Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What Are We Reading? 9 Nov 2020
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CCCubbon wrote: "It is a lovely book. "
I agree, it's a lovely book, in spite of the maths - for me, being rather 'mathematically challenged' - and the baseball. The charm of the characters outweighed that!
Machenbach wrote: "Anastasia wrote: "looking for some consolation and good ol' Friday fun. So I've settled on opening Popol Vuh, a sacred text of the Kʼiche'."Exactly how much did you drink between "looking for some..."
I'm big on herbal teas this week, it might be that hierbabuena that did the trick ;)
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On seeing the article in the G about their difficulties, I remembered there were 2 of their Travel Classics I'd wanted to read. So I ordered:
Edith Wharton In Morocco
Henry James Italian Hours
and - not in the Travel Classics series - Eric Newby A Small Place in Italy
Happy reading ahead!
Almost on the final 60 pages of THE REFUGE and the genius in the writing is i still have no motive for what seems to be have been from page one, a murder. There is no hint of jealousy, a rival, so far just one night of passion in 350 pages, did Fitz move an already dead lover to the harbour....no spoilers included here as the novel opens with the aftermath of Fitz's dead lover being found in the harbourRe Mach and concentration camp fiction, i have yet to read a novel set in these situations as i recoil from the fictional approach to such horror. Its odd as i have read all the non-fiction in its vilest detail, watched films and scoured the net for all the worst examples of the horror to understand the baseness of mans behaviour to man but still i cannot face a fictional portryal.(The only Wiesel novel i have read is his Palestine set novel).
Whether fiction plays games with holocaust fact is something i also am concerned about but then fiction is art and should be allowed these options, unless it professes to be "realist" fiction. I may be changing my approach to concentration camp fiction soon, as i have Danilo Kis novel on my pile and i would never say never, Kertesz is a novelist who interests me
New Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie interview in the Guardian. I love her: https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
Buckets of rain in Surrey and very welcome....that blitz novel by Bryher sounds interesting
NYRB have an excellent essay on the photography of Dorothea Lange and the link below shows some of her work documenting the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2:
https://anchoreditions.com/blog/dorot...
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Thanks for the link. That's really interesting. The end of this quote (General John L. Dewitt) is truly extraordinary:
"...along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at large today. There are indications that these are organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity.
The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”
I wrote some time ago in TLS about Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone, a Japanese-American woman whose family was "relocated" during WW II. For those who know Betty MacDonald, Monica Sone was Kimi in The Plague and I. They met in the sanatorium where they were treated for tuberculosis.
There was an excellent Dorothea Lange exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2018. I had earlier seen some of her work in another exhibition , the Howard Greenberg collection at the Fondation Henri Cartier Bresson.
Machenbach wrote: "I'm developing a crush on Patricia Lockwood's reviews. Here’s her latest, on Nabokov, and a related podcast."Thanks for the reference, Mac. (By the way the link to the article doesn't work, but this does). I didn't listen to the podcast but must say I didn't care much for her review. De gustibus etc.
Machenbach wrote: "But I do think that even if some simplification of complex or large scale historical issues is inevitable, there's a particular problem with the way that we do so via personification or individualisation. It is in the Right's interest to maintain a view of history in which individuals (political, military or industrial leaders, but also Schindlers) are presented as being the principal forces at work and the prime objects of our interest - something which the conventional novel form seems inevitably to implicitly support...."The trouble is that most people are actually interested in personalized and individualized stories, and historical views. Churchill, Roosevelt ... but also Lenin, Stalin. (The Left - if such a universal monolith actually exists - has had its own cults of the personality.) Novels are almost always about individuals within their social settings, and I'll admit to being one of those degenerates who continue to enjoy and be moved by them, and by biographies. I also worry that we of the 'liberal elite' are in danger of being written off by the majority as puritanical and intellectually snooty killjoys who despise 'ordinary readers' who like books such as Schindler's Ark - which I know you are not! And Alwynne's listing of the many forms of educational and cultural deterioration in the UK today are a reminder that we are not exactly winning the most important battles. It's ironic, surely, that the right wing has made the greatest gains among the least affluent, despite the policy of austerity. What is the plot that we on the left have obviously lost?
Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "the photography of Dorothea Lange and the link below shows some of her..."Thanks for the link. That's really interesting. The end of this quote (General John L. Dewitt) is truly extr..."
Two great books about this era are:
No No Boy (John Okada) a 1950s novel about the effects of internment and WW2 on Seattle based Japanese-Americans
Citizen 13660 (mine okubo) a 1946 graphic memoir of actual internment by a female Japanese-American
Machenbach wrote: "But, geesh, I dunno."That kind of sums my world view. But let's blame everything on the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians,, who started the fashion for statues ...
Justine wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "But I do think that even if some simplification of complex or large scale historical issues is inevitable, there's a particular problem with the way that we do so via personifica..."I think that it is the 'moral' proselytising that is so prevalent in small but powerful sectional groupings on the established 'left'. I have been on the fringes of that world, for a long time, but never identified with it. Its the kind of stuff that got the Labour Party into severe trouble over issues such as Israeli state policy, and Palestinians civil rights. The right don't have to bother at all about that sort of stuff it seems. To them it seems just down to who they can sell more arms to!... and get away with it... I really don't want to go there... to the Palestinian question so actively avoid even commenting on it mostly...
But it does remind me of Banksy's 'Elephant in the Room"... Even though many of us actively avoid it... it's still there.... and even more pertinent is that the elephant being painted by Banksy with non-toxic paint, for the pictures, became an animal rights issue, after the fact, all by itself... which I think is very telling, and part of the problem of always attempting to take to the highest of the most 'moral high-ground' It's a one way trip... and will always lead to more isolation and division, rather then bringing disparate people, with very differing views and belief systems, together again...
Justine wrote: "I also worry that we of the 'liberal elite' are in danger of being written off by the majority as puritanical and intellectually snooty killjoys who despise 'ordinary readers'"who like books such as Schindler's Ark I am critical of readers who get their history exclusively through historical novels. I recall suggesting some months ago that a certain number of Americans, innocent of both history and engineering, might read Whitehead's The Underground Railroad and come away thinking that there was a real, physical underground railroad.
Justine wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "But, geesh, I dunno."That kind of sums my world view. But let's blame everything on the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians,, who started the fashion for statues ..."
It has seemed to me that people voting for ‘what appears to be in their own worst interests’ is more fundamental, tied up within our class system. For generation upon generation people have been taught to respect the aristocracy, doff their caps, know their place, obey their masters. Today, this would be denied by the majority but something lurks still within our national psyche. It takes extraordinary circumstances or personality to overcome the tendency to believe a right wing candidate, ‘ doesn’t he speak nice’, ‘he went to Elton and Oxbridge, he must know more than me’, ‘ he will do what is right for me, I can leave it to him to make decisions for me’. Consider, my absolute pet hate, the calling of Johnson as ‘Boris’ . I have heard people saying ‘ We’ll be all right now Boris is in charge’. To me, this smacks of the old subservience and demonstrates my contention that too many are still doffing their caps.
There was a recent YouGov survey in the UK which found that the median number of books read in a year was four. Over half the population prefer to watch rather than read. These statistics tend to indicate that books have minimum influence on voting tendencies.
Machenbach wrote: "Justine wrote: "But let's blame everything on the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians,, who started the fashion for statues ..."Well statues were, I assume, reflective of Sumerian and Egyptian society..."
What does that say about us now? Maybe that we still erect statues to reflect our society, with our own particular sorts of heroes? That is, those with power and influence do, just as they did then.
I keep going to The Guardian books section and seeing a link for TLS my heart soars, then sinks.Currently reading Black Rain Falling by Jacob Ross, a follow up to The Bone Reader.
