Happy Birthday Pablo Neruda 2015

Happy Reading & Writing☮

The Things You Can Read!

Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books & Writing!

Don't Forget To Be Awesome!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

I am an educator with over 25 years of teaching experience; I currently teach English in the public school system of Virginia. In my spare time I am an avid reader. writer, reviewer, blogger, writing/art journaler, beekeeper, grad student, and MOTHER. - See more: Here

Happy Birthday Pablo Neruda

Happy Birthday to one of the greats!  Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971.   Although his poems are my favorite his writing was not limited to poems alone.  His legacy of prose and poetry will certainly never allow his memory to fade.  In that spirit, Happy Birthday, Pablo Neruda and here's one of my favorite Neruda poems:

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

By Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

Do you have a Pablo Neruda favorite?  Let us know what it might be.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines 

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. -Pablo Neruda Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

"The well-known name of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (born July 12, 1904) is actually a pseudonym, inspired by Czech poet Jan Neruda."-Goodreads

Happy Reading☮

The Things You Can Read!

Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is 98 Today!

Happy Birthday to "The Road Not Taken"

 

Happy Birthday to "The Road Not Taken".  It is 98 years old today!  There are so many interpretations of this poem floating out there in the blogosphere.  Take a listen to Bolo's original musical interpretation of this classic poem. 

 

Happy Birthday to "The Road Not Taken"

 

Checkout Book Riot's post [HERE] celebrating "The Road Not Taken".  This is our favorite Frost poem, which of his poems is your favorite?  Let us know here at The Things You Can Read.  

 

Happy reading to all! ☮

Happy Reading☮

The Things You Can Read!

Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!

 

Happy Belated Birthday to Eric Blair A.K.A. George Orwell!

George Orwell has been a media darling with his many mentions in the news, since the NSA revelations, so we couldn't let his birthday go by without a shout out even if it is a day late!

Happy Belated Birthday to Eric Blair A.K.A. George Orwell!  Born: June 25, 1903


It's the birthday of novelist George Orwell born Eric Blair in Motihari, India, in 1903. He won a scholarship to Eton and didn't fit in because he was poor. Instead of going to a university, he escaped England to join the Imperial Police in Burma, but he quit after five years because, he said, "I could not go on any longer serving an imperialism which I had come to regard as very largely a racket."

He decided he would become a writer. He lived as a tramp for four years, wearing ragged clothes and living with laborers and beggars in the slums of London and Paris. He worked in the hopfields in Kent and as a dishwasher in a French hotel, and wrote about it in Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) under the pen name George Orwell, after the River Orwell in East Anglia. He published his first novel, Burmese Days (1934), the next year.

Animal Farm (1945) is a political fable about a group of barnyard animals that chase off their human masters and set up their own society. But then the smartest animals, the pigs, take control and turn out to be even more ruthless than the humans. He wrote, "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." At first, Orwell couldn't find a publisher for Animal Farm. But when it came out, it was an instant success and for the first time Orwell had some money in his pocket. Orwell used the royalties to buy a remote house on the island of Jura, off the coast of Scotland. He had tuberculosis, and when he wasn't too sick to type, he smoked black shag tobacco and wrote his masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), a novel set in a future where the world is controlled by totalitarian police states. The book gave us words and phrases such as "Big Brother is watching you," "Thought Police," and "doublethink." --The Writer's Almanac is produced by Prairie Home Productions and presented by American Public Media.

"War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”

-George Orwell,
1984

Hey, have you read 1984?  What are your thoughts on "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU"?  Again, if you haven't already let us know your thoughts here at The Things You Can Read.

Happy Reading and Happy Blogoversary to

The Things You Can Read!

Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!

 

Happy Birthday Gabriel Garcia Marquez

March 6

Happy birthday, Gabriel Garcia Marquez! The master of magical realism was born 86 years ago today in Aracataca, Colombia on March 6, 1927.

Quotes

“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” 
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” 
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Are you a fan?  We are, and our favorite Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel is 

One Hundred Years of Solitude, what is your favorite?

Happy Reading!

Things You Can Read

Believe In Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love, and the Power of Books!

Happy Birthday-Roald Dahl Day Every September 13

Image Credit:  Roald Dahl

Happy Birthday Roald Dahl

“Don't gobblefunk around with words.”— Roald Dahl From The BFG

Hey, did you know that September 13 is Roald Dahl Day !  Well, it is, and  according to the Official Rald Dahl Day website:

The official Roald Dahl Day takes place every year on 13 September, on the birthday of the World's No. 1 Storyteller. In 2012 we are celebrating 30 years of the swizzfiggling Big Friendly Giant. The BFG is famous for catching, creating and making dreams come true. So this year we're inviting you to Dream BIG with the BFG.

Come join the celebration.  Over at Roald Dahl party headquarters they've got plenty of party tips-and as their website says, you don't have to wait until September 13-every day can be Roald Dahl Day!

Happy Roald Dahl Day!
The Things You Can Read

The Outsiders Author Has a Birthday!

Happy Birthday S. E. Hinton

See my review of the The Outsiders

From Goodreads:

S.E. Hinton

Author profile

born

July 22, 1948 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, The United States

gender

female

website

http://www.sehinton.com

genre

Literature & Fiction, Young Adult

About this author

edit data

S.E. Hinton, was and still is, one of the most popular and best known writers of young adult fiction. Her books have been taught in some schools, and banned from others. Her novels changed the way people look at young adult literature.

Susan Eloise Hinton was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has always enjoyed reading but wasn't satisfied with the literature that was being written for young adults, which influenced her to write novels like The Outsiders. That book, her first novel, was published in 1967 by Viking.

“I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.” ― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

Give a Book for Special Occasions--Having Fun with Birthday Books

My twins will be having a birthday in two weeks and being the crazy book mom that I am, of course, they are receiving books for their birthday.  My mother always made sure that I received my very own copies of books on special occasions, such as birthdays, Christmas, Easter...I am sure that is why, as an adult, I value having my own copy of a treasured book.  

Well, back to the twins...The picture above shows what was in the Amazon box that arrived for them Wednesday.  I was so excited to see the big heavy box the mailman was scanning when I opened our front door.  After the pass off of the box from mailman to mom, I hustled to the kitchen, grabbed the scissors, and sliced through the clear tape that was holding the edges of the box together.  By now the twins were excited too, following right behind me.  Placing the opened box on the floor and removing the packaging the three of us slowly examined each item.  Squeals of delight could be heard throughout the house as the spines of new books were cracked opened, and the that "new book" smell filled our noises like perfume.  After our perusal of each of the books, I quickly gathered their gifts up and promised to read one of them before their nap.

Well, it is now two days later, and we have already finished two of the birthday books:  Me, Frida (see my review) and The Dog Who Sang at the Opera (review coming soon), both of which were wonderful.  As you can probably already tell, I am not good at holding back gifts, I get as excited as my children.  My daughter and I are also working our way through Invitation to Ballet (a longer book).  Her twin brother is not too interested in ballet, so he took a pass on this one.  Needless to say, I can't wait to share the rest of their birthday books with the them.

Equally as important as sharing the actual book with the twins, I am also excited to share my reviews with the readership of The Things You Can Read.  Make sure to check back with The Things You Can Read for reviews of the rest of the birthday stash!

One more thing, if you have a personal favorite from your childhood that you think I should add to the twin's library I'd love to know.  Leave me a comment with your suggestion.  Happy Reading and a Happy (early) Birthday shout out to the twins. 

•