Review: Murat, and Loyalty

    I found this book both interesting and oddly inspiring.

It was very good:  a good reader and a nice short story with loyalty, sacrifice, empathy, and above all, death with dignity.

Bon c’était très bien :
une bonne lectrice et une histoire courte avec la loyauté, les sacrifices, l’empathie , et surtout de mourir avec le dignité.

“Merci, librivox.org !
Bonne lectrice mais he n’aimes pas trop la musique avec.”

January 5, 2022 –

25.0% “Quel traison ! Dommage que la poudre etait mouillé.

Et quelle sauvetage !!
“… 5 segunds encore…””

January 5, 2022 –

29.0% “5/6 obéirent, mais 2 espagnols n’avait pas la lâcheté d’obéir !
Chouette !!”

January 6, 2022 –

30.0%“Dumas   is the master of suspense in this one!”

January 7, 2022 –

50.0%”Ça semble un bon offre d’asile, quand même.”

January 7, 2022 –

60.0% “Pas de Vive Joachim : pas bon.”

***

     I liked the story, and I gained a bit of hope for loyalty, and thus renewed hope in humankind.

Shira

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading and sharing about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: Nous Les Dieux, by Werber Showed Me My Bias

    I found this book both interesting and enlightening, about my own biases against imagination.  Werber    reminds us that no ideas are entirely without value, and that no human talent can afford to be wasted, even at the risk of driving ourselves crazy by following those imaginative ideas where ever they may lead.

Ce livre c’est vraiment Bon!
This book kept me riveted.  The topic was derivative but done in a way that was still really imaginative and really interesting. I also enjoyed seeing all of the various historical characters mixed in.  I will stop here before I end up giving spoilers.

There is also a question at the very end of the first page that has always haunted me, especially after being told that I had “un imagination debortant.”  It is a scary idea, that one’s own “fertile imagination” could drive one around the bend like that.   Ca me donne peur…

 Interesting final observation.  At the bottom of one page, the gods and us, a human child, sit watching ants.  I wonder if this led him to write his famous trilogy about Ants (Fourmis)???

***

     I may not have liked the story, but I did learn that greater versatility is possible, from it.  And it also reminded me how important reading, any sort of reading, is, during early childhood and adolescence, as preparation for citizenship.

Shira

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading and sharing about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Merci pour Le Capitaine Pamphile, M. Dumas, pere: Reading Really Is Fundamental…To VOTING

The recent ProPublica article on the return of literacy based voter suppression in some states reminds me that many people need stories that show them, and that reading even fiction, helps preparing kids and adults for reading other things, like voter registration forms, ballots, and exit polls.

Unlike  The Count of Monte-Cristo, this one is a childrens’ book!   I had no idea that he’d also written for kids.

I listened to some of this book, as usual, via LibreVox, and the reader was  terrible:

Abandoned listening to pompous reader reading annoying children’s book.

Reading Progress

November 5, 2020 – Shelved as: livres

November 5, 2020 –

page 35

9.11% “C’est intéressant comme tout le monde savait tout les détails de Les mille et une nuits : moi, je viens d’apprendre qui était le roi Camarazamann il y a peu de temps avant.

It is interesting how everyone knew the details of The Thousand and One Nights. I only just learned about who King Camarazaman was a short while ago.”

***

     I may not have liked the story, but I did learn that greater versatility is possible, from it.  And it also reminded me how important reading, any sort of reading, is, during early childhood and adolescence, as preparation for citizenship.

Shira

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading and sharing about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Revu: Les Damnes de La Terre, Frantz Fanon -Colonialism Hurts Everyone

Dnf, I can’t deal.  Les Damnés de la Terre, The Damned of the Earth, sounds about right.

See my reading updates, please.

Just too épatée…

Ok, thinking about this book, or the half that I read, it felt sickeningly like writing some difficult scenes from my series Ann and Anna where whipping or other horror is remembered. But almost every page I read of this book was like that. I had no idea how similar life in the colonized countries was to life in enslaved or Jim Crow USA.

  And yup, Sartre was the right guy to write that Preface.

