Oberon's 2015 Thread

My name is Erik and 2015 is my third year in the 75 Book Challenge. I managed to read 90 book in 2014 and I am hoping to meet or exceed that number in 2015.

I am a lawyer in Minneapolis Minnesota. I practice in the area of civil litigation and do a lot of trial and appellate work. In fact, this thread is going up kind of late because I spent the last two days in trial.

Besides what I do for a living, a big part of my life is taken up my kid's and their sports. We are a soccer family. The thread topper is my oldest child after her team won a tournament. She plays for our suburb's top team and they are extremely good. The tournament her team won was one where they played up a level (9 and 10 year olds playing against 11 year olds) and where they played the championship game with no substitutes and short a player for the entire game. My middle son plays soccer and basketball and I have coached one or both of their teams for the past several years. I expect this to continue for several more years as I also have a 2 year old who is spending a lot of his time on the sidelines of his sibling's soccer games. Soccer has become so all consuming that we named our new dog Pele, after the Brazilian soccer star and our New Year's celebration included a highly competitive FIFA 15 tournament on the XBox.

My library reflects my interests in history, travel and art. I read more non-fiction than fiction. There is a large amount of African art books in my library that I acquired from my grandparents. I have been adding to that segment of my library after I acquired a portion of their African art collection. I have also started collecting African art myself. My particular interest is West African terracottas. Anyone interested in how I ended up with such an odd hobby can find a bit of background here: http://wigginmemories.wordpress.com/. It is a series of recollections from my grandparents who spent much of their lives in the foreign service. My grandfather worked with Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug and dedicated his professional life to the Green Revolution. As you can see from my library, global food issues are an interest of mine and I am planning on diving into a couple of books on the topic early in the new year.

Travel is a big interest for me as well. This past year we went to Cozumel, Mexico and New York, New York. While we haven't finalized our plans for 2015 we are considering a trip to Jamaica for spring break. Other travel possibilities for the upcoming year include Canada (to watch the Women's World Cup) and Tanzania.

Thanks for visiting!

2014 Year in review:

My stated goal for last year's thread was to reduce my "to be read" pile from 86. My current "to be read" total stands at 104. So, pretty much a failure. At least it is a consistent record of failure as the previous year's thread started with a "to be read" pile of 73.

I also made an attempt in 2014 to track the books I read to my 2 year old son. I did ok at keeping track for most of 2014 but the wheels kind of fell off on my tracking in October. The books I did total up came in at 448. I feel pretty confident in a year end estimate of about 600, which is a fair bit higher than what I would have guessed.

On the reading front, I did fairly well with 90 completed books. This was bolstered significantly by a strong start last January. I also did fairly well on the thread front having reached a third thread before the the end of the year.

I did not attend as much theater in the 2014 as I would have liked. However, Tristan and Yseult was a highlight for me and I enjoyed it a lot.

My top five books read were as follows:

1. The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson
2. The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel
3. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
4. The Lost City of Z by David Grann
5. Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

I am currently reading The Porcelain Thief by Huan Hsu which I received through the Early Reviewer program. I am enjoying the book so far.

Books Read in 2015:

January

1. The Porcelain Thief by Huan Hsu
2. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
3. Siegfried Volume 2, The Valkyrie by Alex Alice
4. Empires of the Indus by Alice Albinia
5. Revolutionary Summer by Joseph Ellis (audiobook)
6. Usagi Yojimbo Volume 28: Red Scorpion by Stan Sakai

February

7. This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki
8. Future Perfect by Steven Johnson (audiobook)
9. There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe
10. Marathon by Boaz Yakin
11. Abe Sapien Volume 5 by Mike Mignola

March

12. The Future of the Past by Alexander Stille
13. Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
14. B.P.R.D. 1948 by Mike Mignola
15. Hellboy: Descent by Mike Mignola
16. A Terrible Glory by James Donovan (audiobook)
17. Vermeer by Norbert Schneider

Last year I added some of my favorite art work to my thread. I plan on continuing the tradition this year. This is Fall of Phaeton by Peter Paul Rubens. I was introduced to Rubens work in the Prado Museum in Madrid while in college and he has been one of my favorite artists ever since.

As I mentioned above, I have been starting to collect African art on my own. The majority of it resides at my office as my wife does not share my appreciation for the art form.

My reading plan for 2015:

1. The Porcelain Thief (in progress)
2. Empires of the Indus
3. There Was a Country

Beyond that I am not ready to make predictions. I would like to get to some books by William Dalrymple that are on my shelves. I have meaning to read Patrick French's book on India. I also have some Early Reviewer books that I need to get to.

Dear Erik,



Happy New Year from your friend in Kuala Lumpur

Thank you Paul. My children are making a valiant attempt at staying up until midnight so it might be a bit longer than I anticipated before the new thread is truly up and running but I promise it will get more interesting soon!

I am not much of a football fan so I usually don't pay much attention to the bowl games. However, for the first time in living memory the Minnesota Gopher football team is in a semi-decent bowl game, the Citrus Bowl.

So, here is to a good showing. Go Gophers!

>5 Oberon:

The majority of it resides at my office as my wife does not share my appreciation for the art form.

Haha! I'd rather see them on your thread than collect them myself.

Erik, I wish you and your family a wonderful 2015!

My daughter has completed all her law courses and is now studying for the Maryland bar which she'll take in February.

My 19-month-old grandson has become a basketball fiend. He asks his dad to bring him to our house since my husband got this HUGE plastic Fish-Price basketball net contraption thing for him which we lug upstairs and downstairs in our small house and in and out of our house (since I want to keep it clean).

Thanks for recommending The Monuments Men which I also read this past year. It was a fascinating read. I also liked The Anansi Boys well enough when I read it although I'm not that great a fan of fantasy. I am a Neil Gaiman fan, though! :)

Here's to a great reading year!

That is great news about the bar exam. I am sure she will pass. Not having to take another bar exam is part of the reason I stay in a Minnesota.

The basketball hoop sounds great. I could see doing something similar. A big part of my garage is filled with a massive soccer net.

Glad you liked the books. I always feel bad if someone else doesn't care for a book that I thought was great.

>6 Oberon: Empires of the Indus: 1st BB of the new year.

Welcome back!

Welcome back from me too!

Happy New Year, Erik! Love the Rubens up top.

I was just an occasional lurker last year so I wanted to start off the new year by posting "Hello and Happy New Year" greetings on your thread. I am looking forward to a wonderful year of following you threads.

Happy new year Erik!

Hi Erik, I like to pay return visits to newcomers to my thread, and I'm glad I did. All three of my older grandkids (6, 10, 12) play soccer in KC. What a great sport. I plan my visits around their sports and soccer is my favorite, especially when the weather is pleasant!

I'll check back with you occasionally to see what you are reading. Happy New Year!

Hi Erik! Love the African art!

>12 qebo: Welcome Katherine! The title and cover grabbed me. I hope to get a review soon.

>13 drneutron: Hi Jim. Thanks for all your work on the threads.

>14 scvlad: Steve welcome. Totally agree with you that Tintin and Asterix count as classics.

>15 scaifea: Welcome back Amber. Hope everyone is on the mend in your house.

>16 lkernagh: Welcome Lori. As a regular lurker of lots of threads, lurking is certainly welcome.

>17 ronincats: Hi Roni. Love your thread topper for 2015.

>18 The_Hibernator: Happy New Year to you too Rachel. Sadly we are both beset by cold. I was ok with our mild December so the drop in temps has left me shivering.

>19 Donna828: Welcome Donna. Your grand kids are pretty close to my kid's ages. I grew up playing hockey but I have been completely converted by soccer. Fantastic game.

>20 banjo123: Hi Rhonda. Welcome. I noticed you have a fair amount of book tagged with Nigeria. It has been an interest of mine for the past several years. I got Half of a Yellow Sun for Christmas this year.

>1 Oberon: to >5 Oberon: Hi Erik, found you and dropped a . I'm very impressed by your introduction. When I'm thinking of America than never in combination with soccer. I guess the main reason could be that we say football instead of soccer and football is something completely different at your place. My daughters never played soccer but we like to see games in the stadium as well on TV especially when there is a big tournament. My girls join the scouts and their house is neighbour to the FIFA.
I love your photos of the African craft. Thanks so much for sharing it.

Great photos of your daughter and your African art work, Erik!

Hi Erik - happy new year, and I'm dropping a star, your thread looks intriguing so far!

>23 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara. Certainly when I was growing up soccer was an after thought in America but I think that is changing radically now. The suburb I live in has been a high school football power house for a decade or more. However, there have been several articles about how fewer young kids are signing up do to fears over concussions. Meanwhile, attendance in youth soccer keeps going up year over year.

>24 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl!

>25 evilmoose: Welcome Megan! Wish my views were as scenic as yours.

Thought I would share these here since Librarything is populated by book art enthusiasts. I bought these really cool bookends (Turquoise Mountain, Afghanistan) because I thought they looked great and I wanted to support the charity. Finding enough shelf space to display them properly has been a bit of a challenge though.

>26 Oberon: Erik, good to hear that soccer moves on at your place. In my class 75% of the boys are in the local soccer club and during the breaks the whole class is playing soccer even the girls.
I love your bookends. It's great woodcraft. Do you know what kind of wood it is made?

>28 Ameise1: They are made out of walnut.

I don't have statistics to prove it but I suspect soccer in the U.S. is bigger for girls than boys right now. As a father, I take particular glee in watching my daughter scrimmage against the boys only to watch them underestimate her and end up getting flattened. A few more years and the boys will be bigger and stronger than her but at age 10 I have seen several of them get their comeuppance.

Good girl and thanks for the information.

Hi Erik! I am adding a star so I can follow your thread. You definitely read more non-fiction than I do, although I keep thinking I'm going to do a gentle NF challenge for myself along the lines of one NF work per month. Maybe for this year I'll start with half that. Ha. I did very much like Five Days at Memorial last year and I enjoyed the film version of The Monuments Men. I don't know how true the latter was to the book.

