What are you reading this week of August 7, 2016?

[hermetic]

Finally reading The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman. It's quite intriguing but I do have to remind myself at times that it was written 30 years ago. I start thinking, "Why didn't they just...? Oh, yeah, we didn't really have all those things back then." Still, a very good read and mystery.

Last week, as I was finishing The Last Policeman trilogy book, World of Trouble, I had this odd realization that it was an allegory of what has been happening at DU. Like, we were confronted with the possibility that our world is going to end and people just began going madly off in different directions. Then I came upon this statement that seemed to sum it all up:

"The truth is, at a certain point it was like a game. How preposterous can we make the whole thing? How unlikely a scenario, how self-evidently unbelievable, and see if these people would still believe it. Turns out: pretty much all the way. People will believe pretty much any goddamn thing if they want to bad enough."

Words of wisdom, Mr. Winters. SMH

For my audible book this week I am listening to Shadowfires by Dean Koontz. Good and creepy. It is starting to veer away from the original idea, though, and I'm starting to lose interest. I find this true of stories by Koontz: sometimes a hit, sometimes a miss.

Keeping in Koontz mode I also got the DVD Odd Thomas. Don't know how I missed this one before. It is LOL funny in spots and so intense in others. And I cried like a baby at the end, for various reasons. Watching it I kept thinking there was something so familiar about that mall. So I looked it up on IMDB and discovered it was Winrock Center in Albuquerque! I have been there many times, long ago. Pretty cool, on 16 degrees of separation level.

Another DVD I just watched is the terrific Hunt for Red October, based on a Tom Clancy novel. I saw this movie many years ago but it was at a drive-in theater so I was too busy having fun to pay much attention to it then. Thanks for the memory jolt, #9.

So, what are you relating to on a personal level this week? Or not?

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Thank you for the mention of odd Thomas, I just put it on my Netflix queue.

I agree The Hunt for Red October holds up well, having seen it a couple of times over the years.

I am reading the 1965 Pulitzer for Fiction, The Keepers of the House.
From Amazon description:

Entrenched on the same land since the early 1800s, the Howlands have, for seven generations, been pillars of their Southern community. Extraordinary family lore has been passed down to Abigail Howland, but not all of it. When shocking facts come to light about her late grandfather William’s relationship with Margaret Carmichael, a black housekeeper, the community is outraged, and quickly gathers to vent its fury on Abigail. Alone in the house the Howlands built, she is at once shaken by those who have betrayed her, and determined to punish the town that has persecuted her and her kin.

Morally intricate, graceful and suspenseful, The Keepers of the House has become a modern classic.

Non-fiction:
Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times by Lucy Lethbridge

The vividly told lives of British servants and the upper crust they served.

From the immense staff running a lavish Edwardian estate and the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a cramped middle-class house to the poor child doing chores in a slightly less poor household, servants were essential to the British way of life. They were hired not only for their skills but also to demonstrate the social standing of their employers―even as they were required to tread softly and blend into the background. More than simply the laboring class serving the upper crust―as popular culture would have us believe―they were a diverse group that shaped and witnessed major changes in the modern home, family, and social order.
Spanning over a hundred years, Lucy Lethbridgein this "best type of history brings to life through letters and diaries the voices of countless men and women who have been largely ignored by the historical record. She also interviews former and current servants for their recollections of this waning profession.

At the fore are the experiences of young girls who slept in damp corners of basements, kitchen maids who were required to stir eggs until the yolks were perfectly centered, and cleaners who had to scrub floors on their hands and knees despite the wide availability of vacuum cleaners. We also meet a lord who solved his inability to open a window by throwing a brick through it and Winston Churchill’s butler who did not think Churchill would know how to dress on his own.

A compassionate and discerning exploration of the complex relationship between the server, the served, and the world they lived in, Servants opens a window onto British society from the Edwardian period to the present.

Exceptionally well written, well detailed book, an actual page turner, filled with fascinating details of life not only in Britain but in the US and India.

[TexasProgresive]

2. Thanks, hermetic, for sharing your thoughts on "World of Trouble" relating it to DUtopia.

That is a great quote from the book. One of the things I love about great fiction is when the truth is wrapped in an entertaining package. We can take things to heart almost without realizing it. Since I retired I have sort of half watched listen to a lot of "rope operas" that I had seen as a youth. What has caught my attention is that they do not celebrate pure independence of the heroes pulling themselves up by their bootstraps with guns ablazing (well the guns are often belching). No, there is always a sense of common good and community. Then there are the difficult questions of the day that are asked, difficult in the 1950s and difficult now- racism against native Americans, Gypsies, African Americans and more. I wonder how much of this "liberal propaganda" (that's an attempt at irony) helped form my conscience.

