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Book a Week in 2014 - BW 12


Robin M
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Not sure what an appropriate Spring title for cat scratches would be.......made me laugh!

 

 
Cat Scratch Fever?  or Scratch the Surface (A Cat Lover's Mystery)? or Cat scratches with Jazz and Gigi

 

And, no, I know nothing about them!

 

ETA: On further reflection, none of the titles sound particularly Spring-y.  Perhaps that's a good thing.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

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Yes. He saw the orthopedic doctor this morning. Surgery will be next Tuesday, the 25th. After the surgery he'll need to wear a splint for 4 weeks. 

 

He knows how to use a knife and he knows what he did wrong. Neither dh nor I said anything. No need to beat him while he's down. Hopefully he learned from something that wasn't as bad as it could have been.

 

Oy! Sending thoughts for a harmonious surgery and recovery :grouphug:

 

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Yes. He saw the orthopedic doctor this morning. Surgery will be next Tuesday, the 25th. After the surgery he'll need to wear a splint for 4 weeks. 

 

He knows how to use a knife and he knows what he did wrong. Neither dh nor I said anything. No need to beat him while he's down. Hopefully he learned from something that wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Hope that all goes well. I love how you and your dh did not say anything. I couldn't agree more. 

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Yes. He saw the orthopedic doctor this morning. Surgery will be next Tuesday, the 25th. After the surgery he'll need to wear a splint for 4 weeks. 

 

He knows how to use a knife and he knows what he did wrong. Neither dh nor I said anything. No need to beat him while he's down. Hopefully he learned from something that wasn't as bad as it could have been.

I hope he has a speedy recovery and your mommy heart has a chance to breathe freely for a while.

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Yes. He saw the orthopedic doctor this morning. Surgery will be next Tuesday, the 25th. After the surgery he'll need to wear a splint for 4 weeks. 

 

He knows how to use a knife and he knows what he did wrong. Neither dh nor I said anything. No need to beat him while he's down. Hopefully he learned from something that wasn't as bad as it could have been.

I hope all goes well!

 

:grouphug:

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Since Langston Hughes showed up as my soul-mate on that poll a few weeks ago, I have started reading his collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folks.

 

So far the stories, though seemingly tossed out there casually, are razor-sharp: smooth, quick, & slice to the bone. Ouch. And wow.

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ways-White-Folks-Classics/dp/0679728171/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395149609&sr=1-1&keywords=The+ways+of+white+folks

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Unable to settle into any of my books that required a pithier use of my lens I curled up with The Midwife of Hope River last night by Patricia Harman. I got this last week for $1.99 as a kindle daily deal. I'm surprising myself by enjoying it and can't yet figure out what it is I like. From the Amazon blurb...

Seeking refuge from the law in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, Patience Murphy sets out as a midwife in the wake of the 1929 stock-market crash. Armed with a birth satchel and what confidence she can muster, she delivers babies for blacks and whites who can no longer afford a doctor, accepting payment in chickens and flour and the occasional coin. Harman, herself a midwife, transports the reader to another time and place in this quiet story of a white woman who fights to usher life into an impoverished, prejudiced world. As Patience struggles to overcome her dark past, she opens her heart to Daniel, a lonely veterinarian, and her home to Bitsy, a black servant who becomes her apprentice and close companion, rousing the attention of the Klan. There’s a whole lot of birthing going on in The Midwife of Hope River, but don’t let that dissuade you from reading it. The author’s love for the profession shines through in this testament to the power of women. A first novel well worth attention. --Diane Holcomb

It seems like it's going to be a straightforward story of loss and redemption. I am hoping the author doesn't get too heavy handed with the characters as the possibility for cliche is right there at the edges of her writing. We'll see how it unfolds.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/books/the-expats-a-thriller-by-chris-pavone.html?_r=0

 

The Expats by Chris Pavone is one of those books that I have checked out a few times , read a couple of pages and returned. This time I got hooked and finished it. Some of the truths about life as an expat in Europe(probably anywhere) made me laugh because true. I get to add Luxembourg to my geography challenge -- Switzerland and France are also featured. Wasn't great but readable, gave it 3***. I did like the end.