Wishing you good things in 2015!

>31 EBT1002: Welcome! Like most things, the book of Monument's Men is better than the movie. Which is not to say the movie is bad - I enjoyed it.

Erik, I wish you a fabulous weekend.

Great bookends! And Half A Yellow Sun is a great read. Sad topic, though.

Big day in our house. Our oldest turns 10 tomorrow. We had the family celebration today. (Note the soccer cupcake and the Germany soccer jersey she is wearing).

>33 Ameise1: You too Barbara!

>34 banjo123: I am expecting Half A Yellow Sun to be fairly tragic. I am planning on reading There Was a Country first but I grew up with stories of the Biafran war from my grandparents so I have a bit of context.

The Porcelain Thief by Huan Hsu.

The advance press for this book compares it to The Hare With Amber Eyes. While it does not rise to the heights of that book, The Porcelain Thief has a similar structure in it uses a family legacy to trace the history of the family through a turbulent period of history.

The Porcelain Thief starts with stories of the author's great-great-grandfather burying a fortune of priceless porcelain in the backyard of the family home before fleeing the Japaneses invading China. The author, an American of Chinese descent, decides to try and locate the porcelain. In the process, he traces the fate of his extended family as it fled the Second Sino-Japanese War. Shortly after the defeat of Japan, his family is embroiled in the civil between Kuomintang and the Communists. Some of the family flees with the Kuomintang to Taiwan while others stay in the mainland and endure the terror of the Cultural Revolution.

While the story of the turmoil of China, as told through Huan's family is fascinating, many of the best parts of the book are Huan's own interactions with modern China. As an American, Huan finds modern China dysfunctional, corrupt, and filthy. At the same time, he comes to admire some qualities of China as he finds himself reconnecting with family that were little more than distant relatives.

The search of the family porcelain is the heart of the story but The Porcelain Thief goes far beyond a personal treasure hunt. In the process, you get a personal view of a tumultuous time in Chinese history and a look at the way modern China operates. The journey is well worth it.

Happy Birthday to the lovely young gal!

>37 Oberon: I have yet to read The Hare with Amber Eyes, though it's been on the shelf for a couple of years and I keep meaning to (too many books...). The Porcelain Thief is a BB regardless.

>38 scaifea: Thanks Amber. I am starting to understand what people mean about time accelerating when you have kids. It certainly doesn't feel like a decade has gone be with her.

>39 qebo: I highly recommend The Hare with Amber Eyes. I really enjoyed it.

>40 Oberon: Yeah, I know, so do/did a bunch of other people. Alas, my reading pace is just barely 75 per year, 12 of those are magazine subscriptions, 12 of those are ERs, and I have 100s of books on my shelves that were once bright shiny new things but are now gathering dust...

I have 100s of books on my shelves that were once bright shiny new things but are now gathering dust

But they look beautiful and someday we will all have enough time to read and enjoy every one of them. At least that is what I tell my wife.

Happy Birthday to your lovely daughter. The cupcake looks gorgeous.

Dropping my star. Thanks so much for visiting my thread and for posting that link to the Fuller article. We share a love of soccer - my husband and I have four children, and they all played soccer, although the middle two played it longer than our bookends. They are 22, 20, 18, and 16 years of age. My husband coached their teams for years, and it was a very fun adventure! Your daughter is beautiful, and I wish her a belated Happy Birthday - her first decade!!

I have not read either the Hare With Amber Eyes or The Porcelain Thief, but I am adding them to the giant WL, so thanks for that.

*edited to fix the touchstone

Happy Birthday to your forever little girl. :)

I'm glad to see you enjoyed Anansi Boys. That is one Gaiman I have yet to read and I'm a big fan of his.

I've heard great things about The Hare with Amber Eyes as well. Just have to get to it at some point.

Happy New Beginnings, Oberon! I hope we have another fantastic year of reading and sharing thoughts on books!

Happy Birthday toy your lovely daughter!

ETA: I love your top books of the year. I was also a big fan of the Grann, Fink & Edsel!

Speaking of NF, I am currently listening to Blood and Thunder and it is terrific.

Glad to see that The Porcelain Thief was a hit with you -- it was an ER win for me and I'm eager to get to it. For me, stories of lost heirlooms in Europe during the 20th century are all too familiar (alas) and I'm very curious to see what a Chinese parallel might be, especially given the destruction of the Cultural Revolution.

If you're in a non-fiction mood, you'll want to keep your eyes open for Dead Wake when it comes out in early March -- the story of the Lusitania, by your namesake, Erik Larson. Excellent, fast-paced, fascinating.

Happy new year!

Confess I'd take the Rubens over the African art, but that's just me... I'd take a contemporary Japanese woodblock over either!

Here is one that a friend of mine, whose family are dealers and from whom I have bought over the decades, had on display over the holidays, that I loved:



or this one, by an artist whose work I've bought in the past.

>43 Ameise1: I wish I could take credit for the cupcakes but that is all my wife. She announced that she had do much fun making them that she wanted to consider quitting teaching to make cupcakes full time. I am assuming that this is just a reaction to having to go back to work after a long break for the holidays.

>44 Crazymamie: Four kids playing and your husband coaching - that counts as a soccer family. I would recommend The Hare With Amber Eyes over the Porcelain Thief as I definitely thought it was the better book.

>45 jolerie: Hi Valerie! Thanks for stopping by. I thought Anansi Boys was one of his best, up there with The Graveyard Book.

>46 msf59: Hi Mark and welcome. I will be looking for your review of Blood and Thunder. It looks interesting.

>48 Oberon: Oh, thanks for that. I'll track it down.

>47 Chatterbox: Suzanne. When I first read your post I was wondering if you were teasing me. Unless my eyes are failing me, your first image is a print by Ray Morimura. I know because this is hanging behind me:



Red Corridor by Ray Morimura.I was introduced to Morimura's work though the Tolman Gallery which was, in turn, an introduction from a friend who lived in Tokyo for 10 years and gave me some pointers when I visited a couple of years ago. We are in the process of discussing buying two more of his prints to decorate the waiting area of our office. My Pinterest page has almost all of his work pinned. Fair to say I am a big fan. Not that I will be giving up my African art any time soon.

I will confess that I do not recognize the second artist.

I will look for the Erik Larson book. I really enjoyed In the Garden of Beasts.

When you get around to the Porcelain Thief I will be interested in your reaction. In some ways, it seems like the Cultural Revolution was more destructive than what happened in Europe. The Cultural Revolution was more chaotic and set as one of its goals the deliberate destruction of history and records. As a result, the destruction was more complete. By contrast, the Nazis kept pretty meticulous records of what they did. To me, that regime seems less chaotic and more evil. The difference between first and second degree murder to use a bad analogy.

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

So I am not much of YA fan and really do not pay attention to the genre. That said, I have younger kids and I try hard to encourage their reading. This review is from that stand point.

The Red Pyramid is an Egyptian-themed version of Riordan's books about the Greek (and now Roman) gods. Having read The Lighting Thief and parts of several other books in the series, The Red Pyramid is pretty similar. If you despise Riordan and all he stands for (looking at you Amber) then you probably won't like this book much.

Personally, I kind of liked it. The book starts out with a confrontation at the British Museum that leaves the main characters (siblings Sadie and Carter) orphaned. Much of the book involves "scary" things happening to Sadie and Carter only for them to be rescued by various benefactors (Uncle Amos, that cat goddess Bast, the House of Life, etc.) at the last possible moment. Despite the chaos, Sadie and Carter never lose their sarcastic "real teenager" attitudes or their deep, but too cool to be expressed love for one another. I could see a lot of adult readers being put off by this but to my mind the author is demonstrating that he isn't aiming for that demographic.

As the siblings flee various dangers they come to learn that are special and imbued with their own magical abilities - basic Chosen One sort of stuff. In the process, Riordan lays out his own version of Egyptian mythology and conjures up various explanations for the magic. I suspect that actual scholars of Egyptology would be more able to pick out the fabrications and inaccuracies in the mythology. However, like the Percy Jackson/Lighting Thief books, the books are accurate enough to spark an interest in children. To me, this is the value of these books (above and beyond the value of simply reading for pleasure).

As an example, part of the book is set in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the premise being that various Egyptian artifacts retain magical powers). As such, my son was very interested by the Temple of Dendar as it featured prominently in the book. I think I would get a similar reaction if we were to go to the British Museum. Anything that makes places like the great museums of the world more accessible to kids is worthwhile in my opinion.

Lastly, I found the book fun for some of the quirky characters that Riordan throws in. For example, Sadie and Carter are introduced to Khufu - a baboon. Khufu is intelligent enough to follow orders and can communicate (in baboon barks and grunts) but also retains mannerisms of an actual, wild baboon. Plus, Khufu is a big fan of NBA basketball, wears a Lakers jersey and plays basketball when he is not socially grooming people. Finally, he has a strange eating habit where he will only eat a food that ends in an "O," Oreos, flamingos, Doritos, etc. Quirky and kind of fun.

The Red Pyramid is not something I would have picked up and read on my own. However, as a chance to read with kids you could do a lot worse than this book.

>50 Oberon: Omigod!!!
Yes, that's a Morimura! Alison Tolman is a friend of mine and so when I was whisking through Grand Central, I went to see what she had on display. We're planning a museum/gallery day in Boston in the spring...

I have been buying from Tolman since the early 1980s, when we lived in Tokyo. My mother has a lot more than I do, and her tastes are for more diverse (I recently gave her, as a multi-year Xmas and b-day present, a Shinoda print.) Two of my faves remain Karhu, the American who went to live and work in Kyoto after the Korean war -- I own two, but my (divorced) parents between them probably own another dozen) -- and Kuroda, who creates delightful images featuring figures on bicycles carrying umbrellas (I have tow of those). But Alison has persuaded me to buy a small Imamura and a Wako, a small print run that is a visual pun on the year 2000.

