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Somewhat Rhetorical Question of the Week
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Janelle
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Nov 06, 2017 12:47PM
People will post when they want to and they might feel pushed if we are asking them to post when they aren't inclined to do so.
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Oh gosh, that is a hard one Charly! My first thought was the The Swiss Family Robinson. I first read it when I was about 10. I just loved the adventure and their resourcefulness appealed to my imagination. I also read Little Women and Pippi Longstocking around that time too. These are the families and stories that remind me of when I had all the time in the world to curl up in a comfy spot and read.
MichelleCH wrote: "Oh gosh, that is a hard one Charly! My first thought was the The Swiss Family Robinson. I first read it when I was about 10. I just loved the adventure and their resourcefulness appeal..."... and how can I forget the Ingalls family and Little House on the Prairie.
Charly wrote: "(Editorial note: Have not and will not read Go Set a Watchman, so this second choice is based only on the book we know Harper Lee wrote.)" Charly, I'm with you where Go Set a Watchman is concerned!Personally, I also like the Crachits, and the March family in Little Women (I haven't read some of the other books mentioned). For me, the latter had a lot of similarities to my own family: like Mr. and Mrs. March, Barb and I had all female offspring (in our case, three daughters instead of four), our three girls each had personal qualities that sort of parallel one or a combination of the March sisters, and we too were sustained by our Christian faith through "temporary poverty." (Though in our case, "poverty" meant something different than our domestic staff being reduced to one servant. :-) ) Paradoxically, that degree of close emotional identification probably is what keeps that family from being my fictional favorite; I'm just too close to them for dispassionate enjoyment of their experiences.
But after thinking it over a bit, I'd have to say that my own favorite fictional family is the Cullens of the Twilight Saga. (Okay, I know, as one of my former library co-workers once said, "Werner's into the weird!") It's a family formed by marriage and adoption more often than by birth (and yes, it's a family of vampires, albeit nice vampires; but in all the basic qualities that make us human, they're as human as we are), but they all deeply embody the qualities of love and loyalty, the one-for-all-and-all-for-one ethos that makes a true family. They may have their differences; but when trial or danger comes, they're there for each other and they've got each other's backs. (And I suppose the fact that I've followed their lives closely through four thick novels and five movie adaptations helps my bonding with them!)
Charly wrote: "I think as you related to the March family, who also crossed my mind, I related to the Cratchits..."The Cratchits are a wonderful fictional family, who perfectly embody the spirit of the Christmas season. When I think of them, I often think of the allusion the writers of the movie The Christmas List (the 1997 one starring Mimi Rogers) put in the mouth of the protagonist's mother, who was greatly influenced by watching an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Near the end, she declares, "We don't want to be Scrooge! We want to be the Cratchits!" (Barb and I agree with that aspiration. :-) )
Charly wrote: "And your favorite is?"I would have to say the Ingalls family; the whole series of books is great.
I'm not sure if this was ever a book - but I'd like to mention my favorite - the family from "Life with Father" - the one from 1947 with William Powell and Irene Dunn. Funny craziness
Linda wrote: "I'm not sure if this was ever a book - but I'd like to mention my favorite - the family from "Life with Father" - the one from 1947 with William Powell and Irene Dunn. Funny craziness"
Yes, Linda, that film was based on a book, by Clarence Day: Life with Father.
When my boys were little we would read The Night Before Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! every year.
Barb and I try to read from the Bible together every day (me reading out loud). We read the entire text, Genesis to Revelation, in order, bit by bit (usually a chapter at a time); but on Christmas day, I always read the passage in Luke describing the birth of Jesus, no matter where we are in the normal progression of readings.
Not really. I might plan bike rides or running races I want to do for the year because you have to register far in advance, but other than that, I don't.
There were several books I read to my children every Christmas: The Christmas Pinata; Smells of Christmas; Santa, Are You for Real? and others.As for resolutions, I restart them frequently. I do hope to make better plans for this coming summer's escapes. Not doing so last year made a miserable summer in the desert this past year, but we'll see. The others again, do get repeated: go to bed on time, read more books and less internet.
I'm with Janelle and Michelle here. I've never done New Year's resolutions as such. If I decide that I need to make a change in some area, I try to implement it right away, no matter what time of the year it is.
I probably wouldn't ask just anyone in public, but if I walk into the employee breakroom and see someone reading (even if I don't know them) I usually ask.
I'm rarely in a public place where I'd be apt to see someone reading a book (except for the library where I work, where interrupting a reading patron wouldn't be appropriate), but in the rare cases where that's happened, I've never asked them about it. Being on the shy, quiet side, it's wildly out of character for me to ask unnecessary questions of total strangers, or to strike up conversations with them. (But on the other hand, if someone saw me reading and asked the same question, it wouldn't bother me at all to answer! And if they were reading too, I'd then follow suit. That's never happened to me either, though.)
