Sally Lou's ROOT reading

I'm aiming at 25 books this year. However, I'm not dividing them into categories by length of time I've had the books as I did last year. I found maintaining 4 tickers to get tiresome, especially since they did not update promptly the last few months of 2016.

It is only halfway through January, and I have already greatly decreased my goal -- from 36 (3 per month) to 25. I'm planning on reading quite a few longer books, and do not want to feel overly pressured to meet the goal. I've always taken the goal seriously.

By mid-February, I've decided to count children's books separately. I want to read/reread about a dozen children's books. However, I will include them in my overall tally.

In July I decided to do like last year, and count books which I have owned for at least two months as ROOTs.

Also,late last year prior to moving, I withdrew several hundred books from my collection so that I do not have nearly as big a backlog as I did 5 months ago.




Total ROOTs read: 37 as of Dec. 29th..

Adult books read:
1. Annotated Emma by Jane Austen (acquired 1/24/15)
2. Stiff by Mary Roach (acquired 12/10/07 or before joining LT Nov. 2007)
3. The Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts (acquired 4/10/13)
4. So We Read On by Maureen Corrigan (acquired 3/20/15)
5. Fireweed by Gerda Lerner (acquired 1/24/15)
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (acquired 7/14/15)
7. Art and Sexual Politics edited by Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker (acquired 1980)
8. Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943: the artist and her world by Judy Taylor (et.al) (acquired December 2007 or before joining LT Nov. 2007)
9. Unheard Voices: the First Historians of Southern Women by Anne Firor Scott (acquired prior to joining LT Nov. 2007)
10. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (acquired 2/12/17; read in July)
11. 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence by Howard Means (acquired 3/25/17; read in July)
12. The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, selected by Roxana Robinson (acquired 1/15/2016)
13. The Brontes and Their World by Phyllis Bentley (acquired between 1974 and 1992)
14. The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott (acquired Christmas 2016)
15. Women's Friendships: a Collection of Short Stories, edited by Susan Koppelman (acquired before joining LibraryThing in Nov. 2007)
16. Cakewalk by Rita Mae Brown (acquired in Nov. 2016)
17. The Inn at Rose Harbor by Debbie Macomber (acquired in June 2017; read in September)
18. Wish You Were Here by Rita Mae Brown and her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown (received as gift in 1996)
19. Radioland by Lesley Wheeler (bought in April, read in October)
20. Harriet Martineau on Women edited by Gayle Graham Yates (acquired before joining LibraryThing in Nov. 2007)
21. American Fire by Monica Hesse -- acquired early July 2017; read late Nov. 2017)
22. Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller -- (acquired in early 1980s)
23. These Modern Women: Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties edited by Elaine Showalter -- acquired many years before joining LibraryThing in Nov. 2007.
24. Messenger of truth by Jacqueline Winspear (acquired during summer 2017)
25. Glory over Everything by Kathleen Grissom (acquired during March 2017)

(password = year born)




12 children's ROOTs read as of Dec. 24th.
ROOT ticker is duplicate count; children's ROOTs are included in total count above.

Children's books read, included in total count:
1. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White (acquired 7/7/11)
2. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (acquired 12/28/14)
3. Stormy, Misty's Foal by Marguerite Henry (acquired 11/29/15)
4. Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg. (acquired 2/28/14)
5. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder (acquired 12/28/14)
6. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (acquired 12/28/14)
7. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder (acquired 12/28/14)
8. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder (acquired 12/28/14)
9. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (acquired 12/28/14)
10. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (acquired 12/28/14)
11. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
12. The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

(password = yr started 4th grade)

Good luck with your goal. Streamlined threads sounds like the way to go.

Welcome back and good luck!

Happy ROOTing!

Welcome back & Happy 2017 ROOTing!

Good luck with your 2017 ROOTs!

Welcome back, Allison. Happy ROOTing. I feel the same about to many tickers!

Happy 2017 rooting!

1st ROOT: Emma by Jane Austen. This was the only Jane Austen novel I had not read, and I really enjoyed it.

Best of luck in attaining your goal with lots of pleasurable reading.

Do you have a reading plan or do you read as the mood strikes you? Several ROOTers have quite intricate methods for getting to their goals. It's fun reading about them!

>10 Limelite: I also belong to the Category challenge, a book club, and take OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) classes. (OLLI is an American program, primarily aimed at people of retirement age, which has "branches" connected with nearly 125 universities and colleges.) For my book club and classes, I usually am reading new books (as opposed to ROOTs). I try to read ROOTs as much as possible for the various CATs and BingoDOG in the Category challenge.

>11 sallylou61: This year, as well as my random method for choosing some ROOTs, I am also taking part in a couple of the CATs in the Category Challenge, I am lucky that I have lots of ROOTs that fit both of them. If I can keep up my pace from January then I will hopefully get lots of ROOTs read this year!

OLLI sounds interesting. Here in the UK we have something similar, I don't think it's connected with any other universities but I know that it's very popular. It's called U3A (University of the Third Age, which sounds very futuristic, but is in fact referring to '3rd age' meaning 'post-middle age'!).

>12 Jackie_K: O my! I belong to the post middle age!

>13 connie53: haha - well basically I guess it means 'retired', which may or may not sound better!

>14 Jackie_K: Retired! Not yet! pfffff.

1st Children's ROOT in February and 1st Children's Lit ROOT overall (out of 12): Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. .

