Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

And I missed it! Whose was it? Well congrats to you, you might actually manage to read them, too.

Congrats Maarit!

I hope you enjoy them!

I love free books. That rocks, Maarit!

Tytti: The publisher was Tammi whose books I won. WSOY had similar contest, too, only you chose from their books and someone else won that one.

Well, I've "liked" them now. Maybe I'll notice it the next time they are giving out books for free...

Hi Everyone, I want to take a moment to let all of you know that I am still here. I realize that my participation with this group and the discussion threads has been even more sporadic and less frequent than it normally is and I apologize for that. As always, life, both personal and business, has continued to be quite busy lately (which is a good thing) but recently my husband has not been well so most, and often all, of my "free time" has gone to taking care of and being with him. He is doing better but it may be a lengthy journey for both of us.
Anyway, I just wanted to explain that to all of you so that when I don't respond all of a sudden, please don't take it personally. It just means that life has thrown another curve ball that I need to attend to and that I hope to get back as soon as I can.
I am a tad behind on my Idiot and Kristan Lavransdatter readings (and still loving both). I continue to plug along, I just haven't had much of an opportunity to comment lately.
My thanks to all of you who have been so wonderful and supportive and understanding - I truly, truly, truly appreciate it.

Bat-Cat wrote: "Hi Everyone, I want to take a moment to let all of you know that I am still here. I realize that my participation with this group and the discussion threads has been even more sporadic and less fre..."

Oh, Bat-Cat my thoughts and prayers to you and your husband. I'm sure God will see you through!

So sorry about your husband's bad health. I wish him a speedy recovery and for you some time to rest. Caregiving is very draining, so I hope you take care of yourself as well.

Bat-Cat wrote: "Hi Everyone, I want to take a moment to let all of you know that I am still here. I realize that my participation with this group and the discussion threads has been even more sporadic and less fre..."

No apologies necessary, family comes first, we'll be here when you have spare time. Glad to hear that things are improving and I hope they continue to improve. Take care of your first and most important priority, your family.

Take care Bat-Cat...hope your husband gets better...my prayers are for you and your family...

Bat-Cat, I'll keep you and your husband in my thoughts and send out some good vibes to the two of you.

Bat-cat, I'll echo what's already been said, no need to apologise, I wish your husband a speedy recovery and hope you're okay. Take time for yourself if you need, there's no pressure to keep up with group reads, but we're here whenever you want a chat :)

Thank you everyone!!! It wasn't my intention to cause such a stir but your outpouring of generosity and kindness is most graciously appreciated and quite humbling.

You guys are the greatest... and I will continue to interject my crazy ideas and perspectives whenever I get a free moment. ;-)

Bat-Cat, I wish your husband a speedy recovery. We will be happy to have you here whenever you have the time!

Wishing a quick healing to your husband, Bat-Cat, and strength and peace to you in your care-taking. Looking forward to more of our conversations when he is better!

Bat-Cat wrote: "Hi Everyone, I want to take a moment to let all of you know that I am still here. I realize that my participation with this group and the discussion threads has been even more sporadic and less fre..."

I'm so sorry to hear that Bat-Cat. I hope your husband gets better and I hope things get easier for him and you, God willing. Life can be tough. You're doing an amazing thing, looking after him. Look after yourself too.

No need to apologise for anything. This group is incredibly privileged to have you in it. Feel free to interject whenever :) We can't always read when we want to or how much we want to, but that's okay.

Thanks again everyone!!! Things are going well here. I feel quite honored to have this incredible support and well wishes from all of you fellow GoodReaders.

Life has an amazing ability and habit of presenting us with the perfect situations and opportunities for our personal growth and this happens to be one of them for us. Sometimes these challenges are not so easy but they are, in my personal experience, always worth it. I remember seeing an interview with Steven Hawking once and the interviewer asked him if he could trade his situation for any other what would he choice. His reply was that he would not change it for anything, that he has had and continues to have an amazing life and that he knows most of it would not have happened if he hadn't gotten sick. Why would he want a different life, this one has made him who he is today. And that has been my personal experience throughout life as well. By making my way through the many challenges life has offered me, I have been able to do and learn and become the person I am today - and I know full well that most of those lessons I would not have learned if I hadn't been challenged by adversity. So, you never know what wonderful gems lurk just below the surface of seemingly "bad" life events - some of them may be wonderful if we take a moment to dig just a bit deeper. I am finding that it is the same with reading, by making that extra tiny effort to try to understand what the author is saying to us we open up an entirely new and sometimes immense vista of opportunities and potentials that were previously unknown to us. So, adversity is my friend and I plan to live my life to the fullest no matter what life presents me with. There is always an opportunity for growth if we choose to look for it.

