7Wannabe5- Take 6

[theanimal]

I'm reading and really liking The Raw Shark Texts. I think you might enjoy it too.

[7Wannabe5]

@theanimal:

Thanks for the recommendation. Added it to my pile.

[Kipling]

I suspect I am TMGTSE here but as a lifelong Heyer fan I cannot resist the interjection; while The Quiet Gentleman is good it is not, I would suggest, one of Heyer's best. Of that genre, I aver that The Grand Sophy, The Nonesuch, Lady of Quality, Cotillion or (if you like gothic horror) Cousin Kate comfortably beat it. Or, if the genre is one that appeals to you, her whodunnits can posess almost Ngaio Marsh quality. Behold, Here's Poison is wonderfully claustrophobic. [Odd how the classical murder mystery is the only mainstream literary genre where the overwhelming majority of the the best writers are female: Marsh, Sayers, Christie, Tey, Allingham; really only Michael Innes and Cyril Hare measure up.]

[Laura Ingalls]

That’s a lot of books
I a stubborn minimalist that uses the library “normally” is out of books that hold much appeal.

Your per hour rate on your teaching job is going to be pretty good at the end of the day and you will probably be eligible for unemployment after your done.

[7Wannabe5]

@Kipling:

I agree that it isn’t one of Heyer’s best. I read the majority of her works off the shelves of a rural library around 20 years ago. In my opinion, her genius ability is psychological typing. She can weave believable romance between quite non-standard characters through her perception of complementary factors.

For better or worse, I think it may be the case that the relatively passive role females held in society through the majority of the twentieth century relates to mastery of classic murder mystery writing (and classic romance.) Lacking the ability to make things happen, drive plot directly forward like a hard-boiled dime novel dick, intelligence tends to turn to interpretation of signs, minute examination of circumstance and character, and other such subtleties.

@Laura Ingalls:

I may qualify for unemployment under the new regulations. My substitute teaching income was not high enough to qualify previously. My main concern is staying alive through whatever mechanism possible.

[horsewoman]

I've listened to "The Quiet Gentleman" as an audio book recently and enjoyed it. While it is not Heyers best I like the no-nonsense attitude of Drusilla and how she manages the dowager.
My favourites are Frederica, the grand sophy, the unknown Ajax and the reluctant widow.
Actually, I like most of them! Her dialogues are hilarious and her secondary characters are adorable. I will probably spend my old age writing variations and sequels to Heyer novels, once the copyright is done with :)

[7Wannabe5]

@horsewoman:

I am rather surprised and tickled to uncover Heyer fans on this forum. Seems more like a “Ready Player One” type group. I started writing a bodice-ripper romance novel for an elective creative writing class many years ago. It was set in 17th century New England and was entitled “Purity Lost.” I am sure you could do much better!

The book on my list I would most recommend for forum reading would be “Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts” by Carolyn Chute, because it is chock full of white trash backwoods characters who live in junkyard shacks while having way too many babies. The author is rumored to be married to an illiterate woodsman herself.

The books by Orlov, Milanovic, Heinberg, and Wilson were all quite interesting and indicative of how varied views on progress and future developments remain. For instance, Milanovic dismisses almost all the concerns voiced by Heinberg in a few short paragraphs, and both Orlov and Milanovic are obsessed with the topic of global growth in corruption.

[horsewoman]

Yeah, I was quite tickled myself. It's always a delight to find out about fellow "Heyernatics" since she is such an underrated author. Stephen Fry is also a devoted fan!
I'm now imagining @Kipling enjoying an outrageously expensive glass of wine while chuckling over Sophy ruthlessly managing the Ombersleys or shaking his head over the antics of the beautiful Tiffany Wield :)

[Kipling]

@ horsewoman - that is pretty much how I prefer to spend my evenings... I support your addition of The Unknown Ajax and will add The Toll Gate.

@ 7wannabe5 - apologies for derailing your journal. I think you must be right in your analysis of the reason those greats achieved acknowledged mastery of the murder mystery genre. They are so much better at texture.

[horsewoman]

@Kipling- if you are into audiobooks I heartily recommend Frederica narrated by Clifford Norgate. His voices are so natural and he absolutely nails the comedy parts. I cried tears of mirth in the "Baluchistan hound" scene, and love the whole recording. "But it was restorative pork jelly!"
There is also an old 1950 recording of "The Grand Sophy" by John Westbrook that is similarly neat. It was to be found on Youtube years ago but it has been taken down since then, no idea if it is still available. I have not yet read The Toll Gate, but I'll get it next!

@sorry 7wb5 for hijacking your journal :) I'll be good now, but I'm such a Heyer fangirl and have no-one in real life to share my passion with ;)

[7Wannabe5]

Obviously, my journal is meant to be a literary salon shabbily disguised as a record of financial savings. So, please, carry on. I only regret that my memory of Heyer’s other volumes has become a bit dim.

I did like Drusilla, but feel that perhaps we have met her too often before, and the character was best typified by Dickens; housekeeping keys jangling, serene brow, bird-like efficiency...

I just finished “Economics 2.0” (recommend-offers brief easily comprehensible essays on many of the topics we discuss on this forum.) Halfway through “The Aqua Net Diaries”, a very realistic account of life in small Midwestern high school in 1980s from the POV of a girl who was more popular/less outsider rebel nerd than I was at that age. Mildly humorous, vaguely disturbing.

