The Library

[PatH]

The Library Our library  is open 24/7; the welcome mat is always out. Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us.

Here's our new Fall Fun Challenge from RosemaryKay:

So -  for those who would like to have a go at this, here are the book prompts for The Bibliophile's Night Out. All you have to do is think of a book to fit each category - and if you can write a line or two about why you chose it, so very much the better!



1. Pre-drinks: a prequel or novella you've read

2. The taxi to town: a book about travel

3. Trying to find a table: a book you didn't like to start with but ended up loving

4. First round of drinks: a first book in a series

5. The dance floor: a book that made you jump up and down with excitement

6. The toilets: a book you wouldn't touch with a bargepole

7. The first to bail: the last book you did not finish

8. The journey home: a book you really can't remember the plot of any more

9. The morning after: a comfort read

I really enjoyed this challenge, and I'm looking forward to reading other people's ideas.



New Categories: Our Readers Add, What's Yours?


10- Never on a Sunday:   A book, subject, or topic are you absolutely NOT interested in reading in today's times?

11. Great Expectations:  A book you really looked forward to reading  which was a disappointment. 

12. Gone With the Wind:   The best book you can't recall the title or author of. Describe a book by the plot and see if our readers can identify it.

13. The Fame Game: What famous book are you embarrassed you have not read?

14  Do you think that our present off kilter world has changed your reading habits, and if so, how?

15.  "I find my opinions of books do change with time." Is there a book you enjoyed years ago that you were disappointed in when you reread it? OR, conversely,  is there a book you never appreciated in the past which, reread, is actually good?

16. Role Models: Is there a book you recall which had a character you admired or were impressed by? Who was it and why?

? Your choice: suggest a topic?

[PatH]

Dana, if you do try rereading the Powell, let us know what you think now.  If they were too snobby then, they probably still are.  It's a very class conscious set of characters, and Powell gets a lot of mileage, serious and comic, out of it.

[rosemarykaye]

Dana - I loved the Smiley books and also the TV series, and agree that Bernard Hepton was excellent, as was Alec Guinness, also Beryl Reid. I didn't think I'd enjoy the film version made a few years ago now, but in fact I thought it was very good - Gary Oldman was a revelation, as perfect, in his own way, as Guinness had been.

I agree about the other Le Carre books not being so engaging, but we have had TV adaptations of The Little Drummer Girl and The Night Manager, and the latter, in particular, was outstanding. Tom Hiddlestone and Hugh Laurie were both very good indeed. I haven't read either of these books but I'd definitely recommend seeing The Night Manager if it is available over there. It's one of those series where you realise, at the end of each episode, that you feel quite exhausted from all the tension.

Rosemary

[ginny]

 Going back to 12. Gone With the Wind:   The best book you can't recall the title or author of. Describe a book by the plot and see if our readers can identify it.

 A long time ago somebody mentioned a series of non fiction journals, books about a man who...did he inspect the great estates of England vis a vis the National Trust (SEE how much I recall of the title, author and plot?) It was a series of diaries or something?

I thought it was Rosemary who recommended it? But just to say I did get the opportunity to buy one and was entranced. I can't find it in this House o Books, triple shelved,  but I want to read it now and the sequels. Does anybody have any idea what it IS?


Continuing with Rosemary's Topic of  " 'A book you've always thought you ought to read but have successfully managed to avoid for years'. For me that would include things like War & Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, and many, many more."


Mine WAS The Great Gatsby. I finally got through it a couple of years ago. I really was surprised, it was not anything like what I thought it would be but I liked it. I don't know why I waited so long.

Trollope. Chronicles of Barsetshire, I can't seem to get into any of his books. Maybe it's his attitude about Caesar? hahaha I get as far as "Old Joelyn was dead." And that's as far as  it goes, and I've got all of them.

 I can't think of too many others...maybe  Chocolat or  Five Quarters of an Orange?  Joanne Harris? I don't know why I can't buy or read them . I absolutely loved her Gentlemen and Players.  It's one of the few books I actually figured out HU was the "Dun It" person before the end.  THAT alone was very satisfying because I don't know anybody else who did. hahaha Wonderfully suspenseful.

The New York Times bestselling author takes a riveting new direction with this richly textured, multi-layered novel of friendship, murder, revenge, and class conflict set in an upper-crust English school―as enthralling and haunting as Ian McKewan’s Atonement and Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley

Audere, agere, auferre.

To dare, to strive, to conquer.

For generations, elite young men have attended St. Oswald’s School for Boys, groomed for success by the likes of Roy Straitley, the eccentric classics teacher who has been a revered fixture for more than 30 years. But this year, things are different. Suits, paperwork, and Information Technology rule the world, and Straitley is reluctantly contemplating retirement. He is joined in this, his 99th, term by five new faculty members, including one who―unknown to Straitley and everyone else―holds intimate and dangerous knowledge of St. Ozzie’s ways and secrets, it’s comforts and conceits. Harboring dark ties to the school’s past, this young teacher has arrived with one terrible goal: Destroy St. Oswald’s.

As the new term gets underway, a number of incidents befall students and faculty alike. Beginning as small annoyances―a lost pen, a misplaced coffee mug―they soon escalate to the life threatening. With the school unraveling, only Straitley stands in the way of St. Ozzie’s ruin. But the old man faces a formidable opponent―a master player with a strategy that has been meticulously planned to the final move.

A harrowing tale of cat and mouse told in alternating voices, this riveting, hypnotically atmospheric novel showcases Joanne Harris’s astonishing storytelling talent as never before.

