What Book are you reading

a reply to: JAGStorm

Sounds like it would be right up my alley. I had a year long obsession over all things Marlowe, which led me to learning just about everything about the court life in the years leading up to his murder/death (or escape? lol) before COVID hit and knocked me into a horror mode.
The Alan Bennett book I'm reading is a short comedy about Queen Elizabeth accidentally picking up the hobby of reading. It's fun, maybe not for everyone.
I read A Room of One's Own recently too and it was really thought provoking. Mrs. Dalloway is next.

I went on Abe Books and Thriftbooks (my go-to for used books) and found a few copies of the Forager's Harvest. Pretty sure I'll pick up a copy if I can't randomly find it at goodwill.
My books are not all in the best shape, but I have thousands here, lol. Goodwill is a great place to find books.

This is a subject I could go on for some time, I'll stop here lol.

Barbarian Days, an autobiography about surfing life and the advent of the sport and the search for waves back in its heyday.

Also Still Life with Woodpecker, for the eleventeen hour time. My all-time favorite...

a reply to: DBCowboy

I've read every Jeremy Robinson book, I'm not quite sure what that says about me however.

Edit: as for what I'm reading now, I feel like I've neglected Star wars longer than I should have. So reading Into the Void: Star Wars Legends

a reply to: zosimov

Sounds like it would be right up my alley.

You have to check out Ruth Goodman.
I heard a conspiracy about her years ago that she must be a time traveler. She has such
an intimate knowledge of that time period it is almost uncanny. If you watch her, you'll know what I mean.
If you watch Outlander, it's not hard to imagine...

a reply to: JAGStorm

Oooh, definitely I'm intrigued now!

Thanks, I'll check her out.

I have been studying edible plant chemistry that exists around our area, both for food and medicine, for over ten years. I was taught what you can eat out in the wild when I was young by both my father and uncles, and others that I knew. I didn't do too much research on medicinal plants, just plants that had some medical properties but were still edible. Being a boy scout for many years I had lots of training on that kind of stuff back in the sixties and early seventies. We camped and hunted and fished quite a bit so got to know what snacks nature provided.

A lot of what I was told about the properties of berries I had to research to find out why they told me about the chemistry. Most of what I was told is relevant to the interaction of Furocommarins and sunlight. Don't eat berries when the sun is high out in the woods, it is hard on the skin and can increase the risk of skin cancer from sunburn. When the sun is low, it is all right to eat the berries, but not when you are picking in the middle of the day. UV comes right through the clouds too, so remember that. If you eat a lot of berries, make sure to use sunblock...I hate sunblock and I listened to my parents about this even though they did not know why not to eat those foods in the heat of the summer, they knew to avoid them when the sun is high. Eat those foods when you are home for the night. If you sit in an office all day, no problem, there is no sun in your office.

a reply to: zosimov

www.amazon.com...

You won't be dissapointed!
Here are some of the reviews:

I don't know why it's getting knocked for too much detail

Ms. Goodman writes from the perspective of a person who has actually recreated the Victorian experience.

Ruth Goodman, you are a marvel! You don't just write about an era long gone but you've lived it

I heartily recommend both for the minutiae and sweeping overviews of the times.

There are people that write from imagination, and there are people that write from experience...
Although Goodman often does reenactments, there is just something too believable about it.
Makes you say hmmmmm...

a reply to: rickymouse

I think your parents wanted in on the berry feast and they knew you'd eat them all day if they didn't come up with a plan.

a reply to: rickymouse

www.gutenberg.org...

Mother's Remedies; over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers of the United States and Canada

You might find this book very interesting.
I also love reading old cookbooks as there is a lot of lost medical knowledge lost in there.

a reply to: JAGStorm

There are a few time-travelling conspiracies surrounding Poe also.
So fun and intriguing--I especially love time/dimensional slip type mysteries.
I do love an authentic read, though. I'll let you know what I think!

originally posted by: zosimov
a reply to: JAGStorm

There are a few time-travelling conspiracies surrounding Poe also.
So fun and intriguing--I especially love time/dimensional slip type mysteries.
I do love an authentic read, though. I'll let you know what I think!

