Chatterbox's Fourth -- and Final? -- 75 Books in 2010

Having now finished three batches of 75 books, and read about 400 plus books so far this year in total, I'm starting what will probably be my final 75-book challenge. Final, because as well as the books I read for this challenge, I've got a passel of them still to read for my 1010 Challenge and my off-the-shelf Challenge. As before, I'll list the latter books here along with the "75" reads, but there's no overlap on my lists. And as before, I'm going to try to balance my reading for this challenge between fiction and nonfiction -- probably somewhere about a third of the books will be non-fiction.

For anyone who's curious, here is a link to the final thread in the third 75 Challenge. You can see a list of what I read, and go back through links there to the earlier threads to read my comments on them.

The counter for the fourth 75-book challenge is here:




And the one for my total year-to-date reading is here:




Without further ado, here is a chronological list of my fourth batch of 75 books:

1. Under the Dragon's Tail by Maureen Jennings, ***1/2, STARTED 10/22/10, FINISHED 10/24/10 (fiction)
2. Must You Go? by Antonia Fraser, ****1/2, READ 10/25/10 (non-fiction)
3. The Birthday Party by Veronica Henry, ***1/2, STARTED 10/23/10, FINISHED 10/26/10 (fiction)
4. Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe, ****, STARTED 10/24/10, FINISHED 10/26/10 (non-fiction)
5. Operation Napoleon by Arnaldur Indridason, ***, STARTED 10/22/10, FINISHED 10/26/10 (fiction)
6. The Siege by Helen Dunmore, *****, STARTED 10/26/10, FINISHED 10/27/10 (fiction)
7. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds, ***, STARTED 10/25/10, FINISHED 10/28/10 (fiction)
8. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri, ****, STARTED 10/27/10, FINISHED 10/28/10 (fiction)
9. The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn, ****, STARTED 10/26/10, FINISHED 10/28/10 (fiction)
10. Stradivari's Genius by Toby Faber, ****, STARTED 10/25/10, FINISHED 10/29/10 (non-fiction)
11. The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore, *****, STARTED 10/29/10, FINISHED 10/30/10 (fiction)
12. A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny, ****, STARTED 10/28/10, FINISHED 10/30/10
13. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman, ***, STARTED 10/29/10, FINISHED 10/31/10 (fiction)
14. A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church, ***, STARTED 10/28/10, FINISHED 10/31/10 (fiction)
15. Beachcombers by Nancy Thayer, ***1/2, READ 10/31/10 (fiction)
16. Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson, ***1/2, READ 11/1/10 (fiction)
17. An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris by Georges Perec, ***1/2, STARTED 10/31/10, FINISHED 11/2/10 (non-fiction)
18. The Last White Rose by Desmond Seward, ****, STARTED 10/28/10, FINISHED 11/2/10 (non-fiction)
19. The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre, ****1/2, READ 11/2/10 (fiction)
20. The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny, ****, STARTED 11/1/10, FINISHED 11/3/10 (fiction)
21. Sacred Treason by James Forrester, ****, STARTED 11/2/10, FINISHED 11/4/10 (fiction)
22. Bridge of Spies by Giles Whittell, ***1/2, STARTED 10/31/10, FINISHED 11/4/10 (non-fiction)
23. The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace, ****, STARTED 11/4/10, FINISHED 11/5/10 (fiction)
24. Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles, ***, READ 11/6/10 (fiction)
25. The Twelve Days of Christmas by Trisha Ashley, ****, STARTED 11/6/10, FINISHED 11/7/10 (fiction)
26. The Masque of Africa by V.S. Naipaul, ****, STARTED 11/5/10, FINISHED 11/10/10 (non-fiction)
27. Dangerous to Know by Tasha Alexander, ***1/2, STARTED 11/6/10, FINISHED 11/9/10 (fiction)
28. The Flesh Tailor by Kate Ellis, ****, STARTED 11/3/10, FINISHED 11/12/10 (fiction)

LOL... I liked that bit in your last thread where you said that this is where you're going to be for the rest of the year! Nice touch of humor there, Suz..... NOT LIKELY!

Thanks for the tip on the Stratton series though ... I'll keep it on my KIV list in case I run out of other series to read ...hmm...somewhat unlikely I think. Still, one never knows.

OK, the first book for the new thread is... (drum roll, please...)
Under the Dragon's Tail by Maureen Jennings is the second in a string of Victorian-era mysteries set in Toronto and featuring William Murdoch. Knowing Toronto, I had fun with the setting, but while I'm glad Jennings is more true to life than peers like Anne Perry (who over romanticizes every sympathetic character she runs across), I did find myself getting more exasperated by the degree to which Jennings wants to shove the unpleasantness of everyday life, from sweat, body odors and flies to one character's tubercles, which dangle grotesquely from his face. Sometimes that's useful, sometimes it's just too much. The same is true of the slang and jargon of the time. Throw in a few words, sure, and don't have uneducated characters speaking like philosophy professors. But sentences like this one -- “You nocky bint. Do you think he cared a piss where he dipped his beak? Do you? Answer me. I want an answer, you mardy tit. Do you think he cared which doodle sack he put it in? -- delivered by one woman to her sister, while not impossible to understand, made me feel like Jennings was showing off her knowledge of the slang of the time. The book is about another rather nasty kind of character in 19th century Toronto, abortionist and baby farmer Dolly Shaw, who is found strangled in her home. Was she blackmailing former clients? And which among them had the strongest motive to shut her up? These are interesting books, but I expect if I read one or two more, I'll have had my fill. Rating this 3.5 stars, largely for the setting and the character of Murdoch himself, who's an intriguing and very real persona. TIOLI for a detective story.

#3: I am disgusted because my local library has only one book in the Jennings series.

yikes the book... lol

I am reading a Repairman Jack.. my first.. and liking it.. Think I am going to pass on those though...

Congrats on the new thread! Wow, over 400 read! I'm staggered by that and oh so jealous! You the Woman!

Hmmm. Maureen Jennings doesn't move alone in that category of "too much research not enough synthesis" writers.

Like the new place! Where did you get the wall color? It's dreamy!

Tks, Ricardus! I scoured everywhere for just the right color and eventually had it custom-blended, to match my favorite pashmina...

Stasia, remember Maureen Jennings is Canadian... I can't even find any of her books in the local (giant) Barnes & Noble. If you decide to try the first one, I think they are Amazon-able, and perhaps Nook-able? Several of them are on Kindle.

Off to go get blood from a cat. Only marginally easier than it is from a stone.

#8: No, I have already checked and the books are not available for the Nook.

Personally, I was surprised that my library had the first one. What irritates me is why have the first one if you are not going to carry the entire series?

Sheer bloody-mindedness, Stasia, that's all I can come up with. If you like the first one, let me know -- I may be able to get my mother to track some down.

¡Hola, Susana!

Just got the ARC of Antonia Fraser's Must You Go? and can't put it down. There go all my best-laid reading plans. Off to read it through to the end...

Wish I felt that way about Call from Jersey, my oldest ER. Not grabbing me.

#10: Nah, I will get on it myself. I appreciate it though, Suz!

OK, just finished racing through Must You Go? by Antonia Fraser. If Fraser's biographies/histories are oil paintings, this book is more akin to an Old Master drawing -- a few swiftly-drawn lines conveying the idea, a sense of motion and life, without all the granularity that comes from a full-fledged narrative, carefully thought out, planned, written and re-written. This approach has its strengths and weaknesses -- you'll look in vain here for well-crafted and deliberate insights into the creative process, but will find plenty of throwaway references to Pinter trying to go to bed at 1 a.m., but then almost immediately getting up and going back downstairs to continue working until 5 a.m. At its heart, this is a tribute to Pinter and Fraser's love for him -- he wrote poems for her throughout their three decades of life together; she has written this epitaph for him as a man, not just a creative artist. It's made up of a combination of diary excerpts and later notes, and is written in a very casual tone. There is little in the way of help for those who aren't familiar with the secondary and tertiary characters (it's amusing to follow the arrival and departures of Salman Rushdie's various spouses, for instance; and slightly sad to read the references to the crumbling marriage of Naipaul and his wife Pat), so that may prove frustrating to some. Some of the anecdotes are hilarious or insightful. Occasionally it becomes a tad ponderous and self-important, typically when Fraser is discussing their political activities and some comments betray a horrible lack of knowledge or judgment. But then, that's real life. This has been published less than two years after Pinter's death; remarkable. Its nature may be that of a brief sketch, but it's nonetheless affecting and a good read for anyone with an interest in London's literary landscape of the 1975-2005 period. The more familiar you are with Pinter's work, the more you'll get out of it. I confess to being more informed with Fraser's historical works and even her mystery novels (which are fun, and which should be more available -- all you mystery buffs, go look for her Jemima Shore novels, published mostly in the 1980s), but even so, found this a great read. Now I can go and get some sleep... 4.4 stars, TIOLI 21st century book.

Good review, Suz .... would it make sense to someone who's familiar with Fraser's works but who hasn't been exposed to Pinter's works?

It did to me, Caro, and I'd consider myself only marginally exposed to Pinter. I've seen many screenplays he has written (sometimes not even knowing it!) but only a couple of his plays. I think you'd still enjoy Fraser's comments on the people they know (the Stoppards, Rushdie, etc. etc.) There is relatively little about her own work here, sadly. That is almost like a footnote to his work and their relationship.

nice review :) and it may just send me off to look at her series.. ( drat)

#15: That one is already in the BlackHole (it is not available at the local libraries though), so I do not have to add it again!

Stasia, it isn't out in the US until next week, so there is hope for finding a library copy by year-end! :-)

Kath, I remember enjoying the mystery series v. much. I think it was my mother who loaned me the first few books, and I read more of them when I was in college in the early 80s. The writing in them, which is very lively, signals that someone far brighter than the average mystery novelist is at work, which is an interesting juxtaposition. (Usually it's the reverse; someone who really isn't all that cerebral trying to be intellectual and just ending up sounding pompous!)

#20: OK, thanks for the heads up, Suz!

Very nice review of Must You Go?, Suzanne; I'm adding this to my wish list.

Did you see Pinter's play The Hothouse? I saw it at the National Theatre in 2007. If you did, and if you remember much about it, what did you think of it?

Nope, haven't seen it, Darryl. I have seen Betrayal, The Homecoming and I think The Caretaker.

hmmmm must investigate that series for sure..

found this...

Antonia Fraser: Three Great Novels: Jemima Shore
fulfilled by Amazon, Prime eligible. 3.99

OK, here's the book update...

1. The Birthday Party by Veronica Henry. Perfectly adequate chick lit; couldn't be a further cry from Harold Pinter's play of the same name if it tried! The central characters are a reformed drunk celeb actor, his wife -- a Nigella Lawson type character -- and their three 20-something daughters. All face vicissitudes. Henry is a better-than-average chick lit story-teller, but this isn't one of her better books. Still 3.4 stars for me; a decent comfort read. TIOLI 21st century book.

2. Operation Napoleon by Arnaldur Indridason. Well, I hope that Indridason's mystery series -- which I'm about to embark on -- is better than this early thriller (re-released) would suggest. A plane crashes on an Icelandic glacier, and 55 years later a whole bunch of spooks are scrambling to recover it. I only finished it out of idle curiosity. The breathless tone and improbable antics of the main characters are deeply annoying; only the final two or three pages and a neat twist enable me to rate it 2.9 stars. If you do like Indridason's mysteries, I'd suggest sticking to them and not seeking out this book. TIOLI for an author with a loooong surname.

3. The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe. I first read Achebe's novels at the age of 16, and think I prefer him as a novelist than as a pundit. Some of the essays in this collection are startlingly good, provocative and well thought out. Others are polemical. Achebe has a real hate for Conrad, but that obscures him to what may well have been the intentional irony of some of the passages in Heart of Darkness to which he objects so strongly. And while it's true that Europeans turned slavery into the massive and massively profitable (for them) slave TRADE, slavery certainly existed in Africa prior to the Europeans deciding to turn that into a system and make money from it. (The Arabs had been transporting slaves in caravans across the Sahara for centuries before.) Achebe compares a portrait by Gainsborough of one 18th century African figure in London to another, anonymous portrait of another celebrated 18th century African figure, and uses the poor quality of the latter - "a man with a big, flat face lacking any distinctiveness" as being "clearly an exercise in mockery". That works if he's comparing one Gainsborough portrait to another, or indeed two portraits by any artist. But it's a giant leap in logic to conclude that the poor painting was deliberate -- it's more likely that the anonymous artist was just bad. Some of these essays are hampered by similarly flawed leaps in logic, alas. Others, notably the one on the politics of language in Africa and his foray into a debate over "the leadership factor" are, quite simply, brilliant. Not surprisingly, Achebe has his persistent themes -- the essential humanity of mankind (no gender political correctness here!) and the curse of a colonial legacy, often discussed in the context of literature. ("Stories are not always innocent.") I did find myself wishing that Achebe would find a way to question the relative colonial experiences in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the ways that each of those regions have coped in a post-colonial world. Did the near-destruction of indigenous cultures in Latin America facilitate the creation of stronger nation states in the 19th/20th centuries? What explains why today's India is more stable than any African area colonized by Britain? Is there a cultural explanation? a difference in historical experience? Still, it speaks to the strength of this occasionally-frustrating collection of essays that it ended up triggering such ruminations. 4.1 stars, TIOLI 21st century book.

