The Library

[Tomereader1]

Yeah, Barb, our Book Clubs (both of them) meet at the Library.  They actually opened up the various branches well before they decided we could resume our in-person meetings.  Our first Book Club meeting was May19th, 2022, which put us at having been out of circulation (pardon the pun) for two years.  Everyone was so very glad to get back on a f2f basis.  Our Clubs are relatively small.  The Mystery Club usually about 8 regular members; the General Book Club ranges from 6 to 10 regulars.  We had 4 new attendees on the last one, which was for "Klara & The Sun" by Ishiguru.
We are very relaxed, "unstuffy" clubs.  For the benefit of those here, I'll kind of outline how we work.  I'm sure I've done this before, but I apologize if I am repeating myself.  We try to stay at least 2 books (months) ahead in choosing books.  Everyone (ideally) recommends a book, you must have read it if you recommend it.  The whole group decides which of the recommendations we'll pick.  Other criteria: there must be enough copies of the book in the library system, so no one has to go out and purchase the book.  Since we're back f2f, we advise the librarians of our selection, and they cull from the entire library system copies to be put on display for the upcoming read.  Each member can just go into our branch and pick up a copy, regular print, large print or audiobook if available.  The person who chose the book is Moderator for the meeting.  We don't really do Q & A type things, although some books have them, if moderators like to use them. Mostly I think we make up our own Q & A as we go along, or at the end of the meeting.  The Moderator may like to begin with author information, i.e. biography, reviews from magazines,  etc. like NY Times Book Review, Kirkus, PublishersWeekly and so on.  We like to "dish" on how our views differ from what the critics had to say.   We like for everyone present to add to the discussion, some nights, some books are better than others. Meetings are one hour (the library changed their closing time for our Thursday night meetings).  General Club is 1st Thursday, Mystery Club is 3rd Thursday.  We have operated since roughly 2003 or 2005 (I forget which, as record keeping was kind of lackadaisical in the beginning).  I do have handwritten copies of the earliest meets, but who knows where?  I have too many boxes of papers.

Well, I think that fairly covers it.  If I've left anything out, just ask.  People move from the area, but we have a strong core group, who have remained with us as "friends" more than just club members.  Whew!  I used up a lot of my little grey cells with this post. 

[BarbStAubrey]

Fabulous - so glad you shared how y'all do it... sounds like the group is making it fun with everyone sharing their own reactions - there was a group here at my local library but it broke into viewpoints based in religion and politics - not for me... but then this is a very changing area - drove around twice this past week and could see the changes based mostly on campaign signs on front lawns which were not supporting what had been typical in this area - frankly I was surprised at how big the change - no wonder our neighborhood facebook page has a very different tenor about it.  It also lost the gentle humor that was included by everyone having something to say - it is now far more serious with lots and lots and yes, again, 'lots' of complaining or sharing what we should be alarmed over.

I had a link that showed all the TV programs for those who do not have cable - and a couple of weeks ago it got so full of these strange named stations - really full - so that I could no longer make any sense out of any of it... I ended up simply flipping channels to see what was on but of course had no way to see what was coming up for the rest of the night -

Well - I think I finally  figured out what is going on - one station has an great online weather page - 6 days out with predictions and a radar map that shows the next 7 or 8 hours of weather movement - they also have links to their other mostly news and so I hit one that would show the current lineup - well there it was - it appears all these local channels or maybe it is the parent company like CBS or NBC anyhow all these strangely named channels that are an outreach to the local call numbers was listed - For instance the channel this weather online link is KXAN which is the local NBC and on the TV it is channel 36 which now has 7 more channels --- 36.2 or 36.4 and some have their own name like GRIT or LAFF -

It appears all the local stations have this enlarged presence and so of course the link I was using would have all of them including a few main stations I could never pull in like the one in Fredricksburg or the one in Kerrville and their additional stations and so, without linking into the other local channels that had been a part of Austin for I guess 70 years now, I can at least check on the evening showings on this one channel KXAN and find out what will be playing on 7 other channels that somehow are connected I guess to their tower for transmitting.  Brave new world...

