Read-A-Thon April 10 Weekend!

I just signed up for cheering at the upcoming Read-A-Thon!    I don’t think I can commit to much due to unknowns of life and schedule, but hope to visit everyone, wave the pom pons, yell a Sis Boom READ!

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

Thoughts Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor, The Viking Press 1971, 178 pages.   Checked out from the library – submitted for vote in my IRL book club as part of Books to Movie* Month but lost to A Single Man (please send good wishes to the universe that this is released to DVD before our next meeting because I screwed up and thought it was available – oops!)

I really enjoyed this sad yet comedic tale of an elderly lady who moves into a residence hotel so she would not be too lonely and yet have a place to live her almost last days.    While out walking, staying active and learning more about her new London neighborhood, she takes a tumble outside of a writer’s apartment;  he  kindly rescues her and calls her a taxi.   She strikes up an interesting friendship with the young man and convinces him to pretend he is her grandson so she can show him off to the other residents.    I wish I could suggest that hijinks ensue but alas, it is really just a sad tale and an admonishment that we need to value our family members.

The characterization was wonderful.    The author was excellent at creating and capturing scenes and personalities of all the characters.    I loved Mrs. Palfrey and was touched by her challenges.   In under 200 pages, we get a true sense of the loneliness and pride and idiosyncracies of everyone, young and old.          We get a sense of all the stereotypes of the expectations and realizations of aging yet are exposed to all the pains and joys of life’s various stages.    This is not a sympathetic tale but one more case of ‘it is what it is’.    But OH!   The ending!!    I will only say that I was outraged and so sad – but I didn’t cry.    I share a few favorite passages:

As she waited for prunes, Mrs. Palfrey considered the day ahead.  The morning was to be filled in quite nicely;  but the afternon and evening made a long stretch.  I must not wish my life away, she told herself; but she knew that, as she got older, she looked at her watch more often, and that it was always earlier that she had thought it would be.  When she was younger it had always been later.

She flushed, unnoticed by him, and signalled to the waiter to refill his glass.   She felt up and down about Ludo – uncertain then sure – as she had felt when, so long ago, she had fallen in love with Arthur:  in those earlier days before she had become quite sure.

She did not explain to him  how deeply pessimistic one must be in the first place, to need the sort of optimism she now had at her command.

He opened the book, but no printed page could be powerful against his sense of desolation.

The book jacket – which I read AFTER reading the book, of course – is perfect:   “With comedy and irony all the way, … desperately poignant, … emotionally rich.”     Four pieces of coconut pie.   (because I am craving coconut right now – no other reason, flaky and white and pure and you either love it or you don’t…)

words
SCUNNER p.19 “I’ve taken a scunner against the young.” – feeling of disgust or strong dislike.

THOLE p. 19 “She affected such Scottish words and they made her Scottish husband wince.   He could not thole them, as she would have put it.” – endure (something) without complaint or resistance; tolerate.

DESUETUDE p.130 “Pillared and porticoed now in dazzling white, and with window-boxes of public-gardens flowers of orange and beetroot red, they looked conscious of their rescue from threatened desuetude and decay, looked, for the time being most imposing.” – a state of disuse.   [I knew what it meant but it looked misspelled to me.]

PLONK p. 127 “ “It says, ‘Plonk for all who come,’” Mrs. Post read, her nervousness increased.” ” – cheap wine of inferior quality.

BICKIE p.132 ” “Bickies?” Mrs. de Salis had been to fetch some.  Mrs. Palfrey took one.  Bunty scooped up a handful.” –  some kind of cheesy cracker or biscuit.

SQUIFFY p.152 ” “I musn’t get squiffy,” Mrs. Post said, rather surprised at herself for bringing out such a modish-sounding word. ” – slightly drunk

*  The movie of the same name based on this book was released in 2005 and stars Joan Plowright.  I’m looking forward to viewing this for the Read-Book-See-Movie Challenge.

