#king Salman Lovers

[waugh-bao]

Dance, magic, read ☃️

dance - what's your favorite winter or christmas song?

'we three kings' preformed by king's college cambridge or the dave brubeck version

magic - favorite mythical creature?

griffin (when i was very, very young, like ages 7-9, i wanted desperately to be an egyptologist when I grew up)

read - what's your favorite book you've read this year?

either the book of chocolate saints by jeet thayil or the enchantress of florence by salman rushdie. they're both amazingly well written, inventive stories, but about wildly different topics and time periods. (though a lot of the action in both occurs in the mughal empire/india). the first is the story of five weeks in the life of newton xavier, a fictional poet who is in fact the composite of several real indian literary figures, as told through 'interviews' with his friends and former colleagues about his past and narration by himself, his lover, and his potential biographer in the present. it's very raw and drug/gin/sex soaked. the second is the intertwining tales of emperor akbar, the third mughal emperor, and a mysterious european traveler who arrives at his court claiming to be the real heir of akbar's throne. it would be worth reading for rushdie's prose alone, but the story itself is fascinating and he's so skillful in weaving historical fact into his own invention without making it feel like shoddy historical fiction.

[themovieblogonline]

Pathaan (2023): "The King" Returns With A Masterpiece!

Many films which were released by the Bollywood production house Yash Raj Films have flopped in the last few years. People had already started thinking that the era of Yash Raj Films is over. The chairman of Yash Raj Films, Aditya Chopra, cannot make great films anymore! Even many of the films in which the King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan had starred, had miserably flopped at the Box Office. So, people also thought that along with Aditya Chopra, the era of The King is over as well! Many other Hindi films which released in 2022, some of which I have reviewed and praised, had flopped at the Box Office. This series of flops made people despise Bollywood even more. They thought that Bollywood is nearing its end. Bollywood can never get back on track. For those who thought that Aditya Chopra is finished and for those who thought that King Khan is finished, Pathaan comes as a tight slap on their faces! This movie also packs a violent punch to the faces of Bollywood haters, who have been demeaning Bollywood for the past few years. This time, King Khan makes his electrifying return with an out-and-out action-thriller titled “Pathaan” where he takes on the “He-Man of Bollywood” John Abraham who plays the lead antagonist. Folks, if you are thinking that this action-thriller which was released in theaters worldwide on January 25, 2023, is a hit, then you are wrong! Pathaan is not a hit and neither is it a super-hit. Pathaan is a mega-blockbuster! One among the few Bollywood masterpiece action-thrillers that is sure to retain its legacy for decades! Pathaan (2023) Synopsis: When Jim (John Abraham), a terrorist leader, seeks vengeance by planning to destroy India, an exiled RAW field agent by the name Pathaan (Shah Rukh Khan) is summoned to take him down and destroy his terrorist organization “Outfit X”. As Pathaan continues his investigation against Jim along with his colleague Rubina Mohsin (Deepika Padukone), they discover that Jim is actually planning to spread a deadly lab-generated smallpox-mutated virus named “Raktbeej” across India. The story unfolds as Pathaan along with his partner Rubina heads to stop Jim on his destructive mission. Pathaan (2023) Official Teaser: https://youtu.be/4xl9KfUg8Lc Pathaan (2023) Official Trailer: https://youtu.be/vqu4z34wENw The Good: High-Octane Action! Be it the story, screenplay, action scenes, dialogues, performances, cinematography, editing, music, lyrics, or song picturization; Pathaan stands out and excels in every department! Like THE ROCK says, “IT DOESN'T MATTER” if the story is not new! Even if Pathaan’s story has nothing new to it, the screenplay and the action scenes in this movie are ultra-fast-paced! When you watch this movie and you see Shah Rukh Khan and John Abraham blast the screens with their intense action stunts, you will surely rise to your feet and start cheering and applauding to your full potential. The choreography of the action sequences is outstanding and I have fallen short of words in praising the action scenes in this movie. This movie is flooded with raw high-octane action and is a feast for action lovers! I am not telling that the plot of Pathaan is weak. The plot is interesting and has amazing twists and turns even if it is predictable. Along with tension and action, there are lighter scenes as well in the fast-paced screenplay which has been written by Shridhar Raghavan. Those lighter moments involve light-hearted comedy as well as romance and are extremely pleasing to watch. Talking of the entry scenes, where Shah Rukh Khan and John Abraham make their dashing entries, and not to forget, the special appearance mega-entry scene of Salman Khan; such scenes get doubtless applause! The audience at the theater hall went crazy applauding and cheering during the entry scenes of these actors. The commotion was so loud in the theater that you may have felt that the Earth was going to explode! Neither could I hear the background music nor the dialogue they said during their entry scenes. The crowd inside the theater hall had gone completely berserk! The climax was thrilling and exciting as well. In the climax, when Pathaan “saves the day” by putting an end to terrorist leader Jim, the applause and cheering from the audience were unstoppable and went on till the movie ended. The dialogues in Pathaan written by Abbas Tyrewala were awesome and the way they have been delivered by actors like Shah Rukh Khan, John Abraham, and Salman Khan was amazing! If you are an Indian, then some of the dialogues will evoke an essence of patriotism in your heart. https://youtu.be/EwHC5kZqG0k Thrilling Performances Talking about the performances in Pathaan, I would say that they are simply “wow!” Shah Rukh Khan strikes back like a wounded tiger at the faces of all Bollywood haters. I bet you will remember his performance in Pathaan throughout your life if you happen to watch this movie! I personally don’t find Deepika Padukone appealing as an actress, but I have to confess, she looked ravishing in this movie! Nothing like what she had appeared until now! Her performance is appreciable and the best is her dance sequences in the tracks in which she appeared along with Shah Rukh Khan! Those are just mind-blowing! I have to say, Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone appeared similar to Hollywood stars in this movie. They seemed to have great chemistry together even if Shah Rukh happens to be 20 years elder than Deepika. These two added such charisma to the movie that I felt as if I was watching some Hollywood action-thriller and not a local Bollywood film of my country. And talking of John Abraham’s performance in Pathaan, I bet you would never have ever seen him giving such a master-blaster performance ever before in his entire acting career! He is terrific as a terrorist leader Jim! Supporting actor Ashutosh Rana and actress Dimple Kapadia made their presence felt and lent great dignity to their respective characters of RAW joint secretary, Colonel Sunil Luthra, and covert operation research organization JOCR’s head, Nandini respectively. And of course, there is Salman Khan who bombarded the screens with his star power by making an action-based cameo appearance as RAW agent “Tiger” from the famous “Tiger” franchise of Bollywood films. Visually Appealing With Astounding Special Effects Shah Rukh Khan has trained a lot for this role and has added extra muscle mass to his usual thin frame to appear “bigger”. And he does appear “big” on the big screens not just because of the “extra muscle mass” he has put on but because of the top-grade camerawork and visual effects presented by cinematographer Satchith Paulose. The visual effects and sound effects in this out-and-out action thriller are direly appealing and the action scenes have been shot precisely keeping every detail in mind. Even the background music is fantastic and impactful. Along with Paulose’s precise camera angles, the fabulous background music and special effects added gravity to the action scenes. https://youtu.be/M5sw3IN0ctI The Bad: Has Hurt Hindu Sentiments, Really?! Pathaan has two rocking tracks, “Besharam Rang” choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant, and “Jhoome Jo Pathaan” choreographed by Bosco Caesar. Some online nuisance creators like the “Boycott Pathaan Gang” trending on social media have raised a hue and cry that the “Besharam Rang” song in Pathaan has hurt Hindu sentiments. So, they have warned the crowds that they should entirely boycott Pathaan because Hindus, who are the major section of the Indian population, won’t be seeing this movie. Maybe, they felt as Deepika is scantily clothed in a saffron bikini in scenes from “Besharam Rang”, Hindu sentiments will be hurt. However, this track came as a harsh blow on their faces. When this “supposedly Hindu sentiment-hurting” track played in the film, there was absolute chaos in the theater hall! Audiences were going crazy applauding and cheering those bikini scenes which were supposed to hurt Hindu sentiments. I was in great fear that the crowd may turn into “zombies” with their constant cheering and soon I would be getting to see people standing and dancing in their seats! https://youtu.be/huxhqphtDrM So in short, there was nothing “bad” about these tracks. These songs have been excellently choreographed. If anything is “bad”, it is the low-grade mentality of certain online activists who are bent upon mindlessly boycotting any Bollywood movie they come across. These people are “allergic” to bikini-clad women and whenever any film shows such scenes, they immediately raise a hue and cry for boycotting the film on the basis of their “so-called” Hindu sentiments. Don’t get me wrong because I am a Hindu myself! So, this is a Hindu telling another Hindu; take it easy man! There’s nothing toxic about these scenes. They just go with the modern-day flow! https://youtu.be/YxWlaYCA8MU The Verdict: Siddharth Anand has written the story of Pathaan as well as directed the film. His narrative style is phenomenal and his direction is wonderful. The editing of Pathaan has been wonderfully performed by Aarif Sheikh, keeping all the sequences as well as fluctuating instances understandable within the run duration of 2 hours and 26 minutes. The filming of Pathaan commenced across various locations in India and worldwide. International filming locations included Dubai, Afghanistan, Spain, Turkey, Russia, Italy, and France. On account of the COVID crisis, the filming faced huge delays. Pathaan is one such Bollywood film that features the two megastar Khans, Shah Rukh and Salman, together. This itself makes the TRP of this out-and-out action thriller huge! Salman makes his electrifying entry inside a train to save Shah Rukh from henchmen in a fight sequence. The star power of these two megastars absolutely blasted the screens! And mind you, Boycott Pathaan Gang! This film is being enjoyed by every section of society, be they Muslims, Hindus, Christians or Sikhs. Please do not try to divide India on the basis of just one film! By the way, this is another anti-Pakistani fictional action-thriller, where terrorist leader Jim is actually an ally of Pakistan. Pathaan is the only Indian film that, I believe, will surpass the popularity of the South Indian super-duper blockbuster action-drama KGF 2. Don't think I am mindless in my judgment. The reason why I am giving this film a 10 out of 10 is because, as an action-thriller, it truly deserves it! You got to watch this and if possible, watch it over and over again! You will never feel bored. The charisma of this film coupled with immense star power is simply one of its kind!   Read the full article

