The Library

[mrssherlock]

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!

Bullying is a major problem, it seems, long unrecognized but now getting some attention.  If the bullies who drove this girl to suicide can feel guilt they will suffer but usually people like this are psychopaths and do not suffer any pangs.

[Octavia]

Cyber bullying is the modern way. No respite anywhere, as the bullies follow their victims right into their bedrooms.
The world seems so much nastier than it used to be. I shudder at the people who post disgusting things on Memorium pages on FaceBook. Don't they have a skerrick of pity, or decency? The dead are usually young people taken in tragic circumstances.
Dear and Glorious Physician stirred memories of my last year of school. There were so many things then that I only half understood. It'd be interesting to re-read some of those books. Peyton Place, Lady Chatterly's Lover- so shocking then, but probably wouldn't raise an eyebrow now.
There's a potential environmental disaster here just off our coast. A Chinese coal carrier, possibly rat running through the Barrier Reef and ripping through the coral. They're going to try to remove the oil from the ship today. Helicopters have been beating over my house for a couple of days on their way to the ship.
I was sick thinking of Great Keppel Is., a jewel with pristine white beaches off the coast and not that far from the carrier. There's hardly a soul here in Rocky who hasn't visited or stayed at Keppel. Not to mention people from all over the world.
The ship is in a World Heritage Park and a migratory whale path south to the Antarctic waters.

[maryz]

We've been to the Great Barrier Reef and Cairns, Octavia.  We're watching, too - and hoping.

[Steph]

I assume you are talking of the case in Massachusetts.. Girls were the instigators and that is even more scary.. All over a boy.. The thing that bothers me is did the girl or her parents try to talk to the school?? I hope they are tried as adults. Bullying in my day was there, but fairly harmless.. but this type is scary as all get out.

[Babi]

  

The big question people are asking:  Where were the teachers and administors ? 
And the parents?

  I'd like to know that myself, STEPH. Perhaps the parents hadn't a clue.
The minor participants in this tragedy were probably following the lead
of the 'popular' ringleaders. I can't help but suspect that some of the
leaders picked up their attitudes at home. But surely not all the teachers and adminis=
trators were blind and deaf. I hope this aspect is also investigated.

 

so shocking then, but probably wouldn't raise an eyebrow now.

OCTAVIA, you reminded me of my decision, in my elderly years, to
dare to read some of Boccaccio's shocking book. Oh, my dear, it's so
bland now it wouldn't raise an eyebrow or a blush anywhere! I had to
laugh.
 On a much more important note, I do hope the experts are successful at
preventing major damage to such a lovely area. Do keep us posted. I'm
praying.

[PatH]

Newspaper accounts here of the bullying incident suggested that the parents had complained at least a few times, and that some teachers were at least partly aware of the situation.

[bellemere]

The District Attorney's investigation saidit was "common knowledge"  The mother had twice visited the principal to ask that he do something to stop it.  the father was still in ireland trying to sell their house. The last afternoon of her life, the girl spent in the school nurse's office seeking refuge. The nurse did not recognize her as being in a crisis and did not call in the mental health response people, as is prescribed.
the D. A. also said the inaction of the principal and the teachers "did not rise to the level of criminality.' Many people disagree.

[bellemere]

That is awful news about the Great Barrier Reef, one of those places I will probably never see, but want to know it is there. Will take a lot of skill and muscle to correct that oil spill. Hope it works.

[mrssherlock]

Probably another example of "blame the victim" by the school; the girl must have had a reputation of being a whiner so her requests were discounted by those who should have known better.

[Gumtree]

Octavia Isn't it awful about the GBR - every night we see the way the ship is crunching up the coral. Let's hope they pump the oil out successfully.

Have you noticed that ABC1 is running a show about Buckley on Saturday night.

[joangrimes]

The event concering the GBR is really a tragedy.Joan Grimes

[winsummm]

stop the world I want to get off.

the great barrier reef  is east vcoast so I have not seen it but even the name is poetic, has music.  bad things happen and we help them do it, this time with a great crunch.

