This is just a quick post to say I am back from vacation. I thought I would give a quick update about what I read since I asked for input earlier this month. If you have been reading me for sometime you might remember this post last June. I finally got the Lord of the Rings on audiobooks. It is about 50 hours of listening. I haven't even finished the first book, but I understand so clearly now why these books are so popular. I will listen to them for awhile and ask Fly Guy a question or two. He has read the books many times....he can read all three in a week without a problem. :-P
It turns out that the version I wanted was not avalible on itunes or at audible.com, so I went with CD and this $10 portible CD player. Ripping the CDs onto my iPod just takes up too much room, so this way is working out well. It is a bit weird going back to using CDs and a CD player after a few years of having an iPod.
The other funny thing is I can't really handle not doing something with my hands when I am listening, because when I read I hold the book with my hands, but listening I feel like I am at lose ends. So I end up working on suduko puzzles when listening. Since we were on trains for 60 hours or so on this trip I had penty of time to listen and do my puzzles. :-)
A better update later. :-)
Showing posts with label Book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book. Show all posts
Monday, April 28, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
Looking for Fluff
I am going on vacation in a week or so and I was just thinking I need to bring a book or two to read. I don't do fluff books often. I think the last major fluff book I read was "The Secret Life of Bees" and that was 2 years ago I think......hmmm....that isn't totally true. I re-read the Wizard of 4th Street series by Simon Hawke less then a year ago. For the most part the books I read are biographies or historical in some way. Currently I am reading "Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper" it is a good book, but I am finding I can't read it before bed. Since I can't seem to read it before bed it doesn't seem like it would be a good vacation book.
Fly Guy just gave me four great books....none of them vacation type books. Fly Guy has the ability to find some great books, but they are never fluffy books. He got me "The Russian Revolution & the Soviet State 1917 - 1921 Documents"(I can't find a link of this book on the Internet to link to so I can show it.), "Daily Life in Russia Under the Last Tsar", "All Stalin's Men" and "The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin From the interrogations of Hitler's closest personal aides". As you can see none of the four are fluffy vacation books. Fly Guy doesn't understand vacation books.
So what I would like people to do for me is in the comments here list some of your most favorite Fluff/Vacation book and tell me why you like it.
thanks :-)
Fly Guy just gave me four great books....none of them vacation type books. Fly Guy has the ability to find some great books, but they are never fluffy books. He got me "The Russian Revolution & the Soviet State 1917 - 1921 Documents"(I can't find a link of this book on the Internet to link to so I can show it.), "Daily Life in Russia Under the Last Tsar", "All Stalin's Men" and "The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin From the interrogations of Hitler's closest personal aides". As you can see none of the four are fluffy vacation books. Fly Guy doesn't understand vacation books.
So what I would like people to do for me is in the comments here list some of your most favorite Fluff/Vacation book and tell me why you like it.
thanks :-)
Monday, March 31, 2008
Book review
On Feburary 8, 2008 I talked about the book I had just finished reading along with the book I just started reading. I just finished "The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Moat Famous Scientist"
Yes it took me well over a month to read it. I am a very slow reader. Which isn't a surprise because of my LDs.
It turned out to a really great book I am going to have to look deeper on some of the topics like Hoover being on friendly terms with Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler.
Einstein has always been a hero of mine since I was 11 or 12 years old. Reading more about him lately makes me view him as a greater man then I thought he was.
It seems that because of different reasons Einstein's political views have been lost to history. Only when Time Magazine named him "Person of the Century" did a lot of his political believes came out. Even that article just breezed over his political views.
Did Hoover and McCarthy win in the long run because biographers are nervous to prove that Einstein was part of a number or radical organizations that if alive Einstein would told people he was part of without a problem. Einstein felt that largest problem in the United States was racism. If biographers and media could right more about Einstein's eloquent anti-racism writing and searches without fear, would US citizens have a different view of racism since the worlds greatest scientist said these things.
Once I am done reading "Buried By the Times" (I might have to write about this book when I am done also. New York Times owned by German Jews and worked to get their family out of Germany during WWII, but didn't cover the Shoah in their paper.) I am going to have to go on to read "Einstein on Race and Racism" it looks like it could be a good book and cover some of the questions I have. There is a whole list of his writtings and speaches on racism in the back of "The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Moat Famous Scientist" I am not going bother to type them up here. Anyone who is interested now knows they are there and can go look at them themselves.
I know I should do goodreads.com, I haven't been able to get into it at all. I think it has to do with the fact when you come here and read my blog, you know about my reading and writing issues, at goodreads.com when I review a book I feel that I do not do the book justice.
Yes it took me well over a month to read it. I am a very slow reader. Which isn't a surprise because of my LDs.