[smithlibrary]

Read More 2023 Banned Book

Fiction The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini  The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Horror Christine by Stephen King

Graphic Novel The Sandman by Neil Gaiman Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan Watchmen by Alan Moore Saga by Brian K. Vaughan

Classics Ulysses by James Joyce The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Catch-22 by Joseph Heller Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Biography Educated by Tara Westover Maus by Art Spiegelman I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Non-fiction The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin White Fragility by Robin J. DiAngelo

Young Adult The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

[joud-sa]

Ksa

[michelleleewise]

Long Live The King. Masterlist-

Pairing: King Jotun Loki x Asgardian Female reader

Warnings: assassination attempt, forced imprisonment, torture, enemies to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, 18+, minors dni, will update as series progresses!!

Summary: alternate universe au, Odin never took Loki, he ascended the throne of Jotunhiem. You are an assassin sent by Odin to murder him, leaving the throne vacant as Loki has no heirs. But you are caught and imprisoned. The longer you are there, you begin to realize Loki isn't who you thought he was.....

A/n- graphics by @harlequin-hangout. Images not mine, found on Google. Middle picture created by Salman Artworks. < that link takes you to their Facebook page.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

Part Ten

Part Eleven

Part Twelve

Part Thirteen (final)

[buildarocketboys]

Books read 2020: Reviews (1-20)

Decided to write a little review/overview for all the books I’ve read this year. Mostly just for personal record but please feel free to message me about any of these books!

1. Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly (Jan 6th – Jan 13th) 8 days 400 pages

I loved this whole trilogy, but this might have been my favourite of all three. I loved the setting (the main reason, apart from the queer characters, why I wanted to read this book) which is a fantasy setting based on the dying days of Berlin during the Weimar Republic. Loved this setting (especially the cabaret/music hall part) and it’s the only book that really features it. I also enjoy (or…find compelling, enjoy might not quite be right since there’s some very ‘yowch’ descriptions regarding torture/being beaten up) the story/plot most in this one, I was on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happened next…

2. Maurice by E.M. Forster (Nov 17th – Jan 21st) 256 pages

This is the only kind of cheat I have in here, because yes I did start reading it in November 2019, but I read the vast majority of it in 2020. I’d wanted to read it for ages because it’s such a gay classic and there were many sections (sentences, paragraphs) that I related to heavily, not even always as a queer person, but in that way that the best books get at the heart of something about the human experience in a way that’s intensely relatable to the reader. I think I found the romance elements kind of anticlimactic overall but maybe that’s kind of the point? It’s a happy ending, but in a very quiet way. (I think, it has been nearly a year since I read it!)

3. East, West by Salman Rushdie (Jan 17th – Jan 24th) 8 days 224 pages

I started reading this to compare it with its Spanish translation for my Postcolonialism in Translation essay lol. Some pretty interesting stories in here, also pretty sure this is the only collection of short stories I read this year, so it has that distinction. Not super my thing but acted as an enjoyable reading break in the local park while I was slogging my way through essays (and God do I miss that life now).

