Author Topic: The Library (Read 2300773 times)

PatH · « **Reply #10680 on:** February 16, 2013, 05:33:24 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!

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PatH · « **Reply #10681 on:** February 16, 2013, 05:33:55 PM »

I think Lee was simply one of those people who have one good book in them and that's it.

MaryPage · « **Reply #10682 on:** February 16, 2013, 06:35:41 PM »

You sound just like Harper Lee, herself, Pat. I have read that that is what she has said of herself.

Carolyn, Harper Lee is a very, very private person. Does not like publicity or being photographed or giving interviews. Does not want to travel around for a book. They say she knows everyone in her home town and everyone knows her and everyone treats her just like everyone else, which is what she craves. Bottom line, she just wilts and cringes if she is the center of attention.

Pat, I do not know if I remember or not. I think I mostly do. Lately, I have taken to asking my granddaughters if (A) I have already given a child a book or set of books or (B) if they already have them as a handmedown from their mother, to whom I am most likely the donor. The majority of my granddaughters are readers, Thank God, and the majority of my great grands appear to be going in that direction. Some simply are not, and you cannot MAKE a reader. Encourage, yes; but create, no, no, no, no!

PatH · « **Reply #10683 on:** February 16, 2013, 07:00:45 PM »

Right, MaryPage, all you can do is be encouraging and try to help get rid of any roadblocks. My oldest grandchild is 4, and I'm just starting to taste the joys of giving him books. His Christmas present was 2 books about the solar system, and he can now tell me all the planets, including the asteroid belt and the tiny ones beyond Pluto, plus some of their moons. I have no worries about encouragement; my daughter and SIL are very book oriented.

JeanneP · « **Reply #10684 on:** February 16, 2013, 08:10:35 PM »

I don't think I am going to finish. "The unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry". Could be me but I am up to page 100 and it doesn't make sense to me. Herehis friend is dying 600 miles away and he is walking to get there. He stays in a hotel every night. Eats, Has money. His feet are blistered. and only goes 9 miles day. Can't understand why a person would not just get on a train or bus and be there in a day or two. Way he is doing, will be walking months and the women close to death in hospital.
Maybe something happens further in the book that you liked. Don't thing i want to be just skipping pages.. You can let me know what I am missing.

MaryPage · « **Reply #10685 on:** February 16, 2013, 08:43:02 PM »

Oh, Pat! I have 2 granddaughters who are 46, and one of those will turn 47 next month! My youngest, my baby granddaughter, is 25 and the mother of 3 little girls!
We must be more than a generation apart in age!

PatH · « **Reply #10686 on:** February 16, 2013, 08:52:02 PM »

No, I'm about 4 years younger than you, but I had my children late, and so did my youngest daughter, who is the only one with children.

Steph · « **Reply #10687 on:** February 17, 2013, 07:00:52 AM »

Babi My professor in the Lost Christianities is: Bert D. Ehrman. He is James A. Gray Professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. H has won a great variety of awards and authored over 12 books on early Christianity. Hope this helps you place him.
I read quite a lot of Maori type literature years ago.There was an author ( female and cannot remember her name). Who wrote extensively over the great divide of English settlers and the Maori.. But that has,I would guess been over for years.

Babi · « **Reply #10688 on:** February 17, 2013, 09:38:55 AM »

Thanks, STEPH. I looked up Ehrman's books, to see if I had read any of them. I haven't, but I thought
they looked interesting. It's fairly evident, though, that what he writes is challenging to the more common
concepts of Biblical scripture. I can see how it could be confusing if one didn't realize where he was
coming from. It helps that I already have issues with the ultra-conservative "every word is literally from
the mouth of God" view. That notion of scripture is contrary to scripture!

MaryPage · « **Reply #10689 on:** February 17, 2013, 11:56:48 AM »

I like him and have both read him and own one of his The Learning Company lecture sets. I am afraid I have come to think of Christianity and every other major and/or minor religion as an opportunity for power brokers to corral and control and cash in on a population's vulnerable need to believe in an afterlife that will be all they can dream of and desire.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #10690 on:** February 17, 2013, 11:57:10 AM »

Frybabe - I believe it was you who told me about saving the lint from the tumble dryer and putting it out for the birds to use in nests? If it was you, could you tell me how you actually put it out? Do you put it in a bag, or what? I have collected quite a bit over the winter and our birds will soon be nesting, I should think.

