First Lines: July 2024 edition

 

Below are the first lines of the 8 books I finished reading in July.  

Includes a whole slew of audio books, which I found to be the best

thing while recovering from cataract surgeries.  I started a good many

more audio books than this, but for various reasons couldn’t finish them.  

 

Books in which disabilities are portrayed: one, portraying mental illness and addiction.

Book 1

“Hello, darling.  It’s me.  Just wanted to let you know that I will be attending the conference at the library after all.  It’ll be wonderful to see you, but we’ll have to be careful.  We wouldn’t want…well, you know.”

 

 

Book 2

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition and Astrology.  The governess was always getting muddled with her astrolabe, and when she got specially muddled she would take it out of the Wart by rapping his knuckles.

 

 

Book 3

A Painful Return Home

I was about five years old when I was abducted.  It was one of the most beautiful days of my childhood. 

 

Book 4

How the Whale Got His Throat

In the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. 

 

Book 5

Fate

It was the hour of the morning snifter, and a little group of Eggs and Beans and Crumpets had assembled in the smoking-room of the Drones Club to do a bit of inhaling.  

 

 

Book 6

1.  Love, Marriage and Other Surprises

The wedding took place underneath the Castle, beneath that towering, formidable rock, in a quiet church that was reached from the King’s Stables Road.

 

 

Book 7

If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.

Book 8

One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person,

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

 

Of physiology from top to toe I sing,

Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far,

The Female equally with the Male I sing.

Did not finish

Prologue: Unmasked

The lectern where the lawyers stood to argue their cases had been pushed back twenty feet from the Supreme Court’s elevated bench.  Dozens of wooden chairs that normally filled the front section of the court were gone. The tableau on this Nov 1, 2021 morning was spare as the coronavirus pandemic still raged and extra health precautions were in place.

The titles and authors revealed:

 

 

Book 1

Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By (A Penny Brannigan Mystery), by Elizabeth J. Duncan.  Audiobook, 6 hours.  Narrator Anne Flosnik.

In print it is 304 pages • First published 2013.

 

Murders in the library!

 

This fit the bill exactly of what I needed for the day of/day after my eye surgery.  An audio book, available immediately, cozy mystery, loads of afternoon tea, a single narrator, and not overly long.   Ordinarily I would have abandoned it early – the narrator’s voice was rather stolid, with the (I suppose) Welsh accent charming and the narrator’s portrayal of the Canadian character plausible.  Audio books tend to make me fall asleep, and this one did too, but I stayed awake enough each time I awoke that I could follow the story.  The straightforward story line lent itself to my needs.

 

Book 2

The Sword in the Stone, by T.H. White, (abridged; Junior Classics for 7-12 year olds).  Audiobook released 2008.

Original unabridged text published in 1938; then published with the full set of books in 1958 as The Once and Future King. 

Naxos Audiobooks, narrated by Neville Jason.  4 hours (or maybe 6 hours) – there must have been some editing problems because a whole section repeated itself. 

 

This was yet another audio book narrated by a British actor.  Makes me wonder if the “available now” section of the library audiobook catalog is almost all British.  Neville Jason’s narration was delightful, as were the character portrayals by T.H. White.  Of course, a lot is left out, but it was just right for my recovery period.  This recording seemed to have an editing flaw where a whole section was repeated, but I found my way around that.  I wonder how often that error happens in audiobooks – I don’t usually do audiobooks because they put me to sleep. 

 

This audio book includes a viciously truncated version of one of my most favorite quotes, something that I believe my parents lived by:

 

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

 

Another version uses  “disturbances of the spirit” which I like better in place of “being sad”.  But I do like the notion of Merlin puffing and blowing, which isn’t in the second version.

 

This is not to say that in any one instance of sadness there are not other paths of action which are better to follow.  And sometimes learning does fail.  But I still feel that learning why the world wags could be a good option. 

 

Book 3

More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew, by John Blake.

240 pages • First published 2023.

Blake is a CNN journalist.  I first heard his story on the podcast No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp.  This memoir was a fast-paced but deep and thoughtful read.  Includes portrayal of mental illness and addiction.

 

 

Book 4

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.  Unabridged.  Audiobook read by Geoffrey Palmer.   3 hours, 27 minutes • Written text first pub 1902 (editions).  Audiobook released in 2005  by Naxos Junior Classics.

 

Completely charming narration by Geoffrey Palmer.

 

Book 5

Young Men in Spats, by P.G. Wodehouse.  Audiobook released in 2012 by AudioGO.  Read by Jonathan Cecil.  Text first published in 1936. 236 pages.

Short funny stories centered on characters at The Drones Club.  The characters in the Club are all identified as breakfast foods.

 

 

 

Book 6

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (44 Scotland Street #5) By Alexander McCall Smith

344 pages • first published 2008.

I turn to this series when the world becomes too much, as it did in the past few weeks.

 

The book’s title is a play on another book of high literary stature The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, which I read eons ago and don’t remember, other than that it was an excellently written book.

This book’s chapter titles often echo other literary titles, for instance:

Paradise Found

Portrait of the Artist as a Surprised Man

Let Us Now Praise a rather Infamous Man

A Shot in the Park

Fathers and Sons

I can’t remember if this was the case in the other books in this series.

 

In a chapter titled “Edinburgh Noses Through the Ages” there is an essay about noses.

 

 

Book 7

Mary Poppins By P.L. Travers with Sophie Thompson (Narrator)

~ 4 hours • first pub 1934. Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks 2013

I stand by my opinion when I read it in April 2019:  In the book, Mary Poppins is a gaslighter.  I enjoyed the book much more as a child.  But I needed a light audio book.

 

Book 8

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Inscriptions section.  First published 1855.  The version I read was published in 2004.  The whole thing is more than 600 pages.  The Inscriptions section is the first approx. 8% of the book.  Or maybe a different percentage - there are many different versions of the opus..  I listened to an audiobook while reading along on my kindle.

I wrote a whole pithy commentary on this, but it seems to be lost.  I will just say this:  the section I read (“Inscriptions”) was very American.

 

Did not finish

Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences.  By Joan Biskupic, senior Supreme Court analyst for CNN.  Audiobook released in 2023, read by Kirsten Potter.  13 hours approx.  Text in print is 588 pages. 

Just couldn’t stomach it right now, and definitely could not manage this topic via audiobook.

 

Speaking of things that cannot be stomached:

Tea party in 2010, with
leaves-of-grass cupcakes and mud wine