[ginny]

 Talking about  the  trope of the "irritated" female lead whether detective or  whatnot, can we blame M.C.Beaton for that and her Agatha Raisin books?  I loved the first one, the Quiche of Death, brilliant and cute. As the series went on, she seemed to get more and more irascible until I found self profoundly irritated at her and myself for reading about her, it was a formula,  to the point that I refused to read more. It spread everywhere. The irritated maid/ whatever profession, pressed into Detective work. Can't read those any more. If you don't want to DO detective work,  Busy Irascible Ol You, don't.
 
I sure don't want to read about it.


Fran,  have you reached the point where she lists the provisions of the kitchen...is that by the week? 27,000 eggs? I may need to recheck that. It's clear people ate very well at Grossingers.

But she is unsparing of her character, isn't she? I didn't get to act out like she did, and her "pranks" as a teenager kind of leave me cold. That is one child crying out for attention in a SEA of attention, but not from her mother. I hope to see as the book progresses some knowledge that her mother was doing the best she could or something. Am annoyed by  bratty teen age girls since I did not get to be one. She's veering on the edge of the Liar's Club there. I hope she veers away.   Turned ahead to the photos to dilute a bit.

Hope your eyes will be OK, I imagine that's quite painful.


More Confessions of #12: Have never read a John LeCarre!


Rosemary, but she also develops her characters, and this one is narrated by Poirot's friend Hastings, who is very entertaining as he constantly misses the two-edged blades of Poirot's slightly sarcastic remarks.  I've said this before but it's worth mentioning again, it's so good, that Hugh Fraser, who played Hastings in the TV series, narrates the audio book The Twelve Labors of Hercule Poirot  and he can do Poirot so well you'd think it was Suchet, he can do any voice and is absolutely marvelous.

And there Christie shows absolute brilliance in converting the Labors of Hercules into today's idiom, she's so clever.  Even so I never really cared for her  Tommy and Tuppence series.

She's clever with her character development, too, she sketches just enough so that the reader feels he knows just who she is talking about, she lets the reader fill in the blanks, so to speak.

Pat, I have heard the title A Dance to the Music of Time and never read one. I think based on your review, I'll try one, you would recommend starting with the first? Or?

I didn't know it was a movie, either. I have missed out!


 Dana,  I find my opinions of books do change with time Me, too, and it's such a sad category, isn't it?

There are some books I won't reread for that reason.  Marjorie Morningstar, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I am afraid that the wonder I found in them will be gone. Likewise How Green Was My Valley. Maybe Arrowsmith.

Maybe we need this to be #15: I'll put it up because I have some  to add here.

Let's also move on today to #14.  Do you think that our present off kilter world has changed your reading habits, and if so, how?

[nlhome]

13. The Fame Game: What famous book are you embarrassed you have not read? 

14  Do you think that our present off kilter world has changed your reading habits, and if so, how?

I have not read Gone with the Wind. I have not read any of the Harry Potter books. Lord of the Rings is one I think I should have read also.

I know my reading habits have changed because of the pandemic, because my habit was to head to the library once a week to pick up a new book or two and find a couple older books in the shelves from my reading list. I like to touch the books, read a bit, before putting them in my bag. NowI am reading more eBooks. I am also reading a bit more history.

[PatH]

Ginny, read A Dance to the Music of Time in order.  It's the only way that makes sense.  If you're uncertain after the first book, you might try one more to decide.

I have never been able to read Russian novels.  I'm not sure why; the subject matter often interests me, and I don't actively dislike them, but somehow I always bog down.  The one exception is War and Peace; when I started that, I continued as nearly non-stop as you can with such a long book.  Then I read it again when we discussed it here, led by JoanK and Babi.  That was one of the discussions that got lost in the switch--too bad; it was a good one.

[Dana]

oh yes Pat, I loved War and Peace.  Actually it is on my read again list.  However I did not much like Anna Karenina, and even less Crime and Punishment.  I used to like Aleksandyr Solzhenitsyn, and in fact, I have quite a few of his books, but when I look at them, I can't remember too much.....they definitely should be reread.....the most recent Russian novel I read was Generations of Winter by Vassily Aksyonov which was a novel about life under Stalin.  It was very readable but depressing.  I was quite into Russia at one point.... read biographies of Lenin and Stalin both of whom were amazing people (amazing has pluses and minuses). 

 There should be a question about biographies, I guess we don't talk about them because they're not novels, but they are probably my most favourite reading these days.  Robert Massie is one of my favourite authors.  His stuff about Russia, from Nicholas and Alexandra to Peter the Great to Catherine the Great are all terrifically interesting and totally grippingly readable.  Give me real life over fiction any day.  Actually that is true, the older I get....a lot of novels I think, who is this person (author) and what do they know anyway, let me read an account of a life of a real human being, not a figment of someone's imagination, some amazing human being whose abilities blow me away.

[Frybabe]

Pat, are you mostly talking about the classical Russian authors? I couldn't get through most of that either. However, I have read and enjoyed modern author Boris Arkunin's Fandorin detective which is set around the turn of the century or just after and leading up to the Russian Revolution that brought in communism. I read the first four and then while waiting for the next translation of hit the US, if kind of got side-tracked and forgot about it. Now I remember I am going to have to do a catchup.

[ginny]

It's the names with me and the Russians, those impossibly long names. The brain stops at each one. I loved War and Peace but only got through it giving those names nicknames. hahaha I probably should not admit it, but it made it easier, and it IS a great book.

