Fieldnotes: On Staying Clam & Reading in 2020 ☽ Part III ☾

Starting a new thread, as the last one was getting a bit long in the tooth.

I'm only about 20% through The Empire of Gold, and I am enjoying it, but I really wish everyone did not hate each other so much. LOL

>1 clamairy: They certainly do not pull their punches.

>2 pgmcc: Nope. Not even a little bit.

Finished another audiobook. Demelza is the second in the Poldark series by Winston Graham, and there are very few differences between this and the PBS series. I've really enjoyed these first two, so I will keep going. I bought the first one for audible, then found they are all free to borrow using the Libby app on my phone. :o)

Sorry I haven't been around much. The weather is finally cool enough to work outside. YAY! I will be back to catch up on everyone's threads soon(ish.)

>4 clamairy: We are getting to the point where it is too cool to work outside. That could change...but I will not bet any money on it for a while.

>5 pgmcc: By work outside I mean yard work and exterior maintenance. Are you saying it's too cool for that stuff? I turned off my AC one day and needed a sweatshirt the next. That is not normal here. I think the smoke in the upper atmosphere from the West Coast fires was deflecting warm sunlight. Now that it's gone we are warming up again, but the AC will stay off. I refuse to put the heat on until at least October.

>6 clamairy: I meant for sitting outside. Saturday was spent pruning trees.

>6 clamairy: We're the same way about the heat, but it was pretty close there for a few days! Back up to the mid and upper 70's this week though.

>1 clamairy: If that is the case, I may skip The Empire of Gold.

Congrats on the new thread!

>8 Karlstar: Thank you. Just imagine you're in Jerusalem in the 1800s, everyone hates each other, blames each other and they have magic. LOL Only thing is I am very attached to many of the characters on every side, so I will slog on. But I know I'm going to lose many/most of them by the end, and to each other's wrath. :o(

>7 pgmcc: & >8 Karlstar: I could still sit out in jeans & a sweatshirt these past few days. Now it's nice and warm again. Back into sleeveless shirts & shorts! This is more normal. (Plus I still have a lot of tomatoes ripening on the vines.)

>9 clamairy: My tomatoes pooped out early this year, but I still have cantaloupes and peppers coming along. They're both enjoying the weather, but boy howdy has it been dry dry dry here.

>10 Marissa_Doyle: Yeah, it's been awful here, too. My yard is mostly sand now. Not the pretty white beach kind, either. I watered my tomatoes at least once a day so they are still producing but I probably only got about 1/3rd of what I should have gotten for the season. So it goes. My herb garden looks a lot better now than it did in August at least. Just in time for everything the die. MMM Cantaloupes! Enjoy!

Out of curiosity--how did your basil do this summer? Everyone I know growing it here had a terrible time with it (it usually grows like anything, in pots or in the ground.) I usually grow three or four different types in pots, and it did miserably--turning brown and shriveling up, even though I was conscientious about watering.

I kept mine green but they all stayed abnormally small. They are usually waist high, but these only made it to my knees. I didn't even get any to freeze like I usually do. I still have a few alive, but they are yellowing. Gotta get some of it tomorrow.

Yes, mine are usually enormous too, and I turn most of it into pesto about now. Not this year. :( I wonder if there was some kind of basil plague out there...

They like soil moist all day. I couldn't give them that. LOL The ones I had in a clay pot stayed greener but also stayed very small because the roots couldn't spread out. My parsley also stayed abnormally small. The only things that did okay were the perennial herbs. Rosemary, French tarragon and lavender are still robust. Also the lemon Verbena looks good. Have to remember to harvest and dry some of these. Oh and my cilantro was a disaster. I planted some twice and even tried seeds. 💀💀💀

>15 clamairy: Our tomato plants are smaller than usual, but they loved the drier conditions, as far as the health of the plants, we got lots of tomatoes. It probably helped that we used 100% new pots and new soil too. Tomatoes really hate hot roots, the pots have to be large. I wouldn't plant in pots at all but the new place really has zero space for vegetables, though we managed to squeeze in some cucumbes.

Our sage and thyme have done quite well and the basil is great this year. We had exactly the same problem with parsley, it is about half the size it should be.

>16 Karlstar: Have you had a frost up there yet? My brother in NH already went down into the 20s and lost most of his garden. We haven't gone below 49 yet. Being surrounded by water has its perks in the Fall.

I finished The Empire of Gold a couple of days ago. I did enjoy it, but not quite as much as the first two in the series. I gave this one four stars, while I gave each of the others four & a half. I'm going to have to put my quibbles behind spoiler tags. Though I will say that in general I think she jumped the shark a couple of times. I realize it's her first series, and overall I thought it was quite original and well-written.

Each battle scene seemed more over-the-top than the one before it. And that final one? I wondered if I stumbled into a Stephen King novel when the fiery globs of blood started falling from the sky. Not to mention the army of ghouls, which I pictured as zombies. It just seemed like a bit too much. I know, it's fantasy. But she lost a half a star from me because of it.

