The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson (1959)*****

Jed came over on Wednesday, and we went to TKC Thursday to see the vascular doctor, Dr. Patterson, who said he will get with Dr. Stein and they'll decide whether to do an angiogram to see what's wrong with my painful leg.

Wednesday evening Jed and I watched the movie, The Haunting (1963) starring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn, the first movie that was based on Shirley Jackson's book. It's a somewhat scary movie, but nothing to compare with the book. Some of the characters were different; Richard Johnson played the doctor/psychic-researcher, Dr. Markway, who in the book is named Dr. Montague, and Eleanor Vance is changed to Eleanor Lance, for some reason. I read the book again, from Wednesday to this morning (Saturday), careful not to read the horrifying parts alone at night.

Dr. Montague of the book is a cherubic little man with a very stupid wife, and Luke Sanderson is the romantic interest quarreled over by Eleanor and Theodora.

Murder on Shades Mountain, The Legal Lynching of Willie Peterson, by Melanie S. Morrison***

A black man accused of murdering two girls on Shades Mountain, a rich suburb of Birmingham, Alabama in the 1930's,  keeps insisting that he's innocent, convincing a lot of people that it's true.

Furious Hours, by Casey Ceb****

This is our book club selection for August, so I'll wait until after

the August meeting to post any remarks about it.

Dispatches from Pluto, by Richard Grant***

The author and his girlfriend buy and move into an old house in the Mississippi delta. They have funny and sad experiences in the "drafty old house," and making friends with black and white neighbors and acquaintances. This was our book club selection for June.

A Light in the Attic, by Shel Silverstein**** - A Review

"Last night, while I lay thinking here,
Some Whatifs crawled into my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?"


Review: This book was written and drawn by Shel Silverstein, a good writer and drawer This is a good book. I like it very much.

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.****

This novel was first published in 1969. I thought I had read it many years ago, but I was mistaken. The book is in three parts, the first part taking place more than a thousand years after civilization on earth is mostly destroyed by nuclear warfare in the late 1900's. The population includes monstrous beings made by radiation fallout. Most of the action takes place in a Catholic abbey in the Utah desert.
A monk finds an ancient repository of writing and illustrations from 20th century America, and thus begin efforts to rebuild civilization.

After several hundred more years, the people have got the world back pretty much as it was before destruction, and have developed advanced machines and weapons. And so--you guessed it--nuclear wars break out and threaten to destroy the world. Fortunately, several extraterrestrial colonies have already been established on other planets, and a space ship is ready to take the current citizens to outer space just before the world is destroyed.

The text of this book is larded with Latin phrases, mostly from the Catholic ceremonies and readings. I remembered a few words of Latin and a few prayers and quotations.

I really enjoyed the book. The first section is rather amusing, until the major monk, Brother Francis, is shot through the head with an arrow.

Becoming, by Michelle Obama****

My sweet Sister Susie gave me this book for my birthday. It is extremely well-written, easy to read. I enjoyed it very much. The First Lady certainly had experiences of hard work to achieve her goals, as well as family tragedies like most other people. As she evidently has one of the best husbands in the world, and two lovely children, one wishes her a continued long, blessed and happy life.

Today in the mail I received a brand new copy of A Canticle for Leibowits, (copyright 1959), as I sold my old copy back when I was selling on Amazon. I have received so many free books lately through Amazon and Amex, that I almost feel like a cheapskate. But I guess they are the results of all the books I bought and paid for, before I paid any attention to the information about "points"

An old book that I've read most of recently is Black Elk Speaks, by John G. Neihardt. I've never read this whole book, frankly because it is so sad to read. This time around, I wrote a poem, "Black Elk Speaks of the Death of Crazy Horse," which I entered in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS) 2019 Founders' Award contest. I also read it at our most recent poetry group meeting.

Also at the poetry group meeting, Ramey read a really wonderful poem about birds, which I think was new. And other members contributed good poems. It was good to see Spurgeon again; he never reads, but just listens.

"Just" reminded me of something that struck me while watching "Gunsmoke" on TV. I don't  know what some of those old shows would have done without the words "just" and "well." Almost every sentence that either Matt Dillon or Doc Adams spoke started with "Well," and when they started saying "just," it seems they couldn't quit.


