The Library

[ginny]

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 

[ginny]

Jean, oh ,  I hadn't thought of that! That would add an interesting dimension. I thought the first show was  too much, over the top, lots of  mugging and craziness. I wasn't prepared for it,  I watched the second one and  it went it grew on you as you began to see more of each person, and they are very interesting people.

I have been wondering and I know it's ridiculous to even admit it, but I have been wondering if that punch between  George Foreman and William Shatner was staged? How, really, could it have been otherwise? If George Foreman (!!) or anybody had punched William Shatner in the side of the face or jaw, would 85 year old Shatner have survived it? I loved the dynamics, tho, here's Shatner dancing around Foreman in boxing gloves, doing little feints at his stomach, and actual jabs,  teasing him and being obnoxious,  and Foreman is getting increasingly angry and shaking his head no, and whammo.

Shatner being an actor and used to faking punches, I'm hoping that was a fun trick? What did you think if you saw it?

At the very least it would have broken his jaw yet he's shown with ice and saying it was bruised? But there were no bruises or swelling evident.

These are the high brow things I spend my time wondering about. hahahaa

[mabel1015j]

Yes, i think it was faked 

Jean

[JoanK]

They had one episode of the last season here, and then it disappeared!

[ginny]

I think you're right, Jean. I can't imagine it otherwise.

JoanK, maybe that was the last episode? They are going on next year, so we ought to be able to see more before too much longer, the reviews of viewers are wonderful, the critics, not quite as enthusiastic.

I am just glad for once to see wrinkled potbellied 69-85 year olds have a show of their own in which they patently enjoy life and have a wonderful time doing it.

It's our turn. (Not necessarily to be potbellied) hahahahaa

[Dana]

Hello Rosemary, recently you wrote about Elizabeth Jane Howard  who rang a faint bell with me--I had read most of her earlier books, and actually found some of them when I looked, but not the Cazalets--so I got those and have started The Light Years......at first I was not impressed.... had to think why.... seemed a bit trivial I suppose, but I am now hooked.  I  save it for my bedtime read and now can't wait to tuck myself in and see what happens next...do hope it doesn't start to keep me awake.........she was born in 1927 and so I guess she knows what went on in 1937......  the social stuff is  fascinating.... maids, no tampons,baths once a week, wives with seemingly pointless (but it's too early in the book to say really) lives etc.  The maids  reminded me of  the Just William series (Richmal Compton), probably before your time, was really before mine, but the library had them all when I was a kid...along with Biggles and the Famous Five ....

I also just got And the Ladies in the Club and so am looking forward to some American social history too, have been warned by many reviews to persevere through the first 200 pages....!

[bellamarie]

Dana, And Ladies of the Club is a slowwwww..... read.  Unless you have many hours of the day to stick with it, which I do not, expect to be reading it for months, not weeks.  I have passed 200 pages and it still is slow.  I got a notice my book is overdue to return so I plan to go to Amazon and purchase a very cheap copy and just take my good ole sweet time on it.  Good luck!

[Winchesterlady]

Dana, You and Rosemary have gotten me interested in the Cazalets once again. I watched the Masterpiece Theatre program, "The Cazalets," several years ago, bought the books, but never got around to reading them. I will have to get them off the shelves and read them. Elizabeth Jane Howard was the author of several good books and had an interesting life. She wrote an autobiography called "Slipstream."

[JoanK]

Read a book by Craig Johnson "The Highwayman" (yes,  named after the poem we all loved as teenagers -- I bet PatH can still recite it) about a Wyoming Highway patrol man, Longmire. I haven't seen  the TV series based on this series, but if they show the scenery, I'd like to.

Very dramatic. Think cowboys with a dash of ghosts thrown in. Not my usual reading, but I liked it.

[PatH]

Anyone who was thinking of joining the discussion of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, it started yesterday.  There's still plenty of time to join in, as so far we've been filling in background.  It's a really good book, with many stories--human, ethical, medical, and more.  Here's the link:

http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=4978.http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=4978.0

[Frybabe]

I am not going to be joining in the Henrietta Lacks discussion, but I am happy to see that some of our Latin students are interested.

[rosemarykaye]

Hi Dana and Bellamarie

I agree that you have to wait a bit to get into the Cazelets - they are by no means 'literary' reads, but the details are fascinating. I understand that Elizabeth Jane Howard based them on her own life - I think she had most in common with Edward's daughter Louise (you will have to read the books to see what happened there...)

