Meredy's 2021 Reading Journal

Welcome, and thank you for checking out my reading journal.

This is my tenth year of cataloguing my reading on LibraryThing and posting my reflections. The last couple have been very much off the norm for me, and I can't see very far ahead at present. However, keeping up is a worthwhile effort.

Most especially, I value the warm friendships and interesting commenters I've found on LibraryThing.

Here's to a better reading year.

Meredy

Link to 2020 reading journal.

This is my actual reading record, begun January 1st and updated over the course of the year, with links to comments and reviews. I truly hope to have more of those this year than last. And I look forward to seeing the thoughts and recommendations of my fellow readers on LT.

January

• Nothing. Reading slump.

February

• The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion (2005), 227 pages; 2/18/2021 (★★★★★). Comments: post 38.

March

• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake (2020), 225 pages + backmatter = 355; 3/15/2021 (★★★★☆).

April

• Nothing finished.

May

• The Five Invitations, by Frank Ostaseski (2017), 292 pages; 5/1/2021 (★★★★★). Review: post 115.



June

• The Child Finder, by Rene Denfeld. (★★★☆)



Blitzed, by Norman Ohler (★★★★)



Life Is in the Transitions, by Bruce Feiler (★★★★☆)



July

• Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. (★★★★★)



August

• A Familiar Sight (Dr. Gretchen White Book 1), by Brianna Labuskes (★★★☆)



September

• Nothing finished.

October

Currently reading:

• West African Studies, by Mary H. Kingsley (1899)



• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, by Amanda Montell (2021)



• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help YouFind - and Keep - Love , by Amir Levine & Rachel Heller (2012)

Meredy, I'm very happy to see your new thread. I hope this year is better all around--not just for reading.

Happy new thread.

Happy New Year!

>1 Meredy: Happy new year.

Happy New Year!

Hippo Gnu Ear!

Happy new year Meredy! I hope it is a better one in every way.

Wishing you a good year in reading and in life.

Happy New Year and New Thread! May this be a brighter year than the last one.

Happy New Year, >1 Meredy:. May 2021 bring you joy, and may all your reads be pleasurable.

(Thanks again for that Masha Gessen book bullet during the Summer.)

Happy New Year!

I have enjoyed our book discussions and look forward to more interesting conversations.

Here is wishing you and yours will in 2021!

Happy new year, Meredy!

I am sorry to bring the news that Meredy's husband passed way last Friday. To lose someone is difficult at any time, but in the midst of restrictions for the pandemic it is made all the more difficult.

Meredy, we are thinking of you.

>16 pgmcc: thank you for letting us know.

Meredy, I cannot be there in person to give you a real hug, but if you can, imagine I'm there doing my best to give you comfort.

Check in when you can, let us know how you are.

Oh I'm so very sorry. I'm wishing you strength and good memories. Grief is draining, but don't let it get on top of you too much. We love you and welcome you back when you feel it's time.

Long-distance (((((hugs))))). There are no words.

So sorry to hear this. Holding you and yours in the light.

So sorry to hear this dreadful news. You have my deepest condolences.

Oh, Meredy. Wishing you strength and peace.

So sorry to hear this.

Meredy, I'm so very sorry for your loss! You are in my thoughts.

So sorry for you.

Thank you for letting us know, Peter.

Meredy, when you do feel like returning here, you can know that you have many caring friends waiting.

My thoughts are with you at this time.

My deepest sympathies, Meredy. I will be holding you and yours in the light.

Meredy, sending virtual hugs, I'm so sorry for your loss! You are in my thoughts.

My sympathies.

wishing you strength and peace at this terrible time. may the good memories overshadow the bad ones.

Thank you. Thank you all so much. It's incredible how much this helps, even though we know each other only from afar. I do imagine your hugs and gentle presses of the hand and quiet voices. I feel you there.

Clam, the candle is so apt.

And thank you, Peter, for bearing the message on my behalf.

>16 pgmcc: Catching up on threads. So sorry to hear this. I'm keeping Meredy and her family in my thoughts. My condolences.

>31 Meredy: I am so very sorry. We love you, care for you, and are thinking of you. May your heart find healing in its own time.

Holding you in my heart, dear Meredy. Be good to you.

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss, Meredy. You and your family will be in my thoughts in these dark days.

Every word of comfort and friendship here has reached my heart. And I needed them all. I'm so grateful.

It seems I have finally broken through my three-month reading slump, by turning to something I can identify with right now: Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Maybe this is a case where the only way out is through. I hope she found it. I hope I do.

>36 Meredy: That is an excellent choice. I listened to the audio a year or so after my husband passed. Hang in there.

Editing to add: I couldn't find the Didion book in my LT catalog. Not willing to admit that I'm losing my mind I looked in my text 'book log' database, and found that I actually listened to this back in 2007. It was H is for Hawk that I listened to after Pete passed, at my daughter's recommendation.

The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion (2005), 227 pages; 2/18/2021 (★★★★★)

This was just the right book for me now and just the right thing to crash through my months-long reading slump, the first I can remember in my adult life.

Joan Didion's searching chronicle of her first year following the sudden death of her husband in 2004 helped steer me toward an essential realism in my own present crisis. She sheds light on such ordinarily inexpressible traumas as the shattering of all our connections and the collapsing of the everyday routines that anchor our lives. She distinguishes valuably between mourning and grief. She exposes her own toxic denial and turns it to recognition.

I'd never read any of Didion's work before, but I'll be back for more. The pairing of her prose, clear as lead crystal, with the plumbing of emotions and perceptions too deep for most people's words, worked a kind of catharsis for me. Like her, I'm struggling to grasp that no response is coming and that the absence is permanent.

And that in the end you have to go with the change.

"There was a level on which I believed that what had happened remained reversible. That was why I needed to be alone." (page 32)

>38 Meredy: I am glad you found a book that spoke you in a meaningful way at the right time. Your post is inspiring.

I could not help thinking that your comments on the Didion's prose, ...clear as lead crystal, could be applied to your own writing.

>38 Meredy: I'm glad this one worked so well for you. I haven't read anything else on the subject that has matched it, to be honest.

>38 Meredy:
Thank you for your review of this. I am glad that you found something that speaks to you at this time.

There was a time when I could really have done with such a book, but I could find nothing that was not trite.

Thank you.

My current book, Entangled Life, is without a doubt one of the most astonishing things I have ever read.

>42 Meredy:, Oohhh, that was one of my Christmas presents! I look forward to your thoughts on it. I'm very excited about it.

>42 Meredy: Ouch. Direct hit with that one!

>44 Marissa_Doyle: Yeah, same. I added it to my Libby wishlist, but if it goes on sale for the Kindle I'm snagging it.

I'm about halfway through Entangled Life now. It's blowing my mind every night. Here are a few quotes I noted in my journal:

17, "After two days [attending a conference on tropical microbes], the notion of the individual had deepened and expanded beyond recognition. To talk about individuals made no sense any more."

19, "...our total dependence on fungi--as regenerators, recyclers, and networkers that stitch worlds together"

46, "Mycelium is ecological connective tissue, the living seam by which much of the world is stitched into relation."

74, "Lichens encrust as much as eight percent of the planet's surface, an area larger than that covered by tropical rainforests. They clad rocks, trees, roofs, fences, cliffs, and the surface of deserts." Eight percent!

75 [concerning lichens], "Whether on tombstones in a graveyard or encased within slabs of granite, lichens are go-betweens that inhabit the boundary dividing life and nonlife."