[rosemarykaye]

Good evening from autumnal Deeside.

Ginny - the book was one of James Lees-Milne's numerous diaries. They are wonderful. I first found about him from an equally good book, The Assassin's Cloak, which is a collection of excerpts from people's diaries, etc, set out as a calendar - eg on 1st January it will have, perhaps, Lees-Milne's entry for that day in 1930, Francis Ford Coppola's wife's entry for that day in 1980, Pepys's for that day in 16-- (whatever it was). I discovered many wonderful writers via that book. It was edited by Alan Taylor, a Scottish journalist and writer.

I agree with Pat, the volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time should definitely be read in order. If you do get into them, you might also want to get Hilary Spurling's excellent Invitation to the Dance, which helps you keep track of the huge cast of characters - I found it invaluable. The DVD is of the TV series (it wasn't a film) which is quite handy as it comes in one hour chunks, so you don't have to set aside so much continuous time to watch it.

Dana - I can't see any reason why we can't talk about biographies - is that OK with you Ginny and Jane? I haven't read one for a while, though I have Mary Wesley's one - Wild Mary - on my TBR.  In the past I have very much enjoyed biographies of people like Joyce Grenfell, Dodie Smith and Monica Dickens.

Ginny - do you just not like the sound of John le Carre's books, or have you tried one and disliked it?

And yes, 'irritated female detectives' is exactly the right description for Thea Osborne in the Rebecca Tope Cotswold series. Mirabelle Bevan in the Sara Sheridan books (eg London Calling) is just plain miserable and dour.

That Joanne Harris sounds good - I have to admit I have avoided her books as she annoyed me so much on twitter that I unfollowed her (or whatever it is you do) as she never stopped complaining! So I've not read Chocolat or any of the other well-know ones. This one does look different though.

Thanks for the reminder about the Twelve Labours of Hercules, I will see if I can find it (I bet one of our libraries has it, but will they ever re-open? Ever? I just can't see what the problem is, and I am really suspicious that our local council will try to close them permanently (I will not go into the politics of this, but the libraries in other parts of Scotland are already opening, and this is typical Aberdeen City Council behaviour...)

As to '14  Do you think that our present off kilter world has changed your reading habits, and if so, how?' - I know I am reading more comfort books - eg I've just finished The Gardens of Covington. I have an even stronger than usual aversion to anything depressing, dystopian or involving pandemics! I am a real ostrich about bad world events - I don't even watch the news, I just can't bear it.  And I am definitely reading more, probably because I have resigned from my job so have more time, and also because I find that the more I get back into sustained periods of reading, the more I enjoy it.

Rosemary

[rosemarykaye]

I forgot to say, I have just taken part in another 'Six for Sunday' challenge. This week's theme was 'good role models' - I enjoyed this one a great deal, it made me think about what I like in a character, and indeed what I don't.

My choices were Daisy Miller, Oswald Bastable (from E Nesbit's The Treasure Seekers), Margaret Trevor (Marghanita Laski's The Village), Charity Selbourne (Mary Stewart's Madam, Will You Talk?) and Anna Madrigal (Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City.) (If anyone wants to read my post, it's here - but as I always say, absolutely NO pressure! - https://sconesandchaiseslongues.blogspot.com/2020/09/six-for-sunday-good-role-models.html)

[jane]

My reading choices have changed a bit.  Since retirement, I've read "pleasant" books.  They are not deep, nor are they intellectual, and they are not "world changing."  They're like my clothes here at home during covid and retirement..."comfortable."   I can turn off the news and get my cup of tea...and maybe a cookie or two...and sit and enter a world that's much more pleasant than what I see on the News or the awful "soap operas" or whatever those are in the afternoons on TV or the "survival/reality/and plain weird shows."  It appears I have a very narrow field of what's acceptable to me to watch or read.   

My neighbor would turn up her nose at what I read...and I really don't care.  Quite frankly it's none of her business. 

jane

[Tomereader1]

Yes, I believe my reading "choices" did change with our current situation.  First, I simply couldn't read at all. Oh, maybe the newspaper, my cooking magazine, the TV Guide (mainly to see what would be streaming on Amazon, Netflix or Hulu).  Then, since I couldn't get books from the library, I heavily embraced my Kindle.  BUT, as I selected a book I had loaded, I found that if it was in the least bit "poor", i.e. flagrant grammatical/typographical errors; story being silly, unbelievable (now, wait...I do read mysteries, thrillers, action adventure novels whose plots are almost always unbelievable); story going nowhere...Bazinga!  Remove from Device!  Also, I searched in my TBR pile, and pulled out a couple that I thought would be entertaining, only to find that I had already read them (actually one was good in the second reading). As much as I had promised myself, I think last year, that I would not "buy" anymore books, simply Kindle or check from Library. We see where the second part of that went.  I actually had, on-hand, two books that we were to read in my f2f book clubs, one mystery and one general fiction.  I could not for the life of me get into either one, knowing the clubs would not be meeting until this quarantine was over. 
So, there's where I am about now.  However, I am making lists, lists, lists.  Books talked about here, books touted on the various publishers' websites, friends recommendations (those who have managed to keep up with their reading) et cetera.
I will say one book I read really stands out for me, (if I get this title wrong, forgive me) "Midnight in Chernobyl".
An HBO movie was made from it, simply titled "Chernobyl"  but the book was much better (overlook those Russian names, Ginny).  It was a truly eye-opening read, especially about the lengths the Russian government went to in order not to let out the news of the accident or the seriousness of it.  The movie is in English with subtitles too.

