I love Tana French. I'll request from the library. Thanks for mentioning!Quote:
Originally Posted by Gardenarian
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I love Tana French. I'll request from the library. Thanks for mentioning!Quote:
Originally Posted by Gardenarian
Today I checked out:
Born a Crime recommended here
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat as I have liked some of Sacks's other books
The Orchard by Robertson, not to be confused with the book by the same name by Weir that I am still reading
Blood Will Out
The Speckled People
On Tyranny
Russian Roulette, by Michael Isikoff.
I am making myself read some fiction - Eleanor Olliphant is Just Fine and
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. Both a little unsettling but holding my attention.
Last nonfiction book read - Them by Ben Sasse.
I checked out the original Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I wanted to reread We Don't Live in the Castle but it was not on the shelf.
Re The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat—
my Neighbor told me the other day that he has that psychological condition where he cannot recognize faces. He’s a nerdy scientist who is very nice and interesting. His son went to college at the same university where he is employed and he said he regularly saw his son over the years but never recognized him. His son would later report when the dad had looked at them.
I imagine this is the same condition that the man who mistook took his wife for a hat had. Yes?
I read the book about 30 years ago, but I think it was not this, but rather the result of a brain tumor or stroke or something--not a psychological condition per se but organic? But maybe I am not remembering correctly.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies
My neighbro’s condition Is likely physiological. I dont know the name of it and havent looked it up, I just called it Psychological because it takes place in his brain. Sloppy wording. Now I will have to consult the Google machine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tybee
Oliver Sachs. I think he died fairly recently. He also wrote Awakenings (Robin Williams, Robert DeNiro). I always loved that story, because that's what my mother experienced when she "woke up" from her aneurysm/stroke.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies
Hillbilly Elegy.....interesting read
Just finished Born a Crime today. It was interesting.
I really liked that one too. I believe I first heard about it here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gardnr
Hillbilly Elegy was good, agreed. I found it useful to educate me about the strongly held values of a section of rural America. It was illustrative of what one solid stable person ( the grandmother) can do to guide the life of a child, up and out of poverty. But it also illustrated how their deeply held values ( fighting, blowing all their money at Christmastme, etc) keep them from middle class success.Quote:
Originally Posted by rosarugosa
The author mentions his mentor at law school who encoraged him to write the book. That woman is the Tiger Mom of the book fame.
I kid that I am part hillbilly because my grandmother was a Hatfield (you know the Hatfields and the McCoys? Yeah she was one of those people.) But My grandmother emphasized education for her 8 children and all of them graduated from high school but for one, and that was a decent achievement for that time.
Here it is, fall 2018, and I am still sad that The Goldfinch came to an end.Quote:
Originally Posted by rosarugosa
I liked Hillbilly Elegy. One can see where bad decisions and lack of positive guidance can make or break the direction of a life. Both of my parents were "mountain-billies" so I always wonder who/what motivated them to gain higher educations and professional careers.
Confessions of a Sociopath - A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight Anonymous memoir by a woman who is an admitted and diagnosed sociopath, but leads a basically normal life as a law professor and even teaches Sunday School.
I had always thought that sociopath = serial killer, but turns out that even though their brains are different, that upbringing and other factors can mean they can function and even be successful in society. She also founded sociopathworld.com Pretty eye-opening, especially considering the stat that 4% of Americans are sociopaths.
There's speculation that sociopaths are over-represented in many fields, untroubled as they are by empathy and related impulses.
I am in that pjase of life where I cannot remember what I read last week, but i can remember what I read 35 years ago!Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
One of Maynard’s early novels was Baby Love, about a teenage mom. I really liked it.
Even though she is a plagiarist I decided to give Doris Kearns Goodwin's Leadership in Turbulent Times a try and so far I like it.
I started reading Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago. I am only on page 22, but so far it is good. He is snarky and zinging governments, churches, businesses, and the regular folks too.
It is a zippy read in that very "Saramago" style.
The premise of the story seems to be that on January 1st no one dies anymore.
I am listening to an audiobook of Bryan Stevenson reading Just Mercy
and I recently finished Alex Pollock Finance and Philosophy. Pollock calls it "ironic" that people might want, or even plan for and achieve, a "long and recreation-filled retirement." He believes our expectations about retirement are 60 years outdated, and we really need to work into our mid- to late-seventies. He makes no mention of Simple Living, but I consider SL to be a fair means to financial independence, be that attained at 50, 55, 65, or whatever.
