The Library

[PatH]

The Library Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is  always out. Do come in from the heat and humidity 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


Thank you, Pat H.

[PatH]

Ginny, about the only thing the movie "I, Robot" and Asimov's book have in common is the title.  The book is a collection of short stories which sort of make a connected story--interesting enough for fans, but the premises are incompatible with the movie plotline.

I'd love to know what you think of R. U. R. when you finish.  Maybe you could tell us in the sci-fi site as well as here.

[mabel1015j]

I'm in the midst of sev'l books: the Frances Perkins book, a Margaret Truman mystery - Murder in the White House, a Nelson DeMille book -The Gate House. DeMille makes me laugh w/ his wit. I mentioned in the mystery discussion that i almost passed up this book. I had read The Gold Coast and when i started The Gate House, the prologue sounded very familiar, so i tho't "I've read this book!" altho i was pretty sure i hadn't. I put it in the stack to go back to the library, however it worried me and about a week later i went back to it................it turned out the prologue was a dream the protagonist was having about an event that was in The Gold Coast, and the book is a continuation of The Gold Coast. I'm sure many of you who are DeMille fans know what i'm talking about. ..............authors shouldn't do that to those of us who have read thousands of books, it's tough enough trying to be sure we aren't re-reading a volume. We've all got strategies - keeping lists, notebooks, handheld devices, on-line lists  - to keep us from doing that............. ............i do to, but i tho't maybe i had missed putting The Gate House on my list of "read" books! That could be a reality!?!

I'm so impressed that we have 3 authors with us! Way to do discussion leaders! ...............jean

[maryz]

I've started the Frances Perkins book, too (on my kindle) and am really liking it.  So much that I've sent a hard copy to our college-junior-political-science-major-lawschool-bound granddaughter to read.  This is definitely a lady she needs to know.   

John also got a copy of an oldie - a 1962 John D. McDonald - The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything.  It's a fun one, and I've just started it.  Unfortunately, it's an old paperback, with tiny print, so even though it should be a quick read, I won't be able to read very much at one time.

[pedln]

A fun site about the bookmarks, MaryZ.  Thanks for posting.     

[mrssherlock]

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Steig Laarrson, 2nd in the series, is open on my desk right next to the keyboard.  Also Parlour Games by Mavis Cheek, open on the bedside.  My sister got me started on Elizabeth Adler, sort of like Danielle Steel, I suspect, but addicting.  I'm working my through her list.  Sing it to her Bones   by Marcia Ralley, is an author new to me; she writes about Hannah Ives, recovering from breast cancer, who  finds herself caught up in tragedy when she discovers a body in an abandoned well. The World Beneath by Aaron Gwyn is a mythlike tale of missing person, a young half-breed boy in rural Oklahoma.  Finally, I just finished a debut novel, A Bad Day for Sorry, by Sophie Littlefield.  A 50ish woman has appointed herself as caretaker for abused women in rural Missouri.  She takes care of the women by taking care of their abusers, so thoroughly that they dare not ever lift a hand against any woman.  Then she runs into a stuupid jerk who can't quite believe that the rules are for other people.  This one is fun but there is blood and gore,  Also in the stack to be returned is Rachel Caine's latest in the Morganville Vampire series, Lord of Misrule; the kids are still hanging on, by their fingernails, but there is another book coming out.  Stay tuned.

[mabel1015j]

Yes, Mary, that is a fun site. Haven't we all found detritus in our second-hand and library books? ....................jean

[nlhome]

Oh Maryz, The Girl,  The Gold Watch and Everything is fun book. It's a favorite in our house.
N

[Babi]

 GINNY, I believe "I,Robot" was the first book introducing the robotic theme
to science fiction. Asimov was certainly the author who introduced robots.
I have seen a movie version of the book, but I don't believe I've seen one
with Will Smith. I've liked everything Will Smith has done. I'll have to
look into that.

 Marcie, I read "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" sometime last year and thought
it fairly evident how it was going to turn out. I could have been completely
wrong, of course, but it didn't seem like something that would require Holmes,
Poirot, Wolfe, et al to solve.

