SandDune's books in 2012 Part 3

Welcome everyone to my new thread. Please feel free to comment or just to lurk - whatever you like.



I thought I'd stay on the sand dunes theme for my new picture. This is Kenfig Pool, on the sand dunes to the west of my home town. Legend has it that there's a lost town at the bottom of the pool, and actually there really is a lost town, but it's buried under the sand a mile or so further west rather than at the bottom of the pool. In the middle ages Kenfig was a prosperous borough, but the sand started to encroach and gradually all the town and farmland was buried. All you can see now is some very scant remains of the Norman castle.

Favourite books of 2012:

The Arrival Shaun Tan *****
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter *****
The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett *****
Railsea China Mieville *****
Stitches David Small *****
Rivers of London Ben Aaronovitch ****1/2
Tales from Outer Suburbia Shaun Tan ****1/2
Voices in the Park Anthony Browne ****1/2
Tom's Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce****1/2
Pollyanna Eleanor H. Porter ****1/2
The Sisters Brothers Patrick DeWitt ****1/2

Books Read in 2012:
58. Out of the Silent Planet C.S.Lewis ****
57. Persepolis marjane Satrapi ***
56. The City and the Stars Arthur C.Clarke ****
55. The End of the World Andre Biss *1/2
54. Blackout Connie Willis **1/2
53. Skios Michael Frayn ****
52. The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window And Disappeared Jonas Jonasson ****
51. The Silent Duchess Dacia Maraini ****
50. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry Rachel Joyce***1/2
49. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating Elisabeth Tova Bailey ****
48. Stitches David Small *****
47. The Forge of God Greg Bear **1/2
46. Gillespie and I Jane Harris ****
45. Rivers of London Ben Aaronovitch ****1/2
44. How it All Began Penelope Lively ****
43. Ladder of Years Anne Tyler ***1/2
42. Going Out Scarlett Thomas ***
41. The Exotic Marigold Hotel Deborah Moggach ***
40. Anticopernicus Adam Roberts ***1/2
39. Pollyanna Eleanor H. Porter ****1/2
38. The Last Dragonslayer Jasper Fforde***
37. A Far Cry from Kensington Muriel Spark ***1/2
36. The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury ***1/2
35. The Translation of the Bones Francesca Kay ****
34. The Road to Wigan Pier George Orwell ****
33. Miss Lacey's Last Fling Candice Hern ***1/2
32. Tales from Outer Suburbia Shaun Tan ****1/2
31. Railsea China Mieville *****
30. Jubilee Lines ed Carol Ann Duffy **1/2
29. The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett *****
28. Little Women Louisa M. Alcott **1/2
27. French Children Don't Throw Food***1/2
26. A Passage to India E. M. Forster ****
25. The Road to Wigan Pier Revisited Stephen Armstrong ***
24. Junk Melvin Burgess ***1/2
23. Lady John Madeleine Robins **
22. Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami ****
21. Wool Omnibus edition Hugh Howey***1/2
20. The Other Side of Truth Beverley Naidoo***1/2
19. The Sisters Brothers Patrick DeWitt ****1/2
18. Jamrach's Menagerie Carol Birch ***
17. The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter *****
16. Coram Boy Jamila Gavin ***
15. Quarantine Jim Crace**1/2
14. Voices in the Park Anthony Browne ****1/2
13. Mr Gumpy's Outing John Burningham ****
12. Dogger Shirley Hughes ***
11. The Arrival Shaun Tan *****
10. Pigeon English Stephen Kelman ***1/2
9. The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes ***
8. Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. Mildred Taylor ***1/2
7. Shipwrecks Akira Yoshimura ****
6. Sophia's Secret Susanna Kearsley ***1/2
5. Tom's Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce****1/2
4. Invitation to the Waltz Rosamond Lehmann****
3. Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome****
2. 100 Best Poems for Children ed. Roger McGough ***
1. Peter Pan and Other Plays J.M.Barrie ***

Books acquired in 2012:

79. The Brothers Asko Sahlberg
78. Beside the Sea Veronique Olmi
77. Stone in a Landslide Maria Barbal
76. Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman Friedrich Christian Delius
75. The Blue Fox Sjon
74. Maybe this Time Alois Hotschnig
73. The Waterproof Bible Andrew Kaufman
72. Life before Man Margaret Atwood
71. I am Legend Richard Matheson
70. Addition Toni Jordan
69. The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald
68. If Morning Ever Comes Anne Tyler
67. So long, Hector Bebb Ron Berry
66. Store of the Worlds Robert Sheckley
65. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared Jonas Jonasson
64. Stitches David Small
63. How it All Began Penelope Lively
62. Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class Owen Jones
61. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Deborah Moggach
60. The Song of Achilles Madeleine Miller
59. Palace Walk Naguib Mahfouz
58. Going Out Scarlett Thomas
57. Ladder of Years Anne Tyler
56. The Making of a Marchioness Frances Hodgson Burnett
55. Talking to the Dead Helen Dunmore
54. The Comforters Muriel Spark
53. The Public Image Muriel Spark
52. The Ballad of Peckham Rye Muriel Spark
51. Moon over Soho Ben Aaronovitch
50. Death at Intervals Jose Saramago
49. In Defence of Dogs John Bradshaw
48. Miss Lacey's Last Fling Candice Hern
47. Middlemarch George Eliot
46. Northanger Abbey Jane Austen
45. Dombey and Son Charles Dickens
44. Far From the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
43. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
42. Zola Germinal
41. Railsea China Mieville
40. Jubilee Lines ed Carol Ann Duffy
39. The Keys of Babylon Robert Minhinnick
38. Wild Abandon Joe Dunthorne
37. The Last Hundred Days Patrick McGuinness
36. Gillespie and I Jane Harris
35. Foreign Bodies Cynthia Ozick
34. The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
33. Pollyanna Eleanor H. Porter
32. Fortune's Daughters Elisabeth Kehoe
31. A Far Cry from Kensington Muriel Spark
30. The Magic of Reality Richard Dawkins
29. Children's Picturebooks The Art of Visual Storytelling Martin Salisbury
28. The Road to Wigan Pier Revisited Stephen Armstrong
27. The Complete Maus Art Spiegelman
26. Persepolis Marjane Satrapi
25. The Night Circus Erin Morgenstern
24. Wool: Omnibus Edition Hugh Howey
23. Lady John Madeleine Robins
22. Angry Arthur Hiawyn Oram Satoshi Kitamura
21. The Rabbits John Marsden Shaun Tan
20. The Complete Cosmicomics Italo Calvino
19. Mrs Harris goes to Paris Paul Gallico
18. True Grit Charles Portis
17. The Story of The Little Mole who knew it was none of his business Werner Holzwarth Wolf Erlbruch
16. The Magic Bed John Burningham
15. Gorilla Anthony Browne
14. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
13. The Invention of Hugo Cabret Brian Selznik
12. Blow on a Dead Man's Embers Mari Strachan
11. The Small Mine Menna Gallie
10. The Flood Maggie Gee
9. New Finnish Grammar Diego Marani
8. Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout
7. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Ransom Riggs
6. Sophia's Secret Susanna Kearsley
5. Union Street Pat Barker
4. Call the Midwife Jennifer Worth
3. Pigeon English Stephen Kelman
2. Invitation to the Waltz Rosamond Lehmann
1. Dear George Helen Simpson

Favourite books by year - I'm going to try and fill in the gaps:

1811 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
1812 The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm
1813 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
1814 Mansfield Park Jane Austen
1815 Emma Jane Austen
1817 Persuasion Jane Austen
1818 Frankenstein Mary Shelley
1819 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott
1820 none
1821 none
1822 none
1823 none
1824 none
1825 The Talisman Sir Walter Scott
1826 none
1827 The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni
1828 none
1829 The Chouans Honore de Balzac
1830 none
1831 none
1832 The Lasy of Shalott Arthur Lord Tennyson
1833 none
1834 none
1835 none
1836 none
1837 Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
1838 none
1839 The Fall of the House of Usher Edger Allen Poe
1840 none
1841 The Old Curiosity Shop Charles Dickens
1842 none
1843 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
1844 none
1845 Modern Cooking for Private Families Eliza Acton
1846 Book of Nonsense Edward Lear
1847 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
1848 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Bronte
1849 Shirley Charlotte Bronte
1850 David Copperfield Charles Dickens
1851 none
1852 none
1853 none
1854 Hard Times Charles Dickens
1855 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell
1856 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
1857 Tom Brown's Schooldays Thomas Hughes
1858 none
1859 Adam Bede George Eliot
1860 The Mill on the Floss George Eliot
1861 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
1862 Les Miserables Victor Hugo
1863 The Water Babies Charles Kingsley
1864 none
1865 Wives and Daughters Elizabeth Gaskell
1866 Felix Holt, the Radical George Eliot
1868 The Moonstone Wilkie Collins
1869 He Knew He was Right Anthony Trollope
1870 none
1871 Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There Lewis Carroll
1872 Erewhon Samuel Butler
1873 Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne
1874 Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
1875 none
1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain
1877 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
1878 The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy
1879 A Dolls House Henrik Ibsen
1880 Heidi Johanna Spyri
1881 none
1882 The Prince and the Pauper Mark Twain
1883 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson
1884 The Complete Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales Hans Christian Anderson
1885 King Solomon's Mines Rider Haggard
1886 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
1887 The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy
1888 Plain Tales from the Hills Rudyard Kipling
1889 Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome
1890 The Picture of Dorian Grey Oscar Wilde
1891 Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
1892 Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith
1893 none
1894 none
1895 The Time Machine H.G. Wells
1896 none
1897 Dracula Bram Stoker
1898 The War of the Worlds H.G. Wells
1899 Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. E. Somerville M. Ross
1900 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad
1901 The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter
1902 Anna of the Five Towns Arnold Bennett
1903 The Call of the Wild Jack London
1904 The Tale of Benjamin Bunny Beatrix Potter
1905 Where Angels Fear to Tread E.M. Forster
1906 The Man of Property John Galsworthy
1907 The Tale of Tom Kitten Beatrix Potter
1908 A Room with a View E.M. Forster
1909 none
1910 Howard's End E.M. Forster
1911 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
1912 The Lost World Arthur Conan-Doyle
1913 Pollyanna Eleanor H. Porter
1914 none
1915 The Rainbow D.H. Lawrence
1916 Trifles Susan Glaspell
1917 Summer Edith Wharton
1918 none
1919 none
1920 In Chancery John Galsworthy
1921 The Black Moth Georgette Heyer
1922 The Enchanted April Elizabeth Von Arnim
1923 Riceyman Steps Arnold Bennett
1924 A Passage to India E.M. Forster
1925 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
1926 Winnie-the-Pooh A.A. Milne
1927 The Midnight Folk John Masefield
1928 The House at Pooh Corner A.A. Milne
1929 Goodbye to All That Robert Graves
1930 Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome
1931 none
1932 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
1933 Frost in May Antonia White
1934 Miss Buncle's Book D.E. Stevenson
1935 The Stars Look Down A.J. Cronin
1936 South Riding Winifred Holtby
1937 The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkein
1938 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day Winifred Watson
1939 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
1940 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
1941 Frenchman's Creek Daphne du Maurier
1942 The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis
1943 none
1944 The Wind on the Moon Eric Linklater
1945 Animal Farm George Orwell
1946 An Inspector Calls J.B. Priestley
1947 If This is a Man Primo Levi
1948 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton
1949 1984 George Orwell
1950 The Grand Sophy Georgette Heyer
1951 The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham
1952 The Borrowers Mary Norton
1953 Childhood's End Arthur C Clarke
1954 The Fellowship of the Ring J.R.R. Tolkien
1955 The Magician's Nephew C.S. Lewis
1956 Harry the Dirty Dog
1957 The Leopard Giuseppe di Lampedusa
1958 A Bear called Paddington Michael Bond
1959 Tom's Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce
1959 Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee
1960 Our Ancestors Italo Calvino
1961 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
1962 The Slave Isaac Bashevis Singer
1963 The Spy who Came in From the Cold John Le Carre
1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
1965 Frederica Georgette Heyer
1966 The Witch's Daughter Nina Bawden
1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1968 The Wizard of Earthsea Ursula K Le Guin
1969 The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K Le Guin
1970 The Tombs of Atuan Ursula K Le Guin
1971 Dragonquest Anne McCaffrey
1972 Watership Down Richard Adams
1973 The Inverted World Christopher Priest
1974 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy John Le Carre
1975 The Periodic Table Primo Levi
1976 The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins
1977 The Road to Lichfield Penelope Lively
1978 The Far Pavilions M.M. Kaye
1979 The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
1980 Rites of Passage William Golding
1981 Goodnight Mr Tom Michelle Magorian
1982 On the Black Hill Bruce Chatwin
1983 Waterland Graham Swift
1984 Empire of the Sun J.G. Ballard
1985 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
1986 The Stone Raft Jose Saramago
1987 Moon Tiger Penelope Lively
1988 A Time of Gifts Patrick Leigh Fermor
1989 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
1990 Possession A.S. Byatt
1991 The Kitchen God's Wife Amy Tan
1992 Pigs in Heaven Barbara Kingsolver
1993 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
1994 Feersum Endjin Iain M. Banks
1995 Behind the Scenes at the Museum Kate Atkinson
1996 Neverwhere Neil Gaiman
1997 The Subtle Knife Philip Pullman
1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets J.K. Rowling
1999 Girl with a Pearl Earring Tracey Chevalier
2000 The Amber Spyglass Philip pullman
2001 Atonement Ian McEwan
2002 The Crimson Petal and the White Michael Faber
2003 The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time Mark Haddon
2004 Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood
2005 A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian Marina Lewycka
2006 A Brief History of the Dead Kevin Brockmeier
2007 The Arrival Shaun Tan
2008 The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman
2009 The City and the City China Mieville
2010 Room Emma Donaghue
2011 The Sisters Brothers Patrick Dewitt

Here is my (slightly revised) star system

* I hated this book. Can’t understand why anyone would read it. No literary merit. I wouldn’t usually even start a one star book as it would be so obvious I wouldn’t like it.

