In between other books, I'm reading the whole set of the Chronicles of Narnia. The boys got me that for Christmas.

Julie

I'm also reading "Kitchen Privledges" and "Atlas Shrugged" (again) :]

I've completely abandoned my radio in the past few months in favor of recorded books from Audible. My commute is about 35 minutes so I can get really involved! I've recently listened to (I still say 'read') The Traveler (very inventive speculative fiction), The Life of Pi (Amazing! Wonderful! Richard Parker, where are you?), The Lakota Way (modern Native American stories and philosophy), and Krakatoa (Loved it). Often on the weekends I'll have the plugs in my ears while I'm in the garden too.

In the past year I've finished the entire Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin, Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis, Stephen King's Cell, Jon Stewart's America, and a handful of others. If you think you don't have time to read, you need to check into Audible. For around $20 a month I get to download 2 full, unabridged books. And they regularly have member sales where I can pick up a few extras. It's as much of an addiction as gardening.

Tim

I've been wanting to read The Life of Pi for a long time but right now I have a pile waiting for me to get to them and I can't add anymore until I polish off a few. First I have to get through Andrew Weil(2 or 3 books!), Dr. Oz (You the owners manual), Amy Tan (saving fish from drowning) and on and on...

I read The Kiterunner and then immediately followed it with Life of Pi. Two books about a very young person going through terrible ordeals. Very different books, but I highly recommend both - they are good reads, plus you'll find yourself thinking about the book for weeks afterwards.

I read last week: The DaVinci Code, The Debt and A Bride most Begrudging. The first and last were great, the second was meh.

Join our club and swap paperback books for FREE - PaperBackSwap.com

Right now, I'm reading "In Praise of Plants." It's one of those books that really changes how I view things.

cliff

Just started "The Broker" by John Grisham.

I'm reading The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly.

Julie

I finished The Grail Bird, about the ivory billed woodpecker rediscovery, a few weeks ago. I highly recommend this book.

Gabriele

I find authors that I like, then read all their work, and have started running out of books (is that possible?)

A couple new authors I have found have been very interesting:

- Kelly Jones - "The Seventh Unicorn" This fiction book is based on 6 French tapestries from medieval times, the author weaves a mystery around the possible existence of a 7th tapestry. Quite an education in art history and medieval artifacts.

- A J Hartley - "The Mask of Atreus" Another fiction mystery book based on history. This one involves Greek antiquities and Nazi Germany.

I've also recently enjoyed Nora Roberts' "Garden Trilogy" - most enjoyable was that the story is based in a Victorian home with it's own history and the nursery/greenhouse operation that is also on the property.

Am I the only one who likes Vampire books? This is a Southern Vampire Novel (that's what the cover says:) Girl who is telepathic and works as a waitress meets vampire. Everyone thinks she is crazy because she is continually trying to block the thoughts of others which makes her appear confused. Saves the vamps life and he owes her a favor. Her grandmother belongs to a Women's Confederacy group,the Descendants of the Glorious Dead, and would like the vampire to come and give a talk on the Confederacy to her lady friends since he was in the war before he became a vampire. Very entertaining but no plants in this one I am afraid. Pat

Vampire books - yeah I like them too but am often disappointed. I guess I like the idea, but don't find much that lives up to my expectations. I thought The Vampire Lestat was great, but found almost everything else she wrote kind of whiney. I'll be looking for Dead Until Dark! No plants? Not even wolfbane or garlic???

Solstice, I couldn't agree more. Read like it was written in the 1950's. "The Botony of Desire," or "In Praise of Plants," do a much more creditable job.

I guess everyone knows that with the Orlando Public Library you can order your books online and they will deliver them to your house free of charge? Best use of my tax money I think.

http://www.ocls.lib.fl.us/flashDefault.asp?bhcp=1

Kate & ladywingr, I like the more modern vamp novels that don't have pages of long,tedious description and explanations. Anne Rice is great but I think she gets so into it she thinks it is real:)

Pat

She mentions African dust blowing across the Atlantic and coming down in Miami. Have you experience this dust?