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HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine

Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Menopause Matters

My mission with this post is two-fold.   I want to preview a book new to the market (I have yet to read, have skimmed a few (more than a few) pages but found it VERY readable) as well as submit my entry to win the FLOW book by Elissa Stein and Susan Kim per The BookLady’s Blog which if you don’t yet know about, you can click HERE to enter.   But you have to hurry – deadline is tomorrow.  (sorry)

First, let’s highlight Menopause Matters:  Your Guide to a Long and Healthy Life,   a nonfiction book by MY doctor, Julia Schlam Edelman, MD, published 2009 by Johns Hopkins University Press and available in many many places.   DO seek it out.

In fact, I just had a followup visit TODAY* where Dr. Edelman and I discussed my satisfaction and my uterus’ (uterus’s?) healing from the endometrial ablation procedure performed last December.

I’ll start from the beginning…

You could say it all began around a summer campfire when one friend was sharing (laughing at with) a story about how our friend C___ called and asked, “Can you tell me again about the Appaloosa?“   when she was really trying to say ABLATION.    Come to find out that three of the five of the women present had happily experienced the solution of an endometrial ablation to problems of heavy erratic bleeding aka menorrhagia.

I thought to myself, “Self, I have heavy bleeding and its ANNOYING (need I repeat how annoying) habit of not coming when the calendar said it ‘should’.”    I not only had an irregularity of periods but I would spot when I was least prepared AND I would have one day of cramps so bad that I couldn’t sleep or worse and was changing tampons every hour.

Yet, on the other hand, I knew I didn’t have it that bad.    Did I?   I knew people suffered worse, didnt’ I?   Still.   What did I really have to put up with?   HOWEVER… these friends of mine (the Appaloosa friend eventually had it done as well) kept saying “It has been the BEST THING I’VE EVER DONE.”

I asked around, found a doctor that was highly recommended, was coached by my friends on what symptoms to say I had, and made the appointment.

Frankly, I admitted that I had heard about the wonder of ablation and caved to peer pressure, “I WANT ONE!”    Dr. Edelman was sympathetic.   Then she submitted me to a barrage of tests to make sure I was worthy.

By that I mean that we proved and disproved a few things to see if an ablation would be the best option for me.   It was.   I found out I was anemic; all this crazy blood loss was draining necessary iron from my system.    I found out I had troublesome fibroids which were disruptive and not normal for female monthly cycling;  I found out I did not have cancerous cells that needed attention  (whew).

What I want to convey is that the situation was NOT one that I went in to see a doc, asked for an ablation and they said, “yes.”   It took a few months and more than a few tests to find out that I was indeed suffering and that an ablation could offer me relief.

I must note that when I told my mother what I was doing, she shared that she wished such things were available to her…      Maybe they were and her doctors didn’t share?    What I hope to offer here is that if anyone thinks they must suffer premenopausal annoyance as a matter of course, ASK the questions!   Don’t assume all is ‘normal’ because we expect things to go  out of whack with our systems as we enter this certain age!    Oh, and don’t assume you have to have a hysterectomy.

I had the Novasure procedure.       It is a brand, a specific procedure of many a variety of different ablation techniques.    Don’t let one person’s experience determine your opinion because there are MANY types of ablations.

Dr. Edelman’s book discusses and explains ALL types and the history of endometrial ablation and shares personal anecdotes from real people.    This is an easy to read and helpful guide.

When I first heard my friends talking about ‘ablation’, I couldn’t find much when I googled.   I even bought a menopause book and was shocked and saddened that it only had one paragraph out of 600+ pages (and the index didn’t list it under “A” for ablation but under “E” for endometrial ablation.  YOU AND I know that discussions even in informal conversation DO NOT use correct medical terminology!!!   One more reason I LOVE Dr. Edelman’s book – the index is impressive and user-friendly.)

It’s now three months since my ablation; my followup appointment confirms it a success – I’m very VERY happy.   I have had extremely small barely-mentionable spotting on that day I would have had my period if the calendar could be trusted and only a few days of back pain that I always wonder if I lifted something wrong.   “Oh yea,  it’s my monthly cycle – take an Advil.”    And I’m good.

