SandDune's 75 in 2013 Episode 3

Welcome to thread number 3 to all posters, lurkers or whoever. February reading has slowed down a bit, but it's still proceeding at a fair old rate for me. Over the last few weeks I've been concentrating on last year's Booker Prize shortlist but I'm hoping to focus on a few of my other categories from the 13 Category Challenge over the coming month. The featured illustrator for this thread is Raymond Briggs famous for The Snowman, but here are some of his other creations:

Father Christmas (and a very grumpy one he is too):



Fungus the Bogeyman (my personal favourite):



and The Elephant and the Bad Baby:



Here are my favourite reads from 2013:

The Garden of Evening Mists Tan Twan Eng *****
Tooth and Claw Jo Walton *****
The Lighthouse Alison Moore ****1/2

and from 2012:

Northanger Abbey Jane Austen *****
Among Others Jo Walton *****
The Arrival Shaun Tan *****
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter *****
The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett *****
Railsea China Mieville *****
Stitches David Small *****
Nightingale Wood Stella Gibbons ****1/2
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 2013:

1. The Lighthouse Alison Moore ****1/2
2. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Alison Bechdel ***1/2
3. Clueless Dogs Rhian Edwards ***
4. Swimming Home Deborah Levy ****
5. Narcopolis Jeet Thayil **
6. Harriet Elizabeth Jenkins ****
7. Dotter of her Father's Eyes Mary Talbot Bryan Talbot ***1/2
8. Perelandra C.S.Lewis **1/2
9. The Last Sunset Bob Atkinson ***
10. Bring up the Bodies Hilary Mantel ****
11. The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making Catherynne M. Valente ***1/2
12. Pure Andrew Miller***1/2
13. The Garden of Evening Mists *****
14. Umbrella Will Self ****
15. Sixpence House Paul Collins **1/2
16. Father Christmas Raymond Briggs ***1/2
17. Tooth and Claw Jo Walton *****
18. The Lost Dog Michelle de Kretser ***1/2
19. Ethel and Ernest Raymond Briggs ****
20. When the Wind Blows Raymond Briggs ***1/2
21. My Dog Tulip J. R. Ackerley ****
22. Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury ***
23. The White Mountains John Christopher ***1/2
24. The City of Gold and Lead John Christopher ****
25. Moon over Soho Ben Aaronovitch ***1/2
26. The Pool of Fire John Christopher ***

Books Acquired in 2013:

1. Tintin and the Secret of Literature Tom McCarthy
2. Clueless Dogs Rhian Edwards (R)
3. Dotter of her Father's Eyes Mary M. Talbot (R)
4. Space Magic David D. Levine (ER)
5. Island of Wings Karin Altenberg
6. The Cat's Table Michael Ondaatje (gift)
7. Prophecy S.J. Parris (gift)
8. Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that can't Stop Talking Susan Cain
9. Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather Pierre Szalowski
10. The Sandman: The Doll's House Neil Gaiman
11. The Three Sisters May Sinclair
12. Losing Battles Eudora Welty
13. Women in the Wall Julia O'Faolain
14. Tooth and Claw Jo Walton (R)
15. The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli
16. Awakenings Oliver Sacks
17. The Light Between the Oceans M L Stedman

hese are my categories for the 13 Category Challenge. All the category names are from books in my library or wishlist.

The Welsh Girl Peter Ho Davies
Fiction about Wales or by Welsh authors set in the twentieth or twenty-first century. No Celtic mythology or Arthurian fables or medieval history.

Astonishing Splashes of Colour Claire Morrell
Picturebooks and graphic novels. This one will include at least some of the Sandman novels by Neil Gaiman

My Dog Tulip J.R. Ackerley
All things dog related.

The Gardens of Kyoto Kate Walbert
Fiction by Japanese authors.

Love on the Dole Walter Greenwood
Working-class fiction.

The End of Your Life Book Club Will Schwalbe
RL book club choices.

Is There Anything You Want? Margaret Forster
Recommendations from LT and elsewhere.

Possession A.S.Byatt
Books that I've possessed for more than 6 months and that really need reading. Several Persephone books fall into this category.

Touching the Void Joe Simpson
Filling in the gaps on my reading by year list.

Hothouse Brian Aldiss
My Open University reading: nineteenth century novels at the start of the year and probably twentieth century writing at the end.

The Thirteenth Tale Diane Setterfield
Series that I'm currently working through.

Oranges are not the only fruit Jeanette Winterson
The (ex) Orange prize and Booker prize and any other prizes that sound interesting.

A Brief History of the Dead Kevin Brockmeier
Dystopian fiction and the end of the world.

Favourite books by year -one of my 13 categories is to fill in some 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 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.

Am I first?!?

*settles in for the next 200 or so messages*

That's very quick Katie. You are first!

Second, me!

Third, me!

Happy new thread!

Hi Rhian, just settling in and getting comfortable!

Lovely new thread, Rhian!

>5 SandDune: *IMPRESSED*
I have mine all written down in a little book, and I add to it periodically. I have pencilled in the ones of certain years that I might read, and which would fill those pesky gaps. But Im afraid with the 1800's ones, I couldnt say they were my favourites from each year, just that they were the ONE from each year that I have actually read!

I liked your reviews of Umbrella and Garden of the Evening Mists. I loved GotEM when I read it last year. I haven't gotten the nerve to read Umbrella yet because I've heard it's so difficult (as you said in your review!) Hopefully I'll work my way up to it someday....

Catching up with decorating (love J’s comments) and job (ugh, but hopefully you can relax for awhile now that the reshuffling is done)... Malaysia? And oh, here’s a shiny new thread... Phew! How’s the reshelving going?

I adore Fungus the Bogeyman. Himself and I still say "Boibye mould" to each other when he goes one way and I go another. I have all of his Father Christmas books but haven't seen the elephant one.

So many visitors! Hi Katie, Genny, Roni, Chelle, Judy, Mamie, Megan, Rachel, Katherine, Tui

#14 with the 1800's ones, I couldn't say they were my favourites from each year, just that they were the ONE from each year that I have actually read! - same with me! And some years seemed really easy - I had several great books that I could have picked - while the year before or the year after was a complete desert.

#15 Umbrella isn't an easy read but it's not as difficult as it looks. It is worth it, though, if you ever feel like tackling it.

Hi Rhian! I just love your cartoons, especially the one about the slime! :)Just read your review of Umbrella and it's excellent! Thumb up! I've been afraid to tackle it. Still am, but your review gives me a bit more confidence.

#16 Katherine there's been such a lot going on recently that this weekend has been the first for ages where I've felt that I could sit down for ten minutes without feeling guilty that I wasn't doing one of the long list of jobs that I needed to get around to. I have shelved all the fiction paperbacks, and non-fiction paperback memoirs and travel, as well as all history. The remaining paperbacks will be done Friday afternoon once the carpets have been laid. The remaining hardbacks will have to wait until our new book cases arrive: we were sorting those out at the weeketo and it took a lot longer than I thought. We couldn't work out why the height of the shelves multiplied by the number of shelves didn't add up to the height of the bookcase. After half an hour of puzzling we realised that we hadn't allowed for the thickness of the shelves and then all became clear. We are having one new proper bookcase in our sitting room for the normal sized hardbacks, and then a section of open shelving for super-sized books, DVD's, new paperbacks etc.

#17 Tui The Elephant and the Bad Baby is written by Elfrida Vipont but Raymond Briggs did the illustrations. It is a lovely repetitive book for very small children and was one of J's favourites as a toddler. Basically an elephant meets a 'bad baby' and they go around the town with the elephant stealing something from each shop they pass, one item for himself and one for the bad baby, and the shopkeepers all chase after them. At the end the elephant is shocked because the bad baby does not once say 'please'. But of course it all ends happily ever after. It was published in 1969 but the shops and shopkeepers depicted mainly belonged to a bygone age even then. And the morals are quite ambiguous (some of the reviewers on Amazon get very upset about this): the not saying please is a much bigger deal than all the elephant's thefts, and one of the characters is depicted smoking a cigar! But I think it's wonderful! This is the text for the barrow boy page, which is the one I included above: you can see the elephant's trunk on the right hand side getting his apple.

Next they came to a fruit barrow. And the Elephant said to the Bad Baby, “Would you like an apple?” And the Bad Baby said, “Yes.” So the Elephant stretched out his trunk and took an apple for himself and an apple for the Bad Baby, and they went rumpeta, rumpeta, rumpeta, all down the road with the ice-cream man, and the pork butcher, and the baker, and the snack bar man, and the grocer, and the lady from the sweet shop, and the barrow boy all running after.

#19 Deborah - thanks for the thumbs-up. We've no longer got J's copies of Fungus the Bogeyman or The Elephant and the Bad Baby and I so wish we'd kept them as I'd love to look at them again.

On second thoughts we might have The Elephant and the Bad Baby in the loft. We did keep his favourite toddler books for sentimental reasons and that was one of them. I'll have to send Mr SandDune up to investigate.

I bought The Elephant and the Bad Baby seeing some online recommendation, and I liked some of Elfrida Vipont's books for older readers. I don't really like reading it but the kids love it, and it was actually quite helpful for teaching them to say please, especially my younger one.

Like the Raymond Briggs opening pictures:)

Looking forward to hearing that the renovation is over and you can relax and enjoy your home again.

#23 Luci I really liked reading this one to be honest. I can still remember the 'rumpeta, rumpeta, rumpeta, all down the road' from when J was tiny!

#24 Hi Calm - once I'd posted all the pictures I went to check if J still had any of his old Raymond Briggs books and we do still have Father Christmas so I'll have a good look at that when I get home from work. I will be really happy once the renovations are complete, but the decorators phoned this morning to put back the decoration of the dining room by one week. So we're not quite there yet.

I forgot to comment earlier - I don't think of Raymond Briggs in association with the Snowman, but rather grew up with and adored his grumpy Father Christmas (with his 'blooming this' and 'blooming that' and 'blooming Christmas here again!'), and Fungus the Bogeyman, with the wonderful inversion of values which was such fun for a child to revel in - everything clean is disgusting and the more filthy and putrid anything is, the better!

Same here, Genny. I don't own a copy of the Snowman, actually.

And here I sit, up to now blissfully ignorant that Briggs did anything other than The Snowman! What fun LT is.

>26 gennyt: - everything clean is disgusting and the more filthy and putrid anything is, the better!
My son is right in that zone now. He thinks he is hilarious! It is kind of funny, I have to admit.
I enjoy more his fun word -play. The other day we spent 15 minutes in the car calling each other funny names, "oh- you old tractor tyre", (lol), "oh, you old motorway" (lol), "oh, you old cheese and gherkin sandwich" (lol)....etc etc. It was hilarious.

I loved the snowman story :)

#26 Genny I always tend to associate Raymond Briggs more with Fungus the Bogeyman and perhaps When the Wind Blows. The Snowman almost seems to have a life of its own apart from its creator.

#27 Tui I've never even seen The Snowman - somehow I've always assumed it would be a bit twee.

#28 Laura He's done some really good picture books: some (like Fungus the Bogeyman) are more like graphic novels aimed at children. A lot of them have quite an old-fashioned feel. One that I really want to get around to is Ethel and Ernest: a graphic biography of his parents.

#29 Megan it's great when they go through that yucky phase, isn't it?

Hi Rhian - Nice new thread -- I'm loving the children's book art.

Happy to be here on your new thead, Rhian. I loved your story of J and the Great Popcorn Experiment on your old thread.

Some great children's books that are completely unknown to this American midwesterner, Rhian. Sorry to hear about the delay in the dining room, but hope your bookcases get there soonest. I'm really looking forward to pictures when this is all done.

Here is the morning stand-off between Ruby and Daisy. Ruby might look very peaceful at the moment, but if the dog inches just a tiny bit closer, then she will whack her!

You can just about see her tail ready to twitch in annoyance, too...

#31 Hi Beth I've got a whole long list of illustrators to come! I've realised that my knowledge of children's illustration is very focused on British illustrators though. Apart from Dr Seuss and Maurice Sendak, virtually all of the illustrators that I can name are British. Any suggestions gratefully received.

#32 Julia for someone who's quite bright J can show a remarkable lack of common sense sometimes. And he does still show a touching faith in my ability to know how to do things - he was very surprised that measuring the energy value of food wasn't something that I knew how to do without looking it up. But when we did look the experiment up on the internet it was obvious that he wasn't expected to actually do it at home: you needed test tubes and a bunsen burner and an accurate thermometer for a start. His notes in his planner about what he need's to do for homework can be a little brief. Usually it works OK because there's only a day or so's gap between him writing it down and having to do it, but the system does fall down a bit when he has a holiday.

#33 Roni I'm not surprised that some of Raymond Briggs's work is not as well known in the US as when I was looking at it again the thing that struck me was that it does seem particularly British. All the characters that I have come across are placed in a very British setting, one that is often quite nostalgic but at the same time very down to earth.