I ordered some more C. Moore books and a Gaiman from the library. I also want to read 'Target Underwear in a Vera Wang Dress'. I saw it over at the Target Store. Sometimes I just look through what they have at Target and other stores to see what looks good, but I am too cheap to pay for them:) I do that at Costco too, look at what bestsellers have come out and then get them from the libary. I do buy the Harry Potters because I just love them. You can sign up early at the library even before a book has come out and get the book very quickly when it hits the shelves. Pat

And yes, the Harry Potter books are just really good!

Florah: We just had a dust storm a few weeks ago that left us some beautiful sunsets.

How many of you love poetry? And for those who do, whom is your favorite poet?

I'm a Walt Whitman girl, myself. Swiftly followed by Edna St Vincent Milay. Uncle Walt has held my hand though many a dark hour.

Here's a little sample of Rilke so you can see why I like his poems.

Black Cat

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

I agree with Kate, Rilke is one of my favs too:

The Panther

His gaze, going past those bars, has got so misted
with tiredness, it can take in nothing more.
He feels as though a thousand bars existed,
and no more world beyond them than before.

Those supply powerful paddings, turning there
in tiniest of circles, well might be
the dance of forces round a center where
some mighty will stands paralyticly.

Just now and then the pupils' noiseless shutter
is lifted. - Then an image will indart,
down through the limbs' intensive stillness flutter,
and end its being in the heart.

[Rainer Maria Rilke]

(from her Pulitzer Prize-winner *American Primitive*, 1978.)

August

When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

But, I came to Conversations to talk about a novel and ask if anyone has read or is reading it. It is *Angle of Repose* by William Stegner. I have been mesmerized by Stegner's skill in describing the environment in which scenes take life. Most always his way of talking about the environment is a subtle telling of the underpinning psychic state of Susan, the grandmother through whose eyes we see the world. He is a poet writing a novel.

Right now I am particularly fascinated that Oliver, her un-eastern, "unpolished" (in her eyes) engineer husband, who is practical, creative and consistently true to himself, takes on growing rose gardens for her in the desert, searching out the most unique barerooted roses around the United States in the earliest days of settling the west. There is such a discussion waiting to happen about their unhappy yet interesting relationship. I hope some of you have read it. I'd love to know how you see it.
-Arabesque

1 L lama he's a priest,
2 LL llama he's a beast, but..
I will bet a silk pajama there isn't any
3 LLL lllama....

Ogden Nash:)

Pat

The Dalliance of Eagles - Walt Whitman

SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, 5
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing. 10

I am reading 'The Orchid Thief' right now (on your recommendation). It is absolutely fascinating, especially since I am very interested in Florida history.

When I bought a Wanda orchid in a small nursery in Leesburg, the nice lady mentioned ominously that Orchid growers and collectors inhabit a very special world. Now I understand what she meant with her warning.

I would definitely recommend this biography.

Here's the middle section of Humpbacks, a Mary Oliver poem for anyone who loves the ocean and whales. It's hard to detach it from the rest which is so worth the read. (from American Primitive)

HUMPBACKS
(4th section)

Three of them
rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,
then dive
deeply, their huge scarred flukes
tipped to the air.

We wait, not knowing
just where it will happen; suddenly
they smash through the surface, someone begins
shouting for joy and you realize
it is yourself as they surge
upward and you see for the first time
how huge they are, as they breach,
and dive, and breach again
through the shining blue flowers
of the split water and you see them
for some unbelievable
part of a moment against the sky -
like nothing you've ever imagined -
like the myth of the fifth morning galloping
out of darkness, pouring
heavenward, spinning; then

they crash back under those black silks
and we all fall back
together into that wet fire, you
know what I mean.

Here's the middle section of Humpbacks, a Mary Oliver poem for anyone who loves the ocean and whales. It's hard to detach it from the rest which is so worth the read. (from American Primitive)

HUMPBACKS
(4th section)

Three of them
rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,
then dive
deeply, their huge scarred flukes
tipped to the air.

