Sib's February 2013

We have a resident muskrat in our pond. They are kind of scruffy-looking but this photo is a cute one. They look as if they're playing whisper-down-the-lane.


Finished in February
15. ☀✔#1An Earthly Crown Kate Elliott sf Bk 2 ****
16. ♬ West of Here Jonathan Evison F ***1/2
17. ☀✔#2 His Conquering Sword Kate Elliott sf ****
18. ✔☀#3 Arctic Dreams Barry Lopez nat hist *****
19. The Law of Becoming Kate Elliott (Jaran, bk 4) sf ****
20. Marbles: Mania, Michelangelo, Depression and Me Ellen Forney *****
21. A Severed Head Iris Murdoch f ****
22. ✔#4 In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination Margaret Atwood essays ***1/2
23. The Posthumous Affair James Friel f ****
24. Glacial Period Nicolas de Crecy graphic ***1/2
25. Fun Home Alison Bechdel graphic *****
26. ✔#5 The Land of Green Ginger Winifred Holtby f ***1/2
27. ✔ #6 Cyteen C.J Cherryh sf ****
28. ♬The Yiddish Policeman's Union Michael Chabonf ****

***February Current Reads***
✔ Grace Coolidge and her Era Ishbel Ross bio
✔ 40,000 in Gehenna C.J. Cherryh sf
Monthly Murdoch The Good Apprentice (March)
✔ VMC March

Ongoing
SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, DECEMBER, JANUARY New Yorkers.

Guide to symbols
♬ audio
✔ and # - (between one and three years in my sagging tbr shelves/monthly goal of 8)
☀TBR wallflower program. (Wallflower = On shelf 3 plus years.)
VMC Virago-of-the-month
GR= group read

Best of 2013
January
fiction: The Bell Iris Murdoch
non-fiction: Swallowing the Sea Lee Upton on writing

Resolutions
Not to falter in my wallflower program!

Read in January
1. Rimrunners C.J. Cherryh sf ****
2. ✔ #1 The Devastating Boys Elizabeth Taylor ss ***1/2
3.☀ ✔ #2 The Wild Wood Charles de Lint fantasy ***1/2
4.✔#3 Swallowing the Sea: On Writing Lee Upton craft/nf *****
5. ✔#4 The Bell Iris Murdochf January Murdoch *****
6. ☀✔#5 Banner of Souls Liz Williams sf ****
7. ☀✔#6 The Reindeer People Megan Lindholm ***1/2
8. ☀✔#7 Wolf's Brother Megan Lindholm ****
9. ✔ #8 The Happy Foreigner Enid Bagnold January Virago F
10. Captain Vorpatril's Alliance Lois McMaster Bujold sf ****
11. On Basilisk Station David Weber sf
12. Jaran Kate Elliott sf Bk 1 ****
13. ✔#9 Ragnarok: The End of the Gods A.S. Byatt f **** myth
14. ☀✔#10The Margarets Sherri Tepper sf ***

Ditched
1. ☀The Edge of Reason Melissa Snodgrass urban fantasy (reason: too cliched) - see note below about this symbol: ☀
2. ✔Canada Richard Ford f This is just too gloomy and monotonal for me. I doubt I'll ever pick it up again either.

January Statistics
Total: 14
Men: 2
Women: 12
Non-fiction: 1
Virago: 1
Classic Fiction: 2
Short stories: 1
SF: 6
Mys: 0
Humor: 0
Fantasy: 3
YA: 0
New (to me) Authors: 4
Group Read: 0
From PBS: 2
Acquired & read right away: 2
Library: 0
Audio: 0
Off my shelf: 10
Wallflowers: 5
Months of NYers: 0
Ditched: 2

January Reflections
More skewed than ever toward the imaginative fiction universe...Dare I admit a desire to escape reality? Yes. That said, even the fiction I read had an 'unreal' quality to it, Murdoch's The Bell set in an estate bordering an ancient nunnery, Enid Bagnold's The Happy Foreigner a novelized account of her time driving for the French army in WW1, and A.S. Byatt's rendering of the great norse story/myth Ragnarok. A great number of the novels, even the two written by men, featured women protagonists. There were, as always, odd resonances and parallels, shamans with apprentices, say, or mysterious lakes, a mother protecting an only child.... sometimes a theme will jump out at me, but not this time, not readily, only the desire to be swept away, although I'm very glad I am committed to the Murdoch monthly read and the Virago monthly read, for some sort of attempt at balance.

Books In
1.The Russian Debutante's Handbook Gary Shteyngart free rpl
2.Captain Vorpatril's Alliance Lois Bujold NEW
3. Jaran Kate Elliott (PBS)
4. The Law of Becoming Kate Elliott (PBS)
T= 4 (I can't quite believe it!)

Books Out
Listed at PBS
Private Demons (bio - Shirley Jackson)

To library:
6.Canada
Gone for Good
1.The Edge of Reason
2.A week at the Airport
3.Reading Women (review copy)
4.Guernsey Literary etc
Disintegrated

7.Berlin Alexanderplatz
Total: 7

Some shelf-clearing stats
Total read or ditched: 16 (10 books off shelf of which 6 were wallflowers and 2 were ditched.
Acquired: 4
Released: 5
Total score: up 12!

WOW!

Series started or continued so ar in 2013
1. Alliance-Union Universe C.J. Cherryh
2. Honor Harrington Universe David Weber

Series completed in 2013
The Jaran Kate Elliott
The Acacia Trilogy David Anthony Durham

Series completed - or caught up with - in 2012
1. The Castings Trilogy Pamela Freeman
2. Revelation Space Alastair Reynolds
3. Miles Vorkosigan Lois McMaster Bujold

I'm copying my last message here, because it is a useful item potentially.

That's great Tad - and on the topic (of solar) - it's another snowyish day so it's clearing the panels every half-hour ....... While we're on the topic, folks, - check this out and see if anyone in your neighborhood is doing this: suncommon This is the future. It's brilliant because it makes it affordable and takes a lot of the burden off the consumer.
And yes Ellen - if solar works here, it works in Seattle. As my daughter says, "If it's light out, there are photons."

And look at that -- 'the inverter changes dc power to ac'. 'well I'll be durned' as my favorite cowdog (hank is named after him) would say.

Hmmm I just remembered that I plan to start a new thread today. Well I'll copy this to the new one, I think.

Happy new thread!

That sun common website looks really useful, I wonder if there are similar ones for other states or countries?

Also wondering how Hank is doing...?

Hank has developed a taste for some kitty treats called 'Party Time' which are probably vile but as I don't think it makes a diff. what he eats only THAT he eats, he gets those with kitten crunchies (have more fat etc) and he has put on weight and is looking very well. The thing is we have tried a million other things and these are the two foods he LIKES. So that is that. It's been a month since the definite diagnosis and we have our fingers crossed. My greatest wish for him is that he gets to experience fine weather again as he loves to be outside - has spots we've named 'hank's office' or 'hank's spa' or hank's diner' etc - places near the pond, in the sun, and the woodpile......

-Note that my Monthly Murdoch read will be A Severed Head if and when it gets here - the PBS person has marked it mailed as of two days ago, so there is hope.

Also - My monthly Virago is a Winifred Holtby Land of Green Ginger - I liked the title! My copy is not a Virago, but I am guessing Virago did publish it..... anyhow, it fits the virago profile.

>7 sibylline:: loved A Severed Head, and yes Virago published The Land of Green Ginger so you're all good there.

Glad to hear about Hank.

>4 sibylline:. So am I reading this right, at the suncommon website: that people who don't have solar subsidize people who do?

Vermont state law requires our utilities to pay a solar premium on all the electricity your panels produce. It’s around $30 a month for a typical Vermont family, money on the table that drives further down the cost of solar.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the way this works.

>4 sibylline:: And yes Ellen - if solar works here, it works in Seattle. As my daughter says, "If it's light out, there are photons."

Yes, it works everywhere there is light. However, the question is cost effectiveness. The smaller the number of insolation hours (basically, a standardized measurement of sunlight per day), the longer it takes to amortize the capital expenditure for the equipment. Of course, if you're doing it for ecological or self-sufficiency reasons, then this isn't a concern. E.g., obviously, central Ontario isn't peak insolation territory but our motivation had nothing to do with cost so it was worth it. We find that we can run all the lights we want, plus two computers and a satellite Internet connection if needed off our panels and that's enough.

ETA: That said, there's also the toy value. :-) I'm now looking at using a diversion controller so that, when my batteries are full, the 'excess' sunlight is converted to driving my water pump so that I don't have to use a gas generator for that.

Lovely new thread, Lucy! I'm ashamed to say that I fell woefully behind on the last one - I WILL be better with this one. Looking forward to seeing what you think of A Severed Head - I greatly enjoyed that one. ANd you are reminding me that I need to get back to Murdoch! Hope you have a fun and relaxing weekend planned.

Wow, that's some photo!

I think my Feb. Murdoch will probably be The Bell.

B - I think you are misunderstanding the full extent of it. The power companies also get power back from you at no cost - they can sell extra power to other grids that need it...... the idea is that everyone wins - your overall energy bill shouldn't go up, that is, whether you have solar or not. It's utterly brilliant.

Yes Tad - but that is based on the idea that everyone should have all the power they want whenever they want. We are meeting our needs, our real needs, on 4 true insolation hours a day, often involving snow or rain! On sunny days I can run the vacuum, any machine I want, shower as long as I wish and do all the laundry I want, even in the middle of winter...... so........... and this is Vermont, for heaven's sake! It really can't get worse than this. Our propane bill is high in Dec/Jan but tapers off to zero from May to September so it evens out and as it includes our elect. and heat, it's reasonable. And frankly, after a month of this experience, I doubt our propane bill will be anything like it has been ever again. Probably our worst expenses have been maintenance, mainly battery-related and generator maintenance ..... but even so it's not bad. The prohibitive expense is the set up - which is where these companies like SunCommon come in.

Everytime I venture out into our surrounding deserts I find more solar and wind farms which greatly pleases me but ultimately I think we need to make more power where it's used so solar panels on every roof would be ideal. I would love to have it but am not sure how our condo board would feel. In my dream world I have a plug-in car powered by the solar panels on my roof (which also power everything in my house).

Not entirely far fetched -- you know 'they' are working on a solar paint - we just have these sheets that look like heavy black plastic for a good deal of our solar panelling. We have a metal roof, so you can't even see it unless you know it's there.

Ooh, the muskrat has appeared since I first checked in. What a fabulous photo! Great claws, whiskers and wet fur!

Muskrat Love! - A dreadful song but definitely what I'm feeling about that photo. Well done, Lucy!

Aren't those claws something else?

>13 sibylline:. You're right, I don't get it.

Unless we move (which we aren't planning to do) our problems would be getting permission to put the panels on our (flat) common roof and then getting the power down to the garage, 6 floors below. We live on the top floor so getting it into our unit would be easy, the garage not so much. But perhaps in a few years

18: Aren't those claws something else?
Quite the claws for cavorting.

Apartment and condo dwellers will have to wait until the owners/group decide its something they want to do. Meanwhile, far-seeing developers are getting with the program.

My feeling is that the technology is on the verge of being cost-effective and very do-able - so that it will snow-ball in the next few years as folks (as in both big business and consumers) realize what it means in terms of being a great way to make money, achieve energy independence and cost-savings - you won't pay less probably, but you won't pay AS MUCH more - both in money costs and health costs as you would for continued heavy/exclusive reliance on nuclear or petrochemical energy sources. Vermont voters have a goal of shutting down Yankee, for example, - our nuke plant on which we do depend at present - this can only be done by being clever and resourceful and determined.

Florida (well, duh) is beginning to get the idea that solar is smart and has started some kind of a buy-back program, a bit more byzantine than the Vermont one, so I can't explain it. Mr. Sibyx could.

