labfs39: a year in the life of Lisa's reading (2012) - pt.2

Welcome to the continuing saga of my reading adventures!

Currently reading:



The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, translated from the Arabic by William M. Hutchins et al



The Patient Survival Guide by Dr. Maryanne McGluckin



Nature Stories by Jules Renard, translated from the French by Douglas Parmée, illustrated by Pierre Bonnard (read aloud with my daughter)

July: 2783 p.

50. Iran Awakening: From Prison to Peace Prize: One Woman's Struggle at the Crossroads of History by Shirin Ebadi with Azadeh Moaveni (4.5*) - 232 p.
49. Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated from the Yiddish (3.5*) - 143 p.
48. When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw & Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated from the Yiddish by the author and Elizabeth Shub (3*) - 116 p.
47. Love and Exile by Isaac Bashevis Singer (3*) - 352 p.
46. The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller, translated from the German by Michael Hoffman (3.5*) - 242 p.
45. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (4*) - 273 p.
44. Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam (4*) - 265 p.
43. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (3.5*) - 225 p.
42. Potsdam Station by David Downing (3*) - 340 p.
41. Stettin Station by David Downing (4*) - 289 p.
40. Silesian Station by David Downing (3.5*) - 306 p.

June: 2386 p.

39. A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson (4*) - 202 p.
38. Parenting Gifted Kids by James R. Delisle (3.5*) - 212 p.
37. Sorry by Gail Jones (4*) - 232 p.
36. The Investigation by Philippe Claudel, translated from the French by John Cullen (4*) - 221 p.
35. The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller, translated from the German by Philip Boehm (3.5*) - 290 p.
34. In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner (4.5*) - 334 p.
33. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated from the Russian by Diana Lewis Burgin (4*) - 369 p.
32. Raising a Gifted Child by Carol Fertig (3*) - 233 p.
31. Zoo Station by David Downing (3.5*) - 293 p.

May: 1461 p. and 12.5 hours of audio

30. Raising Gifted Kids by Barbara Schave Klein (3*) - 293 p.
29. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (5*) - (audiobook)
28. A Small Fortune by Rosie Dastgir (3.5*) - 373 p.
27. A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated from the Russian by Michael Glenny (4.5*) - 158 p.
26. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (3*) - 637 p.

April: 1532 p. and 10 hours 39 minutes of audio

25. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain - (3.5*) - 10 hours and 39 minutes
24. Talking to the Enemy by Avner Mandelman - (4*) - 139 p.
23. The Girl Giant by Kristen Den Hartog - (4*) - 219 p.
22. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (4.5*) - 533. p.
21. Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristín Ómarsdóttir, translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith (3.5*) - 198 p.
20. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (4*) - 443 p.

March: 1164 p.

19. River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh (3*) - 522 p.
18. In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner (4.5*) - 334 p.
17. Coventry: A Novel by Helen Humphreys (3*) - 179 p.
16. The Wedding of Zein by Tayeb Salih, translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies (4*) - 120 p.

February: 2420 p.

15. Nemesis by Philip Roth (2.5*) - 280 p.
14. Maus II by Art Spiegelman (5*) - 136 p.
13. Maus by Art Spiegelman (5*) - 159 p.
12. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (3.5*) - 925 p.
11. No One is Here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel (3.5*) - 325 p.
10. Secret Letters from 0 to 10 by Susie Morgenstein, translated from the French by Gill Rosner (4*) - 137 p.
9. Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi, translated from the Hungarian by Richard Aczel (3.5*) - 222 p.
8. Two Rings: A Story of Love and War by Millie Werber and Eve Keller (4*) - 236 p.

January: 2602 p.

7. The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America by John Demos (3*) - 252 p.
6. Tibet: Through the Red Box by Peter Sís, Caldecott Honor Book (4*) - 57 p.
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís (3.5*) - 46 p.
The Conference of the Birds by Peter Sís (4*) - 160 p.
Madlenka by Peter Sís (3.5*) - 46 p.
The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin by Peter Sís (3*) - 37 p.
5. Mister Blue by Jacques Poulin, translated from the French by Sheila Fischman (4.5*) - 174 p.
4. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, winner of the Newbery Medal (4*) - 249 p.
3. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler (4.5*) - 880 p.
2. We All Wore Stars by Theo Coster (3.5*) - 198 p.
1. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (4*) - 503 p.

A list of books by the author's ethnicity (as decided by me)

Australian:
Sorry by Gail Jones

Cambodian:
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

Canadian:
Mister Blue by Jacques Poulin
Coventry by Helen Humphreys
The Girl Giant by Kristen Den Hartog

Czech:
The Conference of the Birds and others by Peter Sís

Dutch:
We All Wore Stars by Theo Coster

French:
Secret Letters from 0 to 10 by Susie Morgenstein
The Investigation by Philippe Claudel

German:
The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller (born in Romania)
The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller (born in Romania)

Hungarian:
Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi

Icelandic:
Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristín Ómarsdóttir

Indian:
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

Iranian:
Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi

Israeli:
Talking to the Enemy by Avner Mandelman

Japanese:
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Polish:
Two Rings: A Story of Love and War by Millie Werber and Eve Keller
Love and Exile by Isaac Bashevis Singer
When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw & Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Russian:
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov

Sudanese:
The Wedding of Zein by Tayeb Salih

TIOLI Challenges July-

TIOLI challenges:

July: 11 completed

Challenge #1: Read a rainbow colored book
Potsdam Station (green cover)
Silesian Station (blue cover)
When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories (green)
Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus (blue)

Challenge #3: Read a book set in one of the countries or regions that comprise the traditional Middle East
Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi with Azadeh Moaveni

Challenge #8: Read a book where the author's initials form a commonly used abbreviation
The Land of the Green Plums by Herta Müller (HM/Her Majesty)
Love and Exile by Isaac Bashevis Singer (IBS/Irritable Bowel Syndrome)

Challenge #15: Read a book with a picture of something that can be carried by the wind on its cover
The Inimitable Jeeves (hat)
My Family and Other Animals (bird, bat, bug, dust, net)

Challenge #17: Read a book with "girl" or "woman" (or a synonym) in the title or the author's name
Crusoe's Daughter

Challenge #18: Read a book where the author's Surname is also a Place name
Stettin Station by David Downing (Downing Street, London)

TIOLI Challenges Jan-June (23 completed)

June: 5 completed
Challenge #1: Read a book whose third title word has exactly three letters
The Master and Margarita

Challenge #6: Read a book dedicated to the author's father
In the Shadow of the Banyan - In the memory of my father, Neak Ang Mechas Sisowath Ayuravann

Challenge #8: Read a book with a title that has equal or more letters from the second half of the alphabet than from the first half
Zoo Station

Challenge #14: Read a One Word Titled Book by a Female Author
Sorry by Gail Jones

Challenge #23: Read a book whose title contains the word "of"
A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

May: 1 completed

Challenge #1: Read a book originally written in a Slavic language
A Country Doctor's Notebook (Russian)

April: 4 completed

Challenge #5: Read a work in which one of the main characters described with a word ending in –ologist
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (horologist)

Challenge #7: Finish a book that you started between January 1, 2012 and March 28, 2012
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Challenge #9: Read a book with a title that includes only the vowels in the word "April"
The Girl Giant by Kristen den Hartog

Challenge #15: Read a book with a wild mammal (no pets) in the title
Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristín Ómarsdóttir

March: 1 completed

Challenge #22: Read a book with an introduction or afterword by another writer
The Wedding of Zein by Tayeb Salih (intro by Hisham Matar)

February: 7 completed

Challenge #1: Read a book with an animal on the left hand page, a beverage on the right hand page, and the number 3 in both page numbers
No One is Here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel (234/crows - 235/water)

Challenge #3: Read a book with a word of at least 5 letters in the title that is an anagram
Secret Letters from 0 to 10 by Susie Morgenstern (letters/settler)

Challenge #10: Read a Book with a Title written in the first person:
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
Maus II : a survivor's tale : and here my troubles began by Art Spiegelman

Challenge #12: Read a book with a cover that depicts love
Two Rings: A Story of Love and War by Millie Werber

Challenge #18: Read a book originally written in a language that you do NOT speak and read
Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

January: 5 completed

Challenge #7: Read a book that was published posthumously
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

Challenge #8: Read a book where a word in the title can be used as a verb as well as another part of speech
Mister Blue by Jacques Poulin (blue: verb and adjective or noun)

Challenge #9: Read a book with the name of a body of water in the title
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

Challenge #11: Read a work of narrative non-fiction
We All Wore Stars by Theo Coster
The Unredeemed Captive by John Demos

22. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (4.5*)

I love well-written books about spunky, intelligent kids who have interesting, reflective lives, and that's part of the reason I loved this book. The other reason is that Brian Selznick creates something unique and beautiful in this Caldecott Medal winner. Not a graphic novel in the typical sense, it's a "novel in words and pictures", to use the book's subtitle. To me, the difference is that whereas a graphic novel integrates words and pictures, Selznick tells a continuous story sometimes in all pictures and sometimes in text. The alternating style is fresh and effective, and the author's art is sumptuous. Using only charcoal and much hatching, Selznick creates lifelike and yet dreamy drawings that evoke sympathy, fear, and wonder by turns. Frequently, he will use a series of telescoping pictures to increase tension until all we see on the page is a grasping hand or a frightened eye. Beautifully done.

The plot line is that of Hugo Cabret and his efforts to rebuild an automatan his father was working on when he died. Living alone inside the walls of a train station, Hugo tends to all the clocks in the building daily in an effort to keep the stationmaster from noticing that he is now living alone. Since he cannot cash paychecks, Hugo must resort to snatching food where and when he can. But his most pressing concern is to find the parts to finish the automatan: a mechanical man seated at a desk with a pen in his hand. Fixing the mechanical toy is not only an outlet for Hugo's creative energy and talent as a horologist, but keeps alive a connection with his dead father.

Hugo finds most of his parts at the station's toymaker's booth run by an old man and a girl about Hugo's age. One day the toymaker catches him and takes away the precious notebook in which Hugo's father kept all his notes about the automatan. Without it Hugo fears that he will never be able to finish, but with the help of the girl, Isabelle, Hugo is able to reclaim much more than a notebook. As he slowly learns to trust both Isabelle and her friend Etienne, the three embark on a mission to solve a mystery involving magicians, filmmakers, and secrets. The fascinating information about early filmmaking is well-researched and brilliantly woven into the story, both in words and visually.

For readers of young adult literature and art lovers alike, this book is delightful. I hope you will give it a try.

Lisa- I love the new thread! Congrats on #2! Great review of Hugo. I'm so glad you loved it. It is a special book. I enjoyed Wonderstruck too but it's not in the same league, IMHO. Are you planning to see the film version of Hugo. If so, you'll have to let me know.
ETA- You should post your review, so I can Thumb it and others can be inspired.

Thanks, Mark. As soon as my daughter finished Hugo, I read it, and then she read Wonderstruck. I'm having a hard time keeping with it. Too distracted, I guess. Wasn't a problem with Hugo though. There is a film version?! Cool. Sounds like a girl's night out with my favorite girl. :-)

#7 wondering if my 7-yr-old could follow along. I'll have to check this out.

Wow, I didn't think it was possible to entice me any further to read The Invention of Hugo Cabret but somehow when you say "I love well-written books about spunky, intelligent kids who have interesting, reflective lives" made the book jump to the top of my pile.

I see you are reading My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. I hope you and your daughter are loving it as much as I did.

7: I've been resisting this one, and you've tipped me over the edge... onto the wishlist. *Must resist books in currently reading list.*

a series of telescoping pictures to increase tension until all we see on the page is a grasping hand or a frightened eye

That's what I loved about Stitches by David Small, my favorite graphic novel (memoir). For teens and adults.

27. A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated from the Russian by Michael Glenny

In the winter of 1916, the author Mikhail Bulgakov was a newly minted general practitioner, sent to a remote, rural medical clinic to be the region's sole doctor. This sink or swim method of internship was common in Russia at the time, due in part to the exigency of the ongoing Civil War and the desperate need for medical care in rural areas. Bulgakov spent eighteen months there, then specialized in venereology and moved to Kiev. Another eighteen months later, the Civil War forced him into the Caucasus where he left medicine in favor of writing; his most famous novel being The Master and Margarita. This book is a fictionalized account of his time as a young doctor in the rural hinterlands. Each chapter could exist on its own as a short story, yet they read chronologically as a novel.

The opening chapter, The Embroidered Towel, recounts young Dr. Bomgard's arrival at his post after a grueling twenty-four hour sleigh trip from the nearest town.

If you have never driven over country roads it is useless for me to tell you about it; you wouldn't understand anyway. But if you have, I would rather not remind you of it.

He is met by his staff: a minimally trained assistant called a feldsher and two midwives. Feeling completely isolated and unprepared for his life here, the doctor finally falls asleep in his new quarters.

I don't remember him arriving. I only remember the bolt grating in the door, a shriek from Aksinya and a cart creaking out in the yard.

He was hatless, his sheepskin coat unbuttoned, his beard was dishevelled and there was a mad look in his eyes.

He crossed himself, fell on his knees and banged his forehead against the floor. This to me!

'I'm a lost man,' I thought wretchedly.

It is a difficult case. The man's daughter has fallen into the flax brake, a machine for separating the woody stem from the fibrous part of the flax. If she is to live, she needs an amputation. But if she were to die during the procedure, a likely outcome, her body would be cut for naught. What to do?

This initial story sets the tone for most of the book. Ironic and funny, yet graphic in the descriptions of contemporaneous medicine and the Russian peasant's life: a life filled with superstition, fatalism, and stoicism. The doctor, straight from Moscow, is appalled at the ignorance and compares it to darkness in the third chapter, Black as Egypt's Night. The chapter ends with the thoughts of the doctor as he falls asleep.

'No, I will fight it... I will... I...' After a hard night, sweet sleep overtook me. Darkness, black as Egypt's night, descended and in it I was standing alone, armed with something that might have been a sword or might have been a stethoscope. I was moving forward and fighting... somewhere at the back of beyond. But I was not alone. With me was my warrior band: Demyan Lukich, Anna Nikolaevna, Pelagea Ivanova, all dressed in white overalls, all pressing forward.

Sleep... what a boon...

I enjoyed this book in all its moods: humorous, insightful, tragic. I loved the transition of the bumbling, inexperienced young doctor to a man more at home within himself and having a more nuanced understanding of his profession and human nature. My one caution is that Bulgakov does write with the biases of a man of his time and station. However, if you don't mind reading about medical procedures, I would highly recommend this book.

Terrific review. The Master and Margarita comes up a lot here, and I'm not sure whether or not I should be intimidated. This sounds very approachable.

#10 Hi Dan, I thought The Invention of Hugo Cabret was very accessible on many levels: visually and the language itself. My one caution is that Hugo's father dies in a fire, which I found to be quite gruesome, and his alcoholic uncle drowns in the river. My daughter said it was sad, but that she skimmed those parts (she read it to herself). You might want to give those parts (no pictures) a quick read to see what you think.

#11 I fond Hugo to be quite delightful, Bonnie, although I found Selznick's second book of similar ilk, Wonderstruck, to be less captivating. Not quite sure why. Once I figure it out, I'm post a review. ;-)

#12 Hi Suzanne, my daughter cried tonight when we didn't have enough time to read more My Family and Other Animals tonight. The entire trilogy is in our future, I am sure. Friday night we won a microscope at a school fundraiser, and my daughter was so nervous during the auction that she paced back and forth like a caged lion. Today she finished her new snail habitat. She thinks she's figured out why the snails weren't reproducing. Hmm... I think I see a naturalist in the making. :-)

#13 Hee, hee, qebo. Turn about is fair play!