MARYZ, the pictured bookmarks are real antiques. I suspect that the forunate
finder would also find they are quite valuable.

[ginny]

GINNY, I believe "I,Robot" was the first book introducing the robotic theme
to science fiction. Asimov was certainly the author who introduced robots.
I have seen a movie version of the book, but I don't believe I've seen one
with Will Smith. I've liked everything Will Smith has done. I'll have to
look into that.

Oh no, Babi, not at all.  The inventor of the word ROBOT and the concept of robots,  was definitely  Karel Capek, who was born in 1890. I can't believe I am giving a wikipedia url but there it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_%C4%8Capek

He coined the term in 1921, tho he gave credit for the term to his brother Josef, who apparently died in Bergen Belsen. The Wiikpedia article has a photo of his grave.


Thank you all for the great references. and info.  PatH , I reread R.U.R.  a couple of years ago after finally finding a copy, I found it something that a lot of other authors have copied, thematically,  so that it seems the archetype of robots taking on a soul and human characteristics and rebelling. It is a play which can be read in 1/2 hour, and it has implications for humanity in it as well, like 1984, in this case against the growing Nazi menace. All that  despite the simplicity. Such a shame nobody appears to know who it or Capek is.

Too bad  that copies of it are so scarce, but there it is, it would make a super discussion. I'll look again on Amazon, maybe somebody has done a reprint.  *** In Edit! WhOOP! They have a brand new edition for 8 bucks, $2.50 on kindle,  and $3 used, it can be read in one sitting, what do you think, Pat H? Want to discuss  this historic book? Maybe in ...whatever month is free in our discussions?

I picked up I Robot and another larger book of Asimov's robot stories, but could not find Baley (sp but had it copied down), will look further, Marcie, which one do you recommend I start with?


Golly how you all read!! And the variety! I am in AWR of you! Give us a quote from something you really love now!

[ginny]

Mary what an interesting site, the Forgotten Bookmarks. I am interested in the Growing Sugar  Beets, they look like parsnips to me? I wonder if that's the same thing? My grandbaby watches Curious George while eating lunch and on it they show a film of growing parsnips and leaving them over the winter so they will be sweet. They look exactly like that!

In Edit again: no apparently they are two completely different things! Who knew?

Prior to the Curious George program I did not know what a parsnip looked like. I'm pretty sure I have never eaten one.  

[Gumtree]

Ginny: where I live no roast dinner is really complete unless it has parsnips included among the roasted vegies along with pumpkin potatoes, onions and carrots- they're just the bare essentials.  AND do you mean to tell me you've never made or tasted parsnip wine - it's enough to knock your socks off!

[ALF43]

I'm the wine drinker Gum but never have heard of parsnip wine.
ginny, thre's nothing like roasted parsnips- yum.  I used to put them (just a little) in my veggie soup.

[Frybabe]

Ginny, about the only thing the movie "I, Robot" and Asimov's book have in common is the title. 

PatH, I am glad you brought that up. I read "I, Robot" years ago and didn't remember it being anything like Will Smith's movie. I thought "I, Robot" was a full book though, not short stories. Maybe I have a wrong name. Essentially, I remember the book being about a robot created at a robot factory, sent to serve a very wealth man, and through years of upgrades and modifications became very human like. The robot became like a son and learned how to run the "family" business.  As I recall the old man passed away and left his very extensive estate to the robot. There was a legal battle over whether a robot could inherit or not. Is this what you remember? I don't have my early Asimov books anymore.

[mrssherlock]

Ginny & Babi: you are both right.  Capek coined the word and concept for robots but Asimov, with his Three Laws of Robotics, set the standard against which all positronics robots can be measured today.  The laws are used by other writers as if they were universal, i.e., someone will say, "That can't be, it violates the First Law of robotics." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_robotics  

[PatH]

"That can't be, it violates the First Law of robotics."  

