qebo's 2014 books (1)

Little Free Library in the front yard, begun on Christmas Eve. Cooper’s (?) hawk in the back yard yard, with an indeterminate meal, perhaps a starling.

Books Read



ROOTs Read



Books Acquired

Currently Reading

Read But Not Yet Reviewed

January
#01: The Hot Zone by Richard Preston -- (Jan 3) - ROOT
#02: Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston -- (Jan 9) - ROOT
#03: Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer -- (Jan 14) - library
#04: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Jan 20) - ROOT (e-book)
#05: American Nations by Colin Woodard -- (Jan 26) - ROOT
#06: January magazines -- (Jan 27)
#07: Spider Woman's Daughter by Anne Hillerman -- (Jan 28) - library

February
#08: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard -- (Feb 2) - new
#09: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Feb 3) - library
#10: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde -- (Feb 4) - new (e-book)
#11: Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold -- (Feb 10) - new (e-book)
#12: A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan -- (Feb 17) - new (e-book)
#13: Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Feb 20) - library
#14: February magazines -- (Feb 25)

I’m back for year four...
Things went kerflooey with an illness in 2013. I managed to salvage 75, but just barely, and only by avoiding heftier books, so with a fresh new year and a luxurious time span, I have my eye on a few.

I have no real plan for 2014, not because I can’t devise one but because precedent indicates that I won’t follow it. I subscribe to three magazines (Atlantic, New Yorker, Scientific American) but I don’t have time to do justice to all, and haven’t figured out how I’ll handle this. I gravitate naturally to sciency nonfiction. I think I ought to read more history, but politics is mind-numbing, so I tend to be more engaged when the subject is something else, e.g. technology. I enjoy group reads on occasion. I’m officially an earlier reviewer but with a poor track record of promptness. I read threads of people whose tastes are quite different from mine, and every so often I’m inspired to read a book that expands my horizons. The one consistency of the past three years is that I’ll hit 75 in the last few days of the year.

I maintain and cross-post relevant reviews in the Non-Fiction Challenge/Journal group.
I keep a running account of caterpillars and birds and other critters in the Gardens & Books group.

My 2013 threads are here: 1, 2, 3.

Katherine - Lovely to see that you have finally landed in the group for 2014.

Wishing you a wonderful 2014.

Finally? *Checks the calendar...*

Good morning qebo! and happy new year.

Hi Katherine!

Dropping a star. I love your reviews n books n garden n bugs n weeds n little free library.

Have a wonderful new year!

Aw, nice to see greetings. Now I need to make the rounds of threads that have been proliferating this past week...

Star.

Welcome back!

Hi Katherine- Greetings from across the river.

Happy New Year, Katherine! Good for you, holding out until January 1. :)

Happy New Year Katherine! Hope you have a great 2014!

Happy New Year, Katherine! I'm looking forward to following your 2014 reading - you read really interesting non-fiction that is often right near the boundaries of what I'd pick without being led by the nose. I might even read the Selfish Gene if you do!

Happy New Year, Katherine. I'm with you in not having a reading plan because I find it hard to keep to one.

Hi Katherine! I've had The Hot Zone for a long time and have never gotten to it. Some day. Some day. :)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year - love the Cooper's Hawk!

Happy New Year, Katherine!

We have had Cooper's Hawks in our yard too. One tried to take a chicken the other day, but the old girl fought him off. Just a few lost feathers. Katie's got photos. One posed on the step outside our sliding glass door, which was quite nice of it. We also get little sharp-shinned hawks from time to time. The worst predator for my bird feeder birds is the neighbor's cat which is left outdoors all the time and picks them off like he's at a buffet. Grrr.

Super. My Little Free Library needs more books, I've been registering books with Book Crossing before I put them out, and Book Crossing is down for an unpredicted duration.

Happy New Year, Katherine! I'm looking forward to following your reading adventures in 2014.

Happy New Year Katharine. We get the hawks in our yard too.

Oh I wish I could do a LFL but we live at the end of a dead end street. Very little traffic here, alas.

Happy new year! It looks like you have some exciting birdwatching.

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

Found your thread in the new group! Happy New Year, Katherine!

> 22

Book Crossing is down for an unpredicted duration.

Katherine, I think that is why you were getting all those aberrant times and dates when releasing your books. The BC system has been weird for the past few days (tons of error messages). I'm not surprised it went down completely today. I hope Ardik can figure out what's wrong with it and get it up quicky. I (and probably thousands of others) have books to journal! :D

I wish you a fine time in 2014. You know I'll be here following your reading, bird, plant, and LFL adventures.

I hope to see you again this spring.

28: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Fortunately, I'd printed two sheets of labels a few days ago, so I added info for a batch of books in my spreadsheet and put them in the LFL box, which was down to 10 books (of the 38 put there previously). Figured if I can't get on BC to register books, nobody else can get on for a catch, so data entry can wait. So far, no evidence that anyone has noticed the labels anyway.

Barring unexpected events, I'll be at the spring DC meetup.

I had BookCrossing business cards printed up at Vistaprints. Those are in my LFL along with business cards for my LFL. When I see people actually standing at my LFL, I always hand them a BookCrossing business card. Those are easy enough to put inside books as well. They're fairly cheap to have printed up I didn't want to overwhelm my LFL with BookCrossing ads, but those business cards are innocuous enough. Sometimes you can find websites that will print first orders for business cards free (and only have to pay shipping). You could try that, if you want.

LFLs are usually fairly poor at getting BookCrossing journal entries.

How fun to have a LFL in your yard.

It sounds like your Little Free Library has been a great success, Katherine. Very interesting. I am looking forward to your science-related reviews. They bring back memories of loving to read Scientific American as a child at the library. I don't know why, as I'm sure I understood very little. I probably should get a subscription!

I was thinking of getting a little free library. But one of my neighbors has one, maybe I will just sneak my books over to their's.

33: They might appreciate donations! Have you talked to them?

28: BookCrossing is back, and I entered my books. It's faster than it had been, still awkward but not painful. I've realized that the weird dates are because it uses the date that I printed labels, not the date that I entered book information.

Happy New Year!

> 28

I still don't understand why you're getting weird dates. You print a pre-numbered label. When you do the journal entry, you put in the date of your journal entry. It may *not* be the date you printed your labels. Then, when you release your books, you choose the release date. I'm still not following your date "issue" at BC.

37: Let's say that I print pre-numbered labels on one date, and I register and release a book on another date. This includes entering the book information (which does not include the date & time), then entering the release (which does include the date & time). When I click on the title of the book in my list, I see three items:
(1) The book information, with "registered by qebo" and the date I printed labels.
(2) A journal entry from the book information step, with the date of entry in UTC.
(3) A journal entry from the release step, with the date of entry in UTC, and the date & time of release in UTC.
Item 1 looked weird to me (where'd it get September?) but now I realize what it is (I printed a batch of labels shortly before the DC meetup). Items 2 and 3 looked a bit odd and I thought it had lost my UTC-5 setting, but now I realize that it simply presents all dates in UTC.

So it's fine. Or rather, I'd prefer it to be different (e.g. ignore the date I printed labels, present the dates in local time), but I know what it's doing so I can accommodate.

Okay. Now I see what you mean. I never paid attention to the date I printed the labels. I took my "origin" date from the date of my first journal entry. I also don't pay much attention to the times because I inevitably release books at any other time than the times I register on the system.

You're a computer person. You want and need more accuracy! I understand. :)

39: And I'd like it to list books in sortable tabular format. However, I like the idea of tracking where the books go, so I'm putting up with it for now. I'm keeping a spreadsheet too, which is much simpler. I'll keep going with BC for a year; if I don't get any "catches", then I may decide it's not worth the trouble.

It's accurate according to its own agenda. I want more CONTROL.

6" of snow last night, and the temperature is a balmy 9 degrees F with gusts of wind. On days like this, I'm glad that my commute consists of switching to another application on the computer. The enterprising neighbor kid showed up at 7:20 this morning to shovel.

Sounds like that boy in the neighbourhood will go far. Have a lovely weekend.

#1: The Hot Zone by Richard Preston -- (Jan 3)

why now: I’d had this around for awhile, residing among a bunch of books with a medical / disease theme, and then as a consequence of my data entry disorganization I received a duplicate which brought it to my attention.

The Ebola virus is one of the more frightening things you can imagine, an invisible pathogen that can jump between species and cause hemorrhagic fever with a fatality rate up to 90%, depending on the strain. Symptoms are initially similar to flu, with fever and aches and vomiting, and progress rapidly to internal and external bleeding; clots accumulate and stick to vessels, blood flows from every orifice including eyes, facial skin disconnects, intestinal membrane sloughs off, organs turn to mush as if in a decaying corpse, but the victim is alive and for some time aware.

The book is less about the Ebola virus itself, though a few incidents of its effects are described in extended detail, and more about a small set of people who study and track it, focusing on an outbreak in a monkey research facility in Reston VA, when the Army and the CDC were called to assist with containment. The style is thrilleresque, with terse sentences and step by step suspenseful action, as some very brave men and women don positive-pressure insulating space suits, pass through air locks into biohazard zones, dissect organs and tissue with extreme care to prevent cuts and punctures from tools, decontaminate in chemical showers, agonize when mistakes are made and exposure could mean death.