He’s a great writer, which makes up for some daft plotting. Our hero, Digger, has been recruited into the CID of a fictional Caribbean island, which is probably Grenada, by a maverick old cop, who gives criminals with a bit of gumption a choice of jail or joining his unit.
Ross writes in a patois that sings off the page, and is very good on wealth, privilege, colonialism, corruption, tradition and all that whatnot. Mostly though, he’s good at telling a cracking story, with engaging if unlikely characters.
Lljones wrote: "News from Oregon:Powell’s Books Is Releasing a Fragrance that Smells Like a Bookstore"
Bit early for April Fool's Day! As it is, you can't smell anything through the masks anyway...
On the topic of me still not having read a concentration camp novel, i just watched the 2017 film "Der Hauptmann" about a young paratroop deserter Willi Herold who impersonates an officer and then oversees the brutal massacres of other deserters held in a camp in German Frisia. Whats amazing is that its all true...it happened in the dying days of WW2 and the film makes clear how Herold fed on the chaos and bloodlust of the times to turn on the deserters like him
Not for anyone of a sensitive mind, its is a brutal film, germans killing germans ....
Alwynne wrote: "AB76 - I've got those on one of my many lists so good to know you recommend them. Have you come across Brandon Shimoda's The Grave on the Wall? I read it recently and was really tak..."thanks Alwynne....will have a look for this
PaleFires wrote: ""Machenbach wrote: "blahblah"!Haha! MachenBach also wrote - 'To the extent that the Left believe that it redressed historical or current injustices by renaming buildings or erecting more statues,..."
good points mach, identity politics is not my thang....it divides and Trump exploited these divisions for a few years and the tories do the same. For example working class poverty needs to be addressed as whole, not into identity silo's (the loathsome ben bradley on BBC politics used the neglect of the white working class as his excuse for being anti-woke , pathetic, all working class issues need addressing)
THE REFUGE is finished420 pages of the great australian novel that seems to not be mentioned much, i recommend it and will be interesting to see if anyone here reads it and compares notes. Sydney is such a great setting for a novel(Lawrence, Calthorpe and now Mckenzie, have tantilized me with their descriptions)
Next is BESIEGED CITY by Lispector, not sure if i will like it but LRB were pushing the Penguin Classics re-issues before covid struck in Feb, so lets see how Brazilian it is.....
@Machenbach wroteBut I think that identity politics fragments and divides us and, as such, only plays into the hegemonic narrative that there is no such thing as society or class, only atomistic self-interested individuals, as well as enabling divide-and-rule.
I couldn't agree more.
And I do not think this discussion is so off-topic.
I have not followed the LGBTQ vs JK Rowling controversy closely enough to offer a qualified opinion. I did get a gut feeling though...
When Reen wrote about her niece I happened to stumble over the GR site for that childrens book. I found the bile and the aggression aimed at JKR as a person really offputting.
One of the substances that I have been learning about following my study of celopaths in Monarchs of the Sea is called chitin which is pronounced ky/tin.I confess my ignorance in that this is a new word for me. Initially I was intrigued by the chi part of the word, the Greek letter that is twenty second in that alphabet and much used in statistics.
I have been reading around the uses and occurrences of chitin and it appears to be more common than I ever imagined and more useful.
Firstly I read about it being what the beak of an octopus is made from, the beak being the jaws (rather like a parrots beak) used to crush the bones or shell parts of its prey in a scissor like action.
Reading around I discovered that it occurs in many different body parts from the scales of fish to butterflies wings, from the cell walls of mushrooms to the outer shell of shrimps to insect skeletons.
It may be used to make prosthetic limbs or build models using 3D printers, may boost your immune system or give you another allergy ( those allergic to house mites may really be allergic to chitin). Chitin makes a biodegradable plastic, can be used as a food additive, surgical thread and in the making of paper. It is obtained largely through an offshoot of the crustaceans and fishing processing industry from the shells of lobsters, shrimps and the like.
