The Library

[Frybabe]

I wonder if anyone is not getting the extra heat yet. We've had 80s and a few 90-degree days since May 18 with a few 70 some degree days struggling to cool things down to "normal". While we sometimes see the 80's around Memorial Day, I don't recall the last time it got up into the 90s in May. The average temps around here in May are 73/51.

I've just started Charlie Lovett's The Lost Book of the Grail. It had me hooked almost immediately. First off, is set in Barchester which seems to be popular ground for novels. Secondly, he mentions John Constable, one of my favorite landscape painters.

[ginny]

We've had such crazy weather here, never saw anything like it, fluctuating all over the place, high 80's very early on, that stopped any planting , then yesterday quite nice,  and it suits me not to be in the 90's but I fear it's coming next week or so they say.

New bird at the bird feeder, have no idea what it is, I wonder if it's some kind of woodpecker, it's grey with a white head and a cardinal just drove it off but it went to the bark of a tree and sat there? Not ONE bluebird has tried the new bluebird feeder, not one. One sat on the top of the stake ad that's it, nothing else has gotten near it. So much for that.

The Short Little Attention Span that Paul Simon used to sing about  has set in for me. I tried and failed to finish The Last Mona Lisa by Sandofer, which my DIL kindly lent me. I was on a roll with it till I had to reluctantly put it down one night, caught up in the scenes of Italy,  but when I picked it up again, it seemed to explode into a million characters and plots and I couldn't follow , or care about....I thought it was me but I've read some reviews and I'm not the only one, but am definitely in the minority, most people love it. It's fiction about a real theft of the Mona Lisa.

At the moment I have fallen back on a compendium of Domnick Dunne columns I bought, I used to love reading Vanity Fair for his columns, and it's good and he is a good writer. The Truman Capote, perhaps, of his generation.  I also started to reread the 2nd in the Ripley series, Ripley under ground, I guess as a companion to the book on Narcissism I'm still reading as it's also well written. I think, having read the critical biography of Patricia Highsmith, that he's her....alter ego.... perhaps. Apparently a disturbed person but that's the reason she makes this  example of...what is he? Narcissist, Psychopath, Sociopath? My book on those subjects says Psychopaths are that way because it's a definite brain damage issue, the other two are learned. That's sobering, isn't it? At any rate that's the reason that you pull for Ripley, he's Highsmith in disguise and she puts a lot of passion in his telling.

At any rate I'd like something with a plot which can be followed and interesting people to read about. I'm hesitating over David McCulough's Brooklyn Bridge, remembering with great fondness our discussion of his Nothing Like It In the World here about the building of the transcontinental railroad.

That was also well written.

And seriously considering Bill Bryson (who does not like Bill Bryson?) and his Australia which I have not read to this day.

[ginny]

Here's a point to ponder. I read the Guardian and the BBC News every morning and here's an Advice Column from the Guardian from May 15, which I had sent to myself to read later and just saw: look at this statement:

Background: A woman wrote in that her prospective in-laws  were ruining their wedding plans. She had told her mother and now her mother was not speaking to them, so it made it worse. She wanted to elope and forget the whole thing. (It's better expressed in her letter, see link below).

Here is part of the advice Ask  Phillipa gave her:

"What you seem to want is a witness to back you up. You tried to get such a witness with your mother and that has made the whole situation so much worse. When you don’t have a witness for how you feel and how you experience the world, life can feel like a battle as you search for justice. My hunch is that any unfairness you may have experienced throughout your life may have been bottled up for a long time and it is all coming to a head with this current wedding crisis (it is a crisis for you, I can see that).

Not having the wedding or eloping won’t make any of this go away. When we don’t feel safe in the world, we need enemies. Then we find them to try to feel in control again. That emotional charge within us seems to need to find people we can consider wrong, to make us feel right...." 

That was like a lightning bolt, to me.  THAT is the reason, isn't it, for all these fringe crazy hate groups and their toxic representatives espousing hate,  isn't it? Find an enemy so YOU will feel better because you are searching for justice in your own life?

