Ali in OR Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 I got to hear the Music Man quote many times this winter when dd danced in a production. Dh got the MW book for her for her birthday in a couple of weeks. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 I went through a weird phase in early high school where I decided to read all the great novels of the English language. In order, starting at the beginning. :huh: I don't know where I got ahold of the list, but I did read Robinson Crusoe, Pamela, Tom Jones, and Tristam Shandy before I ran out of gas on the project and leapfrogged ahead to Austen and Dickens. They all kind of run together in my head now, but I do recall that some of them were significantly more risque than Victorian novels. Not in a sexual sense, but just more free and easy, less morally repressed if that makes sense. ETA: I meant to add, that it wasn't until I found the WTM boards that I discovered another human being who had ever heard of Tristam Shandy or Pamela, much less read them! I love you guys. :cheers2: :grouphug: Love you too, sweetheart! When I was 10 I discovered my mother's school text "Adventures in English Literature" (ed Inglis, publication date in the 1930's) and used it as a guidebook in a similar exploration. ...since it was intended for high school students, there was no Cleland, but I certainly wasn't ready for everything I encountered... and the shelves in our home were less censored than the text (though still no Cleland...) Right, I'm definitely reading The Worm in the Bud when I finish the two books I'm on. I notice it starts with a double page "Sin Map of London in Victorian Times." Is that this: The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality ? Which Amazon describes as "This classic book on Victorian hypocrisy reveals the other side of Victoria's Britain, and what really went on behind the lace curtains and aspidistras. Ronald Pearsall exposes, with thorough documentation, the bald facts of sex-life (approved and illicit) among the aristocracy, the middle class and poor in the nineteenth century. His curious record is honest, entertaining, and very humorous. It also reflects the conflicting values of the Victorian double standard - one is the very image of respectability, the other is an underground world in which repressions sought their outlet in depravity and licentiousness" I don't think I want to read it myself, but I do want to hear what you think of it when you are done! My Kindle refreshed its last page a few days ago... I had no idea they only lasted a couple years or so, although it shouldn't have been a surprise... I wandered around lost, wondering what would happen next... Existential angst - that's what. I thought of all the lovely hardbacks we donated before the moves and my heart sank. Why? Why had we recklessly discarded so many books? I tried to decide if it was worth it, this lightening of the load...I wandered past our shelves of books we deemed worthy of transport, out the door, and into a bookshop. Life. Why does a physical book seem to have more life? I will replace the Kindle because it has its place. A total replacement, however, it is not. Good luck with the move and good for you for packing the books! I'm so thankful for the ones we kept. I love our Kindles, really really love them... and the security of being able to redownload them is soothing. ...but they have not decreased our physical book collections. And, VC, a side benefit (should you ever consider an ereader) is not having to cull the shelves for the not-for-the-kids books! ;) Unfortunately I have no idea if it is for a few weeks, a few months or a few years. As things stand today I will be living with my grandparents with most of my stuff in storage. Hopefully I will hear about a studio apartment next week but it is probably about half the size of my current place. Housing where I am moving to is...scares. Right now it looks like I a person number 2000-ish on the waiting list and it takes about 3 years to get a place. So unless I win the lottery...who knows when I will see most of my books again. Thanks for all the commiserations everyone. :grouphug: Even without the inaccessible books that seems an inherently stressful situation. I hope the move is a beautiful blessing for you and the logistics less daunting than they appear now. (And that you are reunited with your books soon!) :grouphug: Teacherzee, I hope your books come out of storage quickly and that you have your own place soon. I lost many books in our move. While I have stuffed bookshelves and boxes in the garage I will always miss what I lost. I filled a bookshelf at my mom's with things I hadn't read, really dumb move. I should have filled it with favourites because I still haven't read them. I think we've lost books in every move I've ever made... If I had fewer books, this would inspire me to do an inventory before and after each move... The losses that bothered me the most were ~18 years ago after our major car accident. I culled over half our library, and about half the the remainder was boxed up and stored with various family members. Some of the boxes got mixed up by kind people helping to move them and 'keep' boxes were donated. I wish I'd kept a list...I wish I hadn't assumed I could always use a library (some of them were books only university libraries seem to have) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idnib Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Unfortunately I have no idea if it is for a few weeks, a few months or a few years. As things stand today I will be living with my grandparents with most of my stuff in storage. Hopefully I will hear about a studio apartment next week but it is probably about half the size of my current place. Housing where I am moving to is...scares. Right now it looks like I a person number 2000-ish on the waiting list and it takes about 3 years to get a place. So unless I win the lottery...who knows when I will see most of my books again. Thanks for all the commiserations everyone. :grouphug: This sounds so stressful. I'm glad you can land at your grandparents' place and I hope you are reunited with your books sooner rather than later. ETA: I thought of this week when I bought some Swedish fabric. