Good, thanks. I let dh know and he said he'd figure out which book and stop giving them to her before that one. He's pretty puritanical and protective himself, but sometimes he doesn't register a scene as inappropriate for younger readers. She's read all of those - except Lorna Doone, which she started and quit - and recently informed me she was done with Collins, Austen and Brontës. She really like Wuthering Heights though. Happy birthday to him, and congratulations to you!

Middle Girl is 14 and shockingly puritanical, so I have to be careful with my reading recommendations not to offend her. The Howatch may have to wait, but the Manning novels sound interesting, and our Half Price or library probably have them. Many thanks!

I knew a Felicitas, and tried to sell dh on the name but failed. But it's good.

But what do you suggest to help me undermine my husband? ETA: I mean, of course, to help me encourage good reading habits in my child.

Dh and I have been lately engaged in a pitched battle for Middle Girl's reading affections. Dh had been trying for years with Wodehouse, but she lost interest after a couple of books. He was disgusted by her reading the entire Aubrey/Maturin series, which I figured would go down well with a child who had devoured all the Swallows and Amazons books, and waited until he had her in his office without reading material to give her some Dorothy Dunnett, the first hit free of course. I cunningly waited until he was out of town this week and got her started on Kristin Lavransdatter, but she dropped volume 2 the moment he breezed back from Toronto with yet another book about Lymond, whoever that is. I have a disadvantage since I'm in charge of her literary education and sometimes have to make her read things she wouldn't choose for leisure, so the evenings and car trips are stacked against me. Also I've run out of historical fiction, which seems to be her preference. I'm toying with introducing her to Balzac: the Comédie Humaine would last her through college. Trollope would be good, too; but probably not enough naval battles in either of them.

Here you go: "For Elizabeth Anscombe, please intentionally press 1; press 2 with the intention of pressing 3; or express your intention to press 4." "For Philippa Foot, please press 8 to remove one other caller from the caller queue, or refrain from pressing any number, and five other callers will be removed from the queue."

This could be fun. "For Quine, please press any set of numbers, recognizing thereby the unavoidability of an ontological commitment to those and all other mathematical entities. If you choose not to make such a commitment, please press 0 to relinquish your ontological commitment to quarks and dark matter."

Between dh and me we've read through a healthy chunk of the Scottish Books Everyone Should Read; though I need to get going on the Boswell and Lanark. This week I was inspired by the discussion of (mockery regarding, whatever) '70s era literature - which I did read a fair amount of in the '80s! (she said defensively) - to read The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake, a young man who might have been among the great writers of the 20th century, had he not committed suicide only two years after his work began to be published, leaving us with only twelve finished stories. The collection, stories written between 1977 and 1979 and published in 1983, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Joyce Carol Oates reviews the collection here - http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/13/books/pancake-stories.html - though she makes a couple of errors (two of the stories in fact have female protagonists; and she somehow misunderstands the plot of "In the Dry"). Pancake ought to be better known. Now I'm returning to Francis Bacon's Essays, and alternating them with A Light in the Heavens: The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII, which is very good reading for those of us who like that kind of thing. Whichever I finish first will be book 52!

How has there been so much discussion of Welsh icons with no mention of Tom Jones? What's new, pussycat Whoa - o - o - a...

I live in our capital, and frequently drive by the Capitol. I remember that the building has a nice round dome.

Adorable!

I'm spending this week being herded, along with musicians, string students, and other string parents, all of us insecure, demanding, and anxious. Wish I could join you in a conventual weekend.

At home now, so I can find my oldest and youngest books, so far, for 2017. I see that I misread my timeline and it's 7 books from the '70s, 3 from the '80s, and one from the '90s (counting all years). For 2017, my youngest book was George Mackay Brown's Andrina and Other Stories, 1983 AD. The oldest was Xenophon's Anabasis, ca. 370 BC.

Oh no! May she recover swiftly. We'll look forward to having you back.

You should visit Leiter Reports or the comments section of Daily Nous. That would change your opinion quick. ETA: Or hang out with inebriated philosophers after a faculty "dinner" at a bar.

Blindness, 1995. I've cheated a bit -- I've bought and consulted recent books on childhood anxiety, phobias, and mutism -- but it doesn't feel like reading a book.

How annoying. One more reason to wait until they're safely dead. It was only a Saramago, to please dh. Lightning rarely strikes twice. Btw I'm always envious of those of you who can read comfortably in a second language. If I could live my life over...

I see it as keeping up with the modern moment and Today's Youth. I hear Ken and his merry friends will be driving cross-country in a painted bus?

All right, I had recourse to my book timeline, and since 2013 I've read no fewer than eleven books published since 1970! Nine from the 1970s, one each from the '80s and '90s. There.

I have read some Vonnegut and some Updike - quite a lot of Vonnegut in high school, though some of it is hazy now - and at some point will read Vidal. But dh just checked some Athanasius out of the library for me, so I've got 4th-century reading to take care of first.

I just read Voltaire's Candide, which I hadn't read since my high school French class. It's quicker in English. Just to show I can read modern books, too, I'm halfway through Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. What's next, Violet, Tom Wolfe?

What happened?

The most difficult aspect of British English in my experience has been everyday euphemisms. It took me a week to figure out that prices for "concessions" at events were not for a hamburger and coke but were the discount for the elderly and disabled. And our family was puzzled through a long train ride by signs threatening jail (sorry, gaol*) time for anyone overheard using "sectarian language" on the train. Could we be arrested for discussing the role of bishops, or the preferability of the silent canon, we wondered? We were eventually enlightened by an amused (by us) and horrified (by the topic) security guard. *(Related: To my great and unworthy joy, at church one Sunday in the UK the young American student reading the Epistle told us all about the angel freeing St. Peter from "goal." Poor thing.)

Check your local opera's website to see what resources they have for children. Ours allows kids to attend the final dress rehearsal, for instance. Most people know this, but because some don't - operas are supertitled now, so you can easily follow the story. And the story is often secondary to the spectacle, so I always let my kids know it wasn't crucial to follow the plot.

Maybe we should have an international committee for the harmonization (harmonisation?) of English orthography. I would accept 'manoeuvre' if we could have our theaters back.