Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog
It's a blog! Mainly of book reviews.
Currently reading
Reading progress update: I've read 264 out of 782 pages.
Thorkel is to marry Sigrid. He'd best not kill her vibe, right?
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Reading progress update: I've read 13 out of 96 pages.
Initially famous as an illustrator! Several pictures of North Wales.
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Reading progress update: I've read 250 out of 782 pages.
There's someone called Bard, mentioned only in passing. I am guessing that the character in The Hobbit got his name from an Icelandic source.
Reading progress update: I've read 241 out of 782 pages.
"Berg came to Borg and Finnbogi greeted him warmly..."
This kind of phrase delights me.
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Bath City Paintings, Nick Cudworth
I was initially disappointed with this very expensive (for its size) book of only 16 paintings. For a self-described realist painter, the results seemed bizarrely fake and flat. Later, however, Cudworth drifts from realist to surrealist (sub-Magritte) and those pictures work much better for me. The very fakeness that bothered me in the scene paintings became part of the appealing other-worldliness of the imagined galleries and studio spaces of these later pictures.
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Reading progress update: I've read 231 out of 782 pages.
The thief, Thorolf Sledgehammer, kept 20 "absolutely huge" balck cats. They were "touched by witchcraft."
Reading progress update: I've read 226 out of 782 pages.
Murder; suicide, vengeance - this is familar saga plotting at last.
Käthe Kollwitz in Berlin: Ein Stadtrundgang - A City Tour, Iris Berndt & Isabell Flemming
A little book that opens with an essay about Kollwitz' life and work, followed by 13 places in Berlin that were significant to the artist in some way, e.g. where she lived, worked, was buried. Photos and a description explain the relevance and a fold out map on the inside back cover shows where they all are in the city, so you can find them. The text is parallel German and English. Probably best used, as the title suggests, when actually in Berlin as a tourist.
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Reading progress update: I've read 48 out of 56 pages.
Kollwitz sometimes "consulted" Einstein on political matters!
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Reading progress update: I've read 201 out of 782 pages.
The earliest family member mentioned was Giant-Bjorn. Two generations later there's Ketil the Large. After that nobody of remarkable size shows up - so this family is shrinking in physical stature...
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Pissarro, Christopher Lloyd
Lovely large format reproductions presented in chronological order, allowing one to trace the development of style and subject matter. For instance, I noticed an abrupt shift (for the better) when Pissarro started working literally side by side. According to the text the influence travelled in both directions. It would be interesting to see if that is equally obvious to me in Cezanne's works.
As well as commentary on each featured painting, there is a time-line biography and an introductory essay.
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