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 This is the EXACT spot I was standing when I got the phone call saying that we had an adoption match for DS. He was born 6 days later. :grouphug: How amazing to be there again... with him. ...and isn't it incredible how vividly some moments embed themselves in our psyches? I cried when a local Barnes and Noble closed because when I took their escalator I could revisit my last conversation with my Grandmother. I sometimes wonder if that vivid experience of memory connects with vivid experiences of reading. There's the distance - knowing it is a book or a memory - but also an intensity that can give me the emotional responses of reality. That isn't is exactly. Maybe it is more like the mix of familiar and new when going in person to a place you've only ever 'seen' in books. Anyway, welcome back, love! ...and thank you for sharing some of the images and memories of your trip. I finished The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Of all the books I have read this year, this is the one I want to come back to in a few years. First of all, there were sentences of such beauty that I had to just put the book down and think for a bit. Second, I feel like there were so many things happening between the several plots, that I might have missed some of it, or missed some connections. There was a..depth to the book that makes me want to go back when I have gained some distance and see it with new eyes. There was one plot thread I didn't find as compelling, but it ended up all working for me in the end. *********** The Golden Notebook (This one is going to take a while, but it is growing on me....300 pages in) How explicit and how harrowing are the hard parts in TNRttDN? (And is there any connection to either Basho or Bond?) ************ You're amazing. I don't think I could keep going 300 pages waiting for a book to start growing on me. I ditched TGN very early on. I felt guilty, and I've meant to try again... and I'm eager to hear your concluding thoughts when you've finished... Now I feel as if I'd corrupted the morals of the youth of Athens. And lest I make the situation worse, the fact is Cleland is far milder than the books Rousseau was talking about, none of which as far as I know were ever reprinted but are sometimes available in university libraries. I took a class on this subgenre of English and French literature once (our prof had to photocopy the originals; I wonder what the folks at Kinko's thought), and am well-assured that 50 Shades is quite derivative.<snip>I'm glad that when I read Jean Genet's Funeral Rites a year or so ago, nobody Googled that. But if you do, I have a whole list of vulgar lit for anybody who's interested. Rabelais, Boccaccio, Bataille... LOL. In fact when Great Girl was able to read fluently, dh and I went through our library and culled all the Inappropriate Books that she might stumble on. I regret selling Our Lady of the Flowers; Henry Miller, not so much. :lol: Your reading has been much broader than mine... How explicit is Genet? ...I feel a need for a comparison chart for some of these so I can gauge where I'd be venturing into stories I don't want to encounter. Rabelais and Boccaccio I can do - at least what I remember of them from decades ago. They're on my list of books I know I want to revisit as an adult. Cleland is out of my comfort zone (from what I know of him), and I'm fairly confident the brown paper wrapper books are completely out of range. Also I don't think anyone's mentioned Richardson, who was considered in his day the greatest of English novelists but who has somewhat passed from the scene. Pamela is still read sometimes but Clarissa--which I prefer--not so much, in part because of its length. He was the master of the epistolary novel, an endless source of interest to critics for the opportunities to talk about texts spawning texts in geometric profusion as the plot, quite literally, unfolds. I haven't come back to Richardson since my early encounters with him. Clarissa was certainly more powerful a story than Pamela, but I found it intensely difficult to read - it could just be how young I was, and how hyper-sensitive a reader - it felt claustrophobic to me, with Clarissa so *trapped* and the situation devolving so nightmarishly... but that could have been me as the reader. I do, however, have an enormous fondness for epistolary novels... and I keep thinking I should come back to Richardson as a grown-up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 I accept! :cheers2: Hmm...choosing...I can't handle the pressure of choosing.... I'll let you choose! Mysteries is my favorite, but The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne is super short. Of course there are others in-between. If you read Athlin and Dunbayne, please know it's not her best work! Well let's be honest here: insofar as "best" is taken as the superlative of "good," it's not at all clear that there is a "best" Radcliffe. Oh, what horrible thing is behind that curtain??!! It's... 