[PatH]

Pedlin is one of the few SeniorLearners I knew in person.  Her son lived in Bethesda, somewhat near me, and when she came to see him, his wife, and the grandchildren, she would sometimes round up those of us who lived in the area--JoanK, Deems/Maryal, Joan Pearson, and me, and we would eat lunch together.  A few times I gave her a ride to Politics and Prose Bookstore for a spending spree, plus coffee and pastries in the little cafe beneath the store  I think the last time I heard from her was when she was moving and having trouble trying to log on to SeniorLearn.  We had a number of complicated troubleshooting phone calls.  She was just as nice and interesting in person as online, though you had to shout, as she was very hard of hearing.  I wish I thought she's okay, but it sure doesn't look like it.

[BarbStAubrey]

Pat does Pedlin's son still live in the area - do you know him well enough that you would feel comfortable phoning him and asking how she is and how we can contact her - all I have is her address in Ohio and since she moved several years ago now you just know the post office would no longer forward any mail

[BarbStAubrey]

Reading one bit of research after the other on medieval philosophy and law mostly about individual ownership or property rights including human rights versus, only owning what can be worn or consumed in the moment with no ownership thus being left out of the legal system that requires capitol and individual rights - the later principle was and is still 'the' principle that all thought and action stems from for the Franciscans - this principle opens a whole can of worms that is fascinating to better understand, with various leaders and groups having opposite opinions examined and written about during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century and actually continues to this day - at the same time this was being sorted out there was a movement to meld religious belief with public/state life called Roman Imperial Theology

The upshot is one of the thesis written by St. Bonaventure becomes a Papal Bull - in other words a public decree with the Imprimatur of the Pope attached and he says it should be accepted with no glosses - What in the world are glosses - took some work just to find a definition since the word is seldom used today except to mean very different actions like glossing over something or painting a gloss on something

Found this rather extensive explanation but oh so worth taking a look - a gloss near as I can figure out is as close to annotating as you can get but putting more detail into understanding as well as, in some cases seeing other ways using other meanings for words so that the text is almost argued all over again...   

I thought this quote from the paper sums it up - "The OED’s definitions largely avoid a circular relationship between a set of terms which are very often defined with reference to each other, but have slight differences: translation, annotation, commentary, and paraphrase. That is, these terms represent methods of presenting additional information about the meaning of the main text; the difference can be found in the scope, intention, and even length of the gloss. These terms will appear throughout this case study, since they are often used interchangeably by modern scholars, albeit problematically."

The link --- http://www.medievalcodes.ca/2016/11/what-is-gloss-part-1.html

[ginny]

Gee what an interesting place this is this morning, love all the posts.  Hope everybody is safe out there in these storms crossing the nation.

Pat, yes I miss Pedln, too, I hope somebody can let us know how she is. The website logs when somebody is here? And so either Pedln or somebody using her equipment logged in as her last  in May of this year? And so hopefully she is OK. I'd sure like to know, myself.  I look back on our Gatherings with a lot of fond nostalgia, it was really great to actually MEET the people here online. Real people, just like they appear here. When Frybabe put that in about Grossingers, I actually thought of Andrea, too, who also knew the Catskills.

Tome I love your description of your book club, and I think the idea of starting discussion by giving a critic's view is brilliant. It opens up conversation for those who might have been reticent because we ALL have opinions!

Barbara, how Interesting on the OED, I've got one, it's a very old one, many ancient volumes,  but it's quite interesting. I think it's online now. The entries make good reading themselves.

There's a new ( to me) compilation of Agatha Christie stories called Double Sin and Other Stories, it's got that new cover they all have, but it's 25 short stories, some of which have new titles, apparently, like the title of the book was once called by Road and by Rail or something like that.... if I remember that right.  I got it on Kindle and was delighted last night to read the first one where Hastings is the narrator starring Poirot's having to, under protest,  take  a coach tour  to solve  a case, and all the hilarity you might expect. I so enjoyed that way of going to sleep, as Dana said,  and I had never seen that one, despite supposedly owning everything she ever wrote.  So am looking forward to the next 24 nights. Go to sleep with a smile on your face for once.