*1/2 I didn’t like this book. I can see that it might appeal to some people but certainly didn’t appeal to me. Struggled to finish it.

** Passes the time if there's really nothing else to read - no more than that. Wouldn't read anything else by the author without good reason.

**1/2 Just about OK but wouldn’t read anything by the same author if I didn’t have to. Might be a decent book from a genre that I don't like or one where I can see it has literary merit but it really didn't work for me.

*** An reasonable read – although not something that set the world on fire. I'd try something else by the author although maybe not in a great rush to do so.

***1/2 A good solid read with decent writing and story. I'd be looking out for more books by the same author.

**** Book was very good – a well written book that I really enjoyed. I’d be looking out for more books by the author. Would warrant re-reading. Might well go out and buy something by the same author very soon.

****1/2 Book was excellent – an exceptionally well written book that I really enjoyed. One of my favourite books of the year. I’d want everybody I met to read this book. Would definitely want to re-read.

***** A wonderful book that speaks very personally to me. I’d tell everyone I met about this book. Would re-read again and again.

Rhian - love the lead photo and especially the explanation that accompanies it. Congrats on your latest thread and I trust you will have a wonderful weekend.

I also like the picture - what a great story! You're making good progress with your 75 too.

That's a lovely picture of Kenfig.

Hope you are having a great weekend.

#6,7,8 Hi everybody. Ever since I was a child I've always been fascinated by the idea of abandoned or lost communities, like Dunwich or St Kilda - perhaps it was the example of Kenfig just up the road. Kenfig is now a nature reserve and is another of my favourite places: we'll be introducing Daisy to the sand dunes there in a couple of weeks time when we go down to see my Mum.

I have done very little reading over the past week, mainly because of time spent watching the Olympics. Have really enjoyed the rowing and track cycling over the past few days as Britain has been doing very well in those events, which is nice as I think it would have put a real damper on the Olympics being in London if Britain had done badly. Will be watching the tennis final tomorrow as well: I saw the last half of Federer - del Potro yesterday but missed the Murray - Djokovic match (sub-consciously I think I'd assumed that Djokovic would win). Just watching the athletics now and two more gold medals: Greg Rutherford in the long jump and Jessica Ennis in the heptathlon.

Edited to add: and now Mo Farrah has also got gold in the 10,000m. Apparently today was the best British athletics performance pretty much ever.

Hi Rhian! Love the picture, too cool

Great photo, Rhian!

Murray has triumphed in the mens tennis finals completely dominating in a very un-Murray like manner and I am now watching the mixed doubles as Robson and that man again have not yet dropped a game 4 love up.

You are right of course it would have been a damp squib if GBR had performed like in Atlanta rather than Beijing.

"I have done very little reading over the past week, mainly because of time spent watching the Olympics. " I think I've probably watched more TV in the last week than I normally would in a year... Really enjoying it though.

I hope you enjoy Julius Caesar - we're going to see it at the end of September when it's on tour to the regional theatres. I'm really looking forward to it.

#10, 11 Hi Chelle, Darryl.

#12 Paul, so good that Murray won the gold medal for the tennis - he's been a runner-up so many times. Seemed really strange to see a British man winning at Wimbledon! I think everyone here was quite stunned this morning after the medal performance yesterday.

#13 Heather, I did Julius Caesar for O level but I've never seen it and it sounds like this production is really good, so I'm looking forward to it a lot. I'm with you in the TV watching - I don't watch a lot but the TV has just be on constantly the last few days.

Nice new thread here, Rhian. Sorry I am late to the party. I love the photo up top and the story about the lost town. I adore those kinds of stories. Wonderful lists and liked your explanation of your ratings system. Very, very similar to how I chose my assigned ratings.

Oh dear, I have done no reading at all! We are still completely glued to the Olympics in our house. In the UK it seems like everyone is completely stunned by the British performance - 22 gold medals at the last count. That just isn't supposed to happen - someone just didn't read the script properly!

Back into London tomorrow to see Chariots of Fire at the theatre - very appropriate timing with the Olympics going on. That wasn't actually why we picked it - we were looking for something which we could go and see as a family as in August children can go free to most London theatres - and sporting themes usually go down well with J.

Wow, I really hope you have fun at the theatre. Let me know how that play was.
My son loves the movie and watched it already numerous times. I have to admit that I was not so interested and have not watched it yet..... but if the play is good, it's something to consider for the next time I bring him over, as he really enjoyes going to the theatre.

On the way back home from Chariots of Fire theatre production in London which we really enjoyed. So topical as well: it started off with contemporary athletes wearing the British kit from the current Oympics and then gradually transformed into the 1924 athletes. They'd built a running track that went out into the auditorium and we were sitting in the second row of the stalls between the track and the main stage so we really felt part of the action.

Interesting to note J's reaction to the play to what I'd remembered thinking when I first saw the film in 1981. Then the merits of amateurism versus professionalism was still an issue that was alive and kicking in British sport (rugby union did not become a professional sport until the 1990s for instance). So when criticisms are raised that Harold Abrahams was employing training techniques that were too professional it was an argument that I was familiar with. But J was completely mystified at why anyone should be considered better for being an amateur: it's a mindset that has completely gone and we really struggled to explain it to him.

They had the Vangelis score as well which is so atmospheric.

That sounds wonderful! Glad you enjoyed it.

I agree :). This sounds absolutely wonderful - I am sure that my laddie would love to see that play.

#15 The story about Kenfig is quite well documented because as a borough the town had its own charter which still exists. They tried to stem the encroaching sand by passing by-laws prohibiting anyone plucking grass from the sand dunes but it didn't work. As a borough the town was also entitled to send two MP's to parliament which it continued to do until the beginning of the nineteenth centuries despite having virtually no voters. It was one of the 'rotten boroughs' that started parliamentary reform in Britain, as it was so unfair that they could elect MP's whereas the new industrial cities with populations in the hundreds of thousands couldn't.

#20 I definitely recommend seeing Chariots of Fire. It got a standing ovation when we were there.

Forgot to mention that after the theatre yesterday we went to Strada for something to eat, normally my favourite of the chain Italian eateries. While the food was decent the service was not: they forgot to order one of our main courses so we were waiting for ages; then offered us parmesan but didn't bring it until we were halfway through the meal; and then the waiter who brought the parmesan took it away again without giving me any, despite my (quite loud) requests for him to bring it back. We complained about the service, and ended up having the whole meal on the house (including the drinks) as well as complementary glasses of limoncello.

Then a trip to Foyles where both me and J succumbed to the lure of the books.

Frustrating day at work this morning. Was copied on an email where I discovered that my boss had committed me to producing a major piece of work relating to our key contracts which I knew nothing about. Apparently their email requiring the information had come the day I went on holiday, my boss had arranged an extension until the beginning of this week as I was on holiday, but didn't copy me on any of the emails and forgot to tell me about it when I got back. It's at least two weeks' work so she's going to have to arrange a further extension, and it makes us look as if we don't know what we're doing. I was just so cross as it's been a piece of work that I've been chasing up on for ages, but have been told previously not to worry about it.

New books from Foyles:

Store of the Worlds Robert Sheckley
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared Jonas Jonasson
Stitches David Small

Chariots of Fire sounds interesting. I'll add it to my list of possible things to do next month.

Welcome Darryl! From your thread I'm always very impressed by the amount of activities you manage to cram into your trips to London. We live so close, and I always mean to do these things but somehow RL gets in the way and I rarely get around to them. I really wanted to see the Miro exhibition that was on last year and that you mentioned in your thread, but of course I never got there.

Rhian, somewhere in this thread I think I read that you enjoy reading about abandoned islands, like St Kilda. If so, I really enjoyed an Orange LongListed book earlier this year Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg. It was about St.Kilda back in the mid to late 1800's and was fascinating read!

Glad to hear that you are going to start the audio version of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I feel like I must get the audio version too! :)

As for Stitches by David Small, I recall reading that graphic novel and feeling amazed at how much emotion could be packed into a illustrations! Enjoy!

Hi Rhian - Store of the Worlds sounds interesting. I haven't read him or many other sci-fi short stories (other than I, Robot, I believe). I look forward to your comments.

Lovely photo up there as well!

I've been reading the programme for Chariots of Fire which has some interesting articles (unlike most theatre programmes that have come my way). It seems that perhaps things weren't more sportsmanlike in the past after all. This about the 1924 Olympics:

The rugby tournament that provided the first gold medal of the 1924 Games ended in a riot when the USA suprisingly beat host nation France. The Parisian crowd attacked the American fans and players. When a French boxer bit his way to a gold medal, English speaking nations refused to continue until that boxer was disqualified. When the Italian fencing team was disqualified by a Hungarian referee for collusion, the outrage resulted in a genuine duel, with one man seriously hurt.

I imagine it was a surprise if the USA won the rugby - I didn't think the USA played rugby at all?

#26 Deborah, I keep meaning to read Island of Wings - I've borrowed it from the library once but had to return it before I got around to reading it. It does look my sort of book. I've seen Stitches recommended a few times on LT and from what I've seen so far it looks very good.

#27 Kerri, I think I like sci-fi short stories better than any other kind. I hadn't heard of this author before but the book was in Foyles's recommended section, so seemed worth a try. The blurb calls Sheckley an eccentric master of the American short story, and his tales ... are among the most startlingly original of the twentieth century, which sounds good. This collection is a retrospective of his best work and mainly seems to date from the 1950's.

>28 SandDune: - I don't know about in 1924, but rugby is often played on college/university campuses in the US and in amateur leagues in big cities. When I lived in Washington, DC, there were always several games (matches?) going on along the National Mall by the major monuments in the spring. It was fun to watch.

#30 Thanks Katie - I didn't realise that. I looked it up and I can see now that the USA have consistently qualified for recent rugby world cups.

Rhian, can I confess that my fave Italian chain is the ultra-cheesy Spaghetti House? Mind you, this goes back to early childhood, when the Knightsbridge branch was a fave eatery. The biggest favorite of all is *drum roll please* The Great American Disaster, sadly defunct for at least 25 years. Amazingly a fave of a HS classmate and I, who have recently been comparing notes on our pastimes in the 70s in London and Brussels. Yum, the #3 burger with a vanilla milkshake...

Checking in, Rhian :)

Home from a brilliant day at the Olympics - this time at the Olympic Park itself. We saw Spain beat South Korea in the women's handball bronze medal match - an incredibly close match which went to two periods of extra time before Spain eventually won. Had never seen handball before in my life but it seemed an exciting spectator sport and suprisingly rough. Was deaf in one ear for about half an hour afterwards as J was having a competion with a girl sitting next to him to see who could support their respective teams most loudly: he lost unfortunately as he was supporting Korea. Then to watch the big screens in the Park where we saw Mo Farah win his second gold medal by winning the 5000m. I was really pleased that we had got tickets for something in the Olympic Park itself as you do get much more of the atmosphere with so many people and so many different sports going on. Will post some pictures tomorrow.

#32 Hi Suzanne - I haven't been to a Spaghetti House in a very long time! My choice of chain restaurants is very much dependant on who takes Tesco club card vouchers, as they pay for quite a lot of our family eating out.

#33 Welcome Stasia. Nice to see you.

48. Stitches David Small *****



A graphic memoir depicting the abusive childhood of the children's illustrator David Small, which I found profoundly moving and upsetting at the same time. As the younger son of a father who, as a radiologist, subjected his son to high dosage X-rays in order to try and cure his numerous childhood ailments, and a mother who seems incapable of empathising with anyone other than herself, David was isolated from a young age. His mother's lack of empathy is illustrated profoundly when a friend first notices a large cyst on David's neck: rather than concern for her son his mother's reaction is that by eliciting her friend's concern he has spoiled her party by taking attention away from herself. In a family where nobody talks about their feelings, David was literally deprived of his voice at the age of fifteen when, waking from what he thought was a routine operation to remove the cyst, his vocal cords as well as his thyroid gland had been removed. Remarkably non-judgemental about his treatment by his family, the memoir provides some explanation for his mother's behaviour, but it's difficult to avoid getting angry on his behalf when reading the book.

The words and the pictures work together wonderfully in this memoir. So much is told through the pictures: no smiles or physical affection are directed at David. His mother's shadow is seen in two frames before his mother actually appears, symbolic of the shadow which she casts across the family. This is echoed by the words in which Small describes his mother's moods:

Mama had her little cough. Once or twice, some quiet sobbing, out of sight, or the slamming of cupboard doors. That was her language. The mere moving of her fork a half-inch to the right spelled dread at the dinner table. Her furious, silent withdrawals could last for days, even weeks at a time. Because she never spoke her mind, we never knew what this was all about.

I think this book will remain in my mind for a long time.

Very nice review of Stitches, Rhian; I'll add it to my wish list.

Have you seen any Olympic events at the ExCel Centre?

#34: I am envious! I would love to see the Olympics in person. I am glad to hear that you had a good time.

#36: I get to dodge that particular BB as I have already read the book.

#34: That sounds like a great day out! I watched the 5000 m on TV - what an amazing race. I was shouting at the TV at the end. Can't wait for the closing ceremony tonight to see what they do, but I'm going to watch the women's modern pentathlon today (on TV) - I saw a bit of the men's one yesterday and what a crazy event it is.

22: That's the sort of thing that happens at my workplace too! Hope you've had the chance to get on top of things now.

34: Glad you had a great day at the Olympics. I didn't go but my mum and my sister had several tickets.

48: Stitches sounds worth looking at but disturbing too. Thanks for the very clear review.

Where I am here on the other side of the pond on the Cape lots of encroachment of sand also - but no norman castles underneath the waves of course......

Great to see you enjoying the Olympics at first hand. I bought recently a biography of Harold Abrahams Running With Fire by Mark Ryan which I really ought to read in the aftermath of the Olympics.