#14 Haven't read Stitches, MJ, although Mark too raved about it.

#16 Thanks, Dan, to be honest, I'm rather ashamed to admit that I haven't read The Master and Margarita either. (I can hear Rebecca tut-tutting from 3000 miles away.) Maybe we can share thoughts when we both get to it. This summer? And A Country Doctor's Notebook is very accessible.

Lisa, great review of A Country Doctors Notebook I think I will be willing to grit my teeth to get through the medical procedures to read it.

It has a very blue cover.

I enjoyed A Country Doctor's Notebook and have several other Bulgakovs on the TBR. No tut-tutting here, but I was amazed when I read The Master and Margarita that I hadn't managed to read it earlier, so I was in your and Dan's shoes, and (I believe) at a later age than either of you, just two or three years ago. When you do read it, I encourage you to read the translation I read, by the translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, because it had extremely helpful notes without which a lot would have passed me by (and I think probably a lot still did).

Excellent review of A Country Doctor's Notebook, Lisa. I am another who hasn't read Master and Margarita and I have a few years on you! But it sits on my Kindle and I am determined to get to it soon.

Fascinating review. I was not aware that Bulgakov had written anything but The Master and Margarita and Heart of a Dog, both of which I enjoyed.

Having read his early experiences as a GP, it might interest you to read two novels of his which reflect this medical background -- the White Guard and the Heart of the Dog, both of which I enjoyed very much, (even more than The Master and Margarita, I dare to admit).

Lovely new thread, Lisa. I join Mark in recommending Stitches, along with Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Two really stunning graphic memoirs, imho.

Before I respond to all of your wonderful comments, I want to share my excitement at my first major book expedition in quite a while. I went to the University Bookstore (in Seattle), which as Ellen informed me, is an Indie. I didn't even make it past the display cases in the entry way of the first floor. Every table was completely filled with discounted books. I splurged. :-)

Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz, translated from the Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson (Vintage International)

Fourteen year old Georg is sent to Auschwitz without understanding why. He doesn't really think of himself as Jewish, and neither do the other transportees, mainly because he doesn't speak Yiddish. The novel sounds like a meditation on the efforts to make sense of the unfathomable and strange events of the Holocaust. As a child survivor of Buchenwald, Kertesz himself must have experienced something similar. Kertesz is a Nobel Prize for Literature winner.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated from the Russian by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor (Vintage International)

Having just finished A Country Doctor's Notebook, I was looking forward to reading this classic, but when I looked at my copy of M&M last night, I shuddered. It was a mass market paperback with yellowed and brittle pages and a broken spine. How serendipitous to find a new copy (on sale) today!

Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam (Europa Editions)

I've been wanting to Old Filth for ages, but when I read the flap of this title, I was instantly won over. It's about a six year old orphan girl going to live with two pious aunts on the British coast. Lonely, the girl becomes obsessed with Robinson Crusoe and it becomes part of her world outlook for the next 80 days. Jane Gardam calls Crusoe's Daughter her favorite book, in part because it draws on her own childhood. Her mother was the model for this girl with a "voracious love of language but no formal education."

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht (Random House)

Wanted to read it for myself, despite so many mixed reviews on LT. It does take place in the Balkans, a definite plus.

There's an Owl in the Shower by Jean Craighead George

One for my daughter who loves JCG. In the Pacific Northwest (especially Oregon), the spotted owl is a hot topic. Environmentalists want to save the species by protecting habitat, and the local loggers want to be able to continue to have a livelihood. The book is about a spotted owl that imprints on a gruff logger.

The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe, translated from the Japanese by E. Dale Saunders (Vintage International)

After reading Rebecca's review, and seeing Darryl's 5* rating, I decided to try this one. Not sure what to expect, but Lois says I need to read more from Asia!

A man becomes captive to a woman in a pit surrounded by sand dunes. Together they must shovel all day, every day to keep from drowning in sand, and in the process also protect a nearby village. My guess is that one theme will be the submission of the individual to the needs of the whole, a Japanese touch point.

A Night to Remember by Walter Lord (Holt)

A classic account of the sinking of the Titanic, my copy was lost in a basement flood years ago. After following the Titanic conversation on Bonnie's thread, I've been interested in reading this story to see if it lives up to my recollections. Ta Da! I found a new copy.

Shush! A Memoir: Growing Up Jewish Under Stalin by Emil Draitser (Univ. of California Press)

Emil grew up in the Soviet Union in the years following the Holocaust. As a child, he is constantly told to keep his Jewish identity, his language secret. As anti-Semitism grows and gains legitimacy under Stalin, the Jewish population is increasingly persecuted, culminating in the infamous Doctor's plot. I think it will be interesting to read about this time period from the perspective of someone who was a child at the time.

The Conference of Birds by Peter Sis (Penguin Press)

Kerry introduced me to Peter Sis, and I fell in love with his books, especially this one. I borrowed it from the library and read it with my daughter. It's simply a delight, and I wanted to own it. Now I do! The texture of the paper, the beautiful illustrations, the acknowledgement to the 12th c. Persian poem, all make this a book I wanted in my library.

And that's it. Off to PT and then I'll add them to my library. Happy day!

What a haul! Congratulations!

What Poquette said!

Lisa - I also purchased The Master and Margarita yesterday! (although I went through amazon, not a nice local store)

Wow Lisa, when you buy you don't mess around. Well done!

What a haul! I will have to wander up the street to see if they have another copy of The Conference of the Birds (I got it from the library and LOVED it) and/or Crusoe's Daughter. I have Old Filth on my obese TBR pile, and I love the Europa Editions.

I'm glad you had fun at one of the places I'm most likely to leave my money. My office is just about four blocks south of there, right on "the Ave." Quite dangerous.

Nice haul, Lisa! I'll probably re-read The Woman in the Dunes later this month or in June, as Kobo Abe is the featured author for the second quarter of lilisin's Author Theme Reads group.

#25 and #26 Thanks Suzanne and Rebecca, it was definitely fun.

#27 I think it's a sign, Dan, that we should read The Master and Margarita together. Do you know when you are going to read it?

#28 It was definitely a splurge, Bonnie, but everything I bought was discounted which helped ease the pain at the register. I did put two back. One by Tyeb Salih called Season of Migration to the North, which had a creased cover. And one by the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński called Shah of Shahs.

Oh rats. I just looked up Kapuściński on Wikipedia and found this:

The American edition of Shah of Shahs, issued in the United States in 1985 by the San Diego publishers, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, in the translation of William R. Brand (b. 1953) and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand, was censored — by having references to CIA involvement in the 1953 overthrow of Iran's prime minister Mossadegh (or about 15 pages) excised.38 (The censorship of the American edition, ironic in a book that deals in part with the terror of pervasive censorship unleashed on the people of Iran by the Shah's security agency, the SAVAK, has never been satisfactorily explained

Makes me wish I had gotten both it and The Emperor (Kapuściński's best-known book, The Emperor, concerns itself with the decline of Haile Selassie's anachronistic régime in Ethiopia.)

#29 Next time I'll do a better job planning, Ellen. :-( They do have another copy of The Conference of the Birds, and I think Crusoe's Daughter as well. Beware the dangers of going in however!

#30 Thanks, Darryl. I'm looking forward to reading The Woman in the Dunes, although I know not everyone enjoyed it.

Lisa - soon, maybe as soon as it arrives. I would be happy to read it along with you, could use the support/motivation.

I'm planning to read The Master and Margarita this month; can I join you two?

kd - you're recruited (I say this, but Lisa hasn't had a chance to confirm yet... )

Dan and Darryl, it sounds like a plan. Give a shout out when you are ready to start.

Oh, good. Amazon says my copy will arrive May 16...so, May 17?

#18 Hi Barry, thanks for your kind words. I do hope you read A Country Doctor's Notebook. Personally I didn't have a problem with the medical procedures, but I wanted to give a head's up to those who might.

#19 Rats, Rebecca, I didn't think of your advice on translators when I picked up The Master and Margarita. I did ask customer service if they had an annotated version, and they told me they didn't think one existed. Hmm, maybe I can get the annotated version by ISBN before Dan and Darryl are ready to go.

#20 Hi Linda, would you like to join Dan, Darryl, and I for our impending read of M&M?

#21 LT is so good at filling in our reading gaps, isn't it, Steven? Did you see deebee's suggestions?

#22 deebees suggestions were Heart of a Dog, which you've read, but also The White Guard. Thank you deebee!

#23 Thanks, Ellen, next time I read a graphic novel that isn't a leftover from my daughter, I'll check them out. Graphic novels are definitely a genre (if that is the right word) that I never thought I would appreciate. Nice to prove myself wrong.

Edited to correct bolding error.

I'd love to join you in reading The Master and Margarita. Thanks for the invite!

May 17th sounds good to me. I just checked, and my copy of The Master and Margarita is the Penguin Classics edition from 1997, which was translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky:

#38 Wonderful! Do we need a separate thread? I know others have done group reads before us. Perhaps we can browse their threads as well.

A discussion of the pros and cons of the Pevear and Burgin translations.

Le Salon littéraire du peuple pour le peuple Group Read 1
Le Salon littéraire du peuple pour le peuple Group Read 2

The 11 in 11 Challenge Group Read

The Master and Margarita: What edition are you reading?

#39 Today I found a copy of the Penguin Classic version Rebecca recommends and Darryl has, but found the Vintage International version I have to be equally annotated. So, I just kept the one I had, rather than buy another. Perhaps we can compare our translations and notes as part of our discussion. The link above does have side by side comparisons of a passage.

I would vote for a separate thread, although I like the idea of browsing the Le Salon and 11 in 11 groups' threads as well.

Lisa, I think we need our own thread (among other reasons, to stop cluttering up your thread). Thanks for the links. I'll definitely look them over, I'm completely unprepared right now. That is a good place to start.

Linda - Awesome that your joining us.

This will be a great group, loving Club Read right now.

Here we go:

The Master and Margarita Group Read: Part 1 (Chapters 1-18)

#39, That's the edition I read.

Penguin Classics (Pevear and Volokhonsky) is the edition I have also. It's on my Kindle, but the chapters and notes seem easy to navigate. Thanks for the links, Lisa.

Well, I guess I'm the maverick with the Burgin and O'Connor translation. Hopefully having different translations will add another layer to our discussions. :-)

The new May/June issue of Belletrista has arrived!



For those who are interested in the newly released English translation of the Icelandic novel, Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristin Ómarsdóttir, the first four chapters have been made available in this issue. The excerpt will introduce much of the plot that I didn't want to give away in my review, as well as a good sense of her writing style.



My review of The Girl Giant by Kristen Den Hartog is here.

Good stuff Lisa. You made Children in Reindeer Woods very very intriguing.

I'm still waiting to get my copy from my Open Letter subscription.

I almost bought a copy of The Master and Margarita today. I resisted, but I'm not sure how to account for this rare moment of self-control.

A very tempting review of Children in Reindeer Woods - I'll try to look for that next time I'm at the bookstore.

#50 Are you feeling OK?

Urging you towards the excellent Ryszard Kapuściński, particularly The Emperor and The Shadow of the Sun. Next splurge?

Lucky you to score your own copy of Conference of the Birds. I read Fatelessness last year and have been meaning to rewatch the movie which originally inspired me to read the book (I didn't realise at the time that the film was based on a book).

#48 Thanks, Dan.

#49 I hope it comes soon, Rebecca. I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts. It was an unusual book.

#50 Oh, too bad, Ellen, you could have joined the group read. I hope you got some other nice things though.

#51 Thanks, DieF.

#52 Ellen was ill recently, Rebecca. Maybe she was feverish and not herself. ;-)

#53 Welcome, Pamela. I knew I should have bought those too! Well, it's an excuse to go back as soon as my book budget has caught up with me. Or better yet, I have a gift card to Third Place Books. I wonder if they have them?

#54 I'm very excited about the Sis, Kerry. Thank you for making me aware of him!

I don't think I mentioned on my thread the outcome of my participation in World Book Night. I took my 20 books to the homeless at Tent City and gave out copies, as well as put a few in their library crate. Several people said they had heard of Ender's Game, but never had a chance to read it. I nearly gave myself a new project: there was one man who clearly wanted to be able to take one, but he couldn't read. He looked at the cover picture, looked to see if there were additional pictures. It broke my heart to see him longing to do something that comes so easily to me. I've taught ESL as a volunteer for several years, but never literacy. I almost offered right there to teach him to read. I suggested to the World Book Org that perhaps next year they offer a graphic novel. Perhaps it would help bridge that literacy gap and spark the desire in more non-readers. Next year, if they have a Spanish language book, I think I'll take them to the sidewalk outside Home Depot where the day laborers wait.

26. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

My daughter brought home Wonderstruck as soon as she finished The Invention of Hugo Cabret, so I too read them back to back. Whereas I found Hugo to be fascinating and fresh, Wonderstruck failed to hit the sweet spot with me. Perhaps I read it too soon after the first, but it felt a little stale. The art and plot were interesting, but too closely resembled Selznick's first novel. It took me a long time to finish: something just didn't click.

The book opens in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota in 1977. The young boy Ben has just lost the only parent he ever knew, his mother, and is living with well-meaning relatives. His cousin is fond of teasing Ben because he is deaf in one ear. One late rainy night, Ben sneaks back to the home he shared with his mother, and finds clues about the father he never knew. When an accident takes away his remaining hearing, Ben runs away to try and find his father in New York City. Once there, he becomes friends with a boy at the Natural History Museum, who helps him in his quest.

Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, the author tells the story of Rose, a young deaf girl living in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1927. While Ben's story is told in text and graphics, Rose's is conveyed through pictures only, heightening the sense of her isolation from speech and language. Rose longs to escape her father's strict house, but her famous mother is uninterested in reuniting. Eventually the two stories move closer and closer together, until they become a single plotline.

In his acknowledgments, the author describes his research into Deaf culture. It sounds quite interesting, but I didn't feel as though much of it trickled down into his book. In sum, I gave Wonderstruck three stars as compared to four and a half for The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks (audiobook)

I'm sorry to say that I was unable to finish this one, which is unusual for me. I was listening on audio, and the reader's voice was a little grating to my ear, but the true problem was that I found The Mind's Eye to be a near retelling of many of Sack's earlier books. Although the patients may have been different, the cases were very familiar to fans of Sack's works. In addition, the author actually referred back to earlier cases such as "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", "Awakenings", and others with monotonous frequency. I am impressed with the candor with which the author discusses his own visual and audio problems, and I enjoy learning more about the brain and how it functions. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to hold my attention and rather than continue to drift and rewind, I decided to move on.

Hi Lisa- It looks like we felt the same way about wonderstruck. It's a book I wanted to like more, the illustrations were wonderful but the story was a bit slight.
I just requested Conference of the Birds and just finished the Tree of Life, which was also slight but pretty good.

>56 labfs39: there was one man who clearly wanted to be able to take one, but he couldn't read. He looked at the cover picture, looked to see if there were additional pictures. It broke my heart to see him longing
This breaks my heart, too. Still, you may be the prompt -- your book and your interaction -- that motivates him toward literacy.

55> Well, I went back and bought it today. I don't know that I'll get to it in time for the GR but it looks so good.

#59 Tree of Life was not nearly as good as The Conference of the Birds, IMO. I see from your 4.5* that you enjoyed it too.

#60 I hope so!

