Cheryl’s Comments (group member since Nov 29, 2022)

Cheryl’s comments from the Beyond Reality group.

Leserling wrote: "Das Krähennest. It was one from my mum's childhood, and I loved it back then. Since there was just the one copy, and my sister loved it, too, I bought a second copy on abebooks a couple of years ag..."

I'm assuming that there's no English translation?

Several, actually. The Phantom Tollbooth, The Little Prince, The Princess and the Goblin....

I think the one that holds up the best to rereads and to recommendations as I grow older is The Secret Garden. If you've not read it, please do. :)

Another that I don't recommend very often but personally love is The Golden Name Day. Someday, i vow, I will own a copy of that. There are plenty others, but these come to mind first.

The Pooh books are great. So are the complementary poetry collections, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.

First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human was fascinating, and so was Unthinkable: What the World's Most Extraordinary Brains Can Teach Us About Our Own. I'm starting a kids' novel for a quick break, then I've got Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist by the wonderful Frans de Waal. Normally I wouldn't read so much NF so fast, but I'm visiting my mother so things are different.

My mom impulsively picked up the stand-alone Homer and the Holiday Miracle novelette-length memoir so I read it. Cute, heartwarming... but even though I like cats I don't know if I could read a full-length story about the cat family. Still, it counts as a Christmas read!

I'm enjoying a few children's novels by Kevin Henkes this week, and I'm also about to pick up First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human.

It does sound wonderful. I understand that it can be done at home or in a facility (I'd choose a facility for myself if I could). I also understand that if your loved one is under hospice care, when they pass, you call hospice instead of 911. That would be so much less stress (and expense).

I don't know how well it's all managed in each state, and whether decent care is available everywhere. But anything's got to be better than ICU or a nursing home, I would think. The author of *Being Mortal* is a fan.

Oh. Well, I bet I could find it in the Yukon (OKC) area if I needed to.

Gone too soon, never forgotten.

My father was 78, two years ago, and I still find myself sometimes thinking of him in the present tense. He's alive in my heart.

I will definitely use hospice if appropriate. I'm glad to hear it works in OK.

Thank you.
I am sorry for your loss.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End is an especially good read now as I'm 60, my mom is 80, and even though we're both healthy these conversations need to happen. I'm visiting her, so I read it right after she did and we're both very clear now. Next I'll get my husband to read it... there are so many different ideas about what 'quality of life' and 'dignified end' and 'extraordinary measures' mean.

Probably the best thing I learned is how wonderful hospice care can be. Sometimes patients even live longer with it, because they don't have the stress & trauma of all the treatments one gets if one is institutionalized.

If I need to, for a challenge or something, I would reread Dickens' Christmas Carol and/or A Child's Christmas in Wales (preferably as illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman). Maybe A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. The first two I could read every year if encouraged, the last every 4-5 years.

Other holidays, well, it seems to me that they're kinda shoehorned in. I'd like to find a good Solstice story, though, and maybe a good New Year's one.

But Chanukah is actually one of the less important Jewish holidays, for example, and so I wouldn't read about that. Instead I'd already have read a book about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: the High Holy Days of the Jewish year, earlier in the fall.

I get the impression Juneteenth is more important than Kwanzaa, too. And don't forget Tet, and Ramadan, and Holi, etc.

I hope some of you can recommend specific books for Solstice and/or New Year's Eve/ Day.

Ok, you don't need a second, but let me just say that I really enjoyed War with the Newts.

The Scavengers by my favorite author author:Michael Perry|2772479]. Lower level YA dystopia-ish. There needs to be a sequel so we learn (along with the young hero) more world-building, and so we see what she does next. (Perry has said he's working on it.)

I belong to the TT group here on GR. Lots of favorite titles over there. One that gets mentioned often is one I need to reread, Replay

Oh this thread is for me. I've loved so many.

Lackey's 500 Kingdoms is so much fun, yes. It starts with The Fairy Godmother. It would be best, but is not necessary, to read them in order.

I'll come up with more later.

As always, I'll be reading Newbery books (for another group). And I'm working on the box of ST:TNG that I inherited from my brother. I'll finish the last Narnia book by tomorrow, and I expect to finish the last book of the Expendable series, Radiant, this month.

I'm also considering a reread of my favorite author's works, starting with a SF novel of all things, The Scavengers, by Michael Perry, who usually writes philosophical memoirs that are funny.

The Best of World SF, Volume 1

Mixed bag, as with all anthologies of course. Better for readers less squeamish than I.