The Library

[Dana]

oh Enid Blyton...(the pics looked much the same.....)
The Famous Five, George, Julian, Dick and Ann and Timmy the dog. They had tons of adventures and George was a girl who wanted to be a boy.  My absolutely no 1 favourite childhood series bar none.

 I understand Enid Blyton is TOTALLY non PC these days.  I think she wrote a series about a golliwog or something.

But I remember Epaminondas, too, for some reason the name came up the other day and when I looked it up, because it was associated in my mind with a childhood story, not the greek philosopher, I wondered where on earth i had read/heard the story.  Has he got something to do with Brer Rabbit I wondered....but i have not checked that out

[PatH]

I remember Epaminondas.  His mother baked a number of pies, and set them out to cool.  She warned her son about them: "You be careful how you step in those pies."  So he was careful, and stepped precisely in the middle of each one.

[CallieOK]

Ginny,  I haven't posted in a very long time but have been reading regularly.  However, I just had to reply to your post about books from our childhood and grabbing the reader in the first sentence.

I had a complete set of the Bobbsey Twin books and, when I left home, my mother gave them all to a younger friend....without even asking me  .   This friend now lives in the OKC area and I sometimes tease her about returning them.  I also remember a series about "Honey Bunch" - who was a cherubic little blonde... totally opposite from me!!

Re: the writing teacher's comment:     I also took some writing courses and remember the sentence that was suggested for grabbing the reader's attention:

"The rats of panic scampered through her chest".         

[PatH]

Callie, you gave me a good laugh.  That would sure grab my attention, but I don't think it would make me want to read the book.

[Dana]

Just read a story about Epaminondas.  That is really shocking thru today's eyes.  But yet I guess we did not turn a hair.  I don't remember the stories, only the name (and nothing to do with Brer Rabbit), but maybe they were both read to me as a child.  I do remember my Dad reading Brer Rabbit. Now that's a stretch in itself......a Polish man reading to his daughter an American story, in Scotland......

[bellamarie]

Ginny, If you had to do one of those instant answer tests, what book do you remember the most from your childhood and why?

The first book that comes to mind is, Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lingrend.  I loved her mischievous behavior.  I also liked the Dick and Jane books.  I found this one a few years back and had to buy it.  My little granddaughter Zoey, learned to read from this book. 


I was taught in writing class, you must grab the reader in the first paragraphs as well.

That does not hold true with books I have read even in the past few years.  I have read the first few pages, and wanted to give up, because it was not grabbing my attention.  Was it Ella, who used to say she was fed up, and ready to throw her book across the room.  She taught me to just give it up, don't torture yourself, wasting your time on a book that is not interesting. 

[BarbStAubrey]

childhood books - oh my - so many good ones - some I still have - I too Callie had the Bobbsey Twins - not all of them like you though however, two are most precious, they were my mother's - that makes them over 100 years old - she was born in 1910-

I still have other's like crying as Mom read Black Beauty that was printed in inexpensive paper and I can barely open the book it cracks in my hands -

I have Robinson Caruso that Mom read to me when I was recuperating from ear surgery and pneumonia - never liked the story, tried as an adult and still did not like the story -

One of my favorites was Heidi and that Christmas received Heidi Grows Up - I was in seventh heaven -

Then The Kentucky Cardinal - still see the bird weathering the winter storm on a branch deep within the other branches hoping to get through the night -

Oh yes, and Mary Poppins and another follow up Christmas surprise Mary Poppins Opens the Door -

Mom read Swiss Family Robinson that i did not like either -

I think the 3rd grade it was Marco Polo - oh I loved it and that followed with Treasure Island. Kidnapped and The Black Arrow - not so much Kidnapped but loved Black Arrow -

Oh yes and again, ill with Measles that both my sister and I had at the same time -I was in 4th grade and my sister in 2nd grade - Mom came in to apply Calamine lotion and to help us get our mind off the itching she read us The Trail of the Lonesome Pine - Had to read it again as an adult because some of it went over my head -

by 5th and 6th grade I was into the Leather Stocking stories that I loved - I think I read all of them - some in the library and again, a Christmas present of the Deerslayer - so many more but these stand out.   

[PatH]

Pippi Longstockig came out too late for me, didn't read the books until my children did.  But I had Winnie-the-Pooh.  I reread Milne's 4 books countless times.  And Barb reminds me of Heidi, and Black Beauty and the Black Arrow. 

[Frybabe]

Ah, kiddie books. I can't tell you in what order I read them, but I remember Black Beauty, The Black Stallion, Treasure Island, the children's cleaned-up version of The Three Musketeers, Peter Rabbit (but that one must have been a Golden Book), Marmaduke Mouse and Reggie Rabbit (a gift from my relatives in Wales), the Nancy Drew books (my sister liked the Bobbsey Twins), Heidi (I think Shirley Temple had something to do with that choice) and Robinson Caruso. I can't remember when  I started reading some of Max Brand's books, but Alcatraz stands out. The Virginian had to wait until the TV show came out which meant that I was in high school by then. As you can tell from the list, I read mostly westerns and adventure stories back then. By junior and high school, I added war stories like The Red Badge of Courage and Is Paris Burning?

Interesting thing about the interest in the wars. I started out in ninth grade reading a bunch of Civil War articles and novels, in high school I graduated to WWI and then WWII. By the time I got out of high school, I was tired of reading about wars. Now it seems I am back to reading war stories in my SciFi picks and watching movies and documentaries both historical and current action.

[ginny]

OH what great memories and stories! They bring so much back in a flash!

Callie, how good to see you! You must talk more often!! Gave away the Bobbsey Twins, hahaa, oh man. That's one reason I save everything I can despite many protests. My grandson played with the wood blocks my children did, and am saving them, too for great grandchildren.


SHRIEK!! The rats of panic scampered through her chest.    hahhahaa Now DOES that make one want to continue the book, that's the question!?! hahahaa That reminds me of some of those Worst First Lines contests.


Dana those  Epaminondas tales seem to be part of a genre of... and I've forgotten what they were called but sort of long chains of cause and effect. I can see why that one would not be PC! But I think they were adapted from earlier types of stories like that, I just can't remember what they were called.


Bellamarie:  Dick and Jane!!! YES!!! What wonderful books, I also taught my children and grandchild to read on them.  Also taught a child they wanted to mainstream to read on them and he learned so well he adapted to a grade above his age . They MAY be the "Look/ Say" method but they work. And what works is what's wanted.


Barbara, YESSS Heidi! Yes. I was thinking yesterday of what other books I read along the way, and which were the most pivotal. I can't believe you read the Deerslayer and liked it!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell me it was an adaptation?