Yes! I wouldn't mind at all if someone asked me. :-D
No I wouldn't ask a random stranger what they are reading. And I figure if they are reading, they want to enjoy their book, rather than chat. But if they put their book down, I might ask them, though like Werner I'm not a great conversation starter.
I think they can, to some degree, but in the end it will be other events that come about because of our desire of the Olympics that truly determines what will happen.
Very thoughtful question, Charly, although I do not know the answer. Things and events (Olympics, snow, even 9/11) have had the effect of temporarily uniting us with neighbors across the street to across the continents, but for how long is still the question. I will say this, the Olympics is a great effort in that respect. :-)
Charly wrote: "New question by way of our awesome founder Reggia. When you are not first grabbed by a book, and in the face of negative public comment, do you continue or put the book aside? Secondary question ..."
If by "negative public comment," you mean bad reviews of the book, if I've started reading something, I'm not usually much influenced by other people's opinions of it (favorable or unfavorable). I'm more inclined to make my own judgement of it.
There are times when I start a book and then decide that it's not for me. (Rarely, I revisit those decisions and try it again; and in the case of A. Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar, for instance, I was glad I did.) Sometimes (also rarely) I consider quitting a book and decide to persevere. That happened with The Last Stratiote by LeAnn Neal Reilly, and again I was glad that I persisted.
Interesting question. I'm not sure if I can answer. The only negative comments I pay attention to and really let sway me are the super negative ones that say the book isn't worth anything because it's a dumpster fire. If the story sounded interesting I'll take it up as if by a dare.don't think I've ever not finished a book or movie I read as a self imposed dare before. I've scared my eyes forever though. Auto correct is strange. When I go back to change an i that it left auto correct, like the one back there, sometimes auto correct will change it to a stand alone O.
No, I can't say that I've ever had that perception myself.
In answer to Charly... yes, indeed it does go faster.
Charly wrote: "It may also be determined based on how often you pick up the book as you get nearer the end."That would help explain why our perceptions are different. I read on a regular schedule, and it doesn't vary no matter whether I'm at the beginning or the end of a book.
Once I've made it to the middle, at that point I find myself more inclined to pick it up.
Personally, I think it's certainly both. Any time we do something that contributes to making the world a better (rather than a worse) place, it's important to us in that it's helping us to become a better human being. But its value towards the greater good shouldn't be minimized either, because the condition of the whole vast world at any one time is only the sum total of its many little parts.
I like to believe that no matter how small it's for the greater good. It's one more person doing something positive. And although we do not do it to feel good about ourselves, it is putting out positive energy and I think that radiates... even something as simple and intangible as putting out a smile. :-)
The older meaning of "graphic," in the sense of "luridly visual in its level of in-your-face detail" (that's my own definition; I didn't actually quote it from a dictionary!) is still with us. But it's true that the publishing industry has made the phrase "graphic [in the simple sense of illustrated] novel" into a basic book trade term for what we used to call comic books, because it sounds more dignified and reflects the fact that they aren't always comical. To express the older meaning now without misunderstanding, we'd need to say something like, "a novel with graphic violence" or "a novel with graphic sex' (or both).Probably the most significant change in my lifetime was the hijacking of the word "gay" to mean "homosexual." This was not a grassroots, evolutionary development, but a from-the-top-down decision by the cultural elite foisted on the populace, for reasons which could furnish a text-book example of Orwell's discussion of the dishonest manipulation of language --and taking deliberate advantage of the fact that the morbid fascination of many English speakers with double entendres any time a word can be associated with sex, and the consequent need for other speakers to avoid such words in normal speech, would effectively gut any attempt at popular resistance. (As a teen, I can vividly recall reading discussions of this on my hometown newspaper's opinion page at the time it happened.) Regardless of how anyone feels about the so-called Sexual Revolution (and its casualties) --and Orwell himself was far from prudish-- this was not, IMO, a welcome development to anyone who values the integrity of the English language as an instrument of communication, as opposed to manipulation and propaganda.
There aren’t any public holidays here in Australia at the start of summer. For me, summer starts on its official date - December 1st. Some people might use the start of summer school holidays as their marker. But this isn’t very reliable as there are wide variations in dates.
Once upon a time, yes, but since moving to Arizona 14 yrs ago, I no longer relate any holidays to seasons.