#37 Darryl, we didn't go to the Excel Centre as the sports on offer there didn't particularly appeal (judo, wrestling, taekwondo, table tennis, fencing, boxing, weight-lifting). Our first choice sports (which we didn't get tickets for) were cycling, athletics and white-water canoeing - cycling was the one we would have liked to see most. Of the other venues, I think that Greenwich appealed most as it is such a lovely setting, but I was vetoed on the equestrian idea.

#38 I think having the Olympics so near has been a great experience - it seems to have put everyone into a really good mood, especially as the GB team performed much better than all expectations! I was so pleased that we did get tickets for something in the actual Olympic Park so that we could see all the other venues (which are really impressive), and soak up some of the atmosphere. A nice thing is that tickets for the Paralympics are virtually sold-out as well so most of those events will be in front of full houses too. We're going to the Paralympics athletics on 2 September so we will see inside the main stadium them.

#39 Hi Susan. We were talking about the modern pentathlon over lunch today. Apparently it tests the skills that a cavalry officer trapped behind enemy lines might need to escape!

#40 Dee, J would have been so disappointed if we hadn't gone to see something! From our local train station we can catch a direct (although slow) train that goes right to Stratford, so it does seem as if it's just down the road.

#41 Lucy, I have to admit if ever I emigrated I would miss castles. I spent my childhood going in every castle I could find (and where I lived there were a fair few of them) and J is just the same.

#42 Hi Paul - from the information provided in the programme it sounds as if he was an interesting man.

As promised some pictures of the Olympic Park:

J and Mr SandDune in front of the main stadium:



Me in front of one of the banks of flowers that dotted the site:



Like this:



J with his GB flag:

49. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating Elisabeth Tova Bailey ****



On a visit to Europe the author was struck down by a mysterious and hugely debilitating disease for which her doctors were unable to find a cure. Completely confined to bed and immobilised to the extent that even turning from one side to another represents the major effort of her day, she is surprised when a friend brings her a pot of violets which contains a small snail. Initially daunted by the thought of the responsibility of caring for something even as small as a snail, she soon finds that having the snail as a companion gives her a focus and interest in her otherwise monotonous life. Her inability to do anything else means that she has the time to study the minutiae of her snail's existence. Her life becomes bound up in the snail to the extent that when it apparently disappears from the terrarium that has been created for it, she realises that she is 'almost more attached to the snail than she is to her own tenuous life'.

This is a very short, beautifully written book providing an insight into the life of an animal that can be seen every day but to which few people pay any attention, but which has an interesting an individual story when viewed in this way.

I've got a degree in zoology so I'm interested in animals of all types, but rarely read this type of natural history book preferring a more scientific approach, but even so I really enjoyed this book. I can't say that I'd ever been particularly keen on snails, seeing them mainly as things that ate my hostas, but this book has made me look at them very differently. I don't think that I will look at snails in the same way again.

#44 Lovely photos - I think they've done a really good job with the landscaping of the Olympic Park from the photos I've seen.

#45 "I don't think that I will look at snails in the same way again." That was my reaction after reading the book too!

Hi Rhian, just catching up. I feel a bit removed from all the Olympic fervour, staying in a place without TVs (well, there is one somewhere, in one of the conference rooms, I think), but I have been getting daily updates on my phone and from the newspapers about the incredible and unexpectedly good Team GB performances. I'm pleased it has all been such a success - and I hope we'd all feel just as good about hosting a good Olympics even if we hadn't done so well on the medals table!

The wild snail book sounds interesting - I seem to remember someone else here gave it a good review a while back also.

Edited to add: perhaps it was Heather whose review I am remembering, given her post that arrived while I was typing the above...

I'm glad to hear that the Paralympic Games are nearly sold out. I was able to buy day passes for events at the ExCel Centre for Sep 7 & 8 at £24 per ticket, so I'm looking forward to going.

BTW, have you been to Wembley Stadium? I noticed that England is hosting Ukraine in a friendly on Sep 11, and I'll almost certainly go. I'm wondering if it's worth it to spend £65 for the best seats, or get a ticket on one of the upper levels for half that price or less.

Great photos of the Olympic Park! I took a couple of photos of the Stadium last summer, as I rode the DLR to Stratford station, so I'm curious to see the finished version up close.

Nice review of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. I downloaded it to my Kindle a few weeks ago, so I'll read it soon.

ETA: I nearly forgot that I bought a ticket for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the NT on Sep 11, so I won't go to the England-Ukraine match (unless I can get a ticket for a different date). I'm still curious about Wembley Stadium, though.

#46 Heather - the landscaping was really nice - and there were just little touches that made it seem special. Like under one of the bridges there was a sort of water cascade which spelt out random words in droplets of water, which fascinated J (and me) no end.

#47 We were just ideally situated to enjoy the Games - near enough so that probably the majority of people I know we're going to see something, which made it a real shared experience, but no close enough do there to be any major disruption. I think people would have enjoyed the Games even without such a good performance from Team GB, but that was like the icing on the cake I think - it was so unexpected that we would do as well as we did.

# 48 Darryl, I'm afraid I've never been to Wembley but I would think that you'd probably be OK in the cheaper seats. The stadium is pretty new, so I would expect all the seats to have reasonable views.

Had a good evening at the RSC production of Julius Caesar yesterday. It was a modern day version, set in the struggles for power in an unnamed country in sub-Saharan Africa.
As a setting I think that this worked very well in conjunction with the plot. I did this play for O level a very long time ago and I was surprised just how much I could remember.

Rhian - Thanks for the photos of your trip to the Olympic stadium - from afar it looked to me like we did a tremendous job of hosting the thing. The friendly games springs to mind - I don't recall a games where the crowds were so supportive of all the competitors. I remember the cheers for the Saudi lady and the obvious atmosphere that propelled Rudisha to a world record in the 800 metres. It helped of course that the Brits had their best ever games. Wonderful stuff.

I saw that production in Newcastle about 3 weeks ago. I though it was excellent. I also did the play for A level and haven't ever seen a live production, but the context of sub-Saharan Africa worked very well for a play dealing with power and its (potential) abuses, assassinations and coups. The Cinna-the -Poet scene was chilling, wasn't it?

>50 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian! Did you see Julius Caesar at the Noël Coward Theatre in Soho? It's on there until September 15th, and I just purchased a ticket for the 10th for £22.50, which is considerably cheaper than I expected to pay for it.

#51 it looked to me like we did a tremendous job of hosting the thing - the thing that really seemed to make the difference was the enthusiasm of the volunteers. It was nice that they got such a big cheer at the closing ceremony.

#52 the context of sub-Saharan Africa worked very well for a play dealing with power and its (potential) abuses, assassinations and coups. I thought that the setting really added something to the play - sometimes modern day settings just seem a whim on the part of the director and you can't really see you point, but not this one.

#53 Did you see Julius Caesar at the Noël Coward Theatre in Soho? Yes, that's the one. A good production - well worth seeing. We went with my sister who is a probably a better judge of Shakespeare productions than me - she has seen every single play, (most of them more than once) and she enjoyed it too. A nice little theatre as well.

Down in South Wales for a long weekend to see my Mum so introducing Daisy to sea and sand. Fun watching her reaction to the new experiences:

- sand - you can dig really nice big holes in sand and have great fun kicking up the sand in the air - best place for doing this is right next to where your owners are trying to have a nice quiet picnic.

- sea - a bit scary - especially when it makes a lot of noise and starts chasing you up the beach.

- seaweed - makes a nice toy for pulling apart and throwing in the air - the smellier the better.

Having a relaxing time now but the journey down was a bit fraught as Daisy has apparently not outgrown her car sickness as well as we had thought!

Glad to hear all the positive reviews of the Julius Caesar production as we're going to see it at the end of September (in the local theatre in Aylesbury).

#55 Hope you have a good weekend Rhian. Our golden retriever never grew out of his fear of the sea which seemed quite ironic given that retrievers are water-dogs.

#56 given that retrievers are water-dogs - Staffies are supposed not to be water dogs but Daisy really likes the water normally - she'd found a stream earlier to swim in - but I think she thought the sea was acting suspiciously!

I love Daisy's reactions to being on the beach!

Rhian, have you see Yes, Prime Minister on the stage? I received an e-mail this morning about it, as it's now on at Trafalgar Studio 1. I'll probably see it next month.

Well, Daisy is generally behaving herself well at my Mum's house and coping with new restrictions about not jumping on the sofa. Unfortunately, she rather disgraced herself yesterday - my Mum had called out a plumber to fix a toilet flush mechanism. The plumber popped out to his van for a few minutes, Daisy popped upstairs (also not allowed), and in the twenty seconds before we got her downstairs again she had found a small piece of plastic that the plumber had left on the floor of the bathroom. I got it out of her mouth (months of practice at retrieving pieces of Lego) but staffies have strong jaws and it was definitely not the same shape as when it went in. Turned out it was a crucial piece of the new mechanism which the plumber was fitting and it wouldn't work without it! The plumber had to go and buy another one - I was anticipating huge extra charges as it added nearly an hour to the time taken for the job - but in the end he only charged what had originally been quoted so all was well.

#59 No I've not see the stage production. I remember watching and enjoying the TV series, but I haven't seen it for years.

Love Daisy's seascape adventures - you could have hit upon for working dogs exactly what Richard Adams did for rabbits! Have a lovely weekend.

Hi Rhian - Wonderful review of Stitches - It sounds terribly painful, but well-done and worthwhile. I've put it on my wishlist, along with The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.

Have a lovely weekend!

#55: My friend's German Shepherd puppy was terrified of the sea when they took the dogs to Brighton. Their other two dogs (including the puppy's mother) loved it, but he wouldn't go anywhere near it, and needed cuddles :-)

Took Daisy to the beach again today and she grew a lot more confident with the sea! She got the hang of chasing into the sea to fetch sticks but still got a bit worried when the sea started following her up the beach. At one point she was standing on a rock and was very alarmed when a wave suddenly surrounded her rock with water and threatened to overwhelm it completely! (The Bristol Channel has the second highest tidal range in the world and the sea was coming in pretty quickly!)

Today really emphasised the unpredictability of British weather. At 11.45 I was wearing a fleece lined gortex jacket to keep out the driving rain. By 15.45 the sun had come out, hundreds of surfers had appeared from nowhere and I would have gone for a swim in the sea if we had had our swimming things. J ended up going in the sea in his shorts and t-shirt anyway - he'd managed to get so wet with his 'paddling' with Daisy that it didn't seem to matter if he got wet all over.

Sounds like such a lovely day, Rhian! I love your descriptions of Daisy and her discovery of the sea.

Ditto what Mamie said above.

I love traveling with you! Your photos and descriptions of your adventures allow me to travel while staying home.

#62,63,64,66,67 Welcome everyone - glad people are enjoying Daisy's adventures. Not so exciting today as it is raining again. Will post some pictures when I get home as my Mum's house has no computing facilities (much to J's complete mystification - he just doesn't understand why anyone chooses to live with no Internet access - or without satellite or cable TV for that matter!)

Before the beach yesterday we went to a charity book fair and I picked up several books at 60p each:

Life before Man Margaret Atwood - I haven't read much early Atwood
I am Legend Richard Matheson - seen the film (which has the distinction of being the only Will Smith film Mr SandDune has ever liked) but never read the book.
Addition Toni Jordan - about a woman with OCD
The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald - I thought I'd read this but I saw as soon as I read the blurb that I hadn't.
If Morning Ever Comes Anne Tyler - thought I'd read some more Anne Tyler after enjoying Ladder of Years
So long, Hector Bebb Ron Berry - part of the Library of Wales series that I've been meaning to get around to for some time.

Anne Tyler is a great author. Dinner at the Homesick Restuarant is one of her best gems!

What fun at your charity book fair!Sounds like you got some finds! I'll agree with Linda that Anne Tyler is an excellent writer!

We have weather here in Vancouver very like Britain does. In June we had such cool temperatures and so much rain the month was dubbed " Junuary." I must say though that we had temps in the mid 80's on Thursday and that is far to hot for me. Thankfully today looks cloudy and cool! :)

I bought The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating a while back and am impatiently waiting for an opening in my reading queue. :)

Good book haul! I've read Life before Man and dimly remember it - read most of those early Atwoods but tend to get them a bit muddled in my mind. I hope you enjoy it. I've not read The Blue Flower but have several other Penelope Fitzgerald, including Offshore and The Bookshop. However, I was embarrassed to realise recently that for years I muddled her in my mind with Penelope Lively, who I now know I prefer to Fitzgerald!

I know what you mean about the rapid weather changes. Don't know what to wear, inside or out, at present. I started today with feet in sandals but the day is cool and rainy, and now my feet are like blocks of ice and I've had to put socks on!

#69,70 Hi Linda, Deborah - Anne Taylor is definitely someone that I want to read more of.

#71 Rachel, you only need a very little gap for The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating as it isn't very long!

#72 Genny - I've read one or two Penelope Fitzgerald's and I think I'm the same in preferring Penelope Lively, but I know that some people rave about her so I think I should give her another go.

I really must get some more reading done over the next few weeks. When both J and Mr SandDune are on holiday I find it difficult to find the time and inclination. I much refer to read when I'm on my own as I hate being interupted and I'm just not on my own much over the summer.

Nice haul there, Rhian! I read a book that J might like - Boneshaker. It's steampunk and a lot of fun. Fast paced, and no mushy stuff.

Yes - I saw Boneshaker on your thread and it looks very good. I meant to comment but as I was limited to using my phone at my Mum's house which I find much slower (and also as J kept borrowing my phone to access the Internet) I hadn't quite got around to it yet! Back home now and back into the 21st Century as far as technology is concerned.

Some pictures from the weekend:

Daisy discovering that digging in sand is fun...



and taking a break from scattering sand over her nearest and dearest...



J introducing Daisy to the sea...



Daisy and J at Kenfig Pool - obviously some erosion since the picture at the top of the thread and the tree is now on an island... Not sure how much longer that's going to last...



