Author Topic: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2  (Read 774939 times)

Steph

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3760 on: October 11, 2012, 08:48:46 AM »
         
This is the place to talk about the works of fiction you are reading, whether they are new or old, and share your own opinions and reviews with interested readers.

Every week the new bestseller lists come out brimming with enticing looking books and rave reviews. How to choose?


Discussion Leader:  Judy Laird



Oh... The Queen of the Tambourine by Gardam. The ending was incredible. I read the last 20 or so pages over and over. What a wild ride. That one won a well deserved prize.. Anyone who wants to look into a womans heart and mind.. read it..
Oh, found The Red Tent in a used book store. Put it in with the hundreds of tbr
s.. but close to the top.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

Babi

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3761 on: October 11, 2012, 09:48:50 AM »
 Asimov wrote such a mind-boggling number of books, on every subject imaginable, that
I'm never surprised to learn of something else he's written. But how on earth did he
do it!! He wasn't sitting around doing nothing but writing. He was very active in more
than one field. Simply amazing!

  I couldn't agree more, MARYPAGE. As ignorance is the cause of so much harm, so
knowledge is the road to understanding.

  Duly noted, STEPH.  The 'Queen of the Tambourine"  is added to my list.  I think i have
read something by Gardam before.  Is that Jane Gardam?  Of "Old Filth"?  I can't say that
was one of my favorite books.
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

Steph

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3762 on: October 12, 2012, 08:46:03 AM »
Yes, old Filth was the Gardam book we read here. This one is quite different however. It sort of sucks you down the rabbit hole and when you come up for air, you are puzzled, surprised,shocked. Wow.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

Babi

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3763 on: October 12, 2012, 09:13:21 AM »
  Wow!, indeed.  Let's see. I wonder if I have sufficient stamina for puzzled, surprised and shocked?  Probably do me good!
 ;)
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

JoanK

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3764 on: October 12, 2012, 03:22:45 PM »
But don't put on weight while you're down the rabbit hole or you might not be able to get out.

bellemere

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3765 on: October 12, 2012, 03:30:09 PM »
 I just read themost wonderul article in the current New Yorker, by Joan Acocella,"Turning the Page:" How Women Became Readers".  It is actually an expanded review of a new book by Belinda Jacck, a tutorial fellow at  Oxford.   In the history of women, there is probably no matter, apart from contraception, more important than literacy"  It deals especially with women reading fiction.  Everyone, try to read it.  If you don't subscribe, see if the library has the October 15 issue. You'll love it!

bellemere

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3766 on: October 12, 2012, 04:53:25 PM »
Steph, I loved Queen of the Tambourine, just reread it and discovered little tipoffs  in the text, like people asking Eliza "Dogs, Eliza" meaning there really is only one.  And the professor liquifying and going down the drain!  bjut when that voice on the phone said "This is Joan" , didn't you almost drop the book?  Jane Gardem is fantastic, waiting for her next.

Babi

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3767 on: October 13, 2012, 08:45:36 AM »
 Tho' my local library doesn't have it, I'm confidant the county library will.  My elder daughter
lives near one of their branches.  I'll see if it's there.
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

Steph

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3768 on: October 13, 2012, 08:57:40 AM »
Oh Bellemere, yes, I jumped in my seat at the This is Joan.. and went... NOOOOO. Amazing book. I also have a book of short stories of hers. it is home in Florida and when I get home Monday will go digging because I loved this one somuch.. She is sort of an English Ann Patchett. Surprises at every turn.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

bellemere

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3769 on: October 13, 2012, 11:15:50 AM »
I don't know if you have read the sequel to Old Filth, the Man in the Wooden Hat.  another one full of surprises.  Some of the same characters with very different aspectws of their personalitties revealed.

