Book Nook Cafe discussion

I've been slow in creating this list, as i've been distracted by the 100 book challenge and my own upcoming cataract surgeries. However, i ordered three books i knew i wanted to read this year, so will share those plus a couple of other random ones.

Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi--Timothy R. Pauketat. We visited the mounds, site and divine museum in southwestern Illinois, just across the Mississippi from St. Louis, Mo. It is the best example of early pre-colonial (& older) mounds we've seen and the best museum of explanation & excavation. This book has been on my TBR since 2016. Read in February

Farming Dissenters--Carole Watterson Troxler. This book has been on my TBR longer than that. In 2013 we visited North Carolina and learned about a pre-Revolutionary Rebellion by those known as the "Regulator Movement." I look forward to learning more about them. Read May

Prairie Fever: British Aristocrats in the American West 1830-1890--Peter Pagnamenta. I cannot say how long this has been on my TBR. When i read a roadside sign in Kansas about British immigrants coming to this country to attempt an imitative British society, including cricket and other life regularities.

At Seventy: A Journal--May Sarton. We mentioned this book on another thread. Alias & i have read and discussed Sarton's journals and i've read a couple of books by her. Now that i am 70+, i'd like to see what she wrote about her own experiences.Read in October.

The Grammarians--Cathleen Schine. My daughter loaned me this book after telling me she'd never supposed anyone had written a book about the quarrels of grammarians. She and a close friend have regular discussions because one is a prescriptivist while the other is descriptivist, as grammar goes. I'm a descriptivist because i want language to change with the passage of time.
Read January

I'm also thinking i'd like to read a couple of Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason mysteries. I've spent far too many hours indulging in the old late '50s, early 60s tv program. Primarily it's the clothing and decor styles which catch my interest, by the way.

If i add more, i'll put it here later.

It's Later! I have read one Gardner mystery, The Case of the Velvet Claws, which was interesting in that this Perry Mason was a tad different from the TV version i know. And we get a bit of a background on Della Street. I'm adding one more to my DL--
The Case of the Lonely Heiress, second in the series.
Read February and May

I'm also adding another book i meant to read several years ago--
Clotel: or, The President's Daughter--William Wells Brown. It is considered the first novel published by an African American (1853) and was written at a time there was speculation that Thomas Jefferson has fathered children with one of his slaves. Read March

The Shadow-Line--Joseph Conrad, another DL that has been lolling around my mind awhile. Time to read it! Read May

deborah

At one point years ago, I read all of Sarton's journals (memoirs). Her postmortem biographer made it clear she was a rather unreliable narrator of what was really going on.

Deb, I own At Seventy: A Journalat Seventy. Unfortunately it's in storage. :(

However, I see it is available on Hoopla. I am not a huge Hoopla fan as the formatting isn't the best on my Kindle. That said, if I am not reading anything when you decide to read it and it's available on Hoopla, I would join you.

John wrote: "At one point years ago, I read all of Sarton's journals (memoirs). Her postmortem biographer made it clear she was a rather unreliable narrator of what was really going on."

That's unfortunate. Still, I enjoyed the journals of hers that I've read.

Interesting point, John. This is why one shouldn't restrict their opinions strictly on memoirs and autobiographies. I presume it's only natural to put the best light on reporting events.

It's her emotions and way of expressing her feelings/moments which please me, so probably awfully unreliable narrating would turn me off her. I can say that now, of course, because i don't know what was authentic and what wasn't. :-)

Alias, i will let you know when i'm preparing for the book. I see that it would allow us to click off one of the Challenge boxes. Good for us both!

madrano wrote: "At Seventy: A Journal--May Sarton. We mentioned this book on another thread. Alias & i have read and discussed Sarton's journals and i've read a couple of books by her. Now that i am 70+, i'd like to see what she wrote about her own experiences.."

Deb, I was listening to an old 2015 Gretchen Rubin podcast while I exercised walk today and she mentioned May Sarton . The discussion was about being lonely versus a need for solitude or alone time. Rubin noted that Sarton said "solitude shared with animals has a special quality and rarely turns to loneliness."

Though I currently don't have any pets, I agree with this 100%. Rubin also mentioned even having plants (a living thing) can be a comfort. I also love having plants in my apartment.

I thought it was an interesting discussion, loneliness versus a need for solitude or alone time.

Rubin discusses this around the 13 min. mark
https://gretchenrubin.com/podcast-epi...

First of all, thanks for sharing this podcast. I am one who craves solitude and have my entire life. The women discussed those childrearing years where one has trouble finding solitude, which truly rang a bell for me. It was probably then that i realized how important it was to me to get away. Twice a year i would go away for a night or two while my husband and kids stayed home. It nourished my soul. Once they reached the teen years, i didn't need it, btw, as much.

I understand the exchange about pets. The mere presence of our now long-gone dog was a comfort. It's the soothing share of silence, in many ways.