Daisy is very dubious about the idea of stepping stones especially when they're about to be swamped by the incoming tide (a few seconds after this picture was taken she pulled J in)...

What lovely photos - thanks for sharing, Rhian! I especially like the one of J and Daisy walking in the surf.

Agree, they are lovely photos.

Love your GB pics! How fun to be there! I love the ones of Daisy too!

#77,78,79 Hi Deborah, Mamie, Genny. It's funny but I've got better at remembering to take photos of things since I've started posting them on my thread. Usually, I'm quite bad at remembering to take photos of anything at all!

#79 The GB flag will get another outing in a week's time when we're going to the Paralympics.

In case anyone is wondering that my life seems to be a constant round of holiday, sporting events and theatre at the moment, this is not normal at all! It will all come to a halt once J goes back to school at the beginning of September and his football season starts again. With school on Saturday morning and football on Sundays, there just doesn't seem to be much time to do anything at all once term has started.

I love the photos of Daisy at the beach. Should have gotten more than I did of Posey while we were at the shore. She mostly wanted to try and catch gulls, silly little thing, and was super cautious around the water.

Rhian - enjoyed your photos - I had to smile at J on holiday in his anorak - very British for sure!
Good luck at the paralympics - what events are you watching?
I wonder whether Oscar Pretorious will compete also in the track events?

#82I had to smile at J on holiday in his anorak Oh yes, I've had a few of those sort of holidays in my time! Worst was when me and Mr SandDune went to Scotland and it started raining heavily in Gretna Green and didn't stop for five days solid (we were only away for one week). I remember bursting into tears in Ullapool because I was so cold and I hadn't been able to find a thick sweater that fitted me in the shops there, which I'd been counting on to warm me up.

And then there was the holiday in North Wales - we'd booked the cheapest cottage available anywhere as we really couldn't afford to go on holiday that year, and it had an outside loo. And it rained every night, and of course I had to go every night, and there were gigantic slugs everywhere... Still gives me nightmares.

We're seeing the athletics at the Paralympics but I can't remember exactly what events it was going to be.

50. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry ***1/2



What to say about this book? All the reviews that I had read have unfailingly loved it, and found it 'a magical, moving and uplifting tale' as it says on the blurb on the back, but somehow the book didn't quite work for me on that level. It was an enjoyable read and there were some touching and clear-sighted reflections on the relationships between husband and wife and parent and child, as well as the different ways in which people deal with grief. But not an earth-shattering book, for me at least.

Recently retired Harold Fry receives a letter from an old work colleague Queenie Hennessy, who he has last seen twenty years before: from a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed she informs him that she has terminal cancer. Initially intending to post a brief reply expressing his sympathy in bland terms, he unexpectedly finds himself walking past the nearest post-box. As he continues past post-box after post-box, a chance conversation with a garage attendant about the importance of faith leads him to a momentous decision: he will walk the hundreds of miles from his home in Dorset to see Queenie in Berwick. He will walk and his faith will keep her alive. But how can an unfit man in his mid-sixties, used to walking nowhere further than to the car door and wearing yachting shoes and with no rucksack, possibly undertake such a journey?

At home, Harold's wife Maureen finds his behaviour incomprehensible. A woman seemingly obsessed with cleaning, she blames Harold's failings for problems with their son David, and the two have not really communicated for years. But as Harold's journey continues, both he and Maureen are forced to confront the realities of their relationship, and truths which have been buried for years.

I'm not convinced that this will make the Booker short-list, although I can appreciate that this may be a minority opinion.

Nice review of Harold Fry, Rhian. From what I've read about it, I would agree that it seems unlikely to make this year's Booker Prize shortlist. Stranger things have happened, though.

I agree with you about Harold Fry, Rhian. I thought it was a sweet story when I read it, but didn't get "magical, moving and uplifting" from it. It was just fine, not a "wow" read. But I bet it turns into a TV book club choice when it comes out in paperback (if they still have the TV book club).

Your holiday photos look great, if a little damp! I wonder how Daisy will react the next time she sees the sea - it might be familiar enough by then that she jumps right in.

#85,86 Hi Darryl, Susan - 'a sweet book' - that's exactly what I thought of it, but it didn't seem to warrant the Booker Prize judges' description of books that can be read again and again.

Rhian, I am completely in your camp with Harold fry; a sweet little book, but rather predictable when you get right down to it. "heartwarming". I was underwhelmed, and a bit startled to see it make the list. Wouldn't have made my list as a re-readable book, unless it was for the concept of the walk itself/the pilgrimage.

Enjoyed your review of Harold Fry. I enjoyed it more than you did, but I can understand that it may not be for everyone. I agree, that though I really enjoyed it, it may not be booker material, but as Darryl says, stranger things have happened! I finished and reviewed another long listed Booker, which I reviewed - The Lighthouse. Well done and very intriguing.

Rhian, except for the walking I'd say that The Lighthouse is very different from Harold Fry. It's not the least sentimental, or an " easy read". I'd say that the author kind of kept us at a distance and tried to make all of the characters unsympathetic, even though I found most of them be sympathetic - only because they were so very damaged. A very clever plot! Not the least bit " heart warming". :) But I really loved it!!

Lovely photos of Daisy Rhian! I agree with you about Harold Fry although I think I enjoyed it a little bit more than you did. It was sweet and I particularly enjoyed the book's reflections on the relationship between Harold and Maureen but unless I missed something I can't see it as a Booker winner.

#90 I didn't mean that they seemed similar books in terms of their approach or the level of sentimentality but rather that from your review of The Lighthouse they both seemed to be using walking to deal with similar reflections on a life lived less than fully, and the effects of an unloved childhood, albeit in a very different way.

#88 Suzanne - glad it isn't just me! I often seem to have this reaction to books described as heart-warming. I'm not sure what that says about me as a person.

#91 Heather - I did enjoy the book - it was just the earth didn't move for me in the way that it did for some people. I think the relationship between the couple was my favourite part of the book as well - that was beautifully drawn.

#81 Lucy, sorry I missed your post from above. Daisy likes to chase seagulls as well but unfortunately her preferred activity outside is to find some people and run after them. She's very friendly - she just wants to play with them - but obviously we can't have her doing that so we're getting our dog trainer to have a look at how we cure it. She's as good as gold indoors, but she absolutely loves people. Indoors she likes to stand on our sofa looking out of the window for anyone going past. If any pedestrians do approach you can tell as her tail starts wagging - as they get nearer her tail goes faster and then it gradually gets slower and slower again if they go past our door! She would make an absolutely useless guard dog!

Oh dear, I've just had a bit of a brainstorm and bought seven new books on kindle in as many minutes. Admittedly they were all 99p but even so... I really don't need seven new books. I had no intention of doing it but Mr SandDune phoned up from Waterstones in Cambridge wanting me to check the name of a book that he wanted, so I looked it up on Amazon and then just followed the recommendations and found a whole load of short, mainly translated fiction all very highly recommended:

The Brothers Asko Sahlberg
Beside the Sea Veronique Olmi
Stone in a Landslide Maria Barbal
Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman Friedrich Christian Delius
The Blue Fox Sjon
Maybe this Time Alois Hotschnig
The Waterproof Bible Andrew Kaufman

What lovely photos of Daisy.

Congrats on your wonderful book haul!

I'll be fascinated to learn what the trainer suggests. Most adult corgis are reserved about people - Posey is somewhere in the middle, so I expect she will move towards hanging back more as she gets older. As it is she is good about that. When we walk in the woods I do have to keep an eye out - she has figured out that deer are in another whole league, way too big for her! Chipmunks are her absolute favorite critters to chase. They run to a safe spot and then sit and chitter angrily at her.... it's very funny. I'd give anything for a picture but it happens so fast.

Congrats on your new books -- I haven't got a single one. That's kind of refreshing really!

#96 Nice to see you Linda - so sorry to hear about your operation.

#97 Most adult corgis are reserved about people. Most staffies are exactly the opposite. People think they make good guard dogs because they look quite muscular but in fact they generally don't as they're usually happy to see anyone, and apparently they are very easy to steal themselves for the same reason. I don't think Daisy's ever come accross anyone who she didn't think was wonderful!

So far the trainer has suggested that we keep Daisy on a long (5m) training lead which we can pick up if necessary to stop her charging off, and that we ask people to completely ignore her unless she has all four feet on the floor and is calm. She's also suggested rounding up some dog-friendly older children and practising appropriate behaviour with them outside, getting them to ignore her unless she behaves well, and rewarding good behaviour with some exceptionally tasty treats. We'll probably do a one-to-one session with the trainer in the next couple of weeks to work on the problem.

That sounds v. sensible -- the practicing with some older children idea. Posey could use a bit of that, she does jump up once she decides to be friendly and some people hate it, plus it's basically not good behaviour. She does it erratically though, so it's been a bit hard to get a handle on.

51. The Silent Duchess Dacia Maraini ****



Hugely evocative of its time and place in eighteenth century Sicily, The Silent Duchess paints a picture of a decadent and lethargic aristocracy to whom conspicuous consumption and display is far more important than the fact that their estates are going to rack and ruin. A world where beautiful daughters are married at twelve and are considered to be old maids at eighteen, while less favoured ones are destined for the convent despite the absence of any heightened religious conviction; where a woman can look old at twenty-three, worn out with successive pregnancies; and a woman of forty-five should be 'preparing her soul for the beyond rather than looking for new friendships'. Where superstitions are rife and children must seriously beware of dogs as 'their tails grow so long that they wrap themselves round people's waists like chimeras do and then, hey presto, they pierce you without ever realising what has happened to you.

This is the world of Marianna Ucria, youngest daughter of a Sicilian Duke; profoundly deaf and unable to speak, she communicates with her family by writing notes and despite her father telling her that she has been deaf since birth she retains residual memories of hearing sounds. Marianna is introduced at age seven, as she follows her father as he officiates at the execution of a brigand scarcely more than a child himself, to which she has been taken in the hope that the shock may jolt her out of her speechlessness. At age thirteen she is married to her uncle, which as her mother says, 'is a saving of fifteen thousand escudos' over the dowry that a convent would require to take her. The book follows Marianna through key periods of her life, as her children are born, are married and have children of their own. Separated from her society and family by her disability she reads widely and thinks for herself, which serves to set her apart even further.

I read this as I noticed on Kidzdoc's thread that Dacia Maraini was being considered as a contender for the Nobel prize, and I remembered that I had this book on the shelf. I thought that I had read it before, and I'd certainly read the beginning, but I'm not sure that I'd finished it previously as there are certain disclosures made towards the end of the book that I certainly was not expecting. Reminiscent of The Leopard although set a century of so earlier it is without the sense of the ending of a way of life that pervades that book.

Excellent review of The Silent Duchess, Rhian. I was not familiar with Maraina before seeing the Nobel betting list and your thoughts are a nice introduction.

#99 It's the jumping up that the problem for us as well. She virtually never does it to us, only with strangers, which does make it more difficult to deal with. Once J is back at school we're going to get some of his friends who like dogs to come and practise with her.

#101 I've not read anything else by her but I'd recommend The Silent Duchess. I get the impression that not much of her work has been translated into English.

52. The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window And Disappeared Jonas Jonasson ****



On his one hundredth birthday Allan Karlsson climbs out of the window of his room on the ground floor of the Old People's Home where he lives, less than an hour before his birthday party is due to start. Escaping from the strict regime enforced by the bad-tempered Director Alice, of no-smoking, no vodka and porridge for breakfast at 6.45 every morning, he takes the first bus out of town to wherever a fifty krona note will take him. Never one to consider very carefully the consequences of his actions, at the bus station he steals the suitcase that he has been asked to look after while its owner, a long-haired uncouth youth, goes to the bathroom. Of course, the suitcase is full of money from a drug deal, and the youth is a violent but not too bright gang member who is extremely anxious to get the money back and exact revenge on the old guy who has seemingly taken it. But things do not go as might be expected, and Allan finds that in the eyes of the police he changes from a senile and misplaced old man, to a kidnap victim, to a violent criminal, with alarming speed. Picking up a motley crew of accomplices along the way, Allan must evade both gang members and police, in an increasingly surreal chase across Sweden.

Interspersed with this story is the history of Allan's life. Having left school at ten, becoming an errand boy in an explosives factory gives him an expertise in explosives which takes him to the Spanish Civil war (where he inadvertently saves General Franco's life while supposedly on the side of the republicans), to Los Alamos for the development of the atomic bomb, and onwards to most of the major events of the twentieth century. Without ever meaning to, he manages to become on first name terms with several of the major figures of the times, which comes in handy for someone who finds himself so frequently in the world's troublespots. These two stories do not intermingle until right at the end of the book, where even at the age of a hundred Allan discovers that he still has contacts.

With a surreal and fantastical plot, and a marvellous cast of characters, this is a very funny book. It's totally unbelievable but that doesn't matter: it's clearly not meant to be taken seriously. I rarely find that books that are advertised as funny actually make me laugh - in fact I'm struggling to think of the last adult book that did so - but the current day escapades of Allan and his henchmen made me laugh out loud on numerous occasions. I found that the sections on Allan's past worked less successfully for me, but were still amusing. This is the first book by the author and I'll definitely be on the look out for anything else he writes.

The Observer had a section on the 10 best contemporary books at the weekend and I've added the following to my wishlist:

Lyrics Alley Leila Aboulela
The Hairdresser of Harare Tendai Huchu
Beneath the Lion's Gaze Maaza Mengiste
Mama Miti Donna Jo Napoli

Here is the full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2012/aug/26/africa

Edited to say: that should read contemporary books on Africa.

Rhian thanks for the list and for the excellent review of The Silent Duchess.

Daisy has gone to the vet's for her neutering operation this morning - she was not impressed at the fact that she wasn't given any breakfast! She should be back home this afternoon and hopefully won't have any ill-effects. J is disappointed that she won't have puppies, but realistically we are just not in a position to deal with puppies at the moment (or for the foreseeable future) especially if she was unable or unwilling to feed them for whatever reason. And there are too many unwanted staffies in the world - the rescue homes in the UK are full to the brim with unwanted Staffordshire Bull Terriers or staffie crosses. Anyway Daisy went off quite happily at the vets - she seems to quite like it there - lots of other dogs and people who make a fuss of her so she's in her element.