And she had good advice about what to do, too:

Unbelievably wise: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/may/15/ask-philippa-perry-my-partner-toxic-family-ruining-our-wedding-plans?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[BarbStAubrey]

Reminds me of reading a few years ago how we want the world and the people to make sense and we often turn to collecting - from seashells or stones to antiques - we organize and arrange our collection - name each item etc. which is our effort to make sense of the world - what it did not say was my next thought - how we all arrange our collections differently - give the same seashells and some will arrange them by type, others by size and still others by color variations - some will display them on their mantel or a shelf and others in a jar - which says to me we all have our own idea of what makes sense and therefore with all these difference what is sensible or non-sensible is subjective unless there is an agreed upon baseline for what is sensible. And that to me is what is going haywire today with all sorts of reaction - the baseline for what is sensible is being moved or ignored or rebelled against. 

Kevin, real estate broker was here this morning - We're on our way - Formal listing the end of the week but not on the market till sometime in the later half of July - in the meantime by having the formal agreement Kevin can see if there are other agents with someone or a remodeling contractor who may want to do something. Thought I would have more done before he came but it is what it is... 

[Dana]

So...who is "the library"....Jane?......I  love yr posts........
(I just reread all the posts and I don't know what I was referring to...now everybody has a name.......but I left this because when I initially opened this after a long absence there were a few posts with no name..... )

I have been feeling down due to several things including macular degeneration, so I joined a few (!) book clubs and enjoying reading a lot of awful (just my opinion) books.......I now realise I like to read a good story, no gratituous sexual violence, no woke philosophy, and I just want a fast moving story,...... no opening leafbuds or mist on the waters for me.......

So the ones I have enjoyed...... Cuckoo Calling  JK Galbraith ((Rowling) 
Great book, love Robin.  The story is secondary.  The characters are perfect. 

The Godmothers Camille Aubry.  if you liked The Sopranos you'll like this.  great lit it's not, but who cares

Sarum Edward Rutherfurd I listen to this in bed but I have a book too, to catch up on the bits I miss.  It's pretty easy to follow except when it puts you to sleep (which is good too) and I am learning some things about British history that I never knew.

Hamnet was one I didn't like at all...complete b...s IMO....boring, I thought the portrayal of Anne Hathaway was kind of unrealistic....who choses to go off and give birth alone in the woods?

[Frybabe]

Believe it or not, Ginny, I have yet to read a Bill Bryson book. However, I expect to remedy that.The audiobook version of A Walk in the Woods in my library's wait list. It still has an estimated four weeks, but I think it will be ready sooner. They have five copies of it.

Barb, since I can't move just yet (apartment managers will not allow three cats), I am having my kitchen remodeled. Right now, I am in the process of trying to find spaces for my kitchen stuff and getting rid of some. The cabinets are expected to arrive in about two weeks. I still have not picked out my flooring, dishwasher and kitchen faucet, and the contractor hasn't brought over samples of the countertops yet. Great, I'd hate to pick out flooring and not have it match well with the countertops.

[BarbStAubrey]

Wow Frybabe big clear out with a kitchen and replacing stuff is not a walk in the park just now $$$ - and yes, you are so wise waiting till you can see the entire counter top because just looking at one of those 12X12 samples gives an entirely different look to the overall effect. - Looks like you will have boxes of spices, pots & pans, glassware and china surrounding you in your living room for awhile - fun and games -

I found those banker boxes from Amazon are great and getting one order includes according to the strength of the box 10 or 15 for either $27 or $38 - I like the banker boxes because with those built in handles they are not only easy to move but they make great storage boxes after the fact - for the heavier stuff my son gave me the tip to use the wide packing tape and what he calls strapping the box - usually three spaced rows of continuous tape surrounding the sides and bottom of the wider side of the box and two rows along the narrower side that is the length of the box. And so by strapping them instead of making another order of the heavy duty boxes I was able to use the lighter weight boxes for some of my books - shocked at how heavy books can be - haven't packed any of my pots and they too will be heavy since I use La Creuset, however,  again I was shocked at how heavy eating utensils are when bundled together.

