What I read April 2012

[Julie]

JoAnn/QuAppelle wrote: "The main character commented on how the government had put together the words HIKe and walkING to create the word hiking..."

These are not the same two words you mentioned originally.

It seems like whenever you try to look up the origin or words, people never agree.

[Anne]

Marialyce wrote: "I was lucky and read some really fine novels that I enjoyed greatly.

The Age of Innocence 4 stars
I have to hand it to Mrs Wharton, she did have the ability to "nail" it on her assessment of soc..."

[Anne]

This is the first time I have posted on GoodReads and just want to say that Birdsong had an enormous impact on me as I have a great uncle who was killed at the Battle of the Somme and until reading this book I never really thought about his life and the real horrors of the "Great" War!
I intended this post to accompany ?Marialyce's comments on Reading Birdson in April...so let' s see if it works.
Incidentally I am excited I have found what appears to be an active book club on line!

[Alias Reader]

Welcome, to Book Nook Cafe, Anne ! It will take you only a short while to get the hang of posting on GoodReads.
When you hit "Reply" GoodReads will only pick up the first few lines of a persons post. If you want to comment on something else you need to copy and paste that section into your post.

But don't worry about it. We are just glad to have a new member to our group that loves to read ! You will fit in well. :)

As to Birdsong, I wasn't able to catch it on PBS. Though I've heard a lot of positive things on it. Having a personal connection, like you did with your uncle, must have made reading the book a very powerful experience for you.

[JoAnn/QuAppelle]

Madrano wrote: "Exactly, i savored etymology even in high school. It's one of the few things i actually studied..."

I always taught etymology to my 4th through 6th grade students. I am sure that I enjoyed it as much as they did.

When I was listening to the Guernsey book today (I read it years ago), one of the characters said how many words were coined during the war. (that would be WW II).

[Madrano]

Anne wrote: "This is the first time I have posted on GoodReads and just want to say that Birdsong had an enormous impact on me as I have a great uncle who was killed at the Battle of the Somme and until reading..."

Welcome to the group, Anne. I had a great uncle survive WWI but he wasn't the same upon return. He ended up never marrying and living "on the range" in New Mexico. As it turned out, spending summers with him was one of the highlights of my dad's life. What demons Uncle had, we'll never know, but his isolation was impressive.

deborah

[Madrano]

Alison wrote: "I wonder if the hike-walking promotion explains all those Girl Guides and Boy & Girl Scouts singing along the open roads. : ) ..."

Good question, Alison. This is another reason i am baffled by the post-WWI thing, those scouting clubs began before the war, most before 1910.

Your post reminds me of my first trip to Europe in 1990. My SIL was stationed in Germany, so we visited them for the winter holidays. It was mostly wet & gray but regardless of where we traveled in & around the middle part (she was based in Heidelberg), we saw people hiking in the hills. Entire families as well as like-aged groups. And i swear to you, we saw one group with a member strumming a guitar as they hiked!

Upon our return to the states, whenever the kids saw someone walking away from the city, they said they were Germans. It's still a family joke. Funny how it struck us as being specific to them. I guess it being our first "foreign" trip explains it.

deb

[Alias Reader]

Here is a nice article from Wiki on hiking.

I recall from my British shows that people who take long walks are called "ramblers".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiking

[Madrano]

Neat. I like that there are so many trails in the UK. We have a list of things to do in the UK (well, lots of countries) and covering some of those trails is included. It seems a great & fairly safe way to see the countryside and get exercise.

Several years ago i read an article by a man in the UK about a Spanish trail, El Camino de Santiago or The Way of St. James. It's a trail over 450 miles long but the author took only a part of it. Many people walk it as a pilgrimage, as it was done centuries ago. The author had to buy a new pair of shoes, so worn down did his walking shoes become.

ANYway, apparently many countries have trails which can be traveled in short bits for day or one-night hikers, as well as longer ones. The Spanish road had an economy built around it, as in hotels and business catering to the hikers. It sounded neat, although i wouldn't want to do it in summer.

Here is a sample from a woman who took part of the walk. http://www.travelwithachallenge.com/S... Enjoy!

[Alias Reader]

Madrano wrote: Several years ago i read an article by a man in the UK about a Spanish trail, El Camino de Santiago or The Way of St. James. It's a trail over 450 miles long but the author took only a part of it. Many people walk it as a pilgrimage, as it was done centuries ago. The author had to buy a new pair of shoes, so worn down did his walking shoes become.
---------------

I just heard an interview with Martin Sheen and his son Emilio on NPR. They were discussing their new book that came out this month, Along the Way: The Journey of a Father and Son. They talked about the movie they made about that trail.