>13 sibylline:: Edited

To an extent, yes, you are correct in that assumption. However, defining "true needs" becomes a topic of intense debate, personal opinion, ire and rancor if you get among alternative energy folks. There are folks that would probably feel passionately that they need more power than you are using...and I, personally, know people who would feel that your statement about running a vacuum means that you clearly are over-using power. *smile*

If people are willing to completely re-examine their life style, then it makes the transition easier. If, however, they want to maintain something like their current one, then they may be doing hybrid (some solar, some grid...or a sell back model) for a while until they get all the bulbs converted to LED, the TV gone or replaced with a low-power model, the old computer changed over for one that uses 10% of the power, better insulation, etc.

Most homes these days could not run as they are now on 4 hours of average insolation (probably closer to 3 in the winter) unless they had fairly large battery banks and panel arrays. Set up cost and battery replacement every few years would eat up any savings.

Nonetheless, I think it's a given that almost everyone uses more power than they really need. We put a household Kill-A-Watt meter on one day and then turned off everything. We were surprised at how much power was still being used by wall warts, etc.

I do worry about the toxic materials going into landfills as a result of battery cycling. Articles on recycling imply that the recycling of them is fairly inefficient. I've also read many times that battery breakthroughs are the real barrier to universal solar, not sunlight conversion.

I did read an article about a technology that's still at the university stage. One of the difficulties of solar panels is that they are most efficient at a given wavelength, which is decided at construction time. This new approach is looking at building photosensing material that is transparent to certain wavelengths so that you can stack them. Then, a given panel could be built to respond to many different wavelengths by having the top layer capture one, the next layer another, etc.

Another solar technology that is fascinating is the updraft thermal tower. We saw a working prototype of one (about 20 feet tall), but true production instances are in the works, one in Arizona and one in Spain. Article here on the subject.

>22 sibylline:: My feeling is that the technology is on the verge of being cost-effective and very do-able

I would argue that it's not the technology changing to become cost-effective, but the manufacturing. The technology is inching along only slowly; mass production driven by mass demand is what we need.

Interestingly, the Indonesia tsunami of a few years ago gave this a big shot in the arm. A lot of the rebuilding is being done with solar rather than centralized power stations since the latter proved so vulnerable. Same thing with cell towers rather than copper land lines. The demand for PE cells as a result caused a lot of manufacturers to ramp up production and others to get into the game.

Oh I love your muskrat - I had very little idea what a muskrat looked like. I do like its feet!

My first thought also when I saw your muskrat picture was, "Wow, look at those feet! Those TOES!"

I'm totally with you Tad - the batteries are the big obstacle to having homes be self-contained power suppliers and users. - That's why the SunCommon approach is such a good idea, for now, anyway. I don't know all the issues vis a vis recycling of materials in batteries - although sometimes it is a matter of volume, when there is enough of something then it becomes economically viable to do. I confess I have read more about the direct solar technology than the batteries and I should correct that. Batteries are.... somehow less interesting, aren't they?

The usage debate. Well. Yeah. Everyone wants fifty kinds of band-aids too. And all the rest of it, and I have my things too; I like books and they use up paper and all the accompanying resources. So I'm no saint. I'm willing to try things though.

Let me see if I can find a link for the solar leaf. It's quite cool. Possibly even an eventual battery bypass: solar leaf

Fascinating discussion of solar. Will have to return when I can digest all of your brilliance, Lucy.
Is that your actual muskrat? We've seen a couple in our pond but never gotten close enough to get a photo.

Love the muskrat photo. I don't think I've ever seen one. His paws/claws look like fingers! And I'm happy to hear Hank is doing better.

Not our muskrat, Laura - just a photo off the net...... Ours would look like a mini-loch ness monster if I got a photo - a dark and indistinct blob on the surface of the water. That's about how skilled a photographer I am.

Pat - Brilliant, no. Interested, yes.

I haven't decided yet if I find that muskrat cute or a little scary with those claws. I've never seen one before.

Interesting discussion about the solar energy, I am so impressed by your approach!

It has become immensely popular in Germany where for a long time you got financial aids from the state if you put collectors on your roof and there are whole fields full of collectors.
In Italy it is finally starting as well, though still slowly. I live in the first 'Klimahaus' in the region (and maybe even in Italy), but they made some mistakes with the calculations because we still have to pay for the heating (it was promised the energy won from the solar collectors would balance out the cost for heating).

As for usage this is also interesting. Back in Germany you just used whatever you needed and paid for it. Here in Italy you have to buy a quantity of energy (standard is 2 KW) when you move in. Usually this means you can't have the washing machine and the dishwasher running at the same time. So I got 6KW, pay much more although I am out of the house most of the day, but at least I can do all my washing and cleaning and cooking during the weekends.

CUTE muskrat!

#31 Here in Italy you have to buy a quantity of energy when you move in. That seems a strange - it doesn't seem to benefit either the power companies or the consumer!

>30 sibylline:: Ours would look like a mini-loch ness monster if I got a photo - a dark and indistinct blob on the surface of the water. Yep, that's what "our" muskrat would look like too!

I've changed my muskrat photo - those claws were kind of getting to me too...... although I thought they did show something essential about the creature.

Buying energy ahead of time, well, that is certainly different. It's nice though that you get a choice about how much to pay.

Ah, now I had assumed that was a photo of your muskrat! If you hadn't let on... I liked the one with the claws and whiskers, but the new ones are good too - very sociable-looking!

Yes, those claws were extraordinary--I don't seem to recall the ones I've seen around here having claws like that though.
ETA: the ones you have up top now look more like ours.

15. ☀✔#1 sf ****

This second in the series of novels about the Jaran had a slower start and more complex development - being book 2 in a four parter, things are brewing, you might say, both on the ground and in the air. Elliott is doing an interesting thing, combining a nomadic horse/warrior culture that has developed into a very effective functioning unit poised, in a way not entirely dissimilar to Genghis Khan, to unify and alter a large continental area of this planet. But at the same time, off-worlders are intermingling, for better or worse, and there is no way, given the pressures that these off-worlders, Earth humans and the Chappalii are also under (Chapalii are a much older race that rules most of this part of the galaxy, benevolently, but totally which is, naturally, unacceptable to the Earthpeople.....), no way that the Rhui people, Jaran and others will be unaffected. The people on this planet, Rhui, were placed there by the Chappalii at some distant time (no less than 5000 probably not more than 20,000 years ago) from Earth for reasons obscure, so they are in fact human, although the Chappalii may have tinkered with them, making them subtly different....you have all sorts of romances and intrigues from the most earthly sort to the mystery of the Chappalii culture and aims. Sexual mores, gender roles all play an important role here too - Elliott is bold and interesting and sympathetic in her explorations of what it might be to be gay in a culture like the Jaran, the clash of an 'advanced' culture where all sorts of combinations are accepted. It's hard to judge this novel separately from the whole, but I'm still engrossed, and I don't have that lurking feeling I sometimes have that I'm being totally indulgent. ****

I'm not sure how I missed your new thread, Lucy. Well, actually I am. This has all happened since yesterday, and I didn't spend much time here yesterday.
The solar discussion is interesting and instructive. My DH rigged a home-made solar panel to heat water for our showers. It worked well for several months until a storm blew a heavy limb over onto the panel and tore it up. That was our last attempt. Heaven knows we have plenty of sun - especially since we topped the two great oaks in the front to avoid hurricane damage.
I'm interested to read about the Elliot and wish that my PBS person would get the first one to me.
I'll be interested also to see what you think about The Russian Debutante's Handbook. I read the first ¾ when it came out but could never plow through to the end, so I've put my copy on PBS. Good luck!

Did you read/like the first Shteyngart? Absurdistan? I really enjoyed it.

Anybody remember the song "Muskrat Love" by the Captain and Tennille?

>41 ronincats:: oh yes, every time my husband and I see a muskrat in our pond, we wonder if it's Suzy or Sam ...

The new photo is VERY cute!

41 & 42 Now that takes me back....

>41 ronincats:: yes, unfortunately.

Hi Lucy -
I wish we were solar powered. I would indeed miss the convenience of water abundance though when power is interrupted or too low.
There is sooo much water around here, but every time I let the water run even a little I think of Dune which I read a lifetime ago. Still remember how scarce water was in that book. Must have impressed me deeply. I should re-read that sometime.

Anyway, hope you get your power sorted out sooner than later. Brushing snow off the panels must be a job you could do without. Keep the faith!

Roni, I'll go you one older: anybody remember "Muskrat Ramble"? I think Louis Armstrong did it.......

> 44 - Couldn't agree more. See post 17.

> 46 I love Muskrat Ramble! It's generally agreed that Kid Ory wrote the tune perhaps as early as 1921 and, you're right, Peggy, Satchmo did make the first recording of it in February of 1926. There are lots of other great recordings of the tune, but probably my favorite is the one by Bob Crosby. In the late 60's, Country Joe and the Fish appropriated the tune for their lone hit, "I Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag.'

Well.... sheepishly..... I know the Muskrat Ramble tune, for I was a CJ and the Fish fan...... I'll have to go listen purposefully to the original (likely I've heard it, as I like Armstrong a lot, but I'm not v knowledgeable about tune titles, unless bludgeoned by repeated listening.)

The three muskrats are even CUTER!!

Muskrat Love ----- oh yeah, I remember.

*puts on iPod to get a new song in head*

Muskrat, Susie, Muskrat, Sam,
Do the jitterbug down in Muskrat land . . .

Yes - I remember the song, unfortunately.

I remember the song too, Lori - and will probably have it going through my head all night long now. *sigh*

*Waving* at Lucy

Lucy - Are they called muskrats because of the smell? Anyway cute-ness overdose to start your new thread. x

Yes Paul - Apparently when they are, um, ready to have families they really blast out the message - and they're quite active in that regard producing lots of little Susies and Sams. And in fact, on sunny days lately there is a bit of an odor you could call musk off in the area where I've been seeing our Sam or Susie. It could be our resident red fox too, though - we have one living nearby although I am not sure where his (or her) den is.

16. ♬ contemp. fiction ***1/2

West of Here was solid story-telling , but I'm not at all sure how I would have responded to it as a regular print read, rather than audio. The narrator was good, good enough to keep me engaged, even when I was wondering, a little, where the narrative was headed. Port Bonita is a made up place, strangely similar to Port Angeles, and Evison doesn't bother changing the name of the Elwah or the fact that it has a huge dam that is currently being deconstructed and that the story uses, as its organizing principle, the birth and death of the dam. The action shifts back and forth from the 1890's to 2006, a few of the characters related to each other, the present day ones still muddling along, more or less at the same socio-economic level they were at hundred years earlier. There are about eight-ten story threads, some of them are: In the past, an explorer, a local native american boy and his parents, a young woman who wishes to be independent, and in the present another troubled young native american and his mother, a young ex-con, his parole officer, and so on. Things happen, lives change some in small and some in larger ways. Nothing much gets resolved. It was fine with me as a listen, although I cringed, not at all confident about who was going to get nailed and who would make it, in a way that I felt was the result of the wandering and inconsistent aspect of the story-telling. On the page some of it would have annoyed me, I think, as too portentious, of the 'because I say so," school of writing, but there is plenty of great writing, the best of which is inspired Evison's profound love of the area and the Olympic peninsula. I knew zip about the area to start with and now I feel I have a clue. So that is all to the good. There is also some extremely funny Sasquatch material. ***1/2

I'll be finishing a slew (or stew?) of stuff in the next couple of days, I hope. That audio book was 14 disks and I think I've been listening to it for at least a month. Ready for something new.

>54 sibylline:. Wow, I give you credit for sticking with that one to the end. My brother has lived in Sequim (pronounced Skwim) for almost 30 years, which is just 30 miles from Port Angeles (PA is the "big town"--ha). He's an engineer, and he's been documenting the damn destruction ("river reconstruction") from his plane ever since they started the project. It's beautiful country.

Here's a link to an article with one of Tom's pictures: Biological Boomerang

Wonderful photograph. Very cool.

17. ☀✔#2 **** sf

Book 3 of the Jaran series. The consequences of intermixing with the native people of the planet Rhui are having wider and wider consequences and Elliott continues to make it interesting. If you started out liking the first one, you'll probably still like it. Things must resolve in Book 4 so I can hardly wait to get started.

