Greatest global online bookclub in town

I hope everyone has a great 2006

I hope all of you have a happy, safe and more or less sane New Year’s Eve and that your new year will be a healthy one — with LOTS of good reading.

I finally finished The Painted Drum last night. I have been– and am–ailing from something, so I have done little for two weeks. I think I feel a little better today… anyhow, it took me a long time to get through The Drum and I was very disappointed in most aspects of it– the disorganized presentation of the plot lines, and, to me, an indication that she is short on a good idea for a novel. Or maybe it is just my bad mood showing through. Happy New Year, all. Phyllis

Sushi tonight. Yum.

No good Mexican or Japanese restaurants in Lebanon so I am enjoying this. Anyone care to go along?

My daughter and I both have XP and whether or not that’s the reason I got a sign-in screen, I don’t know but when I clicked on write a new post, that’s what I got. So – here goes.

I didn’t get any books or gift certificates to book stores for Christmas this year so I’ll have to be happy with booksfree.com, I guess. But that’s OK. They didn’t have Carter’s new book yet, but they DID have our January selection, BOOKSELLER OF KABUL, which I brought with me. I haven’t started it yet.

Son Les, over in Kissimmee (kis-SIM-mee), has loaned me a book which was loaned to him by Paul Thoreaux about a trip he took to Africa and went from Cairo to Cape Town. I think I shall probably put the review of that on in ROM Ideas and see what you all think, too.

Noise is right, Darlyne. Son Les has 3 girls, 15, 14 and 12, and you talk about NOISY! Oy vey and like that! I was delighted to get back here to Palm Harbor and the house of adults. JP is 25, Missy is 22 and it was their Mom’s 50th I came to in July. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice to have the relative quiet.

JP and Debbie are both at work and Missy left this morning around 7:30; her flight back to San Diego left at 9. I leave a week from tomorrow. The FL weather is great, folks. The house is cool, which is my preference as I’m sure you all remember from my humidity complaints! and, if there is a breeze or a wind (like yesterday when flags were standing straight out from their poles), it can be downright chilly. I was still comfortable in my sweater however. It sure isn’t down jacket weather here.

Time out for lunch and I don’t have much of anything else to say anyway. Stay warm, you all in the frozen north, and you in the south – enjoy your winter.

Well, Jenny Blog, I don’t think the weather thing likes my zip code. I type it in and I get a blank after the words “Weather for”. Oh well, basically I KNOW what the weather is here – COLD!

Hi Jenny – I don’t believe I’ve posted yet today but then – that’s no great loss. As someone wrote, Candace I think, Traude has been having some shoulder problems and finding typing to be somewhat awkward and no doubt painful.

The weather here has warmed up some during the day but nights remain cold and below freezing. Our layer of snow is quite slippery at night – mushy during the day. No decent snowballs there.

I’m done with Christmas finally and had it with g’daughter this evening. I leave for FL on Tuesday. I’m ready. 60° weather sounds heavenly.

Y’all stay warm, hear?
Jo

After nearly 2 weeks of 20° weather, give or take a few, we’re in the midst of a heat wave! I almost have to put on my shorts.

Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but 40° weather after the last couple of weeks is lovely.

Gifts to wrap, a hole to mend – sigh. No rest for the wicked.

There is a large body of work by this author– and the early books, I think, are quite wonderful. I didn’t “google” her before I started this message, and so, of course, I can’t rememner their titles– but they are primarily about her Indian heritage, although they are novels. She has had a tragic life, I think– she wrote a lovely book with her husband– “Yellow canoe Blue water (?)”; he later committed suicide.This is about as imprecise a message as you will ever get– but I am sure you get the gist of it. Best, Phyllis

I do not know where I should post this, but here goes——-
I see that it is 19 degrees in Princeton!—Wow!—–It is presently
62 at 6:30 P.M. Tomorrow’s high should be 70!!!!!
JOY

One thing I’ve noticed is that under the heading but before the first post is a line or two in green. These are also new postings, I’ve discovered. Eventually you get to something that ISN’T new but . . . . THAT happens all the time!

This little ole thing is right confusing on occasion.

