The Library

[winsummm]

The Library Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is  always out. Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with 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


yes macular degeneration the dry kind. also cateracts, still fairly mild but changing now or is it the md and a focusing anomely which makes for three lines on the music staff.
last year the md didn't change and I didn't know about the vitamens but was taking centrum silver once a day and the doc thought that was why.  I can tell it is changing this year. . .also dry eyes. So I'm, beyond self pity and attempting to cope.
The kindle 2 is veyr light weight about an inch thick and six by eight otherwise. it has a speech capacity and six levels of print size.  the print is actually a kind of ink on paper so is not quite as contrasty as your computer screen would be but with supper bright light, even good day light works for me.

don't wait. your doc probably doesn't even need one.

you can blow up nyt's print on it too as well as your computer.
I still drive but only have a year left on my license and don't believe it will be renewed because things are getting hazy in the distance. doc wants to operate on cateracts but no.

I avoid stress if I can and with all the other problems it won't help that much.  I have a collection of magnifyers tht belonged to my parents, my dad's for stamp collecting and my mom's for reading. all of us not wearing glasses for regular ware.

wet md can be fixed but your doc would know what y ou have . . .it must be dry too.
I google everything including all this. it is reacuring I'm writing this at blown up and make all sorts of errors which hurt my eyes to fix so I don't. sorry.
the v screen and the computer screen seem to irretate eyes now but the kindle does not. hmmmm. so much for that good luck belle. it is a new world full of gadgets and goodies.

it helps to touch type too = typos etc. but I do it with my eyes closed.

claire

[winsummm]

and a tip for evryone. it is easier for us visual challanged folk to read smaller shorter paragraphs . . . puleeeze

[Frybabe]

Here is the link to the government's National Library Service. For those who qualify, they have braille and audio books. I am not sure about large print. You can also do a look up to find a participating library in your area.
http://www.loc.gov/nls/

[winsummm]

thanks for the link. I qualify as to you others who cannot read normal sized print as in newspapers and ordinary library books. Eventually I'll probably use it since it is free, but is also not electronic and may be limited i the number of people currently using it.

good reference though. I've saved it.

claire

[Steph]

How frustrating it must be Bellemere. I love to read and really would miss being able to. I would think that the books for the blind would work however. You can get anything incidently. Where MDH volunteered, thats what he did. All special orders.Textbooks.. flower and garden books, a cookbook for diabetics.. All special order stuff.

[serenesheila]

Steph, please tell your DH, thank you for me.  He is an angel for his volunteer hours as a reader for the blind.  My husband got so much pleasure from his Library for the Blind, membership. 

Periocically, my DH would get a new cataloge.  He and I would go through it and circle all of the titles available.  We often spent time reading.  Some of the books he read had some sexual scenes, and others had coarse language.  Those startled me, at first.  Hearing them outloud was different from reading those same scenes.

We also often visited a Low Vision Clinic.  It has some wonderful aids for the low vision.  Including, talking clocks, and alarm clocks, games, large type cards, and other types of aids for the visiually impared.

Sheila

[Steph]

The volunteers at the center for the blind did wonderful things. They taped, helped with various orders..and mostly did whatever they were asked. I know the director was blind, had a dog and the dog died unexpectedly. They all pulled together and got him on the list and he got a new dog within months..

[ginny]

And in audio books it makes such a difference, at least to me, who reads it, the type of voice. What interesting topics here, just love coming in, I wondered how they chose the readers.

I also love the Wall Street Journal Weekend section, and it's now online. In yesterday's Dear Book Lover the notion of the  Great American Novel (you know, the one we're all going to write someday, hahaha, ) came up.

Apparently this phrase was coined in 1868 in an article in Nation magazine by John W. De Forest, saying that "no American fiction writer had yet produced a true painting of the American soul, 'a picture of the ordinary emotions and manners of American existence.' Only Uncle Tom's Cabin had come close."

Then Cynthia Crossen, the author of Dear Book Lover, mentions a book called 100 Great American Novels You've Probably Never Read by Karl Bridges. It, too, is a book but she and we can read the list on Google's books section: 100 Great American Novels You've Probably Never Read

He's right. You can't copy the list as it stands, you have to scroll the pages of the book till you get to it, but you know how these lists are, you've read some, probably a LOT, you want to start copying the ones you have or have not?