The movie is from 2010 and titled The Way

"It stars A father heads overseas to recover the body of his estranged son who died while traveling the "El camino de Santiago," and decides to take the pilgrimage himself."

Director:Emilio Estevez

Writers:
Emilio Estevez (screenplay), Jack Hitt (book)

Stars:
Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen and Deborah Kara Unger

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441912/

[JoAnn/QuAppelle]

We have friends in their mid 70s who are ramblers. They have hiked the width of Scotland and England from sea to sea. These were two separate trips, but each sea-to sea-ramble was done within days. They have always taken elaborate vacations - 3 weeks in Africa or Russia or Egypt, always with his Harvard or Yale alumni groups. And every year they do a major ramble too.

I am not sure that there is anywhere in the world where they have not been, and he kept meticulous journals. I have the journals from several of their trips and they are such a pleasure to read.

[Madrano]

Alias, fancy that! Thank you. I just added it to my Netflix queue.

I wonder if it's too late to become a rambler? I like the idea but DH thinks i'm crazy, as we've never really hiked much. The trails i picked in the UK seem easy but he fears i'll get started & poop out on him! I don't think i could do more than 5 miles a day...or would want to, as taking photos would be one of my priorities.

Journaling on trips has been hit or miss for me. I start out strong, then lose track. When we went to Greece in '08, i made notes of the photos, then filled in the blanks later. Still, i know i missed much. My thinking at the time was that the "good stuff" wouldn't leave my memory. Who did i think i was fooling with that thought?!?

[Alias Reader]

Madrano wrote:I wonder if it's too late to become a rambler? I like the idea but DH thinks i'm crazy, as we've never really hiked much. The trails i picked in the UK seem easy but he fears i'll get started & poop out on him! I don't think i could do more than 5 miles a day...or would want to, as taking photos would be one of my priorities.
-------------

I've only gone hiking a few times. The trails I've been to are clearly marked as to difficulty level and how long it should take to walk the trail.

The last one I went to was in PA.

Bushkill Falls

The "Niagara of Pennsylvania," Bushkill Falls is among the Keystone State's most famous scenic attractions. This unique series of eight waterfalls, nestled deep in the wooded Pocono Mountains, is accessible through an excellent network of hiking trails and bridges which afford fabulous views of the falls and the surrounding forest.
http://www.visitbushkillfalls.com/

My sister had a little difficulty with it, but they had a few benches along the trail that helped. It was very beautiful. The link has pics.

[Julie]

Madrano wrote: "The trails i picked in the UK seem easy but he fears i'll get started & poop out on him! I don't think i could do more than 5 miles a day...or would want to, as taking photos would be one of my priorities...."

I love taking my camera on hikes with me! I have a flickr account dedicated to the photos.

[Julie]

Alias Reader wrote: "The last one I went to was in PA.

Bushkill Falls..."

That would be cool to see 8 falls in one hike. 2 1/2 hours is an awful long time for only 2 miles though. Unless of course you have your camera! :-) There is a Bridal Veil Falls near me too. How funny.

[Alias Reader]

I think we did it around 2 hours. We were taking our time and enjoying the scenery. It's not flat hiking, it's a bit mountainousness and the path twists and turns. And of course one stops and admires the falls.

[JoAnn/QuAppelle]

Our friends go on rambler tours sometimes. She had sprained her ankle prior to the last trip so she just stayed in the inn/town during the day and the van picked her up to take her to meet the group at the next place where they were staying.

[JoAnn/QuAppelle]

My friend showed me how he "journals". He takes a piece of legal-pad paper and folds it into a very small "pad". He uses up each section before moving on to the next, and it is folded enough to provide him with a surface on which to write. When he transcribes his journals upon his return, he incorporates information from guides that he read before leaving on his trip. So he was not kept busy trying to record information about the site he is visiting, but rather his impressions, opinions, etc.

Here are a couple of selections from his "Best of...."

Antarctica 1996: “Awake. I look out the portholes. Land’s on the horizon. Islands outlying Antarctica’s Palmer Peninsula. The Peninsula is named for Yankee sea captain Nathaniel Palmer from Stonington, Connecticut, who discovered it in 1820 while on a sealing expedition.

