The Library

[Steph]

 

The Library Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is  always out. Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us. We look forward to hearing from you, about you and the books you are enjoying (or not). Let the book talk begin here!

Suggestion Box for Future Discussions

Oh wow.. Did you bring back memories. In High school, we had a senior play..It was Our Hearts were Young and Gay.. and I played Cornelia..What fun.. I also read the book.. I love Charlotte McCloed, have read most of two her series.She has several. I keep trying to remember to look at Louise Penny and keep forgetting..Oh well, Sooner or later.

[Babi]

 I appreciate the spelling correction, GINNY.  I got nowhere looking up
Louise Perry in my library catalog.

[Gumtree]

As ifI didn't have enough books in my TBR piles I had to grab an armful from the library - a least I was there to return a few - but goodness titles just jumped off the shelf at me. I even picked up a Alexander McCall Smith
just to give him a try. It's the first of one of his series set in Edinburgh - you've all spoken of  him so highly so here I go to see what the fuss is about...

Another caught my eye was by Emma Tennant Adele which is built on the character Adele, the little girl who was Rochester's ward in Jane Eyre - that put me in mind of Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea  about the first Mrs Rochester which I've been meaning to reread for years - it was there just sitting on the shelf waiting for me.

Picked up three or four others as well - but what I came in to say was that while I was browsing the stacks I found myself right in front of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth - I wasn't looking for it but it has been in my mind to read it again after hearing Ginny speak of it when she read it some time ago. I looked into it tonight for half an hour or so and my goodness how quickly Pearl Buck sets the tone and how the story flooded  back into my mind so clearly - I didn't want to put it down - but I did. I think I want to savour this reading of it.

I'm on the lookout for those biographies mentioned recently too -  of Paul Scott and Pearl Buck - I'll have to search back for the titles and the author....  

[Steph]

O h me.. two large baskets of tbr and you are tempting me.. Pearl Buck, who I read ages ago..Hmm.. I have recently fallen in love with a new to me sci fi.. Lois McMaster Bujold..She has a wonderful series about a space opera type,, who is anti to type. small, weak.. etc Miles..Miles is wonderful and I have been busily tracking down the original series.. There are a bunch of them.. It has been fun.. If anyone loved the old type space opera.. lots of swashbuckling. falling in love with the unattainable girl..and being the quickest thinking in creation.. Try Miles..

[Babi]

 I can second that, STEPH.  Bujold is excellent in all she does, and Miles
is a wildly improbable and wholly captivating character.

[Jonathan]

Gum, I would appreciate any comments you could make about the Jean Rhys book. I watched the video of Wide Sargasso Seathe other night to wrap myself in that lush Jamaican landscape, trying to escape a dark, winter Canadian evening. And got thoroughly hooked on that strange tale. Speaking of darkness!  Ha! Contrary to your experience, I found myself thinking of the second Mrs Rochester.

[mabel1015j]

I'm reading four good books:
Birth of Venus - by Sarah Durant, it's background is the Savonarola era in the fifteenth century. It's not compelling, but interesting. A young girl wants to be an artist.
Below the Salt - by Thomas Costain, i think it's going to be a "time-travel" novel. It starts in the U.S. in the 20th century and then reverts to the time of Henry II and sons in England. I'm enjoying it very much and the story is well put together and easy to read.
The other two are "mysteries"
Holy Moly by Ben Rehder. I had never heard of him, until someone on SL mentioned him. A fun, quick read.
Blood Lure by Nevada Barr. "Anna" is in  Glacier Natl Park learning how to lure bears  w/ blood, fish, and skunk smells to "traps" where they would leave hair and therefore, scientists could track them thru their DNA. I got more info than i cared to know about how to mix the lure and how badly it smelled, but the murder story is interesting and has Barr's usual sardonic humor.

Jean

[MaryPage]

I read Below The Salt eons ago.  Costain is one of my all time favorites.  Great read!