That said I eagerly await whatever she writes next. I think finishing a series must be a torment. (I am pretty sure I had a similar reaction to the final book in The Broken Sky series, and the third in Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy.

>18 clamairy:

I must say I ignored much of the detail of the battle scenes. I just took it as a reference to violence. It was the overall politics and motivation of the characters that carried me on. The parallels to the troubles in Northern Ireland were very strong in my view. The one thing that skewed from the reality of NI was the taking down of walls before the peace accord had been negotiated. The Good Friday Agreement, the agreement that led to most of the paramilitaries disarming and a semblance of peace returning to the region was signed in 1989. The "Peace Walls" are still in place and there is little chance of their being removed any time soon, especially with Brexit taking the cornerstone of the agreement* away.

*The agreement was based on both The Republic of Ireland and the UK being members of the European Union. This made the difference between being Irish or British irrelevant in the context of NI and people in NI had the right to dual citizenship.

You can see why I was so interested in these books. They hit home for me.

>19 pgmcc: The two place names I scribbled down when I was reading The City of Brass were Northern Ireland & Jerusalem. There are numerous other regions worthy of comparison, I am sure, but these two have been fought over through much of my lifetime.

So what happens to NI/I border with Brexit?

>20 clamairy: So what happens to NI/I border with Brexit?

That is a very sore point. It was raised repeatedly during the Brexit campaign, with the question never being answered by the Leavers.

The absence of a border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is one of the major tenets of the Good Friday agreement, and a treaty between the United Kingdom and Eire. Throughout the Brexit campaign, the British government made assurances that the treaty would be respected.

Now, Parliament is considering an Act that unilaterally abrogates part of this treaty, in the interest of controlling trade.

British news coverage of parliamentary business is mainly concerned with how well the Prime Minister is, or is not, handling the Covid-19 crisis; however this Act is actually a very disturbing matter.

Ireland is a member state of the EU, and the EU as a whole is taking the issue very seriously. This is a major reason why the UK's negotiations with the EU are stalling.

Any further comment by me would definitely be political.

>20 clamairy:

So what happens to NI/I border with Brexit?

What follows is a description of the situation in response to your question. As some may interpret this a political I will put it behind a spoiler mask. I would describe it as a description of a live situation.

That is something the UK politicians promoting Brexit did not think about until Brexit was passed in the referendum. The answer to your question is not simple. The NI/ROI border is now the frontier between the UK and the EU. The UK has left the EU but we are still in the transition period when no change has been implemented. To get around the difficulties for The Good Friday Agreement presented by Brexit, the UK government signed a legally binding agreement with the EU in relation to the situation of NI. Until there is a trade agreement between the UK and the EU, NI will be treated as part of the EU, which means there has to be customs control of goods movement between Britain (i.e. the island of England, Scotland and Wales) and NI. This is to permit free movement between NI and the ROI and to prevent a hard border in Ireland between NI and the ROI.

The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, wants to renege on this agreement. People in NI who identify as British would see it as a weakening of the UK union and perceive it as a step towards a united Ireland, which is something they do not want. Boris Johnson is putting a bill through Parliament that will let the UK ministers break the agreement, but this would be in breach of international law. If he forces through a situation where there is no trade deal between the UK and the EU by the end of the transition period, 31st January, 2021, and ignores what is called the Irish Protocol, i.e. a border down the Irish sea ensuring UK goods do not enter the EU via NI, there will have to be a hard border between NI and ROI. This is something no one wants but is inevitable if the UK government pursues the direction it has demonstrated it is intending to follow.

We are in for a very strange time and great inconvenience for businesses and communities.

The potential difficulties presented by a hard border between NI and the ROI include:

- Customs checkpoints on the border which would slow up cross-border traffic.
- Delays for people living on one side of the border and working on the other. This could add hours onto their commute.
- A physical border presence would give dissident Republican paramilitaries an excuse to stir up trouble again and give them physical targets on which to vent their anger. Border posts were a popular bombing target during the Troubles.
- The dissidents would not limit their violence to the border posts and would try to stir things up across NI.
- Loyalist paramilitaries could use this as an excuse to take up violence again in the name of defending their communities and NI

If the Irish Protocol is respected and goods crossing the Irish sea from Britain to NI are subject to customs control and there is no border between NI and the ROI it is likely that elements in the Loyalist community will interpret this as a weakening of NI's union with the UK and as a step towards a united Ireland. This will be a rallying cry for paramilitary recruitment. There is no knowing what such a situation would lead to, but with no border between NI and the ROI such elements could cause difficulties across the whole Ireland.

There is no simple answer to your question and at this stage there is no solution that will not upset somebody. As there is never a time without unscrupulous politicians willing to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself, you can be sure that no matter whatever circumstances we end up with after Brexit there will be forces determined to cause unrest. It is not a pleasant outlook, economically, financially, or socially.

