May we all find some Young Electricians – people that just inspire us to live a little bit more. ...more
I continue with my Gutenberg Project Project and I’m still at AB. Recently I have only been reading books by Abbotts. I bet they are all related. In oI continue with my Gutenberg Project Project and I’m still at AB. Recently I have only been reading books by Abbotts. I bet they are all related. In one of her stories Eleanor Hallowell Abbott mentions an aunt who designed toys and games and here is what Wikipedia has to say about Anne W Abbott “she was a game designer, magazine editor, literary reviewer, and author.” Hm! Coincidence? I think not!
By the way, I did review Anne’s Autumn Leaves as well.
As for "Fairy Prince and Other Stories", they are cute, ingenious stories told by an eight year old narrator and I wondered whether they were actually written by Eleanor aged eight because the voice is almost too authentic. The sentences are short and to the point and the stories are told very matter-of-factly. There is also that innocent, childish attention to often irrelevant detail.
I enjoyed these stories thoroughly. Especially the one about Christmas which I happened to read around Christmas, and I am at my softest around Christmas.
Here are my favourite quotes for your enjoyment:
"You don't seem to understand," I whispered. "It's Christmas relationships that are worrying Carol and me so! It worries us dreadfully! Oh, of course we understand all about the Little Baby Christ! And the camels! And the wise men! And the frankincense! That's easy! But who is Santa Claus? Unless—unless—?" It was Carol himself who signaled me to go on. "Unless—he's the Baby Christ's grandfather?" I thought Derry Willard looked a little bit startled. Carol's ears turned bright red. "Oh, of course—we meant on his mother's side!" I hastened to assure him.
"Your Aunt Esta's Suitor?" cried the Rich Man. "Suitor?" He clapped his hand over his mouth. He burst a safety-pin that helped lash the plaid shawl around him. "What do you mean,—'Suitor?'" he said. It seemed queer he was so stupid. "Why a Suitor," I explained, "is a Person Who Doesn't Suit—so he keeps right on coming most every day to see if he does! As soon as he suits, of course, he's your husband and doesn't come any more at all—because he's already there! The New Minister," I explained very patiently, "is a Suitor for our Aunt Esta's hand!"
We told my Mother we were sorry to be late but that we were writing a book and it was very important. My Mother said yes,—she knew that writing books was very important and had always noticed that people who wrote 'em were very apt to be late to things. Her only regret, she said, was that Carol and I hadn't had a little more time in which to form habits of promptness before we began on such a chronic career as Literature. My Father said "Stuff and Nonsense!" My Father said that if we'd kindly condescend to tear ourselves away from the Charms of Literature for one brief afternoon he'd like to have us weed the Tulip Bed. We said we would.
“Almost every English boy can be taught to write clearly, so far at least as clearness depends upon the arrangement of words.”
I am neither English, no“Almost every English boy can be taught to write clearly, so far at least as clearness depends upon the arrangement of words.”
I am neither English, nor a boy but I thought maybe I also can be taught how to write clearly, or at least what passed for clearly in the 19th century.
It was an interesting book if you can get past its obvious misogyny. Actually, misogyny is not the right word. It is not that Abbott hates women; he just doesn’t acknowledge their existence. In all hundreds of examples used in this book there is only ONE which talks about a woman. (Funnily enough, it is used to explain the concept of bathos). Abbott even excludes female pronouns. One of his rules reads: “Be careful in the use of "he," "it," "they," "these," &c.”
It is quite ironic coming from a man who wrote Flatland, which among other things is a satire on the discrimination of women. Makes you think: maybe it wasn’t a satire after all?
When it comes to writing Edwin A. Abbott thinks that the biggest threat to it is ambiguity. He trusts very little the intelligence of the reader or helpful context. He provides many helpful rules on how to avoid ambiguity. If you stick to them, you’re sure to never risk another double-entendre ever. Oh, Edwin, Edwin. But the ambiguity is the spice of life!!
I also really enjoyed the ads of other books placed at the end of this digitized edition (apparently they were in the front of the original printed edition). They advertised other books by the publisher, including a few other numbers by Edwin A. Abbott, like ‘English Lessons For English People’. It was initially called ‘English Lessons for Boys’ but the Abbott realised that “it is intended primarily for boys, but, in the present unsatisfactory state of English education, we entertain a hope that it may possibly be found not unfit for some who have passed the age of boyhood; and in this hope we have ventured to give it the title of English Lessons for English People.” For a second there I hoped that maybe he realised that not only boys can learn grammar but that it can also be taught to the fair sex. Sadly, no. He only believed that also grown-up boys could learn grammar and that’s what he meant by ‘people’.
