Bloomsday

Check out this mystery
~ and review in The Guardian ~
for numerous fun allusions to James Joyce's Ulysses.
Quirke even sees a "lanky-looking galoot
in a gabardine raincoat" (148).
[also on QK]

Happy Bloomsday
from James Joyce and Friends!

Herman Melville

Oscar Wilde

Edgar Allan Poe

All figures available from
The Christmas Company

Also Nativity

Professor Walton

Margaret's Book
by James H. "Jay" Walton
September 23, 1937 – April 8, 2012

Facebook Post ~ February 20 2024

As I have mentioned before, Jay Walton was one of my major professors at Notre Dame, as was Pete's dad, Joe Buttigieg. Out of curiosity, and respect for Walton's work, Margaret's Book had long been on my "to read" list. A few summers ago, it had worked its way to the top, so I went to amazon, found the paperback at Better World Books, and clicked on "buy now." Imagine my surprise when my "used like new" copy arrived a few days later and I opened the flyleaf to discover that it was the copy that Professor Walton had inscribed to Pete Buttigieg! Sadly, no date is given.

Perhaps this is not the most sensational of all the amazing flyleaf inscription stories floating around out there, but I think it is a pretty good one. And it will be even better if Pete becomes President one day! In one of his 2019 speeches, Pete said that an occupational hazard of being a young politician is that all the grown women want to pat him on the head. Awwwww! That's when it occurred to me that I probably did pat Pete on the head, when he was a toddler and came to the office with his dad every now and then. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that! You will just have to believe me!

Even though the inscription is undated, it seems (knowing that Walton died in 2012, and I ordered the book in 2021) that this book found it's way to my library at least a decade after Walton presented it to Pete. I'm not sure if the condition of prior connection makes a coincidence greater or less, but I'm counting this one as a surprisingly appropriate literary coincidence. Better World Books is situated in Mishawaka, Indiana, right next door to South Bend, so it makes perfect sense that a book from Notre Dame would end up there. Still, I wonder if it was donated intentionally? Perhaps it was given away by accident when Prof. Buttigieg died (May 20, 1947 - January 27, 2019); maybe Pete doesn’t even know it’s gone; maybe he would like it back!

Now, about actually reading Margaret's Book, I'm sorry to confess that despite its brevity (150 pp), I struggled with it for a week or so. For one thing, aside from Margaret, the main female characters are named Estelle, Ellie, Elaine, Esther / Essie, Ella, Elizabeth. Can you believe?! I don't know if it's some kind of gimmick or subtle motif, but it meant that I was perpetually re-reading, trying to figure out which woman I was reading about because I could not keep them straight in my head!

"Same reason I don't keep up with the Kardashians,"
said my friend Neil. Haha!

A few excerpts, including
this excellent readerly advice:
always keep a book close at hand,
no matter what you're doing . . .
37: ". . . he would lie for hours before the television set, unreading (though always with a book beside him) . . ."

And some writerly advice:
don't expect your favorite authors
to be good people, just good writers . . .
72: "One doesn't write, he replied, to accomplish or accumulate or impress. That was for people who became the sum of their accomplishments or acquisitions, who had no authentic core of self. She must have forgotten their conversation about freedom. 'People like us,' he said (meaning intellectual or artistic people), 'think too much of what a whole life might add up to. We spend so much time among the great -- the great minds, great imaginations, great wills -- that we can't think of our life as worth anything unless we get some of that greatness for ourselves. But Charlotte Bronte and Thackeray; Dickens and even George Eliot; Henry James and Joyce; these were not good people, Margaret. If we knew them personally we wouldn't like them. Their personalities,' he said, reaching for something of Engelhardt's, about Conrad, 'Their personalities would leap at us like tigers!'"

And some nostalgia . . .
76: "The prematurely warm day in March seemed all that he needed to complete his recovery. Southend's main street was as quiet, bare, and bright as on the best - remembered summer afternoons of his childhood."

~ South Bend, Indiana ~

Reading Buddies

Two Women Reading on the Verandah
Ingham, North Queensland, Australia ~ ca. 1894-1903
photo by Harriett Pettifore Brims, 1864-1939 (below left)

As these two women (friends? sisters?) knew over a hundred years ago, you just can't beat a good reading buddy. And, truly, my friend Cate is one of the best. No way I can keep up with her, but she is a continuous inspiration!