I enjoyed sleeping, that is, until  about 4 am when something big fell outside in the storm that just came through.  You could hear it crackling and then a bang. What surprised me was  the ground shook, and the house with it.  All I could think of is those poor people in houses that trees come through in a tornado or something  (this was definitely NOT on the house though we're surrounded by tall trees) but it does make you wonder how they ever go to sleep again. I'm not sure I could.  Certainly got me up.   So I'm sitting here waiting for the sunrise to see what it was.

[ginny]

Well a lot more excitement yesterday than was planned. The crash was the top part of a 60 foot tree which fell in the storm, a tulip poplar which had been hit by lightning last year and was struggling, taking parts of a gorgeous dogwood with it and the downed trunk was over 2 feet wide.  Glad that one missed the house, I probably would still be shaking.

Also there was a tree down across the back drive, so I guess it was a bit more storm than it seemed at the moment. 

But the kids came yesterday for lunch and both are cleaned up, although they did not expect to be doing that.

___________________________________________

I originally came in to say that I'm reading another "new" book, from the TBA stack, Prey,  by Michael  Crichton. Nanotechnology, something I know absolutely nothing about but the book itself is well written with a good plot, and so if microscopic things are being used to invade humans (as he points out we already have the robot cameras to look inside the body)  that's all I need to know. Apparently nanoscience  and nanotechnology are real, but this is his take on the idea. In this case, of course, run amok.  As always, he's got lots of references to papers written but the book itself is  really exciting. A thriller...sci fi?? ...good plot. Even if I have no earthly idea what he's talking about.

I really do enjoy escape reading but that's about to come to an end. I'm trying to figure out how to "have it all," for once. I mean, if not now, when?

What are you reading this fine morning?

[Frybabe]

Still listening to The Name of the Rose. There are a lot of things in there that I don't remember from my first reading and, I believe, things that were alluded to in the book, but nowhere to be found in the movie (I'll have to rewatch it to be sure). Dan Jones book, Powers and Thrones, became available just after I finished my last SciFi, so I didn't have to wade through my TBR books to find another read. Been watching a bunch of Welsh history and language videos on YouTube the last few days. One of them was a top 10 castles in South Wales. The videographer listed Caerphilly Castle as number one. Huh? Not Caernarfon nor Cardiff Castle? When I was in Wales, over forty years ago, Caerphilly Castle was off limits to visitors because it was in such bad shape. We only saw a bit of the outside (with moat) as we drove by. It was really neat to see the whole complex and the wide moat.

[ginny]

I was the most impressed with Castel Coch when I went to Wales than any other, for some reason,  and it is a re-creation I think. Just incredible rooms. Everything in the gift shop was way out of my range at the time, but I got a nice little water color of it, which I'm actually sitting here looking at.

I came in to say I just finished Prey, and boy is that a good one. I won't say what it reminds me of, so it's not ruined for anybody should they want a fast paced thriller. I found at one exciting point I was reading with my mouth open hahahashaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Good book. I'm on a Crichton kick, I think.  Can't remember why I never used to like him. I do now.

[ginny]

Are Michael Crichton and I running everybody off? hahaha

He ran me off for a number of years,  but it's fun escapism.

So what ARE you reading?

Fall is coming here, I can't wait. Good book, crispness in the air, roaring fire, things back to normal. I hope.

[Frybabe]

Gosh, I must have forgotten a lot of what I read of The Name of the Rose. Either that, or I was oblivious to some of what I was reading. While I can say I like the narration of the audiobook, I like the story a bit less. It is chock full of church politics and doctrinal debate which I knew less about than I do today. And then there were the dispensations and other rewards for adding liberally to the church and the Pope's personal coffers. Then there were the inquisitions and torturings, etc. that were not at all Christian-like to my mind but very much more like a cruel dictatorship and were a means of getting rid of people you didn't like.  The murder mystery itself takes up very little room in the book.

