LizzieD Loves the Long Books: 2016*2

These are not the best current pictures of Sparks and Lulu, but they will do until I can get better ones. And you get a bit of sweet Willow as a bonus.



Here we go! Now you see the relative size of the siblings. Sorry all three of them are squinch-eyed in the sun.

I'm at a loss for thread decorations this year, so I've fallen back on the cats. Here's their song (to the tune of "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams"):

When cats are tabby and gray,
It's likely that they'll stay that way.
So give your tabby some love;
Invite your tabby to play.

But if the tabby in hand,
Is orange - that tabby is grand!
So give your tabby some love;
And feed her more than you planned.

Much as I love long books, I also love short, witty or wise quotations. I have many, many, many books of them, so I'll try to reinstate a Quote of the Day and see how long I can keep it up.

READ IN MARCH
1. Worlds Elsewhere; Journeys around Shakespeare's Globe*
2. My Brilliant Friend
3. Charity Girl
4. Stone of Farewell (reread)
5. Man in Profile*
6. And After Many Days*
7. Lamentation
8. Through the Narrow Gate
9. Lexicon

Into the House in March
1. A God in the House - Gift from Lucy
2. The Book of Strange New Things - Ditto
3. The Toughest Indian in the World - PBS
4. Cryoburn - AMP
5. The River of Doubt - PBS
6. The Fourth And By Far the Most Recent 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said - AMP
Bookday, March 16, 2016 A Downsizing Friend Sends Me ALL of These! THANK YOU!
7. Mother's Recompense
8. Twilight Sleep
9. Old New York
10. The Glimpses of the Moon
11. The Reef (I'm holding onto my 1912 copy)
The House of Mirth (replaces ratty copy)
Summer (replaces ratty copy)
Ethan Frome (replaces ratty copy)
12. Madame de Treymes
13. The Custom of the Country (replaces ratty copy)
14. The Children
15. The Buccaneers
16. The Awakening and Selected Stories
17. The Paris Wife
18. The Ladies
The Jungle (replaces tiny-print copy)
19. The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Writings
20. The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield
21. A Brief History of Seven Killings
(Back to my normal pattern)
22. The Fox Was Ever the Hunter ✔ - ER ARC
23. Gorsky ✔ - AMP
24. Ruby - AMP
25. The Janissary Tree - PBS
26. A Guide to Prayer for All God's People - AMP
27. Blue Remembered Earth - PBS
28. Never Let Me Go - PBS
29. The Scent of Secrets - AMP
30. Through the Narrow Gate ✔ - PBS
31. The Spiral Staircase ✔ - PBS
32. America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America ✔ - Kindle

READ IN APRIL
1. Vanessa and Her Sister
2. Gorsky
3. The Whisper of the River (reread)
4. The Spiral Staircase
5. The Fox Was Ever the Hunter*
6. Nobody Said Not to Go

INTO THE HOUSE IN APRIL
1. When the United States Spoke French - PBS
2. Pistols and Petticoats ✔ - ER ARC
3. Talking to the Dead - Kindle Freebie
4. Collected Novels of E. M. Delafield (6 Unabridged Editions in One Volume): Zella Sees Herself, The War Workers, Consequences, Tension, The Heel of Achilles ... Thank Heaven Fasting and The Way Things Are - Kindle 99¢
5. Last Friends - PBS
6. Wayfaring Stranger - PBS
7. The Testament of Vida Tremayne - Kindle
8. Traveling Mercies - PBS
9. Fifteen Dogs - PBS
10. The Love-charm of Bombs ✔ - PBS

READ IN MAY
1. To Green Angel Tower Part 1 (reread)
2. America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America*
3. Winter Study
4. The Game of Kings (reread)
5. Pistols and Petticoats: 175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction*
6. A God in Ruins
7. London Belongs to Me

INTO THE HOUSE IN MAY
1. Seveneves ✔ - ER ARC
2. Under Heaven ✔ - AMP
3. The Winter Garden
4. Death and Mr. Pickwick - AMP
VMCs from a FRIEND who is down-sizing
5. Conversation Piece
6. Sisters by a River
7. Liza's England
8. Blow Your House Down
9. The Friendly Young Ladies
10. Over the Frontier
Told by an Idiot (replaces a black Dial)
11. Jamaica Inn
12. Gerald: A Portrait
13. Crewe Train
14. You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town
15. The Bay of Noon
16. Pillion Riders
Daughter of Earth replaces a much-underlined non-VMC
17. Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays
18. The Little Disturbances of Man
19. The Lying Days
20. The Holiday
21. The Roaring Nineties
22. My Next Bride
23. The Play Room
*******************************************
24. Savage Inequalities - PBS
*******************************************
More from another down-sizing FRIEND
25. The Gipsy's Baby
26. All the Dogs of My Life
27. Spilling the Beans on the Cat's Pajamas
28. Encyclopedia of British Women's Writing, 1900-1950
Invitation to the Waltz - a lovely original green replacing a later Virago edition

Out of the House
Mine ~ 8 Wards' ~ 9

*Review on book page

ON TOP OF MT. BOOKPILE - Nominees for May Reading or February and March and April Continued

Must look up the tune of "Wrap your troubles in dreams" when I'm home, but even without it the poem is super-cute. As is the picture, Happy New Thread Peggy! :)

So happy you and Lucy had two great meet-ups and patiently waiting for the pictures.

Edit: Ooops - I fear I posted into your thread openers, but when I did the last one was 20 mins old. Sorry!!

Welcome to my new thread!
February was my worst reading month EVER as far as finishing books is concerned. March has to be better!
First things first. Here are my May and the lovely Miss Posey enjoying each other's company as sweetly as the ladies that they are.

Happy New Thread, Peggy.

>5 LizzieD: LT dog meetup! Is this a first?

Happy New Thread Peggy. Loving it so far, and eager for more pics! Hope you love Morality Play as much as I did, and may March be a great reading month for you!

:D

Happy new thread. Love the cat poem. :)
March is a longer month - literally and figuratively, so that has to help with the book finishing. Right?

Happy new thread, Peggy.

Welcome, Nathalie, Barbara, Katherine, Ilana, Jenn, and Beth!
Wonder if this is a first dog meet-up??? What a great thought! Couldn't have chosen two nicer dogs to lead the way if it's so.

WORLDS ELSEWHERE by Andrew Dickson

Since this was an ER win, I reviewed it on the book page. Dickson is trying to determine how the rest of the world has used Shakespeare and why other cultures (albeit ones with ties to England) are attracted to him. I think that you all know that I enjoyed it a lot even though I took a whole month to read it. If you love the plays or are interested in travel or language, you may like this book. It's certainly written for the general reader who would be attracted to it. That would be somebody like me, who knows a lot about a few of the plays and a little about a lot of the plays.
Roni, I think you're in for a treat.

And I should mention that I won a copy of the Herta Muller The Fox Was Always a Hunter. I'm a bit wary of that one, and that's another reason that the ER program is so good. I'll be compelled to go straight out of my comfort zone.

I'm reading Worlds Elsewhere this month for the nonfiction challenge (books about travel) as you know, so I'm glad you liked it.

Hi Peggy!

Sweet picture of your kitties. You can be at a loss for thread decorations forevermore, as I love looking at pics of kitties.

Great review of Worlds Elsewhere, Peggy. And I LOVE the photo to your and Lucy's little ladies, May and Po. Happy new thread!

Lovely pictures.

I do fancy Worlds Elsewhere. Something about the international view of something familiar...

Charlotte and Roni, I think you'll be pleased if you try Worlds Elsewhere. It kept my attention.
Karen, I thank you and my kitties thank you.
Thank you too, Nancy, and I will swallow the last of my false pride and post the best pic that I have of Lucy and me. A person who doesn't care to do anything about her fat really doesn't have any right to bewail it, so I'll stop.



I'm also overdue with quotes, so here are two just as soon as I choose them! I was going to try for something good about dogs or friends, but nothing seems right.

***Quote for Yesterday***
Shut up he explained.
~ Ring Lardner (*1,911*) (I love this. I say it every morning to Hilfy when I mute the TV after my DH has left the room.)

***Quote of the Day***
procrastination is the
art of keeping
up with yesterday
~ Don Marquis (archy and mehitabel in *Epitaphs*)

I hope your worst month ever for finishing books is quickly remedied by this months reading. I'm sure you will be able to finish off some of those that you were working on last month....it's payback time.

Cool photos! Doggie play date/ meetup. And the humans talk books :)

>17 LizzieD: Next time have your photographer get a lot closer and do a head shot, Peggy! Not that we don't all love this one, anyhow!

Hooray for a wonderful meet-up and thanks so much for sharing the photo.

It was such a nice meet-up/visit - and an extra bonus to see May and Posey together, believe me!

Peggy and I barely talked about books, though, kind of funny, that!

Lovely photo of you, Lucy, and May, Peggy! Thanks for posting. I think you both look wonderful! And I love what Lucy says about barely talking about books and how that was kind of funny ... yes, but it also tells me that the two of you have connected on many fronts, aside from books: music, for one; beautiful dogs, for another. So delighted you had the opportunity to meet up!

>17 LizzieD: Happy new thread Peggy and thanks for putting up the photo of Lucy and yourself. Very healthy I must say making it a double meet-up by walking the respective pups at the same time. xx

I love the meetup photos! You both look fabulous and so very happy to be together.

Thanks for speaking and joining in our pleasure, Laura, Paul, Nancy, Barbara, Roni, and Megan. Lucy is right --- we hardly talked books at all, and Nancy is right; we have connected in lots of ways. Isn't this a great place!?!?!!!!!

***Quote of the Day***
People don't talk to themselves nearly enough these days. No doubt they are afraid of finding out what they really think.
~ Jean Giraudoux (*Epigrams*)

In my case, procrastination is the art of keeping up with three months ago. Guess that puts me in the professional leagues! :-)

Love the Giraudoux quote as well. Thanks for posting a pic of you and Lucy. Lovely to see two friendly faces!

Hi, Ilana! I'm right there with you although I've had more experience and may be 5 months behind!
Off to bed with My Brilliant Friend!

>17 LizzieD: You both look so wonderful and happy! :)

>25 LizzieD: Well, that quote doesn't apply to me, I'm talking to myself all the time, even in the office (but I noticed I'm not the only one which maybe makes it less weird).

>26 Smiler69: And I thought the same. Yesterday? That would be a dream!

Hi, Diana and Nathalie!
Nathalie, I know that you listen to yourself when you talk - that's really important! Meanwhile, I continue to read My Brilliant Friend. *sigh* I could so easily let it go. It's character driven, and I don't particularly care what happens to any of them. It's not that I dislike them; I just don't care. I'm wistful that I just don't get what everybody is so excited about. I wouldn't care if I disagreed if only I understood the basis of the mania.
Oh well.

***Quote of the Day***
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
~ Henry J. Kaiser (*Advice*)

Happy weekend, Peggy.

I'm glad to read your comments about My Brilliant Friend. I didn't actively dislike it, but it didn't really do anything for me either. I gave it 3.5 stars because I felt I needed to be objective about it, and it is objectively a good story, but I too felt like I could drop it at any point without too many regrets because I didn't feel any attachment to any of the characters. That being said, I have the whole series on audio from the library and have every intention of tackling the second book eventually, just in case it grows on me with usage. Who knows?

Thank you for snow drops, Barbara!
Ilana, you relieve me of some idiot guilt. I hope to finish *Friend* tomorrow and don't plan to get the others in the series until they are a lot less expensive than they are right now. (I think that this first one was actually a Kindle Daily Deal.) I was just hoping to fall in love.

***Quote of the Day***
There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.
~ Quentin Crisp

Well, let's hear it for Quentin Crisp! There's a body who knows how to house clean.

Nice pictures of the dogs & you two :-)

Sparks and Lulu and Willow -- what sweet kitties! And I love the photo of May and Posey (and the one of you and Lucy!). Animals should practically be required posts on threads. :-)

I hope March is, indeed, a much better reading month for you, Peggy!

Happy that Anita and Ellen enjoyed our pictures! I do wish I could get good ones of Willow and her family. They are sweet! I'm also always late in getting the picture of Sparks winding his tail around May's face. One day.
Nancy, I'm glad to see one person who appreciates the protective layer of dust.....
Ellen, March has to be better than February!

MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by Elena Ferrante
I expected to love the book...... girls of my generation growing up in Naples. How could it miss? I'm sorry; I never got into it. The book ends when they are 16, and each has chosen her own way to escape her family and the neighborhood. I guess that when the others in the series are very cheap, I'll likely come back to them, but I'm in no hurry.
I would so much rather like a book than not. Sorry Sorry Sorry I just didn't get it.

***Quote of the Day***
I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.
~ Jackie Mason

Sorry My Brilliant Friend didn't work for you, Peggy. I've had that experience more than once, recently with Gilead. The Ferrante novels are ones I'll read this year, at least the first one.

Yeah, Nancy. I just seem to think it happens to me more than to most people....probably not. Hope you like it!

CHARITY GIRL by Georgette Heyer

I guess I won't say that I wish GH hadn't written this one. I definitely wish I hadn't read it just now when I have such a richness of unread ones waiting. I must say a thing I never expected to say about a Heyer regency: to wit, "no wit." Sorry, but that's about the level of writing. The other annoyance was that this one is overloaded with the young men's slang. A bit of it is funny, but too much is too much. While I'm obsessing about this little book, I'll also say that she seems to have changed her mind some 80 pages into it about where the plot was going. Cherry, the Charity Girl, changes from one of her pert, naive, funny younger heroines into a precious little bore. She is not a plot driver but simply the impetus of the plot.... and there's precious little of it.
So I'm out of charity with Charity, and I need to read something really good now to get this cloying thing out of my brain.

Hi Peggy and Ilana, as I said in my review of book 1, if it doesn't get you on a personal hook, you'll most probably wonder what all the fuss is about. I know the feeling - there are authors everyone here but me connects with and then I always feel like I miss out on something great and am disappointing others with the mediocre reviews those books get from me.

This is a series I loved despite the hype because it managed to set its hook already on the first pages. In my case it was the conviction that it's not about characters but about sides of ourselves we don't want to confront/ embrace and therefore try to hide from our public image, but they still manage to steal themselves into our lives. For me the two friends don't "exist" and the whole series is an experiment of Ferrante to see what her antagonist dark side might have been like had she consequently taken different decisions. If this is a real story about existing friends, it makes less and less sense from book to book imo. . But I don't say that is what they are really about. I read some reviews now and others put their focus on totally different points, so it seems to be a story that has many hooks out with seductive bait.

