Author Topic: The Library (Read 208088 times)

maryz · « **Reply #960 on:** April 24, 2009, 12:37:51 PM »

The Library

Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is always out.
Do come in from the wind and rain and join us.

We look forward to hearing from you, about you and the books you are enjoying (or not).

Let the book talk begin here!

Everyone is welcome!

Suggestion Box for Future Discussions

Ginny - I'm in the middle of The Big Rich, too - and totally agree with you. I have it on my Kindle, and can't put it down, either. And I grew up in Houston - graduated from high school there in 1953 - so I was right in the thick of a lot of that stuff. I remember it! I'm loving recommending it to friends and family who still live in various parts of Texas, and have had a copy sent to my 89-year-old aunt who lives in The Valley (part of Texas along the Rio Grande River north of Brownsville). She was born and raised in Texas, and lived in Texas all her life. She's going to love it, too. I heard about it here on SeniorLearn!

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #961 on:** April 24, 2009, 01:51:17 PM »

This book was recommended to us last month in one of our f2f library book groups. I have not yet been able to get a copy, as I think everyone is reading it. I believe there was a large article on it in the Dallas Morning News a good bit back. Needless to say, it would be quite popular here in Texas.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #962 on:** April 24, 2009, 03:17:18 PM »

Here is a clip of Evan Smith from Texas Monthly interviewing on Texas Monthly Talks
Bryan Burrough, the author of The Big Rich. http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/stateofmine/?m=200903

mabel1015j · « **Reply #963 on:** April 24, 2009, 03:50:35 PM »

Somebody here - i think it was Steph - mentioned "The Cheerleader" by Jill McCorkle a while back. Last night i was facilitating a discussion at our library about the 1950's, the first of three, the next two are about the 1960's, and my best friend Barbara had come to support me and join in the discussion. The library had set up about 30 books around the mtg room that were for sell and Barbara was browsing them when she exclaimed, "oh my gosh!" in her North Carolina accent. She brought a book to me, and now i don't remember if it was Carolina Moon or Ferris Island, but she said "this woman is from my home town and went to my school." That would be Jill McCorkle. A blurp about The Cheerleader caught my eye and i said "oh, yes, someone on my Seniorlearn site is reading that."
I so often make the comment, "oh yes, i heard about that on Seniorlearn." You folks are so (as Ella would say) "au courant."

.........................jean

maryz · « **Reply #964 on:** April 24, 2009, 04:35:18 PM »

Barbara - thanks for that link to the Texas Monthly interview with Burroughs. I don't usually listen to those things, and it was fairly long. But it was most interesting, and I enjoyed hearing it. I would love to hear him do a thing on BookTV. Guess I'll check to see if he's due to be on, or has been on. Thanks again.

maryz · « **Reply #965 on:** April 24, 2009, 06:26:28 PM »

Click here for the Book TV Afterwords program with Bryan Burroughs. I haven't listened to it yet - it's a bit over an hour.

Babi · « **Reply #966 on:** April 25, 2009, 08:58:27 AM »

GINNY, maybe Texans got accustomed to speaking loudly because of all that space.

Personally, until I went deaf, I think I was quite soft-spoken. Now, if I can
even tell I'm speaking, my daughter gives me the 'too loud' signal. What would
I do without her?
Do bear in mind the "exaggerated" and "unsubstantiated" parts.

A long and entertaining list, BARB. "As cold as any stone", has metamorphosed
into 'stone cold'. Is "Comparisons are odorous" correct? I thought it was
"comparisons are odious". And I didn't know "eaten out of house and home" was from Shakespeare. It has such a down-home tone to it. But then, quite
a lot of Shakespeare has entered into our 'folk' sayings.

Steph · « **Reply #967 on:** April 25, 2009, 09:23:12 AM »

Ah, I do know a little about WWII and Germans. My adoptive grandmother was from Germany in the Black Forest area. She was the only member of her family in the states. She came at 16 as a cook for the Rockefeller family. We lived with my grandparents during WWII since my Dad was working at the navy yard. Grandmother did not communicate much with her parents or siblings. She was very quiet indeed. It did not stop some of the younger neighbors from calling her names and making life hard on all of us. After the war, she found that all of her brothers were dead and most of their children. They had been caught in a bombing raid.. Sad..

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #968 on:** April 25, 2009, 11:21:01 AM »

What an interesting story, STEPH! An "adoptive" grandmother?? What does that mean?

And she worked for the Rockefellers? Did she have many stories to tell? Where did she learn to cook? And why did the young neighbors call her names? Because she could not speak English?

