Glass Universe

 Silent Sky — Theatreworks, 2014

https://www.sfgate.com/performance/article/Theater-review-Silent-Sky-reaches-heights-5159451.php#photo-5739913


https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/20/review-silent-sky-at-theatreworks-a-radiant-look-at-celestial-gender-politics/


Play:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Silent_Sky.html?id=LPUrDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button


Scenes:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KiwG6r-9gcw


TheatreWorks study guide

https://issuu.com/theatreworkseducation/docs/silent_sky_study_guide

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Henrietta Swan Leavitt (July 4, 1868 – December 12, 1921) was an American astronomer. A graduate of Radcliffe College, Leavitt’s access to the Harvard College Observatory came in a menial capacity as a "computer," assigned to count images on photographic plates. Study of the plates led Leavitt to propound a groundbreaking theory, worked out while she labored as a $10.50-a-week assistant, that became the basis for the pivotal work of astronomer Edwin Hubble. Leavitt's discovery of the period-luminosity relation of Cepheid variables radically changed the theory of modern astronomy, an accomplishment for which she received almost no recognition during her lifetime. Even though she worked sporadically at Harvard due to health problems and family obligations, Leavitt was made head of stellar photometry in 1921 by new director Harlow Shapley.



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Lauren Gunderson

http://laurengunderson.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Laurens-CV.pdf

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http://www.davasobel.com/

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Talk at Google —- use first few minutes

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P55QGltNvDs&feature=endscreen

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Talk at Chicago Humanities Festival
 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=21&ved=0ahUKEwj-__G26OPdAhUlTt8KHQu3AVkQwqsBCMgBMBQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRlEuezOSsx0&usg=AOvVaw1aJaDVAg1WCMqdGcVuaqvs

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http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/non-fiction/10853-glass-universe-sobel?showall=1


l add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, feel free to use these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Glass Universe...and then take off on your own:

1. Sobel is known for her ability as a writer to take hard science, reduce it into manageable bits of information, and then combine it with human interest stories. Does she achieve that goal here? Or was the pace of your reading bogged down with scientific minutae?

2. Talk about the women at the observatory? Consider, say, Williamina Fleming, Annie Jump Cannon, and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, What were they like and how did they fit—or not fit—within the confines or expectations of their times?

3.Consider, too, the two directors for whom the women worked—Edward Pickering and Harlow Shapley. How supportive were they to the women under them?

4. What was Williamina Flemming's response when she found that, even when appointed as the Curator of Astronomical Photographs, her salary fell far short of a man's?

5. How would you cast Harvard's track record concerning women in science over the years? Consider, in particular, Annie Jump Cannon and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.

6. Can you point to one achievement that especially stunned you? Perhaps Nettie Farrar's calculation (to two decimal places) of the relative-brightness values of stars?

7. Perhaps you might talk about Anna Palmer Draper, who realized the value of telescopic photography with respect to the telescopic view.

8. Talk about the way in which the women worked in collaboration with one another—how their cooperative relationships furthered scientific understanding.

9. How would you describe the women's relationships with their male colleagues? Would you consider them maternal or nurturing or intellectually dominant? What about Annie Jump Cannon's oatmeal cookies?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Reviews and articles:

https://www.space.com/34864-glass-universe-women-computers-measured-stars.html
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https://www.npr.org/2016/12/04/503068093/women-astronomers-shine-in-the-glass-universe

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https://www.space.com/34864-glass-universe-women-computers-measured-stars.html

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http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3121/1

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Citizen Science

http://www.citizenscience.org

Citizen science is the involvement of the public in scientific research – whether community-driven research or global investigations. The Citizen Science Association unites expertise from educators, scientists, data managers, and others to power citizen science. Join us, and help speed innovation by sharing insights across disciplines.




https://scistarter.com/

Science is our most reliable system of gaining new knowledge and citizen science is the public involvement in inquiry and discovery of new scientific knowledge. A citizen science project can involve one person or millions of people collaborating towards a common goal. Typically, public involvement is in data collection, analysis, or reporting.
Here are four common features of citizen science practice: (a) anyone can participate, (b) participants use the same protocol so data can be combined and be high quality, (c) data can help real scientists come to real conclusions, and (d) a wide community of scientists and volunteers work together and share data to which the public, as well as scientists, have access.

(https://theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/articles/10.5334/cstp.51/)

The fields that citizen science advances are diverse: ecology, astronomy, medicine, computer science, statistics, psychology, genetics, engineering and many more. The massive collaborations that can occur through citizen science allow investigations at continental and global scales and across decades—leading to discovery that a single scientist could never achieve on their own.
"Amateur science," "crowdsourced science," “volunteer monitoring,” and "public participation in scientific research" are also common aliases for citizen science.
Darlene Cavalier, the founder of SciStarter, co-edited an accessible, easy-to-read primer on citizen science for anyone interested in understanding the landscape: cspo.org/news/rightful-place-of-science-citizen-science/ .  Additionally, you can listen to Dr. Caren Cooper talk about citizen science in her TEDx talk in Greensboro, NC.

Titles for the last quarter of 2018

*** Subject to change, based on availability within PLS ****

Sept 10-- Homegoing -- Yaa Gyasi  (15+ books, 8 audio, 4 LT)

Stretching from the tribal wars of Ghana to slavery and Civil War in America, 

from the coal mines in the north to the Great Migration to the streets of 

20th century Harlem, Yaa Gyasi's has written a modern masterpiece, a novel 

that moves through histories and geographies ...

Oct 1 -- Glass Universe -- Dava Sobel  (14 books, 1 audio, 3 LT)

The little-known true story of the unexpected and remarkable contributions to 

astronomy made by a group of women working in the Harvard College Observatory

from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s

Nov 5 --  News of the World -- Paulette Jiles  (15+ books, 6 audio, 2 LT)

In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport 

a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally 

complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction.

Dec 3-- Killers of the Flower Moon --David  Grann (15+ books, 7 audio, 2 LT)

Presents a true account of the early twentieth-century murders of dozens of wealthy 

Osage and law-enforcement officials, citing the contributions and missteps of a

fledgling FBI that eventually uncovered one of the most chilling conspiracies in 

American history.

Circling the Sun

                                               Beryl Markham -- Circling the Sun




45 min interview w/ Paula McLain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slMS-ouyFy8

12 min talk by author https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtg-3JPoxa4

45 min library talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtg-3JPoxa4

Short video on Beryl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsw4oLS0ii8

Beryl’s flight across Atlantic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4Hpy79gyqI


NPR review https://www.npr.org/2015/07/28/426741186/an-airborne-adventurers-journey-in-circling-the-sun



By Beryl Markham:

Splendid Outcast; Beryl Markham’s African Stories -- written in the 1940’s based on her early life in Kenya.