#35 Genny Ruby seems to regard Daisy in much the same way as a grumpy old lady confronted by a loud and boisterous ten year old. She just finds her intensely irritating and doesn't see the point of her at all. But to be fair to Daisy, she doesn't actually do anything to her: she just tries to sniff her and I guess if she ever got close enough she might try to lick her. But Ruby's not having any of it.

I have a British Shorthair Tabby as well, Rhian (Hollyhock aka Holly). My son's German Shepherd comes in for the same treatment. I really, really like and can relate to that pic!

What a great photo, Rhian! I am loving the expression on Daisy's face!

#38.39 Hi Tui, Mamie. Daisy is obviously thinking 'Why won't she be friends with me? I try really hard every morning and I'm ever so enthusiastic and friendly and she still won't make friends'

>38 tiffin:: I have a British Shorthair Tabby...
I'm curious. What are the differences between the British and American shorthair cats?

#38,40 Actually I don't think I would know what the difference was either. I suppose I would call Ruby a domestic shorthair tabby if I called her anything - although she has no pedigree as we got her from the cat rescue. I have no idea what the difference betweeen British and American versions are.

Poor Daisy, she looks quite helpless and I can just imagine Ruby is thinking "Cats Rule, Dogs Drool!"

16. Father Christmas Raymond Briggs ***1/2
Challenge: Astonishing Splashes of Colour (picture books and graphic novels)




I thought that as Raymond Briggs was my illustrator for this thread I'd go back and take a good look at some of his books.

There's not a lot of magic about Raymond Brigg's take on the Father Christmas story. His Father Christmas is a rather grumpy old man who doesn't like snow and who dreams of warmer climes. Posters of Majorca, and Capri and Malta are pinned up on the wall of his very ordinary house that seems to have come out of a Britain of the 1940's or 50's. Nothing much happens, the story follows Father Christmas's day on Christmas Eve as he goes through his tasks. But despite that it's a warm and humourous book that I like a lot.

Here is Father Christmas about his morning ablutions:

Well, I just checked the San Diego Library listings, and they do have some Raymond Briggs. And I recognize The Snowman from the cover illustration--that's been animated and on tv, right? The library also has Father Christmas, White Land, The Bear, Ethel and Ernest, and Gentleman Jim. But they were all written after I was a child, so that would be why I didn't encounter them.

>41 lauralkeet:: The American short hair tabby is larger, longer and not as schtumpy as the British short hair, which has stubbier legs and is closer to the ground. The American ones are really strong; the British ones like food and naps. I definitely have a British one.
Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Shorthair
I didn't post the wiki for the British shorthair tabby as it said it had "cleanup issues", so maybe this will do:
http://catmess.blogspot.ca/2010/02/cat-breeds-british-shorthair.html

Rhian, I loved Brigg's Father Christmas because it was the antithesis of the "kindly elf" image. He's a guy doing his job and he's weary. That was what WAS the magic of it, imho.

#43 Judy I think Daisy thinks that Ruby gets preferential treatment as she is allowed to do quite a few things that Daisy isn't, like go on the beds. She particularly likes J's bed as he has a high sleeper so she is out of reach.

#45 Roni yes The Snowman is the animation - we have it on TV pretty much every Christmas here. I think in the UK a couple of his characters, like Fungus the Bogeyman, were quite well known generally. I'm too old to have encountered them as a child as well, but I was definitely familiar with them before we had J.

So behind but caught up now! Enjoying the stories about Daisy and Ruby, J's homework, Raymond Briggs' illustrations (I loved his Father Christmas) and your review of Umbrella. I'm still not sure it's one I'd like but I would at least consider it after your review.

Ruby looks a lot like my cat! Daisy has the cutest look on her face

#46 the British ones like food and naps - that's exactly like Ruby then - she doesn't really do anything but sleep and eat!

He's a guy doing his job and he's weary. That was what WAS the magic of it, imho. Tui, That's what I like about a lot of Raymond Briggs's characters. They are very ordinary people just going about their day to day life.

#48,49 Hi Heather, Chelle, thanks for dropping by.

Gosh, how quickly things move around here!
Grumpy Father Christmas on the loo! That's not something I would have imagined I was going to see today when I woke up this morning. I know of Raymond Briggs without really knowing his work, but your thread makes me want to check out more of his stuff.

The grumpy Father Christmas is great. As I recall, when he has finished his rounds on CHristmas Eve he comes home and has a 'nice up of tea' and looks a bit happier - the ordinariness again is what is so funny.

"Blooming awful tie from Aunty Elsie!" (opening pink swirly tie)
"Horrible socks from Cousin Violet!" (opening green socks with lightning bolts on them)
"Ah! That's more like it. Good old Fred!" (opening cognac)
hehe

Interesting about the cats because British Labs are also stubbier and closer to the ground than their American counterparts!

LOL ! I'm just enjoying the morning stand - off between your dog and cat! At my house, it's just the morning whining from our dog - take me out right away! Worse than an alarm clock!

Poor old Santa! Here it's " Bloomin Rain" again!!!!!

#51 Grumpy Father Christmas on the loo! That's not something I would have imagined I was going to see today when I woke up this morning Hi Hannah it's not really an image that you associate with Father Christmas, is it?

#52 As I recall, when he has finished his rounds on CHristmas Eve he comes home and has a 'nice up of tea' and looks a bit happier Genny that's right, and be has his (very alcoholic) Christmas dinner, with three bottles of wine and a bottle of cognac on the table.

#53 Tui what I really like are the little touches like the way he's got all his posters of nice hot holiday destinations on the walls and he settles down before dinner to browse his holiday brochures.

Hi Rhian... Sorry I've been behind and haven't visited your lovely new thread until now.

I've never seen the Raymond Briggs books! Father Christmas looks to be burnt out IMHO! :)

Do you have Father Christmas Goes on Holiday, Rhian? It's a hoot too. France to Scotland to Las Vegas and finally glad to be home!

#54 Laura I didn't realise that Labs were different either. I just thought Labs were just ... well ... Labs.

#55 Deborah Daisy does the alarm clock thing as well. Weekdays it's OK as Mr SandDune gets up at 6.30am and she seems to be OK with that. But she doesn't see why we want to stay in bed until 8.00am at the weekend - that's obviously such a stupid idea. But with Daisy she's crying for her breakfast - she refuses point blank to go out until after she's been fed.

#57 Tina he does look as if he needs a holiday!

#58 Tui no, I haven't come across Father Christmas Goes on Holiday, but I'll keep a look out for it. I didn't realise there was more than one book until you mentioned it. I had a couple of Amazon vouchers that were sitting there waiting to be spent so I've ordered two more Raymond Briggs books: Ethel and Ernest and When the Wind Blows. I've been meaning to read both of those for ever. Bt the way, J thinks it's very embarrassing to have a mother who's collecting picture books at the age of fifty-one. I think he thinks it's a sign of early senility, but then mothers are meant to be embarrassing when you get to thirteen aren't they?

Yesterday, I had a bit of a splurge on books with the added satisfaction of spending very little money, as from one source and another I had both Waterstones and Amazon vouchers that were burning a hole in my pocket.

I found that the local charity bookshop had a good section of second-hand Viragos in so bought:

Women in the Wall Julia O'Faolain
The Three Sisters May Sinclair
Losing Battles Eudora Welty

Then I bought The Light Between the Oceans by M L Stedman and ordered Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward in Waterstones, both recommended on LT.

And in the bookshop I also saw John Burningham: Behind the Scenes, a beautifully illustrated book about the illustrators life and work (see thread 1). But I couldn't justify the £25, so I have bought that one with my vouchers on Amazon where they had it for £16, as well as the two Raymond Briggs books above.

So a very satisfactory day!

>44 SandDune: ooh, great memories!

Great haul too, and I understand that the 9 pound discount made it impossible to resist purchasing from an internet site over a shop. Makes sense to me. Maybe you'll go to the shop later and get some bargains!

Great haul Rhian, it's pretty hard to resist the Amazon bargains. I try to support my favorite independent bookstore as much as I can but sometimes the price discrepancy is just too great as you seem to have learned also.

Love the stand off between Ruby and Daisey:-)

I'm also a fan of Raymond Briggs. Have you looked through Blooming Books? it covers his career as an artist. Pleased that you are giving him some exposure here.
I also loved The Elephant and the Bad Baby and have a rather tatty copy in a box somewhere.

Blooming Books is the perfect title for a book about Raymond Briggs!

Lucky you for those Virago finds! I read Women in the Wall many years ago, as a library book, and am looking out for that one to add to my VMC collection too one day... Very good book - rather different subject matter/period that most VMCs.

#61,62 Hi Megan, Bonnie - I usually try and buy real books in a real bookshop, and limit my Amazon purchases to kindle books, apart from if something is difficult to get hold of. But I virtually never spend as much as £25 on a book, and certainly not for an impulse purchase. And I did have £40 in Amazon vouchers to spend. The local bookshop isn't an independent but the staff are knowledgeable and helpful, and it's got a decent stock, and I would hate it so much if it closed down, that I try and use it as much as possible. I don't think there's much chance of it closing at the moment though, as they just refurbished the store before Christmas and it always seems fairly busy. We used to have an independent book shop but to be honest that was useless: its stock never changed from one year to the next. I think their policy was that if they sold one book they just ordered another one exactly the same.

#63 Kerry Blooming Books looks great if a little difficult to get hold of! I might see if the library has a copy.

#64 Genny - now I'm thinking that I should have bought more of them - they did have quite a few and I hadn't read any of them. Women in the Wall is the only one I'd heard of before (it was on my wish list) but the other two seem to have quite good ratings on LT.

17. Tooth and Claw Jo Walton *****



I loved this book - pure and simple. In essence, a partial retelling of Anthony Trollope's Framley Parsonage with the important difference that the protagonists are all dragons. Civilised dragons of course, as dragons judge these things, but definitely dragons. I've not read Framley Parsonage but I've read enough of Trollope's other books to recognise the style: finely nuanced class-distinctions; family quarrels; lawsuits; church politics; and of course the importance of making a suitable marriage. But all with dragons.

The Dignified Bon Agornin lies dying on his hoard of gold. A rather smaller hoard of gold than he would have liked to leave, as the entry of Penn Agornin, his elder son, into the church had been expensive, and a large dowry had been demanded on the marriage of his eldest daughter, Berend, to the richer and more powerful dragon, the Illustrious Daverak. But to compensate his three younger children, his son Avan and his younger daughters Haner and Selandra, Bon Agornin intends that they should eat the larger part of his body after he is dead. After all, dragons must have dragon flesh or else how will they grow? And an important Illustrious Lord like Daverak has plenty of weakling dragonets on his estates that the Church teaches must be weeded out, so surely he will not expect more than a token bite of his father-in-law's body. But Daverak does not see it like that and together with his wife and children he consumes most of the body, leaving Bon Agornin's three remaining children to share what is left. Dragon flesh can be the difference between life and death to an up and coming dragon like Avan, so he decides to launch a lawsuit against Daverak on behalf of himself and his sisters, to get his rights. But how can the Blessed Penn Agornin testify to his Father's last words, when to do so would mean that he had to disclose the shocking fact that his father had asked him to hear his confession, a rite strictly forbidden by the church, and that in that confession he had admitted the almost as shocking crime of eating his own brother and sister, when they were not even ailing ... And with very small dowries, and their father now dead, how will Selandra and Haner ever make successful marriages,

It was the whole world of the dragons that I loved, a world essentially governed by a hereditary aristocracy, where a self-made dragon such as Bon Agornin, is looked down upon by those of higher rank. But it is a world that is changing with the introduction of the railways, and radical ideas about freedom for all dragons being whispered. The way in which Walton has created a society governed on the one hand by rank and privilege and etiquette, and on the other with the underlying need of the dragons to eat each other, is just wonderful! Highly recommended to all fantasy lovers.

Very nice review of Tooth and Claw, Rhian! If you'll post it on the book page, I'll gladly give it a thumb.

Me too, Rhiann....I have that one ready to go if only I were not buried in other books.
What a great pile you bought for yourself! I wish I had access to real book stores. I don't, so you can imagine how the Internet has changed my life!

Hello Rhian,
I love the picture of Daisy and Ruby. Ruby does have that look on her face "don't move one inch closer to me, you canine creature."

We have the carpet fitters in today. I hadn't realised it was all going to be quite so noisy: we had the last carpets laid before we moved into the house. And when they stop banging and scraping Daisy starts crying as I won't let her go and play with the nice men or eat all the tasty little bits of carpet underlay that they are obviously leaving out especially for her.

I've noticed that outside the family Daisy particularly likes men, as they are much more prone to indulge her in the sort of boisterous play that she likes, and are more tolerant of her minor misdemeanours, such as chewing sleeves when excited. Rather like guys who get your children completely hyper and then hand them back when they get fractious.

#69 Peggy I don't usually buy that many books all at once (actually virtually never). But I had £50 in Amazon vouchers (from a combination of credit card loyalty points and Nectar points), and £20 in Waterstones' vouchers from their loyalty scheme, so I felt that I could go ahead and splurge. We're quite well placed for bookshops in the town where we live: we have the Waterstones which is a decent size given that the town is not huge. And there is a reasonable second-hand charity bookshop. And I suppose there is WH Smith as well which doesn't have a great selection but will have the best-sellers and the major prize shortlists. It helps living in a fairly densely populated and prosperous part of the UK, and being near to London.

