I’ve decided to add a new feature to this blog. You will find it on the right side of the page, just under my profile.
This will be a collection, or should I say a list, of my 'must read' books. On this list I will be putting books that I’ve had read, and are - in my opinion - the books that anyone, no, EVERYone should have read. You will meet all sorts of genres. Fantasy, crime, horror, biography, history, classic novels, short stories, fairytales, books on gardening, etc …
But I have to warn you, to not be surprised, if there will only be one or maybe two books per year. To get on this list, these books will have to be really special to me.
Here are some, that I have come across so far:
Al Araf – Vladimir Bartol
A Song of Ice and Fire (complete collection of the series) – George R. R. Martin
Jonatan Livingston Seagull – Richard Bach
Kafka on the Shore (Umibe no Kafuka) – Haruki Hurakami
Knjiga o bambusu (not yet in English) – Vladislav Bajac
The Celestine Prophecy – James Redfield
The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) – Antonie de Saint-Exupéry
The men Who Planted Trees (L’homme qui plantait des arbers) – Jean Giono
The first is the title in English and next (between the parentheses) the original title - before the translation was done, of course. If there isn’t a translation to English, there is just the original title written. After the titles comes the author. For now they stand in alphabetical order, but later on the new books will be added on the top of the list.
So, if you get to come across any of these books, you should try (finding and) reading them!
I promise, you won’t regret it!
Oh, yeah, the idea for this 'book features' came from my neighbors blog, from Diana.
After the striking wisterias, which are now thriving nicely, some other plants decided to wake up as well.
This is one
of the wisterias that grew the most until now. Although now their growth has
slow down, I will probably transplant them in spring in to bigger pots.
My two-year-old Ginkgos have decided that they will also be waking up earlier this year.
I used to have had them in a dark and cold room, but still they have started to emerge. At first they were yellow, because there was no sun, and I had to act quickly, so that the new shoots wouldn’t become coloristic and stretched. So, the only place I could put them at was in my bedroom, right next to balcony window. And now their growth is great, I will just have to turn them around now and then, so they could grow up straight.
So, now I have a forest growing in my bedroom.
Thank god that the small ones are still sleeping. But I wonder for how long. I hope this weather will come to it's senses soon, so that I can put my plants out.
My almost one year old wisterias have decided to go on a strike for the winter. I collected wisteria (probably these are from Wisteria sinensis) seeds by some old house in Celje, when my mates and I were going to grab a lunch. It was in the middle of winter time, so there were just bare branches with pods there. I took few just to try, if anything happens. I got eight seeds out of it, and six of them germinated quite quickly. They grew nicely throughout all summer, and became quite strong. In autumn, as every deciduous plant, they went to hibernation, and till late of the November, I left them out, but it got to cold, so I had to take them inside. I had put them next to the gingkos, and today, when I went to check them out - if they needed to be watered (through the winter roots still grow, even if the plants are in hibernation, therefore plants that you grow in pods have to be watered a little, otherwise roots will go dry and the plant will die)-, and I noticed, that it was probably warm enough for the little wisterias to emerge. Now, I just put them under the light, next to my mosos, and I'm just letting them grow.
Yesterday, when I went to take a look at my orchids in living room, if they needed watering, I saw something red crawling around on the window. At first I thought it’s a tick (Ixodoidea), but it was too big and it was red. Then I thought, that it was the red spider mite (Tetranychus urticae), but again it was too big.
And my next first thought was ‘Where the hell did this thing come from?’.
So, I went online and straight to the Bamboo Forum and posted the picture there. Soon Alan Lorence, whose blog I also read, pointed out the name and I did some research.
This is the red velvet mite (most likely Trombidium holosericeum). I have learned that this is one of the largest mites in northern temperature zones. Its body is covered with tiny red hairs that give that effect of velvety. It is about 5mm big. Usually it's found in soil or mulch, meaning I probably brought it with the moss, that I used for the traditional nativityscene, we put up every Christmas.
They feed on vegetable matter, but in the larval stage (they have only six legs then), they suck on the blood of animals and sometimes humans.
Anyway, these animals are very important for the environment and forest ground ecosystem, because they play a role in decomposing process.
It’s just to bad, that my mom found it, before I got to know what it is.
This year I
spend New Year on Nanos. We were staying in cabin which was almost in the
middle of nowhere. The first night that we came there, start to snow. So I had
do take some photos.
When we were going up, there was still no sign of winter.
Next morning everything was white.
Because of snow birds came out of the forest and this Song Thrush (Trudus philomelos), was claiming the territory with his singing for him self.
It was my first time ever to see Red Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) in wild.
Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes)
I will defenetly go back in spring or summer time.