Took advantage of the fact that we were up and about early to do J's shoe shopping for the new school year, so had to buy:
1 pair school shoes
1 pair rugby boots
1 pair football boots
1 pair indoor trainers
He would have needed 1 pair of astro trainers as well, but last year's ones seem to still fit him. Why do they have to have so much, is what I want to know - it costs a fortune!

It's quite lucky that we still have the astro trainers - at the weekend we discovered J's (very soggy) school sports bag (containing his astro trainers and his summer sports kit) in the garden behind the compost bins! After some puzzling as to what it was doing there we worked out that it had been there since the last week of school in June, when J got locked out and threw his sports bag into the garden before climbing over the fence... and then completely forgot about his sports bag! The trainers and some of the dark coloured stuff were salvageable, but his white polo shirt seemed to have grown some interesting mould cultures and had to be destroyed! It's been a very wet summer. Sigh...

Daisy back from vets, but very sorry for herself indeed.

Oh dear, poor Daisy. I hope she begins to feel more herself soon.

Hope that Daisy is feeling a bit better by now.

That's funny about the sports bag.

The Jonasson sounds like fun, I'll keep an eye out.

Give Daisy an encouraging pat - Posey went through it a couple of months ago.

*waving* at Rhian

I hope Daisy is back to her old self before too long.

Belatedly agreeing on the pictures - they are lovely!
I remember one very cold summer holiday on a German North Sea island (Sylt) when I was a kid. Our house had central heating, but it wasn't strong enought to warm the living room. So we put the sunbeds into the room, placed them next to the radiators and also got our blankets from the beds. We spent most of that week on those beds, reading and looking into the rain. But it was a long holiday and thankfully the second week was much better.

Love your review re. The Hundred-Year-Old Man. It's a book I am planning to read this/ next week. My dad who doesn't read much absolutely loved it and found it very funny and uplifting.

Adding my good wishes for Daisy's quick recovery.

Great review of The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window And Disappeared, Rhian. That sounds too good to pass up, so I'll add it to my wish list. According to Amazon it will be published in the US on September 11.

Thanks for posting the link to the Observer article about the best contemporary African books; I had missed it entirely. I've read four of them: The Memory of Love, Lyrics Alley, Broken Glass and Beneath the Lion's Gaze. All were very good, but The Memory of Love was outstanding, and it was one of my favorite novels of 2010. I'll add Looking for Transwonderland to my wish list, as I'm very interested in the life of her father Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian writer and political activist who was executed by the government in the 1990s.

Some great reviews you have got there. The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window And Disappeared is also on my TBR list as quite a lot of people recommended that book to me.

I love the photos of your dog - she is absolutely georgous. :)

#108, 109, 110, 111, 112 Hi Jenny, Kerry, Lucy, Stasia, Nathalie.

Thanks for the good wishes for Daisy - she seems to be feeling better today - not quite her usual self but moving around and eating well and pleased to see people. Last night she was just the picture of dejection: head down, tail between her legs, not eating and whimpering if she was left on her own. She's got to wear a collar for 10 days to stop her pulling out the stitches and she hasn't at all got the idea of how wide it is so she keeps bumping into things.

#113 Darryl, I'd heard of a couple of books on the list but the only one I own is Zoo City by Lauren Beukes which is in the TBR pile.

#112 Nathalie, the coldest holiday we ever has was also on the coast of the North Sea in The Netherlands. We went on holiday at Easter (2008 I think) to a caravan park near The Hague. It was the coldest Easter for 40 years and 4 out of the 7 mornings we woke up to a fresh sprinkling of snow on the ground. I'd taken extra bedding and extra heaters and we were still cold at night unless we went to bed pretty much fully clothed - caravans are just not made for that sort of weather. I caught a really bad chest infection (probably exacerbated by being so cold) and ended up being off work for the next two weeks.

#112, 113, 114 I'd certainly recommend The Hundred-Year-Old Man who climbed out of the Window and Disappeared. It's definitely a fun book and makes a change from the usual scandicrime novels that come out of Sweden (although there's some crime in it, it's clear to the reader all the way through exactly who has done what). I don't think I'd describe it as uplifting though...

Sadly I'm a bit cruel and think it's quite funny when animals do things like bump into stuff. We spend a fair amount of time making our cats dizzy, purely for the hilarity.

Hate it when they are in pain though. I'm glad she's feeling better today.

#117 Daisy hasn't quite grown out of chasing her tail yet so she makes herself dizzy quite regularly without any help from us!

53. Skios Michael Frayn ****



Audiobook - narrator Martin Jarvis

Another Booker long-listed book - so far I've been listening to the longlisted books that I thought would work well on audio as I had some Audible credits to use up, rather than the ones which appealed the most or that I thought would make the shortlist. In the UK the Book People always do a discounted set of the Booker prize shortlist around November, December time so I will buy the shortlist then. So Skios wasn't the book that jumped out at me from the longlist but it proved to be very enjoyable.

Dr Norman Wilfred, the world-renowned expert on the management of scientific research flies to the Greek island of Skios to deliver the annual Fred Toppler lecture. On the same plane is Oliver Fox, notorious in his own circles for the outrageous and unexpected things that he does on a regular basis and from which he escapes the worst consequences by using his good-looks and charm. Having been thrown out by Anneka, his partner of several months, Oliver is escaping to Skios to spend a week with Georgie, a casual aquaintance who has fallen for his charm. Picking up the wrong suitcase off the carousel (that belonging to Dr Wilfred), he receives a text from Georgie saying that she has been delayed by 24 hours, and faced with being on his own for the next day, and confronted in Arrivals by the blonde, lightly tanned, and very organised Nikki from the Fred Toppler Institute holding up a sign for Dr Norman Wilfred, Oliver decides that he will be Dr Norman Wilfred for at least as long as it takes for anyone to discover that he isn't. Of course, that leaves the real Dr Wilfred without a suitcase: when he eventually emerges into Arrivals the only person left is the taxi driver sent to meet Oliver and he ends up being taken to Oliver's villa under the mistaken impression that it is the guest quarters of the Fred Toppler foundation. And when Georgie eventually arrives things become more and more complicated.

The book carries on in this vein and has all the elements of a tradional farce: mistaken identities; mistaken bedrooms; split-second misses; and people ending up without their clothes (several times). But it's done very well and (almost) believably. And again it was another book that made me laugh several times (this is getting to be a habit) and certainly made me smile a lot. So overall, not a Booker prize winner, in my opinion, and probably not a short-list contender, but a book that it's well worth reading. And the audio version with Martin Jarvis is certainly well worth listening too as well.

Ah, I felt exactly the same way about Skios. I only picked it because it was available in audio (and I've hit a terrible traffic jam with my physical-reading books right now)...it wasn't the first I'd have picked up on that list. But I was pleasantly surprised. :) My version was narrated by Robin Sachs, though.

54. Blackout Connie Willis **1/2



I have to say that this book came as a real disappointment. I've had Connie Willis's time-travelling adventures on the TBR list for quite some time and I thought I would like them a lot (I love the idea of time-travel). But I have to say that this book didn't work for me at all. It didn't help that it just stopped - virtually mid-sentence. It didn't reach any sort of even partial closure with the characters: some story-lines were dropped in the middle of the book never to reappear. Apparently, it is part 1 of a two part book: in that case it should be labelled part 1 so that readers can see what they are getting into.

Anyway, the main premise of the book is that time-travel is a reality and that historians in the Oxford of 2060 can travel back in time to investigate their chosen time period, in this case Britain during the Second World War. It starts in Oxford where there's a lot of rushing around, for no very good reason that I can see, and then we follow the main characters to their respective investigations in the England of 1940. Michael Davies travels to observe the evacuation from Dunkirk, Merope Ward to look at the life of evacuees in the countryside and Polly Churchill to monitor the reactions of Londoners to the Blitz. There's also a Mary Kent in 1944 observing the effects of the V1 and V2 rockets, but the author seems to have got bored of her half-way through, at least as regards this book. The plot mainly seems to consist of everyone continually wanting to be somewhere other than where they are, and rushing around like headless chickens trying to get there. Overall it reminded me of one of those dreams where you are endlessly trying and failing to get to where you wanted to be. As the historians try and fail to use their 'drops' to return to 2060 it gradually becomes apparent that they may have a major problem. As they had failed to check in at the designated times, relief teams should have been sent to rescue them: being able to time travel means that the even if the relief teams had taken a while to locate them in the time of 2060 they should have been able to travel to exactly the right time for their rescue. Does the fact that no relief teams have arrived mean that one of them has inadvertently changed the course of time itself?

There were so many things about this book that irritated me. Why does Oxford in 2060 sound exactly the same as England in 1940, and come to that why does Michael Davies sound exactly the same as everyone else despite being supposed to be American? Why do the so-called historians know so little about history apart from what they have learnt for their very specific assignments? Having lived with a historian for 25 years (or at least a history teacher) this lack of general knowledge seems unlikely - in my experience people who are interested in history just soak it up like a sponge. And why do they seem so uninterested in what's around them? Most of their private thoughts seem to focus on a self-satisfaction that they know exactly what's going to happen in the future, rather than any interest in finding out about what happened in the past. And shouldn't they be a bit better prepared for emergencies that they seem to be - at least with a bit of spare cash?

Reading this as a British reader the setting of the book is very familiar (the Blitz, evacuees, Dunkirk): every schoolchild in the country seems to have done the day as an evacuee experience and learnt about life in the Second World War ad nauseam and so it doesn't cover anything new. It rolls out all the old stereotypes: plucky Blitz spirit; keep calm and carry on; evacuees from terrible conditions in the East End etc. etc.. It would have made it a much more interesting book if those stereotypes had been challenged, and from what I've read recently it seems that the morale and behaviour of the general population at the time wasn't as universally uplifting as the propaganda would have had people believe.

So overall not a good book for me. The really annoying thing is that, having being abandoned half-way through the story, I do actually want to see what happened, so will have to get Part 2 All Clear to find out.

Great review of Skios, Rhian. It sounds like a fun read.

#120 Hi Rachel - I have a limited range of books that I can cope with on audio. It's got to be something fairly straightforward, nothing where I'll want to be flicking back and forward to see exactly what did happen a hundred pages before, and nothing too complicated that would need re-reading. Martin Jarvis is a great reader and he definitely added to the book for me.

#122 Hi Linda - thanks for dropping by

A day at the Paralympics today: the athletics in the main stadium which was really enjoyable. I think I enjoyed it just as much as if we had seen the Olympic athletics - I don't really follow the sport as a rule and so even in the main athletics wouldn't have been familiar with any of the competitors outside a few household names. The stadium was really impressive, and we had great seats in the corner just past the finishing line so we could see really well. Saw men's discus and women's javelin and shot put finals, as well as both visually impaired and wheelchair track events. By the end of the session I think I had even got to grips with the classification system, which seems incredibly complex when you look at it first.

Here are some not very good pictures of the stadium:



and the Paralympic Flame:



Daisy is recovering well from her operation - today she took out her frustration at only having short walks at the moment by chewing a hole in the wall when we were out. But she doesn't like her collar...

Wow, Daisy really doesn't look happy... :)

Hi Rhian! Loving the pictures of Daisy, so cute!

We had an issue with our pup Jax jumping up on people when he was about 6 months old. Our trainer told us to put our knee up when he jumped and he would learn that jumping was bad. Gently of course, we didn't actually touch him with the knee but moved back with our knee up so he couldn't jump up. Seemed to work as he doesn't do it much now, except for when he is super hyper.

Hi SandDune, well I do know I am mean - but - I could not stop LOL, about the pic of Daisy. You can really see that she does not want to wear it. How long does she need to suffer with it?

The pics of the paraolympics are very nice as well :)

#125, 127 To be honest the picture of Daisy was taken on Friday and she's brightened up quite a bit since then. I would say that today is the first day that she seems to be back to her normal self. We take her back to the vets on Saturday for a follow-up check and she needs to wear the collar until then.

#126 The problem is that Daisy virtually never jumps up at us but for some reason she thinks it's OK to do it to other people. I think she just gets too excited when she meets new people.

Poor Daisy and her cone :-) She really doesn't look impressed.

Your day at the Games sounds excellent. I just love the cauldron - such an amazing idea.

I had the Connie Willis books on my list to get to at some stage, but I don't think I'll bother now. All the things that annoyed you would also annoy me, and I have been annoyed at too many books this year already!

#129 I think if you read the Connie Willis you need to looks at the two books together and decide if you want to devote that much time to the story. There's no point in reading Blackout without reading All Clear.

I've been trying to decide why the rushing around in Skios didn't annoy me at all whereas that in Blackout annoyed me intensely. I think it's because in Skios Frayn had created some believable characters, and each decision that they made made sense in terms of their character, even when in total they added up to a farcical outcome. In Blackout the characters are not very believable (and are fairly indistinguishable in fact), and the individual decisions that they make frequently seem to make no sense.

Hi Rhian, I'm trying to catch up here as everywhere and loved your descriptions of Daisy meeting the sea. We have a friendly jumping pup too and I need to look into some training to encourage better manners. He had a paw injury recently and had to wear the cone--he was absolutely miserable over it.

I haven't read Blackout but I read Doomsday Book a few months ago and found it quite frustrating, for many similar reasons. Parts of it were very interesting, but it was a 600 plus page book that in my opinion should have and could have easily been 300 pages. And, yes, some gratuitous rushing around and failure to have a back-up plan. Based on your description of Blackout I'm not inclined to read further as it sounds like the irritating features are not limited to one book.

Oh, Daisy doesn't look at all happy.....

#131 We have a friendly jumping pup too - It's quite encouraging to realise that there are other puppies in the world that jump. I always tend to assume that other people's puppies are perfectly behaved!

