The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon; And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon, When done the journey of her nightly race, Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place. For days the shepherds in the fields may be, Nor mark a patch of sky – blindfold they trace, The plains, that seem without a bush or tree, Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.
The timid hare seems half its fears to lose, Crouching and sleeping ‘neath its grassy lair, And scarcely startles, tho’ the shepherd goes Close by its home, and dogs are barking there; The wild colt only turns around to stare At passer by, then knaps his hide again; And moody crows beside the road forbear To fly, tho’ pelted by the passing swain; Thus day seems turn’d to night, and tries to wake in vain.
The owlet leaves her hiding-place at noon, And flaps her grey wings in the doubling light; The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon, And small birds chirp and startle with affright; Much doth it scare the superstitious wight, Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay; While cow-boys think the day a dream of night, And oft grow fearful on their lonely way, Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day.
Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings Its murky prison round – then winds wake loud; With sudden stir the startled forest sings Winter’s returning song – cloud races cloud, And the horizon throws away its shroud, Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye; Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd, And o’er the sameness of the purple sky Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye.
At length it comes among the forest oaks, With sobbing ebbs, and uproar gathering high; The scared, hoarse raven on its cradle croaks, And stockdove-flocks in hurried terrors fly, While the blue hawk hangs o’er them in the sky. The hedger hastens from the storm begun, To seek a shelter that may keep him dry; And foresters low bent, the wind to shun, Scarce hear amid the strife the poacher’s muttering gun.
The ploughman hears its humming rage begin, And hies for shelter from his naked toil; Buttoning his doublet closer to his chin, He bends and scampers o’er the elting soil, While clouds above him in wild fury boil, And winds drive heavily the beating rain; He turns his back to catch his breath awhile, Then ekes his speed and faces it again, To seek the shepherd’s hut beside the rushy plain.
The boy, that scareth from the spiry wheat The melancholy crow – in hurry weaves, Beneath an ivied tree, his sheltering seat, Of rushy flags and sedges tied in sheaves, Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves. There he doth dithering sit, and entertain His eyes with marking the storm-driven leaves; Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta’en, And wishing in his heart twas summer-time again.
Thus wears the month along, in checker’d moods, Sunshine and shadows, tempests loud, and calms; One hour dies silent o’er the sleepy woods, The next wakes loud with unexpected storms; A dreary nakedness the field deforms – Yet many a rural sound, and rural sight, Lives in the village still about the farms, Where toil’s rude uproar hums from morn till night Noises, in which the ears of Industry delight.
At length the stir of rural labour’s still, And Industry her care awhile foregoes; When Winter comes in earnest to fulfil His yearly task, at bleak November’s close, And stops the plough, and hides the field in snows; When frost locks up the stream in chill delay, And mellows on the hedge the jetty sloes, For little birds – then Toil hath time for play, And nought but threshers’ flails awake the dreary day.
~John Clare, reprinted in Autumn: An anthology for the changing seasons, edited by Melissa Harrison (London, 2016), pp. 171-4
I'm taking part in the Spells & Spaceships Virtual Badge Collection Challenge 2025!
In my goals for 2025, I set myself a number of reading challenges:
My LARGE goal is to participate in the Books in Translation Reading Challenge. I had such fun with it last year! I also want to collect some of the adorable badges from the 2025 Fantasy/SF Badge Collection. I have a new reading challenge of my own, which I'm calling the Bancroft Prize Reading Challenge.
Awarded annually by Columbia University, the prize is given to books on
American history and/or diplomacy. Two of my favourite works of history
I've read for fun have been by Bancroft-winning authors, so I'm setting
myself the goal of reading a previous winner or the 2025 winner when it is announced in March or April.
So how's that badge collecting going?
My badge collection bingo card to date
Simply by picking up books that interested me at my local libraries, I've managed to collect eighteen of the twenty-five badges. That leaves me with six books to read to collect the remaining seven badges. It would be fun to go for a full set! Can I do it? There are sixty-eight days remaining in 2025 and the badges I have yet to collect are:
The African inspiration badge
SPFBO (self-published fantasy blog-off) badge
The animal companion badge
The sea setting badge
The space opera badge
The graphic novel badge
The collector badge (all of them)
I don't normally read graphic novels or self-published fantasy, and am unlikely to stumble across either accidentally, so some research and planning is clearly in order!
None of the SPFBO winners are available in my public library system, so I will have to put in an inter-library loan or purchase request to get this badge.
I've previously read most of the books and series recommended for the animal companion badge, except the faithful and the fallen series by John Gwynne, which is available at my local library.