At the beginning, I wondered whether the book was becoming too dated with mentioning specific items such as Frigidaire and some car types no longer being made (Studebakers, Packards, and De Sotos), but by the end of the book, I decided it is still an charming story. (In the late 1960s we read it in a children's literature class, and our instructor thought the book might get dated since it talked about sneakers -- something that might go out of style.)

>11 sallylou61:

Thanks for the info in re OLLI program. Here I sit, into my 3rd Age, and hadne't heard of it.

Belonging to LT is certainly enlightening!

All good wishes for staying on track w/ your ROOT reads.

First adult ROOT for February and 2nd adult ROOT overall (out of 25): Stiff by Mary Roach. Although Ms. Roach has written a number of nonfiction books, this is the first one I've read. She describes many different things which can happen to a dead body, especially if it is donated for science or organ donation. Some chapters were very interesting, others rather boring to read, especially if I was not interested in the subject. I did not mind the grusomeness in some of the discussions. Ms. Roach occasionally used humor.

>17 Limelite: A list of the OLLI institutions can be found at http://www.osherfoundation.org/index.php?olli_list

2nd children's lit ROOT read in February and 2nd children's lit ROOT overall (out of 12): Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I bought Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder when it was published and thought of rereading all the Little House books as I read that autobiography. However, I got so interested in the autobiography that I read only it. The whole set of Little House books has been in my TBR collection; I'm aiming to reread all of them this year.

Little House in the Big Woods:
I don't think I've read the early books since I was in elementary school many years ago. Although I remembered that the books gave instructions concerning how things were done, I was not aware that so much was explained including the making of bullets. After all these years, some scenes I anticipated such as Laura's receiving her doll, Charlotte, for Christmas and Mary's asking their aunt whether she preferred golden curls or brown curls, and the aunt's replying she liked both.

3rd children's lit ROOT read in February and 3rd (out of 12) overall: Stormy, Misty's Foal by Marguerite Henry.
I didn't read many animal stories as a child, and didn't read any of Marguerite Henry's books. I have become interested in the Misty books since we live in Virginia now and enjoy going to Chincoteague. I enjoyed reading this story about Misty's giving birth during a bad storm which wiped out a lot of ponies on Chincoteague and Assateague Islands, in addition to destroying many homes and killing chickens in Chincoteague.

>20 sallylou61: I started reading the Little House books again last year--it had been probably 50 years! I enjoyed them all, I've got 2 to go and hope to get to them this year. They are always a favorite.

2nd adult ROOT read in February: The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse that Inspired a Nation by Elizabeth Letts, a book I purchased several years ago as a possible book club read. Our book club did not choose to read it. I know very little about horses; Snowman was a champion jumper, not a race horse. He was bought for $80.00 by Harry de Leyer, a recent immigrant from Holland, who rescued him out from a van filled with horses about to go to a slaughter house. Harry used him to teach young girls at a Long Island riding school how to ride. He accidentally discovered that Snowman could jump and liked to do so. Initially when he tried to train him for show jumping Harry was unsuccessful because he tried low obstacles; Snowman liked to do high jumping. Harry and Snowman became favorites at horse jumping shows since they had such low origins; they appealed to the common people who were beginning to attend these shows in the late 1950s, a time when change was occurring. Previously the horse jumping shows were for the rich, attended by the rich. Harry and Snowman competed against horses owned by such people who hired trainers, riders, etc. Harry and his family did practically all the work connected with Snowman.

First ROOT for March and 7th overall (out of 25): I read Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth -- E.L. Konigsburg, which was a Newbery Honor Book in 1968; it lost out to the author's From the Mixed Up Files of of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I did not enjoy this book as much as From the Mixed Up Files ... since this runner up was about witches, a topic I am not interested in. I felt that the book dragged. However, I liked its ending.

Hi Allison! How are you doing on the ROOT reading?

>25 connie53: I've been taking adult education classes, attending the Virginia Festival of the Book, and reading a couple of new books I purchased there recently. In the past, I have tended to read ROOTS instead of my new books from the book festival so that they end up becoming roots. Since my goal is so low this year, I'm still on track to make it.

I've finished reading So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to be and Why it Endures by Maureen Corrigan. In this book about her favorite book Ms. Corrigan discusses the book in detail and at time compares it to other books, gives a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald particularly as it relates to the writing of this book, and describes why she thinks it endures. It, along with The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway and Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton are often taught in high school, possibly because they are short. However, that does not describe its appeal. It was not popular when Fitzgerald wrote it but was included in the WWII's Armed Services editions, paperbacks sent to soldiers. Moreover, several movies and plays are based on it, and commemorative items have been marketed.

One does not need to have recently read The Great Gatsby to enjoy this book.

This is a book I purchased at the Virginia Festival of the Book two years ago.

>27 sallylou61: that sounds very interesting - looks nice too!

>28 floremolla: I enjoyed reading the book although I'm not planning on reread The Great Gatsby which our book club read for the Big Read the year before I purchased So We Read On.

>27 sallylou61: I have read the Great Gatsby and also saw about 3 movies versions, and I myself are wondering that very same question: Why?

>30 Tess_W: Although I enjoyed reading this book about The Great Gatsby, it did not make me want to read the book again. I found the author's observations very interesting; she has read the book numerous times and often taught it in her university classes.

Second ROOT in April and 9th (out of 25) overall:

Fireweed: a Political Autobiography by Gerda Lerner about her life prior to going to college and becoming a leading women's historian. I'm planning to write a review of this book; Ms. Lerner was an Austrian Jew who escaped from the Nazis.

