I think a class would work fairly well. I grew up my whole life surrounded by immigrants from the majority Muslim countries and if they are given guidance about how to behave in certain situations, they follow it. They may resent it or not agree with it on the inside, and it may be difficult to change actual thinking, but if only a behavioral change is desired, that can be done. If there's one thing I noticed it's that they conform to local standards when needed, even if they fall back on their conditioning when they are with others of their culture or when they visit their countries of origin.

Lanny's post reminds me if you take Amtrak from Sacramento to Oakland, you could catch a cab to your Oakland hotel and proceed from there. The trains run fairly often, as some people actually make the daily commute. It's changed quite a bit, in part because of gentrification from people who can no longer afford SF, but still need to commute so they want to live near transit. Not all of Oakland is safe, but the area around the 12th BART has opened more than 300 restaurants in 4 years, built lots of condos, there's a new outdoor art festival the first Friday of the month, etc. If you remember the amazing Flax art store in SF, they're moving there next month. And so on. It's still Oakland, of course, but it's probably not like you remember.

I think your plan is fine. I would feel safe anyway, but I would feel especially safe in a group of 6. Avoid 6th St between Market and Mission in SF, esp. at night. It's a big drug scene. You could park at the hotel in Oakland, you could park at Oakland Airport, which has a BART connector, or it may be cheaper to do an offsite parking lot for SFO. Parking at SFO is expensive, but the off-site lots may be cheaper than Oakland. The off-site lots have shuttles to SFO and you can catch BART there. Be aware that BART doesn't run from midnight-isn to 4:00am-ish. I highly recommend 511.org for transit info and you can get an app for your smartphone if you have one. Here's a hill mapper if you have people in your party who might struggle with long, steep hills on foot.

Ok, y'all, Between the World and Me. I must admit I've been reluctant to discuss it because who am I to comment on the black experience, you know? I found this to be a very powerful and moving book but also an unfulfilling one. I agree with 95% of what Coates says, so if the below sounds critical, I am only focusing on the areas of the book that gave me pause, perhaps because I am a child of Asian immigrants. While Coates gave more than a passing nod to the diversity of places like NYC and Paris, he ignored the increasing numbers of Asians, Hispanics, etc. as a percentage of the population, across the entire country and not only in metro areas, and what impact they may or may not have on the race discussion. (Although to be fair, he says he doesn't really talk about race, that it is white people who brought race into it.) Regardless...that same wonder he felt about those "melting pot" cities years ago doesn't seem to have moved forward and been applied to our increasingly diverse country. He talks about the need for whites to change while not giving any ideas, which is fine, as I suspect he has some ideas but wanted to be true to the "letter to his son" format and laying out "to do" items doesn't really fit into that. But I do wish he had addressed the increasingly multi-cultural country in which his son finds himself. What are the obligations and roles of newly arrived immigrants? Refugees? I don't believe it's as clear-cut as he wants it to be. I wish it were. Overall it was a fantastic book and I cried through much of it. The most intense and vivid part for me, in a book full of those types of moments, was the following passage: I was also deeply affected by another passage:

My copy (Oxford World Classics) had extensive commentary, and I read it with a guided discussion group. I definitely got something out of reading the book and I'm glad I read something rather foundational, but my opinion of Bunyan's motivation remains the same. Just curious, did you have a different interpretation?

One 15 year old girl was walking with her dad! I can't imagine how he felt.

The irony, of course, is that she herself was stabbed last year. If this situation were at all funny, the jokes would write themselves. She should have simply kept her stabber at arm's length or dressed in a more covered fashion. :glare:

I finished Between the World and Me yesterday. Anyone want to discuss? I know Jane is reading it, anyone else? I think there's one or two more people....

Happy birthday Rosie!!!

It was me. I read Hard Road West in January of last year.

Yes! I had this problem with the Souther Reach Trilogy. On top of the usual issue you mentioned, the second book took place in an entirely different location and made what I thought I knew about the first book confusing. I'm glad I stuck with it as the third book brought it together. I wouldn't read too much into Bunyan's intentions, IMO. They aren't occluded or hidden to me. I don't think Bunyan was trying to make a statement about getting into the Celestial City with a log in his eye, I think he really thought Christian was behaving correctly and in a Christian fashion. My most generous interpretation is that Bunyan had trouble with nuanced thoughts in such a heavily allegorical tale.

Hmmm. I'm going to have to be the dissenting voice on The Gap of Time. I must be missing something that everyone else sees, including all the respectable reviewers who gave it such high praise. Despite my anticipation and my desire to enjoy it, in the end it read like teen fiction to me. (Sorry to all who loved it. I'm assuming the problem was with me.) The strange way in which everything worked out so smoothly (trying to be vague here) was too much for me. Of course the original play is also somewhat unrealistic, but Shakespeare is entertaining in part because of wit and language and I didn't find enough of that in this modernized version to offset the implausible ending. I'm sorry.

