qebo’s 2016 books (1)

Because I recently bought a house with a grove of mostly native trees in the back yard, my 2016 thread toppers will be devoted to them.

Let’s start the year with the Common Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis). It lives for 150-200 years, and grows 40’-80’ high. As its name suggests, it produces berries that remain through the winter and are eaten by birds and squirrels. It hosts the caterpillars of Hackberry Emperor, Tawny Emperor, Mourning Cloak, Question Mark, and Snout butterflies. It is prone to galls that form around Hackberry Psyllids.

(Note: all images are from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, labeled as unrestricted for non-commercial use.)

January
#01: A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George -- (Jan 1) - new (e-book)
#02: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson -- (Jan 10) - ROOT
#03: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy -- (Jan 15) - new (e-book)
#04: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates -- (Jan17) - ROOT
#05: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald -- (Jan 23) - ROOT
#06: January magazines -- (Jan 30)

February
#07: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Feb 3) - LFL
#08: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote -- (Feb 9) - new
#09: The Big Short by Michael Lewis -- (Feb 15) - new
#10: ISIS: The State of Terror by Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger -- (Feb 16) - new
#11: In the Darkness by Karin Fossum -- (Feb 19) - new (e-book)
#12: The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White -- (Feb 29) - new (e-book)
#13: February magazines -- (Feb 29)

March

I’m Katherine, a computer programmer in Lancaster PA, entering the 75 books challenge for the 6th year. I’m in the process of moving 3/4 mile, getting settled in the new house and preparing the old house for sale. As a consequence, reading has been more frivolous, and reviewing has been lagging months behind. So for this year I aspire to write brief comments only, whatever I can manage to produce promptly. We’ll see how this goes; my track record is not stellar. In calmer times, reading tends toward sciency non-fiction, sometimes straight science, sometimes biography or cultural history. I cross-post in the Non-Fiction Challenge group. Last year I joined two local RL book groups that meet monthly, and after a few months of feeling disproportionately obligated (my pace is about 6 books per month), I stopped requesting ER books. I’ve been counting magazine subscriptions (New Yorker, Atlantic, Scientific American) as one book per month; a few years ago I read cover to cover and wrote summaries for the Magazines!!! group, but those days are gone, and now I read what I feel like and write nothing. I also participate in the Gardens & Books group, and am typically more active there than here during the summer.

January plans

The first book of the year is a A Banquet of Consequences, the most recent installment in a mystery series, which I managed not to finish in 2015 (deliberately, because I needed book #1 more than book #76). For the biography challenge, I am reading Steve Jobs, which I began in 2015 but set aside because it was a hindrance to achieving 75. For two local book groups, one primarily fiction and one primarily non-fiction, I will read Far from the Madding Crowd and Between the World and Me. I aspire to read The Empire of Necessity, a gift from the 75er Xmas Swap (Santa ronincats). I may enter the doorstop challenge with Moby Dick, accompanied by the “wedge” Spark Notes: Moby Dick, without expectations of finishing this month.

Oh, and, let’s see if I can get back to magazines.

#1: A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George -- (Jan 1)

why now: The latest installment, a comfort read while in the throes of moving from the old house to the new house.

A multitude of dysfunctional characters with a high ick factor, well-constructed gradual revelations, and a twist at the end. This is among a few series I’ve been reading for decades, at this point kinda because it’s there and the detectives are familiar.

Off to a good start for the year with a book finished at 9am on the first!

>7 _Zoe_: I left it with one short chapter to go last night.

Starred!

>I love your January book selection. I read Between the World and Me in November, and had the pleasure of seeing him speak at the local liberal arts college. I have followed his Atlantic articles for the last 18 months or so, and have to admit to liking his journalistic writing more than the book. However, Between the World and Me is still one of my favorites from 2015; it's a very thought-provoking read. I can't wait to see what Ta-Nehisi Coates does next.

>10 abergsman: He has a blog too, but has cut way back, I'd suppose with the demands of national prominence. I haven't yet read the Atlantic article, got way behind on magazines last year.

Hi Katherine, I'm so taken with your hackberry images. I've just moved from Missouri to Colorado, which from a gardening perspective is going to be a challenge. It was easy to grow just about anything in Missouri. I loved the huge sycamore that was in my yard in Missouri, and I already miss it like one of my best friends. Ah well. Good luck with your new house!

I'm looking forward to following your reading in 2016. Looks like you have a great start already..

Happy New Year!

Welcome back!

Hi qebo! Good luck with your move and I look forward to following your threads this year.

Happy New Year in your new abode. I hope that it is feeling more and more like a lovely space to live.

>12 labwriter: huge sycamore
I'm on a street lined with sycamores now, but none in my yard.

>15 Whisper1: more and more like a lovely space to live
Moving is still a lotta work, but I'm arranging spaces in the new house based on lessons learned in the old, and the results so far are encouraging.

Happy New Year, Katherine!

Happy new year, Katherine! Great first book completed. I need to try that series.

Hi Katherine! Happy to see your thread up and running and with one book already under your belt! Awesome!

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2016!

Hi, Katherine. Happy New Year and new house and new reading.

Happy New Year!

Have a wonderful bookfilled 2016, Katherine. xx

Happy 2016!

Hi Katherine, I love the photos topping your thread. I especially like the 3rd photo. Are those the galls that infect the plant?

>24 cameling: Are those the galls
Yeah. They're kinda cool. I'm aware of them because I kept seeing them on leaves in my yard and asked an arborist. Apparently quite common, and my trees are healthy sez the arborist.

Happy New Year Q - Like the tree theme very much. We do not have hackberry up here.

Several rounds of organizing and transporting stuff between houses, too tired to deal with the piles of boxes and bags in my living room, so I'm going out to see The Big Short movie... and of course I ordered The Big Short book.

>26 sibylline: Hmm, indeed you don't. Here's a distribution map. I hadn't been familiar with hackberry, seems not to be planted deliberately; the arborist figured my grove grew naturally after the house was built in 1935. The next door neighbor (who once lived in my house then upsized) tells me that she has a photo of the house when it was surrounded by a cornfield, which helps to establish a time frame for the trees.

>27 qebo: quite liked The Big Short both as a movie and a book.

The roots of the Problem are well documented by the same author's Liar's Poker which is just a fun book about how the market works and how the people who work in it are honestly no smarter than the rest of us.

>27 qebo: quite liked The Big Short both as a movie and a book.

The roots of the Problem are well documented by the same author's Liar's Poker which is just a fun book about how the market works and how the people who work in it are honestly no smarter than the rest of us.

Happy New Year Katherine! I have Far From the Maddening Crowd sitting on my audioshelf - though I probably won't get to it any time soon. Hopefully you enjoy it!

Don't know how the cod are doing - better I think, but not great, but here is something I do know a little about - efforts to restore the herring river runs in Wellfleet. There's another run in Truro that has a group working on restoration as well.

herring

>32 sibylline: Encouraging. I "liked" the FB page so news'll flit through my attention on occasion.

I don't think I've ever seen a hackleberry before...

Wishing you a Happy New Year. Seems you're already up and going with one book down and some interesting ones planned for the month. Looking forward to checking back in.

Happy New Year Katherine! I'm looking forward to learning about your new botanic roommates.

>35 norabelle414: There you are! Gonna create a thread?

