aibohphobia
I'm going to go ahead & confess that the first word that came to mind when I saw aibohphobia was "boob."
I thought: "aibohphobia + boob = mastrophobia?"
Then I had a hardy laugh at my own joke.
Then I thought: "cockamamie!!" and laughed hardily again.
My mind recedes during finals week. I offer no further excuse.
(Vern, nothing comes to mind when I see your response. I don't know what you're referencing. But possibly I need more B-12.) 
Re: The Home Page
"... while medical suspense and new adult/romance are a strong R (language, violence, awkwardly written sex scenes, etc...)"
I suggest you don't sink yourself right on your Home Page with a line like this. Right away I'm thinking, "Uh, that sounds inviting"? I understand that you're being self-deprecating, but I understand that you're being self-deprecating. 
Speak with confidence about your work. Especially on your own space! Otherwise, what's the point of the space?
Also, you make yourself sound a little unsure and scattered on your home page. "Some day, I'll write the world's first medical dystopian YA romance, but for now, my writing is a bit eclectic." What does this even mean? Don't tell me what you don't do. Tell me what you do.
#humbleadvice #sorrytoshred #probablythisisjustanannouncement
"Let it at the very least be said, if it ever comes to be said, if there is ever anyone in some remote future interested to know the way we lived, that in the farthest outpost of the Empire of light there existed one man who in his heart was not a barbarian." - J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians.
I like it! Looks really professional.
palindrome
cordial x
cockunsure
lackadaisical
Poppycock
lethargy
cuppa
bidden
Starting The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.
Finished this. Tremendous.
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill
I remember and am very honored to have evoked a hardy laugh; a greater compliment, I could not receive. Take care. Vern
I do my best to laugh at everything you say. (Teasing.) 
Birdsong! That one should be on my list. I missed it! I bought a copy of that book after I saw the mini- series with Eddie Redmayne. (Recommended if you haven't seen it. I think Redmayne should play Ashley if they ever remake Gone with the Wind.)
And I had no idea there was a Richard Thomas version of All Quiet. I just held it at the library. Thank you for the recs. I'll make Birdsong and Farewell my priorities. x
Shaara used existing paintings from the period, yes? For his covers? I think those are wonderful. We have a collection of Matthew Brady's photographs at work. I'd love to take a peek.
Seeing pretty much every inch of Europe is on my bucket list. And Canada. I am pulling to Canada. I've never been to a World War One site. I want to experience that, one day.
I'll catch pictures on my trip so I can share. I'm ridiculously excited about Monticello. I'm intrigued by Jefferson and have read a lot about him, and his daughter Martha. It will be surreal to actually go to his house, explore the rooms, walk the land. I feel a pull to him, and I'm not sure why. I didn't see enough of Gettysburg last time I was there. I went to Little Round Top and stood where Lincoln stood when he gave his address, but I didn't have time the day I visited to make a good visit. I've stood outside Ford's Theater and the building across the street where Lincoln died, but they weren't letting anyone in the day I was there. Visiting such places is one of my favorite things to do.
"They always give the best Shakespeare parts to the boys. We'll show them with our beards and widow's peaks!"
"Have either of you a biscuit for my pet mouse?"
"There's one directly above you, dear."
"Thank you. I'll grab that on my way to the ceiling stairs."
(She never made it to the stairs, however, for true love was waiting beneath them.)
If you just ignore them, you can pretend the "little people" don't exist.
Do you remember me griping at the old forum a few years ago (I can sense you nodding, please allow me to finish), because the little peep hole on the front door of every house I've lived in is too high for me to reach, and this makes no sense, because tall people can stoop, while tiny people always have to go get a stool or hop, and it's all very illogical, so why don't they put the peephole lower for us small folk? And you reminded me that if manufacturers lowered the peephole, all a person would see when they look out is the groin of an average-sized person? Which made me laugh, and laugh hardily, and it resolved my lifelong irritation with the peephole dilemma, for your logic is sound.