I feel like looking away, but somethings that happen requiire that we BEAR WITNESS to prove we are alive and present.
claire

[winsummm]

I think I felt one jus now. just now.  they can go on for years it seems.  see latest report on my e=mail. a little bit further norh anad quite a bit further east and just agin since I have asked for everything over a four. Igo by long. and lat readings. my long is just under 33. something and lat like los anges 118 point something. see quote

                          
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From:   USGS ENS <ens@usgs.gov>   

Date:   Wednesday, April 7, 2010 2:06 AM

To:   winsum19@cox.net 

Subject:   2010-04-07 06:36:44 (Ml 4.0) SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 32.8 -116.2 (1a18e)

Size:   3 KB
                     == PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE REPORT ==
 
 
 
Region:                            SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Geographic coordinates:            32.779N, 116.212W
Magnitude:                        4.0 Ml
Depth:                            19 km
Universal Time (UTC):              7 Apr 2010  06:36:44
Time near the Epicenter:           6 Apr 2010  23:36:44
Local standard time in your area:  7 Apr 2010  06:36:44
 

[Steph]

The news on the GBR is scary.. Australia and New Zealand are on my bucket list. I just hate the idea of the plane so many hours..I live on the east coast, so it is not a fun trip.

[mrssherlock]

Ginny:  I tried to search  SL Discussions for the info on the Van Gogh book you described so I can order it from Amazon.  The search engine on this site returned only one reference.  Didn't we talk about Van Gogh several times?    Anyway, I hate to bother you, knowing how busy you are, but will you repeat the book's title and author?  It doesn't have an ISBN does it?  As I recall it is from Germany.

[Octavia]

I sympathise Steph, it's the same for us in reverse . Son and DIL fly over from London every year, and as they get older their jet lag is getting worse.
The owners of the boat on the Reef look like getting a one million dollar fine but I'm betting that won't stop this shortcutting practice. there should be a Pilot on every ship. The removal of oil from the ship will go on for days. Fingers crossed the weather co-operates.

[mabel1015j]

At the library today i asked the reference librarian if she knew the novel i read about Johanna Van Gogh. It was maybe 10 yrs ago and i am positive i got it at my town library, altho i also got books from the college library. When i looked in the catalogue, i couldn't find it. She found it in "books in print" Johanna: a novel of the Van Gogh Family which must be it, but it must be lost from the library's collection. The author was Clair Cooperstein. So, now knowing the author's name - which i had completely forgotten - i went back to my list of books and Yes! i had read it in 1999...............i recommend it if you are at all interested in the Van Goghs, or just want a good period book to read. The Publisher's Weekly review includes this sentence: Johanna "nearly single-handedly brings Vincent's artwork the recognition it deserves

The full review is here

http://www.amazon.com/Johanna-Claire-Cooperstein/dp/0684802341

altho it's more of a summary than a review........my review is i liked it and found it very interesting...........jean

[marcie]

Thanks, Jean, for doing all of that work to find the title and author of the Van Gogh book. I've always been interested in the life of Vincent Van Gogh and admire his paintings. I see that my public library has this novel. I've put it on my wishlist.

[Gumtree]

I picked up a copy of Possession ready for the forthcoming discussion. My bookseller had a promo of his 2010 Booklovers Best Top 101 List - 3 for price of 2.  

Apart from the usual true classics from Austen, Bronte, Lewis, Tolstoy. Orwell etc and the popular Harry Potter and Dan Brown titles and stuff like GWTW I noticed several books we've read here - some quite recently -

No 6 - The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
No 8 - The Millenium Trilogy - Steig Larssen
No 10 - The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
No 37 - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society- Mary Schaffer
No 49 - A Fine Balance - Robinton Mistry -
No 60 - The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
No 61 - People of the Book - Geraldine Brookes
No 85 - The Road - Cormac McCarrthy
No 89 -Possession - A.S. Byatt

Good to know that Aussies everywhere are reading good stuff.

I tried to post the full list but it keeps playing up and is hard to read -

http://www.dymocks.com.au/PDF/BOOKLOVERBEST_2010.pdf

You have to scroll down a page for the complete list ...

