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Go Ask Alice
A Glossary Of Terms Inspired By The Ladies Of Children's Literature
When We Grow Up

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Barbed Ire
11/24/09

In reply to Go Ask Alice
I wonder how the sellers can prove that the erstwhile owners of these books are really who they claim? What kind of evidence can back up that kind of claim?
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cate3710
11/24/09

@Barbed Ire: Sometimes bookplates or notes in the book can ID the previous owners.
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Bitingpika
11/24/09

In reply to Go Ask Alice
I read the Alice books more than 200 times between the ages of 7 and 10. Just seeing that illustration gives me a warm feeling.
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willwriteforfood
11/24/09

@Bitingpika: Have you read The Annotated Alice? It's fascinating! There were so many references to very English things that I didn't get when I was 10 that make sense now that I have some history lessons in me.
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IndignationCoordinator
11/24/09

In reply to Go Ask Alice
This reminds me of when I rang JD Salinger's doorbell to request his copy of The Catcher in the Rye. He wasn't too pleased, for some reason.
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girlgonemild
11/24/09

In reply to Go Ask Alice
Wow, this looks like an incredible sale: lots of A.A. Milne and Frank Baum books as well as, ah, Little Black Sambo.

The description of Alice in Wonderland in the auction catalogue is kind of bizarre: "The historical importance of this book cannot be overstated, as one has only to listen to John Lennon’s
Beatles song "I am the Walrus" inspired by this book."
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hortense
11/24/09

@girlgonemild: That's false, too, isn't it? I thought "I Am The Walrus" was just nonsense Lennon made up to confuse people who kept over-analyzing Beatles lyrics with a nursery rhyme he knew thrown in for good measure.

Wait: Wikipedia says "The Walrus" was based on the Walrus from "Through the Looking Glass" So it's still technically wrong, description wise.
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Calluna Vulgaris
11/24/09

@hortense: "A copy of the book "Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There" that belonged to the British girl who inspired author Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" will be sold at an auction next month, the company behind the sale said on Monday."

Nope, it's right! It's still a weird thing to zero in on though.
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ronniedobbs
11/24/09

In reply to Go Ask Alice
How come all my neighbors ever give me are their extra roaches?
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Flackette Goes Retro
11/24/09

In reply to Go Ask Alice
WANT Peter Rabbit! My collected Beatrix Potter was my favorite book as a child - my parents and I read it over and over until the cover literally fell off. Sadly, that original book was lost somewhere in my parents' move, but it's okay because they gave me a new copy when I was in my early 20s. Nothing makes me as happy as settling down with a good Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail story.
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PipPipCheerio
11/24/09

In reply to Go Ask Alice
Incidentally, has anyone ever read Lynne Truss's novel Tennyson's Gift? It's about Lewis Carroll and Alice, and it's delightfully absurd.
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Mary McCarthyite
11/24/09

@PipPipCheerio: Does she discuss the nudie pictures that Carroll took of Liddell?
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alula
11/24/09

@Mary McCarthyite: Katie Roiphe wrote a novel called And Still She Haunts Me which is basically about the nude portraits. . .I think it's kind of problematic as a novel, but it's an interesting addition to the literature on the relationship between the two of them.
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PipPipCheerio
11/24/09

@Mary McCarthyite: It alludes to them, but the book is not meant to be historically accurate at all. It only borrows real literary figures, like Carroll and Tennyson, for a novel setting, but with no pretension at realism. One of the tongue-in-cheek themes is that Liddell is the one who gets obsessed with Lewis Carroll, and she wants to run away with him, and keeps following him around, causing him to go to great lengths to get away from her.

It sounds terrible out of context, but I promise it's not making light of pedophilia.

@FrannyR: Hey, what do you mean, "when cyberpunk was cool"? : D
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sayah
11/24/09

In reply to Go Ask Alice
We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious.
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hfree
11/24/09

@sayah: Ha! My sentiments exactly. I was thinking that the Morgan Library should get on this. This it totally the sort of thing they would collect.
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bornkonfused
05/03/09

In reply to A Glossary Of Terms Inspired By The Ladies Of Children's Literature
I can't believe there are other people who know the magic of Anne Shirley...I read all 8 of those books over and over...I didn't know there were others!!
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mbot says Spock yeah!
05/03/09

@bornkonfused: Don't be silly. Anne girls are everywhere.

I went to Green Gables last summer! And saw the Lake of Shining Waters! And the Haunted Wood! It was awesome.
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
05/03/09

@bornkonfused: Chronicles and Further Chronicles? Rainbow Valley? Rilla of Ingleside? Which ones did you miss?

(A caveat -- if you haven't read the tales of the Shirley-Blythe clan growing up, you will want an extra Kleenex box.)
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Jack_Burton
05/03/09

In reply to A Glossary Of Terms Inspired By The Ladies Of Children's Literature
There's no telling what it will take to save Rhyme and Reason...

(inspired by Amy Pohler's Leslie Knope filibustering a meeting by reading The Phantom Tollbooth.)
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MarissaExplainsItAll
05/03/09

In reply to A Glossary Of Terms Inspired By The Ladies Of Children's Literature
I try to pull a Nancy Drew at least once a month... so far this month was sort of a success, but one more piece of the puzzle needs to be figured out.
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gangey
05/03/09

In reply to A Glossary Of Terms Inspired By The Ladies Of Children's Literature
When I was really little my family used "rolling down the haystack" as a euphemism for doing something naughty after you have just been told to stop doing that particular thing.

From, of course, the incident in (I think) On the Banks of Plum Creek where Laura and Mary Ingalls ruin Pa's haystack two days in a row.
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mbot says Spock yeah!
05/03/09

In reply to A Glossary Of Terms Inspired By The Ladies Of Children's Literature
Two that I currently use in real life:

1)Laura Ingalls style: in a manner deliberately avoiding modern conveniences

Ex: I should have done a load of laundry, but I just washed my underwear in the sink, Laura Ingalls style.

2)kindred: referring to someone or something that is not conventionally cool but is exactly suited to your tastes

Ex: The fact that B___ plays the bagpipes? Totally kindred.
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gangey
05/03/09

@mbot in ... Hushed Rapings: Me too! We did homemade presents for Christmas this year, and when people asked about it, I was all "I'm just knitting presents, Ingalls style."
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CherriSpryte
05/03/09

In reply to A Glossary Of Terms Inspired By The Ladies Of Children's Literature
My friends and I still put up "wants to move to Australia" as a status message when we're having terrible, horrible, no-good very bad days.
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loltofu
05/03/09

In reply to A Glossary Of Terms Inspired By The Ladies Of Children's Literature
Hortense, you TEASE me with a picture of Matilda and then nothing from that perfect, perfect book.
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gangey
05/03/09

@loltofu: Trunchbulled: violently bullied by an authority figure.
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