Thanks in advance,

Rosemary

Frybabe · « **Reply #10691 on:** February 17, 2013, 01:11:27 PM »

Not I, Rosemarykaye.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10692 on:** February 17, 2013, 01:19:58 PM »

Rosemarykaye I just lay mine on a thick branch on the Live Oak outside the laundry room door and hope the birds get at it before the squirrels tear into it. A friend of mine asked us all for our collections of lint because she was making paper out of it that she incorporated into her art.

Frybabe · « **Reply #10693 on:** February 17, 2013, 02:40:19 PM »

Marvelous, Barb, she makes her own paper. There are so many different fibers that can be made into paper. My sister brought me a notebook from Costa Rica made from banana fibers.

pedln · « **Reply #10694 on:** February 17, 2013, 07:01:23 PM »

Not to change the subject, but I love it when an author writes a plea for his cause, not for his books.

John Irving and the Olympics

Steph · « **Reply #10695 on:** February 18, 2013, 06:19:27 AM »

Irving loves wrestling and uses it in some of his books.. I am not a fan of organized religion.. Ever since I was a child, I wondered who got to pick the books for both the old and new Testament. All I have ever read leads me to believe that a certain few that had an agenda did it.. So I am taking this course to see what was turned away and why if possible. He does a good job at explaining some of the New Testament stuff. Yesterday listened to two more. One was on the infancy gospels which seem to be stories of Jesus childhood and the sanctity of Mary.. taken at 3 to a temple.. Silly to put it mildly.
I am still staggering along with Gone Girl.. What unpleasant people they both are..

marjifay · « **Reply #10696 on:** February 18, 2013, 08:17:58 AM »

Since it's Presidents Day, I thought I'd ask -- who were your 3 favorite 20th Century presidents? Your least favorites?

My favorites:
Teddy Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman

My least favorites:
Warren Harding
Richard Nixon
George W. Bush

Marj

Babi · « **Reply #10697 on:** February 18, 2013, 09:39:56 AM »

MARJ, are your choices based on the men personally, or their record as presidents?

marjifay · « **Reply #10698 on:** February 18, 2013, 01:47:36 PM »

Well, Babi, I tried to rank them by their records as presidents, Teddy Roosevelt for prserving so much land for state parks, FDR for starting Social Security, and other such policies (I remember my parents talking about being able to buy their first house because of the FHA), and Truman because he integrated the military service (but I also liked his spunk).

I had a problem with Nixon because I think he did some good, but I remember how he'd nosed into so many people's lives, and remembered how glad I was when he resigned. Him I don't think I'd have liked personally. Bush I would have probably liked in person, but he got us into those unnecessary wars. Harding strictly because of the Teapot Dome scandle.

If I had to think about it longer, this list might change a bit. Who knows, if I'd been around in George Washington's time, I doubt I'd have liked him personally. I wonder how he'd have gone over if he'd been on television.

Marj

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10699 on:** February 18, 2013, 10:49:52 PM »

For those who read the Hunchback of Notre Dame this is more about the 850 year old Cathedral

"Nine newly cast bells have gone on display at Notre Dame, the Paris cathedral, weeks before they are hoisted into the two great towers in time for Easter.

The new bells, weighing 23 tons in total and named after saints and prominent Catholics, have been cast to mark the 850th anniversary of the Cathedral's founding in 1163. They replace bells which had become discordant, and will first be heard as they peal out on March 23, in time for Palm Sunday and Easter week.

"Eight of the nine new bells were cast in a foundry in the Normandy town of Villedieu-les-Poeles. The ninth - a "bourdon," or Great Bell, named Marie - was cast in the Netherlands and then sent to Normandy to join the others.

Recently they were sent by a slow-moving convoy of flatbed trucks to the French capital.

The old bells, which dated from different periods throughout Notre Dame's history, were out of tune with each other and with the one surviving Great Bell, called Emmanuel, which has hung in the cathedral since the 17th century. It will remain."

"The South tower is home to Notre-Dame’s largest bell, known as the Emmanuel Bell.

It is sounded for major holidays like Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, or All Saint’s Day, or for important events, for example, the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of his successor Benedict XVI.

