The Hibernator Begins a Feeding Frenzy

Hi, my name's Rachel (the_hibernator), and I got my PhD in biomedical engineering studying hibernating bears. :) Right now, I'm working in the medical industry. I volunteer for a suicide prevention hotline for teenagers and for a program called "COLUMNS" which is a restorative justice program working with recently paroled life-sentence felons to help them adjust to a new life outside of prison. I'm also passionate about reducing stigma about mental illness. I have bipolar disorder and talk about it a lot because I think more people need to know that mental illness is something that you don't have to be ashamed of.

If you want to follow me on other media:

Twitter: @hibernatorslibr
blog: http://hibernatorslibrary.blogspot.com

Top 5 of 2015:



Books Read in 2016

1. Curio, by Evangeline Denmark
2. Something Rotten, by Jasper Fforde
3. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang
4. Rolling Stones, Robert A. Heinlein
5. The Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland boys, and the Dawn of a New America, by Gilbert King
6. The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells
7. Little House in the Big Woods, by H. G. Wells
8. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford
9. Burning Midnight, by Will McIntosh
10. The Little Book of Circle Processes, by Kay Pranis
11. War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells
12. The Nine Lives of Jacob Tibbs, by Cylin Busby
13. Among Murderers, by Sabine Heinlein
14. You Were Here, by Cori McCarthy
15. The Aeronaut's Windlass, by Jim Butcher
16. Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
17. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
18. The Reivers, by William Faulkner
19. A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster
20. The Serpent King, by Jeff Zentner
21. A Midsummer Night #nofilter, by Brett Wright
22. Moon Over Soho, by Ben Aaronovich
23. The Last Week, by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan
24. Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood, by Liesl Shurtliff
25. Shadow Magic, by Joshua Kahn
26. Persuasion, by Jane Austen
27. Unfair, by Adam Benforado
28. Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic, by David J. Schwartz
29. Holding Smoke, by Elle Cosimano
30. Death Weavers, by Brandon Mull
31. The Corinthian, by Georgette Heyer
32. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
33. Silver Linings Playbook, by Matthew Quick
34. Just Mercy, by Brian Stevenson
35. Grave Peril, by Jim Butcher
36. Bullet Catcher's Daughter, by Rod Duncan
37. The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud
38. Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard
39. The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, by Nancy Farmer
40. Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, by Robert Sapolsky
41. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
42. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling
43. The Fifth Child, by Doris Lessing

Update

I've been slowly emerging from my reading slump lately, but been jumping around from book to book, so I haven't finished one in a while. I'm hoping I'll finish the audiobook Red Queen tomorrow. Then I'll start Stiletto as my next book club read.

I'm seriously planning on beefing up my exercise routine on Monday, so I will have more time to listen to audiobooks while exercising. Hopefully I'll get through all the books I'm in the middle of soon. Wish me luck!

My new job has been going great, though I'm a little overwhelmed with the pace right now. I keep getting told that it'll take about a year to get used to the pace, and that I'll want to go home and cry sometimes. Hopefully they're exaggerating. :)

Watched:



Currently reading:



Acquired:

This post was an accident. Don't need it. But it's here anyway. :)

Happy new thread, Rachel. Good to see you back and over your reading slump!

Happy new thread, Rachel!

Happy New Thread, Rachel!!

Wait for me!

Happy new thread, Rachel!

Hi there! I think I must have missed your earlier threads, but glad to have come across this one :) Thank you for the work you do with the hotline, COLMUNS, and destigmatizing mental illness! All so important. I speak openly and often about living with depression and anxiety and find it empowering (now, after a few years of it). Also, we seem to have a lot of similar tastes -- I picked up Lockwood & Co because I loved the Bartimaeus books, can't wait to hear what you think!

>3 The_Hibernator: My husband and I watched Paprika a while back ... that was a very odd movie.

Hapy new thread! Adrian thinks I should watch The Secret Life of Pets. It looks like a fun movie!

Happy Sunday, Rachel! Happy New Thread! Love the kitty in the stacks topper!

I WANT to read Just Mercy. I have had it on my audio T.R. pile for awhile now.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend.

Happy new one, Rachel!

Thanks Meg, Darryl, Roni, humouress, and Amber!

>9 kgriffith: Thanks for stopping by Kirsten! I just finished The Screaming Staircase yesterday and really enjoyed it. Review is upcoming. I checked out your thread and saw that we do have very similar tastes.

>10 ursula: It sure was, Ursula. I didn't really get it, to be honest. But it was colorful. :)

>11 cbl_tn: Secret Life of Pets was a really cute movie, Carrie. It wasn't as funny as Despicable Me, but was definitely up there in funniness points.

>12 msf59: Hi Mark! I really enjoyed Just Mercy. I wish I had more time to read similar books! I have quite a few on that same social justice vein on my TBR list. I just need to get back to listening to audiobooks regularly. Today I was going to start an exercise routine which would have provided more time to listen to audiobooks, but I got grumpy and came directly home instead of going to the fitness center. Excuses! I know. But this woman at work was spouting racist stuff and it really pissed me off - and that sort of negativity is draining to me. I know I shouldn't let it get to me. And there's still time to go work out. :)

I finished The Screaming Staircase! It feels good because I haven't finished a book in a while. :) Now my current reading list is:

Gosh the Red Queen cover is striking. Happy new thread!

>14 The_Hibernator: added to my beach stack!

>3 The_Hibernator: I like that.

Happy new thread, Rachel.

R--Congrats on the new thread. Love the topper! And the spines of that Harry Potter. Hang in there with the pace on the new job. ; )

Happy new thread, The_Hibernator! It looks to be Potterific!

Happy new thread, Rachel! Also, were were just discussing those new covers for the Harry Potter books. I'll always be a fan of the original US covers, but I do really like those ones. :)

Happy New thread, Rachel! I love the title of The Screaming Staircase, but I am not sure it is for me. Glad you enjoyed!

>16 charl08: Hi Charlotte! Yes, I agree about the cover of Red Queen. And it's not a disappointment if you're in to teen dystopias. :)

>17 kgriffith: Hope you love it, Kirsten!

>18 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul!

>19 Berly: Thanks Kim! Yeah, I'm holding up with the pace, but there are days where I'd rather just stay home. :) But I guess that's any job. I love the spines of the new HP books, too. :)

>20 brodiew2: Thanks Brodie!

>21 Ape: That's the way I felt about the new covers, Stephen, that I prefer the old ones. But they're starting to grow on me - I like the better paper quality of the new books. That probably biases me.

>22 vancouverdeb: Hi Deb! Yeah, it's not really the type of book to read if you don't like middle-grade ghost stories. lol

Book 37: The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud

Some decades ago, the Problem began - ghosts appeared everywhere. Not all ghosts attack, but if you get touched by one, you could die. Industries have risen around battling these apparitions, including Psychic Detection Agencies, which find the source of the ghost and neutralize it. Problem is, the only people who can really sense the ghosts well enough to fight them are children.

The Screaming Staircase is the first of a ghost-mystery series. In this book, Lucy Carlyle teams up with young Lockwood and his associate George to fight ghosts. All three of them have a sketchy resume, so they have to fight potential bankruptcy as well as ghosts. And so arises a dangerous offer they can't refuse: to explore the mystery behind the Screaming Staircase in one of London's old mansions - a haunting that not even the best psychic detectives have been able to foil without loss of life.

This book took me a long time to read because of other things going on in my life, but I'm glad I stuck to it. I love Stroud's writing. This book isn't as funny as his Bartimaeus books so far, but it's up there in that range. I imagine as I get further into Lockwood & Co's adventures I'll like it even better than Bartimaeus. But we'll see. :) I would suggest this book to anyone who enjoys middle-grade fantasy. It's good clean fun without any ridiculous love triangles. It's funny, fun, and mysterious.

