Well it was optimistic to say War and Peace would be finished yesterday, as I'd forgotten that the Second Epilogue is Tolstoy laying out his philosophy of history, necessity, and free will. Which I find very interesting, but isn't good late-evening reading. Must finish today! Life gets Very Very Busy for a while starting tomorrow.

Finishing War and Peace today. Without giving away spoilers, I hadn't noticed on the prior reading that the peasant prisoner Karataev's story of the innocent man sent to Siberia is the story "God Sees the Truth, But Waits" that I know from my book of children's stories by Tolstoy that I read to the girls. Wikipedia says the short story was written after War and Peace, so Tolstoy must have liked the concept and expanded it. Also reading Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ; really I'm nearly always reading in it, and only note it this week because Matryoshka's picked it up.

The medieval monks forgive you. ;) Let me know how you like Underhill. I've only ever read bits of her writing, so if you choose to delve deeper, I might join you.

There's the 14th-century mystical work "The Cloud of Unknowing," which I have read twice and concluded that I have no mystical charisms whatsoever; but it's still pretty interesting. Also in the 240s, St Teresa of Avila's "The Interior Castle" and St John of the Cross's "Dark Night of the Soul." ETA: A more modern classic in the 240s is the great Anglican writer, intellectual, and pacificst Evelyn Underhill's "Mysticism." On reflection, I think you might really like her work.

I don't know of any medieval European mind-altering substances other than alcohol and hallucinogens such as mandrake and belladonna. And as you say, the latter were used medicinally and not recreationally (and besides were more often applied topically than internally). Judging from accounts of what we would call altered states of consciousness, they were more often induced by intense prayer and fasting.

Coffee: As much as possible, throughout the day. On fast days I drink it black and choose to call it "water." Allergy meds: I don't think I could find ten people in Central Texas who aren't taking something for their allergies right now. Ibuprofen: God's gift to women with period cramps; also I nearly always get a painful stitch in my side when running without prophylactic ibuprofen. Bluegoat, I thought your lot drank plenty of gin. ;)

It's very good to see you back, Eliana. I look forward to your voice in the discussions again. Matryoshka - For Pretty Pictures, you can't go wrong with William Blake's poetry. For 240s, have you read the 15th-century classic The Imitation of Christ? It's been broadly popular for centuries among all Christian traditions, and its cultural importance makes it worth reading.

Congratulations Heather on 100 books! This morning I got to Tolstoy's allegory of the beehive, a beautiful and touching piece of writing.

Rose, best wishes for your dd, and may the testing prove helpful. Ali, hoping recovery is swift. Stacia, well done mom!

Still reading War and Peace, and expecting to finish this week. I successfully talked some friends at church into reading it, and gave them my extra copy. Evangelizing for Tolstoy!

Dh suggests The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The only X-title book I've read is Secular Lyrics of the XIV and XV Centuries: but it was awfully good.

😳😳😳 Yes, I share your pain: we've started our academic year and so here I am reading Crèvecour excerpts instead of Tolstoy. Between children and Other Things I may not be able to get back to serious reading time until after the Playoffs.

Resumed homeschooling today.

Suzuki camp is at last over, leaving, I hope, more time for reading. I will be just as happy not to hear small stringed instruments being scraped on, not to eat another greasy free hotel breakfast, and not to drive another mile on a hot Texas highway for a very long time. Only about 200 pages further through War and Peace than last week.

I'm not sure what the identity of the reigning pope would have to do with it. While it's true that Benedict was more given to hats, I don't recall either him or Francis wearing chapel veils.

I count the Catholics prior to the 1960s, too.

I wear a chapel veil or hat at Mass. I'm not especially conservative, just a crowd-following Catholic who prefers to do what the majority does. And the majority of Catholic women didn't go bareheaded to Mass. ETA: I prefer my own special spelling, too.

The Renaissance Hotel is in the Arboretum, which is a good way from the bats, but right next to Amy's Ice Cream, a kid-friendly place, and open until midnight. My high school friends and I used to climb onto the stone cows and eat our ice cream, and go walk around the big pond at the bottom of the hill. (Hey, that was pretty exciting for NW Austin suburbia teenagers.) You'd probably see some bats out there too.

You want the Free Fun in Austin blog. https://freefuninaustin.com The Top 10: https://freefuninaustin.com/top-10-things-to-do-in-austin-texas-with-kids/ But basically, as Brehon says, that's going to tell you that you want to see the bats. Also - I've never stayed in a hotel in Austin, but in general the city is pretty kid-friendly.

The Crown family launched into Independence Day by traitorously though involuntarily waking up on British time, a few members making it worse by filling the wee hours with Redcoat writers like Roald Dahl and Patrick O'Brian. I took the opportunity to get underway with Tolstoy. This time around I'm seeing more of the novel's careful structuring. Without providing spoilers, I noticed (a) the opportunities for main character fatalities, and (b) who is in fact the first such. Also, and this is not a spoiler, I realized that W&P was briefly confusing for me on the first read because Tolstoy takes for granted that his readers are familiar with the battle of Austerlitz ("battle of the three emperors"), and so writes in plenty of ironic foreshadowing and provides battle descriptions from the confused ground-level viewpoint of the Russian soldiers, who unlike the reader (and Napoleon!) can't see the big picture and don't grasp the significance of certain geographical features. Which is to say, I strongly recommend reading something like Wikipedia's article on Austerlitz before getting to that part of the novel. On the flight over, I sat next to a very young German soldier on his way for a military training program in my city, and we ended up discussing War and Peace, which he'd recently begun reading after taking a class in the Napoleonic Wars for his officers' training. I gather that -- rather the reverse of some of us! -- he was enduring the soap opera parts for the sake of the war portions.

Like Jane, I can't read nonfiction for long; lyric poetry especially is impossible for me to read for stretches of time and still get anything out of it. Usually I have three books going: (1) fiction or drama, (2) poetry, and (3) nonfiction (usually history, literary criticism, or essays). Right now then it's War and Peace, poetry of William Soutar, and Essays of Francis Bacon.

Home at last. Woke up 21 hours and 50 Fahrenheit degrees ago. Read a lot of Lautréamont today because he's just as comprehensible when jetlagged and sleep deprived as at any other time. Starting War and Peace ... tomorrow.

Finished Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief today. A light read; the race humor hasn't aged well. Traveling for the next few days: then War and Peace.

Near the top of my TBR pile is Conrad's Narcissus, as everyone coyly refers to it nowadays. Now there's a book I may not read in public.

Yes, this. Exactly what I was going to post. Also a cheap plastic balance with gram weight cubes; dh used it to teach the girls balancing equations ("mystery scales") and simultaneous equations ("double mystery scales") successfully at a surprisingly young age.