[bellemere]

Have finished Pym's Crampton Hodnet, just about to finish Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness, just about to start Little Bee by Cleave and The Nine, by Toobin.  Have "The Wave " on the car CD player.
finishing my Christmas cards, relatives, in laws, old friends and a former student, a nun who founded a home repair program in Appalachia.  I always send her a small check, instructing her to spend it only on drunkenness and debauchery.
Bought a wooden sled for baby grandson, the kind with a seat and a pull handle. He is in the Berkshires and they already have some snow on the ground.  Here today just a mean cold rain that hasn't let up all day.  Baked cookies and ate too many "mistakes"
Yesterday afternoon daughter and I went to a fundraiser for the local Boys and Girls Club.  A very original "Festival of Trees"  The ballroom of the hotel was filled with artificial trees of various sizes, all contributed and decorated by local businesses, some of themwith "present" of their products underneath.  We bought tickets and when we say a tree we liked, put a ticket into the bucket under it.  they will be raffled off tonight, and if I win one, I have to go pick it up tomorrow]ow or Tuesday. I would love to win the spa one with gift certificate for a massage, or perhaps the travel agency one with vouchers.  The Symphony tree had such lovely ornaments, tho - mostly little gold and silver musical instruments and music notation symbols.  So I am just waiting for the phone to ring to see if I am lucky.

[nlhome]

Mabel, I read Blood Lure this fall and enjoyed it - although I didn't enjoy imagining the smells...what added to my appreciation of the book was an article in the New York Times about a bear researcher who was doing a similar study, now, in the NW area of Montana or thereabouts. I forget the area, but it was not Yellowstone, and the article made reading the book seem that much more real.

[bellemere]

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (how is that pronounced?  Not Rice is it?)  is also strange and haunting.  I loved it but it's not for the "happy ending" crowd, that's for sure. I understand that Rhys was one of those young writers hanging around Paris in the 20's  and I think I read she has sort of a boyfriend/mentor in John Dos Passos.  She had a great idea with the first Mrs. Rochester, and I think she executed it well. 

[ginny]

Well good luck, Bellemere, I hope you did win something. I just did not win a similar lottery but I didn't expect to (even tho I did put my little ticket in a bowl which looked unpopulated.  The thing that amazes me is how some people win lotteries (big ones) twice!

[roshanarose]

Bellemere - I liked the part in your post about the nun spending the money on "drunkeness and debauchery".  For a long time I worked in admin at a university that had many nuns and priests updating their CVs in Educational Administration as students.  They were always such fun to be with, and loved to play tricks on us.  One of my fellow administrators who had a very loud voice allowed it to be known that she fancied one of the priests, Tony, who was always playing jokes on us and was very cheeky in general.  He was also quite cute, and he knew it.  Denise was married.  We all went out for a Xmas party with Denise, the loud lady with the crush on the aforementioned Priest.  Denise was getting more and more inebriated and louder and louder.  She had positioned herself across from Tony and was watching him with the glittering eye of a predator.  She continued to watch him this way for at least five minutes.  Denise then said in a very loud voice "Tony."  "If you weren't a priest I would have sex with you".  The whole table went silent and Tony, for once, had no comeback.  I kicked Denise, hard, under the table.  She retorted "Oh.  Carolyn (me) you are just jealous.  And stop kicking me!".

Tony was a much quieter after that, unfortunately Denise wasn't.

[bellemere]

"He could have said"Even if I weren't a priest I wouldn't have sex with you," but that would have been rude, no?  and it sounds as if she had already done evough to ruin everyone's party.  Maybe Father Tony needs to tame his image a little for propriaty's sake.

[roshanarose]

Tony may have thought that, Bellemere, but he would never had said it. 

He did quieten down a lot after that, but I don't think it was his fault.  Denise had a mouth like a bucket, no self-control and no respect.

[Gumtree]

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (how is that pronounced?  Not Rice is it?)  is also strange and haunting.  I loved it but it's not for the "happy ending" crowd, that's for sure. I understand that Rhys was one of those young writers hanging around Paris in the 20's  and I think I read she has sort of a boyfriend/mentor in John Dos Passos.  She had a great idea with the first Mrs. Rochester, and I think she executed it well. 