Deep as the sky, red as the sea, was wonderful, but isn't SFF, so I'm still looking for my sea setting badge. Fast Ships, Black Sails--an anthology of pirate fantasy--would meet the criteria and satisfy my love of anthologies; but I might also look for some of the recommendations in this reddit thread, or this list from Books Are My Third Place. (Reactor gets a shout-out again for a wonderful list of fantasy's best boats--the only trouble is I've read almost everything on the list.)
Shocked, absolutely shocked that I haven't yet checked space opera off the list, but the rules of the challenge specify that one book cannot count for multiple badges, and I already counted Artificial Condition for the nonhuman badge. I haven't yet counted other Murderbot books for this badge, so that's a back up plan, but I have counted multiple books of a series once already, so it would be fun to push myself to keep reading. My library system doesn't have Wayfarers (although Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep, part of a series with a very similar title, sounds rather fun); or the Protectorate, the two books/series suggested as examples of space opera. But I can check out the third suggestion, Pierce Brown's Red Rising. For classics like Downbelow Station or other works listed on the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction(not to mention more recent hits like Gideon the Ninth), I'd need to use inter-library loan.
I know absolutely nothing about graphic novels or comics but tracking down something from this Book Riot list or browsing the library shelves and seeing what I can come up with should be fun!
What would you read to collect these last few badges? Recommendations and suggestions very welcome!
For the past four years, the American Historical Association has sponsored a Summer Reading Challenge. Each year, there are a series of prompts, of which participants are challenged to complete at least three.
Read a piece of historical fiction (novel, story, poem, play): The Women in the Wall by Julia O'Faolain. Possibly the only novel on Saint Radegund in existence; certainly the only one I know of where the sixth-century poet Venantius Fortunatus is a main character.
Now I only need to remember not to pack these books away! I'm completing a major international move this summer, godwilling, so I'm not convinced I'll manage any of this, but it's always fun to try.
As I've done in the past, here are my personal rules for the challenge for 2025:
No buying books! I must either borrow or own the books I read.
Read in whatever format is possible: print, PDF, ebook--whatever works. In the past I've insisted on print but not this year.
Write one post about what I read by the end of the challenge (1 September).
It's a long weekend here in the Netherlands and I am celebrating by staying in to read and do my grading. Yesterday, I finished A Drop of Patience by William Melvin Kelley (1937-2017). Called "a lost giant of American literature" by Kathryn Schulz, Kelley was a significant writer of the Black Arts Movement. I had never heard of him before I picked the book up off the library shelves a few weeks ago, although his name might be familiar to you--he's widely credited to be the first person to use the term "woke" in its modern sense in print.
A Drop of Patience tells the story of Ludlow Washington, a blind jazz musician who grows up in a state institution for blind Black children, where he learns to play music. The novel's six parts follow his musical career and relationships--with Etta-Sue Scott, his landlady's daughter; Ragan, a white New Yorker; and Harriet Smith, a Black woman studying journalism at college. The introduction I read--by Gerald Early--describes it as "one of the classic literary depictions of the jazz artist." Ludlow Washington is a rare talent of a musician--he knows it, the
people around him know it--but I don't think I've ever read a book about
artistic genius where the artist is constantly practicing. For me, this was a book that asks complex questions about art, audience, and race; and the meaning of creative work. This passage, from the middle of the novel, is one I'm going to be thinking about for awhile.
The pianist was quiet for a long while and just when Ludlow was convinced he had refused to talk, he started: "Some folks around think we artists, like classical musicians. Maybe we are."
Ludlow did not understand the connection. His dismay must have crossed his face.
"Ludlow, there are only two reasons why people do things--because they want to, and because they got to. The only time you can do something good is when you want to. Now maybe sometimes you can want to do something so bad that after a while it's like you got to. But now instead of being made to do it by someone else, you making yourself do it, and then maybe you an artist. Okay, now take you. You could be playing like everybody else and then instead of being in O'Gee's band, he'd be in yours. For some reason you don't play like nobody else. But ain't nobody forcing you to be different. So maybe you better forget about money because if you really cared about it, you'd be playing the way that makes the most money."
Ludlow was more confused than ever. "Then why do I play?"
~A Drop of Patience by William Melvin Kelley (New York, 1965), p. 156
I recommend it.
Further Reading
Gerald Early's introduction made me want to learn more about Kelley's work and life. Here are some pieces I enjoyed.
Here are new recipes I tried this academic year. The list is not complete for November, when I was ferociously busy with job applications; or for December and January, when I was with my family on vacation and didn't write down everything I cooked; and I'm sure I've left out some things I cooked in April. As you can probably guess from the long gap between posts, the last year of my postdoc has been a full one.