>26 sallylou61:. That's what I do with my new books too. Waiting for them to become ROOTs. LOL

Third ROOT for April and 10th (out of 25) overall:
The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

An epistolary novel in which Celie writes her letters to God until she starts writing to her sister. The use of dialect by the characters makes this slower reading than normal. Also contains some graphic sex -- both rape of women by men and sex between women. I enjoyed the book. (I have not seen the movie.)

First ROOT for May and 11th (out of 25) overall: Art and Sexual Politics edited by Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker. I don't like the idea of a male being editor of such a book; he contributed one short essay, but all the rest of the contributors were women. This book is rather dated, having been published in the early 1970s. Some of the artists contributing commented on this topic in relation to the women's movement of the late 1960s/early 70s. However, several of the essays were excellent, and this is an important topic. At the time of the book's publication, several important works of art which had been credited to famous male artists were discovered to be the work of a female artist who had been working with/under the male artist.

I have owned this book since 1980, and had read one or two essays from it. This time, I read the whole book.

>35 sallylou61: looks like you're pacing yourself well to reach your target - and it's satisfying to complete such a long-owned book!

Can't catch up, but will start anew here! Happy reading!

First ROOT for June and 12th (out of 25 overall): Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943: the Artist and Her World by Judy Taylor and others.
This is a beautiful book. However, it was a challenge to read. It is printed on relatively shiny paper which could cause a glare. The text mentioned many illustrations (by number); however, often the illustrations were not with that section of text, and it was inconvenient looking for the illustrations. Also, for a reader who is not familiar with the English countryside and towns, a map would have been very helpful.

Although the book was published as a companion to a 1987/88 exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London, it is not a catalog. The book contains a brief biography of Potter's life and discusses her artwork in many fields including her interest in fungi and fossils (and her drawings of them). There are over 450 illustrations, most of which are of her artworks, although there are some photographs of people and places. A list of the illustrations usually with the medium, the size and current location (i.e. museum) is provided at the end of the book. The last couple of chapters talk about her impact on the Lake District; she was a Lake District farmer specializing in sheep, and she left her land to the National Trust.

Owned since before I joined LibraryThing (Nov. 2007).

Second ROOT for June and 13th (out of 25 overall): Unheard Voices: the First Historians of Southern Women edited by Anne Firor Scott. Dr. Scott gave a brief biography and evaluation of their careers as historians of "five women who had lived, studies, or worked within a twelve-mile radius of each other in North Carolina during the late 1920s and 30s. These historians are: Virginia Gearhart Gray, Marjorie Mendenhall, Julia Cherry Spruill, Guion Griffis Johnson, and Eleanor Miot Boatwright. Following that chapter, Dr. Scott included an essay on women's history by each of these historians preceded by a brief introduction in which she gave a brief background concerning the importance of the essay. Pictures of each historian as a young woman and as a mature woman are included.

Have owned this book since before I joined LibraryThing (Nov. 2007)

Half way point, Allison. Congrats!

>40 connie53: Thanks. However, July is past the halfway point of the year. In order to keep my star, I will need to read at least 3 ROOTs this month. Since my goal is 25, I need one more than 2 per month to qualify.

I think that I will do like last year, and count books which I have owned for at least two months as ROOTs. Recently, I have been reading more library books than normal. However, I've read two books which I have owned since March.

1st ROOT for July and 14th out of 25 ROOTs. I've read A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the first play performed on Broadway written by a black woman. It won the New York Drama Critic's Circle Award, the first such play by a black playwright. The version which I read is a more complete version than that shown on Broadway; it includes two scenes which were cut out for that production to shorten the play. When I was reading the play, I kept picturing Sidney Poitier as the main male character; he played that part in the original production. The play is about the struggles of a working class black family in Chicago's Southside, sometime between World War II and when the play was produced in 1959, and emphasizes the pride of the people and the struggles of Walter to be a man. The end of the play suggests that even though the family has won one struggle that they will continue to struggle in their new environment where they will be unwanted.

2nd ROOT for July and 15th out of 25 ROOTs. I read 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence by Howard Means. I heard Mr. Means discuss this book at Virginia Festival of the Book in March; I was attracted to that program because I was working at Penn State at the time of the Kent State shootings, and some people mistook Kent State for Penn State and asked if it was safe to come to our university. This is a comprehensive account of the Kent State tragedy and puts the shootings in context. The shootings happened on Monday, May 4, 1970 and followed a weekend of violence in the city of Kent and the burning down of the ROTC building on the Kent State campus. The mayor of Kent phoned the governor of Ohio on early Saturday morning (12:47 a.m.) and the Ohio National Guardsmen were sent. With the arrival of the National Guard, it took control of the campus; the university administration was left out of the loop. Kent was a very conservative town, and the governor, who was running (unsuccessfully) for a U.S. Senate seat, wanted to punish campus unrest. During the whole occupation of the campus and town, the was no real leadership shown by either the guard leaders, the university administration, or the city government. Moreover, the guardsmen were poorly trained. The shootings occurred in a time of confusion. After the shootings, people were told to leave the area, but the guard initially blocked all exits from the area. Mr. Means puts the whole Kent State situation in the context of the times of political upheaval and change, particularly in relationship to the Vietnam War and the extending the war into Cambodia which Nixon had just ordered. Some of the students were protesting the war, but the area was filled with students and faculty changing classes and going to lunch. No individuals were convicted for the shooting of students. Much of public opinion, in the vicinity particularly, was against the students killed and injured; some people said even more should have been killed. Mr. Means makes a case for this being the end of an era of extremely active student protest.