#132 Lucy, she was much happier this afternoon as I bought some new extra large hide chews to stop her chewing holes in the wall when she is bored!

The kitchen at my mum's still bears the holes above the dog's bed where our first dog, Blossom, chewed holes in the wall as a puppy. She was a border collie whom we had to have put down when she was about 13/14 - it's been four years since then, and the holes are still there.

My mum is going to have the house done up in the next few months. The holes in the wall are something I'll miss a lot.

Poor Daisy = great photo

Rhian - you might enjoy listening to To say nothing of the dog by Connie Willis. It's the only one of hers that I've 'read' but is quite funny. I've had her Doomsday Book on my tbr pile for a few years.

#134 We had one small hole in the wall in our hall before we had Daisy where we had had a radiator removed, and every so often she's been trying to enlarge it. But over the last few days she's started up some completely new holes - I think she's been getting bored as she's only been allowed short walks. Everyone starts back to school tomorrow and she'll be left on her own more on the days I'm at work so I'm a bit worried about her amusing herself by creating more holes - hence the extra-large bones.

#135 I can see from other people's comments that Blackout is probably not her best book so perhaps I'm being unfair ... I think originally it was To Say Nothing of the Dog that drew her to my attention.

Of the time-travel series, I've only read Doomsday Book. It sounds like Blackout and All Clear frustrate a lot of people.

Catching up here - poor, poor Daisy. Is she done with the collar now? Please give her my love.

Sorry to hear Daisy has been so miserable with her special collar and her short walks. Hopefully she'll soon be back to normal. I love the Olympic photos, glad you had a good time there.

I've not yet read any Willis, I have been quite looking forward to getting to Domesday but am in even less of a hurry than before to read Blackout.

SandDune - Hopefully Daisy will stop once she can have her proper runs again. I can understand that you are worried about more holes in the hall. Does she roam in the house when she is on her own, or does she have assigned rooms?
Our dogs usually stay in the kitchen, with the door open to the front room.

The hall is where she stays when we we are out. The idea is that the cat has the run of the kitchen and utility room (so can get at the cat flap) and Daisy has the hall. Originally, we chose it as there is a tiled floor and we didn't think there was much she could damage in it! Hopefully she will settle down once she gets used to being on her own again when I'm at work - because of the school holidays she hasn't been left on her own a huge amount over the past couple of months.

Well, my Open University text books have arrived for my Nineteenth Century literature course, along with two of the set texts that they provide:

Dracula Bram Stoker
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad

The actual course doesn't start for another four weeks - I really need to start doing some of my course reading!

Oh you have got a cat as well, how do they get on with each other? We do like cats, but both, my Mum and Dad, are allergic to cat hair.

"Heart of Darkness" is still on my TBR pile. That's a book I ment to read for a very long time. However, as you know - looking at all the book recomendations here - it is so easy to become distracted from actually planned reads. :)

Your 19th century class should be terrific. What else will you be reading?

Those are both books that I want to get to. I had started Dracula last year and made it through about half way when the book mysteriously disappeared. Turns out my nephew had snagged it when he was here for a visit, not realizing that I was reading it at the time! Now I have it back but haven't gotten round to finishing it yet - perhaps in October.

#144 I'd say that the cat and the dog tolerate each other rather than anything else. Ruby (the cat) acts rather like a grumpy old lady confronted by a too bouncy five year old. She just doesn't want to know at all, and hisses and tries to whack Daisy if she comes too close. Whereas Daisy would like to play with Ruby and starts every day with the idea that maybe today is the day that Ruby will make friends with her. They don't come into contact much apart from first thing in the morning when Ruby prowls around the kitchen until she has been fed, generally stopping Daisy doing whatever it is she's trying to do.

#146 I thought I'd listened to Dracula as an audio book previously, but thinking about it was probably an abridgement so I don't think that counts. I usually avoid abridgements like the plague but I think I was desperate for something to listen to on a long journey once.

#145 Here's the full reading list:

Northanger Abbey Jane Austen
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
The Awakening Kate Chopin
The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
Dombey and Son Charles Dickens
Middlemarch George Eliot
Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
Far From the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
Dracula Bram Stoker
Germinal Emile Zola

Wow - what a great list! A bunch of those are in my TBR pile. That class should be so interesting.

That IS an interesting list. I've read only half of them.

You're going to be busy, Rhian! When is your first TMA due? :-)

#149, 150, 151 Interesting but a little bit intimidating I think. I have read quite a few of the books before, and we start with Northanger Abbey and Jane Eyre, both of which I have read more than once, but there's some real chunky reads in there, particularly Dombey and Son and Middlemarch. And we've got an exam at the end of it as well, but not until May thank goodness!

#151 The course itself doesn't start until the beginning of October so I assume that the first one will be about the beginning of November, but I haven't had the schedule yet.

Funny thing yesterday with Daisy. We were watching 'I am Legend' with Will Smith on the TV. For those who haven't seen it, he is supposed to be the last man alive with only his faithful German Shepherd dog for company, and the dog appears in quite a few scenes. Well for some reason Daisy took huge exception to the dog. As soon as she had seen it she just didn't take her eyes off it and just sat there growling at the television. She's always seemed friendly with any German Shepherds that she's met so I don't think it's that she just doesn't like the breed. I assume she thought it was invading her territory or behaving suspiciously or something!

That is so funny!

That is funny!

LOL - this is so so great - At least, she only growled and did not attack the TV, because he was invading her territory. So, what did you think about the movie and did you read the book by Richard Matheson ?

A very nice booklist for your literature class up there a few I know, a few I don't. However, I am sure they will keep you busy for some time.

The book was really different from the movie, wasn't it? One's about zombies and the other's about vampires, for one thing. (If I remember correctly). I liked both the movie and the book...and I'm not a fan of movies, usually, so that's a good sign. :)

ETA: Come to think of it, I don't really remember the movie that much...

Fun thing about Daisy! Our dog is also named Daisy, but try as we might, she never pays attention to dogs on tv. Not as bright as your Daisy, I suspect. Great reviews above. The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window And Disappeared has really caught my interest.

As to the pictures of what you consider a " garden" or back yard, I must tell you that my nephew, who is 22, spent 6 weeks at Oxford this summer and absolutely loved it! He's currently working on his Master's degree, but very much hopes to return to Britain to do his PhD. So, for him , your gardens or lack thereof where of no consequence! :)

#154,155 Hi Bianca, Darryl

#156,157 I enjoyed the film - I'd seen it before but it's been quite stressy at work this week and felt like something easy. I haven't read the book but it's one of the ones I bought at a book sale a few weeks ago, so I had a quick flick through after the film had finished. It does look quite different.

One's about zombies and the others about vampires - I would have said that the film has zombie-like vampires if that makes sense, or maybe vampire-like zombies! Actually they can't be zombies because they're not dead. To be honest I'm not really an expert because I'm terribly squeamish about that sort of thing and most zombie films are way beyond my tolerance level.

#158 what you consider a "garden" or backyard - I wouldn't want you to go away with the idea that all British houses only have a patch of concrete at the back, like the pictures I posted on Mamie's thread. Those types of backyards are only found in the cheaper type of small Victorian terraced houses, and even a lot of those will have a bit more space. Most houses do have gardens, by which I mean something with a lawn or flowerbeds or vegetables etc. But the size of garden considered reasonable by British standards is just tiny in comparison with the US or Canada. There are some really quite big houses being built on an estate near us, houses with five or six bedrooms and several bathrooms, so expensive houses, but the gardens are just minute!

I've been meaning to get the Legend movie..... but worrying I would hate it as I'm not much of either a zombie or a vampire fan - although I love Will Smith.

What a tremendously fine list. I've read most of them, but several so long ago I don't know if they really 'count' - I hope you'll keep us posted on all of it.

#158 Deborah, also meant to add - I'm glad your nephew enjoyed his time in Oxford. We used to go there quite regularly but haven't been to look around for ages - it's a bit of an awkward journey from where we live now - a bit far for a day trip but a bit near for a weekend. Did he go punting when he was there? We live quite near Cambridge and I usually manage to persuade my husband to go punting at least once a year, and it's such a lovely way to spend a sunny afternoon.

By the way I'll tell Mr SandDune that you think Daisy sounds bright - he's convinced that she's very stupid!

#160 Lucy, I'm not really a fan of zombie movies either but I did enjoy this one. By the way, my husband usually doesn't like Will Smith (he thinks he always plays Will Smith) but he thought he was brilliant in this one.

*laugh* I had the movie for several month, before I finally watched it. I could not find anyone to watch it with me - In the end my family teased me so much, that I finally watched it myself - Aaaand I was so scared initial - and then upset because of the dog.

The book and the movie are very different, however I liked both pretty much.

Daisy sounds adorable! I know our dog will pay attention to the TV if he hears a dog bark, but I've not heard him growl before, just looks mildly interested

Your course sounds very interesting! That's a great list of books!

The list of books for the course looks great Rhian. Germinal is a particular favourite. I have read 8 out of the 12 books listed in the last 6 years or so. Will follow your progress avidly and may join for a book or two.

Have a great weekend.

Daisy really doesn't like that collar does she?! My boys call those collars "the cone of shame". It's a reference to Hacker the dog from CBeebies who wore one in a CBeebies sketch and wasn't very happy about it either!

It's great that you got to see some of the Paralympics live and that nineteenth century literature course sounds just wonderful.

Hi Rhian! I lost you for a while there, but now I'm all caught up. I know it's from ages ago, but Stitches sounds really interesting. I'm another one who wasn't a massive fan of Blackout. There were some nice bits of writing in there, but buried under lots of annoying plot points and as you say, some fairly innocuous characterisations. Doomsday Book is much bettter, though it does still suffer from some of the same problems. It does paint a pretty devastating and unforgettable portrait of life in that period though, which Blackout doesn't really achieve.
I'm also loving the Daisy sagas. I remember when our family dog had one of those collars. He was always dropping his head, then getting the collar jammed into the ground and almost falling over, which was rather amusing. That picture of Daisy looking very unamused is priceless.

Hi Bianca, Chelle, Paul, Dee, Hannah,

For those who have been commiserating with Daisy ... the collar is now off! We went to the vets today to have her stitches out (or stitch as there only seemed to be one that needed removing) so she is back to normal. Suprisingly, she was quite happy to go into the vets, considering how miserable she was when she left last time. But she refused point blank to lie on her side for the stitches to be removed - the nurse had to call in for reinforcements in the form of the receptionist to keep her in position! She seems to appreciate being able to cuddle up properly again as she definitely feels her role in life is to be a lap dog.

#162 Bianca, you sound like me in watching movies - I am such a scaredy cat sometimes.

#163 Paul, Germinal is one of the books that I've read before and to be honest I didn't much like it the first time around. But it is one that has stayed with me and I might have a different reaction this time.

#166 Hannah, Daisy never really learnt to cope with her collar. Virtually every time she went outside she managed to get it stuck on the washing machine door on the way.

Hmmm... sounds like I have to put it in my netflix queue.

So happy that Daisy has gotten rid of both the collar and her stitches. Go Daisy!

Interesting info regarding your husband last name, Rhian. Enjoy Mormon Girl if you decide to read it. My husband last name is so unusual , we are not sure whether it is of German or Dutch origin, and neither was his dad.

As for my nephew going punting, I'm not sure about that. He was mainly working on some Human Genome project -and what he loved besides that , were the pubs in Oxfordshire... ;)

(Actually, I am blushing and must ask you, what is punting? ) Some sort of rowing thing, or a pub crawler or.. well, I'm not sure! :)

Catching up once more...

Some great reviews again. Skios sounds tempting, I'll put it on my watchlist.

Thanks for posting the Paralympics pics - and the one with Daisy, poor thing!

Since joining LT I read most of the books from your list, except for Far from the Madding Crowd and Dombey and Son. I liked all the others, some have become favorites. But there are some big tomes on that list - how much time do you have to get through them?

I am making slow progress with The Hundred-Year-Old Man, and so far I can say it is different from everything else I've read in the past years. It's full of surprises and I like that.

#168,169 Hi Lucy, Mamie

#170 what is punting? Some sort of rowing thing, or a pub crawler or.. well, I'm not sure! Punting is one of the nicest ways of spending a sunny afternoon that I know. Actually I'll rephrase that - being punted is one of the nicest ways etc... etc... I like the idea of reclining elegantly, trailing my hand in the water, eating strawberries and sipping champagne - you get the idea. Actually the practice is usually slightly different. Anyway, a punt is a small flat-bottomed wooden boat that will take about six people which is propelled by means of a long pole handled by someone standing on a platform at the end of the boat. It's a traditional activity for students in both Oxford and Cambridge and a major tourist activity. Watching the major snarl-ups and upsets on the river at the height of summer is quite an amusing spectator sport as well but we always miss out the busy sections and head out into the countryside where the novice punters don't usually get to. Mr SandDune went to Oxford so he does know how to punt properly. I'll post a picture when I can get on the PC.

#171 Nathalie, glad you're enjoying The Hundred-Year-Old Man. My course runs for eight months from the beginning of October. I'm intending to do a couple of the bigger books in audiobook on my way to work.

Punting is fabulous fun, but watching amateurs do it from the riverbank is definitely more fun.

Great review of The Hundred Year Old Man Rhian - that had appealed to me just from the title alone but it seems to have got a lot of good reviews so it's definitely gone onto my wishlist now. And I also enjoyed your review of Skios - interesting that both books seem to involve a mistake with suitcases!

#124 Glad you enjoyed your day at the Paralympics. Poor Daisy (and poor wall!) Is the hole in the wall easily/cheaply repairable? My parents dog chewed their new linoleum kitchen floor to shreds when he was a puppy... Anyway, glad to hear the collar is off now and Daisy can get some proper cuddles again.

55 The End of the World Andrew Biss *1/2



Well this novella is definitely the worst book I have read all year. I don't quite know what to write about it - a very weird and surreal story to which there seems to be very little point or sense or interest, interspersed with very simplistic harangues about the evils of Western capitalist civilisation, and a dose of Tibetan Buddhism. It made absolutely no sense to me whatever: if there was a meaning in passed me by totally.

