Ffortsa (Judy) Readsalot in 2014

Last year the froggie didn't jump so much here - RL really got in the way. But she will persevere in the new year.

Here's my reading ticker:




January:
1. Special Assignments: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin - Boris Akunin
2. My Dog Tulip - J. R. Ackerley
3. Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather
4. Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking: The Antidote - Oliver Burkeman
5. The EverRunning Man - Marcia Muller
6. Looking for Yesterday - Marcia Muller
7. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows - Alan Bradley
8. July's People - Nadine Gordimer
9. Speaking from Among the Bones - Alan Bradley
10. A River Runs Through It and other stories - Norman Maclean
11. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
12. Ask the Cards a Question - Marcia Muller
13. The Cheshire Cat's Eye - Marcia Muller
14. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
15. 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done - Peter Bregman
16. Crawl Space- Sarah Graves
17. A Death in the Family - James Agee
18. The Torso - Helene Tursten
19. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hursten
20. Burn - Nevada Barr
21. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches - Alan Bradley
22. The Violent Bear It Away - Flannery O'Connor
23. Ceremony - Leslie Marmon Silko
24. Valley of the Lost - Vicki Delaney
25. Words With Fiends - Ali Brandon
26. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Nicholas Talib
27. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
28. The Glass Devil - Helene Tursten
29, The White Lioness - Henning Mankel
30. Badenheim 1939 - Aharon Appelfeld
31. World War I: History in an Hour - Rupert Colley
32. Evernote for your Life | A Practical Guide for the Use of Evernote in Your Every… - Tyler Collins
33. Evernote (65 Ways to Use Evernote to Supercharge Your Life - Troy Mcnally
34: How to Be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work - Megan Hustad
35. Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly (Hercule Poirot Mysteries) - Agatha Christie
36. Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable (Molloy - Samuel Beckett
37. The Prague Golem: Jewish Stories of the Ghetto -Chajim Bloch
38. The Rope - Nevada Barr
39. A Country of Old Men - Joseph Hansen
40. Call It Sleep - Henry Roth
41. The Gauguin Connection - Estelle Ryan
42. Pardonable Lies - Jacqueline Winspear
43. Messenger of Truth - Jacqueline Winspear
44. Death Claims - Joseph Hansen
45. The Inferno - Dante translated by Pinsky
46. Open Season - Archer Mayer
47. Borderlines by Archer Mayer
48. I Remember Nothing - Nora Ephron
49. Dallas Noir - David Hale Smith (ed.)
50. Where'd You Go, Bernadette? - Maria Semple
51. The Game - A.S. Byatt
52. The Track of Sand - Andrea Camilleri
53. The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of - Joseph Hansen
54. Skinflick - Joseph Hansen
55. Fire Knife Dancing - John Enright
56. Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis
57. The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
58. Miss Lonelyhearts - Nathanael West
59. Anarchy and Old Dogs - Colin Cotterill
60. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
61. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
62. The Complete Father Brown - G. K. Chesterton
63. The Crime at Black Dudley - Margery Allingham
64. The Bat - Jo Nesbo
65. Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi
66. The Long Way Home - Louise Penny
67. Festive in Death -J.D. Robb
68. A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
69. Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes, translated by Edith Grossman
70. Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo
71. Sh*t, My Dad Says - Justin Halpern
72. Scent of Evil - Archer Mayor
73. The Skeleton's Knee - Archer Mayor
74. The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse - Alan Bradley
75. Pere Goriot - Honore de Balzac

In addition, I have a ROOT goal for my physical books:





1. July's People - Nadine Gordimer
2. A River Runs Through It and other stories - Norman Maclean

and a deaccession goal:




01/18 - 3 books donated to NY Library
02/17 - 4 Julia Spenser-Flemings sent to JNWelch
02/22 - 2 Julia Spenser-Flemings donated to library
- 4 Louise Pennys donated to library
- 2 Marcia Mullers donated to library

This year, I think I'll count a month of New Yorker magazines as a book - maybe that way I'll catch up some time in the next decade.

I believe that th froggie may have turned into a handsome (Jim looking) prince, Judy.
Great to see you coming across at last. Have a lovely 2014. xx

LOL. Actually, Paul, I'm the frog and Jim is the toad, by agreement. But a handsome, kind, romantic toad, you understand.

Hi Judy. Happy Reading in 2014. (I think you should count as you wish. You are queen of your thread).

hahaha When the Musical of Wind in the Willows hits Broadway, let's put Jim forward for a starring role.

Hi Judy!

Welcome back!

I think I'll count a month of New Yorker magazines as a book
Absolutely. Everyone else does it...

Happy New Year!

Hi Judy, found you at last. Star!

Happy New Year, Judy! Wishing you a much calmer year at work and I'm looking forward to your next annual pilgrimage to MA. :-)

Happy New Year, Judy!! I'm looking forward to talking books with you this year.

Yo, Ms. Readsalot! Welcome back...

and see you in not very long to discuss Dead Souls, right??

Which, ahem, I'd better read.

Dear Judy, I wish you a happy, smooth, productive, satisfying 2014 --- and .....

There you are! Happy New Year, Judy!

Happy New Year, Judy!

Hey, thanks, everyone, for stopping by and saying hello.

Suz, I haven't started Dead Souls either. And I just read it less than a year ago. Reluctant to spend time on it again. We'll see.

Good luck in the new year! I'm also hoping for more reading progress than in 2013.

Dropping a star. Happy New Year, Judy!

It was great to see you and Jim yesterday! Thanks for introducing me to The Noho Star.

Unfortunately you were right; the Popover Café is closing for good on Sunday.

Goodbyes Pour In for Popover Café

latest theatrical excursion:

Play: A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
Type: Musical

What great fun this play is! Reviews have compared it to Sweeney Todd, but I don't agree - it's so light-hearted, and although it has a comparable English music-hall style, it's filled with laughter from beginning to end. The material is taken from the same story as the movie 'Kind Hearts and Coronets', in which a poor young man learns that he is 8th in line for an earldom. When his pleas to reunite with the family are dismissed (of course!), he decides to visit the family parson, who oh so conveniently falls out of the bell tower.

Two ladies, 7 convenient deaths, slamming doors (what would a farce be without slamming doors!), and the superb actor Jefferson Mays playing the parts of ALL the men AND women in line for the title, often with such quick changes that we could scarcely believe it was him yet again.

And what else can you say about a musical that starts off with a chorus warning you to leave??

Today is bitter cold in NYC, and I opted to work from home to avoid the below zero wind chill, but this afternoon the connectivity to work overloaded, so I'm postponing the rest of my work until others knock off for the day.

Even in the apartment it's not particularly warm. I've had the heat blasting, but there is a cold layer of air caressing my tootsies right through my warm socks. Time for me to elevate them on the couch, I think.

My first book for the new year will be a Boris Akunin mystery - should finish it tonight.

Judy have you seen Darryl's new thread about theatre and suchlike?

http://www.librarything.com/topic/163532

I'm glad you're snug at home...being outdoors today is not particularly pleasant... especially when that wind rips through you.. I swear I could feel it going through my bones. I tried to hide behind Edd's bulk when we were walking to the car, but that darn wind swirled all around so that didn't help at all.

Which Boris Akunin? curious minds want to know...

Didn't have the link, so I posted on his thread and mine. But you got to this one ahead of me.

>23 cameling: I don't recall Edd being bulky enough for you to shelter behind, Caro!

Yeah, it's really cold here. I've put an extra layer of socks on my feet - for some reason I can't find my silk sock-liners, will have to get more. But the tootsies are still blocks of ice. With convector style heat, the air is pulled from the room into the wall and past the heated coils - but that wall is really, really cold today, and the colder air drops to just ankle level.

Ah, the Akunin. It's Special Assignments: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin

Stay warm Judy. XX

1. Special Assignments: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin by Boris Akunin

Two novellas in the series, one involving fraud, the other serial and very grisly murder, re-introduce Erast Fandorin as an established special problem solver in Moscow. He takes on an assistant, falls in love, and displays his marvelous ability to detect what lies underneath everyone else's assumptions.

There is more than a whiff of Sherlock Holmes about Fandorin's methods and observations, and his assistant is a sort of Watson in these tales. It will be interesting to see if Akunin uses the device in future entries in the series.

Quite enjoyable.

All good wishes for a bright, shining year!


You are right, it is VERY cold. I hope today is warmer for you.

2. My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley

I found this slim volume on the swap shelves in my building's laundry, and had some memory of the title. It has proven to be a charming, grave, funny history of a man observing his dog, trying to do the best for her, often with deadpan hilarity. He observes her devotion, her eliminations, worries about her maternal drives and sexual appetites, how people perceive her and how she seems to perceive the world.

Clearly, he is a man of method, who is obsessed with his beautiful Alsatian. He is bewildered by her panic at several veterinarians' establishments, her preference for unprepossessing mutts instead of the comely potential purebred mates he attempts to procure for her. When she does mate, he worries, then marvels at her untutored maternal behavior even as he thinks of drowning some or all of her 8 puppy litter, and resolves never to put either of them through the process again, although he is hard-pressed to deal with her twice-yearly episodes of heat; he refuses to have her spayed, preferring instead to sneak out his basement window to avoid the eager suitors at the front stoop. Yet half the book is taken up with his observance of her sexual cycles and behavior (not a word about his own, of course!). To his great satisfaction, she lives with him to a fine old age.

Quite an endearing portrait of a man and his dog.

Judy, thank you for the *Tulip* review. I have this one and wondered whether it was worth my time. I see that it is. Yay!
Hope you're finally thawing.

I (somewhat squeamishly) enjoyed My Dog Tulip as well, Judy. It's such a strange topic to be told in such a quiet and dignified manner. But it was a good, good tale in the end. (No pun intended.)

My Dog Tulip is certainly a bit different from most dog related memoirs isn't it. I enjoyed it as well!

Hi, Richard. I found myself thinking of you and Stella often while reading this book.

Rhian, thanks for visiting! I saw your review when I posted mine.

Nice review of My Dog Tulip, Judy. It's been on my radar screen for a while, so I'll plan to read it soon.

Hi Judy - Nice review of My Dog Tulip. I might have to check it out.

Thanks, Darryl and Beth. It's a light, quick read.

Have a wonderful weekend, Judy!

Thanks, Diana. You, too!

I'm always behind in all my reading, and so I was scanning the Sunday Review section of the NY Times when I found an article on 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Reader'

here it is

in which LT and GR and mentioned, rather grudgingly, as replacements for 'official' reviewers and other arbiters of taste of the midlist book. Some nerve. As if I'm more inclined to read a book because some reviewer in - shall we say - the main stream media likes it. I'd much rather have the thoughtful comments of people here and a chance to discuss them.

Or maybe he's just publicizing his publishing venture, OR Books which can be found here. Anyone familiar with them?

39: From the article: "The broad, inclusive conversation around interesting titles that such experts helped facilitate is likewise dissipating."
Where was this conversation? I missed it.

And: "But it derives from self-selecting volunteers whose authority is hard to gauge."
I'm not sure that I need an authority for every book. And for the ones I do, I get recommendations from, for example, science blogs written by university professors and such.

And: "This results in another typical Internet characteristic: the “mirroring” of existing tastes at the expense of discovering anything new."
The eclectic tastes on LT have expanded my reading.

exactly

>39 ffortsa:, 40: I read that last weekend and "grudging" is indeed the word, Judy. The author's claims are valid if you, say, use Amazon reviews to choose your books (or the NYT bestseller lists for that matter). But they clearly hadn't looked very deeply into the thriving internet-based bookish community.

Snobs are always sure they are Right, even when they are ignorant or incorrect. Blech.

I'm still drifting through Death Comes for the Archbishop. To me, it's more or less episodic, not my favorite form, but I'll persevere. Yesterday, for some reason I was so tired I actually got into bed and took a nap - couldn't keep my eyes on the page. Very unusual for me to be able to sleep during the day, even a gloomy day like Saturday was. When I woke up, I thought it was Sunday.

3. Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather

While presented as fiction, this is actually the story of Jean-Baptiste Lamy (here named Jean Marie Latour), a missionary from France who was sent first to Cincinnati and then to Santa Fe, New Mexico as bishop of the new diocese. Cather is wonderful in her descriptions of the land and the hardships of the indigenous people and the travelers, but her work here is too episodic and hagiographic for my taste.

Curiously, many of the significant events in Bishop Latour's life happen off-stage: his decision to become a missionary, his appointment as Bishop, the death of his life-long friend and vicar in Colorado (he does attend the funeral). The Navaho struggle to keep their land is discussed after the fact at the end of the book, although it would have been hugely important at the time. More time is spent on his decision to build a cathedral out of a particular stone he found in the area, and his decision to send for a French architect who could build it in the Romanesque style.

3 1/2 stars mainly for the descriptive power of the writing, and the mention, toward the end of the story, of the Navaho and their culture, which reminded me of Tony Hillerman's books set in the same area.

Sorry you didn't enjoy Death Comes for the Archbishop more. It was one of my top 5 reads last year.

This Sunday's NYTimes had an op ed piece about sleep, and the need thereof. So last night I had insomnia, caused by work worries, I think. Or maybe I shouldn't play backlit computer games before I try to get my winks.

First resolution of the New Year: More sleep. And being kind to myself in general.

I've gone back to reading Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. I'll probably add some fiction today or tomorrow as well. And I started Testament of Mary last night while insomniac-ing.

47: I have to insert at least a half hour of non-computer winding down or I have trouble getting to sleep.

I wonder why TV doesn't have the same effect?

What a day today. I feel like a pretzel. It is so hard to learn not to let the varieties of work stress tie me up like this.

I'm seeing a PT for my (probable) piriformis syndrome tomorrow - so of course my hip is fine today. sigh.

TV is less interactive maybe? You can disengage and fade away.

piriformis syndrome
I had to look that up. Ouch.

Not so bad yet, which is why I decided to have it taken care of now. It's just acting up a lot more frequently than before. It should yield to exercises and stretches, etc. At least the PT confirmed the diagnosis. And her office (really nice) is only two blocks from my apartment, and her office hours start at 7AM! Very convenient.

Of course, my new company insurance plan has a large deductible and excludes such helpful things as acupuncture (which should be very useful), so this is going to cost me. Sigh. Welcome to the 'self-reliant' society.

Judy, like Katherine, I also had to search for piriformis syndrome...ouch is right.

Are you in more pain during the chilly winter days?

Before one of my surgeries, I tried accupressure. The wonderful doctor was a lovely person and very competent. My health plan did not pay for $65 each 1/2 hour session. It was costly, but did help temporarily.

I send gentle healing thoughts your way.

I very much enjoyed your comments regarding My Dog Tulip. I hope my library has this one.

Please say hi to Jim for me. I hope we can get together in 2014!

Regarding post 39, that kind of ignorant snobbery does not hail from a good place and is rather insecure. How I hate "intellectual" know it all folk.

Thanks for the sympathy, but your pain is miles worse than mine. Mine is an ache that gets worse when I sit, generally in the lower part of my butt on the left side, and sometimes spreading down my leg. But it's quite bearable - I just want to catch it before it becomes a bigger issue.

Yeah, the guy who wrote the article does sound sour, doesn't he?

Glad you liked the review of Tulip. I found it pretty funny, in a low-key British way. Easy to read. And as a dog-lover, I associated with the story quite a lot. How is Lily doing?

4. Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking: The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman

I loathe self-help books. The exhortations, sequentially capitalized letters, the exclamation points, all make me snarl. So this title attracted me immediately.

