Author Topic: The Library (Read 149294 times)

bellemere · « **Reply #920 on:** September 22, 2009, 08:14:57 PM »

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

Mssherlock, a few years back I read By the Lake, and its charm stayed with me. I could not remember the author's name, and the book title is replicated in the US in anovel about fishing.
But I dug up the author; he is John McGahern, not William, and By the Lake will definitely be one of the books I recommend. \
You would like Annie Dunne, it is also set in rural Ireland.
Thenk you for the link, I am anxious to read that review.

Steph · « **Reply #921 on:** September 23, 2009, 07:43:29 AM »

I agree about The Dante Club. It is still sitting somewhere in the house. Just couldnt get at all interested in what was happening to anyone. Just now I am reading a fairly new Terry Pratchett and doing my usual hysterical laughing.. My husband grumps at me since I am told that cant read a page without breaking into more laughing.. Ah well, I was in a bad mood and Terry always cheers me up.

mrssherlock · « **Reply #922 on:** September 23, 2009, 03:21:32 PM »

I'm still waiting for March and when i went into the database to look where I was on the list it had disappeared! so I went through the reservation process again and there are many copies and all are available! I'll be picking it up as soon as they notify me its ready.

JoanK · « **Reply #923 on:** September 23, 2009, 09:16:50 PM »

ALF: I liked the "Dragon Tatoo" and "Played with Fire" too. The latter is definately violent, though. Larsson wrote one more before he died "The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest". It's coming out soon.

I'm glad Ken Howard won an Emmy, although I didn't see the show. I owe him a debt -- in his serial "The White Shadow" he was doing anti-drug stories for young boys years before anyone else was, and greatly influenced my son.

mrssherlock · « **Reply #924 on:** September 23, 2009, 10:13:04 PM »

Ken Howard's White Shadow was a jewel of a show and I feel it has been sadly overlooked. It was one program we never missed.

Steph · « **Reply #925 on:** September 24, 2009, 07:54:07 AM »

Had not thought of the show in years. I did like Ken Howard very much.

Babi · « **Reply #926 on:** September 24, 2009, 08:26:18 AM »

I'm so glad to hear that, JACKIE. I am finding more and more of interest
as I get further into the book. I'm anxious to have your opinion. I'm
also wondering if availibility will be a problem if the book is proposed
for discussion. I had to obtain my copy through a interlibrary loan. If
the book is eventually scheduled for discussion, I intend to pick up a
second-hand copy of my own.

Steph · « **Reply #927 on:** September 25, 2009, 03:03:02 PM »

On the road again.On our way to Franklin,NC.. It had better be cooler and dryer than Florida. I am all out of wanting to be warm just now.

maryz · « **Reply #928 on:** September 25, 2009, 03:18:16 PM »

Steph, we'll be home in a couple of days. You'll be just down the road in Franklin. If you decide to come to Chattanooga for a day, give me a holler. We'd love to meet up with you sometime.

It's been a long, but good month on the road. As always, we ready to head for home. We're in Norfolk this afternoon, stopping early, hoping to get to go to dinner with our Navy grandson.

winsummm · « **Reply #929 on:** September 26, 2009, 02:26:30 AM »

to make tiny urls go here to thie link.
''http://tinyurl.com/create.php?url='+location. and follow directions
claire

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #930 on:** September 26, 2009, 06:20:00 AM »

Thanks Winsom - my old link was not working - I am so glad to have the new URL.

When I could not link on I found another site that does the same work
http://www.piurl.com/

Steph · « **Reply #931 on:** September 26, 2009, 02:45:40 PM »

In Franklin for a few days, then on to Cherokee.. Am a month early for the good craft shows.. Southern Highlands Guild is in October and so is a big one in Gatlinburgh.. Ah well. it is cooler, but alas raining.. Since we must be home on the 6th, will not go over the mountain to Chattanooga this trip. MDH had MOHS on his arm and he must be home to get stitches ( a whole bunch down the arm) out.. and Gracie our rescue corgi is being treated for heartworm and must have her second and third shots.. Sigh.. I am healthy however and maybe sometime soon, we will get over the mountain and visit. Looks like such a nice town.

mrssherlock · « **Reply #932 on:** September 26, 2009, 04:03:29 PM »

Today I picked up March, Homer and Langley, and Year of Wonders, all of which may become future discussion subjects. Such riches!

