Paperback writer

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Lanolin

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Dec 15, 2018
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Apparently Sylvia was writing poetry from 5 years old. She also had a really good high school English teacher who encouraged her to be a writer.

I dont remember my high school english teachers being encouraging. They hated me lol. I wrote things they didnt like.
 

Lanolin

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Am now up to the part where she has her first suicide attempt after being electroshocked.

Treatment for the mentally ill was bad on those days. And expensive. She only ever wrote one novel and that was the Bell Jar, but it was worth all the superficial Danielle Steels and Nora Roberts and Sophie Kinsellas put together.

Today we dont have many poets who arent trying to have a hit song in the music industry and just want their work published in a book and recited. Sylvia Plath was of the old school literary and academic tradition thougn and hated hated the phony commericialism of fashion magazines and pulp fiction writing. However it might have been better for her mental health if she had embraced what was popular at the time in order to survive financially.
 

Lanolin

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Am drowning in paperbacks at my new library. Surprisingly for a Cambridge entrance exam school, it doesnt actually have any books by any famous Cambridge alumni. (Sylvia Plath? Ted Hughes? AS Byatt? John Donne? )

It did have Bridget Jones Diary though, along with the 143 Treehouse Storey.
?!

I did find out that one of the set texts novels for English was THe Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. I honestly do not know what is so 'great' about this novel. I read it at uni and was like so what. Bunch of rich self-obsessed Long Islanders who really cares?
 

Lanolin

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am so sorry F Scott Fitzgerald, you were brilliant really, so unappreciated though that you had to make ends meet by hollywood screenwriting.

I think I would prefer Gone With the Wind to be the set text in high schools. Then students could watch the 3 hour movie as well and have more time off class, and dress up in antebellum costumes. After all Scarlett was 16 at the beginning of the book and 28 by the end, and had survived a civil war where lots of people die for no good reason.

In the Great Gatsby, nobody cares about the characters who get killed off by their own stupidity.
 

Lanolin

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Dec 15, 2018
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I had a junior girl borrow "The Great Gatsby' Graphic novel.
She would have been under 10 so not sure she would really understand it. Maybe she just likes to look at the art deco clothes.

Found a copy of Northanger Abbey though we dont have abbeys in nz. The only real castle we have is Larnach Castle and apparently there WAS a ghost in that one.

I pulled out all the classic books onto a shelf and it seems we have about five copies of the Wizard of Oz and five of White Fang. I have never read White Fang. We also seem to have five copies of Lord of the Flies study notes. I HATED Lord of the Flies. Why are english departments still teaching this horrid novel. ?! why?
 

Lanolin

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Dec 15, 2018
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my library paperbacks are getting all tatty and I have to spend a considerable amount of time covering them with stiff clear plastic to make them into plasticbacks.

I wonder if my librarian colleagues will see the futility in this and decide to no longer buy paperbacks and insist on hardbacks only. Go cardboard!
 

Lanolin

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Dec 15, 2018
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Oh but the budget...forgot.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,188
113
Have just cleared a shelf of paper(plastic)backs to go to he girls school that lost all their books. Their librarians said they would take anything.

I ended up boxing all the pink ones with 'girl' in the title. There was even one called 'Being a girl' which had only been borrowed once (didnt check if the borrower was male or female) and it was written by the lass who played Samantha in Sex and the City.

I gave them the Carrie Diaries too. It was old and yellowing. Goodbye Jodi Picoult and Candace Bushnell. They can also have Sophie Kinsella. We didnt have any Danielle Steel or Joan Collins in the library though..or any Nora Roberts.

A lot of YA authors from the 2000s I had never heard of though. Because I dont really read alot of YA. But I was surprised they didnt have the Divergent series. we do have Hunger Games and Twilight though. No Anne Rice.

Will have to start a BookTok thing with the teens. They want to read classics like Russian literature to pass their exams. They dont even have the classics like The Alchemist or nineteen eighty four. Im like what had the previous librarian even been doing, I think she just got the standing orders from the publishers choosing for her and never actually checked that the students were actually reading those titles.
 