Powers and Thrones is holding my attention so far. I am still in the Roman Empire overview, so of course, I like it. Very readable book and very long. I won't finish it before it has to go back. There are a bunch of people backed up behind me who want to read it. That being the case, I think I will buy the book for my permanent collection.

[Tomereader1]

Ginny, Michael Crichton couldn't drive me off!  I've always liked his books.

What I'm reading currently are mysteries/police procedurals, et al, on my Kindle.  However, I am interspersing that with reading a very large "tome" - if you will, the autobiography of Agatha Christie.  This was mentioned at the Mystery Book Club meeting which I mentioned in a previous post.  It is 519 pages, but has a few pages of photographs of Agatha at various stages of her life.  I have yet to get into reading our General Book Club selection, which will be Sept. 1st.  It is a very short book, and I should have time to read (and pontificate on it before the meeting).  I keep coming in here, and no one has posted, and I'm thinking the space ships have come and collected all our members! 
I think we are due for a cool down here in Dallas (read that as in 80 degrees) however, today will have a heat index of 100.  Supposedly some rain is "possible".
Everybody please keep posting!  I miss you all when you don't!

[PatH]

Tomereader, What is the very short book your club is reading?

Frybabe, it's been 40 years since I read The Name of the Rose, and I know I couldn't make sense of it listening, without a chance to reread confusing bits.  I was pretty confused by the semiotics, and I'm sure I missed a lot of the implications of the doctrine and politics.  I wonder what I'd make of it now.

[ginny]

I'm glad to hear others have had an issue with The Name of the Rose.  I disliked his habit of putting in  obscure  quotations without translations, as if everybody reading the book had to be at some exalted higher standard to understand.

 You don't see that much any more, and I disliked it when I read it. I can't help hut notice some of the greatest scholars in the word use footnotes explaining exactly what they meant by their own interpretations. Different people see, understand, and translate  things differently.

There is a new biography coming out on Agatha Christie September 6 by none other than the "enthusiastic" Lucy Worsley (sp) as she's been called here for her Tudor stuff and she certainly is. I wonder what's left to say? Perhaps the missing period?

Tome, glad to find another Crichton enthusiast. I'm late to the party but I'm really enjoying him now.

[Frybabe]

I went and did it. I used one of my credits to get the audible version of Powers and Thrones and sent the library book back early. Dan Jones does his own narration which turns out to be rather good. Most of the time I dislike the author reading his own work, but Jones has done TV presentations, so he knows how to hold your attention. I look forward to listening to it after I finish The Name of the Rose.

I've picked up and then trashed several SciFi books and have gone back to Grey Lady (mentioned several weeks ago) which I almost forgot I was reading. The story is okay enough to continue, but not good enough not to interrupt for other books. I also forgot I had started The Anarchy (Dalrymple) and need to get back to that. Now, if I could just keep myself out of that pile of SciFi TBR's for a while (fat chance).

[Tomereader1]

PatH, the short book we are reading for Book Club is "Pony" by R. J. Palacio, who also wrote "Wonder" a beautiful story, which was made into a good movie, with Julia Roberts.

"Pony" reads like a fairy tale, with some mystery, a great deal of supernatural.  One just loves the main character, a hard-headed 12 year old boy, Silas, who has been wonderfully "home schooled" by his father.  Although terribly frightened by many occurrences, he sets out on a Quest.  A young person's Don Quixote!

The book is classified, by my library, as Junior Fiction.  It is still imminently readable by adults.

[Tomereader1]

Ginny, I liked "Name of the Rose" and thought perhaps his later books would be enjoyable to me.  Whatever the next one was (?) I was "under-whelmed" and haven't read anymore of his works.  I kind of enjoyed the movie made from Name of the Rose, but only, or mostly because Sean Connery was in it.

[Frybabe]

Tome, I tried reading Foucault's Pendulum, but I couldn't get past the first few chapters. I haven't read any of his other books either.

[PatH]

Tomereader, I've found many Young Adult books to be good reading.

