What are you reading the week of October 17, 2015?
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1fredbacon
Dame (Cicely) Veronica Wedgwood OM DBE (20 July 1910 – 9 March 1997) was an English historian who published under the name C. V. Wedgwood. Specializing in the history of 17th-century England and Continental Europe, her biographies and narrative histories "provided a clear, entertaining middle ground between popular and scholarly works."
Wedgwood was born in Stocksfield, Northumberland, on 20 July 1910. She was the only daughter of Sir Ralph Wedgwood, a railway executive, and his wife Iris Veronica Pawson, a novelist and travel writer. She had a brother, Sir John Wedgwood. She was a great-great-great granddaughter of the potter Josiah Wedgwood.
She was educated at home and then at Norland Place School. She earned a First in Modern History at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where A.L. Rowse said she was "my first outstanding pupil".
Wedgwood published her first biography, Strafford, at the age of 25 and The Thirty Years War, "her big book ... covering a large canvas", according to Rowse, just three years later, a work Patrick Leigh Fermor called "By far the best and most exciting book on the whole period".
She specialised in European history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Her work in continental European history included the major study The Thirty Years War (1938) and biographies of William the Silent and Cardinal Richelieu. She devoted the greater part of her research to English history, especially in the English Civil War. Her major works included a biography of Oliver Cromwell and two volumes of a planned trilogy, The Great Rebellion, which included The King's Peace (1955) and The King's War (1958). She continued the story with The Trial of Charles I (1964). She was known to walk battlefields and experience the same weather and field conditions as the subjects of her histories, mindful that Cromwell had no military experience and most participants in the English Civil War were "talented amateurs" when it came to military manoeuvres. The subject was one of great controversy and rival schools of historical interpretations, but she held herself apart, "probably put off by the sheer scholasticism into which the treatment of the subject had degenerated, the rudeness with which academics treated each other over it, when she herself was always courteous and lady-like." Instead, "what was remarkable about Wedgwood's view of the Civil War was the way in which she depicted the sheer confusion of it all, the impossibility of co-ordinating events in three countries, once order from the centre had broken down.
William the Silent (1944), Rowse wrote, "displayed not only a mastery of research but maturity of judgement, with a literary capacity not common in academic writing. She wrote indeed to be read, and not surprisingly the book began for her a long procession of prizes and honours...." The New York Times singled it out as a landmark: "Miracles do happen. A generation ago the young English woman historian was often tethered to a dry theme until she had nibbled it bald. Today she dares much more to select a major subject", and praised her scholarship for balancing complex details with human drama: "Miss Wedgwood has not faltered before the intricacy or magnitude of this checkered struggle, and hers is a glowing, substantial, ingeniously organized book."
Thirty years after she published a biography of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, she published a much-revised version that was considerably more critical of her subject. In the earlier version she called him a "sincere, brave and able man". After using a collection of his family's papers that had not been available before, she deemed him greedy and unscrupulous.
She acknowledged that contemporary concerns affected her historical assessments. In the 1957 introduction to a new release of The Thirty Years War, which first appeared in 1938, she wrote: "I wrote this book in the thirties, against the background of depression at home and mounting tension abroad. The preoccupations of that unhappy time cast their shadows over its pages."
She was created a CBE in 1956, an DBE in 1968, and in 1969, not yet sixty, became the third woman to be appointed a member of the British Order of Merit. She termed the last of these honours "excessive".
In her last years she suffered from Alzheimer's disease. She died on 9 March 1997 at St Thomas' Hospital in London. She was a lesbian. Her partner of almost 70 years, Jacqueline Hope-Wallace, who had a career in the British civil service, survived her. Wedgwood and Hope-Wallace owned a country house together near Polegate in Sussex. Both came from musical families. Wedgwood's father was cousin to Vaughan Williams and the dedicatee of his London Symphony. Hope-Wallace's brother Philip was for various periods music and drama critic of the Times, Times and Tide and the Manchester Guardian. She edited a collection of his writings as Words and Music (1981) for which Wedgwood wrote the introduction. In 1997, Hope-Wallace donated a 1944 oil portrait of Wedgwood by Sir Lawrence Gowing to the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Wedgwood was born in Stocksfield, Northumberland, on 20 July 1910. She was the only daughter of Sir Ralph Wedgwood, a railway executive, and his wife Iris Veronica Pawson, a novelist and travel writer. She had a brother, Sir John Wedgwood. She was a great-great-great granddaughter of the potter Josiah Wedgwood.
