Chatterbox Indulges Her Bibliomania: The Sixth Episode

Since everyone is posting glorious pictures on their threads, I've decided to do something completely different... From now on, I'll begin each new thread with a poem -- maybe an old favorite, or a recently-discovered poem or something obscure by a well-known poet. Stay tuned...

This month's poem is by Robert Graves, who survived the trenches of WW1 and went on to write some truly memorable poetry, even though he's better known for I, Claudius these days

Not to sleep all the night long, for pure joy,
Counting no sheep and careless of chimes
Welcoming the dawn confabulation
Of birch, her children, who discuss idly
Fanciful details of the promised coming -
Will she be wearing red, or russet, or blue,
Or pure white? - whatever she wears, glorious:
Not to sleep all the night long, for pure joy,
That is given to few but at last to me,
So that when I laugh and stretch and leap from bed
I shall glide downstairs, my feet brushing the carpet
In courtesy to civilized progression,
Though, did I wish, I could soar through the open window
And perch on a branch above, acceptable ally
Of the birds still alert, grumbling gently together.

And now it's time to get back to the book-reading insanity!

I'm now on my second batch of 75 for 2011; for those curious about what I read in batch one, you can turn to my fifth thread
here; the full list of the books, along with my ratings, can be found there.

Here's a running tally of the total number of books I've read so far in 2011:




Last year's tally hit 506 books; you can see the highlights on my profile page, along with the highlights of this year to date (a shorter list, sadly, at least thus far.)

And here's the number read for the second challenge of 2011; you can find them listed below and see my comments on my fourth thread (link above):




I'll discuss every book that I read on this thread, even if it doesn't count toward this challenge but belongs over in my 11 in 11 challenge. The number above and the list below refer only to the 75-book challenge, which doesn't include the "11 in 11" books.

Be prepared for some truly eclectic reading, ranging from intense non-fiction reads and literary novels to brain candy and mysteries; from short stories to "chunksters." All I want is something that captures my interest and is well-written for its genre. So a "thumping good read" may get as high a rating from me as an acclaimed work of immense literary merit.

I rate my reading using fractions (eg 1.7, 3.9, etc.) and it's basically to try and capture the nuances. Some guidelines:
1.5 or less: A tree gave its life so that this book could be printed and distributed?
1.5 to 2.7: Are you really prepared to give up hours of your life for this?? I wouldn't recommend doing that...
2.8 to 3.3: Do you need something to fill in some time waiting to see the dentist? Either reasonably good within a ho-hum genre (chick lit or thrillers), something that's OK to read when you've nothing else with you, or that you'll find adequate to pass the time and forget later on.
3.4 to 3.8: Want to know what a thumping good read is like, or a book that has a fascinating premise, but doesn't quite deliver? This is where you'll find 'em.
3.9 to 4.4: So, you want a hearty endorsement? These books have what it takes to make me happy I read them.
4.5 to 5: The books that I wish I hadn't read yet, so I could experience the joy of discovering them again for the first time. Sometimes disquieting, sometimes sentimental faves, sometimes dramatic -- they are a highly personal/subjective group at the top of the pile in my judgment.

Here's the second 75:

1. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, ****1/2, STARTED 4/3/11, FINISHED 4/6/11 (non-fiction)
2. Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin, ***, STARTED 4/2/11, FINISHED 4/7/11 (non-fiction)
3. Afraid of the Dark by James Grippando, ***1/2, STARTED 4/4/11, FINISHED 4/6/11 (fiction)
4. Silent Mercy by Linda Fairstein, **1/2, STARTED 4/29/11, FINISHED 4/7/11 (fiction)
5. The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen, ****1/2, STARTED 4/5/11, FINISHED 4/8/11 (fiction)
6. When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Penman, ****, STARTED 4/4/11, FINISHED 4/10/11 (fiction)
7. By the Time You Read This by Giles Blunt, ****, STARTED 4/9/11, FINISHED 4/11/11 (fiction)
8. The Magicians by Lev Grossman, ****, STARTED 4/11/11, FINISHED 4/12/11 (fiction)
9. When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson, ****1/2, STARTED 4/12/11, FINISHED 4/14/11 (fiction)
10. The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan, ****1/2, STARTED 4/14/11, FINISHED 4/15/11 (fiction)
11. The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald, ****1/2, STARTED 4/15/11, FINISHED 4/17/11 (fiction)
12. A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf, ****1/2, STARTED 4/17/11, FINISHED 4/20/11 (non-fiction)
13. The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok, ****1/2, STARTED 4/18/11, FINISHED 4/19/11 (non-fiction)
14. April in Paris by Michael Wallner, ***1/2, READ 4/20/11 (fiction)
15. The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin, ****1/2, STARTED 4/21/11, FINISHED 4/22/11 (non-fiction)
16. The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer, ***, STARTED 4/20/11, FINISHED 4/22/11 (fiction)
17. Rosa by Jonathan Rabb, ****, STARTED 4/19/11, FINISHED 4/24/11 (fiction)
18. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson, **** STARTED 4/16/11, FINISHED 4/24/11 (fiction)
19. The Black Tower by Louis Bayard, ***1/2, STARTED 4/22/11, FINISHED 4/25/11 (fiction)
20. Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie, ***, STARTED 4/25/11, FINISHED 4/26/11 (fiction)
21. When I Am Playing With My Cat, How Do I Know That She Is Not Playing With Me?, ****, STARTED 4/24/11, FINISHED 4/28/11 (non-fiction)
22. Time Was Soft There by Jeremy Mercer, ***, STARTED 4/28/11, FINISHED 4/29/11 (non-fiction)
23. The Garden Party by Sarah Challis, ***, STARTED 4/24/11, FINISHED 4/29/11 (fiction)
24. Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden, *****, STARTED 4/26/11, FINISHED 4/30/11 (fiction)
25. Love You More by Lisa Gardner, ***1/2, STARTED 5/1/11, FINISHED 5/2/11 (fiction)
26. A Covert Affair: Julia and Paul Child in the OSS, ***, STARTED 5/1/11, FINISHED 5/3/11 (non-fiction)
27. Persona Non Grata by Ruth Downie, ****, STARTED 5/2/11, FINISHED 5/4/11 (fiction)
28. Death to the Dicatator by Afsaneh Moqadam, ****1/2, READ 5/4/11 (non-fiction)
29. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch, ***1/2, STARTED 5/4/11, FINISHED 5/5/11 (non-fiction)
30. Treason at Lisson Grove by Anne Perry, ***1/2, STARTED 5/2/11, FINISHED 5/6/11 (fiction)
31. The Informationist by Taylor Stevens, ****, STARTED 5/6/11, FINISHED 5/7/11 (fiction)
32. The King of Diamonds by Simon Tolkien, ****, READ 5/7/11 (fiction)
33. America Pacifica by Anna North, ***, STARTED 5/7/11, FINISHED 5/8/11 (fiction)
34. Carbonel, King of the Cats by Barbara Sleigh, ****, STARTED 5/9/11, FINISHED 5/10/11 (fiction)
35. Now You See Me by Joy Fielding, **, STARTED 5/9/11, FINISHED 5/10/11 (fiction)
36. The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb, ****, STARTED 5/8/11, FINISHED 5/11/11 (fiction)
37. Crime Machine by Giles Blunt, ****, STARTED 5/10/11, FINISHED 5/12/11 (fiction)
38. The Kingdom of Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh, ****, STARTED 5/11/11, FINISHED 5/12/11 (fiction)
39. Gossip by Joseph Epstein, ****, STARTED 5/12/11, FINISHED 5/13/11 (non-fiction)
40. Carbonel and Calidor by Barbara Sleigh, ***1/2, READ 5/13/11 (fiction)
41. Tragedy in Crimson by Tim Johnson, ***, STARTED 5/13/11, FINISHED 5/15/11 (non-fiction)
42. My Korean Deli by Ben Ryder Howe, ****, STARTED 5/14/11, FINISHED 5/15/11 (non-fiction)
43. Blood Count by Robert Goddard, ****, READ 5/15/11 (fiction)
44. Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts, *1/2, STARTED 5/17/11, FINISHED 5/19/11 (fiction)
45. Dreams of Joy by Lisa See, ****, STARTED 5/20/11, FINISHED 5/21/11 (fiction)
46. The Instigators by David Wolman, ****, READ 5/21/11 (non-fiction)
47. Malled by Caitlin Kelly, **, STARTED 5/21/11, FINISHED 5/22/11 (non-fiction)
48. My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira, ***, STARTED 5/19/11, FINISHED 5/22/11 (fiction)
49. Chasing the Devil by Tim Butcher, ****1/2, STARTED 5/21/11, FINISHED 5/23/11 (non-fiction)
50. Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka, ****, STARTED 5/22/11, FINISHED 5/24/11 (fiction)
51. Body Line by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, ***, STARTED 5/24/11, FINISHED 5/25/11 (fiction)
52. A Woman of Consequence by Anna Dean, ***1/2, STARTED 5/24/11, FINISHED 5/26/11 (fiction)
53. In Defense of Flogging by Peter Moskos, ****1/2, READ 5/27/11 (non-fiction)
54. The Deadly Kingdom by Gordon Grice, ***1/2, STARTED 5/28/11, FINISHED 5/29/11 (non-fiction)
55. A Cup of Friendship by Deborah Rodriguez, **, STARTED 5/29/11, FINISHED 5/30/11 (fiction)
56. The Devil's Light by Richard North Patterson, ***, STARTED 5/28/11, FINISHED 5/31/11 (fiction)
57. Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore by Stella Duffy, ****, STARTED 6/1/11, FINISHED 6/2/11 (fiction)
58. The Stone Cutter by Camilla Lackberg, ****, STARTED 6/1/11, FINISHED 6/3/11 (fiction)
59. Inheriting the Trade by Thomas DeWolf, ***, STARTED 6/3/11, FINISHED 6/4/11 (non-fiction)
60. The Piano Player in the Brothel by Juan Luis Cebrian, ***, STARTED 6/3/11, FINISHED 6/5/11 (non-fiction)
61. Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves, ****, STARTED 6/5/11, FINISHED 6/6/11 (fiction)
62. Tick Tock by James Patterson, **, READ 6/6/11 (fiction)
63. (a) Board Room Babies by Stanley Bing, ***1/2, READ 6/8/11 (non-fiction)
(b) Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer, ****, READ 6/10/11 (non-fiction)
64. Fore! by P.G. Wodehouse, ****1/2, STARTED 6/6/11, FINISHED 6/8/11 (fiction)
65. Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin, ****1/2, STARTED 6/9/11, FINISHED 6/10/11 (non-fiction)
66. Heat Wave by Nancy Thayer ***, READ 6/10/11 (fiction)

OK, I am checking in again with you for the night :)

What a good idea. I've never read the 2 Claudius books or his poetry, but I loved reading Goodbye to All That in my teens.

#4: Goodbye to All That is a book I have been meaning to get to for years. Nice to know that you loved it, Luci.

starred

Hi Suzanne. I like the idea of posting poems to start your thread.

I wishlisted The Young Romantics, was glad to see you liked the new Lisa See book, and just recently got my copy of the new Erik Larson book. Don't know when I'll get to all these but I'm looking forward to doing so eventually.

Hi, Suz! I love your idea of starting your thread with a favorite poem. I'm planning to read more poetry starting next month, and I'll continue to post favorites on my threads.

I love the idea of using poetry to begin a thread, Suzanne. Like sharing favorite art, it's a way to communicate another aspect of ourselves. I may have told you this before, but I admire your rating system.

Starred!

O.K. When I start my next thread, I'm going to post a picture AND a poem!!!! The Graves one is lovely.
I'm having to wait for The Young Romantics to come to me from PBS, but I was able to order a copy of Passion immediately. After my time with PB and Mary Shelley last year, I look forward to both of them.

Got your new thread starred. Love the poem, but have to grant it poetic license--the one time I tried to stay up all night, it just about killed me!

Oooh, Lizzie, you're upping the ante here! How can I compete??

Sadly, I have to start this thread with two very underwhelming books, one of which was so actively bad I'm looking forward to skewering it in a review.

The bad one was Malled by Caitlin Kelly, a fellow Canadian and a fellow journalist. This is the kind of memoir that gives memoirs a bad name -- it ends up saying very little that is insightful, thought-provoking or even all that interesting. Instead, it seems to be a vehicle for its author to pat herself on the back for her skills, her insight and her chutzpah. Self-congratulation, however, doesn't make for appealing reading. Kelly, losing her job at the NY Daily News, decides after a year of freelancing, that she needs to get out more and the kind of stability that comes from a 'real' job (versus freelancing). Fair enough; not everyone is cut out to cope with what comes along with freelancing, and while I don't need to work with a bunch of other people, I, too, am crap at marketing myself. So, Kelly chooses retail. Now, the problem here is that she's only working one shift a week -- she's barely getting a real taste of what it's like to rely on retail for one's income, earning at most $100 a week (gross). She's not desperate -- she still has freelance earnings; she still has a retirement account. But she tries to equate her circumstances and experience to those of other displaced middle-class folks, noting that her fiancé (employed as a photo editor at the NY Times) congratulates her for contributing to the household. A few dozen pages later, she lets drop that he then takes her on a trip to Paris... So, the reader already knows that while she may be struggling more than she has before, she doesn't really need this job, and at one shift a week is hardly committed to it. And yet, after two years, she applies for the assistant manager's job when its current occupant is scheduled to go on maternity leave -- and is actually dismayed when she's not handed the job (she also makes a point of noting she'd only consider doing it temporarily...) . “I didn’t push, I admit, but didn’t think I needed to,” Kelly says -- well, why not, I wanted to yell, everyone else knows if they want something, they need to push to show they are serious. Yet, she laments, “it was clear no one in senior management took me or my skills or my ambitions seriously." Had she ever given them any sign that she was willing to commit to a level where she WOULD be taken seriously? To be fair, there are important issues at stake here -- the changing nature of work, and of retail labor in particular, and Kelly's book is adequate when she turns to the problems that retail employees face, even if the prose is at best ho-hum. (I couldn't help thinking of Tony Horwitz's Pulitzer winning stories that turned shift work at chicken processing plants and direct mail centers into something near poetry.) The weakest part of this overly-repetitive saga is Kelly's personal ruminations -- how she once met the Queen of England, her repeated comments about how well she speaks French ("I'd switch into fluent French") and how widely she has traveled (no wonder she admits she gets on people's nerves in real life) and her occasionally sneering comments about colleagues, like Carol, a "tough, mouthy little thing" who unaccountably takes exception to something Kelly intends as a joke. "I couldn't believe it," she says huffily, over and over again, referring to a stupid store policy, or some piece of obnoxious behavior by a customer or colleague. And while she claims to be open-minded about working with minorities with high school educations, eventually she admits she is tired of being "surrounded by people who'd given up climbing the ladder". Kelly also claims to be unimpressed by wealth, again repeatedly commenting on shopping at Holt Renfrew (over and over and over) and how accustomed she is to being around rich people. But anyone who is truly used to this doesn't feel the constant need to sneer the way Kelly does about "drawling skinny blondes and cashmere-sweatered corporate attorneys" or the "skinny blond wives" with their jewelry and size 2 clothing. (Kelly, you see, is size 16). In some ways, I am Kelly -- OK, some months I'm a size 14 -- but if I wrote something like this, I hope someone would do me a favor and refuse to publish it. I got a free copy from NetGalleys, and I'll be glad to see it vanish from my Kindle. For a REAL book about the REAL ugly truths behind working retail, try Nickled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, who put her lifestyle where her mouth was, and tried to live off retail wages for months at a time, with no safety net, and never needed to tell the reader how smart, knowledgeable, and worldly she was. She let the story do the talking and that told the reader all he/she needed to know about Ehrenreich. 1.8 stars. Don't go here.

