Thursday’s Tale: How the Monkey Became a Trickster

by Carol6 Comments
Today's story comes from Brazil and it's another story about monkeys. "How the Monkey Became a Trickster" was retold by Elsie Spicer Eells in Fairy Tales from Brazil, 1917. Once there was a beautiful garden where all kind of fruits grew.  A wide variety of animals lived in the garden and they were allowed to eat any of the fruit they wanted, as long as they followed a couple of rules. First they always had to be respectful and ask politely, calling the tree by name. For example, when they wanted an orange they had to say, "O, orange tree, O, orange tree, please give me a taste of your fruit." It was also important not to be greedy and to leave plenty of fruit for the other animals and for the tree to keep and furnish seed so other trees could grow. In the corner of the garden grew the most beautiful tree of all and it had tempting, rosy-cheeked fruit,...
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The Problem with Audiobooks

by Carol13 Comments
I'm an unrepentant end-reader. I will get partially into a book and just have to read the end, see who survives, who the killer was, if the couple finally gets together. I still read the rest of the book, but I feel better knowing how it all turns out. I don't like the stress inherent in not knowing. Yes, I realize that for many that's one of the draws of reading, but not for me so much. I'm also a skimmer. Sometimes I skim through a page, getting what I need to but skipping over some of the details. Both of those are quiet easy with traditional books And that's the problem with audiobooks. I can't skip ahead to the end, at least on my player, because I'll lose my spot. I can't skim over any bits because I'm stuck with the narrator's pace, probably a good thing actually, although with some books where there is a lot of repetition it can...
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Fitness Tuesday

by Carol4 Comments
Every week, Joy hosts the Readers' Workouts at Joy's Book Blog. Usually I just leave a comment with how I've doing with exercising or eating or whatever, but if I want to finish a 10-mile trail challenge in November, I need to actually get serious. Here's my plan, more or less. I'm starting at Week 1. I'm already a little off track, but not bad. Yesterday I ran 3 miles, a mile over the target, but skipped the strength train/stretch. I did take the dog for a mile walk, though, so maybe it's a trade off? This plan is for a 13.1 miles and I'm not going that far, but a trail run is a bit tougher, I think, than a street one. Here's my run from yesterday evening. Yes, I'm slow, but I'm okay with that. It was hot and muggy, but I did pretty well. Today is 30-min Strength Train and Stretch. I think I'll try to head out to the gym for a bit,...
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Audiobook Review: Angelica’s Smile by Andrea Camilleri

by Carol4 Comments
Title: Angelica's Smile (Inspector Montalbano #17) Author: Andrea Camilleri Translator: Stephen Sartarelli Read by: Grover Gardner Category: Mystery Audio published: June 24, 2014 by Blackstone Audio Rating: 3 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Audible | Amazon | Book Depository A rash of burglaries has Inspector Salvo Montalbano stumped. The criminals are so brazen that their leader, the anonymous Mr. Z, starts sending the Sicilian inspector menacing letters. Among those burgled is the young and beautiful Angelica Cosulich, who reminds the inspector of the love-interest in Ludovico Ariosto's chivalric romance, Orlando Furioso. Besotted by Angelica's charms, Montalbano imagines himself back in the medieval world of jousts and battles. But when one of the burglars turns up dead, Montalbano must snap out of his fantasy and unmask his challenger. I like this series more in theory than I do in fact. Angelica's Smile was okay, but not outstanding. Of course, it probably didn't help that I missed all the Orlando Furioso references, since I'd never heard of it, let alone read...
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Thursday’s Tale: The Seven Iron Slippers

by Carol8 Comments
"The Seven Iron Slippers" is a Portugese tale similar to the Twelve Dancing Princesses. It was told by Consiglieri Pedrosoin in Portugese Folk-Tales, 1882. A king had one daughter. Every evening, the princess wore out seven pairs of iron slippers, and the king couldn't figure out how this happened. He issued a decree issued a decree, that whoever found out how the princess wore out the shoes would be given the princess in marriage if it was a man or a prince if it was a woman. I like the equal opportunity here. Meanwhile, a soldier was wandering around the countryside and tricked people out of a cap that could turn him invisible and a pair of boots that could take him wherever he told them too. He had the boots take him to the city where he heard about the king's challenge. He figured that he could find out what the princess was up to with the help of his cap and boots. ...
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