It turned out to a really great book I am going to have to look deeper on some of the topics like Hoover being on friendly terms with Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler.
Einstein has always been a hero of mine since I was 11 or 12 years old. Reading more about him lately makes me view him as a greater man then I thought he was.
It seems that because of different reasons Einstein's political views have been lost to history. Only when Time Magazine named him "Person of the Century" did a lot of his political believes came out. Even that article just breezed over his political views.
Did Hoover and McCarthy win in the long run because biographers are nervous to prove that Einstein was part of a number or radical organizations that if alive Einstein would told people he was part of without a problem. Einstein felt that largest problem in the United States was racism. If biographers and media could right more about Einstein's eloquent anti-racism writing and searches without fear, would US citizens have a different view of racism since the worlds greatest scientist said these things.
Once I am done reading "Buried By the Times" (I might have to write about this book when I am done also. New York Times owned by German Jews and worked to get their family out of Germany during WWII, but didn't cover the Shoah in their paper.) I am going to have to go on to read "Einstein on Race and Racism" it looks like it could be a good book and cover some of the questions I have. There is a whole list of his writtings and speaches on racism in the back of "The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Moat Famous Scientist" I am not going bother to type them up here. Anyone who is interested now knows they are there and can go look at them themselves.
I know I should do goodreads.com, I haven't been able to get into it at all. I think it has to do with the fact when you come here and read my blog, you know about my reading and writing issues, at goodreads.com when I review a book I feel that I do not do the book justice.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Reading time with Horse Girl
Every night before bedtime I read to Horse Girl. Tonight we read one chapter out of "Little Town on the Prarie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder and then we read "Thank You, Mr. Falker" by Patricia Polacco.
After I was done with "Thank You, Mr. Falker" Horse Girl told me she likes that book a lot because it is like her. I told her I like it a lot too, but it makes me cry every time I read it. She asked me why. I told her that Mr. Falker is a lot like a teacher I had and the story reminds me of me and that teacher. She understood.
"Thank You, Mr. Falker" is about a little girl's journey though the school system with kids teasing her because she can't read and feeling dumb because she can't read. She starts hating school because of all this. Then she meets Mr. Falker when she enters 5th grade. Mr. Falker sees her as the bright kid she is. Asks the kids who teased her which one of them is so perfect that they can tease someone else. Mr. Falker ends up helping the little girl to read in the end.
Yes it could be a corny feel-good story, but the thing is the little girl in the story is Patricia Polacco who grows up to write these wonderful children's books. So it is really a very moving true story.
I like it also because it shows how important good teachers are for kids. I believe people have a calling to be teachers. You can tell the ones who are following their calling as soon as you walk into their classroom. Everyone has a teacher they know that they can say that about. To me if being a teacher is a calling, being a special ed teacher is something even more. It is something that a person really needs to be born to do. Yes you can study it and learn about it, but working one on one with this gentle soul who may already be hurting because they can't do what their peers can, takes a very special person. I had three special ed teachers growing up. Each and everyone of them would have done anything to help me become the best student I could be. I owe everything to them. When I see Horse Girl's special ed teacher I see the same traits in her as I did in my special ed teachers. I know because of what this teacher does for Horse Girl, that Horse Girl will remember her for the rest of her life.
I once tried to tell Horse Girl's special ed teacher about how highly I value special ed teachers and she started to tear up, so I stopped. I am not suprised because I know I tear up when I think about her and how she helps Horse Girl and when I think of the teachers who helped me.
Thank you, all the teachers who really make a difference.
After I was done with "Thank You, Mr. Falker" Horse Girl told me she likes that book a lot because it is like her. I told her I like it a lot too, but it makes me cry every time I read it. She asked me why. I told her that Mr. Falker is a lot like a teacher I had and the story reminds me of me and that teacher. She understood.
"Thank You, Mr. Falker" is about a little girl's journey though the school system with kids teasing her because she can't read and feeling dumb because she can't read. She starts hating school because of all this. Then she meets Mr. Falker when she enters 5th grade. Mr. Falker sees her as the bright kid she is. Asks the kids who teased her which one of them is so perfect that they can tease someone else. Mr. Falker ends up helping the little girl to read in the end.
Yes it could be a corny feel-good story, but the thing is the little girl in the story is Patricia Polacco who grows up to write these wonderful children's books. So it is really a very moving true story.