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Eliana: Genet is pretty darn explicit. But he certainly doesn't want his reader to be comfortable. I deny that my reading is broader than yours; for one thing, you read at about ten times my speed! :) 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Well let's be honest here: insofar as "best" is taken as the superlative of "good," it's not at all clear that there is a "best" Radcliffe. Oh, what horrible thing is behind that curtain??!! It's... I stand corrected... What?!? Is there no curtsey emoticon? Not even a bow or a tipping hat...Horrors! I feel faint... 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Don't worry! We'll catch you before your head bangs into the marble mantle or the brass andirons! ;) :001_tt2: ETA: I usually use this one in like circumstances: :gnorsi: 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 But if it does, just before you swoon into unconsciousness you will glimpse a dim form, possibly of a handsome man whose face is obscured, breaking your fall. You will find out who he is in three hundred or so pages. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Oh, what horrible thing is behind that curtain??!! It's... For a moment I confused this with the oak parlor, but only for a moment. I promise. Cross my heart... (Chocolate to the first to name the book with the oak parlor...) 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 But if it does, just before you swoon into unconsciousness you will glimpse a dim form, possibly of a handsome man whose face is obscured, breaking your fall. You will find out who he is in three hundred or so pages. :lol: :lol: :lol: 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 For a moment I confused this with the oak parlor, but only for a moment. I promise. Cross my heart... (Chocolate to the first to name the book with the oak parlor...) Well, a quick google search is turning up oak parlors in multiple Radcliffe novels. They seem to be an important part of the set? 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Well, a quick google search is turning up oak parlors in multiple Radcliffe novels. They seem to be an important part of the set? THE Oak Parlor. Central to the whole book. It's the only one I know of so central... (Correct me if I'm mistaken!) (Hint: I'm pretty sure you've read the book, Rose...which rules out...) 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 The Forsaken Inn!!!!! (I was faked out at first b/c I thought we were looking for Radcliffe novels) 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 The Forsaken Inn!!!!! (I was faked out b/c I thought we were looking for Radcliffe novels) You were still remarkably quick. I obviously gave too many hints! hmph ;) 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Ha! Don't try and wiggle out of it! Where's my chocolate, lady? :toetap05: :001_tt2: :D (My dds are wondering why I keep cracking up and talking back to the computer today . . . thanks for such a fun BAW thread, everybody!) 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 What?!? Is there no curtsey emoticon? Not even a bow or a tipping hat...Horrors! I feel faint... Look ~ a curtsying emoticon. and a bow ~ and a hat tip ~ Regards, Kareni 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Boy, there's one of everything out there ~ Note: No real animals were harmed in the copying of this emoticon. Regards, Kareni 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I FINISHED LES MIS!!!!!! That's 52 books so far this year :) 18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Congratulations on finishing Les Miserables, Heather. Are you more happy to have read it or to be finished with it? I finished a far less challenging book today ~ Shannon Stacey's contemporary romance Under the Lights (A Boys of Fall Novel), It was an enjoyable read. "They were the golden boys of fall: Stewart Mills High School’s legendary championship winning football team. Fourteen years later, they’re back to relive their glory, save the team—and find themselves again…Chase Sanders’s life has taken a lot of crazy turns lately. But returning to his hometown to help his old coach keep his high school football team afloat might be the craziest thing to happen to him yet. That is, until he starts falling for the last person he should—Coach’s gorgeous daughter…Kelly McDonnell learned the hard way that cocky, charming men are nothing but trouble, so she knows Chase is bad news. Still, she can’t resist his smile—or the rest of him. But when his loyalty to her father conflicts with their growing attraction, any hope for a relationship might be blocked before it can even begin…" Regards, Kareni 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Congratulations on finishing Les Miserables, Heather. Are you more happy to have read it or to be finished with it? I'm happy to have read it. Even the parts where he droned on about convent living and the sewers of Paris were interesting and, really, quite educational. There were a few sentences that just evoked the most lovely imagery. I really liked it. I'm even more of a Gavroche and Eponine fan now and dislike Marius more than I did before. And I think Cosette is ridiculous. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I'm happy to have read it. Even the parts where he droned on about convent living and the sewers of Paris were interesting and, really, quite educational. There were a few sentences that just evoked the most lovely imagery. I really liked it. I'm even more of a Gavroche and Eponine fan now and dislike Marius more than I did before. And I think Cosette is ridiculous. My daughter and I read Les Miserables together when she was in ninth grade (she was a big Les Mis fan), and I'm happy to have read it also. I always heard dreary warnings about the sewers, but I didn't find that section to be so daunting. Had you based your previous thoughts on the characters from the musical? or from films? Regards, Kareni 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maela Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I FINISHED LES MIS!!!!!! That's 52 books so far this year :) Congratulations! That's a long one!! And 52 books... I just finished book 17 ;-). Miss Minimalist: Inspiration to Downsize, Declutter, and Simplify. Quick and easy reading. I never get tired of reading about minimalism. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Had you based your previous thoughts on the characters from the musical? or from films? Both. I wanted to punch Marius in the face reading the actual book. Multiple times. I didn't think he could be worse in the book than in the musical. I actually liked Cosette before. Now I do not. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Finished David Copperfield. Here's a passage that has been on my mind, in which James Steerforth addresses our narrator: 'Tut, it's nothing, Daisy! nothing!' he replied. 'I told you at the inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I have been a nightmare to myself, just now - must have had one, I think. At odd dull times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognized for what they are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who "didn't care", and became food for lions - a grander kind of going to the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been creeping over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself.' ---------- So this bad boy who didn't care and was eaten by a lion--wasn't that a book, "Pierre," by Maurice Sendak? Written somewhat later than Dickens' day? What's up with this? 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 So this bad boy who didn't care and was eaten by a lion--wasn't that a book, "Pierre," by Maurice Sendak? Written somewhat later than Dickens' day? What's up with this? But were they serving chicken soup with rice to David Copperfield? Regards, Kareni 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Last night I finished Renovation by Lane Robins which I enjoyed. My library has it categorized as fantasy which I can understand because the main character has the ability to experience memories when he touches people or objects; however, I'd categorize it as a mystery. "JK Lassiter moved to Dallas for a chance at a normal life. But normal is a hard thing to come by when he’s at the mercy of the rogue psychic power that robbed him of a decade of friendships and joy. At twenty-eight he’s finally making up for those lost years. He’s landed a job renovating a long-neglected house. He’s met eccentric neighbors, made new friends, and after sexy man-next-door, Nick Collier, shows up, he’s even begun to hope that romance might not be impossible.But when JK’s extra-sensory abilities reveal evidence of a brutal crime, he finds himself embroiled in a murder investigation and feels his dream of attaining a normal life slipping away again. Even worse, the list of suspects starts with JK’s new neighbors, his new friends, and, as far as the police are concerned, ends with Nick. Now with the lives of people he cares for on the line, JK he must fight to control the abilities he never wanted to hunt down a killer." There is adult content and a romance between two men. Regards, Kareni 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 In honor of Father's Day, would any one care to share favorite books of one or more of their favorite fathers? Not your question, really, but when I read this I started thinking about my father's literary influence on me and the books I associate with him. Two picture books he read often to us: The Great Blueness (why is this oop?) and Troll Music Frequently quoted authors: Homer, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Hegel, Kant, ee cummings Books he's given me that he said were special to him: Notes from a Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens Five: Where will you be five years from today? Books he's given me that he found fun: Police at the Funeral - Allingham Triple Jeopardy- Stout Beekeeper's Apprentice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 So this bad boy who didn't care and was eaten by a lion--wasn't that a book, "Pierre," by Maurice Sendak? Written somewhat later than Dickens' day? What's up with this? I associate the story with Belloc and his send up of Victorian era cautionary tales: Cautionary Tales for Children. Belloc, of course, post-dates Dickens, but I think his source materials were from Dicken's era. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I FINISHED LES MIS!!!!!! That's 52 books so far this year :) :party: Eliana: Genet is pretty darn explicit. But he certainly doesn't want his reader to be comfortable. Maybe explicit isn't the right word. Erotic books are outside my comfort zone, but I guess explicitness is more contextual. I don't avoid all discomfort, and there are stories which would be poorer for more restraint or protection of the reader's comfort level. (A modern one that comes to mind is Purge,which Jane and I read the other year.) ...but a story which needs such explicitness on a large percentage of its pages is unlikely to be one for which I have the necessary capacity. I've contemplated trying Genet several times, but haven't ventured to yet. I'm not doing a very good job articulating a focused question, but I would appreciate any further input you might offer. Thank you! (And if you ever wanted to write a guide to R-rated (or beyond) non-modern literature, I'd love to read it!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Hello my friends. Let us hope we have a better week than the last. My personal hope is that I can demonstrate a sliver of the grace shown by members of the Mother Emmanuel community in Charleston. "(T)hey lived in love and their legacies will live in love, so hate won't win." Amen. How do we attain that? I strive for empathy, for compassion, for seeing other viewpoints, for accepting everything which comes to me as a gift.. but I don't know (and hope never to learn) if I have the strength to offer love for hate when that hate has killed, and those killed are dear to me. I don't think it would bring me to a place of hate myself, or even anger, but I suspect the road from grief to acceptance to the possibility of love would be a long one for me. When I read Slonczewski's sci-fi which puts that kind of grace front and center, I always feel a mix of yearning and incapacity... as if my vessel were, as yet, too small to contain such a largeness of spirit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onceuponatime Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I finished The Pluto Files and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a fascinating chronicle of a slice of history by someone who was intimately involved as it happened, and it was amusing in parts too. I started the Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart in order to put off finishing Rebecca. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I finished The Pluto Files and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a fascinating chronicle of a slice of history by someone who was intimately involved as it happened, and it was amusing in parts too. I started the Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart in order to put off finishing Rebecca. Because you like it or don't? Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again... 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onceuponatime Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Because you like it or don't? Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again... Because I don't feel like reading it again. It is for a book club that meets next week. I used to love Rebecca and read it multiple times, but I'm not interested at the moment. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Because I don't feel like reading it again. It is for a book club that meets next week. I used to love Rebecca and read it multiple times, but I'm not interested at the moment. Understood. I am always afraid to read a treasured book one too many times, thus ruining the magic... Reading at the wrong time is no good either... 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I'm starting to wonder if it's a good idea to have kids read the classics. Seriously - I read a fair number of them in my tweens, teens, and twenties, but I swear each one I revisit now has so much more going on than I even had the slightest clue of at the time. And they are so connected, which I mostly went over my head at the time, too. I feel like I'm just starting to be equipped to eavesdrop in the Great Conversation. I mean, I guess you have to read them at some point to start having something to make connections with, right? I guess the key is to never, ever let a kid think that they are reading these books to check them off, like they will somehow be "done" with them. Ever. But so much is wasted on the young . . . Yes! I am now able to listen to the Great Conversation from around the corner with a tin can and a string. I had to live so much life before I started to get it. I think it's good to not approach classics as checklist items. Maybe for our children, we should give them permission to drop classics that don't speak to them and focus deeply on a few that do. My mum fed me a steady diet of kids classics when I was young. I didn't grow up "knowing" there was a difference between classics and "normal" books. I think it is good to have kids read classics so they don't compartmentalise them and become intimidated. Which reminds me of the WEM approach: the first read through is the "grammar stage" introduction to plot and character. Analysis begins with the second reading, i.e. the "logic stage". It is not until the "rhetoric stage" that we readers truly join the Great Conversation. It seems with classics or any piece of art for that matter, one is not really rereading the book, etc. but encountering it anew with fresh eyes from the experience