Yes, and that's one thing wrong with the movie: it violates the first law of robotics.

Frybabe, Asimov's book is short stories, but that might be the plot of one of them.  It's been a long time, and I don't remember them well.  Asimov also wrote 3 full length detective stories involving a collaboration between a robot and a human: "Caves of Steel", "The Naked Sun", and "Robots of Dawn".

Ginny, I don't think one could make a discussion of R. U. R. last more than a week at most.  My copy is a Dover Thrift Edition which I bought for $1.50 in 2002; I've no idea if that is still in print.

[mrssherlock]

PatH:  Yes it has a new translation.  :  http://books.google.com/books?id=kSOVBoeCitMC&dq=r+u+r&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Here's Wikipedia's take on R U R:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R._(Rossum's_Universal_Robots)

[mrssherlock]

PatH:  The Dover Thrift Edition you have is the new translation.

[PatH]

Indeed, Jackie, my edition is the first one on your page, with the black and white squared cover.  I see the price has gone up a buck.

My father saw the play here in DC sometime in the twenties.  The last scene (except for the important Epilogue) ends with: "A new world has arisen: the Rule of the Robots! March! [A thunderous tramping of thousands of feet is heard as the unseen Robots march, as the curtain falls.]"  In the production he saw, the robots are all marching toward the audience, and just as they reach the front of the stage, the curtain falls.  No room for messing up there, or they're all toast.

[Frybabe]

PatH, I haven't read those novels you listed. I did read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. Looks like I will have to find a copy of I, Robot and reread it. If it is the story I remember, it is well worth rereading.

Never read R.U.R. nor say the movie (except for clips). Heard so much about it over the years though.

[ginny]

I guess you're right, PatH, and R.U.R. wouldn't make a long   thing to discuss, shame. I've actually been reading quite a few  plays,  it's kind of amazing what they can do with a play.

I'm trying to remember in our history of the Books what we have read in the way of a play, I know we did Waiting for Godot, anybody remember any others? Did we ever do Ibsen?


Do any of you get Ovation as a TV channel? I seem to have just discovered it. Yesterday they had Cosi Fan Tutte all day long, gosh what glorious music and an imaginative staging and tonight the Ian McKellan Richard III, another imaginative staging, which we've discussed before, very powerful.


Yesterday I bought a paperback autobiography of George ("Tanmaster")  Hamilton because he's always fascinated me and today I finally read yesterday's  Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal to find that a new movie has been made of his mother's life, called My One and Only and it's gotten some very positive critical reviews, I had never heard of it. I hope his book Don't Mind if I Do, takes some of that up.

Also in this edition of the WSJ Weekend Journal is their book column which takes up the issue of whose translation you trust, for instance do you always go with Penguin or Oxford and why? The writer wants to read Madame Bovary so she turned to the woman who translated the Elegance of the Hedgehog, Allison Anderson,  which we read here on SL, and asked HER. It makes great reading, and her advice was to compare the same excerpt

from a few different translations and choose the one which "rings" truest to  you.

The problem IS if you don't know the language in the first place, how can you figure out which one rings "true?" A very good column which also contains the assertion that Flaubert didn't sound like any of his translators.


 I didn't  think the  WSJ is free  online but I did find this page which is electric with all kinds of book news, including the finishing of the renovation of the Keats House. http://online.wsj.com/public/page/news-books-best-sellers.html

I don't see the book column, tho.  I like it  very much, have any of you read it? It's called Dear Book Lover by Cynthia Crossen.

[Babi]

 Thanks for that clarification, JACKIE. I was glad to have the additional
information from Ginny about Capek, tho'.

  I read those books about the robot detective, PatH. The awkwardness came
through so well initially, and then the growing sense of a common bond and
partnership. Asimov himself is an amazing person. It's hard to believe one
man accomplished so much.

[ginny]

Gum, what?  I meant to say last night, what?  PARSNIP wine? hahaha No have never had it, either. I see my education has been greatly lacking here. PROBABLY why I am not one of those great chefs on TV: no palate.