I can't believe how quickly I galloped through this! Read it so fast it never even made it onto the 'currently reading' list. Having fun though. Also thrilled at the strong start to February reading.

#33 Rhian: it certainly is strange. When I called the supplying company to register with them they asked me how much I required. I had no idea, because I was used to ... well, just using as much as I needed. The 6kW I bought then (you could get 2kW, 6 kW or 11 kW - unexplainable gaps) are unused more than 2 thirds of the day. But my neighbours confirmed me that with the 2kW standard power you can't cook on more than 2 cooking plates if you also have the light on. Which might explain why most Italians cook with gas stoves.

Oooh - there are 3 musk rats now! And they are really cute!!

Stopping by to say hi!

Just found out, looking at da weather, that I can expect a big snowstorm starting tomorrow night. Oh joy. Just what I need!

Here too, Lucy, but half of what you folks are expected to get.

Hey cuz, chiming in on the preferability of the three-muskrat pic to the other one, and commenting that West of Here has a cover design straight out of 1956. Which is cool, actually!

Lucy, do you have your power issues resolved yet?

You're so nice to ask! Short answer: No. HOWEVER, a second problem came up that is truly too difficult to explain, but that affected the pumping of water under our floor, and in resolving that, which we were able to do last week, we also solved one of the mysteries that has been plaguing both of us - a constant power drain of 3 amps or so, which adds up, and the fact that ever since we had some things changed to 'improve' our floor operation it has worked less well...... So we are using a bit less power overall AND getting better heat in the floors. But that doesn't change the fact that it is still too cold and it is really bothering me this year in some way it never has before. I really really have a hard time dragging myself out with the dog..... luckily she is insistent.

It's a little hard to tell what we are going to get here - the reports from different services, local, NOAA and Weather.com are all quite different and sometimes even, in the case of weather.com, incoherent.

18. ***** natural history

What do you say about a work that attempts to fully examine the Arctic from within and without, both as a place that is real and a place upon which Westerners have imposed their dreams and delusions and greed. (The original people had few, if any, delusions about the place and its rigors). The first five chapters - each chapter is almost exactly fifty pages long - examine the natural history of the region, meticulously and readably, from migration routes to a focus on particular iconic animals from the polar bear to the narwhal, and also some of the lesser but important animals, the arctic fox and hares. He examines what is known about how each of these animals lives, what they eat, what eats them, and how they survive. In every case he is watching for how the animal lives in 'harmony' with the land, how they deal with disaster, with change. One feature, of the Arctic, for example is that conditions can change dramatically, populations periodically crash and recover, and some of the animals are more adaptable than others.. He also looks at the relationship each animal has to the native people, how and who hunts them. There is a little about modern hunting and whaling but for the most part Lopez spares us that. Much is still unknown and possibly unknowable about the arctic, both polar regions are beyond challenging to researchers, so that, for example, nothing is known of what narwhals get up to for large parts of the year. No one has seen a narwhal being born (if I remember correctly... it might have been some kind of walrus) or mating or anything like that. Chapter six through nine move into the deeper Lopez theme of examining how Westerners have 'seen' the Arctic - what has drawn them to such an inhospitable climate - from the monks who explored it six centuries ago, to the obsessive search for the Northwest Passage. He spends time too, examining how the attitudes of each captain or leader of expeditions determined - and frighteningly so - survival. Those who could be respectful and learn from the Eskimo were more likely to survive, those who paid attention and took precautions, who listened to their humblest sailors, who were not arrogant, well, most of them made it home. The others did not. Peary. Franklin. It's sobering. He looks at painters and oil diggers and life for the modern Eskimo, Lopez is observing everything always looking at how our dreams and ideas feed what we see and how we act. One of his most telling observations is that he begins to realize that whatever you have read about the Arctic, before you see it, will greatly influence WHAT you see when you are there. Some of the most moving and elegant writing (and all of it is elegant, believe me) is about how we forge a relationship and give meaning and depth to our lives - as in real happiness and contentment - by respecting and knowing all about the landscape around us. We are one organism surrounded and embraced by countless living organisms - even in a place as seeming bleak as the Arctic: life, movement change prevail. Breathtakingly well expressed. Someone mentioned, when I said I was reading Arctic Dreams that their partner keeps a copy of it by the bedside, and I can fully understand why. Above all it is Lopez the writer who staggers - he can write about scientific minutia, say, how ice is formed, or about our moral and ethical responsibilities to the earth. This review does not do the book justice, not even close. *****

I'll be back in a bit with two quotes that illustrate the power and grace of Lopez's writing.

This one seems coherent, don't know about accuracy... http://www.wunderground.com/news/winter-storm-nemo-20130206?pageno=2 .

We apparently will be getting ice pellets.

Congratulations on finishing Arctic Dreams! I'm happy that it turned out to be worth the time and effort, and I look forward to your review. I don't promise to dash out to procure and read it though.
I'm afraid it may be timely with the storm headed your way. Incoherent weather report doesn't sound encouraging. "Nemo" also has a discouraging sound. Batten down and be safe and warm.

Sorry about the power but glad your heat has improved -- especially with a storm coming.

Agree absolutely about the confusing weather forecasts. One of the national ones I saw this AM first included everything from Boston to Worcester, all of RI and all of the Cape (which includes me) in the screaming pink, 2 feet of snow "you are going to die" section and then in the next instant switched to another screen where suddenly the Cape and my area are in the 8" to 12" area. The locals are excluding me and the Cape from the YAGTD section.

Looking forward to your Arctic Dreams review. It sounds like a book that might appeal.

>67 LizzieD:-69: We have to drive to Hartford this weekend, which is squarely in the 18"-24" zone on most weather maps. What is unfortunate is that some predictions are "worst on Friday afternoon/evening with snowfall past by Saturday noon" while others are saying "okay Friday evening but hammered on Saturday morning". Since we need to be there around 2:00 in the afternoon, this makes a big difference for when we go.

I need to invent a highly accurate weather predictor. Which, come to think of it, would simultaneously solve $$$ problems related to my desire to retire right about now. ;-)

Go for it Tad, get inventing.

Quite likely 95 will be shut down. However I think they don't know how fast the storm will blow through or where it will hit the hardest, so who knows?

I really want to write my Arctic Dreams review but it will have to wait for tomorrow, the last two days have been wildly busy and I was up at 4:30 worrying about the heat in Mr. Sib's shop, and rightly so, then couldn't get back to sleep. So I decided it was time to FINISH Arctic Dreams becuase while I love and appreciate the book, a part of me is so DONE already with cold and winter that I thought it might help move things along to finish the book! So instead I have brought on a blizzard. Ooops.

We just got the word from our school district that school is cancelled. YAY YAY YAY etcetera. So tomorrow I will have time between shoveling the door area and brushing off the solar panels to visit threads and write my review. And maybe some reading. Ah!

Hankie had his second cortisone shot today - it's been six weeks and the last few he's been fading again. The effect won't last as long this time, but I am grateful to buy the time.

Looking forward to your review of Arctic Dreams. So what happens if your area of Vermont loses power in the storm? Are you unaffected? I hope it isn't too bad. I'm just listening to the national news now and it looks bad but who knows. All the best for Hank. I hope the shot is a big help.

A gentle cuddle for Hank, please! I hope you all weather the storm well.

Do take care. If people in Vermont can't handle a couple of feet of snow, then who can--right? Give Hank a hug and keep us apprised of the accumulation.

Pat - we only lose power when our system breaks down or runs out of fuel (solar w nat. gas back up - the latter out of commish for the time being) so as long as I keep at the panels today we should be fine. My biggest worry is Mr. Sib's shop which is full of things that can't freeze, you know, paint, glue etc. It is very windy, horizontal snow prevails - this is the weird kind of storm wherein it doesn't have to snow all that much to have drifting and such bad visibility driving that it is extremely hazardous. I don't think we'll get more than ten inches (I fully expect that much). Happily it's so windy that so far most of the solar panels are clear - nice for me as the brushing off is quite a work out for the upper body. No idea what will happen to everyone else, however. At night I can tell when I see no lights across the valley, that the power is out.

I agree wholeheartedly with you B - the downhill skiers are, of course, thrilled. The nuttier ones will be out there today I'm sure!

So far no change in Hank, he has found a chair and is glued to it, but it took around 24 hours last time too.

Time to work on the Arctic Dreams review and then stagger off to walk the dog and do some brushing.

Glad to hear from you.

When did they start naming winter storms--Winter Storm Nemo?

>77 labwriter:: The explanation posted on an article on Weather.com was that this storm may end up being one of the top ten worst winter storms and they thought those deserved names.

Snowing to beat the band here. Perhaps 2' by time it's done. Pulling for the Hankster!

>78 TadAD:. Naming winter storms seems sort of drama-queenish to me. Another reason given on the website is that a name gives a storm "a personality all its own." Seriously?

Looking at the issue a little more closely, I see that it's coming from The Weather Channel (TWC) and not from the National Weather Service. It just seems a bit silly to me. I'm guessing TWC is looking for increased ratings--STORM NEMO! You can just about hear the Charleton Heston-like voice.

Yay for the wind clearing the power panels...
I think after this storm, even I might be looking forward to spring.
Gentle hugs for Hank...wishes for comfort.

And, oh, I don't know... what does Nemo have to do with blizzards?

Arctic Dreams - I have it! I'm moving it up my tbr pile. Sounds great.

Winter storm naming is a recent Weather Channel invention, not to be confused with the National Weather Service long history of naming tropical storms/hurricanes based on strict criteria. IMO, the Weather Channel is doing so for the wrong reasons i.e.; "hype" the storm and attract viewers. There's been a fair amount of media coverage over this, just Google "winter storm naming".

Snort. It is indeed, B. Kind of silly. I don't mind it, in fact, I'm amused by it. Plus it does make it easier later to refer to this or that huge storm with a name, rather than trying to remember a date and year. But the WC has so enriched my vocabulary with expressions like 'alberta clipper' that I can't complain, not really.

Not all that much snow but horrendous wind, I tried to walk Posey, but ugh. She, of course, being low to the ground was fine. Tracked a mole with her nose in the snow which always cracks me up.

Cee - I was thinking of you when I wrote the review - I am 100% sure you will LOVE it.

On a sunny day we might be getting in 140 or more amps of 'insolation'. Today, with the panels cleared, both floors 'on' and the only other elec. devices our plugged in computers and the icebox, we are at about plus 2.0 amps on average...... as long as it stays in the positive I can keep the floors on.

65: Excellent review of Arctic Dreams, Lucy. It makes me want to pick up the book again and stay with it. I think the payoff for me would be in the latter part when Lopez writes about forging a relationship with the landscape around us. It looks like you might get some practice with that in the next few days. Good luck with the snow in your area. I wish you could send some to Missouri!

Thanks, Donna. You don't want this cos it is mostly wind.

Somehow "do you remember that storm in aught nine?" has more cachet for me than "do you remember Nemo?" lol

65: Onto the WL. Though realistically I have a bunch of books of this ilk already on hand, and I should read them first.

Some of the most moving and elegant writing (and all of it is elegant, believe me) is about how we forge a relationship and give meaning and depth to our lives - as in real happiness and contentment - by respecting and knowing all about the landscape around us. We are one organism surrounded and embraced by countless living organisms - even in a place as seeming bleak as the Arctic: life, movement change prevail. Breathtakingly well expressed.

Sold! Into the Amazon cart it goes. I just finished my book on George Mallory's last attempt to climb Everest (Above All Things) so I'm still in an icy mindset. Good luck with the storm and your panels.

Well, I hope your relationship with Storm Nemo is fleeting at best. I'm really, really glad that you didn't have to get your LD to school and home today. Take very good care of yourselves!

Hi Sib. I hope you'll sign in here when you can and let us know that you're A-OK. Take care!

