Reading for just six minutes a day can reduce stress by 68%
Have a reduced stress Christmas everyone!
Baron
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Thursday, December 1, 2016
SEPTEMBER MEETING NOTES (2nd try, now in December)
Howdy Spirits,
Since it took me longer than expected to weave my lyrical magic in the last post, I'll try again at the September meeting notes post now. Wish me luck. Although it looks like it won't be too long since the notes are rather short. Here we goooo.... (said like Peter Pan)
Old Business:
Deuce has posted some pictures to our Pinterest Board. The secret one, sshhhhhhh.
We must have talked a bit about a previous book, KINGS MOUNTAIN, since there is a note saying that most of the prisoners escaped. I think though that we talked some about how it would be a logistical challenge for the Overmountain Men to maintain so many prisoners during the the trek back home. Having to feed, keep watch over, and travel with all those prisoners would complicate and slow things down considerably. As Sir Toppemhat might say, "You are causing confusion and delay!" On a side note about Kings Mountain: we went to spend Thanksgiving with JB's side of the family out in the midwest. I was talking to my Aunt and found out that she too is in a book club. She started it actually. And the book they are reading right now is Sharyn McCrumb's latest book PRAYERS THE DEVIL ANSWERS so I thought that was a pretty cool coincidence. Book clubs are cool! I'm sure that her club isn't nearly as hard core as The Spirits though. Another side note on our trip out to the midwest. I ran a 10k road race on Thanksgiving morning. Several mistakes with that decision: 1. It was at 8:00 in the morning. That should have disqualified it right there. 2. It was 39 degrees. That should have disqualified it right there. 3. It required running 6.2 miles. That should have disqualified it right there. 4. I had to pay $25 to go run 6.2 miles at 8:00 am when it was 39 degrees. But as my North Carolina real estate agent once said, "Some people got more money than they got sense". Fair enough Horace, you got me.
New Business:
On September 24th (2016), there was an Overmountain Men re-enactment at Sycamore Shoals. So if this is the first you've heard of it, I apologize for providing this information just a tippy tap tip tap bit late. At this time please refer to my previous post with a nice little apology song. It's a real catchy tune. :-)
And this month's book, ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is our 20th book! If I remember correctly, we had cake, food and wine. I know food and wine is standard issue for The Spirits, but the cake was a new addition. So now the question is: how often (brief aside: Chief informed me that the proper pronuncion of "often" is "off-un". The "t" is silent. I've been saying it wrong for as long as I can remember. Ugh) so anyway, the question is: how often should we celebrate a bookiversary? Every 5th time around? So the next one would be 25. We can discuss at the next meeting.
We also discussed doing a private painting class for the club. I think that would be a really cool thing to do. It is fun, the painting turns out much better than you would probably expect, and you can bring food and wine/beer! I mean, "Why in the world would you NOT?!" Sorry, that quote is from one of the super cheezy car dealership commercials on TV. I bet you've seen that commercial too? But the price isn't really that bad either, I think maybe around $50 per person, which we could raid the Spirit Fund to finance.
Soooo, yeah about the Spirits Fund, so I was presented with a foolproof investment idea for which to triple our funds in just a few short weeks. As the club Treasurer, I made a wise, quick, unilateral decision to invest all our funds in this guarenteed money-making opportunity and you can thank me later as the dolla bills are raining down upon us in 2017. Don't worry, I know a guy. Just keep your eyes on the pet spa market. It's getting ready to go through the roof!
Chief told us about a book idea he had: it takes place in the future on another planet. The planet is covered with seas/oceans and there are lots of sea creatures inside them. Hopefully he can continue brainstorming creative ideas and really write a book one day. That would be awesome.
Boss read two books: IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A MUFFIN, and IF YOU GIVE A CAT A CUPCAKE. He's been reading like a champ!
These dudes are the future of the Novel Spirit Empire we are currently building. Until next time Spirits
Baron
Since it took me longer than expected to weave my lyrical magic in the last post, I'll try again at the September meeting notes post now. Wish me luck. Although it looks like it won't be too long since the notes are rather short. Here we goooo.... (said like Peter Pan)
Old Business:
Deuce has posted some pictures to our Pinterest Board. The secret one, sshhhhhhh.
We must have talked a bit about a previous book, KINGS MOUNTAIN, since there is a note saying that most of the prisoners escaped. I think though that we talked some about how it would be a logistical challenge for the Overmountain Men to maintain so many prisoners during the the trek back home. Having to feed, keep watch over, and travel with all those prisoners would complicate and slow things down considerably. As Sir Toppemhat might say, "You are causing confusion and delay!" On a side note about Kings Mountain: we went to spend Thanksgiving with JB's side of the family out in the midwest. I was talking to my Aunt and found out that she too is in a book club. She started it actually. And the book they are reading right now is Sharyn McCrumb's latest book PRAYERS THE DEVIL ANSWERS so I thought that was a pretty cool coincidence. Book clubs are cool! I'm sure that her club isn't nearly as hard core as The Spirits though. Another side note on our trip out to the midwest. I ran a 10k road race on Thanksgiving morning. Several mistakes with that decision: 1. It was at 8:00 in the morning. That should have disqualified it right there. 2. It was 39 degrees. That should have disqualified it right there. 3. It required running 6.2 miles. That should have disqualified it right there. 4. I had to pay $25 to go run 6.2 miles at 8:00 am when it was 39 degrees. But as my North Carolina real estate agent once said, "Some people got more money than they got sense". Fair enough Horace, you got me.
New Business:
On September 24th (2016), there was an Overmountain Men re-enactment at Sycamore Shoals. So if this is the first you've heard of it, I apologize for providing this information just a tippy tap tip tap bit late. At this time please refer to my previous post with a nice little apology song. It's a real catchy tune. :-)
And this month's book, ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is our 20th book! If I remember correctly, we had cake, food and wine. I know food and wine is standard issue for The Spirits, but the cake was a new addition. So now the question is: how often (brief aside: Chief informed me that the proper pronuncion of "often" is "off-un". The "t" is silent. I've been saying it wrong for as long as I can remember. Ugh) so anyway, the question is: how often should we celebrate a bookiversary? Every 5th time around? So the next one would be 25. We can discuss at the next meeting.
We also discussed doing a private painting class for the club. I think that would be a really cool thing to do. It is fun, the painting turns out much better than you would probably expect, and you can bring food and wine/beer! I mean, "Why in the world would you NOT?!" Sorry, that quote is from one of the super cheezy car dealership commercials on TV. I bet you've seen that commercial too? But the price isn't really that bad either, I think maybe around $50 per person, which we could raid the Spirit Fund to finance.
Soooo, yeah about the Spirits Fund, so I was presented with a foolproof investment idea for which to triple our funds in just a few short weeks. As the club Treasurer, I made a wise, quick, unilateral decision to invest all our funds in this guarenteed money-making opportunity and you can thank me later as the dolla bills are raining down upon us in 2017. Don't worry, I know a guy. Just keep your eyes on the pet spa market. It's getting ready to go through the roof!
Chief told us about a book idea he had: it takes place in the future on another planet. The planet is covered with seas/oceans and there are lots of sea creatures inside them. Hopefully he can continue brainstorming creative ideas and really write a book one day. That would be awesome.
Boss read two books: IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A MUFFIN, and IF YOU GIVE A CAT A CUPCAKE. He's been reading like a champ!
These dudes are the future of the Novel Spirit Empire we are currently building. Until next time Spirits
Baron
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
SEPTEMBER MEETING NOTES (iinnnnn November)
Hey Spirits,
Anyone seen Moana yet?? Great movie! It's the newest Disney/Pixar movie and we really enjoyed it. In fact here's a brief refrain that can be sang or sung in the melody of Maui's song called "You're Welcome" It's sort of a way to apologize for not posting in so long. Hopefully, these lyrics can fit in with the melody of the chorus portion of the song. Give it a try, or disavow knowledge of me altogether....
Hey, don't agonize or chastise my devotion
I've just been inert or asleep in the rack.
I know this implies I despise locomotion
But at least I can strive to be slack!
So I know I need to say that I'm sorry
I seem to set my goals too high
It's safe to say I won't get my Ferrari
I'm just a mediocre, fairish guy!
So okay, I'm trying to say that I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry!
Well it took me a long time to try to make that rhyme, so I think the actual blog post won't come tonight. I might have to make a whole new song for that too!!!
I just finished THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN btw, and I'm halfway through CATCH-22, so I'll be good to go for next meeting.
Baron
Anyone seen Moana yet?? Great movie! It's the newest Disney/Pixar movie and we really enjoyed it. In fact here's a brief refrain that can be sang or sung in the melody of Maui's song called "You're Welcome" It's sort of a way to apologize for not posting in so long. Hopefully, these lyrics can fit in with the melody of the chorus portion of the song. Give it a try, or disavow knowledge of me altogether....
Hey, don't agonize or chastise my devotion
I've just been inert or asleep in the rack.
I know this implies I despise locomotion
But at least I can strive to be slack!
So I know I need to say that I'm sorry
I seem to set my goals too high
It's safe to say I won't get my Ferrari
I'm just a mediocre, fairish guy!
So okay, I'm trying to say that I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry!
Well it took me a long time to try to make that rhyme, so I think the actual blog post won't come tonight. I might have to make a whole new song for that too!!!
I just finished THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN btw, and I'm halfway through CATCH-22, so I'll be good to go for next meeting.
Baron
Sunday, November 27, 2016
GOOD ARTICLE
Hey Spirits,
I came across this Wall Street Journal article about reading. I enjoyed it, and it is pretty positive and encouraging so I thought I'd pass it along if you all would like to read it....
The Need to Read
I came across this Wall Street Journal article about reading. I enjoyed it, and it is pretty positive and encouraging so I thought I'd pass it along if you all would like to read it....