Better, but still underwhelming, was My Name is Mary Sutter. Some historical fiction readers I know had really enjoyed this book when it first appeared, so I decided to give it a shot. It's probably a compelling look at medicine and midwifery in the 1860s, and combat medicine in the Civil War, but while the reader is expected to identify with Mary's urge to become a physician, the author never makes her human enough to care about deeply. She is apparently drawn to her sister's fiance, and later has two men in love with her, but none of those emotions ever feel real. It's all just words on the page, not feelings that a reader can share. Mildly interesting at best. 2.9 stars.

Happily, I've started reading Tim Butcher's Chasing the Devil, his story of an epic trip through Liberia and Sierra Leone, and it's shaping up to be very good. He has a knack for a great opening sentence: "I can clearly remember receiving my first death threat."

Actually Ehrenreich (who is a heroine of mine) did have a safety net, but she was honest about that, and the difference between her experiment and the lives of those she worked with who didn't have a more privileged real life to go back to.

>12 Chatterbox: I also received a free copy of Malled from NetGalley, but now I think I will delete it from the Kindle and click the "decline to review" (or whatever it's called) button. As you've described her, I don't think Ms. Kelly and I would get along...

Marvelous poem. A very good idea.

#14, Can you tell that the book REALLY annoyed me? What is disconcerting is that Ms. Kelly and I have so much in common on the surface... This served as a reminder of what I Should Not Do in anything that I write...

Yes, your feelings were quite clear! Negative reviews are always so much more fun to read (and write).

Hi Suzanne, when you say "better" and then rate it 2.9 I know you're on a bad roll. Oh well, ever onward.

Yikes. I'm surprised that Malled earned 1.8 stars from you. Did you mean negative 1.8 stars? That was a superb negative review!

I also loved reading your negative review, hope your next book is more to your liking.

Excellent review of Malled. I heard something about it on NPR recently and even in a very short radio piece I picked up on the author's self-congratulatory tone. Icky.

I like seeing a good negativer review now and then :)
I have to say that sometimes it is the negative ones that suck me in :)
eta
not this time though

I am so skipping Malled! Sounds terrible.

I must have been in a good mood to give it 1.8 stars. We'll see how the review fares on Amazon... My negative-ish review of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair has been slammed there. Ho hum.

Nearly finished with Tim Butcher's book about traveling through Liberia and Sierra Leone. Fab!

25- I know some people slam negative reviews on Amazon, but do you think they also slam Vine reviews...just because?

I posted a very favorable review of "Fire Season" and it's been voted as not helpful. There is absolutely no reason why it should be unhelpful. I made sure I included everything readers would need to know, plus I was complimentary.

I thought perhaps some people give negative votes to Vine reviews out of spite.

Well, my overall approval rating (i.e. positive/helpful votes) is 92%; on Vine it's 77%. So either that, or they object on principle to 3-star ratings.

Out of spite and out of competition, I think. Amazon UK displays reviews with no negative votes above those with negs even with loads of positive votes, as being more helpful. So you can kick other reviews down by negging them and make your own review more prominent. I think they should count positives before negatives when ranking, so a review with 5 + and 1 neg should display above one with 1 +. That would avoid people having such a disincentive to do that.

Don't take it to heart, enjoy being able to earn books and other products in exchange for a review. I deleted enjoy the freebies as books for review aren't free, reviewing takes time and effort, but I find getting the books, Duplo etc so exciting.

Oh, I NEVER take it to heart. A few times, people have picked fights with me over my reviews, and I've pushed back a bit. But after a while, it gets boring. There are one or two reviews (one one-star, one five-star) where I know people are posting comments literally YEARS after I put up the review, and I don't even bother looking any more.

Book du jour:
It's hard to dislike a book that kicks off with the line "I can clearly remember receiving my first death threat." For Tim Butcher, author of Chasing the Devil, that was in Liberia, when his reporting about the possibility that the then-president's supporters might be committing acts of cannibalism unexpectedly peeved the powers that be. So it wasn't until that regime collapsed that Butcher, at the time a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, sets out on a trek through Sierra Leone and into Liberia, following in the footsteps of Graham Greene, as chronicled in Journey Without Maps. While not quite as compelling as Butcher's last saga of African derring-do (he retraced the voyage of Stanley across Africa, through the heart of the Congo), it's a fascinating glimpse at some of the countries that have been wracked by conflict in last 30 years or so and are still teetering on the verge of being failed states. But Butcher is more interested in what has happened over the long haul -- in the seven decades that have elapsed since Greene made his trek -- and in chasing ghosts of the literal and rhetorical kind. His own personal ghosts are those of two colleagues killed in Sierra Leone in the 1990s -- a fate that Butcher realized could have been his own, as he dashed from one war zone to another. But there are also the local ghosts, a reflection not only of the war but the local bush religious cults that dominate life in the hinterland of Liberia -- and may explain the cannibalism that Butcher heard of... The author writes with empathy and thoughtfulness -- this isn't another white European looking at the natives and describing how exotic they are, but a real travel saga in which Butcher ponders the ultimately similar experiences of Liberia and Sierra Leone, both originally founded as havens for 'rescued' or freed slaves, one of which became a colony and one of which remained independent. A fascinating book for anyone who is interested in Africa; I admit I bought it before I even knew WHAT part of Africa it was about because Butcher writes so well. This was a long-listed book for this year's Orwell prize. Highly recommended, 4.5 stars.

I have this one out of the library at the moment, will need to look out for the chance to read this, and the two other Aminatta Forna books (a memoir and a novel, both set in Sierra Leone)

Free Kindle book alert: I have no idea whether this is good or not, but it's getting decent Amazon feedback: The Dogs of Rome by Conor Fitzgerald. It's a crime/mystery novel tied to art history, set in Italy and published by Bloomsbury USA (a good house). Oh, and it's free -- did I mention that? I've downloaded it to see what's what. Free is good...

Suzanne, I really liked your review of Chasing the Devil and have WL'd it. I already have Butcher's book on the Congo on my WL (probably from your mentioning it earlier.) I love how I find out about great books I've never heard of before on your thread. :)

>31 Chatterbox: Thanks for the heads-up, Suz. I went and snagged a free copy!

33- Me too! Thanks...

I'll try not to take the negatives to heart. My skin is getting thicker, lol...
It just shocked me because this was one of the first times the negative came for no possible reason that I could see. Except that it was labeled as a Vine review...ah, well...to each their own!

Book du jour:

Strawberry Fields (aka Two Caravans in the UK) was an entertaining and lively novel revolving around a very serious issue -- the lives of both legal and illegal migrant workers and those who exploit them. In this case, Marina Lewyycka has focused on a group of workers who are picking strawberries at a farm in Kent -- until something goes terribly wrong. They hook up one of the caravans in which they have been sleeping and take to the road. The story is a kind of odyssey, as all of them try to find whatever it is that they crave, in the meantime dealing with everything from life in a chicken battery farm (I may never eat chicken again) to camping out with eco-warriers. There is a young man from Malawi, who writes letters in elegant quasi-Victorian English that is half-garbled and very phonetic in nature to his sister; two young Chinese women, a Polish matron and her religious niece, as well as Vitaly, aka "mobilfonman", who aims to make money by being the consummate fixer, buying and selling his fellow migrants and their labor. (There's even a dog, who "speaks" in capital letters; Lewycka has fun imagining how a dog might think about everything from pigeons and waves to human beings.) As Andrij, one of the two young Ukranians who emerge as the lead characters, through whose eyes more and more of the story is told, reflects, "this global economic is serious business." Indeed it is... For those who don't mind reading thought and speech that is presented in tortured English, as the characters themselves would mangle it, this is at once a good and an interesting novel; while few of the experiences the characters have might surprise us when we stop and think about it, how often do we actually do so?? And even if we did, how often do we wonder how they see US? 4.2 stars, recommended.

I think I would enjoy Strawberry Fields, so I'll wish for it. I also appreciate the heads-up about The Dogs of Rome and it's safely on my Kindle. (My price)

It is BookExpo tomorrow! Admittedly, I still haven't read all the advance review copies I snared last year, but that isn't going to keep me from going back this year... Free ARCs?? Ha! Not a chance that I'd miss it...

>35 Chatterbox:: that one sounds good Suzanne. I have to say that factory farming and confined animal feeding operations are, in general, nasty business. One of the reasons I'm vegetarian. On a brighter note, have you read A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by the same author?

#38 -- Laura, not yet. I do have a copy of it sitting on my TBR mountain, and everyone agrees it's her best book. I wanted to read this one as it's a past nominee for the Orwell prize and I was curious to see what kinds of novels end up nominated (this year, it was the Helen Dunmore novel, The Betrayal, but they are very rare.)

Suzanne.. I am painfully envious of your visit to the Expo today.
Painfully and green and sloppy with envy

Looking forward to hearing your report.

I'm going to try to go back tomorrow morning for a short while; will then report back! Interesting, but not as productive in terms of free books as last year. But we'll see...

Just a quick update, as I'm exhausted. BookExpo today followed by a cocktail party thrown by one of the financial PR agencies, which has just started a division doing PR for finance books. They invited four authors to come and hang out and showcase their books, and Chasing Goldman Sachs was one of those. So I'm tired to the bone...

Book du jour: Body Line by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is the latest in a long-running mystery series featuring Bill Slider, a detective inspector in London's Shepherd Bush neighborhood. He cracks wise and solves crimes along with his colleague, James Atherton, who's a bit of a connoisseur of fine food, wine, clothing and other good things in life. This time around the puzzle revolves around a doctor who is murdered in his luxury London home -- but why? And just as puzzling, what was the doctor doing to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds, since he wasn't doctoring any more? It's an adequate puzzle, but not a patch on the first few books in this series, which I really loved. The series has grown stale, at least for me, and I'm tired of the wise-cracking by Slider and Atherton, which isn't realistic and does nothing except make me roll my eyes in disbelief and annoyance. I'm even more fatigued by the malapropisms of Slider's boss, who is incapable of opening his mouth without mangling a cliche. Harrod-Eagles needs to ponder the old adage "less is more" the next time she is tempted to litter the page with multiple examples like "you can't teach an old leopard new tricks", "if you throw a spaniel into the works", etc. (that's just one page...) So, an old favorite -- really, I used to love these books, has become a ho-hum series, and even the characters, which once pulled me in, are underwhelming. 3 stars, kind of a meh.

On to another, better, mystery. Which reminds me: one of the fun conversations I had was with the editors from Soho Crime, who have a small booth next to the Random House setup. But I'll report back on all that, along with my galley acquisitions, sometime in the next day or two...

Congratulations for being picked to do the BookExpo, Suz! I hope you get some rest tonight.

Tks, Stasia, tho to be honest it wasn't with A-list authors, but mostly with new books from Wiley, McGraw-Hill, etc. Still, it was an interesting group, although a bit noisy. The PR firm's owner is someone I have known since the mid-90s, when I was writing about futures & derivatives, and I met one of the new guys who is in charge of streamlining the WSJ and Dow Jones newswire contents -- a garrulous Australian who was interesting. Oh, and a publicist from Viking who recommended a new novel from their upcoming new releases -- she has promised to approve it on NetGalleys for me!

I was sleeping -- for once at a reasonable hour, and deeply -- and then some nutcase outdoors started having a long, loud, drunken conversation with a buddy by the subway entrance across the street and woke me up. Gah!!!!

Oh, brother! Sorry about the sleeping, Suz.

Brunonia Barry @ Book Expo today..

Have fun today!!!

So, here is my loot!

A bunch of books from Other Press, which always has a lot of galleys available and lets you purloin what you want. They tend to be books I've never heard of or authors I know little about, but last year this introduced me to Mr. Chartwell and one or two others, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt!
This year's crop:
The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson
The Glitter Scene by Monika Fagerholm (making a name for herself on the Swedish literary fiction scene)
Calling Mr. King by Ronald De Feo
The Vices by Lawrence Douglas (no touchstone, even with book #

Some random ARCs being handed out or otherwise offered up, by authors I've never heard of, but that I'm willing to try!
Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott
Queen of America by Luis Alberto Urrea (no touchstone)
Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close (autographed)
Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (not out until February!)
Moonlight on Linoleum by Terry Helwig
and a zombie book. Yes, I couldn't escape...
Feed by Mira Grant (If you want it, just ask me...)

Interesting stuff!
Already published books, so not ARCs, kindly provided by the nice people at Basic Books and Public Affairs, with whom I had some great book discussions.
Cambodia's Curse by Joel Brinkley
In Defense of Flogging by Peter Moskos -- a slim book intended not to urge people to bring back flogging but to provoke debate about the cost of the justice system.

Brought out from behind the counter at Soho (crime and mystery publisher), where I was told that David Downing will be writing two more books in the series that began with Zoo Station (cue ecstatic delight from yours truly) and that there will be another Dr. Siri mystery from Colin Cotterill...
The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis (out in November)

I spent a chunk of time talking books with the folks at Europa Editions, who were delightful and shared my rhapsodies about Rondo by Kazimierz Brandys, which I'm still reading (slowly, to savor it fully).
The ARC on offer was of Everybody's Right by Paolo Sorrentino, who is an Italian movie director -- it's his first book.
But... Europa is launching a new series of books, under the oversight of Alice Sebold. The focus this time will be on American authors -- younger, edgy, a bit dark. The author of the first of these was there, and I scored a galley of his book as well - You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik. It's set at an international high school in Paris, and since I graduated from one of those in Brussels, I'm intrigued!

And finally!

Three books by authors I know or am interested in reading.
Damned by Chuck Palahnuk (autographed)
The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (autographed)
and most critical of all:
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt.
This is a book I have always wanted to write. Literally. Honestly. It's about Poggio Bracciolini, and his rediscovery of a book by Lucretius, and how that sparked the Renaissance. It's about bookhunters! I own a precious (to me) copy of the only bio of Poggio (written in the 19th century) and was simultaneously crushed and delighted to find this book.

Apparently there was a near-riot over Louise Penny's ARCs, which were handed out before I got there on Wednesday. People were trying to snatch them out of each other's hands.

The only publisher I really wanted to talk to but didn't were the folks from Bloomsbury. They always have interesting and eclectic lists, and this fall's includes a bio of Cardinal Richelieu and a new book by Stephen O'Shea, who is great at turning history into something ultra-readable.

Wow! Fabulous bundle of books. I read a couple of Lene Kaaberbol's YA books last year (she translated them to English herself) so have already marked The Boy in the Suitcase as a must-read. The Greenblatt book sounds fascinating.

I think I ended up with fewer books in total than I did last year, Kerry, but may have a greater number of books that I have a definite interest in reading. I've already started In Defense of Flogging, a slim book that is turning out to be not only provocative and thoughtful but witty as well.

The book du jour: A Woman of Consequence by Anna Dean is the third in a series of historical mysteries featuring Dido Kent, a maiden lady in her 30s in Regency England with a penchant for asking questions and solving crimes. It's a serviceable series that will be of interest to anyone who likes cozy-ish crimes -- it isn't a cozy, but there is remarkably little violence, and the plot is set in the context of an Austen-like group of characters. Of course, Dean is no Austen, and her character analyses are less laser-like and witty and more perfunctory. Still, the final 75 pages of the book, as the solution to the puzzle of what lay behind the skeleton of a governess found in the newly-drained lake of a country house near where Dido is now living begins to emerge, were gripping and the solution satisfyingly complex. A few times I admit I wanted to shake Dido for not catching on to something that was clearly obvious to the reader, and I'm not particularly fond of Dean's device of having a big chunk of the story told via Dido's letters to her sister (it adds nothing, and takes away the opportunity of character development). But I'm quite happy to keep reading the series, although I probably won't race out and buy the next one in hardcover from the UK. Mildly recommended to those with a taste for historical mysteries featuring lady sleuths. 3.4 stars.

I've put the first Anna Dean on my wishlist, Suzanne. I like Regencies, and this sounds worth trying out. The Blind Justice series is my favorite Regency mystery series so far.

I cannot wait to see what you think of Feed, Suz :)

Congrats on the haul, especially that last book. Sounds like a great pick up for you.

Wow, great loot Suz! That last one sounds really good.

