Paul's Books and Stuff in 2013 Part 19

Felkirk Middle School going for glory and coming up short in the final of the district soccer competition. Yours truly is the chap kneeling in the centre between the two guys with the balls, if you see what I mean. Closest I got to the ball in the final as I recall!

QUOTE

No Yorkshireman for this one. I grew up and remain a lover of sports; soccer (as I'll call it to aid the comprehension of our american friends), cycling, rugby, tennis (until height started to matter), athletics, boxing, karate and, strangely, clay pigeon shooting were all sports I participated in avidly and enjoyed immensely.

As sports were important to me this quote from Liverpool FC's legendary manager the great Bill Shankly is one I always recall:



"Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that. "

Bill Shankly

2013 Books Read

January
1. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
2. Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton
3. Promised Land: A Northern Love Story bt Anthony Clavane
4. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
5. A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block
6. That Awkward Age by Roger McGough
7. If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler
8. Coffee, Tea or Me? by Trudi Baker
9. Among the Cinders by Maurice Shadbolt
10 Viper's Tangle by Francois Mauriac
11 Phantom by Jo Nesbo
12 When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Penman
13 The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji
14 An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah

February
15 The Shortest History of Europe by John Hirst
16 Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo
17 The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
18 The Green Hat by Michael Arlen
19 V by Tony Harrison
20 The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell
21 This Sporting Life by David Storey
22 Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer
23 A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins
24 Back When We Were Grown-ups by Anne Tyler
25 On the Road to Babadag by Andrzej Stasiuk
26 Island in the Centre by Rex Shelley
27 Andris Apse : Odyssey and Images by R.D. Crosby & Andris Apse
28 I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson
29 50 Amazing Places in China by Dong Huai
30 Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson

March
31 Fallen Angel : The Passion of Fausto Coppi by William Fotheringham
32 Portrait of a Spy by Daniel Silva
33 Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes
34 After Rain by William Trevor
35 Jean de Florette by Marcel Pagnol
36 He (Shey) by Rabindranath Tagore
37 Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

April
38 The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
39 Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
40 Billy Brown, I'll Tell Your Mother by Bill Brown
41 Rhodesia by Nick Carter
42 The Mersey Sound by Adrian Henri, Roger McGough & Brian Patten
43 The Dance of the Seagull by Andrea Camilleri
44 Crimsoned Prairie by SLA Marshall
45 Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

May
46 The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
47 History of the Second World War by B.H. Liddell-Hart
48 Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro
49 Time and the Conways by J.B. Priestley
50 A Slipping-Down Life by Anne Tyler
51 Manon des Sources by Marcel Pagnol
52 Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist
53 One Hand on the Claret Jug by Norman Dabell
54 A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr
55 Loving Sabotage by Amelie Nothomb
56 The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books by Elif Batuman
57 My Michael by Amos Oz
58 Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

June
59 What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander
60 East of the West by Miroslav Penkov
61 In the Penny Arcade by Steven Millhauser
62 Drifting House by Krys Lee
63 Ten Sorry Tales by Mick Jackson
64 Stay Awake by Dan Chaon
65 Better Living Through Plastic Explosives by Zsuzsi Gartner
66 Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson
67 The Wreck of the Zanzibar by Michael Morpurgo
68 A Wanted Man by Lee Child
69 After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945 by Ben Shephard
70 Tinkers by Paul Harding
71 Ten Little Aliens by Stephen Cole
72 Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
73 The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson
74 The Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda

Best of 2013

Non-Fiction
1 Promised Land : A Northern Love Story by Anthony Clavane
2. A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins

Fiction
1 The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
2 The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
3 This Sporting Life by David Storey

Thrillers
1 Phantom by Jo Nesbo
2 Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer
3 A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr

Poetry
1. Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

June Reading Plan

May wasn't a bad reading month but I still got nowhere very close to my target of 20 books with 13 finished.
This month I am going to waltz through a number of short story collections (inspired by Mr. Derus), read some old favourites (the latest Reacher for starters and one of my new Doctor Whos), I want to read my newly purchased Orwell which I've been looking for for a while and finish off the two books I have ongoing and my other aim is to hit the 75 mark with half a year to go for which I need 17:

1. Stay Awake by Dan Chaon
2. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander
3. Better Living Through Plastic Explosives by Zsuzsi Gartner
4. Ten Sorry Tales by Mick Jackson
5. Drifting House by Krys Lee
6. In the Penny Arcade by Steven Milhauser
7. East of the West by Miroslav Penkov
8. Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson
9. The Natural by Bernard Malamud
10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (As usual)
11. Tinkers by Paul Harding
12. What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
13. The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson
14 A Wanted Man by Lee Child
15. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
16. Ten Little Aliens by Stephen Cole
17. Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
18 The Wreck of the Zanzibar by Michael Morpurgo
19. After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945 by Ben Shephard
20. The Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda

Plus if I get any time some TIOLIS (ETA added the Morpurgo for Luci's challenge)

Category Challenge

1 Works Originally in French (4/13)
2 Historical Fiction (5/13)
3 Poetry/Plays (7/13)
4 Works by Anne Tyler (3/13)
5 Books on Sports (4/13)
6 Books on Travel or Places (4/13)
7 Short Story Collections (12/13)
8 Between the Wars (2/13)
9 Scandi (4/13)
10 Old Friends (8/13)
11 Then and Now (7/13)
12 Prize Winners (4/13)
13 Asia Pacific (4/13)

Total Number of Challenges 169

Completed to Date 68

Percentage Complete 40.48%

Books at Start of Year on KL Shelves - 1,676
Added in 2013 - 510
Read in 2013 - 74

Revised TBR Total - 2,112

Pages to read at start of year - 639,135
Pages added in 2013 - 164,021
Read in 2013 - 19,503
Revised Pages to read - 783,653

Current Reading:

FLICS SEEN AT THE CIMENA in 2013 (Not a typo - I call cinema; cimena just to irritate Belle.