Four snowflakes!

Hi Rachel! Happy New Thread! I'mglad the new job is working out Ok, and that you're reading again!

Are you going to reread the entire Harry Potter series? I received a copy of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child this month as a gift and hope to read it during September. It would be lovely to reread all of them.

Update

This has been a good week for me. I went to the MN State Fair on opening day - that was a bit crowded for me, but I managed to enjoy myself all the same. :) I also headed out to a new brewery in the area with a couple of good friends. Today I will be watching some Vintage Baseball (yeah, a bunch of unprofessed cosplayers dressing up in old clothes and playing baseball) and tomorrow my boyfriend's niece is being baptized. So I have a busy weekend ahead. Work is going well, though I had a hard day yesterday with messing up a needle poke. I'm told I have to mess up sometimes or else I'll never learn, but I still felt bad for the patient.

This week I finished The Screaming Staircase and gave up on Come be my Light.



Come be my Light is a book about Mother Teresa's spiritual journey leading up to and during her missionary time. It features some of her dark moments, when she doubted God - and is thus supposed to be a good book to read for anyone who has doubted their faith. It is a collection of letters from her to her confessors, with short bits of explanatory narrative in between.

I was reading it because I wanted to read about her dark periods, but at the moment I first bought the book I felt guilty because Mother Teresa had practically begged for these letters to her confessors to be destroyed so that no one might read them. Instead, these letters were saved by the Church and published for any curious eyes to see. I felt that Mother Teresa's wishes should have been respected, especially since she was writing to her confessors and made such a big deal that she wanted the letters to remain private.

I wish I could say it was this guilt which was the final straw when I gave up the book, but it wasn't. I just got bored of the bureaucracy of the Church. The first 150 pages of the book were letters back and forth between her and the archbishop asking over and over again if she could please start the mission. I'm sure it got interesting from that point onward, and maybe I should have given it a longer chance, but at about 80 pages in I just got bored. I thought about skipping on to the juicy stuff, but that felt voyeuristic - reading the book ONLY to get a glimpse of her private feelings which she confessed privately and wanted to remain private.

So I stopped. Not saying don't read the book. If you're interested, give it a try!

Now I'm currently reading:

>25 streamsong: Wow, Janet, I totally would have missed your message if I hadn't been scanning through my thread. We cross-posted! Yes, I'm going to re-read the entire series, though I imagine it'll take me a while. I'll take time to enjoy them instead of powering through. I'll maybe read the Cursed Child after that.

Great to see you enjoying the State Fair, Rachel. xx

Happy new thread and happy Sunday, Rachel.

Happy Sunday, Rachel! Hooray for the State Fair. Ours is held in Springfield. I have never gone to the fair but I have been to the Lincoln museum there, which is wonderful.

Congrats on reading again!

I'm enjoying the Lockwood & Co. series as well--I've read the first three, and the fourth is coming out next month.

Finished Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard yesterday. Now I'm listening to Stiletto, by Daniel O'Malley.

I am very late to wish you happy on your newest thread, Rachel. Abby read and loved Red Queen. The Screaming Staircase sounds like one for the list.

Good morning, Rachel. I hope all is well with you.

Is Stiletto a stand along or part of a series? Are you enjoying it?

>34 Crazymamie: hi Mamie! Red Queen is really good for a teen dystopia - though it has some rather overused elements. I hope you enjoy The Screaming Staircase!

>35 brodiew2: Hi Brodie! Yes I am enjoying Stiletto, though it is not stand alone. It is sequel to The Rook, which is an amazing book and can be read as a stand-alone.

Very cool, Rachel. I have seen this series on other threads as well. I may seek that out on audio.

Rachel, I read Come Be My Light a few years ago and enjoyed it very much. She was such a strong woman to keep her faith when she felt God wasn't present in her life anymore. The work went on as did her prayers…and letters. I too felt like her wishes should have been honored. The Catholic Church didn't come across very well in the book but Mother Teresa is a rock star of faith and good works in my book!

>37 brodiew2: I highly suggest you do, Brodie. Hope you like it as much as I did!

>38 Donna828: I've read some very good reviews of Come Be My Light Donna, and I really thought I'd like it too. I'm sure I would have if I'd gotten through the red tape part in the beginning. But I think the fact that she'd wanted the letters destroyed would have been in the back of my mind the whole time, subtracting from the quality of the book. I'm glad you liked it.

ETA: maybe I'll give it another chance. Let it rest for a little while as I finish up Zebra Ulcers

Finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone yesterday. I picked up The Ear, The Eye, The Arm, by Nancy Farmer, which I got about half-way through during my reading slump and forgot to finish. I'll read the next HP book after I finish that.

I've been lurking here and on the old thread and silently admiring you for your strength, energy and determination, and it's high time to start posting here again. Happy almost new thread, and I hope you'll get well through this super-busy week!

>41 Deern: Thanks for stopping by and for the lovely words Nathalie! I did manage to get through the busy week, and am SO glad I've got a 3-day weekend!

Update

Well, it's been quite the week! I came down with some sore throat / cough illness early in the week, and it's just lingering on - so I won't be able to donate platelets as planned on Labor Day. :( Also, I've run into problems with the police. Remember how I bought a new car in March? Well, I traded in my old car, but something went wrong with the transfer of the title or something illegal happened because I'm now being investigated for a hit-and-run on top of notifications that the car has been impounded! They're threatening citation and reports to collections, which would affect my credit. On top of that, I wanted to order flowers for my friend's mom's surgery, and I kept running into problems and they called me up and canceled the order, and said they refunded me. But I've got TWO (not just one) charge on my bank card, so I need to call them up and figure THAT out. Also, I went to back up my computer and found that my back-up hard drive was shot! I lost some stuff. Luckily, I have a back-up back-up, so most of the stuff is still on there - I lost a few things because people made fun of me for having a back-up back-up, so I stopped using it recently. :)

Today I'm going to the Renaissance Festival with my friend and boyfriend, though to be honest I'd rather be sleeping off this illness. Hopefully it'll be fun, anyway. I'll probably perk up once the morning blues have worn off. :) Tomorrow I'm going to the AMC theater showing of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factor AND Blazing Saddles. I have two tickets and hoping my friend will be able to join me, but her mom gets out of the hospital tomorrow and we're not sure she'll come. So I might have two tickets but go alone if I can't find anyone. I'd still enjoy it. :)

On the reading front, I finished two books this week: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J. K. Rowling (for fun book), and Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard (book club). Reviews to come. As far as I remember, I haven't watched anything worth mentioning.



I'm currently reading: The Ear, the Eye, and The Arm, by Nancy Farmer as my fiction (for fun book); Stiletto, by Daniel O'Malley as my audiobook (book club book); and Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, by Robert M. Sapolsky for my fiction (for fun book).

Hope you enjoy the fair and feel better soon.
I'm hoping to find a screening of Willy Wonka - the one I hoped to get into, yoy need small children to attend.

Rachel - that is a lot to deal with! Sending you positive mojo and keeping you in my thoughts. Hoping it all gets cleared up quickly and smoothly.

Rachel, sorry about the run of bad luck or setbacks or whatever you want to call it. If you need a character witness, just call! I hope you can relax a bit this week end. Your life sounds very hectic to me.

RACHEL IS A CRIMINAL!!! :P

Well, I was going to ask when you thought we might meet up but it looks like it's still crazy for you all! I hope you are feeling better and please let your friend know I send my best to her mom.

Take care!

>43 The_Hibernator: That's a whole lot to deal with, Rachel. Something doesn't sound right about your car troubles - was it a reputable dealer where you traded in your car?

>44 charl08: Hope you find a screening Charlotte! Seems unfair to only let you in if you have small children! It seemed unfair that we only had one showing on Saturday and one on Sunday in the entire Twin Cities region. They were almost sold out when I bought the tickets, and that was two days in advance!

