It's a Classical Life

  I wanted to start a new series this year called My Favourite Books...in which I will share with you a collection of my favourite books with the same theme, setting, or genre. First up, I wanted to begin with My Favourite Books....Set in Italy because I recently reread Diana Athill's A Florence Diary (which absolutely makes my list) and was to remember some of my other favourite books with Italy as the setting. I am a trained Italian language teacher and spent time in my early twenties living and travelling in Italy. It is a place that holds a very dear place in my heart and has inspired many writers, artists, musicians and creatives over the centuries, from the composer Giuseppe Verdi to artist Michelangelo to writer Italo Calvino. Overseas travel isn't in our plans at the moment but when I feel that longing for Italy, these are the books that I turn to. Of my list, the first three are non-fiction, and the following seven are fiction. I hope you enjoy my top 10 favourite boo...

  Welcome back to It's a Classical Life, and if you're new here, then welcome. I love sharing all things classic - literature, music, movies, style, homemaking and so on. Recently I was introduced to the life and works of American writer, Kate Chopin.  Source Born in 1850 in Missouri to French/English parents, Chopin grew up in St. Louis. She was bilingual in both French and English and grew up under the influence of women - her mother, grandmother and her great grandmother. Tragically, her father died in a railroad accident. She married young, only eighteen, and had six children before her husband died when she was thirty-two. There is a wonderful biography, full of details and photos at the Kate Chopin International Society's website , so I won't go into too much detail here. A few things that struck me about Chopin include: * She kept a common place book in her youth. Common place books are becoming popular again as a journal for keeping thoughts, quotes, ideas, a...

  Happy New Year! As we kick-start 2024 (or gently roll into it if you prefer a slower pace, like me!) I think the best plan we can make is to really get to know ourselves. Knowing who we are and being true to ourselves is a recurring theme here and I am speaking as much to myself as to others! Before tackling the big resolutions and goals for the coming year, why not take some time to get to know yourself. It's really very simple. Take a piece of paper (or your fresh journal) and a pen. Find a quiet place to sit where you will be inspired but not disturbed. For me this is of an early morning on the quiet, cool deck. These journal topics come from Caroline Jones' book An Authentic Life: Finding Meaning and Spirituality in Everyday Life. You can choose to write to all of these prompts, or perhaps just one or two. You may want to come back to them throughout January and February and reflect on some others.  What do you love to do? What are the underlying themes? What gives...

This lovely little book by Matthew Dennison (2016) is the source of all quotes and images in this article, unless acknowledged elsewhere. I've included page numbers where appropriate. Hello! This week has been a warm one, with time spent in the garden (both weeding and planting), in the kitchen, and around my house. I've been reading a lot as the warm sun makes our covered deck the perfect place to sit and read. This biography of the life of Beatrix Potter was on my reading list and I loved it! In case you haven't popped by this week, I've showcased Potter in a Bitesize Inspiration post and a free, downloadable word search, which you can find  here .  This week I'm focusing on certain aspects of Beatrix Potter's life and work which may serve as inspiration for those of us seeking to live a simple life inspired by the classics. I hope you'll grab a drink and settle in, because there are quite a few! The headings I have chosen for each of these inspirational ...

Good morning (or afternoon!) and welcome! If this is your first time, I'm so glad you've found us, and if you are returning then it's lovely to have you back. A few weeks back I mentioned Flora Thomspon's 1938 classic, From Lark Rise to Candleford in a post on happiness. This trilogy of books, which has since been turned into a television series, focuses on life in a small village, Lark Rise, towards the end of the nineteenth century. There were a lot of little observations which I found quite inspiring and enlightening and thought that you might enjoy them too.  "There were no bought pleasures, and, if there had been, there was no money to pay for them; but there were the sights, sounds, and scents of the different seasons: spring with its fields of young wheat-blades bending in the wind as the cloud-shadows swept over them; summer with its ripening grain and its flowers and fruit and its thunderstorms, and how the thunder growled and rattled over that flat land ...

Hello and Happy Saturday! I'm so glad you decided to stop by here. The sun is shining here and we are about to embark on a little journey to celebrate September birthdays with my family at the coast. It's no surprise then, that this wonderful line from J.R.R. Tolkien's famous epic, The Lord of the Rings, has been on my mind lately. The context behind this quote is often taken out of context! It seems that instead of encouraging aimless wandering, Tolkien brings a sense of wariness into the story before sending his characters off onto a quest. As Bilbo Baggins famously states,  " It's a dangerous business going out your door...you might step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."  Tolkien plants a seed of purpose into his characters, a goal for them to achieve. This got me thinking about some of my other favourite literary characters who have embarked on a journey, not to wander aimlessly or to ...

  It's been more than a year that I did a round up of some of the best free classic downloads available from Amazon. Sometimes it is hard to find the classics that we want to read, and my library in particular is not very good at stocking copies of true classic literature. I'm not sure if they made a "relevant, contemporary" cull of all their classic books or if they just don't have a need to have multiple (or any) copies of certain older books. Ideally, I always look in the library first because I love paper books. I've been to the library a couple of times this week because I'm doing some research on Australian during the world wars and during the Great Depression, and although there's plenty of books on Australian history, the classic novels I was looking for weren't there. This week I was looking for Villette by Charlotte Bront ë and found the complete collection of  Bront ë's novels (including the unfinished Emma) on Amazon for free. Sadly...

  If you're popping by after my longish hiatus, thanks for coming back! If you're new here, then welcome. I initially set up this blog to document my growing collection of thoughts on how the classics can inspire us to live well; even in times that are troubled, full of uncertainty, sickness, or poverty, and times that make us long to live in a different time! I try very hard not to glamorise the past here, but accept if for the time that it was and use it to learn how to make my modern life comfortable and better.  I think that the wonderful Edith Wharton hits the nail on the head with her quote. She recognises that 'eternal' and 'irrepressible freshness' of a classic, something which I agree with wholeheartedly. They stand the test of time; don't become outdated or stale like others do; and eternally inspire us to do better, to be better, to strive for better. Whether it be music, literature, style or art - the classics know how to endure.  I recently read...

From The Burghers of Calais ~ A. Rodin Recently, my husband and I visited the National Gallery of Australia. There were some renovation works being done, but there was still a lot to see and enjoy. It's been a while since I had visited a gallery and I had forgotten how they make me feel. The creativity and scope of design on show is always inspiring and awesome. Viewing art really speaks to my desire to connect with other humans, past and present. To find connections with those who have come before us, and to realise that I am not alone in how I feel and my experience of life. I know a lot of people like to cling to a feeling of individualism; they like to think that no-one understands them and their feelings are unique and incomprehensible to others. I, on the other hand, love the feeling that the breadth of human experience and emotion is a collective experience, something we can share with others and find connection. This connection is only one joyful consequence of experie...