Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
What are U doing today?
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What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread)
Ouch, Joy. Glad you got the water back, though.I wish I could, Nina!
Good news: Erin is in full planning mode for getting married this summer here on our farm. She just asked for pictures of the north field, so I suppose it is taking place there. I heard something about me leading her to the 'altar' on Topaz. Not sure if I'm riding or not. I also had to provide pictures of the back yard, so I assume the reception will be there.
I think this will be an interesting wedding & probably not expensive. I've heard something about the 'preacher' being a druid in their SCA kingdom. Dogs & horses are on the top of the guest list. Bonfires & campouts have been mentioned for the SCA folks.
SCA = Society for Creative Anachronism
http://www.sca.org/
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Big decision this morning: Do I try to break the side door of the barn free of the ice to bring in the hay or just bring it in through the run-in shed?
The door will likely just freeze up again. It's been getting worse since the build up outside of it runs any water right back under it. Now the entire 8' 2x4 at the base plus the metal siding is all glued to the ground by ice. I might just bust it trying to get it free, so I guess I won't try. I'll have to fix this whole issue once everything thaws.
Bringing the hay in through the run-in shed is harder & means we'll have to figure out what to do with the horses. Usually we leave them tied in there & their stalls or else they 'help' with the hay. This means grabbing bales & pulling them of the trailer, cutting the twine with their teeth, & standing in the way mooching for attention & biscuits.
Marg will figure something out. Maybe she can walk Indy off while I back in, then tie him somewhere else once I have the trailer backed in. We can let Speedy stay loose. He just nibbles.
I HATE all this ice!!! Everything is three times as hard!
Good luck to Erin with her wedding plans! Don't forget to post pics!Speaking of frozen garage doors, one time when I was going out early in the morning to substitute, I got trapped in our garage. The garage door had frozen shut. The door behind me to the house mistakenly locked itself. I was really in a panic.
I kicked open the door to the house and called our babysitter's husband who came and somehow opened our garage door for me.
When I think back on those panicky mornings when I had to rush out the last minute to substitute, calling the babysitter, getting the kids ready for whatever, I almost regret that I put myself through all that. The pay wasn't that much. I guess I needed to get out of the house. In those days there was pressure on women to go back to work, breaking the tradition of being full-time mothers. If I had it to do all over again, knowing then what I realize now, I'd choose to be a stay-at-home mom.
The kids grow up too fast. We should enjoy them while they are still young and living with us. Too soon, we have an empty-nest!
Joy, I feel sorry for you with the freezing problems. This is a winter we won't remember with fond memories. Jim too, sounds like he has had it this year. But, the wedding to look forward to sound like fun for all concerned; even the animals. Our Irish setter attended our youngest daughter's wedding as it was at our home. Our cat disappeared, however, until all were gone. A different daughter's wedding at a differnt house was complete with bagpipes. Some weddings seem to be boring but Jim's daughter's sounds right ON!
Jim, warmest congratulations and best wishes to Erin and Josh. I'm truly happy for them both!Barb and I had an outdoor wedding, on the farm where she worked, with the reception in a "turkey house" (the size of a barn) there, which was under construction. (It had the concrete floor, roof and supporting posts, but no walls, so was very much like the pavilions you typically see in public parks, and fit the bill perfectly!) That was also a low-cost wedding, which was what we both wanted.
Jim, you have my sympathy with your winter woes! It's bad enough in the city, but a lot worse for you folks in the country, especially with large animals. Wish I could do something to help out!
Thanks all. Well, the winter will end eventually. I'm just getting creakier & more tired as the days go on. It's wearing. At least Marg is back to normal.
Joy H. wrote: "Good luck to Erin with her wedding plans! Don't forget to post pics!Speaking of frozen garage doors, one time when I was going out early in the morning to substitute, I got trapped in our garage...."Joy, once when I was visiting my daughter and family in France in the winter I was ready to leave for the airport which was in Geneva, Switzerland and so we had to go through passport control and we were already late when my son in law discovered the trunck of his car was frozen shut with my luggage inside. He finally got it unstuck but the stairs to the plane were beginning to be taken up when I ran to climb up them. I would never have made it with all you go through now.
Nina, that was a close call!