The  surprise here, at least to me, is that I haven't. I really have not read these books. At least not those in the beginning of the list and by the time I realized it I had gone a LONG way down.

 I never even heard of half of them.  Maybe I need to look again, the list is in alphabetical order of author, maybe I'm not TO the authors I've read?  But  Dear Book Lover goes on to say some which have been suggested.  The Corrections has been suggested, I would disagree with that one. I need to get to the L's and see if Sinclair Lewis has been suggested. I would have said Revolutionary Road rather Than The Corrections, I need to get to the Y's and see if Yates is there.

How about Steinbeck? Surely he's on there. The Great Gatsby has been suggested. Moby Dick has been suggested. Olive Kitteridge rears its head again. My goodness what of Welty? How about Ferber? Giant? I need to look again, but it sure did not look promising the first time, how about you? What was the movie with Rod Steiger ...the Pawnbroker, surely that's on there, but I forget who wrote it? It was a good book.

WHOSE American experience, anyway?

Another mention on a different page is the 2009 Man Booker Award winner: Wolf Hall,  by Hilary Mantel, about Thomas Cranmer and Henry VIII. I hate historical novels, just hate them. I guess I figure if I'm going to spend the time reading it, I'm going to believe what it says, what if it's totally made up? Then I'll be the fool, I'll believe something that never happened and my ignorance of history is such that I don't need that,  and I'll have actually lost ground.

However Homer and Langley went OK  (not that there are any other books out on them except Ghosty Men) so I'll try Wolf Hall, as Cranmer and his death haunt me to this day, having learned about it after I came home from Oxford one summer, and didn't know what I was looking at when I was there.

Meanwhile (don't you wonder about the Rabbit series, too, in that Great American Novel thing?), am still reading That Old Cape Magic by  Russo, I think I'll go back and see if he is on that list for Empire Falls.

Have you read any of these books? What's your idea of the  Great American Novel which embodies a true painting of the American soul? Which American soul? When? Don't laugh now, why am I thinking of Laura Ingalls Wilder?

What are you reading? Is it the Great American Novel? HERE is where those awful Longstocking books,  I bet you a dollar come in, I'm going back to the list.

[Babi]

  I understand what you mean about misleading 'historical novels', GINNY.
I like to read those that advertise as 'well-researched' and "historically
accurate. With a well-researched historical novel, I find I understand
more about the customs, mores and general ambience of a period than if I
read a lot of facts in a history book.  Then, too, I find biographies,
especially autobiographies, are often very slanted and not entirely
trustworthy.

[mrssherlock]

Historical novels appeal to me for I get a feel for the flavor of an incident or a time period.  The "facts" can be documented but what do the common folk do, what do they eat or drink for breakfast.  Reading historical fiction I learned that, at a formal dinner, one spoke to the left-hand diner for one course then switched to the right hand for the next.  Silly, little pieces of everyday life afe included along the way of recounting the major events, brings the actors to life.  But, most important, I always remember that history is written by the winners.  Who, now, knows what really happened?  Maybe all these years of reading SF has helped me to consider that what I'm reading is, at the least, possible.

[maryz]

Sometimes historical novels start with a twisting of history and base the story on "what if".  One of John's favorites is an oldie called Oliver Wiswell.  It's based on the premise that in the Revolutionary War, the British won, i.e., the Rebels are the "bad guys".  But, of course, the reader knows in advance that it's fiction.

[mrssherlock]

Mary:  That is a genre called Alternate History; very creative One series I enjoyed, about Germany winning WWII, is by Jo Walton.  Farthing, Ha'penny and Half a Crown show how some Brits have assimilated themselves into the new political reality of Nazidom.  Britain has sued for peace with Germany so it is semi-independent.  But the reach of the abwehr was long and strong.  What is it like for a member of Society to be married to a Jew?

[JoanK]

BELLEMARE:" i forget the novelist wh described self pity as "a dirty little white dog with red eyes that keeps trying to climb into your lap"

tHAT'S EXACTLY RIGHT!

JOANG: I missed the puffins when I was in Perce. To see them, I would have had to climb a long ladder up a steep cliff, and I am afraid of heights. Although I've seen them in a zoo, I've never seen them in the wild and always regretted it.

Are you a birder, like me?