Interesting on how many were read to you, too. I never liked Swiss Family Robinson either but I absolutely LOVED Robinson Crusoe,  like Frybabe, and it was one of the first books I read by myself. It  was a revelation to me for some reason. My father used to read Little House on the Prairie to me.  I really did not   care for it  much but he had such a beautiful basso profundo voice it was magic.


 Pat H, I reread Milne's 4 books countless times. Me, too. I can still recite some of the poems: King John was not a good man, and no good friends had he. I loved When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, particularly. Remember the rice pudding one?  And it's lovely rice pudding for dinner again. I never understood what the issue was but I never had eaten rice pudding (and haven't, to this day).

Frybabe Nancy DREW! YES!  Nancy Drew and weren't there some about boys? Hardy? Something.  I did not like the boy books.

My best friend had two sisters, and the younger one did not like to read. In the attic of their house was, I believe, every Nancy Drew book ever written as well as Cherry Ames and a lot more and their mother told me, the little bookworm that I was, that I could have any of them to read (and return) and when she opened that attic door I thought I was in heaven. I mean there were just stacks and stacks.

 They also had Bonita Granville!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT was the book I prized over all the others, Bonita Granville solves whatever mystery the book was about. She was a movie star in the ...40's? I had no idea who she was but I LOVED that book so much I bought it years ago just to have. I am afraid to read it now.


This has all gotten me thinking about pivotal books. I didn't stay with Nancy Drew forever. 

In looking back over my entire childhood, I'm trying to isolate this or that book which made a profound impression me... And I've come up with a couple...Call of the Wild.   And then there was a short story, strangely enough IN a reading textbook for school called The Most Dangerous Game, do you remember that thing? Guy goes to an island and ends up being hunted as if he were an animal? I had nightmares for years about it.

And then there was another short story, I guess, and I seem to recall it was illustrated, maybe  a cartoon?  And I am hoping some of you remember it, it has  haunted me for years. You can see what the object of it was, but it was an assembly line and everybody was put in a box? And the box made everybody the same size, height and width? Do any of you remember that? The assembly line turned out people all the same, as squares. I wish I could remember more about it, this person was too tall, not any  more, this person was too wide, not any more. Had nightmares for years about that, too.

What made me remember these was Frybabe mentioning the Red Badge of Courage.


But as you got older, say, up to 18, was there ONE book in your entire youthful reading which made a profound difference to you? Or had a profound effect?

[Frybabe]

Ginny, I was just cruising around in the Google Forums and ran across Wales. Of course I had to look-see. One of the things I found was an article posted from Walesonline. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/caerleon-roman-newport-vandalism-ancient-18254945 Seems vandals keep trying to wreck the Roman ruins at Caerleon. I am not happy to see that. Morons! (can I say that?) This article was from May.

[ginny]

 Well what a stupid thing. One wonders what gets into people. I hope they find who did it and make them replace the stones one by one and some of the other maintenance needed too. Nice to see their attitude toward the vandals.

[CallieOK]

Ginny, Now that you mention the "worst opening line" contest.....I think "The rats...." may have been a winner in that one.

I still have all of my Milne books (Winnie-The-Pooh, The House At Pooh Corner and the poems) - as well as my original (not first edition) copies of "Mary Poppins",  "Mary Poppins Comes Back" and "Dr. Doolittle".   I gave my copies of "Little Women", "Little Men" and "Jo's Boys" to my oldest granddaughter.   (She got a card from the New York City Library after she moved there and very quickly learned how to borrow e-books.  Her comment,  "I'm in heaven".)
Also have my copies of Rudyard Kiplilng's "Just So" stories - several of which, I suspect, would probably not be "p.c." nowadays. 

I am really distressed about the vandalism that's so prevalent today.   "Attitude" cannot be legislated and  all the laws and regulations that are enacted and all the discussions about "feelings" that are held will be useless unless there's a massive change of attitude.

I don't post very often because, although I find the book choices and comments interesting and enlightening, I'm not the type of reader who is able to "interpret" the deeper meaning of a story.  (For instance,  my high school English teacher was amazed when I did a book report on "Anna Karenina".  She was impressed that I read Tolstoy;  I just thought it was a good love story)

[Frybabe]

When I saved up enough allowance money I would go (with parents) to Korvette's and haunt the book/music department. I bought all my Nancy Drew's there and began my collection of classical music as well. It was a cosy place, kind of like an alcove, all walled by book and record shelves with only one way in and out, by the cash-register. Mom and Dad knew if they left me there I would still be there when they completed their shopping.

Oh, I forgot about Call of the Wild. We may have read "The Most Dangerous Game" in school, I remember something like that. The hunters part human and part animal. Reminds me of The Island of Dr. Moreau which I don't think we read at school. I may have read it or seen the old movie (not Marlin Brando's rendition).

I didn't mention Green Mansions. I still have the book (was Dad's). When I read it, I didn't realize it was a kind of political thing, so I really should put that back on my read again list. I also still have Dad's copy of People of the Deer. Farley Mowat took his trip the year I was born. Another one I could read again.

I have to think about books that made a difference.  I can tell you that I have never forgotten Red Badge of Courage (surprised to learn that George never read it) and Black Beauty.

Of course there are tons of books I intended to read all these years, including Uncle Tom's Cabin and Hunchback of Notre Dame but never got around to it.

Hi Callie, happy to see you post here. Anna Karenina was one of the few books I had but finally decided I wasn't ever going to read it.

BTW, I am leaving Paul Theroux in Japan. He just got too exhausting, just hopping one train after another willy-nilly without a stop if possible. Vietnam and Singapore were interesting. He travelled Nam shortly before we pulled the last of our people and a bunch of refugees out. The VC were still active and Saigon, relatively untouched so far, seems not to have noticed that they were actually losing the war.

Next up will be The Anarchy. It is the Dalrymple I bought but timeline-wise it is before his The Last Mogul. I will probably have to renew that when I get to it.

[BarbStAubrey]

No adaptation - heck Ginny I was in the 6th and 7th grade and read the entire series with the Wyeth illustrations

From then through 8th grade there were so many - the Biography of Nathaniel Bowditch was a favorite - one of 9 children whose mother died and he had to work - on his own he learned math and using the bible as his base he tought himself 5 languages - with both these skills he was able to go as a 12 year old up the ladder to first an accountant then several years later with his languages he could talk to the sea captains directly and was assigned the job of arranging and writing the contracts and follow the loading and unloading of trade goods - When he was an adult in the 1700s he wrote the sea manual used by the US Navy until the 1990s - He was my hero that said I could learn and do anything.