What an awesome attitude, Bat-Cat. We can all be uplifted today by what you said and be thankful for what today brings to each of us.

:) well said Bat-Cat. We can learn from you about learning from life's struggles.

Who Knows? The Farmer's Son:
Fortune or Misfortune?

One day in late summer, an old farmer was working in his field with his old sick horse. The farmer felt compassion for the horse and desired to lift its burden. So he left his horse loose to go to the mountains and live out the rest of its life.

Soon after, neighbors from the nearby village visited, offering their condolences and said, "What a shame. Now your only horse is gone. How unfortunate you are!. You must be very sad. How will you live, work the land, and prosper?" The farmer replied: "Who knows? We shall see".

Two days later the old horse came back now rejuvenated after meandering in the mountainsides while eating the wild grasses. He came back with twelve new younger and healthy horses which followed the old horse into the corral.

Word got out in the village of the old farmer's good fortune and it wasn't long before people stopped by to congratulate the farmer on his good luck. "How fortunate you are!" they exclaimed. You must be very happy!" Again, the farmer softly said, "Who knows? We shall see."

At daybreak on the next morning, the farmer's only son set off to attempt to train the new wild horses, but the farmer's son was thrown to the ground and broke his leg. One by one villagers arrived during the day to bemoan the farmer's latest misfortune. "Oh, what a tragedy! Your son won't be able to help you farm with a broken leg. You'll have to do all the work yourself, How will you survive? You must be very sad". they said. Calmly going about his usual business the farmer answered, "Who knows? We shall see"

Several days later a war broke out. The Emperor's men arrived in the village demanding that young men come with them to be conscripted into the Emperor's army. As it happened the farmer's son was deemed unfit because of his broken leg. "What very good fortune you have!!" the villagers exclaimed as their own young sons were marched away. "You must be very happy." "Who knows? We shall see!", replied the old farmer as he headed off to work his field alone.

As time went on the broken leg healed but the son was left with a slight limp. Again the neighbors came to pay their condolences. "Oh what bad luck. Too bad for you"! But the old farmer simply replied; "Who knows? We shall see."

As it turned out the other young village boys had died in the war and the old farmer and his son were the only able bodied men capable of working the village lands. The old farmer became wealthy and was very generous to the villagers. They said: "Oh how fortunate we are, you must be very happy", to which the old farmer replied, "Who knows? We shall see!"

The Moral: For me it suggests that instead of trying to control life through our extremely limited ideas, perspectives and abilities, why not try to look at life as a whole... and just maybe there is a pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow waiting for us to open up our hearts and minds long enough to find it. ;-)

Thank you Bat-Cat. I love this story, your attitude, and the way you tied it in to reading! You are seriously inspiring and I look forward to hearing about the wonderful gems that are surely around the corner for you!

Bat Cat I loved this story as well, what a great glass half full attitude. I'm relatively busy at the moment myself so I look forward to when we're able to share books, hopefully soon.

Agree with everyone again, you've got a great positive attitude Bat-Cat, which really helps to get through the tough times. I know personally, that when I've gone through stressful situations, turning to a good book or good friends on here, has been both a great support and a distraction. Life isn't always easy, but we usually learn and grow from our difficulties :)

Pink wrote: "Agree with everyone again, you've got a great positive attitude Bat-Cat, which really helps to get through the tough times. I know personally, that when I've gone through stressful situations, turn..."

Thanks Pink. I was recently thinking how this group and its wonderful members have started to feel like a second family for me. When I joined, I knew that this group was special but I had no idea just how special it would end up becoming. I feel incredibly fortunate and find it absolutely amazing that you guys could become such close friends in such a short period of time. I never imagined that a book group would prove to have such tremendous possibilities for depth and range of personal experience. I bow my head to all of you who make such an impactful contribution to the awesomeness of this group dynamic on a daily basis. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Bat-Cat, so glad to hear you say that :)

Bat-Cat- you have such an inspiring attitude. Loved the story! And I hope all continues to look up for you.