OMG !!Queen of America by Luis Alberto Urrea..Did he sign it? no.. yesterday he was back at home..
I love Luis Alberto Urrea with a passion.. He wrote Hummingbird's Daughter and that is the sequel..
I have been waiting for it for years. It will be months before it is out. AND he is one of the reasons I envied you so much.. Brunonia Barry was there yesterday too, but early

Urrea is a walking poem.

#54: Somehow I knew you would freak when you saw that one mentioned, Kath :)

LOL Stas. I follow him on FB where he is sweet and funny and he interacts with his fans a lot.
I have to tell you that I tried very hard to figure out a way to go and meet him at the Book Expo. He
hasn't come very near lately. He, and Mary Doria Russell are the two authors I would most like to meet. I am working on a trip to meet Russell ( who I also follow on FB) ... aided and abetted by a new septuagenarian friend on FB and my daughter.. lol

Seriously, if I could have talked Cory into driving.. I would have been there.. Cory has a perfect sense of direction..

Another author ( besides our sweet Suz of course) that I follow on FB is Susan Wittig Albert.. Her daily posts are fun and informative and mostly about her garden and her daily life. She interacts a lot too, and it is very enjoyable.

Sorry Suz, in my blind envy, ( and freaking out ) I forgot to congratulate you on your great haul of books.. that should set you up for some good reads this year :) I hope that you had a lot of fun, and signed lots of books yourself :) One of the huge perks of NYC must be things like this.. bookish fun!

#56: I guess I should pick out some more authors to follow on FB too, huh? I already follow Suz.

Those I mentioned are the only ones I follow.. I am so glad I looked for SWAlbert As I said, her posts and garden photos are so nice.. You read the China Bayles books, right, Stas?

Yes, I do. I will have to look her up on FB!

Kath, Urrea wasn't there, just the book, so you didn't miss him...
Wish I had known; would have purloined a second ARC. That said, when I finish reading it, I'm happy to pop it in the mail to you!

Wow, just wow! I have to go along with Kath but one of the advantages of being in NYC has got to be opportunities like this. Funny about the Louise Penny stuff. She must be as popular elsewhere as she is here in the 75 group. I'll have to start following some authors on FB Iincluding you Suzanne).

Suz, I would be more than Happy to accept :)

I am planning a reread of Hummingbird's Daughter for before reading the new one..
That is a book that needs to be read more than once anyway.. and I need a refresher ..Queen of America took a lot less time that HD, because he already had the research done.. but it has still been a while.

Bonnie.. it is nice to keep up with the writers you like on FB..
Louise Penny is there.. a fan page like MDR, but it seems that those that I follow post often.

May I pretty please over Feed, if it hasn't already been requested by someone else? After you're done with it of course. If someone else has got in before me, no worries, you're doing plenty for me at the moment, it's a bit cheeky of me to ask at all really!

Jenny, not a problem; will put it in the post with the other item when it arrives. And no worries, you are doing plenty for me in your turn!! Somehow, I think I can live without zombies in my home... *grin* Just PM me the address.

Gotta share the wealth!!

My sleeping habits are downright deranged. Last night (Thurs), I got to sleep at a reasonable hour, but was woken up by people hanging out by the subway entrance and talking at the top of their lungs for more than an hour. It only stopped when I went out and pleaded with them. So, after three or four hours' sleep last night, tonight I was exhausted and hit the lights around 10. Only to wake up at 4 a.m.! Sigh...

Oh well, I'll take the opportunity to report on my latest book...

It's one of those that I picked up at BookExpo, a slim volume called, provocatively, In Defense of Flogging by Peter Moskos. The author is only semi-serious about his proposal in the title; what he's really attempting is to get his audience to focus on what is wrong with prisons -- that they render people insane, unemployable and criminal for life. If prisons don't work, and punish out of proportion to many crimes (his bete noire is the drug laws in the US), what might be an alternative to an incarceration rate that is the highest in the world per capita? (750 per 100,000 people, five times the world average, compared to 220 in Iran, 180 in China, 530 in Cuba, 602 in Russia). Why not flogging, Moskos, suggests -- the world wouldn't be worse off by giving Bernie Madoff a few dozen stripes and then cutting him loose to support himself. (After all, as someone else pointed out to me recently, it's not as if anyone is ever going to give him money any more...) Moskos makes a compelling argument about the horrors of our prison system - and he's taken a hard look at the nature of that system. Offered a choice between 10 years and five lashes, which would you pick? He avoids several easy traps -- there are some people who, for the good of society, need to be removed from it. But not the smaller-scale offenders, whose lives -- and the lives of their communities and families -- are always made worse by incarceration, especially when that becomes a way of life. He's very precise about his suggestion: lashes couldn't substitute for incarceration without the consent of a victim (if any; drug possession, for instance really doesn't have a 'victim') and the ultimate choice must always be left to the offender; take the savings (from the money NOT spent on keeping someone incarcerated) and split it between compensation for the victim and investment in education and healthcare in high-poverty areas to prevent residents turning to crime. I will be VERY interested to see how this shapes up in the public debate. The author is writing an op-ed for the Wall St Journal, and I think it could be another "Tiger Mother" hot potato. This time, however, the author has ingredients in his arguments that will appeal to both sides of the political debate and, as an observer, I'd just love to see our two political extremes forced into some kind of agreement on anything! For a slim book, this is very comprehensive, ranging from what doesn't work about prisons, the evolution of thinking about justice and punishment, the economics of prisons to the history of flogging and its associations with everything from 'cruel and unusual punishment' to slavery. I wriggled with discomfort a lot of the time while reading this, because I couldn't escape Moskos's logic, even though I share the typical liberal aversion to the idea of flogging. But it's a lively and witty book, as well as being impeccably researched - recommended. 4.4 stars.

Am going to try to finish a few books this weekend and read a bit of fluff as well.

#65: Sorry to hear about the trouble sleeping, Suz. I can relate.

I will have to check out In Defense of Flogging. Off to see if the local library has it yet. . .

#65: Sorry to hear about the trouble sleeping, Suz. I can relate.

I will have to check out In Defense of Flogging. Off to see if the local library has it yet. . .

That sounds like some book...

It is very true that some sentences are more harsh than crime demands.
The possession "crime" is a good one to reference. I think that certain
drugs need to be decriminalized.. but.. that is another story.

There are so many of us having sleep issues lately.. wonder why?
I am sure that you have tried a white noise machine or fan....
how about leaving a tv on, or radio to mask the outside noise?

Fluff.. I highly recommend it ! I have been fluffing for a few months..
I am just not up for much else.. although I do want to read
A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya soon.
It has been years since I have read a book about the Mayans and I am
ready for another in my heart, don't know if my head is up for it yet.

68, mckait, I too read books about the Mayans years ago, and I've had A Forest of Kings although I haven't read it, so I'll be interested in what you think. Decades ago, I took a seminar on the Mayans in college.

Ugh, I hate problems sleeping. I rarely wake up and stay awake during the night, but I sleep in fits and starts, often waking up around 5-10 times a night *sigh*. Last night I seemed to only wake up once but I certainly don't feel rested this morning! Perhaps you could indulge in a couple of weekend naps?

I hope that you get more rest soon, and have a nice weekend reading :)

What a great haul from Expo!

I'm so sorry about your sleep problems. One thing I so do not miss about city living are the late night loud talkers.

Have you tried those 'white noise' -'rain sounds' etc. things? Silly q. I'm sure, as I am sure you have tried everything.

Oh, I've tried the white noise gizmos, but they don't work. The only one that is somewhat effective is the old, wheezy window AC, but it costs me so much to run that I try not to do so. Tonight's noise challenge is a massively loud party (strobe lighting and all) in a house whose garden backs on to mine. Unbelievable; the windows at the FRONT of my apartment are rattling. My neighbors and I all agree that we'll call the cops in rotation beginning at 11.

The books du jour, both for the 11 in 11 challenge:

Chasing Aphrodite by Jason Felch & Ralph Frammolino is a more-than-competent look at the only gradually abating kerfuffle surrounding the looting of antiquities in countries like Italy and Greece and the black market dealings in these objects that came to light in recent decades. Its only real flaw is that it's one of a host of books on some aspect of the scandals and battles that have followed, which is a pity, as it's also one of the stronger and more focused narratives. The authors hone in on the Getty Museum in Los Angeles (well, Malibu, to be precise) and follow the narrative through the host of looted objects (or objects of uncertain provenance) acquired as the Getty emerged as the richest collecting institution in North America. To anyone who has followed the news reports, or read some of the other books, there probably won't be much that feels fresh. I'm one of those readers, but even so, I found this lively and intriguing; I kept reading to the very last page, eager to see how the authors would steer the discussion next. There's some impressive reporting here, and they are alert to the nuances of their subject, including the deep irony that Marion True, the disgraced Getty curator, was at once the advocate for a new approach to collecting and tougher due diligence, even as she couldn't resist accepting tainted donations and getting too cozy with museum donors. What emerges is a portrayal of an artistic world that is nastier, more back-biting and vicious than most of the general world might imagine (museum politics makes Washington look warm and fuzzy) and a fascinating saga of how some masterpieces from the Hellenic and Roman eras made it into our museums. It's another tribute to this book that I ended it resolved to head off to the Met soon and amble through the classical galleries, in case more of the objects vanish back to the places where they were unearthed by "tombaroli", aka tomb robbers. The other book to read on this subject, FYI, is Loot by Sharon Waxman, which takes a wider-ranging view of the issue of looting, focusing on a wider array of countries, objects and issues. I'd rate that about 4.5 stars, and this gets 4.2 stars from me. You really don't need to read any of the other tomes to get a good grip of what everyone is arguing about.

Catching the Tide by Judith Lennox is a piece of fluff I opted to read to cope with not enough sleep and too much stress. I suppose it fulfilled its function, but that's about it. It's the saga of two sisters, and a woman whose life interacts with theirs after her husband has an affair with the elder sister. Kinda Rosamund Pilcher-esque, with WW2 as the background, but Lennox passes up lots of opportunities to make it as appealing as the fluffy-yet-fun Pilcher sagas are. Not really recommended unless you're stuck on a cruise ship with nothing to read and want to numb your brain. 2.9 stars.

I'm dithering between reading more of Prophecy by S.J. Parris or a thriller by David Ignatius. I'm not quite ready to read anything requiring intellectual effort... *grin*

I'm too exhausted from reading your schedule and your sleep interruptions to do more than know that somewhere deep inside I'm envious.

Lizzie, LOL! Both are probably the norm for this insane city. I just need a big dose of energy to get moving and do stuff I have to do.

Just posted reviews of Chasing Aphrodite and In Defense of Flogging.

Some quick notes on the book du jour before I start hosting the Memorial Day readathon.

The Deadly Kingdom was deeply disconcerting! Gordon Grice canters through the world of insects, fish, mammals of all kinds -- from worms and butterflies to lions and crocodiles -- and has outlined all the myriad ways in which they can do damage to human beings. Admittedly, some of the stories he tells are the result of deeply stupid human behavior -- can anyone blame an ape for escaping from a cage and pursuing its tormentors in a zoo? I'd be VERY motivated to do the same... -- and we all probably know that mosquitoes and fleas and ticks convey nasty diseases and that no one wants to run afoul of a shark. Still, some of his stories are jarring (the suddenness of attacks in which people simply vanish) and others downright bizarre. I admit I don't want to set foot outside my home again, much less go on safari or even swimming in a lake (a bit like I felt after seeing Jaws back in 1975...) A fun book, which points out that humans may actually be the most dangerous not only to others but ourselves -- and makes us all think twice before cooing "oh how sweet" and attributing benign motives to ANY animal. Mildly recommended; 3.5 stars; it's a bit too episodic, but the stories he tells make up for that.

I loved your review of Chasing Aphrodite, Suz. Definitely one I'm adding to my obese wish list.

Lost you for a bit, but I'm glad I found your thread again and I've just manage to catch up. Whew.... *fans self*

#75: I am going to see if my local library has that - even though it may scare me to death. Of course, I did survive Richard Preston's The Demon in the Freezer and The Hot Zone.

LOL @ 75 I don't think I will be reading it, but your review is witty and fun :)

Hey Suz! nice start to your new thread.
Just saw your impromptu readathon and although I find it difficult to resist any readathon I must pass on this one as I'll be outdoors all day with no Wi-Fi to keep in touch. Hope you enjoy your day.

Stasia, if you survived Richard Preston, you can survive this! If you're phobic about snakes or spiders, just skip those chapters...

Books du jour, one of which is reasonably good, the other being fairly bad.

Prophecy by S.J. Parris (aka Stephanie Merrit), for my 11 in 11 challenge, was the reasonably good book. It features Giordano Bruno, an Italian scholar and former monk excommunicated by the Catholic church, who in this novel (the second in a series) has taken refuge in Elizabethan England. It's kind of a last stop for him: should the Catholic powers supporting Mary, Queen of Scots invade and put her on the throne, the Inquisition would follow and his life would be forfeit. Besides, Bruno has an admiration for Elizabeth and her scholarly interests. In the prior book in the series, Bruno played a role in defeating one conspiracy; now he's resident in London at the French embassy and (inexplicably to me) ends up sitting around as part of the discussions in a grand plot to unthrone Elizabeth and free Mary. The plot is a lot more complex than that -- rather too tangled, in fact -- and there's a lot of occult-like distraction which doesn't help that plot move forward -- but the detail and color are great, and Bruno is an interesting character. Solid book, but one to borrow from the library rather than purchase. 3.6 stars, mildly recommended and not nearly as good as Dissolution and the other Shardlake mysteries by C.J. Sansom. I'll be reading the third in a series of similarly-set mysteries by Rory Clements which take a different view of some of the characters in this one; I think I generally prefer that series.

I'll try not to waste too much time on commenting on the bad one, as I'm already irritated by having devoted too much time to finishing it. A Cup of Friendship by Deborah Rodriguez is the first and, one hopes, the only novel by the author of The Kabul Beauty School, a memoir I read and disliked last year. I hoped that putting stories in a fictional context might be more interesting; it wasn't. Then I hoped that the Afghan context might make it intriguing -- but it didn't. So I stopped hoping. It's about a bunch of expats in Kabul and some Afghans whose lives are entangled with theirs, and it's all terribly, terribly predictable. I'm going to try to squeeze in The End of Manners by Francesca Marciano, which sounds as if it starts from a similar point, and see if it is any better. This, honestly, is like Danielle Steele set in Kabul. The only really appealing part is when one of the Afghan characters tells Sunny, the main character, to stop feeling sorry for herself because of her personal emotional upheaval; after all, he and other Afghans didn't cry and demand sympathy when someone they loved went away for a few days. I felt like yelling, "you go, guy!" But of course, fantasy-land-style, all was soon sweetness and light once more, with well-intentioned foreigners triumphing and loose ends implausibly tied up. 2 stars; avoid. Thank heavens this was another library book.

And one more to add today, finished just before midnight:

Rondo by Kazimierz Brandys is a WONDERFUL novel that deserves its own lengthy review, and so will get one in the next few days. It's an extremely complex narrative, with many twists and turns, some big jumps back and forth (the narrator has a penchant for leaping forward with a big spoiler and then stepping back to fill in the narrative gaps.) In essence, it's the story of "Tom", a Polish student in the 1930s, and his effort to keep the woman he loves and is obsessed with, the actress Tola, from getting involved with the WW2 resistance, by inventing an entirely fictional group named Rondo, and enlisting her in it -- with tragi-comic results. It takes a long time to get to that point, but I was caught up in the book from the first few pages, and although I ended up borrowing this from the library, I'll be buying a copy for myself, as it's something I'm going to want to re-read, and read some more. The only thing that keeps this at 4.7 stars is that I sometimes felt the need of a road map and list of characters; reading this requires one's full attention and repays very thoughtful reading. For my 11 in 11 challenge.

Sounds like a fun book, Suzanne. I'll look for it.

#80: No, no phobias about spiders or snakes. My hubby on the other hand loathes spiders.

#82: I know I do not have a prayer of my local library having that one, but I am sticking it in the BlackHole anyway. I look forward to your complete review of it, Suz.