91, "Life is nested biomes all the way down."

I had no idea. But even if I did, this work would still be stunning.

>46 Meredy:
Have you not hit enough people with this one? Do you have to lay down suppressing fire on the rest of us?

Dives for a nearby rock for cover; but what does he find? Lichen!

Notch it up. You have another hit.

So...give it to me straight...how 'mystical' is this book? I've read some reviews that say it gets too far away from straight science and tries to mystify fungi and anthropomorphize. That drives me crazy. I love good science writing and can't abide woo-woo.

>48 Bookmarque: I'm also very sensitive to woo-woo, thanks especially to the pervasive religiosity of my upbringing. When I run into it, the tone of my marginal notes shifts abruptly. Sometimes I push on through for the sake of the kernels to be found; but sometimes that's just the signal to ditch the book--especially if it's masquerading as hard information. The skepticism alert, once triggered, stays vigorously active.

In this book, at least so far, I would say with confidence that there is woo-woo content, but it isn't treated woo-wooishly, if you see what I mean. I transcribed this passage from the chapter on magic mushrooms (chapter 4) just for you:

One of our most robust mental models is that of the self. It is exactly this sense of self that psilocybin and other psychedelics seem to disrupt. Some call it ego dissolution. Some simply report that they lost track of where they ended and their surroundings began. The well-defended "I" that humans depend on for so much can vanish entirely, or just dwindle, shading off into otherness gradually. The result? Feelings of merging with something greater, and a reimagined sense of one's relationship to the world. In many instances--from lichens, to the boundary-stretching behavior of mycelium--fungi challenge our well-worn concepts of identity and individuality. Psilocybin-producing mushrooms, like LSD, do so too, but in the most intimate possible setting: the inside of our own minds. (page 111)

The author can't very well talk about this aspect of the subject without discussing the effects of subjective experience, including his own; but in my estimation he takes pains to separate the mystical stuff from what can be examined and described in scientific terms--even as he allows that a strict scientific analysis would come at the expense of recognizing pertinent aspects of the subject. It appears to me that he respects the sometimes gray boundaries between the known and the unknown, without forfeiting the privilege of addressing the unknown.

He acknowledges the difficulty of filtering out anthropocentric interpretations of data and visibly wrestles with it. In my opinion he succeeds, at the very least by posting warning notices when the going gets hazardous.

I'm not claiming utter objectivity for the author, since I'm increasingly uncertain what that really means; but he is not (again, so far) asking the reader to buy into the woo-woo as he is describing it.

I am at present only on page 123 out of 225, so just about halfway, with respect to the text; but it's also worth pointing out that the text is backed by 52 pages of notes, 44 pages of bibliography, and 26 pages of index. Backmatter is to me one of the significant indicators of a book's reliability. I'm satisfied that there is ample documentation of Sheldrake's material, which implicitly invites the reader to seek out independent sources of corroboration.

That is good to know. And I wouldn't class psychedelics as chemicals as woo-woo or mysticism, but the interpretation of what a person experiences under the influence of them can be rather than the chemical cascade it truly is.

"Today, more than ninety percent of all plant species depend on mycorrhizal fungi. They are the rule, not the exception: a more fundamental part of planthood than fruit, flowers, leaves, wood, or even roots." (page 124)

"Mycorrhizal fungi are so prolific that their mycelium makes up between a third and a half of the living mass of soils....Globally, the total length of mycorrhizal fungi in the top ten centimeters of soil is around half the width of our galaxy...." (page 127; italics added)

The quotes you keep posting are fascinating. Adding that book to my wish list.

Yeah, fungi are more essential than anyone really knows. I'm going to try to get into an UNLOGGED forest in the U.P. this summer. There has never been a place on earth I've been that hasn't been logged. It's hard to envision. I can only imagine the mycorrhizal mat.

>47 pgmcc: I'm going for broke here.

It's of interest to note that author Merlin Sheldrake is the son of Rupert Sheldrake, author of the theory of morphic resonance. Here he is giving a non-TED talk.

My husband and I attended an event at UC Santa Cruz on June 6, 1998, at which Terence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake, and Ralph Abraham joined in a conversation called "Trialogues at the Edge of the Millennium: The Evolutionary Mind." I remember it as thrilling and mind-expanding (without benefit of substances), although of the particulars I recall little. I do remember their talking about the World Wide Web, then in its infancy, as a kind of global skin. In the light of the present book, I think it could be called mycelium.

McKenna, well known for his explorations of the far reaches of fungal fruiting bodies, puts in several appearances in the present volume and is mentioned as a personal connection. Curiously, the senior Sheldrake does not, at least not by page 138. He's not included in the index or the bibliography.

>54 Bookmarque: I hope you'll get to tell us about it. Have you ever been to the desert?

And here, irresistibly, is a new dimension in voracious consumption of reading matter.

>55 Meredy:
Your fungus book arrived today, as did the book on how intelligent octopodes are. That was doing the rounds here a while back and I would consider it an LT BB. I cannot remember the names of the snipers, only that there were several of them.

>57 pgmcc: Oh, good! We can do antiphonal readings.

Today's teaser:

Besides the hundreds or thousands of meters of fungal mycelium in a teaspoon of healthy soil, there are more bacteria, protists, insects, and arthropods than the number of humans who have ever lived on Earth. (page 145)

And I promise that these are not spoilers. Just appetizers.

A teaspoonful.

So, the old wisdom of letting the kid eat a little dirt--? And how about the disorder known as pica?

I'm waiting rather anxiously to see what Sheldrake has to say about the liberal use of antifungal and fungicidal remedies that we readily apply to ourselves and everything else.

"The view of plants as autonomous individuals with neat borders is causing destruction." (page 147)

Until the 1980s and 1990s brought new research, this ^^ was the accepted and prevailing view.

>59 Meredy: I've been dodging, but I think the hail of bullets has pierced my defenses.

>61 NorthernStar:
She riddled me. She is relentless.

Large old trees can function as major hubs in a network. Cutting them down damages the whole system.

>63 Meredy: Dagnabbit. I've been trying so hard to resist this one. I think I'm going to need a physical copy of a book like this, though.

Edited to add: Found a use for the B&N gift card I got for Christmas. The paperback is being released in a few weeks!

>64 clamairy:
She is relentless in her pursuit of victims. Her tactic is to send a tank trundling steadily towards her targets. She just keeps coming. Does not speed up. Does not slow down. Just trundles on with a constant stream of BBs raining down on those in her sights.

That being said, the physical book is very pretty.

>64 clamairy: The in-text illustrations. The color plates. The space for marginalia. The connectedness to trees, the World Wide Web, the cosmos, and Dragoneers.

I'm not even going to crow, just smile quietly and fungally.

>64 clamairy:
What did I tell you? Trundle! Trundle! Trundle!

>65 pgmcc: Just call me BB Fodder.

In her defense I (we) keep coming back for more.

>66 Meredy: Yes, a physical copy will be a must.

You guys are keeping me good company as I trundle along. It's not letting me go either. Last night I copied out a key passage (from page 172) that took 21 lines in my notebook, where most are just four or five lines long.

As I received this book for Christmas and am thus safe from the BBs flying around, I'm sitting back watching in admiration of Meredy's tactics. It is inspirational to see a true professional at work.

>66 Meredy: I'm not even going to crow, just smile quietly and fungally. This brings to my mind Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris books, a not wholly comfortable thought ...