The Need to Read
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Hey Spirits
We have a new record to set.....
42 years
A man who checked out William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” in April 1974 from the Guilderland Library returned the book last Tuesday. The late fee for such a wait would be $3,106.20, but a man such as this presumably knows to live a life on the run, dodging the law and other library enforcement authorities, and presumably set up the book drop up so they’d be sipping a cocktail on a brach in Zihuatanejo, Mexico by the time anyone was all the wiser to his escape from New York. [NBC New York]
Thursday, September 1, 2016
AUGUST MEETING NOTES
Hello Spirits. Dag where did the summer go? I mean its still as hot as George Kellogg's bones inside the giant, boiling vat of butter he got chucked into, but I'm not really referring to the weather. I mean since Chief and Boss are back in school, vacations are complete, I'm transitioning into making fall beers, and we're currently about 23 minutes from September, it feels to me like the immaculate summer wave I've been surfing has just crashed me onto the beach, completely unsympathetic to freshly open wounds filled with sand and shell fragments. After reading all the books from book club, that was my poor attempt at superb metaphorical prose. I'll be a writer one day Spirits, mark my words. Riiiiiiight.
"Who we talking about??" There was your movie quote, from Chicken Little. Chicken Little himself says that a couple times while confused, which seems rather appropriate for me since I spend a considerable amount of my time confused also.
Ok, let's get down to business...."to defeat... the huns!" There's a two-for for you all!! Two quotes in one blog, that one from Mulan. I am on fire today :-)
Okay, enough tom-foolery: to business, "You'll love Biz niss." Sorry, I just can't stop myself, that one was from Muppet Christmas Carol. The big, blue, serious, business bird said that. I've slapped myself on the wrist and now ready for......
Old Business:
"Shirts - Praise to Baron" I accept your praise spirits and any gifts that may follow...... :\ Yes, we now have club shirts folks! I think they turned out fairly well. I acknowledge that we decided on gray and I actually ordered white, but if you just sprinkle some charcoal in your eyes, squint and look at them at dusk, they will look pretty close to gray. We discussed the major cost difference between ordering white or any other color, so I made an executive decision to go with white. Of course, President Deuce may send the thought police in to haul me off to the Ministry of Love for some reconditioning. My greatest fear is not spiders, I promise.
Or maybe Deuce won't call in the thought police, because this meeting was uncommonly cordial and gracious. I don't think there were any chastisements if you can believe that! Maybe no one had the heart to tell me the shirts were slightly too transparent or my spinach dip looked and tasted more like something that rock guy from the Neverending Story would have enjoyed. So basically, it boils down to pity! The Spirits just couldn't bare to break me down anymore. Well I appreciate it Spirits, regardless of your motivation.
Indy agreed to swap out dates with JB and Cat for hosting the meetings. So the September meeting (September 11th to be exact) will be at JB and Cat's Mountain Retreat. I really hope I got that name right. For some reason I forget everyone's home names every single time! Even mine. Its pitiful I know. I have the memory of a jellyfish. Who we talking about? So Indy now hosts the October meeting at the Lodge.... is possibly its name.
Boss read THE PIGEON NEEDS A BATH which I personally found very entertaining. Those are a pretty good series of books, and Boss and Chief have always enjoyed them.
Confession time: As you all know, my soul is as pristine as an angel. I drink up whatever evil I see in this world and spew out virtue and goodness in return. I am a bad liar. The confession is that I read ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell. Yes its true. I feel like I just ended my grace period of no chastisements. I can't help it, I really like these dystopian, philosophical, political fictions. Perhaps I drink up the virtue and spew out evil. Sometimes I get them mixed up.
New Business:
20th Bookiversary!! Remember when I changed the blog theme and made you wait until the August post? Well here is the big reveal: Our next book ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is the 20th book the club has read! Cool right? I haven't been around for all 20 but all you original Novel Spirit veterans can toast a drink with pride tonight. And every one of the next 20 nights too, why not? We should celebrate. I have an idea: let's all get together, make good food, drink good wine and just have a good time? I like it. I think its a good idea. I am considering bringing a piniata to the next meeting but that might not be very polite to our hosts. But how fun would that be right?
And Archimedes found a very cool article that I linked below. Here's a hint: reading is good for our health!!
Read more, live longer
BTW, I've got a new batch of Kolsch beer aging in the bottles. I'll bring some to any beer lovers in the group.....(crickets chirping)
Have a good night Spirits, looking forward to our next meeting
Baron
"Who we talking about??" There was your movie quote, from Chicken Little. Chicken Little himself says that a couple times while confused, which seems rather appropriate for me since I spend a considerable amount of my time confused also.
Ok, let's get down to business...."to defeat... the huns!" There's a two-for for you all!! Two quotes in one blog, that one from Mulan. I am on fire today :-)
Okay, enough tom-foolery: to business, "You'll love Biz niss." Sorry, I just can't stop myself, that one was from Muppet Christmas Carol. The big, blue, serious, business bird said that. I've slapped myself on the wrist and now ready for......
Old Business:
"Shirts - Praise to Baron" I accept your praise spirits and any gifts that may follow...... :\ Yes, we now have club shirts folks! I think they turned out fairly well. I acknowledge that we decided on gray and I actually ordered white, but if you just sprinkle some charcoal in your eyes, squint and look at them at dusk, they will look pretty close to gray. We discussed the major cost difference between ordering white or any other color, so I made an executive decision to go with white. Of course, President Deuce may send the thought police in to haul me off to the Ministry of Love for some reconditioning. My greatest fear is not spiders, I promise.
Or maybe Deuce won't call in the thought police, because this meeting was uncommonly cordial and gracious. I don't think there were any chastisements if you can believe that! Maybe no one had the heart to tell me the shirts were slightly too transparent or my spinach dip looked and tasted more like something that rock guy from the Neverending Story would have enjoyed. So basically, it boils down to pity! The Spirits just couldn't bare to break me down anymore. Well I appreciate it Spirits, regardless of your motivation.
Indy agreed to swap out dates with JB and Cat for hosting the meetings. So the September meeting (September 11th to be exact) will be at JB and Cat's Mountain Retreat. I really hope I got that name right. For some reason I forget everyone's home names every single time! Even mine. Its pitiful I know. I have the memory of a jellyfish. Who we talking about? So Indy now hosts the October meeting at the Lodge.... is possibly its name.
Boss read THE PIGEON NEEDS A BATH which I personally found very entertaining. Those are a pretty good series of books, and Boss and Chief have always enjoyed them.
Confession time: As you all know, my soul is as pristine as an angel. I drink up whatever evil I see in this world and spew out virtue and goodness in return. I am a bad liar. The confession is that I read ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell. Yes its true. I feel like I just ended my grace period of no chastisements. I can't help it, I really like these dystopian, philosophical, political fictions. Perhaps I drink up the virtue and spew out evil. Sometimes I get them mixed up.
New Business:
20th Bookiversary!! Remember when I changed the blog theme and made you wait until the August post? Well here is the big reveal: Our next book ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is the 20th book the club has read! Cool right? I haven't been around for all 20 but all you original Novel Spirit veterans can toast a drink with pride tonight. And every one of the next 20 nights too, why not? We should celebrate. I have an idea: let's all get together, make good food, drink good wine and just have a good time? I like it. I think its a good idea. I am considering bringing a piniata to the next meeting but that might not be very polite to our hosts. But how fun would that be right?
And Archimedes found a very cool article that I linked below. Here's a hint: reading is good for our health!!
Read more, live longer
BTW, I've got a new batch of Kolsch beer aging in the bottles. I'll bring some to any beer lovers in the group.....(crickets chirping)
Have a good night Spirits, looking forward to our next meeting
Baron
KING'S MOUNTAIN BOOK DISCUSSION
With this month's book we returned to a recurring theme in the Spirit's selection - a book with a local setting. The locations in King's Mountain spanned from Sycamore Shoals in Elizabethton, Tennessee to Abingdon, Virginia to the northwestern part of South Carolina. It really adds another layer of interest to the book to know the area the author is describing. And in this instance, we all got a little bit of a local history lesson. I have been amazed by how many local events surrounding the "overmountain men" and the march to the Battle of King's Mountain I have noticed since we read the book.
JB, who chose King's Mountain, noted that the battleground site at King's Mountain was worth a visit. He visited the site recently with his mom and sister, who has been doing some family history research. JB chose this book and author because of the in depth research of local history and lore the author conducts for each of her books. He highly recommended some of her other books, which are also set in the local area.
One of the things we liked best about the book was its nuanced presentation of characters. Particularly in "war" books, authors have a tendency to present characters on one side of the conflict as good and noble while presenting characters on the other as evil. Real life just isn't like that. I believe Deuce made the observation that it was easy to sympathize with characters in the book, like Virginia Sal, who were just trying to do what they could do survive the war, or others who felt loyalty to the crown. The characters were all believable and relatable characters. There were "rascals" and "heroes" on both sides.
A discussion ensued comparing the Battle of King's Mountain to Pickett's charge. I'm sure many good and thoughtful points were made, but somehow they didn't make it into my notes. Relatedly, we sorely missed Diesel's presence at the August meeting. What can I say, Spirits, battle strategy is not my jam.
One character that had many of the Spirits scratching their heads was Virginia Paul. I think she was a vehicle for tying in some of the local lore about banshees, but it was a little vague. Was she a banshee? Was she the same girl that young Ferguson met in the graveyard at the beginning of the book? I guess it is up to us to reach our own conclusions. Another somewhat supernatural element was the foreshadowing of the fates of Sevier and Ferguson.
We also contemplated whether the war would have turned out differently if Ferguson had taken the opportunity to shoot George Washington in the woods. The consensus was that it probably would have, simply because he was a unique person in a unique time.