Lately I get a "ghost" on every photo that I post on the blog. It's a mystery.

Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens*****

What a wonderful book!  I have admired and remembered Delia Owens for many years, since I read The Cry of the Kalahari, which she and her husband Mark wrote. They had met and fallen in love as college students, and planned to get married and go to Africa. That is exactly what they did. The part of the Kalahari desert where they settled was practically unknown to the outside world; the animals had never had contact with human beings before, therefore were not afraid of them. The couple would wake up some mornings with lions and other wild animals sleeping around them.

But this is about a novel, Where the Crawdads Sing, our book club's April selection. It's about one of the loneliest characters in all of fiction, a girl called Kya who lived in the swampy marshes of part of the North Carolina Atlantic coast. When she was a little girl, her  mother and all her siblings abandoned her to the "care" of her brutal father, who died a couple of years later. That's all I'm going to write about the book now, except to repeat that it's a book about solitude and loneliness and how they can affect a human being--and to say that another good title for this book would be Firefly.

House of Rose, by T.K. Thorne***

T.K. Thorne is a former police captain in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. She is also a fine novelist who has received awards and honors for her writing. House of Rose is her first venture into the genre of mystery and fantasy. It's a good story narrated by the protagonist Rose Bright, and it  introduces three hereditary and mysterious "houses," with two of them being at odds with each other. I said "introduces," because at the last page of the book, you just know a sequel is to be anticipated. The story blends the realistic details of police work with magic. This is our selection for the March book club meeting.

Camille Claudel: A Life, by Odile Ayral-Clause****

Camille Claudel, 1864-1943, was a headstrong, difficult person from her childhood. She also proved talented for sculpture at an early age. Her mother always resented her, but her ineffectual father loved her. Her younger brother Paul was her friend and confidant, but a very religious Catholic, he eventually decided that Camille was probably "possessed."

The famous French sculptor Auguste Rodin accepted Camille as his student, and soon fell in love with her, although he had another mistress whom he would not give up. Camille's strong personality eventually showed signs of mental illness, chiefly paranoia, a strong persecution complex. She broke with Rodin and became obsessed with the idea that he, and others, were stealing her works and plotting against her life.

Her family committed her to a French asylum in 1913, where, at the request of her mother, she was restricted from seeing or communicating with anyone outside the asylum for long periods. Rodin continued to have strong feelings for her the rest of his life, but in his old age he married his mistress Rose, and they honeymooned in an unheated government house. Both died of pneumonia within the first year of their marriage. When Camille died, possibly from malnutrition, in 1943, she was buried in the asylum's cemetery.

Ten years later, her brother Paul requested permission to move her remains to her home village of Villeneuve. The reply he received was that her burial place had been reclaimed for the needs of the Cemetery Department. The bones of all the interred individuals had been exhumed and  transferred together to a communal grave. Camille never returned to her beloved Villeneuve. Of the communal grave, of her bones, there is no trace.

Camille Claudel, 1878

The Secret Garden, by Susan Patterson****

Lately, I've got several books for "free," by using my Amazon and

Amex points. I really like this book. I would love to make a container garden, but I probably won't attempt it. I've been trying to finish our book club selection for next week, but I just can't seem to get into the story. It's hard to believe I haven't read a book since Christmas, except for this Secret Garden one. Uh--I did read the January book club selection, Oh My Stars.

One of the books for free that I've got coming is a biography of

Camille Claudel, the sculptor who was Rodin's assistant and lover,

who some say really surpassed Rodin in skill and aesthetics. Her work is very personal and some of it erotic or suggestive of the erotic, so in her late 19th-early 20th century time, she was mostly ignored.

I finally replaced my old sofa, and now I'm trying to hang some art

and stuff on the living room walls. I've called Pat to come and help me, as I want to hang the bigger pieces high.

 I found the sofa on sale at Rooms To Go online. That's not a bug under the red table; that table is on black casters. The picture in front of the green lamp is of GMR in his "cowboy" costume. I've never been able to make out what he wrote around the edges of the photo.

Yesterday I was "meditating" upon things that people have said that hurt my feelings. After going over (and over) a few of them, it suddenly occurred to me that I have thoughtlessly hurt several of my loved ones by exercising my big mouth. I went over the examples, cringing all the while, until I got tired of the subject.