The period covered begins in 1980 and ends shortly before publication in 1994, so scientific specifics about virus strains are a bit outdated, but this is not central to the story. Recommended for its page-turner style and raising of awareness about what’s out (not far enough out) there.

I too have this sitting on my shelf and have almost given it away during cleaning sprees. Sounds like I should read it instead. Nice review!

44: Well, we all have to triage somehow. In its favor, it's informative without requiring deep concentration.

Book organization report:

* All books collectionized and tagged.
* No books in the To Be Organized collection.
* All books shelved according to collections and tags.
* 209 books deaccessioned to be taken to the public library book sale.
* 56 books deaccessioned to be placed in the Little Free Library.

More deaccessioning will be done eventually, but this takes care of the shelves where I needed space, and categories of books that I've wanted to pass along for several years.

And having discovered all sorts of interesting books on my floor and shelves, I'm aiming to read 3 per month this year. I had a thread in the ROOT group last year, but it became too much trouble to update, so I've set up another ticker here.

Wow, deaccessioned 260 books! That's awe-inspiring. I usually manage three or four at a time, under duress. :-p

I am impressed, Katherine and I haven't even got a clue how you "deaccession" a book; is it painful?

Have a lovely weekend.

Are your deaccessioned books ones you've already read?

I have no problem releasing books I've read. It's those TBRs that I can't seem to get a handle on. They pile up, and I won't let them go until I've read them!

#43> I remember really liking that one when I read it a while ago. It was the first time I'd ever heard of Ebola and the description of its effects gave me the heebie-jeebies. As a non-sciencey person I found the whole book fascinating.

I love non-fiction with a page-turning writing style to it. The Hot Zone goes on my future reading list for that reason and because I recently completed a Coursera course on Epidemics and the dynamics of infectious diseases and the whole containment process and the diverse team of professionals that is involved when a potential outbreak is detected is fascinating!

>43 qebo:: That one has been in the Someday Swamp forever. David Quammen mentioned it several times in Spillover, which I read last year. Quammen said that it's been criticized for sensationalism, but that it also inspired a whole generation of virologists. Nice to know that it still packs a punch.

Wow, I admire your book-organizing bonanza! Well done.

50: Are your deaccessioned books ones you've already read?
Many of them are not reading books: math textbooks and activity books (from when I was teaching - I think someone else would be happy to have them), old travel guides (from when I was living in Boston and had my eye on further north), old academic books (from when my parents moved to a retirement community). Other books I have read: fiction, memoirs, pop psych, and these go into the LFL. I keep lots of non-fiction books I've read, especially science and history, and others have always been for reference. I still have 1700 books physically in my house, which is low by LT standards, but high by anyone else I know standards.

51: It was the first time I'd ever heard of Ebola and the description of its effects gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Yeah, I'm glad its central incident is two decades in the past. OTOH, who knows what Ebola has been up to since then.

52: Coursera course on Epidemics
Cool. I keep a vague eye on Coursera, but I'm afraid to commit because of the time. One on human evolution almost got me, said to expect 5 hours per week, but I bet I'd spend double that and fail to do other things that I should be doing this winter.

53: it's been criticized for sensationalism
I can see why. OTOH, in some ways it wasn't sensational enough; none of the protagonists died, and the deaths described are of people introduced for this reason, i.e. you know from the beginning so the effects of the virus are alarming but you aren't attached to the person. He does not, for example, introduce a village in Africa, follow its residents in their daily lives, and then wipe everyone out, but this is what actually happens.

Good Morning. The Hot Zone is here on one of the shelves. I'll hope to read it in the next months when I find it...

Happy good wishes for a wonderful bright, shiny New Year!

I keep meaning to read The Hot Zone, but I don't actually own it, so it never quite makes it to the top of the TBR list.

> 55

I've finally started getting rid of my reference books - most notably my old nursing textbooks. I graduated from nursing school in 1968. However, I still can hear my nursing teacher saying, "Nursing principles always remain the same". :)

Now that I'm retired from nursing, I thought it was time to move them on. I've taken them to The Book Thing of Baltimore. My (still current) nursing magazines go to my daughter-in-law who is now a practicing nurse. I still can't decide whether or not to give up my nursing license or just put it on inactive status. I worked long and hard to get that credential.

59: "Nursing principles always remain the same"
Though I’d guess bright and shiny new textbooks retain the principles but are more up-to-date on the medicine? What's involved in keeping the license?

I didn't keep college textbooks, moved around too much in my 20s, but I've been accumulating books for 25 years or so, and it was time for a purge. I keep gaping at the empty patch of my office floor. And the empty spots on the shelves!

What's involved in keeping the license?

Paying $$$ now that I have no nursing job! :(

I can choose either to make my license inactive ($$$) or to drop it completely (FREE!).

I actually like the thought of moving books out of my house. I have no problem with already fiction, but I have more difficulty parting from reference books.

Madeline, it might be stressful to give up your nursing license so quickly on the heels of what sounds like an involuntary retirement. Maybe you should keep it for another year until you have a little distance from recent events and can make a clearer decision? I may be completely misinterpreting your comments, though, so apologies if I'm imputing incorrect feelings onto you.

> 51 - Some of the Coursera courses that have caught my eye say to expect 5 hours (or more) a week for course workload. The Epidemics course - which is the first Coursera course I have taken - estimated 1 to 2 hours a week to watch the videos and take the weekly quiz. I found I could watch the videos and complete the quiz in one hour.... it was the requirement (if you wanted to receive a certificate of accomplishment for the course) to participate in the discussion forums that became the time suck, but in the same fun way that LT is... I found so many interesting discussion threads to read and post comments to!

To keep myself from over committing my time, I only take one course at a time. The next one "Think Again: How to Reason and Argue" starts mid-January and is a 12 week course. That one says the workload will be 5-6 hours per week, so I won't be registering for another course until April.

> 62

I don't really plan on going back into nursing. If anything, I later might look for an insignificant library job (to earn a few pennies and to keep busy). I don't have a library background, but I do love books and reading...as you know.

Actually, I just renewed my license so it's still good for another 1 1/2 years.

I didn't keep up my EMT license, and I really wish I had.

Found and Starred!

> 65

I didn't keep up my EMT license, and I really wish I had.

Why?

#67 Now it would come in handy because I'm doing a lot of volunteer work with the Girl Scouts. If I had my EMT license, I could be a camp first aider, and I would be exempt from taking Wilderness First Aid. Also, there are times when I wish I could volunteer with an ambulance squad, like I did when I first got my license. But at the time I let it lapse, the nearest place to take the refresher course was over an hour away (for several nights) and the ambulance service where I was living wouldn't allow you to volunteer unless you were also a firefighter, and I was not going to go through firefighter school. Plus it was expensive. But there are times when I am the first responder to a car accident and I wish I had the extra protection of the license, despite the Good Samaritan law.

Do EMTs have the option of an inactive license...as nurses do?

Congrats on getting organized. I wish I could de-accession even half that number! I think I got up in the 80's last year. One thing that would help me is to go through my TBR shelves and be honest with myself about what I am actually going to read. But every time I try, I choke!

#69 I didn't at the time. I don't know if the rules have changed.

Hi Katherine--a great review and organized books to start off the year. I look forward to being around a little more this year.

At 9:45am, the temperature is a balmy -3F ("feels Like -14F" they say, but I won't be going outside to confirm). Another day to be glad that I work at home.

I went outside for a minute...just to say I've been in 1 degree (-17 C) weather! :)

The temperature is rising. It's now 3 degrees (and sunny). :)

Hi Katherine and Happy New Year a week or so late. I've been sneaking in to read threads whenever time permits, which isn't so much now that I'm back at work after vacation.

Congratulations on all that deaccessioning. I'm due for a few books out the door soon, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it. See 'back at work' above!

I'm also in awe of your organization. And the discussion of the Bookcrossing date posting was quite interesting, since as you know I'm another computer person and see your point completely!

I thought I had a copy of The Hot Zone on my shelves, but LT doesn't think so, so I may have donated it somewhere along the way. I have probably donated nearly 1,000 books since I retired and cleaned out the boxed books in the attic. But I seem to be working diligently on replacing them.

76: This is, according to _Zoe_, library improvement.

Yup. I stand by my claim.

In two weeks of operation, 43 books have been taken from the LFL, including 9 that were donated by anonymous passers by.

In two weeks of operation, 43 books have been taken from the LFL

I'm moving my LFL to your street!

80: I'm surprised. I half expected nothing at all to happen.

I want more to happen!

Wow. I'm impressed. That's a lot of movement. Keeping it supplied will keep you busy. Do you think most people take more than one book?

83: I don't know. I've been checking shortly before dark most days, and books have been taken nearly every day; the exception is a few atrocious weather days. The LFL is not generally in my line of sight (the porch roof blocks the view from my office). I occasionally happen to see people peeking in as I pass by the front window, but I haven't seen anyone taking books, so I don't know when or how many. Yeah, keeping it stocked will become an issue soon. SqueakyChu has put me in touch with BookCrossers who have books to spare...

#2: Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston -- (Jan 9)

why now: I picked this up at the grocery store last year and was reminded when I read The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. I thought it’d be a continuation of similar themes, and its bibliography includes a bunch of books I’ve read and others that will go onto my wishlist.

I wasn’t expecting great literature, but I was expecting a more entertaining story.

