Victorians! discussion
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Conversations in the Parlor
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General chit-chat and information (part 2)
Robin wrote: "My troubles started on Christmas Day, should've known not to go online on the busiest day of the year. What is IE short for? I still get the group comments, and don't know why it doesn't show up t..."Robin, just wondered if you ever go on to just the home page of GoodReads? You may know all this already, but you can go there and then link into any and all of your groups, clicking the links and starting at all of their main pages to see all the new comments on that group. I knew you were having a little navigation problem and just wondered if you knew that. Private message me if you want. Or you may already know all that.
Rochelle wrote: "Everyman wrote: "Rochelle wrote: "See if the same thing happens in IE. If it persists, you have to complain at the Feedback Group. ...."I got it figured out, and it was something so stupid I'm to embarrassed to mention what it was. But problem solved.
Everyman wrote: "Left what on the update, Robin?"On the home page of Goodreads, there is a place to the right that has an updates or a groups place. I clicked on updates and forgot to click again to get off and to get back on updates. That was my problem.
LauraT wrote: "Haven't got any problems"Not you. Robin. :)
I meant to say to get on groups, instead of updates, so what was Everyman's problem, technical that is.
I haven't got a problem Rochelle, I fixed it long ago. On the homepage, where it has a recent updates on that I clicked updates on the part that says updates/groups on the right hand side. And I went back and forth then realized that I can get out of that by pressing groups, instead. Still trying to figure out this site, I guess. LOL
I know, i was answering LauraT. Try automatic login, so you can start in your Favorites from any page you want.
I am very happy Colin Firth won his Academy Award -- in addition to the film The King's Speech winning for best pic.
I wonder if an Oscar win for a film like this could mean some more meaningful films getting financial backing in the future. Couldn't we all think of some Victorian novels that could go to film that we might enjoy? It might not bother me to have Colin Firth cast in one of them.
I know, it would be ever so nice to see some quality movies like The King's Speech being produced. I know Jane Eyre will be here soon. I love the way PBS and BBC does adaptations of many Victorian novels. Such quality imo. (even sparks interest in the younger set I think!)Off the track here, but I did read they are making Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and
Redemption into a move.
If you haven't read it yet, you should. It is one of the most powerful non-fiction books I have ever read. (sorry to go off like that)
Thanks for the recommendation on the book and upcoming film. It sounds like that film will capture the public attention well. I don't read as much non-fiction of that category, but I will keep an eye out for it.
Marialyce wrote: "I know, it would be ever so nice to see some quality movies like The King's Speech being produced. I know Jane Eyre will be here soon. I love the way PBS and BBC does adaptations of many Victorian ..."
I am thankful for BBC America, now that PBS may lose its Federal funding.
On this day in 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was published. For more about this author....http://kirjasto.sci.fi/hawthorn.htm
I had placed an order for what sounded like a good copy of Lorna Doone online: used 2005 Penguin Classics edition. Yesterday I received a 1956 Pocket Books copy, ready to crack at the slightest touch! I really feel this could have been a purposeful misrepresentation by the seller. I have almost always had great experience with the conditions of book orders. It seems most book sellers are pretty conscientious. Oh, well, it was from an Amazon seller and I have already received a refund from them. Since I am not into ebooks, I think I will just go down the street and order a new copy now :)
That is a shame, Sarah. I usually have been quite fortunate with my online used book purchases.
Me too, I think most people honestly do want to sell books in good condition -- maybe I am too optimistic! Do you think you have had better luck with any particular company? I wonder now that Amazon seems to have expanded its Amazon Marketplace -- it there will be a product control issue. I have had consistent luck with Powells.com (of course) and good luck through Alibris. I know they operate by vendors too, but never a quality issue or a misrepresentation that I can remember.
SarahC wrote: "Me too, I think most people honestly do want to sell books in good condition -- maybe I am too optimistic! Do you think you have had better luck with any particular company? I wonder now that Amaz..."That's too bad, Sarah. It does happen every once in a while. I was fleshing a collection of hardcover editions by a particular author, and I received a book I'd ordered that looked like the previous owner ate dinner while reading the book. There were dried and crusty blotches of food/drink throughout the book. It was such a rare edition, that I ended up keeping it, and trying to do a careful cleaning job. It has been my one and only really negative experience with an Amazon vendor. Cheers!
Christopher wrote: "SarahC wrote: "Me too, I think most people honestly do want to sell books in good condition -- maybe I am too optimistic! Do you think you have had better luck with any particular company? I wonde..."How some people treat their books, I declare! Maybe that is just a sign of a super-avid reader though :) Maybe it will clean up fine and I am glad disappointing purchases don't happen often to you either.