So have you read this one? Mycophilia : revelations from the weird world of mushrooms by Eugenia Bone? I did five years ago and a lot of what you're talking about is a reminder of what I read in her book. If you've read both, how do they compare?

>71 Bookmarque: I haven't. I was led here not by any particular interest in mycology but by the author's name. (Now I have an interest in mycology.) However, I can say that Sheldrake mentions a good number of recent findings, and the bibliography shows many sources with dates since the 2013 publication of that title. He also emphasizes the novelty of various discoveries.

In view of your own exposure to the field, I'd like to know how you think they compare.

Meanwhile, there's this:

"...the field of amateur fungal cultivation is in a state of wild proliferation." (page 188)

Doesn't that conjure all sorts of images?

Count me on the list of casualties. That book sounds fascinating! I'll see if I can't find it at my indie bookstore during spring break.

>73 catzteach: By then the trade paperback should have arrived on shelves!

>74 clamairy: Great assist. Do you know if the trade paperback has the color plates?

>75 Meredy: It had better! I took a peak inside on Amazon and all I saw was what looked like pen & ink drawings. Are there color plates in the middle?

>76 clamairy: Yes. The hand-drawn illustrations are set in the text, and the color plates are in a center section of glossy pages.

How about this? "DARPA is interested in growing barracks out of mycelium that repair themselves when damaged and decompose when their job is done." (page 194)

>78 Meredy: DARPA’s head person must be a real fun guy.

Dives for cover

"The origins of agriculture around twelve thousand years ago--the so-called Neolithic transition--can be understood, at least in part, as a cultural response to yeast. It was either for bread or for beer that humans started to give up their nomadic lifestyles and settle into sedentary societies . . . humans feed yeast before they feed themselves . . . you might argue yeasts have domesticated us." (page 203)

"It is well established in the sciences that metaphor can help to generate new ways of thinking." (page 211)

"Metaphors and analogies . . . come laced with human stories and values, meaning that no discussion of scientific ideas--this one included--can be free of cultural bias." (page 211)

As a great fan and admirer of metaphor, which I see as essential to communication, I am particularly taken with these points.

And . . . surprise ending. Well, maybe not utterly surprising, given how we got there, but at least unexpected.

I gave it 4 1/2 stars. Five stars require a literary magnificence that is exceedingly rare for nonfiction.

>74 clamairy: my pocketbook might enjoy the paperback better. :)

Going back and re-reading all these teasers, I think I have succumbed as well. Great choices on the snippets.

I'm about a third of the way through The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (a BB courtesy of Peter), and it's really dragging for me. I'm afraid I'm just not in the right frame of mind for it, even though it seemed promising. It's the first Russian book I've read that seemed to have a mainly humorous intent, granting that a lot of cultural context is involved. So I'm going to put it aside for now and move on to something else.

>85 Meredy: I am sorry it is not working for you.

>85 Meredy:, >86 pgmcc: I am sorry too. I love Russian humour.

I finished The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire recently, but find of the humour there is very black indeed; I would not recommend it if you are not in a robust place at the time - unless you feel like embracing the bleakness.

If you want to try some Russian humour that is a lot more fast-paced, but still with some underlying points to its satire, may I again recommend Monday Starts On Saturday by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky. It was a while before I found it, as I started with their better known and more sombre works (which I also love), but their humour really works for me. They were Soviet academics, so they really know how to satirise academia.

Thank you both. It's odd. I can see the humor, all right, but it's just not touching me in the right place.

Maybe I'm still too close to recent changes in my life and don't have the extra it takes to process satire, especially when my cultural and historical knowledge of the context is all second-hand. So I don't fault the book. I think I just need things that buoy me up right now and don't call for the energy to withstand something, even fictitiously. I dropped out of several movies lately for the same reason.

>88 Meredy: I admit that I sometimes read Russian literature when my own circumstances are looking bleak. The Russian ability to see the bright/funny side in really awful circumstances is something I admire tremendously. The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire worked in that way for me, but it's not an approach that I would recommend to everyone.

The Strugatsky is much lighter.

I find that a lot of the sort of literature and films that I would normally enjoy are either too grim right now, or else treat serious troubles with too flippant a tone. (I find I can't tolerate the "put the protagonist through hell" at the moment, even if it is obvious that things will come out right in the end.)

Do you have any recommendations?

>89 -pilgrim-: I've given up trying for humor right now. Instead I've turned to my recent purchase, Frank Ostaseski's Five Invitations, looking for a path to some solace. Bereavement is only the simple, uncomplicated side of what I'm trying to handle. Ostaseski's book is helping more than most of the other things I've read pertaining to dealing with big life-and-death questions. I found this page of his website a very helpful start.

A person can grieve the loss of her own life as much as that of another, if not more, and she doesn't even have to be facing a terminal condition to do it. Apart from the fact that we all have a terminal condition.

Some related books that I've read are in my library catalogue with the tag "death." With hindsight now, it seems that I should have put that tag on more books than I have done, and I'll add it as I run across them.

[Edited to fix typo.]

>90 Meredy: Thank you.

>90 Meredy:

"A person can grieve the loss of her own life as much as that of another, if not more, and she doesn't even have to be facing a terminal condition to do it."

This is perfect.

>92 clamairy: What everyone with a chronic illness knows all too well.

A progress note on my reading of Ostaseski's book: I'm proceeding very slowly, not because it isn't engaging but because page after page is so full of soul wisdom. I'm marking passages, making a lot of notes in my reading journal, and thinking a great deal about what I'm reading, which truly has life-changing power.

Writing something about the book when I've finished it won't be easy, but I will try to say something. If just one person picks it up on my recommendation, I'll feel as if I'd done something important.

>94 Meredy: I'm glad you are finding it helpful. When my friend lost her husband, she said she could cope with the grief, she understood that process and accepted it. What threw her under the bus were the petty every day issues of life. The bureaucracy of officious people at utilities and government offices as she tried to get through the legal aspects of account names and such. Some were downright rude and mean. Then she found that many were willing to take advantage of her situation, giving her higher quotes for services, or not doing the job well that they were paid for, some even trying to take sexual advantage of her because she didn't have a spouse. All of them discovered that she was not a woman to meddle with, but the battles kept her from healing. It was rather like whack-a-mole. Get one thing solved to have another rear its ugly hairy head.

Please remember to reach out if you need to vent or anything. We care about you.

>95 MrsLee: Then she found that many were willing to take advantage of her situation, giving her higher quotes for services, or not doing the job well that they were paid for, some even trying to take sexual advantage of her because she didn't have a spouse.
I wish people understood that this is what happens. I am divorced, not bereaved, but when I explain that this is what my experience has been, or go to the police about it, people look at me patronisingly and imply that I "must have encouraged them" somehow. And then these married couples explain to me how they have never encountered any such problems, and so I must be doing something "wrong".

It happens. There are people who target widows - it happened to a neighbour of mine. She was young, and perfectly competent. But with two children under five, they reckoned that she had enough to deal with, and therefore would not be able to deflect their attacks as well.

Please do not feel that you are alone in this.

If you are finding you have more problems to copy with than you used to, it says nothing about your abilities. It is simply that circumstances make you a likelier-looking target.

I often find connections among seemingly unrelated books I've been reading, and not just because they have me in common as a reader. Often it's thematic, but just as often it seems to be some particular, in fiction as well as nonfiction, that creates a kind of resonance across readings: the stories and ideas of others that I'm taking into my own mind and endowing with my own experience, memory, knowledge, and curiosity--which now, of course, includes the book I've just read.