We could borrow 5 books at a time for a week and I was back every week. End of 8th grade I had read every book in the children's library including the Cremation of Sam McGee Loved it and laughed inside - read it so often I memorized it saying it aloud with a great flourish and that started me reading books of poetry -

Since I was the librarian on Sunday from 10: to 1: so those folks coming from Mass could and did come, they would finish up and the library was silent for about 15 minutes till the next group - that was when I perused the Adult section, found and read a copy of Captain from Castile - one Sunday I even closed up a half hour past time in order to read it - could not take it out till I graduated but by then I had finished it. What amazed me was when the movie came out it was only about a third of the story - I could not believe it plus they had some of it wrong and made more out of the love parts.

The only time I went to the public library was when Mom took me with her to the shopping area that was about 4 miles away - we took the baby carriage and laughed how we had to hide that there was no baby in the carriage - while she shopped she left me at the library but since we only went erratically - not at all in summer, we grew our own and the little store in the area provided basics and so getting books back would not have been possible. when I was very young I would glance over a story to see if I knew the words and then ask how to say such and such word - one time the usual librarian was not there and this young women, probably collage age was in her place and she was being teacher like having me sound it out that all took time - I was no annoyed that she was taking time from my reading and that Mom would come and I would not have read one book I never risked asking again, even the regular librarian and that is when i started the habit of making a sound in my head for words I did not know - low and behold later in the story the word was usually in a different sentence so I could figure out what it meant but never knew how to say it.

High School opened the world to me and again the School Library was my source - Behind lock and key were maybe a hundred considered special books and looking at them through the glass I asked to read Ascent on Mount Carmel by St. John of the Cross, who was a friend to St. Teresa of Avila in the sixteenth century. Ascent... includes The Dark Night of the Soul - the Allison Peers edition - not only does St. John of the Cross lay out all his bits as if proving a Geometry problem, which was my best subject in High School, but the Allison Peers edition is the closest translation and reading this I also learned of sentence structure saying things backward - this or that is not, and one theme includes the real definition and understanding of hope that I was already struggling with as I noticed most were praying to God as if giving their grocery list of hopes and I learned, hope is seeing the unknown and acting, that to hope for anything less then the courage to face the unkown is really spouting off memory. On and on -

And then to make this really special Sister Rose Imelda noticed each library session I was asking for her to unlock the case so I could read the book that had to be read while sitting at a table in the library.  Well all of a sudden out of the clear blue she says I could take it home to read over a long weekend - I was floored and did not know what to say - I panicked as well because my youngest brother and sister were pre-school age and I could not read when they were around for fear what would happen to this special book. Not only did I read this in my Junior year in High School but since, I forget about it and then going through a difficult time and I remember and read it all again - I've probably read it 10 or more times and recently been reading it a chapter each morning with my coffee - I have a paperback copy that cost fifty cents so that is how old and tattered this book is with so many paper sticking up with something important - it was my bible during my divorce back in the early 90s - this and the Nathaniel Bowditch bio are the two most important books I have ever read.   

[bellamarie]

Callie, "my high school English teacher was amazed when I did a book report on "Anna Karenina".  She was impressed that I read Tolstoy;  I just thought it was a good love story)"

I just read Anna Karenina for the first time last year.  I think because I have always been interested in psychology, I have a tendency to look way too deep into the characters of the books I read.  Anna was such a dark person, extremely selfish, and vain.  I was surprised at the ending, but actually it seems like it would indeed turn out that way.  She was her worst enemy.  I never found her love for Count Alexis (or Alexei) Vronsky healthy, it was possessive, and frightful at times.

All these books you all speak of reading, or your mother or father reading to you as a child leaves me feeling so amazed. I grew up in a home where there were no books. The only book I recall my mother sitting down and showing us was our family Bible.  She didn't actually read it to us, she basically showed us the colorful pictures, taught us to say our prayers, and to love God.   We did not go to a library, I didn't even know there was such a place. With my crazy imagination, I would write my own little stories and poems, or play with pictures of people cut out from newspaper ads, furniture, cars etc., with my younger sister.  I would play for hours in our bedroom, with those paper people, making imaginary scenarios.  We never traveled, had vacations, or visited family who didn't live in our small rural town, so when a family member came to visit us at Easter one year, my younger sister and I thought they were rich and snobby.  When I finally got my hands on the first book I remember, Pippi Longstocking, I must have read it a million times.  [i/]

Barb,"High School opened the world to me and again the School Library was my source"

It wasn't until I got married and moved to Ohio, my world was opened up to me....we lived in an apartment just blocks away from a public library.  When my hubby would leave for work, I would walk to the library.  I was like a kid in a candy shop. I could not borrow enough books.  I knew nothing about what authors were considered the best, I had no idea what "classics" were, I had never heard of Jane Austen.  So I would choose a book by not only the cover, but as we noted prior, if the first few paragraphs grabbed my attention.

Then I got an ad in the mail to join a monthly book club.  If you ordered so many books a month, you would get one free!  Just subscribing you could pick out maybe five books for a really low price.  Oh my heavens, I couldn't decide what books to buy, there were so many to choose from.  This is how I began learning all about authors, classics, best sellers, etc.  Needless to say, I ended up with shelves and shelves of books!  I couldn't read them fast enough, I would stay up all night reading.  And so...my thirst for reading was finally being quenched. 

Ginny, But as you got older, say, up to 18, was there ONE book in your entire youthful reading which made a profound difference to you? Or had a profound effect?

I have to say in 1970, in my English Literature class my senior year, we read Hiroshima. I had never cared for history, I failed miserably, every test I ever took in my American History class, but for some reason, this book had a profound effect on me.  Knowing the devastation, the deaths, the darkness of the event stayed with me for years to follow.  President Truman felt this was necessary to bring an end to the war to save lives, yet for me, I could not comprehend killing thousands of innocent people.  War is cruel, yet sometimes necessary.

One thing is for certain, each and everyone of us, no matter our backgrounds, age, or interests, we have a true love for reading. 

[BarbStAubrey]

Isn't it amazing how far we have come compared to our childhood reading - yes, libraries are like waking to a shiny bright day.

You and I think it was Ginny who remarked how much my mother read to me - never thought of it but can see why - when was a kid there was no TV to keep a child entertained nor was there much in the way of medicine and shots were limited to a vaccination for small pox - and so when you got sick you went to bed - remember seeing the illustration and reading the Robert Lewis Stevenson The Land of Counterpane and where the poem talks of lead soldiers I had lead farm animals, a farmer and his wife and lead trees that I would use my legs to make hills - several times a year we would shop at the five and dime and my sister and I got to pick out one animal or tree or whatever while mom shopped.

