a good article on C. Sagan

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5513175/

Bubble -  Thanks for that link to the website about Carl Sagan.  So interesting to read about his early life, his background, and to remember again what a brilliant scientist he was.  I vaguely recall watching his  TV series, Cosmos, that he wrote.    I had forgotten that he  was the author of the Sci-Fi novel, Contact,  that was later made into a movie starring Jodie Foster.   I clearly remember being surprised and saddened when he died - so young at age 62.  He and I were the same age, both born in 1934.

Callie - living near San Francisco,  I saw a lot of Vietnam War protests, and remember them well.  At that time, my husband was a job recruiter,  at IBM,  and he and another man had to go to colleges & universities around this area to recruit engineering students as possible employees.  Once at UC Berkeley, they arrived in the middle of student Antiwar rally.  Long story short . . . they were  chased  and threatened by protesters, because "IBM represented The Establishment".  They ended up climbing out of a window and running for the car.   

I, too, remember the Viet Nam protests.  But I find myself leaning back further quite often now, and I urge my children and grandchildren and great grands to listen up when I tell them that World War Two was one in which people rushed IMMEDIATELY to sign up, volunteer, take jobs, show their patriotism. My Uncle Buster was one who signed up the very day after Pearl Harbor.  He went into the Army Air Corps, and there he served until that war was over and done with.  And I tell them that wartime was a time of caring here at home.  People smiled at one another, wherever they were, and whether they knew one another or not.  We were all on rations, but we shared out a lot, too.  Women would run around trying to borrow, and being successful, too, eggs or flour or the extremely scarce sugar, for an emergency wedding or birthday cake.  Someone would have come home on short leave, and a much hoped for marriage would take place or birthday be celebrated that the family had not Dreamed of coming about with their soldier home! [/color][/size][/font]

Getting ready again, for another weekend.  They seem to roll around so quickly now, compared to in the past.   Mostly staying home now, especially with the hot smokey weather here,  caused by the destructive wildfires.   Something that now brings grief and mass destruction almost every year to our mountain communities and towns that are North of the Bay Area where I live.  The Park Fire, one of the worst ever, is still burning across four different counties.  The person who deliberately started this fire was apprehended by authorities, and will be looking at a long prison sentence.   

Mary Page - Good to see you here.  I enjoy very much reading your memories  of the War years.  People were so different then, compared to now.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to go back in time  to the Forties, for just a day, to relive those times and see all the friends and relatives we remember so well?

I haven't been reading much this past week.  I put the book I was reading on the shelf, for the duration of the Summer Olympics.  It's an event that comes around only every four years, so I want to watch as much as I can.  The Winter Olympics will be here in two years, so we can look forward to that.

Hope everyone who posts here is doing well and enjoying the Summer?  Keep us posted on what you're reading, and what you're watching on TV, in the way of movies or anything else?     

Now that I have a hard copy of Birth of the West I can continue reading it. I didn't think about the font size when I ordered it. Of course, it is small print. Oh, well. It and another, Shakespeare's Language by Frank Kermode, are first editions, used (ex-library), and in slightly dirty condition.

Just started, The History of Things to Come by Duncan Simpson, which is billed as a supernatural thriller. I may have mentioned this one already. Not far into it yet, but looks interesting. I didn't know it before I started reading, but it involves, you guessed it, books, and starts with an auction of miscellaneous papers written by Isaac Newton.

Almost all of my reading has slowed or halted for a while. I still have a TV console and another shelving unit to put together, but got held up waiting for a replacement for a defective part. Now I have it, my back is kicking up again. I am debating having someone come in and put them together as well as remove the old TV console, my big rocking chair which was on the porch before I saw how the wind pushes it around, and the bed which I want to replace with a twin size bed. The cats won't like that too much, I think. 

 

Oh, now here is another book that just caught my eye. https://www.laurashepherdrobinson.com/books/the-square-of-sevens/ Has anyone read it? It is now residing in my online library wish list.

And here we are, a description from 1896 fortune-telling using the square of sevens technique. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19687/19687-h/19687-h.htm

Yes, MARILYNE, it becomes harder and harder to feel really comfortable in these times when I think of those long-ago, all-out war years.  People were so polite and considerate back then.  True, we did not have television or computers, but we were taught to have polite tongues when engaging in conversation.  And the art of civil conversation was present everywhere we went.  Old folks like I am now would sit rocking away on their front porches and tell us kids the most wonderful stories of the lives they had known.  I don't think today's kids hear those stories from my generation.
 They are all too busy staring at or punching their cell phones!

I just finished a fast (as in couldn't put down) crime thriller called A Line in the Sand by Kevin Powers, the guy who wrote The Yellow Birds which I haven't yet read. Very well written. Cops vs Private Military Contractors.

I am almost done listening to The Rise of Athens, two chapters to go. Also, I've decided that I am unlikely to continue with The History of Things to Come. Now I can concentrate on completing The Birth of the West. It is a good thing I know where I stopped because Oscar decided my bookmark was fair game and pulled it out of the book.

