Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
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ABOUT BOOKS AND READING
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What are U reading these days? (PART EIGHT (2012) (ONGOING THREAD for 2012)
One of the reasons I like to watch award shows is that it's fun to watch the celebrity reactions in the audience. To me, it's all about interesting personalities. Another reason is that there occasionally are some interesting acceptance speeches. And sometimes there are some good laughs when something funny happens or when something funny is said. It's like going to a party. To me, it's like going to a party without having to dress up. There's an excitement in the air. I also like to people-watch. And it doesn't cost anything. :)
Jackie wrote: "The other side of that is how people listen to what actors say, like who to vote for, whether to not to eat meat. It's ridiculous that anyone would trust a person who's paid to lie pr..."Exactly. It's ridiculous that people are so easily swayed by popularity or credentials that may have nothing to do with what they're opining about. My mechanic's opinions on cars are worth listening to. They're judgements backed by knowledge & experience. His opinions on politics or vaccinations aren't.
Who is the bigger idiot - the one spouting off or the one listening & actually bothering to take action on them?
Jim wrote: Who is the bigger idiot - the one spouting off or the one listening & actually bothering to take action on them?I'd say the bigger idiot is the one listening. But the egos on these presumptuous celebrities are astounding.
Joy, I can see what you mean about like being at a party. I'm glad you can enjoy it.
Some celebrities are using their fame to benefit mankind. The following web page gives details:http://www.mademan.com/mm/10-celebrit...
Excerpt:
===================================================
"While there are many celebrities that contribute to various charitable organizations and foundations, there are 10 celebrities that do charity work on a whole different level—celebrities that give their time and money in hopes of creating a better, safer, healthier world for all."
===================================================
The list of celebrities mentioned includes:
Angelina Jolie
Brad Pitt
Bono
Oprah Winfrey
George Clooney
Matt Damon
Ben Affleck
Ellen DeGeneres
Scarlett Johansson
Justin Timberlake
And let's not forget Elizabeth Taylor.
Too bad it's far and few between, they have the money to help a lot of people if they choose to.
Sorry, but I'm a negative Nellie on the celeb charity circuit, too. Most of those big charities are so bloated with overhead that little money trickles down where it should. Worse, their aim is often off. Do their contributions actually make it to their targets? If they do, does it help the people or not?A friend of my daughter's in college hates UNICEF or one of those big charities. She's from Uzbekistan & they wound up having to buy the school supplies sent in by the charity. It was a major hardship. I've heard other stories about 'taxes' on donated goods - the goods are all gone before they get to the intended destination, but every government & local thief in between is happy.
Last, I think most of the time it's a publicity stunt or good PR. The list reads like a resume. Madonna going to Africa to buy a kid was just gross. I guess some of them do mean well, but it's their business, none of mine.
I agree with you Jim, as it fits in with my certainty that people do charity strictly for appearances and the pat on the back.I wanted to remind you that Prophets of Science Fiction is coming back on Feb 1st on the Science Channel. I haven't had a chance to look at the guide, but you may be able to catch the ones you've missed as these channels often reair episodes right before the new ones start. Good Luck. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2091018/e...
I agree, Jim, actors are human and we must all remember they are "actors."
We don't get the Science channel, Jackie. I'd like to, but we're paying $75/month for Dish right now. That gets us over 100 channels plus HBO, which is $15/month. To get Science & Animal Planet, we can't go up to the next package, but have to buy ALL the channels - 250 - for $20 extra per month. I just can't see that kind of money for 2 channels. I really wish they would let us purchase particular channels for a lesser fee, but they won't. I even sent them a note about it, but they never bothered to answer.
OK, you told me to remind you when it was coming back. You'll probably be able to get it on Netflix eventually. You don't even want to know what our cable bill is, it's astounding.I like the idea of paying for specific channels rather than packages. It would make more people happy to have channels fitting their particular tastes. But they on't do it because they'd probably lose money. I could get rid of 90% of our channels right now and not even notice.
Now that I'm able to begin seriously reading books once again, I've started The Knights of the Dawn King by my Goodreads friend Scott Stabler; it's an epic fantasy (and, I understand, the first book of a projected series). I'd promised him last year that I'd read and review it; so I'm glad to be able to finally get around to that!
