Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion

PART EIGHT - ONGOING THREAD FOR 2012 (continued from Part Seven)

What are U reading these days?

I did start Great Expectations. Not too far in, but I have to say, I don't like these people. I like Joe but that's it. I liked Pip...for a minute. Not sure where this book is going, but I know it can't be a happy-place.

Almost done with 'Ware Hawk and it's just what I expect from Norton and her Witch World series.

Jackie wrote: "I did start Great Expectations. Not too far in, but I have to say, I don't like these people. I like Joe but that's it. I liked Pip...for a minute. Not sure where this book is going, but I know it can't be a happy-place. ..."

Jackie, that's how I felt when I started viewing the film. Now you make me want to view it again... or actually READ it!

I found a sample at Google eBooks:
http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader...

I also found a complete free version but it's a scanned presentation which isn't as easy to read:
http://books.google.com/ebooks?id=fEs...

PS-Here's another complete free version from Google eBooks (It seems to be the complete book and is easy to read.):
http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader...

I never saw any of the movie versions but I'm pretty excited to see Gillian Anderson in the PBS Masterpiece version.

Jackie wrote: "I never saw any of the movie versions but I'm pretty excited to see Gillian Anderson in the PBS Masterpiece version."

I hope that Netflix will offer that version soon. I'm not familiar with Gillian Anderson. My Netflix history shows that I watched her in "House of Mirth" back in 2009, but I don't remember much about her performance.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200720/
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The...

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

It's be on your PBS station in April. You don't have to wait for Netflix.

Some upcoming Masterpiece titles can be seen here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/sche...

Sherlock on January 15th, 22nd and 29th
The Old Curiosity Shop on February 26th
Great Expectations on April 1st and 8th
The Mystery of Edwin Drood on April 15th
Birdsong April 22nd & 29th

Jackie wrote: "It's be on your PBS station in April. You don't have to wait for Netflix. ..."

Yes but... I invariably miss these shows when they're airing on TV. Besides, when I watch via Netflix, I can rewind whenever I want to. I know I could do this if I had a Tivo type set-up but I haven't gotten to do that yet. I'm afraid if I started back-logging all those TV shows, they would start to seem like a monkey on my back, waiting for me to watch them. My sister has Tivo and she has expressed that feeling about the build-up of shows she should go back to.

Thanks anyway for the listing. I'll keep my eyes open for the shows.

Without the DVR functions I'd never be able to watch TV, so I know what you mean.

Jackie wrote: "Without the DVR functions I'd never be able to watch TV, so I know what you mean."

Oh yeah! Our viewing times & amounts vary a lot with the weather & the season. In the summer, we don't even come in to eat dinner half the time until 8pm.

I'm having fun streaming via my Roku connection to Netflix. Of course, most of what I watch is out of date, but I enjoy it anyway. Downside is that there are no captions available. So the British accents are sometimes hard to decipher.

Joy H. wrote: "Jackie wrote: "I did start Great Expectations. Not too far in, but I have to say, I don't like these people. I like Joe but that's it. I liked Pip...for a minute. Not sure where this book is go..."

I love Dickens and don't feel this is one of his better books.

About "Great Expectations", an Amazon editorial review says: "An absorbing mystery as well as a morality tale, the story of Pip, a poor village lad, and his expectations of wealth is Dickens at his most deliciously readable."
FROM: http://www.amazon.com/Expectations-Pe...

I also found the following which is a good summary:
===============================================
"Great Expectations is about love, family, and rejection as Pip and Miss Havisham have both been rejected in certain ways. Pip is the main character, a boy around 13 years old, easy to fright, and goes through his life suffering lots of sadness. He is in love with a girl named Estella and wants her to find his love, but for him being shy and not showing himself to her, it makes it very hard for him.

"Pip meets an escaped convict, Magwitch, and gives him food, in an encounter that is to haunt both their lives. When Pip receives riches from a mysterious benefactor he snobbishly abandons his friends for London society and his 'great expectations'. He grows through misfortune and suffering to maturity in the theme of Dicken's best-loved novels. Dickens blends gripping drama with penetrating satire to give a compelling story rich in comedy and pathos: he has also created two of his finest, most haunting characters in Pip ans Miss Havisham." -Submitted by Louis Kisitu.
FROM: http://www.online-literature.com/dick...
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BTW, at the bottom of the Wiki page I found the following link to another free version of "Great Expectations" online at:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/dicke...
(Wiki calls it the "Easy to read HTML version".)