B - I'm OK and thanks for asking after me - yesterday the storm wasn't too bad except that it was hard work getting enough 'insolation' to run the floors - the wind helped, luckily, blowing snow off the collectors, but not all of them and not entirely.... in the early evening I had a freak-out melt-down about the whole thing after a) reading the forecast for today (which turned out to be wrong, so breathe) and b) not eating for too long due to freaking out. It's been four weeks since this started, and although the house floor now functions, thank goodness, I still have no back-up to solar. Spousal unit gets back from this trip on Monday night, and I do expect that by the end of the week, while we may not have generator power we should have answers and things ordered and stuff happening. By the following week I fully expect to be back in business. My daughter was a brick and with food and a little snort of Porto I got through it and by bed time I was just tired and slept ok. Today there is enough sun to run the floors all day (what freaked me was a 'no sun' Saturday and wildly cold/windy Sat. night.... I just didn't know how I was going to keep it all going.... but all is well. In fact later daughter, the bf and I will go to see a movie which will be a Very Good Thing for me, to get out of here and get a break.

Not a whole lot of reading yesterday due to anxiety.

Hi Lucy! Just checking in after a bit of an absence. Gosh, what an adventure you've been having! Glad to hear things are improving. No power at this time of year must be a bit daunting. Still, you got to discover the joy of candles. The comments about turning off screens to get a good nights sleep were interesting too - we could all do with heeding that advice I suspect.
I'm a real candlelight lover, and back when I was a moody teenager my bedroom was pretty much entirely lit by candlelight. The husband's a bit of a fire safety nut, so less so these days...

We do have some power, but only what comes in and gets used or stored in the batteries, which can be precious little on a cloudy/snowy/rainy day this time of year.

Lucy, you sound like a pioneer woman who is dealing heroiclally with life's challenges. Glad there's light at the end of the tunnel for you and hope s.u. gets everything up and working quickly.

The joke is that I am so not really a pioneer woman! What I like is to sit around reading and thinking! I wouldn't have lasted ten minutes in The Little House on the Prairie or in the Big Woods or anywhere...... I am conscientious and determined but I come from a long line of early settlers who made the choice to stay put in the northeast!!!! The biggest westward trek I can think of in my fam was to leave Vermont to cross Lake Champlain to settle Massena NY in the early 1800's. But that matriarch, who rode a donkey over the Adirondacks, might qualify?

I don't know...living off the grid and making it through a blizzard with the system not fully functioning sounds pretty pioneer-like to me :-)

Lucy, I'm glad you're OK and having a sunny day. How much snow did you get up your way? I'm hearing about 2-3 feet in parts of New England and wondering if it's the same for you.

Just checking in to see how you're doing Lucy. Glad you're ok and hope you enjoy the film.

Wow, I didn't realize your husband was away. That sounds more daunting to face the storm without an extra pair of hands. I'm glad you're OK and I also hope you enjoy your time at the movies.

I wonder at the courage of my mother's ancestors who sailed out from Scotland in 1820. I'm squarely in your reading and thinking camp, Lucy. Beautiful sunshine here after the storm, so glad to hear you're getting it too to boost your power storage. I do hope you get all of this stuff sorted out soon so that you can go back to not thinking about it overmuch.

Thank you everyone. I am calm again - fabulous 'insolation' today and both house and shop are in fine shape, plus although it will be cold cold cold tonight, the winds will be 'calm'. I can't begin to tell you how relieved I am that this ordeal is going to end very soon. Monday will be in the high 30's so no worries at all.

Tui - we didn't get all that much snow 7-8 inches is all, however some mighty drifting due to the powerful winds.

Meant to get a photo, but the wind filled all the tracks - last night Posey started growling around the doors which was a first for her - I looked about a bit and saw nothing, but this morning loads of Fisher cat tracks all around the house, just poking around. Bold and hungry.

The courage of all of those people boggles me too, Tui. Reading the book on the Arctic - those earlier explorers. My god, those monks in little rowboats practically. Truly 'the bear went over the mountain' part of the human personality is huge.

omigosh, don't let dear Posey near one of those vicious characters! They take on cats and small dogs!

I'm awfully grateful to have been born in this time too. I have not one physical-hardship with courage bone in my body. I try to imagine my ancestors coming from the Outer Hebrides to this place of swamps and heat and mosquitoes and snakes and other varmints, and I just can't do it. How bad would life have to be to make an ordinary woman pick up everything and move into the unknown?
GLAD for the smooth sailing and warmth for the rest of the weekend!

Happy to know adequate insolation is in your future!

Wow, Lucy, I'm just cruising through after several days' absence. I am glad it seems that all is working out alright and that you (and presumably Posey) are weathering the storm safely enough. And with hubster away. Urgh.

I think it's funny that they have started naming winter storms.

Take care, stay warm and safe.

It got down to around -14 last night. The ingredients for the Perfect Disaster were all in place if yesterday had not been much sunnier than the weather reports suggested. I was able to run the floor in the shop all night, and even so the floor temp in there where I keep the thermo. was 35...... But I should say that it isn't quite the same as a 35 in a house where the furnace quit, plus the shop has great insulation. When you walk in there is a feeling of warmth. And the jar of water I put in the outer room that needs to stay (just) above freezing was fine, despite the fact that the thermo in there said 30..... and from here on into forseeable future, things should be fine plus a somewhat chastened and grateful Mr. Sib gets home tomorrow night.

Checking on you... Relieved to see the weather reports were wrong at least for your part of the country and you safely got through the weekend. Pressing thumbs for a quick improvement of the situation and lots of sunshine!

Relieved that it was a sunny day and it looks like you'll make it until Mr. Sib gets home and can make the propane work. What a time for him to be away! You did great keeping things working.

Sorry I missed all the worry. I've been mostly asleep with some sort of virus for the last three days. Glad all is well.

Mr. Sib is home and while not exactly rarin' to get at the problem, he is resolved..... The temp is above freezing which is also a blessing. Meanwhile, somehow or other I have finished a couple of books since the last time I visited my thread, Sunday, that was, I guess. Mr. Sib isn't going walkabout now for at least a month, so I hope he has time to sort it all out. He returned all ruddy and healthy looking: we look wan and vampirelike by comparison.

Before I get to the books - I will say that somehow I can feel that winter has 'broken'. Sure there will be cold and storms, but there is something electric in the air - trees, animals, birds - it's just different. I would guess that it is some critical angle of light. Spring is far off, to be sure, but we will leave the depths of winter behind now.

You remind me of the time I lived in France, working in a mediaeval castle and living in an unheated outbuilding with no hot water, and chopping firewood to burn in the gatehouse where I was on duty most of the day. I was there for 6 months from January, and I watched and waited for every sign of winter ending and spring coming. It made me appreciate why mediaeval poets wrote with such rapture about spring! Growing up with central heating, cushioned from the worst of winter, the seasons changes are not so vitally important.

19. sf **** bk 4 (end of series)

The Law of Becoming is the final of the Jaran quartet. Elliott has her hands full pulling the threads of the story into a satisfying resolution and I'd say she gets succeeds 80%. Some parts are excellently resolved, such as, how most of the various characters and relationships are left - many with much more complexity, wistfulness and depth than is customary in the genre. At the same time this is also the most 'science-fictiony' of the lot, A good deal of the book takes place off-planet and away from the Jaran and their efforts to take over large parts of Rhui and involves revealing a great deal more about the mysterious khepelli - who they are and what motivates them - mainly it becomes apparent that the 'game' is older and bigger and the stakes are higher than anyone guessed. Elliott left plenty of room to revisit the story, but I don't think she has, so many elements go unexplored, only hinted at, but I'm OK with it, because I see the 'pattern' and can extrapolate. The biggest disappointment, for me, was the handling of the Duke and Prince Anatoly - things happened too quickly there and while Anatoly and Diana's problematical marriage is utterly believable from the get-go - Anatoly as an individual would have been better had he been developed more in the first/second books perhaps - if we hadn't seen him so much through Diana's critical eyes ..... On the other hand I love what happens with Vasil's daughter Ilyana, exclusive to the last book. The inability of her family to 'adjust' also felt solid. The series has so many solid strengths throughout: character-building, relationships, exploration of cultures clashing and misunderstanding each other, particularly as regards gender roles and behaviour and the struggle of a post-techno culture meeting an essentially medieval one. The traveling theatre group was an original idea and Elliott gets credit for sticking with it, even when it gets a bit awkward. She also gets credit for setting up a story that can draw on fun aspects of both sf and fantasy. Brava! ****

20. graphic memoir *****

Much has been written already about this vivid and very moving work, my guess is that it will become a 'must read' for anyone who has been diagnosed bi-polar or has family members or friends or colleagues who have been. And, as just about everybody knows somebody who has been, then just about everybody might consider reading it. As I wrote that, I decided to shift my rating from a four 1/2 to five, realizing it was just a 'graphic-not-serious-bias' of mine at work there. *****

Hi Lucy. So nice that you're seeing signs of spring. So are we! Thanks for the recommendation for Marbles. It sounds great and I just put it on hold at the library.

Glad to hear you feel winter "has been broken". Now if only the generator wasn't...

>113 sibylline:: that looks good! Winter hasn't been broken here yet.

You will all be glad to hear that people with sugar maples are out 'tapping' getting trees ready for the big sap run. It gives me the shivers (of delight, I should say.) One of my favorite things to do is visit friends who are sugaring and just get blasted on the stuff...... sugar high, oh yeah, how Vermonters get through this last part of winter, folks.

Oh lucky you! No sap running at all, at all in this neck of the woods. Mid March.

It's gotten unpredictable here, so they get ready earlier than they used to, about two weeks earlier - it doesn't always happen but more and more often it does. This week is sugaring type weather, above freezing in the day, below at night, so the trees are very likely to start running.

I could get really sappy over sap!

#117 When my children were little one of our favourite books was Ox-Cart Man so I feel as though I know all about sugaring despite living in Britain and never having seen a maple tree.

Hi Lucy, very interesting discussion about the use of "green" electricity. I very much admire how you cope like that. Love your opening pic of the "muskrats" they are really, really cute and you have got one of those all for yourself *smile*

Nothing to contribute on the reading front, however I wish you a lovely week :)

Lucy, I do hope that your sense that winter has "broken" is spot on. You've had a doozy.

Marbles is going right on the library hold list. I had not really attended to it yet but it would be of great interest to me. I think "Graphic Memoirs" is becoming one of my favorite genres. It's such a great way to express one's experiences (if one has talent). There was a guy in school when I was growing up, first name of Donald, who was an amazing artist. I recall him drawing lots of dragons and dinosaurs and things but I could imagine him doing a graphic memoir and/or a graphic steampunk work. I might have to find him on FB and see what he is up to.

I hope the project you and hubster are facing goes smoothly! Resolve is good. :-|

>110 sibylline:. "Winter Has Broken" is the season right before "Signs Of Spring," I think. Here in the heartland where we've had a pretty mild winter, all things considered, we are well into the season of Signs of Spring. This morning there must have been six or eight bluejays flying in and around my oak and sycamore trees, and the old fat robins are all crazy in love.

Here 'winter has broken' is mainly evidenced by folks at the local store talking up their tapping strategies, testing the stoves in the sugaring house, cleaning out the big vats -- we really should do a little ourselves as we have a few sugar maples but it is a huge time committment - just sitting there tending the fire and testing temperature and 'doneness' - since our nearest neighbors do it, we vicariously feel close enough to the experience. The other sign, which started even while winter was holding us in thrall, was foxes romping and mating in our meadow. What fascinates me is that this all began almost exactly when we started having ten hours of light per day. Like it is an ignition switch for trees and animals. Very cool.

We have had a doozy, Ellen. I'll be v. interested in yr. response to Marbles.

Sugar sap highs? Gosh, I've never felt more out of touch with American culture. I thought watching "The Wire" and "Frazier" meant I was pretty much an expert ; ) As usual, you manage to confound all my expectations Lucy. Up their in your magical kingdom with the maze and the pond and the treehouse and the moose, and now the narcotic sap! But also the scary off-grid, below-freezing winter weather - eek! It all sounds much more daring than life in a terrace house in a small English city, that's for sure!