Burkeman starts off at a rally for positive thinking produced under the auspices of Dr. Robert H. Schuller, at which the attendees were exhorted to remove the word 'impossible' from their vocabularies and banish all negative thoughts forever. Burkeman was there under moderately false pretenses, since journalists had been banned, but he was 'self-employed' and thus gained entrance without question.

His point, however, is the opposite of the exhortations. Over and over, he cites studies that show how 'positive thinking' actually leads to more failure or feelings of failure, more unhappiness, than other ways of viewing one's life and one's world. And then he takes us through the options:

- Stoicism, not the common variety but the Greek variety, wherein you learn that, as Hamlet says, 'nothing is bad or good but thinking makes it so', and that it is entirely your choice to be irritated by the long line at the grocery - or not.

- Buddhism, to explore which he meditates in silence (with hilarious descriptions) for a week in the Massachusetts woods, and learns to watch his own mind, and give up the idea of 'groundedness'.

- giving up goals. Here he details the very interesting research into how corporations sabotage their own progress and purpose by compulsive goalsetting, and how most of us do the same (New Year's resolutions, anyone?)

- Ekhart Tolle, whose work encourages us to disidentify from our thoughts, and whose work involves understanding that Decartes may have been wrong, that the constant mental chatter that goes on in our brains may not be the 'I' that Decartes was so sure he'd found. There may or may not be something there, but the boundary between that 'I' and the rest of the world may be more hazy, more porous than we usually think.

- the mistaken search for security, of all kinds, which only ties us up in knots, whereas the search for a sort of balance within insecurity is more productive and realistic - in fact, is life.

- embracing failure, not just the idea of failure, but the fact of it, the inevitability of it, and how it is not what you are but what you may have done from time to time (also a cheerful look at an industrial museum of failed products that corporations visit to make sure they are not making the same failed attempt again!)

- the unblinking acceptance of death as a part of life, in which he discusses the history of memento mori and the Mexican Day of the Dead.

And finally, a mention of Keats, and his casually written and never again repeated phrase 'negative capability' which he defined as the state of being in uncertainty, doubt, mysteries, without struggling to resolve it.

As you might have figured out, i really liked this book. It is a little like the self-help books it ridicules, but it points to the harder and, I believe, the more satisfying road of living with the uncertainties of life rather than the frantic search for goals.

Whew.

just a note more: In the NYTimes today (or maybe it's in tomorrow's edition), there's an article about how the use of meditation can go too far, and that a good chunk of aimless daydreaming can lead to more innovative ideas. No goals, mind you - just doodling in our heads.

I have found the Devil, the time-sink, the torturer of all times. Candy Crush, ladies and gents. Don't do it. Not only does it tempt you with bright colors to mind-numbing tasks, it attempts to wring actual money out of you by blackballing your play for a period of time. it addicts you and then it withholds the substance of your addiction.

I am removing it from my devices - soon. In a little while. After I get to level...

GOT ME TWICE, Judy. Your comprehensive review allows
me not to have to read +THINKING. Thank you! It sounds like a rational book. I groan at Candy Crush, which I put on my Fire Christmas morning. I'm grateful when my time is up and I'm released to do something else. Level 50 won't let me through. I also confess to Sims Free Play. I might be 10 years old again. How often does that happen?

You are so funny! You sound like my sister with Candy Crush. So far, I have refused to be sucked in. I hope I can make it last.

Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking: The Antidote sounds like my kind of self-help book! When I first got divorced a hundred years ago, I think I read every self-help book ever published. The only ones that resonated with me were the ones that said some times will be good and some times will be bad, so just accept and move on. So I gave up on them all, and just went on my own merry way. A lot to be said for my own merry way!

Hope you and Jim are well!

Peggy, I was a little thorough in my review of 'Happiness...' I admit, but it's an easy read, doesn't make your head hurt, and he has a lot of really good examples and anecdotes to help the ideas stick.

Terri, that's part of the idea, for sure. Don't think you have to be 'happy' all the time, sometimes things go your way, sometimes not, and if you can find a path to inner balance, all the better.

Jim and I are fine. Now if I can only stop eating those cookies I shouldn't buy, I'd be fine and slimmer. Sigh.

Judy. I had to smile at your reaction to Candy Crush. My SIL plays it and was in agonies being stuck at level 147 for what seemed a month or two. Hani like her games and I will play three games for a half hour per day to improve my cognitive skills. One is a word game, one is bejewelled which Luci and Genny and Caro occasionally provide me free points for and one typing maniac which I now pay rarely and frown upon as I made the whole office play it one lunchtime and the office typist came last!

Have a lovely weekend and it will hopefully not be too much of a pain in the butt!

I went to the gym like a good girl this morning and did my stretches afterward, so I think the pain in the butt will be manageable this weekend!

I went to the library today to donate a few books and walked out with four mysteries on loan. But their collection is rather sparse. No Cotteril, Bradley, Spencer-Fleming, Dibdin, Fossum - I went down the list of the series I like and didn't really find anything. So I'll have some new ones to contemplate. Along with everything on my shelves, of course.

5. The EverRunning Man by Marcia Muller
6. Looking for Yesterday by Marcia Muller

I read a lot of the Sharon McCone series years ago, but not recently, so when I saw these two at the library, I carried them home. Usually I read a series in order, but I haven't been back to them since before LT days. So I was willing to put up with the references I might not get and just enjoy the stories.

The trouble is, either I've gotten smarter or Muller has gotten lazy - I was way ahead of her detective in both plots. Some details at the end of the second one were interesting twists, I admit, but more often I spent the books saying 'look over there, silly!' and groaning when McCone was a little too reckless for reason.

I'll probably go back and reset my sequence in this series - there are characters I like that have made appreciable progress since last we met. But these may not have been worth the rush.

54: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking
I’m not prone to positive thinking, and pretty much eye anyone who is with suspicion: can’t cope with reality. But it’s taken me 50+ years to get past negative thinking to various strategies: cut my losses and move on, accept my limitations and work with my abilities, use mistakes as a learning experience, recognize there are seven billion people on the planet and I’m only one variant, etc...

61: Marcia Muller
I haven’t read these in ages, forgot about them, no idea where I left off. Good to know I’m not missing a whole lot.

Love your review of The Antidote, Judy. I know someone who might benefit from that so I'm adding it to my Gift List.

Candy Crush: I've been stuck on level 18-somethingorother for well over a month. But, weirdly (for me, at least), it doesn't frustrate me. I play it only once a day, and I in fact like that you only get 5 tries at a time - once those five times are up, I put it out of my mind until the next day. Fun game.

Plans for the rest of the month:

Read July's People for my reading meetup on Feb 4
Read The Awakening for my reading circle in mid-Feb
two more mysteries from the library, although I might return them unread, as I have a bunch of stuff already started, including

Testament of Mary
and a stack of books on the night table.

Only a few days left in the month, and one visit from my sister, three evenings at the theater, two more physical therapy appointments at 7AM. and work. Oh well.

Judy - I don't play computer games anywhere near the amount I used to about four years ago (I wonder what fills my time these days?!) but I did notice that Amber is a dab hand at typing maniac.

7. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley

The fourth Flavia de Luce mystery is well-suited to the winter weather we are having, as the same weather creates the locked-room feel of this novel. Flavia's father has rented the house to a film company which takes it over just before Christmas, and the ensuing murder leads to revelations about Aunt Felicity as well as room for Flavia's special talents.

Hi Judy--I found you! Love the sounds of Book #4 and I had to laugh at Candy Crush!! I also am stuck on a level, but I am not taking it as gracefully as you!

It really is a mesmerizing game, so much so that I don't even mind being stuck at a level. It's like eating potato chips. But it's cut into my reading time, so I'm trying to limit my participation.

>66 PaulCranswick:: *snork!* I nearly forgot about that game! Very addicting.

Time marches on, as the cliche goes. I just got two applications notarized, for senior rate transit cards for New York (MTA) and New Jersey (PATH). At least I had to present proof!

Judy -- Found you and starred you. I see we both have a soft spot for Flavis DeLuce. Our reviews of I am Half Sick of Shadows both reflect a growing fondness for Aunt Felicity as well!

Lovely thread going here! My DH is also a Candy Crush fanatic. I've managed (barely) to avoid the obsession, but I can see how addictive it is!

Have a lovely day.

I'm taking today off, and the sun is out! Yay. Did my pt at 7AM and now I've spent the last hour reading threads and catching up, sort of.

As usual, as soon as I have a free day I make it crowded. A haircut at 11AM cuts the time in half, but my hair is about to explode, so it's time. Then I have to organize my mother's tax papers, and for a treat, Jim and I are seeing the NTLive presentation of 'Coriolanus'.

At least I'll have time at the hairdresser's to read while he turns my brown and silver locks to copper again. I have to finish July's People by Tuesday - the first chapter was beautiful but disheartening.

8. July's People - Nadine Gordimer
9. Speaking from Among the Bones - Alan Bradley

I will review later, just wanted to get them in. My f2f book group is discussing the Gordimer on Tuesday evening.

How was Coriolanus? I'm sorry we couldn't join you. I meant to get back to you with a final decision before the show, but we've been a bit distracted lately with moving-related stuff.

It was well-done, but a very difficult, rather unpoetic play. I referred to it as Ibsen before Ibsen, becaue it deals with a soldier who is pushed to be a politician, with predictably awful results. In fact, it's where the title 'An Enemy of the People' comes from. The place was packed because Huddleton is everyone's darling now (frankly, I can't see the sex appeal, but then, I'm not of that generation). Well done, but I won't rush to see another production any time soon.

On the other hand, if you want a fine night at the theater and have some extra cash (there's a Playbill.com offer for it), you should try to see 'Outside Mullingar' at Manhattan Theater Club. Come to think of it, that theater club has a '30 under 30' club you should look into - I think they offer deals to younger audience members. Anyway, this play is delightful, romantic, funny, extremely well done. Jim should post a review on the theater thread any minute.

My reaction to the news about Phillip Seymour Hoffman is unprintable in this venue. I will say that when I heard it, my first reaction was 'STUPID STUPID MAN'. What a needless loss.

Re: PSH ... What a waste. Apparently they are treating it as an accidental overdose. The markings on the bags of heroin indicates it is part of a lethal type which has been causing scores of deaths here on the East Coast. Lots of effort to see if they can ID the dealers from local business surveillance cameras. Hope they catch them and get that scourge off the streets.

What a great actor. I've loved him in just about everything I've seen him perform.

I'd don't know if I'd ever say that I have extra cash, but I'm always happy for theatre recommendations anyway! I like to know about what good shows are playing even if I can't manage to see as many as I'd like. And that 30 under 30 definitely sounds worthwhile.

10. A River Runs Through It and other stories - Norman Maclean

Last Saturday in my poetry reading group, we read this:

The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

Wallace Stevens

As Stevens' poetry goes, this is deceptively accessible, but I became obsessed with the wanting in the verse, the scholar reading the book, and the book becoming himself. There is such a longing to be a true being in these simple words.

At least, IMHO.

I loved A River Runs Through It, Judy. You?

And that's quite a Stevens poem. I like the feel of it. You have a poetry reading group? I didn't know such a think existed any more. Seems sometimes like poetry is only for diehards these days. I hope you bring back more of the ones you like.

I love that! There's so much understated feeling in the words.

If it must be poetry, let it be Wallace Stevens. "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is on my life-list of beautiful poems.

Just looked at my unread starred threads list. There is no hope of catching up. But I did read

11. The Awakening by Kate Chopin

or perhaps this

Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe,
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb
Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

The End of the World
Archibald MacLeish

>85 ffortsa: Me too.

oooh. I like MacLeish, haven't read that one before.

12. Ask the Cards a Question by Marcia Muller
13. The Cheshire Cat's Eye - Marcia Muller

I decided to revisit this series, but I must say the first few are a little light-weight - I didn't even rate them. McCone does what most fictional tecs do these days - she makes bad choices that lead to unnecessary danger, but that, of course, is to be expected. The second book in particular was interesting as it talked a lot about San Francisco architecture.

Ah, today was a winter wonderland when I left home. Reminded me of my childhod.

I started Light in August yesterday, but I'm not sure how assiduously I'll continue. A Death in the Family is the next up for my Tuesday f2f group for March, so I have to get to that.

i started the Agee yesterday, finding it gripping but not a fast read, as the writing is so evocative.

Right now I'm experimenting with a little adjustment to my home office area. I've propped the laptop up on a stack of jigsaw puzzle boxes to test out how it would be if I worked at a standing desk. Easier on the achy hip, of course, but will my feet put up with it? I'll let you know.

Permaybehaps one of those stress-reducing mats with the standing desk? Feet or hips, neither is good to have be sore.

>92 richardderus: Richard, what a good idea! When I took a look at anti-fatigue mats on Amazon, I also found a whole bunch of sit-stand desktop adjustable additions. I have to investigate the options, but it looks like there are a lot of solutions.

I like the stand/sit option -- as long as it is easy to do the transition.

I gave a bunch of books to the library yesterday, most of them recent mysteries. It gives me a funny feeling, but I need to be more discriminating about what I keep on the shelves.

The Agee is half-way done. For some reason, it was easy to put down, and I have until March 1 to finish it. Instead of that, I picked up

14. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

Although I usually find books about transition to adulthood annoying, this one captured me. A family is living on the last remnants of the value of their possessions in an old house adjacent to a much older castle. Father is a once-famous writer who has gotten a serious case of writer's block; the nearby gracious house belonging to the landlord is inherited by young American man and so presents a Jane Austen-style escape from poverty, if only it would work that way.

The story is told as journal entries written by the second daughter, Cassandra, and the portrayal of the family, the house, the Americans, all delight. Cassandra herself is not the only one to grow up during the course of the narrative, but she is the only voice we hear. Not that she seems an unreliable narrator. The Austen thread will be pretty obvious to those who know that kind of romantic story, but it's most satisfying.

It did take a little time for me to adjust to the setting - 1948 England - and the idea that even with that, the family is more than stuck in an earlier age. But taking that on faith proved easy. 4 stars, maybe a little more.

15. 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done by Peter Bregman

I normally avoid self-help books, except when they are short, cheap and may have a nugget or two to help me get organized. This was all three - although I'm not sure I can implement any of the suggestions without flash-cards pinned to my wall.

And in the spirit of the previous post, I've converted my ebook category to tags. Librarianship requires consistency.

I'm also thinking of moving my 'to read' to another list somewhere outside of my general LT list, if only to prevent the system from thinking I have all these books in common with other readers when they are really not yet hatched. Many of the titles are really 'read a long time ago if at all' books; others are newer, or more certainly not read. but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. The number is daunting, and it doesn't include many of the ebooks I've bought in the last year.

In the meantime, I'll turn my attention back to the Agee tomorrow.

So I didn't turn my attention back to the Agee. I'll have to finish it this weekend.

16. Crawl Space by Sarah Graves

I don't know why I bothered with this, except that it was the next book in the series. The weakest one so far, with unpleasant people and no surprises. Bah humbug.

17. The Wings of the Sphinx by Andrea Camilleri

As soon as I started this, I knew I'd read it before, but it wasn't on my LT list, so I figured I might not have finished it. No such luck. And not the best Camilleri either. Double Bah humbug.

SO behind, so behind. I used to read Muller too, but she was never a favorite, and I think that *Cheshire Eye* may be the last one I read....
Also loved Dodie Smith.
Regret no longer being questioned about senior status.
That's sort of what I thought about my last Sarah Graves, whatever it was. Today's Kindle Daily Deal is the latest Deborah Crombie, and I'm a happy downloader!
I should reread Agee; I loved that book.
My knees say that a standing desk might be a good idea. I need to remind myself to stand up and walk around once every hour or so.
Keep reading, Judy. I love to see what you have to say.