Tonight, I plan on reading 77 Shadow Street with one of my groups.

Sounds spooky!

Juat finished, "The Gathering," and posted my review on Goodreads.See if anyone agrees with me.

Juat finished, "The Gathering," and posted my review on Goodreads.

Joy, Starts out like spooky-creepy. After coming off of a most excellent season of American Horror Story, this is the perfect antidote to ghost-withdrawal, lol

Nina, who's the author on that, there's a few with that title and I don't know which on to look at.

Joy H. wrote: "PART EIGHT - ONGOING THREAD FOR 2012 (continued from Part Seven)

What are U reading these days?"I am reading,"Chickens, Two Mules and Two Fools," at the present time. Just finished,"The Gathering," and have another new E-book to read. It was a present. I opened my Kindle and there it was ordered from a grandson. He got the title from my goodreads wish list; "Right Hand up to God,"Also, on my Kindle waiting for me to read is "Betty Zane," and "Belonging: A Novel," and The original, "Death Comes to The Archbishop," "Little Dorrit," "To Catch a Highlander," sample of "Brooklyn," which was highly recommended by a friend. Also just finished, "The Tea House on Mullberry Street," and have you read, "Heart of the Beast," which sound great. Look it up, Joy. YOU are good at that. We tried, "Old Curiosity Shop," but sound was poor and no subtitles so after an hour and a half we gave up.

Nina, sounds as if you're really enjoying your Kindle. I haven't read any of the books you mentioned. Right now I'm reading Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult. I'm just getting into it. Seems like a dark read, but I can't be sure. I read her book, My Sister's Keeper, another dark one. This one seems a bit heavy but I'm into it. The "music therapy" theme interests me.

I just finished the 5th & last published book of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice & Fire" series, A Dance With Dragons.
My review is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

The books were about 1000 pages each & it started out really well. The last 2 slowed down quite a bit since they were basically one split book. Worse, the characters didn't seem to move at all from the beginning to the end of the book. The story just stalled. It's kind of heart breaking to read so many pages for so little return, especially since our introduction to the series was the HBO mini series, "Game of Thrones" - also the name of the first book.

HBO is doing one season per book & the first one was fantastically done. They nailed the characters so perfectly & did a great job sticking to the book's story line. Oh, they added some fairly graphic sex scenes in to keep folks interested & cut some of the detail, but otherwise it was pretty much word for word. A really superb job considering how badly Hollywood usually messes with a book. Marg & I watched the first season & then read the book. We both felt it was almost a re-read.

Jim, I read your review and Jackie's comments. It's wonderful the way you are able to follow these series and discuss the characters. I wish I had the interest because it leads to good discussions online. I suppose the difference in interests is the age-gap.

Anne Enright is the author of The Gathering. I would be curious if you try to read it if you stick with it. I thought I wouldn't but because it is our book club selection this month I felt I had to; but in spite of not really liking the story, it was thought provoking and lingers in my thoughts long after finishing it.

Nina wrote: "Anne Enright is the author of The Gathering. I would be curious if you try to read it if you stick with it. I thought I wouldn't but because it is our book club selection this month I felt I had to..."

Thanks, Nina. I've located a free sample of the book at:
http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader...
I'll take a look at it.

Comments about the author's writing are interesting:
=========================================
"... The Gathering is a family epic, condensed and clarified through the remarkable lens of Anne Enright's unblinking eye. ... As in all Anne Enright's work, fiction and non-fiction, this is a book of daring, wit and insight: her distinctive intelligence twisting the world a fraction, and giving it back to us in a new and unforgettable light."
FROM: http://books.google.com/ebooks?id=-Xr...
===========================================

Nina, I read to the end of the sample (linked above) of The Gathering. I remember now that I had read the sample once before. I have to tell you that it does nothing for me. The writing meanders all over the place and doesn't seem to make its point. It never gets to the subject at hand, Liam (who was lost?). The meandering doesn't interest me at all; it seemed boring to me. So I doubt if I would be interested in this book.