There was also consensus that the hangings after the battle were completely arbitrary and offensive to the notion of justice. I will stop myself here or your eyes will glaze over as I launch into a legal diatribe. I will save it for the legal brief that I'll be working on all day tomorrow. :)
I think this may have been our highest rated book since Huck Finn! The lowest rating anyone gave it was 4 stars and it even garnered the ever allusive 5 star rating from Indy! And we know that Spirits don't dole out 5's willy nilly.
I am still working on All the Light We Cannnot See (so no spoilers!), but I can tell it will be a "spirited" discussion. Get it?? "Spirited"?? HAHAHAHAHAH, I crack myself up. On that corny note, I will bid you a fond adieu. See you soon!!
JB, who chose King's Mountain, noted that the battleground site at King's Mountain was worth a visit. He visited the site recently with his mom and sister, who has been doing some family history research. JB chose this book and author because of the in depth research of local history and lore the author conducts for each of her books. He highly recommended some of her other books, which are also set in the local area.
One of the things we liked best about the book was its nuanced presentation of characters. Particularly in "war" books, authors have a tendency to present characters on one side of the conflict as good and noble while presenting characters on the other as evil. Real life just isn't like that. I believe Deuce made the observation that it was easy to sympathize with characters in the book, like Virginia Sal, who were just trying to do what they could do survive the war, or others who felt loyalty to the crown. The characters were all believable and relatable characters. There were "rascals" and "heroes" on both sides.
A discussion ensued comparing the Battle of King's Mountain to Pickett's charge. I'm sure many good and thoughtful points were made, but somehow they didn't make it into my notes. Relatedly, we sorely missed Diesel's presence at the August meeting. What can I say, Spirits, battle strategy is not my jam.
One character that had many of the Spirits scratching their heads was Virginia Paul. I think she was a vehicle for tying in some of the local lore about banshees, but it was a little vague. Was she a banshee? Was she the same girl that young Ferguson met in the graveyard at the beginning of the book? I guess it is up to us to reach our own conclusions. Another somewhat supernatural element was the foreshadowing of the fates of Sevier and Ferguson.
We also contemplated whether the war would have turned out differently if Ferguson had taken the opportunity to shoot George Washington in the woods. The consensus was that it probably would have, simply because he was a unique person in a unique time.
There was also consensus that the hangings after the battle were completely arbitrary and offensive to the notion of justice. I will stop myself here or your eyes will glaze over as I launch into a legal diatribe. I will save it for the legal brief that I'll be working on all day tomorrow. :)
I think this may have been our highest rated book since Huck Finn! The lowest rating anyone gave it was 4 stars and it even garnered the ever allusive 5 star rating from Indy! And we know that Spirits don't dole out 5's willy nilly.
I am still working on All the Light We Cannnot See (so no spoilers!), but I can tell it will be a "spirited" discussion. Get it?? "Spirited"?? HAHAHAHAHAH, I crack myself up. On that corny note, I will bid you a fond adieu. See you soon!!
Sunday, August 21, 2016
SON OF THE WILDERNESS: THE LIFE OF JOHN MUIR
Let's reflect on the halcyon days of July, when we had a lovely outdoor meeting at Deuce's "home place." The patio reflected the festive season, with star spangled banners and red, white, and blue tablecloths. The food was delicious, the wine was refreshing, and the Novel Spirits gathered to fellowship and discuss the biography of Mr. John Muir.
As the conversation turned from old and new business (see Baron's previous post wittily discussing same), things took a turn to the more confrontational nature that lies just beneath the surface of the jovial Novel Spirits. Cat, who submitted the book that was the topic of discussion, very thoughtfully emailed a crossword puzzle about John Muir's life in advance of the meeting. A brief awkward moment passed as the Spirits confessed one by one that each had not completed the assigned task. Fortunately, the tension was broken as Cat herself confessed that she, too, had not completed the crossword puzzle. (JB gets a gold star because I believe he was the only one to complete the puzzle. Cat also gets a gold star for thinking outside the box for a book discussion tool!)
The next note I have is "hated sheep (hoofed locusts)." It looks like Diesel had been taking note-taking lessons from me. If I recall correctly this comment refers to John Muir's hatred of sheep because of the damage they do to the land.
JB and Cat shared some photos of visiting John Muir's childhood home in Scotland. This led the discussion to how harsh John Muir's father was because he forced his children to work the farm and went through phases of barely feeding them. Luckily, John had his sister, Margaret, who was his best friend and who helped him pursue his interests. JB and Cat also visited John Muir's Wisconsin homestead, and in 2012 they visited his Northern California home.
Speaking of his Northern California home, we discussed how John Muir married rich, but wasn't comfortable managing his father in law's orchard business, even though he was very successful at it. Instead, he brought in his brothers to help with the business. Today a trail, a mountain, and a forest are named after him. Chief also shared with the group that John Muir appears on the California quarter.
From an early age, John Muir did not like being indoors. Some of his earliest encounters with nature were walks with his grandfather in Scotland when he was 2 years old. John's grandfather was much gentler and more tolerant that John's father.
We discussed many of John's early inventions - clocks, thermometers, and the bed that was displayed at the fair. An important turning point in John's life occurred when he feared he might lose his eyesight due to an accident that occurred while he was working at a sawmill. This led to John's most notable contributions, which were arguably his explorations of uncharted wilderness. He was an integral part of Yosemite becoming a National Park, and he was the first person to discover that Yosemite was formed by glaciers. John wrote about many of his discoveries and explorations, but, interestingly, writing did not come naturally to John, and he struggled to perfect his writings. A rift formed between John and one of his once close friends (whose name I have now forgotten, about the role of National Parks and how best to preserve the land. The other guy was in favor of preserving the land, but using it to benefit the people, by allowing animals to graze or by harvesting the timber, while John believed it should be preserved in its natural state without interference from mankind.
Somehow, over the past two months, I have misplaced the star rating that the spirits gave, but I think we all agreed that it was an interesting book about and interesting man. There was a bit of discussion about some of the criticisms that have been leveled at the biography, namely that the biographer was influenced by John Muir's family to write the biography in a flattering way and that she relied upon oral accounts with no corroboration. In my opinion, the book did seem a bit heavy on hero worship, but was an interesting read nonetheless.
As the conversation turned from old and new business (see Baron's previous post wittily discussing same), things took a turn to the more confrontational nature that lies just beneath the surface of the jovial Novel Spirits. Cat, who submitted the book that was the topic of discussion, very thoughtfully emailed a crossword puzzle about John Muir's life in advance of the meeting. A brief awkward moment passed as the Spirits confessed one by one that each had not completed the assigned task. Fortunately, the tension was broken as Cat herself confessed that she, too, had not completed the crossword puzzle. (JB gets a gold star because I believe he was the only one to complete the puzzle. Cat also gets a gold star for thinking outside the box for a book discussion tool!)
The next note I have is "hated sheep (hoofed locusts)." It looks like Diesel had been taking note-taking lessons from me. If I recall correctly this comment refers to John Muir's hatred of sheep because of the damage they do to the land.
JB and Cat shared some photos of visiting John Muir's childhood home in Scotland. This led the discussion to how harsh John Muir's father was because he forced his children to work the farm and went through phases of barely feeding them. Luckily, John had his sister, Margaret, who was his best friend and who helped him pursue his interests. JB and Cat also visited John Muir's Wisconsin homestead, and in 2012 they visited his Northern California home.
Speaking of his Northern California home, we discussed how John Muir married rich, but wasn't comfortable managing his father in law's orchard business, even though he was very successful at it. Instead, he brought in his brothers to help with the business. Today a trail, a mountain, and a forest are named after him. Chief also shared with the group that John Muir appears on the California quarter.
From an early age, John Muir did not like being indoors. Some of his earliest encounters with nature were walks with his grandfather in Scotland when he was 2 years old. John's grandfather was much gentler and more tolerant that John's father.
We discussed many of John's early inventions - clocks, thermometers, and the bed that was displayed at the fair. An important turning point in John's life occurred when he feared he might lose his eyesight due to an accident that occurred while he was working at a sawmill. This led to John's most notable contributions, which were arguably his explorations of uncharted wilderness. He was an integral part of Yosemite becoming a National Park, and he was the first person to discover that Yosemite was formed by glaciers. John wrote about many of his discoveries and explorations, but, interestingly, writing did not come naturally to John, and he struggled to perfect his writings. A rift formed between John and one of his once close friends (whose name I have now forgotten, about the role of National Parks and how best to preserve the land. The other guy was in favor of preserving the land, but using it to benefit the people, by allowing animals to graze or by harvesting the timber, while John believed it should be preserved in its natural state without interference from mankind.
Somehow, over the past two months, I have misplaced the star rating that the spirits gave, but I think we all agreed that it was an interesting book about and interesting man. There was a bit of discussion about some of the criticisms that have been leveled at the biography, namely that the biographer was influenced by John Muir's family to write the biography in a flattering way and that she relied upon oral accounts with no corroboration. In my opinion, the book did seem a bit heavy on hero worship, but was an interesting read nonetheless.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
JULY MEETING NOTES
Howdy Spirits,
It seems like I have to apologize for "this late post" every single post so in order to avoid more of the same verbose, repetitive, wordy, excessive, useless, superfluous, tautologous redundancy, I just won't apologize this time. I spoil you. Note: I had to refer to a thesaurus for all those fancy words. The business portion of this meeting was short, therefore this post will be short as well. Just one more gift for you from the generous benefactor Baron.