pedln

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3770 on: October 13, 2012, 08:08:35 PM »
Bellemere, thanks for the info about the New Yorker article on Women Readers.  I do want to read it myself, but first will alert my New York daughter.  She subscribes to it and loves it, and  also to the Atlantic Monthly, and the NY Times and I don't know what other periodicals.  But she does not read books.  We talked about that when she was here a few weeks ago. She's certainly capable of it, two graduate degrees, but it's just not her thing.  Her partner is an avid book reader, but Judy prefers magazines and newspapers.  She loves her new i-Pad because it has all her reading material in one place.

marjifay

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3771 on: October 14, 2012, 12:50:17 PM »
I'm reading IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, a novel by Sinclair Lewis, which I've meant to read for a long time and is being recommended by my library.  Very interesting book set during the great depression in 1936, about how fascism could take hold in America.  It was written before most Americans were yet aware of what Hitler was doing in Germany.  

It foreshadows one of our current politician's recent 47% speech, where one of the characters in the novel, a banker, says ""with all the lazy bums we got panhandling relief nowadays, and living on my income tax..." and another says, "These are serious times - maybe twenty-eight million on relief, and beginning to get ugly - thinking they've got a vested right now to be supported."

It has got me wanting to read how the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, giving us the income tax, ever got passed in 1913.

Marj
"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."  Barbara Tuchman

JoanK

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3772 on: October 14, 2012, 04:18:08 PM »
"In the history of women, there is probably no matter, apart from contraception, more important than literacy."

In "Half the Sky", the author shows study after study that shows the most important way to develop an economy is to educate women.

CubFan

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3773 on: October 14, 2012, 05:53:14 PM »
I think that the income tax amendment was passed to give the government the income it would need when prohibition became law. At that time the tax on alcohol was the primary source of government funding.

Mary
"No two persons ever read the same book" Edmund Wilson

mabel1015j

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3774 on: October 15, 2012, 12:36:05 AM »
Marj, the first income tax was put in place in 1861 for the Union to finance the Civil War, so it was not a brand new idea when the Progressives and Populists pushed for it in the first decade of the 20th century. The latter part of the 19th century had seen the greatest gap between rich and poor that we have ever seen until recent decades with the robber barons (Rockefeller, Astor, Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, etc.) who were paying people 10 cents an hour, making millions and then billions of dollars, and having all profits free and clear. The Populists had first suggested the graduated inc tax and as the Progressives began to support Populists' ideas like 10 hr days and food and meat inspections, etc, the Progressives - Theodore Roosevelt and Taft - got into office and had the power to pass progressive legislation, including the 16 th ammendment. It had quite a battle thru the Supreme Court before it was ratified, being considered unconstitutional by some.

Wikipedia has a good account of the court cases.

Jean

marjifay

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3775 on: October 15, 2012, 05:11:58 AM »
Thanks Jean and CubFan for your info regarding the passage of the tax on incomes.  Very interesting.

Marj
"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."  Barbara Tuchman

Babi

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3776 on: October 15, 2012, 08:56:37 AM »
Quote
In "Half the Sky", the author shows study after study that shows the most important way to develop an
economy is to educate women.

  JOAN, I heartily hope that book gets a wide readership in the Middle East and Africa. Or at least the
more influential people will read it. I would think that developing a more prosperous economy would be
a major stimulus to changing the negative attitudes towad educating women.
  It pains me to see gifts of mind and spirit condemned to waste!
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

mabel1015j

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3777 on: October 15, 2012, 04:30:22 PM »
Joan, i've heard that a lot recently, about how important education of girls is to an economy. Isn't that interesting?

Jean

Steph

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3778 on: October 15, 2012, 09:02:27 PM »
I am reading Girl Interrupted. An interesting book on immigrant chinese and why they let themselves be put down..
Stephanie and assorted corgi

bellemere

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3779 on: October 16, 2012, 04:28:50 PM »

an image stands out from Turning the Page: How women beame readers: . Women were reading by the Renaissance, , tiny little books they could conceal from husbands and fathers.  In a Renaissance painting in a museum inFflorence ,illustrating The
Annunciation, Mary has her thumb in the pages of her little book so as not to lose her place as the Angel Gabriel is announcint to her that she is to be the Mother of God.  Her answer, from scripture is"M<ay it be done to me according to thy word."  but can't you just imagine her going right back to her book? 
How many times did you tell your kids, "Leave me alone, I'm reading."

