Books and food ~ Sunday Salon

This seems like a good time to write my very first Sunday Salon post.

Salon — noun, a room in a large house in which guests are received.

This week, let's imagine ourselves in this Grand Salon, where each of my guests from cyberspace may choose a seat to her (or his) liking and get comfortable.  Let's talk about books, shall we?  And also about what's happening in our lives.  When it isn't serving as my cyberspace hangout, this room has a real location:

A lovely salon awaits guests at Château de Vaulogé, complete with comfortable leather seating, fine art work, and a collection of books for reading — in a setting filled with daylight yet warmly decorated to provide a cozy retreat. This salon is perfect for relaxing or joining in conversation with your bookie companions.  (Yes, I slightly altered the wording I found with the photo.)

First, our books

I did finish reading Jane's book (Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt) before falling asleep last night and, now that I'm back home, I need to get to these library books so I can clear my shelves.  Fourteen books checked out?  Oh, my goodness!

Due Date ...... Title
11/28 ... Coming Up for Air (finished, ready to return)
11/29 ... Wife of the Gods (could renew, but 310 pages)
11/29 ... The Sandalwood Tree (could renew, but 360 pages)
12/3 ... My Petition for More Space (not in the right mood)
12/7 ... Dangerous Neighbors (yes...)
12/7 ... Ghosts in the Garden (yes...)
12/7 ... Into the Tangle of Friendship (yes...)
12/7 ... Seeing Past Z (yes...)
12/7 ... Still Love in Strange Places (...to these 5 by Kephart)
12/12 ... The Devil Amongst the Lawyers (not in the right mood)
12/12 ... The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (yes, still)
12/19 ... Identical Strangers  (yes...)
12/19 ... My Sister's Voice (...to both of these books about twins)
12/21 ... Zora and Me (yes, just got it)

I really want to get back to Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World that I got last week.  And while I was house sitting for Jane, two more books arrived — the two chick lit books by Starr Ambrose I won during the Readathon from Lisa @ World of Books:  Lie to Me (2008) and Thieves Like Us (2010).

What's happening?

Lunch at Ichiban "happened" for me and my friend Donna.  Watching the chef prepare Japanese food is always a happy showtime, especially with an appreciative 2-year-old girl sitting near me.  The chef asked if fire would bother the child before lighting the fire, and in the other photo his hands are moving so fast they're a blur.  That's my delicious hibachi salmon in the middle.

If the grand salon pictured above didn't have enough books in it for us bookies, how about sitting together in this room?  Which would you prefer?

Sunday Salon ~ reading and discussing books

Book o'clock?  For me, every day has some time for books and reading in it.

 

Sunday Salon is for online discussions among friends.  Are you part of a book club or online book discussion group?  Which do you prefer?  Sitting around a room in easy chairs?  Sitting around a table?  Having a ZOOM discussion so you can stay home?

Here's a link to 50 book club discussion questions, starting with ...

• How did the book make you feel?

... and going through different kinds of questions to ask, whether you discuss a novel or nonfiction.

• Which parts of the book stood out for you?
• What was your biggest takeaway from the book?
• If the story could be told by one of the other characters, which character’s perspective would you prefer to hear?
• Did you learn something you didn’t know before?

Thank you, Wondermom Wannabe.

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time

zones — to share what we have been doing during the week.  

Other Sunday Salon musings are linked at the bottom of Deb's Readerbuzz post.

Booking about ~ Sunday Salon

Here's another salon for us, though I find "salon" a bit too grand (see last week's Sunday salon).

Booking about

1.  Learn about medieval tech support for new book technology.  (Thanks, Julia.)

2.  You oughta read this:  Where have all the reading materials gone?  Julia wrote this week about trying to figure out what was different about her eighth-grade friend's house, different from her own.  Then it hit her:  "Where are all your books?"

When I was dating the man I would marry, I noticed there was precisely one book in his parents' home — the Bible — and it was on the lower shelf of the coffee table, dusted but apparently never read.  He didn't grow up a reader, but became one, as you can see from what I wrote in June.

