notyouraveragebook:

Title: Ella Minnow Pea

Author: Mark Dunn

Ella Minnow Pea is a deceptively charming little book. Reminiscent of Flowers for Algernon and Swimming With Dolphins, the book’s story is told solely using the letters of the people living on a fictional island off the east coast of the US. Said island is the imaginary place of origin for Nevin Nollop, the man who wrote the pangram, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” The island in the book is named after him and there is even a statue in town with the famous sentence inscribed on tiles.

When the tiles start to fall from the statue, the island’s linguiphiles are in for a shock. The island’s council begins a campaign that will have serious repercussions for the inhabitants, for by decree the letters that fall are banned from use in both written and spoken language. Nollop is deified and their very way of life is threatened. Eliminate the lost letters, or face public punishment and eventually banishment - on threat of death if you return to the island. Thus begins a war against crazed fanaticism and daily censorship. The majority of the correspondence in the book are letters written between a girl named Ella and her cousin, who is also her best friend. The reader follows along as entire words must be eliminated from vocabularies, months and days of the week are renamed, and the islander’s lives fall apart. A people that once loved language, letters, and writing above all else fold up into a collection of people that dare not talk or write too much, for fear of a slip-up that might result in banishment. The only way to end the madness is for an islander to write a pangram that is shorter than Nollop’s famous phrase, to prove that he was not an unmatchable genius or a god in any form. 

I can only imagine the challenge of actually writing this book, and admire the unique way it was written. It would have been one thing to describe the happenings on the island without restricting yourself. Instead Dunn gives the reader access to the islanders’ personal and private letters, giving an up close and personal experience of the frustration, fear, and determination. This is a book that deserves to be a classic, read in schools for years to come, to be analyzed and applied to daily life. A whimsical yet dark picture of government run amuck, while emphasizing the importance of our letters, words, and language to communicating and expressing ourselves.

An outstanding book and one that appeals to any reader, as I imagine if you like reading books, you have an inherit appreciation for words and language.

-Kate

(Source: nomecalles, via girlsmoke)

m-o-o-n-w-h-i-s-p-e-r:

With primeal thunder, a torent leaps from a rocky cleft in the Picas de Europa in northern Spain’s Cantabrian Mountains, National Geographic, March 1978

(Source: cratered, via threelittleb1rds)

culturedwind:

This world is an infinite-sided crystal where each molecule is a new facet and each fractal produces light— illuminating the others. This world is so much more beautiful than we can even imagine. 

(Source: 2headedsnake, via threelittleb1rds)

thefindesiecle:

1889, Anne Pratt botanical chromolithograph.

{via petitpoulailler}

(via gypsypurpleloves)

notyouraveragebook:

Title: Till We Have Faces (A Myth Retold)

Author: C.S. Lewis

Three years ago a friend gave me an old marked up copy of this book imploring me to read it. I was never a huge fan of C.S. Lewis so it was easy to put off its reading until recently, when I finally decided to get it out of the way.  I was pleasantly surprised. In the beginning it reads like many other “old tales,” but as the narrator, Orual, continued, I realized it is something more. The book is a reworking of the Cupid and Psyche myth of Greek mythology, set in a small barbaric country. The narrator reveals herself to be very different from the princess characters seen in other novels of this time. Referred to by her father as “Curd face,” she is a character who must handle being dealt “the face of a goblin” and her virginity in a house with two beautiful sisters, an abusive father, and no mother. However, these are petty matters in light of the rest of the plot.  Essentially this book is a complaint against the gods, an accusation for a court made by a mortal to challenge deity. It is about love, the love of an outwardly asexual woman for her sister-child, her love for the people that surround her, which never seems to satisfy them.  Orual is a jealous, self-centered and stubborn character in amounts appropriate to her barbarian pedigree but she is also noble in her own way and single minded with such devotion that it is hard to tell if she is an obsessive glutton for the love she wants or completely selfless.  Is to love something to devour it?

This is a book that is not for all readers.  Of the three people I know who have read this book two loved it and say it is far better than any of the Narnia books and the other said it was tedious and he could not even complete it. (But he also said he rarely enjoys a book where the leading character is female, if I may discredit him.)  In the latter half, the book does become somewhat philosophical and spiritual, following along as Orual fights an battle to decide if she is god or will declare war on the gods.

In the end, I would recommend this book to people who feel they are not limited to modern fiction and want more than just an easy no-think read. You do not have to be C.S. Lewis follower to enjoy this book, in fact even if you are slightly frightened of Lewis you may still enjoy this read and find it provoking. Many Christians overlook this book because of its roots in mythology while many adult secular readers wouldn’t even pick it up after seeing who wrote it, so it has become a hidden treasure. Till We Have Faces explores what it is to be human, and it is a profound and thought provoking book.

-Erin

Looks like i now write book reviews?? ^

(via nylon-admiral)

(Source: forgifs.com, via lesfemmesfumee)