Do you all know that TCM has 31 prior Oscar winners running up until Oscar night? I watched again, "Dr. Zhivago" Still excellent. Also, watched, "From Here to Eternity," and not wonderful. Seemed dated in spite of the history connected to it. Over dramatic acting. Stupid dialogue. "Remains of the Day," on this afternoon.
"Remains of the Day" was a great movie and great book. The book was terrific!
I don't know if my comment stayed on this page..I said I was certain the book must have been excellent and hope that Anthomy Hopkins lived up to the part in the book, I so like him and also Emma T. Were you happy Joy with who they picked for the movie?
Yes, I thought that Hopkins and Emma were perfect in the roles. I only wish the ending of the story had been different for both their sakes.
The ending..me too. Almost time for "Downton Abby," and I can't miss that. I am reading and enjoying Alexander McCall Smith's book, "The Perils of Morning Coffee." It is nice once in a while to read a book that makes you laugh.
RE:The Perils of Morning Coffee: An Isabel Dalhousie eBook Original StoryNina, I guess we'll be seeing more and more of this type of book, written only in the eBook format. I doubt if I'll ever be able to adapt to it. I like marking my place in a book and looking to see how much I've read by looking at the book when it's closed. It's sort of like the difference between an analog clock and a digital clock. I like to see where the hands are on the clock. :)
I understand the feeling. I actually, as I mentioned before, like both my Kindle and "real" books. I read both. You can bookmark by the way on a Kindle and there is a little sign at the bottom of the page that tells either what page you are on or what percentage of book you have read. As I said, they both have their advantages. It's like using the Microwave; I still also use the oven. I still love going to bookstores; even B & N and I especially like used bookstores. I just finished reading a Victoria Holt novel that I liked very much. Strange as I used to read her when I was in my thirties and still she was good; hardback book that I bought for a dollar.The title is, "The Spring of the Tiger," in case you are interested in reading it.
Good ole Victoria Holt! My old records show that I read 5 of her books a long time ago. They were:The Road to Paradise Island
Daughter of Deceit
The Queen's Confession
House of a 1000 Lanterns
The Pride of the Peacock
I'll keep The Spring of the Tiger in mind.
I like the idea that the Kindle shows you what percentage of the book you have read.
It's the same feeling I get when I stream a movie on my laptop. I can always see how many more minutes of the film are left. This isn't true when I watch a movie via a DVD using my TV screen. With a DVD I never know how much longer the movie will last.
Joy wrote, "I guess we'll be seeing more and more of this type of book, written only in the eBook format."Joy, this actually does illustrate a trend --but not a trend for the book trade, as such. Goodreads' software lumps both actual books and free-standing short stories (like the one by Alexander McCall Smith that you linked to) as "books;" but, of course, the latter really aren't books, and they're marketed very differently. Indeed, from the time of the collapse, beginning in the 60s, of the short-story market in the general-circulation magazines (which had been the mainstay of that format) until the rise of the Internet, it was hard to market them at all. (Obviously, it's difficult to sell single short stories in a print format over the counter.) Electronic publication really offers the most viable market strategy for works of this type (and the only market they've had for decades!).
Actual books, on the other hand, are still viable in both formats, and still tend to be published in both. True, self-publishing authors operating on a shoestring often publish only in e-format at first, because that's the cheaper medium. But they generally do so with the intention, as soon as their finances permit, of making the work available in paper format as well.
Werner wrote: "... Actual books, on the other hand, are still viable in both formats, and still tend to be published in both. ...."Werner, that's good news to me!
I understand the situation with short stories. Good point.
Speaking of short stories, as you may know, I subscribe to audible.com. Lately I've been choosing audio-books which are collections of short stories. They make good listening. Below are some audible.com links showing some of their short story options:
http://www.audible.com/pd/Classics/Ad...
http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Leg...
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fant...
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fant...
http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/The...
http://www.audible.com/pd/Classics/Co...
http://www.audible.com/pd/Classics/Th...
http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/The...
http://www.audible.com/pd/Classics/Cl...
http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Spo...
I'm currently listening to the one linked immediately above.
Each link above provides a short audio sample.
This looks like another good choice:http://www.audible.com/pd/Classics/Th...
The page linked above lists the stories included.