Old Business:
Club President, and local business judge Deuce came in with her verdict of the shirt printer dude which has been giving us grief. The verdict: GUILTY!! No second chance for him! Reasons she gave for coming to her decision included: poor service (i.e. did not ever fulfill the order and just gave excuses for several weeks) and no offer of a discount after the poor service. He apologized and asked her for her business again. But IMHO, that's not nearly enough. He sent a message that our little club and little shirt order wasn't important enough for him to get to like all the other more important groups with more important money. So an apology must come with a discount and promise not to disrespect us in the future. So in the end he lost our business. Our unworthy money will go to another business, along with all our future plans like bags, trophies, gold watches, iPhone cases, hats, beer labels, wine labels etc. But after all the stress and heartache Deuce endured up to this point, it was best that Archimedes and I were given the task of getting the shirts done (at a different location of course. Of course). There was my movie quote from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. And I'm 73% sure I've used that one already. Oops. Duece may not have tolerated anymore stress from the shirts. More on the shirts in the August post FYI.
The Pinterest Recipe board is up and running. Everyone please continue to post the recipes that you made for each meeting, with one big exception: spinach cheese dip. There seems to be a pattern forming of failed spinach cheese dip recipes. Although, Indy's wasn't bad IMO. She will say it was too dry but at least it still looked and tasted like a proper cheese dip. That sad creation I made at the August meeting was more like a mixture of a mulched grass omelet and those crispy rice cake things. I'm not even sure if it is supposed to be a cheese dip or more like a quiche. And I have no desire to ever find out. That is something that would be a colossal waste of my not very important time. I would even read a T.C. Boyle book or make a phone call into my bank's call center before I try that recipe again, if that gives you any perspective. But now I'm wondering if one of us should try a new spinach cheese dip each meeting now until we find a winner. It's almost on the verge of joke status. Will we ever find the right one? But anyway, back to the original point, we have our Pinterest recipe board and we can continue to pin our recipes to it.
We also created another Novel Spirits Pinterest board, this one for pictures. It is private board to be shared only with members since it has pictures of our actual identities and faces. "Keep it secret, keep it safe." That was Diesel's quote, I don't want to try to steal credit for her stuff. So maybe she is getting in on the book/movie quotes too. Well done Diesel. I just had an idea regarding our secret identities etc: wouldn't it be funny if we were a group of super heroes in a comic series? We could be like the Avengers or Justice League or Watchmen except we would be hilarious. We'd have super powers and still save the day and all but we'd just take a very round-about, totally unnecesary, crazy and funny way to get there. I'm sure hilarity would ensue.
Deuce changed her second book submission to The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick. As of July, we are down to four books until we all resubmit again. And I have a special surprise bit of news for you all but it will have to wait until the August post. But I'll give you a hint, it is related to the new theme I changed the blog into. Suspense!
New Business:
None. Well dag.
By the way, the club is all out of money now. Take care now, bye bye then
Baron
It seems like I have to apologize for "this late post" every single post so in order to avoid more of the same verbose, repetitive, wordy, excessive, useless, superfluous, tautologous redundancy, I just won't apologize this time. I spoil you. Note: I had to refer to a thesaurus for all those fancy words. The business portion of this meeting was short, therefore this post will be short as well. Just one more gift for you from the generous benefactor Baron.
Old Business:
Club President, and local business judge Deuce came in with her verdict of the shirt printer dude which has been giving us grief. The verdict: GUILTY!! No second chance for him! Reasons she gave for coming to her decision included: poor service (i.e. did not ever fulfill the order and just gave excuses for several weeks) and no offer of a discount after the poor service. He apologized and asked her for her business again. But IMHO, that's not nearly enough. He sent a message that our little club and little shirt order wasn't important enough for him to get to like all the other more important groups with more important money. So an apology must come with a discount and promise not to disrespect us in the future. So in the end he lost our business. Our unworthy money will go to another business, along with all our future plans like bags, trophies, gold watches, iPhone cases, hats, beer labels, wine labels etc. But after all the stress and heartache Deuce endured up to this point, it was best that Archimedes and I were given the task of getting the shirts done (at a different location of course. Of course). There was my movie quote from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. And I'm 73% sure I've used that one already. Oops. Duece may not have tolerated anymore stress from the shirts. More on the shirts in the August post FYI.
The Pinterest Recipe board is up and running. Everyone please continue to post the recipes that you made for each meeting, with one big exception: spinach cheese dip. There seems to be a pattern forming of failed spinach cheese dip recipes. Although, Indy's wasn't bad IMO. She will say it was too dry but at least it still looked and tasted like a proper cheese dip. That sad creation I made at the August meeting was more like a mixture of a mulched grass omelet and those crispy rice cake things. I'm not even sure if it is supposed to be a cheese dip or more like a quiche. And I have no desire to ever find out. That is something that would be a colossal waste of my not very important time. I would even read a T.C. Boyle book or make a phone call into my bank's call center before I try that recipe again, if that gives you any perspective. But now I'm wondering if one of us should try a new spinach cheese dip each meeting now until we find a winner. It's almost on the verge of joke status. Will we ever find the right one? But anyway, back to the original point, we have our Pinterest recipe board and we can continue to pin our recipes to it.
We also created another Novel Spirits Pinterest board, this one for pictures. It is private board to be shared only with members since it has pictures of our actual identities and faces. "Keep it secret, keep it safe." That was Diesel's quote, I don't want to try to steal credit for her stuff. So maybe she is getting in on the book/movie quotes too. Well done Diesel. I just had an idea regarding our secret identities etc: wouldn't it be funny if we were a group of super heroes in a comic series? We could be like the Avengers or Justice League or Watchmen except we would be hilarious. We'd have super powers and still save the day and all but we'd just take a very round-about, totally unnecesary, crazy and funny way to get there. I'm sure hilarity would ensue.
Deuce changed her second book submission to The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick. As of July, we are down to four books until we all resubmit again. And I have a special surprise bit of news for you all but it will have to wait until the August post. But I'll give you a hint, it is related to the new theme I changed the blog into. Suspense!
New Business:
None. Well dag.
By the way, the club is all out of money now. Take care now, bye bye then
Baron
Monday, June 27, 2016
GO SET A WATCHMAN BOOK DISCUSSION
I'll start out by saying that I, personally, was very happy that this book was one of the submissions. I was also a little relieved. Here's why: I was having an internal ethical conundrum about reading this book, but the book being selected for book club took the pressure off of me to decide since I "had" to read it for book club. The source of my internal struggle was the shady origins of this book. Harper Lee has only published one book, the very successful and famous TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, which I really enjoyed. Since that time she has purposefully avoided the limelight and has not published any further works. Then, suddenly, when she was in her eighties and reportedly (possibly) suffering from cognitive deficits, she supposedly decides to publish the "sequel" to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, which was written before TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and served as its source material. Something definitely seemed fishy about this reverse of course after a lifetime of refusing to publish ANYTHING, let alone a book that dealt with the beloved characters of her iconic novel. Long story short, I just wasn't sure if Harper Lee ever wanted the world to see GO SET A WATCHMAN, so I really had a hard time deciding between giving into my curiosity and reading this book or respecting what may or may not have been the author's wishes and not reading it. Another problem solved by the Novel Spirits.
This book turned out to be perfect book club material (in my opinion) because there was plenty to debate and discuss. Indy had some great book club questions, none of which were fully recorded due to the absence of our note-taker, Diesel, but I got the gist of the conversations in my notes, at least. We talked about how Maycomb's isolation affected the viewpoints of the characters who lived there in contrast to the views of Scout, who had lived in New York. Cat brought up the Mark Twain quote: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." The residents of Maycomb put a lot of stock into an individual's family history rather than the merits of the person themselves (i.e. Aunt Alexandria's view of Hank), however, when someone lives outside of a small town, they realize how unimportant these preconceived ideas really are.
The relationships in the story, and their evolution throughout the book, provided plenty of fodder for discussion. Scout's relationships with Hank, her uncle, and probably most significantly her dad, Atticus, evolved through the story. Scout idolized Atticus at the beginning of the book, but their relationship shifted when she realized that he was not "perfect," but had prejudices and shortcomings that she had not previously detected.
Some points of at least near unanimity: we all seemed to enjoy Scout's "flashbacks" to being a young girl in Maycomb and the hijinks she and her brother and friends got into. These were lighter points in the book, and may not have served much purpose in furthering the story, but they were enjoyable. We were also all in agreement that Scout's uncle slapping Scout toward the end of the book served no real purpose and seemed gratuitous. Finally, I think we all were disappointed in the end of the book, in which Scout seemingly "caves" to the points of view of her father, uncle, and Hank, and seems to acquiesce that she was the unreasonable one for being upset about seeing her father and Hank at a "council meeting" that was all about keeping black people from "rising up."
Which brings me to our discussion of whether Atticus was condoning the views of Mr. O'Hanlon, the racist, by presenting him as a speaker to the council. Although Atticus never outwardly approved of Mr. O'Hanlon's message and argued that he was just allowing him to speak, I, personally, think that in those circumstances, Atticus was tacitly approving of his message. He certainly would not have showed the same courtesy to a speaker from the dreaded (in his view) ACLU.
The majority thought that the title referenced Scout's role as one who was there to document the turmoil in Maycomb regarding the changing nature of relations among the races. In other words, Scout was the "watchman." I think I was the only one who viewed the title as a reference to the watchman as Scout's conscience. In my view, Scout had always seen Atticus as the voice of her conscience, but when she observed him doing something that was against her own conscience, she had to readjust and discovered that she had her own independent conscience that was no longer tied to Atticus's views.
We talked about the scene involving Calpurnia, and how sad it was that Calpurnia had witnessed all the "good" people of Maycomb show themselves to be racist bigots, so she assumed Scout was like all the rest.
We discussed the history and questionable origin of this story and wondered how much was written by Harper Lee and how much was changed or added by editors. Did Harper Lee never want this story to be read because of the similarities to her own life (Harper Lee's father was a lawyer) and she did not want it to negatively reflect on the character of Atticus, and thus by extension her father?
The book ratings were on the high end, with a low of 3.5 and a high of 4.5, which is good for the tough Novel Spirits crowd.
I look forward to our next meeting and discussing Son of the Wilderness. I hope everyone has been staying cool and having a great summer!
