The Library

[joangrimes]

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!

Correction, STEPH.  The big, blond guy from "Diners", etc. is a chef. He got on the food
network, like most of the others, by winning an extended cooking competition.  He does
know his stuff, and "Diners,.." is probably more fun than most of the other shows on Food
Network.  Viewers are always on the watch for a great eating place in their own area. Thanks Maryz and Jackie.

Not sure that it all came from me though.

My first husband had a beautiful baritone voice but did not like to singSomehow I did not understand his not wanting to sing.

[Steph]

Happy St. Patricks Day to all... We spent 10 years in and around Boston in the 80's.. So.. I think of them and green beer ( looks awful, tastes like regular beer).. Celebratioins in Boston tend to be loud and funny.. with lots of local politicians proving they are sort of Irish.. Funny indeed.
Great Joan.. I am sure that your granddaughters are just as talented as you are..

[Babi]

sort of Irish/   

[Frybabe]

Welsh! We had our day on March 1. BUT, on St. Patrick's Day the whole world is IRISH (or so it seems).

[Steph]

Yes,my widows group insisted they want to go out for dinner last night. Whew.. I could not convince them that an irish pub with no reservations was not a good idea. They understood when they saw the dozens of people milling around outside the door.. It took three restaurants and a final destination of an Italian one to make them understand that St. Pats is a big big out to dinner and drink night.

[Frybabe]

Traude:
Just wanted to let you know, without interrupting the Book Thief discussion, that I have started Scott's  Six Days in Marapore. It appears to be set soon after the India/Pakistan partition. There are still many English about, some waiting to leave and others intent on staying. The Indians, Hindi mostly now, are trying to push out as many English as possible by making life difficult for them with threats and demonstrations.  Even those considered long time friends or who have "gone native" are not immune. There are also remarks against the Muslims who chose to remain in India rather than move to Pakistan. Then there are some English spewing venom against those they believe are pushing them out. So far, I don't much like the main character. He seems to be there to look up a long lost love who is currently married. Hmmmmmm! The character portraits are wonderful as expected of Scott.

[JoanP]

The copies of the Diary of Anne Frank arrived today from PBS.  I'll try to get them into the mail in the morning. 
Jackie, are you interested? 
Anyone else?  They are free.  PBS will air a new film on April 11 which is the Holocaust Remembrance Day.   If so,  email me your name and address and I'll put you on the list.  jonkie@verizon.net

[mrssherlock]

Joan:  Yes, and this reminds me that I haven't paid for 39 Steps, yoicks!   BTW, I'm reading Buchan's Greenmantle and "39 Steps" the play is playing nearby, can't remember exactly where.

[JoanK]

Are we going through a resurgence of interest in "39 Steps"? Hadn't heard of it for years, now a PBS show and a play!

We went travelling yesterday and realized too late that neither of us was wearing anything green. But no one that we saw was wearing green either. I don't think there are many Irish in california.

"I will never understand HOW and WHY math works", Who does? Fortunately, we don't really need to. I don't know why every returning student has to start with algebra. How often do we need it in our lives? And I can't say it brings us joy, as literature and many other college subjects do.

A historian of Math, like my father, can understand what a tremendous advance it was and how it opened a floodgate of mathematical possibilities that led to the technology we now take for granted. But they never teach anything like that in math classes.

[Octavia]

In one of my books I have fragments of a poem about Anne Frank. I can't remember where I got it from, and would love to know if it rings a bell with anyone? My excerpt ends
"Someone is coming? Don't be afraid. It is the breaking noise of Spring itself.
Come to me, give me your lips. Someone is forcing the door."
It makes me shiver, every time I read it.
I'm feeling pretty chuffed today because I managed to get Richard Flanagan's Wanting from the Library yesterday. A coup! This will see me through the weekend and cyclone Ilui. The wind is gusting harder now, though it's not expected till Sunday morning.

Poking around on the Web yesterday I came across this lovely site http://carryapoem.com
while I was looking for Scottish literature.Edinburgh has an annual Literature Festival and this time they wanted to know how people carried their favourite poems - in IPods, wallets, pockets,tattoos etc.
 I didn't realise how many famous writers had come from Edinburgh and that people would be so enthusiastic about writing and poetry. Can't imagine it happening in Rocky . Of course it helps to give away free books and have a castle etc to project lines onto at night. Stunning!
I must have read about 30 pages of favourites and why they loved them, before my eyes protested.