I hope most Americans are beyond that now? Or are they? I think it is pitiful to see first generation legal Americans speaking their native languaget; knowing that their children will become fully-fledged and, no doubt, unkind to them, urging them to learn English and speak properly.

maryz · « **Reply #969 on:** April 25, 2009, 01:01:24 PM »

I've listened to the Afterwords interview with Bryan Burrough. It was interesting, but didn't cover any new ground. And the interviewer (a Congressman from Texas) spent way too much time, IMHO, talking about his Texas-ness and his district and his family history. Oh, well....

jane · « **Reply #970 on:** April 25, 2009, 01:06:08 PM »

Mary...I HATE interviewees who think it's about THEM! It seems to happen a lot with Congress people, it seems!!

Ray really loved The Big Rich. He prefers nonfiction more than fiction, I heard about it, and got it for him at the Library and he had a hard time putting it down, too.

jane

pedln · « **Reply #971 on:** April 25, 2009, 03:47:41 PM »

Barbara, what a fascinating site. One could spend a long time there exploring those sayings.

It’s almost 3 pm on Sat. afternoon and I can’t believe I’ve been on the computer all day. So, what to do – try to get in a swim at the fitness center, or just fill up the bathtub and soak with a good book.

Are you ready for another Kindle article? Here’s one from today’s NY Times. (MaryZ, I thought about you and Judy and JoanG and all the other Kindle users.) Part of the gist is ‘how are you going to make judgements about people if you can’t see what they’re reading.’ I kid you not. But it’s a fun article and then there is a section where folks have made comments about it. Be sure to read that – it’s more pro-Kindle than the actual article. And guess who made a comment that includes a link to you know where.

Kindle

maryz · « **Reply #972 on:** April 25, 2009, 04:34:17 PM »

Interesting article and comments, pedln - thanks for the link. But I didn't find your comment.

pedln · « **Reply #973 on:** April 25, 2009, 07:01:58 PM »

I found it, Mary, but guess it didn't make the cut. Not a big deal.

Pei Li · « **Reply #974 on:** April 25, 2009, 08:06:39 PM »

hello, my first time doing a reply so I am not sure how to connect to a previous post- but thank you for the post about the new DeMille book. I too read Gold Coast and hoped the new book was moving that story forward.

also glad it took awhile to figure out how to post- I still recommend, but not as enthusiastically as I would have about 100 pages ago, but the Russo novel Bridge of Sighs is excellent. Sorry if I missed any previous discussion of this book. I still recommend but now see character narratives where I think the author might be uncomfortable or out of his element and it comes accross.

I look forward to getting to know y'all on this forum and how to navigate it more effectively.

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #975 on:** April 25, 2009, 08:52:55 PM »

PEI LI!

You are doing just fine and we want to welcome you to our site. Thank you for posting your recommendations, and, please continue to do so. I've read a few DeMille books in the past but, for some strange reason, I have switched over to nonfiction and enjoy them.

Come back often and post!

mrssherlock · « **Reply #976 on:** April 25, 2009, 09:01:52 PM »

Pei Li: Hello! Glad to see you here. I've never read Richard Russo. Please tell me a little about Bridge of Sighs
PS: When you are responding to one certain post you can address it to that person like I did to you here.

Steph · « **Reply #977 on:** April 26, 2009, 09:48:58 AM »

Ella..Sorry.. My mother was adopted. Her mother was German, her father Danish.. That is the adoptive parents. My grandmother spoke really good english, although she swore in German. My grandfather at the end of his life insisted he did not remember any danish, but when he dreamed , he yelled and it was always in what I assume was Danish.
The neighbors called her a Nazi.. They knew she was German and said she was a spy ( hurting the heart of a small girl, who adored her). One of the little girls in the neighborhood was not allowed to come into our house or eat anything I had.. Said that she would poison her. The Rockefellers hired her straight out of her parents kitchen. They had an Inn.. They brought her to the states ( no records of immigration for servants brought with an american family, alas). She stayed until the first Mrs. Rockefeller died, then left and moved to Virginia. An Aunt of hers lived there. She married my grandfather fairly quickly, since her Aunt was neighbors to Grandfathers best friend and they met the day she moved in. She died relatively young, so although she taught me to cook and play dominos and made me homemade toys, I did not know her parents names or anything other than she had brothers and nephews who all died in the war.

Babi · « **Reply #978 on:** April 26, 2009, 10:14:30 AM »

STEPH, I had to smile at your grandmother swearing in German. No doubt she felt she could relieve her feelings without the children understanding her words.