Don't hurry to get to the other 3 if this first one didn't impress you. They don't get easier or clearer or better written, on the contrary. I found 3 and 4 quite blurry and often repetitive - but as I was hooked I still give the series 5 stars. :)

As always, it fascinates me how differently a book will "hit". I haven't started the Ferrantes yet, so we shall see!

>39 LizzieD: People here at LT often seem reluctant to write a negative review of something they've read; not that it doesn't happen, but there does seem to be a certain hesitation about panning a book, almost as if choosing a less-than-stellar read reflects badly on the reader somehow. Anywho, your review is refreshing, Peggy. And it made me laugh.

>37 LizzieD: I also enjoyed this (ETA the review - I haven't read the read). I tried to read Ferrante's books about marriage breakdown and gave up half way through, completely depressed / annoyed with the main character.

Re >42 labwriter: I think I feel saying I don't like a book is easier if it has done really well - at least that way, people are probably still going to read it. I don't like the thought that someone might not read the book because I missed the point (plus that awful thing about someone having slogged for years to get it published...).

Happy new thread, Peggy, and hurrah for meetups and pictures (both dogs and humans)!

The Quentin Crisp quote is very good (and very true). I'm sorry Charity Girl and My Brilliant Friend weren't hits for you. I will probably read the former with Liz whenever we get to it and will try MBF at some point but it's not calling strongly to me at the moment.

I hope your next book is a really good one to make up for the last two!

I'm with Lucy: As always, it fascinates me how differently a book will "hit".

Hi, Nancy and Lucy! Agreed about the fascination of individual taste!
Becky and Charlotte, all that you write about negative reviews is true and interesting. A negative review is easier to write, I think. All that venom just sort of gushes out on its own.... Otoh, I feel bad when I don't love something that a friend has loved because I know that brief betrayal and disappointment when the shoe is on my foot. I don't think anybody much cares for the G. Heyer unless it's the only one she's ever read. I feel guilty though because it was a very late book (the second-to-last regency) - 1970, and she died in '74. It's like taking pot shots at Agatha Christie's last few, which everybody pretty much admits were pretty awful. Nevertheless, I spent my precious reading time on it!!!
*Friend* is different. I just didn't get it. Nathalie, that's an interesting theory, and I see how you can think it. Near the end Lila calls Lenu, "my brilliant friend." They are at the very least each a foil for the other.
Thank you for the good wish, Heather. I'm trying to clean out some of last month's reading before embarking on anything else, but I also am really hoping for a great book next!
And I didn't quote yesterday, so I will now.

***Quote for Yesterday***
If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time.
~ Edith Wharton (*Advice*)

Once again, I didn't get back.....

***Quote for Yesterday***
For every person wishing to teach there are thirty not wanting to be taught.
~ W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman (*Epigrams*)

Here I am feeling virtuous because I remembered to do it....

***Quote of the Day***
Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.
~ Minna Antrim (*Epigrams*)

Love the quotes as always!

I am encountering a similar problem to the Heyer/Christie with the final book in the Elizabeth Jane Howard Cazelt Chronicles. This last one has a sort of laundry list feel, just dragging through what happens next. Much of it rather dismal. Proves the point, I think, that it is better not to know what happens after Cinderella and Charming settle down. It's not ALL bad, I should add, just stretches of it feel very ... and then... and then. She died, I think, before it even quite came out. What I am thinking is that in her revision process, she filled things out and added fun things, pared the dull ones.

Hi, Lucy! I'm sorry to hear again that the last Cazalet book is not up to the rest of them. *sigh* Since I will be reading the 3rd when I get back to them, I don't have to worry about being a completist for awhile.
Meantime, I treated myself to another *637 Best Things* book, so I'll go ahead and use it right now!

***Quote of the Day***
There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
~ Bill Watterson

>39 LizzieD: Yeah. Not the best. Sorry :(. Fortunately, there are very few like that.

Hi, Jenn, and thank goodness that's true. I'll be a bit more careful how I choose Heyers from now on though.

STONE OF FAREWELL by Tad Williams

Book 2 of the *Memory, Sorrow and Thorn* trilogy is another winner even a third time through. This is classic epic fantasy, written in 1990. I thought that it was earlier. I'm amazed at how relatively slowly it moves, and I like it. In those 26 years I've certainly become less tolerant of leisurely plot development. I wonder whether younger readers will have time for it. Nevertheless, plenty happens as Simon and Co. make their separate ways to the Stone of Farewell in a last-ditch effort to save Osten Ard from the final rage of the Storm King.
On to book 3, To Green Angel Tower, which is really books 3 & 4, but maybe I'll take it even slower!

Charity Girl is one of my bottom tier Heyers too, Peggy, along with Cousin Kate.

I do want to reread the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn books at some point. It's just the issue of making room for so many pages.

I picked up the full series at a used book store last year for a reread - hoping to get to it this year sometime. These were faves back when they first came out!

Roni and Jim, I hope that when you both get back to the T. Williams books that you'll be as satisfied with them as I have been. I haven't started the mammoth last one though.

***Quote of the Day***
I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I bet I'd be darling at it.
~Dorothy Parker (*4th 637*)

I'm sure that when I get to them, I'll love them as much as I did the first two times through the series. Even if it has been a long time ago...

>27 LizzieD: Off to bed with My Brilliant Friend!

Sorry that it proved to be an, erm, anti-climax.

Have a lovely weekend Peggy and better luck next time in your choice of bedfellows. xx

Hi, Roni!
Ah, Paul. You caught me. Anything for a laugh it seems!

***Quote of the Day***
When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.
~ Seneca (*4th 637*)

>58 PaulCranswick: A Good laugh from Paul! I try to avoid reading books I don't like. Thus I don't have to write negative reviews. though I have given a couple of books a good thrashing here on LT. The Handmaiden and High Latitudes stand out for me :) I felt compelled to read them but I really did not enjoy them at all.

Hi Peggy. I heard from Stasia today. It was wonderful to connect. She sure is a very dedicated student. I applaud her and am very proud of her accomplishments.

Happy Sunday to you! I hope you had time to rest and read.

Yay for friends getting together on the phone, Linda! I know you both loved reconnecting.
And thanks for that little dog and his book. That is so me! I'm in the throes of hay fever - sneezing and dripping and general miseries. Flonase is not touching this. Of course, I don't know how I'd be without it.
Deborah, I really do put aside books that I can't stand, but I'm so stingy. If I bought it, I should read it. Neither of my last two was absolutely painful, but they were both a bit disappointing.
I'm now getting into my Joseph Mitchell bio, and it is quite enjoyable. And I'm reading Lamentation, and we all know how good Sansom's Shardlake is. So all in all if I were not so obnoxious in the upper respiratory department, I'd be very happy.

No gentle ribbing in this post Peggy, just a little whoop at a sighting of dear Stasia - much missed in these parts by many of us.

>59 LizzieD: I hope that the Seneca quote and it's linkage with yours truly was purely coincidental!

Heavens, Paul! No link at all! Anyway, I took that "dumb" to = "mute," and I'm the chief one it applies to.
(Rib away! Being the recipient of teasing is one of my primary functions in RL)

SNEEZE! SNEEZE! SNEEZESNEEZE! DRIPDRIPDRIP!
Yuck. I can't tell whether it's hay fever or cold, but I've been a sad soul this day.

***Quote of the Day***
Isn't Muamar Khadafy the sound a cow makes when sneezing?
~ Dave Barry (*4th 637*)

>62 LizzieD: Lamentation
Oh, that was one of my favorites.
Sorry about the sniffles.

>65 LizzieD: Dave Barry!

Feel better soon.

We are into Lamentation at the same time! Lovely!

Feel better soon, Peggy! Sending thoughts and Kleenex your way.

>67 sibylline: Simultaneous Lamentation -- how cool! I loved that series.

Get better soon, Peggy, I need someone to rib. xx

>53 LizzieD: I've never tried the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn books but it sounds like I should. Sorry to hear you have hayfever or a cold - I hope it clears up soon.

>37 LizzieD: I had the opposite reaction to you, Peggy... I read it because I was curious but didn't have hugely high expectations. I was thinking to myself, "I'm enjoying this. Why am I liking this? It's not my kind of book at all..." but for some reason it really worked for me. It's totally reasonable that it wouldn't work for everyone, however, and I completely support your right, should you so choose, to abandon a book that doesn't. :)

Mary, happy to see you drop in! Reading is almost always an adventure, isn't it? I can predict what will work and what won't for me in only the narrowest range. I finished the first Ferrante, but I expect that I've abandoned the series.
Heather, when you have endless time to be wrapped up in a slow moving fantasy with above average writing, do try *Memory, Sorrow and Thorn*. I'm sneak-reading the first fat volume of the last book.
Thank you, Paul. I'm sick of being sick, I'll tell you. I've never been the local SWMBO, but I could make a case for SWMBR!
Hi, Laura and Lucy! I'm sucked right into Lamentation - no surprise there. Sansom is one I can pull with confidence that I'll be pleased. I'm making slow progress with it since I am trying to go ahead with both the Joe Mitchell bio, Man in Profile (very good! He grew up less than 20 miles from my home) and my ER ARC, And After Many Days, which I'm liking but not loving yet.
Nancy, thanks for the good wishes. Kleenexes needed and welcome!
***Quote of the Day***
There is nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't aggravate.
~ Unknown

Hope you're feeling improved.

I still haven't read Lamentation (I listened to an abridged drama version. I know this doesn't count). I haven't heard of either of the other two books you're reading so look forward to your comments on those.

Am enjoying the quotes. Dorothy Parker gets me every time. "I'm not that much of a drinker..."

Sorry you're not feeling well, Peggy. DH has the same thing. I've never been afflicted with allergies, but I know from him how miserable they make a person.

I'm very intrigued about the Joe Mitchell biog. Keep us apprised of your progress.

Thanks, Becky. I can't wait to finish the J.M. bio so that I can read some of his writing. I do have a copy of Up in the Old Hotel.
Also thanks, Charlotte. I don't know the D. Parker quotation that starts, "I'm not that much of a drinker....," but I'd like to!
O.K. I can't quite bring myself to put this on facebook, but while DH was voting yesterday, he heard this conversation, which began with a voter yelling, "Hilary Clinton!!??!!!! You gave me the wrong ballot. I came to vote for Donald Trump." The poll worker checked, and sure enough, he was a registered Democrat. His response, "Things change." DH voted and left without finding out whether the voter ever understood what was going on. (And they call this AMERICA!!!)
***Quote of the Day***
You can be sincere and still be stupid.
~ Unknown (*4th 637*)

What an apropos quote for the incident! ;-)

Glad you agree, Roni. *sigh* That's where I live.
I hesitate to say so, but March was supposed to be a month of few acquisitions. Thanks to my dear LT friends, I am 20 books to the good (well, some of the Whartons replace my really grotty copies); thanks to the Orange list and my regular greed, I have several more coming in. Maybe in April!?!?! Probably not.
I said on somebody else's thread yesterday that the Joe Mitchell bio is a really, really good one. I need to finish it so that I can go on to my copy of Up in the Old Hotel, which I've had for donkey's years. I haven't read it yet because - I have no idea why I haven't read it yet. Onward!

Great quote, Peggy! That's a keeper.

Somehow a glut of wonderful books doesn't make my greed any less. Today I got my February ER ARC, The Fox Was Always a Hunter and Gorsky, a cheapo on the new Orange/Bailey list. Delights!

***Quote of the Day***
One's over-great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
~ Duc de La Rochefoucauld (*Epigrams*)

(How about that one, Nancy?)

Happy Weekend!

Thank you, Diane. That little lamb is a lot like Coco!

For those of you who don't live with pine pollen, here's the tiniest suggestion of what we have right now. (Instead of a lone tree though, we have acres of them.) Everything outside is layered with a coat of chartreuse, and it will get worse before it gets better. Rain, please.

***Quote of the Day***
You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoes and wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
~ George Burns (*Latest 637*)

>76 LizzieD: Slate says that I'm wrong, it was an apocryphal saying attributed to her. More interestingly perhaps, I didn't know that the Parker estate was left to MLK and from there to the NAACP.

>83 LizzieD: That pine pollen shot is kind of terrifying!

I am so happy you loved the Mitchell bio!

>77 ronincats: What Roni said :-)

>78 LizzieD: Your comment made me scroll back up to the top of the thread to check your acquisitions - that's a good selection of books incoming! I need to read more Wharton.

>83 LizzieD: Gosh, I've never seen pollen like that before. Adding my hopes for rain for you.

Charlotte, thank you for the DP information. I had no idea about her bequest to MLK and the NAACP. In honor of that, I'll find another DP quotation for today!
Lucy and Heather, I promise, it's a lot worse around here. It hasn't rained yet, so I'm still wearing the dust mask when I go out. I'm afraid that my DH has my crud. I had so hoped that he had escaped it. Now I'm more afraid for Mama.
And Lucy, I'll be back in a bit to write up my few words about the Mitchell bio. It was a wonderful gift!!!!

***Quote of the Day***
The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature.
~ Dorothy Parker (in a review of a book by Margot Asquith - *1,119*)
(Because, after all, this is a book community)

MAN IN PROFILE: Joseph Mitchell of the New Yorker by Thomas Kunkel

This is a solid, fine, literary biography of the man from down the road who went to NYC as a young man and became the chronicler of the Old New York as it was disappearing in the 50's and 60's.
Kunkel is so intrigued with Mitchell's choices in writing composites of characters and presenting them as real individuals and with the choices that led to his long, long writer's block that he maybe doesn't give us as much of the man's personality as I would have liked. Mitchell does emerge, though, as a person I would have adored to know. And Kunkel prints lots and lots of excerpts from Mitchell's pieces; I am happy to have his collection Up in the Old Hotel to read and enjoy at my leisure.

>76 LizzieD: Interesting conversation that your husband overheard. And yes, if I make the dreadful mistake of purchasing a bad book , I can toss aside. Sometimes it will appeal to me in a year or two, or else it's off to the second hand shop - or even the garbage if I am feeling desperate. I hope you are feeling better soon.

Peggy, I am thoroughly enjoying your "Quote of the Day" series - it is a wonderful idea and so often seems to fit what is being posted.

Your juxtaposition of the Trump voter and the sincere but stupid quote for example........

Have a lovely weekend.

Happy Sunday, Peggy. Sorry to hear that you're under the weather. I hope you feel better soon.

Happy first day of Spring, Peggy. Pity that the allergies are an inescapable part of that!