I won't explain why I'm reminding you of this. I'll just leave you with an uncomfortable silence.
Have you read All Quiet on the Western Front? It's been on my radar for a while, and I'm wondering if you liked it...
I'm planning a trip to Monticello, Mount Vernon, Gettysburg, Antietam, Ford's Theater, etc. next spring. If my funds hold out. I've been to Gettysburg, but none of the others, and I'm thrilled. I wish I could go today! I'm pulling to books which will go well with that experience, after I get through a few reads that have been on the top of my list for a while. But (here is a volta) I do have an enormous interest in the Great War. I'd say (though I'm less knowledgeable about it) my interest in WWI and its aftermath is as strong as my interest in the ACW and the American Revolutionary era.
I have the following on my list:
All Quiet on the Western Front - Remarque
Chronicle of Youth: The War Diary, 1913-1917 - Vera Brittain
Fall of Giants - Ken Follett
A Farewell To Arms - Hemingway
Goodbye to All That - Robert Graves
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History - John M. Barry
The Guns of August - Barbara W. Tuchman
The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers - Elizabeth Cobbs
Homer & Langley - E.L. Doctorow
Letters from a Lost Generation: the First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends, Roland Leighton, Edward Brittain, Victor Richardson, Geoffrey Thurlow - Vera Brittain
A Long Long Way - Sebastian Barry
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer - Siegfried Sassoon
My Dear I Wanted to Tell You - Louisa Young
One of Ours - Willa Cather
The Poems of Wilfred Owen
The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
Storm of Steel - Ernst Jünger
The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway
Sunset Song - Lewis Grassic Gibbon
This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The War Poems - Siegfried Sassoon
You said you've read a lot on the topic. Any other recommendations? x
The Jacket of 'To the Last Man'
The painting is a work of art (IMO)
Absolutely. As if it's still moving. I was at Kennesaw Mountain recently and stood near one of the trenches the Confederates used when they were trying to keep the Northern soldiers out of Atlanta. The Union was extremely close to this trench (which is still faintly visible). Here's a painting of the Battle of Kennesaw. Each image seems to be moving.
François Félix Nogaret's The Mirror of True Events (original name; Le miroir des événemens actuels, ou La belle au plus offrant, histoire à deux visages).
Wow, that book is hard to locate any information about! I can't find it anywhere on Goodreads and only found one brief reference online: written in Paris in 1790, a French Gothic novel? Are you reading it in French? Sounds interesting, from the bit I found about it!
I'm liking the look of 'The Underground Railway'x
Did you notice that it's set in Georgia, and the main character is a woman named Cora who is born of a woman named Mabel? It's extremely well done. The writing remains distant, but that actually augments the emotion for me. I love the weirdness of the subway. That makes it seem like a book written in the tradition of Gulliver's Travels or Pilgrim's Progress -- a brutal allegory made more brutal by its relation to actual American history. So it reads almost as a comment on those other travelogues. (I've read the latter.) x
Starting The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.
I'm about a third into this. Very well written. Distant, but that intensifies it somehow. The Underground Railroad (spoiler follows, if you're planning to read it) is an actual underground subway. Weird but interesting.
I'm finishing up Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning today. It was the favorite book of a colleague at work who died a few months ago. He was from Dover, England. He was quite soft-spoken, with a recent Bachelor's in History. I wish we'd had more time to talk. He didn't like my attempt at an English accent, but he often smiled at me. Gone too soon. x
Oh, my. That sounds awful.
I hope your next book improves the aftertaste.
Starting The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.
I didn't realize he just won the Pulitzer for this book! They announced it yesterday.
I've reached a section that has grated and annoyed until it has gotten to the point that I'm starting to hate the book. I might toss it Tess style, unfinished into the next convenient bin. In fact I feel that I definitely will. I'll never read another Shaara and that is for sure.
What happened?