My favourite ad was for the book titled “How To Parse”. It was beautifully apologetic, because it is rather hard to try to sell someone a book on parsing. After all, “Of all subjects of study, it may be safely admitted that grammar possesses as a rule the fewest attractions for the youthful mind”. It can hardly get more grammatical than parsing. I, however, love parsing. I don’t think the art of parsing is taught at English schools anymore but it is still part of the curriculum in Polish schools. I love parsing because it combines a few of my favourite things: logic, grammar and words. I can parse like no one’s business. I’m gonna go get my geek on and parse some.
This was one crazy, opium fuelled, brilliant book about geometry and different dimensions and I am going to explain it the best way I can but Edwin A This was one crazy, opium fuelled, brilliant book about geometry and different dimensions and I am going to explain it the best way I can but Edwin A Abbott does it so much better.
Here is a story of Square who is a square and lives in a two dimensional world of geometrical figures. The first part of the book talks about the social breakdown of the Flatland and it is a thinly disguised satire on the Victorian society. People are divided into classes according to their geometry and the worst off are women who are not even figures; they are just straight lines. They have few rights and no one actually takes their intellect seriously. On the other hand they are dangerous because being straight lines they can easily pierce any figure. A woman from behind looks just like a dot, you might miss her until it’s to late and she has stabbed you. Different parts of Flatland developed different strategies for dealing with the danger, from not allowing women to leave their houses, to forcing them to constantly wiggle their bums, so they are visible from far. They should also sound a ‘peace-cry’ when out and about, in case anyone missed the wiggling bum. Seriously children, don’t do drugs. It makes you write things like that.
The second part of the book gets more interesting as it delves deeper into the concept of dimensions. As I said, our hero lives in a two-dimension reality. Try to imagine such a world. You probably see it as a piece of paper with various figures drawn on it. Of course, that’s how a creature from 3D world would see it. You’re looking at it from above, i.e from the third dimension. If a 2D world was your entire reality you would only be able to see lines and dots. Your eyes would be on the same level as the figures and you would see everything in one dimension and infer the second dimension because you can move in it and you have learnt it through experience.
The same way we can’t actually see the third dimension but we can tell it’s there. We know we can move in three dimensions and we know about perspective, light, shadow, etc. It is easier for us to understand a two-dimension reality than it is to imagine a four-dimension one. We can see it perfectly when our Square visits a one dimensional land and he laughs at it and tries to explain to the King that there is more to life than just looking at a dot in front of you. There is another dimension where there are not only dots but lines as well. The King of course laughs him off. Yet, when Square is confronted by Sphere who tells him about the third dimension and shows him ‘tricks’ that the third dimension allows him to do, Square is just as incredulous.
Even though the mathematics tells him there must be another dimension (and another, and another), he can’t quite believe it until Sphere shows him a little bit of a 3D world. Then he is a convert, and he quickly assumes there must be more dimensions. Fourth and fifth and ad infinitum. I think while reading this I got as close as I would ever get to understanding and imagining a 4D world. If in a 3D world we can see the insides of everything of a 2D world, then I suppose a in 4D world we would be able to actually SEE all three dimensions, all the insides of everything. My brains hurts. Am I making any sense? I thought I could see it but now it’s been a week after I finished reading the book and had those vivid dreams about the fourth dimension. The vision pales. I still believe in it but I can no longer grasp it. Just like the poor Square, back in his 2D-Land, thrown in prison for preaching revolution, still believes in the third dimension, but can no longer conjure the image of a Sphere in his head. Sometimes he feels he can almost see it again for half a second, and then it’s gone. ...more
This book was a little like 'Twilight' in terms of having: bad writing, a heroine incapable of doing anything except for moping around and a very unplThis book was a little like 'Twilight' in terms of having: bad writing, a heroine incapable of doing anything except for moping around and a very unpleasant hero. Before you jump on it, though, be warned - there are no sparkling vampires. There is a Jewish woman and a Christian man, which back then, was considered as much a mésalliance for both parties involved as dating a vampire is now.
This book was also written according to the main Murphy's Law that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Belle K. Abbot took it one brave step further and made things that couldn't go wrong, go wrong as well.
Leah Mordecai is a beautiful, smart, good, rich and loved girl who would have been perfectly happy if it wasn't for her stepmother who hates her immensely and is out to ruin her life. I am serious, we are talking about the Snow White level of evil stepmothers.
Of course, Leah's father has no idea, because good ol' Leah would never tell him what a toad he married. Instead she suffers in silence all the cruelties her stepmother dishes out. Before Leah fell in love with the 'Christian dog' she was promised to a certain Mark Abrams. Her stepmother wouldn't have it, of course so she had a quiet word with him (quiet but loud enough for Leah to overhear) and told him that sadly, Leah is DEFORMED, will soon be crippled, therefore he's better off marrying her stepsister Sarah. Mark faintly protests saying he has seen Leah many times and she does not look deformed to him. But the stepmother assures him that she is, TRUST ME! So he buys that and decides to marry the sister.