4. Affinity by Sarah Waters (Jan 24th – Jan 31st) 8 days 352 pages

This was the first of three Sarah Waters books I read this year. I have now read all of her work, and I enjoyed this one a lot – very much a ghost story. It wasn’t my favourite, but definitely sits nicely in the middle.

5. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Jan 31st – Feb 5th) REREAD 6 days 500 pages

Reread this while on a trip to York, when stuff like that was still possible. As good as ever. I love Time Traveler’s Wife not for the romance (which is…interesting, but personally I don’t find it exactly enjoyable and the characters aren’t particularly likable or relatable for me) but for the prose and the structure. The back-and-forth structure of the book (travelling through time, Henry – and Clare – at different points in their life) makes for a breathtakingly constructed plot and I love it more every time. Some of the prose and stuff the characters talk about are kind of pretentious but I’m kind of pretentious myself (I discovered  Rilke through TTW) and a lot of it has stuck in my brain, to the point that 10 months later I keep thinking about it and kind of want to read it yet again.

6. Armistice by Lara Elena Donnelly (Feb 5th – Feb 9th) 5 days 400 pages

I really enjoyed this sequel, I loved exploring the rest of the world, I loved the interaction between characters who either hadn’t met before, hadn’t seen each other in years (there’s a time jump between Amberlough and Armistice) and brand new characters (who were mostly equally as compelling/lovable). A worthy sequel.

7. Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson (Feb 13th – Feb 24th) 12 days 327 pages

My thing (at least non-fiction-wise) this year has been books about food and food history, and this is the first of those on this list. It was pretty good, very interesting. I have trouble retaining information from non-fiction books so I only remember it in the broadest strokes (and remember reading it in the Hygge café in Sheffield which was really cool and I hope it’s survived the pandemic) but it was a really eye-opening look into different appliances/tools/processes/spaces used throughout history and in different parts of the world when it comes to food and cooking.

8. Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri Eisner (Feb 25th – Mar 11th) 16 days 352 pages

I read this in the period just before everything started shutting down and the day I finished it (incidentally my girlfriend’s birthday) was more or less the start of the lockdown for us, so that’s my prevailing memory of this book. It was a very good, enlightening look into bi politics and what we (I, as a white gentile especially) could do better. But again, I don’t remember it in great detail because I was more preoccupied with what was happening around it.

9. Solitaire by Alice Oseman (Mar 14th – Mar 16th) 3 days 392 pages

This was pretty good but I definitely read most YA (well, reality-based YA) as an easy, quick read that doesn’t challenge me too much, so I don’t have too much to say about it. It was nice to read about the Heartstopper characters

10. What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera (Mar 17th – Mar 20th) 4 days 437 pages

Again, early lockdown YA so basically brain popcorn for me. That’s not a bad thing though.

11. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Mar 20th – Mar 30th) 11 days 512 pages

This was my least favourite of the Sarah Waters books I read this year, and probably not coincidentally, the only book of hers without explicit queer characters. But still a pretty good scary story.

12. Amnesty by Lara Elena Donnelly (Apr 1st – April 6th) 6 days 384 pages

The last in the trilogy. I still liked it very much, but not as much as the first two books. I think endings to a trilogy are hard to get right. I feel like there was too much focus on one character and his predicament (and while I enjoyed his ending and happily ever after with probably m favourite character of the series), I wasn’t as compelled by this one as I was by the other two.

13. Lisey’s Story by Stephen King (Apr 6th – Apr 15th)  10 days 513 pages

My first Stephen King! I actually really enjoyed this, especially the scary fantasy dream world thing. It wasn’t too scary for me (I am a big scaredy cat who’s just dipping my toe into horror novels since I figure reading horror is moderately less scary than watching it) and just overall pretty good.

14. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Apr 16th – Apr 20th) 5 days 209 pages

Loved this! The meandering almost poetry of it, the epic enemies to lovers, the weird admixture of sci fi and larger than life fantasy concepts (and beings!). Will definitely return to this one again.

15. Five Hundred Mile Walkies by Mark Wallington (Apr 21st – Apr 25th) REREAD 5 days 224 pages

I read this as a young teenager and found it hilarious. It was one of my dad’s books (he might even have recommended it to me, although I did have a habit of reading anything and everything that was in the bookcase – Memoirs of a Geisha at about 13, anyone?) and I laughed out loud practically every page. The gist of it is that Mark takes his sister’s (or sister’s ex??) dog, Boogie and goes to walk the entire 500 miles of the South West coast path. I loved this anyway because I loved the South West (especially Cornwall) and love seeing it through someone else’s eyes. So I reread it and I still enjoyed it, but didn’t find it as rip roaringly hilarious as I used to. Guess your sense of humour changes as you grow up, who knew?

16. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg (Apr 27th – May 10th) 14 days 416 pages

I’ll be honest, I struggled with this one. I’m not sure if it was the setting (historically, geographically, linguistically) that put me off or the way it was written or what. I enjoyed the story but it just wasn’t really my thing.

17. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (May 11th – May 17th) 7 days 528 pages

My final Sarah Waters book (until she writes more! *fingers crossed*) and definitely my favourite of the ones I read this year. Set during the Blitz in London, it’s pretty much straight up historical fiction, and I enjoyed it very much. I think part of it was I related heavily to the characters going through this dramatic time in history, because, you know, pandemic! There were certain passages that really connected with me/felt like an echo of today in a way that was sort of comforting, I guess.

18. Doctor Who: The Maze of Doom by David Solomons (May 18th – May 19th) 2 days 272 pages

A fun, quick and easy Doctor Who romp. Not much to say about this one.

19. Room by Emma Donoghue (May 19th – May 20th) 2 days 321 pages

Possibly the opposite of the previous. If you know anything about Room (the book or the film, which I actually watched years ago) then you know the subject matter is pretty dark and harrowing. Because it’s told through the eyes of a child however, I found it pretty easy (in terms of speed rather than subject matter) to get through and read it in about 24 hours. It’s super compelling too.

20. The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas (June 6th – June 11th) 6 days 372 pages

This, as far as I remember, was just a random one that I managed to pick up (metaphorically since I read this as an ebook) but it was pretty good. Possibly my favourite random discovery of the year, an interesting look on time travel and its consequences, based around the discovery/invention of time travel by four women scientists in the 1960s (I think) and how it affects the rest of their lives.

[sweetdreamsjeff]

A few weeks ago, the Library of Congress called me to write an essay on the song "Hallelujah" recorded by Jeff Buckley that was added to the National Registry in 2014. I was both honored and nervous at the same time as I knew this would last forever. As with my book on Jeff Buckley where I wanted to put a stamp on his legacy, with others that knew him best, this is my last act as his manager. RIP my friend and I hope I did you proud. Here's to Eternal Life...

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah (1994)

Added to the National Registry: 2014

Essay by Dave Lory & Jim Irvin

Jeff Buckley’s recording of Hallelujah was not the original, and he wasn’t singing the song as conceived by its author, yet it has come to be widely regarded as the definitive version.