[Steph]

Finished up the Sharon Shinn.. I have one more from the series to read, but also note in that one, there is a promo for yet another. Have to look that one up as well.. Such an interesting idea in fantasy.

[Babi]

STEPH, if you've finished the Archangel series, by all means try the "Twelve Houses" series.
The first is "Mystic and Rider".  I loved all five books and hope she writes more.

[JoanK]

WINSOM:"I feel like looking away, but somethings that happen requiire that we BEAR WITNESS to prove we are alive and present". Exactly right!

[marcie]

I t

WINSOM:"I feel like looking away, but somethings that happen requiire that we BEAR WITNESS to prove we are alive and present". Exactly right!

I think that statement is profoundly true. It reminds me of the "Diary of Anne Frank." A new version will be shown on many PBS stations tomorrow evening. We'll be talking about the book and tv program at http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=1023.400.

[ginny]

Jean how interesting that sounds, he's an interesting man. I hate that I always seem to be late to any party, everybody has gone home before I understand what people are enthused about, but BOY it's explosive when you finally get the gist. (Did you all know absinthe is coming back? According to several foodie magazines, it's back again, just not in the same combination or strengths).

I think I'll leave it, I don't need to go crazy or crazier.

Jackie, it does seem hard to find the reference.

The book is titled (remember this was described as a children's book) Vincent Van Gogh by Isabel Kuhl, printed in Munich. It has some reproductions of the letters as well. It's paperback, I have no idea why the bookseller called it a children's book it's obviously not intended for children nor was it in the children's section. Maybe he meant in comparison to the letters.

Anyway the ISBN is 978-3-7913-4396-9. I got mine at the local B&N. That calendar at the back or time line shows smaller images of many of his works and lists where they may be seen, which is useful, as well.

[Steph]

Spent all day yesterday with my granddaughter and her Mom.. They are here for the weekend to get her eighth grade dance dress.. Whew.. She tried on every dress in her size in the entire area.. We ended up back where we started at Penneys and she bought the dress of her dreams.. ( Her Mom and I tried like crazy to get her in another one, but no go). The one she picked is pretty, but way grown up, which I suspect was the secret objective.. Then off for strappy sandals. She thought the way high heels, but discovered that she could barely walk, much less dance.. so a mid heel worked better.
I was exhausted.. I had forgotten the difference in a brand new dress shopper and our age, which generally works on the ,, ok color, fits,, I'll take it school of thought..

[Babi]

Whew, STEPH, I wouldn't even try!  I plan my shopping carefully.  Shops close together, know
exactly what I need to get, no browsing, get it and go home.  And rest.   

[ginny]

hahaa, Stephanie, but what fun to go be part of it.


I am so sorry to see the Great Barrier Reef with the ship drooling oil, that's awful. I am not as up on the news (any news, national or international, despite listening faithfully to CNN on the car radio, all I seem to get in my little stints over are celebrity divorces and sports) as I might be, what caused the accident, do they know?

Gum, I am so pleased to see the Book Lover's top 101 in Australia and to see so many of our choices here on that list! Are we au courant here or what? I am thrilled to see Possession there as well. Also the Zafon the Shadow of the Wind, what a book!

I had to print that thing out and use a magnifying  glass, I don't see how you saw anything.

I see also done by us The Lovely Bones, The DaVinci Code, Atonement, Memoirs of a  Geisha,  Life of Pi,  and the Poisonwood Bible, so we're holding up our end.

I wonder about some of these choices but all lists are arbitrary. I do agree with Frankenstein, tho.

[Gumtree]

Ginny: Great Barrier Reef - the ship was taking a short cut through the reef in restricted waters - they say it was 15 miles off course and how it came to be where it was seems to be a mystery. Every day it is scrunching up the coral and they still haven't got the oil and coal off it let alone the ship refloated. These things take time. At present the talk is of costs plus a fine of only $1million - for irreparable damage. 

