Arlene Miller's Blog, page 23

California, Here I Am!

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

….but it wasn’t so easy to get here!

No post about books today (next week), or about grammar, or about words. Just about me. 

Covid has really changed things: travel for one. Who knew we would be in a raging pandemic now, six months after everyone (well, not quite everyone) was  trying to get a vaccine?

Most of the time I have lived in Florida, there has been a pandemic. For the first six months or so, while I was getting my bearings here, Covid was not yet known.  Then, lockdown. So I didn’t really get a chance to get a foothold on the writing/publishing industry here. I joined Florida Writers Association and Florida Authors and Publishers and Tampa Writers Alliance — but everything obviously has been online. So I really don’t know anyone, and no one really knows what I do because I am not one to talk a lot online. 

Finally,  I was scheduled to go to the yearly conference of the Florida Authors and Publishers. I was excited to go meet some other writers and publishers. But then the Delta variant hit. One of the workshop speakers asked that all attendees wear masks. I wrote to the club president suggesting we wear masks to all the presentations. The president said we couldn’t do that because the hotel didn’t have a mask mandate (?????) I knew there would be meals served, indoor as far as I knew. So, the night before I was to leave for the conference, I backed out. I was traveling cross country the next weekend to visit my son in California. I couldn’t risk being with a bunch of people from all over Florida, whom I didn’t know, talking, eating, and socializing. Did they have vaccines? Would they wear masks? I didn’t know. I do know now that in the photos there were virtually no masks. They very generously refunded all the money for the conference, but I did get stuck paying for one of the two hotel nights. They were not following CDC recommendations that even vaccinated people wear masks indoors, so I deserved a refund. 

I am now in California. Ah!!!!!! There is a mask mandate, and everyone takes it seriously. Over 70% of the county has been vaccinated, in contrast with about half the people in my Florida county.

But travel isn’t easy in the time of Covid. 

The plane. Actually, this probably had nothing to do with Covid. Everyone followed the mask rules, and the flight was nearly fine. There is only one nonstop flight each day from where I live to San Francisco, and I took it. But this time, it wasn’t exactly nonstop. Something was wrong with a fuel pump, and we were not able to carry enough fuel to get all the way to San Francisco, so we had to stop to refuel in Houston. We left late and then had to stop, so we were almost two hours late. No big deal unless you had a connecting flight.The rental car. Rental cars are VERY EXPENSIVE  now because there is a shortage of cars. I booked a very expensive rental (not an expensive car), and was offered something less expensive online a few days before my trip,  so I changed my reservation. Well, now I know why it was so much cheaper. The line was an hour long because everyone else wanted to save money too. After waiting in line for a rental car for an hour, I was told I would then have to wait until a car was ready, and they would call me. What???? Well, I went back to him to tell him I didn’t see other people waiting to be called. He said my car was ready and which stall to go to. I took the elevator down and went to the assigned stall. No car there. I saw someone driving a car toward that stall, so I waited and said it was probably my car. He told me to go to the man in the window. I did, and he rented me the car.  I was on my way…During Friday rush hour traffic by now. My plane was supposed to land at 9:50 a.m. It was late and then the rental car, so it was now about 2:30 p.m. The traffic was horrible!Hotels are not what they used to be. I had booked a motel of a well-known chain. I was familiar with it because I used to live fairly close to it. I had never noticed the awful neighborhood and the questionable people who were hanging around in the parking lot. They gave me a first-floor room, and I was afraid for my safety. I went into the room. It smelled like mildew, and there was a big handicapped chair in the shower. I went to the front desk. She told me they had given me a handicapped room. She gave me some spray stuff; I sprayed most of the can in the room and tossed the chair into the hallway. The furniture reminded me of very, very old school desks. I was very tired and at my wit’s end by now, so I told them I couldn’t stay there. I felt unsafe and it was dirty. I had booked through a third-party company by mistake, and the price was not what I thought. The weekend prices were outrageous for that place. They offered me a full refund. I booked an expensive place online; I didn’t care by now. I drove over the the nicer hotel. The hallways are dirty, but the room is fine. They don’t come in to clean the rooms until the third day you are here because they cannot find employees these days. I went down for breakfast one day and waited and waited to be seated. Only one waitress doing everything….To her and the chef’s credit, the wait was short and the food very good – and expensive.

I am seeing my son and my friends here. I love it here. I wish I could live here and in Florida, since I have “kids” in both states. I am missing my daughter, my son-in-law and my dog. But I am not missing Florida. It is a horror show with that “governor.” But I will go back on Saturday, and it will seem as if I never left. 

 

What to do? What to do?

 

My Life in Books – Part 6: Politics and Other Nonfiction

As I was preparing this series of posts, I was shocked when I saw the number of political books I have read in the past few years. I think a certain sub-genre of political books became very popular during those years!  (Hmmm. Maybe they are more current event books than political.)

But first, let me tell you about some other nonfiction books I would recommend:

Working by Studs Terkel – This is an old book, and I read it a long time ago.  It was very well-known in its day.