I do not feel sad about no longer having my period;  truly, I’m ecstatic.    I didn’t really have any problems or issues with it overall when I did have Aunt-Flo visit – well, at least up until it got long and drawn out and unpredictable and spotty.     I just figured it was because I was over 40.   THANK YOU my DEAR friends for sharing and laughing about that appaloosa confusion so that I could learn about something new, realize that I had similar problems and that a solution was available.

A solution that was not that big of a deal to get through.    The procedure took all of 90 seconds – not that I remember, of course, because I was put under anesthesia but still only spent a morning at the out-patient clinic, home by noon, and told to ‘take it easy’ for the weekend.   (There’s other specific stuff but not all that restrictive – do your own research and respect doctor advice.)

Also, I was not aware how anemic I was and will be taking iron pills for awhile yet.    Not a big deal;  it’s ALL GOOD.

Back to the issue of Flow and the discussion of menstruation.     Lots of the posts are about “the first one”.    I only remember that I was told to consider that to be a man, you had to shave EVERY DAY  and that a woman only had to deal with one week a month.    (I didn’t buy that argument.)    I was also MORTIFIED that my Dad was told and felt it necessary to bring up that I was lucky that I wasn’t an American Indian woman from the Old West Days who had to go spend a week in a tent away from the camp when it was ‘my time of the moon.”   Yea, thanks Dad.   I still wasn’t comforted.

I also remember being shocked to find out that men worked at the companies that sold tampons and pads.      I guess I assumed that only women would run and operate such a business.    I don’t know exactly how old I was then, but it really baffled me!

* Dr. Edelman is just starting her marketing campaign for her book and I was telling her all about my book blog.   I told her I would be honored to read her book (I had read about 10 pages while waiting for the appointment – it’s so readable AND informative).   She seemed eager to learn more about the book blogging community and I told her all about this FLOW discussion.     A book signing opportunity is in the works and believe-you-me, I will be there to cheer her on.    I hope anyone who has concerns about menopause will consider her book as a terrific source of reference and not just base credibility on my little hick blog  – -  Dr. Edelman is VERY impressive, knowledgable and caring.      The goodreads.com description is here.  CLICK!

And no, she’s not giving me anything (I was too shy to ASK for the book! – not too shy to ask if I could be hired to work on her in-the-works blog, but then, I’m a goofball) for giving this plug.    I just like and admire her.  and I THANK her.

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HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine

Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Bird Books, Part 2

For those who may have missed Part 1 of Care’s Bird Book Collection, please stop by the previous post.

Part 2a.
Let’s now explore the least oldest of the three books:  A Guide to Bird Finding [East of the Mississippi] by Olin Sewall Pettingill, Jr., Oxford University Press 1955 (Second Printing; Original 1951)

This one does not smack of ego in any way.   It is designed around the concept of WHERE and how to find birds and organized by State.    All species of birds regularly occurring in these 26 states (and adjacent parts of Canada along the New York and Maine borders) are given proper attention.   The index is helpfully arranged.   (yea, yea; alphabetical)

The migratory movements of landbirds on the Mississippi coast are worthy of special mention.  In the fall, from late July until after the first of November, transient thrushes, vireos, warblers and other small passerine* species can be seen reguarly, peaks of abundance being in September and October.   A marked peculiarity of the fall migration is the presnece of western birds, occasionally in appreciable numbers.

and so on and so forth.     The book actually gives and names and addresses of property owners to ask permission before traversing lands to catch a glimpse of this or that fair feathered friend.     Which made me curious to see how many editions were published of this guide.   [I scamper off to see what I can find...  OK, I'm back.    I found a 1980 edition at the Barnes & Noble site.]

Only a few illustrations – this is NOT a bird identification guide but a WHERE to FIND guide.  I get the impression that Professor Pettingill was courteous and efficient.

