[Monday Reading] Valentine Week 2014

Myra here.

It’s Monday, What are You Reading is a meme hosted by Jen from Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers (brainchild of Sheila at BookJourney). Since two of our friends, Linda from Teacher Dance and Tara from A Teaching Life have been joining this meme for quite awhile now, we thought of joining this warm and inviting community.

Last Week’s Review and Miscellany Posts

https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/monday-reading-of-rackhams-fairy-tales-and-blackwells-book-art/

https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/monday-reading-of-rackhams-fairy-tales-and-blackwells-book-art/

https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/make-believe-princesses-in-picturebooks/

https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/make-believe-princesses-in-picturebooks/

https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/comfort-food-by-a-soup-princess-in-leda-schuberts-the-princess-of-borscht/

https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/cybils-saturday-of-ribbity-pigs-wolves-and-foxes-and-sweet-mother-goose/

https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/cybils-saturday-of-ribbity-pigs-wolves-and-foxes-and-sweet-mother-goose/

https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/cybils-saturday-of-ribbity-pigs-wolves-and-foxes-and-sweet-mother-goose/

https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/bhe-92-poetry-and-book-love-a-valentine-week-long-special/?preview=true

We’re also inviting everyone to join our Check Off your Reading List Challenge 2014.

Click here to sign up. If you have already signed up, here is the January-March linky where you can link up your reviews or updates from your reading list.

Carrie Gelson of There is a Book for That is also hosting #mustreadin2014.

We are taking a break from our usual Game of Thrones theme as we do a week-long Poetry and Book Love Special this Valentine Week. And so I share a few poetry books that I have just recently bought in the past few months and include a few selections that I enjoyed. Similar to what I usually do, I took a photo of the book page and edited it using an iPhone app. I haven’t read all these books yet (with the exception of Rapture) which I finished in one evening. Enjoy the poems, dear friends.

The Original Published Poetry of Jim Morrison: The Lords. The New Creatures.

Poetry by: Jim Morrison
Published by: Omnibus Press, 1985
Bought my own copy of the book. Book photo taken by me.

I have always enjoyed the music of The Doors. I think we have their complete discography, if I am not mistaken. I was intrigued by this book and I wanted to read the terrors that haunted this man’s dreams. I wanted to know if he expressed his vulnerability and glimpses of his truth in his poetry and if there were a few love poems that may fit our current theme this week.

Most of the poems I read I found to be quite unsuitable for our love-fest, but this one, I thought would be particularly nice.

A String of Flowers, Untied: Love Poems from The Tale of Genji

Written by: Murasaki Shikibu Translated by: Jane Reichhold with Hatsue Kawamura
Published by: Stone Bridge Press, 2003
Bought my own copy of the book. Book photos taken by me.

I bought an illustrated version of The Tale of Genji last year from Kinokuniya (quite expensive I may add). As life would have it, I haven’t started reading it yet. But it provides me with a sense of comfort that it’s there when the urge to finally open the book hits me.

And so when I found this book during the Page One Warehouse Sale a month ago, I just knew that it found its way home to me. Sure to be a great companion book to the classic tome of a novel, and enough to whet my appetite for what must truly be a timeless story.

I chose two poems from this collection to share with you this week. The poetry comes with short notes and its original Japanese verse:

… and this one which is somewhat heartbreaking yet hopeful too.

Rapture

Poetry By: Carol Ann Duffy
Published by: Faber & Faber, Inc., 2005
Bought my own copy of the book. Book photo taken by me.

Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry is a fairly new discovery, thanks to the Singapore Writers Festival which I attended last year.

After listening to two of her poetry-reading sessions, I bought all her books that were being sold during the Festival. Rapture is part of that book loot. This fairly-thin collection is described as a “book-length love poem and a moving act of personal testimony from one of Britain’s best-loved poets.”

I finished reading it one rainy evening, the windows reflecting back a lot of sepia-colored memories. I would most likely share one or two more from this collection over the course of the week. Beautiful book.

The poem reminds me of KT Tunstall’s Other Side of the World.

Currently Reading…

Just finished devouring The Book Thief for my two books clubs this month. I feel like I need a PTSD debriefing after flipping through the pages as you can see from the mountain of tissue beside the post-it riddled book. I literally drowned in Zusak’s poetry and his oh-so-heartbreakingly beautiful rendering of this period in history. Yet despite the need to distance myself from Death’s words, there is an unmistakable gravitational pull towards the narrative. I can not fathom how anyone can read this in one gulp. When it becomes too much for me, I read this.

I am now in the third book of The Unwritten: Dead Man’s Knock by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Now I understand what my fellow book club members mean when they say that this is the ultimate book about a book. Gorgeous artwork too.

I have taken a photograph of a fragment of Steven Hall’s introduction of Dead Man’s Knock and edited it using an iPhone app. I thought this particular filter was pretty dramatic and quite apt.

How about you, dear friends, what is the poem that finds its way to you during Valentine week?

Reading Challenge Update (The Book Thief): (26) 25

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