This morning I was baking a birthday cake for a friend. I was looking at the package of birthday candles and noticed on the back the instructions: “extinguish candle before throwing away.”
I find that rather frightening that such instructions are necessary.
“Keep out of the reach of children and pets” I can understand.
Don’t you wonder what incidents happened before they decided to print those words?

I was just thinking about this and wanted to share it with the group.

Judith

I had to walk four blocks this morning (lab draw) It was 16°. When I complained my sympathetic daughter said, “your arctic heritage will serve you well”. It did.

I have copied and pasted this from the entry in BB&B.

The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich

I just finished reading Louise Erdrich’s latest and it did not disappoint. She did mention some of her previous characters in the novel: Fleur Pillager (I am not sure of the spelling) and decedents for one.

Faye Travers while appraising the estate of a family in a small New Hampshire town discovers a bunch of valuable Native American artifacts. She isn’t too surprised because the family is decedents of an Indian agent who worked on a ND Ojibwa reservation that is home to her mother’s family. She is surprised to find a a rare drum, made of a large moose skin stretched across a hollow of cedar. It has red tassels and other ornamentation and without touching the drum she hears a sound. From her discovery we trace the drum from ND to NH and back and the history of it told by Bernard Shawano, an Ojibwa whose grandfather fashioned the drum, and the reason for making it. He was grieving for a daughter who had been thrown off a wagon to the wolves to save the others on the wagon. I was disappointed when I read that because I have read that story before. However, the author admits that there are similar folk tales. One similar appears in Willa Cather’s My Antonia. I knew that I had read it someplace. The Chicago Tribune wrote that Erdrich writes with a warrior’s heart and a poet’s voice. I agree.

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. I know some of you have read The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse and Love Medicine. The author lives in Minnesota with her daughter.

I just finished reading Louise Erdrich’s latest and it did not disappoint. She did mention some of her previous characters in the novel: Fleur Pillager (I am not sure of the spelling) and descendents for one.

Faye Travers while appraising the estate of a family in a small New Hampshire town discovers a bunch of valuable Native American artifacts. She isn’t too surprised because the family is descendents of an Indian agent who worked on a ND Ojibwa reservation that is home to her mother’s family. She is surprised to find a a rare drum, made of a large moose skin stretched across a hollow of cedar. It has red tassels and other ornamentation and without touching the drum she hears a sound. From her discovery we trace the drum from ND to NH and back and the history of it told by Bernard Shawano, an Ojibwa whose grandfather fashioned the drum, and the reason for making it. He was grieving for a daughter who had been thrown off a wagon to the wolves to save the others on the wagon. I was disappointed when I read that because I have read that story before. However, the author admits that there are similar folk tales. One similar appears in Willa Cather’s My Antonia. I knew that I had read it someplace. The Chicago Tribune wrote that Erdrich writes with a warrior’s heart and a poet’s voice. I agree.

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. I know some of you have read The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse and Love Medicine. The author lives in Minnesota with her daughter.

I’m liking this blog more and more, altho it doesn’t spell much better than some of the other sites, truth to tell!

Thanks again, Darlyne and Jenny.

First, of all, I apologize, Jo, for posting this in the wrong category. Until you posted the notice, I hadn’t even seen the place where it says “write a new post”.

This book, “Our Endangered Values” by former President Jimmy Carter, is a must-read in my opinion. It is a small book (only 202 pages) but a very interesting and important book.

He talks about the environment, global warming, the AIDS crisis (especially in Africa) and about how our government is not doing all we should or even all we promised that we would do.

No matter what your political beliefs or how you feel about the government, I think this is a book that should be read.

I hope our group chooses it because I would love to read the discussion here about the issues in the book.

Judith

CRS…BIG Time…I forgot to say that Vonnegut’s new book is “A Man Without a Country”.
Jerry

I hope you will all come into THIS area (under Post Categories) to write your reviews of our monthly ROMs. This would be the place to go if someone is looking at the ROM list and wonders what we all thought about it. There may be a way to ‘file’ them in monthly files so we don’t have to go thru a gazillion posts to find a September review! (When we get there, that is.) By the way, THIS post is only to get the category on the home page and not hidden away.

This is a suggestion for a ROM and I am not sure where to put it.