I once drove to Philadelphia after stopping into buy syrup and swilling about three shots of fresh maple syrup..... it's an 8 hr. drive and I don't think I 'came down' until somewhere in the last hour or two of the trip, somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike...... who'd a thought! And it's legal, although probably not terribly good for you!*

So I'm reading my monthly Murdoch, just to stay on track - and the book of essays by Margaret Atwood on Science Fiction and sf writers and sundry related matters - really I'm only reading those two although I am also lugging around my monthly Virago read and a book I like very much when I settle down with it, The Posthumous Affair.

*You all must understand, I am kinda tongue in cheek, kinda joking. Right?

What fascinates me is that this all began almost exactly when we started having ten hours of light per day. Like it is an ignition switch for trees and animals. Very cool.

That is very cool. I love phenomena like that and I closely follow the extension of daylight this time of year. With respect to daylight, tomorrow is going to be 3 minutes and 12 seconds longer than today.

Did the foxes scream? Sometimes I hear them in the fields/woods across the road and they sound like humans (not like tortured human babies like the Fisher cat). Maybe in a couple of weeks.

127: You all must understand, I am kinda tongue in cheek, kinda joking. Right?
Well, I'd've hoped you got beyond the New Jersey Turnpike before you crashed.

Marbles onto the WL.

You know, we just had a blizzard but my thoughts yesterday while I was outside were entirely of Spring. The air was kinder than it has been in a long time. The trees look expectant. (Pls don't ask me to describe it. Can't.) The birds are a little noisier. The sky is a different color blue.
I'm not entirely sad about the whole thing.
I think I should read The Nesting Season by Heinrich pretty soon - a book I've been saving for this time of year.
I LOVE his books and just ordered the latest Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death.

Yesterday we had dry rattly snow blown sideways by strong wind, followed by cold rain/sleet; miserable weather, felt as if winter would never be over. Today, bright sunshine which warmed me even through my thick coat when I was out on a visit. What a difference the sun makes!

As soon as I hear the chickadees doing their phoebeee mating call, I know Spring can't be far off. I heard one the other day!

Me too, Tui, the chickadees - they are behaving and sounding v. different.

I haven't heard foxes carrying on this year - but there tracks and a lot of wrassling, rolling marks were all over the upper meadow.

I know what you mean Cee - the sunset last night was all soft and puffy, utterly unlike a winter sunset even though it was near freezing.

Q - the NJTP would crash just about any high....... but I got within say an hour of PH just cooking.

I have this sunlight chart that I consult every day, Ellen, with greedy eagerness to see the gain. I'll know the season has truly changed when I stop feeling the urge to look at it morning and night and keep track of every minute gained.

The other thing is that my SAD is lifting with the increased light. I feel like being outside now, face to the sky.

Me too, again, Tui - I normally don't have any trouble in the winter, in fact, normally I am weirdly more cheerful in the winter than most people as I find too much sun makes me feel agitated (interesting Ellen Forney in Marbles has the same thing....) However THIS year, I've had trouble. A first, really. I'm feeling suddenly much much better this week, however.

I have to post this because it is so rare that I get my act together - made these last night with the little darling and we had fun.

Living in So. Cal. I like just about anything that gives me a sense of seasons. The change in number of daylight hours is one of those things. But even when I lived in Europe I loved the cozy, long, family-by-the-hearth evenings of winter.

Wow they are wonderful Lucy and they look so delicious. Wish you a lovely day today!

What fun! Enjoy eating them...

>136 sibylline:: same here, yet again! This has come on since I retired. Were those fluorescent lights at work keeping it at bay and then when I retired to normal house lighting, it reared its head? No idea. But as I am like you with the sun, it is surprising. There is a balance to be achieved in there somewhere. But for the first time in weeks, I feel like singing *phoebeee* myself. And I'd love a polka dot cookie, please and thanks!

Here in San Diego, spring is truly sprung with the white flowering pear trees in full bloom all over the place. When we walked in Balboa Park on Tuesday, I was wishing I had my camera as we came up onto the fountain plaza totally surrounded in white blooms. I'm going to try to get back soon and get a picture.

Lovely cookies, Lucy!

Well, Tui, I am fascinated. I keep meaning to poke around on-line for people who find the sun in the summer very unsettling..... I know my daughter has a bit of this, she tends to look for dark corners. Uh oh, does it mean I'm secretly a Slitherin???? I've always figured Ravenclaw.

>143 sibylline:. Well, that would be me, as well. When I go back to Colorado to visit folks, I can barely tolerate the sun. It's impossible to get away from it there, plus the altitude makes it even worse. My CO family thinks I'm cracked, but I much prefer a cloudy day, something I've gotten used to living in MO.

>143 sibylline:: I garden with long sleeves, long pants, gloves, a bandanna and either a hat or a bug hat on, no matter how hot it is. My idea of a good vacation is Scotland in the rain.

Yummy looking cookies!
Our crocus have bloomed and gone on by. It's a lot warmer here than anywhere else people are writing about except maybe CA, but it has been overcast and dreary or actually raining almost all week. On the other hand, today "feels" and sounds like spring.
The sun in summer - I'm not allowed to speak. I live in southeastern N.C.

Crocuses gone by! Oh my. I did look around the couple of beds that are the 'warmest' to see if there was the least sign of any snowdrops. Nope. But I bet if we had some sun and forties they would pop up. I do love them.

I love the look of the cookies. I made my hubby a 'honey bun' cake :)

You couldn't possibly be a Slytherin, Lucy! Very interesting discussion about light and sun. I am not strongly affected in the winter but oh do I love it when the days begin to get longer.

For me, there can never be enough light, there can never be enough sun. One of the things I've always hated about working in the theatre is the absence of natural light. The older I get the more I seem to crave it. Perhaps that's why so many retirees relocate to Florida and Arizona. If you don't have to always be reminded of "the dying of the light" maybe you can spend less time being enraged by it.

Laura, we debate that around here, whether there are or even can be any 'good' Slytherins - or 'bad' Gryffindors. Ravenclaws, it seems to me, are a bit amoral, sort of Iris Murdoch-ish, so caught up in their heads they forget about right and wrong, but they don't purposefully do evil..... Huffle-Puffs, of course, are incapable of cruelty or badness.

I love the long light of summer, but I tend to be incredibly disorganized and unable to settle on anything, all my issues around focussing come to the fore to plague me, so I'm not really depressed in the regular sense, but frustrated. Part of it, frankly, is that I don't want to do anything except pot about outside but not strenuously, sit in the woods waiting and watching for things to happen (or not),float on the pond and stare at the sky, but I always fight it, and maybe that is just dumb. You'd think by now I'd figure out how to handle it!

So the electrician came this morning and Mr. Sib and he retired to the cubby hole we call 'the Engine Room' from whence came sounds of various kinds, thumping, a bit of mild cussing, clanging, laughter and...... presto bingo...... the little doodads the company sent us WORKED. We're running the generator even now - just for the hell of it - (not really). I could vacuum, run the washer, make popcorn and grind coffee with every light on in the house if I wanted to...... of course..... I don't actually want to. I'm in shock. It's been a long month.

It may be that I will exceed my book acquisition allowance this month as I impulsively ordered three Iris Murdochs from ABE and then discovered on PBS that suddenly about four of my requests are being filled! Aieeee!

*pokes head in*

Re: good Slytherins and bad Gryffindors, I always sort of thought of them as two halves of the same idea, or maybe two possible outcomes for the same basic personality type. On that logic, a good Slytherin would be a Gryffindor and a bad Gryffindor would be a Slytherin. Of course, in (fictional) reality, we know that some Slytherins are worse people than other Slytherins, and some Gryffindors or better people than other Gryffindors. I always loved Dumbledore's statement about how maybe they sort too soon. Who's to say that Slytherinish eleven-year-old might not be a superior Gryffindor at sixteen if he weren't expected to become more and more Slytheriny?

That makes great sense. My daughter would agree with that - her belief is that Malfoy, like his uncle, could have been very different without all the family pressure to be bad - she loves pursuing that idea in the fan fiction etc. In some ways he is the most interesting of the children.

Thanks for poking your head in!

Congratulations on being restored to power. It must feel wonderful. Enjoy!!

>153 lycomayflower:: d'accord!
>152 sibylline:: bravissimo!

21. f (Monthly Murdoch) ****

I seem to be in a pattern of reading spoofs of a rare breed, really smart ones. In this, the bedroom farce is pushed to the limit..... partners shift with lightning speed as in a Virginia Reel and it is always 'the real thing this time' until one sits back and lets it all happen....Stylistically, the book, which is short at 200 pages, almost reads like a play. Most of the action takes place in various drawing rooms or places that feel like 'sets'. Do I care who ends up with whom? Not really. The enjoyment here for the reader is more intellectual than emotional, as in feeling involved or invested in any of the characters, rather the pleasure is in feeling one's own allegiances and empathies (such as they are) shift from character to character as the latest permutation emerges. Here and there a frisson, can it get any worse? Most of the now recognizable Murdoch elements are here: pride goeth..... the fall is hard and gets harder. Possessions get moved about and disrupted, flats are rented but then left half-empty. Here the mysterious and beautiful house, Rembers, is more of a suggestion or a memory (as suggested by its name, in fact) off stage rather than front and center, and there is no swimming as it is winter. There are secrets, and even a slight suggestion of the supernatural, although less than in the other two, this time entwined around an actual character who seems to act as a catalyst. Anyhow, everyone ends up with someone at the end, there is no sense at all that this IS the end for any of them. ****

"There is no substitute for the comfort of the utterly taken-for-granted relationship...." Murdoch means this with the usual double-edged irony, but it is a characteristic remark in this novel.....

"You're sort of a vacuum into which interference rushes...." says his mistress, Georgie, to Martin, the very passive first-person narrator.

The other spoof is The Yiddish Policeman's Union which is clearly a send up of Scandi crime, brilliantly narrated in the CD set I have from the library. To the extent that I have sat in parking lots and our driveway waiting for a place I can bear to stop listening..... I'll be reviewing it soon, when I finish.

Not doing so well on my wallflower clearing efforts...... funny how that happens..... But onward to my monthly VMC which at least qualifies as a tbr (not a wallflower as it hasn't been on the shelf for over three years.....)

I really quite liked A Severed Head when I read it last year, which was thanks to your thread - you got the Iris Murdoch conversation going after reading Elegy for Iris. So glad that you also liked it!

I'm not all caught up here yet, but I am dropping down to say hello and to wish you a weekend full of fabulous. And I LOVE the new muskrat picture up top - so cute!

The title A Severed Head is most off-putting but your description makes it sound great. May have to put that on the wish list.

I'm finding it pays to keep reading Murdoch.

it pays to keep reading Murdoch

Can we have a sign made? I love that.

Thanks for the good review of *Head*. It's a Murdoch I haven't read --- makes me wonder what I have, but then, there are a bunch of them! I really, really enjoyed *Yiddish Policemen* too, but I hadn't read any recent Scandi-crime at that time.
How wonderful to have everything working properly again! You have been tried by dark and cold!

I got back to Balboa Park today to take pictures. Here is one of our first signs of spring--

>152 sibylline:: WOO HOO! Lights, vacuum, oven, hurrah!
>153 lycomayflower:: that's a brilliant analysis of Slytherin re Gryffindor. I agree!
>160 sibylline:: I'm finding it pays to keep reading Murdoch. Oh yes indeed. I commented over in the IM group that, like you, it was reading A Severed Head that made me "get" Murdoch.
>163 ronincats:: Balboa Park is a lovely place, with so many places to just sit and take it all in.

Oh that is so beautiful, Roni. It'll be a long while til we see blossoms here.....

I have to go look at yr. review Laura.... in fact it would be interesting to look them all over now, which i haven't done.

Of course, I haven't done any vacuuming yet.......no hurry.

Hi Lucy,

chiming in with everyone else about the fact that your power is back! That must be such a relief.
I just finished listening to Genesis by Bernard Beckett and had to think of you. If you haven't read it already, I could imagine that would be something you actually would enjoy. Although, I have to say that the book itself didn't work for me, but the audiobook did.