Now that my husband & i share a hotel suite (450 sq. ft), i miss moments when i can "escape". I don't feel this as often as i have in the past, thank goodness, but there are days. They don't mention it but being alone within one's own walls is a special pleasure, as well. Nice to be away but in my space is best.

Re. plants. While i like having plants and sometimes speak to them when watering & caring for them. i was surprised and pleased by those comments. I wonder if i wasn't feel that companionship without even realizing what was happening. I'll have to think about that more. Only recently have i purchased a plant for this hotel room, btw. :-)

:) I talk to my plants when watering them too ! :)

I am a person who also needs my own alone personal quiet space from time to time.

Some people need a radio or TV on all the time for background noise. Not me. I do like silence. I think I noted in the poetry thread that is one reason I love winter. When I am out walking it is so much quieter.

Ugh - no complete silence for me! I've taken to classical music on the background (limited Amazon music included with Prime) when I read.

My husband prefers to have background music too. Not me. Bless his pointed li'l head for indulging me by not listening to music or tv as background. When i get in the car after he's driven it alone, the radio is always playing. Even that bothers me.

It's words playing which bothers me most. We can listen to classical music that is new to me and i'm fine. If it's at all familiar, i am "singing" along with the melody, which distracts me. Words, eh?

madrano wrote: "My husband prefers to have background music too. Not me. Bless his pointed li'l head for indulging me by not listening to music or tv as background. When i get in the car after he's driven it alone..."

In my former neighborhood, the local Catholic church carillon played hymns on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Problem was that almost all of them were ones we sang regularly in private school, so I could not tune that out at all!

Oh, i meant to mention The Secret Life of Plants: A Fascinating Account of the Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man--Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, which introduced me to the idea of plants benefiting from talking to them.

In middle school our son made this his science project. He separated a large asparagus fern into four plants. For six weeks he spoke kinds words to one, harsh words to another played music for the third and said nothing to the other. Kind words plant grew remarkably bushier than the other three. Music plant grew about as expected while ignored was wasn't unhealthy but fairly sad. However, harsh words plant ended up scrawny. After the experiment, we recombined the four and all benefited from kind words, as the plant became gorgeous, green and long lived.

And just to add to the mixture, i recall seeing The Kirlian Witness ( https://letterboxd.com/film/the-kirli... ) around the same time. The book mentioned Kirlian photography ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian... ) and plants. In the movie, a plant witnesses a murder. Yes, it does! The dead woman's sister, who nurtures plants, believes a plant witnessed the death and the film is about her search.

Just sayin'....

John wrote: "Ugh - no complete silence for me! I've taken to classical music on the background (limited Amazon music included with Prime) when I read."

Sometimes I will put on soft classical music when I read. But it has to be very soft. I can't have any music with singing.

madrano wrote: "My husband prefers to have background music too. Not me. Bless his pointed li'l head for indulging me by not listening to music or tv as background. When i get in the car after he's driven it alone..."

:) Dan is a keeper, for sure.

We are very alike, deb. Even though I don't drive, I prefer silence or very low, soft, gentle instrumental music in a car. Maybe because I am a nervous passenger, I want the driver to be paying 100% attention to the road !

madrano wrote: "Oh, i meant to mention The Secret Life of Plants: A Fascinating Account of the Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man--Peter Tompkins and [au..."

I'm glad you remembered. That book sounds so interesting. I'm adding it to my TBR list. Thanks !

I've heard of studies where they play different types of music to see the how plants react to say classical versus rock.

I recently saw a segment on TV about a man played Mozart for his wine grapes.
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/m...

Playing Music For Plants – How Does Music Affect Plant Growth

"Believe it or not, numerous studies have indicated that playing music for plants really does promote faster, healthier growth. In 1962, an Indian botanist conducted several experiments on music and plant growth. He found that certain plants grew an extra 20 percent in height when exposed to music, with a considerably greater growth in biomass. He found similar results for agricultural crops, such as peanuts, rice, and tobacco, when he played music through loudspeakers placed around the field. A Colorado greenhouse owner experimented with several types of plants and various genres of music. She determined that plants “listening” to rock music deteriorated quickly and died within a couple of weeks, while plants thrived when exposed to classical music."

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/gard...

madrano wrote: "In the movie, a plant witnesses a murder. Yes, it does! The dead woman's sister, who nurtures plants, believes a plant witnessed the death and the film is about her search.

Just sayin'......."

:)

Alias, Dan is a oenophile and hoped the Mozart the Cignozzis play is opera. LOL!

The book persuaded me that plants, though ear-less, thrive with music and kind words, all things being equal.

madrano wrote:thrive with music and kind words, all things being equal."

Don't we all.

:-)

John wrote: "In my former neighborhood, the local Catholic church carillon played hymns on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Problem was that almost all of them were ones we sang regularly in private school, so I could not tune that out at all!..."