Sunday, June 26, 2016
JUNE MEETING NOTES
First off, I must apologize for my terrible grammar. Sometimes I look back through my posts and comments and realize how bad I am at writing. My posts are like the candy corn of grammar: made too quickly, cheaply and sold for way too much. Sorry Spirits. I'm sure you'll find some errors even in this very post.
Old Business: "Stinkin T-shirts". Oh dear, the T-shirts. I feel like the subject of the T-shirts deserves its own blog post. Its starting to become like a soap opera. Like the sands of the hour glass, so are the days of our lives without T-shirts. The Bold and the Beautiful, yet non-existent T-shirts. The So Young They're Not Even Born Yet and the Restless. I could go all day but you get the idea. Word on the street is, the owner of the printing place was trying to woo Deuce back into his web of deception with apologies, yet no offers of discounts. We'll see what happens in the next exciting episode. Will she go back to the unsatisfactory printer?? It's almost as if Deuce is a candidate for political office right now isn't it?? "I support my local screen printer!" "I no longer support my local screen printer!!!" Well what is it Deuce? You are flip flopping on issues that are important to the American people!! Here's another bomb you dropped on all of us poor, hard working Americans: "I have committed to one book for my book club submission!".........."No wait, I don't want that one anymore, I'm still deciding, I'll get back to you......." I don't know Deuce, it doesn't look like your numbers will be so great in the next public opinion poll. I can't wait for the next episode of As the World Without T-Shirts or Book Submissions Turns.....
ANYWAY. Dues are paid. We are all paid up to what we owe and the club now possesses $159 or maybe its $157. I'll give you a range of 157-159.
New Business: We decided to start creating a Novel Spirits Cookbook. Cat was tasked with being the OIC (Officer in Charge) of that project. May the Force be with you Cat. The final product at some point down the road will be a physical, bound cookbook to sell on Amazon, get put onto Oprah's book of the month club, become the New York Times #1 Bestseller, make the Novel Spirits richer than J.K. Rowling and Warren Buffett combined, and become THE Big Brother of the New World Order!!!! Muhahahaha! Or not, we'll see how it goes. But for now, we'll start up another Novel Spirits Pinterest board specifically for food and drink recipes. I guess for now, we can pin the ones we've already made up to this point, and continue with ones we think are really good. And no mediocre recipes go on this board Spirits!! Remember who we are, REMEMBER!!! There was my movie quote from THE LION KING. Alternatively, you can email or text recipes to Cat.
And our resident T.C. Boyle Fandom president, JB, once again gave some of us an eye twitch. He just won't let us push T.C. Boyle down into our subconscious with all other traumatic emotional experiences. I don't keep bringing George Orwell back up into your heart JB!!! Leave my poor damaged heart alone!!!! Apparently, Boyle wrote another book called A FRIEND OF THE EARTH, which is about climate change and how it could affect the Earth long term. If I were ever to delve into another Boyle book, this could be the one. I do like reading about the topic of climate change, BUT its still Boyle, so we'll see. But I am but the selfless messenger to all the Spirits, so please don't let me stop you from subjecting yourself. Enjoy.
Sharyn McCrumb was another topic of discussion. Someone mentioned that McCrumb likes to conduct research and set books in northeast Tennessee rather than her home of Kentucky, since she knows this area better. It is a memorable place so who are we to argue?
JB read GHOST RIDERS, which is set in and around Grandfather Mountain. Nothing follows.
Indy read THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway. Nothing follows. Note: Diesel did not do the note taking this meeting.
I, Baron, read NIGHT by Elie Wiesel. "Depressing". That about says it all. True story written by one of the most important Holocaust authors about his own experience as a holocaust survivor. Incredibly sad story and really opened my eyes to that time period. Puts things in perspective I must say.
Next meeting is at Deuce's Home Place, Sunday July 3rd at 2pm (unless flip-flopper Deuce needs to change the time)
Looking forward to seeing everyone again
Baron
Old Business: "Stinkin T-shirts". Oh dear, the T-shirts. I feel like the subject of the T-shirts deserves its own blog post. Its starting to become like a soap opera. Like the sands of the hour glass, so are the days of our lives without T-shirts. The Bold and the Beautiful, yet non-existent T-shirts. The So Young They're Not Even Born Yet and the Restless. I could go all day but you get the idea. Word on the street is, the owner of the printing place was trying to woo Deuce back into his web of deception with apologies, yet no offers of discounts. We'll see what happens in the next exciting episode. Will she go back to the unsatisfactory printer?? It's almost as if Deuce is a candidate for political office right now isn't it?? "I support my local screen printer!" "I no longer support my local screen printer!!!" Well what is it Deuce? You are flip flopping on issues that are important to the American people!! Here's another bomb you dropped on all of us poor, hard working Americans: "I have committed to one book for my book club submission!".........."No wait, I don't want that one anymore, I'm still deciding, I'll get back to you......." I don't know Deuce, it doesn't look like your numbers will be so great in the next public opinion poll. I can't wait for the next episode of As the World Without T-Shirts or Book Submissions Turns.....
ANYWAY. Dues are paid. We are all paid up to what we owe and the club now possesses $159 or maybe its $157. I'll give you a range of 157-159.
New Business: We decided to start creating a Novel Spirits Cookbook. Cat was tasked with being the OIC (Officer in Charge) of that project. May the Force be with you Cat. The final product at some point down the road will be a physical, bound cookbook to sell on Amazon, get put onto Oprah's book of the month club, become the New York Times #1 Bestseller, make the Novel Spirits richer than J.K. Rowling and Warren Buffett combined, and become THE Big Brother of the New World Order!!!! Muhahahaha! Or not, we'll see how it goes. But for now, we'll start up another Novel Spirits Pinterest board specifically for food and drink recipes. I guess for now, we can pin the ones we've already made up to this point, and continue with ones we think are really good. And no mediocre recipes go on this board Spirits!! Remember who we are, REMEMBER!!! There was my movie quote from THE LION KING. Alternatively, you can email or text recipes to Cat.
And our resident T.C. Boyle Fandom president, JB, once again gave some of us an eye twitch. He just won't let us push T.C. Boyle down into our subconscious with all other traumatic emotional experiences. I don't keep bringing George Orwell back up into your heart JB!!! Leave my poor damaged heart alone!!!! Apparently, Boyle wrote another book called A FRIEND OF THE EARTH, which is about climate change and how it could affect the Earth long term. If I were ever to delve into another Boyle book, this could be the one. I do like reading about the topic of climate change, BUT its still Boyle, so we'll see. But I am but the selfless messenger to all the Spirits, so please don't let me stop you from subjecting yourself. Enjoy.
Sharyn McCrumb was another topic of discussion. Someone mentioned that McCrumb likes to conduct research and set books in northeast Tennessee rather than her home of Kentucky, since she knows this area better. It is a memorable place so who are we to argue?
JB read GHOST RIDERS, which is set in and around Grandfather Mountain. Nothing follows.
Indy read THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway. Nothing follows. Note: Diesel did not do the note taking this meeting.
I, Baron, read NIGHT by Elie Wiesel. "Depressing". That about says it all. True story written by one of the most important Holocaust authors about his own experience as a holocaust survivor. Incredibly sad story and really opened my eyes to that time period. Puts things in perspective I must say.
Next meeting is at Deuce's Home Place, Sunday July 3rd at 2pm (unless flip-flopper Deuce needs to change the time)
Looking forward to seeing everyone again
Baron
Special post for Chief!
Just happened to notice while at Barnes and Noble today that Robert Beatty, author of Serafina and the Black Cloak will be there for book signing on July 11th! I know Chief read this recently and thought mom and dad might accommodate him for this. I believe the time was 6:00 pm start but this might need to be verified.
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
HALF-ZOMBIES AND MORE SCOUT
Hello Spirits, I'm looking forward to our meeting this Sunday. I'm anxious to get every one's opinion on GO SET A WATCHMAN. Since I haven't blogged in awhile, I figured I'd better put something up before our meeting. Archimedes and I have been busy as usual, however we have still made time to keep reading. And Chief and Boss have been reading still as well. Although, since school is out, they haven't been reading at quite the break-neck pace as during the school year. But they both seem to have an intrinsic interest in reading so we are happy about that. But we really don't push them too much during the summer. So I'll give a brief update on what everyone is reading. Well, maybe not Chief since Archimedes gave a thorough update on him recently.
Archimedes is completely addicted to the DIVERGENT series. She read the first book in less than two days! And its almost 500 pages. And she's almost done with the second book, INSURGENT, once again in less than two days. I am jealous of these books since she no longer pays any attention to me at home. 😭 😭 😭 Poor, poor Baron.
Boss (and Chief) has been listening to the audio books of the ORIGAMI YODA series of books. Archimedes and I have been listening to them too and they are actually very good. In a nutshell: there is a kid in middle school who is very socially awkward so he makes an origami Yoda finger puppet. But this puppet seems to have its own identity and brain etc. Yoda gives outstanding advice and makes all the students' lives better. So there are many entertaining stories and there is much debate about Yoda is real, the force is real or if the kid is just really smart and trying too hard for attention. Hilarity ensues...
Boss is also very interested in military and war books. Also, science and animals. It's complicated. He's a lover and a fighter.
For my part, after the book club book, I finished up THE SCORCH TRIALS. Then I read NIGHT by Elie Wiesel. True story about the author's own holocaust experience. Very, very sad but eye opening and all true. Unbelievable.
Then I figured I should read the book that came before GO SET A WATCHMAN. I've never read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, so I decided why not now right? So I'm about halfway through that right now.
Hope everyone is doing well and we'll see you soon!
Baron
Archimedes is completely addicted to the DIVERGENT series. She read the first book in less than two days! And its almost 500 pages. And she's almost done with the second book, INSURGENT, once again in less than two days. I am jealous of these books since she no longer pays any attention to me at home. 😭 😭 😭 Poor, poor Baron.
