flight paths discussion

the magic of March is evident
in buds that swell from the branch
of every tree soon to be
covered in flowers and flowers
poking up from the earth

magic or miracle, too often,
emerging pale and cautious
from our winter lair
we hasten by not noticing
the quiet splendor unfolding ooxooxoxooxooxoox [there

Love the poem!

Thanks Ellie
written on page in honour of this group and Spring of course!

I really hesitated to start this when I realized what a creepy premise it's based on, but the writing drew me in and now I am engrossed in C.J.Sansom's Dominion and languishing in the hall of Bill Bryson's Home

How was the new Kingsolver Ellie?

Petra are you reading any of the other Canada Reads books? I think you would like Finding Edward.

Happy March!
Magdelanye, that's a lovely poem to start the month off with. Thank you.

I haven't gone out of my way to look for the Canada Read books.
I've read Greenwood and Moon of the Crusted Snow.

I'd like to read Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Mexican Gothic and perhaps Station Eleven.
However, I won't be reading them anytime soon.
I will look into Finding Edward. It does sound right up my alley.

I'm still reading and enjoying Sacajawea. It's an interesting story. There's a feeling of discomfort reading about how easily Lewis & CLark befriended the Indigenous People as they encountered them. Yet, as the story is written, the friendship was mutual.
It makes me wonder whether this friendship that began the relationship between Indigenous and White could have lead to a more mutual future than it did (and that we all hope can still be obtained).

On my jogs I'm listening to What Happened to Paula: On the Death of an American Girl, which is about a cold case of a murdered girl. The author looks not only at Paula's murder but her situation, women's situations in culture then and today, their choices, etc. I'm not far along enough to know if this format will hold together to tell a full story or whether it's an angle for a book because the details of what happened to Paula are thin. However, it is interesting so far.

I have gotten a couple books from the library but don't know when I'll have time to read them:
Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds
Soul Therapy: The Art and Craft of Caring Conversations

something went wrong and I lost my reply and for a while I thought I lost the last part of your message Petra because the keyboard was covering it and the whole page was frozen.
So, once more with feeling (and a little less detail)
I'm glad you are still enjoying Sacajawea

I must say I love Michael Christy and Greenwood in particular. As for Station 11, I don't think it's her most accomplished book and it seems curious that it was picked over Glass Hotel. When is the big week anyways?

I dont think I could handle Paula but your two library titles sound excellent. Well, a new Thomas Moore! I'll be keeping watch for both.

Haven't done this in a while, but once I accepted the premise of Dominion I could not put it down. In fact, when I woke at 3:30 am I thought I might read a chapter before going back to sleep. I did go back to sleep: at 5:30; for a few more hours. I had thought to finish it on Tuesday as its a huge book, but in fact I finished it just now. It was amazing, chilling and horrifying and rather brilliant.
Anyone familiar with Sansom 's works? He has a series I'm now considering.

So good reading both of your posts. I was especially interested in Finding Edward which I've now requested from the library.

I'm still struggling with the after-effects of my recent bout with COVID--exhaustion. Some days are better than others.

I'm excited about the things I'm reading at the moment. I finished Olivia Laing's Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency--it took me months but I think only because it's dense--and intense because I found it fascinating.

I'm now reading a wonderful book, Strangers I Know--an Italian book (although the author grew up in both Brooklyn and Italy) that is supposedly fiction but is apparently also based on the author's life. The protagonist (same name as the author) is the child of two deaf parents (divorced), both of whom have refused to learn sign language and appear extremely unstable--especially the mother. Absolutely fabulous writing!

I'm also rereading Henry Green's Party Going. Since if's probably 35 years, at least, since I read it & I have no recall of it, it's really like a first reading. I'm a big fan of Green--weird little books that are wonderfully written and both depressing and funny.

Speaking of depressing, I'm also rereading Jean Rhys' Good Morning, Midnight--another book I read 35 or maybe even 40 years ago although I have better recall of this one--I read all the novels of Rhys back then, and loved them--despite they're being full of angst and despair. I'm curious as to how I'll find it this time.