As it's 1st March:



Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus

or in other words

Happy St David's Day

Lovely daffodils, Rhian! They are my favorite flower, so sunny and cheerful. I can only hope I'll get to see some in person soon, but it's going to have to stop snowing first.

#70 Ellen I assumed that eventually Daisy and Ruby would become, if not friends, then more tolerant of each other. But while Daisy consistently tries to make friends with Ruby (she aways goes up to her wagging her tail, doing her play bow) after a year I think I can safely say the Ruby is not going to make friends with her! If Ruby is feeling particularly grumpy her favourite activity is to aim a swipe at Daisy when she's distracted by something else, like trying to lick the dishwasher, so that she doesn't see it coming. And she's such a gentle cat with us!

#74 Julia to be honest we haven't got any daffodils yet either. But it is starting to be a little bit more springlike.

Carpets are all laid. I'd forgotten how lovely and soft new carpets are - the old ones had been down since we moved into this house in 1995 so any softness had disappeared quite some time ago.

18. The Lost Dog Michelle de Kretser ***1/2
Challenge: My Dog Tulip (All things dog related)



The lost dog of the title is the framework on which the rest of this novel hangs. Tom Locksley has borrowed a remote house in the Australian bush belonging to his friend Nelly Zhang while he finishes his book on Henry James. As he prepares to leave and head back to the city his dog runs into the bush after an animal and becomes lost. The novel follows the Tom over the next two weeks as he searches for his dog and deals at the same time with the increasing realisation that his elderly mother can no longer cope on her own. Interwoven with this is the story of Tom's own origins in India: the son of the British Arthur Locksley, a hard-drinking somewhat ineffectual man, and Iris de Sousa, of mixed Portuguse and Indian descent. Expected to marry a European at all costs, in her thirties Iris is forced to set her sights on the initially unprepossessing Arthur, but in post-independence India Arthur's Englishness is no longer the asset it would once have been. And also interwoven is the story of the Tom's more recent relationship with the artist Nelly Zhang and the group of artists who cluster around her.

In particular I enjoyed the story of Iris and Arthur's marriage, and Tom's own childhood in India and then Australia, which illustrate the changing attitudes of the post-colonial world. But I found Tom's obsession with Nelly Zhang and her art a little tedious: I couldn't see her attraction at all. The book flits backwards and forwards constantly in time and place which means it can be a little difficult to place a particular event. And it was full of beautiful vignettes which I would have loved to quote if I hadn't listened to it on audiobook. So overall, a well-written and interesting novel dealing with questions of identity and belonging, but which fell short of being a great read for me.

One comment on the audiobook. As it was set totally in Australia and India, it seemed a little strange to me to have it read in a very proper English accent. Most of the characters sound as if they come straight from an English public school. Altogether, would probably have been a better book to have read, rather than listened to. And then you would have the advantage of having the beautiful cover on the shelf.

Summary of February reading:



Format:
Graphic Novels: 1
Audiobooks: 3
Kindle: 0
Paperbacks: 2
Hardbacks: 2

Authors:
Female:3
Male:5

British: 4
Australian: 1
American: 2
Malaysian: 1

Good month you had there.
I hope March is even better. :-)

Rhian, we have 3 cats and 2 dogs and "tolerance" is as far as any of the cats will go despite friendly overtures from the dogs. I'd love for them to cuddle together but I don't see it happening!

Looks like you had some good reading in February. Hope you have a great March.

Hi Rhian- It looks like I need to get to Jo Walton. Everyone seems to be crazy about her. Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Hi Rhian - Your picture of Daisy and Ruby is priceless; Daisy looks a little cowed. The Walton book sounds interesting. I just read Among Others last fall -- perhaps on your recommendation? and I liked it a lot. I added The Lost Dog to my wishlist.

#79,81 Hi Ellen, Calm - February seemed to start off quite slowly, probably because it was taking me a long time to read Umbrella, but it was quite productive in the end. March has had a good start as I have read two books already, When the Wind Blows and Ethel and Ernest, both by Raymond Briggs (OK they were little tiny books, but still!).

#80 Laura, I think I had cosy images of them curling up together on the sofa, but it was not to be. I suppose I can be grateful that Ruby is not behaving towards dogs like our previous cat Edward, who took a very proactive approach. One Christmas my parents were staying with us and didn't want to leave the dog in kennels as it was getting on a bit, but I think by the end of their visit the poor dog was wishing it had been left in kennels. The cat took up a position at the top of the stairs and whenever the poor dog wandered anywhere near the bottom it launched a blitzkrieg attack from above, all hissing and spitting and claws out!

#82 Mark Jo Walton is becoming one of my favourite authors: I loved Among Others when I read it last year. For some reason her books are difficult to get hold of in the UK so I snapped up Tooth and Claw when I saw it.

#83 Beth I think if I had read The Lost Dog rather than listened to it I would have given it four stars. There were lots of places where I wanted to look back as it had quite a complex structure, but of course that's not possible on an audiobook.

Tooth and Claw onto the pile.....

I wonder if the de Kretzer was not as good as audio - because of the time shifts - although I agree that the weaker part of the book was Nelly.

I'm emerging from lurking to say that I'm rooting for Ruby - as a cat household into which have been introduced several dogs (not intentionally) I'm all for the cats teaching the dogs' their place in the world order!

I also really enjoyed your review of Tooth and Claw - I'm glad you added your review to the book. You got a thumbs up from me!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

#60 Great book haul Rhian! It's a lovely feeling when you can splurge and know you haven't spent a lot at the same time :-)

#67 I have that one but I think I'm going to wait and read Framley Parsonage first. I love the UK cover too. And a well-deserved thumb for your review.

I think the publishers are going to publish some more of Jo Walton's books in the UK later this year. Despite being British and very successful in the US, I don't think her books have ever been officially published in the UK before.

Belated St. David's day Rhian.
Ellen was right of course to note that with 2 Five Star reads February must count as a rip-roaring-reading success.

Have a lovely weekend.

19. Ethel and Ernest Raymond Briggs ****

Challenge : Astonishing Splashes of Colour ( picture books and graphic novels)



A short and very touching yet unsentimental portrait of the author's parents, from their first meeting to their deaths over forty years later. Ethel (born 1894) and Ernest (born 1900) live lives that must have been typical of many people of their generation, and the book can almost be read as a social history of Britain in the twentieth century. This is a book that is made up of the small and insignificant events that constituted ordinary people's lives: a baby is born, the Second World War comes and goes, but there is a deep sense of continuity as their day to day life continues.

Ernest, a milkman, is a lifelong Labour party supporter, with strong hopes of seeing the rise of the working man as the Labour government takes power after the war. Ethel is adamant that they are not 'working-class' and has aspirations both for herself and for her son Raymond, which seem to be being fulfilled as he wins a place at grammar school. But these are aspirations which she can't quite bring herself to believe or act upon. One of the most poignant scenes in the book was when the old and sick Ethel is wheeled by her husband past a derelict and boarded-up building in the local park, a place that forty years previously had been a smart cafe which she had longed to visit: in all the time it had been open she had never been in, considering it too posh for people like them. Ernest's enthusiastic embrace of technological progress in most of its forms contrasts hugely with Ethel's reluctance: she is naturally suspicious of anything new. But both are equally confused by the changes in society brought by the 50's and 60's, in particular their son's desire to be an artist rather than get a steady job.

Here, the Briggs's discuss the introduction of television by the BBC, something they wouldn't have themselves for over twenty years:



One of the reasons that I liked this so much was that the characters seemed so real. They were almost exact contemporaries of my own grand-parents and I could certainly recognise aspects of my grandparents and other older relatives in Ethel and Ernest; Ernest's rages against politicians and other aspects of the modern world certainly remind me of my grandfather. There is even a little bit of Ethel in my mother with her extreme reluctance to take on new technology. And it is clear that Raymond Briggs bases aspects of the characters for his other books on those of his own parents. So a great graphic memoir - recommended.

Great review of Ethel and Ernest Rhian. I've seen several mentions of this on LT recently and was glad to hear more about it, especially that you liked it so much and also the sample of the graphics. Luckily, my library has it and I just put in on hold. :)

You got me with Ethel and Ernest - I just put it on request, too!

I am so glad that you enjoyed Ethel and Ernest. I loved it...and was astonished that a graphic novel could bring a tear to my eye!

Ethel and Ernest going on the wishlist. Thanks, Rhian. :-)

I put it on hold at my library. Yay for libraries!

#86 Lucy I do think The Lost Dog would work better being read rather than listened to. I listen to quite a lot of audiobooks at the moment, one of the reasons that my reading's proceeding at a quicker rate than this time last year. And I do try and choose books that will work well in that format, but I think I made a mistake with this one.

#88 Heather Tooth and Claw has definitely made me want to read Framley Parsonage, but I haven't read any of those Barsetshire Chronicle ones so I suppose I'd have to start at the beginning. Maybe that's an idea for my next audiobook. I do find that Victorian novels generally work quite well. I remember I had great difficulty getting hold of Among Others last year - I had to buy a kindle version in the end rather than a physical copy - so I really pounced on Tooth and Claw when I saw it. It was in the new books section so perhaps it bodes well for her other books.

Dog's are fun creatures, aren't they Rhian! As our neighbour teases us - and the vet - our dog is in charge of the household - all 13 pounds of her. She worse than the kids were.
Ohh! I see that you purchased The Light Between Oceans. I just loved that book, I hope you do too! I purchased two full priced books today - bad girl - but I am reading a second hand book right now, so I'll take comfort in that. In my area of the city, we don't have many second hand book shops. There is one that is changing management - maybe I will try it again.

#90 Great review of Ethel and Ernest Rhian!

#87 Dejah, Ruby gets away with murder these days as we all feel sorry for her having to put up with Daisy! She has adopted J's bed as her favoured sleeping spot now that Daisy has taken over the sofas: previously she wasn't really allowed on the beds (actually Mr SandDune didn't allow her on the beds) so she seems quite happy.

#89 Hi Paul hope you're having a great weekend too.

>84 SandDune:: great cat vs. dog story, Rhian!

#91,92,93,94,97 Hi Pat, Dejah, Tui, Ellen, Heather - perhaps I'm starting a Raymond Briggs revival on LT! I really should read some twentieth century social history, as part of the thing that I really liked about Ethel and Ernest was the little snippets about their changing lives. The day that they have their first telephone, Ethel is so worried about how to answer it if the phone rings in Ernest's absence, and it reminded me of my grandmother who never did have a home phone and felt hugely uncomfortable using the phone from a call box. But Ethel's attitudes remind me even more of my mother: 'central heating is unhealthy' and 'colour television looks unnatural' are two of her attempts to resist the march of time that I can remember from my childhood,

#96 Dog's are fun creatures, aren't they Rhian! - definitely - I spent most of my adult life wanting a dog, and I'm so happy that we've got one now. And I do think it's good for J as an only child, to have her at home when he gets in. She's been helping us put our new covers on the sofas this morning, or in other words trying to find anything edible which might have founds its way into the crevices of the old covers. She was successful in finding a couple of nuts and a piece of popcorn and also various pieces of fluff which she seemed to think might be edible. I found tweezers, a plastic dinosaur, quite a bit of Lego, a ruler, and part of a bagatelle game - it doesn't say much for my housekeeping abilities I suppose.

#99 Laura - Edward was quite a character. I think he might have had some Siamese or Burmese in him, as he was quite angular and was very people focused. He quite often used to try to follow me to the bus stop or out on a walk. But he was a much more confident cat than Ruby is. Until Daisy came along Ruby wouldn't say boo to a goose - Daisy has definitely brought out the more assertive part of her character

I've really enjoyed reading your reviews, Rhian, and there are several I'd like to look out for. I'm still wanting to read Among Others and I'm partway through Trollope's Barsetshire books (which are quite good on audiobook by the way) so Tooth and Claw sounds like one for later. I loved your review. I have a copy of The Lost Dog and now I know to read it (someday) and not be tempted by an audiobook.

I love the dog and cat standoff. Too funny.

#103 Anne - I might try the Barsetshire chronicles as an audio book then. I do struggle sometimes to find audiobooks that I think will work well and that I want to read. And I don't want to get something on audiobook that anyone else in the house would want to read.

67: Oh, I've been wanting to read Tooth and Claw. I too loved Among Others. Did not realize it was based on Trollope.

20. When the Wind Blows Raymond Briggs ***1/2
Challenge: Astonishing Splashes of Colour (picture books and graphic novels)



Published in 1982 at a time when nuclear war seemed a much more immediate threat, When the Wind Blows is the story of a retired couple faced with the imminent prospect of a nuclear war. Faced with a situation that they can't comprehend, they expect the coming hostilities to be a re-run of World War II, and comfort themselves that the blitz spirit got them through last time. For their protection, they rely on the government advice to build an 'inner refuge' but the inadequacy of the advice, and their lack of understanding of the dangers of radiation mean that they are exposed to the deadly fallout. Jim and Hilda are heart-breakingly naive and have an almost child-like trust in the advice that they have been given, which makes their fate even more sad.