[rosemarykaye]

Jane, I couldn’t agree more. Pleasant books are just what I want, ones that take me to a better, calmer, happier place. I am really having a very easy time amidst all this pandemonium, but I don’t want to upset that with misery, whether on the page or on the screen. I do read some nature writers, who take a little more effort, but they’re worth it for me as I am interested in what they have to say.

And book snobbery drives me mad. When I was still working, we had a verger (caretaker) who read masses, mostly thrillers and adventure books. Someone who was at all of our meetings was very snobbish about such things and only read ‘improving’ and serious stuff. One day I remarked that the caretaker was a keen reader, and this person replied ‘Yes, but have you seen WHAT he reads?’ - I was furious, and made a point of saying that I enjoyed thrillers, chick lit, cosy mysteries and family sagas as well as (occasionally!) more ‘literary’ stuff. People should read what they want to read - sticking rigidly to ‘literature’ does not make you a better person, in fact it probably makes you a more narrow minded one in my opinion!

And yes - comfortable clothes, coffee, biscuits - those are just the things that make me happy too. Aren’t these meant to be the years when we please ourselves?

[Frybabe]

My reading has changed a little for the moment, but I don't attribute it to the world situation. I just finally decided to read something other than SciFi to get my other accumulating genres down a little. I have tons of mysteries and thrillers, general fiction and classics, history, short stories, essays and poetry, plus lots more just in my E-book collection alone. I really need to weed them out. That does not mean I stopped reading scifi. In fact, I just finished one. What I am reading now is another of the Slough House series by Mick Herron. Then it will be the next Great Library series book, both library borrows that finally came up in the cue. I kind of got hooked on a couple of non-scifi series books. As for my audio books, I am in the middle of three, so I don't want to start any more just yet.

[Dana]

I see that ITV is starting a new series tonight...The Singapore Grip...based on the book by JG Farrell, which is about the collapse of Singapore in WW11.  Doesn't sound very appealing...and it wasn't, except I had absolutely no idea before I read it what a truly awful situaution that was.   However the author  wrote one marvellous book ....The Seige of Krishnapoor .....definitely a book that "made me jump up and down with joy."  I think because it was so funny and so beautifully written.

I was thinking about role models in books and I couldn't think of one till I remembered George in The Famous Five .  When I was a kid George was very definitely a role model for me!  Now here in the US you wouldn't know who she is, so the closest I can come I suppose would be Jo in Little Women.  But she is a bit sappy compared to George.

[ginny]

Well again here I am at the crack o dawn, to get a head start on the Latin classes but wanted to come  here as well today, to "put my oar in," so to speak.

Pat, I have ordered the first "Movement," I already love the series just for that, which seems to consist of three books, so Dance and I will soon be underway!

Rosemary, that's IT! That's the series, off I go to see if I can get the first one,   how on earth could I forget the name Milne!?!

I was thinking this morning, perhaps it's just the hour but how vibrant and wonderful your posts are here since I've been in. THEY are good reading in themselves. I've read them all twice.  Just bathing in the luxury of such good discussion. Pleasant and wonderful.


Rosemary, Ginny - do you just not like the sound of John le Carre's books, or have you tried one and disliked it?

I've never been interested in spies. I don't know why. Are they about something else? I did like Our Man in Havana which I read because I was tired of using the phrase and the startled reaction it got,  and found it's a fun spoof which I loved.

On this one 14  Do you think that our present off kilter world has changed your reading habits, and if so, how?

It's really changed mine. I went from being a Constant Reader For Pleasure and Leisure  to a No Reader in about 5 months. I'm trying to get back in but it's difficult.

I find that I need light funny stuff if I do read for pleasure.  Short stories, Bill Bryson, and I'm watching a lot of...funny stuff. I need to laugh or I need it pleasant and calm and civil. I start every morning as I'm sure I've said ad nauseam, with Michael Portillo over breakfast and his Great British Railways program.  It's wonderful, and it's hard to say why. He's civil, kind,  enthusiastic to everybody he meets, finds something remarkable in every place and every person he visits and the hundreds (so far) of normal people he encounters. It's a celebration of kindness, it really is, combined with armchair travel, history, and real appreciation of the people he  talks to  and what they are doing, no matter how trivial it might seem to us.  I need to start the day with that, barring medical emergency so here I am having Breakfast With Michael to start the day again. The world is full of interesting, quiet, kind, well meaning people. I need to be around them.

But I also want to laugh and have watched such fun programs. I was sorting thru Netflix last night and here was Derry Girls which  Rosemary had recommended and it's absolutely hilarious.  Teen age girls in a Catholic School run by nuns. Sounds awful. It's priceless.  It's tasteless, outrageous,  and hilarious. I have never seen anything like it, Closed Caption always on of course, wouldn't understand a word  otherwise, of their Northern Ireland accents. The casting is brilliant. I laughed my way to bed after seeing the first two episodes.

I do not want, in anything, written or on TV, drama.  TOO much overload of drama lately. Too much. "The world is too much with us," and for pleasure reading/ watching I need to escape.

And here is our LAST question, we need some more! (Wait, Dana had one: role models in books, I'll put that up now).  This is such fun.

15.  "I find my opinions of books do change with time." Is there a book you enjoyed years ago that you were disappointed in when you reread it?  Why?