~ Update From Cate ~
Hi Girls,
I'm sitting on my bed,
going through the books next to my bed.
The stack has finally fallen:
1. Triptych, Karin Slaughter

2. Proof Positive, Margolin

3. Shakespeare's Sonnets

4. The Life,Times & Treacherous Death of Jesse James, Triplett

5. The Italian Secretary, Carr

6. Domino, Ross King

7. The Russian Concubine, Furnivall

8. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Magazine Articles

9. Meditation and Relaxation in Plain English, Sharples

10. Alethophobia, Parvin

11. Fat Flush Plan, Gittleman

12. March, Geradine Brooks
Thank you Kite for this one! Love it.
13. Making Money, Terry Prachett
And Lynn for our place in disc world.
14. Native North Americans, Zimmerman

15. War and Peace, my buddy Tolstoy

16. Absolute Friends, John LeCarre
Just finished this today. Sad, sad
but one of his best books. Gerry would love it.
17. Justice Hall, L. King

These were all stacked on the floor next to my bed.
Until they fell over today. I played a game with all of them:
Okay, who's first to go, you or me?
Well they lost. Oh yeah there's one more:
Praying Through It, Kichen

But even more amazing is this one
that I bought several weeks ago:
Knitting Through It: Inspiring Stories for Times of Trouble, Nargi

Pretty much the same philosophy
but using knitting to get through tough times.
I think my knitting is just another obsession of mine.
At least I start things and sometimes finish them.
Sit in bed and knit socks.
Also I have to figure out
where the hell I'm going to put these books!

Later my best girlfriends,
Catherine

********************

~ Cate's Books ~
{posted sometime back on The Quotidian Kit}Stacks Beside Bed, Toppled By Curious Cats
Who Failed To Heed Cate's "Careful -- Danger" Warning!
But, hey, just take a look at that great selection of reading material!
Remember my friend Cate, yhe one with the (stylish cats) and the talent for knitting?

She also reads. A lot.

She sent me the following summary of the current inventory scattered willy-nilly around her house:

Book of the Month: A Little History of the World,
author: E. H. Gombrich; illustrator: Clifford Harper

Knitting Books: Knit Now, Not Later

Books in Guest Room: Not for guests. Haha just kidding!

Books in Other Guest Room: Hmmm. Maybe too many?

Books on Night Stand: Careful -- Danger!

Books on Floor Next to Bed: Caution -- Knitting Needles (among other things); approach with care!

P.S. from Cate to me:
Egad. Ummm could you edit the photo a little so my messy pile doesn't look so messy? lol
And did I send you the lists of the books in those other rooms?

P.S.S. from me to Cate:
But it's the MESSINESS that we love!
No, you have not yet sent the lists for "Guest Room" and "Other Guest Room."
But I am keen to know! Share and I will post!

What I DO have is your coffee table list . . .

********************
~ Cate's Coffee Table ~
{previously posted on The Quotidan Kit}On Cate's coffee table, look for the following:
1. Love and Power: Awakening To Mastery, Lynn V. Andrews

2. The Bible - New Testament

3. The Urantia Book, The Urantia Foundation

4. The Eight Gates of Zen: Spiritual Training In An American Zen, John Daido Loori

5. Practical Meditation With Buddhist Principles, Venerable Thubten Lhundrup

6. Joy To The World: Christmas Messages From America's Preachers, ed. Olivia Cloud

7. Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne

8. The Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady, Edith Holden

9. Growing Herbs, Yvonne Rees

10. The Country Garden: How To Transform Your Garden Into A Lovely Retreat, ed. Country Homes & Garden

11. Time Life Roses

12. There's A Spiritual Solution To Every Problem, Wayne W. Dyer

13. Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor

14. The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis

15. Meditations From the Mat: Daily Reflections On the Path of Yoga, Rolf Gates

16. Moby Dick, Herman Melville

17. Reserved For the Cat: An Elemental Masters Novel, Mercedes Lackey

18. If Not For the Grace of God: Learning To Live Independent of Frustrations and Struggles, Joyce Meyer

19. The Portable Dragon: The Western Man's Guide to the I Ching, R. G. H. Siu

20. The I Ching (Trans. Wilhelm & Baynes; forward by C. G. Jung, first published 1924; 1950 by The Princeton Univ. Press)

