Aug. 25 Sunday Salon Wrap Up

Aug. 25 Sunday Salon Wrap Up

Events:

Back from a lovely vacation in Massachusetts and Maine. Saw friends, relatives and elderly parents.  Walked long path in Lexington. Walked the beach and swam in the ocean. Jumped those salty icy waves! Saw my women’s group friends (30 plus years and counting). Walked Back Cove in Portland.

Ate with friends: lobster, more lobster, lobster roll. Maine (from the mud crab) crabmeat roll.  Blueberry pancakes, Blueberry pie. Whoopie Pie. Donuts.

 Currently eating in Maine vacation recovery mode: salad, fruit salad, more salad, yogurt.

While in Mass., visited John Adams’  home in Quincy. Because we now live surrounded by presidents’ homes and quite close to Monticello in Virginia, I thought I would like to see Adams’ house. Interesting. Peacefields is as much Adams – a large colonial house befitting a president, but basically a solid place to live  -- as Monticello is Jefferson -- a lavish experiment in architecture and botany.  Highlight of the Adams’ house was a separate building – a library. A wonderful place of dark wood and wooden shutters, library ladders, comfortable chairs, a long work table and volumes and volumes of old books. It was built by Charles Francis Adams, not by either of the two presidents.

Saddened by: The death of Dutch. Elmore Leonard, one of my all-time favorite writers, died this week.  I saw him described in a newstory as the one who was always the coolest guy in the room. I know that was true when I sat reading his books. I remember once in the early 80s wheb asked asked who my favorite writers were,  I replied: John Fowles and Elmore Leonard. That dates me. It also reveals me: the schizoid reading patterns just continued to develop as I did; literary fiction and crime novels, elaborate and gritty, layered and plain, serious and playful, elusive and defined plots.

Reading: Listened to Reza Aslan’s  Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, the book made famous by Lauren Green’s embarrassing interview with the author on Fox news. Green repeatedly asked how a Muslim could write a book about Christ. Others called her ignorant. To me it was clear she was being fed really bad slanted questions written by aides, had not read the book and was totally unprepared. And they call this journalism? Enticed by the brouhaha that followed, my husband and I were among those who purchased the  (audio) book, among those who helped it climb best seller lists for a short time. (Take that Fox news).

The book was great, a retelling of what we can know of the historical Jesus of Nazareth and a very necessary (at least for me) context-driven narrative. Aslan makes it very clear he is not talking about the Christ of Christianity, but rather the man of history. Well-written. Well-read.  Won’t review. Generally don’t review history (I don’t know enough) or audiobooks – simply mention.  Instead, I read reviews by scholars who debate such things as whether or not it represents the “lastest scholarship”  those who are  -or should be -- in a position to judge the research and scholarship). Looked at reviews in Pittsburgh-Post Gazette and NYTimes, The Nation.)

Writing: none. Behind now 3  (fiction) reviews.

Reading: Finished Audrey Schulman’s Three Weeks in December. (More to come if I ever get to these reviews.)

Back to: My dog, my job, my reading, my blog.

Glad to be here.

Will be back.
Hi-ho. Hi-ho. Off to work I go.