I was underwhelmed by Foucault's Pendulum too, got stuck half way through, and now remember almost nothing about it.

[Frybabe]

My reads are piling onto me again. The library just notified me that the compendium edition of William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor series is ready for me to read. Sigh! I wasn't expecting that for another week or two. I am looking forward to reading them. It's a good thing I don't need to be in a hurry to finish the others I have started.

[ginny]

It's a very guilty feeling,  but I'm having a blast with Michael Crichton's Sphere. We are deep under the sea and there's a space ship or is it, and time travel, or is it? Or what IS it, and once again he does such a good job with the characters, that you can put yourself right in there as to what YOU would do, it's a hoot.  I'm  now trying to read all of his before classes start, so MUCH fun.

[BarbStAubrey]

shoot lost a whole post - this happens and I forgot how to hit a couple of keys to retrieve the post lost - so frustrating I think I'll come back in tomorrow instead of trying to put together again the post I've just lost grrrr

[PatH]

bummer.  I hate that

[ginny]

Barbara remember you can right click when that happens and you are still in the compose box and see UNDO and it will restore your typing normally.

I hate when that happens too. I wondered how the house selling was going, any news?

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh shoot it just happened again - i right clicked but nothing says UNDO - this is so frustrating - I know it is when I'm typing using all my fingers and somehow when my pinky reaches for the shift to make a capitol i loose it - i must be hitting another button but don't know which button - it happens at times when I write an email - OK I need to get past this and now I will just have to write out my thoughts on a word document and then copy and paste - this is beyond frustrating - I've a few things to do and so later...

[BarbStAubrey]

In trepidation I add this - in the Prologue of The Name of the Rose is this - love it - could be written today...

In the past men were handsome and great (now they are children and dwarfs), but this is merely one of the many facts that demonstrate the disaster of an aging world. The young no longer want to study anything, learning is in decline, the whole world walks on its head, blind men lead others equally blind and cause them to plunge into the abyss, birds leave the nest before they can fly, the jackass plays the lyre, oxen dance. Mary no longer loves the contemplative life and Martha no longer loves the active life, Leah is sterile, Rachel has a carnal eye, Cato visits brothels. Everything is diverted from its proper course. In those days, thank God, I acquired from my master the desire to learn and a sense of the straight way, which remains even when the path is tortuous.

Most of the Latin inclusions are legal terms that the first time I read this I ignored and now clicking them I am learning tons that I've had to read a couple of other books to learn what is really going on that is going over our heads - since the main characters are monks the story seems to be mostly church history - it is really just about a time in history when the church was more than a religion but the governing body for much of Europe and in fact that is what the meaning is for one of the Latin inserts - when the Church was adopting as one unified law, Roman Law - I'm so conscious of loosing all this I need to stop and write it on a word document there is much more - the issue of the Franciscans is huge...

[Tomereader1]

PatH, the short book we are reading for Book Club is "Pony" by R. J. Palacio, who also wrote "Wonder" a beautiful story, which was made into a good movie, with Julia Roberts.

"Pony" reads like a fairy tale, with some mystery, a great deal of supernatural.  One just loves the main character, a hard-headed 12 year old boy, Silas, who has been wonderfully "home schooled" by his father.  Although terribly frightened by many occurrences, he sets out on a Quest.  A young person's Don Quixote!

The book is classified, by my library, as Junior Fiction.  It is still imminently readable by adults.

Pat H, and all who read my above post, last night was the book club meeting featuring this book, "Pony".  We had nine members present, and once again, the meeting was absolutely fabulous.  I wasn't aware that a "junior fiction" book could engender so much discussion, so much love, so much intuitiveness and appreciation for the author and everything she went through to get this book the way she wanted it.  If you can believe, she had approximately 400 pages done, and being unsatisfied with it, she threw them into the trash.  Then, 2020 hit, and she began again.  IMHO, she got this one just right. 
We also had a moderator for the meeting who hit all the right notes, in-depth questions/comments that drew out of the other 8 attendees comments and questions, responses all around the table.  Almost unanimous response that we were all going to re-read this book to see if there was anything we "missed". 
Also, we each gave "propers" to the author for the manner in which she plotted the book, tying together any loose ends or questions the reader might have.
We did quotes, readings of various paragraphs,  you name it, we did it.  At one point, I thought passing of the Kleenex was imminent. 
So, do yourself a favor, check this book out from your library. Don't jump in thinking this will be the greatest classic novel of all time.  Just read for all the elements in the story; the coming of age, the fairy tale, the mystery, the Western, the young boy's Quest, the supernatural.
As I stated in the very beginning, this is not an overly "long" book. (most of us finished in one sitting)
All you "classicists" out there, don't hate on me for giving "Pony" this 5 star review!
Tomereader

