Paige's comments (member since Feb 14, 2008)

Paige's comments from the Chicks On Lit group.

In the last week I finished The Last Wife of Henry VIII A Novel and Interred with Their Bones. Last Wife was good, though it felt rushed at the end, once Henry VIII was dead. Interred I had high hopes for; in parts it was excellent, but ultimately I wasn't satisfied with the conclusion.

Hey all! I have been so overloaded lately that I haven't had a chance to even buy the last two books! (Lots of grading for school, out-of-town conferences, bargaining for faculty union) Have there been any suggestions/decisions for the next book? I'd like to get it now, so that I'll be ready when we start up on it.

Hmmmmm . . . . I'd like to try this. I've been doing all digital lately, but have been thinking about trying hybrid. Making bookmarks would give me a smaller canvas to work on, right? (And, maybe I'd actually print something out!)

If you want to see/listen to some poetry that will definitely change your mind, positively, look up Taylor Mali's clips on YouTube. He's a former teacher who is a national champion slam poet. His "What a Teacher Makes" is sooo awesome. And for laughs, "The The Impotence of Proofreading" will have you snorting Coke through your nose!

Me, too! I have belly-dancing exercise DVDs that I adore, but I haven't gotten up the guts yet to enroll in an actual class.

Do not tell your students you have a headache. Even though they will TRY to be good to make you feel better, they're just soooooo bad at it that the attempt is more annoying than their normal behavior.

I liked parts of the book, but there were many areas that, to me, needed additional detail:

-what happened to Reine that caused her mental breakdown? From lines here and there, it's clear that she didn't collapse immediately after the rape, if it really WAS a consumated rape.

-Boise's background with her nephew and his wife--and her own brother after they left the village. It seems that there is very little contact among them, so why would they think it possible to get family recipes from her or to blackmail her into giving up the diary?

-What happened to the mother and the kids after they left the village. I know that the children went to different family members, but what about the mother?

-What happened between Boise and her own daughters? Why is there such distance between them? As JWave mentions, Boise tries to parallel her relationship with her daughters with her mother's relationship with Boise---yet the situation is entirely different.

As I was reading, sometimes I was blasting along, trying to figure out what would come next--that's a good thing for me. But, since I found most of the characters so difficult to like, at other times, I'd drop the book because I didn't want to know any more. For example, yes, children can be cruel; Boise's intentionally giving her mother migraines, though, is just disgusting to me. It reads as a fundamental flaw in her personality.

4. Old Mother symbolized the adventure and innocence of youth. She lost both of these when she caught old mother.

I would have said it just a little differently. It appears that Old Mother is the dream/fantasy/hope for the future that, once realized, isn't what we expected. Catching her marks the end of Boise's childhood, somewhat like finding out that Santa Claus isn't real does.

The maxim, "Be careful what you wish for" seems awefully apropos when thinking about Old Mother.

BTW, for those who have read Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, does Old Mother remind you any of Addy's dead body in the casket?

From my experiences in remodeling land . . .

Do not assume that the super-huge home stores will have anything in stock other than basic white fixtures. I don't know why it just made sense to me that they'd also stock . . . off-white {gasp--how risque'}. So, since the contractor is ready to put in the new fixtures, they're going to be white. Oh, well, I'll make it work.

Julie,

Sandra Hill's books have sex scenes in them, but they aren't heavy-handed or really nitty-gritty. I'd consider them fairly tame.

My fluff's are any of Sandra Hill's romances (either quasi-historical or modern). Sometimes I can't decide whether I'd really categorize them as humor or romance because she likes including the ridiculous.

That could be interesting. I'll be teaching another American Lit course online this summer and could use some new ideas about the poetry I'm including. I do have to admit that teaching poetry is a PAIN since most undergraduates couldn't care less about it. It usually takes some maturity for students to really get involved in a poetry discussion.

My "adventure" for the year is having our master bath remodeled. The contractor is in there right now ripping out the existing stuff. We aren't changing the configuration any, but we are removing an obtrusive interior wall and converting the shower into a whirlpool tub/shower. We've also picked out cabinets that are much more upscale and have better storage configurations than what was there. The contractor thinks he should be done in about two weeks, so everyone keep their fingers crossed. Oh, the other part of the adventure is having to share our second bath with our son until the remodeling is finished.

I bought The Quest last week, not realizing it was part of a series. Do you think it will make sense without the precursors, or should I pick up the first three novels and read them first?

"Don't assume you can go into Costco for just one thing. You can't. You won't."

Nope--not Costco---Target or any bookstore. Hmmmm . . . or a shoestore . . . wait---the mall!

There's a reason I don't shop much: when I do shop, I really SHOP.

I just received Five Quarters of an Orange, so I'll be starting it tonight. BUT, I just couldn't resist diving into Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. It begins as an examination of the murders of a woman and her toddler daughter by two of her brothers-in-law and segues into an examination of the origins of the Mormon religion to explain the men's rationale behind the killings. (The murderers were Mormon fundamentalists who believed that God had ordered them to kill their sister-in-law.) Really interesting so far!

I'd never heard about ABE until someone mentioned it here. For my online purchases, I almost always use Amazon, except when someone gives me a Books-A-Million or Barnes & Noble gift certificate. In town, I generally buy at Books-A-Million.

I keep seeing people rave about her(?), but I've never even seen one of her novels in the bookstore, so clearly she writes in a genre I don't normally like. How would you classify her books?

My tip of the day . . . .

Do not drink an entire diet soda when you know that the building you work in has a clogged sewer line and the toilets can't be flushed!

Love Kushiel's Dart. I've read the first three in the series (need to add them to my bookshelves) and have the next two ready to go.

I love most of McCaffrey's stuff--except for the Acorna series. Another female fantasy writer I enjoy is Mercedes Lackey. If you like more modernistic fantasy, you could try Kim Harrison's series that begins with Dead Witch Walking. Also, how about Barbara Hambly?