Picked up The Siege by Helen Dunmore, and am enraptured by her writing. Every few paragraphs there is a sentence that makes me stop and catch my breath. Wow.

Glad you are enjoying The Siege, which I thought was wonderful. Interesting about the Achebe; I haven't read his fiction yet but recently picked up a copy of The African Trilogy, which includes Things Fall Apart and two other novels, and I hope to read it in the next several months. After that, I may read his memoirs.

I loved The Siege, Suz, so I hope you do too!

I've just caught up on your new thread, Suzanne. You are such a reading powerhouse, you go girl!
I'm seeing alot about The Siege lately, perhaps I need to find a copy.

I also enjoyed The Siege. I bought The Betrayal recently and immediately read The Siege because I didn't want to read out of order. Now I need to get on with reading The Betrayal !

I read the Achebe in January and your comments were interesting - I didn't like Heart of Darkness much either though. Rebecca, this Achebe book isn't his memoirs although it does contain several autobiographical pieces including the title one - it's a collection of "essays" - some which came out of speaking at conferences.

The Siege was one of my 5* reads this year, and I recommend The Betrayal too.

#30, Thanks for the clarification about the Achebe.

#29 I liked The Betrayal also, but felt it wasn't as compelling as The Siege (possibly because reading The Siege was the first time I read about the siege of Leningrad).

I also am not a big fan of Heart of Darkness, but the tone/content that Achebe objects to so viscerally isn't something that I see in the same way. Conrad's characters are not normal in any sense of the word, so I automatically viewed the perceptions as akin to those of an "unreliable narrator". Whereas the content seems to make it hard for Achebe to view the lines/observations in that way. A very rough analogy -- my landlord, who is African-American, is extremely sensitive to race. For instance, he once complained to me that when an acquaintance was trying to tell someone else how to identify him in a crowd at a party, the acquaintance used his skin color. To him, that was offensive; to me, pragmatic. (Just as height, gender, skinniness or heftiness, etc. would be similarly utilitarian in that context.) But then, I haven't had the experience of being identified as African-American and thus different/lesser, as he has. (Although I sometimes point out to him that it's no bed of roses being a woman in a man's word -- having male sources hit on you or literally pinch your butt. And because they're a CEO and you're a journalist covering their company, you are told to put up with it and not be a hysterical wimp. Not my boss's precise words on the latter occasion, but close.)

Anyway... yes, this essay collection isn't a memoir of childhood, though childhood memories, personal experiences, etc. are scattered throughout it. It's more a series of conventional speeches and essays, with literary or political starting points. The most personal ones involve his identity as an Igbo/Ibo.

I'm reading The Siege myself right now and you're right about the writing---just luscious prose. Another book about the Siege of Leningrad that I really liked was City of Thieves. The writing is not as pitch-perfect but for grittiness, it's wonderful.

Tomorrow is Amazon Vine day part 2, and there's at least a fighting chance I will be able to lay hands on the new book by Simon Winchester, all about the Atlantic Ocean... Fingers crossed.

Bonnie, tks for the tip on City of Thieves. I had noticed that in bookstores and admired the cover, but oddly, hadn't picked it up to see what it was about. It may appeal...

Crossing fingers for you, Suz. I did not realize Winchester had a new book out. I like his works, so will be watching for your review, if you do indeed end up with the book.

#25, 32 I enjoyed your review of Achebe's book of essays, and Heart of Darkness. I have not read any of his works since Things Fall Apart, my Freshman year "everyone reads". You raise some interesting questions about post-colonization areas of the world. Thanks for getting me thinking!

I'm going to second the rec for City of Thieves. I thought it was very entertaining.

Suz, if I remember correctly Operation Napoleon was cowritten by Arnaldur Indridason and someone else and it's not part of the Erlendur series? Or maybe I'm thinking of another book.... hmm....

Hmm, Caro, I suppose that is possible, but his is the only name on the credits, except for that of the translator. Here's the link to the Amazon.co.uk page, which is the edition that I have: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Operation-Napoleon-Arnaldur-Indridason/dp/1846552850/ref...

Either way, I'm not fussed. Jar City just arrived, and I've got Arctic Chill, picked up on a whim at Barnes & Noble. Will try both, and if I like the series, continue; if not, off to Paperbackswap they go!

Book du jour: The Siege by Helen Dunmore. Wow. The writing in this is awe-inspiring, as is the character of Anna, who in face of the disinterest or youth of the other members of her circle, ends up responsible for keeping them all alive during the first six months of the siege of Leningrad. It's a bleak subject, but not a bleak book, thanks to the nuanced characterizations and truly amazing writing. I now can't wait to read the sequel, nominated for this year's Man-Booker prize. Still, I can't quite rate it a full 5 stars, but am sticking at 4.75, mostly because after a while the chronicle of how people die of starvation and the strange ways people find food and fuel become wearing. In this case, there is a thread of a plot that underlies that of mere survival -- but in the same way that everything else becomes secondary to survival, so Anna's interest in art, Andrei's in medicine and his beloved Siberia, Marina Petrovna's in drama, Mikhail's hopes of being published once more, etc. all end up being subordinated to or absorbed by that of General Hunger and General Winter, as recounted in story by Mikhail, Anna's father, before the war even begins. There are hints of "what else?" given with the character of Pavlov, who must organize the food supply chain, but while I wanted that to develop slightly to provide more of a counterweight to the tale of the Levins and their friends, it never happened. That said, it's still an astonishing novel; a great accomplishment. 4.75 stars, highly recommended, TIOLI "single syllable title".

Great review of The Siege. I've added it to my wishlist.

Good luck with... and start with Jar City, Suz. I'm curious to see what you think of it, and also what you think of Arctic Chill because i haven't read that one yet.

#39: Glad you enjoyed The Siege. I will be interested in seeing what you think of The Betrayal when you get to it.

Suz- I loved City of Thieves as well! Jar City was also very good! The Seige is on the WL!

Nice review of The Siege, Suzanne! I'll probably read it in the next couple of weeks, before I read The Betrayal

I definitely need to bump The Siege higher up the wishlist.

I enjoyed Jar City a lot, although it was a bit bleak and gory in places for my wimpish taste. I'll look forward to your take on that one and Arctic Chill (which is in my TBR along with Silence of the Grave).

Hurrah! Managed to get the Simon Winchester book AND an ARC of the next Ian Rutledge mystery by Charles Todd. Had to pass up The Sherlockian, which I also want to read but (a) it comes out a month sooner than the Todd book, (b) I'm not sure I'll like it and (c) it may still be available from Vine next month. It gives me a backup book to pick if there isn't anything on my "targeted" list on the 18th.

OK, the books du jour:

1. The Shape of Water, by Andrea Camilleri. Read on the urgent recommendation of my Montalbano-obsessed non-LT friend, and bumped up after Richard became v. enthusiastic about the series. I found this book to be slow to take off, but it grew on me, thanks to the characters and the clever plotting. I enjoyed the fact that "justice" isn't always the kind of justice that can be delivered, and Montalbano's wry view of human nature. I'll certainly read more, but probably wait until I can get them from Paperbackswap -- I've got too many other series going on to invest significant resources buying copies of these as well. Still, a fun read. 4 stars, TIOLI for a police-related book.

2. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds. Oh dear. Another one of those books by authors gifted with a lyrical talent for words, but little sense of how to construct a narrative. This is beautifully written but jarringly episodic, and thus as elusive as quicksilver. That adds up to a less-than-satisfying reading experience. I kept waiting for a sense of being caught up in the story to grab me, and then I realized I was already 2/3 of the way through and still reading dutifully. (A bit like I do when I read Tennyson...) There were segments I thought fascinating and exquisite, such as Clare's time with the gypsies, but the sum of the parts didn't add up to a compelling whole. 3 stars. TIOLI 20th century book, a shared read.

3. The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn. This was my response to an overdose of overly elegant and polished prose. Raybourn emulates the Gothic romance, from Jane Eyre to the novels of Victoria Holt, and sends her heroine off to Transylvania, to a castle high in the Carpathians. Once there, she discovers her childhood friend, Cosmina, has been jilted by her fiancee, the extremely alluring Count Andrei Dragulescu. Are the mysteries and crimes within the castle attributable to ordinary human malevolence, our heroine Theodora wonders? (After all, she IS a lady novelist from Victorian Scotland...) And there is plenty of reason for her to wonder, even about the very attractive count. Sometimes this is roll-your-eyes-in-your-head cliche, sometimes very funny. It all adds up to an amusing romp and a great antidote to the "Jane Austen and Anna Karenina do vampires/werewolves, etc. etc." genre. Readers remain unclear as to whether this is a vampire novel, another gothic romance or just a plain vanilla romance right up to the last page. Great fun, even if it's not Great Literature. 3.8 stars. TIOLI for the "almost horror" category.

#46: Congratulations!

Congratulations from me too on getting the new Simon Winchester book. I went to Amazon to look for a description and liked the reference to it as a "biography of the Atlantic Ocean." Hope it turns out to be good.

Also glad you liked The Shape of Water. Need to try this.

Am v. pleased about it as the non-fiction options have been rather skimpy of late. I thought they were going to have the new Michael Cunningham book available also, but it's the audio CDs. So I opted for Charles Todd's new book instead, and will get By Nightfall in my next BookSwim package. Argh, I now have a big backlog of Vine books -- 19 unreviewed, of which I could review about 3 right now. Three more I don't plan to review. The rest all require reading... along with the last ER book from September. *eyes roll*

Congratulations on scoring the new Winchester book.

I agree with your assessment of The Quickening Maze, which was one of my least favorite novels from last year's Booker Dozen.

Darryl, it reminded me a lot of this year's February, very beautiful prose but ultimately not much substance. I felt a bit curmudgeonly with my rating, but honestly, I felt short-changed by this.

Have you been noticing that the vine list is getting skimpier?
Or do you think we get different ones.. even for leftovers??
I am wondering if the program is phasing out..

Kath, I did wonder when I saw some others who had Vine books last year and who didn't have their new Vine offerings up for grabs this year. But then I see books by Walter Mosley, Michael Cunningham, Paul Auster, Simon Winchester, Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, A.S. Byatt, Alison Weir, Ken Follett, Joseph Ellis, Antonia Fraser, Anne Perry, Elizabeth Peters, Charles Todd, Alexander McCall Smith, Jane Smiley, David Mitchell, Alan Furst as well as some new entrants with lots of buzz like Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise and Skippy Dies and I'm less worried. It always feels as if there isn't much, because these get swamped by the self-help legal books and all the juvenile offerings, the YA, the toilet paper and weird drinks, etc. And I admit I've had about three months of baaad targeted newsletters, though when I looked back 18 months, it wasn't much different. I just had a few months where it was agonizing to make a decision!

OK, here are the books du jour:

1. Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears. I greatly relished this long and complex novel, despite its perhaps over-ambitious scope. Not only does Pears weave together three separate stories separated by centuries -- one in the late 400s, as the Roman Empire is going through its final death throes; one in the runup to the great plague of 1348 and the fourth in the years leading up to the Nazi occupation of France -- but it's also one where the plot revolves around philosophy as much as dramatic action or tension, or at least where the latter derive from the former. What makes it work is Pears's mastery of the material and his sheer skill. It's not perfect, and there were some moments where I'd say, impatiently, yeah, I understand that Manlius in the 5th century, Olivier in the 14th century and Julien in the 20th century all face similar challenges of resistance vs acquiescence/collaboration during periods of intense social upheaval -- the kind of upheaval that leads people living through it to query whether the world is about to end. The stories aren't sequential, but interwoven, so that each reaches its climax at about the same time in the book. I really loved this; it may only be a 4 star book, but its haunting/mesmerizing qualities are making me bump it up to 4.4 stars. It's going to be hard to forget, and there is some good writing and great feats of imagination. I also loved Pears's ability to capture the spirit of Provence over centuries, and his great command of the history. Excellent; recommended to anyone with a taste for history in their fiction, and who doesn't demand that it be all drama and battles and doomed love affairs. TIOLI 20th century book, for my off-the-shelf challenge.