West with the Night


https://www.britannica.com/biography/Beryl-Markham

Beryl Markham Beryl Markham, née Beryl Clutterbuck, (born October 26, 1902, Leicester, Leicestershire, England—died August 3, 1986, Nairobi, Kenya), English professional pilot, horse trainer and breeder, writer, and adventurer, best known for her memoir, West with the Night (1942; reissued 1983). She was also the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean from east to west. At age four Markham went with her father to British East Africa, where she received a spotty education while hunting with African tribesmen and learning to speak Swahili and several African dialects. She remained in Kenya alone when her father’s fortune was lost and he left for Peru. At age 18 she became the fi rst woman in Africa to receive a racehorse-trainer’s license. While in her late 20s, Markham learned to y and became a commercial pilot, doing free-lance transporting of goods, people, and mail. She made a historic solo ight (1936) across the North Atlantic from England to Cape Breton Island, Canada. In 1942 she wrote West with the Night (possibly with the help of others), and, her reputation having preceded her, she was invited to Hollywood. In addition to occasionally writing short stories, Markham trained six Kenya Derby winners. Though West with the Night had not been a great success when it was published, popular interest in colonial Africa and the complex relationships among the white settlers there— including Isak Dinesen, Bror Blixen, and Denys Finch Hatton—rekindled interest in the period during the late 20th century. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica



Lit Lovers:

Summary

Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal bestseller The Paris Wife, now returns with her keenly anticipated new novel, transporting readers to colonial Kenya in the 1920s.

Circling the Sun brings to life a fearless and captivating woman—Beryl Markham, a record-setting aviator caught up in a passionate love triangle with safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, who as Isak Dinesen wrote the classic memoir Out of Africa.

Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature’s delicate balance.

But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships.

Beryl forges her own path as a horse trainer, and her uncommon style attracts the eye of the Happy Valley set, a decadent, bohemian community of European expats who also live and love by their own set of rules.

But it’s the ruggedly charismatic Denys Finch Hatton who ultimately helps Beryl navigate the uncharted territory of her own heart. The intensity of their love reveals Beryl’s truest self and her fate: to fly.

Set against the majestic landscape of early-twentieth-century Africa, McLain’s powerful tale reveals the extraordinary adventures of a woman before her time, the exhilaration of freedom and its cost, and the tenacity of the human spirit. (From the publisher.)






Author Bio


• Birth—1965


• Where— Fresno, California, USA


• Education—M.F.A., University of Michigan


• Currently—lives in Cleveland, Ohio








Paula McLain is an American author best known for her novel, The Paris Wife, a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway's first marriage. That work became a long-time New York Times bestseller. Her 2015 novel centering on female aviator Beryl Markham was released to excellent reviews in 2015.





McLain has also published two collections of poetry in 1999 and 2005, a memoir about growing up in the foster system in 2003, and the novel A Ticket to Ride in 2008.





McLain was born in Fresno, California. Her mother vanished when she was four, and her father was in and out of jail, leaving McLain and her two sisters (one older, one younger) to move in and out of various foster homes for the next fourteen years. It was an ordeal described in her memoir, Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses.





When she aged out of the system, McLain supported herself by working in various jobs before discovering she could write. Eventually, she received an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan and has been a resident of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony as well as the recipient of fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.





She lives in Cleveland with her family. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/19/2015.)






Book Reviews


Enchanting.... A worthy heir to Dinesen, McLain will keep you from eating, sleeping, or checking your e-mail—though you might put these pages down just long enough to order airplane tickets to Nairobi.... Like Africa as it’s so gorgeously depicted here, this novel will never let you go.


Boston Globe








Richly textured.... McLain has created a voice that is lush and intricate to evoke a character who is enviably brave and independent.


NPR








McLain succeeds in bringing the past to life, and by the last pages, readers will hate to say goodbye to such an irresistible narrator.


Miami Herald








Markham is a novelist’s dream.... McLain riffs on the facts, creating a wonderful portrait of a complex woman who lived—defiantly—on her own terms. (Book of the Week)


People








(Starred review.) McLain's latest showcases her immersive command of setting and character.... [Beryl] Markham's true life was incredibly adventurous, and it's easy for readers to identify with this woman who refused to be pigeonholed by her gender. Readers will enjoy taking in the rich world McLain has created.


Publishers Weekly








(Starred review.) Famed aviator and renowned racehorse trainer Beryl Markham is only one of the subjects of McLain's captivating new novel. The other is Kenya, the country that formed the complicated, independent woman whom Markham would become.... [An] intriguing window into the soul of a woman who refused to be tethered. —Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL


Library Journal








(Starred review.) A full-throttle dive into the psyche and romantic attachments of Beryl Markham—whose 1936 solo flight across the Atlantic in a two-seater prop plane...transfixed the world.... [T]he young woman McLain explores...is more boxed in by class, gender assumptions, and self-doubt than her reputation as aviatrix, big game hunter, and femme fatale suggests.... [S]parkling prose and sympathetic reimagining.


Kirkus Reviews






Discussion Questions


1. At the beginning of the book, Beryl reflects that her father’s farm in Njoro was “the one place in the world I’d been made for.” Do you feel this is a fitting way to describe Beryl’s relationship with Kenya, too? Did she seem more suited–more made for–life there than the others in her circle? Is there a place in your life that you would describe the same way?





2. While it is clear he loved his daughter, do you feel Beryl’s father was a good parent? Do you think Beryl would have said he was? Did you sympathize with him at any point?





3. Beryl is forced to be independent from a very young age. How do you think this shaped her personality (for better or for worse)?





4. After Jock’s drunken attack, D fires Beryl and sends her away. Do you understand his decision? Despite all the philandering and indulgent behaviors of the community, do you feel it’s fair that Beryl was being judged so harshly for the incident?





5. How would you describe Beryl and Denys’s relationship? In what ways are they similar souls? How does their first encounter–outside, under the stars at her coming out party–encapsulate the nature of their connection?





6. Karen and Beryl are two strong, iconoclastic women drawn to the same unobtainable man. Do you understand how Beryl could pursue Denys even though he was involved with Karen? Did you view the friendship between the women as a true one, despite its complications?





7. Why do you believe the author chose the title Circling the Sun? Does it bring to mind a particular moment from the novel or an aspect of Beryl’s character?





8. When Beryl is quite young, she reflects that “softness and helplessness got you nothing in this place.” Do you agree with her? Or do you think Beryl placed too much value on strength and independence?





9. When Beryl becomes a mother herself, she is determined not to act as her own mother did. Do you feel she succeeds? How does motherhood spur her decision to exchange horse training for flying? Could you identify with this choice?





