Readers and Book Lovers

Readers and Book Lovers https://www.dailykos.com/user/Readers and Book Lovers/rss/index.xml Where readers, writers, bibliophiles, and lovers of all things literary find their favorite series and one-of-a-kind diaries, including "Bookflurries," "Write On!," and "Books So Bad They're Good." Plus newer series like "Indigo Kalliope," "Contemporary Fiction Views," "LGBT Literature," and "Books Go Boom!" We hope you'll visit Readers & Book Lovers for the same reasons you get together with a friend -- for the community of like-minded people who share your passion for the written word in all its forms -- and that you'll stay because you're always welcome. Members of R&BL know "people who love books never go to bed alone." Copyright 2005 - Steal what you want Fri, 16 Nov 2018 23:36:43 +0000 Fri, 16 Nov 2018 23:36:43 +0000 Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Write On! What are you noshing? https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/15/1813198/-Write-On-What-are-you-noshing Hello, writers. Tonight we hit the halfway point of NaNoWriMo. If you’re going for the traditional 50k, you’re on target if you hit 25,000 by midnight tonight. Here’s last week’s progress board, which I’ll be updating through 10 pm eastern tonight. <blockquote> bonetti 25,170 of 100k words clio2 26,571 of 50k words Cyclopsgirl goal is to write at least once a week dconrad 13,106 of 50k words Diana in NoVa 50k words DoctorCorey 7000 of 50k words GrouchySquirrel: write every day James Wells 16k words Leo Orionis finish draft of A Meeting at Ishtun (on ch 16) mettle fatigue: computer hook-up & resume ms (done!) Mnemosyne 3800 of 25k words reppa 1200 of 20k words SensibleShoes: finish revision of Ghost Ships (halfway through 2nd pass) ursulafaw make a collection of diaries published on dKos xaxnar make a collection of diaries published on dKos </blockquote> The redoubtable mettle fatigue will once again be hosting the Turkey Trot Write On! next week. Be there or be quadrangular. This week’s topic was also suggested by mettle fatigue: What do you eat as you sprint-write? What’s your eating plan for NaNoWriMo? My meal plan alternates between frozen dinners (especially Chung’s vegetarian spring rolls and Stouffer’s french bread pizza) and things that can be cooked and made to last over several meals (soup and chili and other things that go into one big pot). I keep planning to make chicken dopiaza, but it takes hours to make and I just don’t want to waste my writing time. For my snack game, I like things that can be eaten while reading manuscript pages: Amy’s cheddar bunnies, tangerines, bananas, and Wegman’s lemon sorbet bars. What about you? Favorite meals and snacks for the sprint? Any tips on eating to win? Since the above doesn’t lend itself to a tonight’s challenge: <blockquote> Show us your main character making or obtaining his or her favorite nosh. Limit yourself to 100 words. If you don’t have a main character, use the Callow Youth. That’s what s/he’s there for. </blockquote> Write On! will be a regular weekly diary (Thurs 8 pm eastern, 5pm pacific) until it isn't. Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on <a href="http://www.pred-ed.com/">Preditors and Editors</a>, <a href="https://absolutewrite.com/recommended-resources/" target="_blank">Absolute Write</a> and/or <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/" target="_blank">Writer Beware</a>. rss@dailykos.com (SensibleShoes) Community Nanowrimo R&BLers Readers&BookLovers Teaching WriteOn Writing _1813198 Fri, 16 Nov 2018 01:00:16 +0000 Bookflurries-Bookchat: Blue Light Special https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/14/1811929/-Bookflurries-Bookchat-Blue-Light-Special Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us. ... I can’t keep many books anymore. I am happy to send these to new homes for free. Let me know in a comment below if you would like one or more of the books and then send me a Kosmail with your name and address and I will get it out to you ASAP. I have sent books over the years to over 33 people here at Bookflurries. I don’t require a book report and if you dislike the book you can give it away. I do not want them back. Take more than one. It is as easy to send two or three books as one and of course a series should stay together most likely. ... Some of the books I quit reading might suit you well. I have been cranky at times. … The list: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White (quit on pg. 331. This is a scorching action plot with a ridiculous premise that I couldn’t buy after pg. 331. I am sure most other readers would really enjoy this story.) Clock Dance by Anne Tyler The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson (taken) Silk and Song trilogy by Dana Stabenow…(quit on page 120 of first book) Everything Under the Heavens By the Shores of the Middle Sea The Land Beyond A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy (I liked it very much, but I can’t keep it). (taken) Our Man in Charleston: Britain’s Secret Agent in the Civil War South by Christopher Dickey (taken) The Genocidal Healer by James White (I had an extra copy) (taken) Stealing the Elf King’s Roses by Diane Duane (taken) The Potter’s Field by Ellis Peters (Cadfael) (I had an extra paperback copy) Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll (taken) Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (taken) The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion (taken) The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction ed. by Arthur B. Evans and others (taken) Runaway by Peter May (taken) The Binding Stone of The Dragon (The Dragon Below) by Don Bassingthwaite and two sequels The Grieving Tree (stopped reading on pg. 13) The Killing Song Psion, Catspaw and Dreamfall by Joan D. Vinge (taken) Duncton Wood by William Horwood Duncton Quest by William Horwood Oathbringer by Sanderson Diana Gabaldon <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_in_Amber_%28novel%29">Dragonfly in Amber</a> (1992) paperback The ones below are hardbacks: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager%28novel%29">Voyager</a> (1994) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drums_of_Autumn_%28novel%29">Drums of Autumn</a> (1997) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fiery_Cross_%28novel%29">The Fiery Cross</a> (2001) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Breath_of_Snow_and_Ashes_%28novel%29">A Breath of Snow and Ashes</a> (2005 Hitler’s Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (taken) Drinking Gourd by Barbara Hambly (Benjamin January) (taken) The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear (two in one book) The Infinity Concerto The Serpent Mage Neogenesis by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller The Clockwork Dynasty by Daniel H. Wilson (stopped on pg. 128) The Book of Deacon by Joseph R. Lallo and two sequels The Great Convergence (stopped on pg. 92) The Battle of Verril A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder (Inspector Singh #1) by Shamini Flint (taken) A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul by Shamini Flint (taken) … If you hear that someone else got their books, but you didn’t, don’t worry because it may take me a while to get them wrapped and in the mail. I am slower than I used to be and I only want to send a few at a time with hubby to the post office. Best wishes! ………….. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule</caption> </table> </div> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <thead> <tr> <th>day</th> <th> time est/edt </th> <th>series</th> <th>editor(s)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>sunday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td>gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (last Sun of the month) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>monday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>wednesday</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(FIRST THURS OF month)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Friday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Saturday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <blockquote> When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" Martin Luther King, Jr. </blockquote> NOTE: <blockquote> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/user/Tortmaster">Tortmaster</a> Wed Nov 14, 2018 at 02:09 AM EST <div> I'm publishing a new Art Quiz tonight, Wednesday, 11/14/18 at 11:00 pm Eastern. It is interesting to look at and a little thought-provoking. Tomorrow night, Thursday, 11/15/18 at 11:00 pm Eastern, I will publish the new Art Mystery. It is entitled, "Christmas, Jack the Ripper, Shakespeare, Bullfights and Van Gogh's Ear: An Art Mystery." I hope you can make it! </div> </blockquote> rss@dailykos.com (cfk) Bookflurries-Bookchat Books R&BLers Readers&BookLovers _1811929 Thu, 15 Nov 2018 01:00:03 +0000 What are you reading? November 14, 2018 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/14/1812682/-What-are-you-reading-November-14-2018 In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…and my imagination has been captured by one book on my list. Permanent reading list: <div> The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne- II.12- An apology for Raymond Sebond.- I have only read selections of this previously and I have never read the actual theological work that M. is defending here and, at least to this point, it makes for a difficult read. Sometimes M. sounds like a conservative Catholic and, at other times, M. almost talks about God as I would expect Spinoza to do; that is, as a pantheist The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- The Hound of the Baskervilles. <div> <div> I am reading: On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by DeRay McKesson- Almost done and about ready to review. Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward Labyrinths of Iron by Benson Bobrick <hr> Last but not least is this wonderful Buzzfeed photo essay titled <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/21-pictures-that-prove-libraries-are-the-last-magical" target="_blank" title="">21 Pictures That Prove Libraries Are The Last Magical Places On Earth </a>by Gabriel H. Sanchez. All of these pictures are stunning...I think that the picture of the Holland House library in World War II London is my favorite, I suspect that this picture, like similar pictures that I’ve seen from wartime London, was a bit staged and I don’t blame the Brits one bit. <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl"><img alt="d2c188ba29d70e18908e1b7aa547431f.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/611627/large/d2c188ba29d70e18908e1b7aa547431f.jpg?1542183899" title="d2c188ba29d70e18908e1b7aa547431f.jpg"> <figcaption>The Holland House Library in London after a German air-raid in 1940.</figcaption> </figure> </div> <div style="text-align:start"> <div> <div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Chitown Kev) Books ReadersandBookLovers Reading WAYR _1812682 Wed, 14 Nov 2018 12:30:06 +0000 Contemporary Fiction Views: The present and the past live together https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/13/1812027/-Contemporary-Fiction-Views-The-present-and-the-past-live-together The best short stories are as rich and complex as any novel. They can contain a universe or a microcosm, a lifetime or an hour. They can be populated with complex characters rich in mixed motives and emotions. Such is the case with Jamel Brinkley's "A Family". Curtis is back from prison, after hitting a woman with his car one night while drunk. He is watching Lena, who was the woman of his former best friend, Marvin, and her son. However, after 12 years in prison, Curtis is reconnecting to his city as much, if not more, than people. And the past is right with him every moment of his present: <blockquote> After a while, he got up and strolled along the promenade in the direction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The only other person he saw was a man with an unsettling face. The man's bouts of muttering formed clouds that flowered like visible emblems of his secret language before being pulled apart by the wind. ... Curtis huffed the name of his long departed friend -- my dead friend, he told himself soberly -- so he could see the wind take it, imagining that it too, along with the words steaming from the man's mouth, drifted off and seeded the East River. ... As the man prattled on, now some distance away, Curtis again said Marvin's name, which rose from his lips and hovered there for a moment, clean as an unstrung bone. He might also have said the name of the dead woman, the one he had struck with his car, the one who intruded on his dreams. But his life was for other things now, he'd been desperately telling himself, beautiful and wondrous things. </blockquote> That I wondered at first if the son, Andre, was Curtis's son or Marvin's, and that Brinkley soon answered that question, shows the quiet way in which the reader learns the full picture. Brinkley is not the sort of author to hit the reader with info dumps. I liked filling in the spaces as a reader, especially after realizing Brinkley was not going to leave me in doubt in the long run. Andre is Marvin's son. Marvin died as well, while he and Curtis were estranged. The reason for the estrangement, who was the one who started it and who resisted reconciling can be seen as major reasons why Curtis is watching Lena and Andre. It also plays into what happens after Lena brings Curtis into Andre's orbit. <figure class="image-captioned width-lg align-right"><img alt="Jamel_Brinkley_photo_by.jpg" class="width-lg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/610707/large/Jamel_Brinkley_photo_by.jpg?1541963446" title="Jamel_Brinkley_photo_by.jpg"> <figcaption>Jamel Brinkley</figcaption> </figure> What is perhaps inevitable happens, but what happens after that is not. To say more would be a spoiler, but the title is very important. The way Curtis and Lena tell each other the truth, and what they keep from each other, is shown in precise detail. The reader is in no doubt what is taking place, and what the repercussions would be if things were different. <blockquote> "I'm not somebody you know," Curtis said. "I never was." ... "You don't know me either," she said, and began to dress. </blockquote> Curtis has been living with his mother since he got out. Life has not treated her well but it has not defeated her. Still, the ways in which it has tried to do that are shown masterfully, and those ways affect how she treats her son and their relationship. It's as much a part of this story about "A Family" as the Curtis-Lena-Andre portions. It's one of the reasons why this story is as rich and complex as a novel. It is a complete world. <blockquote> But he liked the feeling of being near his mother now -- he liked her when she was asleep -- so he sat with a tall glass of water and forced his gaze onto the television screen. </blockquote> Later, this scene comes to mind when Curtis and Andre are talking: <blockquote> "What makes mothers the way they are?" Andre asked one day. ... "They lose themselves and get all kinds of ridiculous," Curtis said. "Ain't no mystery to it." </blockquote> The richness of these characters, what happens to them and what they do in this story made this work a wonderful introduction to Brinkley's writing. And it's not just the characters. Brinkley's descriptions put me where his characters are, to see and smell and hear and touch what they do, with no purple prose. Now that's a gift. I discovered this story in the 2018 edition of The Best American Short Stories, edited this year by Roxane Gay. Finding a story like this is one of the reasons why I buy this collection every year. And because of this introduction to Brinkley's work, I've got the short story collection in which "A Family" appears, A Lucky Man, on my wish list. It's a worthy finalist for the National Book Award (the winner will be announced on Wednesday). Brinkley's work centers on themes of family, black men navigating their way through life and mass incarceration, and the setting of New York City. The thoughtfulness he put into the title alone shows the depth of care in Brinkley's writing. I look forward to reading what he writes, and hope it is plentiful. It is certainly abundant. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule</caption> <thead> <tr> <th>day</th> <th> time est/edt </th> <th>series</th> <th>editor(s)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>sunday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td>gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (last Sun of the month) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBTQ Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>monday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>wednesday</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(FIRST THURS OF month)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Friday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Saturday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> rss@dailykos.com (bookgirl) AfricanAmericanLiterature ContemporaryFictionViews Fiction Literature ReadersandBookLovers shortstories _1812027 Wed, 14 Nov 2018 01:00:16 +0000 The Language of the Night: The Mysterious Heart of the Fairy Tale https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/12/1812309/-The-Language-of-the-Night-The-Mysterious-Heart-of-the-Fairy-Tale <blockquote> These stories have power. — Neil Gaiman </blockquote> Yes, but why? I’ve been pondering this question for a while: why fairy tales — and I’m talking about the real fairy tales, neither the sanitized versions nor the formulaic Disneyfications that we’re so familiar with — wield such power. They speak to us on different levels at different times in our lives. They’re compelling, compulsively compelling. And yet, the heart of them remains mysterious. What is it about them that remains so potent, so primal? Since my copy of Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment is still buried in the uncatalogued boxes of books in the barn and I can’t lay my hands on it, I’ve been pretty much cast back on my own resources. It’s just me and the internet, which is a mixed blessing. The internet has been pretty singularly unhelpful in critical discussion of fairy tales. Oh, there’s no end of websites about them, analyzing motifs and themes, identifying language or plot elements that signify “fairy tale,” and a fair number of sites that employ elements of Jungian psychology (pretty interesting), feminist theory (ground well plowed by Angela Carter, et al), post-structuralism, and all the other -isms so much in vogue — and I mean all of that with great respect, really. Theory gives us ways of looking into a text through a new lens, offers a new perspective. Notice I didn’t write, “the right way, the right perspective” because there is no such thing as the “right” interpretation. But the more views you have of a story (and next week we can look at Red Riding Hood and feminist readings if you like) the more three-dimensional the story becomes. Critical theory holds a crucial place in interpretation, but it doesn’t get us close to the mystery of why fairy tales compel us to revisit them again and again. Neither do the highly entertaining “trope” websites. What is a fairy tale? <a href="http://www.homeofbob.com/literature/genre/fiction/fairyTaleElmnts.html" target="_blank">One writer</a> answers that it’s “a compelling story with a time less theme”: <blockquote> an imaginative story or piece of literature told in a variety of media. Stories which are based on magic and fantastical settings, plots, and characters and happy endings. </blockquote> <a href="http://libguides.mssu.edu/c.php?g=185298&p=1223898" target="_blank">Another </a>says, <blockquote> Universally, people enjoy the appeal of a story in which truth prevails over lies, generosity comes to be rewarded, obstacles are overcome by hard work and love, good triumphs over evil and mercy and kindness are the greatest powers. Fairy tales will often include a moral message for the reader. </blockquote> And the ever-useful <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_tale" target="_blank" title="">Wikipedia</a> explains, <blockquote> the term "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale; it is used especially of any story that not only is not true, but could not possibly be true. Legends are perceived as real; fairy tales may merge into legends, where the narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics, fairy tales usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and to actual places, people, and events; they take place "once upon a time" rather than in actual times </blockquote> All of which seeks to explain by dissection and, while remaining interesting, as well as possibly true, brings us no closer to the beating heart of what a fairy tale is. So it’s been on my mind. I tend to ponder things slowly, to approach an idea like a hunter stalking game, circling, keeping upwind, subjecting myself to long silent stillnesses, so as not to startle the idea into bolting, or becoming something else, something I didn’t mean to think about. What follows is my own theory of fairy tales, and what they do for us. They talk about the unspeakable. Actually, my musings about fairy tales led me to thinking about the Book of Job (don’t laugh — there’s a connection). Job is a weird book, whether you consider it part of the Tanakh or the Old Testament of the Bible. And its structure is weirdly like a fairy tale: two supernatural creatures make a bet and one poor sod is stuck in the middle. Job loses his home, his wealth, his friends and, most poignantly, his children. For no good reason. Now, yes, G-d lets this happen to test Job and to win a wager, and in the end, everything is restored and everyone lives happily ever after. At least superficially. Yes, Job gets his stuff back; he gets another family. But at the heart of the story is the unanswered question of suffering, the question for which there is no answer except the Voice out of the Whirlwind, demanding, “Where were you when I created the universe?”; in other words, “You have no right to ask.” Think of it: the victim has no right to ask for justification, or even understanding. Job may be materially compensated at the end of G-d’s little experiment, but he is not the same man any longer. He’s now a man who has buried his children, and I will wager that any parent who has had to bury a child doesn’t look at subsequent children as replacements because the lost child is irreplaceable; it is a wound that will never never heal. This hit home with me this morning, when I came upon a Twitter thread about PTSD (on Veteran’s Day) written by <a href="https://twitter.com/shrinkthinks/status/1061949664117882880" target="_blank" title="">Martha Crawford</a>. About trauma she writes that she’s offended by <blockquote> the (popular) notion that it [PTSD] should be treated and then “go back” to “normal” (most who have experienced this know that your view of the world changes forever…. [O]ne of the hardest aspects of it is alienation from a world deeply committed to denial of violence & death. </blockquote> Likewise, at the end of the Book, Job’s view of the world is forever changed; he has demanded an answer to the unanswerable, and the best that G-d can do for him is material compensation, but not healing. Which is why Job is such a tough and troubling read. Like in Job, trauma lies at the beating heart of the fairy tale. The situation in a fairy tale is one of deep and powerful transgression, a kind of injustice that, like Job’s, cannot be rationalized, cannot be explained, and must be approached obliquely in order to be understood, like a hunter stalking game. Cinderella’s trouble lies with a father who doesn’t protect her; same with Hansel and Gretel: what kind of father disposes of his children, leaves them victims of a wicked stepmother? That most basic human bond between parent and child is severed, betrayed — and for it there’s no answer, unless it’s “Where were you when I created the universe?” In both examples, Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel, the most important figure in the story is the one who isn’t there, the one who betrays that primal bond. You’ll find the same phenomenon at play in just about every other classic fairy tale, which is why I think fairy tales derive their power from the fact that they provide us with ways to talk about the traumas that cut so deep there is no language for them. And the “happily ever after” bromide that concludes a fairy tale? Its counterpart is Job getting his house and stuff back, and a whole new family to boot. What does he not get? He doesn’t get back his original family; he must live with the memory of his dead children. Cinderella must live with the memory of her father’s betrayal. Same for Snow White….thinking of which, what did you make of Neil Gaiman’s interpretation in <a href="https://thedreaming.moteofdust.com/1999/10/10/snow-glass-apples/" target="_blank" title="">“Snow, Glass, Apples”</a>? If you haven’t read it yet, it’s 5000 words and well worth your time. Notice that not a single element of the original “Snow White” has been altered and only one element added. In fact, Gaiman’s treatment runs closer to <a href="http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/story158.pdf" target="_blank" title="">the original</a> (and in <a href="https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2013/10/24/the-twisted-history-of-snow-white" target="_blank" title="">a few important ways</a>) than Disney’s does, and he adds a twist from Sleeping Beauty (hint: it’s the necrophiliac Prince). We can talk about the story in comments, since there’s no way you could possibly read it and react with indifference. Point is, the Unspeakable Act, the injustice for which there is neither answer nor remedy, is the beginning point for the fairy tale — the rest of it is the acting out of consequences; how do you answer the unanswerable, how do your reconcile the irreconcilable? Fairy tales occupy the intersection of trauma and imagination. The imagination part of it we seem to be at ease with, it’s the trauma that gets inside us and scares us so much, the casual evil, the brutality, randomness, desperation — all the parts of life that keep us awake at night, the problems for which there are no solutions. rss@dailykos.com (DrLori) FairyTales Fantasy Job NeilGaiman R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers Rescued SnowWhite TheLanguageoftheNight Trauma _1812309 Tue, 13 Nov 2018 01:00:11 +0000 Gifts So Good They're Worth It: 2018 Holiday Recommendations https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/10/1810067/-Gifts-So-Good-They-re-Worth-It-2018-Holiday-Recommendations Tonight’s diary is going to be short, sweet, and at least somewhat useful. That’s because I had a minor but still painful surgical procedure on Thursday and am still recuperating. It’s taken more out of me than I thought it would, so this is basically a list of gift recommendations, nothing else, and if you want to skip it, feel free. However, I just say that it was an utter delight to have an anesthesiologist who had the “Celebrity Apprentice Trump Cabinet” gif bookmarked on her phone and gleefully shared it with me and my buddy Theresa just before the actual procedure. It made things much easier, knowing that the lovely, kind woman who’d be knocking me out for about an hour had her heart in the right place. rss@dailykos.com (Ellid) BooksSoBadTheyreGood R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers _1810067 Sun, 11 Nov 2018 02:00:19 +0000 You Can't Read That! https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/10/1810272/-You-Can-t-Read-That You Can't Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/halfmind/43898600680/in/dateposted-public/" title=""><img alt="8537585294_fb73d18797_k" height="427" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4818/43898600680_529d8f8cef_z.jpg" width="640"></a> <figcaption>Beirut market book stall, ©2013 by George Zahm</figcaption> </figure> </div> YCRT! Announcement Thirteen may be an inauspicious number, but it's the number of years I've been writing about banned books, first for <a href="http://pwoodford.net/blog" target="_blank">Paul's Thing</a> and later for Daily Kos, posting links on social media whenever I publish a new one. In that time I hoped others dedicated to combatting the suppression of books would become fans and help spread the word about YCRT!, and while never imagining for a moment I'd ever make a dime off this, I hoped exposure over time would lead to, I don't know, maybe a chance to publish YCRT! in a print or online media outlet with a wide readership. It hasn't happened, and after 13 years it's not likely to. I'm not whining; it is what it is. As of this column I'm relieving myself of the day-to-day tracking of news about book bannings, challenges, and censorship, and of producing new YCRT! columns on a regular basis. I'm still interested in banned books and will continue to read and review them, but those reviews will be folded into regular book review posts. If a news story about book banning catches my eye I'll comment on it in a regular blog post, along with other topics. For those of you who have enjoyed and supported YCRT! over the years, my undying thanks. YCRT! News Roundup An Ontario, Canada, school district has urged high school teachers not to teach "To Kill a Mockingbird." One teacher claims the memo outlining the policy implies the board will not support them if parents or students complain about racial language in the novel, and is a <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-school-board-accused-of-pressuring-teachers-not-to-teach-racist-to-kill-a-mockingbird">de facto book ban</a>. Similar attempts to suppress or outlaw the teaching of "To Kill a Mockingbird" continue to pop up all across the United States. The right has seized upon this as a weapon to attack the left, accusing liberals of hypocrisy in wanting to ban books. As <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/conservatives-want-us-to-burn-books-so-badly-and-honestly-its-a-little-weird">Wonkette points out</a>, banning books is more the province of conservatives. Like <a href="https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/23/burning-lgbt-library-books/">this guy</a>, who checks out LGBTQ books from public libraries and literally burns them. What is it about "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" that drives rural communities wild? In the latest incident, an Emporia, Kansas <a href="http://www.emporiagazette.com/latest_news_and_features/article_7a352f11-9e87-55a0-af14-edae82020f06.html" title="">high school teacher was suspended</a>, not for teaching the book ... but for considering teaching it. Canadian school boards too discourage the teaching of controversial books, and as in the U.S. (see the item about the Kansas teacher suspended for wanting to teach "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," above), all too often the books they're uncomfortable with deal with <a href="https://www.thegatewayonline.ca/2018/10/not-recommended-list-censors-important-information-from-students/">indigenous peoples</a>. <a href="https://ncac.org/news/city-of-thieves-removed-from-florida-high-school">Fort Myers High School in Florida</a> notified parents that the coming-of-age novel "City of Thieves" was on a list of 10th grade reading options, giving them time to object beforehand. No one did, but after the book was assigned someone complained and a school administrator immediately caved, removing the book without review, in contradiction to school policy. Gee, the same old story, again and again. Would-be readers of young adult books and graphic novels with LGBTQ themes are "stifled by banned book lists, principals who remove queer novels from school libraries, and parents refusing to buy them outright." The publishing industry is <a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/lgbtq-children-and-ya-comic-creators-talk-about-stealing-back-banned-books-and-making-art" title="">beginning to take an interest in combatting this suppression</a>. Over the years, YCRT! has reported on many fights over books and class content in public school classrooms and libraries. Here's a <a href="https://www.cato.org/education-fight-map">battle map</a>, along with a summary of some of the latest conflicts between conservatives, educators, and students: <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><a href="https://www.cato.org/education-fight-map" title=""><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-11-05 at 5.26.58 PM" height="327" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1950/44826974435_8c40d8126a_z.jpg" title="Click to link to article" width="640"></a> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> "The problem here isn’t pornography in library databases. <a href="https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=16002" title="">The problem is a group of people who believe their prudery should be public policy</a>." Another day, another university preventing student journalists from <a href="http://dixiesunnews.com/news/articles/2018/10/09/our-view-student-news-outlets-have-use-protected-rights/" title="">reporting on subjects that make administrators and donors uncomfortable</a>. I sent in my Arizona election ballot by mail, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona_Proposition_305,_Expansion_of_Empowerment_Scholarship_Accounts_Referendum_(2018)">voting No on Proposition 305</a>, which would take money from public schools to fund vouchers, enabling conservative parents to enroll their kids in know-nothing charter and religious schools. Censored but <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/3/17930132/kidz-bop-censorship-music">not censored enough</a>? "Kidz Bop is an abomination because it censors language but it doesn’t censor content. I don’t need a sanitized version of 'Despacito' — I need 8-year-olds not to be singing 'Despacito' because that [song] is super dirty." I tread lightly here because I know nothing about Kidz Bop or the kinds of songs 8-year-olds like to listen to and sing. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the US military sees the internet as a <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/05/pers-o05.html">threat to the sovereignty of states</a>, responsible for creating conflict and disruption through rapid, widespread dissemination of misinformation. In considering how to combat this, military studies see the "best mechanism for suppressing oppositional viewpoints and promoting pro-government narratives is the private sector"; i.e., technology corporations like Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter, which can “determine what people see and do not see.” Good thing civilians are in charge, right? Forest County, Mississippi sheriff <a href="https://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story/news/local/2018/10/25/forrest-county-sheriff-jail-named-lawsuit-over-banned-books/1751381002/">bans all books for jail inmates except the Bible and Christian publications</a>. YCRT!'s focus has always been on North America, but this article about the wholesale banning and <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1437073/south-africas-apartheid-regime-burnt-thousands-of-books/" title="">burning of books in apartheid South Africa</a> is well worth your time. rss@dailykos.com (pwoodford) BannedBooks Censorship ChallengedBooks R&BLers Readers&BookLovers YCRT _1810272 Sat, 10 Nov 2018 16:00:04 +0000 Classic Poetry Group:V. Innocentia Veritas Viat Fides Circumdederunt me inimici mei[& wk] https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/9/1776493/-Classic-Poetry-Group-V-Innocentia-Veritas-Viat-Fides-Circumdederunt-me-inimici-mei-amp-wk V. Innocentia Veritas Viat Fides Circumdederunt me inimici mei 1 by Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Elder 1503–1542 Who list his wealth and ease retain, Himself let him unknown contain. Press not too fast in at that gate Where the return stands by disdain, For sure, circa Regna tonat.2 The high mountains are blasted oft When the low valley is mild and soft. Fortune with Health stands at debate. The fall is grievous from aloft. And sure, circa Regna tonat. These bloody days have broken my heart. My lust, my youth did them depart, And blind desire of estate. Who hastes to climb seeks to revert. Of truth, circa Regna tonat. The bell tower showed me such sight That in my head sticks day and night. There did I learn out of a grate, For all favour, glory, or might, That yet circa Regna tonat. By proof, I say, there did I learn: Wit helpeth not defence too yerne, Of innocency to plead or prate. Bear low, therefore, give God the stern, For sure, circa Regna tonat. B. MS. <blockquote> 1. The Latin title adapts Psalm 16.9: "My enemies surround my soul." Wyatt's name ("Viat") in the title is surrounded by Innocence, Truth, and Faith. 2. "It thunders through the realms," Seneca, Phaedra, 1.1140. The first two stanzas paraphrase lines from that play. [AJ Note: It is generally thought Wyatt wrote this poem after witnessing the execution of <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/anneboleyn.htm">Anne Boleyn</a> and her "accomplices" from the window grate of his cell in the Bell Tower at the Tower of London.]<a href="http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/innocent.htm" target="_blank">www.luminarium.org/...</a> </blockquote> Born in Kent, England, Sir Thomas Wyatt was an ambassador to France and Italy for King Henry VIII. Wyatt’s travels abroad exposed him to different forms of poetry, which he adapted for the English language — most notably, the sonnet. Rumored to be Anne Boleyn’s lover, he spent a month in the Tower of London until Boleyn’s execution for adultery. Many consider his poem “Whoso List to Hunt” to be about Boleyn.<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/thomas-wyatt" target="_blank">www.poetryfoundation.org/…</a> ========================================= Week in poetry: <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">CLASSIC POETRY GROUP</a><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Classic%20Poetry%20Group" target="_blank">.</a> ************* Daily Kos Classic Poetry Group:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Daily-Kos-Classic-Poetry-Group-892304530912096/" target="_blank">facebook</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/user/FreeWriters" target="_blank">Free Writers (Dkos)</a> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE</caption> <thead> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">DAY</th> <th style="text-align:center"> TIME EST/EDT </th> <th style="text-align:center">SERIES</th> <th style="text-align:center">EDITOR(S)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SUNDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">6:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"> (LAST SUN OF THE MONTH) </th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(OCCASIONAL)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Sci-FiFantasyClub">SciFi/Fantasy Book Club</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">quarkstomper</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">MONDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/languageofthenight" target="_blank">Fantasy: The Language of the Night</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">TUESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">5:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Indigo Kalliope:</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Poems from the Left</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> ruleoflaw, officebss </td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">WEDNESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">THURSDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Self-Publishing101">Self-Publishing 101</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">akadjian</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(MONTHLY)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">FRIDAY</th> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank" title="">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SATURDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt" title="">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews" title="">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top">pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank" title="">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <blockquote> <div> <div> <div></div> </div> </div> <div> <div> (Innocence Truth Faith my enemies surround my soul] </div> </div> Whilst imprisoned in the Tower in May 1536 Wyatt wrote this poem reflecting on the fate of those who rose high at court and experienced a reversal of fortune. <a href="http://onthetudortrail.com/Blog/resources/thomas-wyatt-poetry-2/thomas-wyatt-poetry/" target="_blank" title="">onthetudortrail.com/...</a> </blockquote> rss@dailykos.com (Angmar) ClassicPoetryGroup Readers&BookLovers SirThomasWyatt _1776493 Sat, 10 Nov 2018 02:27:10 +0000 Write On! Writing journals. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/8/1811349/-Write-On-Writing-journals Hello, writers. I’m guessing some folks are probably at Protect Mueller demonstrations right now. I’m not because I have some sort of crud that hopefully won’t turn out to be flu. So here we are. In fact, it’s very hard to write while all heck is breaking loose, so it’s doubly impressive that anyone is managing to do so. Below are progress reports, which I will try to update through 10 p.m. ET; later updates will go on next week’s board. Go, go, go! If you’re going for the traditional 50k, you’re on track if you hit 13,333 words by midnight tonight. <blockquote> bonetti 23,679 of 100k words clio2 12,596 of 50k words Cyclopsgirl goal is to write at least once a week dconrad 13,106 of 50k words Diana in NoVa 50k words GrouchySquirrel: write every day James Wells 16k words Leo Orionis finish draft of A Meeting at Ishtun (nearly done w ch 14) mettle fatigue: computer hook-up & resume ms (done!) Mnemosyne 25k words reppa 1200 of 20k words SensibleShoes: finish revision of Ghost Ships (half done) ursulafaw make a collection of diaries published on dKos xaxnar make a collection of diaries published on dKos </blockquote> Since Election Day I’ve been too distracted by the news to get much done, and when I do pick up my manuscript, I have trouble remembering what I’m working on. There are four different throughlines I’m working on on this pass, each marked with a different colored tape flag. So I have to remember— did I do the blue-flagged changes on this section yet? Should I do the yellow ones next? This is one of the reasons I’ve started keeping a writing journal. It’s very useful to be able to look back and see what I’ve done and what I need to do next, especially after a few days away. Today, though, I looked back through a whole month, and was amazed at how much I’d gotten accomplished. It didn’t feel like I was getting much done, but lo, it was all recorded in the journal. Most of it was done in five or six days randomly scattered across the month. The rest of the time, I wasn’t getting much done, which is what always leaves me with the overall impression that I’m never getting much done. Another author I know says she keeps a journal just to keep herself on task. Any day she doesn’t write, she has to put down in the journal why she didn’t write. It keeps her on the straight and narrow. Has anyone else tried a writing journal? <blockquote> Tonight’s challenge: Write a journal entry for the writing day you wish you’d had today. (If you actually had the writing day you wish you’d had, write a journal entry for that.) </blockquote> Write On! will be a regular weekly diary (Thurs 8 pm eastern, 5pm pacific) until it isn't. Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on <a href="http://www.pred-ed.com/">Preditors and Editors</a>, <a href="https://absolutewrite.com/recommended-resources/" target="_blank">Absolute Write</a> and/or <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/" target="_blank">Writer Beware</a>. rss@dailykos.com (SensibleShoes) Community Nanowrimo R&BLers Readers&BookLovers Teaching WriteOn Writing _1811349 Fri, 09 Nov 2018 01:00:18 +0000 Bookflurries-Bookchat: Books of the 80’s https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/7/1809719/-Bookflurries-Bookchat-Books-of-the-80-s Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us. ... In the 80’s I had my third child and I was very busy for years to come. When my youngest started kindergarten, I began to teach night school which I taught for 17 years. Of course some wonderful stories were published in the 80’s. These are favorite books that I read and I hope you will add your own in the comments. I am enjoying reminding myself of so many great books. I cannot list them all. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9">https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9</a> ... <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chanur_novels">The Chanur novels</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingen_Nights">Merovingen Nights</a> by C. J. Cherryh <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4473.A_Prayer_for_Owen_Meany">A Prayer for Owen Meany </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3075.John_Irving">John Irving</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35100.Battle_Cry_of_Freedom">Battle Cry of Freedom </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12144.James_M_McPherson">James M. McPherson</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5544.Surely_You_re_Joking_Mr_Feynman_">Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1429989.Richard_Feynman">Richard Feynman</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112078.Niccol_Rising">Niccolò Rising</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8361.Dorothy_Dunnett">Dorothy Dunnett</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/288222.And_There_Was_Light">And There Was Light: Autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran: Blind Hero of the French Resistance </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/167103.Jacques_Lusseyran">Jacques Lusseyran</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16532.Of_Love_and_Shadows">Of Love and Shadows </a>/<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9328.The_House_of_the_Spirits">The House of the Spirits </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2238.Isabel_Allende">Isabel Allende</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99199.Parting_the_Waters">Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63 </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/43633.Taylor_Branch">Taylor Branch</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/119829.The_Sunne_in_Splendour">The Sunne in Splendour </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/24655.Sharon_Kay_Penman">Sharon Kay Penman</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/259836.Dragons_of_Autumn_Twilight">Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Dragonlance: Chronicles, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/869.Margaret_Weis">Margaret Weis</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/234501.Startide_Rising">Startide Rising (The Uplift Saga, #2) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14078.David_Brin">David Brin</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/104088.The_Wandering_Fire">The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, #2) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/60177.Guy_Gavriel_Kay">Guy Gavriel Kay</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44230.The_Silver_Pigs">The Silver Pigs (Marcus Didius Falco, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/24844.Lindsey_Davis">Lindsey Davis</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38447.The_Handmaid_s_Tale">The Handmaid's Tale </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3472.Margaret_Atwood">Margaret Atwood</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/375802.Ender_s_Game">Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/589.Orson_Scott_Card">Orson Scott Card</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11486.The_Color_Purple">The Color Purple </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7380.Alice_Walker">Alice Walker</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/119073.The_Name_of_the_Rose">The Name of the Rose </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1730.Umberto_Eco">Umberto Eco</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7763.The_Joy_Luck_Club">The Joy Luck Club </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5246.Amy_Tan">Amy Tan</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113310.The_Eight">The Eight </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7172.Katherine_Neville">Katherine Neville</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28921.The_Remains_of_the_Day">The Remains of the Day </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4280.Kazuo_Ishiguro">Kazuo Ishiguro</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9375.Fried_Green_Tomatoes_at_the_Whistle_Stop_Cafe">Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6125.Fannie_Flagg">Fannie Flagg</a> Howl's Moving Castle by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4260.Diana_Wynne_Jones">Diana Wynne Jones</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43070.The_Essential_Calvin_and_Hobbes">The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13778.Bill_Watterson">Bill Watterson</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2666.The_Bonfire_of_the_Vanities">The Bonfire of the Vanities </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3083854.Tom_Wolfe">Tom Wolfe</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30868.The_Bean_Trees">The Bean Trees </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3541.Barbara_Kingsolver">Barbara Kingsolver</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34497.The_Color_of_Magic">The Color of Magic (Discworld, #1; Rincewind #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1654.Terry_Pratchett">Terry Pratchett</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11297.Norwegian_Wood">Norwegian Wood </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3354.Haruki_Murakami">Haruki Murakami</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16735.The_Prince_of_Tides">The Prince of Tides </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6942.Pat_Conroy">Pat Conroy</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60792.The_Accidental_Tourist">The Accidental Tourist </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/457.Anne_Tyler">Anne Tyler</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7869.The_Bourne_Identity">The Bourne Identity (Jason Bourne, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5293.Robert_Ludlum">Robert Ludlum</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7996.Redwall">Redwall (Redwall, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5329.Brian_Jacques">Brian Jacques</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/306654.Cold_Sassy_Tree">Cold Sassy Tree </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/52627.Olive_Ann_Burns">Olive Ann Burns</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37095.The_Shell_Seekers">The Shell Seekers </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20849.Rosamunde_Pilcher">Rosamunde Pilcher</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64863.A_is_for_Alibi">A is for Alibi (Kinsey Millhone, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9559.Sue_Grafton">Sue Grafton</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34303.Firefly_Summer">Firefly Summer </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3532.Maeve_Binchy">Maeve Binchy</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63697.The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat_and_Other_Clinical_Tales">The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/843200.Oliver_Sacks">Oliver Sacks</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12967.Winter_s_Tale">Winter's Tale </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8146.Mark_Helprin">Mark Helprin</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43916.Magician">Magician (The Riftwar Saga, #1-2) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8588.Raymond_E_Feist">Raymond E. Feist</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51070.The_Secret_Diary_of_Adrian_Mole_Aged_13_3_4">The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 (Adrian Mole, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/28707.Sue_Townsend">Sue Townsend</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77366.The_Hero_and_the_Crown">The Hero and the Crown </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5339.Robin_McKinley">Robin McKinley</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/375013.Schindler_s_List">Schindler's List </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6900.Thomas_Keneally">Thomas Keneally</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/96278.Sheepfarmer_s_Daughter">Sheepfarmer's Daughter (The Deed of Paksenarrion, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10518.Elizabeth_Moon">Elizabeth Moon</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/589979.Daughter_of_the_Empire">Daughter of the Empire (The Empire Trilogy, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8588.Raymond_E_Feist">Raymond E. Feist</a>, Janny Wurts <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68041.The_Earthsea_Quartet">The Earthsea Quartet (Earthsea Cycle, #1-4) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/874602.Ursula_K_Le_Guin">Ursula K. Le Guin</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/673657.Guardians_of_the_West">Guardians of the West (The Malloreon, #1) </a>/<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44659.Pawn_of_Prophecy">Pawn of Prophecy (The Belgariad, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8732.David_Eddings">David Eddings</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92163.Sarum">Sarum: The Novel of England </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16204.Edward_Rutherfurd">Edward Rutherfurd</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/73906.Taliesin">Taliesin (The Pendragon Cycle #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/28083.Stephen_R_Lawhead">Stephen R. Lawhead</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41810.The_Robots_of_Dawn">The Robots of Dawn (Robot #3) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16667.Isaac_Asimov">Isaac Asimov</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/513257.Legacy_of_the_Sword">Legacy of the Sword (Chronicles of the Cheysuli #3) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8659.Jennifer_Roberson">Jennifer Roberson</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125404.The_Indian_in_the_Cupboard">The Indian in the Cupboard </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/72237.Lynne_Reid_Banks">Lynne Reid Banks</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/774705.The_True_Story_of_the_3_Little_Pigs">The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/27318.Jon_Scieszka">Jon Scieszka</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1009079.The_Poetry_of_Jaroslav_Seifert">The Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/304182.Jaroslav_Seifert">Jaroslav Seifert</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18154.The_Cuckoo_s_Egg">The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/30891.Clifford_Stoll">Clifford Stoll</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/177250.The_Mirror_of_Her_Dreams">The Mirror of Her Dreams (Mordant's Need, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12980.Stephen_R_Donaldson">Stephen R. Donaldson</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77449.Here_be_Dragons">Here be Dragons (Welsh Princes, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/24655.Sharon_Kay_Penman">Sharon Kay Penman</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201901.Always_Coming_Home">Always Coming Home </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/874602.Ursula_K_Le_Guin">Ursula K. Le Guin</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/760754.Dragon_Prince">Dragon Prince (Dragon Prince, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8661.Melanie_Rawn">Melanie Rawn</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1239848.Gorillas_in_the_Mist">Gorillas in the Mist </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/136081.Dian_Fossey">Dian Fossey</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2899242-canary-red">Canary Red </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/698246.Robert_McKay">Robert McKay</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/248954.If_You_Want_to_Write">If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/145456.Brenda_Ueland">Brenda Ueland</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33059.Cathedral">Cathedral </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1238.Nelson_DeMille">Nelson DeMille</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1679011.Blue_Highways">Blue Highways </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1254084.William_Least_Heat_Moon">William Least Heat-Moon</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/771527.War_for_the_Oaks">War for the Oaks </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22548.Emma_Bull">Emma Bull</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196741.A_Tiger_for_Malgudi">A Tiger for Malgudi </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1305302.R_K_Narayan">R.K. Narayan</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12577.The_Collected_Stories">The Collected Stories </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7973.Eudora_Welty">Eudora Welty</a> … Your turn! ………….. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule</caption> </table> </div> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <thead> <tr> <th>day</th> <th> time est/edt </th> <th>series</th> <th>editor(s)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>sunday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td>gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (last Sun of the month) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>monday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>wednesday</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(FIRST THURS OF month)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Friday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Saturday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> rss@dailykos.com (cfk) Bookflurries-Bookchat Books R&BLers Readers&BookLovers _1809719 Thu, 08 Nov 2018 01:00:09 +0000 The Language of the Night: Spinning Silver, a Fairy Tale https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/5/1810069/-The-Language-of-the-Night-Spinning-Silver-a-Fairy-Tale Nota Bene: (Latin for “listen up”) Please consider tonight’s Language of the Night offering as a quick break — a breather, if you will — from the hard work of overthrowing fascism in the U.S. A quick breath and then back into the breach: there’s work to be done. We have to save our country. But, as Garry Trudeau once wrote, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Even-Revolutionaries-Like-Chocolate-Cookies/dp/0445006226" target="_blank" title="">Even Revolutionaries Like Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>, so tonight’s diary is a chocolate chip cookie. If you know Naomi Novik’s <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780804179034" target="_blank" title="">Uprooted</a>, you’ll look with great anticipation to her follow up, <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780399180989" target="_blank" title="">Spinning Silver</a>. And you would be right to do that. Because the novel was published this year, it falls under my new “no spoilers” imprimatur, which is fine where the text is concerned, but I can’t promise what I don’t control, which is comments. If you’ve read the book and care to comment, please be mindful of the folks who haven’t read it yet. And here we go: <blockquote> The real story isn’t half as pretty as the one you’ve heard. The real story is, the miller’s daughter with her long golden hair wants to catch a lord, a prince, a rich man’s son, so she goes to the moneylender and borrows for a ring and a necklace and decks herself out for the festival. And she’s beautiful enough, so the lord, the prince, the rich man’s son notices her, and dances with her, and tumbles her in a quiet hayloft when the dancing is over, and afterwards he goes home and marries the rich woman his family has picked out for him. Then the miller’s despoiled daughter tells everyone that the moneylender’s in league with the devil, and the village runs him out or maybe even stones him, so at least she gets to keep the jewels for a dowry, and the blacksmith marries her before that firstborn child comes along a little early. Because that’s what the story’s really about: getting out of paying your debts. That’s not how they tell it, but I knew. My father was a moneylender, you see. </blockquote> This is the opening of Spinning Silver and the story is, of course, Rumpelstiltskin, the fairy tale about spinning straw into gold and the power of names. It’s also about deception and betrayal, which accords well with Miryem’s recounting of the “real story.” Miryem is a moneylender and a moneylender’s daughter which, in a story set in a vaguely medieval Eastern European tsar-ruled kingdom of Lithvas, which is Lithuania to Lithuanians (It’s an endonym — which refers to the way inside a group name themselves versus what outsiders call them. Think about the difference between “Lakota” and “Sioux” and you’re in the neighborhood.) means that she’s Jewish. The Eastern European setting and profession of moneylending leads to another timely thread in the novel: Judaism and anti-Semitism. In <a href="https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/07/naomi-novik-talks-spinning-silver.html" target="_blank" title="">an interview</a>, Novik said,”Spinning Silver is about my father’s family, and they were Lithuanian Jews who had to escape persecution—not just from the Nazis, but from their own neighbors. It’s a really complicated history.” In Spinning Silver, the greater threat is not from the boyar who owns the village; it’s the tavernkeeper who doesn’t want to repay his debt, the woman across the road always watching for some sign of “evil” from her Jewish neighbors, the baker who sees charging Jews three times the cost he would charge a Christian patron an act of virtue, or at least of setting the account even. Throughout much of European history, persecution of Jews has been a feature, not a bug. Starting in the early medieval period, by law — and this is general and overstated but also remarkably consistent — Jews were prohibited from most skilled trades and guilds, as well as military and government positions: actually, pretty much any position of power. They were often not considered citizens of their countries, and were also barred from owning land or their own homes; in towns they were forced to live in walled communities segregated from Christians, and laws that restrained Christians, laws like prohibitions against murder and theft, did not apply to Christian interactions with Jews. Jewish communities were essentially left without protection of law. Because the Christian faith forbade loaning money at interest, and the formal term is usury, Jews were allowed to be moneylenders and bankers. In fact, in many cities, their presence was tolerated specifically because they could lend money. They were also allowed to conduct trade, because trade involves profit, and profit involves usury, and Christians were barred from usury by ecclesiastic law. Jewish communities were necessary, it could be argued, to the smooth running of a nation state; who else was going to make wartime loans, or conduct trade? This did not save Jewish communities from murder, pogroms, accusations of blood libel, and a hell’s tradition of Christian hate, a tradition that continues today in the wake of the Tree of Life massacre. The beat might be slightly different; the tune is the same, and it’s a very old and shameful one. Antisemitism and the hate that attends it forms a surprisingly powerful ground to this fairy tale. It hangs in the background, a presence made all the more powerful for its understatement, and underscores the tenuous position that Miryem and her family occupy in their village. Spinning Silver is not merely a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, and Miryem is not the only hero. Novik takes her base texts and welds them into something new, not an adaptation but a renewal, and marks profound growth in Novik’s artistry. Uprooted concentrates on a single narrative, placing its attention on Agnieszka, her understanding of magic, her unlocking the secret of the woods’ menace. The Dragon and Kasia are equally important to her; in other words, the story is as much about friendship as it is about love, and Agnieszka is a hero in her own right, loving but not needing a man. Spinning Silver takes place in a different world, a world where men can abuse their wives and beat and starve their children with impunity, where respectable townspeople can cheat their neighbors with impunity, where might equals right and the tax collector will leave the poor to starve over a long winter, so the tsar can live in splendor. In this world, we have three protagonists, all strong women, whose fates intertwine even as their fairy tales intertwine. I was chatting last week with Kossack Mrs. Saturday about the difference between writers like Novik and Neil Gaiman, whose writing inhabits fairy tales and transmutes them in unexpected ways, and writers like Katherine Arden, whose <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781101885932" target="_blank" title="">The Bear and the Nightingale </a>is the first in the Winternight Trilogy. Mrs. Saturday observed that Arden uses fairy tale motifs to serve as backstory and setting. I haven’t read Arden yet, but it seems to me to be an interesting distinction. Although the “spinning straw into gold” and “no one knows my name” motifs feature in Miryem’s storyline, Irina is stuck in her own version of “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebeard" target="_blank" title="">Bluebeard</a>,” while ”<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Juniper_Tree_(fairy_tale)" target="_blank" title="">The Juniper Tree</a>” forms the base for the story of Wanda and her brothers Sergey and Stepon, and their quest for a family. It’s worth noting that the correspondences between base fairy tales (all of them dark and bloody) and Novik’s treatment are not point-for-point, but rather allusory. She takes the powerful heart of the base tale and uses it to invest her own narrative, since fairy tales are themselves deeply psychologically powerful and resonant The plan is ambitious, to twine three major fairy tales into one, with grace notes from other stories, including a house that gives its inhabitants exactly what they need and, at first blush, is the long-abandoned gingerbread house of “Hansel and Gretel,” with an oven that’s almost as large as the house itself. Still, for all its base material, Spinning Silver is something new, featuring protagonists whose “happily ever after” don’t necessarily involve being carried off by Prince Charming, and certainly not without their own conditions being met first. The whole novel is about the payment of debts — how they get paid, what debts people will take on to preserve their people. The women who power the narrative act selflessly to protect their families, their homes, their people; they’re capable of atrocities and, with an eye toward Judith and Holofernes, they can do terrible things, although they’ll weep as they do them; they’ll walk fine careful lines, balancing power against the potential of violence, each in her own way trying to save the world. It’s about different kinds of magic, too. There’s the traditional magic of witches, demons, and the Staryk, the “power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true; the proving makes it so,” (106), but there’s also the magic of letters and numbers, the careful keeping of account books, the magic of a prayer or a blessing over a meal or over a crop, the magic of a knitting pattern, the kinds of magic that, under the right circumstances, might even renew a Staryk world. Finally there’s the magic of the self, a “magic that came only when you made some larger version of yourself with words and promises, and then stepped inside and somehow grew to fill it” (442). This is the magic that each of the three heroes practices. It’s about adhering to promises, paying debts, and fighting evil, that <blockquote> devouring thing that would gulp down lives with pleasure and would only pretend to care about law or justice, unless you had some greater power behind you that it couldn’t find a way to cheat or break, and that would never, never be satisfied. (446-447) </blockquote> Now, if that description of evil doesn’t sound timely….you’re not paying attention. Break’s over. Time to save democracy. Vote. After tomorrow the work isn’t over. It’s just beginning. rss@dailykos.com (DrLori) FairyTales Fantasy naominovik R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers SpinningSilver TheLanguageoftheNight _1810069 Tue, 06 Nov 2018 01:00:20 +0000 There's a word for it. The Republican party is a plunderbund. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/5/1800904/-There-s-a-word-for-it-The-Republican-party-is-a-plunderbund <a href="https://wordsmith.org/words/plunderbund.html" target="_blank">wordsmith.org/...</a> Plunderbund. noun: A group of political, business, and financial interests engaged in exploiting the public. That is as succinct a description of today’s Republican party as you could get. Corporations and banks buy politicians to make laws to favor them and rip off the rest of us. The politicians get rich themselves, making laws to favor themselves as well as their patrons. Sign up for A.Word.A.Day at wordsmith.org and get lots more wonderful words. rss@dailykos.com (strawbale) Definition Money Politics Words _1800904 Mon, 05 Nov 2018 16:00:06 +0000 The Last 48 Hours Are CRUCIAL!! Some Last Minute Ideas for You. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/4/1809737/-The-Last-48-Hours-Are-CRUCIAL-Some-Last-Minute-Ideas-for-You <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <h2>2 DAYS UNTIL THE 2018 MIDTERM ELECTION, THE MOST IMPORTANT MIDTERM OF OUR LIVES</h2> <h2>EARLY VOTING HAS ENDED IN FL, GA, HI, ID, ME, MD, MA, NM, NC,OK, TN, TX, UT, VA, WV, and WI</h2> <h2>NOTE: 12 States—Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming allow registration on Election Day; DC has Election Day registration as well. North Dakota doesn’t require it (just ID).</h2> <h2>********WE NEED POLL WATCHERS!! SIGN UP WITH YOUR LOCAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OR YOUR LOCAL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE. THIS IS KEY!!******</h2> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Contact.png" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/606712/large/Contact.png?1541143965" title="Contact.png"> <figcaption>The websites are all listed in the diaries linked to below.</figcaption> </figure> </div> <h2></h2> <h2>IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RACES FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE, LOOK <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/25/1783320/-FOCUS-Our-2018-Democratic-U-S-Senate-Candidates" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> </div> </div> </div> <h2>The Priority Senate Races Are In:</h2> <h2>Nevada</h2> <h2>Arizona</h2> <h2>Texas</h2> <h2>North Dakota</h2> <h2>Tennessee</h2> <h2>Missouri</h2> <h2>Indiana</h2> <h2>Florida</h2> <h2>Montana</h2> <h2>*************************</h2> <h2>IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RACES FOR THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, LOOK <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/25/1783581/-FOCUS-Our-2018-Democratic-House-Candidates-A-Work-in-Progress" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>*************************</h2> <h2>IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RACES FOR GOVERNOR AND OTHER STATE OFFICES, LOOK <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/27/1783819/-FOCUS-Our-Democratic-Candidates-for-Governor-and-Other-State-Offices" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>The priority Gubernatorial races are in</h2> <h2>Wisconsin</h2> <h2>Georgia</h2> <h2>Florida</h2> <h2>Ohio</h2> <h2>Iowa</h2> <h2>Kansas</h2> <h2>Nevada</h2> <h2>Maine</h2> <h2>*****************************************</h2> <h2>IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RACES FOR STATE LEGISLATURES, LOOK <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/27/1784131/-FOCUS-Democratic-Candidates-for-State-Legislatures-Very-Much-a-Work-in-Progress" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>******************************************</h2> <h2>GET OUT THE VOTE! GET OUT THE VOTE! GET OUT THE DAMN VOTE!!</h2> <h2>VoteRiders is <a href="https://www.voteriders.org/get-involved/volunteer/" target="_blank">HERE.</a></h2> <h2>Information on Driving the Vote is <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/18/1789267/-DRIVING-the-Vote-Do-we" target="_blank">HERE.</a></h2> <h2>Awesome Kossack pr0gressivist has an EXCELLENT diary about GOTV at the precinct level, right <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/13/1780189/-Free-Tools-for-Precinct-Chairs-and-Volunteers-Register-Organize-Promote-GOTV-efficiently" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>Kossack JuliaT has an EXCELLENT GOTV diary right <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/1/1777180/-Flip-Congress-2018-Practical-Advice-for-Elections-Activists" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>This app ROCKS: <a href="https://votewithme.us/" target="_blank">Vote With Me</a></h2> <h2>Want to campaign door-to-door? Do this: KNOCK EVERY DOOR IS <a href="https://knockeverydoor.org/" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>Phone Banking:</h2> <h2>Look into phone banking is you’re comfortable doing that.</h2> <div> <h2><a href="https://5calls.org/" target="_blank">calls.org</a></h2> <div> <div> <h2>And:</h2> <h2><a href="https://swingleft.org/p/phonebanking-resources" target="_blank">swingleft.org/...</a></h2> <h2>A How-to guide from OFA is <a href="https://my.ofa.us/page/content/phonebankguide/" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>Send Text Messages to Voters:</h2> <h2><a href="https://whystatesmatter.sisterdistrict.com/its-2018-and-campaign-volunteers-are-going-to-start-texting-you-don-t-get-mad-f693aa35871b" target="_blank">whystatesmatter.sisterdistrict.com/…</a></h2> <h2><a href="https://www.openprogress.com/text-troop" target="_blank">www.openprogress.com/…</a></h2> <h2>Swing Left has important information on getting in on the last weekend. GET IN ON THE LAST WEEKEND PUSH, RIGHT <a href="https://thelastweekend.org/sl?source=lt" target="_blank">HERE.</a></h2> </div> </div> </div> <h2>Polling place locator, right <a href="https://www.vote.org/polling-place-locator/" target="_blank">HERE</a></h2> ################################## <h2>For ways to take action at the precinct, local, county and state level, look <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/16/1780990/-FOCUS-Taking-Action-at-the-Precinct-Local-County-and-State-Level" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <div> <h2>BE PART OF THE VICTORY!</h2> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div></div> <div></div> <div> <div><a name="update-1541188689000"></a></div> <a class="live-update-link" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/2/1809277/-THE-LAST-WEEKEND-PUSH-IS-HERE-Learn-How-You-Can-Help-Stripped-Down-to-the-Essentials#update-1541188689000">Friday, Nov 2, 2018 · 9:58:09 AM · Yosef 52</a> From my friends at Good News Roundup: <h4 class="AlignCenter"><a href="https://866ourvote.org/" target="_blank">ELECTION PROTECTION:</a></h4> Election Protection Hotline: (866) OUR-VOTE -- (866) 687-8683 They rely on a suite of voter helplines: 866-OUR-VOTE (administered by the <a href="https://lawyerscommittee.org/">Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law</a>), 888-Ve-Y-Vota (administered by the NALEO Educational Fund), 844-Yalla-US (Arabic/English) – administered by the <a href="http://www.aaiusa.org/">Arab American Institute</a>, and 888-API-VOTE administered by <a href="http://www.apiavote.org/">APIAVote</a> & <a href="http://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/">Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC</a>) and Voter protection field programs across the country (both legal – managed by the Lawyers’ Committee, and grassroots – managed by <a href="http://www.commoncause.org/">Common Cause</a>) </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div style="text-align:right"></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div style="text-align:right"></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Yosef 52) BlueWave GOTV Recommended _1809737 Sun, 04 Nov 2018 18:00:11 +0000 Books So Bad They're Good: Stevie B's Bestest Most Favorite Storybook!(book review rewind) https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/3/1809669/-Books-So-Bad-They-re-Good-Stevie-B-s-Bestest-Most-Favorite-Storybook-book-review-rewind <div>As I said last week, I’m plugging away at a book review that’s due on the 12th, so here is my second book review rewind of autumn 2018. It’s a diary from 2017 featuring the horribly racist book that inspired Stephen Bannon’s thinking on race and ethnicity, and very likely Donald Trump design to build a wall to keep the ravening dark-skinned hordes from swarming over the Mexican border to EAT US or something equally ridiculous. It seemed apropos, given current events, and so here it is for your dining and dancing pleasure.</div> <div></div> <div>A few notes on the redoutable Mr. Bannon:</div> <div></div> <ul> <li>He no longer works for Breitbart, thanks to the publication of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury in January.</li> <li>He’s gainfully employed advising the Bolsarnaros in their efforts to Make Brazil Fascist Again, which should at least please aging Nazis in Argentina.</li> <li>His attempts to relaunch his career in America have been less successful, including a recent “rally” at a Holiday Inn in Topeka, Kansas, that drew all of seventeen people.</li> <li>He really, truly, actually does have a portrait of himself painted to look like Napoleon, even though he is much taller than the Little Colonel and seemingly is ready to decant several clones of Napoleon, himself, or possibly a brace of Gigeresque aliens at any second.</li> </ul> Either way, his very favorite novel is a Book So Racist It’s Sickening, so you’re been warned…. %%%%% <div> <div> <div> <div style="text-align:right"></div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> Sometimes old books are the best. This is not always the case — Edgar Rice <s>Krispies</s> Burroughs does not hold up well at all, to name just one writer I adored when I was a teenager — but a surprisingly number of the classics really are good books. This is no thanks to the average high school or college literature class, all too many of which seem intended to rip books to shreds for symbolism, metaphor, and theme rather than those trivial things called “story” and “characters.” It’s little wonder that this same approach to writing has resulted in a veritable flood of so-called “MFA fiction” that’s technically exquisite, rife with fascinating imagery, quirky plots, and beautifully drawn characters, yet all too easy to put down and never pick up again because it’s so dry and uninteresting. It’s also why certain writers are worth exploring on one’s own, when one can make one’s own decisions about what is good and what is not. I didn’t read Jane Eyre until I was well into my 20’s, for instance, and I’m glad I waited I was old enough to understand the cultural and feminist underpinnings of Bronte’s best known book. Ditto a great deal of Baroness Orczy, who wrote a dozen Scarlet Pimpernel books, not just one; L.M. Montgomery, whom I missed entirely until I was in my 30’s; and more children’s classics than I am willing to admit. Then there are the old favorites that I’ve read and read again and finally acquired in ebook format because I’ve read them so many times the books have literally been in shreds. These are the ones that still yield new insights no matter how many times I read them. To name just two, it took me years to appreciate the achingly lovely passage about a betrayed woman driven to suicide in Jerome K. Jerome’s otherwise sidesplitting Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), while James Thurber’s brilliant, bitter short stories about marital dissolution went completely over my head when I was a teenager. Even The Lord of the Rings, which I have read about twenty-five times, minimum, is ever green when I pick up the first volume or click on my e copy. Then there are the books I simply wasn’t experienced enough to appreciate fully until I was middle aged, like Ernie Pyle’s profiles of ordinary Americans during the Depression and the early years of the war. They’re just as good as his legendary portraits of his beloved infantry (the interview with a blast furnace worker in Pittsburgh is particularly good), but I wasn’t ready for their quiet evocation of ordinary life until I myself had learned the virtues of stability. And it wasn’t until I read a chapter in a biography of Anne Morrow Lindbergh about the difficulties faced by educated British women between the wars that I realized why Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night is actually a defense of women’s education and right to an intellectual life even after marriage, not a detective story. Yes, old favorites are the best, and I expect to be reading at least some of my favorites until I finally put down a book and close my eyes for the last time. Old books are the best books, and the best of these are the ones we read and read and read until they are literally part of our selves. Unfortunately for America, one of the most prominent, and horrible, men in the country not only has books he’s read until he can all but recite them by heart, he’s doing everything in his power to bring their apocalyptic visions to life. One of the books is as black, shriveled, and desiccated as a piece of roadkill, and as horrific to behold...and nice person that I am, I’m going to tell all about it below the fold! </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Ellid) bookssobadtheyregod R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers _1809669 Sun, 04 Nov 2018 01:00:36 +0000 Classic Poetry Group: The Apparition BY JOHN DONNE (& the week) https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/2/1727581/-Classic-Poetry-Group-The-Apparition-BY-JOHN-DONNE-amp-the-week <div> <div> <div></div> <div>======================================</div> </div> </div> <div> <div style="text-align:start"> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-md"><img alt="download.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/504135/large/download.jpg?1517812975" title="download.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=JOHN+DONNE&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS441US441&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdu627lY7ZAhXBrFkKHdPZBsgQ_AUICigB&biw=1137&bih=718#imgrc=xnwo77_BPppuyM">www.google.com/...</a>:</figcaption> </figure> </div> ====================================== * <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/apparition-0" target="_blank">The Apparition</a> </div> <div style="text-align:start"> <div class="AlignCenter">BY <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne" title="">JOHN DONNE</a></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> </div> <div style="text-align:start"> <div>When by thy scorn, O murd'ress, I am dead </div> <div> And that thou think'st thee free </div> <div>From all solicitation from me, </div> <div>Then shall my ghost come to thy bed, </div> <div>And thee, feign'd vestal, in worse arms shall see; </div> <div>Then thy sick taper will begin to wink, </div> <div>And he, whose thou art then, being tir'd before, </div> <div>Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think </div> <div> Thou call'st for more, </div> <div>And in false sleep will from thee shrink; </div> <div>And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou </div> <div>Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie </div> <div> A verier ghost than I. </div> <div>What I will say, I will not tell thee now, </div> <div>Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent, </div> <div>I'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent, </div> <div>Than by my threat'nings rest still innocent.</div> <div></div> <div class="AlignCenter">========================================</div> <div></div> <div></div> <div class="AlignCenter">[suggestion BY AKAlib]</div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <blockquote> John Donne’s standing as a great English poet, and one of the greatest writers of English prose, is now assured. However, it has been confirmed only in the early 20th century. The history of Donne’s reputation is the most remarkable of any major writer in English; no other body of great poetry has fallen so far from favor for so long and been generally condemned as inept and crude. In Donne’s own day his poetry was highly prized among the small circle of his admirers, who read it as it was circulated in manuscript, and in his later years he gained wide fame as a preacher. For some 30 years after his death successive editions of his verse stamped his powerful influence upon English poets. During the Restoration his writing went out of fashion and remained so for several centuries. <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne" target="_blank">www.poetryfoundation.org/...</a> </blockquote> ==================================== </div> </div> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="john-donne-15-728.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/504136/large/john-donne-15-728.jpg?1517813080" title="john-donne-15-728.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=JOHN+DONNE&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS441US441&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdu627lY7ZAhXBrFkKHdPZBsgQ_AUICigB&biw=1137&bih=718#imgrc=7ciHUBYSdeYIbM">www.google.com/...</a>:</figcaption> </figure> </div> ======================================== Week in poetry: <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">CLASSIC POETRY GROUP</a><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Classic%20Poetry%20Group" target="_blank">.</a> ************* <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE</caption> <thead> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">DAY</th> <th style="text-align:center"> TIME EST/EDT </th> <th style="text-align:center">SERIES</th> <th style="text-align:center">EDITOR(S)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SUNDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">6:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"> (LAST SUN OF THE MONTH) </th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(OCCASIONAL)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Sci-FiFantasyClub">SciFi/Fantasy Book Club</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">quarkstomper</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">MONDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/languageofthenight" target="_blank">Fantasy: The Language of the Night</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">TUESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">5:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Indigo Kalliope:</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Poems from the Left</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> ruleoflaw, officebss </td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">WEDNESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">THURSDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Self-Publishing101">Self-Publishing 101</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">akadjian</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(MONTHLY)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">FRIDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SATURDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top">pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">9:00 PM</td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Angmar) ClassicPoetryGroup JohnDonne Readers&BookLovers _1727581 Sat, 03 Nov 2018 01:30:10 +0000 Write On! Let the NaNoWriMoing Begin https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/1/1809145/-Write-On-Let-the-NaNoWriMoing-Begin Hello, writers, and welcome to our 10th NaNoWriMo together. These are the NaNoWriMo goals I’ve gleaned from your comments. Please let me know if I missed anyone: <blockquote> bonetti 5040 of 100k words clio2 1847 of 50k words Cyclopsgirl goal is to write at least once a week dconrad 50k words Diana in NoVa 50k words GrouchySquirrel: write every day James Wells 16k words Leo Orionis finish draft of A Meeting at Ishtun mettle fatigue: computer hook-up & resume a manuscript. Mnemosyne 25k words reppa 20k words SensibleShoes: finish revision of Ghost Ships ursulafaw make a collection of diaries published on dKos xaxnar make a collection of diaries published on dKos </blockquote> If your goal is the traditional 50k words, then you’re on target if you hit 1667 words by midnight tonight. (But it’s better to shoot for 2k a day because there will be distractions.) However, if you are so busy getting out the vote that you don’t do anything till November 7th, then I salute you and thank you, and you’ll need to do 2083 words a day. See, that’s hardly any more. (I’ve volunteered to drive people to the polls, either in my car or with imprecations.) If you have a progress report, lay it on us, and I’ll put it up there. As I work on this revision, I’ve been thinking about character, and particularly, about the minimum number of words in which it can be shown. Because I’m trying to reduce my wordcount. I’ve also just reread Terry Pratchett’s Thief of Time. It strikes me that one of the things that makes that book so compelling is that none of the characters are in any way ordinary. Each of them is a force to be reckoned with— Death, Time, The Indifference of the Universe, etc. And each of them is, in one way or another, trying to make themselves human. I wonder what it would be like to write a whole cast of characters like that. Something to think about this month. But since it doesn’t fit neatly into a Tonight’s Challenge, try this instead. <blockquote> One of the characters in your work-in-progress* hears a knock at the door. S/he goes to answer it. In his/her reactions, show who the character is in as few words as possible. Absolutely limit yourself to 100 words. *If you don’t want to use a character from your WIP or don’t have one, use someone from Togwogmagog. That’s what they’re there for. </blockquote> Write On! will be a regular weekly diary (Thurs 8 pm eastern, 5pm pacific) until it isn't. Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on <a href="http://www.pred-ed.com/">Preditors and Editors</a>, <a href="https://absolutewrite.com/recommended-resources/" target="_blank">Absolute Write</a> and/or <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/" target="_blank">Writer Beware</a>. rss@dailykos.com (SensibleShoes) Community Nanowrimo R&BLers Readers&BookLovers Teaching WriteOn Writing _1809145 Fri, 02 Nov 2018 00:00:04 +0000 Monthly Book Post, October 2018 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/11/1/1808950/-Monthly-Book-Post-October-2018 Workers of the World Unite, and all that: Capital, by Karl Marx In the United States of North America every independent movement of the workers was paralysed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded. But out of the death of slavery a new life at once arose. The first fruit of the Civil War was the eight hours' agitation, that ran with the seven-leagued boots of the locomotive from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from New England to California. For "protection" against "the serpent of their agonies", the labourers must put their heads together, and, as a class, compel the passing of a law, an all-powerful social barrier that shall prevent the very workers from selling, by voluntary contract with capital, themselves and their families into slavery and death. In place of the pompous catalogue of the "inalienable rights of man" comes the modest Magna Charta of a legally limited working day. I've been grazing in Marx's huge tome since I read the Communist Manifesto in January. And there's a reason the Manifesto is the one people have read. Capital is a thick, serious economic treatise, and the more sexy quotes are about human misery, not liberation. In fact, there's not much about communism or workers' paradise in here at all, except between the lines, implied in the central thesis that Capitalism necessarily contains the seeds of its own destruction. The book itself is about the process of that inevitable destruction. Read the introductory chapters, the last part, and if you're a glutton for punishment, the lengthy tenth chapter about the "working day" of the proletariat. Learn the concept of "surplus value" by which the ONLY source of profit for an industrialist is necessarily the direct theft of value from workers; and the concept of concentration of wealth, by which the resources of any given community end up in fewer and fewer hands as time passes, while the have-nots sink into ever-more squalid poverty. Those parts have stood the test of time, and the efforts of Libertarians since Marx's day have failed to refute them. The part that has been refuted has been Marx's theory that the ONLY result from the increasing concentration of wealth will and must be violent revolution of the proletariat. It has been refuted by the periodic redistribution of wealth in crisis times by governments. When things get bad enough, the state hits a "reset button", seizes wealth from the one percent, and gives it to the starving masses, and the cycle starts again. This is the only known way of preventing violent revolution. Hence the calls by "libertarians" who would otherwise be expected to advocate withholding all money from poor people, to teach them what a mistake they are making by choosing to be so poor--for the counterintuitive (for them) guaranteed income, or negative income tax, or national dividend, or other redistribution mechanisms that go against all their vaunted laissez-faire concepts. It's how they avoid the guillotine. As I write this, we're hitting a crisis point. the young, especially, are being forced into ever-more squalid living conditions, and people born bourgeoisie, who aspire to becoming aristocrats, are being harshly smacked down to proletariat status. The smart money knows that that is when redistribution MUST happen. Unfortunately, the ignorant money is in charge. Read the book, and prepare. Interesting times await. General Disorder: The Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant There was no time during the rebellion when I did not think, and often say, that the South was more to be benefited by its defeat than the North. The latter had the people, the institutions, and the territory to make a great and prosperous nation. The former was burdened with an institution abhorrent to all civilized people not brought up under it, and one which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance, and enervated the governing class. With the outside world at war with this institution, they could not have extended their territory. The labor of the country was not skilled, nor allowed to become so. The whites could not toil without becoming degraded, and those who did were denominated "poor white trash." The system of labor would have soon exhausted the soil and left the people poor. The non-slaveholders would have left the country, and the small slaveholder must have sold out to his more fortunate neighbor. Soon the slaves would have outnumbered the masters, and, not being in sympathy with them, would have risen in their might and exterminated them. The war was expensive to the South as well as to the North, both in blood and treasure, but it was worth all it cost. I would probably have read President Grant's memoirs a little earlier, if I had known they ended with the Civil War. I had been hoping to find a firsthand account of his Presidency from back in the days when the Republicans were the good guys. I recall getting a distinctly unfavorable impression of Grant as both a general and a President from my conservative-approved "mainstream" childhood education, and I've been exceedingly suspicious as the years have gone by. I'm also glad I read other civil war histories first, or I'd suspect Grant was exaggerating. Yes, he and the rest of the western front pretty much really did sweep through Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia and the Carolinas in pretty much the same time it took the Virginia army to beat the rug The battles are not particularly vivid, as described by Grant, but the strategy and tactics are explained, with great attention to the logistical problems of the war, and portraits of Sherman, Sheridan, and other generals. Now, if only I could find a passage or two explaining what he was thinking during Credit Mobilier.... Early Feminist Rant: The Awakening, by Kate Chopin Edna Pontellier could not have told why, wishing to go to the beach with Robert, she should in the first place have declined, and in the second place have followed in obedience to one of the two contradictory impulses which impelled her. A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her,—the light which, showing the way, forbids it. At that early period it served but to bewilder her. It moved her to dreams, to thoughtfulness, to the shadowy anguish which had overcome her the midnight when she had abandoned herself to tears. In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight—perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman. But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult! If there are earlier novels where the central theme involves women confronting the constraints of traditional gender roles, where the roles and not the protagonists are presented as being at fault, now's your chance to comment with suggestions. My spouse challenges me to read more books by women, which I figure will be easier as my long term reading plan reaches the 20th century and beyond, but it seems to me that The Awakening may be the first book of its kind (I'm limiting myself to fiction here, and deliberately classifying Wollestonecraft, et al., elsewhere) The book made me acutely aware that I was seeing a not-male vision of things, and it was disorienting. For a goodly part of the book, I misidentified the setting, thinking "Grand Isle" was part of France, when in fact it is on the coast of Louisiana. Edna, the protagonist, is definitely the daughter of a Kentucky Colonel, but it seemed she was living abroad. Her husband, who she calls "Mr. Pontellier", isn't particularly a bad man. He gives his wife space when she asks for it, even consenting to let her move into a separate house, ignoring other men who think he should assert dominance. He's just...not particularly aware. But then, edna doesn't tell him all that much. And yes, "the awakening" of the title means her discovery of her sexuality, after having had children. And the implication is that all but one of the other women in her circle are still asleep. She becomes discontented, isolated, enamored of other men and possibly another woman, and the implication at the end is that she commits suicide. But it's not especially spelled out, which may be the point. The Victorian Murders: Swing, Swing Together; Mad Hatter's Holiday, by Peter Lovesey; The Turkish Gambit, by Boris Akunin; The Valley of Fear, by Arthur Conan Doyle; No Justice, by James D. Brewer; Death on BlackHeath; Angel Court Affair, by Anne Perry On the one hand, things were going badly; you might even say they could not possibly be any worse. Poor Petya was still languishing under lock and key--after the Plevna bloodbath the noxious Kazanzaki had lost interest in the cryptographer, but the threat of a court-martial remained as real as ever. And the fortunes of war had proved fickle--the golden fish that granted wishes had turned into a prickly scorpion fish and disappeared into the abyss, leaving their hands scratched and bleeding. But on the other hand (this was something Varya was ashamed to admit even to herself) her life had never been so...interesting. That was the word: interesting. That was it exactly. --from The Turkish Gambit "A touch! A distinct touch!" cried Holmes. "You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself. But in calling Moriarty a criminal you are uttering libel in the eyes of the law—and there lie the glory and the wonder of it! The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of nations—that's the man! But so aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year's pension as a solatium for his wounded character. Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it? Is this a man to traduce? Foul-mouthed doctor and slandered professor—such would be your respective roles! That's genius, Watson. But if I am spared by lesser men, our day will surely come." --from The Valley of Fear For more than three hours he'd been chugging along the river in this half-assed shanty boat, pretending to watch the river ahead but stealing a glance at her every chance he got. And it wasn't just a friendly check to see how he was doing. She knew what Gil Nashton wanted and it was only a matter of time before he tried to get it. She was sick of him looking at her that way. He was nasty, and she could smell him from the other end of the boat, where she had moved to keep some distance between them. It'd been a month at least, she figured, since he'd had a bath. Was he crazy? How could he think any woman would find him attractive? She considered waiting in the shack, so he couldn't look at her, but she dared not turn her back. He was liable to drop anchor and come after her. At least out here she would see him coming. ---from No Justice "It's novices that cause the trouble. They read the book and before they've finished a couple of chapters they're down at Kingston hiring a skiff. They throw in a tent and some meat pies and away they go just like them three duffers in the book. If they survive the first night at Runnymede, they spend the second in the Crown at Marlow--them that can get in--and next morning they come through here looking for the backwater to Wargrave. 'There shouldn't be a lock here', they say. 'What's this lock doing in our way? It isn't in the book.' 'Yes it is,' I say. 'Marsh lock, page 220.' The book is generally open on their knees, so they pick it up and frown into it and sure enough they find it mentioned. The reason why they never see it is that the backwater is mentioned first, even though it's half a mile upriver from here." --from Swing, Swing Together "I've had that heppen before and it didn't hurt as much. But I really like him. Annabelle told me afterward that if I had any sense I would agree with boys, because that's what they like, no matter how wrong they are. It isn't right and wrong. It's just being able to think what you want to and talk about it. But what if I do that and nobody ever loves me? Am I going to have to pretend all the time, or be alone for always?" --from The Angel Court Affair Like the Sergeant Cribb Books, my local library only has a handful of books in a larger new series I started this month: Boris Akunin and his detective Fandorin. The Turkish Gambit is told from the point of view of a Russian woman leaving home to meet her fiance in the Balkans during the Russo-Turkish war, and the reader is supposed to recognize Fandorin when he first appears as a deceptively innocuous stranger who surprises her with his ability to manipulate, win at fixed games of chance, and fight his way out of a tight spot. The colorful horse-and-cannon battles are richly described, and the complexity of both Balkan politics and Fandorin himself rival last year's series about Yashim the Eunnuch....except that this time, we're looking at Turkey from the outside. Speaking of Sergeant Cribb, the "character and atmosphere" centered books I read this month center around rowing-excursions up the Thames, made popular by Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, and seaside holidays. Both crimes are nonsensical and not decipherable from clues (even when one has the hindsight of having seen the adaptations 35 years previously; I think they might have changed them for the tube). James D. Brewer's brief series set on and around Reconstruction-era river boats keeps getting better. The third (of just four books to date) involves a visit from President Grant, some Pinkertons, and a star turn by one of Luke and Masie's friends, a woman who entertains passengers, and whose resourcefulness puts the male protagonists to shame. The Valley of Fear is maybe the least known of the four Holmes novels, and my least favorite. It begins well enough, with a hint of Moriarty, a code-breaking, and a homicide in a stately old mansion. The second half, giving the backstory of one of the main characters, makes me realize what it might be like to be a Mormon reading A Study in Scarlet. It gets everything wrong. It depicts a radical Labor organization from the Robber Baron era as if they were terrorists who "own the town and have innocent people terrified", with not one word about the horrible treatment of coal miners by the capitalist class, or of the thousands of starving proletariats that the unions helped. There is even a depiction of a mining boss shot in front of an entire contingent of miners, and not only is he not a cruel slave-driver grinding the faces of the workers, but all the miners are shocked and horrified as if he was their friend. And yes, there were some mining companies that treated their employees well, but they weren't the ones who faced the desperate reprisals of the Mollies or the IWW now, were they? Doyle should maybe have stuck with England. ...And there's more Anne Perry. Don't Hit Me With the Babka!: The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevski “Do you know there is a limit of ignominy, beyond which man’s consciousness of shame cannot go, and after which begins satisfaction in shame? Well, of course humility is a great force in that sense, I admit that—though not in the sense in which religion accounts humility to be strength! “Religion!—I admit eternal life—and perhaps I always did admit it. “Admitted that consciousness is called into existence by the will of a Higher Power; admitted that this consciousness looks out upon the world and says ‘I am;’ and admitted that the Higher Power wills that the consciousness so called into existence, be suddenly extinguished (for so—for some unexplained reason—it is and must be)—still there comes the eternal question—why must I be humble through all this? Is it not enough that I am devoured, without my being expected to bless the power that devours me? Surely—surely I need not suppose that Somebody—there—will be offended because I do not wish to live out the fortnight allowed me? I don’t believe it. “It is much simpler, and far more likely, to believe that my death is needed—the death of an insignificant atom—in order to fulfill the general harmony of the universe—in order to make even some plus or minus in the sum of existence. Just as every day the death of numbers of beings is necessary because without their annihilation the rest cannot live on—(although we must admit that the idea is not a particularly grand one in itself!) “However—admit the fact! Admit that without such perpetual devouring of one another the world cannot continue to exist, or could never have been organized—I am ever ready to confess that I cannot understand why this is so—but I’ll tell you what I do know, for certain. If I have once been given to understand and realize that I am—what does it matter to me that the world is organized on a system full of errors and that otherwise it cannot be organized at all? Who will or can judge me after this? Say what you like—the thing is impossible and unjust! This is one of the murkier of Dostoevski's top tier novels, many of which highlight great mental illnesses in their central characters. The Idiot, it seems to me, stands alone in framing Russian society in general as a mental illness, and the main character as one who suffers greatly by being one of the few who are mostly sane and good-hearted. On the other hand, Raskolnikov and the guy from Notes From Underground also considered themselves as good, sane victims of an insane society, so there may be much that I missed. The Feminine Mistake: She, by H. Rider Haggard “Why art thou so frightened, stranger?” asked the sweet voice again—a voice which seemed to draw the heart out of me, like the strains of softest music. “Is there that about me that should affright a man? Then surely are men changed from what they used to be!” And with a little coquettish movement she turned herself, and held up one arm, so as to show all her loveliness and the rich hair of raven blackness that streamed in soft ripples down her snowy robes, almost to her sandalled feet. “It is thy beauty that makes me fear, oh Queen,” I answered humbly, scarcely knowing what to say, and I thought that as I did so I heard old Billali, who was still lying prostrate on the floor, mutter, “Good, my Baboon, good.” “I see that men still know how to beguile us women with false words. Ah, stranger,” she answered, with a laugh that sounded like distant silver bells, “thou wast afraid because mine eyes were searching out thine heart, therefore wast thou afraid. Yet being but a woman, I forgive thee for the lie, for it was courteously said" Omigosh, 19th century adventure stories for manly men were SO problematic. Consider the story of Holly, the smart but ugly hunchback, and Leo, who is handsome as a Greek God but doesn't show much by way of personality, except that Holly as narrator never tires of reminding you how handsome he is. They go to Darkest Africa in search of Leo's mysterious heritage, described on ancient pottery shards, and discover----SHE. Omigosh, She is a woman! And in charge! How discomforting! Holly matter-of-factly says he has a hard time coping with her authority because he is a misogynist. He actually uses that word, expecting that you, the presumably male reader, are one too, as all English blokes are, and will understand completely. She--eventually they start using her actual name, Ayesha, though "She Who Must Be Obeyed" is also popular--is white even though we're in undiscovered parts of the African jungle, because having Victorian Englishmen experiencing fear and arousal over a Sub-Saharan African who looked like most Sub-Saharan Africans would be something something garbanzo and one can't have that, wot-wot? The cover art depicts the mysterious ultimate in feminine magic beauty as consistent with 60s-era American Hollywood leading lady in a DeMille epic with flowing white robes and her hands raised incantationishly over flames. Ayesha is thousands of years old, magical, and still in mourning for Leo's ancient look-alike ancestor who died sometime sometime kalamata. And people once took this stuff seriously. Oh, all right. This was before Tolkein, even, and the fantasy genre had to start somewhere. But whoo boy. Man Levels Up: The Riddle of the Universe, by Ernst Heackel The best and most plausible ground for athanatism is found in the hope that immortality will reunite us to the beloved friends who have been prematurely taken from us by some grim mischance. But even this supposed good fortune proves to be an illusion on closer inquiry; and in any case it would be greatly marred by the prospect of meeting the less agreeable acquaintances and the enemies who have troubled our existence here below. Even the closest family ties would involve many a difficulty. There are plenty of men who would gladly sacrifice all the glories of Paradise if it meant the eternal companionship of their “better half” and their mother-in-law. It is more than questionable whether Henry VIII. would like the prospect of living eternally with his six wives; or Augustus the Strong of Poland, who had a hundred mistresses and three hundred and fifty-two children. As he was on good terms with the Vicar of Christ, he must be assumed to be in Paradise, in spite of his sins, and in spite of the fact that his mad military ventures cost the lives of more than a hundred thousand Saxons. Another insoluble difficulty faces the athanatist when he asks in what stage of their individual development the disembodied souls will spend their eternal life. Will the new-born infant develop its psychic powers in heaven under the same hard conditions of the “struggle for life” which educate man here on earth? Will the talented youth who has fallen in the wholesale murder of war unfold his rich, unused mental powers in Walhalla? Will the feeble, childish old man, who has filled the world with the fame of his deeds in the ripeness of his age, live forever in mental<a>[Pg 209]</a> decay? Or will he return to an earlier stage of development? If the immortal souls in Olympus are to live in a condition of rejuvenescence and perfectness, then both the stimulus to the formation of, and the interest in, personality disappear for them. Well...that was a bit of a surprise. I found the book in the religion section and was expecting more churchy bullshit. Instead, I found a celebration of how science and philosophy have erased the idiotic superstitions forced upon a victimized mankind by the church. It looks at evolution, not only of biology, but of geology and the cosmos, and eventually, of the human mind, classifying various areas of knowledge like Francis Bacon did hundreds of years earlier, and treating religious dogma with a burning sarcasm that would have gotten an author Inquisitioned in earlier days. And Haeckel's relish in doing so is marvelous to read. Highly recommended. Historical Curmudgeon: The Historical Romances (The Prince and the Pauper; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc), by Mark Twain These poor ostensible freemen who were sharing their breakfast and their talk with me, were as full of humble reverence for their king and Church and nobility as their worst enemy could desire. There was something pitifully ludicrous about it. I asked them if they supposed a nation of people ever existed, who, with a free vote in every man's hand, would elect that a single family and its descendants should reign over it forever, whether gifted or boobies, to the exclusion of all other families—including the voter's; and would also elect that a certain hundred families should be raised to dizzy summits of rank, and clothed on with offensive transmissible glories and privileges to the exclusion of the rest of the nation's families—including his own . They all looked unhit, and said they didn't know; that they had never thought about it before, and it hadn't ever occurred to them that a nation could be so situated that every man could have a say in the government. I said I had seen one—and that it would last until it had an Established Church. ---from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Omigosh, Twain makes me so happy. Never mind Huckleberry Finn for now (I'll be reading that one next month and maybe eating my words); the Connecticut Yankee is, for my money, Twain's true masterpiece. As Don Quixote has come to be a brilliant satire, not only of medieval romance, but of the morals and manners of Cervantes's time as well, the Connecticut Yankee shines a magnifying glass intentionally on the prejudices of chivalry and unintentionally on 19th century American capitalism as well. The protagonist finds himself in a "romantic" kingdom, that is quickly unmasked as a barbaric, imperialist, educationally backward hellhole in which the codes of art and honor are weapons for grinding the faces of most of the people, and in which the church is more hypocritical, cruel, and dangerous than even a military horde. Trope after trope is unhorsed and lands, clanking, on its ass. I loved every page of it. And then...but just read it. I don't want to spoil it. And after doing all that, Twain takes the life of Joan of arc, an actual saint, and treats religion with actual compassion, as real virtue is shown belabored by church and state alike for its own purposes. And the child's story of the prince and the pauper, salted with the kind of wisdom that children are likely to miss on a first reading and adults might too. There's a lot of "humor" that I found very much not funny, such as the 'whipping boy" who begs the prince to continue to be naughty so that he can continue to have a job being beaten in punishment for the prince's wrongs. And a lot of themse showing where Twain's sympathies lie and mine do too. All three books have plot elements involving royalty putting on peasant garb for an experiment and then being unable to reassert itself and being mocked and threatened with violence for seeming "uppity". All three have clever, meritorious low-borns unable to rise to where they deserve to be, and horse's-ass high-borns doing incredible harm through being awarded, as their due, power above their worth. Very highest recommendations. The Opposite of Christianity: Quo Vadis, by Henryk Sienkiewicz Chilo had done him the most terrible wrong that one man could do another. At the very thought of how he would act with a man who killed Lygia, for instance, the heart of Vinicius seethed up, as does water in a caldron; there were no torments which he would not inflict in his vengeance! But Glaucus had forgiven; Ursus, too, had forgiven,—Ursus, who might in fact kill whomever he wished in Rome with perfect impunity, for all he needed was to kill the king of the grove in Nemi, and take his place. Could the gladiator holding that office to which he had succeeded only by killing the previous “king,” resist the man whom Croton could not resist? There was only one answer to all these questions: that they refrained from killing him through a goodness so great that the like of it had not been in the world up to that time, and through an unbounded love of man, which commands to forget one’s self, one’s wrongs, one’s happiness and misfortune, and live for others. What reward those people were to receive for this, Vinicius heard in Ostrianum, but he could not understand it. He felt, however, that the earthly life connected with the duty of renouncing everything good and rich for the benefit of others must be wretched. So in what he thought of the Christians at that moment, besides the greatest astonishment, there was pity, and as it were a shade of contempt. It seemed to him that they were sheep which earlier or later must be eaten by wolves; his Roman nature could yield no recognition to people who let themselves be devoured. This one thing struck him, however,—that after Chilo’s departure the faces of all were bright with a certain deep joy. The Apostle approached Glaucus, placed his hand on his head, and said,—“In thee Christ has triumphed.” This book, set in the time of Emperor Nero, is one of the oddest books I've read in a while. Imagine a great empire suffering under the rule of a half-mad tyrant given to abominable appetites, surrounded by incompetent and brutal sycophants, a ruler who continually makes a ghastly and ridiculous spectacle of himself every time he stands on his hind legs and speaks, but at whom few people dare laugh because he is so cruel. Are you with me so far? That part may be easy to imagine, in this day and age. But now imagine that the Christians in this empire do NOT make up the incompetent tyrant's main base of support; that they do NOT hold him up as a role model for all that Christ stands for; that they do NOT celebrate lust, greed, envy, rage, gluttony, vanity and sloth as their sacraments; do NOT goad him toward bigger outrages against human decency than ever; and that they are in fact among his most persecuted opponents, whose most effective defensive weapons against him consist of displays of virtue and forgiveness, even when cruelly used to the extreme. That when one of their own is murdered viciously, they do NOT loudly express hope that their oppressor is forced to share a cell with a gigantic Ethiop with perverse sexual appetites, and that when a Jew is at their mercy, they let him go with sweet words of encouragement. This bizarro world confused me completely until I remembered that this was european christianity and not American Christianity; that Nero was the forerunner of American-style Christianity and that the Europeans actually lived by tenets of the Gospels instead of condemning practitioners thereof as socialists, libtards, and enemies of the state. Cleverly, Sienkiewicz made most of his protagonists slaves from the land that eventually became his native Poland, managed to redeem one of the slimiest villains in literature convincingly, and gave a part to a verbose cynic (Petronius, author of the Satyricon) that warmed the cockles of this cynic's heart. You may have noticed, I have little use for churchy stuff, but this one actually moved me, with a display of what religion *could* be, if those who professed it took the doctrines of love and of being a spark in the darkness seriously, instead of, as is almost universal in America, pretending to believe in a God as an excuse to indulge one's appetite for cruelty. Best Intro Ever: The History of Civilization in England, by Thomas H. Buckle It would be easy to conduct this argument further, and to prove how, by an increasing love of intellectual pursuits, the military service necessarily declines, not only in reputation, but likewise in ability. In a backward state of society men of distinguished talents crowd to the army, and are proud to enroll themselves in its ranks. But, as society advances, new sources of activity are opened, and new professions arise, which, being essentially mental, offer to genius opportunities for success more rapid than any formerly known. The consequence is, that in England, where these opportunities are more numerous than elsewhere, it nearly always happens that if a father has a son whose faculties are remarkable, he brings him up to one of the lay professions, where intellect, when accompanied by industry, is sure to be rewarded. If, however, the inferiority of the boy is obvious, a suitable remedy is at hand: he is made either a soldier or a clergyman; he is sent into the army, or hidden in the church. And this, as we shall hereafter see, is one of the reasons why, as society advances, the ecclesiastical spirit and the military spirit never fail to decline. As soon as eminent men grow unwilling to enter any profession, the lustre of that profession will be tarnished:<a>[199]</a> first its reputation will be lessened, and then its power will be abridged. This is the process through which Europe is actually passing, in regard both to the church and to the army All right...where to begin? This is why I read hundreds of relatively obscure books on lists of "great western books", including mountains of deadly dull material. Every so often, I discover someone like Henry Thomas Buckle, and all the sawdust without butter is suddenly worth it. Despite the title, Buckle's masterwork is NOT a history of civilization in England. It is a two-volume INTRODUCTION to the history of civilization in England that he planned to write and never got past the introduction. He just kept on introducing and introducing, intending to get around to England by way of hundreds of pages on the history of civilization in France, Spain, and Scotland. He also intended to summarize Germany, Ireland and the United states of America, but stopped or died or something before getting around to that, either. The finished work would have filled a shelf of encyclopedias and, by my literary tastes, it would have been worth it to read the whole monstrous set. The two volumes of introduction that exist are for my money the best history since Gibbon, and more readable and educational than half the contents of the Great Books and Harvard Classics set. There is greatness on every other page, and I don't say this because I agree with him. Among other things, Buckle is an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, but he is wrong for the right reason. Despite his capitalism, buckle would be denounced by modern Republicans as a snooty cultural elitist, because his central thesis is about the importance of education in the advance of civilization. Again and again, Buckle tells us that MORAL knowledge is stagnant (If anyone can identify any great moral truth that was unknown hundreds of years ago, please speak up. Buckle's ghost and I will thank you) but that INTELLECTUAL advances are constantly expanding, and that therefore the advance or decline of civilization is dependent on the degree to which people apply intellect, especially in abstract and applies sciences. Not surprisingly, churches and those governments that repress thought come in for vast quantities of colorful sarcasm and other abuse, particularly in the passages describing the history of Spain--a country dominated by churches and resistant to progress, where the collective mind has/had been utterly, utterly stultified, failing o prosper even by those technologies dropped into its lap by other nations. Or of France, whose fortunes fluctuated based on the varying degrees in which it ignored or succumbed to Catholicism over the centuries. And as I write this, I live in a once-great nation whose fortunes have appreciably sunk as the populace has sunk into religious dogmatism and the government has been replaced by one which openly wages war against knowledge and learning; where science is abused, teachers are openly treated with contempt, and commerce and great minds flee like rats from a sinking ship. All through my reading of buckle, I could hear him railing at the Republicans: "Good God, what are you thinking?" Very highest recommendations. Literary Buckle: By the Open Sea, by August Strindberg Borg had, in a couple of years, so ordered his affairs that he was a member of most of the learned societies of Europe. He was the holder of the Italian Order of the Crown, the French Instruction Publique, Te Austrian Order of Leopold, and the Russian Order of St. Anna, second class. But nothing helped with those about him. their scorn increased with every distinction, though these were founded on merit. If they could not deny the fact, they minimised its value, or pretended to be unaware of what was going on. This did not prevent them from using for their own hunting the track that he had beaten. And right when I'm reading Buckle about how we need intellectual advances to progress as a civilization, along comes Strindberg with a dark tale about a man sent to rescue a fishing village from backwardness and scorned and laughed at by families that know better than he because their fathers always did it the old way. Echoes of that other great Scandinavian work, An Enemy of the People. Spanish Flies: Fortunata and Jacinta, by Benito Perez Galdes In the tertulias held in the cafe there are always two kinds of members: the ones who make the underbrush of a conversation by telling absurd news or gross jokes, and the ones who have the last word on whatever is being debated. The latter deliver doctoral judgments, thus bringing the jokes and nonsense down to their real level. Wherever there are men there is authority, and these cafe authorities who sometimes define, sometimes predict, and always influence the crowd because their opinions are apparently sound, constitute a sort of consensus that usually ends up in the press, where the consensus probably wasn't based on anything better. And again...I happened to pick up Spain's biggest 19th century novel right when I was reading Buckle bagging on the Spaniards as backwards peasants hobbled by superstition and unable to better themselves, and sure enough, here was Galdes treating the people of Madrid, though with much more kind feeling than Buckle, as not much more advanced than in the days of Cervantes. Churchy stuff everywhere. People doing things the same way their grandparents did them. The main male character is a womanizing jerk who is involved with both of the title characters. He loves the working-class, Amazonian Fortunata, but gets tired of her and leaves her pregnant. His family arranges his marriage to a cousin, Jacinta, who very much wants children. He doesn't impregnate her. He keeps impregnating Fortunata. several times, Fortunata begins to move on and have a life of her own with some other guy, and Juanito gets jealous and sabotages the relationship so that he can get back to cheating on her, but gets tired of her and leaves her again. Other men are undersized runts and shamed for it as less than masculine, especially by Fortunata. There is so very much that is wrong with this story. And yet, the Spanish apparently revere it, except that when the Nobel committee considered making Galdes a laureate, it was Spaniards who protested that he wasn't worthy, and so they gave the prize to someone else. Buckle would have nodded and pointed and said, "See?" rss@dailykos.com (AdmiralNaismith) 19thcenturybooks Books CivilWar Communism FyodorDostoyevsky Historicalmysteries historicalnovels History KarlMarx KateChopin MarkTwain Philosophy QUOVADIS R&BLers Readers&BookLovers Reading SherlockHolmes Teaching UlyssesSGrant _1808950 Thu, 01 Nov 2018 18:00:32 +0000 Classic Poetry Group:The week in poetry- & "I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain" by Emily Dickinson https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/31/1653447/-Classic-Poetry-Group-The-week-in-poetry-amp-I-Felt-a-Funeral-in-my-Brain-by-Emily-Dickinson <h3 class="AlignCenter">"<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45706" target="_blank">I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain</a>"</h3> <h3 class="AlignCenter">by Emily Dickinson</h3> "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading – treading – till it seemed That Sense was breaking through – And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum – Kept beating – beating – till I thought My mind was going numb – And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul <div style="text-align:center"> <div> <div> </div> </div> </div> With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space – began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race, Wrecked, solitary, here – And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down – And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing – then –" <div></div> <div></div> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-sm"><img alt="download.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/543340/large/download.jpg?1526606979" title="download.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=emily+dickinson&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS441US441&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_m8yEjo7bAhVl_IMKHYOxADMQ_AUICigB&biw=1137&bih=718">www.google.com/...</a></figcaption> </figure> </div> Week in poetry: <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">CLASSIC POETRY GROUP</a><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Classic%20Poetry%20Group" target="_blank">.</a> ************* <blockquote> More pages by Angmar: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Furry-Tails-Animals-storiesanimals-rights-656599481193182/" target="_blank">Furry Tails :Animal's stories,animal's rights</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/The-Dkos-Daily-Bucket-Annex-245156889236636/" target="_blank">The Dkos Daily Bucket Annex</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Eco-Aware-Green-stories-and-news-1193632730752107/" target="_blank">Eco-Aware Green stories and news</a> </blockquote> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="gallery_hero_27d1892e-7cef-46f7-b2c3-3fa95b88e59f.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/589706/large/gallery_hero_27d1892e-7cef-46f7-b2c3-3fa95b88e59f.jpg?1537140113" title="gallery_hero_27d1892e-7cef-46f7-b2c3-3fa95b88e59f.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjhur6G1cDdAhWl24MKHYpxDCIQjhx6BAgBEAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zibbet.com%2Fpetitpoulailler%2Fraven-and-jay-1969-vintage-audubon-society-natural-history-lithographs-pl-241-242&psig=AOvVaw2DS4TD8jN30-0wHPi5u1C-&ust=1537226479854097" title="">www.google.com/...</a></figcaption> </figure> </div> <blockquote> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/16/1796034/-Dawn-Chorus-The-Raven" target="_blank" title="">Dawn Chorus: The Raven</a> </blockquote> National Cat Day: <div class="table-wrapper"> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl align-right"><img alt="cats-halloween-cat-october-pumpkin-feline-black-kitten-background-images.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/605787/large/cats-halloween-cat-october-pumpkin-feline-black-kitten-background-images.jpg?1540960725" title="cats-halloween-cat-october-pumpkin-feline-black-kitten-background-images.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS441US441&biw=1137&bih=706&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=jTHZW7eUMqSYjwS-lIeQBw&q=cat+with+pumpkin&oq=cat+wpumpkin&gs_l=img.1.0.0i7i30l10.3951.3951..5776...0.0..0.94.94.1......1....1..gws-wiz-img.Vy4-338r3-Y#imgdii=7ckWgLMthg7PaM:&imgrc=28ay93YZiNCW-M">www.google.com/...</a>:</figcaption> </figure> <blockquote> twitter.com/NationalCatDay Monday, October 29 National Cat Day 2018 in United States of America National Cat Day was founded as a way to bring awareness to the number of homeless cats <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cat_Day" target="_blank" title="">wikipedia.org/...</a> </blockquote> <blockquote> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/29/1808295/-Let-s-Celebrate-Cats-in-Space-on-NationalCatDay#comment_71829187" target="_blank" title="">Let's Celebrate Cats in Space on This #NationalCatDay</a> </blockquote> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE</caption> <thead> <tr> <th>DAY</th> <th> TIME EST/EDT </th> <th>SERIES</th> <th>EDITOR(S)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>SUNDAY</th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (LAST SUN OF THE MONTH) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(OCCASIONAL)</th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Sci-FiFantasyClub">SciFi/Fantasy Book Club</a></td> <td>quarkstomper</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <th>MONDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/languageofthenight" target="_blank">Fantasy: The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>5:00 PM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Indigo Kalliope: </a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Poems from the Left</a> </td> <td> publication suspended </td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>WEDNESDAY</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Self-Publishing101">Self-Publishing 101</a></td> <td>akadjian</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(MONTHLY)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>FRIDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank" title="">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>SATURDAY</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt" title="">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews" title="">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank" title="">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <h2 class="AlignCenter">Happy Halloween Season</h2> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="hqdefault.