OR, conversely,  is there a book you never appreciated in the past which, reread, is actually good?

[Tomereader1]

Role Models in Books:  If I go back in time, yes, 60 years back, a "role model" for me was The Nun's Story. And I am not Catholic, but I so wanted to be a nun.  I don't know if I could get my hands on a copy of that, but I'd sure like to reread it to see if it still had the same effect on me.

[rosemarykaye]

Ginny - I am so glad you were able to find Derry Girls, it is brilliant. And although it's 99% comedy, it has the occasional very poignant moment. Wait till the end of the last programme in the first series.

If you can get it, do also watch the Celebrity Bake Off programme featuring some of the Derry Girls actors. it is an absolute hoot. I think it was first shown around Christmas time.

For me it's also interesting to see how Northern Ireland was living its daily life through the Troubles. From the news we were fed in London you would have thought the entire province was exploding every 5 minutes. Of course terrible, terrible, things did happen, but most of it was concentrated in small parts of Belfast (eg the Falls Road) and Derry, with offshoots in the remote hills of Donegal and Connemara. I have a friend who grew up in a very middle class home in Northern Ireland. She was told to end her relationship with a Catholic policeman, not because her not-very-religious Protestant parents objected to him, but because they feared for the consequences for both of them.

And I've no doubt mentioned before that when I first went to stay with my friend in the very south of southern Ireland my mother was terrified. Needless to say the Troubles were almost as remote to people in Co Waterford as they were to us in the Home Counties. My mother also boycotted Kerrygold butter for years - despite the fact that it came from the irish Republic rather than Northern Ireland.....  There were some very odd politics in our house. As a student my college was strongly involved in the Barclays boycott (this bank was heavily invested in South Africa at the time) - while my mother was simultaneously insisting on buying South African apples to support the S African (white) farmers. She is not at all racist and did not agree with apartheid, but her sister had emigrated to somewhere near Cape Town years earlier, and my mother was persuaded that the 'British' South Africans were unfairly maligned and that all the bad stuff was the fault of the Afrikaaners (Dutch settlers.)   Michael Portillo's more recent series, Empire had an extremely informative episode about S Africa, and the people he interviewed in that implied that the Dutch farmers were far less prejudiced and unpleasant than the British. When one is at school, history just seems to be endless lists of dates and facts. It was only much later that i began to realise that almost all of those 'facts' are open to interpretation.

Rosemary

[rosemarykaye]

Dana - I have to say that, much as I loved The Famous Five, I didn't much like George, though I'm not sure why. I never wanted to be a boy!  I think I had a notion about emulating Sue Barton in the numerous nurse books by Helen Dore Boylston. I would've been hopeless, but she seemed so Good and Noble!

[rosemarykaye]

I've just started reading The Future Homemakers of America by Laurie Graham. It's a long time since I've found myself flying through a book this quickly, I am really enjoying it.

The story opens in 1952; it's set on an American Air Force base in Norfolk, and follows the lives of five air force wives and their friend, a local woman called Kath, over the next forty years. It's an easy read and very well plotted.  And the description of the Fenland cottage that is Kath's home when the others first meet her is wonderful, and I'm sure entirely accurate. I may not have been alive in 1952, but even when I worked in Cambridge in the 1980s, going up into the Fens was like entering another world - very isolated, somewhat backward, and known for interbreeding. Kath shares this two roomed hovel with her husband (or is he?) - they eat, live and sleep in one room, the other being for all the equipment needed for eel trapping. They have no electricity. no plumbing, no telephone. The doctor visits once a week and holds his surgery in the local pub (and this is the only time that women venture inside the doors of this male drinking hole.)

Later on Kath's life changes radically.

And I had no idea that 'The Future Homemakers of America' was a real thing, a kind of club girls joined at school!  I don't think we had anything like that, even in those unliberated days!

Has anyone else read this book?

[PatH]

Wow.  I blinked and I'm way behind in this conversation.

#14. This present off kilter world has definitely changed my reading habits.  Like most of us here, for some months I couldn't seem to read much of anything, and I'm still not back to my old habits, mostly just rereading things, and not much of that.  Not being able to get to the library only makes it worse.  The question is, what will my habits revert to when life gets more normal?  One likely change is that I'll eventually switch to reading a lot of ebooks.  But will I read more or fewer challenging books, change the main types I read, or what?

[rosemarykaye]

Tomereader - your wanting to be a nun made me laugh, I suppose it’s a bit like me wanting to be a Saintly Nurse. I also wanted to have my own zoo (Gerald Durrell My Family and Other Animals) and my younger daughter wanted to live on a train (Lucy Willow) or be a spy (Harriet the Spy.)

I think you can have Protestant nuns - aren’t the ones in Call the Midwife Church of England?

It’s an interesting question, Pat, as to whether we will return to all of our old ways when this thing is finally past us. I have listened to The Archers (a daily 15 minute soap on BBC Radio 4) more or less since I was a baby - all though university, marriage, babies, etc - but at the start of the lockdown they said they couldn’t record it as they usually did as they could not have several actors in the studio at one (nobody really understood this as why could they not be socially distanced?). They changed the format to monologues by various key members of the cast - it was AWFUL and they lost huge numbers of listeners. Recently they have started to revert to the usual format, with several characters in at once - I listened to it a few days ago and realised that I had completely lost interest in the whole thing. It was actually a relief to eat my dinner in the company of other radio dramas or a book!  So I doubt I will ever go back to that one, and really the lockdown has done me a favour. It’s also encouraged me to find many other excellent plays, adaptations and audiobooks on BBC Sounds.

