my paperbacks are superior to you.

So I was the girl that invited over 40 people to my birthday party and no one showed up.  I failed to remind them that 1) the tickets sell out ahead of the scheduled date, 2) they should purchase tickets ahead of time.

The people that have been my long-time friends are disappearing. They are self selecting out of my life.  I am having a hard time letting the relationships die.  Tasha has lost herself in work and her new dog.  She doesn't respond to text, phone calls, messenger, or emails.  She cancels 90% of our scheduled interactions. Rochelle responds, kind of. I actually voiced my need for more time with her, just hanging out and saying hello.  She isn't interested. She has gone deeply into her relationship with Wilson.  She is having issues with Cliff.  She is unhappy with having to live with David still.

I think she is mad that I am trying to maintain a basic friendship with David. She complains that he never gets out of the house.  I took her out for her 40th birthday.  She was too busy to even call me.  While David called a day in advance to wish me happy birthday.   She is bailing on me.

I am feeling totally alone.  My family is there for me.  I am in the midst of transition and it sucks.  People that I have known for over 10 years are just gone.  I had to let Tia go last year.  It wasn't a healthy relationship for either of us.

I am trying to meet new people and make new friends.  It gets harder as I get older.  I turned 40 today.  It wasn't a bad day.  I saw friends and ate an amazing lunch with my family.  I just am missing the sense of community.  I am not religious.  I am essentially a solo pagan. I cannot connect with the Catholic faith or Chrisitianity any more. The Kink scene here is hit or miss and can be pretty fucking toxic.  The local poly scene is pretty incesutious.

I am single, no kids. No dates for over 5 years.  I have little in common with most of the people in my age bracket.  They are all married or married with kids.  Or with Kids and in a relationship.  I am so fucking tired. I don't know how to fix it. I cannot make someone want to spend time with me.  Hell, even when they know I will pay for our outings, I cannot get them to spend time with me.

My skin is hungry for hugs.  For casual touch. For things that most people take for granted.  My family doesn't really hug. My friends don't either, with a few exceptions.  I held my baby neice for hours just to have some human contact.

I cannot begin to explain how rejected I feel.  People wish me happy birthday, but I dont know if they really mean it.  I haven't felt so alone in a long time.  Having NO ONE show up to a party that I planned 3-4 months in advance sucks.  My heart really hurts right now. I just need to breathe and move on.  That is why I am here.  I just need to get this out of my head.  I am angry.  I am hurt.  I feel rejected by those I care deeply for.  I don't know how to fix it.

Why do I end each decade in fucking tears?  I don't know why I expected 40 to be different from 30 or 20 or 10.  I was so hopeful.  I was looking forward to spending time with people.  To having people want to do something with me.  My main love language is Quality time.  I don't feel that I am getting any from my friends locally.  People who I barely know are nicer to me than people who have known me for over a decade.  Why?  What the fuck is wrong with me?  How can I fix it?

https://youtu.be/9-lkv7YakGQ

HI! I'm new and I looove to read!
Also, if you're interested in selling/swapping books, you should join my new community, buymybooks!

Hi there! I work at O'Gara and Wilson, a crazy used and antiquarian bookstore on Chicago's 57th Street, and I'm here to tell you that we now have a store blog. (LiveJournal feed: ogarawilson.) We will certainly post about interesting items around the shop; I'll also get the owner to post some stories from his decades in the bookselling business, and I myself will post whatever ridiculous stories of the shop I can get away with.

Apologies if this post in any way disrespects this community. Moderators, please feel free to delete if I've crossed a line. This has been cross-posted to lots of places.

Hi everybody!

For those of you who read Italian, I just opened apuntate, a community where we read and discuss books together chapter by chapter.

The first novel running is The Count of Montecristo, Alexandre Dumas père’s most famous novel (starting today!), an engrossing story of love, betrayal and vengeance… if you’re interested, feel free to join us and spread the word! :)

Has anyone read The Prestige? I've seen the movie, which I liked a lot. I was wondering if it'd be worth picking up the book.

hello all.....

So i just got back from a book discussion, and the two books i'm about to talk about are Children's books, but they are very nice reads, and being black history month, it'd be one of those reading rainbow things, where you read a book, just for fun.

The first book is called "Grandma's Ashanti Cloth"  It's about a boy, Malik, finding out about his heritage, and the only thing he had of his ancestors from centuries ago was a cloth. And it goes on to say how it was actually a cloth from Ghana, and he found out how his ancestors once were there. It's a very well acclaimed book, and was put into the Smithsonian about a few years back.
 
The Second is "The Trip Back to Freedom"  where Nehemiah's class is studying black history month, so tey go to clean up a slave graveyard. Nehemiah ends up falling asleep and ending up back in the 18th or 19th century, and lives the life of a slave for a few days.

They're very interesting.

The Author is my best friend's mother, Maria McNaught. We live here in Merrimack, NH. And She is just an amazing woman, who has gone through a lot, and her books are amazing. So maybe sometime this month, if your library has any copies or if you can find it online, you all should definatley take a read. Two thumbs up from me!

-Happy Valentine's Day!

_Vicki

Took the B train midtown to St. Andrews on West 44th St. last Thursday night to celebrate Robert Burns' 246th birthday; whiskey, haggis, and bagpipes abounded: http://www.standrewsnyc.com/

Here's a smattering of what was served up on the B while on the way there:

1. September Child: The Story of Jean Dalrymple- Jean Dalrymple.

I believe Dalrymple is/was a Broadway producer. My Internet search yielded little information. Anyone with knowledge of who this person is/was please comment on this entry. Your insights will be greatly appreciated.