Wish you and your family a lovely weekend!

Genesis does look interesting - I like that it is set in New Zealand too. No harm putting things on the WL, right?

You make A Severed Head sound very tempting Lucy, although I've got nowhere with my Murdoch plans so far this year.

I struggled to get into The Yiddish Policeman's Union - perhaps if I read more Scandi-crime first?

I do think it is an homage to crime fiction in general as well as spoofing it a bit..... so you'd have to enjoy that whole genre, maybe, plus a taste for wry Jewish humor.

One helpful thing about A Severed Head is how short it is - but it is also because of that, very scaled back in terms of character development.....

I have never knowingly read any Murdoch. It would appear that I need to amend that.

22. ✔ #4 ***1/2 sf/essays

As I was reading In Other Worlds, I did occasionally think, to myself, What am I going to write about it on LT when I finish it? This is because I was constantly 'arguing' in my head with Atwood about her choices of what to examine in SF, of her whole attitude in fact of the genre's worthiness/unworthiness, serious/unserious profile.....After an essay on what is sf (with which I don't really agree, but won't go into here) - she settles into mostly writing about what I would call the literary antecedents of the genre. The academically worthy stuff as if the genre needs to, I don't know, have verifiable links to 'real' literature in order to be legitimized. So figures such as Swift, (Gulliver) Huxley, Orwell, Mary Shelley (the lone woman she discusses). She writes too, mainly about utopian/dystopian 'sf' - that is works that are very much earth-based, about the future and not what I think of at all when I think of sf. I avoided dystopian literature for decades, in fact, after reading the 'classics' of the genre, like Huxley and Orwell in fact! For me it is not entirely clear whether or not dystopic fiction really is a part science fiction, the kind I really like and feel at ease with, at least. Furthermore, she seems, to me, very much stuck in the wayyyyyy past of sf, I would have expected more about the great pioneer sf writers of her own generation like Alice Sheldon, Marion Bradley, and others..... and even a nod to the new generation rising, who write amazing interesting stuff, like Justina Robson. Oh well. At the same time, here I was having a lively inner dialogue with Ms. Atwood, and as I kept going, and accepted her interests and insights, I made note of many things that are wise and thoughtful. In the essay "Dire Cartographies" Atwood's examination of the role of maps in sf and fantasy is wonderful and the connections she makes to early explorers and today's GPS are terrific, as is the essay on the origins of the 'mad scientist' and the difference between 'romance' and 'fiction'. Romances end on the uptick, basically, when things are looking pretty good for everyone, fiction ends wherever the story requires it to end.... At the very end, in the Appendice (I don't know why) is a piece on the cover art of sf in the 30's and 40's, the metal brassieres, the undress, again, as in the essay on the mad scientists, examining the origins, inspiration and archetypes behind the images. Lots to digest, lots to think about. I don't really know why I am so attracted to the genre, but I do realize, reading this that I am less demanding of it than Atwood for it to 'mean' a whole lot, more willing to take it at a simpler level most of the time. It's a genre that has, so far, resisted gentrification, assimilation, or co-opting by any academic establishments, it's a maverick genre and I like it like that. But if you do like the genre, like Atwood's brisk intelligence, and are especially interested in dystopias, well this is for you. Otherwise.... probably not. ***1/2

An aside - a bunch of severed head stuff here too, that weird synergy between books thing - a short fiction piece of Atwood's near the end, in the form of a satirical dialogue between imagine future people about cryogenically saving heads to re-attach later to bodies, that is very funny. But then it made me think more about what Iris was up to - that she is talking about how the people in this novel are not properly 'attached' to their bodies, they float about, talking talking talking..... only Honor is fully in her body as well as her mind.

Tui - pop over to the Murdoch Group if you get serious about it: Iris

23. f ****

Echoes of other authors, other stories will tug at the reader's attention as you delve into The Posthumous Affair so many that you will quickly conclude that it must be intentions. Friel's subject is the class of well-to-do Americans of the late 19th and early 20th century, further divided into the ones who did not conform, and went off to Europe to pursue lives as artists or - just pursue lives free of constraints. Constraints, entanglements and connections of all kinds are a constant physical theme. The two central characters are Grace Cooper Glass and Daniel Blake. When they meet Grace isalready twice the size of most ten year olds in height and width while Daniel is tiny, delicate and beautifully formed. When they meet something passes between them, they play in Washington Square with a red balloon and converse, beyond their years.
Years pass, things happen and don't happen; they meet again and again during the course of the book, Grace ever more huge and grotesque outwardly but fine and fiery inwardly, something only Daniel and a few others perceive, and though he loves her and knows he loves her, again and again he recoils at the critical moment.
For anyone versed and captivated by that period, that long golden exhalation of late summer with all of Europe open to be plundered, literally and figuratively, by wealthy Americans, The Posthumous Affair will be an intriguing and satisfying read. The writing itself is both spare and rich, with at times, a feeling of one of Edward Gorey's dead-pan ghastly narratives at others approaching the simmering tension of Jamesian complexity. Grace grows up to write what are at first wildly popular romances full of the conventions of the time and she also leads a life of solitude, mystery, romance, and at last horror, but a horror that then reveals itself to be something transcendent too, at least for Daniel. It's not for everyone, this novel, but it is wonderfully written, the writing is simply a joy, and the story is series of nested boxes that evokes the period. A note: I don't know if Friel is fan of Virago or of Elizabeth Taylor, but the character, Grace, was most evocative of ANGEL - evocative only, as they share some similarities and definitely NOT others, but evocativeness is a pattern in The Posthumous Affair, it's meant to linger. ****

Lovely review, Lucy. If I stumble on this one, I'll nab it.

One observation I meant to make, how books seem to lead on and inform each other - the Friel and the Murdoch share that nested box structure....

Becky gave me a bio of Grace Coolidge back when we were new to LT - she grew up in Burlington VT and I have visited the Coolidge homestead in Plymouth, worth doing if you are in Vermont poking around. I will be interested to read about her especially as an example of a type of woman of the place and period - and how she adjusted to being in the limelight. Anyone who reads about all the presidents, should start all over at the end, or read a bio of both (or whoever is playing First Lady) to get the whole story. I'm looking forward to it, as I pass her house on Maple St. almost every time I leave Burlington!

Just stopped in to say the muskrats are out in force by our pond. We counted five or six sunning on the bank yesterday. Where did they all come from? We're a bit worried about them burrowing into the bank and damaging the pond structure.

>175 sibylline: Oh, I remember liking that biog of Grace Coolidge so much!--I went back to look at it in my stash in LT--Grace Coolidge and Her Era, by Ishbel Ross. Here's my review:

Published in 1962, the book was written by Ishbel Ross (b.1895). Ross was a journalist who worked on the New York Tribune, known then as the "best woman journalist" in New York. "She covered everything from dance marathons and the Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue to the hottest crime stories of the era including the Lindbergh kidnapping, and did in such clear, compact prose that her editors in time forgot all about her sex in choosing her assignments."

The biography is a model of her prose; additionally, Ross puts Grace Coolidge into context by giving the reader an excellent portrait of the times--the Roaring Twenties.

I see that I gave it 5 stars.

Most interesting review. "Jamesian" elements, eh? I love James...you're tempting me.

Be tempted! I think Friel deserves readers and I'm the only one so far on LT. I'd be curious to know what you make of it.

I'm tickled, suddenly realizing that the two books I just started, Cyteen and Grace Coolidge and her Era were both gifts from LT friends!

I'm enjoying Grace so far, B, which isn't so very far.

Just ordered it -- it wasn't available in Kindle, however, and since we're going to be travelling soon I may not get to it for a while since I'm not taking any "real" books with me on the trip.

Three four-star reads in a row and signs of spring! Wonderful goings-on in your world, Lucy.
I want to read A Severed Head if only for the title, and your review moves it up on the list, even though I own others by IM and not that one.

I'm worried (not that it matters, actually, and I know that) that I've gotten too 'lenient' with my stars..... but here's the thing. LT has made me super-aware, as I didn't know, of how many really GOOD books are out there, both of the worthy sort and of the sort that I relish, so I am actually LESS tolerant and LESS likely to spend time on a book, even by a fine writer, if I'm getting nothing from it, wisdom or enjoyment..... once a 2 1/2 was my cut of, now I think it is a 3 - even though the 3 rating is recognition that the book might be ok but not for me...... I also have trouble giving a book that I know is quite good a 3 1/2 star rating, mainly because it just didn't do much for me. All this windbagging is to say that I knocked back the Atwood a whole half-point because, well, I don't think, ultimately she accepts the whole messy wonderful madhouse that is the genre. She likes one little corner of it. I have a huge amount of respect for her as a writer and the essays are interesting, but I kept waiting for it to open out and tell me something I didn't already know and that did not happen. The four is about my respect for her, I realized.... point being a 3 1/2 is high praise enough.

Should I worry that I worry about stuff like this??

@ 182

I don't know if you should, but I do too. I'm always asking myself, "Now, am I being fair to this book?" Or, "Is this really a four-star read? Are you being too generous?" With me I think it's at least partly a holdover from grading papers, where the difference between a B and a B- actually did mean something and really matter.

>182 sibylline:: I worry about that stuff too. I have tried to remain consistent over time but recently I wondered if I should be more critical. If everything I read is 3-4 stars, then are my ratings really helping anyone? I'm not really using the full 1-5 star range and perhaps I should.

That's exactly it, Laura. Who's really going to go look at my rating system on my profile, I mean. And I'm with you on the grading thing. But I really can't be bothered with a book that is less than a B- or a C + - and the latter I would only stick with if it had information I wanted.

I'm in agreement with all this. I'll also say that I worried about the grades I put on papers all the time I taught English. I found, though, that I was amazingly consistent. Sometimes I'd find an old paper and read it mark it again, and I almost always agreed with my old self.
I also think that the stars do matter to the people here who know us. I might not care about a stranger's 4-star rating, but I do care about Lucy's.

The thing is that most of us ditch books which are less than a 3 star read and simply don't read them, so I poissonally myself poissonally expect stars from 3 to 5 from all of youse. I read your reviews for what they reveal about a book and your responses. Will I like it? Well Lucy, Laura and Peggy like it, so I probably will.

@ 187

That is a really good point. Rarely anymore (since I never have to read books now for a class) will I finish a book that I don't like at least three stars' worth.

>187 tiffin:: that's helpful, thanks Tui!

I've worried about what appeared to me to be a tendency to pass out five stars willy-nilly. I decided last year - at least with non-genre novels - to make the criteria for 5 five stars be that they must touch me on some emotional level. Otherwise 4.5 stars for the most enjoyable ones. I find it a little more difficult to decide what deserves stars in the 3 to 3.75 range.

Exactly right Charlotte - I suspect that is really what my 5-stars are about, a book that fulfills or feeds me something special, not necessarily any better crafted or anything, than a 4 1/2. The five is very subjective, isn't it?

and I am relieved to hear that most of you also quit books that look to be less than a three..... truthfully I often quit a book that likely deserves a 3...but before LT my tbr shelves had maybe 60 or so books, and now, well...... best not go there. And since a huge number are 4 and 5 recommendations from here, I am expecting to like them some if not a lot. Truth is, life before LT is beginning to fade and take on an unreal quality....

Skipping a lot of posts, unfortunately, as a few days away have gotten me way too behind on active threads like this one.

However, jumping into the discussion on rating: I realized last year that I simply have to accept the fact that all ratings, including my own, are entirely subjective...not just by the person rating but when they rated it.

Due to changing tastes — be that because of aging or simply because the makeup of what I read now is so different from what I read four or five years ago — a book given three stars back then wouldn't necessarily get them from me now. It might get less, a sort of "yeah, not so good in retrospect" feeling. However, it might get more. Case in point, there's no way I would have considered anything even remotely like a Recommend for Infinite Jest five years ago, but now...

