GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or thinking of quitting, please -- join us! You can also click the GUS tag to view all diary posts.
Good evening, GUSsacks!! It's a mellow evening up here in the North Country -- that overcast, end-of-summer stillness peculiar to mid-August, where the air hangs heavy and so does time; time to sit, time to reflect, time to laze with friends on a fieldstone patio while the heat of the day bakes up from beneath your feet and the evening birdsong begins, crescendoing into a glorious cacophonous chorus of nature before falling, fading, and giving way to the dusky majesty of twilight.
Image may be NSFW.
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Also time to read books -- and who doesn't love reading a book by or about a person who has lived a life of note, either through ambition or accident? Join me below the fold for a few humble suggestions from an unabashed bibliophile....
(All links are to info available at amazon.com. However, I encourage you to patronize your local used bookstore -- it makes economic, political and environmental sense to buy second-hand.)
I just finished reading Lt.-Gen. (Ret.) Romeo Dallaire's Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. It's not so much a biography as a very detailed and personal narration of a year inside a living hell -- Dallaire was the UN Force Commander during the Rwanadan genocide, abandoned by the Western powers with less than 500 men and charged with preventing the violence. I also recommend both the documentary and the Roger Spottiswoode re-enactment which share the same name; all three are stellar work. Dallaire's own words, however, supplemented by the collaboration of Maj. Brent Beardsley, who was his Chief of Staff during that time, carry a punch and a weight and a reflection that can only be conveyed by the one man who has the right, the responsibility and the awful, heart-wrenching duty to bear witness to the tragedy, and that is Dallaire himself. Thousands are alive today due to his direct action, but that must be exceptionally cold comfort for a man who knows how very little it would have taken to save the lives of thousands, if not millions, more. Dallaire deserves both the world's thanks and it's apologies. A truly searing book.
In a lighter vein, there's the inimitable P. D. James' year-long journal/memoir, Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography. "At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest," wrote Samuel Johnson, and the Baroness James takes on the challenge to chronicle her life by using her seventy-seventh year as a springboard to the past. Laced with dry wit, brimming with deft caricature and sardonic humour, James' foray into self-reflection is brisk, funny, endearing, touching and well worth a read.
The King of Children: The Life and Death of Janusz Korczak relates the story of Polish pediatrician and children's author Henryk Goldszmit, who was renowned throughout Eastern Europe before the Second World War. He ran two orphanages in Warsaw, one for Jewish children and one for Catholics; when the Warsaw ghetto was cleared and the children were transported to Treblinka, Goldszmit refused to abandon his charges and accompanied them into the insatiable maw of the Holocaust. A truly gripping read about a very noble, though no doubt conflicted, man.
Two of Canada's first women of letters were sisters, Catherine Parr Traill (Lost In The Backwoods) and Susannah Moodie (Roughing It In The Bush). Sisters in the Wilderness : The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill looks at the lives behind the books; the deprivations, dangers, trials and tribulations of clawing a foothold out of the truly rugged and unforgiving Canadian landscape whilst simultaneously raising a large family and authoring guidebooks for newcomers. A fascinating look at two women who helped birth a nation.
Since 1977 (with a few minor interruptions), the Canadian government has run a program called Katimavik (Inuktitut for 'meeting place') which sends teams of Canadian teenagers from all corners of the country on public service trips. Each team goes to an international location and two Canadian cities and constructs local projects (i.e. playgrounds, walking paths, maintaining historical sites, etc.) -- kind of like a rotating Civilian Construction Corps. Award-winning Canadian humourist Will Ferguson relates his personal experience in Katimavik in the uproariously funny I Was a Teenage Katima-victim: A Canadian Odyssey. Suffice it to say that sometimes, throwing a bunch of hormonal, self-absorbed, lazy but intelligent teenagers into a pot and sending them out as international goodwill ambassadors doesn't always have the intended consequences. Guaranteed hilarious.
Again, more of a journey into hell than a biography, but Joe Queenan's low-rent odyssey, Red Lobster, White Trash, & the Blue Lagoon: Joe Queenan's America is a lot of fun. The erstwhile movie critic/pop culture commentator decides to immerse himself in the cheesiest offerings that American culture can serve up -- he goes to a John Tesh concert, he dines at Red Lobster, he goes to multiple showings of Cats. If you want to know how serious he is -- he goes to (and finds himself enjoying) Branson, Missouri. Truly, a journey into the heart of darkness. Enjoy.
Current members of the GUS team! Please post a comment if you would like to join, or if your name is here in error: 1BQ, 3rdGenFeminist, Abra Crabcakeya, addisnana, AfroPonix, amk for obama, Anne933, aoeu, Archie2227, ArthurWolf (in memoriam), awkawk, bamablue, barnowl, bgblcklab1, Bike Crash, BirderWitch, blue husky, Blue Intrigue, bluestatedem84, BoiseBlue, breedlovinit, BrowniesAreGood, bsmechanic, burrow owl, Chocolate Chris, ChurchofBruce, coppercelt, dadanation, dangoch, donnamarie, DRo, droogie6655321, duckhunter, Everest42, Fineena, flumptytail, FrugalGranny, Garrett, greylox, gchaucer2, Geiiga, grndrush, Im a frayed knot, Indexer, interceptor7, inventor, itsbenj, jvolvo's Mom, jwinIL14, kai99, khloemi, Khun David, labwitchy, ladypockt, langerdang, LarsThorwald, Last Starfighter, Lipstick Liberal, lmdonovan, luvsathoroughbred, maggiemay, magicsister, marknspokane, mdemploi, Mikeguyver, Minerva1157, MinervainNH, mskitty, nannyboz, ncsuLAN, Nick Zouroudis, one pissed off democrat, Ordvefa, Pennsylvanian, post rational, revelwoodie, rkex, rosebuddear, SallyCat, seenaymah, Scrapyard Ape, sheddhead, smartcookienyc, spmozart, triciawyse, trueblueliberal, Turn VABlue, Turtle Bay, uc booker, Unduna, Vacationland, webranding, weelzup, Wood Dragon, x
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