2. Beth Israel Employee Handbook

3. Executive Power- Vince Flynn

4. Wing It: Delectable Recipes for Everyone's Favorite Bar Snack- Christopher O'Hara

I was surprised to see a cookbook because, a.) reading such a book for leisure on the subway struck me as odd and b.) to cook for one's self in Manhattan is odder still. Perhaps that's why it was a cookbook on how to prepare "bar snacks."

*******

Since Manhattan is a major publishing city, it wasn't surprising to see a hipster, "I'm not getting paid, but this internship will look killer on my journalism resume," college aged woman reading an advanced copy of this:

5. Little Pink Slips- Sally Koslow (Street Date: April 19th, 2007)

Now, I do admit, I read the "Entertainment" section of CNN.com. But, I was never one for "dishing dirt" or gossiping. And quite frankly, I've turned a blind eye (and a deaf ear or at have at least tried) when it comes to Rosie O'Donnell.

Seems like everyone is picking on "Rosie" these days. First it was Donald Trump. Now, it's Sally Koslow.

Koslow is the former Editor in Chief of McCall's before it was "reinvented" as the ill-fated "Rosie" magazine. "Rosie" was supposed to be tailored in the style of Oprah's magazine, "O." For whatever reason, Koslow was let go from her position at "Rosie." "Little Pink Slips" is apparently Koslow's fictionalized account of Rosie's alledged editorial board coup.

See for yourself. I'm staying out of it:

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusi…

******

Here's the rest from today's A Train commute:


6. Children Playing By a Statue of Hercules: A Collection of Short Stories- David Sedaris

This looks like a pretty solid collection. It includes Amy Hempel's "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried." I remember reading Hempel as an English major while an undergrad at Rutgers.


7. Housekeeping: A Novel- Marilynne Robinson


8. 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Life and Death- Don Piper and Cecil Murphy

And I swear I'm not making this up. This was the next book I spotted after "90 Minutes..."


9. Life on the Other Side: A Psychic's Tour of the Afterlife- Sylvia Browne and Lyndsay Harrison.

Kinda creepy, eh?

I've been keeping tabs on what commuters are reading on the subway for about a month now. So it's understandable that I'd be curious about some of the more interesting or colorful titles that I see on the A Train. Today, three of the books that I spied merited a few minutes of research on Amazon. Here are the featured titles:

1. A Therapist’s Guide to EMDR: Tools and Techniques for Successful Treatment- Laurel Parnell, Ph.D*

EMDR? Newly christened in the corporate world, I've come to learn that anagrams play a huge role in communicating many big ideas in a limited amount of space and time. Sometimes I receive emails what are so heavily peppered with them, I feel like I'm a member of the French resistance who's trying to crack the secret code for the rendez-vous at dawn. Anyhoo, here's the skinny on EMDR:

"The theory behind EMDR is that stimulated rapid eye movement may help in the psychological processing of trauma. It is thought that the day's events and our reactions to them are processed during REM sleep . In a controlled EMDR session, moving light is used to induce rapid eye movement."

The good people at healthyplace.com clarify it even further:

http://www.healthyplace.com/commun…


For those of you who prefer escapism to therapy (you know who you are and I unfortunately know quite a few of you), a good, trashy romance might be just the dose of denial needed while winding your way underground toward Columbus Circle.

2. Pleasure for Pleasure- Elosia James*

It’s as good as it sounds. "Pleasure for Pleasure" is A Victorian Romance novel whose female protagonist is nicknamed the “Scottish Sausage.” (Insert Freudian quip here.) And who ever said, "don't judge a book by its cover" was wrong:

http://www.harpercollins.com/harpe…

I guess Fabio retired?

Ah, love.


And finally,

3.) The Amber Spy Glass: His Dark Materials, Book III- Philip Pullman*

Never mind the cover, I always believed one can tell a great deal about a story from its first line:

“In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream milky with meltwater splashed and where doves and linnets flew among the immense pines, lay a cave, half-hidden by the crag above and the stiff heavy leaves that clustered below.”

I swear one of my former creative writing students must be ghost writing.


Here's the rest:

Broken Prey (Lucas Davenport Mysteries)- John Sandford*
Futureland- Walter Mosely*


Please send your novel finds to maria_calendar@yahoo.com

Be sure to include:

Your Name
Subway Train # or Letter
Title
Author

State whether you read the book or saw someone reading it.

Merci!

Hi everyone! I just joined this community, I'm 24 and I love to read. So I thin I might be in the right place.

My favorite authors include Stephen King, JK Rowling, Dean Koontz, Tamora Pierce. My top ten books (series counting as one) would have to be (in no order what so ever)

1. It--Stephen King
2. The Harry Potter books--JK Rowling
3. The Three Sisters Trilogy--Nora Roberts
4. The Song of the Lioness Quartet-- Tamora Pierce
5. The Immortals Quartet -- Tamora Pierce
6. Through Wolf's Eyes-- Jane Lindskold
7. Cell--Stephen King
8. Life Expectancy-- Dean Koontz
9. The Cutler Family Series by VC Andrews
10. Pet Semetary -- Stephen King

Right now I'm reading Eragon -- Christopher Paolini. I'm really enjoying the story and I think it is incredible that he was only 15 when he started writing the book.

I really hope to become an active member of this community. So if anyone has any recommendations of books that I should read I would welcome them.

C~cat

Ok, I need to have "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer read by...Thursday. As you can see, I have little time to read it and I have not even picked the poor book up yet. It's not for an assingment, but for a club that I'm a very large part of, so it's still very important for me to have it read.

Could someone please give me a brief, but thorough, summary of the plot so that I'm not walking into the meeting completely cold? I'd appreciate it to no end.

I'm going to start reading it as soon as possible (most likely tomorrow when I get it from the library at school) but I need to be familiar with it very quickly.

Thank you so much!!