10. After Paddy the lion attacks Beryl, Bishon Singh says, “Perhaps you were never meant for him.” Do you think that Beryl truly discovered what she was meant for by the end of the novel?


(Questions from the author's website..)


top of page (summary)





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The Library is happy to share these original questions for your use. If reproducing, please credit with the following statement: 2017 Mount Prospect Public Library. All rights reserved. Used with Permission.


1. Historical fiction based on real people has become a popular genre. Why do you think this is? How do you feel about novels based on real people?


2. Biographies have been written about Beryl Markham, and Markham herself wrote a memoir, West with the Night. In your opinion, would having access to these works make it more or less challenging to create a fictionalized account of her life?


3. Were you familiar with Beryl Markham before you read Circling the Sun? Did reading this book contribute to your understanding of her?


4. Are you curious about the parts of Markham’s life that McLain chose to not include?


5. How do you think the author meant to portray Beryl Markham? Do you believe Beryl is portrayed in a positive light?


6. Do you believe first person narration helped you connect with Beryl as a character?


7. Does Beryl have a lot of agency in her own life? How does she handle circumstances not within her control? Did you disagree with any of her choices?


8. How did Beryl conduct her life within or against gender norms of the time?


9. Karen tells Beryl she admires her independence, to which Beryl replies, “I have fought for independence here, and freedom, too. More and more I find they’re not the same thing” (pg. 161). How are the themes of independence and freedom explored in Circling the Sun?


10. Does the colonial setting complicate your opinion of the book?


11. Some readers have critiqued the novel’s emphasis on romantic pursuits at the expense of additional exploration of Markham’s accomplishments in horse training and aviation. What are your thoughts on this?


12. Marveling over the new foal Pegasus, Beryl thinks, “Somehow this miraculous animal belonged to me: a bit of grace I hadn’t even known I was desperate for” (pg. 61). In her youth and early adulthood, how does Beryl connect with animals, and horses in particular?


13. In her memoir West with the Night, Beryl Markham wrote, “Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer’s paradise, a hunter’s Valhalla, an escapist’s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. … It is all these things but one thing – it is never dull” (pg. 8). How did the setting of Circling the Sun contribute to your understanding of Africa in the early 20th century? How important was Kenya to Markham?


14. Toward the end of West with the Night, Markham wrote, “A life has to move or it stagnates. Even this life, I think. … Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday” (pg. 238). Do you think Circling the Sun captures Markham’s zeal for variety?
OTHER RESOURCES:


Discussions questions written by publisher


Lit Lovers’ reading guide


McLain on the story behind Circling the Sun


Photo gallery provided by publisher


New York Times article on Beryl Markham


NPR book review on Circling the Sun


Video of Paula McLain discussing her work





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READERS GUIDE


A Reader’s Guide


A Conversation Between Paula McLain and Lily King, author of Euphoria and Father of the Rain





Lily King: How did the idea for this novel find you?





Paula McLain: Ideas are so interesting, aren’t they? Sometimes they’re skittish as hummingbirds—-but other times they storm into your life and steal your car keys and simply will not take no for an answer! I know from previous conversations that the concept for -Euphoria completely hijacked you when you happened on a biography of Margaret Mead—-though you’d never, ever thought you’d tackle a historical novel. For me, I was deep into another story when I was given a copy of Beryl Markham’s memoir, West with the Night. The minute I let the book fall open, I was riveted to Beryl’s amazing life, but also swept away by some quality in her voice—-a unique blend of toughness, daring, and nostalgia. She’s so tender when she addresses her memories of Africa, and so aware of how the place brought her most alive. I was hooked hard and instantaneously.





I should mention that in Cleveland it was January and freezing. I want to go to Africa, I found myself thinking. I want to go to Africa NOW. The quickest way to get there was to give in to the world of the book. And I did—-in a big way. The first draft flew out of me in just a few months, faster than I’d written anything before.





LK: Did you feel a connection to Beryl Markham even before you began writing the story? In what way?





PM: It was almost eerie how quickly Beryl took hold of my imagination and drew me in. As I tried to explain, her voice got my immediate attention, and the fierce contours of her personality, too. But for a book to work for me, I have to be more than interested in my subject. I have to feel deeply bound to them—-and that our lives are somehow twisted up together. It’s mysterious, and incredibly intimate. The first time I felt this way was when I began to write The Paris Wife, about Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage to Hadley Richardson. Writing from her point of view was like channeling her. Becoming her. With Beryl the intensity was even greater, because I was discovering that we had a surprising lot in common—-we both grew up with horses, we both married young, to men considerably older. And we both grew up without our mothers. These parallels in our lives definitely made me feel I had access to her as a subject in a really singular way—-and had me wondering if I haven’t always been meant to find and write about her.





LK: When you write historical fiction, you have to accept the fact that you are inventing dialogue and scenes and emotions for people who really lived. How does that feel? Does your responsibility to the facts as you have learned them ever come into conflict with your responsibility to the novel you are trying to create? Have you ever had to violate one in favor of the other?





PM: What a wonderful question, Lily. In one respect I think it’s an incredible privilege to be fleshing out the lives of these remarkable people, illuminating the hidden particulars, and bringing history to life in an intimate, human way. But the terrain does get tricky at times. Through the reach of imagination, we presume to know all kinds of things that can’t be known. And then there are the times, as you mention, when the facts either don’t jibe with or can’t support a moment that feels right for the story, or for the emotional arc of a character. For example, I’ve never come across any piece of evidence that suggests Karen Blixen knew Beryl was in love with Denys Finch Hatton. Nor is there any record of the two women confronting each other about Denys, acknowledging their rivalry. But as I drew -toward the end of my last draft, I just kept thinking there should be such a moment, because the story needed it, but also because the characters—-and their real–life counterparts—-deserved it. These were strong, smart women—-not pushovers or shrinking violets by any means, and not inclined to hide their heads when the truth came knocking. When I was still stewing about my authority to invent such a moment, my editor brought it up as well, wanting the scene, and feeling it demanded to be there. And now it is.


LK: Have you always loved history?





PM: I’ve always loved biography, to be sure. One the first books that ever really touched me as a young reader was the story of Annie Oakley. I think I checked it out of the library ten times when I was a second or third grader, feeling obsessed with her. But history . . . well, history was boring! All those survey classes I took as an undergraduate, memorizing the names of generals and dates of important battles, put me in a coma. Then I took a class in graduate school that sort of blew me away. It was social history, focusing very specifically on women’s stories from Colonial times through the Industrial Revolution. We read the diaries of factory workers, and housewives living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony—-and suddenly the real business of what it meant to live in those time periods came alive for me. That’s the feeling I’m trying to replicate when I research a time and place for a new book: being totally sucked into that world in a visceral way. A reader once told me she thought historical fiction was like a living wax museum. Isn’t that a wonderful way of thinking about it?