>36 qebo: Mayyyyyybe

Whew! I had you starred but hadn't visited. Happy New Year, Katherine in your happy new house and happy new yard! I've never even heard of a hackberry tree, but it's handsome.
You remind me that I'm now 2 books behind with E. George and will just have to stay that way for a month or so. You also make me feel better about my huge reading plans. I'd better get to it!

Happy New Year, Katherine! Awesome list of January books. I'll be interested to see how you fare with Moby Dick. It's another one on my list of 'someday' classics.

I suspect you're very busy finishing up the old house and unpacking the new. Good luck with it all!

>39 streamsong: Also the full time job started up again this week, and kinda interferes with all the houses and the books. My current goal is to start Moby Dick toward the end of the month. I'm somewhat more than halfway through Steve Jobs, and read the (spoiler-filled) introduction to Far From the Madding Crowd.

Re the job, the good news is that yesterday the boss gave me permission to fix his crappy convoluted code edit his code so that it will be compatible with a new and utterly unnecessary toy tool, i.e. I will play secretary so he can devote his attention to ideas of grand importance. This has taken three months of diplomacy.

I could use some of that diplomacy.

People who don't write code don't understand that to people who do write code - it's WRITING! and there are styles and structures just like any other piece of short prose.

Good for you Kath!

I'll finish Steve Jobs tonight. I haven't made much progress with Far from the Madding Crowd, but I watched the 1968 movie last night via the TCM app which I just discovered.

In house progress, I cleaned the 3rd and 2nd floors of the old house, though I still need to paint window trim in the office now that I've cleared away the clutter. Not everything is gone, but I boxed the unshelved books so they are tidier.

>41 ffortsa:, >42 magicians_nephew: The spaghetti code cleanup resumes tomorrow. The boss is extremely proprietary and secretive, and believes that only he can truly understand his system. He thinks while writing code, produces multiple versions by means of copy-paste-tweak, resulting in unwieldy blobs of almost-but-not-quite duplicate code. So I can't simply consolidate; I have to compare versions and extract the identical portions, and with every change I have to compile and run and check that the new behavior matches the old behavior. It's tedious, and I can see why he doesn't want to be bothered, but I wish he'd let me at it months ago.

>43 qebo:. That code sounds awful. I don't even like commented lines, since they up the noise factor when trying to determine source of an error. On the other hand, cleaning the stables can be very satisfying.

Is there a Far from the Maddening Crowd readalong somewhere? It seems like a lot of people are reading it. I have that audiobook and would be happy to join.

>43 qebo: - Wow, that code tangle sounds worst to tease out than a jumbled mess of Christmas lights. Good luck with that!

>44 ffortsa:, >46 lkernagh: Oh, and, he changed his code! Which I discovered this morning. Only "minor" changes, he said, apparently not grasping the concept of DO. NOT. TOUCH. THOSE. FILES. Sheesh. Indeed, only minor changes, trivial even, but I have to check each file.

You are committing a heroic act Kath

If they ever have statues of computer programmers in the public parks I will recommend that they begin with you

Hi Katherine

What a great idea to use the trees on your property as opening images. Again, I wish you good luck with settling into your new home.

Before we went to SAP (boo, hiss) I was a programmer..... I loved working with users to figure out what they wanted, adding what they needed but didn't realize they needed, then writing a system or report to give them what was necessary to solve the problem or make something visible or make their job easier. Editing other peoples' code is always hair-raising because you see strangeness, the spaghetti-ness, and trying to fix it is much more time-consuming than rewriting it yourself (which I have done on occasion!)

Good luck.

The motivation for this is we're planning optimistically to maybe soonish hire another programmer who will use this code as a foundation and a model, and it has been suitable for neither. So my boss can't continue to work in his own private world producing massive quantities of spaghetti for his own personal consumption. Anyway, I'm nearly done, but I'll do a final round of tweaking and testing early next week with fresh brain.

>50 karenmarie: I had a brief encounter with SAP some years ago... boo hiss indeed.

Interesting to read about these programming issues. How will your boss cope with another employee????????

>52 sibylline: With the other boss as buffer.

Unfair to boss 2! But how will two of you cope with this kind of thing?? Won't he keep on doing it?

>54 sibylline: The two bosses are 60-ish and have been friends since college. Their roles are well established.

St. Katherine the Patient!
That all sounds ghoulish and just like life, I'm sorry to say.
I wish you well on getting everything done early next week before boss has another bout of creativity.
Hope your weekend of house-managing leaves some time for reading too!

Argh! A pox on bosses who are a hindrance! If they can't help you, at least stay out the way so you can help yourself!

Happy weekend!

Um...there is absolutely no chance that your bosses could read your comments about them here, right? ;-)

>58 kidzdoc: :-) Has crossed my mind... I haven't completely obscured my identity. I wouldn't expect them to go searching for me though.

Thank goodness my bosses don't code.

Stopping by to say hi. I am not sure if I ever saw a hackberry tree. There are certainly none in my own yard! My dogwood tree has now completely died, but I want to keep the snag to attract woodpeckers. Parts of that tree keep falling down, though. *sigh*

Stopping by to say congrats on untangling the spaghetti code! Happy Sunday!

#2: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson -- (Jan 10)

why now: Noticed at the grocery store not long after SqueakyChu’s positive review, and not long before the movie was released. Then I saw the movie, and wondered about its accuracy. (Which was pretty much typical: events and characters conflated and shifted and exaggerated for dramatic effect.) I’m not especially an Apple enthusiast, switched to the other guys decades ago as a pragmatic matter to be compatible with work, have kept up with the tech wars only peripherally, so I might otherwise have skipped it.

This book gives an impression of being both thorough and fair. Steve Jobs from birth to death, the Apple corporation from founding to present. Admiring the intense intense intense focus on design while noting its frequent tendency to absurdity. Acknowledging the arrogant disdainful callous behavior and its effects on relationships while presenting a whole and generally sympathetic person. Very highly recommended.

#3: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy -- (Jan 15)

why now: RL book group selection for January. The person who suggested it was unexpectedly out of town, attendance was low, and only three of us had finished.

Well, I’m glad that I watched the 1967 movie (the 2015 movie doesn’t seem to be available for streaming) early on; it helped me separate plot from atmosphere. Also I learned how to pronounce Bathsheba.

>56 LizzieD: I am, so far, on pace.
>57 michigantrumpet: Well, he's not the worst boss I've had.
>58 kidzdoc: I dropped by your thread and it was more serious than I could give justice to as I was about to head out. I marked a read-to-here for later.
>60 ffortsa: I had another boss whose style was the opposite: compact crypticity. It was entertaining what he could pack into a single line. I wouldn't've dared touch it.
>61 SqueakyChu: Well, you may as well keep it until it falls apart entirely. Woodpeckers are cool.
>62 lkernagh: Thanks!

I will finish the 4th book of my >5 qebo: January plan tonight, and I've already begun deviating from the remainder with H is for Hawk. Also I really need to start with the magazines. So everything else may be pushed into February.

>64 qebo: Good to know to watch the movie first. Some books are like that. I like doing that with Dickens, too. :)

>63 qebo: Walter Issacson's name on the cover is a good recommendation for accuracy in biographical writing, sez me.

>64 qebo: Madding crowd is a good 'un. Did you know that Katness Everdeen from The Hunger Games was named after our Bathsheba?