[Octavia]

JoanK, Maths is a foreign country to me, but Algebra is one of the few things I still use. That is if Algebra is "if x='s such and such, then? I'm hazy on names

[Steph]

Since my husbands death last year, I carry a poem in my wallet and on my refrigerator. Dont know the author.. It starts with  Do not stand at my grave and weep... I am not there. I do not sleep.. It comforts me. Wish I knew the author.

[Gumtree]

Steph : There are a few versions of that poem around - the actual author  was Mary Elizabeth Frye - though others also claim to have written it.

[mrssherlock]

There's a poem we shared in Poetry that struck me as very comfortingg.  I thin it was when we were reading Seamus Heaney.  I'll look in the archives.  Today is an "anniversary" for me - my baby sister died 16 years ago today after a painful bout of cervical cancer.

[bellemere]

If anyone would like to read a great blog story, alionthefarm.blogspot.com is my granddaughter's record of six months in South America, volunteering on organic farms.  This is the sister of the one who did the semester in Bolivia; it covers many more countries and includes the spillover of the Chilean earthquake into her farm in Argenting. She is incredibly adventurous, very open to new people and experiences, and writes very well.  I will be so happy to see her home next week.

[JoanK]

JoanK, Maths is a foreign country to me, but Algebra is one of the few things I still use. That is if Algebra is "if x='s such and such, then? I'm hazy on names

That's algebra! how do you use it?

[mabel1015j]

If i've used algebra a dozen times since my last class in 9th grade, i'd be surprised. I will admit that i've had some circumstances where i figured out what "x" was, but not w/ an algebraic formula, but w/ just plain logic. I was a professor at a community college for 16 yrs and knew students - espcially "returning students" meaning older students -  who had all their credits except their mandatory algebra I class and just never took it. Students who were library science majors, not science or math or medical majors. I am convinced if i'd had to take a test to test out of the remedial math course at the community college, at age 50 or so,  i would not have passed, even after almost 20 yrs of education..................lol.............jean

[maryz]

We never think about it, but we use algebra every time we compare prices at the grocery store.  If it's so much per unit, how do these two products compare. 

[Steph]

I loved algebra.. took two years in high school.. Hated geometry, but loved Algebra. I have a math lover in my older son. He took all of the extra credit courses he was allowed in various high forms of math. He is an engineer, but says if he did it over, he would have been a math major.

[ginny]

Isn't that odd? I am such a math fool,  can't do algebra, couldn't even do the simplest equation a x 3= whatever. Can't do it,  it's kind of pitiful, all we ever studied was "if a train leaves the station at 40 mph and it passes another going 60 mph the other way how long will it take to reach Scranton (I guess my answers of "who cares" didn't suit)...." or.... a ladder is leaning against the house, the bottom part of the ladder is ...." (I have hated all ladders since),  but I can do geometry. In fact I love geometry, it's a lot like Latin I think.

I am reading reading reading but it's all about the Romans, which has to be the most inventive interesting stuff ever written. It's lke a Pandora's box, you open one door and something else sticks out of another.

I did read a brief history of England in a travel guide (well it wasn't brief)  and admit  to being  somewhat surprised, they were always struggling and at war, and being invaded,  but I've finally got Richard III where he belongs chronologically. Nothing like Lonely Planet to get one straight.  hahaaa, I guess I'm at that level now.

Ella wrote me that Carol  Goodman is appearing in Ohio  about her new book, I remember she was writing one when we met her in NYC on our last trip there.  That was such a trip!

We have our June book club selection up and ready for sign up if you'd like to explore it with us, come on over,  it will be an adventure and we'll need all hands on deck, because we're all about to be possessed!

Yes, it's Possession starting June 1, and it's RICH rich rich, come on over and go off your diet one month and just enjoy! I have to say I love absolutely love the layout of the book. Woodcuts start the chapters, and the first letter of the text takes up three lines. How can you not love a book about book lovers?