Here James is constructing his 'inner refuge':



I remember this book when it first came out. It's based on a real-life British government pamphlet 'Protect and Survive' which, together with a number of public information films, was intended to protect the population in the event of nuclear war. Both the pamphlet and films caused a huge amount of controversy at the time with CND in particular criticising the idea that the type of precautions indicated would provide any defence against a nuclear attack.

One thing I noticed when I looked up 'Protect and Survive' was that the films are shown on a loop in a nearby nuclear bunker (now tourist attraction) which I keep meaning to go and visit. It does give rise to the following amusing road sign:

That sign is hysterical Rhian. And thanks for another great review. I had never heard of Raymond Briggs before this thread.

#105 Katherine - as I said I haven't read Framley Parsonage but I did look the plot up and Tooth and Claw does seem to have quite a few similarities.

#107 Pat it is funny isn't it?

The sign is a hoot, but I don't know if I can bring myself to read When the Wind Blows - too sad.

OK Rhian, Jo Walton has definitely become a writer of interest and Ethel and Ernest is now officially atop the teetering tower. Off to check out the Secret Nuclear Bunker.

>102 SandDune:: We had a cat like your Edward once. Her name was Snowball and we always thought she had some Siamese or Burmese in her too. She was very sociable with people (not dogs!) and would follow us around outside, just like Edward! She died quite young, only around 10 years old. Don't tell my other cats who are looking over my shoulder as I type, but Snowball will always be my favorite.

Hi Rhian, what fun to see that sign for the bunker again! I used to live in Chelmsford and often drove post the sign and never ceased to be amused! But I never did get round to visiting it either.

It's good to see so much about Briggs on your thread too. I read Ethel and Ernest many years ago and also found it very moving and interesting. I knew about Where the Wind Blows too but I haven't read that one.

#109 Dejah When the Wind Blows is terribly sad - there isn't really any getting away from it I'm afraid.

#110 Bonnie -please try Jo Walton! I want to try Farthing next (if I can find a copy) - an alternative history set in England after World War II.

#111 Laura - we had Edward for 14 years and he was our first pet so I will always have a soft spot for him. Mr SandDune went to do teacher training a few weeks after we got married I rather blackmailed him that if he was going to leave me straight away then I needed a cat to keep me company. Edward just liked to be with people to the extent of wanting to sit on the edge of the bath when I was in it - that stopped when he didn't allow for things being more slippery when wet and fell in! He survived being knocked over, being fussed by J as a toddler and finally succumbed to liver problems at quite a ripe old age.

#112 Genny we're about forty-five minutes from Chelmsford but I rarely go there for some reason. I'm always looking for somewhere to go in the school holidays so I think we will try a visit to the bunker.

Currently reading My Dog Tulip by JR Ackerley and I'm getting on fine with it, except that I am starting to have suspicions that the text has been amended to insert American English rather than British English phraseology. It was obviously very naive of me, but it wouldn't have occured to me that anyone would do such a thing if I hadn't been thinking about getting White Teeth on Audible this week, and several of the reviewers had complained that the same thing had happened. My edition of My Dog Tulip is an NYRB classics version, so obviously an American publisher, but it seems so strange that anyone should want to change the wording! But when I looked into it it seemed that this is a very common practice. If I read a book written in English by an American author I would expect it to be as the author had originally written it, and the same even if it was by someone writing in English from a less familiar background, say Indian or Caribbean, where there might be more unfamiliar words. I don't have any strong views on changing spelling, but changing the actual words seems very strange indeed to me. What do other people think?

I love visiting here! Great conversation, great cartoons and wonderful ideas for the TBR huge pile.

Happy Monday night to you.

I'm just catching up on your lovely thread Rhian... I fell far behind! Love your reviews! You've been doing some really great reading lately!

111 - Laura: I think it's natural to have one cat that just has your heart. Even when you love all others who come before and after, I think we (cat people) have a kitty soul mate that we connect to on a different level. **We won't tell the other kitties and it can be our secret!! :)

Rhian, I get really annoyed when I am reading a book by a British author, set in Britain/the UK/Ireland, that substitutes American words for the originals. Half the fun of reading Dick Francis when I was a kid was learning what new words like 'plimsolls' and 'Aga' meant! I've even read some books where the editor has converted UK measurements to US, so that everything is in dollars and miles and gallons. That was appalling.

They changed some of the language in the Harry Potter books when they were published here. Most obviously, the title of the first one (Sorceror's Stone in the US) but also words like trainers and jumpers.

Because we're, like, stoopid over here! HA!

#118,119 Hi Julia, Laura. The word that clinched it for me was 'sneakers'. I'm not saying you'd never hear this word in the UK now because you would occasionally. I heard someone using it yesterday on the radio - but coming from a middle-aged man in 1950's Britain? No, definitely not, he would have said plimsolls (incidentally a word which we don't use much any more anyway - we say trainers now.)

I'm surprised that I'd never noticed before that this happens, but I suppose I would usually buy British editions of British books and it had just never crossed mind. American / Australian /South African (wherever) here just seem to use the original wordings. And I assume NYRB classics are a fairly literary imprint? I mean there are French quotations in the book which it doesn't translate so surely it might expect readers to be able to cope with a couple of unfamiliar words?

I am surprised that you would see that in an NYRB edition. Like you, I would have thought those to be aimed at a more literary audience and thus less prone to such shenanigans.

Congratulations on two hot reviews today!

>106 SandDune: haha, that is a great road sign.

Hi Rhian! I'm terribly behind here.

#106 - Nice review! That does sound sad and tragic.

Have you gotten to any of the working-class fiction yet? I suppose I could go find your category challenge...

Well, When the Wind Blows tempted me, as well, but I'll wait until I read the other Raymond Briggs book before I keep traveling down this path!

>124 DorsVenabili: Have you gotten to any of the working-class fiction yet?
What, exactly, does this mean?

eta: I ask, knowing that I am exposing either my ignorance or my tendency to skim through threads without reading carefully --- or both.

>124 DorsVenabili: Have you gotten to any of the working-class fiction yet?
What, exactly, does this mean?

#126 - Oh look! I just happened to see this. Rhian is doing a working-class fiction category and so am I ( I did one last year as well). We were chit-chatting about it earlier in the year. I believe hers contains primarily British fiction and mine American. The definition I gave last year on my 12 in 12 thread is this (someone asked me that question):

"Regarding my definition of working-class literature for this challenge, I'm defining it very, very broadly as literature that depicts the lives of working-class people. In this case, working-class describes people who perform manual/physical labor, typically for hourly wages, and typically living paycheck to paycheck, struggling, to some extent, to provide sustenance for themselves and their families. (For my particular challenge, the novels do not have to have an overt political component, but they often do.)"

I'm not exactly sure how Rhian is defining it.

#121 Julia I agree that it's more surprising in a literary book. I can more see the point of it in a children's book, although I wouldn't do it myself. What I have found in new editions of some older British children's books is that the pre-decimalisation currency has been airbrushed out and that prices have been updates to more current levels. But as a child I loved the idea that things were different in the past and I'd have hated that.

#122 Thanks Linda - I'd missed that completely!

#123 Hi Megan

Kerri, Ellen I haven't got around to any of the working-class fiction yet, but I hope to shortly. I was so tied up with Booker shortlist reading in January and February that I haven't made any firm plans for March, but I have £20 of Amazon vouchers left from my stash and I was thinking of using them to get some books in this category. I haven't got such a firm definition as Kerri as to what I mean by working-class fiction, but my original idea came from the fact that I read lots of books set in the first half of the twentieth century which are very firmly middle-class, and I wanted to read something about the sort of lives that my own grandparents and great-grandparents might have lived. The men were coal miners, carpenters, and stonemasons: the women were domestic servants until they got married. There is probably going to be a bit of crossover between my Welsh fiction category and this one, as a lot of Welsh writing from the twentieth century tends to be more working-class in nature.

Hi Rhian. I just picked up Ethel & Ernest from the library and I love the illustrations. I'm hoping to start it today and just wanted to thank you for the recommendation.

#Pat I hope you enjoy Ethel and Ernest as much as I did.

Rhian - Any list of potentials for your working-class fiction list?
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is an obvious one and I see you have the book in your catalogue.
David Storey, Richard Llywellyn, Arnold Bennett, Barry Hines, Stan Barstow, Howard Spring, JB Priestley, George Gissing, Alan Silitoe, John Braine would all be from our side of the pond with Upton Sinclair, Jack London and John Steinbeck prevalent across the water.

Interesting theme I must say.

21. My Dog Tulip J.R. Ackerley ****
Challenge: My Dog Tulip (all things dog related)



I first came across mention of My Dog Tulip in An Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett where the Queen's servant Norman is considering it as a suitable book for the Queen to read. Mr Hutchings the librarian is 'dubious, pointing out that it was a gay book. 'Is it?' said Norman innocently.'I didn't realise that. She'll think it's just about the dog.'. Having now read it, I think I have never come across a book that is so completely 'just about the dog' in my entire life.

In middle age J.R. Ackerley became the owner of a young Alsatian bitch called Queenie (called Tulip in the book) who to all intents and purposes became the love of his life for the next fifteen years. At first glance Tulip does not seem the sort of dog to inspire such undying affection: while she adores Ackerley her attitude to much of the rest of the human race is suspicion, as two bus conductors and a postman could testify to their cost. His friends are reluctant to ask Tulip to stay twice as 'people seem to resent being challenged whenever they approach their own sitting room or dining rooms'.

So this is not your average tale of amusing stories about a family pet: this is nothing less than the story of a man's single minded obsession. And I think it's true to say that Ackerley is obsessed, not just with the Tulip as a friend and companion, but with all aspects of her bodily functions. A whole chapter (descriptively entitled 'Liquids and Solids') is devoted to Tulip's toileting habits, the problems of getting her to perform on demand, and the consequences of his failure to interpret her body signals. And then two more chapters on the difficulties of finding Tulip what Ackerley euphemistically calls a 'husband': but there is nothing euphemistic about his description of the trials and tribulations of Tulip's experience. I feel I've learnt as much as I need to know about the difficulties of procreation in dogs. If Tulip's experiences are standard it does seem surprising that any puppies are ever born at all.

Originally written in 1956, one thing that is clear after reading it is that the treatment of dogs has changed almost beyond all recognition. Ackerley is writing when many dogs were habitually left to roam free, something that I remember as a child but that is just not seen now. The roaming bands of male dogs that plague Ackerley's life when Tulip is in heat are also no more. And that such a loving owner such as Ackerley could consider drowning some of Tulip's puppies would be unthinkable nowadays. But that I think, is the product of a different age, and has to be taken as such. Even the name of the breed itself has changed: the name Alsatian itself has been changed to German Shepherd.

At times My Dog Tulip did feel rather like one of those medical programmes that you don't really want to watch, but that you can't take your eyes off. But overall I liked it, quite a lot, and I'll be looking out for Ackerley's other books.

#132 Paul These were my original thoughts - mainly governed by what I had on my shelves already:

Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky Patrick Hamilton
London Belongs to Me Norman Collins
Buddha Da Anne Donovan
Waterline Ross Raisin
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell
Love on the Dole Walter Greenwood
Union Street Pat Barker

I've now done some more research and am thinking about the following:

Cwmardy Lewis Jones
Sunset Song Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Boy James Hanley
Wigtown Ploughman John McNeillie
Saville David Storey
The Watchers and The Watched Sid Chaplin
Clash Ellen Wilkinson
The Busconductor Hines James Kelman

That book sounds rather like a visit to my fil, who is a German Shepherd breeder. He can cite lineage back to the 1800s and will do so at the slightest provocation, not to mention all the ins and outs of breeding (no pun intended). As the intricacies of breeding are often discussed at the dinner table and ad nauseum the rest of the time, I think I'll give My Dog Tulip a pass!

#135 Tui I can understand that there's only so much on that subject that you really want to know about! I've always been a bit nervous of Alsatians / German Shepherds to be honest. We had one living next door to us when I was young, maybe eight or nine, which was allowed to roam free (to be honest so was our own dog at that time), and it's rather coloured my opinion of them. Whenever I approached my house the Alsatian would bark aggressively at me, at least it sounded aggressive to an eight year old! The only way to avoid it was to take our own dog out with me: we had a much smaller Welsh Terrier but she firmly believed that no Alsation was going to be allowed to bark at her family whether it was twice her size or not and she'd managed to cowe the bigger dog into submission very early in their relationship.

>127 DorsVenabili: & 129
What a cool idea your working class lit challenge is. I will keep an eye on your reads just because I'll be interested in what you each end up reading for this category.

Rhian, I have My Dog Tulip on the shelf and I do think I'll still get to it. There might be parts that are hard for me to read....

I loved 'My Dog Tulip' when I read it years ago. I'm glad you mostly liked it too, Rhian.

#137, 138 Hi Ellen, Julia My Dog Tulip definitely isn't for everyone, but it's a very well written book and and I think it will be one that I'll remember for a long time. I already own We think the World of You by the same author and I'm keen to get his autobiographical My Father and Myself.

