I added a book to my list

Just finished another book. The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in heaven. Since I work at a reservation hospital, I could only give it a 2.5, because it was such a painful reflection of what life is like here. There are moments of humor in the book, and that internal strength expressed in humor is what sustains many of the people I meet here. If you don't mind here is a particular paragraph I would like to quote.
"It's hard to be optimistic on the reservation. When a glass sits on a table here, people don't wonder if it's half filled or half empty. They just hope it's good beer. Still, Indians have a way of surviving. But it's almost like Indiians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language and land rights. I'ts the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn't take an order, Tonto, The Washington Redskins. And just like everybody else, Indians need heroes to help them learn how to suvive. But what happens when our heroes don't even know how to pay their bills?"

That paragraph is a pretty graphic observation on the state of affairs on today's reservations. Very sad. My grown son lives in Idaho very near a reservation and has worked on the reservation in the past. He's told me stories that make you just heartsick. Thanks for sharing.

Oddly, I find my patients here to be some of the best people I have ever known in spite of the hard life. Just a couple of months ago I was invited to a Healing Ceremony - I was the only white person there. It was very touching. I have lived all over the US, but the last year I have spent here has been a very happy one. I will be sad when I feel the need to move on.

Sherman Alexie is great. I've never read any of his books, but I went to one of his readings at a local community college a while back. He's great at finding humor in the most unlikely places.

Have you seen his movie? I can't for the life of me remember what it's called.

Does anybody know what those little percent numbers are after someones name? If you put your curser on there they say how many books you have in common with them, but the percents in the box don't really seem to match up with that.

Tim wrote about it in the blog and it was discussed
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=12059

unfortunately I cannot blog on this government computer and since I never leave work..at least it seems that way.

The number is supposed to indicate the similarities of your 'taste' in books based on a comparison of that person's library to your library. There are a couple oddities with the system, however.

First, it isn't a straight number of commonly owned books calculation. It is based on the rarity of the books. So, for instance, I own a series of Beverly Lewis which seems to be the only books that matter in determining the similarity of another's library to my own. Quite sad, as the Beverly Lewis series is one I have purchased, but I feel is unrepresentative of my 'tastes' as you may say.

A second oddity is that while I may see a percentage for your name, for example (8 %) it in no way correlates with the percentage you see for me. So, you may see a totally different percentage for me. You could be my 'soul-mate' while I could be your 'last' choice so to speak.

~P.S. I also work for the government, so I totally understand.

Thanks. I thought the numbers didn't seem to add up in a normal way - a person who has 12% and a person with 67% both had the same number of books in common with me. Thank goodness I am not here looking for true love! I tried that on Plentyoffish.com. and that didn't work either. Going out to dinner with a good book is better in a lot of ways than going with some of the dates I have had lately! The only problem is I always have to pick up the check.
To kayaalder: I am at just over 700 pages on Jonathan Strange. Struggling to make myself finish it.

Tims' May 4 blog re Affinity Profiles explains what the % actually means and how it is also influenced by factors such as the above-mentioned rarity.

Also, you can go to message #6 in this topic and click on the link there.

When you get there, go to message #103 and see pdxwoman's post.

I added a book also, grandmother's gifts by Anne M. Dunn

I messed up the name, forgot the brackets. Grandmother's Gift: stories from the Anishinabeg