Another Tip, years ago I don't remember anylonger why or what I was packing up but I had about 10 banker boxes and I covered 6 of them in left over wall paper so that they were on both the shelves in the closet and looked great with the matching wall paper - recently, since getting things down for top shelves has become an issue, I piled 3 on top of each other in a column and they blend right in with the wall paper - not looking obtrusive at all

Looks like with this do-over of your kitchen you will be at this address for awhile and with a new kitchen - nice - good luck...

[ginny]

Dana, I'm sorry to hear about the macular degeneration, and am glad to hear you're addressing the down feelings by challenging them with the book clubs. It's hard when things physically go wrong, I think, to keep from feeling a little down, especially if they don't show some, however small, improvement. The knee I sprained on May 7 I think is a good testimony to that entire process, it's still slow going with a cane and rolling chair, no driving, but getting better. I think.

 Covid gardens on their own, trying to hold their own, sad to see.

But books can lift us out of it for a while, can't they?

Quite a lot of different themes there, I like that. I hadn't heard of 3/4ths of them, something new.  The Sarum sounds good. I have never read ONE of his, I do have his Londinium, if I can find it, I'll try him again, or the Sarum. 

Frybabe, I haven't read the Walk in the Woods either and it's THE one everybody raves on about. Let us know how you like it? I do have it.

Your kitchen sounds exciting. When we redid our counter tops I put Corian all over it, white Corian, and love it. They made a cutting board too which floats over the top wherever you want it and they can scuplt it to make one piece, sinks, too. It's been years and years but it looks brand new. I didn't want the granite cracks, and the problems with scratches, etc.

Barbara, you and Frybabe and your rearrangements are inspiring. I hope that I can soon tackle my own island in the kitchen which is full of drawers of pots and pans, etc., I've just bought some new pots and I have nowhere to put them.

Reading wise, I started three books. I figured if I can read op ed articles I will have a contest and see who whins out, so yesterday I, like Dana, like a good plot and good writing, and I started with Domnick Dunne's small novella on the trial of the murderer of his daughter who had been an actress in Hollywood, and it was quite sad and telling about justice, and what got him interested in the OJ Simpson Case and the others.

And then I found an old Agatha Christie paperback Death on the Nile which I have read and seen a million times but for some reason this one seems different. I don't recall the beginning at all.  It's possible I've just forgotten the book for the movies, but the book starts differently. The book also includes a note from Agatha Christie herself (it's one of those paperback authorized editions), and anyway it has a letter from her in the beginning of it as a foreward. She wrote it after she had spent the winter in Egypt.  I'll quote just a little from it, it's to the reader:

I think, myself, that the book is one of the best of my "foreign travel" ones, and if "detective stories" are "escape literature" (and why shouldn't they be!), the reader can escape to sunny skies and blue water as well as to crime in the confines of an armchair.

I liked that.

So that's book #2 and the Ripley makes 3, they are all good, and I'm enjoying this....buffet...... of delights and the entire experience.

And that's what it IS, escape.

[Dana]

I like Dominic Dunn's books.  I saw a program about him, can't remember where.  It went into the murder of his daughter  and how the murderer got off, but I can't remember the details.  He was presented as a really social climbing guy, it was quite interesting but obviously not mind blowing, as I can't remember much about it!
I like watching biographies.....I got that CNN site which only lasted a few weeks but in that time I watched some really good programs....about the Rupert Murdoch family (fascinating), Princesss Di, Navalny.....I was really sorry it got cancelled because I hate the ads. on regular CNN where they do these programs too.  Was trying to watch the thing about Watergate last Sunday night....interesting but the ads killed it for me.

I like Patricia Highsmith but have not read her for years.

The best book I have read with a book club so far was Patchinko, about Korea...can't remember who wrote it but it is one of these family sagas set in horrendous times. I tried kimchee and camboucha (?) in the course of reading it .....and upset my stomach I'm afraid!!!!!

[BarbStAubrey]

Now that I would have like to have seen the bio on the Murdock family - I've seen so much of Princess Di and now with Charles about to become king and you know it will be within the next few years it is all so unsettling - and then Navalny's story is getting too close to what is happening here in the US - all so unsettling isn't it... ah yes, the ads - added to the phone calls - money makes the world go round, the world go round - sheesh...