2. Stradivari's Genius by Toby Faber. This is another case of a book that could cause me to bump up the rating out of sentiment, but it's a bit easier to restrain this time. Snapped this up in the Harvard Coop after reading Eric Siblin's book at the beginning of the year about the Bach unaccompanied cello suites, and Paul Adams's novels featuring a luthier (maker of string instruments), the second of which I snapped up this year and which is very good. Faber uses the progress through time of six of Stradivarius's instruments, made from the late 17th to the early 18th century, five violins and one cello (one played today by Yo-Yo Ma; I had his recording of the Bach suites in the background while I read this...) I admit finding myself a bit lost in the technical details of violin making in the early chapters, but as soon as the story moved beyond Cremona and Faber began showing how the instruments began taking different paths, and how those paths were shaped by the music they were called on to perform, the virtuosos and collectors (and oddities!) who owned them, I was caught up in the book. I knew that the "Messiah", now 300 years old, has famously almost never been played -- but wasn't familiar with the questions surrounding its authenticity. (Who knew that dendrologists have become important in the violin trade?) For that matter, who knew that the founder of Goldman Sachs bought Yehudi Menuhin his first Strad? Or that the players compare the relationship with their instrument to marriages? Or...? But the list goes on and on. Faber wrestles with the question of why we haven't had another Stradivarius emerge (is the varnish?) but says the answer can't be to just rely on centuries-old instruments. Fascinating and provocative. Who knew that a millionaire would buy a wonderful concert-quality violin -- and then keep it at home, not loan it to concert-quality players? I could go on, but won't -- just read the book for yourself if this sounds at all intriguing to you. 4.2 stars, TIOLI 21st century challenge.

Wow, these both sound good. I found both of your reviews very intriguing!

I have got to dig out my copy of The Dream of Scipio. Adding Stradivari's Genius to the BlackHole too. Thanks, Suz!

I picked up a couple of books in the leftover newsletter..
nothing that made my day though..

Dropped in to Strand to see what was there, ahead of my self-imposed November "no book buying ban".

Came home with discount copies of
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Clandestine in Chile by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Persona Non Grata by Ruth Downie
The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri (the only one of the series I could find...)
and two review editions of books scheduled to be released next month:
The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
Bridge of Spies by Giles Whittell

Looks like some great additions! The Distant Hours especially looks good. I also just wishlisted The Great War and Modern Memory which I saw you recommended on another thread. (I'm very nostalgic for NYC today--the Morgan Library and the Strand. . . .)

Books du jour:

1. A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny: OK, for the first time I'm starting to understand what all the fuss is about. Perhaps it's because this, the fourth book in the series, has Three Pines only as a backdrop? Definitely because there is a lot less of this jarring and distracting hopping around between points of view, and less relapsing into whimsicality. Partly because of the setting, the Manoir de Bellechasse, which reminds me of places I've visited in Quebec. (Admit I was humming "Gens du pays" at parts of the story...) I thought Penny was more focused on writing a mystery and less torn between doing that and telling stories about Three Pines's larger-than-life inhabitants. So I'm doing what I didn't think I'd do, and giving this a rating above 4 stars -- 4.1, to be precise! And thus shall read on to The Brutal Telling... TIOLI "TIOLI reads" challenge

2. The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore is another tour de force by this author, in which we follow Anna and Andrei in the perilous early 1950s. They no longer need to struggle just to stay alive -- or do they? In this case, the enemy isn't winter or hunger, but the much more complex world of power and politics. It's a world the tiny family tries to ignore and shun, but then Andrei is caught in a bind -- whether to treat the gravely-ill son of one of the city's most powerful rulers, with the risks that entails, or betray his sense of duty and conscience. I can see why some prefer The Siege, which is more focused and slightly less familiar territory, but in many ways this struck me as more powerful book, because at its heart it deals with human emotions and how we react when what we cherish or possess is threatened, as well as our greed. And it does so in ways that are never maudlin or sentimental, and against a backdrop (late Stalinist Russia) that would have been v.v. easy to reduce to clichés. Excellent novel, and one that has forced me to reevaluate my Man Booker list again, with my top three picks being Room, The Finkler Question and this novel. I wouldn't want to have had to pick between them -- and I haven't even read the David Mitchell book yet! 4.9 stars, 0.1 star deducted only because the author has to keep filling in the background for those who hadn't read the first book before picking this up. My advice: don't do that. Read them both in order, not because you'll find this book hard to follow, but because you'll be missing out on another excellent novel. TIOLI for the "20th Century book" category.

#59: Nice haul, Suz!

#61: Glad to see you enjoyed The Betrayal. I am one of the ones who preferred The Siege, but only marginally. I thought the books made a great duology and they are keepers for me.

Whoops, forgot to post this one, which I finished earlier in the week. Just realized I hadn't noted it here when I was re-shelving it and, at the same time, checking what other books still linger for my "off-the-shelf" challenge...

Love and Garbage has to be one of the longest-lasting books on my TBR pile. I think I bought around 1991/1992, definitely at Book City in Toronto, from their discount table. Am rapping my knuckles for not delving into this sooner, although perhaps I wouldn't have found so much in here to relish had I read it when younger? At any event, the narrator (whose own life bears some resemblance to Klima's own, including being incarcerated at Thereseinstadt during WW2) is a middle-aged man, a writer who can't be published and can't find work except as a garbage collector/street sweeper. It's a complex and multi-layered story, which moves rapidly (sometimes jarringly so) in time and space, but in essence deals with the narrator's being torn between his wife and his lover and the demands that both make on him, as well as his effort to make some kind of sense of the world around him, through language and through garbage. He rejects what he calls "jerkish" slogans, noting that freedom is a slogan, not something that is increasing in society. "All that increases is the needless movement of things, words, garbage and violence." And of all the world's garbage "that swamps us and threatens us by its breath of decay, the most dangerous are the masses of discarded ideas." If you're looking for a novel with a clear, linear plot, this ain't it. It's bleak and ultimately, a bit inconclusive. But its thoughtful and elegantly written, and has lots of moments in it where a reader pauses, catches his/her breath and says, "yes, that's exactly how it feels/what it's like." 4.4 stars, recommended to those with a taste for this kind of writing. (Darryl? Rebecca?). TIOLI for a book set in Prague, belongs in my off-the-shelf challenge.

#63: I will look for that one, even though I am not Darryl or Rebecca :)

Stasia, it all hinges on your tolerance for "bleak"! Not that this is bleak in an oppressive sense (no casual brutality/abuse/incest themes here) but just in an overarching/spreading sense of futility. That said, I did enjoy it (if that's the right verb...) and will try to find some more of Klima's novels.

Curiously, someone had mentioned previously about links between books. When I was reading Antonia Fraser's memoir, I came across some of her diary entries from 1988, where she and Pinter met Klima, among others, at a Czech PEN event (though most of the chit-chat is about Havel.) It's amazing how few Czech writers are known here -- Kafka, Kundera and Havel. Ditto Hungarians. Makes me wonder who else is out there to discover in the lands between Germany & Russia! Romanian authors? Yes, Czeslaw Milosz was a Pole/Lithuanian, but how many others are there out there? I shall have to look into this post-Habsburg empire literature question... in my free time...

Speaking of Czech writers, I recently read Life with a Star by Jiri Weil. If you have not tried any of his, Suz, I would recommend that one.

>61 Chatterbox:: enjoyed your review of The Betrayal. I need to read this one soon. I bought it in a burst of Booker longlist enthusiasm but have been reading other things.

I am still refusing to acknowledge bleak right now...still trying to keep things light.. Maybe next year my brain juice will be better able to handle it.

Just popping in to try to keep up with you :)

Nice review of The Betrayal, Suz. I'll read that within the next couple of months, after I read The Siege next month. I'm adding Love and Garbage, and Life with a Star, to my wish list (LizzieD wrote a great review of the latter book a few days ago).

Suzanne, I think you nailed why I preferred The Siege to The Betrayal -- the siege of Leningrad was less familiar territory for me than the Stalinist purges. But I agree that both are excellent: beautifully written, well researched, and psychologically astute.

As for "bleak" and Klima, I know I have some other Klima sitting around that I haven't read; you're inspiring me to move them up (they've also been sitting around for a while) and maybe also look for Love and Garbage.

Suz- Great review of The Betrayal. I need to get to this author, so I just ordered The Siege. I just finished and reviewed Room. It was excellent. Have a great day!

Glad you liked A Rule Against Murder better, Suzanne. I liked Still Life but wasn't as fond of A Fatal Grace and haven't gotten any further.

Will look for The Betrayal after I finish The Seige.

I think I will be adding Love and Garbage to my list, too. I already have his Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light not just on the list, but actually on the TBR shelf, moving gradually towards the left (I try to order them and just read the next one, although this doesn't always work), and this one sounds good, too.

It's amazing what a TIOLI challenge will do! I was looking around my shelves for something Prague-related -- I didn't feel like reading Kafka -- and there it was, sitting unread for more than 20 years... Poor Klima!

Had a weird dream last night -- in the case that I was on jury duty for, the lawyers decided that there wasn't a settlement after all and all the jurors were summoned back to the courthouse. It wasn't until we got there that we were told why, and that we couldn't leave until the case had been heard and we'd reached a verdict. LOL!

Now that I finished with The Siege I am looking forward to The Betrayal. Why had I never read anything by Helen Dunmore before? Well on to her now so I'll have to look for some of her earlier novels.

I had to be talked into reading The Siege because I really didn't like the other Helen Dunmore I read, With Your Crooked Heart. But now that I'm such a fan of both The Siege and The Betrayal, I might try some of her other work too.

If you would like some recommendations for East European literature, here are some of my favorites:

Bohumil Hrabal Czech
Too Loud a Solitude
Closely Watched Trains

Arnost Lustig Czech
anything- mostly Holocaust literature

Czeslaw Milosz Polish/Lithuanian
You mention him, but in addition to his poetry have you read his semi-autobiographical novel The Issa Valley?

Henryk Sienkiewicz Polish, Nobel Prize winner
Quo Vadis (amazing) early Christians in Rome
With Fire and Sword first in trilogy

Sandor Marai Hungarian
Embers

Stanislaw Lem Polish
Solaris sci-fi
Hospital of the Transfiguration didn't care for as much

Jiri Grusa Czech
The Questionnaire

Ismail Kadare Albanian
Chronicle in Stone brutal but good

Milorad Pavic Serbian
Dictionary of the Khazars two editions, male and female
Landscape Painted with Tea

Josef Skvorecky Czech
Engineer of Human Souls

Jaroslav Hasek Czech
Good Soldier Svejk reminded me to Catch-22

Danilo Kis Serbian
Encyclopedia of the Dead

Slavenka Drakulic Croatian
How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed woman under communist rule

If you would like some suggestions for Holocaust literature, Russian, or Jewish East European literature, let me know. Hope you find something to whet your appetite!

Edited to try and fix touchstone.

Thank you! Skoverecky I know, but tend to think of him as more of a Canadian writer (as I think some Czechs also do..., or at least an expat writer, more so than Kundera.) Hasek is great; I have read Drakulic and Kadare. But definitely will look for Kis, Pavic, Hrabal and Grusa!! Hasek/Sienkiewicz I always think of being interwar authors, akin to Roth and Zweig, but coming from the local tradition vs that of the German or Russian "occupiers".

Have to admit I'm a bit overwhelmed by Holocaust literature. At the end of the day, almost none of it can really address the magnitude of what happened, and the few books that do accomplish that -- well, you don't need two dozen novels dealing with that theme, unless it's a dramatically different way. So much of what I've read in that area either ends up feeling overly sentimental, overly dramatic, or else is cast in a narrative structure that feels old. I'm always glad when I come across an exception -- eg in films, Costa-Gavras's "Amen."

I am interested in reading more contemporary -- eg post-Pasternak -- Russian authors. One of these decades -- when I get my Russian to the point where I can read more than the occasional short story with dictionary firmly grasped in my hand!

OK, I have obviously been infected by that ultra-contagious Stasia Reading Virus.

Read 57 books this month. Horrifying, but true. Had 18 shared reads in TIOLI, which was cool. Not even going to count the book that I'll likely finish before midnight to this month's total; it's absurd enough as it is.

Too bad the other two final reads of the year were disappointing, for similar reasons: both had fascinating premises, then failed to deliver in as compelling a fashion.

1. A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church. I picked this one up after sampling the first chapter (gotta love Kindle...) and because the concept was so quirky -- imagine a North Korean detective out there solving crimes in downtown Pyongyang. Sadly, the book is half over by the time the corpse in the title pops up, and by then Inspector O has been rambling over North Korea from town to town, for reasons that even by the end are never precisely clear. The narrative is WAAY too disjointed to be possible to follow, and I kept wondering what the another (his name is a pseudonym) was up to. I still rated it 3 stars because he does a good job of capturing what (I imagine) is the ambiance of policing in a police state, and life in the country. But there's not enough narrative tension to make this a good book for me. I may try the second in the series, but not for a while and then only if I find a free copy.

2. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. After being pleasantly surprised by Lippman's new novel (a free ARC!), I picked up this one. Hmmm. Again, a disjointed narrative, so every few chapters I had to pause and reorient myself in time and space (and sometimes, character...) The concept: in 1975, two young girls, aged 15 and 12, disappear from a Baltimore mall and are never seen again. Until one day a woman involved in a hit and run, and without any ID, claims to be one of the Bethany sisters. But can she prove it? Can the police trust her, or the story she is telling? It's a very intriguing premise of the long afterlife of family tragedies, and a great puzzle to unravel, but Lippman really doesn't do as much as she could with it -- or rather, tries to do too much. It picked up pace in the final chapters, and there's a very deft resolution. Sadly, Lippman never paved the way for that conclusion, so I ended up feeling cheated. A compelling enough read, but ultimately empty. Not really recommended; 2.9 stars.

catching up on your thread, Suz. I loved your review of Stradivari's Genius .. that's definitely up my alley and I've added it to my obese wish list.

And by the way ... welcome to the Louise Penny club. ;-) Hope you continue to enjoy the others in the series.

57 books this month? I'm sure there are several dozen 75ers that haven't read 57 books this year.

The next question, of course, is: How many books has Stasia read this month?

Darryl, alas, she is no longer adding them up on the frog-o-meter. I'm afraid to do so just in case the virus has actually caused me to read more than she did. Unlikely, but...

Final book of the month (completed at about 12:10 a.m.!)
Beachcombers by Nancy Thayer. This was originally intended as an ER book, but since it never showed up... (this was an April book!) I eventually broke down and borrowed a copy. It's OK; predictable chick lit fare and I've seen Thayer do better in some of her early books. Three women and their 50-something father live in a house on Nantucket; a woman battling her own demons rents the cottage in their garden. Various emotional entanglements ensue. Everyone lives happily ever after. Thayer can write quite well, so this is a notch above the norm, but it's a plot driven by emotion, not characters or events. Nantucket is the real star of the show and I ended wondering how soon I could move there to live year-round? 3.3 stars.

#82: I only read 42 books in October, Suz, so obviously I did not give the virus to you - you gave it to me :)

#78 Of the authors from my list that you haven't read, Hrabal is my favorite. I think his short novel Too Loud a Solitude is great. Closely Watched Trains is more popular, in part because a nice movie was made from it, I think. Another of his books, I Served the King of England was more humorous, but I liked it the least.

Holocaust lit is not for everyone, so I left it off the list, with the exception of Lustig, who is an amazing writer, and Holocaust survivor, who writes "fiction".

I'm less conversant on contemporary Russian lit: the closer it is to the 19th century, the more likely I am to like it! I heartily cheer your resolve to read in Russian--my own foreign language skills have deteriorated so from disuse that they are practically useless. I keep telling myself I should make an effort to regain some ability, but I never seem to find/make the time. *sigh*

#85 -- I really miss French-language television. In NY, it sometimes seems we have every language BUT French -- lots of Spanish, Chinese, Korean, etc. and sometimes even Russian (though I think you have to pay $30 a month or something) but NO FRENCH. Very irritating. It's why I had resolved to read more French this year, though I haven't been very good at it.

Succumbed to the season and turned on the heating just now. Temp outside is the 40s; indoors in my office it had fallen to 57 from about 63 over the weekend. I generally prefer it to be cooler, but 57 is just silly.

There is a French language channel, but I forget where it is or what it is - it might be a premium channel that you have to pay for. In fact, I think you do have to pay for it because I once got a promotion offering me one month free. But, as I go around the dial, I have seen a free channel that at least some of the time has news in French. Maybe just Time-Warner -- do you have that in Bklyn?

I have DirecTV. Am thinking of switching to Time-Warner, but didn't see any French content on there. There is a Swiss channel, called Channel 5, I think (???), but it is starting to feel like one of those urban legends... My ex-bf used to tape stuff on CBC's French network and send it to me, which was fab. I especially loved their book discussions, "Bouillon de culture", but think it is off the air now. Panel of 5 or so really intelligent people sitting around and discussing serious books, fiction and non-fiction -- like watching a different kind of book club!

Just checked the TW web site. Channel 555 is part of their International Premium package and is called TV5 Monde (French). You can get it separately for $9.95/month, per the web site. Channel # might be different in Bklyn than in upper Manhattan.

Yes, I remember that show. My French wasn't good enough to follow it, but it was fun to try. And the host was the quintessential French intellectual, wasn't he?

I think my decision is made, then... TV5, that's the one. I'll have to get that installed sometime in the new year, at least downstairs.
Yes! I think his name was Pivot -- Bernard Pivot? And yeah, it challenged my French, as well, but it pushed me to try. Not so much the vocabulary, but the pace at which the ideas flew from one person to the next. Which was why it was great to have it taped. I'm sure there was a v. good reason why that relationship with the taper-of-programs ended, but right now I'm struggling to recall what it was!!

Glad you enjoyed A Rule Against Murder! I enjoyed it too, although some of the characters were such awful people that I wanted to smack them. They seemed more human by the end of the book, though.

Book du jour:

Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson. For me, this was a rather unsatisfactory sequel to Miss Buncle's Book, which I loved. Perhaps because the story is less focused and more pedestrian -- Miss Buncle and her new husband move to a new home in a village, and the story is about her direct involvement in the lives of those around her. It's kind of like what happens after "happily ever after". It's still comfort reading, warm and fuzzy. But there's an irritating conclusion, to me, at least, in which Miss Buncle seems to admit that her writing and her books were just a way of filling time and not really necessary to her wellbeing -- a means to an end rather than an end. I suppose I shouldn't expect much more from a book originally published in 1936, but the whole tone of it got on my nerves a bit. Hence I'm only giving it 3.4 stars. TIOLI for a "second life" category.

I pulled a Caro and had a stupid accident. Walking home after running errands, I had to turn my shopping cart to one side to avoid an idiotic pedestrian too involved in talking to one friend beside her and another on her cell phone she had no time to look around her. Sure enough, the pavement slabs were all of different heights, the cart stuck, and I couldn't stop myself from falling over it. Bashed both knees, one has these weird bumps coming up. Kind of hot-feeling and sore. Hopefully just a new form of the normal bruising, but... Oh well, no insurance, so that is all it had better be! And of course this happens just after I was feeling pleased with myself that I can finally walk for about an hour without feeling even a twinge from my hip where I wrenched it in July. Bah humbug.

Hum bahbug indeed! Cold compresses applied already, no doubt, but *there there, pat pat* anyway.

Thank you... *sniff sniff* You'll be glad to learn, Richard, that it's all because of the cats. Had it not been for a need for kitty litter, I would not have needed the shopping cart, and could have dodged idiot pedestrian adeptly. Sigh.

OK, I'm off to read Louise Penny. At least I don't live in Three Pines and thus am unlikely to be murdered and dumped in a bistro.

*ignoring the insulting 'pulling a caro' remark* ........

I can offer some Neosporin and bandages, Suz. Do you have a magnifying glass? Perhaps you should look at the abrasions to make sure there aren't any smashed bugs in them ... could be the cause of the hot-feeling? Keep your legs raised and iced.

Snagged an ER copy of Princess of Nowhere by Lorenzo Borghese about his ancestress (I presume) Pauline Borghese. She was the sister of Napoleon, and a patron of Paganini. Novel, not history - we shall see!

Hope the swelling goes down soon and mobility is back to full shortly, Suz!

heat!! applied to the back and also within hot chocolate..
that makes anything feel better on a cold day. I fall way too often..and sympathize.

Stradivari's Genius may be a gift for my son's birthday..I have to try to find out if he has it already.

okay.. gotta run and get ready to leave early so I can vote.

Ouch! Hope the knees are okay!

Okay, it's officially catching...I Caro'ed this morning and slipped as I was Auntie-lifting. Damn little bitty rugs!

Hope you're feeling better today, Suzanne.

Sore and achey, Pat, but no permanent damage done! Tigger-the-terror-cat decided that I would make a good bed, so I kept waking up and finding him asleep on my back -- and digging in his claws every time I tried to dislodge the 15 pounds of cat. So now all I need is a good night's sleep.

#102: I hope you get a good night's sleep tonight, Suz. Maybe Tigger can sleep in another room?

#100 : Richard - Caro-the-All-Powerful sez ... do not step on itty bitty rugs when lifting large rather unstable objects and you will not slip.Or ... put a non-slip mat under said rugs if you must keep those bug traps around.

*magnanimously ignoring yet another insult!.... feeling no love...*

#102 : Glad to hear that there's been no permanent damage, Suz ... hope you managed to get some sleep ...without Tigger treating your back like pizza dough.

Tigger sleeps where he wants to sleep. Otherwise we are all treated to endless Tigger-howls. I can only hope he chooses to sleep elsewhere...

Books du jour:

1. The Last White Rose by Desmond Seward is an intriguing look at the ongoing threats to the Tudor dynasty during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, after the former narrowly defeated Richard III at Bosworth. Probably it's of interest only to those already curious and somewhat familiar with the period, but I found it got more and more intriguing. The picture of Henry VIII given here is a VERY far cry from that in the TV miniseries, The Tudors: Seward paints him as pathologically paranoid, the kind of guy who bumps off potential rivals/claimants to the throne or anyone with even a smidgen of royal blood, preferably before going away on campaign -- just in case. (The final victim? A 65-year-old lady who was the last Plantagenet princess, had been his first wife's confidante and his daughter's governess.) In contrast, Henry VII preferred mercy whenever it was possible -- pragmatically figuring that more flies are caught with sugar, etc. It's a thorough look at all the various threats to the Tudor throne, only some of which I had been familiar with. It provides a fresh context to understand Henry VIII's desperate need for a son to inherit the throne -- after all, the questions surrounding the Tudor's legitimate status lasted for all but a few of the 85 years that followed the battle of Bosworth, amazingly. It's astonishing how we sometimes overlook historical facts that were so vital at the time when we look back at eras like the 16th century. 4.1 stars, but only recommended to those with an interest in the period. TIOLI history book.

I'll review the other two together, as they overlap to a surprising degree:
2. The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre
3. An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris by Georges Perec
Both of these are autumnal looks (the former set in November, the latter taking place in late October) at ordinary, daily life in Paris and its suburbs, written with different goals and perspectives, but both written almost entirely as a stream of consciousness and both leaving the reader a kind of melancholic, reflective mood. The first is a short novel/novella, with Pierre, the narrator, providing a running commentary on his final days working for a small bar/restaurant opposite the train station in a suburb of Paris. The 'patron' disappears, and Pierre's carefully-ordered life is threatened. He loves the order -- he wipes the countertop of his bar even when there's no need, simply because that is what he does, and greets the same customers every day. There's relatively little drama here -- except beneath the surface, between the lines. It's all there for the reader to imagine. The same is true of Perec's decision to spend three days sitting in the Place St Sulpice (a part of Paris I know very well) and take notes on everything that happens, from a woman passing by carefully holding flowers upside down by their stems (I'd completely forgotten that way of carrying flowers until I read his comments) to the daily special chalked on a board outside a nearby cafe. I liked being able to read between the lines and imagine what was left unsaid -- the things that Perec couldn't know, the destinations of passers by, the identity of the tourists in their buses, etc. Sure, it's a sparse narrative, but conjuring up the scene in my mind's eye made me feel more like I was there than many novels have been able to do. I'd recommend the novella to anyone, the Perec with caution to those who know Paris or who are eager to fit their own narratives into its the holes left by its skeletal structure. Although short, both books took me hours to read, because I kept stopping to think about the sense of place they convey, to let my imagination kick in, or to rewind a few pages that I particularly liked and start again. 4.4 for the former, 3.6 for Perec.

You write such great reviews, Suz .... I popped in just to check on something, and peeked in your thread ...and now I've got to add all 3 to my obese wish list! Arrgghhh..... *fleeing before Suz decides to review any more books tonight*

Ooh, so happy you liked The Waitress Was New. Good luck with Tigger tonight.

"Tigger-howls", I think I'm kind of familiar with that. I have a cat who yowls LOUDLY, generally around 5am and then randomly throughout the day.

Hope things are going well with testing and shots.

I've started The Waitress Was New and am glad to see you liked it!

I'm glad to hear that you're "only" sore and achy, with no serious injury. I hope that your terror cat lets you sleep tonight!

Nice reviews of all three books, and I'm also glad that you liked The Waitress Was New. I'll add The Last White Rose Dynasty to my wish list.

