reading books in new year

вот уже много лет, как я верю, что книги ходят парами. это эмпирический, не раз пронаблюденный закон: одна книга притягивает к себе другую. прочитал одну - она потянула за собой другую. нашел у букиниста одну книгу, и вскоре встретил другую, того же поля... в таком вот аксепте. (в практическом плане: было время, я даже носил с собой некоторые книги, рассчитывая на неопределенные результаты "выловить Большую Рыбу").

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three days ago my babygirl and I visited local children's library (it was planned a long time ago, but we were lazy, and it was not a question of time; I will write below about our book catch). Mind it, I haven’t been visiting libraries for a very long time (I prefer bookstores and my personal library). but a wonderful and curious thing: as soon as I visited the library, I immediately received a bonus - another library # 2 fell on my head: an english rock-band Radiohead, whose work I have been following with interest for many years and digging deep enough, has created an open public library on its official website !!! they shared a huge amount of audio-visual stuff from 1993 to 2019. it happened just yesterday. wow! fantastic ...

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Radiohead Public Library - screencap from the site source

of course, these two events cannot have any connections. by the way, do you believe in coincidences?

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now back to the books

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we lended 5 books for a month:

• 'Stardust' by Neil Gaiman
• 'Adventures of Thom Sayer' by Mark Twain
• 'Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver' by Michael Ende
• 'Funny short stories' by Karel Chapek
• 'The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson' by Selma Lagerlöf

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Gaiman is a great author, maybe many of you have read his novels. This is one of the best in my opinion, a great story (which is being accomplished with a great cinema version, as well!). I have read this book 2 or 3 times, and ofc enjoyed the movie. I had this book in my posession -- but it really get lost somewhere between the shelves. So I decided it maybe time for my baby to get acquainted with it, too. and get it from the library.

Ende's book is completely unknown for me -- it's his 1st book published, I took it blindly, to check out what it will be... (I also loved the cover, hehe). Last year we got acquainted with two other books of this great author: 'Momo' (translated into English as 'The Grey Gentlemen') and 'The Neverending Story' - both are great and I'd include them to the Children's Top 100 Must Read books...

Twain's book is a classic, nothing to comment here, really.

Karel Chapek is a famous Chezh author -- more famous for his 'Salamander war' satire at the mankind. But his short stories are quite good, too. I want to read them myself too :) and wanna check if they will suit my baby too..

Lagerlof's novel is a well-known children's classic, too. We were reading it two years ago a lot (this is the book you cannot swallow momentarily... even if you'd want to!) Now its time to refresh it, this book was given as a home reading at school. We have two diffeent editions of it in our family library and I wouldnt mind to get another soviet vintage one... This one I borrowed from the library cause we needed a certain Russian translation -- this 'different versions' thing can be a mess, actually.

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And the last one, but not the least: this is what we were doing last January. We were reading this splendid illustrated edition of 'The Treasure Island' by Stivenson, this book we obtained a while ago and hoarded, to make it a Christmas present.

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The book is luxurious not for print quality and not the size / number of pictures, but for the huge amount of useful material that is contained in this volume (see pictures below). In addition to the novel itself, there is a huge amount of commentary, I think its almost half of the book! Historical realities are little understood by the little readers .. and the modern readers, too. The English monetary system and the value of coins, the schematics of the ship and the names of the sails, the sea knots knitting guide, pirate history and traditions and much, much, much more. There is even a little rope attached to the book!

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Maps, maps, maps...

Portraits of some famous pirates...

The layout is set in the proper fonts that convey the flavour of the era, of the time -- which is quite a rare thing, and worth a lot!

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Ok, i think its enough for you to get hooked. This book is for my Russian readers, of course, who have little babies and grandchildren. Now you know what to search for ;)

Thanks for visiting!