So nice of you to stop by, especially considering how far behind I am on your thread. I saw the Crombie - might download it, but I'm way behind on that series too!

100: Everybody is behind on everybody else's thread. I lurk a fair amount, but if a reply doesn't occur immediately (and in my winter sluggishness that's more often than not), I move on.

And of course I'm way behind on your thread too, Katherine!

Two ~meh~ series reads in a row = blick. Better-read *whammy* winging westward.

102: I'm behind in my own thread. The plan is to wind up tomorrow, then start fresh in March. February should be left behind as soon as possible.

Today's Daily Deal on Amazon includes A Dark Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell). I checked the reviews, but no one I know has left one. Any opinions about this? I recall the title, but would like a word on quality.

105: I don't recall that one specifically (I read it, but decades? ago), but I prefer Ruth Rendell as Barbara Vine. Creepy page-turners.

I read *Dark Eye* when it came out, but that was too long ago for me to remember. I did continue to buy and read B. Vine books, so that's an indication that I liked it. B. Vine is the creepy page-turning aspect of Ms. Rendell, and they suit me well from time to time.

Creepy as in horror, or creepy as in suspenseful?

108: Creepy as in suspenseful, and that British thing of turmoil beneath the mundane and respectable surface. Also the characters are often quite unpleasant people and yet I find myself caring what happens to them.

Ah, in that case I might give it a try. Thanks!

17. A Death in the Family by James Agee

discussion tomorrow - comments to come.

>111 ffortsa: Waiting for comments on the Agee...

>112 scaifea: Yes, ma'am.

One of my f2f book groups spent Tuesday evening discussing Agee's autobiographical novel A Death in the Family. Most of us found the book beautifully written and deeply felt, but some of the group were not so entranced. The differences were very interesting to me.

First, there were people who could not get past what they thought was the appropriate way to deal with children in the circumstance of a death. This is a species of the problem Cariola is having in her seminar with a student who can't see past her own conviction of what is appropriate behavior for a character. The story takes place in Knoxville in 1915, even though it is being remembered 35 or 40 years later, and to the very child-centered east coast population, the treatment of the children amounted to child abuse. It colored their whole view of the story.

Then there were people who couldn't treat it as a novel, since they had read about Agee himself and decided that they had to judge everything by what actually happened in his life. So they demonized the mother in the story because they disapproved of Agee's mother's behavior in real life.

And then there were people who had to interject themselves into the religious conflict of the story, either to state their belief in ghosts or criticize the 'use' of religion to avoid responsibility.

OK. Enough about other people.

I really enjoyed this story. The very poetic language in the beginning, the heartbreaking view of a young boy who trusts too much in other people, the very visual and evocative description of place all captured me. It's a time not that far from my childhood, 35 years later, when men still went to work and wives stayed home and people watered their lawns by hand.

The first part of the book is a sweet portrait of a marriage, with its stresses and joys, and even though the reader can see difficulty to come, these two people really seem to care deeply about each other. Mary's religious choice is not yet between them, except for her need to rescue Jay from drink, and he comes from a background that warrants that care.

Minor characters are excellently drawn, so much so that I found myself wishing we saw more of them, especially Jay's family, since there is clearly friction and problems there. But the story stays close to life from the memory and viewpoint of Rufus, the young son. When the death occurs, we see it more from the point of view of the wife and mother, and from the members of her family who come to comfort her.

No one really fully understands each other in this family, although they think they do. And that is so much of what this book ultimately is about, the loneliness in the heart of all people who cannot be perfectly understood by others.

I suspect we are all raised to anticipate - and maybe dread - perfect understanding by another, and it's a myth. There's a quote that is not quite in my head, about how we are all prisoners inside our own skin. It applies here.

18. The Torso by Helene Tursten

I like the characters in this Scandinavian police procedural series, but the writing is sometimes annoying, too detailed about the wrong things, and it weighs the story down.

In this title, a hollowed out torso is found on the beach, and the team must discover who would kill and then excavate a body. The territory includes both Gotesberg, where Irene Huss and her colleagues work, and Copenhagen, and the crime is, as is common in ScandiCrime, centered in sexual brutality.

It seems that brutality and child abuse are favorite themes in ScandiCrime, and it's beginning to aggravate me. I don't need an upper class locked-room mystery, but these are really dark, and in increasingly predicable ways.

I was reading another ScandiCrime novel, in the Department Q series, when it disappeared from my ebook list - I guess I ran out of library time. Just as well - I wasn't up for yet another abducted child.

>113 ffortsa:: I'm glad you weren't any of those other people! That book blew me away.

Great review of A Death in the Family, Judy. I've added it to my wish list.

Nice to hear from you, Darryl. I think you would really respond to the story, especially the children.

>113 ffortsa:: Excellent review! I loved the book, myself. Gorgeous writing.

Re Scandicrime, I'm having similar problems with the latest Jussi Adler-Olsen. Stalled after page 100. Was able to renew it, but now I need to decide whether I really want to read it or not. The problem I'm having, though, is with the detective characters, who are eccentric for the sake of being eccentric, it seems to me. Which makes the mystery almost feel "normal" in comparison.

Wow, just saying that almost feels cathartic.

Was that your first Tursten novel?

oooof. It's been an interesting week.

first, >120 Chatterbox: No, it was my second Tursten. I was hoping the writing would improve.

As to my week, I agreed to take the pager for work, and then got bombed with pages at night. We have got to fix some of these systems so they actually work without the periodic handholding. Not much sleep.

Next, on Wednesday I got in to work late and bought a California chicken wrap at the grab-and-go, went upstairs, chomped down and immediately started a massive allergic reaction. Something was obviously left OFF THE LABEL. It was very dramatic. A friend at work played mommy, insisted I use my Epi-Pen, called security, who called the EMTs, and eventually Jim whisked me home in a cab (tres expensive over state lines) and I was sick and flattened all day. Epinephrine is fine to help you breathe, but it messes up other systems. I didn't feel human until 6PM.

Everyone was amazed when I was back at work on Thursday, but really, when you live with this kind of occasional but severe allergy attack, you just get up and get on with it.

And then I ended up working late both days, essentially telling the other people on my team what to put on each and every line of a spreadsheet. Why do I feel like I'm doing all the work? Well, because I am. sigh.

At least the pager was quiet last night, except for an invitation to a RuPaul event (how do they get these numbers?).

Not much reading getting done, except for Their Eyes Were Watching God, due for book circle discussion on Wednesday.
I'm hoping for better luck next week.

>121 ffortsa: OFF THE LABEL
Yikes. Do you report this?

>122 qebo:. I went down to talk with the grab and go manager the next day. The security guy had told her that I had eaten California rolls, so the company was all over the sushi preparers! When I explained that it was the California wrap, she seemed much relieved that she had another area to investigate. All in all, lots of genuine concern.

Wow Judy, that's quite an ordeal. I'm glad you're OK, and hope this work week is a return to normal.

>124 lauralkeet: i was hoping, but I'm getting divebombed by y the pager tthius morning. And it's no it even my system! Oh well.

Yow. I'm glad that you're quickly better, but that's scary! I'm sure that you're making the most of your weekend between pages. That's grim. Do the bosses have any idea how much work you're doing??? Or maybe you're the boss....
Anyway, count me as another lover of A Death in the Family. I reread it several years ago and appreciated the writing much more than I had on the first reading. What has stayed with me is the picture of the husband carefully pulling the covers up in the very early morning so that when his wife goes back to bed, she'll still have residual warmth. When she does go back, it's cold already. That touches me.

>126 LizzieD: LOL definitely not the boss. One of the security guards who answered the emergency call caught me in the lobby yesterday and asked how I was. He said that everyone was describing me as a very hardworking person (little do they know how much time I spend on LT in the office!). We had a nice talk, and agreed that a little more practical recognition might be more meaningful than all these verbal accolades!

Oh well. At least I know they know how much they need me. Unfortuately, it's unlikely to result in promotion - they're not structured for linch-pin employees who aren't managers, and in this envoronment, I wouldn't take a management post.

19. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

up for discussion on Wednesday - more later.

quick note that Amazon has a raft of Italo Calvino books on sale today.

According to the LT milestones, V.S. Pritchett died on this day in 1997. What cracked me up was that he is listed in the milestones as the author of The Oxford Book of Short Stories. Go over to his page and you'll see the list of the 72 other titles, of critical writing and fiction, that he wrote over the years. Author indeed!

I have to confess that I didn't finish the Zora Neale Hurston once I knew I wasn't going to make it on Wednesday... I will one day, but not my Rx for reading with a bad head cold. So, shall be interested in your take on it!

Horrified to hear of your allergic reaction. Have they figured out what unlisted ingredient was responsible? I would have thought that between paranoia re litigation and parental activism there would be a lot of focus on getting stuff listed (well, unless it's obvious, like a salad with veggies...) Dismaying, in all senses, and very relieved that you bounced back so rapidly.

Glad to see that there were no lasting issues with the allergic reaction, Judy. Hani swears that she is allergic to me but three children and a rollercoaster eighteen years of romance (it is our wedding anniversary tomorrow) tells the lie of that one.

Have a lovely weekend. xx

*Happy weekend wave*

Hi Judy - The Agee is one of my favorite books ever. I haven't read any of the Muller books for years and was wondering if they are worth a revisit? Have a nice weekend with minimal Candy Crush - not familiar with it and it sounds better that way!

>LOL re Candy Crush. Yes, it's good for stress relief, but can be really addictive. The company is trying to go public, but with a one-hit wonder, I doubt their staying power, financially.

As for the Mullers, I guess it depends on you. I think they are pretty good potboilers, and I like the more recent ones I've read a little better, but I dropped the series several year ago in favor of other reading, and my effort to refresh my memory is what drove me to start over. Right now I'm in a bit of a book funk, so it's not a great time to ask my opinion of anything!

We went to a well-done production of Gypsy last night, Judy, and I thought of you and Jim. Gary Griffin does such a good job with Sondheim. We had a blast.

What a scare with the allergic reaction. Glad you came through as well as you did.

Looking forward to your reaction to Their Eyes Were Watching God. I was quite taken with it.

I've started reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the HIghly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and I'm very surprised by the tone of the book. At one point I looked up (on the internet) a name he used as an example, only to find that a) it was fictional, which he admitted in the next chapter and b) someone had written a two-part review every bit as caustic as the book. LOL. So now I'm reading it a little more critically. Review to come.

I will comment on the Hurston soon, probably tomorrow, since I have the day off.

No Hurston comments yet? Are you still unwell? And have you procured Ceremony yet?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Oh, no Hurston comments because I've just been too busy to say nice things. Somehow snarky ones are always more energizing.

The Hurston was very enjoyable, once I could handle the language. I bet it was even better listened to. What impressed me?
- The portrait of a whole society of people creating their world themselves, each person distinct. It reminds me now of Cannery Row that way.
- Janie as a young woman who takes chances, and then stops taking chances, and takes them again.
- The way Hurston makes almost invisible 20 years of her marriage to Jody; how Hurston so accurately portrays a woman hoping for something to grow, but allowing herself to be stunted instead.
- The vivid picture of life in the swamp, and the biblical feel of the flood that some people sense and others do not believe is coming. The visual image of watching the Native Americans leaving, trusting their knowledge of the land and lake, and everyone watching them and hesitating.
- The openness of Janie coming home after the disaster, telling her story.
- the incredibly visual and precise description of Jody's death
- The vivid, intense language

Writing this, I wonder at some things that were glossed over - the trial, for instance - so brief, although of course we know the result beforehand
- that she never divorced her first husband and he didn't come after her
- that she never had children

Lots of people in the book circle said more intelligent things about the form, the style, the language. But this is what I remember.

As for Ceremony, I don't think I have it yet. I can't recall if I downloaded it from Amazon yet or not. And I have another book to read before that, for my other f2f group, The Violent Bear It Away, which should be an interesting juxtaposition with the Hurston.

There. I hope I've satisfied my public.

Honestly, I'm most amazed that the childless thing wasn't more of a factor in the story. Jody's mild dissatisfaction doesn't cover the ground of social disapprobation or sympathy or smug superiority...but attention no matter what.

>139 ffortsa: Lots of people in the book circle said more intelligent things about the form, the style, the language. But this is what I remember. ... There. I hope I've satisfied my public.
Your comments are more about the stuff that matters to me.

20. I've decided to list Burn by Nevada Barr even though I only read the first 80 pages or so, and then the end. That was the one that prompted my comments elsewhere about so many mystery stories these days being about child abuse and abduction. Not that it doesn't exist, but that I'm tired of having my emotions played that way over and over. There are awful people in the world, true - but that's not the only thing worthy of the genre.

21. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley

Review to come.

>139 ffortsa: This part of your public hereby applauds...

>142 ffortsa: I've actually got a mental subcategory of thrillers/mysteries that I refer to as "women in peril" novels. Always involving stalkers and sexual predators. I seem to find these more often than child abuse and abduction. At least adults are more on an even playing field? And I don't mind those that are kind of battle of wits type thrillers.

Hm. After doing a little arithmetic, I find that if I read 1.5 books a week for the rest of the year, I might hit 75. Doable, I think, without too much strain. I've got two new titles to read for my f2f clubs - For Whom the Bell Tolls, which I somehow missed in my youth, and a book titled Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko, which looks interesting.

And I'm still reading Black Swan, and still finding it rather snarky and self-justifying, but thought-provoking nevertheless. Has anyone else read this? Any opinions to share?

Uh - this part of your public finds your comments intelligent, insightful, and sensitive. So there.
I'm another fan of Ceremony, so I'll be waiting for your II&S comments about it too. So there twice.
Hmmm. I haven't read Burn yet, but I'm a mid-level Nevada Barr fan. She doesn't normally go after children, so you might want to give her another chance. I do think her strong point is her sense of place.

>146 LizzieD: Thank's, Peggy. I think I'm not paying enough attention to what I'm reading, so I don't put together the kinds of observations I was accustomed to identifying when reading was my main preoccupation in my youth.

As for Nevada Barr, I will certainly keep reading her work. Maybe it was that I wasn't interested in her sense of place as it related to New Orleans. I'm happier when she is writing about the country. She has made the Natchez Trace quite vivid in my mind, for instance. And I won't ever read that one about the caves again - scared me silly.

I'll have to start Ceremony this weekend, I suppose! Oddly, it's a book that had never really crossed my radar screen...

Mine either. Haven't acquired it yet, but I'll be reading it this weekend, too. Good thing it's not too long (according to Jim). I notice that at least one book about the book has also been written.

>139 ffortsa: Thanks for the comments, Judy. I found I tok a while to become accustomed to the language, which slowed me down initially. Once I did, the book took off and I loved the world I found there.

Catching up here. So sorry about the allergic reaction! I hate unlisted ingredients. Good job on the life-must-go-on attitude.

Happy Easter!

LOL. Is that what the words on the cups mean?

Yes, it is :-)

Jim and I are planning to be in Boston for 4th fo July weekend. Anyone else planning to be in Boston or the environs that weekend? If there is interest, I can open a thread.

I've been neglecting this thread. I hope I"ll have time to write before the weekend.

Hello there Judy -- Sorry I didn't get back to you before on your Boston trip. Looks like we will be around for July 4th. There is a slight 5-10% chance, we might be gone, but I should know by Mid-May. Highly unlikely, though.

Wow! Fun! My first Meet Up!

OOO - the only thing better than book therapy is shoe therapy, especially when you're like me and have really little wide feet. I just went to Clark's, and they were having a sale, and they had my size, and I bought FOUR PAIRS OF SHOES!!!!!