It's partly my being sensitized to some element. I remember noting that, quite oddly and unexpectedly, three novels in a row had bagpipers in them, and two of them were playing the same song. The recurrence gave the detail a significance it wouldn't have otherwise had. But it's also, I think, a disposition to look for patterns and rhythms--my own natural orientation, perhaps, but also a basic human trait, or our unimaginably ancient ancestors wouldn't have noticed the sequences of flowering and fruiting plants or found moving pictures in the night sky.

At present I'm still reading Frank Ostaseski's The Five Invitations, following directly on Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life. Ostaseski's text, both richly anecdotal and framed as reality-based teachings, at once very personal and solidly rooted in Zen wisdom and compassion, emphasizes the interconnectedness of beings:

We human beings are . . . exquisitely unique and differentiated, but not separate. With all our extraordinary differences, we share the same basic nature. . . . When we release ourselves from a narrow sense of separateness, we open to a wider worldview. One that wisely appreciates that we are not alone, nor can we manage this life alone. We recognize that we are tangled up with each other and completely interdependent with everything else, including the earth, sky, and sea, the creatures that dwell in those places, and the seen and unseen forces that impact our lives. (pages 167-168)

Not separate but tangled up. Interdependent with everything else.

Mycelium.

The Five Invitations sounds wonderful. I've put it onto my library list. Thank you!

>98 Jim53: I'm not even inclined to gloat because that's no bullet. It's a crystal cup full of clearest water. It's a figure carved in aromatic wood. It's a smooth river rock. It's a gift.

>99 Meredy: Your sales techniques never cease to amaze me. You have poor Jim nursing a BB wound and there you are, standing over him and firing sugar coated BBs at everyone around.

>100 pgmcc: How the heck am I supposed to take myself seriously and write poignantly serious prose with you snickering behind my shoulder?

>101 Meredy: write poignantly serious prose

There lies the rub. "Poignantly serious prose" in a sales pitch; how can I not be in total awe of your sales techniques.

It's a crystal cup full of clearest water. It's a figure carved in aromatic wood. It's a smooth river rock. It's a gift.

That is beautifully crafted. It flows.* It appeals to the senses, stirs the imagination, and invigorates the spirit. It makes the reader feel good. People may forget what you say; they may forget what you did; but they will always remember how you made them feel. Associate this with the book you were referring to and the book can only fly off the shelves, virtual or otherwise.

That was not snickering you heard. That was the sound of awe.

*I would even say, "It scans", but I would have to go and check the meter and verify other attributes just in case someone challenged me on that. My scientific education did not equip me with the appropriate jargon language to discuss such things from a secure base of knowledge.

For what it's worth, I agree pgmcc. That was so beautiful and inviting that I have determined to buy the book. The only reason I haven't yet is because of the chaos life is at the moment and the fact that I'm inept at using my phone to purchase things.

>101 Meredy: I don't think he was snickering as much as applauding.

BTW my beautiful paperback copy of Entangled Life arrived this week, and it does indeed have color plates in the center.

>103 MrsLee: & >104 clamairy: Thanks for the back-up, guys! Do you think I got away with it?

Well, here's my trick, and it's simple: the words were crafted, yes, but the feelings were genuine.

As such, they warranted careful crafting because I was trying to convey more than my opinion. I feel that I'm honoring the author's creation with a little creation of my own, bearing in mind that my response is a humble tribute to something I couldn't have done myself, but that on the other hand I may be giving the author something that he or she wants to see in a reader.

The author's work isn't fulfilled until we good readers read it and respond. That's what I'm trying to do here. That's what I think many of us are doing when we go beyond just saying we liked or didn't like it and instead share our experience of it.

>106 Meredy: well said.

I am building up to that book based on your posts.

>106 Meredy: Beautifully stated. I rarely end up saying more than the minimum about what I've read because I almost always wait until I'm done reading to write about it, and I'm already well into another book. By then it's spell on me has been broken. Perhaps I should rethink this process.

>108 clamairy: >107 pgmcc: >103 MrsLee: I didn't intend any reflection on anyone else's process, just a brief view of mine. I can't sustain that kind of discourse and analysis for so long anymore, unable to keep up and put it out there for everything I read, not even sure I can do it for the best ones. I've set goals and standards I can't live up to. So I'm trying to compensate with progress notes so I can at least say something, especially with books like these that are really worth it.

Thanks for your kind comments.

>102 pgmcc: It doesn't scan, but it does have cadence. That's as far as my ambition went.

New York Times story on mushrooms, including some striking photographs:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/business/there-is-a-lot-of-fungus-among-us.ht...

Paywall.

Sorry. Looking for it elsewhere.

The story, by Julie Creswell, is that fungi are rapidly becoming more mainstream as a dietary component and health aid, more businesses are ramping up to produce and distribute them, investors are opting in, and magic mushrooms are moving closer to legality in the U.S. for various therapeutic uses. The author calls it "the ’Shroom Boom":

While Numinus is using mushrooms to make mind-altering therapies, other mushroom growers are promising other benefits, like strengthening immune systems or reducing inflammation. Mushrooms are showing up in all sorts of wellness products, pushing them into the mainstream and making mushrooms a major force in the flourishing, multibillion-dollar wellness market.

Oregon was the first state to legalize the use of psilocybin mushrooms, last November, and others are in various stages of the process.

>111 Bookmarque: >112 Meredy: There have also been some promising studies on the use of psilocybin to treat depression. Sheldrake mentions this in Entangled life but there's been even more progress in this area since his book was published.
Here's a story containing a link to the study in the New England Journal of Medicine
One of the many things I am learning from Entangled life is that fungi are amazing!

>113 Sakerfalcon: I just heard about this from Bill Maher. I'm going to have to do some research.

The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, by Frank Ostaseski (2017): 5 stars

Six-word review: Impermanence enables life. Awareness reveals impermanence.

A deeply inspiring wisdom teaching on death and life as inseparable aspects of one process, through which we can learn to be present for our own experience and know its meaning. The five invitations that give the book its structure offer a taste:

• Don't wait.
• Welcome everything, push away nothing.
• Bring your whole self to the experience.
• Find a place of rest in the middle of things.
• Cultivate don't know mind.

The breadth and profundity of this labor of love are belied by its simple, straightforward language and down-to-earth stories. The author's understanding is rooted in Zen Buddhism, and revealed by it, not befogged by it, and also in painful and beauty-finding personal history. Ostaseski is one of those remarkable individuals who have managed to transform personal suffering into healing wisdom. I took copious notes in my journal as a way of internalizing the insights. I might have transcribed the whole book by hand without superfluity. This is one to come back to, again and again, in order to learn how to learn more.

Frank Ostaseski has dedicated his life to the work of supporting those who have come to their own close encounter with death. He was co-founder of the Zen Hospice project, which began in San Francisco in 1987, at the height of the AIDs crisis. After thirty years of caring and devoted assisting of terminal patients with the work of dying, the project closed down in 2018 because of lack of sufficient funding. Frank brought his experience with thousands of patients to this book, a sharing of life's great truths.

>115 Meredy: I definitely took a bullet on this one, confirming the hit I took when you mentioned it above.

>116 Jim53: I hope it does for you what it did for me.

At a turning point

I have to reverse direction. Seriously. I have to stop bringing books in and instead make them go out.

My life is at a point of dramatic change. I'm facing what's known as "downsizing" with all that entails, as well as some other rather heavy choices. And a huge part of that challenge is the books, about two thousand of them. Not to mention decades' worth of other accumulations, not only my own but my late husband's.