She was educated at home and then at Norland Place School. She earned a First in Modern History at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where A.L. Rowse said she was "my first outstanding pupil".
Wedgwood published her first biography, Strafford, at the age of 25 and The Thirty Years War, "her big book ... covering a large canvas", according to Rowse, just three years later, a work Patrick Leigh Fermor called "By far the best and most exciting book on the whole period".
She specialised in European history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Her work in continental European history included the major study The Thirty Years War (1938) and biographies of William the Silent and Cardinal Richelieu. She devoted the greater part of her research to English history, especially in the English Civil War. Her major works included a biography of Oliver Cromwell and two volumes of a planned trilogy, The Great Rebellion, which included The King's Peace (1955) and The King's War (1958). She continued the story with The Trial of Charles I (1964). She was known to walk battlefields and experience the same weather and field conditions as the subjects of her histories, mindful that Cromwell had no military experience and most participants in the English Civil War were "talented amateurs" when it came to military manoeuvres. The subject was one of great controversy and rival schools of historical interpretations, but she held herself apart, "probably put off by the sheer scholasticism into which the treatment of the subject had degenerated, the rudeness with which academics treated each other over it, when she herself was always courteous and lady-like." Instead, "what was remarkable about Wedgwood's view of the Civil War was the way in which she depicted the sheer confusion of it all, the impossibility of co-ordinating events in three countries, once order from the centre had broken down.
William the Silent (1944), Rowse wrote, "displayed not only a mastery of research but maturity of judgement, with a literary capacity not common in academic writing. She wrote indeed to be read, and not surprisingly the book began for her a long procession of prizes and honours...." The New York Times singled it out as a landmark: "Miracles do happen. A generation ago the young English woman historian was often tethered to a dry theme until she had nibbled it bald. Today she dares much more to select a major subject", and praised her scholarship for balancing complex details with human drama: "Miss Wedgwood has not faltered before the intricacy or magnitude of this checkered struggle, and hers is a glowing, substantial, ingeniously organized book."
Thirty years after she published a biography of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, she published a much-revised version that was considerably more critical of her subject. In the earlier version she called him a "sincere, brave and able man". After using a collection of his family's papers that had not been available before, she deemed him greedy and unscrupulous.
She acknowledged that contemporary concerns affected her historical assessments. In the 1957 introduction to a new release of The Thirty Years War, which first appeared in 1938, she wrote: "I wrote this book in the thirties, against the background of depression at home and mounting tension abroad. The preoccupations of that unhappy time cast their shadows over its pages."
She was created a CBE in 1956, an DBE in 1968, and in 1969, not yet sixty, became the third woman to be appointed a member of the British Order of Merit. She termed the last of these honours "excessive".
In her last years she suffered from Alzheimer's disease. She died on 9 March 1997 at St Thomas' Hospital in London. She was a lesbian. Her partner of almost 70 years, Jacqueline Hope-Wallace, who had a career in the British civil service, survived her. Wedgwood and Hope-Wallace owned a country house together near Polegate in Sussex. Both came from musical families. Wedgwood's father was cousin to Vaughan Williams and the dedicatee of his London Symphony. Hope-Wallace's brother Philip was for various periods music and drama critic of the Times, Times and Tide and the Manchester Guardian. She edited a collection of his writings as Words and Music (1981) for which Wedgwood wrote the introduction. In 1997, Hope-Wallace donated a 1944 oil portrait of Wedgwood by Sir Lawrence Gowing to the National Portrait Gallery, London.