Very late to this conversation, Bat-Cat, but had to say how inspiring your attitude is to me. I hope your husband is improving and that life is only sending you broken legs when they will be to your benefit.

Bat-Cat, I'm praying you will continue to have strength physically and emotionally to be who you need to be each day. I've found your musings encouraging for my own spirit although I don't often comment here. I believe your husband must feel himself blessed to have your care.

I'm sorry to have missed al this but I would also like to wish your husband a speedy return to health, Bat-Cat. I have to agree with everyone that you have a very positive outlook on life which I admire very much and find very inspirational. I also believe that your positive attitude will help your husband's recovery. So take care, Bat-Cat.

Thanks again everyone. It was a decent weekend all around and I actually ended up reading a little and getting another book finished for my Bingo challenge. Yeah!!!

I have found so many times during my life that no matter what is happening it NEVER helps to go backwards or to wallow in it. It may feel better at times to do this or one may not feel like pushing on or... but the reality is that life is constant change (think quantum physics and Einstein) and we can choose either to go with the change and attempt to steer it (think Buckminster Fuller and his trimtab) or we can get washed away by it. I decided rather early in life that the only way I had any chance of having a positive effect on circumstances was to always move forward - no matter what life throws at you, always move forward and through it, don't allow yourself to get caught up in it. As a result of doing this innumerable times over the years, I have learned, without a doubt, that we definitely can and do have the ability to alter the flow of life and to make positive changes all around us just by being who we are and what we say, do and think.

Life is utterly fascinating and I love being a part of it. We are all energy beings (composed of energy all the way down to the smallest particles) and different frequencies of energy have profound affects on one another. A super amazing book by Masaru Emoto, Hidden Messages in Water, shows very clearly through the most exquisite photographs the real impact of the frequencies of words on water molecules (really a must look at - his website has lots of photos of these water crystals, http://www.masaru-emoto.net ). Since we humans are composed of at least 70% water, everything we say, do and think has a huge affect on our physical beings (and the same applies to people we interact with on a daily basis). Just by viewing these pictures one understands rather quickly that we greatly affect all of life whether we realize it or not. So, with this knowledge of our enormous impact on all of life, we must make a choice, in each moment, of how we want our energies to affect this world. Do we want to be a positive or a negative force for this planet (sort of like a carbon footprint but with energy)? I have, to the best of my ability, always chosen the former. I know that my husband is much better served by me if I can remain happy, positive, caring, helpful and all around optimistic - worry and fear will only make things worse. Choosing to be a positive light in his dark times is the most loving and unselfish thing I can do for him (even on days when I don't feel like it).

So, there you have it, sorry for the ear full. I guess it was timely. I truly appreciate all of you and your support and well wishes - they most definitely help!!!

Bat Cat you put my situation. Into perspective. I have to clean my house for Passover this week and even though it's a lot of tough labor, after two days I'm done. You have the job of caring for a person which is indefinite and you are doing it with the labor of love. Wishing you many happy days ahead and hopefully reading days as well.

Yay Bat-Cat! Thank you for sharing that attitude with us here too, so we can attempt it and share it with others, who can attempt it and share it with others ...

Must check out the water book--fascinating!

Kathleen wrote: "Yay Bat-Cat! Thank you for sharing that attitude with us here too, so we can attempt it and share it with others, who can attempt it and share it with others ...

Must check out the water book--fas..."

Yes, like a Pay-It-Forward with positive energy - great idea Kathleen, we can start a movement!!!

Brina wrote: "Bat Cat you put my situation. Into perspective. I have to clean my house for Passover this week and even though it's a lot of tough labor, after two days I'm done. You have the job of caring for a ..."

Thanks Brina, but I definitely feel for you. I really don't enjoy house cleaning at all - it's definitely a challenge for me to stay positive about this one. ;-)

Little time for me to read hence the reread of my favorite author Allende. I despise cleaning. My kids helped me cleaning yesterday but the next two days I need to do the kitchen myself. If only I enjoyed audio books. All I have is chocolate and coffee it will have to suffice. As I said after tomorrow cleaning should be pretty much done and then is cooking which I enjoy a ton.