I just started this last night because the Classics and the Western Canon group started today and I'm reading with them!

Oh wow. I think you may find this book very interesting then. DS should be done with it in about 6 weeks and I'm happy to loan it to you via mail after that. I'll need it back in 4 years for DD!

The Roadside Geology series is the main one we'll be using. We own the local one and the library has ones for more far-flung places we can use. I printed out some hiking/driving reports used by local geology groups to summarize their own trips and we bought a copy of Geology Underfoot in Yosemite National Park and the same guide for Death Valley/Owens Valley. We also have a few historical books I'm mostly forgetting now, but Kratakoa is one of them for DS. We just started meteorology Monday, after studying space since September, so I don't have any real experience with these books, but this is what we're using: For both kids, we have National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather (great pictures of clouds), The Kids' Book of Weather Forecasting (forecasting), Golden Guide Weather (overview) How the Weather Works (experiments and activities), and How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate (climate change). For DS only (and DD later) I added 2 history books as well: Air Apparent: How Meteorologists Learned to Map, Predict, and Dramatize Weather and Weathering the Storm: Sverre Petterssen, the D-Day Forecast, and the Rise of Modern Meteorology (American Meteorological Society - Historical Monographs).

Thank you! This day sounds like exactly what I would want to do. I have been to London a couple of times, but by myself. The second time I went, the 7/7 bombings happened while I was in flight. :crying: When I landed there were limited trains and crazy traffic from all the people who normally use the Tube. It was almost impossible to even get a cab. I walked as much as I could but it definitely cut down on my ability to see more things. These sound great! We are studying meteorology right now, trying to take advantage of the effect of El Nino to actually see storms in our area. Geology is spring and summer, with spring focusing on "local roadside geology" and summer on "bigger geology" found in national parks.

I am re-reading The Hobbit to the children right now and then we are moving on to The Fellowship of the Ring. I read The Pilgrim's Progress last year so let me know if you want to discuss! Thanks for this info! Dh has a conference in London next summer and we might tag along. I am most of the way through and am absorbing, but as I read I am struggling with what to post about it. It is, for me anyway, a very difficult book to encapsulate. DD had book club at the library today so I was wandering the non-fiction and Basin and Range was flat on a shelf, left there by someone who didn't re-shelve! but for your post I would have passed it by. It looks very good. In return, I'll suggest a book I read last year, Hard Road West. I think you might like it!

I was just talking about what Bluegoat was talking about. :)

Something can be free and yet still have an obstacle to attending.

Is the Dench haircut shorter than the one you have now? If you have the same face shape as she does, it could be an intermediate step to see how you like it.

I don't use Febreze so no experience, but I do know it uses a particular hydrocarbon to bind the molecules causing odor. It's not just a perfume.

Our school district has a charter school that has partnered with the local CC so that students graduate from high school with an AA degree in addition to their high school diploma. Maybe we'll see more of these as well? ETA: I do see tuition continuing to increase but the rate of the increase slowing down. I don't think the bubble will burst soon.

I grew up close to Disneyland and we loved it as pre-adolescents/teens. It was our first chance to really be on our own, separating from parents and meeting up later. It taught us how to problem solve, get around, ask for help, estimate times, use maps, order in restaurants, etc. We did that from age 11 onwards.It's really quite a safe place for kids to learn some good life skills while having fun.

I finished this last month. Let me know if you want to discuss when you're done. I buy more books than I get from the library, but I also weed through and donate fairly often. Most of my buying is from our local library's book sale, although I tend to stock up more on books for the kids there. (Yes, I have bought back a few of my donated books at the book sale!) Our library is a smaller system but in CA it's often true that you can get cards for a city's library simply by being a resident of the state. For this reason I also have a few other cards for nearby cities and also one from my hometown for when we visit. I also use Audible but not much, although the kids use it a lot. For classics, which I often read with the goodreads Classics and the Western Canon group, I go digital as those are out of copyright usually and it's easy to find nicely formatted PDFs. I have an Archipelago subscription thanks to the readers here letting me know about it, and sometimes we trade books as well. I also request books and gift cards to B&N or the local bookstore from my in-laws for my birthday. ETA: Looking at your children's ages, I suggest the 11.5 year-old have a new job of taking the books to the library, unless that 1/2 mile is particularly dangerous to walk or ride a bike. Our rule is (more or less) to dump a library book in the trunk of my car as soon as you're done with it. My son (11) walks to the library 1.4 miles with all our books from the trunk if we're getting behind. We rarely do, though, because we have a book club twice/month there. Having them in the trunk also allows me to swing by and return books if I have time.

I agree. Given how few books Americans read, anything that gets people to read is a plus in my book. Oprah is the reason I read Beloved, which is one of my favorite books. (Although I don't think that was from her book club, but an interview I read.) She also got me reading Cormac McCarthy. :) I just don't like the logo on the cover, but I'm the same way with movie posters as book covers or "Now a Major Motion Picture" stamps.