The Letters of John Keats ('Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties....')

It is true. We don't all like the same writers. Fortunately there is a wide world of novels from which we can choose. There is that special recognition when we meet someone who loves the same books we do. But it doesn't always happen. Few of my friends like the same books I do. I myself have never read anything by Louise Erdrich. I tend to get her mixed up in my mind with Barbara Kingsolver. I've heard she is good, but somehow I never happen to come across her books when I am in the mood for a literary novel, which I occasionally am. No doubt someday it will happen. Rosefolly

I agree with the points that both of you made. None of the factors which made marriages with such age differences a practical choice existed in this particular relationship. However, in a society where such relationships were common and accepted, no one was likely to blink when someone who didn't have a practical reason for it also made that choice. It looked normal to them. About Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, I don't like such editing. Books reflect their times, and readers should understand this. Besides, I don't think of them as racist. Yes, they do use language which we no longer tolerate, but it was standard practice at the time. Omitting it is a distortion. I do understand that I might have a different emotional reaction to that language if I had different life experiences. Anyway I have long thought that the runaway slave Jim is the real hero of Huck Finn. For all his humility, he is far smarter, wiser, and far more moral than Huck. In his parochial ignorance Huck looks down on Jim, but that says more about Huck than it does about Jim. And in the end, even he comes to value Jim's qualities.

Leonardo da Vinci is still there, and I still plan to read it. Latchkey is still there, and I probably will read it. I just don't love it the way I loved the first one Archivist Wasp. I skimmed the Librarian of Auschwitz (didn't love it), read City of Blades (loved it) and donated Lessons from the Great Gardeners. I skimmed bits of that one as well. I have added A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford. That one is a library book so I'll have to read or return it before the end of the year. No doubt the holiday will pile the stack ever higher. These of course are only the books actually on the nightstand. There are other books waiting on the bookshelf nearby.