3rd ROOT for July and 16 out of 25 ROOTs: The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, selected and with an introduction by Roxana Robinson, which I took my time reading since I only read one story per day. It is a collection of 20 of Wharton's short stories, which Ms. Robinson selected because they are set in New York City although the last one, "Roman Fever," is set in Rome but features two women from New York. The stories are arranged by the order in which they were originally published. As a whole I enjoyed these stories, but I had to look several of them up on the internet to see what they meant. I was surprised that some of the earlier stories featured poor people since I had thought of Wharton as being a writer about upper class people. I particularly enjoyed "Expiation" about writing and a bishop's panning his niece's book so that it would sell better, "After Holbein" about two senile people having dinner together and pretending it is a large society dinner with imaginary people present, "Diagnosis" for its surprise ending. My least favorite story is "Pomegranate Seed," a ghost story; I don't particularly like that genre.

Acquired in January 2016.

4th ROOT for July and 17 out of 25 ROOTs. The Brontes and Their World by Phyllis Bentley.

In preparation for a book club meeting tonight to discuss Wuthering Heights, I decided to find some pictures of Haworth Parsonage and the surrounding moors. This resulted in my reading The Brontes and Their World by Phyllis Bentley. This is a book of 144 pages; its cover claims it contains 140 illustrations. First I looked at all the pictures and read their captions; then read the whole text. This book has sentimental value to me since a family friend gave it to my father in 1970, the year after it was published. My parents and I had gone to England and visited Haworth Parsonage in 1969, and Father had bought be a book about the Brontes then. The scholarship about the Brontes is not up-to-date since the book is so old; for example, Ms. Bentley praises Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte, which I think has been found to contain many inaccuracies. However, The Brontes and Their World gives a good summary of the lives of the four Bronte siblings: Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne and shows their isolation living in Haworth for much of their lives. Contains chronology of the Bronte family.

Probably inherited between 1974 and 1992; not sure which of my parents I inherited the book from.

5th and 6th ROOTs for July: The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott (acquired as Christmas gift, 2016) and Women's Friendships: a Collection of Short Stories edited by Susan Koppelman (acquired before I joined LibraryThing in 2007).

The Dressmaker was a quick, enjoyable novel. Its setting was the Titanic and the hearings after the sinking. The book features: Tess, a young woman hired as a maid for Lady Lucile Duff Gordon, the fashion designer; Lady Duff Gordon and her husband and sister; two men who had been aboard the ship who became competitors for Tess's hand; a female newspaper reporter who got some scoops for the Titanic story for the New York Times; and Molly Brown of the Unsinkable Molly Brown fame. The story paints a very negative view of Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon, accusing them of leaving people to die instead of going back to get more people to better fill their nearly empty life boat and accusing Lady Duff Gordon of being a very difficult woman as an employer and supervisor in her fashion business. I would like to read nonfiction about the real characters, especially Molly Brown, who was born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri. I bought a short biography of her when we were in Hannibal last Sunday.

Women's Friendships is a wonderful collection of short stories by women about friendships between/among women. I especially liked that it included stories originally published between 1846 and 1991, written by women of various backgrounds including black women, Jewish women, an Native American of mixed heritage, and lesbians in addition to white women. The older stories tended to be by white women. Ms. Koppelman wrote an introduction about women's friendships and her experiences with them, and an afterword comparing/contrasting some of the stories, talking about themes, etc. Each story was introduced by a female scholar who told something about the author and her works with some specific comments about the story itself.

I've finally gotten back to reading some of my ROOTs. I've just finished reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the only book in the Little House series that describes Almanzo's childhood instead of Laura's. This is the first time I have reread it since reading it in elementary school many many years ago. I was amazed to read how often Almanzo did not need to go to school -- staying home to do farm work including learning how to do specific duties -- even while his older siblings went to school. The book describes in detail how certain things were made including maple sugar and shoes, which is reminiscent of descriptions in the author's Little House in the Big Woods.

>45 sallylou61: I have re-read all the Little House books in the past year and I love them as much now as I did as a teenager; probably more. My favorite is The Long Winter.

>46 Tess_W: I was planning to read more of the Little House books this month. Unfortunately, my set is a boxed paperback set, and I've discovered the books are on poor quality paper. I tend to allergic to that kind of paper and the smell of the ink on it; I discovered that I've been coughing while reading Farmer Boy and then Little House on the Prairie. Next week I'm scheduled to have cataract surgery (which is scary), so that I've decided to read other ROOTs until after my surgery. Prior to starting on the Little House books this month, I read Pioneer Girl Perspectives, not a ROOT, which I really enjoyed. My review is at https://www.librarything.com/work/19175589/reviews/142118872. I don't know when I'll be able to read following the surgery -- a new experience for me. Many of my friends and acquaintances say that they are glad that they had cataract surgery; they are seeing much better.

>47 sallylou61: I can relate, Sally! I've had those kinds of books which seems to almost flake or puff out particles of dust when the pages were turned.

I'm about the only one of my friends that hasn't had cataracts (thankfully) but they have all come through it well and went back to work the next day, even my husband who has had both eyes done. He can see perfect for distance but still has to wear reading glasses. Hope your surgery is as successful!

Good luck on the surgery, Allison!