21. The Complete Works of Lao Tzu, translated by Hua Ching Ni

22. Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery, Larry Millet

23. The American Yoga Association Beginner's Manual, Alice Christensen

24. Special Topics In Calamity Physics (a novel), Marisha Pessl

25. When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice For Difficult Times, Pema Chodron

As Cate points out: "It's a big coffee table." It would have to be!

Thanks to my dear reading buddy Cate,
I am always learning something new!
Obviously Lucy & Ethel felt the same!

Book Haven

Happy 131st Birthday to James Joyce
and Happy One Year Anniversary to The Book Haven

Book Haven ~ F Street ~ Salida, Colorado
I've never been to Salida, but should I ever visit, I know where I'm heading first -- straight to Lisa Marvel's Book Haven on F Street!

My friend Laura wrote to me a year ago to tell me all about it: "We, and about sixty of Lisa's Salida friends, moved all of the books to the new location in about two hours in mid - January, then spent the next 10 days re - arranging, re - alphabetizing, and safely shelving them all. The Grand - Re - Opening on February 2nd was great fun. Lisa and I spent about eight hours preparing hors d'oeuvres for the even, and Joachim and I gave them fun names:

Cannery Row Wannabees (herring in wine sauce)
Grapes of Wrath (skewered fruit)
Pride and Prejudice (sweet and sour meatballs)
Pigs in Heaven (little smokies nestled in crescent rolls)
Call of the Wild (greens and veggies)
Tortilla Flat (chips & salsa)
Joy Luck Club (wraps / mini eggrolls)
Health Food for Heidi, etc.
"Following food and fellowship, thirty of us participate in a "Rapid Fire Salute to the Written Word" -- 30 one - minute readings. Kent Haruf convinced me to read the cose of Molly Bloom's Soliloquy, since it was James Joyce's birthday, so we ended with a big celebratory 'yes I said yes I will Yes!' "

favorite page from

~ favorite photo exhibit ~

The Family of Man
I am looking forward to hearing
Shellie K. Johnson sing
"The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs"

to be performed on 24 February 2013
by The Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society
text from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
music by John Cage

The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs
"night by silentsailing night. . .
Isobel. . .
wildwoods' eyes and primarose hair,
quietly,
all the woods so wild, in mauves of
moss and daphnedews,
how all so still she lay neath of the
whitethorn, child of tree,
like some losthappy leaf,
like blowing flower stilled,
as fain would she anon,
for soon again 'twil be,
win me, woo me, wed me,
ah weary me!
deeply,
Now evencalm lay sleeping; night
Isobel
Sister Isobel
Saintette Isobel
madame Isa
Veuve La belle"

The Piano at Book Haven

Movie Tie - Ins

Cool new nail polish color: "Not Like the Movies"!
Next, I would like to try "Not Like the Book"
. . . I wonder what color that would be?
So, life is not like the movies, and the movies are not like the books! Even so, I'll be in line later this summer to see the film version of Kathryn Stockett's 2009 bestselling novel, The Help. It was a compelling narrative, and I'm curious to see the how it will be depicted. Soon to be viewable are a few other recent favorites . . . well . . . fairly recent.

Warhorse: take your choice ~ screen, stage, or text.

I guess it's actually been three years since I sat down one snowy day in February 2008 and read Sara Gruen's 2007 novel, Water for Elephants all in one sitting -- very unusual for me. Usually, even when I love what I'm reading, I have a bad habit of allowing myself to be very easily distracted, always jumping up for this, that, or the other -- a cup of tea, a load of laundry, etc. But this novel about veterinary science, circus trains, and aging definitely held my attention, like watching a very good show. I just kept wanting to see what would happen next! The elderly narrator and the subtext on aging provide a very thought - provoking twist to the story. Though, speaking of twists, I remain a little miffed at the way the conclusion makes the opening seem like a trick. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing this one very soon (in theatres April 2011).