I've had great success ordering from abebooks.com and, perhaps surprisingly, from paperbackswap.com. I've ordered hundreds from the first and perhaps upwards of 50 from the second and only once has a book been less than in very good condition from paperbackswap. And sometimes I've received real gems! Good luck!
Sarah, I often use betterworldbooks.com to order secondhand books from and have found them to be quite good. The money they collect goes to literacy and there is no shipping nor tax related issues.
Today is April 15, 2011It's the birthday of the novelist Henry James, the master of the long sentence, born in New York City (1843). One of his great novels was The Portrait of a Lady (1881). He had been planning this novel for years — in February of 1877, he wrote to his friend and editor William Dean Howells about plans for a new serial: "I should not make use of the subject I had in mind when I last alluded to this matter — that is essentially not compressible into so small a compass. It is the portrait of the character and recital of the adventures of a woman — a great swell, psychologically; a grand nature — accompanied with many 'developments.' I would rather wait and do it when I can have full elbow room."
James found that elbow room two years later, when he spent three months in Florence in the spring of 1879. When he began Portrait of a Lady, he had no idea what would happen by the end. Instead, he created a character named Isabel Archer, a lively, intelligent, but naïve American heiress. He was convinced that he would be able to figure out her story as he wrote. And indeed he did — he woke up one morning with all of the supporting characters fully formed in his mind, and wrote a novel from there.
In The Portrait of a Lady (1880), he wrote this sentence: "The house had a name and a history; the old gentleman taking his tea would have been delighted to tell you these things: how it had been built under Edward the Sixth, had offered a night's hospitality to the great Elizabeth (whose august person had extended itself upon a huge, magnificent and terribly angular bed which still formed the principal honor of the sleeping apartments), had been a good deal bruised and defaced in Cromwell's wars, and then, under the Restoration, repaired and much enlarged; and how, finally, after having been remodeled and disfigured in the eighteenth century, it had passed into the careful keeping of a shrewd American banker, who had bought it originally because (owing to circumstances too complicated to set forth) it was offered at a great bargain: bought it with much grumbling at its ugliness, its antiquity, its incommodity, and who now, at the end of twenty years, had become conscious of a real aesthetic passion for it, so that he know all its points and would tell you just where to stand to see them in combination and just the hour when the shadows of its various protuberances — which fell so softly upon the warm, weary brickwork — were of the right measure."
Wowza. That is a sentence!
I almost wish I could remember how to diagram. Would that be a trick. ;)
Henry James birthday, and I thought it was just Income Tax time, LOL
Marialyce wrote: "Today is April 15, 2011It's the birthday of the novelist Henry James, the master of the long sentence, born in New York City (1843). One of his great novels was The Portrait of a Lady (1881). He ..."
Thanks for the great introduction to Henry James, Marialyce! You're inspiring me to pick up one of his books and start reading him again. Are you reading one currently, and if so, which one? Thanks!
K. wrote: "I almost wish I could remember how to diagram. Would that be a trick. ;)"I'm starting to wonder if it might not be a good idea to start teaching sentence diagramming again in the schools. I tutor at a middle school in a disadvantaged area of Charleston, and the other night we were reviewing some grammar to get some students up to speed for the upcoming PASS exams. The 6th-grade boys couldn't define a noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, or adverb, nor did they understand the concept of subject/verb agreement. Diagramming really help me learn these definitions and the practice also firmly placed them in my memory for life. Just wondering if diagramming might not help these kids, too. It's very sad how little they know, truly.
Hi Ellen,I have just finished The Portrait of a Lady. Thank you for your post. Right now I am making my way through The Count of Monte Cristo.
Marialyce wrote: "Hi Ellen,I have just finished The Portrait of a Lady. Thank you for your post. Right now I am making my way through The Count of Monte Cristo."
Excellent, Marialyce! I've not jumped into "The Count of Monte Cristo" read yet; I read it twice in my lifetime already, and don't think I wish to read it again when there are so many other books in the queue already! LOL!! Just started "Bleak House" for the Dickens challenge in this group, and have many others waiting for me. Are you enjoying the Count? Thanks so much!
I sort of am. ;0 It is quite the wordy read. I am more of a fan of Gaskell, got to love those romance type novels. :)I can understand not rereading this book, as there is just too much out there to read. Enjoy Bleak House!
Yes, Marialyce, I, too, enjoy Elizabeth Gaskell. Hoping to get my hands on a copy of one of her novels that I've ask the library to get for me. She's a lot of fun to read. And we'll see how it goes for me with "Bleak House", too. Thanks!
Oh, Bleak House, you will either love it, or want to put it down to read something more lighter in fare. But I suggest you keep plugging away, I made two attempts with that book and Little Dorrit, and it was well worth the reading. Enjoy!