Back to reading - to keep us entertained and get our mind's off whatever caused pain Mom read to us - It was not unusual - reading was the entertainment of the day especially when a mom or teacher, who also read to us each day rather than the later popular rest time, they imitated the characters with a change of voice bringing more to the stories.

During that time many children did not have a radio - We got our first radio as a Christmas gift just before I turned 6, (Birthday in January). And so growing up all entertainment was home made and after the daily chores moms often read or played checkers, domino, card games with their children -

Appears you were among those who read the Bible each day  - we didn't - mom was busy cleaning up after supper, washing any clothing needed for the next day and setting the table for breakfast. After all that she took some time for herself. I've lots of friends who grew up listening to the Bible being read and they were the ones who could quote scripture. I used to admire that as they could rattle off chapter and verse.

oh and the paper dolls - I remember getting a book of paper dolls when I was about 7 - my sister and I would make our own - we even figured out how to draw. color and cut out dresses with proper tags to fold over our doll shoulders. Great fun wasn't it...

[rosemarykaye]

I know I am late to this party, but I have been fascinated to read all your memories of childhood books - they are mostly so different from my own. I would never have read Black Beauty (still haven't) in case something bad happened (please don't tell me!). I amazed that some of you read Robinson Crusoe, as I did not read it till I was an undergraduate and it was part of the course. I enjoyed it then (but Moll Flanders better) but I don't think I'd have made head or tail of it whilst in primary school.

My childhood home did not have a lot of books. I may have mentioned before that my father had bought a second hand job lot of Dickens books, but whenever I looked at them my mother would say 'oh you won't be able to read those, they are written in Old English' - as if they were contemporaneous with Beowulf or something. It was not her fault, she had grown up with no books at all. She is in fact an avid reader, though mostly of thrillers - I doubt she has ever read any of the classics.

Some of my favourite children's books were The Famous Five (Blyton was indeed banned in libraries for a while as being un-PC but I think she is back again now), The Lone Pine series by Malcolm Saville, The Family From One End Street,, Sue Barton (District Nurse, Student Nurse - just about every variation of nurse really...) and as a very young child Josephine and her Dolls, Milly-Molly-Mandy, My Naughty Little Sister,, Teddy Edward, Little Grey Rabbit, and Mary Plain. I'm not sure there was one book that influenced me, but I do recall reading Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth when i was still at school and Francois Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse and being very impressed by both.

I think for some unknown reason I did have a copy of a Brer Rabbit book - I had absolutely no idea what it was on about, ditto an Our Wullie album - Our Willie is a very Scottish cartoon character and at that time I had never been further north than Oxford Circus.

My children didn't like most of my childhood books, though they did enjoy The Famous Five. They were more taken with Horrid Henry, Harriet the Spy, the Bramley Hedge books, Harry Potter, and my youngest daughter's special favourite Lucy Willow. I made them listen to me read lots of Alfie and Annie Rose stories, but to be honest those children were far too well-behaved to appeal. Shirley Hughes' books are wonderful, and beautifully illustrated, but they are really more nostalgia-fests for parents (whose lives were almost certainly never like that) than the stuff of children's dreams.

Rosemary

[ginny]

I am so enjoying everybody's remarks on their childhood reading, and the difference in childhood reading experiences. Fascinating.

I do think, Bellamarie, that your story in particular is marvelous, in that you have become such a reader today entirely on your own.  I especially loved your story of discovering the library later on.

Rosemary  I also loved your story, also impressive,  and your mom has done the same thing, she's a great reader now, and obviously you are, too. I think when you persevere on your own it means so much to you later on. You're right, I have never read any of those childhood books you have, save Sue Barton Student Nurse (and there was, I now recall,  Trixie Belden, Student Nurse). In Edit: I'm wrong, Trixie was NOT a student nurse, she was a teen age detective.  What WAS it about these Student Nurse books? I certainly didn't want to turn into one.

Barbara, no that wasn't me, remarking on your mom's reading to you, my own mother had been a first grade teacher, so you can imagine the reading that went on in our house, and that was  my norm, so somebody else doing it would not have seemed remarkable. As the great great granddaughter of Bradshaw told Michael Portillo today, it's amazing when you see it all the time, you don't realize how remarkable it is. But I did remark on your James Fennimore Cooper!!!!!!!! See next post.

But we all seem to have turned into avid readers, which is the end goal, no matter how you reach it, after all.


Callie, oh you read Mary Poppins!  And Jo's Boys, etc., me too. I don't know what's wrong with me, but i never liked Kipling. I knew I should, but I didn't.

I think the "analyzing" you speak of is  a different thing from reading. It really has nothing to do with what we're doing here.  It falls under Literary Criticism, which is not everybody's interest.  One of the best courses I ever took was on film criticism. I was amazed there was so much to making a movie, the thought and  planning,  and it was fascinating.   The Film was East of Eden, and all the cinematic tricks were pointed out to us as to how the movie makers  and actors (James Dean!) brought the book to life. Then we also read and analyzed the book to see how the author John Steinbeck had done it in print. Not everybody wants to examine the nuts and bolts of anything. There's room for everybody here. I enjoy your posts and hope you will continue!


Frybabe, the Hunchback of Notre Dame is a marvelous book. I bet it's in  Project Gutenberg!!!! I bet you'd love it. Where do you stand on Dracula?

[ginny]

Speaking of Libraries and children, we lived in Philadelphia so we walked to the Library and we went often, my mother and I. I had the strangest reaction to the "Shhhh." It was all I could do (this is a small child,  now) not to burst out laughing or shriek. I can see my mother had her hands full with me because sometimes I had to literally  run outside and just burst out in a yell. hahahaha

One book I recall, not particularly fondly, was one I insisted on checking out, a big sort of book,  lots of illustrations, I recall the pages at least 2 feet long though of course that's ridiculous but anyway it was on.. of course...horses. And all the different things they could do, and  this one drawing of supposedly real things, centered on some idiot jumping a horse across parked cars.  It seems that horses doing dangerous things hit an apex about that time, think of Steel Pier...anyway....And there the horse was leaping, flying really over these parked cars. I was only a child but I was not stupid and anybody knows for every successful leap there have been disastrous falls. I worried and worried over that drawing a very long time.


Barbara when I asked you about hopefully having an adapted James Fennimore Cooper, I did not mean you could not read it, but rather that anybody on earth wanted to.

 I am 100 percent with Mark Twain on James Fennimore Cooper:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3172/3172-h/3172-h.ht

Here are the first three paragraphs of the Deerslayer: where is the editor with the First Paragraph Rule?