Later that same year (2008), I read Erik Larson's non - fiction thriller from 2004, Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America in a rather uniquely appropriate setting, considering that it is about the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 - 94. A couple of people had recommended it to me, so I started it on the train going up to Chicago early one morning, picked it up again that night on the return train, and finished it a few days later, faster than I read most things. The chapters alternate between American history and true crime. Utterly sick, but captivating. I would recommend reading it only if you don't mind being creeped out in a jack - the - ripper kind of way . . . and I bet the same thing is going to be true for the movie adaptation, coming in 2012, starring Leonardo Dicaprio.

It was also back in the summer of 2008 that I watched Notes on a Scandal (released in 2006). I was so mesmerized by this movie that I had to order the book (published in 2003) by Zoe Heller and read it right away. I passed it on to Gerry who also read it quickly, and then we watched the movie a couple more times before returning to netflix. As always, a few changes had been made between text and film, e.g., calling the movie not by the full title -- What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal] -- but by the subtitle only. However, both are very well done, filled with thought - provoking analysis of the personal motivation behind reckless behavior: "Some people live in constant fear of having their secrets found out; others have a kind of arrogant certainty that anything they wish to keep private will remain so. Sheba belongs to the later group" (220). Ah ah! so that's what she was thinking!

Every now and then I hear a rumor that Don Delillo's 1972 novel End Zone is going to be made into a movie, but nothing seems to have come of the proposition yet. I wish it would! I read the novel a few football seasons ago (late summer 2007) upon the recommendation of a well - meaning friend who felt that it might help me understand what it was that my sons were doing out there in the end zone. I've learned a lot about the game since then; yet I still think the visual aid of a movie tie - in would increase my appreciation of this book about college football, nuclear warfare, and James Joyce.

Eclectic Course of Must Reads

The Little Prince, Most Dashing in his Traveling Scarf!
A few years back, several people all at once, each unbeknownst to the other, asked me what titles I would recommend to a reader who was starting at "Go." I mulled it over some, thinking about syllabi and reading lists. More importantly, however, I went with my heart and in an hour or so of brainstorming came up with the following list of "Must Reads."

Undoubtedly, you have only to glance down the page before a thousand omissions become apparent. No Shakespeare, for example...but maybe I wouldn't recommend Shakespeare at the starting line; better to run a couple of laps first. Not necessarily thematic or consistent or even rational, this list represents the titles that came to mind that day when I asked myself "What books are you really glad that you have read?"

I hope you will enjoy at least some of these suggestions:

VERY OLD FAVORITES FROM WAY BACK
These were the soul - searchers:

The Fantasticks
by Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt

Our Town
by Thornton Wilder

The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint Exupery

I Heard the Owl Call My Name
by Margaret Craven

Doctor Zhivago
by Boris Pasternak

The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
by Carson McCullers

To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee

Stranger in a Strange Land
by Robert Heinlein

The Water is Wide
by Pat Conroy


MYSTERIES
If you’re in the mood for a thriller,
I think these are all above average:

The Daughter of Time
by Josephine Tey

Summer’s Lease
by John Mortimer

The 7th of July
by Jill McCorkle

Fatal Inversion
by Ruth Rendell

The Secret History
by Donna Tartt

Turtle Moon
and
Second Nature
both by Alice Hoffman

The Erasers
by Alain Robbe-Grillet


TRAVEL
As mentioned awhile back,
you should read everything by Bill Bryson;
also these American travelogues:

Blue Highways
and PrairyErth
both by William Least Heat Moon

Mama Makes Up Her Mind
and Sleeping At the Starlite Motel
both by Bailey White


WORLD WAR II
Loss, sadness, and European history:

Badenheim 1939
by Aron Appelfeld

The Tin Drum
by Gunter Grass

War Time Memories
by Louis Begley

The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro

How German Is It
by Walter Abish

Hiroshima
by John Hersey

Slaughterhouse Five
by Kurt Vonnegut

The White Hotel
by D. M. Thomas


MISC. WORLD LIT
Nearly all from my classes with
Professor Leonard Orr:

