Jinjer 31: Books, Books, and More Books

[victoriasponge]

Oh God, are we talking about childhood bookshelves? I wish I was at my parents' to get an image of mine. It was a floor-ceiling bookshelf filled with books and two further deep boxes toppling with books next to it. Mum made me have a clear out but I spent all my pocket money on books, often second-hand, so the shelf always filled up again.

Now I have my university shelf, which is a long one going about two thirds the length of our living room. It's filled with a lot of the classics but also fiction, political science commentaries, memoirs etc. I tried to avoid doing classics on my degree, even though I do English and History. Still hate Shakespeare, sorry professors. I bought all those fiction books to try and read for fun again, and it did work for a while - I read about 6 books in 5 days after I first got them, but then I got all my reading lists through for the year and Nietzsche has sucked the joy of reading back out from me. I'd never have done an English degree if I realised that would be the result, it's such a shame.

What has saved me is audiobooks. I can listen to them in the bath, or on the train, or before bed - and I just pick books that are fun, not intellectually challenging. It's nice after I'm done reading a day of Holocaust memoirs to remember that there are books that can just be nice, and not anywhere near as difficult. I never believed adults who said they lost the joy of reading, and now I guess I am one.

PS. I loved Enid Blyton - stereotypes and 50's racism and all. At least they got rid of the N word and equivalents from the books by the time I read them? My favourite book as a child was the What Katy Did series, though.

[nastyhobbitses]

Ella motherfuckin' Enchanted was my jam as a kid, as well as Little House on the Prairie, the American Girl books, the Dear America/Royal Diaries series, and A Little Princess. Now I'm all about history and nonfiction; I'm most of the way through The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (super interesting) and I just finished a military history of Afghanistan. I do like novels (I read all of A Song of Ice and Fire in the span of a few months and laughed heartily at my friends who watched the TV show and got completely blindsided by spoilers, and I also love Anna Karenina and John Le Carre novels), but I just prefer nonfiction. Actually, if you want a great laugh, check out The Disaster Artist, which is about the making of what's considered one of the best so-bad-it's-good movies in recent memory (The Room) written by the co-lead actor/long-suffering assistant director. I don't think the film adaptation is going to be as great/hilarious as the book.

[Knight of Ni]

11 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

 

@SapphireSlytherin, angles in a triangle are lettered so that you are able to describe them and talk about/work with individual angles in the triangle.  Say you have a triangle ABC.  Angle ABC is a right angle and  measures 90 degrees, angles BAC and ACB are 45 degree angles.  The middle letters denote the vertices of the angle.  

This doesn't really answer what you were asking, but gives you more info about triangles that you probably ever wanted to know:  Triangle

The letter stuff I remember from high school geometry.

I remember being very mature in high school and giving the triangles the letters ASS when taking notes. 

[HereticHick]

I'm pleased that JinJer visited the environmental science center at their local community college. It must be so refreshing for Jinger to visit attractions without having multiple little buddies to constantly attend to. And to not have to listen to her inane father make bombastic and/or wrong pronouncements about things.

[OyToTheVey]

I've never read Wuthering Heights oops but I have read Jane Eyre. I love the classics. But I'm more into mystery books. I've read every book written by Sydney Sheldon, Nelson DeMille, David Baldacci, Steve Berry, James Patterson, pretty sure I'm missing a few. I just really like that genre. And yet I'll read a sappy book like Me Before You and regret my life choices lol

[louisa05]

To everyone it may concern: at all the schools I work in, every student older than kindergarten is expected to read when work is finished.

[Palimpsest]

13 hours ago, nickelodeon said:

Does self-publishing a digital book usually cost $5,000? I wasn't sure what to make of that.

That does sound like a lot.  I think it can be done much less expensively.  It really depends on what she is needing to farm out re. editing, proofing, design, illustration, formatting (converting to ebook), and so on.  She has got beta readers and is trying her best to publicize her tome in advance.

She's starting big.  She says War of Loyalties is "the size of Little Dorrit."  I can't wait!

I'm quite surprised she isn't trying to go through one of the Christian publishers, like Zondervan, but perhaps they rejected her submissions.  

7 hours ago, MadameOvary said:

This happens. I went on to study literature at university and got a lot of satisfaction out of it on an intellectual level, but somehow lost the thrill of losing myself in a story.

Yes.  The assigned books and the sheer work load (6 depressing Hardy novels in 6 weeks nearly killed me, and that was just 1 class) do take the fun out reading.  For me that effect was only temporary though.  Mind you, my Eng. Lit. degree completely destroyed any pleasure I had in poetry.  I've never recovered from that.  

These days I usually have one non-fiction (autobiography or history), one novel, and one easy reading mystery (detective story) book going at a time.  There are a surprising number of readable mysteries free for Kindle.