Werner, that sounds good. Depending on your review, I might add it.
Jackie, my review might be awhile in coming --at about 740 pages, this is a chunkster! But I'm liking it so far. (It's a Christian fantasy, very much in the Lewis/Tolkien tradition.)
Jackie wrote: "Bravo, Jim!"
Amen to both Jackie and Jim. I'll add that I don't watch politician's speeches either.
My biggest beef with their speeches is that they pre-empt my TV shows. After all, the State funds PBS, isn't that wHAT 'Public Broadcasting System' means? Everyone has PBS, that's where it should be. As long as it's not Sunday night when Downton Abbey is on, lolNo rush Werner, whenever. I'm not in the market to buy more books anytime soon.
I hear ya, Jackie; I'm in no book-buying rush right now either!Late Sunday evening isn't usually a time when I'm watching TV, but I happened to be last Sunday night. I caught most of an episode of Downton Abbey on Masterpiece Theater, for the first time, and was enthralled with it!
I just finished The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie - Dr. House, himself. Fabulous! My review is here:http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Jackie wrote: "My biggest beef with their speeches is that they pre-empt my TV shows. After all, the State funds PBS, isn't that was 'Public Broadcasting System' means? Everyone has PBS, that's where it should ..."Absolutely! Advertise that it will be on the other local stations, but don't push all the regular shows off. I HATE it when sports do that, too. Dish & other providers should be able to make our recordings follow the show - not just the time - too.
Jim wrote: "I just finished The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie - Dr. House, himself. Fabulous! My review is here:http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... "
Good review, Jim. If I were into the "detective-mystery-thriller" genre, I would read the book for sure. I'll put it on my "keep-in-mind" shelf, just in case. :)
Jim, my DVR records by the show title in the Guide, for the set amount of time that Guide says. When a show runs into my recording for a few minutes, it doesn't reflect that change, I lose those minutes on the back end of the show. Very annoying. Sports. Don't get me started on sports interrupting my programs. I don't care if people don't have ESPN or whatever, not my problem. Get a job and get cable or miss the sports shows.
Really, I need to schedule all the networks shows.
I finally finished reading Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult. I don't know why they gave the book that title. It's about Zoe, a music therapist, but most of the story centers around the disposition of 3 frozen embryos after the divorce of the parents of those embryos, Zoe and Max. (view spoiler) Therefore, much of the story is about the court case and the pros and cons. That slowed my reading down because court cases can be boring at times.Another thing about the book is that it's told by three different narrators, Zoe, Max, and Vanessa. That annoyed me because I kept forgetting who was doing the narrating, even though the text was different for each one.
In spite of the above drawbacks, I'd say it was a good story, well-written. I like reading Jody Picoult's observations about life and people through the thoughts of her characters. (They speak in the first-person, "I".) She fleshes out her characters well.
I'm currently reading a good book: When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt. It's a selection of our Sr Cit book club and is VERY interesting, almost compelling. It's about a young Italian girl who emigrates to America years ago from a small town in Italy. The descriptions of her experiences are so well-written, touching and informative as well.You might get a kick out of the author description at Goodreads:
Excerpt:
=============================================
"Pamela Schoenewaldt lived for ten years in a small town outside Naples, Italy. Her short stories have appeared in literary magazines in England, France, Italy and the United States. She ... now lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with her husband, Maurizio Conti, a medical physicist, and their dog Jesse, a philosopher."
FROM: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93...
=====================================================
I finished Harlan Coben's No Second Chance. I found it fairly good; but I am not going to rush out and buy more of his books yet--I want to cut my TBr pike down a bit.I am now starting a science fiction novel calledA Bridge of Years. Aman buys a house in a solitary area away from town; and discovers a time tunnel in the basement....
Sounds corny but actually well done so far.
Mary JL wrote: "... I am now starting a science fiction novel called A Bridge of Years. ..."Sounds like a good SF/Time Travel novel.
My vampire novella Lifeblood, and at least one of three supernatural short e-stories I had for sale online, were mentioned over on the old 2011 thread. So, I need to regretfully announce that none of these works are published by Trestle Press any more (long story!). Therefore, they're presumably now again out of print. (If you get ALL of my updates, please excuse the unavoidable cross postings!)
That's a shame, Werner. Sorry to hear that. Thanks for notifying us.