My moso seedlings have been in a bad shape lately. They seem to be wilted. One of them especially. I figured that it must be the lack of light, since it’s winter here and the days are shorter. So, I’ve been carrying them around the house every day to get them as much sun as I can. But last night, I didn't take them back to the room, so my mom almost stepped on them, because they were in her room at the balcony door. And then I had enough.
Only 8 (out of 10) of seedlengs has survived so far.
The oldest seedling is probably suffering, with chlorosis, that is.
And the bright one is at the worst for now.
Bambos are accopanied by a Dracena drako seedling, I got the seed at Tenerife islands this summer, where I went on vacation.
Today I bought them a lamp (Megaman plant lamp BRO515P). It was a bit more on the expensive side, but I think it should do, for I want what's best for my plants. I was looking for it at almost every specialized store there is, that I've known of, but they only kept neon lamps, and I don't have a fitting lamp for such bulbs. So, I almost gave up. But then, in the last store I went to, I found the right one. It was just right for my old table lamp.
So this is how I did it:
I fixed the lamp on the table, which I refer to as the 'table lamp', and because the thing is old, the screws that should hold the lamp in position that you had set, didn’t do their job, I had to block it with a wooden stick. And then of course, put the bulb in.
I set the light on timer for 12 hours (from 6am to 6 pm), and so turned the light on. I hope that now my little mosos will be all right. I just wonder, if I should give some fertilizer to seedlings.
Those days I'd been on a journey with a Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Well, not literally, but with two of his books that I read.
But let us start at the beginning. If you have read my blog of GRRM, you probably already know that I have two favourite writers. The first one is GRRM and the second is Murakami. Actually, they are not a first and a second for me - they are equal. Yes, they do write differently, but I find myself in both.
I really found myself or my style of writing in this book of his.
'The Elephant Vanishes' (original title: Zō no shōmetsu) was his first book in my 'from autumn to winter' journey. I got this book as a present. Well, more as a self-treating gift. I got these gift cards, that were to be used at some book shop, from my school mates at the end of the year and, because I was about to buy a book and didn’t have the money at the time (being a student is hard, you are constantly “poor”), I'd get myself this one (thanks mates!).
It is a collection of short stories, which were originally written from 1983 to 1990, therefore they are from his early days as writer. And gosh, some of the stories (style of writing) are so similar to mine (sometimes I write a little, if I get inspired). Most of the stories in this book are a sort of a set up for Murakamis later novels.
My personal favourites are: The Sleep (about a woman that does not sleep), The Silence (a story of a boy, who was victimised by a school mate for an ego revenge), The Window (a guy who works at a small firm as a letter writer, meets a woman who makes a minced-meat steak for him), …
I could list almost all of the stories from this book, but then this blog would be way too long. But all of them have something in common. They all talk about things we an see daily and live in the real world, such as loss; pain; loneliness, and then Murakami wrappes them up in mysticism and surrealism (in some cases). But still, stories are much likely the every-days peoples lives.
While I was still reading the vanishing elephant, one day I stopped at an antique book shop, not looking for anything, just harmlessly passing by. And there I found the book, that I had been looking for a long while. 'A Wild Sheep Chase' (original title: Hitsuji o meguru bōken).
I was a bit disappointed by the Slovene translation and by the design of the Slovene edition. The story is great though. Actually it's a thriller, where the main character is literally looking for a sheep, which shouldn’t exist. Again, in this book (it’s divided on two parts), we can find Murakamis parallel worlds. It was a book to feed on. I'd read it in a week; reading it while I was working (I work in a phone centre - a student work -, so I have some time to read while calling out). And the book was so unpredictable, that I didn't know what will happen, straight to the end.
These two books were my companions since the end of autumn to the beginning of winter. And I sure enjoyed it. One of his books though, was with me a few years ago during a summer. Oh, gosh, when I remember the reading and the story of the book, I can still smell those summer breezes and the sound of the tree leaves, played with by the wind, behind boarding school … Many times I wanted to read it again, but I really have to wait for the right summer. Well, this is my favourite book.
Kafka on the Shore (original title: Umibe no Kafuka)
How did I get this book?
Once I had a magazine in front of me (like at the time, when I discovered 'The Game of Thrones') and I found a short passage into the book. Probably it was the talking cat from there. I bought it and started reading it.
This book is really something! Talking cats, imaginary friends or living conscience, raining fish, Oedipus syndrome, stones that open doors … it can give you so much. It’s quite a heavy book to read. Well, shortly it is about a boy that runs away from home, away from his father, and he is companied by a boy named Crow.
Oh, it’s hard to put in words, the description of such a great book, so I will just write you a passage from the book and hope that it will get you to read it.
Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjust. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Somethinginside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine, white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
…
And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flash like thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You’ll catch that blood in your hand, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be shore, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
And here is the same passage to listen (prologue and first chapter of the book, just to taste):