The Emmanuel Bell was cast over three hundred years ago and was named by its godfather Louis XIV. It weighs 13 tons, and its tongue, the inner part of the bell that strikes its walls to make sounds, weighs 500 kilos.

he North Tower is home to four bells rung daily to indicate the cathedral’s services and the time. They each weigh between 2,000 and 3,000 kilograms.

These bells give rhythm to believers’ daily lives, calling them to prayer and indicating a solemn call to services. They were once used to inform people of the time. Today, everyone has a watch, but the bells still continue to ring the hour, showing that the cathedral is a Living place." Via Notre Dame News - http://www.notredamedeparis.fr/spip.php?article466

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10700 on:** February 18, 2013, 11:04:26 PM »

looked to find other books about bells in Amazon - had not remembered but wonder has anyone read Iris Murdoch's, The Bell

Or how about has anyone read - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death by Jean-Dominique Bauby and Jeremy Leggatt

The Bell by Paul Lewis and Steve Lockley

this one looks good - The Passing Bells: A Novel (Greville Family) by Phillip Rock

The Bell Bandit (The Lemonade War Series) by Jacqueline Davies

Blue Bells of Scotland: Blue Bells Trilogy: Book One by Laura Vosika

Looks like you could spend months reading books about Bells.

Steph · « **Reply #10701 on:** February 19, 2013, 06:17:04 AM »

I loved the Dorothy Sayers books that used the bell change ringing as part of the plot.. Fun.. I gather up in the mountains of the south, the small bells that are used by ringers are popular for concerts.. I went to one at John Campbell some years ago.. Gorgeous bells..

ginny · « **Reply #10702 on:** February 19, 2013, 06:45:35 AM »

Oh how interesting about the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the bells. I love change ringing, such an interesting subject, there are a few churches left in the UK which do it.

When I was a child the local church had bells and ropes to pull them (and I'm sure it still does), it was interesting to me to see what it took to pull them, the bell could sweep the man pulling the.... was it a rope?.....right off his feet. I understand it can be dangerous, or perhaps that's not accurate.

What long ago memories. I enjoyed the Hunchback of Notre Dame as a book. And what about Poe? His cadences themselves sing of bells:

Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Actually Poe's Bells calls to mind a book I just finished: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Like Poe's Bells, it starts one way and ends another, or does it?

The "oasis of calm" I spoke of is soon dispelled into something else entirely.

That is the kind of book that when you finish it you wish you had somebody to talk to about it, to see if you actually caught what it meant.

I had heard about the "shocking" ending and I had heard about people being angry that the author just "stopped it." I don't know what else people might want in the end of a book, it lacks the kitchen sink but other than that I don't know anything she left out.

We need a discussion here called Finis where those who have read about a book can discuss it without spoiling it for others. I have a feeling that if we each had to say "what the book is about," we'd have a different point of view.

I can see why it was nominated for the Booker or Man Booker or whatever they call it. Mann? What's the "Man?"

Barbara posted a list of questions ON Harold Fry yesterday in the Fiction, I read them yesterday before I finished it and now I'm going back to see if any of them pertain to what I thought it was about and what message I should take away from it. I know what I am taking away, but I wonder if it's the point of the book?

One of the many themes or conflicts is that of terminal cancer, so if one does not wish to read about that subject, and its effects, one would not read the book.

Those of you, however, who DID finish it, can you say in one word what it's about?

Penitence?
Redemption?
Hope?
The baggage we all carry?
Never too late?
Determination?
Inevitability?
Change?
Sins of Omission? Or the reverse?

(More than one word I see. hahahaha) Truly, without spoiling it for others, if you finished it, can you say what it's about?

Babi · « **Reply #10703 on:** February 19, 2013, 08:49:20 AM »

Good reasons, MARJ. I'd add Lincoln to the list, for ending the practice of slavery in
the U.S.

Aren't the bells beautiful. I love the practice of giving them names, esp. since each bell
has it's own distinctive note. Someone familiar with them can listen and say, 'Ah, that's
Marie!"
I don't think the 'blue bells' of Scotland is about bells.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #10704 on:** February 19, 2013, 12:08:33 PM »

Determination? All of the above? I think Harold showed a determination that he was lacking in the rest of his life, which embraced "change". I liked the book, and passed it on to a fellow SeniorLearner here who did not share my enthusiasm!
Just "shows to go 'ya" - taste in reading, as in all else, is very subjective. If I had to choose between "Harold Fry" and "Gone Girl", guess where my preference lies?