"On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has travelled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity. In no other way can we account for the venerable air that is already gathering around American annals. When the mind reverts to the earliest days of colonial history, the period seems remote and obscure, the thousand changes that thicken along the links of recollections, throwing back the origin of the nation to a day so distant as seemingly to reach the mists of time; and yet four lives of ordinary duration would suffice to transmit, from mouth to mouth, in the form of tradition, all that civilized man has achieved within the limits of the republic. Although New York alone possesses a population materially exceeding that of either of the four smallest kingdoms of Europe, or materially exceeding that of the entire Swiss Confederation, it is little more than two centuries since the Dutch commenced their settlement, rescuing the region from the savage state. Thus, what seems venerable by an accumulation of changes is reduced to familiarity when we come seriously to consider it solely in connection with time.

This glance into the perspective of the past will prepare the reader to look at the pictures we are about to sketch, with less surprise than he might otherwise feel; and a few additional explanations may carry him back in imagination to the precise condition of society that we desire to delineate. It is matter of history that the settlements on the eastern shores of the Hudson, such as Claverack, Kinderhook, and even Poughkeepsie, were not regarded as safe from Indian incursions a century since; and there is still standing on the banks of the same river, and within musket-shot of the wharves of Albany, a residence of a younger branch of the Van Rensselaers, that has loopholes constructed for defence against the same crafty enemy, although it dates from a period scarcely so distant. Other similar memorials of the infancy of the country are to be found, scattered through what is now deemed the very centre of American civilization, affording the plainest proofs that all we possess of security from invasion and hostile violence is the growth of but little more than the time that is frequently fulfilled by a single human life.

The incidents of this tale occurred between the years 1740 and 1745, when the settled portions of the colony of New York were confined to the four Atlantic counties, a narrow belt of country on each side of the Hudson, extending from its mouth to the falls near its head, and to a few advanced “neighborhoods” on the Mohawk and the Schoharie. Broad belts of the virgin wilderness not only reached the shores of the first river, but they even crossed it, stretching away into New England, and affording forest covers to the noiseless moccasin of the native warrior, as he trod the secret and bloody war-path. A bird's-eye view of the whole region east of the Mississippi must then have offered one vast expanse of woods, relieved by a comparatively narrow fringe of cultivation along the sea, dotted by the glittering surfaces of lakes, and intersected by the waving lines of river. In such a vast picture of solemn solitude, the district of country we design to paint sinks into insignificance, though we feel encouraged to proceed by the conviction that, with slight and immaterial distinctions, he who succeeds in giving an accurate idea of any portion of this wild region must necessarily convey a tolerably correct notion of the whole."

Absolutely mind numbing. To me.


Frybabe, The Most Dangerous Game turns out to be not only a famous short story but a movie as well:


"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff", is a short story by Richard Connell,[1] first published in Collier's on January 19, 1924.[2] The story features a big-game hunter from New York City who falls off a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Russian aristocrat.[3] The story is inspired by the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were particularly fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.[4]

Scared me to death, it did.

[ginny]

When I got older in adolescence it was A Tree Grows in  Brooklyn, Marjorie Morningstar, Arrowsmith,  (which I thought the best book I ever read for a long time, a Doctor Kildare type of thing) and Jame's Michener's The Fires of Spring, an autobiographical tale. What a life he had.  Ran away to the circus he did as a young man.

I haven't reread any of them and I don't think I will, because at the time they really hit a nerve and I'd like that to remain the experience it was then in memory.

[CallieOK]

Ginny,   I didn't like Kipling's "adult" books .  Favorite "Just So" story was "How The Elephant Got His Trunk".

 It falls under Literary Criticism, which is not everybody's interest.  One of the best courses I ever took was on film criticism. I was amazed there was so much to making a movie, the thought and  planning,  and it was fascinating.      I would be interested in this sort of thing but never could "get the hang" of metaphors or fiction being a "social comment on the times".  That's probably why I didn't realize that "Anna Karenina" was "commenting" on the situation in Russia at the time.   
I didn't even realize that Mother Goose rhymes were "social comments!

I still have the book of stories my Dad read to me every evening after supper.  I can still "feel" the comfort of sitting beside him in his armchair.  Pretty sure this is why I was able to read aloud smoothly when I started to school.   My parents were puzzled when I began to read "Fun With Dick And Jane" aloud to them because I read it with a pause between every word.   I told them that was the way the other kids read and I thought i was supposed to do the same thing.

[ginny]

 I never did either, for either of them.  I also never realized that the Grimm Brothers ...borrowed....the legends told by the women...do I have that right, of their towns to make their grim Grimm's  Fairy Tales.

I would have no way of knowing any of that, actually, unless told by somebody specializing in the field.

[rosemarykaye]

Well I didn't know any of that either Callie and it doesn't stop me wittering on on here   

I think, whilst it can be very interesting to find out the 'subtext' of a novel, film or poem - or the hidden message in a painting - that should never stop us simply enjoying the reading, or the looking. My daughter has taught me so much about the meaning of symbols in classical painting, and I am always fascinated, but I still enjoy just looking and liking (or not liking) the picture in front of me.

So do join in!

Rosemary

[ginny]

Callie, LOVED this:

I still have the book of stories my Dad read to me every evening after supper.  I can still "feel" the comfort of sitting beside him in his armchair.  Pretty sure this is why I was able to read aloud smoothly when I started to school.   My parents were puzzled when I began to read "Fun With Dick And Jane" aloud to them because I read it with a pause between every word.   I told them that was the way the other kids read and I thought i was supposed to do the same thing.

hahaha

That's supposedly the main thing for a child in reading to a child:  the closeness, the comfort.

[CallieOK]

Ginny, I was editing when you posted that you didn't understand the deeper meanings, either.  Glad there's someone else....
Thanks, Rosemary.  I'm usually reading posts on my Tablet and really prefer to use my pc for comments because I'm a touch typist and having to tap each letter is Annoying!!!! 

Will try to do better. 

[bellamarie]

Callie your sentiment of still feeling the comfort of sitting close to your father, as he read to you, makes me feel all warm and cozy, just imagining it.  My Daddy was killed in a train wreck when I was only three years old, (I have told this a few times in here.) and so I never knew what it was like to have a daughter/father relationship.  I can tell I missed out on a lot of tender moments, such as your memories.  Thank you for sharing this.

Reading to children is the key to their interest in reading, and learning at an early age.  I remember my oldest son saying to me one day after we read our story, he must have been barely four years old, he said, "Mommy, I want to read.  How can I learn to read like you do?"  I took him to the library and we chose learn to read books, and he was reading in no time.  I also purchased a program on teaching your child to read.  It was a machine you placed scrolls of paper into, and you began teaching them with learning the phonetic sound of the letters.  Such as...B is buh,  A is aaa, and T is tuh.  Put it all together and you have BAT!  My son never wanted to stop when the time came that said on the scroll to take a break.  None of my three grown adult kids read books, but my grandchildren love to read!  They all say it's because of me always reading to them.  What a compliment for me, and a gift for them.