Reading Progress

September 11, 2015 – Shelved

September 11, 2015 – Shelved as: to-read

June 4, 2016 – Shelved as: livres

June 4, 2016 – Shelved as: racisme

June 4, 2016 – Shelved as: teaching

June 4, 2016 – Shelved as: tspt

June 4, 2016 – Shelved as: esclavitud

August 2, 2018 – Shelved as: chokwelumumbajac… (Paperback Edition)

August 2, 2018 – Shelved (Paperback Edition)

August 2, 2018 – Shelved as: policy

August 2, 2018 – Shelved as: intergenerational

August 2, 2018 – Shelved as: election12016

August 2, 2018 – Shelved as: chokwelumumbajacksonmi

August 2, 2022 – Started Reading

August 2, 2022 –

page 1

0.32%“En fin trouvé !!”

August 2, 2022 –

page 7

2.25%“They banned the book, and he only saw a copy only just before he died? Difficult”

August 3, 2022 –

page 8

2.57%

August 3, 2022 –

page 9

2.89%

August 5, 2022 –

page 10

3.22%“Donc il faut aussi lire son premier livre Peau Noire, Masques Blancs, et aussi découvrir plus l’histoire des Caraïbes…”

August 6, 2022 –

page 11

3.54% “Je ne peux pas m’empêcher de penser comme il avait juste terminé d’écrire son livre quand il est mort.
Can’t stop thinking of how he just finished writing that book before he died.”

August 6, 2022 –

page 12

3.86%

August 7, 2022 –

page 12

3.86%“C’est triste”

August 7, 2022 –

page 13

4.18%

August 7, 2022 –

page 13

4.18%“Wow. Still digesting the fact that he had the guts to write this book during the Algerian War, putting himself in danger, not to mention having the book banned obviously.”

August 8, 2022 –

page 14

4.5%

August 9, 2022 –

page 15

4.82%

August 9, 2022 –

page 15

4.82%“İnteresting, very specific reasons that Fanon asked Sartre to write this forward. And apparently, it worked. Many read Sartre’s preface but not the book, which was seemingly addressed to a different audience.”

August 9, 2022 –

page 17

5.47%“Damn! No wonder Fanon didn’t make any comment when he read the preface. Sartre! İs he telling the colonizers what they want to hear? Just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

August 9, 2022 –

page 19

6.11% “Yep, there is the other shoe. Now I see why he picked Sartre.
Ouch!
The hand-picked token indigenous people educated in Europe and sent back to be the buffer, galloping toward the hypocritical carrot. Wow.”

August 9, 2022 –

page 21

6.75% “”elle a fabriqué de toutes pièces une bourgeoisie de colonisés…”

Just what the British did in India and I didn’t realize that all the European powers have done this all across Asia and africa. Similar to division via the color line in the US.”

August 9, 2022 –

page 22

7.07% “… à la mer.

Yeeoouch!!”

August 10, 2022 –

page 23

7.4% “So that was the reason that “the air of England is too pure for slaves to breathe” -easier to forget those blood stained colonies:

“Vous faites semblant d’oublier que vous avez des colonies et qu’on y massacre en votre nom.””

August 12, 2022 –

page 24

7.72%“Les mots de Sartre sont assez choquants”

August 13, 2022 –

11.0%“Sartre à terminé d’écrire ce préface en septembre 61 et Fanon meure en novembre , seulement deux mois , jusqu’à temps d’avoir vu la publication de son livre.”

August 13, 2022 –

12.0%“Botswana ? “…la décolonisation est toujours un phénomène violent.””

August 13, 2022 –

14.0% “Just like here in the US. Schools, religion, and even ‘science’ put to the service of racism, claiming that we were devoid of ethics, and even ‘anti-values’.
Useful only as a cheap labor force, thus ineligible for the equality called for by Dr. Anna J. Cooper.”

August 13, 2022 –

15.0%“Divide to rule: “la bourgeoisie colonialiste avait enfoncé à coup de pilon dans l’esprit du colonisé l’idée d’une société d’individus où chacun s’enferme dans sa subjectivité…””

August 13, 2022 –

19.0%“He’s describing the same process and situation in the colonies that was taking place during slavery and in fact also during the Jim Crow era in the United States to us.”

August 14, 2022 –

20.0%“Wow”

August 14, 2022 –

22.0% “Nonviolence & compromise fruits of colonialism?

All same except president of Gabon reçu par le président de la République française…

Oh.”