About "Hunt for the Red October" I read the book years ago but never saw the movie. I had read Clancy's Red Storm Rising which is a chilling telling of the war in Europe we long prepared for against the U.S.S.R.. M.A.D. still deterred the use of nuclear weapons. This war is fought by conventional and slightly less lethal means.

One thing I learned from Ritual Bath is to gain a deeper understanding of the use of the mikvah in Jewish life. This made clear that David knew that his rape of Bathsheba would likely result in the birth of a child. After menses the woman takes the ritual bath and is in the theoretical most fertile time. So David saw her bathing and took her.

Enough of this rambling. I will do a second reply about my reading- Thanks, hermetic, for starting the thread.

[hermetic]

8. Thank you

Re: "Hunt for the Red October," I saw many reviews that say this is one time when the movie is actually better than the book. There are lots of great underwater and submarine shots so that's really enjoyable. And some great acting, too.

I have pretty much no familiarity with Jewish observances so the bath ritual was new. I did know the story of David and Bathsheba, though, so I learned something interesting. I'm just about done with it and should learn tonight who the bad guy is.

Ramble on!

[TexasProgresive]

3. Well I am 3/4 through "Doctor Zhivago" but I was in a big box store last week and........

there it was, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I an an unabashed Potter nerd. It's a great story and I would really like to see it mounted as a play. Maybe one of our local theater groups could do it. That would be great. I don't think that it would be too hard to do the sets and costumes. The magical effects are not extreme.

Anyway I will return to the Doctor and his women in the turmoil of early Soviet Russian and them to Lee Child's Killing Floor. Still training on the bike and falling asleep in my recliner.

[CrispyQ]

4. Oh my, I think I can recite the entire script for Hunt for Red October!

Just kidding, but I love, love, love that movie!

Recently I finished All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr & Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly. I didn't plan it, but both stories take place during WWII. I think All the Light would have been better if he'd stayed in chronological order. I had to pay close attention to what year each chapter was taking place in. There was also a huge gap of years at the end. The story went from WWII to 1970s. But the main character was a young blind girl, so it was interesting. Her father made her these little wooden puzzles. There were some really nice elements to it. It stressed how important radio was back then - something we take for granted now. Two of the characters in Lilac Girls were real people, which I didn't know until the end of the book. There was more in this story about the camps, so it was much more serious story.

[hermetic]

7. I do agree

with you about All the Light... That jumping around in time stuff is not easy to pull off.

[pscot]

5. On a personal level

this has been my summer of mindless home despair minor home repair. I've been replacing deck boards and rebuilding the deck railings. Since I do everything at the pace of the 'old man shuffle', it's a tedious process that reminds me every day of what it means to be old and increasingly decrepit. Given the alternative, i'm grateful for every pain-filled minute.

I'm reading The Paris Wife by Paula McClain. I have a 60 year, up and down relationship with Hemingway, and I recently reread A Moveable Feast which led me to this book. I'm also reading Madison and Jefferson by Burstein and Isenberg. This is one of those 5 pound histories that has to be read in small increments in order to avoid injury.

[hermetic]

6. I hear ya.

I've spent the past 2 weeks replacing a bathroom sink. It's been quite an adventure. It's required numerous hikes to the hardware store, a detailed discussion here in the DIY Group wherein I learned it's just near impossible to talk about plumbing online, a 911 call, a flood. But it's mostly all good to go now. At least I can finally brush my teeth in there instead of the kitchen.

Hope it's not been too hot where you are, working outside.

[pscot]

9. We barely hit 70 degrees today

Higher temps are forecast for next weekend.

[japple]

10. Hi all and thanks for the thread, hermetic!

After hearing Terry Gross interview Colson Whitehead on Fresh Air yesterday, I splurged on a download of his latest book, Underground Railroad. His writing is wonderful. I love the way he just jumps into the story with both feet. Cora, the main character, is young and wise beyond her years and, though I've only gotten in a few chapters, I'm sure will become a remarkable and memorable literary figure.

I finished reading S. M. Hulse's book, Black River which I found somewhat depressing, though a great story.

It's been hotter than hell in Georgia this whole summer, though we have finally started getting some rain. My sister and I have been busy canning tomatoes. We'll keep on going until we run out of jars or tomatoes, whichever comes first. Between running the kitty freedom train to rescue and preserving stuff from the garden, I fall asleep before reading much some evenings.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. I'm reading "The Arm" by Jeff Passan

"Inside the billion dollar mystery of the most valuable commodity in sports."

It's about the human arm, how pitching hundreds, then thousands, of fastballs is completely destroying the arms of gifted athletes. It also talks about the Tommy John surgery, which is a genuine career-saver, but Passan, and some others, are increasingly bothered by the fact that it's being done on younger and younger kids. There's also a pointed criticism of early specialization, year round participation in one and only one sport, and so on.

I'm not a particular fan of baseball, or any sport, but this is quite interesting.