>47 sallylou61: so annoying about your allergy. I can sympathise as I also have a choking reaction to certain types of paper - shiny and smelling of chemicals - usually it's in magazines or leaflets but sometimes in illustrated books. I've yet to come across it in fiction though, thank goodness!

Good luck with your eye surgery, hope it gives your sight a big boost!

>48 Tess_W:, >49 connie53:, >50 floremolla: Many thanks for your best wishes.

Second ROOT for September -- a hardback on good quality paper.

I just finished reading Cakewalk by Rita Mae Brown. This is the first of the Runnymede series which I have read by her; it features people in a fictional town on the Pennsylvania/Maryland border (the Mason-Dixon Line) in 1920. There was a considerable amount of talk about the War which had just ended, and its effect with townsmen killed or injured. Both of the main male characters were veterans. Considerable anti-war sentiment is expressed and several times people say there will not be another war.

It was a fun read; Ms. Brown writes with a lot of humor and has her characters express political views. Celeste, the main female character is/has been a lesbian whose lover got pregnant and married Celeste's brother. Celeste then becomes involved with a much younger man (in his late 20s; she's in her 40s). Some female friends talk off and on throughout the book about whether or not women will get the vote; the story ends before suffrage is won.

This novel is more a series of events, many of which are connected in some way, than a book with a plot.

Received as a birthday gift last November.

My cataract surgery went well yesterday. I had the big patch taken off my eye today. My doctor is pleased with my progress although I still have a long way to go. I need to take exercise very easy the next few days (probably I won't exercise until after my next doctor's appointment early Monday morning), and no water exercise probably for a couple of weeks.

Third ROOT for September (and 22nd out of a goal of 25) -- another hardback on good quality paper. The Inn at Rose Harbor by Debbie Macomber. I think of her books as quick, easy reads. This book was a quick read, but all three main characters were trying to recover from tragedies (two of them from long ago) so that it was not a particularly cheerful read. Moreover, I don't really care for people conversing with the dead as two characters did in this book. However, life was definitely looking up for all three characters at the end. Overall, I enjoyed the book.

Glad to hear your surgery went well! Take it easy :)

That's great news about your surgery - hope your recovery goes well too. And well done for completing another ROOT along the way!

Very good news about the surgery, Allison. And I wish you a rapid recovery!

Glad to hear of surgery recovery!

>54 rabbitprincess:, >55 floremolla:, >56 connie53:, >57 Tess_W: Thanks. So far the recovery is going well although I have a long way to go. The surgeon is pleased with my progress, fortunately. 12 eyedrops a day through this weekend; then on Monday morning I find out about the next steps.

>Did you have have a lens implanted at the same time?

>59 Tess_W: Yes, a new lens was put in my left eye. It will take a while before I'll be able to see very well with it. I don't know why that is, but it is normal. Fortunately, the cataract in my right eye is still very small and does not bother me (or cause any significant vision problems), and I don't need to have it removed yet. Medicare pays for cataract surgery provided the cataract is large enough, etc. My eye surgeon had told me that the cataract which had been in my left eye was so bad that it was no longer possible to adjust my glasses prescription to make me see better.

First ROOT for October and 23rd overall: Wish You Were Here, the first in the Mrs. Murphy Mysteries by Rita Mae Brown and her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown. This is the earliest mystery which I have read by Ms. Brown, a local author; the setting of the story is in Crozet which is approximately 10 miles from Charlottesville where I live. Although I enjoyed the mystery by the end of the story, it took me quite a while to "warm up" to it. What bothered me the most was the amount of conversation among the two cats and two dogs in the story.

Received as gift in 1996.

Second ROOT for October and 24th overall: Radioland by Lesley Wheeler. Ms. Wheeler gave a poetry reading at our retirement community last April, and I bought Radioland, one of her collections. I found the first three sections of her collection very understandable. They dealt with earthquakes and family break-ups; sexual activity of young people; and the author's trying to come to grips with her father's abandoning his family for a woman Ms. Wheeler's age. The last two sections were not meaningful for me; I often have trouble interpreting poetry since I tend to be more of a "factual" reader.

Third ROOT for October and 25th overall: Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I'm still aiming to reread all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books this year, but still have more than halfway to go. I just finished rereading Little House on the Prairie, which, as a child, was my least favorite of the Little House books. In recent years, it has been controversial because of its racism concerning Native Americans. Ma openly expresses her dislike of them, and Mr. and Mrs. Scott, their neighbors who are minor characters in the story, are very anti-Native American. Both of the Scotts are quoted as saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" (p. 211, 284 in Harper Trophy ed.). Several times in the story an adult says that the Indians should move out of the Indian Territory. The story takes place around 1869/71, and was first published in 1935, well before Indians were commonly known as Native Americans. It is a story of its time. I think that it should still be available to children, but used as a learning device whenever possible.

(I had planned to read this book last month, and started it, but my allergies kicked in so I put it aside prior to having cataract surgery. It did not bother me the last few days.)

>63 sallylou61: I, too, have been re-reading all the Little House books this year. I only have 1 to go and then there is a Laura Ingalls Wilder book not connected to the series that I want to read for the first time. My favorite is The Long Winter. I don't really pay attention to racism in past times books because at the time it was written it wasn't considered that. (not that it wasn't wrong) But I understand these settler's lives were very much impacted by the NA (and visa versa) and they often lived in fear and I think what takes place in the Wilder books is just a common reaction to fear. In fact, now that I wrote it, I think perhaps fear is one of the causes of racism, even today?

Hope your cataract surgery went/goes well. My husband has had both of his eyes done with absolutely no problems.