Rhian - I have read Saville and think it probably my second favourite Booker winner. It helps he comes from my home town of course. Let me know if you plan to read Sunset Song as I am planning to do it too this year and will read along with you. Have a lovely weekend.

Saville and Sunset Song are two that are quite high up on my list, and I'll probably read Sunset Song in a month or two. Also high up on the list are The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and Buddha Da.

22. Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury ***
Challenge: Possession (books I've owned for more than six months)



When I started Dandelion Wine I was expecting something quite different: a semi-fictionalised account of Bradbury's own childhood, perhaps something along the lines of Cider with Rosie. What I found was a much more fictional series of inter-connected short stories set in the fictitious Greentown (based on Bradbury's own home town). And although the main focus of the book is on the two boys, Douglas and Tom Spaulding, many of the stories focus on other characters, and it is frequently the adult point of view that is seen.

At times this does seem to be the standard nostalgic view of a boyhood summer when the sun was always shining, a safer and simpler age where children play outdoors from dawn until dusk. But there are darker elements at work: mothers warn their children to beware of the 'Lonely One', discovered to be not just a name to frighten children but a real serial killer at large. And some elements seem almost fantastical, in particular the story where one of the town's residents attempts to make a 'happiness machine'. Overall, I found that it was not the picture of childhood that resonated with me most, it was the picture drawn of old age. A favourite was the story of the old Colonel Freeleigh, who brings the past back to life for the boys with his tales of seeing the gigantic herds of buffalo roaming the prairie, and who longs to escape from the stultifying care with which his family has surrounded him in his last days.
And equally good was the story of Ellen Loomis and Bill Forester, who find a true meeting of minds despite there being sixty years difference in their age.

Overall, despite liking some of the individual stories a lot, I found the overall effect a little too determinedly heart-warming for my taste. While people die and things change, there always seems to be some positive lesson that is being learnt by the boys, and I found it ever so slightly cloying after a while. The nostalgia of small town America isn't my nostalgia, so I'm probably not as susceptible as some. A good read, but not great.

*fly-by wave *waves hello*

I was bitten by a German Shepherd. I was 10 or 11 and walking down a neighborhood street when the dog came tearing after me. I ran (I know, mistake, but I was a kid and this dog was BIG!) and it knocked me down and bit the middle of my back. Thankfully it was just a nip but it scared the crap out of me.

aw Morphy, that's too bad. That's a poorly trained dog. All my fil's dogs are beautifully tempered animals who would never do that but they are well trained and well treated, plus he breeds them for good temperament. They are very protective and will warn when there is someone there but they would never bite unless any of us were being threatened by someone.

You are made of sterner stuff than me, Rhian - your review (which is very good) reminded me vividly of all the reasons I dropped Tulip.

I was listening to the Bradbury sometime last year, didn't like the audio recording (actors, sound effects) in part because i couldn't hear it all very well with the competing car noise, but somehow I haven't picked up a paperback copy either, I wasn't really all that compelled.

Nice review of Dandelion Wine, Rhian; it doesn't sound like my kind of book, either.

#143 Hi Diana hope you're having a good weekend.

#144, 145 Morphy that sounds a scary experience. I don't blame you for running: I'm sure I ran away from next door's dog a few times, even though I knew that wasn't what you were supposed to do. When I was a bit older (probably eleven or twelve) there was a dog in the next street that was alarming as well, although for a different reason. It was a very large Irish Wolfhound that would pad up very quietly behind you. So I'd be walking home on my own and I'd suddenly hear this heavy breathing right next to my ear. And it really was right next to my ear: wolfhounds are very tall dogs and I was a short girl (I'm only 5'1" now). But it was a very friendly quiet dog and once you realised what it was then it was OK. But he did give me a shock a few times.

#145 Tui I've met really nice German Shepherds since, but I do think if you're a doggy person then your preference for type of dog tends to be laid down in childhood. In my case my archetypal dog is a Welsh Terrier - I did vote for having one when we got a dog but nobody else shared my enthusiasm - and my liking for staffies is probably because they aren't dissimilar in nature.

#146, 147 Hi Lucy, Darryl I feel a little guilty not liking Dandelion Wine more as so many people obviously loved it, but I've come to the conclusion that perhaps I just don't quite 'get' Ray Bradbury in the way that a lot of people do. I read The Martian Chronicles last year and it was fine but it didn't set the world on fire for me, and I think I felt the same about Fahrenheit 451 when I read it years and years ago. The construction of Dandelion Wine felt quite similar to The Martian Chronicles in that rather than being a straightforward novel it was a collection of interlinked stories, some of which seem more relevant to the overall theme than others. And the way in which they're tied together just seems a little loose sometimes: I prefer my books a little more tightly crafted.

Rhian, I like the sound of Buddha Da, which I had never heard of before. But The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is just superb - read it first!

I LOVE Welsh Terriers! I'm a labrador retriever person but they don't go well with my allergies so I have become a standard poodle person. We're on our third. Books, er, yes, books...I have had Buddha Da on my wishlist for about 6 years now. I must get a copy of that one day soon.

#150 Susan I think Buddha Da was shortlisted for the Orange prize a while ago. That's where I came across it. But The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is top of my list - don't worry.

#151 Tui I didn't think you'd have had Welsh Terriers in Canada! We had one when I was small, and then my aunt had one and then my sister. But my sister's one smelt quite 'doggy' which put Mr SandDune off them.

A new books to report:

Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward - this can possibly go in the working-class fiction category as well.

And some previously unreported purchases for kindle daily deals:
Eleven Mark Watson
Great Apes Will Self
Measuring the World Daniel Kehlmann
The Ninth life of Louis Drax Liz Jensen

I found Clash by Ellen Wilkinson really interesting, as well as being a good read. I don't know how well they knew each other, but my great grandfather must have moved in some of the same circles, as he was also a leftwing Labour MP - he had a long running affair with Jennie Lee, another Labour MP of the period.

The early-ish Labour movement is interesting and certainly produced far more than its fair share of strong willed and charismatic ladies. Love Luci's anecdote and I must find Clash myself.

Oh I love standard poodles, Tui..... I could rave, but I won't. I loved Fahrenheit 451 when I read it in my early teens, and I like The Martian Chronicles well enough (I need to reread those.....) and I feel I read a book or two of short stories, liking them fine, but no raving. F451 used to worry me, though, I would wonder if I shouldn't be memorizing a book myself, just in case.

JFK had a Welsh terrier....... interestingly enough....... and I gleaned that, didn't draw that out of my overlarge head, because there is nothing much in there these days.

(He had horrible allergies and they don't shed......)

I'm with you. I've read Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes and none of them every really "did it" for me.

#154 Hi Luci that's an interesting story about your great-grandfather! My own grandfather was apparently a committed Liberal supporter in that period: my aunts told a story about the 1922 election when the Labour party candidate (Ramsay MacDonald) was elected as local M.P. for the first time. Apparently, all the Liberal supporters in their street had their windows broken by the opposition supporters but my grandfather stood in his doorway and didn't say a word, just stood, so their house was passed by.

#155 Hi Paul hope you're having a good weekend.

#156 A Welsh Terrier in the White House - I hope it was a bit calmer than the one we had! If it was when he was in the White House then we'd have been Welsh Terrier owners at the same time - ours died about 1970 aged 12. Ours looked quite like this one - very like a teddy bear:



#156,157 Lucy, Morphy I'm glad it's not just me that feels that way about Ray Bradbury!

#134 - Thank you for posting these additional titles! I'll add them to my list along with Salvage the Bones, which sounds like it would fit perfectly.

ETA: I already had the Lewis Grassic Gibbon, James Hanley, and Ellen Wilkinson. I suppose any James Kelman novel would fit. I was very impressed by How Late It Was, How Late. Also, what about Ali Smith? I'll have to look into that.

Kerri you might want to add The Small Mine by Menna Gallie and The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi to your list as well. ( I have them in my Welsh category). The first one's probably next to impossible to get hold of outside the UK though, as it's a small Welsh publisher.

Hi Rhian- Sorry, Dandelion Wine didn't work for you better. I thought it was excellent. I hope you enjoy Salvage the Bones. I was crazy about that one too!

Political rant coming up now - anyone who doesn't want to read said political rant please pass on by.

I came across a report today entitled 'The Lies we tell Ourselves: ending comfortable myths about poverty' produced by a number of mainstream churches in the UK.

One of the UK government's key aims is to reduce spending on so-called problem families. In a speech the Prime Minister made he quoted the following:

today, I want to talk about troubled families. Let me be clear what I mean by this phrase. Officialdom might call them ‘families with multiple disadvantages.’ Some in the press might call them ‘neighbours from hell’. Whatever you call them, I think we have all known for years that a relatively small number of families are the source of a large proportion of the problems in society.....

... Drug addiction. Alcohol abuse. Crime. A culture of disruption and irresponsibility that cascades through generations. We’ve always known that these families cost an extraordinary amount of money but now we’ve come up with the actual figures. Last year the state spent an estimated £9 billion on just 120,000 families. That is around £75,000 per year per family.

According to the report I've just read, in order to feature on the list of 120,000 families all the family had to do was to fall into five of the following categories:

• no parent in the family is in work
• family lives in overcrowded housing
• no parent has any qualifications
• mother has mental health problems
• at least one parent has a long-standing limiting illness, disability or infirmity
• family has low income (below 60% of median income)
• family cannot afford a number of food and clothing items.

In other words, they just had to be poor, undereducated and unemployed. Didn't matter if they were trying to find work, had never been in trouble with the police in their life, had never tried drugs they were still labelled 'neighbours from hell'. And the £75,000 quote apparently includes all the health, education and welfare costs that any 'non-troubled' family will also incurr, so is in itself grossly misleading.

I don't mind people drawing different conclusions about how to deal with problems from reliable statistics. But I do object to politicians using completely misleading figures to drum up support against some of the most vulnerable people in society. And I mind even more when half of them are a set of Eton educated rich boys who've never had to worry about where their next paycheque is coming from in their lives.

Full report is here:

http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Truth-And-Lies-Re...

There - rant over - normal service resumed

Certainly looks like a well-deserved rant, Rhian!

Rhian, I agree that it's misleading to describe "families with multiple disadvantages" as "neighbours from hell". Neighbours from hell may be a subset of that group, but, equally, neighbours from hell can be gainfully employed and quite well-off, as I know from experience! I think there's a Venn diagram needed somewhere...

I did read something, though, which said that the very worst "neighbours from hell" families cost so much money that it would actually be cheaper to have a police officer stationed in their living rooms 24/7 than to deal with all the 999 calls made by/about them. That was sobering, but of course not all disadvantaged people are like that.

The report you linked to looks interesting. I will attempt to read it if this court case is ever over!

#162 Hi Mark I am rather more hopeful about Salvage the Bones although a bit worried about the dog fighting.

#164 Roni I thought it was worth ranting anyway! (But it's Rhian not Susan).

#165 Susan another statistic that was quoted was the actual number of large families on benefits that the press is always so keen to criticise. Apparently there are only 130 families with 10 children and 10 with 12 children on unemployment benefits in the whole country but when the government produced a report showing 16 representative families on benefits it included one from each category.

Rhian, that sounds distressingly familiar to some of the conservative members of the U.S. government, as typified by presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying that 47% of Americans would never vote for him because they are victims who have grown dependent on government handouts and don't want to have to help themselves. Obviously he's never known any of the poor families I know who are working desperately to improve their lives or their children's lives and cannot catch a break. When child care is so expensive that a single mother cannot afford it if she takes a minimum-wage job (since working would end her government benefits), there is something deeply wrong in society. And blaming the people at the bottom is convenient and easy, but not helpful.

Whew, sorry. Went on a bit of a rant of my own.

I'm running rapidly between sessions in NYC at a publications conference.

I'm quickly stopping by and waving hi.

Rosalita, I'm with you! Rant away!

Hi Julia, Linda, I do worry about the make-up of our current government as it just seems to be more and more made up of people of a very privileged background. And how can they understand the problems of more disadvantaged people if they've never really come into contact with them?

This can't be the reason in the UK, Rhian, because I think campaigns there have strict funding limits, but here in the US I think part of the problem is that so much money is required to run for public office that only people who are fairly rich themselves ever do. Or, they spend so much time fundraising that they don't have any time left to represent their constituents, or they end up beholden to some of the donors who do contribute big sums.

The other factor, of course, is that we as a society are in danger of completely losing our empathy for our fellow human beings. Very rich men have run for public office before and once there, did some amazing things to level the playing field for the not rich. I'm thinking of the Roosevelts and the Kennedys in particular, but I'm sure there were others. These days, people think failing to prosper in society is the result of some moral failing on the part of the poor, instead of acknowledging that the deck is stacked against some people more than ever.

Maybe it's like whistling past the graveyard; if you refuse to believe that bad things happen to good people, you don't have to worry that anything bad will ever happen to you.

