Member: hemlokgang

Thank you for participating in my new thread. That one was getting too long so here is the second one. Hope to see you there often.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/67343

posted by callmejacx at 9:31 pm (EST) on Jun 30, 2009

Inviting some people to the thread I just started. Thought it might be of interest to you.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/66785

posted by callmejacx at 10:13 pm (EST) on Jun 13, 2009

Your profile page is very nice and an impressive one

posted by DarylERobidoux at 12:09 am (EST) on May 30, 2009

Thanks for accepting me as your friend..Keep messaging me

posted by JeffRiveraAuthor at 5:24 am (EST) on Apr 25, 2009

Noticed that you liked The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in reviewing my new novel and posting your comments here (as well as on a few other book-related sites). I thought you might like my novel since it's been compared to that novel by a number of reviewers. I could e-mail you the novel in an e-book format if you'd like. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a link to a summary in case you're interested:

http://christophertusa.com/

Thanks,

Chris

posted by cmtusa at 9:02 pm (EST) on Apr 17, 2009

Hi Ferris- I received "Jim the Boy" today. Thank you very much. I noticed you paid 4.50 for shipping. It should have been 2.60 max, if you sent it media mail. I'm a letter-carrier, so I notice that stuff, just thought I would point it out. Did you also read the next Earley book? Thanks again and see you around LT!
Mark

posted by msf59 at 9:14 pm (EST) on Apr 1, 2009

Hi, Ferris! Thanks for the response on "Jim the Boy". Would you be interested in a copy of "Everyman" by Roth? I noticed it was on your wishlist and I have a copy buried deep in my tbr vault. It's a trade paperback, ex-library, in pretty good shape. Let me know and I'll reserve it for you!
Mark

posted by msf59 at 6:44 pm (EST) on Mar 26, 2009

Hi, there! I just mooched "Jim the Boy" ,from you. Of course, I just heard about it on the "what are you reading now" thread. What's new right? And it comes highly praised. I'm looking forward to it and thanks so much!
Mark

posted by msf59 at 9:25 am (EST) on Mar 26, 2009

The Highly-Rated Book Group has begun a Group Read of The Blind Assassin. Sign up here: http://www.librarything.com/groups/thebl...

and don’t forget to join in my Book Quiz.

- TT

posted by TheTortoise at 12:26 pm (EST) on Mar 10, 2009

Howdy,

Go Corgis!!! Do they nip your feet and try to hurd you?

If the group decides on The Forsyte Saga, I have prepared some introductory notes that may assist in reading of the book. If someone else has already done it, I could forward it to them or vice versa.

Whatever is your pleasure.

Ur.
ps: we share Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor, which is a book i read in highschool about 1957. jeesh...i thought i was the only person who ever read that book. (not the sort of book one can mention at parties....:-)

posted by Urquhart at 10:29 pm (EST) on Feb 23, 2009

Love your photos!! Have fun with Poor Folk. Went for a good walk with my puppy this morning by the Brisbane river. The rowers were out there strutting their stuff. Jessie is exhausted having sniffed everything and raising her hackles on several occasions at puppies doing wonderful impressions of fierce vicious dogs behind tall paling fences. Off to work - hi ho hi ho. Wish I could stay home and librarything all day. Love this site so much. So many noice people - as Kath and Kim would say....different...unusual...

posted by alexdaw at 4:34 pm (EST) on Feb 22, 2009

I am very happy to hear it is wonderful and I understand you wish to keep a wonderful book. If the publisher does not come through, I will probably end up buying it.

A.

posted by polutropos at 8:27 pm (EST) on Jan 31, 2009

Ferris -- as a matter of fact, we made a nostalgia trip to the Finger Lakes this summer -- visited the college and made a round of the wineries. I love the area in the spring, summer and fall -- but I don't miss the winters at all! I grew up in Chautauqua county, and my mother still lives there, so we spend a fair amount of time in the summers there, but it was really lovely to go back to Geneva and environs -- the town has certainly perked up since we were in college back in the late 60s. -- Jane

posted by janeajones at 3:47 pm (EST) on Dec 13, 2008

Aha---thanks for enlightening me about you 1283 ticker - now it makes sense! Enjoy your reading.

posted by tututhefirst at 3:04 pm (EST) on Dec 13, 2008

Hello! I notice you have a ticker for the "1243 book list" May I be nosey and ask what that is. I love your dog-a Corgi yes?

posted by tututhefirst at 1:57 pm (EST) on Dec 12, 2008

Thanks for your comment - I was feeling elderly and curmudgeonly! It's titled a silly game, but it's particularly silly to take it so seriously IMHO. I'll probably slip back quietly (although I see schmerguls has just done it again) ;-)

posted by abbottthomas at 2:21 pm (EST) on Dec 11, 2008

Hi there,

Gotta love your pic!