True, Roni, true. I'm already feeling better, thank you Barbara. Paul, I'm having fun quoting and reading lots of good ones! Hi, Deborah! I haven't bought a new book in several years, I don't think, but I'm always spending too much on the ones I do buy. Oh well.

***Quote of the Day***
He gave her a look you could have poured on a waffle.
~ Ring Lardner (*Latest 637*)

(No particular reason, Paul. I just liked it.)

>93 LizzieD: Oh I love that one. Has a ring of Chandler to me. Making me hungry though!

>88 LizzieD: Nice review of the Joseph Mitchell book.

>93 LizzieD: As good a reason as any Peggy, I like it too.

I must admit to reading my books now and coming across a phrase or a sentence and thinking, "that would make a great quote" - you are a good sort of bad influence my dear.

How can those quotes still get better and better?? Love all the ones I just read (I guess the collection of last week or maybe some more) and yes, this last one makes me hungry as well. :)

(Totally off topic: Found a recipe for vegan "chicken (seitan) and waffles" yesterday and after having seen the real thing on TV a while ago and having been unable to believe that people eat fried chicken on fried sweet waffles with syrup AND enjoy it, the idea hasn't left me anymore and it was only the chicken part that kept me from testing it. So your quote was my "sign" that I should try that combo for Easter. Without the chicken it will be fried carbs in carb crust, put on more carbs with liquid carbs on top. I hope I'll survive it.)

Good to read you're feeling better again!

I was just wondering what I should read next, maybe I should now finally get to that 3rd Shardlake - both you and Lucy reading one now must be another sign. Oh dear... I need holidays.

Oh, and I never heard of Mitchell, but maybe it's time I learn some more. Up on the old Hotel goes onto the watchlist.

Oh, Nathalie, welcome to my world! fried carbs in carb crust, put on more carbs with liquid carbs on top! You'll survive all right although you might do well to build up to it a bit. And I must say that anytime is a good time to read a Shardlake, and I believe that #3 remains my favorite even if they keep getting better and better. Glad you're liking the quotes too!
Happy to make you another benign quoter, Paul! Isn't reading great? Aren't words grand??
Thanks, Becky. It is a really readable bio.
Well, Chandler could write too, but I'm sorry about the hunger!
Speaking of hunger, I'm ready for lunch. I'm just back from the funeral for an old acquaintance's husband. We're about to the age where age itself is a compelling bond. The widow and I never particularly liked each other and rarely see each other now, but somehow, I felt I just had to be there.

***Quote of the Day***
I always read the last page of a book first so that if I die before I finish, I'll know how it turned out.
~ Nora Ephron (*Latest 367*)

>98 LizzieD: Well I went and did it too. Splashing a coupla quotes from The Prince of Tides over at my spot. It is an eminently quotable book I must add.

Sadly missed Nora Ephron. A modern-day feminine Oscar Wilde.

>99 LizzieD: pre-kindle I totally did that, and sometimes as a result the book became very boring. It had nothing to do with a fear of dying though, it was just a bad habit.
Adding Nora Ephron to my list. There are too many famous authors I never heard of. Got the Mitchell sample, now I need more reading time. Can the Easter weekend start now, please?

>99 LizzieD: Oh I love Nora Ephron. Such a smart lady (I completely disagree about the last page reading though - never!).

I'll confess to sometimes looking at the end in order to slow myself down! It helps me relax and enjoy the journey rather than being hell-bent on getting there. I don't do that with mysteries, btw, as there is truly no point in that. Audio books are helpful that way too.

That's a fabulous Ephron quote, Peggy, and not a bad strategy at all! I like Lucy's idea above, too: looking at the end in order to slow myself down! We bookish folks are full of inventive ideas : ).

>99 LizzieD: Nice quote, Peggy, I do it myself sometimes, not because of fear for death, but more like Lucy described in >103 sibylline: ;-)

O.K. Confession time, Anita, Nancy, Lucy, Charlotte, Nathalie, and Paul the Quoter! I may not look at the very last page, but if I'm deeply committed to a character in a thriller, adventure, or mystery, I will let my gaze wander across the last chapter in hopes of catching a glimpse of his name so that I'm sure he survives. That lets me be calm enough to read the stressful parts. That also give me permission to slow down and savor other bits besides the plot.
Not much reading today, I'm afraid. I finally got out to run some necessary errands that I had postponed last week. Also, I'm not much taken with And After Many Days. I need to adjust my expectations before I start a book, maybe. Or maybe it's a cultural thing. I just don't get the point of the details and experiences he uses to color the characters before the oldest son's disappearance. I'll let you know.
***Quote of the Day***
Never economize on luxuries.
~ Angela Thirkell (*Advice*)

(--- because I love Angela Thirkell's books)

Hi Peggy! I'm a dedicated lurker on your thread, really enjoying your commentary but for some reason not saying much. Today's QotD brought me out of hiding. I, too, love Angela Thirkell's books and that quote is terrific.

Laura, I lurk for you too! Glad you dropped out to speak and spread a little more AT love!

AND AFTER MANY DAYS by Jowhor Ile (Touchstone??? I'll try again later.)

This was another ER ARC that fell flat for me. I know that several people really loved it. I wanted to, but I could never see past its flaws. You can check out my review on the book page, but the problem is that the book doesn't cohere. The events in flashback that lead up to the disappearance of the 17 year-old seem completely random. The family at the center have ties to both urban Nigeria and their home village, and their situation should have made for compelling reading. It didn't. I'm frustrated that the bones of a really good book are here, but the flesh that would have brought it alive just didn't make it.

***Quote of the Day***
We've upped our standards. Up yours.
~ Campaign slogan by Pat Paulson (*Latest 637*)

Hi Peggy! I've returned from my California vacation and am trying to get caught up on threads. My kitties missed me - they're following me around like puppies.

Love the Pat Paulson quote. I finished Demelza but for some reason don't seem to want to start Jeremy Poldark. Perhaps a break - I've done that with several new series recently for some reason.

I also dearly loved Nora Ephron's movies and essays. I've got Scribble Scribble and Crazy Salad on my shelves.

Hi Peggy, just delurking to say hello. I love your quotes. They make my day.
I read all the Shardlakes and wish I could erase my memory so I could read them again for the first time.

Wow! Karen's back and Jan is here! That makes my day.
I seem to be taking a break from Poldark too - at Warleggan. I do love that series! Glad the kitties are sticking close instead of punishing you for going away.
Jan, I hope you're well and reading! Has anybody tried the S.J. Parris books beginning with Heresy, I think, set in Elizabethan England? Liz1564 suggested the series as something good to read while waiting for the next Shardlake. I haven't gotten to it yet.

***Quote of the Day***
The average person thinks he isn't.
~ Father Larry Lorenzoni (*Best 1,119*)

Have a wonderful Easter.

Peggy, I wish you a fabulous weekend.

The Pat Paulson is priceless!!!!!

And yes, your confession at >106 LizzieD: jibes exactly with what and why I sometimes peek ahead. I just have to know that everyone will be all right.

>37 LizzieD: I can't tell you how glad I am to find someone else who didn't fall in love with My Brilliant Friend. I thought it was okay but I have just not understood the madness swirling around it. Anyway, I read the second and I might read the third but I can't tell what my motivation is. Peer pressure? Heh.

On the other hand, I think I enjoyed And After Many Days more than you did.

Ah, the varieties of reader reactions, yes? :-)

I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead, Peggy.

Heh, Ellen. So there are 2 of us - don't tell!
I feel completely stupid that I didn't love the Ile, but I didn't. We are certainly individuals - and none of us average!!!!
Lucy, there are 2 of us too. I'm one of the ___?s who can reread a mystery, remembering the outcome, without any significant loss of interest. Go figure.
Many thanks for Easter wishes, Diana, Barbara, and Paul. I'm back from the Good Friday service and just had to check in here before I write a few of the endless thank yous for our humane society. Will quote later!
oh! And since this is about books, I've sort of put Lamentation on hold to read Through the Narrow Gate, Karen Armstrong's memoir of her life in a convent. She's maybe a year younger than I, and I'm enjoying comparing her her wildly different experience of the 60s with my own. She was in one of the last groups before the reforms of Vatican II.

***Quote of the Day***
I think it would be a good idea.
~ Mahatma Gandhi when asked what he thought of Western civilization (*1,119*)

Thank you, Jenn! And to you and all my Christian friends, the same wish for a blessed Eastertide!

LAMENTATION by C. J. Sansom

As far as I'm concerned, CJS has done it again with another nearly perfect Matthew Shardlake mystery. He is once more working for Queen Catherine Parr and once more opposing with the ambitious Richard Rich. Barak is back with Tamasin, and Matthew is also responsible for a young law pupil, Nicholas Overton. They must try to find the manuscript of a book the queen has written in the Protestant vein, and which may be dangerous to her if the conservatives (those loyal still to Rome) get it to the king first. They are also involved in a lawsuit between Matthew's traditionalist client and her reformer brother. Of course, the two cases begin to overlap, and what follows is Sansom's accustomed blend of well-researched history and imagination.
I loved it!

>119 LizzieD: Love this one. Clever and funny!

I've been reading g a fair bit of historical mystery lately, perhaps I will be able to add Sansom to the list. Your review makes it sound very appealing.

Happy Easter, Peggy! I hope you get lots of chocolate bunnies to eat - if chocolate suits you! :)

I must get to those Shardlake mysteries! So many books ...

Charlotte and Nancy, you do need to put any other mystery reading aside and get into Shardlake! I'm SO glad I did!!!
Love chocolate, Deborah! I doubt I'll get bunnies, but I do have some chocolate truffle eggs lined up. Yum!

***Quote of the Day***
No man should plant more garden than his wife can hoe.
~ Old saying (*Latest 637*)

(I'm quoting this because it reminds me of my daddy. I inherited my dislike of gardening from him, and every year he'd tell my mother, "Don't plant any more garden than you and DD* can work.")
(DD could be Dutiful Daughter, Darling Daughter, Dastardly Daughter as the mood took him.)

A Very Happy Easter to you, Peggy!

Totally in love with the Ghandhi quote! :)

I just finally started Shardlake #3, this time in English, hoping my dislike can be explained with the clearly lazy Italian translation. I remember book #2 having some obvious translation errors and even historic ones (they either translated March with the word for May or vice versa, but it made a BIG difference in the Cromwell context). I'd so like to finally share the love!

I'm glad to see you enjoyed Lamentation so much, Peggy. I hope there are more Shardlake novels in our future.

Okay, you convinced me, Peggy, I'll move Shardlake up in my library list :-)

Happy Easter Peggy! Glad you enjoyed Lamentation - I want another Shardlake book.

Oh, Laura and Heather, I can't wait for the next Shardlake --- and Elizabeth to boot! Anita, the only thing you'll regret is that you didn't move Shardlake up earlier.

THROUGH THE NARROW GATE by Karen Armstrong
I confess that I am a fool for books set in convents. I learned about this one on a new 75er's thread (and I'd have to check to recall her name) and was happy to find it available at PBS. It just fit my reading mood, so I read it as I finished Shardlake, and it competed pretty well. I think I was fascinated because the author is just my age or maybe a year younger. She entered a convent in 1962 just out of high school, a thing I might have done at 17 if I had been reared R.C. She was found to have a true vocation, and stayed in the order for 7 years. I questioned her vocation from the beginning, but it's hard to tell when reading about a spirituality so different from one's own. At any rate, she was among the last group of young women exposed to the 19th century course of formation before Vatican II. She remembered maybe 4 times in those 7 years when somebody touched her hand or shoulder in encouragement. She was apparently lactose intolerant, mac and cheese was a staple of the diet, and the women in charge regarded her vomiting, fainting, and weight loss as failures of the will or else a bid for attention. And yet she persevered.
I am now waiting impatiently for the second volume, The Spiral Staircase, to arrive from another PBSer.

So this afternoon I've devoted my reading time to Lexicon, which has been on my current reading list all this month. It's pretty wild - violent and nightmare-ish, plunging right into the action with no explanation at all. Of course, I'm liking it!

The Karen Armstrong is tempting.

I know somebody who can probably lend it to you, Lucy.

***Quote of the Day***
She not only expects the worst, but makes the worst of it when it happens.
~ Michael Arlen (*Epigrams*)

(No particular reason for this one. It just caught my eye and tickled my funny bone.)

Good Morning, Peggy! Hope your Easter was wonderful despite what I assume was the rain you got. Chocolate always helps, IMO.

We traveled to Atkinson for an Easter Luncheon - 2 3/4 hours there in rain, 4 hours there, and 2 3/4 hours back in rain. Also, apropos of gardening (mentioned above) our darling hostess, 91 and a fanatic gardener, insisted that daughter and I visit her garden even though it was raining. We wandered through a few pathways of marvelous azaleas and rhododendrons, getting wetter and wetter, then finally made our way to grass, wandered over to a huge rose bush with the teensiest yellow roses in the world - probably no wider than 3/4" each - finally giving up and going back inside. We overheard Frances asking a landscaping friend to order her 30 azaleas, much technical talk involved, and were pleased that her gardening is continuing apace.

Happy Monday!

I must get back to the Matthew Shardlake series. I've only read the first (but the second one is on the shelves!).

Ellen, he sort of takes off after the second one, which is better than the first one. Read on, my friend!
Karen, I absolutely love other peoples' gardens. I'm not sure about the rain though. Anyway, my thumbs are apparently quite brown. Easter was good here, and we finally got a little rain to wash down some of the pollen - a very pervasive bloom this spring. When is it ever anything else?
I'm really enjoying Lexicon, btw. It's still violent, and I don't mind that as much as some of you, but the premise is interesting. Persuasive people have always existed. By the present, so-called poets understand the biology of it. They are able to classify several hundred personality types or segments and, burrowing down to more and more primitive layers of the brain, have discovered the words which play on the fundamental desires of each "segment." A rogue poet (Virginia Woolf, in fact) has killed a whole town of several thousand people except for one man who heard the word and resisted it. Now the two factions of poets are after him to retrieve the word from his brain for their own use.
Hmmm. Maybe one of these days they'll get the Touchstones working again. I don't realize how handy they are until they're gone.
***Quote of the Day***
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
~ Goethe (*1,119*)

***Quote of the Day***
He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met.
~ Abraham Lincoln (*1,119*)

Lexicon sounds interesting - a new book bullet for me!

The pollen is outrageous here - I've had a sinus headache ever since coming back from California. The rain knocked some of it down, but both porches are covered and we'll have to wash them down this weekend.

God Bless Mr. Lincoln! Great quote.