The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz – I think almost everyone has probably read this book, which was very trendy for a long time.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo – When I first heard that a book about tidying up was the bestseller of the year, I couldn’t believe it. Then I read it, and I learned that I shouldn’t be balling up my socks like potatoes because they needed to breathe. I haven’t kept up with Kondo, and I know she has some competition now —  but it was an innovative book!

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson – This is a great business book. Fascinating.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah – This is a wonderful memoir of growing up in South Africa. Gotta love Noah!

On Writing Well: The Classic guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser – The quintessential guide to writing

Becoming by Michelle Obama – Another great memoir

English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer – Dreyer isn’t dry by any means. Great book.

In Defense of Elitism by Joel Stein – I saw Stein being interviewed about the book, and it intrigued me. Actually, the interview was better than the book itself, although I did identify with much of what he said.

The Beautiful No: And Other Tales of Trial, Transcendence, and Transformation by Sheri Salata – I saw her speak at a virtual conference. I was impressed by what she had to say, and she referred to her book, which was inspirational. 

Divergent Mind by Jenera Nerenberg – I heard about the book and then saw the author at a virtual book launch. It is about those of us with divergent minds — autism, hypersensitivity, synesthesia (me) — and how we get along in the world.

Politics/Current Events

I read so many political books in the recent past. Many of us did. Here are some of the ones I read:

A Very Stable Genius by Philip Rucker and  Carol Leonnig – This was a good one.

The Making of Donald Trump by David Cay Johnston – This is my favorite Trump book. It shows him from childhood on. Johnston is on television quite a bit (MSNBC) and is, I believe, a tax expert first and foremost.

Too Much and Never Enough by Mary Trump – Bless this woman.

The Book of Gutsy Women  by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton – Interesting

Tough Love by Susan Rice – Okay

The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris – Political or memoir? I don’t know, but it made me like her more when I read it.

If We Can Keep It: How the Republic Collapsed and How It Might Be Saved by Michael Tomasky. I think this book needs a sequel right about now.

Unhinged by Omarosa Manigault Newman – I don’t remember much about this one. 

Full Disclosure by Stormy Daniels – Meh

Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward – I don’t love his writing, and I didn’t love this book.

Make Trouble by Cecile Richards – Great woman, great book. Her mother was former Texas governor Ann Richards. Cecile is the former president of Planned Parenthood.

The Plot to Hack America by Malcolm Nance – Nance is an impressive guy, and some of us call him Shouty McShoutface. He has predicted a lot of what has gone on, and he is worried about the democracy.

A Colony in a Nation by Chris Hayes of MCNBC – I saw him talk about this book in California. It is a good read.

Al Franken: Giant of the Senate – We need him back. Enough said.

What Happened by Hillary Clinton – Many of us are still asking, “What happened?”

Fire and Fury: Inside the White House by Michael Wolff – This book got a lot of press. I don’t remember much about it. 

The Unmaking of the President 2016: How FBI Director James Comey Cost Hillary Clinton the Presidency by Lanny Davis – Oh, yeah, that’s what happened.

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder – This is a wonderful book – and very short.

Dear Madam President by Jennifer Palmieri – Another short but good one.

Trumpocalypse by David Frum – Don’t remember it, but I kind of like Frum. haven’t seen him in a long time.

Rage by Bob Woodward – Still don’t like his writing. Meh.

Disloyal by Michael Cohen – I liked this one. 

Persist by Elizabeth Warren – Guess I reached my limit on political reading.  I read some of it, and I have left it for a while. It is the type of book that can be read one chapter at a time.

The Violence Inside Us  by Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy – All about American’s addiction to guns. Good book.

This Country by Chris Matthews – A historical look back from someone who worked in politics. It was due at the library, so I never finished.

Next week I will be visiting family and friends in California. There will be a blog post. It won’t be about my life in books. That is all I can tell you.

 

 

 

My Life in Books – Part 5: Loves and Hates

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

Last week I told you about some of the books I thought were five stars. But books don’t need five stars to be good and memorable. In this post I include

Books I recommend even though I didn’t give them five stars (could have just been my mood that day!)Some authors I likeBooks that other people liked that I DID NOT.

This series is turning out to have more episodes that I thought! There will be two more posts in this series, possibly in the next two weeks, but maybe not. I am going to a publishing conference this weekend and to California the next, so I might write about something else. But there will be posts. The final two posts in this series will be

Nonfiction, political, and books by “local” authors (meaning authors I know)Books I never read that you probably did — and that you would think I had, since I was an English major and an English teacher!Recommended Reads

Here are some books that I would recommend even though I didn’t give them A’s:

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. In fact, any book by Mr. Gladwell. I think I read them all, but The  Tipping Point is an important book.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood  by Rebecca Wells. Every female read that one, didn’t she? The movie was good too.

Okay. Don’t start with me on this one. I know many of you HATED it and thought the writing was terrible. I disagree:

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. I read all three in the original series. I think I saw the first two movies. I liked the books, especially the second one. I thought they were well written. And I thought they showed that the woman ultimately had all the power in that relationship. And above all, it was a love story.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Hadden. I don’t remember a single thing  about this book except it was good, and it has a memorable cover.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Not really my kind of book, but I liked it and would recommend it.  Also a movie.