I enjoyed Pollock's Compendium of Aphorisms, which includes this nugget from Jacob Viner: A period of transition is a period between two periods of transition.
Dado, if people worked that long many would die before ever retiring. Plus many are not physically capable. That sounds crazy to me.
He's certainly entitled to his crazy opinion :~). Those who love their jobs or can't think of any other way to amuse themselves can knock themselves out, IMO, while the rest of us fine-tune (or live out) our bailout plans.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teacher Terry
An interesting theory that I obviously can't totally understand without reading the book. I could propose in the days coming of AI there will be many people sitting on their rear ends in front of monitors doing unrewarding jobs manipulating computer systems and the automated systems they serve. Jobs will be less diverse, less healthy, less human, and possibly less rewarding. The term wage slave will have more relevance and people will either become mentally numb or want to get out. Maybe they will have more free time then, but that trend is not obvious yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by dado potato
I just finished two books that had been waiting on the shelf for cold dark nights.
"Somme Mud" was a true first hand account of a WWI soldier fighting in the trenches on the Western Front. It is simple but decent writing. No grand military strategies, or number of people lost in this battle or that, and few political elements. Just day-to-day in the trenches and the relief working on the supply lines under routine artillery bombardment and machine gun fire. It became a little repetitive, but was insightful. It's a wonder how anyone survived.
And, the popular non-fiction, "Killers of the Flower Moon". It's the story of the poor Oklahoma Osage Indians who were eventually pushed onto the barren lands of Oklahoma. And then in the early 1920's they discovered oil on their land making them mostly multimillionaires. A grabber line for me was when they said the common phase of the day was, one of 10 Americans owned autos and the average Osage owned ten cars. Unfortunately, greedy mostly white men with some big oil influences discovered ways to murder dozens of the tribespeople and acquire their wealth. The crime solving became a little tedious to wade through, but it was a very interesting story well known in the at the time but seldom told today.
Revisiting another Indian tale - Empire of the Summer Moon and also a very interesting new age-y book called Luminous Life.
I finished Not My Father's Son, by a British actor who was featured on their Who Do You Think You Are? I chose it for the genealogical aspect, and that part was interesting, but I skipped through a lot of the childhood descriptions. I also read Rosemary, about the lobotomized Kennedy sister. It was sad, and I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to read it. I just started Soul of an Octopus, which holds some promise. I'm a big fan of cephalopods.
I read that! Not My Father’s Son was something I picked up because I really like Alan whatshisname. It became very interesting when I learned his father was head of forestry on the estate of Blair Athol Castle near the time I was there around 50 years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
I read that book about Rosemary Kennedy. Sad is so true--what a tragedy. There is a really good American Experience about lobotomies. Just awful, and makes you really skeptical about medicine in general.
I didn't need a lot of nudging on that front. :devil:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tybee
I read a really good book on the subject several years ago, "My Lobotomy" by Howard Dully. As I recall, he was just a typical boy who acted up sometimes, and he was lobotomized to keep him in check. Horrific.
I am currently reading "Before I Forget" by B. Smith, Dan Gasby & Michael Shnayerson. Apparently Smith and Gasby are celebrities, although I was not familiar with them. She developed Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease, and the story is told by the both of them from their different points of view(I assume Michael did the actual writing). Very good so far.
I'm also reading The Drop by Dennis Lehane. That one is good too, but in a very different way. Sheer entertainment.
The Library Book by Susan Orlean about the burning of the LA Central Library.
I hate to think of knowledge going up in smoke--thinking about the library in Alexandria makes me want to cry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yppej
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I hadn't read it because I thought I already knew the gist of the story, but I'm glad my book club picked it because Atwood is a really wonderful writer.
It took me years to get around to it too. I was glad I finally did; it's an engaging (and timely) tale.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lainey
That was such a good book.
I read The Handmaid’s Tale decades ago and it was good. The tv production is quite engrossing, too.
I have it on my Kindle and started it but then stopped. Maybe I'll pick it up again. I'd like to read it before I see the movie, but I want to see the movie because Elizabeth Moss stars in it, and I'm now a fan of hers, ever since my 3 weeks of binge-watching all 7 seasons of Mad Men.
I just finished reading Heartland about growing up poor in Kansas and generational poverty even with working hard. The woman that escaped becomes a journalist and professor and writes a book about 4 generations of her family.
I saw the author on Book TV on C-span. She's similar to the Hillbilly Elegy author in that she also discusses a macro-view of the poverty issue. It's very interesting to hear from these types of authors because of their first-hand experience combined with their academic knowledge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teacher Terry