So I'm taking steps. It's breathtakingly difficult, but I have to do it.

Yesterday I gave away my entire library of books on the crafts and arts of writing and editing, more than 40 titles. Today I sold for a pittance a practically pristine 60-volume set of Great Books of the Western World.

Then I pulled out my collection of Nabokov works, the novels and lectures and several volumes of critical analysis, and put them on the living room shelves where the Great Books had been. They have to go.

Books on medieval history. Philosophy and theology. Classic literature. Mythology. My husband's technical books. Lots and lots and lots of fiction both old and recent. I will try to hold onto the children's literature for a while, but it's another discrete collection that I can treat as a unit.

I doubt that there's any market for the complete Harry Potter series, most of them first editions, but they're on the chopping block too.

I've also put random culls out front with a "free books" sign, and most of them have disappeared.

So I told myself that my most recent book purchase must be the last thing I bring in. I still own enough unread books to keep me for years, and I do have three Kindles. It grieves me to face this juncture, but realism is forcing it.

I'd rather do it this way than let them get treated as so much rubbish.

So I'm going to be letting book bullets bounce off me after this. Sad but necessary. It's time.

>118 Meredy: I'm with you on this. It's too wet here to have a random assortment on the drive, but I've been donating to random visitors. Fingers crossed, eldest nephew will come with lil' sis to extract bamboo from the garden and go through the books and comics we've been winnowing out (de-duplicating, mostly). Some are quite valuable looking at Ebay prices - titles like Fables #1, Lucifer #1, Preacher #1 (I worked in a comic book store in the 1980s - superhero comics leave me cold, but the DC Vertigo titles OTOH...)

Once family have had their pick, the rest will go to Oxfam Books in Huntingdon. It's a wrench to do that, but it has to be done. I'm trying to replace as much as possible with electrons, but I object to paying more than I did originally - if it's ever been digitised (and digitised well).

>118 Meredy: Oh. I understand. I unloaded a bunch of books before I moved, and I still have to unload some more. Best of luck to you with this. I found someone here on LT to take all of my husband's books on postal history and philately.

Hang in there!

>118 Meredy: That sounds...exhausting. But I hope that the fact that the books you put out got taken is a little bit of consolation: they've found good new homes.

Wishing you strength through this new stress. ((((meredy))))

>118 Meredy: That sounds like excruciatingly hard work, and had I known the context I'd not had responded in such a flippant way in the May-hem thread.
Hopefully the books will find loving new homes.
(((hugs)))

Thank you all for your kind words of support. It's a double challenge because I have to let go not only of the books but also of the perfectionist's desire to see them all go to good homes. It's great when they do--but I have to stay focused on getting things out and not obsess over what will happen to them afterward. Reminding myself that belongings are not little sentient beings is hard.

>120 clamairy: How did you find somebody here? I thought we weren't supposed to post things for sale or even free. Is there a special place for that?

>123 Meredy: Member give-aways? I don't bother because of shipping.

>123 Meredy: I have seen threads in various groups for giving away books, have to rush now, but will come back later.

A first edition Harry Potter goes for a fortune, so I'm told. Send it my way if you want!!

>118 Meredy:
Not a pleasant task. I have been thinking what will happen to my books. I have been trying to get my children interested in some of the more collectable books, but apart from my Daughter in Cincinnati none of them would have the interest or the space. Getting a couple of thousand books to Cincinnati from Dublin would be a bit of a challenge.

Sorry you are having to part with what I can only imagine are old friends. I admire the systematic approach you are taking to the job. If you had more time I am sure you would be vetting the new homes and carrying out pre-adoption visits to verify the good-character of the new owner and the suitability of the accommodation for your tomes.

In relation to your pledge, does that extend to e-text versions? I know they are not real books, but they can get around the physical space issue.

Wishing you all the best with your task and for the down-sizing in general.

>123 Meredy: Since they were stamp related I went into the stamp collectors group and said I had books to give away. Luckily someone wanted them. I am pretty sure you are allowed to do that. You can't sell stuff. And if you're an author you can't self-promote. But you can announce that you want give away your books.

>128 clamairy: That is useful to know. I have been wondering about the same issue.

A lifetime of being housebound has left me a large collection of books, and no family to leave them to.

The question if unread books used to worry me. I worry about it less now. I accept I will not read everything. But I cannot pop out to a bookshop or public library, so I treat my book collection as a library resource.

I do not mean that in any way as a criticism of Meredy, who also has the downsizing issue to face. When that comes up for me, I will have to rethink my position.

>126 Bookmarque: I had no idea. I have first editions of all of them plus "The Cursed Child." What should I do?

>128 clamairy: Thanks. My husband has a lot of old technology material, some going back to the early 70s: manuals, documentation, contemporaneous periodicals, theory, etc. I know there are people who are interested in older technology, but I don't know how to find them.

>130 Meredy: I think searching groups here would be a great start. As for valuing your books, a quick check at Abe books, Amazon or eBay might let you know if there is a demand, and average asking price?

*Hugs* to you during this new phase of life. May you find little joys each day to carry you on.

>131 MrsLee: Thanks, Lee. Very confusing, actually. I saw prices ranging from $64 to several thousand for the same book. What I'd like to do is hand them over to a broker for a percentage, if they are worth anything, and not trawl the halls of online selling myself. I have no appetite for the marketplace. I'd like to get a fair price, but I don't care about beating somebody. Any idea how to do that?

I'm grateful for your good wishes (and hugs). My days right now are very hard, so I'm trying to breathe in small joys where I find them.

>132 Meredy: There is a real difference sometimes in what people will pay and what is being asked. You are right, it is a brain drain to navigate. I have no experience in brokers. The only thing I can think of is finding a place which would sell on consignment. Even then I think you would have to set the price. I will ask my daughter if she has any ideas, she lives in your area, she might know of a place.

Wishing you strength as you go through this process Meredy. It sounds exhausting so I hope you can take time over it and not feel pressured to get it done by a certain time. I hope all your books will find the right homes.

Oh, dear, I knew this would happen. There's a book . . . does it count if I get the Kindle edition? I would have to break my vow not to spend more than $6 on an ebook--but it's not going to take up shelf space when I'm having to eliminate so many of the "real" books.

Come on, primrose path buddies, lead me down this one.

>135 Meredy:
I look at the value of books on a per hour basis. A book (even if it is an e-book) will provide hours of reading pleasure. Let’s say your $6 e-book takes 6 hours to read. (Read slowly if you really want the book.) That gives 6 hours of entertainment at $1 per hour. If you went to the cinema or rented a video that would cost much more than $1 an hour. Also, that is not including the hours of fun you have critiquing the book.

Get the e-book. Your $6 limit is more a guideline than a rule.

>135 Meredy: Any hints as to the title of the book?

>135 Meredy: It counts getting the Kindle edition if you also get rid of the hard copy. My usual cut-off is £1.99; and I haunt the Kindle deals pages on Amazon, and check out other places. If it's PD, you can try (in order of decent formatting) standardebooks.org, fadedpage.com and Gutenberg. Don't bother with Archive.org unless you want to spend hours editing the text...

>135 Meredy: Just get it. It's weightless! :o)

>137 pgmcc: I don't know why I didn't mention it. Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age, by Bruce Feiler. A little confusing because Amazon is taking prepublication orders (release date of August 10th), but the book seems to be out there already.