August 14, 2022 –

23.0%“C’est trop violent”

August 14, 2022 – Finished Reading

And still,  our world gets warmer and warmer, in bad ways.

Shira

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading and sharing about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Merci, M. Dumas: Learning Context From Annoying Queens…

Unlike most of his books thus far, the story of Queen Margot, for me,  was not even close to as profound nor as captivating (read that: thought-provoking) as The Count of Monte-Cristo. 
I listened to this book, as usual, via LibreVox, and the reader was  ok, as I recall:

I found this book depressing.   First, Hugenots massacred on St. Bartholomew’s Day, then our two heros becoming fast friends after trying to kill each other, then dying together for something they did not do, and then cursed royalty.  But Dumas certainly knew how to make the history and intrigues interesting.

***

J’ai trouvé ce livre assez déprimant.
D’abord, les massacres des huguenots du jour de Saint-Barthélemy, ensuite, les deux héros: ça c’est une vraiment belle histoire en fait après deux attendant de se tuer entre eux ils se deviennent les meilleures amie et muerent ensemble, malheureusement pour quelque chose qu’ils ont pas fait, et ensuite les hommes prix d’une famille maudite d’être royal.
Mais Alexandre Dumas a su très bien rendre intéressant tous ces histoires et intrigues politique.

Reading Progress

– Shelved as: livres

November 22, 2020 –

2.0% “”…son perfumeur et son empoisonneur…”/perfumer and poisoner:
Catherine di Médicis”

November 22, 2020 –

10.0%“Horrible massacre…”

November 23, 2020 –

10.0%

November 23, 2020 –

50.0%“touts ces mots sûr les blessûres me donnes envie d’ller me battre avec une epée -donc, je suis une mauvaise Gandhienne !!”/all these words and wounds make me want to pick up a sword and fight -so, I’m a bad Gandian!!

November 25, 2020 –

60.0% “Avec l’amitié de ses amis, que j’aimerais bien avoir avec quelquien moi aussi, cet amour de bougie ne vaut rien.
Je comprends que dans cette époque les femmes c’était méprisées, mais ça ne m’arrange pas mon café du matin. ☹️”

November 25, 2020 –

69.0%“Comment le poison du Pargali Ibrahim de Muhtesem Yuzyil…”/like the poison of 2nd in Charge, Ibrahim of Pargi, from the show Magnificent Century…

November 25, 2020 – Finished Reading

     I may not have liked the story, but I did learn from it.

Shira

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading and sharing about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Not 3, but 4 Musketeers???

This was a book I found highly entertaining, easy to follow, never boring, yet not nearly as profound nor as captivating (read that: thought-provoking) as The Count of Monte-Cristo, and hence, not a book I would purchase to keep at home. 
I listened to the book via LibreVox, and the reader was good, except for the fact that, I really hate to say it, I literally had to grit my teeth through the mercifully few sections where she sang (sorry, some folks just do not have good singing voices, and this reader was one of them). But apart from that, the listening experience was ok, saving me the time of reading since I can listen as I clean, cook, eat, and clean.

(yes, in that order, due to slovenly roommates…)

Reading Progress

October 25, 2020 – Started Reading

October 25, 2020 – Shelved as: livres

October 25, 2020 – Shelved

October 25, 2020 –

page 2

0.25%“LibreVox.org: an earlier “found manuscrit story…””

October 25, 2020 –

page 5

0.63%“Why did the film (American) dipict him on foot? And fleeing his home as if a refugee…”

October 25, 2020 –

page 6

0.76%“Young country mouse…”

October 25, 2020 –

page 6

0.76%“Fin de chapitre 5: the question of year!”

October 25, 2020 –

page 6

0.76%“It’s the four detectives, instead of the three musketeers…”

October 26, 2020 –

page 9

1.14%“d’Artagnan’s mentor…”

October 27, 2020 –

page 69

8.72% “Des armées et cités et villages livrerait au l’aurgoille (comment c’est écrit ??) de deux hommes !
Entire armies and towns and villages sacrificed to the pride of two men!!”

October 28, 2020 –

page 78

9.86% “…rare day when England remembers that the sun exists! 😆😆😆👍
and
Dumas references Catholic Biblical stories so often, which no author can do today.”