MaryPage

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3780 on: October 16, 2012, 05:18:55 PM »
It was probably painted from the imagination of a female apprentice of a famous artist, with him getting all of the credit.

We most definitely are finding History repeating itself as the electorate do not know or understand the lessons of History. 

Such discordancy!  "Less Government & less govenment spending!"  "More spending on protection for our Foreign Embassies!"  "No to funding for the State Department to pay to protect our Foreign Embassies!"

Talk about Schizophrenia!

Steph

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3781 on: October 17, 2012, 08:57:15 AM »
I am now officially in the "Just let the election be over" mode.. Sigh..
Stephanie and assorted corgi

BarbStAubrey

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3782 on: October 17, 2012, 12:32:54 PM »
Amen - early voting starts on Monday and first thing that is what I do and then I will shut the TV off until Sunday night to see my favorite shows - I've done it before - the first day or two is difficult and I may have to sit on my hands literally to get through an evening without news but with my CDs filling the house with music it will be a relief.  They go over and over the same stuff with the media making a new fuss over a sentence they did not fuss over the last time...grrr
“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ~ Goethe

marjifay

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3783 on: October 17, 2012, 02:17:04 PM »
As you probably know by now, Hilary Mantel won her 2nd Booker Prize for BRING UP THE BODIES, her sequel to her other winner, WOLF HALL, and the second in her trilogy about Thomas Cromwell.  I think she deserved it.  I'm almost finished with Bring up the Bodies, after checking it out again from the library where I had to return before I finished it.  Good book. Easier to read than Wolf Hall.

Marj
"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."  Barbara Tuchman

maryz

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3784 on: October 17, 2012, 02:34:23 PM »
Ditto Amen to Steph and Barb.  I'll vote tomorrow.  I haven't been watching any of it anyway.
"When someone you love dies, you never quite get over it.  You just learn how to go on without them. But always keep them safely tucked in your heart."

bellemere

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3785 on: October 17, 2012, 03:18:47 PM »
Can'g be so complacent. I feel a great deal is at stake, and most of all, the threatof another war. Have tried very hard to follow what is being said, but it is between the lines that the substance lies.  We are elicting our leaders by  TV images and little more.  That is disastrous.

marjifay

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3786 on: October 17, 2012, 03:48:36 PM »
I'm with you, Bellemere.  A great deal is at stake -- especially the Supreme Court nominations by the next president.  I'd hate to see a 100% right-wing conservative court.
And the last thing we need is another war and an extension of the Afghanistan war.  

I watched the Tuesday presidential debate.  Almost agree that two debates is enough, but I'll watch the next one on Monday anxiously where the subject will be foreign policy.  I've already voted absentee ballot.

Marj
"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."  Barbara Tuchman

MaryPage

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3787 on: October 17, 2012, 04:42:00 PM »
There is a most excellent article about how Hilary Mantel came to write Wolf Hall in the latest The New Yorker.

I am a Nervous Nellie about the election, as well.  It quite blows my mind the way some people just yell out lies and seem to feel they are triumphantly intelligent, when they really are woodenly stupid.  Did you hear that woman telling Chris Matthews one night last week over and over again, no matter what he asked her, that "Obama is a Communist!"?  He finally said to her:  "You do know that you are on national television, don't you?"  And she just thrust her face back into his microphone and said, "He's a Communist;  that's what he is!"
Matthews asked and asked her upon what evidence or knowledge she based her assertion.  She just said:  "Oh, it's obvious.   He is, that's all!"