If you're going to be in NYC this year, let me know, and if Alison is around, I'll arrange for us to get together so you can see what is being made these days. She'll also know what Morimura is working on, so there might be the chance to pick up something new as it appears, if you're interested. She loves people who are seriously interested in this stuff... I know Morimura has been doing a series featuring temples -- more classic scenes (I was tempted by a Ginkakuji), but at Alison's stand she also had a lovely print with wisteria blossom that was almost terrifyingly classical.

This is one of the Karhu prints I own -- it was my 23rd b-day present to myself; it's got a dark green mat and a dark walnut stained wood frame, very simple, square and flat.

>57 Oberon: That is really neat that you know some of the Tolman family. I don't know that I am going to make it back to NYC this year but if I do I will let you know. It would be great to meet her.

I am envious of the Clifton Karhu. He was born in Duluth, Minnesota so I was familiar with his work. Walter Mondale (Jimmy Carter's VP) served as Ambassador to Japan for a number of years and collected Karhu while he was there. I looked into collecting some of his work before I found Morimura. Sadly, all the prices I saw for Karhu were out of my range. I have been tempted to buy Tolman's annual Karhu calendar on several occasions.

My current Morimura favorites (other than the one I own) are Kyoto scenes. I was enchanted by the city and his artwork really reminds me of my visit.




Not that I would turn down any of his artwork.

The second one is precisely the one I was eyeing!

I think I paid $220 for that Karhu? I know; horrifying, really. The second one I purchased in 2002 or 2003, I think? For $1,200. It's probably worth twice that now. They are scarce and artificially inflated right now because of a dispute over his estate -- wife/mistress situation.

I did buy two calendars from Allison. One is going to my mother; the other I may keep, just because.

I'd like to add one or two more Karhus, but really would like them to be works that I love, and they don't become available that often. And I'd prefer to buy from Allison. So I'll wait until the estate stuff is wound up and see what happens. Over the years I've met all the Tolmans -- first bought from Norman and Mary when I was in Tokyo, and used to venture off to their gallery on my days off from my first newspaper job at the Japan Times (wrote a story for them about foreign printmakers in Japan) -- except for Hilary, Allison's sister. I'm not sure whether she's still involved in the business? Allison & I are much of an age -- she's a few years older -- and we've helped each other move apartments, etc. in NY. I suppose there just aren't enough people with the weird-ish backgrounds that we have that while we aren't best friends, we make sure to stay in touch.

I didn't know that Mondale collected Karhu, but it explains why he's relatively well known here. I also have a soft spot for some of the prints made in the 1920s and 1930s, but Karhu really has taken shapes and colors and done something distinctive with them. (I also love that he was a latter day Lafcadio Hearn -- rambling around Kyoto in his yukata and his geta; this giant bearded gaijin!)

>51 Oberon: Yeah, yeah, I see you glaring at me. You can have your Riordan - I certainly don't want him! Ha! His books, if Charlie should ever show an interest in them (ohmercifulheavenspleaseno!), will put my No Censoring Charlie's Reading policy to the test, I'm afraid. I won't forbid them, of course, but I think I'll put a condition on them: he must read a book of my choosing on classical mythology first, so that that cotton-headed ninnymuggins doesn't screw up Charlie's mythological foundations...

What, me? Over-react?! Oh no, surely not...

>56 scaifea: It would amuse me to see Charlie grab Riordan's work and ask you to read with him. They are very popular at school here (at least right now). I think you would steer him clear of the shoals - I suspect there is more than enough proper mythology in your home to turn him into the pedantic kid who is telling his classmates all the things the books got wrong.

>55 Chatterbox: $220 for Karhu? Cry. I think when I inquired about a small depiction of a Japanese garden the asking price was $5600. It takes a bit more work for me to smuggle something like that past my wife. I did not know that there was an estate dispute. Very interesting.

The Tolman Gallery has come at least once to Minneapolis for a print show that is held at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts every year. Sadly, they haven't come the last two years so I don't know if they have given up on Minneapolis or not. Sigh. Now you are making we want to go back to New York. Or better yet, Tokyo.

I'll ask Allison if she plans to be in your 'hood. I know she'll mostly be on the West Coast in the next month or two, and then she's taking some time in Tokyo. And that Karhu WAS 30 years ago. Right now, the scarcity is artificially inflating prices; I think that in time, the market will even out. No one really knows what the values are/should be.

>59 Chatterbox: I wish I could say that I understand the art market sufficiently to profit from it. I don't so I buy the things that I like to look at. Sadly, no one seems interested in selling me any Rubens or Fra Angelico at reasonable price points.

>27 Oberon: Ha, a common problem for us 75ers! Who has room on their shelves for bookends? They are stuffed full of books!

Such interesting discussion on art, of which I am woefully ignorant, unfortunately.

Anansi Boys is my favorite Gaiman, other than his collaboration with Terry Pratchett on Good Omens-- good to see it made your top 5.

>61 ronincats: It does seem like many of us resort to piles of books on the floor rather than bookshelves and fancy bookends. Still, I aspire to the beautiful library you always see depicted in the architecture magazines. Those libraries never have tilting piles of books.

I have not read Good Omens, one of the few by Gaiman I haven't tried. I read some Terry Pratchett a long time ago and that it was fine but not fantastic. I think the collaboration idea was what turned me off. Maybe I should reconsider?

Also, sorry to hear about your ankle. At least you have books to keep you company.

I would never even TRY to invest in art. Actually, I think people who view art just as investments are deeply foolish. You need to be somewhat knowledgeable if you're going to spend more than a bit of $$ here and there, to understand what you are buying, but you need to be passionate about it. Otherwise, why bother? And I say this having written about the art market a fair amount. It's a bit silly. People who love their art understand what it's worth but its value to them isn't the monetary value. The price is the price, but the value?

Happily, don't really want to own a Fra Angelico, either. I'd love a Group of Seven painting. Just something that speaks to me. Probably the most pricey item I've deeply coveted is a waterlily painting by Monet.

I get the impression that investing in art also requires a lot of capital.

Good luck on getting your Group of Seven or Monet painting. I am pretty willing to bet those are as obtainable as my Fra Angelico.

As a Minnesotan I believe that I am entitled to complain about the weather. Putting aside the hassle of the schools closing due to wind chill, I have a more personal problem with the cold. Namely, that my beer fridge in the garage has gotten so cold that the beer is freezing in the refrigerator. As a result, I have had to haul it inside the house to keep it from freezing. Sadly, there is no room in our regular refrigerator for said beer. So, paradoxically, the current cold snap is keeping me from having a cold beer. Nature sucks sometimes.

>64 Oberon: The Group of Seven prices haven't been that obscene, although they too have made some big leaps in the last few years at last. Recent auctions have seen prices stay well below a million for oil paintings. I actually know people who own some, although not large, top quality paintings by folks like Tom Thomson. But you could find a sketch, a watercolor or even a lithograph for a few thousand dollars -- $10,000 or less.

Monet -- clearly never will happen! :-)

>65 Oberon: Now, that's irony for you.

Glad you tolerated The Red Pyramid with such aplomb. I haven't read that one, but I've read a few others of Riordan's - I didn't much like his style at first but it grew on me after a while. Some day I'll probably read The Red Pyramid...maybe. :)

Fortunately, my beer fridge is in our mud room, just off the family room, so stays warm enough. Whew!!

Hope you are surviving, Oberon!

I've only read the Percy Jackson series by Riordan and thought it was pretty good for a YA book, but it doesn't make me want to go out and grab the next book by him. Hopefully my boys will want to read it one day.... :)

>67 The_Hibernator: We started in on Throne of Fire tonight. He is kind of on a reading tear right now. It beats him playing FIFA 15 because he slaughters me in that.

>68 msf59: That seems more sensible. Sadly, we don't have a convenient out of the way location for the beer fridge so the garage is it. The weather is supposed to get somewhat warmer so hopefully I can restock the fridge soon.

>69 jolerie: Like I said, I wouldn't read them on my own but with my son - not that bad. I have a feeling you are in for several more years of picture books given the age of your boys. I can sympathize. We have been reading The Gruffalo a lot these days.

Wishing you a great weekend Erik.

Erik, I wish you a fabulous weekend.

I LOVE my beer cold but frozen sucks. LOL. I keep my pint glasses chilled in the freezer.

>71 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. Impressive thread collection as always.

>72 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara. Lovely woodpecker. We get those at the bird feeder here occasionally.

>73 msf59: Yeah frozen sucks. You have more room in your freezer too it sounds like if you keep glasses in there. In fact, it sounds like you professionalized a lot of your beer storage and consumption. A proper connoisseur.

Erik, we have a woodpecker in our garden. In winter I love to have breakfast and watching it. During the other seasons I can only hear it due to the leaves I can't see it.

I need to put out some suet for our woodpeckers. I just replaced our main feeder (thanks to the squirrels chewing up the old one) and it has been swarmed today. I counted six cardinals at one time.

>76 Oberon: I just entered my December counts in Project FeederWatch. I get a downy woodpecker on occasion, haven't seen any other type though I know they're nearby. I get two cardinals, male and female, but I almost never see them at the same time so by the rules I can count only one. They seem to have a system: one will appear briefly, then 15 minutes later the other.

>77 qebo: Interesting. My cardinals are pretty clearly three mated pairs.

My parents get pileated woodpeckers which I love but I have never seen one at our feeder.

Interestingly, a full grown bald eagle perched in a neighboring tree (amongst a number of ravens!) this afternoon. He flew away before we got the camera but it was fun to see.

I love the art discussion upthread, Erik. Morimura is a new artist for me. I love his work. How cool that you have one that you can enjoy on a daily basis. I do hope our cardinals come back. We got some bad seed from a local pet store. Strange how it looks like the black oil sunflower seed we normally buy, but the birds are shunning it. We just changed out the feeders today. I've only seen one bald eagle in my neighborhood and it's a memory I treasure!