I've gotten from the library a copy of Sheila Heti's new book, Pure Colour. Although I didn't love How Should a Person Be? I did find it interesting enough to want to read another of hers.

Gosh Ellie, sorry to hear you are still experiencing the effects of Covid. May your energy rise with the spring! Elderberry syrup helped me a lot I believe with the deep fatigue that lasted even as I recovered last summer.

At least you've got some fabulous company.
It took me a while but I recognized your precis and knew I had written a review of Strangers I Know, which I read last summer and had such an impact.
After some digging I found it and now it should be included with the other reviews. It's a different edition, but doesn't it seem daft to separate reviews that way?

I liked Heney Green but I adored Somerset Maugham.
sounds like you too Ellie went on a deep Rhys kick. There was something I never could put my finger on that gave her books a certain strong appeal that was elusive. How is it reading her now, as a mature woman and not a giddy girl?

Sheli Hetis book looks super! I liked Motherhood and have meant to follow up

And I loved The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing.
I read that some years ago, it was one of my lost reviews. I checked with the library here in Powell River and they have funny weather, so I've added to my list for there.

Also can't wait to read the new Thomas Moore and have placed a hold on it. No results found for otherlands yet.

The last few days I spent so wrapped up in Dominion by C.J. Sansom that I felt lost this morning.

I started The Mad Women's Ball by Victoria Mas which curiously takes place in a setting prominent in Dominion: the great looney bin. It was hard to settle on a new book but I think I made a perfect choice.

argh! maybe I should go straight to whine and cheese. Earlier I wrote a fairly detailed reply to Ellie and the links worked, but just now, as I tried to post a comment on a review of Bionic Jeans, I got the error message and it seems that's it for today for the laptop.
Coming here on the fone I hoped to see the message I posted hours ago now,
but it doesn't appear to be here.

LOL I swear the above comment was not there when I wrote that it was lost just now.

Does anyone know about these women?
The six : the lives of the Mitford sisters

Magdelanye wrote: "Gosh Ellie, sorry to hear you are still experiencing the effects of Covid. May your energy rise with the spring! Elderberry syrup helped me a lot I believe with the deep fatigue that lasted even as..."

I love Sansom--I went on a real binge & read a bunch in the series

By the way, at least one of the Mitford sisters supported Hitler and was an active fascist (in its literal name of an existent party, not used as an epithet)

But I wanted to add that Nancy Mitford was, a believe, a Socialist and did not support the Nazi party. And she was a more important writer (I believe) than the other one

yes Ellie, the references in Ravensbruk (I believe it was Diana Mitford married to Oswald Moseley) led me to the book I mentioned above. I need to find a reliable one on Moseley himself.

I finished What Happened to Paula: On the Death of an American Girl. It turned into an interesting look at Society, expectations and missing/murdered women. It could have been a lot stronger if the author hadn't put herself and her family in the forefront.
In general, this turned into less about Paula's murder (which is a cold case, sadly) and more into restrictions on women, expectations, "blame", shame, rights, etc.

well Petra I may have to change my mind about reading Paula, keeping in mind what you said about authorial grandstanding. Having lived in the DTES while the Pictons were operating, I found the ineffectiveness of the police heartbreaking.

Yesterday I made a dedicated visit to the library here. It's over twice the size of my beloved Sechelt library and brighter more modern with its enormous windows and native sculptures and way more tables for work.

The exciting news is I got both the Soul Therapy (how are you liking that Petra?) and the one on the Mitford sisters which I am going to start today. I might start them both today! as I am down to reading only one book, having finished the Fetherling memoir of the 60s yesterday.

The Attic is one of those fictions based on sketchy facts that in themselves are appalling, this time the abduction of African children.

Magdelanye, Paula is not a great book, but it does get one thinking about missing & murdered women and the system. It's certainly interesting from that perspective.

I haven't started Soul Therapy yet. Have you?