(Am I the only one who notices in those TV contests with the great chefs,  they put their fingers INTO hot pans, and turn the burning meat WITH their fingers? They must all be numb. Also lots of tasting while cooking, kind of makes you rethink the dining experience.)


Babi, I agree, Asimov is awesome.


Mrs. Sherlock and Pat H, I am not sure who has the latest translation of R.U.R., Amazon has a Penguin from 2004, but that may not mean it's "new," when I find out I'll let you know, at least it's unread, and the very thought of having a nice new copy rather than my extremely moth eaten treasure bought from somebody who obviously smoked on ebay, was enticement enough: I jumped at it.

Here is the more critical part of their review of the play itself, however: From Amazon's Penguin Classics R.U.R review:

Although the ideas that Capek broached remain extremely influential, the play itself is difficult to evaluate from a modern point of view because in many respects it conforms to then-popular but now outmoded ideas about dramatic structure. Even so, the story of a world gradually consumed and ultimately destroyed through its own technology remains a powerful one--as does the image of the robot, which gradually acquires an unexpected sense of identity and begins to vie with man for domination of the earth.

By and large, plays are written to seen rather than to be read, and this may be particularly true of R.U.R., which proves very difficult to visualize from the page. The seriocomic first act with its emphasis on exposition feels awkward to the modern mind, and the progression of the story has an obvious and awkwardly episodic feel. But it is worth pointing out that if R.U.R. seems obvious to us today, this is because its ideas have been so often used; everything from METROPOLIS to FORBIDDEN PLANET to TERMINATOR, from I ROBOT to RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA has borrowed from it heavily

[Steph]

Asimovs Daneel is the subject of the three mystery scifi books. He was always interesting, especially the first of the series where he went to a world, where noone ever saw humans in person.. I loved Asimov, saw him once at a lecture. He was truly brilliant and funny and kind.. All rolled up in one. I loved his books and have read a lot of them.
Read RUR, but truthfully did not like it that much.
I might be up for the March.... book. Louisa Mae interests me..

[JoanR]

I saw R.U.R many, many years ago - in the 50's - in an off-broadway production somewhere in in the village.  It was so well-done and, of course, I was young and impressionable so it has stayed with me all these years!!  Another play that burned its way into my brain was Mother Courage by Brecht.  That's a hard one to watch - so bitter - that I don't know if I could stand it now.  I thought that the older one got, the tougher one became.  Not so!  One weeps for the world.

Enough!  On to Dickens!  I have the Penguin edition of "Drood"  I also am reading "The Dragon Masters" by Jack Vance.  I was alerted to Vance by a terrific article about him in the NYT Magazine section some weeks ago.  It's been some years since I read a lot of science fiction and it's good to get back to it.  Not so much the nuts and bolts stuff but the books about other societies and our relationship with the rest of the universe.  "Left Hand of Darkness" is terrific. As is, also, "The Sparrow"!

I've been re-reading "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Zafon.  Read it a few years ago, but now his next book is out and, since it is related in some ways to the Shadow,  I felt I should refresh my mind
Boy!  Nothing sticks to it as it used to!!!!!!!

[FlaJean]

Just marking a place.

[Steph]

Mother Courage.. Oh me,, that was my galvanizing mode way back in the 50's.. Led me down the garden path to protesting and a checkered younger life.. Oh me.. takes me back. Like you, dont think I could watch it again. I am way too soft in my older years.

[Babi]

 I think parsnips must be primarily a 'Yankee' thing. I've never seen a
parsnip served here in Texas, much less eaten one. Is it anything like a
radish? And pumpkin with the veggies in a pot roast?!!  I can't even imagine.
  STEPH, I envy you. I would love to have heard Asimov lecture. Don't you
sometimes wish you could have two or three lives, to do all the things you
would like to do?

I thought that the older one got, the tougher one became.  Not so!  One weeps for the world.

  So true, JOANR.  I think when we are young, we simply haven't experienced
enough pain and loss to understand.  Once we do understand the empathy
is there and we share the grief.

