Would You Please Comment?

Would it help if I added a prompt?      Or a multiple choice option?     I thought it would be fun to highlight a few bloggers and their posts about comments and to see what happens if I gave a post the title that you see.

First, Dorte H and her post about comments for BIP (more about BIP in a second)     You will also see the inspiration there for what you see here:

Dorte reads a bunch of crime fiction and a lot this fiction is not written in English so I always feel bad about not commenting much at her blog even though she is awesome about stopping by here and saying hello.   And she’s just awesome, anyway.  :)

Which brings me to Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness who is sponsoring an ambitious and wildly successful challenge called BIP:   the Blog Improvement Project.  I like Kim because we share similar tastes in reading – both fiction and nonfiction.    I’m attempting to be a cheerleader and am not actively participating because, honestly?   I really don’t care about improving my blog.   I like it just fine and couldn’t think of any goals for it other than to keep it real and keep it fun.

Finally, if you want to comment, great, I thank you and will hopefully not get too overwhelmed to visit your blog in return – I do like to do that.   I also like to comment my own response within your comment, so do come back and see what I’ve said back.   If you want.   That’s hard for me – to remember that I left something witty or asked a question and oh crap!  What post was that where?!?!     I often forget to check back on my comments to see what the blog owner has said and I’ll discover it a week or too later and feel bad.  oh well.   Especially if they asked a question!    If you ask me a specific question, I will try not only to respond within the comment here on my blog but send you an email.

Where was I?    Oh Multiple Choice Options:

A.   What is your favorite way to respond to comments on your blog?

B.  Does your blogging platform tell you when another blogger has linked to you and then do you run over and thank them for the linky-love or do you not even realize it then feel bad when  you discover it?  (WordPress used to be really good about this but then they changed something and now any blog that lists me in their blogroll is in my notification section and so I’ve been forgetting to look there.)

C.   If you link to another blog do you run over and tell them in whatever is their top post or do you hope their blogging-analytics notifies them?   (I’m bad at this – like I probably won’t tell Dorte and Kim that I did this post – is that rude?  or sneaky?  just to wait to see if they find it?)

D.   Do you think that I should have combined option B and C into one option?

E.   What kind of pie is your favorite AND/OR what is the last kind/flavor of pie you have eaten?    I made an Alice Colombo’s Race Day Chocolate Pecan Pie (page 328 of Pie by Ken Haedrich) and an Orange Meringue Pie for Easter.    I love pie.    Don’t you!?

THANK YOU DEAR BLEADERS!!!   (Blog + Reader = Bleader;   from Julie and Julia – I loved the book by Julie Powell, soon to be a movie.)

Happy Easter Pie and Weekly Geeks

I spent last night and most of today so far making PIE!

One of the pies is featured in this book:

Written or is it prepared?!  by Ken Haedrich – it’s really good!    He has a wonderfully informal easy-breezy style and is not afraid to tell you to GO-READ-PAGE-# if it’s for something you don’t already know.     In other words, he doesn’t assume you already know a lot which is what most cookbooks do.     I am toying with the idea to set a lifetime goal of trying every recipe in this book.    With 300+, I should be busy for more than a few years.

Weekly Geeks this week is about cookbooks…   Go here to find out more!

The pie I made last night is a Chocolate Pecan:

It looks like a cookie, doesn’t it?   I have a bourbon whipped cream to serve with it…

The other pie that I made this morning is Orange Meringue and is NOT in the book!   My Aunt Judy whose birthday might be today or yesterday, I’ve already forgotten -egads!   sent me this…  I will be tweaking it before I make it again because the steps are confusing.

This is my stirring the orange pudding-like pie filling for the Orange Meringue.

I did MUCH better this time with the meringue!   The trick is a small spatula.

I have to go get pretty now and head off to the party where we can dive into these desserts after the big meal.   Happy Easter!

Review Still Alice

Review   Still Alice by Lisa Genova 2007, 2009 Pocket Books/Simon & Shuster, 292 pages

This is a novel of a Harvard professor who is diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 50.    Told from the viewpoint of Dr. Alice Howland, we are taken on an emotional and fast journey of how this disease affects her and her family.

“Full of heartbreaking believability…Genova shows us that when you lose your mind, you still have your heart.”

– Carla Lucchetta, Globe and Mail

After the first few pages, I was prepared not to like the main character, Alice.  I was very unhappy with how she was treating her youngest daughter and I was suspecting that she was just one of those over-educated overly ambitious snobs who thinks everyone has to go to college.     (I hate that.)

I don’t know if Genova was setting me up to confront my own prejudices or what, but overall she was extremely successful at making me feel what Alice was feeling and I didn’t feel like I was manipulated as a reader.   When Alice has her first episode of disorientation only a few blocks from the home she’s lived in for years, I was right there experiencing it, too.    I was scared.  Once she receives her diagnosis, it was no longer an issue of whether or not I liked Alice – I was along for that lonely, lonely ride with her.

I was impressed with the character development;  all within less than 300 pages, we get a front row seat to Alice’s mental state, her husband’s reactions and fears, and how her three adult children deal with the dilemma of watching their mother disappear.  The kids don’t get a lot of words devoted to them and they do cover the variety of reaction stances  - –  yet they felt authentic.     I did not find it clumsy nor too technical, either – a criticism I had been somewhat expecting based on other (not-blogger!) reviews.     In fact, the research studies and medical terms made it all the more real.