Both this book and the Peterson one discussed in Part 1 belonged to a Ms. Mildred A. Ashley.    I did not find anything when I googled this name.     I doubt this book was ever used as a guide – it has the feel of a book that was never opened (except when Mildred signed her name to the first page inside the cover.)

____________________________________________________________________

Part 2b.
Now this book looks charming from the get-go.   The cover has color and a big question mark surrounding a bird.   WHAT BIRD IS THAT? by Frank M. Chapman was published by D. Appleton and Company 1920.    It has had two owners (or three if you count the nursing home):    Helen E.L. Perry and Hope W. Alden, per names written on front pages.

Mr. Chapman was quite the busy ornithologist;  he was Curator of Birds in the American Museum of Natural History and Editor of “Bird-Lore” (which I gather was the magazine published by the Audubon Society.   Let me go check on that…   yes, but allow me to rephrase “… the precursor to what was to become the …”)

This just might have been THE guide to have to identify birds.    and check out the pretty colors:

Another cool find is a sheet of carefully traced birds in the thinnest pencil imagined.   It wouldn’t photograph well, unfortunately.   I wonder if this was Hope or Helen’s work.     Flipping through the pages, I find only one handwritten note – that a Baltimore Oriole was spotted in (near?) Danvers on May 13, 1928.      One small tiny connection to another place and time.

RED-EYED VIREO –  A tireless soliloquest, the Red-eyed Vireo repeats from our shade and fruit trees in endless succession the broken phrases of his monotonous, rambling recitation.    He sings all day and he sings throughout the summer, pausing only to sleep or to swallow the caterpillar he hunts while singing.   Patient, persistent mediocrity is expressed by the Red-eye’s song, and only his nasal, petulant call-note, whang, suggests that he is not altogether satisfied with life as he finds it.

I did have plans for these books but I’m rethinking them.   If anyone has any suggestions (or is a descendent of the owners and you want them back!) please feel free to leave me a comment.

‘

* passerine |ˈpasərin; -ˌrīn| Ornithology      (adjective)     – of, relating to, or denoting birds of a large order distinguished by feet that are adapted for perching, including all songbirds.

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HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine

Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Bird Books, Part 1

As Adhoc Librarian at the Home for the Aged, I was tasked to help get rid of old unwanted non-large print books to make room for newly donated large print books.   We ended up with eleven boxes;   a book-donation/collection charity was kind enough to send a truck.

However, a few boxes came home with me because 1) they said I could have whatever I wanted, 2)  I felt SO BAD discarding books and 3) I couldn’t resist!

Among the historical treasures I rescued are three books on birding.  

The biggest is Birds Over America by Roger Tory Peterson, published in 1948 by Dodd, Mead & Company New York.   I love the first line of the Acknowledgments:

“Inasmuch as I have drawn so freely not only upon the literature of North American birds, but also upon the things I have learned from innumerable friends who share with me the pastime of bird-watching, I cannot give adequate acknowledgments.”

Can you hear a snooty highbrow accent in that?   I sure can.    But wait!   There’s more snooty goodness throughout!   I confess that I quickly consumed many pages – it’s quite readable even if a bit startling (patronizing?) when it mentions female bird watchers…   (Can I count this for the Women Unbound Challenge?)    I get the feeling he was happy to include everyone in any bird conversation, but find his mentioning ‘the girls’ embarrassingly amusing.   Just a typical man of the times?    Or a pig?

“Bird-listing,” or just plain”birding,” call it what you will, is becoming a popular game.  Boys go in for it, of course, but so do many professional men who have only Sundays to spare.   They cruise the roads, scan the lakes, investigate new places, and keep a year-to-year record of what they find.   Housewives, more confined, keep lists of what they see in the backyard.

or

A wren could not make a move on the nest without Prentiss Baldwin knowing about it.   Some say he knew more about a single species of songbird than any other man has ever known;  others contend that this honor goes to Mrs. Margaret Morse Nice*, a former Columbus, Ohio, housewife who watched song sparrows for ten years while she raised a brood of four children of her own.