#61 I'm sorry you weren't able to make the GR. I'm afraid I didn't either really. After volunteering to host it, RL interfered and I wasn't on LT for 3+ weeks. Bad form.

Finally have something to report and the time to do it. I reviewed In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner for Belletrista and loved it. I reread it the other day (and night). At least 4.5*. Here's a teaser, and I'll link to the Belle issue when it's out. The book becomes available in August.



34. In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

Imagine that you are a five-year-old princess of the Cambodian monarchy, living a life of luxury, surrounded by love and a large family. Then imagine that one day your family is violently jettisoned into the countryside with the rest of the urban population, and everything you know is destroyed. Finally, imagine what happens when the soldiers of the Khmer Rouge discover the royal identities of your family. We can imagine, but the author doesn't need to. She was that five-year-old princess, and this is her fictionalized story...

Looking forward to your review of In the Shadow of the Banyan - sounds like there was a little more to it than the last book I read for Belle!

Wow! When you give us a teaser, you really give us a teaser!

It's going onto my wishlist now - sounds really good.

Nice to see you surface! (If I weren't in a time warp myself, I might've noticed a month go by.)

35. The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller, translated from the German by Philip Boehm

I was particularly eager to read this novel because I've never read anything by Herta Müller, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. The author was born and raised in Romania, but left for Germany to escape the harassment and threats of Ceauşescu's secret police. Although Müller never experienced the Soviet labor camps to which many ethnic German Romanians were sent after World War II, her mother did. In addition to family history, Müller extensively interviewed the poet Oskar Pastior, a former deportee, in what was to be a collaboration. Unfortunately, Pastior passed away, and Müller ended up writing the book alone. This intimate knowledge about the camps lends an authenticity to the novel, which to me is essential when writing survivor literature and this type of fictitious, but personal narrative.

Leo Ausberg is seventeen, bored with small town life, and exploring his first sexual encounters when he receives an order that he is to be deported to a Soviet labor camp for five years to help with the rebuilding of Russia after Stalingrad. Others from his town have been "called up" as well, and Leo is secretly excited at the thought of traveling and leaving his provincial town and family for a while. With a gramophone case as a suitcase, Leo boards a cattle car for the East with a light heart.

The next five years in the coke-processing plant disabuse Leo of his foolish optimism and teach him many things: 1 shovel load=1 gram of bread, to let slip any hint of his homosexuality would mean death, and the cruel intimacy of the hunger angel. The long hours, the cold and heat, the abuse, and the lice are nothing to the tortures of the hunger angel. He encompasses the mind and subsumes the will. He promises to come back, but never leaves. Everyone in the camps has a hunger angel, and they dictate everything in the camps, from hunger-fur to morality. Müller focuses on this image as compulsively as the camp inmate thinks of food, and the reader is drawn into the mood claustrophobic obsession.

Although the beginning and end of the story are plot focused, many of the middle chapters most closely resemble essays. As Leo (and Müller) reflect on the ways in which camp life impact the way the mind functions, the plot falls to the side. These short pieces each deal with an element of camp life: shoveling, chemicals, boredom, a cuckoo clock, retribution of a bread thief. Although they are all tied together through Leo, I found that my reading slowed a little too much as I read one or two chapter essays and then stopped, with little need to carry on for plot's sake. As I neared the end of the book and the narrative became more plot focused, I finished quite quickly.

The Hunger Angel opened my eyes to the post-war plight of the Romanian ethnic Germans, about whom I knew little. I thought it was mostly German POWs who were sent to the camps. In addition, I enjoyed the language of the text , which is poetic, full of imagery, and poignant without being pitying. I look forward to reading more of Müller's work and have added The Land of Green Plums to my list.

Here's the final paragraph from the chapter called "On the bread trap". Kati is a mentally slow woman, perhaps has Down's. Cheek-bread is bread belonging to someone in advanced malnutrition. They have white hair/fur growing on their cheeks.

Everyone gets caught in the bread trap. But no one is allowed to take Kati Sentry's cheek-bread. This, too, is part of the bread law. In the camp we've learned to clear away the dead without shuddering. We undress them before they turn stiff, we need their clothes so we won't freeze to death. And we eat their saved bread. Their death is our gain. But Kati Sentry is alive, even if she doesn't know where she is. We realize this, so we treat her as something that belongs to all of us. We make up for what we do to one another by standing up for her. We're capable of many things, but as long as she is living among us, there's a limit to how far we actually go. And this probably counts for more than Kati Sentry herself.

Wow. The Hunger Angel sounds powerful. Thumb ascribed.

Nice review. Thanks to the Early Reviewer program I'm reading this now as well.

Good review of The Hunger Angel Lisa and a fine extract from the book at #69.

Excellent review, Lisa. I am another lucky recipient of this ER book and am nearly finished.

Great review of The Hunger Angel, Lisa. I vowed that I wouldn't read anything else by Herta Müller after I struggled through Nadirs and The Passport, but you've made me eager to read this book.

Lisa- Excellent review of The Hunger Angel. Might have to add that one to the WL.

Thanks, everyone. It's nice to have the time to actually write a review and post it!

I'm curious, Darryl, what didn't you like about the two Müller novels you read? I'm wondering if her language in this one is significantly different because of her collaboration with the poet Pastior.

I reviewed Nadirs, and described it as "incredibly bleak" and "filled with (endless) cruelty, pain, hunger and hopelessness." I couldn't finish The Passport, probably because it was similarly depressing.

Nadirs is rough - bleak and more bleak and confusing. However...I loved the Passport and still think about it. Neither is anything like the Hunger Angel.

Hmm, although the store had Nadirs and The Passport, I decided just to purchase Land of the Green Plums and see how I do.

So today was the exciting Third Place Books (outside Seattle) meetup. It's TPB's big 40% off all used books sale, so we met for lunch and then shopped. I had my daughter with me, who had come straight from a sleepover and swim lessons, and was very tired and cranky, so I ended up cutting my shopping short. Didn't get through my fiction list and didn't get to history or memoirs at all, and I'm thinking about going back tomorrow. Still have some gift card money left, so it doesn't count, right? Besides I spent enough today to earn a free book tote, that's got to count for something!

Here's a photo of the four LTers at the meetup (not counting my daughter who is officially an LTer too, although her thread is moribund at the moment).



maggie1944, arubabookwoman, EBT1002, and me, labfs39 (otherwise known as Karen, Deborah, Ellen, and me, Lisa)

So here's the loot from today's meetup:

First, for my daughter:

The Whispering Land and Catch Me a Colobus by Gerald Durrell, to follow up on our current read aloud, My Family and Other Animals.

The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich, one of her favorite books but which we didn't own

Flush by Carl Hiaasen, which is about kids taking environmental action into their own hands in the Florida Keys

And for me (in no particular order):

Trapeze by Simon Mawer
A thriller about an Englishwoman who joins the Resistance and is confronted with the memory of a first love

The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
It's the second book in the Regeneration trilogy, and since I own the other two...

The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann
Having just read and enjoyed The Hunger Angel, I decided to try another book in the same vein (i.e. based on events which she witnessed/participated in). Müller won the Nobel Prize in 2009 and this book won the 1998 International IMPAC Dublin Award.

Sorry by Gail Jones
A Europa edition of this story of childhood friendship and trauma in Western Australia during WWII. Orange Prize. Recommended by Bonnie (brenzi)

City of Thieves by David Benioff
Set during the siege of Leningrad, two Russians, one arrested for looting and the other for deserting, are offered their lives in exchange for a dozen eggs for the Soviet colonel's daughter's wedding cake. Recommended by Cushla. The author is also an alum of my first alma mater.

A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, rev. ed.
Set in Kenya on the eve of independence. Recommended by Rebecca. The author was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize in 2009, but lost to Alice Munro.

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson
Two men vie for the attentions of a woman and whichever can identify the most birds in one week will get to ask her out. Set in Nairobi, where the author lived for two years. Recommended by Richard (richardareus)

Spies by Michael Frayn
A novel about two boys caught up in the conspiracy rumors of wartime London, who spy on their neighbors. Then they learn one too many secrets... A completely random choice sanctioned by Deborah

Stone Upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski, translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston
An epic story about one man's life, from childhood through WWII to his current life as caretaker to his invalid brother. Didn't try for the ER copy, but wished I had after reading more about it. Archipelago edition

and finally, for the third quarter Reading Globally theme of Middle Eastern literature,

The Book of Khalid by Ameen Rihani (Lebanese), illustrated by Kahlil Gibran
Cited as the first Arab-American novel, the novel tells the story of two Lebanese men who emigrate to New York City and try to make a life, but who return to Lebanon full of American ideas and promote political progress, religious unity, and tolerance, with mixed results. Not yet reviewed in LT, this one is a wild card.

Great to read about the meetup and see the photo of the four of you - sounds like an excellent day out. And you have bought some great books... I really loved City of Thieves and A Guide to the Birds of East Africa and liked The Eye in the Door (although not as much as Regeneration, but I think my expectations were a bit too high after that). I haven't read A Grain of Wheat yet but his Dreams in a Time of War was really good and made me want to read more (and I have done nothing about it for 6 months, of course!)

Edited to add that Trapeze is called The Girl who Fell from the Sky over here, and I have been eyeing it for a while now, so am looking forward to reading your comments in due course. I really liked The Glass Room except for a couple of coincidences.

Lisa- It sounds like the Meet-up was a success. Great photo of you guys!

You certainly found some wonderful books, Lisa. I am adding several to my own wishlist.

Great haul, Lisa. I didn't know that Ngugi lost to Alice Munro for the Man Booker International Prize. I love Alice Munro too, but it's sort of apples and oranges. I'm still hoping for Ngugi to get the Nobel.

Lisa, it was so great to meet you at TPB yesterday!
I took off before officially finding you among the stacks to say good-bye (and still I missed that bus by four minutes and had to wait another half hour....), so I'm just now seeing your haul. You got some great books! The 40% off all used books was definitely a sale worth going to (and I will try to make note and go back for same next year). I successfully limited myself to three books and got them all for under $15, including tax. :-)

>82 cushlareads: Hi Cushla, I'm not surprised you enjoyed reading several of the books on your list, as I probably got the recommendations from you! (or multiple people, in which case I only listed the first). Hmm, I'm wondering if there is another book called Trapeze. The one I got is by Simon Mawer, and the Girl Who Fell from the Sky is by Heidi W. Durrow.

>83 msf59: Thanks, Mark, it was my second meetup (my first was with Deborah), and it was very fun.

>84 Linda92007: And I went back and bought three more today, Linda! But I was disappointed not to find more history today, which I hadn't had a chance to browse yesterday.

>85 rebeccanyc: Speaking of Ngugi, Rebecca, I had an interesting encounter with one of the bookstore workers that the store had brought in to handle the sale. I was asking about Ngugi, and she said it was filed under "wa" (Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʾo). I asked how they came to that decision, and she said that when an author has a three part name, they default to using the middle name. I suggested opening to the CIP information from the Library of Congress, but she said they don't open the book. I looked to see if Dương Thu Hương was filed under Thu, but didn't see any copies under any of her name parts. I find that an interesting guideline for names and am interested in seeing what the regular book buyer at the store has to say.

>86 EBT1002: Same to you, Ellen! I'm sorry to hear that you missed your bus. At least you had some good reading with you! Does Elliot Bay have a similar sale? If so, we could meet there next time.

Since I didn't have time to browse history or memoirs yesterday, I went back today (the sale lasts all weekend), but didn't find any history and came away with only three books total. Part of my failure is undoubtedly due to filing issues again today. I asked about Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, as I had looked in the Germany and Soviet sections and could find no Europe section. It was under WWII. I looked in memoirs for My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Verghese, but it was in general health. Junger's memoir Storm of Steel about his experience in WWI was in military history. I didn't even bother try to find The Lost City of Z. Oh, but I did get Shah of Shahs, which was not in memoir, but Middle Eastern history. Sigh.

Love and Exile by Isaac Bashevis Singer
An autobiographical trilogy of A Little Boy in Search of God, A Young Man in Search of Love, and Lost in America.

They Shoot Canoes, Don't They? by Patrick F. McManus
A humorous collection of essays published first in Field and Stream magazine. I read A Fine and Pleasant Misery a couple of years ago and found it hysterical. Reminded me of an outdoorsy Mama Makes Up Her Mind.

Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuściński
About the last Shah of Iran, the US's attempt to install him as an "ally", and his overnight downfall.

Lisa, The Girl who Fell From the Sky is by Simon Mawer too - must be the NZ/Australian name for it. (I hate it when they do that!)

How odd. There appear to be two books with the same title, and it's not a short or typical title.

Heidi W. Durrow is an American writer, author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, and the winner of the 2008 Barbara Kingsolver Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change.

It appears to be her only published work.

Simon Mawer is author of eight novels and two non fiction books. His latest novel, The Glass Room, published by Little, Brown in January 2009, was on the Man Booker shortlist. The next one, entitled The Girl Who Fell From The Sky for the UK market, and Trapeze in the US...

Sorry about correcting you! The touchstone that automatically comes up for me is for Durrow's book.

Very good review of The Hunger Angel. I'd like to get that one but will first have to read Nadirs, The Passport and Land of the Green Plums which are all sitting on the pile. Sounds like maybe the last one is the one to start with.

Looks like the meetup was a lot of fun and a nice haul also. Did you also go to the SPL mini-sale? I think it was this weekend. Was planning to go but had to work all weekend.

You live in the Seattle area?! Did I know this? It would have been lovely to have you at the meetup as well. Too bad you had to work. Do you get time off this week instead?

No, I didn't make it anywhere except TPB (twice).

Lisa, there are definitely two novels by that title, which I agree is strange. Perhaps that led to the alternate title for US audience? In any case, I own both Mawer novels and would be very interested in a group read of either (or both).

I also own but have not yet read My Own Country...

>92 labfs39: - I think I mentioned it in the introduction thread but doesn't look like I did in my reading thread. No time off over the week - my schedule's pretty flexible and I can go in late/leave late but had to finish some stuff over the weekend.

Two trips to Third Place is pretty good for one weekend! I've been reading more nonfiction this year and it is definitely more work to find a random history or biography.

87 Very strange about the "middle name" filing system, Lisa, and it doesn't seem to make any sense, even for people who don't come from countries that handle names differently than we do. It makes sense for Spanish names like Mario Vargas Llosa, but certainly not for English names like Laura Ingalls Wilder. I wonder how they came up with such a loony system.

Fabulous book haul, Lisa! And thanks for sharing the meet up photo with us.

Love and Exile was a favorite book when I read it and one I still think about all the time - especially the sections on Poland. Hope you enjoy if you get there.

The Hunger Angel --
>Although the beginning and end of the story are plot focused, many of the middle chapters most closely resemble essays

Very interesting and for me maybe even a plus. Great review!

And loved seeing the photo/recap of the meet-up. I read Hoot and think your daughter will enjoy Flush.

37. Sorry by Gail Jones

What does it mean to say you are sorry? That you regret what happened, whether for the distress it caused yourself or others? That you wished it had never happened? That you wish there were a way to atone? Perhaps it is said as a summation, a closing ritual, either expected or received in surprise, unaware of the silent emotions of the sorry one. Can you know the meaning of another's sorry-ness, of another's sorrow? If saying you are sorry is open to interpretation, how much more so then, the failure to say you are sorry. The expectant pause in the story, the silent internal debate, perhaps an ignorant obliviousness or a nonchalant callousness. What is gained or lost with sorry being said or left unsaid?

A whisper: sssshh. The thinnest vehicle of breath.