3.  November 29th was the birthday of Madeleine L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time (click on the title to read my review).  Have you read it?  A graphic novel version of it is coming out in 2012.

4.  Barack Obama and his daughters Sasha and Malia went bookshopping at an independent bookstore on "Small Business Saturday" (11-26-11).  I recognize two of the books Malia (right) is holding:  Zen Shorts by Jon Muth (on the bottom) is a picture book in the same series with Zen Ties, that I read a few days ago, and the one above it is The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selnick, that I read in May.  Click on the titles for my reviews.

That's life

My life recently has been about water, more water (with heron), less water, and almost no water.  In other words, it felt a bit wet around here, what with the floodwaters and all.  It didn't mean more reading, however.  Though I "stayed inside to read" and did a lot of studying, I haven't finished the fiction and nonfiction books I've been reading:

• Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World ~ by John Shelby Spong, 2011, nonfiction, 432 pages
• The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus ~ by Amy-Jill Levine, 2006, nonfiction.250 pages
• Children and Fire ~ by Ursula Hegi, 2011, fiction, 272 pages

Sunday Salon ~ a weird week

My life outside books

I edited last Sunday's Salon post at 9:35pm after learning that my brother Bill had died, and I haven't been motivated to post anything all week long.  This is the picture his family chose for his obituary.  I'll just leave it here and see if I can get back in the groove to blog again.  Our sister Ann died eight months ago, so only two of us siblings remain:  my baby brother Jim and I.  I'm the oldest and feeling my age this week.  Bill was 74, and I'll be 77 in a couple of weeks.  Rest in peace, little brother.

My life in books

Books I've completed since last week's Sunday Salon:

29.  Windless Summer ~ by Heather Sharfeddin, 2009, fiction (Washington), 8/10

"It was July, 104 degrees that afternoon on the bluffs overlooking the Columbia River in eastern Washington State" (p. 1).

30.  Little Boy Lost ~ by J. D. Trafford, 2017, fiction (Missouri), 9.5/10

My father took a deep breath, and then he walked toward the door.  As he went into the hall, he turned around.  "I fought the battle over segregated lunch counters and the right to vote, but this is different."  He pointed at me, lying injured in bed, my face swollen and cut.  "The White Only signs have been taken down, but they're still there.  This is your fight now" (p. 57).

31.  The Color of Hope: A Color of Heaven Novel ~ by Julianne MacLean, 2013, fiction (California and Massachusetts), 8/10

"I longed for a sibling, but I knew I didn't have any because I'd been told my real mother never had any other children previously" (p. 36).

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.

Sunday Salon ~ it's all good

Would you take this road "less traveled by" (to quote from the famous poem by Robert Frost)? This road is called the W Road.  Can you see why?  In case you never had to read or memorize Robert Frost's poem, as we did back in the olden days, here it is for you to ponder:

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.

My youngest great-grandchild turned five this week.  How do you like her furry, black cushion?  I wonder what she's playing on that device.

Ten Keys to Happier Living: A Practical Handbook for Happiness ~ by Vanessa King, 2016, self-help, 9/10

I've written about this before, but this seems like a good time to re-read this nonfiction book about happiness during Nonfiction November.  "Happiness is not something ready made; it comes from your own actions," says the Dalai Lama, who is the patron of Action for Happiness.  Vanessa King, expert on positive psychology, has created ten key evidence-based actions that have been shown to increase well-being — at home, at work, and in the world around you.  We all want to be happy, but what does that actually mean and what can we do in our everyday lives to be happier?  Fortunately, psychologists now have evidence of what really makes a difference and helps us to be happier and more resilient to life's ups and downs.  The author has drawn on the latest scientific studies to create a set of evidence-based practical actions.  These will help you connect with people, nurture your relationships, and find purpose.

Donna kept a Good Things Jar during 2019 and, after she died, I asked her sister if I could have that jar full of good things Donna wrote about that year.  Yesterday, I unfolded a note she wrote during September; one sentence about that week says:  "On Sunday, I went to dinner at Granite City Diner with Bonnie and Marie."  Oh, my.  That's bittersweet to read, since Marie and Donna both died this year.  I opened another one randomly, and once again Donna mentioned Marie, who was going to her son's wedding in Israel the following week.  I don't want to open them all at once, so I may share one or two here occasionally.

