100th Post | Long live the bookworm!

"Music and Literature," oil on canvas, 

by the American artist William Michael Harnett. 

Courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Woo hoo! 21,785 page views later, we bring you our One Hundredth Post and what better way to celebrate than with a pop quiz. Songs inspired by books. Simple, which books were the inspiration for the following songs. Some of them are so easy that it's criminal! We are giving away beautiful books my friends, some of our personal favorites.

First Prize # 1 -  The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - (Afsha's favorite book)
First Prize # 2-  The Armageddon Rag - George R R Martin (Brand new reprint...hot off the press)
Runner-up - The CD of your choice from any of the artists featured below. They are all classics. Ok, maybe not Mc Lars.

And for any early bird - two passes to the MET Museum in New York. Don't ask me why I have them, they're yours if you want them.

So here goes!

1. Big Brother - David Bowie
2. Ramble On- Led Zeppelin
3. Don't stand so close to me- Sting
4. Pull me under- Dream Theatre (oh btw, they are in Bangkok sometime soon)
5. We used to wait- Arcade Fire
6. Mr. Raven- Mc Lars
7. Tangled up in blue- Bob Dylan
8. Sympathy for the devil-Rolling Stones
9. What the water gave me - Florence and The Machine
10. Clocks - Coldplay

Please email answers to info.caterpillarcafe@gmail.com or leave them below as comments (to be published later).

Deadline for the quiz is Monday the 19th May.

And finally, Thank you! For sticking with us while we figured this out. Here's to you, you little bookworm.

Fine Print - The contest to open to anyone who has a courier company that delivers to their doorstep. So a shout out to all our regulars from Russia-- please enter. We will find a way to get the prize to you. It might take awhile but we are tenacious little cutlets.

Long live the bookworm! 

New Year Giveaway | And the winners are...

DRUMROLL.....

One Day - airborne

After Dark - janosch

Good Omens - Malini AKA ru

Congratulations! Please send us your postal addresses to afsha.khan@gmail.com so we may contact you to deliver your prizes.

And the early bird winners of The Caterpillar Cafe' bookmark that my bloggie makes with such love are...

Aparna Jaykumar
Anuradha
Justjabberwocky
Malini aka ru
and
Whatever-very nice ditty there by the way.

Please feel free to give us recommendations for books you want us to giveaway and we will consider them in our next quiz in February.

And to further sweeten the day I leave you with one of my favorite poems- Birches by Robert Frost,  a crowd pleaser if you may that will delight you and perhaps take you back to your childhood when you were a swinger of branches and a dreamer of dreams. Happy New Year!

Autumn photograph of the Shelburne Birchesnear Gorham,
New Hampshire.

BIRCHES Robert Frost (1875-) WHEN I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them	5
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells	10
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed	15
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.	20
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—	25
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again	30
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away	35
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,	40
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood	45
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.	50
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,	55
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches

RecommendedReads | Friday Book Quiz

Since we have received no right answers I am posting a clue.

Identify the books and the their authors. It is not a conceptual question related to fantasy or the artists. Best of Luck!

Hello Bookworms,

Ciao from Montalcino! Our Thursday Book Quiz is back albeit on Friday. Please forgive us but navigating the blogger website in Italian is not easy and I obviously did not schedule it right. We have made it simple since we are dying to give away our first ever Flipkart.com voucher. The winner will receive a Rs 200 voucher from Flipkart.com. Please post your answers in the comment section. Comments will not be disclosed for twenty-four hours after which all comments will be revealed and the person who gave the first right answer will win our voucher.

So here it is - What do the following images have in common?

In other news....
What: The Theory of Structured Procrastination
Where: StructuredProcrastination.com
Why: Because you've got better things to do right now and you'd rather indulge in something less dire, but important nonetheless.
Afsha says: John Perry, a professor at Stanford University recently won an Ig Nobel Prize (not the real thing people, just a parody) for his theory of Structured Procrastination. Do you find yourself thinking of important tasks - like memorising quantum physics - all the time? Is it most often during other pressing chores like cleaning the toilet or brading the cat's tail? If so, then you're a Structured Procrastinator and you need to read Perry's essay. No pressure though. It'll still be here after you've understood the rectangular potential barrier.

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Here's a report on some of the other Ig Nobel Prize winners, some of who did wonders with Wasabi...

RecommendedReads | Thursday Book Quiz!

THURSDAY QUIZ: What do the three books shown above have in common? Tell us and we will bestow the first ever Caterpillar Cafe Award to the first person who guesses it. The prize is, well we are poor, so the prize will be a copy of one of the books shown above. (Your choice!)  Now I am off to catch a flight. (Quiz idea is courtesy of ABE books.) Leave your responses in the comments section and we'll get back to you with a winner! 
Take it away Afsha. Ta Ta folks!


While my blogging buddy Reshma is gearing up to travel to England, Italy and where-about-not, I've been very busy losing myself in fantasy. But I do love literature that allows you to travel which is why I think you should, as much as I, look forward to the forthcoming posts from her Travel Guides in Disguise series. But while I may not be able to travel for at least another year, having a full-time job and all, I'm not fussed. I just want to read. And the book I'm most looking forward to belongs to a genre I can't quite place since I haven't read it yet. This is actually the first time I'm anticipating and recommending a book that is just about to release based on the extract. Fan of fantasy, fiction, Goth, noir? Pre-order with me and let's coffee.


Headline: The Night Circus's dazzling, high-wire debut
Publication: The Guardian
Afsha says: It may be fantasy month for The Caterpillar Club, but for for me fantasy is a way of life. When we published the last set of Recommended Reads last week, we linked you to The Guardian's list of best debut authors. Since then, I haven't been able to stop thinking about The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern. The artwork, in black and white with one lonely item in red, promises a story from a period that passed a century ago and another dimension that can only come to life with a vivid imagination. The extract was intriguing enough for me to pre-order it on my Kindle so that I can enjoy it before the world goes to town with it, running the risk of rendering it as just another overrated novel. The author is being pitted as the next Rowling, something she appreciates but doesn't agree with for several reasons. But what upsets me is that the movie rights have already been bought over by the guys behind, gulp, Twilight (God save us all) . Read an extract here.
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Headline: The Man Booker 2011 shortlist

Publication: Man Booker

Reshma says: The twitterverse was abuzz with excitement as predictions were made. Bookies were talking to people wondering whether it would be a newcomer or an old hand. Who would take that glittering prize? But then you wonder, it's early for the Oscars right? It's the Man Booker prize. My mother waited for it as she would the Oscars and it became the reading list for the next few months. I discovered Amsterdam by Ian McEwan and Disgrace by J M Coetze only because of the Booker.  When I look back I realize that every book I studied at English Lit A-level was part of a shortlist at some point, (The Handmaid's Tale, Paul Scott's Staying On),  from which I infer that they seem to get it right. At the end of the day it's about the authors and not the list. Of late I have not agreed with some of the choices. I did not particularly enjoy Alan Hollinghurst's A Line of Beauty or Arvind Daga's The White Tiger. I did however fall in love with Wolfhall by Hilary Mantel, the best book I have read in a long long time. For me the Nebula and Hugo awards are much more dear in that they cater to that that ignored yet hugely popular spectrum- science fiction and fantasy. I yelped with joy when Sussana Clarke's Strange and Mr Norell (Damn you book thief who stole my first part on a plane!), was long listed. I felt vindicated, like my choice of reading material was finally being acknowledged. Ok fine, so the Booker prize is important. There are two debut authors on this years list and I have read neither. But Pigeon English looks like a favorite to win and my reading list only got longer. Sigh!

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