I think Tigger-the-terror-cat is suffering from some kind of attachment disorder. I moved from the sofa (reading through a stack of papers), to my computer, and within 5 minutes, he had plopped himself on the desk, between my head and the monitor. I guarantee if I get up and go into the kitchen to get some dinner, he'll follow me there. Then if I head upstairs to the living room, Tigger will serve as escort-cat, to make sure I don't trip over anything en route. And I can pretty much guarantee he'll demand a spot on the bed somewhere. I just want to discourage my back from BECOMING the bed. Sigh.

All of mine have howls/loud meows in different circumstances and for different reasons. Cassie, when she's doing her "feed me my Greenie treats NOW" dance; Jasper when he is feeling lonely or protective of his "baby" (a finger puppet that he thinks is his kitten), Molly, when she wants to be fed or feels neglected, and Tigger when he decides he wants to play in traffic or otherwise do stupid cat things and is foiled.

Hehehe, Caro, the book bullets are revenge for your skepticism about the planned book fast! But no worries, no more coming tonight. I'm still reading The Brutal Telling. It's OK, but isn't going to convince me that Louise Penny is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Although I admit that she has reminded me of the existence of the music of Beau Dommage and I'm bopping around and listening to "Chinatown" and "23 Decembre" right now. (Check it out on YouTube).

#105: I will have to look for the Seward book for Linda, who loves all things Tudor. Thanks for the recommendation, Suz.

Hope your knees feel better soon...I'm chuckling over your cat escort...my dog gets needy/clingy pretty often and at times will even stand in front of the book I'm trying to read!

Book du jour: The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny. I'm still ambivalent about the Three Pines series. There were bits of this book that I liked very much indeed, but they tended to be the "back story", rather than the mystery, which I found extremely convoluted and a bit overstrained. I don't think Richard and I share the same objections to the plot -- I think his focus on the solution to the crime that Penny decides on, while mine go to the hyperbole, overdrawn characters, etc. that I've mentioned before. Still, it was a decent read, if not so compelling that I had to walk around with it held in front of my face rather than put it down to feed cats or myself. I do like the way Penny reminds me about things about Quebec I had forgotten -- listened to Beau Dommage & Harmonium last night. 3.8 stars, for TIOLI alphabetical challenge. Re serendipitous links between reading: this book had elements of Czech history (re last month's TIOLI Prague challenge) and a tie to a book I read last month about Stradivarius. Go figure!

checking in... hope knees and cats are well..

knees still achey, cats lazy and sleepy. Situation normal, Kath; thanks for checking in! Am about to go and join one of the lazy cats in a nap on the sofa...

ETA: My ER book arrived today -- already!! -- as well as my two Amazon Vine picks from last week, so I'm well prepared for the 45-day book buying fast...

napping with cats is highly recommended...
I got my Vine books too ...
not the ER yet...

the 45-day book buying fast LOLOL Oh, I am so lovin' this little trope! Like it'll last. *snort*

Hey, three days and counting. You know what they say -- one day at a time.

That said, I did borrow five library books. Good buying-substitute.

Here's a question -- has anyone every played around with Google Maps, checking out places they knew long ago?? I can say that the block of flats I lived in in London in the 70s hasn't changed whatsoever; but the grad school in Japan I went to in 83/84 (and haven't gone near in 25 years) has changed out of all recognition. I eventually realized the difference -- there are REAL TREES! What used to be waist-high saplings on former rice paddies are now real trees. Horrors, I have found an entirely new way to waste time online...

apologies for the non-book post!

#119: apologies for the non-book post!

Why are you apologizing? It is your thread after all!

#119 - yes of course I have. I grew up in a new suburban housing development/town, where all the trees were tiny sticks, there were no playgrounds (although the developers had promised to put one at each of the 5 grade schools, they never did), nothing growing on the islands, identikit houses. Now, 50 years later, it is starting to look like a place - lots of pretty big trees, houses with different types of extensions, different colors, some interesting plants on the islands, bigger schools with real playgrounds, etc. My old house even looks completely different. It's pretty weird. I have fantasies of knocking on the door and asking if I can look inside. I almost did it when my mother died (in 2002) but chickened out. Maybe another time. Have never bothered to look at my university, because of course it won't have changed a bit and I'll get all nostalgic.

>119 Chatterbox:: absolutely! Every once in a while I visit the house we lived in in England. For a while we wondered if the image was showing one of our cars ... now there's a new image.

I just visited the neighborhood where I grew up ... wow. OK, I'd really better get back to work !!

Glad to know that it isn't just me that succumbs to a bout of pointless nostalgia!

Need everyone to cross their fingers, toes, paws, etc. for Jasper, who just isn't responding to insulin yet. Am trying to save him from 2 days incarcerated at the vet's (and myself from the cost) so bought a new bottle of insulin (in case that's the problem) today for $100... Good thing I'm going on the book fast - I wouldn't be able to afford new books!

(book buying fast report: 4 days and counting)

Hope things go well with Jasper, Suzanne. I've never had a pet that needed insulin but used to have two dogs who both developed kidney disease at the same time (they were 13 and related) and we had to do a form of dialysis at home. If it didn't go well they also had to spend time at the vet. So anyway, I sympathize with what you're going through.

Have to laugh at the book fasting report. I don't think I could do it.

Hello Suzanne, starting to make my way through the threads. I won't say catching up because that will be impossible :)

Poor Jasper .... all appendages are crossed and a little candle lit for him. Ok, so the candle is a Glade but i'm sure it has some good luck properties for ailing kitties.

*mention of your book fast still makes me break out in a grin* ...but I'm proud of you for making it to 4 days so far.

Is anyone else having trouble with the site today? Slow response times, error messages, being timed out??

Some of my final pre-orders from Amazon US arrived today; there are still a few books to arrive from London.

Bonnie, the Helen Dunmore book went into the mail to you today... finally!

Will update my reading when the website decides to cooperate...

Nope, sorry Suz ... I'm not having any issues ..... yet. *skulks away before site-troll finds me*

:( all my furkids are crossing paws for Jasper..
me too!

I do that with Google maps, too, only I just wander around NW New Jersey and the shore towns. Not really very interesting at all, just nostalgic.

We'll keep everything crossed here for Jasper, too. Staying at the vet's is no fun for anybody...

Wow! Someone else has problems with the site, for once, not me!! W00t! Oh wait...I mean, so sorry, Suzanne.

OK, things seem to be moving faster now. (It was probably Richard -- I managed to shift the problems to further out on Long Island...)

Books du jour:

1. Sacred Treason by James Forrester. This is the fictional debut of historian Ian Mortimer. It's perfectly fine, and Tudor-a-holics will enjoy it, I suspect. The Clarenceux King of Arms (i.e., a herald) is caught up in protecting a mysterious chronicle that for some reason Francis Walsingham and William Cecil want to destroy in order to protect Queen Elizabeth. But why? To save his life and those of his nearest and dearest, Clarenceux has to stay one step ahead of those chasing him and figure out the mystery. Forrester isn't as good in dealing with the suspense genre as he is with plain old history (at one point I found myself rolling my eyes and saying to myself -- not ANOTHER coded message plot development!) but it's a reasonable mystery beneath it all, despite those flaws and an overly abrupt resolution to a plot element in the last two or three pages, and Forrester's unfamiliar take on the heroes and villains (Walsingham is among the latter and Forrester is an unabashed supporter of the beleagured Catholics of Elizabeth's reign, of whom Clarenceux is one) makes it fresher and more interesting. The actual puzzle is a bit far-fetched, but no more so than those presented by many other novelists with far less thorough scholarly credentials than Forrester. A mildly entertaining read, 3.8 stars, recommended for genre/historical fiction fans. I admit I prefer the novels of Rory Clement (eg, Revenger, Martyr), set a few decades later in Elizabeth's England, but this was entertaining. TIOLI for the history boo challenge.

2. Bridge of Spies by Giles Whittell. The author takes as his subject the first of the Cold War spy swaps in early 1962. Three spies (or those dubbed spies by their captors) were exchanged simultaneously, of whom one is known to anyone who has studied this period -- Gary Francis Powers, pilot of the U-2 spy plane shot down over Russia a few years earlier -- and one is likely to be utterly unknown and probably ends up in these pages only because of the accident of being involved in the spy swap. (He was a college student completing a PhD in Berlin, arrested as the Berlin Wall went up; the book devotes fewer than a dozen pages to Fred Pryor's briefer ordeal.) This could have been a better book, but it's still worth reading if you're curious about spying in the Cold War. When it works, it's as a history of the U-2 spy plane program and the arguments over the 'missile gap' in US foreign policy (a lively story, as it turns out!) and the simultaneous/parallel efforts by a Russian illegal to repair the nuclear espionage network that the Soviets had been running in the US in the 1940s. Alas, "Rudolf Abel" was rather inept, so there isn't a lot of drama in that story. The problem is that the book's focus on the spy swap as the central event means Whittell commits himself to tell a story about three people whose experiences don't have much in common beyond that event. So there's no broader narrative arc to the book, which became more frustrating for me the further along I read. The U-2 incident had broader ramifications, which Whittell explores in an interesting manner, and that made me wish he had made this the focus of the book. He also passes up the chance to do more than hint at the questions his three case studies bring up -- what is the nature of espionage, and how did that change in the Cold War? Abel was the "traditional" spy, leaving chalk marks on walls/trees, etc., but Powers, 70,000 feet above the ground in his specially-made protective flying suit and top secret aircraft, was the more successful one -- even though he thought of himself as an aviator. And then there was Pryor, whose studies of the foreign trade systems of Soviet-bloc countries probably did make him an "economic spy" -- an idea that Whittell disposes of in passing. This is well-written, the anecdotes are fascinating and the story is lively, but there's just no broader point to it, so I can't give it 4 stars, as I want to. 3.6 stars -- recommended with the above caveats. TIOLI History book challenge.

I'm going to vent for a few seconds here. Don't you hate it when there is one tiny factoid that makes you question every other fact in a book, because the author has made an error on something that is SO EASY to get right? In this case, Whittell states in his introduction, in a sentence thrown in there even thought this took has nothing to do with World War 1, a reference to the Christmas Truce of 1916. ZAPPPPP.... The famous Christmas truce occurred in 1914! There was even a recent movie about it!! How could anyone writing about military history who is familiar with the fact that there WAS a truce, possibly get it wrong?? Especially because the importance of it was that it took place during the first year of trench warfare, and that after that no officers permitted fraternization of any kind -- the gentlemanly rules of warfare were gone for good. I didn't pick up any other errors elsewhere in the book, but it meant that I started into this book with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth and Whittell had to earn my trust from the very start. Perhaps another reason for the lower-than-otherwise ranking.

Thanks for all the crossed paws for Jasper. It's time for the evening bloodletting (whoops -- meant the blood TESTING...)

More crossed paws for Jasper . . .

Love that gif, Stas.

How's Jasper, Suz? Good news? Can I uncross my toes yet ... it's making me walk a tad wobbly

No good news on Jasper. Blood glucose should be between 100 and 150; the lowest it has been was 381 last night and it was up at 450 this morning. If I can't get it below 220 quickly, then it's into the vet's for a residential sojurn... Cross your pigtails, Caro??

Poor poor Jasper .... toes remain crossed (can't cross fingers again until I stop typing) and have my hair in a plait. I'm puzzled how Jasper's blood glucose could get so high.

Feline diabetes... that's how. The trick is getting it down low enough that it might reverse itself... the risk is that if it stays this high he'll end up with ketones (Darryl -- is my phrase right?) basically that the high glucose will destroy his organs.

Oo, sorry to hear Jasper is still not doing well. If I had pigtails, I would cross them. Will fingers do?

Argh. tonight's blood glucose was 582! How can it be so high? He isn't eating anything other than the special food (I've locked him out of my office & the kitchen to be sure) and he is getting insulin. It looks like a sojurn at the vet's is going to be needed, absent a giant improvement tomorrow.

Book du jour:
The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace. Read this on Richard's recommendation, but have to admit I didn't love it nearly as much as he did. Yes, the prose was stellar -- sparkling, elegant, beautiful. Which helped to mask the face that (for me, at least), it was essentially a fairy tale. Some fairy tales transcend that status and become stories that say a lot more about the human condition. To me, this one didn't. Yes, Wallace wrote poignantly about the plight of loss of sight, and about developing alternate ways of "seeing". But the metaphor was sometimes strained to breaking point, with nearly every character having issues relating to actual sight or sight as a metaphor for understanding. I also found the conclusion abrupt, especially when set beside the rest of the story -- it was as if a beautiful Chopin nocturne had ended in cacophany. I'm not sorry I read it, and I admire Wallace's way with a delicately-turned phrase. But coming after reading Helen Dumore's very different kind of books (yes, I admit, apples and orange) where beautiful and even haunting language stopped me in my tracks and never detracted from the story or her characters (or had to compensate for their flaws), this fell short. 3.8 stars, mostly because of the writing. I assume that most people will like this more than I did because it has a lot of charm and even whimsy. But neither of those really appealed when packaged in this form. To me, this was a book that had a cute story dressed up in elegant writing to look more 'literary' than it really is. There were certainly parts of the book that warrant being recalled and revisited, and they probably would have been had I enjoyed the reading more. TIOLI for a long title name of a post-2005 book.