MaryPage · « **Reply #10705 on:** February 19, 2013, 02:02:35 PM »

Took me a while to get it sifted down properly in my mind, but in answer to the question posed, my choices are:

Favorite 20th Century Presidents
Dwight David Eisenhower
Gerald Ford
Harry S Truman

Least Favorite 20th Century Presidents
George W. Bush
Ronald W. Reagan
Richard M. Nixon

PatH · « **Reply #10706 on:** February 19, 2013, 02:31:46 PM »

I loved the Sayers book too--The Nine Tailors. The Washington National Cathedral here has a set of bells and sometimes rings changes, but I've never heard it. I did get to go into the bell room on a tour, though. The bells are HUGE. They were hanging with the bottoms at about hip height, and we were allowed to duck under and stand up inside a bell. Three of us could stand inside it easily. And the wall of the bell was almost a foot thick, and rough on the inside, which I didn't expect.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10707 on:** February 19, 2013, 03:44:31 PM »

The Harold Fry story - I just saw sadness and regret and beating up on themselves for doing what they believed to be the 'right' thing and loosing so much in the process -

I think like many men of that generation he was evaluated at work not for his skill and ability to be an attentive father but to be a skilled and able worker who was supposed to take satisfaction in providing for his family - there were no skills suggested how a man could be a good Dad. Some guys were Scout leaders but we were delighted when those early movies came out showing single Dads or Dads changing diapers or running nursery schools - long past the time frame when Harold would have been encouraged to be a different kind of Dad. He did what Society expected and like most At-home-Moms, Maureen felt isolated as she did the 'right' thing.

I think her relationship with the neighbor, who at first she, doing the 'right' thing, hid her reality just as for years she hid some of her disappointment - with his friendship she comes to realize who she is. She wanted a different fathering for David but I doubt she knew how to help Harold bring that about so she became cold and cleaned - she was not only good at cleaning it was something she could control just as she could control the airwaves with her chatter.

I look at Harold and see a man who had no control except to keep walking - his working life he had to please his bosses and those who he sold - they were the decision makers - he had to please the image of a man for the times and provide for the family as well as, a retirement income for Maureen - he did not know how to take from life so he never even buys decent walking boots - he relinquishes all control with the crowd he gathers and so they take control - he escapes but, even the dog goes his own way - He finally does get off the predictable roadway with all the signposts, villages, paths and roads pointing him in the correct direction.

I was annoyed when after he escapes from the crowd and chooses his own way across country he seems to loose it and gets lost and takes so long being lost - I thought it was trying to say at the end of our journey - I saw the journey as a metaphor for our life's journey - and so was the author saying if we choose our own way we all get muddled and lost - or when we age near the end of our life we get dementia - did not get the analogy and so I was very annoyed with what I was assuming was the message.

He carries so much guilt over David and yet, never sees his value only the loss that much of the loss was due to the social influences at the time. I think we all do that - compare our own life to what we know now and say I wish I did this or that differently without giving our selves credit for doing the best we knew how.

As to Queenie Hennessy, she seemed to represent an icon of heroism that he could never meet - she was as distant to him during their years working together as she became this idea to reach for that prompted his journey. It was what she represented that he could never reach - it was there and he strives to do the right thing to embrace what he thought she represented without seeing he had different obligations. Kindness in the workplace was not a value during the 70s or 80s and he was basically a kind man therefore a fish out of water.

Even Maureen was probably looking for a Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark or Tom Cruise in Top Gun or a Clint Eastwood in Kelly's Heroes - not a man in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit kind of guy. During this time Father's were most often depicted as the Villon - we had songs like Cat’s in the Cradle” which tells the story of a man too busy with his career to actually enjoy the people that matter the most.

And so I saw this book as the sadness that wraps around those who did what was expected and that world is gone just as David was gone and their goals like what Queenie represented was gone and their 'right' living life no longer mattered - and the kind of respect and manners by so called friends was not like his generation's expected behavior - it was like mourning, a journey that became a wake to their unfulfilled life and starting fresh at a restaurant in Northern Britain.