PatH · « **Reply #933 on:** September 26, 2009, 04:16:36 PM »

I just read "Year of Wonders". It's a very good read--I read it straight through. My main quibble is that the heroine/narrator has a tone that seems too modern, but it's still a good story.

mrssherlock · « **Reply #934 on:** September 26, 2009, 05:43:07 PM »

Add Matthew Pearl's The Last Dickens to my list above; that discussion starts 10/1.

JoanP · « **Reply #935 on:** September 26, 2009, 06:07:09 PM »

It's great to have an author actively participating in the discussion, isn't it? M. Pearl seems to be ready to entertain all of our questions. Just wish we could communicate with Charles Dickens! The questions we'd be asking him about his last novel!

maryz · « **Reply #936 on:** September 26, 2009, 08:44:43 PM »

Sorry we'll miss seeing you, Steph. Hope your DH is okay - but what is "MOHS"? (Can't figure that one out.

)

Steph · « **Reply #937 on:** September 27, 2009, 09:56:16 AM »

MOHS is a type of surgery for skin cancer. They keep shaving down until they find benign.. It is actually a technique.. Supposed to keep as much as they can of your skin.. We find it works maybe 50% of the time. Depends on the type of cancer.. Basal, it is really effective, squamus not so much, but he always tries for it since the other surgeries are truly extensive.. He only has 1/3 of hs ear on his right side because it could not be contained..
Beautiful today in Franklin,NC.. Hooray for us.

maryz · « **Reply #938 on:** September 27, 2009, 10:32:40 AM »

Thanks for the info, Steph. Sunshine here today, too. Enjoy the fall crafts shows.

ANNIE · « **Reply #939 on:** September 27, 2009, 10:55:13 AM »

Just finished having MOHS, Steph. My forehead looks like I have been in a wreck.They found no cancer on the tested places as yet but have 9 more samples to test. Two years ago, they found basal cell behind my ear. Good luck to your husband. (((((((hugs to both of you))))))))))

As my granny would say, "Ain't life grand!!"

winsummm · « **Reply #940 on:** September 27, 2009, 12:21:20 PM »

foggy here. unusual for summer in this area. san clemente

I'm into several books that don't hold me on the kindle. feeling older every day every hour. . .physically that is. the rest of me is frustrated and annyed at the world. politically I think I'll become an independent, especially if there is no public option. democrats, my party for my entire life, are wimps. I know it's not nice to bring politics into this descussion. . .sorry . . . claire

nlhome · « **Reply #941 on:** September 27, 2009, 12:39:00 PM »

Claire, same here, for the frustration, etc. anyway.

I am struggling to finish one book, have several others that are waiting but that don't appeal that much either. Am reading A Fearsome Doubt by Charles Todd, have several bathroom remodeling books to go through also.

Weather in this part of the state has been so excellent all September. We have a high wind warning for this evening, and rain. But right now the sun is out, it's about 68 degrees, and the flowers are still blossoming. Had coffee on the deck again this morning.

Steph · « **Reply #942 on:** September 28, 2009, 08:34:49 AM »

I am reading a really funny book that uses as its base, the romanc of Wallis Windsor and the Prince of Wales. Laurie Graham does this sort of odd books.. based on reality with a good dose of other.. This one is truly funny. I love the odd swipes at both English and Americans..

Babi · « **Reply #943 on:** September 28, 2009, 09:19:34 AM »

Don't apologize, CLAIRE. I've always been an 'independent'. I vote for
the man or woman, not the party. I always hope for a 'statesman', as
opposed to a 'politician'.
Nice to hear you find an amusing book about Wallis and Edward, STEPH.
Most of what I've heard is decidedly more on the sad and unpleasant side.

mrssherlock · « **Reply #944 on:** September 28, 2009, 11:04:19 AM »

Babi: Geraldine Brooks' March is a great story. As the father of Little Women Papa March becomes a fascinating, complex character who stands on his own here. There are many threads running through the story which would make for lively discussions. What awes me is Brooks' talent at weaving the threads and her use of the male voice seems whole and true. I must say that it was your enthusiasm that prompted me to read this book. I am grateful, it will be one of the one's that live on in my memory for a long time.