Thank goodness for rain! We have worn dust masks every time we've gone outside for about a week, but it's finally lightening up. I'll bet you'd like Lexicon, Karen. It's pretty violent, but you seem to tolerate that well, and the story is mesmerizing - especially if you don't try to think into the science too much.
I mostly came to say that Lucy is heading north. We had a good visit again, and I do wish we were able to meet more often in the flesh! What a great thing LT is!

>136 LizzieD: Oh, we've read some folks who fit that description, haven't we?

Hi, Ellen --- heh heh heh.

***Quote of the Day***
A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.
~ Robert Frost (*Epigrams*)

OR

A conservative is a man who wants the rules changed so that no one can make a pile the way he did.
~ Gregory Nunn (*1,119*)

LEXICON by Max Barry
What great fun this one was!!!!
Deep in our most primitive brain cells lie the words in ancient languages that can control each type or segment of every human personality. The organization trains poets (!) to master the art of persuasion by recognizing each segment and then using the words that control it. I was never sure what the organization was doing with this power (maybe that was in the first part that I read several weeks before I devoured the rest of the book or maybe I'm just stupid ...... Help! Somebody please read it and explain this to me) beyond looking for new poets and making their own lives cushy and beyond looking for the bareword - a word that doesn't turn up every century but that instantly enslaves every segment.
We are dropped into the middle of the action with no real idea of what is flashback and what is present, but with a little patience everything becomes clear. Tom Eliot, a poet, has taken Wil Parke prisoner, and the two immediately plunge into violence. Emily Ruff is a street hustler. To say more would be to spoil the fun if this is your cup of tequila.
Oh! And Barry writes with lots of flair, so that is fun too.

***Quote of the Day***
Never let a computer know you're in a hurry.
~ Unknown (*Latest 637*)

Lexicon is not my cup of tequila (great expression!), Peggy, but isn't it wonderful when a book is so much fun!

Quote of the day is too true! Bah to computers and being in a hurry!

What I seriously mind is my cell phone auto-correcting things I text. I usually catch them, but sometimes the most hilarious stuff goes out.

It's pretty amazing to consider that a single cellphone is more powerful than all the computing power used to get man on the moon.

And kind of creepy. I do love the computer quote. I can't think of the thousands of times I've thought, "I'll just quickly do this one more thing." and that is when the computer decides, "nunh-unh".

Hi, Nancy, Karen, and Lucy!
I just thought I'd report on my first day's reading in April. I started Nobody Said Not to Go, and I'm excited to have it and read it because I'm a real Emily Hahn fan. But..... Already, having read only 24 pages I'm scratching my head at obvious mistakes. They make me truly furious. Hahn deserves better treatment. In fact, I'm so put out that I'll quote.
On page 11 I read "The baby Emilie took ill and died at age seven months." On page 15 I read, "I was originally named 'Amelia' after one of my father's sisters: the twin who died young,..." ???
On page 24 (having been told that Emily/Mickey was 15 and Dauphine was 13 when they moved to Chicago), I read, "Being in her junior year, Dauphine fit in more easily than Mickey, who was two years older and more set in her ways." So Dauphine was a junior at 13 and Mickey was what - a second year senior - at 15? Grrrrr.
The other thing that I started today, which is beautifully written and completely mesmerizing, is Vanessa and Her Sister, a novel told mostly as diary entries of Vanessa Stephen Bell but also with letters among the whole Bloomsbury set. This was an ER offering, and I hope that some of you read it. It's lovely! Oh. It's not on my list of things to read this month. Sue me.

***Quote of the Day***
If it might break, don't go near it.
~ Herbert Stein (*Advice*)

A BB with Lexicon! Wishing you a relaxed weekend, Peggy.

Thanks for the tip about Vanessa and Her Sister, Peggy. That one is definitely worth checking out. Oh who am I kidding? I know I'll be finding it sooner rather than later. Ha.

Yesterday I found a recording of Virginia Woolf's voice--supposedly the only one in existence. Here's the link: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160324-the-only-surviving-recording-of-virgin...

(Just another reason to love the Internet.)

#146 Peggy - Once you see egregious mistakes, the book will never truly redeem itself. I find myself starting to look for the awfulness.

True, Karen. The other thing is that if he was careless in small matters, how can I trust anything he says? I'd probably stop except that I have read Hahn's own China to Me, so I'm not completely ignorant of her life. It's just disappointing.
Becky, thanks for the web site - I had found her before too on YouTube, but the Vanessa-style drawings here are lovely. You read her diaries and letters in tandem as I did, didn't you? Kudos to Parmar, who doesn't actually quote Virginia's letters, but lets her Virginia character write. I've been comparing what Virginia wrote to Violet Dickinson, pretending that brother Thoby was alive and improving after he died, to the postcards that Vanessa sees in the novel........... The novel is true to reality but within its own reality if that makes sense. I think you'll like it. You get a sense of how fragile Virginia was that I often missed in her own writing.
Barbara! Thank you for the daffodil/jonquil! I'm glad I hit you with Lexicon. Maybe you'll read it and we can talk about it!!

***Quote of the Day***
I have learned that whatever a man tells you about himself is true, even though it is a lie.
~ Edward Dahlberg (*Epigrams*)

I probably find time in May to read it. Can't promise it.

May is good, Barbara (in more ways than one!).

***Quote of the Day***
Without music, life would be a mistake.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (*637 Latest*)

VANESSA AND HER SISTER by Priya Parmar

5 Stars from me! I enjoyed this imagined peep into Bloomsbury, told mainly as Vanessa's diary (which she did not keep in real life) with a few letters - also created by Ms. Parmar - adding depth. Parmar says that the characters are entirely fictional while adhering to the actual events as closely as possible.
I was charmed by her Vanessa, who writes beautifully: I like, "the sea does not offer its rhythm, nor its colours, lightly. It is a snarling blue beast in one moment and a frothy jade pool the next. It is disinclined to sit for a portrait." (italics for the part I like). I forgave Ms. Parmar easily for including so much dialogue in the diaries. I can't think that anyone, especially Vanessa, would write that way, but it made for an enchanting novel.
I was also enlightened to find that my memories of Virginia's letters and diaries and of the Quentin Bell biography, had left me with a somewhat romanticized idea of her madness. Vanessa describes Clive being forced to deal with Virginia, and that is how I was too: "Until yesterday, Clive had seen only the remote, quirky, endearing aspects of Virginia's madness. Now he has seen the dark, uncontrolled edges of her." I have a much deeper respect for Vanessa and also for Leonard, who worked mightily, daily to keep her on an even keel without her realizing their effort.
Whether I want to be or not, here I am again mesmerized by the long-ago denizens of Bloomsbury and excited that I have a copy of A Very Close Conspiracy and Winifred Holtby's critical memoir waiting for me!

***Quote of the Day***
You can't measure time in days the way you can money in dollars because every day is different.
~ Jorge Luis Borges (*1,119*)

Doesn't get any better than a 5* read, Peggy! Love the idea of a peep into Bloomsbury.

Oh, and I've just finished reading South Riding, so anything Winifred Holtby is fabulous, IMO.

Hi Peggy! I'm one of a very few people here on LT who just Don't Get Virginia Woolf. I finally got rid of all her unread-by-me books a few years ago except A Room of One's Own. I still have the Quentin Bell Biography of her, though, which I found fascinating.

Karen, I'm sorry to say that I'm one who appreciates her essays and criticism much more than her fiction. I keep hoping that I'll reread and get her. She did have a fascinating life, and my trip through her diaries and letters was revelatory. (Why doesn't spell check like that word???) I felt that I knew her a lot better than I knew a number of pretty close friends at the time.
Nancy, I do think that South Riding is Holtby's best, but her not-best is pretty doggone good too.
I played bridge this afternoon, and for the first time in at least a year, I was high score. Mercy! I expect I'll go back next month.

***Quote of the Day***
I am very sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and consolidates society.
~ Dr Samuel Johnson (*Epigrams*)

(HAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahaha)

>153 LizzieD: I can't think that anyone, especially Vanessa, would write that way, but it made for an enchanting novel.
This might be a difficult point for me, but I love VW's work (fiction and non-fiction) so much that I'm giving this one a try. I'm determined to find that book that we both enjoy!! :D

Edit: read the sample and bought the book. So far I like it, although I had to agree to the above quoted sentence after 2 or so pages. I think it's funny that the book starts with Vanessa saying that according to Virginia "words are not her (Vanessa's) thing and she should better keep painting" and then the author lets her write far too beautifully - and also a bit too modern. :)
Are the letters authentic or fiction?

Nathalie, the letters are fiction, but the ones she talks about (like the ones Virginia wrote to Violet Dickinson are real). I have to agree about Vanessa's beautiful voice in the novel. I loved it anyway. I'll be happy if you even sort of agree!

>157 LizzieD: I can't work out if the quote is tongue in cheek or not!

Love the discussion here re: Vanessa. I've just barely started the book, and I won't have time to keep at it. I wanted to see what it was like. It's obvious from the beginning that this book can't be someone's introduction to the Bloomsbury group. Parmar relies on the reader being well-acquainted with these people before reading her novel. I love diaries and epistolary novels. I read the unabridged edition of Clarissa--the finest jewel in my reading crown (joking, but I did love that book). I'm sure to enjoy this one as well.

>141 LizzieD: Lexicon sounds just odd enough to be what I'm reading right at the moment.

Hi Peggy - Lots to think about here. I thought I was safe from the Shardlake series. I read the first one and felt meh about it, and decided not to continue. Now you say the second one is much better....

Lexicon sounds interesting; I'm kind of squeamish about violence, so I'll have to think about that one. The language part sounds pretty fascinating, though.

Vanessa and Her Sister goes on the list immediately!

Have a wonderful weekend.

What a treat to see you here, Tad and Beth!
Lexicon is not in the common run for sure. It's the third Shardlake where he finally hits his stride, I think, but you have to read the second one to meet the assistant who stays with him through the rest of the series so far.
Charlotte, I don't know enough about Johnson to know where his tongue is either, but I do find the quotation funny!
Becky, I'll be interested to see what you think of *Vand & Sis* when you do get to it. Another real Bloomsbury fan loved it and passed it on to me, so I'm sure I'm not the only one who was thrilled.
Meanwhile, after two intensive experiences, I'm finding it hard to keep my mind on any one book..........dipping in and out of London Belongs to Me, To Green Angel Tower, Nobody Said Not to Go, Gorsky, and The Fox Was Ever a Hunter. *sigh* This is not the way to build up the "read" list.

***Quote of the Day***
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
~ Ashley Montagu

Oh I love that last quote!

Prolly won't be able to resist another plunge into Bloomsburyland. I have the huge Lee bio of VW that I eye greedily and then just hoard.

I love love love VW's writing. First read To the Lighthouse in high school as part of an ISP (independent study project) and was stunned, never have recovered. What she is doing is probably more like painting? Layering impressions--of many kinds though, of all the five senses and then of thoughts, building them up into a sense of how life, being alive, bombards one, fills the canvas? How time works on things? Lily Briscoe and her painting efforts, hugely important. To read TtL as if it was a "story" in any normal sense, won't get any traction. Mrs. Dalloway same thing, but more subtly done. The beautiful woman, in her prime, has made herself into a work of art, her dinner party is an expression of that. And there is a tinge of bitterness in it, at the fleeting anonymity of being a woman who has made herself into a work of art for one or two men, and perhaps a few discerning others, to notice and appreciate.

I love that last quote, too, Peggy!

Glad to have chosen something that pleases both Lucy and Nancy.
Nice to have a Woolf-lover's look into her fiction, Lucy. Maybe the next time I try, I'll get it. She certainly looked down on the folks who could appreciate her criticism but not her real writing.
I'll hope to finish Gorsky tomorrow after reading more fantasy than anything else today. It strikes me as foolishly brave to take on something as marvelous as *Gatsby*.

***Quote of the Day***
I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
~ Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner (*Latest 637*)

Stopping by to wish you a happy weekend, Peggy!

>167 LizzieD: Author of Gorsky brave or overreaching - I wasn't sure.

*wave*

Happy weekend, Peggy.

I've been lurking along with the daily quotes but, I've now realized, silently. Sorry about that.

Visitors who speak! Thank you, Katherine, Barbara, Charlotte, Jenn, and Deborah. We always feel as though somebody may be lurking, but it's lovely to have presence confirmed from time to time.

GORSKY by Vesna Goldsworthy

Oh dear. This will be a process of damning a perfectly pleasant little book with faint praise, I'm afraid. I got a copy of Gorsky because it was an affordable offering on the Bailey's new long list. It certainly has echoes of The Great Gatsby but without the depth or the characters or the lovely writing. I had thought that it might be fun to read the take-off on contemporary super-rich and feel as the original readers of *TGG* must have felt.......... not so much.
As I say, it's a perfectly pleasant little book, and Ms. Goldsworthy's writing is unexceptionable. But it shouldn't be pleasant. That's not an adjective I'd ever choose for *TGG*, so Charlotte, I guess I think that she was brave to try, but it was an overreach.
On to the next!

***Quote of the Day***
Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.
~ Fran Lebowitz

The Tomlin-Wagner quote is sublime!

Too bad about Gorsky.

A bit of raving there over VW. I love her fiction best, then I guess the journals, then the lit-crit/essays.
I'm not a huge rereader but I have read TtL and MrsD at least five or six times each, maybe more. I don't even know.

I come by every day, Peggy, but if I have nothing to say about what you've been reading, I just lurk. Always here, though!

Thanks for reading Gorsky for me , Peggy. Like you, I am trying to read from the Bailey's Longlist and Gorsky did not appeal to me, but now I know for certain that I can cross it off my list.

Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try. I'll bear that in mind the next time I try write The Great Canadian Novel :-)

I try to read your thread every day, Peggy, and I love the quotes!
Most days I don't know what to say....

I wasn't that keen on Gorsky either. But I did wonder if not being a big fan of the original didn't help...

Hi, Lucy, Deborah, Anita, and Charlotte! I love that we love some books together and disagree about others enough to be interested in what everybody else has to say about a book every time.
I should be reading one of my ARCs. Instead, I happened upon my copy of The Whisper of the River, and I'm once more laughing my head off at Porter Osborne's progress through college. Honestly, this trilogy is one of the funniest things I've ever read. I read the first book aloud to my aunt in the nursing home as long as she could concentrate, and it cheered all of us up no end!

***Quote of the Day***
You can't be happy with a woman who pronounces both d's in Wednesday.
~ Peter De Vries (*Advice*)

(--- nor man either)

*humpf!!!*

>173 LizzieD: I picked up a couple of the long listed Bailey books at the library yesterday, Peggy. I wasn't attracted to Gorsky but like Charlotte, I am not a big fan of The Great Gatsby. Rich people make me nervous. Haha. Thanks for your review of "a perfectly pleasant little book". I like that.