The Ren Fest was fantastic. It was beautiful weather and it wasn't too crowded because the State Fair is going on still.

>45 Crazymamie: Thanks for the mojo Mamie! I'll need it. I'm already running into a roadblock. The investigator seems perfectly willing to accept that it wasn't my car, but still insists that I fill out the pink form he sent me. But I can't fill it out because it's asking for my insurance information for June, and I canceled it back in March. And it's impossible to get him on the phone, so it's all this stupid back and forth. *sigh*

>46 Donna828: Thanks Donna! So nice of you to say! I'm hoping everything will work out without me going to court. *fingers crossed*

>47 Ape: Always was, Stephen. Always was.

>48 Morphidae: Don't worry Morphy, we'll meet eventually. Liz hasn't finished the book yet, as she's had a lot going on in her life. But we just had a pow-wow and found out that the only date we're available is the 17th. :)

I actually feel worse than I did yesterday, unfortunately. The Ren Fest took a lot out of me. I'm glad I chose to call in sick to the crisis hotline - even though I felt guilty because I did fun stuff and then skipped the work.

Liz says thanks for her mom. They're still waiting on the pathology report, but her mom is doing ok after the surgery.

>49 Familyhistorian: Actually Meg, it was the Mitsubishi dealership, which should be pretty reputable. I don't really deal with the sketchy ones. But they're willing to work with me on the issue, so hopefully things will be cleared up.

What a pain about the car-thing! But it sounds like it will all work out.

I hope you get some rest today and feel better. Don't feel guilty about calling in sick to the crisis line, taking care of yourself is Job One. It's hard to know ahead of time how much something like Ren Fest is going to wear you out, but at least it was fun

>3 The_Hibernator: oh I love that Harry Potter box set

>51 banjo123: Hi Rhonda! Yeah, I agree about taking care of myself. This morning I'm really feeling a lot better because I decided not to push myself over the rest of the weekend.

>52 eclecticdodo: Thanks Jo! I wasn't a huge fan of the new-ish covers here in America when they first came out, but now I'm quite happy with them. Especially how the spines all line up as a picture of Hogwarts. :)

I finished The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm today. Mark convinced me over on his thread to read To Kill a Mockingbird, so I dug around until I found my copy. Now I'm going to read it for the first time ever. :)

>54 The_Hibernator: I'm glad you took up the challenge, Rachel. It truly is a wonderful book.

It's one of my favorite classics and I gave it 8/10 stars.

>43 The_Hibernator: hit-and-run
Yikes.
>50 The_Hibernator: they're willing to work with me
Well that's reassuring. Still, I imagine you'll have some bureaucracy to untangle for awhile.

Hooray for TKAM! I hope you fall deeply in love, like the rest of us, my friend. I am glad I had some influence.

>55 brodiew2: >56 Morphidae: >58 msf59: I'm about half way through and enjoying To Kill a Mockingbird quite a bit.

>57 qebo: Yeah, I'm guessing I'll be clearing this up for a while. I need to go by the DMV and make sure I'm not on the title anymore so this doesn't happen again. But things have been surprisingly easy for me so far!

Update

I'm afraid not much has happened worth noting this week. Maybe that's a good thing. :) The Ren Festival was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed watching Willy Wonka and Blazing Saddles in the theater.

This was my last week of hands-on-training for work, and I'll really miss some of the patients that I met at the facility I was training at. But I won't miss the negative attitude that the employees there have. They are downright mean to some of the patients, and tend to break HIPPA by talking about the patients in front of other patients. They are particularly mean to one patient who is the sweetest guy ever. I don't see why, since his only problem is that he has dementia and tends to ask the same question over and over. One of the girls said she doesn't like him because he "milks the dementia!" I felt really bad saying "bye" to him, since he seemed so genuinely sad that I was going and said "But you're so nice!" :( However, I'm happy to be moving on with work and becoming independent. I have one week of book-learning to do before that happens.

I finished two books this week, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, by Robert M. Sapolsky, and The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer



I'm currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (recommended by Mark, among other people), Stiletto, by Daniel O'Malley, and I decided to give Come Be My Light another chance since Donna liked it so much. Changed my mind. I'll read The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays for the philosophy non-fiction month / National Suicide Prevention Month, I'll read Come be My Light later.

Book 38: Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard

Mare Barrow struggles for survival in a world where there is a ruling class, the Silvers, who proudly proudly display their superpowers in order to make the powerless Reds feel belittled. The Reds are forced into poverty and are slaves to the Silvers' war. All Reds who don't have any special skills (like sewing, fishing, etc.) by the age of 18 are forced to fight and die in the war. Mare is approaching the age of 18 and is becoming increasingly disobedient to the laws of the Silvers. But she has a few lessons to learn.

This is one of the better teen dystopias I've read in a while. The world-building is unique and the characters are engaging. It's unlike many of the dystopias lately in that it gives you the opportunity to see how the bad guys aren't all bad. But it does also has some typical aspects of teen dystopias with female main characters. I'd like to see more teen fantasy/sci-fi with male characters these days, as I find them more to the point and less about messed up romance.

Overall, if you like teen dystopia, you'll like this book. If you don't, you won't.

Will you be doing a review of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers? If so, I can wait for it. If not, what did you think of it? I'm interested in reading it.

Yeah. I'll do a review. I saw a videod lecture of Sapolsky's a while back. He's good. I want to read more of his.

>60 The_Hibernator: How lovely to have the affirmation of the patients that "you are so nice." I'm sure this made you smile. How wonderful to know that the work you do does make a difference by those who matter the most.

Happy Weekend.

>64 Whisper1: Ditto

And hooray for To Kill a Mockingbird

I just now saw the picture you posted of your black kitty on the previous thread - I can see why that was your favorite, it's a really great picture!

I'm sorry to hear that about the nursing home. :/ It's a hard job, and I think that too many people who work at those homes are not suited for it or are burnt out. My grandma used to live next door to one - my aunt worked there (she loved working geriatrics), and my mother and I used to volunteer. I would read people letters, play the piano for them, paint nails ... I should really look into doing something like that again. It means so much to the people who are there. But I am glad to hear that the dementia patient appreciated you. :)

>64 Whisper1: >65 banjo123: Thanks Linda and Rhonda! Yes, it does make me feel good to hear the patients say they appreciate me, and it may seem a bit boring, but being "nice" is important.

>66 ursula: Yeah, Ursula, it is pretty depressing how people will treat patients sometimes. :( But those people are hopefully the minority. I have worked in a nursing home and noticed people of both types, though this job is actually not a nursing home. It's a dialysis clinic for people with end stage renal disease.

So sorry about the problems with the car! Just the kind of thing no one ever dreams will happen to them. Take it easy Rachel, until you feel better. Glad you are still enjoying reading. I hope the problems with the traded in car get sorted out fairly quickly. Hugs!

Thanks Deb!

Everyone: I'm here at the crisis center trying to get through everyone's threads during the downtime, but it's slow-going today with lots of other stuff happening. If I haven't gotten to you yet, I'm thinking of you and will hopefully get there soon. :)

I'm thinking of reading either The Fifth Child or Beloved for my Halloween read. There's a chance I can get to both of them since they're both short. But which should I start first? Both authors are Nobel Prize winners, & I've read a book by both and enjoyed. Anybody have any input?

Not a fan of Lessing. I muddled through The Fifth Child but wanted to forget about it as soon as I could. Maybe I'm not the one to consult. It's kind of good that your day at the crisis center is slow-going enough to be able to thread hop a bit. I would go to work hoping that nothing happened while I was there.

Happy Sunday, Rachel. I hope you are making the best of your weekend. I hope to read The Golden Notebook this month. I have never read Lessing.

Glad you are enjoying TKAM.

