Grab a book, and let's read!

When author Beverly Cleary’s children were in school, they participated in D.E.A.R. time (Drop Everything And Read).  Cleary liked the concept so much that she incorporated D.E.A.R. into her popular Ramona Quimby books, and the idea took off!  In gratitude to Cleary, April 12 (her birthday) is National Drop Everything And Read Day.  Hey, that's today!  Where's your book?  I have mine.

I may move my newest book up in the queue.  Yes, I added another book to the many on my Kindle.  Umm, but it looked so interesting and it's about time travel (my favorite subject) and the Kindle edition costs less than a dollar right now.  A penny less, but who's counting?  Me, I guess, since I noticed the novel has 35 chapters, thirty with "time" in their titles and five more from a fictional journal by Nikola Tesla, the brilliant inventor.

 

From the author's note in If She Had Stayed by Diane Byington (2020):

"I suspect that most of us would change certain decisions from our pasts.  We all know it's not possible to go back and make a different decision.  But what if we could? ... I tried to stay true to the essence of Tesla the inventor and how he might have responded to the discovery of time travel" (p. 274).

Sunday scribblings ~ make it a pawsome day

I got the idea for Sunday Scribblings from a blogger who calls herself Lady in Read, who commented on my blog post a few days ago.  It sounds like my kind of title (or label), so here are my scribbles.

Make it a pawsome day

April 11th is National Pet Day 2021.  National Pet Day was established in 2006 by animal welfare advocate Colleen Paige.  She wanted to spotlight the joy pets bring people and focus on the many pets waiting in shelters for homes.  To encourage people to adopt rather than buy purebreds, the term "Don't Shop! Adopt!" was created.  Having a pet is good for your health; it lowers your blood pressure and sweeps away loneliness.

Cupcake from Jilly's

On Monday, I heard that Jilly's had sent cupcakes for Crown Center residents, so I went downstairs and selected this pink one with a strawberry on top.  Jilly's is a "cupcake bar and café" serving "eats and treats" across Delmar, half a block away.  They serve lunch Monday-Saturday and brunch on Sunday.  Thanks for the sweets, Jilly's!

Wear your mask

Mona Lisa wearing a mask?  Good for her.  I wrote about the Louvre's famous Mona Lisa painting last Sunday.

Just Finished

Down Cut Shin Creek: The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky ~ by Kathi Appelt and Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer, 2001, children's history (Kentucky), 7/10

Reading

The Lost Stetl ~ by Max Gross, 2020, historical fiction (Poland)

Up Next

Experiences of God ~ by Jürgen Moltmann, translated by Margaret Kohl, 1979 (English translation 1980), theology

Added to my Kindle

• 
  The Elements of a Home: Curious Histories behind Everyday Household Objects, from Pillows to Forks ~ by Amy Azzarito, 2020, history
• Remembering a Great American Hero Marian Anderson: "The Lady from Philadelphia" ~ by Emile Henwood, 2020, biography
• Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius ~ by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, 2020, philosophy

Yeah, added to my Kindle, even though I have a million books I should be reading in order to free up my bookshelves for the physical books I already own.  I'm only slightly exaggerating.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

Our Subway Baby ~ by Peter Mercurio

Our Subway Baby ~ by Peter Mercurio, 2020, children's picture book, 9/10

"Some babies are born into their families.  Some are adopted.  This is the story of how one baby found his family in the New York City subway."

So begins the true story of Kevin and how he found his Daddy Danny and Papa Pete.  Written in a direct address to his son, Pete's moving and emotional text tells how his partner, Danny, found a baby tucked away in the corner of a subway station on his way home from work one day.  Pete and Danny ended up adopting the baby together.  Although neither of them had prepared for the prospect of parenthood, they are reminded, "Where there is love, anything is possible."

Listen to the whole book being read on YouTube.  Click on the illustrations to enlarge them so you can read the words.

Tunisia ~ or the kitchen?

Clawdia says to tell this cat,

"Tuna doesn't come from Tunisia, kitty.

It comes from a can in our kitchen."

Beginning ~ with someone you never want to see again

Even in a happy, peaceful town, such as ours, it is possible 

to find someone you never want to see again.

Pesha Lindauer found one such person.  A man whose 

visage drove her to rage, and whose voice made her clench her fists and grit her teeth.  A man who haunted her dreams, tormenting her with whips and fire, and whose appearance always left her with the faint smell of sulfur upon waking.

It was doubly unfortunate that the personage in question was her husband, Ishmael.

The Lost Stetl ~ by Max Gross, 2020, historical fiction (Poland)

In a remote corner of Poland, the inhabitants of a tiny Jewish village ignore the modern world — until a shocking event turns their lives upside down.  "A dose of fabulism may be the best cure yet for a psychologically intolerable contemporary moment…[The Lost Shtetl is] a riveting narrative about the costs of living in one’s own time as opposed to the benefits and disadvantages of living in a 'lost horizon' that has been overlooked by the contemporary world. ... If this novel doesn’t take your mind off being holed up in a shuttered-down city or trying to escape the reality of the pandemic by socially distancing somewhere in the country, nothing will." — Vogue.  "Judging by The Lost Shtetl ... author Max Gross is the metaphysical love child of Sholem Aleichem and J.K. Rowling." — Hadassah Magazine.

Word of the Day

shtetl / ˈSHtet(ə)l / noun (historical) = a small Jewish town or village in eastern Europe.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Thursday thoughts about Moltmann

Jürgen Moltmann composed a very short Foreword (loc. 46) for Jürgen Moltmann in Plain English, Stephen D. Morrison's 2018 book, saying:

"I have endeavored to follow up scholarly theological books with shorter, generally accessible works.  I have kept myself accountable to the injunction:  'That which cannot be said simply is perhaps not worth saying at all.'  As such, I followed up Theology of Hope (1967) with the popular-level work, In the End — The Beginning (2004); my Christology, The Way of Jesus Christ (1990), with Jesus Christ for Today’s World (1994); and The Spirit of Life (1992) with The Source of Life (1997)."

I have all six of these books and noticed when comparing them how much shorter the "accessible works" are.

• Theology of Hope has 342 pages,
  while In the End — The Beginning has only 192 pages.
• The Way of Jesus Christ has 388 pages,
  while Jesus Christ for Today’s World has only 152 pages.
• The Spirit of Life has 358 pages,
  while The Source of Life has only 148 pages.

Speaking of numbers, I have more like three dozen Moltmann books, some of which are on my Kindle.  I'd say the shorter versions would be a good place to start, if you are new to reading books by Jürgen Moltmann.  Wikipedia has a full list of his books.

Happy birthday, Jürgen Moltmann

Today is Jürgen Moltmann's 95th birthday.  I have more than 30 books by him on my shelves.  Here's one I recently got for my Kindle that's about Moltmann's ideas by a man who claims not to be a theologian.  He says the books he writes about theologians are "by a beginner, for beginners."

Jürgen Moltmann in Plain English ~ by Stephen D. Morrison, 2018, theology

Jürgen Moltmann is a theological iconoclast, ever confronting the status quo.  Stephen D. Morrison examines each of Moltmann's major works of theology, including his most popular books (such as Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, and The Trinity and the Kingdom) and discusses Moltmann's proposals for eschatology, the Trinity, creation, and the suffering of God.

Word of the Day

i·con·o·clast / īˈkänəˌklast / noun = a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions.

I'm part of the Jürgen Moltmann Discussion Group on Facebook.  I blogged about Moltmann's major books four years ago and have written about him many times.