Hi Donna and welcome! Interesting about the seed. I started buying a mix with sunflower seeds from the local Wild Bird store and the cardinals love it so I have never changed it. Eagles are magnificent birds to see in the wild. I remember them being rare as a child but they have certainly made a resurgence here.

Home sick. Using my time to lay on the coach and watch Spirited Away.

How great that you all can still feed the birds. I used to do it but feeding the birds is now discouraged around here (Baltimore County) because the dropped seeds attract rats. And the neighborhood is "up in arms" over the invasion.

We still get birds traveling through because of the trees and other landscaping. I don't see cardinals at this time of the year however. They'll be here in the spring and summer along with chickadees, nuthatches, juncos. Right now we have Robins and house sparrows. I haven't seen a blue jay in a long time. Occasionally someone reports seeing a hawk.

Wow, it must be amazing to see an eagle in real life, even from a great distance. The most exotic bird I see is a buzzard as there is a mating pair that live by the driveway I go down to reach the yard where I keep my horse. I regularly hear tawny owls at night, and recently saw a barn owl in the headlights of my horsebox when we were driving home from a competition late one night.

>76 Oberon:

Glad you're still birdwatching, Erik...despite the squirrels!

We really had a squirrel battleground here. Finally we defeated them by my husband affixing a sheet of plexiglass to the wooden window frame which the squirrels were mounting to get to the feeders.

This year, my husband and I saw five different species of woodpeckers (downy, hairy, northern flicker, red-bellied, yellow-bellied sapsucker). The yellow-bellied sapsucker on the maple tree next door was a first for me!

We occasionally have a pileated woodpecker in our neighborhood, but only my husband sees them. After he calls me to look, they're already gone. :(

I like to log my birds seen on geobirds.com where birder Jim McGregor often gives me good birding advice.

I've never seen six cardinals at once. :O

Oh dear, are you ill? If so, get well soon.

>82 catarina1: Rats? Now that is not something I would have associated with birdseed. Interesting that you have robins now. Ours have all left and likely won't be back till April. I grew up always looking for the first robin of spring. Spring is a long way off in Minnesota right now.

>83 lunacat: Bald eagles are pretty common in Minnesota, even in the metro area. They will winter along some of the rivers that tend to stay open.

I have heard owls around here at night but have not seen one. Supposedly we will get snowy owls down from Canada but I haven't seen one outside of a zoo.

>84 SqueakyChu: Actually I just replaced my feeder courtesy of the squirrels who chewed it up. We will see how this one lasts.

That is quite the collection of woodpeckers. We only get downy (or at least that is all I have recognized).

>85 Ameise1: I got some sort of 24 hour intestinal bug. Not fun. Unfortunately, my daughter caught it as well. I got a call at lunchtime that she had thrown up so she came home to lay on couch with me.

>89 Oberon: Sorry to hear that you're all under the weather. Get well soon.

Oh, dang. I'm sorry you and you daughter have caught The Bug. I hope you're both feeling better this morning!

Hi Erik! Sorry you are sick. I hope you are recovering. I LOVE eagles but I have to visit Wisconsin to see them.

>90 Ameise1:, >91 scaifea: >92 msf59: I am recovered, at least well enough to go to work today. So far my middle child is the only one who remains uninfected. Hopefully his luck holds.

So all this talk of bird watching made me realize that I didn't share my recent bizarre bird watching story.

A couple of months ago when we were out getting coffee, my middle son, Andrew, randomly tells us that he sees a peacock in the morning on his way to school. As this seemed very improbable we asked him a bunch of questions about it. His claim was that there was a peacock living in our suburb and that he saw it on the way to school regularly, that it was friends with local turkeys and that it had been trained to sit in the yard of this nearby house.

I, of course, did not believe him and told him I would pay him a dollar if there was a peacock (in hindsight I was very lucky not to have said $100). He was sufficiently insistent that we drove down the street where the bus goes and he pointed out a house with a bird feeder in the yard. I admit that I still had some doubts but his big sister confirmed that there was a peacock and that they often saw it while riding the bus. Because I am a skeptic, I took to driving down the street that the bus takes on the way to school. Sure enough, he wasn't making it up.



A peacock had taken up with a local flock of wild turkeys and made regular visits to the bird feeder in the yard of this house. While not trained like Andrew had claimed, I figured he was close enough. Andrew got his dollar from dad.

My copy of the Birds of North America doesn't have an entry for a Minnesota peacock but it does exist.

>94 Oberon: Cool!

>94 Oberon: Wow. That's neat!

Ha, that's great. You should see them in late spring when the males lose their feathers. You can pick them up from the floor.

Oh wow...I don't think I've ever heard of wild peacocks in the city before..ha! There's plenty at our zoo though....

I assume that this peacock was a pet (or was from a private zoo) and escaped. I think it is really funny that it decided to live with a flock of wild turkeys. I suppose it was the only group of similar sized birds around. I have some concerns about its ability to survive our winter but who knows.

We have a peacock that has moved in on the farm with the horses. He initially shacked up with two black swans but the swans have both been killed by a fox so he's on his own now. He has a deformed foot so is quite distinctive, and the farmer discovered the closest place he could have come from is at least 3 miles away, and we don't whether that is where he came from or not. He's fairly tame now, and eats from the pheasant feeders dotted round the farm (there are pheasant shoots here every other week during winter months).

There used to be a peacock that had escaped from a local zoo living on my grandfather's street. The people from the zoo came to try and catch him a couple of times but he wasn't having any of it, and of course all the locals would feed him in their back gardens. I assume he is long dead, but it was good fun trying to find his tail feathers up the street.

>100 lunacat: Now I feel sad for the swans!

This peacock seemed pretty skittish when I tried to photograph him so I think it might be hard to catch him. He probably learned from the turkeys which are pretty bright birds.

Wow! That is a great peacock story, Erik! you don't get those every day! I think you should pay Andrew a $100 bucks. LOL.

I liked your big bird story.

Here's my big bird story for the day:

I looked out the window one day last week and thought I saw a chicken in my yard! Actually, it turned out that it was a hawk. It flew upward, and we saw it catch a sparrow and carry that sparrow in its talons up to a tree branch. I never realized how big hawks were since I've only seen them high up in trees or on telephone wires. I was kind of disappointed that it wasn't a chicken, though. I had to go to the store that day for eggs. ;)

I hope that you and your daughter are feeling better today, Erik, and that no one else in your household contracts that infection.

I'm with Mark; I think Andrew deserves $100. That's a great story and photo!

Ha! Love the peacock story! Our former neighbors (where we lived in Ohio) had a bunch of peacocks and guineas and all sort of birds, which would frequently roam around in our large back yard. It was pretty cool, and the peacocks make the strangest noises, too...

Yup, it was sad for the swans. They'd done far better than some of the ducks that have lived on the lake having survived for quite a few years, but I guess they were getting old and not able to get away quickly enough.

Mr. Percy has the added bonus of roosting up trees so he's doing well so far.

Andrew was pretty happy with his dollar. Second graders are pretty easy to please.



My wife suggested that the true lesson was never to bet against your children.

Now imagine that face if he got the hundred dollars...haha! ;)

>108 jolerie: Yes but he would have blown all the money on Pokemon cards so he wouldn't be much better off!

>102 msf59: Apparently this is a common opinion Mark. I think the pride in proving dad wrong is sufficient. He certainly gloated about it enough!

>103 SqueakyChu: Madeline, do you know what kind of hawk. Neat to see it hunt like that.

>104 kidzdoc: Darryl, so far so good on the disease front. My daughter was well enough to insist that she needed to attend soccer practice.

>105 scaifea: I don't think I would keep a peacock as a bet. They are loud! We stayed at a resort several years ago that had peacocks and they were horribly loud.

>106 lunacat: I would think a swan would be a bit big for a fox but I guess not.

>110 Oberon: I identified it as a Cooper's Hawk. It's hard for me to identify hawk species, but I guessed it was a Cooper's hawk because it had thin vertical brown lines covering its breast and dark brown wings with slightly mottled white spots.

Proving my parents (or indeed any adults) wrong was exhilarating as a 7 year old, I think I would be glorying in my $1 too. I loved the peacock story though!

>111 SqueakyChu: Any chance it was a golden eagle? Those are much bigger.

>112 evilmoose:. I think the only thing that gives him more pleasure is beating dad at FIFA 15. He has come to make me regret buying him a Lionel Messi jersey for Christmas since he won't take it off and insists on dancing every time he makes Messi score on me. I have convinced myself that I was far more considerate and gracious when I was a kid.

>113 Oberon: No. It didn't look like a golden eagle at all. It looked exactly like picture #1 (juvenile Cooper's hawk) of this series. A Cooper's Hawk can be from 14 to 20 inches long. Birds always appear much bigger to me on the ground than they do in treetops. I admit that hawks can be hard to identify. I might be wrong, but I do know that this species is native to the area in which I live both in winter and in summer.

The trouble with foxes is that they are indiscriminate killers and don't often eat much, if any, of what they kill. Both swans were left with their heads removed but no other damage to them, so it clearly wasn't for food then and there.

Other friends have had flocks of chickens wiped out but with only one actually being taken as food, the others just killed and left.

I have no problems with predators killing prey as that's what they're designed to do, and it's the natural order of things, but it's a bit frustrating when it's seemingly unnecessary.

Andrew looks so cute and happy! Glad that your household is getting over the crud.

No joy in Mudville tonight. My daughter's soccer team is playing up a level (9 and 10 year old versus 11 and 12 year olds) and finally lost their first game in six months. We got to have the conversation about learning from your losses.

Actually, it was probably good for them. They were getting too cocky after steam-rolling too many teams.