Rondo sounds absolutely wonderful so I'm not waiting for your complete review Suzanne. I usually love books that requires one's full attention. And thanks for letting me know about a couple that I can safely ignore.

A quotation from Rondo that I posted on the Readathon page yesterday and am now reposting here:
"It is impossible to shake off one's memories like snow from one's shoulders. They have to be allowed to melt slowly. I believed that memory is a matter of dignity, that the passing of time deserves our respect because it remains a part of ourselves, and nobody starts his existence from scratch. It's simply a matter of human decency."

Yep. Rondo goes on my wishlist too. Passion just arrived from PBS today. What is it suddenly about single word titles?

Peggy, I have absolutely no idea! But they do seem to be multiplying like rabbits left unattended.

Speaking of rabbits, here's a quotation from A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland, a book I expect to finish in the next hour or so. (I also expect to wrap up a thriller by midnight, although I'll probably wait until tomorrow to post comments, as I'm exhausted -- hours spent trying to get to sleep that didn't pay off until 5 a.m...) Maitland, who takes herself off to the (relative) wilds of northern England in search of silence and solitude, hopes to garden in her new home, only to find herself defeated by the weather and the rabbits. "There is a range of plants rabbits are said not to eat and I kept sending off for or downloading lists of them, but it was very discouraging. The rabbits and I seemed to have much the same tastes when it came to favourite plants and, moreover, I frequently found that the rabbits had not read the lists."

She also writes about books and reading, and whether they really contribute to "silence" or are an alternate form of noise. (Did you know that the first recorded example of silent reading was St. Augustine seeing Ambrose of Milan reading to himself silently in 385 AD??) Her comments about what I think of as being fluffy reading or brain candy are chastening and probably true: "I still, too often, use reading as a way to escape from silence, either into a noisy mental dogfight with authors I disagree with, or simply by being sucked into fictional worlds ... (The latter) can leave me entranced rather literally -- feeling empty at the end and even someone nauseated ... These are not 'silent' reading experiences -- they are overwhelming, even oppressive. Such novels are too easy, too successful; they don't 'nourish', they drain; they are escapist in the technical sense of the word, and even addictive."

Oh, something that proves that some feline has labeled my home as being exceptionally welcoming to cats... My upstairs neighbor, putting out the garbage at 6 a.m., found a black and white cat curled up in a box that had been left propped up against the wall, offering it a shelter. At about 1 p.m., when he came back from a walk with his 3 year old, the cat was still there... The box has to go into the recycling, but the poor cat was frantically trying to find another place to shelter (not from the weather, which is nice) but from what seemed a noisy and frightening world. Poor thing. But the last thing I can cope with is yet another cat around the house right now!

OK, off to finish the month's reading and try to be zen.

One further note, for anyone who is a fan of the Jackson Brodie books by Kate Atkinson: there is a series of DVDs coming out next month based on the novels! (Only in the UK so far, but for those of us with code-free DVD players -- one of my best technology investments EVER -- can order relatively cheaply from Amazon UK.) An additional incentive for me is that Jackson is being played by the younger brother of a friend of mine, Jason Isaacs. (he plays the elder Malfoy in the Harry Potter flicks) Needless to say, I have placed my pre-order...

Ye gods and little fishes! THREAD SIX and I lost you at three?!? *sigh* You move awful fast. One would think you lived in New York City, not Brooklyn.

Owed to Richard: one slap! Brooklyn has been part of the great metropolis for a century now, mon cher. (And look who's talking, anyway....)

**I** live in what was, until 1901, a part of Queens, which was where the richies of the day had their country houses. But still, really now, IS there anything to the City other than Manhattan? Honestly, now! Truth only! Brooklyn is, well, Brooklyn, and Queens is Gawd knows what, Staten Island is Jersey, the Bronx...*shudder*...let's not even talk about it. What's left? The Evil Isle of Manahatta, as the Lenapes called it.

Oh, piffle. There are neighborhoods and neighborhoods. My part of Brooklyn is far more what people think of by the phrase "New York" than, say, Inwood. The other side of Prospect Park gets more "Queens-like", and I can't even comment on Staten Island...

Yes, dear.

Poor kitty.. all alone in New York... no friendly neighbors to take her in?
Sounds terrifying..

I unashamedly hide in books. Better than a closet or under the bed.

Malfoy? That puts me off a bit ! Terrible lingering picture, you know? lol

Just had to comment on the "argument" over NYC... My best friend grew up and still lives on Staten Island and the first time I visited there, I told her I felt more out of place there than I did when I was in Bangkok :)

And I would support Suz's assertion that the boroughs vary by neighborhood. My mother grew up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, and I believe that area is rather nice...

Back to lurking now!

Katie -- LOL, and I must say that I feel more at ease with the locals in Bangkok, too, than I do in Staten Island... *grin*

Living where I do, I get all of Manhattan's amenities within easy reach at half the cost per square foot of retail space. And the uber rich of the 1870s used to hang their hats around here, too -- Winston Churchill's mother grew up here, back in the days when it was an elite enclave protected from the ravening hordes of Manhattan by the lack of a bridge!

Do you know, I'm still bumfuzzled by the presence of non-immigrants in Brooklyn. Going back that far, even.

Talk to George Washington, Richard. He wanted to hang on to it badly enough to fight a battle for it! (okay, so it didn't work...)

Catching up with a report on my final two books of the MONTH, finished last night.

A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland was a sometimes fascinating voyage into what "real" silence looks like, feels like and 'sounds' like. Maitland, who became a feminist and a Christian in the late 60s (she hung out with Bill Clinton at Oxford), went on to become a Roman Catholic and a novelist/short story writer. Increasingly, however, she hungers for solitude and silence, and this book is the chronicle of her attempts to seek it out and her ruminations on the nature of silence. The best thing about this book, IMO, is that it isn't a stunt memoir -- this is really how she lives, and it wasn't just an experiment undertaken in order to blog about it or write about it. The other big plus is that she's got a brilliant mind and is a talented writer. But... I couldn't love it. It wasn't the religious elements, which are there, but downplayed as much as is possible given that a big chunk of the world's experience with silence has come as a result of religious conviction (whether Christian hermits or Buddhists). The one small thing that irritated me slightly was the extensive quoting of often repetitious material, from creation myths to poetry. Don't get me wrong -- I'm interested in these things. But I'm MORE interested in what Maitland thinks of them -- after all, it's her book that I am reading. The larger issue is a more fundamental one. Maitland is scornful of the noisy world and its frivolous concerns, and in many respects I share that basic opinion. But the reality is that the kind of solitude she seeks out and views as necessary or at least helpful for human beings to realize things about themselves is a luxury in our world, even for those who might be able to tolerate the extremes that she can. Moreover, I kept wondering about what the people that loved her and needed her in their lives thought about all this? I'm essentially more solitary than group oriented, but even I found my eyebrows rising up towards my hairline on a few occasions. I'm quite sure Maitland is self-aware and that her intentions are pure, but she seems to have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to what others might need, psychologically, from her -- her presence, her attention, etc. And while a bit more silence may be very good for all of us, we couldn't cope as a society with people who retreated from others in the way that Maitland does. So this was a fascinating book, raising lots of provocative questions, more personal than George Prochnik's book about noise that I read last year, but with its own set of issues. 3.85 stars (am I getting picky, taking this to the second decimal place???); for my 11 in 11 challenge.

Also finished a bit of brain candy, The Devil's Light by Richard North Patterson. I really enjoyed some of Patterson's legal thrillers, but take him out of a courtroom and he just doesn't "click" with me as much. The early stages of the book, which revolves around a plot by Osama to hijack a nuke and blow it up somewhere, were tedious for a thriller, as the book kept digressing to fill in the backstory on the main characters. (And Patterson has a deeply unfortunate habit of using his characters to inform his readers of the context -- so he has two senior intelligence officers have a bizarre discussion in which one tells the other of the history of the Sunni/Shia split in Islam -- something which any self-respecting intelligence operative would not have needed to be told; the only reason for the telling was so that we, the readers, would know!) Still, the book picked up a lot of momentum in the final third, and I raced through it. Might work as a beach read, but far from this author's best work. Meh. 3.3 stars.

Now reading two chunksters, one of which, Berlin 1961 by Fred Kempe, is due back at the library Friday. Which is so not going to happen... *sigh* (someone has it on hold, so I can't renew, which means the fines will pile up...)

Final books of the year?? No more for 7 months? Or is that final books of the month?

Whoops! Must scurry and fix that. Nope, I'm not about to slash my wrists just yet. Unless, of course, these DO prove to be my final books of the year...

Fascinated to read your comments about the Maitland -- not a book I plan to read -- but your thoughts on her lack of concern about how others might react to her absences..... those thoughts 'reverberate' -- resonate with me. I'm always balancing need for solitude with need to connect. Sounds as though she doesn't think hard enough about what is behind the urge -- ?

Yes, that was intriguing to me, too, because prior to reading this book, I would have been very solidly in her camp, insisting on my right to solitude and silence if that is what I needed. I don't know whether it was what she said or how she said it, but by the end of the book, this was niggling at the back of my mind. I'll never be naturally gregarious and prefer lotsa company to quiet, but... In a way, it made me think about a bigger issue, that of our responsibility/duty to those we love and whose love in turn sustains us. What do we owe them? It's the same kind of question that I think is at the heart of The Hours by Michael Cunningham, and that made that book such a fascinating read for me.

Suz, big sunshine sale on Kindle ebooks today, all under three bucks. Not sure whether you'd seen it.

Thanks, Linda!! I've had a day from hell, so I hadn't seen it; Amazon may have sent me an e-mail but it didn't register... There are some real odd books in there (turkey-hunting tips???) but for historical fiction fans, there are some great finds, including Heyer's The Grand Sophy, the entire Brothers of Gwynedd quartet and Desiree by Annemarie Selinko. But I also picked up (in addition to books by Susanna Kearsley and Helen Hollick) some short stories by Kafka and a novel by Andre Brink. And I can feel good because it didn't cost much and the books don't require shelf space!!

I think I picked up 6 or 7 ebooks for ten bucks, including First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat Into a Cultural Phenomenon, a couple of baseball bios, and a couple of hockey books.

I saw it on the Amazon FB page. Don't recall seeing any email from them.

There were some great sports books; I admit I wondered about an entire book about Gatorade. I also got God is an Englishman, which I read at about the age of 13, and probably have not re-read since I was 17, so it will be interesting.

My other books news today is that I got an ARC of a new book about the collapse of the Soviet Union from one of the publishers I met with at BookExpo -- Hurrah! Love free books. Must sort out my blog plans...

That sounds good. One sunshine book of more general interest, perhaps, is the one about the musicians on the Titanic.

I need to finish up another net galley review. I see that Poisoned Pen automatically okays people with 5 reviews. I'm at 4 now (though maybe 3, need to check). Having those available on Kindle has made it much easier. That seems to be working out ok, especially as to mysteries and baseball books, which are, of course, my favorites.

Speaking of NetGalley, I have just posted a rave review (well, relatively speaking) of a recent book I got from them. It's my book du jour: Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore by Stella Duffy, the first foray into historical novels (or so it seems) by a writer who has had two of her previous books make it into the Orange Prize shortlist. I had never read any of Duffy's prior books, but had always wanted to find a good historical novel set in the Byzantine Empire, and this story of 6th century empress Theodora succeeds wonderfully at being both a good novel and really evocative of the time and place in which it's set -- a time when men in the street would end up brawling after an argument about the nature of Christ's divinity. Duffy doesn't let that weigh too heavily on her, although she is remarkably faithful to history. Her Theodora is bawdy and sharp tongued (don't read this book if you have a problem with the matter of fact usage of the f-word in its proper context); the story revolves around her evolution into the kind of strong and independent woman whose name has come down to us in history (and art -- she is featured in some remarkable mosaics in Ravenna). Recommended; 4.2 stars.

Off to try and get some sleep. A real beast of a day, and not enough sleep to cope with it gracefully. Theodora would understand -- although she'd think I was a wimp.

I hope you are getting your rest, Suz!

The Stella Duffy book sounds like a good one. I am glad you enjoyed it.

I really like the sound of the Duffy book ... and, for once, the local library has a copy:)

Hope you manage to get some rest.

It was really interesting to browse through your list. I read widely as well: Bookers to Romantic Times sci-fi/ fantasy/ mystery recommendations. Not as much nonfiction though. Your pace is amazing to me.

Blast from the past.. Delderfield!
I did not read God is an Englishman, but I did read To Serve Them all my Days
a long time ago. I liked it a lot.. and think I should hut it down again, and perhaps
God is an Englishman as well..

Years ago, when my kids were younger.. and books less expensive..
I would often choose a book by the number of pages. The more the better..
and that is how I found Delderfield.

Managed about four hours last night, but yesterday was such a bear of a day that I feel (and look) like I've been run over by a truck.

Jeanne, I have stopped trying to understand how I choose what to read, or even to figure out any kind of pattern! There are some genres that I just have never really developed any affection for, like formula romance and bodice rippers, or science fiction (although I've been tiptoeing closer to the latter, reading Connie Willis and Lev Grossman this year.) I do enjoy reading non-fiction, although sometimes I have to prod myself -- there are so many interesting books out there and I get annoyed with myself for reading a mediocre novel rather than devoting time and attention to a "chunkster" non-fiction book that I know will be more rewarding but demand more effort.

Yes, I'm going to have search out some more of Duffy's novels. The library has State of Happiness, so I'll start with that. It's possible that she is a "women's novelist" (you know the kind of thing I mean, writing novels about angst-ridden women and their crises that are really quite banal at heart, a la Jodi Picoult. Not to diss Jodi in particular, but the ideas/themes/characters in her books are the kind that popped up in Oprah shows and the situations always drive characters.) But -- and it's a big but -- Duffy can write and I enjoyed her style. It's as if she's teetering on some crossover point between popular women's novels (not chick lit!) and mildly literary fiction. At least based on this one novel I've read, which is more interesting than the vast array of historical fiction has become to me. Too much of it now strikes me as little more than highly decorated and romanticized history with dialog -- Christy English being one example of this. I admit I cut my teeth on Jean Plaidy's books, but I really can't read them any more -- they are too predictable. I'm looking for historical novels that are also rich in characterization and with intriguing plots or approaches that are still true to the facts, and Theodora was one. Another one that I found fascinating was Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett, although none of the author's subsequent books have come close to living up to that.

OK, will stop rambling and go do some work...

Oh no, a woman-book! *flees in terror and revulsion*

Wait...that wasn't the book about Theodora, was it...okay, I'll give that'un a try.

I think you'd like the Theodora book, Richard -- it's fun and unpretentious. Sure, Theodora has a religious conversion experience in the Sinai, but heck, it IS the 6th century. And then she goes off and has a fling with a dancer named Macedonia, and gets drunk on her return to Constantinople, so it didn't turn her into a killjoy!

That era is underrepresented in fiction, for some reason I can't fathom. It's incredible what Justinian had planned, and was prevented from doing by the economic disaster of the plage and the Mount Toba-induced famines. What if he'd been Emperor at a more clement time, I wonder....

I have most of Stella Duffy's books except the Theodora ones. The ones I've read are 3 of her PI series featuring lesbian South London PI Saz Martin, which I enjoyed generally. An online reading friend dismisses some of her other work as chicklit.

I think State of Happiness may be her sad one about a woman with cancer, I haven't read it yet and may not do so for a while now as it's too close for comfort at present, but I own it (Duffy was treated apparently successfully for breast cancer about 10 years ago). Maybe I should pick up The Room of Lost Things - it's set less than 50 miles from me.

Richard, I think that era -- 6th century -- is tricky because it's hard to avoid the religion thing, and the theological debates now seem so arcane and convoluted to us. The kind of people who now are obsessed with Obama's birth certificate back then were obsessed with the nature of Christ's divinity -- and were quite happy to brawl over the issue. But that's hard to write about for a contemporary audience who are more accustomed to bodice rippers or to "plain vanilla" historical fiction. Hilary Mantel could do it, but it's not her area of interest. Anne Perry tried in The Sheen on the Silk, but that was just a bad, turgid novel. I have a novel by Jill Paton Walsh set in the final days of Constantinople that I intend to read soonish, but this earlier period is known more through history. Have you read Justinian's Flea?

