Virtual Advent Tour 2019: Winter Evenings

Virtual Advent Tour is hosted by Sprite at Sprite Writes.

There is something magical about winter evenings when you are warm and comfy while it is freezing and windy outside. With the fire going and a hot beverage, it is nice to just be in comfortable silence and perhaps enjoy a good piece of poetry.

One such piece is a poem that hit me straight in the heart when I first heard it many years ago, a romantically melancholic, just like a Slavic soul likes best, and I had that instant 'a-ha' feeling of relating to it, for back then I did literally live in an old house in the middle of the marshes and cold, wild wind knocking on our shabby windows was a familiar visitor during many a winter evening while sitting by the wood stove with my grandmother.

I know it by heart in Slovene translation and it takes me straight back to my childhood whenever I remember it. Incidentally, its title is Winter Evening and it remains one of my favourite pieces of poetry. I am pasting it below with some imagery that reminds me of the 'olden' days. ;)

Winter Evening
by A. S. Pushkin

O'er the earth a storm is prowling, Bringing whirling, blinding snow.
Like a beast I hear it howling,
Like an infant wailing low.
Now the thatch it rustles, playing
On our roof; now at our pane
Raps like someone homeward straying
And behighted in the plain.


Old our hut is, dark and dreary,
By a candle dimly lit...
Why so sad, my dear, and weary
At the window do you sit?
Is't because the storm is moaning
That so very still you keep?
Does your spindle's mournful droning
Put you quietly to sleep?

Come, O comrade solitery
Of this cheerless youth of mine,
Take a cup, and let us bury
All our many woes in wine!
Of a maid out by a river
Sing a little song to me
Or a tomtit, one that never
Leaves its home beyond the sea.


O'er the earth a storm is prowling,
Bringing whirling, blinding snow.
Like a beast I hear it howling,
Like an infant wailing low.
Come, O comrade solitery
Of this cheerless youth of mine,
Take a cup, and let us bury
All our many woes in wine!

(Translated by I. Zheleznova.)

Do you have a favourite piece of poetry that reminds you of winter and/or childhood? 

I'm Still Alive

... and I'm still reading, too. Actually, I'll set a new record this year.

However, I don't know what to do with this blog. Hence, the nearly year-long hiatus.

I don't want to abandon it, but even just posting this reminds me of why I'd been struggling lately over the last few years and then vanished into this hiatus - all the signing out and in already takes s much energy. Not to mention other hurdles.

Blogger really isn't user-friendly. Or I've been spoiled by other platforms (*cough* tumblr *cough* - although that comes with its own set of problems). That and perhaps I burden myself with too high standards of what sort of posts both content- and format-wise I want to make. Maybe I should lower those.

I am thinking of maybe setting up automatic cross-posting from GR - or at least try it to see if it works satisfactorily. And/or doing monthly (or some such) recaps of my reading and watching exploits. I will have to mull it over some more and then decide.

But, first thing first, it is my favourite time of the year and that means Virtual Advent Tour! I will have two stops here on the 9th and the 16th, but do check out everyone else's stops as well, because people always share interesting things.

My Life According to the Books I Read in 2018

I've read a 100 books this year! That's a record!

So, plenty of material to fill out my-year-in-books-I-read end-of-year wrap up meme, created by Christine at The happily ever after. Or so I had thought, but I also tried to showcase my favourite books of the year while making sense and being more or less truthful, which turned out quite a challenging combination.

Nevertheless, here we go:

Describe yourself: Prisoner by Annika Martin

How do you feel: A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert 

Describe where you currently live: Creative Incentives by Kit Rocha

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Point of Contact by Melanie Hansen

Your favourite form of transportation: Grounded by R. K. Lilley

Your best friend is: Promises by Marie Sexton

You and your friends are: The Dirty Ones by J. A. Huss

What's the weather like: The Hunger by Alma Katsu

What is life to you: Gilded Ashes by Rosamund Hodge

Favourite time of day: A Midwinter Night's Dream by Tiffany Reisz

Your fear:  A Royal Mistake by Elizabeth Davis 

What is the best advice you have to give: Archangel's Prophecy by Nalini Singh

Thought for the day: Victorious by Marie Force

How I would like to die: A Happy Death by Albert Camus

My soul's present condition: Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels 

Have a great New Year's Eve and I wish you all a happy 2019 with lots of good books!

Virtual Advent Tour 2018: Favourite Holiday Movies

I am again participating in Virtual Advent Tour, hosted by Sprite at Sprite Writes.

This year I decided to share some of my favourite Christmas movies, because who doesn’t like to bundle up in a warm blanket with some hot beverage of your choice and watch something sweet or funny or touching or all of the above combined?

The first Christmas movie that always comes to my mind and that I never find boring is the first Home Alone (1990) movie, mostly hilarious, but poignant at times.

Love Actually (2003) is all of what I mentioned above, funny and sweet, sometimes sad and thought provoking, and most of all simply showing the state of being human.

In While You Were Sleeping (1995), a lovely comedy about accidentally finding love and a family, the road to happiness is paved with good intentions and a few blunders.

