Member: PatsyMurray

I've just finally started in on cataloging the shelf with the little kids' books. I was waiting for LT Collections. Yes, we still have a whole shelf, tightly packed with smaller one stuck in horizontally on top of the others. I have at least 3/4 of the shelf to go. Plus the older kids' books upstairs in the little bookcase in the hall. This is after several attempts to purge. If we never have grandkids, I guess my offspring can sell them when we die. I didn't know he had his own museum. Been there? Not sure what more one would need to see after the books, themselves. I just got the Singer on another friend's recommendation (from BookMooch). I keep thinking that I should introduce that friend to Bernie, if Bernie ever gets online.

posted by WildMaggie at 10:53 am (EST) on Aug 24, 2009

Have you checked out the stuff under the "local" tab? Some interesting book-related events. You may also enjoy the discussion group "Maryland Librarythingers" for news of local goings-on. Still not a single book in common.
Maggie

posted by WildMaggie at 11:11 am (EST) on Jul 5, 2009

A must read for Jane Austen fans is

Heydt-Stevenson, Jill. "Austen's Unbecoming Conjunctions".

It --and other recent studies-- shows how bawdy Austen's novels were, laying out 18th and early 19th century slang, such as "she broke an ankle" which means she's pregnant with an illegitimate child. (I did my master's thesis on Austen and only wish this information had been available to me as I showed how subversive she was in terms of gender and class roles. In reality, Darcy never would have married Jane, for instance.

If you do read Tolstoy, be sure you are all reading the Pevear and Vokholofsky translation. I'd suggest getting it in paperback as the hardcover weighs a ton and is very cumbersome handle. Tolstoy's views on war were incredibly modern. There is a long passage onpp. 600-604 which can be summed up by the 60's slogans, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" and "Hell no, we won't go" His vivid telling of Napoleon's defeat was revolutionary for the time, but also is slyly critical of the Russian nobility and commanders. His whole portrayal of the very class he belonged to is amazing and I don't know how he got away with it. His characters are very vividly portrayed and seem to be real people.

posted by echaika at 4:06 pm (EST) on Apr 3, 2009

I haven't yet read Plainsong, but I have been reading a lot. I'm in the middle of the new translation of War and Peace. It certainly is better than the old one. The new one is by Peavhy and Volkhonsky and was published in 2007.
Elaine Chaika

posted by echaika at 8:53 pm (EST) on Mar 20, 2009

Have you read The Makioki Sisters yet? I just loved it. I felt as if I was talken into the skin of someone whose cultural perceptions are so different from my own, a wonderful experience. I also had it more recently when I saw Kim Ki-duk's movie "Spring, Summer, Fall,Winter...and Spring" recently. It is life through the eyes of a religous Buddhist in Korea. I have added a few hundred more books to my library, so you might want to take another look at it. I am a bookaholic and despite giving aways hundreds of books every year or so -- to the library at the State Prison -- I still own about 1000 books and I also have about 750 movies on DVD andBluray. Do you think reading and serious movie watching go hand in hand?
Elaine Chaika

p.s. I am very active on goodreads.com. Have you looked at that site?

posted by echaika at 5:33 pm (EST) on Mar 3, 2009

I also feel strongly about dogs. Their love and trust in humans is so often abused by callous and even cruel people. No other creature on earth will willingly work all day for another species, nor will it give up its life to protect another species. Only dogs have such love and sense of duty to humans, who are, of course, a different species from the dog. My childhood dog, Flippy, trying to protect me from a German Shepherd who knocked me down, was killed when he leapt to my rescue. Flippy couldn't have weighed more than 30 pounds, and the German Shepherd was at least 75 pounds. I am writing a book on my experiences with dogs and showing how their evolution took the unique form of becoming adapted totally to humans. In the process, dogs developed a deep capacity for loveand loyalty. When people say this is falsely atributing human qualities to dogs, I have stories that show that dogs really do love those they've bonded with. I gotta go make my husband supper!!

posted by echaika at 5:27 pm (EST) on Mar 3, 2009

I found The Dogs of Babel very disturbing. Such misconceptions about a dog's ability to speak can only lead to thee grossest cruelty. Linguists know that only humans have the physiological AND brain sstructures to produce language. I think everyone should learn some linguistics. You might be interested in my book Language the Social Mirror, 4th ed. It's on Amazon.

posted by echaika at 1:12 pm (EST) on Feb 14, 2009