Fourth ROOT for October and 26th overall (one above my goal): On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I've reread another of the Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- this time On the Banks of Plum Creek which has been a sentimental favorite since hearing my fourth grade teacher read it to us. That was my first introduction to Laura Ingalls Wilder; I really loved hearing my teacher read it, which she read as a treat to us. When there was a bit of spare time before lunch or between subjects, she would read us a chapter or two. I'm sure Mrs. Sweet also read us other books, but this was the memorable one. After hearing her read it, I started reading the other books in the series, beginning with those in our classroom library, which Mrs. Sweet picked off the bookmobile when it visited our school.

As I reread the book for the first time in many years, I remembered parts of it, and looked forward to rereading them. On this reading I was really struck by the poverty of the Ingalls family in this story. Although he did not like to be in debt, Pa obtained wood to build the house promising to repay after harvesting the wheat crop which he expected to be large and plentiful. When the whole crop was lost in a plague of grasshoppers, he had to walk several hundred miles to the east to obtain work harvesting crops which had not been hit by the plague. He had to walk to work during harvest season two years straight. Although in her writing, Laura wrote as positively as possible, the poverty is apparent to an adult. (I don't remember thinking of the poverty as a child.). This book is still a favorite.

Purchased 12/18/2014

>64 Tess_W: . Thanks for your comments. I agree that the racism concerning Indians was common back then. It's interesting; when I was in library school in the late 1960s, I took a children's literature course from Mary Gaver, who was considered an expert in children's literature. She mentioned in class that there is a minstrel scene in which white people used blackface to negatively portray black people; I think it was in The Long Winter but have not yet gotten that far in the series to be certain. She felt that this was so prejudicial that she would never buy that book again. I thought that that was really extreme -- so extreme that I still remember it. However, I do not remember her mentioning anything about the treatment of Indians in Little House on the Prairie; racism against Indians was just considered back then. As a whole, even though there has been criticism about the Little House books concerning racism, I think that they have held up well. There is certainly still a lot of interest in Laura Ingalls Wilder with at least three books being published about her this year (which marks the 150 anniversary of her birth -- Pioneer Girl Perspective, edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal; The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Marta McDowell, and Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser) plus a novel about Ma (Caroline by Sarah Miller).

Are you referring to The First Four Years as the L.I.W. book you have not yet read? It is being packaged with the rest of the Little House books as part of the series; however, Ann Romines in "Pioneer Families and the LIttle House Where Nobody Dies" in Pioneer Girl Perspectives (pp. 294-295) feels that it should not be considered part of the series. Although I have not reread The First Four Years recently, I remember feeling that it was a disappointment after the Little House books. Of course, it was left in manuscript form and not edited by Rose Wilder Lane.

I can tell you that I absolutely do not remember any minstrel scene in The Long Winter. If it's there then I read over it without remembering it, 3 times in my lifetime!

I need to read Those Happy Golden Years yet. My mother also told me that she bought me Prairie Fires for Christmas, so that I wouldn't buy it on my own.

>67 Tess_W: I think that there was a minstrel scene in one of the later books, but don't remember which one. I'll probably find it as I read the rest of the books, which I still aim to do this calendar year.

>68 sallylou61: The "darkies" are in the book, Little Town on the Prairie. Have read that one twice and I still don't recall it. Will go back to the book and see if I can find it!

5th ROOT for October and 27th overall. Continuing with my rereading of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder -- in order published: By the Shores of Silver Lake and my aiming at reading/rereading at least 12 children's books. I think that this is the first time I have reread this volume since I read it as a child. Then I did not like it as much as many of the others, possibly because it followed On the Banks of Plum Creek which was a very special book.

Although I remembered a lot about the book such as Mary's blindness and Mr. and Mrs. Boast's arriving for Christmas dinner, I was amazed at how this book created the setting for the rest of the series. The first buildings of the town of De Smet are built, the Ingalls go out to their claim for the first time, and Laura sees the Wilder men, Almanzo and Royal, in a distance although she does not talk to them. I could picture the Ingalls' living in the surveyors' house the winter before they moved to their claim since my husband and I saw it when we visited De Smut several years ago.

I'm planning to read 25 adult books for ROOTs in addition to the children's books.

1st ROOT for November and 28th overall. Harriet Martineau on Women edited by Gayle Graham Yates.

An Englishwoman, Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) throughout her life wrote on "the woman question" which was the 19th century term for feminism. Ms. Yates wrote a general introduction on Ms. Martineau's life and views, and then provided examples of Ms. Martineau's writings under the categories of: women's equal rights, women's education, American women (Ms. Martineau spent two years touring America and then wrote about it with special reference to antislavery and women), portraits of women (Charlotte Bronte, Margaret Fuller, and Florence Nightingale plus women in hareems and women in Ireland), on economic, social, and political issues (including working women and women and divorce), and women's campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1866 and 1869, which allowed police to arrest any woman they expected to be prostitutes. Ms. Yates wrote introductions to each section in which she explained the content and significant of the documents included in the section.

I acquired this book prior to joining LibraryThing in 2007.

Hi Allison! Just dropping in to wave at you from the Netherlands!

>72 connie53: Hi Connie, I hope to come back to the Netherlands sometime. Years ago (1960s and early 70s) my aunt, who did food articles for the Holland America line, owned a house in Veere. My parents and I were there for a short time one summer, and really enjoyed our vacation. Besides Veere, we also went to Amsterdam and saw the Anne Frank House and a museum displaying a lot of Van Gogh paintings. We drove from Veere to Amsterdam so that we saw a lot of the countryside.