- Strafford, 1593–1641 (1935; revised edition: Thomas Wentworth, First Earl of Strafford, 1593–1641: A Revaluation (1961))
- The Thirty Years War (1938; new edition 1957)
- Oliver Cromwell (1939; revised 1973)
- William the Silent (1944)
- Velvet Studies (1946), a collection of essays
- Seventeenth-Century English Literature (1950; 2nd edition 1970)
- The Last of the Radicals: Josiah Wedgwood, M.P. (1951)
- The Great Rebellion (two of three volumes completed)
- The King's Peace, 1637–1641 (1955)
- The King's War, 1641–1647 (1958)
- The Trial of Charles I (1964)
- Richelieu and the French Monarchy (1962)
- Montrose (1966)
- The Sense of the Past: Thirteen Studies in the Theory and Practice of History (Collier Books, 1967)
- The World of Rubens (Time-Life Books, 1973)
2fredbacon
Wikipedia's biography of C. V. Wedgwood was much longer originally. I tried to trim it down without doing too much damage to the text. You should read the original for more detailed information.
I finished her book The Thirty Years War a week ago and enjoyed it. I intend to seek out more of her histories and biographies. I picked it up after seeing Ta-Nehisi Coates list it as one of his ten favorite books.
I'm finishing up The Cuckoo's Calling this weekend. It's been a difficult book for me to keep picking back up. The mystery itself is interesting, and Strike's secretary, Robin, is an interesting character, but Comoran Strike himself is uninteresting.
I finished her book The Thirty Years War a week ago and enjoyed it. I intend to seek out more of her histories and biographies. I picked it up after seeing Ta-Nehisi Coates list it as one of his ten favorite books.
I'm finishing up The Cuckoo's Calling this weekend. It's been a difficult book for me to keep picking back up. The mystery itself is interesting, and Strike's secretary, Robin, is an interesting character, but Comoran Strike himself is uninteresting.
3richardderus
Hi Fred, thanks for the Wedgwood bio...her writing is memorably elegant.
I'm working on my review of TRANSLATION IS A LOVE AFFAIR.
I'm working on my review of TRANSLATION IS A LOVE AFFAIR.
4framboise
Finally finished The Bees. Wow, that took a long time (2 months), but through no fault of the book. Between traveling and losing my reading mojo for a while, I just couldn't zip through any quicker. It was a great novel and worth the effort. I had a question about it that I couldn't find the answer to on Google, so tweeted the author. She responded in an hour's time. Twitter is great for communicating with writers.
5Limelite
I'm not a Jo Nesbo fan. I hope it's the translation but misuse of vocabulary, dull sentence structure and pacing, not to mention characters who may be bizarre but who have personalities so gray, they fade into the smog that seems to be the best atmospheric descriptor for this novel. Harry Hole isn't an interesting drunk. Morose already, he becomes absurdly melancholy when in his cups. If you read and liked The Redbreast, you're a better reader than I am.
Jumped right into my LTER, Without You, There Is No Us. Of course the subject, teaching English to the sons of N. Korean elites, is fascinating for an insider's look into the most closed of all states. The writing is nothing special; in fact, sometimes the author seems a bit whiny. However, she's no doubt doing better emotionally than I ever would under her circumstances of strictured existence within a campus prison.
Some other books I started have to go on the back burner until I knock out the LTETR. One is The Visitors: A Novel by Sally Beauman, a young girl's story of being on scene for the opening of King Tut's tomb. Kind of timely as we learn that Egypt has given permission to explore "secret" chamber(s) off Tut's burial chamber for the suspected tomb of Nefertiti. If they find it -- WOW!
Jumped right into my LTER, Without You, There Is No Us. Of course the subject, teaching English to the sons of N. Korean elites, is fascinating for an insider's look into the most closed of all states. The writing is nothing special; in fact, sometimes the author seems a bit whiny. However, she's no doubt doing better emotionally than I ever would under her circumstances of strictured existence within a campus prison.
Some other books I started have to go on the back burner until I knock out the LTETR. One is The Visitors: A Novel by Sally Beauman, a young girl's story of being on scene for the opening of King Tut's tomb. Kind of timely as we learn that Egypt has given permission to explore "secret" chamber(s) off Tut's burial chamber for the suspected tomb of Nefertiti. If they find it -- WOW!
7Iudita
I am listening to The Plover which is unique and delightful and I'm about to start The Gap of Time.
8Peace2
Not quite sure what has come over me this weekend, but I have way too many books on the go all of a sudden (and I started three of them today as well as making big strides into the 'priority' book!).
So my priority read is Triptych by Karin Slaughter - it's a priority because I've got the sequel out from the library and so I need to finish this in order to start that!