[ginny]

Tome, oh,  WONDER!! I took my grandson to see it in 2017 when it came out and he said it was the best movie he ever saw,  and later on, about 2 years later, he gave me the DVD. Wonderful wonderful movie.

I think he was 9 or 10 at the time, depending on the month we went.

I can't think why anybody would hate you ever for any 5 star review!!!! It's all relative.

Right now I'm on the bottom of the ocean with Sphere and Michael Crichton  and there's a THING out there, a giant squid (I must like the theme I keep reading books about them) but I think this one talks....or something is talking like Hal and 2001,  and I would give the experience 5 stars and it's not in the least uplifting.

[Dana]

oh Ginny you MUST watch My Octopus Teacher. Just watch it.  So brilliant and inspiring I think.  About this diver who gets to kind of befriend  an octopus over a year. Sounds weird but really moving. At least now we're learning how more like we are than not to everyone else  alive on earth. Might be a bit late....but....better late than never I suppose.

[ginny]

 Dana,   I see it's a 2020 movie and is on Netflix and so I will definitely watch it if you recommend it.
I'm having a nautical summer what with Peter  Benchley's  Beast which I loved, he was also an ocean advocate, and now Michael Crichton's Sphere which seems to have the same thing.

[BarbStAubrey]

Someone I never knew about -

The local Center for Environmental Research offers monthly Lunchtime Lectures

The email announcing this month's lecture included this information... based on this write up I sure wish I could attend but the walk and stairs involved to the meeting room are now too much for me.

This lecture continues last month’s account of Humboldt’s influence on culture and science in the United States and how that influence remains through the science of ecology and ecological ideas.

In the first half of 19th Century, unlike any scientist before or since, Humboldt’s influence stretched far beyond the physical sciences. Emerson wrote that “The wonderful Humboldt…marches like an army, gathering all things as he goes.” Humboldt balanced imagination with scientific exactitude, thereby he “gathered” his “children” - poets like Whitman and Poe, writers like Washington Irving, Emerson, Thoreau, and Muir, historians like Prescott and Parkman, explorers like Long, Fremont, and Nicollet, artists like Peale, Bodmer, Church, and Catlin, and even artist/inventors like Morse. Inspired to study and to imagine nature like Humboldt did, they each strove to be like Humboldt, and, thus, through them Humboldt shaped our idea “nature” in America.

In the second half of the 19th Century, one of “Humboldt’s children” came close to fulfilling Humboldt’s vision of imaginative science by founding the new science of ecology. Darwin’s theory of evolution had laid the foundation for the science of living organisms, but necessarily left out the inorganic environment in which they lived. The German scientist Ernst Haeckel, who modeled his life and career on Humboldt and fully embraced Darwin’s theory of evolution, coined the term “ecology” in 1866 for the science of the “relation of the animal both to its organic as well as its inorganic environment.” The word comes from the Greek oikos, meaning “household,” “home,” or “place to live.” Thus, Haeckel asserted, “By ecology we mean the body of knowledge concerning the economy of nature—the investigation of the total relations of the animal both to the inorganic and to its organic environment.”

The roots of ecology as a science reach back to Humboldt’s idea of nature – a unified whole of the organic and inorganic cosmos composed of complex interrelationships. Moreover, Haeckel revived Humboldt’s integration of science and imagination through his artistic depictions of organisms in nature, most famously in his book Art Forms of Nature (1904) which influenced the Art Nouveau movement. This lecture will “gather” these various children of Humboldt to trace his influence from the 19th into the 20th Century.