The path the UK has followed has copper-fastened Brexit so it is happening. If a magic wand could be waved and the decision made to cancel Brexit, there would be many angry people in Britain who could also be manipulated to cause trouble.

I hope that gives you an idea of how complicated the situation is and explains why the answer to you question is not short.

>17 clamairy: We have not had a frost here yet, temps have only gotten down to the lower 40's once. It is supposed to cool down this week.

>21 -pilgrim-: >22 pgmcc: Thank you both for the explanation, I'd read there was a problem with Brexit, Ireland and Northern Ireland, but no details were given.

>21 -pilgrim-: Ack.

>22 pgmcc: Good lord. Much worse than I thought. You have my sympathies.

>23 Karlstar: I almost had to put on my AC today. It's late evening, but it's still in the 70s with 95% humidity. I suspect this is the last of that kind of weather, though.

>6 clamairy: embrace the cold

>25 justanotaku: Yes, well... as a woman of a certain age *cough* I really have no other choice.

PS Love your username.

cold?what is this word you speak of? actually our mornings are fall like, in the upper 70s but then its 105 by afternoon. But we take what we can!

We had a week of waking up to frost, followed by a hot week, and now it seems to be settling somewhere in between. My poor zucchini plants don't know what's happening. Most of the leaves were killed by the frost, but now there is new growth and flowers. Pretty sure there won't be time for a second crop though—which is fine, because I've had quite enough zucchini by now.

>26 clamairy: why thank you and i can tell you some tips on how to not die of hypothermia if you want

Finished listening to Jeremy Poldark. These books are addicting. I may just dive right into the next one.

On my Kindle I'm only a short way into The Genius of Birds. It's wonderfully well written and packed with info, but not exactly riveting. So I suspect it will be a while before I'm done.

I liked Bird Brains when I read it in 17, right after reading about consciousness in octopuses so it was a good follow-on.

>31 Bookmarque: Bird Brains looks great. I might track down the audio. Which Octopus book was it? I listened to The Soul of an Octopus and thought it was awesome.

I read Other Minds which deals with the evolution of consciousness in cephalopods and how it came about separate from ours.

And I read The Genius of Birds in there, too. Opened a new way of thinking about them for me.

>30 clamairy: I have to admit, I never thought I'd like something like the Poldark TV series, but it really is good! A little slow sometimes, but almost always fascinating.

>34 Karlstar: It was wonderful, even though it veered into almost soap opera-like territory with some of the relationships and situations*. The fine acting and spectacular setting made up for all of that and more.

*How many times did Ross of his bothers-in-law get arrested?

I found The Shadowy Horses on a list of hundreds of ghost stories here on LT*. The tags included archaeology, ghosts & Scotland, so I snagged it from OverDrive and jumped in feet first. Really enjoyed this one. The writing style is clean, and she has a sense of humor. It was written in the 1990s, and it was a pleasure reading a book set in pretty much our current time, but before cell phones took over. Plus learned a few things about the Roman legions in Scotland!

I've already started another by the same author set in a haunted museum in a fictional town on the North Shore of Long Island. (As far as I can tell this non-existent town is about an hour's drive West of me.) And I'm enjoying this one, too.

* https://www.librarything.com/list/10358/all/Ghosts

I read one book by Susanna Kearsley, and liked it well enough that I have since acquired another half dozen in one format or another. I have not, however, actually gotten around to reading any of them yet.

>37 SylviaC: That sounds all too familiar!

>37 SylviaC: me too! Actually the only one I have read so far is Shadowy Horses, but I liked her writing style so much that i picked up copies of Mariana, The Winter Sea, The Firebird, and A Desperate Fortune based on recommendations from LT friends. I keep holding off on them until I'm in the right frame of mind.

>37 SylviaC: >38 clamairy: >39 Darth-Heather:

I think this is something many of us suffer from, especially the bit about LT friend recommendations.

Okay, you got me with The Shadowy Horses. Clearly, I must grab me a copy and add it to the TBR pile.

I stuck the audio on my Libby list. You dastardly woman!!

LOL Sorry, ladies. It's not great literature, but it's spooky enough for me.

I liked Bellewether even more than I did The Shadowy Horses. Not sure if that's because it is set very near to where I live, or because it resonated a bit more with me for other reasons. It does switch POV and time periods. That wasn't at all confusing, but could be frustrating when something very spooky would happen in the present, and zip! There we are back in pre-revolutionary days. I enjoy this author. Enough so that I'm taking a break* and reading The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs which is full of witches instead of ghosts. This a quasi-sequel to The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, which I read 10 years ago. Hope there isn't anything I need to remember about that one.

* Don't want to OD on one writer.

I've already bailed on The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs. The protagonist seemed especially dense (for a college professor) and that didn't please me. I'm going to look for something else on that LibraryThing Ghost list.

ETA: Nothing on the ghost list that appealed to me was available to borrow, so after some furious tag clicking I realized I owned Speaks the Nightbird which is very highly rated on here. So I started that. It's a fat one. Should last me though Halloween weekend at least.