The Martian by Andy Weir. If I haven’t already mentioned this one I should have. Great movie too.

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Written in 2004, the story of 2016. How prophetic can a book be?

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner. Recommended to me by a writer friend. Interesting book about women and their husbands….

Authors I Love

You know how you find a book you love and then you read all the author’s other books? Here are some of those authors for me.

Maupin Armistead. Heard of him through a friend and then found out he was coming to my local bookstore. He was entertaining, so I read his Tales of the City. Most people had already seen this on TV, but not me. 

Kristen Hannah. I have read a few of her books and have loved them: The Nightingale, The Great Alone, The Four Winds

Mary Higgins Clark. Love her mysteries. Unfortunately she passed away a while ago. Her daughter also writes mysteries and wrote some with her. 

Sophie Kinsella. Confessions of a Shopaholic and some other fun chick books. Loved them.

Jennifer Weiner. One of her first books, Good in Bed, was made into a movie. I have read most of, if not all, her books. I have seen her in person twice and she is very funny. I more recently saw her at a virtual book launch, where she said she wrote women’s literature and she resented the phrase “chick lit” for any writer. Her books have gotten more serious, and  they are definitely not lightweight books.

Janet Evanovich. One for the Money right up to her Tempting Twenty Eight. I have read most of the 28 books in the Stephanie Plum series. She has other series, some of which she writes with other authors. The Plum books have gotten very formulaic, but I still love her and her characters.

Christopher Moore. Another funny guy. He wrote Lamb and many other books. He is a satirical guy.  I have seen him speak a couple of times. He reminds me of Carl Hiaasen.

Elizabeth Berg. She is the quintessential women’s literature author, and I love her books. 

David Baldacci. Read his first few books and loved them. Then I lost interest.

Lisa Genova. I wrote about her last week in the five-star books. She is a novelist and a neuroscientist. Her books are wonderful. Still Alice was made into a movie. She is amazing.

Lianne Moriarty. Didn’t everyone who read Big Little Lies go on to read her other books? I think my favorite was The Husband’s Secret. I didn’t like her latest (well, it was the latest when I read it), Nine Perfect Strangers.

Elinor Lipman. I went to college with her, although she was a year ahead of me. Years later I found out she was a notable author, so I read several of her books and enjoyed them.

VC Andrews. Although Andrews passed away a very long time ago, she is still  (or was last time I checked) writing books! Her family has apparently taken over the writing of her books. Her first book, Flowers in the Attic, was pretty popular and was made into a movie. The book was written in 1979 and actually labeled a young adult book and read by preteens and teens. It was banned from school libraries because of child abuse and incest. It was the first book in a series. Andrews wrote many series; her books featured creepy family members and eerie houses. I loved them and read a ton of her series. I actually picked up one or two at the library a few years ago, and I am now in the mood to see if there are any new ones I can read!

I Just Couldn’t’ Get Through These

Some people loved these books. Not for me.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. No thank you. 

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. First page was too sad. Done.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. b-o-r-i-n-g

Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Could not get into it. 

H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. And I is for ICK.

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. You might not know this one because it is a true romance novel. It was rated best romance novel of the  year, so I thought I would read it. It has over 14,000 Amazon reviews and an average 4.6 out of 5. I got to page two or three, finding that many obvious typos (or maybe they were actual grammatical mistakes) and either tense issues or just confusing writing. It was awful.

The Liar’s Club by Mary Carr. I read somewhere this was a good book. I didn’t like it. 

Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen. EVERYONE raves about this book. I love Hiaasen. I hate trump. But I still didn’t think it was so great.  Or funny.

OK. That’s a wrap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Life in Books – Part 4: Five-Star Books

Image by Tomislav Kaučić from Pixabay

Don’t you hate it when you get halfway through a book and realize you have already read it? On occasion it has taken me most of a book to realize I have read it — and even though I obviously didn’t remember much about it at all, I still resent having read it again!

So lest you think I can remember all the books I have read, I admit I now track the books I read on the Goodreads website. That is how I can write this post (and the next one). I thought this was going to be one post, but now I see I have too much information for one post, so I am splitting it between this week and next. I did the best I could when I started using Goodreads to recall all the books I had ever read, but of course, that was a futile task! So I think I have about 650 books  listed as READ on the site, and I have been pretty good about keeping it updated for several years.

I rarely write reviews, but I try to rate the books I have read. Here are many of my five-star reads. Most are fiction, but not all of them. And they are not all the five-star books on my list, but many of them. Some of them I can’t remember at all because I am one of those people who cannot remember what one book is about by the time I start reading the next.

I envy those people who can read multiple books at a time, and I have tried, but I prefer to read one book at a time.

Here are some of my five-star books. The best of the best are at the end of the list. I would recommend any of these books. Please keep in mind that I do favor women’s literature (or, as some like to call it, “Chick Lit”). Oh, one more thing. I tried not to include books that I talked about in the prior three posts in this series.

The Kite Runner -Khaled Hosseini. Most everyone loved this book.