>71 Donna828: you're the first one to even state an opinion, so I'm counting that as a vote for Beloved. :)

>72 msf59: weekend went well, Mark. Got lots of reading done.

I liked Beloved a lot, and I didn't really expect to. I've only ever read The Golden Notebook by Lessing, which I did not enjoy. At all.

I couldn't get through The Golden Notebook, Ursula. It wasn't for me. But I liked Mara and Dann

Between Twitter and LT, the vote between the two books is tied! Do I have to decide on my own?!

I've read Prisons We Choose to Live Inside by Lessing and gave it 7/10 stars.

I've read The Bluest Eye 8/10 stars and Beloved 6/10 stars by Morrison.

Not sure if that really helps.

I'll start with Fifth Child.

Ok, my reading plans have officially changed. I decided that I'd devote next year to reading the Bible, and I'm going to start reading some nonfiction books in preparation, starting with The Literary Guide to the Bible, by Robert Alter. Since I really plan on focusing on the Bible and related nonfiction, all fiction books from here on out will be light and fluffy. So it's back to Harry Potter when I finish To Kill a Mockingbird.

I've read the Bible from cover to cover only once in my life, and I'd like the opportunity to do it again more meticulously - this time interpreting from a literary perspective. I'm going to dedicate 2017 to reading the Bible and related nonfiction. I will read and post throughout the year regardless of whether anyone joins me, but I'd love it if I had company. If you'd like to join, let me know.

Here's the idea: MIT Open Courseware has an outline for Bible course. I'll follow this basic outline, though, for the sake of completeness, I added sections of the Bible skipped by this course. The nice thing about this course is that it provides some interesting discussion questions. If you want to join you can simply read along with me, or you can go all-out and delve into MIT's course. Also, you can read some sections and not others, or you can read at a different pace. All that is cool! What is not cool is being rude or confrontational - this is meant to be a literary reading of the Bible for people of all beliefs.

Below is an outline of when we'll be covering the material:



I was going to embark upon this journey this year, but the group I was reading it with fell apart before the year began. That's why this year I'm going to do it regardless of whether I have company, but hopefully some of you will join me!

In preparation I purchased a few different translations of the Bible:



For this project, I will focus mainly on the Literary Study Bible, but I'm hoping to have time to compare to the other translations and let you all know which translations are the most moving to me.

Remind me next year and I'll make sure your thread gets posted on the wiki.

Good morning, Rachel! This sounds like a great idea. My Bible reading has fallen to almost nothing of late. This would be a great opportunity to get back on board. Keep me posted.

>70 The_Hibernator: I read The Fifth Child. It was disturbing, but well written. Good luck with your literary study of the bible!

>81 drneutron: I will Jim!

>82 brodiew2: Morning Brodie! It looks like there are a few people interested in the Bible group read, so I'm excited for this! I'll notify you next year when I put up the Book of Genesis Thread.

>83 Whisper1: Thanks Linda! I'll probably still read it once I finish Chamber of Secrets

This is one of those weeks in which I feel I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, yet there's nothing much to say about it in my update! With my new job (with strange hours) ramping up, I feel over-committed to family, friends, and volunteer work so that I have very little free-time for myself. I ended up having to borrow free time, missing two events last week. But I've now rearranged certain aspects of my schedule - hopefully that will help.

I am sadly behind on my book reviews, but I have penciled into my calendar to write a review for The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm on Tuesday and Why Zebras Don't Have Ulcers on Thursday. We'll see if proactively planning my reviews gets me caught up!

This week I completed To Kill a Mockingbird, and I loved it. Though the ending made me laugh because it reminded me of when my mom told me "I didn't understand that book..." When I got to the ending I understood why. lol. Mom. So literal.



In light of my new plan to read the Bible, I decided to read some preparatory non-fiction. I've temporarily set aside The Myth of Sisyphus, which I started last week. Also, The Fifth Child won last week's vote, so that's what I'll be reading for Halloween. This week I'm reading How to Read the Bible, by James L Kugel, Stiletto, by Daniel O'Malley, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling.

Hi, Rachel! I've read through the Bible a few times myself, and it's a job-and-a-half, isn't it?! The Prophets are my favorite part, and the Kugel book has an excellent section on the prophetical books, if I remember right. I really liked Kugel's writing, too--very accessible, for non-scholars like me.

Ooh, I might need to do the through-the-Bible again! I'll be so interested to see how your reading proceeds.

Karen O.

Hi Karen! I do hope you join us in our reading, but at the very least I hope you enjoy reading our comments and following our progress. :) I'll keep you updated about the thread when I have it up.

Everyone: YAY! I just bought tickets to see Sense and Sensibility at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. So excited.

Happy new week, Rachel! I am not up for a reading of the Bible, but it will be interesting to see what you get out of it.

Thanks Rhonda! No problem with not wanting to read the Bible with us. It's a huge project.

>87 The_Hibernator: I am looking forward to your review of Sense and Sensibility. I am thinking about taking my daughter to the play.

Well, today is a busy day out here in Rachel-land. I have the day off work, so I'm doing a lot of housework including washing EVERYTHING and vacuuming to get rid of any flea eggs around. I thought I'd gotten rid of them all, but when I took the kittens into the vet, they found one flea. On top of that, I decided to work on organizing my books that got all topsy turvey during the cleanup after a flood a while back. That's a huge project and will take a long time. But it doesn't hurt to start. It feels good to get some of the books in alphabetical order. I'm using the LT app to log all my unread books, which is something that I hadn't bothered doing before. I'm also purging.

How is everyone else's day going?

I am a little snowed under with my books at the moment. Got a warning from Hani yesterday that she would start boxing them up if I didn't do something about them encroaching much further upon all our living spaces. (Oooops)

How to Read the Bible, Chapter 1 by James Kugel

I've decided to take Chapter notes on this tome because it'll help me keep everything in mind when I'm reading the Bible next year.

In Kugel's introductory chapter he points out that there are some confusing or conflicting passages in the Bible. Therefore, four assumptions were made in ancient times to interpret the Old testament and get rid of these inconsistencies. These assumptions have carried through to modern times:

1. They assumed that the Bible was a fundamentally cryptic text, and that there is hidden meaning. For instance, Kugel refers to the story of Abraham and Isaac: if God knew the outcome (that Abraham would pass the test) why test him in the first place? Ancient readers decided that, as in Job, God wanted to prove to others (perhaps the Devil) that Abraham was devoted. They interpreted the words "and it came to pass after these things" to be "after these words {with the Devil}." This is because the word for "things" in Hebrew could also be interpreted as "words."

2. The readers assumed that the Bible was a book of lessons meant to apply to their own times as well as the time in which it was written.

3. Another assumption was that the Bible contained no contradictions or mistakes. There is always an explanation for anything that appeared to be a contradiction. For instance, in the story of Abraham and Isaac, it seemed uncaring of Abraham to lie to his son and tell him that God would provide the sacrificial animal instead of telling Isaac the truth of who would be sacrificed. One explanation was that in the story, the words "and they walked together" after Abraham appeared to lie actually meant that Isaac understood that he was the sacrificial animal, and therefore walked together with his father on that topic.

4. Finally, they assumed that the Bible was divinely inspired.

These examples from Abraham and Isaac are considered by Kugel to be straightforward, and not allegorical. He claimed that the Jews and early Christians (who were also Jews) interpreted the Bible in this straightforward way. But soon Christianity began to be adopted by the Hellenistic community, which had been used to interpret their own religious legends (such as the Iliad) as allegorical. Therefore, it wasn't much of a step for them to interpret the Bible allegorically - a tendency which has prevailed in Western culture through the centuries.

The Old Testament was therefore ripe with allegorical prophecies and stories which could be used to interpret the New Testament. For instance, the story of Abraham and Isaac was a divine prediction of God's sacrifice of his only son Jesus.

