vagansmom

Am reading The Red Tent right now. Did anyone else read it? What did you think? So far, I have mixed feelings about it.

The parents of one of my daughter's best friends (NOT a ballet dancer) from high school were and perhaps still are friends with Baryshnikov. When this girl first discovered my daughter was a dancer, she asked if daughter knew of B. When daughter said yes, of course, the friend nonchalantly commented that, "when I was little, I got sick and threw up on him."

Although Streep's not a dancer, this is a dance story. Several years ago, as my husband was staying close to the phone waiting to hear news about his dad who was in the CCU of a distant hospital, the phone rang. A woman asked about private Irish dance lessons for someone else for the summer. Husband was anxious to get off phone, so he hurriedly told her he didn't give private lessons in the summer but "she's welcome to come down to the dance hall on Fridays when the kids take lessons". "Oh, no thank you, " said the voice. After he hung up, he realized the name mentioned: Meryl Streep. He thereupon called me at work saying, "I think I blew it. Meryl Streep wants private lessons and I said no, but she could come down to the hall!" So, because I work at a school with some celebrities' kids, I asked around and someone knew Streep well enough to tell her why husband was so short with her secretary. Streep called back and the upshot is that he gave her private dance lessons twice a week all summer long in preparation for her "Dancing at Lughnasa". She had said she wanted to be well-prepared for the dancing scene but also mentioned that she didn't tell the director she was taking lessons because she was afraid he wouldn't like it. Turns out when she went to Ireland to shoot the movie, she knew way more than she should. But if you ever see the rerun of Streep on "Inside the Actor's Studio", she does about 20 seconds (if that) of "Irish dance". She'd forgotten mostly everything by then but it was still a little recognizable. Years later, I was flipping TV stations and Bette Midler was on either Oprah or Rosie O'Donnell. Something Midler said caught my ear as I was about to change the station, "I got a call from Meryl Streep. You know, when Meryl calls, you don't say no!" Oops.

Diane, my sister is a HUGE Barbara Pym fan. She says the same thing about those books.

Vrsfanatic, that's what I ultimately decided about Nin too. Initially, I was crestfallen when I read the accounts in the New Yorker several years ago. But then I remembered my own brief encounter with her and how she was, as an elderly woman, so curious, alert, engaging, and most importantly, KIND. That mirrors my image of her from the diaries. Whether or not, in practical issues, she was being forthright (and she said many times that she was being careful so as to not hurt people who were still alive), I think that her musings as documented in her diaries, DO reflect her own inner life.

Did anyone see the Reuters article in today's papers? Here's a link to it from yahoo: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...h_alzheimers_dc The article was listing the kinds of activities that have been proven to decrease the risk of getting Altzheimers. The usual activities were named: crossword puzzles, playing a musical instrument, reading, but then the article stated that no physical activity other than dance had similar results.

I hate background voices (LOL, there are enough inside my own head) so the TV is OFF unless someone's actively watching it. I've been obsessive about this since I was a teen. I realized, at that time, that the TV in my family's house was always on even when we ate dinner; it bothered me so I began to shut it off at mealtime. I've carried that habit throughout my life. Since we now have only the most basic cable package (3 networks, Fox, Travel, 2 PBS stations, a Spanish station and a couple religious stations plus one or two more), it's very easy to NOT watch TV. The only program I watch is ER and occasionally I'll watch Seinfeld repeats. It's rare for the 3 members of my household to be home together before 10 pm on any given day. Invariably there's one person home at a time. None of us seems to watch TV much since we abandoned the larger cable package several months ago. Back then, I could become seduced by the news channels and Bravo and easily find myself spending a couple hours in front of the TV. I'm not a TV hater. I think that, along with the trash, there exist many quality programs within a pricey cable package. But life is short and there are so many other interesting things to do as well. I like background music, but not background voices, while I'm doing them at home. But for at least part of each day, there's nothing like absolute silence.

This is fun. I remember some more books my mom and I both liked: Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith All the books in the Mitford Series by Jan Karon I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith I discovered, in trying to come up with light books, that most of what I read ISN'T Some wonderfully written books are almost anything by Willa Cather and Rumer Godden. Cather's My Antonia, O Pioneers, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and Song of the Lark(about an opera singer) are real treasures. Some good Godden books include The Greengage Summer, River, In This House of Brede, Episode of Sparrows, and China Court. I learned so much about Eastern cultures from reading her books. Finally, Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and To Serve Them All My Days (about a teacher's life in an English boarding school - the story takes place in the first half of the 20th century) by R.F. Delderfield.