I expect you all knew about this before but it had not seeped into my head and I couldn’t resist telling you about this most useful substance.
Should you wish to increase your chitin intake eat mushrooms or edible insects. Crickets, grasshoppers and mealworms may be made into an insect powder but I would rather leave the mealworms for the robins.
CCCubbon wrote: "Reading around I discovered that it occurs in many different body parts from the scales of fish to butterflies wings, from the cell walls of mushrooms to the outer shell of shrimps to insect skeletons."Really interesting stuff CCC. No, I had not heard of chitin, although it does remind me of keratin quite a bit.
Unrelated (I think), but your reference to scales above reminded me of something I learnt in one of my evolution-development courses during an MSc: that the shark's teeth have evolved from their skin's scales (and the origin of these cells seem to have been shown in 2017: here for the lay https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england..., and here for the scientific https://www.pnas.org/content/114/50/1... articles).
AB76 wrote: "THE REFUGE is finished420 pages of the great australian novel that seems to not be mentioned much, i recommend it and will be interesting to see if anyone here reads it and compares notes. Sydney ..."
Thanks for keeping us up on your reading and appreciation of The Refugee. Maybe one day in the not too distant future I'll catch up with it.
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Thought you might enjoy some of these photos - chitin abound
Machenbach wrote: "(...) in a Cugelish addendum to what increasingly looks like a series of unwelcome off-topic posts (...)"Yeah, had written a long convoluted post yesterday, but in the end decided not to post... Did I mention on (E)TLS that I like Stephen Collins's often absurdist weekly cartoons? Here is the one from yesterday, very apt:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...
In other news, and also to @Alwynne and @PaleFires, I have watched again Angel Heart last night. It really is a testament of how good it is that I remembered so much about it after 25 years - in fact, I had only forgotten about the big gumbo death, and remembered wrongly the eyes as being red, rather than orange/yellow.
It actually holds extremely well, and I've been more sensitive to its humour this time around. Yes, the ending is a bit preposterous - not in the story itself, this is after all a horror film where one has to suspend one's disbelief, but in the way it is revealed (see gumbo) - but the sense of time and place is second to none, the atmosphere sticky and unsettling, the style and editing fitting the narrative perfectly for me (Ebert and Siskel disagreed on this film, but as always, I agree with Ebert's assessment). Apparently, the Louisiana setting - the entire second half of the film - was not in the book it is adapted from, where all the voodoo references were based in Harlem, and I think it was utterly inspired of Alan Parker to transpose it there (and so did the writer of the book, William Hjortsberg). Rampling and Bonet both absolutely gorgeous and magnetic in very different ways, and yes, Rourke utterly cool in his shagginess.
Gladarvor wrote: "Really interesting stuff CCC. No, I had not heard of chitin"I really don't believe you hadn't :) I've come to think it's fairly common knowledge and though there's no shame in not knowing something, encyclopaedias for children and school course of biology generally cover that.
Anastasia wrote: "Gladarvor wrote: "Really interesting stuff CCC. No, I had not heard of chitin"I really don't believe you hadn't :) I've come to think it's fairly common knowledge and though there's no shame in n..."
No I really had not heard of it what little biology I was ever taught finished in 1953 when I was fifteen and it wasn’t on the syllabus then and I simply have not come across it before.
Thought you might enjoy some of these photos - chitin abound Thank you very much for sharing those wonderful photos. I. Liked the fungi with ice cubes on top and the air bubble in the icicle most. That air bubble looks like a pac-man from the early electronic game ready to move and gobble. Thanks again
Lost fiction..My experience with the Mckenzie novel that wasnt easy to find, in spite of being re-discovered by text classics, makes me wonder how many great works of literature remain gathering dust, waiting for a modern thinker or translator to discover them? Its not just obscure texts, if you look at the numerous nobel winners before WW2, many have little or anything in print.