Wheeeeeeeeeee

>157 ffortsa: Shoe therapy I like that! Congrats!

OK, I need to play a little catch-up. Sorry to be quiet for so long - work has been really draining, so much so that I took a day off today. Whew.

22. The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O'Connor

Religion in its fiercest form has never been a part of my life, but I have seen it from a distance. This story brings the war of faith into painful, desperate detail.

Three men, one of them still a boy, really, are poised in a triangle of stress regarding the depths to which they will go to respond to a call to God. Tarwater the elder is totally submerged in that call. Thinking he had the call to preach when he was younger, he instead had some sort of mental collapse he interprets as God striking him instead of the sinners to whom he preached. He tried to inculcate his beliefs in his nephew, who was saved from that particular fate by his father. Tarwater spends time in a mental hospital, learns to keep his trap shut as a way to convince the powerful that he is recovered, and is allowed to return to his small farm and house in the forest.

When his niece dies in a car crash, leaving a newborn, he manages to kidnap the child, run off his nephew and the social worker come to claim him, and raise him in his own philosophy as a prophet to be.

All this has happened by the time the story begins, with Tarwater dead and young Tarwater responsible for burying him.

And now the youngster must find his own way, decide to resist or accept a call, decide if his uncle who takes him in is in the right. The uncle is complicated with his own pulls, and with responsibility which tests everyone's faith.

The writing is exact and intense. O'Connor was a devout Catholic who often wrote about people who wrestle with their beliefs, and about people in the small-town and backwoods South. Yet here, I don't think she takes sides so much as reveals the struggles faith can incur, and the devastation it can create. I found it quite powerful, and pitied them all.

23. Ceremony - Leslie Marmon Silko

I had never heard of this book or this author, so the exploration was a treat.

The story centers on a young man from the Navaho nation who enlists with his foster brother in the Army during World War II, and ends up on the Bataan Death March before being rescued and returned home. He and other Navaho were heroes in uniform, but just Injuns back home; while others drown themselves at the nearby bars, he spends time in hospital with what we would today call PTSD. Home at last, he is without hope, without volition, until he is brought closer to his tribal roots.

This is complicated by several factors: he is mixed race and illegitimate, bringing shame on his family. He cursed the rain when in the war, and now feels he has brought drought on his own land. And he is still suffering the guilt of not being able to protect his brother, the favorite, the one who would be a success, but who died on that death march.

Marmon invokes the idea of the past being present frequently in the story, sometimes slipping from one time to another with barely an end to the sentence she is writing. And it turns out that is the healing message, the repeating story, the circle that must be closed so that it can start rolling again.

The stories are the most important element. Healing is done with stories, the world is explained with stories, action can be taken based on traditional stories. Throughout, Silko inserts pieces of Navaho lore like choral commentary on the action, stories about how the rains can be trapped or freed, stories of what it means to be in harmony.

The book was written when the war and the shock of the nuclear age was still relatively fresh, circa 1970, I think. And it shows that horror of the nuclear age from time to time. But it also shows the damage done when people lose their connection to their own stories, their own land, their sense of place and belonging and integration with their environment.

One thought outside this book: I am glad to have been an avid reader of Tony Hillerman's mysteries in the same part of the country, because many of the attitudes and patterns of belief were familiar to me, and may have eased my way in Silko's story.

After those two and with work boiling my brain, I picked up a couple of mysteries.

24. Valley of the Lost - Vicki Delaney

Not as exotic as it sounds, this is the second book (I think) in a series about a constable in Western Canada by the name of Moonlight (her parents, needless to say, were hippie draft-dodgers who are scandalized that she is a cop!). This one focuses on the young runaways and drug-addicted in the town, and developers who want to capitalize on the landscape. My only complaint is that the tie that binds is sort of from left field.

25. Words With Fiends - Ali Brandon

I found this one near the library checkout, and the title was irresistible, since I am a fiend with Words With Friends. It's a cosy, the second or third in a series, featuring a bookstore owner with a crime-solving cat. As I said, a cosy. Read at your own risk.

I'm still stomping through The Black Swan, but I have to turn my attention to the next book group selections, For Whom the Bell Tolls and the Beckett trilogy of Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable. Ah, cheerful, light reading.

The sun is out, it's spring, and I will contrive to find a reason to go out and enjoy it!

Jim and I were at the theater this weekend (how unusual) to see "The City of Conversation", nominally about the struggle between Democrats and Republicans from Reagan until Obama, but really about how political ambition and the increasing lack of civility and tolerance in that arena can tear a family apart. Well done but aggravating is the way I'd put it. Not really recommended.

26. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Nicholas Talib

I finished this difficult and sometimes cranky book last night, and will think about it a while before reviewing it.

>162 ffortsa: lack of civility in our discourse seems to have reached everywhere. Used to be one could have a rational discussion about politics with folks. I try to avoid it if at all possible now.

>164 michigantrumpet: True, Marianne. Not in my business, in which everyone is so polite the email chains of 'thank you' and 'you're welcome' and 'congratulations' threaten to drown us all! But in the public arena, yes.

I was reviewing some of my 'to read' book titles and discovered that I have been remiss in marking books read, and even in cataloguing some of them. There are holes in my series reading I know I've filled. Sigh. It's not that I am so concerned about 'rightness', but I do like to know where I am in a series and how many zillions of books are still on my list. Oh well.

Currently reading For Whom the Bell Tolls and a guidebook to Prague.

Saw a not-good play last night, Judy, called The Way West. The cast was fine, but the play was content-lite. My MBH said it was like watching a first draft. The story had their lives spiraling downward while they keep professing the pioneer spirit of overcoming adversity. OK. But that was it. Not a great year for Steppenwolf.

>167 jnwelch: too bad. We also had something of a miss last night. We went to see the NTLive production of King Lear with Simon Russell Beale. We thought he'd be worth watching, and he was worth watching, but not so much hearing, as he shouted his way through the entire (uncut) play. I didn't much like the Regan either - screechy and not very intelligible- she seemed determined to speak as fast as possible.

The interpretation of Lear was entirely justified - I just wish he hadn't shouted so much. There was some good stuff to see, and some shocking (but entirely justifiable) action.

We're at the theater again tonight. I shall report in.

Sorry about the King Lear. Sounds like an acting or directing decision (he must have had some reason for the shouting, right?) that didn't work. Too bad.

Look forward to your report on tonight's. We see that production of Road Show tomorrow.

Joe you're seeing the Sondheim "Road Show"?

Do you know (pre LT) we trekked out to Chicago to see it when it was at the Goodman and called (shudder) "Bounce". Had a nice chat with Michelle Pawk in the lobby after.

We saw "Road Show" here thought it was mostly not much about not much with one good song. Curious to know how it strikes you.

Yeah, Judy mentioned the Chicago trip, Jim. My buddy just saw the one we're going to, and said it was okay (he loves Sondheim, and walked out on "Bounce", he disliked it so much). He thought this one was much better than "Bounce", and the music not bad, but the story, for him, remained uninteresting. I'll let you know what we think.

OK. some thoughts on #26.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Talib is for most of its length a philosopher/statistician's squeal of fury that so many people get things so wrong so often. He is speaking most about those pundits who pontificate (those words must have the same root) about what is going to happen in the economy, politics, and other areas of life without what he would say is proper regard for the real origin of risk. Of course, our recent economic history is the most obvious example of his thesis, although not the only one.

And his thesis is that for the most part, statistics is, as Mark Twain said, just the most egregious type of lie. (The quote is 'lies, damned lies, and statistics'.). Talib's opinion is that the famous bell curve, or Gaussian distribution, is no more predictive than sheep's entrails, that no one really understands what the mathematics surrounding it means, and that those who pretend to be able to apply data using it or any other charting method to come up with predictive results are just so many snake oil salesmen.

I don't think I'm exaggerating his intention, and certainly not his pique.

Whether you would like to believe that or not, his second thesis is scarier. It is that the risks we should really be worrying about are the ones we cannot anticipate, or more ominously, the ones we are unwilling to anticipate. And again, this applies most obviously to the recent economic crisis, but could apply equally to medical research, global warming, weather predictions, etc. These are what he calls the black swans, the things we KNOW can't happen, can't exist, but somehow appear anyway. The term comes from the European conviction stretching back to the Greeks that all swans are white, which was suddenly and magically disproven when Europeans happened upon Australia. It's his way of saying 'never say never'.

Eventually, he grudgingly agrees to give some advice to the shell-shocked reader, which mainly consists of: question every assumption, concentrate on safety, don't risk anything you can't lose, and don't listen to the pundits. Not revolutionary. But advising us in that way is not his goal. His goal is to try to make the reader see the folly of prediction, the incompetence of applied statistics, and the childish wishfulness of any hope of predicting the future.

OK. I get it. It goes on a little too long, in sometimes numbing detail, with the snarkiest of tones and attitude. Every once in a while he tells the less than superbly educated reader they can skip ahead - they don't have to bother themselves with the next technical bit. He is of course the smartest guy in the room, and everyone else (except for a select few mathematicians and icononclastic thinkers) is an idiot. Or a fraud.

I like reading some of the works by those other select folks. I like the behavioral economists and their insistence on puncturing assumptions by actually testing them. And I totally sympathize with Talib's quarrel with academic economic theory as just that, academic instead of reflecting real life. But it would have been a little better if he hadn't hit me over the head with these ideas quite so much.

27. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Oh boy. The printer almost did me in with this one. I got to page 442 and the next page was 412. Only the fact that Jim had the text on Kindle saved me from self-explosion. And it's a library book! Didn't anyone tell the librarian about the defect?!?!

ok. got that said. Now, about the book.

I was somewhat surprised by how many people in my f2f reading group actively disliked this book. They objected to Hemingway's portrayal of women (gee, the younger one is pretty naive, and the older one isn't. right). They objected to his attempt to represent the difference between 'usted' and 'tu' in Spanish by using 'you' and 'thou', etc. in English. And I admit that some of the attempts to make the text sound like a translation from the Spanish were worse than awkward,and the editor did the story no favor in insisting that the naturally obscene language be masked so clumsily.

But what about the story? What about the naive volunteer trying his best to be a good soldier for a cause he thinks he believes in, in spite of what we know about the errors and excesses of that cause? The partisan band in the hills, trying to say alive so that they can go back to being farmers and vintners, each one delineated as a distinct person with frailties and honor in unique proportion? And the honesty of the brutality on both sides of this gruesome war, the ineptitude and cynicism of the commanders, the pain of both dying and killing, and the fatalism war can engender.

The intense writing made me see everything as if through a close-up lens. Although the language can seem moderately straightforward (and no, it's not all simple declarative sentences by any means), I had to slow down to capture the vivid detail, even when I wanted to story to move faster because the tension mounts even though the inevitability of the outcome seems clearer every step of the way.

Bad grammar, bad usage can pull me right out of a mediocre story, but nothing could pull me out of this one.


28. The Glass Devil - Helene Tursten

This is the third in the Inspector Irene Huss series from Sweden. Three people from a single family, but not in a single location, are found murdered with no apparent motive to link their deaths, and the police must ferret out a reason from people unwilling to provide information.

While the plot was interesting, the various perpetrators and the various crimes were a little to obvious. At one point Inspector Huss travels to London, and the narrative devolves into travelogue. Tursten doesn't skimp on detail, but often it's a kind of decoration rather than being integral to the story. (Writing this, I find myself going back to edit out my own unnecessary words.) Not a bad book, but longer and more fretful than it needs to be, depending too much on information withheld from both the reader and the police.

Nice bit collection of reviews there! I've read some Talib in the past, and he is certainly convinced of the rightness of his path. Although, if one accepts his thesis at face value, one should be questioning him as well!

Not a huge fan of Hemingway. The stories are good enough, the writing doesn't grab me, but the man himselfwas loathesome. Usually, I don't need authors to be likable, but once I really take against someone, I find it hard to put that aside for the sake of the writing. It might be easier for me if his writing just blew me away. Tons of people agree with you, though!

Are you still planning your visit to the Northeast? Any thoughts of when you might be in Boston for a possible meet up? Our summer just got busy, and I want to slot in time for you and your hubby.

I'll check with Jim as to whether we are actually booked for the July 4th weekend. That would be the time. If we don't go then, we would probably be up to visit friends toward the end of August, so a meetup is doubly possible.

Still open on the 4th. End of August is still a possibility., We have something on for the weekends of August 9/10 and 16/17. The rest seem to be clear.

Fingers crossed. We'll try to add a ferw others, too. :-D

Good to catch up with you and envious of your travel plans.
I just can't love Hemingway although I've tried, and I guess I no longer loathe him as I used to.
Thanks for the recap of the Talib. I feel justified in never reading it now.
And I'm glad that your experience with Ceremony was positive.

Just a quick placeholder to say that Jim and I have been on vacation in Europe for two weeks (!) - never did that before - and I have lots of books and sights to talk about, but after I recover from the long flight home.

Can't wait to hear, Judy. Welcome back!

Oh what fun! Can't wait to hear more.

Welcome home!! and is July 4th still a go?

>180 Chatterbox: Jim and I and MichiganTrumpet are still on for July 4. No other participants yet - maybe some people will opt to join us closer to the date.

Well, I will be there... *grin*

Two weeks in Europe!! Awesome! Where did you go? What did you do? Spill beans.

>183 Berly: Spilling beans: We went to Prague (with a side trip to a spa town, but alas no massages), and to Tbilisi, in Republic of Georgia, with a side trip to wine country with a view of the Caucasus mountain range. More to come once I have time this weekend to upload all the photos and write something coherent.

Okay...since you have been nice enough to leave a teaser, I'll wait patiently. Sort of. I'm trying!

Can't wait to hear all about it! I've always wanted to go to Prague.

*tapping toes, impatiently...*

I want to hear about the Caucasus mountains, in particular. Fascinated by the region.

First things first:

31. World War I: History in an Hour - Rupert Colley

For the anniversary, and since I was going to Europe, to refresh my education.

32. Evernote for your Life | A Practical Guide for the Use of Evernote in Your Every… - Tyler Collins
33. Evernote (65 Ways to Use Evernote to Supercharge Your Life - Troy Mcnally

Two short Kindle books I got to help me get into using Evernote. The first one is fairly helpful. It hasn't worked yet.

34: How to Be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work - Megan

A survey of the typical and famous advice books on how to be successful in business. But I really think the author was reading my performance reviews and cataloguing all the naive and childish mistakes I've made over my career. Now, if I could have taken the advice to heart, maybe I'd have given management a try. Too late.

35. Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly (Hercule Poirot Mysteries) - Agatha Christie

The original novella that Christie eventually reworked a couple of times, since the length made it hard to sell. Fun in the grand Christie country home tradition.

36. Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable (Molloy) - Samuel Beckett

My first prose Beckett (as opposed to drama). I've only read Molloy so far. Two weeks or so to read the rest before an F2F discussion.

37. The Prague Golem: Jewish Stories of the Ghetto by Chajim Bloch

I picked this up at the Jewish Museum in Prague, an organization that encompasses several synagogues in the Jewish section of Prague as well as the cemetery. The folk stories are of interest, but could have been more engaging.

38. The Rope by Nevada Barr

Barr takes us all the way back to the story of how Anna got from New York City to the Forest Service. I suspect this might have been an early effort by Barr, because it's a little lumpy, a little obvious, with too many things happening one after another. At one point Anna thinks it's like 'The Perils of Pauline', and she's not wrong. Barr's other books are better.

Hm. What kinds of things would you like to know about our epic trip to Europe? Talk first, pictures to come (they are still on other devices).