I hope I can get to Rush Oh! and The Improbability of Love before the end of the month. I've been reading like a crazy woman and not keeping up with LT very well at all lately.

Well, Donna, I wish I had been reading like a crazy woman; I've been reading more like a lazy one.
I have to say that FSF was not all that big a fan of rich people either. It's harder to tell about Goldsworthy. I used to find every Orange I read pretty wonderful, but now I'm warier. Most of the time I'm not looking for what the judges are apparently looking for.
Hi, Roni!

I was just humpfing because you ignored me at >175 ronincats:. I'm good now, though.

Sadly no Peter Osbournes available for me on kindle... and I'd so need a funny book! :(

Not a big fan of Gatsby, simply because I wanted a bit more glitz and shine before the shadows, one of the few books I thought were too short. I wanted more contrast. Gatsby in pleasant is something I don't want to read.

I was planning to read much more of the LL, but nothing really calls to me. Rush Oh! gets good reviews, but whaling?

>184 Deern: The whaling mostly takes a back seat to the family who run the boat (and they do so from the shore, not a whaling ship but rowboats). I wasn't that keen either but it won me over. Part of it is about the attitudes to the whales - and working with killer whales.

Your funny read sounds wonderful. I recently discovered Jeeves and I like a Colin Cotterill and Marion Keyes, but reliably funny is hard to find imho.

Oh RONI! I would not ignore you for the world!
Nathalie, I certainly could have used more *Gatsby* too, but I find what's there very nearly perfect. I loved to teach it even.
Charlotte, you encourage me about Rush Oh!, which hadn't called me either.
I'm here this morning because while looking for something else in my crowded desk drawer, I came upon another sheet of student bloopers that I never let you see. In fact, a couple of them are so memorable, that I might have put them on my thread from memory.
So ---- While they last ----
**From My Students**
(This one is so sad....... a 10th grader ((we were forced to teach WORLD LITERATURE to every 10th grade student)) who could copy the spelling of names correctly at least.)
In A Doll's House, Nora has to Broad money from Krogstad. She frag her father siang. to Broad money from Krogstad. So she can help her husben live.
Nora love her husben thats why she Broad money in the play Krogstad trid to tell torvald.

And because that's so sad, here's a funny one!
Juno was jealous of Jupiter's children from moral women.

Hi Peggy - sorry that I seem to have got so behind on your thread.

>130 LizzieD: 'I confess that I am a fool for books set in convents.'

That describes me quite well at the moment too so Through the Narrow Gate has gone on the list. The convent experience you describe reminds me a little of the fictional (but autobiograhical) convent in E. M. Delafield's Consequences. It's been republished by Persephone but there's also a kindle version on Project Gutenberg. Not exactly a fun read but a good one (I think).

>140 LizzieD: Oh, those are good quotes!

>153 LizzieD: Vanessa and Her Sister sounds very good - I seem to enjoy reading about Woolf more than I enjoy reading her own writing at the moment.

>186 LizzieD: Oh, that first piece is sad but the second is a good one!

Hi, Heather! I'm always happy to see that you've been by! I'm all over the Delafield. Amazon has it on offer for 99¢ with another five novels that I don't have. My only problem is which e-publisher to choose. Thank you!

***From My Students***
People didn't hardly stay in inns because they were dangerous, so they split a token in half and gave one to the person they were sleeping with.
Also from memory
Roman roads were great but the ends were terrible.

(Romans did split tokens with "guest friends" so that their slaves would recognize an overnight visitor when he arrived in town. The inns were bad.)

***From My Students***
(What is the imperative mood?) It means to give a comeback.

***Quote of the Day***
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
~ Kurt Vonnegut

>186 LizzieD: As others said: very sad (and the second one quite funny)

>188 LizzieD: I learned something, thank you! :)

>189 LizzieD: err... (?) (no, you don't have to explain).

Vonnegut: that's why I don't really enjoy posting my bad reviews while writing them is fun. It's kind of embarrassing getting all worked up over 3 pages or more about something in a book I wouldn't half be able to write.

>189 LizzieD: Golly! Vonnegut was a funny man!

>190 Deern: I know, it is an achievement to finish a book of almost any sort.

I fulminate now and then, I admit, I think I am most bothered by books that come close to being good or very good. They bring out the worst in me. :)

Nathalie, it is so much easier to pan than to praise, isn't it? If I'm not careful, I can get meaner than I intend to be. I thought that was a rather funny comment too, Lucy. I assume that Vonnegut was serious about his writing.....

***From My Students***
Jim learns that Antonia has been jolted by Larry Donovan and has given birth to his illegitimate child."

***Quote of the Day***
Never wear anything that panics the cat.
~ P. J. O'Rourke (*Advice*)

(Hmmm. Did I use the O'Rourke one before? I must like it.)

>192 LizzieD: That must have been quite a jolt....

I'm still wondering what is at the end of the Roman road that is so terrible. Great quotes and student bloopers.

I agree with P. J. O'Rourke - crazed cats are pain waiting to happen.

Words to live by: Never wear anything that panics the cat.

Hi, Nancy and Karen. I thought that PJO'R was just being funny until one day I wore a hat that completely freaked little Lulu out. She was terrified of me for a bit even after I took the thing off.

***Quote of the Day***
Everyone fears they are a joke which other people will one day get.
~ Martin Amis (*Epigrams*)
(Aww. That's too bad.)

***From my Students***
... the subject displays a pestimistic attitude towards the world..."

Good quotes. It's funny what students hear. (We have something out here called TastyKake Pecan Swirls, and daughter called them Pecan Squirrels.)

I'm sorry poor Lulu got freaked out. I hate to see our cats stressed too.

Some idiot from my high school, thinking it was funny, posted a video on Facebook that upset me a couple of months ago - cats scared by cucumbers. If a cat gets scared because you do something unintentionally, no harm no foul, but when people deliberately scare their animals and take video of it, it really bothers me. It sounds funny - cats and cucumbers - but I'm sure the cats think they are about to be attacked by a snake and go ballistic.

>197 karenmarie: I am so with you Karenmarie. The one that makes me insane is a terrified puppy on the stairs. Why do people think anyone will find that fun to watch?????????? I just go bananas. Another reason I hardly watch anything anymore.

Love the panicked cat! Might have to send that one on to the Little Darling.

You can add me as the third to the disgust with frightening our fur kids on purpose. I guess practical jokers know no boundaries.
The classic kids' mishearing, used in education classes to emphasize the need for writing terms, is pullet surprise.
In fact, Porter Osborne in this Ferrol Sams trilogy that I'm rereading is quite a practical joker. He feels the need to do something because he's academically precocious (I have him as a 17 year-old college sophomore, but he has had a growth spurt over the summer) and also small for his years. I don't feel so bad about his taking on college boys, and I'm sure that he'd never scare an animal for fun. On the subject, John Birch makes an appearance or two in this book. He did attend Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, which is the original of Porter's Willingham U.

And you can add me as the fourth ...

Hi, Nancy!
I'm now feeling quite guilty........ I had suppressed chapter XXI of The Whisper of the River; have no memory of it at all. Suffice it to say that cat lovers can skip it with no harm. Porter is a 1930's farm boy, and this chapter deals with his Comparative Anatomy course and cats. I shudder to think of it while my Tully right this minute is purring on my lap.

***Quote of the Day***
Cats are like Baptists. They raise hell but you can't catch them at it.
~ Unknown (*1,119*)

***From my Students***
Venus was discovered in the ocean wearing a foam dress.

Loving the student bloopers :).

I also think it is not cool to film animals being scared. My kids saw one the other day that horrified them. A couple girls are doing their hair and the cat gets caught in a lampshade. They can't get it out and then they stop the video, and we don't know if the cat is OK or not. Why is that viral? It's horrible.

Good morning, Peggy! It's gorgeous here in central NC, hoping your end of the world is as lovely.

Oh I love the Venus in the foam outfit!

I think I've read some Sams short stories, is what, I don't appear to have listed any whole books here. What would you recommend?

>201 LizzieD: ... and Cairo sits purring beside me. I'd definitely skip that chapter, Peggy. Love that you've posted another great cat quote! Cats are like Baptists. They raise hell but you can't catch them at it. hehe

Another lovely day in RobCo, Karen! How wonderful it is to have real SPRING with cool nights and warm days! Hi, Jenn! Glad that you appreciate my former students! Also Lucy.......... I have read only the Porter Osborne trilogy that begins with Run with the Horsemen. It is a wonderful recreation of what was the South in the 1930s. I forgive Sams for the cat chapter, Nancy, when I read how he deals with Tiny Yeomans, a very fat girl who was Porter's buddy through his four years of college.

***Quote of the Day***
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
~ ascribed to Abraham Lincoln (*Wit & Wisdom of A. Lincoln*

***From my Students***
...most of his friends had pasted or moved away.

Happy Sunday, Peggy.

And a Happy Sunday to you too, Barbara, with thanks!

THE WHISPER OF THE RIVER by Ferrol Sams
I'll just say that I love this book. Porter Osborne is such a character! He's appealing and appalling, arrogant and wistful, precocious, Pharisaical and sweet, devastatingly honest and the most mischeevious boy you will ever meet in your life. This is pretty much what the South was like in the 1930s. I know because it's still a lot this way now out here in the hinterlands and because my uncle, who was a contemporary of Sams, read the trilogy before he died and said so. We follow Porter through his whole college career although a disproportionate section deals with his freshman year. The main thing for me is that it is funny.
The last book deals with his time in Emory med school and his soldiering in WWII. I don't remember anything funny about this one, but it's Porter, so there will be.

Meanwhile, I have at least picked up The Game of Kings because Lucy is enjoying it so much that I just can't help it. This will be about the 4th time I've read it, but it's been long enough that I've forgotten all the details. Maybe I won't have to read it right now and can get through some of the stuff that I say I'm reading. Or maybe not.

***From my Students***
... did not know Macduff's mother didn't have him natural she had a seasection...

***Quote of the Day***
A good sport has to lose to prove it.
~ Unknown (*Last 637*

Seasection! I love it!

Hi, Beth. If you thought about it, you'd simply wait for the obvious ones, and they did come to me, but I never really expected them.

***From my Students***
... to make a mense with her

***Quote of the Day***
Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.
~ Kin Hubbard (*1,119*)

Wait! What? I put 2 more things on earlier with a comment to Beth about expecting the obvious and actually getting it.... Except that I probably wouldn't have thought of "seasection" or "the River Stynx." On the other hand, I was expecting "aqua ducks" and "the Tiger River," and I got those too.

***From my Students***
... to make a mense with her..."

***Quote of the Day***
It is impossible to enjoy idling unless there is plenty of work to do.
~ Jerome K. Jerome (*1,119*)

***Quote of the Day***
No individual agrees with any other, or he would cease to be an individual.
~ William Allingham (*Epigrams*)

***From my Students***
One day Jupiter had a headache and she came spewing from his forehead.

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE by Karen Armstrong

This is the sequel to Ms. Armstrong's memoir that covers her seven years in a convent, Through the Narrow Gate. It's less immediately engaging than the first book and deserves more careful reading, but I enjoyed it very much. Armstrong is obviously a brilliant woman - a congratulatory first from Oxford, followed immediately by work toward her doctorate. She did, however, meet roadblocks at every turn. She hoped to become a don in English literature but was told that she was not suitable to be an academic. She tried teaching in a high school instead and eventually failed at that because of her continuing health issues. (A doctor finally recognized her symptoms as epilepsy and over several years eventually arrived at a successful treatment.) Then she had a flirtation with series television before eventually finding her bliss in studying comparative religion and writing about it. This book is filled with her struggles and with the people she met on her way.
I am much attracted to her term "spiritual empathy," which she says lies at the heart of all the great religions. I recommend both!

I'm now caught up in my penultimate (!) ER ARC, The Fox Was Ever the Hunter. I haven't ever read anything quite like it, and I'm glad that it's short. More later!
Meanwhile, I may have told you about this bit of student writing, but I'm not sure. I had assigned my "regular" (which in this case meant kids just above special ed. classification, reading on a 6th grade level) 11th graders a booklet composed of their personal paragraphs about each letter of the alphabet. I got this........
***From My Students***
V is for Veteran's Day. My favorite holiday is Veteran's Day on Veteran's Day a man will give his girlfriend or wife flowers and candy and jewelry and take her out for supper................
(I asked her whether she had perhaps meant to write "Valentine's Day." She said, "Whatever." For several years I demanded flowers and candy and jewelry on Veterans' Day, but I never got anywhere with it.)

***Quote of the Day***
The town where I grew up has a zip code of E-I-E-I-O.
~ Martin Mull (*Latest 637*)

I loved London Belongs to Me, Peggy, and I keep hoping you will love it too. It is definitely one of my favorite books. My copy had belonged to my mother, and was published in the 60's or 70's under the title Dulcimer Street. I'm looking forward to your thoughts.

>214 LizzieD: I liked the way the book gave me a glimpse into such a different world. Although, I read this book before I had defended my thesis, and was terrorised by her report of the viva (or rather, the way she was treated by an examiner). All that work up in smoke.

Charlotte, I was pretty traumatized when I read about her viva too. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I'd sort of hoped that Oxford was a place where they took better care of their students.
Colleen, I confess that I've sort of bogged down in *London*. I'm in the trial now, and Percy is my least favorite resident of Dulcimer Street to read about (I dislike some of the others, but love to read about them!). I'll get back into it and through this section, never you worry! I'm also a bit reluctant to find out what Mrs Josser will have to say when she finds out what Mr J has done with their new house money. (I love my copy too although I don't have your meaningful connection with it. It's a 1949 reprint and just the sort of book I might have bought then if I had been a bit older than 5!)

***Quote of the Day***
Some people will believe anything if you whisper it to them.
~ Louis Nizer (*Advice*)

***From my Students***
The Wife of Bath wants to be first for Communism because of her social status.

>215 LizzieD: Ha! I want flowers for Veterans Day too! Great idea. Lol!

Karen Armstrong is an author I have much been wanting to read but I haven't gotten around to her yet. I have a copy of The Battle for God around here somewhere, or at least I used to.

That Wife of Bath, LOL!

That student quote is a line of words I know but that make no sense to me. (no good history or other background plus a short memory) :(

But I got other good news (I hope): I really enjoy a book that you loved - Vanessa and her Sister. I'm only at 30%, but can't wait to get home and into the weekend to finally have time for it.

>218 LizzieD: Hopefully it's better now? Surely...