The Metamorphosis
and The Trial
by Franz Kafka

The Wanderer
by Henri Alain-Fournier

Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann

The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov

Out of Africa
and "Babette's Feast"
both by Isak Dinesen

Kitchen
by Banana Yoshimoto

If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler
by Italo Calvino


AMERICAN STANDARDS
Don't worry, I'm leaving out Moby Dick:

Bartleby, the Scrivener
by Herman Melville

My Antonia
by Willa Cather

The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Winesburg, Ohio
by Sherwood Anderson

The Sound and the Fury
by William Faulkner

In Our Time
by Ernest Hemingway

"Appointment in Samara"
by John O’Hara

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams

Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger


MORE RECENT AMERICAN NOVELS
Modern and post-modern despair:

Dangling Man
by Saul Bellow

Miss Lonelyhearts
by Nathanael West

The Universal Baseball Association
by Robert Coover

Edwin Mullhouse
by Steven Millhauser

84 Charing Cross Road
by Helene Hanff

Still Life With Woodpecker
and Another Roadside Attraction
both by Tom Robbins

Breakfast of Champions
Cat's Cradle
Slapstick
and Jailbird
all by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Ragtime
by E. L. Doctorow

Bright Lights, Big City
and Brightness Falls
both by Jay McInerney

Moo
by Jane Smiley


A FEW PICKS FROM MY GRAD SCHOOL READING LIST
Modern British and Irish fiction:

Far From the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy

Sons and Lovers
The Man Who Died
The Captain’s Doll
all by D. H. Lawrence

Brideshead Revisited
by Evelyn Waugh

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
by Angus Wilson

Lucky Jim
by Kingsley Amis

Hurry On Down
by James Wain

My Strange Quest for Mensonge
by Malcolm Bradbury

Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley

Keep the Aspidistra Flying
by George Orwell

The Ice Age
by Margaret Drabble

Dubliners
and Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man
by James Joyce

The Third Policeman
by Flann O’Brien

My Left Foot
by Christy Brown

Murder in the Cathedral
by T. S. Eliot

A Man for All Seasons
by Robert Bolt

The Importance of Being Ernest
by Oscar Wilde


SOME SLIGHTLY EARLIER BRITISH LIT
You can substitute other Dickens' titles if you want,
but I preferred these to David Copperfield or Oliver Twist:

A Tale of Two Cities
and Great Expectations
both by Charles Dickens

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley

Memoirs to Read in the Summertime

American Flag Pie: Homegrown Rhubarb & Black Currant
MISS AMERICAN PIE: A DIARY OF LOVE, SECRETS AND GROWING UP IN THE 1970s Margaret Sartor: My girlhood was very little like the one described here. All the boyfriends, and drinking, and using the f--- word, the horseback riding and rah-rah pom - pom beauty queen stuff -- none of that was me (me, I was a Girl With Glasses!). But one thing I did love about this young heroine -- she has my crazy frizzy hair! On 2 November 1976, she writes, "Jimmy Carter was elected president and Daddy said he won because it was such a beautiful day all over the South. This would seem to suggest a connection between the presidency of the United States and the frizziness of my hair" (198). Now that made me laugh! Reminded me, in fact, of the boy at my high school graduation (a day of high humidity) who said, "Kitti, your hair looks like the Wrath of God." Gee, thanks!

GIRL WITH GLASSES: MY OPTIC HISTORY Marissa Walsh: What a smart, funny memoir and darling cover photo (take a look on amazon). Pretty sure I had that exact same outfit in 4th grade! Maybe we all did -- Haha! Reading in public because you just can't help yourself, or maybe to avoid human interaction? Walsh calls this "the girl-with-a-book thing" (148). She experiments with contact lenses, only to learn that even with her contacts in, she is still "the girl with glasses" (53). And she quotes Scooby-Doo, that episode when Daphne asks, "Velma, do you have a book for every occasion?" And Velma (a girl with glasses) replies, "Actually, yes." I love the idea of a life story chronicled by sequential eye-wear choices. You could also do it with footwear, winter coats, cars, hair, you name it. Fun!