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Yesterday during our commute to kathak class ds and I started listening to Love and Math : The Hidden Heart of Reality by Edward Frenkel. Ds is a math lover though leaning more towards the philosophy of math than of actually plugging in algorithms and working them so I thought this would make a nice switch from our audio fiction. He *loved* Dawkins's 'Magic of Reality' which we also listened to during home school commutes and he has since gone on to re-listen to that on his own numerous times. The material covered in this book is different from MoR, more dense and complex, but it's written in a similarly engaging and accessible manner. From the Amazon blurb ::

 

In Love and Math, renowned mathematician Edward Frenkel reveals a side of math we’ve never seen, suffused with all the beauty and elegance of a work of art. In this heartfelt and passionate book, Frenkel shows that mathematics, far from occupying a specialist niche, goes to the heart of all matter, uniting us across cultures, time, and space.

 

I'm so glad you posted about this one. I've been wondering about it. It keeps popping up as a recommendation when I'm on Amazon.

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I'm so glad you posted about this one. I've been wondering about it. It keeps popping up as a recommendation when I'm on Amazon.

 

So far it's very enjoyable though we're only just into it. Ds is the math lover/math intuitive whereas I'm just along for the numerical ride but even with that kind of stricture I am able to follow it easily at this point. Frenkel's discussion of symmetry was both fascinating and very available to me. He's encouraging me to see math as a deconstruction of what is already present rather than a leaping into the unknown, unfathomable world of algorithm, equation, formula etc. I think it's going to be a good listen as the author is keen to share his love of the subject with a wide audience and thus accessibility is a theme. Woven into the book is the author's own story as well.

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The Henrietta Lacks book bored me like you wouldn't believe.

 

<image removed>

 

I think I'm definitely in the minority when it comes to that book.

Then we are a minority of 2 :D. The book started interesting, but after maybe 1/3....boooooring.

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I just started "City of Dragons" by Kelli Stanley and while I like the story, her sentence structure is driving me batty. It seems to me like she leaves words out and everytime I come to one it feels terribly jarring. I think she made the choice stylistically, but egads.

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This has been deemed the most beautiful bookstore in the world. It is quite lovely and I would certainly enjoy an afternoon or several spent there with a latte and some chocolate. It's located in Portugal which is also home to this astonishing library. Not only is it visually stunning...

 

The magnificent floor is covered with tiles of rose, grey and white marble. The wooden bookshelves in Rococo style are situated on the sidewalls in two rows, separated by a balcony with a wooden railing. They contain over 35,000 leather-bound volumes, attesting of the extent of western knowledge from the 14th to the 19th century. Among them, are many valuable bibliographical jewels, such as incunabula (books printed before the year 1500). These beautiful finished volumes were bound in the local workshop (Livraria) in the rocaille style.

 

They have also devised a way to deal with the potentially devastating problem of insects... :eek:

 

 

 

 

"Yes. To keep books from being damaged by insects, the Mafra library uses bats. 500 of them. The bats are kept in boxes during the day but at night they are let out and eat up to double their own body weight in insects. (There is a joke here about bats eating bookworms. But let’s not). I imagine most of the time just before opening in the morning is spent herding the bats back into the boxes and cleaning up guano."

 

There is something fittingly medieval about their solution.

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Stacia, that book is gorgeous. Do you own it?

 

On the subject of the bat solution, looking at the pictures of that library with all its crevices and spots that would seem perfect for a bat to 'hang out' on we've been wondering whether they are actually able to get all 500 bats back into their boxes every morning. And then there's the idea of 'herding' bats which seems akin to herding cats :lol: I imagine there might be signs posted letting visitors know that there may be the occasional 'winged mouse' (the french version of bat, chauve souris) flying about.

