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My remarkable discovery was discovering I actually had the guts to finally make a cross-country relocation move from one city to another after pondering it for many years. I was never sure I could go through the ordeal all by myself but I did and was remarkably surprised again when I discovered I had survived it.
I've read throughout my life. I even a wrangled a book club for almost a decade. But I admit I haven't discovered any grand new opus or author n my retirement. I need to do this!
I read Tolkien many years ago when I was in college. I was quite fascinated with the stories, and I think they had an influence on me. (We all have choices. We can choose the good with its risks, or we can choose the bad which is tempting us.) But now, I want stories that involve women. I think Tolkien's stuff is weak because he did not include very many women in his stories.
I just read Anne Tyler's newest, A Spool of Blue Thread. I really liked it. It is one of her better novels, I think.
At the beginning of every summer I re-read Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine". It is the most evocative book of summers past that I have ever read. My copy is old and dog-eared by now, but greatly treasured.
Huge Bradbury fan here. I'm amazed at the stories he wrote that foreshadowed so much technology of today. Dandelion Wine is a favorite too.
One short story that stuck with me is The Murderer. It's about a man who does not want all the communication being forced on him, he wants to escape it. Violence warning: he shoots his doorbell and stove, to shut them up.
Love Bradbury, he definitely was a wordsmith that transcended the genre... but as I remember Dandelion Wine wasn't one of my favorites, I should revisit it again.
I'm not watching Game of Thrones until GRRM finishes the books!
She says, who ended up waiting 23 years for the "Wheel of Time" series to be finished, because she got tired of the books coming out so far apart that each new book meant having to reread all the preceding ones - AGAIN.
Note that the author actually died before the series was completed and the last 2 books were written by someone else. Hopefully GRRM won't be THAT slow.
I read "The Hobbit" for the first time in the 3rd grade, when I was 7 (I was a year ahead in school). My 3rd grade teacher actually confiscated it from me because she said it was over my head. She would only allow me to check out baby books - you know, things like "Plucky Duck Plays in the Rain". So the librarian had a special deal with me where she would let me come into the library after school let out and check out whatever I wanted.
Its probably about time for me to re-read all the Dickens and Dumas that I had finished by the time I was 12. They ought to be "fresh" again about now, LOL!
My most remarkable discovery at 70 is that I have some artistic talent. I'd never painted before but have always been interested in art. Through a pretty circuitous route, I discovered a wonderful teacher at a local gallery who not only paints amazing watercolors, but who is a master teacher. After 4 months of classes I'm producing paintings that I don't mind showing to others. It has been an amazing and joyful addition to my life.
Just finished a brand new book (received in book stores and libraries in June, 2015) entitled "Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition" by Nisid Hajari. I found it very good and very interesting; otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it. It is a well documented account of the relations among the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities and their various leaders in the years leading up to independence and during the painful and bloody partition itself. This includes by necessity the role of the British who, while not blameless in many respects, were also between a rock and a hard place in other respects. The personalities of the leaders, Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah (head of the Muslim League) Mountbatten, and others, I found fascinating. Interesting that the first three were all trained as lawyers. The horrible bloodletting is painful to read about; no one side emerges as blameless - it was pretty mutual. Also interesting that politicians, Nehru in particular, had passionate emotions about right and wrong (quite a contrast with our current ones in this country); Nehru, a Hindu, showed great physical courage in confronting Hindu mobs - getting out of his car to grapple with them physically! He was obviously respected enough to escape death, either that or incredibly lucky. For me, this book was a bit like a page-turner.
My thanks to all who have posted in this thread so far. It is such a pleasure to have a nice discussion without acrimony and without name-calling; everyone is just sharing their interesting discoveries!
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