SHE GOT UP OFF THE COUCH AND OTHER HEROIC ACTS FROM MOORELAND, INDIANA Haven Kimmel: ZIPPY is as cute and funny as ever (see below, 2004: GROWING UP SMALL & 2006), but by the end of this installment, she is wising up, sadly, and falling from innocence. Not that she ever loses her winsome sense of humor. She thinks that maybe she will have a detective agency with her sister when they grow up. Okay, says her sister: "'I would be the brains and you could do all the gross stuff.' I sighed. She had just named my dream life" (146).

In this book, Zippy's mother is the one who gets up off the couch (where according to Zippy she has spent the last few years "eating pork rinds and reading books from the bookmobile" 36) and enrolls at Ball State to complete a degree in English. Zippy's mom is a Girl With Glasses! Zippy observes that her mother "was forever quoting someone [James Joyce, for example], I can't describe how powerfully vexing it was" (261). Kind of like Velma, in Scooby-Doo.

In an evocative passage, Zippy recalls visiting the Laundromat with her parents, the smell of Tide & Downy, climbing into the large rolling laundry baskets:

"Plus you could buy individual boxes of detergent and fabric softener, even bleach, and there was nothing that made me grind my teeth with pleasure more than a real thing shrunken down small. The first time my dad showed me a toothache kit from a box of equipment from the Korean War and I saw the tiny cotton balls (the size of very small ball bearings), I nearly swooned. . . . Miniaturization was a gift from God, no doubt about it, and there it was, right in a vending machine in the place we used to do our laundry in New Castle, Indiana" (155).

Kimmel's description of Miniaturization nearly made ME swoon! Particularly since one of the most exciting books of literary theory I've ever read is Susan Stewart's ON LONGING: NARRATIVES OF THE MINIATURE, THE GIGANTIC, THE SOUVENIR, THE COLLECTION, which inspired my own book on the role of dolls and miniatures in fiction.

Email from a friend: "I agree with everything you said about ZIPPY; your comments are practically word for word what I nearly wrote down to you earlier today but then just didn't take the time to send. Doesn't it feature so many things that you remember from growing up, not only clothes and toys and household items, but also an almost non - specific feeling of the time. That is what I loved. It felt like it was my life without all the drama around it. The references to all the toys and songs and games: yes, it really did seem like she was describing our life in St. Charles, County. As for how she captures that detached, bemused voice -- so utterly charming, so critically astute yet nonjudgmental about her own life-- I just wish I knew! Similar to the narrative voice of Scout in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or ELLEN FOSTER? Absolutely adorable.

Also, glad to hear I'm not the only one who found some of the time references oddly out of synch (e.g. no Barbies in 1972)! Wow! Even us poor kids in Missouri had Barbies in what -- 1964 or 65! Still, she made me laugh a million times:

"I had some disappointments with Santa, but not many. The only clear one I remember is the year I asked for a Skipper doll, who was an early, extra - perky friend of Barbie. Nobody had Barbies in Mooreland, and this could have posed a problem for the social Skipper, which might have been what Santa was thinking. Skipper was not the kind of girl to thrive in solitude. She wasn't doing much looking inside" (p. 266).

Before leaving this topic, I must say that I thought Skipper was Barbie's sister. I know that Barbie has a tiny little sister now (can't remember name? Chelsea? Tutti?), but I truly did think that Skipper was their middle sister, not a friend. I vividly remember my sister Di's Skipper doll who had long red hair and a red sailor style bathing suit -- very cute! And this was in the Midwest in 1965 or 1966. Apparently in Mooreland, however, no one has a Barbie in 1972 (?).

One thing that struck me when reading ZIPPY is that although the narrator is 8 years younger than I, it could easily be the other way around; so much of the descriptions seemed to be from the childhood of someone maybe a decade ahead of me, but then Kimmel does say that people in Mooreland were "not so much behind the times as they were confused about the times." I loved that!

*****************
And lastly . . .
LOOKING BACK: GROWING UP OLD IN THE SIXTIES (1973)
AT HOME IN THE WORLD: A MEMOIR (1998)
Great autobiographical / social commentary by Joyce Maynard.

For more on Joyce Maynard

check out my LIST on amazon: Joyce Maynard Treasure Hunt

and see my longer post
"Joyce Maynard Treasure Hunt" (27 May 2009)

on my literary blog of connection and coincidence
(www.kitticarriker.blogspot.com)