I like it also because it shows how important good teachers are for kids. I believe people have a calling to be teachers. You can tell the ones who are following their calling as soon as you walk into their classroom. Everyone has a teacher they know that they can say that about. To me if being a teacher is a calling, being a special ed teacher is something even more. It is something that a person really needs to be born to do. Yes you can study it and learn about it, but working one on one with this gentle soul who may already be hurting because they can't do what their peers can, takes a very special person. I had three special ed teachers growing up. Each and everyone of them would have done anything to help me become the best student I could be. I owe everything to them. When I see Horse Girl's special ed teacher I see the same traits in her as I did in my special ed teachers. I know because of what this teacher does for Horse Girl, that Horse Girl will remember her for the rest of her life.
I once tried to tell Horse Girl's special ed teacher about how highly I value special ed teachers and she started to tear up, so I stopped. I am not suprised because I know I tear up when I think about her and how she helps Horse Girl and when I think of the teachers who helped me.
Thank you, all the teachers who really make a difference.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Page 123 meme plus musings
I am stealing this meme from Trees and flowers and birds. I have a vaige memory of doing something like this, but hey if I did it is a new book so might as well do it again.
"Each time Hoover's agents drew up a summary of Einstein's "Red front" affiliations, they included more groups. For several years during the early 1950s, his "subversive" list grew at the rate of nearly one new "front group" per month. It wasn't that Einstein joined so many organizations during those waning years of his life, but McCarthy-Hooverism expanded its power, the Subversive Activites Control Board (SACB) and HUAC, the authorities on "subversive" groups, kept enlarging their lists."
So far I have really enjoyed the book. I went on to this one after reading
Einstein: A Biography by Jürgen Neffe and Shelley Frisch. Which was a great book and having have read a handful of Einstein bios in high school it left me with more questions about him and Hoover, so I had to get this book I am reading now.
A little note here. Horse Girl's teacher is making noices about holding Horse Girl back next year and I have already decided I am not going to allow it for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that when I was her age I was like her. I could sort of maybe read depending on your defintion of reading. It didn't really click until I was 8 or 9 years old. (Horse Girl turns 8 this month.) So for me fast forward 30 years and here I am reading Einstein bios with no problem. I don't read fast, but I read and comprehend which is the most important part. So I really believe Horse Girl will figure things out and be fine just because of my history. That doesn't mean that Fly Guy and I are just sitting back and waiting, we work with her and her teachers work with her and she works hard at every thing she does. I know in my heart that she will be fine with time. I think sometimes it is harder for people who haven't been there, done that and bought several t-shirts, get too tied up with the here and now and don't look down the line.
There isn't a better bio to read then a good Einstein bio when you want to feel like a dyslexic can do anything. ;-) Dyslexics just see the world a different way. Which is why I don't like being told I "suffer" from dyslexia....I don't suffer I see things different then other people, which has bad parts to it and it has good parts. Einsein is one of those people who took the good parts and ran with them. Hmmmm.....a peace loving, socialist, dyslexic who becomes the world's most famous scientist, no wonder he is one of a handful of people who I would view as "my hero."
The Rules
The book is "The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Most Famous Scientist." I just got this book in the mail a couple days ago that is why I know I didn't do this book before. :-)Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more (no cheating!)
Find page 123
Find the first five sentences
Post the next three sentences
"Each time Hoover's agents drew up a summary of Einstein's "Red front" affiliations, they included more groups. For several years during the early 1950s, his "subversive" list grew at the rate of nearly one new "front group" per month. It wasn't that Einstein joined so many organizations during those waning years of his life, but McCarthy-Hooverism expanded its power, the Subversive Activites Control Board (SACB) and HUAC, the authorities on "subversive" groups, kept enlarging their lists."
So far I have really enjoyed the book. I went on to this one after reading
 |
A little note here. Horse Girl's teacher is making noices about holding Horse Girl back next year and I have already decided I am not going to allow it for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that when I was her age I was like her. I could sort of maybe read depending on your defintion of reading. It didn't really click until I was 8 or 9 years old. (Horse Girl turns 8 this month.) So for me fast forward 30 years and here I am reading Einstein bios with no problem. I don't read fast, but I read and comprehend which is the most important part. So I really believe Horse Girl will figure things out and be fine just because of my history. That doesn't mean that Fly Guy and I are just sitting back and waiting, we work with her and her teachers work with her and she works hard at every thing she does. I know in my heart that she will be fine with time. I think sometimes it is harder for people who haven't been there, done that and bought several t-shirts, get too tied up with the here and now and don't look down the line.
There isn't a better bio to read then a good Einstein bio when you want to feel like a dyslexic can do anything. ;-) Dyslexics just see the world a different way. Which is why I don't like being told I "suffer" from dyslexia....I don't suffer I see things different then other people, which has bad parts to it and it has good parts. Einsein is one of those people who took the good parts and ran with them. Hmmmm.....a peace loving, socialist, dyslexic who becomes the world's most famous scientist, no wonder he is one of a handful of people who I would view as "my hero."
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