Quote from: MarsGal on August 13, 2024, 07:03:47 AMOscar decided my bookmark was fair game and pulled it out of the book.

                                   

Mars,  Like Rick, I'm laughing over Oscar pulling your bookmark out of the book!  Now I'm wondering . . . what did he do with it after he got it out? 

Now that the Olympics are over, I'm going to get back to  reading  "The Demon Haunted World", by Carl Sagan.  Plus I have a few more books here that I hope to get to.  Reading is a chore now, with my poor eyesight.  Hard to get an appointment with a Ophthalmologist around here, so I'm going to try to see an optometrist for new glasses.

Rick, he left it on the floor fortunately none the worse for wear. I would have been really bummed if he had destroyed it since it is one of the oldest bookmarks I have. Part of a birthday gift I think, it is an illustration of frogs on a lily pad with the inscription "We was toad to wait here." The oldest is a Pledge of Allegiance to the Christian Flag which was given to me with a bible when I completed a church sponsored program in hopes I would join. While I never did join, I found the class very interesting. The third oldest would be the handwoven Hmong bookmark brought back from Viet Nam by a friend's friend after her tour of duty there. These three bookmarks I do not part with.

I'm glad they're safe. Our old cat would have beat them to a pulp. Now, if I need a bookmark, I use a cut up index card. I'm not much of a reader, but do read magazines, tech, and instruction books. They all have a share of those cut up cards sticking out of them.

Bubble,  and anyone else looking in today;  I saw this quote this morning by Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife.  I read it a number of times.  It really impressed me, and seemed so perfect somehow.  I copied it for you and for others to see.

"I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is... Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous...not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance... That pure chance could be so generous and so kind... That we could find each other...in the vastness of space and the immensity of time... The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful."
~Ann Druyan (& Carl Sagan)

beautifully said.
Thanks Marilyne for posting it.
One can  only wish all couples were so aware and appreciative.

I Adored Carl Sagan.  Of course, in my present stage of dementia, I had forgotten all about him, but this brought him back to me, for however so short a while.  I relate to this.  More later:  I am being summoned by my family.

I'm back.  I so very much relate to Ann Druyan's emotions and beliefs here.  I totally bow to the sensibilities of every other homo sapiens who has ever lived their very own life; but I had a beloved, too, and we only had just a little short of two full years as a married couple, albeit we had known one another for over fifty years.  It was perfect bliss.  We were like the same person, to our great surprise.  Never, ever a cross word.  And I, too, know I will never see Bob again, but what we had was worth the whole timelessness of Life and all the effort and energies that go into it. 

But I can dream of doing so.
 

I've gone on to read Kevin Powers' The Yellow Birds and am about half way through that. It is a novel about a young soldier who was sent to Iraq back in 2004. It switches back and forth in time by about a year or two, telling of his life before and the devastating effects his experience had on him during and after the war. It is not as "polished" as A Line in the Sand, but it is a good read and also hard to put down. It is listed as a novel, but I have to wonder if some of this is semi-autobiographical. he writes well. I'd like to read some of his poetry.

Here is a review of his other novel, A Shout in the Ruins. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/12/a-shout-in-ruins-kevin-powers-review I may recommend that one to my sister. I read bunches of Civil War histories and a few novels back in 9th-10th grade and haven't been much interested in it since (and yes, I have been to the Gettysburg Battlefield at least four times). Having said all that, one of the most unforgettable novels I ever read was Stephen Foster's Red Badge of Courage. My last trip, with Sue, after having not been there in many years, was an eye opener. They have been busily remaking the area into a closer approximation of what the area of battle looked like at the time. Devil's Den, especially, was unrecognizable to me. 

I read a new book by Robert Harris titled "Conclave". It is a "deep peek" into the goings on when a new Pope is to be elected.  We think our politics is messy...need to think again! LOL.  All in all a very, very interesting book, although I didn't care for the twist ending, which is all I'll say about that.
Robert Harris wrote "The Fatherland"; also the great one about the eruption of Vesuvius (and I can't think of the title--I lose at least one factoid each day I think, LOL).

Anyway, it was a really interesting book that I totally enjoyed! Downloaded it to my Kindle for like $4.99  thought once I might order in hardcover, but saved a bunch with the Kindle, and I feel it was worth it.

Yesterday I finally finished listening to The Rise of Athens. Now it is time to pick out another audio book listen. It will probably be one of the short ones.

My new library read is The Road Back, the sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. The Road Back is about the aftermath of WWI in Germany and adjusting to life after war. What particularly struck me so far is how the war changed society, the dearth of jobs available to veterans coming home, and the state of the art in medicine and replacement appendages. My eyes widened when I read that the Germans were down to using paper wrappings for bandages by the end of the war. As with us, women took up the slack on the homefront during the war. Many homecoming vets, aside from having to adjust to civilian life again, discovered that their jobs were no longer available to them because of businesses having shut down or moved and by being replaced by women who were paid less and were more current with the changing technologies.