I like the idea of the Wife of Bath as one of those socialist realist ladies on the CCCP posters. What a woman!

Hi, Charlotte, Nathalie (I'm writing you a message), Nancy, Ellen, and Jenn! What a treat to have visitors!!!
Ellen, it's great to see you here. I'm daunted by the length of your thread, but you are a favorite. I'm not sure how much I want to read her serious work (not that the memoirs weren't serious), but I love her reflections on her life.
Nathalie, I'm super happy that we agree on *Van & Sis*! Enjoy!!!!!
I continue to read and be awed by The Fox Was Ever the Hunter. I'm not sure what I'll find to say about it, but H. Muller definitely deserved her Nobel.

***Quote of the Day***
It is as important to see others as they see themselves as to see ourselves as others see us.
~ Elizabeth Bibesco (*Epigrams*)

***From my Students***
"... hung it on a limp of a tree."

>225 LizzieD: Bibesco's quote is a wise one, Peggy. If diplomacy was predicated on such a basis maybe the peoples of the world would misunderstand each other less.

Have a glorious weekend Peggy as we celebrate 400 years of the passing of Shakespeare. I would have thought his birth more worthy of celebrating than his death but the powers that be like their round numbers.

It is also St. George's Day in England.

Hi, Paul! I think that we celebrated the birth in 1964 and will go crazy in 2064, assuming that the human race is still around by that time. Meanwhile, round numbers are compelling, so Hail and Farewell, William Shakespeare!

THE FOX WAS EVER THE HUNTER by Herta Muller
Hooo, boy! This was quite a ride. I know that I missed a good deal of it because the writing is too elliptical for me. On the other hand, I got enough to be sucked into the fear that permeates totalitarian countries. My review is on the book page if you care to look at it.
I wish somebody else would discuss the symbolism more thoroughly than any of the reviewers here have done so far.
Don't read it if you want neat narrative or character development!

Catching up here - I do want more and more to read the Armstrong memoirs.

Lucy, I expect you'll be fascinated if you get to them!

***Quote of the Day***
I improve on misquotation.
~ Cary Grant (*1,119*)

***From my Students***
Like for a explain.....

I've read the Spiral Staircase and enjoyed it, as well as many of her books on religion.

I am, um, like, for a explain, really enjoying your quotations, Peggy : ). Honestly, some of the student work I read in grades 11 and 12, I have to wonder how they ever got out of elementary school. Oh, that's right, it's because we promote them year after year for simply breathing. Ouch, have to watch that cynicism.

Right you are, Nancy! I can't decide whether we are genuinely concerned that we don't damage their self-esteem (!) or just too damn lazy to do our jobs. How's that for cynicism? I can't tell you how relieved I am to be out of it. I'm glad that you're enjoying the quotations though.
Hi, Roni! I'll remember to try Armstrong on religion somewhere down the road, but right now, I've moved on. I'm back to Emily Hahn and learning that she was an opium addict in Shanghai - a fact I didn't get when I read her memoir China to Me.

***Quote of the Day***
Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity. Posterity has done nothing for us.
~ Abraham Lincoln (*Wit & Wisdom of*)

***From my Students***
One day Jupiter had a headache and she came spewing from his forehead.

>232 LizzieD: Okay, if you've moved on, I won't tell you I finally posted my review of Putting God Second. ;-)

I have read and thumbed your review of *God 2nd*, Roni. Thanks. It sounds like something our reading group might like. We're reading Jim Wallis (America's Original Sin) for our meeting in early May. I thought I might read it before the month's out, but I doubt now that I'll finish it before I have to.

***Quote of the Day***
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
~ George Bernard Shaw (*1,119*)

***From my Students***
The witches tell him to be where of Macduff. ... Macduff goes to England to find the real air to the throne.

WHOOOO HOOOOOO! I'm up to get Seveneves from ER!!!! I know that it is getting uneven reviews, but I have liked a lot of Neal Stephenson that other people haven't. I'm totally stoked!

I won Seveneves too--it was the only one I requested this month.

That's the only way I got it too, Roni. Sometimes that works and sometimes not.
I sort of hope they'll be able to list the Nicole Barker again so that I can ask for it and only it, but I definitely wanted the NS more.

***Quote of the Day***
Men should think twice before making widowhood women's only path to power.
~ Gloria Steinem (*Latest 367*)

***From my Students***
All that they had been working toward was finnished.

I've read Seveneves and it had some flaws but overall was very enjoyable and readable. I'm glad you won it!

You make me gladder I won it, Lucy!

***Quote of the Day***
I think the world is run by C students.
~ Al McGuire

***From my Students***
If a vestal virgin would betray her vowels ---

(I'm afraid that's all of them.)

Nobody Said Not to Go by Ken Cuthbertson

I am becoming an Emily Hahn enthusiast. She was one of the old regulars at The New Yorker with Joe Mitchell, who reported there for work regularly very nearly until she died. I read her memoir of her life in China during WWII, China to Me and will eventually read her biography of the Soong sisters. She was a little woman, but she was larger than life, or at least larger than the lives of 99.9% of the other women who were born in 1905. She smoked cigars - large stogies, kept gibbons, became a mining engineer from U. Wisconsin, was addicted to opium, had a child out of wedlock and wrote about it, wrote 52 books on topics as diverse as Fanny Burney, zoos, and angels and ghosts. (I see why professional writers list: it's a lot easier than organizing a decent paragraph that might deliver a clearer picture of such a unique woman.)
I continued to deplore Cuthbertson's carelessness as a biographer, but Mickey Hahn was such a compelling subject that I gave up fighting him.
And, by the way, the title of the book should be *Nobody Said Not to Go* (which doesn't work with Touchstones). This was Mickey's reply when she and a friend took a train several hours outside Chunking (as it then was) to get to a weekend party. They crossed the front lines of the Chinese and Japanese armies both going and coming.

>238 LizzieD: A dear friend who has gone through terrible things in her marriage but won't divorce her husband told me that she's looking forward to widowhood. Not nice, I know, but heartfelt.

Horrors, Karen!

***Quote of the Day***
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti.
~ Robert Morley (*1,119*)

***Quote of the Day***
I think the world is run by C students.
~ Al McGuire

That quote certainly isn't original to Al McGuire. It sounds like he means it as a pejorative. The headmaster of my son's high school frequently said the same thing--"C students run the world" is the way he put it. I think he said it with the idea of giving parents hope--ha.

That's interesting, Becky. I can see it both ways. I quoted it for the laugh, but it seems to me that the people who get things done are the go-getters who use what they have to make a difference. At least around here, honors students are either so focused on their fields of study or so lazy that they don't take much interest in pushing to run the world. And, of course, there are Cs and there are other Cs. I'm pretty sure that a C in RobCo wouldn't be passing in the rest of the world.

***Quote of the Day***
This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thought.
~ Dr. Samuel Johnson (*Epigrams*)

>246 LizzieD: one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thought.

No need to say more I think I am going to go and open a bottle of Merlot and test Johnson's theory.

Have a lovely weekend, Peggy.

Very appropriate, Paul! I'll especially like it if you pick up a bit of Dr. Johnson or maybe Boswell!
Oh, Diana, that could almost be our Sparks! Thank you and hope you're as fine as I feel! (It is GOOD not to be ill!!!!!)

***Quote of the Day***
Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.
~ Kin Hubbard (*1,119)
(Have I quoted that one before. It seems familiar. If so, I'll give you a second one.)
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
~ Plato (*1,119*)

Stopping by to say hello, Peggy - the quote from Plato in >250 LizzieD: definitely resonates with all the ridiculousness in politics at the moment.

Enjoying your quotes as ever. Very apt at the moment.

Apt at both the state and national level, I'm afraid, for those of us here in NC.....

Oh dear, Karen. What a sad state we do live in!
Hi, Lucy and Heather. I wish that Plato were a little less appropriate.
I've been reading To Green Angel Tower 1 and America's Original Sin (Hilarious! The first Touchstone for that that comes up is *Tarzan of the Apes*. ???) The latter is for my local group which will discuss it Thursday afternoon. I need to step up my time with it if I'm going to finish by then. It's very good but hard to read because it's so true. I'll try to give it a decent review.

***Quote of the Day***
You've got to take the bitter with the sour.
~ Samuel Goldwyn (*367 Latest*)

***Quote of the Day***
There are two great rules of life: never tell everything at once.
~ Ken Venturi (*Advice*)

>255 LizzieD: Oooooh, Peggy! Love and hate that one. :)

Heh heh heh heh heh......
Always happy to charm and infuriate, Karen!

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER Part 1 - Tad Williams

I love these books! Williams takes his time, builds his characters and his world, and I follow them happily. This one has one of the high points of the series for me in the excitement department: that is, the rescue of Tiamak from the ghants' nest. It's classic epic fantasy, and I'm a happy reader. We leave with most of the good guys having been together for a couple of hundred pages, but the end is coming!
I'll be starting Part 2 almost immediately. I want to reread the *Crawford of Lymond* series by Dorothy Dunnett too, so I'll take longer to finish the last book.
Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that I won a copy of Seveneves. If I've gotten an official notification, I missed it, but it's on my *Books You've Won* list at ER, so I'm very happy. I do need to read Pistols and Petticoats before it arrives, and I expect I can do that!

***Quote of the Day***
Each new mind brings its own edition of the universe of space along with it, it's own room to inhabit; and these spaces never crowd each other.
~ William James (*Epigrams*)

(When I have wine taken {and I have}, I invariably type *Epicrams*.)

I won Seveneves as well, and since it made both the Hugo nomination list and the Locus list, I do want to read it but like you have not received any word of it.

Popped by for a visit, Peggy and I had a chuckle reading your post @ 229 and Nancy's @ 231 - Like for a explain as to why I am here, I myself, like, wanted to see , um , what awesome book's your reading right now ;)

Oh you are fiendishly tempting me to start the Williams, but I just can't get too many series going at once!

So happy you are reading Lymond with me!

Glad you are enjoying the Williams series, Peggy. But it's not very nice of you to be fiendishly tempting Lucy : ).

>262 lit_chick: Ha, she's fiendishly tempting me into a reread too. It's probably been 20 years at least and I want to so badly, but have so many other book commitments this month!

Yay! Visitors! Glad we both got *7Eves*, Roni! I'd hate for one of us to envy the other. I'm sort of relieved to hear that you haven't been notified about it either.
Ah, Deborah, I read you loud and clear. I've had a lot of practice reading you're kinda usage
Lucy, I'm sure that you should wait for Williams. I'm really following you with Lymond, and I'm counting on a reread's not taking as much attention as a first time through so that I can get to other things.
Ah, Nancy. If you only knew how often Lucy has fiendishly tempted me, you wouldn't say a word.
OOO! I'm fiendishly tempting Roni too... GOOD ONE!

For some reason I thought about this sentence last night - again, 11th grade - again, weep or laugh.

"A great big fel rat on the teble."

(If you can't make sense of it (and I'm pretty sure I've offered it before, I'll give you a hint.)

>258 LizzieD: I loved the books of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn too, Peggy, I first heard of them here in the group :-)
Now I started an other incredible fantasy series: Mistborn!

Hi, Anita! Glad to see another T. Williams fan. I adored his VR series *Otherland*, but I'm not sure how well it would hold up now. *Mistborn* --- That's Sanderson, isn't it? I have something of his that I haven't breached yet. We'll see!
Aw, Nancy. Open up! It's O.K.!!!

***Quote of the Day***

Never miss a good chance to shut up.
~ Scott Beach's grandfather (*1,119*) (I had to google Scott Beach. I've just never been a movie watcher.)

Hi Peggy, wishing you a wonderful day.

My copy of Seveneves just arrived in the mail! Hope yours is there as well.

Roni, I was just going over to tell you that mine came today. Happy us!
Hi, Barbara!

***Quote of the Day***
Love and scandals are the best sweeteners of tea.
~ Henry Fielding (*Epigrams*)

Quote of the day

"Peggy, I really hope that the weekend brings you all you desire and more"

Paul Cranswick (LT; May 2016)

Ah, Paul, that's a really nice quote! Thank you! Hope you're having a fine weekend too!

***Quote of the Day***
People who sell macramé should be dyed a natural color and hung out to dry.
~ Calvin Trillin

Just passing through - catching up. Love the quotes as always. :)
I enjoyed the Tad Williams book and I will continue on eventually. I have to be a little less busy before I tackle another huge fantasy novel I guess. Binabik is my favorite.

Hi, Jenn. Glad you came through! I love Binabik too, but I think Tiamak is my favorite of favorites. I can't explain why I just had to reread these now, but that's how it is, and I'm happy!

AMERICA'S ORIGINAL SIN: RACISM, WHITE PRIVILEGE, AND THE BRIDGE TO A NEW AMERICA by Jim Wallis
If it were up to me, I would require every American, especially every white American to read this book now and talk about it. I'll have the talking opportunity in a couple of weeks when my local reading group gets together.
Jim Wallis is a hero of mine. He is the founder of Sojourners, an evangelical Christian who understands that the faith is about how we treat each other. His springboard for this little book is the fact that by 2045 the United States will no longer be a country with a white majority. The European American population will be a minority among minorities just as it is in my hometown. The trouble comes when this white minority continues to cling to its white privilege, which benefits us every day in ways that we white people are ignorant of.
Wallis chooses statistics carefully and notes when they are not available. (For example, nobody is keeping a total of the number of men of color killed annually by police officers in this country.) He then analyzes what he sees and offers the beginnings of solutions. Chapter titles give an overview of the contents:
Race Is a Story; The Parables of Ferguson and Baltimore; The Original Sin and Its Legacy; Repentance Means More than Just Saying You're Sorry; Dying To Whiteness; A Segregated Church or a Beloved Community?; From Warriors to Guardians; The New Jim Crow and Restorative Justice; Welcoming the Stranger; Crossing the Bridge to a New America.
White parents may be able to guess the content of the talk that all black parents have with their young sons about police officers. This white woman was incredibly naive about the effect of the War Against Drugs on the black community. The arguments grow out of Wallis's faith, but people of all faiths and no faith will be welcomed and challenged by reading this book.

>275 LizzieD: This sounds like it was an important read. I know it's not what you're describing, but in case interesting, there is this list of everyone killed by the police in the US. Disturbing stuff.
The Counted: people killed by police in the United States – interactive
http://gu.com/p/492j3?
I read an ethography last year on a small area's population of young men and the impact of policing / justice strategies that basically forced the community to live off the official grid to avoid the justice system. It was shocking to me. Good to read that others too are noting the impact of these policies.

