Author Topic: The Library (Read 2322493 times)

Babi · « **Reply #10080 on:** December 03, 2012, 09:15:09 AM »

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!

*Suggestion Box for Future Discussions
*SeniorLearn's Archives

STEPH, have you heard of the Brown Institute method for carpal tunnel syndrome? It doesn't
require surgery; a much simpler technique. Here's a link if you want to find out more.
http://www.brownhandcenter.com/?_vsrefdom=ppc003&gclid=CPflj8O1_rMCFStgMgodEGgAag

marjifay · « **Reply #10081 on:** December 03, 2012, 09:26:45 AM »

Thanks, MaryP, for the link to books by Kati Marton. (I think I need a new pair of glasses! LOL)

Marj

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10082 on:** December 03, 2012, 11:24:17 AM »

Well is everyone going wild in Britain and Scotland or will that wait till after Kate has the new king or Queen of England - wonderful news isn't it...

JeanneP · « **Reply #10083 on:** December 03, 2012, 02:45:23 PM »

Yes, great new for us Brits. Cheer the country up no end.

When I read where they are changing the rules as to if a girl she can still be made the Ruler. Elizabeth has and still doing a fantastic job for over 60 years. I am for it. She (if a girl ) will come after Charles and her father even though Charles has more sons.. Now I would put a bet on that they already know it is a girl.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10084 on:** December 03, 2012, 05:51:05 PM »

Here is a treat - found this today...access to library in Hungry

http://www.kepkonyvtar.hu/

JoanK · « **Reply #10085 on:** December 03, 2012, 06:05:15 PM »

That is a treat!

kiwilady · « **Reply #10086 on:** December 04, 2012, 01:59:08 AM »

Nicky had 30 kids after school today in her shoebox library. They spend the whole afternoon after school there this time of year as many schools finish this Friday for the summer and others finish next week.

She tries to have activities for them. She has Christmas card making planned for when all the kids are out of school and some other similar Christmas activities. They all come to see her. She really is a magnet. She was away one afternoon last week at meetings and next day they all asked her indignantly where she was.

Summer reading program starts soon. There are prizes at the end of the summer for this program. The kids have to sign up for it and read a certain number of books over the summer. I think they have to do reviews too.

I really hope they get going on the new library soon as it really is far too small for the number of kids that are now patronising it.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10087 on:** December 04, 2012, 02:08:38 AM »

Has anyone heard this story before - I do not know and cannot find anything that tells me if it is true or yet, one more of the myths told about this man

Quote

A woman's piercing shriek suddenly startled a party of surveyors at dinner in a forest of northern Virginia on a calm, sunny day in 1750. The cries were repeated in quick succession, and the men sprang through the undergrowth to learn their cause.

"Oh, sir," exclaimed the woman as she caught sight of a youth of eighteen, but a man in stature and bearing; "you will surely do something for me! Make these friends release me. My boy,--my poor boy is drowning, and they will not let me go!" "It would be madness; she will jump into the river," said one of the men who was holding her; "and the rapids would dash her to pieces in a moment!"

Throwing on his coat, the youth sprang to the edge of the bank, scanned for a moment the rocks and whirling currents, and then, at sight of part of the boy's dress, plunged into the roaring rapids. "Thank God, he will save my child!" cried the mother, and all rushed to the brink of the precipice; "there he is! Oh, my boy, my darling boy! How could I leave you?"

But all eyes were bent upon the youth struggling with strong heart and hope amid the dizzy sweep of the whirling currents far below. Now it seemed as if he would be dashed against a projecting rock, over which
the water flew in foam, and anon a whirlpool would drag him in, from whose grasp escape would seem impossible.

Twice the boy went out of sight, but he had reappeared the second time, although frightfully near the most dangerous part of the river. The rush of waters here was tremendous, and no one had ever dared to approach it, even in a canoe, lest he should be dashed to pieces. The youth redoubled his exertions.

Three times he was about to grasp the child, when some stronger eddy would toss it from him. One final effort he makes; the child is held aloft by his strong right arm, but a cry of horror bursts from the lips of every spectator as boy and man shoot over the falls and vanish in the seething waters below.

"There they are!" shouted the mother a moment later, in a delirium of joy. "See! they are safe! Great God, I thank Thee!" And sure enough they emerged unharmed from the boiling vortex, and in a few minutes reached a low place in the bank and were drawn up by their friends, the boy senseless, but still alive, and the youth almost exhausted. "God will give you a reward," solemnly spoke the grateful woman. "He will do great things for you in return for this day's work, and the blessings of thousands besides mine will attend you."

The youth was George Washington.