Think I shall go off and relish some more Colm Toibin or try Nicole Krauss to compensate! Or a book where I know what to expect -- no one is trying consciously to wow me with their prose style.

Wow! I am sorry to hear Jasper's glucose level is still so high. It sounds like the vet visit might be the best thing for him at this point, sorry to say.

Also sorry to hear about Jasper's glucose levels remaining high. Maybe your tester is faulty?

Hope Jasper is better today and he doesn't need a holiday at the vet's.

The factoid thing being wrong drives me NUTS. Now I'm trying to remember where I last saw one... so now that is going to drive me nuts instead, because it was a few books ago. Spelling mistakes in people's names in non-fiction do that too - if they can't get the name right how much of an expert can they really be?

Later on I will right click on some of those other historical fiction touchstones...but not now. I am trying not to look till January!

#139 beautiful Chopin nocturne had ended in cacophany
Wow, I love that line, Suzanne, that really says it all. I become very intrigued with books which have received dissenting reviews, I'm more apt to investigate them and so it is with The Blind Contessa's New Machine. On to the wishlist.

My heart goes out to Jasper. As difficult as it is, perhaps it is a good idea for Jasper to have a little sojourn with the vet in order for them to monitor his fluctuating readings and address them with a different dosage. Good luck!

ETA: I am a google map geek! I love referring to it when I read a book taking place in a distant land. It helps me get a feel for the location and at times, the pics can be quite awesome.

Poor Jasper. :(

(#143 I look up places in books on Google maps too. I used to look them up in an Atlas, and only be able to see where the town big towns were. Google is much better!)

Stopped by to check in on Jasper. Hope things are looking up today.

>143 Carmenere: I do that, too! I've been checking out the Shetland Islands.

Hope you can get Jasper's glucose levels where they need to be without a trip to the vet.

#137: Feline diabetes... that's how. The trick is getting it down low enough that it might reverse itself... the risk is that if it stays this high he'll end up with ketones (Darryl -- is my phrase right?) basically that the high glucose will destroy his organs.

Ketones are molecules which form in states of absolute starvation (fasts or hunger strikes) or relative starvation (insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus). Insulin is a hormone that is required for cells to take in glucose, which is the main cellular energy source. If insulin isn't present in a sufficient level the cells can't take in glucose, which results in hyperglycemia (elevated serum glucose). In the short term this doesn't cause any problems, but chronic hyperglycemia can cause organ damage, especially to the eyes, kidneys, nerves, and blood vessels.

If the cells cannot take in glucose the body perceives itself as being in a state of starvation, and it then uses other sources to feed its cells, starting with the breakdown of proteins and fats, which generate ketones. These are easily measured in the blood and urine, and in diabetics this is called diabetic ketoacidosis. The acidosis can affect cellular and organ function, and can be fatal if left untreated.

Thanks! that is what the vet had told me and the details of which I had forgotten... Thankfully, there were no signs of ketone-related damage during the original blood tests last month, but not being able to bring the blood glucose down over the last few weeks is a problem. I think Jasper is feeling quite a bit better -- he has taken to sleeping on my bed again and chasing laser lights -- but the test results don't reflect that.

He currently is trying to prevent me from typing by installing himself in my lap and kneading and drooling all over my sweater!

Re the vet stay -- I am trying to get them to tell me how much this will cost. If it's above a certain level, well, I just don't have the money. And no, there's no one to borrow from. So, fingers crossed. I'm giving this until end of day tomorrow, then I'll have to give in.

Book du jour:

Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles. Well, if this hadn't been an Early Reviewer book, thus requiring a review in order for me to get more free books, I probably would have given up on it 1/3 of the way through. I soldiered on, and it got more readable, but never really engrossing. It's little more than a chick lit novel with a potentially intriguing setting/premise: Daria is gorgeous, bright, etc., but since she lives in Odessa, she's underemployed, underpaid, and single (oh, those creepy Odessan men...) Her boss hits on her, she plots escape via her second job as an interpreter to a marriage agency. The setting could have boosted this book above the genre (hey, I wasn't expecting a literary novel here), but every plot twist is so painfully predictable and most characters so two-dimensional and even downright unbelievable that I felt as if I was drowning in a sea of cliches. I don't think the author has ever learned the virtues of showing over telling in writing, as Daria via the author is forever telling us things about Odessa which could have been interesting had they been delivered in a less heavy-handed way. Occasionally, the novel becomes more interesting, but rarely. The formula is clear, the path laid out -- the heroine shall have a few women friends she can count on; she shall have one steamy romance and one steadfast friend who may be a romantic interest; there shall be a scene where... -- well, you get the picture. Character development is improbably -- one of her best friends changes not only her behavior but her entire character! and it's hard to believe that either Daria would badly misread another character as completely as she appears to or else that that individual would undergo such a complete metamorphosis. And the writing is too often forced humor. A chick lit novel can survive one of these flaws, but not all of them. Not recommended, except to the desperate (in which case, you can ask me for my ARC.) 2.8 stars (because I did finish it), an ER book and TIOLI for the top "alphabetical" challenge; a shared read.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy Moonlight in Odessa more - I loved it. I had already heard a lot of it as a radio adaptation.

Hmm. I am obviously going to have to read Moonlight in Odessa to see whether I like it or not!

Stasia, will pop my ARC into the mail for you! Luci, I can see why people would like it, especially given the novel setting (Odessa), but after I'd been told for th 27th time that "we Odessans are like this", the charm of the setting wore off. Then there were the improbably character twists of Olga and David, the unlikelihood that she would read Tristan's e-mails and not figure out something was amiss... I suppose it was all about wishful thinking, in the latter case, but if so, that was deftly conveyed to me as a reader. Think I'll go and read the new Trisha Ashley book to get a chick lit fix -- she is guaranteed to make me laugh out loud and never brandish a cliche.

But then, if we all liked the same books, life would be very dull!

Jasper's glucose reading tonight is 465 -- high, but lower than it has been in 36 hours. Hoping it will come down overnight. It's pretty much impossible to separate the feeding of one cat without locking one or three of them away in isolation -- which causes a lot of other issues/problems -- so all of them are on a diet and I'm trying to monitor every smidgen of food that is put down.

#152: Thanks, Suz.

It is good news that Jasper's glucose is down some, but I hope it comes down much further so the vet visit can be avoided!

>132 Chatterbox: Fact-checking: The True Lost Art, an Elegy by Suzanne McGee (introduction by Doris Kearns Goodwin).

Richard, ROTFL!

But I'd be driven insane by reporting & writing a book like that... just as I would be if I were a professional fact-checker. It's amazing the number of tiny errors that occur. You have to stop and ponder each name, each fact, each date. I can understand tiny errors, but there are some things that people writing about certain subjects should know. If you're writing a novel and aristocrats feature in it, you should nail the forms of address. If you're familiar enough with 20th century history to know of the existence of the Christmas Truce in WW1, the odds that you don't know it was in the first year of the war are tiny, so it's a bizarre error. Another error (fixed after the ARC) that I spotted this year involved the dedication of Machiavelli's the Prince -- someone writing about Catherine de Medici misattributed it. I admit I'm anal about this stuff, I admit...

I have actually *discarded* books with that level of error in them. My favorite example? A YA novel about cars that I read in the 70s. The protagonist drove a Ford Dart.

*bonnng* went the trashcan. DODGE Dart. And they were ***still making them*** the year it was published. I got up and left "The Mirror Crack'd", a movie adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel, because a 1959 Cadillac convertible rolled up *seconds* after the chiron title read, "St Mary Mead, 1953".

Get. It. Right.

It is NYC Marathon Sunday here! I was reminded of this at the ungodly hour of 5:30 AM when the rock band playing at the watering station located at the end of my block in Brooklyn, 2 houses away, began tuning up and practicing. They are very bad, and very, very loud - the windows are rattling. There's an NYU special events bus idling away right outside the door for the last hour, filling the house with noxious fumes. This is an annual torture of the damned and of course, I never look forward to the extra hour of sleep because it takes place on a weekend when I get hours LESS sleep and have hours of work cleaning up outside after people leave behind their garbage (why use one of the big bins left out there??) Next year, I WILL get a hotel room, even if it is priced at 2x the normal rate because of the event. Gah. (These are the rantings of someone who will have to get through the rest of the day on less than three hours' sleep -- on a Sunday.)

Ack! That's horrible, especially on a Sunday. I hope that you're able to get some sleep during the day today. If I need to sleep during the day (e.g., when I'm working nights) I'll take half the adult dose of generic Nyquil (15 ml instead of 30 ml), which will allow me to sleep peacefully without making me overly drowsy, as I would be if I took the full adult dose.

I hope the rest of the day goes better than it started out, Suz!

Based on previous years, the band will keep playing until about 2 p.m. That's when they begin to dismantle the "entertainment". Stuff will be back to normal by about 5, by which point I'll have to start cleaning the sidewalk to avoid a $1,000 fine. Don't misunderstand - I think the Marathon is great, and love the way the crowd cheers on every single runner -- but the volunteers who staff the watering station are deeply noxious. Last year, they ran sprint trials up and down our street, screaming and yelling, at 3:30 AM, instead of setting up. Nyquil doesn't work with this level of noise.

Elite women and disabled leaders have gone past already, so we're not even into the main event yet, and I'm already getting a v.v. bad migraine. Shall try and finish Caesar and remind myself that at least I'm not fighting Gauls or Pompey.

This sounds absolutely hellish. Can you escape to another part of the borough?

Why do you have to clean up their mess???

No easy escape. It's too early in the morning -- nowhere really to go. To avoid the worst, I need to be away overnight. The marathon staff clean up the path of the runners, but every year we have about a thousand people or more go up and down our little street and drop their crap, plus the stuff that blows there from the route. The marathon people say that's not their responsibility, and if we don't clean it, the city sanitation dept. imposes fines, fines that are bigger after the marathon. It's written into our leases that we pay littering fines (which can add up to $500 a month on a bad month anyway, thanks to the school down the street.) On a daily basis, my upstairs neighbor does a morning sweep of the sidewalk at 7 a.m., we alternate the one at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

No fun to be in the path of the marathon, Suz, but sounds like a bad lease if the landlord is passing along his responsibility to keep the street clean to the tenants. I've owned my apartment for the past 20 years, but back when I rented this was never in my leases.

Hi Suzanne,

Don't much like the sounds of what's happening in your neighborhood today. But it sounds like you have a front row seat to the excitement. At great expense, unfortunately. Maybe next year you should escape the city entirely for the weekend. Good luck getting through it :)

Is it like childbirth, I wonder? Where the mind blots out the full horror shortly after, perhaps in this case out of sheer relief, only to remember it again the next year? Yes, next year is definitely a hotel if I don't leave the city. This would have been a great weekend for an art road trip to DC, Philly or Boston -- were it not for poor Jasper. Blood glucose reading down to 424 this morning, which is still 200 points above where the vet wants it. At least moving in the right direction. We'll see what it says this evening.

Hope you survive the day, Suzanne! I can't believe they let people make that much noise before daylight but maybe I'm forgetting what living in NYC is like.

I got a kick out of Richard's book pitch. I actually think there would be a market for it. The lack of editing in most new books these days is truly appalling.

Ah, but the lack of editing is only possible because relatively few people (us being the exceptions) notice or care... (From the people who routinely confuse they're with there and their, and can't spell the plural of potato...) Ergo, a rather limited market for such a book. I suspect it would be dismissed as elitist ranting by a New York intellectual by Palinites!

To err is human, to forgive condign.

You're probably right but isn't that a sad state of affairs!

Richard, I would have thought that you would have opted for "to punish condign"! (assuming you're referring to book errata...)

No, just fitting in an awful sense to forgive the errata of others...the overtone of blame served with forgiveness....

the overtone of blame served with forgiveness

Too funny!