Boss (and Chief) has been listening to the audio books of the ORIGAMI YODA series of books. Archimedes and I have been listening to them too and they are actually very good. In a nutshell: there is a kid in middle school who is very socially awkward so he makes an origami Yoda finger puppet. But this puppet seems to have its own identity and brain etc. Yoda gives outstanding advice and makes all the students' lives better. So there are many entertaining stories and there is much debate about Yoda is real, the force is real or if the kid is just really smart and trying too hard for attention. Hilarity ensues...
Boss is also very interested in military and war books. Also, science and animals. It's complicated. He's a lover and a fighter.
For my part, after the book club book, I finished up THE SCORCH TRIALS. Then I read NIGHT by Elie Wiesel. True story about the author's own holocaust experience. Very, very sad but eye opening and all true. Unbelievable.
Then I figured I should read the book that came before GO SET A WATCHMAN. I've never read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, so I decided why not now right? So I'm about halfway through that right now.
Hope everyone is doing well and we'll see you soon!
Baron
Saturday, May 28, 2016
WHAT CHIEF AND BOSS HAVE BEEN READING
Chief recently completed a young adult book with a local setting. SERAFINA AND THE BLACK CLOAK is set at Biltmore Estate.
SERAFINA is, in the words of Chief, "good" and "mysterious." He said it is in at least his Top 30, which is saying something because he has read quite a few books. Chief is currently reading TWILIGHT COMPANY, a book about Star Wars.
Boss has recently been reading books with a baseball theme. One was about Jackie Robinson and another was about Jackie Mitchell, a 17-year-old female pitcher who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in succession at an exhibition game.
We've also been reading THE HOBBIT at night together and listening to the ORIGAMI YODA book series on CD in the car. Now that they're out of school, our youngest members will have even more time to catch up on their reading.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
GUESTS ON EARTH BOOK DISCUSSION
It's pretty fitting that this ended up being the book we discussed on Mother's Day, considering that one of the recurring themes in the book was motherhood in some form or fashion. Evalina's relationship with her mother, who was a "lady of the night," Evalina's loss of her own child, Dixie giving up her child for adoption, Ms. Fitzgerald's distant relationship with her daughter, and so on. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
The premise of GUESTS ON EARTH is that the narrator, Evalina, will tell the reader about a fire that occurred at Highlands Hospital, a psychiatric facility, taking the lives of several female patients, including Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Thus, this is a fictional novel that grew around a real event.
The premise of GUESTS ON EARTH is that the narrator, Evalina, will tell the reader about a fire that occurred at Highlands Hospital, a psychiatric facility, taking the lives of several female patients, including Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Thus, this is a fictional novel that grew around a real event.
As always, it was interesting to read a book with a local setting. While the premise of the book is the fire, the content is focused on the tragic life of the narrator. Evalina came to Highland Hospital after her mother killed herself after Evalina's baby brother died. And that, in a nutshell, sets the stage for the "tone" of the book. This is a story with quite a body count. While Highland Hospital is a psychiatric facility, most of its residents, at least as described, seemed not to have mental illnesses as much as tragic circumstances with which they were struggling to cope. Evalina managed to have a fairly normal childhood, under the circumstances, and the hospital proved to be a nurturing place where she developed healthy relationships (including her first crush - who goes on to kill himself). Evalina manages to get a music scholarship and goes off to college, where she proceeds to make terrible choices. She quits school, runs off with an opera singer who cheats on her and knocks her up, then leaves him to live with carnies until she has the baby - who dies. Evalina returns to Highland Hospital after this tragic course of events, where she makes new friends and proceeds to make more terrible choices. She turns down the opportunity to join her childhood friend's wildly successful band and turns down a marriage proposal from a doctor and genuinely kind and good man for a man who was a feral child and who is apparently banging every girl at the hospital. After the fire that the whole book is about, Evalina returns to her birthplace in New Orleans where she finds a basement lair to wait for the feral man.
If you think the above summary is harsh and depressing, read the book. I'm pretty sure I left out over half of the deaths and some of the more depressing parts. One of the more disturbing aspects of the book was the discussion of the methods for treating mental illnesses at that time, including insulin shock therapy, lobotomies, electroshock therapy, etc.
All that being said, the author, Lee Smith, did a great job of making the characters realistic and sympathetic. I, for one, thought her portrayals of southern Appalachian people was much more three dimensional and accurate than a writer who shall not be named. (This was probably because Ms. Smith is from Grundy, Virginia, and knows that we aren't all rednecks and hillbillies. Take notes, Mr. Grisham. Oops, I named the writer!) The writing was compelling to read, but as Baron pointed out, there wasn't much of a plot. It just kind of followed the narrator from horrible life choice to horrible life choice. Also, there were a couple of loose ends - Evalina's relationship with Ms. Carroll, the owner and operator of the hospital's wife who taught Evalina piano; Jinx, a character I didn't include in the summary above, who disappeared without explanation after the fire and who some believed to have shot a man (there's another for the body count) and was suspected of starting the fire.
There were a couple of other interesting points that we discussed in our meeting. First, there was the implication in the book that F. Scott Fitzgerald stole Zelda's work. Brave JB said he has read some of her work and it was a very difficult read. Second, I'm not quite sure who pointed this out, but it was noted that the title was a very fitting description of people who struggle with mental illness.
Personally, while I would not choose to read this book again, I thought it made for great book club discussion. I'll close with a quote from the book that was highlighted by both Baron and Cat (great minds think alike!) and really summarizes the book well: "Why do we do the things we should not, and not do the things we should?" Yes, why Evalina? WHY?
MAY MEETING NOTES
Howdy Spirits, here is the post for the business portion of our May meeting. Since my last post was really long, I'll tone this one down, I hope.
This meeting took place at Indy's Lodge and she made tons and tons of food. Really good food too. You had me at barbeque! <3 And there were even different BBQ sauce options. The bacon and cheese filled potato skins were yummy. And I apologize to everyone because I had more than my alloted proportion of those almond/caramel crunchy toffee kind of things. I felt an addiction to those developing. There was also some great chocolate cake and delicious Derby pie. I had never heard of Derby pie but found out it is a pecan pie with a few extras: chocolate chips (which improves 99.4% of everything its added to) and bourbon! So from that I used my Holmes-like deduction skills to figure out that's where the name came from (like the Kentucky Derby). And I think the Kentucky Derby was raced sometime very close to our meeting maybe? Enough about the food I guess. But that is one of my favorite subjects to talk about.
This meeting fell on the actual Mother's Day, and we have a few mothers in the group. So the non-mothers made some customized coffee mugs for the mothers. Thanks to Pinterest, we were able to use alphabet letter stickers, Sharpie oil paint pens, ceramic coffee mugs (microwave and dishwasher safe of course) and one conventional oven to create these gifts for the mamas. Each mug had the owner's book club secret squirrel code name on it, with some artistic embellishments added for some POP!
Boss read HOP ON POP by Dr. Seuss. He keeps getting better and better at reading.
Now look about the shirts: Apparently the Spirits showed a rare moment of compassion by not chastising Deuce about the shirts this time. It seems as if the company who is printing them keeps making excuses for why the shirts are being delayed. Printers keep breaking, computers keep crashing. have to keep up with The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, etc. Keep pulling us around and the Spirits will unleash our own zombie apocalypse on this guy! He obviously doesn't know who he's dealing with. Anyway, we should have our shirts by the June meeting. Oh yeah! Additionally, we discussed having Novel Spirit book bags made for our 2-year anniversary coming up this August. Sounds like a good reason to meet up and have some wine right?
By the way: what's the deal with zombies? Everyone is absolutely wild about zombies. I just don't get the obsession. I think I prefer mutants, who's with me?!?!?
Archimedes, Chief, Boss and I attended the Lee Smith book signing event on April something. She read from her new book and was a very good speaker. Her new book is about her life growing up in Grundy, VA.
Cat and JB attended the Sharyn McCrumb book signing event on May something. She also read from a new release of hers. Cat and JB reported that she also was a very good speaker. It's pretty cool to have (and be able to go see) these successful local authors from our region.
Book submissions: Okay, we are all fixed up with our next round of book submissions except for one person O_O You know who you are! They are posted in the slideshow gadget but here is the list anyway:
Baron: 1984, already completed. No need to elaborate on THAT
Archimedes: CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
Diesel: THE TALE OF THE DUELING NEUROSURGEONS: THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN BRAIN AS REVEALED BY TRUE STORIES OF TRAUMA, MADNESS, AND RECOVERY by Sam Kean. Jeez Diesel, did you Google: "What book has the longest title ever created?" to pick your book???? And Neurosurgeon is a very hard word to spell.
Cat: SON OF THE WILDERNESS: THE LIFE OF JOHN MUIR by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
JB: KING'S MOUNTAIN by Sharyn McCrumb
Indy: GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee
Deuce: ................. O_O
Next book: GO SET A WATCHMAN, next location: Cat and JB's Mountain Retreat on Sunday June 12th at 2pm.
I'm excited about Indy's challenge to us: Read the Hamilton biograpy. I definitely want to.
Has anyone started or finished GO SET A WATCHMAN? I'm about 68% complete.
See you in a couple weeks Spirits,
Baron
This meeting took place at Indy's Lodge and she made tons and tons of food. Really good food too. You had me at barbeque! <3 And there were even different BBQ sauce options. The bacon and cheese filled potato skins were yummy. And I apologize to everyone because I had more than my alloted proportion of those almond/caramel crunchy toffee kind of things. I felt an addiction to those developing. There was also some great chocolate cake and delicious Derby pie. I had never heard of Derby pie but found out it is a pecan pie with a few extras: chocolate chips (which improves 99.4% of everything its added to) and bourbon! So from that I used my Holmes-like deduction skills to figure out that's where the name came from (like the Kentucky Derby). And I think the Kentucky Derby was raced sometime very close to our meeting maybe? Enough about the food I guess. But that is one of my favorite subjects to talk about.