Jim and I decided to take two weeks of vacation time and go to Europe, in part because a friend of ours is living and working in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, and partly because we couldn't recall the last time we took two weeks off at one time.

The fun started right in the travel agent's office, when this sweet young thing from Ireland didn't understand why we wanted to go from Prague to Georgia without first coming back to New York. After a couple of 'who's on first' moments, we realized she thought we were talking about the STATE, not the COUNTRY. Ah. Sorry Darryl. No visit this trip.

Then she had to find us flights from Prague to Tbilisi. First she offered us flights on Ukrainian Airlines, with a stop in Kiev. We said- uh, no. Then she offered us flights on Russian Airlines, with a stop in Moscow. We said - uh, no to that too.

It was March 24th. She seemed puzzled. I assume she doesn't read the newspapers.

Finally she got us on flights on Lot Airlines through Warsaw. Much more sensible, considering.

After that, things went pretty well!

Prague is lovely. We stayed in Prague 5, a district a bit outside the general tourist area but on the tram line, and it was quiet and the food in the neighborhood was incredibly cheap and the hotel was very comfy. We had a guide the first two mornings, so we got a sense of the place, and after that we trundled around on our own, taking one trip to a spa town mid-week.

I had hoped to hear some concerts, but after a splendid quartet concert in St. Martin In The Wall church (so called because when a wall was built between the 'old' down and the 'new' town, it was built right through the church. Wall is now gone, as is the moat, etc.), we realized that every venue was playing some version of the same music. Doesn't everyone want to hear Smetena, Dvorak, Brahms Hungarian Dances, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons over and over again? I felt bad for the musicians, who probably have a good gig each year, but play the same music ad nauseum.

We tramped around quite a bit. Our guide took us up to the castle and the adjoining church, quite splendid. We did the obligatory viewing of the great astronomical/astrological clock in Old Town Square, the synagogues that now make up the Jewish Museum, heard a lot of history from our guide. We rode on a funicular to a peak in and above the city, and had lunch with a panoramic view. And we took a day trip to a spa town and glass-blowing factory. I'll tell you more when I set up an album with the pictures elsewhere.

Prague is a great town for tourists because the transportation is easy and cheap, the food can also be inexpensive if you stay out of the tourist restaurants, many people speak English (although the translated signs can be a hoot) and it's a great town for walkers. And the weather was perfect.

After a week, we moved on to Georgia. What a contrast! As Jim said, we had dessert first, going to Prague and then Tbilisi. The city is a mix of high end shops on the main drag, impressive old architecture, demoralizing Soviet concrete block structures in disrepair, and poverty. We had a comfortable if not luxurious hotel, but our friend Ruta came and fetched us each day, because we speak neither Georgian nor Russian, and without one or the other it's not easy to get around.

Georgians are deeply aware of their history, not just the last two centuries, but back past the year 1000. Our first day there was a holiday celebrating not the freedom from the Soviets but the freedom from the Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I. The main drag was filled with booths and exhibitions of dancing and singers covering American pop tunes and hordes of people. We ducked into the cafe and bookstore called Prospero's Books, which is an ex-pat cafe hangout and English language bookstore in the downtown area.

Over our stay in Georgia, we spent two days on a car trip to the wine country of Kakheti, which is in the easternmost region of the country. Most of the art and history is in the churches, so we saw a lot of them, and walked a lot of steps up and down. We also visited some traditional wineries, where all the workings are on the basement level so that everything stays cool, and the wine is fermented in huge clay vessels buried in the ground, sealed with covers the size of manhole lids.

We stayed overnight at a small hotel, very sleek, that was actually in the center of a commercial vineyard established by a German investor. I say small hotel, but our whole New York apartment could have fit in our hotel room. Lovely, elegant furnishings.

Only a small calamity. Every once in a while I heard a sharp report that I couldn't identify. It turns out the bed was a mattress supported by slats, quite comfortable, but I guess are not well-tested for or by portly Americans. By the time I heard the last rifle-shot in the morning, I realized it was the slats, one by one striking the floor under my side of the bed (go figure). With that last report, the bed was about to dump me out. Luckily it was morning already, so I moved to the long couch on the other side of the cavernous room and was content.

The food at the vineyard hotel was lovely, and we ate on the terrace, the only customers that night, looking across the valley to what Ruta told us were only the foothills of the Caucasus. Next time, she plans to bring us to a more westerly area, where the real mountains are.

Breakfast was also on the terrace. While we waited for our coffee, we watched a man scythe the grasses that had grown up between the staked grapevines near the hotel. The countryside was brilliant and lush.

On the way back, our driver took us to so many churches that when we got to the last stop and it turned out to be a nunnery we said -NOOOO. TAKE US BACK TO TOWN!. and so he did.

If Prague was about architecture and Georgian country was about history, Tbilisi was about people. We met ex-pat friends of Ruta's, almost all of them women who had found their way to Georgia via the Peace Corps or some accident of marriage or work, and decided to stay, living comfortably on their social security and doing NGO work, or teaching English, or making art. It was very agreeable to be with lively, adventurous women who had found a purpose and a home in this place.

The trip home was relatively uneventful, except that we missed a plane connection in Warsaw and didn't really have enough time to take advantage of the miss to look at the city. Maybe next time.

I've been to London but this was my first trip to the continent, and I'm sort of glad we went to the more eastern states instead of the typical Paris trip. Not that Paris sounds unpleasant,of course! But I'm glad we started with this.

Ok, class. Questions?

All places I have not been. So glad you found it in you to go exploring--sounds like it was a great trip!

That does sound like a great trip, Judy. I've heard other positive comments about Prague, and hope to get there some day. It sounds like having your Georgian friend to help you get around really helped there.

We're going to start taking two week vacations on a regular basis, after decades of, like you, our not doing that. We're starting with two weeks in London in September, which has always been one of our favorite places to visit (and travel out into the countryside from).

Your trip sounds fun, Judy, and also a bit adventurous -- not the typical tourist destination.

>191 jnwelch: We're going to start taking two week vacations on a regular basis Oh, yes, two-week vacations are absolutely the way to go! You don't have to travel or be away from home the whole time. Just being off work for two consecutive weeks is therapeutic, and much better than just one week away.

I know you're right, Laura. For a lot of years a week was the max for me at one time, and once when my wife convinced me to take 10 days for an across-the-pond trip, it was a big deal. When we took our getting grown-up kids to Australia a couple of years ago for a last family-together hurrah, we hit the big time with two weeks off, and now I'm a convert.

Hello there Judy -- I'm leaving both you and Jim a personal message on your profile pages.

39. A Country of Old Men - Joseph Hansen

I thought I'd read all the Brandstetter detective series, but this one was new to me. It's most definitely the last of the series, and I think Hansen telegraphs that pretty obviously all through the story, which is pretty good anyway.

I'm feeling a bit hemmed in by my participation in reading groups lately. The required reading doesn't leave me much time to roam, to read randomly from my shelves or elsewhere. Is that a common experience? It may be because one of my groups has selected the Beckett trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, and I'm finding it bleak, to say the least. The other group has selected Call It Sleep, which I haven't started yet, with Don Quixote set for December to give us all time to get through it. But I'm in the mood for mysteries, and non-fiction. Hard to fit everything in.

On top of all that, I have a new job! Unbeknownst to me, the management decided to reorganize the group I'm in, and I'll be reporting to a new manager maybe as soon as next week. It will be more of what I think I want to do if i continue working, and less of the deadline-laden stuff I've been doing. Or at least I hope so. I may even get a trip to Dallas in the bargain, since that is where the rest of the team is. Any 75ers in Dallas, I wonder?

"I can't go on. I'll go on." Bleak? Surely you jest, Judy. Just kidding. The three Beckett novels are bleak, but wow, I thought they were awfully good. That all by itself is a lot of reading.

Congrats on the new job! Hope it meets your hopes.

I know Roberta is in Houston. I don't remember seeing any 75er Dallasians (Dallasters? Dallasites? Dallasers?)

Isn't Katie Krug in Dallas?

Hi Judy

I've been out of touch. I hope that you and Jim are well and that work isn't too consuming.

Hugs to you

>197 michigantrumpet: Right you are, Marianne. Well, we'll see if my new boss wants to see me enough to get the travel allowance. The company is belt-tightening with a vengeance these days, so it might not come about.

>198 Whisper1: we are fine, Linda. Work may be better for me, and I don't think it's consuming just now for Jim. We had a wonderful trip to Europe, too. We're hoping that you get the pain relief you need as soon as possible, and that we see you soon.

The trip sounds absolutely idyllic - well, almost idyllic. Thank you for writing such a good travelogue. If you had felt like writing more, I would have read it gladly.
Congratulations on the new job with hopes that it turns out to be exactly what you hope.
And I do so sympathize about feeling constrained by reading groups. Truly, all it takes for me to take against a book is the knowledge that I have to read it within a set time. You usually manage quite well, don't you?

>200 LizzieD: I usually finish the books 'assigned' without quibble. But lately they have been difficult, and it's summer, maybe not the best time to read Beckett!

I will write a bit more about the trip when I get my pictures up on Shutterfly and compose an album. Then I'll post the url here for those interested.

Good luck under the new command. I hope the job gets even better! And more good luck finding time to read spontaneously. I am down to one RL book club right now, which seems to be about right. I am pretty whimsical about my next book read and it's why I never make a list of what I am going to read. Just a big TBR pile to chose from.

Lost your thread! Glad the whole trip was so much fun -- and the two parts so distinct.

Not reading Beckett. Probably not going to the shindig, although I confess I don't even know when it is.

Good news about the new job! And I'll hope to see you both in Boston in a few weeks...

Nice description of your holiday, Judy! I look forward to seeing your photos.

>196 jnwelch: Don't forget the poor cafe guy up there!

Posted some things on your profile page (an old "Guide to Boston" I'd done for a professional group hosted by my firm). It's a bit dated, but generally still good. The weather will be warmer!

Also posted some thoughts on the Boston Meet up page.

Absolutely exhausted at work today. I was holding the pager for our production systems this past week, and Friday was a minor disaster, results being I ddin't get to sleep until 4AM. More minor trouble on Saturday night and Sunday. I'm too old and ignorant for this - all I can do is call the cavalry.

Nevertheless, we saw two theatrical performances this weekend, both matinees, so we missed some of the fine weather. Michael Shannon was appearing in Ionesco's 'The Killer' in a new space in Brooklyn, and it was definitely worth the time, as he is a really amazing actor. Ionesco - well, a little less love in that direction, although the production was excellent.

Then on Sunday, a performance at the Manhattan Theater Club of 'When We Were Young and Unafraid' with Cherry Jones and a fine cast. The story line is just before Roe v Wade, in the midst of the feminist excitement, but it didn't feel all that dated to me. I'm not a Cherry Jones fan, but she was excellent, as were the other cast members. B for the play, A+ for the acting.

And I'm still 'going on' through Malone Dies. He's almost dead now.

And I'm still 'going on' through Malone Dies. He's almost dead now. LOL!

Sorry the plays weren't worldbeaters, Judy, but I'm glad you and Jim saw so much fine acting.

We saw Henry V last weekend at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and of course the playwright was pretty good, but for us the production didn't live up to the raves it had been getting. Solid, but not exceptional.

>208 jnwelch: 'solid but not exceptional'. Yeah, that happens. We may have the opportunity to see Much Ado and King Lear in the park this summer. The casts are interesting, but I'm prepared for 'solid but not exceptional'.

Nuts to the mini-work disaster. At least you wer able to get out and enjoy yourself. Even if the plays weren't top notch, I can imagine it was well worth it to see Cherry Jones. I've seen her before and she is marvelous.

Starting to look forward to our meet up in Boston!

Almost finished with my Beckett trilogy. It requires a lot of effort, and one of these days I'll have to read it aloud or listen to spoken word.

Yesterday I actually got out of the office at lunchtime and took a walk along the Hudson. The sky was full of fluffy white clouds of the most poetic type, and the view was clear from the George Washington Bridge all the way down to the Statue of Liberty. Wonderful sight. A hot walk, but worth it.

Good for you for getting out!
I am trying to finish The Palace Walk with the month. It's giving me a fit - I think that the writing (and it has to be the writing, I think, and not just the translation) is pretty dreadful. I went looking last night for reactions among the 75ers who read it year before last, and I found that you were the only one who was not completely entranced. Please, please say something that will help me to feel less obtuse. I'm fascinated by the living conditions, but otherwise, I would have stopped long ago if others were not so enthusiastic about it. Boo. Hiss.

>212 LizzieD: Hey, Peggy. I had to go back to my private comments (now why aren't they in the review section? Don't know.) Here they are:

"First in a trilogy about a multigenerational family in 1900s Egypt. Slow to start, and painful in its depiction of women's cloisered role, but interesting in its portrayal of the culture and the political climate at the end of the first World War. Fairly repetitive, partly because Mafouz wrote it in serialized form."

Sorry, you seem to have liked the book even less than I did!

Thanks, Judy. I can't abide the style, which apes 19th century Russian novels as well as I can tell. That's appropriate for the way these people live, but he wrote the thing in 1956, so why couldn't he have given a thought to mid-century tastes? I cannot abide the commentary that explains obvious things about the characters. When the bride comes into the family, we are told, "It would have been hard for Zaynab to occupy the position of wife of the eldest son, or for her and her husband to unite together with the other members of the family in a single household, unless there had been a significant development of the family's emotions and sentiments." No kidding. The whole book is like that.
Sorry. I'll leave quietly.

I gave it a 3.5, which may have been generous, and I never went on the read the other two books in the series. Just. Didn't. Care.

Happy weekend Judy!

Aagh, I’ve been lurking but somehow have neglected to post,

>189 ffortsa: epic trip to Europe
How excellent! Have photos?

>195 ffortsa: I have a new job!
What’ll be different, aside from people?

Watching the Boston meetup thread with envy...

>217 qebo:. Well, new job might be overstating it. It will be very similar, but the team is being reorganized and I will be reporting to a different manager. The data modelers and architect are to be put in a separate group, because, I think, there are too many crossed lines of responsibility. I hope it will suit me.

As for pix of the trip, they are half way to being posted to a Shutterfly album, after which all will be revealed.

>215 Berly:. I didn't continue the series either.

well, here's a bit of annoyance. I went to refresh my memory about thew book The Broken Shore but it seems I made no notes about it on my book page. And I cn't find it listed in my threads, which is not unheard of but unusual, especilly since I really liked the book. WhileI was looking around, I realized the oldest thread I could find was from 2010, although I joined this group in 2009. And my older threads were listed in the dormant section (in pink at the end of the list for the year) whileothers are not.

So, what are the rules for keeping one's threads out of the 'dormant' corral? And is there a way to download one's threads for safekeeping? How long does LT keep a thread available, anyway?

>220 ffortsa: Where's the "dormant section"? I'm supposing you aren't looking at threads the same way I am? Or using different terminology? Pink at the end of the list = ignored. If I’m on the Talk page and view via Started By You, threads that I started go back to 2008, which is correct (I didn’t participate in Talk before then), and although most of those threads are dormant, there’s no indication in the list, have to look at the thread itself. 75 Books for 2009 still exists (here (wow, it’s small!)), and my thread is still there. As far as I know, threads are retained forever; there was an issue with a group that got deleted by its creator, but I recall that the individual threads were still accessible (if you had the link). You can save the page HTML via browser.

Ah yes, you are absolutely right. I misinterpreted the grouping. Thanks. Now to rescue my ignored threads. Thanks, Katharine.

Glad you found your missing threads. Happy Fourth of July!!

WOW! So great to meet you, Jim and his nephew yesterday.