Then I'm also reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie - it's years since I've read any of her books but Hercule Poirot is just as I remember him :D
Then I've started Morgan Rice's A Quest of Heroes which has made me a little interested to see where it's going but I'm only two chapters in so far.
In audio books I've got The Borrowers Afield by Mary Norton in the car and Stranded by Emily Barr which hasn't really grasped me yet despite being on the third disc - this one may be abandoned unless I feel more engaged with it tomorrow.
I forgot - I've also begun The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery - one I missed reading as a child and figured I really should tackle before too much more time passed.
So my priority read is Triptych by Karin Slaughter - it's a priority because I've got the sequel out from the library and so I need to finish this in order to start that!
Then I'm also reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie - it's years since I've read any of her books but Hercule Poirot is just as I remember him :D
Then I've started Morgan Rice's A Quest of Heroes which has made me a little interested to see where it's going but I'm only two chapters in so far.
In audio books I've got The Borrowers Afield by Mary Norton in the car and Stranded by Emily Barr which hasn't really grasped me yet despite being on the third disc - this one may be abandoned unless I feel more engaged with it tomorrow.
I forgot - I've also begun The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery - one I missed reading as a child and figured I really should tackle before too much more time passed.
9NarratorLady
Reading Without Lying Down about prolific screenwriter Frances Marion. Apparently women were the backbone of the movie business until the mid thirties. They were directors, producers and scenario writers with Marion the most highly paid and best of them all. Fascinating (at least, to me).
10richardderus
>9 NarratorLady: Hmmm...lemme see here...women do the work until the profits skyrocket, and men need jobs. How unusual.
11jnwelch
Still reading the long 'uns The Bone Clocks and Reamde.
12NarratorLady
>10 richardderus: yes Richard, imagine...once it became a money making business, the women were supplanted. And one of the first to make huge profits and turn Hollywood into a money making machine by buying and merging companies? Joseph P. Kennedy.
13TooBusyReading
>1 fredbacon: Thank you for another great start.
I'm indulging in the latest book in one of my favorite series, X by Sue Grafton. Lightweight but entertaining.
I'm indulging in the latest book in one of my favorite series, X by Sue Grafton. Lightweight but entertaining.
14hemlokgang
I am reading Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters by Hubert Haddad. Friday evening I will be attending an event designed around its publication. So far, not impressed with the writing, but I am curious about the story which is about the beginning of the Spiritualist religious movement.
I am listening to Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King.
I am listening to Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King.
15richardderus
>12 NarratorLady: Yep. Real pearl-clutcher, that one. *snort*
16framboise
Several chapters into The Woman Upstairs By Claire Messud. I'd never read her before, so had no expectations, so was pleasantly surprised as it is a quick and compelling read.
17enaid
>9 NarratorLady: Without Lying Down is one of my favorite books! My mother gave it to me as a gift so that made it extra nice(she really knows my taste) but it was a genuinely fascinating read. I still think about many of the scenes and people she was connected to. I'm so glad you enjoyed it as well!
18brenzi
I finished and loved Gilbert King's Devil in the Grove and also Peter Heller's The Painter. Now I'm reading Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.
19Copperskye
I'm still reading Last Bus to Wisdom and enjoying it very much. I'm also reading Wide Sargasso Sea and am just getting into the story. It's also a good one.
>16 framboise: I've been wondering about The Woman Upstairs. Let us know how you like it.
>18 brenzi: Glad you liked The Painter. Is this your first reading of The Handmaid's Tale? It is one of my All Time Favorites. I hope you like it!
>16 framboise: I've been wondering about The Woman Upstairs. Let us know how you like it.
>18 brenzi: Glad you liked The Painter. Is this your first reading of The Handmaid's Tale? It is one of my All Time Favorites. I hope you like it!
20CarolynSchroeder
I lost my beautiful Mama to a very aggressive, hard to treat multiple myeloma (which had spread to the bones of the spine, pelvis/hips and ribs) this past Wednesday, October 14 - less than a month after diagnosis. I'm (and my family) are still in a state of shock and super "out of whack" as they say ... and missing her like crazy (we were best friends and talked, walked or saw each other almost every day). So I look to the comfort of reading and am grateful I'm able to do so.