Artistically well-made movies sometimes fail to emotionally resonate with me, but The Holiday (2006) is wonderfully heart-warming and fun story about finding love and friendship.

A tale of the Christmas truce of 1915, Joyeux Noel (2005) is a touching and poignant reminder that we are all only people no matter the artificial sides we choose to divide us.

What are your favourite holiday movies?

The Dirty Ones by J. A. Huss

NOTE: The book reviewed contains themes only appropriate for those above the age of majority.

A group of students at an elite college is pushed into an unusual – let’s call it adventure in their senior year.

Ten years later someone writes a book about it that tells the truth. Or does it? As they reconnect to uncover the book’s author, they fall into a spiral of memories, intrigues, and convoluted relationships, both past and present.

The plot that unravels completely blew me away, in particularly the twist near the end. 

I can best describe The Dirty Ones as a psychological erotic mystery thriller, the least emphasis being on erotic, although it sure contains some filthy smut. But whatever you expect from this book, I promise you are going to be wrong. A good kind of wrong, though.

Overall, this world and story of this book are opulent, sensual, emotive, and above all very human and will certainly stay with me for a long time.

The Dirty Ones was my first book from J. A. Huss, but I will surely return to her for quality writing, vivid imagery, and fantastic storytelling.

The Vow on the Heron (Plantagenet Saga #9) by Jean Plaidy

The Vow on the Heron depicts the reign of Edward III, starting and ending similarly in disgrace and with an impoverished country, but with a tumultuous journey in between.

Beginning as a puppet boy-king, Edward III rose from his early failures of youthful inexperience as a great military leader, often likened to his grandfather Edward I and most notably remembered for staring the Hundred Years’ War with France.

What I liked the most about his life was that he had a really good marriage and family life and was for the most part a faithful husband and a good father, which seems to be an exception more often than not when it comes to historical rulers of whichever country.

As usually with Plaidy, The Vow on the Heron is written in a simple but evocative language that makes what could be a boring history rather interesting, although it could be edited a bit more meticulously.

Overall, this was a quick and easy but compelling read.

Alpha (2018)

DIRECTOR: Albert Hughes; CAST: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Marcin Kowalczyk…

SUMMARY: During the last Ice Age, a friendship forms between a boy on the verge of adulthood and a wolf.

MY THOUGHTS:

Although I’m more of a cat than a dog person, Alpha was one of my must-see films of this year ever since I had seen the first trailer and it did not disappoint.

A coming-of-age story follows a developing bond between an injured boy and a wounded wolf in a suspenseful and oftentimes poignant arc that comes to a heart-warming conclusion.

The film is filled with stunning visuals and some breath-taking action; CGI is not half-bad, either. And, with a fictionalised backdrop and taken with a grain of salt as to historical accuracy, Alpha could have nevertheless been one of the versions of how people domesticated wolves.

My only ‘complaint’ is that with around an hour and a half the film could have been longer; I would not mind watching more of Keda and Alpha’s adventures at all.

RECOMMENDATION: The film contains hunting and other animal injuries, so you might want to be careful if you are sensitive to that (but all ends well for the main protagonist.) Other than that, Alpha is an engaging film that is perfect for watching on one of these dark winter nights when you need something to make you feel good.

The Swooping Magpie by Liza Perrat

NOTE: This review contains SPOILERS. 

Sixteen-year-old Lindsey crushes on her teacher, dreaming of escaping a cold home with a violent father and an intimidated, emotionally absent mother. 

But when she ‘seduces’ him – although the man, nearly twice her age, who turns out to be a truly despicable character, should very well know better – and gets pregnant, her in many ways sheltered world of wealth comes crashing down along with her dreams.

On the cusp of sexual revolution, pregnancy outside of marriage is still a taboo, unmarried mothers shamed and shunned, sent away to have their children put up for adoption. 

In one such home for unmarried mothers, Lindsey is faced with a different reality of poverty and exhausting work, coming face to face with people she used to look down upon but who become her only friends when everyone else turns their backs on her and from whom she learns not only about suffering she couldn’t imagine before but also about perseverance.

Initially a deluded girl who stubbornly sticks to her pipe dream with her head in the sand, Lindsey made me pity her, but I soon started empathise with her, being reminded of how hard it must have been for women in the time where they were dependent on men, purposely kept in the dark about the facts of life, with sex education non-existent, then shamed for the consequences of actions often not of their own design, lied to, manipulated, and finally coerced into giving their children up for adoption.

Set against the backdrop of women’s emancipation movement, Liza Perrat depicts these issues as well as the challenges of the aftermath of losing the children they are not allowed to grieve for as their sole existence is shameful and best to forget in the eyes of society, such as depression and suicide attempts, in a multi-faced way that inspires a whole range of raw emotions in the reader, but most of all an admiration for women like Lindsey and her friends.

Thus, The Swooping Magpie is above all a testimony of women’s strength. With a collection of colourful characters and an exquisite Australian setting, it is a truly gripping and quick read (I finished it in two days) and might be, in my opinion, Liza Perrat’s best work to date.

Thanks to the author for kindly sending me a copy of The Swooping Magpie in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.