Yes, I cried.      And this was the fastest book I’ve read yet this year (less than 48 hours.)       I recommend it.

My new-to-me book club will be discussing this on Thursday, April 16.    I have gone on to give this book to another friend and have recruited her to join me at the book club meeting – I think it’s open to anyone, this will be my first attendance, so we will see!   the more the merrier?   Hope so.

Lisa Genova self-published this, got an endorsement by the Alzheimer’s Association [www.alz.org]and apparently got picked up for more printings by Simon and Schuster.    Her next book highlights another disorder – one unknown to me – called Left Neglect.   You can read more about the author and her books here.     And do check out the tab for the Still Alice Bag!  (I’d link but she has an umbrella url so it doesn’t link up directly to what I ‘m referring to.)   Remember that post about books mentioned by books?    Genova says that one inspiration for her becoming an author was Oliver Sacks – -  I have The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat in house and can’t wait to get started on it soon for the Science Challenge.

OH!    after poking around more on the www.stillalice.com website, I see an event at the Eldridge Public Library in Chatham Mass scheduled for Wed, April 15!    What do you think?   Should I go?

Another review:   Lesley’s Book Nook

Happy Birthday Brother!

Today is my brother Doug’s birthday.   

   Hope it’s a happy one! 

Wow Bro! That's A BIG Fish!

 

My big brother reads to me...

Books Mentioned in Books

I’ve mentioned before that I hope to read Moby Dick someday.    I have a copy that belonged to my father-in-law, as well as the notes and first draft of a book report of some sort he wrote in college.    I have a mental commitment to complete this novel in 2009…

Ok.   Yea, so!?

In the book I just finished, I read a reference to Moby Dick and it’s just one more sign, one more reminder that I just gotta read this!    It’s in Still Alice (by Lisa Genova) as one of the books that the main character always thought she’d have plenty of time in her life to eventually read…

and then, it happened again.   Not with Moby Dick but with another book that I feel I need to read:    The Awakening by Kate Chopin.     However, the reference in Still Alice for this one was a mention of Edna Pontellier and I had noted it as one of those names I guess I’m supposed to know but don’t.

I just opened the Wikipedia site to find out who this Edna chick is and find that she’s the main character of The Awakening.  One more reminder  –>  I gotta read this book!

Does this ever happen to you?   Has it happened lately?   do tell!!

Wordless Wednesday

New England Bloggers

I am adding my blog to the list over at Elizabeth’s blog to identify myself as a New England Blog!    (Is is OK to use the word blog three times in one sentence?)   These aren’t all book bloggers, but that’s not a big deal, is it?    

Here’s the button!

Chartroose suggested when I announced my commitment to blog every day in April that I keep ‘em short.    So…   Here we go.

   

If you’ve heard any rumors about a Mass area book blogger meeting, I’d love to hear of it?

I Have A Fan

I am delighted to introduce you to one of my favorite people!   Meet Madeline.    She is one of my tutees -  I’ve been teaching her how to use the internet and email.    She is really getting the hang of it and is LOT OF FUN to work with.

I won’t tell you how old she is – because that’s just not proper…    Aint she gorgeous?   Wahoo!!   (Yes, I asked her if it would be OK to post her photo and she answered, “I don’t care.”)

The other day, she was telling me she spent hours reading my blog!   And she had so many compliments for me – she really pumped me up and made me feel so special.

She was so cute to tell me this, and I quote:

“How many people read this!?    It’s so good – we really need to tell more people so they know about it!”

When I shared that I had readers from all over the world stopping by and reading my book reviews, she marvelled at the reach of our little book blogosphere.

So my next challenge is to encourage her to leave a comment…  THEN I’ll try to get her to start her own blog!    (She’s currently reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.   Her favorite books are the Anne of Green Gables series.)

Thank you Madeline for being my number one fan!   I think YOU are pretty special.   See you Thursday!

This is Ms. Madeline looking at my blog    – - photo op, had to take it…

Go Visit Kim

I wanted to give a shout out to Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness today;  please go visit her blog and enter her giveaway to celebrate Buy A Friend A Book Week.

She is hoping to encourage a shared reading experience and is hoping The Orchid Thief will be a great book for discussion.   I read this nonfiction work by Susan Orlean this year and enjoyed it very much.   My review is here.

In honor of this auspicious occasion, I will be sending my friend Wendy  a book I reviewed last month:  Atwood’s The Blind Assassin.

The weather is gorgeous so I’m off to buy some flowers so I can play outside today.   Happy Spring!    Happy “Buy-A-Friend-A-Book” Week!

Weekly Geeks 2009-13

We have options for this week’s GEEK;  I’ve selected Option A “Be a Kid!”

On one of my substitute teaching days, I found a book on the desk of the 5th grade math teacher I was in for and it was delightful!

 Math Curse    by Jon Scieszka, 1995 Viking Juvenile, 32 pages

Taken directly from the fantasticfiction website (click here):

Arrgh! Does tunafish plus tunafish equal fourfish? A girl finds herself trapped in a math curse when her teacher tells the class they can think of almost anything as a math problem. Soon she sees math everywhere. Scieszka and Smith join forces again to create another lunatic masterpiece, and adults will writhe in sympathy as they remember their own math curses.

It’s delightful – oh, I’ve already said that.   I would recommend if for 8 – 11 year olds who have a curious mind and funky sense of humor.