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

Re Carolyn Chute: the reference to an illiterate woodsman husband immediately put me in mind of an old NYTimes article. Sure enough! A Writer Living in a Novel

For female outsider rebel types in high school, may I recommend MJ Hyland’s How the Light Gets In? Mildly disturbing and vaguely humorous, it struck a chord with me when I was the protagonist’s age. Set in early ‘00s.

[7Wannabe5]

@Miss Lonelyhearts:

Carolyn Chute is a true original. I have added “How the Light Gets In” to my list.

[7Wannabe5]

This month I read or finished reading:

1. “Economics 2.0”-Haring
2. “Grow a Sustainable Diet: Planning and Growing to Feed Ourselves and the Earth- Conner
3. “The Aqua Net Diaries: Big Hair, Big Dreams, Small Town” - Niven
4. “The Glass Ark: Biosphere 2 “- Gentry
5. “A Short History of Progress”- Wright
6. “The Masqueraders”- Heyer
7. “Miss Buncle’s Book” - Stevenson
8. “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves”- Ridley
9.”Getting a Life” - Simpson
10. “Miss Buncle Married”- Stevenson
11. “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural Historybof Innovation- Johnson
12. “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake”- Bender
13. “The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet “- Naam
14. “Trying to Save Piggy Sneed”- Irving
15. “Rough Strife”- Schwartz
16. “Bolt”- Dick Francis

I am not quite keeping pace with my goal of reading 200 books by the end of the year. However, I do start more books than I finish, so volumes completed is a low conservative estimate of my time devoted to reading, which is what I more truly wish to measure. It is too tedious to attempt to measure time spent directly, because I am so often distracted or interrupted.

Since I am reading totally at whim with my only limitation being what I have at hand or can access for free (notable exception being $39.95 I threw down to obtain copy of decent, recent textbook on the topic of infectious disease modeling which I am slowly making my way through), certain semi-conscious patterns emerge. For instance, it is pretty clear that I am interested in the topic of innovation. It is also fairly obvious that I am a bit of an Anglophile, since the majority of novels I finished were written by British authors. “The Masqueraders” was an example of Heyer at her best, inclusive of a bit of fun and fanciful gender disguise. Although not cut from the same bolt of stuff, I think my fellow Heyer fans might also enjoy the mildly amusing and oddly addictive Miss Buncle books.

I experienced a meta- moment in my reading of “Where Good Ideas Come From.” The author explains that it was the habit of most enlightenment era readers to create an indexed journal inclusive of interesting quotes from books along with their own thoughts on their reading. There was even a popular book published on the topic of how to best organize your journal of ideas. Johnson suggests that this practice, or similar modern version, is one of the best ways to improve your ability to come up with creative thoughts and solutions.

Whether or not I suffered from entirely ghastly gastrointestinal version of Covid this month is up in the air until I can get an antibody test. My primary care physician thinks I did have it even though my nasal swab was negative. Whatever it was, I am still not quite up to par, even though my first symptoms occurred around April 13th.

[ertyu]

glad you're alive 7w5

how was "getting a life"? have no life, might be of use. worth it?

[7Wannabe5]

@ertyu:

It’s a collection of tinged wry short stories centered around the lives of several intelligent, relatively affluent women living in the same neighborhood in London. They are all completely overwhelmed by attempting some variety of solution or minor escape from the twin burdens of running household and maintaining or not maintaining careers. Very well written, but a bit retrospective for me, since I am now almost 20 years out from the absolutely exhausting commute/career/kids/house/husband phase of life. From the perspective of the 15 year old daughter of one of these women, none of them have “a life.”

Likely not what you imagined?

[daylen]

However, I do start more books than I finish, so volumes completed is a low conservative estimate of my time devoted to reading, which is what I more truly wish to measure. It is too tedious to attempt to measure time spent directly, because I am so often distracted or interrupted.

In my journal, I roughly used the rule of thumb that a 200 page popular non-fiction book counts as a single unit. Then if reading a more dense textbook you can divide the total number of pages by 200 and multiply by a difficulty factor. So, for my biology textbook it would be roughly (1200/200)*1.25=7.5 and for my statistical mechanics book it would be (600/200)*1.75=5.25. Though, in reality I admit that I didn't really track my reading well enough to do this with much accuracy.

[7Wannabe5]

@daylen:

I agree that difficulty level should be a factor if goal is something like “towards knowledge/erudition.” However, I find that I do better overall given wide ranging smorgasbord. For some reason, reading light fiction seems to make me better able to readily process denser material. Perhaps analogous to how running sprints might improve power lifting?

[horsewoman]

I've just finished "Miss Buncle's Book", what a delightful romp! And how very ER - the dividends are drying up and resourceful Miss B. writes a book to bring money in!

If you like this kind of imbroglio I recommend "Sylvester" by Georgette Heyer, there is a similar plot.

On to Miss Buncle Married!

[7Wannabe5]

I’m happy to hear you enjoyed it. I sent a copy to my daughter for her birthday, because it was so cheering. I did read “Sylvester” many years ago, I am down to just a few Heyer’s that weren’t stocked in the library I frequented when my children were small (sigh.)