[joangrimes]

Yes,  Joan K. I am a birder.   I absolutely adore Puffins. They are the most adorable little birds.  I had to go out in a tiny boat into the Bay of Fundy to see the Puffins.  If I had not had Theron to help me I would never have been able to accomplish it.  I am terribly afraid of water and boats.

It was a real experience and one that I know I will never repeat.  I am just so thankful that I got to do it once.

Joan Grimes

[Frybabe]

I like to fact check when I am reading. When reading about a place, I like use Google Maps and Google Images. Currently I am traveling the Scottish Highlands with a book about the Highland Clearances. Sometimes, I print out a map or a photo or two of people and places that I read about to put with the book.

[Jonathan]

Ginny, are you certain about the subject of the book that won the Man Booker prize? I saw a mention of it the other day, and seem to remember it as being about Thomas Cromwell, that other Cromwell, who was Henry VIII's right hand man. I agree, the story of Cranmer's martyrdom is a moving event. As is most of the history coming out of the Tudor era.

As for not liking historical fiction, why don't you try Hilda Prescott's The Man On A Donkey. About the dissolution of the monastaries. Unforgettable.

[JoanP]

Something else to consider -
We are so close to putting out the titles for you all to consider and check off for future discussion - but there is a last minute suggestion -  a novel by Katherine Howe called,  The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane suggested by our October guest author, Matthew Pearl in the Last Dickens discussion.

  This is a tale of New England grad-student life in 1991 and the Salem witch hunts in 1692. The story follows several sets of mothers and daughters: Connie and Grace, Grace and Sophia, Deliverance and Mercy, Mercy and Prudence. Each of these women have different points of view, and they often have trouble communicating across the generations.

Here's  Katherine Howe's website - I think it's fun to "play"  with - http://katherinehowe.com

And quite a good review by the Washington Post's Carolyn See...

Let us know what you think?  Shall we add it to our list for consideration?  We may be able to get the author to participate.  There's a link to the SUGGESTION Box in the heading here if you care to comment...Thanks!

[pedln]

A most fascinating link, Ginny.  I think what the author is listing is not, what in his opinion are the best 100 Great American Novels, but rather a list of  great American novels we have not read because of the many obstacles that he mentions in his prefece – education, the tax code, discounts, publicity, etc.  I had not read a single one, but was thrilled to see William Maxwell’s name on the list, as I had read his So Long, See You Tomorrow, a somewhat autobiographical novel of his coming of age in Lincoln, IL.  Maxwell was an editor at New Yorker Magazine for many years. For some reason Oil for the Lamps of China by Alice Tisdale Hobart (c1933) rings a bell. And then there is William Dean Howells, who is mentioned in Matthew Pearl’s Last Dickens.

I would suggest that this is a good list to keep for when you finish all the titles on your TBR list.  They may or may not be the Best, but they are Great.

JoanP, a very clever website by Katherine Howe and a good review by Carolyn See.  That's a book worth investigating.

[ginny]

Jonathan! SHRIEK! You are right! No no, not Cromwell, can't stand Cromwell and already ordered the book. Sigh sigh. Dissolution of the monasteries? I'll look it up but it was harrowing,  I know that. There's a stained glass window left in Canterbury which the audio points out that they missed when they smashed the ones which dealt with the Archbishop of Canterbury who was being revered.  I'm not sure I could take that but I'll look it up, thank you. You always know the best books. What are YOU reading now? I'm glad to see you!

 Doggone it, that shows you who does not read closely, Cromwell not Cranmer.

Pedln I hope you are right because I don't think I have read any of them either. Why not? Why have we not heard of these books? If I put one of them on the end of my TBA list I'll never see it, my stacks are  stored up against my husband's retirement starting in December.  I just today got Still Life and The Brutal  Telling by Louise Penny and I already like how she writes, and Her Fearful Symmetry which I've read the first chapter of, wow, and the new Patterson non Fiction on the death of King Tut.  Have heard a lot about it.

Is anybody reading any of them?

CROMWELL! YIKES!

[ginny]

Gosh Jonathan, every review of Man on a Donkey is 5 stars, there's nothing other? The author seems to have plenty of credentials:

About the Author
H F M Prescott was born in Cheshire. She read Modern History at Oxford and later received MA degrees there and at Manchester, as well as an honorary doctorate at Durham. She is best known for her historical novel THE MAN ON A DONKEY and her biography of Mary Tudor which won the James Tait Black Prize in 1941. The daughter of a clergyman, she was a committed member of the church of England, and her wide-ranging interests included travel and a deep love of the English countryside that lasted all her life. She died in 1972.

