Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
ABOUT BOOKS AND READING
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What are you reading or what books have you read or heard about? (Part TWELVE) Ongoing general thread.
Linda, thanks for the great report!
Interesting report on the Olive book. It must not have been memorable to me at all except for not liking it. It has been a while since I read it and wonder what you will think of it when time passes too.
We are now reading, "The thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield. A book Joy has read. Looks good.
Hope you'll enjoy it, Linda.
I just finished Linesman by S.K. Dunstall. It's a new SF book that opens up an interesting universe & new type of technology. It's the first of a trilogy, possibly series & the author's first book. It had a few warts, but I quite enjoyed it & gave it a 4 star review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thanks for posting, Jim.
I've been thinking about a lot of my old books today. I have several thousand around the house & don't do much rereading. I think I'm going to go through the shelves & reread some old favorites for a while.
Where to you keep all one thousand books, Jim? Are bookcases lining the walls of your house? And barn?
Nina wrote: "Where to you keep all one thousand books, Jim? Are bookcases lining the walls of your house? And barn?"One thousand? No, several thousand. Maybe only 2500, but I don't count them. The last count was by my sons who estimated the number of books by feet of shelf space. They change fairly often, too. I buy new books frequently & if we really like them, I have to make space on the shelves & some wind up getting donated to the little library at the local store or elsewhere.
Marg & the kids read almost as much as I do, so between the 8 of us, the books get read fairly regularly. We have bookshelves all over the house. One entire wall of my bedroom & the living room are bookshelves, as is the foot of my bed. Other shelves are scattered about where ever they'll fit. They're very lived in, too. Most are stuffed full with notes stuck between & in books. Those often include lists of other books the author wrote, emails between us, or notes about the books/series.
The living room has mostly reference & those get used fairly often since they're books about birds, wood, plants, or history. Like as not, if you pull one of those books out, it's got sticky notes & other pieces of paper are stuck in the pages - when & where we've seen a particular bird or tree or some other notable fact. The main bookshelves in my room are fiction, although the one beside the door near the desk is full of nonfiction books I use occasionally, such as one on making homemade paints & stains.
I don't collect books just for the sake of having special editions, but to read, although some are from Centipede Press or NESFA to complete the works of particular authors. For instance, I've always been a huge fan of Karl Edward Wagner & had almost everything he'd written, so when Jared (Centipede Press publisher) decided to publish all his works, I helped complete his lists & put the Kane stories into proper chronological order. I bought the books, even though I have the stories in others. I also have a complete set of books by Janny Wurts with some duplication since she's signed most of them to me personally & I won't lend those out even to the kids.
Jim, an impressive amount of books. When I have more than 20 hard covered books I bring them to the library for their book sales. My paperbacks I bring to nursing homes. I always am envious of homes with book shelves full of books (not knick knacks) or a home that has a library with great chairs and lighting for the comfort of the reader.
Even better are the stories behind one's collections such as you've mentioned. I'm drawn in by book collections, rooms with books, stories about the books ...
Linda wrote: "...Even better are the stories behind one's collections such as you've mentioned. I'm drawn in by book collections, rooms with books, stories about the books ... "Books certainly do tell stories. A look at our shelves probably shows just how scattered our interests are. It's a pretty eclectic mix.
The best books are really good ones that have endured generations. I have some from my grandfather & father with notes in them. It was neat to see a margin note in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer about a similar caving experience. I love seeing passages they've underlined. It's a peek into their thoughts decades after they're gone.
While many disapprove of the practice, I write in my books all the time. IMO, books are to be used, a source of knowledge, & they're not always right. I add to the knowledge with my notes & questions. Sometimes they're on separate pieces of paper or even articles that are folded into the pages.
For instance, I have a reprint of The Woodbook: The Complete Plates by Romeyn Beck Hough. He wrote the dozen or so volumes in the late 1800s & early 1900s, I think. The originals contained actual slices of wood, but mine is a single volume comprising them all with stunning pictures. Since Hough wrote it, the taxonomy of several species has changed so it can be hard to cross-reference them without my notes.
Taxonomic changes are occurring a lot lately with DNA testing & more scientists working on it. I was just reading last week that they kicked Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) out of the Hamamelidaceae family & into it's own, Altingiaceae. Only the dozen or so species of Sweetgum are in this entire family! A lot of web sites still have it wrong, so it's really tough on books.
It's kind of fun to skim through old encyclopedias. Some of the old notions are odd, others scary, but what's missing is most informative. It's amazing how much has changed. It always makes me wonder just how accurate what I 'know' is. It's more important than ever to evaluate our core knowledge & beliefs. Some of them just don't make sense any more. Tough to do in some cases, though.