I did try to snag Hell House despite my misgivings about how gory/twisted a tale it sounded. Wait time was 6 weeks, and I was actually relieved. LOL

Kearsley's novels always have such pretty covers.

>46 libraryperilous: They are very appealing, but I think Bellewether is the prettiest of them all.

Speaks the Nightbird is my first ever McCammon and so far I've been basically blown away. I don't know what I was expecting but this wasn't it. Not only is the writing quite good, but the story sucked me right in. Pretty sure several of you have spoken highly of this author over the years, which is why I snagged this when it was on sale. So, thank you.

Sorry I haven't been around much. I haven't been spending time at my PC, so though I skim posts I rarely post using my phone.

I'm almost done with Speaks the Nightbird, so I'll be in to talk about that soon. In the meantime here is a pic I had to share. I caught a flock of wild geese and a pair of sun dogs right before sunset the other day.

Lovely picture. Somehow manages to convey change and serenity, at the same time.

Geese are fun.

And noisy.

Beautiful picture.

I don't envy you the rear ends of those geese.

Awesome picture!

Beautiful photo :)

That is just stunning. I'd stay away from the PC as well if that is the alternative!

Thank you, all.

Speaks the Nightbird was my first (but won't be my last) experience with Robert McCammon. I was complaining to myself while reading it that it was taking forever to get though, but when I was done I couldn't figure out what if anything could have been cut without ruining it.

Matthew Corbett is the clerk of a magistrate sent to a small town in the Carolina territory to judge the case of young woman accused of witchcraft. It's a bit grim and gory in some of the darker segments, but it was well worth the payoff.

I do think he made the right move not to have everyone speaking like colonials did in at the turn of the 18th century. This isn't set in New England, though, so I am not sure if the 'Goody McMuffin' type monikers and the 'thees & thous' were used in the Carolinas as much they were in the Northeast.

I'll be reading more of this author, though I probably won't go right to the second in this series. (Yes, it's a series of seven so far!) I've already started A Memory called Empire, but The Uninvited just arrived via OverDrive, so I will most likely read that.

>48 clamairy: That would make a great jigsaw for a real jigsaw enthusiast.

Absolutely beautiful.

>57 pgmcc: Thank you.

Yeah, the Poldark audiobooks are my guilty pleasure. I just finished off the 4th one, Warleggan: A Novel of Cornwall, 1792-1793. I finally got around to looking up some info on the author, and while he was not originally from Cornwall he lived there for several decades. I'm just going to keep going with these. They're free through OverDrive, and I never have to wait to download. And renewals are available if I run out of time. (They are all roughly in the 14 - 16 hour length zone.)

I'm going to have to check that ghost story thread to find out who recommended this one, but I watched the movie version of The Uninvited (which has been a favorite of mine for almost 40 years) in the run-up to Halloween and decided to give this one a go. Loved it. One of the best things about it was being immersed in a time before TV, internet or smartphones.

I also have to add that I was less bothered by the romance between Roddy and Stella in the book (as they're both in their 20s) than I was in the film version. Ray Milland looked like he had 30 years on Gail Russell. (In reality he was 17 years her senior, but perhaps the styles of the time made it seem like more.)

I will be back over the next few days to catch up on everything I missed in the past weeks. I swear...

>56 clamairy: That's a fascinating question that you raise:

I do think he made the right move not to have everyone speaking like colonials did in at the turn of the 18th century. This isn't set in New England, though, so I am not sure if the 'Goody McMuffin' type monikers and the 'thees & thous' were used in the Carolinas as much they were in the Northeast.

When were the Carolinas settled? And where did the settlers originate?

The T-V distinction had (according to Wikipedia) disappeared from normal southern British speech by the mid-seventeenth century.

Yet it persists today in regional forms of English, and of Scots.

And of course, the Quakers consciously choose to persist in maintaining the T-V distinction in pronoun, in order to maintain an egalitarian point, long after its disappearance from standard speech - and rotor necessarily maintaining verb agreement.

When did "y'all" as a form of 2nd person plural, come in to use in American speech? Since its 'purpose' is to reintroduce the T-V distinction, is use implies that the distinct 2nd person singular must have become obsolete.

Since ,"y'all" is used as the distinctive marker of Southern American speech, I would guess that "thee/thou/thy" became obsolete there earliest - if indeed it was ever introduced.

Most detailed idscussions that I have read of the development of the English language are interested in its evolution in its native land. (Comparison with other varieties of English are mainly at the "current usage" level.)

I would be very interested if anyone could recommend a history of American English, in all its regional variety.

>60 clamairy: Have you looked in any detail at the life of the author, Dorothy MacArdle? I find her life fascinating in terms of her involvement in many formative elements of the current Irish state. Her collection of short ghost stories, Earth-Bound, is interesting as each of the stories is signed-off with the prison in which she wrote the story. He spent a lot of time in prison during the Irish War of Independence. She was a founder-member of the Fianna Fáil party but left due to sexual harassment and discrimination.

