Non-Bookish Stuff

My blogger silence the last couple of days is because I am under the gun to get out some invitations to my parents' 50th wedding anniversary celebrations.  The whole family is going to Bavaria, where my father's family came from or still lives. 

Inspired by a collection of scrapbooking and card making books, I came up with these two invitations. One is for a formal dinner on the Friday night.  That will take place at the restaurant at Berggasthof Geiß, the mountain inn still owned by my dad's cousin.

 

The second is for an informal "grillfest" on the Saturday night.More of our Bavarian friends and relatives are coming that night, so the invitation is in German.  My sister, who is working as a chef at a fancy hotel outside of Munich, had to help me with this one.

It doesn't show in the scan, but the words of the invitation are the same green and blue as the front of the card. And, yes, that is my thumbnail in the scan. Oops.

As soon as I get the rest of the envelopes printed, I am hitting the books!

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Master Butchers Singing Club

Fidelis walked home from the great war in twelve days and slept thirty-eight hours once he crawled into his childhood bed.

-- The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich.

That sentence grabbed me because family lore has it that my great uncle Georg also walked home to Germany when WWI finally ended. Poor Georg -- although he was too young to fight in WWI (only 14 when the war started), he was conscripted and, although to old to fight in WWII, was conscripted again. He walked home to his farm in Bavaria again after WWII.

So I am sucked into this story from the get go. And even deeper when Fidelis goes to America and finances his immigration by selling sausages to New Yorkers. Mmmmmmm . . . sausages . . .

Favorite Author: Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 – 1957) was a renowned English author, best known for her series of mysteries featuring amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. She also wrote plays, essays, and poetry and translated classic works, including Dante's Divine Comedy. 

I am reading her LPW series and enjoying it very much.  Wimsey has a lot of Bertie Wooster in him and Sayers can be very funny.  I don't have plans to read her other books, but I do plan to read all the Wimsey books.

Those I have read are in red.  Those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

Whose Body? (1923)

Clouds of Witness (1926) (reviewed here)

Unnatural Death (1927).

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928) (reviewed here)

Lord Peter Views the Body (1928) (short stories)

Strong Poison (1930)

Five Red Herrings (1931)

Have His Carcase (1932)

Hangman's Holiday (1933) (short stories, 4 with Lord Peter)

Murder Must Advertise (1933)

The Nine Tailors (1934)

Gaudy Night (1935)

Busman's Honeymoon (1937)

In the Teeth of the Evidence (1939) (short stories, only 2 or 3 with Lord Peter)

Striding Folly (1972) (short stories)

NOTES

If anyone else is working on Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey series and would like related posts listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will make a list.

Last updated on February 17, 2015.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Clouds of Witness

Lord Peter Wimsey stretched himself luxuriously between the sheets provided by the Hotel Meurice.

-- Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers.

This is the second of her Lord Peter Wimsey series.  I like it much better than the first, although I liked that one well enough.  The characters have better developed personalities in this one and it is funnier.

Teaser Tuesday: A Pelican at Blandings

And he was so young. . . .  She had no objection to some men being young -- waiters, for instance, or policemen or representatives of the country in Olympic Games -- but in a man whose walk in life was to delve into people's subconscious and make notes of what came up one expected something more elderly.

A Pelican at Blandings by P. G. Wodehouse.

I am always trying to figure out why Wodehouse is so funny.  It's the way he turns a phrase and the words he uses, but what about those things makes them funny?

Here, I think it is using "representatives of the country in Olympic Games" instead of "Olympic athletes" and "something" instead of "someone" more elderly.  Both relate the statement more closely to Constance, Lord Elmsworth's battle ax of a sister, by reflecting her personal point of view -- she likely doesn't care about athletes or athletics, but does care about who represents England in public events, and since it is the appearance of the psychiatrist she worries about, she considers him an object rather than a person.

So Wodehouse's word choices bring the reader right into Constance's brain in a way that makes the sentence funny.

Or I'm overthinking it.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.