I have not nearly as many books as you, Jim but one wall in my living room has bookcases filled to the brim with a mixture of old, very old some childhood books from the 1800's and mostly fiction but also a set of Encyclopedias from the fifties and so far the knowledge they impart seems correct. Also, have a smaller bookcase in my hall with mostly cookbooks and travel albums I have done.One more bookcase in our family room filled with the very first editions of the Oz books and other assorted books and lots of coffee table type books. I have books leaning up against my mantle and stacks of them hither and yon. As for writing inside the books, I also love reading what someone else wrote. I have a book of essays from the 1800's with a note in the forefront saying, "Look on page 63." And when I looked the name Flora was underlined. That was my grandmother's name. I suppose it was my grandfather that wrote the note..Once a friend of my daughter's came to my house for the first time and she walked right over to my bookcase and said, "I always check out people's books so I know what they're like inside."
Jim wrote: "Linda wrote: "...Even better are the stories behind one's collections such as you've mentioned. I'm drawn in by book collections, rooms with books, stories about the books ... "Books certainly do..."
Give me a cup of tea (if ok to have a liquid beverage) and let me have at it - the books in your home, I mean! Oz books, bird books, books of your grandfather, all types of notes. Would keep me enthralled for hours.
Same applies to you, Nina. I wouldn't have time to read your books but just view the books themselves and wonder why some are laid down flat and others upright and why on this self and oh my look at all the cookbooks. What fun!
I'm enjoying "The thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield. Going along pretty well - keeping me interested.
Linda wrote: "I'm enjoying "The thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield. Going along pretty well - keeping me interested."That's good, Linda.
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Nina wrote: "...a set of Encyclopedias from the fifties and so far the knowledge they impart seems correct. "They will have all sorts of things wrong. Lots of things in astronomy. Pluto will be a planet & I don't think the Ort Cloud had been discovered. No man made objects in space until 1957 & we hadn't reached the moon.
The structure of DNA was discovered in the 1950s. As I mentioned, the taxonomy of many trees were wrong, but so were a lot of other plant & animal species. Dinosaurs were wrong in a lot of ways. The whole taxonomic structure has undergone revisions with domains at the top instead of kingdoms in the more prevalent ones.
Many computers were still partially or even fully mechanical. The transistor hadn't been invented yet. No color TV, Internet, microwaves, or all sorts of things we take for granted & rely on now.
History has radically changed as better tools have allowed a lot more data to be gathered. We've found entirely new hominid species, even that Homo floresiensis was around until a mere 13,000 years ago & coexisted (at least in time) with Homo Sapiens.
No, I don't think your encyclopedias are correct in a lot of ways. While it isn't a big deal that they're missing newer stuff, which is obvious, some are very important & change our whole way of thinking.
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan was great. Surprisingly so since I'm not much for paranormal or horror books. This was both, but very well done. I gave it a 4 star review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thanks for the links, Jim.
I am now reading The Pardon. I have read this author before, but have not read this volume.I am 65 pages in and enjoying it so far.
I just had to invite myself to the book discussion. The owning and storage of, that is. And drooling over (not really1).I live in a small senior studio apartment and I have four bookcases full. A rough estimate is 850 to 1000 books. Only about 200 hardcovers----the rest paperbacks, new and used.
Very little non-fiction---I use the library for that or search reference sites only.
but for pleasure reading, I want books I can hold in my hand. Mystery, science fiction and Historical fiction plus lots of odds and ends.
If you are ever in Nebraska, I would love to show off my collection. Nothing too rare or valuable----but I just loving having books all around me. Literally---there are also books on the desk, chair arms, dining table, dresser et al---which is why my count is only and estimate.
i trivia note---At the age of 13, there was a book fair held in the Church dining hall after Mass. This was 1963---my Dad gave me a dollar. I purchased "The Robe" by Lloyd C. Douglas---and I still have THAT copy---moved with me through thick and thin. Wish all modern paperbacks were that sturdy!
That's interesting, Mary JL. That's a lot of books!
Mary JL wrote: "I just had to invite myself to the book discussion. The owning and storage of, that is. And drooling over (not really1).I live in a small senior studio apartment and I have four bookcases full. A..."
You too are "surrounded" by books which to me is wonderful. Something friendly and approachable in a small or large home.
Mary JL wrote: "I am now reading The Pardon. I have read this author before, but have not read this volume.I am 65 pages in and enjoying it so far."
Just added this book to my list to read sometime.
"The Thirteenth Tale," was one of our book club selections this past year and I'll wait until Linda finishes it before I reveal my comments.
The reason I have lots of old books is that I was a child of the Depression and I usually received a stack of used books for Christmas along with one new one. And the fact that they were used meant some were printed in the 1880's. I love my Heidi, Tom Sawyer and Through the Looking Glass today as much as I did as a child.
I wish I still had the paper comic books I had as a child/loads of them and also a selection of Big Little Books. Google if you don't know what those latter ones are.