that life brings us. I'm someone who started young with 'the Great Books' and as Rosie says, it ensured that I didn't see them as some special category, they were part of not just my reading life, but my formation of self and the development of my understanding of the world. But, as you've experience, Rose, what I got from them at 9 or 14 or even 23 was a pale shadow of the depths I've found in some of them when I've reencountered them as a more mature adult. ...but I see it as somewhat analogous to a relationship (only not monogamous!). My marriage is as rich and deep as it is because we have this history together... ...where that analogy completely breaks away from my life and my convictions is that with books my relationship with each GB is enhanced, enriched, and deepened by the other GBs I've spent time with. ...and as you say, ibnib, the richer my real life experiences, the more I seem to be able to get from the GBs as well... and putting that together with more years of reading and thinking about GBs, gives more and more awareness of the Great Conversation, and more and more sense that I might, in some tiny way, be on the edges of it myself. Although I haven't embraced the more formal aspects of WEM, I think you're right Jane, that it reflects the fact that for books with so much to offer, a single reading isn't going to give us more than an introduction, a brief orientation. ...much like your traveling analogy (which I seem to have snipped, sorry!). I do favor early introduction of the classics, but I also have eschewed fixed reading lists in our homeschooling. Two of mine homeschooled all the way through (#s 1 &3) and have thus avoided forced completion of books that don't work for them, the others have coped well with required lists when they've encountered them, but one of them has spoken a little about negative impacts of the process. ...and one has let it all roll off of her, though she needed some support with mangled Hamlet experience. (Support = listening ear, sharing of satisfying commentaries, and enthusiastic discussion of some scenes) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Crown Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 I associate the story with Belloc and his send up of Victorian era cautionary tales: Cautionary Tales for Children. Belloc, of course, post-dates Dickens, but I think his source materials were from Dickens' era. I had thought of Belloc, but his Cautionary Tale is missing the "I don't care" aspect of both Dickens and Sendak. I should be more specific: I'm wondering what is the source story Dickens is referring to, and did Sendak get the Pierre concept from that source, or secondhand from Dickens? 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathleen. Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 I read "Writer to Writer" by one of my favorite authors, Gail Carson Levine. My 9yo read an awesome book, "The Spider and the Fly" by Tony DiTerlizzi. :) 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 I know a number here have been following the struggles of eaglei's son. Sad news tonight. Regards, Kareni 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stacia Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 Free Chinese literature (a blog post from A Year of Reading the World) A few quotes from the post... According to Chinese translator collective Paper Republic, only 20 fiction and poetry books were published anywhere in the world in English in 2013. and Starting last week, the collective has promised to publish one translated short story on its website every Thursday for the next year. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 I stayed up way too late last night reading Julie James' Suddenly One Summer. This was a very enjoyable contemporary romance. A few times my husband looked over at me to try to figure out why I was laughing; I'd say this author excels at witty banter. "Divorce lawyer Victoria Slade has seen enough unhappy endings to swear off marriage forever. That doesn't mean she's opposed to casual dating—just not with her cocky new neighbor, who is as gorgeous and tempting as he is off-limits. But once she agrees to take on his sister's case, she's as determined to win as ever—even if that means teaming up with Ford....Investigative journalist Ford Dixon is bent on finding the man who got his sister pregnant and left her high and dry. He's willing to partner with Victoria, despite the fact that the beautiful brunette gets under his skin like no other woman. He might not be looking to settle down, but there's no denying the scorching attraction between them. Still, the more time he spends with Victoria, the more he realizes that the one woman as skeptical about love as he is might be the only woman he could really fall for…" Regards, Kareni 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onceuponatime Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 I finished The Stormy Petrel , which was not so much a romance of people as a romance of nature and a not so subtle bid for leaving nature to do its thing in peace. The descriptions of the scenery were the highlights. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mumto2 Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 Kareni, Thank you for the post here regarding Eaglei's son. Very sad news. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mumto2 Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 I have managed to read more this week then I have lately. Maybe I am coming out of my slump. Some of it was fluff but I did read a couple of Stacia recommendations, Johannes Cabel, and The Infatuations. Both of which I enjoyed overall but had a couple of cringes forme too. I just finished Sharon Bolton's newest book Little Black Lies. While being different from her Lacey Flint series it still packs quite a punch. This really isn't a book for the faint hearted as it is quite upsetting while being utterly fascinating. Some sad scenes involving animals.....The book which is set in the Falklands. Post war and fascinating for its location alone. I have read a few articles about the Falklands and this book seemed to be quite accurate location wise. I feel like I traveled there. The subject matter was disburbing, child abductions in a very small place. This was layered on top of the main character's overwhelming grief because her children had died in a car accident as a result of her best friend's carelessness. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sharon-bolton/little-black-lies-bolton/ 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeacherZee Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 How do we attain that? I strive for empathy, for compassion, for seeing other viewpoints, for accepting everything which comes to me as a gift.. but I don't know (and hope never to learn) if I have the strength to offer love for hate when that hate has killed, and those killed are dear to me. I don't think it would bring me to a place of hate myself, or even anger, but I suspect the road from grief to acceptance to the possibility of love would be a long one for me. When I read Slonczewski's sci-fi which puts that kind of grace front and center, I always feel a mix of yearning and incapacity... as if my vessel were, as yet, too small to contain such a largeness of spirit. Eliana, I think if there is any one person on these boards who shows consistent grace it is you. I often find myself thinking that I wish I was even half as filled with grace as you are in your interactions with others. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aggieamy Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 Kareni - Thanks for letting us know. I hadn't seen the other thread. :( 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stacia Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 mumto2, you are ahead of me on Johannes Cabal. I really haven't done any reading this week, so I'm still sitting at the halfway mark in the book. What did you think of The Infatuations? I feel on the fence about it -- I liked it in some ways & did not like it in others. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mumto2 Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 mumto2, you are ahead of me on Johannes Cabal. I really haven't done any reading this week, so I'm still sitting at the halfway mark in the book. What did you think of The Infatuations? I feel on the fence about it -- I liked it in some ways & did not like it in others. I had wondered where you were in Johannes Cabel. The one part I really disliked is coming up for you really soon. The book finds itself again after being a bit extreme imo so keep reading and you will end up liking it again. I actually went on the holds list for the next one. The Infatuations was interesting. I thought some of her theorizing went on a bit long but at the same time it was well done. I had been happily reading a chapter or two at a time but it was going to be removed from my kindle this morning and I didn't want to have to keep my wifi off so I finished it. To be honest I thought the ending was poor. The light dawns and you do nothing. Nothing, really. No fear, no reporting (I admit that would be difficult) but some reaction seemed needed. While disliking the ending I did like the sort of twist. Yes I had figured it out but was glad when she did. Are my answers ambiguous enough? ;) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 I'm happy to have read it. Even the parts where he droned on about convent living and the sewers of Paris were interesting and, really, quite educational. There were a few sentences that just evoked the most lovely imagery. I really liked it. I'm even more of a Gavroche and Eponine fan now and dislike Marius more than I did before. And I think Cosette is ridiculous. Yes... What is it with a book where the heroine and hero that get a happy ending are the least likable characters in the book! 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 How do we attain that? I strive for empathy, for compassion, for seeing other viewpoints, for accepting everything which comes to me as a gift.. but I don't know (and hope never to learn) if I have the strength to offer love for hate when that hate has killed, and those killed are dear to me. I don't think it would bring me to a place of hate myself, or even anger, but I suspect the road from grief to acceptance to the possibility of love would be a long one for me. When I read Slonczewski's sci-fi which puts that kind of grace front and center, I always feel a mix of yearning and incapacity... as if my vessel were, as yet, too small to contain such a largeness of spirit. I'm hearing you. I think of that Dylan Thomas poem "rage against the dying of the light" although I think the context was different. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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