Oh, something about that sentence really rubs me the wrong way.     the word ‘brood’?    the ten years?  the four kids OF HER OWN?

Why will a dozen boys in a classroom become mildly absorbed when their teacher starts a bird club, but only one or two really take hold?   Many older women are enthusiastic bird watchers, but how is it that so few teen-age girls go in for ornithology?   And why the exceptions – attractive girls like the late Lorene Squire** who became so engrossed in her magnficent waterfowl photography that she lost consciousness of all else whenever she saw a bird she wanted to picture.   On the whole, however, birding is more of a boy’s hobby.

I could quickly get absorbed into the history of Audubon and the first bird club in Cambridge Mass, but I have two more books I want to discuss.     I did find this easy to read; absorbing.  It’s not a technical book much, but a personal sharing of the author’s enthusiasm for birds and an account of his travels as he listed and photographed as many unique birds as possible.   And certainly a book of its times.   Recall that publishing date of 1948:

We have gone through a bad nightmare and have awakend in what we are told is the atomic age.   People are hopeful, frightened and puzzled.   Everyone wants a higher standard of living; they all talk about it, while a few, aware of our diminishing natural resources and a constantly increasing population, believe that if the world gets much more crowded it will burst at the seams and the Malthusian principle may operate on a a global scale.

In a world that seems to have gone mad is it any wonder birds have such appeal?   Birds are, perhaps, the most eloquent expression of reality.

Too bad the photographs are not in color.

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** Lorene Squire does not have a page in Wikipedia but upon googling, I find that her photographs were included in an issue of Time magazine in 1939.    An article she may have written(?), The Meadowlark (Bird Lore 1927) is referenced by the Kansas State Historical Society.

* Margaret Morse Nice DOES have a Wiki page.    She received a BA from Mt Holyoke and her MA in biology from Clark University; had an impressive career in ornithology and was honored around the world for her work.   I’m back to thinking Mr. Peterson was a pig.

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HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine

Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

I Like and I Don’t Like

I’ve been tagged for a meme by one of my bestest book blog buds who was a great encourager when I first started here.     Lisa of Books on the Brain fame has picked me to do this version of “I Like and I Don’t Like.     Let’s go:

(I offer up the words after the red ones…)

I like sunshine.

I like flowers.

I like practicing Yoga.

I like soaking in the hot tub after Yoga.

I like beer.

I like Fridays.

I like dinners out with friends.

I like books.

I like discussing books.

I like Project Runway, American Idol, and Food Network TV.

I like substitute teaching at the High School in the Special Ed Department.

I like visiting with my dear wonderful friends at the Shaw Home.

I love cruising with my husband and my dog in our cool boat on Narragansett Bay.

Today was long;   I took notes in two separate Algebra classes.

I hate the word ‘hate’.

I hate gossip.

I hate being stuck places without a book to read (poor planning!?)

I hate when my dog jumps through his electric fence to chase cats.

I hate that kids these days won’t even attempt to read my cursive writing.

I hate boat maintenance bills.

I hate when the Twitter whale says Twitter is too busy.

I hate what I was going to type here where I vented a bit (and then deleted.)

I (secretly) like – I can’t think of anything that I’m secretive about.   or at least, willing to share on this semi-public platform.  ha!!

I love it when a kid ‘gets’ a new concept.

Okay… To the following three people, tag! You’re it!  Tell me what you like & don’t like (or tell me to take a hike!    Which is perfectly fine and won’t hurt my feelings…)

KB of Confessions of an English Teacher

BeastMomma

Candletea of Candles and a Cup of Tea

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

Thoughts   The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson, Grand Central Publishing 2008, 308 pages

MOTIVATION for READING:    My IRL Book Club pick for March, suggested by KB.

FIRST SENTENCE:   Until the drowned girl came to Laurel’s bedroom, ghosts had never walked in Victorianna.