I think I'll start a new thing in my Sunday Salon posts, patterned after Deb of Readerbuzz, who made the buzzy bee headers I've been using.

Good Thing #1

The girl had an exciting birthday this year.

Good Thing #2

I got my booster shot a week ago.

Good Thing #3

Reading the "good things" Donna wrote in 2019.

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to share what we have been doing during the week.  

Other Sunday Salon musings are linked at the bottom of Deb's Readerbuzz post.

Sunday Salon ~ books and life

Owls and Other Fantasies ~ by Mary Oliver, 2003, poems and essays, 92 pages

A perfect introduction to Mary Oliver’s poetry, this stunning collection features 26 nature poems and prose writings about the birds that played such an important role in the Pulitzer Prize winner’s life.  

 

Within these pages you will find hawks, hummingbirds, and herons; kingfishers, catbirds, and crows; swans, swallows and, of course, the snowy owl, among a dozen others — including ten poems that have never before been collected.  She adds two beautifully crafted essays, “Owls,” selected for the Best American Essays series, and “Bird,” a new essay that will surely take its place among the classics of the genre.

In the words of the poet Stanley Kunitz, “Mary Oliver's poetry is fine and deep; it reads like a blessing.  Her special gift is to connect us with our sources in the natural world, its beauties and terrors and mysteries and consolations.”

For anyone who values poetry and essays and for anyone who cares about birds, Owls and Other Fantasies will be a treasured gift.  For those who love both, it will be essential reading.

This also counts as a Nonfiction November selection.  Oh, and I can also claim it as library loot.

I'm still reading The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966), and my friend Fay's copy arrived by mail earlier than expected.  She and I plan to discuss it one of these days soon.

When I took the Crown Center bus on the grocery store trip this week, I chanced upon a new (to me) chewy granola bar:  fudge-dipped coconut.

This photo shows a 2-ounce size, but what I bought were 1-ounce bars.  I ate one shortly after I got home, and it was delicious.  😄  I used to call Donna a choco-holic, so I'm pretty sure she would have loved one of these.

Here's a 2019 photo of a blooming tree near the old gazebo at the Crown Center where I live.  I found it while searching for something else on my blog.  This whole area and the greenhouse you can see beyond the gazebo are no longer there, since that's where our new building is currently being constructed.

In the background is the Crown Center building that will remain when people from my building are moved into the new one being built where you see the grass and the gazebo and the pink tree again.  It looks like I took these photos on the same day, but they were taken two years apart.  This one is from 2017.

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time

zones — to share what we have been reading and doing during the week.  

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Sunday Salon ~ library loot and some good stuff

Library Loot

Will's Words: How William Shakespeare Changed the Way You Talk ~ by Jane Sutcliffe, illustrated by John Shelley, 2016, picture book, 40 pages

When Jane Sutcliffe set out to write a book about William Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre, in her own words, she ran into a problem:  Will's words kept popping up all over the place!  What's an author to do?  Shakespeare is, after all, responsible for such familiar phrases as "what's done is done" and "too much of a good thing."  He even helped turn "household words" into household words.  But, Jane embraced her dilemma and wrote about Shakespeare, his plays, and his famous phrases with glee.  After all, what better words are there to use to write about the greatest writer in the English language than his very own?  As readers will discover, "the long and the short of it" is this:  Shakespeare changed the English language forever.  And now he is the only author with his own Dewey decimal number, 822.33.

Catch You Later, Traitor ~ by Avi, 2015, juvenile historical fiction (New York), 304 pages

Twelve-year-old Pete Collison is a regular kid who loves baseball, detective stories, and radio crime dramas.  When an FBI agent accuses his father of being a Communist, Pete finds himself caught in a real-life mystery.  The rumors have reached school and turned Pete's class against him.  To discover the truth, Pete digs into his father's past, but the more he finds out, the more complicated the story becomes.  Are there really Commies in Pete's family?