>117 banjo123: Knock on wood we are past it. Of course everyone but Andrew should be immune by this point but I am still glad he didn't get sick.

Erik, I wish you a relaxed weekend.

>65 Oberon: That is priceless. It made both me and MrMorphy laugh.

As for the peacock, I think I heard about that. Was it in one of the western suburbs?

>121 Morphidae: This peacock was in the western suburbs.

At least things are warmed up enough so I can restore my beer to my fridge.

Stopping by and getting caught up. Sorry to read about the recent illness. Here is hoping that you and any affected family members are feeling better now.

Love the peacock story! There are a number of peacocks near where I work, due to proximity to Victoria's Beacon Hill Park (there are not fenced in there) so it is not unusual to turn a street corner and come face to face with one (that and deer) but I still have the "Oh, hello" reaction whenever I encounter them out and about. Not something one expects to encounter while walking down a city street, that is for sure. ;-)

We have a flock of wild turkeys near where I work - they can get nasty as geese with chasing people around. I'm sad we don't have a token peacock, though. :(

Happy weekend!

>123 lkernagh: There seem to be peacocks in lots of weird locations. Why would they import peacocks?

>124 The_Hibernator: Interesting. All the ones I have seen around here are skittish and run from people. There is a good sized flock by the Eden Prairie Home Depot but you can't get close to them.

Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River by Alice Albinia

Superb.

For this book, Albinia sets out to follow the Indus river backwards from the Arabian Sea to its source in Tibet. In doing so, Albinia uses her travel up the Indus as a narrative device to trace the history of the land and its people backwards in time. Like the river, much of the book is based in Pakistan. Written in the post-9/11 world, the book would stand well as a travelogue by a western woman, traveling alone, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. As such, it touches on the changes wrought by the rise of the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban and deals with the troubled state of modern Pakistan.

While this part is interesting, well done, and clearly took an incredible amount of personal courage, it is the way that Albinia overlays the modern with the multiple layers of history of the Indus and the surrounding land. Albinia discusses different periods of history as she moves up the Indus. She starts with the history of Partition and how Pakistan has evolved from the trauma of the division from India. From there she covers the evolution of Islam in what became Pakistan and how it conflicted with and evolved with Hinduism. She covers the rise and fall of empires, Sikhs, the journeys of Alexander the Great and finally back to paleolithic peoples.

Albinia also connects this history with the rituals, languages and artifacts that survive. Often times this means trekking to obscure villages to talk to tribal groups who maintain vestiges of religious ceremonies from bygone eras or scaling rough terrain to look for rock carvings. These portions of the book are often sad as Albinia chronicles the destruction or loss of the rituals or artifacts, many lost to the current form of Islam that has come to predominate modern Pakistan. Also sad is the way the holy river is treated by those who control it.

While it may be a sad read, this is an excellent book that wonderfully tells a deep story about a fascinating part of our world.

Excellent review of Empires of the Indus, Erik. It sounds fascinating and important, so I'll add it to my wish list.

>128 kidzdoc: I think you will like it. A good companion to your subcontinent reading selections.

>127 Oberon: Superb.
Damn. You'd already put it on my wishlist, so now I guess I have to read it.

Great review of Empires of the Indus, Erik! I had never heard of this one. Sounds terrific.

>130 qebo: Katherine, heaven forbid that you actually read the book you were prompted to acquire!

>131 msf59: Thanks Mark. Nice to return book bullets from time to time.

So behind with your thread.

>94 Oberon: I love peacocks, and see one regularly when I visit Kew Gardens. It's quite tame and has let me photograph it's wonderful tail close up. He can also take to following you round the garden sometimes.



>107 Oberon: as for betting with your children, learn from my dad, he bet his boots with my sister and lost. She deprived him of his boots for two days, then made him buy them back for 50p (this was in the early 80s). He closed the betting shop after that!

>127 Oberon: this looks like one for me.

>133 Caroline_McElwee: Great peacock photos Caroline. I am little surprised that it would let you get that close. Based on the lack of a long tail I am pretty sure our Minnesota peacock is female but maybe they lose the spectacular feathers at different times of the year?

Also, what was the bet that cost your dad his boots?

Erik, I thought at first a moulted male, but looking at the black neck, it is probably a female. I guess in a public gardens it has got used to people. As long as you are slow and quiet it stays put.

Ah, my dad has no sense of direction. Going out with him was always a magical mystery tour. So he bet my sister that it was 'this direction' and she said another and was right. He's 87 now, so not able to do more than local grocery trips. But it is still a family joke, to be careful not to bet his boots again!

>135 Caroline_McElwee: That is a great story about your dad. We have several family stories about my father and his directions too. It wasn't that he got lost often but rather that he fit the classic male stereotype of refusing to ask for directions when lost thus compounding the problem.

>125 Oberon: - Why would they import peacocks? Good question. My former boss had a white peacock showing up in her back yard for a while and she lives way out of town. Between sea otters, deer, peacocks, raccoons, ravens and the owl that perched on the tree outside of our living room window earlier this week, I just accept the animal element that shows up and don't ask questions!

Great review of the Albinia book!

>137 lkernagh: Sea otters would be neat to see in the wild. I have only seen them in a zoo.

Booked our spring break trip today. We are off to the Dominican Republic.

If we make it to Canada for the World Cup this summer well-traveled baby will have have made it to four different countries before he turns 3.

It is kind of mean but i think it is hilarious that this is Alex's passport photo for the next 5 years.

Ha! Poor thing!

>141 Caroline_McElwee: I really look forward to making him travel with it when he is five since it is good for that long. By then he will be self-conscious of his photo just like the older kids.

Well it could be worse, he could have to use it til aged ten!

>143 Caroline_McElwee: We will certainly be bringing it out when he graduates from high school and other life events!

Revolutionary Summer by Jospeh Ellis

I listened to this as an audiobook and part of me is a little concerned that my slightly negative reaction is more a reflection of the audiobook format rather than the merits of the book. Basically, the book (audio) failed to hold my attention the whole way through and thus I feel like it missed its mark.

That said, the parts of Revolutionary Summer that did hold my attention were very good. The book is focused tightly on the summer of 1776 (with enough surrounding context to have it make sense) and engages in a dual narrative to address the political and military developments over the course of the summer. It was an interesting approach because Ellis is correct in his broad premise that much of the history of the Revolutionary War is obscured by hindsight and this distorts the degree with which the political and military events of the early revolution affected each other.

Ellis does a good job detailing just how tenuous much of the early stages of the revolution were. For example, he details the ongoing political argument that is occurring in the colonies following the Battle of Bunker Hill and makes it clear that it is only with hindsight that some of the early battles can be viewed as a revolution. For much of 1776, many in the colonies are still clinging to a legal fiction that they are not in rebellion to the King but rather to the King's servants. In making this point, Ellis makes clear that if England had taken a different tack to the revolution it likely could have co-opted large segments of the colonial population and thus deprived the colonies with sufficient unity of purpose to make a common revolution (and thus unite as a nation).

The discussion of the military situation is also interesting. In popular American mythology the militias of New England are heroic equals of the British regulars. Ellis makes it clear that Washington, Adams and others of the Founding Fathers recognized just how inadequate the militias were. However this wisdom does not prevent Washington from making several major tactical errors that, but for a lack of follow up by the British, would have resulted in a crushing military defeat for the young army.

I would give the book three stars mainly because it failed to sustain my attention to the end, particularly when the book deals with the British assault on New York and the political impact those battles had.

>140 Oberon: - How sweet! I remember having my own passport at the age of 7 - my younger brother beat me, being only 4 when his first passport was issued - and I still remember the scrawl that was my signature. ;-) I know my parents made the active choice that we would all have our own passports so I was really surprised to learn that some of my friends were on their mother (or their father)'s passport, which meant they had to travel at all times with the parent they 'shared' a passport with. I never understood why anyone would do that, and especially not when, as a family, you are are living in a foreign country. Your youngest may want to - when older - keep the passport as a memento... he just may not realize that for a number of years!

Getting babies to sit still for a passport photo is an adventure in itself. Cute!

>146 lkernagh: I am sure his mother will keep it for him. Personally, I am always surprised how few people actually have passports - including members of Congress!

>147 jolerie: You can't tell from the photo but he is actually being held by his mom. Thankfully digital photography lets you try as many times as is necessary.

Because it is Minnesota and they do this sort of thing here we headed off to the ice castle that was built here this year. I actually thought it was pretty neat though overpriced. Ironically, we have had balmy (for Minnesota) weather over the past few days with daytime highs getting in to the low '40s. If the trend continues I fear for the survival of the ice castle.

>140 Oberon: I'm always amazed about these circumstances. I remember well when my daughters had such passport photos.

>150 Oberon: Fantastic photos, Erik. Thanks so much for sharing them.

Usagi Yojimbo Volume 28: Red Scorpion by Stan Sakai



I am a long time fan of the Usagi Yojimbo series by Stan Sakai. Featuring an anthropomorphic rabbit, loosely based on Miyamoto Musashi (author of The Book of Five Rings and a famed swordsman) Sakai has created an alternate Edo era Japan. Using the graphic novel form, Sakai is able to be historically accurate if he wants or can introduce elements of fantasy and Japanese mythology. My personal favorites are books like Grasscutter that take their story line from Japan's founding myths.

Usagi Yojimbo Volume 28: Red Scorpion centers around a series of confrontations between Usagi and a gang called the Red Scorpions. The gang itself is the standard issue thugs that provide fodder for Usagi's sword skills. The best story in Red Scorpion centers around a Taiko drum maker who is seeking to create a masterpiece drum in order to please the rain god and break a drought. The Red Scorpions are trying to stop the drum maker and farmers because they are refusing to pay protection money to the gang.

The story does a nice job of explaining the creation of a traditional Taiko drum while bringing in the supernatural of the ceremonies used to pray for rain. Usagi Yojimbo Volume 28: Red Scorpion is a worthy entry in this long running series.

