Curious Cats Read

A Bibliophile’s Blog

Sherrie’s Blogs

A blog that explores books and their relevance to our everyday lives, the value of literacy, and what it means to be a curious person.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “Tis the good reader that makes the good book…" I hope that the same is true about good blogs. Thank you good readers.

Here Comes the Sun

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The longest night of the year approaches (at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere). Even in a world of electric lights, S.A.D. lights, and an ability to abscond to sunny places, I count down the hours until time’s pendulum  adds shaved seconds of stolen light back into these shortest of days.

Then, on the Winter’s Solstice, I do a happy dance.

I wonder what it must have felt like living through the long winter season during the Dark Ages? (A period that most scholars now refer to as the Middle Ages, but which I still think of it as the Dark Ages.) There was surely laughter and love, stories and song, but in general, I imagine a world that was bleak. The common folks probably lived with few pleasures and many hardships‒especially one notable‒a bookless existence.

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STUCK

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Summer’s heat and humidity can be a Petri dish for the doldrums, that figurative name we give to despair spawned of monotony and lethargy—a ceaseless sameness of no escape. In other words, Stuck. It rhymes with ….

In reality, the Doldrums are an equatorial region of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans where extremely low-pressure zaps the wind from the air. Not a problem if you have another source of power, but being trapped for weeks on becalmed waters drove some old-time, wind-dependent mariners to madness—and some to an early grave.

Myriads of books embody the pathos of stuckedness with many variations on the theme: some literal, others figurative; the man-made, self-made and forces of nature; some characters who are temporarily bound and others who never manage the great escape.

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If We Couldn’t Laugh

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For many bibliophiles, reading and happiness are synonymous, but sometimes, we crave a particular genre. I associate summer with easy-breezy reading, things that make me smile. I have heard some people say they feel guilty when they read blithe books. My conscience has no such pangs but to help absolve those do, I suggest we take a cue from Robert Frost who said: “If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”

A friend recently asked me for some light-hearted recommendations. At first, I thought it would be an easy request, but it ultimately sent me canvassing my bookshelves and reading lists and quizzing other bibliophiles.

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Metamorphosis

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Earlier this month, a collective groundswell of emotion rippled round the world as the public mourned the man once known as Cassius Clay. Boxing champ Muhammad Ali was a household name. Even in a country that reveres sports heroes, being an African American, or a Muslim, or labeled by some as a draft dodger in […]

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Siblinghood

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When I first heard of Siblings Day (April 10), I suspected it was something that had been fabricated by the greeting card industry, but I was wrong. Instead, this unofficial holiday was born transforming loss into tribute. After Claudia Evart’s sister and brother died in separate accidents, the New York resident created the Siblings Day Foundation to help honor, recognize and celebrate the special bond that brothers and sisters share. Considering that in popular lingo, sibling is often followed by rivalry, it is rather nice to have a different take on the subject.

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The Chaos of Contagion

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Imagine sitting at your desk, driving a car, doing the dishes, changing a diaper, having sex, performing brain surgery….and suddenly, inexplicably, being struck blind. Imagine that scene repeating over and over across a city. Then imagine the mass hysteria that inevitably begins, rising to a fevered pitch. “Blindness” does that, but not in a usual sci-fi style of writing. Instead, this work, authored by a Nobel Prize for Literature winner, the late José Saramago, reads more like Dante’s poetry than any hot zone adventure.

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The Come Along

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Although non-fiction, “The Big Short,” reads like a novel. Lewis dives deep into the psyche of the main characters who, though obvious geniuses, look a bit like they belong on “The Island of Misfit Toys.” …(Lewis) avoids dense, glassy-eyed explanations and industry jargon. He simplifies complex transactions like collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps and reinsurance through adept story-telling that shows just how the financial sausage was made.

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Bon Equinox, Bon Appetit

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The change of seasons kindles my inner food & wine critic. Maybe it’s the stacks of red apples in their pre-pie à la mode mode; it may be thoughts of the upcoming Oktoberfest with sizzling wursts (and mustards and kraut); or it may visions of the soon-to-be harvested ripe grapes bound for oak casks, to await a future incarnation. A good food or wine book is its own kind of feast (only with fewer calories).

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Fire & Rain

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“The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America,” describes the grim devastation of natural resources that was narrowly averted through the works of Roosevelt, his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot and a handful of other brave and dedicated individuals, before modern-day natural conservationist was even a coined term.

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