Books du jour:

Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy. Well, all the noise kept me awake to finish up this bio of Julius Caesar, a 1010 Challenge book which I started in September (TIOLI chunkster challenge), resumed in mid-October (long surname challenge) and finally finished. It's a very very very straightforward bio, nothing intriguing here in either style or substance, and probably ideal reading as a solid and worthy introduction to Caesar (who was NOT Rome's first emperor, for the record). Knowing a bit more about him, and having read his commentaries as well as a lot of Cicero's letters, I ended up wishing I'd chosen the new bio of Hadrian or even the one about Augustus, where I would have encountered less well-trodden territory. (And it makes me worry about Stacey Schiff's new bio of Cleopatra, which I hope to read this winter.) It took me this long to read because Goldsworthy's style isn't really lively -- his characters exist in time and place, but don't come alive on the pages -- and I kept falling asleep during the details of the military campaigns (legion deployments, strategies, etc.) A worthwhile book rather than a fascinating one, for me, at any rate. 3.9 stars, recommended to anyone venturing into the history of Ancient Rome at a particularly compelling point in its history -- the transition from a crumbling republic to a corrupt empire, under the leadership of someone whom many people liked as a person even as they deplored his actions or what those actions said about the state of Rome. Interesting food for thought here for anyone who enjoys drawing comparisons between the Roman empire and the American 'empire'... TIOLI history challenge.

Also finished The Twelve Days of Christmas by Trisha Ashley, which I'd been saving for a day when I was really fed up with the world. (Oddly, none of the 100 permitted touchstones include the ones for this book, although there is one for a book about Winnie the Pooh's first Christmas?) I really enjoy Ashley's chick lit novels, which tend to be about older and independent heroines who, when they end up meeting intriguing men, may fall for them but are as often exasperated by them. You won't find an Ashley heroine succumbing to romantic conniption fits -- in this case, Holly keeps hanging up on Jude, whose house she ends up house-sitting during the holidays. It's supposed to be empty, except for a dog and a horse in the stables, so Holly is a bit disconcerted to find not only a billygoat sharing the horse's box but an ever-growing array of relatives and others who, as the town of "Little Mumming' is snowed in, descending on her for the holidays. And then Jude arrives back to find out what's going on. It's funny, sweet and a bit kooky -- a comfort read. One of Ashley's better books, I think. (Her best, IMO, are Every Woman for Herself and Singled Out, both of which I'd rate 4.5 stars (my ratings are always based on the book's merit within its genre, not an overall "worthiness/literary rating...) and hang on to as sentimental faves. Recommended to chick lit fans looking for a different kind of cliche-free book, 4.2 stars, TIOLI for a long title in a 21st century book.

I am glad you got some reading done in spite of migraines, marathons, and worries about Jasper!

Mostly just finishing books, but tks, Stasia... Jasper's blood sugar spiked again last night and is down slightly (471) this morning. Not good levels.

My sister-in-law has invited me to Toronto for Xmas, with Jasper if necessary, but I don't think I can easily get a cat on 2 airplane flights and through two customs inspections very easily.

The good news of the day is that work on my big philanthropy feature story brought me back in touch with a friend in London who I lost contact with a few years ago. So we had a nice hour-long chat to catch up on the last decade! Hope to catch up with her in person next year...

OK, off to do some work and some reading....

Sounds like a very productive day, Suzanne. You need to reward yourself.

*Keeping fingers crossed for Jasper*

I do hope Jasper is well enough for you to be able to go to Toronto for Christmas! How nice of your SIL to offer.

Immediate dilemma -- buying "cocktail dress" for a gala at the Waldorf next week. UN Foundation. Annie Lennox playing. If it is November, it is New York gala season... Plus schmooze fest dinners -- one this week, one next week. Glad I got out of the "Financial Follies" (picture every financial journalist in the country gathered in one ballroom in midtown Manhattan, pickled to the gills).

May finish a book tonight. Not sure. Going to go watch "The Birds" on TV, with my tuna melt sandwich beside me.

My suggestion is to get a black dress -- you can dress it up or dress it down for many occasions. But, as to where to buy it, I am sadly clueless, as I haven't bought a dress in years (but am still relying on the same black cocktail dress I've had for at least 15 years).

ETA Hope Jasper is better soon.

Popping in to see how Jasper is doing this evening, Suz.

Ooh... how exciting to watch Annie Lennox. Do people at these galas boogie down or do they pretty much just stay in their seats and politely clap and cheer these performances?

The only one I went to last year -- Intl Crisis Group -- had James Taylor. Hard to boogie to him... Shall report back!

Yes, it needs to be black. The one I've been wearing is (gulp) at least 20 years old, kind of cut-out velvet (devore?) and looks like a flapper dress. I think I'm too old to get away with the style (it's also sleeveless). Will go to Saks where a v. nice saleswoman helped me buy clothes for the book promotion nonsense. Will enlist her as de facto personal shopping assistant!

#182: Sounds like a good plan, Suz!

Pictures! We must have pictures! :)

#184 -- that would be too terrifying for words! (that is, pics of me). Shall try to get one of Annie & the band.

Book du jour: Dangerous to Know by Tasha Alexander. This series is for fans of Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody mysteries, although this heroine, Lady Emily, isn't quite as feisty or ahem, unique, as Peabody. Still, she's a would-be independent woman in the later Victorian era. This is the fifth book in the series, and Emily and her new husband are trying to solve a mystery near her new mother in law's home in Normandy. It eventually becomes obvious who the killer is, and there's a rather trite wrap-up scene (the kind where you want to yell, don't go there, Emily!) but other than that, it's a decent enough yarn. TIOLI, first/last name same letter challenge (#12). Recommended, but only if you read the other books in the series. The first two are the best.

Jasper update: virtually no change. Blood glucose is at 475, up from 471 this morning. There is no way he is eating anything except the tiniest quantities of prescription food, so I'm at a loss. I'll e-mail the vet and get him to figure out how much a two-day stay chez lui will set me back. Cat expenses in the last month? More than $2,000.

Hi Suzanne

Please keep us posted on the "Waldorf gala"

Will do, Linda...

In other feline news, it seems that Tigger-the-terror-cat has finally nabbed the mouse that has been traveling from my apt to the upstairs one through the wall! At least, he is playing with it in the living room, letting it go just before I can get to it and then stalking it until he catches it again. I shall lock both cat and mouse out of the bedroom tonight just in case Tigger feels moved to drop the mouse on my face in triumph. I see mouse disposal in my future...

*ugh*

But nice not to have the dratted mouse scurrying around, huh?

Sorry to hear Jasper may have to go to the vet after all but glad Tigger is "on the job."

Yep. Never a dull moment on this thread, either.

Ding dong, the mouse is dead...

Found it on the threshold of my bedroom, displayed proudly as a tribute. Very glad I blocked Tigger from dropping it on my bed in triumph... Have now disposed of it in a garbage bag. Now let's hope it was only one mouse that has been scurrying around in the walls. Tigger and Molly are now sitting and staring VERY intently at the wall, just waiting for a chance to go hunting again.

Today's excitement? the heat appears not to be functioning upstairs (living room/bedroom). That's OK in the bedroom, as I prefer it to be on the cool side while I'm sleeping, but I do like to stay warm enough that my hands don't turn into blocks of ice in the living room, as it tends to be one of the places I will sit and read. Happily, the kitchen is toasty warm (though I don't spend much time there...) and the office is OK. Before I can get anyone in to look at this, though, I need to move a bunch of furniture around, including bed & bookcases. I hate baseboard radiators!

Hoping to do a few hours of the mini-readathon, but we'll see...

My oh my, miss a day and you miss alot! How swanky, cool is that, gala at the Waldorf AND Annie Lennox, it's like New Years Eve w/o the silly hats. Any luck w/the "cocktail dress"?

Poor Jasper, I hope he gets his numbers down soon.

I'm not sure what freaks me out more, a live mouse or dead one. The only one I like is spelled with two s's. :}

Jasper's numbers went up tonight -- 490. I'll contact the vet tomorrow -- bloody hell.

Will have to go look for an inexpensive cocktail dress on Saturday. Am meeting a source for brunch on Sunday, I think.

Book du jour:
The Masque of Africa by V.S. Naipaul. This is in the tradition of Naipaul's travel/cultural exploration books, by far the best of which are Among the Believers and A Turn in the South. But much of this was an odd and even bewildering read -- it's a bit like a reporter's notebook, with lots of Naipaul's observations, many digressions and commentary restricted to lots of digs at Africans for eating bushmeat, cats, dogs, etc., and their propensity for demanding money from travelers. Indeed, while Naipaul is obviously unhappy about the impact the west has had on African life, including its beliefs and religious traditions, he doesn't seem to be any more sanguine about Africans themselves. Indeed, he emerges from this as a curmudgeon, and sometimes an incurious curmudgeon. "It was time to go. And time to pay," he says of a visit to a sacred waterfall in Uganda. Each of the chapters is devoted to a particular African nation, chosen apparently at random but in practice revisiting places he had been before -- Uganda, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, South Africa and Gabon. It's the chapter on Gabon that shows what this book could have been -- Naipaul explores the close ties between the people and the massive and primeval forest, and does so in a smooth narrative. But for much of the rest of the book, the reader is left to read between the lines. Perhaps that is what Naipaul intended, but the result is a book that is one man's wildly subjective observations. Anyone who craves narrative structure may well find it frustrating. Personally, I think I'd need to re-read it at least twice to extract a coherent sense of what Naipaul is trying to communicate -- if, indeed, he's trying to communicate anything in particular. Based largely on the Gabon chapter -- hey, it made me want to visit the country! -- I'm rating this 3.9 stars. Cautiously recommended -- I suspect those who are more knowledgeable about Africa may get more out of a first read, but I'm not sure. TIOLI for a book by a Nobel laureate.

Tigger, having heard me describe the computer mouse as a "mouse", is sitting in front of the computer monitor and swatting at my hand. He's obviously intent on scoring another victory, so I'll retreat for the evening.

#194: Sorry to hear about Jasper. I was hoping for some progress by now.

Hmm, thinking about taking the Naipaul book out of the BlackHole.

Bad news re: Naipaul. A Turn in the South is a wonderful book, so I can't help thinking Sir Vidia made a boo-boo with The Masque of Africa. Shoulda taken more time, polished it all a la Gabon (a country of which I suppose I've heard, as in I knew it existed, but never gave a single thought to).

Suz, I have a Yellow Lab who caught a mouse in the house years ago, and he still gets all worked up running around and barking if we say the "M" word! Btw, he didn't kill the critter; just put his foot on top and looked at me as if to say, "what next?" I caught it in a wastebasket and released it far away from the house. I thought it had earned its freedom.

I'll respond to your diplo-brat comment here rather than on Darryl's thread. Now that must have been an interesting way to grow up. I think you would enjoy Pat Conroy's comments about military brats because I'm sure you went through the same emotions with your frequent moves. In fact, his new memoir is must reading for any book lover whether or not you are a Conroy fan.

I confess that I've never read any Conroy...

Blech day here. Bad migraine, 2 year old upstairs intent on banging a hole through his floor/my ceiling, and a source today calling to tell me that all the comments they gave for interviews 22 months ago were off the record -- five months after the book was published. I can't find any record of any discussions with them, and there's nothing in the transcript of my notes to indicate any such assumption. I've never, in 20 plus years, made this error, and I don't think I did now. Misunderstanding? PR people covering themselves??

Sorry to hear about the migraine and the two year old (what a bad combination).

Hope the source thing doesn't become a problem. Seems like a strange time to bring it up.

Two year old has gone for a walk with dad, and I have moved downstairs -- less comfortable, but a bit quieter. Weird source thing, deeply weird. I don't see (touch wood) how it can become a problem -- I taped the interviews, and certainly didn't misquote them. But this is something I'm hyper diligent about. And in this case, I didn't even NEED to quote them by name or their firm's name -- I could have masked it, and would have done, had it been clear that was a concern or issue. Argh.

Richard -- yes, I wondered about this. Is he getting old? lazy? Is this what he wanted to do with the book? Am I just too dumb to "get" it? These were all thoughts that were running through my head as I read it.

Jasper blood glucose count this morning was finally down a bit, but not by much: 437. Now, if only I can get it below 400 tonight or tomorrow morning... (hey, small victories...)

Good for Jasper. Bad on migraine. I hope both of you are feeling better soon.

I think the best buildings should be child-free. If you have kids, you need to live someplace where their innate destructive messy noisy nature won't bother the currently childless. Since kids are *hideously* expensive, it's obvious that the crummier buildings, being cheaper, should be kid zones. You can trade up as an empty-nester, but that means no overnights or even over-days with the grnadkids chez vous. Max one-hour visits, holiday meals included.

And for my next trick....

Wow, Richard... and what do you REALLY think?
Normally, I quite like Theo. He is very sweet and funny, and he absolutely adores Tigger-the-terror-cat, who in turn bounces into the window whenever Theo comes or goes. But both of the previous sets of tenants upstairs have had little boys, and both have been those obnoxious parents -- "I'm entitled to do whatever I want, because I'm a parent, and that makes me more socially useful than you, and my child, of course, has inherited my genius." You know the type...