I love it too. Did you ever read about
The Versailles time slip?

a reply to: JAGStorm

Not yet, but I'm about to read up on it now!!
www.kathleenmcgowan.com...

a reply to: JAGStorm

Michael Crichton The Lost World. Andromeda Strain is next.

originally posted by: Ksihkehe
a reply to: rickymouse

I think your parents wanted in on the berry feast and they knew you'd eat them all day if they didn't come up with a plan.

We had about four strawberry fields, I got paid by the quart to pick berries. We had berries and Jam all winter and sold our berries to self pickers and to the association by the truckload. We also made thimble berry jam, but only maybe ten pints of that. We picked maybe thirty quarts of wild blueberries to freeze every year, lots of pies, cakes, and bars made from blueberries. We also picked enough wild raspberries to make jam and to add to bars my mother made, we picked about a gallon of raspberries a year. After discovering that the furocommarins made you burn in the sun about seven years ago, I tested this and it is correct, you get burnt in the sun if you eat berries.

Of course when I was young and foolish, I thought just as you said, that they just were worried we would eat all the berries. But I learned that it was not that, I think that my ancestors knew about the relationship of sunburn and berries many generations ago but they just passed on the practice of not eating berries when picking because they hated explaining things....they just said no. We got to eat as much as we wanted when we were cleaning the berries, that was always late in the evening, and we had a pie the next evening too. Both my parents worked, so it wasn't that often that we got to pick blueberries, making sure to get a years supply in the two or three times we went out was important, Us kids could walk out and eat blueberries, raspberries, and thimbleberries any time we wanted to but we seemed to go get snacks in the evening and I think that we subconsciously knew not to eat them in the hot sun. When you get older, you get an automatic sense of eating, eating foods that match what you are going to do that day. Then comes along the nutrition "experts" that focus on one property of a food and then everyone gets sick.

a reply to: JAGStorm



Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops, and the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream
by David McGowan

a reply to: rickymouse

I was just kidding.

I took a field seminar with Dr. Jim Duke back around 2003. He's passed now, but he was probably the godfather of getting wild plants into mainstream medicine, both through advocacy and as an academic.

He said that in notations in his research (and later in his database) he would consider the uses that have only folklore citations as reliable as any other source, sometimes more reliable. Traditional uses were tested over hundreds of generations in some cases and in the prevailing conditions people didn't have time for things that didn't work. I find it more likely plants being used in folklore lack scientific confirmation because of a failure to find the compounds responsible rather than the folklore being entirely wrong.

ETA: On topic, Dukes books are good for a read. Some are out of print.

a reply to: JAGStorm



It's exactly what the title and sub-title say it’s about:
But behind that rather blandly limiting list of concepts, lurks a hidden jungle-overgrowth of a massive amount of details that are bizarre, bewildering, and pregnant with huge implications AND mind-bending high octane speculation.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: rickymouse

www.gutenberg.org...

Mother's Remedies; over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers of the United States and Canada

You might find this book very interesting.
I also love reading old cookbooks as there is a lot of lost medical knowledge lost in there.

I just scanned the text of the book and it has some good stuff in it. I know quite a bit on these subjects and most of what I scanned and knew was correct in the book about the plants. It even has recipes for cream of celery and cream of potato soup and others. I will have to check that out better and make some notes from it. I may even try to buy one from somewhere.

a reply to: rickymouse

I may even try to buy one from somewhere.

The book is so old it is now free. If you are able you are allowed to print it. I have a copy on my kindle. I have
read through it several times. Some of it is very interesting.

a reply to: EndtheMadnessNow

I have some of Farrell's books. They're very good.