[jane]

I've wondered the same thing about what will "normal" be next year at this time.  Remember back in the day when in job interviews there were always the "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" questions.  Now I don't know where I see myself next month, let alone in 5 years. 

I don't know that my shopping will go back to browsing in shops for things I don't need.  I've lost interest in that and the shops here now are either closed or operating on a Thurs-Fri-Sat only schedule. I just had an email that a shop I used to buy clothes from is closing permanently in a mall in Cedar Rapids.  But, now I don't need clothes for going out as there is no going out except to a local eatery, maybe.  There is no planning for a big trip to LA or New Orleans or San Francisco or NYC or overseas.  The air is either filled with smoke and ash or being hit by yet another hurricane or covid is rising.

So, I guess I'll go along as I have these last 6 months...one day at a time.

jane

[Dana]

Rosemarykaye, I am blown away that you didn't much care for George!!!!! 
  So what was it about about The Famous Five that you liked?
 I really am curious because it was ALL about George for me......

[rosemarykaye]

Dana - I think I just enjoyed the stories, and the exciting idea that children could go anywhere by themselves.  I was a hugely overprotected only child in the city, and hardly allowed to the end of the street alone. That's also no doubt why I loved staying with my mother's friend and her family in Cornwall in the summer holidays - she was much more relaxed, and more than happy for me to disappear all day, wandering along the cliff paths or pottering around the village. I expect there were some tensions in that family at some point - very few families avoid such things altogether - but to me it was idyllic.

Did you also like The Secret Seven? I never got into that series at all, but I did love the boarding school books - St Clare's and Malory Towers.

It must be so difficult to write adventure stories for children now, as no-one would be able to believe that children would ever be left to their own devices. I suppose that's why Harry Potter worked - it was all fantasy so it didn't matter that it would never happen in real life.

[rosemarykaye]

Jane - our shops are open, but I haven't been into town since March. The one thing I do miss is charity shop browsing (for books), and I hope to get a bit of that in when I am down in Edinburgh later this month. Unfortunately I will also have to visit some sort of clothes shop, as my stretchy old jeans are now stretched beyond redemption and have holes in the knees - but I will be in and out of Primark or Matalan, or some other budget shop, not browsing the latest fashions (which was hardly me even before this, and certainly isn't now).

It was my husband's birthday last week and as I was passing a very small jewellery shop out here I briefly thought 'cuff links!' - then realised that he has not been into the office since March and is unlikely to be so for some time, so no suits, no smart shirts and definitely no cuff links!  I think I'm going to get a pizza stone instead - someone told me you can get these to cook your pizzas on inside your oven. Much more useful!

Today I went to the first 'real' art exhibition I had been to for months - it was put on by the local amateur art group, and is being accommodated in a very nice hotel out here on Deeside, as their regular venue cancelled on them at the last minute. It was very quiet, and the hotel - which I'd never been to before - was a beautiful place, at the end of a long, tree-lined drive. It's the first time I've had to have my temperature taken or give a contact number. I hate the idea of being called and told to isolate, but I suppose it's that or not go anywhere. The two ladies who were manning the sales desk at the exhibition were so friendly and grateful that I had gone along - there were only 3 or 4 visitors, though I think they'd had more at the weekend.

I've just 'attended' an online talk by one of the curators at the National Library of Scotland - she is the specialist in mountaineering and outdoor sports, and she is preparing an exhibition about women mountaineers, which will open ('in the flesh'!) next month - 'Pinnacles and Petticoats'. She said when she first started her research the question she kept asking was 'Where are the women?' - it is known that women have walked and climbed in the hills and mountains of Scotland for 300 years, but there is very little about them anywhere. She has managed to unearth quite a bit of material, but only after a great deal of digging around in their archives. I think the exhibition will be worth seeing.

[PatH]

Frybabe:

Pat, are you mostly talking about the classical Russian authors? I couldn't get through most of that either.

That's a good question.  I couldn't get into The Master and Margarita, published in the 1960s and written a couple of decades earlier, though the idea interested me.  But I enjoyed an odd fantasy series written by Sergei Lukyanenko, starting with Night Watch.  It manages to reduce the conflict between good and evil to a hidebound bureaucracy, with evenly matched sides, neither of which can win.  The scene is mostly the grubby Moscow of this century, with a cast of normal people, the superficially normal combatants, ghosts, vampires, witches, other minor magic-workers.  The first two books were made into successful movies (in Russian) which made a minor splash here.

Definitely a specialized taste, and not typical of most modern Russian literature.

[nlhome]

Rosemary, your comment about your library not re-opening interests me. We just had our library board meeting this week, and our library is struggling to re-open, although many of the others in our system are open, at least to a limited number of browsers at one time. Our issue is not money so much as space. Returned books here need to be "quarantined" for at least 96 hours before being checked in and returned to the shelves, same for the inter-library loan books. That takes up space we don't have, to organize the books by date, etc. So our children's area is used for that quarantine area. Meeting space has been lost because that area, just one big programming room, has been taken over by city government offices, because of the need to distance employees rather than have them share small offices. Our own employees must be separated, which means that small meeting areas are used for that. Only half the computers can be used, to keep people properly distanced. Our reading room only holds one person at a time now because of its size. So access to the library is mostly by appointment, except for browsing new books, another area which only holds one at a time. Programming is all on line, and while that is good for some, we have lost patrons because the library was part of their social life, now it isn't. Book clubs are on Zoom. (I find Zoom meetings or discussions exhausting.) We can't build our new library, given the current financial situation. Our city council so far is supportive of our efforts, but we need space to re-open. We can't store the quarantined books in an unheated spot (winter is not far off) because current information suggests that cold temperatures allow the virus to remain viable longer.