>67 The_Hibernator: Depends on how particular you are about spoilers. I don't mind them, don't feel the story is ruined. I'd also read the intro to my Barnes & Noble Classics edition, which has plenty of spoilers too.
>68 magicians_nephew: And he's quite readable too, so I'll look for others. I have neither read nor seen The Hunger Games, have heard the name but didn't make the connection.

Is there anything tricky about pronouncing Bathsheba that I should know?????

>70 sibylline: Accent on the first syllable.

Good morning, Katherine. How bad is the snow there? Looks like you'd be in the blizzard warning area? Hope you are safe and warm. We have a lot of snow but I know it's worse further east of us.

We have maybe a foot now, with at least another foot expected. It doesn't seem all that blustery, and no power outages so far. I'm quite cozy inside, but about to venture out and carve a path from my front door to the street, which may change my perception.

A foot! I came here specifically to see how you were faring. And another foot on the way! And we up north won't see a single flake of this.

Meh. I just shoveled a path to the street in about 20 minutes. There's a lotta snow, but not much wind. Photos in progress...

Our conditions are similar although it has drifted quite a bit in spots. We have a long driveway so the hubs has already done a first pass with the snow blower, and he shoveled a path out the front door for the dogs. It's been snowing lightly for some time now. But we are warm and cozy.

Oops duplicate post.

We probably have a foot or so. Hard to tell, as it is drifting. Some spots look like they have six inches, some spots more like two feet. Unofficial reports on TV for nearby towns are all in double digits, some 20 or more. But I am safe and warm in the house, which still has power.

The next experiment is to see whether I can walk to the old house and assess the sidewalk situation there. I had an old pair of hiking boots, which I thought I'd brought here but apparently is still there in the remaining miscellany. Well, that's a bit more motivation to give this a try.

The snow is so pretty! And your house looks good in it.

It is pretty, isn't it?

Yup. At the old house, in the donate-or-keep section. I'm thinking keep.

Definitely keep!

I think you should keep them too.

Great snow pictures!

Hope you have a great week ahead.

Hi Katherine! I love the snow pictures although I have plenty snow of my own. The green trees at the top of your thread are quite a contrast with what I can see out my window.

Thanks for visiting, and I look forward to seeing what you're reading this year.

Nice snow photos, Katherine. How much did snow did Lancaster receive in all?

>87 kidzdoc: Official is 26".

>88 qebo: Oof. It's amazing that Linda had 10" more than you did.

One of the joys of apartment life is not having to be the one who shovels it after a big snowstorm

Cat Epsilon is sick. She was diagnosed with a hyperthyroid over the summer, and medication got her quickly back to normal behavior but she'd lost weight and hasn't gained enough back. She was eating voraciously then normally, then a couple weeks ago she began picking at food, all sorts of food that I tried to tempt her, so I took her to the vet wondering whether the thyroid level had gone too far in the other direction. It hadn't, but the vet was concerned about a heart murmur that has remained while the thyroid problem has resolved, so Epsilon is scheduled for a chest X-ray on Thursday morning. Today she ate almost nothing, and this evening she's making soft distress whimpers and retreating to dark corners. She's schizzy, always has been. I sat near her to tell her what a fine cat she is, but that made her nervous; she had already moved once because I was intruding. The only vet open now is the emergency place on the other side of the city which is treacherous to get to with the streets only partially cleared of snow, and if she's going to die I don't want it to be in a panic of getting stuffed into a carrier and inspected by strangers who probably can't do anything anyway except run the same tests as the regular vet. So I'm letting her be, which I'm not at all sure is the right call. I may change my mind later.

Now she's in the comfortable (i.e. my) chair in the dark, not whimpering, purred when I scritched her ears, then moved as if to jump down, so I left her alone again.

Always a hard call to make, but I can't think that a trip across town on dangerous streets with a panicked kitty would be at all productive. Glad she's settled down a bit, sending positive healing vibrations!

Catherine, I'll keep you and your fine cat in my thoughts and prayers. Our beloved pets are family. I hope all is well by morning.

All the best to you!

Aww, thinking of you and Epsilon. Sounds like keeping her comfortable and feeling secure is working out. Good luck with the vet visit whenever it occurs.

Epsilon is still settled in the chair, and I wouldn't know anything's wrong if I hadn't seen and heard her earlier this evening. So I'll call the vet tomorrow morning, though it's a multi-vet office and the regular vet isn't in until Thursday, thus the originally scheduled appointment.

Thinking of you and Eppie, Kath

Vet appointment scheduled for 10:45 this morning. Not the regular vet, but I'm too worried to wait another day.

Hugs to you Katherine and best wishes for Epsilon. Fur person problems are extra hard. She's very lucky to have you.

>98 qebo: Good luck, Katherine.

I hope that you receive good news about Epsilon from the vet, Katherine.

Super. Now she's hiding behind the basement wall panel. Which means either she's feeling lousy or she knows something's up or both.

Epsilon
July 2002 – 27 January 2016

Epsilon completely flipped out when I captured her this morning, scratched and nipped and struggled. I managed to hang on long enough to get her into the carrier, but she was breathing heavily and whimpering. The vet tech immediately whisked her away for a sedative and oxygen, and took the chest X-ray that had been scheduled for tomorrow. Her lungs were surrounded by fluid. The vet said the fluid could mean several things and the next step would be an ultrasound. Which would mean hauling the sick cat to a facility that has the necessary equipment. So I asked what do you really think is wrong? The vet said given my description of the recent deterioration, the probable cause was cancer; not fixable and attempts at treatment might extend life by a few weeks max. So I asked about letting her die naturally versus euthanasia, and the vet said it would be a more severe version of her behavior last night; she won’t be able to breath and she’ll panic and hide. We were talking while the vet tech continued to give oxygen and I was murmuring to Epsilon and scritching her ears. And while we were discussing my decision to euthanize, she stopped breathing completely.

I’m OK. I’ve known since summer that her health was poor. I’m glad that the thyroid medication revived her normal feisty self, if only briefly.

I'm very sorry to hear about Epsilon, Katherine.

Oh, Katherine, I'm so sorry. Even knowing she hadn't been well, there will be grieving. Bless her for making the decision for you--she knew she was loved.

What Roni said. I'm sorry, too, Katherine. Everything I can think of to say sounds trite, even to me as I type it. So I'll leave it at that. Many hugs.

whoops - read Roni's message and put her name instead of yours. My apologies. It's one of those days.

Oh, Katherine, I am so so sorry. I know the loss of a pet and the feelings involved, including feeling like you are kicked in the stomach.

Ditto all messages above.

Sometimes the trite things we say are because there is no other way of expression. Know I am thinking of you and sending gentle hugs.

Take good care of yourself in the next few days and weeks. You lost a beloved friend, and it hurts...badly.

Love to you

Katherine, I saw this on Facebook first and immediately came here. I'm very sorry to to read this news, but also very glad that you got her to the vet today given her condition, and that she "crossed the rainbow bridge" feeling cared for and loved, because of your attention at that very moment.

((HUG))

Very sorry to read about your loss of Epsilon, especially during a week that made it difficult to know how to care for her. Clearly she was loved and could not have had a better human.

