№ 743.Happy Habits

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№ 704. Best Children's Books of 2023

Here are the year’s most notable picture, chapter and middle grade books, selected by our children’s books editor:

• “An American Story,” by Kwame Alexander. Illustrated by Dare Coulter.
• “Big,” by Vashti Harrison
• “Do You Remember?,” by Sydney Smith
• “Kozo the Sparrow,” by Allen Say
• “There Was a Party for Langston: King O’ Letters,” by Jason Reynolds. Illustrated by Jerome and Jarrett Pumphrey.
• “A Walk in the Woods,” by Nikki Grimes. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney and Brian Pinkney.
• “What If One Day…,” by Bruce Handy. Illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin.
• “The Skull,” by Jon Klassen
• “Who Will Make the Snow?” by Taras and Marjana Prokhasko. Translated by Boris Dralyuk and Jennifer Croft.
• “Alebrijes,” by Donna Barba Higuera. Illustrated by David Álvarez.
• “Big Tree,” by Brian Selznick
• “The Eyes & the Impossible,” by Dave Eggers. Illustrated by Shawn Harris.
• “Glowrushes,” by Roberto Piumini. Translated by Leah Janeczko.
• “Mexikid,” by Pedro Martín
• “Remember Us,” by Jacqueline Woodson

№ 703. Dear Reader

№ 641. The Roman Empire

Most ancient societies assumed that being a citizen of a particular place meant not just living in that place, but also speaking the language and sharing in the common culture. Romans, by contrast, could be people who might well not even speak Latin. As Beard notes, in the later periods of the Roman empire, Greek was the lingua franca (or rather, the koine glossa—“common tongue”) in its eastern half. In contrast to many slave-owning societies, both ancient and modern, the Romans allowed large numbers of their slaves to become free, and to acquire at least limited forms of citizenship.
 

Cartoonist Group

 

№ 599. Creation

 We are only stewards, never masters, of creation.

Thinking

"In 'A Natural History of the Future,' the ecologist Rob Dunn sketches an arresting vision of this relentless natural world — a world that is in equal measures creative, unguided and extravagant. Fog a tree with pesticides and watch new beetle species tumble from the canopy by the hundreds, a “riot of unnamed life.” Chlorinate your water and, though you might wipe out most parasites, you’ll soon bedew your shower head with chlorine-resistant mycobacteria. Make a world fit for bedbugs, then try to kill them with chemicals, and you’ll end up — not in a world without bedbugs, but one in which they’ve “evolved resistance to half a dozen different pesticides.”

Life is not a passive force on the planet, and much as we might presume to sit in judgment of Creation — even sorting species by their economic value to us — we live on nature’s terms. The sooner we recognize this, Dunn argues, the better."

№ 443. Libraries Across the Ocean

Sensibly, the researchers also rated the libraries on the availability of snacks – behind me is a cafe with Balzac quotes on the walls and urns of Margaret Atwood-themed coffee. Not bad, though no match for Montreal’s Grande Bibliothèque, where you can get a risotto dinner with wine.

№ 427. The Art of Stringing Facts

"We all have one life, but books make that life richer by letting us experience the lives of others - real or imagined.... Lists are often boring, but stories strings facts together with an underlying logic that makes them both interesting and memorable.... I appreciate the logic that makes for a great scientific idea, as well as the art of thought that produces a great story.... Book makes the one life we live that much richer. Life isn't always beautiful and enjoyable, but good writing always is." --- Lisa Randall, theoretical physicist and writer.

№ 417. The Giving Tree

№ 414. Books Through Square Lenses

"Read! Whether your path is to build an empire or to find the lifelong companionship of music, every path is possible with that power. It all begins with one word; the same word that was delivered to an ancient prophet on the wings of an archangel: اقرأ" --- Mohammed Fairouz, from the book "A Velocity of Being, Letters to a Young Reader".

№ 410. Books

"Books are borrowed minds, and because they capture the soul of a people, they explore and celebrate all it means to be human. Long live their indelible magic." --- Diane Ackerman

Long overdue and much anticipated,
the book arrived as promised.

№ 352. Words v. Images

In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1). The eagle-eyed Evangelist knew that logos wielded power over reality.

Centuries later, another John,  a Gutenburg, ushered the modern era of human history with his movable type printing press in 1439. His machine democratized learning and helped catalyze Renaissance, Reformation, scientific revolution and sparked many, many wars. The death of old ideas, ancient regimes and powers gave way to new players and new world orders. The Vatican and the British Monarchy are the very rare relics that have survived the chaos of the last four or so centuries.

Another era has begun.

This era is fast shaping our thinking, our way of life and our politics. Today, in a world wrapped in Instagram images, GIFs and viral memes, the written word is losing much of its temporal relevance and political space.

Time Magazine is dead. Long live the emoticons. And the midnight tweets and fake news. Falsehoods, half-, quarter- truths or semblances thereof are slowly creeping as acceptable norms. 

№ 303. Peregrines

The Arrival tells a universal story of immigration. The story is about a man leaving his home to find work and support his family. The "graphic novel" conveys messages of solitude, alienation, and hope in a foreign land.


Shaun Tan - The Arrival Animation from Frederik Vorndran on Vimeo.

№ 298. Sunday Love Songs

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

 

№ 286. Axe

Todai-ji Main Gate, Nara, Japan

Todai-ji Museum

№ 254. The Reading Club

Here's a good Friday find:

If you put all the books you own on the street outside your house, you might expect them to disappear in a trice. But one man in Manila tried it - and found that his collection grew.

№ 249. The Thorn Birds

The Art of Plating

“There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth.

№ 203. Time and Leaf

Killing time in limbo. Bureaucracy works. Lines move. Today I am no. 4,115. The screen reads 4,090.

Meanwhile, a book and one million years later....

Passport renewal was fast,
contrary to dreaded expectations

№ 201. Thursday Book Find

Happiness. Birth. Sadness. Death. Suffering. Love. Comfort. Indifference. Fall. Weakness. Redemption. Strength.

Happy Feet are well worn by walking.
July 2015 Taal Food and Heritage Tour.

All the invisible stuff that our so-called life is made of. Do these metaphysical realities somehow explain the mass of the universe?

№ 167. Mistakes to the Nth Power

"There is much to learn about life by opening the wonderbox of history."---- Roman Krznaric

№ 129. Bookshelves from the Edge of Consciousness

"Call me by my true names" by Thich Nhat Hanh,


Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.