Just popping in to say I, too, really enjoyed "Dreams of my Russian Summers"! Thanks for the encouragement on that one! I may have stopped reading - and been deprived of a few hours of wonderful dreams - if it wasn't for you. So many appealing TBRs calling :)

Happy reading!

posted by akeela at 11:09 am (EST) on Dec 9, 2008

Re: The House on Bear Town Road--we read this for our book club and it was pretty good, plus the author is local and came to speak to us, which added to the experience. The subject matter is somewhat grim, but as it was nonfiction, at least the emotions felt completely real, unlike the weepy chick lit fiction my book club chooses and about which I complain incessently!

Elizabeth

posted by ejj1955 at 6:53 pm (EST) on Nov 22, 2008

:(

I would have felt foolish too.. and that is why it ticked me off. No reason to do that.
anyway....
take care

kath

posted by mckait at 6:23 pm (EST) on Nov 1, 2008

If you didn't know that history, I thought you'd want to read it more! I felt the same way -- I bought the book the same week it was making headlines in Colo. Apparently the book is a fairly common requirement in HS lit classes, particularly in the southwest. As an adult, I wished all the fuss was about a better book, but I think it's a good book for high school classes, with some very important issues for discussion. If you do end up reading it, I'd be curious to know what you think.

Anne

posted by AMQS at 10:40 pm (EST) on Oct 24, 2008

Hello Hemlokgang,
Just a brief "BTW" about Bless Me, Ultima, the book you "chose" from my library: our book club chose it in 2005 because earlier that year, there was a huge flap about it here in Colorado. A teacher in a small Colo. town had assigned it, and some parents became outraged, and demanded that it be banned from the school library. The principal not only gave the parents all the copies of the book to burn, but also made the teacher apologize for assigning "filth" (the main objections to the book were the use of some profane language, and the use of herbs and magic in healing). Weeks later, and after a huge uproar, the principal admitted he had never read the book, and that the books were not actually his property to destroy. Perhaps you know this already... I always mention this when that particular book comes up in conversation.
Take care!

posted by AMQS at 1:24 am (EST) on Oct 24, 2008

Yoo hoo hemlok! Did you tell me that you wanted to do the group read of The Mists of Avalon? I've started threads for the group, and the four books in the Mists. The main, spoiler-free thread is http://www.librarything.com/topic/47384

Hope to see you there in November! Earlier, too, of course, should you want to go boldly forth.

RMD

posted by richardderus at 11:18 am (EST) on Oct 13, 2008

Hey hemlok, I think your question about the real cellist in The Cellist of Sarajevo brings up an interesting point about what is and what isn't fair game for authorial use. It seems to me, as a writer, a former agent, and a former publishing industry minion, that the reela cellist needs to understand crative license. No one can UNknow something once they have learned it; the author used a piece of publicly available knowledge and built a fiction around it. That's perfectly within the realm of reasonable behavior.

If the story had been published as a non-fictional account then the cellist would have reason to complain and even to sue! Fiction? Bah. Bosh. Get over it.

RMD

posted by richardderus at 11:02 pm (EST) on Sep 30, 2008

ps

what book are you reading in your picture?

posted by mckait at 6:43 pm (EST) on Aug 30, 2008

Hello
You asked me about Away by Jane Urquhart. I really have mixed feeling about the characters-here is what I wrote for the Canadian Bookworms.
I finished Away- I thought that the writing was excellent but I didn't find any of the characters particularly endearing. ( can't find the right word). I thought that there were bad choices made by the characters and no sense of consequences. There were parts of the story I wish were fleshed out more.( Eileen's life after she returned to the farm-did she really have more understanding of her role in the events? Any remorse? ah -the word I would use for looking at Mary's actions.
I really liked The Underpainter and The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart. Those two are my favourites.
Yet I would buy any of Urquhart's books in a minute as she writes very well. I also saw a play that was based on one of her early books. ( The whirlpool)
Thanks for asking.

posted by torontoc at 12:23 pm (EST) on Aug 25, 2008

Hi, I have seen you many times on 1001 list.

I have a Corgi, too.

His name is Banjo.

Here is a link to his picture:

http://plopphizz.diaryland.com/images/ti...

Enjoy and keep reading :).

-- M1001.

posted by media1001 at 10:03 pm (EST) on Aug 24, 2008

You ask me to let you know how I liked [The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society] I did do a review but I wanted you to know that, it will be a book that will be very easy to read againe, even though I know the ending. The island characters were so interesting and the Society was a life saver for them.Why couldn't it happen in real life?

posted by cindysprocket at 9:43 pm (EST) on Aug 21, 2008

I've noticed LT does that a fair number of times. When I add newer additions in Add Books, it's usually right. However, older editions often have the names backwards. My suspicion is that it's bad data in Amazon.

posted by TadAD at 7:24 am (EST) on Jul 24, 2008

I stopped by to check out your library after the back-and-forth of book titles this morning on the "Silly Game" thread. I saw your review of Pillars of the Earth; I guess I'm pretty much in agreement with that. I wonder, have you read World Without End? Though I really enjoyed the former, I'm having trouble generating interest in the sequel. I can't figure out whether the first was just so long that I'm done, or if I'm worried about it being a disappointment. So, I'm poking around for comments on it from folks who had reactions similar to mine on Pillars.