Now, seriously. Wouldn't you think that once Mark joins the family sooner or later the truth will come out? Like five years from now when Lean is still very much NOT deformed or crippled? Wouldn't the stepmother then get into a lot of trouble?
Anyway, enters Emile le Grande aka the Christian Dog. Rich, handsome, and so in love with Leah. As per his journals:
"In the main, I hate Jews, but I must admit here, Journal, that Mrs. Levy is as elegant a woman as I have ever met [...] but of all the beautiful women that I have seen in years, Jewish or Christian, there's not one can compare with Leah Mordeacai - such hair and such eyes are seldom given to woman"
and
"So sure as my name is Emile, I believe I shall succeed in my endeavor to marry the Jewess. She is beautiful."
What a charmer. And he does succeed, and then more bad things happen. Most of them wouldn't happen if Leah did or, at least, said something. Alas!
Belle K. Abbot really likes the word 'alas', it's very melodramatic, you see. Just how she likes it. She likes her metaphors too.
"The tears still flowed from the pure fountain of Lizzie's innocent, tender heart, and her head bowed as gentle as a lily in the gales"
And she likes adverbs and adjectives:
"Then Leah sadly turned her eyes upward to the cracked, stained wall overhead, and faintly murmured..."
Before I begin I would like to announce that I will not be doing my Self-published Project anymore, because I just cannot wade through those rivers ofBefore I begin I would like to announce that I will not be doing my Self-published Project anymore, because I just cannot wade through those rivers of crap. Yes, I have been defeated.
Instead, I am going to double up my efforts on the Gutenberg Project Project and hopefully I will get to B before I turn 80.
So here it is, as it says on the cover: Original Pieces in Prose and Verse. If I understood the preface correctly, they are not all written by Anne W. Abbot but collected by her from friends and family and were published to raise money for charity. Anne Wales Abbot was (as Wikipedia tells me) a game designer, magazine editor, literary reviewer, and author, who went down in history for writing a negative review of 'The Scarlet Letter' and inventing a card game called Dr Busby (you can buy a vintage set on auctions at $200-$400, I really want one, please note).
As for Autumn Leaves, the most interesting pieces in it are the so called 'Miseries', in today's English known as 'First World Problems'. It's a series of articles about different problems and annoyances. My favourite one talks about the difficulty of eating a peach elegantly. There are also ones about people who constantly open windows even though it's really cold outside, all sorts of strings that always become entangled and not being able to see well in the dark and bumping into things.
There are also a few more serious short stories and a bunch of rubbish poems.
Also a very funny piece about 'Innocent Surprises' - "I am somewhat inclined to the opinion, that, if positive legislation could be brought to bear upon this subject, making it a criminal offence for one person deliberately to concoct and designedly to spring a surprise upon another, society would derive incalculable benefit from the act. For the ordinary and inevitable surprises of every-day life are sufficiently frequent and startling to content even the most romantic disposition; entirely dispensing with the necessity of those artfully contrived, embarrassing little plots which one's friends occasionally set in motion, greatly to their own diversion and the extreme discomfort of the surprised unfortunate.". Find the whole thing here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17189/...
(Although, I admit I do like surprises, cough*Dr Busby*cough)...more
Hello and welcome to another installment of my Gutenberg Project Project. If you have tuned in just now, this is the project where I attempt to read aHello and welcome to another installment of my Gutenberg Project Project. If you have tuned in just now, this is the project where I attempt to read all the book from Gutenberg Project in alphabetical order.
I am happy to announce that I have left AA and I am now in AB.
I knew that sooner or later I would have to read something that rhymes. I am not a big fan of things that rhyme (or free verse for that matter) but these are supposed to be Stories in Verse. I can do stories.
Most of the stories in the collection have to do with the persona’s path to be reunited with his beautiful love. It usually follows this path: Persona sees a beautiful girl, he falls in love with her on spot, she returns the feeling and the comes the obstacle. The obstacle may take different forms, it could be an evil uncle who doesn’t want his daughter to marry his nephew (strangely, the fact that they are first cousins does not seem to be a problem), or, when things get weirder, the persona being buried alive (very Edgar Alan Poesque but with a happy ending), or, and wait for it... a giant spider which kidnaps the girl. Well, why not.
The love interests are always beautiful:
"Her eyes seem to drink from my own. Her curls are carelessly thrown Back from white shoulder and cheek; And her lips seem strawberries, lost In some Arctic country of frost."
or
"Her sensuous long dark lashes hung above her dreamy eyes, Like twin clouds of stormy portent balanced over limpid deeps; Like the wings of birds of passage seen against the hazy skies; Like the petal o'er the pollen of the flow'ret when it sleeps"
You get the drift.
