Laura > Recent Status Updates

3.) QE I was the baddest of badass broads. She was Her Majesty, the Royal Honey Badger, the First. She richly deserves to be studied by history students, not just because she was a Queen.
3.) *insert Gob Bluth gif* I think I’ve made a huge mistake...

Okay. I was so excited to read this. But...
1.) IT’S NOT EVEN PAGE 10 YET. 😫
2.) Rosa Parks wasn’t white and Hellen Keller wasn’t “non-disabled”...🧐🤨 And calling them tokens is kind of gross.

“...there was always cursory attention paid to Queen Elizabeth, Rosa Parks, Hellen Keller—all amazing women, but if I wanted to learn about nonwhite, nonwestern, not straight women, or any women beyond that token handful, I had to take a specialized course...usually overwhelmingly about white, straight, cisgender, non-disabled women.”

Just right for some fun summer reading to distract from Bar Prep and moving.

My expectations are sufficiently low. I am trying this since it frequently pops up on various Funniest Audiobooks lists and I like to laugh on my long drives alone.

I'm only on disc two and things have already gotten annoyingly and predictably political. Oh Ron Swanson, I had higher hopes for you. The early chapters were very enjoyable and he is a good reader so I'll stick it out a little longer.

This writer is too flowery and Ted Williams seems like an emotionally abusive a$$hat. I might not say either of these things at book club but here they are on record.

"So he examined the slights as they came his way, first figuring out why others felt the need to act the way they did. Next he examined how those acts or words made him feel. Then he put them away. Puzzles solved, frustrations defused. It was all very neat and clean-until it wasn't."

"Jonas...came to the conclusion that it was unreasonable to respond to every single thing that irritated him. Instead, he needed to keep things at a low simmer, to surprise his frustrations and let them out slowly. It was all about self-control, and Jonas saw himself as immensely self-controlled."

"Count the role models for respectfulness, on the other hand, and after a couple of hours you will have to admit there is only one: Babe. That's it. Just one small sturdy imaginary sheep-pig stands between us and total moral decay. "Excuse me," he says, gently tilting his little snout upwards. "I wonder if you'd care to follow me this way towards the hillside of enlightenment?"

"Virtually every day on TV, unruly toddlers undergo miraculous transformations when their parents are taught to stop ingratiating themselves and start imposing discipline. Not having respect for other people is clearly incredibly tiring and alienating, if only because the ego never gets a rest."

"...when people have no "boundaries" or discipline, they can't relax and it drives them nuts. Every so often, a TV experiment will place ungovernable modern schoolchildren in a mocked up old-fashioned school with bells and a merit system, and they not only visibly flourish and calm down, they even learn the capital of Iceland and a bit of Latin grammar."

"Instead of resisting this pickiness,the parenting establishment is capitulating to it.What to Expect:The Toddler Years says:"Letting a young child go for months on nothing but cereal, pasta or bread and cheese..isn't indulgent or unacceptable,but perfectly respectable."I may never read an Anglo child care book if this is the kind of nonsense they contain.They insist on only breast milk then allow this months later?

"...Frenchwomen don't expect men to be their equals. They view men as a separate species...When the Frenchwomen I know mention their partner's inadequacies, it's to laugh at how adorably inept the men are. "They're just not capable; we're superior!"...This outlook creates a virtuous cycle. None of this follows the American feminist script. But it seems to go a lot more smoothly."

"The couple is the most important. It's the only thing that you chose in your life. Your children, you didn't choose. You chose your husband. So, you're going to make your life with him. So you have an interest in it going well. Especially when the children leave, you want to get along with him. For me, it's prioritaire." - Virginie

"If by too much care you spare them every kind of discomfort, you are preparing great miseries for them." - Rousseau

I am re-reading to experience the new illustrated edition (Art by Jim Kay). The illustrations are so rich and detailed! I will buy copies of all the new editions, unsurprisingly.

"Of course she had been very young then, and when we are very young we think it will be different for us; we think the rules that apply to everything and everyone else do not apply to us."

"As she spoke, she imagined what it would be like to live with someone who had secrets. Instead of a comfortable atmosphere of trust there would be nagging insecurity, like a corrosive rust, eating away at the fabric of the marriage. She had already experienced all that during her earlier, disastrous marriage to Note Mokoti, ladies' man, trumpeter, and bully. What had possessed her to marry that man?..."

Finally! Something to love this summer besides the Gabriel Allon series and children's books (both of which I adore, of course, but I was beginning to despair of ever finding another adult book I enjoyed again)!

I'M ALREADY SO ANXIOUS! This probably isn't good for me but I admire the author's skill, even though it made me run late this morning because I couldn't put it down.