It's interesting that someone who has forgotten his childhood language still
speaks it in his dreams. Things have a disconcerting way of slipping past our
mental barriers when we are asleep. Which, of course, is why dreams can be
so revealing.

jane · « **Reply #979 on:** April 26, 2009, 11:10:16 AM »

Pedln/Maryz: Interesting article on the kindle..and it fits so into the current Talking Heads topic of "Is it a Sin to Read for Pleasure. http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=456

I am constantly amazed by those who judge other people by the cover of the books they see strangers reading. Incredible. The kindle doesn't allow for that...unless you ask to see it, under the guise of wanting to see how one works, the article says...to see what others are reading...so you can 'judge' them, I guess.

jane

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #980 on:** April 26, 2009, 06:46:39 PM »

HEY, STEPH! Thanks for the explanation. I have another question - what Rockefeller would it be? John D. or his son, Junior and Abby , (my favorites as they saved Williamsburg for the nation)? Probably not one of the grandsons.

Or maybe? Since it was around WWII?

Steph · « **Reply #981 on:** April 27, 2009, 07:29:56 AM »

Would have been the earliest of the clan. But she never talked much of them. My Mother was adopted when they were older. Grandmother was in the states by the 1890's and married by the 1900 census . Her cooking is what led to me knowing even that much. I thought when I was little, it was normal to have thin wonderful lace pancakes with sauce..( I was grown when I realized they were crepes). She made wonderful bread and her meats were always sauced with wonderful things. She talked to me about learning them when she was my age and cooking in the kitchen of the inn at 10.. I suspect she was around 16 or so when she went to work for them.

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #982 on:** April 27, 2009, 11:13:06 AM »

MEATS SAUCED WITH WONDERFUL THINGS!

Wish I had learned things like that!

mrssherlock · « **Reply #983 on:** April 27, 2009, 12:31:26 PM »

Steph: Did you learn German as a child? I tried it in college and could not make the transition from my high school French & Latin. Some years ago teaching other languages to children as young as 6 was the fad as language is a skill which is strongest in the earliest years, so French, Spanish, et al, were taught all over the country. Quite a change from this English Only present day political movement. I always envied those who grew up with two or more languages in the home. I guess i just love words.

Steph · « **Reply #984 on:** April 28, 2009, 08:26:16 AM »

German. My grandmother would not speak german around me. It was WWII and she worried. But my parents were lutheran. It was an old fashioned Missouri Synoud Lutheran and our minister gave one sermon a month in German for the older people. I sat through them and sang the hymns in german, but did not learn. I was surprised years later that the first time I went to Germany, I could decipher road signs and menus and things written down, but still could not speak or understand it. Weird actually.
I know.. Some of the sauces she used, I found as an adult in French cookbooks. She also made grape pudding. It was thick and purple and she served it to me with milk poured over it. Never had it anywhere but in her kitchen. My Mom hated to cook and never paid attention to her Moms cooking at all. Such a shame.

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #985 on:** April 28, 2009, 10:34:19 AM »

The only sauces for meats I have made in my lifetime - well, that I can think of at the moment - are barbecue for beef and raisin sauce for ham (which I remember making just twice and neither time did it go over; best let the ham speak for itself). But the idea intrigues me, what other sauces for meat are there?

mabel1015j · « **Reply #986 on:** April 28, 2009, 01:46:13 PM »

when i cook ham or pork i use a pineapple preserve/mustard, horseradish sauce that my family loves...............my husband just made grilled shrimp w/ a recipe i found in the last AARP mag that had a mango/tameric glaze on that everybody loved. (he likes to experiment on grilling recipes)..................jean

Pei Li · « **Reply #987 on:** April 28, 2009, 07:58:13 PM »

thanks mrssherlock- i think I need to go to the intro site, I am not sure how to reply either to an individual or the thread- when I hit button at bottom of my screen 'reply' I think I am posting to everyone

and I'm still not clear on how to find the post #'s- where a post says reply to post #650 for example. I am used to groups where each post has a reply to that post option. So I will take your advice and address by name - until I get more comfortable with the system.

anyway Bridge of Sighs- a very interesting and creative approach to what I'd call fictional memoir. The narrator goes back to childhood in a small town in upstate New York State and there is a defining moment when he is locked in a box by other children. But the authors switch from present to past is wonderful and there's so much subplot- economic class issues, contamination of small towns by local industry, cancers, a little coming of age, at one point early on the Lynch family purchases a local grocery and then for the next portion of the book that grocery and its 'meaning' becomes a character. As the book progresses there is lots about a marriage progressing- The bridge in venice is a lure early on, I think now toward the end of the book this bridge and its meaning is taking front stage.

