The Sunday Salon: Headed Home from Big Sandy, Texas

     

Welcome! I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. 

What is the Sunday Salon? The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

What I Read Last Week:

The Paper Chase by John Jay Osborne, Jr.

What I'm Reading Now:

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

Sunday Salon: Big Sandy, Here We Come

The 1970 Club

Books I Was Assigned to Read in School

The Paper Chase by John J. Osborn, Jr.

The Classics Club has issued the announcement of the 39th Classics Club Spin.

What is the spin?

It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday, October 20th, create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.

This is your Spin List.

You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period.

Try to challenge yourself. For example, you could list five Classics Club books you have been putting off, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favourite author, re-reads, ancients, non-fiction, books in translation — whatever you choose.)

On Sunday, October 20th, The Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by Sunday, December 18th. 

Let's see who can make it the whole way and finished their spin book!

So here is my list.

1, 11 Travels With a Donkey at the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

2, 12 The Travels by Marco Polo

3, 13 Zen and Zen Classics by R. L. Blyth

4, 14 Ringworld by Larry Niven

5, 15 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

6, 16 Neuromancer by William Gibson

7, 17 The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

8, 18 City by Clifford D. Simak

9, 19 The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

10, 20 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee

And the spin stops on...

It's Zen and Zen Classics by R. L. Blyth.

Erin and Lisa decided to substitute Dial M for Murder

for next week's Comfy Cozy Movie.

I missed out on Rear Window this week,

but I hope to have a double feature next week.

Home Libraries Will Save Civilization by Nadya Williams (Front Porch Republic)

I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. Now I've established a regular routine of writing down my 3 Good Things. Here are 3 Good Things from last week:

Good Thing #1:

A full moon in Big Sandy.

Good Thing #2:

We have been working hard

on taking pictures of pollinators

and plants for the 

Texas Pollinator BioBlitz.

Good Thing #3:

We've been playing soccer,

shooting baskets,

playing board games,

drawing,

playing in some parks,

going on nature walks,

reading books,

and just hanging out

with our grandkids

and their parents this week in Big Sandy.

Whew! Fun. But I'm tired.

Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.

The Paper Chase by John Jay Osborn, Jr.: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

 

Today's Featured Book: 

The Paper Chase

by John Jay Osborn, Jr.

Genre: Fiction

Published: 1970

Page Count: 200 pages

Summary: 

The Paper Chase is the story of a young midwesterner, James Hart, who finds himself in the great classrooms of Langdell Hall at Harvard Law School, locked in a zero-sum game with a dominating, omniscient deity: Professor Kingsfield. Kingsfield is the sort of teacher who asks not just for the student's mind, but for his soul. You quail at his exams, exult when you know the answers, and love-hate him. THE PAPER CHASE is also a love story, as contemporary today as it was when the book was written, of a boy from the midwest and a mysterious and demanding professor's daughter who refuses to accept accepted wisdom or role models and demands from Hart a love that transcends law school and conventional norms.

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

Professor Kingsfield, who should have been reviewing the cases he would offer his first class of the year, stared down from the window forming most of the far wall of his second story office in Langdell Hall and watched the students walking to class. 

He was panting. Professor Kingsfield had just done forty push-ups on his green carpet. His vest was pulled tight around his small stomach and it seemed, each time his heart heaved, the buttons would give way. 

A pyramid-shaped wooden box, built for keeping time during piano lessons, was ticking on his desk and he stopped its pendulum. Professor Kingsfield did his push-ups in four-four time. 

His secretary knocked on the door and reminded him that if he didn’t get moving he’d be late. She paused in the doorway, watching his heaving chest. Since Crane had broken his hip in a fall from the lecture platform, Professor Kingsfield was the oldest active member of the Harvard Law School faculty. 

He noticed her concern and smiled, picked up the casebook he had written thirty years before, threw his jacket over his shoulder and left the office.

Osborn, John. The Paper Chase. Kindle Edition. 

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Anne of Head Full of Books. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 

The discussion was close to resolution. Its lines were about to converge when Kingsfield stopped them. “All right,” he said, “that’s enough.” He looked down, unbuttoned his coat, pulled out his gold watch and checked the time. 

Hart looked at the others. It was as though all the people who had been talking were frozen: mouths still open, hands still raised, pens poised over notebooks. They were on the edge of bursting out, continuing the argument in spite of Kingsfield. 

“We always seem to hear from the same people,” Kingsfield said. “Would someone who has not contributed care to speak? Someone who usually does not raise his hand?” 

Hart sighed. No one would raise his hand. A hand up would be an admission that normally the hand was not raised. An admission that one was a coward. This was taking up time. They might not finish the discussion. 