[Frybabe]

Anybody who is watching AppleTV+ will be able to see Patchinko. It is a new series which, I think, started the end of March. The name is familiar, but it turns out, it is not the book I remember, but the game. I remember seeing it or seeing it mentioned in one or two movies/TV shows. I don't have AppleTV+.

My new fold-up table is now installed by the window up here. I got it because it is tall enough to fit above the hose from the new portable air conditioner, and in the winter, I can remove the hose from the window and push the air conditioner underneath to store until next summer. Now the cats will be able to lay there and watch the birds out the window all year, not just in the winter.

[ginny]

I read Pachinko but did not see the movie. I seem to remember liking it.

Surely the Rupert Murdock family can't compare to the Murdaughs  of SC now in the news, unbelievable. I am willing to bet anybody he killed his wife and son to add to all the other murders and machinations, I saw something on the news saying they are now coming to the end of the investigation, unbelievable.

Dana, I love the way you tried "kimchee and camboucha (?)" Now that's immersion!!

Yes that's what I meant by Dunne's being the Truman Capote of our time, the social climbing and making no bones about it, but exposing them like Capote did for their shallowness.   It's fascinating but it does make for interesting reading and he's right about one thing he talks about in his books, people do come up and tell him the most incredible things. We met him at a book conference once, and talked to him a while. At the time another famous person was writing the Claus Von Bulow story before he did and we told him that. He ended up with that prize but he wrote SO well.

But yesterday my experiment in reading 3 books at once fell flat with a bang. In the book of Dunne essays were some of his earliest, and they were pretty hard reading, other trials, it got kind of depressing, actually and who needs that? So I put it away for later.

Then the Agatha Christie Death on the Nile, also exploded with tons of new characters (she has to introduce them for the boat trip down the Nile) and again my poor little short attention span gave out, so she got put on the Coming Reads Pile too. So what's left?

Then I started Ripley Underground, by Patrica Highsmith....and could NOT put it down. Here's a man living in his gorgeous French Chateau,  the phone rings, can he come to London, a problem has arisen and by the second page we're in a whirlwind but it's all somehow something  we and he can deal with, somehow, it's always under his control, and we admire that, we want him to succeed, because she's somehow got us on his side and he's so logical with it all. 

 I read 3/4ths of the book in one sitting, and found when I finally HAD to put it down, I was holding my breath. How on earth that woman wrote this is beyond me. It's suspense but he is always in charge somehow, it's not a horror story,  no ghosts, nothing and nobody coming out of the woodwork, just his logical mind explaining how he's going to deal with this problem and the next, and somehow you are wanting him to succeed, while saying no, no, not that way,  ....it's indescribable. I've got all the sequels, too, so I'm in for a great ride for a while. SO well written.

If you like to hold your breath for half a book she's the one, and even though it's the 2nd in what turned out to be a series, you don't need the first one, she explains it as she goes.

That Pachinko is an interesting game, isn't there one on TV now? Where the ball or whatever comes on down on pins or something and the contestant urges it to go right or left, jumps up and down for some reason and a lot of screaming? We sure are bereft of substantive games to watch on TV.  Not too much thinking in watching a ball drop.


Wasteland.

I am actually now looking forward to this DIGI stuff, it's always positive. Last night they showed how the Victorians made "jelly"  in those molded tins.  Everything positive. Molded jello salads used to be very popular but I haven't seen one in years, and quite frankly, these looked awful. I wonder how they actually taste, because it looked like it was made of bouillon (came to the show too late to find out).

[Dana]

I wonder about his motive (Murdaugh)if he killed his wife and son.  And two different guns were used which is strange.  It is said that the other brother is gay and was involved with a guy who got killed on the road a year or two ago, the investigation of whose death has been re-opened. He is also the brother for whom they are said to have been trying to get the money from the housekeeper's insurance, whose body is now being exhumed!  You can't make this stuff up......

[ginny]

I have  always thought he did at least one of those murders, if not both. I have felt from the very beginning he's connected, somehow.

