I just thought I would share some great reading with you.

I just finished Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran and I give it a thumbs up.

Here is a little Excerpt for you..

WHILE WE waited for the news to arrive, we played dice. I
felt the small ivory cubes stick in my palms as I rolled a pair of ones.
“Snake eyes,” I said, fanning myself with my hand. Even the stir of a
sea breeze through the marble halls of our palace did little to relieve
the searing heat that had settled across the city.

“It’s your turn,” Alexander said. When our mother didn’t respond,
he repeated, “Mother, it’s your turn.”

But she wasn’t listening. Her face was turned in the direction of
the sea, where the lighthouse of our ancestors had been built on the
island of Pharos to the east. We were the greatest family in the
world, and could trace our lineage all the way back to Alexander of
Macedon. If our father’s battle against Octavian went well, the
Ptolemies might rule for another three hundred years. But if his
losses continued. . . .

“Selene,” my brother complained to me, as if I could get our
mother to pay attention.

“Ptolemy, take the dice,” I said sharply.

Ptolemy, who was only six, grinned. “It’s my turn?”

“Yes,” I lied, and when he laughed, his voice echoed in the silent
halls. I glanced at Alexander, and perhaps because we were twins, I
knew what he was thinking. “I’m sure they haven’t abandoned us,” I
whispered.

“What would you do if you were a servant and knew that Octavian’s
army was coming?”

“We don’t know that it is!,” I snapped, but when the sound of sandals
slapped through the halls, my mother finally looked in our direction.

“Selene, Alexander, Ptolemy, get back!”

We abandoned our game and huddled on the bed, but it was only
her servants, Iras and Charmion.

“What? What is it?” my mother demanded.

“A group of soldiers!”

“Whose men?”

“Your husband’s,” Charmion cried. She had been with our family
for twenty years, and I had never seen her weep. But as she shut the
door, I saw that her cheeks were wet. “They are coming with news,
Your Highness, and I’m afraid—”

“Don’t say it!” My mother closed her eyes briefly. “Just tell me. Has
the mausoleum been prepared?”

Iras blinked away her tears and nodded. “The last of the palace’s
treasures are being moved inside. And . . . and the pyre has been
built exactly as you wanted.”

I reached for Alexander’s hand. “There’s no reason our father won’t
beat them back. He has everything to fight for.”

Alexander studied the dice in his palms. “So does Octavian.”

I hope you enjoy the reading, I did.

PS...my book club is reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett for November.

I am only on the second chapter and love it!

Here is a Synopsis

"Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't."

Hope you read along and post your thoughts.

Bye for now

Oh, also, I ran across Gore Vidal on the Joy Behar Show the other night and he just wrote a book on his life so I checked it out.


Even if you don't like his politics, it was interesting to see how his life crossed paths with so many people in politics and hollywood.

He was pretty well connected with the Kennedy klan and I guess he and Bobby did not care for each other at all. Interesting to see one of their own throw the Kennedy klan under the bus and expose their slick ways.

I read his book called Julian and thought it was very good but a tough read as he loves to flex his vocabulary as he does in this book.

happy reading.

Hi USA Girl. Good to see that you are a reader. May I suggest that you visit/post in the Section called: Military Entertainment and Social forums. Books/Movies/TV Programs etc..

I would caution you to not believe one (1) word from Al (Room temp IQ) Gore *. Robert Kennedy ( and I'm no fan of his either,btw) was a U.S. Senator in 1968 (N.Y.) and Al Gore was maybe a "D" grade college student... Gore's Dad was a Senator (Tenn.) at the time but RFK was killed in L.A. in a hotel in '68... The timeline and the ages don't mesh.

* This is the same guy who claimed to have invented the internet...

Now since you started a Thread about Books... I would encourage you to read one by a man who used to help write speeches for Pres. Nixon and Pres. Reagan , and actually knows some stuff about Washington D.C. (whether you like him or not, he does not need a teleprompter to speak). Try "The Death of the West" by Patrick J. Buchanan. published by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: swremwin,

Hiya swremwin,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post and I will be sure and check out the area you suggest I visit.