“ ‘I pointed the bow of the little craft to south’ard and with her wings spread, the mainsail and the jib abreast the opposite bow, she speeded on her way like a thing of life and light. With her flowing sheet she seemed to enter into the spirit which possessed my ambitions, and flew along until she brought me into sight of land not laid down on my chart.’ – Capt. Nathaniel Palmer.

“We enter Le Maire Channel, with mountains on each side. About 200 feet wide in places. Icebergs at eye level. White in the sun, but floodlit in blue light from below. Snow on the mountainsides with blue crevasses. Some growlers (pieces of ice) are pushed aside by the ship’s bow wave and float along the hull. Now we’re in a dark spot. Am reminded of the line from Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn: ‘. . . through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea.’ Soon we emerge into a small bay, and the sun is shining brightly. After a light breakfast, we board zodiacs and head for Peterman’s Island. Spectacular! Like being in the Alps. Everything’s quiet. Several rookeries of adélie penguins. Some blue-eyed shags and brown petrels. They don’t seem to mind us as we sit or stand near them on the rocks. An idyllic scene. Snow and ice, with rock outcroppings, teaming with birds. Below us is our ship, the World Discoverer, riding at anchor in the bay beneath the towering peaks. This is what we came for!”

China 1996: “Early rising because today we’re to get into sampans to see the three little gorges of the Daning River, a tributary that joins the Yangze just above Zigui. * * * We’re away in the sampans and churning up the Daning. On the shore are steep banks and narrow defiles, followed by stretches of hillsides with open cropland. It’s a visage similar to that of the main gorges of the Yangze, but on a more miniature scale and with faster flowing water. We’re lucky to be able to take this trip up the Daning. Recent heavy rains made the river too dangerous for such a venture yesterday, and it was only at the last minute that we got the go-ahead for today. The river is surging with rushing water, and it’s with difficulty that we gradually make slow progress heading upstream. We go under the Dragon Gate Bridge past the Panda Cave (two caves on the rock face that look like eyes of a panda) and skirt around Guitar Island to the town of Double Dragon. Enroute we see the hanging coffins in caves high up on the cliffs. And we see the walkways carved into the cliffs to provide footing for trekkers hauling the boats in times gone by. Then we turn and race back down the river. We’re really flying now, and what took us nearly four hours to do going up takes us less than 45 minutes going down. Being a boatman on one of these sampans is dangerous work, and one of them falls overboard and is drowned during our trip downriver. Another two boatmen also fall into the river when their boats collide, but fortunately they’re rescued.”

Milan, 1997: “While waiting for D____, I give some thought to the experiences I’ve had so far. [This is my fourth day here in Italy.] The trip has been wonderful. But on a psychological plane there is some ambivalence. On the one hand, we see the city’s [Milan’s] optimism and enthusiastic pride, as expressed in the freshly cleaned façade of the Duomo and other buildings, the renovation of historic structures, the clean and tidy streets, the well-dressed people, the intimate neighborhoods (enhanced by short, curving streets that close off the spaces) – in short, the feeling that this is a very civilized place. On the other hand, we see the signs, indeed the celebration, of decadence. For example, there is the big Armani sign of the young man kicking up his heels (at the entrance to the smart shopping district) and the large street pictures of surly people making a fashion statement. They reflect a culture not unlike the mannerism of the high Renaissance which we saw in paintings at the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum. (Indeed, this attitude is emphasized in the curl of the lip of the courtesan in the painting used as the museum’s signature). The ambivalence is also expressed in the beautiful stained glass windows of the Duomo, depicting horrific tortures of saints and sinners. Even the jewel-like villa at Isola Bella gives you creepy grottoes along with exquisite drawing rooms; nymphs and satyrs engaged in debauchery, and stone gods and goddesses in beautiful gardens depicting myths of problematic behavior. Very much a feeling of contrasts. The joy of life, mixed with despair. But always very expressive.”

St. Rémy, France 1998: “From Les Baux, we go to the monastery of St. Paul de Mausole in St. Rémy and admire the cloister, with its attractive garden in the courtyard. Adjacent is the Church of Antiques, which had a hospital where Van Gogh stayed during a bout of depression. The allée leading to the monastery is lined with pine trees. And there are fields of poppies leading out, away from the church/monastery complex. The view out across the field of poppies, with the soft air and shining sun, and the trees shimmering in the distance, bring to mind the paintings of Van Gogh. We’re seeing what he saw. * * * We then drive along on the road back to Arles and see a man by his car alongside the road. But instead of changing a tire, he’s changing his clothes. Dominique, our saucy guide, observes that she can tell he isn’t a Frenchman. When importuned by us for an explanation as to how she can tell, she relents and gives us the reason. Unfortunately, I can’t quite hear it.”