So to, I don't know, try to make sense of the world and this disease that takes on hundreds of different forms, reading The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. He is quickly becoming maybe one of my favorite writers of all times. I'm not sure how a biography on cancer can be soothing, poetic, insightful, compassionate and loving ... yet it is. I know I'll never make total sense of things, but it is a salve right now to not feel so alone ... and know learned, brilliant, caring people are working so incredibly hard to figure it all out.
I loved The Painter, an unexpected surprise. Also interested to hear the verdict on The Woman Upstairs. I really like her writing, but have not liked all of her novels.
So to, I don't know, try to make sense of the world and this disease that takes on hundreds of different forms, reading The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. He is quickly becoming maybe one of my favorite writers of all times. I'm not sure how a biography on cancer can be soothing, poetic, insightful, compassionate and loving ... yet it is. I know I'll never make total sense of things, but it is a salve right now to not feel so alone ... and know learned, brilliant, caring people are working so incredibly hard to figure it all out.
I loved The Painter, an unexpected surprise. Also interested to hear the verdict on The Woman Upstairs. I really like her writing, but have not liked all of her novels.
21cdyankeefan
I'm so so sorry for your loss. Gentle hugs coming your way
22MsMaryAnn
>20 CarolynSchroeder: My thoughts are with you and your family.
24nancyewhite
>14 hemlokgang: I visited Lily Dale last summer. It was an interesting and enjoyable place to visit. They had a museum with an astonishing amount of history of Spiritualism including the Fox Sisters, of course. In a lovely surprise, they have the largest collection of Susan B. Anthony memorabilia. She spoke there many times. I was fascinated by the close ties between Spiritualism and feminism.
I'm definitely a skeptic, but the folks that live there and the folks visiting were all delightful as was the little town itself.
I'm definitely a skeptic, but the folks that live there and the folks visiting were all delightful as was the little town itself.
25Jim53
Just finished Even the Dead and started Time Present and Time Past. Enjoying my stay in Dublin.
27richardderus
>20 CarolynSchroeder: Safe journey home, Mama. Thank you for all you did.
28nancyewhite
>20 CarolynSchroeder: You have my sympathy for your terrible loss. I am glad you are finding even a small amount of solace in reading.
29Limelite
>20 CarolynSchroeder:
My sincere sympathies to you and your family. Having beautiful and fond memories is such sweet sorrow. I hope you find consolation among family, friends, and books.
>23 MsMaryAnn:
Please let me know how you like Sweetland (link to review or LT msg), I downloaded it a few weeks ago but haven't got to it yet. Original? Worth your time? Or, shoulda left it unopened?
Thanks!
My sincere sympathies to you and your family. Having beautiful and fond memories is such sweet sorrow. I hope you find consolation among family, friends, and books.
>23 MsMaryAnn:
Please let me know how you like Sweetland (link to review or LT msg), I downloaded it a few weeks ago but haven't got to it yet. Original? Worth your time? Or, shoulda left it unopened?
Thanks!
30bell7
>20 CarolynSchroeder: Sorry to hear of your loss. It sounds like The Emperor of Maladies has been rather helpful - it's on my list, but cancer has hit my own family & friends and I've been putting it off afraid that it would be too hard for me to read.
I've been reading Between the World and Me and listening to The Queen of the Tearling. I just finished The Hawley Book of the Dead for my library book club (looking forward to a discussion with the author tomorrow), and will soon start A Share in Death.
I've been reading Between the World and Me and listening to The Queen of the Tearling. I just finished The Hawley Book of the Dead for my library book club (looking forward to a discussion with the author tomorrow), and will soon start A Share in Death.
31seitherin
Finished Fathomless by Anne M. Pillsworth. Took about half the book before it got interesting. As a whole, I liked it.
Also finished I Shall Wear Midnight and started The Shepherd's Crown, by Terry Pratchett.
Also finished I Shall Wear Midnight and started The Shepherd's Crown, by Terry Pratchett.
32vivienbrenda
Emperor of All Maladies is called a biography of cancer. The story of this dread disease is long and horrifying, however, the author somehow manages to uplift the reader. Unlike many books about cancer that either promise that we will overcome this dread disease...or that we are on the cusp of a cure, this one shows the long, slow progression that began with butchery but morphed into science. The subject is awful, but Dr. Mukherjee somehow manages to comfort us, if not with rainbows, certainly with light.