[mrssherlock]

I think it's when we finally realize, deep in our gut, that we all suffer no matter what the surface of our lives looks like to the rest of the world.  That and the ability to mentally put ourselves into another's place and feel their pain.  When I was a junior in HS I was shocked to read about one of my classmates dying in Korea.  He was not one of the in crowd, obviously, probably dyslexic, and to imagine one of the kids I knew, however slightly, being a soldier, and all that baggage, was too profound for me to absorb.  Afrwe 58 years i can still recall that feeling.

[winsummm]

parsnips look like white carrots and take about as long to cook. they are sweet tasting but a little stringy. I like them very much but don't cook them very often. unlike carrots they are not good raw. . . to hard.

claire

[maryz]

We don't do parsnips in the south, either.  But we found out in the Caribbean and in New Zealand that what we call pumpkin (that big orange thing) is kind of a squash.  Of course, a pumpkin IS a squash.  Pumpkin soup is wonderful. And gives that lovely color.

[joangrimes]

Parsnips do not grow in the South.  I have never tasted one.

Joan Grimes

[serenesheila]

Claire, have you tried calling grocery stores in your area?  I am no longer able to shop myself at stores.  But, in my area, No. Calif., Safeway stores offer online shopping.  It gives me choices about delivery time, and day.  I pay someone to come in twice a month to do some cleaning, including cleaning out my fridge, and putting my groceries away.  The delivery costs $6.95, and I pay my helper $17 an hour.  She also helps me with transportation, and miscellaneous things.

I am interested in a discussion of "March", in tandam with "Little Women".  The later was my favorite book for years.  I named my daughter after Jo.

Sheila

[PatH]

Good point, Sheila.  Claire, I've used my local online shopping at times when needed, and it works pretty well.  If you have a good shopper already, that is much better, but if you ever get stuck, do try it.  The main disadvantage is that with meat and produce you can't take a look at it and decide if it's ripe enough, or good enough, but otherwise it works well.  Where JoanK lives Ralphs (Safeway) and Albertsons deliver from online orders.

[mrssherlock]

I''ve never had parsnips either but I'll get some to try.  A look-a-like is rutabagas which my father hated, threatening divorce if my mother ever prepared them.  Apparently they featured in his childhood diet.  He was never one for salad or veggies in general though he moderated some as he grew older.  According to wikipedia the parsnip was a standard root vegetable in most diets before the introduction of the potato; the rutabaga is a cross between cabbage and turnip and was likewise used where a potato is used today, i.e., baked, boiled, fried, roasted, eaten raw. 

[Gumtree]

My father grew parsnips in his vegetable garden. They are a common winter root vegetable here. We use them in soups, stews and roasted. they also make a potent wine.
We also use pumpkin as a vegetable - roasted or steamed. It's also useful for summer salads - lightly cooked and combined with sultanas, roasted almonds and a little dressing. Pumpkin soup is everyone's favourite. Pumpkin pie as a dessert is not so popular. 

[Steph]

Turnips, Rutabegas and Parsnips.. Oh me, My Mother adored them and I really truly hated them. Her favorite trick when I was young was Turnips and Potatoes mashed together. Since the rule was.. you take it.. you eat it.. I used to have to remember to smell before serving myself.. Hard when you are young and hungry

[mrssherlock]

My rule, adopted after I read Jackie Kennedy used it, was to insist on one spoonful. 

[pedln]

We never had turnips or parsnips when I was growing up, but rutabegas, yes.  And this was before the era of Jackie Kennedy, but I always had to have one spoonful on my plate.  I can understand your father, Jackie. How I hated rutabega.  And I never fixed them for my family. Surprisingly, in my more adult years I found I liked raw turnip and dip as a party appetizer.

[PatH]

Pedlin, I like raw turnips too, and include them when I make raw veggies and dips for parties, but I always stick a little sign on a toothpick into one of them: "warning! turnips".  Most people eat them anyway, but they have been warned.