Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

I think I'm up to more than 500 saved books. So many books ... so little time.

I enjoyed this one a lot, John. At the beginning. he does capture one dark side of Southern prison life.

My wife went to graduate school (at UVA) with his son, Christopher Dickey, who went on to become a really good international correspondent for Newsweek and other media outlets.

John wrote: "Well, this might be stored in the best laid plans category. I am thinking on giving One Hundred Years of Solitude a rest. I am about three or four in of the unnumbered chapters. It is a very dense ..."

John, your comments are a statement about how we are affected by books differently as we read them at different times in our lives. Knowing when to quit is important ... it is different for each of us and for the books that each of us reads.

John, I've never read Don Quixote, but I'm getting ready to. I read the brilliant section on the novel by Howard Bloom in his How to Read and Why, and then when I opened up the edition I plan to read, the 2003 translation by Edith Grossman Don Quixote), I discovered an even longer essay by Harold Bloom at the beginning of this book. He has a wonderful discussion of Shakespeare and Cervantes that is compelling reading.

John, I have pointed out before but perhaps not to you that PBS Passport maintains so much more in its archive than is immediately obvious. It contains the archive of almost every PBS station produced shows in addition to what you easily see when you browse, e,g, the Masterpiece Theater shows. Finding those shows takes a little work. One way is to simply change your default member station and then save the shows you see that you want to watch to your list of My Shows. Then when you change back to default station (mine is WETA) the shows will still be in your list of My Shows.

I watched BODYGUARD also and enjoyed it as well. So much easier to see all British originated shows now. We pay for Acorn, Britbox, PBS Masterpiece, and PBS Passport … and it is worth every cent. We just started watching Hinterlands last week and Miss Scarlett and the Duke yesterday. I’m down to watching one show (New Amsterdam) that originates U.S. networks.

And that’s really odd how regional accents have risen in prominence.

Carol, I’ve watched LINE OF DUTY from the beginning to the end. But like all British shows, I watch it with English subtitles turned on. :-)

Carol wrote: "Larry wrote: "For myself, I worry a lot about all the violence and gun crime in the US and am always giving son instructions about where to not go etc, which he completely ignores but kindly lets me twitter on. The San Andreas Fault used to somewhat occupy my thoughts but I no longer have to worry about that.
Latvia sounds quite small if the public school system is the same size as that in your county (unless your county is enormous!). It is interesting there is a Chinese Immersion School in your county. I cannot see Chinese being the main language of the world although it will probably be the second, no matter how dominant China becomes, as it is so difficult for most of us to learn as it is tonal. However, will probably be proved wrong on that! Unlike in ancient Rome where foreigners could become Roman, you cannot become Chinese. You are either Chinese or you are not, I gather..."

Carol, you are so much like me ... my expressed concerns to my son--not about his international travel--but visits down to Washington, DC fall on deaf ears. I've learned to keep my mouth shut.

Latvia has 1.8 million people and Fairfax County has about 1.2 million. But the average household in Fairfax County has more children, and hence the school age populations are about the same.

I think the dominance of English is here to stay, although English will continue to develop variants. In the United States, national media (mainly entertainment) has reduced the strength of regional dialects. Fifty years ago, if you went to Southern states, you would hear local television newscasters speaking with strong Southern accents. That is gone. Most of them sound fairly alike.

John wrote: "Barnes & Noble has done some updating with it's Signature Classic Series. Primarily colorful and beautiful artwork for the covers. The covers have a sleek, bright, and modernistic touch to them and..."

It is strangely fitting that today a book that I had pre-ordered landed on my Kindle. The book is Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World. A book about one of the first kind of paper to be read on an e-reader. But back to real paper books! I feel like you do, John. I'm happy to see changes in a series like the ones that B&N has done if it attracts more readers and more sales. I'm also happy to see how NYRB continues decade after decade in their format for their trade paperbacks. I picked up Mark Van Doren's Shakespeare yesterday to read his first chapter, the one on Shakespeare's poetry. Just a beautiful book on acid free paper. Similarly, I picked up Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology: a few weeks ago and marvelled at how this Library of America series had remained consistent in its format for 40 years. That particular book contains, as the title suggest, A Sand County Almanac. It's an environmental classic and its illustrations were done by Sher's father-in-law! (More comment on that in a posting to follow ... about a book that Sher's husband wrote and her brother-in-law illustrated!)

John wrote: "Larry wrote: "Apple cares a lot more about privacy for individuals. I try not to be an obnoxious fan boy for their products, but privacy aspect is important to me."

I'm a belated arrival to Apple...."

I moved over to Apple first with iPhones for myself and my wife (mayne 15 years ago) and then with an MacBook (maybe 12 years ago) . I struggled with using that MacBook for several weeks and then fell in love with it. After a few months, I replaced my desktop PC with an iMac and then at some point bought iPads for my wife and myself.

There is another undermentioned positive aspect to Apple. Apple will stay with a product that has real problems for years and work hard to improve it. I think that iTunes falls into this category which has become a very good product as Apple music. Google, on the other hand, has dropped over 200 software apps/products, including several that many people came to rely on in a major way.

Apple cares a lot more about privacy for individuals. I try not to be an obnoxious fan boy for their products, but privacy aspect is important to me.

John, I think you are right about the NC senate race.

Carol, our granddaughters are in a Spanish immersion elementary school (they themselves are not in those classes) but about half the school is … those pupils in those classes have about half of their classes in Spanish. There is also a Chinese immersion school somewhere in the county. It’s a large county. My son visited two elementary schools while he was in Latvia last week. When I drove him back from the airport Saturday night, he told me the Latvia public school system was about the same size as the Fairfax County school system.

John, do you know if his Collected Poetry book on Scribd cordons all the poems from that book?

Carol, I’ve probably read half of Robert Harris’s novels. I’ve yet to read the Roman ones and plan to do that at some point.

John, I have also tried A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE twice and gave up. I actually can recognize its greatness, but Carol captured my own feelings, “It’s just not for me.” But I won’t rule out trying it again. In that genre of magical realism, I did really enjoy REFINER’S FIRE by mark Helprin.

John, I just finished reading the article. It contains so much information. It's great.

I finished Ron Shelton's The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit. This book was mainly about all the problems that Ron Shelton had with making the movie as a director. He had few problems with the actors, including the three stars, Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins, but the problems with dealing with the studio began with actually finding a studio willing to produce the film. And then the constant interference from the studio, including a demand to fire the director of photography after the movie was 20 percent filmed. If you like the movie, you'll like the book ... but the best reason to read the book is to just understand how crazy studios can be ... often for no good reason. Often it's just a desire to assert power.

John, thanks for pointing this out. I still read the Raleigh News & Observer every day although I haven’t lived in Raleigh since 1976. I bet I’ll learn a lot.