This is a story that can only be told in a whisper...

'Don't tell them," she said. That was all: Don't tell them.

...And when for comfort we held hands, overlapping, as girls do, in riddled ways, in secret understandings and unspoken allegiances, the sticky stuff of my father's life bound us like sisters.

So begins the first page of this devastatingly beautiful novel about Perdita, her family, and the ways in which speech and silence can each be a salve and a torment.

Perdita's parents met in England and married with the air of Well, that's done. Neither Stella or Nicholas was looking for romance, and their sterile togetherness reflects their egocentric emptiness. Stella lives in a Shakespearian world that only she can navigate, reciting long passages from the tragedies as her way of interpreting and interacting with the world around her. Nicholas, too, is lost in his own world, composed of imagined academic success as an anthropologist and later of manly posturings overlaying his deep sense of impotence at not being able to join up in WWII. Completely self-absorbed and living in isolated fantasies, the couple has a child shortly after leaving England to live in the West Australian outback, where Nicholas can make his name as the translator of the Aborigines.

Perdita is left to flourish or not in this wrack of a family. When Stella enters a deep post-natal depression, fueled by the emotional extremes of Shakespearian tragedy, Perdita is nursed by two Aborigine servants. Growing up, Perdita exists on the edges of two worlds, the one inhabited by her parents, and the one shown her by the Aborigine people who live on the fringes of that world. When she is ten, Nicholas takes Stella to the clinic in town where she rests, off and on, for much of Perdita's childhood. On the way home, he stops at a convent and takes on Mary, a sixteen year old Aborigine orphan, as a cook and tutor for his daughter. Instantly, Mary and Perdita are bound by a love based on sisterhood, shared hardship, and need. Together with Billy, the deaf-mute neighbor boy, they find and share the affection and community that each lacks.

War intensifies the ugliness of Stella and Nicholas's declines, and then something horrific happens, and the children are torn apart. Perdita is cast into silence and withdraws into herself, until she feels as hardened and dead as an ammonite. Her struggle to find herself and regain her voice is a story that tears at the heart. What secrets does her silence hold, and will she herself ever know?

Evocative of the fears and determination of the war years and eloquent on the beauty of the outback and the generous kinship of the Aborigine, Sorry is a novel rooted in wartime Australia. Yet the story stretches beyond the particular into the nature of introspection and the use of language to create and maintain identity. The language is beautiful, the story heartbreaking, and the ideas thought provoking. Read this novel. You won't be sorry.

4.5*

Quite an opening. Enjoyed your review and revisiting a favorite.

Fabulous review of Sorry, Gail Jones and a great opening paragraph. I have added it to my to buy list.

Ps. sorry, but your link in your review is to the wrong book.

Bas - The Australian theme might go very nicely along with your Patrick White reading.

Great review of Sorry, Lisa. I'm surprised to see that Gail Jones is not a well-known author among the LT crowd, judging by the numbers listing her books.

I thought Sorry was a great read as well, must pick up another of hers.

I've been reluctant to read Sorry because, although I thought that the writing in Five Bells, the only book by Gail Jones I've read, was poetic, and the novel lyrical and moving, there were parts of it that seemed forced to me and that put me off it a little bit. But your review makes me think I should try her again.

>101 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. Have you read any other books by Gail Jones that you would recommend? Once I've recovered from Sorry I would like to try another of her books. I wonder if they are all this emotionally wrought?

>102 baswood: I fixed the link, Barry, thanks for pointing it out. The default touchstone is to a different book, and sometimes I forget to change it.

>104 Linda92007: Hi, Linda, are you a Gail Jones fan? I didn't see any of her books in your library, but I know it's a work in progress.

>105 avatiakh: Do you have the next book picked out yet, Kerry?

>106 rebeccanyc: I read your review, Rebecca, as well as some for her other books. It does seem as though Sorry is her most appreciated. Being her latest book, perhaps she's improving.

>107 labfs39: I can't say I'm a fan, as I have never read anything by Gail Jones and don't own any of her books, but Sorry does sounds like one I'd like to read. Based on your review, I was just surprised that she didn't show up in more LT libraries.

Here are a couple of passages from Sorry about books and reading that I though I would share:

For those who do not read, for whom reading is not part of the texture of knowing, the gorgeous complication, the luxurious interiority, the thrilling extrapolation from black marks to alternative reals; for those who might not understand what it is to collaborate in making a world, or building a thought, or consolidating, line by line, the salvage of something long gone; for those bereft, that is, and booklessly broke, those world-deprived, craving, caught in dull time, it will seem odd that two girls, with not much to do, spend a few hours of each day hidden in the valleys of pages. Proxy lives, new imaginings, precious understandings.

and a few pages later:

Mary had a theory that when people read the same words they were imperceptibly knitted; that there were touchings not of the skin, and apparitional convergences. Some kind of spirit inhered in words that one might enter and engage with; there were transactions, comminglings, adjacencies of mind and sense. Mary's version was simpler, of course, but for years later Perdita considered how this superstition worked; Mary extended to written words the forms of community she longed to express, just as in the generosity, the creek people had bestowed on Perdita a relationship of skin. By this reasoning, too, David Copperfield was part of her and Captain Cook was part of Mary; and even in the world-weariness that reading sometimes induces, they absorbed irresistibly, naively, elements of the lives they imagined. A kind of family without limits. Occult relations.

Hi Lisa- Good review of "Sorry". I was not familiar with Gail Jones, although now I am thanks to you.

Lisa - No, I haven't read other of her books. I own Dreams of Speaking and, I know this sounds weird, but I seem to be waiting for the right time before I read it. It hasn't come yet.

Jones was a guest at our writers festival last year so I heard her talk a couple of times. Most of us fell under her spell, including fellow guests David Vann and David Mitchel. I wasn't that taken with the idea of Five Bells and bought a copy of Black Mirror instead.

Hmmm--maybe I should have taken you up on your offer to let me buy Sorry instead of you--:). However, if I had, I would not have read it yet, and we all would not know how good it is.

Love your review of Sorry, Lisa! I've added it to my wish list.

for those bereft, that is, and booklessly broke - Oh I like that.

>108 Linda92007: Hi Linda. I wonder if it's because her other books aren't as good? I have to read another before I throw in the towel.

>110 msf59: Thanks, Mark. P.S. I'm not sure about the prospects for our meet-up. I hurt my hip again, and I'm supposed to be resting and on crutches. Depending on the flight, I may or may not be up to a drive. :-(

>111 dchaikin: I completely understand what you mean, Dan. Sorry was so intense and sad that after finishing I had to search my shelves for something light to read. From the reviews, it seems that most/all her books have a similar tone.

>112 avatiakh: Interesting, Kerry. What did she speak about? I think I'm going to follow your lead and read Black Mirror as my next Jones book. It seems less depressing than some of the others from Lois's review.

>113 arubabookwoman: Hi Deborah, if you PM me your address, I will add it to The Investigation and send it your way. Or we could meet, but it wouldn't be for a couple of weeks.

>114 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl. BTW, how long is your wishlist? ;-)

>115 baswood: I agree, Barry. Very nice.

>116 labfs39: I can give you an exact answer to that question, Lisa! I use my Amazon account to post books on my wish list, and there are currently 65 books on my Dead Tree Book wish list, and 34 on my Kindle wish list. ;-)

39. A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson

I was looking for something light to read and couldn't have landed upon a happier choice. For those enamored with Major Pettigrew, similar delights await you upon meeting Mr. Malik.

Mr. Malik is a charming man of Indian descent born and raised in Nairobi. He was educated in England, but dutifully abandoned his dreams of being a journalist in order to return to Kenya and take his father's place at the head of the family business. He married a wonderful women and raised two children, joined the prestigious Asadi Club, and became known as an honorable man. As time passes first his wife and then his son pass away, leaving Mr. Malik alone with his beloved daughter who now runs the factory. After suffering a mild heart attack, his doctor advises he take up birdwatching, and ever since Mr. Malik has been a faithful attendee of the local Tuesday morning bird walk sponsored by the East Africa Ornithological Society. Over the years Mr. Malik has become a true bird lover and aficionado.

Although Mr. Malik's life appears ordered and serene, it has hidden depths. For Mr. Malik is a passionate man: he is secretly in love with the beautiful Rose Mbikwa, who leads the bird walks; writes a daring political column under a pseudonym exposing corruption in Kenya; and staunchly does charity work of which his peers would be unlikely to approve. When a rival suitor arrives in town and moves in on Rose, Mr. Malik does the only possible thing and protects the lady from having to make a choice by challenging the flashy American to a contest. Whichever of them identifies the most bird species in one week will have the privilege of asking Rose to the social affair of the season, the annual Hunt Club Ball. What follows is a humorous account of the trials the two men undergo in their pursuit of birds and a gradual revealing of the innate goodness and human failings of Mr. Malik.

The author, Nicholas Drayson, is a naturalist and has a wonderful way of describing the look and habits of birds. Drayson lived in Kenya for two years, where he studied the local wildlife and accumulated experiences that would later become this book. When asked how he would like readers to feel upon completing the book, Drayson said Happy. Although the novel may not be high literature, it is a delightful read, and it succeeded in making me unexpectedly and enjoyably happy.

Excellent review Lisa, I shall bear this one in mind when I want to lighten up. It sounds a hoot. I might even learn something about birds of East Africa or twitchers

An interesting find. If I want to be distracted, I could certainly do a lot worse than reading a book by a naturalist who wants me to feel happy. Noting.

When asked how he would like readers to feel upon completing the book, Drayson said Happy. Although the novel may not be high literature, it is a delightful read, and it succeeded in making me unexpectedly and enjoyably happy.

How wonderful!

I will keep this in mind, as an addition to the several go-to books that I reread when I want/need to relax.

Lisa- Sorry to hear about your hip. What a bummer. Hey, no problem with the Meet-Up, we can try again next time. If you do fly in, be careful and be safe.
Great review of A Guide to the Birds of East Africa. I've had that one on my shelf for awhile now.

118: Oh, that sounds both sweet and informative.

Loved your review of A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, Lisa. Sounds like a charming way to take a break from all that serious stuff!

Sorry to hear about your hip. I can't imagine how annoying it will be to have to travel with crutches.

>117 kidzdoc: 99 books on the list to go, eh, Darryl? Sounds like a beer drinking song. Do you try to keep it under 100?

>119 baswood:-124 Thanks, everyone. It is a sweet little book, and after reading Sorry, The Hunger Angel, and In the Shadow of the Banyan (all great books), I was ready for something light and positive. If you squint and concentrate, you can find some problems with the book, but sometimes that defeats the purpose.

Last night my hubby and daughter went to a Mariners vs Red Sox game (we lucked into some tickets on the field), so I took the opportunity to watch a foreign film. We rarely watch TV and my better half doesn't care for depressing movies with subtitles, so it was good timing. I watched Closely Watched Trains (Ostre sledované vlaky) by Bohumil Hrabal, one of my favorite authors. His Too Loud a Solitude is an all-time favorite. Anyway, the film was made in Prague in 1966, directed by the 28 year old Jirí Menzel, and with Hrabal writing the screenplay. The film won the 1967 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.



Miloš Hrma is a seventeen year old apprentice train dispatcher, shyly in love with Máša, the girl conductor on a regular. Naive and not particularly bright, Milos fumbles his first attempt at sex, becomes very depressed, but takes the advice of his doctor and seeks out the help of an older, experienced woman to see him through. Unfortunately, WWII intrudes on this sweet and funny coming of age story, and adulthood and war coincide with tragic results.

I watched this one a month or two ago, but I don't think I ever posted it:

Flame and Citron (originally Flammen & Citronen) is a Danish film dramatizing the lives of two of Denmark's most famous resistance fighters, Bent Faurschou-Hviid and Jorgen Haagen Schmith, codenamed Flame for his red hair, and Citronen respectively. The 2008 film is directed by Ole Christian Madsen and starring Thure Lindhardt and Mads Mikkelsen, who is beautiful and does an amazing job with the role of Citron.



Flame is a young Danish resistance fighter who works as an assassin, executing Danish collaborators with the Nazis. Citron is his staunch friend, not as emotionally detached, but committed to the cause despite the pain it causes him and the effect it has on his increasingly distant wife and daughter. Things become hot for the duo as a mole is working against them from within, and emotionally complex as they are asked to kill three Germans, something sure to provoke retaliation. And the Gestapo is coming closer and closer to identifying the two men.

I appreciated the study of how violence affects even those with the best of intentions and often simply serves to up the ante in the violence. It also was interesting to see how trust is built, tested, and given, often wrongly.



Bent Faurschou-Hviid (Flame) in 1944



Jørgen Haagen Schmith (Citron)

Interesting movies, Lisa. I think I remember hearing of Closely Watched Trains but I didn't know it was by Hrabal, whose I Served the King of England has been on my TBR for a few years now. Never heard of the Danish film. How do you get these? From Netflix? And how do you find out about them?

I saw Flame and Citron on TV a couple of months ago as well. I rarely watch TV and just happened to turn it on while I was making the bed or something and got hooked on it.

If the film of Closely Watched Trains is half as good as the book, it will be worth seeing.

I have seen about 3 movies in the 8 years since I had kids, but those two both sound good. And I'm really happy that you loved A Guide to the Birds of East Africa - so did I!

I don't have Sorry here on the shelves but I do have Sixty Lights. It's been here for several years. Loved your review.

>128 rebeccanyc: Hi Rebecca, I actually TIVO the movies from the Independent Film channel or Sundance and occasionally other channels. We subscribed to TIVO when my daughter was born so that if she watched any educational programming, she wouldn't be exposed to the commercials (which can be violent and/or sexually explicit). It's also handy for recording independent or old films which usually get shown at 3am when no one is actually watching. The movies then sit in my queue for months until I get to them. Since we don't watch or record a lot, we have plenty of space on the DVR. :-) I don't have Netflix, but I did buy seasons 1 and 2 of Downton Abbey digitally from Amazon, because I wanted the uncut British version. I plug the laptop into the TV when I want to watch those.

As for Hrabal, I actually liked I Served the King of England the least...

>129 StevenTX: What did you think of Flame and Citron, Steven? I thought the Jorgen/Citron portrayal was fascinating. As for Closely Watched Trains, since Hrabal co-wrote the screenplay with the director, I think the movie is true to the book and treads well that fine line between humor and irony.

>130 cushlareads: Hi Cushla! Nice to see you. I hope you are enjoying your break. Bill and I have been to the movies about that many times. Once to see The King's Speech and once we took Katie to see the remake of the Borrowers by director Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The name of the film is The Secret World of Arriety, originally Kari-gurashi no Arietti, and we loved it: the adaptation, the animation, and the soundtrack. Going to the movies is so expensive, plus if you have to get a sitter, that what few movies we do watch are at home.

I remember seeing the Jiri Menzel film back in the late 1960's. It was translated then as "Closely Observed Trains" It is one of those films that stays in the memory.

>125 labfs39: Ha! No, I don't put any limit on my wish lists, although I will prune them now and then, especially at Christmastime and my birthday.

>129 StevenTX: What did you think of Flame and Citron

I really enjoyed it, though I've seen about as many movies in recent years as Cushla (if you don't count the ones we take the grandkids to which all seem to be about dogs), so I am anything but a good judge of film or acting. I liked the moral ambiguity and uncertainty of it. I was rather surprised at the apparent ease with which the members of the resistance moved between German-occupied Denmark and neutral Sweden.

Lisa, you gave me a very small hard time for the rate of posts on my thread, and yours has just taken off in the past week or so! I'm very sorry to hear about your hip and I hope it mends quickly....