Nina wrote: "I wish I still had the paper comic books I had as a child/loads of them and also a selection of Big Little Books. Google if you don't know what those latter ones are."Cute! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lit...
Joy H. wrote: "Nina wrote: "The reason I have lots of old books is that I was a child of the Depression and I usually received a stack of used books for Christmas along with one new one. ... I love my Heidi, Tom Sawyer and Through the Looking Glass today as much as I did as a child."Nina, you have a wonderful reading background!
I read some of those Big Little books. My father had a few, but they fell apart years ago. The format occasionally comes back around. My oldest boy had a copy of Kidnapped & my daughter had one about 'White Wolf' or something in that format. Both published much later, though. Cute idea.
As I read about the history(thanks for posting that Joy) and saw one of the books was a biography of Jackie Cooper it reminded me that when my husband was in the Navy Officer's program at Notre Dame Jackie Cooper was in a dorm down the hall from him and he said they often played cards together. However, while there Jackie got into some kind of scandal and old movie star ZaZu Pitts came to testify in his behalf..just some trivia.
Nina wrote: "As I read about the history(thanks for posting that Joy) and saw one of the books was a biography of Jackie Cooper it reminded me that when my husband was in the Navy Officer's program at Notre Dam..."I read at Wiki that Jackie Cooper appeared in the film, "Peck's Bad Boy", in 1934. It was based on the series of books by George W. Peck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peck%27...
https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Ge...
George Peck was once a governor of WI and a cousin of my husband,
Nina wrote: "George Peck was once a governor of WI and a cousin of my husband,"That's amazing, Nina. Here's his WIKI page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_...
Interesting history of George Peck. I guess my husband knew part of it. He is also related to another writer, Richard Peck but not the most popular one known but that name. His cousin was once the president of the University of New Mexico and while there wrote several mysteries that were published but his most famous story that was made into a movie was titled, "Something for Joey." This Richard Peck is his first cousin.
This is mostly about the movie and they don't mention that the story was originally taken from a book. I believer my husband's cousin wrote the book when he was a professor at U V. He was actually a child genius and graduated from high school at age 14.
I just finished reading The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins. It was fantastic as an audio book, far better than I remember the paperback, but I think I last read that as a teenager & was too young to really grasp what an excellent job Higgins did with it. I gave it a 5 star review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I really want to see the movie again now. I think I saw that when it first came out, but haven't since then. The cast is fantastic & so was the movie, IIRC.
Thanks for posting, Jim.
You often mention getting similar things confused, Joy. I've been having that problem, too. I get some of these old titles confused since it's been so long & the movies shared some actors. When I first started The Eagle Has Landed, I was thinking it was going to be Where Eagles Dare, but that's by Alistair MacLean. Not to be confused with The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian, but I occasionally do mix up parts since Clint Eastwood was in the last two & both had excellent climbing scenes.
Sounds like a good movie but unfortunately Netflix says it is on a Save list. That really means you never get it. Speaking of movies, I did tell Joy that my husband was at Notre Dame as a pre-flight Naval cadet as was the child star Jackie Cooper at the same time and they played cards with one another as Jackie was stationed down the hall from him. Last night we were watching "Ziegfield Follies," made in 1941 starring Judy Garland, Lana Turner, Hedy Lamar and Jimmy Stewart and Jackie Cooper. It was interesting to my husband to see him on the screen and realize three years hence they were almost roommates. But actually were card buddies. His acting was OK as was Judy Garland's but Jimmie Stewart must have had bad dialogue as he was pretty dreadful.
Jim wrote: "You often mention getting similar things confused, Joy. I've been having that problem, too. I get some of these old titles confused since it's been so long & the movies shared some actors. When I f..."It's easy to mix up similar titles like that, Jim.
I read another book by Keith Laumer, 4 short stories in The Undefeated. Great old SF. I gave it 4 stars in my review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Nice last day in my eighties as we went to our museum to have lunch and see the new exhibit of Impressionists donated by a wealthy citizen named Bloch. They number in the one hundreds and most are priceless. This exhibit was written up in one of the newspapers in France calling it one of the most impressive in the world. And because I have been in France a number of times even though I am obviously even though I reach ninety tomorrow I'm not of the generation depicted in the paintings I could identify with the surroundings..
Although I don't know much about art, I do favor the Impressionists.
Happy birthday, Nina. Welcome to the 90s. :)
Happy birthday, Nina!
Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group
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Hard to discuss a book with short stories especially since they weren't in any assemblance of order. We had to keep referring to the book to recall the characters.
Someone had said Olive seemed to steer towards people who were down and out (one with suicide, one with eating disorders and so on). Then, I said there was a word I had to look up "schadenfreude" which means enjoyment from other peoples troubles. This seemed to sum up Olive.
We all thought there were sections in each story we would remember as the writer captured feelings and inner thoughts quite well. Overall the book was OK.