Wow frybabe on Sir Walter Scott writings - a bonanza - the change from this older English is slowing me down but I had to get at least a gist of what the book is all about... in the preface of what I'm reading it seems he was the owner of a large corporation - forgot what but the bigger story is he had to take bankruptcy in 18 something or other during a time of financial depression in Scotland and the corporation had some connection to a bank that he inherited from his father - anyhow he did not have to but he promised to pay back all the money and so for the rest of his life his very successful writing career was the income that he used to pay back the huge loan that was actually released by the bankruptcy. Upon his death he still owed and the subsequent sales of his books expected by the bank became like a promissory note till it was all paid back. Wow talk about moral fortitude.
Interesting that it was a choice your sister made to read
Ivanhoe - we used to know what year in high school you were in by the book you carried home for the year - regardless the high school, public or private we read in Freshman year
Ivanhoe and then it was 2nd year
Hamlet and third year it was
Julius Caesar and
Candide although, instead of either of those two the public high did
Romeo and Juliet and in our senior year it was expected we read over the summer and study first semester
Les Miserables and last semester after Christmas we read
Macbeth however, I'm almost sure the public High did not do
Les Miserables however, they did do
Macbeth - other books like
Red Badge of Courage was 6th grade and
Scarlet Letter in 7th grade and
Tale of Two Cities in 8th grade although, in 8th some did
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Come to think of it I never have read this Mark Twain story - should do that. All these books had questions on the annual State Board of Regent's test except senior year High when we did not take the annual test.
I noticed my children did not read the same group of books when they were in high school however by then Harper Lee had published along with Orwell and earlier Steinbeck being an author whose works were more acceptable by the school administration. No longer did they get that grounding in Shakespeare or the love of reading about the ethics of knights in the middle ages from writers like Sir Walter Scott - where we learned of how Jews were not treated with respect in
Ivanhoe my children learned how Blacks were not treated well in
To Kill a Mockingbird.
I wonder if today there is a common curriculum of books that all the high schooler's read - I bet you would know Bellamarie - don't you have grands that are high school age...
Sounds like we are all being soaked with rain - here it is May - the rain was supposed to take place in April so the saying goes...
![Wink ;)](https://seniorlearn.org/forum/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
- has anyone seen a prediction weather map for this summer - there is usually a map showing the areas of the country if they will have a hotter than normal or wetter then normal summer...
Joanne did you get any particulars about the 4 year old swept away - all I heard was it was the family of three trying to cross a road and all three were swept away however the parents were able to stay close and were swept into a ditch by not their son - I wondered why they were crossing a road - were they leaving their vehicle to get to their house I wonder? Did you hear anything about what happened? I'm hearing in east Texas so far 9 have been lost... thank goodness at least the major highways in the Houston area are above water - when they go under it is a mess beyond imagination as I bet Dallas is coping with during this storm cycle however, I don't know if Dallas has any highways that are 11 and 12 lanes on just one side making it a 22 lane highway as there are on parts of I-10 going through Houston. At least in Houston all lanes are very well marked which was not the case in Atlanta - got lost going through Atlanta more times than I want to remember - had to go through Atlanta to get to my daughter's in NC all those years when I would drive through.
Sky still overcaste I really do not want to read anything that is more than a chit chat story - need to look and see if I have anything that is short and light because other than the baseball game there is nothing on TV and everything is too damp to get the last of these couple of boxes emptied and put up... I was thinking
Found in a Bookstore but it is 384 pages - I really would like to find something that is in the low 200 page range... Ah found two
The Italian House only 250 pages but also I like the sound of
The Likely Resolutions of Oliver Clock however it is 317 pages - such a dilemma - if others had it so easy... ah so can't look a gift horse in the mouth...