So, there may be more to your library's story? 

[Dana]

Rosemarykaye.....that makes total sense,....... but did not apply to me,..... so wasn't my focus I guess in these books BECAUSE I lived in a small Scottish town (Blairgowrie) and in spite of what I thought of (in my adolescence) as totally overprotective parents, I spent my pre and early teen years roaming about freely through the local countryside, lighting fires (!), walking up the river (Ericht) (!)...not supposed to do that......cycling everywhere.....Perth, Coupar Angus, Alyth , swimming in Cluny Loch (also forbidden)......nowadays I can't imagine a life for children that does not include that kind of freedom,..... which I know is impossible now.......SHAME......

I read The Secret Seven, and also all the Adventure series (The Hurricane Adventure ....well, you can keep that for me now....) but it was George who really got me......I could explain that,......but will leave it there.....!

[Frybabe]

Pat, I remember some time ago you told me about We. I have it but have yet to read it. Shame on me.

Rosemary, I have a pizza stone but haven't used it in years. I did like it. As I recall it did a nice job on the crust. I saw your mention of the Fens earlier today and by coincidence this afternoon I ran across Ralph Vaughn Williams' In the Fen Country on YouTube. What a lovely piece. Not only that, the person who put it up included a slide show of the area.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R9RA_BR_p0

[PatH]

Frybabe, I never finished We, so shame on me too.

[PatH]

Jane, you perfectly described how I feel, except I wasn't much of a browser for clothes--just books.

Nlhome,what a frustrating setup for your library.  I'm not in the information loop here, so don't know what the issues are, but the location of my particular branch makes it less likely to be invaded for office space than some other branches.

[PatH]

Rosemary, of course Bob and I didn't have the benefit of Spurling's useful book when reading A Dance to the Music of Time, since it couldn't be written until the series was done.  It came out pretty soon after, though.  I'm sort of glad we didn't have it, because it's inevitably full of spoilers, revealing the very odd turns the lives of some of the characters take.

It's a mark of Powell's skill, that when a character does something unexpected, you react the way you would to someone you know, rather than thinking the author overdid it.

[ginny]

 Flying past again, no time, no time, like the...was it rabbit in Wonderland? What wonderful posts!  I'll be back tomorrow to put my oar in but NLHOME!! First what a wonderful post about the your library and second: (I find Zoom meetings or discussions exhausting.)

 What?  Why? You're scaring me!!  I just did 4 11/2 hour ones yesterday and I'm afraid on my part they were very high energy, (I'm hyper).... what in particular do you not like, I don't want them all to quit? Do tell all?

[nlhome]

ZOOM? Yes, to me they are exhausting. It's keeping track of who is speaking, trying to understand some with their poor connections, having the person in charge not paying attention so things take longer, having to repeat things, and not feeling a real part of the group. Then there are the people who mute, forget to unmute, and the ones who shut off the video so we can't see them but they do a lot of the talking or they keep interrupting. And here, there are pockets of poor cell phone reception, limited internet access, so video freezes, audio is garbled, people disappear. I had one meeting this past month where we had to wait for the chairperson to get his wife or daughter, I'm not sure who, to help him connect because he couldn't figure it out, then wait for him to go outside and climb a hill above the barn to get better reception. I am secretary for two boards, and taking minutes in a Zoom meeting is challenging. In fact, I should be typing those minutes up right now, but I can't seem to get to it.  So yes, exhausting.  The good thing, though, is one monthly board meeting I attend is usually 45 minutes in length, whether in person or by Zoom, and if I have to drive to that meeting, it is 50 minutes each way. I am hoping that I can continue to attend those monthly board meetings remotely, even if we get to the point where we could meet in person.

I am not sure I could do 4 meetings like that in one day! Wow.

[PatH]

Nlhome, you gave me a chuckle with some of the problems of your zoom meetings.  How exasperating.

Ginny, I presume your meetings are Latin classes.  Since the students will be doing a lot of this, they've probably had to get rid of glitches, but that still leaves a lot of room for problems.

[rosemarykaye]

Good afternoon all,

Frybabe, thank you so much for posting that beautiful Youtube version of In the Fen Country - I had never even heard of it before and I enjoyed it very much. The images were also perfect - how interesting that they could make the area look so haunting and lovely when all I remember about it is the dead straight roads beside the long, long dykes, the little concrete block houses, and the cabbage fields. The women in The Future Homemakers of America think the whole area is awful. But the Fens are an ancient place, monks used to travel around them in punts. I feel there is so much I didn't appreciate as a student - these beautiful landscapes were on my doorstep and I hardly knew. 

Thank you also for the information about the pizza stone - I've just been looking at them on Amazon, and I'm amazed how many Americans say 'I bought one for my RV' - has everyone got an RV?  I remember when we lived in Newfoundland our neighbours had one the size of a truck, it was huge. I did think recently that one would be useful as you could go away in it without worrying about sanitising, etc - but my son then told me that they were sick of seeing them pouring into the Highlands, they are blocking up all the roads, and worst of all, emptying their lavatories on the grass verges - can you imagine? I must admit I had never even considered the plumbing issues. Anyway it's all academic for me as my husband would not be seen dead in one, he can't stand them, nor caravans (which I love as they are so kitsch and dinky - I remember my aunt's one used to have a little plastic bracket thing to keep the salt and pepper pots on the table.)