This year i've been hoovering up catalan novels to make sure i take the opportunity, sometimes a great new translation of a lesser known novel is then very hard to find again, even with the long tail theory
The latest edition of "The Great Books" podcast tackles The Sound and the Fury with notorious Faulknerian and Jamesian scholar Michael Gorra.
Have decided to not go with Lispector and instead stick to one of my themes of 2020: Cold War Poland (Brandys Diaries/Hlasko novel/Non fiction about catholicism and communism), so the next classic fiction will be:THE ICE SAINTS by Frank Tuohy(1964), published in a handsome Apollo Classics edition. It covers the experience of cold war poland from a visiting englishwoman's perspective. A book and author i had never heard of till Apollo published it in 2017
Slawkenbergius wrote: " ... notorious Faulknerian and Jamesian scholar Michael Gorra." I don't recall encountering Gorra before this week, but yesterday I read his piece on Don DeLillo in the latest NYRB. He thinks that the core of DeLillo's achievement are the five mid-career novels:
Those books look permanent, with the last of them a summa; his early books in contrast seem preparatory, though they each have their admirers. To put it another way, DeLillo was born in 1936, and what matters are the novels he wrote in full middle age, with Underworld appearing when he was sixty. Dickens was dead by that age, Balzac too, but DeLillo has had a third act in the six short books he has written in the new century. These novels rarely take age itself as their topic, as both Saul Bellow and Philip Roth did in their own late work; yet still they are the product of age.
Elgar, Vicat Cole and the Ghosts of Brinkwells by Carol Fitzgerald and Brian W. Harvey.I finished reading Elgar, Vicat Cole and the ghosts of Brinkwells - the joint work of Carol Fitzgerald and Brian W. Harvey. This is a lovingly worked account of the three way relationship between a house and its two distinguished tenants. The artist Rex Vicat Cole rented the isolated cottage of Brinkwells in West Sussex from 1905 onwards. A painter who remained on the fringes of the art world and pursued an intensely personal vision, Vicat Cole sublet Brinkwells to the composer Edward Elgar at an interesting point in his compositional career. The last years of the Great War saw the ageing composer seeking the peace of the West Sussex countryside to reawaken his fading creative faculties. At Brinkwells the closeness and separation of the natural world encouraged a late flowering of works with an otherworldly character. This mysticism is uncannily related to a similar temperament in Vicat Cole and thus a web of connections is established that provides the foundation of Fitzgerald and Harvey's generously illustrated and elegantly structured volume. This poetic tribute by the joint authors is not thankfully too misty eyed or impressionistic for it is grounded in a realistic appreciation of the cottage and its surrounding countryside. The life of the Elgars during their tenancy is simply and gratefully described. We get a sense of physical privation and isolation as well as a pantheistic oneness with the surroundings. The daily concerns and activities of the Elgars, Alice and Edward are minutely shown, this realism working in tandem with the acute chapters on the artistic vision of Vicat Cole. Cole had a deeply poetic appreciation of nature but this ran alongside a profound study of trees, their physical makeup and their individual character. Their character according to species establishing a distinct relation to people and a deep level of communication that recalls the Tolstoyan vision of War and Peace. It is impossible to forget in this context the momentous visionary experience of Andrei Bolkonsky in the great novel, as he contemplates the oak at a special turning point in his life. The last section of Fitzgerald and Harvey's book which offers a close analysis of the musical masterpieces that Elgar created at Brinkwells draws together themes of pantheism and mysticism and offers a succinct account of how these works seem to portend a new direction in his compositional output - a direction that disappears poignantly with the ending of the Brinkwells idyll as Alice Elgar, worn out with shoring up the sensitive Elgar;s frail temperament, fades from life in the pitiless embrace of cancer.