#170 Julia you're right about the funding limits in the UK. I think here it's more to do with the fact that people tend to go straight into politics now without doing anything else first. In the past it was much more common for people to go into politics later from a variety of backgrounds: unions, local government, business. These days the ambitious ones go straight from (generally) Oxford or Cambridge to an unpaid intern position as a researcher or assistant, which of course can only be done by someone whose family can support them for a year or so, and which are the sort of positions that you need contacts to get. So the government is becoming much more homogeneous, much more privately educated, fewer people who could be said to have an ordinary background. I don't have anything against rich people going into politics: I only have an issue when rich people become the norm against which everyone else is judged.

>163 SandDune: I want to talk about troubled families. Let me be clear what I mean by this phrase.
This was never going to come across well.
It may be the case that X% of the "troubled families" are undereducated/unemployed/poor, but, as you say, this doesnt mean that all are "troubled" let alone troublesome.

I dropped by to see if you are keen on reading The Great Gatsby soon in a GR. I am thinking to start it in a week or so, and will put up a thread soon.
See you.

Rhian, must have been a senior moment--I am well aware of who you are, so must have been distractible fingers to blame!

#172 Hi Megan - at the moment I think I really want to do some reading on some of my untouched categories, in particular: working class fiction; Welsh fiction; and Japan. As well as several fantasy reads ... Oh and getting round to Sandman. So maybe I'd better not commit to anything else in the next few months!

#173 Roni don't worry - I'm sure I've done it several times.

That whole 'troubled families' speech is poisonous, and the thought that these are the ideas underlying social policy us appalling... Rant away, it needs saying!

Re working class writing: I enjoyed Union Street last year, and another of Pat Barker's early novels, whose title I can't remember and can't easily check as I'm typing this on my smartphone. I'm going to have to post this, search on LT and come back to edit the post!

Eta: Liza's England was the other one.

Perfectly appropriate rant, Rhian. I fully agree (which is, of course, what makes it "appropriate"!).

I was worried about the dog fighting in Salvage the Bones but it bothered me less than I expected. She doesn't go into gratuitous detail but neither does she balk at describing the fights and the impact on the humans who, oddly (to me) care deeply about their dogs. I thought it was an excellent novel.

Poodles, I like poodles....small ones.

I've taken in several dogs since I moved a year and a half ago (and I'm a cat person in a big way). The fist one is a gem - I was very, very afraid of her (poor starving and later hurt thing) but I am now very fond of her 50lb self. She looks scary, so I've got her in a pink and red polka dot collar so people won't be afraid of her.

Unfortunately, two more similarly largish and starving dogs showed up a while back and I've learned just how wonderful our fist dog is. I've been trying so hard to find homes for them (or a group that will take them in) but I've had no luck. There are too many strays....

I thought your rant was excellent and well deserved - it's important to call out politicians when they spout that kind of...hmm...I'll watch my language and say nonsense. Good job!

Got home this afternoon to discover that Daisy had been sick on new carpet and new sofa! Not what I was wanting to see. She had liver problems before Christmas and in a way I'm quite glad she was sick as it means that it's less likely to be something more serious. But she could have chosen the tiles or some old carpet, we've still got a fair bit of that. She hadn't wanted to eat yesterday afternoon and was very lethargic so I'd taken her to the vets and apparently her liver enzymes are a bit high (although nowhere near the very high levels that they were at before Christmas). We have to repeat the tests in three weeks and she has some more liver function medication to take and antibiotics, but she seems a lot brighter today (apart from the vomiting).

Anyway, I think I have managed to get marks out of sofa and carpet - Actually, I'd have been a bit annoyed if it hadn't come out of the carpet as it is supposed to have a 20 year stain protection guarantee.

#175,176,177 Hi Genny, Ellen, Dejah it does seem to me that people are being demonised for failing. Prosperous middle-class people look at someone who is poor and struggling and tend to think that they would do much better in those circumstances, and that might well be true. But in reality they can't ever truly put themselves in the position of someone who has been struggling all their lives: if they did find themselves in a difficult situation they would have so many more resources to call upon.

#177 Dejah one of the reason's Daisy is called Daisy is that it's a nice unthreatening name. Staffies do have a bit of a reputation in the UK for being aggressive, although in reality the problem is that they are often the dog of choice for agressive owners because of their looks and their strength. So we thought that no-one would get the wrong idea if we called our staffie Daisy!

Oh dear, but thank goodness for Scotchguard!

#180 It isn't actually Scotchguarded. According to the man in the carpet shop, scotch guarding has to be put on after the carpet is made and gradually wears off with time, cleaning etc whereas the carpet we have is manufactured with the stain resistance built in, so that it's guaranteed for the life of the carpet. The carpet fitters said that you could deal with stubborn marks with a dilute solution of bleach, but that sounds deeply scary to me.

Glad it is a stain resistant carpet.

I was fine with your rant. The reality for troubled families is so complex that generalities are inane. Most, I believe, struggle to rejoin the mainstream.

Hi Rhian, I was fine with your rant too as it mirrored my feelings exactly. I think politicians don't know what to do with great need and very little in the way of resources so they say stupid things that would probably embarrass them if they were to be read back to them. It's a huge problem with no easy answers.

Political rants are always worth a considered read Rhian. I do recall that some of these issues have been rehearsed on these august pages hitherto but I do think that conservatives, liberals and socialists need to work a little harder to find common ground and truths to move forward from instead of barraging the converted with haplessly misleading statistics.

I look at things like this:

1. A caring and civilised society will want to combine together to provide for those unable to care for themselves fully - the aged, the infirm, the disabled and the chronically disadvantaged.

2. The contributions to that provision should fall proportionately on those best able to afford to do so.

3. The west cannot afford it's welfare system and has to find ways to reduce the cost of the same or raise additional funds to contribute to it.

4. In an ideal world the welfare system ought not to be used as a long term solution for the unemployed. Unemployment benefit should be for subsistence and not an encouragement not to work.

5. The best way to reduce unemployment benefit is to put people back to work and not necessarily reduce individual payments. It is the states responsibility to provide the circumstances wherein these job opportunities are provided.

6. In situations such as the UK with an old and , in parts, crumbling infrastructure, there is clearly a case for a large public programme of redevelopment via publicly owned corporations utilising the human capital largely from those otherwise unable to find work.

7. There is no such thing as free trade when welfare and cultural differentials between nations are factored. If countries, or groups of countries have to pay more for a basket of goods as a trade-off to having its people employed and able to contribute to society it is a price the fat cats as we all must pay.

8. Begrudging those on welfare is not the answer. Those who may be able to leave their dependancy upon it need to be given hope , education and opportunity.

Sorry to issue a diatribe in response to your rant, but these are issues we both clearly feel strongly about.

Quick pop in just to say hello!! Sorry I've missed some of the great conversations going on...

#182, 183, 183, 184 Hi Lucy, Bonnie,Paul,Tina Thanks for dropping by and commenting.

Paul I think we are actually in agreement on a lot of matters. I don't think a life on unemployment benefits is acceptable (although a life on other sorts of benefits may be unavoidable) but I do believe that the vast majority of unemployed people want to work, borne out by the huge numbers of applications that are frequently reported for entry level jobs (I think a job at Starbucks in Nottingham recently attracted six or seven hundred).

The thing I object to in the UK at the moment is the demonisation of people on benefits. Most people receiving benefits are actually in work but paid at minimum levels, and the level of benefit fraud is actually tiny, less than 1%, but the government and media seem obsessed with developing almost a witch hunt mentality. And the housing situation in the UK, especially in the South-East, is incredibly difficult for people on low incomes with house prices and rents through the roof and very little social housing available. The cheapest house I can see in the town where I live is a small two bedroomed terraced house in need of modernisation at £175,000 and with median incomes at around £25,000pa that is still unaffordable for very many people.

The government's role should be to promote jobs and to assist those people who have been unemployed for some time to find their own jobs, but this should be real assistance not just of the ticking boxes variety, which I know from my own experience is the sort that is frequently offered. There have been recent cases of jobseekers having their allowance stopped because they had not attended their appointment at the job centre, despite the reason for their non-attendance being the fact that they were at a job interview. And we had a recent case where the unemployed were required to work free at shops such as Poundland stacking shelves, or lose their unemployment benefits. I don't see anything wrong with requiring unemployed people to undertake work experience or taking part in the sort of publicly funded schemes that you talk about above, but I don't think that carrying out entry level tasks for a commercial organisation really falls into that category.

Rhian - I don't think there is a single syllable in your above post I would take issue with. x

#187 Paul my family always shout at me if I am on one of my rants! You are being very polite! We have sorted out all our dates to Malaysia now and booked our flights and hotels so I will PM you the dates that we are in KL and hopefully we can meet up.

Daisy was still feeling a bit poorly this morning and didn't want her food, so when I got up I was treated to the sight of the cat eating Daisy's food, with Daisy looking on. She seems much recovered this evening and is busy chasing her tail at the moment!

Two new books today:

Angel Elizabeth Taylor - This is my April RL book club choice - I'm looking forward to this one as I've been meaning to get around to Elizabeth Taylor for a while. We gave the March book (Catcher in the Rye) a miss as we realised the meeting was on Mr SandDune's birthday.

Life after Life Kate Atkinson - I don't usually buy hardbacks but it was on a special offer for pre-orders and I really liked the sound of it from its review at the weekend.

Hi Rhian - I came into the conversation a little late, but rant on. Speeches from privileged politicians who have no understanding of poverty infuriate me. I hope Daisy is feeling better. Bad luck that just as your house is getting put back together, you have a sick dog.

Nice acquisitions - I have reserved Life After Life at my library. I think it's due out next month.

By working class fiction you mean fiction about/featuring the working class?
Call the Midwife is what I am engrossed in right now (to the point of neglecting my other duties!!). It is such a great account of 1950's East End London.

It is nice to have politeness associated with myself Rhian although I'm not sure some of my contempories here would necessarily agree.
I am looking forward to your visit as I don't get to many chances to show Malaysia off to our troupe.

Life After Life was mentioned on Goodreads and I added it to the huge TBR pile. I'm anxious to see if my local library has this yet.

I'm enjoying your political comments!

I love your rant! I don't know much about social welfare issues in the UK, but here in the States it seems like there is more and more of a tendency to treat poverty as a crime. Most people in power really don't have an idea how hard it is to be poor. There is a program here called "Walk A Mile" where public figures commit to live on a food stamp budget for a month --all politicians should have to do that, before they vote for cuts!

Also enjoying your political comments, and I believe I am in agreement with you and Paul . Canadian here - more or less I think we have largely achieved the right balance, though I am not appreciating out current conservative government.

Life After Life is going on my wishlist !

Poor Daisy - I hope she's feeling better soon!

I was at a dinner meeting tonight for the local camellia society. At my table were several elderly persons who were lovely company until they began to claim (per a right wing tv personality) the U.S. government has set aside $1 million to help obese lesbians loose weight. I clenched my jaw to keep it from dropping to the floor and the kept it clenched to resist the impish impulse to declare that as an overweight lesbian I'd love some help losing weight and did they know where I was to apply? Good glory! If they'd been a little younger I might have done it, but I didn't want to be responsible for any heart attacks or strokes over dessert....

#190 Beth Daisy is much better now, but the vet was worried that she might have an ongoing liver problem after her experience before Christmas, although it might just be that her normal level of that particular enzyme is higher than average. But the vet did say that any vomiting or diarrhoea would be a good sign as it would indicate that this particular bout was more gastric than liver related, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

#191 Megan ideally, I'm trying to find books written by people from that community rather than about them. Having said that, I've got Call the Midwife on the TBR shelf as well - I bought it last year when the first series came out on the BBC - and I really should get around to it.

#192 Paul, our plan is to fly directly to Langkawi, then do Penang, Cameron Highlands, Taman Negara, Pulau Perhentian, and back to KL: three weeks in total. We're all really looking forward to it, but I'll need to persuade Mr SandDune to pack light. With that much travelling around we don't want mounds of luggage but he usually likes to take everything bar the kitchen sink.

#193 Linda Life after Life was only published in the UK yesterday and I think I saw somewhere that it won't be published until next month in the US. I really loved Kate Atkinson's early stuff, especially Behind the Scenes at the Museum, but I didn't really get to the Jackson Brodie books as I don't read a lot of detective fiction.

#194 it seems like there is more and more of a tendency to treat poverty as a crime. Most people in power really don't have an idea how hard it is to be poor - Rhonda that's what I feel exactly! That "Walk a Mile" campaign sounds excellent.

#195 Deborah I find that I'm rather more left-leaning than most of the people I meet day-to-day, but mainly because the South-East of England really is a bastion of Conservatism. I joke with Mr SandDune that if ever Scotland becomes independent then I'm putting my name down to emigrate, as without Scotland to balance it the remainder of the UK would probably have a Conservative government for the foreseeable future.