Yes and yes to your response about the Maitland, so thoughtfully put.

OH MY God is an Englishman! I gobbled up all of those about the same time you did!

And .... so glad (underlined) that you are creeping closer to SF and fantasy -- in my view you are a lucky duck in that you have an incredible reading adventure still ahead of you! Hurry on over to the dark side!

>119 Chatterbox: Justinian's Flea is on some pile or another in my bedroom. I have so many books that I need to read it's not funny. I've got some nerve getting more from ER and PBS and BkM. But hell, if I don't bring them home, who will love and fondle them? And who doesn't want to be loved and fondled for the pleasures of one's company?

>120 sibylline: Delderfield was one of Mama's very favorite authors. I could track her progress in the books by the tenor of her mutterings...always knew when a crisis loomed. She did the same thing with the Dorothy Dennett books.

I was never really in love with the Delderfield books, but I quite enjoyed the "Avenue" two-book series, and To Serve Them all my Days -- I think that's the school series, isn't it? Although Delderfield did manage to rip off Mr. Chips in terms of the basic plotline.

OK, book du jour: The Stone Cutter by Camilla Lackberg. This is the third in a quite good if not spectacular series (I spotted the criminal from miles away) set in Sweden and featuring Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck. In fact, it mostly features Patrik; since the first book, Erica has retreated into the backdrop, although there's a suspenseful subplot featuring her younger sister that reaches a climax in the final pages of this segment in the series. I suppose I'm being generous in awarding this book -- which starts with a young girl found floating, dead, in the sea off Fjallbacka, the town in which Patrik and Erica live -- 3.8 stars, because the more I think of it now that it's finished, the more flaws spring to mind -- such as one detective who is just so stupid that there is no possible way he could have remained on the job as long as he did -- it's almost a caricature. But then, those didn't bother me as much while I was reading, as Lackberg does a very creditable job of creating a world in which nobody is quite as they seem, and ugly secrets abound. In this novel, many of those secrets revolve around the relationships between parents and children, not surprisingly particularly emotive issues for Patrik and Erica, who have just welcomed their daughter Maja into the world. Modestly recommended, but read the other books in the series first. Because of the way this one hands, I'll now have to read #4 soon; it's lodged underneath a stack of others, though, so I'll have to redecorate the living room to get to it!

Not sure what I'll move onto next; not in the mood to deal with anything ultra-literary.

Suz- I know I haven't been by here, in forever! Hopefully that will improve. I like your review on The Stone Cutter. I've been keeping my eye out for the 1st book in the series. Have a great weekend!
BTW- I just finished Lord of Misrule. I've been struggling over my thoughts. It's one of those books I wish I could have appreciated more.

Nice to see you, Mark! I know -- too many threads, too many books -- and too little time. Sigh...

I admit that I loved Lord of Misrule. I don't know what I expected, and the book was very different than anything else I've read recently, and that certainly contributed -- there was a freshness to the writing style and the narrative that captured my interest. It was one of those books that I picked up, intending to skim a few pages, and found myself reading steadily through it (wandering through the house with the open book in front of my nose!) until I was done. For me, books that I wanted to like more include The Tiger's Wife and Swamplandia! both of which got a great deal of buzz, and neither of which resonated with me in the least. I could appreciate the authors' stylistic prowess, but I was always conscious that I was reading a book -- the kiss of death to me.

Lucy, don't hold your breath waiting for me to become a big sci-fi fan -- not gonna happen. I do like some dystopian books (Never Let Me Go, The Handmaid's Tale) and I was intrigued enough to try The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I enjoyed Connie Willis, but I've looked at others and they have left me underwhelmed. I'm definitely uninterested in "alternate worlds", spaceships and other planets and suchlike stereotypical stuff. I can deal with standard plots in a mystery, but not when the author deals himself a 'get out of jail free' card by setting something in a parallel world or creating another species that doesn't have to behave in a plausible fashion. Too often, I've seen that become an excuse for lazy plotting or characterization.

OK, rant over!

The house seems to have been adopted by a stray black and white cat. He's friendly, but slightly shy -- showed up hiding in a box put out for collection, and is now curled up on the outside stairs to my neighbors' front door. I'd like to put him in my back yard -- but to do that, I'd have to carry him through a house full of my cats who would be less than enthused by the idea!

Oh stop! I've added Kearsley and Hollick, and I'm not Suzanne and can't read one a day. But the price! And the history!! And the stories!!!
I am not, not getting Desiree, but oh how she conjures up 9th grade and sitting in study hall with my friends in a row all reading her or Forever Amber or Angelique! Thanks for the memories. And I haven't read Lord of Misrule yet either, but there it is on my Kindle with thanks to Ms. CB.
I have to say that I think you're selling good science fiction short, but you know what you will and will not enjoy.
Finally, good luck to both you and the black and white stray. After our experience last year with the little gray and white kitten that had feline leukemia, I'd think twice before I carried him through my house and the other cats too. But ---- if you had him vetted first -----!

Peggy, I read all those books in grade 10, when I was 14/15!! I think Forever Amber might have been a year or two earlier, before we moved to Europe. I remember reading Angelique just before going to Paris, and insisting on going to see the Pont Neuf! Now I can't believe I read the Angelique books... *eyes roll*

Amazing how books just "pop" onto your Kindle when you aren't paying attention, isn't it???

OK, off to do some reading...

123, 124 I also loved Lord of Misrule; it was one of my favorite books last year. I didn't think it worked perfectly but I was very impressed by how beautifully and often poetically Gordon writes, how each character has his or own voice, and how she conveys the life of the racetrack and the sense of place. I found the ending a little overly melodramatic and was not won over by the gangster element, but this book started me reading other books by Gordon (and by the way, LoM is definitely the most accessible of the ones I've read).

Desiree...oh my. Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was my idea of a perfect man after reading that book.

I started reading She Drove Without Stopping, Rebecca, but alas, this reader found she could stop, at least when it came to this book. I may try again, or try another of her books, because I don't think Misrule can be just a fluke

Am reading a short lively little book on the future of journalism and ran across a REAL blooper in the early pages -- the author (a Spanish journalist) dates the creation of Benjamin Harrison's broadsheet paper in Boston, the first of its kind, to 1868. Erm, I don't think so. Try 1690. Good grief.

Woken up this morning by Cassie the cat charging back and forth across my feet. Realized that the cause for the excitement was the mouse with which she was playing "catch and release". I screamed; she dropped her jaw in astonishment and let the mouse escape. So now, somewhere in my book-cluttered bedroom, is a wounded, angry and vengeful mouse...

Suz, I'm chuckling and snorting over 'catch and release' -- we have an ongoing problem with that problem here too. The worst is our 'hunter' cat brings them in. At least in yr. case the cat is doing the job of trying to clear them out, w/a bit of fun in the process!

Perhaps this sounds a bit melodramatic -- but I am quite convinced that hidden among the silly and inane of which there is plenty (and some of which, I admit, I enjoy) -- the sf genre reveals -- no more, no less -- where we are going -- not the future exactly -- but the possibilities. Even some pretty bad sf has these 'moments'. Not only technologically, for it is the place where writers explore 'what if'. Anyhow, it's the only future I'll ever get to live in, so I'm happy to wallow in it.

Wounded, angry, vengeful mice! Eeek! How will you *sleep* tonight for fear its Jaws of Steel will gnaw and bite and sever parts of your anatomy?!? Like, maybe, a callus on your foot or something.

Suz- I'm glad you enjoyed Lord of Misrule as much as you did. There is much beauty in that book and I tried to keep my review fair.
I can't believe what Rebecca said about Misrule being more accessible than her other work. Wow!

129, 132 I enjoyed both She Drove Without Stopping and Bogeywoman, but you really have to both be in the mood for them and get in the mood of the novels, as well as have the patience for Gordon's fascinating and strange use of language. (You can read my reviews on the book pages, if you're interested.) I also bought Shamp of the City Solo but that looks too experimental for me, although I may tackle it sometime.

Richard, it's called over the counter sleeping aids. 1/3 of one of those will knock me senseless for 24 hours.

Oddly, Lucy, I don't think that Cassie was trying to be helpful to me. She was just trying to amuse herself, and real live mice are SO much more fun than those obviously fake toy ones. The only thing better would be if they came dusted with catnip!

Hmmm, if something is too experimental for you, Rebecca, I suspect it will be downright unreadable for me. I'd end up whimpering in a corner of the room after my brain had exploded. I will try her other two books again, but probably not imminently.

Back later; off to pick up migraine drugs/painkillers.

Now thanks to Rebecca, I'm really excited again about *Misrule* and *SDW/oS* is on the wishlist. Many thanks again! My poor feline furs have so little scope for catch and release - and I'm heartily grateful.

OK, here's the book du jour:
Inheriting the Trade by Thomas DeWolf was an intriguing but flawed book, and I'm still wrestling with how much has to do with the author's inability to break beyond the "touchy feely" family issues and how much has to do with the thorny nature of the topic at hand. In a nutshell: 10 family members, descendants of Rhode Island's DeWolf family, which played a major role in the slave traffic in the 18th century and into the first years of the nineteenth century, decide to confront this legacy at the behest of one of their members, who intends to make a film of their travels and experiences. It's evocative material, and yet it never really comes off. There is endless to-ing and fro-ing over the issue of whether or how to apologize for inherited privilege, all chronicled earnestly by DeWolf (who is the only one in the group to be descended from a family member who didn't participate in "the trade" but also the only one to carry the family surname.) But it too often sounds like an encounter group, and too much of this book is just documenting conversations that seem to go nowhere, resolve nothing but generate a lot of emotion. There are a lot of banal observations, such as DeWolf's ruminations on a house that once stood on plantation ground in Cuba: "I can see in the eyes of the woman before me that loving people lived there." Huh? Really? ESP?? Occasionally, the terribly earnest (and certainly sincere) efforts to engage in "dialog" end up feeling like some kind of stunt, as when the family members gather for a meal they are told is what would have been served to slaves about to start work for the day on DeWolf plantations in Cuba. Perhaps the sad part about this book is one that DeWolf recognizes -- without understanding the implications for either his book or his cousin's film: "We're creating an invitation to a deeper conversation. This is not a spectator sport." Well, then why invite spectators by writing a book? I can provide an answer to that question -- they want others to follow their lead. And it's in that respect that I found this book interesting enough to give 3 stars to, because it forced me to think about what kinds of privilege I did and did not inherit.

At the same time, the voices I found most compelling and convincing weren't those of the family members (some of whom seemed to really need something to feel guilty about, even if it was hundreds of years in the past and had nothing to do with their own actions or emotions) but those who came into contact with the group on their travels and put forward some variation of the following argument: that what we can all do is to be mindful not to view others as "the other". What was intriguing to me is what I ended up thinking about with regard to history. I'm a history junkie -- I'm fascinated by the past, the trail of human history and experience, particularly what I think of as points of inflection, where cultures cross paths or some kind of major turning point is reached (eg, the printing press). This book, as well the extradition of Ratko Mladic and the (perennial) discussions about Israel and Palestine, made me think for a while that history can actually be a bad thing -- too much history, and it ties us to a view of the past that damages the present and limits future potential. At what point are we able to make decisions not out of guilt or anger at past injustices, but out of what is needed to bring about a world where those kinds of injustices are inconceivable? In the early stages of working on a book project about genealogy and why people are so obsessed by it, these were some important thoughts to throw into the mix, so I'm grateful to this otherwise mediocre book (that really doesn't do justice to the subject it deals with, in contrast to Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball. I'd recommend reading the latter; unless you're really interested in the subject, I'd say this is one you could probably skip. But I might keep an eye open for On Apology by Anton Lazare, because it seems to deal in a more rigorous and less emotional way with the question of apologies for long-past crimes and injustices. I wrestle with this as it would feel artificial for me to apologize: I didn't enslave anyone, none of my ancestors (and I know this for a fact, given my research into my own family's history) benefited in any but the most indirect way from slavery (perhaps they made cheese that was eaten by people who sold things to the DeWolfs?) and slave-owning was never a part of Canada in the way that it was in the U.S. So if I apologize, it's a derivative apology -- one that apologizes for a negative -- the fact that my illiterate 4x grandfather, when he arrived in Canada, could hope that his grandsons (as happened) could emerge as well educated and successful professionals. But how is that an apology, and how does it change today's reality? So I want to understand more of the dynamics of these apologies, because right now I feel the only way forward is by allowing history to be history and focusing on social inequalities of all kinds and crafting a world where it's inconceivable that someone else's race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical characteristics, education, level of affluence, etc. enable anyone else to view them as "the other" and thus, somehow, lesser. (Read Ryszard Kapuscinski's wonderful The Other for some insight on that topic.)

Ooof, long screed for a mediocre book. I'll finish the journalism book overnight or tomorrow morning, and then I'll finish Susanna Kearsley's new book, The Rose Garden and start reading the third in the series of mysteries by Ann Cleeves featuring her latest character, Vera Stanhope -- Telling Tales.

Suzanne-- Just wanted to say that I totally agree with what you said about history: "it ties us to a view of the past that damages the present and limits future potential". I was a history junkie to the point that I could take classes from one particular professor whose lectures spun its web in my brain, and I enjoy reading history, but mostly I'm a political junkie and think of current points as part of the flow of history and how they might be pivotal. Well said.

I own Slaves in the Family although I have not read it yet. Thanks for the reminder to get to it, Suz. I think I will skip the DeWolf book.

Interesting comments about Inheriting the Trade, although it sounds quite tedious. I've added Slaves in the Family to my wish list, and I agree with you about The Other.

>136 Chatterbox: Oh dear, that does sound grisly. The more touchy-feely the book, the less I trust it. WHY do you, Mr. DeWolf, feel the need to beat the other nine family members about the head and shoulders with this past if there is **nothing you all can do about it**? Unless you're going to make sizable cash donations to scholarship funds for African-Americans or something, or give all the royalties you earn to an underprivileged people's housing organization, why would I want to buy OR read your book?

*grump*

Slaves in the Family sounds like a good one.. and I found it used on Ammy..
( sorry rd.. I disagree) I was waffling about another used book o Amazon this morning..
and so just threw caution to the wind and got both ~

Disagree about what? I don't hear the same criticism of Slaves in the Family that Suz laid on Inheriting the Trade.

oh.. just disagree that it isn't worth reading about.. I would read it. I have read a bit about the other side, those who have helped with the underground railroad or who have been slaves. It is a horrific situation that we can't go back and fix, or change, I agree with that.. but I am interested in his views on his ancestors and the choice they made.
No, I can't explain why..

Ah.

Suzanne, I really enjoyed your articulate thoughts on a so-so book--thanks for taking the time to share with us.

Richard, to be fair, the whole thing wasn't organized by DeWolf, but by one of his cousins (the filmmaker). He comes along for the ride -- and yes, decides to make money off it. And yes, I'd be interested to know if any of that went to scholarship programs, but I couldn't see any notes about that in my edition.

Kath, there is more agonizing about the decisions the ancestors made, and agonizing about what they can "do" (and precious little action) to repent, and much less really thoughtful discussion of the kind that I, too, had hoped to see. It's emotional venting with astonishingly little substance behind it -- which makes it annoying. I kept thinking to myself as I was reading -- damn, this cost them a bomb -- the transport costs, bus rentals, hotels, guides and "facilitators", not to mention the film equipment in tow. Why not just start a blog about it?? And put the money that was saved into something that can make a difference in the lives of some people today, rather than offering a forum for them to flagellate themselves? Don't misunderstand me -- people who have done evil SHOULD flagellate themselves. Those whose errors are simply being descended from the wrong people hundreds of years later -- particularly those who are or become aware of the "unearned privilege" and respond thoughtfully to that in their daily lives -- aren't the kind of people I want to read about wrestling with their "guilt". It's self-indulgent. Now admittedly, I can't put myself in the place of someone who is descended from the slaves that their ancestors transported -- perhaps I'd want to see that. But I'd want to see it accompanied by something a damn sight more substantial than making a film about "coming to grips with their heritage."