JoanP · « **Reply #945 on:** September 28, 2009, 11:27:47 AM »

Jackie, do you want to nominate March in the suggestion box? (there's a link in the header here.) I see that Brooks' Year of Wonders has also been nominated.
We will be voting very soon for upcoming books for discussion...

mrssherlock · « **Reply #946 on:** September 28, 2009, 02:30:26 PM »

March is certainly worth nominating but I'd hate to have two of Brooks' books competing. Since I intend to read both it matters little to me which one we start with since I believe that these should both be discussed. My taste of March so far has whetted my appetite and I have to restrain myself from galloping through it. Year of Wonders is attractive because of my multiple readings of Connie Willis' Doomsday Book, found in Science Fiction, a treatment of the effect of the plague on a small English village . Brooks' talent has me enthralled. Here is another of her books on my list: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/geraldine-brooks/foreign-correspondence.htm

winsummm · « **Reply #947 on:** September 28, 2009, 09:28:05 PM »

Christopher Riech's numbered account has me interested a murder mystery but mostly a person to person exploration of how the swiss banking system works andd how it can be employed for whatever nefarious purposes.

well written too. Writing with minor problems,usually in forms of the pronouns always interrupts me.this is fine or at least the editing is. I probably should do it better too but even the spell check isn't helping me today. sorry about that.
claire

mrssherlock · « **Reply #948 on:** September 29, 2009, 01:14:29 AM »

The Rules of Deception is also a Christopher Reich book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/christopher-reich/rules-of-deception.htm
The lead cxharacter, Dr Jonathan Ransom, works for Doctors Without Borders in some of the hellholes of the third world. He is devastated when his beloved nurse-wife, Emma, breaks her leg while they are skiing in Switzerland. He goes for help but when he returns he finds, as she has attmepted to come to meet him, she has fallen in a crevasse and lies dead many feet below. The ski patrol rescue team lacks sufficient rope and they must leave her body until the approaching storm has passed.

Babi · « **Reply #949 on:** September 29, 2009, 07:41:46 AM »

JOANP & JACKIE, I was in the DL workshop before coming here, and mentioned
Jaqckie's enthusiasm for "March". I've already suggested that the book be
proposed to see if there was sufficient interest in it. I didn't know about
"Year of Wonders".
What is that one about? I'm sufficiently sold on Geraldine Brooks to be
interested in any book she writes.

JoanP · « **Reply #950 on:** September 29, 2009, 08:02:33 AM »

Babi - if you go into the Suggestion Box - see the link in the header here - you wll see a list of the books that have been suggested. The titles in that list are links to reviews of each book.

Must add that on my "to do" list for tiday - to add the recent suggestions to that list on top. But I know that Year of Wonders is up top with a link. Hope that helps...

We will be voting on those titles next week - if you have another title you would like to see discussed, there is istill time to nominate. We have two Geraldine Books up against one another this time. A tough decision, she is the best~ March is the one that won her the Pulitzer...

ginny · « **Reply #951 on:** September 29, 2009, 08:26:49 AM »

Golly did you hear NPR this morning? Richard Russo was asked to review some fiction and he ended up doing works on the office worker, the state of office workers, who seem to feel they are something other than their job. This one has the Great American Novel in his desk, that one dreams of esacpe, but when their jobs are threatened, they find out something else. Very powerful. Already all over Twitter.

Yes, here it is: Reading 9-to-5: Richard Russo's Favorite Office Lit http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113160169, you can hear it or read it. Love NPR.

He ended up comparing Melville's Bartelby the Scrivener if I have that right, I've never read that, have you? and the book he was reviewing and then I lost the satellite in the car and he was talking about Frank Wheeler, we don't need to be told who HE is, Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates. I really like Russo, he read some fascinating quotes from the books which made you want to run out and get them immediately. Particularly the Melville (since we read Revolutionary Road here a long time ago with the Franzen). Apparently one man in an office, when asked to be part of a team, replied, "I don't care to," and this messed up the entire office.

His That Old Cape Magic is our November selection and sounds like a wonderful read. Did anybody hear him? I'm going to see if it's online by any chance, I missed some of it.

I'm reading Smile While You're Lying, an expose of travel industry writers and how to tell when they are making stuff up. It's one of two exposes referenced in the Bourdain edited Best Travel Stories. The author used to work for the Lonely Planet books and is scathing about them, it's an eye opener.

I'm also reading Ghosty Men, a very small non fiction book, not new, about the Collyer brothers and the author's Uncle Arthur. He's been roundly criticized for too much on Uncle Arthur and not enough on Homer and Langley, but there's enough in this tiny book on Homer and Langley that I did not know and I like Uncle Arthur. This appears to be some sort of anomaly, this collecting thing, and passed down. In most of the cases, the parents also "collected" different things.

