hi from me, and help pls:)

[Madeleine]

Welcome Marnie, and good luck with your project.

[chuck]

While reading Sutcliff's "Silver Branch"...and enjoying it immensely...Supposedly YA novel..a great read....Anyway while reading I started finding sticky notes from a the previous reader on selected pages....pointing out possible anachronisms or just commenting on a passage....at first I thought it was a bit annoying....but thinking about it....maybe it's a way of connecting with the next reader in a personal way...I might give it a try using notes on questions/errors or if a passage moves me to comment....I will try to keep it to a couple of words and stay constructive and positive....I like the idea of connecting to the reader......then again it must BE sparingly used.....Any Comments?.....

[EC2]

[quote=""chuck""]While reading Sutcliff's "Silver Branch"...and enjoying it immensely...Supposedly YA novel..a great read....Anyway while reading I started finding sticky notes from a the previous reader on selected pages....pointing out possible anachronisms or just commenting on a passage....at first I thought it was a bit annoying....but thinking about it....maybe it's a way of connecting with the next reader in a personal way...I might give it a try using notes on questions/errors or if a passage moves me to comment....I will try to keep it to a couple of words and stay constructive and positive....I like the idea of connecting to the reader......then again it must BE sparingly used.....Any Comments?.....[/quote]

I agree with you on both counts Chuck. It has the potential to be very annoying, but it is also interesting and a way of connecting. With library books I think that libraries should have a reviews facility - either a folder at the desk, or an online database of readers' opinions. Or even a wallet pocket at the back of the book for people to write their thoughts. Probably some libraries do this. I sometimes take a book back to the library - like the recent Ariana Franklin and I'd love to have somewhere local to leave a comment as well as talking to folks on lists like this where we are spread far and wide.

[Margaret]

Or even a wallet pocket at the back of the book for people to write their thoughts.

What a great idea, EC!

Sticky tabs, I think are currently the ONLY way readers of library books can acceptably make comments on the page with the text, and should be used with caution. While marking an old library book with sticky tabs where I wanted to make photocopies, I tore a page while removing a tab. I don't use sticky tabs, now, on books with fragile pages.

No one should ever, ever write on the actual page of a book one doesn't personally own. Every now and then I run across a library book where someone has done heavy underlining and written comments in the margins. These are terribly distracting. And I find that, almost invariably, marginal comments like this display ignorance and further reduce my already low respect for the person who defaced the book.

[chuck]

EC and Margaret....excellent suggestions....and duly noted.....Cheers

[Margaret]

Cheers, yourself, Chuck! If you were ever an offender, I'm sure it was in only the mildest of ways, and only in your wayward youth.

[annis]

I love the idea of having a folder attached to a library book so that readers can share brief reviews or comments- that would be interesting.

My pet hate is the "book censors" who go through library books crossing out anything which offends them For goodness sake, people, if you find the book that offensive, why not just take it back without inflicting your prejudices on the rest of us?

[Christina]

[quote=""Margaret""]There's no simple way for authors to avoid anachronisms. Research, research, research. An author just has to know the period s/he is writing about very well, and even then is likely to get tripped up by this or that. It helps to have the kind of imagination that can clearly visualize a scene, step by step, and raise red flags if something feels out of place.[/quote]

Yes, yes, yes!! Especially to the 'feel for the period'! It has to come from 'somewhere else' almost! You are so steeped in a time that it is obvious when something doesn't belong there . And even then there are moments of, "But was it so or have I invented this?"

Many TV programmes nowadays try to blend the historical with contemporary language and themes and I think that is fine when they are blatantly so. To return to the BBC "Merlin" which is hugely popular as family entertainment - the language, the interaction between 'servants and their betters', the mannerisms are all so 21st century and it works because it's not setting itself up as anything historically accurate. I think it is wonderfully anachronistic and almost laughs at itself in the way it does it ! I enjoy it!

If, however, one is reading something and becoming totally involved in that era and something crops up that doesn't belong there - a phrase, an item, or, much worse, an idea of what was acceptable or unacceptable in a different era, it stands out a mile! It seems to me then that the author chose a theme and wrote a book and that's that. When an author has a deep feeling about a time/place/character, these things come together in a completely different way. Well, that's what I think, for what it's worth

[Ludmilla]

The topic of anachronisms might deserve its own thread -- perhaps under questions and research (but I don't feel knowledgeable enough to start it).

What I sometimes find myself wondering is whether people inaccurately perceive anachronisms. I've discovered a few reviews on Amazon (can't think of specific ones at the moment) where the reviewer was operating from a common misconception about the time, rather than the detail actually being out of period. It would be nice to find a list of common misconceptions about periods, culture, language, etc.

[chuck]

[quote=""Ludmilla""]The topic of anachronisms might deserve its own thread -- perhaps under questions and research (but I don't feel knowledgeable enough to start it).

What I sometimes find myself wondering is whether people inaccurately perceive anachronisms. I've discovered a few reviews on Amazon (can't think of specific ones at the moment) where the reviewer was operating from a common misconception about the time, rather than the detail actually being out of period. It would be nice to find a list of common misconceptions about periods, culture, language, etc.[/quote]

I think you might be on to something....might be fun if we could put obvious anachronisms in specific categories, by dates, architecture, clothing, food and drink, weapons, use of language, sexual mores, medicine, personal hygiene, philosophy, personalities and religion, etc....EC and others on this site have a superior knowledge in anachronisms....Hopefully we could all participate....but I'm not sure how one would set a thread to get a discussion going....I learned some very interesting information on the "Sandwich"