Plenty of rave reviews for the book, too:

      

If this is not the best historical novel ever written it is surely on the short list of contenders for that honor. It presents a broad panorama of Tudor England at the time when Henry VIII was breaking with the Catholic Church. Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's daughter Mary, Cromwell, and other very well known historical personages make appearances. The central character however is Robert Aske, leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, the rebellion which aimed to preserve the old religion. The young girl who loves him, nuns, priests, and noblemen all play a part in the story, and all come alive. The depth of the theme, historical accuracy, and beauty of the writing far surpass what can be found in most of the many novels written about this period. This is a wonderful, profoundly moving book. It deserves a much wider audience.

Good heavens, another one I seem to have missed, where have I been? Thank you for this one, I never heard of it!

[ginny]

I take it back, I've read two: Richard Yates IS on there but for Easter Parade, I have read that. And I've read Raintree County or  Country. Strange thing, I remember seeing some of  those titles on my parent's bookshelves, so they must have known of them.  

Pearson, Katherine Howe's website is like a computer mystery game, how clever of her! Love it! That's what we need here!


And the reviews are really good, too!

Have you ever had to leave work early so you could go home and finish the last chapter of the book you’re reading? It happened to me recently: Katherine Howe’s debut novel . . . is a page-turning, delicious and devilishly delightful read. . . . The Physick Book is the type of book I love—a totally original work that defies description and takes control of your mind and your emotions.
— Publishers Weekly, Galley Talk column

[CubFan]

Greetings -

Ginny -
I was up until after 2 this morning finishing The Brutal Telling. I have read all of her books this year and like Still Life the best. 

I also read all of the Thomas Fleming books this year.   I liked the historical part of all of them since they dealt with periods of history I wasn't as familiar with as I should be; but, I didn't care for the main characters which was disappointing because most of them were women.  They weren't very likable people. 

In addition to reading The Help - which I started today - I'm working on three biographies,  a Beatrix Potter, the Frances Perkins, and Cato's Robert Moses.  All three are fascinating but I only read them a chapter at a time and think about them.  Takes me a long time as I throw in some mysteries, fluff,  and historical fiction along the way.

Since it's already cold outside it looks like a long reading season ahead.

Mary

[ginny]

Mary! There you are! I just discovered Penny, not sure where I've been, I do like the way she writes, am just starting Still Life.  Up till 2 this morning sounds like something I  have longed for!  Can't wait to get there.

__________________________________

Jonathan, thank you. I was able to cancel that order for Wolf Hall, as it was not due to ship till the 19th,  and ordered a Man on a Donkey, used copy, because of the cover, such a beauty, and the fact that new copies are not available except in the hundreds, I have no idea how I missed hearing of this author.

That's one thing I love about this Library, all the great book recommendations here.

_______________________________________

Mary, have you read any of Lindsey Davis? I got her Alexandria, it's new and thought I'd read it for a face to face class and found to my shock I like her? Again historical fiction, this time a detective in Ancient Rome (or in this case Alexandria) and really I like the way she writes, not at all what I had thought.

_________________________________

I just read am article on A. S. Byatt's new one The Children's Book, I think it was in Entertainment Magazine, (don't ask why I take that thing, but they are good for media) and the photograph there stunned me, I had not pictured her like that, had thought of her as some kind of older Padma Lakshmi even tho I knew she is Margaret Drabble's sister.

They just did an article on Drabble in the NY Times Magazine a few weeks back and there SHE is looking severe, but ...whatever... they said her furniture is covered in plastic (did they say plastic? ) against the grandchildren..  I have a lot of problems with Drabble, but would never have marked them as sisters.

[Steph]

Lindsey Davis.. Oh I do love her series. I have read a good many Falco's.. Wonderful evocative series on Rome.
I am now reading ( title escapes me, book is downstairs and I am up). a book by Rachel --- It is about a year of her life when she learns to live with her younger sister who is retarded. The Sister rides buses all day every day in a small city in Pennsylvania. Rachel joins her for weeks at a time when she can and learns how her sister lives and perhaps why.. She also works in the story of their growing up, which is heart wrenching. Amazing book.. Gives you such a clear picture of the limits of the educable retarded. Makes you understand how the state helps them to help themselves. The terrible risks involved when you dont understand long term risk. All in all, I love it and find I want to send it to everyone I know.. to say.. Look... did you know this.. Amazing. Am not generally that taken with any book.. It is true ....

