Category: reading

  • Trobairitz verse — Comtessa Beatriz de Dia

    On a whim this morning, I decided to reeducate myself on the history of medieval troubadours and their songs/poetry of courtly love, fin’amor, and found myself more drawn to their female counterparts, the trobairitz, who trended away from the complex, flowery language of the troubadour (who wrote more in the trobar clus, closed, hermetic style; or trobar ric, technically complex style) and more into what is termed the trobar leu, the “light” or “easy” style, for which the trobairitz were known.

    While I have vague recollections of the troubadour poetry from when I last read any around thirty years ago, I felt it was good time as any to refresh that memory in case I might see it differently after such a passage of time. Instead, I think, I found my more true interest in the trobairitz, as I don’t think the material I was reading at the time did much more than make a cursory mention of their works.

    Their lyrical poetry may be more to my speed.

    One of the lyrical works of Comtessa Beatriz de Dia, a trobairitz, follows. I thought it would of interest to some folks.

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  • reads — The Gift of Not Belonging, Rami Kaminski

    When I saw mention of the book on Lodestarwytch’s site a while back, I’ll have to admit that the title/subtitle combination caught my attention right off the bat.

    I, myself, have realized for quite some time now (maybe since forever) that I don’t really fit in and that I am a bit of an outsider for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been a bit baffled by how people “fit in” to a group and I have often wondered if there was something a little wrong with my wiring because of the fact.

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  • reads | Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey

    I know… As usual, I am late to the party. To be fair, however, when I originally read the first book in The Expanse series, I was hardly in the right mindset to continue on with the series. It had been a struggle to read any novels at the time. Proof of which is that I only had vague recollections of the plot involved. I was in full-distraction mode when it came to reading anything offline.

    At the time I had planned to continue reading the next book, but I think I was put off by the wait times for a library copy or the cost, or both. I recently signed up for Kindle Unlimited and was both surprised and pleased to see the whole series of books were available to borrow.

    As I said, my head was someplace else when I read the first book back in 2022, so I reread it to refresh my memory and I’m glad I did.

    The Expanse series, both books and television series based on the books, have been very popular with readers and viewers across the globe. If the first book is any indication, there is a good reason for its popularity, as it tells a fairly “ripping yarn” that doesn’t slow down enough to avoid the occasional bouts of hypoxia. But in a good way.

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  • Reading progress — 24dec25

    We’re almost at the end of the observed numbered year, so I thought I’d do one of my little updates and clear off my plate on the matter.

    I’ve slipped a bit on consumption since the last update and I think I’ve added a book or two to my completion rate, but I have been adding pages not reflected in the page-count on Goodreads due to unfinished books not appearing in my stats.

    If you add the progress I’ve made in my current audiobook (yes, audiobooks count as reading), the two books I am currently reading and the books that I’ve abandoned — totaling approximately another 1000 pages in addition to that number in my official Goodreads stats — I have read approximately 9800 pages since I started tracking my reads in October. Completed books sits at 22, with a high likelihood of adding one or two more this week.

    Lessons learned with respect to abandoned reads…

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  • More Trouble, Boys

    The biography I am reading for the Minneapolis band, The Replacements, is both lengthy and well done. I’m just crossing the half-way point and the tale has reached that point in their story where the band started to show their cracks with their lead guitarist, Bob Stinson.

    There was always a bit of tension there between Bob and the singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg. Paul was a little older than Bob and Chris Mars (the drummer) and all of them were older by quite a bit than Tommy Stinson (bass player). Paul used his age and experience to take over what had originally been Bob’s band, Dogbreath. [Side note: Tommy was very young and playing bars on a regular basis by 13 years of age.]

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