In and among conference travel, applications, a dream trip to Pompeii and Herculaneum, and more, it's been fun to use this blog as an archive of recipes I tried and might want to come back to. One thing this helps me do is test cookbooks. They're expensive, so if I am going to purchase or recommend one, it needs to be something I will really use and don't already have. Although I enjoyed trying Susie Lee's Simply Chinese, for me it covers the same ground as the food blog Woks of Lifeand the cookbook Stir Crazy by Ching-He Huang. Stir Crazy is a book I use all the time--the instructions are clearly written, the prep time is reasonable, and the resulting food is delicious (as a bonus, the recipes usually make extra servings!)
In May, I discovered the food pages of the Guardian newspaper--if you have some red wine to use up, do check out Rachel Roddy's Penne con pollo scapato. The ingredients add up to more than the sum of their parts, it doesn't require much effort to make, and it's great way to use up those last few stalks of celery if you have them lying around. If the late spring and early summer are turning cold and wet where you are, it might be just the thing.
October
Za'atar roasted squash with Spiced Yogurt and Pickled Chilis from Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour
King Prawns, Celery, and Carrot from Simply Chinese by Susie Lee
Veggie Singapore Noodles from Simply Chinese by Susie Lee
Ma Po Tofu with Aubergine from Simply Chinese by Susie Lee
Salted Chili Tofu with Perfect Basmati Rice from Simply Chinese by Susie Lee
Risotto with spinach, sultanas, and pine nuts from World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey
November
Sesame Chicken from Woks of Life by Ching-He Huang
December
Sweet
Gevulde Speculaas from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh (a version of this recipe can be found online here; it is a bit of a project but incredibly delicious. Highly recommended!)
January
Roman Mint and Lentil Soup from Fields of Greens by Annie Sommerville
Learning New Words With Lymond is back! This series wends its way through the alphabet in an attempt
to understand and appreciate the intersection of word choice and
character development in the work of the Scottish historical novelist Dorothy
Dunnett. By thinking about how and why Dunnett does what she does with words, I aim to become more inventive, playful, and precise in my own use of language. Or, as Ellen Kushner put it,
"Ever since I first read them in college, as a writer I've been in
dialogue with the Lymond books...I kept trying to figure out,
'How did she just do that?' I learned a lot." ~ "All the Writers You Love Probably Love Dorothy Dunnett," Alyssa Dawn Johnson, NPR
We continue our journey through The Game of Kings with words beginning with the letters 'h,' 'i', and 'l'...
hagioscopic
"You have an entrancing and hagioscopic view of my character that is entirely your own." p. 298
Ever needed a adjective that describes someone (or something) with a small and limited view of a much larger whole? Enter hagioscopic, from the noun, hagioscope, which is an opening or window that allows Christian worshipers to see the elevation of the Host during the sacrament of the Eucharist. (OED) We the readers, together with Lymond's sister in law Mariotta, to whom this comment is directed, have a very hagioscopic view of his character at this point in the narrative.
Hanno
"Unless like Hanno you wish to sail by streams of fire. Unbuckle your sword. The suicide impulse is strong in the air." p. 336
Lymond displays here his classical education. Hanno is the hero of an ancient Greek text called the Periplus which recounts his leadership of a large expedition of Carthaginian explorers and settlers along the Atlantic coast of Africa, c. 480 BCE. Towards the end of the journey, the party encountered a land where streams of fire fell into the sea. (Dictionary of African
Biography, Oxford, 2012).
Heliades
Despite almost tearful threats from Bowes, he sat amber-headed in the April sunlight, melting as the tears of the Heliades, and tore them to shreds. p. 315
The word play here is typical Dunnett--the Heliades were the daughters of the Greek son-god Helios, whose tears, when their brother Phaethon tried and failed to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky, fell into the river where he died and became amber (Wikipedia). One of the sources of humour is surprise--after such an innocent-seeming description, Lymond's subsequent words and actions are a delicious contrast.