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When I mentioned the book The Library awhile back, the article I originally saw mentioned the bats in Portugal too. I think it's awfully cool.

 

 

 

(But then again, I'm a vampire fan too. ;) )

 

Okay, wth is that creature? It looks like a bat but bats don't usually have their own bright pink fleece blankies.

 

 

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Stacia, that book is gorgeous. Do you own it?

 

On the subject of the bat solution, looking at the pictures of that library with all its crevices and spots that would seem perfect for a bat to 'hang out' on we've been wondering whether they are actually able to get all 500 bats back into their boxes every morning. And then there's the idea of 'herding' bats which seems akin to herding cats :lol: I imagine there might be signs posted letting visitors know that there may be the occasional 'winged mouse' (the french version of bat, chauve souris) flying about.

No, don't own it (& the library, ironically, doesn't have it either :tongue_smilie:). It's on my wish-list.

 

Maybe bats like going back "home" for a sound night of sleep rather than dealing with pesky & potentially-interfering humans during the daylight hours?

 

I'll put in my little plug here to support your local bat populations blackbat.gif by finding a conservation group in your area & helping them. :coolgleamA: :thumbup1: (And I do wish more bats would take up residence in my yard. He or she would have oodles of mosquitoes & other yummy insects to eat!)

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No, don't own it (& the library, ironically, doesn't have it either :tongue_smilie:). It's on my wish-list.

 

Maybe bats like going back "home" for a sound night of sleep rather than dealing with pesky & potentially-interfering humans during the daylight hours?

 

I'll put in my little plug here to support your local bat populations blackbat.gif by finding a conservation group in your area & helping them. :coolgleamA: :thumbup1:  (And I do wish more bats would take up residence in my yard. He or she would have oodles of mosquitoes & other yummy insects to eat!)

 

32415rgcpako5pjwx4.gif

 

Yes, for sure they'd want to be 'home' at night but i imagine there would always be one or two renegades who would march or rather swoop to their own internal homing and nocturnal rhythms.

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Okay, wth is that creature? It looks like a bat but bats don't usually have their own bright pink fleece blankies.

 

Uh.... a (baby) bat.

 

Yeah, I don't think the fleece blankie is a natural habitat kind of thing.... ;)  (Hmmm. Maybe that's why there are no bats in my yard. Perhaps I should toss a fleece blankie out there.)

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Yes. He saw the orthopedic doctor this morning. Surgery will be next Tuesday, the 25th. After the surgery he'll need to wear a splint for 4 weeks. 

 

He knows how to use a knife and he knows what he did wrong. Neither dh nor I said anything. No need to beat him while he's down. Hopefully he learned from something that wasn't as bad as it could have been.

He has to wait a week? You'd think a surgery like that would be done sooner because doesn't the body try to start healing immediately?

 

Yes, I do believe he's learned a lesson. Experience is so much more effective than lecture.

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This has been deemed the most beautiful bookstore in the world. It is quite lovely and I would certainly enjoy an afternoon or several spent there with a latte and some chocolate. It's located in Portugal which is also home to this astonishing library. Not only is it visually stunning...

 

The magnificent floor is covered with tiles of rose, grey and white marble. The wooden bookshelves in Rococo style are situated on the sidewalls in two rows, separated by a balcony with a wooden railing. They contain over 35,000 leather-bound volumes, attesting of the extent of western knowledge from the 14th to the 19th century. Among them, are many valuable bibliographical jewels, such as incunabula (books printed before the year 1500). These beautiful finished volumes were bound in the local workshop (Livraria) in the rocaille style.

 

They have also devised a way to deal with the potentially devastating problem of insects... :eek:

 

 

 

 

Yes. To keep books from being damaged by insects, the Mafra library uses bats. 500 of them. The bats are kept in boxes during the day but at night they are let out and eat up to double their own body weight in insects. (There is a joke here about bats eating bookworms. But let’s not). I imagine most of the time just before opening in the morning is spent herding the bats back into the boxes and cleaning up guano.