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/543338/large/hqdefault.jpg?1526606843" title="hqdefault.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=rain+night+images&tbm=isch&tbs=rimg:CUYRfjWUgWt5IjiI0s7cvdvh1OcQ5yOxRHhFSmhiM50K1Tc3kY0eaEBMqH6mCB7ZowAyW-JpME-rRWsGf1CdxgGIYCoSCYjSzty92-HUEaXd_1QqFimCKKhIJ5xDnI7FEeEUR575B5bglGxsqEglKaGIznQrVNxElq2E11QD8BCoSCTeRjR5oQEyoEfU3eA2-hemQKhIJfqYIHtmjADIRq28-6AN3qYQqEglb4mkwT6tFaxG8CTPZYxTWUyoSCQZ_1UJ3GAYhgERCIaQvoAwLd&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiIlcStjY7bAhVG44MKHZLiANMQ9C96BAgBEBs&biw=1137&bih=664&dpr=0.9#imgrc=5PILqryGOa1rcM">www.google.com/...</a>:</figcaption> </figure> </div> </div> Daily Kos Classic Poetry Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Daily-Kos-Classic-Poetry-Group-892304530912096/" target="_blank">facebook</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/user/FreeWriters" target="_blank">Free Writers </a><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/user/FreeWriters" target="_blank">(Dkos)</a> <div class="table-wrapper"> .============================================= </div> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-md"><img alt="271r.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/589707/large/271r.jpg?1537140215" title="271r.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=pumpkin&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS441US441&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU4fGs1cDdAhXp5IMKHZ0AAowQ_AUIDigB&biw=1137&bih=706#imgrc=cBJ92hvCkG2HZM">www.google.com/...</a>:</figcaption> </figure> </div> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="giphy.gif" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/604665/large/giphy.gif?1540699190" title="giphy.gif"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS441US441&biw=1137&bih=706&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=VjPVW5vYCKvHjwTlrIbYDQ&q=bats+gif&oq=bats+gif&gs_l=img.3..0l5j0i5i30l5.62877.65627..66615...0.0..0.79.306.4......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i67.K2d8bGY9zHc#imgrc=F4Qn-T_Yvo6wKM">www.google.com/...</a>:</figcaption> </figure> </div> <h2 class="AlignCenter"></h2> rss@dailykos.com (Angmar) ClassicPoetryGroup Dickinson Halloween Readers&BookLovers _1653447 Thu, 01 Nov 2018 01:31:02 +0000 Bookflurries-Bookchat: Hallowe’en Story 2018 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/31/1808024/-Bookflurries-Bookchat-Hallowe-en-Story-2018 Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us. My yearly story. I hope you will copy and paste it into a comment and add your words. You may change any words you need to make sense. Story cfk ... <blockquote> Deep in the _______ Swamp rose a tower overgrown with ivy and briars. There was no Sleeping Beauty in the room at the top, alas. Instead there was a _________________________ who spied on the towns in the nearby valley. What was he seeking? ... Quigroy decided to speak with the dark denizen of the tower and unfortunately chose to go on Hallowe’en. Or was he _________________? That is the dark question we must ask ourselves. ... Quigroy was famous for being ________________ but even so we must feel a bit of ______________ for his flight into danger for he did indeed choose to use a glider to land on the top of the tower. ... He armed himself with the tools of his trade and a few magical items such as ______________, _____________, and _______________ that he purchased from a pharmacist who claimed the objects were real and who charged ________________for them. ... The glider made a ____________landing and Quigroy climbed out and hurried to the small door in the floor of the tower. It opened ______________as he approached. He saw an arm come out and then a head covered in _______________. To say he was surprised at this _________________ sight is the least of it. ... “I wish to speak to the owner of this tower,” Quigroy said as ___________ broke out around him. “Mmmfff,” growled the ___________ who stepped closer. “Ermmm…good. That would be you, I am thinking. Now, I am Quigroy, Inspector Quigroy, and I am here to ask you what you have been doing these past years. It seems you have had a _______________influence on the youth especially at this time of year. ... “_________________, __________, and _____________,” was the answer as best as Quigroy could tell. “But that is just ________________,” he said daring to look it in the eye and wave his hand holding his recording camera. ... Had Quigroy been more polite or chosen another date would the results have been prettier, we must ask ourselves because as he stood there toe to toe with the dark creature, a miasma rose from the swamp and ____________________________________the tower and the glider and the two standing nose to ____________. No magic could have prevented what happened next for when the sun came up the next morning _____________________________________________________________________. </blockquote> … Or just scroll down and talk about books. … One reason I love the Cadfael books are the descriptions: The Summer of the Danes pgs. 19, 20 <blockquote> They had halted at the crest of the ridge overlooking the lush green valley of the Dee. The sun was westering, and had mellowed from the noon gold into a softer amber light, gleaming down the stream, where the coils of the river alternately glimmered and vanished among its fringes of woodland. Still an upland river here, dancing over a rocky bed and conjuring rainbows out of its sunlit spray. </blockquote> Pg. 46 <blockquote> The night without was dark, without a moon, but the stars filled it with a distant, blue glimmer that showed where occasional shadows crossed from building to building making for their rest. The babel of the day was now an almost-silence…There was no wind. Even the softest of movements vibrated along the cords of the senses, making silence eloquent. </blockquote> Happy Hallowe’en! ………….. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule</caption> <thead> <tr> <th>day</th> <th> time est/edt </th> <th>series</th> <th>editor(s)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>sunday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td>gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (last Sun of the month) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>monday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>wednesday</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(FIRST THURS OF month)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Friday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Saturday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/31/1808569/-All-my-armor-comes-from-you-an-AIDS-Walk-Austin-diary-there-s-another-match-today">All my armor comes from you (an AIDS Walk Austin diary - there's another match today)</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/user/anotherdemocrat">anotherdemocrat</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/31/1808569/-All-my-armor-comes-from-you-an-AIDS-Walk-Austin-diary-there-s-another-match-today">https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/31/1808569/-All-my-armor-comes-from-you-an-AIDS-Walk-Austin-diary-there-s-another-match-today</a> rss@dailykos.com (cfk) Bookflurries-Bookchat Books R&BLers Readers&BookLovers _1808024 Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:00:01 +0000 Are You Ready? There Are Still Things You Can Do. Phone Banking, Canvassing, Etc. LOOK HERE!! https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/31/1808687/-Are-You-Ready-There-Are-Still-Things-You-Can-Do-Phone-Banking-Canvassing-Etc-LOOK-HERE <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <h2>6 DAYS UNTIL THE 2018 MIDTERM ELECTION, THE MOST IMPORTANT MIDTERM OF OUR LIVES</h2> <h2>EARLY VOTING IS UNDERWAY IN: AK, AR, CA, CO, FL, GA, HI, ID, IA, IN, KS, MA, MD, ME, MN, MT, NE, NJ, NC, OH, SC, SD, TN, TX (!!) UT, VT, WI, WV, and WY. OK starts early voting in 2 days. (And that’s all of ‘em.)</h2> <h2>FLORIDA DEMOCRATS!! GET THOSE VOTE BY MAIL VOTES FILED!!</h2> <h2>From Awesome Kossack Simplify:</h2> <h2>CHECK THIS REGISTRATION DEADLINE CHART!</h2> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl align-right"><img alt="register.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/597103/large/register.jpg?1538856180" title="register.jpg"></figure> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2>********WE NEED POLL WATCHERS!! SIGN UP WITH YOUR LOCAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OR YOUR LOCAL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE. THIS IS KEY!!******</h2> <div> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl align-right"><img alt="BlueWave_Checklist.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/538479/large/BlueWave_Checklist.jpg?1525377415" title="BlueWave_Checklist.jpg"></figure> </div> <div></div> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2>TAKE A LOOK AT <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/23/1798012/-US-Intelligence-expert-Vote-early-to-throw-off-hacking-If-you-re-overseas-Vote-now" target="_blank">THIS</a> VITAL DIARY ABOUT OVERSEAS VOTING AND VOTING EARLY.</h2> <h2>AND <a href="http://showercapblog.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a> IS SHOWER CAP’S EXCELLENT ELECTION GUIDE. (GO TO HIS BLOG AND CHECK IN ON HIS GUIDE AS HE UPDATES IT.)</h2> <h2>AND KOSSACKS!! DON’T FORGET TO LEARN ABOUT LOCAL REFERENDA AND PUBLIC ISSUES ON THE BALLOT!!</h2> <h2>ActBlue Has taken in over $1,500,000,000 this cycle! Now over THREE BILLION since its founding.</h2> <div></div> <div> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl align-right"><img alt="blue-wave.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/522462/large/blue-wave.jpg?1521824563" title="blue-wave.jpg"></figure> HOW TO MAXIMIZE THIS RESOURCE GUIDE: <blockquote> With the help of my amazing fellow Kossacks, I have gathered links to the websites of EVERY Democratic candidate for the Senate, the House of Representatives, Governor, other state executive offices, and most state legislatures. Find your favorite candidate, and then link up with groups like SwingLeft, Act Locally, and others that I have here. Use the information about registration and residency requirements to help register DEMOCRATIC voters in that person’s state or district. If the candidate website does not contain a donations link, use the ones I have here. Use the tools I have listed here for phone banking, door-to-door campaigning, texting, postcard writing, and giving rides to the polls. Further, there are media contact numbers, links to unions, and links for groups aimed at getting out our voters. USE THE WEALTH OF INFORMATION HERE TO HELP OUT THE CANDIDATES OF YOUR CHOICE. Let’s see what we can do together! </blockquote> <h2>I NEED YOU TO HELP ME VIRALIZE THIS!! FACEBOOK, TWITTER, YOUR EMAIL LIST, ANYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF.</h2> <div> <div> <div> <figure class="image-captioned width-md align-right"><img alt="Anti-Republican.jpg" class="width-md" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/557022/large/Anti-Republican.jpg?1529780408" title="Anti-Republican.jpg"></figure> <h2></h2> <h2>First of all, OUR 2018 DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES, AND THEIR WEBSITES . </h2> <h2>************************</h2> </div> </div> </div> <h2>IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RACES FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE, LOOK <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/25/1783320/-FOCUS-Our-2018-Democratic-U-S-Senate-Candidates" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl align-right"><img alt="McConnell_Traitor.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/560771/large/McConnell_Traitor.jpg?1530488247" title="McConnell_Traitor.jpg"></figure> <h2>*************************</h2> <h2>IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RACES FOR THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, LOOK <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/25/1783581/-FOCUS-Our-2018-Democratic-House-Candidates-A-Work-in-Progress" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>*************************</h2> <h2>IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RACES FOR GOVERNOR AND OTHER STATE OFFICES, LOOK <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/27/1783819/-FOCUS-Our-Democratic-Candidates-for-Governor-and-Other-State-Offices" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>*****************************************</h2> <h2>IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RACES FOR STATE LEGISLATURES, LOOK <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/27/1784131/-FOCUS-Democratic-Candidates-for-State-Legislatures-Very-Much-a-Work-in-Progress" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> <h2>******************************************</h2> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-xl"><img alt="Priority_Targets.png" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/561615/large/Priority_Targets.png?1530653122" title="Priority_Targets.png"></figure> </div> A. U.S. House Districts Alaska At-Large: <a href="https://www.alyse4alaska.com/" target="_blank">Alyse Galvin</a> is closing fast! Arizona 2: <a href="https://www.kirkpatrickforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Ann Kirkpatrick</a> is bringing it home to the Democrats Arizona 8: <a href="https://hiralforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Dr. Hiral Tipirneni</a> can surprise people! Arkansas 2: <a href="https://www.clarketucker.com/" target="_blank">Clarke Tucker</a> is competitive! California 10:<a href="https://www.harderforcongress.com/" target="_blank"> Josh Harder</a> can bring it home! California 21:<a href="https://tjcoxforcongress.com/" target="_blank"> T. J. Cox</a> is our candidate. California 22: <a href="https://www.andrewjanzforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Andrew Janz</a> is our guy. GET TRAITOR NUNES OUT OF OFFICE! California 25: <a href="https://www.katiehillforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Katie Hill</a> can WIN this for us! California 39: <a href="https://cisnerosforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Gil Cisneros</a> is our winner! California 45: <a href="https://katieporter.com/" target="_blank">Katie Porter</a> is our winner! California 48:<a href="https://www.harleyforcongress.com/" target="_blank"> Harley Rouda</a>. THROW DANA PUTINBACKER OUT ON HIS REAR END! California 49: <a href="https://mikelevin.org/" target="_blank">Mike Levin</a> can do the job! California 50: Duncan Hunter was just INDICTED!! Let’s throw him OUT with <a href="https://www.campacampaign.com/" target="_blank">Ammar Campa Najjar</a> ! Colorado 6: <a href="https://jasoncrowforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Jason Crow</a> has tied it up! Florida 11: Right-wing Trumper Dan Webster can be booted out. <a href="https://danacottrellforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Dana Cottrell </a>can grab this seat for us! Florida 15: <a href="https://www.kristencarlsonforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Kristen Carlson</a> is now running even with her GOP opponent. She can bring it home! Florida 27: In this open seat, <a href="https://donnashalala.com/" target="_blank">Donna Shalala</a> can grab it for us! Georgia 6: <a href="https://lucyforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Lucy McBath</a> can grab this district for us! Georgia 7: <a href="https://www.carolyn4congress.com/" target="_blank">Carolyn Bourdeaux</a> is giving us a solid chance! Illinois 6: R Peter Roskam can be unseated. Our candidate is <a href="https://castenforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Sean Casten</a>. Illinois 12: Mike Bost is a PRIME target. More Democrats voted in the primary in his district than Republicans. Our candidate is <a href="https://brendan4southernil.com/" target="_blank">Brendan Kelly</a>. Illinois 13: We have a chance to get rid of Rodney Davis. Our candidate is <a href="https://www.betsydirksenlondrigan.com/" target="_blank">Betsy Dirksen Londrigan</a>. Illinois 14: Randy Hultgren can be kicked out. Our candidate is <a href="https://www.underwoodforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Lauren Underwood</a>. Illinois 16: Energized Democrat <a href="https://www.saradadyforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Sara Dady</a> is out to retire Adam Kinzinger. Indiana 9: <a href="https://lizforindiana.com/" target="_blank">Liz Watson</a> is on the move! Iowa 1: <a href="https://www.abbyfinkenauer.com/" target="_blank">Abby Finkenauer</a> is on the road to VICTORY. Iowa 3: <a href="https://cindyaxneforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Cindy Axne</a> is in excellent position to win! Iowa 4: <a href="https://www.scholten4iowa.com/" target="_blank">J. D. Scholten</a> has a shot to rid the nation of vicious, racist scumbag Steve King! Kansas 2: Our candidate, <a href="https://www.davisforkansas.com/" target="_blank">Paul Davis</a>, can grab this one! Kansas 3: <a href="https://www.shariceforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Sharice Davids</a>! YES! Kansas 4: <a href="https://www.votejamesthompson.com/" target="_blank">James Thompson</a> is locked in a tight re-match here! Kentucky 6: Our OUTSTANDING candidate <a href="https://amymcgrathforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Amy McGrath </a>has Republican incumbent Andy Barr on the run! Maine 2: <a href="https://jaredgoldenforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Jared Golden</a> can bring it home! Michigan 1: After a stirring write-in campaign, <a href="https://mattmorganformichigan.com/" target="_blank">Matt Morgan</a> has what it takes! Michigan 6: <a href="https://www.mattlongjohnforcongress.com/splash/" target="_blank">Dr. Matt Longjohn</a> is targeting Fred Upton in a high energy year for Democrats. Michigan 8: <a href="https://elissaforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Elissa Slotkin</a> is going after a beatable Mike Bishop. Michigan 11: Proud Democrat <a href="https://haleystevensforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Haley Stevens</a> is out to defeat Trump clone Lena Epstein in this very winnable district. Minnesota 2: <a href="https://www.angiecraig.com/meet-angie/" target="_blank">Angie Craig</a> can bring it home! Minnesota 3: <a href="https://www.phillipsforcongress.org/" target="_blank">Dean Phillips</a> is in a great position in this race! Missouri 2: <a href="https://cortforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Cort VanOstran</a> can win this one! Nebraska 2: <a href="http://eastmanforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Kara Eastman</a> is in a razor-thin contest! Nebraska 3: <a href="https://www.theobaldforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Paul Theobald</a> can grab this district! New Jersey 2: <a href="https://www.vandrewforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Jeff Van Drew</a> is looking like a winner! New Jersey 3: <a href="https://andykimforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Andy Kim</a> is on the move! New Jersey 7: Republican Leonard Lance is VERY vulnerable. Our candidate is <a href="https://malinowskifornj.com/" target="_blank">Tom Malinowski</a> New Jersey 11: Open seat. Our candidate is <a href="https://www.mikiesherrill.com/main/" target="_blank">Mikie Sherrill</a> New Mexico 2: <a href="https://www.xochforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Xochitl Torres Small</a> is on the move in this open Republican seat. New York 1: Trump toad Lee Zeldin can be booted out by our fine Democratic candidate <a href="https://www.perrygershon.com/" target="_blank">Perry Gershon</a>. New York 11: R Dan Donovan can be beat. Our candidate is Iraq/Afghanistan vet <a href="https://www.maxroseforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Max Rose</a> New York 19: R John Faso is ripe for defeat. We’re going after him with <a href="https://www.delgadoforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Antonio Delgado</a> New York 21: Our candidate is <a href="https://www.tedracobb.com/meet-tedra/" target="_blank">Tedra Cobb</a>, who has a chance to toss out useless Republican Elise Stefanik. New York 22: This swing district can swing back to us with <a href="https://brindisiforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Anthony Brindisi</a>, who is up against beatable R one-term incumbent Claudia Tenney. New York 24: Our candidate is <a href="https://electdanabalter.com/" target="_blank">Dana Balter</a>, who has just pulled AHEAD of Trump-enabling John Katko. New York 27: <a href="https://www.votemcmurray.com/" target="_blank">Nate McMurray</a> now has a golden opportunity! North Carolina 9: <a href="https://www.danmccready.com/" target="_blank">Dan McCready </a>can WIN this one! North Carolina 13: We have a chance to knock off Ted Budd with <a href="https://kathymanning2018.com/" target="_blank">Kathy Manning</a>(Thanks eeff!) Ohio 1: <a href="https://aftabforohio.com/" target="_blank">Aftab Pureval </a>has made this a toss-up district. <figure class="image-captioned width-xl align-right"><img alt="sane_again.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/562418/large/sane_again.jpg?1530867023" title="sane_again.jpg"></figure> Ohio 12: <a href="https://dannyoconnorforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Danny O'Connor</a>, of course! Pennsylvania 1: <a href="https://www.scottwallacepa.com/" target="_blank">Scott Wallace</a> has his opposition on the run! South Carolina 1: <a href="https://www.joecunninghamforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Joe Cunningham</a> is running a competitive race here! Texas 2: <a href="https://toddlitton.com/" target="_blank">Todd Litton</a> is running strong! Texas 6: Joe “Sex Pics” Barton not running. Democrat <a href="https://sanchezforcongress2018.com/" target="_blank">Jana Lynn Sanchez </a>is our candidate. Texas 7: Lizzie Panell Fletcher <a href="https://www.lizziefletcher.com/">https://www.lizziefletcher.com/</a> Texas 23: Gina Ortiz Jones <a href="https://ginaortizjones.com/">https://ginaortizjones.com/</a> Texas 24: Kenny Marchant being challenged by Democrat <a href="https://www.janmcdowell.com/" target="_blank">Jan McDowell</a>. Texas 31: Air Force veteran <a href="https://www.mjfortexas.com/" target="_blank">MJ Hegar</a>is running strong!! Texas 32: Colin Allred <a href="https://www.colinallred.com/">https://www.colinallred.com/</a> Virginia 1: Republican Rod Wittman being challenged by Democrat <a href="https://vangieforcongress.com/meet-vangie/" target="_blank">Vangie Williams</a>. Virginia 2: Republican Scott Taylor being challenged by Democrat <a href="https://elaineforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Elaine Luria</a> Virginia 5: Republican incumbent withdrew. R Denver Riggleman being challenged by <a href="https://www.lesliecockburnforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Leslie Cockburn</a> Virginia 6: No incumbent in this district. Our candidate is <a href="https://jenniferlewisforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Jennifer Lewis</a>. Virginia 7: Loathsome right-wing fanatic David Brat is getting a STRONG challenge from <a href="https://abigailspanberger.com/" target="_blank">Abigail Spanberger</a>. We can throw Brat OUT, folks, we really can. Virginia 10: R Barbara Comstock is in trouble. Let’s throw her out and vote in <a href="https://jenniferwexton.com/" target="_blank">Jennifer Wexton</a> Washington 3: We have a chance to toss out Jaime Herrera Beutler. Our candidate is <a href="https://www.electlong.com/" target="_blank">Carolyn Long</a> Washington 5: The awful Cathy McMorris Rodgers is the #4 Republican in the House. It would be SWEET to get rid of her. Our candidate to do just that is <a href="https://lisabrownforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Lisa Brown</a> Washington 8: Seat is being vacated. Our candidate is <a href="https://www.drkimschrier.com/" target="_blank">Kim Schrier</a>, who has an excellent chance. West Virginia 3: <a href="https://voteojeda.com/" target="_blank">Richard Ojeda</a> has us in the ballgame! Wisconsin 1: <a href="https://www.randybryceforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Randy Bryce</a> can bring it home. Let’s turn Paul Ryan’s district BLUE! Wisconsin 6: <a href="http://www.kohlforcongress.com/" target="_blank">Dan Kohl</a> will bring it home!! Wisconsin 7: <a href="https://www.vetfordemocracy.com/" target="_blank">Margaret Engebretson </a>can WIN here! Also check out: TX-22, NE-1, MT-AL , MN-8, KY-4, OK-5, UT-4 , OH-14, OH-15, AZ-2, FL-16, FL-26, PA-5, PA-6, and PA-7. B. U.S. Senate Seats ARIZONA: Kyrsten Sinema’s site is <a href="https://kyrstensinema.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>. Likely Republican candidate Martha McSally votes with Trump 97% of the time. NEVADA: Jacky Rosen’s site, <a href="https://www.rosenfornevada.com/" target="_blank">HERE.</a> Dean Heller is vulnerable. Let’s get rid of him. TENNESSEE: Phil Bredesen’s site, <a href="https://www.bredesen.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>. Marsha Blackburn is a borderline lunatic and a right-wing fanatic who worships Trump. She needs to LOSE. TEXAS: Beto O’Rourke’s site, <a href="https://betofortexas.com/" target="_blank">HERE.</a> (Be honest: is there ANY other Republican running this year whose defeat you’d enjoy more than the vile, execrable, pathological liar Ted Cruz’s?) <figure class="image-captioned width-xl align-right"><img alt="gop-kicked-1-1502093.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/575358/large/gop-kicked-1-1502093.jpg?1533765453" title="gop-kicked-1-1502093.jpg"></figure> C. Governor’s Races ARIZONA: David Garcia can unseat Trump drone Doug Ducey. His site is <a href="https://dg4az.com/meet-david/" target="_blank">HERE.</a> FLORIDA: Andrew Gillum has a real shot! His website is <a href="https://splash.andrewgillum.com/?ref=https://andrewgillum.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>. GEORGIA: Stacey Abrams’ site is <a href="https://staceyabrams.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>. Abrams has a real shot in this open seat! ILLINOIS: The Democratic team is in it to win it! Governor/Lieutenant Governor: <a href="https://www.jbpritzker.com/" target="_blank">JB Pritzker/Juliana Stratton</a> IOWA: Fred Hubbell’s site is <a href="https://fredhubbell.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>. He is within striking distance! KANSAS: The site for Laura Kelly(Governor) and Lynn Rogers (Lt. Gov.) is <a href="https://www.laurakellyforkansas.com/" target="_blank">HERE.</a> I say GO FOR IT. Krazy Kris Kobach is the GOP nominee. MAINE: Janet Mills is gonna GRAB IT if we work for it! Her site is <a href="https://www.janetmills.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a> MICHIGAN: This Republican governorship is RIPE to fall into our hands! Gretchen Whitmer is gonna turn it blue! Her site is <a href="https://www.gretchenwhitmer.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a> NEVADA: Steve Sisolak can win this open seat! His site is <a href="https://stevesisolak.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a> OHIO: It’s time to win this one back! Richard Cordray’s site is <a href="https://cordrayforohio.com/" target="_blank">HERE.</a> TENNESSEE: Grabbing this one would be sweet. Karl Dean’s site is <a href="https://www.karldean.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a> WISCONSIN: Two words: Scott Walker. ‘Nuff said. An ALL-OUT push for our Democratic nominee, Tony Evers, will get rid of this despicable Koch toad once and for all. Yes, we can make MONSTER gains in governorships this year! D. State Legislative Races Texas House District 115: R Matt Rinaldi is getting a strong challenge from <a href="https://www.juliejohnsonfortexas.com/" target="_blank">Julie Johnson</a> North Carolina: These candidates <a href="http://ourshotnc.com/candidates-that-we-support/" target="_blank">here</a> can break the Republican stranglehold on the NC state legislature. Each one of them has an EXCELLENT shot! <figure class="image-captioned width-xl align-right"><img alt="Angry_Donkey.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/560436/large/Angry_Donkey.jpg?1530431588" title="Angry_Donkey.jpg"></figure> **************************************** <h2>Secondly, the ways we can help the candidates listed above. THESE ARE THE TOOLS FOR VICTORY.</h2> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ <h2>For information about registering to vote, fighting vote suppression, and GOTV, look <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/14/1780553/-FOCUS-Voter-Registration-Fighting-Vote-Suppression-GOTV" target="_blank">HERE</a>. [NOTE: 13 States allow registration on Election Day; ND doesn’t require it (just ID).]</h2> !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <figure class="image-captioned width-xl align-right"><img alt="When_you_skip_voting_its_surrender.jpg" class="width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/548687/large/When_you_skip_voting_its_surrender.jpg?1527885895" title="When_you_skip_voting_its_surrender.jpg"></figure> <h2>For information on voting and all the ways it can be done, look <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/15/1780743/-FOCUS-Voting-Early-Voting-Voting-by-Mail-Absentee-Voting" target="_blank">HERE.</a></h2> ################################## <h2>For ways to donate to Democratic candidates, ways to contact voters, and how to get in on the all-important last weekend push, look <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/22/1782578/-FOCUS-Donating-and-Raising-Money-Contacting-Voters-Getting-in-On-the-Last-Weekend-Push" target="_blank">HERE.</a> NOTE: The window for sending letters or postcards to voters is closing quickly.</h2> $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ <h2>For rallying Democratic voting groups and working with unions, look <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/22/1782761/-FOCUS-Rallying-Democratic-Voting-Groups-Working-with-Unions" target="_blank">HERE.</a></h2> &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& <h2>For ways to take action at the precinct, local, county and state level, look <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/16/1780990/-FOCUS-Taking-Action-at-the-Precinct-Local-County-and-State-Level" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</h2> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ <h2>For All Kinds of organizing tools, look <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/19/1782106/-FOCUS-Organizing-for-Election-Year-Action" target="_blank">HERE.</a></h2> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ <h2>For Progressive websites, and Media Contact Information, look <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/24/1783033/-FOCUS-Special-Elections-Progressive-Websites-and-Media-Contacts" target="_blank">HERE.</a></h2> ======================================= <div> <div> <h2>REMEMBER...WE HAVE NOT YET WON THIS THING. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO VICTORY. NONE. MORAL VICTORIES MEAN NOTHING. WE MUST GOVERN. OUR COUNTRY IS AT STAKE. WE MUST VOTE. WE MUST WIN. PERIOD. AND HERE’S WHAT WE NEED TO DO</h2> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div style="text-align:right"></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div style="text-align:right"></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div style="text-align:right"></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Yosef 52) BlueWave EarlyVoting GOTV _1808687 Wed, 31 Oct 2018 17:00:05 +0000 What are you reading? October 31, 2018 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/31/1808642/-What-are-you-reading-October-31-2018 <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…and my imagination has been captured by one book on my list. Permanent reading list: <div> The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne- II.12- An apology for Raymond Sebond. The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- The Hound of the Baskervilles. <div> <div> I am reading: On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by DeRay McKesson- Almost done and about ready to review. Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward Labyrinths of Iron by Benson Bobrick- Cannot write about the subject of subway systems without writing about the necessary technology to build tunnels and the mythological/religious/psychological meanings of The Underground and the The Underworld...so the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth#Herodotus'_Egyptian_labyrinth" target="_blank">Egyptian Labyrinth</a> is discussed along with a couple of Roman tunnels commissioned by Octavian/Augustus. I have begun to read about the engineer behind the building of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tunnel" target="_blank">Thames Tunnel </a>(which would eventually become a part of the London Underground System) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Isambard_Brunel" target="_blank" title="">Marc Isambard Brunel</a>, who escaped from France to America during the French Revolution. <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content">x</div> <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content"><a class="new_iframe_placeholder" href="#">x</a></div> <a class="iframe_placeholder youtube dk-embed" href="//youtube.com/watch?v=o2gBm875gW0" data-frameborder="0" data-height="281" data-src="//www.youtube.com/embed/o2gBm875gW0" data-width="500">YouTube Video</a></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div>Not too techie, not too...literary and strikes a perfect balance of what I was seeking from such a book even if it is outdated a bit. The most nonsurprising thing...pretty much everywhere that subway systems were constructed, there was a lot of public resistance to building them.</div> <div></div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Chitown Kev) Books ReadersandBookLovers Reading WAYR _1808642 Wed, 31 Oct 2018 11:30:03 +0000 Contemporary Fiction Views: Searching for the song https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/30/1807908/-Contemporary-Fiction-Views-Searching-for-the-song Stories of resilience, of compassion, of redemption are among the stories that most resonate with me. That is especially true if the stories don't come with huge signboards saying in 60-point bold type: "I am all about resilience!" "No, read me; I am all about compassion!" "I am your feel-good redemption pick!" So, a novel featuring a teenage boy and his baby sister being raised by his grandparents, his drug-addicted mother who is as addicted to her jailed boyfriend as she is to the drugs, a dying grandparent, and ghosts, may not seem to be one of those stories. But Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, which won the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction, is. <figure class="image-captioned width-sm align-right"><img alt="sing_unburied_sing.jpg" class="width-sm" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/604819/large/sing_unburied_sing.jpg?1540749135" title="sing_unburied_sing.jpg"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> JoJo is a boy on the cusp of manhood, with a heart big enough to take on responsibilities a child should not have to shoulder, is his little sister's rock. He does not condemn Leonie, his drug-addled and lovesick mother, but does see her clearly. He idolizes his Pop, a quiet, hard-working man taking care of his family's homestead and his wife, who is dying of cancer. JoJo and his family are African-American in a hardscrabble part of Mississippi. Where they live and how they work hard to life off the land form an essential part of each of them: <blockquote> Growing up out here in the country taught me things. Taught me that after the first fat flush of life, time eats away at things: it rusts machinery, it matures animals to become hairless and featherless, and it withers plants. </blockquote> His father, Michael, is white. He's also just about to be released from Parchman after serving three years for drug charges. So Leonie, who isn't there for her children or her mother, decides to take her kids on a road trip to fetch him. The road trip includes a stop at the home of Michael's racist father, who has never acknowledged his grandchildren. The road trip, the lead-up to it and what happens afterward are, unsurprisingly, an analogy of the journey many of the characters are taking on their way through life. Ward allows the reader to see that journey from that eyes of several characters, allowing the opportunity to better understand what makes them tick as human beings and how their heartaches and hopes may not be that different from our own. Leonie has an additional burden. The ghost of Given, her slain brother, a kind young man, haunts her and activates her feelings of guilt. When the family reaches Parchman, JoJo sees a spirit -- a boy who was serving time with his grandfather, and who died there. The spirit, Richie, sees JoJo as his chance to get away, so he tags along for the ride home. This first two times I read the novel, what struck me most were the genuine heartache of Leonie, the strength of her father, the innocence of her murdered brother and the potential in JoJo to be an enduring, solid soul because of his powerful discernment. The soaring ending struck me as beautiful but as an addendum to the story of JoJo's family. This time, I realized that ending is what ties JoJo's family to the earth and to the harsh and stirring music of the universe. And Richie is the character who brings this all together. All of these characters know something important about the world, whether they see the spirits around them or not. They know that: <blockquote> Sometimes the world don't give you what you need, no matter how hard you look. Sometimes it withholds. </blockquote> And while they know there is withholding, they also know there is home. This is the home Richie seeks, on whatever plane of existence he finds himself. <blockquote> Home is about the earth. Whether the earth open up to you. Whether it pull you so close the space between you and it melt and y'all one and it beats like your heart. </blockquote> And beyond home, or on the journey to getting home, there is the idea of where the novel's title comes from — the song, perhaps the music of the spheres itself which Richie seeks: <blockquote> "I thought once I knew, I could. Cross the waters. Be home. Maybe there, I could" -- the word sounds like a ripped rag -- "Become something else. Maybe, I could. Become. The song. ... I hear it. Sometimes. When the sun. Sets. Where the sun. Rises. The song. In snatches. The stars. A record. The sky. A great record. The lives. Of the living. Of those beyond. See it in flashes. The sound. Beyond the waters." </blockquote> And whether a spirit or a person still trying to make sense of life, Richie make a significant statement about human beings: <blockquote> "There's so many," Richie says. ... "So many of us," he says. "Hitting. The wrong keys. Wandering against. The song." </blockquote> Finding the song, finding the ties that bind us together, finding what unites us in our common struggle while on our common journey, what a beautiful, hopeful idea this remarkable novel presents us. May we one day find that song. Note: I won't post a diary next week as election results come in. Hoping to be hopeful next Tuesday. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule</caption> <thead> <tr> <th>day</th> <th> time est/edt </th> <th>series</th> <th>editor(s)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>sunday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td>gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (last Sun of the month) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>monday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>wednesday</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(FIRST THURS OF month)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Friday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Saturday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> rss@dailykos.com (bookgirl) AmericanSouthLiterature ContemporaryFictionViews Fiction Literature ReadersandBookLovers Rescued _1807908 Wed, 31 Oct 2018 00:00:33 +0000 The Language of the Night: Heading Into Another Part of the Forest https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/29/1808203/-The-Language-of-the-Night-Heading-Into-Another-Part-of-the-Forest I’ve had a packed couple of weeks (some extremely interesting critical reading, and edits are coming along nicely, thanks!), so instead of hashing out a half-baked diary tonight I think it’s better to signpost what I have in mind for the next couple of weeks, the idea being that, if you want to read ahead and be abreast of the conversation, here’s your chance. Fairy tales are on the menu. No, not Disneyfications, not the beloved Andrew Lang volumes, not even the unexpurgated Grimm’s. I’m talking modern fairy tales. If that sounds like a misnomer, it’s not. Most of us have read Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves,” I would expect*. If you missed it, this is your chance. Fact is, fairy tales are thriving in the current marketplace of ideas. After decades of being consigned to the nursery, like the old furniture in Tolkien’s “On Fairy Stories,” there is currently a re-evaluation of fairy tales, a reappraisal of their power, a new appreciation of their potential. In his collection <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062262264" target="_blank" title="">The View from the Cheap Seats</a>, Neil Gaiman wrote about attending a conference about fairy tales and being disturbed by the condescension of academics related to their subjects. <blockquote> My difficulty was not with what was being said, but with the attitude that went along with it — an attitude that implied that these tales no longer had anything to do with us. That they were dead cold things, which would submit without resistance to dissections, that could be held up to the light and inspected from every angle, and would give up their secrets without resistance (1, p. 60) </blockquote> Tasked with delivering a keynote, Gaiman decided to switch things up a bit. He read an audience of scholars one of his own short stories, “Snow, Glass, Apples,” a hard-to-find stand-alone short story published in 1994 to benefit the <a href="http://cbldf.org/" target="_blank" title="">Comic Book Legal Defense Fund</a> that is fortunately also anthologized in the easier-to-find <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780785812111" target="_blank" title="">Love in Vein II</a>. <blockquote> It is one of the strongest pieces of fiction I’ve written. If you read it on your own, it can be disturbing. To have it read to you by an author on a podium, first thing in the morning, during a conference on fairy tales, must on reflection have been, for the listeners, a rather extreme experience, like taking a gulp of something they thought was coffee, and finding that someone had laced it with wasabi, or with blood. At the end of a story that was, after all, just “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” an audience of several dozen people looked pale and troubled, like people coming off a roller coaster or like sailors recently returned to land. “As I said, these stories have power,” I told them as I finished. (1, pp. 61-62) </blockquote> With that in mind, and respectful of the power that fairy tales hold, next week I want to look at Naomi Novik’s newest novel <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780399180989" target="_blank" title="">Spinning Silver</a>. After that I want to spend a few weeks with Kate Bernheimer’s anthology of short stories <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143117841" target="_blank" title="">My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me</a>, all contemporary reinventions of fairy tales. You should be able to read Novik in one deep gulp — it’s a spectacular novel. The stories in Bernheimer are somewhat uneven; some of them are powerful and resonant and disturbing, while others settle for just being disturbing. This is the outline for the next few weeks: postmodern fairy tales. It’ll be fun — really. Promise. rss@dailykos.com (DrLori) FairyTales Fantasy R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers TheLanguageoftheNight _1808203 Tue, 30 Oct 2018 00:00:32 +0000 LGBTQ Literature: Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Vita Sackville-West, and Non-Binary Experience https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/28/1795104/-LGBTQ-Literature-Virginia-Woolf-s-Orlando-Vita-Sackville-West-and-Non-Binary-Experience <blockquote> EDITOR’S NOTE: You might notice that our series name and description are slightly different. From this point forward, this series will be called LGBTQ Literature. Same series, different name. This is a change I’ve been considering for a while now, and it seems right, as the “Q” will be more inclusive of people and experiences that do not necessarily fit neatly under the L, the G, the B, or the T. Just wanted to make a note to let our readers know! We will continue to publish our diaries under the “LGBTLiterature” tag (in addition to the “LGBTQLiterature” tag) in order to allow easier access to all of our diaries. - Chrislove </blockquote> <blockquote> LGBTQ Literature is a <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Readers%20and%20Book%20Lovers">Readers and Book Lovers</a> series dedicated to discussing literature that has made an impact on the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. From fiction to contemporary nonfiction to history and everything in between, any literature that touches on LGBTQ themes is welcome in this series. LGBTQ Literature posts on the last Sunday of every month at 7:30 PM EST. If you are interested in writing for the series, <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/newthread/Chrislove">please send a kosmail</a> to Chrislove. </blockquote> <h2>“He –- for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it -– was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.” –-Virginia Woolf, Orlando, opening sentence.