The song was written and composed by Canadian poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen (1934-2016), who said in interviews that it took at least four years and two notebooks to write an unspecified number of completed verses. “I don’t know if it was eighty, maybe more, or a little less.” Cohen recorded a four-verse version in June 1984 as part of his album, Various Positions, then revisited the song with alternative lyrics in 1988, a performance captured on the album Cohen Live! in 1994.

Cohen’s unmistakable vocal delivery, which has been described as a “near monotone rumble” and “a brazenly unmusical drone”, is directly opposite Buckley’s falsetto lyricism and musical precision. Cohen accepted one Canadian music award saying “Only in Canada could someone with a voice like mine win Vocalist of the Year.” His version of Hallelujah is full of wry irony.

Raised in an orthodox Jewish family, later becoming a Zen Buddhist, Cohen often used religious imagery in his work. In Hallelujah, the stories of two Biblical couples - King David and Bethsheba, Samson and Deliliah - represent the transformative powers of music, hubris, and lust. David and Samson both have ruinous relationships with their women. David is a musician. Samson has great hair. Both are poets, warriors and adulterers. Cohen could identify with all these qualities, some more lightheartedly than others. While citing Cohen during the PEN awards for Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence in 2012, novelist Salman Rushdie spoke of the song’s “jaundiced comedy”.

Hallelujah has also been celebrated for its uplifting melody, the ascending second half of the verse is particularly moving, while the chorus - simply the title repeated four times - makes the song function as both a gospel soul-stirrer and a kind of hymn for atheists, “I wanted to push the Hallelujah deep into the secular world,” Cohen said.

When an album paying tribute to Cohen, I’m Your Fan, was being prepared in 1991, John Cale, singer, producer and former member of the Velvet Underground, elected to sing Hallelujah, the first time anyone else had recorded the song. (Bob Dylan had sung it live in the 1980s.) He wasn’t familiar with the recorded version, having only seen Cohen perform it on stage, but he knew Cohen, so called him to ask for the lyrics. Cohen sent him, by fax, at least fifteen verses. Cale picked his favorite five, “the cheeky verses,” all of which, coincidentally, had appeared in one or other of Cohen’s recordings.

Jeff Buckley, an unknown 24-year-old singer, recently relocated to New York from LA, was more a fan of Cale than Cohen and listened to I’m Your Fan to hear Cale’s contribution, which closes that album. Struck by its spare vocal and piano arrangement, Buckley decided to include Hallelujah in the long, rambling sets he was playing each week at the Sin-é cafe on St Mark’s Place in Manhattan. These were intimate shows - just Buckley and a borrowed electric guitar - before small, appreciative audiences, covering a wide variety of material, including works previously performed by Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Edith Piaf and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, distilling all Buckley had absorbed in a lifetime of musical exploration. Those shows made Buckley’s name in New York and won him a recording deal with Columbia Records in 1992. Many who attended were especially moved by Hallelujah. Buckley would sing it slightly differently each night, but always emphasized the simmering sexual tension of the verses Cale had selected. He said that he thought the cry of “Hallelujah” was orgasmic. Buckley inhabited the song so well, many fans initially assumed he had written it.

When it came time to pick songs for his first album, Grace, Buckley decided - with producer Andy Wallace and A&R executive Steve Berkowitz, who had signed him to Columbia Records - to record a mix of original material and the best of the covers he had developed at Sin-é. Everyone agreed that Hallelujah had to be included. Though he would often use it as the climax to his live appearances, Buckley placed it in the middle of the album, a highpoint from which he could step into the finest of his own compositions, Lover, You Should Have Come Over.

Beginning with an exhalation of breath, Buckley’s performance, compiled by Wallace from five takes of the song, features him accompanied only by his delicate, skilful guitar playing, an arrangement akin to Cale’s and understated in comparison to subsequent covers, which often used choirs or orchestras to gild the song’s power.

Jeff Buckley drowned, aged 30, in a swimming accident in the Wolf River Harbor in Memphis, Tennessee on May 29, 1997 before completing his second album. He was singing a favorite Led Zeppelin song in the water shortly before he disappeared. Music was the love of his life, and that love went into everything he sang. Though never released as a single in his lifetime, his version of Hallelujah slowly grew in the public’s affection to become the version that other artists would most often discover, pass on and record themselves, “giving the song the final shove into the American consciousness,” said USA Today. The song has been covered over 300 times, with versions by k.d.lang, U2, Rufus Wainwright, Michael McDonald, Bon Jovi, Paramore, Justin Timberlake, Amanda Palmer, Jake Shimabukuro and Neil Diamond.

In March 2008, a performance of Hallelujah on the TV talent show, American Idol sent Buckley’s recording to #1 in the Billboard Digital Songs chart, almost 11 years after his death. Later that same year, three versions of Hallelujah charted simultaneously in the UK, with another talent-show winner, Alexandra Burke at #1, Buckley at #2 and Cohen’s original at #36. Cohen wondered for a while if too many Idol competitors or TV and movie climaxes were utilizing his song, but then decided he didn't mind. He noted, however, the irony that his most popular work started out on the one album, Various Positions, that had been rejected by his long-term label, Columbia Records, the label which handled Buckley’s recording.

Jeff would have been astonished, maybe unsettled, to know that this performance has made it into the National Registry, but it is no less than he deserved. He has become synonymous with this beautiful song. Indeed, no one who knew him can now hear the word Hallelujah without thinking of him.

Dave Lory was co-manager of Jeff Buckley until the artist’s death in 1997. He lives in New Jersey. Jim Irvin is a songwriter and music journalist who lives in the UK. They collaborated on Lory’s memoir, “Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye” published in 2018

[demidemilitclub]

So I was walking through Barnes & Noble the other day with my mom, and we were both lamenting about how far behind we are on reading, especially as I have a lot of classic literature to read through in addition to all the modern literature that I’ve been recommended. We decided that in the new year, we were going to use our time to read a lot more and sort of systematically go through and catch up on what we need to. That being said, I’d love recommendations of stuff I need to/should read if you have any.

The Art of the Short Story is required reading for my Story and Character class this coming semester, so I’m going to read about 50-60 of the best short stories over the past 100 or so years from a variety of men and women of various ethnic and racial backgrounds. And in walking through B&N, talking with my mom and my sister, and remembering what I already have, I have made a rough list of (in no particular order):

The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

Various Works by Stephen King

1984 by George Orwell

It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy

The Wolves of Mercy Falls Series by Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

The Dark-Hunter novels by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss

The Throne of Glass Series by Sarah J. Maas

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Ulysses by James Joyce

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Middlemarch by George Elliot

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carrol

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Possession by A.S. Byatt

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

The Collected Short Stories of Isaac Asimov

I’d love to read more stuff by more diverse authors and make sure I’m caught up on the modern fantasy scene. If you have anything to add or subtract to my list, feel free to let me know!