My bedtime read is a just okay crime mystery which pits two military vets against persons unknown who are trying to assassinate a scientist/professor involved in controversial advanced technology research. So far, the action is taking place in and around the Seattle area.

Meanwhile, Birth of the West is sitting on my coffee table glaring at me for not getting back to it right away.

Mars - I was just now reading your last post in Bait & Tackle, about   The Book Thief  but decided to comment here instead.  That was a book that we talked about here in this discussion, so long ago.  I loved it, but recall that others didn't like it at all.   Definitely  a story that has to be read a second time to get the full understanding or impact.   Another one,   All the Light You Cannot See,  had a similar effect on me.   I would like to read them both again.

I read "The Book Thief" twice when I checked it out; then my f2f Book Club read it, and seemed to generate a lot of positive responses.  It's been so long ago that I can't remember any specific ones, but at the end of the meeting, it got all "hands up-enjoyed it". I have my own copy of "All the Light You Cannot See" and while I started it, I just never got back to it.  It is on my list of books in my TBR stack that I'm reading while taking a break from some of the stuff being read in my club now.

I read mixed comments about The Book Thief. I think we read it as a month long discussion. Most of the negative comments were about the way the story was presented with the interruptions in the text coming from little notes, poems, etc. interspersed with the story. I think it distracted some people. My sister and I quite liked it. The author writes books or the young adult set.

Mars, you mentioned that "The Book Thief" is classified as a Young Adult book.  I always wonder exactly what age group is  YA?  When they first started using that term, I thought it meant late teen, or college age?  However, some books that are labeled YA seem too mature for readers who are that young.  Yes, people of any age can read and enjoy a book, but it often takes a level of maturity to relate to the story.
I read  "Gone With The Wind"  and  "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn",  when I was a  young teen, and liked them both.  I thought I understood everything at the time.  However, it wasn't until I reread them  years later that I really appreciated both of them, and could relate to the characters and the story, and the impact of some of the situations. 

I was of the same mind, Marilyne. However, I did finally figure it out, kind of...

Wikipedia has an interesting history and commentary of the category. They begin with saying that it is generally 12 to 18 years-of-age. But read on, it gets even more interesting.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_adult_literature  It appears the term is not static for age, and a term "New Adult Literature" may be emerging. I have yet to see that used anywhere. BTW, I also ran across a blurb somewhere else that stated that the Brits define Young Adult Literature as between the ages of 18 and 22.

I posted this in Bait and  Tackle by mistake.  Copied  here.

YA books are generally aimed at age 12-18.  The designation is set by the publishers.   Acquisition librarians generally go by publishers designation but some librarians will change that to fit their particular patronage but will most often just follow publishers' recommendations.

Phyllis - Thanks for letting us know that the official YA age, according to the publishers, is 12 to 18.   Twelve year olds are quite mature today, compared to in the past.  Good to see you here in Library, and hope you return soon.

Mars - I saw on TV Weather, that Harrisburg was hit hard by the most recent storm?   Pictures of roofs being blown off houses, and some flooding.  Hope all is well where you live?

Anyone hear of 'The Book of Bill', or that series?
Any comment would be welcomed.
My grandson is nagging to order it.

Bubble, it and the author are not something with which I am familiar. I gather that the author of the book created the Disney Productions cartoon series Gravity Falls(2012-2016). He wrote several other Gravity Falls related books, but The Book of Bill, which was just recently released, is apparently for young adult audiences. It seems to have something to do with the Bill character himself who is supposed to be a bit scary for younger children. One of the often made comments I saw is that it uses more swear words. However having said that, it is getting high ratings from readers. Interesting tidbit: if the author is now only 35, then when the cartoon show began airing when he was only 23.

Thanks MarsGal. It is encouraging that he is willing to make the effort of reading in English because of the rave this is receiving.  Of course there are lots of drawings, riddles etc.
Most sites will not send to Israel and the others have a long waiting list 

I am managing to read a few "fast" books lately. Martha Wells' latest in her MurderBot series, System Collapse, was such a fast read. Now I am into Marko Kloos' fourth in his Palladium Wars series, Descent. Both series are favorites. The characters are delightful and they make great evening/bedtime reading or whenever you want something you don't have to think about too much.

This morning I downloaded and started to listen to Tokyo Uneo Station by Yu Miri. It is just a short book, and another light "read". It is a sad tale of a ghost who haunts a train station in Tokyo. The narrative character is the ghost. Right now, he is thinking back over his past life and relating a tale of someone who was brought up in a rural village, poor, without much confidence in himself or education. No in-depth details, just an overview of his life. You can hear/feel the sadness and depression in his voice as he ruminates over his past. The book was a National Book Award winner.