All that said -- it will be fun to incorporate some of this in the genealogy book. Assuming that I (a) get the proposal finished and (b) a publisher buys the damn thing.

fingers & toes crossed for the buying of the damned thing.

If you want a fun time-waster, try this random sentence generator:
http://watchout4snakes.com/CreativityTools/RandomSentence/RandomSentence.aspx

Mine:
"The component friendship prevails."

More fun than fortune cookies!

136: I read Slaves in the Family several years ago, appreciate your contrast to Inheriting the Trade, which I have not read. I had hoped for similar qualities in Edward Ball's later book The Genetic Strand, which I read just a few weeks ago, but was underwhelmed.

Wow, thanks for the tip on The Genetic Strand! It may be underwhelming, but I suspect it will prove helpful for my own book. Which hopefully will not prove underwhelming, although even if I find I publisher this summer, I suspect you'll be waiting until xmas 2012 or even 2013 for it to see the light of day!

Books du jour:

The Piano Player in the Brothel by Juan Luis Cebrian -- the best part of this book about the future of journalism,for me at least, was the the title. It's a selection of essays, loosely linked by the responsibilities of journalists to democracy and the public, but many of those that I was interested in reading -- about the digital world -- were less helpful than they might have been. Cebrian's knowledge of the Internet, its blogs and tweets, is even slimmer than mine; I wanted a critical view of this, but he's talking in generalities that are simply too great to be useful in forming thoughts or responses. The parts of this I did find intriguing were those that probably relatively few of his readers will want to devour -- the portions where he writes about what it meant to be a journalist in Franco's Spain, and how Spanish journalism evolved in the wake of the dictatorship. A mere 3.1 stars for this; only if you're really, really interested. The best part of this was the intro by Harold Evans (former Times of London editor.)

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley is classic brain candy fluff, but a delightful Sunday read, especially for someone with a lingering migraine. Eva returns to the Cornish manor house where she and her recently-deceased sisters had spent many happy years as children, in order to scatter her sister's ashes. She stays on to help friends turn the manor into a tea garden, revolving around its famous roses. But then she finds that somehow she can "slip" into the past -- specifically, to 1715, and the little known Jacobite rebellion that was brewing at the time. It's primarily a love story/time travel historical novel, with a very very fun twist at the end of the book, when Eva realizes she may not be the only time traveler around. It reminds me of two of Dinah Lampitt's books which, despite their rather lurid 70s/early 80s style covers, are actually very interesting and sometimes funny time-travel based sagas. In one of those, As Shadows Haunting, the main character, Sidonie, is a specter who witnesses what happens to Lady Sarah Lennox and her family and friends at Holland House (her new home is in today's Holland Park, near where that vast house once stood.) In the other, Banishment, the heroine literally slides into an existing body and is caught up in the events of the English Civil War (1641-1645, more or less), and has to get accustomed to living without toothpaste and other stuff in a world where people fight each other on horseback. The latter is a closer parallel to this and both characters must face a decision on what world they belong. Kearsley's latest was a fun page-turner and a thumping good read; 4.2 stars, recommended if you like her books or this kinda stuff. For my 11 in 11 challenge.

>148 Chatterbox: I love it! My sentence (and deep thought for the day): "When will the corpse support the beard?"

Cornish manor, huh... looks good :)

#151 -- exactly -- they are so opaque/oblique, that I figure they MUST have some hidden meaning, right? A bit like a Zen master's koans....

Off to read more fluff, I think. I'm not quite in the mood for reading about Berlin and the cold war, although hopefully will make some progress on that, too. But I hear a mystery and a chick lit novel calling to me... yes, those are the voices I hear... I'm coming!

150: I'm curious about your genealogy project/proposal. Maybe you have said more elsewhere, or can't say much yet? I've been sporadically dabbling in genealogy (which is how Slaves in the Family came to my attention), get obsessed with a particular problem then interest fades when I reach a stage of diminishing returns.

#154 -- working title is "Bluebloods, Black Sheep and Missing Links: Our Obsessive Search for Our Roots". The focus isn't on how, but rather who and above all why -- it's not a how to, but a work of narrative non-fiction. I'm wrestling with the proposal (makes the alligator wrestling in Swamplandia! look like a doddle), which will go to my agent & then on to the editor I worked with on book #1 (Crown, a division of Random House), who has dibs on it. If he passes, I'll have to expand the proposal before it heads out into the big wide world.

The site generated "The mug changes a sundry musician on top of the recipient." That could be either delightful or horrifying.

Robert

"The customary barrister succeeds beneath the pie."

The Rose Garden is going onto my wishlist. When this type of book is done well, it can be very entertaining. And one of Heyer's Georgian books deals with the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion, in part, in The Masqueraders.

The hidden benefit for me was that Kearsley sets her book in a disguised Polperro, which is about 12 or 14 miles along the coastal path to Polruan, where I myself will head like some kind of idiot with a homing device implanted in me at the slightest excuse (at least, as long as it's outside the tourist season!) And I've walked that stretch of the coast path scads of times. At the beginning, she writes about a feeling that comes over you when crossing the Tamar, the river that separates Cornwall and Devon, and I feel that every time I'm on the train, as it inches over the bridge above the river. When I'm on the other side, I'm just ... happy. And yet to the best of my knowledge, I'm not Cornish at all! Go figure... (Maybe it's the Celtic connection???)
(edited to fix same typo -- twice!)

I popped over to see your take on The Piano Player in the Brothel and disappointed to hear you didn't find it very enlightening. The demise of journalism as we know it has been a hot topic in our household of late, and when I saw the title pop up in my Connection News list, I was hopeful. I guess an active search is in order.

>148 Chatterbox:: "A wondrous reactor originates."

Hope your migraine has left the building, Suzanne. I have the same on occasion. Not fun.

"Why does a confining nightmare listen?"

Your book sounds very interesting.. staying tuned for updates on that..

155: Yeah, I gathered it was "why" from your earlier description. Interesting, and I'll want to read it in 2012 or 2013... For me, much of the appeal is the giant jigsaw puzzle aspect -- filling gaps and connecting pieces.

"Will the angle corner our threat?" I'm breathless with anticipation!
Also will be eager to read in '12 or '13 since DH and I are almost ancestor worshipers.
But *Poldark* is 18th century Cornwall! If you aren't carried away through all 13 volumes, I will be mighty disappointed, Suzanne!

I sent Stella Duffy a link to your review here of her book on Twitter, and here's her response:

stellduffy

@elkiedee ooh thank you. and please thank your friend for me - she clearly has fine readership skills!

>154 qebo:: get obsessed with a particular problem then interest fades when I reach a stage of diminishing returns.

I also get obsessed, then lose interest, then get obsessed again in a never-ending cycle for much the same reason. I've ended up with close to 60,000 names of blood relatives and their spouses in the database with more coming in all the time as people see something and say, "Hey, I hook in there...want my information?"

For me the big disappointment is that there is a fair bit on some lines but I'm stymied on my pure paternal line (and, hence, my surname) because my great-great-great grandfather came over as a child with his maternal grandparents, so different last name. And, it was back in those days when censuses only listed the head of household's name, so I can't locate him prior to adulthood. It's a brick wall that I doubt will ever be broken.

Well, you all do realize that I'll be tapping you as sources for this book when the time comes??!!?? Tad, one thing you might try (if you haven't already) is a group-based approach -- where did your 3xgreat grandfather come from, and were there others from the community in his new home? The other is to look at names and compare them to records in the original community -- not just surname, but first name. Odds are that his parents died, no? So I'd scrutinize death records in the time frame that applies and see what pops up. Though of course, you may well have done this, or the records may just not be there.

Woke up this morning with a really really nasty sore throat, no voice and the beginnings of a cold. Reminds me of last year around this time when this happened days before my book launch. This year, I've got a two-day conference event, part of this governance fellowship program, starting at 8:30 tomorrow morning. So I'm resting and using willpower to banish the damn thing today.

60,000? ye gods. I am having a tough time because there are 3 Daniel John McStays..
My family was not too creative with men's names. It is giving me fits keeping them sorted.
My father's brother has done a lot, but will not share with me ..
( because I am a liberal... he is a thief, but that is another story)

165: I have some lines that are well documented, but the one that's been most interesting is my father's mother's family, which as far as he'd ever known spontaneously generated in Illinois. Of course they did not, and I've had some success tracing them back a couple generations, but before the late 1800s / early 1900s they were not in areas of refined government bureaucracy, their names are common, and the destroyed 1890 census would've add a crucial piece of information. But... recently a brick wall came down when a second cousin discovered a letter that I'd written to his father several years before, which happened to be in a box with a letter from a mystery relative that included chatty commentary with lots of names, and confirmed a link that I'd thought would never get beyond wishful speculation.

167: My family was not only uncreative with names, but they had a fixation on some names, so for example if the first son Samuel died, a not infrequent occurrence, then the next son born was named Samuel. Creepy.

>166 Chatterbox:: Suzanne, I've done as much of that as I can figure to do at this point.

He was from Germany, origin undocumented beyond "Bavaria", came as an orphan with maternal grandparents, name unknown. I can't place him in a household before he became Head of Household because I don't know his maternal grandfather's name, so I'd have to hope that the area where he first appears on his own is the same as where he grew up, which is tenuous since he moved a lot as a young adult looking for work. Then take down all the German names in that area, cross-reference to get immigration records that recorded towns of origin for those HoHs (since censuses didn't record it), then go to Germany and investigate parish records to find a birth.

More than I can tackle right now in my life.

>167 mckait:: Yes, I get tripped up in "John Doe" son of "John Doe" son of "John Doe" nephew of "John Doe" situations all the time.

>168 qebo:: That 1890 census is a killer!

My most tantalizing/frustrating thing is much-abused fragment of a letter. We can read the date on it: 1892. The rest reads:

in 45 about
County Derry Ireland -- Andy White
& Jean Herron. crossed ocean 3 times.
2 mos. on ocean--settled in
Franklin Co.--on Antietam Creek
within few miles--his father was
youngest born 59. Nancy oldest
James & John--4 daughters.
one married Paxton to Kentucky.
Their daughter married Robt. Todd.
Their daughter married Abraham Lincoln.
Nancy, Hannah--can't mind rest.
N married - 2 - last man
Ramsey out in Ind. 2 married
& lived in Ind. Co. One married James Simpson
same living about Homer City.
Hannah Simpson their daughter
married Gen. Grant.

It's tantalizing because there must have been some fragment of family story at its basis. It's frustrating because it's so wrong as written:

Gen. Ulysses Grant married Julia Dent, the daughter of Frederick & Ellen (Wrenshall) Dent, not Hannah Simpson. Ulysses Grant's mother was Hannah Simpson. However, she was the daughter of John & Rebecca (Weir) Simpson, not James & Hannah (White) Simpson. Since our Hannah Simpson and Grant's mother were both born in the 1790s, perhaps someone mixed them up?

Second, the family connection to Abraham Lincoln seems problematic. The note seems to say that one of the White girls married either a Mr. Paxton, or in the town of Paxton (the old name for Harrisburg, PA), and moved to Kentucky--the home of the Todd family. Their daughter, who married Robert Todd, would then have to be Eliza Parker, Mary Todd's mother. However, Eliza's parents were Robert & Elizabeth (Porter) Parker, not a White daughter.

*sigh*

>169 qebo:: One of my favorite stories is from a distant cousin who found out that her great-grandfather had two eldest sons named Archibald, both living...one with his wife, one with his mistress. He named them the same to prevent accidental slips of the tongue. It only came out after his death.

Now y'all see why there is a book in this! LOL...

the naming thing can be frustrating, but it can also be oddly helpful. There are definite naming patterns, and sometimes if you're wondering whether or not someone in the same area with the same surname "belongs", you can rule it out with the name. For instance, in looking for the ancestor of 3 immigrant brothers who founded the Burchell family in Ontario, I know I'm looking for an Edward, a Samuel or a John -- it's a certainty that one of the three was named for his father. It's also a near certainty that their mother's name was used in naming their daughters.

Re Hannah Simpson, I'd suspect a mixup combined with wishful thinking...

Germans had very distinct naming patterns up through the end of the 18th century. It's possible g3-grandfather's family continued them (he was born c. 1815). Unfortunately, those naming patterns started every male's name with Johann or Hans and it was the middle name, or nenner, that distinguished the kids. Unfortunately, the only name we have for him is John...which probably indicates he was the eldest son but is spectacularly unhelpful in tracking families among Germans. I've tried some checking based upon his son's middle name (John Blaine), but no luck so far. Blaine is a bit un-Germanic, so I occasionally put some effort into cognates but it's generally unproductive...which is where qebo's comment about diminishing returns comes in. Much more fun in tracking families where there's simply too much information to record it all.

Trust me, I've beaten my head against this for 25 years.

Yes, I suspect wishful thinking on the Simpsons. I also suspect wishful thinking in the Todd connection. What's tantalizing is that it's not usual for there to be two wishful thinkings together like that. It leads me to believe that there's some tenuous, cadet link to Todds or Grants and it got blown up in someone's recounting of oral history.

170: My father remembers that when he was a kid, circa 1940, his great-grandmother had hanging on her wall a family tree showing that she was related to Sam Houston. I've contacted family in the town of his great-grandmother, and there is a photograph of her father with a note on the back claiming that he was a "cousin" of Sam Houston. My internet research dredged up a family tree that showed a connection, apparently a tree deposited with LDS, origin unknown. Encouraging but dubious, so I began to research it. It happens that ancestors of Sam Houston passed through Lancaster Co PA, which is where I live, so I went to the local historical society to see wills and such, and what I found disproved the connection in the internet tree. So now the question is, was there an erroneous family tree floating around that the great-grandmother's family thought was true? This is my guess. But it's also possible that there really is a connection and they were close enough to the source to know what it was.

My grandmother used to tell me that her grandfather was a cabinet minister in the federal government of Canada under Wilfred Laurier. I discovered that he was, in fact, a member of the Ontario provincial parliament -- but never any kind of cabinet minister! It's funny, because the truth is just as fascinating. HIS grandfather, after all, had been an illiterate Irish blacksmith from Co. Antrim.

175: My mother's family oral history includes an ancestor who was in the Battle of Trafalgar. Turns out he wasn't. But he was in the British Navy at around the right time, and there are documents to prove it. So, grain of truth. (I haven't done this level of research. My mother was a librarian, began genealogy after she retired, and before there was anything useful on the internet, so she went where the documents resided.)

My brother has been trying to trace our family's tree for years and has been finding it difficult because we're apparently a family with nomadic tendencies, and we're spread out all across the globe. He believes it would be easier just going to a meeting in the United Nations building and checking DNA from the delegates there to see how many are our relatives.

Caro, if I were writing a stunt memoir instead of a respectable book, I'd get him to stand there in the lobby and ask people to volunteer their DNA, and write abou ttheir reactions. Too bad I'm boring... * grin*

OK, the books du jour:

Tick Tock by James Patterson. OK, I know, it's crap, but I feel like crap today, literally, running a low fever off and on all day, so this was what I was capable of digesting -- mindless read. The usual fare -- a nutcase killer is rampaging across New York and the hero detective (single father to 10 adopted children -- unbelievable that someone actually makes this stuff up) must save the day. A side plot involves our her dithering in a kind of grade 5 way between his admiration for the live-in nanny and for the FBI agent he's working with. 2.2 stars, back to the library it goes tomorrow without a second glance.

Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves. The third of the mysteries in her Vera Stanhope series was quite good, but not as stellar or detailed as The Crow Trap. A young boy is found murdered, then a young woman -- both bodies are found in water, covered with flowers. What is the link between them? Vera continues to be one of the most quirky detectives out there -- big, ugly and with a propensity for calling people "pet" and yet without a shred of sentimentality in her. This time around, we get more of the story from her POV, which made the book more ordinary. A reasonable mystery; recommended if you've liked Cleeves' book. She does have a great eye for character. 3.8 stars.