Finished my time travel novel, I am now read Lee Child's 61 Hours. It is one of the Jack Reacher series.
Mary JL wrote: "Finished my time travel novel, I am now read Lee Child's 61 Hours. It is one of the Jack Reacher series."Gee, GR never notified me about your post. The book sounds like a real thriller!
I finished reading When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt. It was a selection of our Sr Cit book club. I found the story VERY interesting, almost compelling. It's about a young Italian girl who emigrates to America years ago from a small town in Italy. The descriptions of her experiences are so well-written, touching and informative as well.The book points out the struggles of some immigrants who left Italy to find a new life in America. According to the author, she did quite a bit of research. So the book can be considered a historical novel.
One of the aspects of this book that especially I liked was that the story is told in a linear fashion. There are no confusing time shifts and there is no switching of narrators. The reader can sail right through and enjoy the story as it unrolls.
Five Goodreads stars out of 5! A good read!
A bonus of the book for me was that it prompted me to call my older aunts (96 and 87 years old) and question them about what they remember about our family history. We had wonderful conversations and did a lot of reminiscing. Afterwards, I sent emails to the rest of the family passing on the interesting things my aunts told me.
That is fantastic, Joy! An important book, that it prompted you to learn more about your family history. Very cool. There is something to be said about a straight forward book, that's for sure. I don't mind the jumping around, but it is nice to have a story play out in order.
I finally finished Eye of the World. I was disappointed, I have no idea how this book got onto Fantasy's Best 100 List, it was predictable right from the start, 782 pages to tell me what I knew by page 50. I resent the waste of time. And I had no connection to any of the characters. This continues into a dozen books or so, I don't care enough to find out the exact number. And I couldn't care less about the next book, much less the entire series. That's the end of The Wheel of Time series for me.
Onto better things: I purchased the newly published Sisterhood of Dune and decided to reread the trilogy that preceeds it chronologically. The Butlerian Jihad is the first of The Legends of Dune trilogy. I like to re-read the Dune books because I get something new out them every time.
And for my birthday I received Doctor Who: The Visual Dictionary which I'm savoring, page by page. For some reason, I can't find the hyperlink. Anyone interested, try this instead: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/86...
Belated "Happy Birthday", Jackie. Speaking of giving books as gifts, I gave each of our boys the following book for Christmas, 2011:_The Essential Lake George Boaters Guide_ by Scott Padeni
http://www.quarterdeckproductions.co/...
The author, USCG Licensed Captain Scott Padeni, has spent 25 years on, and under, Lake George. He pilots the cruise ship Horicon. The book contains satellite photos of different areas of the lake and has valuable info for boaters on the lake.
About a plot being predictable, I'm not usually too fussy about that (especially if I'm not too sure about my prediction) but I recently watched an old romance movie that was so predictable that it was boring and it had nothing else going for it. So now I can understand readers who complain about predictability.
PS-Meet Capt. Padeni: http://www.quarterdeckproductions.co/...
Thank you, Joy.That's a great book for boaters. I'm sure they'll love it.
It's more about wasting my time, which I view as precious as it's limited. If I figure 'it' out early, then the rest of the time watching/reading is wasted time. It's bad enough to waste 2 hours on a predictable movie, but with books it really irks me as it's wasting days.
So true, Jackie (about wasting time on mediocre books or movies). I'm learning to bail out without guilt because I remind myself that there are so many better things I could be reading or watching, especially now that I have Netflix DVDs and streaming! LOL
Still on a time travel kick, I guess. Now reading Far Edge of Darkness. The parts of the novel set in ancient Rome are quite well written.
I had no idea Linda Evans, from Dynasty, wrote books! Is this book romance or real scifi, Mary JL?
LOL! Not the same Linda Evans, I think--just a similar name. Maybe a pen name.It is SF, but there is a romance theme mixed in.. Surprisingly good.
When I click on the link you provided, lower on the page it said "Books by Linda Evans" and showed her memoirs and other books all grouped together. That's pretty poor work by goodreads for providing incorrect info. There's plenty of authors with the same name and I count on goodreads to keep them separate. I'm OK with a little side romance, my scifi has to be science-y.