Freakonomics – Steven Levitt. Nonfiction, and I found parts of it fascinating.

Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel 

The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing – Melissa Banks

The Help – Kathryn Stockett

Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand. This one is a memoir. Excellent.

Quiet – Susan Cain. This is a nonfiction book about introversion. I believe she wrote more than one, and I read them all.

On the Road – Jack Kerouac. Of course.

The Girl with the Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier

Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy – Possibly the only classic in the list.

The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein. A beautiful book for dog lovers. You will cry.

11-22-63 –  Stephen King. One of the two books I read and liked by Mr. King.

The House of the Scorpion –  Nancy Farmer. I read this young adult book when I was teaching, and I loved it.

Divergent #1 – Veronica Roth. Another young adult book. All the girls were reading it when I was teaching 7th grade.

The Good Daughters – Joyce Maynard. Joyce is a Facebook friend and lives around where I lived in California. She has had a book made into a movie; I believe it was called Labor Day. She done good.

The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins. I don’t remember loving it that much, but I gave it five stars.

Goodnight June – Sarah Jio (and The Look of Love by Sarah Jio also). This book was recommended to me, and it was wonderful.

Re Jane –  Patricia Park. Another winner.

Falling – Jane Green

The Sunshine Sisters – Also by Jane Green

Still Alice – Lisa Genova (Everything by Genova, who is a neuroscientist, is a masterpiece.) This book was made into a movie. 

The Mourning Parade – Dawn Reno Langley. I met Dawn on Facebook when we made a political comment on the same post. We became Facebook friends. She lived across the country from me, but she had set up a book tour to promote this book and was coming to my favorite local bookstore. So we met, and I got an autographed copy of the book. I loved it and gave it to my daughter, who also loved it. It is a novel about the elephants in Thailand.  Great book.

The Light We Lost – Jill Santopolo

Before We Were Yours – Lisa Wingate

The Alice Network – Kate Quinn

Tuesday Nights in 1980 – Molly Prentiss. I saw this book on display at the library and was attracted to the cover. This book and I were meant to be. It is a novel about an art critic with synesthesia (an overlapping of the senses, sometimes called a gift and other times called a handicap!). Not too long before I found this book, I finally figured out that I had synesthesia and had started researching it. I really appreciated reading this book, although it was about a different type of synesthesia. 

The Little Paris Bookshop – Nina George. Bookshop? Paris? What could be bad?

The Glass Castle – Jeanette Walls. One of the most outstanding memoirs ever!

Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens. Your typical bestseller.

The Flatshare – Beth O’Leary. I read about this book in some list of recommended books I was sent by e-mail. I loved it and read another book by the same author. Not too heavy, but a fun read.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami. I gave this book five stars because of its beautiful writing.

Lessons from Lucy – Dave Barry. Florida humorist writes about his dog. Great book. I saw him at a book fair, and he is very funny!

The Oysterville Sewing Circle – Susan Wiggs. I think I have read another book or two by this author and have liked them. 

American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins. Lots of controversy about this one. I don’t remember loving it five stars worth, but that is what I gave it. 

The Book Woman of  Troublesome Creek – Kim Michele Richardson. You just know this is not a romantic comedy.

The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho. I finally read this famous book.

French Illusions: My Story as an American Au Pair in the Loire Valley – Linda Kovic Skow. True story that reads like a novel. I am fascinated with all things French.

A Mango-Shaped Space – Wendy Mars. A young adult book recommended by a friend — another book about synesthesia.

The Bookstore on the Beach – Brenda Novak. Bookstore? Beach. What could be bad?

Accidentally Engaged – Farah Heron. I just read this one. Pleasantly surprised it was a fun read with a good plot.

The Best of the Best

Here are some of the best books I have read out of my five-star list. Highly recommended!

The Red Tent – Anita Diamant

The Interestings – Meg Wolitzer. Made into a TV movie. Loved it. 

Room – Emma Donahue – I left this off my list entirely, but I know it is up there. Made into a movie for which Brie Larson won Best Actress. Riveting story!

The Nightingale – Kristen Hannah. I believe this was voted the best book of the year on Goodreads a couple of years ago. World War II story.

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries – Kory Stamper. I LOVED this book about the making and updating or dictionaries. For word lovers everywhere. 

A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman. My favorite book I have read as an adult. Made into a wonderful movie as well. BRAVO!

Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng. Another one streaming on Netflix or somewhere. I haven’t seen it, but plan to. Great book!

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman.  Reminded me of A Man Called Ove, female style. Loved it. 

The Ensemble – Aja Gabel. This was a beautiful story about a musical quartet. Highly recommended.

Educated – Tara Westover. An outstanding memoir.

The Library Book – Susan Orlean. A book about the fire at the Los Angeles Central Library. Recommended to me by a Facebook friend. Well worth the read!

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents – Isabel Wilkerson. Amazing book about endemic racism.

The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern. A very original story. A magical book.

 

Next Week, these books are featured (not necessarily 5-star, but notable nonetheless):

Some memorable nonfictionBooks I loved and that stick in my mind, but not quite five-star booksAuthors I likeBooks people liked and I hatedBooks by people I know that you should read (some of which I copyedited)Wow, I have read a lot of political books!

