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Hello from GentleReader9

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GentleReader9

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Hello from GentleReader9

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Hello, Fellow-Readers,

My name is Shanta, but I'm going by GentleReader9 as a user to feel a little less self-conscious. (I don't mind being known, but I prefer to be known to people who are interested enough to do some looking past the surface).

I found this place by searching randomly for a free book discussion group online. Your topics and you all as people seem quite diverse and I believe this offers me the potential to grow and learn.

I like to read poetry aloud as a musical exercise. Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill is very satisfying to read smoothly all the way through if I can do it. (Usually it takes a few tries before I can sing in my chains like the sea without having fumbled some notes).

I like to read philosophy or abstract, theoretical books in order to get a strong stillness of focus centered tangibly in my mind. I love it when a text makes me surrender all my judgments and opinions for the stretched moments that it takes to deeply understand someone else's thoughts. Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment is a good example of that kind of book.

I like to read fantasy, especially children's fantasy, for fun, or stories that look right into the heart of the Supernatural and smile in recognition. Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Changeling is one of my favorite books of all time because I was so much like those little girls.

I like books about the environment and social issues that deepen my overall awareness. I'm going to wait to say more about that another time.

I live with my 19 year old daughter who wants to be an actress and our cat, Alice, named after Daily Alice in John Crowley's book Little, Big. I like to take cell phone pictures of flowers.

Thanks for letting me participate for free in your engaging and interesting group.

Shanta
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Ophelia

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Hello GentleReader, welcome to Booktalk! :smile:
Ophelia.
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GentleReader9

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Merci Bien, Ophelia!

Enchantee de faire votre conaissance. Vous etes tres gentille avec moi. Je vous en prie d'excuser mon francais qui n'est pas aussi courant et bel que votre anglais, mais il me fallait expresser comme je sens l'honneur de votre gentillesse a moi. Au futur je parlerais en anglais. Je suis tellement impressionee de votre style intellectuel et informatif.
Shanta
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Chris OConnor

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What an amazing introduction post. Thank you for sharing so much with us so quickly. I'm really excited to have someone join that has such a deep appreciation for books, poetry and life. Welcome to the BookTalk.org community. Just dive into any discussion you like and you'll soon start to meet us all. :smile:

And I have no clue what you and Ophelia are saying in French. :shock:
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GentleReader9

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What we're saying.

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Hi, Chris,

Thanks for your welcome and appreciation. How nice people are here! And here I was worried it could be argumentative and I would get messed up. Silly.

About the French. Ophelia is saying profound, interesting things, posting cool quotes and generally contributing a tone of elegance, refinement and culture to the site. I, on the other hand, am cravenly buttering her up with kind of intermediate-to-basic, learned-it-in the-classroom French so that she will like me. Now you know.

Sharing too much is something I am working on. Or too little. I want my sharing to get "right-sized."

:D

GentleReader9
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Ophelia

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Bonjour gentle reader. Thank you for your kind words.
Ophelia.
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Interbane

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What is the Dialectic of Enlightenment about? That sounds interesting.

Every time I think about Eugene, I think about The Postman.
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So he's gone the wise old wizard

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Shanta I can't believe someone else remembers that specific english translation of The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
The only part that I remembered was "so he's gone, the wise old wizard, and for once alone I find me, and I feel it in my gizzard, I can make his spirits mind me, each look each word he muttered, I marked. With much ado, and spirits nicely buttered, I'll make magic too!"

And I can still hear the old guy on the LP reciting the poem. I had checked this particular LP out of the library and this was when I was in the 6th grade, about 1972 or so. I had to memorize a poem for school, and my father recommended that I learn "I had but Fifty Cents" - and so, I was duly memorizing it.

I had listened to the LP sorcerer's apprentice around the same time, and one day riding the bus home from school, I realized that I was mentally replaying it in my mind and I knew the poem completely! What a surprise - I had made no overt effort to memorize it.

Anyway, long story short - I recited this poem in my 6th grade class.
And now I can recall only the first stanza - but you remember so much more!
I have searched the internet for this poem but alas, you and I are the only ones who remember it.

Nelson
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