If another meet-up is in the works, I'd be interested.

We went to the Mariners-Red Sox game today with some out-of-town friends. I had a good time, but I kept thinking that I could be home reading....... Of course, now that I'm home, I'm on LT.....

Well apparently I have been "ignoring" you Lisa. I blame it on the iPad and fat fingers but I finally caught up with you. I did see your review of Sorry last week when it was a hot review and I thumbed it then. You expressed beautifully everything about that book that was so powerful. I'm sorry to hear that people have not been as taken with Five Bells which I was going to make my next Jones book. I may read it anyway just because I can't believe she could Have written a bad book.

It was great to see the meet up pic. That bookstore is an absolutely wonderful place to meet up, just about perfect for any LTer. I think I ended up with 15 books to stuff in my suitcase and lug across the country. I actually went to another (smaller) but really good one on Bainbridge Island and picked up a few more books. I had Trapeze in my hands the other day at my favorite local bookstore and ended up putting it back and picking up Links by Nuruddin Farah. He will be here to speak in a few months and I wanted to read his book first.

I have A Guide to the Birds of East Africa because I like to have light books to fall back on at times too. Another fabulous review BTW.

I'm sorry to hear about your hip; hope you're on the mend soon.

Flame and Citron was an excellent film with the dramatic tension done very well.
I saw it on a DVD from a local movie rental place in this very small town, so it's probably out there in other rental agents.

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa sounds like just the reading for this heat wave.Very nice review.

Unfortunately, high rents and Netflix have driven all the video rental places in our neighborhood out of business. We used to have a fabulous one, with amazing depth of old and foreign movies.

Catching up! I've been meaning to get round to Gail Jones for ages now, so thanks for giving me the final push - I've just ordered Sorry. And A Guide to the Birds of East Africa sounds like perfect light summer reading...

I understand you have a meetup with Mark happening. Have fun!

Excellent reviews of Sorry and A Guide to the Birds of East Africa. I've noticed Gail Jones' books at the store because they were published by Europa but sometimes I need good, lengthy reviews of pique my interest. Making a note to look for them next time.

I didn't realize that Hrabal had collaborated on the film adaptation of Closely Watched Trains. I did enjoy that book and Too Loud a Solitude though I think I Served the King of England was my favorite of the three. Hoping to read more by Hrabal.

Was The Secret World of Arriety produced? written? by Miyazaki? I caught a couple of the films that SIFF was showing in their Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli retrospective and they were all quite wonderful. But it was starting to add up so I was thinking I could get some of his older ones from the library.

Sorry everyone for being out of touch: things have been crazier than normal. We were in Chicago last week trying to survive in the 100+ temperatures outside Chicago. One bright spot was that Mark and I were able to meet up for a nice visit one evening. (Mark was a trooper as he met after a day delivering mail in that awful heat.) Here we are:



I have to go read to my daughter who is sporting a fever today, but I'll try to be back later and respond to everyone and update you on my reading.

Hi Lisa- glad you made it home safely. Sorry to hear about Katie! Hopefully reading to her helps. Thanks for posting the picture it came out good. Lucky that book sign happened to be there.

Hi Lisa, dropping the line as promised on my thread. I hope your hip's healed (or healing at least) and that you and your family are well. You've done some serious reading. I guess our reading-tracks have diverged a little, but I suspect that we'll be in sync pretty soon again if I take a look at the reading I have planned. Your thread is such an inspiration!

143: Lucky that book sign happened to be there.
Mere coincidence?
Nice photo!

#132 I agree, Barry. I think Hrabal is a very good at creating visual images in his writing, which carried over well to Closely Watched Trains.

#133 Last week I tried to give my wishlist a haircut, Darryl, but ended up adding a couple I thought were already on there. :-P

#134 I liked the moral ambiguity and uncertainty of Flame and Citron So did I, Steven. I'm currently reading the David Downing series set in Germany in WWII, and although they have made good plane/summer reading, I wish the books had a more in-depth look at this question of moral ambiguity.

#135 I'm sorry, Ellen, I didn't mean to fault you for your popularity, I was trying to make an excuse for not being able to keep up on your thread as well as I would like! Ironically, Bill and Katie went to a Mariners-Red Sox game on the 30th. We had relatives coming up from California for the game and a visit, but they had to cancel at the last minute, so it was just Bill and Katie.

#136 Hi Bonnie! I am chronically behind on your thread, but I do see and thumb many of your reviews. I too am going to read another Gail Jones, although none of the others seem to get the high ratings that Sorry did. I'm sorry that I missed you when you were in Seattle. I agree, Third Place Books is awesome, and Eagle Harbor bookstore is very nice too. Although the last time I was there, I bought Shantaram at the urging of the bookseller, and ended up not enjoying it very much. One of those books that are ruined for me because of the misrepresentation by the author of his actions. Are you going to be joining the Reading Globally three month theme read on the Middle East?

#137 Welcome, Sassy. I'm glad Flame and Citron is available and being watched: it deserves to be! A Guide to the Birds of East Africa was delicious and started me on a lengthy summer-reading spree.

#138 Same here, Rebecca. The only rental places still around are in grocery stores, and the selection is pretty much what you would expect.

#139 I hope you enjoy Sorry, Rachel. It isn't exactly lighthearted, though, which is why I followed it with something light.

#140 Thanks, Ellen! As you will see from the photo, Mark and I did have a nice meetup.

#141 I always take a second look at Europa Edition books too, DieF. They have made available some great titles. Funny, I enjoyed Too Loud a Solitude most and I Served the King of England least, but I do like his works very much. Hayao Miyazaki wrote the screenplay for The Secret World of Arrietty in conjunction with Keiko Niwa. It was beautifully done. Since Disney distributed the movie, I imagine it is available relatively widely. I checked, and our library has it.

#143 Mark: A book sign? Where? Oh, I guess there is one! :-p

#144 I don't know that are tastes have diverged that much, Monica. I have added several of your recent reads to my list, and I just finished reading three espionage thrillers in a row! It's all good.

#145 Mere coincidence? I'll never tell! It's so fun to meet other LTers, qebo. Have you met many?

>146 labfs39: The only {video} rental places still around are in grocery stores

And libraries! Especially if you have a good group of libraries with interlibrary loan.

You reminded me of the library option, and I went and put a couple on hold, including a BBC/PBS version of My Family and Other Animals. Thanks!

Inspired by Cushla's photo of Tim reading to their kids, here's one of Katie and Bill from Oct. 2011. She's getting a little big for the lap!

Lisa - I hope you enjoy the My Family and other animals movie. Have you seen 'Grave of the Fireflies', it is a very powerful Japanese animated movie.
Love the photo.

Ok. Time to get back to the books. Here is my review of an ER book I received in June.



36. The Investigation by Philippe Claudel

If Paul Auster wrote 1984 with a little help from Gogol, you might end up with something resembling this short, philosophical, farcical, yet depressing, little novel. But probably not as poetically written.

As you may have guessed, The Investigation is a hard book to describe. The plot begins innocently enough: an Investigator arrives in a City to look into the extremely high suicide rate at a business entity known as the Enterprise. From the moment that he steps off the train, things begin to go wrong. At first it seems like ill-luck: bad weather, a rude bartender, getting lost. But then things move beyond irksome to a deliberate physical and emotional assault on the Investigator and his investigation. Everyone seems to know something he doesn't and even inanimate objects cease to be what they seem. He begins to doubt himself, and slowly his identity is corroded until very little remains, and even that bit is buffeted by the Founder himself.

At different points in the book, I thought different things were happening. At first, the Investigator thinks that he has died and is now existing in a sort of hellish limbo:

Then, with brutal abruptness, a thought came to him, a luminous, self-evident, indubitable thought: He was dead. He'd died without noticing it. This struck him as the obvious explanation; what other could there be?... An instantaneous, painless death. A long slide. And after that, nothing. Or, rather, yes, something: namely, this nightmare, which must be a kind of stress test, an initiation ordeal, an upgraded purgatory.

At times I was reminded of life in the Soviet gulag by all the small, demeaning acts that wear at a person's will: a suitcase that is knocked down and its contents spilled out in the rain; having to wear odd clothes that don't fit; not being able to keep clean; being embarrassed in front of others. As well as the larger tortures of food and sleep deprivation, cold, bright lights, and isolation.

But at the same time the book seemed built upon the line "All the world's a stage". Is it meant as a philosophical statement or a plot device? Is the Investigator the butt of some cruel joke, and everyone around him is an actor? One character admits to having to take a second job in order to make ends meet and describes it thus, "When you don't have what it takes to play a leading role, you have to take several small walk-on parts in order to survive." The Investigator, exhausted and hungry, has to walk down a steep staircase and "the further down he went, the more the world came apart, a little as though someone was dismantling a stage set that was no longer needed..."

The books is also an attack on corporate corruption, technology, and the isolation of the individual in modern society.

Our world is a colossus with feet of clay. The problem is that few people like you--I mean little people, the exploited, the hungry, the weak, the contemporary slaves--few such people realize the truth. The time is past for taking to the streets and chopping off the heads of kings. There haven't been any kings for a long time. Today's monarchs don't have heads, or faces, either. They're complex financial mechanisms, algorithms, projections, speculations on risks and losses, fifth-degree equations. Their thrones aren't material thrones, they're screens, fiber optics, printed circuit boards, and their nobility is the encrypted information that circulates through them at speeds faster than light. Their castles have become databases. If you break one of the Enterprise's computers, one among thousands, you cut off one of the monarch's fingers. Do you understand?

And finally, the book takes a another turn with the Investigator becomes a representation of the First Man and is asked the purpose of his own creation.

Despite being a mere 221 pages, the novel takes the reader on a philosophical journey through questions of political, societal, and religious import. The Alice in Wonderland plot swirls from farcical to satirical to fanciful with barely a pause. Although completely different from the only other Claudel novel that I have read, the historical novel Brodeck, I was equally caught up in the similar story of a man at odds with his world and his desperate attempt to make sense of it. Highly recommended for those who like something a little different.

Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to receive an email from Michael Kindness of Books on the Nightstand podcast fame. BOTNS had run a drawing for a set of the new Hogarth imprint books, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the lucky winners.



"Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to live all four corners.” -Virginia Woolf

In 1917, Virginia and Leonard Woolf started The Hogarth Press from their home, armed only with a handpress and a determination to publish the newest, most exciting writing. Hogarth brought the world authors who shaped the culture of the past 100 years: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield, E.M. Forster, Christopher Isherwood, Sigmund Freud, Gertrude Stein, Vita Sackville-West, to name a few.

This year, what began in London in 1917 finds a new life in New York and Hogarth’s goals are no less lofty: bring readers the authors who will shape the culture of the next 100 years: Anouk Markovits, Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya, Stephanie Reents, Jay Caspian-Kang, Vincent Lam, Shani Boianjiu, Lawrence Osborne, Ben Masters….
Hogarth is publishing a list of all fiction, all the time: contemporary, voice-driven, character-rich, eclectic, adventurous, provocative, vividly written.

The titles are:



I Am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits

An extraordinary novel about the Satmar, the most insular Hasidic sect. The affecting story of two sisters–one who believes and one who rebels–is profoundly moving and completely absorbing. Available wherever books are sold May 8, 2012.



The Kissing List by Stephanie Reents

Written with sparkling prose, witty dialogue, and unforgettable characters, this inventive debut follows a group of overeducated twentysomethings desperate to find meaning and connection in a world that seems to offer ever-diminishing returns. Available wherever books are sold May 22, 2012.



The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

The first major novel about the Afghanistan War. Told from the perspective’s of a wide cast of characters, this powerful and gripping novel authentically re-creates the chaos, intensity, and immediacy of war. Available wherever books are sold June 5, 2012.



The Dead Do Not Improve by Jay Caspian Kang

A fiercely original debut novel–at once hilarious, moody, and inventive–that tears through the streets of San Francisco with a tale of murderous intrigue, hippie detectives, and an MFA student on the run. Available wherever books are sold August 7, 2012.

I am especially looking forward to reading I am Forbidden and The Watch.

I've seen several of these books in the bookstore, Lisa, so I'll be interested in your thoughts. Not sure if The Investigation: A Novel is for me, but I enjoyed your review.

The Hogarth editions look really lovely, Lisa. I'll be interested in how you like the content.

I'm taking the rest of the week off, back from my family visit in the warm South, enjoying this gorgeous Thursday in Seattle!

Excellent review of The Investigation, Philip Claudel The book sounds fascinating. On to my wishlist it goes especially as both you and steven03tx enjoyed it so much.

Well done on the book win, Lisa, and I loved the photo of Katie and Bill reading together. I'm keen to hear what you think of The Watch and I am forbidden.

Nice review of The Investigation - I still haven't read Brodeck's Report... I bought it in London in 2010. Must find it.

OMG, that is so great! Congratulations! You want to hear something funny, I was taking a bike ride yesterday, (my day off) and I was listening to BOTNS and Michael mentioned the winners and he said Lisa, but I never made the connection. How very cool. All those books sound very promising.

Wow a little of everything today Lisa:
A sweet photo of Katie and Bill. (She will really appreciate that when she gets older.);

a nice shot of you and Mark under a diminutive sign for Books;

one of your trademark insightful reviews. I'm not sure I will add that one to my teetering tower but it does sound intriguing so that can change on a whim;

and last but certainly not least you won a fabulous drawing. Congratulations! I am Forbidden sounds really good so I will look forward to your review.

#151 Thank you for the recommendation, Kerry, I put a hold on Grave of the Fireflies at the library.

#154 The Investigation is unusual, Rebecca, but I enjoyed the writing and the ride. It reminded me in some ways of Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium, but more predictable. It's not a book I would put on my list of top-10-books-Rebecca-must-read.

#155 Welcome home, Ellen. I'm glad you have the week off after your rather stressful family visit. And a perfect week weather-wise in which to be in Seattle.

#156 Thanks, Barry. Now that I've finished my reveiw, I went and read Steven's. He is so articulate. All I can say, is Yup, what he said.

#157 Even though the photo is from last year, it could have been taken tonight. Katie was diagnosed with pneumonia today, and she is completely flagged. Just wants to be read to. You may already know, Cushla, but Brodeck's Report was one of my favorite reads from last year.

#158 Thanks, Mark! When I responded to Michael's email to thank him and Ann, I added that I first learned of BOTNS through you and that you had been at last year's Booktopia. So you got a mention too!

#159 I know The Investigation is not for everyone, so I won't feel bad if you never get to it, Bonnie!

28. A Small Fortune by Rosie Dastgir

In many ways, Ms. Dastgir's debut novel reminded me of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. There are many character and plot similarities, and the light tone of the first few chapters evoke the same British gentility.

Harris is a devout, middle-aged Pakistani immigrant who lives a quiet but respected life in a small English town. He is divorced from the British woman he married while a student in London and is increasingly estranged from his college-aged daughter, Alia, who has embraced a more modern, Western lifestyle. Harris is unsure how to handle his daughter, although he has always been confident when dealing with his large extended family both in England and Pakistan. When the divorce settlement comes through with a significant amount of money due Harris, he has to decide which of his relatives he should help and how. Meanwhile, he has fallen in love with a widowed college teacher named Farrah, who isn't sure she wants to be in a traditional Pakistani relationship. As Harris navigates his various familial and religious obligations, he nearly misses the radicalization of his beloved nephew. Does Harris still have a role to play as family patriarch?