33grkmwk
>20 CarolynSchroeder: I'm so sorry you recently lost your mama. May you have peace as you're able, and comfort from family, friends, and books.
I've abandoned Gaudy Night; just couldn't get into it. Happily, I returned to A God in Ruins last night, and found it more enjoyable after a three week hiatus. Still slowly reading A Discovery of Witches (real time reread ends Nov 1), Between the World and Me, The Shack: Irish Poets in the Foothills and Mountains of the Blue Ridge, and Bread & Wine.
I've abandoned Gaudy Night; just couldn't get into it. Happily, I returned to A God in Ruins last night, and found it more enjoyable after a three week hiatus. Still slowly reading A Discovery of Witches (real time reread ends Nov 1), Between the World and Me, The Shack: Irish Poets in the Foothills and Mountains of the Blue Ridge, and Bread & Wine.
34hemlokgang
>20 CarolynSchroeder: CarolynSchroeder: My condolences.
Just finished the very disappointing Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters.
Next up to read is The Blind Owl by Sadiq Hidayat.
Just finished the very disappointing Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters.
Next up to read is The Blind Owl by Sadiq Hidayat.
35rocketjk
Heartfelt condolences from me, as well, Carolyn. Hope your healing has a smooth, gradual path.
36mollygrace
>20 CarolynSchroeder: Carolyn, I'm so sorry for your loss. Deepest sympathy to you and your family.
37snash
>20 CarolynSchroeder: CarolynSchroeder: So sorry to hear of your loss.
I finished The God of Small Things which makes spectacular use of language to make emotion and psychological states visible. It is the tale of forbidden love and its ramifications across generations. Perfection except that the weaving of past, present, and future lost me at times.
I finished The God of Small Things which makes spectacular use of language to make emotion and psychological states visible. It is the tale of forbidden love and its ramifications across generations. Perfection except that the weaving of past, present, and future lost me at times.
38CarolynSchroeder
Thank you so much, everyone. It has been a week today, and God, it's hard. Taking care of Dad (they would have had their 52nd wedding anniversary next month), who is really lost too. Grateful for my entire family. Grateful for books, worlds and worlds to sink into and explore and think, or not think.
30-bell - I don't honestly know if Emperor of all Maladies would be for everyone, especially someone deeply in the acute clutches of cancer like right now. It is a wandering exploration, and a very honest one, in that some cancers have treatments and hopeful prognoses (even "cures" or "remissions"), but others do not. Mom's cancer was one of the latter - and the oncologist/GI/Internists are still kind of stunned by it all. But there is a lot of hope, so far, anyway, for many, many people afflicted. Since one in every two men, and one in every three women, will have cancer in their lifetimes, I just wanted to know more. Dad is a bladder cancer survivor, and I lost my BFF to ovarian in 2009 ... so I don't know, the knowledge is helping me. I'm one of those people who thinks maybe a grain of knowledge I pick up somewhere could help someone. I'm learning about what it means to "live" with cancer too, and that is just not for everyone, or every cancer, etc. It took me a while to find peace there; and this book helps.
32-vivien - I so agree. Beautiful summation of this biography of cancer.
Also anxious to hear the verdict on Sweetland. I loved Galore and that one has been on my radar.
30-bell - I don't honestly know if Emperor of all Maladies would be for everyone, especially someone deeply in the acute clutches of cancer like right now. It is a wandering exploration, and a very honest one, in that some cancers have treatments and hopeful prognoses (even "cures" or "remissions"), but others do not. Mom's cancer was one of the latter - and the oncologist/GI/Internists are still kind of stunned by it all. But there is a lot of hope, so far, anyway, for many, many people afflicted. Since one in every two men, and one in every three women, will have cancer in their lifetimes, I just wanted to know more. Dad is a bladder cancer survivor, and I lost my BFF to ovarian in 2009 ... so I don't know, the knowledge is helping me. I'm one of those people who thinks maybe a grain of knowledge I pick up somewhere could help someone. I'm learning about what it means to "live" with cancer too, and that is just not for everyone, or every cancer, etc. It took me a while to find peace there; and this book helps.