LK: Which part is more thrilling to you, the discovery of all the details of your subject’s life or the creation of your own story out of these details?





PM: I think it has to be the threshold place between those two things—​when in the sifting through of facts and materials I come upon a detail that gels the story for me. For The Paris Wife, it was when I arrived at the end of Hemingway’s memoir, A Moveable Feast, at the line where he says of Hadley, “I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.” I believed him, believed he regretted betraying her (with her friend Pauline Pfeiffer, who would become his second wife) for the rest of his life. And that broke my heart. Right then, I knew the novel was, more than anything else, about the rise and fall of a marriage.





Similarly, when I was researching Beryl’s life, I found myself wanting to know how she became such a bold and fearless woman, aeons ahead of her time, ready to take on all sorts of things women simply didn’t do. Part of the recipe, it seemed to me, was Africa itself, how she came of age in such a wild and expansive place. But just as consequential was her mother’s leaving. That early loss forced her to toughen her skin, and to thrust herself toward the people and things that might do her harm, rather than running from them. That’s when her character fully materialized for me, and I knew I wanted to explore her childhood and early adulthood more than her adventures, later in life, as a famous aviator.





LK: Before I read your novel, when I thought of Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, I saw Robert Redford (who didn’t even try to be British) and Meryl Streep. I read somewhere that you loved that movie, too, and maybe have watched it as many times as I have. How did you get them out of your head to create your own version of these two?





PM: It was no short order—-let me tell you! I’ve watched that movie countless times and have whole chunks of it memorized. And some of the scenes are burned indelibly into my brain—-like when they go up in the vintage biplane, and Meryl Streep reaches back and touches Robert Redford’s hand, and the flamingos are flying, and the musical score is swelling. Seriously, if that doesn’t make you cry, something in you is broken!





But the further along I got in my research, the more a switch seemed to flip. The real Finch Hatton—-though he looked nothing like Redford, and was almost completely bald!—-became so compelling and irresistible for me, I couldn’t help falling for him. At one point, Karen Blixen’s letters and photographs covered my desk. Her voice and face filled my head. . . . Meryl couldn’t compete after that, no matter how great she is at accents!





LK: It’s daunting, taking on another culture and time period. What was most challenging?





PM: Maybe the most challenging thing was taking on colonialism, which—-politically speaking—-is sort of abhorrent to me. But Beryl did grow up in that world. I didn’t want to give her my opinions and a stump to shout them from, but rather to represent her enmeshed, insider point of view as accurately as possible.





LK: What was most surprising?





PM: I think the greatest surprise is just how wild and irreverent those folks were back then. Cocaine, opium, wife–swapping: You name it, they did it! It makes us seem terribly conservative now, nearly a hundred years later.





LK: How did you decide which part of Beryl’s life to tell?





PM: I imagine that if you gave ten writers the same facts and sheaves of research material, they’d tell ten different stories. It’s so individual, what we respond to in someone else’s life. For me, what came alive first and most plaintively was Beryl’s African childhood. I’d always loved frontier stories—-the Little House books, The Swiss Family Robinson—-and was transfixed by the idea of what it must have been like to grow up at the edge of absolute wilderness, in a place so new “you could feel the future of it under your feet,” as Beryl writes in West with the Night. I grew up with horses, so that’s another bit of her life that really spoke to me. Oh my goodness, but the horse training and racing was fun to write!





LK: Did you go to Kenya for your research, and if so, how was that trip? Where did you go? What did you discover?





PM: I did indeed go to Kenya, and it was easily the coolest thing I’ve ever done. I started in Nairobi, visiting the places the meant a lot to Beryl and that, believe it or not, still stand almost a hundred years later. I saw the Muthaiga Club, Karen Blixen’s farm (now a museum), Denys Finch Hatton’s grave. I spent time in Njoro, where she spent her girlhood. The land that was her father’s horse farm still is a horse farm, and the current owner has refurbished the storybook cottage Beryl’s father built for her when she was fourteen. I stayed there! I also went horseback riding in the bush, slept in a tent (though a pretty fancy one) in the Masai Mara, and flew in an open–air vintage biplane. Every moment of my trip was absolutely incredible, mostly because of how privileged I felt to be stepping, as if through a time machine, into her world.





LK: One of the relationships Beryl had that most intrigued me was her friendship with Kibii, her best friend from childhood. Did that relationship ever go further than a friendship? It seemed like it was often teetering on the verge of something more.





PM: Several of Beryl’s biographers have suggested that left to their own devices, as they often were, Beryl and Kibii were probably each other’s first sweethearts, experimenting with one another as adolescents do . . . the out–in–the–bush version of playing doctor. That seems likely to me as well, though Beryl never confirmed or denied it in an interview. What strikes me in their alliance even more is how they grew from being the fiercest of competitors to the most loyal of friends over the course of their lives. They knew each other so well, and trusted and valued each other for many decades. I find that quite moving.





LK: Toward the end of the novel, Beryl says, “I’ve sometimes thought that being loved a little less than others can actually make a person rather than ruin them.” Is this your thought, or did Markham ever say or write something like this? Can you explain further what she means?





PM: In that line, I’m actually extrapolating something Beryl said of her father in an interview toward the end of her life: “I admire my father for the way he raised me. People go around kissing and fussing over their children. I didn’t get anything like that. I had to look after myself. . . . Funnily enough it made me.” Her independence and undeniable resilience were born out of her unconventional upbringing, to be sure. Though we might see the circumstances of her girlhood as heartbreaking—-the disappearance of her mother, the benign neglect of her father—-I wanted to call attention to the fact that Beryl never played the victim or felt sorry for herself, but in fact sharpened herself on those losses, becoming stronger. Becoming herself.





LK: The dreaded final question: What’s next?





PM: There is more than a smidgen of dread in that question! It’s not always obvious, when I think about something new, what’s going to swim up from the deep to activate my imagination, or even that something will. I’ll bet you have that fear too—-that one of these days the muse might hang up a “Gone Fishing” sign and vanish? But I’d very much like to get to a place where I can fight back against the panic and uncertainty, and simply be at rest, waiting for the spark of inspiration.




For today at least, that seems doable. I’m sitting at my desk, looking at my yard full of barren, skeletal trees. Nothing seems alive out there, but spring is going to come soon. It always does eventually!
Questions and Topics for Discussion


1. At the beginning of the book, Beryl reflects that her father’s farm in Njoro is “the one place in the world I’d been made for.” Do you feel this is a fitting way to describe Beryl’s relationship with Kenya, too? Does she seem more suited—-more made for—-life there than the others in her circle? Is there a place in your life that you would describe the same way?


2. While it is clear he loves his daughter, do you feel Beryl’s father is a good parent? Do you think Beryl would have said he was? Did you sympathize with him at any point?