That looks like a cool family outing! At first I thought they were ice caves or some sort and was going to ask you if they were natural or man made. Then I saw your description that they are ice castles. Very cool!

>153 jolerie: Yes, definitely man made. I think the neatest part was the lights that were embedded in the ice that would change colors and light up the surrounding ice. Hence, the bright green colors and such above.

Great photos. Have you read The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas? I can recommend it.

>152 Oberon: My son and I used to read all the Usagi Yojimbo collections. I think I fell off the train somewhere after Grasscutter, which was very good. You remind me how much fun they are.

>155 Caroline_McElwee: I have not read The Ice Palace but based on the reviews it looks really interesting.

>156 jnwelch: Grasscutter and Seasons are some of his best in my opinion so if you made it that far you got a pretty good taste of Usagi. I think Sakai continues to put out really fun and interesting books.

>150 Oberon: That's a very excellent ice castle. How has it held up? Our warm temps have destroyed most of the ice rinks here.

>158 Oberon: I'm going to look for his ones after. Those are happy memories, for sure.

>159 evilmoose: It has held together, mostly. We have almost no snow cover right now so that is not helping. When we went there were plenty of workers using rakes to roughen the ice so the melt didn't make it too slippery. We are supposed to get a cold snap tonight but if the longer term forecast doesn't turn colder I doubt they will be able to keep it open into March as they currently plan.

>160 jnwelch: Joe, I will be looking for the reviews!

>162 Oberon: :-)

A Gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?



My youngest became enchanted with this story and insists that it be read to him on a regular basis. Then we discovered that Netflix had both The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child as 30 minute animated movies. Full on Gruffalo madness happened after that. Dad, being a sucker for stuffed toys, thought that the above Gruffalo would be just the thing that his adorable child would love to sleep with every night. Sadly, Alex has taken to abusing his Gruffalo (much like the Cookie Monster I got him for Christmas) and takes great glee in hurling the Gruffalo from his crib at night.

Oh well. I still think the Gruffalo is awesome and the books and videos are very charming so I can continue to endure re-readings and re-watchings. If you have young kids I highly recommend the books and the movies (and the stuffed Gruffalo if your child likes that sort of thing).

Hi Erik, I wish you a lovely weekend.

Weird LT problem this morning. Several threads from 2013 that were dormant suddenly popped up under my "starred" list. Very weird. Made getting through the actual updates takes much longer.

>166 Oberon: Perhaps related to this: https://www.librarything.com/topic/187220 ?

>167 qebo: I think you are right. Thanks - that explains a lot.

Evening Erik! >150 Oberon: Love the ice palace pictures! And >164 Oberon: your review of The Gruffalo :)

>140 Oberon: That's actually a pretty good passport photo. He looks happy! ;)

>127 Oberon: Looks like a fantastic book! Thanks for the review, I'll check it out.

>169 The_Hibernator: Hi Rachel! You should think about checking out the ice palace. They seem to have coupons pretty regularly. Now that it is cold again I assume they will be shoring up parts of the construction.

I just had to share this lovely news with you. My daughter just sent me by email (I don't hear well on the phone) a copy of her JD degree dated 12/23/14 Hooray!!!!!!!!!

>171 SqueakyChu: That is fantastic news! I hope she finds it a rewarding and meaningful career.

>172 Oberon: Me, too! She sits for the Maryland bar this month, and I'm confident, as she is, that she'll do well on it.

>173 SqueakyChu: I am sure she will. Though if she is like most lawyers she will have no interest in ever taking another bar exam!

>173 SqueakyChu: She sits for the Maryland bar this month
So does my niece's wife, who took (and passed) the Maine bar last summer but now they've decided to stay in DC/MD for another few years.

>175 qebo:

Cool! We'll follow their results and celebrate together!

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

I picked up this graphic novel at the library after a rapturous review in the newspaper. While it was solid, it clearly did a lot more for the reviewer than it did for me.

The book follows two girls, Rose and Windy, on the brink of adolescence. The two girls are friends whose families go to the same lake every year. The girls have been friends for years having played together at the lake for a number of summers. However, they both are getting older (though Rose is older and thus starting to feel more distance from her younger friend). In addition to the relationship between the girls we also see the family dynamics of the parents. Rose's mother in particular is distant and struggling - the book ultimately provides an explanation for this.

The book does an interesting job of showing the girls starting to grapple with adult themes. The girls patronize a local store where they can buy candy and rent movies (they are secretly renting horror films without their parent's knowledge). Rose is interested in? intrigued? has a crush on? the local boy who works at the store. Through her fascination with the store clerk (who is some nebulous age range from about 17 to 20 or so - older teen, not an adult man) Rose becomes aware of the fact that the boy's girlfriend is pregnant. The girls discuss the teens' relationships and the drama involved in a way that combines childhood and adolescence. They have some familiarity with "adult" issues like sex and pregnancy and have vague understandings of relationships but it is by no means fully formed. It is this tension that is the best part of the book. It is impressive feat for an author to capture the part child/part adult world of early adolescence. Doing so with the added artistic elements of a graphic novel is even more impressive.

While there is drama and a story to tell, the book ultimately ends with the girls leaving the lake for the summer. This results in a slightly unfinished feel to the book but I believe it is deliberate. The author is trying to capture the mood and feel of the summer cabin and the departure from it back to "reality" and I think she succeeds in doing so.

>4 Oberon: Hi Erik. Do you know where this painting is housed. WOW! It is incredibly detailed.

>178 Whisper1: Linda, it is at the National Gallery in Washington DC. I believe I saw it at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid in the early '90s but I can't seem to find any evidence that it was lent there so I might just be wrong about that.

We have a Rubens exhibition just opened at London's Royal Academy, I'll be heading there next week. The Courtauld Collection also have a fine selection of his work in their permanent display.

>180 Caroline_McElwee: I just read an article about that exhibit. I really wish London was on my itinerary in the next few months so I could go see that.

Future Perfect: A Case for Progress in a Networked Age by Steven Johnson

This is another audiobook that I listened to while working out (hooray for slightly less sporadic gym attendance!)

Anyway, I am have become a pretty big fan of Steven Johnson having read How We Got to Now and The Invention of Air last year, the later being one of my favorite books of the year. Future Perfect had one of the most engaging introductions that I can recall in a very long time. I bored several friends and my wife with my discussion of it. Johnson discusses how little attention is paid to incremental progress by the media. To illustrate his point, he discusses a rare newspaper article that noted the lack of fatalities in commercial aviation over a two year period. Ironically, Johnson first made this point shortly before the so-called Miracle on the Hudson, when US Airways flight 1549 lost both engines after colliding with a flock of geese on takeoff. Unable to return to the airport, the plane was ditched in the Hudson river where all the passengers and crew were rescued.

Johnson uses the disaster to make the point that the media reports on events like this with a couple of common themes. The first, in this case is the "miracle" - divine intervention saving the plane. Or, the hero narrative focused on the pilot who successfully landed the plane. Johnson goes on to make the point that the true "heroes" of the story are the regulators and the engineers who, over the course of decades, continued to improve aviation safety. Johnson goes on to recount how bird strikes are a well know hazard to aviation. As such, there is a great deal of time and effort put into ensuring that jet engines can survive bird impacts without blowing apart or catching on fire. To simulate bird strikes, jet engines are tested with a chicken gun that that uses compressed air to fire dead chickens into jet engines.

Johnson's point is that while it might sound ridiculous to create a cannon to fire dead chickens, testing with something like the chicken gun has resulted in a great deal of progress in engine design and that absent such testing (and government standards requiring that the engines pass the chicken gun test) the Miracle on the Hudson would have had a much more tragic ending. Johnson further goes on to make the point that in measure after measure of human progress (aviation safety, poverty, crime, teen pregnancy) the trend line is positive. The world is demonstrably getting better.

Johnson goes on to discuss how and why he believes the world is getting better. His primary point is that non-hierarchical systems of decision making and problem solving are vastly superior to hierarchical systems. Moreover, he contends that the rapid increase in communication technology, particularly the internet, means that it is becoming ever easier for communication and problem solving to be dispersed throughout the populace. As a result, Johnson expects to see progress continue and even accelerate.

Future Perfect is an interesting book. Unfortunately, I did think the introduction was the most captivating point that Johnson was making. Which is not to say the rest of the book is bad, it just didn't capture and hold the imagination to the same degree as the introduction. Hopefully, Johnson will continue writing for years to come. His books are really enjoyable and Future Perfect, while not his best is definitely worth a read.

On Paul's last thread (he makes too many threads to keep up in a timely manner) I posted some pictures of the Minneapolis bookstore Wild Rumpus, a fantastic kid's bookstore. This weekend the family went there. We were celebrating the school Read-a-thon. Andrew was the primary reason why his class finished with the most reading minutes in his school. Unfortunately, he got pretty sick Thursday night and could not go to school Friday when they had the big party to celebrate the Read-a-thon. He was very disappointed so his mother proposed a family celebration instead. Of course, it did not take too much arm twisting for me to agree.

Everyone got books. I picked up a copy of Neverwhere, the only major Neil Gaiman book I have yet to read. Pictures to follow.

Me reading to Alexander. Note the old fire extinguisher made into a lamp and the Yoruba statute made into a book end. Lots of neat and eclectic touches.



A picture showing the canoe on the ceiling of the bookstore.



Two of the kids inside the "spooky" section of the store, complete with skeletons and dried leaves. In the floor is a glass cage that often houses one of the store's pet rats.



A view from the front. I neglected to take pictures of the animals in residence. We noted a lizard, a tarantula, some chinchillas, a couple of cats, a chicken, parakeets and a white rat. I suspect I am missing a few.

Would have loved that bookstore as a kid. Glad your kids enjoyed it.

>182 Oberon: Future Perfect Sounds really interesting. Sorry you found it slightly less than perfect. ;)

>184 Oberon: What a fun bookstore! I love the picture of you reading with Andrew.