JeanneP · « **Reply #10708 on:** February 19, 2013, 04:23:45 PM »

You won't find many Harolds in the world today. Money in Pocket they will take a bus, train,plane no matter where or why they are going.
If they are Hunting, golfing, jogging, they will walk, Going to mail box. They will ride. Its all the way the world has changed now.
Maybe that was my problem when reading start of book. Just thought. Silly man. Guess my mind does not remember the way back ways anymore.

ginny · « **Reply #10709 on:** February 19, 2013, 10:32:12 PM »

And so I saw this book as the sadness that wraps around those who did what was expected and that world is gone just as David was gone and their goals like what Queenie represented was gone and their 'right' living life no longer mattered - and the kind of respect and manners by so called friends was not like his generation's expected behavior - it was like mourning, a journey that became a wake to their unfulfilled life and starting fresh at a restaurant in Northern Britain.

I think that's beautifully expressed, Barbara, even tho I don't fully agree with it. Are you saying then that the end was incomprehensible?

Or inconsistent? Or can you not say without spoiling the end for others who have not read it?

You don't see Maureen as bearing any blame at all? It's all Harold's fault?

You don't see any redemption, any joy, at all? Nothing positive?

Steph · « **Reply #10710 on:** February 20, 2013, 06:04:48 AM »

Sounds like an Anne Tyler book with a male as the wanderer. I think I will stick to Anne. I mostly understand her characters. Gone girl is truly a strange journey. I am now up to when she talks of her diary.. I really wish one of these people was even remotely likeable. Oh well, I have promised myself to finish it, but I still don't see what all of the praise is about.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10711 on:** February 20, 2013, 09:20:48 AM »

Ginny I do not see blame at all for either of them - I think they both acted and reacted to the life that was expected that did not give kudos for what today is a different set of values - where fatherhood is not just about doing what is expected in the workforce and women were measured by their housekeeping - I see our faster moving society experiencing significant change in the role of Moms and Dads and they were caught up in that shift - I also think he was expected to be financial responsible in their old age and so he denies himself any frills so to speak -

Just as how we dine today is no longer just for substance - many meals have become an art form even in our simple kitchens as we choose the freshest foods for taste, nutrition and to fill us for energy. In the 70s and early 80s we were still cooking to fill tummies while trying to cut the time to prepare - frills with new foods prepared with effort were considered special and often only served for special occasions - which is the way most families lived - everyone had their job and doing the job well was measured - not how well you nurtured each other - we were still clucking if we were being over-protective if our boys joined little league with so much adult supervision as compared to playing ball on their own in a vacant lot.

Sure Dad's missed a lot and sure women were eager to get out from behind the laundry and scrubbing - with those changes few knew how to create family life the warmth of a Norman Rockwell painting and so I think there are many folks who as they age and the values we hold change feel regret - we know guilt is a form of anger turned on yourself and anger is a cover for hurt - neither have anyone to blame and so they either blame each other or blame themselves.

I see them as good people coming to terms with how past values did not serve them well and the empty feeling of not really having anyone to blame - just as he put faith in reaching Queenie with expectations of a different ending - There are many who would see his journey as impossible and the outcome was out of his hands so why - and that to me is the metaphor for both their lives - The journey on foot to Queenie was chosen step by step without any preplan except a belief that he hung onto - which is the same way they lived their life - they married with a belief they could create a happy life and step by step they carried out the expectations that was supposed to lead to a happy productive life - They felt pride in comparing they were better at it than those other women in the village or for Harold the others at work - but the system espoused by magazines, movies and local lifestyles did not bring about the promised outcome.

My problem was not at the end or after he reaches Queenie but between the time he leaves the group to when he finally reaches the hospice - he becomes disoriented and looses his way walking many miles out of his way - that was the part that I did not see what the over arching metaphor was trying to tell the reader.

To me there is no blame toward either - only the difficult task of accepting reality with all its pain and the realization we cannot control outcome. That too many folks are not like the older neighbor, Rex who tries to support and build up Maureen's confidence instead, folks will want to control and tell you how to carryout your dream, task, journey through life. Harold goes along with the crowd which is how he led his life - his epiphany comes not like a bolt of lightening but simply with one foot in front of the other he walks away from the crowd and goes it alone recapturing 'his' journey.

ginny · « **Reply #10712 on:** February 20, 2013, 07:58:27 PM »

That was beautifully written, Barbara. This book, it's clear, would make a heck of a book discussion, because i got something entirely different from it.