For reference: The Gathering (2007) by Anne Enright

PS-Nina, I found the following member-review of The Gathering at LibraryThing. It validates my opinion above:
==============================================
"Disapointed: This book revolves [around] a woman, her Irish family and the death of her brother Liam. She starts having flashbacks and memories from when Liam was alive. It also turns out theres a secret. Then the family starts preparing for the funeral and in between all this the woman starts replaying all these relationships she had in the past.. Eloquently though boringly.

"There was just too much going on in this one. Relationship after relationship and the characters were not that interesting. I agree with the other reviewers concerning how confusing and disjointed this book was. The author has a way with words and is quite poetic at times though that can't save this from the overlapping stories and characters that go on and on and on. It didn't move me."
FROM: http://www.librarything.com/work/2875319
==================================================

Nina, I know the book won the Booker Prize and other awards, but I guess it takes a special taste to appreciate it. Note the words "confusing and disjointed". Yes!

Most of the other member-reviews at the LibraryThing link above seem to make the same type of negative comments about the book.

Below is another comment from the same LibraryThing link:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"This is not an easy book to read. It is definitely "literary" and not for the casual reader. Enright uses an obscure and fuzzy style, but her prose is terrific and she does a great job of conveying the weight of Veronica's life. ... The book revolves around Veronica's history while she deals with her closest sibling's suicide(her brother). I can see how some people had trouble with this book but I felt that it unfolded as it went on and by the end I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I doubt I would want to read another book by Enright..."
====================================================

Joy, I thoroughly liked reading the comments on "The Gathering," and agreed with all of them; including the last one who actually ended up iking the book; as did I, sort of, if that makes sense,in spite of myself wondering if it would ever end. Next month my book club will be discussing it and I plan to take some of these reviews with me. It will be an interesting session.

The author didn't tell us Liam died until a third of the way into the book; yes, very confusing flashbacks. I had to re-read a few times. And the grimness bothered me. I thought the author had an axe to grind with her family, the church, Ireland etc. One review I read said it read more like a memoir than a novel. I do agree. I thought it might have made a good short story as the writing was quite good. Oh well, thought it might peak your interest to read about it rather than to read it.

Yes, Nina, it was interesting to read about The Gathering. I always like to expand my horizons.

Today I went to a book discussion at the GF Senior Center. They talked about the non-fiction book, Twelve Years a Slave, written in 1853 by the slave himself, Solomon Northup.

"Twelve Years A Slave" is the story of Solomon Northup, an African American who was born free in New York in the early 1800s. In 1841, Solomon Northup was captured and forced into slavery for a period of 12 years."
FROM: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1420...

He had actually been brought up free and lived in Minerva, NY, and Saratoga, NY.

There's a free copy online here:
http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader...

There is a movie adaptation which I've put it on my Netflix queue. The movie is called: "Solomon Northup's Odyssey" and was part of American Playhouse (TV series 1982).
See the following links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088148/
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Sol...

There's also a free copy of the book online at Google eBooks:
http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader...

I also learned that there's a children's version of the book:
_Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave: 1841-1853 re-written version for young readers_
by Sue Eakin (1998)
Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave: 1841-1853 re-written version for young readers
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21...
See a free sample in Google ebooks at the following link:
http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader...

I did read My Sister's Keeper and is was grim I thought. Hard to suspend disbelief. My cousin has a new film called "Dolphin's Tale," and his sister says it is a sweet good movie. I haven't seen it but plan to do so. His other movie, "Sweetland," won an Oscar for Independent film making a few years ago.

Here's the link for "Dolphin Tale":
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1564349/

Jackie mentioned "Dolphin Tale" in Message #2 at:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...

She said: "It was fantastic. A touching and inspiring story."

Oh my, you ladies read so fast. I'm on the Thirteenth Tale and it's moving slowly. I like books that move along swiftly. I hope everyone's enjoying the new year.

I loved The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Below is a link to my review:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Jim wrote: "I just finished the 5th & last published book of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice & Fire" series, A Dance With Dragons.
My review is here:
http://www.goodreads.com..."