[BarbStAubrey]

Callie we all see something different in the stories we read - and we do need all viewpoints - that to me is the fun of discussing a book on Senor Learn -I know how often someone brings attention to a sentence or paragraph that went over my head - but I must admit I see analogies to life not only in what I read but even during a walk or meeting or watching others - I didn't think of it as analyzing however I seem to be driven to see the life lessons in most everything - just one way of reading -

I do not remember the words but a TV series from I think it was Sweden although it may have been Denmark anyhow, in a scene the detective explained something like shell collectors identify, organize and line their mantle with their collection as a way of making sense and organization of their world and I do that with observations. Some observations with their lessons are from reading, others from listening and watching others. They are my collection that I realize is my way of making sense of the chaos that is now and historically part of humanity and its infinite choices of behavior.

Talk about shock and awe there have been so many times that i have been dumbstruck at what people do that never in a thousand years crossed my mind - and so I liked the quote about sea shells and see it as what I do reading and observing my world to keep myself grounded during almost daily doses of shock and awe.

Haha Ginny I would have had to join you on the steps of the library - I laughed out loud when you quoted paragraphs from Deerslayer suggesting they were mind numbing and I can't stop giggling because that kind of writing is exactly why I loved reading those books - nothing simple and your mind is hopping with each sentence - nothing is said in a predictable order however, each sentence is full of several thoughts and references almost like individual poems - Reminds me of reading a translation of thoughts using words that do not exist in English and therefore, a long description is necessary to get the nuance - ha now that I think of it - it was like listening to my grandmother after WWII became news, when she couldn't or really wouldn't speak German any longer and her English was adequate for simple things but not for a conversation - her brain and ours were working overtime to understand each other - Oh my how we all crave something different when we read.

Rosemary you are correct - I never heard of the books you read as a child - I wonder how much in common the pattern of those stories were similar regardless British or American popular children's books.

Interesting Bellamarie that you actually taught your children to read - amazing - good on you - I guess all kids are different - It never occurred to me but then my oldest picked up words as I would read to him when he was 2 and 3 - not so much my daughter but she followed whatever Peter did and soon she was doing it as well, so they both could read by the time they were 4 and 5 where as my youngest did not follow this way of learning and only years later did we learn of his dyslexia and the scrambled mess he was looking at that were letters and words - Then it was a case of seeing other ways he could prove what he knew and become brave enough to explain to the teachers so that his assignments were often making a poster or speaking into a tape deck rather than writing a paper (Which I thought was great and told him how, not every owner of a company had to read and write well. They could hire folks to do the accounting and a secretary could write letters) He also had to explain to the teachers that any test would have to be read to him or there was no hope of finishing in a timely fashion with having to isolate and then sound out every letter and every word making a circle with his finger almost like isolating the letters as the system you used with your children. As he aged it got better but not enough to enjoy a novel or to spell a word the same way twice.

[CallieOK]

Bellamarie,  my younger son (now 53) learned to read via phonics.  The class was asked to write a sentence telling what they wanted to do when they grew up and he wrote "I am going to kolij".   
Have never heard of the machine you used to teach your son to read.  Interesting!

   

[bellamarie]

Barb, What a great way to encourage your son in letting him know there are ways to be successful in life, in spite of learning disorders.

My daughter had Audio Processing Disorder, and we did not figure it out until she was in the sixth grade.

Auditory processing disorder (APD) is a hearing problem that affects about 5% of school-aged children. Kids with this condition, also known as central auditory processing disorder (CAPD), can't process what they hear in the same way other kids do. This is because their ears and brain don't fully coordinate.

She struggled endlessly in school, especially when it came to taking tests. The school finally suggested having her tested, and it was diagnosed. I remember one day she came to me and told me her teacher called her a jackass.  I was in shock, because I taught at this school, knew the teacher, and could not imagine her ever saying such a cruel thing.  I asked my daughter to tell me exactly what happened, and she said the teacher gave audio instructions on how to do a math problem.  Then told her to go to the board and do the problem.  My daughter with APD, had no idea what steps to take to solve the problem, so she stood at the board attempting to do something.  The teacher told her she was taking too much time, and when she said she didn't know how to solve the problem, the teacher said, "You are a jackass.  I just told the class how to solve it."  The entire class laughed, and my daughter cried. I had a conference with this teacher and she admitted to saying it, and tried to defend herself by saying to me, "It is only a form of a donkey." I thought I would strangle her, but I kept my composure, and told her to never speak to my daughter like that ever again.  I explained to her how when you give instructions to the class audibly, my daughter gets lost and confused, and how she learns more visually.  Eventually the school approved for my daughter to go to the mobile unit, to have her tests taken with an ASP teacher, who was fantastic with my daughter.  This was back in 1978, today I hope teachers are more compassionate, to learning disorders. 

My grandson Zak, now twelve, who is on the Autism spectrum, is highly intelligent and began reading at the age of two.  He totally amazed us one day, he had the No David book I always read to them at story time, and was in the floor reading it.  We were all standing around visiting, and all of a sudden I realized what he was doing.  I had everyone stop and listen to Zak.  I video taped him at 3 yrs. old reading the Nursery Rhyme book to my hubby one day.  It is the cutest thing ever,he goes too fast and says, "Ut oh, ut oh, I don't know, my tongue can't talk."

https://www.facebook.com/marie.patterfritzreinhart/videos/2596568636875/?t=0

Callie, how funny the phonetic word your son wrote for college.  Kids are such little sponges, and they never fail to amaze us.

Ginny, I can relate to your uncontrollable laughter.  I got sent to the principal's office a few times from not being able to contain my laughter in class.  My best friend would just look at me, and we would start laughing for no apparent reason, but could not stop no matter how angry our teacher got.  It's always those times when you are NOT allowed to, that you find it even more laughable.  That one Shhhh....from the librarian would just set me off. 

[Frybabe]

Gosh, what a wonderful conversation I missed yesterday. Love it.

Rosemarye, two books I remember that relatives in Wales sent for Christmas were Reggie Rabbit and Marmaduke Mouse (for me) and Water Babies (for my sister). We also had, but from whom I don't recall, the children's illustrated versions of Grimm's Fairy Tales and Mother Goose.