I keep seeing lots of discussions about Shakespeare lately, which is great. Like a few people here, I haven't read any Shakespeare since school and only remember studying A Midsummer Nights Dream.

I actually just decided to see if there were any tickets available for Shakespeare's Globe theatre this weekend, as they've got a touring production of Hamlet returning for the 400th anniversary of his death. There was one ticket left, so I've treated myself and bought it for this Saturday, the 23rd April, I'm so excited! I only live an hour away from London, but I've never been to The Globe before (though I've often walked past) as it's one of those things that I put off and always think I will do one day. So I've bitten the bullet and decided to just go for it! Hopefully it will be okay going alone. I don't mind doing things by myself, but I don't think I've ever been to the theatre or to see a show alone before.

OH, Pink, I am so jealous. Shakespeare at the Globe, and Hamlet to boot. Hope you are a marvelous time!

Pink wrote: "Hopefully it will be okay going alone. I don't mind doing things by myself, but I don't think I've ever been to the theatre or to see a show alone before."

I've done it many times, especially when I have been travelling alone. Sometimes I have been able to get discount tickets for the same day or something. Or sometimes just gone to see a movie at a moment's notice.

Pink, it amazes me that you get to see an anniversary performance of Hamlet at the Globe. As an American, even visiting the theatre is a dream of mine that might not ever happen. And you get to just pop down the road to see a historic production there. Serious jealousy here. Hope it's awesome.

Laurie wrote: "Pink, it amazes me that you get to see an anniversary performance of Hamlet at the Globe. As an American, even visiting the theatre is a dream of mine that might not ever happen. And you get to jus..."

That is totally awesome Pink. How cool you English folk are. I'm jealous too!!! ;-0) And an anniversary performance as well - doubly jealous!!!

I wouldn't worry about going it alone - I do all sorts of things by myself and have a great time. We will be thinking of you on Saturday and, of course, expect to hear all about it. Have a super time!!!

Thanks everyone, I know it's one of those bucket list sort of things to do. There are amazing places I'd like to visit all over the world, that I'll probably never get to, so it's nice to actually do something more easily accessible in my doorstep.

I have a copy of Hamlet to read, but don't know if I should attempt it before Saturday, or save it as a surprise performance. Of course I know the basic outline of the play, but only the very bare bones of it. What would everyone else do?

I think I would read it, especially if you already know some of it. That way you could enjoy the experience and maybe concentrate on other things and not just the plot. You might be able to appreciate it more if you can understand more of it. (Never seen or read any Shakespeare but I just imagine that footnotes might be useful when watching some of his plays.)

I'm with Tytti -- read it.

Me too!!! Read it!!!!

Ooh, enjoy yourself Pink! And how lucky we are to be able to live vicariously through your experience, so do share after!

How cool is that Pink! Totally would read it before going, though it's not absolutely necessary, but if you have time to :)

That will be a wonderful experience, Pink! I'm happy you grabbed the chance to do this. Because there's so much to be seen close to home and yet we often overlook it. I hope you'll have a great time!

I have no idea how hard it is to understand Shakespeare as a native speaker. So I'm afraid I can't advise you whether to read or not to read before going.

I'm sure there must be plenty of Shakespeare being performed in the States isn't there?!

I live in Manchester, England and am off to see King Lear next week:
http://www.royalexchange.co.uk/whats-...
sooo looking forward to it!

Pink wrote: "Of course I know the basic outline of the play, but only the very bare bones of it. What would everyone else do?..."

A lot of people swear by just watching the play.

Personally, I like reading the plays before seeing them.

I can generally understand the gist of it when I just watch it, but I find I need to read it first to understand all the nuances of the language, jokes, puns, etc. Otherewise, it goes by to quickly for me to really understand every line.

I hope you enjoy! Hamlet is one of my favorites.

Darren wrote: "I'm sure there must be plenty of Shakespeare being performed in the States isn't there?..."

Plenty! Especially in the summer time. There's dozens of outdoor Shakespeare festivals.

My town is doing Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing this year.