The first third of the book was amusing and warm, but I felt as though the plot slowed considerably in the next third, and I wasn't sure I cared for the characters. The plot picks up again in the last stretch, but never quite recaptures the tone that drew me into the story in the beginning. Surprisingly, since the author, like Alia, has a Pakistani father and an English mother and was born in England, there wasn't as much reflection and insight into the immigrant life as I expected. I felt as though things were staged. However, I think Ms. Dastgir has potential, and I look forward to her next endeavor.

>152 labfs39: - Your review of The Investigation makes it sound very intriguing - I'll remember to look for that one. It does sound very different from By a Slow River (Grey Souls) which, though depressing, I enjoyed.

Congrats on winning the Hogarth books - some interesting looking ones there.

Not sure I want to read The Investigation, and will past on A Small Fortune, but enjoyed your reviews. Also, I don't even know what Books on the Nightstand is, but wow, congrats on winning.

Hi Lisa, great review on The Investigation. I read it last year (see http://www.librarything.com/topic/106043#2687459) and didn't like it as much as you did, although I do sense a bit of reserve on your side as well. You know I'm a huge Claudel-fan, but I thought this was a bit a-typical for him and I prefer his other novels. Did you know that it's believed the author has been inspired by the wave of suicides by a French phone-company a few years ago?

#162 It is very different from Brodeck the only other Claudel book I have read. I do have By a Slow River, thanks to you DieF, and Monsieur Linh and His Child on my wishlist, but I keep my eyes open for anything by him.

#163 Both The Investigation and A Small Fortune were ER books, Dan, so it is always something of a gamble. I've been wanting to read more Claudel, and although this one wasn't typical from what I understand, it was unusual and well-written.

Books on the Nightstand is a podcast that Mark turned me on to. I listen to them while driving. The podcasters, Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman, are both in the publishing business and are very nice people. Although they only recommend and comment on mainstream US published books, they do have a discussion theme each week, and those can be quite interesting. In June they had book talks by Madeline Miller of The Song of Achilles fame, Kenneth C. Davis, and Susan Cain, whose book Quiet I listened to on audio. They all attended the BOTNS sponsored Booktopia events which bring authors and readers together. In May the hosts talked about under-appreciated woman authors, historical fiction, re-reading, and 50 shades of book snobbery. One episode this spring was about imprints, and the contest was a random drawing in which contestants where asked to come up with their own imprints. I was the rebel and said that instead of creating new imprints, we should support the struggling ones we have. But, as the drawing was random, I popped up as a winner anyway!

#164 Hi Monica! I do prefer historical fiction to modernist novels in general, but it was Claudel, so I kept an open mind. You are right that I had reservations, but to me it was less creepy and eerie (as you say in your review), than dystopian. I did find certain parts funny (the whole vandalized ladies room scene), but as you say, in sum his books are quiet depressing. I had no idea about the France Telecom incident. Now that's depressing.

There was an interesting story in the Seattle Times yesterday that I thought I would share. It's about people building Little Free Libraries on their curbs. The trend started in Wisconsin and is trickling it's way across the country. I think it might be a fun project for our family to do once Katie is better. She has pneumonia!--thank you flight to Chicago. Planes are ticking disease capsules. Anyway, here is the link to the original site: http://www.littlefreelibrary.org.

I saw that story, Lisa, and thought about the idea of building a little free library here in my south Seattle neighborhood....

You should! I think it would be fun. And maybe we can have a car tour of all the local ones to get ideas (plus a stop for sustenance of course!).

ETA: the website has a map with all the locations and the GPS coordinates and/or address.

166: She has pneumonia! :-(
168: map with all the locations and the GPS coordinates Oh cool!

Sorry about your daughter, Lisa. Hope she feels better soon.

#169 I know, qebo, pneumonia in the summer just sounds wrong.

#170 Thanks, Rebecca.

31. Zoo Station by David Downing (3.5*)

John Russell has divided loyalties. A British citizen with an American mother, he married a German woman he met while attending the 1924 Communist Party Congress in Moscow. Now, in 1939, he has been living in Berlin for nearly 20 years, is divorced with a 12 year old son, Paul, and has a German film star girlfriend named Effie. As the Nazi invasion of Poland looms ever closer, events conspire to test these various loyalties.

From a fellow journalist, John learns about a horrible crime the Nazis are secretly perpetrating against a segment of the German population. When his colleague is murdered, John must decide how to get the information out of the country; perhaps it will be the turning point that will sway American isolationists into the coming war. At the same time, John tutors two Jewish girls in English as their father is trying to get them visas to England. When first the brother and then the father get into trouble with the Gestapo, John has to decide how best he can help the family without the Nazi's revoking his German residency visa.

What I liked best about this book was the increasing tension as the war looms closer but no one knows exactly when it will start. What I liked least was the portrayal of Effie in this book. To me, she seemed a caricature of a not-so-bright film star used for sex. Fortunately that changes as the series progresses.

40. Silesian Station by David Downing (3*)

The second book in the series begins with a bang. John Russell is just returning from a trip to the US with his son Paul. While there, John was able to secure an American passport in exchange for some work for the American intelligence services. En route back to Berlin, John discovers that his girlfriend, Effie, has been arrested by the Gestapo and is destined for Ravensbruck. In exchange for her release, John reluctantly agrees to do some spying for Germany, whose agents want to take advantage of his contacts with the Soviet Union. Unwilling to aid the Nazi's, John goes to the Soviet embassy and works out a deal to be a double agent in exchange for a promise of help should he and Effie ever need to leave Germany in a hurry.

At the same time, a young Silesian Jew is on her way to her uncle in Berlin to escape the small-town persecution she has suffered. Unfortunately, something happens, and Miriam never makes it to her destination. With the help of a private investigator, John (and Effie) try to find the girl and help her return to the safety of her parents.

What I liked best about this installment in the John Russell series is that Effie gains more depth as a character. Also, the story of Miriam is a sad reminder of one way in which Nazi propaganda and practice were at odds with one another. What I liked least was the plot device of John working for three (and sometimes four) intelligence services simultaneously. Really?

41. Stettin Station by David Downing (3.5*)

The plot now skips ahead two years to 1941. John Russell and his journalist colleagues are unsure how to interpret the course of the war as Germany first seems to advance and then retreat in Russia and the progress of the war in North Africa is confusing even to the British. The only news of importance is that, with the help of Communist resistance fighters, John has learned that trainloads of Jews are being loaded onto trains in the middle of the night and disappearing East. The news that trickles back is not good.

Then the Gestapo learns of John's espionage between the Abwehr, a competing branch of German intelligence, and the Americans. John is suddenly on the run, and Effie insists on accompanying him. Calling in his favor from the Soviets, John and Effie find themselves in the hands of German communists who cobble together an escape route. Nothing goes as planned, and the couple finds themselves making tough decisions about family loyalty, love, and survival.

This third book in the Russell series is faster paced, and I liked the growing complexity of Effie's character. The conflict between John's desire to protect his son Paul and to tell him the truth is a dilemma that all parents face, but rarely with such dire consequences part of the equation.

42. Potsdam Station by David Downing (2.5*)

I must confess this book didn't do much for me.

The German army is on the run and trying to defend Berlin, while the Soviet army plows through their resistance and wrecks brutal havoc on the German people in lands that they have conquered. Everyone is wondering why Hitler won't end the war and save his people. John is trying to reach Berlin in time to find and protect Effie from the Soviet army and, ironically, has to make a deal with the Soviets to lead an NKVD team into Berlin and help them find atomic secrets in order to do so. Effie, meanwhile, has become a member of a cell trying to save Jewish "U-boats", Jews who have survived by hiding. Arrested for being with a Jewish orphan, Effie refuses to leave the child and is taken to a collection camp which, like the rest of Berlin, is under constant Allied bombing. Paul is now seventeen and a gunner with the ragtag remnants of the German army. Finally understanding why his father did and believed the things he did and abandoned him in 1941, Paul is growing up in a world gone mad. As fourteen year old Hitlerjugend and grey bearded members of the Volkssturm are forced into the breach, Paul simply tries to survive.

The plot line had potential to be a heart-stopping thriller, however, it didn't work for me. The novel is written in alternating perspectives: John's, Effie's, and Paul's. The effect is that just as one plot line starts to gather momentum, it is stopped cold by the switch to a different voice. Not only do the abrupt changes slow the pace, but there is no easy way of determining when a switch has occurred. One section can by about John and the next paragraph can be a segment about Paul with no visual warning. I found it very disconcerting. So as fabulous as the plot was, I couldn't get into the flow of the book and was disappointed with what could have been a fascinating story. In addition, there was even less introspection than usual.

I think I'm going to take a break and read the fifth book, Lehrter Station, another time.

Thanks for these reviews, Lisa. It's an intriguing set-up!

Lisa, sorry you didn't like them more - for once we don't match! I didn't notice the voice switching in Potsdam Station but I think I love this series so much that it would have to go way downhill for me to mind. I agree about Effie getting developed as the series goes on and like it that she's on the cover in the last couple with equal billing.

I really hope Katie gets better soon.

Sorry to hear about Katie being unwell, hope she improves fast. I still have to read the first of these Downing books.

#177 They were fun, fast summer reads, Rebecca, but I was hoping for a little meatier reflection. The Downing books reminded of The Good German by Joseph Kanon, in that both feature an American journalist, in love with a German woman, and involved in espionage. For me, however, I found Kanon's book to delve much deeper into questions of justice and revenge, betrayal and loyalty. You know me, nothing can be too fun and mindless even for summer genre reading!

#178 Oh, I'm too uptight, Cushla. I need to enjoy what I am reading and not over-analyze everything. We're heading out to the library now, and I might even see if Lehrter Station is in.

#179 Thanks, Kerry. Pneumonia is not a quick and painless illness, I'm learning. Although I do think she is slowly showing signs of improvement.

Will be back after the library trip with reviews of Inimitable Jeeves and Crusoe's Daughter.

As I recall, Lisa, we disagreed about The Good German. I didn't like it, but I read it so long ago I don't remember why. And I did my fun and mindless with the Camilleris, but now I've run out!

Lisa - Enjoyed the run through the David Downings. Hope your daughter recovers soon.

I'm sorry to hear that your daughter has pneumonia, Lisa. This summer has been very unusual, as my partners and I have taken care of several dozen kids with pneumonia, which normally is almost nonexistent between May and August. I hope that she gets better soon.

#181 Ah well, Rebecca, I think that be the only one where we were at such odds. I, too, have moved on from my fun run of light lit, and am now reading The Land of Green Plums. Am torn between finishing it tonight or writing some reviews...

#182 Thanks, Dan, it was nothing like your run through the Pentateuch!

#183 Our doctor said the same thing the other day, Darryl. He saw the flu arrive three months late and now a whole slew of respiratory illnesses after school let out. I had a bad cough in June and was treated for pertussis (nearly an epidemic here in WA), but when the test results came back it was negative. Kate's pneumonia is viral, but her fever is down and a repeat chest x-ray shows improvement.

Thanks to Lisa (kiwiflowa) for introducing me to the Jeeves books.



43. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (3.5*)

'It is young men like you, Bertie, who make the person with the future of the race at heart despair. Cursed with too much money, you fritter away in idle selfishness a life which might have been made useful, helpful and profitable. You do nothing but waste your time on frivolous pleasures. You are simply an antisocial animal, a drone. Bertie, it is imperative that you marry.'

To listen to his Aunt Agatha, one would think that Bertie Wooster was worthless, but for the prospect of a good marriage. To his friends, however, he is a splendid chap, excellent host, and friend of the finest order. One friend in particular is always coming to Bertie for help with his seemingly endless, disastrous love affairs. Being a good sport, but rather obtuse, Bertie jumps in with advice for Bingo, and it is up to Bertie's valet, Jeeves, to sort things out. Jeeves is the quintessential British butler, proper to a fault, with impeccable taste, and a genius for solving problems. Bertie relies on him as his "guide, philosopher, and friend." Through a series of interrelated stories, Jeeves saves Bingo from his fickle love affairs and keeps Bertie from fashion mistakes that might jeopardize his standing as a gentleman.

This is the first book that P.G. Wodehouse wrote about Bertie and Jeeves, and it was published in 1923. I love the witty writing and the ludicrous situations. My one complaint about this book is that the situations with Bingo and his loves get a bit tedious. But interspersed are a couple of stories about Bertie's irrepressible cousins, Claude and Eugene, and even one about a marital near miss for the ultimate bachelor himself. The next time I need a good laugh, I will pick up the second Jeeves novel and settle in. Great fun.

And you don't consider Jeeves light literature???

Glad Katie is improving.

#187 Ha, ha. I meant, my dear Rebecca that I am now reading less light literature, Crusoe's Daughter and The Land of the Green Plums. My reviewing is still a book or two behind.

44. Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam (4*)

CRUSOE: (rambling. Even Crusoe grows old)

You've been a good and faithful woman, Pol Flint, and children love you. A room of empty shelves, but still half in love with books. Is it enough? A quiet life. But Godly—and some of that because of me. As a life, not bad. Marooned of course. But there's something to be said for islands.

Polly Flint was six years old when her sea-faring father brought her to live with her elderly spinster aunts. Her mother had died when she was less than a year old, and since then Polly had lived with a series of families while her father was at sea. Her mother's much older sisters, Aunt Frances and Aunt Mary live in a yellow house alone by the sea with the village at one end of the beach and the iron works at the other. Living in reduced circumstances, the aunts never-the-less take in Polly and never question that they will raise her. Two others live at the yellow house: Mrs. Woods, a crotchety, penurious widow and Charlotte the maid.

Life for young Polly is narrow and lonely. She does not attend the local school, but receives French and German lessons from Mrs. Woods and piano from her Aunt Frances. Instead of friends, she has her grandfather's books, and she identifies strongly with her hero, Robinson Crusoe. Like him, she is isolated and feels different from all Creation, left to struggle like Jacob with the angel and define her own beliefs, find her own way. At twelve, she refuses confirmation and her rebellion is both a religious choice and a method of self-definition within this High Protestant village. Independent minded, and yet terribly naive, Polly is buffeted by intrusions of real life.

And there was the business Charlotte had mentioned and which Scott, Jane Austen, the Brontes and Charlotte Yonge never: 'Who'd bed thee?' Charlotte had said.

Sex, lesbianism, passion, illegitimacy are parts of the world about which Polly knows nothing, yet exist even in her tiny world.

At sixteen, Polly's Aunt Frances changes. She expresses herself in new and vibrant ways and is soon off to India with a husband, leaving Polly bereft. In an attempt to broaden her world, Mr. Thwaite, a long time friend of the family offers to take her in for a while, exposing her to the cosmopolitan world of artists and writers, a hodgepodge of the great and the wannabes. Here at Thwaite Manor, Polly experiences her first romance and learns to dress fashionably, but she is still most comfortable with the servants than with the likes of Virginia Wolff. When Mrs. Woods has a stroke and her Aunt Mary refuses to leave her religious retreat, Polly willingly returns to the yellow house and takes her seemingly ordained place.

As the years pass, Polly experiences love, heartache, and loss, but through it all she never looses her passion for Robinson Crusoe and becomes obsessed with him. It is only when things hit rock bottom that she is given a way to redeem herself and reconnect with the real world. For no man, or woman, is an island.