Where, oh where is intelligent dialogue?

And they say that guy who says real rape won't produce a pregnancy might WIN!  Have you ever wished with all your cellular energies that men could become pregnant?

I dream!

marjifay

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3788 on: October 17, 2012, 05:50:49 PM »
MaryPage wrote: " And they say that guy who says real rape won't produce a pregnancy might WIN!  Have you ever wished with all your cellular energies that men could become pregnant? I dream!"
  
LOL!  Yes!!  I would have thought the people in Missouri would be smarter than to vote in Todd Akin! If not, they'll deserve what they get.  The problem is, he's a U.S. representative, not a state representative.  

There are some places where there is intelligent dialogue, but you have to look for it.

I read the New Yorker article on Hilary Mantel, "The Dead are Real" by Larissa
MacFarquhar, Oct. 15, 2012.  Thanks.

Marj


"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."  Barbara Tuchman

BarbStAubrey

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3789 on: October 17, 2012, 06:18:42 PM »
What I cannot understand and do not know why more women are not standing up - Why are we glorifying the sperm of a criminal - why is a women risking her life and going through the pain of childbirth to bring forward the leavings of a criminal - why is she torn over the love of a child and the disgust of being a martyr to a criminal and now, to societies depraved need to glorify the future genes of a criminal.

Never mind her body is now not able to act out of love have the baby shared between herself and her loving partner because she must spend the next 9 months glorifying this criminal unless, she could have immediately the day-after pill that seems to be held up by some power working their magic.
“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ~ Goethe

MaryPage

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3790 on: October 17, 2012, 06:34:57 PM »
Why?  Bottom line?  For all of these thousands of years?

Because if they cannot force women to carry to birth every single conception, if they actually give women the CHOICE over whether or not their body is up to carrying a fetus and giving birth, they cannot EVER be certain the seed they plant will result in a harvest of THEIR bloodline carrying descendants.

For millennia now, conquering armies have slain men and raped all of their women, for the singular purpose of imprinting the conquered country with their own racial and facial characteristics.  It is STILL going on in Africa this very day!  Darfur and Ethiopia, for instance. Mankind has ALWAYS known raped women can conceive!

And the Serbs raped all the Muslim women.  Relentlessly, under orders, methodically.  The thousands of half Serb babies born brought dishonor to these women among their relatives!  Read the books about the Bosnian War.  You have to read it to even Believe It!

Power types among men want all women to be classed as good for nothing but bearing children and providing comfortable homes for men.  They see any other type of woman as a threat to their status quo.

Listen to some of the White Male Powerboys, now aging, whose grip on this country and its culture is slipping every decade.  They are the ones saying the crazy things.

When my generation and my children's generation is all dead and gone, I think women will finally escape their bonds and break free and become equal.  Then women are going to have to bend over backwards not to let it become too obvious that actually, they are superior.

And no one, no one, not one single White Male Chauvinist is going to be able to say:  "You WILL have this child!"

bellemere

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3791 on: October 18, 2012, 10:06:34 AM »
I cannot just say that I wish the election would just be over.   I have convictions, and I have an outome in mind that I will vote to bring about.
As for pro-choice, my little Down's grandson owes his life to a choice his parents made without any hesitation:  to have hime and raise hime to have the best life he can. He is thriving, getting rave reviews from the professional Early Intervention Team that visits regularly to check his progress. (Another benefit of the Massachusetts Universal Health Plan). he rolls over, kicks his feet , grabs for his toys, and his eyes constantly follow his three year old brother.  HIs mother calls him "the Love Muffine."


MaryPage

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3792 on: October 18, 2012, 10:30:30 AM »
I support fully every woman's right to bear the child she has conceived.

But the woman who desperately needs NOT to must have her chance to choose, as well.  It is those who do everything they can to deny that choice I stand against. 