3. Beryl is forced to be independent from a very young age. How do you think this shapes her personality (for better or for worse)?


4. After Jock’s drunken attack, D fires Beryl and sends her away. Do you understand his decision? Despite all the philandering and indulgent behaviors of the community, do you feel it’s fair that Beryl is judged so harshly for the incident?


5. How would you describe Beryl and Denys’s relationship? In what ways are they similar souls? How does their first encounter—-outside, under the stars at her coming–out party—-encapsulate the nature of their connection?


6. Karen and Beryl are two strong, iconoclastic women drawn to the same unobtainable man. Do you understand how Beryl could pursue Denys even though he was involved with Karen? Did you view the friendship between the women as a true one, despite its complications?


7. Why do you believe the author chose the title Circling the Sun? Does it bring to mind a particular moment from the novel or an aspect of Beryl’s character?


8. When Beryl is quite young, she reflects that “softness and helplessness got you nothing in this place.” Do you agree with her? Or do you think Beryl places too much value on strength and independence?


9. When Beryl becomes a mother herself, she is determined not to act as her own mother did. Do you feel she succeeds? How does motherhood spur her decision to exchange horse training for flying? Could you identify with this choice?


10. After Paddy the lion attacks Beryl, Bishon Singh says, “perhaps you weren’t ever meant for him.” Do you think that Beryl truly discovers what she is meant for by the end of the novel?





=======================






Discussion Points for Your Book Club


Delve deeper into the life of Beryl Markham with these five book club discussion points for Paula McLain’s Circling the Sun:


1. Before Kenya was Kenya, Beryl Markham (born Clutterbuck) lived in what was known as the British-controlled East African Protectorate. Adjacent to German East Africa, both territories vanished in the wake of the First World War, marking the start of African independence from Europe. Explore the impact these seismic shifts in national identity would have on the characters of Circling the Sun.


2. Beryl Markham’s memoirs, West with the Night, were published in 1942, furthering her notoriety as a sexually liberated woman conquering more than one field considered the territory of men. How have attitudes changed since the days of Markham’s bold choices?


3. While Circling the Sun is a piece of historical fiction, Beryl Markham was a living, breathing historical figure. What responsibilities do authors of these types of imagined retellings of a person’s life have to the reader? More importantly, what responsibilities do authors of historical fiction have to their subjects?


4. Throughout the book, Beryl’s romantic choices – the limitations of marriage notwithstanding – conclude at best in disappointment, at worst in tragedy. Compared with other popular strong-willed heroines, how do her opinions on love and fulfillment differ? Are we just as free as Beryl to make similar choices, or are relationships still driven in part by societal pressures?


5. One of the most important friendships in Circling the Sun exists between Beryl and Kibii, a young Kipsigis village boy living near her father’s farm. How do their worlds interact? Can they co-exist?

LaRose

Author Louise Erdrich On 'LaRose' 
http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2016/05/16/louise-erdrich-larose


from Gale Literary Sources:

PERSONAL INFORMATION:

Born June 7, 1954, in Little Falls, MN; daughter of Ralph Louis and Rita Joanne Erdrich; married Michael Anthony Dorris (a writer and professor of Native American studies), October 10, 1981 (died, April 11, 1997); children: Reynold Abel (died, 1991), Jeffrey Sava, Madeline Hannah, Persia Andromeda, Pallas Antigone, Aza Marion. Education: Dartmouth College, B.A., 1976; Johns Hopkins University, M.A., 1979. Politics: Democrat. Religion: "Anti-religion." Avocational Interests: Quilting, running, drawing, "playing chess with daughters and losing, playing piano badly, speaking terrible French." Memberships: International Writers, PEN (member of executive board, 1985-88), Authors Guild, Authors League of America. Addresses: Home: Minneapolis, MN. Agent: Andrew Wylie Agency, 250 W. 57th St., Ste. 2114, New York, NY 10107-2199.

CAREER:

Writer, educator. North Dakota State Arts Council, visiting poet and teacher, 1977-78; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, writing instructor, 1978-79; Boston Indian Council, Boston, MA, communications director and editor of the Circle, 1979-80; Charles Merrill Co., textbook writer, 1980. Birchbark Books, Minneapolis, MN, owner. Previously employed as a beet weeder in Wahpeton, ND; waitress in Wahpeton, Boston, MA, and Syracuse, NY; psychiatric aide in a Vermont hospital; poetry teacher at prisons; lifeguard; and construction flag signaler. Has judged writing contests.

Sidelights

The daughter of a Chippewa Indian mother and a German American father, Louise Erdrich explores Native American themes in her works, with major characters representing both sides of her heritage. In an award-winning series of related novels and short stories, Erdrich has visited and revisited the North Dakota lands where her ancestors met and mingled, creating "a Chippewa experience in the context of the European American novelistic tradition," to quote P. Jane Hafen in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Many critics claim Erdrich has remained true to her Native ancestors' mythic and artistic visions while writing fiction that candidly explores the cultural issues facing modern-day Native Americans and mixed-heritage Americans. As an essayist for Contemporary Novelists observed: "Erdrich's accomplishment is that she is weaving a body of work that goes beyond portraying contemporary Native American life as descendants of a politically dominated people to explore the great universal questions--questions of identity, pattern versus randomness, and the meaning of life itself." In fact, as Hafen put it, Erdrich's "diverse imageries, subjects, and textual strategies reaffirm imperatives of American Indian survival."

.....

Terry Hong, a reviewer in Library Journal, described LaRose as "another mesmerizing accomplishment from an unparalleled storyteller." A Kirkus Reviews critic called it a "meditative, profoundly humane story" and "electric, nimble, and perceptive." The same critic added: "Erdrich depicts a tribal culture that is indelible and vibrant." "Through complex, dynamic characters and resonant human conflict, Erdrich gives readers the space to ponder atonement [and] the emotional bonds of family," commented Jessica Pearson in BookPage. Christian Science Monitor writer Yvonne Zipp called the novel "simply gorgeous." Ron Charles, a contributor to the Washington Post, suggested: "Erdrich never missteps. The visions that LaRose experiences seem wholly in concert with his adolescent mind, and his efforts to save his adoptive parents from their own despair by hiding all the ropes, pesticides and bullets feel entirely appropriate for a child determined to do what he can." Charles continued: "The recurring miracle of Erdrich's fiction is that nothing feels miraculous in her novels. She gently insists that there are abiding spirits in this land and alternative ways of living and forgiving that have somehow survived the West's best efforts to snuff them out."

