I see what you´re saying, but I agree with others who say that this is a different sort of joke.

Definitely. I wish we were able to do something like this in the US, to put them aside and not have them underfoot in the restaurant, but I wouldn´t feel safe doing this AT ALL, either.

It is really different. When I first moved here, I was really weirded out by it, like 'OMIGOD, why would you leave your baby outside?!' But now I think it´s really nice.

In Iceland, we leave the baby in the baby carriage outside the cafe so it can sleep and not be disturbed by the noise and heat inside a crowded restaurant. Stroller-age children can get bundled up and left outside to nap, as well. (But you can also choose to bring your kid inside with you, if you want.)

Yeah. That is absolutely true. I do hope that, whatever is happening in her life, she is happy and healthy and pain-free as can be.

That´s also true. There´s been a lot of concern about this because of the situation with her former and current literary agent - are these people manipulating her?

Except that, unfortunately, she was. In 2013, her lawyer and agent convinced her to sign over her IP, To Kill a Mockingbird itself, to him. And she did so. It took the threat of massive lawsuit to get this unethical bastard sign back the rights to Ms. Lee, who had by then had numerous serious health issues.

Well, that´s true. I can definitely believe they didn´t have a clear idea of what they wanted to express.

What bothers me about all the reviewers who point out that Jupiter is not remarkable, and that´s ok because she isn´t supposed to be ... well, why is common sense considered remarkable? Is a bit of intelligence classed as a super power nowadays, then?

This is ... strange at best. While I don´t think she should be called mentally ill or compared with anti-vaxxers (what?), I think this might be a case of oversharing on the internet.

Oh. All right. Now I´m double-sad. Thank you for explaining. I had not seen this information anywhere and did not understand the connection.

Our government (stupidly) expects you to tip so that the server can receive pay for serving you ... because they won´t. The paltry minimum wage for tip-receiving servers is $2.13 in 42/50 states. It goes straight into taxes.

Tipping is one of the worst situations in the US, and I hope dearly that it changes for every member of waitstaff and food service out there. I´ve worked as a hostess, and it´s BS.

I don´t know what she said, but I think Joyce Carol Oates is terrible and overrated.

This whole thread is depressing, and I agree that the situation under which this book is being published is shady in the extreme. But can someone explain HOW the lawyer plans to profit?

Yeah, I thought at first that it was a charming story about teamwork and overcoming obstacles, but at the end all I could think about was the rickety quality of the bridge, the fact that they probably didn´t have permission to cut down all those trees and that one of them died senselessly. The people on the farm lived…

If you like this kind of story, I recommend Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. It is the story of two brothers who set out on a quest to save their father and overcome many obstacles by working together (Older Brother and Little Brother both have different controls on the keyboard and must be used in tandem to cross…

Very true. It´s hard. I love him, I want to have a healthy sex relationship with him, but it´s not happening and I tend to blame myself for these things.

Have heart. This happened a lot in the late 70s/early 80s as romance novels were gaining legitimacy as a genre and the sexingtons was being portrayed on the page in great detail for the first time (so much for Lady Chatterley´s fire-and-feathers). A lot of the great romance writers´ early works were peppered with…

I was just thinking about this earlier today. I was in a long-term relationship for almost a decade, starting when I was very young, and when it finally imploded and I was released back into the wild, I did some serious oats-related sowing.