A mishmash of graduate students who are studying spiders, beetles, venom, medicine, hormones, pheromones, plus a postmodernist who is studying scientists, are visited by three corporate executives who are recruiting for a secret project. The connection is made because a student and an executive are brothers. The students are flown to corporate headquarters in Hawaii, where the project is revealed: “tensor fields” can shrink sophisticated robots to the size of bugs, and hordes of them are at work analyzing flora and fauna at a microscopic scale. So far, the people are pretty much cardboard going through motions, but OK, maybe now they’re in place and something interesting can happen. However. Behind the surface secret project is a nefarious secret project. And just before the students arrive, the executive brother disappears in a boating accident. The police play a tourist video of the accident for the student brother, and he recognizes something suspicious. Rather than mention it, he concocts an elaborate plan to elicit a public confession from the villain. This does not have the desired effect. The tensor fields can shrink people too, and the graduate students, now 1/2” tall, are deposited in the landscape. So now they need to get back, through a dangerous jungle of predatory bugs, to the tensor fields, which can unshrink them to normal size. Meanwhile things aren’t going so smoothly for the villain either, because the police aren’t as dumb as he assumes, and it’s the coverup that gets you.

There are actually a few cool bits involving bugs, but nowhere near what one might suppose from the six page bibliography, and not enough to redeem the cartoon plot.

Have a wonderful weekend, Katherine!

More snow overnight. Sheesh.

We're having a spot of snow and then rain rain rain rain..... ugh!!!! The walking today was so bad, just a little bit of snow over the ice - made the 'Yak Trak' ice grippers kind of choke up with snow and then off to the races sliding around.

Very exciting about your LFL!

Oh, I wish we had some of your snow!

89: If only there were a way to transport it.

I'm not a huge fan of Richard Preston's fiction. I'm sure he writes good non-fiction, but he tends to write fiction as if he's writing non-fiction - the flow feels all wrong to me.

91: Yes, exactly. The matter-of-fact style (“he thought this”, “he did that”) worked for real people in real situations because he had detailed minute-by-minute facts from interviews, so the people essentially fleshed out themselves, the drama didn’t need to be manufactured, and readers can provide their own emotion about the possibility of Ebola escaping into the wild in Washington DC. I don’t know how much of Micro was Michael Crichton and how much was Richard Preston, but he failed to created the drama in fiction that was pre-existing in non-fiction. Oh well. Another book for the Little Free Library. :-)

I am tired of weather. This week has had subzero (F) temperatures, another round of snow, and today 50F and pouring rain. I may as well add to the misery by cleaning the house.

Well, I'm in the same weather and the house needs cleaning rather desperately - perhaps I'll join you - or maybe I'll bake banana bread for church coffee tomorrow.

> 94

I vote for making banana bread.

Sounds like an adult version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

As I organized books, I put a 1/2” gray dot on each book when it was matched to a LT catalog entry and properly tagged. I exactly used up a roll of 1000 gray dots. I have more books, but some sections didn’t need immediate scrutiny. The next step will be put red and white dots on books that I’ve read and books that are for reference. So obviously I need more dots. I ordered these dots through Amazon today. You all know what happened... See the new Books Acquired ticker above. We are now 1/3 through January and the acceptable number of books to have acquired at this point would be 1/3 of 1/12 of the desired limit of 36, i.e. 1.

94,95: Well, I didn't exactly clean, but I shuffled things around to make cleaning simpler tomorrow, and prepped for another round of painting. Now I want banana bread as a reward.

96: Yup.

I'm kind of in awe at how many books you've "de-accessioned" Katherine. I thought I just did a fabulous job by getting rid of 12 to make room for more. It's been pouring rain here all day too after being below zero earlier this week.

Hmmm dots from Amazon?

I'm in awe all around at your organization and your ability to send books away. I guess I anthropomorphize them and worry about whether they are going to find good homes. I should worry about people and animals!

99: Technically the books are not deaccessioned until they leave my house, and currently they are sitting in boxes on the living room floor, waiting for a day of civilized weather that coincides with the library book donation schedule. Yes, Amazon has dots of many colors, unlike the local office supply stores, which I did check. I do not want Amazon to take over the world, but it's so convenient.

...and Jeff Bezos needs your money. ;)

>98 qebo:. Banana bread coming over. Enjoy! 😏
House will still be here tomorrow.

My books go to schools, orphanages and friends. The ones I can't let go of (that is the majorty of them too) are kept in the self-deluding belief that the kids will one day be enthused by their presence and pick them up.

Have a lovely Sunday.

Paul, like you, I have a vision that my two daughters will think of my book collections as a wonderful inheritance. But, realistically that just isn't going to be the truth.

My daughter has asked on more than one occasion: do I get to keep all your books when you die? LOL. I mark it up to her age and not a death wish on me.

I try to take most of my books to the used bookstore for trade value, but I love the concept of the LFLs. I just don't think I'd be able to keep it stocked.

104,105,106: I have no illusions whatsoever about what will happen to my books when I die. At least they're biodegradable.

107: I'm concerned about keeping mine stocked, but I've gotten a bit of a reprieve: a friend gave me a box of books that she was going to take the library book sale.

Today someone left a note on my door asking for information about Little Free Libraries because she wants to start one.

That's so cool that someone approached you about starting her own. You are a trend setter, qebo!

109: SqueakyChu started it!

That's great about your LFL and the note you found! Very cool.

It is thrilling indeed.

I am envious of how well you have organized your books.....here and there in pockets our books are sort of organized but not really and I loved how I'd gotten them to be in Philadelphia but we simply do not have the same kind of bookshelf space here. A lot of our art books have been banished to my husband's studio, where, frankly, I doubt anyone will look in them for a long time. The guest room is filled with tempting books, even if it isn't all that well organized there is sort of a logic, and I had the thrill the other day of one of my daughter's friends who spent the night saying, "I could just stay in here for a month reading all your books, I want to read every single one."

In my studio I have quite a bit of new shelving but I can't decide which books to take over there from this house. I like SEEING my books all the time and I am in the house more. Presently the books in my studio are like a tour of books that have been hugely significant to my development as a writer or 'seeker' - I guess I can comb the house for more of those or widen that category a little, but I'm so ambivalent about it I haven't gotten very far. (To give you some idea, all of my V. Woolf are out there, all Wharton, most of Henry James, a fair number of writer's on writing and journals of writers - Fitzgerald/James etcetera. Lots of poetry, but only books I've read and loved and refer to, James Boswell collection - journals and bios - all my Viragos, Angela Thirkells and books on Buddhism and other spiritual sort of quest. Celtic mythology, Joseph Campbell, some Jung - but I've 'loaned' a lot of my psychology books to my daughter who is very into that.

Recently our daughter has also gotten very into fantasy and has a growing interest/appreciation of sf - the third floor, a long narrow monitor barn style space, contains all our children's books and sf/f and mysteries - all calculated to tempt her and also keep her surrounded by the familiar. Anyhow, she is beginning to go through those - very exciting!

109, 110: I emailed the LFL aspirant, and she emailed back. A (retired, I gather) teacher who lives outside the city and noticed my LFL when driving home from a museum that's a half mile from here. So all the criteria one might expect. She'd read about LFLs in a newspaper article awhile back. I was unaware of the article, but it's online, and mentions two LFLs; one I knew about, the other I did not. The steward's exact address isn't listed but the neighborhood isn't far from here so I'll take a walk around some day.

ETA: Ah, if I click on the image there's associated text with the address. So I added the venue, plus a link to the article.

> 109

SqueakyChu started it!

Go ahead. Blame me! ;)

114: I blame you for the caterpillars too.

112: You have more than double my number of books cataloged, and I gather you have many more uncataloged. Took me six years to get to this point.

all calculated to tempt her
Surreptitious parenting.

I blame you for the caterpillars too.

LOL!! Okay. Blame me for everything that is time-consuming. Next, you're going to blame me for BookCrossing as well.

117: Well of course. But I'm not sure how long BookCrossing will last; if I get no "catches" in... months? a year? then I'll stop, because the data entry is too tedious.

The thing about both LFL and gardening is that they are routes to RL local connections. Especially with native plants, there's tons of stuff happening around here that I was completely unaware of until two years ago.

Look at this LFL/BookCrossing catch. It involves three LFLs and three Bookcrossers (on brand new!). Two of these LFLs are 2,810 miles apart!

It's the occasional brilliant "catch" that makes it fun. It doesn't happen often, but when it happens...it is such fun.

> 118

The thing about both LFL and gardening is that they are routes to RL local connections.

I was attending RL BookCrossing meet-ups many years before anyone on LT would ever consider it. I used to try to talk Tim into promoting such a thing. He didn't, but some LT members eventually took it among themselves to do so.

You met my BC group here in DC. There is a BC RL meet-up group in Pennsylvania, but I don't think they are anywhere near you. I know of this one.

I've met some of the PA members because occasionally we do a joint PA/MD-DC-VA meet-up. Usually it's in conjunction with a trip to The Book Thing of Baltimore and a group meeting at lunch (much like our LT meet-up at the Blue Moon Diner). I just find these meet-ups fun - whether they are LTers or BCers. We're just a bunch of crazy bibliophiles - all ages, from all walks of life.

119: Yeah, that's cool, but I'm not sure how much data entry it's worth. I'll keep doing it for now, but I'm happier with my spreadsheet.

120: That's a two+ hour trek (each way) to meet strangers in a location with no redeeming qualities. I go to LT meetups because I've already "met" the people online and I can tack on other things I want to do.