From NoveList

Booklist:

/* Starred Review */ Erdrich has perfected the meteor-strike novel—tales that begin with an out-of-the-blue, catastrophic event, and then track the ensuing shock waves. This dramatic structure shapes Erdrich’s National Book  Award–winning The Round House (2012) and takes on even more intensity here. Two neighboring families live in a North Dakota community in which many of the Ojibwe are related, memories are long, and the wounds of the war against Native Americans run deep: “Loss, dislocation, disease, addiction, and just feeling like the tattered remnants of a people with a complex history.” The women, half-sisters, do not get along; their husbands have become friends. Landreaux and Emmaline Iron are raising five children, including their youngest, LaRose , a preternaturally soulful five-year-old boy. Nola and her white husband, Peter Ravich, have Maggie and Dusty, born at the same time as Dusty’s favorite playmate, LaRose . The summer of 1999 is waning, the Y2K scare growing, and Landreaux, a physical-therapy assistant devoted to his clients and guided by both Ojibwe beliefs and the Catholic Church, is hunting. He’s a crack shot, but when he pulls the trigger, the deer flees, and Dusty falls. Landreaux and Emmaline make a devastating decision: they will give LaRose  to Nola and Peter. “Our son will be your son,” Landreaux says. “It’s the old way.” As Erdrich explores the inevitable anguish and complications inherent in this act of sacrifice and attempt at justice, she takes soundings of the wellsprings of trauma and strength shaping these grieving households. The time frame shifts to 1839 when a trading post stood on the land the Irons now occupy. There a desperate Ojibwe woman “from a mysterious and violent family” trades her daughter for rum, igniting a terrifying sequence of passion, murder, and supernatural revenge. Gliding back and forth in time, Erdrich follows the long line of healers named LaRose , and reveals Landreaux’s long-hidden past tied to a boarding school designed to sever Native American children from their roots, as well as his volatile relationship with a fellow student named Romeo, now a brooding, plotting, outlaw loner in the grip of substance abuse, poverty, and rage. Their simmering conflict is a key aspect of Erdrich’s increasingly suspenseful inquiry into the repercussions of vengeance. The radiance of this many-faceted novel is generated by Erdrich’s tenderness for her characters, beginning with the profoundly involving primary figures. But there’s also Father Travis, crucial to The Round House and reappearing here in all his rigor, incisiveness, and unruly desires. A circle of bawdy elder women and the smart and funny sisters Snow and Josette (among the young characters who will fascinate advanced teen readers) provide comic relief and covertly wise counsel, while Peter’s extreme preparedness for the turn-of-the-millennium apocalypse offers a piquant reflection on questions of fear and faith. LaRose  is the fifteenth novel in Erdrich’s magnificent North Dakota cycle about the painful and proud legacy and intricately entangled relationships among Native Americans, whites, and people of mixed heritage, a brilliantly imagined and constructed saga of empathy, elegy, spirituality, resilience, wit, wonder, and hope that will stand as a defining master work of American literature for generations to come. -- Seaman, Donna (Reviewed 3/15/2016) (Booklist, vol 112, number 14, p19)

Publishers Weekly:

/* Starred Review */ Erdrich spins a powerful, resonant story with masterly finesse. As in The Round House, she explores the quest for justice and the thirst for retribution. Again, the setting—a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation and a nearby town—adds complexity to the plot. Landreaux Iron, an Ojibwe man, accidentally shoots and kills the five-year-old son of his best friend, farmer Peter Ravich, who is not a member of the tribe. After a wrenching session with his Catholic priest, Father Travis, and a soul-searching prayer in a sweat lodge, Landreaux gives his own five-year-old son, LaRose , to grieving Peter and his wife, Nola, who is half-sister to Landreaux's own wife, Emmaline. In the years that follow, LaRose  becomes a bridge between his two families. He also accesses powers that have distinguished his namesakes in previous generations, when LaRose  was "a name both innocent and powerful, and had belonged to the family's healers." Erdrich introduces this mystical element seamlessly, in the same way that LaRose  and other Ojibwes recognize and communicate with "the active presence of the spirit world." The magical aspects are lightened by scenes of everyday life: old ladies in an assisted-living home squabble about sex; teenage girls create their own homemade beauty spa. Erdrich raises suspense by introducing another, related act of retribution, culminating in a memorable and satisfying ending. (May) --Staff (Reviewed 01/11/2016) (Publishers Weekly, vol 263, issue 02, p)

Kirkus:

/* Starred Review */ After accidentally shooting his friend and neighbor's young son, a man on a Native American reservation subscribes to "an old form of justice" by giving his own son, LaRose , to the parents of his victim. Erdrich, whose last novel, The Round House, won the National Book  Award in 2012, sets this meditative, profoundly humane story in the time just before the U.S. invades Iraq but wanders in and out of that moment, even back to origin tales about the beginning of time. On tribal lands in rural North Dakota, the shooter, Landreaux Iron, and his wife, Emmaline, trudge toward their neighbors' house to say, "Our son will be your son now." As both families amble through the emotional thickets produced by this act (the wives are half sisters, to boot), Erdrich depicts a tribal culture that is indelible and vibrant: Romeo, a drug-addled grifter still smarting from a years-ago abandonment by his friend Landreaux (and whose hurt makes this novel a revenge story); war vet Father Travis, holy but in love with Emmaline; and LaRose , his father's "little man, his favorite child," the fifth generation of LaRoses in his family, who confers with his departed ancestors and summons a deep, preternatural courage to right an injustice done to his new sister. Erdrich's style is discursive; a long digression about the first LaRose  and her darkness haunts this novel. Just when she needs to, though, Erdrich races toward an ending that reads like a thriller as doubts emerge about Landreaux's intentions the day he went hunting. Electric, nimble, and perceptive, this novel is about "the phosphorous of grief" but also, more essentially, about the emotions men need, but rarely get, from one another. (Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2016)

=====
http://therumpus.net/2016/05/the-sunday-rumpus-interview-louise-erdrich/
Interview

The Rumpus: It’s maybe strange to begin with a question about a book’s cover, when I loved the story so much and can’t wait to talk to you about it, but I have to ask because the image here is so beautiful and striking and I understand it has a personal connection to you?

Louise Erdrich: Yes, it does. My daughter Aza, who is also a visual artist, did the cover for the book. She digitized my Indian-boarding-school-taught grandfather’s handwriting, and she made the cover.

Rumpus: So this is his actual handwriting.

Erdrich: Yes. And it really was this wonderful… you know, you get these moments sometimes to work with your daughters, and it makes everything so meaningful. Also, my daughter Pallas worked with me on the manuscript. She read different versions of the manuscript, and I would keep showing them to her, and she would give me readings on them—and she really helped me shape the ending.

Rumpus: I love that.

Erdrich: It’s really incredible, that I got to work with them.

Rumpus: And I understand “LaRose” is a name from your ancestors. You have a LaRose in your history.