Steph · « **Reply #988 on:** April 29, 2009, 07:25:41 AM »

Sauces... I love to sauce things and because of my husbands continuing problem with no saliva make a lot of them. Now that I am grown, I know that Grandmother made a beef sauce with cherries,, a pork sauce with grapes, pork with apples and cider, beef with beer and onions ( This is a heavenly way to make pot roast), chicken with all sorts of apples. I make sauces with just about anything. Use a lot of the premade chicken broth in the past few years. I handmade my broths for years, but getting lazy in my senior years. Grandmother also used ginger snaps in a beef dish. I recognized that one in Germany many years ago. If you like the taste, almost anything can be a lovely sauce.

ginny · « **Reply #989 on:** April 29, 2009, 09:52:01 AM »

Pei Li, welcome, welcome! We are so glad you are here. I've heard so much about Bridge of Sighs, I am glad to read about it from a discerning reader.

The word REPLY is a misnomer. Our boards are not set up like threads, so you're not actually REPLYING initially to anybody, you're just posting your own message. The numbers of the posts are in the title of the post, to the right of the person's name. For instance you are post 987.

As you can see here, in a screenshot,

next to Mary's name, the number of her post.

In order to see back posts, you can scroll up to the top of the page, OR, if you want to see more than this page, if you've read all those, we're currently on page 25, you can go to the other pages.

Can you see above maryz's post in the illustration, (hers is the first message on this page) the numbers of pages? 1....23, 24, [25?] We're on page 25, there are 40 posts or messages per page, so to see the last 40 you can click on one of the former pages.

A very neat thing about this software is that while you are posting your message in the compose box, you can scroll down and actually read the last 80 or so messages!! It will not, however, as you have noticed, actually show the post number, but as you say you can use the name.

I think you are getting around splendidly to have found the library!!!

Under the flower on the illustration here, and on the top of every page, is the Discussion Index. If you click that one you'll see everything we offer.

Welcome, welcome, welcome! Ask any question here any time! SO glad you're here!

ginny · « **Reply #990 on:** April 29, 2009, 10:05:55 AM »

Barbara, Mary and Pedln, thank you for posting those super links. I know the Burroughs is long but I hope to listen to it in its entirety soon, wonderful stuff!!

I feel better in reading the book The Big Rich as he says people in the North really don't know anything about Texas, he's right, what an education this book is. Texaco, I didn't know what that was, Exxon which used to be Esso, I hope he talks about that change, does anybody remember why it was made and what Esso stood for originally, and what Exxon does now? Standard Oil, it's all beginning to click, that The Big Rich is something else.

I don't know how we could possibly discuss it, it's gigantic, but I think it would make a great book/film thing along with the fiction Giant (have been wanting to read Edna Ferber here for years) and the movie, too.

Pedln they made a mistake leaving YOUR comments off!

Maybe we need a book club which deals with forgotten authors. When is the last time you read Edna Ferber? Pearl Buck? Sinclair Lewis? Maybe we need to revisit them ...heck Ayn is it, Rand? And see if they have stood the test of time and if what they have to say resonates to US today in 2009. Three of them blew me away when I was younger with their books. Well really all four them. I wonder if they would now.

I am NOT going to reread Marjorie Morningstar, that one needs to stay enshrined with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and How Green Was My Valley forever in memory. But the others I think we could look at again with the value of the perspective of age?

??

Giant is a HECK of a book, but So Big is better, in my opinion. Arrowsmith is another one I'm not going to look at again lest it be a mess, but I always disliked Main Street (tho appreciated Babbit and the sequel when I reread them a couple of years ago), but sometimes "literature" is not as fully appreciated in the fires of our youth as it is in later years, would it be better? The language is quite dated in Lewis.

Pearl Buck! Required reading in China today for students to learn about history in the time of the Boxer Rebellion, would her books and sequels stand the test of time for US in 2009?

Our Town, Thornton Wilder, how I absolutely hated that thing, just hated it, thought it was THE most stupid thing I ever saw.. NOW I read a little of it and thought WOW! WOW! Instead of the fires of youth maybe in my case it was the stupidity of youth. Anyway I wonder if there would be any interest in reading some of the Oldies but....Goodies? And seeing how our tastes have matured. If they have! hahahaa

Babi · « **Reply #991 on:** April 29, 2009, 10:43:17 AM »

I don't know, STEPH. I studied Spanish in high school and college, but never had an opportunity to use it with Spanish-speaking natives on a regular basis. I never could speak it properly or understand someone from Mexico speaking it, but like you, I can read billboards, menus, and translate the occasional Spanish phrase I hear on TV.