Although the analysis that the author's offer could be seen as overly subjective even impressionistic, the quietness of the tone and the well thought out presentation keeps the ideas couched within a bracing atmosphere of objectivity and well balanced exposition. I think the book works on a number of levels - it is not overwhelmed with academic theory and speculation but nevertheless has a certain rigor in its musical and artistic appreciation and offers an enticing vista for further exploration based on an appreciation of how places and people interact in ways that seem to have a universal significance for the human predicament. Places can symbolise forgotten dreams and future hopes - endings and beginnings coalesce in fruitful harmony. There is that Wordsworthian appreciation of something " far more deeply interfused whose dwelling is the light of setting suns". Some might say it is something of a coffee table book but I think its purpose is refreshingly idiosyncratic and the avenues it follows are unfrequented ones and therefore valuable for genuine enthusiasts and maybe also the jaded academic mind.
Dipping my toe into the ersatz waters, having completed the doorstop that is World without End by Ken FollettWorld Without End. Written in 2007 about the 1300s, it spole to today in its depiction of the Great Plague, and one of the main characters Caris' insistence on wearing a mask, and washing hands in vinegar in order to halt the progress of the deadly plague. At 1,100 pages it did drag on a bit and did not reach the heights of the first in the trilogy (Pillars of the EarthThe Pillars of the Earth). The plight of the poor living in serfdom does offer however some food for thought in an age of zero hours contracts and billionaires growing their wealth in a pandemic. Perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same.Next on the list is Donal Ryan's, The Spinning Heart, which I expect to fly through it being firstly almost a tenth the length and hopefully a better read.
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Fire in Paradise and Ron Howard's Rebuilding Paradise were devastating to watch but well-done. I recommend them both.
Georg wrote: "@Machenbach wroteBut I think that identity politics fragments and divides us and, as such, only plays into the hegemonic narrative that there is no such thing as society or class, only atomistic ..."
For obvious reasons, principally not to rain on Lottie's parade, I won't comment on JKR's views. I can only say Lottie, at nine, loves her fellow human regardless of how they identify without any judgment other than that some are kind and some are not. Her peacock is a matter of pride in more ways than one!
In the middle of all the celebrations an amusing story emerged about my late uncle keeping a lost peacock he encountered on his way home from the pub in hiding in a neighbour's unused shed and getting his son to feed it surreptitiously until a suitable period had elapsed to "find" it and claim the by then more generous reward. He was the best storyteller I have ever met if not always entirely morally upright. My father, his older brother, used to say if you divided what he said by 100, there might have been a grain of truth discernible.
Ever heard of “potato witchcraft”? I suspect inter’s magic touch works better (having witnessed it on TL&S on occasion), but I will have to see. This evening, I have picked up Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence again, where this form of witchcraft has just been introduced.
I started the book over a week ago and enjoyed it, but due to… things… (nuff said), my reading of fiction was suspended. Sonnets and haikus worked a treat, though.
It is great to see so many reviews and such engaged debates here. I also like your select reviews as a start to the new week very much, @inter. As with others, they make me feel more at home, though I would not want you to feel in any way obliged to provide them every time!
Thank you so much to you and LLJones for trying to make this a good ersatz place.
@tam/ jediperson: I enjoyed your illegal export/ import airport story, though I am sorry they sacked you! After I had moved out from home, I cleaned a nicely chaotic architect’s shared office space for a while. I was still in school at the time, and did various (sometimes very) odd jobs on the side. Looking back, I think I was a pretty bad cleaner (for example, I could not be bothered too often with picking up the dozens of cardboard tubes in every corner to clean there). They were nice people, though.
As regards identitarian and left politics, I agree with the points other posters made.
Just an anecdote, which is suited to my tired brain: Some of you may remember that both my parents were factory workers. Unskilled workers. When I started at uni, there was a stall by the Marxist-Leninist Party and the two guys manning it started talking to me. While they did not like what I told them about my family members’ political stance, their delight on hearing about my social background knew no bounds: They told me they “had never met any working class people before”! Er, right. I suspect that this is the trouble, quite often.