Thank you for the link, Charlotte. I must say that my mind is blown in several different directions that The Guardian is tracking police shootings in the US. They even provide a racial breakdown. Good grief!
I'm shocked too........ and unwilling to stop at just being shocked.

>276 charl08: The Counted
Huh. Thanks.
>277 LizzieD: my mind is blown in several different directions
Mine too.

Hi, Katherine.
Now for something completely different! (Or having chosen it, maybe not.)

***Quote of the Day***
No more good must be attempted than the public can bear.
~ Thomas Jefferson (*Last 637*)

Hmmmmm.

Peggy, Wallis sounds like required reading, as you point out. This astounds me: For example, nobody is keeping a total of the number of men of color killed annually by police officers in this country.) I'm sure there are many astonishing facts in the book: for one, that we imbibe in white privilege without even realizing it. I think you need to post your review!

>275 LizzieD: that sounds like a very interesting, compelling book. Thanks for sharing your review.

>280 lit_chick: we imbibe in white privilege without even realizing it I'm aware of this as a concept but I wish I was aware of when I was doing it.

And not to take anything away from the very real racial issues described by this book, but "privilege" and its damaging effects can also be applied to matters of gender (workplace equality comes to mind) and sexual identity.

>275 LizzieD: I'm from a suburb of Los Angeles California and didn't even see a black person until I was 13. I didn't think much of it, and I don't remember any overt racism at home. Then I went to high school and it was mixed white, black, Hispanic, and lots of other groups/ethnicities. Went to college, lived up North for a while. When I moved here 25 years ago I saw much more overt racism and was/am shocked. I couldn't imagine a black woman my age, 63, going to a segregated school, but her entire educational experience was segregated. Shocking to me. That school is now the integrated middle school that my daughter went to.

I read a lot of history, and almost without exception, the books I read about US history touch upon slavery and racism, regardless of the century or decade, region or supposed subject under discussion. Slavery and racism are still the key defining tension in the US.

Thanks for sharing the book and your review, Peggy.

Laura, Karen, and Nancy, thanks for your comments. I am a product of Southern bias and segregation. I saw black and Lumbee Indian children all my little life, and they didn't register with me until I was a senior in high school. In fact, we had 4 separate school systems when I was growing up: white, black, Indian, and Smiling --- a family name in the northwest part of this biggest county in NC, who were of completely mixed race and claimed by none. One boy in my class through our public school years looked white but had siblings in the Indian schools. Then I went to a church conference and met a black girl who was as smart as I was and as much fun and cuter to look at - Revelation! I began the painful process of change. Anyway, get the book. It's a primer of what has happened recently and what needs to happen now. (I did put my review on the book page of the Kindle copy because it hadn't been reviewed, but it doesn't seem to have migrated to the hard copy page.)

>283 LizzieD:
I began the painful process of change.
And that's what's important! We all start at different places, but being open to the journey, and being in situations that catalyze that journey, are really key. I grew up in a very white suburb and it wasn't until my 20s that I had significant interactions with black people. Some 1990s corporate diversity training began to open my eyes; membership in a progressive, urban, racially mixed Presbyterian church provided the opportunity to learn about white privilege from members who live it, every single day. That same church taught me a lot about LGBT issues as well. I truly think I am a different -- and better! -- adult for having had this experience.

I did put my review on the book page of the Kindle copy ... And on a completely different note, I just went to the main page and combined editions so Kindle and hardcopy would be seen as one. Strangely, at this moment, it still says there are 0 reviews but if you click on reviews, yours comes up.

Hi Peggy, Delurking to say I will be adding the Wallis book to my TBR list. I grew up on the west coast and I'd have to say many people here think racism is primarily a southern problem. But racism is alive and well here in Portland, OR and is tied to other serious problems we have, extreme poverty and homelessness. Any light that can be shed on this is a good thing!

I am loving your quotes. Sometimes I pop in to read the quote when I don't have time for a leisurely browse. Makes my day!

Jan, I'm always happy to see you when you come! You haven't started a thread this year, have you? That you like the quotes is a day-maker!
Thanks for cleaning up the book page, Laura. I never think to do it, but if I did, I wouldn't because I expect I'd be wrong. You were happy to be a member of an inter-racial church. I'm sure that's what the kingdom looks like!

***Quote of the Day***
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool.
~ Richard Feynman (*Advice*)

This is another one that I'm afraid may be a repeat. So I'll start marking them!

Serious BB caught for the Wallis - and thanks to Charlotte's link now I know where the German newspapers get those statistics from.

Hi, Nathalie! I'll be eager to hear what you think about the Wallis. My mind is still blown...... The Guardian can track those statistics, but the FBI can't or doesn't!

WINTER STUDY by Nevada Barr
At some point every year I seem to have to revisit Anna Pigeon. This, however, is probably my least favorite in the series so far. Anna takes more and more risks. She is injured - in this case, nearly frozen - numerous times. But she keeps right on going for it. At least a couple of the characters in this one are seriously disturbed, and the whole thing is claustrophobic and creepy. She is on Isle Royale with the winter wolf study team, the only people on the island. The only wolves that we really see are dead, and the study gets short shrift.
BUT --- There's nobody like N. Barr for capturing the essence of National Park settings, and she does it again. I hate cold weather, and I very nearly froze in our current high 80s/low 90s heat while reading this one. That said, Anna is nearly 50, newly married, and it's time for her to slow down a bit. I'll bet she doesn't, and I'll also bet that I'll find out next year when I go on to Borderline.

Hi Peggy, I always enjoy the student bloopers you post, so here you go: this is today's, and one I am not touching with a 10-foot pole: My step father, Steve. He is 46, he is balled, muscular, hard working etc.

>289 lit_chick: LOL until I cry.

Nancy, that is priceless! I can't understand why nobody ever wrote that for me!
Hi, Jenn!!!

***Quotes of the Day***
People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.
~ Abraham Lincoln reviewing a book (*1,119*)
and
I am sitting in the smallest room in the house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.
~ Max Reger (same page)

***Quote of the Day***
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living hand to mouth.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe epigraph to Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World (*Epigrams*)

***Quote of the Day***
It's a dull child that knows less than its father.
~ Unknown (*Last 637*)

I've remembered this one as I read teachers frustrated at the end of grading period on fb. I've probably told it before...

Dialogue
Student (word used loosely): Why did you fail me?????
Teacher (that would be me): You didn't hand in any work all semester.
Student: I know, but I didn't think you'd FAIL me!!!!

At what point did students' expectations switch from "must work enough to pass somehow" to "am automatically entitled to pass"?

When I was a student (1977 - 1990) parents very rarely went to a teacher's consultation hour to discuss grades, and if so, it was to better learn about the student's individual problem with the subject and how to better support them (with private lessons for example) so they'd still pass. Nowadays I always hear about parents running to teachers to complain about bad grades, imputing it's the teacher's fault when the child doesn't excel.

I've been away from LT for awhile. I'm stopping by and waving hello to you dear Peggy!

I think this is what it would look like if only a few of us put our books together.

LOVE the Macrame quote!!! And the Lincoln all-purpose meh review - which I think I need to copy and save for future use!

I'm sold on the Wallis as well.

Hi Peggy! Love the quotes.

>294 Deern: As a parent in the 1997-2011 educational time frame, it was a combination of intervening when daughter had what I perceived of as a legitimate gripe or issue, and chastising daughter for not sucking it up and doing the work as required. Email came into play too. But during that time there were lots of parents who demanded better grades for their kids without justification, and there was a lot of grade inflating too. I still have a really hard time understanding how a student can get above a 4.0.

>293 LizzieD: Had a recent conversation with a student about the possibility of failing. My line is always you will fail yourself if you don't start putting in some effort.

Right, Nancy. My line (not original): I don't give grades; I keep score.
Oh yes, Karen! And your daughter is becoming an adult because you were a parent. Grade inflation is one thing. Giving away grades (which the principal pretty much did when I was still teaching to help our statistics..... "If you'll come to school and pass the EOC, I'll give you the credit." {EOC=state End of Course test} I really think it was worse than that) is quite another.
Glad you're sold on Wallis and the rest, Lucy! To quote our church choir director, "Of all the people I know, you're one of them."
Linda, welcome! Honestly, some people think that's what my house looks like already.....
Nathalie, I watched the decline from 1970 when I first taught to 2008 when I retired. (I had 20+ years of teaching private piano lessons in there or I could have retired with some actual money.) Part of it here has to do with the standardized testing. Administrators will do anything to boost their school's test scores. Failing, or at least not improving, is extremely costly in terms of their jobs. Teachers are the only people in the equation whom anybody has control over, so everything has to be their fault. And then, parenting has changed. I also fault the whole idealization of positive self-concept at any cost without the understanding that basing self-concept on somebody else's work is stupid. (I heard and participated in this dialogue countless times:
Parent: He can't fail. It would damage his self-concept.
Teacher: You're telling me that it's going to help his self-concept to imply that he's too stupid to do the work himself, so we have to make allowances for him???)
This only begins to point out some of the ways we've failed our kids for the past 20 years or so.
I repeat myself. Off to lower my blood pressure

This is so cynical that I hesitate to post it, but this is how I felt about teaching often that last year. It was definitely time to get out.

***Quote of the Day***
Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine.
~ Erwin Edman (1896-1954) (*1,119*)

Hmm - where I live, high school kids go to summer school to boast there already 80% + grades. That is almost a problem in itself. Not all kids , or the entire district, but where I live , 60 % of the population is Chinese and they are serious students, and that seems to transfer to their school mates. I know it's not that way everywhere - I was fortunate with my sons.

Happy weekend, Peggy.

Aw, Barbara, I'm be-linged. Thank you!
Deborah, if we can't have a happy medium, I suspect that too-serious is better than too-frivolous. My cousin in the Triangle teaches AP Environmental Science and ALL his students do ALL the work that he assigns. I just can't imagine!

THE GAME OF KINGS by Dorothy Dunnett
Having added my voice to her family members who have urged Lucy to read the Lymond Chronicles, I was seduced into yet another reread. Dunnett's lavish, luxuriant, relentlessly allusive style won't please everybody (it shouldn't please me), but I adore these books! I pick up more every time I read one, but I know I'm missing thousands of things. A simple example.... If Peggy were not a nick-name for Margaret, I might not know that "Margaret" means "pearl." I'd, therefore, miss the little conceit when Lymond asks the Earl of Lennox about his wife, "And how is the pearl of pearls?"
I"ll tell you who Francis is. Francis is Lord Peter Wimsey, made handsome and even more perfect with a little sting and placed into 16th century Scotland.
Off to the next. When am I ever going to read anything else???

***Quote of the Day***
We envy the happiness of other people mainly because we believe in it.
~ Irving Layton (*Epigrams*)
AND
Most men devote the greater part of their lives to making their remaining years unhappy.
~ Jean de la Bruyère (*Epigrams*)

>303 LizzieD: Yes I have no doubt that keeners are much easier then those that have no interest or motivation to learn - or at least not much. It would be quite frustrating. My daughter in law is a newly minted kindergarten teacher and she is quite enjoying it, despite the very diverse abilities and backgrounds of the kids at her school. She does tell me that she is surprised by some of the kids whom she has gone over the day of week every day since September and they seem still find the idea of a day of the week to challenging. Some can read fluently, others have troubles with colours and basic arithmetic. As you've mentioned, I don't know if a child can fail kindergarten. I suppose part of it is how much time and emphasis parents put on education, and how far the parent is stretched for money/ time etc. But yes, it would be so much frustrating in high school kids that are not interested.

>303 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! I have 4 of the 6 Lymond Chronicles (I still need to acquire The Disorderly Knights and The Ringed Castle). Another wonderful series to read, for sure. Have you read The House of Niccolo series? I have a few of them, too; the first three of the eight in the series.

So true, illustrative of the human condition, I think: We envy the happiness of other people mainly because we believe in it.

Hi Peggy :)

>299 LizzieD: I so agree with you on the teacher blaming and the weird parenting stuff. When did we stop expecting kids to take responsibility for their lives? They grow up thinking they are all that, and enter the workforce entitled to good pay and flexible hours and when their boss says they aren't good enough, they have to go get therapy. Or if someone disagrees with them they have to go find a safe space? What?
I'm always happy to help my kids with problems, but the conversation usually starts with "what is your part in this?" or "is there something you needed to do, but didn't?" I'm about to send my first fledgling out into the world, and in spite of my efforts, he's entitled, self-centered, and knows everything. Hopefully it's mostly a factor of being a 17 year old male. I only hope that his life lessons aren't too painful. *Making popcorn and getting ready for the show* ;)

Read the last many comments with great interest, but am not feeling coherent enough to say much of anything lucid.

>250 LizzieD: I love Plato's quote about politics. I guess it's true! (if we look at the situation in the US now you c old either say that, or say that the smart ones have taken over -smart because they figured out how!)

>299 LizzieD: he can't fail, it would damage his self-concept!??
What the?
Sheesh.
Parents need to buck up their ideas.

Hi, Ilana and Lucy! Lovely to have you here.
Lovely to have you too, Jenn. You are a mom after my own heart. I never got over kids prancing up to me with pride and a grin and saying, "I don't understand!' (The message seemed to be, "You didn't teach this well enough for me to get it, so I don't have to deal with it.") My response was invariably, "I'm sorry. What do you plan to do about it?" And invariably I'd get puzzled frowns.
I have to say from experience teaching that being a 17 year-old male is pretty powerful stuff, and just about the only cure for it is 5-10 years. Courage! And lots of popcorn!!! *grin*
Hi, Nancy!
Hi, Karen. I have all of Niccolo, but I haven't read my way through the whole series. Somehow, Claes is not as appealing as Francis or else the earlier period isn't as appealing to me... I don't know, but this will be the third time I've read LYMOND all the way through, and I've read the first 2 or 3 books more than that.
Deborah, courage and patience and perseverance to your daughter! She's doing a wonderful thing!

***Quote of the Day***
Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.
~ Fran Lebowitz (*Last 637*)

Hi, Peggy. Now that I have the time, I've caught up on your thread and will visit regularly - or at least I hope to. I love the quotes you post, and the comments on books you've read.

As for the caliber of students these days, well, I'm glad I didn't spend the last 20 years teaching. It sounds so discouraging. I've taken on a volunteer task of coaching a young woman in her writing - she's headed to college in the fall, and asked for coaching. But now she seems to be skittish about it, and hasn't scheduled a meeting. I'd so like to help her.

A friend of mine teaches reading to young students in one of the charter schools up in Harlem, and she finds many problems trace back to unclear or unphonetic pronunciation and other language issues. I may volunteer with her as well, and learn how to deal with that without cultural antagonism. Maybe I can do some good.