The Booklovers Best list - I got to see it in a little printed booklet. As you say the choices are arbitrary and reflect lots of issues.  There are three by Tim Winton - perhaps testimony to his appeal to the younger Aussie reader and of course the popular reads Harry Potter and Dan Brown etc.

You might say that SL is au courant but I rather thought it was the Aussies who were au courant.

Steph: how great to be on the shopping expedition. Not sure I would last the distance - I'm still trying to go buy a couple of new shirts which I really needed a couple of years ago

[winsummm]

Ginny: you are sooo right. now about reading text here I just blow it up as far as it will go which is too far for the screen and must back off to five times  the  regular size print. Bur if it is smaller use a magnifyer like you.  I get some of my look and see titles from here but currently the kindle home index has 28 items on it about half are samples. the old ones re available and I'm re-reading HOUSE OF CARDS  about the financial mess,understanding much more now that it has had so much attention to detail by all the pundits and even Tim Geithner who has triedto explain it to congressional hearings over and over. Even I GET IT now.  Just  ealized that buying  and borrowing from your broker to do it is another one of those risky diversities that killed the real estate market.  Learn something new every time I read oneof those financial books that read like novels, interesting in their own right.
that is called "bbuying on margin" and if the  market price of the stock or vond goes down, the investor has to mamke up the difference between the loan and the new MARKET TO MARKET. price.  that is called a MARGIN CALL.  the dialogue is in this kind of verbage so I keep going to google for definitions.  wow.
claire

[JoanK]

I have found a pair of pants that is comfortable and order more online whenever they wear out. I need to order some now, but am resisting the fact that I need a size larger.

[mabel1015j]

Just finished Standing Tall, an autobio by Vivian Stringer, the coach of the Rutger's women's basketball team that idiot Imus tried to besmirch in 2007.
For the first half of this book, i tho't it was too schmaltzy, in fact i put it down for a couple of months. I picked it up last week and she was just "going to Rutgers" as coach. The rest of the book seemed to me to be so much better than the first half. It moved along better, it was more interesting to me and captured me. Last night i was reading about the 2006-7 season and i couldn't put the book down - maybe it was knowing what was coming at the end of the season. I also cried thru the whole ''season." Her style now seemed appropriate - maybe i just decided that's who she is - and the story is, of course, compelling - the change in the team thru the season, the spontaneous coming together of previous players to motivate the team, their victories, and, of course, Imus' idiot statements, but most of all the dignity of those young women in handling the nastiness of Imus was spectacular. ......... i recommend it...........jean

[Frybabe]

I have found a pair of pants that is comfortable and order more online whenever they wear out.

I'm with you JoanK. I order my jeans and pants from Levi's directly. They fit me well and I get more color choice than at the stores. I dislike going from store to store trying to find things (clothes or otherwise). You can spend a whole day doing that and come home with little or nothing. A shop-a-holic I am not.

[mrssherlock]

shopping online is the only way for me anymore.  Our UPS driver thought we had moved since it had been one month or so since we ordered anything. Land's End, Hanes, Levis, Amazon sells everything.  I buy me shoes direct from New Balance, get all my yarn online, books, certainly.  I go overboard on books, to save on S&H.  Put them into my shopping basket and before I know it it's $100 or more!  Do my banking online, pay my utilities online.  Checks last forever now I use them so rarely.  We have two computers and there are three of us so we have fights over computer usage!   

[Steph]

Ah, but the fun of seeing the serious face of a 14 year old debating internally on fit and color was worth being tired. It is such serious business at that age.. We are not quite that picky. I dont do clothes on line.. I have a serious need to try it on.Color affects me a lot so I need to know the color works on my skin.

[Babi]

 Me, too. STEPH.  Much as I would like the ease of shopping on-line, I have had unfortunate
results doing that. Shoes, especially, tend to not quite fit comfortably.  And fabric colors seem
to be slightly different from the on-line images.  Books, well, don't have to worry about fit or
color there.

[Steph]

Books.. Now those I order on line.. I try to hold it down, but tend to wander here and there as well as my list I have already. Sigh.. Way too many books.. but then everyone needs a hobby.. Right..Well at least thats my excuse.