</h2> Imagine a 15-year-old American girl of upper-middle suburbia — lying stretched on the carpet of a faux-Colonial room — curious what might be under the ambiguous front cover, cloth of a blue nearly black, title unreadable. <figure class="image-captioned align-right"><img alt="George_Charles_Beresford_-_Virginia_Woolf_in_1902_-_Restoration.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/604045/large/George_Charles_Beresford_-_Virginia_Woolf_in_1902_-_Restoration.jpg?1540584207" title="George_Charles_Beresford_-_Virginia_Woolf_in_1902_-_Restoration.jpg"> <figcaption>Virginia Stephen (Woolf) about age 20, by George Charles Beresford, 1902 (Wikipedia)</figcaption> </figure> She scans the first sentence, is hooked, immerses. In reverie, she is now Orlando, 16-year-old Elizabethan nobleman and would-be poet, who in turn is dreaming, as he practices his swordplay, that he is one of his own warrior ancestors. The story unfolds. On that first day, young Orlando turns from swordsmanship to poetry, takes a walk to his favorite hilltop, and charms Queen Elizabeth at a ceremonial dinner. Soon he is summoned to court, becomes her favorite, dallies with ladies of varied rank, and detours into the seamier purlieus of London. After some time he becomes engaged to a noblewoman — only to fall passionately in love with a mysterious foreign visitor. He first sees the stranger during a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs" target="_blank">Frost Fair</a> on the iced-over Thames (apparently based on a real event during the exteme winter of 1608): <blockquote> “...[A] figure, which, whether boy’s or woman’s, for the loose tunic and trousers of the Russian fashion served to disguise the sex, filled [Orlando] with the highest curiosity. The person, whatever the name or sex, was about middle height, very slenderly fashioned, and dressed entirely in oyster-coloured velvet...But these details were obscured by the extraordinary seductiveness which issued from the whole person. Images, metaphors of the most extreme and extravagant twined and twisted in his mind...When the boy, for alas...no woman could skate with such speed and vigour –- swept almost on tiptoe past him, Orlando was ready to tear his hair...but no boy ever had a mouth like that; no boy had those breasts; no boy had those eyes which looked as if they had been fished from the bottom of the sea.” </blockquote> The illicit affair, torrid as the winter is cold, ends in tears, with Orlando exiled to the country. He isolates himself in his family’s huge, ancient country house (his father must have passed away, like Queen Elizabeth, without notice by the writer). Eventually Orlando invites one guest, professional writer Nick Greene. The visit brings both pleasure and disillusionment. He turns to refurbishing the house and finally fills it with guests, restoring his position in society. At this point, however, Orlando is uncomfortably pursued – indeed, stalked – by a lanky, horsefaced Archduchess from Romania. To evade her, he decamps to Constantinople in the role of British Ambassador. There follows an imperialist and Orientalist phase of the novel, which ends when Orlando is elevated to a Dukedom, only to fall unconscious during a riot that breaks out at his official residence. Orlando is left all alone afterwards, the rioters having taken him for dead. Our suburban teen, still riveted, reaches pages 136-37, where she reads — WHAT? <blockquote> Would that we might spare the reader what is to come....But here, alas, Truth, Candour and Honesty...cry No!...[T]hey peal forth, The Truth and nothing but the Truth!...at which Orlando woke. He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! We have no choice but to confess–- <h2>“[Orlando] was a woman.” </h2> </blockquote> WHAT? Our teenaged reader lacks background equal to the interpretation. There is so much she has failed to understand, even to observe: the extravagances, the conscious historical mix-ups and anachronisms, literary echoes, artful shifts and evasions and omissions, even the unreasonable length of Orlando’s life. She has failed to “get" much of the humor, which is everywhere. Nevertheless she pursues the strange story to the end, enjoying the surprises, the imagery, the swing and music of the prose, the insouciance of the author’s voice, and the erotic energy. She barely notices the small-print dedication: “To V. Sackville-West.” …….. <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-sm"><img alt="SackvilleWest1924.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/604043/large/SackvilleWest1924.jpg?1540583953" title="SackvilleWest1924.jpg"> <figcaption>Vita Sackville-West, 1924</figcaption> </figure> </div> Decades later. The grown woman picks up a small volume with a torn jacket, titled Portrait of a Marriage. It falls open in the middle. Her gaze happens to light on a quotation on page 115. <blockquote> I advance, therefore, the perfectly accepted theory that <h2>cases of dual personality do exist, in which the feminine and the masculine elements alternately preponderate. </h2> I advance this in an impersonal and scientific spirit, and claim that I am qualified to speak with the intimacy a professional scientist could only acquire after years of study and indirect information, because I have the object of study always to hand, in my own heart, and can gauge the exact truthfulness of what my own experience tells me. However frank, people would always keep back something. I can’t keep back anything from myself. –Vita Sackville-West, private diary, Sept. 27, 1920, quoted in Nicholson, p. 115. (Emphasis added.) </blockquote> Oh, the reader thinks. Another person. Someone who evidently traveled a similar path to mine, all alone as I did, to a similar self-knowledge, almost a century ago, expressing it much as I would have to do — with no “objective” evidence possible, no authority but that of thorough, conscientious introspection, over a period of many years. <blockquote> <h3>”I am qualified to speak...because I have the object of study...in my own heart….I can’t keep back anything from myself.” </h3> </blockquote> Exactly, she thinks. Exactly. (“Perfectly accepted theory,” were those words really written in 1920? Too optimistic, even yet.) ….. <h2>Vita</h2> <figure class="image-captioned align-right"><img alt="Knole_-_Green_Court_from_English_Homes_by_H_Avray_Tipping_%28died_1933%29_edited.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/604548/large/Knole_-_Green_Court_from_English_Homes_by_H_Avray_Tipping_%28died_1933%29_edited.jpg?1540672781" title="Knole_-_Green_Court_from_English_Homes_by_H_Avray_Tipping_%28died_1933%29_edited.jpg"> <figcaption>Knole, the childhood home of Vita Sackville-West, which, as a woman, she was barred from inheriting. </figcaption> </figure> Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) was the offspring of an ancient, eccentric and aristocratic line, and in her own right a public figure, a copious author of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her family had an estate in the county of Kent, called Knole, granted to her ancestor Thomas Sackville by no less than Queen Elizabeth I herself. Vita adored Knole but — any other legal impediments aside — could never have inherited it simply because (to be blunt) she lacked a penis. Her family had never been known for a bourgeois sense of morality. Vita herself, before her marriage, logged a couple of affairs with individuals of both genders. In 1913 she married — after a time of somber doubts — a young diplomat, Harold Nicholson. She soon accompanied him to his posting as Ambassador in Constantinople. By 1917, the couple had two sons. Things did not proceed on a conventional course, however. The spouses spent much time apart and maintained an open marriage. He had numerous affairs with men, she with both men and women. Their partnership nevertheless was successful, loving and lifelong. Vita also became explicitly conscious, she wrote in a private diary of a double aspect to her inner self, male and female. This happened in the spring of 1918 at the couple’s country house, Long Barn. <blockquote> Violet [Keppel, a former schoolmate] wrote and asked whether she could come and stay with me...I was bored by the idea...She had been here about a week when everything changed suddenly...changed my life. It was the 18th of April….I had just got clothes like the women-on-the-land [temporary wartime farm workers] were wearing, and in the unaccustomed freedom of breeches and gaiters I went into wild spirits; I ran, I shouted, I jumped, I climbed, I vaulted over gates, I felt like a schoolboy let out on holiday; and Violet followed me across woods and fields….It was one of the most vibrant days of my life. As it happened, Harold was not coming down that night...we talked… <h2>Violet had struck the secret of my duality; she attacked me about it, and I made no attempt to conceal it from her or from myself…. </h2> --Vita Sackville-West, quoted in Nicholson, pp. 111-12 </blockquote> The two women soon became lovers. Within the context of the affair, Vita sometimes presented herself as a man; she called herself Julian. Drama naturally followed. In the course of it Violet got married. Afterwards, however, Violet and Vita left their husbands and decamped to France together. They were retrieved by a joint expedition of the two men, flying a small plane — possibly in part at the instigation of Vita’s family, who may have felt that quiet deviations from propriety were normal, but public scandal could not be tolerated. Vita later composed a novel based on the affair. “When the novel was already in proof, Vita’s mother objected forcefully to the publication (shame on family, children, etc.) so when the book finally broke into print, it sank without a trace,” states Mary Ann Caws in her edition of Vita’s work. (The literary quality of this particular novel, however, might have had a little something to do with that as well.) Her better-know works as of today include a history of Knole, works on gardening, and a novel, All Passion Spent, about a diplomat’s widow, which to my mind conveys a humanism not unlike that in the novels of her contemporary, E.M. Forster. <blockquote> <h3>I believe that [one day] the psychology of people like myself will be of interest, and I believe it will be recognized that many more people of my type exist than under the present-day system of hypocrisy is commonly admitted.</h3> --Vita Sackville-West, private diary, quoted in Nicholson, p. 114 </blockquote> Today, at last, there is growing recognition that many people, of Sackville-West’s precise type or otherwise, cannot be forced into binary gender boxes — nor feel entirely at ease in stereotyped relationships. <h2>Virginia</h2> Adeline Virginia (Stephen) Woolf (1882-1941) was a daughter of a distinguished man of letters, Sir Leslie Stephen. Her early life had certain dramatic aspects, For instance she grew up in the shadow of a nearly literal “madwoman in the attic,” an older half-sister with an unspecified mental disability, who was kept isolated. As a very young girl, Virginia was sexually molested by a much older male cousin, to the lasting detriment of her emotional health. She became a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group, the informal London society of artists and intellectuals that brought together an extraordinary set of personalities, many known for their sexual non-conformity. Among these personalities, to cite just one example, was the painter Dora Carrington, who all her life maintained a close, devoted, but non-sexual relationship with the gay male writer Lytton Strachey, Virginia also was part of the scandalous Dreadnought Hoax of 1910, in which half a dozen Blooomsburyites impersonated members of the Abyssinian royal family, to the discomfiture of the Royal Navy, with Virginia herself in male drag, She married Leonard Woolf in 1912. Besides pursuing their own literary careers, the two founded and ran a small but prestigious publishing company, the Hogarth Press. They decided to have no children. Virginia was emotionally fragile; she suffered episodes of severe depression, the illness that eventually claimed her life. Alongside her writing, however, she maintained an impressive array of friendships and literary connections. Virginia met Vita Sackville-West in 1922. The two had a brief affair; still more importantly, they developed a close and enduring friendship that nurtured the creativity of both. This was the origin of Orlando, published in 1928. It was Woolf’s first truly light-hearted work and as such, a divergence from a heretofore serious literary career, “This Orlando — we did not care for the sound of it,” wrote the novelist Elizabeth Bowen. “The book was, we gathered, in the nature of a prank, or a private joke; worse still, its genesis was personal.” (Quoted in Harris, p 99) Once again Vita (with Virginia’s help this time) apparently had broken a cardinal rule: “Just don’t do it in the street and scare the horses.” <h2>Orlando</h2> In relation to Sackville-West, Orlando is indeed thick with personal references. The protagonist’s ancestral home references Knole; his affair with the Russian princess seems to comment on the turbulent affair with Violet; the episode in Constantinople, her stint as a diplomatic wife. After her transformation, Orlando travels for a time with a band of gypsies, chiming with Sackville-West’s claim of some gypsy ancestry. At the same time Orlando is a tale engaging in itself, playful, acerbic, rich with insight, humor and wit. One thread of the plot follows Orlando’s development as a poet and, by extension, forms an allegorical history of English poetry. The gypsy phase, to name just one instance, surely reflects Matthew Arnold’s poetic figure of the scholar-gypsy, As well, I see Orlando as a daring thought-experiment or extended meditation on sex, gender, sexual preference, societal roles, and the unpredictable relations among these, as construed by an audacious mind — a hundred years before more than a handful of readers would be willing to roam as boldly over these subjects. Shortly after her transformation: <blockquote> And as all Orlando’s loves had been women, now, through the culpable laggardly of the human frame to adapt itself to convention, though she herself was a woman, it was still a woman she loved; and if the consciousness of being of the same sex had any effect at all, it was to quicken and deepen those feelings she had had as a man. — Orlando, p. 161 </blockquote> . <h3>“....but in every other respect Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The change of sex, although it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity. Their faces remained, as their portraits prove, practically the same. His memory – but for in future we must, for convention’s sake, say ‘her’ for ‘his’ and ‘she’ for ‘he’– her memory then, went back through all the events of her past life without encountering any obstacle....Orlando herself showed no surprise at it.”</h3> . Eventually tiring of gypsy life, Orlando returns by ship to England, and meditates on the experience of being female, from the point of view of a (recently male) newcomer. The return home, however, humorous as it is, somewhat prefigures difficulties of more modern trans individuals: <blockquote> No sooner had she returned to her home in Blackfriars than she was made aware if a succession of Bow Street runners and other grave emissaries from the Law Courts that she was a party to three major suits, as well as innumerable minor litigations….The chief charges against her were (1) that she was dead, and therefore could not hold any property whatsoever; (2) that she was a woman, which amounts to the same thing; and (3) that she was an English Duke who had married one Rosa Pepita, a dancer; and had had by her three sons, which sons now declaring that their father was deceased, claimed that all his property descended to them. (p. 168) </blockquote> Nevertheless, she is able to return to her ancestral home, where her first visitor none other than the horse-faced Archduchess! <blockquote> A plague on women,” said Orlando to herself, going to the cupboard to fetch a glass of wine. “They never leave one a moment’s peace… <h3>[S]he turned to present the Archduchess with the salver and behold – in her place stood a tall gentleman in black. A heap of clothes lay in the fender. She was alone with a man.</h3> Recalled suddenly to a consciousness of her sex...Orlando felt seized with faintness. “La!” she cried, putting her hand to her side,” how you frighten me!” ...[T]hey acted the parts of man and woman for ten minutes with great vigour and then fell into natural discourse. The Archduchess...told his story – that he was a man and had always been one; that he had seen a portrait of Orlando and fallen hopelessly in love with him; that to compass his ends he had dressed as a woman...that he was desolated when he fled to Turkey; that he had heard of her change and hastened to offer his services....” (179) </blockquote> (But the attraction is not mutual and Orlando declines to marry him.) Further samples: <blockquote> She was becoming a little more modest, as women are, of her brains, and a little more vain, as women are, of her person...The change of clothes had, some philosophers will say, much to do with it...They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us. (p. 187) </blockquote> and <blockquote> [There] was this mixture in her of man and woman, one being uppermost and then the other, that often gave her conduct an unexpected turn. The curious of her own sex would argue how, for example, if Orlando was a woman, did she never take more than ten minutes to dress? And were not her clothes chosen rather at random...? ...She rode well and drove six horses at a gallop over London Bridge. Yet again...the sight of another in danger brought on the most womanly palpitations. (p. 189) </blockquote> This diary is already long. Let it only be mentioned that Orlando continues to visit London in male disguise. She is in women’s clothes, however, when on a dark and stormy night, she barely avoids being trampled by a man on horseback. <blockquote> A few minutes later, they became engaged. </blockquote> Though not without a trifle more gender confusion. <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Formal_Gardens_at_Sissinghurst_Castle_-_geograph_org_uk_-_1387093.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/604549/large/Formal_Gardens_at_Sissinghurst_Castle_-_geograph_org_uk_-_1387093.jpg?1540672854" title="Formal_Gardens_at_Sissinghurst_Castle_-_geograph_org_uk_-_1387093.jpg"> <figcaption>The gardens at Sissinghurst, where Sackville-West and her husband settled in the 1930s. Now the property of the National Trust. </figcaption> </figure> </div> In the Victorian period, Orlando sees her “Oak Tree” poem published. She gives birth to a son. As memory revisits and re-integrates experience, time itself seems to dissolve into elastic, translucent layers. New elements appear: electric lights, motor cars, department stores. Now she is back at her ancestral home, revisiting her hill, her tree on an evening in 1928...when… ….to her great happiness, her husband arrives, but otherwise, nothing final occurs. <h2>Reflection</h2> Sackville-West’s introspection apparently did not lead her to posit a further distinction that begins to be more clearly recognized today: the difference between sexual preference and an interior feeling of gender. When in her male aspect, Vita apparently felt exclusively attracted to women; in her female aspect, to men. Orlando, however, suggests that Woolf’s view may have been less categorical. The novel is, among other things, a buoyant description of how reality, ever burgeoning, insists on overflowing the compartments in which humanity attempts to enclose it. To live becomes all the more remarkable an adventure, as we grow more willing to own all of our experiences and experience all of ourselves. . REFERENCES The sheer volume of scholarship on Woolf, Sackville-West and others in their circle is intimidating. I’ve done little more than make contact at a few points. Apart from Wikipedia, I used these: Harris, Alexandra. Virginia Woolf. New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 2011. Nicholson, Nigel. Portrait of a Marriage: V. Sackville-West & Harold Nicholson. New York: Atheneum, 1973. Sackville-West, Vita. Selected Writings. Ed. by Mary Ann Caws. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. (Paperback; originally published in hardcover by Palgrave, 2002.) Woolf, Virginia. Orlando. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1928. (First American edition.) …. Caution: the n-word occurs in Orlando, once, in a period context. In addition, there is some ethnic stereotyping (though IMO, it is neither ill-intended nor as gross as in quite a few other works of the same era.) <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Virginia_Woolf_1927.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/604046/large/Virginia_Woolf_1927.jpg?1540584645" title="Virginia_Woolf_1927.jpg"> <figcaption>Virginia Woolf, 1927, photographer unknown (Wikipedia). She was working on Orlando at this time.</figcaption> </figure> </div> LGBTQ Literature Schedule: <blockquote> November 25: Chitown Kev December 30: OPEN January 27: OPEN February 24: OPEN March 31: OPEN As always, we are looking for writers! Either comment below or <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/newthread/Chrislove" target="_blank">send Chrislove a message</a> if you’d like to contribute to the series and fill one of our open dates. </blockquote> Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule: <div class="table-wrapper"> <table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width="600"> <tbody> <tr> <td>DAY</td> <td>TIME (EST/EDT)</td> <td>Series Name</td> <td>Editor(s)</td> </tr> <tr> <td>SUN</td> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/children's%20books">Young Reader's Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sun (last Sun of the month)</td> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBT%20Literature">LGBTQ Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sun (occasional)</td> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Sci-Fi%20Fantasy%20Club">SciFi/Fantasy Book Club</a></td> <td>quarkstomper</td> </tr> <tr> <td>MON</td> <td>1:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Grokking%20Republicans">Grokking Republicans</a></td> <td>Mokurai</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Mon</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Monday%20Murder%20Mystery">Books!</a></td> <td>Susan Grigsby</td> </tr> <tr> <td>TUE</td> <td>5:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Indigo%20Kalliope">Indigo Kalliope: Poems from the Left</a></td> <td>officebss, ruleoflaw</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tue</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Contemporary%20Fiction%20Views">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <td>WED</td> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>plf515</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Wed</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <td>THU</td> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Self-Publishing%20101">Self-Publishing 101</a></td> <td>akadjian</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Thu</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Thu (first each month)</td> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <td>FRI</td> <td>8:00 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Books%20In%20My%20Life">Books In My Life</a></td> <td>Phoebe Loosinhouse</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Alternate Fridays</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Books%20Go%20Boom">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <td>SAT</td> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a></td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sat</td> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Books%20So%20Bad%20They're%20Good">Books So Bad They're Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Clio2) History LGBT LGBTLiterature LGBTQ LGBTQLiterature Literature R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers Rescued VirginiaWoolf VitaSackville-West _1795104 Sun, 28 Oct 2018 23:30:02 +0000 Books So Bad They're Good: Rules, Schmules! (book review rewind) https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/27/1807770/-Books-So-Bad-They-re-Good-Rules-Schmules-book-review-rewind Per my diary earlier this week, this is the first of two book review rewinds so I can finish work on a review for The Sixteenth Century Journal. The review book, a stunning catalogue of the tapestries in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, is possibly the single most beautiful art book I’ve ever seen — seriously, if you can get your hands on it you will swoon, it’s just glorious — and I’m enjoying every second of my work, which is more than I can say for some of the stuff I review. As for tonight, it’s a rewind of my take down of a noxious, inexplicably popular dating guide by two obnoxious women who purport to unlock the secrets of dating for sad single girls who wish it were 1952. Enjoy (?), and try not to wreck the place while I try not to drool all over the color plates in my review book. %%%%%% <div> I had no idea what I was doing when I fell in love. This is not uncommon - does anyone really know what will result from that first fine careless rapture? - but in my case it was the simple truth. I had not the slightest idea of what love, relationships, or sex entailed, and when I finally fell for someone, it's no surprise that what had started in joy ended eighteen years later with a juicy splat! worthy of the GIANT TURKEY PUPPET O'DOOM faceplanting onto the Washington Monument. It's a miracle Wingding and I lasted as long as we did, truth be told. We had a great deal in common - our political views are very similar, we liked many of the same books, music, and films, we both preferred cats to dogs - but beyond that? Not so much. Our attitudes toward money, family, fidelity, religion, honest speech, and gender relations were another matter entirely, and while variety may be the spice of life, too much spice when it comes to day to day existence with another person is not necessarily a good thing. How this came about is a good question. We weren't precisely the most mature couple when we fell head over heels off the Cliff of Romance, but we weren't little naifs wandering hand-in-hand into the Slough of Marital Despond. Our respective parents' marriages had been strong and affectionate, and both his brothers are still happily married to the wives of their youth. Add in that we dated for four years before we skipped down the Aisle of Matrimony and we certainly should have had enough time to figure things out. Perhaps it was not so much my lack of experience with men but my lack of female confidants to whom I could turn during bad patches. Mum took an instant dislike to Wingding but never quite articulated why, which put paid to long mother-daughter chats about my love life. Shoshana had moved to New York after college so she was out unless I wished to run up a truly stunning phone bill, ditto Beata and her boyfriend Tom, and my SSFFS buddies Mary and Ella. Walter and his wife Lisa lived nearby, and I dished some to her, but most of the time I was happy enough that I figured the warning signs and the occasional fight were simply growing pains, not cause for concern. What Wingding did I have no idea. I never asked, and I doubt I would have gotten a straight answer if I had. Regardless...it became clear that things were less than ideal a few years after our gala nuptials, which were small, cheap, and very badly planned thanks to my insistence on ignoring all the wedding manuals and the small niggling thought that maybe, just maybe, weddings are as much for the family as the happy couple. Storm clouds loomed, black as new asphalt and just as vile, and we shared less and less emotionally and physically. I withdrew into a shell, he retreated to his hobbies, and what interactions we had were increasingly tense and emotionally violent. By the time he finally walked it was almost a relief, even if the way he chose to leave was, to put it mildly, both cowardly and cruel. We've both moved on, him with the woman who'd driven the final wedge between us, me to life as a middle aged single. I've found strength and talents that I never knew I possessed in the fifteen years since, and I can honestly say I'm happier than I've ever been. What he'd say about his current life is not my concern, although I hope he's found some measure of peace. Whether this could all have been avoided if dating, romance, and marriage came with a guidebook is something I've wondered for a while. I was quite young when we got together, after all. Maybe a set of instructions would have led to a happier, longer lasting marriage, or at least the ability to figure out that things weren't working and end things sooner. Maybe, just maybe, I could have used a set of simple, time-tested precepts to guide me. Maybe I could have used The Rules. </div> rss@dailykos.com (Ellid) BooksSoBadTheyreGood R&BLrs ReadersandBookLovers _1807770 Sun, 28 Oct 2018 01:00:07 +0000 CLASSIC POETRY GROUP: Shakespeare Sonnet 53 [& the week ] https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/26/1745074/-CLASSIC-POETRY-GROUP-Shakespeare-Sonnet-53-amp-the-week What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since everyone hath, every one, one shade, And you, but one, can every shadow lend: Describe Adonis, and his counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you, On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set, And you in Grecian tires are painted new. Speak of the spring and foison of the year, The one doth shadow of your beauty show, The other as your bounty doth appear, And you in every blessed shape we know. In all external grace you have some part, But you like none, none you, for constant heart. . Shakespeare, Sonnet 53 <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Working Title/Artist: Night Shadows.Department: Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art.Culture/Period/Location: .HB/TOA Date Code: .Working Date: 1921.photography by mma, Digital File DP221181.tif.retouched by film and media (jnc) 11_24_09" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/513507/large/hb_25.31.2.jpg?1519881531" title="Working Title/Artist: Night Shadows.Department: Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art.Culture/Period/Location: .HB/TOA Date Code: .Working Date: 1921.photography by mma, Digital File DP221181.tif.retouched by film and media (jnc) 11_24_09"> <figcaption>Night Shadows Artist: Edward Hopper (American, Nyack, New York 1882–1967 New York) Date: 1921 Medium: Etching</figcaption> </figure> </div> <blockquote> <figure class="image-captioned width-sm align-right"><img alt="images.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/513508/large/images.jpg?1519882112" title="images.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=William+Shakespeare&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS441US441&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqi_D5scrZAhUKzFMKHQ6_ByUQ_AUICigB&biw=1137&bih=718#imgrc=0_eWv_0xE0qqMM">www.google.com/...</a>:</figcaption> </figure> <div style="text-align:left"> <div> <div> <div> <div> <ol> </ol> </div> </div> </div> William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare" target="_blank">en.wikipedia.org/...</a> </div> </div> </blockquote> <div style="text-align:start"> <div> . . Week in poetry: <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">CLASSIC POETRY GROUP</a><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Classic%20Poetry%20Group" target="_blank">.</a> ************* Daily Kos Classic Poetry Group:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Daily-Kos-Classic-Poetry-Group-892304530912096/" target="_blank">facebook</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/user/FreeWriters" target="_blank">Free Writers (Dkos)</a> <blockquote> <div> <div> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="5386.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/603731/large/5386.jpg?1540509637" title="5386.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/25/country-diary-tawny-owl-finds-its-way-in-the-dark-dunton-bedfordshire">www.theguardian.com/...</a></figcaption> </figure> </div> Country diary: how the tawny owl finds its way in the dark </div> </div> <div> <div> Dunton, Bedfordshire: This bird’s eyesight is not that much better than ours; it compensates by memory mapping<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/25/country-diary-tawny-owl-finds-its-way-in-the-dark-dunton-bedfordshire" target="_blank" title="">www.theguardian.com/...</a> </div> </div> </blockquote> <blockquote> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/25/1807224/-Democratic-Scientist-Candidates" target="_blank">Democratic Scientist Candidates</a> </blockquote> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE</caption> <thead> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">DAY</th> <th style="text-align:center"> TIME EST/EDT </th> <th style="text-align:center">SERIES</th> <th style="text-align:center">EDITOR(S)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SUNDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">6:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank" title="">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"> (LAST SUN OF THE MONTH) </th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(OCCASIONAL)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Sci-FiFantasyClub">SciFi/Fantasy Book Club</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">quarkstomper</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">MONDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/languageofthenight" target="_blank">Fantasy: The Language of the Night</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">TUESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">5:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Indigo Kalliope:</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Poems from the Left</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> ruleoflaw, officebss </td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">WEDNESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">THURSDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Self-Publishing101">Self-Publishing 101</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">akadjian</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(MONTHLY)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">FRIDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SATURDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top">pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Angmar) .Shakespeare ClassicPoetryGroup Readers&BookLovers _1745074 Sat, 27 Oct 2018 01:30:02 +0000 Write On! Tell us your NaNoWriMo goal. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/25/1807249/-Write-On-Tell-us-your-NaNoWriMo-goal Hello, writers. NaNoWriMo starts next Thursday, so let’s hear your goals! The official goal over at NaNoWriMo.org is 50,000 new words, but here at WO! we make our own goals, because that’s just how we roll. So tell us your writing, revising, or writing-related goal for the month of November, bearing in mind that Thanksgiving and GOTV activities will take their bite of your time. But nonetheless, you will prevail. The goals so far (I’ll be adding to this list up to 10 pm eastern time) <blockquote> bonetti 100k words clio2 50k words dconrad 50k words GrouchySquirrel: write every day Leo Orionis finish draft of A Meeting at Ishtun mettle fatigue: computer hook-up & resume a manuscript. reppa 20k words SensibleShoes: finish revision of Ghost Ships xaxnar* make a collection of diaries published on dKos </blockquote> The<s> two people</s> one person marked with an asterisk* — I wasn’t sure from your comments whether you wanted this down as your goal for November or if you were still just thinking about it. Let me know. Everyone else— if I misunderstood your comment or if you’ve changed your mind, let me know. And if you want to be added to the list, let me know. And everyone, please note: Even if you don’t meet your goal, this is still an extremely worthwhile undertaking, so go for it! In the ten years we’ve been doing this here at WO!, I have only met my goal once, when at Mnemosyne’s urging I cranked out 50k words which eventually became <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062129901/jinx/" target="_blank">Jinx</a>. All the other years I’ve missed my goal, whatever it was, but I’ve always ended up with something I didn’t have at the beginning of the month. And so will you. Tonight’s challenge: <blockquote> Since the above doesn’t lend itself to a tonight’s challenge, write 100 words based on these two words randomly selected from the dictionary: high fox </blockquote> Write On! will be a regular weekly diary (Thurs 8 pm eastern, 5pm pacific) until it isn't. Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on <a href="http://www.pred-ed.com/">Preditors and Editors</a>, <a href="https://absolutewrite.com/recommended-resources/" target="_blank">Absolute Write</a> and/or <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/" target="_blank">Writer Beware</a>. rss@dailykos.com (SensibleShoes) Community Nanowrimo R&BLers Readers&BookLovers Teaching WriteOn Writing _1807249 Fri, 26 Oct 2018 00:00:33 +0000 Bookflurries-Bookchat: Books of the 70’s https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/24/1806023/-Bookflurries-Bookchat-Books-of-the-70-s Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us. ….. Last week, I listed the books that made a difference to me that were published in the 60’s. This week it is the 70’s although some of my favorites were read in later years than they were published. …. In the 70’s I was teaching day school and traveling in the summer out West (70, 71) and to Europe (72) and a few days in the Caribbean (73). Then we bought a small cottage on a lake and started fixing it…oh, my…long story. Then, my first two children of three were born in 1975 and 1978. I kept on reading, but I quit working. For a couple of years in the 70’s before my children were born, I did get to go to the Flint Public Library and bring home armfuls of books. …... I can’t name all my favorites from the list so you can add yours in the comments. You can add the ones I have not read, also. ... <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/21">https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/21</a> …. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76620.Watership_Down">Watership Down </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7717.Richard_Adams">Richard Adams</a> I liked the movie better: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21787.The_Princess_Bride">The Princess Bride </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12521.William_Goldman">William Goldman</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27712.The_Neverending_Story">The Neverending Story </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15619.Michael_Ende">Michael Ende</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18929854-all-creatures-great-and-small">All Creatures Great and Small </a>and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38743.All_Things_Bright_and_Beautiful">All Things Bright and Beautiful </a>and <div class="table-wrapper"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width:5.0%"></td> <td style="width:100.0%"> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42909.All_Things_Wise_and_Wonderful">All Things Wise and Wonderful </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18062.James_Herriot">James Herriot</a> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76401.Bury_My_Heart_at_Wounded_Knee">Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/43443.Dee_Brown">Dee Brown</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/682804.The_Killer_Angels">The Killer Angels </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16892.Michael_Shaara">Michael Shaara</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82192.The_Crystal_Cave">The Crystal Cave (Arthurian Saga, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15590.Mary_Stewart">Mary Stewart</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37741.Tales_of_a_Fourth_Grade_Nothing">Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12942.Judy_Blume">Judy Blume</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28541.Dragonsong">Dragonsong (Harper Hall, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/26.Anne_McCaffrey">Anne McCaffrey</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/466537.Future_Shock">Future Shock </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3030.Alvin_Toffler">Alvin Toffler</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11507.My_Name_Is_Asher_Lev">My Name Is Asher Lev </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7385.Chaim_Potok">Chaim Potok</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/310459.Roll_of_Thunder_Hear_My_Cry">Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/26946.Mildred_D_Taylor">Mildred D. Taylor</a> I liked this first one the best. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112537.Rendezvous_with_Rama">Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7779.Arthur_C_Clarke">Arthur C. Clarke</a> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width:14.28%"> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10222.The_Far_Pavilions">The Far Pavilions </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1040250.M_M_Kaye">M.M. Kaye</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46456.The_Women_s_Room">The Women's Room </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14160.Marilyn_French">Marilyn French</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92121.Nine_Princes_in_Amber">Nine Princes in Amber (The Chronicles of Amber #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3619.Roger_Zelazny">Roger Zelazny</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776384.One_Corpse_Too_Many">One Corpse Too Many (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #2) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4046.Ellis_Peters">Ellis Peters</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12661.Chesapeake">Chesapeake </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7995.James_A_Michener">James A. Michener</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12125.Homecoming">Homecoming (Tillerman Cycle, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7540.Cynthia_Voigt">Cynthia Voigt</a> </td> <td style="width:84.76%"> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40526.Time_and_Again">Time and Again </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6944.Jack_Finney">Jack Finney</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/79550.The_Summer_Book">The Summer Book </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/45230.Tove_Jansson">Tove Jansson</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112323.The_Clock_Winder">The Clock Winder </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/457.Anne_Tyler">Anne Tyler</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/432283.If_Life_Is_a_Bowl_of_Cherries_What_Am_I_Doing_in_the_Pits_">If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries What Am I Doing in the Pits? </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11882.Erma_Bombeck">Erma Bombeck</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2819.A_Circle_of_Quiet">A Circle of Quiet (Crosswicks Journals #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/106.Madeleine_L_Engle">Madeleine L'Engle</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47841.A_Fine_and_Pleasant_Misery">A Fine and Pleasant Misery </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/26847.Patrick_F_McManus">Patrick F. McManus</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/425174.The_Godwulf_Manuscript">The Godwulf Manuscript (Spenser, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/397.Robert_B_Parker">Robert B. Parker</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19821.Riddle_Master">Riddle-Master (Riddle-Master, #1-3) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/25.Patricia_A_McKillip">Patricia A. McKillip</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/649361.Farewell_to_Manzanar">Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/86883.Jeanne_Wakatsuki_Houston">Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1141307.Callahan_s_Crosstime_Saloon">Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (Callahan's #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19317.Spider_Robinson">Spider Robinson</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/149398.A_Palm_for_Mrs_Pollifax">A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax (Mrs. Pollifax, #4) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/61934.Dorothy_Gilman">Dorothy Gilman</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12583.Losing_Battles">Losing Battles </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7973.Eudora_Welty">Eudora Welty</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Acts_of_King_Arthur_and_His_Noble_Knights">The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck">John Steinbeck</a> …. Your turn! ………….. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule</caption> <thead> <tr> <th>day</th> <th> time est/edt </th> <th>series</th> <th>editor(s)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>sunday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td>gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (last Sun of the month) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>monday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>wednesday</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(FIRST THURS OF month)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Friday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Saturday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank" title="">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/24/1806791/-Another-matching-day-for-AIDS-Walk-Austin" title="">Another matching day for AIDS Walk Austin</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/user/anotherdemocrat">anotherdemocrat</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/24/1806791/-Another-matching-day-for-AIDS-Walk-Austin" title="">https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/24/1806791/-Another-matching-day-for-AIDS-Walk-Austin</a> ……………. POLL: Sorry...due to chaos in my life this week, I forgot to give the choice in the poll of more than one book so please vote for one and then list the ones you like in the comments. (I am using a heating pad to help with a pinched nerve/sciatica and Hubby had cataracts removed from both eyes and all is well with him). rss@dailykos.com (cfk) Bookflurries-Bookchat Books R&BLers Readers&BookLovers _1806023 Thu, 25 Oct 2018 00:00:35 +0000 What are you reading? October 24, 2018 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/24/1806743/-What-are-you-reading-October-24-2018 <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…picking back up, again... Permanent reading list: <div> The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne- II.12- An apology for Raymond Sebond.- The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- The Hound of the Baskervilles.- I have completely stalled on my Sherlock reading. <div> <div> I am reading: On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by DeRay McKesson- Reading this in small doses now...there’s a sort of ‘’hope theology’’ in these essays that’s very subtle, secular, and very familiar to me. I’ve actually been reading a little bit about ‘’hope theology’’ on the side preparing the review for this. Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward Labyrinths of Iron by Benson Bobrick- I have long wanted to write a novel with the Chicago el as something resembling a central character...that is the reason that I picked up this book about the history of underground transportation even though Chicago makes nary an appearance in it (portions of the train system in Chicago, especially downtown in The Loop, are underground) </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Chitown Kev) Books ReadersandBookLovers Reading WAYR _1806743 Wed, 24 Oct 2018 11:30:07 +0000 Contemporary Fiction Views: In the Shadows https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/23/1806101/-Contemporary-Fiction-Views-In-the-Shadows The feeling you are not alone, a glimpse of a dark-robed figure just out of the corner of your eye, feelings of sorrow, loneliness and guilt -- Sarah Perry takes these elements and the fable of Melmoth the Wanderer to create a harrowing tale. And, just as her prior novel, The Essex Serpent, was about more than the possible sighting of a sea monster, so this novel is more than a ghost story. Helen Franklin is a quiet, drab woman who has purposefully tried to not draw attention to herself or experience a moment of joy. A colleague, once calm himself, is distraught as he is drawn into a study of a creature just out of sight. Melmoth is not a name Helen has ever heard before, but it is one that will continue to haunt her once her colleague goes missing after giving her some of the historical documents he has been reading. According to Perry's version of the legend, Melmoth was one of the women who witnessed empty tomb of Jesus but denied seeing him risen. So she is condemned to roam the earth alone, always watching, and seeking a salvation that doesn't exist in an increasingly wicked world. The stories of people who claim to have been lured into Melmoth's orbit, interspersed with Helen's journey, are horrifying in that creepy, middle-of-the-night sense. They are those who finally see Melmoth, after believing there is an unknown destiny to their journey, and who turn down the chance to spend eternity with her spend the rest of their lives trying to find her again. It's a curse that slowly begins to overtake Helen as well. Is there something following her? Or is that just a shadow? <figure class="image-captioned width-sm align-right"><img alt="Melmoth.jpg" class="width-sm" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/602277/large/Melmoth.jpg?1540142693" title="Melmoth.jpg"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> Perry displays a grand ability to conjure up the atmosphere of possibly being followed. Early on, Helen gets ready for sleep in her spare, sparse little room: <blockquote> Is she uneasy now? A little -- a little: the flesh on her forearms grows chill, the hairs there lift, there is a slight dropping sensation in the cavity of her chest, as if her heart has paused before a hasty beat. It is as if she feels a pair of eyes fixed on her, unblinking, calculating; she turns, and there is only the dressing gown on the hook, the satchel on the bed. Karel's disease is infectious, it seems: she recalls, with a quickening of the heart, herself as a child, as a teenager, certain that she was in some way marked out -- feeling, as the young so often do, that she could not possibly be as ordinary as she seemed. (There is something else, also, swiftly suppressed: the memory of a cold gaze passing at the nape of her neck, when she did what she ought not to have done.) </blockquote> The documents in that satchel convey the stories of a wide range of characters. Some are innocent, some are evil, some are so lost they do not know the difference. The story of Josef Hoffman, who grew up with a father dismayed his son was denied his Austro-Hungarian empire birthright because of war, examines evil and self-worth in a way that shows how eternal these moral judgment calls remain. Josef's story is a complete one unto itself, and its reverberations echo not only across this novel, but across history and current events. Perry also adds the layer of free will to the complexity of the novel when Helen and her friend Thea, who is the companion of her colleague who disappeared, realize how the people they are reading about react to the idea of Melmoth, how it affects the rest of their lives. Remaining lonely or giving in to the temptation of thinking a creature has been looking out for you without you realizing it your entire life is the either/or choice Perry posits time and again for these characters. Perry was inspired by the Victorian horror writer Charles Maturin's <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/10/29/sympathy-for-the-devil/" target="_blank" title="">Melmoth</a>, in which a once-human monster who has made a Faustian bargain needs someone to take his place. That aspect is not part of this Melmoth's story, but the implication that giving in to accompany her would be eternal unrest is there. Just as the story reaches a climax of decadence and decay, Helen faces her deepest fears and feelings of guilt in facing down what others may have called a demon. And an unexpected episode of reaching out to others in a full-hearted expression of free will provides a strong counterpoint to the despair that other characters have felt or fought off. Melmoth is a rich, deep novel tailor-made for reading while the trailing remnants of a harvest moon drift past a window. Perry's ability to craft this eerie atmosphere may have had a bit of extra help. In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/29/high-art-writing-under-influence-drugs-sarah-perry" target="_blank" title="">this Guardian piece</a>, she talks about her dependence on painkillers while considering her novel-to-be. Following her recovery, Perry notes: <blockquote> I had resolved to write a novel that would force the reader to bear witness to wickedness, and it had demanded that I bear witness too. I had been given a brief period of suffering against which to measure the suffering of others, and sometimes the courage – dispensed each fortnight by the supermarket pharmacist – to face both. Grateful for my good fortune at escaping pain, and escaping with nothing to show for it but two scars and a slight limp, I illuminated the dark materials of my research and my dreams with the promise, or at least the possibility, of redemption. </blockquote> As we bear witness to so much wickedness in our times, it is an act of hope to think the possibility of redemption exists. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule</caption> <thead> <tr> <th>day</th> <th> time est/edt </th> <th>series</th> <th>editor(s)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>sunday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td>gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (last Sun of the month) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>monday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>wednesday</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(FIRST THURS OF month)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Friday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Saturday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> rss@dailykos.com (bookgirl) ContemporaryFictionViews GothicFiction Literature ReadersandBookLovers _1806101 Wed, 24 Oct 2018 00:00:02 +0000 Announcement: Next Two BSBTG Diaries Will Be Rewinds https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/23/1806499/-Announcement-Next-Two-BSBTG-Diaries-Will-Be-Rewinds This is because I’m facing a deadline on a book review, then having a minor medical procedure. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll post, but I promise there will be something. Thanks, everyon! rss@dailykos.com (Ellid) BooksSoBadTheyreGood R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers _1806499 Tue, 23 Oct 2018 11:37:52 +0000 Books So Bad They're Good: Salvation from the Saucers https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/20/1803494/-Books-So-Bad-They-re-Good-Salvation-from-the-Saucers My first experience of something So Bad It Was Good involved UFO’s. This does not mean that I or anyone else I knew in the early 1970’s had seen a UFO, had a close encounter of the googleplex kind, or otherwise was on a first-name basis with Klay-Ti-On, Defender of the Galaxy, or a similar being from somewhere around the orbit of Vulcan. My mother did have a sneaking fondness for Omicron, the little alien who sometimes showed up on Rege Cordic’s radio show, but otherwise family tastes ran much more to Star Trek, the occasional issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, or an anthology series called Science Fiction Theater. No, this was something quite different, and it was all Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s fault. The Andersons were a British couple who were responsible for a series of remarkably successful, remarkably adult puppet shows in the 1960’s. Using what they called the “Supermarionation process,” their creations eschewed the deliberate unreality of, say, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, Topo Gigio, or that all-time favorite Senor Wences in favor of puppets that looked, acted, dressed, and behaved like human beings. Even better, the puppets lived in a world that was very clearly modeled on ours, only with the addition of advanced technology and exciting super-scientific action. Thunderbirds, the saga of the mysterious Tracy family, who lived on a private island with seemingly unlimited money and a collection of high-tech machines that they used to rescue astronauts, submariners, and airline passengers, as well as their friend and agent Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward…Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, about an elite military unit of highly trained soldiers named after colors as they opposed evil aliens…this sort of adventure was exactly what my young soul needed. They were also far superior to most American animated science fiction or quasi-science fiction shows of the time. Remember, this was an era when Marvel brought their characters to life by photographing the original art and sliding it about while a narrator read a script, or when Space Angel’s idea of interplanetary thrills was moving human lips superimposed on Alex Toth’s art in a weird forerunner of the Mouth of Sauron. The only American exceptions I can remember was Jonny Quest, which lasted all of a season, or the deliberate kitsch of Batman and Stately Wayne Manor. Compared to that, the Andersons’ oeuvre looked pretty darn good. They took great pains to make sure that the sets, scripts, and puppetry were as realistic as possible, and never tried to fool the audience into thinking that a Jack Kirby drawing of Captain America sailing over a fence while the camera moved was even remotely real. Even better, the Andersons’ universe was tantalizingly close to what we read in the headlines or saw on the news about the bright, promising world of tomorrow: supersonic planes, orbital satellites, and sleek, streamlined clothing, furniture, and cars. It’s little wonder that my folks and I were willing to give the Andersons’ first live action series, UFO, a try. On paper, UFO had everything that had made Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds so much fun. There was an alien threat, strange little creatures in madly whirling spaceships, and a crew of gallant defenders known as SHADO, a clandestine organization tasked with protecting Earth from invasion. A sentient satellite, a lunar base staffed by glamorous women in high-tech costumes, gull wing cars, Nehru jackets on the men and silvery miniskirts on the women…it all was straight out of the exciting world of the Tracy family. Even the bowl cut sported by SHADO’s Colonel Straker and the iridescent purple wigs worn by the moon base crew hinted at the wonders to come in the far-off world of 1980. Except that what worked so well with puppets didn’t work so well with humans. I think it was my aunt Betty who first pointed out how ridiculous those purple wigs looked, especially paired with silver eye shadow and heavy false eyelashes. My mother cared more about the plots, which probably would have worked just fine as comic books but fell apart in live action. Even the sets and props that had looked so good in miniature were ridiculous when used and populated by living actors. Nehru jackets were already passé in the early 1970’s, so what were they doing on people in 1980? Why were the little whirling spaceships visibly hanging from fine, glittering wires? Worst of all: why were the scripts so bad? Not all of them, of course. There was one episode where several UFO’s attacked a disabled submarine that was genuinely exciting, and there were others that were at least entertaining. But so much of the show simply did not make sense (why were the lunar women in purple wigs and metallic silver? why didn’t anyone in the general public at least guess what was going on? who controlled SHADO, the UN?) that it was hard to take it seriously. Worse, the episodes were not shown in sequence, at least in our area, so if there was an overall story arc we simply couldn’t tell. UFO aired early on Saturday evenings in Pittsburgh, just after we’d finished dinner, so there was no reason not to watch it while the dishwasher churned and we counted the minutes until All in the Family came on at 8:00 pm. Betty would make the occasional sarcastic comment, Mum would frown, and I’m pretty sure my uncle Oscar would fall asleep while Dad and my uncle Lou had their regular “Betty won’t let us smoke in the house so we’re going to talk about sports in the garage” cigarette break. As for me...well, I watched because I was a kid and I liked anything to do with space. But the older I get, the more I wonder if my love of the weird, the mediocre, and the just plain stupid has its origins in Colonel Straker tootling around London in his DeLorean while listening to purple-wigged women on the Moon. UFO also primed me to accept what that bubbling and churning in the sky was the one time I actually did see a UFO on a dark night in 1979 when I was traveling by bus from New York to Scranton, but that’s a story for another day. rss@dailykos.com (Ellid) BooksSoBadTheyreGood R&BLers ReadersandBookLover Recommended _1803494 Sun, 21 Oct 2018 01:00:07 +0000 Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/15/1804649/-Claude-Debussy-s-Clair-de-Lune Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune (moonlight in French) performed by the National Symphony Orchestra Pops, led by conductor Emil de Cou, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on June 1 and 2, 2018, as part of a celebration of NASA's 60th anniversary. Clair de Lune, in D♭major, is the third movement of Debussy's piano suite Suite bergamasque. Visualization by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio based on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) data and imagery. Visualization spans a lunar day, with sunrises and sunsets over prominent features on the Moon. <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content">x</div> <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content"><a class="new_iframe_placeholder" href="#">x</a></div> <a class="iframe_placeholder youtube dk-embed" href="//youtube.com/watch?v=6CXDrNyt-iM" data-frameborder="0" data-height="281" data-src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6CXDrNyt-iM" data-width="500">YouTube Video</a></div> </div> <hr> Watch it in full-screen mode. Use it to unwind, meditate, contemplate, plan and recharge, for the long journey ahead. rss@dailykos.com (AKALib) Moon Music NASA Recommended Science Space _1804649 Tue, 16 Oct 2018 02:01:09 +0000 Write On! Time to think about NaNoWriMo. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/18/1805465/-Write-On-Time-to-think-about-NaNoWriMo Hello, writers. NaNoWriMo starts two weeks from today, so it’s a good time to start thinking about your goals. This will be the 10th time we’ve run our own NaNoWriMo here on WO! For the last few years, we’ve also been doing DaKoWriMo (Daily Kos Writing Month) in January, since for many people that’s a more convenient writing month. You can sign up on the <a href="https://nanowrimo.org" target="_blank">NaNoWriMo</a> website, or you can just do it unofficially here at WO! Or both. The goal on the website is to write 50,000 words during the month of November. However, in our adapted leftwing looseygoosey WO! version, you set your own goal. It can be a higher or lower word count, or it can be something other than word count. Goals people have used in the past have included: <blockquote> - Writing 100k words. - Writing 15k words. - Revising a manuscript. - Sorting through all the manuscripts on their hard-drive or in their drawer to decide which one(s) to work on. - Composing a query letter and querying a certain number of agents or editors. - Planning a novel. - Outlining a non-fiction book. - you get the idea </blockquote> If you do decide to shoot for 50k words, know that it works best if you’ve already got the story pretty firmly in your mind. Otherwise one tends to sputter out at about 20k. Plan, too, on shooting for 2,000 words a day rather than 1,667, as there are bound to be days when life interferes. (Plus Thanksgiving.) <blockquote> Instead of a Tonight’s Challenge, tell us what you’re thinking about for a NaNoWriMo project. You don’t have to decide right now. Just give us the options you’re weighing. </blockquote> Write On! will be a regular weekly diary (Thurs 8 pm eastern, 5pm pacific) until it isn't. Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on <a href="http://www.pred-ed.com/" title="">Preditors and Editors</a>, <a href="https://absolutewrite.com/recommended-resources/" target="_blank" title="">Absolute Write</a> and/or <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/" target="_blank" title="">Writer Beware</a>. rss@dailykos.com (SensibleShoes) Community Nanowrimo R&BLers Readers&BookLovers Teaching WriteOn Writing _1805465 Fri, 19 Oct 2018 00:00:33 +0000 Bookflurries-Bookchat: The Way We Were https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/17/1804709/-Bookflurries-Bookchat-The-Way-We-Were Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us. ... Nostalgia is me. Tonight, I am looking at books that were important in the 60’s. For me the 60’s meant graduating from high school, graduating from college and getting married along with my first teaching job and then moving to my present location where we have lived for 49 years. I went from small libraries to even smaller ones. In between, there were bookstores on the main drag in East Lansing, but only for three years. I ended up the 60’s depending on a scifi/fantasy catalog that came once a month. ………. Of course there was a great deal of pain in those years as we lost Medgar Evers, JFK, RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X. There was the horror of so many people injured and killed to get voting rights. These true stories are told by Taylor Branch in his trilogy below and in March a graphic trilogy by John Lewis. ... Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65 At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68 ……………... I wasn’t sure I could mention The Lord of the Rings though I read it in the 60’s, but bookgirl made this point below: <blockquote> <div> <div> <div><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/user/bookgirl">bookgirl</a></div> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1804709/71706229#comment_71706229">October 17 · 08:15:13 PM</a></div> </div> <div> <div> ...Then again, 1965 was when Ballantine published The Lord of the Rings. Buying those three books sometime between 1968 and 1970 was a highlight of my early teens. </div> </div> </blockquote> ……. List: (These books shaped my life) <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/18.Best_Books_of_the_Decade_1960_s">https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/18.Best_Books_of_the_Decade_1960_s</a> My favorites of the lengthy list: (There are so many more on the list that I liked, but I can’t list them all so you get to add to them below) (I will go with other decades in the future) (A few of these I read later in life than the 60’s) <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2657.To_Kill_a_Mockingbird">To Kill a Mockingbird </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1825.Harper_Lee">Harper Lee</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/332613.One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo_s_Nest">One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7285.Ken_Kesey">Ken Kesey</a> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table width="763"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width:100.0%"> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6514.The_Bell_Jar">The Bell Jar </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4379.Sylvia_Plath">Sylvia Plath</a> The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton </td> <td></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> Catch-22 by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3167.Joseph_Heller">Joseph Heller</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18131.A_Wrinkle_in_Time">A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/106.Madeleine_L_Engle">Madeleine L'Engle</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/234225.Dune">Dune (Dune Chronicles, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/58.Frank_Herbert">Frank Herbert</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18373.Flowers_for_Algernon">Flowers for Algernon </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11072.Daniel_Keyes">Daniel Keyes</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17125.One_Day_in_the_Life_of_Ivan_Denisovich">One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10420.Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn">Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19494.The_Spy_Who_Came_In_from_the_Cold">The Spy Who Came In from the Cold </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1411964.John_le_Carr_">John le Carré</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642.A_Wizard_of_Earthsea">A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/874602.Ursula_K_Le_Guin">Ursula K. Le Guin</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13214.I_Know_Why_the_Caged_Bird_Sings">I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3503.Maya_Angelou">Maya Angelou</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92057.The_Autobiography_of_Malcolm_X">The Autobiography of Malcolm X </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17435.Malcolm_X">Malcolm X</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29127.The_Last_Unicorn">The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1067608.Peter_S_Beagle">Peter S. Beagle</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/187181.The_Chosen">The Chosen </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7385.Chaim_Potok">Chaim Potok</a> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width:5.0%"></td> <td style="width:100.0%"> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11499.The_Promise">The Promise </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7385.Chaim_Potok">Chaim Potok</a> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61975.Dragonflight">Dragonflight (Dragonriders of Pern, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/26.Anne_McCaffrey">Anne McCaffrey</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24780.The_Book_of_Three">The Book of Three (The Chronicles of Prydain, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8924.Lloyd_Alexander">Lloyd Alexander</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78039.Ramona_the_Pest">Ramona the Pest (Ramona, #2) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/403.Beverly_Cleary">Beverly Cleary</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/232109.The_Mouse_and_the_Motorcycle">The Mouse and the Motorcycle (Ralph S. Mouse, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/403.Beverly_Cleary">Beverly Cleary</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/160320.Up_the_Down_Staircase">Up the Down Staircase </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/92960.Bel_Kaufman">Bel Kaufman</a> …. Also the play and the movie <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/403098.A_Man_for_All_Seasons">A Man for All Seasons </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/130766.Robert_Bolt">Robert Bolt</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12657.The_Source">The Source </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7995.James_A_Michener">James A. Michener</a> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width:5.0%"></td> <td style="width:100.0%"> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29470.Iberia">Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7995.James_A_Michener">James A. Michener</a> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203899.Letter_from_the_Birmingham_Jail">Letter from the Birmingham Jail </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23924.Martin_Luther_King_Jr_">Martin Luther King Jr.</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42692.Mila_18">Mila 18 </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19708.Leon_Uris">Leon Uris</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27736.Rhinoc_ros">Rhinocéros </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7689.Eug_ne_Ionesco">Eugène Ionesco</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45220.I_Never_Promised_You_a_Rose_Garden">I Never Promised You a Rose Garden </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14929824.Hannah_Green">Hannah Green</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210404.A_Sand_County_Almanac_and_Sketches_Here_and_There">A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/43828.Aldo_Leopold">Aldo Leopold</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42603.Black_Like_Me">Black Like Me </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16652.John_Howard_Griffin">John Howard Griffin</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/360437.The_Mask_of_Apollo">The Mask of Apollo </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/38185.Mary_Renault">Mary Renault</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5382985-that-quail-robert">That Quail, Robert </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2317207.Margaret_A_Stanger">Margaret A. Stanger</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/395233.The_Letters_of_Vincent_van_Gogh">The Letters of Vincent van Gogh </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/34583.Vincent_van_Gogh">Vincent van Gogh</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/573009.How_Children_Fail">How Children Fail </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1792210.John_Holt">John Holt</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/421886.Lisa_Bright_and_Dark">Lisa, Bright and Dark </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/52070.John_Neufeld">John Neufeld</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/106931.I_Heard_the_Owl_Call_My_Name">I Heard the Owl Call My Name </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/709.Margaret_Craven">Margaret Craven</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/321544.The_Heaven_Tree_Trilogy">The Heaven Tree Trilogy </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/99473.Edith_Pargeter">Edith Pargeter</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112077.The_Game_of_Kings">The Game of Kings (The Lymond Chronicles, #1) </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8361.Dorothy_Dunnett">Dorothy Dunnett</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/879299.When_The_Legends_Die">When The Legends Die </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/217906.Hal_Borland">Hal Borland</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1153738.Lisa_and_David">Lisa and David </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1407057.Theodore_Isaac_Rubin">Theodore Isaac Rubin</a> The Mouse That Roared by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3865439.Leonard_Wibberley">Leonard Wibberley</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18917916-journey-into-the-whirlwind">Journey into the Whirlwind </a>by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/64517.Evgenia_Ginzburg">Evgenia Ginzburg</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98969.The_First_Circle">The First Circle </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10420.Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn">Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn</a> I read In the First Circle which added things he couldn’t say in the first book. <blockquote> (The First Uncensored Edition) (Foreword…In 1968 an expurgated version titled The First Circle came out in many languages. The loss in English of the preposition “In”…subtly shifts the novel’s focus from people in a place to the place itself; the present version eliminates this distortion…Compared with the version previously available in English, the plot has been altered, depictions of some major characters have been substantially modified, new characters have been introduced, and many entirely excised chapters have been reinstated. For readers familiar with the previously available English version, In the First Circle will be a revelation). </blockquote> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203998.The_Learning_Tree">The Learning Tree </a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/119048.Gordon_Parks">Gordon Parks</a> …. Next week: The books of the 70’s. So many great books were published in that decade also. …………. Jai McDowall sings 'To where you are' <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content">x</div> <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content"><a class="new_iframe_placeholder" href="#">x</a></div> <a class="iframe_placeholder youtube dk-embed" href="//youtube.com/watch?v=dmta3" data-src="//www.youtube.com/embed/dmta3_MoJuM" data-width="500" data-height="281" data-frameborder="0">YouTube Video</a></div> </div> ……….. <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content">x</div> <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content"><a class="new_iframe_placeholder" href="#">x</a></div> <a class="iframe_placeholder youtube dk-embed" data-src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_SXKYk1bMpI" data-width="500" data-height="281" data-frameborder="0">YouTube Video</a></div> </div> ………….. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule</caption> <thead> <tr> <th>day</th> <th> time est/edt </th> <th>series</th> <th>editor(s)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>sunday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td>gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (last Sun of the month) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>monday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>wednesday</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(FIRST THURS OF month)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Friday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Saturday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/17/1804809/-Head-Full-Of-Dreams-an-AIDS-Walk-Austin-diary-100-match-today">Head Full Of Dreams - an AIDS Walk Austin diary ($100 match today)</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/user/anotherdemocrat">anotherdemocrat</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/17/1804809/-Head-Full-Of-Dreams-an-AIDS-Walk-Austin-diary-100-match-today">https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/17/1804809/-Head-Full-Of-Dreams-an-AIDS-Walk-Austin-diary-100-match-today</a> rss@dailykos.com (cfk) Bookflurries-Bookchat Books R&BLers Readers&BookLovers Recommended _1804709 Thu, 18 Oct 2018 00:00:32 +0000 What are you reading? October 17, 2018 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/17/1804987/-What-are-you-reading-October-17-2018 <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…got lazy this week...so...here’s the list again and the comment section is yours. Permanent reading list: <div> The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne- II.12- An apology for Raymond Sebond.- This essay is a book-length essay itself. The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- The Hound of the Baskervilles. <div> <div> I am reading: On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by DeRay McKesson Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <hr class="dk-pagebreak"> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE</caption> <thead> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">DAY</th> <th style="text-align:center"> TIME EST/EDT </th> <th style="text-align:center">SERIES</th> <th style="text-align:center">EDITOR(S)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SUNDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">6:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"> (LAST SUN OF THE MONTH) </th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">MONDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">TUESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">WEDNESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">THURSDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(FIRST THURS OF MONTH)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">FRIDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SATURDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top">pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">9:00 PM</td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div style="text-align:right"></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Chitown Kev) Books ReadersandBookLovers Reading WAYR _1804987 Wed, 17 Oct 2018 11:30:06 +0000 Contemporary Fiction Views: We endure https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/16/1804322/-Contemporary-Fiction-Views-We-endure Women taken as prizes in war, given to the men who slaughtered the men in their families as they watched, treated as nothing more than property -- these are the women of the Trojan War who are given voice in The Silence of the Girls, the latest novel by Man Booker Prize-winner Pat Barker. They are conditioned to be silent. And even though they may not say much in public, or to those in power, their stories will be told. The lead voice that cannot be denied is Briseis, a young queen among the women captured in a citadel after the men have been cut down and other women have leaped to their deaths rather than become slaves. She is given as a trophy to the war hero Achilles. This is no romanticized version, as many tellings of The Iliad would have it. This is war. She becomes the thing he rapes when he feels like it. As her life as a slave begins, she is warned to not think about her previous life: <blockquote> "That's over now -- you'll only make yourself miserable if you start brooding about it. Forget! This is your life now." Forget. So there was my duty laid out in front of me, as simple and clear as a bowl of water: Remember. </blockquote> Even in statements as stark as this, Barker builds layers. Briseis is childless. She is both grateful that she does not have the sorrow of worrying about a child's abuse and death now that she is a slave, but she also is sorrowful to not have a child. For a soldier to talk to a childless woman about brooding is one of many thoughtless acts of cruelty. That Achilles feels drawn to her by coincidence does not negate the fact that Briseis is his property, awarded to him, and that theirs is not a consensual relationship. Barker has a light touch in making this clear, even as the stark reality of the situation of the captured women living in a battle camp that has existed for years and years is portrayed. To help stop a rat-caused plague from wiping out the camp, Agamemnon returns his captive concubine to her father. In recompense, he demands Achilles give him Briseis. Barker brilliantly shows how this is all about male pride and nothing to do with any other kind of human or humane consideration. Then comes the horrific ending to the Trojan War, when Barker leaves The Iliad for Euripedes's tragedies. There is much death and abuse to come in the wake of male pride and stubbornness, all depicted calmly and vividly. Like all tales involving the cruel ways in which war affects those on the periphery, just when it appears that events have settled into dull routine, women and children are shown how their destinies are not in their control. Even though the focus is on the women, an old man nearly steals it all with his late appearance that encapsulates the toll of loss. King Priam sneaks into Achilles's camp to beg for the body of his son, Hector, which the warrior has been abusing day after day with no sense of victory. The actions Briseis takes in the aftermath of the elderly king's visit restore the focus to the women. And just when her actions don't make sense, give it a page or two. Then they will. This is one of the occasions when Briseis appears to be arguing with someone. She is talking to herself even as she remembers what happened. Some of the women hope to become the wives of their captors if they bear children. Asked if someone could marry a man who had killed her brothers, her answer is: <blockquote> "Well, first of all, I wouldn't have been given a choice. But yes, probably. Yes. I was a slave, and a slave will do anything, anything at all, to stop being a thing and become a person again. "I just don't know how you could do that. "Well, no of course you don't You've never been a slave." </blockquote> This was uncomfortable to read in the context of another age-old cruel treatment that continues to reverberate today -- the racism with which so many white people either refuse to see or understand, or which they even condone. It was a horrific reminder that there is more than one way in which we as human beings denigrate others individually and institutionally. The various careless ways, and cruel ways, in which the women are treated are seen again and again to this day. That Barker can write so clearly and calmly about this pervasive treatment of women without falling into preaching or despair shines a brighter light on the injustices. This past month has been extremely difficult. I have had to turn off the news. I have had to stop in-person conversations. I have blocked and dropped dozens of people (at least, some of them seemed to be people) on social media. Yet this novel did not make me feel worse. It gave me strength. That's the kind of power knowledge brings. Knowing we are not alone, knowing this is not new and that we have endured and carried on and still done remarkable things in public and for our families and our communities, even with this punishment for thousands of years merely because we are women and not men. Although as Barker writes, "men carve meaning into women's faces; messages addressed to other men", we women have other ways of communicating and keeping our truth alive. Achilles's boon companion, Patroclus, talks to Briseis and seems to treat her as an actual person. He is not an ally, but tells her: <blockquote> "Things do change. And if they don't you bloody well make them." "Spoken like a man." "You'll get your chance. One day. And when you do grab it with both hands." </blockquote> That day arrives and leaves, arrives and leaves. But we endure. Sometimes we live in on ways the captors never imagined: <blockquote> "We're going to survive -- our songs, our stories. They'll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We'll be in their dreams -- and in their worst nightmares too." </blockquote> Note: Apologies if this essay in not smoothly written. I'm getting back into the habit and this book was so important that I don't feel I have done it justice. After getting away from a weekly contribution here to work on a special project for my local union, I took on some projects for the day job too. Yes, some of us don't know how to say "no" very well. But during these very troubling times, I've seen that not reading and ruminating about good books is not good for me. Books like this one, which I'm sure my friend cfk would call difficult, are rewarding for me because their authors are willing to address the hard parts of living. I hope this is another way for us to take strength from each other and what we do and what we think. It's good to