“I suppose I’ll have to ferret you out then,” Kingsfield said, looking irritated because, as always, there were no new volunteers. “Mr. Brooks, will you give the facts of Tinn versus Hoffmann?”

Osborn, John. The Paper Chase . BookMobile. Kindle Edition. 

In 1975, I saw a movie that changed my life. I always felt like this movie was made just for me. I was tired of going to college---I started the day after I graduated from high school, and after only twelve months of college, I was burned out. The movie that changed my life was The Paper Chase. 

It's the story of a young man, James Hart, who is determined to be the best student in the class of a formidable professor, Professor Kingsfield, at Harvard Law School. James does become an accomplished student, but in the end he realizes Kingsfield will never give him the acknowledgment he desires. 

The movie ends with him folding his report card into a paper airplane and sailing it away. And that's what I longed to do. 

But of course I did not. 

And the author of the book from which the movie was made also, I learned, did not fold his report card into a paper airplane and sail it away. Ironically, author John Osborn finished at Harvard Law, and actually became a professor much like Kingsfield.

I've been wanting for many years to read the book from which this movie was made and to see this movie again. And now I have done both.

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

October 18-24. What novel would you recommend that blends characteristics of your favorite genre with horror concepts, and why?

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch won the 2024 Booker Prize. It's a book of literary fiction, but it is filled with suspense, drama, and, yes, even horror.

Books I Was Assigned to Read in School

I was in junior high and high school during the late 1960s and early 1970s. I had wonderful English teachers who used a combination of assigning books to be read and assigning a list of books to choose from to be read. By the time I finished high school, I had read all of these classics. 

I loved all of them, though I admit that Lord Jim was a struggle to get through. Looking back at these books from the lens of 2024, I would note that these are not very diverse but it did start me on a path of reading that I continue today.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

The Odyssey by Homer

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.   

the 1970 Club

Hosts for The 1970 Club

The 1970 Club is Hosted by Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon at Stuck in a Book.

How Does the Club Work?

Just read a book published in 1970 and review it on your blog, Instagram, Youtube. or any other social media or just leave a comment on it in the round-up posts on the hosts’ blogs. 

What books have I already read?

• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach*
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
• 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
• Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel
• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shinryu Suzuki
• The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
• Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
• Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
• Future Shock by Alvin Toffler*
• All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot*
• The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars
• Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordon
• Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel
• Mr. Gumpy's Outing by John Burningham
• Love Story by Erich Segal*

Astericks indicate books read within a few years of publication.

What books would I like to read?

• The Paper Chase by John Osborne
• Ringworld by Larry Niven
• The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark
• Being There by Jerzy Kosiński
• Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono
• Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 by Julia Child
• Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective
• Sisterhood is Powerful edited by Robin Morgan
• The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown
• Grapefruit by Yoko Ono
• I Remember by Joe Brainard
• Time and Again by Jack Finney
• Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
• The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White

 

The Sunday Salon: Big Sandy, Here We Come!

     

Welcome! I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. 

What is the Sunday Salon? The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

I'm headed to Big Sandy to see the grandkids today. My husband and I will be here all week. Big Sandy, Texas does not always have the best Internet, but I will make every effort to catch up on visiting blogs in the evening when we return to the cabin where we are staying.

What I Read Last Week:

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Inprint author)

Entitlement by Rumaan Alam (Inprint author)

What I'm Reading Now:

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham 

The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

Sunday Salon: "...and that powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse..."

Bookish Brags: Little Free Libraries

Cozy Comfy Cinema: Blithe Spirit

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

I joined the readalong of W. Somerset Maugham's book, Of Human Bondage, this month at Ti's blog, Book Chatter. I'm only a few chapters in, but the discussion goes for all of October. The book drew me from page one. It's not too late to join in.

The 1970 Club runs from October 14 to the 20. It is hosted by Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings and Simon at Stuck in a Book.

I plan to read The Paper Chase. I also hope to watch the movie.

Optimistic October

from Action for Happiness

I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. Now I've established a regular routine of writing down my 3 Good Things. Here are 3 Good Things from last week:

Good Thing #1:

Paul Lynch, the author of Prophet Song,

winner of the 2023 Booker,

came to Houston Monday night.

Good Thing #2:

My writing group and I 

ate and hung out at the Hotel Lucine

in Galveston Tuesday.

Such a beautiful place.

Good Thing #3:

The tree cutter who came to remove the tree limbs

felled by Hurricane Beryl 

accidentally displaced the electrical wire.

The fellow who came to fix the electrical wire

accidentally displaced the Internet line.

But AT&T was able to send out 

a repairman the same day,

and all is well at my house again.

Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.