Today is May Day – Beltane in Ireland and Scotland and Calan Haf (“the first day of summer”) in Wales – and a joyful celebration of new life and hope for the future. Consequently Brona of BronasBooks.com is running a reading and blogging event called Understanding Ukraine: I Stand for Peace focused on Ukraine, an excellent way in which we can to a small degree show solidarity with that poor country.
Needless to say I shall be joining in, and hope you may consider it too. I’m currently doing a slow read of a brief collection of Nikolai Gogol’s short stories: he was a famous son of what was then called Little Russia and which now is once again officially Ukraine.
Then I shall look out for other titles with a Ukrainian connection: as luck would have it I already have a collection of children’s stories (based on a character called Dunno) by Ukrainian-born Nikolai Nosov which my father gave me in the early 60s, so I may well go for those next, and then see what follows.
Narniathon21 continues to wend its way with a discussion of the sixth chronicle, The Magician’s Nephew, scheduled for Friday 27th May. Though I’ve already reviewed this relatively recently, with some related discussion posts, I’m looking forward to a third read in the context of its position in the Narniad publishing order as well as posting discussion of The Horse and His Boy.
After this April past, when I seem to have already read a lot of fantasy – principally Tolkien and C S Lewis – for me the merry month of May also looks to be focused on this genre with the fifth annual Wyrd & Wonder read hosted by a cohort of avid readers.
As well as the usual Narnia business I have a few other works in mind for this annual event – though what I actually read and comment on will be as much a surprise to me as to you! But it will include some ruminations on Volume 3 of The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, and whatever fantasy titles fall off the shelves at me. I suspect there’ll mostly be children’s fantasy – some classic, others more contemporary – landing in my lap…
Thanks to Imyril and others listed on Twitter under the handle WyrdandWonder for hosting this event, even if I shall be following my own nose for what I read instead of consciously taking part in their prompts.
But … please, people, don’t set up any more tempting memes / events / challenges – I’ve got enough already on my plate!
Calmgrove 