She was going to file for divorce, and her attorney had told her to gather up the financial information. She had a big  check bounce to a charity she wrote and I think that armed with those two things she confronted him, and he blew. The two different guns to me were probably used on one of the victims, possibly by the other, or it was an elaborate scheme of his like the flat tire episode.  Maybe the son came on the scene at the wrong time. Or maybe she did. She  was running away from the scene when shot. Maybe she came along at the wrong time and he used one of the two guns at the scene, his, and whoever else brought one.

Where is Mr. Monk when you need him? He'd solve it in a moment.

Unbelievable what he and that family have gotten away with for years.

 I saw in the news two days ago he's now a "person of interest" in those murders.

[BarbStAubrey]

Goodness where in the world do you watch to get all these crime happenings that I had not heard about - first it was Depp/Heard and now Murdaugh - Lordy the world is going mad - probably always was but it was just not made as public although, as public as these crimes are I had not heard of them till y'all brought them here... I think I prefer more like the Victorian jellies or even Barnaby in Midsummer Murders...

Almost rented The Talented Mr. Ripley with Matt Damon but the more I read what he is about the more on edge I felt - lying as a feature storyline in a movie really gets to me as I think any minute the jig is up and the world will come crashing down - I can feel my tummy tighten just thinking about the horror of it all... noticing here of late how often public figures live lives of duplicity is like - go away - do not know how to handle it - beyond right or wrong - don't want to dwell on tracing the effect on others - and to realize they act like nothing ever happened - oh oh oh - Probably why I like cozies - everything is sugar coated with the veneer of the English countryside.

[ginny]

Yeah the Talented Mr. Ripley, the movie,  is scary.

I'm almost through Ripley Under Ground and it's continued at a fast pace, and so far there's only been one non- PC statement, and it  surprised me,  but so far that's it.... am almost at the end. It's a good read, very strange book, getting very dark here at the end..and rapidly becoming hair raising.

I guess because we are in South Carolina we hear  more about the Murdaughs, and their  story? You'd have to look them up, I am not sure I could describe them, their prior status and power and what happened.

[BarbStAubrey]

This article seems to give the story - https://www.greenvilleonline.com/in-depth/news/2022/01/26/alex-murdaugh-family-murders-sc-south-carolina-case-news-updates/9187069002/

I may be nuts but I am attempting to feel and think and act happy, cheerful - I am fed up with all the crazy that the news and even social media is full of - enough - the world may be broken with everyone pointing fingers who broke what - but I've had it... my house and my spirit does not have to be broken just because so much out my front door is crazy broken - enough!

A doe has two fawns hidden in my side yard - it may be triple digit hot earlier than ever recorded but so, we have triple digits for weeks every summer and if you are new to the area you'll like all of us accept it is what it is living in this part of the country so again, onward...

I had not been playing music during the day as background and I'm dusting off the CDs and starting that and I'm making jello - when I was a kid we ate for dessert Jello - most often with fruit in the Jello - it was fun poking it and seeing it wobble before mom served up dessert sauces of Jello. And I have Pyrex dessert sauces that we used to fill to cool and serve pudding - have not had pudding in I bet 40 years - and Mom always cut store bought juice half and half with water - I am sure it was meant as a cost saving way to stretch the juice but the memory of that cooling and happy colored drink is what I want to renew...

I feel like I am digging into how to see the humor or cheerfulness attracts as if finding yet, another box not opened in years - but enough - no more living on the edge of my chair expecting to fall off any minute - I really can do nothing to change any of it...

[ginny]

Sorry for my reading matter, but I've enjoyed the Ripley no end.  Sometimes you feel like a  nut, sometimes you don't.

 I like all kinds of books. THIS one did get a bit...horror-ish at the end but he's a  Sociopath (now apparently defined by the editors) but the way it ended was with the ringing of a phone and his feeling that this time he was in trouble but he said to himself "courage" in French, which is the same word, and went to answer it.

Now WHO could leave it THERE? But that's how the book ended!!!!  So I literally ran to the bookshelves to find the Ripley books to continue.

[BarbStAubrey]

haha that is the best ending to start the next in the series I've ever heard - usually there are pages from the next book that are supposed to entice you but that ploy was great... Glad you are enjoying it - reminds me of a quote that I have no memory of the author - Courage Doesn't Always Roar

Should set up the hose on the back lawn but my get up and go left me today - we are not supposed to water tomorrow but whose going to see my watering the back and so I'm going to fudge...