Those of you who know anything whatsoever about Victorians, also  do come over, I know nothing of the period, I don't even know where it fits in with the Edwardians, what characterized it, what made it what it is?  So much for my Lonely Planet education. Was Sherlock Holmes a Victorian or an Edwardian?

Told you I don't know anything, come on over, we're going to enjoy this, it's fey, witty,  and dazzling. And it's a mystery. And it's a romance in the Hawthorne sense. It's indefinable.  Like fizzy lemonade for a June day. Help us puzzle it out, and for a prize you can do algebra if you like.


http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=1219.msg64510#msg64510

Hope to see you there.

[straudetwo]

Frybabe,
Thank you for your #1205.  To my great delight,  Six Days in Marapore is available on the net.   Fascinating.  What marvelous prose and character development ...! 
Since I like to "have and hold", I will order the book, for good measure.   
In haste.

[Octavia]

Cyclone Ului has passed to the north. Here we've been buffeted by strong winds and more drenching rain we didn't really need. Luckily, it coincided with low tides.

It's fascinating that some people can do geometry and not algebra, or vice a versa. I thought people who were Maths inclined would be good at all branches. I was pretty bad at the lot.

I especially hated spatial tests. I have zero ability to manipulate diagrams in my head. When we had the National IQ test on TV the boys ran rings around me, it was humiliating.
One way I use algebra is to calculate my broadband allowance. There must be easiest ways, but I've always gone for convoluted methods.

I hope you remember that comforting poem, Mrssherlock. I'd like to know.

I had to put Wanting down a couple of times in the first chapter, the aboriginal deaths were a bit graphic. I hadn't realised Dickens was also a main character.

[Gumtree]

Frybabe & Traude I guess I'll have to get started on Marapore as well. What are we to do about Staying On ?

[Gumtree]

Octavia I'm so glad Ului missed you - I've been watching Paul Lockyer's segments on the 7.30 Report as he follows the flood down through Qld into northern NSW - such a lot of water - will be interesting to see how much good it does the Murray/Darling system and whether there's enough of it to reach into South Aust.

I still haven't got round to Wanting - it sounds really interesting.

I did finish Malouf's Ransom -which took out another prize recently at the Adelaide Festival - wonderful spare and poetic prose and a new take on the Achilles/Hector/Priam story. 

I noticed the latest Zafon novel on a table outside Angus & R's - had 75% reduction but I couldn't buy it because I was in the city on foot and already too loaded up with gear. Meant to go back today and see if it was still there but can't get out - will be passing the store tomorrow - so wish me luck!

[Steph]

I am so envious Maggie. You got a star author for your library festival. We got noone with any star power.. I liked our little festival, but it would have been nice to have had one big gun..
Finally got warm yesterday in central Florida.. Hooray.

[mabel1015j]

Maryz said "We never think about it, but we use algebra every time we compare prices at the grocery store.  If it's so much per unit, how do these two products compare."  

That's what i meant when i said i've used "logic and common sense," not algebra. I think i could figure that out w/out ever having had 2 yrs of algebra. ................ lol .............but maybe technically Mary is right.....you just couldn't prove it by me.................jean
 

[countrymm]

Hello. This is my first post to the Library.  I'm participating in the discussion of The Book Thief.

Just read in the New York Times today that Carol Goodman has a new book titled Arcadia Falls.  The book sounds nothing like Night Villa. I ordered the free first chapter for my Kindle, although this is not my favorite type of story.

From Publishers Weekly
Goodman (The Night Villa) delivers the goods her fans expect in this atmospheric and fast-moving gothic story: buried secrets, supernatural elements, and a creepy setting. Following the death of her husband, Meg Rosenthal accepts a job teaching at an upstate New York boarding school and moves there with her teenage daughter, Sally. The school, Arcadia Falls, also happens to be central to her thesis, which focuses on the two female coauthors of fairy tales: Vera Beecher, who founded the school, and her friend Lily Eberhardt, who died mysteriously in 1947. While the campus is bucolic, school life proves anything but—Meg thinks she sees ghosts and Arcadia's brightest and most ambitious student, Isabel Cheney, is found dead in a ravine. Feeling Sally drifting further from her each day, Meg finds refuge in Lily's preserved diary and begins to unravel the secrets behind Isabel's death. Goodman doesn't do anything new, but her storytelling is as solid as ever, and the book is reliably entertaining. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

[pedln]

"Logic and common sense" -- ah yes.  I've found that since I've become addicted to Sudoku, and I mean really addicted, I've become a better bridge player.  Guess it's a matter of looking for solutions within the total picture.  I wish I'd had more math, but never went beyond Algebra2 in high school.  In college it wasn't part of elementary teacher training.