I am reading Notes on the Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society. Interesting for discussion and thought. Part of the essays sound a bit like someone saying that things were better in his day. They probably were but it's a weird feeling to get that "in my day" vibe in a serious essay on social matters. Still, an interesting read about today's need for instant gratification, new things and excitement.

Reading Soul Therapy is making me want to go back and reread Care of the Soul which had such a strong impact on me. Not wanting to interfere with your own take on it, I will just add that I cant wait to discss

Your question prompted me to figure that you didnt see either of my updatrs. I rarely see updates from you or Ellie or Ice. I wonder about this.

I am also reading the craziest book, Eunoia, which is somewhat annoying with flashes of brilliance.

And I am completely bowled over by The seven Moons of Maali Almeida

I finished Notes on the Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society and found it interesting in a lot of ways. He makes points that make one think about where Society might be heading. A particular aspect is our need for instant gratification and the need to be seen (selfies, Tik Tok, etc). His thoughts are that instant gratification is fleeting and has no lasting substance, which takes away from Culture with is long lasting. While he makes some interesting observations, he does (at times) come across as someone who thinks that "things were better in my day".

I then picked up Where the Crawdads Sing. I really enjoyed this story. The characters are well developed and the isolation that Kya lived in kept me reading. I got pulled into the story and it didn't let me go.

What are we all reading this week?

Hi all!

I just finished Lonely Castle in the Mirror, a Japanese fantasy novel which I enjoyed very much. Group of young adolescents who have all stopped going to school because of bullying (apparently a major problem in Japan) who are called through their mirrors to a somewhat magical castle presided over by a "Wolf Queen"--very touching and interesting.

I'm reading a kind of memoir--I'm not sure what to call it--by Deborah Levy called Real Estate which is the last of a trilogy so I probably shouldn't have started here but it was the only one available at the library and I'm loving it.

I stalled on Spare by Prince Harry. I was enjoying it an an okay way until we got lost in his army experiences and attempts at lasting romance. I'm still thinking of getting back to it but probably not until I've finished Good Morning, Midnight which I'm loving, despite its bleakness (or because of?) and Finding Edward
which is about, to quote GR, "a mixed race Jamaican man who migrates to Canada after his mother and surrogate grandfather die." The opening is very promising--I was captured immediately

once again my reply got lost in transmission....it may be something i did but instead of publishing it went that home page.

At least on the laptop you can fiddle and sometimes retrieve. Ive been looking around for a replacement for a long time but I really am not confident in my ability to be able to choose well out of all the sales pitches.

just about lost this by scrolling up...will get that laptop running again asap.
For now, it looks like a soft spring day with a blue sky and fuzzy branches on the trees. There is a bus to town in an hour so i better start getting ready.

I did watch the last half of Canada reads and was probably as relieved as everyone to see the Mexican Gothic voted out

Ellie, when it first came out I was interested in maybe reading Spare but now I'm not. I've heard enough, I think. Harry needs a lot of help. I hope he gets it soon.

I have been jogging to the stories of Stephanie Plum and finished Turbo Twenty-Three and Hardcore Twenty-Four. Fun, entertaining and easy to listen to while running.

I read and enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing. It's a wonderful story and well written.

I went to the library and picked up two graphic novels, Let There Be Light and Passing for Human: A Graphic Memoir.
I started and am enjoying Let There Be Light.

I'm still reading Sacajawea. I'm not pulled into the story, although it's okay. It's more of a "this happened today, then this happened, then this...." on and on and on. Nothing really exciting or compelling happens. It's kind of nondescript, really.

I enjoy Stephanie Plum a lot. Doe diversion I’m reading one of the DCI Banks mysteries by Peter Robinson

I haven't even checked to see how many are in the Stephanie Plum series. I just keep going and waiting to run out of books. LOL!

Petra, if I remember right Sacajawea will pick up again. It is extremely long.

I'm glad Ellie is loving Edward.

I'm with Petra on Harry.

Crawdads lost me, too many credibility issues.

Forgive my terseness: this is a synopsis of my original post which [not again!] got lost in transmission