Hippocrenes
"Did you do that?" snapped the Lord Lieutenant, and jerked a finger towards Acheson's prone body. Lymond turned his head. "Gushing Hippocrenes at every joint. No. Strictly speaking, the blame belongs to a strawberry roan." p. 427
Hippocrene (no s) was in mythology the spring of the Muses, said to inspire creativity in those who drank from it; by extension, the word means creative inspiration or a source thereof (OED). Lymond improvises brilliantly under pressure several times during this scene, with both words and weapons.
imbrocatta
In the middle of an imbrocatta he dropped his left hand, exposing his whole flank momentarily to Lymond's right blade. p. 417
Finally, I found the historical fencing resource I was looking for! I once saw a post, somewhere on social media, about how intensely annoying it is that those invaluable late-1990s/early 2000's era websites, where some passionate enthusiast collected information on some obscure topic in minute detail without pictures, are rarely surfaced by modern search engines. Here is one such: an amazing glossary of historic fencing terms. Thus, what Richard is doing is an "attack over the adversary's blade, hand or dagger. It travels in a downward
direction with the knuckles up." It looks--according to the Carolina Historic Fencing Association--something like this:
Surely there must be HEMA enthusiasts who are also Dunnett fans? My faith in Lady Dunnett's research prowess is sufficiently profound that I am sure her description reflects a realistic fight, but I would be interested to see how someone with actual knowledge of swordfighting would respond to this scene. Also, I would be wildly curious to see how a Bob Anderson-level fight choreographer would stage this scene and interpret the character work this fight does.
insifflating
It was not in the mind of Lord Grey, riding his bones loose between town and town, insifflating the precious troops and horses, the pikes and powder and footmen, the rolls and matches and demilances and oil and flour and money, the working tools and men, men, and more men into the feverish maw of the fort. p. 421
More usually spelled insufflate, this verb means "to blow or breathe in"; during certain Christian ceremonies, the celebrant sometimes blows on a person or thing to imitate the breath of the Holy Spirit (OED). Here, the word is used in an extended sense of "taking in," but the literal mean, "breathing in," also evokes what all this activity in the height of summer might smell like.
inspissate
The world vanished in a bloody mist, reappeared inspissate with pain, disappeared. Playful, inhuman fingers rested on his collar, hooked below it, and methodically began to flay his head against the high gloss of the tiles. p. 129
Marked as obsolete in the OED; means simply "thickened." (OED)
As a verb, it means either to thicken or condense, or to become thick
or dense. One of the many pleasures of Dunnett's writing is how she
gives incredibly detailed descriptions of violence (here we see Lymond
systematically--in the modern parlance--beating the crap out of Sir
Andrew Hunter) without ever slowing down the narrative.
Live footage of me reading a fight scene in Game of Kings
Kassidas
"Go back and lie down. I don't want your coddled features singing Kassidas over me." p. 351
Initially, I though this was a misspelling of Kaddish, a Jewish prayer sanctifying the name of God; one form of which is associated with mourning the dead. It might also be a variant spelling of qasida, a "classical Arabic or Persian monorhyme poem in uniform metre,
consisting of ten or more distichs set in a usually tripartite episodic
structure, frequently with a panegyric or elegiac theme." (OED)
lapping
Will was ready for lapping. He picked up the waxed thread and glanced at the ruined Peel Tower, their present headquarters, which he controlled during Lymond's current absence. p. 98
Will Scott seems to be maintaining his bow by wrapping it with waxed thread. (OED) Rather than describe what the character is doing, Dunnett focuses on what he is thinking, which gives us a wonderful insight into the contrast between what Scott thinks he knows and how little he actually does.
Leibethra
"God, I've whined for ten minutes. Bury me at Leibethra, where the nightingale sings." p. 460
In mythology, Leibethra was where Orpheus was buried. Nightingales sang over his grave. (Wikipedia; also referenced in the Dorothy Dunnett Companion, vol 1, p. 262). This passage is from one of the many conversations between Lymond and his brother Richard during the former's convalescence. The development of their relationship and the revelation of their shared history is one of my favourite parts of Game of Kings.
lithless
He had seen these tarots several times in Scot's possession since he had come to Edinburgh. They were gruesome, Gothic, and graced with a kind of lithless malevolence all their own. p. 512
Lith is an old Scots word meaning a limb or body part--by extension, lithless means stiff or inert (Dictionary of the Scots Language). "Lithless malevolence" has a wonderfully evocative sound--I can picture the kind of grim and terrifying fifteenth century art that would have adorned Scott's cards.
lockfast
Instead, he bent his mind to weaving a fabric of steel: a case so massive, so intellectually secure, so lockfast that no man, however fluent and however gifted, should break it. p. 529
Not a hard word to guess in context, but still so delightful I had to include it on this list. It, too, is Scots, meaning "fastened by a lock, shut and locked, secured under lock and key against interference" (Dictionary of the Scots Language). Repetition in writing has fallen out of fashion, hasn't it? Most recent novels in the swashbuckling style would not allow the three parallel clauses beginning with so to qualify a single noun ("case") let alone the twice-repeated "however". There is a subtle, but important, difference between "however fluent and gifted" and "however fluent and however gifted."