This meeting fell on the actual Mother's Day, and we have a few mothers in the group. So the non-mothers made some customized coffee mugs for the mothers. Thanks to Pinterest, we were able to use alphabet letter stickers, Sharpie oil paint pens, ceramic coffee mugs (microwave and dishwasher safe of course) and one conventional oven to create these gifts for the mamas. Each mug had the owner's book club secret squirrel code name on it, with some artistic embellishments added for some POP!
Boss read HOP ON POP by Dr. Seuss. He keeps getting better and better at reading.
Now look about the shirts: Apparently the Spirits showed a rare moment of compassion by not chastising Deuce about the shirts this time. It seems as if the company who is printing them keeps making excuses for why the shirts are being delayed. Printers keep breaking, computers keep crashing. have to keep up with The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, etc. Keep pulling us around and the Spirits will unleash our own zombie apocalypse on this guy! He obviously doesn't know who he's dealing with. Anyway, we should have our shirts by the June meeting. Oh yeah! Additionally, we discussed having Novel Spirit book bags made for our 2-year anniversary coming up this August. Sounds like a good reason to meet up and have some wine right?
By the way: what's the deal with zombies? Everyone is absolutely wild about zombies. I just don't get the obsession. I think I prefer mutants, who's with me?!?!?
Archimedes, Chief, Boss and I attended the Lee Smith book signing event on April something. She read from her new book and was a very good speaker. Her new book is about her life growing up in Grundy, VA.
Cat and JB attended the Sharyn McCrumb book signing event on May something. She also read from a new release of hers. Cat and JB reported that she also was a very good speaker. It's pretty cool to have (and be able to go see) these successful local authors from our region.
Book submissions: Okay, we are all fixed up with our next round of book submissions except for one person O_O You know who you are! They are posted in the slideshow gadget but here is the list anyway:
Baron: 1984, already completed. No need to elaborate on THAT
Archimedes: CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
Diesel: THE TALE OF THE DUELING NEUROSURGEONS: THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN BRAIN AS REVEALED BY TRUE STORIES OF TRAUMA, MADNESS, AND RECOVERY by Sam Kean. Jeez Diesel, did you Google: "What book has the longest title ever created?" to pick your book???? And Neurosurgeon is a very hard word to spell.
Cat: SON OF THE WILDERNESS: THE LIFE OF JOHN MUIR by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
JB: KING'S MOUNTAIN by Sharyn McCrumb
Indy: GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee
Deuce: ................. O_O
Next book: GO SET A WATCHMAN, next location: Cat and JB's Mountain Retreat on Sunday June 12th at 2pm.
I'm excited about Indy's challenge to us: Read the Hamilton biograpy. I definitely want to.
Has anyone started or finished GO SET A WATCHMAN? I'm about 68% complete.
See you in a couple weeks Spirits,
Baron
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
APRIL MEETING NOTES
Howdy Spirits, once again I have to apologize for the very tardy blog post but I guess you're used to it by now so let's just let that lessen the blow a bit. Before I get started with the notes from the business portion of our April meeting (the one about *gasp* 1984), I'd like to bring your attention to a momentous moment, an eventful event if you'd like (as the Brits say): we have over 100 posts on this blog! I intended to make either my post or Archimedes's post the actual 100th but I procrastinated like a champ, as per Baron SOP (standard operating procedure). So I get number 103 for my tom foolery. But I think that's a cool thing right?!? We are almost 2 years old, have a still operational blog, and almost everyone has made at least one post, and we're over 100 now. I feel like the book deal offers are just around the corner Spirits! Congratulations to all, and again I'd like to express my gratitude for this club. I enjoy hanging out with everyone at our "meetings", the food just keeps getting better and better, and I enjoy reading all the books, even though none of us would probably ever read the others' submissions under any other circumstances. But that's a part of my "literary intellectual development" (I am going to trademark that term so back off corporate America scum!!). I am so much more critical of books now (in a good way). I never analyzed books nearly as much as I do now that I am in the club. Now I think about why I either liked it or didn't like it. What writing style I prefer and all that. Whoah, there was another tangent. It's like a disease! Sorry, let me get on with the meeting notes:
This doozy of a meeting came right out of the gates with a double chastisement of Archimedes and me for not paying dues. Oops, but I can now report (over a month later) that we did pay our dues sometime afterwards.
Old Business:
1. Shirts - and I quote the notes "small skirmish between Indy and Deuce". So the way this small skirmish plays out in my mind is like it was UFC 198! Indy in the red corner, Deuce in the blue corner, locked in a cage ready to go at it like Rhonda Rousey vs. Holly Holm! And if you're thinking that I escalated this "skirmish" too quickly, you fail to consider that we are the Novel Spirits. We raise the bar on just about everything. A small skirmish to the Spirits is just about at UFC Main Event level and don't try to deny it! So anyway, Deuce said "My Bad", got chastised as per Spirits SOP and we moved on.
2. Gilligan - Diesel reported that Gilligan made it safely to Vietnam and has a job! Win-Win! I don't mean the first "Win" like "Yea Gilligan is finally gone!" I mean it like "We're glad he made it safely to Vietnam" just so there's no confusion. She also said he is moped-ing around. So Gilligan, Moped it like you stole it, as they say.
3. Races - Diesel completed the Crumley House race. Archimedes and Chief completed the Autism Awareness race. No literary themed races have yet been found. There must be a fairly low correlation between people who enjoy running and people who enjoy reading. Maybe there has been some scientific study performed on that topic? I'll see what John Oliver has to say about that. Diesel will continue to keep an eye out for literary races and "we will wear shirts". Good plan.
New Business: (Sadly, I am not a business man, so I really never know what differentiates old business from new business. I mean, you'd think I could make a reasonable assumption based on the difference between "old" and "new" but I seriously still haven't figured this stuff out!! As always, I am a little slow on the uptake.
Cat's "soft" book submission was made "firm". Cat doesn't play around with books folks! She's going with SON OF THE WILDERNESS: THE LIFE OF JOHN MUIR by Linnie Marsh Wolfe. I'm hoping she is not related to Thomas Wolfe, but that's just my opinion and you know what they say about opions...
I apologized and grovelled before the group for such a (nother) depressing book submission. Please see Archimedes's book discussion post for more info.
Our next book was chosen. Surprise!! It is GUESTS ON EARTH!! Which we have already read and had a subsequent meeting on. Once again I refer you to my perpetual tardiness. "Indy read APEX, good". I can't remember that discussion and I just did a quick search on Amazon for a book called APEX. So I either mis-read that writing or Indy is really into computer programming. Good on you Indy for your motivation to learn a new skill! Alternatively, there is a science fiction book called APEX so maybe Indy is finally coming over to the dark side!!! Welcome Indy, Welcome! So, I'm sorry for not properly documenting the book Indy mentioned at the meeting.
Cat read FAITHFUL PLACE. No other details on that. Chief read DIVERGENT, and I can report now (over a month later) that he also read the sequel INSURGENT. He liked them but he didn't go straight on to the third book ALLEGIANT yet. He is now reading another Rick Riordan book THE RED PYRAMID. He has read and enjoyed many of the Rick Riordan books. That dude (talking about Chief not Rick Riordan) is really impressive. I think he has read more books in his life than I have read in mine. I got sort of a late start, but I am trying to make up for lost time.
JB read PURITAN WITCH, which (haha do you see what I did there?) he said is about one of his relatives. So we have witches in the family! That is pretty awesome!! It makes me proud. He said it is a novel and takes quite a bit of creative license. But don't we all really?
I reported that I read THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner and I really enjoyed it. More science fiction/dystopian alternate reality type of stuff. And I can report that I am currently reading the sequel THE SCORCH TRIALS and enjoying it just as much. Actually I wish I could read it more often but unfortunately I have to return to reality from time to time in order to make myself feel like I am moderately contributing to society in some form or fashion.
Another momentous moment: It was very cool that we all went to see the live theater version of 1984 together as a group. Thank you Spirits for letting me jump in line with my book submission so we could time it with the play. And your consolation can be that I won't have another book submission for at least 7 more months! I thought that was book club money well spent and I look forward to our next field trip wherever and whenever that may be, "after you shower of course. Of course." There's my movie quote for this post. It was from NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION. You might have heard of it.
So, that's it for the April meeting, and look at that, we've already had the May meeting. Yall just keep raising the bar on hosting meetings. The food and drinks are outstanding!
Important things: Next book is Indy's submission: GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee. So good timing for this one since it is a fairly new release by a legendary author. Next meeting date is June 12, 2016 at Cat and JB's place of residence. I can't remember what term of endearment we have for their living quarters, sorry.
Until next time Spirits,
Baron
This doozy of a meeting came right out of the gates with a double chastisement of Archimedes and me for not paying dues. Oops, but I can now report (over a month later) that we did pay our dues sometime afterwards.
Old Business:
1. Shirts - and I quote the notes "small skirmish between Indy and Deuce". So the way this small skirmish plays out in my mind is like it was UFC 198! Indy in the red corner, Deuce in the blue corner, locked in a cage ready to go at it like Rhonda Rousey vs. Holly Holm! And if you're thinking that I escalated this "skirmish" too quickly, you fail to consider that we are the Novel Spirits. We raise the bar on just about everything. A small skirmish to the Spirits is just about at UFC Main Event level and don't try to deny it! So anyway, Deuce said "My Bad", got chastised as per Spirits SOP and we moved on.
2. Gilligan - Diesel reported that Gilligan made it safely to Vietnam and has a job! Win-Win! I don't mean the first "Win" like "Yea Gilligan is finally gone!" I mean it like "We're glad he made it safely to Vietnam" just so there's no confusion. She also said he is moped-ing around. So Gilligan, Moped it like you stole it, as they say.
