Doris Kienitz and her father, Alfred, are coming to The Neat L'l Bookshop

THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1:00 p.m.

Many of you know the author of East Germany the ESCAPE, Kitchen Table Memoirs*, and her father, from their appearances throughout Ontario presenting a true-life act of the family's harrowing escape from East Germany.




[Photo:  Authors' Book Fair,  Lighthouse Festival Theatre, Port Dover. April 2013. lbw]

*Friesen Press

On Another's Sorrow
~ William Blake

Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!




From:  Songs of Innocence, William Blake (1757 - 1827) English poet.

Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

 ~ W. B. Yeats (1865 - 1939)  The Lake Isle of Innisfree, 1888.

[Photo:  W.B.Y. 1920.  Wikipedia]

On Books ~

"Books were what you did when it was raining; they were the entertainment, they were the escape, they were the extended family, and I read them all, even when they weren't supposed to be for children."

~ Margaret Atwood, referring to books in summer cottages, 'Why I Write,' The Toronto Star, 5 June 1993.

"A home or a people without good books is something more than waste; in short, an empty brain is the devil's workshop."

~ John Britnell, bookseller and son of the founder of Albert Britnell Book Store, Toronto..

"A good book is the best of friends, the same today & forever."

~ Martin Farquhar Tupper, English writer, poet.

Marconi's Anticipations

BIG thank you to Scott for the hours of expert service on my PC.  Everyone out there will understand when I explain that everything was wiped clean, saved in two places and now I am working in the next century ~ everything is updated.  Days later, I am trying to find files.  Prompts are still worrisome - the latest:  "Unable to resolve the server DNS address..."  Nope!  Don't know what a DNS server is.  All I know is that pictures are not available for blogging.

Most troublesome ~ my e-mail neatlittlebookshop@gmail.com  is not accessible.  THAT, I am advised is in use and I am advised to choose another address.

Not unlike the following:

"Shortly before mid-day I placed the single earphone to my ear and started listening. . . The answer came at 12:30 when I heard, faintly but distinctly, pip-pip-pip.  I handed the phone to Kemp:  'Can you hear anything?' I asked.  'Yes,' he said, 'the letter S' ~ he could hear it.  I knew then that all my anticipations had been justified."

"...Pip-pip-pip...!"    "S..."

~ Guglielmo Marconi, Italian-born inventor of wireless telegraphy, describing the reception of a signal in Morse Code.
Source:  FAMOUS LASTING WORDS, John Robert Colombo.Douglas & McIntyre Ltd. 2000.

Smile for Today ~ The Boneless Wonder

"I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit...which I most desired to see was the one described as 'The Boneless Wonder'...My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralising for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench."

~  Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

Local author, Brad Smith, released the third title in his Virgil Cain series ~ Shoot the Dog. While Cain's team of percherons are hired to appear in a movie being shot in the area, he unwittingly gets drawn into a troublesome setting.

Shoot the Dog, Simon & Shuster, 2013, available in The Neat Little Bookshop: new hardcover with dustcover: $26. tx. incl.

[Photos:  the author with fans Margaret Rose of Dunnville and Bob Allen of Toronto. Photos courtesy of Sig Rose.]