Love our baby dragon in a stocking! Adorable. :)

>63 MrsLee: I've always wanted one. But now I really really want one... 🐲

>61 -pilgrim-: "I would be very interested if anyone could recommend a history of American English, in all its regional variety." I'll second that request!

>61 -pilgrim-: This looks good...now I have to go hunt down a copy (H. L. Mencken? Heck, yes!) The American Language

I like this one:
Speaking Freely: A Guided Tour of American English from Plymouth Rock to Silicon Valley

>66 Marissa_Doyle: Good rating and a couple of reviews, but >67 suitable1: That one doesn't have any reviews!

>68 Karlstar:
I still like it.

>61 -pilgrim-:, >65 Karlstar:, >66 Marissa_Doyle: & >67 suitable1: I have listened to several audio books by John McWhorter but one was about about the evolution of language in general, and the other was billed as The Untold History of English, and not about American English in particular.

When I was reading Speaks the Nightbird I kept having to remind myself it was set over 300 years ago, and I realized I didn't know what sects of Christianity were prevalent in those territories at that time.

Thank you all for the great questions (that I can't answer) and book recommendations.

>62 pgmcc: I'll keep an eye out for that. I have to admit I skipped the looooong introduction to The Uninvited. I didn't want the editor's notions to taint my expectations.

I finished A Memory Called Empire on Saturday, and highly recommend this one. It won the Hugo this year for best novel, and it is very well deserving, IMHO. It would be hard to describe without spoilers, and I am glad I went into this knowing basically no details other than this book is about an ambassador on a mission to an empire known for absorbing other cultures. The author is a historian and a city planner, interestingly enough.

>72 clamairy: cool, sounds really good, thanks for the rec

>72 clamairy: So glad you enjoyed it! I loved it and was pleased that it won the Hugo this year.

>72 clamairy: I took a hit on this one.

>72 clamairy: I'm on hold for this. It's my third time placing a hold on it. I hope I actually will read it this time! I'm sure I will love it.

>75 Jim53: & >76 libraryperilous: I do hope you both enjoy it.

Cinderella Liberator is a really sweet retake of the classic tale, with lots of magic, but a nice updated twist for all concerned. SPOILERISH - No one loses toes in this version.

>66 Marissa_Doyle: It does indeed, Marissa. I will be looking for that too.

From what you have written, I presume the name of the author means something to you?

>79 -pilgrim-: H.L. Mencken was/is a national treasure. He covered the Scopes "monkey" trial (where a teacher was prosecuted for teaching about evolution in a public school) and was a marvelously erudite, clear-sighted, curmudgeonly commentater on American culture and thought for decades. Connie Willis wrote a delightful novella called Inside Job in which he (possibly!) makes an appearance.

>70 clamairy:
I have several of David Crystal's books on the English language in general, which do at least cover the modern "other Englishes". But he is mainly interested in the sociology of language, and formal linguistics, rather than the historical evolution.

I also have a few studies of regional variations of English (i.e. of regions of England), and historical studies that, on the whole, bail out with Johnson's dictionary, as the first point at which the language became codified. (And a few collections of the style that suitable1 was recommending, slang dictionaries etc.)

But nothing that takes those approaches with other varieties of English.

I found reading The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by Mark A. Noll last year extremely in helpful in
understanding both how and why American religious denominations differ from British ones, even when they bear the same, or similar names. It made certain aspects of current American politics a lot more comprehensible to this foreigner.

Because of the book's thesis that religious politics had an immense influence on secular politics at the time of the American Civil War, it necessarily takes a long view. The opening chapters this provided a history of various religious groups in America (not only Christian), from the earliest European settlements onwards, described at a regional level.

Despite the way the title is phrased, it is a history book, not a religious tract.

>80 Marissa_Doyle: And you have got me with another author whom I have never heard of. I read mainly classic British SF when I was younger, and mainly British and Slavic more recently. (I enjoy the layers of political commentary.)

I tend to read more fantasy than SF, and my coverage of American fantasy literature is respectable, but I have only recently begun dipping my toes into the waters of American SF.

>78 clamairy: Oh my, and with Rachams original illustrations. I must get this. Curious if Solnit is using the text from the book he illustrated,or from something else. Regardless I love twists on tales, and must have this!

>83 cindydavid4: The text is her own twist on the tale. The illustrations are wonderful.

>81 -pilgrim-: That Noll book sounds fascinating, but might be a case of 'too much information' for me right now.

>80 Marissa_Doyle: I've only read one Mencken book and I loved it. What a wonderful sense of humor. I keep meaning to go back for more.

>84 clamairy: oooooh can't wait! Just ordered my copy!

I bought myself a Christmas present which I thought you might appreciate:

Cheddar Gorge: A Book of English Cheeses..with illustrations by Ernest Shepard!

>87 Marissa_Doyle: Got the body armour on, fortunately. I was expecting a book about cheese, but it looks more like a collection of bits and pieces that are cheese-related. I propped a bit when I saw that the editor was Sir John Squire, he who, in answer to Pope’s epitaph for Newton:

Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night;
God said, “Let Newton be! And all was light!