But you never know when math is going to pop up.  I'm currently reading and thoroughly enjoying P. D. James' The Private Patient.  One of the clues in this mystery comes from a college student on a motorcycle noticing and remembering the license plate no. of a car.

He remembered the number because it was a brilliant number.  Huh?  This brilliant number -- 341 -- has two prime numbers, which, when multiplied equal 341.  I can't say anymore because I don't understand it.  (So, what are the prime numbers in 341    )

[mrssherlock]

11 and 31?

[Frybabe]

Traude, Gumtree, Six Days in Marapore is well worth reading. I've run across two statements on p79 that in themselves would make a few days worth of comments.

Scott's characters are so clearly defined, that I can feel the emotions each is going through. And in Ooni, I can see the beauty of the land and the struggle to improve agricultural practices and crops. (It helps that I worked for a while at Rodale Institute which is involved in alternative/organic agriculture experimental and working farms.)

[JoanP]

Welcome to the Library, Countrymm -
And thanks for the information on Carol Goodman's latest book.  We have a number of Carol Goodman's fans here in SeniorLearn.

Pedln, another Sudoku addict.  I know exactly what you mean.  I can't get started in the morning without my coffee and Sudoku puzzle!  I've found the Papermate Erasermate works best for me.

I think Jackie's got the two prime numbers as 11 and 31.  Does that work in  PDJames Private Patient?

[ALF43]

countrymm- a group of us met and  interviewed Carol Goodman last year in New York City.  She is delightful to talk with and a joy to many of us fans.  My book came last week from Amazon with another one called Evidence of the After Life.  My books are piling up faster than I can get to them.

[maryz]

pedln, I'd think the two prime numbers in "341" are "3" and "1" .

[mrssherlock]

Mary:

[JoanK]

I used to use algebra when I lived in Israel. The morning weather alwas gave the temperature in Celcius. Since I wasn't used to temps that way, I would, proud of my algebra skills, convert it to F in my head, to decide what to wear. Unfortunately, my skills weren't as good as I thought they were: I was always either freezing or burning up. Pride goes before a fall.

[joangrimes]

Well,  I am not a Math person.  I do prefer Geometry over Algebra.  Just never  did care for Algebra. Joan Grimes.

[Steph]

My geometry problems came from my inability to relate angles, etc to paper problems.. At least that is what my teacher said.. many many years ago. I just flat out hated it.
We had one nice day in central Florida and then yesterday was just ugly.. I know.. I know.. the farmers needed rain, but oh me. for a string of pleasant days to open the doors and windows and let in fresh air..

[Babi]

BELLEMERE, you have two marvelous granddaughters living such unusual and
exciting lives. Congratulations to you and to them.

 Actually, MARYZ, a lot of the stores do that for us now. The price per
ounce is included on the shelf tags, so you can see quickly which is the
cheapest. Of course, the cheapest may be decidedly inferior, but that's
another problem.

 Ah, spatial tests. Thank you, OCTAVIA, that is something I can actually
do. Took algebra because I had to; never went on to geometry. But I do
have an eye for pattern and can generally spot any breaks in pattern.
Helpful when I was scanning computer printouts.

[maryz]

I must 'fess up to being one of those for whom math came easy.  I always thought geometry was one of the easiest courses I took.  But I also quickly realized that it was all or nothing with geometry...you either "saw" it or you didn't - almost never any in-between.  Just different ways of looking at things and different ways of learning.  I found out much later in life that I had an artist's eye, and I guess that's part of the geometry thing.

[mrssherlock]

Mary:  I'll never forget that instant when I "saw" what geometry was all about.  It was as if my eyes had been closed and suddenly they were opened.