Sledding in St. Elmo Park today

Snow pictures from the park near my house in St. Elmo. Alison, a neighbor, gets the credit for these photos.

Snow business ~ on a Monday "Caturday"

We had this much snow.  Does this look like seven inches or so?



Here's what our snow looks like.

I didn't go outside like Simon's Cat.  It's warmer at the end of my closet.

Kiki Cat, signing off

Is it real food?

Click on the chart to enlarge it. Click here to read the article.

Listen to Nora, the piano cat ~ it's Caturday!

Listen to this cat play!  It's Nora, the piano cat, doing her thing.

Kiki Cat, signing off
(so you can listen to Nora)

A pair of books ~ fiction and nonfiction

The first is from the library, and the second is a book I've agreed to review.

Little Bee ~ by Chris Cleave, 2008
Synopsis:

"A haunting novel about the tenuous friendship that blooms between two disparate strangers—one an illegal Nigerian refugee, the other a recent widow from suburban London."

Original Sinners: Why Genesis Still Matters ~ by John R. Coats, 2009
Synopsis:

"The relationships of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah, and Joseph and his brothers take on contemporary relevance as these characters find themselves confronted with extraordinary situations and circumstances that they’d neither asked for nor had anything to say about. Using stories from his life as well as the lives of people he’s known, Coats creates a rubric you can use to examine your own life and to discover aspects of yourself in the characters whose lives unfold in these primordial stories. How has Eve’s story shaped yours? Is your life reflected in Jacob’s evolution to wisdom? In Joseph’s youthful arrogance?"

A wintry beginning

It's been a couple of weeks since my last Book Beginnings on Friday, which I entitled A burning beginning.  This one, wintry and cold, takes place in Finland.

"It was three in the afternoon when my plane landed at the Helsinki airport, but outside my window, dusk was already settling in like a bruise.  I retrieved my suitcase, its handle cold, and stumbled to the tourist information desk, where a woman with good teeth and bad English helped me find a hotel near the train station.  My plan was to take the first train north, to Lapland, after a night of sleep."

That's from page 3 of Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida (2007).  The beginning hooked me, and I continued to read 101 pages before I slowed down enough to come check my email and share this quote with you.  It helped that Claire (The Captive Reader) called this her favorite book ever.  That's high praise, indeed!

If you want to play along, this meme is hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages.  Share the first sentence or two of the book you are reading.  (Sometimes it takes several sentences to get the full thought.)  Then, share your impressions of that beginning.  Click this link to see what others say about the books they are reading this week.

Library Loot ~ a mixed bag of books

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (1964)

This is the only children's book I picked up this time.  Because the book was published when I was adult, I missed it as a child.  Thus, my need to learn about a girl another book blogger said is "ahead of her time."




The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria (2008)

The subtitle is "A History of the World through Islamic Eyes."  The dust jacket says that economic growth in countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Kenya, and others "is generating a new global landscape where power is shifting and wealth and innovation are bubbling up in unexpected places."



Hanna's Daughters by Marianne Fredrikkson (1994)

I read this a decade or so ago, back when it was fairly new.  I'm planning to re-read it as part of the Nordic reading challenge.  I remember it as a very good book.





Rabbi Paul by Bruce Chilton (2004)

The subtitle here is "An Intellectual Biography." After reading other books about Paul, such as The First Paul by Marcus Borg and Dom Crossan (2009) and The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity by Hyam Maccoby (1986), I'm interested in what Chilton can add.


The Secret History of the Mongol Queens by Jack Weatherford (2010)

The subtitle is "How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire." Now that I've finished my semester of teaching at Chattanooga State, I have time to finish this book, which I had to return half-read last spring because I was limited to seven days for new books. I posted an interesting teaser from this book.





Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary (2009)

We in the West share a common narrative of world history that bypasses an entire civilization.  The subtitle of this book is "A History of the World through Islamic Eyes."






Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida (2007)

This is another novel for the Nordic challenge.  On the day of her father's funeral, 28-year-old Clarissa discovers that he wasn't her biological father after all.





Independent People by Halldor Laxness (1946)

This novel about Iceland is for the Nordic reading challenge.  Laxness got the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature because of this book.  I want to know more about Iceland.



The Bible with Sources Revealed by Richard Elliott Friedman (2003)

Subtitled "A New View into the Five Books of Moses," this book has (naturally) five parts: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. I want to read this one along with The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman's Commentary on the Torah by Ellen Frankel (1996) that I've had for over a decade, still unread.


Library Loot is a weekly meme co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.  Claire has the Mister Linky this week, if you'd like to share a list of the loot you brought home.