[Babi]

 "Oil for the Lamps of China" was made into a movie, way back when. I saw
it years later (it came out the year I was born) and remember it starred
Pat O'Brien.  Maybe that's why it's ringing a bell, PEDLN.
  The Prescott book sounds like one I would like read. I'll see if I can
find a copy.

 Shucks, I tried the Katherine Howe link and got "this web address is not
available'. I know that's not so, since some of you used it successfully.
Maybe I can find it through another route. A mystery game, huh? Sounds
intriguing.

 I've read many of Lindsey Davis' books, GINNY, and enjoyed them very much.
She has written quite a few books about the ancient Rome detective, so
you have more to look forward to. You might think about going back to the
beginning, tho', as the characters and relationships develop over time.

[Frybabe]

Ginny, You are finally reading Lindsey Davis. I have not yet read Alexandria. I am still waiting for the paperback version. It is slow in coming. My favorites  her first Falco, Silver Pigs and The Iron Hand of Mars.

Her book A Course of Honour is very good. It is not a Falco, but related in that it is in the same time period. It is about Vespasian's mistress.

Her newest book due out next year is Rebels and Traitors which is about the English Civil War.

[JoanP]

A Special Announcement -

We've just opened a poll to assess interest in a number of titles for upcoming Book Discussions.
IF YOU NEED MORE INFORMATION, the titles in the header of the Suggestion Box are links to reviews.
PLEASE MARK AS MANY TITLES THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE TO DISCUSS in depth in the coming months. (We're looking for a number of titles)
WHEN YOU ARE READY, THE POLL IS HERE

[Steph]

OK.. I have brought the book upstairs.. "Riding the Bus with my Sister", A true life journey by Rachel  Simon. I loved it, hated it to end and feel I have learned many things about mental retardatiion and how different people react so differently. I lived next door twice in our life to someone who was retarded. At the beach, our neighbors, father and son ,, the son was retarded. Like the girl in the book, He was probably in the mid or low 70's. He had gotten a drivers license, could read and write.. but was a puzzle to us. He talked more or less constantly, very loud and when you went outside, would come racing up and not stop.. Hard if you were having a busy day. The couple who moved acrross the street had a terrible time. She was a beautiful woman, used to be a model and he fell in love and hounded her so much. She tried so hard to be gentle and nice, but he got more and more aggressive and would simply sit on her doorstep until she needed to go out.. Hard to handle. I know I talked to his Dad twice because when our granddaughter came to stay, he wanted her to come out and play with him. He was 40 and she was 3 and he frightened her with the loud voice and the boistrousness.. I always wondered how to deal with him and the book gave me clues as to what might have helped.
Years ago we had a neighbor whose son was the exact age as my younger son. They were both about 6 when we moved in. He was more retarded and attended a special school and also had physical problems.

[serenesheila]

I just watched a segment on C-Span 2's, non fiction, weekend show.  I had recorded it.  It was the author of "The Harding Affair".  It was so interesting, that I ordered the book, for my Kindle.  It is not just about Harding's affair with a married woman, it is about world events, and people from 1911, forward. 

I am fascinating about that time period of world history.  Those years affected both my grandparents, and my parents.  The more I read, and hear about that period of time, the more I wish I had talked more with my parents and grandparents, about their memories.

Sheila

[bellemere]