MOOD WHEN READING:    Right off the bat, I confess I was distracted.    I seemed to lose track of the setup on about page 3.    The protagonist, Laurel, was pregnant at 19 when she moved into the subdivision called Victorianna – a perfect little ‘burb gated neighborhood.    Laurel’s sister was not impressed.    Then suddenly, Laurel is a mom to a teenager and I was jolted by the jump.    And who was the ghost that visited Laurel as a kid that didn’t visit her in her ‘adult’ home?   and now there’s this drowned girl ghost dripping on her carpet?   I was lost – who?!

[WARNING:   Although I don't think I give away any plot spoilers here, this is more like a big rant than a review.   AND don't think I hated the book.  By the end, I didn't...]

How did she come to live in this neighborhood again?     How did they find this place?      [oh, sorry - NOT IMPORTANT.]

WE INTERRUPT THIS POST to tell you that while I was reading this and not even on page 10, someone (I’m not mad at you!   I think it interesting!!   Keep that in mind!) tells me, “I don’t think you’re going to like this book.”

UH OH.

You see, I do seem to have a problem with these contemporary real-life real-times women stories.*    NO, it’s NOT a woman story – whatever that is.    I guess, like everything is normal.   (whatever that is.)  Can’t suspend my disbelief?   Can’t just ‘ROLL WITH IT’.     I need the odd – REALLY odd stuff or DIFFERENT.    I don’t mind ‘set in another country’ stories**  - OH, I don’t know WHAT it is.

AND YET!   This is a ghost story!   That’s ODD, right?

Nope, not enough.

So, I continue to read along and start nitpicking.    I want to yell at the author to give it up already.   Stop foreshadowing and delaying and making me want to guess and being annoyed when things are OBVIOUSLY trying to sway my imaginings of whodunit and whatsreallygoingon?

I mean – the guy on the lawn is a distraction gimmick, right?      HEAVY WARNING:   PLOT DEVICE.

and a third of the way through:     “It’s almost always people in a family who kill each other.   No one knows that better than you and me,” she added, and exited stage left.   (turn page, new chapter,  Care GROANS.)

I had to go back and turn down page 7 because I had to refer back to that darned drowned girl ghost again and again.       I turned down six pages in all and took zero notes so I don’t really recall WHAT triggered my wanting to note any passages…   But by golly!  I’m gonna do it here.

OH – realize that I don’t like to KNOW anything and didn’t even bother to read the back cover.   (which says this:    Laurel Gray Hawthorne hasn’t seen a ghost in the thirteen years she and her husband have lived in their beautiful gated community.  Then in the dog days of a Florida August, she wakes to find Molly, her daughter’s best friend, standing by her bed, who then leads her to her own small body floating lifelessly in the Hawthorne’s pool.   Laurel’s carefully constructed existence cracks, and the past seeps through…

Laurel and her sister, Thalia, grew up in what looked like a typical blue-collar home.  But the Grays have long been hiding a skeleton in their closet.  While Laurel built her “perfect” life, Thalia became an actress with a capital A, a woman who doesn’t fit in Laurel’s tidy world.   Now Molly can’t rest until someone learns her secrets.   Laurel turns to her sister, and together they begin a journey that will unearth their family’s history, the true state of Laurel’s marriage, and what really happened to…

So (dot dot dot)

I suppose I should have read this back cover before I started.   I think it would have made the first 10 pages make more sense.  But that’s really hard to say now, isn’t it.   Can’t go back and unlearn/re-experience a first impression.

Page 116 – I didn’t get the whole scene of Thalia’s husband not liking Laurel.   Just didn’t feel right to me.

Page 121 – I got tired of Thalia saying “really”, drawing out the E sound.       Maybe I didn’t get the whole Thalia not being impressed with Laurel’s husband, either.

Page 157 – “Molly Dufresne*** was not the only ghost in Laurel’s yard.”    (end of chapter, turn page, Care GROANS again.)