October 28, 2020 –

page 200

25.28% “Chapter 52/3? (“L’Oficier”)
toute sa colere dans son sourire (all of his anger in his smile): the film picked the perfect actor (Tim Curry) to play the Cardinal!”

October 28, 2020 –

page 200

25.28%“CH. 52: please stop singing! Dangers of audiobook!!!”

October 28, 2020 – Finished Reading

As our world gets warmer and warmer, in bad ways, we need more stories of courage.

Shira

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading and sharing about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

French Friday w/Madame Bovary & A Little More Empathy, Please

Sorry, lovers of M. Flaubert, I know this is a classic book, but I just did not like these characters at all.  None of them.  I did sympathize with the first Mdme Bovary, poor lady, just asking for “en peut plus d’amour, si’l te plait/a little bit more love, please.”  Very sad.

Too annoying by page 110 to finish even as bathtub reading that I would not have minded dropping in the bathtub.  Far too tired to care about the spoiled young Mrs. B. having hysterical fits which her idiot Dr. hubby cannot resolve (though at least he does care enough to try).

     Yet another French classic that I couldn’t come to enjoy.

Shira

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,   Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, if you are on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Bernard Werber, Le Miroir de Cassandre, and Mental Health Care

Well, fans of M. Werber, I hate to say that his book Ants was the only one I can really say I like as a story, but this one, I think, is just as worth the read, for other reasons.  So, here is my review of his take on the ancient Trojan/Greek story of poor Cassandra (and the need for full access by all to all types of health care, including long term therapy and other mental health care):

English review is below…

M’a pris du temps, mais j’ai aimée ce livre, écrit du point de vu (pour la plupart en 1r personne, mais parfois d’un troisieme proche quand ce n’avait pas traitait de la protagoniste) d’une jeune fille autiste qui ce trouve sa place dans le monde. Ce conte de jeunesse la trouve en train de se trouver dans un endroit assez étonnant d’où travailler en sauver le monde. Ce que j’aime le meilleur s’était que ce sont le gens les plus improbable qui fondent ce travail, et que tout l’histoire ce trouve dans un monde ou on est rappelé plusieurs fois de ne pas juger ni un livre ni une personne par son couvre, tellement pestant que se soit. I trouve ce livre particulièrement important à lire pour les chefs et aussi pour le citoyens de tous les pays pour faire penser.

It took me a while, but I really liked this book, written from the PoV (mostly 1st person, but sometimes close third when not the protagonist) of a young autistic woman finding her place in the world. This coming of age story has her finding a rather surprising place from which to work on saving the world. The best part about it is that those doing this work are the absolute least likely people you would expect, and the entire story is set in a world in which we are reminded over and over again not to judge a book, nor a person, however smelly, by coverings. I find this book particularly important for all policy-makers and concerned citizens of any country to read and ponder.

Read, Write, Dream, Walk !

#PublicDomainInfrastructure
ShiraDest
March 23rd, 12018 HE

Shira

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,   Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, if you are on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

French Friday during The Nine Days, Sartre, & Nausea

     I read this book while learning French, but even at my intermediate level of French skill, it was clear that I hated this book.  Sorry, I know it is classic, but still:

I am sure I reviewed this in French a few years ago, but maybe it was elsewhere, on Livraddict or Vimeo, so I’ll have to search and find my original review and translate it when I have time and energy. Suffice it to say that I hated this book because it sank my hope in Humanity.

His cynical list of different types of Humanists, all either hypocritical or simply stupid, was so depressing that the book itself left me feeling nauseous.   I suppose I ought to read it again, but do I have to, really?

Can’t we human beings do any better for ourselves?

Shira

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/Protector,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, if you are on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

French Fridays with more Maryse Condé

Attention-grabbing, informative, saddening, and thought-provoking, this book is worth owning and also learning French to read it. The author has spun in so many different perspectives, but never actually leaves you hanging, except at the end where there is a cliffhanger. From the ancestor worshiping Africans perspective, to the newly converted Islamic Africans perspective, to the despised mixed race children, who don’t get a perspective actually, to a couple of the European slave owners perspectives, she has really done a wonderful job of spinning in various points of view and the cultural descriptions and perspectives are amazing.

I actually read this set by French author Maryse Condé out of order, and it worked really well.

Last week, I reviewed Tome 2, which I actually read first, and preferred.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/Protector,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, if you are on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.