Attn: Connie1

C

clareMc

Cathlete
Connie:

I remembered today the title of the book I have most enjoyed reading all year, can't think why I didn't think of it before:

Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier.

I read it, gave a copy to my Mum, my big sister stole it, read it, her husband then stole it, then my second big sister purloined it, and who know who it has been passed on to now. It's that kind of book, the kind where you hate to read the last page and you slow down the pace as you read because you know the last chapter will be here soon and then you will be bereft.....

It is a mesmerizing, luminous book that will have you gazing upon the portrait reproduced on the front cover every time you pick the book up, as you think about the characters and the unsaid possibilities, desires that are exchanged between them....

Sigh...

Stick it at the top of your read-next list! Enjoy!

Clare
 
Clare! Thank you. Girl With a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier. I've written it on the other thread (I have printed it) with all the other books.

By the way, to Anna, I am about 3/4 of the way through Tanamera. It is good!
 
Hi Connie & Clare,

Connie - Glad you are enjoying Tanamera, it is such a good book !

Clare - I know what you mean about that last chapter looming, horrible, isn't it ? Books like that end up being bought and kept in my bookcase, which is, erm, very full. I can't stop running into Charity shops, when out shopping, I normally stagger home with 10 books each time ! What are the charity shops like in the US ?

Have fun !

Anna :)
 
Nancy;

hello, hello!

I would say, yes. it's perfect for those lazy thanksgiving days at home with your DH.

Take a famous painting by Vermeer of a young girl with her neck aglow, her head sensually half turned toward the looker/artist, a beautiful yellow silk turban around her head, luminous skin and one pearl earring dangling which catches the light coming in from the window and lights up that painting. If that girl were a servant girl from the local village, why is she sitting for Vermeer? Where did that pearl earring come from, since no-one in her station in life could possibly have access to one? What exactly is the relationship between Vermeer and this young girl? What does she have that he so needed to paint her? How is it that she inspired his vision more than the painter's own wife? And how will that complicate matters in this middle-upper class family in Amsterdam? What will the young girl learn from this experience and will her life ever be the same again?

Tracy Chevalier has fallen in love with this painting, and it is truly beautiful in a very luminous way, and has imagined a possible relationship between the artist and his muse....

It certainly takes you out of yourself and reality will slip from your mind and grasp.

Take the phone off the hook, make no plans to leave the house that day, make a big pot of coffee... and simply relax and enjoy. Allow yourself to dream.

Available at your local Borders store or at a library near you...


Clare ;-)
 
The largest Barnes & Noble in New York city said it was selling so well, they were out of it! By the time I get it, I'll be back to work, and I can't trust myself to read when I'm not on vacation! Oh, dear. I did, however, get an interesting book which I'll be telling you more about shortly.......:)
 
Nancy:

shame!!! See if you can get a copy to read during the Christmas break. If you can't get one, let me know, I'll send you one since I live in the town where the original borders opened up!

What is this book you will be telling me about? I'm all agog!!!

Clare
 
Yes, Nancy, do tell!

I just came back from the library where I returned Tanamera (great!), renewed Lady of Hay and Girls Guide to H.&F., and checked out a Margaret Mayhew book and Bone People.

Lots of the books people recommended are not in my library. Once I red everything they have, I'll start buying some. I really like Noel Barber.

So Nancy, tell us about this book!
-Connie
 
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Dec-01-02 AT 02:43AM (Est)[/font][p]Well, let me give you the very long version because I'm a little embarrassed.... my husband and I were leaving Barnes and Noble the other day (after buying all of our Hanukah gifts there). Well, I'm sure Clare knows how hard it is to get out of a bookstore.....I look at a lot of stuff, but don't often buy anything for myself because I have this ridiculous idea that if I have time to read something, I should be reading tax law because it's so hard to keep up with all the changes going on.....Anyway, we were walking through the Self Improvement section and I was trying not to look at anything because I find pop psychology particularly hard to resist and I think of it like junk food....and my husband sees a book called "The Highly Sensitive Person" and he stops to look at it and says that the book sounds like its about me, and I should really take a look at it....and I make a few jokes about it but he keeps insisting that I look at it....which I finally do, and I read a few pages, and there is a sense of recognition, and I break my no-book-buying-unless- its-a-gift rule and buy it, feeling somewhat weak and ashamed of myself and determined not to tell anyone about it. Short story long, I am about half way through this book and I am starting to look at myself a bit differently, in a more positive way, and I'm really starting to think this woman Elaine Aron may be on to something...that some people are just easily overstimulated because their brains were designed to notice subtle sounds, sights, physical sensations and to process information more carefully and we tend to be more observant and more intuitive and generally more "sensitive" which is not as valued by society and being outgoing and aggressive, so we are often mistaken for "shy" or "neurotic" ...and it sounds so much like me. And I thought of Clare's daughter and how she sounds like me when I was that age and, hey, this book is about us. And it's really interesting even if it is just another feel-good pop psychology paperback that maybe I'll forget about in a month. But why am I so defensive? :-shy Maybe it will change my life forever. I'll let you know when I get to the end. Meanwhile, I can't put the darn thing down.....
-Nancy
 