#3: Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer -- (Jan 14)

why now: Georgette Heyer is often praised on these threads, and I was curious enough to browse once through a shelf of her books at the public library, but there were so many, I tired of reading indistinguishable cover blurbs, and I’m not one to choose at random. Then lyzard reviewed this book, noting it as “her first literary venture into the social period which, within a very few years, she would effectively have made her own”, with less character development than later efforts but “painstakingly accurate detail” that “acts as a kind of ‘primer’ on the period”. So this gave me a starting point and an incentive.

Judith and Peregrine Taverner are not quite of age when their father dies and wills guardianship to his old friend the Earl of Worth, rather than to his estranged brother. The siblings have never met their guardian, and when he fails to follow through after a round of correspondence, they travel from their home in the country to his home in London, with a plan to set up residence in the city. Stopping overnight along the way, at a hotel filled to capacity for a boxing match, they cross paths with a man who treats Judith with impropriety, assuming her to be of a lower class. Upon arriving in London, they discover this man is their guardian. Surely not? He is far too young. Alas yes; the intended 4th Earl died before the will was written, the will erroneously referred to the 5th Earl, and legally there is no way out. He is no happier about the situation than they are, but he is conscientious about his responsibilities. The Taverner fortune is considerable, and the Taverner siblings are naive, vulnerable to exploitation. The Earl arranges a house and servants, and introduces the siblings to society. Judith is a hit, stylishly attired and advised by Beau Brummel on the skills of being remarkable. She is bombarded with marriage proposals, which must be approved by the Earl, who declares that he will reject every one. She protests, not because she wants to marry but because she wants to decide for herself. The Earl tends to take command with minimal communication. Among the men in attentive circulation are the siblings’ cousin, and the Earl’s brother, both pleasant companions. Peregrine gets caught up in gambling and would rapidly drown in debt if not for the Earl’s strict budget, then is smitten by a young woman from a respectable family, perhaps a steadying influence, and the Earl agrees to a betrothal. Peregrine is prone to trouble: he is challenged to a duel, he is shot at on the road, he becomes oddly ill. His fortune will go to Judith if he dies before marrying. Who can be trusted? The romance and the mystery resolve at a slow pace, often receding into the backdrop of social customs and events.

The characters and locations are historically real; for this reason the novel is interesting (I had to look up “Regency”, which indicates my prior level of knowledge), and I’d be inclined to read another in the future. It is also, at nearly 400 pages, a bit tedious. Not because of the writing, which is engaging, but because apparently people of the upper echelons didn’t _do_ anything; their days were filled with dinners, dances, excursions, theater, cards, clubs, invitations, selecting gowns, folding cravats – leisure activities by current standards, but leisure activities that had to be accomplished with precisely the right appearance and mannerisms and social connections. This is approximately my idea of hell, and I would read for awhile then step away for a break, appreciating my middle class job.

This is approximately my idea of hell

LOL! I am reading Testament of Youth right now, and the author, Vera Brittain, says basically the same thing, but unfortunately she had to put up with it until the war. It's interesting to read about the provincial bourgeois from the perspective of a feminist who lived it. I'm looking forward to seeing how this changes now that the war has begun.

>122 qebo:: I did a double-take when I saw you read a Heyer romance -- whose thread am I on?! I enjoyed your review though, and can see why you enjoyed it and would read another one. But if you start buying those Amish romances at the supermarket, I may need to stage an intervention.

124: LOL!

I'll help you, Laura! ;-)

Heading to Boston for the weekend... Note to burglars: the computer is stored at someone else’s house, the camera is traveling with me, you won’t be able to catch the cats, there is no jewelry, and I doubt you’ll want the books. I don’t much care about anything else.

Of course burglars don't want your books! *pulls black ski mask on*

Oh. I guess I've set myself up here.

"norabelle414 should borrow steal from qebo"...

Dibs on the field guides! What's your address again, qebo? ;-)

Hi, Katherine. I'm glad that you enjoyed *R Buck* enough to read another Heyer. I hope you'll read one of the good ones next time!

Katherine

I hope you have a lovely time in Boston. It is one of my favorite cities! The traffic is crazy, but the place is wonderful.

Hint hint, nudge nudge
http://www.librarything.com/topic/167560

I loved your review on the Heyer book. I also haven't read one although I've thought about it. (Slinks away so I can look up 'regency').

Have a great time in Boston, should be a reasonably nice weekend weatherwise.

I too am fascinated by you reading a Georgette Heyer and I loved your review, especially the last paragraph. Those books sort of propped me through the end of high school, along with, weirdly The Lord of the Rings and a couple of other unlikely tomes..... and I suppose it is the removal into a completely unfamiliar world that is part of what makes the escape work with both books.... yes.... thinking it through that would be the link. Complete getaway. Now you will see what folks are talking about when they compare Lois Bujold's Barrayar to the 'regency romances.' (Heyer being the undisputed Queen of the genre).

Have fun in Boston, Katherine! (I love Boston.)

Laura's interventionist comments were priceless.

I love your instructions to intruders and it is a good job I don't live nearby as I may be tempted to go and peruse your book collection. I would leave behind the Regency pap of course.

Have a lovely weekend in Boston.

>137 PaulCranswick:: why thank you, Paul. :)

Ditto on the comments on your Heyer venture. I read them in my youth, and thought them brain candy - and I agree with your appraisal of the hell it would be for us!

Do you think you'll read any more Heyer? I'd be curious to see what you'd think of one of her later and more successful books.

And now I'm home, with computer retrieved. And also back to work. Hope to get around to the threads later today.

#4: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Jan 20)

why now: I was on the train and the light had gotten too dim for the print of my paper book and aging eyes, so I scanned through the list of downloaded e-books and this one caught my attention. I’d downloaded it after reading Flight Behavior last year.

Deanna is an ecologist focused on predators, especially coyotes. Two years before, she created a job maintaining trails and chasing away poachers on a mountain overlooking the Appalachian town she grew up in. A coyote pack has appeared on the mountain, welcome because counterintuitively top level predators can improve an ecosystem. She has caught only glimpses. One day in May, as she is following barely visible coyote tracks, she encounters a man who is evasive about why he is there. She suspects he is there because of a bounty on coyotes; he is from a sheep ranch in the west, where coyotes are enemies. She is strongly attracted regardless, and invites him to her cabin, disturbing the equilibrium of isolation.

Lusa is an entomologist who taught a course on natural pest control at the nearby university. The only child of Jewish and Muslim parents whose family farms were taken by force, she has dreamed about farming since childhood. The year before, a farmer from the Appalachian town at the base of the mountain, interested in alternatives to pesticides, enrolled. After a whirlwind courtship, they married and she moved to his farm. One day in May, he takes a side job delivering grain, and is killed when the truck jackknifes. She inherits a struggling farm and a set of sisters-in-law who resent her position, and wonders how to keep the farm viable without tobacco, the only crop that both land and economics will support.

This Appalachian town is tiny; everyone is related to everyone else somehow, but Deana and Lusa are unaware of each other’s existence. The novel alternates between these two women with compatible perspectives and complementary paths. A third strand, initially minor then of increasing importance, has clashing neighbors: an elderly man with traditional views about women and religion and evolution, who is patiently reconstructing an American Chestnut tree resistant to the blight that destroyed the forest of his youth, and an elderly woman with newfangled views inspired by Rachel Carson, who manages a remarkably successful organic orchard.

The counterpoint of traditional views seems an unnecessary setup; I would’ve preferred more nuance. The plot may be a tad heavy on women lecturing men. Still, the eco-lessons are a primary reason to read, and the flaws are redeemed by the descriptions of place, nature and community, and the interior lives of the two main characters.

130, 132, 135, 136, 137: Boston was fun. January is perhaps not the ideal time to visit, but on the up side I didn't feel as nostalgic as usual. _Zoe_ and I were within a few blocks of each other on Sunday, but we realized this only days before, and with uncertain schedules couldn’t plan a mini-meetup either in advance or spontaneously, so alas it didn’t happen. I retrieved the computer before the snow began. All of the cats are accounted for, and there are no obvious gaps on the bookshelves.

131, 135, 140: Recommend a “good” Georgette Heyer, and I’ll keep it in mind to read if the mood strikes at some random moment in the future.

134: Glad I’m not the only one. :-)

Welcome home!

I read Prodigal Summer this summer while in France. I liked the moths bits and was surprised you didn't mention the bug collecting. :-) Very good review. I had much the same reactions.

144: surprised you didn't mention the bug collecting
Hmm... Well, I can keep up with reviews only if I don't get too much into the editing business. So it stands as is. :-) I wanted more moth bits.

16 books were taken from my Little Free Library while I was gone. Alarming. But also someone donated a bag of 8. And two BookCrossers (thanks SqueakyChu!) have each promised to send a box of books. The friends I was visiting walked me past a LFL near their house, so I took a photo and added the venue.

Oh, I finished a magazine too, the Atlantic, but I haven't yet decided how I'm counting. I'm planning to read what I can this month, and assess at the end. The big question I think is whether the New Yorker stays or goes.

> 146

16 books were taken from my Little Free Library while I was gone. Alarming. But also someone donated a bag of 8.

I had a donation of a bag of 8 also this week. I wonder if it was the same donor? ;) However, there were less than eight books taken from mine. More like two...that I forcibly (well, not that much force) gave to a neighbor. I'm really not that worried about excess books because I'll be giving them away at two upcoming book festivals this spring.