 

 

 

 

 

A Dozen Mistakes Even We Smart People Make

You might have some of these language goofs on your list of pet peeves. They are common, and anyone can make one of these mistakes! Even you and me!

1. These homophones are each used in a different idiom: 

Image by Tumisu from PixabayI am going to give her a piece of my mind!Meditating gives me peace of mind.

Make sure you spell piece/peace right.

2.  If you are going to research something before you sign the contract, you are doing due diligence, not do diligence.

3. The correct saying is first-come, first-served. If you say first-come, first-serve, you might be implying that the first to come will be the one serving everyone.

4. I love those sleight of hand card tricks magicians do. It is not slight of hand, which could mean the magician has small hands. A slight is also an insult.

5. Unthaw is an odd word. Why would anyone even use it? It is used as a synonym for thaw because unthaw actually means to freeze. Just use freeze unless you mean thaw. Some dictionaries say unthaw is a real word.

6. The correct phrase is shoo-in, not shoe-in: for example, he is a shoo-in for the job.  Unless it is some weird kind of job.

7.  Prostrate means lying on the ground or the floor. Prostate, without the second r, is the gland. Don’t mix them up!

8. Apostrophes are used in contractions and possessives. PERIOD. This is Jane’s ball. I can’t go with you. Apostrophes are not used in plurals, even in something like  the 1980s. Or ABCs. Only use one in a plural that would be confusing: I got all A’s. Not all As.

9. I need a new hot water heater.  Is it heating hot water? Or cold water? The hot is redundant. You can just call it a a water heater.

10. The drone is homing in now. It isn’t honing in. To hone is to sharpen a skill. 

11. It is the first-year anniversary of our meeting. It is probably enough to say it is the first anniversary of our meeting. Or the fiftieth anniversary of our wedding.  Unless, of course, you are also celebrating day and month anniversaries in additional to years.

12. I have always said all of the sudden. Then I heard it was actually all of a sudden. I think either one is acceptable. But all the sudden is not. All of them probably mean suddenly, so just use suddenly if that is what you mean. 

 

My Life in Books – Part 3

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Welcome to the third installment of the “My Life in Books” series: Books I Have Taught.  

In Part 1, I talked about the books I read as a child. In Part 2 I talked about some favorites from college and young adulthood.

As you may (or may not) know, I was an English teacher in the California public school system for eleven years; it was a later-in-life career that I began when I needed to earn a living again. I taught 7th grade English full time for seven of those years. Then, when I started writing and publishing my books, I switched to a sixty-percent teaching schedule. And of course, first I had to student teach. Since I was planning to teach high school, I student taught both sophomores and  seniors.

That sophomore class is one I will not forget. Sophomores can be difficult; ask any high school teacher. This class was right before lunch, but they weren’t waiting for lunch. They would sit in a circle with paper bags strewn across their desks, the contents of which were laid out as they ate their lunches and listened to the teacher read to them. This teacher read to them for a long while every day. She was a pretty liberal sort, very popular. The semester that I was in her classroom observing (before I took over the class), she read The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency to them. After that she read The Secret Life of Bees. I must have been doing other things at the time because I heard only snippets of these books. When I taught the class, I taught them Bless Me, Ultima. Not one of my favorite books. And of course, not my choice. I must have made the mistake of trying to teach them grammar because I remember they called a meeting with me one class where we all sat in a circle on the floor, and they proceeded to tell me how I didn’t respect them enough. Sophomores.

 

In another English class I observed, they were reading Of Mice and Men, which I had never read. But I got lucky in the senior class I taught. I was quite surprised when the teacher told me I would be teaching A Clockwork Orange. I am quite sure I had read the book before. I still don’t remember what it is about, but I am sure the students liked it. That is, when they came to school. It was the second semester of their senior year. They were a pretty advanced group, they had already gotten into college, so why go to class?

 

I guess I was lucky to get a teaching job at all, even if it was junior high. Only one person in my credential program wanted to teach junior high! Everyone else wanted to teach high school. 

I had pretty free rein in the books I wanted to teach — as long as the school had them. There were only two of us teaching seventh grade English.  We both always taught The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and The Pearl by Steinbeck. Yes, they were pretty old books — and we must have had some of the originals. Some of them were very, very old, with yellowed pages and torn covers. Every year the student who was assigned the book wrote their name in it.  One book had one of the teacher’s names in it when he was in 7th grade.  I don’t think I had ever read either book before. I have now read them eleven times each. 

The Outsiders is a great book.The students loved it. And then we watched the movie with Patrick Swayze and some other hunks. The Pearl — well, that is a different story. It is a short book, just a novella, but the students couldn’t seem to understand it. I thought it was violent and boring. But it served its purpose of teaching about characters, plot, symbolism, and all those nice things. 

Although grammar was my thing — and I taught a ton of it — I got a lot of other things done. I guess my philosophy was throw it all against the wall and see what sticks. In addition to finishing the grammar book, I taught Greek and Latin roots all year and vocabulary all year. We did some short stories from our literature book including a teleplay of a Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” We did that one at the very end of the year in a readers theater setting,  where the students each got a part and they read it in front of the class, but didn’t act it out. Then, we watched that episode of the Twilight Zone, which was a perfect thing to do at the end of a school year. 