I saw him not bowed down or trapped by society at all but by his own baggage, the sins of omission or what he saw as his own failures, which came back to haunt him day after day. Like they tend to do, actually. He couldn't stop excoriating himself for them. In self defense he had become almost comatose, doing nothing. Was he, in retirement, waiting for death? A quiet man who had given up. Then the chance comes for redemption and for once in his life to DO something except fail. He takes it the only way he knows how.

The overarching metaphor of the book to me is hope. And the desire to do the right thing. Finally, as best he can. That was a nice touch, him starting out blindly...He's in shock. Somebody else would have gotten in a car, on a plane, on a train. By walking he offered her the gift of life, as best he could. Otherwise, let's face it, it would have been a short gift. The author did a wonderful job of that, he's locked in a prison of his own making, like a dream where you can't get out but you feel you must try, he just keeps walking.

I liked the strange wandering off from the path. He's Everyman, going astray. On his pilgrimage for redemption as Paul Simon sings, he wants a shot at redemption. Does he get it? It's a real pilgrim's progress. I think the book is saying it's not society which forces choices, deep down we know who made the choices to do what was done or wasn't done, the choices we all make. The memories are very painful to him. He's withdrawn. It won't let him alone, it won't let up, he's had too much, he has given up. The author of Major Pettigrew cheered him on his way because he really is Everyman, tho everyman will probably not admit it. He's trying one last time. I wonder, given his background, how many people would have done the same. Or would they have made excuses and just kept sitting?

I came away from it seeing the world differently, I really did, and it is a positive vision. I think the book is quite clear as he walked and shucked off layer after layer of what does not matter, tho Society almost got him in the end.

It's a hard book to read, in places. Very hard. I think the reader doubts too, in places. But the message I got out of it was soaring and positive.

BarbStAubrey · « **Reply #10713 on:** February 21, 2013, 12:00:27 AM »

well I do like your conclusion and the feelings you describe you received from reading the book - as I say I just got a sense of the sadness that envelopes so many when they do not get the outcome imagined and do not give themselves credit for what they did accomplish but instead compares their past to what is valued today - I am glad I read your takeout - it is a nice image to have - I wonder if there are other take outs from others who read this book - it would be fun to learn and rather than a month long read together for a change have a synopsis after we completed a read - I like the idea of every so often sprinkling a few of these reviews in the Library annex.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #10714 on:** February 21, 2013, 11:24:53 AM »

Steph, I received an email from The Teaching Company this morning: All Religion & Theology courses are 70% off till midnight tonight.

Don't forget: if a course does not meet your expectations, you may always return it for a refund.

maryz · « **Reply #10715 on:** February 21, 2013, 11:46:58 AM »

Tome, we get at least one e-mail from the Teaching Company every day - sometimes more. We never buy any of the courses unless they're on sale.

Steph · « **Reply #10716 on:** February 21, 2013, 02:27:06 PM »

Yes, I bought my current course on sale and probably will only buy on sale..
Finished Gone Girl.. Don't think I will try anything else by her.. My take in the end is that she is "CLEVER"... I disliked the people intensely.. Terrifying at the end.. But I would guess I am the wrong age. I am pretty sure I have never met anyone like either of them and hope I never do.

MaryPage · « **Reply #10717 on:** February 21, 2013, 03:46:03 PM »

I know this is and has always been a fairly normal reaction for an octogenarian, but I find that MOST people of the generations younger than myself just get stranger and stranger as the generations go down, and I find I cannot fathom their thinking and their reasoning and their behavior.

And I find this so scary that I am comforted rather than frightened at the thought of dying and not having to carry this burden of anxiety about where this civilization is headed for another hour.

PatH · « **Reply #10718 on:** February 21, 2013, 05:18:41 PM »

Don't give up so easily, MaryPage. Let's all stick around and laugh together at how weird it gets.

JoanP · « **Reply #10719 on:** February 21, 2013, 06:13:59 PM »

Has anyone read any of Kent Haruf's books - Plainsong, Eventide? He's just come out with a new one after a decade since he last published. The new one is called Benediction - some of the characters appeared in the earlier two. I'm really interested to hear about those...

Also, we are looking for a good Fiction title for group discussion in April. Please stop in the Suggestion box with your ideas...

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Author Topic: The Library (Read 2300773 times)