>73 sallylou61: Veere is a beautiful little village. I spend lots of holidays in that part of the Netherlands when my kids were small.

So very close to your goal!

2nd ROOT in November and 29th overall (21st adult book):

I just finished reading American Fire by Monica Hesse, which was listed Sunday, Nov. 19th in The Washington Post's list of the 50 best nonfiction books of the year. It is about two losers who set numerous fires in Accomack County, an isolated rural county on Virginia's Eastern Shore, the efforts of firefighters to fight the fires (sometimes several a night for approximately six months), the efforts of the police and professionals they employed to solve the crimes, the arrest of the couple (Charlie Smith and his lover Tonya Bundick), and the trials of Ms. Bundick. (Charlie Smith pleaded guilty upon being caught.). Although this book was well written, the case was not very appealing and I thought the story dragged. Although 50 is a relatively large number of books, I would not rate it this high. I had read it in case I wanted to recommend it for our local library's Monthly Books Sandwiched in program. I will not be recommending it.

Purchased in early July; read in late Nov.

3rd ROOT for November and 30th overall (22nd adult book)

Having read Harriet Martineau on Women by Martineau (1802-1876) an English feminist earlier this month, I have just finished reading Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), an early American feminist. Martineau and Fuller knew each other's works, and referred to each other in these writings. Woman in the Nineteenth Century is a book I have had since living in Michigan in the early 1980s; I had started it several times; this time I read the whole book. Unfortunately, this edition, published by Norton in 1971, lacked notes explaining the text (and fell apart as I read it). The company published a revised, annotated edition in 1997, which would have been much more meaningful to read. Fuller's account, which is an expansion of an article published in The Dial (a magazine in 1843) is written as a long, long essay (179 p.). It lacks chapters or any real breaks in the account; the topic is merely given on the top of all the odd numbered pages. Fuller writes about women's place in society in history as seen through various myths (gods and goddesses in ancient times) and written works, most of which were written by men. This is where annotations would be especially useful in describing who the people and characters she mentions are. She also writes about how women should go about trying to improve the position of women. She writes a lot about marriage; she emphasizes that men and women should be equal in marriage. "That is the very fault of marriage, and of the present relation between the sexes, that the woman does (in italics) belong to the man, instead of forming a whole with him." (p. 176). The book describes upper class women; very little mention is made of the lower classes.

1st ROOT for December and 31st overall (9th children's book)
I'm continuing with my project of rereading all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books this year. I've finished reading The Long Winter, which I had not read for many, many years. I remembered the main incidents in this book, but it was fun rereading it. I was particularly interested in any appearances of Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland since they are so prominently featured in These Happy Golden Years. This time I noticed that there were some inconsistencies concerning the story of these male characters. Cap first appears in the book as a rather young school boy, but that same winter he and Almanzo travel many miles to get wheat for the starving town. Of course, the Little House books are fictional, and Laura was known for changing people's ages in the stories. In the book, she has Almanzo as being 19, and filing for a land claim by lying since the minimum age for that was 21. However, Almanzo was actually born in February 1857 and filed for his claim sometime in 1879; the same year his brother, Royal, and sister, Eliza Jane, also filed. Moreover, Laura has Almanzo and Cap both being 19 and a few months apart in age in 1881; Cap was born in late 1864 and was slightly two years older than Laura. However, this does not take away from the story. Much of the exciting action involves men. Ma, Laura, and her sisters spent most of the long, hard winter days at home twisting hay for fuel and grinding wheat in a coffee grinder for bread. I remembered the monotony of the days from my much earlier reading.

(I was especially interested in Almanzo's age filing for his claim since one of the author's Pioneer Girl Perspectives claimed that Almanzo was dishonest about filing his claim. This shows that one cannot use the fictional accounts when considering a person's character. My info concerning the "facts" comes from Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill and published by South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2014 -- an account which made me want to reread all the Little House books. Of course, it has taken me several years to get around to doing this.)

Acquired in Dec. 2014

>78 sallylou61: reading your post I wish I'd had a favourite childhood/YA author to revisit! Maybe finding the inconsistencies makes the author more human, over and above biographical details?

I find authors and their writing processes intriguing and often look up their histories to see what they were doing at the time and what inspired them. So much so, I'm being drawn to biographies, a genre I've never been interested in before.

Well done with your continued ROOTing - well beyond your goal!

>78 sallylou61: >79 floremolla: I have revisited some childhood books this year, with mixed results! One of them, Fireweed by Jill Paton Walsh, was well worth the visit - I remember reading it in English class at school and loving it then, it's one of the few books we read that I remembered. However, I'm still ploughing my way through A Little Princess, which I adored and read and reread many times as a child, and I'm kind of wishing I'd left it remembering the magic. I'm spotting all sorts of things that are making me really uncomfortable this time round which just didn't enter my head when I was a kid!

>80 Jackie_K: I see what you mean - I grew up with Enid Blyton and she's roundly condemned nowadays for racism, classism, etc. I happily remember the exciting Secret Seven adventures which had me round up my friends and turn our garden shed into Club HQ in hope of having similar mysteries to solve.

And don't even start me about the Famous Five - going on cycling holidays in their school blazers, eating cream teas at random farms and sleeping on bracken under a bush with only said blazer for warmth - and no adults supervising!! No wonder I spent my childhood in cloud-cuckoo-land.