I too am slogging thru the 5th and final? book Dance of the Dragons. He had me hooked after the first one and I didn't even notice the deterioration of which you speak. I read, (and skim), these big books at bedtime, when 90% of my reading is done nowadays, and it puts me to sleep quite satisfactorily. I don't get HBO but will look for the series on Netflix when it gets there. The casual brutality of Martin's society puts me in mind of Bernard Cornwell's Saxon books. Martin doesn't move the plot as fast though. I too will award 3 and a half stars out of 5. And 4 stars is nearly my TOP judgement.

'Final' being the last one published to date, Earl. The 6th is expected out this year, I think.

I started reading Cornwell's first Saxon book on my PC & then got distracted. I've read & enjoyed several of his Sharpe novels. They're pretty gritty, too.

Jim wrote: The 6th is expected out this year, I think.

Snort, snort. lol

I want to read Cornwell's first Arthur novel The Winter King but it's way down on my To Read list since I don't have the rest of the series.

I will relay your favorable comments Jackie to my cousin the producer of Dolphin Tale. He will be so pleased.

They did a fantastic job on Dolphin Tale, I've been telling everyone to watch it.

I started Emma last night while I'm still feeling good about classics, lol

Almost done with Shadow Street which started out really well but I've lost my interest in it. The author keeps describing really grotesque and nasty things, I've had enough of that. I just want it to be over.

Ah, Jane Austen. I haven't read _Emma_ but I watched the Netflix DVD with Gwyneth Paltrow. I gave it 3 stars out of 5.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116191/
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Emm...
"This adaptation of Jane Austen's novel about misguided matchmaking takes a comic look at the romantic meddling of Emma Woodhouse. Emma spends her time arranging friends' romances, never noticing that her own true love is right beneath her nose."

I'll have to watch that one after I finish reading it.

My daughter is reading Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula. It's a fun book.

I love Birds & Blooms magazine. We get it & give a subscription to 2 of our aunts & my mother. They have a ton of great pictures in every issue plus a great web presence. Here's an interesting piece I picked off of Facebook.
http://birdsandbloomsblog.com/2012/01...

I'm doing a buddy-read with my Epic Fantasy pal, Christine: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. It's been on my shelves for years and I haven't managed to get any more of the series. Then hearing fans complaining, I'm not sure if I should get the rest or not. There's only one way to find out for sure.

I managed to get my To Read shelf here on GR in numerical order. I'm so pleased. Often I'll think I want to read something soon and then forget about it, this way I have the books I most want to get to this year listed first. I'm hoping it'll get me to plan reading adventures better.

Roger wrote: "My daughter is reading Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula. It's a fun book."

A link for reference: Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula (2010) by Elise Stokes.

I see that the author is a Goodreads author. The genres are: Young Adult, Mystery, Science Fiction. Here's the link for all the genres (i.e., other member shelves) for the book:
http://www.goodreads.com/work/shelves...
It's fun to see how readers label their shelves. One reader labeled it: "spies-agents-police". :)

Jim, thanks, I didn't know all that about Audubon. Interesting.

Jim wrote: "I love Birds & Blooms magazine. We get it & give a subscription to 2 of our aunts & my mother. They have a ton of great pictures in every issue plus a great web presence. Here's an interesting p..."

Interesting article about John James Audubon (1785–1851, French-American ornithologist). Thanks for the link.
http://birdsandbloomsblog.com/2012/01...
Excerpt:
"He introduced bird-banding to the New World.
Bird-banding has been used for centuries to study birds and their travels (the earliest known use dates back to Roman times), but Audubon is the first person known to use the process in the Americas."

Here's Goodreads link to his book: Birds of America by John James Audubon

"...first published in sections between 1827 and 1838"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_of...

There are many editions of the book. Below is an excerpt from Wiki:
"After the folio edition was completed, Audubon decided to produce a more affordable edition and employed a lithographer from Philadelphia named J. T. Bowen. Bowen and his team created an octavo edition, which was issued to subscribers in seven volumes and completed in 1844 after selling 1,199 sets."
FROM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bird...

Now I see it on sale at Amazon for about $300, new. (Hardcover 2001 Edition).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listin...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1566...