Around the 13th century, another four rules for interpreting the Bible were added to the original four. The Bible could be interpreted as a literal historical document, an allegorical story telling you should believe, a set of morals, and an anagogical story.

For instance, in the literal sense, Jerusalem referred to a specific city. In the allegorical sense, Jerusalem represented the Church. In the moral sense Jerusalem represented the soul. In the anagogical sense, Jerusalem is the city of God that will be revealed at the end of times.

In the 13th century, only a priest or monk scholar was able to interpret the Bible because they were the only ones with enough education. However, during medieval times this began to change. People started to doubt this four-fold meaning of the Bible.

Fast forward a bit to the 1500s and the Protestant Reformation. Many people were disgusted with corruption in the church and began to believe that the understanding of the Bible did not lay in translations and commentaries of the past. The idea of papal authority began to seem illogical. Why should the church tell you what to believe?

As protestants began to break off from the church, many new interpretations emerged, but they still followed the original four assumptions. But in the eighteenth century, people started to explore the "human side" of the scriptures - in other words, who wrote the Bible. Were they divinely inspired? Were they capable of errors?

For instance, during early interpretation of the Bible, people believed that Isaiah predicted Jesus would be born in Bethlehem under certain conditions (as described in Matthew). In the eighteenth century, people began to wonder if Matthew simply alluded to Isaiah in his story, rather than Isaiah predicting Jesus' birth.

>92 PaulCranswick: :) Yeah, "too many" books is a huge problem here on LT, isn't it?

2017 Book 39: The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm, by Nancy Farmer

Tendai, Kuda, and Rita are the sheltered children of the chief of security of a futuristic Zimbabwe. When they decide they want to have an adventure, they manage to sneak off their property out into the underbelly of the city. There, they fall off the radar, and their father hires three detectives with special powers (Ear, Eye, and Arm) to find the lost children. The story jumps between narratives of Ear, Eye, and Arm and of the kids.

This was a fantastic adventure story in a futuristic land. I've loved several of Farmer's books, and this one didn't disappoint. I loved the way she split the story so that we could see both the pursuers and the pursued. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes kid's science fiction, or to kids between the ages of 9-12. I wish my nephew read, because I'd insist he read it. :)

Have a great weekend, Rachel. Sounds like you are your usual ambitious self - don't forget to take some time to relax.

Happy Saturday, Rachel! I hope you liked TKAM, beyond it making you laugh. Was it worth the wait?

>96 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg! Yeah, I try to be ambitious, but I also generally plan a little too much for myself. I've finally gotten out of my reading slump and I'm spending time doing everything but. I do need some relaxation time.

>97 msf59: Thanks Mark! Yes, I loved TKAM! I'll write a review sometime next week. I'm a bit behind in writing reviews.

Weekly Update



It won't surprise anyone that knows me that I love cats. Sorry dear boyfriend, bunnies are just ok. And even less ok when they eat through the furniture. My precious little babies haven't destroyed anything yet. Except my bank account. This week I took all three of them to the vet. Boy is that expensive!

Overall the week went well. It was my first week in my new dialysis clinic for work. It was nice meeting all my new patients. I miss the old ones, but I've found some friendly faces in my new work-home.

I'm currently reading: How to Read the Bible, by James Kugel; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling; and Stiletto, by Daniel O'Malley. Which are the same books I was reading last week - I know.



I have acquired: The Literary Guide to the Bible, by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode. This is a book of essays about each book or section of the Bible, and I will peruse it as I'm reading the Bible next year for my Bible Group Read.

I took a break from my Stress and Your Body lectures, but now I'm back at them again. Here's my next lesson. Sorry to people like Stephen who won't be able to read my apology because the picture is too big to load on a dial-up. See you next thread Stephen!



Stress and Your Body, by Professor Robert Sapolsky

Lecture 8: Stress and Female Reproduction

• The female reproductive system is mostly under the control of four hormones: luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), estrogen, and progesterone.


• The hypothalamus releases LH and the pituitary gland releases FSH. These two hormones mature eggs and produce estrogen. These hormones peak at about 14 days into a woman's menstrual cycle, as seen in the image below.


• After the egg is matured, the luteal phase begins. The egg is released, and progesterone peaks while LH, FSH, and estrogen levels drop. At this phase, the lining of the uterus builds up in case the egg is fertilized.


• During stress, the hypothalamus lowers the rate of LH secretion. Reduced levels of LH stimulate a negative feedback loop which lowers release of FSH. Production of estrogen likewise decreases. Lower estrogen levels reduce the likelihood of egg maturation and release.


• On top of that, stress hormones like glucocorticoids inhibit the release of progesterone. Thus, the lining on the walls doesn't build up, decreasing the likelihood of implantation of the lucky fertilized egg which has survived all the other adversities.

The Creation of Light, by Gustave Dore

The second chapter of Kugel's tome covers the creation of the world and the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis Chapters 1-3).

Modern Biblical scholars theorize that the Pentateuch was actually accumulated from four sources: J (Jahwist or Yahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomist), and P (Priestly). Kugel discusses J and P in his second chapter. The P source is concerned with ennumerating (for instance counting the days of the creation as in Genesis 1) and with priestly rules. It refers to God as "God" until the revelation of the name "Yahweh" to Moses later in the Pentateuch. The J source focuses on human corruption and the relationship between humans and the soil. It refers to God as "Lord God." For example: "Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground." (Genesis 2:7)*

This difference in sources explains why there are seemingly two slightly different creation stories. Genesis 1:1-2:3 covers a day by day account of the creation of the world, ending in a rest on the seventh day. In it, God creates plants on the third day and man on the sixth. Then Genesis 2:5-9 goes on to explain how the Lord God formed man before there were any plants. Modern scholars consider the first creation story to be from P source and the second creation story and following story of Adam and Eve to be from J source.

The focus of the creation story in the P source was to display the importance of resting on the Sabbath - something the P source is concerned about throughout the Pentateuch. That's why it counted the days of creation and made such a big point of God resting on the 7th day.

On the other hand, J's creation story and following story of Adam and Eve is an allegory for how humans developed from hunter gatherers to farmers: "therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken." (Genesis 3:23) Historically, as cultures develop agriculture, they also develop more hardy clothing to protect them in their toils. This parallels Adam and Eve beginning to wear clothes when they are sent away to work the ground.

Like Kugel's first chapter, the second chapter discusses inconsistencies that are explained away by readers - for instance, God told Adam and Eve that "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:17). But after Adam ate of the tree, he lived to the ripe old age of 930. Why didn't he die the same day? Would God give an empty threat? No. Of course not. Because a day in the life of God lasts 1000 years:

"But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8)

*Quotes from the Bible are from the English Standard Version (ESV).

>100 The_Hibernator: Because I had trouble conceiving my second child , the info presented is " old hat" to me! :) Plus I hit menopause at the tender age of 43! Really glad that I don't have to concern myself with a menstrual period, though early menopause is not good for my bones. One can't win.

Oh yay! Someone's here. I was beginning to think the pictures were too big and no one would come ever again. :(

Oh Rachel, I can't size a picture to save my life. No worried on the picture size. LT seems to have been kind of slow as far as thread chatting goes, I think. My thread has been a wee bit slow lately.

I'm here daily. Just don't have anything to say on the particular books you are commenting on.

Yup, I'm following everybody's threads, yours included! :)

Yay! More people!

Jim, you must spend loads of time moderating this group. It's much appreciated.

Me also, just a bit boggled by the science, nothing cogent to say.

Hi, Rachel! See how well liked you are? Hope you had a good weekend and your new week is off to a good start.