[ginny]

Me too! hahaha In store on virtual store, books are it!

Thank you Gum on the Chinese mess in the Great Barrier Reef,  wow. What an awful thing.

Claire, I've heard a lot about the House of Cards. I thought for a minute you were talking about the British  book on the parliamentary minister,   by Michael Dobbs, a former Chief of Staff at Conservative Party  that was a super series for BBC. There are three in the series of the book. Is it Ian Richardson who played it in the BBC movie series?  He was SO evil. He stars again in Porterhouse Blue and his own son plays one of the students, I did not know that. What an aristocratic looking man. Love anything he does.  

I've started The Tudors by C.J. Meyer. It's a brand new book, just out, 2010, and it's extraordinarily written. He asks in the preface are the Tudors doomed to forever be a myth, a TV series and the propagation of something they never were?

 He's set out to show what  and who the 5 generations of them really were. It's really fascinating. And understandable.

It begins on Bosworth field, about which, he says, nothing was ever written down by those present.

Richard III versus Henry VII.

 I'm going to Hampton Court again this July  (to see the  Royal Flower show and the Mantegna Caesar series and of course Hampton Court itself) and thought I'd do some background reading and this thing came highly recommended. It's kind of hard to put down actually.

He's also written a book about WWI. If I like this one I'd like to know more about that war too, that was the last war we studied when I took history, we had to memorize all the battles and dates, most of that is gone now but I did get to tour Flanders Fields a few years ago.

I'd like to learn more. The war to end all wars they called it.

What are you reading?

[pedln]

That sounds good, Ginny. My one and only visit to Great Britain was a 5 day tour over 20 years ago.  We did go to Hampton Court, briefly, and what intrigued me most were the chimneys.

Chimneys at Hampton Court

[mrssherlock]

How exotic those chimneys look, reminds me of Arabic styles.   What I'm reading:  Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian, immerses herself and the reader into the world of artists,  Don't think Van Gogh or Monet or Caravaggio; this is the artist, now mute but not catatonic, wearing shabby corduroys with paint under the fingernails, who flips out one day and attacks a painting with a knife in the National Gallery.  His psychiatrist's hobby is painting; his ex-wife is a one-time artist who gave up her art for motherhood; his ex-GF is teaching art.  And a parallel story is taking place through letters exchanged in 1879 between a woman artist and her husband's uncle, wait for it, yes, another artist.  It's not a page turner but it keeps me glued as I try to guess what will happen next.

Chris Bohjalian's Secrets of Eden was another puzzle:  How really did the drunken, abusive husband die  after strangling his wife?  We see the follow-up events of this crime through several pairs of eyes in sequence,  First, her pastor; next, the Ass't DA who will prosecute; then a popular author, herself the survivor of of a murder suicide of her parents who arrives to counsel the grieving teen-age daughter; lastly, the daughter.

A different kind of puzzle is Nicholas Drayson's Confessions of a Murder, not what it seems at all.  Imagine a school-friend of "Bobby" who finds himself marooned on a tropical island in the 1800's.  He is a naturalist and his main occupation as he waits for how-knows-what is to study and categorize the local flora and fauna.  And these need to be studied as he finds bizarre adaptations between the two:  plants which have adapted themselves to unique reproduction methods which utilize the creatures, and animals' behavior which has become dependent on the growth requirements of the plants.  This seems almost a parody of Darwin's (Bobby) discoveries on his five-year voyage on the Beagle. 

Last is Saving Ceecee Honeycutt, by Beth Hoffman.  Ceecee's (Ceciia Rose) mother, a former Georgia beauty pageant winner, is a psychotic who won't take her meds as she fantasizes about her former glory as Miss Georgia Vidalia Onion. Her "caretaker" is her 12-yr-old daughter since her father travels the mid-west selling machine tools.  When tragedy strikes Ceecee's salvation taxes her coping skills so painfully learned in her short life.

[JoanK]

I got the Van Goch book that GINNY recommended yesterday. It looks great! I doubt it is a children's book: the print is too small (which may be a problem for me). But the pictures are wonderful.