Howard was married three times, most famously to Kingsley Amis, who did not treat her well. I've read that it was she who was largely responsible for getting the author Martin Amis (Kingsley's son) into Oxford, as she managed to motivate him to do some work. This is a link (I hope) to Howard's obituary in The Guardian - it is very interesting:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/02/elizabeth-jane-howard-dies-90

Bellamarie - I haven't seen the TV adaptation but I understand that it didn't get very good reviews at the time. I'd like to see it.

I've got Slipstream but I haven't read it yet.

Dana - I do know who Just William is and actually have another book by Richmal Crompton, but I didn't ever really read the William books as a child. I adored The Famous Five and used to read those books over and over again - even my son liked them! Of course Enid Blyton was, for a while, removed from public libraries here, but I'm glad to say that stupid decision made no difference to her popularity, and I have seen that she is back, at least in Edinburgh libraries.

Rosemary

[Dana]

For heaven's sake, why was she removed from public libraries?  Obviously she's a bit dated, but, politically incorrect??  I'm trying to imagine why..... not George surely.... did she write about gollywogs or something.......(don't think so, that was Agatha Christie, (sort of). I suppose Anne was a bit of a wimp and George was only brave because she wanted to be a boy?......I can't imagine....please put me out of my misery and do tell.....!


....just googled Enid and it seems she was thought to be an inferior writer, snobbish, sexist, and she DID have golliwogs apparently who did bad things....ah well.....funny how popular she was though...!! I loved her.

[rosemarykaye]

Dana, it was because the library service at the time decided Blyton's writing style was poor and therefore not a 'good thing' for children to read. The powers that be wanted children to read more educational and worthy stuff. As you can imagine, children just got the books from elsewhere.

As for the non-PC elements, I believe there have been attempts to 'correct' the books over the years - goodness knows what those versions were like! I'm not sure if Blyton mentioned gollywogs (I think she did, but not in the FF series), though I expect there were at least some 'Johnny Foreigner, he can't be trusted' type comments. I don't think children learn attitudes from books - they are not stupid and they know what it fiction and what is fact.  Roald Dahl has never been edited (so far as I know) and no-one has yet tried to sit on a crocodile.

Rosemary

[BarbStAubrey]

Those who have Acorn have been able to enjoy all the episodes  in the Agatha Raisin TV Series but Tra La for the rest of us, all is not lost... the 8 episodes + the pilot will also begin airing on many PBS stations throughout the U.S. in early 2017

[maryz]

Wow, I didn't know Agatha had been made into a series.  They did a great series on Hamish Macbeth (MC Beaton's other series) a while back (available from Netflix) and we've watched those twice. 

[ginny]

I just cannot finish that last book of hers, Something Borrowed, Someone Dead. Every new chapter seems to feature a new boyfriend and another cast member and another added plot and it's very strained, very tiresome to weed thru, very " lite."   I used to love ths series.   If anybody would like the paperback, send me your address and I'll send it to you.

I hope that all of you (we have a LOT of Latin students directly in the path in Florida  of Hurricane Matthew) in the path of this awful storm will be safe. HOPEFULLY the nasty thing will spin out to sea.

[bellamarie]

Speaking of not being able to finish a book, I am taking "And Ladies of the Club" back to the library today.  I've given it my best efforts, just am not able to continue on, it's simply too long and a bit boring for me.  I may give it another try at a later date.

My daughter and her husband are on the west coast of Florida and are safe, but I do have friends in the path of Matthew.  Praying all in it's path are safe.

[Mkaren557]

I have several books that I have tried several times to read and haven't finished:  A Suitable Boy,  Truman, The First Man in Rome, War and Peace, to name the ones that come to mind.  I really want to finish them all, but I put them all down intending to come back, and some I have, but they are still on my Did Not Finish shelf.  Any that anyone thinks I have to finish for whatever reason?

[rosemarykaye]

I think I did finish the Vikram Seth ages ago, but I've not heard of the others.

As I get older I am more and more able to ditch a book, even if it's famous. I've never even tried War & Peace, though no doubt I should.

Rosemary

[JoanK]

We discussed "War and Peace here some years ago. It's one of my favorite books, but you have to be able to do what I call "creative skipping" when Tolstoy starts rambling on about his theory of history. he badly needed an editor.

[PatH]

Life is too short to spend a lot of time reading books you don't enjoy.  War and Peace is the only Russian novel I've ever managed to finish, and I enjoyed it, but don't see why anyone needs to read it if they don't like it.  Sometimes, I've tried a book several times and not been able to get into it, then eventually, when the time was ripe, read and enjoyed it.  But I'll never be able to get more than two pages into Proust.