Robin wrote: "Oh, Bleak House, you will either love it, or want to put it down to read something more lighter in fare. But I suggest you keep plugging away, I made two attempts with that book and Little Dorrit,..."Thanks, Robin. It's my intention to make it through the entire book this time around. And so far I'm really enjoying it, although I've only read through the first issue that was serialized. So far, so good!! Thanks again!
You are welcome. You need to approach Dickens and take him in little or big bites, he doesn't bore the reader, in fact he has in his writings ways to make the reader stay with him. Good luck!
K. wrote: "I almost wish I could remember how to diagram. Would that be a trick. ;)"A skill that I taught early in my teaching career, but that I think is long gone from school, along with Latin, to the serious detriment of the ability of the modern generation to write decent English sentences.
Marialyce wrote: "Today is April 15, 2011It's the birthday of the novelist Henry James, the master of the long sentence, born in New York City (1843)
Thanks for the information on Henry James, Marialyce. I'm almost finished with "Portrait of a Lady," so I was glad to see James mentioned. I'm really enjoying the book, and I've been following along in the excellent discussion the group had earlier. I'm afraid life has interfered with reading lately, so I'm going to skip "The Count of Monte Cristo" for now. I plan to start on "Lorna Doone" in the next week or so; I want to be able to join in the group discussion. Does anyone have a recommendation for another particularly good James book? I've really enjoyed "Portrait of a Lady."
Christina, I am so glad you are planning on being with us for Lorna Doone. I have just begun to read it and think it will be a nice experience.
Everyman wrote: "K. wrote: "I almost wish I could remember how to diagram. Would that be a trick. ;)"A skill that I taught early in my teaching career, but that I think is long gone from school, along with Latin,..."
I couldn't agree with you more, Everyman. It's really shameful that Americans no longer know how to write correctly. The kids I tutor don't know a noun from a verb, and diagramming might help them understand grammar and structure so much better than they do now. Very sad...
I remember first learning about nouns and other parts of speech on TV. My senior year in high school, our entire class serenaded our English teacher with "Conjunction Junction."
Susanna wrote: "I remember first learning about nouns and other parts of speech on TV. My senior year in high school, our entire class serenaded our English teacher with "Conjunction Junction.""Now I'll bet that was a lot of fun for your teacher, Susanna! I imagine he/she got a real kick out of it!! LOL!
Susanna wrote: "I remember first learning about nouns and other parts of speech on TV. My senior year in high school, our entire class serenaded our English teacher with "Conjunction Junction.""In case anybody doesn't know it,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkO87m...
Thanks guys for bringing up Schoolhouse Rock! That is one of the good things in life, IMO. I was the first generation to enjoy that great stuff and now my son has some of the DVDs. I like how their productions have a little bit of a 1970s "attitude" too. hahaSentence diagramming was a big part of things when I was in school. I never even questioned it -- it made sense to me but I was a very visual learner. If it isn't used as much anymore, do you think it seemed not to work in certain situations? I have never study education so I wondered. My son hasn't done any yet at school but maybe they do it in later grades in his school system.
They have pretty much dropped it, Sarah. There are many "old fashioned" things we should go back to in teaching. No matter how many years the children learn grammar (and it usually starts in grade 1) it does not seem important to kids. I can't tell you how many years and grades teachers taught the differences between, there, their and they're and to, two, and too, and capitalization, punctuation etc. but the same issues would always pop up year after year.(meaning the kids would look at you as if they had never heard this stuff before, and I taught middle school!)
Wow there does seem to be something skewed with the attitude about grammar. I haven't seen anything concerning in the system my son is in -- they have been working on grammar since first grade and have already covered a good range of grammar elements I think. I suppose getting in enough actual writing practice will be a determining factor in the coming years too.I believe good written communication skills are such a confidence builder too. For young people to know they can write a letter or note to anyone without fearing mistakes would surely help their lives a little bit at least.
Ellen wrote: "Now I'll bet that was a lot of fun for your teacher, Susanna! I imagine he/she got a real kick out of it!! LOL! "She loved it!
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Victorians!
Books mentioned in this topic
The Count of Monte Cristo (other topics)The Portrait of a Lady (other topics)
The Count of Monte Cristo (other topics)
The Portrait of a Lady (other topics)
The Scarlet Letter (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Anthony Trollope (other topics)Anthony Trollope (other topics)
Anthony Trollope (other topics)
Henry James (other topics)
Louisa May Alcott (other topics)
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IE is Internet Explorer, and if you have XP, Vista or Win 7, you should be on IE7 or IE8, not IE6, which is no longer supported.
I had no problem getting on all of Christmas Day. The way to test if a problem is your browser or GR is to switch browsers. Standard troubleshooting technique is eliminating the variables.