2017 Book 40: Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, by Robert Sapolsky

In this humorous and informative book, Robert Sapolsky explains how and why stress affects our bodies. The premise is that prey animals like zebras use a stress response in an evolutionary sensible way by upping certain hormones while they are being hunted, but then the zebras' stress levels drop again when they escape. Humans (and at some level baboons) have the same bodily changes, only our stress tends to be small amounts for long periods of time, meaning the effects on the nervous system (lower digestion, higher blood pressure, reduced growth, etc.) remain continuously activated. Therefore, human stress is not sensible from an evolutionary standpoint. Each chapter in Sapolsky's book covers a different bodily system and explains in detail how and why stress affects it. He ends with a rather lengthy description of how lower socio-economic status affects our bodies. Although this section was interesting, it seemed a bit lengthy and out of place from the rest of the book. The subject could be a book all on its own.

One thing I loved about this book is it's approachability. It was easy to read and made me laugh several times each chapter. Sapolsky has an excellent dry sense of humor. He also included a picture of baboons smack in the middle of his book for seemingly no reason. That made me laugh.

I was listening to his companion set of lectures Stress and Your Body concurrently, though I dropped behind and still have several lectures yet to finish of the course. You can see some details of the information covered in the book and lectures if you check out the above link. In hindsight, although both were enjoyable, only one or the other was necessary as most of the material was exactly the same - even to the wording.

This is a very stressful book to read, so watch out if you are prone to stress.

Yay! I'm so well-loved!

Hello Rachel! I hope all is well with you.

>101 The_Hibernator: I applaud your Biblical studies, but I'm not sure my brain is up to the academics. And, yes, I have had my coffee. :-) I love the etching of the creation of light.

>110 The_Hibernator: Well, that was a book bullet right up to the last sentence!

Hi Rachel--Way behind here...sorry! So, catching up from way back beginning of September, how was the Renaissance Festival? I miss that. My family used to go every...single...year! Hope all the insurance/title stuff gets worked out in your favor. And I think you should read both horror books because...why not?! : ) You already know how to deal with stress after the Zebra book. LOL

>112 brodiew2: Yes, I do plan on reading a bunch of academic books on the subject of the Bible for the next year, but hopefully that won't discourage people from joining my group read. My own readings and thoughts will probably not be so academic. :)

>113 Morphidae: Yeah, I think it would be a bit stressful for you Morphy, because it talks so much about the bad effects of stress.

>114 Berly: I loved the Ren Fest. I always do. Unfortunately I was sick, though, so it could have been a little more enjoyable. So far it seems that the title stuff has been worked out. I still need to go to the DMV and make sure that the title is OUT of my name. Though I doubt the car's going anywhere as it's been impounded. I may not make it to either horror book at the rate I'm reading fiction right now - which is pretty much zilch.

Chapter 3 of Kugel's How to Read the Bible covers the story of Cain and Abel, who were the first sons of Adam and Eve. In a fit of jealousy, Cain killed Abel. Cain was scolded by God, who told Cain that as punishment he would wander the earth for life. (Thus he is interpreted to be the fore-father of the nomadic group Kenites.) Frightened, Cain told God that he, Cain, would be murdered by those who knew his deed. "Then the Lord said to him, 'Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.'" (Genesis 4:15)* This is why the Kenites, who were a brutal tribe, would kill seven people to avenge one of their own.

Of course, there are problems with the ancient interpretation that the Kenites were the descendants of Cain - according to the story of Noah, everyone but himself and his household died in the flood; thus, how did Cain's descendants survive? Unless of course one of his son's wives was a descendant of Cain? Or, as Kugel suggests, Cain was not originally meant to be the son of Adam and Eve - but that he was later incorporated into that part of the Bible.

Ancient interpreters couldn't believe that one of the first men could be so terrible as to murder his own brother, so they cast about for a reason. They settled upon this verse:

"Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord." (Genesis 4:1)

Why use the Hebrew word 'ish for "man" instead of the word for child? This word is never used to refer to children. Furthermore, a literal translation of the Hebrew says "I have gotten a man with the Lord." Because the word 'ish is also used to refer to angels, ancient interpreters concluded that, in this case, the word "Lord" referred to a wicked angel. Thus Cain's wickedness was explained.

Kugel says this interpretation was widely accepted in post-Old Testament times. In fact, it's referenced in the New Testament:

"By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one anther. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother." (1 John 3:10-12)

*Bible quotes are from the English Standard Version

Happy first day of October everyone! October is my favorite month because I love (normal) October weather here in Minnesota. And who can argue with Halloween?

This last week was uneventful. My newly rearranged schedule worked out, and I managed to make all of my scheduled goals for the week. Work is going well, and I got lots read and lots published on my blog.

On my blog, I published notes on chapter 2 and chapter 3 of How to Read the Bible, by James Kugel, which I'm reading in preparation for my Bible Group Read next year. I also published a review of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, by Robert Sapolsky.

Watched: Tremors and the third season of Castle



Currently Reading: How to Read the Bible, by James Kugel; Stiletto, by Daniel O'Malley; and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling. Yes, I know, they're the same books I've been reading for two weeks. And at the rate I'm going, they'll probably be the books I'm reading next week, too.

>80 The_Hibernator: Sounds like a very interesting plan Rachel. I will follow your reading with interest and might join in with some of it. I have heard good things about Robert Alter's OT translations and might try to read his translationnof Genesis to Deuteronomy.

>85 The_Hibernator: Glad you also enjoyed TKAM!

>93 The_Hibernator:, >101 The_Hibernator:, >116 The_Hibernator: Very interesting notes on the Kugel book, Rachel. Does he give his own opinions on Biblical interpretation or is his focus more explaning the history of how people have interpreted the Bible?

>117 The_Hibernator: Happy 1st October!

Tremors is so fun!

"Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn't ya!"

>118 souloftherose: Hi Heather! Yeah, I have Robert Alter's translation of the books of Moses, too. If I have time, I might read it, but I have 4 translations of the Bible as it is, and so I might not have time to compare everything of course. :)

Kugel mostly stays away from his own opinions as far as I can tell. That was certainly his intention. Of course, any book like this is going to be influenced by the author's opinions...

>119 Morphidae: Hi Morphy! Yeah, it's a great movie. They're coming out with Tremors 6 soon. :)

Chapter 4 of How to Read the Bible discusses the story of Noah's ark, delving into details about how the flood story was predated by a strikingly similar story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The similarities and differences of these two stories are covered in my earlier post about the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Kugel's point was that the similarities were very striking in a literary sense - they didn't only agree on the basic idea of a flood, which could have been observed by two distinct cultures, but also on how the events took place. For instance, a god telling a human to build a boat and take a pair of each animal, and the god being pleased at the smell of the sacrifice at the end of the flood. Such similarities showed that the later story was almost certainly derived from the earlier story. This idea enraged (and still enrages) many people since it draws into question the divine source of the biblical story.

Kugel also pointed out an inconsistency in the Noah story which suggests that it was written by two different sources. God instructs Noah to bring seven pairs of all clean animals, and one pair of all others.

"Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate." (Genesis 7:2)*

The reason for the seven pairs is because Noah will need a sacrifice when he has finished his journey. Such a sacrifice must be a clean animal, and he wouldn't want to kill the only surviving members of a species to do so. Later, Noah seems to disregard this order, and brings only two of each animal.

"Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah." (Genesis 7:8-10)

As in Chapter 2, scholars believe that the two sources are J and P because the word "Lord," an indication of J source, was used when God ordered Noah to bring the seven pairs and when Noah made his sacrifice. Kugel suggests that the reason this sacrifice wasn't included in P source was because the priests who wrote it would be disturbed by the idea of a non-priest preparing a sacrifice. P source doesn't refer to sacrifices until the existence of priests later in the Bible.