Valentine is a young man seemingly in his early twenties, who has never been outside his parents' house as a result of their ideas of child-rearing, and those ideas seem very unusual indeed. Apparently the sole focus of his mother's life since the day he was born, he is informed brusquely at the start of the book that he must leave home the same day to make way for the new baby that, despite her advanced age, she claims to be expecting. Discarded without a second thought by his parents and completely unprepared for life in the outside world, he is mugged within a mile or two of his home, and finds refuge at the End of the World Bed and Breakfast.

Then if Valentine's home life was strange things start to get even stranger. Confronted by various characters such as the Bosnian woman whose stomach has been blown out by a neighbour with a shotgun or the strident money man who appears from the refrigerator and inveigles him into investing his last few pounds in a scheme to implant televisions into the foreheads of boring people, Valentine becomes more and more confused, as indeed does the reader. It soon becomes apparent that rather than escaping the mugger's bullet as he thought, he is actually dead and is in a halfway house between death and whatever comes next.

By this time the book had lost any internal logic that it might have started with, and seemed to lurch from one type of book to another. The initial chapters with Valentine's family were (I think) meant to be funny, although I didn't find them so, and then there were several sections criticising the West for allowing the sufferings of the rest of the world, detailing quite graphically the ways in which a person could be killed in the various troublespots of the world, which most definitely weren't. Plus quite a lot of moralising from a vaguely Buddhist perspective. It could have worked if it was done more subtly but subtle is something that this book is definitely not - rather it feels more like someone is hitting you over the head with a sledge hammer to get their point across.

So overall a hugely disappointing book. The basic idea could have been worked into something much more interesting and thought-provoking. I really enjoyed Kevin Brockmeier's A Brief History of the Dead which dealt with a similar idea of a halfway house between death and something else, but this was a total washout for me.

>170 vancouverdeb: Deb, I took several photos when I went punting with FlossieT and her children and lunacat in Cambridge last August, which you can see in my photo gallery. Here's a link to one of them:

http://www.librarything.com/pic/3442813

#173 For some reasons when I've been watching the worst punters always seem Spanish teenagers!

#174 We will have to get the hall replastered I think at some stage. The original hole was where we had removed a radiator because we wanted to put a table belonging to my grandparents in the same spot, but as it was under the table it wasn't very obvious. The new holes are in much more obvious positions unfortunately. But the whole hall desperately needs redecorating anyway, so there's no point getting too excited about it.

#176 Did you have a go at the punting yourself Darryl? I don't, with the excuse that I have a very poor sense of balance. And Mr SandDune can punt pretty well, so can manoeuvre out of all the traffic jams at the moorings, which I would definitely not be able to do.

Sorry that your last read was such a disappointment, Rhian. I really hope your next read is a much better one!

I was going to write that I didn't like the sound of The End of The World but then realised how ridiculous that would look! The storyline plus your 'worst book of the year' rating has definitely put me off. Unfortunate title too!

I am glad that Daisy, finally, got rid off her her terrible collar, and get her proper cuddles again.

I have never done any punting myself, but I was able to watch it, many years ago, on one of my visits to Oxford and just thought that it looks like tremendous fun.

#178 Hi Stasia, I'm listening to Arthur C Clarke's The City and The Stars at the moment on audiobook and that's going a lot better so far.

#179 Dee, the title of The End Of the World actually appealed to me quite a lot - I'm not sure what that says about me though!

#189 Hi Bianca, Daisy is cuddled up next to me as I type, snoring away (Daisy is snoring, I mean, not me). This year is the first one for ages that we haven't gone punting - it was just so wet earlier in the year - you really need to have a nice sunny day.

56. The City and the Stars Arthur C. Clarke ****



I've been in the mood for some classic SciFi recently and I suppose that you can't get any more classic than Arthur C. Clarke. I thought that I'd read this book as I know we used to have it (part of Mr SandDune's library before he met me), but after listening to it again it's clear I probably just glanced at the first few chapters -after that it didn't sound familiar at all.

In the far future, Alvin lives in the city of Diaspar, the last city of humanity. Once humans ruled a vast empire stretching across the galaxy, but under the threat of mysterious beings known only as 'The Invaders' they retreated to Earth a billion years previously. Outside Diaspar the oceans have dried and turned to dust, and the land has been consumed by never-ending desert. Inside Diaspar life is changeless: controlled by the all-powerful central computer everything is maintained in the same perfect condition that has lasted for a billion years. Humanity too, is effectively immortal. Even after an extended lifespan of a thousand years a human does not die, as their memories and personalities are saved by the central computer to be reborn into a newly created body, tens of thousands of years into the future. In this world Alvin is literally unique: a human being who has never existed before in the history of the city. Totally different from his fellow citizens in that he finds the restrictions of his life unbearable, Alvin sets out to discover what is outside the city of Diaspar, and in doing so brings change to the unchanging city.

Considering this was written in the 1950's this book has lasted very well indeed, and I enjoyed it very much. But for me something was lacking in the final explanation of the creation of Diaspar and the true history of the human race which comes at the end of the book, something quite unsatisfying. Given the context of the book, I don't know that it makes much sense to say that I didn't find the ending very believable, but I didn't. So well worth reading, but not a great book for me.

Was the unbelievable ending a part of its being an older book? Lack of imagination on the part of Clarke? It does sound like a huge 'idea' - maybe just too unwieldy? I've always liked Clarke's short pieces the best and have found the novels less satisfying. I don't think I ever read this one, or if I did, have zero memory of it..... we had tons of sf around the house when I was a teenager (late sixties, early seventies) and it is scary how little of what I know I read has stuck.

I haven't been on LT too much for the last couple of days for two reasons.

First, on Paul's thread I discovered the FictFact Website so I have spent several hours working out what series I have read. On LT I only include books that I own or that I have read since joining LT but on FictFact I've tried to recreate total reading. I haven't read anything like as many series as some people, partly because I often forget what series I have started, so I should find this helpful! Here is my profile if anyone is interested:

http://www.fictfact.com/user/SandDune

The other reason that I haven't had much time is that I have been making some positive steps towards getting a new job. I've been getting more and more frustrated with my current job over the last few months, and I want to go back to a full time position (at the moment I work part-time three days a week). So I saw a recruitment consultant locally on Wednesday, and arranged to see another one in London next week. So fingers crossed that it will lead somewhere.

Rhian - I love that FictFact website because it makes tracking each series so much easier. And I really like where you can pull up which books are next for the series you are reading and which series have new books being released and when. Just brilliant! And once we have all of our stuff logged in, then the time input would be minimal because you would just be entering any new series started or updating where you are at in a series as you finished a book. A great resource, I think.

My fingers are crossed and I am sending you good mojo about getting a new job. Good for you for taking the initiative and seeking out something that will make you happier.

FactFict looks really good, Rhian. I can see it would be a bit addictive, too.

Good luck on the job front - things do seem to be picking up in London, and there's going to need to be a lot of work done to make up for the endless summer!

Hello SandDune - interesting review on the Arthur C. Clarke book. Definately worth putting onto my wishlist. Sounds like a great concept, also you were dissatisfied with the ending.

I wish you lots of luck on the job front. Fingers crossed.

I found you already on fictfact and follow you. I agree, the site is a great source to see where you are in a series on one glance. AND you can see straight away when the sequels are to be published. *Sigh*

#183 I was having difficulty phrasing what my objections to the end of The City and the Stars, especially without including major spoilers - hence my vagueness. I think part of the problem is due to its age - not so much that it has dated in terms of its attitudes but rather than its outlook is a product of when it was written.

At the end of the book the true reason for the retreat to the city of Diaspar is given, in terms of the history of the human race's expansion into space, and wanting to find out what really happened provided much of the book's hook for me. But rather than seeming a real history of real people, to me the history provided shows humanity acting as a homogeneous entity to further its plans, with only two points of view possible: forward and outward looking progressives, and backward looking conservatives, with no middle-ground between them. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well but it seemed to me a very 1950's view of how society works and of the future.

Rhian, just *delurking* to say that the course you are taking sounds fantastic with a list of books like that! I am usually not a fan of classics except for a handle that I enjoyed. I LOVED The Woman in White and it's doubly meaningful to me because it is a classic. :)

I've just finished the third book in the Space Odyssey series by Clarke and enjoyed them all, so I will be looking up The City and the Stars based on your review!

#182 Arthur C. Clarke is one of those classic SF authors I haven't read and really want to - I've had A Fall of Moondust on my bookshelves for a while now.

Also sending best wishes about the job hunt. I did something similar last year - very stressful at the time but worth it in the end as I feel much happier in my current role. I only wish I'd trusted my instincts more regarding some of the interviews I went for rather than falling for the recruitment consultant's spiel about how this was the 'perfect' role for me - I wouldn't recommend the recruitment consultants I used so I can't be of much help there!

#185,186,187 Hi Mamie, Susan, Bianca. You all posted while I was composing a reply to Lucy. I'm very impressed with FictFact - I identified a few series that I had got that they didn't have - so I used the suggest an author option and they added them right away.

#189 Hi Valerie, welcome to my thread. We read Women in White for my RL book club last year and it was one of the few books that we've read that absolutely everyone liked.

#187,189,190 I read quite a lot of science fiction in my teens and early twenties, and then for some reason I stopped. Not sure why - I think maybe because I came across a lot of bad scifi at one point - and i've only just started again in the last couple of years. With LT, and online reviews, and much more scifi reviewed in the press it's much easier now to identify the good stuff from the rest. I've certainly read some Arthur C Clarke before (2001:A Space Odyssey and Childhood's End definitely, and maybe some short stories), but not for a very long time.

Hopefully the job hunting will go OK. The consultant I saw on Wednesday seemed reasonably optimistic and thought my salary expectations were about right, which is a good start. Living where I do means I've got quite a few options in terms of job location. I've been bored in my current job for some time, and over the last few months the relationship with my boss has got more and more frustrating, so I feel much better now that I've actually started looking.

Good luck with the new job hunt. I hope all goes well.

Good luck with the job hunt!

#192,193 Hi Jenny, Rachel - thanks for the good wishes. At least I'm looking from the position of having an existing job, which is always easier and less stressful. I phoned the company where I used to work yesterday to ask my old boss for a reference, to find that he had just been made redundant himself and was leaving in a couple of weeks without having yet found anything else.

Heard on the radio this morning about the Moby Dick Big Read project. Starting tomorrow, a chapter a day, each read by a different person, some famous, some not. It's organised by Philip Hoare the author of Leviathan, or The Whale and the website is here:

http://www.mobydickbigread.com/

Chapter 1 is read by Tilda Swinton and all the downloads are free.

Hi SandDune - thanks for the great link. Moby Dick used to be one of my favourites as a teenager. I wonder how Tilda Swinton sounds - she does have a nice voice.

I'm on Fictfact too - enjoyed looking over your list. More than a few of mine are like reminders of books I want to read..... and it's not complete at all. I'm using it mostly as you are - starting in the present. I'm not listing older series I read long ago. Plenty of older series, of course, that I've not gotten around to though.

Good luck on the job hunt.

The End of the World seems to have been so called because you tend to wish it was just prior to finishing the odious thing. Will not be picking that one up since you were unsure as to whether to recommend it or not!
Have a lovely weekend and I am sure that you will get the job that you desire....does Andrew Bliss want an agent by any chance?

Went to Waterstones this afternoon to find out how my order of Among Others was progressing, and it seems it is not available any more in the UK in a physical book format. The edition that I'd ordered was published in the US, but now it is being published in the UK (but not until March next year) and it seems that the US publisher has lost the right to distribute in the UK in the meantime. I looked on Amazon, but same story - only available from secondary sellers actually in the US - although it definitely was available two weeks ago. Very irritating. I've succumbed to buying it on kindle instead, where it does seem to be still available for some reason.

I was also going to order Boneshaker (recommended by Mamie, I think), but that also wasn't published in the UK until November.

#196 Moby Dick was one of my favourites as a teenager - impressive reading for a teenager! I've never read it, but I've been toying with the idea ever since reading Railsea by China Mieville, as that book is obviously hugely influenced by it.

#197 Lucy, are you using the same user name on FictFact? People have found me, but I haven't been very successful at finding other people for some reason.

#198 The only good thing I'd say about the book is that it is short. If it hadn't been I think there is very little chance that I'd have finished it. The only reason I did finish it was that it was an audiobook and I didn't have anything else to listen to in the car!

I got my first Moby Dick book for my 9th birthday, a children edition with aproximately 300 pages, and I loved the book. In my late teens I read the unabridged adult edition which I loved equally.

I just got Railsea as unabridged audiobook, and I am looking forward listening to it.

I do not think I have ever read anything by Arthur C. Clarke. I am going to have to give him a try some time or other.

#199 That's frustrating news about Among Others. I got the kindle version of the UK edition which for some reason they decided to release early despite the print version not being released until March.

#201 Hi Bianca - hope you enjoy Railsea - it's one of my favourite's of this year.

#202 Stasia, Arthur C. Clarke is definitely worth trying.

#203 I've got the kindle version now as well. I still do prefer physical books though and I'm making a conscious effort to order them from the bookshop rather than via Amazon, as I would be so devastated if we had no local bookshop. To be honest as we are only a mile out of the town centre it's no hassle as I go past the bookshop at least two or three times a week. Unless we are going away I keep kindle purchases to series, books that are really cheap on kindle, and my RL book club books (as both me and Mr SandDune are in the same book club it is useful to be able to read the book at the same time.)

Rhian, there are two things making me consider getting a kindle right now. One is Among Others and the other is the new set of Bloomsbury readers which seem to be around £5 on kindle and up to £19 in paperback.

Good luck with finding the job that is right for you.

#205 I hadn't heard of the Bloomsbury readers before. They look interesting.

For some reason this morning J was filled with an overwhelming urge to fit into Daisy's crate. It was all going well until Daisy decided to get in as well:



You can see evidence of Daisy's hole digging abilities in the wall behind!