[slavinggrace-blog]

The List! Edited as read.

List Number, Title, Author 1 The Master and Magarita Mikhail Bulgakov 2 Tales of the City Armistead Maupin 3 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 4 The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared Jonas Jonasson 5 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 6 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 7 With The Night Mail Rudyard Kipling 8 The Princess Bride William Goldman 9 Sharpe's Tiger Bernard Cornwall 10 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 11 Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes 12 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 13 I capture the castle Dodie Smith 14 Dune Frank Herbert 15 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez 16 The Diary of a Nobody George and Weedon Grossmith 17 Brighton Rock Graham Greene 18 Moby Dick Herman Melville 19 Beyond Black Hilary Mantel 20 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 21 Atonement Ian McEwan 22 The Sea The Sea Iris Murdoch 23 The Stars Like Dust Isaac Asimov 24 Emma Jane Austen 25 Nausea Jean-Paul Sartre 26 Stand on Zanzibar John Brunner 27 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 28 Paradise Lost John Milton 29 The Crysalids John Wyndham 30 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 31 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 32 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 33 Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut 34 Slaughterhouse 5 Kurt Vonnegut 35 The Dice Man Luke Rhinehart 36 Under the volcano Malcolm Lowry 37 Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 38 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 39 Titus Alone Mervyn Peake 40 Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 41 The Code of the Woosters P.G. Wodehouse 42 The Pigeon Patrick Süskind 43 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 44 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressel 45 Tipping the Velvet Sarah Waters 46 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 47 The Bachman Books Stephen King 48 Child '44 Tom Rob Smith 49 In cold blood Truman Capote 50 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins 51 Neuromancer William Gibson 52 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 53 Of Human Bondage William Somerset Maugham 54 Life of Pi Yann Martel 55 Uncle Varnye A. P. Chekhov 56 The Colour Purple Alice Walker 57 Sons and Lovers D.H Lawrence 58 The Outsiders S E Hinton 59 Once Were Warriors Alan Duff 60 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Alexander Solzhenitsyn 61 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold 62 Delta of Venus Anais Nin 63 The God Of Small Things Arundhati Roy 64 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger 65 Dracula Bram Stoker 66 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 67 Absolute Beginners Colin MacInnes 68 Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier 69 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 70 The Secret History Donna Tartt 71 House of Mirth Edith Wharton 72 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 73 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Mister God this is Anna Fynn 75 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoyevsky 76 Silas Marner George Eliot 77 Madame Bovery Gustave Flaubert 78 On the Road Jack Kerouac 79 A Prayer for Owen Meaney John Irving 80 East of Eden John Steinbeck 81 Around the world in 80 days Jules Verne 82 Wild Swans Jung Chang 83 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 84 Anne of Green Gables Lucy Maud Montgomery 85 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 86 The Sparrow Mary Doria Russell 87 The Crimson Petal and the White Michael Faber 88 Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes 89 The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Albom 90 Mary Poppins P. L. Travers 91 Everyman Phillip Roth 92 Kidnapped Robert Louis Stephenson 93 A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki 94 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 95 A Kind of Loving Stan Barstow 96 Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy 97 Beloved Toni Morrison 98 Girl with The Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier 99 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 100 Snowcrash Neal Stephenson SUB 1 A Knot in Your Stomach Yvonne Postma SUB 2 David Copperfield Charles Dickens SUB 3 Age of Innocence Edith Wharton SUB 4 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque SUB 5 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa SUB 6 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells SUB 7 Pilgrims Progress John Bunyan SUB 8 Labyrinth Kate Mosse SUB 9 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro SUB 10 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy SUB 11 Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernieres SUB 12 Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson SUB 13 A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute SUB 14 Watership Down Richard Adams SUB 15 The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Simon Mawer SUB 16 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov SUB 17 The Cherry Orchard A. P. Chekhov SUB 18 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky SUB 19 Love in the time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez SUB 20 Middlemarch George Eliot SUB 21 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel SUB 22 Persuasion Jane Austen SUB 23 The Cider House Rules John Irving SUB 24 Alias Grace Margaret Attwood SUB 25 Puck of Pook's Hill Rudyard Kipling

[rhetoricandlogic]

Paul Di Filippo reviews

The Book of Hidden Things

by Francesco Dimitri

July 13, 2018

Paul Di Filippo

Authors who write splendid books in languages other than their native tongue must all be rounded up and stopped, so they don’t make us struggling monolinguists look bad. Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov–well, they’re already canonized. But we still face Salman Rushdie, Hannu Rajaniemi, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, and Lavie Tidhar, among others. Their excellent prose in their secondary languages stands as a rebuke to us limited slackers.

Of course, such a program of imaginary suppression would not really lessen our shame, and so we must reluctantly abandon it. These polylinguists are just too awesomely unstoppable. And they arise in our midst at a steady, albeit not multitudinous rate. The latest is the Italian author Francesco Dimitri. The language in his new novel is eminently colloquial (almost entirely; I don’t think a native speaker would ever call a professional photographer a “snapper”); keenly revelatory of the narrators’ personalities; and contributory to the swift galloping suspense of the book. And the text is also funny, brutal, evocative and tragic by turns. I defy any writer to demand more of his prose.

The novel’s premise and plot and pacing are likewise superior, and the whole experience of reading The Book of Hidden Things is an affable and memorable one. It has elements of Ramsey Campbell and Stephen King, Lev Grossman and Haruki Murakami, blended into a unique gestalt.

The book’s time and place is our contemporary era and the country of Italy, district of Puglia. To be specific, an amiable nowheresville town of some thirty-five thousand inhabitants named Casalfranco, a minor resort without much to amuse its citizens. At this juncture, I must pause to commend Dimitri’s portrait of the land, its inhabitants and its institutions. The hot winds, the light, the fauna and flora, the landscape–all are sensually tangible. The effect is like being on vacation in Italy, like watching a fine Italian neorealist film–but without the portentousness of some, rather a lightly comedic outing, yet one with inescapable overtones of, well, more dire hidden things.

The sun is setting, but it is still high enough to trace the contours of the olive trees with razor-sharp clarity. This sort of light simply doesn’t exist in England; even on the brightest days, the English landscape has a mellowness, a misty blurring on the edges which makes features merge into one another. Here, boundaries arc defined, and each object is very much itself. That tree is only that tree; it has nothing to do with the earth it grows upon or the rocks surrounding it. This light has no patience for ambiguity.

This description occurs in the voice of one of our four protagonists, Fabio. He and two others–Mauro and Tony–alternate sections of the tale. What of the fourth man? That would be Art, who does not get to narrate because he has gone missing. (His nature emerges in rich backstory anecdotes, however.)