[bellamarie]

I agree, as you get older it is easier to decide to stop wasting your valuable time reading a book to the end just because you started it or because it was on a best seller list, etc.  When it becomes a struggle and not enjoyable..... pitch it, or like MKaren, place it on a "Did not finish shelf."   Just up until a few years ago I had never attempted to read more than one book at a time.  I thought it was a cardinal sin to cheat and go on to another book before finishing the one I was reading.  Well, you club members taught me the fun of having piles or shelves of different types of books to place in these multiple shelves such as, TBR, and Not finished and I tried the reading more than one book at a time and loved it!!!   We are never too old to change, and try new things!!! 

[Frybabe]

I agree Bellamarie. When I was younger, I read everything, cover to cover, even sports articles in the news magazines (I am not into sports). I was afraid I'd miss something if I didn't. Gradually, I discovered that I didn't need to read everything, so at first, I stopped reading magazine articles I wasn't really interested in. It took a lot longer to do the same for books. A lot longer. In fact, I just dropped my to last reads because the stories weren't compelling enough to continue even though some of it and/or I liked the characters.

Oh, yes. I was a one book at a time reader too. I was afraid of mixing up the stories. Now I am usually into at least two, sometimes three at a time. Especially when I am reading a non-fiction book, I find the change of pace by reading a novel actually helpful to keep me from getting overwhelmed with too much info at once. Some fiction books are also densely packed with information, like Neal Stevenson's books. If you've read or tried to read his SevenEves, you know exactly what I mean.

I am in between books right now. It is not unusual for me to go bookless for a day or two before selecting my next reads. Like right now. I have two SciFi books coming in at the end of the week, so I am likely to go back to reading a Roman history I started a while back, or begin Odd Thomas. One of them will go with me to my dental appointment this afternoon. OR, I could just take me Kindle and dig into some of the short stories I have stored. Decisions, Decisions!

[BarbStAubrey]

[Dana]

I am stuck away from home (actually in a very nice place beside a beautiful lake and in gorgous weather,  because of the hurricane .  (A tree fell on on our house and there is no power, water or sewer yet), so I have just finished the first of the Cazalet series.  Unfortunately the rest are at home.  Getting more interesting as I get into this family.  Too many kids, lots of names.  What strikes me though is what a depressing picture it seems to paint of the lot of women , at least the upper middle class ones, in Britain just before the second world war. Surely she is biased.  I hope.  I don't remember my mother as having such a frustrating, pointless and somewhat helpless life with men having all the power and all the perks.  (I know they had a lot but.....) She seemed happier, to me back then, than these women. 
Would be interested to read these books with you all, and would like to suggest we consider them for the book club.  They are about Britain but the womens' stuff is so interesting and we are all of an age that we have our own and the experience of our mothers to look back on and comment on.

[rosemarykaye]

How interesting Dana - in retrospect I can see that the Cazalet women do have immensely restricted lives, albeit well-funded ones.

My mother came from the opposite end of the financial spectrum, but really I think her life was just as unsatisfactory. She was obliged by her family to leave school at 14 to earn money and contribute to the family income (her father had been gassed in WWI and had never worked since, her mother had 5 children, took in washing, did other people's housework, etc - but there was never enough food or money). The restrictions on her were, I suppose, monetary rather than simply down to her sex - but for her and all of her friends, the only real way out was to marry a man with some sort of decent job and keep him happy to make sure the family stayed secure.  I don't know that many of her friends' husbands had affairs, etc (as the Cazalet men often do, especially Edward) but even if they had, the women would probably have put up with it. My mother has always resented her lack of education and the denial of opportunity to have a career.

I don't think Elizabeth Jane Howard would have been especially biased - she wrote of the world she knew. I think she was a bit of a rebel though.

It would be great to study these books, especially as I've already read them!

I do hope you get back into your house soon, you are very stoic - I'm glad you have somewhere nice to stay in the meantime.

Best wishes,

Rosemary

[bellamarie]

The  Cazalet series sound like they would make for interesting discussions, because yes, we are all familiar with experiences of our mothers living through some difficult years.  My mother was not highly educated, she quit school at the age of 16 to help with family and finances.  She married young, and had seven kids to care for and raise, after my father was killed in a truck/train accident just months after the seventh child was born.  She remarried a "hillbilly" as everyone referred to him as who was very abusive, so she felt she had to protect the seven of us, and she worked until an injury of her back made it impossible.  She finally divorced her husband (whom none of us ever called our step Dad, due to his abusive ways) when I graduated high school.  My mother was a strong woman dealing with the loss of her husband, raising seven children, and dealing with abuse in her second marriage.  One thing it taught me was to never accept any form of abuse in my life as an adult.