I'll be on the lookout for you for other Bookcrossers that want to give away books . If you really have a problem getting enough books for your LFL, Bookcrossers always are willing to pitch in with books so don't be afraid to request this on the BookCrossing forums. It's too bad you are not closer to the DC area BookCrossers. We'd love to stuff your LFL full of books. :)

Well, I can keep up with reviews only if I don't get too much into the editing business.

I hear ya. And even then I'm having trouble. As always.

Good take on Prodigal Summer. Kingsolver can get a little heavy-handed and preachy. Loved your comment about women lecturing men!

150 Kingsolver can get a little heavy-handed and preachy.

That's why I've pretty much given up on her. But I enjoyed your review.

150, 151: Agreed. But I'm interested in what she's preaching about, and I learn stuff.

>152 qebo:: yep. I should have mentioned that I really like her writing!

Question of the moment: The Harry Potter group read has put to the test my vague assumption that I'd read them again. I don't have #1, but do have the rest, and I find that... I don't really care enough to substitute HP for any of the other books that I want to read. They were fun, and I might do it for just one, but not for the entire series. Should I feed them to the voracious Little Free Library?

Yes. I find that the HP books get taken quickly.

You need to live closer to me! My former rabbi just dropped off four bags* of fiction to me today for BC/LFL/book festival use. Books are coming in faster than I can move them out...but not for long. Soon I'll be gathering up the extras for the Kensington Book Festival this April.

*There were two HP books in his bags! :)

How often do you tend to reread books, qebo, and are they usually fiction or non? I tend to reread my comfort reads, so I hang on to those.

156: I've reread Narnia several times over the decades, but those are a strong dose of nostalgia. I borrowed the first Harry Potter in my 40s to see what the hype was about, and liked it enough to continue to the end of the series, but I've started to watch several of the movies on TV and never been engaged enough to sit through. I think I'll pass the books along to a more appreciative audience.

I think I would have liked the HP books regardless - but for us the thrill was having a child to read them to, who was the right age for them, and utterly MAD for the whole thing. The second to last movie is, in my opinion, the best - great adolescent dynamics - as Hermione and Ron and Harry shift from being children to being..... confused, semi-adults.

I rather like the third movie, mostly because of some of Dumbledore's lines. I am just finishing up re-reading (actually, listening this time) the HP books, and I'm going back and re-reading some classics, but generally I avoid re-reads because there are so many books that I haven't read and want to. I generally have to have a specific reason I'm re-reading.

159: the thrill was having a child to read them to
That would make a big difference, for immersion and nostalgia.

160: generally I avoid re-reads because there are so many books that I haven't read and want to
Yeah, me too. If I could read at the rate of some people around here, I might tack on rereads too, but 6+ books per month requires continuous attention, while barely making a dent in the shelves.

I’ve decided on this year’s magazine strategy: read what I feel like of the three subscriptions I want to keep, skimming and skipping, and count the total as a single book. In comparison to previous years in which I’ve made an effort to read most of the New Yorker or cover-to-cover Atlantic or Scientific American, and counted one month of one magazine as one book. I aspire to summarize briefly, but this is an experiment, and my track record is poor.

#160 and #161 Re-reads are avoided by me for much the same reason. Even when I do want to re-read a book desperately, I only read selective chapters or parts of the book, rather than the whole thing.

Gratuitous cat photos. I’ve been organizing with a goal of clearing out three closets that need to be painted. To be dismissed entirely: clothes stored in plastic bins for several years. A few items were pleasant surprises, but most were of the why am I hanging onto this variety (a subset of which is in what alternative universe do I imagine this will ever fit again). The empty plastic bins went up to the attic, where I noticed the cat pod, which never interested the two cats. This however is the recent third cat, and he immediately went to work stuffing himself into it.

Oh, how adorable!!!

generally I avoid re-reads because there are so many books that I haven't read and want to

Me, too!

Awww! I like the cat pod. Pretty cat, too.
I'm with you on re-reading. I hardly ever do it.

Adorable cat!

I don't generally re-read, either, but I *am* looking forward to reading HP with Charlie in a couple of years...

167: I think (re-)reading HP with a kid would be great fun. Alas, I don't have one of those on hand.

Stopping by to get caught up. I can see where the tedium of doing nothing in the Heyer books would have you climbing the walls, Katherine.... even an obsession with fashion and dressing can only occupy one's day for only so long. If you are taking recommendations for another Heyer read, I would suggest Frederica... its loads of fun, mainly because the young charges get up to all sorts of mischief and keep our leading man rather busy, LOL! There is a group read planned for next month.

Always happy to see gratuitous cat photos!

169: There is a group read planned for next month.
Oh? Well, maybe. Yesterday I physically gathered onto a table the books I've semi-committed to reading in February. I'm nearly maxed out, and this doesn't even include the e-books.

Katherine, I finally managed to get my camera and myself organized to take a picture of the local LFL on the way to pottery class yesterday--see my thread!

>164 qebo: Squee! You know how I feel about orange cats that curl up into balls.

I'm not much of a rereader either Katherine and have a hard enough time reading all the new-to-me books I learn about here on LT. I read Prodigal Summer in 2001 and finally realized that I was going to either ignore her preaching and just enjoy the story of give up her books. I've read everything she's written except Flight Behavior so you can see which one I chose. I have not read any of Heyer's books though. I have one on my shelf The Grand Sophy.

The cat is adorable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/arts/music/pete-seeger-songwriter-and-champion...

:-(

OTOH, 94's a pretty good run.

Sailing on...

Thanks for posting the Seeger obit. What a great person!

Fabulous orange cat!

It's important, re mags, to find the right way to deal with them. The NYer is the only one I feel 'committed' to, heaven knows why, a lifetime habit. All the rest I am happy to read in bits and pieces, out of order, whenever, or not at all!

176: So far, the strategy of reading the magazine articles I feel like is seeming comfortable. It forces me to page through the entire magazine so I get a sense of what's what in the world, but allows me to skip without qualms.

173: I preferred Flight Behavior to Prodigal Summer, because of the monarchs. As a novel, I dunno; I'm not a good judge. I accept the "preaching" as educational, and think it's entirely OK to convey social / political / environmental concerns via fiction; what irritates me is a pattern of one character explaining to another, especially when the explainee approaches stereotype.

So far, the strategy of reading the magazine articles I feel like is seeming comfortable. It forces me to page through the entire magazine so I get a sense of what's what in the world, but allows me to skip without qualms.

I think that's a good approach!

>177 qebo: That's the same thing I do with the newspaper. My dad has always read every single word of every newspaper and so that's what I grew up believing I was supposed to do with a newspaper. However, my dad also has months and months of back-read. So now my rule is that I have to turn every single page of the newspaper, and just read what I want.

#5: American Nations by Colin Woodard -- (Jan 25)

why now: I begin each year aspiring to read more about American history, then fizzle out. I don’t necessarily expect this year to be different, but while organizing books in December I happened upon this one, acquired on the basis of several positive reviews on LT, and it seemed the perfect start.

This book is a schematic overview of US history from European colonization to the present. It is well organized, with few but sufficient maps. (Though it would benefit from a summarizing timeline.) It begins with the founding of each “nation” or cultural region in chronological order, continues through the expansion west, ends with current politics of Blue and Red and Purple. The sections about founding and expansion are strongest, with one chapter per nation. The sections about wars are sparse on facts, focused on representative positions of the various factions. The thesis is history as animosities, coalitions, compromises, between the nations. The style is not page-turner narrative, but is comfortably readable.

Two books cited as influential are The Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau (which I read some 25-30 years ago) about corresponding nations in the present, and Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer (which I own but haven’t read because of its daunting size) about four cultural strands corresponding to four nations.

#6: January magazines (count as 1 book) -- (Jan 27)
Highlights here.

I like your idea of counting magazines - I've wondered about that since there are several I regularly read - Will see if I manage to carry through.

182: Inspired by sibyx and The New Yorker & Unread Magazines Support Group. I've counted them differently each year.

179: However, my dad also has months and months of back-read.
I'd think the point of reading the entire newspaper would be to keep up with current events; once you've fallen behind, may as well just read the most recent article, find out who won the war, skip the battle-by-battle account.

I agree with that! Of course, I barely look at newspapers any more.

My Mom is a newspaper stockpile reader. She hold on to the papers until she gets around to reading them so its not unusual to see her sit down to read last week's paper. My folks do watch the evening news every night so that is probably how she stays current. She does love to read the editorials and Lifestyle sections which don't become old news as quickly as the local and world event news can, but it is still amusing to know that I cannot clean up the reading room because she hasn't made it through a stack of papers yet. ;-)

I love that you read plenty of good magazines Katherine. I also like to read (skim at least) several a month.

Thanks for the Seeger obit. I have been listening to a lot of his stuff the last few days. Great man.

#7: Spider Woman's Daughter by Anne Hillerman -- (Jan 28)

why now: I happened upon this in the new books section of the library. I’ve read most? all? of the series by Tony Hillerman over the decades, was curious to see how his daughter continued on, and figured, accurately, that it’d be light enough to read on the side while tying up loose ends with other books and magazines for the month.