 

[BarbStAubrey]

Here is a link to Art Forms in Nature available at Amazon --  https://www.amazon.com/Art-Forms-Nature-Prints-Haeckel/dp/3791319906/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3374I6X66071J&keywords=art+forms+in+nature+ernst+haeckel&qid=1662485696&sprefix=Art+Forms+of+Nature+%2Caps%2C428&sr=8-1

[Frybabe]

Sounds mighty interesting Barb. It fits right in with my appreciation of examples of electron microscope "art" I've run across.  I've seen and appreciated the artwork of x-rayed flowers and such. And now it's the new snaps of the "artistic" elements of the universe curtesy of the James Webb Telescope. Just the other night I marveled at a filigreed galaxy. Like finding portraits of animals, etc. in clouds when I was a youngster, I see faces and animals and other fantastic beings and objects in the cosmos. Oh, and that reminds me of one of the Pricilla Hutchins series books by Jack McDevitt in which wispy entities of the cosmic voids held contests for their amusement to design artwork using the various elements found in the universe.

[Frybabe]

Ginny, I found this interesting perspective while searching for a little more info about the author. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/josiah-osgood-a-roman-rebel-who-failed-tells-us-what-to-do-about-january-6/ar-AAYX2XF

Osgood's book, Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato's Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic, will be released on Nov. 29. I see that he has written a number of books, but I don't recall running across him before. Well, that isn't quite true. I see that I have seen his A Suetonius Reader: Selections from the Lives of the Caesars and the Life of Horace. I think I considered buying it at one time

[Frybabe]

Pat, have you ever read David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arturus? It appears that within the last two or three years, Audible has released five audiobooks, read by five different voice artists. Five! Really?

Lindsay (1876-1945) lived among some of the big names in very early fantasy and science fiction. He was familiar with George MacDonald's (1824-1905) works. MacDonald was an early writer of works of fantasy. According to one article in Wikipedia his book had a great influence on C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) who wrote his space trilogy beginning with Out of the Silent Planet. J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) read the book and commented on it in a letter republished in the book, The letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by his biographer Humphrey Carpenter. Oddly, H. G. Wells (1866-1946) was not mentioned. Well, maybe not so strange. I suspect they had differing moral, religious, and philosophical views after reading this in the Wikipedia line about Wells under the heading Representations-Literary: In C. S. Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength (1945), the character Jules is a caricature of Wells, and much of Lewis's science fiction was written both under the influence of Wells and as an antithesis to his work (or, as he put it, an "exorcism" of the influence it had on him). There were two citations for that bit which I did not include.

The cats are getting reslless. Time to get off this thing and go feed them.

[PatH]

Frybabe, A Voyage to Arcturus is unfamiliar to me, as is David Lindsay.  It's interesting what books are being resurrected because they fit into today's mood, but five seems like overkill.

I've read some of his contemporaries though.  One of George MacDonald's fairy tales, The Light Princess, was a childhood favorite, and still seemed good when my children read it.  (Evil relative, not invited to christening, curses the princess to have no gravity: she floats up if not tethered, and she can't take anything seriously.)  It's got some adult humor too, that I missed as a child.

I bogged down in Perelandra, the middle of Lewis' trilogy.  Biblical allegory makes poor science fiction IMHO; Doris Lessing is another example.  I can see Lewis' mixed emotions to Wells though.

[PatH]

ALL HAIL TO JANE, who keeps us all from getting snarled up and losing our way.

[Frybabe]

I just saw the news that Queen Elizabeth has died. So, very sad. She has been with us for almost my whole life.

[jane]

Thanks, Pat!

[BarbStAubrey]

Hip Hip Hurray Jane - you've taken on a full size job from the sound of it - so glad you are at the helm of Senior Learn one of the easiest web sites around along with your help whenever we are stuck and now it appears also and mainly the right arm to the Latin classes - good show Jane...