Henry Abbey becomes a Muslim, or a poor fisherman, a Beduin, moves back in time, but no matter how exotic the setting and circumstances, he doesn't seem to have any problem inhabiting all these varied characters. There is only time when he abandons first person narrative and changes to the third person. Bizarrely it is when he tells a story close to him in time and space. It is when he tells a story of black slave from the American South. It is impossible to find a fault in that story, the main character is not presented as some sort 'noble savage', he is a man full finest qualities; intelligent and brave. Yet, Abbey wrote about him in the third person, which just goes to show how much of 'The Other' a black man was.
All in all, Abbey is a good guy. He has a good opinion of women, even though they have little in terms of personality in his stories (they are good, charitable and of strong faith). There is one interesting story in the collection which is a kind of loose retelling of Adam and Eve myth, in which Even stays good and strong and Adam helps himself to the apple. Well, that's refreshing....more
I am making amazing progress with my Gutengberg Project Project. I am already at AAR.
So this was a short piece by Alexander Aaronsohn about Israel bacI am making amazing progress with my Gutengberg Project Project. I am already at AAR.
So this was a short piece by Alexander Aaronsohn about Israel back when it was called Palestine and was ruled by Turks.
From this book we learn that the Jews are very good, the Christians are ok, the Arabs are bad, the Turks are even worse and the Americans are the best.
We also learn :
That it is good to have a horse because "in a land where a horse considerably more valuable than a wife, his ownership cast quite a glamour over me."
Arabs don't need alcohol: "These dances lasted for hours, and as they progressed the men gradually worked themselves up into a frenzy. I never failed to wonder at these people, who, without the aid of alcohol, could reproduce the various stages of intoxication."
Germans are Muslims: "The dominant figure of this movement in Palestine was, without doubt, the German Consul at Haifa, Leutweld von Hardegg. He traveled about the country, making speeches, and distributing pamphlets in Arabic, in which it was elaborately proved that Germans are not Christians, like the French or English, but that they are descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. Passages from the Koran were quoted, prophesying the coming of the Kaiser as the Savior of Islam."
And various ways to corrupt Turk officials. ...more
Hello and welcome to another installment of my Project Gutenberg project in which I intend to read in alphabetical order all of the books in public doHello and welcome to another installment of my Project Gutenberg project in which I intend to read in alphabetical order all of the books in public domain and I also plan to live forever in order to complete this task.
Currently I am on my way to become an expert in 19th and early 20th century children and YA fiction. I am also very proud to be the only person in the whole wide Internet to provide reviews for those books.
This one was about boys and girls who listen to lectures about Edison, which excite them so much that in an engineering frenzy they build a dam, small power plant and a radio.
What is really interesting about this book published originally in 1922 is how gender PC it is. Boys and girls set out to build a radio and both teams succeed. Girls discuss with and challenge boys and often win. I would like contemporary authors to take note because I often find that girls in current YA fiction are only interested in things that glitter and they are idiotically helpless.
The book also tells the story of Edison but if you want to learn about Edison, I am quite sure there are better sources out there.
Other than that, the book doesn’t have any significant literary value. It's a little moralistic and there was an absolutely ridiculous comic relief in form of a fat girl Skeets, who appeared in the narrative only to fall or to knock down and break something. She must’ve done that about fifty times in this little book and it was neither funny nor fitting with the story.
All in all – an old, not exceptionally well written book that is not sexist and almost not racist.
Stay tuned as my next read is "With The Turks in Palestine" by Alexander Aaronsohn and I have a very good feeling about it.
Recently I bought a Kindle, which means I have no money anymore and I can't buy any books to read on it. Luckily, Gutenberg Project has a giant collecRecently I bought a Kindle, which means I have no money anymore and I can't buy any books to read on it. Luckily, Gutenberg Project has a giant collection of free books published before 1923 (and made them all Kindleable). Thus, I did what any reasonable person would do - I decided to read them all in alphabetical order. Ok, I admit I skipped 'Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark' by Jens Aaberg and went straight to Hans Aanrud and his 'Lisbeth Longfrock'. It was a cute story about a little orphan - Lisbeth Longfrock living in the Norwegian country side. Not much happens, Lisbeth becomes a herder, meets Peter and Oli, loses one crazy goat who believes she is a cow (and later a horse)... But somehow it all was very enchanting and relaxing to read. This is what I call a 'feel good read'. Part coming of age, part bucolic, this little tale would've definitely gone to my heart when I was 11. I am not sure about kids today, though, they seem to have a shorter attention span.
Stay tuned for the next episode of the 'Gutenberg Project' Project in which I will be reading Radio Boys Cronies by S.F. Aaron & Wayne Whipple....more
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