Crusoe's Daughter is the author's personal favorite of all the novels she has written. In her introduction to the Europa Edition, Ms. Garham writes about her mother life in this bleak, wind streaked corner of northeast England where women lived very prescribed lives. Ms. Gardam's mother was taken from school at twelve on account of supposed poor health and, like Polly, she was raised in the High Church and never received a formal education. The author was also born there between the marsh and sea, but was seduced away by the power of books to become a scholar, wife and mother, and novelist. Fortunately for us, she never forgot the austere landscape and the isolation of her childhood and was inspired to explore what her life might have been like if she had never left. Although inspired by her family past, the book is also a commentary on the lives of women in the years leading up to and during World Wars I and II. Forced to fend for themselves, yet bound by conventions that kept women from holding jobs, from seeking lovers or love, and from leaving home and hearth for adventure, women lived very difficult lives and only had each other to rely on. Honest and unflinching, the book has increased my eagerness to read her subsequent novels, despite her dismissal:

When I had finished I felt I needn't write any more books. Take it or leave it, Crusoe's Daughter says everything I have to say.

I did go on, and the later books were considered better. Became best sellers. Never mind.

Next I hope to read Old Filth and/or Man in the Wooden Hat.

Excellent review of Crusoe's Daughter, Lisa. I haven't read anything by Gardam, but see her books getting good reviews. Another new author to explore!

Wow, yeah, excellent review. Leaves me very curious.

Hi Lisa- I NEED to make it more a habit to stop over here and visit. I see you read your spanking new copy of Wodehouse and liked it. Yah! I have not read Gardam. Everyone seems to like her.
I saw your comments about watching films from Netflix. I would be interested in what you are watching. I saw a French Film recently I can recommend, it's called Certified Copy. Nice and complex. I also have Melancholia, which I've been anxious to see. Hopefully I'll get to it this week. I love Von Trier.

Great review of Crusoe's Daughter and what a thing for an author to say. It may have been because the book was based on a biography of her mother's life and so had such a powerful hold on her that it felt like truth or something like the real thing.

>189 Linda92007: Thanks, Linda. I first heard of Jane Gardam on LT and when faced with a choice between Crusoe's Daughter and Old Filth, I decided on a whim to choose the one with the spunky loner. I suspect it's not her best writing, but perhaps her most heartfelt.

>190 dchaikin: Good! My job here is done, Dan. ;-)

>191 msf59: Hi Mark! I did enjoy the Wodehouse and will look for the next when I need another light pick-me-up. As for foreign films, I'm the TIVO user, not Netflix (see #131). Thanks for the suggestion of Certified Copy, I love Juliette Binoche. Hmm, you'll have to let me know your verdict on Melancholia.

>192 baswood: Are you referring to the I did go on, and the later books were considered better. Became best sellers. Never mind. line, Bas? My take was that at her age (she just turned 84), she's entitled to critique her work rather than try and sell it. :-) But I think she does feel a powerful connection with this particular work. I think a lot of her children's books reflect her childhood as well.

Lisa- I have a DVR too but not to many foreign films come up on TV these days. If you spot anything coming up, give me a heads-up. Thanks.
BTW- Binoche is fantastic in Certified Copy! She just keeps getting better.

I'm interested that you're reading Isaac Bashevis Singer's autobiography. I read a lot of him a long time ago, and his apartment in NYC was down the street from ours but I never ran into him (that I know of). Didn't know he had written an autobiography.

#195 - Highly recommended Rebecca - it's three books in one. They only cover up to before he became a successful writer on the American side, nonetheless, it will change how you view his work.

Excellent review of Crusoe's Daughter, Lisa. Another thumbs up from me.

Is your daughter in the hospital or at home? I hope that she continues to improve.

I admitted a 9 week old baby to the hospital yesterday who tested positive for pertussis earlier this week. She had severe coughing paroxysms at home, as her face would turn purple and her mother was scared that she would stop breathing. I wouldn't say that we're having an epidemic of pertussis in the Atlanta area, but we've had more cases this year than usual (I think I've seen at least six or seven babies so far this year who tested positive for it). Most babies get it from an older close contact, either a teenager or an adult who hasn't received a Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, acellular pertussis) booster vaccine, who has acquired the infection. I had it in 2000, during my last year of residency, and it was miserable. I had a hellish cough from January to April, couldn't sleep lying down for roughly a month, and had to cancel all of my job interviews in March since I couldn't stop coughing, had frequent post-tussive emesis, and could barely speak above a whisper, as I had developed vocal cord strain with inflammation and nodule formation that lasted for months.

Lisa, I hope your daughter is feeling better.

197 - Sigh...Darryl, I'm going to the doctor tomorrow for a respiratory thing, and you have now made me extremely paranoid.

Read about your daughter on Darryl's thread -- hope she is improving and feeling better.

#196, Noted, Dan, and added to Amazon wishlist.

>194 msf59: Hi Mark,We get the Sundance Channel and the Independent Film Channel, which will sometimes show something good. I don't watch much tv usually, but lately Katie has wanted to veg on the couch, and so we have seen lots of kids movies. Tangled is probably the best of the modern Disney (there is a mother, and the girl is quite spunky and good with a fry pan blow to the enemy), Candleshoe I had watched as a kid (1977, Jodie Foster and David Niven), and in honor of finishing our mother-daughter read, we rented the movie version of My Family and Other Animals. The others aren't worth mentioning.

>195 rebeccanyc: How interesting to be neighbors with I.B. Singer, Rebecca, even in theory. Reading his short stories, I imagined him to be much older for some reason and was surprised that he passed away in 1991. The autobiography is fascinating so far, although I'm not very far into it yet.

>196 dchaikin: I'll be interested in following up on your comment about how Love and Exile will change how you view his work, Dan. I want to finish it first though. I'll get back to you.

>197 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl. And Katie is improving, thank you.

I know what you mean, I coughed last September until January with later slight relapses. I wasn't tested for pertussis then, but I do wonder if that is what I had. As the Chinese call it, pertussis is definitely the 100 day cough (or more). I can't imagine how you got through residency with it. I was simply exhausted and cracked a rib with the coughing. Poor infants that you see. My heart goes out to them. I tell everyone I talk with to go get their Tdap.

>198 janemarieprice: Good luck, Jane, I hope you are feeling better soon.

>199 rebeccanyc: Thanks, Rebecca. Love and Exile has a 4.38 star rating on LT and A Tale of Love and Darkness has a 4.26, and I imagine that the people who chose to read these two have similar reading tastes. I know Darryl loved the later. Have you read it? I was going to read it next...

...but I received my pack of Hogarth Press launch editions today! As you may remember, I won them in a random drawing on Books on the Nightstand (see post #153).

200. Of course, I broke down and actually ordered Love and Exile by finding another book to buy so I could qualify for free shipping from Amazon! I don't put much stock in LT star ratings, but I do pay attention to what you and Dan and others here recommend, so I'm looking forward to it.

Glad Katie is improving.

#200/201 - This all makes me want to go read more Singer... Hoping you both (Lisa & Rebecca) get something of value out of Love and Exile.

>198 janemarieprice: Sigh...Darryl, I'm going to the doctor tomorrow for a respiratory thing, and you have now made me extremely paranoid.

Oops. Sorry, Jane. I hope that your respiratory illness is a mild one, and not pertussis!

>200 labfs39: I coughed last September until January with later slight relapses.

Yep. That sounds like pertussis.

I tell everyone I talk with to go get their Tdap.

Definitely. Not only will it keep them from getting that horrid illness, which is on the rise (as I mentioned on bragan's thread yesterday), it will also keep susceptible young infants from becoming seriously ill before they are protected by vaccination against it.

Lisa,
After you completed the first four in the series back to back to back to back, you said I think I'm going to take a break and read the fifth book, Lehrter Station, another time. Cracked me up. :-)

I hope Kate is feeling better.

#202 I'm glad you broke down and bought Love and Exile, Rebecca. I think you'll enjoy it. I am curious as to the other book which you purchased at the same time. Something similar?

I too am usually leery of ratings as everyone does it so differently. For instance, I am rather stingy with stars, so people sometimes think I didn't like a book, when I actually did. But for books out of the mainstream, and in the absence of a first hand recommendation, I tend to glance at the ratings to get a ball park idea. When there are very few copies of a book in LT, I figure the readers are particularly interested or knowledgeable (a huge assumption on my part).

#203 I'm still in the first part of the trilogy, Dan, and am fascinated by Singer's religious exploration and development. Certainly a very precocious child, and a brilliant mind.

#204 Darryl, what was the name of that patient advocacy book you read recently? I should get a copy.

#205 I did want to finish the set of Station books, Ellen, but the war ends with Potsdam Station, and I'm not sure Downing is going to finish the series anytime soon, so I thought this was a good place for a break.

I've been reading this one with my daughter, and it has taken us a while to get through it at her speed, but she (and I) loved it.



45. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (4*)

Gerald Durrell was 10 years old when his family moved from England to the Greek island of Corfu. A naturalist since he could walk, Gerry lived a life of sheer joy and exploration on Corfu exploring the flora and fauna. In this book, he weaves together hilarious tales of life with his unorthodox family, including famous older brother Laurence Durrell, and stories of his encounters with creatures great and small, many of whom end up being carried home, to the sometimes endangerment of his family.

It is important to note, that this is not a strictly accurate accounting of the five years on the island.

In order to compress five years of incident, observation, and pleasant living into something a little less lengthy than the Encyclopœdia Britannica, I have been forced to telescope prune, and graft, so that there is little left of the original continuity of the events. Also I have been forced to leave out many happenings and characters that I would have liked to describe.

Although usually a stickler for accuracy, I found the charm and fun of this book is in its storytelling, and Gerald Durrell is able to tell a great story. In addition, the natural history is so engrossing that I found myself looking up more information on the animals he describes. The combination of humor and scientific curiosity made this a wonderful read aloud with my daughter. A delight.

In addition to becoming a zoologist and environmentalist, Gerald Durrell was also a prolific author and wrote 37 books, ranging from the autobiographical, to technical books on zoo keeping, to children's books. We plan to continue reading the Corfu trilogy with Birds, Beasts, and Relatives.

I loved all the Gerald Durrell books as a child! At least all the ones that were written by the mid to late 60s.

Interestingly, I read that whereas his brother Larry loved to write, Gerald wrote his books strictly to fund his zoo and collecting expeditions. He writes so well, and so prolifically, that one would assume he loved it.

>204 kidzdoc: That book is entitled The Patient Survival Guide: 8 Simple Solutions to Prevent Hospital- and Healthcare-Associated Infections by Dr. Maryanne McGuckin. I should review it ASAP, since it's an LT Early Reviewer book. I'll do so later today or tomorrow. I thought it was superb, and I bought copies for my parents and my mother's sisters last month.

I remember My Family and other animals as being a very funny book. Awful long time since I read it.

#210 Thanks, Darryl, I'll look for a copy, and in the meantime, I put it on hold at the library. I'm first up so I should get it in a couple of days.

#211 Durrell can be a hoot. Some of the scenes were priceless. Thanks for stopping by, Barry.

Morning Lisa- My Family and Other Animals sounds good. I had another LT hook-up. This time with Kerri. Had a very good time. Are all LTers this sweet? Just wondering.
Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Looking forward to your thoughts on the second two books in the Corfu trilogy. I'm going to be reading Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi which is about his time in Greece visiting with Lawrence Durrell.

#213 Hey, Mark! Be careful with interchanging hookup with meetup these days. There is a new connotation out there these days. But I agree, it is great fun to meet other bibliophiles. We always have something to talk about.

#214 Our reading paths intersect again, Kerry!

A Time for Drunken Horses (2000)
Original title: Zamani barayé masti asbha
Writer and director: Bahman Ghobadi

Had the house to myself today and am a bit bogged down in Love and Exile, so I watched an IndiePlex film I had taped. It was the first Iranian Kurdish-language film to achieve an international release and won several film awards.

A Time for Drunken Horses is the story of five children, the youngest of whom has a crippling disease. The children's mother died in childbirth, and their father is a smuggler across the Iranian-Iraqi border along with everyone else in the village. When their father is killed by a landmine, 12 year old Ayoub becomes the head of the family and must decide how to earn the money to take little Madi to Iraq for an operation to save his life.

The mountains in which the Kurds live are stunning, but the harsh conditions in which these people live is unbelievable. The constant struggle for mere economic subsistence is made almost impossible since the fields are full of landmines, making the land too dangerous to farm, and the smugglers are under constant threat of arrest, ambush, or landmines. Children take dangerous risks at odd jobs to help their families survive. I wonder what the average Iranian Kurdish life expectancy is at birth.

I recommend the film, but you should know that not everything is subtitled, so it is mostly a visual experience. Also, the last 20 minutes of the film were corrupted, but it may just be a problem with the version shown on IndiePlex or with my DVR.

I will keep an eye out for "A Time for Drunken Horses". It sounds good and I'll be careful with my use of hook-up. Yes, it could go terribly wrong.

Catching up. Sorry to hear about your daughter and hoping for a quick recovery. Enjoyed reading your reviews of the Downing series as I hadn't heard of it before.

>185 labfs39: - It was nice to see a review of the first Jeeves book. I haven't read any but they seem to be a top choice for light, fun books.

>188 labfs39: - Crusoe's Daughter sounds appealing but I was never into Queen of the Tambourine even though I thought it had a lot to recommend it. I have read very good reviews about Old Filth, so I might try that one but it's not high on the list.

#217 I replaced the film cover with a new image, Mark, as the old one seems to keep breaking. Perhaps the picture will leap out at you somewhere and you'll find it.

#218 Hi DieF, I'm not sure the first Jeeves is the best of the series, but I do think they are funny (in a dated way), and worth having around for when the doom and gloom of my reading world gets to be too much.

Crusoe's Daughter was my first Gardam book, and I will probably try another, but I wonder if this book is different simply because of the author's relationship with it. Not sure, as it sounds as though there might be similarities between Polly Flint and Eliza (isolation, flirting with obsession/madness).

46. The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller (3.5*)

Four university students get together regularly to discuss poetry, literature, and even songs. The students share, not only a love for literature, but also a common background. All four are from small towns and are trying to create a new, intellectual identity away from their parents' provincial ways. Sounds innocuous and age appropriate, unless you live in a totalitarian regime where dissenting minds are taken as serious threats to the state.

The narrator of the story is one of the members, and the only female in the group. When one of her roommates, Lola, is found dead in the closet, the narrator takes and hides Lola's diary so that it won't be found by the political police. Shaken by guilt at not being a better friend and frightened by the subsequent searches of her room, the narrator tells her cohort members, and they work out a system to warn each other when they have been searched, followed, or taken in for questioning by the enigmatic Captain Pjele.

The pressure and tension does not relent once the four are out of school and working in unfulfilling jobs. The political police threaten their families, deny them their vocations, and increase the physical threats. The only way to live seems to be to flee the country, although few hold out any hope at all of escaping and have seen the evidence of failed escapes, or to commit suicide. In a world where neither the countryside nor the city provides safety and relationships are overshadowed by the constant fear of betrayal, people live shadow lives. In the end, each of the four must decide how they are going to continue and face the consequences of their choices.

Herta Müller, like her characters, suffered a double persecution in communist Romania under Ceauşescu. First, as an intellectual, a young person who left her provincial village to seek education and a modicum of freedom in the city; and second, as a member of the Banat Swabians, a German-speaking minority group. The characters and plot of the novel are based on these two tensions: life in a totalitarian state and life as a minority. But the characters are not well-developed, and the plot is confusing at times. Instead of focusing on the concrete (such as setting in story in time and place), the author focuses on the sensations and appetites of the characters, their distrust yet dependence on one another, and the bleak numbness of spirit which corrodes and corrupts insidiously. Müller is a poet, and the hopeless landscape of the mind when faced with such a regime is the focus of her word pictures and metaphors. The result is less a story of individuals, despite at least one of the characters being a person from Müller's own youth, than a collage of flat emotions and colorless landscapes.