Judy, I love to see you here! One-on-one help can be a real life-changer for kids, never mind the fact that they also learn to use language more effectively. I hope that your young woman takes advantage of your offer. She may be embarrassed for you to see where she actually is..... One thing I love about little kids is that they trust adults to give them what they need . Enjoy! And I'm tickled that you're enjoying the quotes. It's fun to find one a day.

***Quote of the Day***
Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity. Posterity has done nothing for us.
~ Abraham Lincoln (*Wit & Wisdom*)

***Quote of the Day***
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
~ Henry J. Kaiser (*Advice*)

Oh I do like yesterday's quote!

I know I will be rereading Lymond in print when I finish the audio!

Hi, Lucy! I'm happy to see a genuine Lymond convert!!! I have the Dunnett companions but get so caught up in the story that I forget to look things up --- all that Gaelic would be nice to know.

***Quote of the Day***
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
~ Mahatma Gandhi (*1,119*)

>316 LizzieD: Me too, Peggy. Every time I re-read the Lymond Chronicles I say I will take it slowly and look up everything in the Companions but I always get so carried away in the story that I read on...

Hi Peggy. Glad to see you are continuing to enjoy your Tad Williams reread. The Dragonbone Chair is definitely on the list - hopefully soon.

>275 LizzieD: America's Original Sin sounds really interesting (for some reason the first touchstone for that tile is 'Tarzan of the Apes'?!?) and thought-provoking. I enjoyed everyone's comments in the thread. White privilege is something I've been considering recently for myself - my nephew is mixed race and I want to be his Auntie Heather who buys him books (he's only 18 months old at the moment). But then I suddenly realised that 99% of the children's books I loved when I was a child only have white characters or animals as main characters. It's just something I'd taken for granted when growing up.

>303 LizzieD: I'm sticking my fingers in my ears and looking away from all mentions of the Lymond Chronicles at the moment - I need to finish Poldark and then I might think about another historical fiction series.

Heather, you're right. You absolutely need to finish Poldark before embarking on Lymond. They are very, very different, but they both demand a lot of reading!!! The same is true for the T. Williams......... I'm just an idiot; that's all.
I do hear you about the children's books for your nephew. I'm sure you'll figure it out for him.
Hi, Kerry! I see I'm in good company with our Francis.
I'm off to the beach (Friday-Tuesday ---- You do realize that I never go anywhere, right?) for time with 4 of my 5 best friends from high school. I'm sorry to say that my best one isn't going to be able to make it again. Two of their husbands, who are also classmates, are going to be there too. (My DH is yet another classmate, but he wouldn't consider going, and it's really too far for a day trip.) FUN!!!! I may be scarce around here although I'm pretty sure I'll drop in from time to time. No quotes though. And likely no Lymond. *sigh* No 100% bliss in this life.

Have a lovely time, Peggy! Sounds like tons of fun.

Sound like you all will have a ball! Enjoy!

Thank you, Karen and Roni! We will have a great time. We've stayed close through the years, so we jump right in and start enjoying ourselves. I'll even have a bit of time to read!
***Quotes of the Day***
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
~ C. G. Jung (*1,119*)

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
~ Harry Truman (*1,119*)

Uh oh, I'd better de-lurk while you're still here.

Have a wonderful weekend with your friends Peggy. It sounds delightful.

Hope your trip to the beach is as lovely as it sounds. The Jung quote made me laugh (probably not his intention?)

Thank you for coming by, Katherine, Laura, and Charlotte! I'm off in less than 2 hours!!! Good times ahead!

>322 LizzieD: Love the C.G. Jung quote.
And I wish you a great weekend with your friends!

I am enraptured by the Poldark series too and will venture into the third episode next week.

Have a great weekend, dear Peggy.

Hello Peggy--I'm very pleased to have caught up with your thread, and am popping the Wallis book right onto my "read this next" list. Well, to read in June, more likely. Enjoyed the quotes but there sure are a lot of them when you read them all at once!

I've got lots of catching up to do with you, Peggy, but I've enjoyed perusing your thread and reading some of the quotes you've posted. I'll come back to catch up on your reviews. Hope you've been enjoying the weekend. xx

Hope you have fun at the beach!

Hmmm, I wonder if the Poldarks wouldn't be a good listen after Lymond? On the other hand, I was thinking of embarking on Trollope or twenty others. Argh! I am getting very very taken up with audio books.

I know you are having fun!

>311 LizzieD: "I'm sorry. What do you plan to do about it?" Love it. Will write it on a post-it to remember in similar work situations. :)))

HAPPY BEACH TIME!! :D

Oh, have a wonderful time, Peggy! Look forward to hearing about your fun : ).

Oh! Just caught on the the fact that you're away on a beach vacation! Hope you're all having a blast!

HOME AT LAST!!!
Thank you all for the visits. I'll catch up tomorrow.
Meanwhile ---

*Quote of the Day*
"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in."
"I should have called it
Something you somehow haven't to deserve."
~ Robert Frost ~ "Death of the Hired Man" (*Epigrams*)

(Sometimes a well-known one is best.)

Welcome home, Peggy!

Thank you, Roni! It's good to be home - it's really great to be home - but we had the best time ever! This get-together happens every 3 years or so. We have been friends for 60+ years except for the one Yankee interloper who joined us only 58 years ago! You will appreciate our ability to sit together and read if that's what we want to do! We also walked on the beach, ate and wined very well, talked and talked and talked and laughed, enjoyed Brookgreen Gardens, sat out under the stars, and had a nearly perfect 4 days. If my DH and best friend had been with us, it would have been perfect! Thanks for the visits and the good wishes, Ilana, Nancy, Nathalie, Lucy, Becky, Anne, Paul, and Anita!
Meanwhile, look at that amazing list of Viragos sent by my down-sizing Fairy Book Sister! I love having them!!!

***Quote of the Day***
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
~ A.H. Weiler (*1,119*)

Ha ha. That quote hits the nail on the head. Glad you had a lovely trip.

Ooh, it's been probably 20 years since I visited but I loved Brookfreen Gardens. That's definitely icing on the cake, the cake being such a wonderful time with lifelong friends.

So glad you had a wonderful time with your friends, Peggy. I moved around so much throughout my childhood and young adult life (often from one continent to another), so that I wasn't able to keep in touch with friends, or 'grow up' with anyone steadily being part of my life throughout the years, so that I'm a bit wistful at the idea of being able to have reunions with beloved old friends in mature years. Am enjoying the feeling vicariously through you. xx

Friends for 60 years! That's fabulous, Peggy! So delighted you had a wonderful time. I followed the link you posted to Brookgreen Gardens: beautiful!

Glad I hit you with one, Charlotte!
Laura and Nancy, they have added a LOT to Brookgreen Gardens that make it worth a whole weekend. This visit I got to go into the butterfly house - a rare and wonderful treat! I hadn't seen their string of habitats for shore birds, ducks, and alligators. We watched river otters frolic and likewise Spanish goats. From raptor centers they have also a couple of bald eagles, a red hawk, and a couple of owls, none of which will ever be released into the wild because of permanent injuries. They have also developed a history tour, which we saw six years ago when we were last down there. I don't live where anything comparable is easily available, so it was grand icing on my cake for sure!
Ilana, I've never traveled at all (i.e. Farthest point north=NYC; farthest point east=NC barrier islands; farthest point south=Key Largo; farthest point west=Kentucky coal-mining country), so I suppose we are content with what we have and live vicariously otherwise. My friends and I know how blessed we are to have deep, old friendships though, and e-mail & cell phones have made a vast difference in our staying connected.

***Quote of the Day***
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.
~ James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) (*Last 637*)

>343 LizzieD: Wonderful quote from Cabell, Peggy

Always glad to hit somebody with a quote, Judy!
I'm really enjoying A God in Ruins and not getting to it nearly as often as I'd like. As far as I'm concerned, Gorsky doesn't hold a candle to it.

***Quote of the Day***
A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries.
~ Will Rogers (*Last 637*)

***Quote of the Day***
Few words have the power of my to divide people.
~ Joseph Prescott (*Epigrams*)

PISTOLS AND PETTICOATS: 175 YEARS OF LADY DETECTIVES IN FACT AND FICTION by Erika Janik

This was my March ER selection, so I reviewed it on the book page. It was obviously a fair slog for me since I took a month to get through it - very short and very hard to pick up. It's not bad, but it reads like a master's thesis worked up into a textbook almost. Other reviewers loved it, so I throw up my hands and leave it to your discretion.
I never will quite get over "bust" as an acceptable verb used many times. It jars - especially juxtaposed with "ilk" almost misused a couple of times.
Onward!

A GOD IN RUINS by Kate Atkinson

I did, however, love this one. This was exactly the right time for me (not too light; not too heavy), and I lived with the characters and loved them or was disgusted by them. I won't bother with a review since other 75ers have written about it from every place on the love-hate spectrum.

>347 LizzieD: Almost at 350 for the thread Peggy - closing on the longest thread of the year.

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend.

You tempt me to pick up A God in Ruins, Peggy!

Ah, Paul, I'm not trying for the record. I'm just lazy. I'll start a new thread for June, I promise!
Nancy, I liked it better than I did Life After Life, and I remember that one fondly. I just really enjoyed it. Maybe it helps that my father was a bomber pilot in the Pacific and in an American plane though.

***Quote of the Day***
Be quick, but never hurry.
~ John Wooden (*Friendly Advice*)

>350 LizzieD: I really liked this one too. A family friend flew in one of the planes during the war and it was hard not to think of him and how risky it all was when reading.

I also loved A God in Ruins, Peggy. Teddy was my favorite character in Life After Life, so I was delighted when I knew he was the focus of this one.

Good morning, Peggy! Looks like we pretty much dodged Bonnie, hope you did too. A few bands yesterday morning and that was it.

I didn't really like Life After Life so will pass on A God in Ruins. I had expected to like LAL and was surprised when I had to force myself to finish it for bookclub last year.

I loved the Will Rogers quote on >345 LizzieD:. I have one book by him that I haven't read yet. I'd say that I would pull it out and start, but I've already got one nonfiction book going and am in the midst of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and book 6 of the Outlander series.

>350 LizzieD: I am working on this one :)

>346 LizzieD: Sadly so true..

Have a lovely week!

Hi, Nathalie! Also, hi Karen! I'm sorry that these Atkinsons didn't work for you but glad to see love shared with Colleen and Charlotte! And we had some rain yesterday but very little today, so all is well.
I've had a lovely reading day and got some other work done too. If nothing catastrophic happens, I'll finish London Belongs to Me tomorrow, and that will make me feel a lot better about my stats. Also - I'm enjoying the book quite a lot, thanks to Colleen. More about it tomorrow! And I'll be sailing over to Laura's thread because I think she is reading it too.

***Quote of the Day***
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.
~ Gloria Steinem (*Last 637*)

>355 LizzieD: I'll be sailing over to Laura's thread because I think she is reading it too.
Indeed! And I saw you sail over ... can't wait to see your thoughts on LBtM.

I wasn't crazy about Life After Life... maybe one of those books I'd enjoy more on second reading? In any case, perhaps if you enjoyed A God in Ruins more, then I will too? It's on the tbr in any case. Like the quote, but I should hope some men do ask that sort of thing in the 21st century. I know a very influential and rich local businessman recently turned away from a political career because his equally influential wife threatened to divorce him if he went ahead as head of a local party. He decided to pull away from politics. Maybe there is still hope!

I don't know, Ilana. I'd say *God/Ruins* is certainly worth trying, now or later. Love the fact that even one high-powered male was able to listen to his wife!
Laura, I'm not sure that I think about *London*, but here's what I have to say!

LONDON BELONGS TO ME by Norman Collins

This is an absolutely lovely soap opera. I can see myself watching it play out forever in 15-minute segments, which is pretty much how it was written in 1945. The novel set from Christmas of 1938-Christmas, 1940, centers on the lives of the residents of Number 10 Dulcimer Street, London SW (?) (I'm not sure about the 'West' and am too lazy to track it down {This is my thread and not a legitimate review!}), a house now broken into apartments and a couple of single rooms owned by widow Louiza Vizzard. I assume that Collins thinks of these 9 people as representatives of the real London.
My favorite character is Connie, a faded good-time girl, now working as a hat check in a sleazy night club, who lives from hand to mouth and to the mouth of her bird Duke. Connie is valiant and cheeky and always present at every drama. Running her close seconds in my estimation are the Jossers in the best flat in the house. Mr. Josser has just retired from his long-time accounting job when the book opens. He is supported and guided by Mrs. Josser. Their daughter Doris still lives at home and their son Ted is married with a Baby. The other residents contribute their own drama to the mix so that we eventually have a murder, a trial, a couple of marriages, death, a jilting, and finally, WWII.
There's nothing really profound going on here, but the book is enlivened by nice writing ("The tea - scented China stuff that was like drinking an actress's handbag...") and the occasional bit of satire ("Toppers, silk stocks, photographers, floppy hats, bunches of flowers - everything, in fact, that goes to make up the spiritual side of marriage was missing."). In short, I loved it, and I thank Colleen for bringing it to my attention!

>358 LizzieD: lovely soap opera. I can see myself watching it play out forever in 15-minute segments
I hadn't thought of it that way, but you are so right! Not in the American tradition of Dallas or Dynasty, but rather a very British sort of soap opera like the radio program, The Archers. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I, too, am appreciating Collins' writing and his occasional satire.

>358 LizzieD: & >359 lauralkeet: I love your description of "lovely soap opera". Part of my appreciation of the book is the descriptions of London that make it a character within the pages of the book too. I think that Mr. Josser represents a kind of "everyman", the people who go about every day unnoticed doing their jobs. My copy was one I found in a stack of books that had been my mother's. It is one of those old paperback editions that are such a pain to hold because of the size, but it remains one of my favorite books. Possibly that is partly because of the connection to my mother, but I did really enjoy the story. My edition was titled Dulcimer Street, rather than London Belongs to Me. I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it, Peggy.

>358 LizzieD: Good morning, Peggy! London Belongs to Me sounds wonderful. I've added it to my ever-increasing wishlist.

And I loved the Steinem quote, it's so, so True!

Wonderful review of London Belongs to Me, Peggy. BB!

Glad I'm passing on BBs for this true comfort book, Nancy and Karen. I love that you have your mother's copy, Colleen. Laura, you're obviously too young to remember 15 minutes of The Edge of Night or The Guiding Light! Otoh, old radio programs feel the same too.
Y'all come visit the new thread, please!!