The Captain's Verses

This is such a short book, made shorter by the fact that it's poetry rather than prose and each poem is presented in both Spanish and English. I still barely finished it.

I keep wanting to read more poetry, and sometimes I do come across poems that speak to me. But these weren't them. I really tried to give this collection a shot, to linger over the poems rather than speeding through them. But Neruda's work just isn't for me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contact

I'm really surprised that I didn't read Carl Sagan's Contact before now. I mean, it's my life and I know that there was always something else I wanted to read. But looking back, I really wish I had read this book in high school. I think a lot of what Ellie experiences in the first few chapters would have prepared me better for the massive amount of sexism I suddenly encountered in college. I'm impressed with how well Sagan captured the experience of being a woman in science. Mostly I really liked this book. The science that went in to sending and then decoding the message was really interesting. And there were some great characters, including Palmer Joss and the man who funded the building of the machine. It got a bit slow at times, especially towards the end. But it mostly held my attention. Now I just need to track down and watch the movie again. I haven't seen it since high school, but I remember liking it. I'd like to see how it compare...
Read more

The Time of Contempt

I can't remember the last time I was this conflicted about a book. I'm currently re-watching the second season of The Witcher. When it first came out, I assumed it was based on Blood of Elves, so I read that book. I then learned it was based on both that book and this book. So I decided to read this book with the rewatch to see what I missed. It started off great. I recognized an early scene in the book from the TV show, and I was so excited to spend more time with those characters. But then the book delved into politics with so many characters I had trouble keeping them straight. It turned into a a bit of a slog - though at least part of that was because my life got so busy I had a hard time finding time to read the book. By the end, I actively disliked the book and was kicking myself for having already bought the next one in the series. I should have waited. Then that night I watched the next episode, and a lot of backstory from the book clicked into place. I'm more excit...
Read more

In the Night Garden

My love for this book is in direct opposition to how long it took me to read it. I heard about it years ago, and I knew that I had to read it. Fairy tales and nested tales and Catherynne Valente are three of my favorite things. There was no question that I would love it. But other books always seemed to take precedence. And then the pandemic happened and Valente started reading this book a bit at a time in a nightly video. So I bought it, fully intending to read along with her. Except that in March of 2020, my life was even crazier than most peoples and committing to a 45 minute video every day was out of the question.  And so the book sat on my shelf for nearly two years. I knew I would love it. I also knew I'd want to be able to sink into it. And I could never quite find enough time to devote to it. Finally, at the beginning of this year, I decided to start watching Valente's videos. They were great, filled with behind the scenes info about the book itself. Not to mention the...
Read more