The four pals made a vow upon their secondary-school graduation, when they were all ready to leave Casalfranco for wider pastures of adulthood, that they would return once a year to renew their friendship. That was seventeen years ago. But at this newest anniversary, something is very wrong. Art–who came back to Casalfranco some time ago to settle in his ancestral home–has disappeared without explanation. This would be alarming enough without one earlier parallel: as a teen, Art disappeared for seven days, and resurfaced with an explanation that satisfied no one, and obviously concealed some enigmatic truth. Is his current absence related to that first disruption?

The three buddies set out to find their lost pal, their “mate,” in the UK parlance, because, as Tony opines, “Family and mates, they’re all that matters. Whatever they become, they’re all that matters.” This theme–the sanctity and bonds of blood and companionship–resonates throughout.

In a kind of mystery-cum-conspiracy-novel vibe, what they gradually discover about Art is that, while he was always a bit of an eccentric, a wild man, he has gone seemingly off the deep end. He is involved with dealing marijuana, with strange sexual and practices and possible vivisections. The occult too. Into the mix comes the local Mafia, an organization dubbed the Corona, whose scary, violent boss, Michele, is likewise looking for Art. Also in the unstable cauldron, along with a host of lesser characters, all very colorfully limned, are: Tony’s sister, Elena, and her husband Rocco, who are now part of the Corona; Fabio’s ailing father; Art’s several ex-lovers and customers; and Mauro’s family, wife Anna and two daughters, who have accompanied him to Casalfranco for a vacation. The fact that Fabio has long been in love with Anna does not exactly facilitate their investigations.

Over the course of just a few days, the buddies will experience awe and boredom, shock and confirmation, fear and grace. And where they discover Art’s manuscript, “The Book of Hidden Things,” revealing the truth of his teenage disappearance and much else, the action will shift into high gear. Ultimately, the tale will reveal itself to have an existential side, causing all the characters to reassess their lives: “Dying is a progressive shrinking that brings you from vastness to nothingness.”

My earlier references to a group of precedent-setting authors should be supportable now that you know this much about the book. The setup of the childhood pals unraveling a mystery is an homage to King’s Stand by Me (and that song is explicitly quoted by Dimitri). The uncanny incident from childhood that contours the adult life is a riff in Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. The town that is mundane on the surface but laden with geographically and topographically linked magic is something out of Ramsey Campbell’s playbook. And the depiction of Art as a magician weighing the price of his soul against a possibly spurious paradise strikes me as a Lev Grossman motif. Lastly, I might allude to a modicum of Whitley Strieber-style paranormal influence.

But as I also said, Dimitri’s voice and his treatment of these components is uniquely his own. A certain pop culture sensibility and Mediterranean brio, as well as a groundedness in Italian cultural traditions, infuse this tale in a manner not often found in works by Anglo writers. Also, Dimitri keeps us guessing about the true nature of events more than these other writers. Truly supernatural or not? You’ll know for sure only on the final page, which offers a great kick.

Dimitri has a fine reputation and CV in his native land for at least four novels and other works. This book should see him firmly established in the English-speaking world as well.

[popgirlnyc]

Here is my traditional Banned Books Week post. Classics on the list include books Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, The Bluest Eye, Animal Farm, The Lord of the Rings. Here's one of many lists: 1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald 2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger 3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck 4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee 5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker 6. Ulysses, by James Joyce 7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison 8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding 9. 1984, by George Orwell 11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov 12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck 15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller 16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley 17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell 18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway 19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner 20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway 23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston 24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison 25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison 26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell 27. Native Son, by Richard Wright 28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey 29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut 30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway 33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London 36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin 38. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren 40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien 45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair 48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence 49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess 50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin 53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote 55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie 57. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron 64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence 66. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut 67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles 73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs 74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh 75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence 80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer 84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Millerke 88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser #bannedbooksweek https://www.instagram.com/p/Ci5PEZNuxr5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[badbookopinions]

Quichotte - Salman Rushdie

A: a fantastic book with a messy, confusing ending.

Quichotte splits its story two ways - between the delusional pharma rep Ismail Smile and his imaginary son, on a quest for a movie star he’s never met to love him, and his author Sam DuChamp as he reconnects with his estranged sister. It’s about Trump’s America and family and stories and the end of worlds. And perscription opioids.

I loved this book - like, chills as I read, told my mom about it - until the last fifty pages or so. It’s a very ~literary fiction~ ending, in that it’s unhappy and a little strange. I love a good tragedy, but this isn’t a tragedy, just an ending where the characters are disappointed and the end it doesn’t sit quite right.

Still, before that it was stunning. Quichotte and Sam’s stories are fantastic. They mirror each other, both unreliable narrators slipping into delusions paranoid and fantastical. Elements will appear in Quichotte’s story we will later find out were taken from Sam’s own life, setting up this stunning mirror image.

Also, as a Desi person I really appreciated this all-Desi cast, seeing how they reacted to being brown in Trump’s America. There’s this one scene about halfway through that’s everything I’ve ever been afraid would happen to me or my family distilled into three harrowing pages. Both incredibly disturbing and validating to read.

I also loved the way most of this story isn’t about romance - it’s about fathers and sons, and brothers and sisters, and the mistakes our parents make. The relationships are not at all the sort of things books tend to focus on, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Plot: loved the buildup, but I thought Quichotte’s story fell apart at around the 75% mark, and Sam’s story was neglected towards the end in favour of Quichotte’s confusing miserable ending.

Characters: I have such affection for Sancho (a little bastard of a fifteen-year-old. Also, imaginary and angry about it). Quichotte is a great main character - he’s clearly not well, but he’s so charismatic that sometimes you almost find yourself rooting for him. At the two-thirds mark when the end of the quest is within sight you remember that ‘hold on, this man isn’t just going on an adventure with his son, he’s a stalker’ and then you get very afraid he’s going to betray the confidence you’ve built in him - the suspense is wonderful.

Setting: a claustrophobic clusterfuck rendition of Trump’s America, full of fear and mistrust and media saturation. We’re so busy feeling that end-of-the-world feeling that we feel everyday, it surprises us when the world actually starts ending.