Jackie wrote: "When I click on the link you provided, lower on the page it said "Books by Linda Evans" and showed her memoirs and other books all grouped together. That's pretty poor work by goodreads for providing incorrect info. There's plenty of authors with the same name and I count on goodreads to keep them separate. ..."Jackie, you might report that error to the Goodreads' "Librarians" group:
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/2...
They might appreciate knowing that and might correct it.
Mary JL wrote: "Still on a time travel kick, I guess. Now reading Far Edge of Darkness. The parts of the novel set in ancient Rome are quite well written."Thanks, Mary JL, for keeping connected with us. I admire the amount of reading you do. I'm such a slow poke when it comes keeping up with my reading. Too many distractions from the Internet, including movies, FunTrivia.com, newsgroups, and email, not to mention random surfing! LOL
I've started reading The Lacuna (2009) by Barbara Kingsolver. So far so good. I'm starting to like the little boy who tells his story. The presentation is unusual. Soon I think the little boy will grow up and he'll still be telling his story. Hope it continues to be interesting.
BTW, the word "Lacuna" refers to an underwater cave. I suspect it's also a metaphor for something else. We'll see.
Joy wrote: you might report that error to the Goodreads' "Librarians" groupI would, if I didn't have to join the group first.
Joy and Jackie, I'm a Goodreads librarian, but I think the Goodreads management actually has to "disambiguate" authors with the same or similar names; and of course the problem they have is the same one we have: not being absolutely sure they're NOT dealing with the same person in any given case. Usually one of the authors has to complain. (I have; there's a German Werner Lind who writes karate manuals in German, and they listed our works together until I explained to them that I'm not him. :-) )
Why wouldn't you want to join the group, Jackie? It's no bother. And you don't have to get email notifications from it if you don't want to. You don't have to be a GR Librarian to join the group either.
Werner wrote: "Joy and Jackie, I'm a Goodreads librarian, but I think the Goodreads management actually has to "disambiguate" authors with the same or similar names; and of course the problem they have is the sam..."Thanks, Werner. I guess we can't expect miracles from Goodreads.
Joy, I'm all about No Clutter. I can't help it, I'm a bit OCD like that. I don't join a lot of group so they don't clutter my homepage. I want to be able to see the few groups I'm interested in and only them. Makes life simpler.
LOL, Jackie. I'm all about CLUTTER! In fact I have a favorite quotation about CLUTTER. LOL See it below. Different strokes for different folks. Remember that one? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From "House and Garden" Magazine, circa 1973:
"Early American Home", Article by Billy Baldwin:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"...a great deal of wonderful clutter - all of it carefully
ordered and intimately meaningful to the homemaker.
She cares little about the intrinsic value of any of her
possessions as long as it's something she loves."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Happiness is a way station between too little and too much."
-[from a Salada tea bag]
I would go mental if stuff is left out. If it has a place to be kept, then I let the guys have whatever they want. But it can't spill out into all areas of the house, it looks messy and I can't take it. OCD, again, lol
Jackie, by "clutter", I don't mean "messy". I mean many things arranged in an appealing way, to me anyway.I too hate "messy".
Jackie wrote: "Joy wrote: you might report that error to the Goodreads' "Librarians" groupI would, if I didn't have to join the group first."
Don't complain about it unless you're willing to fix it. All you have to do is report it to a librarian who is interested in doing the work or even send it to tech support & let them know - but you might just find that you get made into a librarian - that's how it happened to me. Hence the warning about not complaining.
;-)
If you give them a list of which books go with which Linda Evans, it would speed things up. The problem is that same named authors have invisible characters in their names & it's a real drag figuring out who is who. There are topics in the Libarian's group that list them, though. It's a lot of work, so any help you can give is appreciated.
One of the reasons I don't do more librarian work is, after doing it, some damn fool comes along & changes it or an import from the external database is wrong & screws it up. It can be pretty disheartening.
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Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group
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The other side of that is how people listen to what actors say, like who to vote for, whether to not to eat meat. It's ridiculous that anyone would trust a person who's paid to lie professonally with such personal issues. They're actors, not anyone special; they're pretty people doing a job, that's all. All this celebrity worship is out of control.
The only award I'm interested in is the BAFTAs. Yet I was pleased to hear Idris Elba won a Golden Globe for Luther and Jessica Lange for Constance on Amer Horror Story.