Here's another good version: Audubon's Birds Of America by Roger Tory Peterson (1908-1996)
Excerpt from the Goodreads description:
==========================================
"This marvelous edition of Audubon's Birds of America displays all 435 of Audubon's brilliant handcolored engravings in exquisite reproductions taken from the original plates of the Audubon Society's archival copy of the rare Double Elephant Folio. ...
"Completely reorganized and annotated by Roger Tory Peterson, who was America's best-known ornithologist, and issued with the full endorsement and cooperation of the Audubon Society, this volume is the first to rearrange the plates in a more scientific order."
==================================================
It's sold at Amazon, new from $18.99.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789...

We just saw a news thing on yesterday morning about the original Audubon book. It was huge, weighed over 80 lbs & they said it sold for over $10,000,000, while this article adds another million. Wow!

The only bad thing about old books like that a lot of the scientific information is incorrect. I have a reprint of a book of woods, The Woodbook, & it is gorgeous. Unlike the original which is something like 17 or 18 volumes that have real wood in them, this is just very good pictures. But finding anything in it is interesting.

Although our current form of scientific naming has been around a few centuries (Some Swede or Dane in mid 1700's, name begins with an L, I think.) pigeon-holing everything is still up for grabs. A lot of tree species were moved back & forth over the years & I still read about them occasionally. When I had tropical fish, one had 3 scientific names in the 4 or 5 years I had him! I'm not sure if birds have done the same thing, but wouldn't be surprised.

Jim wrote: "... The only bad thing about old books like that a lot of the scientific information is incorrect. ..."

That's a good point, Jim. We have a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica from before 1940. It's definitely obsolete for many of the subjects. But that's all we had at home when I was a kid. The print was so small and articles were so detailed that it was a chore to use it.

I hate to throw it away, but nobody wants that sort of thing anymore.

The kids nowadays are so lucky to have the Internet! Remember the days when teachers made us copy information off the blackboard. In many classes that's all we did. Now teachers have to do more than just parrot info to the kids. They have to teach the kids to THINK!

There was an article online about this recently, but I'll be darned if I can find it!... WAIT! I FOUND IT! (I had taken some notes on it and they are in my computer files.) The links are:
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/01/1445509...
http://americanradioworks.publicradio...

The article was entitled: "Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool" by Emily Hanford.

Below is some of the stuff I copied and pasted from the above web pages [the boldening of text is mine]:
================================================
""We need to educate a population ... to be able to think critically and problem-solve." [says Brian Lukoff, an education researcher at Harvard] ...
"He [Eric Mazur - teaching physics at Harvard] says that listening to someone talk is not an effective way to learn any subject. "Students have to be active in developing their knowledge," he says. "They can't passively assimilate it. ... Mazur's physics class is now different. Rather than lecturing, he makes his students do most of the talking. ... the students — nearly 100 of them — are in small groups discussing a question." ...

"It used to be just be the 'sage on the stage,' the source of knowledge and information," he says. "We now know that it's not good enough to have a source of information." Mazur sees himself now as the "guide on the side" – a kind of coach, working to help students understand all the knowledge and information that they have at their fingertips. Mazur says this new role is a more important one." ...

MORE FROM THE SAME ARTICLE:
"The lecture is one of the oldest forms of education there is."
"Before printing someone would read the books to everybody who would copy them down," says Joe Redish, a physics professor at the University of Maryland. But lecturing has never been an effective teaching technique and now that information is everywhere, some say it's a waste of time. Indeed, physicists have the data to prove it.
FROM: NPR ONLINE - Jan. 2012
SEE LINKS ABOVE.
==================================================

PS-I FOUND THE ABOVE ARTICLES VIA AN EMAIL ABOUT "NPR'S MOST EMAILED STORIES", 1/8/12. THE EMAIL SAID:
"Education - Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool.
Lecturing has never been an effective teaching technique, and now that information is everywhere some say it's a waste of time. Now, physicists have the data to prove it. But efforts to lose the lecture encounter resistance — sometimes from students."

Interesting subject.

PPS-YOU CAN HEAR A RADIO PROGRAM ABOUT THE ABOVE AT:
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPla...
(NPR RADIO: Broadcast on "ALL THINGS CONSIDERED")