Today was battery replacement day. I've been jump starting my pickup for a month & the tractor didn't start the other day, so I knew it was time. The battery in it was original, about 7 years old. It looked like it just needed water. Unfortunately, I didn't know that until I spent 20 minutes getting it out of the pigeon hole they shove it in & since I already had the new one, I decided just to keep it. I'm not used to batteries that take water any more.Over the weekend, the UPS started nagging me about a bad battery. Its batteries were 3.5 years old, about right for replacing, too. So I went to the battery store today & picked up all of them. $400 with the tractor battery costing half that. Ugh. Well, I shouldn't have to do it again for a while, thank goodness.
Everything is starting & running well now. I got the lane scraped & didn't pile more than a few hundred pounds of gravel on to the lawn, I think. Much of the ice came up or broke up & gravel mixed in with it so it should melt if we get another sunny day. While it was only in the mid twenties today, we lost some of the ice on the trees, but nothing on the lane since it was covered with 2" of snow last night. Tonight we're supposed to go down into the single digits & I don't think we get out of the teens tomorrow. Brrr!
Help should be on the way, Jim. We have one more dreadful below zero and then after Wednesday afternoon and a bit more snow we start climbing and have forties in the weekend and perhaps sixty degrees sometime next week. Take Care.
Joy H. wrote: "Good luck to Erin with her wedding plans! Don't forget to post pics!Speaking of frozen garage doors, one time when I was going out early in the morning to substitute, I got trapped in our garage...."Joy, think of all the children whose lives you made richer by teaching them.Must be quite rewarding., I was a stay at home mom but even I didn't realize those days were fleeting. I wish I could have just one day back with all six at the dinner table saying, "May I be excused, please?" Do kids even say that any more or are they even sitting at the dinner table?
Werner, thanks for all the info on short story publications and other things. I was fortunate enough to have a few short stories published in the eighties and nineties and poetry in literary magazines; more recently, an article and essay published last year. I used to love to read the serials in the daily newspaper.
You're welcome, Nina. Congratulations on your various publications!
Jim, it's good to hear you've got things under control. Sorry about the big expenses. I broke a tooth and will have to have it capped. More expenses. They never end.Nina, one of the rewards of teaching was when I connected with a former student on Facebook. She had been a student in my 4th grade class back in 1959-60.
The word "fleeting" is a good one. All those fleeting years which are only memories now.
I came across an interesting quiz today:http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011...
This is a fun way to see how much science you have retained. I only got 76%. It's been almost 40 years since HS, though. (Yeah, that's my excuse & I'm sticking to it!)
Jim wrote: "I came across an interesting quiz today:http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011... "
I took the quiz just now and my results were as follows:
"You answered 27 of 50 questions correctly for a total score of 54%."
(Average score is 66%]
That quiz was much too long! Whoever devised it must be a sadist! LOL
Joy, you're right, that quiz is long! I managed a score of 60%. (My high school days are even more in the remote past than Jim's. :-) Actually, I don't think some of those terms were covered in high school!)
Eddie scored 60% too. And he used to teach science! :)(Some of the questions were actually mathematical questions.)
("Higher" math is a subject I didn't do well in!) Some of them are also very technical questions about scientific minutiae which, IMO, have very little real significance for applied science or the kinds of implications of science for society that they mention in their introduction. Obviously, I'm no science expert; but truth to tell, I think I could design a quiz that better measured comprehension of important concepts and socially significant information.
I agree, Werner. Those quizmakers are out of touch with the world of average people. :)
Here's an interesting list compiled by AbeBooks (a site that lets book stores sell on the web) for The top 100 most searched for out-of-print books in 2013http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.ph...
I was surprised by some of them & I own 3 or 4.
Interesting list. I had only read two of them.
Jim wrote: "Here's an interesting list compiled by AbeBooks (a site that lets book stores sell on the web) for The top 100 most searched for out-of-print books in 2013http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.ph... "
I wouldn't want any of them. :)
As I sometimes say after perusing a shelf of books for sale, "I didn't see anything that leapt out at me," either. :-)
Years ago I read, "Advise and Consent," and at that time thought it was good.
The Big Country by Donald Hamilton was one I noticed immediately. While he's best known as the author of the Matt Helm books (the American James Bond) that I like a lot, I really enjoy his westerns. He spent a lot of time riding, walking, & hunting through the areas he describes. It shows. He's also done a lot of research into the 'wild west' & isn't one of those authors who idolizes the period.I also noticed The Colorado Kid by Stephen King. I have all the books published by Hard Case Crime & this was the only one I gave 1 star to. It didn't belong in the line at all & I told Charles Ardai (the editor & an author) so in no uncertain terms. The line was known for gritty crime fiction & the fantastic cover art. King's book was pointless, though.