Prose: God, I’m jealous of Rushdie’s prose. Thanks to Quichotte’s speaking style, he leans into the maximalism and allusions here, and it’s so much fun to read. Like, look at this:

     “It was the Age of Anything-Can-Happen, he reminded himself. He had heard many people say that on TV and on the outré video clips floating in cyberspace, which added a further, new-technology depth to his addiction. There were no rules any more. And in the Age of Anything-Can-Happen, well, anything could happen. Old friends could become new enemies and traditional enemies could be your new besties or even lovers. It was no longer possible to predict the weather, or the likelihood of war, or the outcome of elections. A woman might fall in love with a piglet, or a man start living with an owl. A beauty might fall asleep and, when kissed, wake up speaking a different language and in that new language reveal a completely altered character. A flood might drown your city. A tornado might carry your house to a faraway land where, upon landing, it would squash a witch. Criminals could become kings and kings be unmasked as criminals. A man might discover that the woman he lived with was his father’s illegitimate child. A whole nation might jump off a cliff like swarming lemmings. Men who played presidents on TV could become presidents. The water might run out. A woman might bear a baby who was found to be a revenant god. Words could lose their meanings and acquire new ones. The world might end, as at least one prominent scientist- entrepreneur had begun repeatedly to predict. An evil scent would hang over the ending. And a TV star might miraculously return the love of a foolish old coot, giving him an unlikely romantic triumph which would redeem a long, small life, bestowing upon it, at the last, the radiance of majesty.”   

Diversity report: an all-Indian cast.

[dailykhaleej]

Dr. Mahdi bin Ali Al-Qarni, new head of the University of Bisha

How Saudi Arabia’s King Fahad Nationwide Library is preserving Islamic historical past for posterity

RIYADH: The massive fact about historical past is that it inevitably fades into the previous, however historical past can be captured and preserved for posterity.

In reality, it may be housed and lovingly nourished and tended to resist the onslaught of time.

Saudi Arabia’s King Fahad Nationwide Library has been enterprise this endeavor for the previous three a long time, enjoying a seminal function in the preservation of Islamic heritage and making certain that current and future generations proceed to learn from Islam’s contributions to civilization.

Established in 1990 in Riyadh, the library is residence to greater than 6,000 authentic manuscripts — many of them uncommon and historic, together with the beautiful Kufic Qur’an, courting to the ninth century CE — and a complete of 73,000 paper and digital transcripts.

King Fahad Nationwide Library has been enjoying a key function in making certain that current and future generations proceed to learn from Islam’s contributions to civilization. (Provided)

“The King Fahad National Library has been interested in preserving manuscripts and heritage since its establishment in 1989, to a point where a royal decree has been issued to the library for the preservation of manuscripts,” Abdulaziz Nasif, the head of the manuscript division, instructed Arab Information.

“The library estimates the manuscript’s value and sets its price when we receive it. Regarding the possession of manuscripts, we welcome everything that is presented to us and everything that is worth owning.”

The Kufic Qur’an at the library, distinguished by its Kufic calligraphy, has one of the oldest scripts in Arabic, a extremely angular type of the Arabic alphabet utilized in the earliest copies of the Qur’an. 

FASTFACT

King Fahad Nationwide Library has 6,000 authentic manuscripts and almost 73,000 photocopied transcripts, with 7,000 of them digitized for on-line readers.

It originated in Kufa, a metropolis in southern Iraq, an mental hub throughout the early Islamic interval, now often known as Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.

“It’s not written on paper but on deer skin,” Nasif stated. “Having holy verses written on leather is a form of honoring the text. But the cover is new.”

The Kufic Qur’an was purchased from the southern half of the Arabian Peninsula virtually 20 years in the past and just lately rebound to extend its longevity.

The library has different Qur’an manuscripts written in historic script, moreover particular books resembling the poetic works of Al-Ahnaf Al-Akbari, a well-known poet in Baghdad who died in 995 CE.

King Fahad Nationwide Library has been enjoying a key function in making certain that current and future generations proceed to learn from Islam’s contributions to civilization. (Provided)

It additionally has a replica of Ibn Daqiq Al-Eid’s guide “Ahkam Al-Ahkam,” written in the late-14th century. Al-Eid is counted amongst Islam’s nice students in the fundamentals of Islamic regulation and perception.

As well as, the library additionally owns “Yatimat Al-Dahr,” a guide by Abu Mansur Al-Thaalibi, a author of Persian or Arab origin well-known for his anthologies and assortment of epigrams.

As soon as the library acquires a manuscript, a rigorous and exacting strategy to its conservation and upkeep is adopted.

“Each manuscript is first sent to the restoration and sanitization department and then returned to our department to be indexed,” Nasif stated.

Nonetheless, not each manuscript is distributed for restoration “because, sometimes, it can ruin (it),” he stated.

The restoration is adopted by the indexing course of, which is an intensive train.

Nasif defined: “To fill the index card, we use information that is listed on the first page, starting with the title, the author’s name, the manuscript’s sizes (height and length), the transcriber’s name (the person who wrote it), and what is written at the end of the manuscript, so that we are able recognize one manuscript from the other having the same specifications.”

Given the age and pricelessness of the manuscripts, their preservation methodology — which is at the core of library’s mission — is equally essential.

“Manuscripts should be kept in cold temperatures, to prevent insects and bacteria from surviving, because they can damage the paper and even the animal skin that was used in some manuscripts,” Nasif stated.

The manuscripts are sterilized yearly or each six months to forestall their deterioration.

King Fahad Nationwide Library has been enjoying a key function in making certain that current and future generations proceed to learn from Islam’s contributions to civilization. (Provided)

The age of digitization locations its personal calls for on repositories of data resembling libraries with their bodily wealth of historical past, and the King Fahad Nationwide Library is protecting tempo with these calls for.

It’s working to finish the digitization of all its manuscripts. “Most of the transcriptions are still on microfilm but we are working on digitizing them on CDs and hard disks,” Nasif stated.

The library additionally allows researchers, historical past lovers and common readers to entry its treasured assortment although a variety of digital providers.

Customers can log in and flick through the huge assortment and place their necessities. Researchers can request a selected manuscript, a uncommon guide or {a photograph} to help of their work.

King Fahad Nationwide Library has been enjoying a key function in making certain that current and future generations proceed to learn from Islam’s contributions to civilization. (Provided)

The service is obtainable to all members of the group from inside and out of doors the Kingdom.

King Fahad Nationwide Library has additionally obtained microfilm pictures of one of the most vital Arabic manuscript collections in US libraries, the Princeton University Library.

It additionally possesses 1,140 photocopied manuscripts on movie slides from the Library of the Jewish University.

Final however not least, the manuscripts of the Riyadh Library “Dar Al-Iftaa” — a complete of 792 paperwork — have been transferred to the King Fahad Nationwide Library on the orders of King Salman when he was the governor of Riyadh and common supervisor of the library.

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[liveindiatimes]

World Book and Copyright Day 2020: History, significance, theme and quotes by famous authors - books

https://www.liveindiatimes.com/world-book-and-copyright-day-2020-history-significance-theme-and-quotes-by-famous-authors-books/

World Book Day, celebrated by UNESCO and other related organisations, is the global celebration of books and reading material observed in more than 100 countries. Also known as World Book and Copyright Day, it is an occasion to promote the joy of books and the art of reading. April 23 was selected by UNESCO to pay homage to renowned literary figures including William Shakespeare, Miguel Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. During the UNESCO General Conference, Paris in 1995, this date was finalised to honour authors and books worldwide.