Page 175 – (I really am not sure why I turned down this page.    Perhaps all the times I’ve moved – I now live in my seventh house and would have been ECSTATIC to meet the neighbors especially if they came by to introduce themselves to me and wouldn’t have had any of these silly self-conscious thoughts about them judging me – I mean YOU PICKED THIS ‘snooty’  NEIGHBORHOOD!!!  WHAT DID YOU EXPECT!?!??!?!    aarrrghh.)

Well, at least I think that’s what I was thinking when I read this scene.

But, I don’t have a sister, certainly not one as abrasive as Thalia, and I’ve never moved when I was pregnant**** – so maybe I should ease up on her a bit.

Page 244 – GOOD NEWS!  I liked this!!!

“I believe the universe, everything that exists, is made out of thousands of billions of infinitesimally small rubber bands.  The bands vibrate in a variety of ways, and those vibrations create matter and every kind of energy.”

Page _  (NO PAGE NUMBER) –  It truly bugged me that Laurel didn’t think to call Molly’s parents.    Are you kidding me!??!

Despite my anti-BooksLikeThisDespiteMyNotReallyUnderstandingWhy, I have decided to rate this THREE SLICES of PIE.     Because I really did *think* I had an idea of whodunnit but that changed by the end and so reluctantly I have to give it up to JJ for stringing me along even though I was annoyed through most of the book.

This concludes my ‘thoughts’.  The end.

3 of these:  

CHECK OUT THESE REVIEWS:    Kathy at BermudaOnion, Cheryl’s Book Nook, Blue Archipelago Reviews.   If I missed yours, let me know.

_________________________________

* Other books that could possibly be lumped into whatever category that this book might fall into:   Sarah’s Key /  Tatiana de Rosnay, The Virgin Blue / Tracy Chevalier, We Were the Mulvaneys / Joyce Carol Oates  (this one maybe not.), The Wednesday Sisters / Meg Waite Clayton, Firefly Lane and On Mystic Lake / Kristin Hannah, Talk Before Sleep / Elizabeth Berg, The Last Beach Bungalow and The Only True Genius in the Family / Jennie Nash (I♥JN), One True Theory of Love / Laura Fitzgerald,  The Pilot’s Wife / Anita Shreve.     I’ll STOP now and do not assume I didn’t like all of these.  I gave a few FOUR stars, really I did.   But if you were to evaluate my two star books, many of them have women approaching or are at middle age who are evaluating some situation in their life and – maybe TOO CLOSE TO HOME?     I just don’t know.

**  Can anyone recommend a novel featuring a female protagonist of age 35-50 years old experiencing life crisis that is not set in US?      Just curious, can’t think of any I’ve read…

*** Does anyone else instantly think of Andy Dufresne from King’s Shawshank Redemption?    that’s what I think of when I hear Dufresne…

****  disclaimer – I’ve never moved when pregnant because I’ve never been pregnant.

HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine

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Book to Movie Request

I have the choice for next book club and I was really hoping to suggest a book that has been adapted for the screen – preferably already out on DVD    - or –    in the movie theatres.

HOWEVER, if we pick a book and can’t get a date to see the flick in the cinema because it was just pulled from the schedule, I know I would be most upset.      I don’t know if there’s anyway to get around that, which is why I am hesitant to suggest we read Alice in Wonderland – what if it bombs, gets pulled from the theatre, and then not yet available on DVD?

Plus, I’m to understand that the movie is actually the RETURN of Alice to Wonderland.

MY QUESTION for  my bright knowledgeable readers is this:

Do I need to have read this classic before seeing the flick or do you think it might actually be better if I don’t?   (It’s not like I don’t know the basics of the story – just that I’ve never read every word in Carroll’s story.)

Otherwise, I’m thinking about these titles:

Up in the Air by Walter Kirn – oo la la!   George Clooney’s Oscar nominated performance is out on DVD TODAY!