#196 Dejah - old ladies get away with murder, in my opinion! One of my most embarrassing moments ever was with Mr SandDune's grandma, probably in her late eighties at the time. I'd taken her for a walk round town when she was visiting us, and we'd stopped to look at a stall being run by a local organisation that I was interested in joining. She was having a nice chat with the man behind the stall and then suddenly came out with an extremely racist comment. The man behind the stall remonstrated politely and I remonstrated politely and we just couldn't get her to shut up. I remember wanting the ground to swallow me up, but I just didn't know how to deal with it from someone her age. If she'd been younger I would have known what to say but I was brought up to be nice to little old ladies, and it was so sudden that my mind went blank. I never did join the organisation, mainly from embarrassment!

Ooh, lucky you to have a copy of Life after Life already. I didn't know she had a new book out until I read about it here, and now I see it is longlisted for the Orange/Women's prize too.

Another non-Brodie one of hers I've read recently is Not the end of the world, a series of interlinked short stories that I enjoyed very much indeed.

23. The White Mountains John Christopher ***1/2
Challenge: A Brief History of the Dead (dystopian fiction and the end of the world)



This is the first of John Christopher's tripod trilogy which I vaguely remember from the TV series back in the 1980's. The book was written in 1967 and shows its age just a little: much less teenage angst than you often get in a young adult novel today on the plus side, and an absence of meaningful female characters on the minus. But overall a good adventure story that has lasted well.

At an unspecified future date humans live in a society that has reverted to medieval feudalism under the ultimate rule of the tripods, huge three-legged devices that stalk the land. In their fourteenth year all children are 'capped' by the tripods, with a metal cap that becomes fused to their skull: an event that they are taught to look forward to as the start of adulthood. But as his older cousin Jack is capped, and Will notices the changes in his character, he starts to have misgivings. Encountering Ozymandias, seemingly a vagrant, a person whose mind has been broken by the capping process, Will discovers that the cap is the means by which the Tripods control humanity and keep them docile. He resolves to join the resistance in the White Mountains that he is told about by Ozymandias, but this means a long and hazardous journey to the south. And an uncapped boy alone will attract suspicion ... With the unwelcome addition of his cousin Henry as a travelling companion, and the French boy Jean-Paul, nicknamed 'Beanpole' by the cousins, Will's journe is indeed fraught with danger, and wonder as well as the cousins encounter the mysterious city of the ancients.

With elements of HG Well's The War of the Worlds and a touch of John Wyndham this isn't maybe the most original book ever, but great fun.

24. City of Gold and Lead John Christopher ****
Challenge: A Brief History of the Dead (dystopia and the end of the world)



CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR FIRST BOOK IN SERIES

The second in John Christopher's Tripod trilogy which lives up to the promise of the first book, and unusually for a second book, exceeds it. Will, Beanpole and Henry are safely ensconced in the stronghold in the White Mountains, but a plan is being hatched by the leaders of the resistance to try to find a way into the city of the tripods. The champions of each event in the annual games held far to the north are taken as servants to the city, so if representatives of the resistance can be trained to win it will give them the opportunity to discover vital information in their fight against the tripods. Will and Beanpole are chosen, along with another boy called Fritz, and the first half of the book deals with their travels to the games and the games themselves, following similar lines to the first book. However, the book takes a darker turn once the successful boys arrive at the city and the horror of the tripods' rule becomes clear. And it was the description of the boys' time in the tripods' city that moved this book up from the three and a half stars that I'd given The White Mountains to the four stars that I'm giving this one. There was a genuine sense of horror and menace that was missing from the boy's own adventure feel of the first book.

Another really solid YA adventure story, and I'll be moving right on to the conclusion.

Nice reviews, Rhian. My dad gave me that trilogy for Christmas when I was about 10 (?) and I remember really liking it.

Oh, it has been simply ages since I read the John Christopher trilogy--back when I was a teen, which means over 40 years ago!

Hi Rhian - Nice reviews of the John Christopher series. I would have thought they would be something my son would like, but I don't remember his reading them.

Hi Rhrian! Sorry to see that Daisy has been sick.
I think dogs and cats pick the worst places to get sick. My cat leaves her little fur balls on the floor at the top of the stairs, where I am bound to step in it if I'm not looking where I'm walking!

#202 Genny I don't usually buy hardback books as I said, but I was in Waterstones and they were advertising it for £10 on preorder rather than the recommended price of £18.99 so I couldn't resist. It did have a very good reviiew.

#206, 207, 208, Hi Katie, Roni. Beth I hadn't come across John Christopher as a teenager but I did come across Death of Grass, one of his adult novels a few years ago.

One thing that struck me reading the tripod books was that there were no meaningful female characters, and initially I viewed this in a negative light. But then I started to think more about it, and then wondered if that was necessarily so. Many boys in their tweens and early teens seem to go through an anti-girl phase, (my own son included), as far as I can see mainly because girls mature earlier and tend to organise the boys at an age when they just want to kick a football about. So if we want to keep boys reading is it the right tactic to give them books full of the resourceful and organised girls that they try to avoid in real life? Not sure about this, just thinking aloud.

A very mixed day today. We spent most of it attempting to put our two new bookcases together. The first one had to be abandoned as the central dividing section had been constructed upside down so the holes were in the wrong place for the shelves on either side. The second one also had to be abandoned when almost completed as the bottom supports for the individual sections were the wrong height. Am very, very unhappy about this, as it means we will have to wait for the new sections and the bookcases will not be ready to be painted by the decorators here next week.

But then it did get better as we watched Wales v England at rugby. England just had to win to win the Six Nations Championship, but Wales had to win and get eight more points than England. In the end Wales beat England thirty points to three in a complete whitewash, so Wales won the Championship for the second year in a row. Very happy about this!

>201 SandDune: Little old ladies do get away with murder - I must admit I'm rather looking forward to it! That said, like you I was raised to be polite and I was well aware that under the circumstances there was little I could say that would change anyone's mind about what they think they know. It was very tempting, though, to be deliberately provocative!

>210 SandDune: I have several pieces of furniture I need to put together, including bookcases. Your post has not encouraged me to get this done....

#211 There seems to come an time with old ladies when they are considered wonderful for merely surviving as long as they have, whether or not they warrant the description for any other reason. Several of my aunts, who all survived to their mid to late nineties, got to that stage.

>210 SandDune:: "who will slay the dragon?" My lad brought us back a figurine of the red dragon from Millenium Stadium in Wales when his team did an exhibition tour when he was in high school. So glad to hear that Wales triumphed (although I do cheer for Scotland too).

25. Moon over Soho Ben Aaronovitch ***1/2
Challenge: The Thirteenth Tale (series)



After just reading a sequel that outdid the first book in the series, it was disappointing to come to one that didn't, especially as the first book in this series Rivers of London had been one of my favourite books of last year.

Detective Constable Peter Grant is still the only wizard in training in the Metropolitan police, working for the mysterious Inspector Nightingale, who has been growing younger rather than older every day since the 1970's. Grant's skills are called in when a jazz musician is found dead with the vestigia (the imprint left by magic) of an old jazz tune emanating from his corpse. And as the corpses of more jazz musicians appear events seem to lead back to a bomb blast in the Cafe de Paris in the London Blitz, and the possibility of jazz vampires. And meanwhile, Grant's colleague Lesley, who suffered horrific facial injuries at the end of Rivers of London, still hopes for a cure by any means possible.

I'm not sure why I liked this one so much less that the first book. As someone who has no interest in or knowledge of jazz I suppose the central theme didn't grab my attention, and both Lesley and Inspector Nightingale, key characters in Rivers of London, were more peripheral in this. But it does have the same appealing combination of a believable real life London and magical events. So although it certainly wasn't a patch on the first book, Moon over Soho is still an enjoyable read, and I'll certainly follow it up with the next in the series.

I loved those Christopher books when I read them (I was just about the right age at the right time) - At that time we didn't even notice the lack of girls, at least I didn't. Reading the review though, made me realize how deeply 'embedded' that story is in my mind.

Am feeling shattered today as for the last three nights have woken up with night terrors, and have had trouble getting back to sleep. I've always been prone to nightmares and have had the night terror thing before although I don't remember getting it on successive nights like this.

We have managed to put together one of the bookcases as the middle section was not constructed upside done after all, it just looked as if it was. The company was actually very helpful when I phoned up and they've emailed lots of diagrams and more explanations showing how it all fits together, but it would have been much more helpful if they'd sent it with the original order so that we wouldn't have got in such a mess in the first place. Anyway, the bookcase looks good and seems very solid: the decorators will paint it over the next couple of days and then finally I can get some of my hardback books put away.

#213 Tui - the Millenium Stadium is a great stadium and the atmosphere there when Wales play is incredible. I've been there a few times but not for the last couple of years. Sounds like a good trip that your son went on?

#215 Lucy - the Christopher books are very much YA but I certainly find that sometimes a straightforward adventure story is just what's needed.

Hi Rhian - I hope you get some good rest tonight. Good luck with the rest of your construction project.

I am so sorry for your sleep troubles, Rhian - you have my sincere sympathy. I hope you sleep soundly tonight.

Congratulations on the bookcase progress - I'm going to tackle one tonight!

>217 SandDune:: it was a trip of a lifetime for a high school rugby team (about 15 years ago) where they played Scottish, Welsh and English teams. I remember him saying that the whole team kneeled down and kissed the pitch at Millenium when they visited! Rugby mecca, I guess.

So glad you got the bookcase together. Lucky you, more shelf space!

Hoping you are getting a good, restful night's sleep, Rhian. I seldom have nightmares but last night I did dream that I was in the midst of a zombie attach. Which is so strange because I don't watch 'The Walking Dead' and haven't read any zombie books or watched zombie movies. And yet there they were in my dreams. Weird.

196... dejah: I'm also an overweight lesbian who would love some help losing weight. Did the old broads happen to mention where we can sign up?!?!?
Lol!!! Good for you for holding your tongue. I have a hard time confronting an older person unless its in a professional capacity, so I would probably been quiet too.

Sorry for thread hi-jack Rhian! Hi & hope you are doing well!

>196 Dejah_Thoris: & 201: There's always that conflict, isn't there? Take them to task or just keep the peace. I remember my grandmother coming out with a doozy that had me desperately wishing I wasn't related to her, but what could I say?...she's grandma.

Btw, simply googling that study can provide endless hours of entertainment if you enjoy reading semi-coherent, rabid rants full of non sequiturs and digressions. ;-)

Hi Beth, Dejah, Tui, Julia, Tina, Tad

I am feeling a bit better today as I managed an unbroken night's sleep last night. I don't really mind having nightmares: I have always had them, so I supposed I'm used to them and I just go straight back to sleep, but these night terrors are another thing entirely. I wake up feeling absolutely terrified and I have all the physical symptoms as well: my heart is pounding away, and it seems to take ages before I've calmed down enough to even think about getting back to sleep.

The first bookcase is going to be painted tomorrow and the decorators have agreed to come back next week to do the other one, if we can put it together at the weekend. I know from past experience that if me and Mr SandDune have to do it it'll probably still be sitting there in August unpainted, and I so want to get the books put of the conservatory and back on the shelves.

#222 we have the overweight lesbian rant in the UK as well!

#223 Tad, I remember finding it much more awkward as it was my husband's grandma rather than my own.You always feel slightly more on trial with your partner's family, unless that's just me.

>224 SandDune:: No, I don't think just you. My mother-in-law has done things that embarrass me a bit and I always feel extra bad because I can't whisper to her, "Mom, stop!"

Somehow missed the night terror post, sorry, Rhian. One of my lads had those when he was young and it was awful until he woke up out of them. You have my heartfelt compassion for them. I wonder if it comes from a vivid imagination? Having had dreams so vivid, so terrifying, that I have been afraid to go back to sleep, I've wondered what on earth part of the brain/mind these things come from? I have a bag with lavender in it that you can heat up in the microwave. You put it over your forehead and eyes. It works a charm, provided you leave the light on!

I have vivid dreams, which can be bad enough (although it's usually just very entertaining; like having an all-night movie or living a separate life when I'm asleep) but I can't imagine night terrors. How horrible...

Re the rant, I'd love to have a civilized society in which people regarded each other with empathy. But here I encounter otherwise rational people who are firmly convinced that they are entitled to every dollar they earn, and that if someone else is in need of food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, education, well, it is up to that person to provide it for themselves. If they haven't been able to do so, that, the reasoning goes, is their problem and fixing it is their responsibility. (Yes, it's dressed up in 'personal responsibility' clothing.) Obviously, there's a vast gap between the minority of people who abuse or exploit the system, but I loathe living in a world that views a widening wealth gap with complacency, especially given the fact that it is coupled with a lack of social mobility, relative to our history.

I'm looking forward to reading Life After Life; just missed getting a copy from Amazon Vine, and I'm peeved! So I'll load it on to my Kindle when it comes out next month.

Hi Tad, Tui, Suzanne

Mr SandDune would certainly be happier if I didn't get nightmares. I've been known to wake him up screaming my head off because I'm having a nightmare (this only happens rarely I should add) and with nightmares I can go back to sleep quite happily straight away, whereas he is naturally a little stressed at being woken up like that and takes a while to get back to sleep. With night terrors it's the other way around: I'm only keeping myself awake.