[Dana]

Oh my......that was a good summary article about the Murdaugh story, Barb!

Watched the BBC show with the queen's private videos on utube......it was really quite moving for a nostalgic old Brit.  I did enjoy it.

Trying to finish a pretty run of the mill book for one of these book clubs...The Judge's List....who wd chooose to read a book by Grisham?  I thought they were only for emergencies on planes...... however I will be diplomatic......

[Tomereader1]

Grisham writes good novels.

[Dana]

I agree and I used to like him ....wasn't The Firm one of his first?  But I think he's become formulaic as he's ground them out over the years.  Just finished The Judge's List.  Perfectly readable, he's got it down to a fine art, but nothing about it grabbed me either story or characters and all that internet tracing stuff was just plain boring in the end.  The story was also ridiculous. Who dips their fingers in hydrochloric acid for no good reason..... So a firm thumbs down here!!!!

[PatH]

Grisham is on my list of writers I mean to try but haven't yet.  Is there an obvious one to start with?

[Frybabe]

As I suspected, A Walk in the Woods became available early. I downloaded the audio book yesterday and started listening to it right away. What a fun listen.

Getting used to my new Kobo Libra 2, I have finally figured out how to download Project Gutenberg books to it through Adobe Digital Editions. I am in the process of downloading the Project Gutenberg .epub books that I already have on my Paperwhite, which is about seven years old now, so I can delete them on the Paperwhite in order to make more room on it. I had it just about maxed out. I think that is the reason it has been a bit slow and uncooperative at times now. Then again, it just could be that their latest "upgrades" are causing the slowdown. Everyone seems to be switching from text lists of the books to "thumbnails" or what Amazon calls "cards". I very much prefer the text lists. Where I could browse through my library with at least ten-twelve books to a page, now there is only room for six. Also, I could read the text just fine, but many of those thumbnail pix of the books are often hard to read on the black and white screens. They are okay on the 4/c tablets, but not on the plain B&W screens.

[ginny]

Interesting on the thumbnails and amazon, Frybabe.  I still prefer a paper book, and I especially like paperbacks for some reason but I do like the highlight feature  of the ebooks, too. Good idea on the Project Gutenberg books.

I started the Australia but may switch to Bryson's Walk in the Woods. We could all use a laugh about now.   I'm glad to see you like it so far, Frybabe.

Haven't read a Grisham in years, I liked the first couple of books.

 I was excitedly beginning the Ripley but it didn't start with the phone call, she, apparently in deference to those reading her books for the first time,   began with something a new reader could work with, and I respect that but I've inadvertently  found a new fascination...see Movies.

[BarbStAubrey]

Notice a few Grisham books were made into movies - I remember reading him back a few years ago - I liked seeing him being interviewed on TV.

My daughter comes to help me clear and pack next week till July 4 - and so I may not be in here that much - no bust in the RE market here but a slow leak - which is typical here in July and August and usually picked up again in September so we shall see what we shall see - couldn't clear faster and so it will be what it is...

I keep finding things I forgot I had - yesterday found a photo of my Grandmother when she was young and my grandfather who died when my mother was age 16 however, remember often visiting his grave with my Grandmother when I was a kid. Also found summer reading certificates from the Lexington Kentucky library my two older children earned - its work but the things you find clearing out that I bet most families it is the kids that clear out after a parent passes.

Whoosh - putting my grocery order together for tomorrow and the Ezekiel bread (non-glutton) is $7 a loaf and the Cinnamon Raisin version is $8 - seems like yesterday it was $3.99 - Looks like we will have to go back to making more of our meals from scratch but I'm not going back to baking my own bread - for one it is too hot and will be till sometime in October.

[ginny]

Good luck with your move, Barbara, that's a huge undertaking when you have been at one spot for so long!  So nice to see photos of your grandparents, I have some here somewhere.....somewhere....I hope to find them someday....