This is the second of Müller's books which I've read, the first being Hunger Angel. Although I can appreciate both the author's experiences which are reflected in the pages and the fictitious stories, the emotional emptiness of the books carries over into my connection with them. I'm glad I delved into this Nobel Laureate's world for a time, but I'm not sure I will return.

An excellent and interesting review of The Land of Green Plums, Lisa. I'm sorry to hear that it fell short for you.

After reading a detailed LT review of The Passport by MeisterPfriem, I have wondered how much is lost by not reading Müller in the original German. I also wonder about the extent to which aspects of her writing, such as you describe, are reflective of her particular culture and life experiences. I plan to read more of her books and hope to be able to sort this out some.

I read the same two Herta Müller books this year, and my reaction was quite similar to yours. They were worthwhile but not exceptional. "A collage of flat emotions and colorless landscapes" describes it very well.

#221 Hi Linda. I've wondered about both those things as well. Thank you for leading me to MeisterPfriem's review of The Passport. He certainly makes it sound as though the reader loses much through the translation, perhaps even more than usual. I think Müller's language is layered and metaphoric, which is hard to translate. I don't envy Michael Hoffman his job. It may also be true that I am missing some emotional subtext. To me, the work seems a bit cold. I remain interested her life, I think it would make a great biography, and the time period. There are just so many books out there with which I can make a meaningful connection that I think it would be frustrating for me to continue reading her works, at this point at least.

#222 I noticed, Steven, that we seemed to share a similar impression of the books. I read your reviews after finishing mine so that I wouldn't become inhibited by your wonderful writing.

Really excellent review of Land of The Green Plums lisa

Hi Lisa - Crusoe's daughter & My family and other animals both sound interesting.

How's your hip doing? I'm glad to hear Katie is getting better.

My brother had pneumonia when he was about 9 (& I was about 12.) Mom says he persuaded her to let him go outside when he was feeling better as long as he didn't run around & exert himself too much. Next time she looked he was up in the apple tree. When she scolded him for doing too much he said, "but Mom, I'm just sitting here!"

Erasing...sorry for the confusion...

Fabulous review of The Land of Green Plums, Lisa. This is the first review of it I've read that has make me eager to read it.

Lisa, I'm getting a copy of The Land of Green Plums from an LT buddy soon and I do look forward to reading it. Your review is excellent and will be a good guide for my approach (without imposing limits -- nicely done, you!).

#224 Thanks, Barry!

#225 Well, Ardene, the hips are not so good, especially after the subluxation (partial dislocation) of the left. I'm still on crutches, but have had some steroid injections which have taken the edge off. In six weeks, the surgeon and I will decide whether it's time for a hip replacement(s).

Katie is doing better, but still tired and coughing. Also her ears are bothering her a lot, so I'm going to check in with her doctor tomorrow.

What a summer!

#226 You are welcome anytime, Dan.

#227 Interesting, Darryl, as I didn't intend to give it a glowing review. :-)

#228 Thanks, Ellen, and I think we are both going to be starting Palace Walk at about the same time. Want to be reading buddies?

Today was a reversal in my usual LT routine. I deleted books from my library. Yes, it's true. Katie and I went through her shelves and weeded a bunch of early readers. Only half were even in LT, but it did feel odd to be deleting books.

47. Love and Exile by Isaac Bashevis Singer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (3*)

Isaac Bashevis Singer was a prolific writers of short stories in Yiddish and helped to keep the Yiddish language vibrant and alive in the 20th century. He sought to free Yiddish from being a provincial, old-fashioned language and make it relevant to modern audiences. Some of his favorite themes, the relationships between men and women, science, and modern social ills, were not normally written about in Yiddish. His contributions in this area were recognized when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. When I was young, I read and enjoyed his tales for children, especially the traditional stories related to him by his mother, but I was unfamiliar with his works for adults, so his autobiography was quite eye-opening.

It occurred to me more than once to write about myself as I really was, but I was convinced that the readers, the publishers, and the critics (especially the Yiddish ones) would consider me a pornographer, a contriver, mad.

Well, he did write about himself as he really was in Love and Exile, and I can't say that I was particularly impressed with Singer as a person or the trilogy itself.

In my opinion, the first book in the trilogy, A Little Boy in Search of God, was the best. Although the book describes his childhood growing up in Warsaw, a child of a Chassidic rabbi, the action centers around his religious development. From a precocious child listening to his father preside over rabbinic courts to his older brother's belief in nature, not God, as the overarching force in the universe, Singer was dissatisfied with all the answers.

Because of my deep curiosity about science, I should have grown up a scientist, but I wasn't satisfied with mere facts--I wanted to solve the mystery of being. I sought answers to questions which tormented me then and still do to the present day.

Although he maintained an interest in science, Singer began looking for answers elsewhere. At a very young age, he began studying the cabala, Jewish mysticism, which fueled his morbid imagination and dreams. Then he began devouring philosophy, psychology, and especially the occult, in an effort to solve certain questions to his satisfaction, such as the existence of evil. He developed an ethic of protest in which every compassionate act done by a human is a thumbed nose at a God who doesn't deserve our love because of the existence of evil.

This ethic of protest, I told myself, existed in all people, in all animals, and in everything that lived and suffered. Even the evildoers protested when things started going badly for them and other malefactors did to them what they had done to others... The moral person protests not only when he is personally wronged but also when he witnesses or thinks about the suffering of others. If God wants or feels compelled to torture His creatures, that is His affair. The true protester expresses his protest by avoiding doing evil to the best of his ability.

By the time the first book in the trilogy ends, Singer is living on his own and has started an affair with a much older woman who communes with the dead and is obsessed with her own death.

The next two books, A Young Man in Search of Love and Lost in America, focus not on intellectual and spiritual development, but on Singer's many affairs (often simultaneously) and his attempts to find work and support his writing. Although the first book was often repetitive, especially as regards how precocious and intellectual daring he was, at least it was peppered with some interesting philosophical questioning. Now, Singer simply revels in his erotic victories and his lazy attempts to find and keep a job. With an air of intellectual distain for everyone around him, Singer wallows in self-absorption and hypochondria. Although I understand the 1970s bohemian times in which Singer wrote his book, I wanted to shake him and say Get a life.

48. When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw & Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated from the Yiddish by the author and Elizabeth Shub (3*)

After reading Isaac Bashevis Singer's autobiography Love and Exile, I explored the two short story collections that I had read as a child. In this collection, some of the stories are retellings of tales his mother told him and the rest are ones that Singer created. The retellings are benign tales of tricksters, the foolish elders of the Polish village of Chelm, and the gullibility of poor Shlemiel. The stories that Singer made up are reflective of his character and interests. There is the imposition of fate on imps, the complicated relationship between a rabbi and the local witch, vegetarianism, miracle workers, and fantastic dreams of other realities. The book was named a Newbery Honor Book.



49. Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus; and other stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated from the Yiddish (3.5*)

I enjoyed this collection more than the previous one, probably because the stories are more retellings of folk stories from his childhood, along with a couple of autobiographical pieces. The title story is about Naftali, who gives up a potential career in commerce in order to bring storybooks to children in remote villages. He delivers his books in a wagon pulled by his faithful horse, Sus, until they are too old to continue and retire on the estate of a wealthy and educated man. These stories reflect a bit of the author's personal interests (kindness to animals, science, and the cabal), but are not as surreal as the stories he created in the previous collection. Six of the eight stories were translated to English by his nephew, Joseph Singer.

I finished reading Iran Awakening today, and it was fabulous. 4.5* I will try to write a review tomorrow.

Great review of Love and Exile. How upsetting it is when we read about an author we admire and find that he has "feet of clay". It can really colour your reading of their books.

Hi Lisa- I see you have been knocking out some interesting books, as usual. And you removed some books from your library, always an excuse for a celebration.
Hope you had a nice weekend.

Great reviews of the Singer books, Lisa. He has never been high on my list, but I do need at some point to read him for my Nobel challenge. Barry's comment is spot on for me. The impressions that I form about authors as individuals do greatly influence my interest in reading them. V.S. Naipaul is another author that I have so far avoided because of his reported attitudes towards women, although I am at least interested in reading a few of his works.

Sorry to learn Love and Exile was so disappointing; although I rushed out to get it when you mentioned it earlier, I'll move it down a little. I read a lot of Singer decades ago (during and after a Yiddish literature in translation course I took in college), but gave up on Shadows on the Hudson which I bought shortly after it came out because it was just so gloomy. Might try it again, since I seem to have been reading a lot of gloomy books. I also have but haven't read another memoir he wrote about his childhood, In My Father's Court; I got it from my father's apartment, but I don't know that he ever read it either.

Also sorry to hear about your and your daughter's health problems.

Really interesting review of Love and Exile. Now I'll have to dig out my old copy of Old Love and look at it again with your review in mind.

Hi Lisa, I'm sorry to hear about your health-problems and I hope things will work out for you and your daughter. You have been reading such interesting books, lately. Btw, you're not the only one who deleted books from LT. I deleted my whole wishlist a few weeks ago because at a certain moment, I realized I'd never be able to read all the books I want to read, unless I live to be 150 (which is not likely). So now, I travel lightly with only the books I actually read or own and find that it's quite easy to make up my mind about what to read next, since I still stick to my multiple challenges with the frequent extras in between.
Great review of Love and Exile. I never read anything from Singer, but I feel how disappointing this must have been for you. Something like "love the books, not the writer" :-)

Lisa, I would love to be reading buddies for Palace Walk. I'm going to give a major effort to complete both Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Dandelion Wine by midnight tomorrow so I can say I completed them in July...... then I will be ready to start Palace Walk. We're going camping Thursday through Sunday, and I often get some good reading time in on my camping trips. It helps to be away from the computer as well as work!

Looking foward to hearing more about Palace Walk.

And I'm delighted (and surprised, for some reason) to see you're reading Nature Stories with your daughter. I'm holding off on buying vs borrowing from the library till I read your comments, i.e. will it be one of those "comfy" books :) I'll want to come back to?

#233 Exactly, Barry. Singer's disrespect for women was quite disheartening, and to hear him talk almost proudly of how he never wrote letters (as though they were beneath him) to his mother in Poland after he emigrated, was disgraceful. I have a hard time enjoying books, even if they are well-written and interesting (such as The Whisperers by Orlando Figes), when I know the author is dishonest or unlikable. I wish I could separate the two, but the issue niggles at the back of my brain the whole time I'm reading.

#234 It did feel good to excise some books from the collection, Mark. Early Readers/Chapter Books are rarely worth keeping, IMO, as opposed to picture books, which can be treasures. The only exception I can think of at the moment is the autobiographical chapter books by Tomie dePaola.

#235 I'm the same way, Linda. Sometimes I wish I had never learned of the Figes scandal. I have avoided his books ever since, when I imagine I would have liked them based on my previous enjoyment of The Whisperers. I have not read any V.S. Naipaul, although I own one of his books.

#236 Actually, Rebecca, if I were to read any more of his autobiographical works, it would be In My Father's Court. It would cover his childhood, I imagine, and more of his religious development, which was the best part of Love and Exile, IMO. In fact, I wish I had read it instead of LaE.

#237 As Dan said earlier, SassyLassy, I do think having read about Singer's life will have a huge impact on how I interpret any future books of his that I read. After reading the one LT review about Old Love, I was able to see connections between life and fiction, even with the little information TurtleBoy is able to convey. Did you enjoy Old Love?

#238 Thanks, Monica. I can understand your feelings about your wishlist. Sometimes I feel constrained by my list when I am at a store or booksale, because I spend all my time looking for those books. On the other hand, I sometimes stand in a store without my list at a total loss because I can't remember the books I wanted to read. I'm amazed at how many challenges you participate in, BTW. Kudos to you.

#239 Where are you going camping, Ellen? Have a super awesome time! We can talk about Palace Walk when you get back.

#240 Hi MJ! I was in our local Indie bookstore with K and saw the cover of Nature Stories which has a cute picture of a snail.

So I picked it up and skimmed and decided to get it. Each story is short, a few sentences to a couple of pages, and we have just been jumping around. I haven't read the introduction, since it's not something my daughter would be interested in, but I'm curious as to what it says about the books' creation. The illustrations by Douglas Parmee are part of the charm of the book. Here is a sample:



We have chickens, so we found it particularly appealing.

Hi Lisa - hope the pain is under control and you are motoring around on your crutches. Just wanted to say hi and I have added the first Singer book to my wishlist (ha, you have a tag just for your recs!). It sounds interesting.

Have got Palace Walk here but am not in the right zone for it, but I keep seeing LT friends loving it.

Heading for Mt. Rainier. Looking forward to some wildflower hiking and some reading! Woo Hoo!

>241 labfs39: lisa thanks for posting the book image. (The paper looks tissue-thin!) I remember it from Early Reviewers, must take a look next time I'm at the library.

We have chickens
Interesting! What does that involve? Are you suburban or rural?

>241 labfs39: I remember liking Old Love when I first read it, but you have prompted me to reread it (started yesterday) and I think that the passage of years has made it closer to the bone but at the same time more unbelievable. I will let you know as I go on. It is another collection of short stories, so I may dip in and out of it.

The Nature Stories book looks lovely.

#242 Hi Cushla! I just finished Palace Walk and immediately started the next in the trilogy, Palace of Desire. It was excellent. 4.5*

#243 Mt. Rainier is so beautiful this time of year, Ellen. I'm glad the weather was so nice yesterday for you.

#244 MJ, I'm not sure the paper is thin, it's more that the ink drawings are very heavy. Were you able to read the text of "The Hen"?

We actually had a bit of a crisis Saturday, as Stripe, one of our first chickens from three years ago, died. She had a big lump on her breast and was not doing well last week, so I'm not surprised, but my daughter was very upset. We had our usual burial service (chickens under the roses, guinea pigs under the Japanese pieris). We only have one hen left of our original six (one was a rooster and went to live at a farm, 2 were killed by a dog, one was taken by a hawk, and Stripe just died). Fortunately, we got three more chicks this spring, and they are old enough to be integrated with the older hen, who is missing her friend. We live in an unincorporated suburban area, so we are allowed to have chickens, although Seattle allows chickens as well, and many people have them. Enough so that there are scheduled walks where you can go around and admire everyone's chicken coops. Some are fancy and artistic. At the height of production we were getting 5 eggs a day and supplying the neighborhood. At the moment only one of the young hens has started laying yet, so we are only getting one. My daughter loves them and takes them on walks, etc. They come when called and allow you to pick them up. Warning, they do devastate your landscaping. Their coop is in a fenced area (30' x 40') off the side of our yard, and they have pecked all the grass, beauty bark, and gravel into one moonscape. Only the native underbrush and a Japanese maple have survived!

#245 I'll have to check out your thread, Sassy, and see how you liked your reread of Old Love.

Katie's first chick (March 2010)

The coop she and Bill built

Bill and Chocolate

Katie takes Captain for a ride to the cul-de-sac

Latest three chicks in April

Just catching up here, hope you don't mind my posting on this thread. I was sad to see that you didn't like Singer's biography, but glad it will influence how you view his work. The thing that struck me about the second part (I read it a long time ago, so my memory is not so clear) is that everything he describes, all those awful things and careless actions of youth, all those pumped up opinions he confronts, that all gets wiped out less than ten years after he left, and long before he wrote. It's a rare window and a quite a point of view he has on pre-WWII Jewish culture in Poland.

> 167

Did you ever follow up on building a Little Free Library? My husband is building one for me now. I wanted to knkw what your experience with it was.