Steph · « **Reply #10088 on:** December 04, 2012, 05:49:13 AM »

Oh my, I had read that story many many years ago.. George was quite a man. Our very first president spent his whole life trying to do good things. I am not sure we would have made the nation we are without his calm behavior.

marjifay · « **Reply #10089 on:** December 04, 2012, 07:57:11 AM »

Yes. Cheers. Kate, the Duchess, has done her Royal duty and is pregnant with a potential heir to the British throne.

I agree, Jeanne, I think the firstborn should be heir to the throne, girl or boy. About time to change that old mysogynous custom.

Marj

Babi · « **Reply #10090 on:** December 04, 2012, 09:03:09 AM »

I hadn't heard that story about Washington. True? Who knows. He was a surveyor, we
know that much is so. The story is entirely plausible, as much of his surveying was in
Virginia, along the Potomac. And, the Potomac does have some rough water and it's "Great Falls" .

PatH · « **Reply #10091 on:** December 04, 2012, 10:16:32 AM »

If it was the Potomac, they were lucky to survive; there are lots of places where the water will hold you under for many minutes. There are deaths every year, in spite of many warning signs. It's a lovely place, though.

http://www.nps.gov/grfa/photosmultimedia/The-Falls.htm

There are paths where even little old ladies like me can walk and see views like these safely.

ginny · « **Reply #10092 on:** December 04, 2012, 10:41:46 AM »

We also know that George Washington like most of the prominent Founding Fathers, was a great fan of the heroes of the Roman Republic. Men like Cincinnatus, whom Washington desperately wanted to emulate as they will tell you if you attend one of the Sound and Lights at Mt. Vernon.
Swords into ploughshares and putting aside the country's leadership to return to the farm type of thing.

Washington didn't get to do that last one, but he wanted to.

There was even a Society of Cincinnati, of which he was the first president, which I believe may exist to this day.

ginny · « **Reply #10093 on:** December 04, 2012, 11:31:36 AM »

PS: The Capote exerpt in Vanity Fair turned out to be kind of nothing? He obviously had not finished it, so you really can't tell where it's going. The woman in the story was supposed to be Katherine Graham, but nobody knows, of course. So it's not quite the bombshell advertised and was only 5 or 6 pages. It's online, I think.

Frybabe · « **Reply #10094 on:** December 04, 2012, 12:08:27 PM »

You are right Ginny. It still exists. http://www.societyofthecincinnati.org/

I'm in the process of looking at their website now. Wikipedia has lots of info too.

Jonathan · « **Reply #10095 on:** December 04, 2012, 05:34:46 PM »

It had to be more than luck, Pat. More like a miracle, it seems to me. Fate took a hand in their survival. Washington still had a greater role to play as the most prominent of the Founding Fathers.

Steph · « **Reply #10096 on:** December 05, 2012, 06:04:17 AM »

OUr Founding fathers were definitely a mixed lot. There is an organizaton of descendents of signers of the constitution and there is or was a Society of Cin cinnati.. No idea if the last extists still, but know the signers one does. Very prestiguous in the genealogical field.
I went to Caesar Rodney School back in Delaware growing up and I know how he is venerated in the state.
This Carpal Tunnel stuff is a pain.. The brace realy helps, but makes ordinary things hard to do.

MaryPage · « **Reply #10097 on:** December 05, 2012, 07:58:38 AM »

I have been to Anderson House, the headquarters of The Society of Cincinnati, here in Washington, D.C. My (deceased) Uncle Monty was a member (he left no sons) and I think I remember at least one of my cousins made her debut there.

Hey! Hey! Hey! I can brag now that I am Above Average. Officially. Last night on the telly they said the Average age a woman attains in the U.S. these days is 81.

My 83 makes me Above Average. Doesn't it? Oh, please agree. I have always so yearned to deserve that appellation!

maryz · « **Reply #10098 on:** December 05, 2012, 11:02:38 AM »

Well, gee, MaryPage. We've known for ages that you were above average! (but then aren't we all?)

pedln · « **Reply #10099 on:** December 05, 2012, 11:13:30 AM »

Going back to Capote. I had heard that the little boy who hangs with Scout and Jem in To Kill a Mockingbird is really Capote. Does anyone know?

A friend of mine emailed me about another book by Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone) and I've added it to my TBR list. Has anyone read it? I don't know if it's a recent publication or one that precedes his earlier book.

Quote

Sent from my iPad
Every now and then you get hold of a good book you really want to share. It's named My Own Country by Abraham Verghese. It's a memoir of an infectious disease specialist's powerful journey with AIDS treatment. I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone because the material is raw and authentic. I had no idea what it was like in the early years to be the primary care physician or to be the infected person trying to negotiate some kind of treatment. It's not for the weak stomached. But it makes an impact.

marcie · « **Reply #10100 on:** December 05, 2012, 11:33:47 AM »

Pedln, the New York Times obituary for Truman Capote states that he was the model for Dill in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

The young Truman's best friend in Monroeville was the little girl next door, Nelle Harper Lee, who many years later put him into her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, ''To Kill a Mockingbird,'' in the character of the precocious Dill Harris. (He had earlier used Miss Lee as the prototype for the character of Idabel Tompkins in ''Other Voices, Other Rooms.'')