>136 pgmcc: good strategy, thanks. >138 Maddz: I don't own a copy at this point, but the soft copy would be in lieu of a physical book. >139 clamairy: and volumeless--that's a major consideration.

I'm struggling with a principle too, though, having to do with not making commitments to new titles when I have a backlog of hundreds that I will never get to. Disposing of them is painful in part because of all that potential--and the best of intentions--as well as the investment they represent. I may not completely stop acquiring things, but it is definitely time to reverse the flow of the tide or I'll be too burdened to move.

>140 Meredy: Pretty well all books I buy now are ebooks - either new or more usually replacing a physical copy (partly why my cut-off is so low). We maybe buy about a dozen physical books a year, but at least 10 times as many ebooks.

At least the physical library is shrinking, even though the TBR is gaining (virtual) height...

>140 Meredy: Life is all about change. The books we have on our shelves, which have been waiting for ten, twenty or more years for us to get to, are potentials. The fact is though, that it is possible they are not for us anymore. Perhaps it is a good thing to let them find fresh possibilities of readers, and we can aquire some fresh books closer to our interests of today?

I have stopped looking at the bargain pages for ebooks, also I don't actively look for books to buy, because my shelves are full of beautiful volumes I want to get to. However, now and then something comes up that speaks to me and my interests at present, and I purchase it and read it as soon as it arrives. I don't regret it.

Just breathe, enjoy the day, and read the book you want to. Then tell us about it. :)

>142 MrsLee: agreed.

Thanks, friends. You all helped.

>142 MrsLee: This is a brilliant insight: "The books we have on our shelves . . . it is possible they are not for us anymore." If I can generalize from that, it will help me with a lot of divesting. The truth is that I'm not the same person I was when I made a lot of acquisitions, and--like some old clothes--they just don't fit any more.

I did order the Kindle edition. Thought I had a $10 credit to apply against it, but I guess that wasn't the deal. Anyway, I can't annotate as I read, in the usual way, but I'll manage.

>144 Meredy: Are you sure that you can't annotate on your Kindle? I have fairly basic Paoerwhite model, and that allows me both to highlight text and add notes.

I find I am rather more likely to do that in a Kindle version than paper, because I have the instinctive "I must not deface a book" ingrained into me.

>145 -pilgrim-: Oh, I know there's a way. But I have a long-standing habit of writing in books that belong to me. I regard a book as a dialogue. I also cross-reference things and add to indexes as needed. A stored electronic note in no way compensates for the lack of a marginal note in my own handwriting, by which means it also becomes a sort of journal.

My father was an example to me. His books, especially the philosophy and theology books, were full of marginalia and little symbols highlighting various passages. My mother, who taught English, also marked things that were meaningful to her, and sometimes she went in for literary criticism on the pages. Her favorite authors (George Eliot was one) were well rewarded by her reciprocal attentions.

>145 -pilgrim-: I'm with you. I did write in some of my college texts, but in general I can not bring myself to write in my books. I blame the nuns...

>146 Meredy: If you look through my books, you will know the ones which had the most impact on me, whether good or bad, because as you say, I will dialog with the author. :) Not every book moves me to do so.

I did purchase the Kindle version of Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age and started it when I was one day away from finishing Blitzed (which was a stunning read that does merit a strong review). I'm moving through it pretty fast, at least by present standards.

My focused reading in recent times has been both very relevant to events and conditions in my life and very slow--sometimes only 10 or 12 pages a night, a third of my normal pace. A lot of heavy stuff that I can't take in too much of at once. I can feel it sinking in, though, and influencing my view of things. I'm in a major transitional period right now. Last night I read Feiler's view that what he calls "lifequakes" commonly take 4 to 5 years to get through, with all the radical changes, and adjust and come out the other side. That's both depressing and comforting news.

I really needed a lift yesterday, so I started a repeat viewing of LOTR. Yep, back to the Green Dragon for the uncountedth time. I have the full, extended DVD boxed edition, with numerous special features. This will keep me going for a while.

Unfortunately I'm really clumsy at operating the controls, which means I can't skip all the Liv Tyler scenes. Any time I try, I'm apt to jump miles ahead by accident or lose my place entirely. So I have to ride them out.

So nice, though, to visit Rivendell again, and to feel the protective presence of Gandalf, and to know through all hardships and terrors that it'll come out all right.

Especially as there are lots of fellow Green Dragoneers to journey with. :)

>151 Marissa_Doyle: Yes, yes, yes! Such good companions for the journey.

Last night I got as far as the scene where Sam is packed and ready to go home from Rivendell. Thresholds are a prominent theme in the books and the movies. Maybe they're resonating so strongly with me right now because of that.

>151 Marissa_Doyle: & >152 Meredy:
You might call it, "The Fellowship of the Green Dragon".

>150 Meredy: Big hugs to you for whatever is bothering you, btw.

I am overdue for a viewing myself. I've been holding off until I get my surround sound up and functioning. :o/

Last night I reached the exit from the mines of Moria and set out for Lothlorien. More thresholds, more peril, more steel and purpose. I try to take my life lessons however they may come, and however late.

Did you ever speculate that th must have been Tolkien's favorite phoneme in all of English?

>155 Meredy: I did not. But now that you mention it...

Made it to the end of the first movie. Boromir is dead, Merry and Pippin have been taken by the Uruk-hai, Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli have gone after them, and Frodo and Sam are on the eastern shore, within sight of Mordor. Very early in things for a Dark Moment, but it seems that things have to be broken sometimes before they can be reconstructed better and stronger. More themes, more allegory.

Not really looking forward to the Treebeard stuff, which goes on way too long and is painfully slow, but I guess that's part of what I have to endure unless I can learn to operate the controls finally.

>157 Meredy: It is the way of the ents to take time. You cannot rush a tree.

>157 Meredy: Patience grasshopper.

If I were a particle less pig-headed about some things, I would watch the nonextended version of the second movie.

>156 clamairy: Do you have a favorite phoneme?

I love these movies so much and can see each scene as you describe it. Boromir's death is truly tragic.

>161 Meredy: I'm more partial to diphthongs.

(Actually, I just love the word diphthong itself.)

>163 clamairy: Gotta get that other h in there, clammy: diphthong. Even better.

"Look to my coming. At dawn on the fifth day, look to the east."

Gandalf the White has now galloped away on Shadowfax, and Theoden is evacuating Edoras to Helm's Deep. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli will accompany them. Grima Wormtongue has ridden off in banishment.

Meanwhile, Merry and Pippin and I are nodding off to Treebeard's interminable poetry. And Gollum is leading Frodo and a justly suspicious Sam on a vertical alternate route into Mordor.

I might have thought about fast-forwarding through this lagging middle, but--yes! (blushing) we're soon to meet Faramir. Faramir and Eowyn are the saving graces of this part. Worth the slog through a lot of arboreal verse.

>164 Meredy: Fork me... I have to edit it. Wonder why autocorrect on my phone didn't catch that.

BTW, The Two Towers is my favorite of the three films, but I agree the unextended version works better.

>166 clamairy: Wonder why autocorrect on my phone didn't catch that.

I suspect you give autocorrect more credit than it deserves. personally, I do not like autocorrect. I cannot stand its shirt.

>165 Meredy: In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit to not having ever watched the extended version. I know; my head is bowed in shame.

>168 pgmcc: Oh, no shame in that. The shame would be in having seen the movies but not having read the books. Surely that can't be the case with you.

I can't really go for the extended film versions and then complain that they want editing.