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The Painted Veil by W.Somerset Maugham  

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Blindness by José Saramago

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood  (book is highly rated in goodreads;  but movie has yet to announce DVD release.  AND, less than 200 pages!    I am so looking forward to see what is being described as a beautiful luscious stunning film with Colin Firth – oo la la)

I need to do more research to see if books are available as well as make sure the flicks aren’t 3 hours long (ugh) but I do so love to make lists!     I need to have it all figured out by next Thursday.

I’m taking suggestions if anyone has a favorite book to movie experience!

and don’t forget to give me an opinion on Alice – read first or not?

HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine

Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Love Begins in Winter

Thoughts   Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy, Harper Perennial 2009, 227 pages

DEAR FRIEND-WHO-LOVES-EVOCATIVE-BOOKS,
SPACE/TAB Do I have a book to recommend to you!

Dear Friend-Who-Reads-Poetry,
SPACE/TAB Have you ever read any Simon Van Booy?   His writing is poetic…

Dear Friend-Who-Reads-Mostly-Patterson-&-Picoult,
SPACE/TAB Oh, I’m sorry?  Did you say something?  You asked me what’s the best book I’ve read lately?  OH, um, you probably have never heard of it; but it’s REALLY GOOD!     But, it’s… um,  moving.  But not a lot happens, really.   AND quietly almost sad?     Um – Actually, it’s a short story collection – but they’re beautiful!     Want  me to loan it to you?

Dear Friend-Who-Lives-in-Mississippi-Who-Rec’d-SVB,
SPACE/TAB Oh, THANK YOU!   I loved it!   And it’s SO COOL to see your name in the Acknowledgements.   *SMILES*

Dear Reader-Of-This-Post-Who-Is-Still-Here,
SPACE/TAB Would you like me to quote a bit?

“It’s true the people we meet shape us.  But the people we don’t meet shape us also, often more because we have imagined them so vividly.
There are people we yearn for but never seem to meet.  Every adult yearns for some stranger, but it is really childhood we miss.  We are yearning for that which has been stolen from us by what we have become.”

This is from one of the stories (Tiger, Tiger) that was most haunting for me, and yet not in a scary ghostly way but in a thought-echoing way.  Simon Van Booy’s writing makes you feel like you are underwater and every thing is crisp-clear and the rest of the world is muffled-sound.   I can’t describe the solemnness I felt while immersing in the world of these stories.   And yet, you might think the next emotion to jump to would be ‘depressing’ and these stories are NOT.

I was moved.  I was awed.    Some stories – there are only five – I liked more than others which is fine, to be expected, welcomed even.   And I was both entranced by the simple sentence (subject -> verb, subject -> verb, etc) structure of the very first story and also caught by it;  I was in a net – I was a fly in the spiderwebbed words.    I will re-read this, I will.*

I ended one story and caught myself stifling the burst of a sob!

Dear Friend-Who-Loves-Those-Half-Flaps-for-BookMarking-Pages,
SPACE/TAB This book itself is beautiful to hold and feel and touch.    Which is not a usual thing to say about a tradeback.

Dear Friend-Who-Wants-the-Chance-to-WIN-This-Book,
SPACE/TAB Visit Nancy, the BookFool’s blog – she is hosting a giveaway – but you have to hurry because it ends March 7, Sunday, TOMORROW! Sorry, I have been trying to write this review for days but have been quite intimidated.

I really loved the writing.     Five Pieces of Chocolate Silk Pie with Dark Chocolate Curls topping the Meringue (I don’t know if Chocolate Silk Pie HAS meringue but I would if I made it…)

P.S. Do you want to read some REAL reviews?       Nancy, Wendy, Lesley, Gavin, The-Book-Blog-Search-I-Found-Most-of-These-Reviews…

P.S.S. Oh! If/when you read this! Read the section in the back about Meeting the Author and the What I Do When I’m Not Writing Books – Simon Van Booy shows that he is a fascinating FUN guy and more than just an amazing story writer! I cannot wait to try the recipes.  And to read ALL of his books.

* I’m only now (maybe) starting to be a re-reader….

HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine

Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Celebrate

March 4th is National Grammar Day!

AND,

it’s also World Book Day!