World Book Day 2020 Theme

Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO sums up the theme of 2019 through these words; “Books have the unique ability both to entertain and to teach. They are at once a means of exploring realms beyond our personal experience through exposure to different authors, universes and cultures, and a means of accessing the deepest recesses of our inner selves.”

History

The idea to observe World Book Day was first conceived by Valencian writer Vicente Clavel Andres as a means to honour the renowned author, Miguel de Cervantes (best-known for Don Quixote), first on his birth anniversary, October 7, followed by his death anniversary, April 23. UNESCO then decided that World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on April 23 annually, since this date is also the death anniversary of prominent authors such as William Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.

However, there is a plot twist in this historical fact. As per historical coincidence, both Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same date April 23, 1616, but not on the same day. Back then, Spain followed the Gregorian calendar, while England followed the Julian calendar. As per the Gregorian calendar, Shakespeare died ten days later after Cervantes did, i.e. on May 3.

Significance

World Book and Copyright Day is celebrated worldwide to recognise the scope of books as a link between the past and the future, along with being a cultural and generational bridge. UNESCO and organisations representing publishers, booksellers and libraries select the World Book Capital for a year to maintain the celebrations of books and reading. For the year 2019, Sharjah, UAE had been declared as the World Book Capital. Kuala Lumpur has been officially recognised as this year’s UNESCO’s World Book Capital (KLWBC 2020), with an online launch celebration on April 23.

The day has become a platform for people across the globe, especially the stakeholders of the literary world including authors, publishers, teachers, librarians, public and private institutions, humanitarian NGOs and the mass media to come together to promote literacy and help everyone get access to educational resources.

Here are some quotes on books by famous authors throughout history which all book-lovers in the present day can enjoy and share with their friends and social media communities:

“I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

– Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”

– Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

– Neil Gaiman in Coraline

“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”

– Jhumpa Lahiri in The Namesake

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

– Haruki Murakami in Norwegian Wood

  “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”

– Stephen King in On Writing

“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.”

– Salman Rushdie

“I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a book.”

– J.K. Rowling

  “Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.”

– Ursula K. Le Guin

“I love books. I adore everything about them. I love the feel of the pages on my fingertips. They are light enough to carry, yet so heavy with worlds and ideas. I love the sound of the pages flicking against my fingers. Print against fingerprints. Books make people quiet, yet they are so loud.”

– Nnedi Okorafor in The Book of Phoenix

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

– C.S. Lewis

“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”

– Benjamin Alire Sáenz in Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack”

– Virginia Woolf in Street Haunting

“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”

– Toni Morrison

  “Happiness. That’s what books smells like. Happiness. That’s why I always wanted to have a book shop. What better life than to trade in happiness?”

– Sarah MacLean in The Rogue Not Taken

“…the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again. That is their mystery and their magic.”

– Arundhati Roy in The God of Small Things

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”

― Oscar Wilde

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”

― Ernest Hemingway

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”

― William Styron

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,

Go throw your TV set away,

And in its place you can install

A lovely bookshelf on the wall.

Then fill the shelves with lots of books.”

― Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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https://loveinquotes.com/it-was-the-age-of-anything-can-happen-he-reminded-himself-he-had-heard-many-people-say-that-on-tv-and-on-the-outre-video-clips-floating-in-cyberspace-which-added-a-further-new-technology-depth-to/

It was the Age of Anything-Can-Happen, he reminded himself. He had heard many people say that on TV and on the outré video clips floating in cyberspace, which added a further, new-technology depth to his addiction. There were no rules any more. And in the Age of Anything-Can-Happen, well, anything could happen. Old friends could become new enemies and traditional enemies could be your new besties or even lovers. It was no longer possible to predict the weather, or the likelihood of war, or the outcome of elections. A woman might fall in love with a piglet, or a man start living with an owl. A beauty might fall asleep and, when kissed, wake up speaking a different language and in that new language reveal a completely altered character. A flood might drown your city. A tornado might carry your house to a faraway land where, upon landing, it would squash a witch. Criminals could become kings and kings be unmasked as criminals. A man might discover that the woman he lived with was his father’s illegitimate child. A whole nation might jump off a cliff like swarming lemmings. Men who played presidents on TV could become presidents. The water might run out. A woman might bear a baby who was found to be a revenant god. Words could lose their meanings and acquire new ones. The world might end, as at least one prominent scientist- entrepreneur had begun repeatedly to predict. An evil scent would hang over the ending. And a TV star might miraculously return the love of a foolish old coot, giving him an unlikely romantic triumph which would redeem a long, small life, bestowing upon it, at the last, the radiance of majesty. ― Salman Rushdie, Quichotte

[tumbirus]

San Francisco: Dears A Muslim civil right advocacy group is demanding changes at Air Canada After a 12_year old U.S Squash player says she was forced to remove her hijab while boarding at San Francisco international Airport.The Council on America _Islamic Relations said in a letter that federal and state laws were viloted when an Air Canada agent demanded that FATHIMA Abdelrahman remove her religious head covering. ( Thanks for report us unit). Dears any girl and women's dream is many ,75 % respect full ones dream seeing to in this world,balance 25%is today's filim stars,beusines girls,fation ,cosmetic,and models,, many ones more dreams any way world wide abuse making to life. So head covering is faith inside one man jelus mind only ,Kadeeja fair,other ones not seeing idea making to Mohammed name human,this one is Islam father father Mohammed nabi,so this one making Islam / Muslim com inside today be this man jelus any family inside also .so feamils education,knowledge, fundamental right,human birth freedom not accepted to this Islam mans,proof is Saudi king Dom,kingdom jelus is today Iran and Saudi Arabia matter,my real imagination, crown prince Mohammed bin SALMAN is world jelus man also,not capable to king name in this criminal in this world. So"FATHIMA Abdul rahman" life appreciated to me,god blessings blessing to me,any time any help your life inside your big brother making in this world,call to me . same to world wide Islam sisters,dears,lovers and youngers call to me,all Islam faith inside madness avoid to you all,your fair other man seeing after not any lose to you all,human identify is face,so our identity parking system is not accepted to human name me,any were our identity is our picture,so how our face parking to Islam or Muslim girls in this world.many Islam community mans ideas jelus only. So our account full Islam/ Muslim sisters and dears collect to our group.so more gulf and Islam country femail dears are welcomed to me,yours making to family respect,Islam faith respect,coming generation children's knowledge .De (at मुंबई Mumbai) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2tDX-vgWUj/?igshid=18iewnn6rbl6