[Skeptic]

1 hour ago, HereticHick said:

I'm pleased that JinJer visited the environmental science center at their local community college. It must be so refreshing for Jinger to visit attractions without having multiple little buddies to constantly attend to. And to not have to listen to her inane father make bombastic and/or wrong pronouncements about things.

I see that "science" is still a dirty word for her. She called it an "environmental center" instead of its true title.

[Feministe9000]

I know this was mentioned on the Counting On thread, but think it's worth mentioning again here, since we've been talking about how "liberated" Jinger has seemed now she's married to Jeremy.

After the coffee spilling scene, I was left with an uncomfortable feeling when Jeremy said "I wanted coffee, not lava, open it", and watching Jinger's expression change.....I'm not trying to be overdramatic, but I found it chilling.

Here we see the real Jeremy, underneath all the oh gosh humor and large vocabulary, he is the iron hand inside the velvet glove.

At least that's the impression i've gathered after watching him shrug off and roll his eyes at  Jim Bob's ridiculous jokes and stupid comments, (at first I applauded him for that obviously!) to his joking around, dynamic personality, etc.,  but now, I realize what that really was. No matter what, it was always going to go Jeremy's way, and he made sure of it.

Jinger is being molded, carved, shaped, under his thumb, and she will continue to be as malleable and submissive as he expects, all the while having to  smile and laugh and cater to his "studious ministry Christian man who is so super smart and prophetic" BULLSHIT.

 

Ugh.

 

[HereticHick]

1 minute ago, Skeptic said:

I see that "science" is still a dirty word for her. She called it an "environmental center" instead of its true title.

or she didn't feel like typing out "Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center "  on her phone.

Not everything is a conspiracy.

[Skeptic]

1 minute ago, HereticHick said:

or she didn't feel like typing out "Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center "  on her phone.

Not everything is a conspiracy.

Maybe not, but she conveniently left it out of the shorthand version she used. I'm sure she knows that it's far less controversial than sounding as if she's visiting an establishment that studies climate change. 

[Palimpsest]

10 minutes ago, Feministe9000 said:

After the coffee spilling scene, I was left with an uncomfortable feeling when Jeremy said "I wanted coffee, not lava, open it", and watching Jinger's expression change.....I'm not trying to be overdramatic, but I found it chilling.

Is that in this week's episode?  Ugh.  At best, bossy AF.

I've always thought there was a reason Jeremy praised Jinger's meekness.  And it isn't a nice one.

15 minutes ago, Skeptic said:

I see that "science" is still a dirty word for her.

Oh, science isn't a dirty word for these folks.  There's a lot of Creationist "science" at the Ark Encounter.  The only problem is that it's FUBAR science.

[SorenaJ]

I watched the cooking show thing, and that kinda.. grossed me out. Both for JinJer and Joystin. Why is the woman expected to cook? Make your own goddamn food. For real. Those men are disgusting. 

[Feministe9000]

2 minutes ago, SorenaJ said:

I watched the cooking show thing, and that kinda.. grossed me out. Both for JinJer and Joystin. Why is the woman expected to cook? Make your own goddamn food. For real. Those men are disgusting. 

I hope Joy continues to make terrible food, then Austin will eventually use up all the gift cards for fast food they probably got from getting married, and be forced to cook himself! What a 180 that would be for him, simple, traditional boy that he seems to be

[12 Hungry Safety Pins]

25 minutes ago, Feministe9000 said:

After the coffee spilling scene, I was left with an uncomfortable feeling when Jeremy said "I wanted coffee, not lava, open it", and watching Jinger's expression change.....I'm not trying to be overdramatic, but I found it chilling.

He said that? Doesn't he keep pontificating about how she should be less hard on herself or something? And then he says crap like that? Looks like he is part of the problem rather than the solution.

[Skeptic]

9 minutes ago, 12 Hungry Safety Pins said:

He said that? Doesn't he keep pontificating about how she should be less hard on herself or something? And then he says crap like that? Looks like he is part of the problem rather than the solution.

These people sure do make me feel great about my own life. My boyfriend drinks several cups of coffee per day, and I've brewed it for him only once, from what I can remember. In comparison, he's made me an endless amount of tea lattes with a mini-whisk while I stay upstairs, comfy in his bed. 

[Furbabiesonly]

I rewatched the cofffee scene a couple of times because it just seemed so off. Jeremy says the coffee is too hot, Jinger agrees, the coffee lid is taken off. Jinger asks him to please drive carefully. Then, before the spill, Jeremy is adamantly stating that the coffee won't spill, even though he is going downhill and making a turn, which he narrates. The coffee spills, and from Jingers immediate reaction she was well aware this was coming. 

I'm not sure how much of the weirdness comes from the headship stuff, or Jeremy's kinda creepy assertion that something absolutely will not happen because he says it won't. 

[NeverBeenKissed]

But then he says. "How'd you know it would spill?"

She's outside the car wiping the seat of and says. "It's basic physics." Which to me was in the tone of duh, you dumbass. 