*All quotes are from the English Standard Version

Well, I made a huge decision this morning. On Thursday I got an email from one of my supervisor’s bosses at the text center. It basically said that during volunteer reviews someone had told her that I might be having trouble “transitioning” between old and new supervisors. I had no idea who would have said anything like that because all the supervisors have been so supportive. I can’t think of any interaction, no matter how hard I think, that would have induced someone to give me a less than stellar review. I mean, if someone has problems with the way I do my job, let me know. If they don’t, I assume they have no problems. And if no one gives me any advice on how to do things differently, how am I supposed to respond well to criticism? There’s no criticism to respond to.

I responded to the email immediately saying that I was unaware that there was a problem, and I'd certainly like to know if there was. She didn't answer. So I just sent her a response saying that I have been struggling lately with finding time to volunteer, and had chosen the ONLY time that works, which is smack in the middle of my only guaranteed day off work. If I'm going to have to deal with passive aggressive criticisms, I can find better ways of spending my time.

I cried when I sent it because I love working for the text center. Suicide prevention is very important to me. But I guess this was a sign saying the time has come to move on.

>122 The_Hibernator: I'm sorry. I know you've told me about how important this is to you quite frequently and have talked a lot about it over the years. *hugs*

Sorry from me too. Hope your upcoming week has better things in store.

That's a bummer, Rachel, and very inconsiderate that they didn't just talk to you about it.

*Hugs*

Thanks Morphy, Charlotte, and Stephen. *hugs*

Chapter 5 of How to Read the Bible discusses the tower of Babel. In the story, the people were building a city with a tower that reached up to heaven. God saw the tower and decided to confuse their speech so that they couldn't understand each other anymore.

Ancient interpreters added context: They believed that everyone at that time spoke exactly the same language. As such, they could accomplish anything. When God saw that they had such high aspirations as to reach heaven, He confused them so that they would be unable to ever reach that high again. It is a story of human arrogance.

To ancient interpreters, it is the tower that angered God - because it reached so high. However, modern scholars question this emphasis on the tower. If the tower were the whole point in the story, why mention that they were building a city as well? In fact, after God confused the language and scattered the people, the Bible says "and they left off building the city." (Genesis 11:8)* The Bible doesn't even say a word about the tower's fate. Thus, modern scholars are saying that the point of the story isn't human arrogance at all. The story is actually an indication of how the Biblical Israelites thought about Babylon. Babylon's civilization must have seemed like teeming conglomerations to the sparsely populated Israelites. The story is about how God does not favor such a living situation. God also did not favor the use of metal tools to quarry or shape the stones of an altar, which is something the Babylonians were doing:

"If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it." (Exodus 20:25)

Well into modern times, people believed that all languages were corruptions of the one original language. Ancient interpreters believed that this original language was Hebrew. After all, in the Bible, God always spoke to Himself, and to people, in Hebrew. There was plenty of Aramaic included in the Bible, so why have God speak in Hebrew rather than Aramaic? Because, clearly, Hebrew was the original language.

Modern linguists mostly agree that all Semitic languages do go back to one root language, but that this language is not Hebrew. This theoretical language is called Proto-Semitic. Biblical Hebrew is several developmental jumps away from Proto-Semitic. In fact, Moses couldn't have written the Bible, modern linguists say, because his Hebrew was much older than that used in the Bible. Nor can the Pentateuch, or the book of Psalms, be the work of one author because the Hebrew used is from at least two different periods or regions.

*All Bible quotes are from the English Standard Version

Good morning, Rachel. I am sorry to hear about they unnecessary drama you experienced at the crisis center. Hugs from me as well. I hope you are able to resolve it without having to leave.

>117 The_Hibernator: Castle and Tremors! both fantastic. As for Castle I remember S3 starting off so weird after the slap in the face we got at the end of S2. I had to to work that finale out in 2-3 works of fan fiction. Yes, it's true.

>121 The_Hibernator: I've said once and I'll say tit again: These Biblical drawing are creepy. It is not a bad things as it give a more intense depiction of events that can be glossed over in the larger picture. I will endeavor to look more closely at these blog posts to assist myself in getting back on track with my devotions.

I'm sorry to hear that you won't be volunteering at the text center anymore, Rachel. I hope this week is a better one for you.

Yup, I'm hoping this week is better for you. And I hope you can find a way to use your passion for helping others without the drama.

Hi, Rachel. Catching up here after my weeks on the road. You commented on my thread on the 16th about neutering your cats, and I see you've taken them to the vet but no mention of follow-up?

Sorry about the drama at the text center, but perhaps it is a sign that it's time to move on. Only you can decide.

Loving your notes on the Kugel book. Biblical interpretation is a particular interest of mine.

Hi, Rachel. I'm sorry to hear about the issue at the suicide prevention text center. You'd think people in the mental health field would have healthier ways of dealing with their volunteers.

>128 brodiew2: Hi Brodie! Yeah, Gustave Dore is a bit creepy, but that's part of why I love him so much. Thanks for the condolences about my volunteer work, it was a hard decision to make, but it's been hard finding time to volunteer, too. It unfortunately looks like my other volunteer opportunity is coming to an end as well - for completely different reasons (they're changing the day of meeting to a day that I can't do it).

>129 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl! It's been going much better than last week.

>130 drneutron: Thanks Jim! I'm sure I"ll find another way to volunteer. Probably something that doesn't have as much of a time commitment. Something that's not every week.

>131 ronincats: Hi Roni! Well, I took them to the vet for vaccinations, and will take them again on the 18th. They won't fix the kittens until 5 months in, and the vet says they won't breed before then. Fingers crossed! I don't want any inbreeding in my house! But I guess it's not hard to get rid of kittens on Craigslist. Glad you're enjoying the notes.

>132 tymfos: Hi Terri! I know! I was thinking the same thing. And the supervisor STILL hasn't emailed back, even when I asked to be taken off. I got a short note from someone else saying that I'd been taken off the schedule and good luck with life. I'm glad I'm out of there if that's the way they're going to be now. It's too bad after 2 years of working there.

In this timeless story, a little girl named Scout comes of age during a difficult time for her family. Her father, a lawyer, is defending a black man charged with the rape of white woman. Scout learns about racism from both children and adults.

Part of the charm of this story is that it is all through Scout's eyes, so sometimes you have to infer what's going on in the adult world - sometimes it takes a careful reading. However, Scout is intelligent and she picks up on a lot of stuff, so it's the perfect combination of inference and easy-reading. I loved the ending for a couple of reasons - it was beautiful and touching, and I laughed because I could tell exactly why my mom said "I didn't get it." She's so literal. :)

This book is considered one of the first of the Young Adult/teen genre, though I feel that it's only placed there because of the age of the protagonist. I would highly recommend it to everyone teen and up.

Stress and Your Body, lectures by Robert Sapolsky

Lecture 10

• The immune system is incredibly complicated. As you can see from the picture above, there are many cell types in the immune system. These cells interact with each other in ways that we can't comprehend. Because it's so complicated, and it's not necessary, I won't go into detail about what we do know.


• Stress affects the immune system in several ways. One way is on the short-term immune system. You see increased rates of autoimmune diseases, like Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. These are diseases in which the immune system thinks that part of your body is a foreign invader. The immune system attacks whatever body system it thinks is foreign, leading to problems with that system.


• Although it activates the short term immune system, it manages to simultaneously deactivate the long-term immune system, leading to more illnesses like the common cold.

Lecture 11

• Severe immune suppression like that seen in AIDS can inhibit the body's defense against cancer, but stress doesn't affect the immune system as strongly as AIDS. Thus, the link that most people believe exists between cancer and stress may be a myth - though believing the stress is affecting your cancer can make you more miserable because you expect to be more miserable.


• Laboratory experiments on mice do show an increased risk of tumors taking hold when the mouse is stressed; however, Sapolsky cautions against applying these studies to humans. First of all, the cancer is injected into these animals. It isn't naturally developed like it is in the human.