Grace, your mom sounds like mine! Towards the end of her life, she wanted only uplifting books - nothing too sad or serious. Both of us enjoyed Gladys Taber's books. There are at least a couple Stillmeadow books and one about Cape Cod, as I recall. In fact, my mom gave those books to me when I was going through a rough time emotionally and was looking for good prose but nothing heavy. Older books that fit your mother's definition (although being a voracious reader, she may have read them already) are Trollope's Barchester Chronicles . There's a good bunch of them. He had such perception when it came to people. I also would highly recommend Madeleine L'Engle's Crosswicks Journals if she hasn't already read them. L'Engle's prose is peaceful and provocative at the same time. There are 4 books in the series but I like Circle of Quiet ,Two Part Invention , and The Summer of the Great Grandmother . The fourth book, The Irrational Season , doesn't appeal to me because it's primarily about her relationship to God. There's also a nice autobiographical book called Letters of a Woman Homesteader that I recall my mom and I liked equally. I really enjoyed another autobiography called Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. It chronicled her grandmother's, mother's, and her own life in China throughout the 20th century. Riveting stories about living under all the upheavals in China during that period, but ultimately a book full of hope.

Grace, the article I read about Nin was in the New Yorker several years ago. It was pretty scathing, documenting her double marriage, and claimed she was a "nymphomaniac" who had an affair with her father and that the stillbirth child she bore was his. It went on to declaim her diaries, stating that there was much that was untrue about them. Maybe you could do a search on the New Yorker website.

Kate Mulgrew wsa BORN to play Katharine Hepburn. That voice, those cheekbones...

Oh dear. Once you begin Nin's Diary , you can't stop - you'll have to read every single one of them.

I finished it yesterday. It's forced me to hit the Internet over and over again to research some of the organizations, paintings and individuals mentioned.

All the stories I remember from toddlerhood came from a collection of books whose title I probably don't correctly remember but it was something like "The Children's Story Hour". They were hardcover, red books. I read them to my own children when they were young. Each volume covered a different genre. My favorites were The Velveteen Rabbit , a poem whose title may have been Belinda and the Dragon ,The 500 hats of Bartholomew Cubbins , and The Selfish Giant . Because there were 5 children in my family, all close in age, my mom would read the same stories to all of us at the same time.

I don't know if this can be accessed if you don't register with the NYT but there's a review of The Da Vinci Code here: http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-page?...750C0A9659C8B63

Thank you, Alexandra. I've wanted to read Bel Canto too.

I'm more of an Aolian and Dorian mode person myself, in music AND in reading.

I'm on page 154 right now. I SHOULD be cleaning the house, preparing a meal, taking a shower but all I want to do is read. I see why people are so enthralled by it. It's chock-full of background on all kinds of topics: the Catholic Church's relationship to Opus Dei and paganism, feminism, fine arts and the lives of the artists, architecture, religious symbology, cryptology, mathematics (Fibonacci sequence is a biggie here) as well as being a really good mystery and, I hear, romance too.

Svemaus, I spent the summer following my high school graduation in France and one surprise I had while there was that virtually all the young folks I met could draw quite well. They were very matter-of-fact about it, stating that it was compulsory in school. What a gift! I wish we had that here in the States.

It does seem that, despite the appalling lack of guidance and vision of many of our schools, most of us posting here are enthusiastic readers and can probably credit our parents for that. I know it's true in my case. Both parents were avid readers. Dinner conversations were invariably about books: "What are you reading?" "What are you thinking?" As a family, we had lively, impromptu book discussions around the dinner table and could easily sit there and argue for at least a couple hours if we had differing opinions. In fact, I've never really thought of elementary schools as being useful when it comes to reading. They're good (at least they SHOULD be) at teaching decoding. But provoking discussion? Only the occasional inspired teacher seems able to do that.

In parochial grammar school, practically no arts. But the city I grew up in (Stamford, CT) funded money for an organization called "Project Music", designed to bring music lessons to poor inner city kids. I qualified and was given, at the age of about 11, a guitar and private weekly lessons. During the summers, there was a music camp for several weeks. I took those lessons for free for several years and in high school continued on with classical guitar lessons and taught at the summer music camp. Those initial music lessons gave me my future. Much of the path I later chose wouldn't have been available to me had I not had them. The one good thing about the Ukrainian Catholic girls high school I attended was its choir. It was mandatory for all 75 girls in the school. We recorded an album each year and when I listen to it all these years later, I still marvel at how good we sound. Most of the songs were religious - I can still remember every word and note of "Slava vo vishni bohu" (Glory to God in the Highest). I learned to sing harmony in those daily choir practices and I love it to this day.