Tony Hillerman focused on Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Anne Hillerman switches to Bernadette Manuelito, sensibly taking ownership of a relatively recent female character rather than trying to occupy established territory. The result is not great literature; it’s a procedural step by step, with too many awkward coincidences and sudden over-the-top drama at the end. Still, the continuing characters are comfortable and decent, and the description of place, with a plot built around a Santa Fe museum and a collection of artifacts, is strong enough to compensate for flaws.

I was a worried this would be like the Dick Francis - Felix Francis transition, with a drastic drop in quality, but it’s not. It’s a completely respectable effort with room to grow, and I’ll look forward to more.

It’s a completely respectable effort with room to grow

I think that's a nice thing for a debut author

How cool is that! I had no idea about the Anne Hillerman. Onto the WL it goes! Luckily the spousal unit loves mysteries and love the Tony Hillerman's and his birthday is coming up! Lucky me!

So Anne Hillerman is writing the same characters and universe but from a different focus? That's a good idea for continuing a series. I really dislike continuations as a whole, and the Dick Francis one is a prime example, but this sounds promising.

191: Yes.

I think it's nice that the continuation is staying in the family. And it really is smart of her to change the focus to the newer character.

Sigh. I guess we needed a fresh surface over the aging grunge.

Aagh. I wanted to finish my review of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek today, but it's not going to happen. So, I'll post a review out of order...

#9: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Feb 3)

why now: Browsing familiar authors in the public library, I picked up this up and read the cover blurb, and was interested enough to hang onto it. It’s set mostly in Tucson in the 1980s, and by coincidence I lived there briefly around the same time.

Marietta grows up in rural Kentucky, and her prospects are dim; half the girls in high school drop out pregnant, and a man with a stable job is a prize catch. When her science teacher offers to recommend a student for a job at the county hospital, she steps up and it becomes her route out. Several years later, money saved, she buys a car and heads west with a plan: (1) She’ll change her name where the car runs out of gas; this happens in Taylorville and she becomes Taylor. (2) She’ll stop where the car breaks down; this happens at the edge of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Taylor is 1/8 Cherokee, and has had fantasies of claiming head rights, but the reality is too bleak to be the rest of her life. Instead of staying, she gets the car repaired. As she is about to leave, a Cherokee woman places a swaddled child in the car, conveys that the mother is dead and the child is undocumented, and exits the scene. It’s night, and the landscape is empty. When Taylor reaches a motel, she unwraps the blanket, and sees a girl with evidence of molestation. By the time Taylor reaches Tucson, she is completely attached and has nicknamed the child Turtle.

In Tucson, Taylor meets Mattie through a flat tire, and Lou Ann through a newspaper ad. Mattie is the widowed proprietor of Jesus Is Lord Used Tires, and needs an employee; she is also committed to a shelter above the garage for Guatemalan refugees, notably Estevan and Esperanza. Lou Ann is the recently separated mother of an infant son, and needs a housemate; she is another transplant from Kentucky and the bond is immediate: “You talk just like me.” Mutual support abounds, and it’s a strength of the novel, perhaps idealized but with an aura of authenticity.

Taylor presents Turtle as her foster child. A doctor takes x-rays and discovers bone fractures. Turtle is older than assumed, nearly 3, small and mute with a diagnosed “failure to thrive”. Gradually, in the nurturing group of women, Turtle begins to thrive; she fixates on Mattie’s garden, where seeds put in the ground grow into colorful shapes, and utters a word: “bean”, which rapidly proliferates into a botanical dictionary. Then an incident brings in a social worker, questions are raised, and Taylor may lose Turtle if the adoption is not made official.

This was Barbara Kingsolver’s debut novel, and its kinship with later novels is apparent: rural Kentucky meets the big wide world, with ecological glimmerings. As with Flight Behavior and Prodigal Summer, I cared about the people. So I temporarily set aside my queasiness about the plot device of a child conveniently acquired without strings, orphaned, voluntarily transferred, unambiguously damaged in the past and healing in the present, rationalized by an ancestral connection. And yet... in real life, there’d be strings aplenty. And compounding my queasiness, the resolution involves a deception that could be endangering but is portrayed as cathartic. Still, I’ll probably read the sequel, because, well, I do care about the people, and I gather it is in part a response to criticism or further consideration.

The Bean Trees may be my favorite Kingsolver. Some of the early scenes at the tire shop are priceless. Great review.

Splendid review, Q - you brought the book vividly back into my mind.

I read Kingsolver's Holding the Line a couple of years ago, and vaguely decided to work my way through her oeuvre. I haven't yet followed up on that decision, but your review reminds me that I really ought to.

Anxiously awaiting your thoughts on Tinker Creek.

I've read the sequel to The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, but I didn't realise it was a sequel until more than half way through, although I did think there was a surprising amount of back history. I've been meaning to read The Bean Trees ever since.

#11: Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold -- (Feb 10)
(group read)

why now: Been on my mind for awhile to give this series a try sometime, and there's a group read this year.

I read the entire thing, but this appears to be a not-for-me sort of book. The brief moments of conversation between Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkosigan weren’t worth the excruciating slog through spaceships and battles and politics. I was thoroughly confused, but didn’t care enough to page back and figure out what was happening. Midway through the book, I read Wikipedia for the gist. It was not inspiring. I finished while watching the Olympics so I could move on. Many people on LT whose opinions I respect think highly of this series. What am I missing? Perhaps there’s a profound psychological explanation, but I’ll just accept it as a matter of taste. Last year I bailed on C. J. Cherryh after 100 pages. Seems the category to be avoided is “space opera”. It makes me viscerally miserable, and life’s too short with too many entertaining, educational, enlightening alternatives to suffer through this one.

199: Holding the Line would interest me. BB. Tinker Creek may be several days; the day job interferes.
200: I had issues with The Bean Trees, but I got Pigs in Heaven from the library in between writing and posting my review. It's competing with a couple other options though...

the idea of free library is nice.

203: The neighbors seem happy with it.

Too bad about the Bujold. Hope your next is better.

"space opera" doesn't sound my cuppa either. Not sure if I've ever read any, but it seems like I would know if I had!

#201 Well, not all books are meant for everyone. There is another group read we share, The Great Influenza, hope you will have a better time with that.

207: Yes, that one is informative.

I liked The Great Influenza and learned a lot. Although I read it years ago, I think of it often because of its similarities to H1N1.

Bleh. Pigs in Heaven is written in present tense. An intrusive affectation. Also odd because The Bean Trees was not. I want to know what happens though, so I'll keep going...

Same here. I read it because it was the sequel.

I am sort of sad that sp/op doesn't work for you, but happily there is SO MUCH sf out there, so many layers and layers of it, there is plenty more to share.

212: Yeah, me too, in part because conversation on LT is so much easier when tastes overlap. On the plus side, I can set aside swaths of series, and make room for other things. It's not as though I'm lacking in books to read.

#8: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard -- (Feb 2)
(group read)

why now: On the basis of a few recent LT mentions, I tossed this into an online order. No guarantee I’d’ve gotten around to it this year, but by coincidence a couple weeks later, I noticed the group read thread.

I’d advise reading the afterward before; there’s no plot to spoil, and the brief summary of why and how is a helpful scaffold. This is not a book of independent essays, but it didn’t read to me as a unified whole either. Annie Dillard describes it as a “theodicy”, split into via positiva and via negativa. Also it progresses through the calendar year. It entwines acute observations of nature with gleanings from scientific reading and cosmic consciousness with a dose of naval gazing. And somehow Eskimos got in there. The result is not entirely coherent, IMO, but then I don’t place a high value on “lyrical” (a frequent adjective of praise) unless it is about something, and lyrical morphs into flamboyant a bit too often for my taste. It is about something sometimes though (and the other times may be my failure to perceive), when she sticks to the task at hand for several paragraphs straight, and then the lyrical writing is impressive and inspirational, especially so since she was a mere 27 years old at the time.

And after writing the paragraph above, I revisited passages that stood out for others in a group read, and saw depth and complexity that I had passed by. I was, I think, expecting a different sort of book, and didn’t fully make the mental adjustment while I was reading. Maybe this is a book best read slowly with pauses.

She begins with an introductory “I am an explorer” and a chapter on seeing, heavily reliant on Marius von Senden (Space and Sight), about the formerly blind making sense of color patches. Anecdotes are extracted from (among others) R. R. Askew, Jean-Henri Fabre, Edwin Way Teal (The Strange Lives of Familiar Insects), Rutherford Platt (The Great American Forest). I note these authors because I (or you) may want to read the originals.

She observes muskrats, starlings, snakes, frogs, fish, praying mantises, caddisflies, caterpillars, sycamores... learning what to look for and how to watch undetected, fascinated by critterly behavior on its own merits, and for what it may say about a “creator”. Whether this is metaphor or abstraction or religion is not clear (and I can’t draw precise borders around the words anyway). It is language that I, an apatheist, was comfortable enough with, as an effort to get at an ineffable essence beyond nuts-and-bolts nature, but it infuses the text; this is not the sort of treatise that gets an index. Nature is “intricate”, “extravagant”, “exuberant”, “profligate”, “fecund”; decidedly not efficient. If you want science, if you want to know that a caterpillar’s head has 28 muscles, that a locust is not simply a type of grasshopper but rather a form that occurs under crowded conditions, that the molecules of chlorophyll and hemoglobin differ only by one atom at the center, grab the fact as it flits by because you may not find it again.