>185 Caroline_McElwee: A perfect store for a kid. They do have a small but well curated section for adults and a chunk of the graphic novels that I enjoy are classified as young adult (I disagree with the labeling but whatever) so it is fun to visit always.

>186 SqueakyChu: I would boo Madeline but that was actually pretty clever.

It is the 100th Anniversary of the opening of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts this year. In celebration, they have been doing a new art event every week. A couple of weeks ago they announced the surprise loan of this:



Women Reading a Letter by Johannes Vermeer on loan from the Riijksmusum in Amsterdam.

We went to the MIA yesterday for their monthly family event and I got to admire it for awhile.

I loved Neverwhere when I read it a few years back. Probably one of my favourite Gaiman. Hope you enjoy it when you get the chance to read it.
Love the bookstore pics!

>188 Oberon: LOL!

>183 Oberon: Neverwhere was my introduction to Neil Gaiman since I'd always tried to avoid the fantasy genre. It was my husband who strongly encouraged me to read it, and I've since become a Neil Gaiman fan...especially from the time I had the good fortune to see him in person at a past National Book Festival.

>184 Oberon: - I would love to spend time in that bookstore!

>190 jolerie: and >191 SqueakyChu: I have heard many good things about Neverwhere. I might save it for a beach read but I will get to it soon.

>192 lkernagh: Perhaps not worth a trip just for the bookstore but it should be on everyone's itinerary that visits Minneapolis.

There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe

I finally got around to reading this. As the subtitle says, this book is very much "A Personal History of Biafra."

A brief primer for those unfamiliar with Biafra: the west African nation of Nigeria (like much of Africa) is a colonial creation. The British ruled Nigeria for about 150 years, first using an economic company, and later forming a protectorate. Prior to the arrival of the British, Nigeria had seen a series of cultures rise and fall. Many of these cultures had very advanced artistic and religious cultures. Immediately prior to the British, much of modern Nigeria was controlled by the Sokoto Caliphate, an Islamic state that had risen following the collapse if Songhai Empire. The Sokoto Caliphate had begun north of Nigeria and had gradually spread southward.

The rise and fall of multiple cultures in Nigeria left the country full of numerous groups that were very different from one another. To use broad stereotypes, northern Nigeria is primarily populated by the Hausa people. The Hausa people are predominately Islamic and share many cultural similarities with peoples north of modern Nigeria. The Yoruba people primarily inhabit southwestern Nigeria. Many Yoruba practiced an indigenous religion although that religion has diminished greatly over the past 100 years as Christianity and Islam have become the primary religions. In the southeast of Nigeria are the Igbo people. Like the Yoruba, the Igbo primarily practiced an indigenous religion but that religion has largely been subsumed by Christianity. This is a broad brush view of Nigeria, in truth something close to 500 ethnic groups are recognized and there are many religious factions many of which blend traditional faiths with Christianity and Islam.

The Igbo people were perceived to have "benefited" the most from British rule having taken advantage of educational opportunities and securing important government positions. When British rule ended in 1960, the differences between the ethnic groups began to boil over. Following military coups in 1966 and 1967, the ethnic tensions exploded into the Biafran Civil War (also called the Nigerian Civil War) which involved the southeastern (predominately Igbo) part of the country declaring independence.

There Was a Country is a Achebe's (an Igbo) account of his own experience during that conflict. Achebe describes the initial confusion around the military coups and his own efforts to stay ahead of the expanding conflict as he, his friends, and his family flee into Igbo territory. Already famous on account of Things Fall Apart, Achebe is used by the nascent Biafran government to help draft constitutions and later to serve as a diplomat.

Achebe describes his hopes for the new country and how those hopes are dashed as Biafra slowly collapses against the better armed and equipped Nigeria army. Achebe also discusses the many atrocities of the conflict. It is Achebe's view point that the conflict amounted to genocide with the deliberate killing and dispossession of Igbos because of their ethnic group. There is room for debate on this point because Igbo populations outside of Biafra, such as in Lagos (the economic capital) were not systematically destroyed (although many Igbo fled Lagos and other major cities as the conflict developed). That said, it is clear that the Nigerian army took efforts to wipe out the Igbo that resided in the newly declared Biafra. The federal government of Nigeria also made it a policy to use starvation as a weapon of war. As such, they blockaded Biafra and made efforts to prevent food from getting to the people. This resulted in widespread famine and disease which is turn led to massive casualties (1 to 3 million) of the Biafrans, many of whom were children. In many ways, the discussion of whether the war was genocide obscures the point that the Biafran war was aimed as much at the civilian populace as it was military targets. Consequentially, the suffering was enormous. Nevertheless, Achebe clearly believes that the conflict was properly classified as genocide. His point being that the war was not simply a civil war and thus an internal issue for Nigeria but a conflict that the entire world had an obligation to halt.

Achebe describes some of the fear and suffering in Biafra although it is clear that he and his family were shielded from the worst of it because of his fame. He also discusses, at length, the international reaction to the war and how various nations took stands for and against Biafran independence and how those positions changed over time. Finally, Achebe talks about the collapse of Biafra and goes on to attribute much of Nigeria's problems today as the legacy of the conflict. I am not in a position to evaluate the merits of Achebe's arguments but it is clear that Achebe believed that had Biafra survived as an independent state it would have become a model country far removed from the corruption and conflict of modern Nigeria.

Ultimately, There Was a Country is a very personal look at a horrendous conflict, one that Achebe clearly believes had broad consequences for modern Nigeria and all of west Africa.

Erik - it's such a shame that there are so few independent bookstores left. I'd love to have a bookstore like Wild Rumpus in town.

I'm another fan of the Usagi Yojimbo series. Having read the manga series, I was pleasantly surprised to learn from a friend's son, a huge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan, that our fearless rabbit even time traveled over to episodes of TMNT.

>196 cameling: I agree. I make it a point to try and buy whenever I visit. My wife always points out that Amazon is cheaper but I feel pretty strongly about it.

Glad to see another Usagi fan. I have seen the TMNT crossover. I wasn't a huge fan because TMNT is so goofy that I think it detracts from some of Sakai's excellent storytelling. That said, anything that brings Usagi to a wider audience is worth it.

Thanks for the review of There was a Country. I need to get to it!

>198 banjo123: Glad you liked it Rhonda. Very different from his fiction but it was an interesting personal narrative.

Thanks for the review of There was a Country. I rushed out and bought that book when it was first published, and then I never got around to it. I guess the appeal was that I love Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, so I figured I'd love There was a Country too. Well, and there's appeal because my dad was in Nigeria during the Biafra - that personalizes it a bit.

>200 The_Hibernator: Really? I would be interested in hearing the story. My grandfather was in Nigeria during the war as well working for USAID. He recalled taking mortar fire during some of the fighting. The rest of the family was evacuated but he stayed in country.

My wife was gone last night, out with her sisters and mother, so I was on solo kid duty. I asked the kids what they wanted to do with dad and Alex immediately said "Fire!" While bad in a movie theater or out in public what he was saying was he wanted a fire in the fireplace because we sit in front of the fire and read books. As soon as dinner was over he picked out a big stack for me to read and we spent a good hour and a half reading until he went to bed.

That's so wonderful, Erik.

Wow! That they would sit and read for that long is impressive. What a great bonding experience. :)

We read Brown Bear Brown Bear this week, too! :) My grandson's favorite book "to read" to my husband is Bringing Down the Moon.

>202 Oberon: You are a very good Dad, Erik! And I love the photos of you and the family in the bookstore.

I hope you are surviving the winter!

Oh, John Burningham is a favorite here at Scaife Manor! Love him.

I have not read Bringing Down the Moon. I will have to go look for it. Is Your Mama a Llama and Gruffalo (of course!) are favorites in the house right now. Sadly, the Gruffalo in >164 Oberon: continues to be abused and disrespected. Only the stegosaurus from New York is not maltreated among the stuffed animals.

>206 msf59: Mark, it is ugly cold again here. I came home last night to find a can of coke had frozen and exploded inside my beer fridge. So, back in the house goes the beer. Kind of defeating the purpose of a beer fridge.

Got my major writing project done so I am spending the day getting caught up on LT. Looking forward to a big soccer game tonight and hopefully some reading.

Catching up with your thread, Erik! How fun that you got to read books with the kids - I miss doing that. Hoping that your weekend is filled with fabulous.

That sounds like the most special evening ever.

I also enjoyed your photos of the bookstore. My favorite was the one with the lake and the canoe on the ceiling. How cool is that!

>211 Crazymamie: Thanks for stopping by! The weekend has been busy but a lot of fun. My daughter's team won their championship and my son had his last basketball game of the season.

>212 streamsong: It is pretty fun to get and cuddle and read with him. Unfortunately, I know those days won't last forever.

Congrats to your daughter! How fun!

>201 Oberon: My dad was pretty much out of the range of the fighting. Far enough out of range to completely ignore it, in fact. Dad was fairly young at the time and was able to "not see" what was going on.

When he read Half of a Yellow Sun recently, he was really moved by a poem(?) in there about how the Westerners just ignored the problem as people were raped, starved, and slaughtered. I think he feels a lot of shame over his own ignorance of the war.

It's sad to think how Westerners can ignore such pain when it is right before their eyes...just because they figure Africa is not their problem.

>216 The_Hibernator: I think out of range is where someone wants to be for a conflict like this, or any conflict for that matter.

I am hoping to get to Half of a Yellow Sun soon. The comment about the West ignoring the conflict certainly rings true with Achebe's commentary.

The West doesn't seem to care in far too many of these conflicts. At the same time, coming in to "manage" the conflict doesn't seem to be a viable answer anymore either. I am frankly at a loss as to what to do.

Very up and down weekend. Sophia won her soccer championship with the team playing up an age division (pretty big size difference between 10 year olds and 12 year olds). She also competed in something called Destination Imagination where the kids had to write and produce their own play. The girls took third place which I thought was pretty respectable.