Wrote:
‘Twas not to last, the Devil howling “Ho! Let Einstein be”!
Restored the status quo.

162 Posts to 2021.

>87 Marissa_Doyle: Yum!!!

I stayed up to finish Last Stand in Lychford by Paul Cornell last night. A worthy entry in the series, though the first of the batch is the best, IMHO. He uses what I call 'fuzzy magic.' He's the opposite of Brandon Sanderson, who's magic systems are often so precise they border on scientific. Paul Cornel's books are much more tongue-in-cheek.

Now it's on to The Greatest Gift: A Christmas Tale which is the book that inspired the film It's a Wonderful Life. I wanted something Christmassy, but not smarmy. No 'Bridget moves home to take care of her ailing parents and falls in love with the plumber on Christmas Eve' type crap for me.

>91 clamairy: Great to hear Lychford stands up. I have a couple of books to finish before I can get to it.

>91 clamairy: There's always A Christmas Carol by Dickens. First line being, "Marley was dead, to begin with." No smarm in that!

I have a two-CD abridged reading of A Christmas Carol which normally would horrify me, but it's Patrick Stewart so I loves it. Even when I read the book in print, I hear his voice in my head for certain lines.

>93 MrsLee: I think I'm Christmas Caroled out. I read it ever year for probably 30 years. Last year I did the audio version instead, and that was much better. I'll do that again this year, I suspect.

>94 Bookmarque: Yes, that's the ticket right there.

>92 pgmcc: I love them, but I feel like they're getting in "rinse and repeat' territory. I'm glad I borrowed the last few for my kindle and didn't purchase them. I love his style, so I might try something else of his.

I finished off The Greatest Gift: A Christmas Tale by Philip Van Doren Stern too quickly. I didn't realize most of this book was backstory and info about the book being turned into film. I did appreciate the differences between the two. A lot less smarmy stuff in the book.

>94 Bookmarque: he could read from the dictionary for all I care....his voice gives me chills (Alan Rickman is the same way)!

This summer I read a christmas book (made me feel cooler!) Let Nothing You Dismay. I ususally don't read these hallmark lifetime kinda books, but I loved the premise. It did not disappoint in the least, in fact I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked it. You follow the narrator who has been invited to 7 holiday parties on Christmas Day. Lovely character development as he interacts with different people, very funny situations while at the same time moving, without being smarmy! Highly recommend it (I might reread it actually)

>95 clamairy: Alistair Sims CC Is my absolute favorite. Oh and we just watched a movie from 2017 "The Man Who Invented Christmas" about how dickens came to write the books. For the most part it was fun, didnt quite hit the landing tho in the end, but its far better than most of the holiday movies out there

>93 MrsLee: - I've read and enjoyed A Christmas Carol and seen a few movie versions, but my absolute favourite is The Muppets Christmas Carol. They take huge liberties, add music, and yet manage to stay fairly true to the story.

>100 NorthernStar: The Muppet Christmas Carol is the one film we watch every year. We rotate a few others in and out, such as A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life.

>99 cindydavid4: Alistair Sim's CC is the best of the actual human versions, for sure.

>100 NorthernStar: Yes! Jonathan Winters' reading of A Christmas Carol is my other favorite.

We watch the Sim and the George C. Scott versions every year. Last year added the Muppet version (for Caine, really) and unfortunately just can't click with the Stewart version. Sigh.

For me it is The Muppets’ Christmas Carol or Scrooged. Love them both.

>104 pgmcc: I haven't seen Scrooged in many years, but I did enjoy it back in the day.

Any one see Black Adder's Christmas Carol? Starts out with Atkinson/scrooge being a really good guy, until events make him change. Funny,but not as much as the regular series, but worth a watch

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5t4g30

>105 clamairy: The Ghost of Christmas Present is my favourite ghost in Scrooged.

>101 clamairy: My favorite holiday film is The Shop Around the Corner. One year, the BFI ran it for a few weeks during the holiday season. I don't know how many times I went.

>107 pgmcc: "You're a little absent-minded, spirit."
"No, I'm a large absent-minded spirit!"

>106 cindydavid4: Have to admit the only Black Adder episode I tried to watch did nothing for me, but it could have been the mood I was in that day.

>108 libraryperilous: I've never heard of that before.

>109 clamairy: It is an adorable movie! About a bookstore! The movie, "You've got mail" was inspired by it. Love them both.

>110 MrsLee: & >108 libraryperilous: Sounds like my kind of movie!

And it's on HBO Max! WooHoo!

>110 MrsLee: one of the first movies my soon to be hubby had me watch with him. Loved it! (not wild about you got mail, tho I love the actors. Seemed forced to me )

>110 MrsLee:, >111 clamairy:, >112 cindydavid4: I like You've Got Mail and the Judy Garland musical In the Good Old Summertime. They don't quite sparkle for me the way Lubitsch's film does, but it's hard to top that Lubitsch touch.