>214 qebo: Nature is “intricate”, “extravagant”, “exuberant”, “profligate”, “fecund”; decidedly not efficient.

It would be interesting to see how Dillard's perspective on what it means to be "efficient" in nature -- what in fact it means to be "an individual" in nature -- would change in the wake of Richard Dawkins' suggestion that it is not about the individual, it's all about the gene.

Thumbs up on your review of POTC, Katherine.

216: Thanks!
215: I'll reply (when I get my thoughts together, which can be awhile) over on the group read thread where you reposted... Thought at the moment I should be dealing with house tasks and errands.

Yeah I remember being totally blown away by the closeness of hemoglobin and chlorophyll.....

We have muskrats as you know and they are not very shy - Dillard stresses how shy they are, I remember. Many other nature writers don't find that to be so.

One thing I love about Dillard is that she is a writer who causes you to seek out other writers....an marvelous chain of association.

I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek near the end of last year and loved it, largely for the lyricism you mention as teetering toward flamboyant.

I too was not able to determine whether her "creator" was entity or metaphor, but appreciated the ambiguity since my own feelings on the subject straddle the fence. (When pressed to decide, I tend to fall with the atheists.)

If you want science, ... grab the fact as it flits by because you may not find it again.

Agreed, the science is there but it's not really *about* science. I had expected something different too, but I love what Dillard did. I contrast her approach with Walt Whitman's. Goodness me I love dear old Uncle Walt but he really missed the boat with "When I heard the learn'd astronomer" and elsewhere, setting up a conflict between poetry and science. To him books and lectures and investigation were tiresome and sickening-- for me they're sources of continued wonder, a sentiment which Dillard expresses wonderfully.

219: http://zenpencils.com/comic/137-richard-feynman-the-beauty-of-a-flower/

There's mumbling on the group read thread about reading An American Childhood.

Mr. Whitman notwithstanding, it's been my experience that the supposed dichotomy between art and science is most visible to people who are neither artists nor scientists.

#13: Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Feb 20)

why now: It’s the sequel to The Bean Trees, which I read a few weeks ago. My memory’s not so great, so it’s best not to wait long.

Warning: Spoilers for The Bean Trees.

As I noted in my review of The Bean Trees, I was bothered by the plot device of the Cherokee child conveniently acquired without strings, and an adoption made legal by a deception that coopted other people. The sequel aims to fix this situation.

On a trip to the Hoover Dam, Turtle watches a man drop into a spillway and wonders how he’ll get out. Taylor didn’t see, but trusts that her daughter doesn’t make stuff up, so she pesters officials until someone pays attention and the man is rescued. Turtle becomes a local celebrity and is invited onto Oprah, where she is noticed by Annawake, a lawyer for the Cherokee Nation. Annawake checks out the adoption story and discovers a glaring discrepancy: Taylor said on TV that Turtle was given to her by the sister of the dead mother, but the official adoption papers are signed by a couple claiming to be the birth parents. Either way is a violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act, which stipulates that the decision belongs to the tribe.

Annawake drops in on Taylor in Tucson. Taylor panics and sets off with Turtle, keeping in touch with boyfriend Jax. Taylor’s mother Alice in Kentucky leaves her uncommunicative husband and joins Taylor and Turtle on the road. Annawake sends a letter explaining the law and the problems it is meant to remedy, which Jax opens and reads over the phone. Alice is sympathetic and figures she can visit cousin Sugar who married a Cherokee, and with whom she shares a Cherokee grandmother, to see what’s what. Cash, retreated from his Cherokee origins to Wyoming for a few years after family deaths and estrangements, is prompted by a disillusioning incident to return home and maybe find what happened to his granddaughter. So now Taylor is on the lam with Turtle realizing the perils of being alone, Alice is a welcome guest realizing the comforts of an extended family, and Annawake is trying to balance law and people. This is all a bit spoilerish, but the relevance of the strands is obvious early on. The essence of the novel is abundant humanity with a neatly wrapped package at the end.

So it’s a novel, and coincidental resolution is satisfying, but the loose ends are irritating. Where are Estevan and Esperanza, dramatically crucial to the adoption? They rate a sentence. Turtle was abused and that’s just kinda let go. It’s individual versus community, with colorful characters and a subplot of lactose intolerance. Oh, and also it’s told in present tense, so every time I picked up the book I was simultaneously looking forward to the story and bracing to readjust to the style.

I loved The Bean Trees when I read it last year, but had all the same questions you did. I'm definitely going to have to read this one. Great reviews of both.

To me, it seemed messy, kind of like life.

I was twenty years younger when I read The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven and more easily accepted Kingsolver's style and purposes. I quite enjoyed the books then but I wonder how I would view them now? I'm tempted to reread one or both although I'm not much of a rereader.

>225 brenzi:: I was thinking the same thing, Bonnie. I went through a Kingsolver phase after reading The Poisonwood Bible (shocked to realize just now that while it wasn't quite 20 years ago, it was close ... yikes). Anyway, my reaction was generally "I love this author! Next book please!" and I didn't really stop to reflect on style, purpose, preachiness, whatever. When I read reviews now of books like The Bean Trees, it's obvious they didn't "stick" with me which might be an indicator of a less-solid read.

225,226: I enjoy the people, the dialogue, the warmth. These two struck me as too sentimental. I prefer the recent environmental theme because I learn stuff.

I'm with you Q - I think despite failings, she does some things so well, i just overlook the stuff I don't care for.

Yes, loose-endy - that's an interesting question in terms of what responsibilities a writer does and doesn't have. I tend to want something, continuity, indication that the author hasn't simply lost control of his or her cast. I particularly hate pets that are introduced and then dropped later on as action etc. picks up. I consider that a major literary no no. Along with killing off an animal instead of a person, when the story seems to require a sacrifice of some kind..... but that's my pet peeve, so I'm trying to put duct-tape over my mouth - no - fingers right now!

Yeah, there are real life loose ends, where you really don’t know what happened to people who once mattered, and you really do let serious things go in order to move on. I want some indication that the author recognizes the concerns of the reader. Don't make me care then decide later it was a temporary plot device that doesn't belong in the story you want to tell.

The Little Free Library had been quiet for two weeks, I'd check every so often but it was stuffed full; I guess anyone who ventured out just wanted to get back in, not pause to browse. Then suddenly we've had a weekend of decent weather, and a dozen books went poof. Several days ago when I was out clearing off the sidewalk, a neighbor mentioned a LFL in a downtown park. I'll take a walk there soon, with a camera. Today a man knocked on my door to ask about my LFL because he wants to set one up.

When I was reading your first sentence, I was thinking the weather would be the reason! Glad to hear about the uptake in business AND the weekend of good weather.

Love how you have seen surges of activity for your Little Free Library! I am a fair weather person that stays focused on the task at hand and no dilly-dallying when the weather is adverse. Give me sunshine or even calmer weather and I become a browser/ window shopper. ;-)

I had no takers from my LFL this weekend.

*feels sad*

For what it's worth, our "regular" library has had wide swings in activity (and lack thereof) this winter.

Another two days, another dozen books gone from the LFL. Yikes. Various promised donations have not arrived.

#10: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde -- (Feb 4)
One LibraryThing, One Book

why now: One LibraryThing, One Book for February.

I read this for OLTOB, then didn’t participate in the discussion (such as it was) because I’m way out of my element. I suggested that along-the-way non-spoiler guidance would be helpful for classics. The most readily available version is not the original manuscript; it was submitted to a magazine whose editors censored without consulting OW, then expanded and further toned down by OW. I didn’t know this until I’d finished. The result is both cryptic and wordy. I’ve since acquired the original and annotated version, but I’m not in a mood to read it. I already knew the gist of the story, so no surprises, more immersion in a style that isn't much to my taste. I'm thinking though that a biography of Oscar Wilde might be in order.

Can you get your neighbors who are taking your books to also leave some books? I regularly get people leaving books in my LFL. I think I'm breaking even with those taken and those donated!

237: People have been donating books, just not at nearly the rate they're taken. Occasionally a book gets returned, but not many. Maybe I'll put a sign on the door of the LFL.

I think that might inspire visitors to be more generous in their donations.

Minor surgery yesterday, because my ears have been messed up since illness a year ago. Not a big deal, expectation is a few days of discomfort, but it has left me more inclined to read Pride and Prejudice than The Great Influenza, so I won't finish the month quite as planned.

#14: February magazines (count as 1 book) -- (Feb 25)
Highlights here.

Oh, you're way ahead of me, magazine-wise! Hope the surgery was successful and that you feel better sooner than you expect.

Catching up on your thread. Enjoyed catching up on what you've been reading. Your thread reminded me that I have a Kingsolver book I want to read in the next few months.

So sorry to hear about your surgery, but I hope you heal up very soon.

Take care of yourself! The books will be there when you feel better - and I hope that's soon.

Interesting. Did you have the tubes inserted? My daughter has flat Eustachian tubes and had many ear infections as a child. Painful. Hopefully you will be feeling (and hearing?) better soon.

I do hope you get back to The Great Influenza at some point. I thought it quite interesting. P&P is a comfort for me too.

Sorry to hear about the ear problems Katherine. Hope you're feeling better soon.

Hope you feel better soon, oh ears, awful. Hope they haven't been hurting hugely.

The annotated Dorian Gray would be a worthwhile read, I've only read the standard version.