>104 kidzdoc:, >105 ronincats:, >106 streamsong:, >107 Whisper1:, >108 lauralkeet:, >109 swynn: Thanks, everyone. I feel bad that I hauled the cat to the vet this morning because she really really really hated being captured or trapped in any manner, but I also would've felt bad if her obvious distress had dragged out. I kinda worked this afternoon but had difficulty concentrating, fortunately had informed the bosses before the vet appointment that the current task will take a few days so nobody was expecting results today.

So sorry to hear about Epsilon, Katherine.

So glad I got onto LT and checked in to see how you were doing. So sad for you about Epsilon. It's so hard to judge these things and get them so you feel you did it right. But, for what it is worth, I don't know what you could have done differently, other than doing nothing, which would have had its own difficulty given you didn't know quite what was wrong with her. Anyway, thinking of you.

I'm so sorry. I'll be keeping you in my thoughts.

Bless your heart, Katharine. I'm very sorry about Epsilon. We make the best calls that we can with the information we have at the time. You did right by her.

Katherine, so very, very sorry about Epsilon. She was a beauty, and I can't imagine how much you miss her. You're in my thoughts.

Adding to the sorries about Epsilon.

Kath why did you name her Epsilon? was she the Fifth Cat? It's a great name for a great cat

I'm stopping by to see how you are doing today. Know that many people care about you and surround you with love.

>111 ffortsa:, >112 sibylline:, >113 scaifea:, >114 labwriter:, >115 tymfos:, >116 rebeccanyc: Thanks, all.

>117 magicians_nephew: I adopted her and her brother from a semi-feral litter (someone dumped a pregnant cat on the farm of a colleague, who rounded them all up a few months later). I wanted them to have mathematical names. She was a little bit of a thing, especially compared to her remarkably loud and determined hiss, and Epsilon as a small error seemed fitting. Her brother is orange, and he needed to begin with o, so he became Omega to be loosely compatible; I've never been entirely happy with his name. He is large and affable. Where she would skitter on the periphery, he lounges in the center.

So now it's Omega and the unrelated but also orange SNiP (single nucleotide polymorphism - he belonged to my microbiologist niece, whose husband is severely allergic, so I took him in a few years ago), the orange boys. Who hang out together, a condition that Omega seeks and SNiP tolerates.

I'm sad but OK. For the past six months, meals have been a nuisance because Epsilon got medication and high-calorie food on the kitchen counter while the orange boys got low-calorie food on the kitchen floor, and everybody suspected greener grass so I had to monitor to prevent jumping in both directions. Today was too easy; I missed the ritual.

Yeah, I imagine that empty place will hurt for a while to come. I have some of those cat shaped holes that still ache.

Love the names and the naming process.

So sorry about Epsilon. ((hugs))

Stopping by to get caught up with your thread and saw the very sad news regarding Epsilon, Katherine. I hope that, with time, the sorrow will diminish and let the fond memories carry you through.

So sorry to hear about Epsilon Katherine.

I'm sorry to hear about Epsilon, Katherine. I have kitties too, and I cry and cry when they go to kitty heaven.

Just adding my own note to say sorry to hear about Epsilon, and I do love your story about how she and Omega got their names :)

>121 banjo123:, >122 lkernagh:, >123 SandDune:, >124 karenmarie:, >125 bell7: Thanks.

I need to resist the urge to stir things up around here with a kitten...

#4: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates -- (Jan 17)

why now: January selection for RL book group, though I’d gotten it a few months before the selection vote.

The theme, reiterated and elaborated as a letter to his teenage son, is assault on the black body, and I wondered why he chose that word. He is not religious, and notes that where others may be able to escape to spirituality, he cannot; the spirit is not detachable. The body was enslaved. The body is trapped by a history of discriminatory laws. And the primary reaction is fear. The useful feature of this book is that it is not an effort to explain to outsiders (well, it is to an extent, since it was published); it really is, according to this NPR interview the way he talks to his son.

#5: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald -- (Jan 23)

why now: It’s been sitting in the soonish and easily accessible pile for a few months, this is biography non-fiction month, and other people are reading it too.

When her photojournalist father died suddenly, Helen Macdonald channeled her grief into training a goshawk. This wasn’t a completely random idea. She had been obsessed with falcons and hawks as a child and trained them as an adult, and her father was a kindred spirit who had been obsessed with airplanes during WWII and kept meticulous records of sightings. As a child she had been outraged by T. H. White’s The Goshawk because of his cruelty and incompetence. As an adult she reread with considerably more sympathy. The goshawk, her father, T. H. White, are loosely woven as incidents and insights, a frayed passage through emotions. I now want to read The Once and Future King. I do not want a goshawk.

>128 qebo: I do not want a goshawk.
Ha! Yes, I had a similar reaction -- not a hobby I wish to pursue!

>119 qebo: Aw, love the naming explanation.

>128 qebo: I would add a 100% recommendation for The Once and Future King. Have you read it before?

Yes, exactly. You get used to the regime of caring for the older cat . . . it's annoying, but then, perversely, you miss it.

No, I do not want a goshawk now or ever! I am read Hawk at present and find it an oddish book in some way. I hope I can get more insight when I finish and do some thinking about it for my review.

>130 labwriter: No, I've never read it. I downloaded it for the Nook last week.

>131 sibylline: oddish

I'll be interested in your thoughts. I'm barely managing to read, what with the annoying job and two houses and cat troubles and community garden issues (yes, in January), let alone contemplate and comment. Living vicariously through other threads.

And speaking of two houses, I need to stop procrastinating on LT and get over there to paint window frames, oh joy.

#126 - I need to resist the urge to stir things up around here with a kitten...

We only have 2 kitties right now, a 16-year old and a 9-year old and I, too, have to resist the urge. We tried a rescue kitty last year and she got along great with US, but tried to dominate the kitties, so since the owner's situation changed and she could take Dora back, we returned her. We haven't tried any new kitties since then. We'll probably try again after the 16-year old goes to kitty heaven, but he's pretty chipper right now so anticipate that to be in several years.

Hang in there with all the stresses in your life.

Round one of painting done. A lunch break, then back at it.

The orange boys are 13 and 7. They're both mellow enough to accept another cat, but if I get a kitten now, I'll have a cat until I'm 75. And in my experience an adult female could well become domineering. Omega tries to be buddies with everyone. SNiP withdraws.

>135 qebo: in my experience an adult female could well become domineering.
Hmm ... my daughter adopted a 4yo female cat who is the sweetest, cuddliest kitty I've ever met. She brought the cat home over Christmas and we organized a couple of encounters with our 13yo female. Mild hissing but no dominating behavior from either.

So ... my vote is for an adult female. When you're ready, of course. :)

>136 lauralkeet: Oh? Quirk, who died several years ago, was Queen Kitty, set the rules and thwacked anyone who disobeyed. When I took in SNiP, Omega wanted to be buddies immediately, but Epsilon took six months to be civil. I had to set up a baby gate, and Epsilon would try to lunge through it. Which was hilarious to watch, for me, but intimidating to SNiP. Here they are a few weeks in, after SNiP realized she couldn't get at him.

Well cats are unpredictable that's for sure!