#203: OK, compromise: let the kid stay and ditch the parents! Geez Louise, but they sound obnoxious.

This set of parents are OK, too. I think they might have not been paying attention this morning. And to be fair, they weren't to know about the migraine...

Argh, I want to read but my head hurts too much!

Go snuggle up with Jasper until your head stops hurting, Suz!

*sends anti-migraine whammy to Pacific Street*

Jasper's too cross with me to snuggle --he apparently takes exception to having blood drawn from his ear 2x daily. Snuggling with ice packs instead. tks...

Sending sympathy for the migraine: I have one at the moment, too. :(

sending good vibes to Jasper and for headache :(

Tks for all the good vibes...

No book du jour for me today. After doing my last interview of the day, I am going to amble to the deli and get something to bring home and eat, and then go to bed with ice packs. Leaving me with a MOUNTAIN of work to do tomorrow, alas.

Sorry to hear you have a migraine too, Caty!

Suz, sleep and get rid of that headache! (Dr. Stasia's orders)

Hope you get a good night's sleep!

Hi Suzanne, glad you caught (or rather the cat caught) the mouse. And very sorry about Jasper.

Another day of migraines.

And the PR guy for this firm that claims I used off-the-record material says his people will never speak to me again, on or off record. Essentially, they are calling me a liar. What is SO bizarre is that if they had requested background status/anonymity, etc., I would have given it to them, as anyone who has read the book knows (there are lots of pseudonyms in there...) And I've never had anyone in 25 years tell me I ever violated this on/off record thing.

Vengeful and weird. What else could be happening there? It sounds like someone settling a score.

Rotten about the 'graine, too. *there there, pat pat*

Odd, because this is an outfit I've always had a good relationship with. They tell me I "should have known". Hunh??? Why??? We had never discussed this kind of issue before for me to know!

ETA: Jasper is at 423 at midday today, down from 430 at midnight.

Probably no book reports today, either, given the State of the Head.

Sorry about the migraines, Suzanne, and the annoyance of dealing with this firm.

Re Jasper, 423 is better than 430. Hang in there!

Sorry to hear today is not better for you, Suz! Like Pat said, hang in there!

'scuse my ignorance, Suzanne. Here I sit cheering on Jasper but I don't even know what the optimum glucose level should be for a cat. How far off is he?

Lynda, a decent level would be around 120, I think -- 150 would be OK. So he's got a long way to go. The lowest he has been is 380...
Tigger is racing around the bedroom, convinced that there are more mice around here if he could just get to them!

Shouldn't Jasper's racing around help reduce his blood sugar? Works for humans. (Oops, never mind)

Sorry to hear about your "off the record" problem. Weird things like that happen. Excuse for saying the wrong thing?

Saw an interesting article in WaPo about how cats can drink water yet stay dry, unlike dogs. I'm not a cat person but even I thought it was interesting.

Happily I don't think Tigger has a blood glucose problem. Jasper is more of an observer cat; his days of trying to scale the bookshelves and Xmas trees were short (and, frankly, not terribly sweet!) Jasper is Mr. Mellow...

I do think that what happened -- as best I can piece it together at the distance of nearly two years -- is that there was a misunderstanding. (I know that an e-mail I sent to many potential sources expressed my interest in learning more about the background to the crisis, and they may have misinterpreted this as being ON background.) But they certainly didn't attempt to clarify that, or I would have noted it in my organizational notes. And rather than enabling it to be a misunderstanding, I must be at fault. I was punctilious about discussing ground rules in every interview, even when they'd been discussed beforehand, if there were off-the-record issues raised ahead of time. The odds of my not doing so, and of them not picking up on this when I went back to them with followup questions (eg how do you spell that name; do you have a surname for this guy?) and saying, whoa, you're not using that are you?? -- are slim indeed.

ETA: Here's that link (though I still want to know how cats can drink from taps!):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/11/AR2010111104952....

Hmm, 120 aye? Has Jasper been checked for an infection of some kind? That can make the glucose level of a human go crazy, maybe it works that way with furry friends too.

They gave him a battery of tests pre-diagnosis...
Tonight's count was up again -- knew it was too good to last -- 469.
Will e-mail vet in the morning. Can't take him in tomorrow as I have to be chained to my desk, but Saturday maybe. If they'll tell me how much this will cost.

Sorry Jasper's glucose levels are still a problem, Suz. I hope the vet can get him straightened out soon.

In book news, some of the holds I put on books last week are starting to trickle in. (Though since the new Cleopatra bio has only 1 copy and 41 holds, I'll be waiting a while for that one and may end up buying it post-book fast...) With any luck, I should be able to read again tomorrow... I did dip into Readbreast by Jo Nesbo, a Scandinavian mystery/thriller, but after about 120 pages, I'm not that impressed and I may not finish it. I'll read up to page 200 when I'm feeling better, and then bid it farewell.

Suzanne.. I loved that article... shared it on FB ...

When I was hit with a huge vet bill.. when my duncan crashed on me
when he was new to our lives, I took him to a really wonderful Animal
Hospital in Akron Ohio. My local vet .. after ten visits in as many days..
(and a huge bill there.. ) never diagnosed him. Akron took the bloodwork
from day ONE, looked at it and said.. "oh. He is classic Addison's. He will be fine"
But it would take another $2,000 to get him fine. Care Credit was my answer. Most vets offices have it. IF money at hand is a problem, it is a way to spread out the payment a little.

Also... have you considered a specialist for Jasper? That is what brought us home with things sorted. My vet is good. I worked there for years. The specialist though.. took 5 minutes to help. Just a thought.

Sadly, Care Credit won't work. I applied for my dental bills, but was turned down because I'm a freelancer -- but thanks for the tip!

Funny, because Jasper looks so much better. Anyway, prob will take him in, maybe just for overnight vs two nights.

migraine clearing up, now just v.v. tired. Should get some reading done today as I have to stick around waiting for a source to call from the western Sahara in Algeria, somewhere. He's out there investigating what needs to be done to start a camel dairy. Seriously -- could I make that up? When it comes to dreams, however -- had weird dream last night in which I was back in high school, performing in the end of year play. For some reason, the school was in China or somewhere, and soldiers came in and closed us down. I was half angry, half grateful as I hadn't memorized my lines! I think the play in question was some weird dreamworld version of "Toad of Toad Hall", but involving spells. Wow...

*edited to fix surreal grammar & spelling errors*

I am glad to hear the migraine is clearing up. I hope you squeeze some rest in today, Suz. It sounds as if you could use it.

Sending lots of good wishes for you and Jasper!

Glad the migraine is on the way out!

Hope Jasper is doing okay, and all the other things are not giving you too much trouble today.

Whammying good results for Jasper!

Jasper's morning report: he is back down to 430. Where he was on Tuesday...

Got my pay for serving on jury duty. But not much other new news around here. Feeling well enough to read, thankfully -- though I must also find enough time to write or I will have cranky editors yelling at me.

Things seem to be looking up!

I wanted to tell you that I got Faceless Killers out of the library the other day and am about 50 pages into it. I'm liking it. Thanks for the recommendation.

rooting for Jasper..
booing @ Care Credit

I hope Jasper's evening report is better than his morning report . . .

Sadly, Jasper is back to 473! It's like a seesaw. Whatever I do, I can't even get it below 400...

Book du jour: The Flesh Tailor by Kate Ellis. This is the latest in a long-lived mystery series featuring (usually) twin narratives involving two university friends, one of whom became a police inspector, the other of whom ended up working as an archaeologist. Both now work in the same Dorset (Devon?) seaside community, and each book usually involves an archaelogical discovery/mystery and a real life murder mystery. This time around, the former gets relatively short shrift -- some skeletons are found in the grounds of an old manor house, but one of them turns out to be not centuries old but to date back only a few decades, to the time when the house was a refuge from refugees from the WW2 bombing of London. The puzzle isn't just whodunnit, but how that relates to the more immediate crime -- the slaying of a doctor on his own doorstep. I liked it, thought the mystery was a good and perplexing one with plenty of red herrings, but those who have been following this series may be disappointed by the fact that Neil Watson is there only to dig up bones and there's no real intrigue surrounding the distant past, only the more recent past. Other books in the series get more creative, but I'd suggest starting with the first, The Armada Boy. 4.1 stars, TIOLI for an author whose first name ends with the first letter of her surname ("E", in this case.)

Nearly finished a few more books, but too tired to read/write any more today.

Glad you are enjoying Mankell, Pat -- that may give me the impetus I need to get off my rear end and read it myself! One Scandinavian book I do have down on my TIOLI is The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson, an NYRB that Rebecca recommended a month or two ago, if you're still looking for titles for that category. It is a bit heftier, but doesn't look as if it's a dauntingly dense read.

#238: Sorry to hear that Jasper is not doing better tonight!

Happily, Jasper-the-cat seems unchanged regardless of where his blood glucose is! In fact, he seems generally better -- his back isn't as bony as it was a month ago, and his kitty dandruff has nearly cleared up. His adoptive sister Molly has resumed grooming him, and he looks much sleeker. If it weren't for the blood levels, I would say he is significantly better -- as much as a laid-back furball such as he would ever deign to demonstrate!

Oh, I'm giving up on Redbreast by Jo Nesbo. Life is too short to toil through this clunkily written "mystery", about which I find myself not the least curious. Will move on to something that does intrigue me!

Good for you on giving up on a book you were not enjoying!

I am glad to hear that Jasper is making improvements elsewhere :)

I'm glad Jasper is doing better, even if the blood glucose levels haven't dropped.

The Kate Ellis series sounds interesting. *Wanders off to investigate it*

The Wesley Peterson series is set in Devon. I'm still trying to work out where I am in the series, which book I last read.

Luci, that's right... Devon... d'uh. Am now reading the first in a series set in Cornwall; the setting is the reason I'm reading it. (Manna from Hades) I do find that the Ellis books kind of blur together a bit after the first two or three -- with a few exceptions, there aren't plot elements that hinge on the previous book, and those that exist are in the background of the story.

Jasper's count this morning is 437. Back down. Which means it will probably be back up again tonight, based on the pattern... I wouldn't mind if it moved slowly, as long as it was consistently and in the right direction!!

Will start a new thread later today before the thread police materialize; I promise!

I think the reason why I've ended up having a break from the Ellis books is that while I like them the format of all the books in the Peterson series is so similar.

#238/240 I actually ordered The Long Ships immediately after reading Rebecca's review but haven't gotten to it because of its length. But after getting through Middlemarch, which I probably won't do until mid-December, it probably won't seem so daunting anymore.

I also tried and abandoned Redbreast. I've since passed it on and don't remember too much about what I did read of it. I always hate to give up on a book that I've bought.

Something definitely seems to be working with Jasper and that's the important thing!

Suzanne I was thinking about you when I happened to catch an episode about "Helping Hands," a vet who charges much, much less than standard fees and will take even less if clients can't pay. I guess she can do this because she takes donations.

#238/240/246 Don't worry about the length of The Long Ships: you won't be able to put it down and you will be sorry when it ends.

Thanks for the encouragement, Rebecca. I need to read two more books for my Scandinavian Book Challenge by 12/31 so I'm going to make sure The Long Ships is one of them.

Success at Saks! found black velvet pants with skinny legs, so they will look OK with my good patent leather pumps and a black shirt with a very nice, not overdone, chiffon frill around the neck and narrowing at the v-neck to continue down above the buttons & placket; another ruff at the wrists. Also a dark red & black floral patterned scarf that I think will work them. Altogether, not nearly as much as I've spent on Jasper's diabetes in the last month. But still more than I like to spend on clothes. But both the pants & top can be worn separately to dress up other stuff, and together, they get me across the threshold of "cocktail wear". No nice little black dress in my size or that I looked good in. One possibility, a 1950s era dress, but would have had to order it and pay for it -- not sure enough it would have worked, or that it would have arrived in time. And now I don't need to wear stockings/nylons!

ETA: The saleswoman there, Lisa, who is the only person I trust to help me buy clothes (a pastime I HATE), just came back from a double mastectomy. Literally, since I was in there last around July, she was diagnosed (no mestases), had surgery and is now going through chemo -- the only reason she told me is that I told her I liked her new haircut -- she told me it was a wig... Memo to self: do NOT WHINE ABOUT YOUR LIFE.

Congratulations on the black velvet pants and blouse. Sounds like the perfect thing to spend money on since they can be worn with other things and they seem like classics that won't go out of style. I hate spending money on dressy clothes that can't be worn on other occasions. Sorry to hear about the saleswoman. That's a lot to go through in 5 months.

Moving right along to new digs!