John, i missed this post earlier this month. I sometimes wonder if i would like music playing from a church in my own neighborhood. I've never had anything like that but the idea is pleasant. Until, as you noted, you can't tune it out. That would be bad news.

I decided to start my day by editing my DL and Challenge lists. The above declares that i finished The Grammarians--Cathleen Schine. My daughter & i had a good conversation about it, which is an added bonus.

Now the first three have finally arrived, so it's likely i'll be reading them soon, right? We'll see.

madrano wrote: "John, i missed this post earlier this month. I sometimes wonder if i would like music playing from a church in my own neighborhood. I've never had anything like that but the idea is pleasant. Until, as you noted, you can't tune it out. That would be bad news. ..."

I lived across the street from a church my whole life. I very seldom heard the Sunday Mass bells. It just became part of the everyday background noise.

One library I often visited was also across from a church. They did play songs with the bells. It was only for maybe 2 or 3 minutes. I actually found it quite pleasant.

The area I lived in was also near an Hasidic neighborhood. They had a very loud siren that would alert people to sundown for the sabbath. I sometimes would hear it and others times not. Again, it just became part of the ambient noise of living in New York.

The only time I really became aware of city noise or lack there of was after 9/11. Being in NY, I am also in the flight path of major international airports. I never heard the airplanes fly over. However, when they were grounded and I went outside for a walk, the sound of the silence was very noticeable. What's that oxymoron... Deafening silence. It was quite disconcerting.

Isn't it astonishing that such things can become unnoticed background in our lives? We have so few sounds in our neighborhood that even a jet flying over us (when we are outdoors), has us all looking up.

Deafening silence is a neat term, imo.

I've begun reading another of my DL books, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi--Timothy R. Pauketat. It is a slim volume but chocked full of new-to-me information that i can only take it one chapter each sitting. There are a couple of chapters where my markers are on almost every page!

One thing i really like is that he offers chapters on possible parent affiliations and ways the people could have spread, another on the first archeologists who worked the site, one on what appears to be the layout (at this time) and more. Each chapter is a mountain of info in itself.

I'm almost half-way through & realize i will not be copying out my notes, just keeping the markers in there for reference. This is just what i was looking for, having walked the Cahokia site and museum. I just remembered that we learned so much while there, that we returned the next day. We seldom plan to visit a museum/site twice but this is one. The other, which actually ended up being four days, was the British Museum in London. We'd only planned two days.

Funny you should mention museums that take more than one day - I have a distinct recollection that the Houston Art Museum is like that.

madrano wrote: "This is just what i was looking for, having walked the Cahokia site and museum.

I love that feeling when you find that perfect book the has exactly the information you were searching for.

John, i know! I was utterly surprised with that museum and their collection. My expectations were not at all high but i was floored. Great experience. I still cannot forget the painting i was most drawn to. From Georges Lacombe, tempura on canvas. The small sign remarked on "The almost crude simplicity of Lacombe's design..."

Alias Reader wrote: "I love that feeling when you find that perfect book the has exactly the information you were searching for..."

Yes, and in the order i want it! LOL. After my last archaeological book, where the final chapter should have been first and the third second, i was tickled with this one.

I finished Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi this week. As i mentioned above, i felt Timothy R. Pauketat organized the book very well. From it i learned that huge as the site we visited was, archaeologists have learned that this was just the "city" part of the Cahokia system. There were areas for food raising, pottery making and what seems to be a site where women were maintained for sacrificial purposes.

I surely do not recall that when we visited, although it may have been there. Much of the Cahokia plaza/city site was uncovered due to highway construction and tract housing development in the 60s and 70s. It was known there was an ancient site but unclear how vast it was.

Archaeologists believe that 1050 was an important year for the world, for a supernova happened in the Milky Way Galaxy that, according to Chinese and Japanese records, was so bright that it could be seen in the daytime for 23 days, and at night for nearly two years. Radiocarbon testing asserts that the enlargement of Cahokia-proper appears to have been a result of the emotional/spiritual/whatever residue instilled in this ancient group. The resulting Crab Nebula appears to also play into the prehistoric data.

One of the major questions has been whether Cahokia was the result of a spreading of the "word" from the Aztec or whether it was a natural result of trading efforts. Or, even, if the earlier Cahokia could have influenced those in Mexico. Still no definitive answers but the searching in the book is fascinating reading, if you like to read about digs and their results.

Very nice write up! While Europe is full of ancient sites, that doesn't mean in North America there was nothing.

madrano wrote:seems to be a site where women were maintained for sacrificial purposes..."

Yikes !

Another off my DL. We bought this Clotel: or, The President's Daughter--William Wells Brown in 2019 at Little Rock, Arkansas' Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. I'd heard of the book a couple of years earlier but couldn't find a copy until i entered this gift shop. It was a terrific museum lauding African American life in Little Rock and the rest of Arkansas.
https://www.arkansasheritage.com/mosa...