Watching the movies, it's hard to remember that Frodo was somewhere in his fifties in the original stories and not a fresh-faced kid. Honestly, I do like him better as a young lad, maybe because our culture is skewed that way. But I hope and believe even we senior citizens aren't too old to have adventures and gain new understandings.

>169 Meredy: As I recall, 50 is a youngster for hobbits.

>169 Meredy: Surely that can't be the case with you.

That is not the case. The Lord of the Rings was the first fantasy I ever read. I believe I was 22 years old. A late developer.

The battle of Helm's Deep. Saruman's ten thousand brutes storm the keep in the rain. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli lead the brave defenders while Theoden clings to pride and resentment. Old men and children fight, and Eowyn longs for battle.

One of the toughest moments for me: the death of Haldir. It always gets me in the throat.

Faramir is holding Frodo, Sam, and Gollum captive as Osgiliath comes under attack. Treebeard looks on the destruction around Isengard and summons the ents to war.

>172 Meredy: the Helm's Deep section/chapter was one of my favorites in the books, especially the competition between Legolas and Gimli.

Gandalf and the Rohirrim save the day at Helm's Deep. Eowyn's eyes sparkle for Aragorn.

Merry and Pippin make themselves at home in Isengard's larder, and Saruman meets a grisly end. The palantir comes to Gandalf.

Faramir releases Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, who are now about to ascend the steep climb to a new kind of peril.

Gandalf and Pippin are poorly received in Minas Tirith, where Denethor grieves for Boromir.

>174 Meredy: oh, you're watching the movies. I was wondering at first what you mean by the comment about Saruman, then figured it out.

>175 fuzzi: Yes, as explained in post 150. I'm mindful of the liberties taken, including the absence of the entire Scouring of the Shire postlude and Tolkien's treatment of the fate of Saruman. I just forgive them for the sake of the excellent films.

Tonight's viewing ended with the orc captain uttering the chilling cry "Bring up the wolf's head!" A device more terrifying than any seen before is about to batter the gates of Gondor's white city.

We've come to the Battle of Pelennor Fields, the last act in the war for Middle Earth.

Theoden of Rohan has answered the call of Gondor. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli have recruited the wraiths of the Dimholt. Merry has ridden to battle with Eowyn. Pippin and Gandalf are in the thick of it within the walls of Minas Tirith. Faramir lies on the precipice of death, and his father Denethor has gone mad.

And Frodo, unsuspecting of the treachery ahead, has turned Sam back and is climbing the steep, forbidding stairs alone with Gollum.

One more night, I think. Maybe two.

And it's done. The battles, the blood, the fires, the terror, the loss, the valor and courage, the fear and the faith, the end and the beginning. For some, the green, green grass of home, and for others, passage into another realm.

This was cathartic for me in some very real way. Maybe I've been fortunate in finding the right resonant chords during this terribly difficult time, and maybe I've just learned something about finding what I need in what there is. I hope it's the latter, because that will stand by me in a way that luck never can.

>178 Meredy: I'm glad you got so much pleasure and comfort from your viewing.

>178 Meredy:
That sounds like the extended version has been a worthwhile experience.

May your birthday give you as much pleasure as possible.
(Sorry I can't edit candles onto this.)

>176 Meredy: missed it. Oh well.

>181 clamairy: I don't know what happened to the reply I wrote last night.

This is gorgeous. Thank you! I don't think I'd want to set candles down anyway, in the vicinity of the precious old volumes this construction evokes. I'll just imagine them as they are--ready to be devoured.

>183 Meredy:
I appear to have missed your birthday so belated good wishes.

I concur with your comments about not affecting the volumes on the shelf. If you are anything like me you will eat the cake from the back and preserve tge shelves as they are, just like developers preserve the fronts of protected buildings while gutting the building behind the frontage.

Just buzzing in to say Happy Birthday!

And a belated "Happy Birthday" from me too.

Happy belated birthday!

Thank you all for your good wishes They are very cheering, and at just the right time. The picture is gorgeous too. Marvelous color! Thank you.

Over in MrsLee's journal thread I mentioned having written a paper a couple of years ago on the question of why we like scary stories. It was for a class in mythology and folklore, which are genres rife with scary stories. Taking classes as a lifelong learner was one of my favorite things to do before everything got disrupted.

Pgmcc surprised me by asking if I would share the paper. I don't know how to do that, although I'd be willing. It was my final paper for the course, and it's called "In a Scary World, Who Needs Fear?" There was also a midterm paper titled "A Little Death," about the ubiquitous theme of death and rebirth in both traditional and modern stories.

If I can figure out how to do it, I don't mind sharing. Nobody has to actually read them, though. There won't be a quiz.

>189 Meredy: Yes, I too would be interested in reading it.

>190 -pilgrim-: Wow. Well, ok. Thanks, that's very flattering. I just have to figure out how to do it.

>191 Meredy: If you have a Google account, upload the document to Google Drive.

Once you have done so, right click on the file and select the Share option.

Then in the Get Link section, change it to anyone with the link and make sure you select Viewer only. Copy the link and post it.

IIRC, Dropbox is similar. The other alternative is to ask people to PM you with an email address and you can email the file. Don't forget to make it a PDF.

>192 Maddz: Thank you. I don't trust Google, and the more useful it becomes, the less I trust it. (I don't trust any of the big tech outfits, many of which I drive by frequently because I live right in or near their neighborhood.) But I'm considering this small capitulation.

I'm about halfway through A Familiar Sight, which came free with some sort of Amazon Kindle deal. I don't usually bite when offers like that get dangled in front of me, but this sounded interesting. Now Amazon owns even more of my life.

The book is unusual enough to hold my interest, mainly because author Labuskes seems exceptionally knowledgeable about abnormal psychology. Her main character is a sociopath, and her view of things is frequently jarring. The author sounds like she knows what she's talking about on a pretty intimate level.

However, like many other things I read these days, it warranted a cleaner edit than it got. I don't know whether to put it down to haste and corner-cutting or simple ignorance, but either way it mars the reading experience.

I truly hope it is not that since an author can present captured keystrokes (rather than a manuscript needing typesetting, as they used to), the editing step is being cut back or skipped, but that would be a predictable economy when book publishing is struggling so hard to adapt to the 21st-century market. Unfortunately it's the readers who lose out--and not only the readers who can spot the flaws but, even more disturbingly, the ones who assume that published material has been fully vetted. Absorbing the implicit model of carelessly edited text means that errors and stylistic infelicities propagate--and there is no more bulwark against them.

>194 Meredy: Have you read The Good Son by Jeong You Jeong? I think it might be an interesting comparison. It was written by a former nurse, and the narrator character is of abnormal psychology.

>195 -pilgrim-: I haven't, but I'm taking note of it.

This is a reading journal, not an eating journal, so I'm just reading about eating:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/we-asked-top-chefs-to-choose-their-favorite-c...

Are you able to see this article?

>197 Meredy: Interesting. There's a supermarket chain here that claims to be willing to get any cheese they don't already have, to special order. If I were very rich, I'd be more than somewhat tempted to challenge them with some of these!

>198 hfglen: Don't they sound like they want to be brought to a GD festivity?

>199 Meredy:
Especially the Hooligan.

My progress through Mary H. Kingsley's 1899 West African Studies is slow, but it's a remarkable book and I'm enjoying it.

I came upon it by way of a quote used in an old New York Times acrostic. A year or so ago I started going through the online archive of acrostics in chronological order, starting with 1999. I'm in 2007 now. The brilliantly crafted puzzles (by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, and edited by the redoubtable Will Shortz) came out and continue to come out biweekly, so only 26 per year. I pace myself and try not to use them up too fast.