I just could NOT get into the second Ripley so instead I read Dominick Dunne's account of the Claus Von Bulow mess. I did not realize that Sunny Von Bulow went 28 YEARS in her coma! Surely I read that wrong. Goodness, that poor woman, and by all accounts a lovely person. Everything in life anybody could want but  apparently a bad taste in men. Mercy. And apparently he tried twice to put her in a diabetic coma? 

Still watching the A&E accounts on You tube of unpleasant airline passenger encounters at  various airports, yesterday the  Baltimore Airport.  I feel as if I've just returned from a nightmare world trip, exhausted by the lines and the obstreperous passengers. Golly moses, never saw anything like it.

Now I'm on to the Customs in  the UK catching smugglers, it's incredible what they will smuggle and how they will smuggle it.

These shows just bring back ALL the bad memories and passengers  that can happen when traveling but there are good stories, too, most of them from the staff's kindness.

[ginny]

Here's something kind of out of the blue. I get all these interesting articles on currently att. yahoo when I go to get email,  some of them quite bizarre.

A couple of years ago we attempted to do an informal read of Virginia Woolf, which we didn't particularly agree on. Today there is an article about some of her bon mots, I guess you'd say, her own comments on people she knew or books that she had read, which I found interesting:



“Hope (Mirrlees) has been for the weekend—over-dressed, over elaborate, scented, extravagant, yet with thick nose, thick ankles; a little unrefined, I mean.” From a diary entry, November 23, 1920

“[F]ate has not been kind to [Elizabeth Barrett] Browning as a writer. Nobody reads her, nobody discusses her, nobody troubles to put her in her place.” From “Aurora Leigh” in The Common Reader

On E.M. Forster: “[His mother is slowly dispatching him, I think—He is limp and damp and milder than the breath of a cow.” From a May 1926 letter to Vanessa Bell

These "pocket" things to make you think are quite interesting. I feel a lot better for thinking that perhaps she was not the greatest person who ever lived and needed attention.    https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-selection-of-virginia-woolf-s-most-savage-insults?utm_source=pocket-newtab

And while I did not like Ulysses, she does seem a little harsh on Ulysses by James Joyce, however:

“I have read 200 pages [of Ulysses] so far—not a third; and have been amused, stimulated, charmed, interested, by the first 2 or 3 chapters—to the end of the cemetery scene; and then puzzled, bored, irritated and disillusioned by a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples. And Tom, great Tom, thinks this is on par with War and Peace! An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me; the book of a self taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating. When one can have the cooked flesh, why have the raw? But I think if you are anaemic, as Tom is, there is a glory in blood. Being fairly normal myself I am soon ready for the classics again.” From a diary entry, August 16th, 1922

So I now don't feel the least bit guilty for my remarks on HER at the time, which pale by comparison.


What's everybody reading? I've got a really good one by Robert Barnard (not new but new to me) I've started. More on that later on.

[Frybabe]

Just before lunch I finished reading The Lost Book of the Grail. Of the three Charlie Lovett books I've read, this is by far the best. Put together a bibliophile, medieval church history and architecture (way back to the Saxon era) , and a quest for the Holy Grail and King Arthur's connection to it and you have a whopping good read. What we have been debating today over the digitizing of books as opposed to print books is mirrored against the controversy over hand copied manuscripts as opposed to books produced by that new invention, printing. Not only that, I was also delighted that I remember my Latin enough to read most of the passages. Even the afterward and acknowledgements were interesting.

Now I am on the hunt for another library read. Meanwhile I am still chuckling my way through A Walk in the Woods on audio. I have to say that on the whole I think I enjoy humorous books better listening to a good narrator than I do reading them in print.

[ginny]

I have got to find A Walk in the Woods, that’s all I have heard about. I do want to mention that I have changed my post above on the comments of Virginia Woolf that I read about on Ulysses were not that extensive when I read them as the whole thing turned out to be when I pasted them in there….I was kind of surprised to see the extent of some of her comments, and as it is I do not agree with everything she said there at all.

[Tomereader1]

"A Walk in the Woods" is hilarious!  Then, after you've read it, see the movie.  A bit different, but totally enjoyable. I moderated the book for my f2f library book group.  The best part of my presentation, to me, was that I had maps about the trail, with lots of information, trivial and serious, including stuff about the making of the movie. 