>240 qebo:: it has left me more inclined to read Pride and Prejudice than The Great Influenza,
Go figure! A comfort read sounds like just the ticket. I hope your discomfort is minor and brief.

>246 labfs39:: Did you have the tubes inserted?
Yeah. Eustachian tubes haven't been operating properly since attack by an upper respiratory virus last year. Hearing is fine, but they get clogged; not painful, but chronically uncomfortable. ENT says this is not uncommon in middle age. Super. A deterioration I hadn't anticipated; what more is in store? Ventilation tubes fall out after 6-12 months. I would've been more hesitant if this were permanent. It's an experiment; may do nothing, may merely offer temporary relief, may help eustachian tubes heal on their own.

Is your daughter's problem expected to resolve as she gets older? I've read this surgery is done for kids who get frequent ear infections because their eustachian tubes aren't fully developed.

I'm actually almost through The Great Influenza, about 60 pages to go. Just don't want to rush to stuff it into this thread today. Tomorrow, new month, new thread.

Thanks for well wishes everyone! I'm essentially fine; this is mostly a nuisance.

Ooh, the new number system is in effect!

They were getting a bit punchy after midnight. Let's see what settles today.

I'm going to LOVE the new numbering system. No more typing each person's name in bold when I reply. Thanks for pointing it out!

Pride and Prejudice is a great comfort read! Good luck with the ears...

I have had some eustachian tube disorder myself, but no one ever suggested anything more than grin and bear it. It seems a bit better now, so maybe that worked.

253: no one ever suggested anything more than grin and bear it
Yeah, everyone else told me it'd go away, but it hasn't, and this ENT (friend of a friend of the family so I'm inclined to trust his judgement) thought the surgery was worth a shot. If it doesn't work, well, I'm back to grin and bear it mode myself.

>240 qebo: Hi Katherine, seeing you over at the Talk about LibraryThing thread reminded me that I've been meaning to get over here and catch up with you. Will have to visit the thread again to see what I've missed, but wanted to say I hope you get all better soon. I was in the same space of needing comfort reading this month, partly due to a migraine that's going on 17 weeks now. A tutored read completed this month of Pride and Prejudice has turned me, the unlikeliest of candidates, into an Austenite. My teenage self is cackling at the notion like a fiend!

Here's the link to the tutorial in case you're curious: http://www.librarything.com/topic/163892

Also, when nothing was agreeing with me in my reading choices last week, Liz, Heather and Joe recommended I try Love and Freindship. I read that one and Lady Susan, both short and sweet and both hit the spot as far as comfort reading. My reviews: http://www.librarything.com/topic/168638#4561518

>255 Smiler69:: I actually have that tutored read up in another tab while I'm reading P&P. It has been extremely helpful. You have many of the same questions I might, and also questions that I hadn't thought of, and reading the comments helps solidify things in my mind. I've read P&P before, decades ago, and others by Jane Austen, but never the two you mention. I've been over to your thread fairly recently, but I see that I have once again fallen behind.

Let's see if this number referencing thingy stabilizes... Aaagh, now I get double colons because I'm in the habit of adding one.

>256 qebo: Aaagh, now I get double colons because I'm in the habit of adding one.

LOL! Things are going to be messy for a while since they're making changes as we write this. Glad you're getting something out of my tutorial. As I said on that thread, I try to keep in mind that others will be using the thread and sometimes ask questions I think someone else might like to know something about. If that sentence makes any sense. eta: Not to mention how great Liz is. She seems to know everything!

I HATED P&P when I first read it (as I also mentioned during the tutorial), so I've really come a long way.

There's a lot of angsty stuff I post on my thread. Please don't feel like you need to keep up with all of that.

>257 Smiler69: I didn't hate P&P, but I didn't get why it mattered.

AAAAAAGH. I have been stressing to my boss for nearly a month that he needs to clarify his priorities and get his computer set up and step through the demo and make sure that all is well in ample time before he leaves for a conference on Sunday. When does he realize that it doesn't work properly on the laptop? At 6pm on Friday.

>258 qebo: I didn't hate P&P, but I didn't get why it mattered.

I've always thought that men shouldn't be allowed out into the real world until after they've read all of Jane Austen.

>250 qebo: I had no idea that Eustachian tube dysfunction was common in middle age, or that BMT (bilateral myringotomy (perforation of the tympanic membrane, or ear drum) and tympanostomy (placement of tubes in the tympanic membrane)) surgery was not uncommon in adults, Katherine. I hope that this procedure proves helpful to you.

>261 kidzdoc: You've been hanging out with kids. :-) It's "common" from the perspective of an ENT, who sees a biased subset of the population.

>262 qebo: You've been hanging out with kids.

Well, yeah. :-) And, my knowledge of adult medicine has been in decline since 1997.

It's a good thing I've never been particularly adult - if I need a doc, Darryl can take care of me! :)

>260 southernbooklady: I've always thought that men shouldn't be allowed out into the real world until after they've read all of Jane Austen.

Heh. There's probably a hashtag meme in this...

>255 Smiler69:

A tutored read completed this month of Pride and Prejudice has turned me, the unlikeliest of candidates, into an Austenite.

Ha! After refusing to read Jane Austen novels all of my life (I thought they'd be too "stuffy"), Liz (lyzard) got me into reading two of them as tutored reads! She first lured me into reading Emma and just played along with all of my cynical remarks. It was in Northanger Abbey that I got lured away into the "horrid novels" (Gothic novels) on which we've been concentrating as of late. I find them more fun to read than the Jane Austen novels, but the Austen novels were a nice "lure" to get me into reading older literature. I've pretty much stuck to contemporary literature in the past.

I wanted to join you with the Pride and Prejudice tutored read, so I "mooched" the book. However it was not sent to me before the tutored read was completed so I canceled my mooch. :(

>257 Smiler69:

Not to mention how great Liz is. She seems to know everything!

Agreed!

>257 Smiler69:, >266 SqueakyChu: Not to mention how great Liz is.
Thirded! And I'm merely following along after the fact.

#12: A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan -- (Feb 17)

why now: In January I was visiting friends whose daughter is obsessed with dragons - researching dragons, drawing dragons, writing dragon stories, programming a dragon game; a multi-talented girl fixated on a single theme. I hadn’t thought to be interested in dragons, but she got me to see the appeal. Shortly afterward, I saw norabelle414’s enthusiastic review of the sequel.

Well this was fun. In the imaginary country of Scirland, resembling Victorian England, Isabelle Hendemore, the only daughter among several sons, is expected to be a lady, but what she cares about is dragons. With limited options, she collects sparklings (once thought to be a species of insect but now known to be a miniature dragon, so named because they “spat infinitesimal sparks”), and sneaks books such as A Natural History of Dragons from her father’s library. When a dead sparkling disintegrates, the cook presents one preserved as a knickknack. How? “‘Vinegar,’ she said, and that one word set me upon the path that led to where I stand today.”

The book is written in the style of a memoir, an old woman reflecting on childhood, marriage, and behind-the-scenes events of famous expeditions. Its appeal is her voice: stoically accepting, humorously acerbic, parenthetically advising. Constrained to ladylike activities, she learns to draw. ”The truth is, I have no talent, and never did. ... But drawing was a suitable accomplishment for a young lady – one of the few I enjoyed – and I am nothing if not stubborn.” With the collusion of a sympathetic father and brother she meets Jacob Camherst. ”The general theory for young ladies at the time was that curiosity was considered more attractive to young men than knowledge.” but he is not put off by her quite unladylike outburst of information, and later teases that she wants to marry him for his library. Introduced to naturalist Maxwell Oscott at an otherwise tedious social event, she hears that he is planning a research expedition to Vystrana to study rock-wyrms. ”I like to believe the expression I presented to Lord Hilford was one of polite interest, rather than the quivering excitement I held within. ... I cultivated that connection with every wile I possessed, for I had awoken the morning after Renwick’s utterly possessed by a single notion: that Jacob should join the expedition.” Successful in this effort, she convinces both men that her skills as secretary and illustrator are essential. And thus begins the first of what hint to be many adventures. Isabelle Camherst was at the time a naïve 19 years of age, ignorant of other cultures. In hindsight, she cautions readers of her previously published travelogues. ”I beg you not to pay any attention to what I said there concerning the village, or indeed the Vystrani people as a whole. The words I wrote then heartily embarrass me now. I was attempting, against my inclination, to conform to the expectations of travel writing, as practiced by young ladies at the time.” Here is the real story.

I suppose this to be YA; one review says grade 7 up. I’m well beyond, but found the book highly entertaining.

And thus concludes February. Commentary: (1) I’ve done miserably with the ROOTs this month; it was mostly group reads and library books. I have one in progress and a few lined up for next month. (2) I’m not doing so well with the book purchases either, in the opposite direction. Excuse: retail therapy for winter. (3) Three-plus years after joining this group, I’ve begun posting reviews as I write them, rather than in chronological order by date read. This may seem obvious to you, but I’ve always kept them offline so as not to mix up the numbers.

My ROOTs program didn't go so well this month either..... I've gotten so swept up in fantasy reading and so on that I just ignored them all.... oh well.

Ditto I totally understand why you were hanging back with reviews and trying to keep things in order - I am still constantly changing how I do things here, hoping that I'm getting more organized and more sensible, not worse! But who knows!

Hope this tube op works.

Never started thread 2 so soon... this place gets busier and busier.