Hoping that I feel better tomorrow.... I'm off to the STANFORD ROCK CENTER PROGRAM FOR JOURNALISTS: A PRIMER IN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE at a big white-shoe law firm. As a "Stanford Media Fellow", I'll be listening to a bunch of Stanford profs talk about everything from compensation policies to the SEC and accounting; continues on Wednesday. Then on the 20th and 21st, it's off to Stanford itself for the Directors' College in Palo Alto. After which: a few days of VACATION in San Francisco.

Ooh, love, I love San Francisco. I take it you'll be visiting Darryl's favourite bookshop. I don't know if you've been to the San Francisco Mystery Bookstore, it's up a hill in Noe Valley, but it's well worth a look for fans of crime fiction!

>148 Chatterbox: "The initiate diner maximizes the unfamiliar news."

Already a story brews....

Genealogy. Oh my my. The pernickety precision of the research daunts me, but the stories...! The blandest family has some drama somewhere, guaranteed. I smell a rollicking multi-year research high!

>173 TadAD: Have you considered the possibility that "General Grant" might not be Ulysses? Someone is often tempted to give posthumous promotions to ancestors, as well. A Colonel Grant, or a former Confederate general, could get mythologically conflated....

James Patterson has his place. I liked his The Lake House and When the Wind Blows..
Sometimes fluff, or even dreck is called for.. not that I am saying Patterson is either of those,
some people like him...

Hope you are feeling well and energetic today Suz.

>182 richardderus:: Actually, no, I never consider that possibility.

Feel as if someone has poured battery acid down my throat. And I'm running late. But off I go...

I think the random sentence generator is secretly a tool created by a group of authors in order to produce a kōan or two for their enigmatic Zen master character...

A spatial paint trains the boss underneath the swallowed campaign.

Suz -- Story one is the red herring variety -- I spent some time this winter trying to figure out once and for all what, if any, connection there is to the Allen family (Ethan and Ira, big VT figures). After several days of scoping around I figure out that the connection was there, through an uncle/cousin named Benjamin Allen who did move to Vermont -- it's not ironclad, but it fits. The certain ancestor is a Lydia Allen who would have been Benjamin's daughter, and he had a child of that name although I came across more than one Lydia Allen, it was not an uncommon name at all, even with so few people (relatively speaking) around.

Story two is incredible. It all began when my mil paid a genealogist to look into her family history, in partic. what happened to her grandfather who disappeared, and of whom nothing was said, EVER (and she always felt her grandma was treated like 'the help' for some undisclosed disgrace). The genealogist diligently turned up that mil's grandpa abandoned her grandma a few months after marriage, before the only son, her father, was born and fled to somewhere in the Ottoman Empire where he converted to Islam, made the Haj, married a Damascene, had a second son with her, after which he died aged only about 36 or so in Fez Morocco. Wife #2 then crossed the pond (with a lawyer friend whom she subsequently married) to demand some money (the family had money); they settled and sent her on her way. And so it was explained why there are no photographs of the wedding, the man, and a basic paranoia about social matters which ruled that family for several generations...... My mil was so furious she didn't want to pay the poor woman! (We told her she had to.) and we had to promise to say nothing while she was living! It is, however, odd to think that somewhere in the former O. Empire, possibly my husband has cousins if the line survived. Impossible to find, completely impossible as surely the son would have taken on the lawyer's last name. We don't even know where the poor sod was buried -- Perhaps in a foreigner's cemetery in Fez -- but perhaps not -- he had converted, had become a citizen of the O Empire, had given up his American citizenship apparently...... (although he changed his mind)...... His American son, btw, was brilliant and quite successful and wrote w/ another fellow what is still a classic in the field: The Electrical Engineers' Handbook.

That is the case of the genealogical quest turning up much more than you bargained for, I think.

Lucy! Story two is a NOVEL!! Possibly even a trilogy! *feverishly copies pertinent data to steal*

I've thought about that -- esp the idea of a screenplay -- a young person, say, Damascene, hearing this story about his great grandfather and wanting to find the American family. Of course, had he found my mil it would not have been a jolly reunion!

>189 sibylline: Have you read Writing Treatments That Sell? Go get it. Then go get it, tiger-woman!

I've already sketched a sci-regency story where the grandfather leaves the grandmother for another man and then those two have kids on the all-men planet. Figured out how to do that too, no messy labor or suchlike. Stories. Gotta love 'em.

187: Oh my. I would _want_ that story to be true. But I can imagine it was quite traumatic for the family at the time.

Feel better, Suzanne.

Richard is correct, Lucy. Much as it galls me to admit it (and to forgo simply stealing the data and writing it myself...)

So the seminar was more fun than I had anticipated. And to my astonishment, I was the only one who had the correct answer to a pop quiz about reserve accounting. Mind you, I have no idea how I knew it was the correct answer. But apparently only a handful of CEOs get it right, so I'm feeling smug. For at least the next 120 seconds.

Still feel horrible, though. Am going to curl up & die for the next hour or two. Must do this over again tomorrow...

Chatterbox, the one with the perfect literary taste, reading Patterson? Hmmmmmm...will have to step away and ponder this perplexing issue.

Just like messing with peoples' minds -- and their preconceptions! *grin* (Oh yeah, and brain candy... it's the equivalent of everyone needing a chocolate bar or ice cream cone every so often... I'm not as elevated as Rebecca or Darryl, I'm afraid!!)

If you can't feel well, smug is a doggone good second. Hope you wake to improvement in the morning!

Smug has worn off for the evening, so it's off to bed after a terribly eccentric meal of mezze leftovers and applesauce. Temps heading into the 90s here tomorrow, so I'm glad I'll be in an air-conditioned office for the day again. I admit, that while the topics sound dry as dust, the presenters are anything but, meaning that I was wide awake, attentive and fascinated for seven hours in row today.

I loved your idea about standing in the lobby of the UN and asking people to submit samples of their DNA, Suz .... lol ...... if my brother were here, he would do it too!

Sorry to hear you're not feeling well...hope you feel better in the morning. I'm watching the baseball game and it looks humid out there at Yankee Stadium so tomorrow's going to be a scorcher! Hope you manage to stay cool tomorrow.

I hope you feel better soon too, Suz.

Ick. That sounds like one of those nasty summer viruses, maybe coxsackie virus, which can cause herpangina (low grade fever, sore throat, and ulcers in the back of the mouth and throat). Other than symptomatic care there isn't anything to do for it, although I've found that raw honey in tea seems to help me more than anything else.

I hope that you feel better soon (and you probably will, in a day or two).

*there there, pat pat*

(Coxsackie virus? Herpangina? That is so me at least twice a year!) Another "there, there" and a hope for a fascinating day.

Coxsackie virus sounds so much more impressive than simply the common cold... I'll have to toss that one out to impress people. I'm coping with it, despite some nasty coughing over lunch (you can't eat and talk simultaneously with this bug, it seems...) Yup, I'm just taking one or two doses of decongestants a day, as that is the part of it that really gets to me.

Soooo hot here...

Will return later, when I have cooled off & rested my overheated brain...

OK, books du jour:

Some light reading...

Board Room Babies by Stanley Bing is a tongue-in-cheek look at CEOs in today's corporate America. It's a KindleSingle -- kind of a long-article length booklet -- and so I'll mark it as (a) on my list of books and read at least a (b) to make up a "full" book. This will be great ammunition to anyone who wants to (further) lambaste highly paid corporate executives and includes "findings" such as the fact that babies have bad hair and so do CEOs. It's witty (if sometimes the logic is strained and self-evident) and the main point is that narcissism rules in both CEOs and babies. "In terms of their power over other adults, the sheer force of their monomaniacal self-interest and their utter lack of shame, they may be compared to only one other group of humans on the planet: babies." I actually ended up finding it as much a witty comment on the way we idolize and worship babies today as the future of our society (and in thoughts on parenting, eg the parents who assault little league baseball refs or teachers in 'defense' of their flawless offspring) as I did on CEOs. A bit obvious, but inexpensive enough to download. Bing is a columnist for Fortune magazine. Mind you, now that I've written this mini-review, there may be not that much more to say... :-) 3.3 stars.

Fore! is a collection of some of P.G. Wodehouse's stories about golf. Now, I don't play golf, but if anything might convince me to try, it would be these stories, most often recounted by the "Oldest Member" of a golf club somewhere in England. The stories revolve around love and golf, intermingled, and however dated they may be (mashie and niblick; plus fours??) I still find them funny, and this is one "best of" collection that lives up to the name. Along with some of the Mr. Mulliner books, these are some of my fave Wodehouse stories, albeit not as well known as his novels. I actually find the bite-sized stories more engaging; the novels can deliver an excess of whimsy.

I'm reading two chunksters right now, Elizabeth I by Margaret George, and Berlin 1961 by Fred Kempe. Filling in with shorter, lighter fare around the edges!

Still feeling subpar, it's hard to sleep as I keep waking myself up feeling wretched (coughing). It's complete self-pity, of course; I know I'll be feeling much better in a day or two, but sometimes low-grade misery of a cold is tougher to deal with because it leaves you with enough energy to feel irritable and grumpy about it.

The black and white cat that has "adopted" our house is still here, a week later, so we have started to feed him. He's very, very sweet, and quite young. Still, cannot add another feline to the menagerie, so if upstairs neighbors decide against him, I will have to talk to some rescue groups. Theo, the 3-year-old upstairs, loves cats and would love to have his very own, I think, but of course, he's too young to be responsible for feeding & litter box...

Wow, for the first time in my life, I am really understanding why people struggle to breathe in extreme heat. I've found myself battling for air all night in my (air conditioned) apartment, with nose blocked due to cold, and the cough then making it hard to catch a breath through my mouth. Scary. Thank heavens for my Canadian cough syrup with decongestant and codeine. Temps here heading for 98 F today.

Sorry you're still sick, and ugh to the 98 degrees and not being able to breathe. Doesn't US cough syrup have decongestant??

It has decongestant, but not codeine, which is what actually really stops the cough long enough for me to get an hour or two of zzzz's before I wake up gasping and coughing again. It was weird; I even had a kind of panic attack in the middle of the night about not being able to breathe; my imagination running away with me (as tends to happen at strange hours of the night, when one isn't well.)

Ugh, that's awful. I get asthma so I understand the middle of the night panic. Haven't had one for years now. Get better Suzanne!!!

You can get cough medicine with codeine in it in the US, such as Phenergan with Codeine, but it requires a prescription.

I can definitely sympathize; I'll probably stay inside again today, due to the poor air quality (we're under a Code Orange Air Quality Alert again today, as we have been every day for nearly two weeks). If I'm outside for long I'll develop a tight cough, and if I walk outside for long I'll become short of breath and need to use my albuterol inhaler.

So sorry, you both. Mouth-breathing is still breathing!

Hope you feel better soon, Suz.

I do like Wodehouse's golf stories, although I don't play it either.

You poor dear! I can't think of anything else to say. I have off and on asthma, it's gotten better gradually over the years, but I can relate to your panic, certainly!

Darryl, yes, but then I have to fork over for a doc visit and for the prescription, when I'm pretty sure already of what I need. So much easier to buy a big bottle whenever I'm in Toronto and bring it back to be on hand when needed.

I've never had asthma, thank heavens... I've had oodles of colds, but this is the first one where breathing through my mouth due to congestion has conflicted with the need to cough (prolongedly) to the extent that I've found myself wondering how I was going to get air. Scary.

Yep, I don't blame you for not visiting a doc for a viral URI; I just wanted to mention that Phenergan with Codeine is available in the US, but by prescription only.

I'm willing to write prescriptions for friends and family; unfortunately, I don't think I can do that outside of the state of Georgia (I'm not completely sure about this, though).

Coxsackie virus sounds positively virulent and contagious.

Suz : One word : Wasabi !

Oi, that's one way to clear a sinus. Did I ever tell you about the time I was at a party and I saw someone mistake Wasabi for the guacamole dip.....?

Painful, Lucy!
DH's remedy, and I shudder as I type: micowave minced garlic and cabbage in vinegar. Eat same --- but it will open those sinuses. On the whole, I prefer to be stopped up.

I think I'll steer clear of wasabi -- I'm not a fan at the best of times! The congestion is clearing, so I'm just battling a cough and a few odd aches and pains, along with a voice like a crow. In other words, the usual cold virus nonsense

I've been slow about both reading and updating my reading this week. Books du jour:

Unholy Harmonies by Elizabeth Pewsey: this was a re-read, prompted by discussion of the first book in the Mountjoy series, Children of Chance, over on Stasia's thread, and the subsequent discovery that two of the books are now downloadable on Kindle for a mere $4 apiece. Needless to say I bought both, and on checking to see if they were well formatted, found myself unable to resist re-reading this very fun book (#3 in the series) all the way to the end. These are wry, satirical, witty novels that take no prisoners: Pewsey has a keen eye for pretension and idiocy, whether it's in the form of "happy clappy" clergy or self-satisfied, snoopy neighbors, but the real joy of these books lie in the characters: Justinia, who battles voices in her head telling her to pursue a singing career; Sadie, who is passionate about parrots and can now bring out all her parrot books since her husband ran away with the milkman; Lucius, who moves to the northern town of Unthrang to contemplate taking a job running a new musical festival in Eyot (a thinly disguised York). Then the Helm -- one of those winds so ferocious and fierce that it gets a name of its own -- descends, and it blows into the community the mysterious Issur, a Russian of uncertain provenance who proceeds to shake up everyone's life. It's impossible to do justice to these novels in brief comments; I discovered them in the mid 90s and they are both "comfort reading" and cynically joyful. I wish I lived in Pewsey's Eyot. 4.5 stars, perhaps partly out of sentiment; highly recommended.

Small Memories by Jose Saramago: This was an ARC from Amazon's Vine program, so I'll owe them (and LT) a longer review. This is a shortish memoir by the late great Portuguese novelist and doesn't really address his literary life at all. That may disappoint some fans, but I found I relished this collection of early memories, that ranged from his experiences growing up in Lisbon to his fierce, tight ties to the village of his birth that he left as a toddler. It may feel a bit rambling and discursive, but by the end, you get a sense of how this son of an illiterate mother and a policeman father ended up as the foremost novelist in his country -- he has a knack for memory, for observation, for placing those memories in a broader context that occasionally literally took my breath away. There are also glimpses of his early fascination with the written world, such as the time he lifts the lid of a trunk full of beans, whose dust causes painful itching and welts. The physical pain is ignored as he devours the newspaper that lines the inside of the trunk's lid -- even 70 plus years later, he wonders what made his illiterate grandparents acquire and use the newspaper? This will be fascinating for Saramago's fans as well as anyone curious about life in Portugal in the 1920s and early 30s. (Saramago, born in 1922, died in 2010.) 4.4 stars, recommended. I would have probably given this a higher rating had Saramago moved beyond this early time frame or related some of his early thoughts and experiences to his writing, but acknowledge that wasn't what he wanted or intended to do!

#218: I meant to look the other day to see if the Pewsey books were available for the Nook. Thanks for the reminder to check, Suz!

LOL @ Wasabi cure..

Suz, I tend to do the hot and sour soup cure.. it works quite well
and it isn't as 5 alarm as wasabi ! :P Hope you feel better soon..

There are reports all over Twitter that Patrick Leigh Fermor just died. If true, very sad, despite the fact that he would be 96 years old. His travel books are wonderful and the man himself always fascinated me. RIP, "Paddy".

Following up on the Leigh Fermor news: in the Guardian's obit (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/10/patrick-leigh-fermor-dies-96), his biographer notes that a third volume in the series that began with A Time of Gifts and continued with Between the Woods and the Water exists, and will be published. Thank heavens; I've been waiting for that since discovering book #1 sometime in the 1980s. It's the story he wrote, decades later, of his trip on foot from Holland to Constantinople/Istanbul in the early/mid 1930s, in what proved to be the final years for entire ways of life in the countries he traveled through. Compelling and very highly recommended; the two volumes now out make it on to my "top 100" books list. 'Nuff said.