My thought was did you learn Physic at SOTDRT? Haha

[nausicaa]

44 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

That does sound like a lot.  I think it can be done much less expensively.  It really depends on what she is needing to farm out re. editing, proofing, design, illustration, formatting (converting to ebook), and so on.  She has got beta readers and is trying her best to publicize her tome in advance.

She's starting big.  She says War of Loyalties is "the size of Little Dorrit."  I can't wait!

There are lots of self-publishing scams out there, and this could be one. On the other hand, if she's taking this seriously, a really good editor can cost you. There is one I'd like to use who charges .05 a word. Considering the average book is 80,000, that's $4,000. If Lady B. has written a Dickensian tome, that could easily come to $6,000 for a top of the line editor.

Then again, a top of the line editor is going to be really hard on her writing, and I don't know how open she is to that. I get a whiff of the Maxwellian solipsistic superiority about her.

 

[AprilQuilt]

18 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

I still say Jane Eyre is one of the first feminist novels.  It is worth re-reading the part when she refuses to run away with him and be his mistress, his toy, his plaything ... he had to lose his house, his fortune and be dependent on her.  

 

18 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

Indeed.  Almost all the time.   I also want to slap St. John Rivers though.  Fucking missionaries. 

Both GOOD THINGS about Jane Eyre. I love that almost none of her actively religious characters (besides Helen who just gets to quietly die) are decent people. They are hypocrites, no different from the other people with power in the book. I love that Jane has her moral core without much explicit recourse to faith or religion, and I LOVE her speech to Rochester:

Quote

"Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?--a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!--I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;--it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!"

 

...but holy crap, he is a terrible guy. I only realised this on my last reading a year or 2 ago. I read it the first time when I was about ten and was enthralled - I was credulous as hell and had no idea about the SPOILER in the attic. I was ASTOUNDED when I got to that part. But I also thought for the longest time that Rochester was sexy and wonderful, when in fact he is awful and doesn't deserve Jane in the slightest. I also read an essay that argued quite compellingly that many people must have been aware of Rochester's first marriage, including Mrs Fairfax who basically actively deceived Jane on that count throughout the entire first part of the novel. I'm sure it's a plot snafu on Charlotte's behalf, but it did make me rethink the whole story.

The only Bronte sister with good ideas about men is Anne, who has definitely been unfairly overlooked. If you guys haven't read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, you SHOULD. It was the feminist Victorian novel I didn't dare hope to see in the world, and apparently draws a great deal on her observations of Branwell's alcoholism and drug use.

As usual, Hark a Vagrant hits the nail on the head: 

 

[Rachel333]

So Jeremy said the coffee was "lava" and then caused it to spill on Jinger even though she was telling him that's what would happen? That makes it sound like he's pretty controlling, or that Jinger is just a complete doormat, probably both. (Not that I'm blaming her for that when she's been taught all her life to defer to men.)

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

1 hour ago, Feministe9000 said:

Here we see the real Jeremy, underneath all the oh gosh humor and large vocabulary, he is the iron hand inside the velvet glove.

 

 

And Jinger won't even know she is supposed to care. I think Jeremy is the most like KJB, smooth, charming, has just enough wits about him to be dangerous, but Jeremy is smarter and better polished than Boob was/is.  They are both fundy up to their receding hairlines, it is just 2 differently flavors of fundydum.  KJB found himself a weak young girl with issues, and turned her into the wife he wanted for himself. Jeremy is doing the same thing, but he does it better.  He got his pretty empty box to fill with what ever he wanted. And Jinger thinks it is perfect, because God rewarded her with a man who "lets" her do things different than she was raised.

[singsingsing]

Guys, these conversations are important, but we really need to talk about how Jinger and Jeremy have dropped another HUGE hint that they are, in fact, members of a deer-worshiping cult. They recently met up with one of Rufus's disciples, Peter:

[Palimpsest]

2 minutes ago, AprilQuilt said:

The only Bronte sister with good ideas about men is Anne, who has definitely been unfairly overlooked. If you guys haven't read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, you SHOULD. 

YES!  It is my favorite of all the Bronte sisters' books.  I also love Agnes Grey.

Thanks so much for the Jane Eyre quote.  Go Jane!  You rock!

On the other lesser known novels, I still like Shirley (by Charlotte) and think it gives an insight into Emily's personality. There's something almost feral about Emily.  Villette (also by Charlotte) I ploughed through without much enjoyment.  It was well ahead of its time with Lucy's rathery sexy thoughts though.

 

[AprilQuilt]

@Palimpsest ugh I hated Villette. It made me so uncomfortable - not just bc it's a peculiar book, but it felt too much like she was living out the love story she'd like to have had, which I think always makes for awkward fiction. She was so crap and Charlotte-like at dealing with her crush on M. Heger IRL, I actually feel really sorry for him. He didn't ask for any of the attention that was turned on him when people started taking an interest in her life.

Shirley's been on my to-read pile for ages. I really need to get to it.