I WISH YOU TIME

“I don't wish you all sorts of gifts.

I just wish you, what most people don't have:

I wish you the time to be happy and to laugh

and if you use it, you can make something out of it.

I wish you the time for your doings and thinking,

not only for yourself, but also to give away.

I wish you the time - not to hastle and run,

but the time to know how to be contented.

I wish you the time - not to pass just like that.

I wish that some of it may be left for you

as a time to marvel and (as a time) to trust,

instead of just looking at the time on your watch.

I wish you the time to reach for the stars,

and the time to grow, that means to mature.

I wish you the time to hope anew and to love.

There is no sense in putting this time off.

I wish you the time to find yourself,

to see the happiness in each day and each hour.

I wish you the time also to forgive.

I wish you: the time to live.”

Elli Michler  (1921-2014) wrote this beautiful poem in the year 1987.

RUDYARD KIPLING

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay on 30 December 1865, but educated in England at the United Services College, Westward Ho, Bideford. In 1882 he returned to India, where he worked for Anglo-Indian newspapers,  writing poetry and fiction in his spare time. Books such as Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) gained success in England, and in 1889 Kipling went to live in London. A prolific writer, he achieved fame quickly, he was an immensely popular writer and poet for children and adults. 

He turned down many honours in his lifetime, including a knighthood and the poet laureateship, but in 1907, he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first English author to be so honoured. 

Read here.

AMOS OZ

Amos Oz, the renowned Israeli author whose work captured the characters and landscapes of his young nation, and who matured into a leading moral voice and an insistent advocate for peace with the Palestinians, died on Friday. He was 79. Read here.

JANE AUSTEN, GOOD BOOKS AND WISE READERS ...

Read an insightful article about Jane Austen, her characters and good literary habits here.

HAPPY BOXING DAY!

Boxing Day, which always falls on December 26, is observed as an official public holiday in the UK and many European countries. Read here. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

"Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace." 

Pope Francis

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS

PRACTISING ENGLISH ONLINE

https://www.esolcourses.com/

https://www.britishcouncil.es/en/english/learn-online

https://www.eduinreviewblog.com/

FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD AND THE GREAT GATSBY

Francis Scott Fitzgerald died in Hollywood, California, on 21 December 1940.

He was an American short-story writer and novelist famous for his depictions of the Jazz Age (the 1920s), his most brilliant novel being The Great Gatsby (1925). His private life, with his wife, Zelda, in both America and France, became almost as celebrated as his novels.  Read here.
Here you can find an interesting website about the author, his novel and his times.

WILLIAM BLAKE - 5^C LINGUISTICO

William Blake (1757-1827) is one of the key figures of English Romanticism, and a handful of his poems are universally known thanks to their memorable phrases and opening lines. Here you can find ten of his best poem, along with links to each of them.

"One thought fills immensity."
William Blake 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISS AUSTEN!

Jane Austen was born on 16 December in Steventon, Hampshire, England. While not widely known in her own time, her novels of love among the landed gentry gained popularity after 1869, and her reputation skyrocketed in the 20th century. Her novels, including "Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility", are considered literary classics, bridging the gap between romance and realism.

Here you can read about the Jane Austen Centre in Bath.

“Jane Austen is perhaps the best known and best loved of Bath’s many famous residents. She paid two long visits here towards the end of the eighteenth century and from 1801 to 1806 Bath was her home. Her intimate knowledge of the city is reflected in two of her novels, "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion", which are largely set in Bath.

The city remains much as Jane Austen knew it; the streets and buildings recalling the elegant, well-ordered world that she portrays so brilliantly in her novels. Now the pleasure of exploring Jane Austen’s Bath can be enhanced by visiting the Jane Austen Centre. Here, in a Georgian town house in the heart of the city, the visitor can find out more about the importance of Bath in Jane Austen’s life and work.” 

Maggie Lane

PRESENT PERFECT SIMPLE

Here you can find my previous post about Present Perfect Simple.

JANE AUSTEN’S ANNIVERSARY OF HER BIRTH APPROACHES ...

Click here and here to read some articles about Jane Austen's uneventful life and her gorgeous novels which were first brought out in a collected edition in 1833.  They have been in print ever since.

  

SHORT STORIES

“A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.” 

Neil Gaiman

https://shortstoriesshort.com/story/

DECEMBER