My Grandma

I posted about my grandmother, who was born on Valentine's Day in 1904, on Poe's Deadly daughters today.

An Ever Fixed Mark

Happy Valentine's Day. The most beautiful love poem I can think of was penned by William Shakespeare. So I offer this sonnet for the day. May you enjoy all the loves in your life.

SONNET 116

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

--William Shakespeare

Exciting New Reading

I'm very lucky today, because I received some books in the mail that will provide me with some delicious weekend reading.

First, I've started a historical mystery--not usually my bag--called THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN JOHN EMMETT. I gave the first page a try and then couldn't put it down. This delicately written tale set after World War I focuses on a young man who has lost everything, including his wife and child, and therefore finds himself willing to take on a seemingly pointless task: to look into the suicide of a former school mate, at the request of that man's sister.

I've not yet gotten beyond the fifth chapter, but I can't wait to finish my chores and get back to this mystery by Elizabeth Speller, whose other books I will be investigating soon.

Also, in the mail today like a special gift, a book I had not yet heard of called HAUNT ME STILL. Macbeth fans will recognize this little snippet of this quote from the shattered MacDuff: "If thou be'est slain with no stroke of mine/My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still."

As a teacher of MacBeth and a lover of Shakespeare, I can't think of anything more fun than a mystery set in Scotland at the very foot of Dunsinane Hill! Looking forward to this seemingly moody mystery from Jennifer Lee Carrell, whom the book cover tells me is a Shakespearean scholar. Long live Shakespearean scholars!!

Okay--I'm off to read now. :)

After the Storm

The blizzard passed through Chicago last night, fierce and howling, cracking tree branches with its 60 mph winds. Today it is calm, but we're snowed in under feet of heavy white stuff. Only the Beagle seems to really enjoy it--something in a dog can't resist piles of snow.