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0930.html

There was also a rumor that Truman Capote wrote or contributed to Harper Lee's book but that has been disproved.

maryz · « **Reply #10101 on:** December 05, 2012, 12:48:42 PM »

And if you read any biography on Harper Lee, you'll find that she did a lot of the background and "people" work for Capote when he was writing In Cold Blood.

Babi · « **Reply #10102 on:** December 05, 2012, 02:52:23 PM »

Oh, well, certainly, MARYZ.

PEDLN, I read "Cutting for Stone" and thought it was great. I'm sure I recommended
it here at the time. It is at least partly biographical. The lead characters career
is basically that of the author.

ginny · « **Reply #10103 on:** December 06, 2012, 08:29:03 AM »

Good for you now officially being "Above Average," MaryPage, maybe you'll get to 113 or whatever age that lady was who just died and she looked, to me, fabulous. Of course I think of you all as way above average anyway!

How is your therapy coming along, MaryZ? I hope you're not in too much pain still.

Sorry about the brace and pain, Stephanie.

I'm still casting about for something engrossing to read. I keep starting and stopping so many books. I tried Twelve Drummers Drumming (no) and Margaret Maron's Christmas Mourning (no), and was left wondering if ADD had finally caught up with me (or finally taken over, depending on how you look at it).

Finally yesterday I had the nicest quiet day, I made potato and ham soup for the first time (man, where has that BEEN all my life, it was easy and delicious!) and sat down and read...that new and pretty much unknown author, I'm sure nobody has heard of her...... Agatha Christie's (hahhaa) book of short stories A Christmas Pudding. It begins with her own address to the reader for the feast she's setting out, and her wishes for the reader's Happy Christmas, which was lovely and then the first story is a Poirot Christmas mystery with all the trimmings: country estate, snow, and a murder, a fun romp, just enjoyed it tremendously.

Especially because I did not remember clearly enough the plot to keep up with her.

I may make that a tradition, I enjoyed it so much, I think when I'm through this poor old paperback book whose pages are a satisfying saffron yellow with age, I'll do Dickens Christmas Carol again, too, which I've always loved.

Ho Ho HO! Reading anything seasonal?

Steph · « **Reply #10104 on:** December 06, 2012, 08:43:46 AM »

Of course you are above average. WE all knew that.
I am not much of a seasonal type reader.. So tend to avoid Christmas stories.. I will read Marons story, but that is because I love her.
I have been a bit down, so pulled out of my stash, a Pratchett book.. This one is about Rincewind and the box.. So I have been laughing and moaning at the puns.. This one takes on China.. Oh me..

MaryPage · « **Reply #10105 on:** December 06, 2012, 11:21:27 AM »

I loved CHRISTMAS MOURNING.

Just recently I read her THREE-DAY TOWN and found myself wishing so very hard that my twin first cousin (born the same year as I, that is what her mother, my aunt, always called us) were still alive to read it. She was an Episcopal priest and made her home in Manhattan in an apartment building on 5th Avenue East that sounds identical to the one Maron writes about so vividly.

ginny · « **Reply #10106 on:** December 06, 2012, 01:15:13 PM »

Well it may be that coming off Twelve Drummers Drumming, with a cast of characters which would make a Russian novelist happy, that what appeared to me to be another gigantic cast of relatives on top of it (it's the first of Maron's I've tried to read) was too much. Perhaps if I had read some of her other books I might know who they were and be glad to see them.

As it was, too many notes, like the Emperor told Mozart and we know what that made of him. hahahaa

maryz · « **Reply #10107 on:** December 06, 2012, 01:21:40 PM »

ginny, thanks for asking - I'm doing very well. I have two more PT treatments prescribed. They tell me my range of motion is very good - at least passive ROM. Now I'm working more on strength, and getting where I can move more with my own muscles. I am back into my swimming exercise class, so the arm gets a lot of work then. I do the exercises twice a day. All in all, I'm very pleased with the results so far. And am working very hard at NOT falling again, and getting more stamina.

As to reading, somewhere the concentration is gone, and it takes me forever to read anything. I am working now on Ken Follett's The World in Winter. I seem to have done more reading of nonfiction, and still have some ready to go on my iPad. But I can't read several books at once the way y'all seem to do. So I plod along and get lots of ideas from my friends here.