I was quite surprised to see Cyborg by Martin Caidin on the list. I've read a couple of Caidin's books & he's not a great writer. This one was probably his most famous since it was the basis for the TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man". One vendor wants $185 for the mass market paperback in 'good' condition! Crazy. I didn't check my copy, but it's probably a library reject, so not worth much. Still, it's pretty wild.
Like Nina, I read Advise and Consent years ago (back when I was in high school, in fact!), and agree that it's a good novel of its type, political fiction. (It didn't "leap out" at me as a must-purchase because I've already read it, and the BC library has a copy.)I've also read all of the sequels, but their literary quality declines steadily, along with their believability. Part of the problem is that they supposedly cover events in a roughly two-year period, but are written over a span of something like 15 years that saw epochal changes in U.S. politics. More significantly, though, Drury's neoconservative politics, instead of informing the storyline, totally hijacks the storyline; the series degenerates into strident propaganda, and the characters become ideological stereotypes who are either noble heroes or cartoonish villains.
It's still snowing here. Before lunch, I walked downtown to buy a Valentine card for tomorrow for Barb; and where the snowplows have shoved the snow from the street to the sidewalks, the latter are covered about waist-deep. :-( I finally got smart and walked in the street --not a practice I'd usually recommend, but the weather has reduced vehicular traffic by quite a bit.Barb estimates the accumulation of snow, by now, to be easily 6-7 inches, where it's not piled by snowplows. Earlier this week, there were some theories that our area might escape the brunt of this storm, but I think we can safely say they've been refuted. :-)
Finally in the forties here and everyone it seems it out on the street;driving.
Yay! The storm missed us. Mom said there was 6 or 8" on the ground when I talked to her at 5am. It's supposed to snow there in MD all day. They've gotten well over a foot last I heard.We still have plenty of snow & ice, but it finally melted off the trees yesterday & today put a good dent in it. We only got up to 35, but the sun was strong. They're calling for more snow/ice/rain mix starting tomorrow afternoon.
:(
I am so impressed by the reading backgrounds of our posters here. Not only have you read a lot but you have good retention and excellent analytical skills.Speaking of analyzing, I think I've had an insight today. I've been complaining about the over-abundance of unnecessary details in _Morgan's Run_. Actually, it isn't the overabundance of details so much as the lack of skill in presenting those details.
In contrast, today I picked up a copy of Doctorow's Billy Bathgate which I had lying around the house. He presents details in such a skilled manner that you keep reading in amazement over his masterly use of words. To one who loves words, his prose is a pleasure. I'm not sure I will be able to keep up with his long sentences, but I will try. The brutal crime theme may be a deterrent for me as well.
BTW, here are the words with which the book jacket describes Doctorow's prose: "... prose that astonishes with its lyric intensity". Wish I had said that.
"Poetry is a place we can return to in all kinds of weather; with its innate power to heal and comfort, transform and inspire. Its porch light is always on."Wyatt Townley
I, too, admire Doctorow's skill but not aways his stories. Ragtime was my favorite, though.
Yes on Ragtime, Nina!Thanks for the quote about poetry.
JOKE:
QUESTION: What kind of poetry do you like?
ANSWER: I like the kind I can understand.
Joy, that's the kind of poetry I like, too! :-)
It might be a joke but I agree with Werner, I do like the poetry that "speaks" to me.
Nina wrote: "... I do like the poetry that "speaks" to me."That's a good way to put it, Nina.
If a poem evokes a feeling in you, it's done its job.
"It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right readaer of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound=that he will never get over it." Robert Frost
Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group
Books mentioned in this topic
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The Count of Monte Cristo (other topics)
War and Peace (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Tara Westover (other topics)Ann Howard Creel (other topics)
Ann Howard Creel (other topics)
C.W. Gortner (other topics)
C.W. Gortner (other topics)
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I can sympathize with all who are going through weather troubles. Today we had our share. Our main water pump broke down. No water coming in anywhere! We felt like we were camping.
The plumber came and was able to access the pump under the ground and under the snow as well. Amazing man! Bottom line, we will need a new pump. $500! Meanwhile, he somehow got the broken one to limp along until Monday when he will replace it.