Dana, I hope you will be back in the comforts of your own home soon.  There's no place like home!

[rosemarykaye]

Your mother does indeed sound like one strong woman Bellamarie. It's awful what women have had to put up with over the years. And of course it's still going on for many. Our very long-running radio serial The Archers has recently focused on the 'new' (as in newly defined in law) crime of 'coercive control'. It's been brilliantly done, and in addition to raising awareness, it's also helped to raise over £150,000 for women's refuge charities.

[Dana]

My mother was lucky I guess.  Her father was a grocer but she went to university (St Andrews) in the 1920s, which was a bit unusual, and then worked as a maths teacher in various places in the uk, supporting her mother financially because her father had died (actually before she went, so she was lucky to go, thanks to my granny I guess, who kept the business going for a while.)  She always described her youth with pleasure though.   
I think we might like these books because they do point up how much better off we are as women to-day.  At least, I think they do.  Who knows, others may differ.  Some of the things they had to put up with make me shudder. Like getting their teeth out (not just the women....there was a thing in Britain about removing teeth for health--my granny had them all removed in her early 20s.  Wonder if that happened here?  Doubt it somehow).......... and no tampons!!!  And the assumption by the girls in their games that the boys would have the lead roles...eg be the doctor. 

[rosemarykaye]

Yes, the teeth thing really shocked me Dana! Also, of course, girls' complete ignorance of what was coming on their wedding night.

I think on the whole things are better for women now. Domestic violence, however, is said to be on the up in the UK - that is something that never goes away.

[bellamarie]

I agree Rosemarykaye, I think on the whole things are better for women now.  I volunteer for an organization for pregnant mothers to help support and educate them throughout their pregnancy and the first three years of their child's life, we provide them with information to help them find other programs to help them better their lives.  This program deals with a large percentage of poverty, abuse, and uneducated girls/women from our inner city.  The girls want the help and support to better their lives.  One client who was pregnant for her first child came in with her mother, as we were talking the mother stated she hopes her daughter breaks the cycle because she herself has eight children by many different fathers and none of them are in their lives.  She asked me if I had kids and I said, yes three. She asked if they were all by the same man, I said yes, I have been married for forty-five years.  She said, "Oh my gosh you mean you aint been with no other man in yo life for forty-five years?"  I had to smile at the thought that this seemed foreign to her.  I told her yes, there are really good men out there who do stay committed to their wife and children.  Her daughter very shyly said, "I don't want to be like my mother."  Her mother said, "I don't want you to be like me either." 

We have come far.........but still have a long way to go in educating women what they are capable of.

[PatH]

That's a touching story, Bellamarie, I hope that girl finds the life she wants.

And good for you for volunteering.

[PatH]

In the sci-fi discussion, I posted a link to an article suggesting that Ursula K. LeGuin deserved a Nobel Prize.  Well, not this time.  This year's winner is:

Bob Dylan!!

Anyone agree?

[nlhome]

His lyrics do speak to me.

[ANNIE]

Ursula's words speak to me.  Loved all her books!
So I would vote for her!

But I don't know about Bob Dylan!😋  What did he get one for?

[PatH]

"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition"

That's more helpful than some of the science descriptions.

[bellamarie]

Bob Dylan??  When I saw this on my Facebook today I thought.... hmmm what has he actually done to deserve this award.  I do think they are becoming a bit controversial on who they are choosing lately. 

[nlhome]

Bob Dylan has spoken to generations. I remember listening to his music and lyrics while I was in college and my husband was in Vietnam and in the years following. I remember recently talking to my young nephew, in his early 20's, who attended a Dylan concert with his father, who is my age. His words can cross generations.

[Mkaren557]

It was 1966.  In October of 1965 I had left the convent where I had spent the last 14 months.  In January, in the middle of a blizzard, I headed to the University of Maine, to 109 Kennebec Hall as a second semester sophomore.  I was peacefully unpacking in my room in the space left for me by my mystery roommate.  Without warning, Joey burst into my room and into my life, with several repetitions of the forbidden four-letter word.  Flinging herself on the bed on the opposite side of the room, she lit a strange looking and smelling cigarette. Not even close to recovered from her entrance, I sat on my bed as Joey went to the record player and introduced me to raspy voiced musical genius who provided the background music for the cultural revolution that was the 60s.  So this morning I thought of Joey, sitting on that bed and singing at top volume, "Everybody must get stoned."  Thank you Bob Dylan.