For my part, I dressed in suitable hiking/trekker type clothing, passed out packets of instant oatmeal to all attendees and, oh Lordy, did I have fun doing this.  I've moderated several books for the group, but this one really sticks with me!  For a book with more hilarity than seriousness, I totally enjoyed the book, the movie, my presentation.  I have a photo somewhere on this computer showing me dressed for the part.  I have no idea how to pass it along!

[Tomereader1]

Found the picture, but can't figure out how to get it to this discussion!  Any helpers out there? I tried Copy, Paste but those didn't work.

[PatH]

Wow, Tomereader, your book club really makes you work.  I'm impressed.  And members have to be serious enough to be willing to take their turn. 

My reading is mostly trivial or rereading, and still not nearly as much as normal.  Currently, it's a mystery by Martha Grimes, read so long ago that so far I don't remember much.  I just started one serious book, "The Pursuit of Power" a history of Europe from 1815-1914, by Richard Evans.  It's part of a historical series commissioned by Penguin Books, and got very good reviews in the New York Times.  That's a stretch if history I don't know enough of.  Too soon for a verdict, but it starts well.

[BarbStAubrey]

Tomreader - do not know for sure but I think a photo has to be uploaded on the internet first and then you can get the URL that is transferred here in a post - we probably need Jane on this - it would be fun to see you all decked out during your book club discussion

Just went through 2 days of emotions - I had several baskets of photos that had to be organized and put in a plastic bin for moving - some wonderful memories and some not so wonderful along with many a tear - on top of which yesterday, was my Peter's birthday - he passed 15 years ago - he would have been 69 which is incomprehensible but to top it off found one of his drawings and a couple of hand written notes which brought up so many memories

Well my daughter gets here tonight rather than tomorrow - she will be exhausted but says one good night's sleep is all she needs - I'm thinking it will take her a few days to get acclimated to the heat - we have had triple digits the entire month of June and no sign of it stopping - on top of which we have to conserve on electricity and water - thank goodness there is an overhead fan in the room where Katha will sleep which will help at least stir the air however, everything is thick dust with the Sahara Desert blowing into Austin again... this has become an annual event although I notice we usually have dark skies from the slash and burn habits of farmers in Central and South America blowing up from the South but not this year - I do not know what it means but maybe no new areas are being cultivated - hope it does not mean the cultivate fields are not being prepared for a new crop - no word why...

Came across a new to me word - Kybalion - looked into it and was amazed - no time to read the entire tome however it is read on Youtube that I downloaded for when I have time and then, the second chapter that is the key to the entire book is explained on this Youtube - Evidently the book was written in the 1930s however, it is the philosophy/religion from ancient Egypt and Greece - fascinating way to look at life and the issue of polarity is what hit me as a way to see things that leads to other and more satisfying choices.

Of course you have to skip a couple of ads including in the very beginning but worth the 13 minute watch - does not appear to be the typical new age voodoo - Based in thinking from the Greek god, Hermes and I forgot the name of the Egyptian god but the one with the pelican head -

[jane]

Tome...send the photo to me in email and I'll put it up for you.  Barb is right that it needs to be uploaded to a server on the internet, and I can do that for you to SL's.

janeiowa@gmail.com is my email addy.


jane

[PatH]

Great.  We'll get to see you, Tomereader.

[Tomereader1]

Jane, I hope you get the email. 

[BarbStAubrey]

Great - thanks Tomereader and Jane for coming to the rescue

Shoot looks like I copied the wrong URL in my post above - the one I had was to this site - me or my - OK here is the one to the second chapter of the Kybalion -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp4utNQIDhc

[Tomereader1]

My thanks to Jane.

[ginny]

Can't wait to see it, Tomereader!  Sounds like a book club discussion to remember. Reminds me a little bit of our Nothing Like it in the World discussion  on the transcontinental railroad, where Ann Alden, I remember, brought in some wonderful stuff from her own background about the train. Never forget that one

You get out of something in proportion to what you put in  it, I think.

 We should have dressed up!! Love it.

Fans of the Shakespeare and Hathaway series, AND Father Brown, there is big news! See Movies!