>111 clamairy: I hope you enjoy it! If you like Lubitsch's directorial style and you can track it down, his version of To Be or Not to Be is magnificent. I also love Trouble in Paradise.

>112 cindydavid4: Congrats on the upcoming nuptials!

>112 cindydavid4: Congrats!

>113 libraryperilous: Thank you for the reminder to congratulate her. And thanks for the info. I'll most likely forget it all, but hopefully I'll remember where to look.

>114 clamairy: I just checked, and—hooray!—To Be or Not to Be is on the Criterion Channel right now. Good thing I logged in today to check their recent offerings, as there is a Cary Grant festival with Holiday, my all-time favorite film, going on this month. I shall be doing far less reading and far more viewing the rest of this month.

>112 cindydavid4:, >113 libraryperilous:

Ha! that was worded wrong I should have said my fiance at the time, who 30 years ago became my husband......sorry about that :)

>116 cindydavid4: Hee! Well, congrats on marrying someone with such excellent taste in films! :)

>116 cindydavid4: LOL Well, very belated congratulations then.

>117 libraryperilous: Really! He's into movies like I am into books, and have discovered lots of gems over the years

>118 clamairy: hee I'll just add it to the anniversary congrats. Still cannot believe we lasted this long....but Im ready for another 30 if Im lucky

>116 cindydavid4: Belated congratulations.

I don't think that anyone has mentioned Die Hard.

>121 suitable1: Maybe there's a reason for that... ;o)

I am reading A Lot Like Christmas by Connie Willis. I normally run away screaming from short story collections, but I'm so glad I made an exception for this one. It's hilarious, witty and somehow both irreverent and reverent at the same time.

>123 clamairy: It's just not safe to be anywhere around you, is it? Good shot.

>124 Jim53: I don't aim at anything, I just shoot wildly with my eyes closed. I was able to borrow this one for my kindle from OverDrive. So I hope you can do the same, or borrow a hard copy.

>125 clamairy: Yep, my public library has it. I've added it to my list for my next touchless pickup.

It took me over a month to finish listening to The Black Moon: A Novel of Cornwall, 1794-1795 by Winston Graham, so I think it's time to take a break from this series. I'm pretty sure I renewed it twice. I'll start on something from my Audible library. Perhaps A Christmas Carol read by Tim Curry.

I'm still working on the Connie Willis Christmas short story collection on my Kindle and enjoying that thoroughly.

>127 clamairy: I LOVE the Tim Curry audible version of A Christmas Carol

>128 MrsLee: My only fear is that I will keep seeing Long John Silver while listening... 😆

Happy whatever you're celebrating, good people!

>130 clamairy: You too, Clam!

>130 clamairy: Same to you!

>130 clamairy: Right back at you!

>130 clamairy: And best wishes of the season to you too!

Funny you should post that, I've been singing Marley & Marley ever since I watched it the other day.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays clam!

Lovely;same to you. thinking of putting that last section on cards.

>130 clamairy: And very best wishes of the season to you as well!

>130 clamairy: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Just thought I'd stop by and wish you the very best of the Holiday season, dear clamairy. And to note that I took a BB back up there in >78 clamairy:, When the birthday gift cards begin rolling in, I shall make that title a particularly fun priority.

Looks like you can use a few piffle posts yourself to get you to 151. I don't have any of those great library photos, so you'll have to settle for text. I hope you've been having a wonderful holiday. We've enjoyed having younger son here since Thanksgiving, and zooming with everyone else.

Ooh, let's do a piffle party for Clam. What an inspiration, Jim53!

Whither should the pifflation proceed? It's a target-rich environment...

Greetings fellow pifflers. I cannot pass a piffling party without dropping in to say "Hello!"

Piffle on!

The wonderful thing about tiggers is tiggers are wonderful things! Same is true of piffling.

Who's next?

>145 jillmwo: That is a great album!

>145 jillmwo: Winnie The Pooh and a Blustery Day is one of the earliest films I was taken to. The other ones I remember are The Jungle Book and The Sound of Music.

>147 pgmcc: The first one I remember is Around the World in Eighty Days, with David Niven and Cantinflas. I also remember The Jungle Book and Mary Poppins.

>147 pgmcc: For me, I think the earliest I remember is The Jungle Book.

my earliest is Bambi

And mine was The Sound of Music.

First drive-in movie was Fantasia. Best drive-in movie was The Land That Time Forgot (1975).

>147 pgmcc: >148 Jim53: One of my first was Around the World in 80 Days, too. In this benighted country, the first night was a gala occasion (I think parents attended that: I got to see it four times later) -- the picture palace was one of the smartest venues in Johannesburg. I came across the first night programme the other day, and have been meaning to add it to my LT library.

One of my sisters is a great musician and loves music. She can watch a musical and immediately sit at a piano and play the music from it. She has been able to do this as long as I remember. Not surprisingly she liked The Sound of Music. She liked it so much she took me to the cinema to see it three times. I am much younger than my sisters (11-12 years) and they were merciless in using me as an excuse to go to the cinema.