We wait, not knowing
just where it will happen; suddenly
they smash through the surface, someone begins
shouting for joy and you realize
it is yourself as they surge
upward and you see for the first time
how huge they are, as they breach,
and dive, and breach again
through the shining blue flowers
of the split water and you see them
for some unbelievable
part of a moment against the sky -
like nothing you've ever imagined -
like the myth of the fifth morning galloping
out of darkness, pouring
heavenward, spinning; then

they crash back under those black silks
and we all fall back
together into that wet fire, you
know what I mean.

I just got my first library card a couple of years ago and love going there to see what interesting and inspiring books I can find. I usually just go down the rows, looking at titles and pull ones out that interest me then read the inside cover to see if I want to check it out.

I will have to see if I can find some of the titles you all have mentioned here.

FlowerLady

I am reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera now and plan The Botany of Desire for the next read after this one.
-Arabesque

"When you go to the local state or county fair you probably at one point or another make your way to the midway with its carnival rides, sideshows, and games of chance. Did you know that the origin of the term "midway" can be traced to the work of Frederick Law Olmsted? In 1870 the South Park Commission of Chicago hired Olmsted to plan a large park stretching inland from Lake Michigan. Olmsted envisioned two main divisions. The Lower Division (today's Jackson Park) would focus on a lagoon and the Upper Division (today's Washington Park) would center on a large open meadow. Connecting the two would be a 600-foot-wide (200-meter-wide) strip of land with trees and footpaths on either side of a waterway that would run down the middle. Olmsted called this strip of land the Midway Plaisance.
The great Chicago fire of 1871 prevented Olmsted's plan from being carried out. But two decades later when he was asked to provide the design for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Olmsted incorporated his Midway Plaisance into that design. This time, though, the narrow connector would not serve as a quiet peaceful transition from one section of a park to another but instead would serve as the entertainment district for the exposition. Olmsted wanted to concentrate the noisy and disturbing attractions there so as not to take away from the grand park-like atmosphere of the rest of the grounds. Visitors went to the Midway Plaisance to ride the world's first Ferris wheel, see exotic dancers perform, cheer on Harry Houdini, and sample Juicy Fruit and Cracker Jacks for the first time. Thus the use of the term "midway" for (as Webster's dictionary states) "an avenue at a fair, carnival, or amusement park for concessions and amusements."

I am currently reading Plain Anne Ellis, the second in a series of books an autobiography of a woman who was on the frontier. I didn't read the first, but this one is good.

I loved The Kiterunner- read that a few months ago. My mom loved it, too- she borrowed it after puppy-sitting for us last month while we ran around Vegas. :)

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is my most recent finish (in Vegas- yeah, I read in Vegas- LOL!)- very good story that was hard to put down. Very sad at times, though.

I'm reading The Memory Keeper right now. :)

Kate

I read that the rights to the book were already bought by Brad Pitt and one of the big studios. Should be a good movie.
Julie

By the way, I got them on audiotape at the library.

I see that they made Fast Food Nation into a movie.

Julie

Gobble, gobble everyone:)

Pat

I emailed you the other day about a book. Did you receive my email?

Carmen

BOTANY OF DESIRE is a documentary which tells the utterly original story of everyday plants and the way they have domesticated humankind. An interpretation of the relationship between plants and people. This two-hour documentary explores plant evolution and takes viewers from the potato fields of Peru and Idaho, the apple forests of Kazakhstan, and the tulip markets of Amsterdam.

View online in it's entirety: here

This is another related program by the same presenter on LINK TV (a cable access channel) which is timely:

Deep Agriculture
Traditional methods of agriculture in most developed nations have long ignored environmental concerns. Factors such as soil erosion, water shortage and the impact of chemicals on bio-systems have been overlooked in favour of massive crop yields and cheaper food. But what impact does this have on our health and our environment?

View online in it's entirety: here

__________________________

Sit down with a cup of tea or coffee and witness the evolution of an Organic Kitchen Garden.