Fairly early on I read the children's version of The Three Musketeers. It was many years before I realized that there was an adult version. I have yet to read it, but have seen several movie versions. I also read The Count of Monte Cristo while in high school and it is back on my reread list. I hadn't remembered or didn't pay attention to the Napoleonic connection. Oh, I just remembered, I have the audio version to listen to instead. I read a bunch of Westerns, my favorite being The Virginian, again, on my reread list. Oddly, never read any Zane Grey until after Ed Harris's movie version
 of Rider's of the Purple Sage came out in 1996. Oh, and another high school era read was Lorna Doone. I don't recall ever reading any Jane Austen until the PBS productions came out, but I did read Jane Eyre, probably after seeing the Orson Wells version of it.

When I first started reading Science Fiction, it was mostly short stories by Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, and the wonderful Ray Bradbury. The first Clark short story was "A Meeting with Medusa" which I found in--wait for it--Playboy Magazine. I didn't get real serious about reading SciFi until many years later. 2001: A Space Odyssey didn't even rev up my now monumental interest in Science Fiction. Have no clue what sparked it off big-time.

[rosemarykaye]

Frybabe - I have to admit I have never read any of the books you were sent from Wales. I did have a children's version of Water Babies but it did not appeal to me - I should really read it now.

Reading The Three Musketeers in any version as a child is impressive!

I am embarrassed to say I have never read Grimm's Tales either - but my younger daughter is now (aged 22) very interested in them indeed. A few years ago I won a beautiful hardback copy and she still has it. It was edited by Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials). Which reminds me, I saw a documentary about Pullman a while ago - he was such a nice person and so interesting.

Rosemary

[ginny]

I just realized this morning, watching my morning dose of Michael Portillo, what he's doing. He's READING to us from his 1840 Bradshaw Guide and then we get to to see what remains....no wonder it seems so comfortable. Today we made Stilton cheese, pork pies, and watched them industralize the lace industry. Just love it.

I tried to read a Mary Higgins Clark yesterday,  and I don't know why, especially, but it's called Let Me Call You Sweetheart about a plastic surgeon turning people into the same face. Anyway she writes really well but what IS it about these chapters? Here she is introducing a character,  it's engaging, we're going right along and interested, and whammo,  the chapter is over!

 SHORT little chapters..Next chapter, here's another new  character, also well described, also interesting..whammo, chapter over!

Very strange technique. I've seen it somewhere before, but I can't recall who...but it's off putting, to me.

Is it intended to keep...what IS it? They are now all separate in their little chapters, some of them starting, perhaps, to bleed over  a sentence or two into the others, am I supposed to be on fire to read on? Appetite whetted?

Here, Callie, is an author FORCING me to look at mechanics, to analyze or at least puzzle over her technique.  I am not sure I like it.

Is the theory that this will keep my interest up  with my short little attention span? (I can hear Paul Simon singing about his short little attention span now).... I don't know what to think but despite her VERY good writing and I'm sure a good plot I don't think I'll read on. Like my childhood rebellion at the Library, I sort of chafe at being forced to do...well, to be honest..... much of anything.  Especially when I'm reading for enjoyment, escape, and recreation.

[rosemarykaye]

I agree 100% Ginny!

The author I had to ditch for her style was Louise Penny. I enjoyed her first few books, but she then got more and more into writing Very. Short. Sentences. She did it So. Often. that it drove me completely mad. I also felt her writing became increasingly smug. I know she has legions of fans - my own mother still likes her books - but I just lost it with her. She needed a good editor, but - as I think we have discussed before - editing seems to have become a thing of the past. I do feel that publishers won't fork out the money for editors for new writers, and are at the same time too scared to have one work on the writing of anyone famous because they don't want to upset the author. JK Rowling got worse and worse - she is an amazing plotter, but the actual writing really needed a red pen taken to it. The endless adverbs!

Short chapters can be a blessing if you only have small snippets of time in which to read, but once they become too short it feels like there is no meat to the story at all.

Rosemary

[bellamarie]

Oh Rosemary, I really liked the first Louise Penny book I ever read called, Still Life. It was a nice mystery, and I loved the small town setting.

You are so right about publisher's not wanting to fork out the money for editors for new writers.  I have two friends who submitted their books to their publishers, and both were very disappointed in the outcome, and refused to allow it to go to print.  My one friend found his own editor and paid her, he was very happy with the final draft.  The other friend who has had three other books published through this one publishing company, told them it needed polished, and they finally got it to her satisfaction, and is now going to be released through Amazon in a couple of weeks.  I've learned through all my writer friends (4) who have had their books published, that you have to put out some big bucks, they contract you to purchase a certain amount of books upfront, and you sell them to get some of your money back, and hopefully profits. 

Ginny, I absolutely LOVE Mary Higgins Clark books. She was one of my first authors I read, when purchasing book of the month club books.  I love her psychological mysteries and suspense books. I have a few of her Christmas books, she co wrote with her daughter Carol Higgins Clark.  They are a bit like a Hallmark story, which is exactly what I like reading at that time of year. At the time of her death age 92, January 31, 2020, Mary Higgins Clark's net worth was $140 million! 

[BarbStAubrey]

Reading the most fascinating book - The History of Women's Work for 20,000 Years - so far lots about weaving and explaining the process - knowing they were not weaving for artistic reasons but to supply cloth for a family and for the community to cloth themselves puts another dimension to the need to weave quickly - Where men's history is simply, look at the artifacts and the story is told - Women's work was number one, dependent on a lot of rote and simplicity and easily put down and picked up since they had the children and a women with a child on her back or in a nearby cradle could not easily put down her side of a pot of melted ore to tend to a crying child - and so the women were the weavers and makers of clothes, the cooks and the ones who cared for the sick and elderly.

And in order to find out how they lived they are working backwards so that finding cloth on a skeleton in the salt mines of Hallein Austria that they dated to 5000 BC it was a plaid similar to the Scottish plaids and a tam o shanter made with a fur crown - Already started was an excavation on a nearby Celtic village that I knew the Celts came from central Europe and this find cements that bit of history -

I need to read more about the find of this ancient skeleton - I remember the explanation when visiting the Hallein mines that tunnels shrank rather quickly - pointed out were various tunnels that by the size of the opening they could date and a tunnel that was about a 100 years old was lucky to be a foot across - I knew there had been some collapses over the years but I am anxious to learn more about this find - which by the way if you have not been - the entry is to first put on a protective suit over your cloths and then two at a time you slide down this incredible steep and long wooden slide. I was white when I landed - they actually have first aid stations at the foot of the slide but this is how the miners daily start their day. 