If the women in Bosnia had had the choice, after being systematically and ruthlessly raped (the bodies of the men and boys were found in a huge single grave, over ten THOUSAND of them), to abort those Serbian babies and not be disowned by their families, who felt dishonored (some were, of course, even killed by their families;  honor killings), they would have availed themselves of offered medical services.

I stand for and with the desperate women without hope.  I know and understand and relate to desperation.

I enjoy the warm and fuzzy feelings I get from hearing the happy outcomes of situations where women are free to choose to give birth to a baby who will be loved.

bellemere

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3793 on: October 18, 2012, 11:15:32 AM »
Agreed, the principle of women's choice has to be upheld.
As to Hilary Mantel, I read the long article about her development as the author of "historical fiction" which some consider an anomaly, like semi-boneless ham, but which I enjoyed very much in Wolf Hall.  Whether I will go back for more Tudor history I am not sure.  But I willsay that she had a long and heroic struggle to beocme th fine author she is tocay.  Booker prize winners are almowt always good bets for reading choices, do you agree?
Here in the Us, the National Book Awards are this week, I think.  Must check. My daughter goes to the dinner each year and says the atmosphere is always electric; sometimes the award is a comlete surprise.

MaryPage

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3794 on: October 18, 2012, 11:25:13 AM »
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_Bosnian_War

There are orphanages full of the children, now in their teens and many off on their own, of these rapes.  Their mothers did not want them.  Their fathers were back in Serbia, unsure how many children they had left behind.  Some were killed at birth by their mothers, some were kept, but most wound up in institutions, unwanted.

It is entirely possible that half brothers and sisters will marry and have children of their own.

The hatred marches on.

marjifay

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3795 on: October 18, 2012, 11:59:25 AM »
I agree, Bellemere, that the Booker Prize winner books are almost always worth reading.

My favorites from the 2011 shortlist, were THE SISTERS BROTHERS by Anthony DeWitt and PIGEON ENGLISH by Stephen Kelman, both fastinating!  Also good was SNOWDROPS  by A.D Miller.  Didn't care much, tho,' for the winner, Julian Barnes' SENSE OF AN ENDING. .  I'm getting ready to start (after I finish Bring up the Bodies), HALF BLOOD BLUES by Esi Edugyan to read with a group that discusses all the shortlisted nominations and winners.

Marj
"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."  Barbara Tuchman

BarbStAubrey

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3796 on: October 18, 2012, 12:46:51 PM »
It is hard to realize the cruelty to women and the continued cruelty that affects the community of women - at times it feels overwhelming with little hope which unfortunately stops us in our tracks as we are overcome with grief - rage - the injustice - even the question for many 'where is god in all this' - that is why I think those who write books like Half the Sky and gather the stories where pockets of hope exist allow us to put one foot in front of the other and get us out of our frozen tracks. To inspire action through hope is a special skill - and thank goodness there are some who are developing that skill along with their caring about women.
“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ~ Goethe

bellemere

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3797 on: October 18, 2012, 01:09:18 PM »
I was premature.  the National book Awards dinner is Nov. 14 and the five finalists for fiction include Junot Diaz, Dave Eggers, Louise Erdrich, and two newcomers, both writing about Iraq war.  Readings by the finalists will take place during the week preceding, and I hope some may be televised. I am pulling for Dave Eggers, and want to get his book, Hologram for the King .

MaryPage

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3798 on: October 18, 2012, 01:24:09 PM »
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_rape

The history is fascinating.  Note the Biblical passages cited!

mabel1015j

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Re: Fiction ~ Old ~ New ~ Best Sellers #2
« Reply #3799 on: October 18, 2012, 01:38:56 PM »
I am so happy that you are a community to which i can say DITTO!!! To everything you all have said in the last few days.

I am envious of those of you who can vote early, NJ doesn't allow that yet.

I am reading Shaber's book Louise's War and enjoying it. I had not heard of her before and it's the onky book of hers in our library. I'll have to request her new one.

Jean