 

There is something fittingly medieval about their solution.

 

Shudder.

 

While I love bats conceptually, I have had bat issues in a summer cottage that have driven me, well, batty. 

 

I was complaining about the bats to my elderly neighbor who recalled how bats flew through the top floor of a dorm where he resided.  In warm weather, the boys left all of the doors open for air circulation.  He said that at some point in the study filled evenings, someone would holler "Bat!" and a crew of boys would rush to the hall with squash rackets, gently persuading the creature to exit the building at the fire escape.

 

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Today I finished The Telenovela Method by Andrew Tracey, a Kindle e-book on a version of language learning via the immersion method at home.  I have read a lot of material about this method, and this book offers absolutely nothing new.  What it does offer are lots of Spanish specific language resources, primarily in the appendices.  The meat of the book is riddled with spelling and grammar errors.  He uses an apostrophe to pluralize on more than one occasion and often goes on for pages with absolutely no end-marks, only commas.  There were also many times where he would add the dreaded "haha" to the end of his stream-of-consciousness-like diatribes.  I found myself mentally correcting almost every sentence as I went along, which was rather frustrating and exhausting.  If you're looking for information on this method, I would recommend reading Khatzumoto's blog, All Japanese All the Time, and then reading either the appendices of this book or the blog that it was created from for more Spanish specific resources.  Nevertheless, I'm grateful that I borrowed this book via Kindle lending rather than spending $9.99 for it.  

 

Now, back to Orange is the New Black.   

 

 

 

1. The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright

2. Winnie Mandela: Life of Struggle by Jim Haskins

3. Herbal Antibiotics by Stephen Harrod Buhner

4. When Did White Trash Become the New Normal? by Charlotte Hays

5. Family Herbal by Rosemary Gladstar

6. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare

7. Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide by Rosemary Gladstar

8. The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

9. War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

10. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

11. The Telenovela Method by Andrew Tracey

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Shudder.

 

While I love bats conceptually, I have had bat issues in a summer cottage that have driven me, well, batty. 

 

I was complaining about the bats to my elderly neighbor who recalled how bats flew through the top floor of a dorm where he resided.  In warm weather, the boys left all of the doors open for air circulation.  He said that at some point in the study filled evenings, someone would holler "Bat!" and a crew of boys would rush to the hall with squash rackets, gently persuading the creature to exit the building at the fire escape.

 

 

I'll join you in shuddering. But the the apparent oxymoron of the bolded made me :smilielol5:

 

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I recently finished the historical romance  A Wicked Pursuit: A Breconridge Brothers Novel by Isabella Bradford.  It was a pleasant story, and I learned a new word -- rebarbative (definition below).

 

"As the eldest son of the Duke of Breconridge, Harry Fitzroy is duty-bound to marry—and marry well. Giving up his rakish ways for the pleasures of a bride’s bed becomes a delightful prospect when Harry chooses beautiful Lady Julia Barclay, the catch of the season. But a fall from his horse puts a serious crimp in his plans. Abandoned by Julia before he can propose, the unlucky bachelor finds himself trapped in the country in the care of Julia’s younger sister.
 
Harry has never met a woman like Lady Augusta. Utterly without artifice, Gus is clever and capable, and seems to care not a fig for society. After a taboo kiss awakens passion that takes them both by surprise, Harry realizes he’d almost given his heart to the wrong sister. While London tongues wag, he’ll use his most seductive powers of persuasion to convince the reluctant Gus that she belongs with him—as his equal, his love, his wife."

 

From the context in the book, I'd thought rebarbative meant bedbound; however, I was wrong since it means repellent.  I guess that unabridged dictionary does have its uses!

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

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I'll join you in shuddering. But the the apparent oxymoron of the bolded made me :smilielol5:

 

 

 

I had a similar reaction.