Serene Sheila, the wonderful novelist Pat Barker is also fascinated with that WWI period; her trilogy Regeneration, Eye in the Door and Ghost Road all deal with "shell shock" or battle fatigue, or post traumatic stress syndrome, as it came to be called.  then she has a new one out, Life Class about the war and its effect on young art studentsw in London.  Also, The Long Road,by Sebastian Barry is all abpit that terrible slaughter, but it is almost too graphic for most people.  and of cours, the true memoir of Vera Britten, Testament of Youth.
Racking what's left of the brain to remember the novelist who described self pity as a dirty little white dog trying to climb up on your lap; I think it was Alison Lurie in the Accidental Tourist.
I love some historical fiction.  Right now the book enshrined in my mind as the best I have ever read is Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.  My daughter in law says she had to read it in French at Harvard; her provessor was crazy about it. It was the centerpiece for discussion at the New England Great Books institute a couple of years ago.
For real history writing, Barbara Tuchman is my idol  she really makes everything come alive.  Another WWI researcher with The Guns of August . 
Oh, so many books, so little time. 
Anybody a Flannery fan?  Just getting into some of her stories, and keep thinking about the "grotesque"  What does that word mean in terms of fiction?  someone asked her why she wrote all her stories set in the south and she said the South is one part of the country that can still recognize a freak.  What was that about?  Anyway, I really like her unflinching look at hypocricy.

[pedln]

Riding the Bus with My Sister -- that sounds like a winner, Steph.  My library does not have it, but that's a title I'll watch for in the used bookstores.

Well, don’t feel bad if you found that you had not read any of the books on the recently posted 100 Great American Novels.  Nina Sankovitch has a list – almost 365 titles – where you will have found many that you know.  Read about her quest in the NY Times and then check out her blog –Read All Day – as she describes what it’s like to read one book a day.


A Quest to Read a Book a Day for 365 Days

Read All Day

Ms. Sankovitch claims not to be a Type A maniac and does seem pretty normal. A non-reading indulgence, she says, is watching “NCIS” while folding laundry. Still, to make this work she’s cut out a lot — the garden, The New Yorker, wasting time online, ambitious cooking, clothes shopping, coffee with friends.

Aside from the pleasure of it, Ms. Sankovitch had other goals — inspiring a love of books in others and finding her way through a period of sorrow and soul-searching brought on by the death of her sister Anne-Marie in 2005

Bellemere, did you mean Anne Tyler for Accidental Tourist?

[maryz]

I would think a mandatory "book a day" for a year would become quite onerous after a while, and no longer be a pleasure.

[mrssherlock]

She might do it my way, not that I'll read 365 books in 365 days.  I'm usually reading 3 or 4 at the same time unless one is so riveting that I can't put it down. 

[Judy Laird]

I watched the movie last night Riding the bus with my Sister.

It was very good and I enjoyed Rosie O'Donnell
as the retarted girl. Something I would not usually tape
but I am glad I did.

[bellemere]

Oh, pedlin, perhaps it was Anne Tyler.  But the name Alison Lurie keeps looming.  she must have similar book. 
does anyone keep a systematic list of books read, and when?

[marcie]

bellemere, I've been intrigued by Flannery O'Connor's novels and short stories. I haven't read them in a long time but would like to revisit them. I think that "grotesque" literature includes a focus on people and situations that make you want to cringe but that have some redeeming qualities. There is something about her writing that reminds me of Patricia Highsmith, of whom she was a contemporary (although O'Connor died very young of lupus).

[bellemere]

I looked up "grotesque" in my trusty Merriam Webster dictionary (which is published in our town, incidentaly) and it gave as the root "grotto" referring to the cave paintings of primitive people . some of them were fantastic animals, with human heads, or entwined with plants.  In literature it came to mean the juxtaposition of the realistic with the absurd. Relating to Flannery O'Connor, it seems to describe her joining  the comic and the tragic to each other , no?  Especially the absurd self delusions with tragic consequences.  At least that is what I can connect. 

[JoanR]

The "dirty little white dog" metaphor was in "Foreign Affairs" by Alison Lurie.  I didn't know that!  I looked it up in Google!!!  Poor little dog - I'd give him a bath, a cuddle and some dinner.

[JoanR]

Has anyone seen "Bright Star" (about Keats and Fanny Brawne)?    It has sent me to my "Oxford English Verse" to re-read his poems.  My sister has just memorized the whole of "Ode to a Nightingale" - I couldn't do that if my life depended on it!  That's what she does for "brain exercise"  -   me, I take Latin!

[mrssherlock]

Since we don't have a discussion group for TV I'll chime in here.  The Discovery Channel presentation last night on Ardi, Ardipithicus Ramidus , a partial skeleton of an ancestor 4.4 million years old which has turned the estimates of the evolution of Homo Sapiens on its ear.  The previous oldster was Lucy, 3 million years old.  Ardi is 100,000 generations older!  My head is still swimming.  http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1022