Suz, in the UK people's attitude to government spending seems to vary hugely depending on what it is being spent on. Virtually no-one quibbles about spending on health, education or pensioners. There's lots of debate about the most efficient way of providing these things, but no meaningful debate about whether or not they should be provided. (Most British people find the debate in the US about health care completely mystifying). What people do argue about is things like unemployment benefits and housing benefits, and this is what seems to be encouraged by the government and sections of the press peddling misleading statistics.

26. The Pool of Fire John Christopher ***
Challenge: A Brief History of the Dead (dystopia and the end of the world)



CONTAINS SPOILERS

The last book in John Christopher's Tripods trilogy and in my opinion the weakest. It suffers from two tendencies which I've found unfortunately aren't uncommon, and which I always find particularly annoying. Firstly, despite humans being in a pre-industrial state at the start of the trilogy, several hundred years of human technological progress are condensed into about six years, so that by the end they have electricity, radio, television, engines, airplanes and powerful explosives. And it's all been reinvented as far as I can see, as books have been destroyed by the tripods. And secondly, the means by which the tripods are attacked and defeated seem implausible in the extreme given that they were not able to be defeated by the weapons of the twentieth century.

Will, Henry, Beanpole and Fritz continue their efforts to defeat the tripod menace. Despite Will and Fritz's escape from the city of the tripods, the resistance still have insufficient information to mount a meaningful attack, so a living 'master' must be captured alive to provide more information. This leads once more to a desperate undercover operation in the city of the tripods itself in an attempt to destroy them once and for all. And as the resistance attempts to take the struggle to the two other tripod cities as well, dissension grows within its own ranks..

So an OK read, but one which never really came alive for me.

First bookcase has now been painted and is ready to start receiving books (at least it will be when Mr SandDune comes home and we can move it back into position against the wall. This one is going to hold our outsize books and some non-fictions hardbacks, my Persephone books, and possibly a new collection of Virago books, as well as our DVD's. The second one will hold fiction hardbacks. I think we will have some spare bookshelves when we have done (but of course they won't be spare for long).

I'm so sorry about your night terrors - I have had little spells of something like and I was advised that the best thing to do is GET UP and go outside and sit awhile just looking up at the night sky. I've done it even when it is the dead of winter, just bundled up and gone out. And I think I have calmed down more quickly that way. I've had some beautiful moments actually, looking at the moon and stars. Then I have a snort of something, or hot milk and rum and usually I conk out soon after. It hasn't happened in long while. EVen in the city we had a garden I could go to even though you couldn't really see or hear anything but orange glow and city noises, it was still better than fretting indoors.

>230 SandDune:: The new bookcases sound wonderful. I love the process of organizing the books on the shelves. Care to share photos?

>231 sibylline:: I'm sorry you suffer so, Rhian, but Lucy's advice sounds pretty good. It would be so peaceful.

Regarding Daisy, they never get sick on the tile or linoleum. Just not as much fun, you know.
I hope she is okay.
I used to get nightmares and had serious insomnia. Both are better and I count myself lucky. And no caffeine after 10am.

I have vivid dreams , Rhian, but not night terrors! That must be dreadful! I remember how it scared me when our eldest was about ? 8 months or so and began having night terrors. He would scream and cry and not appear to be awake, though his eyes were open. It nearly scared the wits out of me, until I got used to it. What I used to do was gently pick him up and take him out into the cooler night air outside, bundled up in blankets. For some reason that seemed to bring him round gradually. Our second son had them too -but by then while we were unnerved, less so because we had a strategy and also knew what it was. They grew out of it by 2 - 2. 5 years -I forget.

You know, I think I can say I've never had " happy dreams" just dreams. Thankfully I am not aware of dreaming too often.

But the reason I really sought you out was to chuckle about your strict dad who made you wait until 16 for the pierced ears! :) Dad's!

Sorry to hear that your last book was just so - so. I hope the next book is better!

234 How interesting, Deb, that you did the same thing for your little one that I was advised to do for myself. Now that I think of it the moon always acted like a sleep tonic on our daughter too, when she was fretful.

Message #201

My partner had an Aunt who hooked herself up with a bigoted racist. The family was always embarrassed to be with him. Finally, after too many outbursts by this idiot, Will told his Aunt that we would no longer visit her when he was with her.

Family members initially politely told him that none of us appreciate his offensive use of the "N" word! Our request only made him say it more.

Sadly, Aunt Phyllis passed away. Gladly, he is no longer in our circle.

Rhian - I am also a very vivid dreamer but my dreams tend towards the quirky and unexplainable rather than the terrifying. SWMBO too has her dreams and is always convinced that the gibberish she has slept through is trying to make some ephemeral message to her. I have been awoken on several occasions via a punch or two from my beloved. Normally I request her to switch channels when she goes back to sleep!

btw your schedule looks pretty good; plenty of sun and beach. Taman Negara you need to make sure you get a good guide and don't be fooled if it looks like the sun is only peaking at you intermittently - without sunscreen it will roast you. If you need to lighten the load you can always leave some stuff with us while you go on your travels - Taman Negara especially is best done with little baggage.

Hello Rhian,
extremely intesting rant and discussion you and Paul had and I actually agree with most of what both of you said. Well, I think I am myself would be a very good example. Whilst still living in the Uk I had to go part time around 6 years ago. So I reduced my hours from 38 to 20 hours which gave me an average income of 1200 pound a month at that time. Well, actually still brilliant wages considering what a majority of people earn in the UK. However, I actually had to apply for Housing benefit - my 1 1/2 bedroom flat cost a little more than a 1000 pound a month including bills, but I didn't qualify for council tax benefit and I didn't qualify for family tax credit (my childminder was not registered). So, even if you are working and in reputable job at that, you still can end up on benefits in the UK.

And least at last I see that you have been reading some wonderful books Rhian. Some of them are already gone onto my wishlist.
I wish you and your family a lovely weekend :)

I pre-ordered a copy of the audiobook for Life after Life after it was longlisted for the Prize Fromerly Known as Orange. I am looking forward to it! :)

#231 Lucy I haven't had the night terrors for a couple of nights but if they recur then your idea of sitting outside idea sounds a good one. Except that the weather at the moment is cold and wet and they're saying it might snow tonight ... Apparently the average temperature in March has been colder than the average for December and January, and I don't remember them being particularly warm!

#232 Laura I will do some photos of the finished decorating next week, including bookcases. I think we will actually be left with some spare shelf capacity, which we haven't had for, well, I can't really remember having any share shelf capacity.

#233 Ellen I rarely get insomnia - as I said the dreams don't usually cause me a problem - and I really hate not getting enough sleep. Daisy seems to have got over her sickness, so I'm hoping that's all it was. She had been revelling this week in having the decorators back! She was quite addicted to trying to undo their shoelaces.

#236 Linda Giving my grandma-in-law the benefit of the doubt, I don't think that she was actually trying to be offensive or to annoy us, I think she just genuinely didn't realise that what she said was going to be considered unacceptable by the people who heard it. But that wasn't much consolation, as it was the sort of comment that really wasn't going to be considered acceptable by the vast majority of people.

#237 Paul I think the holiday should be quite a good mix of relaxation and activity. We all really love snorkelling (although I'm not very good if the water's not super calm) and we're hoping to do quite a bit. J particularly wants to see mangroves and rain forest and the skyscrapers in KL. I'm trying to persuade Mr SandDune that he needs to pack light but it's always an uphill task.

#238 Bianca I think one of the reason that housing benefit tends to be more controversial in the UK is that there is such a discrepancy in housing costs between London and the South-East and the rest of the country. To a lot of people outside London £1,000 a month might sound a ridiculous amount to be paying in rent, but London prices are just so high.

#239 Rachel I think I will be reading Life after Life very soon. I really like the sound of it.

Let's hope you'll be spared tonight, but I've gone out in all weather except high wind with heavy rain.

I have a recurring dream that I'm searching for a clean public restroom, and I absolutely can't find one, which brings on stress. It's rather awful. I'm not sure why I brought that up. It's probably not relevant : )

Anyway, I hope you have a peaceful night. That sounds awful. I sometimes have terrifying dreams when I first fall asleep and it's very difficult to wake up. Then it seems like I'm dreaming that I'm dreaming and I'm trying to wake up from that dream, etc.

Phew! Can you tell I had an afternoon cup of coffee?!

#243, 244 Hi Lucy, Kerri I think I'm getting over the night terrors now, without having to resort to sitting in the rain thank goodness! It seemed that they can be brought on by stress, and I was feeling stressed last weekend with having to move loads of furniture about again for the decorators, and failing miserably to construct the bookcases. It might not sound very much but I'm the sort of person who likes everything to be in its place and we've had nearly two months of quite a lot of things not being in their place and I think it was just getting to me. But I'm definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now - Monday the carpet will be fitted in the dining room and so that room will be finished, and then the only thing left to do will be to make and paint the remaining bookcase.

We had some good news yesterday in that my sister has persuaded my mother to reserve a retirement apartment in the new development in her home town. She's not fully committed to buying it yet, but it's a start. And I have a new great-niece, Victoria. And I'm reading some great books: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward and The Unknown Bridesmaid by Margaret Forster. Both very different sort of books, but both equally gripping.

Forster's memoirs are somewhere lost in my shelves......

Disorder can do that - I have a certain amount of tolerance (quite a lot, actually) but then blammo, I can't STAND it - Mr. Sibyx used to pooh-pooh it, but he's lived with me long enough to see how anxious I get, how physical it is, I mean. So glad things are improving on the home front.

hi Bianca. There is a difference between your grandmother and Will's Aunt's partner. He was very intentional in making everyone uncomfortable. I'd give your grandmother-in-law the same benefit of doubt that you did.

Happy Friday to you.

Re post #245, I'm very much like you in that I crave, need order. Two months of thinks not in their place is indeed challenging and you deserve a lot of credit.

I'm the same as Lucy - pretty tolerant until I'm just not anymore and it must be fixed!

So glad you are liking Salvage the Bones!

Hi, Rhian. I've been off the threads for awhile, due to company coming and the prerequisite spring cleaning! Glad to hear you were able to get support with the bookshelves and am looking forward to the pictures. Also glad to hear you are now sleeping better--I hate chaos too.

Sorry to see what stress has done to your sleep! Hope you a free from night terrors now!

Salvage the Bones is great!

Sorry about the night terrors. My daughter had them when she was little. Being overtired used to bring them on.

Uh you forget me in #234, now I have a complex, Rhian! :) Just kidding , stopping by to say hi and have a good nights sleep, I hope!

Glad you're liking Salvage the Bones. It's a great read.

Rhian - Looks like I am to be in the UK before you make it to Malaysia. Duty calls as mum is not too well so I will be in UK with my tribe from Wednesday for 2 weeks+.

Mangrove, Rain Forest and Skyscrapers is a fair old combination I give that to Mr. Sanddune. You should be lucky as it is very unlikely you'll get any choppy seas at Perhentian.

Have a lovely weekend.

#246 Lucy I've read a couple of Margaret Forster's non-fiction books before and enjoyed them: Hidden Lives: A Family Memoir and Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin. But even though I haven't yet finished The Unknown Bridesmaid I know that I want to read more of her fiction. I picked up this audiobook (only just published) as it had such a good review in the Observer a couple of weeks ago, and it is very much living up to expectations. Here's the original review:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/10/unknown-bridesmaid-margaret-forster-...

#247 Linda I am definitely not going to have this much decorating done together in future - one room at a time from now on. Not that there should be a need: this time it was just that we had let a backlog develop, so doing any one room would show up the decoration in the rest.

#248 Katie I'm not sure 'enjoying' is quite the right word for Salvage the Bones. I am finding it thought provoking and shocking and depressing and sad and appalling all at the same time, but I am very glad that I am reading it.

#249,250,251 Hi Roni, Chelle, Rhonda Sleeping much better now thanks. Tiredness may well have something to do with it as we spent such a lot of last weekend moving (quite heavy) things around. Having a more relaxing time this weekend - it is my birthday tomorrow so will be going out for a meal and hopefully taking it easy. The weather here is awful though. It is snowing at the moment, and while we've missed the worst of the snow over the last couple of weeks and it's not really cold enough for it to accumulate on the roads, 23rd March is incredibly late for it to be snowing at all. Apparently it is set to be the coldest March for 50 years if it doesn't warm up soon.

#252 Deborah I'm so sorry that I missed you! It was actually my Mum who was the strict one when it came to earrings. She used to have these little prejudices about things like earrings that just didn't seem particularly rational: she wasn't unduly strict in other respects. I remember on my way home from having them pierced I called in at my Dad's office to show him my new earrings, and he immediately decided that he would work late until the fuss had died down!

#253 Ellen at the moment I'm considering picking Salvage the Bones for my next book group read. It's Mr SandDune who has the reputation for picking gritty books, but I think it would lead to a great discussion.

#254 Paul it's actually J who wants to see all those. Mr SandDune would be quite happy to miss out KL all together (he doesn't see the point of modern cities) but J is interested in architecture so really wants to see some of your buildings. I hope you have a good trip to the UK and your Mum's OK. It must warm up a bit soon, surely, so perhaps you'll miss the bad weather.