Excellent photo! You're obviously protecting your son's privacy so I won't ask if the phrase jack-in-a-box is appropriate ;)

My daughter used to do this with our previous corgi, Evan when he was a puppy.

Good luck with the job search, Rhian! Fingers are firmly crossed.

What a great picture! :-)

FictFact is an interesting website, I've registered as well and am already following you and several other LTers I found there.

Lovely photo :) - Daisy looks like she wants to say "What's that? How did you get in there?"

Kids do the darnedest things, don't they?

Very cute picture :)

#208 Dee -it's Jacob - I just got in the habit of writing J.

#209, 210, 211, 212, 213 - It all got very confused a few seconds later when Daisy got in too on top of him!

#210 Nathalie, good luck with your job hunt too.

Saw another recruitment consultant in central London today - again he seemed fairly optimistic about my CV, and advised me to go for a slightly higher salary range from the first one! I suppose he was looking at central London rates which are higher, but at least I'm not being unrealistic.

Too cute - Birdy used to do that, too, and then all the dogs would of course want to be in there with her! Wish I'd have thought to take a photo.

Fingers crossed to you - for a nice good job with a GOOD salary.

#216 Hi Mamie - I always used to be hopeless about taking photos but now that I post them on LT I'm much more likely to remember to take them in the first place!

#217 a nice good job with a GOOD salary. Any other job feels like it would be progress just now - but because I am going from part-time to full-time, whatever I get should be a good improvement salary wise. And then we can the decorating done, and get some new carpets, and get some new bookcases...

57. Persepolis Marjane Satrapi ***

This graphic novel didn't grab me quite as much as it seems to have grabbed a lot of other readers and I'm struggling to quite understand why. The autobiographical novel starts in the Iran of 1980, a year after the Iranian revolution, and ends around 1994. At the start Marjane is 10, the daughter of a family that has supported the deposing of the Shah, but who now find that the resulting Islamic Republic is not what they had bargained on. From attending a mixed bilingual French school, Marjane finds herself in a world where even young girls have to wear a headscarf and must be kept separate from boys. Soon Iran is in a state of war with Iraq, and Marjane's family's more westernised beliefs put them in constant danger. As an outspoken girl, Marjane is at more at risk of falling foul of the strict laws on female behaviour than most, and eventually at age 14 her parent take the decision that she must be sent abroad to study, and send her to Austria alone.

So why didn't I enjoy this book more? A lot of the information on Iran during this period was fairly familiar to me, so I didn't feel that I learnt very much that was new. And I didn't particularly warm to Marjane as a character - especially in the latter part of the book I found her a little irritating. So worth reading, but not great.

Ha! You know I loved Persepolis, though I didn't really like the second half of the book when she was older, so I'm completely with you on that one! Part of it might be how much you already knew about the culture. I actually got to learn quite a bit from this book, and I think that's why I liked it so much--I didn't expect that. It was a lot darker than I expected it to be, though. I was expecting YA lit. This wasn't it.

Double-posted - how odd!

#220 My sister-in-law's husband is Iranian, so when I started going out with my husband (1984) I probably took a bit more notice of events in Iran than most.

Ha, you just remind me that this is a book I still have to enter in my database. I have read it a few years back (in German), and thought it was ok, presented as a graphic novel I thought that it sort of was appealing. However, it obviously didn't leave enough of an impression, because I only recall bits and pieces of the book.

58. Out of the Silent Planet C.S. Lewis ****

Still continuing my theme of classic science-fiction. Professor Elwin Ransome, a philologist from Oxford University, is on a solitary walking tour in the English Midlands, when he encounters an old school acquaintance Devine, and his associate Weston. Rather than being offered a bed for the night, as he had hoped, he is drugged and kidnapped, and on waking finds himself on a spaceship bound for a planet called Malacandra, which Weston and Devine have visited before. Gathering from an overheard conversation that the two men mean to hand him over as some form of sacrifice to the less than friendly inhabitants of the planet, the sorns, he resolves to escape at the earliest opportunity. But fleeing from the sorns he encounters another of Malacandra's intelligent species, the hrossa, from whom he learns that Weston and Devine have misunderstood completely the nature of life on Malacandra, revealed as Mars. And when he is summoned by Oyarsa, the ruler of Malacandra, the reason why Earth is the silent planet is finally revealed.

C.S. Lewis was one of my favourite writers as a child - I loved the Narnia books and this reminded me slightly of The Last Battle. In common with Lewis's other books this has religious or perhaps spiritual overtones but not excessively so. The book was written in 1938, so it is science-fiction more along the lines of H.G.Wells or Jules Verne, rather than anything more modern. Don't go looking here for any scientific accuracy, but it's a fun read and Malacandra is beautifully described. I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series.

J had an interesting author visit at school today - Alex Scarrow, the author of the time riders YA series, which is pretty much J's favourite series at the moment. Apparently he was a much more exciting speaker (in a 12 year old's eyes at least) than Marcus Sedgewick who they had last year.

Oooh, coincidentally I picked up The City and the Stars from the school library the other day, and will hopefully get round to it soonish. I read Childhood's End last year and really liked it. The C.S.Lewis sounds quite intriguing too - I had no idea he wrote Sci-Fi.

#226 There are three books in his space trilogy of which this is the first: the other two are Perelandra and That Hideous Strength. It is very much a novel of its time, Ransome's first view of the inhabitants of Malacandra is that they must be primitive 'savages' and Weston's desire to subjugate the inhabitants so that the planet can be colonised very much echoes the ideas of Western colianialism in the first half of the twentieth century. But in Ransome the book has a protagonist who is inherently curious and open to his surroundings, so the book is much more thoughtful than your average space opera.

Good morning,
I told Alex that J had the pleasure of meeting Alex Scarrow at school, he turned green with envy. Not that he has read any books by him yet *grin*, but the idea of meeting an author and be able to talk to him. He met last year a German children's book author, and he very much enjoyed the reading and the following discussion about the characters. I thought he would finally start reading books without pictures - but no - Once more, I had to organize the audiobooks. :)

Yesterday, I started to listen to Railsea and I have to say, I found it very difficult to follow the story, I sort of got lost right at the beginning. I think I have to wait until I am back in London and can get the book, then I can to a tandem read.

Funny story from the author visit: J mentioned that Alex Scarrow had been shocked to discover that his audience had never heard of Nevada. I was a bit shocked that J had never heard of Nevada as well, dumbfounded really given the amount of time that he's spent poring over maps in his life. J said no - not the US state - the band Nevada. Then it clicked - he'd been talking about Nirvana!

#228 Thinking about it I'm not sure that Railsea would work well as an audio book - I remember having to check back several times to clarify what was happening at the beginning. I've been listening to quite a lot of audiobooks recently but I always have to choose books that are really quite straightforward and fairly traditional in structure, otherwise I get confused!

So Alex Scarrow was discussing "Nirvana" with the kids - I wonder what he told them about their lyric? And in which context they came up?

Yeah, I think that's the problem with the book, it is not quite straightforward. So, I definately will put it on hold until I have got the book.

>230 SandDune: I generally try to have faith that if they bothered making a book into an audiobook, that it must be a "readable" audiobook. But that's not necessarily the case, is it?

#231 I'm not sure the discussion about Nirvana really progressed as none of his audience had heard of him! But I'll ask J when he gets home.

#232 I've come across lots of audiobooks that have made me wonder why anyone would want to 'read' them in that format. But I suppose it does depend on how you listen to the books - I listen to audiobooks while driving to and from work so I do need something that enables me to concentrate on the road as well.

I suppose part of the reason so many books become audiobooks, whether or not they seem suitable, would be for people with visual problems. It would be unfair for blind or visually impaired people to only be able to enjoy books that were considered 'good' for that format.

Okay, the Narnia series was one of my favourite books to read growing up, but I had NO IDEA that Lewis wrote any science fiction books until I came across a review for the same book on Donna's thread! I'll definitely have to keep an eye out for that series.

Rachel, did you ever read anything by China Mieville. His plots can be at times quite complicated, which makes them at times very difficult to follow as audio. I usually to it as Tandem - Book/Audio. Kraken by him was like that. However, I agree with lunacat, I think it is to give people who can't read for whatever reasons the opportunity to enjoy books as well.
My nan is a very good example. She was always a very avid reader, but since her eye sight got really bad she switched to audiobooks. My Dad and I are constantly hunting books for her. :)

Oh well, just now my son is cracking me up - his birthday was in July and he just asked me if it would be possible if he could make already a birthday wish for next year - He is desperate to see Avenue Q the musical (he loves musicals), and he just found out that they are next year in the summer hollidays performing in Dunstable, Leeds or Southhampton - He told me that it is very important to book the tickets now, because otherwise we wouldn't be able to get any nearer to the date. *laugh* Well - that's kids for you.

Have a lovely Weekend Rhian.

Morning Rhian! The predictive text on my phone doesn't cope with names too well and wanted me to call you Ruffian!

Good luck with the job hunting, and good for you for making the decision to try to change your current situation. It's amazing how long we will put up with jobs that make us unhappy sometimes.

As for punting, I refused to have a go in all my time at Cambridge because I was rejecting the whole Brideshead privileged rich student image while I was a student, and spent my time working very hard and being very dull. Then on my last night I had a go, found I had a knack for it, and realised I'd been missing out on a lot of fun for three years. So when I ended up in Oxford later on, I made sure to go punting very often!

>236 drachenbraut23: No, I actually haven't read anything by China Mievelle, though I certainly should have! It's good to know not to listen to his books as audio!

#234, 236 Jenny, Bianca - you're right about the audiobooks - I wasn't thinking about people with impaired vision - rather people choosing to read a particular book in an audiobook format.

#236 There's nothing like planning ahead I suppose! J has announced that he wants a table tennis table for Christmas - I haven't got a clue how he thinks a table tennis table is going to fit in our house!

#237 Genny, we used to live on the Oxford side of London and went there quite often for a day out. Despite being able to punt as he'd gone to Oxford himself, Mr SandDune would always refuse point blank to participate until a friend of his was over from Australia, whose wife wanted to go punting as well. Then he remembered that he actually quite enjoyed punting, but we moved nearer Cambridge a couple of months later so that was the only time I've ever been punting in Oxford. We probably go for at least one punting trip a year now, but usually towards Granchester, rather than doing the Backs.

#238 Rachel - never read anything by China Mieville? I'm shocked!

>239 SandDune: Yes, I'm afraid there are a few such shocking holes in my library. :) I DO try. ;)

Hi Rhian - well, I only say KIDS are just great.

240> He is definately worth reading. You may want to try Embassytown my favourite so far. The book has a very interesting protagonist namely "LANGUAGE".

#224: I just finished reading the Space Trilogy, Rhian, and you are right in saying that the books are rather 'old-fashioned' science fiction. That did not hurt my enjoyment of the trilogy whatsoever though! I hope you continue to enjoy the books.

59. Among Others Jo Walton *****

I'd seen this book about a science-fiction obsessed Welsh girl escaping from her family situation recommended by a number of people on LT and I'd liked the look of it. I'm Welsh and I love books about books, so it definitely appealed. But then I saw that the family situation that she was escaping from was that her mother was a witch, and that the girl (Mori) spoke to fairies and I began to have second thoughts. Not that I have a major objection to witchcraft or fairies in books if it's well done, but because being Welsh myself I do sometimes have an issue with the train of thought that goes Wales = Celtic = mysticism = Merlin = magic = King Arthur etc etc. I needn't have worried - I absolutely loved Among Others and the magic and the witchcraft and the fairies fitted beautifully into a picture of South Wales in the late 1970's which I found completely real.

Told in a series of diary excerpts, Among Others tells the story of Mori, a fourteen year old girl from the Welsh valleys who has run away from her mother (who she believes to be a witch), ending up in the care of her rather ineffectual English father, who she has not seen since he left her mother when she was a baby. Traumatised by the loss of her twin sister, Mor, who it soon becomes clear has been killed in an accident in which Mori was badly injured, she is sent by her father's family to an English boarding school. With a very different family background to the other girls, and with her inability to participate in the games that are an important part of school life, she is doubly an outsider. Her only outlet are the science -fiction books that she loves and reads avidly: they provide her life-line and her way of moving forward.

Part of the reason that I liked this book so much was that it appealed to me on a very personal level. Mori's descriptions of the Welsh Valleys resonated with what I find really important in a landscape, despite the crowdedness of her valley with its 'population of more than a hundred thousand, all living in Victorian terraced houses, terraced up the hillside ... Away from these rows, it was wild. .... the hills were beautiful, were green and had trees and sheep, and they were always there. They didn't belong to anyone, unlike the flat farmed fenced-in countryside around the school.' I once worked in Bermuda for a few months, and while everyone kept telling me it was really beautiful, and I suppose it was, it felt like the entire island was someone's garden, and it was just too manicured and organised ... I felt claustrophobic all the time I was there because of that lack of spaces that didn't seem to belong to anyone. I didn't grow up in the Welsh valleys although they were nearby (my wild places were sand dunes and beaches rather than hills and moors) but I'm familiar enough with the places that she describes to see that the feeling is exactly the same.

So - a strong recommendation - especially for science-fictions lovers.So many books that you might have forgotten about that are just waiting to be re-read!

#241 I've got Embassytown sitting on the shelf but I haven't got around to it yet. It looks like the sort of book that you'd need to give your undivided attention.

#242 Stasia, the fact that they were old-fashioned wasn't a problem for me either! I'm looking forward to the next two.

Love your review of the Jo Walton -- esp your digression on cultivated and wild spaces. I had the same reaction to Bermuda. Claustrophobic in the extreme..... literally nowhere you can go and take a long walk.

Hi Rhian. Also loved your review of Among Others and glad you enjoyed it. Embassytown is a Mieville book I've had sitting around for a while along with The City and the City - I think I keep feeling that they're going to require quite a lot of concentration.

#246 The City and the City is a fairly straightforward read, although there are some complex ideas. It reads pretty much like a detective novel.