Hi Nancy:

don't be embarrassed. If a book can lead to an improved self-understanding, then go for it. I took a look at the web site and it does look interesting. I had a run-in with my child's first grade teacher three years ago over just this issue, becuase I felt she was making my daughter's shyness into a problem, even though she was/is the most academically gifted, un-problem child in the class! I questioned her attitude towards my daughter's shyness as an 'accute problem,' hence the teacher and I did not see eye to eye and she never acknowledges me anymore in the school corridors....snooty!

I'll take a look and let you know. Hope I can get it from my local library. I don't mind reading pop psychology, but I don't like spending money on it!

Clare
 
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Dec-01-02 AT 03:41PM (Est)[/font][p] The book you should probably read is The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D., rather than the Highly Sensitive Person, which is what I'm reading. Definitely get it from the library if you can! :) I wish my parents had read this stuff when I was growing up!
-Nancy
 
Hi Connie,

I am glad you enjoyed Tanamera, I found that one hard to put down (in fact I find all of Noel Barber's hard to put down). He actually died in the middle of his last novel (The Prince and the Daughters), and his best friend finished the story for him, using Noel's personal notes, with permission from his wife. It is a great shame, as he is such a brilliant writer.

Which Margaret Mayhew did you get ?


Anna :)
 
I went to the website and took the self-test. 23 of the 26 item were true of me. Hmmm.

Not true of my son though. He's ten. We went to the sensitive child test- only 6 items were true and there were about twenty total.

How is the book, Nancy? Let me know if it is worth reading, when you are done with it.
-Connie
 
That's good about your son, Connie. Are you an HSP? Elaine Aron says that our society uses negative words like "shy" and "introverted" to describe us, and they try to encourage us to be more outgoing and treat us like we are flawed, when, in fact, we are fine the way we are and have an important purpose to serve in society. She says we fill an advisor role that is vital. We are the writers, historians, philosophers, judges, artists, researchers, teachers, etc. who think things out more carefully than the "warriors" whose role it is to act aggressively. This is very helpful to someone like me who works with an office full of litigators!

I'll let you know if I still find it helpful when I am all the way through the book. I have been taking time between chapters to think....
-Nancy
 
Hi Anna!

The Railway King. Also, The Weeping and the Laughter by N.B. That is interesting about his life. I wanted to know all about him after finishing Tanamera and couldn't find anything.

Found nothing on/by Helen Forrester in the whole library system! She sounded good! But I'm just reading what I could find.
-Connie
 
yep!! and I'm the teacher agonizing in this ivory tower at all the moves our societies make, and I'm so tired out every semester by advising my students, working through their esssays and their thoughts, trying to help them make sense of what they read, helping them become informed citizens of tomorrow! I have to read this book!!!!!

Clare
 
RE: Hi Anna!

Hi Connie,

Noel Barber was an internationally accomplished foreign correspondent - he experienced a lot of 20th centrury historical things, like the Hungarian Uprising, which I think took place in the 1950s, and actually got shot in the neck at one point in his career :eek:. Brave man.
He also wrote an autobiography, and Connie, if you track it down, let me know, because I have had absolutely NO luck in finding it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have decided that his autobiography is something of an enigma because it so unobtainable.

Helen Forrester's novels - check out Amazon.co.uk (they do international shipping) - but I see them a lot available in charity shops and car boot sales (garage sales) here in the UK. If I see them, I will collect them for you and post them over to you in the US, if you would like ?

Margaret Mayhew - I have never read the Railway King, but I do recommend her books Bluebirds and The Crew - lovely stories :)

Enjoy !

Anna :)
 
I don't know if anyone has suggested books by Nicholas Sparks. He wrote the Notebook, The Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, and The Rescue. I recommend them all, but particularly The Notebook and The Message in a Bottle. Be forwarned have a tissue ready. Nicholas Sparks is an awesome writer. I have all of his books except the one that just came out. That will probably be my Christmas present.
 
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