Where the four seasons are concerned, I always think of them in a simple schema of four units of three months each: Dec.-Feb., winter; March-May, spring; June-Aug., summer; Sept.-Nov., fall (autumn). I think I was taught that mode of reckoning in school; at least, it's certain that I've used it ever since I was a small grade-school kid. In my family, neither Memorial Day nor Labor Day were significant holidays, so we never thought of them as seasonal markers. And I never paid much attention to the official reckoning based on the solstices and equinoxes, either; to me, those celestial events don't signal enough observable change to serve as meaningful seasonal markers.Interestingly, in traditional Swedish culture, the summer equinox on June 21 actually IS an important holiday --but it's reckoned as Midsummer's Day, as it is/was in other northern European cultures, not as the beginning of summer!-- and for the ethnic Swedish community in Minnesota, it's a day of celebrating ethnicity, much as St. Patrick's Day is for the Irish. But I never was aware of that when I was growing up (I was raised in Iowa); and since Barb's birthday is on June 21, that observance far overshadows Midsummer's Day in our household. :-)
Definitely the more subtle passages. Which is interesting as we make so much more of markers like birthdays and anniversaries.
Today was very special to me. It was a birthday, but the point of passage was not simply another year to tack on my age. Rather, it was being surrounded by my children, their spouses, and my grandchildren (two new grandbabies this calendar year). They all came to honor me, and take care of some needed projects around the house. The passage is in seeing their maturation... their looking out for me instead of the other way around, their capability, know-how and care. I felt very blessed and aware of how much I have for which to be thankful.
Reggia, I echo Janelle's birthday wishes! Thanks for sharing that beautiful post.
Thank you, Janelle... Werner... Charly (you're right, it did). :-)
Earlier this week, I remarked to a couple at a yard sale that their line of hand-held fans might do a "land-office business." (The temperature was probably about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.) Back in the days of the American frontier, when the Federal government was selling or giving away land to private settlers on a large-scale basis, the Federal land offices were very busy places, so they became proverbial for any place doing a really brisk business. But with the closing of the frontier, there are no more Federal land offices, so the expression is probably somewhat dated.
Charly wrote: "I think the phrase has carried down with folks of our generation with an understanding by younger people of what is meant but not the historical significance."I think you're absolutely correct, Charly --historical amnesia runs pretty much rampant. :-(
Charley, I'm pretty sure they do still print dictionaries nowadays, though I haven't checked Amazon just now. The most recent copyright date of the four Barb and I have is 2001, but I think I've seen them for sale recently in venues where new books are sold.Newer dictionaries tend not to have pictures. However, the ones I grew up with as a kid still had some, as does the 1947 dictionary Barb and I own. (We use dictionaries as references for our favorite word game.) This may be another example of the kind of phrase asked about in an earlier question, a common expression that's actually been outdated by changing practices or technology.
The discussion has made me curious, so I checked my encyclopedia, a 1985 American Heritage edition and it does indeed have 1-3 drawings on each page.
Reggia, I'm guessing that you mean the 1985 edition of The American Heritage Dictionary? The 1988 3rd edition of Webster's New World Dictionary (another one Barb and I have) has some also, though not nearly that many.Dictionary illustrations tend to be just small black-and-white drawings. They usually accompany entries where a visual element would clarify the definition better than the words by themselves.
Mine is the college edition, which may explain all the illustrations. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... (not sure how to put this edition in the book brackets) 
Summer has always been my favorite season, too, going back to when I was a child. I loved the warmth, the ability to play outside or walk to the park and other places, the green grass and trees and the beautiful blue sky with its fluffy clouds (and still do!). Of course, the seasonal liberation from school was also a big plus. Although I was studious and intelligent for my age, I didn't like school (I was bullied a lot, and preferred self-directed learning), and I liked having more time to read what I wanted to.
I am going to have to be the outlier here. I love winter. I grew up in Texas and have had enough of the heat to last a lifetime. I can always can get warm (preferably on the couch with blankets and a book) but it is so hard to get cool enough. I love the snow and days when it storms and you can't leave the house. My second favorite is autumn.
Hi Michelle! I just spend a week in Texas... it was hot and humid, yes, but it was a welcome break from Arizona.It's hard to answer this question living in Arizona. BEFORE living here, summer was my favorite season. I enjoyed being outdoors on the grass, as the beach, in the mountains during summer... gardening, walking, long days of light. Now that I've been here 14 years... I no longer have a favorite season, just memories.
Wow Reggia, come visit in the fall! Charlie, that is so true. Especially in the city when it becomes nasty slush.
I do miss fall, too! It is a season I often took for granted. I was fortunate to visit back east a few years ago when autumn came a little late and saw it in all its golden/amber/red glory. After the years away, it felt surreal to see the beautiful, bold colors in every direction I looked. :-)
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Books mentioned in this topic
Webster's New World Dictionary (other topics)The American Heritage Dictionary (other topics)
The Ship of Ishtar (other topics)
The Last Stratiote (other topics)
The Christmas Pinata (other topics)
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