>201 Meredy: I've read some of Mary H. Kingsley in an anthology of writing by women travelers, and enjoyed it very much.

>202 Marissa_Doyle: She exhibits a lot of personality, doesn't she? And a wryly subtle commentary on various European attitudes and mores on display in West Africa, especially among the traders (at least as manifest in the mid-to-late 1800s), along with gentle self-deprecating humor.

I like the fact that she doesn't assert cultural superiority but seems truly to have an open mind and a scholar's passion to discover, examine, analyze, and elucidate. And I'm fascinated to learn about the beliefs and logic of West African tribal religions (Fetish) and practices, together with the impact on them of Christian and Muslim teachings. She comments on the apparent competition between the latter two for ownership of the souls of West Africa, explaining why the African converts tend to revert to their own beliefs (because they amply explain everything) and describing the hybridized practices that evolved.

Pausing to note that I have 1111 books in my catalogued library. I'm rather fond of that number, which I will be spoiling soon with a couple of Kindle adds, so I'm just marking it as pleasing while it lasts.

>204 Meredy:
That is a nice place to stop and look out at the scenery.

1111 is lovely. Like a row of graceful trees.

>204 Meredy: :) Numbers like that deserve a moment and a place.

How very lovely to have friends who understand and don't think that's a weird remark.

11:11 has long been my favorite time on a digital clock. Somehow I seem to notice the clock just at that time way more often than at any other particular time.

And I wrote this little 100-word (exactly) story once:

Favorites

   Crystal awoke at 11:11, her favorite time. Great start for a great day!

   She put on her favorite purple outfit and amethyst earrings and took off to meet Eric at the Nautilus. Favorite boyfriend, favorite restaurant. What could go wrong?

   She ordered the lobster salad. Over champagne, Eric proposed. She said yes.

   Everything was perfect in Crystal's life! Outside on the street, Crystal danced in jubilation. The strap of her favorite shoe broke, and she stumbled off the curb just in time to be crushed by her favorite bus, the number eleven.

   Too bad. This had been her favorite lifetime.

>208 Meredy: Succinct story, but surely you need to add 11 more words? I didn't count, so if you meant to say it was 111 words long, just pass on by. :)

>209 MrsLee: MS Word word count function says it's 100 words. This was one of a series of 100-word stories I wrote a few years ago. I was practicing enforced brevity because I always tend to use too many words. Also the discipline of writing to an exact word count, no more and no less, was a good exercise for tightening my writing.

If this had been an isolated story, though--yes, you're right, I should have gone for 111.

The Professor and the Madman

I read the book of this name by Simon Winchester some years ago and found it fascinating. It's the dramatic story of the origin and creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Tonight I saw the 2019 movie based on the book, starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn. I would not have thought that anyone, even with Winchester's work to go on, could have made such a stirring drama from a book about a dictionary. I found it deeply moving and brilliantly performed. I gave it a (for me) very rare five stars.

And of course it isn't really about a dictionary, even such a marvel as the OED. It's about the people who built it, and specifically the two of the title, Sir James Murray and Dr. William Minor, the one an autodidact lexicographer and philologist, the other a murderer held in an institution for the criminally insane.

If, like me, you're a lover of words, books, and dictionaries, see this movie. And if you've seen it, please share your thoughts.

I have about twenty dictionaries in my house, in various languages and in some cases with specialized content (such as a dictionary of philosophy and a dictionary of Buddhist terms), but pride of place in the living room goes to two compact editions of the OED, one with very small print and the other with very, very, very small print. I love them both. (Their neighbor is the historic Webster's Third, unabridged.) I love all dictionaries. I would still prefer to handle and use them in print editions rather than zoom to the given word on a computer. I love to just browse in them. And I think this movie did them, did the OED, fair honor.

>211 Meredy: Please tell me Mel Gibson was the murderer and not the brilliant professor. I'm glad you enjoyed the film.

>212 clamairy: Sorry, I can't, but I can tell you that I was halfway through before I recognized him behind the bushy beard. He did a very good job, and Sean Penn was amazing.

>213 Meredy: So it goes.

Of all my "currently reading" books, the one I am most currently most reading is Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, by Amanda Montell. I've read numerous books on cults (about seven just on Jonestown) and an unknown many on language, but this is my first on cultish language itself and its uses both within and outside of cults.

Fascinating.

I've encountered the idea of "own the definitions and you own the mind" and variants before, but this book delves into how that works and why it is such a power tool, so essential to influencing and controlling people.

It's my first exposure to "thought-terminating clichés" as a concept with a name:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9
although the phenomenon is familiar. Here are just a few examples from the Wikipedia article, which also interprets these and discusses the use of thought-terminating clichés in various contexts:

"That's just your opinion."
"It is what it is."
"Here we go again."
"Now is not the time."
"Let's agree to disagree."

Once you start listening for them, they're everywhere and not just in settings of intentional thought control. It seems that people have always had a huge investment in managing the thoughts of other people at every level of the scale.

>215 Meredy:
Fascinating. It parallels some books I have read. You may have scored a hit, somewhere between my eyes.

>216 pgmcc: Here we go again.

>215 Meredy: Might have got a bullseye here too.

>215 Meredy: I have used some of those clichés to end conversations with people who are pontificating to me. I'm quite allergic to being lectured at this point in my life by folks who only have one point of view and are not able to look at something from many angles. I don't think of myself as trying to control their thoughts, only protecting myself from long fruitless lectures. :)

>215 Meredy: This was already on my wishlist, but you have moved it up.

>219 MrsLee: Agreed, I've found some of those are used in business discussions (not the first one) to end pointless debate on a subject that either we've already come to agreement on, or one that we can't change.

>221 Karlstar: Agreed. And in personal life too.

Much as some people find this objectionable, repeating their point of view endlessly, without responding to counter-arguments or adding new information, is not going to browbeat me into conforming with their opinion. If you didn't combine me the first time you said it, you certainly won't convince me on the tenth. And if you have ignored everything that I have said, I doubt my repeating myself will achieve anything. So, once all information and reasoning has been aired, it is better to end the discussion rather than waste time and energy.

I do not like bullying.

>222 -pilgrim-: amen to this.

Oh, my goodness, I don't know what came over me. I was just out doing some shopping for depleted basic supplies, and suddenly--I bought an actual book! Against all my oaths. I think it was because I was in a non-book-buying setting (Target) for some odds and ends, and off my guard. The book simply sneaked up on me and jumped into my shopping cart.

A target, that's what I was. For a self-administered bullet.

It's Alice Hoffman's The World That We Knew. Years ago, I really loved her Second Nature, and I heartily disliked whatever I read next, so I never went back to her. But this looks intriguing, golem and all, so I'll give it a shot.

This has been my weakest reading year by far. I'm so spent at night that I just do a word puzzle or two on my tablet and then turn out the light. Hoping for 2022 to be in all ways better than this hellish year has been. It wouldn't take much. But damn, didn't I say that at the end of 2020? Maybe I should just keep my wishes to myself and let the demons go elsewhere to gloat.

>224 Meredy:
Sounds like it was a stealth BB.

>224 Meredy: Be kind to yourself. Right now reading isn't your priority. I hope you have a fabulous 2022, in every possible way...

What >226 clamairy: said. *hug*

Thank you, thank you, my dears. I feel your warmth and your genuine caring, and it gives me comfort. All good wishes to you as well.