And on he goes.....he has entries from about 5 stops in India, Burma, Ireland, a ranch in Brazil, Tierra del Fuego, Mt. Everest, Peru, Chile and many more places.....his journals have enriched my life, for sure.

[Madrano]

Alias, i think i recall when you & your sister went to Bushkill because i visited the link afterwards. It looks lovely and i can imagine all the photo opportunities. I rather like the idea of a longish hike of a couple of hours, otherwise it just becomes part of a bigger trip & i lose the pleasure of it, for some reason.

Like you, Julie, i take my camera when i hike. You mentioned your flickr account. Do you reserve it strictly for hike photos or do you put all your photos there? I put all my photos on two sites, by categories--Shutterfly and Photobucket.

JoAnn, the sprained ankle you mentioned is my biggest worry about hiking. As i know i've shared here many times, i seem to have a string of sprained ankles which have altered my participation in our overseas ventures. The last time i sprained it while exploring the ancient cemetery (Kerameikos) in Athens. http://www.athensguide.com/kerameikos...

Your friend's journal is more detailed than i probably want, while my FIL's is too full of the wrong stuff. I suppose that's what makes each one individual. FIL doesn't include sharing how the sights impact his mind the way your friend's does.

Does he share them on a blog? Most of what i write is for my own use & to elucidate (not sure that's the word i want) my photos. It's neat that you have enjoyed his journals so much; i've yet to read a journal or blog about travel that i'd want to read a long time. Unless, it's from one of my children. And then they can't tell me enough! :-)

[Julie]

Madrano wrote: "Like you, Julie, i take my camera when i hike. You mentioned your flickr account. Do you reserve it strictly for hike photos or do you put all your photos there? I put all my photos on two sites, by categories--Shutterfly and Photobucket....

I put any photos there that don't have people in them since it is public. At this point that is 98% hike photos, but if I ever get around to organizing my photos from my San Diego trip, I will put them there too. I also have a bunch of zoo photos from several trips over several years that I want to go through and post.

[Sydney]

Madrano wrote: "I have liked every Harlan Coben book i've read but haven't read many. He's one of those authors whose mysteries i like to savor & am "saving" for more leisurely days. The last time i caved in to in..."

Loved 'Tell No One'!

[JoAnn/QuAppelle]

I e-mailed Jacqueline Winspear, author of the Maisie Dobbs books, to ask her about the origin of the word "hiking" that she mentioned in her latest book, Elegy for Eddie. Below is the response I received from her this morning:

Thank you for taking the time to email me. I hope the answer satisfies the questions asked.

There is a very old English word, "hyke" which basically meant to go from point A to Point B, and pertained to any means of transport (the term "hitch hiking" is thought to have originated in the days when one hitched one's horse to a tree while taking a rest on a hyke). However, when it came to walking for pleasure, the English typically used the word "ramble" - for example, the "Ramblers' Association" in Britain is an association of people who love to walk; it was established in 1931 from the incorporation of various rambling clubs, many of which had been founded in the early 1800's. However, it was an advertising agency team, tasked by the government with getting more people out in the country taking vigorous exercise, who came up with the word "hiking" to use on billboards and in magazines, to describe walking the hills of Britain. "Hiking" was a hybrid of hill-walking. The posters were often seen at railway stations, as in the 1920's and 30's, before the closing of many branch-line stations in the early 1960's, you could take a train to a rural area and begin "hiking." The characters depicted in advertisements invariably carried walking sticks and knapsacks, and looked very jolly wearing their shorts and Aertex shirts. Many of those ads featured women hikers, and even in the 1920's they were wearing shorts and boots to embark upon the outing.

I first read about this in a book on the history of the advertising industry in Britain, but have since seen it referenced in several book on British social history between the wars.

With all good wishes,
Jacqueline

[Madrano]

Well, that answers my question--she meant the use of "hike" for exercise.

Yet, when we first began this discussion i looked up the original Boy Guide handbook (1911 edition) & it has a chapter on Hiking, so i'm still not clear on what Winspear means, unless it's about the popularity. By that i mean, that the Guides were doing it but the rest of the population didn't see it that way but, rather, as rambling. Of course it could be the ad agency co-opted the word--it wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. ;-)

Regardless, it was nice of her to take the time to reply to you.