Erdrich: Yes. We do. We have a LaRose, and I don’t exactly know what great-aunt or great-uncle, but they’re also in the 1897 Turtle Mountain Census. They are Gourneaus—that’s my mother’s maiden name.......

Lit Lovers

Discussion Questions
1. What are the intended effects of Emmaline and Landreaux’s traditional act of giving LaRose to the Raviches? In what ways does it achieve these or not? What are the costs?

2. What is the nature of the two marriages at the center of the novel, the Irons and the Raviches? How are they similar or different?

3. Consider the first LaRose. What were her particular strengths? What was essential to her ability to survive the neglect and abuse from her mother Mink, Mackinnon, and the mission school?

4. In what ways does Wolfred help and balance LaRose before and throughout their marriage?

5. What common qualities does each LaRose possess?

6. When Nola accepts LaRose from the Irons, she’s not sure if she does so for the profound beauty of the gesture or because it will so deeply punish them. Is she obligated to respond in any particular way to such a gesture?

7. Revenge is sought by various characters throughout the novel: Maggie’s defense of LaRose, LaRose’s fighting the Fearsome Four, Romeo’s longstanding behavior toward Landreaux. What is revenge? What is it intended to accomplish? In what ways does it help or harm? Is it, as Romeo believes, a form of justice?

8. Mrs. Peace, the fourth LaRose and Emmaline’s mother, abstains from any romantic relationships after her “cruel, self-loving, and clever” husband, Billy Peace, dies, saying that, “he had taught her what she needed to know about men.” What does she mean? Where in the novel is a man able to show kindness or selflessness?

9. Consider the girls in both families: The “Iron Maidens,” Snow and Josette, and Maggie Ravich. What is each like? What are their particular strengths? What do they provide for each other?

10. How does each person in the novel respond to such profound grief and loss? Which response seems the healthiest?

 11. What’s the relationship between suffering and anger in the novel? What is the value of anger? What’s the healthiest response to it?

 12. What does Father Travis provide all involved with the loss of Dusty? What are his own struggles? How do they affect his ability to help his community?

 13. What’s the nature of technology as it’s presented in Peter Ravich’s concern about Y2K and Snow and Josette’s obsession with “robot/cyborg” movies?

 14. How do the Irons work to balance a connection with their traditional wisdom and rituals with a rapidly changing modern world?

15. At one point Randall explains that the medicine his people did in the past was not magic, but “beyond ordinary understanding now.” What does he mean? Why is it important to not see such healing as magic?

16. Consider the image of cake as it appears throughout the novel. What are its various connotations? How is this complicated by Nola’s obsessive making of cakes or Peter’s concern about the eating of sugar?

17. How does Nola’s deep, suicidal depression affect the members of her family? What aids in her healing?

18. Mrs. Peace, thinking about Frank Baum’s genocidal policy and all the cultural loss and destruction it caused, says the resulting loneliness “sets deep in a person,” and takes four generations to heal. Why might it take this long? What is it about the fourth LaRose that suggests the nature of such healing?

19. To what extent is some kind of disconnection necessary to survive such cultural and personal tragedy? What are the various ways characters disconnect throughout the novel? Where are key moments of reconnection?

20. To what extent is Romeo’s vengeful and self-destructive behavior understandable given his past? In addition to his physical injury, what were important moments of harm or loss? What helps explain his improvement over time?

21. When Landreaux suggests escaping from the boarding school, Romeo sees in his eyes an “opacity of spirit.” What does this mean? Where else do people struggle with such a thing in the novel?

22. Romeo considers the strong painkillers he takes as “the only mercy in this world.” How do other characters use drugs or alcohol? When is it necessary or valuable, when is it unhealthy?

23. Romeo, revealing his often hidden or overlooked intelligence, tries to explain to Hollis about “intergenerational trauma.” What is this? What is necessary for it to be healed?

24. In the kitchen with his mother and sisters, LaRose says “what we used for TV in the olden times was stories.” What is the importance of storytelling in a family or culture? How has modern TV and media changed the nature and content of stories? What are the effects of this?

25. Throwing their dandelion forks into the woods, LaRose says to Maggie, “Let’s stop being grown-ups.” In what ways have the children in each family demonstrated maturity and understanding to compensate for the adults? What might explain such strength and insight in young people?

26. At Hollis’ graduation party, many of the people “spoke in both languages” as they enjoyed cake. In addition to language, what are the best ways to stay connected to valuable traditions?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

========

https://cannonballread.com/2016/07/ending-the-circle-of-revenge/

LaRose is set in the years immediately before and after 9/11 and deals with revenge and healing. The story opens with the tragic death of 5-year-old Dusty Ravich in a hunting accident. Landreaux, the boy’s neighbor and good friend of the family, feels such guilt and remorse over the accident that he decides to resort to a traditional means of reparation — giving the boy’s family his own 5-year-old son LaRose. The Raviches (Peter, Nola and daughter Maggie) have been suffering. Nola is angry and suicidal and is often abusive to Maggie; she also hates Landreaux and his wife Emmaline, who happens to be Nola’s half sister. Maggie is also filled with anger and resentment, against the world in general and Nola in particular, while Peter struggles to hold his family together. The presence of LaRose in their lives does seem to have a healing effect for the Raviches, but it hurts Emmaline and Landreaux, whose marriage suffers, and their four other children. Amazingly, it is the children, particularly LaRose and Maggie, who possess great insight into their current situation and who learn to manage not just themselves but also their parents. They aren’t responsible for their parents’ problems, they didn’t cause them, but they must learn to live with the results and fix what they can. It’s rather like history; maybe “we didn’t start the fire,” but we have to acknowledge what happened and deal with it accordingly so as not to repeat it.

As with her other novels, Erdrich tells her contemporary story against a backdrop of family history which must include the painful history of Native Americans. The name LaRose is significant for Emmaline’s family, the Peaces. All previous LaRoses had been female, but what is significant is that the LaRoses were known for possessing a spirit of healing. The history of these women includes enslavement, rape, illness, forced separation from loved ones and attendance at boarding schools that would take the “Indian” out of them and make them “white,” thus losing their language, traditions, and history. The past of the Peace family informs its present. The wrongs of the past must be addressed — both historical wrongs and personal wrongs. And within this novel, there are many personal wrongs to be addressed, including betrayals, jealousy and infidelity.

The spirituality that pervades Erdrich’s novels never fails to move me. Elders pass stories and knowledge along to the young, spirits leave bodies to travel the world or to communicate with the living. This blurring of the line between living and dead, between “real” world and spirit world is a given for the characters and it is a comfort. Everyone sort of accepts that LaRose is special, that he does have some sort of spiritual gift for healing that is clear even when he is very young. The descriptions of his connection to the spirit world are beautifully written, and his response to them, his sense of what action needs to be taken, is simple, as befits a young boy, but surprisingly effective.