3. Races - Diesel completed the Crumley House race. Archimedes and Chief completed the Autism Awareness race. No literary themed races have yet been found. There must be a fairly low correlation between people who enjoy running and people who enjoy reading. Maybe there has been some scientific study performed on that topic? I'll see what John Oliver has to say about that. Diesel will continue to keep an eye out for literary races and "we will wear shirts". Good plan.
New Business: (Sadly, I am not a business man, so I really never know what differentiates old business from new business. I mean, you'd think I could make a reasonable assumption based on the difference between "old" and "new" but I seriously still haven't figured this stuff out!! As always, I am a little slow on the uptake.
Cat's "soft" book submission was made "firm". Cat doesn't play around with books folks! She's going with SON OF THE WILDERNESS: THE LIFE OF JOHN MUIR by Linnie Marsh Wolfe. I'm hoping she is not related to Thomas Wolfe, but that's just my opinion and you know what they say about opions...
I apologized and grovelled before the group for such a (nother) depressing book submission. Please see Archimedes's book discussion post for more info.
Our next book was chosen. Surprise!! It is GUESTS ON EARTH!! Which we have already read and had a subsequent meeting on. Once again I refer you to my perpetual tardiness. "Indy read APEX, good". I can't remember that discussion and I just did a quick search on Amazon for a book called APEX. So I either mis-read that writing or Indy is really into computer programming. Good on you Indy for your motivation to learn a new skill! Alternatively, there is a science fiction book called APEX so maybe Indy is finally coming over to the dark side!!! Welcome Indy, Welcome! So, I'm sorry for not properly documenting the book Indy mentioned at the meeting.
Cat read FAITHFUL PLACE. No other details on that. Chief read DIVERGENT, and I can report now (over a month later) that he also read the sequel INSURGENT. He liked them but he didn't go straight on to the third book ALLEGIANT yet. He is now reading another Rick Riordan book THE RED PYRAMID. He has read and enjoyed many of the Rick Riordan books. That dude (talking about Chief not Rick Riordan) is really impressive. I think he has read more books in his life than I have read in mine. I got sort of a late start, but I am trying to make up for lost time.
JB read PURITAN WITCH, which (haha do you see what I did there?) he said is about one of his relatives. So we have witches in the family! That is pretty awesome!! It makes me proud. He said it is a novel and takes quite a bit of creative license. But don't we all really?
I reported that I read THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner and I really enjoyed it. More science fiction/dystopian alternate reality type of stuff. And I can report that I am currently reading the sequel THE SCORCH TRIALS and enjoying it just as much. Actually I wish I could read it more often but unfortunately I have to return to reality from time to time in order to make myself feel like I am moderately contributing to society in some form or fashion.
Another momentous moment: It was very cool that we all went to see the live theater version of 1984 together as a group. Thank you Spirits for letting me jump in line with my book submission so we could time it with the play. And your consolation can be that I won't have another book submission for at least 7 more months! I thought that was book club money well spent and I look forward to our next field trip wherever and whenever that may be, "after you shower of course. Of course." There's my movie quote for this post. It was from NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION. You might have heard of it.
So, that's it for the April meeting, and look at that, we've already had the May meeting. Yall just keep raising the bar on hosting meetings. The food and drinks are outstanding!
Important things: Next book is Indy's submission: GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee. So good timing for this one since it is a fairly new release by a legendary author. Next meeting date is June 12, 2016 at Cat and JB's place of residence. I can't remember what term of endearment we have for their living quarters, sorry.
Until next time Spirits,
Baron
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
1984 BOOK DISCUSSION
Hi there, Spirits! Great meeting today at the Lodge. I have finally recovered enough from this book and play to finally do the blog review! Let's hope blogging about it doesn't give me flashbacks to the depression I suffered after finishing this book.
Indy recommended a Vanity Fair article about the author, George Orwell, which gave her some insight about the author of this soul crushing book. From there, Baron led us off with some though-provoking discussion topics. The first launched right into the heart of the debate by asking whether we believe the government should restrict personal freedoms to decrease violence? The consensus of the group was that we would prefer more freedom, but less security. However, at least in the context of 1984, I thought this was a false dichotomy, because the society was still violent, the only change was the direction of violence. Instead of the citizens being violent toward each other, the government was violent toward the citizens to "keep them in line."
Someone made the observation that in some ways it would have been better to have been a "prole," since they at least had their humanity and feelings. Winston believed the proles were the only hope for society, while O'Brien said they would never revolt. These aren't necessarily mutually exclusive ideas, but I believe the consensus was that an uprising was inevitable.
A central theme of the book is the constant surveillance. Indy commented about having worked in a position in which she was constantly on camera, and how uncomfortable it made her. Likewise, Cat had experienced a similar situation where her emails and phone calls were monitored by her employer. Baron said that it brought to mind the scene from The Book Thief, when the father slapped the little girl for saying something negative about Hitler - it was forbidden to even think forbidden thoughts.
Another theme in the book was Newspeak and the elimination of language. For most of us, this was a horrific thought, especially because the purpose of eliminating language was to eliminate thoughts. Baron, who recently read Brave New World, remarked that in that book, there was information overload, which achieved the same end of preventing intelligent thought. Cat commented that the "mind control" element brought to mind one of Chief's books, The Capture (the one about owls).
We discussed the use of doublethink throughout the book, and I hope I wasn't the only Spirit who struggled to comprehend the contradictions. The book explained how "war is peace," in that the country united against external forces and the people were all kept busy. Meanwhile the three major countries could never do more than skirmish with each other for some outlying territories.
Eventually we got around to Room 101. Cat commented that the concept reminded her of Boggarts (a creature in Harry Potter that turns into the thing you fear most), and Indy noted that some hotels had no Room 101 due to the book. I, for one, was really disturbed by wondering whether I would sacrifice my loved ones if I was faced with my worst fear. To be fair, though, it didn't really seem like what Julia and Winston had was really "love." Still, it was disturbing that the one thing he thought Big Brother could not take away from him, the way he felt for her, was taken in the end.
Overall, 1984 got high marks all around, with 3 being its lowest mark (from Deuce) and 5 being its highest (from Baron and Cat). This was an impressive book, if for nothing else, for its foresight of the potential dangers of technology. It was very well written and full of insights. However, as we concluded at the end of our meeting: "but DANG."
I hope this blog post doesn't trigger the nightmares! Sorry for the long delay in completing this blog entry. Until next time!
Another theme in the book was Newspeak and the elimination of language. For most of us, this was a horrific thought, especially because the purpose of eliminating language was to eliminate thoughts. Baron, who recently read Brave New World, remarked that in that book, there was information overload, which achieved the same end of preventing intelligent thought. Cat commented that the "mind control" element brought to mind one of Chief's books, The Capture (the one about owls).
We discussed the use of doublethink throughout the book, and I hope I wasn't the only Spirit who struggled to comprehend the contradictions. The book explained how "war is peace," in that the country united against external forces and the people were all kept busy. Meanwhile the three major countries could never do more than skirmish with each other for some outlying territories.
Eventually we got around to Room 101. Cat commented that the concept reminded her of Boggarts (a creature in Harry Potter that turns into the thing you fear most), and Indy noted that some hotels had no Room 101 due to the book. I, for one, was really disturbed by wondering whether I would sacrifice my loved ones if I was faced with my worst fear. To be fair, though, it didn't really seem like what Julia and Winston had was really "love." Still, it was disturbing that the one thing he thought Big Brother could not take away from him, the way he felt for her, was taken in the end.
Overall, 1984 got high marks all around, with 3 being its lowest mark (from Deuce) and 5 being its highest (from Baron and Cat). This was an impressive book, if for nothing else, for its foresight of the potential dangers of technology. It was very well written and full of insights. However, as we concluded at the end of our meeting: "but DANG."
I hope this blog post doesn't trigger the nightmares! Sorry for the long delay in completing this blog entry. Until next time!
100 Recommended Books by Goodreads (Amazon)
- "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
- "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
- "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank
- "1984" by George Orwell
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling
- "The Lord of the Rings" (1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien
- "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White
- "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien
- "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
- "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
- "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte
- "Animal Farm" by George Orwell
- "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell
- "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
- "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak
- "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain
- "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
- "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
- "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wadrobe" by C.S. Lewis
- "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck
- "The Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
- "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
- "Night" by Elie Wiesel
- "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare
- "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle
- "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
- "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens
- "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare
- "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
- "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens
- "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
- "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
- "The Giver" by Lois Lowry
- "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
- "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein
- "Wuthering Heights" Emily Bronte
- "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
- "Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery
- "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain
- "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare
- "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larrson
- "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
- "The Holy Bible: King James Version"
- "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker
- "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas
- "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
- "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
- "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
- "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
- "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
- "The Stand" by Stephen King
- "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon
- "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling
- "Enders Game" by Orson Scott Card
- "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy
- "Watership Down" by Richard Adams
- "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden
- "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
- "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
- "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
- "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway
- "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (#3) by Arthur Conan Doyle
- "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo
- "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
- "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
- "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- "Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge" by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
- "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis
- "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett
- "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
- "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl
- "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
- "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman
- "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
- "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
- "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
- "The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel" by Barbara Kingsolver
- "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez
- "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger
- "The Odyssey" by Homer
- "The Good Earth (House of Earth #1)" by Pearl S. Buck
- "Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3)" by Suzanne Collins
- "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie
- "The Thorn Birds" by Colleen McCullough
- "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving
- "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
- "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
- "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
- "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
- "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
- "Beloved" by Toni Morrison
- "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
- "Cutting For Stone" by Abraham Verghese
- "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster
- "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- "The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)