>154 pgmcc: Yes, sometimes it is a real pain, being an only child.

Late to the game ...

Piffle, piffle, piffle
Strike a ball of wiffle
Don't it make you bristle
When it strikes a window like a missile

Yeah, that's all I got. Not nearly enough coffee in me this morning.

And, I have to agree with >94 Bookmarque: regarding "The Man Who Invented Christmas."
It's a wonderful piece of meta-fiction, where the characters in the manuscript argue with Dickens about how they're being portrayed. As an editor and just-for-myself writer who occasionally has had the Green Dragoneers as beta readers, it's become my favorite of the holiday movies.

And really Clam, yer swell.

>154 pgmcc: hee, my sis was the same way. We grew up with theatre loving parents, had all the albums of original casts, and she also was able to play just about every song. she webt to many musical filns my fair lady, mary poppins, oliver and others. And she didn't mind havind her kid sister along !

>155 -pilgrim-: sometimes I felt like the only child! my sibs were 10 and 12 years older. Fortunately as an adult weve become good friends

>156 WholeHouseLibrary: loved that movie as well; also loved The History of David Copperfield which was a lot of fun to watch

Missed the piffle party, but who can resist sharing the first movie they remember in the theater? I think mine was Lady and the Tramp, or maybe 101 Dalmatians. We lived in a very small town and the theater was often not in business.

My mother once told me that the last movie she saw in a theater was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

I can't remember the titles, but when I typed my grandmother's letters she mentioned several silent films she attended in 1926 and 1927. Her friend played the organ in a movie theater.

>147 pgmcc: I know I must have been to movies previous to this, but my first clear memory of going to a theater was to see 2001: A Space Odyssey at age 5 with my parents and grandparents when it first came out. We had to go to a theater in Providence, RI, as our town's theater wasn't big enough to handle the audio--evidently it was some fancy sound tech. I still remember the experience--some scenes and many strong visual impressions. I'm not sure what my grandparents made of it, but both my parents were big science fiction readers.

The first theater movie I remember was Star Wars - my parents chose a drive in for this (long since paved over for a shopping mall). My brother was 5 and couldn't stay awake. To this day he still thinks we didn't try to wake him up. We did. Probably the movie they played before Star Wars should be my first, but I don't remember it and who can blame me. It was 1978. Star Wars. In a drive in!!

>161 Marissa_Doyle:
Part of my father's work required him to review at least three movies a week.
We had a 20'-wide floor-to-ceiling screen set up at one end of our basement and I was able to thread a Bell & Howell 1600 movie projector in less than a minute before I was 5 years old. So, I really don't recall what was the first movie I ever saw.
When I was 9, my folks moved, and the basement couldn't accommodate the large screen, but we ended up with a fairly large free-standing one; same movie projector, though.
My father brought home 2001: A Space Odyssey around a month before it was ever released in the movie theaters. It was unlike anything I had seen before. It required a CinemaScope lens to project it properly. Initially, it was released only in CinemaScope, which is why it was only in select theaters -- ones that had the requisite curved screens.

If we're talking about remembering first-time movie experiences, that would likely be me seeing 101 Dalmatians in a drive-in movie theatre. The first time in a real movie theatre was Fantasia. (And honestly, my internal image of Tolkien's Balrog has always been tied up with the winged monster image from Fantasia's Night on Bald Mountain.)

I’m pretty sure my first movie ever was the 1956 Australian film Smiley. I call it Australian because nearly all the cast were Australian and it was made in Australia but with British money. I saw it in the theatre in our suburb in Brisbane. At the time, suburban movie houses usually had timber floors that sloped up towards the back. There were hard round sweets called Jaffas made of a chocolate centre with a hard coating, and the bright sparks used to sit at the back and drop Jaffas on the floor to roll down to the front.

Someone mentioned 2001: A Space Odyssey. That is undoubtedly the film I’ve seen most—at last count, maybe 12 times?

I can remember having the daylights scared out of me by the “Night on Bald Mountain” scenes in Fantasia when I was about 10. This may have had something to do with my being very short-sighted.

Thank you kind people for helping me hit that last stretch!

My first movie theater memories are of The Sound Of Music, Sleeping Beauty and My Fair Lady.

>163 WholeHouseLibrary: Ah--so it was the screen, not the sound system. Thank you!

I'm feeling older here. I first saw Sound of Music when I was in the military. I was stationed in Japan and the showing had Japanese subtitles. The film has just been released.

My first movie memory was hiding under the seat at The Bucket of Blood (what we called a small movie theater near us). The movie was War of the Worlds. I was terrified. I had a divided metal plate I ate dinner off of and it looked like the aliens!

>168 suitable1: Aren't we all feeling old these days?

>169 majkia: I got to see that one for the first time on a B&W TV at some point in the late 60s. Didn't scare me half as much as The Crawling Eye did.