OK.  Maybe not so gently persuading.... The elderly neighbor actually displayed his twacking technique but I did not want our gentle readers concerned with animal cruelty to be alarmed.  :smash:

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In the bag of library books ready to go back to the library?  In the loo?  Fallen between the bed and the wall?  (This is only a possibility if it is a loved book that she might have been reading in bed.)  Cleverly hidden between the bed and the wall?  (This is only a possibility if it is a hated book that your DD might have wanted to hide.)  

 

:lol:

 

I hope you aren't offended if I follow the Catholic tradition of asking St. Anthony to help find it.  It's usually very effective.  

 

Well it is still MIA!  I am stumped and so is dd!  Science is one of her favorite subjects so it is not cleverly hidden  :D

 

Yes. He saw the orthopedic doctor this morning. Surgery will be next Tuesday, the 25th. After the surgery he'll need to wear a splint for 4 weeks. 

 

He knows how to use a knife and he knows what he did wrong. Neither dh nor I said anything. No need to beat him while he's down. Hopefully he learned from something that wasn't as bad as it could have been.

 

:grouphug:  Will pray that all goes well!

 

I think we should all meet at Flufferton Abbey.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Does it have a large library?  Tea?  Dan Stevens?  Well, then count me in!  I believe we could talk in some Regency English there  :lol:

 

Finished The Hot Zone last night. That's a scary proposition, isn't it? :blink:

 

 

 

Dh read this last year and felt the same, actually he had to fight a bit of germophobia after reading it.

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:crying:

 

Fwiw, I've heard that using a feather duster for the same purpose is helpful if a bat or bird ever gets inside & needs to be gently persuaded to go back out....

 

We use long handled fishing nets to capture birds or bats in the house .  I have experience with both!  A feather duster may shoo an animal a bit--but not necessarily in the direction you want them to go!  The problem with bats is that some are rabid.  You really don't want to handle them physically.

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We use long handled fishing nets to capture birds or bats in the house .  I have experience with both!  A feather duster may shoo an animal a bit--but not necessarily in the direction you want them to go!  The problem with bats is that some are rabid.  You really don't want to handle them physically.

 

Yeah, I know. Still, I hope they aren't rabid & can make it safely back outdoors.

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Yeah, I know. Still, I hope they aren't rabid & can make it safely back outdoors.

 

Absolutely.  Bats eat mosquitoes!  We chase them onto the screen porch, close the door to the house then liberate them through the open door.  Or we free them from the net out of doors.  I would never purposely kill a bat but I hate having them in my bedroom!  Unfortunately they were visiting me too often in the family cottage.  It really made me uncomfortable when one of my grand nephews (a toddler) was sleeping in the house.

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We had an owl come down the chimney once. An open umbrella did the trick. Scared us to death though. It was waay back when Twin Peaks was on tv. The owl in the show was a prominent and ominous theme. We heard a noise in the middle of the night and my dh peeked around the corner and this owl was hanging onto a picture frame staring him in the face. You should have heard us scream. :scared:

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We had an owl come down the chimney once. An open umbrella did the trick. Scared us to death though. It was waay back when Twin Peaks was on tv. The owl in the show was a prominent and ominous theme. We heard a noise in the middle of the night and my dh peeked around the corner and this owl was hanging onto a picture frame staring him in the face. You should have heard us scream. :scared:

 

Oh my gosh, that is a fantastic story! As an owl lover I would have been over the moon though actually having one in your home would up the adrenalin a little :lol: Do you recall what kind it was?

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Oh my gosh, that is a fantastic story! As an owl lover I would have been over the moon though actually having one in your home would up the adrenalin a little :lol: Do you recall what kind it was?

 

Given the response of Shawne and her husband, it should have been a screech owl!

 

Regards,

Kareni

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Given the response of Shawne and her husband, it should have been a screech owl!

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

You know, you might be correct in your assumption as screech owls are small, somewhere between 7-10 inches tall, and could easily fit down a chimney and hang out on a picture frame. Cuteness alert ahead... :D

 
 

 

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