>184 lauralkeet:: I think the thing to keep in mind is that LibraryThing, by its very nature, can skew your ratings. If you engage actively in reading others' opinions, build a list of people whose taste is consistent with your own, and act upon those opinions, then you are altering the distribution of books you would read when compared to just buying books on your own.

If I read 10 books based solely on browing at Barnes & Noble, I'll get a certain percentage of clunkers. If, however, I only read 5 books chosen that way but another 5 based upon a strong recommendation from someone whose taste matches mine, the percentage of "recommended" books is likely going to increase.

I think this explains some of the grade inflation experienced on LibraryThing.

>190 Fourpawz2:: Charlotte, I think that is a concern many have. Despite my point in #193, I do think that it's easy to fall into handing out better ratings. I find myself thinking about this every time I talk to my daughter about a movie: her assessment of every romantic comedy is "it's a great movie, Dad!" *smile*

>190 Fourpawz2:: That's exactly the difference between a 4.5 and a 5 star read for me: it sang to my heart or, like The Book Thief, left me in an altered state of being.

>195 tiffin:: I agree! "sang to my heart" is a great expression for the emotional response.

I feel the same way about five star books: they are the ones that appeal to me very personally so someone else reading the same book with similar tastes might well rate it a four and a half. The lowest I rated a book last year was one and a half stars which I did only once, but I used two or two and a half stars a number of times. I'm fairly completist when it comes to books, but if you're not and are a good judge of what you like then it's not surprising that most of your reads are three stars and above. The only book I didn't finish last year I would have rated one star, so it does need to be fairly low down the ratings for me not to finish it.

You are exactly right Tad - I think I am reading better and a bit differently than I used to. My focus and concentration on sf/fantasy has shifted - for example - I'm reading a wide range within the genre - wider than I used to, and am more embracing (if that is possible!) of the whole scope of this kind of writing, and how much I do love it, so the reading is both more directed and more broad, very enriching. For contemp and RL fiction, my standards have risen, and with the 'group' support I am so much more willing to take on some challenging reads - and/or am taking them on and getting so much more out of them. I was reading plenty of challenging stuff before, but so randomly, I feel that much of it got lost somehow..... The Iris Murdoch group this year, so far, is very much a part of that shift. She isn't really a writer to be read in a vacuum - it makes the experience so much richer to discuss and compare novels the way we are doing over there. My reading of IJ was infinitely enriched by the LT support....... so....... can I ask, slyly, if you've gotten to the game, Eschaton? When you do, you will want to find the Youtube rendition of it, with music, that someone did. It is beyond wonderful. I've been waiting and waiting to ask!

And so much for the 'broken' winter - it snowed (after raining for awhile) about 4 inches last night. But it is melting melting melting. And it's warm - around 33.

Yes, I'm past the Eschaton incident. I'll look for the YouTube video.

Regarding the LT support, I've kind of abandoned my IJ thread. The quantity/level of discussion didn't seem to be there. However, it does mean I've been mulling over the naming of Eschaton quite a bit on my own, trying to make sense — in the sense of deciding how I felt about it — of the correlation between the game they play and the end of days. Maybe I should revive that thread, dunno.

"Truth is, life before LT is beginning to fade and take on an unreal quality...." -- I love it :-)

I read every book I start, I'm afraid (I'm neurotic in some ways I guess and maybe a bit overly optimistic, always hoping it will get better). That said, I tend to read from sources that usually provide books I like. I agree with >193 TadAD: that I would read more books I don't like all that well if I was just randomly picking them up in the book store but now that I have the thoughtful reviews from LT to refer to my percentage of 4's and 5's has increased.

I agree with you, Lucy and Tad. And I am especially aware of it this year because I've been going back to my reads of 2007 through 2012 and looking at what I was reading at the same stage then and deciding if I would rate those books the same way today. In more than a few cases I know I would not be so generous, but there are others where, to be fair, I know I would have to re-read before deciding on a change of stars.

>201 Fourpawz2:: excellent point! I wonder the same thing about my earlier reads. Last year I read a couple of books I had acquired back in 2007 or 2008, and I didn't like them much. I'm pretty sure that reflects an evolution in my reading tastes for which LT is to blame. In this case, blame is a good thing! But now I'm wary of similar dusty tomes on my shelves.

Fascinating discussion of ratings. I give very few 5stars, and find I am reading very little that seems to deserve less than 3.5 - for the same kinds of reasons as have been explored above. I worry when I seem to want to give 4 stars to everything I have read in a whole month sometimes. 4.5 would be my main 'top mark' - the 5s go to a book that has had a more profound effect - and that is a very subjective valuation. With re-reads (especially of multiple re-reads of old favourites), there are layers of nostalgia and memory of previous reading(s) to add to the mix -and the kind of books that I want to re-read many times are almost by definition 5 star reads.

Love this discussion of ratings. I, too, "worry" about my ratings and I definitely save five stars for something with "a certain je ne sais quoi" that is idiosyncratic. So, 4.5 stars is outstanding and exemplary but 5 stars is magical.

Just chiming in to say "me too!" I give very few 5s and they have to have that emotional connection that just leaves me sighing at the end, "Ah, THAT was a story!" I just read my first 2 of the year for a book group and like the others here, I've picked up very few 1s or 2s over the last few years.

I also love the discussion on ratings. I always rate on how much impact had a book on me, which usually has nothing to do with the quality of a book. I could give a five star rating for a classical or contemporary book, but may will give it as well to a romance. My ratings just express how much I enjoyed a book.
I stopped years ago finishing books I didn't like, couldn't get into for whatever reasons and I don't shy away from giving low ratings, that are usually the books I will give away anyway. No point in keeping something I didn't like.

24. graphic ***1/2

I'm working my way slowly into the world of graphic books - they all have a 'dream' aspect to them, like you've been invited inside of someone's head, but this one more so than others, provokes that sense of imbalance and strangeness. A group, way in the future, tramps across land covered in ice. They have with them genetically engineered dogs, smarter than they are, really, plus with doggie noses..... anyhow, they stumble upon..... the Louvre..... and then it just gets stranger and stranger. I enjoyed it and it wasn't hard to slow down to study some of the drawings (the temptation is to go too fast, following the words....) Anyhow, enjoyable, odd, intriguing. ***1/2

I love the ratings discussion - at least partly because it confirms I'm not the only person who obsesses about this sort of thing!

I think I agree with most of the other posters about 5 star books having a real 'wow' to them. I've been trying to challenge myself on 4 star ratings because it felt like that had become my default rating and it felt a bit high. I'm trying to leave 4 stars and above for books I think people should consider even if it's not a subject or genre they would normally be interested in - I know I borrowed this idea from someone else and I have a feeling it was you Lucy! Sometimes though, a book's so much fun that I whack 4 stars on regardless.

I'm comforted by the ratings discussion -- so many have a similar experience that I now feel like what I'm doing is just fine. Thanks!

I am about to give my first ever less than 2-star rating for an ER book that just doesn't work. (If it's a 1 or less, it doesn't get finished & I don't spend any LT time on it.) I do think the quality of my reading has improved since I've been on LT - I'm not sure the breadth has, but that's because my budget keeps me from buying many new books - there is a lot of good stuff out there that my library doesn't own.

A future-set graphic novel. I might have to add that to my list. I have primarily focused my foray into this genre (broadly speaking) on graphic memoirs, which I find to be a very interesting invitation into the author's head. Nicely put, Lucy.

They are very intimate, in a way a regular memoir isn't. I think the 'pictures' eliminate some of the distance? I'm reading Fun Home right now. Wow. It's so intense I can only read a little at a time.

>212 sibylline:. Have you read Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama?

I have it but it was recommended to me that I read Fun Home first - about her father - so I've been waiting until I finally nabbed it. Since she lives nearby (I see her at the market every once in a while) it's a popular book and for some reason I was determined to get it at a local bookstore..... I do try to support them as best I can. It's always sold out! But a couple of days ago I finally hit it right. It's going to be a five. I just have to put it down and sigh and sigh copiously from time to time.

>214 sibylline:. Oh, how fascinating. What a shame the book is always sold out. You'd think they'd get a stack of them to keep on hand if she's local.

I think they do get stacks and they fly out like migrating sparrows!

25. graphic *****

It's all too easy to simplify and categorize stories, as in, oh, this is about Bechdel's gay father, her own process of coming out, her mother's (seeming?) acceptance of the terms of her marriage --- but the mysteries go so much deeper than that -- the complex intertwining of children with their parents, of the way one can accept almost any weirdness if everyone acts matter-of-factly about it (the Bechdel family business was running a funeral home). To me one of the most moving (and easy to identify with) pictures in the book is everyone in the family in their own rooms pursuing their own creative obsessions, or Bechdel's mother struggling to keep some part of her own life going, acting in plays and finishing her master's thesis..... the story is big enough, deep enough, to draw all of us into it, gay or straight, it's about growing up, dealing with, forgiving, and moving on with your life. Once again, the drawings intensify the immediacy of certain experiences - when her father shows her a corpse, when she gets her first period, the maps of the town of Beech Creek. Bechdel shows her parents as vulnerable people doing their best, beautiful stuff. *****

From zero to 100 in just a few weeks - this is my third graphic novel in less than a month. I think I will wait until March to read the book about her mother. Let this one settle.

Wow, great review of Fun Home Lucy. I will definitely be reading this. I actually just started Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir which I got out of the library after reading your recent review. Of all the graphic books I've read (and I guess there haven't been that many), I love the memoirs the most.

Yes, I am thinking this format has some kind of synergy with memoir - of course - the two I've read are by two people who put heart and soul into the work.

Can't wait to hear what you think about Marbles.

wafting through trailing smooches and hugs

I've not read many graphic novels either. Maus was the most recent. I like the sound of this one...

Lalala not reading your last review!!! I'm reading Fun Home right now and am two chapters in. Glad to see you gave it 5 stars. (I did let myself look at that.) I got Essential Dykes to Watch For out of the library too at the same time. I just read bits and pieces of that and am amazed at her ability to make the ordinary funny and to mix in the serious too - there was one about having to decide a dog is too old to enjoy anything anymore. :( Which is only fair, because she also had a few cartoons where the dog shows up in odd places like looking bored while the humans have sex.

Great review of Fun Home Lucy. I didn't quite enjoy it quite as much as you but still thought it a good read and will be getting around to the mother's story fairly soon. As someone who's also fairly new to the graphic novel format I also find that memoirs work well for me. I don't read a lot of autobiography but a graphic memoir seems to hit the spot with the amount of time that I want to devote to having an insight into the author's life. And the pictures can really add something to your understanding.

#217 Great revise of Fun Home Lucy (why not on the work page though?) I'm also more drawn to graphic memoirs than other books in that format and Fun Home is firmly on my library list.

I don't know if I would use the word 'enjoy' Rhian, - but I was moved and edified, amused and entertained and see the book as close to being 'perfect' as books get, the text and drawings working together, and not a moment where I felt Bechdel falter.

Essential Dykes to Watch For was in Funny Times which we've subscribed to for years and years - and I've loved that strip for years deadpan, wry, dead on.

I will make sure to read your review when you finish, Cammy.

Heather, I always forget to put a new review on the work page and then have to go do it later......and sometimes I forget completely. I know I've reviewed more books on the threads than have made it onto the book page.

#225 I don't know if I would use the word 'enjoy' Rhian In retrospect, that wasn't what I meant either!

>219 sibylline:: Lucy, I read the graphic novel tribute to his parents by the artist/author Raymond Briggs: Ethel & Ernest. I have only read one book in this format but based on this one (no base at all, scientifically), I agree with you about the format suiting the material. I was moved to my core by this one. You have me wanting to seek out the Bechdel books.

Ethel & Ernest is one I've really been meaning to get around to.

