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Friday Favorites

Friday Favorites: Shakespeare Games

Cora Lee

Reindeer aren’t the only ones playing games this holiday season–we can too! Our Friday Favorite this week tests your intellect and memory while The Bard himself plays Game Show Host. Check out Modern Library’s Shakespeare Games:

  • Shakespeare Aptitude Test–translate Shakespeare’s phrases into modern English
  • What’s in a Name–identify characters in Shakespeare’s works so Juliet can choose a new suitor (before Brutus does away with them)
  • Hamlet’s Duel–help Hamlet beat Laertes in a duel by answering questions quickly and accurately
  • Name That Play–name the Shakespearean play based on a one-line quote

Shakespeare Games

Books, Friday Favorites

Friday Favorite: 200 Years of Jane Austen Covers

Cora Lee

Jane Austen covers

Cover reveals are a big event in the lead-up to a new book’s release. And different versions of a book (paperback, hardcover, mass market) might have different covers, or a new cover might be designed for the re-release of an older work. But what if your book was 200 years old? How many different covers would it have then?

Our Favorite this week is an article from The Guardian: Jane Austen’s fashion history: 200 years of cover designs – in pictures and a similar one from The Huffington Post: Jane Austen, Reinvented. Between the two there are about a dozen Austen covers from the past two centuries. See if you can tell the era in which they were designed before you read the article 😀

Books, Friday Favorites

Friday Favorite: Chawton House Library Book Conservation Appeal

Cora Lee
Photo Credit: Raymoseley
Photo Credit: Raymoseley

Friday Favorites have been a bit sporadic these last few month, but they’re back this week with a very important one. Chawton House Library has recently discovered that, though well cared for, about 75% of their collection of historical manuscripts needs repairing in one form or another. The cost, they say, will be approximately £60,000.

Yikes!

But we can help!

The Chawton House Book Conservation Fund is accepting donations from both sides of the Atlantic, of any denomination. From their website:

£1 / $1.70 can buy document repair tape

£6 / $10 can buy unbleached cotton archival ribbon

£10 / $17 can buy an archival box to protect a fragile book

£100 / $162 can pay for a full set of conservation equipment including unbleached cotton archival ribbon, document repair tape and archival boxes

£300 / $486 can pay for a volunteer training day, giving a whole team the necessary skills to carry out vital conservation work

£500 / $809 can restore a complete volume

Books

Cora’s TBR Challenge Check-In

Cora Lee
Photo Credit: Jorge Royan
Photo Credit: Jorge Royan

It’s November, readers–eleven months down and just one left to go in this year’s TBR Challenge!

After having a pretty awful October, my stubborn streak kicked in and I became determined not to let the situation at work or my chronic illnesses get the best of me. Reading is one of my favorite past times, and I refuse to give it up! Even though I come home drained of energy, I’ve been doggedly reading from my TBR bins a little at a time. I usually only get an hour in each day, and I read slower than usual because of the fatigue, but I do it 😀

Over the summer I reported that I was gravitating toward my bins of physical books rather than e-books, and I’ve returned to that trend. Then it was to weed out non-keeper-shelf books in an effort to lighten the load before I moved across the state. This time I think it’s simply because I can see the piles in their various bins every time I walk into my living room. My Kindle, however, conceals its contents well–I have no idea how many books are actually on it without making a concerted effort to check.

When I did check I discovered the number had grown! I’ve been very careful about resisting the lure of the bookstore and the library’s used book sales, but apparently not the siren call of Kindle book price drops. Maybe I should concentrate on e-books for the last month of the challenge 🙂