Shoulderblades' Pain

I've been working hard at the office and home, too.

I am currently translating chapters for a wine/tourism guide on my free time, even though it's been scarce, lately.

Now, friday at 10.14 p.m., my feet ache and my eyes and my shoulderblades also hurt. Funny place to have pain.

And, right now, out of nowhere, I just thought of an interesting and very true quote from a book I read: "the comfort of ignorance". It's from Alan Hollinghurst's The Swimming Pool Library. (yes, my book cover is exactly like that one, but with the Portuguese title).

And now, also out of the blue, I feel like writting a John Keat's dirty poem. Maybe later.

Cover Art

I only have 2 minutes before diner, so this post will be brief.

I just wanted to share with you the amazing cover art from a book I recently read. It called “A Leitora Real” (The Uncommon Reader), by Alan Bennett. I know the pictures are crappy, but I just wanted to show you the detailed engravings on the cover.

The cover has this beautiful engravings, that look like something you would find on an old book.

(front cover)

(front cover - larger)

(back cover)

He also wrote the play which inspired the movie The History Boys (play by the same name).

Chocolate for the soul

I found a new blog about books. It's called Chocolate para a alma [chocolate for the soul], and they have a fabulous tagline: "reading doesn't fatten". It's a very literal translation, I know, but I don't feel inspired to bo better.

I'll be following them closely, for sure

Invisible quotes

“Não, estou a falar dos corpos dos outros homens. Não sinto o menor desejo de tocar neles, não sinto o menor desejo de ver os outros homens nus. Para dizer a verdade, muitas vezes pergunto-me por que raio é que as mulheres se sentirão atraídas pelos homens. Se eu fosse mulher, o mais certo era ser lésbica.”

“Pergunta-se se as palavras não serão um elemento essencial do sexo, se falar não será afinal uma forma mais subtil de tocar, se as imagens que rodopiam nas nossas cabeças não serão tão importantes como os corpos que abraçamos.”

Invisível, Paul Auster, tradução de José Vieira de Lima

(Great) Free eBook!

This one promises: "100 New Yorkers of the 1970s", by Max Millard - free profiles of Isaac Asimov, George Plimpton, Tom Wolfe, among others.

A definite must-read!

I’ve started reading some of the profiles and they are truly amazing.

The book includes such profiles as

ISAAC ASIMOV - Author of 188 books

GEORGE BALANCHINE - Artistic director of the New York City Ballet

JULES FEIFFER - Screenwriter for “Popeye the Sailor”

GEORGE LANG - Owner of the Cafe des Artistes

Amazing people. Amazing stories. Amazing writing. Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

Go here for more informations, and here or here for the book itself.


p.s. - I hope it is as good as "Journalistas - 100 Years of the Best Writing and Reporting by Women Journalists" (this one not for free, though)

Extra weight

After finishing a 700 page book (Stieg Larsson's 'Milennium' trilogy), I turned to a 150-Agatha Christie murder mystery (Elephants Can Remember).

I miss the extra weight.

Leibovitz Love

One of the first photographers whose work I started admiring was Annie Leibovitz’s. Then Richard Avedon, Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others.

When I discovered that there was going to come out a book with Annie Liebovitz work – A Photographer's Life 1990-2005 – I was super excited about it. The book was receiving great reviews, everyone loved it, everyone was eagerly waiting for the book… and then I find out the price. 76 €. OH MY GOD!! My heart almost stopped. I mean, the book is huge and amazingly beautiful, but, seriously … 76 €? No thanks.

(A Photographer's Life 1990-2005)

So, yesterday, I went to FNAC, one of the favourite bookstores (they aren’t exactly a bookstore; it’s more a commercial establishment that sells books, CD, DVD, computers and related stuff) and discovered a book called “Annie Liebovitz At Work”. It was a true finding! The books comes with hundreds of Leibovitz’s photos, with texts written by her explaining the photo, the context, something funny about it. It is a very complete book and it only cost me 25 € (minus a discount that I had, I ended up paying 18 € for that masterpiece)

(Annie Leibovitz's At Work) (the masterpiece)

So, if you love her work and couldn’t afford “A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005”, my advice is: LEAVE YOUR HOUSE RIGHT NOW AND GO AND BUY “AT WORK”.

NOW.

Beauty Quotes

Quando já não se faz parte do universo sexual - quando se é suposto ser demasiado velho, ou gordo, ou se deixou simplesmente de ser alvo desse tipo de pensamentos - aparentemente, surge toda uma nova onda de reacções masculinas. Uma delas é o humor.

É do género, uma família já não funciona quando todos os que fazem parte dela estão mais infelizes do que estariam se estivesse sozinhos.

O tempo não é o que é, mas sim o que se sente [...].

Eu não pergunto a mim própria para que é que vivi [...]. Isso é uma pergunta de homem. Pergunto para quem é que vivi.

Não foi a primeira vez que numa reunião de Faculdade, Howard desejou estar tão sensorialmente deficiente como a própria [Helen] Keller.

Uma Questão de Beleza, Zadie Smith

Furnishing books

Books not only furnish a room, to paraphrase the title of an Anthony Powell novel, but also accessorize our outfits. They help brand our identities.

"What’s a Culture Snob to Do?", by James Wolcott, Vanity Fair Magazine on-line, August 2009.

Complete text here. Worth reading.

How books got their titles

Do you wanna know how books get their titles? Click here.

Really funny and interesting.