>81 floremolla: Haha, I was more of a Famous Five girl, never really got into the Secret Seven, and I also liked the "X of Adventure" series too. I keep seeing them in Barter Books and might one day pick one up and see if it stands the test of time, but they're actually really expensive there, so I'm a bit more reluctant to take the risk!

>79 floremolla:, >80 Jackie_K:, >81 floremolla:, >82 Jackie_K: I really enjoyed the Little House books when I read them as a child. However, for quite some time this series has been controversial, particularly along racial lines for Little House on the Prairie for its portrayal of Native Americans -- which were called Indians when I was growing up -- and for Little Town on the Prairie for the stereotype of blacks in a minstrel show. (I think it appears in that book.) There has been another controversy over how much of the writing was done by Laura Ingalls Wilder and how much by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.

Concerning the racial issue: On one hand, some people have questioned whether these books should still be available. On the other hand, they seem to be used by homeschoolers. There has been a lot of scholarship done recently. Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography, edited by Pamela Smith Hill and published by the South Dakota Historical Society Press, was tremendously popular and had to be reprinted immediately. It was followed up by Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal, which contains 10 essays by LIW scholars. Through the years I've read various biographies and critical analyses of LIW.

Now I'm rereading her books for the first time in many years, looking at them rather critically but still enjoying them.

>83 sallylou61: the racism in older books is jarring to us nowadays with our modern sensibilities - I don't think these children's books should be banned necessarily, but the racism and other forms of prejudice shouldn't go unchallenged. Parents/teachers should use them as discussion topics and explain the different thinking there was back then - and of course is sadly still around in some quarters today.

I was surprised that my ROOTs reading this year threw up so many instances of racism - a lot of it casual, throw-away remarks that reflected social mores of the day, from the 1700s well into the 1900s. It makes me uncomfortable but it provides valuable insight into the lives and times and shows how far society has come in many respects.

>83 sallylou61: Being a historian, I often run into what we would call racism (but no such word then), but it doesn't bother me or make me uncomfortable because I wasn't there, I don't believe that way, and it was just a sign of the times; just as stoning for adultery was in Biblical times (or in Iran today) as well as burning or hanging witches. With that guilt removed from me I am very free to enjoy the book!

>85 Tess_W: I feel the same about things I read in older books. It's was common to think like that in those days.

2nd ROOT in December and 32nd overall: These Modern Women: Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties, edited by Elaine Showalter who wrote a rather long introduction to the book (27 out of 147 pages), and short biographical introductions of each of the 17 feminists whose short essays were included. This book was published in 1978, but the essays were written in 1927 and 1928 for the magazine The Nation. Showalter wanted to compare feminism in the 1920s to that of the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 70s. I was unfamiliar with most of the women; those I was familiar with included Inez Haynes Irwin, Sue Shelton White, Crystal Eastman, and Wanda Gag. The book ended with very brief responses by three psychologists, two of whom were men who were unsympathetic to feminism. I feel these responses were unnecessary to include; they added nothing of value to the book.

I've had this book for years, well before I joined LibraryThing ten years ago. It's a paperback which fell completely apart while I was reading it, just as Woman of the Nineteenth Century did when I read it at the end of last month.

It's been ages, decades probably, since I read anything about feminism - I'd already decided to read more women writers in 2018 and you've inspired me to get myself updated on this important topic. Thanks!

>88 floremolla: I've been trying to read books by/about women the last couple of years. Last year in the category challenge we had a BingoPUP featuring women authors (called a pup since it was not the official BingoDOG challenge), and this year we've had a CATWoman featuring women authors as one of the CATs, plus I'm doing a second BingoDOG card featuring only women authors. All three books about feminism I've read the past month and a half have been for some CAT.

Hope you enjoy reading more women authors next year.

>89 sallylou61: thanks for explaining about the challenges - I might try one of those next year too!

3rd ROOT for December and 33 ROOT overall: Little Town on the Prairie

I'm continuing with my project of rereading all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books this year. I read Little Town on the Prairie, which I had not read for many, many years. Although I remembered many of the incidents in the book, I was surprised by how much of it seemed entirely new to me. I was impressed with the way the book fit in so well between The Long Winter and These Happy Golden Years. The story begins with a brief review of how the Ingalls family coped with the long, hard winter and ended with Laura's accepting an assignment to teach school twelve miles from home beginning the following Monday. Laura's teaching is described in These Happy Golden Years. Having recently read the pamphlet, Mary Ingalls: the College Years in which I was surprised to learn that Mary went to the Iowa College for the Blind for seven years, I discovered that Ma hoped that Mary could take the full course which lasted that long. I had not remembered that from my reading many years ago. This is the book in which Almanzo Wilder takes Laura to school in a buggy behind his beautiful Morgan horses (and they exchange name cards), and he walks Laura home from some revival meetings. This book, along with On the Banks of Plum Creek and These Happy Golden Years remain my favorite books in the series.

Yesterday (Dec. 24th) I finished reading These Happy Golden Years and read The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder, completing my goal of reading/reading 12 children's books this year. Both of these were retreads although I hadn't read either for many years. Might write more comments after I return home from our Christmas river cruise. This tablet is cumbersome to write on

That's one challenge met, Allison. I know the book by Funke. It was real nice.

6th ROOT for December and 36 overall -- Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear.

Still on river cruise and using I-tablet.

7th (end probably last) ROOT for December and 37th overall: Glory over Everything by Kathleen Grissom.

On way home from river cruise but still using I-tablet.