January realities (see >5 qebo: plans)

completed:




started:


I’d just finished A Banquet of Consequences when I composed the plan. I followed the plan through Steve Jobs and the two RL book group obligations Far from the Madding Crowd and Between the World and Me. By then the month was half over and I was getting worried about magazines, so I started the January/February issue of Atlantic, and the January issue of Scientific American. The next book in the plan was too dense, and it could be shifted to the February history non-fiction challenge, so I picked up H is for Hawk, which had been in a small TBR stack that I’d brought to the new house and fits with the January biography/memoir non-fiction challenge. Moby Dick is going to take awhile, but I figured I’d better get momentum going, so I read the introduction of the Barnes & Noble Classics edition. With the end of the month approaching and magazines only partially complete, I plucked The Poisonwood Bible from donations to the Little Free Library as in-between reading. I also started Does Altruism Exist? for a RL group that is discussing it at the rate of one chapter per week, though the first and only January session was cancelled with the snow emergency.

Re magazines, I’ve decided to let the New Yorker subscription lapse. This isn’t necessarily a permanent condition, but the weekly bombardment is just too much for now, and I’d rather pay more attention to the two monthlies. Which I’m counting together as one book, paging through each cover to cover, reading most articles.

Ohhh. I'm so sorry about your loss. Even knowing that Epsilon was sick for a few months, it's still hard to lose a friend.

Not a cat owner, but like them just fine. I'm sad.

I saw and was sorry on fb, but I'm only just now reading the sad Epsilon story. Honestly, Katherine, I think you did the very best for both your kitty and for yourself. It's hard, but the rest of their lives with us are so worth the trouble at the end that I'll hope to have cats when I'm 85............ well, maybe not 85. I'll see.
Looks like you're reading a lot to me!

February plans

I started The Poisonwood Bible toward the end of January, and I’m quite enjoying it. I shifted the The Empire of Necessity from January, and I’ve been wanting to read Genghis Khan for awhile; both fit the February history non-fiction challenge. I got The Big Short after seeing the movie in January, so I’d better read it before my memory fades. The RL book group selections are In Cold Blood and ISIS: The State of Terror, which arrived last week. I’ll continue with the slow progress through Does Altruism Exist?. I downloaded The Once and Future King, which could be a nice fiction filler between all the non-fictions. I hope to get started for real with Moby Dick, and I have SparkNotes: Moby Dick on hand for reference. I surely won’t get far enough to count them. And magazines, but actually only Scientific American this month; I have it but haven’t yet checked the contents.

I appreciate your link to your January plans in your month-end summary, but I think I'm glad that I didn't include such a link in own summary....

I will be anticipating your review of The Empire of Necessity with great interest! ;-D

>144 _Zoe_: I'm experimenting with accountability this year. :-)
>145 ronincats: Book groups meet on the 17th and 20th this month, and I haven't started either book, so those are the priorities, and I generally don't cope will with multiple non-fictions at once, but Empire of Necessity is at the top of the optional stack. It was an excellent choice, Secret Santa, and I'm curious to read it.

In Cold Blood is a good 'un.

I do hope that you fall in love with Moby-Dick. I'm a decade overdue for a reread and apparently need a little nudge.

#7: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver -- (Feb 3)

why now: A recent donation to my Little Free Library. I started it some years ago and didn’t get very far, but since then I’ve read several other novels by Barbara Kingsolver and have come to expect an engaging story and an education.

This novel does not disappoint. A missionary and his family, wife and four daughters, travel to Congo in 1959 for a one-year stint, but the year coincides with political turmoil, and when the replacement does not arrive, he refuses to leave. Narrated by the wife decades afterward, and the daughters as events unfold. Different perspectives, different voices, all remarkably verbal (the vapid nitwit eldest abounds with malapropisms, the mute middle twin plays with palindromes while scrutinizing ostensible meaning forward and backward). The cultural misconceptions are initially hilarious with hints of foreboding, as the arrogant missionary aims to save the benighted natives by baptism, and the villagers with varying degrees of politeness and exasperation attempt to teach the family basic concepts of survival such as not immersing children in a river occupied by crocodiles. Then sinister forces of international conspiracy creep in as rumor and escalate to brute force. The family is invented but the history is real. I happen to have on hand In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, which may replace another book this month. Though much of my planned reading is not exactly uplifting, so maybe I’ll wait.

>149 qebo: I think you've finally convinced me to read this book. It's obviously been on the radar for ages, but I wasn't sold on a book about family and missionaries. Now I think I should pick it up.

The Once and Future King was a favorite book of mine when I was younger. I am kind of afraid to re-read, in case I don't like it as well now. But making that connection makes me more curious about H is for Hawk.

>149 qebo: I think this was the first Kingsolver I read, and it was shortly after it was published. I loved it and went immediately to some of her earlier work. This one still remains a favorite.

>149 qebo: I enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible too, but in the end I felt it was just a tad didactic.

>150 _Zoe_: I wasn't either, thus the delay.
>151 banjo123: I recall that The Once and Future King was around when I was a kid, and was a favorite of my brother's but I don't recall ever even giving it a try.
>152 lauralkeet: When I was considering books for my 75er Santee, I checked the catalog for favorites, which included this one among several Barbara Kingsolver novels; probably why I noticed it in the LFL donations.
>153 rebeccanyc: Yeah, Barbara Kingsolver is didactic, with a not entirely realistic clarity of heroes and villains, and a somewhat caricatured trajectory of which sister ended up on which side. Still, engaging and educational, and now I'm ready for a serious historical account that would've been less meaningful otherwise.

>153 rebeccanyc: Yeah, I agree with that. But I was much younger when I read it, and less attuned to that sort of thing.

I've read a lot of Kingsolver too, and enjoyed all of it, but *Poisonwood* remains my favorite. Glad you liked it too, Katherine.
(I know I've talked about my two HS juniors - a very fashion-conscious male/female duo - who thought that the oldest daughter was the heroine of the whole thing and that she got a very raw deal.)

>156 LizzieD: Well maybe Barbara Kingsolver wasn't quite didactic enough. Though I share a fair degree of sympathy for her raw deal; the life she wanted was ordinary by American standards, and she was left to her own devices, really abandoned to known unsavories, when she was poorly equipped to cope. What she made of the situation falls far short of "heroine", but she was presented as something of a Lesson in Contrasts that annoyed me.

>149 qebo: I've been wanting to read that. :)

Hope you have a great week!

I just finished catching up on your thread for 2016 and I wanted to express my sorrow for the loss of your fur friend, Epsilon. It's never easy. *hugs*

I'm looking for an easy bio or memoir to breeze through. Should I read Steve Jobs or H is for Hawk? Or maybe another? Considering where I am right now, I don't want anything *too* intellectually or emotionally challenging. You are my non-fiction go-to person, right?

>159 Morphidae: Hmm. Steve Jobs is long, and not emotionally challenging but if you aren't interested in tech wars then my guess is it'd drag after awhile. H is for Hawk is shorter but emotion is at its core. Have you seen the biography challenge thread? I haven't read many of those books, but one that stands out is My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor, which is engaging and uplifting.

For light and uplifting memoirs, I'd recommend A Long Way Home or The 13th Gift.

>160 qebo: I'm sort of lurking on the non-fiction challenge. I've decided on Winterdance as it caught my eye on some other threads.

>161 _Zoe_: I've got The 13th Gift marked down to read for this December.

>162 Morphidae: I've just added Winterdance to my WL too. :-)

I liked The Poisonwood Bible: right up to the last chapter (as I recall) and "the moral of the story". You might like Flight Behavior since it's about monarch butterflies. I haven't read it, but did read and enjoy Prodigal Summer, which was also science-y-ish.