be back home. rss@dailykos.com (bookgirl) ReadersandWriters Rescued WarOnWomen _1804322 Wed, 17 Oct 2018 00:00:33 +0000 The Language of the Night: What To Do About Difficult Authors and Their Books? https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/15/1804445/-The-Language-of-the-Night-What-To-Do-About-Difficult-Authors-and-Their-Books <blockquote> He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher — the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that ‘fire-breathing dragon’, hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror’s loot. There was some justification for Kim — he had kicked Lala Dinanath’s boy off the trunnions — since the English held the Punjab and Kim was English….Kim was white — a poor white of the very poorest. (Kim, Chap. 1) </blockquote> <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780553213324" target="_blank">Kim</a>, by Rudyard Kipling, is a marvelous book. It hits all the right notes, like a perfectly balanced symphony. One of my favorite novels, it combines the entertainment and high drama we expect of adventure novels, an exotic location filled with memorable characters, a winning protagonist, splendid and colorful prose that sings on the tongue….and a heaping side of white supremacy. Of course, when I first ran into Kim I was all over the adventure and missed the racism, which is easy to do, since it’s not as blatant as it is in Kipling’s infamous <a href="https://www.bartleby.com/364/169.html" target="_blank" title="">“The White Man’s Burden”</a> with its bitter recognition of the folly of empire: <blockquote> Take up the White Man’s burden— And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard— The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:— “Why brought ye us from bondage “Our loved Egyptian night?” </blockquote> No, Kim has a much lighter hand, a more loving one, one that <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/user/anon%20please" target="_blank" title="">anon please</a> put me in mind of with a <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1794663/71295442#comment_71295442" target="_blank" title="">comment</a> a few weeks ago, and I encourage you to click the link and read it — it’s a long passage from Kim in which Lurgan Sahib tries to hypnotize our hero. Kim saves himself from hypnosis and the end of his education in spycraft by taking refuge in — of all things — the English multiplication tables in the English language! In other words, Kim’s Englishness saves him. Despite being the child of a half-caste Indian and an Irish soldier who drank himself to death, the lowest of the low in English society, Kim is still superior in India. He can “pass” as a native; he plays and wins in the Great Game; he’s instrumental in the Holy One achieving his quest. An outcast in England, in India, Kim is Friend of All the World, a white man who has mastered the colony. No, I didn’t figure this out by myself. Edward Said’s famous and influential <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780394740676" target="_blank" title="">Orientalism</a>, which I highly recommend, opened my eyes. I still enjoy the novel. I savor its beauty, its vitality. Life leaps off every page, and Kipling is a master of prose. Few indeed are the novels that grace the tongue, that are as fun to read aloud as they are to read silently. It’s a joy. Even though I still love the book, I can’t forget the racism. I can’t ignore it, but have yet to come to terms with it. Here’s the question: can I recommend Kim to other people? Pros: it’s a classic; it’s fun; it’s genuine pleasure and as a bonus, there’s the highly equivocal ending in which Kim chooses who he is going to be: a sahib or a chela. Wondrous novel. Cons: the imperialism, the latent racism. Leaving aside the moral queasiness of loving a novel that contains unsavory elements, as fans of Huck Finn will no doubt agree, the issue of recommending that others read a problematic novel remains. Should I say, “By all means, read Kim but don’t let the white power get under your skin,” or “Huck Finn is the greatest American novel ever written, as long as you ignore the Tom Sawyer bits and the frequency of a cringe-inducing racial epithet”? That is itself a problematic solution. Do we fence great novels with warning labels? “Yes, William Faulkner is a great novelist, but the world he depicts is racist to the core.” “Hemingway is a master stylist but a paragon of toxic masculinity.” Do these labels not diminish Faulkner and Hemingway? Do we prejudice the experiences of other readers by admitting our own qualms or do we trust readers to get it on their own? One thing I firmly believe: we should not censor these books. We take them whole, or we don’t take them at all, and I’m all for taking them whole. It would be a crime, a neutering, to edit any past work to make it more acceptable to current readers, and I write that as someone whose academic life’s work has been Chaucer, the original problematic writer. But the problem remains. What we see as the faults of the past were the past’s lived realities — a world where the white Christian male was more equal, more valued, more important, in effect superior to any other. That’s no longer our reality; still we grapple with how to read them, how to talk about them. I can’t countenance throwing them on the scrap-heap any more than I can tolerate bowdlerization, and yet it’s a case where silence equals complicity. If warning labels prejudice a reading, does their absence not signal approval? These are not rhetorical questions — I’m sincerely torn. Having read Said’s Orientalism along with other works of literary criticism, I can no longer ignore the fact that many novels we consider classic depict the experiences of other cultures viewed through the lens of Anglo white men, men who considered themselves naturally superior to other races, maybe or maybe not consciously, but the effect is the same. Do the authors’ perspectives vis-à-vis their subjects impact our readings? In other words, it remains for us to work out how much we can accept the verity of their perspectives, their attitudes toward their subjects. Back to the example of Kim, much as I delight in the “authenticity” of Kipling’s depictions of the lama, of Mahbub Ali and the Babu, as well as Kim himself, I can’t forget that all of India in the novel flows through the pen of a white man, a man who believed to his core that the “least” of the English was still better than the “best” of the native. Back in the day when the literary canon was all white, male, and heterosexual, it was easier to overlook the inherent racism, classism, and sexism, mostly because that’s all there was. No longer. The canon has broken open and other voices, other cultures, other genders demand admission, consideration, appreciation. Which is great! Let there be no doubt of that — widening the canon is good for everyone, and the multivocality of literature, the opening of perspectives, enriches every reader. What I mean about opening perspective is about writers from outside the white male Christian canon writing about their experiences directly, without the filtering voice of even the most benevolent outsider: George Eliot writing about Judaism in Daniel Deronda, Mark Twain writing Jim. Instead, Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, Anita Diamant, Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov, Salman Rushdie, Jane Yolen, Helene Wecker, Octavia Butler, N. K. Jemison. This is an unabashed plus, and nowhere has that richness of experience flowed more freely than in speculative fiction. Speculative fiction has reaped a bounty of diverse voices and writers — and no, it’s not perfect, which is why many women writers publish under their initials, and why, when they’re outed as female, their fiction is subject to odd re-evaluations (see Joanna Russ’ <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780292724457" target="_blank" title="">How to Suppress Women’s Writing</a> for a primer of how this is accomplished.) The literary world is opening wider, but it’s got a long way to go. Which brings me to our part of the forest, which is more open to diversity than literary fiction, I tend to think. We might be further along in the process, but we’re not near our destination, and we have the same problems with problematic authors. How do we deal, for example, with Heinlein’s politics, especially as they inform his fiction — the libertarianism of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the militarization of Starship Troopers or Space Cadet, his shifting and strange attitudes about women, the wtf that is Friday — in short, can we put critical evaluations to Heinlein? After all, some of his views are cringe-inducing, but..<a href="https://locusmag.com/2012/11/the-joke-is-on-us-the-two-careers-of-robert-a-heinlein/" target="_blank" title="">.is that enough to dent his genius</a>? Let’s look at a tougher nut: Tolkien. I’ve read essays that advocate not reading Tolkien because The Lord of the Rings is dominated by males and because the bad guys are “swarthy Southrons.” Now, there is justification in this criticism; Tolkien set out to write an English myth. England is ground-zero for Anglo-Saxon white guys. But seriously? We shouldn’t read The Lord of the Rings because the Fellowship wasn’t racially balanced? (In fairness, it was racially balanced: two humans, four hobbits, a Maia, a dwarf and an elf, but…..ahhh, you know what I mean), and the humans who paid tribute to Sauron were “swarthy”? Really? Really? And if the books themselves weren’t sufficiently suspect, there are the difficult authors. For instance, Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote gorgeous feminist <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=marion+zimmer+bradley" target="_blank" title="">Celtic and Arthurian fantasy</a>, but was <a href="https://electricliterature.com/the-book-that-made-me-a-feminist-was-written-by-an-abuser-4c6891f548cf" target="_blank" title="">creditably a child sex abuser</a>. Well, gee thanks! There’s an author I’ll never read the same way again! Or ever read again at all. G. K. Chesterton isn’t even a safe refuge anymore, and Roald Dahl? Not Roald Dahl! Umberto Eco once wrote that the best thing a writer can do once his book is published is to die, so that the text has to stand on its own merits. There’s a certain wisdom to that: the book is supposed to be a world unto itself, self-enclosed, self-referential. Except when it isn’t. And often, these days, it isn’t. These musings were inspired, first by anon please’s extract from Kim about Lurgan Sahib, which put me in mind of my complicated relationship to the novel, and then by Mike Mikalatos’ essay on Tor: <a href="https://www.tor.com/2018/08/27/problematic-classics-four-questions-to-ask-when-beloved-books-havent-aged-well/" target="_blank" title="">“Problematic Classics: Four Questions to Ask When Beloved Books Haven’t Aged Well,”</a> which led me to James Wallace Harris’ essay, <a href="https://auxiliarymemory.com/2018/09/03/photoshopping-our-reading/" target="_blank" title="">“Photoshopping Our Reading.”</a> Then, in researching Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2014, I ran across another Harris essay that accused Robinson of letting climate change deniers off the hook, <a href="https://auxiliarymemory.com/2017/03/16/have-we-accepted-rising-oceans-as-inevitable/" target="_blank" title="">“Have We Accepted Rising Oceans as Inevitable?”</a> I do suspect that, in criticizing the prejudices in authors, we’ve tended to ignore the prejudices in ourselves. I’ve seen panel discussions that have asserted things like only women can write female characters authentically, or any author’s attempt to explore a culture not her own is an aggression upon that culture, a “rape” of that culture (and yes, I’m quoting from memory). On one hand, we have imperialist writers like Kipling unabashedly interpreting India, a culture he knew well but was not native to; on the other, we have an ethic that insists literature be written only from the inside, that any outsider’s perspective, no matter how sensitive or sympathetic, is transgressive. As readers, we balance between two poles: uncritical acceptance of a text and utter suspicion that infects not only text but author and the author’s beliefs. We operate in that tension, part wanting to enjoy the experience, part wary of being led down disguised path to unsavory destinations. Is there an answer here? I don’t know. I’m glad that we are, as readers in general, engaging with the questions, and I’m suspicious of easy answers. Fascism lurks in either pole, and I’m suspicious of that, too. It’s easy to go too far in either direction, and I suspect that we all stray back and forth from time to time. The “Tolkien is an old white guy” crew at war with the “Kipling isn’t so bad” gang. Out of all of this...mess, Mikalatos asks what is I think a salient question — maybe the salient question: How do we talk about beloved authors whose prejudices have been laid bare, whose language is now considered offensive and whose assumptions are beyond the pale? And no, I don’t have an answer. I can’t even start proposing one. When I catch myself too far in either direction for my own comfort, it’s time for a pause and recalibration. So far, when asked, I’ve recommended difficult novels to readers I think can discern for themselves, and occasionally done it with reservations. Not perfect. Not even close. But human? Yeah, human. And optimistic. We’re smart critters — we can figure it out. rss@dailykos.com (DrLori) DifficultBooks Fantasy Kim R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers Recommended RudyardKipling ScienceFiction TheLanguageoftheNight _1804445 Tue, 16 Oct 2018 00:00:24 +0000 Books So Bad They're Good: Unfortunate Thirteen https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/13/1802851/-Books-So-Bad-They-re-Good-Unfortunate-Thirteen It is not easy owning a Cairn terrier. It’s not that Cairns are vicious, or stupid, or particularly destructive. They like to dig — they’re terriers, after all — but they don’t chew up carpets, destroy glassware, or shred the curtains. Originally bred by Scottish clansmen to live at the hearthside when they were weren’t clearing vermin out of the fields, Cairns are intelligent, fiercely loyal, and will defend their chosen family with fang and claw. They’re wonderful fun in many ways, and the dark brindle type’s resemblance to Terry, the original Toto from The Wizard of Oz, makes Halloween costumes a snap. The problem is that Cairns are so smart that they consider the tricks humans usually attempt to teach them beneath their dignity, which means so much for the usual “shake paws” or “roll over and play dead.” They’re also incredibly stubborn — just try to get one to do something it doesn’t want to, I dare you — terribly strong, and have that peculiar ability to increase their relative mass that any cat owner will recognize instantly. “Immovable object” is the best way to describe a Cairn that doesn’t want to move, as both my parents found out whenever they’d try to get Toto Barbarossa to go for a walk on a rainy night and found themselves losing a tug of war to a twelve pound dog. And there was the time Toto got himself and my mother so badly drenched that drowned rats looked better. It was during what should have been a pleasant vacation to Niagara Falls during the summer of 1969. My parents had been there during the early years of their marriage and wanted to show me the lovely falls and the quaint, pleasant town that had so delighted them when they were young. So sometime during what the peak tourist season we loaded up the Buick, Dad got in the driver’s seat while Mum rode shotgun with a AAA map, and Toto and I took over the back seat. And off we went, into the single worst vacation we ever had a family, and quite possibly the worst vacation I’ve ever had in my entire life. Everything, and I do mean everything went wrong, and if you think I’m exaggerating, well, not really: <ul> <li>The American side of the falls had been dammed off while the Army Corps of Engineers worked to stabilize the cliff face to prevent erosion all the way back to populated areas. The resulting pile of rock was not only unlovely in the extreme, two corpses had been found in the heap of talus at the base of the falls, though fortunately not while we were there.</li> <li>The American side, far from being quaint and pleasant, was now wall to wall tourist traps, including a Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, a wax museum, and an aquarium that advertised electric eels with a huge, lurid neon light that could be seen at least a block away.</li> <li>Rain. Lots and lots and lots of rain.</li> <li>So much pollution in the Niagara River that the seagulls we saw on the Maid of the Mist boat tour could, and did, stand calmly on the sludge while the tour guide spoke of the alleged natural beauty around us.</li> <li>A set of replica Crown Jewels on the Canadian side that were not nearly as sparkly and pretty as the originals, to my great disappointment.</li> <li>So much rain that the nightly son et lumière show was cancelled.</li> <li>Finding out that the alleged “reciprocal arrangement” between AAA and its Canadian equivalent entailed several hours’ delay when Dad locked his keys in the trunk of the Buick and we couldn’t get in. Worse, Mum’s purse, which held most of our supply of cash, traveler’s checks, and credit cards, was also in the Buick. The sole exception, a $100 bill, was useless because a) we were in Canada, not the United States, and b) no one would break it because a $100 bill was an even larger sum fifty years ago than it is today.</li> <li>Did I mention that it rained? And rained? A lot?</li> </ul> Then there was the night that Mum and Toto nearly drowned thanks to the inherent stubbornness of the Cairn terrier. We’d heard a rumor that it was going to stop raining enough for the son et lumière show at Horseshoe Falls, and so we drove to a nearby parking lot and ventured forth into the night in hopes of seeing something that would salvage our summer vacation. Of course the heavens opened within about thirty seconds of us getting situated, and what felt like all the water in Ontario that wasn’t roaring over the falls came thundering down right on our unprotected heads. Dad and I immediately set off at a dead run for the car, me yelling, him making sure that yes, this time he had the car keys in his pocket. Fortunately the Buick was only a couple of minutes away, so we jumped inside and Dad started the engine to warm up the interior because of course neither of us was wearing a sweater and the temperature had dropped about ten degrees. We were wet, yes, but not catastrophically so, and as soon as Mum and the dog arrived we’d head straight to our hotel so we could warm up and dry off. Except that there was no sign of Mum, Toto, or anything that remotely resembled them for a good five minutes. Dad glanced back over his shoulder, frowning. I was wet enough that I was starting to shiver, and the last thing he wanted was for me to catch a chill while we were in a foreign country. Mum wasn’t an especially fast runner but it wasn’t like we were in a howling wilderness. What was going on? Then the passenger door burst open and Mum, soaked to the bone, her dripping hair plastered to her skull and neck, all but threw herself into her seat. She looked like she’d just attempted to go over the Falls sans barrel even though she couldn’t swim, and there was so much water in her wool sweater that she smelled distinctly of wet sheep. That wasn’t all. In her arms, struggling and squirming and yapping, was a stinking ball of wiry dark hair that we normally called our dog. He was just as wet as Mum, smelled far worse, and before she could shove him into the back seat and slam the door against the downpour, he managed to give himself a good, hearty shake all over the three of us. “What the hell, Martha?” Dad cried, turning to Mum as Toto wriggled free and lept into the back seat, where he proceeded to shake all over me. “Where were you?” “Trying to get the dog out from under a bush!” Mum snarled. “I finally had to pick him up and run for it! He wouldn’t move!” Dad started at her, then at the dog, then back at Mum. Then he spat out a curse that I fortunately was unable to understand because it was raining too hard, lit a cigarette, and wrenched the car out into traffic in the direction of our hotel. Fortunately the rain had let up enough for us to make a dash for it once we’d parked, and even more fortunately the desk clerk took one look at us, blanched, and sent extra towels up to our room almost before Dad could ask. He and I dried ourselves off enough to avoid getting pneumonia, then headed to the quiet, deserted, blessedly warm pool while Mum did her best to dry off the dog, then took a nice hot bath to warm herself up. I’m pretty sure we headed home the next day. The way our luck was going, the electric eels at the nasty little aquarium were going to slide out of their tank nd slither into our engine if we tried to stay much longer. rss@dailykos.com (Ellid) booksobadtheyregood R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers _1802851 Sun, 14 Oct 2018 01:00:03 +0000 CLASSIC POETRY GROUP:William Butler Yeats [& the week] https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/12/1763747/-CLASSIC-POETRY-GROUP-William-Butler-Yeats-amp-the-week The Secret Rose - Poem by William Butler Yeats Far off, most secret and inviolate Rose, Enfold me in my hour of hours, where those Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre Or in the wine-vat dwell, beyond the stir And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep Men have named beauty.... Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?I, too, await The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose? . William Butler Yeats . <div> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-md"><img alt="download_%281%29.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/441128/large/download_%281%29.jpg?1503707705" title="download_%281%29.jpg"> <figcaption><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Circus+Animals%E2%80%99+Desertion&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS441US441&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjer7Dn8qvZAhUQQ60KHWydBjEQ_AUIDCgD&biw=1137&bih=718#imgrc=4lgpxUliCPKLDM">www.google.com/...</a>:</figcaption> </figure> </div> <blockquote> <div>William Butler Yeats is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. He belonged to the Protestant, Anglo-Irish minority that had controlled the economic, political, social, and cultural life of Ireland since at least the end of the 17th century.<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-butler-yeats" target="_blank">www.poetryfoundation.org/...</a></div> </blockquote> * Week in poetry: <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">CLASSIC POETRY GROUP</a><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Classic%20Poetry%20Group" target="_blank">.</a> ************* Daily Kos Classic Poetry Group:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Daily-Kos-Classic-Poetry-Group-892304530912096/" target="_blank">facebook</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/user/FreeWriters" target="_blank">Free Writers (Dkos)</a> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="0408131749a.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/547412/large/0408131749a.jpg?1527563896" title="0408131749a.jpg"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> <blockquote> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/8/1802748/-It-s-Indigenous-People-s-Day-Do-you-know-whose-stolen-land-you-re-on#comment_71620507" target="_blank" title="">It's Indigenous Peoples Day. Do you know whose stolen land you're on?</a> </blockquote> </div> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE</caption> <thead> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">DAY</th> <th style="text-align:center"> TIME EST/EDT </th> <th style="text-align:center">SERIES</th> <th style="text-align:center">EDITOR(S)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SUNDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">6:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank" title="">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"> (LAST SUN OF THE MONTH) </th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(OCCASIONAL)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Sci-FiFantasyClub">SciFi/Fantasy Book Club</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">quarkstomper</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">MONDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/languageofthenight" target="_blank">Fantasy: The Language of the Night</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">TUESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">5:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Indigo Kalliope:</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Poems from the Left</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> ruleoflaw, officebss </td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">WEDNESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">THURSDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Self-Publishing101">Self-Publishing 101</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">akadjian</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(MONTHLY)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">FRIDAY</th> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SATURDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top">pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Angmar) ClassicPoetryGroup Readers&BookLovers WilliamButlerYeats _1763747 Sat, 13 Oct 2018 01:30:05 +0000 Write On! Getting to know the villain. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/11/1803767/-Write-On-Getting-to-know-the-villain Hello, writers. Many thanks to the doughty dconrad for hosting WO! last week, with a diary on the protagonist’s friends which segues nicely into my topic this week: The protagonist’s enemy. Last week I was at the <a href="https://www.highlightsfoundation.org" target="_blank">Highlights Foundation</a>, presenting on villains. (By the way, when the HF say scholarships are available for their programs, they really mean it. And full scholarships at that.) The attendees were working on fantasy novels. The activities I did with them were aimed at helping them develop the villains in their novels. (These activities would also work for other secondary characters.) First, they each did a <a href="http://sageblackwood.blogspot.com/2014/09/how-to-plan-for-nanowrimo-part-2-bubble.html" target="_blank" title="">bubble map</a> to get to know their villain better. Then, I asked them each to sum up their novel in a single sentence, less than 20 words in length. There doesn’t need to be anything catchy about the sentence; it’s not a log line, it’s not meant to sell the book. It’s utilitarian. It’s just the character and his/her problem. <blockquote> Example: A boy learns he is a wizard and must save the world from the evil wizard who killed his parents. </blockquote> If it’s impossible to write such a sentence, then there may be a problem with the novel. Once they had written the sentence, I asked them to reverse it. Make the villain into the hero of the story. So it’s still character + problem, but now the villain is the main character, and the problem may only be a problem from his/her point of view. <blockquote> Example: A wizard’s valiant attempts to return from the dead are continually thwarted by an annoying boy wizard. </blockquote> Once they’d done that, they were well on their way to working themselves into the villain’s point of view. So, for the last activity, I asked them to free write. Put themselves into the villain’s point of view. Think about the hero (the alleged hero!) of the story. The Callow Youth, as it were. Write about the hero, in first person from the villain’s point of view. (That is, the villain is “I”. The hero is “he” or “she”.) Keep writing for five minutes without stopping. <blockquote> Tonight’s challenge: Do the four steps above. You can share any, all, or none of them. Tell us what you learned about your villain as a result. </blockquote> Write On! will be a regular weekly diary (Thurs 8 pm eastern, 5pm pacific) until it isn't. Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on <a href="http://www.pred-ed.com/" title="">Preditors and Editors</a>, <a href="https://absolutewrite.com/recommended-resources/" target="_blank">Absolute Write</a> and/or <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/" target="_blank" title="">Writer Beware</a>. rss@dailykos.com (SensibleShoes) Community R&BLers Readers&BookLovers Teaching Villians WriteOn Writing _1803767 Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:00:33 +0000 Bookflurries-Bookchat: 12 Years https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/10/1802659/-Bookflurries-Bookchat-12-Years Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us. ... Bookflurries-Bookchat has been here for 12 years this month and I am amazed. My main idea is to open the door so readers can tell about the books they are enjoying listening to or reading. The result for me is a huge wish list and a large to-be-read pile…thank you! ... Old friends have not been forgotten and would be welcomed back and new users are always welcome. We are a friendly bunch. Without commenters there would be no continuing diary so thanks to all who stop by from a busy day or evening. You teach me a lot. ... I like to have a theme or a poll to help start discussion, but any comment is welcome. Most people just scroll down and talk about the books they are reading. I try to encourage people to come by on Thursday to continue discussions. ... It is interesting to see how different we are as readers about what kinds of books we like. That makes the comments lively. ... For us all: <blockquote> “Strength is like the wind ...when life hits too hard and the soul gasps for relief now stirring softly to whisper that it's okay to struggle, to fail, to suffer, to rest because life goes on and strength will eventually rise again to carry us through... just maybe not right now.” ― L.R. Knost </blockquote> Music helps: <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content">x</div> <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content"><a class="new_iframe_placeholder" href="#">x</a></div> <a class="iframe_placeholder youtube dk-embed" href="//youtube.com/watch?v=GpyoeaR9wbs" data-src="//www.youtube.com/embed/GpyoeaR9wbs" data-width="500" data-height="281" data-frameborder="0">YouTube Video</a></div> </div> …………… <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content">x</div> <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content"><a class="new_iframe_placeholder" href="#">x</a></div> <a class="iframe_placeholder youtube dk-embed" href="//youtube.com/watch?v=9ccYgm6ot3E" data-src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9ccYgm6ot3E" data-width="500" data-height="281" data-frameborder="0">YouTube Video</a></div> </div> .…………. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule</caption> <thead> <tr> <th>day</th> <th> time est/edt </th> <th>series</th> <th>editor(s)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th>sunday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td>gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th> (last Sun of the month) </th> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th>monday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td>DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th>TUESDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th>wednesday</th> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th>THURSDAY</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th>(FIRST THURS OF month)</th> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Friday</th> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td>Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th>Saturday</th> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th></th> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> ……….. <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/10/1803323/-AIDS-Walk-Austin-is-less-than-a-month-away">AIDS Walk Austin is less than a month away - update: matching donations today!</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/user/anotherdemocrat">anotherdemocrat</a> <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/10/1803323/-AIDS-Walk-Austin-is-less-than-a-month-away">https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/10/1803323/-AIDS-Walk-Austin-is-less-than-a-month-away</a> ………... Wind quotations <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/wind">https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/wind</a> rss@dailykos.com (cfk) Bookflurries-Bookchat Books R&BLers Readers&BookLovers _1802659 Thu, 11 Oct 2018 00:00:32 +0000 What are you reading? October 10, 2018 https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/10/1803290/-What-are-you-reading-October-10-2018 <div> <div> In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…finally...I finished a book. Permanent reading list: <div> The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne- II.12- An apology for Raymond Sebond.- This essay is a book-length essay itself. The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- The Hound of the Baskervilles. I have finished reading: <div> <div>Cosmopolitianism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah -I wasn’t surprised about where this book ended up...that there is a ‘’cosmopolitan’’ person in all of us, whether we like it or no and whether we know it or not. Great text of case sudies but this proved to be a more difficult reading than I was prepared for.</div> <div> I am reading: On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by DeRay McKesson- I will be reviewing this book this coming Tuesday at my biweekly Black Kos posting. Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div>Also, through the political turmoil of the weekend, I read <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/JuvenalSatires10.php" target="_blank">Juvenal’s Satire 10</a>…</div> <div></div> <div> <blockquote> The most popular prayer, as noted in all the temples, is for cash: May my wealth increase, may my family treasure-chest hold the Highest value of anyone’s in the Forum. </blockquote> I had forgotten that this satire was the source of of a quote as famous as the ‘’bread and ciruses’’ quote <blockquote> Still, if you want a reason for prayer, for offering a pretty White piglet’s innards, the sacred sausages, at the shrines, Then you might pray for a sound mind in a healthy body. </blockquote> ...and probably more prevalent in modern society...think of the wording of so many wills, for example. </div> <div></div> </div> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Chitown Kev) Books Reading ReadrsandBookLovers WAYR _1803290 Wed, 10 Oct 2018 11:30:06 +0000 Review: Doctor Who Season 11 ep 1- Jodie Whittaker "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/8/1802645/-Review-Doctor-Who-Season-11-ep-1-Jodie-Whittaker-The-Woman-Who-Fell-to-Earth <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned width-md"><img alt="images.png" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/597629/large/images.png?1538967549" title="images.png"> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> Episode One - The Woman Who Fell To Earth . <h2 class="AlignCenter">*[ SOME SPOILERS ]*</h2> rss@dailykos.com (Angmar) DoctorWho DrWho LanguageOfTheNight moviereviewgroup ReadersandBookLovers Recommended TheLanguageoftheNight WhoviansonDkos _1802645 Tue, 09 Oct 2018 00:00:32 +0000 LGBT Literature: The Other Side of Silence: Men's Lives and Gay Identities https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/7/1802498/-LGBT-Literature-The-Other-Side-of-Silence-Men-s-Lives-and-Gay-Identities <blockquote> LGBT Literature is a <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Readers%20and%20Book%20Lovers">Readers and Book Lovers</a> series dedicated to discussing literature that has made an impact on the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. From fiction to contemporary nonfiction to history and everything in between, any literature that touches on LGBT themes is welcome in this series. LGBT Literature posts on the last Sunday of every month at 7:30 PM EST. If you are interested in writing for the series, <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/newthread/Chrislove">please send a kosmail</a> to Chrislove. </blockquote> The scene is a naval training station in Newport, Rhode Island, just after World War I came to an end in 1919. The assistant secretary of the navy—a man you may have heard of named Franklin Delano Roosevelt—was in the midst of a scandal involving “immoral conditions” in the military. The problems started when Chief Machinist’s Mate Ervin Arnold, while being treated for rheumatism at the naval training station’s hospital, became aware of “homosexual activity” and other “immoral” acts taking place on and off the base. John Loughery explains the underworld Arnold became exposed to among the “Ladies of Newport,” as the sailors called themselves. Prepare yourself: <blockquote> What Arnold discovered during the ensuing days was the eclectic world of fairies and trade, of cross-dressers and party-givers, cocaine addicts and heavy drinkers, for whom mobilization had been a wildly social experience. Thomas Brunelle’s “steady,” Billy Hughes, was nicknamed “Salome” and had recently appeared in drag as the female lead in a musical at the naval station. Military men in drag for theatrical purposes raised few eyebrows at the time (or even later, during World War II), but Brunelle boasted that Hughes paid him regularly for sex. Arnold also met “Theda Bata,” as hospital corpsman Fred Hoage was known, and “Ruth” (John Gianelloni), who were both praised for their oral skills, much like their friend Jay “Beckie” Goldstein, who had, everyone agreed, “a nice chin to rest a pair of balls on.” Frank Dye was so good, Arnold was told, that he could draw your brains out through your penis. The Ladies of Newport were often joined in their partying at apartments at Whitfield Court and on Golden Hill Street by an assortment of civilians that included waiters, an area librarian, and a salesman from Providence. As “fairies,” or flamboyant or more obvious homosexuals, especially when they were among their own, they were always happy to find interested “trade,” or those masculine men who saw themselves (and were seen by the fairies) as free from the stigma of effeminacy or perversion. Trade did the fucking; trade never sucked. Trade wasn’t queer. Determined by demeanor and the role assumed during sex, rather than the gender of one’s partner, these sexual demarcations remained in play to one degree or another until the end of Stonewall. </blockquote> (Probably true for the most part, although “trade” is still in use today, at least in the cruising subculture. And I think any gay male who has sought out “straight” men knows that similarly strict sexual demarcations still exist, even if the terminology isn’t used.) Apparently Arnold found himself a little obsessed with the “homosexual scene” in Newport. He reported the situation to his superiors, leading to a court of inquiry being established to investigate the “immoral conditions,” which was sanctioned by FDR, who was acting as the head of the navy department. An undercover operation was soon underway, targeting popular cruising locations such as the YMCA: <blockquote> [The ex-detective in charge of the operation] wanted no one over thirty, he said, on the well-known assumption that homosexuals never bothered with men that old. His ideal volunteer was in his late teens or early twenties, handsome, none too intellectually inclined, and willing to put himself in awkward situations for the good of the service. . . . The specific duties the recruits were charged with fell into three areas: to gather information about “cocaine joints” and the sale of liquor; to gather information “pertaining to cocksuckers and rectum receivers” and any network of “said fairies”; and to gather information about prostitutes in the area. </blockquote> And the arrests started happening, from March of 1919 through the summer. But it turned out that the “operatives” carrying out the investigation might have been enjoying themselves a little too much: <blockquote> From the perspective of the 1990s, the unnerving aspect of the Newport undercover operation isn’t the risks taken by the Salomes and the Theda Baras, who has no reason to assume that their “dates” weren’t what they pretended to be, but the amount of consummated sex that seems to have taken place between these self-identified homosexual men and the partners who would have emphatically rejected such a label for themselves. Yet from the outset it was clear, or strongly implied, that the “operatives,” as they were called, weren’t being relieved of their duties merely to document immoral propositions and lewd gestures; they were being sent by the Navy’s own Comstock to record the nitty-gritty, complete to climax, and that they did. . . . In at least two instances, operatives later admitted to having had anal sex to orgasm with their delighted partners. Transcripts indicate that others slept the night through in the same bed once the deed was done, with one operative even paying for his room with “Beckie” Goldstein. (The only aversion that remained an absolute for the sailors was kissing, something that trade could never engage in without jeopardizing the distinction between him and his queer partner.) James Goggins, a new recruit in the summer—when the number of operatives swelled to over forty—and one of Arnold’s busiest young men, acknowledged a midnight tryst on the grass near Forty Steps on Cliff Walk in which he was fellated but then failed to get the name of the sailor who “did” him. They met again. A second time Goggins neglected to return with a name for the record. Many of the operatives, when recounting their pre- or postcoital conversations, also seemed especially gratified at being told by the fairies that they had large penises. The screen of disinterest grew rather thin at times. </blockquote> It’s all I can do not to quote literally all of this chapter from Loughery’s book, as you can imagine. You’ll have to read the rest for yourself. Anyway, when the court of inquiry was finished, fifteen sailors were court-martialed, and some of them went on to serve time in prison. But Arnold and other obsessed officers were not finished, and they pressed on with their investigation, this time targeting civilians as well. FDR also sanctioned this investigation and saw to it that they had the money to carry it out. It culminated with the arrest of an Episcopal minister named Samuel Neal Kent. The ensuing trial is what turned the whole thing into a quagmire for the entire department: <blockquote> Kent’s trial necessarily brought out all that Arnold had labored to keep secret. Young men of seventeen had been sent out into the night like streetwalkers, taught to dissemble, paid to spend their time in rooms where liquor and drugs were available. Men in their late twenties, who could certainly have declined the assignment, had allowed their bodies to be used “in unspeakable ways.” When one befuddled operative left the stand, having acknowledged that he understood his instructions were to let the minister “play with my penis and allow it until [I] had an emission,” reaction in town set in against the Navy and its tactics: Kent was found innocent. </blockquote> The government pursued the matter further by trying him a second time in a federal court. That trial went just as badly for the Navy. In the aftermath, the Providence Journal went after the Wilson administration and blew the scandal wide open as a national story. Soon, there was a Senate investigation. FDR was interviewed, as was Arnold and many of the operatives, some of whom “were suddenly developing what one senator described as suspiciously convenient memory lapses.” The Senate committee decried FDR’s actions as “reprehensible,” but most surprising, perhaps, were the senators’ feelings on how to deal with homosexuality (undoubtedly influenced by the increased medicalization of homosexuality by the turn of the century): <blockquote> “Perversion is not a crime,” Senator Keyes maintained, “but a disease that should be properly treated in a hospital.” </blockquote> By the time FDR ran for the presidency, this scandal had long been forgotten by most Americans—although, not by the people most directly affected, of course. This anecdotal story is how John Loughery’s 1998 book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Silence-Identities-Twentieth-Century/dp/0805038965" target="_blank">The Other Side of Silence: Men’s Lives and Gay Identities—A Twentieth Century History</a> begins. A deeply fascinating story, to say the least, but Loughery suggests that it is indicative of something deeper: <blockquote> It strains credibility to think of [the Ladies of Newport] meeting one another aboard ship and only then evolving the styles with which