MaryPage · « **Reply #10108 on:** December 06, 2012, 01:49:20 PM »

I did read all of Margaret Maron's Judge Deborah Knott books in the order in which they were written, and, as they are a series and full of the same characters, who actually do grow and age, and a great big (she has ELEVEN (11) brothers and they have children) wonderful family, I can appreciate someone not being able to relate if they have not read books previous to the one they try.

I loved Ken Follett's WORLD WITHOUT END, and so bought the DVDs of the mini-series. Started watching them last night, and wouldn't you know, they have COMPLETELY changed the story. The book was darling and wonderful and would make a perfectly charming movie. In short, the book deserved better than what these film makers came up with.

Steph · « **Reply #10109 on:** December 07, 2012, 05:55:00 AM »

Oh Ginny,, Judge Knott needs to be read in sequence.Then you meet all of the brothers, boyfriends, nieces and nephews in sequence.. and of course Poppa..Not a holiday book, but if you love the mountains of the south and the piedmont and all of the joy in small towns in the south, you will love it.
Finished the Pratchett. Ready to face the world again.. Disgraces myself eating lunch in steak and shake yesterday.Reading about Rincewind and laughing really hard..Ah the barbarians.. Cohen is a real hoot.

PatH · « **Reply #10110 on:** December 07, 2012, 07:02:29 AM »

I've read that one, Steph, though I've forgotten its name. Really funny.

Babi · « **Reply #10111 on:** December 07, 2012, 09:03:03 AM »

That's a shame, MARYPAGE. I never understand why film-makers buy the rights to a book
because it is so good, and then proceed to change it into something else.

MARYZ, I admire your tenacity with your therapy. I find it so easy to forget that
I really should do something two or three times a day. And so easy to get immersed
in my daily routine. I am glad to hear how well you are doing.

Winchesterlady · « **Reply #10112 on:** December 07, 2012, 09:38:29 AM »

I want to thank all of you for the condolence messages you posted after my father passed away. Things are slowly getting back to normal.

MaryPage, We live in Winchester, VA, so I'm very familiar with Stephens City. This is such a beautiful area.

MaryPage · « **Reply #10113 on:** December 07, 2012, 10:30:12 AM »

"Let's REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR
As we go to meet the foe.
Let's REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR
As we did the Alamo.
We will always remember how they died to set men free.
Let's REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR
And go on to victory."

pedln · « **Reply #10114 on:** December 07, 2012, 10:32:44 AM »

Ginny, don't give up on Margaret Maron, the other comments here are correct. Read some of her earlier ones -- The Bootlegger's Daughter is her first. The family is really delightful and one of the reasons I always look forward to a new Maron. You'll find, too, that sometimes she focuses on a particular industry and weaves it into her mystery. Uncommon Clay, about the pottery industry at Sea Grove is one of my favorites.

And your comments about the Agatha Christie Christmas readings sent me to the library looking for the Pudding book. They didn't have it, but I did get Agatha's Murder for Christmas. Started it last night and look forward to really settling in with it over the weekend.

Folks, there's a fantastic article in today's Washington Post written 71 years ago by Elizabeth P. McIntosh, a reported in Honolulu on that fateful day. Her editors thought it too graphic and it was never published -- until today.

Pearl Harbor

maryz · « **Reply #10115 on:** December 07, 2012, 10:51:42 AM »

Ginny, when John was doing PT after his rotator cuff surgery, the therapist told him that when he stopped doing his exercises, that was as good as he was going to get - he wouldn't gain any more after that. That's stuck with both of us, so I know that if I stop, it won't get better by itself. It does give me some incentive - and I need it because I really HATE doing exercises.

MaryPage · « **Reply #10116 on:** December 07, 2012, 02:52:20 PM »

Thank you, Pedln. That was excellent and I have sent it on to my entire family. I subscribe to The Washington Post, living close to D.C. as I do, but have not gotten around to reading today's paper.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10117 on:** December 07, 2012, 02:54:47 PM »

the childhood memories for young adults today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pa6SGYWADU

JeanneP · « **Reply #10118 on:** December 07, 2012, 03:55:29 PM »

Barb. Wish they had one for the 60s. they were good years.

marjifay · « **Reply #10119 on:** December 07, 2012, 05:32:30 PM »

Thanks, Pedln, for that interesting Washinton Post article. I'm not surprised they didn't publish it. It was pretty graphic and gory in places and would probably just have frightened people more. Seems to me she could have just told people where help was needed.

I haven't read accounts by people who were there on that day. I hadn't thought so many civilians were killed; had just thought most of the devastation occurred in the harbor area. I suppose there are books written by civilians who were there.

Marj

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Author Topic: The Library (Read 2322493 times)