P.S. I just scrolled up and read about Epsilon. I'm sorry. We recently had to put down our 14 year old black lab. We had an in-home vet come, and it was very peaceful. Strider died in my lap looking into my eyes. He was a good dog

>164 labfs39: I've read both Flight Behavior and Prodigal Summer, both a couple years ago. Didactic there too, but I enjoyed the science aspect.
>165 labfs39: 14! At home is the best.
PS: I gather you don't have a thread this year? I did see that k8 made a brief appearance.

You are going to read Moby Dick? I have started to make some ideas for my January 2017 classical chunkster read and I am pondering Moby Dick. Looking forward to seeing what you think of it.

>167 lkernagh: Well, that's the aspiration. At this point it's not a high priority, so it may drag out for the entire year. Or maybe I'll get into it and zip through.

Explanation for touchstone troubles: https://www.librarything.com/topic/218985 .

>166 qebo: No, I have read so little this year that it doesn't seem worth it to make a thread. k8 had a brief moment of inspiration on LT, but has been busy with other things: like dissecting a mink and a rat and comparing them! That was her "adventure days" project for yesterday and today. She says her scalpels at home are much sharper than the school's. :-) She is still reading a lot, but less about owls and wolves and more typical tween stuff.

In Prodigal Summer, I liked Kingsolver's description of the fight between the old man and the woman about mowing the gully, etc. Funny. My favorite science-y reading is Gerald Durrell. Oh to have grown up on Corfu like him!

I love Durrell. Have you read any of Stephen Jay Gould's books of essays? He's a bit broader-ranging than Gerald, but similarly engaging and instructive. Bully for Brontosaurus is one of my favorites.

I never could get through The Poisonwood Bible not sure why, I love all her other works, essay or fiction.

We read The Poisonwood Bible for bookclub one year and as I recall most of us enjoyed it. My newest favorite is Flight Behavior, just a marvelous book.

Happy Valentine's Day Katherine!

Touchstone testing in progress here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/219258 .
Note to myself if they ask for experimental cases. Current peeve is why the touchstone for Moby Dick gets this: http://www.librarything.com/work/1025733 and not this: http://www.librarything.com/work/15540 .

I was hoping that all that touchstone stuff was why mine weren't working here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/218462#5460366 . No such luck. Le sigh.

Just a note to say that my favorite Kingsolver is *Poisonwood*, but The Lacuna is a close second.
Hi, Katherine! Try the hyphen in Moby-Dick. That seems to make it right.

Hi Katherine. I'm stopping by and waving hello. I hold you in my thoughts as you process the loss of a beloved fur family member. After my 13 year old Sheltie Simon passed away so suddenly, it was very difficult. He passed away in February. By spring, we brought our current Sheltie Lilly into our home. While one pet cannot take the place of another, it did help with the grief process. So, I can understand that you might not want a new kitten, but I also can tell you that it helped us to get Lilly.

And, yes, I have experienced a lot of frustration with the touch stones lately. The ones that pop up are not anyway similar to the title added. What the heck????

>176 Morphidae: Hmm... edit and copy the touchstones, then delete the the touchstones and save to reset it, then edit and paste the touchstones? I don't actually know.
>177 LizzieD: Aha! Moby-Dick does it. Which doesn't strike me as a solution, in that it brings up a non-hyphenated title, but it will reduce my frustration. I haven't yet read The Lacuna.
>178 Whisper1: I remember when you got Lilly! For now, I'm OK with the orange boys. I don't think I'll actively seek another cat. However, there are often cats who need homes...

>179 qebo: Yep, tried that, too. Very frustrating!

>180 Morphidae: Refresh between steps to clear its brain? Clear the touchstones and add one that it's never seen before? Add touchstones back in one at a time?

The mostly fiction book group has existed for a year and has about a dozen members (i.e. people who have attended at least one meeting and continue to express aspiration). A typical meeting has about 6-8 attendees, what with schedule conflicts sometimes known well in advance and sometimes last minute. Tomorrow it's looking to be 5 attendees, of which 2 (including me) have read the book. The person who selected the book has not read it. The college professor has not read it. The college librarian has not read it. "Hey, can I just be an honorary member so I can enjoy the company but don't have to read the book?" asks one. "Sure!" reply several others. So... I said I'm not wild about this decision. If it's a social group, that's fine; it's a pleasant bunch of people. But if it's a social group, I have a backlog of other books that I actively want to read on their own merits. This exchange has been via Facebook posts. Discussion in person tomorrow. We'll see how long this group lasts...

Well that's an interesting development with your book group. Like you I would feel less inclined to read the selected books unless I really wanted to.

>182 qebo: You have just hit the nail on the head about why I quit the neighborhood book club. "The person who selected the book has not read it"--etc. When this happened to me 4 or 5 times (why did it take so long?), I said "sayonara" to the group.

People who "continue to express aspiration"--I fell off my chair laughing.

Yowza! What a book group! Not a high level of commitment, I'd say.

>184 labwriter: continue to express aspiration
Well, people don't necessarily know what their priorities are until they're put to the reality test. The excuses for not attending, when stated, are perfectly reasonable (out of town, house guests, kid events), it's next to impossible to set a regular time that's universally convenient, and the turnout is sufficient for discussion. BUT. Several members are aspirational readers too, and a book per month is an undeveloped habit. Not sure what to do about that.

All I can do is with you courage and wonder how long giving people an opportunity to form a permanent reading habit should continue.

Have you considered switching to mostly non-fiction? I think that often works better for fostering discussion in cases where people have only read part of the book.

>188 _Zoe_: The other book group is non-fiction, and the members are more reliable. I'd be fine with two non-fiction book groups, and the current book actually is non-fiction, but there was a conversation awhile back and most people wanted fiction. This is an unusual month in that three generally reliable people are absent. What bothers me is the attitude that sure, it's fine if you decide to treat this as a social group.

Well, that was... indeterminate. 3 of the 5 attendees said yes, it's aspirational, and they'll try harder. But 2 of them have schedule conflicts next month. Behind the scenes, an absent (and generally reliable) member messaged a present member with concern that I might be insisting on a strict rule of read the book or else. Which I'm not. I just want people to feel more responsible. Trouble is, everyone else there is apparently happy enough if the group becomes merely social. I'm not; I don't especially want to spend a chunk of Saturday morning chitchatting. The book discussion is not stringently focused, but it keeps the conversation somewhat elevated.

>190 qebo: I'm impressed by your commitment to the group. I think at this point I would have just acknowledged that they're looking to socialize while I want to actually read books, so I'd just leave them to it.

>191 _Zoe_: I'm in it partly for the social connections too. But if that's the deal, then I won't feel obligated to read the book, and if I haven't already invested in the book then I'll feel less motivated to attend the gathering, and I'd guess without the book as glue, the group will dissolve into subclusters of people who are friends anyway. Oh well. I'll continue for now.

#8: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote -- (Feb 9)

why now: RL book group selection for February. This group generally reads fiction, and maybe the book is fiction enough; its non-fiction qualifications are controversial. This is the book that only two of us actually read, so discussion was minimal.

An out-of-the-blue murder of four family members in rural Kansas would not be quite the sensation now as it was in 1959. Since then, true crime has become a genre, but this I gather is where it began. The book is about the town and its residents, and about the two murderers, one more than the other, lots and lots and lots of context and buildup, with the event itself a question until nearly the end and perhaps after. A page-turner of atmosphere and psychology even though the basic facts are known from the start.