I also taught Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, since we had copies no other teacher was using. It was a shortened version, but it was in the original language. And we acted that one out. I guess the teacher before me had taught it because there were plastic swords and shields in the closet. I think they enjoyed that one, especially the sword fight.”Et tu, Brute?”

In addition to grammar, vocabulary, Greek and Latin roots, literary terminology, paragraph and essay writing, short stories, The Outsiders, Julius Caesar, and The Pearl, I assigned three outside reading projects with books of their choice. 

Then, the public library had some extra books they offered me, including Fast Food Nation and Nickel and Dimed, so I used them for a nonfiction unit with my advanced students. 

The last book of the year was the Dystopian Unit. And those are some of the great books. There has been a recent trend in dystopian literature for kids, but we read the standards. We did this book in small reading groups that would discuss the previous night’s reading. My regular classes read The Giver. I had never read that one. My advanced classes had a choice among Animal Farm, The Lord of the Flies, and (for extra credit) 1984. Actually, I think anyone in any of my classes had the choice to read 1984. I am quite sure no one had ever used 1984 for the seventh grade, but I thought it was worth a try. Those who read it loved it.  I had read all of those three books before. They are among my favorites. And we watched the movies — Animal Farm is a great movie But we could only watch the beginning of 1984.

Speaking of which: It is not surprising that I got a bit of trouble from a parent for assigning  1984. A very large man, a preacher, and father of one my students, said he was coming in to discuss the reading. I knew by now to have an ally with me and chose a tall, loud, deep-voiced male English/History teacher. I didn’t get hurt, but I did agree to move his child to another reading group without, of course, embarrassing him. So I did. The father had never read the book, but when it was assigned to his son, he started looking through it, I guess. But for some reason, the only part he saw was the tiny, unimportant scene with the prostitute that the kids either didn’t notice or didn’t care about. Draw your own conclusions there. I did. Oh, and when I showed the movie, I stopped when the prostitute came in. I don’t remember if I skipped it and showed the rest of the movie or not. 

Teaching those books really made me love Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies anew each year. 

I left teaching in 2015. I wonder if the students are still reading those same old copies of  The Pearl.

 

BOOM! The History of Fireworks

When I think of fireworks, I think of The Star Spangled Banner: “And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air…”

But fireworks have been around a whole lot longer than the United State of America has. Fireworks originally came from ancient Liuyang, China, in the second century BC. The first fireworks were bamboo stalks that exploded when thrown into fire because of their hollow air pockets. The Chinese believed that these “fireworks” would ward off evil spirits.

Legend has it that somewhere between 600 and 900 AD, a Chinese alchemist mixed potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal, which produced a black flaky powder; this mixture created the first gunpowder.  It was then poured into hollowed-out bamboo stalks (and later, into paper tubes) to produce the first man-made fireworks.

In the tenth century, The Chinese attached the fireworks to arrows, thus creating the first aerial displays. 

Fireworks made their way to Europe in the 13th century. In England at that time, fireworks experts were called “firemasters” and their assistants “green men” because they wore caps made of leaves to protect then against sparks.  By the 15th century, fireworks were being used for religious festivals and public entertainment. The Italians were the first Europeans to manufacture fireworks. Europeans rulers liked to illuminate their castles  with fireworks on important occasions.

The first recorded display of fireworks in Great Britain occurred at Henry VII’s wedding in 1486. 

Early settlers in the United States brought fireworks to the New World. Captain John Smith may have set off the first fireworks in 1608 in the Jamestown Colony. 

In the 1830s an important addition was made to fireworks: trace amounts of metal were added to create multicolor displays.

And of course, back in 1776, fireworks were part of the first American Independence Day. And the tradition continues on. Of course, the United States is far from the only country to use fireworks on holidays.The French set off fireworks for Bastille Day, ten days after our Independence Day. Hungary sets off fireworks on August 20.

Here are some fun facts about fireworks:

The Walt Disney Company is the largest consumer of fireworks in the United States.Blue is the most difficult color to produce in fireworks.New Castle, Pennsylvania, is known as the fireworks capital of the world, as it is home to both Zambelli Fireworks and Pyrotechnico.The biggest shell available to the consumer fireworks market is 3 inches.Professional aerial shells range from 3 inches to over 24 inches in diameter. Most are between 6 and 12 inches.The largest ever display of fireworks was in the Philippines for their 2016 New Year celebration, with 810,904 fireworks.404.5 million pounds of fireworks were set off in 2020 (which seems odd to me, since there was a worldwide pandemic).Massachusetts (my home state) is the only state that bans the sale of all consumer fireworks.Ten thousand people were injured badly enough by fireworks  to require emergency treatment in 2019. The Macy’s 4th of July fireworks show is the largest in the United States.Happy 4th!

 

My Life in Books – Part 2

Last week I talked about books I liked as a child and K-12 student — and those I didn’t like but was forced to read for English class.