NLHome - thank you very much for the explanation about the library - I can see that it must be very difficult for yours to open. The issue I have with Aberdeen is that not one library is showing any sign of opening (and the city has a lot), no explanations have been given, and the politics of this particular city council make us very suspicious. I really will be quite surprised if all of the branch libraries re-open, I'm sure they have been longing to close some down for years. Apart from the books and computers, I do think they are such important social meeting places, especially when so many community centres, lunch clubs, etc have already fallen victim to previous rounds of cuts.

And Pat I do agree with you about there being spoilers in Spurling's book, though I did still find it very useful. Yes, you're so right about Powell's skill - some of those characters do the weirdest things, and we do just think how weird they are - we still believe in them as people.

Ginny - I agree with NLHome, I loathe Zoom meetings!  When I was still involved in my office ones, I found that certain people dominated them even more than they did 'normal' meetings. People talking over one another, connections failing, no possibility of any jokes or banter!  I watched another National Library of Scotland Zoom event last night - it was about Scottish nature on film and the presenter was the curator of the photography and film archives - I have met her before and she is an extremely nice person but not a very good speaker. Some of the problems with last night's meeting would have been the same 'in the flesh', but unfortunately she also did not know how to make Zoom work (no more do I, but I'm not trying to give a talk) and there were several long gaps when she didn't know which button to press, and the two events managers (in their own respective homes) had to try to resolve it for her. At one point her own notes (eg 'Hello, and it's good to see people joining us from all over the world' [find out where people are from and mention this]) were on the screen. I'm sure your Latin lessons were a lot better!

Beautiful day here again. My friend and I went for a great walk in the woods this morning, then I had to brace myself and face the grocery shops. All done now. We are away down to Edinburgh tomorrow for 10 days, I'm not really looking forward to it but I will at least get my hair cut, at last, while I'm there.

Rosemary

[ginny]

NlHome, I have to tell you I made the mistake of reading that at 4 am and I absolutely laughed till I cried, (really) and could not go back to sleep. The guy who had to get his wife or daughter and go up on the hill behind the barn just set me off. It sort of is doing it again  right now.

I am taking notes, believe it or not, from  your experience and that of Rosemary here. And I can see with what you have to do with having to take  notes and not knowing who is speaking, etc.,  would be very frustrating, especially with the internet limitations in different areas.

I can see the frustrations the viewer might experience and I appreciate both of you talking about them. One thing we always have is jokes and banter, so I feel good on that part. We also had in the Advanced Class that dreaded "Chat" thing ([find out where people are from and mention this])...anybody can send you a message and it flies up in  your face and everybody sees it if you touch it  or whatnot?  I hate the thing. How can I concentrate on what we're doing when a "Did we say the break was at quarter till?"  appears on the screen blocking out everything else. But I'm getting used to them.

The bad part is I worked SO long and hard for NO glitches to happen. I wanted to be slick. hahahahaa I was slick all right. hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa But there was no problem at all with PowerPoints or full screen illustrations or texts or maps so that part went well.

Pat, Zoom seems to be new to a lot of people. I've done hours and hours of practice one on one,  but when the day comes it's amazing what  all can go wrong. (It's like Dale Grote of UNC used to say about presentations with a projector: expect the worst to happen, because it will.  It's easy to attend a Zoom meeting but quite difficult technically to put one on. For instance I showed last week two short films in each class. One is the new Papadias commercial, which has Latin in it ( Latin Lives Today). But zoom, while loading all of them (everything has to be loaded before you do the class or it won't play) will not allow but one to play. There they all sit, stacked up in a stack, ready,  tempting, pre loaded,  but not available.  That was a very unwelcome discovery Wednesday, it had not  happened during the practices (I'm trying to figure out why)  and occasioned a lot of frantic loading and deleting in the 10 minute break between classes.

Happily for me 3 of those classes are used to my technical ineptitude and are cheerful about it,   and the Introductory class seems remarkably affable, so MAYBE  it will be OK. (I have to say, Nlhome, while I miss the campus and the room,  and the atmosphere I don't miss the sometimes 2 hour commute one way, myself.

I also attended   my first ever "Webinar," at the  invitation/ request of a student. I did not know what they were? So I got suitably dressed, and selected a nice area on the porch, red brick, white shutters, white rocker, good light and of course they can't SEEE you!  DUH!!!

So! It's been a whirlwind of technology here in a very short time. (Although if they can't see you how do they know who has left?)

OH and not to mention what you LOOK like? Oh  yes yes. I appear to be Casper the Friendly Ghost's sister. Nothing I do removes that  whited out look. (In fact, what with all the hyperactivity that is probaby exactly how I appear  to everybody).  I appear to have 10 screens/filters  over me, too.  I have to say it's VERY flattering and I found THAT out when I bought a new camera which focuses on a dime and tried it out here on the main computer. You know those dermatologist things where they say ok let's show you what the damage on your face REALLY looks like? All I can say is while I knew I was no Norah O'Donnell,  the red face, red rimmed eyes, and more wrinkles than the Grand Canyon on my FACE where I never saw one before sent me screaming right back to the Casper look.  I think it's suitable for ancient subjects, anyway, right?

Safe trip, Rosemary!