Saturday, November 17, 2007

The "161" Meme

The one day I have to leave home early and don't get back until after lunch, a tagging exercise breaks out. Jasia at Creative Gene tagged me. I'm supposed to open up the book I am currently reading to page 161 and share with you the 6th sentence on that page. Why? Don't ask me, there must be some reason. How do these things start?

OK, I'll play: I'm presently in the middle of two books -

1) My "TV book" is "Simple Genius" by David Baldacci. I read this book while watching TV news, sports or programs - sometimes I concentrate on the book and sometimes on the TV. This is a CIA/political mystery, one of many excellent books by this author. On page 161 of this book, the 6th sentence reads:

"That's right." The larger context is "'That's right. Len Rivest told me about the computer log. They were able to track Monk Turing's movements that way. So we can just ask the computer when you came here last night and when you left.'"

I'm only on page 40 of this book, so I have no clue what all of that means. Len and Monk have not yet made their appearance so far up to page 40.

2) The "study book" I'm reading is "The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love and Death in Plymouth Colony" by James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz. Coincidentally, my book mark is at page 161! The 6th sentence on page 161 reads:

"Although women in Plymouth Colony were given greater opportunities and freedoms than many of their peers in Old England, and some women were moving out from their traditional place to involve themselves in religious, social, and even political spheres (witness the religious dissenter Anne Hutchinson in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and other women persecuted there for their beliefs), society was still under male control, and a certain degree of spousal 'correction' was probably accepted as the norm."

I'll bet that's the longest sentence we see in this meme! You can see why I've been reading this book while I am fully alert - the sentences seem to run for several lines. When I started counting sentences, I hoped that there would be a 6th sentence on page 161!

Now, my task is to tag 5 other bloggers to extend the network out. Being so late since this tag game started, it is difficult to know who has been tagged already. I'll tag the following people hoping that they 1) read this post and b) haven't already been tagged.

* Thomas Jay Kemp of the "Genealogy Librarian News" blog.

* Megan Smolenyak of the "Megan's Roots World" blog.

* Paul Allen of the "Paul Allen: Internet Entrepreneur" blog.

* Carolyn Earle Billingsley of the "Life in Possum Holler" blog.

* Paula Stuart-Warren of the "Paula's Genealogical Eclectica" blog.

I'm not sure if any of them read my blog, so it will be interesting to see if any of them react to being tagged. And it may be interesting to see what they are reading.

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