I forgot one of those books: the book I call my favorite book ever. Looking back I think I read this book as part of that special “advanced reading group” in junior high. I thought it was seventh grade, but it was probably ninth grade. Oh, the name of the book? A Separate Peace* by John Knowles. I don’t know why that book had such an impact on me. I remember only the main character, Phineas, and the fact it was about young men going to war. And one other thing that might be a spoiler in case you haven’t read the book. Several years ago — probably more than that — I tried to read the book again, and it was just too heavy in my later years! But at the time I read it, I went on to read other John Knowles books, including Indian Summer, which I believe was a sequel to A Separate Peace, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman. 

I don’t recall ever seeing a movie of A Separate Peace, but I just looked it up and the movie does exist, so I might have seen it. I would buy it now, but I have neither a way to play DVDs or VHS tapes!

I was a double major in Print Media and English Literature, so I know I took at least eight specialized English courses. I don’t remember them all. I do remember the British poetry: Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley. I didn’t like any of it. Who knows why I majored in English! Confessions of an Opium Eater gave some promise of enjoyment, but I think I was disappointed.  I am sure I took a course in earlier works because I remember reading The Canterbury Tales, which weren’t so bad.

I remember a course in more modern American writers, but remember none of the books except perhaps Agee’s A Death in the Family. Maybe some of the books I remember reading at some point around that time were included in that class.

Two of my English classes were favorites. One was a Shakespeare class taught by the world famous (late)Wylie Sypher. We read a number of Shakespeare’s plays, but the only one I remember loving is Othello, which remains my favorite. The other great class was Music in Literature. It was in the music department, which consisted of three courses, all of which I took. Nothing stands out in my mind about that class — which was basically an opera class — except Tristan and Isolde, which I just loved. I remember nothing about either of those favorite works.

During my college and young adult years, I read many of the books that were trendy at the time. These were the 70s and 80s. Here are some of them:

A couple of books that would be too heavy for me now were John Barth’s The Sotweed Factor and Gunther Grass’s The Tin Drum*. Loved them both.Read some Steinbeck including The Grapes of Wrath (likely for some class),  Cannery Row, and Tortilla Flat. The last two were of my own choosing during my Steinbeck “thing.”Not so many notable African American writers then, but I read Native Son by Richard Wright and The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. And of course I read some Fitzgerald: Tender Is the Night and The Great Gatsby (possibly for a college course).And whatever I read by Hemingway and Faulkner I didn’t like.Who can forget Vonnegut, the most notable writer of my college days? I read them all.I had a thing about D.H. Lawrence for a while and read several. First, of course, Lady Chatterly’s Lover* and then Sons and Lovers.I did read the first 110 pages of War and Peace. And that was that.The Hobbit* and the Lord of the Rings trilogy are among my all-time favorites. I read The Hobbit to my kids when they were little. I still have those four books.Did the dystopian thing too, although I am not sure when: 1984, Animal Farm*, Lord of the Flies*, A Clockwork Orange. I think Animal Farm may have been part of that advanced reading group too. Animal Farm is one of my favorites.Read some popular sci fi, including Brave New World by Huxley, Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein, and Dune* by Herbert.Oh, and I read the junk: Valley of the Dolls and Peyton Place!I did not ignore the “classics,” although there are many I didn’t read. I liked Tess of the Durbervilles, Madame Bovary, and Far from the Madding Crowd* by Hardy. I read the creepy ones: Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and In Cold Blood.

Here are some of the other books I read and really liked. And if you are of my era, you likely did too!

Catch 22*The Bell Jar by PlathNight* by Elie WieselMyra Breckinridge by Gore VidalThe Word According to Garp*On the Road* by Jack Kerouac – still have that one too.Franny and Zooey* by SalingerNaked Lunch by Burroughs The Chosen* by Chaim PotokPortnoy’s Complaint* and a lot of others by Philip RothTropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (no relation) because it was supposed to be, you know…..Dead Souls by GogolRagtime* by DoctorowJonathan Livingston Seagull, inscribed to be in 1974 by my then boyfriend. I had it until recently and I had to do away with it!Oh, and that one about the meat factory by Upton Sinclair — or do I have two books confused???And Catcher in the Rye*!!

If you haven’t read some of those books, I would recommend them, especially the ones I have starred! Don’t commend me on my fabulous memory. When I started to use Goodreads, I put all the books I could remember reading in my life on the list. So I just looked at the list. However, I didn’t look at it carefully or look at how to spell the author’s names. I wanted this to be more organic: how I remembered them, or to see if I could remember them. So I apologize if I spelled any author names wrong or tweaked the titles a bit.

Happy Reading!

Next Week: Special Fourth of July Post

My Life in Books – Part 1

I imagine that most of you love books or you probably wouldn’t read these posts. Books and grammar just seem to have a lot in common. 

What is the first book you remember reading? Or owning? Or loving?

It is probably important to know that I was a kid in the late 50’s and 60s. I remember some books that I read in childhood, although I don’t remember  being read to.  I am sure I was. Wasn’t I?