Oh,good!, GINNY, I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like Main Street. I
remember Edna Ferber with great fondness. There are a number of book I wouldn't mind re-reading from my elder perspective, though I fear I wouldn't be as enamored of them now as I once was. That would be a disappoinment, wouldn't it? Maybe we could suggest only those books we re-read and found still good.

jane · « **Reply #992 on:** April 29, 2009, 11:45:29 AM »

re: BIG RICH....and ESSO as a kid we had these in Ohio and at the time, I thought the O had to do with Ohio. However,in looking it up, it appears that maybe Eastern States Standard Oil is a much better possibility. I think at that time, there were a lot of different names and maybe even "blends" for those who lived in the mountains and those who didn't, etc.

jane

winsummm · « **Reply #993 on:** April 29, 2009, 02:20:31 PM »

I never thought I would like FANTASY MAGIC although I
ve enjoyed sc fi, but there is this lady with three names who writes it well and with political themes that remind me very much of the power structure in my world.

hers is believeable because geographically it could be part of ours.

check out Robin Hobb and the free kindle book Assassins Assistant. the first in the series. it lured me into the full series at six dollars and thirty nine cents a pop.

claire

joyous · « **Reply #994 on:** April 29, 2009, 02:31:28 PM »

Exxon--Exxon/Mobil
Esso
Standard Oil
I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where is a LARGE Exxon refinery, which has always been the life-blood of this city and all of Louisiana. My father started working there when it was Standard Oil and I still have his work-badge when he was there ( he died in 1949). He was
a telegraph operator there (gee, WHO can relate to that?)during the Great Depression.
I would imagine that the Esso name refers to SO (Standard Oil). Where Exxon came from, I have NO idea. Ah!---nostalgia--
JOY

mrssherlock · « **Reply #995 on:** April 29, 2009, 03:41:53 PM »

Robin Hobb's creations are unique and endlessly intriguing. One author who writes about political issues is Lois McMaster Bujold whose space opera series about Miles Vorkosigan never pales with rtereading. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/lois-mcmaster-bujold/

marjifay · « **Reply #996 on:** April 29, 2009, 11:39:27 PM »

That sounds like a great idea, Ginny--to revisit some of the "forgotten" authors. About a year ago I read Pearl Buck's THE GOOD EARTH, actually for the first time, and loved it. I've been meaning to read another book by her someone recommended to me, DRAGON SEED.

Frybabe · « **Reply #997 on:** April 30, 2009, 02:15:37 AM »

Ginny, I like your idea. Horrors, I have never read any of the authors you mentioned. I managed to get away without reading Pearl Buck in high school. I do have How Green Was My Valley and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged on one of my TBR piles.

Shame on me for never having read "...Valley". My Mom is Welsh. She grew up in Merthyr Tydfil, just north of Aberfan for those who remember the great slag pile that slid down the mountain and devoured a school full of children as well as others. Believe me, it was heart wrenching to see all the white crosses on a lush green/grey background across the narrow valley as we traveled by train up to Merthyr Tydfil three years after the disaster. We were lucky. None off our relatives were lost, but many of our relatives friends and neighbors were affected. When I used to travel up Wilkes Barre or Mahanoy City way, I would shudder each time we passed the slag piles along the highway, remembering the white crosses of Aberfan.

Steph · « **Reply #998 on:** April 30, 2009, 08:21:36 AM »

I remember..Esso was a perfectly good name, but they wanted to be trendy. Exxon is actually a made up name from an ad agency. My husbands Dad worked for Texaco and his Uncle was actually one of the Vice Presidents of the company. He testified after the war about the many contracts between Texaco and the government during the war.
Funny.. I was rearranging bookshelves and ran on my Betty MCDonald.. Since we are going to Seattle, wanted to look at Onions in the Stew to see where Vashon actually was. I loved her and have every book..
Sinclair Lewis was an early favorite, but I tried rereading and realized that the style is out of date. He got so very wrought up about what he was writing about.
There are lots of older authors I adore. I actually found the sequel to a Tree grows in Brooklyn in a thrift store a few months ago and have it sitting to be reread in my stack.
I will be off seniorlearn from May 1 through the 18th. No lap top going with us and tomorrow we set off on our Trains and Planes and Automobiles trip to the northwest.

bellemere · « **Reply #999 on:** April 30, 2009, 08:35:46 AM »

I'm just finishing "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan. It's about the Dust Bowl during the thirties. He uses a lot of eyewitness accounts and stories of different familis in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and Kansas. It has real cautionary lessons in the fate of the land, which nourished bison for thousands of years and was destroyed by crop farming in a decade.
the book has been around for a time, published in 2006.All his work is nonfiction; I hope to get some of his others.

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Author Topic: The Library (Read 208088 times)