In a pickle

Today is National Pickle Day, and some people think it's a big dill.  (Yeah, you knew I'd get a pun in here, right?)

Yesterday was World Kindness Day, and the Action for Happiness folks sent out (via the free app I have) a message saying that "It's cool to be kind."  I think every day should be a day to be kind to the people around us.

Trivia

Did you ever play with a slinky?  I discovered yesterday that it was developed in a military research lab.  Yeah, I know you just love that little bit of trivia I found while wasting time online:  "In 1943, a young naval mechanical engineer by the name of Richard James was working on designing a system of springs that could support and stabilize sensitive instruments aboard naval ships in rough seas. During the course of his research, James accidentally knocked a coiled spring off of a shelf in his lab at the William Cramp & Sons shipyards in Philadelphia.  The spring went tumbling, landed on a pile of books, flipped over itself, and then proceeded to 'walk' itself down the books, flop onto a table, onto the floor, and then coil itself back up into a neat stack."  Click here to read more about it.

Good Thing #1

All the numbers looked good at my doctor's appointment.

Good Thing #2

Fun toys like Slinkies and Rubik's Cubes.

Good Thing #3

A warm apartment now that the weather is getting colder.

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different

time zones — to share what we have been doing during the week.

Other Sunday Salon musings are linked at the bottom of Deb's Readerbuzz post.

Sunday Salon ~ timeless prose?

Today, I remembered that I'm in the Central time zone, now that I've moved to St. Louis, so I changed this blog to reflect that.  However, Blogger went back and changed ALL of my nearly two thousand posts back an hour.  Wait!  No, no, that doesn't work!  Those I set to post just after midnight all these years now say they were posted an hour earlier, making them show up the day BEFORE they really posted.

Friday Book Beginnings ~ on Thursdays?
Throwback Thursday ~ on Wednesday?
Monday Mindfulness ~ on Sunday?
Sunday Salon ~ on Saturday?
Caturday ~ on Friday?
Tuesday Teaser ~ on Monday?

No way!  Just ... NO ... okay?  That means, the time stamp for this blog will continue to be Eastern time, even when I'm out of it.  I guess this means posts will show up an hour earlier than I write them.  Or something like that.  Go figure (if you can).

BOOKS COMPLETED

Listened to the audio while traveling to St. Louis

The Practice of the Presence of God ~ by Brother Laurence, published in 1692, read by Bob Tetreault, 2000, memoir, 8/10

Read this borrowed book in a couple of days

The Homesman ~ by Glendon Swarthout, 1988 (Afterword, 2014, by the author's son Miles Swarthout),  fiction (Nebraska), 8/10

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.

Sunday with Dewey

The Dewey Decimal System has a national day.  Who knew?  Not I.  I was putting together my usual Sunday Salon post, happened upon this illustration, and decided to write about it because of that third column.  Yeah, take time to read it; click to enlarge the photo.  Here's an illustration that "proves" next Saturday is Dewey Decimal System Day:

When my children were little, I used to take them once or twice a week to the public library on McCallie Avenue in Chattanooga.  That was long before the "new" library was built on Broad Street, where one of my girls worked when she grew up.  Anyway, the children's books were on the lowest level and mine were on the next floor up.  They were eventually so well-known by the librarians and so familiar with their department, that I was able to leave them to browse while I went upstairs to find some books for myself.

It reached the point that they would come and find me when they were ready to go home.  And they knew exactly WHERE to find me.  I'd be in the 100s and 200s section.  Can you tell that my first degree was in Philosophy and Religion?  Well, that degree actually became a double major, when I expanded into the 800s and added English Language and Literature.  Here's part of my library loot that reflects a current interest:

The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread ~ by Caitlin O'Connor and James Owen Weatherall, 2019, psychology, 280 pages

Why should we care about having true beliefs?  And why do demonstrably false beliefs persist and spread despite bad, even fatal, consequences for the people who hold them?  Philosophers of science Cailin O’Connor and James Weatherall argue that social factors, rather than individual psychology, are what’s essential to understanding the spread and persistence of false beliefs.  It might seem that there’s an obvious reason that true beliefs matter:  false beliefs will hurt you.  But if that’s right, then why is it (apparently) irrelevant to many people whether they believe true things or not?