Anyhow in reproducing the found Celtic cloth is when they figured out that women worked at setting up looms at least in pairs to make the threading of the loom go faster and for a plaid they did not count but chose colors by sight and guessing since the plaid color stripes were not regular -

I knew that only a part of the stems of flax etc was used to make into thread and thought since the part was one of 3 interior stem fibers - I thought they just knew their plants better than we could imagine but instead, it was like so many advances, an accident that they continued till they figured it out - rotting woody flax stems - later stems were left to rot in nearby pools before crushing the woody exterior layer they isolated the one long thin part of the inner stem that they could spin into thread. The process is labor intensive and would take the work of many, probably slaves. - The finest linen is still hand made today as it has been for at lest 20,000 years.

Also learned, that floored me, there is human artifacts that go back 40,000 years and so they had to split of the stone age into 3 sections of time and may end up, with more recent finds, having to add a fourth time frame.

And then get this - bits of cloth have been excavated in other sites that do go back the 20,000 and it appears under all those skins we assumed they wore during the stone ages was a cloth covering since the animal skins were full of fleas - the only place that fur was used independently and exclusively was in the arctic and furthest northern reaches of the temperate zone -

Women's work had to be easy to pick up and put down so they had the weaving, cooking and in some cultures the clay pot making - archeologists cannot yet figure out recipes. However, all things to do with Textiles remained as women's work so that women were still sewing clothes for their families as late as the 1950s - the push to find ways during the nineteenth century to spin and weave faster more and more cloth had to do with population growth and women could not keep up - inventions of necessity - and then nothing was smooth - the guy who first figured out the spinning jenny, that allowed his wife and daughter to spin and sell twice as much yarn as the other women, was chased out of town because even using a spinning wheel the other women could not compete - then there are pages about the way women spun using various spindles and how that was a constant occupation even riding a mule or caring for their infants. Oh yes, and the first use of a heddle was about 3,000 BC

I'm not even through the first chapter and all this is uncovered

[ginny]

That's interesting, Barbara. I hadn't heard of that one. I know about the Hallstatt  Man With the Golden Shoes but not this one. Wonderful series (2 in fact) about the Celts from the BBC on  youtube. The first one with Frank Delaney is the one with the La Tene culture and the Hallstatt and the Man With the Golden Shoes, it's romantic and very interesting. The second one is more sedate but super, as well. Both free on youtube. Both feature music by  Enya.

 Interesting, too, as the Great British Railways program which I start the day with has been all about textiles for the last couple of days. I've learned a great deal, those archival movies and photos are  incredible. Lace making yesterday.

There's literally SO much to know, isn't there? I had no idea about half of what I'm seeing.


Bellamarie, I know Mary Higgins Clark is very popular, my mother used to love her, too. I am assuming all of her books don't follow that formula.


Now reading The Harlequin Tea Set  by  Agatha Christie, mystery short stories. Wonderful one yesterday called  Manx Gold, written apparently to encourage tourism on the Isle of Man.  4 children  inherit the eccentric billionaire's fortune and he left clues for a treasure hunt, winner take all. 20 pages, I would have gladly read an expanded book version. Her short stories originated in magazines of the day.  That's one way to get people to follow your work. I always  loved the "book excerpts" found in newspapers and magazines like the Saturday Evening Post,  and Colliers. The New Yorker does it, too. Mystery Magazines and the Sci Fi ones.


Amazon appears to offer  self publishing opportunities which apparently allows  budding authors a chance to have their books published on kindle if I'm right. I don't know the details but I imagine you're expected to sell plenty of copies in hopes that you catch on and then they will print it as a paperback.  At any rate a lot of them seem to be atrocious, thinking now of the Mapp and Lucia series ones, poorly spelled, grammar a mess, apparently nobody oversees them or even proofreads them. But some of them are good, thinking of Barbara's find of the woman British Ex Pat in Spain, those are quite well done.

There was quite a scandal I did not fully understand yesterday when an author possibly in the UK, I sort of slapped at the article, bought 400 copies of his own book to ...it was alleged ...raise up his standings in the rankings. He said if he wanted to do that he'd have bought 10,000 of them. Makes you wonder.


My grandmother wrote a book and had it published. I guess that was back in the day a self published book looked good, it's a handsome volume. Historical non fiction described as fiction because of the people in the book's descriptions of living people  or something. I was a child, and can't recall now. Permissions.


I think perhaps the coronavirus is affecting us all more than we think, at least those of us who  ARE doing what we're supposed to and distancing and wearing masks even when it's 100 degrees outside. It's funny how it's always there, even when pushed back in your mind,  though. Last night I woke up at 2 am,  drenched in sweat,  and my first thought was FEVER!! Oh no,  it's the coronavirus!!!

No, it was the air conditioner which had taken the opportunity to go out. Bother! Now I have to have strange men in the house tramping about. Better than the virus, though.  Maybe I can talk them into only looking at the outside unit. The coming in with this particular unit never seems to amount to anything but looking at the thermostat anyway and going back out.


Well tonight, July 23, the Neowise Comet is the closest to the earth it has ever been, and if not seen before the weekend, it won't be for 7,000 years. It's a good thing it's not an advancing army, we're been watching but have seen nothing here. They now say best seen from 10 pm - 12:15 am, and they are about to lose me there. One is to look under the bowl of the Big Dipper which we can see with no problem, and it will be arcing along. But it's getting fainter. It's not the only one, my neck is killing me, staring up at the stars.


What's happening with everybody?

[BarbStAubrey]

Ginny the find was in the Hallein salt mines - not the Hallstatt salt mines - and yes, I too had visited the Hallstatt mines - there also is the long steep wooden slide

[ginny]

 Berbara: Ginny the find was in the Hallein salt mines - not the Hallstatt salt mines - and yes, I too had visited the Hallstatt mines - there also is the long steep wooden slide


You're right, I didn't say it was in Hallstatt, I said it was the Hallstatt Man With the  Golden Shoes, Hallstatt being the second oldest Celtic period.

It was found in  a "richly-furnished Celtic burial chamber near Hochdorf an der Enz (municipality of Eberdingen) in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, dating from 530 BC in the Hallstatt culture period."

[BarbStAubrey]

Now I have to look that one up - looks like there were skeletons found in both mines - I still need to learn how in the world they found them but the book I am reading is referring to the skeleton, of which there was evidently more than one, but the skeleton found with preserved woven plaid cloth in the Hallein - the book is not necessarily a book on archeology - rather it is into the story of Women's work and how they lived and so the cloth and tam o shanter was most important so that by reproducing them more information about how women had to have worked was discovered - it appears from some of the web sites many additions to the area since I was there in the late 70s but then that is nearly 50 years ago isn't it and so of course changes - there appears now to be a Celtic Museum which I bet are some of the finds from the excavation going on when I was there.

The exact name of the book is...
Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber. Her first book on this particular research project was a large tome published as a paper and I have to read again to find the university where the paper was presented. However she has published several books that deal with the history of various early civilizations