• There are some retrospective studies in humans showing that people who have been more stressed have increased likelihood of developing cancer; however, Sapolsky cautions against applying these studies to real life since they are retrospective. In other words, they are studies in which people are asked about their stress levels after they have already developed cancer. Because so many people think stress increases the likelihood of cancer, they are more likely to say they were stressed before developing cancer. The studies are biased.


• The only way to do a good study to find the relationship between cancer and stress is to follow hundreds of thousands of people for decades and ask them over and over what kind of stressors they are exposed to. Then determine if stress is linked to cancer development; however, this study would be prohibitively expensive.

I think I need to go back and reread TKaM. I only read it once and it was back in 2006!

You should, Morphy!

This was a pretty good week for me. On Monday I went to a steakhouse with my family to celebrate mine and my mom's birthdays. I'm one of the lucky ones who can say that I love spending time with my family. And on Wednesday, I went out to celebrate again, this time with my boyfriend and my best friend at a woodfire grill. Yum! On Thursday, I saw my nephew play football. This time the teams were more evenly matched, so it was a good game, even if it did start raining at the end.

I got over-eager this week and started signing up for stuff in the blogging world, which I've been trying to cut down on since I know I'll be busy with my Bible group read next year. I signed up for Dewey's 24hour Readathon. I've participated once before, but have never had an opportunity to go the full 24 hours. I'm going for it this time. I've already borrowed a bunch of graphic novels from the library to read when my head starts getting weary. Here's my reading list below (the readathon isn't until the 22nd, so this is subject to change):



I also signed up for a reading of Men We Reaped, by Jesmyn Ward, with the Social Justice Book Club over at Entomology of a Bookworm. I voted to read Neurotribes for November's edition of Doing Dewey's Nonfiction Book Club. And I joined Litsy. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Litsy, it's like an Instagram for book lovers. As far as I can determine, it's a social network that is available only as an app on your phone. It's pretty darned amazing. I'm @the_hibernator.



Currently Reading

Happy Saturday, Rachel. It sounds like everything is going well for you.

I am so glad you loved Mockingbird. Smiles...

Rachel, that was so rude of your supervisor to ignore your emails. I would think he/she would bend over backwards to keep a good volunteer. I am enjoying the Kugel updates. I rather like the "creepy" pictures. They are so Biblical! I'm glad they are large enough to see all the details. I will probably follow along with your Bible reading next year. Are you doing it with an LT group, a church group, for a class, or just on your own? I may have missed that from an earlier post.

>122 The_Hibernator: One wouldn't have expected any drama or crises behind the scenes at the crisis centre. That really is profoundly sad, Rachel and I do hope that the rather rude and peremptory treatment given to you is explained. Seems extremely ungrateful when you are doing volunteer work.

The morbid biblical art definitely appeals to my heathen tastes. ;)

Hi Rachel, thanks so much for keeping my thread warm when I was absent from LT for several weeks. You've done some great reading in the meantime.
I wish you a wonderful start into the new week.

>139 msf59: Thanks Mark!

>140 Donna828: Yeah, I'm still a little surprised at how poorly that all was handled. It was time for me to move on, though, since it was so difficult to find a good time that I could reliably volunteer without sorely getting in the way of either work or my social/family life (which are every bit as important as my volunteer work - I must take care of myself or there will be nothing left to take care of other people). It's possible that with a job like the one I have, I'll just have to lay off the inflexible extracurricular activities and settle for more reading. :)

The bible read will be both on my blog and as a group read here in the 75ers group. I'll probably start a thread as soon as the 2017 75ers group is ready. Everyone is welcome to read along, jump in whenever, or just follow what we're talking about. I don't expect a big group since it's such a big commitment.

>141 PaulCranswick: It doesn't look like it will be explained. In fact, I'm the third person who's quit for supervisor-tactlessness lately. I don't know exactly what they're up to, but it doesn't seem to be working. When it was the other two ladies quitting, I assumed they'd over-reacted. But, no, this is really happening. *shrugs*

>142 Ape: Glad to appeal to the heathens!

>143 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara!

>144 The_Hibernator: No way to run a voluntary organisation, just sayin'.

>145 PaulCranswick: Agreed Paul! But they'll figure that out soon, I suppose.

Book #43 The Fifth Child, by Doris Lessing

I'm going to hide this discussion in brackets. I had too much to say on the book to not include spoilers. Sorry all!

This story begins with Harriet and David standing apart from the crowd. They observe the crowd as outsiders would - they are old fashioned & reserved; they have morals. But when they see each other, they instantly recognize a similar soul.

They become a happy young couple who defies social norms and wants to have at least six children. The first four children are splendid, but the fifth comes too early. A terrible pregnancy produces a child which seems only partly human - Ben is some mutation or maybe a fallback to neanderthal times. Ben is endlessly hungry. He's angry and brutal.

Harriet's maternal instinct tells her to love Ben, but she struggles to do so. As Ben grows, she feels blamed for his brutish personality. The doctors and teachers imply that there's nothing wrong with Ben, the problem is that she doesn't love him enough. Her family blames her for having so many children to begin with, and then afterwards for not institutionalizing him. The family falls apart as she focuses all her attention on Ben.

This story was disturbing and poignant in so many ways. To a certain extent, it was left open to interpretation about whether Ben's problems were exasperated by everyone's loathing of him - or did he simply not need love because he was not "human?" It's possible that the sequel, Ben in the World, answers that question. I may pick it up after mulling this one over for a while longer. I'm going to have to assume for the time being that Ben was human and needed love, however.

This is a story about intense self-involvement. Harriet and David begin as incredibly self-absorbed individuals who blossom into a self-absorbed couple. Everything is about them. They want a large house they can't afford? Ask daddy for money. They want more children then they can pay for? Ask daddy for money. They want to have children faster than they are physically capable? Ask mommy to move in. They selfishly take and take, only feeling a little pang of injured pride that they aren't able to show the world that they can do it themselves. Even their thank-you's seem just-for-show.

Then Ben comes along. Outwardly, it would seem that everything becomes about Ben. He needs a lot of attention in order to keep his brutality in check. Harriet focuses her energy on Ben and David focuses on work, and the other children are emotionally neglected. In reality, everything is all about Harriet, not Ben. Even when she rescues Ben from certain death in an institution, this rescue is not about saving a life - it's about saving Harriet's morals. She can't just let Ben die, that would sacrifice who she is. But she doesn't save him because she feels he should live. She saves him because she couldn't live with herself if she let him die. Thin line, I know.

From reading other reviews, most people seem to feel that this is a book about a mother trying her hardest to love a child no matter what. And I do feel that Harriet wanted to love Ben. But, again, I question her motives in wanting to love Ben. Did she love him out of maternal instinct that was repulsed by a "changeling?" Or did she want to love him because she had self-pride in her old fashioned morals? The latter, I think.

Maybe upon reading the sequel and re-reading this book I'll look at Harriet differently. I hope so. I wanted to like her. But she just seemed so selfish to me. I do think she did the best she could, though...and a good bit more than many people would have done.

I'm going to pair this book up with a memoir about a real mother raising a violent child - The Price of Silence.

I nearly read that for my birth year challenge (it was published in 1988) but opted out of it.

I'm not sure if it's your type of book or not. And since you aren't going to read the spoiler review, I'm guessing I won't be much help clarifying it. :) It was a change from the normal Halloween stories.

Oh! Look! I think at 151 messages I can start a new thread! How fun.

The psychological aspect is what interested me, but the reviews made it sound to family-drama-ish, which is why I passed on it. *shrug*

It was definitely psychologically profound. But it was a lot of family drama, too.

Your thread moves so fast, Rachel, that I always put off catching up on it, and it just gets longer and longer. Sorry to hear you had to give up working at the text centre. Extremely belated happy birthday; looks like we share a birthday week! Are you and your mum on the same day? (And I think your pictures may have scared Stephen off for a while.)

On to the next one ...