they were comfortable. Their flagrant use of the YMCA lobby as a pickup area, their willingness to talk with Arnold in the naval hospital even though he must have appeared an outsider, their gait on the street, and their success in impersonating women in the Navy’s theatrical revues, which carried over into their private parties, is evidence that implies they had long since formed their ideas about what they wanted and what they thought they could get away with. They weren’t inventing a way of life in the nineteen months of the American involvement in the war; they were more likely bringing it, ready-formed, into a new community from the disparate cities and towns they came from. What the war provided for them was what large-scale military conflicts often provide: a sense that their number was larger than they thought, that their sexual and social world was not a small one. </blockquote> And therein lies one of the major points of Loughery’s book: the dynamic nature of identity, in this case gay male identity: <blockquote> The subject of this book is that still-unfolding process, whereby men who have made other men the focus of their romantic and erotic lives attempt to define themselves (to themselves and to society), wrestle with the narrow images society continues to foist on them, and decide to what extent they should view their sexuality as a defining characteristic of their lives. </blockquote> In my last LGBT Literature diary, I mentioned that I intended to cover less specialized and more “survey” history books in upcoming editions. In other words, more books that readers unfamiliar with LGBT history can use as launching pads for learning more. From that diary: <blockquote> I have reviewed a wide variety of books in the LGBT Literature series, covering many different topics—from queer men in the South to gays and lesbians in World War II to the Cold War persecution of homosexuality, among others. But it occurs to me that, as much history as I have covered here, I have not written that much about survey narratives of LGBT history. I know that many longtime readers of this series are probably well versed in LGBT history, but many others probably know little about it. That is not a judgment—indeed, even in 2018, it takes a certain amount of effort to learn about LGBT history, since it is so poorly taught (and, more often, not taught at all). For some readers, it might be good to offer a starting place rather than a deep dive into this or that historical episode. From time to time, I have spoken with students whose interest was piqued by the LGBT history I cover in class, and there are a few books that I tend to steer them toward as a beginning point for learning more. I would like to spend a little more time covering those kinds of books here at LGBT Literature, in addition to the more specialized monographs. </blockquote> With that in mind, I wanted to cover another survey book in this month’s diary, and I was alternating back and forth between two of my favorites. I finally settled on Loughery’s book, which is definitely a survey, but a very particular kind of survey, covering gay male life and identity as it evolved through the twentieth century. Much of early gay historiography, starting with <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/29/1784379/-LGBT-Literature-Returning-to-the-Sources-Gay-American-History-and-We-Are-Everywhere" target="_blank">Jonathan Ned Katz’s Gay American History (1976)</a> and then <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/29/1626877/-LGBT-Literature-Sexual-Politics-Sexual-Communities" target="_blank">John D’Emilio’s Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities (1983)</a>, struggled to push back against the narrative that gay history “began” with Stonewall, and I would place The Other Side of Silence in that category as well. By 1998, several other books and articles had been written in the same vein, including George Chauncey’s landmark Gay New York (1994), which covers gay male life from 1890 to 1940 (which I really should cover in this series sometime, but the idea intimidates me). Loughery recognizes and is in conversation with these earlier works: <blockquote> But these explorations are only beginnings. Even more to the point, just as earlier summary statements about “the homosexual” have given way to a wider, deeper sense of the variety of gay lives, so the idea of a “gay community” or a “gay lifestyle” looks increasingly out-of-date. Most observations about gay Americans will apply to only a small segment of those man who identify as gay. That said, the corollary that gay men lack any version of a shared past, any cultural, psychological, and philosophical bonds spanning the decades, seems to me mistaken, and it is with those aspects of experience—of differing relevance to different groups—that this book deals. </blockquote> In the introduction, Loughery details his own experience growing up in the midst of shifting identity labels, and then he lays out the book’s argument in a way that is clearly a product of the 1990s and yet still relevant to a certain extent today: <blockquote> This book will argue, though, that homosexuals are in a peculiarly difficult situation in modern America in terms of their public and private identity and that the difficulty has to do with our inability to articulate to ourselves the potential value of those labels—and the history, bonds, and challenges that go with them. . . . “I am not a ‘professional gay,’” more than a few gay men interviewed for this book commented, and a standard heterosexual response has always been, “Why must you people make an issue of what you do in private? Why do you have to talk about it?” The naïveté of the heterosexual query means less, ultimately, than the defensiveness of the gay pronouncement, which is tied to several factors: principally, the lack of concreteness or lack of consensus that plagues the word gay, and a fear of an openness from which there is no turning back. How one reacts to loving or sexually desiring members of one’s own sex does matter in twentieth-century America because society has made it matter by means of repressive laws, by condoning violence and discrimination, by its own incessant style of classifying and naming. It matters because we are all, always, ready to lose sight of the cultural and spiritual richness to which difference and uncertainty can lead. A more fully embraced gay identity—a question of nouns as much as adjectives—matters even if the homosexual impulse exits (as modern gender theory reminds us again and again) along a continuum and as a universal potentiality in a way that religion, race, or ethnicity does not. It matters today even if it might be shed later, in a less sexually divisive future in which homosexuals no longer feel the need to form social and political ties based solely on their same-sex orientation. The moments at which gay men have been cognizant of that truth, and the more frequent periods in which they have lost sight of it, are elements of this book. </blockquote> There’s a lot to chew on there—and while in some areas I can see where we have made substantial progress, it is clear that we are not even close to that hypothetical “less sexually divisive future,” if such a future is even possible. The Other Side of Silence is an extremely impressive survey of gay male history from the end of World War I to the 1990s. It is a unique kind of survey, however, in that not only does it synthesize the existing historical literature, but it also adds a great deal of original research, including many interviews that the author did himself. Beginning with the Newport scandal, the book fills in holes (sorry for the pun) where they exist in the historiography as of the 1990s, while also interacting with and masterfully weaving all of the historical works at his disposal. It’s really an incredible work, and it is also helpful both to those just starting to learn about gay history and to those who are well-read but need to put it all into perspective. (It was especially helpful to me as I was preparing for my comprehensive exams, I’ll note, and I often recommend it to others who ask about LGBT history.) The first chapter, as mentioned, is on the Newport scandal. There are also chapters on the 1920s, the Great Depression, McCarthyism, World War II, gay liberation, and AIDS. Those are just a few of the major topics—as I noted above, Loughery adds a great deal of original content, including fascinating looks at the roles of literature, theater, and film. At over 400 pages, it is a doorstopper of a book, but the pages turn quickly. Even twenty years after its publication, you will find a lot of information you had no idea about, making it worthwhile even for those who have a deep knowledge of LGBT history. I’ll end by linking to a 1998 <a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/reviews/980920.20goldstt.html" target="_blank">New York Times book review</a> on The Other Side of Silence that I found while researching this diary and thought was interesting, mainly because it is sort of a time capsule itself: <blockquote> For many otherwise well-meaning Americans, homosexuality and its attendant controversies -- gay marriage, military service, AIDS policy, sex education curriculums -- make us think or talk about things we would rather treat with benign neglect. Even though most straight Americans oppose overt discrimination against homosexuals, 7 in 10 think sex between members of the same sex is wrong. A majority viscerally opposes teaching tolerance for a ''homosexual life style'' and seems happiest with a ''don't ask, don't tell'' approach to the entire subject. ''The Other Side of Silence,'' John Loughery's provocative history of gay male life in the United States from 1919 to the early 1990's, will have none of it. His title (from the name of a short-lived gay theater workshop in the 1970's) refers both to the millions of gay lives that have been lived according to a kind of omerta, as well as to those who refused to follow the code and thereby risked their livelihoods and, as in the case of Supervisor Harvey Milk of San Francisco, their lives. But the other side of silence (or discretion) is also speech. By using blunt, nonacademic Anglo-Saxonisms, Loughery, the art critic of The Hudson Review, insures that readers cannot pretend not to know exactly which sexual acts were being practiced, forbidden or celebrated. [...] By giving voice to those who have been too often silenced in the past, by engaging them in a serious dialogue, by placing their words and their lives in front of modern readers, Loughery has rescued their experience from (in E. P. Thompson's memorable phrase) the enormous condescension of posterity. This extraordinary book will shame anyone who still wishes that gay issues would just go away. Loughery has added a powerful voice to the chorus making sure that speech triumphs over silence. </blockquote> Some of that is pretty dated, in particular the overwhelming opposition to homosexuality that the reviewer cites. In other ways, however—despite the monumental progress our movement has made since the 1990s—much of what Loughery has to say in his book is still highly relevant, especially in this Trump era in which bigotry is emboldened and civil rights are threatened. Loughery’s closing words about “gay life” in the last chapter ring true in 2018—and for a lot more people than gay males: <blockquote> a past in which little has come easy, a vital and contentious present, and a future that is anything but clear </blockquote> LGBT Literature Schedule: <blockquote> October 28: Clio2 November 25: OPEN December 30: OPEN January 27: OPEN February 24: OPEN As always, we are looking for writers! Either comment below or <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/newthread/Chrislove" target="_blank">send Chrislove a message</a> if you’d like to contribute to the series and fill one of our open dates. </blockquote> Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule: <div class="table-wrapper"> <table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width="600"> <tbody> <tr> <td>DAY</td> <td>TIME (EST/EDT)</td> <td>Series Name</td> <td>Editor(s)</td> </tr> <tr> <td>SUN</td> <td>6:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/children's%20books">Young Reader's Pavilion</a></td> <td>The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sun (last Sun of the month)</td> <td>7:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBT%20Literature">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td>Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sun (occasional)</td> <td>9:30 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Sci-Fi%20Fantasy%20Club">SciFi/Fantasy Book Club</a></td> <td>quarkstomper</td> </tr> <tr> <td>MON</td> <td>1:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Grokking%20Republicans">Grokking Republicans</a></td> <td>Mokurai</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Mon</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Monday%20Murder%20Mystery">Books!</a></td> <td>Susan Grigsby</td> </tr> <tr> <td>TUE</td> <td>5:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Indigo%20Kalliope">Indigo Kalliope: Poems from the Left</a></td> <td>officebss, ruleoflaw</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tue</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Contemporary%20Fiction%20Views">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td>bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <td>WED</td> <td>7:30 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td>plf515</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Wed</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td>cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <td>THU</td> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Self-Publishing%20101">Self-Publishing 101</a></td> <td>akadjian</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Thu</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td>SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Thu (first each month)</td> <td>2:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td>AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <td>FRI</td> <td>8:00 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Books%20In%20My%20Life">Books In My Life</a></td> <td>Phoebe Loosinhouse</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Alternate Fridays</td> <td>8:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Books%20Go%20Boom">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td>Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <td>SAT</td> <td>9:00 AM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a></td> <td>pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sat</td> <td>9:00 PM</td> <td><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Books%20So%20Bad%20They're%20Good">Books So Bad They're Good</a></td> <td>Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Chrislove) History Identity LGBT LGBThistory LGBTLiterature R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers _1802498 Sun, 07 Oct 2018 23:30:02 +0000 Resurfacing some old Zinn: Don't despair over the Supreme Court https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/6/1802256/-Resurfacing-some-old-Zinn-Don-t-despair-over-the-Supreme-Court A friend posted <a href="https://progressive.org/op-eds/howard-zinn-despair-supreme-court/" target="_blank">this 2005 article from The Progressive by Howard Zinn</a>. I found it galvanizing today. <blockquote> The rights of working people, of women, of black people have not depended on decisions of the courts. Like the other branches of the political system, the courts have recognized these rights only after citizens have engaged in direct action powerful enough to win these rights for themselves. </blockquote> And this: <blockquote> The courts have never been on the side of justice, only moving a few degrees one way or the other, unless pushed by the people. Those words engraved in the marble of the Supreme Court, "Equal Justice Before the Law," have always been a sham. No Supreme Court, liberal or conservative, will stop the war in Iraq, or redistribute the wealth of this country, or establish free medical care for every human being. Such fundamental change will depend, the experience of the past suggests, on the actions of an aroused citizenry, demanding that the promise of the Declaration of Independence--an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--be fulfilled. </blockquote> The court has always been a political body. They only come around to the side of justice when the country shows them they must. rss@dailykos.com (Canasta The Loony) BrettKavanaugh Justice Recommended SupremeCourt _1802256 Sat, 06 Oct 2018 20:12:29 +0000 Books So Bad They're Good: Conference Hiatus Edition https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/6/1800568/-Books-So-Bad-They-re-Good-Conference-Hiatus-Edition As promised, I’m off at the American Quilt Studies Group annual Seminar this week and will not be posting a new diary. See you next week! Also? I have the following to say to Senator <s>Vidkun Quisling</s> Susan Collins: rss@dailykos.com (Ellid) BooksSoBadTheyreGood R&BLers ReadersandBookLovers _1800568 Sun, 07 Oct 2018 01:00:03 +0000 You Can't Read That! https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/6/1801979/-You-Can-t-Read-That You Can't Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news. <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/halfmind/42974758570/in/dateposted-public/" title=""><img alt="42204394_10156081455611051_6033903076300029952_o" height="426" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1894/42974758570_49eb7fb142_z.jpg" width="640"></a> <figcaption>Photo: Charles Denson</figcaption> </figure> </div> YCRT! Banned Book News Local pastors petitioned to have <a href="https://ncac.org/news/press-release/maine-pastors-banned-books">LGBTQ-themed books removed</a> from a Banned Books Week display at the public library in Rumford, Maine. The library, backed by patrons and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/plucky-maine-library-decides-not-to-censor-own-banned-books-display">stood its ground</a>. Per the American Library Association, five of the top ten banned books in 2017 had LGBTQ content, a fact borne out in this short ALA video: <div class="dk-editor-embed embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9 center-block"> <div class="remove-embed-content">x</div> <a class="iframe_placeholder youtube dk-embed" href="//youtube.com/watch?v=yyd2kII-8D4" data-frameborder="0" data-height="315" data-src="//www.youtube.com/embed/yyd2kII-8D4" data-width="560">YouTube Video</a></div> It's another year, so it must be time for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/do-we-really-still-need-banned-books-week/2018/09/26/80e924be-c0fd-11e8-90c9-23f963eea204_story.html?utm_term=.acff30b3955c">the annual obligatory op-ed declaring Banned Books Week a hoax</a>. Yawn. Retailer Target is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/target-is-bleeping-out-book-descriptions-removing-words-like-nazis-and-queer/2018/09/14/9fef04fc-b77d-11e8-a2c5-3187f427e253_story.html?utm_term=.552da92c5d0a">removing words like "Nazi" and "queer" from descriptions of books</a> for sale at its website, “ ... to ensure a positive shopping experience.” Censorship by omission: In West Virginia, the <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/406765-west-virginia-library-doesnt-plan-to-carry-woodward-book-we">Morgan County public library announced it would not carry the new Bob Woodward book</a>, “Fear: Trump in the White House.” "We have other Trump books," the library's director said, before the library board, alerted to her announcment by media reports, stepped in to <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/west-virginia/articles/2018-09-15/library-backs-off-refusal-to-carry-woodward-book-on-trump">reverse the decision</a>. The director of guidance at Burlington High School, Vermont, was being investigated for unprofessional conduct. Student journalists filed a public records request and <a href="https://bhsregister.com/breaking-burlington-high-school-director-guidance-charged-unprofessional-conduct/">published an article</a> about the investigation on the school newspaper's website. The next day the principal <a href="https://www.mynbc5.com/article/burlington-high-school-student-journalists-censored-after-reporting-on-guidance-director-facing-licensing-charges/23106600">ordered them to take the article down</a>, in apparent violation of <a href="https://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2018/09/12/censorship-of-burlington-school-newspaper-may-have-violated-law">the state's "New Voices" law</a> protecting student journalists' First Amendment rights. Good news: <a href="http://www.splc.org/article/2018/09/burlington-high-school-censorship">the students prevailed</a>. Authors speak out on <a href="http://www.powells.com/post/qa/on-being-banned-authors-speak-out?">being banned</a>. Howard Zinn's "<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1041550172?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1">A People’s History of the United States</a>" has <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/09/howard-zinn-in-history-class-teachers-and-a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states.html">gone mainstream</a>? Tell that to Heartland America, Slate Magazine! Under the new European Union's Copyright Directive, not only can't users upload copyrighted material to social media, copyrighted material already on those platforms must be taken down. <a href="https://www.insidesources.com/does-the-eus-controversial-upload-filter-set-a-precedent-for-censorship/">Once platforms like Google and Facebook install filters to block and remove copyrighted material</a>, EU law may affect social media users world-wide. The link in the following tweet, posted 9/28/18, is <a href="http://cbldf.org/2018/09/new-draconian-policy-affects-books-mail-in-pa-prisons/">already dead</a>, which leads me to believe Pennsylvania prison policy on books is still in flux. Dated 10/4/18, <a href="https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=15753">this appears to be current policy</a>, bad enough but not as bad it initially appeared: <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/halfmind/44210115505/in/dateposted-public/" title=""><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-10-05 at 12.53.12 PM" height="456" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1955/44210115505_c6ae97d00b.jpg" width="500"></a> <figcaption></figcaption> </figure> </div> There is no censorship more odious than <a href="https://ethresear.ch/t/censorship-based-on-stake-taint/3379">censorship based on stake taint</a>. If you think censorship based on stake taint is bad, wait'll you read about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/world/middleeast/kuwait-ban-books.html">censorship and book banning in Kuwait</a>, where mermaids have to wear the hijab. YCRT! Banned Book Review <figure class="image-captioned align-left"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7244.The_Poisonwood_Bible"><img alt="poisonwood bible" height="240" src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1922/44883974372_75cd3d962f_m.jpg" width="160"></a> <figcaption>4.5 of 5 stars</figcaption> </figure> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7244.The_Poisonwood_Bible" title="">The Poisonwood Bible</a> by Barbara Kingsolver Synopsis (from <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7244.The_Poisonwood_Bible">Goodreads</a>): "'The Poisonwood Bible' is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it — from garden seeds to Scripture — is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa." "If I were to write a nonfiction book about the brief blossoming and destruction of the independence of the Congo, and what the C.I.A. had to do with it, then probably all 85 people who are interested in the subject would read it. Instead I can write a novel that's ostensibly about family and culture and an exotic locale. And it's entertaining, I hope." — Barbara Kingsolver This was a book club selection, not one I would have picked up on my own. I had heard of Barbara Kingsolver but had never read any of her stuff. I'll go right to my reaction: after a short opening chapter in the voice of Orleanna, the mother, each of the Price family's four daughters began to describe their experiences in the Congo, and I was utterly hooked. The Price women came alive and I loved them all, even Rachel the Termite, the shallow one. Each has her own distinctive voice and style and way of looking at her family and the world. I didn't miss hearing from the father at all ... one sees quite enough of him through his wife and daughters' eyes, enough to last a lifetime. I grew up Southern Baptist, thank you, and know the type well. Oh, and by the way, I am the same age as the twins, Leah and Adah, and well remember heavy news coverage of America's interest in the newly-independent Congo in the early 1960s, including our government's opposition to the presidency of Patrice Lumumba and the coup that resulted in the Congo's decades-long nightmare under Mobutu. It struck me … as I read about Nathan Price's dogmatic single-mindedness and the physical and psychological punishment he inflicted on his wife and daughters; about the contrast between his empty, irrelevant religion and that of the Congolese villagers; about the Eisenhower/CIA-engineered assassination of Lumumba and the installation of the corrupt dictator Mobutu; and even more so about Leah's later life with Anatole, her black Congolese revolutionary husband ... that "The Poisonwood Bible" had surely been the target of book banning attempts in the USA, if not in parts of Africa. A little research uncovered two documented instances: the novel was <a href="https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081102190001AAo2luM">banned in Port Washington NY schools</a> in 2001; in 2010 it was <a href="https://wiu.libguides.com/c.php?g=295495&p=1971512">challenged by New Hampshire parents</a> who objected to its inclusion on a school reading list, citing sexually explicit scenes. "The Poisonwood Bible" does not appear on the American Library Association's Top 100 Banned Book list, and the only references to it being banned and challenged I can find online are the secondary ones linked above. Still, given that the ALA itself says most school book bans and challenges go unreported in the media, and are thus invisible to the ALA, I have to believe "The Poisonwood Bible" has been the target of other, unreported, attempts to keep schoolchildren and others from reading it. When possible, I research and link to contemporaneous local news coverage of book bans and challenges. Why? Because local news reports usually include interviews with those who sought to ban the books in the first place, and that's where you find out what their real beef was. Unfortunately, I can't track down contemporaneous coverage for the two incidences listed above. Sexually explicit scenes? I doubt it. I just finished reading the book cover to cover, and I'm damned if I remember any. No, I'm willing to bet the real objections were to the novel's less-than-flattering depictions of Christianity and good-hearted American benevolence (specifically the Eisenhower administration's complicity in overthrowing Lumumba). Most of all, however, I think the parents who got the book banned in New York, and who challenged it in New Hampshire, were uncomfortable with the idea of Leah and Anatole's mixed-race marriage. Can I prove it? No. Am I right? You know I am. rss@dailykos.com (pwoodford) BannedBooks Censorship ChallengedBooks PoisonwoodBible R&BLers Readers&BookLovers YCRT _1801979 Sat, 06 Oct 2018 16:00:33 +0000 Classic Poetry Group:'The Rainy Day' by Longfellow,and the wk [dedicated to anyone feeling down now] https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/5/1791217/-Classic-Poetry-Group-The-Rainy-Day-by-Longfellow-and-the-wk-dedicated-to-anyone-feeling-down-now <h2 class="AlignCenter">The Rainy Day</h2> By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow <div> <div> <h3></h3> <ul> </ul> </div> </div> The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary; The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary. My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary; My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, And the days are dark and dreary. Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary. . <figure class="image-captioned align-right"><img alt="cloud.JPG" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/566074/large/cloud.JPG?1531627771" title="cloud.JPG"> <figcaption>Angmar</figcaption> </figure> <blockquote> Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere%27s_Ride">Paul Revere's Ride</a>", <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_Hiawatha">The Song of Hiawatha</a>, and <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline">Evangeline</a>. He was also the first American to translate <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri">Dante Alighieri</a>'s <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy">Divine Comedy</a> and was one of the five <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireside_Poets">Fireside Poets</a> from New England. <div class="table-wrapper"> <table style="text-align:left"> <tbody> <tr> <th colspan="2" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:top; width:300px">Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</th> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:top; width:300px"> <div>Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photographed by <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Margaret_Cameron">Julia Margaret Cameron</a> in 1868</div> </td> </tr> <tr> <th style="vertical-align:top">Born</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">February 27, 1807 <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Maine">Portland, Maine</a>, U.S.</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="vertical-align:top">Died</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">March 24, 1882(aged 75) <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge,_Massachusetts">Cambridge, Massachusetts</a>, U.S.</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="vertical-align:top">Occupation</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">Poet Professor</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="vertical-align:top">Alma mater</th> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowdoin_College">Bowdoin College</a></td> </tr> <tr> <th style="vertical-align:top">Spouses</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">Mary Storer Potter Frances Elizabeth Appleton</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="vertical-align:top">Children</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">Charles Appleton Longfellow <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Wadsworth_Longfellow">Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow</a> Fanny Longfellow <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Mary_Longfellow">Alice Mary Longfellow</a> Edith Longfellow Anne Allegra Longfellow</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:top; width:300px"> <hr></td> </tr> <tr> <th style="vertical-align:top"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="0831181533.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/583793/large/0831181533.jpg?1535773391" title="0831181533.jpg"> <figcaption>Angmar</figcaption> </figure> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> Longfellow was born in <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Maine">Portland, Maine</a>, which was then still part of Massachusetts. He studied at <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowdoin_College">Bowdoin College</a> and, after spending time in Europe, he became a professor at Bowdoin and later at <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_College">Harvard College</a>. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, and he lived the remainder of his life in a former <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longfellow_House%E2%80%93Washington%27s_Headquarters_National_Historic_Site">Revolutionary War headquarters</a> of <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington">George Washington</a> in <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge,_Massachusetts">Cambridge, Massachusetts</a>. His first wife Mary Potter died in 1835 after a <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage">miscarriage</a>. His second wife Frances Appleton died in 1861 after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on translating works from foreign languages. He died in 1882.<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow" target="_blank">en.m.wikipedia.org/...</a> </blockquote> <figure class="image-captioned align-left"><img alt="rain-nature-animated-gif-32.gif" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/556780/large/rain-nature-animated-gif-32.gif?1529725378" title="rain-nature-animated-gif-32.gif"> <figcaption>google</figcaption> </figure> . . . Week in poetry: <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">CLASSIC POETRY GROUP</a><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Classic%20Poetry%20Group" target="_blank">.</a> ************* . <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/5/1801980/-A-Note-for-Those-with-Dark-or-Suicidal-Thoughts?utm_campaign=trending#comment_71587816" target="_blank" title="">A Note for Those with Dark or Suicidal Thoughts.</a> .<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/1/1800561/-Happy-60th-Anniversary-NASA" target="_blank" title="">Happy 60th Anniversary NASA</a> . . . <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption> READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE </caption> <thead> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">DAY</th> <th style="text-align:center"> TIME EST/EDT </th> <th style="text-align:center">SERIES</th> <th style="text-align:center">EDITOR(S)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SUNDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">6:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"> (LAST SUN OF THE MONTH) </th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(OCCASIONAL)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Sci-FiFantasyClub">SciFi/Fantasy Book Club</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">quarkstomper</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> <td style="vertical-align:top"></td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">MONDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/languageofthenight" target="_blank">Fantasy: The Language of the Night</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">TUESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">5:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Indigo Kalliope:</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/IndigoKalliope" target="_blank">Poems from the Left</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> ruleoflaw, officebss </td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">WEDNESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">THURSDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Self-Publishing101">Self-Publishing 101</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">akadjian</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(MONTHLY)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">FRIDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SATURDAY</th> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">9:00 AM</td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">9:00 PM</td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="IMG_0020.JPG" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/578365/large/IMG_0020.JPG?1534477853" title="IMG_0020.JPG"> <figcaption>Angmar</figcaption> </figure> </div> UK National Poetry Day: <blockquote> <div> <div> From John Keats to Nick Cave: poems for every stage in life </div> </div> <div> <div> This National Poetry Day, whether you’re in need of some verse for a wedding or to mark a death at 104, Chris Riddell selects his favourite poems for key life moments<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/04/poetry-to-live-by-chris-riddell" target="_blank">www.theguardian.com/...</a> </div> </div> </blockquote> <div class="align-center"> <figure class="image-captioned"><img alt="Violent-young-Sun-may-GeologyPage.jpg" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/596744/large/Violent-young-Sun-may-GeologyPage.jpg?1538787545" title="Violent-young-Sun-may-GeologyPage.jpg"> <figcaption>Violent young Sun may have seeded life on Earth: study <a href="http://www.geologypage.com/2016/05/violent-young-sun-may-have-seeded-life-on-earth-study.html">www.geologypage.com/...</a> </figcaption> </figure> </div> rss@dailykos.com (Angmar) ClassicPoetryGroup Longfellow ReadersandBookLovers _1791217 Sat, 06 Oct 2018 01:30:04 +0000 Write On! Seeking a Friend for the End of the Plot. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2018/10/4/1800668/-Write-On-Seeking-a-Friend-for-the-End-of-the-Plot Hello, writers. I had a story I was working on and there was a lot that I liked about it, but I realized something important was missing. My main character was a young man who comes back to his home town to discover that something is amiss. At first he’s a lone wolf, poking around on his own with just some tips from a couple of his neighbors. Later his girlfriend comes to town, but before long he sends her away because it’s not safe. Eventually, he teams up with a few like-minded souls. But why was he alone at the start? If this is his home town, where are his friends? His old school buddies? I suddenly realized, I had cut off my character from a source of help and I had limited my narrative possibilities, because now my main character had to pretty much do everything on his own. Where were his Ron and Hermione? Or, his Merry, Pippin, and Samwise Gamgee? As I read other stories, and watched movies and TV shows, I noticed that what I had done was quite unusual. Most characters have a support network, and it allows the main plot to be supported by subplots, too. Maybe Harry is following Draco Malfoy, hidden beneath his invisibility cloak, as Draco sneaks into the potions classroom after hours. Do we immediately relieve the suspense by having Harry find out what he’s up to? No! Instead, we cut to a scene with Ron and Hermione at the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade, where they overhear Madam Rosmerta whispering a dire secret to a mysterious stranger . . . . I think giving my main character some old friends / companions will ground him in his home town, making him less of an outsider, present opportunities to define him and reveal character, and open up narrative options for me. <hr> It’s the most, word-er-full time of the year! National Novel Writing Month, or <a href="https://nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">NaNoWriMo</a> (Nano for short) is almost upon us again. Regulars will be familiar with it, but if it’s new to you here’s the short version: People try to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. Wait! Don’t run away! That’s only 1,667 words a day. Several of the Write-On regulars do it every year. I’ve done it for several years, and I’m happy to say that I’ve finished more times than not. But around here, we let people choose their own goal if they want to, and we also do DaiKoWriMo in January for people who find that month more conducive to their creativity. Turkey juices in November, creative juices in January! If you’re considering joining in, now is the perfect time to start thinking about your goal and planning your project. Unless, like many do, you prefer to write by the seat of your pants. <hr> Meanwhile, back at tonight’s challenge... We often write about a Callow Youth and her or his Stout Companion, but two characters can be almost as limiting as one, especially if they’re always together. For tonight’s challenge, write a few sentences with your main characters (they can be searching for a lost jewel, or any other scenario of your own), but then cut away to their friends or companions in another location, where a subplot is unfolding — OR — Show us your main characters with their extended companions. What will we learn about them as they interact with these friends that we didn’t learn when they were with their usual teammate? Try to limit yourself to 150 words. <hr> <div class="table-wrapper"> <table class="dk5-table"> <caption>READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE</caption> <thead> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">DAY</th> <th style="text-align:center"> TIME EST/EDT </th> <th style="text-align:center">SERIES</th> <th style="text-align:center">EDITOR(S)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SUNDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/LiteracyCounts" target="_blank">Literacy Counts</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">gmfbard</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">6:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/YoungPeoplesPavilion" target="_blank">Young People’s Pavilion</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">The Book Bear</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"> (LAST SUN OF THE MONTH) </th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/LGBTLiterature" target="_blank">LGBT Literature</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chrislove</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">MONDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/news/TheLanguageoftheNight" target="_blank">The Language of the Night</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">DrLori</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">TUESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ContemporaryFictionViews" target="_blank">Contemporary Fiction Views</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">bookgirl</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">WEDNESDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">7:30 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/WAYR">WAYR?</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Chitown Kev</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/Bookflurries-Bookchat">Bookflurries Bookchat</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">cfk</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">THURSDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/write%20on">Write On!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">SensibleShoes</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">(FIRST THURS OF MONTH)</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">2:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/blog/AdmiralNaismith">Monthly Bookpost</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">AdmiralNaismith</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">FRIDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">8:00 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/BooksGoBoom" target="_blank">Books Go Boom!</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Brecht</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:30 PM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/CLASSICPOETRYGROUP" target="_blank">Classic Poetry Group</a></td> <td style="vertical-align:top">Angmar</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left">SATURDAY</th> <td style="vertical-align:top">9:00 AM</td> <td style="vertical-align:top"> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/ycrt">You Can't Read That!</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/paulsreviews">Paul's Book Reviews</a> </td> <td style="vertical-align:top">pwoodford</td> </tr> <tr> <th style="text-align:left"></th> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">9:00 PM</td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/news/bookssobadtheyregood" target="_blank">Books So Bad They’re Good</a></td> <td style="background-color:#f9f9f9; vertical-align:top">Ellid</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <hr> Thank you to SensibleShoes for allowing me to guest-host this week. SenSho will be back next week. Write On! will be a regular weekly diary (Thurs 8 pm eastern, 5 pm pacific) until it isn't. Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on <a href="http://www.pred-ed.com/" title="">Preditors and Editors</a>, <a href="https://absolutewrite.com/recommended-resources/" target="_blank">Absolute Write</a> and/or <a href="https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/" target="_blank">Writer Beware</a>. <hr> Top Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/Cecb0_8Hx-o?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Duy Pham</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/search/photos/friends?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a> rss@dailykos.com (dconrad) Community dakowrimo Nanowrimo R&BL R&BLers Readers&BookLovers Teaching WriteOn Writing _1800668 Fri, 05 Oct 2018 00:00:32 +0000