Unfortunately, Andrew has developed a problem with his knee. He was barely able to play his last basketball game and things went down hill from there. Spent several hours with an orthopedist on Sunday complete with MRI and X-ray with no answers. He is unable to straighten his knee and is on crutches and his mother and I are left with no answers as to what is going on with him. We meet with a specialist on Tuesday and they are running a battery of blood tests but right now we are baffled. Tough to see such an active little boy confined to the couch and told he can't play sports - his chief interest these days.

Oh no! I hope you guys can find an answer to the knee issue. I can imagine how hard it must be for an active boy to suddenly feel confined.

Congrats on your daughter's success.

I'm so sorry to hear about Andrew's knee issue. I hope you get some answers soon. Sending healing vibes.

>219 jolerie: >220 Ameise1: Thank you Valerie and Barbara. Very stressful to be left to sit with your imagination and no answers.

It's rough to watch your kid going through something and not have any answers - thinking of Andrew and you and your wife and hoping you get some answers soon...

I'm glad to read about Sophia's successes, but I'm more sorry to hear about Andrew's problem with his knee. I hope that he improves soon. Please keep us posted on his progress.

>222 scaifea: >223 kidzdoc: Thanks Amber and Darryl.

No answers today but the doctor was a lot more upbeat in his assessment. None of the tests showed any concerns. They put a brace on Andrew's knee to immobilize it for a week with the idea that it will allow the fluid around the knee to be reabsorbed. Andrew is less than thrilled about the brace but we are crossing our fingers that it takes care of the problem.

Andrew is consoling himself with his new Barcelona FC jersey that my parents brought back from Spain for him and the Manchester City v. Barcelona FC champions league game which I taped for him.

I'm glad that the doctor didn't find something seriously and keep my fingers crossed that the brace will do its work.

I can once again blame LT for wasting copious amount of my free time. I download Trivia Crack and have been playing regularly.

The good thing about Trivia Crack is it's the one game I can beat my daughter at. The old brain full of random facts beats the young, nimble fingers!

I hope that Andrew's knee is better soon. My daughter was supposed to wear a knee brace for a while, for Osgood-Schlatter, and she would NEVER wear it. Drove me crazy.

>218 Oberon:. Sorry to hear about the patient. There must be a few books on sport to distract him in the meantime.

Good for the girls.

>227 banjo123: Thanks Rhonda. The brace has not been his favorite thing but he has held up better than expected. Taking him in tomorrow to see where things are at.

Trivia Crack does favor the older brain with the exception of the entertainment category where I seem to get questions about movies that I have never seen.

>228 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks you Caroline. He has been watching sports and playing lots of sports on the iPad (which means it never has a charge when mom and dad go looking for it.) Luckily his sports obsession isn't complete when it comes to books as he just finished off A Sea of Monsters. I bought him the third book for being brave when they did the blood draw.

Daughter lawyer update: Bar exam completed. Now the waiting! She did get offered a new job to start at the end of the month by a law firm in which one of the partners specializes in estate law (her field). I'm so excited for her. I'll tell you when she joins you as a practicing attorney. :D

Erik, thank you so much for being there to listen to my anxieties during this journey of parenting a future lawyer!

The West doesn't seem to care in far too many of these conflicts. At the same time, coming in to "manage" the conflict doesn't seem to be a viable answer anymore either. I am frankly at a loss as to what to do.

If only there were some happy medium between coming in guns a'blazing and completely ignoring the problem!

My pleasure. I am sure your daughter will pass the bar. For the few who don't it is usually nerves that does them in and it is easier the second time. Not that she will have to worry about a second bar exam!

That is fantastic news about the job offer. Here in Minnesota it was just announced that two of the law school were consolidating due to the massive drop in law students which has, in turn, been driven by the very bad job market for young lawyers.

>233 Oberon:

Back 3 1/2 years ago, when she entered law school, the market for lawyers was already bad. I was just hoping that, by the time she would graduate, the economy would turn around, enabling her job search to be made easier. I think the field she chose (elder law/estate planning) is a good one--with the current graying of America.

It was also that she did well in her Elder Law class so the professor of that class gave her the new job lead. Now she has to make a decision between her present employer and a new one. This could be a harrowing decision. I'm sure she'll make the right choice, though.

Not as much progress on Andrew as I would have hoped. He and I went to a Timberwolves game last night and he was limping pretty badly. Doctor wants to keep the knee brace for another week but thought he could try not sleeping in the brace. Hopefully we will see some more improvement this week.

Sorry to hear that Andrew's knee is still not better yet. Doctors still don't have any answers as to what happened? Sending continual healing vibes!

>236 jolerie: Thanks Valerie. Still no answers. Doctor seems to think it is mending just not very quickly.

So I am sucker for this sort of thing. National Geographic is reporting the White City in Honduras has been found http://news-beta.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150302-honduras-lost-city-monkey...

I "read" (audiobook) Jungleland which was about the White City and the previous expeditions for it last year. Per this article, it looks like the author is going to need to do an update version of the book. Very interesting - at least if you are into geeky things like mesoamerican archaeology like me.

>235 Oberon: Erik, I'm so sorry that there is still no answer to Andrew's knee. I hope that the healing is continuing steadily. I wish you and your family a wonderful weekend.

Sending good vibes for Andrew's knee as well.

Hey, who is playing Trivia Crack and isn't challenging me?

Happy Sunday, Erik! Hope you had a nice weekend. Big warm-up coming! Hooray!

Thank you for all the well wishes for Andrew's knee. Third appointment is tomorrow so hopefully we will have some progress. The temperature is in the 50's this week (astonishingly warm as far as we are concerned) and it is killing him to not be able to run around.

>241 msf59: Mark, how do I find you via the app? My user name is oberon9000 (go figure).

>243 Oberon: I did send you a game request, Erik, but go easy on the old guy, will ya?

>244 msf59: Go easy? I expect to get shellacked, especially in the area of popular culture.

Andrew is out of his brace. Unfortunately, his stomach is bothering him sufficient that he couldn't go to school so the true test of his knee will come in a few days when he is back to full speed.

Good game, Erik! I got on a nice roll, at the end.

>247 msf59: I'll say! I figured this might go poorly for me. The entertainment category often has people I have never heard of.

The Future of the Past by Alexander Stille

The Future of the Past is an examination of the way our relationship to history is changing and how technological advances have created new challenges. Some reviewers have described the book as a series of linked essays. I don't agree with the characterization. However, the book does address widely varied aspects of our relationship with history. The first chapter deals with the Sphinx and addresses some of the standard issues facing preservation of man made things - pollution, poor earlier repair attempts, money, etc. The book also discusses issues that come up in preservation about what is being preserved. In the case of the Sphinx, a restoration that was done by an ancient pharaoh now has nearly as much significance as the original carving.

From Egypt, Stille moves on to China to discuss the terracotta warriors from the First Emperor's tomb. What is interesting about Stille's point in this chapter is the nature of what preservation means to the Chinese. While the Western model of preservation focuses on preserving as much of the original as remains and doing repairs that are distinguishable from the original work and can be reversed, the Chinese look to copy or "fix" the original to restore it to its original appearance.

Stille then begins to move even further from the realm of archaeology and historic preservation to address the dying of languages, tomb raiding, and the loss of oral traditions. From there he moves on to problems created by our modern society, namely the ability to sort and store the enormous amounts of information being produced and the inability to maintain the computer software/equipment necessary to access the archived information.

While the book moved further afield than I had anticipated, the discussion of how we relate to the past and the value we put on our history was fascinating throughout. A very interesting book that asked a lot of hard questions about what we can preserve and whether, by preserving it, we are losing its value.

Hat tip to Suzanne who recommend this book!

Hmmm. Interesting. Onto the Wishlist!

>249 Oberon: Am in the library, so off to H Civilisation ...

>250 drneutron:, >251 Caroline_McElwee: Hope you enjoy it! I certainly did.

Andrew's luck continues to go from bad to worse. While his knee is hopefully mended, he has had a lingering stomach bug that has left him not feeling well for several days. To make a long story short, he basically stopped eating and drinking because he couldn't keep anything down. Yesterday, he threw up again so we took him to see the doctor because of fears of dehydration. Doctor concluded he was hypoglycemic and that he had lost four pounds. Might not be able to tell from the photo but he doesn't have a spare four pounds to lose. He was admitted to the hospital for about 8 hours as they pushed some IV fluids and anti-nausea medicine into him.

The good new was that he was able to keep the Popsicle down and had regained enough appetite to eat some toast this morning. It has been a long week for him.

Poor young man. Hopefully he is turning the corner now.

I am so sorry, to hear about Andrew. I hope the little guy recovers soon. Sending positive/healing vibes...

Oh my goodness, poor Andrew. I hope he get well soon. Sending healing vibes.

Thank you. So far, so good today. Knowing Andrew, if he is on the road to recovery he will want to be playing sports by this weekend.

Oh, the poor guy! And poor parents, too - it's not easy seeing your kid lying in a hospital bed, I suspect. Thinking of all of you...

Wishing Andrew a speedy and total recovery!

>253 Oberon: Hospitalisation to get a popsicle! No loking matter of course. I hope Andrew will be better soon, Erik.

Belatedly coming by to apologize for spreading the bad germs. :/

I hope Andrew is feeling better now?? It is never easy seeing our kids like that.
Our kids have fully recovered but the bug did manage to travel through the entire family. Thankfully with each infected person, the symptoms were less severe.

Continually sending you good wishes and healing energies!

I am happy to report that Andrew appears to be fully recovered. The warm weather allowed us to get the soccer net out in the back yard and Andrew was running around kicking the ball all weekend.

That's great news that Andrew is up and about now!

Wonderful news! Yay, Andrew!!

New thread is up! https://www.librarything.com/topic/189004