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Member: gowing

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Groups18th-19th Century Britain, Aboard the Jolly Roger, Agatha Christie, Architext, Art & Books, Art History, Arthurian Legends, Astrology, Baker Street and Beyond, British & Irish Crime Fiction — show all groups , Catholic Homeschoolers, Central Virginians, Crime, Thriller & Mystery, Cryptic Crosswords, E. F. Benson, Fordham Students, Alumni and Affiliates, History Readers: Clio's (Pleasure?) Palace, History: On learning from and writing history, Homeschoolers who LibraryThing, Irish Librarythingers, Knitters Inc., Mac Users at LibraryThing, Medieval Europe, National Puzzlers' League, Political Conservatives, Richard III, Tea!, What the Dickens...?

Favorite authorsE. F. Benson, Robert A. Caro, Bruce Chatwin, Agatha Christie, Joseph Conrad, Colin Dexter, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, David Horowitz, Henry James, David McCullough, Ved Mehta, Patrick O'Brian, John Cowper Powys, Barbara Pym, Romain Rolland, Thomas Sowell, Rex Stout (Shared favorites)

Favorite librariesCharlotte County Library System - Phenix Branch

About meWhy do some of us become so passionate about books, especially in this day and age. This goes beyond the love of reading. From an early age I not only loved reading but loved books.
I am also passionate about home schooling and unschooling. Our public school system, or rather our government schools, are atrocious. Kids are graduating, even from good schools, without any knowledge of history, geography, economics, civics. They are allowed to do their math with a calculator and their reading assignments rarely include literature. Social activities and sports have usurped education. I homeschooled my niece and nephew through high school. People never asked me about their education. They were always concerned about their socialization.
I worked with kids who attended school, others whose parents took them out (these were usually teens) and hired me to teach their child. These weren't kids with learning disorders or the like. I remember one 16 year old who didn't know how many inches in a foot or days in the year, among other things. How did she manage to get to 10th grade without learning that? (and I am not in a city with overcrowding. It is a very rural area where graduating senior classes are usually number around 80 or less). I have been away from it for a few years (due to my mom's Alzheimers) but getting ready to get back into it. My niece's son will soon be 3. And he just might have gotten the "book gene". He is a very active child but sometimes he just sits and goes through his books. I have seen him sit there for an hour. And sometimes he will take a book I am reading - no pictures in it - and smile, touch the pages, turn the pages and sigh.
Besides the art history blog listed below, I recently started a history blog historyscharacters.blogspot.com. I profile different characters of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. My plan is to post at least 3 times a week but so far, as I watch my nephew when my niece works, I have been posting once a week. But by Sept. I should be up to 3 times a week.

About my libraryMy library is eclectic but I do have a large concentration of history books and art books. Many are art history books. I also have quite a number of 19th century books both fiction and nonfiction. Right after college I lived around the corner from a mom and pop used book store. In the Bronx would you believe. Books were fifty cents, a dollar and so many of them were from the mid 1800s up through the 1920s. Many had gorgeous illustrations. They just don't publish books like that any more. And they don't have bookstores like that anymore. There are a few larger, more business like places like the Strand in New York or Givens in Lynchburg,Va, but even those types of shops are disappearing. Marvin Mondlin's "Book Row"is a marvelous history of the glory days of antiquarian book stores.

Homepagehttp://artworktoday.blogspot.com

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Real nameLaura

LocationCharlotte County, Virginia

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URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/gowing (profile)
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Common KnowledgeSeries (25), Awards (68), Characters (1049), Places (189)

Member sinceJun 12, 2008