What a lot of great reading you're doing and we've got another surprise coming soon, don't miss it!

What are YOU reading? Is anybody reading the new Zafon?

Steph · « **Reply #952 on:** September 29, 2009, 08:47:19 AM »

Smile while you are lying sounds great. We travel a good bit and I am always surprised at the amount of misinformation out there. A guide now has to make me resonate with what they are telling me and if I know something did not happen or happened quite diferently I withdraw from this. Egypt was the worst. For some reason most of the guides simply cannnot or will not tell anything close to reality.
Then we had the austrian guide who admired Hitler ( sigh). Ah well, I also have had some truly great guides and some really fine agents who helped a lot.. If you find an agent who leads tours as well, they know the nicest small hotels.. And I do love small hotels..

ginny · « **Reply #953 on:** September 29, 2009, 09:23:11 AM »

Stephanie, do you know Karen Brown's books of the best little inns, etc, and B&Bs? They are definitely not new books but they are really accurate. Have you ever seen the Inspector? A BBC America series on hotel inspections in the UK? Some of those hotels look really different, and some of them you wouldn't set foot in.

Gumtree · « **Reply #954 on:** September 29, 2009, 12:42:42 PM »

Quote from: ginny on September 29, 2009, 08:26:49 AM

I'm also reading Ghosty Men, a very small non fiction book, not new, about the Collyer brothers and the author's Uncle Arthur. He's been roundly criticized for too much on Uncle Arthur and not enough on Homer and Langley, but there's enough in this tiny book on Homer and Langley that I did not know and I like Uncle Arthur. This appears to be some sort of anomaly, this collecting thing, and passed down. In most of the cases, the parents also "collected" different things.

What are YOU reading? Is anybody reading the new Zafon?

Yes the collecting thing is some sort of an anomaly - Found this yesterday when I was clearing out lots of 'stuff' - Can't think why I kept it....

Secret of compulsive hoarding revealed
Do you know one of those people who just can't resist filling up every nook and cranny with junk? Now you can impress dinner party guests by revealing that compulsive hoarders may have a problem in their right mesial prefrontal cortex.
Steven Anderson of the University of Iowa and his team studied a group of pathological collectors. They found that damage to the frontal lobes of the brain impaired judgement and caused emotional disturbances. But only when the injury extended to the right mesial prefrontal cortex, did the patients develop a serious collecting habit too. Anderson told a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans this week.
Previous work in rodents shows that more prinitive subcortical brain regions produce the drive to collect food or useless objects. No matter how much they have stashed away, animals will just go on collecting.
We have the same basic drive, says Anderson. But the right mesial prefrontal cortex can normally discriminate between something of value and something that's useless, and keeps the drive in check. When it is damaged the more primitive collecting drive comes to the fore.
from New Scientist 15 November 2003

This could explain the collecting habits of people like the Collyers - judging by the amount of 'stuff' I've accumulated over the years I guess that at some stage I damaged my own right mesial prefrontal cortex. What about you !

PatH · « **Reply #955 on:** September 29, 2009, 12:57:35 PM »

Quote from: Gumtree on September 29, 2009, 12:42:42 PM

I guess that at some stage I damaged my own right mesial prefrontal cortex. What about you !

So that's why I'm like that!

The more serious hoarders go through a classic set of stages, from saving old clothes and papers to newspapers to adopting a lot of stray cats. I've known some partial cases, but none reaching the danger point.

mrssherlock · « **Reply #956 on:** September 29, 2009, 12:58:30 PM »

Babi: A very personal reaction to Year of Wonders vs March Year is a good story by a journeyman writer. March is head and shoulders above it. I am reading Year but I am living March. IMHO a discussion of The Plague from a book would be exciting if it is Doomsday Book, somewhat pedestrian if it is Year.

marcie · « **Reply #957 on:** September 29, 2009, 02:00:57 PM »

Ohhh, I hope I never reach the hording stage of collecting junk. All my stuff is treasure. :-)

If you've ever read The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Dickens VOTE NOW in our poll on what you think happened to Edwin Drood.

winsummm · « **Reply #958 on:** September 29, 2009, 11:10:17 PM »

treasures? I've got too many, most of it home made. I've been inviting old friends to to select art and ceramics to take home with them. let them collect for a while.

marcie · « **Reply #959 on:** September 30, 2009, 01:30:17 AM »

That's generous of you, winsummm. It's wonderful to share your personal art.

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Author Topic: The Library (Read 149294 times)