I heard some beautiful live organ music and live singing today, as I went to church for Remembrance Day. They showed photographs of Coventry, among others. I visited the city a dozen years ago and was impressed by the commemorative projects there.
@reen: Absolutely delighted by the sequel to Lottie’s story and the peacock picture! What a special girl. I can’t help but think this might be due to her aunt, in part.
Pete wrote: Currently reading Black Rain Falling by Jacob Ross, a follow up to The Bone Reader.
He’s a great w..."
Looks like another author to add to my ever growing list courtesy of the kind folks here!
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Ever heard of “potato witchcraft”? "I really enjoyed The Enchantress of Florence, I hope you do too.
SydneyH wrote: "I really enjoyed The Enchantress of Florence, I hope you do too."Thank you, Sydney, I do! I am very grateful to you for your recommendation. You are mentioned twice on my kanban list, regarding Rushdie and Flaubert (https://cryptpad.fr/kanban/#/2/kanban...) So I will keep you posted (the kanban list is meant as a reminder to me).
In any case, I am sure I will enjoy all of them. Thanks again.
Bill wrote: "I don't recall encountering Gorra before this week, but yesterday I read his piece on Don DeLillo"Thanks for the link. A very nice piece and the best review I've read of DeLillo's latest novel.
Gladarvor wrote: "Yeah, had written a long convoluted post yesterday, but in the end decided not to post... Did I mention on (E)TLS that I like Stephen Collins's often absurdist weekly cartoons? Here is the one from yesterday, very apt."Apt indeed - thanks for this, gladarvor! Had not seen it yet.
I would have been interested in the convoluted post, as in MachenBach's, despite your self-deprecation (or maybe because of it), Mach.
I hope you are well (again), glad? Not drowning here, but not waving happily either. I crawled into bed every single evening around nine at the latest this week, which I find a bit frightening. But I seem to need a lot of sleep just now.
I have not followed up on your Barabara reference yet, but I am very grateful. Thank you.
For now, I still have not sussed out the different functions/ meanings of various statuses here at Goodreads, possibly because I had to take on, again (...), new software at work and can't really be bothered exploring Goodreads' functions, apart from the threads here, as I keep hoping we will be able to move back as soon as possible. (Just due to the setting, not to LL's and inter's great efforts!)
Lljones wrote: "... Ron Howard's Rebuilding Paradise"...I've never seen any of
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;-)
Where else did Close kill a rabbit - 'Fatal Attraction'?
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"Well-written, compelling enough to finish it in just a few days. But I doubt I'll remember a thing about it a year from now.")ToB folks are talking about him again, 'cuz he's expected to be on the 2021 longlist (due out soon). Telephone looks kinda interesting...
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "I have not followed up on your Barabara reference yet, but I am very grateful. Thank you.For now, I still have not sussed out the different functions/ meanings of various statuses here at Goodreads"
Don't worry at all. This whole friending business is tricky to navigate (almost as much as the GR interface!)... I was not sure you'd still be able to see my references to other Barbara songs, so I'm just glad you can. (Feeling not 100% but definitely better, thank you.) Good luck with your new software!
Oh, and the moment it really clicked for me with Collins was when he produced a cartoon that was so painfully on the nose, it was a little scary - yet reassuring: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst... I am Vicky.
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
Telephone (other topics)So Much Blue (other topics)
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (other topics)
The Enchantress of Florence (other topics)
World Without End (other topics)
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I became intrigued by the method used by nature to solve a problem - how do I avoid being eaten - float above the mud - create a chamber......and had not considered why the original change occurred. The shells of theses ancient creatures were straight and the beautiful spiral of the nautilus a much later development. I know that should I still be teaching this would creep into my waffle!
I was always trying to dig up odd facts to show that maths is real life and not just in text books.