The novel was even better than i anticipated. All 19th century novels about slavery that i've read are heavily didactic, including this one. However, i felt Brown shared arguments against slavery and Christians that i hadn't read elsewhere. The book relates a possible storyline of Thomas Jefferson's daughter and two granddaughters once they are sold when he died.

madrano wrote: "Another off my DL. We bought this Clotel: or, The President's Daughter--William Wells Brown in 2019 at Little Rock, Arkansas' Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. I'd hear..."

Happy to hear that this has worked out so well for you!

madrano wrote: "However, i felt Brown shared arguments against slavery and Christians that i hadn't read elsewhere. ..."

Excellent. I guess that is why it's important to read a number of books on a topic. I often find this is true for the Presidents challenge we do.

I'm pleased, John. Thanks for that comment.

True, Alias. Reading about one President, followed by the next chronologically, a reader can get two vastly different sides of topics such as coinage and Federal responsibilities (or not).

That's true, too, deb. Though I was thinking of reading more then one bio of a single president. Often I learn new info or get a totally different view of the man.

Before Goodreads, I often felt I was the only one who reads nonfiction!

I know what you mean, John. At AOL, most of the boards i frequented were fiction. There were a few of us who delved into NF and that was informative. We read science, history and even math at times, although those were a challenge for me. Being in a group helped encourage stretching one's "boundaries".

Alias, i see what you mean about reading more than one bio of a single person. At this point in my Presidential challenge, i'm limiting myself because i hope to finish before dying. Nonetheless, i have a list of follow-up bios on a number of those presidents i've already read. Sometimes the earlier bios were more hagiographies than biographies, so i quickly became aware to be careful what i accepted a fact.

John wrote: "Before Goodreads, I often felt I was the only one who reads nonfiction!"

Before the internet, I thought I was the only one who read !

I follow a lot of BookTubers, and the vast majority read fiction. So I am always on the lookout for people on YouTube who discuss non fiction.

LOL, Alias. I kinda agree with you. I'd see readers at the library but no one really sat and talked about the books, fiction or not. Often librarians would but they didn't have the time to spend saying much, of course. It didn't help that i knew no one who read, either. Even today, the only regular reader is one i raised, my daughter. Thankfully!

After adding the Farming Dissenters, i saw the Perry Mason books. So, i sought out the next in line. As it turns out, the next in eBook form was from 1948, over a decade after the first, which was published in 33.

Not much changed for Perry and Della in The Case of the Lonely Heiress--Erle Stanley Gardner. Still solving cases and one chaste kiss, same as that first one. However, the explanations about police tactics, as seen from Mason's eyes, are more cynical. Some day i'll delve further in the series, i imagine, but there is no pressing need, imo.

Gardner had quite a career going with the Perry Mason mysteries but later in his career he also tried tackling true crimes. It's interesting to see that those were respected but not loved the way the series was. Life!

madrano wrote: "After adding the Farming Dissenters, i saw the Perry Mason books. So, i sought out the next in line. As it turns out, the next in eBook form was from 1948, over a decade after the first, which was ..."

My mom used to watch the TV show.

My family didn't watch them at the time. This past January, after my first cataract surgery, i just couldn't read much at all the first week. That's when i watched several of those old Perry Mason episodes. My fancy was caught by all the females wearing hats and dressing for court and such. And those gorgeous, large gas-guzzling cars! So, i decided to give the books a try. I can see why folks liked them back then, as the books gave good examples of law cases, mystery clues and police procedures. Those things we see today on tv in mystery programs. :-)

Alias, you mentioned in January that you may be able to read At Seventy: A Journal—May Sarton with me when i’m ready, which i am. It seems in my quest for the 100, i forgot my DL. will you be able to read it with me? I know you won’t even approached 70 for years, but I’m there & eager to see what Sarton has to share.

My copy is in storage. However, I see the eBook is only $3.
I can start it after I finish the Jefferson book I am currently reading.
So maybe in a few days. I can set up a thread and you can begin and I can catch up.

All are welcome to join in !

Sounds great. Thanks.

I finished At Seventy: A Journal—May Sarton this week. While disappointed in it, there were still some beautiful descriptions of nature and some bright observations on the work of poetry, which i liked.

Presently i have only one more book to read to complete my 2022 DL! I brought it with me to Tacoma, where we’ll be staying before the wedding. At least i’ll begin it, Prairie Fever: British Aristocrats in the American West 1830-1890—Peter Pagnamenta.

madrano wrote: Presently i have only one more book to read to complete my 2022 DL! ..."

Well done, Deb !

I have 2 books to complete my list.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

We should both be pleased with ourselves, both for pacing and plans to finish!