Our picture together is posted over on my thread.

I loved our Meet Up. Now I want one every month. Hope to see you when you come our way the next time.

Sigh. I thought I would have this weekend open and freeform, time to catch up here and present some travel pix, but my brother called to suggest we go to the theater on Saturday. It's his 60th birthday, so of course I wasn't going to say no. He's rarely in NYC, so this is a treat for me as well.

Just a mention that I read Call It Sleep by Henry Roth. Review to come.

And I'm almost finished with The Gauguin Connection, the first book in the Genevieve Lenard series. I'll provide comments on that one too.

The Gauguin book is apparently recommended for me, so I'll be looking for your comments on that.

btw, downloaded the audio of Dante to listen to, along with reading. Not that I have started yet, of course... *eyes roll*

Hm. I have to check the date. I bought an Audible edition too. Two cantos at a session should be doable.

40. Call It Sleep by Henry Roth

This is a classic story of immigrants, people who take the chance of not only a new country but a new way of life. Albert has come to New York City from rural eastern Europe, and when the book opens he has been in the city for over a year, and meets his wife and toddler son David on the ship that has brought them after him.

After this first meeting, we see the story through David's childish viewpoint: his reactions to his hostile father and loving mother, his fear of dark places like the cellar, the normal cruelty of children, the terror of being lost, of not being understood, of not understanding what goes on around him. Some of this is just being a child, some the hostility that surrounds him, only alleviated by his doting mother.

And through him, we see the strains on the adults in his life: his father's uncontrollable temper and paranoia drives him from one printing house to another until he gives up the trade altogether, preferring to work alone. His view of his mother is colored by men's reactions to her (written in the thirties, the book blatantly exhales the Freudian atmosphere of the time) and his need for her. Roth uses a sort of stream of consciousness to portray David's confusion, questioning, pain and fear. Plenty of all of that.

Language plays a huge role in the story. David's parents speak Yiddish, the street kids a mix of Yiddish and English, the non-Jews in the story the dialects of English of the Polish and Irish immigrants around him. Lack of English limits his mother's domain, limits his understanding of the world beyond his few blocks of home. (One of my fellow book club readers had listened to it and found the dialects much easier to understand when spoken than when transliterated, and I'm sure that would have helped.)

David is seeking something in the light, some sort of freedom and redemption that he doesn't understand but yearns for. The ending is explosive.

So it is a deep, non-trivial story. I had expected to like it more. The middle somehow wore me out, with its stereotypical psychology, then the end, with its flashes of almost inappropriate comedy and desperate fury, flew by. Some of the descriptive writing was gorgeous, some of the dialog too beautiful to be quite believable.

I found myself wishing my father were still alive to read it with me. He was a Brownsville boy himself, although of a slightly later era, and I would have learned more about him if we could have shared this story.

41. The Gauguin Connection by Estelle Ryan

I was happy to turn my attention to a mystery after the Roth. But this one irked me.

Genevieve Lenard is a high-functioning autistic (or something like that) with a deeply-schooled expertise in 'reading' people by their involuntary reactions and body language. Most of the time she can work in her own specially designed room at an insurance firm, analyzing video to detect fraud without actually having to be in contact with other people. But her boss is asked to help solve a problem involving art fraud and theft, and as the problem expands into arms theft, serial murder and international intrigue, Genevieve comes in contact, literally, with more people than she ever imagined she could put up with.

As a mystery plot, pretty good. Lots of interesting links between disparate parts of the problem are fodder for our heroine's pattern recognition skills. The characters are a little far-fetched, but not annoyingly so.

What is really annoying is how many times the author reminds us of her heroine's peculiar view of the world and of language. Genevieve may be trapped in a very literal mindset, but she is old enough and schooled enough to recognize far more idioms than she does. The first-person narration allows us to learn how she views and copes with the world, but the often excruciating details of her thinking are reiterated too far into the book. And the romantic setup is rather far-fetched.

The book is the first in a series. I'm hoping the author will get past the introductory tics and simplify so that we can enjoy a good plot without tripping over the meme too many times.

>229 ffortsa: Hmmm. OK. think I can live without this one.

Well, that was quick. Sorry my review discouraged you. I do plan to read more of the series, to see how the author might improve over time.

Dang it! I have that one selected to fulfill my very first TIOLI challenge about art theft. Well, I may have to muscle through it anyhow. Maybe with your insight I can lower my expectation and then not be disappointed!

>228 ffortsa: Very interesting review, Judy. I doubt I'll ever read the book, but I loved the thoughts about immigration, childhood and relations with parents that your review evoked. I empathize with that sense of regret and ongoing loss for being unable to read and discuss this book with your father. I think he'd be thrilled you continue to think of him in this way and keep hi in your intellectual life. Isn't it remarkable how we can continue to have conversations with loved ones like this for years after they've gone?

Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Hi Judy,
I'm Jenny. Michigantrumpet thought you might have some book ideas for me. I'm looking for books set in Prague or Budapest- I just returned from a trip there. Marianne said you just traveled there too- I hope you had a great trip! Thanks for any ideas you might have...I'm hoping to feed my travel withdrawal with books :-)

>234 jennyifer24: Hi Jennyifer! Are you looking for novels or other kinds of books? I picked up a couple of books on the Golem of Prague, and they were only ok, but short. I guess that's a plus!

As for novels set in Prague, of course Kafka comes to mind, since he lived there. But I don't know if the stories are particularly revelatory about Prague - he is such a specific writer, but I'm not sure place is important in his books. I'll keep thinking.

eta: Ah, the person you should ask is Chatterbox!

>235 ffortsa:
I'll read anything, but I was kind of focusing on novels. Thanks for the ideas!

>235 ffortsa: and >236 jennyifer24: Ah I should have thought of Chatterbox right away!!

Nice review of The Gauguin Connection, Judy, and I agree with all you say. Genevieve may be trapped in a very literal mindset, but she is old enough and schooled enough to recognize far more idioms than she does. This is the one that bothered me the most. She's too savvy to be ignorant of what is repeatedly claimed by the author. Yet there's a lot of good reading in the book, and I very much liked Genevieve. Like you, I hope Estelle Ryan gets over the needless tics in the next one, as there's a lot of potential.

42. Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
43. Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear

Alas. I'm getting a little tired of Maisie Dobbs. I found my self reading Pardonable Lies at a furious pace, just to get to the end. Some of the coincidences were, as Maisie herself would say, not so coincidental. At least her confrontation with her own trauma of war was significant.

In Messenger of Truth, on the other hand, the story was interesting, but I guessed the murderer, the motive, and the outcomes of most of the subplots way before they were revealed.

I think I'll read another series next.

44. Death Claims by Joseph Hansen

I read the first of these books, Fadeout, last year, and loved it all the more for being a good book and the first in a series I had previously read other titles in. Death Claims is the next one, and very enjoyable.

Insurance investigator Brandstetter is checking into what would seem to us now to be a modest death claim, and finds a curiously incomplete story he can't resist completing. Although the book rings the changes among just about everyone who could have done it, the story is engaging, and we learn even more about Dave's personal life.

I never did read the series in order, and I'm relishing the chance to rectify that via Kindle this time around.

Have fun with the reread! I have been sucked into the Spenser murder mystery series and am enjoying it a lot. Set in the 70s with lots of bad clothing and hair--LOL!

45. The Inferno by Dante translated by Pinsky

After reading this with my Saturday read-aloud poetry group last year (all year), I read it again, listening with Jim and following along in the book. It was a very refreshing way to revisit this classic. And thanks to Chatterbox for suggesting the method!

46. Open Season by Archer Mayer

This was a reread, because when I finally found the entry when I read it two years ago, the most I said about it then was that it was 'yummy'. It deserves better. It's a terrific police procedural that takes place in Vermont, with a classic mid-level, widowed, independent police Lieutenant named Joe Gunther. In this book, someone is attacking the jurors that put a man in prison for rape and murder. Joe thinks the man didn't do it, and obviously someone else does too. Joe is always and frustratingly one step behind the action, but his attention to detail and personality are wonderful. Except for one odd metaphor (Boston as a 'land-locked amoeba'?), this was still and again a yummy read.

47. Borderlines by Archer Mayer

So I immediately read the next one. Another winner! Joe is loaned out to a state agency with a problem in a town he has close ties to, but before he can deal with the petty problem originally assigned, trouble breaks out between a sect that has taken over half the town, and the residents, when parents come to 'rescue' their daughter from the sect. Murder, friendship, memories that get tarnished, some brilliant tracking in the woods, and the thoughts and troubles of a man in the middle of his life - great stuff.

I'm going to ration myself. I know there are a lot more, but I don't want to eat the whole pie at once.

48. I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron

I found this in the book swap downstairs, otherwise I might not have thought to pick it up, but I'm so glad I did! Ephron's ruminations on everything and everyone from Lillian Roth to the possibility that chicken soup causes colds are delightful and breezy, but not inconsequential. She just has this light touch, even when she is talking about her mother's alcoholism. At the end of the book she lists things she won't miss and things she will miss, without explanation, but of course, she was dying when she wrote or assembled this book - she just didn't mention it outright.

eta: I know, I owe everyone pictures of our trip to Prague and Georgia. Maybe this weekend, I'll have the time to put some up.

>242 ffortsa: Nice reviews. A big fan of all the Ephrons. Quite a talented crew!

Looking forward to those photos. But, no pressure -- the first thing on the agenda is to have a great weekend.

Yikes. What a day. Why is it again that I'm not retiring? Oh, right, I like working.

I'm reading one of my ER books, finally, Dallas Noir, compiled by David Hale Smith. A little uneven so far, as with most short story connections, but some stories quite nice. More to come.

49. Dallas Noir - David Hale Smith (ed.)
50. Where'd You Go, Bernadette? - Maria Semple

Grr. Lost my last post. sigh.

Two more books. I'll review these later - but here's a taste - I enjoyed them both. It's surprising to me to hit 50 titles with work as hectic as it is. Usually I have fun, but today not so much. And I have to take a leaf from Caro's book and join a 9PM meeting tonight. Not nice.

Nevertheless, I'm plowing on with my reading. The Coming Plague came for me this weekend after many years on the shelf, and I dove more or less head-first. Then I took a break and started the next Camilleri on my list The Track of Sand. I'm not sure where the reading energy is coming from.

Adding to the confusion, Jim and I have started rearranging the furniture in the apartment. It's funny how moving things around makes the place look bigger, or messier, makes furniture look bigger or smaller or more or less inviting. We're about half-way to deciding on the overall pattern of things, I think. And I've been inspired to throw away a lot of stuff I should never have kept - I'm sometimes a terrible packrat.

More to come. And go. Reviews later.

>236 jennyifer24: Sorry I've been AWOL from threads, but if anyone is still in quest of books about Prague and Budapest....

Re Prague -- anything written by Milan Kundera before he moved to Paris and started writing in French. Check out Ivan Klima or Jiri Weil. I've also heard good things about Pavel Kohout, and keep meaning to read The Widow Killer. The Visible World by Mark Slouka. There's always Kafka...

Re Budapest: There is Prague by Arthur Phillips, which (confusingly) is set in Budapest in the early 1990s, and revolves around a set of expats, some of whom are modeled on friends of mine. The conceit is that they all feel they should have gone to live in Budapest instead. It's post-1989 stuff. Imre Kertesz, a Holocaust survivors, explores totalitarian themes in his memoirs and novels. Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer was published post 1989 but set in the pre 1956 rebellion. For classics, look for something by Ferenc Molnar. A friend of mine who writes crime novels recommended Budapest Noir by Vilmos Kondor, but the very mixed reviews have given me pause. Some of Alan Furst's novels also are set partly or largely in Hungary in the 1930s. If you don't mind romantic fiction, there is The Book of Summers by Emylia Hall, although it's set more in the Hungarian countryside, and The Wild Rose by Doris Mortman, set partly in Hungary and partly in the US, and revolving around the 1956 uprising. More epic than potboiler romance, and I think I quite liked it, for its genre.

I think less Hungarian stuff gets translated. Both are smaller markets, but Czech is closer to other languages, whereas Hungarian is only related to Finnish and perhaps Estonian? Also, the literary community in Prague was more closely connected to the outside world -- viz. Vaclav Havel.

O M G.

Work today has been epic. and it's not even 3PM. I'm tired to the bone.

I started The Game by A. S. Byatt today. Looks short enough to risk before my next book club read (Zorba). I've never read Byatt before.

SO glad I'm not working on Friday.

I thought I'd get a lot of feedback of the negative kind from the contentious meeting we had yesterday, but instead, I'm getting lots of praise. I guess I'm allowed to be more ferocious these days!

I'm not opposed.

Heading up to Boston on the train, on one of those beautiful sun_filled mornings whem even the old factory buildings look worthy of a Homer or a Hockney painting. Sharp edges to every shadow _even the bridge supports looked goemetrtically dazzling.

The Game hasn't caught me yet. More later.

Well, there seems to be a problem with the touchstone for The Game - about like the trouble I'm having reading it. The problems between two sisters should be relevant to me, but I can't seem to care about either of them. I'll give it one more try this evening, and then on to something else.

Ah, touchstone fixed.

Welcome to Boston! Wish we had known you were coming. Hope it isn't taken up with lots of icky work stuff. ("Icky work stuff" = technical professional lingo).

You picked some days with good weather.

Marianne, you were occupied with your in-laws, so we thought. And then Caro got sick with food poisoning and we couldn't see her and Edd either. Sigh. At least, you are right, the weather was lovely.

49. Dallas Noir by David Hale Smith (ed.)

A belated review:

This is another in the series of ' .. Noir' short story collections that started, I believe, with Brooklyn Noir, and I won it as an ER some time ago, so this is a very belated review indeed.

The editor, David Hale Smith, divides his stories into three sections, Cowboys, Rangers, and Mavericks. The stories in the first section grabbed me right away, especially the first one, "The Hole-Man", by Matt Bondurant, about a man who feels threatened and estranged in a new home in a new and anonymous subdivision. Also stuck in my mind is Daniel J. Hale's "In The Air", about two brothers. In the second section, Rangers, Merritt Tierce's "The Private Room", about a woman waiting tables in a private room, and doing other things, is quite vivid, as is "Full Moon" by Lauren David, about a heist gone wrong and its aftermath. The third section was, for me, the weakest of the three, but Kathleen Kent's story of a messed up stakeout and Civil-War re-enactors "Coincidences Can Kill You" is fun. I also enjoyed Harry Hunsicker's "The Stickup Girl" for its muscular language and desperate swagger, but didn't quite like the ending.

All in all, a collection that kept me reading.

50. Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

Jim lent me this book some time ago, and it was sitting there teasing me until I had some time for it.

Semple has created a meta-fiction of family and creative necessity, cobbled from diaries, news clippings, bits of flashback, to explain where Bernadette, wife, mother and agoraphobic architect, has disappeared to - even though she really doesn't disappear until the middle of the book. This is a sometimes wildly-funny tale of a family of transplants to Seattle, complete with Microsoft, weather, private school snobbery, gossip, and a promised trip to of all places Antarctica. In spite of the multiple fictional sources, it reads easily, and it definitely made me laugh. My only complaint is a too-facile denouement.