Abruptly this morning it was 'time' - Hank was visibly 'in two worlds' and we took him in.
2008-2013

One story. We have baskets in the house for the pet toys and we often find a cat or dog mulling over which toy to pull out unless they are in the mood to pull them all out to spread around. One day at the Farm & Home store I fell in love with these big black rubber buckets and bought two of them and brought them home. They hung about for awhile not far from the woodpile and one day I looked in one as I walked by and it had a live mouse in it. . I didn't let it out right then, deciding that I would take it further from the house when I had a chance. I came back later to find three or four mice in there, frantic, with Hank, sitting on a handy stump nearby and happily looking on at his new 'toys'. I emptied the bucket and brought it back and Hank filled it with mice again, about four more times, ever more mystified (and a bit put out) at how they got away. Eventually we did turn the bucket over to end this fabulous game. What a great cat he was, we didn't have him long enough.

Oh, Lucy, I'm so sorry. Hank sounds like such a wonderful guy. I hope Posey is OK--and all of you as well. It's so sad to lose a pet/friend/part of the family.

What a sweet picture of the two of them.

So sorry to hear about Hank, Lucy. Sending warm thoughts your way from over the Atlantic.

I'm so sorry to hear about Hank but I"m glad you didn't let him suffer. Here's a big hug ((((((( ))))))

Lucy, I'm so sorry about Hank. He definitely wasn't here long enough but I know what you mean about realizing it's "time". The picture and the story are a lovely tribute to him. Sending you all a big hug.

Oh, Lucy! I'm so sorry. Knowing it is the right thing to do doesn't make it any easier.


Cat Sympathy Images

Dear Hank. So very sorry, Lucy. I liked the mice in the black tub story very much.

So sorry to hear that Hank's time has come today, Lucy. But I love the story of him and the bucket of mice; if there were a heaven for cats, he would be able to carry on playing with his mice toys without the game ever having to come to an end... I'm glad you have each other, humans, corgi and cats to share the loss and comfort each other .

Very sorry to hear about Hank, Lucy.

Aw, RIP Hank. I like Genny's idea, that he's in a heaven for cats with mice-filled black tubs everywhere.
(((Lucy)))

So sorry to hear about Hank, Lucy. Such a sad thing. And what a wonderful tub-o-mice story.

Oh, thank you for sharing the story about Hank and the mice! I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. *hugs*

Lovely to pop in here this morning to find so many kind messages, thank you. This certainly has been a long hard winter. I must admit that today I feel as if I've been run over, flattened. So thank you everyone. Sunday is my day to visit every thread I possibly can and I will do my best.

Hope your visiting pumps you back up a bit and that tomorrow is brighter.

So sorry about Hank - he was obviously very beautiful, & quite intelligent. *hugs*

I'm so sorry for your loss. What a wonderful photo.

182: Should I worry that I worry about stuff like this??
Not if your worrying produces such coherent explanations.
217,219: Yes, I am thinking this format has some kind of synergy with memoir
Something about interior images that don’t quite translate into words?
229: Abruptly this morning it was 'time' - Hank was visibly 'in two worlds' and we took him in. ... Hank, sitting on a handy stump nearby and happily looking on at his new 'toys'.
So sorry. What a great memory to have.

Thank you Katherine. I wish I'd taken a photo of it.

26. ✔ #5 ***1/2 Virago-of-the-month

Published first in 1928 and republished by Virago and others more recently, Winifred Holtby offers the rushing, leaping, uneven tale of a young woman, Joanna, who enters marriage to a man, Teddy Leigh, whom she hardly knows who then goes as a soldier to fight in WW1. He returns shattered. Even though they have spent scant time together, she has had two children, one from each encounter (honeymoon, and a gunnery course). In another time and life, it would have been a good strong marriage as they do love each other and are well-suited, but this is not to be. The Leighs are advised to use his pension to set up on a farm as it will not be possible for him to enter the clergy as he had wished. Although Joanna is a tall, strong, essentially capable and cheerful woman with a dreamy nature, and it takes her the course of the novel to wake up to the realities of her situation, its dreadfulness. Neither of them are suited to the farming life, especially her husband, who is simply not strong enough and not engaged by the life. There is so much to admire in the writing - capturing the essence of a life that is spinning out of control, while the person in the center of the turmoil, caught in the details of daily life, has no idea of the larger picture. Joanna's optimism is offset by her husband's frantic misery at his helplessness, his seeking for solace from religion (ultimately a weak part of the book, unconvincing) and the anger of their lodger, Paul Szermai a bitter young Hungarian aristocrat who has lost everything in the war and alternately loathes and is attracted to Joanna. The deeper theme of the book is exploration of just what a woman's role and responsibilities are to children, husband, family life - where the expectations lead to assumptions internalized and unconscious, where public opinion can be relentless and judgmental, harsher against women than men. This is where the strongest writing emerges. Here is her husband, Teddy ".... he had always regarded Joanna as a devoted mother, cherishing a thought common to many men that mothers possessed a standard of values unknown to husbands and spinsters which made the presence of their children essential to their happiness, even if it involved continual work and supervision. He was just a trifle shocked at Joanna's manifest delight in the prospect of a period of less work instead of more maternity." At another point Joanna realizes that much of her sense of loneliness arises out of her constant need to edit her thoughts, to please others, not herself. This is repeated a couple of times during the story in slightly different ways: "When a woman married, was she always having to consider people ever after?" "Is nobody ever really able to say what they think?" A secondary theme is about differences of temperament, how some live in their imaginations and others feel most alive when out and about doing things - Joanna is the former and her husband, the latter, so being ill is disastrous for him. Ultimately, the realities overwhelm Joanna, and her fantasies are stripped away. "Who spoke of motherhood as joyous?" she wonders as her daughter, suffering from pleurisy undergoes a harrowing operation. "She saw eternity in an unending stream of birth and of begetting; she saw humanity at odds with life and captive to it..... " Finally Joanna comes to a resolution, but with that resolution and acceptance quite suddenly, she can see what she should do, and mature and confident she moves towards a new life. ***1/2

It may well deserve four stars, but there was something choppy about it..... nonetheless it's a very good book.

That's an interesting review, Sib--makes me want to read the book. Winifred Holtby--when was it published?

>247 sibylline:. They are advised to set up Captain Leigh, who has TB, as a farmer rather than as a priest, which had been his desire.

OK, it must be me, but I don't know what that sentence means. "To set up Captain Leigh?" --?? He became a farmer, but he wanted to be a priest? Is Captain Leigh Joanna's husband?

Very good review. Land of Green Ginger sounds interesting. Is it recently published?

Oh dear, I wondered if I was being too abrupt - yes - he is Joanna's husband. He is permitted to use his army pension to buy a farm...... thus the 'set up'. Yes, he had a real vocation and could not pursue it, as TB is infectious etc. so he would not be able to work as a clergyman..... it seems so crazy to us now, but they really did believe that country air was the best thing..... the book was first published in 1928. My edition isn't a Virago, but they have published it. I have long thought you might love the Virago imprint and the group here, very congenial and fiction very much from a time period you like - the majority of the novels they are reprinting were written between 1880- 1950.

Now I have to go fix that up and make it clearer. Thanks B. I was being a bit sloppy.

I think that is better now.

Oh crumb, I've had that sitting on the tbr shelves for about 5 years. Was mithering away about not having anything to read the other day and I have umpteen Viragos I haven't read. *black cloud of guilt*

I am on my one Virago-per-month precisely because I have almost an entire shelf of unread Viragos....... and they so rarely disappoint - even if a few were poorly edited or not all that strong as novels - all are very interesting efforts and many are brilliant. Such a window into that time period. I haven't had that one around long enough to rate it a wallflower, but you have!

Beware when you call up the book you get something not by Winifred Holtby but someone else, I find I have to go to her author page and from there to the book. Annoying! I don't seem to get the 'Others' choice.....

Now I have to figure out what my NEXT Murdoch and my NEXT Virago are going to be.

>250 sibylline:. I think it was probably just me--I've been reading too much 18th century prose. Heh. Thanks, Sib, I'll check them out, since I know you're a big Virago fan.

#252 - This is how I wound up with The Land of Green Ginger by some guy called Noel Langley. Guess I wasn't paying very close attention when I bought it...

Lucy, so sorry to hear about Hank. I love the story about the buckets though - I'm glad you have good memories of him to think over.

Very good review of The Land of Green Ginger (this is the correct link). I've got three of Winifred Holtby's earlier novels in the new editions Virago republished a couple of years ago. I loved South Riding and I think that's supposed to be her strongest work so I'm prepared for the earlier ones to be slightly weaker

The Land of Green Ginger by Noel Langley was a favourite childhood book of mine, and is still what I think of first when that title comes up. (I do get Holtby as the second option under 'others' in touchstones though). But I hope to get to read the Holtby version too some day! I've only just acquired a copy of South Riding, though I think I did read it years ago (certainly when it was serialised by the BBC a couple of years ago, the story was very familiar).

I have South Riding which I read wayyyy long ago and need to reread, and Poor Caroline which I found more recently and have not read. I also have A Testament of Friendship - an LT gift...... Virago secret Santa I theeenk.

Any writer coming across a street with that name would file it away 'Use For A Title!' I imagine. What a magical name. It does express perfectly Joanna's daydreamy nature.

I like that sound of that, and a great review as always...

27. #6 ****1/2 sf

In a nutshell: Great sf read! More specifically..... the story of Ariane Emory, the genius behind the 'programmed people' - the azi that make Union different from the other human colonies and cultures. Clones, essentially, and manipulated by deep programming into being quite different from 'flux' dominated 'born-men'. The azi operates from deep logic and the kind of seat-of-the-pants balancing act that 'we' do is what they have to learn. This makes them both tougher and more vulnerable than we are. Unless rattled emotionally they aren't distracted by non-task related thoughts and can focus, move fast, etc. But making decisions, dealing with the unexpected (unless they are alphas and 'programmed' to cope and improvise and have worked at it) is not in their 'skill-set' generally. It's very disturbing to contemplate for it turns out that both born-men and women generally end up with their life partner being azi...... eg, not a person who will question your judgment, but a person toward whom you have to behave a certain way (very humanely) or they will not function. Only very 'high-up' can get a license for an azi companion..... well, I'm getting distracted here, the main thing is that you can replicate yourself and it is decided that Ariane must be replicated so she is - then the question is how far do you/can you go replicating her childhood circumstances and how much does that affect who she (or any) replicate will become - Ariane2 does, of course, turn out differently, the question being for the first 2/3 of the book, which way will she go, better or worse..... and I won't tell! The drive behind this questionable ethical effort was to have 'more' soldiers and people who would work well, quickly, in difficult situations - but that is clearly bogus, these scientists are totally into the thrill of 'can it be done' - disciples of Morgoth/Sauron, really when you get down to it..... very dangerous play. There are wonderful characters and situations and as with all Cherryh, take nothing for granted and read carefully. I might change this to a five star.......****1/2

I'll be reading 40,000 in Gehenna next - a book that is mentioned in Cyteen - Ariane Emory was 'forced' by the military to colonize a planet with mostly azi/born-men to ensure that it would end up being a Union planet - but it is abandoned for various reasons, to its own fate and then later rediscovered...... I'm looking forward to it!

Safe travels!

Sweet Hank. He left you some wonderful memories.

{{{{Lucy}}}}

Oh Lucy, I've not been visiting on LT lately and I'm just now reading about Hank. He sounds like a wonderful cat and I know you miss him terribly. Know that I'm thinking about you. Hugs for Posey.

BTW, I loved your review of Fun Home. It was the one that got me hooked on graphic memoirs. I also have Are You My Mother? on the docket for March, and a couple of others (Kerri, for one) are reading it this month, too.

Thanks Ellen - I'm heading over to put together my March thread now....

Last February read:
♬ **** 1/2 mys (audio from library)

A great reader and a great story - at turns funny (hilarious even) and moving. Solidly plotted, wonderfully written with a classic hard-boiled observant cop type simile every other paragraph. I wish I could quote a few for you but it was an audio book so I could only paraphrase which wouldn't be right - If you like mysteries, don't mind the setting being in an alternate universe, in which a (temporary) Jewish homeland was set up in Alaska..... well, you'll like or even love this. The audio reader is PERFECT for it. ****1/2.