At least two people, a relative and a woman from the neighborhood, are saying Lanza was homeschooled. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/autistic_loner_explosion_l4kSMDgX2pADJyjxx1G4mI http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/adam-lanzas-mom-pulled-school-relative/t/story?id=17985433

. And I don't know that that's anything new; in my Central Texas high school back in the '80s, one year we had repeated call-in bomb threats almost weekly - always conveniently in last period so the days wouldn't have to be made up later. These are stupid pranks, and really don't deserve much coverage. Lightyears away from the horror of today. ETA: I see now you said " local," so I'm guessing you didn't want to identify the place. Editing now.

Not me, but my father-in-law is a striking twin of former UK Prime Minister John Major. All through the '90s people were informing him of the resemblance.

I found myself repeatedly distracted by all the characters sounding exactly like Faulkner. I kept wanting the listening character to say, "You sure are having long, chain of consciousness sentences today. Been reading Faulkner?"

Of course - and I wasn't reading anything as insult toward anyone. Sorry if it came across that way. I could get across tone better, I think, if I could use more than the three smilies.

Thus the phrase, "De missâ, ad mensam." :)

Deleted. Note to self: no posting late at night with a fever.

Count them for 2013. I've been reading Dickens aloud to Middle Girl, for my sins, and it's going to drag its overwrought bulk through to the new year, so that's when I'll count it. ETA: Didn't mean my snarky comments about Dickens to follow on the heels of Mytwoblessings' irenic post! My insincere apologies to all the Dickens fans. :D

Philistines. Our library system will charge for the replacement of vandalized books. If yours does, be sure to let them know the book was that way when you checked it out, so you don't get charged for it.

Now I have to watch Clueless! How weird! On the other hand, contrary to my expectations director Walter Hill really was reading Xenophon while directing The Warriors. Apparently he wanted Orson Welles to do a narrated introduction tying in Greek themes, but the studio refused.

Nice. I will add these to the list.

It's easy to figure out what books the upcoming Anna Karenina and Hobbit movies are paired with. But can you help put together a list of movies based on books but with different titles? Two spring to mind - please add more. [edited] Conrad, Heart of Darkness Apocalypse Now (1979) Xenophon, Anabasis The Warriors (1979) ----------------------- Perez-Reverte, The Club Dumas The Ninth Gate (1999) Irving, A Prayer For Owen Meany Simon Birch (1998) ----------------------- Shakespeare, King Lear Ran (1985) Shakespeare, Macbeth Throne of Blood (1957) Homer, The Odyssey O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew Kiss Me Kate (1953) 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) -------------------------- Austen, Emma Clueless (1995) --------------------------- Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Blade Runner (1982) --------------------------- Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog The Hedgehog (2009) King, The Body Stand By Me (1986)

Also, Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness. Or Apocalypse of Mirth. Or something like that.

For Great Girl: Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death Burgess, A Clockwork Orange Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Grimm, Selected Folktales/Ausgewählte Märchen For Middle Girl: Picard, German Hero-Sagas and Folk Tales Parker, The Human Body Book For Wee Girl: Anno, Anno's Flea Market Anno, In Shadowland

Caveat emptor, though, when reading free books in translation. This year I ended up having to buy City of God in a more recent translation when the one I had on my Kindle proved unsatisfactory.

1. Early - but our worship services are in Latin, and we 'start Latin' with little memorized prayers and hymns. Benedic Domine nos et haec tua dona; Pater noster qui es in caelis; Et cum spiritu tuo; Regina caeli, laetare; etc., etc. Not so much "wish I'd known" but rather "glad I did"; when shopping for a Latin program, I didn't ask homeschoolers what they used or liked, but asked who had a child who had successfully learned Latin, and what got the child there. Wheelock's and Artes Latinae were the big winners. But this was more than a decade ago, so no doubt there are new programs to consider. YMMV. 2. Artes Latinae. Expensive (though subscribing to Bolchazy's e-newsletter yields a yearly $100-off coupon), but results in a child who can actually read Latin. Lets you choose your pronunciation. Doesn't have the feature of suddenly springing great paradigms for memorization on you; it focuses on genuinely understanding the grammar, not memorizing meaningless (at first) tables. We start it in mid-elementary and go slowly.

Quite a few of us just do what we can and post what we've managed. I'm on book #19 for the year, but I haven't been thrown out yet. :D No need to post reviews, either, if one is review-challenged; I like to just post a representative excerpt, on the theory that that gives a better picture of the book than I could compose.

Pilgrim's Progress Gulliver's Travels Pride and Prejudice Jane Eyre The Scarlet Letter Moby Dick Uncle Tom's Cabin Madame Bovary Crime and Punishment Anna Karenina The Return of the Native Huckleberry Finn Heart of Darkness The House of Mirth The Great Gatsby The Stranger 1984 Now I've got The Cure stuck in my head ... Standing on the beach with a gun in my hand....

Um ... maybe .... Okay, it's a fair cop.

Again, the Ward Hymnal. It was put together as part of the pre-Vatican 2 liturgical reform movement, to foster lay participation in the Mass by teaching children chant. Middle Girl is getting quite adept at the chanted parts of the Ordinary by using the Ward Hymnal. ETA: the last section has various English prayers to Gregorian melodies - these have been very helpful for Wee Girl, who sings more readily than she speaks.

I am in! Not that I've ever gotten close to 52 - and the Chunkster Challenge will just exacerbate my underachieving ways.

The Ward Hymnal, designed for children: http://media.musicasacra.com/books/wardhymnal.pdf

Thanks!

Yeah. This. One of the advantages of marriage is the efficient - in terms of time, ability, and preferences - division of labor. I don't mind fixing breakfast, and he doesn't mind patiently explaining long division or the quadratic formula or the chain rule at a bleary-eyed time of the morning.

Sort of. I rarely fix anything for dh, as he doesn't eat breakfast and rarely lunch. How he lives on air has been a mystery to me since we were kids. Middle Girl, who has his slender build, shares his non-appetite. For the rest of us, I make breakfast and squeeze toast, eggs, bananas, and bowls of cereal around the books as he does morning math lessons with the little dd's. And I fix a lunch for Great Girl, who is perfectly capable of fixing her own but loves having this one last mommy/little girl bond (and she says her dorm-living classmates are jealous of her nourishing mom-made lunches).