Book Lovers Club
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among them was a well used original fanny farmer
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The Swarm, Schaetzing: German sci-fi thriller, a fantastic read if you have an interest in biology and love the sea. Also helped me visualise my cancer cells and accept them.
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Abigail- that was a cruel blow. Among my mother's possessions it was her cookbooks, rather than her clothes (with a few exceptions- a scarf I sometimes wear) or jewelrythat summon her memories most clearly. I am sorry for that loss. Hugs.
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Great thread! For mystery lovers, if not mentioned already, I recommend the Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbo. Absolutely brilliant!
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I've enjoyed Tony Dunbar's Tubby Dubonnet series. I find Tubby endearing and I have gotten most of them free on Bookbub. These are mysteries/legal thrillers too.
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MelissaD, I like him already! Tubby Dubonnet - I 'hear' his name with a French pronunciation?
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New Orleans:
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An endearing character on the other side of the law is the burglar cum bookseller Bernie Rhodenbarr from the series by Lawrence Block.0 -
I'll look for them. Tubby is a lawyer but not exactly always walking the straight & narrow
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When taking books out of library I always try to pick up an autobiography. Recent I read Ann Romney's "in it together". A very insightful read about her coping with MS and her political life. My daughter developed MS at the age of 42 and recommended that I read it. Ann puts such a positive outlook with her knowledge and active involvement in a cure for MS. Anyone who has an involvement in this disease will find this book a 'must' read as I did. In fact, I am going to buy the book to read when I feel the "need" for comfort in what life deals you.0
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a while ago I read and enjoyed A Man at the Helm by Nina Stribbe - so when I saw her first book, Love, Nina - a collection of letters to her sister written during her 5 years (1982-87) in London "working" as a nanny. Her employer was the Chief Editor of the London Review of Books - and the luminaries of London's publishing, theater and television worlds drifted in and out of the houses in the neighborhood. I put "working" in quotes because Nina was more like an older sister to her employer's two young sons - a very casual and open relationship. Nina was encouraged to enroll in college, so there is a lot about her experiences and her impressions of her fellow students. Anyway, one of the neighbors who seemed to manage to dine most evening with them eventhough (Nina had said she could cook in her interview - but many of the letters concern her interpretations/substitutions of ingredients in recipes her sister had give her.) This neighbor happens to have been Alan Bennett - a British author and playwright of great acclaim - most recently famous for the movie The Lady in the Van (with Maggie Smith) From my calculations the 15 years of the book on which the movie is based overlapped Nina's time in the neighborhood - the only possible reference to the van was a comment - that someone who was practicing driving couldn't practice in Alan Bennett's driveway because it was always occupied.....thrilling nonetheless
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Jelson, I just saw that movie yesterday! **cue Twilight Zone music** Maggie Smith is awesome, as always.
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Glennie19 - check out the book and also try Bennett's The Uncommon Reader in which Queen Elizabeth following one of her corgis, wanders into a book mobile parked near Buckingham Palace and embarks on a reading adventure.
I am planning to return Deirdre Madden's Time Present and Time Past to the library today, - it is about a family in pre-crash (2006) Dublin - a quiet novel about a loving family life and the family members' individual struggles to adapt, to get a long and to grow - to reconcile their past and future. Great descriptions of simple everyday experiences - a walk in the park, opening a dress shop for the day, eating alone at a cafe - really a lovely book.
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I just finished reading Carly Simon's memoir Boys in the Trees. It starts with her very sad, dysfunctional childhood and ends in the 1980s with the very sad end to her troubled marriage to James Taylor (whom, from reading the book, I would say she has never gotten over). Talks about how her career got started, the various famous men in her life (one verse of You're So Vain was, indeed, about Warren Beatty). Really, I felt quite sad myself by the end of the book, and it reinforces what we all know; money, talent, fame...none of it can buy happiness or peace. I picked it for my book club read, so I will be interested in what my friends thought of it.
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Ruth, that is so true. Money can't buy happiness.
Have you read: I'll sleep when I'm Dead. by Crystal Zevon. She is Warren Zevon's ex-wife. When he was dying, he told her to write his bio, *warts and all* and she did. It is a fascinating look at the music industry in the late 60's on,, and an interesting read of a very talented man, who had many demons of his own.
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Maybe I will have to read it. With all the excesses of that time, it is a miracle that any of those stars came out alive and 'normal'. I remember reading a joke that went, "Every cigarette you smoke subtracts 7 minutes from your life.....and adds them to Keith Richard's life." Ha!
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LOL!!! Love that. Talk about rough living being written all over someone's face,, that is Keith Richards. Yes, it is a great look at the excesses of those days. He was a really talented musician and songwriter,, who most people only remember for "Werewolves of London", but he wrote so many great songs. Hard rock to slow ballards.
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I would love to read the Carly Simon book. I remember that she had breast cancer several years ago. Her singing voice is beautiful.
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Her book ends in the 1980s. Maybe she will write a part II about her experiences since then. Since I was curious, I googled her & cancer and this is what I found:
"Carly Simon had a lump in her breast for a couple of years before she chose to have it removed. Several doctors had advised her against surgery, and she didn't push the matter because she was afraid of operations. She then lost a close friend, Linda McCartney, to breast cancer; and that urged her to get the treatment. She underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and reconstructive surgery, and has been cancer-free since 1998."
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How interesting that she's still alive and well yet left the tumour for a couple of years. It seems to go against everything we're told.
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But we don't know what type she had,,, it must have been a slow growing type?
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I would say it would have had to be slow growing AND she got lucky. She did need chemo, which might have been avoided if she would have had it taken care of earlier. Of course, we can only speculate.
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It's also interesting that several of her doctors advised AGAINST surg,,,, what was up with that?
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It's almost 20 years ago, so who knows, maybe she was going to some 'alternate healer' type of doctor. ????? I hope she does write another book about her post-James Taylor
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I just found an interview she did with Diane Sawyer in 2000. She had found a lump, but the doctor dismissed it as nothing. She didn't get it checked out further (because he said what she wanted to hear), never even had a mammogram. It wasn't until that she was on The Rosie O'Donnel show during Breast Cancer Awareness Week & it was pushed right in her face that she knew she HAD to act, that and the fact that her sister, on finding out that she had done nothing about the lump, was so mad that she threatened to drag her in for a mammogram kicking & screaming if she must. She said that she fainted when she got the news, & that the worst time for her was for about 6 months after she was done with chemo when she went into a deep depression. Her song Scar is about her experience.
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it's so sadly comforting that her worst time was 6 months after tx ended. Same for me. I suppose the early lump could have been DCIS which later became invasive and that's how she gotthe extra time? Anyway, she is a treasure. I was mad about her as a teen through early adulthood.
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some cancer types never progress
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Maybe it was a fibroadenoma? but to get back to books..... I just finished The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap by Wendy Welch. It is a memoir of her experiences opening a used bookstore in rural Virginia with her husband - following a dream - learning along the way. It is subtitled " a memoir of friendship, community and the uncommon pleasure of a good book". Fascinating for people who love books and who may have at some time considered running/working in a bookstore.
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Just read a good biography Martha Washington:First Lady of Liberty by Helen Bryan. It was fun because it not only talks about her but about the attitudes, customs, the lens through which people looked at the role of women, slavery etc. It also dished some of the gossip surrounding the Washingtons, made note of some of Martha's letters (like 'this was a canned letter, dictated & written for political purposes', and 'this may have been dictated but reflects Martha's opinion on this topic because.....". Martha had quite an interesting life and was a force in her own right. So, I found it very interesting & felt more like I got to know the 'real' person instead of just the portrait.
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