51. The Game by A.S. Byatt

This was my first book by Byatt, and a very early one in her career. Had I not known of her relationship to her sister Margaret Drabble, I would have guessed something like it anyway. The two have been involved in a long feud since before they were published writers, it seems, and this novel puts that kind of feud on top of a set of adolescent crushes (over the same boy), a therapeutic marriage, Oxford, and TV parody. Julia and Cassandra are sisters that barely speak - Julia is a popular novelist (in the more scornful sense of the phrase), married to a serious Scandinavian Quaker, while Cassandra is a solitary, spinster Oxford don specializing in early English work like the Romance of the Rose. Who gets the better of these portrayals is, I guess, up to the reader, but as Cassandra is the older (like Byatt) and Julia the popular younger writer (like Drabble at the time this was written), the direction of the intended arrow is fairly clear. According to news accounts, Byatt sent Drabble a copy with an apology when it was published - but not before, you notice. (In this story, the direction is reversed!)

Until half-way through the story, I really struggled to keep going; I just didn't care about the sisters. Then the action speeds up (or I wasn't interrupted as i was before - take your pick), and I finished in a whoosh.

Byatt won the Booker for a much later book, Possession, which even her sister claims is a great work. This one, not so much.

OK. New thread the next time I get a chance.

But you didn't tell me, either...

*sad face*

>254 Chatterbox:. Oh dear. Sorry, Suz. Next time.

52. The Track of Sand by Andrea Camilleri

Oops. A little out of order, as I forgot to list it until now. Our favorite Sicilian tec finds a dead horse on his beach, but by the time he reports it, it has vanished. A sexy friend of Ingrid turns up to report her horse mising, and Montalbano discovers a whole illicit racing ring of which he was unaware. (Really?). Compliations of the usual kind ensue for our enjoyment.

>255 ffortsa: Forgotten. Nobody loves me. Even my family appears to have forgotten my existence. Actually, I'm serious about that one! Sigh.

>256 ffortsa:. And, as I recall, you had a migraine and a toothache. Oh dear. How are you feeling?

overwhelmed

Joe Gunther mysteries on the Kindle Daily Deal today!

Thanks, Judy. I just picked up the first one.

Will be happy to see you the next time you come through. (Do we have to let that Chattering woman, know? :-D )

Some nice reviews there. Had forgotten about the relationship between Byatt and Drabble. Must have made for an interesting subtext while reading the book.

53. The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of by Joseph Hansen
54. Skinflick by Joseph Hansen
55. Fire Knife Dancing by John Enright

I was on a big of a mystery binge - thought I'd already written something about the Enright, which I really enjoyed. The Hansens are rereads, but also very much enjoyed. It's not the mysteries in any of these books that interest me, so much as the continuing characters as they grow and change. And the Enright gives me insights into Samoa as well. I look forward to continuing that series.

Currently I'm listening to Zorba the Greek, because I couldn't get my hands on a book from the library, and the used book I ordered through Amazon never arrived. It's very well narrated, but quite an effort to get through by Tuesday. I'm half-way there.

Today is my mother's 90th birthday, which would be wonderful if she could remember it. My brother and I went to sit with her a while, and we called my sister to complete the family gathering via phone. She struggles sometimes to speak, but most of the time it's indecipherable. And then, when I said, sorry, I couldn't understand that, she replied today "What's the matter with you?" - very annoyed, clear as a bell. I would laugh except it must be so frustrating for her.

She usually tries to read whatever print material is in front of her - the menu headers on the menu slip on her tray, for instance, or the writing on the White Rock cola can. She gets only a little of it. Her life would be so much happier if she could read. She used to say she'd like to go to jail so she could spend all her time reading. Sigh. Too bad it didn't happen that way.

Next week is madness on the schedule. I hope I get to all of Zorba by Tuesday. Maybe tomorrow I'll have the time to start that new thread, with a picture this time!

Hi Judy

I've been on a mystery binge via netflix. Are you a subscriber? If so, I highly recommend two series
1) Wallander
2) The Killing

>264 Whisper1: I saw the Branaugh version of Wallender when it was first broadcast, and recently came across the Swedish version of one of the stories on a high number channel that I can't recall. Nice to know they are on Netflix.

>262 michigantrumpet: Harumph.

Hope you have a calmer week this week...

Popping in .... Hi! (That actually said pooping but I caught it just in time. LOL)

>267 Berly: LOL I needed that laugh!

>267 Berly: *SNORK!!*

Hi, Judy!

>269 scaifea: Hi Amber. So nice of you to drop by!

>267 Berly: Good one! I once was putting my introductory letter to parents in the printer when I realized that I had signed it Piggy rather than Peggy. I would have had to change schools if I had sent that out.
Hi, Judy!

>271 LizzieD: I'm laughing too hard to even go home!

>271 LizzieD: "Piggy" would have TRULY been detrimental to your career!

Hi Judy

I'm simply thinking of you and wanted to say hello.

Sometimes when I was out with my father, we would pass someone with some crippling disease or other obvious trouble. After we had gone on a bit, he'd turn to me and say "We have no troubles". I feel that way today, after talking to a friend in San Francisco whose husband is incapacitated and suffering from depression and some dementia and other troubles, and whose own health is not good. And then listening to another friend who is afraid her son is going to commit suicide.

I definitely have no troubles.

56. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

We've talked a lot about the difference between books and the movies made from them, and this novel is a case in point. I don't remember being the least bit disenchanted with Alan Bates as the young protagonist in the terrific movie with Anthony Quinn as Zorba, but the narrator of the novel is no one I'd care to meet. What a head-up-his-you-know-what theoretician. Zorba is no angel, of course, but full of the vitality of someone who could live through the tumultuous times of the region. Sometimes I thought he was Odysseus, sometimes a four year old mischiefmaker (and maybe they're the same after all).

It's very much a man's outlook on life, of course. Women are desired and feared and made fun of, but there was only one episode I found misogynistic - the rest just felt human.

I've never been to Crete, but those of my reading group friends who had said the landscape, the feel of the village and the people, all of it was very much accurate. The setting felt both real and lovely to me. I guess I'll have to go.

57. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
58. Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West

These two novellas by West are the subject of discussion this coming weekend - more after that. I'll just say now that it took me a while to get used to West's style.

59. Anarchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill

A treat, as always, to visit with Dr.
Siri, but there was real melancholy in this one as well. Friends turn out to be complicated in several ways, some joyful, some others not. There is a murder, of course, but it's not really central to the story. We see much more of the struggle between people who have accepted the raw, sometimes bumbling new government and those who valued the old regime, as well as those who perhaps don't like either. The conflicts play out in both personal and larger arenas. Excellent, as always.

Wait, we have to read BOTH novellas??

*waves*

*goes and collapses in morose heap*

No, we don't have to read both. But I did. Sorry to mislead you.

Judy

How right you are.. Life is wonderful. And, even when trouble finds us, there is always tomorrow.

I see your sunny smiling face and it brings joy! I remember having a lovely conversation with you and Jim in the park on a warm afternoon during the Philadelphia meet up.

>279 Whisper1: that was a fun day!

Happy weekend! And here's to happy meet ups.

Speaking of meet-ups, Terri Loeffler is in town, with 'young Keith', and they have been gorging on theater since they arrived. Terri and I met for lunch and stops at the amazing Jefferson Market Library and, of course, the Strand bookstore. Tonight we will meet for dinner (magicians-assistant included). No pictures yet, but we'll improve that situation tonight.

I read "gorging" as "gurgling" for some reason. I'm glad you guys had fun!

Are you going to THE Italian place? I hope so -- Terri would Lurve it....

Which place?

>282 ffortsa:: and a wonderful time was had by both Loefflers! It was such fun to hang with you Thursday & Friday! At about 1:00 am we got notice that our flight home had been cancelled, so poor Keith had to scramble to find is another one. So now we're chilling in Atlanta (*waves to Darryl if by some chance he's in town*).

PS--I loved GGLAM! Keith liked it it didn't love it.

My sister was flying the same day and had some delays because of wind speeds in the NYC area. And then, of course, there was the fire in the Chicago area. Sorry you got caught in it. Maybe Darryl can entertain you at the airport.

oh, I have a lot of catching up to do on this thread. But I wanted to say I've begun reading The Complete Father Brown. It's like eating potato chips - can't read just one. Father Brown has a remarkable talent for getting people to confess, repent, and in general not get away with what they thought they could get away with. And he can be very funny about showing people their own lack of imagination. Just one damned riddle after another.

My mother used to love Father Brown!

I, for my part, am going to go back to the Greek Detective. A slightly older form of justice...

Speaking of justice, my cats are sitting in a ring, staring at me. I think they are trying to convey a message??

Just wanted to wish you a great weekend. : )

Judy

Ditto what Berly (Kim) said above. How great that you spent time with Terri and Keith.

Stopping through to say Thank You! Thank You! for the nod on visiting the Cloisters. Could only stay a couple of hours, but so glad we did. You were dead right on that one.

Hope all's well with you and Jim.

Have a great weekend, Judy. Let me know if you spot any green sloths in your part of the world.

I've gotten way behind in notating my reading. Here's the list:

60. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie's real breakthrough book chronicles the creation of the states of India and Pakistan through the lives of children born on the exact time India became a state. Such children have special powers, especially Saleem, endowed with a sort of telepathy and a remarkable sense of smell.

Rushdie takes us back through Saleem's family history, and in doing so introduces us to Kashmir, a territory still disputed. Every twist of the creation of India is seem through the sometimes magical view of Saleem.

At first, I found Rushdie's tone off-putting. It was as if the writer's arrogance tinged the story he was telling. But eventually I got past that and found this a tremedously engossing novel that taught me a lot about a culture and history of which I had been only barely aware.

61. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

One of the truly great anti-war novels, it brings the reader into the horror of the meaningless trench warfare of World War 1, where the same ground is traded back and forth and paid for in blood and grief. Rhythms of fighting, resting, going on leave to a population that, no matter how riddled with hardship, cannot comprehend the world the soldier comes to know, are beautifully and simply presented.

As the Nazis were coming to power, they banned this book, as if its realistic portrait of a terrible, grinding war might interfere with their martial plans.

62. The Complete Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

Reading Father Brown stories is a little like eating potato chips - I just read one after another after another. They are more puzzles than detective stories, and Father Brown, clever as he is concerning the mechanisms of murder, is superb at deducing the psychology of the people involved.

Bet you can't read just one!

63. The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham

This was a reread for me, because Jim had downloaded it to his Kindle and was talking about it. My copy is ages old and may end up on the swap shelves downstairs, even though I did enjoy this first Albert Campion novel.

It's not your usual mystery. Campion is involved from the beginning, but in an off to the side way, and doesn't become truly central until after mayhem takes over. Allingham sets him up as a man whose silly demeanor covers a brilliant mind, and although that mind isn't always enough to save the innocent, the innocent are indeed saved.

64. The Bat by Jo Nesbo

I know. it's taken me a long time to catch up to this series that people seem to talk about so happily.

This story starts off slowly, and in some way the reader is as confused as the protagonist, in a new country, speaking a foreign language, trying to solve the murder of a Norwegian in Australia. But it comes together, and nothing in the first part is wasted.

Harry is a classic damaged detective of the Raymond Chandler style, as filtered through a Norwegian sensibility, and seeing him in a warm, sunny, optimistic culture accents his differences. Of course, the plot tends to reinforce those differences, otherwise it wouldn't qualify as ScandiNoir, which it most definitely is.

65. Pinnochio by Carlo Collodi

I almost forgot this one, read for my Meetup reading group. We haven't discussed it yet, so - more to come.

Next up: A Passage to India, which should go nicely with the Rushdie still fresh in my mind, and Don Quixote. Sigh. My Meetup group again.

And whatever mysteries i can get my hands on, in between!

I went to the library yesterday to pick up a copy of A Passage to India, and found the latest Three Pines book right there on the shelf! So nice to be back with Gamache and Clara and Myrna and all the inhabitants of this town. I hope they find Peter.

66. The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

How odd. I posted this yesterday, but it's not here now. So, to repeat:

I devoured this book, so eager was I to find out what happened to Peter. Clara has enlisted Armand, now retired, to find her husband, who was supposed to come home one year after their separation started, so that they could decide what came next. But he never showed up, and never contacted her.

All the regulars are there. We see something of Peter and Clara's beginnings in art school. We meet Peter's sister again and her 12 year old child Bean, whose gender has not yet been revealed, as her mother's payback to a cold family. We meet an old art teacher who has more or less moved into his university studio. And we get to journey to Quebec's north shore - I had to look it up to find out it is the southern edge of Hudson's Bay!

And yet, and yet... as much as I enjoyed this book, I was disappointed in the ending. Not because it's not logical, because it is as logical as any fiction, and will leave many in tears, but because, in many ways, it is convenient to the author. I can see the ancillary plot lines of the next book as the story of Three Pines continues, and I'm pretty sure it will. But certain difficult authorial tasks have been avoided in advance. I would have preferred otherwise.

67. Festive in Death by J.D. Robb

There's nothing like a set of must-read-for-book-club books to make me read other books. And I just happened to find this title, the next on my 'In Death' list, on the library shelf. So it got read yesterday and today.

Certainly it is as good as at least the median books of the series. Eve and Roark still adore each other, Eve still hates the conventions of social engagement, people still kill each other, etc. Maybe I'm getting a little tired of the formula, or maybe the plot wasn't original enough this time. Glad I read it, but it would never have gotten on my reread list.

Off to the books I should be reading, I think.

Happy Sunday to you!

When I was out walking with my father, and we passed someone coping with real physical problems, he would wait until we were well past and out of earshot and turn to me and say 'we have no problems'.

I feel like that these days, with friends in physical and emotional pain. A dear friend of mine just called - her son is struggling with terrible depression and she is afraid he will not be able to climb out of it this time. My mother is on the long and frustrating path of dementia. Friends of mine here on LT struggle with a variety of physical problems, emotional problems, financial problems - all I can do is help where I can and remember that I 'have no problems'. Just as Dad said.

Thanks for this very optimistic message Judy! You are a remarkable lady. I am so blessed to know you!

>295 ffortsa: I like your point about the "convenience" element in the conclusion of Penny's narrative; it's spot on, and some thing I hadn't thought about.

>300 Chatterbox: Agree. The ending, for me, also had some believability problems. Would Gamache really not recognize the murderer talking to him on the dock? Would Peter really go to such convoluted lengths to impress Claire, without at least letting her know right away why he didn't come back as promised?

Overall, though, she got me again, and I'll be waiting in the queue for the next one.

Hello Judy,

I finally tracked your thread down and thought I am going to see what you have been doing and reading.

>298 ffortsa: So lovely expressed. Even so, that I myself suffer from multiple health issues quite often feel this way. I still can work, I have my family and friends, and I still can do most activities.

However, you said that you saw the NT production of Frankenstein as well. May I assume that you also saw the one with BC? I thought the whole production was brilliant. Nevertheless, even so I admired BC's physical ability in performing the monsters development, I personally felt that this part was too long. Whereas my friend who never read Frankenstein before, thought that (aside from the artistic prowess) the developmental side was incredibly well portrait. The only critique she had after the performance was that she felt they were banging too much on the fact of "being different" and "acceptance". Whereas, I didn't feel that way at all.

>302 drachenbraut23: Hi, Bianca. Yes, we saw the production with BC as the creature first, and then went back for the cast switch. We definitely liked BC better as the creature, but then, he's an amazing actor.

I was mesmerized by the beginning section, where the creature goes through the infant and toddler stages in silence. For me, it made the play. I had read the book a few years ago for one of my f2f book groups, so there were no plot surprises for me, but I thought everything was intensely evocative of the original story. As I recall, the emphasis on difference is in the original, but more important, I think, the emphasis on the responsibility of the creator to the created.

A question pops into my mind. How much of our development, after we separate from the all-nourishing environment of our mothers, feels like the abandonment the creature feels? That is, how effective is parenting in easing the transition from total care to independence? I have no children, so no experiments(!). I'm sure there is a lot of psychological theory dealing with this question.