Bellemere: I'm looking forward to reading Wide Sargasso Sea. I only have vague or perhaps confused memories of it from when I read it maybe in the 70s.  I'm not sure but I thought her boyfriend/mentor was Ford Madox Ford but in any case she was certainly in Paris in the 20's. Everyone seemed to think she had died until she resurfaced in Cornwall so much later. I believe her name is pronounced  something like 'Reece'


Jonathon Why am I surprised at your interest in the Rhys novel? I'll post something about it once I've read it. I doubt that I've seen the movie so will check my DVD rental people.

[kiwilady]

My daughter goes to a Dominican Catholic girls school. They have a chaplain. He is a Dominican Father in his early 50s. The girls all love him. He loves a joke too and is very funny. The school masses are very modern and at the last one which had a theme of Having a goal and making your dreams come true as well as Hymns they all sang Abbas song "I have a dream". The girls arrange the service and the Chaplain leads the prayers and does the Homily.

I am reading a hotch potch of books at the moment as nothing new has caught my fancy. I do want the new Dan Brown book but there is a big waiting list at the library. My granddaughter Brooke is into Dan Brown in a big way and she is considering buying the paperback with some of the gift money she always gets at Christmas so hopefully Granny will be able to read it after she has finished with it. Brooke is only 13 but her assessments say she has the vocabulary and maturity of the average 35 year old. She is allowed to read adult books. She and I share audio books quite often. She likes to listen in bed rather than read a hard copy. She can really blob out then.

I am reading a Patricia Cornwall at the moment. "At risk" It is not as good as some of her others.


Carolyn

[Steph]

Sounds as if we readers prepare for the holiday, but keep on reading no matter what. My audio books just now as very old Elizabeth Peters..Not Amelia, but others..Fun and silly types. I am still not into morose or violent things.

[Babi]

 JEAN, I read 'Below the Salt' ages ago, and still remember it as a favorite.
But then, all of Costain's books were favorites of mine. I can remember reading a book of his on a porch swing in the summer, before I was quite in my teens.
  What is 'Holy Moly' about? The title sounds like fun.

[ginny]

And the Penny has turned into a Police Procedural, a genre which I very much dislike, but I'm going to finish it because I want to know who did it and how.

I've got three more waiting however, the new MC Beaton, Busy Body, Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer (which surprised me by taking place at Christmas)...I haven't read Heyer in years  and I recently got several of hers because I love the genre, very Christie like: upper crust, country house, snow, in this case, Christmas, murder...but hers always have humor in them, I'll try it next. Then I've got Shrouds of Holly by Kate Kingsbury.

And there's another one which I can't find. During the year if I start a book and the setting is Christmas I carefully put it away so that I can read it then. Unfortunately it may be 11 months later and the stacks have been rearranged, so the next time I find this book in question I'll read it then. hahaha

Did you all see that Kate Morton, the author of The House at Riverton and Forgotten Garden has a new one out people are raving over, The Distant Hours? She is Australian and I have not read a book by an Australian in some time. I have The House at Riverton and have heard nothing but good about it, maybe after Puzzel Manor I'll give it a whirl.

Meanwhile I continue with Clarissa Dickson Wright and am starting the Cleopatra which was just named by the NY Times  one of the top 10 books of the year, for heaven's sake. I bet Adrian Goldsworthy feels that's unfair. Nobody mentions his new Antony and Cleopatra.

I can't wait to see what all the shoutin's about with the Schiff. Oh dear, I see under her name on the cover she's won the Pulitzer Prize, maybe THAT'S what the shoutin's about!

What's everybody reading in front of the fire?

[maryz]

A new MCBeaton?  Agatha or Hamish?

[ginny]

Yes! Busy Body is 2010, Agatha Raisin.

[Gumtree]

The Kristen Lavransdatter Trilogy has finally arrived. The parcel was on my doorstep when I went to check the mail this morning. I had some bother getting a copy - it was to be released in Australia in late November but there is some kind of a delay and it's still not available - so I ordered it online and here it is... all 1,000+ pages of it. It will have to wait until the Christmas fuss is over and my sons go home and I can lose myself in medieval mystique....

Last night I started The Good Earth in earnest. I know I'll end up reading the whole trilogy.   