Lanolin

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Dec 15, 2018
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my paperbacks are still languishing in a box under the table

Teens these days are not reading much paperback novels they all go for manga series. I am very surprised the previous librarian had not updated the collection for teens ...teens have now been reading manga for decades and the only one she has in the collection is ONE copy of Naruto.

?! Ok I am not an especial fan of manga but really no Bleach. Oh my Goddess or even Fruits Baskets?

I noted she still had Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen junior novels in the collection back when they were still tweens. And a copy of 'Committed' by Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote 'eat pray love'. Also, 'losing my virginity' by Richard Branson. Why are these books in a school? No teen really wants to read about priveliged baby boomers with first world problem cash crises.
 

Lanolin

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Dec 15, 2018
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Finished reading spare by Prince Harry

its 400 pages...most of it boasting about his army days.For me it was quite boring. I was hoping he would have more memories of his mother but her death seemed to eclipse all that and his drug use didnt help his memory. I dont really need to know how he got drunk and hallucinated at party after party that nobody except his rich priveliged mates gets invited to.

so meh

for someone who hates reading books to then publish a book hoping others will read it is a bit....

I dont know

and then for someone whos mother famously campaigned aganist landmines why would it honor her memory to go join the army and learn how to kill people by dropping bombs on them?

But them. honoring her memory wasnt the point of this book because his memories of her are actually very vague, made foggy by drug use and mushrooms.
 

Lanolin

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Dec 15, 2018
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Am reading a novel called 'Must Love Books' about a twenty-something who works in publishing but hates it, because all she does is edit boring business books. These have such titles as

What color is your parachute?
The 4 day working week
How to be a Bawse
The seven habits of highly effective people
Rich Dad Poor Dad (with a forward by Donald Trump)
The Art of the Deal
How to win friends and influence people
The richest man in Babylon

and other get rich quick slush...
 

oyster67

Senior Member
May 24, 2014
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well, I dont have a gift of writing that theres a book or novel I am burning to write, but I do believe that there ought to be more funny books. Sometimes people need a bit of escapism from harsh reality..but not rich and famous escapism just gentle humour.
Once upon a time, Lanolin and Oyster and a few other members of CC decided to investigate reports of an Amish settlement on Venus. Horrible rumors had been heard that...
 

Lanolin

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Dec 15, 2018
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Amish Buggies are constantly crashing into each other, even on Venus. Its a problem.
 

oyster67

Senior Member
May 24, 2014
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As a remedy, eminent Amish inventor Silas Surkholder has been conducting strange experiments in order to develop bioluminescent buggies from the hallowed-out carcasses of Porcine-Nephilim hybrids, which resemble giant glowing pigs. Animal rights activists and Nephilim advocates alike are staging protests at this very moment in New York and London.
 

Lanolin

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Dec 15, 2018
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Do you know anything about this? CC spies were sent to New York and London to flush out the Amish contingent who had infiltrated the cities.

I find it a bit suss, claimed detective Lanolin, that those protests are not protesting in Jims Old barn with their quilts. Clearly the Amish have been developing this technology for a while right under our very noses!
 

oyster67

Senior Member
May 24, 2014
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Agent Oyster did have to agree with agent Lanolin's astute observation. Would not such a process exude a pungent odor? Upon closer inspection, it has been discovered that these quilts have special and unique odor-absorbent properties. An APB has been issued for Jim to be brought in for questioning and... interrogation.
 

oyster67

Senior Member
May 24, 2014
11,887
8,705
113
"Ive only ever seen them crash in a church parking lot lol"
said one of the geese at the facility. "If you fly high up above the rooftop, you will see that the problem has become even more widespread," said another. "Buggy insurance has tripled twice in the last five weeks!"

***************************************************************

Several miles from the farm, Loki probed the nutrient rich volcanic soil. Since the terraforming just several years before, much progress had been made. Most of the transformation had been done by custom-engineered bacteria and fungus, which was what Loki now sought out. At that moment, Loki heard the sound if distant dogs beginning to bark. Shots from gunfire rang out. Loki snorted loudly to alert the others and bolted for the nearby swamp.