The story of someone who for many is just a Character played by Christian Bale in the movie Ford Vs. Ferrari. Who is Ken Miles? Kenneth Henry Miles was born on the 1st of November 1918, in Sutton Coldfield a suburban town that is now part of Birmingham.

I am not overly familiar with Lewis Carroll's work since I never liked Alice in Wonderland too much (the movies, never read the books). His poetry was completely new to me, but after I recently read Edward Lear's nonsense poetry (which was being compared as similar to Lewis Carroll) I was not looking forward to reading O Frabjous Day!. But, every week a Little Black Classics means reading one every week, so here we are.

My expectations were really low for this one, but I found it made at least way more sense than the Lear poems. Some of them still didn't resonance with me at all. But the hunting of the Snark was kind of nice, even though the rhyming was very nursery rhyme-y.

~Little Black Classics #106~

Since my father passed away a couple of years ago, I've been slowly reading through all my books that connect us, as a way of remembering him. He took me with him to pick up this book at an author signing. He became a fan after auditing Carroll's Texas History course at Blinn Jr College. I remember him telling me how, as the only old fart in a class full of teenagers, he probably got much more out of it than the kids that were simply getting their required credits out of the way. Knowing my dad, he probably stayed after every class, BSing with the professor and probably making him late for supper on the regular. My dad did love to tell tales, and he had a passion for local and family history.

About the book: This book is intended to be used as supplemental reading for middle school Texas History classes, and it does it very well, given the constraints. It uses simple language in a direct, storytelling style, meant to both entertain and to reinforce historical facts. The scope is broad enough to satisfy diversity requirements and the prose carefully dances around the kind of scientific and historical facts that tend to annoy the bible thumpers, nationalists, and alt-righters that populate the state textbook selection committee and various schoolboards. I do wish he'd cited his sources for historical fact, or at least provided a reference list at the back, in addition to the facilitator's guide. 

With The Hunting of the Snark Lewis Carroll wrote a fantastic “Agony in eight fits“ that puzzles and fascinates audiences since 1876. Without going into too much detail: it is beautiful and I simply love it!

This is the annotated edition which means, that there are more explanatory footnotes than actual text of the ballad. Of course, reading elaborate and long footnotes is no fun at all, but they do help a lot in understanding contemporary allusions and puns. Without them, I would have never known what on earth a bathing-machine is or what a Billiard-marker does.

I really liked this graphic novel. The majority of these stories were truly creepy and had a wonderful gothic feel to them. And the artwork was stunning.

Book: Read a graphic novel or a book set in a school or academic setting.