Turns out that a group read coincided with my read, so I added a few comments there.

I watched the movie Capote shortly after I finished the book. It’s based on a book, which I haven’t read, so how much the movie deviates from the book, and how much the book deviates from reality, I don’t know. It focuses on Truman Capote and Harper Lee from their arrival in Kansas (he seeking an immersive subject for a book after the murders made national news, she smoothing the way to interviews; this was before To Kill a Mockingbird made her famous) through the completion of the book (waiting in frustration for the death penalty to take effect). Since Truman Capote doesn’t insert himself into the book at all, this was a useful perspective.

#9: The Big Short by Michael Lewis -- (Feb 15)

why now: Saw the movie, was curious.

The gist: other people’s money and layers of obfuscation. The details: a glossary would’ve been helpful. The characters: a few iconoclasts who predicted doom.

#10: ISIS: State of Terror by Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger -- (Feb 16)

why now: RL book group selection for February, suggested by someone whose niece contributed to the research.

The style is documentary, not story. The tone is relatively neutral, not sensationalistic; the authors are analysts attempting to understand a phenomenon. The book begins with a few chapters sketching the history of ISIS. Subsequent chapters focus on who joins and why, recruitment, propaganda, social media, etc. I got through it a chapter (about 25 pages) per day, and can’t claim that many details stuck in my mind, but it does provide a coherent infrastructure for news. I’d recommend reading the appendix first for context.

#11: In the Darkness (aka Eva’s Eye) by Karin Fossum -- (Feb 19)

why now: The author has been mentioned on several threads recently, I was curious, and I needed a break from recent non-fiction.

Walking along the river, Eva and her daughter notice a dead man floating in the water. Eva steps into a phone booth and pretends to call the police, then takes her daughter to McDonalds for a Happy Meal as distraction. Not distraction enough; the daughter anxiously talks, and the police have been wondering about Eva since the murder of her friend Maja six months before when, similarly, Eva didn’t contact the police with relevant information. And the dead man had gone missing a few days later. Connections made, Eva is brought in to the police station, and her role is revealed. This is the first of a series, and it’s awkward with potential. A whydunnit as much as a whodunnit, but with psychologizing too contrived, and a limited view of the investigation.

>182 qebo: I'm not sure I'd stick with it. We have a book group of 12 members, and we do say that people can come along if they haven't read the book, but our meetings are pretty book focused, and so most people will pretty much always read at least some of the book. I don't remember anyone ever having the nerve to host without reading their own book in the 16 years we've been going!

>186 qebo: I started with Don't Look Back and He Who Fears the Wolf, which were the the first translated into English. I enjoyed them well enough to keep going, using them as a break from heavier stuff. My inner completist wants to circle back and read In the Darkness but maybe there's a reason that one wasn't translated first, eh?

>198 lauralkeet: I got this one in a set of the first three of the series, so I'll probably read the next when I need another break. Yeah, I'd guess that it wasn't translated because it's an awkward start and doesn't add much backstory to the detective.

My RL book club usually has 7-9 of the 12 members having read the book. If you read it fine, if you don't read it fine. Our book club problem is that we have two people who periodically try to make rules - like no YA, or you have to have read the book prior to offering it as your selection, or no non-fiction - and we always firmly say No Thanks. We only have 12 people in the club, and it's been the same group for about 6-7 years now (book club started in 1997). Each member chooses a book, any book, fiction or non-fiction, and it's everybody's choice whether to read it or not. We don't hold back if someone hasn't read it either - spoilers welcomed as part of the discussion. Some discussions are better than others, too. We always meet the first Sunday evening from 7-9 p.m. except when the first weekend is a holiday. We've never deviated from this, even for Downton Abbey or the Superbowl!

Good luck with your group.

Capote looks like an interesting movie to watch. I had forgotten that Harper Lee and Truman Capote had known each other, though I vaguely remember some sort of connection now that you mention it.

Stopping by to wish you a lovely week, Katherine. Good luck with your book group. Like you, I would be less inclined to read the assigned book if I have other books I am more interested in reading and the other members more or less treat the group as a social club.

Capote, as I remember it, was a decent movie. In cold Blood was a book I wanted to hate, but it was brilliantly done, I thought.

Your book group kind of makes me laugh. A book group that picks books, then doesn't read them. Just. Odd. I am too literal-minded, ultimately, for that sort of thing. No one ever wants me in an RL book group anyway, so it's not a concern.

Anyway you have US!!!

Curiously, there are two movies about Capote's writing of 'In Cold Blood' that came out close together. The second is named 'Infamous', and stars Toby Jones, Sandra Bullock, and Daniel Craig. If Hoffman hadn't been in the first one, I think this one would have had much more impact. I though it very powerful.

As for book clubs, Jim and I are in two, one very chummy and occasionally raucous, the other more orderly. There is some socializing outside each, but mostly we talk about the book du jour. I don't recall people showing up who have not at least read some of the book.

>182 qebo: was going to say with Judy that one group is so focused on the book at hand that i am frequently shocked about how little I know about everyone's non book group life.

and the other one is almost the opposite - ALMOST too social for my liking - though everyone does take reading the book seriously.

Both are about 15 - 20 people - which is probably too many. But some lovely people who have some lovely things to say about books! Heaven!

Saw the news here that a tornado has swept through Lancaster, PA. Please do confirm that you are OK, Katherine.

>206 PaulCranswick: A tornado in Lancaster PA made the news in Malaysia? I was barely aware of it here, though the weather yesterday evening was a tad alarming. Info here and here. The tornado was about 10-15 miles east of the city, and I'm on the western edge of the city; scroll the map to see. Serious damage to buildings but not to people.

Quiet on the thread because of various RL demands and several books in progress but none completed since my review dump over the weekend.

Ongoing RL preoccupation is the community garden, still putting the bureaucratic pieces together after the founder abandoned the non-profit under whose auspices we operated. We had to register a name with the state, and that took nearly three weeks of waiting, meanwhile preparing for next steps. We now have an EIN and an appointment to set up a bank account, but are still researching liability insurance. Aiming for March 1, which is still barely possible but not likely.

Unexpected RL preoccupation is my father emailed on Monday evening that he was scheduled for pacemaker surgery on Tuesday morning. He went in for a routine checkup last week, the doctor detected something funky with his heartbeat and attached an EKG monitor for 24 hours, and this indicated an atrial flutter, with his heart occasionally stopping for several seconds. Which he has been completely unaware of. He's quite fit, considering he's 85, so this was rather out of the blue. Amazingly, it's outpatient surgery, a few hours under anesthesia then home.

I'm glad to hear you weren't affected by the tornado. That was certainly some wild weather. I hope your father is doing well after his procedure.

>209 lauralkeet: He's sounding quite casual about it.

Hi Katherine. We were fortunate that the tornado didn't touch down, but the amount of rain pounding on the windows was incredible. Since this past summer, our Sheltie Lilly developed quite an aversion to storms. Last night she bumped the bedroom door open with her nose and whined and shock until she was placed in bed.

Good luck to your father in his recovery from the procedure.

All the best to you!