I see you're in Hemlock. We have a cabin in Ontario and probably pass within 10 miles of you each year as we shoot up Rt. 390.

posted by TadAD at 6:37 pm (EST) on Jul 21, 2008

hi again

I just finished James Patterson's 4th of July. I was not so thrilled with it compared to his other books, it was just ok for me. I am now reading "the stillborn God" it is a bit political and kind of a hard read. I am also reading tons of other stuff as I am finishing up my thesis this summer.

posted by melissagagnon at 4:53 pm (EST) on Jul 12, 2008

As my aged mind will attest, it is prone to make the occasional boo-boo. Witness my email to you - my review of Fowles' French ...Women was written for a Canadian paper, not a uk publication. Hadn't even been penned when I left to discover new worlds.
Forgive this old fogey!

posted by morfam at 12:42 pm (EST) on Jul 12, 2008

Hi there

I am glad that you liked pillars of the earth. I am shocked to hear that on tape it took 45 hours of listening to it. Wow, I now wonder how many hours it took me to read it. What is your next book that you are going to read?

posted by melissagagnon at 11:24 am (EST) on Jul 12, 2008

hi there,

I am absolutely blown away by your book list, and how many authors and/or titles we have in common. I'm sure you have heard that before.
Being a 'new' contributor to LT, perhaps you wouldn't mind enlightening me on a couple of things. The obvious would be how do you alphabetize your list? Unlike the elephant, I find it increasingly difficult to remember what I have read over lo',these many years, I'm sure there must be thousands of titles stored in my increasingly gnarly brain. One heck of a lot of the books were borrowed and returned to libraries, a habit I still continue to this day and although I own and buy many books, it only amounts to less than a hundred, after many house moves, and garage sales.
Do you truly have every book on your list within reach, or can you relieve my guilt by admitting you do likewise? If you do own all of those gorgeous titles, how I envy you.
Again, it was remarkable to me how many memories you conjured up for me, with your list, and like others, I'm sure, we connect in so many ways, whether it be the wonderful works of Chaim Potok, or the aged now, and perhaps no longer with us, books by Allen Drury. When I came to Canada in the mid 60's,from the UK, Advise and Consent was the book I chose to read on the long plane ride (Boeing 707).
It fascinates me that you care to read of Ben Bradlee and Kathryn Graham. As an ex-newspaperman, I would add to my list Beaverbrook, Conrad Black, James Reston and Sulzberger, all who have published memoirs.
Then there are the Roths, Irvings and Micheners. How I loved Owen Meany, Hawaii, Centennial and the Human Stain. Again, to reminisce, John Fowles' French Lieutenants Woman was the first book I reviewed for a London paper, when it was first published.
Mustn't go on...but there is also De Lillo, Richard Ford, Caleb Carr and Iain Pears. I love biographical history and love to read fictional accounts of Dickens and Shakespeare/Marlowe. There are so many other books and authors I would love to discuss with you.
Another question: How many languages are you fluent in? I notice works by French writers in their own language.
And I promise to be a little less cranky!

posted by morfam at 1:47 am (EST) on Jul 12, 2008

Hi Hemlokgang

( Ah, I see, Hemlock NY, for a moment I feared Hip Hop had "konkered" the Appalachians too :D )

Thanks for the LOL and I just had to repay by noting that I was amused and frightened by how perfectly your picture sums up my wife's soon to be realized vision of retirement - dog, couch, book, empty snack bowl, jeans, repose - she would probably add only some half finished piece of knitting.

Frightened because our cat and I dread the advent of "the dog" - needless to say, for reasons as mundane as "changes of affection","yips","yaps","yelps", and "unjust reassignments of bedspace and blankets" - and will filibuster and stall, until we have exhausted our supply of parliamentary roadblocks. Your serenity, alas, appears so complete and so logically intertwined with said dog, as to spell out our inevitable fate too. Indeed, sniff, dab, alas.

I've been readng an excessive amount of Dickens lately. Does it show? I hope? I hope not?

Pax,
Ganeshaka

posted by Ganeshaka at 3:24 pm (EST) on Jul 9, 2008

Hi there

What do you think of Pillars of the Eath. That book is my #1 favorite!

posted by melissagagnon at 4:40 pm (EST) on Jun 27, 2008

we have almost 400 books in common! i sent you a friend request because you aren't showing up in my interesting libraries for some reason! happy reading!

posted by amanaceerdh at 8:36 am (EST) on Jun 25, 2008

Hi:

I confess I put Fathers and Sons on BookMooch without having read it (I do have another copy on my shelves). So what did you think of it? How does it compare to the other great Russians?

posted by polutropos at 8:19 am (EST) on Jun 21, 2008