The Misinformation Age, written for a political era riven by "fake news," "alternative facts," and disputes over the validity of everything from climate change to the size of inauguration crowds, shows convincingly that what you believe depends on who you know.  If social forces explain the persistence of false belief, we must understand how those forces work in order to fight misinformation effectively.

It's a library book, so I'm calling it "library loot" for this "Sunday Salon" post.  Use the chart above or the one below to try to figure out what category it's in.  What do you think?  I decided "psychology" sounds about right to me.  My library lists it as 153.74

I want to share one more thing:  I was very surprised when I read the Wikipedia article List of Dewey Decimal classes that many are shown as "Not assigned or no longer used."  Hmm, this ole world is in even more flux than I realized.  (Flux = defined as "continuous change or movement.")

I'll spend next Saturday (Dewey Decimal System Day) reading.  What about you?

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Sunday Salon ~ dragons, food, and books

(click to enlarge photos)

Last week, my friend Donna and I went to Ichiban for Japanese food.  The chef's hat was covered with dragons, like this cloth on his belt.  His hands are a blur because he's chopping something in with the fried rice, and the other photo shows my delicious hibachi salmon.  My fortune cookie was appropriate, though it isn't exactly telling my fortune:

"You are a deep thinker with a knack for problem solving."

BOOK TALK

This afternoon, I will be leading a discussion of the book Last Week by Borg and Crossan.  I told you about it in an earlier Sunday Salon post, and I plan to post a review of it in the next few days.

As I look around me at the books on my shelves — and piled on every flat surface, it seems — I remind myself that I really should be reading books I own, rather than buying more or getting library books.

Visit the Sunday Salon's Facebook page for links to more posts.

Sunday Salon ~ abandoned books

Do you ever put a book aside -- and then never get back to it?  Following the lead of Nancy @ Bookfoolery and Babble, I call that kind of book a DNF, for "Did Not Finish."  In her Salon post last week, Eva @ A Striped Armchair explained how that happens.  She says it so beautifully.

"I don’t have a definite set of criteria for abandoning a book, but since I read in fifty to sixty page shifts, I always end up with ‘pauses’ in whatever I’m reading.  If I notice that I put off reading when a certain book is at the top of the pile, or that I seem to begrudge an author the time I’m spending on the page or my internal monologue begins ratcheting up the sarcasm, I know that it’s time to take stock.  So then I just ask myself if there’s a book I’d rather be reading in the questionable’s place; if a title immediately springs to mind or if I suddenly feel more excited about reading just thinking about alternatives, I know it’s time to walk away."

BOOKS

Just finished, a re-read for a read-in:  Ninth Ward ~ by Jewell Parker Rhodes, 2010, YA fiction (Louisiana), 9/10

Currently reading:  Girl Meets God ~ by Lauren F. Winner, 2002, memoir

Also reading, for 3-4-12 book club discussion:  American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation ~ by Jon Meacham, 2006, religion

Up next, so I can lead a 3-25-12 discussion:  The Last Week ~ by Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, 2006, religion
____________________

LIFE

My granddaughter Cady and her friend Amanda (on the left) delivered Girl Scout cookies -- twenty-four boxes in two plastic bags, since a couple of my friends ordered cookies through me.  Since the bags advertised a business, I handed each of the girls a box of thin mints so I could take this picture.  Have you tried the new Savannah Smiles?  I really like the tartness of the lemon taste.

On Wednesday, I had lunch with my friends Jane and Donna at the Vietnamese restaurant, which is owned by our friend Rosa and her husband.  Rosa and Jane both had birthdays this week, the 21st and the 23rd.  I forgot to take photos of the food, as I'd planned, so instead I'll let you ponder this unique jar on the counter.  It was a gift, Rosa said.

Visit the Sunday Salon's Facebook page for links to more posts.