Book wizard

I like to read. A lot. I always liked to read. I remember being very young and my father reading to me and my sister the Enyd Blyton books – The Five, The Twins, etc. Them I started reading on my own. I read again the entire The Five collection and many other Portuguese collections. To be honest, I think I devoured books.

I later managed to choose the books I wanted to read my myself and have been ever since.

However, there are times when I don’t know what to read next (ring a bell, father?). I read a really good book and them I think “What shall I read next? I really liked this book and I want to next book I read to be as good as this one.”

I am glad to inform you that help is coming. (To be honest, it’s already here, but the sentence “help is coming” is way better than “help is here”.)

Just go here and write the name of the book you’ve just read, and the author and then you’ll get suggestions from 2 bookstores – Amazon and LibraryThing – whether from the same author or with a similar thematic or genre. Very helpful and fun. I think it only works for English titles, but write the English title of the book you’re reading and BAM! You’ll get a suggestion.

Work, translations, Zadie Smith

I am reading Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and I am loving it - the Portuguese translation.

Because I’ve been working during the week and weekends as well, I haven’t had time to go around and snap photos of strangers. I’ll try and get around to it this weekend.

Now I have to get back to work.

Reading Habits

A must read right here. I’m sorry but it is in Portuguese.

Even though I 'm a translator this is a very VERY translation of the abovementioned article:

I like to read what Isabel Coutinho writes because she is an enthusiast of the new literary technologies without loosing her passion for the old ones. A wise attitude. The physical mediums don’t get lost nor replaced: they multiply. When the technology is updated, the traditional ways of bookmaking are even more valued. The only danger is that we’ll end up with nothing to read – and that danger doesn’t exist.

In yesterday’s juicy newspaper article in P2 newspaper supplement, Coutinho writes that 12 % of American book buyers read an eBook over the last month and 6 % read one eBook on a cell phone. Coutinho qualifies this percentage as “only”, when she should have used “already”.

I already have an eBook reader, BeBook, for almost one year now. After the second day, I couldn’t go without it. It’s very light but can store up to 4 GB in books, magazines and texts – enough for more than 40 thousands hours of furious reading capacity. All we have to do is charge its battery every five days. It never overheats nor blinks.

It’s easy to read under the brightest of sunlight due to its black screen on gray background, without tiring the eyes. All of this cannot be achieved with laptops and cell phones. BeBook can only be used for this, reading.

It’s similar to reading photocopies in black and white in half an A4 sheet. It blurs out the pictures, but we can replace and increase the font size. It doesn’t have beauty, cuteness nor ink smell. But reads very well. When we get absorbed by what we’re reading, we forget what we are holding. Isn’t that is the idea of reading?

Billie's cursing

Years in night-club dressing rooms, in cabarets and juke joints had taught me every combination of profanity, or so I thought. Billie Holiday’s language was a mixture of mockery and vulgarity that caught me without warning. Although she used the old common words, they were in new arrangements, and spoken in that casual tone which seemed to drag itself, rasping, across the ears.

The Heart of a Woman, Maya Angelou

Freedom Dance

My people had used music to soothe slavery’s torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom.

The Heart of a Woman, Maya Angelou

Still Readin' in the Sun

(© Sara Rodrigues Pereira)

Another one here.

Readin' in the Sun

I don't know why but I love this picture. It was taken on Tuesday, and Lisbon was boiling. It was very hot and this guy was just sitting by the shop window reading and enjoying the sun. I envied him as I am sure many passerbys did.

(© Sara Rodrigues Pereira - Março 2009)

O Padrinho, Mario Puzo

Ele já estava ali há bastante tempo para saber que o Dr. Taza era talvez o pior médico da Sicília. O Dr. Taza lia tudo, menos literatura médica, que ele admitia não conseguir entender.

As mães são como os polícias. Acreditam sempre no pior.

Londres segundo Virginia

Tomemos, por exemplo, a casa dos [Thomas e Jane] Carlyle. Uma uma hora passada no n.º 5 de Cheyne Row dir-nos-á mais acerca deles e das suas vidas do que a leitura de todas as suas biografias.

Uma pessoa sai da igreja maravilhada com os desafogados dias em que cidadãos desconhecidos podiam ocupar tanto espaço com os seus ossos e requerer, confiantes, tamanha atenção para as suas virtudes, enquanto nós – veja-se como nos acotovelamos, como nos fintamos, como evitamos o contacto nas ruas da cidade.

O mero processo de nos mantermos vivos exige de nós a máxima energia.

Londres, Virginia Woolf, Tradução de José Miguel Silva

Peido-chichi

[Avô conta história a neta] A minha mãe tinha de facto um peito volumoso, vinte vezes maior do que o de Sonia. Numa manhã de sábado, ela e Miriam estavam sentadas no sofá a ver desenhos animados. No intervalo, passou um anúncio a uma marca de pizzas que terminava com as seguintes palavras: Sim, senhor, isto é que é uma pizza! Passado um instante, a tua mãe virou-se para a minha, abocanhou – é o termo – o seio direito da avó, e depois desatou a gritar: Sim, senhor, isto é que é uma pizza! A minha mãe desatou a rir-se com tal gosto que, a certa altura, de descuidou e deu um peido, um peido gigantesco, tão estrondoso como a mais estrondosa das trompetes. Resultado: Miriam teve um tal ataque de riso que acabou por fazer chichi nas calças. Saltou do sofá e desatou a correr pela sala, enquanto gritava a plenos pulmões: Peido-chichi, peido-chichi, oui, oui, oui!

Homem na Escuridão, Paul Auster, Tradução de José Vieira de Lima