I recently picked up book 2 Between the Woods, and already had a fine Folio copy of A Time of Gifts - both still unread. I've noticed you highly recommend these books before. If they're as good as you say - and I'm sure they are - I'm glad to hear there's a third book to follow. I'd better get started reading them at last...

I should start too...... I believe that I thought that he had been dead for 20 years or so. Thanks for the information!

Thanks for the nudge, Suz. I've had Children of Chance in my TBR Tower for ages and still haven't read it. The problem is that I've some other books in front of it, and so you know what they say .. out of sight, often out of mind. I'll go dig it out. I've been meaning to read it because I've head so many good things about it.

Three cheers for both "Paddy" Leigh-Fermor and Elizabeth Pewsey, sez I...

If only I could meet a man able to recite poems backwards in Hindustani and forge a friendship with a Nazi general over their fondness for Horace's odes... *grin*

I am so with you on Fermor -- what a man! Handsome, heroic, modest and chockablock with charm, a totally genuine person. I really thought he would make it to 100. I had to pause between his two memoirs, the portrait of pre-war Germany and Eastern Europe was almost too painful to contemplate, knowing what was to come.

The LibraryThing thermometer with great certainty said that I would love Leigh-Fermor, so there are three of his books on my BN.COM wishlist (none is available in town). I'm not a follower of the genre, but two names came to mind in reading these postings, Redmond O'Hanlon and Rebecca West, two very different authors. I wondered whether you had bumped into them and, if so, how they might compare.

Robert

Robert, I haven't read Redmond O'Hanlon, so can't comment. Rebecca West sprang to mind because of her epic Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, which is similarly iconic in the "travel lit" arena. But I'd say that she and Leigh Fermor are entirely different characters. He wasn't at all politicized, openly -- if you looked up "gentleman" in a dictionary, he'd fit the definition, but in his own unique way. I admire West and her writing; but cherish the warmth and humanity in Leigh Fermor. (Besides, it's hard not love a writer who refers to the cats who wandered in and out of his Greek island home as "interior desecreators and natural deupholsterers"!) Leigh Fermor set off to ramble, with the Oxford Book of English Verse in his rucksack and only curiosity as his guide; had West made the same trip, she would have had a mission and a point of view. Both are honorable approaches, but when push comes to shove...

Just heard about Patrick Leigh Fermor; A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water are two of my favorite books of all time and now, alas, we will never hear the tale of the final leg of that journey to what was then Constantinople. RIP.

I've read a couple of O'Hanlon's and he is..... more jovial, or something. Fermor's modesty truly informs his writing, so that he is very much present, but never the center of what is happening -- even when he IS very much the center, he somehow isn't -- a bit in the Thoreau mold, that ia, but without the deepest musings, thoughtful yes, but not philosophical? ... O'Hanlon is fun and full of interesting bits and pieces. I've read Into the Heart of Borneo and In Trouble Again and they were both delightful but in a different way. I've read a little West and I concur utterly with Suz, and wouldn't compare them.

Rebecca, apparently we will! At the time of his death, "Paddy" was making corrections to the finalized manuscript, and his biographer was quoted today as saying it will see the light of day!! So a very large cloud does have a silver lining...

Suzanne, that IS good news, although I wish he could have lived forever!

I love the description of cats as natural deupholsterers. How true!

Thanks for the info about Fermor, Suz. I haven't read anything by him, but it sounds as though I would enjoy him. I'll look for his books in SF, especially The Traveller's Tree and A Time of Gifts.

Why do I come to this thread?? All I do here is add wonderful sounding books that I knew nothing about to my extremely teetering tower. This time I will go straight to BD and order the Fermor books. Thanks Suzanne :P

I added several of Fermor's books to my tbr last year when you first mentioned him, I have them lined up for my 11in11 Wanderlust category.

Bonnie -- turn and turn about is fair play... I think I've suffered at your hands, too!!

That said, here are the books du jour:

Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin. What do you get when one of your favorite novelists/short story writers, with a wicked ability to observe and comment wryly on human foibles, takes up her pen to write about food and cooking? A book that is going to send me back into the kitchen for the first time in years, ready to prepare everything from baked eggs and shepherd's pie to wonderfully creative casseroles. In short, essay-like chapters, Colwin (who died suddenly in 1992 from a heart attack) rejoices in tastes and textures, flavors and the simple experiences of putting together a delicious meal. This isn't a fancy cookbook, but lurking in the background instead is one woman's encounters with preparing food for herself and those she loves. Her observations are sometimes deadpan funny -- as with the dreadful meals she has both prepared and consumed (after which she resorted to eating pizza), or even as something as simple as scrambled eggs: "almost anyone can turn out fairly decent ones, and with a little work, really disgusting ones can be provided." This isn't going back to the library until I've combed through it and copied out the recipes; meanwhile, I'm going to order up the sequel, published posthumously. (More Home Cooking) Onto my favorite books of the year list this goes; I wouldn't have thought I'd be sticking a book about food there, but then this is a book about food by LAURIE COLWIN. 4.7 stars; her short story collections are unequivocally 5-star books in my opinion. Heavens, when I think that without TIOLI, I might never have picked this up... *shudder*

Heat Wave by Nancy Thayer was an Early Reviewer book; thank heavens I didn't spend money on it, but I'm probably going to forego requesting ARCs of her books, too. Don't get me wrong, it's an adequate beach book, heartwarming, focused, competently written. It's just soooo predictable and banal. Recently widowed Carley, still in her 30s and with two young daughters, opens a B&B on Nantucket. There are issues with the daughters, with friends, with her in-laws and with men -- and one tragedy -- but nearly everything is so well-telegraphed the only curiosity was how she was going to reach an end point where her characters got, not necessarily what they wanted in all cases, but what they needed. Yawn. A reasonable enough beach book for undemanding readers; I seem to remember, however, that some of her early books, before she got caught up with this Nantucket fixation, were much more readable. Feeling generous post-Colwin, so this gets 3 stars from me.

Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer is a mini-book that many folks have probably heard about by now: Krakauer's painstaking and damning analysis of the philanthropic work of Greg Mortenson, the hero of Three Cups of Tea who has been shown to have feet of very nasty looking clay. Some defenders of Mortenson have pointed out that his heart is in the right place; but if even a fraction of what Krakauer lays out is correct (and I've looked at some of the financial documents, which are public records, and he's nailed his analysis on that front at least) he has done an immense disservice to the organization he founded with laudable goals by using it to fund his lifestyle and by inventing dramatic narratives. (For instance, Krakauer shows how Mortenson pocketed the bulk of the royalties from his books, while pushing off the costs of promoting the book onto the charity, using donated tax-free dollars that the organization has promised donors would go to programs to take out big ads in newspapers and magazines.) After reading this, I ended up furious that someone like Mortenson, an exaggerator, someone who pushes anyone who doesn't agree with him out of his organization, who leaves a nonprofit group poorly run and vulnerable to major problems (I could see them losing their nonprofit status quite easily...) gets so much wonderful PR based on lies, while people like John Wood, who quit his job at Microsoft to build libraries in countries like Zambia and Laos, is far from a household name. (If you're interested in what John is up to, see Room to Read, his group, which is VERY well run.) I'm angry, but on the other hand this kind of analysis may push donors to look more carefully at what they give to and not be suckered by their eagerness to hear a "feel good", melodramatic, Oprah-esque story. Well, I can always hope... 4.2 stars. (For logistical purposes, this will be the other half of book #63, as both were too short to qualify as "real" books.)

Suzanne, you are very bad for my tbr list - now I have to check out Laurie Colwin.

Kerry, EVERYONE should read Colwin. Her short stories are gems. I remember when I first read them, they almost made me cry -- not the subjects or characters, but just the beauty of the writing and the construction. Haste thou to Amazon!!

Attention thread police: I'm going to keep this thread open until I finish another nine books (and thus another 75 books) so that I don't inflict two long/separate lists on readers of the NEXT thread. It probably will exceed the magic 250 post level, but hopefully not by much?

Well, rats. My local library does not have Home Cooking.

I think I can pass on Heat Wave. I really hate overly predictable books like that. The Colwin, on the other hand, sounds interesting and I really enjoyed your thoughts on the Krakauer mini-book. That one has intrigued me, mostly because I am curious whether the situation is as bad as the press would lead you to believe. I guess it is. It makes me angry, too. We recently went to a dinner party with friends who invited another couple that had spent about 6 months in India working at a school. Their story was fascinating, and real. Much better.

hmmm. Home cooking does sound good.

Suz we've been thinking about donating to Room to Read (we are giving the kids a choice of a few charities to give money to - our son is getting quite interested in poverty in different countries) and it's good to read that it's well run. It looked it from what we read on the website but it was a while back and I haven't done anything yet. The Mortenson saga is gutwrenching on so many levels and gives more ammo to people who argue that aid is wasted. I haven't read 3 cups of Tea and won't be now, but might read the Krakauer one.

Good luck with your return to the stove!

238,244: I haven't yet read Three Cups of Deceit, but plan to, partly because it's written by Jon Krakauer, and partly because after a few years of ignoring the hype, I finally read Three Cups of Tea, shortly before the 60 Minutes piece. Yes, it is sad, because beneath the fabrications were good things, which will be lost or dismissed. I think this is useful commentary: http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2011/04/19/two-cups-short-of-a-full-service/ (and I discovered recently that its author is a LibraryThinger).

qebo, thanks so much for that link!!! It distills all the thoughtful commentary on philanthropic endeavors that try to battle global poverty that I've heard over the years into one pithy column. The bit that I found was particularly relevant to the Mortenson situation was this: "The thing we all really need is a sharper understanding of the development industry and a wiser appreciation of how our own desires for sweeping messianic transformations are as much of a target market as any other consumer demand. I don’t know that we can blame people like Mortenson for giving us what many of us want."

However, I do end up blaming Mortenson. Regardless of the details of how he saw the need, he clearly was aware of that need. But instead of sticking to his original focus and making sure that his mission was as well fulfilled as possilbe, he embarks on this delusional pathway that he could or should have realized would undermine his original purpose. So it's not just what he did to those of us in the West, snookering us, but more what he did, both short and long-term in countries where we can't afford to be careless with lives in the way we have been. Because now there will be countless people who instead of supporting worthy projects, use this as a reason to say "the nonprofit world is ineffective and I won't give", or not to give to some of the neediest causes.

The effective projects I've seen tend to be self-sustaining and small and, most of all, tie in very closely to what the community needs and demands. There's one guy in Africa who is training a local kind of giant rat to sniff out land mines. Howard Buffett has funded a camel dairy in the Western Sahara, for instance, something he didn't even realize was possible, of interest to the people he wanted to help, until he was physically on the ground. John Wood, at Room to Read, has a project with vast scale, but he has strong local teams (he's not trying to work within failed states) and knows that the parts have to link together. There have to be teachers involved who can ensure the libraries are used, that they don't just moulder away. He sponsors the creation of children's books in local languages, so the libraries don't become dumping grounds for the overflow from our publishers that wouldn't be understood by a 6 year old in cultural terms. Frosty the snowman in Laos?? The best philanthropists I know are looking for people who launch tiny, localized projects and linking them together with others like them, giving them access to funds and holding them accountable for what they say they'll do.

Cushla, yes, Room to Read is an organization that I've looked at closely for the Barron's philanthropy survey I do each year. The consultants we hire to evaluate them give them very high marks on this score; the only group that has consistently done better is a small nonprofit out of Texas run by Phillip and Donna Berber, an expat Brit and an expat Irishman who made scads of money in software and now are working exclusively in Ethiopia, starting with water well, moving on to small clinics and now to micro-microloans -- it's called a Glimmer of Hope.

Weather has gone from the 90s to the 80s to the 70s today!!! Woke up shivering...

Hi. Just passing through.

Room to Read is my project of choice. A chapter is currently being ramped up in Auckland by a couple of friends of mine from uni. There is an open meeting for this project pn Wednesday, June 15 · 6:00pm - 8:00pm, Albany Village (Location School of Psychology, Massey University - 3rd floor of library building). For those of you working in rural NZ schools, or who know people working in rural NZ schools, please contact me offering suggestions for this chapter that would benefit you. I had hoped to take advantage of Room to Read's partnership with BWB to organize book swap book drives for rural school libraries, but BWB has not yet extended this service to NZ. The NZ chapter is in start-up mode and eager for new ideas.

I'm surprised that Room to Read is being set up here, I would have thought that there were enough organisations already operating in New Zealand that support children with reading and we have the fantastic National Libraries throughout the country which supports schools and their teaching staff, supply extra books where & when needed.

ETA: now that I've visited the RtR website, I presume that they want to fundraise in NZ for third world initiatives.

Back from the read-in! It was amusing, high wind and the last gasp of an overnight shower, still chilly. Didn't realize until after I'd finished that it was being webcast, live -- not just audio but video as well! Gah.

I've finished one book and am closing in on another, but updates will have to wait until I'm more awake.

Yes, Kerry, I don't think RTR is setting up libraries in NZ; they have been focusing pretty much on Asia and more recently Africa. They want to hit regions with low school enrollment/completion rates, and I don't think NZ is in that category! OK, off to slumberland...

Sleep well, Suz. . .

Glad you had fun at the read-in :) I wondered how it would be :)

Love the stories about genealogy research! I only just started looking up my own family tree when my library had a trial for Ancestry.com's library database. I looked up my great-grandfather because he had a rather unusual name, and I thought that having actual searches would be a good way of learning how to use the database. Lo and behold, I messed around long enough and found most of my great-great grandparents on my father's side (I left my mother's side alone because my maternal grandmother has already done a lot of research on that side...). Unfortunately I don't really have the time or $$ to put into extended research, but poking around from time to time is definitely fun.

I'm a Colwin fan too! I stopped in to visit a friend staying at the Millay Colony (a writing/artist residence program) the day she finished her second to last book -- and met her briefly, a lovely person too. Let me see if I can find the title - Another Marvelous Thing. I havent read the cooking essay, will have to look for them!

No wait, looks like she wrote a couple more after that, including a second Home Cooking!

I don't know why...I was listening to this today....and thought about you (probably the name)

I would guess that you prefer Classical to this type of music....but the video footage and lyrics....just brought you to mind....I hope you're not offended:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppkdaZHcb-0

;-}

Schmoopie-kins, sweetie-punkin, apple fritter of my eye Suzareenee-pie: will you please as a favor to me, the loneliest old shut-in of a sick old man ever, please go get a copy of The Brick Murder: A Tragedy and Other Stories? It's really, really good, and most of the stories are horribly depressing and terrible things happen! Oh wait...this isn't a pitch to Darryl...errrmmm, the best story in the collection is set in a business that hires a hugely successful man who is, well, different...and a price, a series of prices in fact, is/are paid for that. Excellent story!

apple fritter of my eye?!?!?!

this purchase will have to wait until July, as I've already exceeded my book buying budget for the month by nabbing a Dalkey Archive book (on Amazon, thankfully, as apparently someone had problems with theft of card details after a Dalkey purchase.) I'm budgeting $100 for City Lights when I'm in SF, and if it fits into that, promise to give it a whirl... My income is half of what it was last year, so changes must be made to spending...

Jude, you're right that that isn't my usual territory (so I probably wouldn't have stumbled over it) but I did really like it! (very grateful it wasn't the banjo standard I feared it was at first... I'm kinda kicking myself; the same night I'm supposed to fly out of SF there is a Portuguese fado singer performing and I'm wondering if I can get to an 8 p.m. show and still catch an 11 p.m. flight, and even with no checked luggage, suspect the answer is a hearty "no". Sigh.

Thank you Suze!

.......and I love Portugese Fado...

I don't like 'twanging banjos", either.....unless it's BELA FLECK...or ALISON BROWN

good luck on your flight/trip....

;-}

Due to popular demand (insistence?), despite the absence of complex graphics, this thread is now closed for business. You'll find its new headquarters over here

>259 Chatterbox: I was wondering...

# 260 -- see #240!

>260 kidzdoc: I remember that message, and thought to myself, "There's no way that Suz will be able to keep this thread open for another 9 books, unless the rest of us agree not to post anything here."