[pedln]

What goodies you all are reading.  I'd love to get into a Neveda Barr -- have a couple of oldies on my shelf that a friend passes on to.  My f2f group read Winter Study -- about that island up in Lake Superior.  Excellent.  But I'm still hunkered with the Naked Gardener and Major Pettigrew -- I love Major Pettigrew.

But can I tell my nun and debouchery story?  When I lived in Puerto Rico and was taking a Spanish class, the class decided to have a party and everyone would bring something.  The nuns in the class brought the rum.  A great party, and Sister Helen still had one unopened bottle to carry home.  But first she had to go to the prison to see one of the prisoners there that she was counseling. As she and another nun told us later -- They got to the prison and opened the car trunk for the guards to check.  In the trunk were a rope, a machete, a hammer, and the bottle of rum. The guards did not touch the rope, the machete, or the hammer, but they took the rum. So, on their way out, they stopped again by the guards, who laughed and said, "Oh yeah, the ladies with the bottle."

[Gumtree]

To backtrack to last week and the 'Vegemite' topic. My local paper ran a small item this weekend touting Vegemite as Heart Balm ...

Heart attack victims could boost their chances of survival thanks to a vitamin in Vegemite.
Vegemite is rich in Vitamin B1 and a study suggests that a derivative of vitamin B1 speeds up the healing of tissue after heart damage. Separate research found that the substance, called benfotiamine, could prevent heart failure as a complication of diabetes. The discoveries mean a supplement containing benfotiamine could become part of diabetes treatment...

.... no wonder Aussies love it 

   

[mabel1015j]

I stayed up half the night to finish Nevada Barr's Blood Lure. I just had to find out what had happened to the victim.  I like the way  Barr has incorporated the psychiatrist/sister/Molly into her stories. Molly doesn't actually "appear" in person in this book, but "Anna" constantly "remembered" things Molly had told her about victimization and other psychological issues.

Babi - the first paragraph of the description of Holy Moly says "When televangelist Peter Boothe decides to build a megachurch on the banks of the Pedernales River, he thinks his biggest problem will be a few unhappy neighbors. However, when backhoe operator, Hollis Farley unearths a rare fossil on the construction site - a discovery that could lead to plenty of embarrassing Darwinian publicity - the cover up begins."

I'm also reading Helen Van Slyke's last book, Public Lives, Private Tears. She had started the book before she died, another writer finished it. I think i've read all of the rest of her books and am sorry to have no more to read. I liked her choice of writing about family issues and "real" families. I liked all of her books...........jean

 

[Tomereader1]

Personally, I wouldn't have recommended Barr's "Winter Study".  We read it for our mystery book club, and even though it was my turn to moderate, I simply hated the book.  Barr (IMO) has gotten into that ditch that says, oh you've got to have some sex here, and here, and here, and a large dollop of violence here.  I was totally turned off by the book, and felt it wasn't one of Barr's best efforts, and I've read almost all of them!  P.S.  The rest of the group didn't much care for it, either.

[salan]

Gumtree, is vegemite like marmite??  I have some English friends who ate marmite during the war because of its nutritional value.  I tried some when I was in their home outside of London.  Didn't like it at all!!
Sally

[mabel1015j]

There was no sex in Blood Lure, which was refreshing. The only violence was the murder itself. I have only read about 4 or 5 of her books and didn't rush to get another, but just picked this one up at the library. I tho't it was a good story and i tho't her writing had improved from the others i read, i really enjoyed it. I did learn far more than i wanted to know about the geography of Glacial NP and, as i said before, how to lure bears. I don't expect to ever be in a postion to use either of those pieces of information.  .......jean

[maryz]

We love national parks, and that's one of the reasons we enjoy reading Barr.  She really knows the parks.

[Gumtree]

Salan:  Yes, Marmite, Promite and Vegemite are much alike - all extracts of meat and yeast - Marmite and Promite always taste sweeter to me while Vegemite has a saltier taste. There are a few similar products marketed as 'organic' or 'health food' or 'natural' which are really just variations on the theme with less or no sugar and salt content. I find that 'foreigners' who try Vegemite usually use too much of it on their bread or toast - it's like Peck's Paste - a little goes a looong way.   