>298 ffortsa: My Mother-in-law never failed to be enormously grateful for all of her blessings -- even as she bravely and silently faced debilitating illness of her own. Truly inspirational.

It happens every year, about this time. I realize how many threads I've been ignoring, or am hopelessly behind on, and long for the artificial marker of the new year so that I can start clean - for at least a day! My deepest apologies to all the people whose words and books I've been missing - I hope to see you all in the new year.

On a more positive note, Jim and I have bought a new sofabed that we really like. It will take about 6 weeks to get here, but that's fine. By then I might even have decided on colors and gotten the living room painted. It's only been about 20 years.

And I'm thinking of having the floors refinished. There should be enough veneer on the oak tiles (neighbors found that to be the case) and there are too many gouges and stains that can't be addressed by less drastic means. Neighbors who had it done had the floor rendered in a lighter color (it's a rather traditional dark oak now) and I'm interested to see how it looks. Especially in the winter, I'm concerned about making the place look too dark, and my decorator is suggesting rather deep colors on the walls. It would certainly be a change.

She also asked if we wanted moldings at the ceiling - I'm thinking it might be really nice to have the kind that allow pictures to be suspended, instead of hammering in picture hangers.

Actually I think I'm preparing for retirement, spending more time at home, inviting more people in.

Ugh. Sneezing like mad today, in spite of antihistamines. Allergies are the devil.

>303 ffortsa: Woah, so you got to see both. I watched the trailer and decided that I would prefer to see B.C. as monster.

Frankenstein was one of my first adult novels I read as a 13 year old teenager and I have re-read her several times, since. Yes, I agree with you and my friend they managed to convey the developmental stages of the monster incredible well, but I still thought this could have been shorter. Yes, the emphasis in the book itself is on difference, but also on abandonment and the responsibility of Frankenstein and I thought that they actually portrait that quite well, but my friend disagreed.

To your question - I am a mother myself and I work in neonatal intensive care. There has been lots of research into child development and this is especially important in the hospital setting. Speaking from my own experience, with my own child - I used to read to him already before he was born, I played with him (I used a musical light ball) and played different types of music to him. Comparing this to babies which have been born by moms who didn't care too much (mostly drug addicts) you actually can find differences in development later on in child hood. We found that if the contact between mother/father and baby is maintained, even so they sometimes have to stay with us for month, that it will contribute to a positive development. Our parents spend quite often all day at the bedside, take over as many cares as possible, read and talk to their babies and give them touch as often as tolerated.
Usually, at the age of 3 years begins the separation of the child from their parents as it starts to define itself and again as you mentioned that's an incredible important step in a child's life. Should that be interrupted in any way, again you can end up with teenagers in trouble. I have a friend who's mother had postnatal depression after he was born and was unable to care for him the first 3 month. In his late twenties he got diagnosed with Borderline Personality Dissorder and the Psychiatrist actually said that the abandonment during that time and the emotions it caused in my friend, are one of the reasons why he ended up with this particular mental illness.

I think Frankenstein deals amazingly with this problems, aside from the science aspects in this small story.

OOps sorry, I didn't mean to write that much. I think I got carried away a little. *smile*

>298 ffortsa: Yeah.
>305 ffortsa: Oh the threads, there are too many.

>305 ffortsa: I'm glad you found a sofabed you really like, Judy. We've got one in a guest room that we like, and it gets a lot of use. We've had fun fixing up our empty nest house. I'm big on light colors and lots of light in the house. We've also enjoyed finding art we like around town and on our travels. And, of course, we've put in lots more bookshelves. :-)

We had some floors refinished a couple of years ago. WOW! What a difference it makes. I think you'll be pleased with the lighter color. Our only concern was to make sure the floors matched somewhat in the flow from room to room. I'm OCD enough that a color change would have driven me crazy.

We might be in the market for a new sofa bed, too. Amazing how much more comfortable they are now over 20 years ago.

Oh lord, how did all these challenges pop up for the same year?? The British and American author challenges were bad enough, now we have an ANZAC challenge? I may have to retire. Or throw my TV out the window - but that would annoy Jim. Or maybe just stop playing Candy Crush. there's an idea.

>309 michigantrumpet: Marianne, we saw a lot of sofa beds that were just as awful as they used to be. The Comfort Sleeper line is very good, but it was a little too high in terms of seating to be comfortable for me. This one at Room & Board has a terrific mechanism, a sort of platofrm bed base when opened that's like the Comfort Sleeper, and it suited both Jim and me when closed. At least that was our impression in the store. Not cheap, of course.

thanks for the advice on the floors. I'm interested to see my neighbors' example.

>308 jnwelch: With no nestlings to empty, the junk is all ours, and the space is limited. It's hard to fit two reasonable desks in a livingroom along with the social seating and - oh, yes - the books. I'm thinking of moving the press-pole bookshelves into the bedroom (haven't told Jim yet!) to serve as bedside table cum bookshelf space. It might look nice, and would ease the space problem a bit there. Sigh. I'd love about twice as much space - 1400 sq ft would be just about right.

68. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

This is a read for one of our f2f book groups and I won't be saying much here before the conversation in December.

What I will say is somehow I had this story conflated with The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott, which I haven't even read. But I did see the BBC series some years ago, and it was hard to get out of my head, dealing as it does with the same approximate time and the same cultural conflicts.

When I'd finally realized that I didn't know this story, it became a different book for me, and i was enjoying it quite a lot (Forster can write such wonderful, evocative descriptions) when I came to a certain episode of injustice that brought all my feelings regarding helplessness to the fore. I almost put the book away, but instead raced through that section until I could get to the resolution.

There's a lot to talk about in this novel. I look forward to the discussion.

And that leaves just 7 books to read by December 31. It looks doable.

We spent the weekend at Mohonk Mountain House an hour or so above the city. Photos are posted on Facebook. My father always said, if you want to take beautiful pictures, go to a beautiful place. Now if I could only figure out how to get the picture out of my gallery and into my post!



Ah, Jim to the rescue. better on facebook.

Loverly! (Tech points for Jim, too.)

Thanks for stopping by, Kim. I hope your knee is doing better.

Yikes. My 'to read' list is up over 700 titles! and that doesn't even count the titles on my kindle that I forgot to add.

I suspect some housecleaning of the oldest shelves is in order. I have books I didn't even read when I bought them in college. Maybe my library would like a few.

There won't be much chance to dig into the pile in the next two weeks, as I'm reading Don Quixote for one of my f2f groups. It's the newer Edith Grossman translation, and easy reading, but looooooonnnnnnggggggg.

Judy, wishing you and Jim a wonderful holiday. xx

Thanks, Paul. It was pretty good, and there are still two days left for the weekend!

>317 ffortsa: still two days left
And now there aren't. :-( Long weekends seem so luxurious before they start.

>318 qebo: So true! and I spoiled it by being ill yesterday - some short-term cold that just flattened me. Today, terribly sleepy, so of course many intended activities were left undone.

The Don Quixote is mooching along. One of our f2f book group members found a free set of lectures on the book by a professor at Yale, and I've been trying them out as I go through the text. It's been a long time since I've exercised my intellectual side, and it's amazing how much I just 'read' the novel without thinking about it. A pity - I used to be much more analytical in my reading, but that was a long time ago. I miss it.

Two f2f book groups keep my reading list pretty full - a dozen for one and about 10 for the other. The shared reads for next year look really tempting, but I'm not sure how to fit them in. If I can catch up on the Nesbo series, I might try Nemesis at the end of January.

>311 ffortsa: Hm, sounds like The Passage to India has to go on my wishlist. I did read his Room with a View and Howard's End which I both enjoyed.

Still trudging through Don Quixote. I knew it was long, but not that it was - well - tedious, in a way. Not difficult, but just one darn thing after another. I'm probably not going to get to finish it or the Yale lectures by the book group meeting on Tuesday.

I'm always shocked when I don't revel in some classic or other. But a lot of DQ would be funnier if I had read all the books mentioned and mocked in the text. I know some of the legends, but not the picaresque or romance titles.

I'm a little over half-way finished now, according to my Kindle, and there are probably a hundred or so 'pages' of footnotes counted in that I will have read by the time I get to the end of the text. So let's say another 300 pages to go. Normally, that would be ok, but I keep putting it down. Oh well.

I hope you are feeling better. Colds are no fun at all.

Gentle hugs coming your way!

>321 ffortsa: I have to admit, Judy, I found Don Quixote surprisingly tedious, too. I hadn't thought about how knowing some of the source material might help. I expected an entertaining picaresque based on the versions of it we've come to know, but it wasn't really like that. I managed to grind my way through to the end, but it wasn't easy.

I hope you start feeling better, too. Hot drinks and rest, my MBH would be saying. I always like the sound of that.

>thanks for the validation, Joe. The translation is great, but the structure and progress of the book is at best leisurely. Well, I will get as far as I can by Tuesday, and finish at my own leisure later.

What is the name of that site that lists all the various series in order? I did a google search for it, but didn't see anything I recognized.

FictFact?
http://www.librarything.com/topic/175523#4753415

Oh yes. thanks!

Hi, Judy! Your thread was at the top, and I'm glad. I'm so far behind that it would be pointless for me to apologize. I gritted my teeth through *DQ* and was a bit ashamed of myself for taking it that way. I have yet to read *Passage*, so I can't die yet awhile.

Well, today definitely did NOT go as planned. I was scheduled to take a vacation day and spend it with my friend Ruta, who I get to see at best once a year. Instead, I was working until 3AM and then again from 8AM to 1PM, from home. Then I was so wiped out I cancelled our afternoon plans and won't see her until dinner. It's a good thing we have already had some time together on this occasion.

I've already reported on A Passage To India, which was the topic of the evening at Monday's f2f group. Then on Tuesday our other f2f group met, and discussed Don Quixote. I think I can consider it finished, as I only have a few intermediate chapters left and will knock them off this weekend before our 'extended' discussion this coming Monday. So

69. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, in the very spritely Edith Grossman translation. My comments about its length still hold, and it is repetitive, but I think it is the kind of book that would improve with close reading and study.

Then, having been sprung from both Cervantes servitude and work this afternoon, I finished

70. Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo. Harry Hole comes up for air in Bangkok to solve an expat murder. Really good.

This being December 11th, I'm hoping to get 5 titles read in time to check off another year of challenge. Next up for the f2f groups are Pere Goriot by Balzac and King Lear by you-know-who. I may not read the Shakespeare again before the meeting - I've seen the play about 5 times in the last 8 or 9 years.

the new year approacheth - new challenges await!

Getting to the new year might be an adventure all by itself.

Friday proved to be yet another trial. I stayed late at work to fix the fix I thought had been fixed on Thursday, and then discovered that the PATH train that takes people from Jersey City to Manhattan was suffering a power outage, which means all of us were suffering a power outage as there is no other good way to get home. Sheesh. After much milling and waiting, two other people and I grabbed a cab for the exhorbitant ride across state lines, and even with that I didn't get home until 9:30.

That meant I missed a production of "Major Barbara", although Jim said later that it was just as well I missed it, as he didn't think much of it, and believed the play itself was out of joint with current times.

Then, just to cap things off, I had TWO nosebleeds this weekend. I have NEVER had a nosebleed before. Interesting splashy thing, a bleed like that.

I must be getting old.

Tonight is a followup discussion of Don Quixote, which I have yet to finish (but I read the end). We should be getting a new couch this week some time (yay). Then no more excitement until after Christmas, I think. I hope.

eta: The power outage was caused by some animal (squirrel, raccoon?) eating through a cable somewhere in New Jersey. Must have been a cousin of the squirrel who ate through the NASDAQ trunk line a few years back.

71. Sh*t, My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

Oh, I needed this. Shot through it one night after a gruesome work day, and it make me laugh out loud, and appreciate the author's appreciation of his blunt, clear-eyed, grouchy father. I'd never read the blog, so some of you may be way ahead of me, but I really enjoyed myself.

I've been cheating (don't tell the boss) by reading while on mute listening to phone meetings. Can't wait to get out of here today.

Mum's the word. :-) I feel your meetings pain.

I told your boss; he wants you to meet him in his office on Monday morning.

I won't be able to make it up there this month, but I'll make it a NYC Holiday in Atlanta as best I can, as I've just placed orders with Barney Greengrass and Junior's.

>334 kidzdoc:. I've gotten my payback. I'm hoping I have some sort of virus that is not the flu, doc. Mostly UR at this point, with fever. And on my own time, of course. Boo.

>335 ffortsa: I'm sorry to hear that you've become ill, Judy. Influenza mainly causes headache, muscle ache and sore throat, along with high fevers, where other respiratory viruses like RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and HMPV (human metapneumovirus) cause much more rhinorrhea and cough. If you have the flu you can get a prescription for Tamiflu, which will shorten the duration of the illness.

We've had one of the worst outbreaks of influenza in the Atlanta area that I've ever seen, with dozens of kids hospitalized on our service due to complications of influenza in the past two to three weeks. My friends in private practice have also been seeing large numbers of patients who have tested positive for influenza this month (their offices have rapid influenza and RSV test kits). I would guess that the mid-Atlantic and northeastern states will report high activity of influenza in the next week or two, just in time for the holidays. This is the most recent FluView map from the CDC, which shows high activity of flu in the southeastern and midwestern states:



I hope that you feel better soon, and that you don't have influenza.

Me too. Thanks. It's not clear, as the fever was real last night, but no body aches. I may work from home tomorrow just to play it safe.

Happy Holidays!

OOO - nice. maybe I'll wake up on January 2 with a whole new body.

Happy Christmas, Judy!!

Thanks, Amber! And Happy Holidays to all who pass by!

Judy - have a great Christmas and new Year!

>342 SandDune:. Thanks, Rhian, for stop
ping by my enormously long thread.

Happy Holidays to you and Jim, Judy! I'll visit my parents in Philadelphia from January 3-7, although I don't yet know if I'll make it to New York or not. I'll keep you posted.

Dear Judy, wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. :)

I will post you the symbols I am using, when I have a little more time in the next few days :).

74. The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse by Alan Bradley

This is a Kindle single, but considering that I made it through over 900 pages of Don Quixote, I'm counting this!

One more to go. I've started Pere Goriot and should finish this week without trouble, hitting my number for the year. I'll post it here, but may start paying attention to next year's group, which Dr. Jim so kindly started. I was group member 100!

I was group member 2, but I have since unjoined, which I do every year as my organizational strategy. I'm working on #75 also, and until it's done I'm remaining here. Absolutely, if 900 pages got counted as 1 book, then you should be permitted a couple of picture books to balance.

Judy

I'm sorry you have to work so darn hard! Also, sorry that you've been ill over the holidays..no fun at all.

I hope things pick up soon.

>348 qebo: thanks for backing me up!
>349 Whisper1: ah, but I am on vacation until wednesday!

75. Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac

and DONE! I say that for the count and for the book, which was a real slog for me. After a promising beginning, with clever and biting comments introducing the characters, I was disappointed in the eventual emotional slapstick. Not a humor I can relate to, and too strident to be anything else.

One of my f2f reading groups will be discussing it next week. Maybe I'll have more insight then.

With this post, I wish everyone a happy New Year and grand reading in 2015.

>351 ffortsa: Congrats!

Happy Holidays, Judy! And congrats on 75! What a challenging one to reach it with.

Congratulations, Judy, and Happy New Year to you and Jim!

Congrats!

Of the many blessing 2014 has brought, I count meeting you and Jim among the tops. It's been a delight to meet you both. You are such a delight. Looking forward to more of the same in 2015!

Have a safe and Happy New Year!