Once Upon a Bookshelf

Unlike most people my age, it seems, I still favour albums as opposed to just songs. I would rather get a whole album than just download one or two songs from it – listening to the album the whole way through is a journey, and you miss out on that if you don’t get the whole thing. Recently, I’ve been listening to a few new ones that seem to be noteworthy:

Michael Bublé’s Call Me Irresponsible. Like previous Bublé releases, it took me a while to fall in love with the album. I bought this months ago, but I’ve avoided mentioning it as I didn’t know exactly what I thought of it. Now, it’s one of the few things I’ve listened to this past month. In fact, I’ve just realized that I’ve been listening to the same song (I’m Your Man) on repeat for the past four hours. It’s a more mature album than his previous ones, and his versions of The Best is Yet to Come, I’ve Got the World on a String and That’s Life rival my favourite versions of the songs.

The History Boys OST. Finally got my hands on this one. I love movie soundtracks because they usually have such a variety of stuff I’ve never heard of before. This is no exception, and while the songs are all so different in genres (ie: Gracie Field’s Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye vs New Order’s Blue Monday) they all suit the movie so well.

Speaking of soundtracks…. Hairspray. I saw the movie this past weekend, and went out and got the soundtrack immediately. Shockingly, I’ve never seen the original, so I don’t know how the new one compares with the older one, but I enjoyed it. It’s got John Travolta and Queen Latifah in it – of course I enjoyed it. The soundtrack is just as fun as the film, imho.

I’m on the verge of going to pick up TMBG’s The Else as well. Some point soon, I hope. One of the main podcasts I listen to is the official TMBG podcast, and the past few episodes they have been playing live versions of the songs on The Else. From what I’ve heard thus far, it sounds like this album might be almost as good as Flood, which is saying something considering Flood is one of my all-time favourite albums.

Other podcasts I’ve been listening to recently are PotterCast, Firefly Talk, Escape Adulthood, and the GBS podcast (even though it’s updated rather infrequently). But I’m looking for new ones to listen to – some of the ones I used to are either no longer updated or there are big huge spaces in between updates that I kind of forget what was discussed on the previous ones. Anyone have any suggestions?

Last night at midnight, I decided that I needed to re-read Rilla immediately. (And as it is impossible for me to sleep in no matter how hard I try, I haven’t gotten enough sleep. Boo to me.) This is, and always has been, my favourite of Montgomery’s books BY FAR. (That really shouldn’t surprise those who have known me for a while.) I don’t go a year without rereading this book – I will need a new copy soon, I fear, as mine is getting rather worn down. This book never fails to make me smile, make me laugh, and then make me weep – all in a matter of minutes.

For those who don’t know, Rilla is that last in the Anne of Green Gables series. And while it is the last book in the series, you don’t need to read the previous books to follow what is going on (thus, I highly recommend that everyone reads it). Anne and Gil have been married for years, and Rilla is their youngest daughter. The book takes place over the years of WWI, beginning just before war is declared and finishing after the majority of the troops have returned home afterwards. It shows how WWI had affected people, families and communities, and deals with subjects that a lot of childrens books don’t.

One of the things I love most about this book is the development of Rilla in the book. She’s a school girl at the beginning of the novel, and by the end she’s grown into a mature young woman. Mind you, she does grow up too fast due to the world she is living in, but it’s so wonderful to see the growth she goes through. At the beginning of the book, she adopts a war baby – the mother’s died, the father’s fighting and no one has heard from him; Rilla’s brothers and childhood playmates go to fight in the war. It’s daunting, but she matures so much because of it all.

And of course there’s the romance aspect. Kenneth Ford is my Gilbert Blythe. Seriously.

Anyway, the best thing about rereading books is that something new always jumps out at you. This time around there were two things that really hit me.

Firstly – it is mentioned that Anne and Gil have been married 24 years at one point in the book. Twenty-four years. And that made me realize exactly how young Jem, Walter and Shirley are when they go to war. I mean, I always realized that they could enlist if they were 18 or older, but I never really gave much thought to HOW young they were. When I first read this book I was a young child, so all of the characters were that much older than me, but now that they’re younger than I currently am, it gives it a completely new perspective.

Secondly, I never really noticed how much Montgomery’s fiction uses … I guess the term would be supernatural … elements in it. In this book alone, Miss Oliver has a dream predicting the declaration of war, as well as a couple during the course of the war that predict certain events. And then Walter’s premonitions and visions of the Piper. (Oh! The Piper!) Then I started thinking about the Emily books and the events in that seris (which I still really want to reread)… and I’m wondering how many other books of hers have stuff like this that I’ve just never noticed. I’ll have to keep my eyes open during future rereads.

And in closing, I’m leaving you with one of my favourite passages from this book. Rilla has received a letter from the front, and this passage always brings tears to my eyes and fills me with pride towards those who did fight in the wars:

And you will tell your children of the Idea we fought and died for – teach them it must be lived for as well as died for, else the price paid of it will have been given for nought. This will be part of your work, Rilla. And if you – all you girls back in the homeland – do it, then we who don’t come back will know that you have not ‘broken faith’ with us.

It seems to be a week of endings for me. First HP and now Horatio. I’m going to start off by saying that this is a must-read for Hornblower fans – although I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re working your way through the books until you are completely finished. While this book wasn’t written by C.S. Forester, C. Northcote Parkinson has done a good job at writing a fictional biography that stays true to the characters and events in the actual Hornblower series.

The book starts off with Hornblower as a child, and continues on until his death – as biographies tend to do. Each chapter touches on a different time in Hornblower’s life – or rather, a different position held during Hornblower’s career. While it goes into the events that happened during the books, it also talks a bit more about what happens between the books that Forester didn’t write about and you don’t get to read about. It also goes in depth with what the world was like. A good majority of the last part of the book talks about steam engines, their development, how it will be the future for boats, and Hornblower’s involvement with the development, which isn’t really touched on in the series. We also get to read about how other people react to Hornblower’s promotions and successes – a lot of his peers weren’t too happy with how quickly Hornblower got promoted in some instances, or the special treatment he gets, which (again) the books don’t really go into. It gives a bit more perspective to the series as a whole.

It’s a great book for going deeper into Hornblower’s life and career, and was definitely a good way to say goodbye to the series; it reminded me of everything I had read previously, and gave me a deeper glimpse into who Hornblower was. I feel I got to know Hornblower so much more in this book than in any of the previous Hornblower books I’ve read.

He was a penniless orphan and began from nothing, making his way in the service without interest of any sort, gaining each step by an entire concentration on the work to be done, unenvied by those who lacked, and who knew they lacked, his resolution, his knowledge and his skill. . . He was never fearless, as some men are, but forgot his fears after battle was joined. He became a legend for saying no more than he needed to say but I knew him as he really was, a man of humility, of humour, of kindness and charm. . . he will always be remembered in the Royal Navy as one of the finest officers of his day.

I have a feeling that when I revisit the Hornblower series, before reading one of the novels, I will read the corresponding chapter in this book, and see how that will effect how I perceive the novel.