White Working Class

White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America ~ by Joan C. Williams, 2017, social science, 154 pages

This book explains why so much of the elite's analysis of the white working class is misguided and rooted in class cluelessness.  Joan C. Williams says that many people have conflated "working class" with "poor" — but the working class is, in fact, the purportedly disappearing middle class, who often resent the poor and the professionals alike.  But they don't resent the truly rich, nor are they particularly bothered by income inequality.  Their dream is not to join the upper middle class, with its different culture, but to stay true to their own values in their own communities — just with more money.  While white working-class motivations are often dismissed as racist and hostile toward foreigners, Williams shows that they have their own class consciousness.

Another cozy mystery

Nursing A Grudge (Book 4 of 15: A Maternal Instincts Mystery) ~ by Diana Orgain, 2015, cozy mystery, 190 pages, 6/10

Kate Connolly would like nothing more than to cuddle with her new baby, except to solve her next case and become a bona fide P.I.  She gets her chance when San Francisco’s hottest critic writes a particularly scathing review about the trendy new restaurant, Philosophie.  The critic’s boyfriend falls to his death under mysterious circumstances from Painted Rock Cliff, and Kate fears that the restaurant critic may be targeted next.

I found this cozy mystery on the Kindle that I inherited from my friend Donna and decided to read it in spite of it being the fourth of fifteen books in a series, with none of the others on the Kindle.  The author mentions too many people on every page, sometimes five or six.  I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight in my mind.

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts Sunday Salon.

Cats curled up on books about cats

(Click to enlarge; image found HERE)

The Yellow Wallpaper ~ two versions

The Yellow Wallpaper ~ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, with the original magazine illustrations by Joseph Henry Hatfield, 1892, novella, 34 pages

This version for Kindle has the short story as it was originally posted in The New England Magazine.  It also includes "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper" on pages 7-10.  The short story itself starts on page 11.

The Yellow Wallpaper ~ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892 (afterword by Elaine R. Hedges, 1973), novella, 63 pages

The author was a leading female activist and voice in the woman’s movement in the early portions of the 20th century. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is her short work that depicts one woman’s fight against the “rest cure” she is ordered to follow to cure her depression.  This classic story was adopted as a feminist tale for the modern age; this edition was published by The Feminist Press of The City University of New York.

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts Sunday Salon.

What's up with "UP"?

(What's Bugs Bunny UP to now?)

The English word UP has more meanings than any other two-letter word and is listed in the dictionary as:

adjective
adverb
noun
preposition
verb

We all know UP means toward the sky, but why do we say we wake UP in the morning?

Why does a topic come UP at a meeting?

Why do we speak UP?

Why are officers UP for election, and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

People stir UP trouble, line UP for movie tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

George Carlin

And some people are stand UP comedians.

To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP has a completely different meaning.

After an argument, we kiss and make UP. 

We seem to be mixed UP about UP!

A clogged-UP drain must be opened UP.

We open UP a store in the morning, but we close it UP at night.

And what could she be UP to?

I could go on and on, but my time is UP, so I'll wrap UP this post.

If you want to continue this list, it's UP to you!

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This was also written UP more than a decade ago and posted on this blog.  Hmm, counting the title and illustrations, how many times have I used UP in this post?  I love words, especially this one!

Oh, wait!  I just thought of another example!  Have you ever told a horse, even a pretend horse when you were a child, to "Giddy UP"?

Word of the Day

giddy up <gid·​dy·​ap ˌgid-ē-əp> = a command to a horse to go ahead or go faster.

A road less traveled and a universe less traveled

A Universe Less Traveled (Book 1 of Intersecting Worlds) ~ by Eric von Schrader, 2020, science fiction (Missouri), 384 pages

Kirkus Reviews: Von Schrader's debut novel should especially captivate readers familiar with St. Louis, but even those unacquainted with the city will find this parallel-worlds yarn worth a visit. ... Von Schrader's prose is butter smooth, and the chronological jumps the narrative makes back and forth throughout history (in both universes) are never tangled or confusing.  An enjoyable, gentle fantasy that gives new meaning to the phrase "Spirit of St. Louis."

 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:  For St. Louis sci-fi buffs, "A Universe Less Traveled" amounts to Must Reading — and then some.

This book's title is obviously derived from "The Road Not Taken," a Robert Frost poem that I've written about before on this blog (click on the title below to go to one of those times):

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 
Deb at Readerbuzz hosts Sunday Salon.

Walking and other ways of exercising

I've been walking up and down my hall every day, since it's been either too cold or too rainy to walk around the neighborhood.  Since I usually do it late in the evening, I'm the only one in my hallway.  So I've been adding a few things, like shrugging my shoulders up and down as I walk (which would look pretty strange if I were passing others along the way).  I have added moves like that one on the right, with my forearms up and pressing inward and back to the side as I walk along.  In other words, I'm trying to move various parts of my body while also getting in something like 5,000 steps a day, or more if possible.  I could go to the weekly 30-45 minute group that exercises together while sitting in chairs.  Or I could try to get in more of those moves in the drawings above.  Today, I found this drawing of exercising in a chair that I had used in a blog post back in 2020 and decided to put it here so I'd remember it.