32-vivien - I so agree. Beautiful summation of this biography of cancer.
Also anxious to hear the verdict on Sweetland. I loved Galore and that one has been on my radar.
39seitherin
Needed a quick break from all the fantasy I've been reading, so I borrowed and read Reasonable Fear by Scott Pratt.
41Copperskye
>20 CarolynSchroeder: I'm so sorry, Carolyn. I lost my mom in 2010 and still miss her everyday. It does get less painful, though, as the days go by.
42mollygrace
I read this story yesterday. I was enchanted by it and thought some of you might feel the same way: http://uncannymagazine.com/article/in-the-house-of-the-seven-librarians/
43ahef1963
>20 CarolynSchroeder: I am so sorry for your loss. My deepest sympathies.
I finished (and started) reading In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex yesterday. It was certainly engrossing, but I was not completely enamoured of it. Part of that is some of the gruesome reading, and the other part was due to a total lack of personal knowledge about parts of a ship, and basic naval terminology, which the book did little to dispel. I found myself skipping over heavily-nautically-detailed paragraphs, hoping that I hadn't missed something important.
I'm now about to sit down to the pleasure of reading a book that I've borrowed twice from the library, and enjoyed so much that I purchased my own copy. How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household by Blu Greenberg is a fascinating book. I'm a practising Christian, so it doesn't help me in any practical way, but I have been enamoured since childhood with Jewish orthodoxy, and this book satisfies me greatly.
>40 Erick_Tubil: Just scrolled up and noticed that you, too, have just read In the Heart of the Sea. What did you think?
I finished (and started) reading In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex yesterday. It was certainly engrossing, but I was not completely enamoured of it. Part of that is some of the gruesome reading, and the other part was due to a total lack of personal knowledge about parts of a ship, and basic naval terminology, which the book did little to dispel. I found myself skipping over heavily-nautically-detailed paragraphs, hoping that I hadn't missed something important.
I'm now about to sit down to the pleasure of reading a book that I've borrowed twice from the library, and enjoyed so much that I purchased my own copy. How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household by Blu Greenberg is a fascinating book. I'm a practising Christian, so it doesn't help me in any practical way, but I have been enamoured since childhood with Jewish orthodoxy, and this book satisfies me greatly.
>40 Erick_Tubil: Just scrolled up and noticed that you, too, have just read In the Heart of the Sea. What did you think?
44rocketjk
I'm a bit behind in my reporting. Last weekend I finished The Ghosts of Belfast, Stuart Neville's horrifying, gripping and unforgettable thriller about the Troubles in Northern Ireland during the 80s and 90s. violent, relentless torment being experienced by Gerry Fegan, a man who has spent his young adulthood as a "foot soldier" for the Catholic extremists. Put more directly, he's been a thug and an assassin, but always believing he was a soldier fighting for a cause. A prison sentence behind him, he is now being tormented by the ghosts of 12 of the people whose deaths he has caused. He bloody lengths he must go to in order to rid himself of their horrible presence makes up the body of the story. My review, with just a bit more depth than my report here, can by found on the book's work page and on my 50-Book Challenge thread.
If you have any sort of tolerance for violence in your reading, do not miss this book.
I'm now reading 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson, a novel about a Polish couple who have been reunited after being separated during WW2. In the years just after the war they are trying to reconstruct their lives in England. The book is suffering in comparison to Ghosts> (interestingly, both are first novels), but I'm finding enough interest to keep me going so far.
If you have any sort of tolerance for violence in your reading, do not miss this book.
I'm now reading 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson, a novel about a Polish couple who have been reunited after being separated during WW2. In the years just after the war they are trying to reconstruct their lives in England. The book is suffering in comparison to Ghosts> (interestingly, both are first novels), but I'm finding enough interest to keep me going so far.
45seitherin
Still taking a break (mostly) from fantasy. Currently reading Still Waters by Viveca Sten.
46momom248
Carolyn so very sorry for your loss. I am glad reading has been helpful to you. Take care.
47pontiacgal501
Finished up Conviction by Richard North Patterson on 10/20. Was a good book but was hoping for a different ending. Currently reading The King of Colored Town by Darryl Wimberly. This book has been on my kindle since 2011. Will be reading Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub next.