[ginny]

How interesting this discussion is, always something new and fascinating! Vegemite, sounds like a virus but I've heard about it forever, it's good to know what it really IS. B1, I'm an advocate, bring it on!  It sounds almost like something here called "potted meat," is it? Like a pate? I must try some in my next trip to England.

I've now deserted Penny for the new Schiff,  Cleopatra, since it's now been named one of the top 10 by the NY Times and I had it sitting here, pretty cover. I can see why it's popular, she won a Pulitzer and she writes really well it's hard to put down. At the same time she makes some strange conclusions and one has the odd feeling of having somebody translate Plutarch for you when you can read it yourself in translation, it's an odd mix, really. I'm going to have to read the Goldsworthy Antony and Cleopatra to compare.

But she's a biographer. One can now see the reason for the somewhat strange review by Mary Beard of this book.  She makes the statement somewhere  in the beginning that we don't have the names of other Roman Client-Kings, I'm not sure that's true, is it? Cogidubnus comes to mind among others.  But it's a fascinating read, and will probably win something bigger. One feels sorry for Goldsworthy. I'm going to read them both.

[roshanarose]

ginny - The consistency of Vegemite is difficult to explain.  It is not at all like pate.  It is a dark brown colour, almost black. Quite sticky in consistency, and would most certainly stain any garment.   I think you would have to see it to understand.  I remember reading somewhere that if one (particularly a man) had too much of it it can cause gout.  I can almost guarantee that on your first tasting, you would not like it.  imho it needs to be used in moderation on butter and toast and Vita Weat biscuits, as it has quite a strong and rather unusual taste.  I have never tasted anything quite like Vegemite.

[Steph]

Florida is having northern weather just now..The corgi and I are shivering our way to dressing to go out in it..
Just finished Fire and I ce by J.A. Jance. I do like both of your series and this is a combination one..Interesting plot that twines and twists..
I like Nevada Barr, but dont like the increasing violence. I preferred her earlier books. Also reading an autobiography by a chinese woman who is a doctor, but is dwelling on her stepmother way back and how neglected she felt..Lots of whining.. May can it.

[Babi]

 I'd like to see a supplement like that on the market, GUM. My younger
daughter has both diabetes and heart problems. Not to mention a genetic
immune deficiency that leaves her extremely vulnerable to infection. She
takes five times the medications I do. Anything that will help her is a
boon to me.

  Televangelist and a megachurch, JEAN? That sounds all too familiar. Oh,
well, if he can keep it funny.

[bellemere]

finished alice Munro's stories , Too Much Happiness. 
The title story was most interesting, based on the life of a nineteenth century Russian woman, Sophia Kovalesky, the first female professor of mathematics in Europe.  It has that real "Russian " feel to it; a big change from her usual Ontario'based stories.  She certainly is versatile. 'The story recreates Sophia's life and career with all the Russian atmosphere: lots of snow, suffering, trains, revolution, and passion.  Alice must have a Dostoievsky gene or two. 

[bellemere]

According to Wikipedia, jean Rhys's mentor in Paris was indeed Ford Maddox Ford, not John dos Passos. Got my three name writers mixed up.

[Gumtree]

Bellemere: That's really not so very hard to do. Jean Rhys was born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams so perhaps she used Rhys as an adaptation of Rees - She was married three times and had numerous affairs including one with Ford Madox Ford which was something of a menage a trois

[Tomereader1]

Read on-line today, that Oprah, doing a show in Sydney, had Hugh Jackman on it ( yummmy), and he had an accident with the stunt he was doing.  Anyway, they said he had her try Vegemite!!  Didn't give her response to it!

[Jonathan]

Gumtree, I got a chuckle over your surprise at my interest in the Rhys novel. It was like I told you. The movie, with its setting in Jamaica and the Islands, seemed like a good escape on a cruel winter evening. It was everything I hoped for. And more. What a strange tale. What a sad song wonderfully told. I did find the book on my shelf of half-forgotten books. How it got there I don't remember. Perhaps it was acquired about the time we discussed Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas.

I'm well into the book, but I will probably have to reread before knowing what to say about it. Like two worlds confronting each other. Or perhaps it's meant to portray love in a hot climate. That might explain some of the antagonism and bewilderment.

Then again, why was I surprised at your interest in tractors.