Alexandra, DaVinci Code has my vote for a first book club book

After reading all the remarks about the DaVinci Code, I headed out to the bookstore and used my last gift certificate to buy it. A friend has said that it's "whatever anyone says about it - it's better". I start it on Monday, my first day of summer vacation.

Yes, definitely Anne Frank's diary! It was one of the several influences that landed me in a Montessori school environment. She had attended Montessori school herself. Did anyone read the book written by Miep Ghies who, along with her husband, hid the Frank family in the building of Mr. Frank's business? It's called "Anne Frank Remembered" and is an intriguing account of those years from her perspective. When the book was published here in the USA, Ms. Ghies embarked on the lecture circuit. I had the pleasure of hearing her speak - she was a lovely, self-effacing and strong woman.

I went to parochial schools from kindergarten through 12th grade I remember what you describe of reading class, Alexandra, from my elementary teachers with the exception of two. Like most of the kids in my family, I learned to read before attending kindergarten. Schooltime reading was a boring matter except that it gave me great time to daydream into my pages. Every year I'd read the entire reading book on the very first day and then have to plod through it over and over again with the rest of the class. I learned how to "check out" mentally and return when it was my time to stand up and read aloud. But my fourth grade teacher encouraged my reading. She gave me "Ivanhoe" and, of all things (she was an elderly nun), a copy of "Frankenstein". I was awed and felt very grown up. My 8th grade teacher took me aside and suggested titles to me, the classics mostly, like "Little Women" and "Little Men". My first two years in high school were spent at a semi-cloistered, Ukrainian Catholic (Byzantine rite) all-girls boarding school. Mercifully, I was a day student there. Still, I've managed to wipe out nearly all memory of that school so I'm not quite sure WHAT I did in English classes for those two years. I do remember reading "A Separate Peace". I then attended a regional Catholic high school where I encountered the teacher who would change my attitude about school and learning. She taught creative writing and she took an interest in me. To this day, some 33 years later, we're still in touch. At that time, she suggested Flannery O'Connor, Willa Cather, and Rumer Godden, all of whose books I still adore and reread to this day. On to teaching literature myself: I'm an elementary Montessori teacher who's taught literature classes for all ages. We have a book discussion group once a week. It's a cozy affair. We snuggle up on some throw pillows with our books and cups of herbal tea to discuss our book. I model it after St. John's College's "Great Books" program, but NOT on what's taught in other elementary schools as the Great Books series. I've looked at that curriculum and, IMO, it's a terribly bastardized version of the original. My groups are more in the spirit of St. John's discussions (I lived with my husband while he attended that college and I audited many a discussion group). Despite being a member of book discussion groups most of my adult life, some of the greatest conversations I've ever had have come from the young students. Kids are busy figuring out justice and they love to ponder it from every angle. Books supply the ideal avenue to do that. As far as exploring the techniques of literature writing, I begin one part of my program every year with "Can you tell a book by its cover?" Kids discuss what they look for in a book, we examine every part of a book: the front and back covers, the copyright page, the dedication page, the chapter names, and most importantly, the size and type of font. We read the first line, the first page - "Does it 'grab' you?" We talk about what we do when we find we don't like a book we've chosen. We read and discuss about one book, sometimes two, a month (this is besides their once-a-month book report requirement by their regular teacher). After the first two months, the kids run the group themselves. They assign themselves homework "jobs", write up an order of reporting on their jobs, and lead the discussions by following that order. For example, some of the jobs are: Discussion Director, who asks open-ended, insightful questions of the rest of the group Character Captain, who follows a main character throughout the book Passage Master, who guides us to important passages Vocabulary Enricher, who refers us to interesting or new vocab words Travel Tracer, who keeps track of where the book's action takes place Connector, who finds meaningful connections between the book and other areas of our lives Summarizer, who starts us out by reminding us all of the highlights of the passages we've currently read Illustrator (the favorite job, of course), who draws or creates a model representing some aspect of the book I try to include each year at least one example each of a biography, fantasy, science fiction, adventure, historical fiction, and contemporary fiction, and short story. After reading, discussing and dissecting a book, the kids then write, and publish within the classroom, their own short book in the style of the genre we've just read. I love my literature groups. I've found that, of all the teaching I've done throughout a couple decades in the classroom, there's nothing quite as fun as discussing a good book (or even a bad one, for that matter). Even the poor readers among my students love these discussion groups. One of the boys in my class has Asperger's, a high-functioning form of autism, and Tourette's. He struggles to keep from rocking his body violently, he struggles to read, he struggles to keep himself from shouting out, he can't hold a pencil without it breaking. Yet he's the most avid reader of the group (his mom reads most of the passages to him at home) and his favorite job is the Discussion Director. He asks the most poignant questions about truth and relationships.