I marvel at Erdrich’s ability to take so many threads, each character’s story rich with detail, filled with colorful imagery and spiritual power, and put them together into one full, coherent story marked by beauty, humor, pathos. As I have remarked in my reviews of her other novels, Erdrich has a masterful ability to create characters who combine some of the best and worst qualities within one person. They are so very human; you can hate some of the things they do but not hate them. LaRose contains a strong message about healing, both personal healing and a more nationwide healing, that is quite apropos in our modern world. Like Landreaux, we have to take the first step and acknowledge the pain we have caused, whether we meant to or not.

Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Author’s website:
http://www.orhanpamuk.net/default.aspx

========

Turkish Modes of address

http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/modesofaddress.htm

===========

Headscarf
'Islamic veil across Europe'  May 31, 2018
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13038095

=================
Guardian Review,  Mar 21, 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/mar/20/orhan-pamuk-snow-novel-reading-group?CMP=share_btn_link

=======

Readers' Guide, Penguin Books

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/126390/snow-by-orhan-pamuk/9780307700889/readers-guide/

============

Once names are known then bey and hanım are used after the first name. 

These titles are written without a capital letter: 

• Mustafa bey
  Mr. Mustafa
• Ayşe hanım
  Miss or Mrs. Ayşe

These are used in formal situations when you know the person's first name.

Also in informal situations to acquaintances, friends and even to your own family members.

Surnames are not usually used in conversational Turkish

========

Timeline of Turkish history from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17994865

[Snow was originally published in 2002 and translated into English in 2004]

Ottoman Empire

1453 - Sultan Mehmed II captures Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire and consolidating Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor and Balkans.

15th-16th centuries - Expansion into Asia and Africa.

1683 - Ottoman advance into Europe halted at Battle of Vienna. Long decline begins.

19th century - Efforts at political and economic modernisation of Empire largely founder.

1908 - Young Turk Revolution establishes constitutional rule, but degenerates into military dictatorship during First World War, where Ottoman Empire fights in alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary.

1918-22 - Partition of defeated Ottoman Empire leads to eventual triumph of Turkish National Movement in war of independence against foreign occupation and rule of Sultan.

Modern Turkey

1923 - Grand National Assembly declares Turkey a republic and Kemal Ataturk president.

1928 - Turkey becomes secular: clause retaining Islam as state religion removed from constitution.

1938 - President Ataturk dies, succeeded by Ismet Inonu.

1945 - Neutral for most of World War II, Turkey declares war on Germany and Japan, but does not take part in combat. Joins United Nations.

1950 - First free elections won by opposition Democratic Party.

Kurdish war

1984 - Turkey recognises "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus."

Kurdistan Workers' Party launches separatist guerrilla war in southeast.

1987 - Turkey applies for full EEC membership.

1990 - Turkey allows US-led coalition against Iraq to launch air strikes from Turkish bases.

1992 - 20,000 Turkish troops enter Kurdish safe havens in Iraq in anti-PKK operation.

1993 - Tansu Ciller becomes Turkey's first woman prime minister, and Demirel elected president.

1995 - Major military offensive launched against the Kurds in northern Iraq, involving some 35,000 Turkish troops.

Pro-Islamist Welfare Party wins elections but lacks support to form government - two major centre-right parties form anti-Islamist coalition.

Turkey enters EU customs union.

Rise of political Islam

1996 - Centre-right coalition falls. Welfare Party leader Necmettin Erbakan heads first pro-Islamic government since 1922.

1997 - Coalition resigns after campaign led by the military, replaced by a new coalition led by the centre-right Motherland Party of Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz.

1998 January - Welfare Party - the largest in parliament - banned. Yilmaz resigns amid corruption allegations, replaced by Bulent Ecevit.

1999 February - PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan captured in Kenya.

2001 June - Constitutional Court bans opposition pro-Islamic Virtue Party, saying it had become focus of anti-secular activities. 

2002 January - Turkish men are no longer regarded in law as head of the family. The move gives women full legal equality with men, 66 years after women's rights were put on the statute books.

2002 August - Parliament approves reforms aimed at securing EU membership. Death sentence to be abolished except in times of war and bans on Kurdish education, broadcasting to be lifted.

Islamist party victorious

2002 November - Islamist-based Justice and Development Party (AK) wins landslide election victory. Party promises to stick to secular principles of constitution. Deputy leader Abdullah Gul appointed premier.

2002 December - Constitutional changes allow head of ruling AK Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to run for parliament, and so to become prime minister. He had been barred from public office because of previous criminal conviction.

2003 March - AK Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan wins seat in parliament. Within days Abdullah Gul resigns as prime minister and Erdogan takes over.

Parliament decides not to allow deployment of US forces ahead of war in Iraq but allows US use of Turkish air space. It authorises dispatch of Turkish forces into Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.

2003 June-July - Eyeing future EU membership, parliament passes laws easing restrictions on freedom of speech, Kurdish language rights, and on reducing political role of military.

EU talks

2004 December - EU leaders agree to open talks in 2005 on Turkey's EU accession. The decision, made at a summit in Brussels, follows a deal over an EU demand that Turkey recognise Cyprus as an EU member.

2005 January - New lira currency introduced as six zeroes are stripped from old lira, ending an era in which banknotes were denominated in millions.

2005 May - Parliament approves amendments to new penal code after complaints that the previous version restricted media freedom. The EU welcomes the move but says the code still fails to meet all its concerns on human rights.

2005 June - Parliament overturns veto by secularist President Sezer on government-backed amendment easing restrictions on teaching of Koran.

2005 October - EU membership negotiations officially launched after intense bargaining.

…...

2006 December - EU partially freezes Turkey's membership talks because of Ankara's failure to open its ports and airports to Cypriot traffic.

Headscarf dispute

2008 February - Thousands protest at plans to allow women to wear the Islamic headscarf to university.

2008 July - Petition to the constitutional court to have the governing AK Party banned for allegedly undermining the secular constitution fails by a narrow margin.

2008 October - Trial starts of 86 suspected members of shadowy ultra-nationalist Ergenekon group, which is accused of plotting a series of attacks and provoking a military coup against the government.

2009 July - President Abdullah Gul approves legislation proposed by the ruling AK Party giving civilian courts the power to try military personnel for threatening national security or involvement in organised crime.

2009 October - The governments of Turkey and Armenia agree to normalise relations at a meeting in Switzerland. Both parliaments will need to ratify the accord. Turkey says opening the border will depend on progress on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

2009 December - The government introduces measures in parliament to increase Kurdish language rights and reduce the military presence in the mainly-Kurdish southeast as part of its "Kurdish initiative".