The first book I remember is the  glossy and colorful cover of a book called Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. But I am not sure I ever read it. At the same time, there were a few Bobbsey Twin books hanging around the house. They may have been my mother’s. I might have read a few, but the Bobbsey Twins never captured my attention. If they had ever had dust covers, they were no longer there, and even the covers were drab.

Then my favorite cousin, who was more my mother’s age, bought me two Nancy Drew books: The Hidden Staircase and The Secret of the Old Clock. Those are the first two books in the Nancy Drew series, and I would go on to read many more of them. She was so cool with that roadster she drove. In fifth grade I had a couple of male friends who also got me into the Hardy Boys, so I read a few of those and enjoyed them.

I also remember reading lots of Agatha Christie mysteries when I was a kid. Funny, I don’t like them so much now, And Poe. Edgar Allan Poe. M.y best friend and I would read them just to get scared! “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Masque of the Red Death” were  a couple of our favorites. Oh, and “The Black Cat.”

I guess the book that had the most effect on my life is Mr. Popper’s Penguins because it led to a lifelong love of penguins!

Other books I remember fondly from my early years include The Diary of Ann Frank, Fifteen by Beverly Cleary, The Good Earth by Pearl Buck, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

The only book I remember reading in elementary school was the first grade primer Ted and Sally (otherwise known as Dick and Jane in states besides Massachusetts).

Enter junior high. Why, oh, why, did we have to read such horrible books in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade? I don’t remember all of them, but I do remember Evangeline, that awful poem that begins, “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks.” And yes, I still remembered those lines by heart. But I didn’t remember the author, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Another real charmer from junior high school was Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. Yuck.

And who can forget Beowulf? I don’t know if that was junior high or high school.

I think it was in 9th or 10th grade that I was put in a special reading class for advanced readers. This little club was in addition to our regular English class, but the books were better. I remember only the first book because the teacher talked about it for weeks and weeks before the class actually started. It was The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. This was a much newer book, written in the 1920s!

High school brought more boring books, but I remember only a couple of them. In 10th grade, we read David Copperfield — but only the first third of the book. Why? Who knows? It remains the only Dickens I have ever read, to my recollection. I may have started A Tale of Two Cities at one time. The Scarlet Letter was banned in my high school (yup!), so we read The House of the Seven Gables. Not too bad, I guess. I am sure we must have read something by Shakespeare, but I don’t remember. In fact, I don’t remember any other books we read in high school except the books I read in Latin: Julius Caesar in tenth grade, Virgil’s Aeneid in twelfth grade, and in eleventh grade…..Cicero????

Boring as my junior high and high school class reading was, I didn’t give up on reading! During those years, I read some science fiction, a genre that I don’t read at all now. I read some Asimov, I know. And I continued to read Agatha Christie. It is likely I didn’t do a lot of outside reading in junior high and high school because I had a lot of homework, being in college prep classes with Latin, calculus, etc.  And I had my piano lessons and dance class….although I didn’t participate in any extracurricular activities in junior high school or high school except high school yearbook editor — for which I was chosen; I didn’t volunteer. My Latin teacher picked me because I loved Latin and he liked me.

to be continued….soon

 

If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read this one for free! 

Three Things You Might Not Know

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

There is grammar, and then there is GRAMMAR.  The three topics in today’s post aren’t in any grammar book I ever taught from or read — or wrote, for that matter! I am sure they are in some grammar book, and I am sure some of you know what they are. I actually was not acquainted with what they are called.

Bare Infinitives

An infinitive is a verb preceded by the word to: I want to leave. The infinitive is to leave. Notice that the verb in the sentence is want. An infinitive is really being used as a noun. Here, it is the object of the sentence. I want what? to leave. An infinitive can also be the subject of a sentence:  To swim is my favorite hobby. Of course, we would probably say Swimming is my favorite hobby. In that sentence swimming is a noun, but it is not an infinitive. So what is the verb ending in -ing and used as a noun called?? Yup, a gerund. 

Okay, so what is a bare infinitive? A bare infinitive is one without the to. We never think about them or really notice them, but when we do, we try to figure out what on earth that is in the sentence:

I let her use my book. (We don’t say “I let her to use my book.”)I heard my dog bark. (not “to bark”)I felt  the earth move.

Bare infinitives occur with certain verbs, among them let and the verbs of sense (feel, hear, see, etc.)

 Question Tags

These are easy and well named. They are the little “postscripts” that might come after a statement to make it into a question. These tags are used more frequently in speaking than in writing. They “check” to make sure what you said is true. They are preceded by a comma.

You locked the door, didn’t you?She is coming with us, isn’t she?I am getting the award, aren’t I?

 

Cleft Sentences

These are a bit weird. They are sentences where the word order is changed to emphasize something in the sentence. They often begin with what, all, or it.

I need a warmer coat. (regular old sentence)What I need is a warmer coat. (emphasizes the warmer coat)It is a warmer coat that I need (emphasizes what I need)All I need is a warmer coat. (emphasizes once again)

Here is another example:

I would love an ice cream cone.What I would love is an ice cream cone.An ice cream cone is what I would love.It is an ice cream cone that I really would love.

So now we know!