I love reading, movies, plays and anything to do with the arts really.

I have never been a Gor fan and why I voted for Bush the first time. Everyone always thinks we all voted

Hiya swremwin,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post and I will be sure and check out the area you suggest I visit.

I love reading, movies, plays and anything to do with the arts really.

I have never been a Gor fan and why I voted for Bush the first time. Everyone always thinks we all voted for Bush because we loveeeeeeeeeeeeeee him so..

In fact, most of us voted for him because we could not stand Gor and Kerry. Nothing better was offered and we just did not trust the rest to defend us wile being attacked.

Now that things have cooled off a little here in the US and no planes are going thru buildings, we all thought we could give a well spoken smart Dem a chance and look where that has gotten us.

I think we are all getting nervous again that the O admin is not up for the job of playing tough guy against the bad guys.

Say what you want about Bush/Cheney the world pretty much knew they were going to kick behind and ask questions later.

Eight years, no attack here, works for me.

As far as the Kennedy klan goes, I have to say, I find their story great reading and good for the movie of the week, but how we can look to that family as our form of royalty is beyond me. It does not get any more corrupt than that family.

I mean, they like to think of themselves as some type of Robin Hood, that takes from the rich and gives to the poor and they are the darn rich!

I am at Borders now, they have free wi fi as does Barns and Nobles now so it is great to do my emails from here. I will go and hunt for the book you told me about and get back to you on it.

I just finished The Help and it was a great read but a disappointing ending. It kinda just fizzled out on me. I would still give it a two thumbs up.

Before that I just finished The Gospel According To CoCo Chanel by Karen Karbo.

Now I know you might be rolling your eyes but her life story was fastinating beyond the fashion party.

The fact she came from nothing and became a self made woman and in that time period with the war and the depression.

And that she was in love with a Nazi Hans Gunther, after the war ended, she had been arrested and after hours been released and to make sure she did not get arrested again she started giving out free samples of no 5 to all American GIs to take back home.

It is said that Winston Churchill is the one who stepped in on behalf of CoCo, they were old friends and she use to let him beat her at cards.

After her arrest she went to live in Switzerland where her German lover had gone to live off her after escaping out of France. He stayed with her a couple of years and then retired to an island in the med.

Anyway, it was an interesting read, full of surprises.

Thanks for the tips and I will be back to let you know what I thought.

Bye for now.

Hello USA Girl --- ooooh ,,, just about the only thing I miss living in a small town... far from a bigger retail area --- No book store to spend time in...

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Hey - What you said in the post above is a pretty good description of Pres.Bush/V.P. Cheney versus the alternatives. He was not my first choice but I think that future Presidential Historians ( who don't use the N.Y.Slimes or Pravda-on-the-Potomac as their news sources) will figure out that what you said is correct... The country was not attacked again because of the things put in place by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft. But now, with the current crowd in High places in Wash.D.C.... we are probably in for serious heartburn.

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Okay, back to the topic of Books: Since you are at a book store today, and since this is Oct. 31st "Reformation Day", and since you seem to have a brain in yer cranium... (something a wee bit scarce these days), I'll suggest a book which is very appropriate for today which is historically a day which a young german monk/lawyer/priest/college professor nailed his 95 Theses to a church door in a town called Wittenburg. His name was Martin Luther and his simple challenge to debate some important issues brought down the wrath of Rome upon his head. [ Back then wooden church doors were the bulletin boards.]

The book is titled: "Here I stand..." by Roland Bainton. It is in paperback form and should be in the History section or the Biography section or the Religion section. I've read it about 3 times over the years... it's good information and not hard to read. Whether you are a Christian or a R.C. or nothing, what Luther did started a huge movement. He risked death to speak his mind and write his books.

I've been in some small towns, some had book stores, but those are an exception! We love books and book stores.

There is just something about a book store in a small town!

For the record, RFK was never a senator from Massachussetts - he was elected from New York.

Gore Vidal was distantly related to Jackie Kennedy Onassis by her mother's second marriage. His father, Eugene Vidal, was a pilot who had an affair with Amelia Earheart.

Fascinating stuff, no? Better than fiction!