I have about 2000 books, most of which remain at the old house. In the fall, I met with a carpenter about constructing bookshelves at the new house, and with every iteration of design ideas, the price was rising and more of the work was getting shifted onto me. I can do what's necessary, but I don't have tons of spare time. I'd decided on a standard-and-bracket system for flexibility, but my wall studs are not in ideal locations and my walls are old wavy plaster, so construction would involve labor intensive fiddling at my house, which this carpenter didn't seem eager to do; he would rather build in his shop then transport and install quickly. I've been asking around for another carpenter, and scouting around at local stores for ready-made solutions, both without success. The situation is increasingly pressing because I want to put the old house on the market so I need to be prepared to move the books on short notice, and I'd rather not have to store them all in boxes. So today I ordered these bookcases for the office, where I care more about functionality than aesthetics. I haven't seen them in person; the nearest store is unfeasibly distant. A risk and an experiment. If I dislike them, they'll still be good enough for awhile. If I like them, then I'll expand into more publicly visible rooms. Not cheap, but much cheaper than materials + carpenter.

What I like, Katherine, about the Elfa shelf and bracket system I have is that there is ONE major standard that goes at the top across the whole length of your shelf system, and everything hangs from that. That means that you can anchor it wherever your studs are, and your brackets are always perfectly aligned with each other. (just posted a picture on my thread re: a totally different conversation) I really want adjustable shelves to maximize my storage.

>213 ronincats: Trouble is, I have a bunch of short stretches, each of which involves decisions, and I know from experience in the old house that attaching standards to wavy walls isn't simple and the result is functional but not quite up to living room quality. And I'd still need to get someone to do the work; I don't have the tools or the time. Yeah, I'd prefer adjustable, but this has dragged on long enough that I'm aiming less for perfection and more for get it done. These shelving units fold for transportation, have twist feet for leveling, and seem a fair compromise between wood bookcases (awkward fit for the space, irritating gap between back and wall) and utility shelves (awkward dimensions, a bit too industrial in appearance). We'll see...

>212 qebo: It is not in the least bit surprising Katherine that, with my own shelves teeming over, I get a frisson of excitement just reading about the possibility of somewhere some being made.

Have a lovely Sunday.

#12: The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White – (Feb 29)

why now: I read H is for Hawk last month and got curious.

This is the 1st book of The Once and Future King, apparently somewhat revised from the original stand-alone. The Wart is an orphan, ward of Sir Ector, whose son Kay is about the same age. Sir Ector tells the boys that he is seeking a tutor to begin their education. The boys take a hawk into the forest, where it escapes. The Wart stays to search for the hawk while Kay reports home, and happens upon Merlyn the magician, who declares himself to be the tutor. Over the years, Merlyn transforms the Wart into various animals: a fish, an ant, a bird, a badger. Merlyn cannot transform Kay, but can send the boys on adventures; Merlyn is living backward through time so knows when exciting events will occur. Fast forward six years, Kay is about to become a knight and the Wart his squire, when news arrives that the King of England, Uther Pendragon, has died leaving no heir, and whoever can pull the sword from the stone that has appeared by a London church will become king. Sir Ector and the boys travel to London where a tournament is to be held around this sword...

There’s not a lotta plot, and the sword thing appears all of a sudden near the end. The episodes with the Wart as animals are engaging (I especially enjoyed the ants), twee but also indicating serious consideration of the natural world. I won’t go leaping into the next installment, but it’s short and I already have it...

The tone changes immensely for the last three books, much grimmer.

The standards on my system attach only to that top bracket and the rest is gravity, so the evenness of the walls is minimized. But I hear you about the small, broken lengths available.

>217 ronincats: In the office, I have an 8'-9' stretch of wall but that's the longest by far in the entire house. In the living and dining rooms, I have six (or perhaps up to eight) locations that are 3'-5' wide, and I want to fiddle with what goes where. If I get a system that has to be installed, it'll be months before I can put books in place.

one changes immensely for the last three books
Oh, that's helpful to know.

BTW, I started The Empire of Necessity, but it's dense so I set it aside 1/3 through when I realized it'd be difficult to finish by the end of the month. It's interesting, traces the paths of the two ships that eventually meet, with lots of historical background. (Note to sibyx: this is a book about Amasa Delano among others.)

February realities (see >143 qebo: plans)

completed:




continued:


started:


I finished The Poisonwood Bible then started the two RL book group obligations In Cold Blood and ISIS: State of Terror, alternating with The Big Short. I finished this batch mid month, and took a break with a mystery In the Darkness (aka Eva's Eye). Then I started Empire of Necessity, The Sword in the Stone, and Scientific American, but I wasn’t zipping through at the expected rate, so I set Empire of Necessity aside so I could finish the others for the count (I'm counting each book of The Once and Future King separately because I set the rules here. I’ve been reading a chapter per week of Does Altruism Exist for a RL seminar, and I’m unimpressed so it’s kind of a slog. I got nowhere with Moby Dick. I completely failed to read ROOTs.

One reason for the slow reading is I was watching movies instead: Spotlight, Suffragette, Network, 12 Years a Slave.

>216 qebo:, >218 qebo: The Sword in the Stone is very much "The Hobbit" to the rest of the quartet's "Lord of the Rings", if that makes sense. It serves as an entry point and gives some background but it's much fluffier than the rest.

Hi Katherine! Those bookcases look like a good solution for my daughter's apartment - I'm going to show them to her. She's become a reader since leaving school (it was homework in school, sadly). She probably has 150-200 books now and needs shelving. Thanks for the link!

>214 qebo: I like your "possible" solution for your books. I lived with wavy plaster walls in my old house (c.1929), so I know of what you speak. I probably also have about 2,000 books--let's say, at least that many that I want to keep--and since our move in November, they have been stored in boxes in the basement. I think the solution here will be to build bookcases downstairs. Bottom line, I miss my books. They went into boxes a year ago April so that we could re-floor the upstairs. Moving is such a pain.

Hi, Katherine! I'm glad the tornado was not too close. Best wishes to your father with his procedure. My grandmother had a pacemaker many years ago, when it was a much more complicated procedure, and she did great.

I like your listing of started and continued books as well as finished books in your monthly tracking. I think I'll steal that idea for next month.

>220 norabelle414: I have, um, never read either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but yes that does make sense.
>221 karenmarie: I'll report here when I've actually seen the bookcases and put them to the reality test.
>222 labwriter: My house is of similar vintage, 1935. Moving to a different state is far more of a pain than moving 3/4 mile.
>223 tymfos: The pacemaker is a new toy; he keeps checking his pulse and it's always exactly 70. I looked at historical images of pacemakers and they were huge! Now they're the size of a coin.
>224 _Zoe_: It demonstrates otherwise invisible activity. Steal away.

This is cute (and informative): http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/mar/01/super-tuesday-resu... .

Yeah, I should start a new thread. Soon.

This, Katherine, might be the solution to your book storage and display concerns.



No need to thank me.

:-)

>227 weird_O: Hmm, that would be efficient use of limited space. Though I'm imagining a somewhat neater arrangement, like a drop ceiling but with books instead of styrofoam tiles.

>227 weird_O: Now that's a solution!!!

Those bookcases look pretty decent to me - it is a huge problem, the bookcase thing. Perennial. I have tons of those folding wooden ones, of greater and lesser quality (turns out the greater quality ones are a lot better.....). I also got a bunch of shelves at some point from LL Bean, (I think) and decent as they are they don't hold as much as necessary.

Glad the tornado missed you. Glad too that things are moving along with old house and new house.