Anything by Mark Salzman

I would recommend Lying Awake or the Soloist. I have read a number of his books and think he is a very good writer. His books are easy to read.

Here is a summary of Lying Awake

By the way, the author is an atheist so I think this book is remarkable.

A balanced blend of fiction and nonfiction that offers inspiration and encouragement without reference to a particular faith or religion. The various genres of fiction feature characters who reap rewards or consequences appropriate to their actions. The diverse selection of nonfiction echoes today’s discussions of ethics, values, and morals.

Sister John of the Cross has spent years in the service of God in a Carmelite monastery outside Los Angeles. There, she experiences visions of such dazzling power and insight that she is looked upon as a spiritual guide. But Sister John’s visions are accompanied by powerful headaches, and when a doctor reveals that they may be dangerous, she faces a devastating choice. If her spiritual gifts are symptoms of illness rather than grace, will a “cure” mean the end of her visions and a soul once again searching?

In order to write a post (see glossary, below) to this blog, you need to register a user name and an email address. Note that user names and login passwords are case sensitive (i.e. capitalization matters).

Hints and Tips

Clicking on the blog title at the top of the page will always go to the blog home page.

Posts automatically go to the top of the page and are listed in reverse chronological order. All posts will be kept in this order. You can get to older blog posts by clicking on “previous” at the bottom or using the search function.

To add a working link to a post or comment use the “quick tag” link above the writing box. First select a word like “blog”, then click on the “link” little box and cut and paste the address from the browser window into the little pop-up box, deleting the extra “http” that is automatically inserted. Then click “ok.”

Use the right mouse click to cut, copy and paste things.

To put a “read the rest of this entry” link and truncate your post if it’s very long: just put the cursor where you want to cut off the post and click on the quicktag “more” above the main writing box. It will insert the link that you click on to read the rest of the post.

The Unread Comments and Weather functions use cookies that are stored on your computers. Changing them only changes what you see on your computer, not on anyone else’s. The Unread Comments feature is a little buggy and doesn’t always work perfectly.

Glossary:

Post — the main paragraph with the title, starting off the conversation.
Comment — paragraphs underneath the post.
Category — the category of subject of the post. There is a place to choose the category of the post in the screen for when you write a post but not in the screen to make a comment.
Page — a page that’s like a post except it’s on the menu and not in the blog order. It doesn’t have comments. This is a page.
User Portal — navigation area for user functions of the blog: registering, logging in, writing posts, changing passwords etc.
Site admin — where registered users can write posts, change their profiles and look at lists of recent comments and posts by title.

Quicktags

The quicktags are things to help format text. Generally you select a word or block of text and then click on the quick tag to apply the formatting. Here are what they are:

b — bold
i – italics
b-quote —

block quote, which indents a block of quote and puts a little border around it

del — makes a strikeout line
ins — underlines
img — inserts an image
ul —

unordered list not indented

ol —

ordered list (not sure what this does)

li –

code — makes this type font
more — if you insert this it truncates your post so the rest of the post goes on another page. The reader can click on “read more.”
lookup — looks up whatever you’ve selected on “answers.com
Close tags — don’t know

If you have a problem that isn’t answered here, please email me by using the “contact webmaster” link at the bottom of the page, or send an email to Jo or my mother, Darlyne and they can forward it to me.

Jenny

About GGOBIT.

We are a group of refugees from AOL’s SeniorNet area who have become rather disgruntled with the difficulty of the new AOL system.

We have been together as an organized group since April, 1995, when we read our first “Read of the Month” (ROM) titled CROSSING TO SAFETY by Wallace Stegner. We read almost anything: biography, autobiography, mystery, adventure, historical, current events, golden oldies — you name it. Sometimes an author is picked for the ROM and we select the book individually.

In addition, everything is talked about besides books. We’ve discussed shoes (as in Birkenstocks), cooking (as in cooking beans with Epsom salts to cut the usual after effect of beans), child care, and life in general as well as offering support when needed when one of us is experiencing difficulties of any kind.

We NEVER diss anyone and if we disagree, that’s OK. That’s what life is about, after all. We hope you’ll join us if you like to read and like to be friendly. After all, we’ve been friends for a long time.