1 The Hobbit
2 Jack Reacher
3 Les Miserables
4 Parental Guidance
5 The Life of Pi
6. Flight
7. Lincoln
8. Django
9. Oz, The Great and Powerful
10. Iron Man 3
11. Oblivion
12. The Great Gatsby
13. After Earth

Series List:

Please refer to my page on fict-fact

http://www.fictfact.com/list/PaulCranswick/ALL

NOBEL CHALLENGE (This year's read additions in bold)

NOBEL WINNERS READ WITH FAVOURITE WORK READ SO FAR:
2011 The Half-Finished Heaven by Tomas Transtromer
2010 The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa
2009 The Appointment by Herta Muller
2007 The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing
2006 Snow by Orhan Pamuk
2005 The Caretaker by Harold Pinter
2003 The Master of Petersburg by J.M.Coetzee
2001 A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
1998 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by Jose Saramago
1997 Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo
1995 Station Island by Seamus Heaney
1994 A Quiet Life by Kenzaburo Oe
1991 July's People by Nadine Gordimer
1988 Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
1987 On Grief and Reason by Joseph Brodsky
1983 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
1982 A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1976 Herzog by Saul Bellow
1972 Billiards at Half-Past Nine by Heinrich Boll
1971 The Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda
1970 Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1968 Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata
1964 The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre
1962 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
1961 Bridge On the Drina by Ivo Andric
1958 Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
1957 The Plague by Albert Camus
1955 The Atom Station by Halldor Laxness
1954 The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway
1953 History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill
1952 Knot of Vipers by Francois Mauriac
1951 Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist
1949 The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
1948 The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
1947 The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide
1946 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
1938 The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
1932 A Man of Property by John Galsworthy
1930 Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
1925 Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw
1923 Collected Poems by W.B. Yeats
1921 And the Gods Will Have Blood by Anatole France
1913 He (Shey) by Rabindranath Tagore
1907 Kim by Rudyard Kipling

UNREAD NOBEL WINNERS ON THE SHELVES

2012 Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
2008 The Interrogation by J.M.G. Le Clezio
2004 The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
2002 Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz
2000 Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
1999 The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
1996 Poems New and Collected by Wislawa Szymborska
1993 Jazz by Toni Morrison
1992 Selected Poems by Derek Walcott
1990 The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz
1989 The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela
1986 Ake: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
1985 Flanders Road by Claude Simon
1981 Kafka's Other Trial by Elias Canetti
1978 Enemies : A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
1973 Voss by Patrick White
1969 Molloy by Samuel Beckett
1966 A Book That Was Lost by S.Y. Agnon
1965 And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
1950 A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
1936 A Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill
1934 Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello
1933 The Village by Ivan Bunin
1929 Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann
1928 Kristin Lavransdatter : 1 The Wreath by Sigrid Undset
1926 Reeds in the Wind by Grazia Deledda
1920 Hunger by Knut Hamsun
1909 The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof
1905 Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

So far read 44 laureates
29 laureates unread on the shelves
36 laureates whose works neither owned not read.

hej Paul, I am back from Greece and just found your new thread

Rats. Second.
Hi Paul!

Paul what do you send to the man with so many books? Easy another book. As you may know the first up on my threads gets a book from Book Depo. Please PM me your address mate and I'll try to figure something out for you.

Ellen - You have, of course, already won this year! Hi back!

Hi Paul. Hope you and yours are having a great weekend.

Snagging a seat on your new thread. LOVE the photo up top, Paul!

Thanks Calm - Yasmyne has two prom invites this weekend and Kyran one last night. Troubled times ahead with no sleep awaiting her return from a hoopefully fun and incident free evening.

Mamie - Those were the days! Here for posterity sake was the line-up:
Whitelam - Marshall, Cawston (M), Cranswick (PA), Cooke, - Cawston (D), Cranswick (PE), Millns - Brown, Rowland, Jackson (Subs Mansell, Kemp).
We lost 4-1 after leading at half-time 1-0. They scored 2 soft goals and we conceded late chasing an equaliser. I hit the bar with a volley at 1-2 down and we never got back into a game we ought to have won. 34 years later it still rankles. We beat the same team 8-0 earlier in the school year.

Young Paul so sweet and innocent. :) Happy new thread sir.

Roberta - If you had seen the tears shed by those 13 losing boys that April day in 1977 sweetness wouldn't have been the adjective of choice; more abjective of choice!

Many will know how much I admired Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun.

This is a link to a short but interesting interview she gave to the BBC on her latest book, writing from the perspective of her gender and as a Nigerian. Pretty good looking young lady too.

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130614-telling-a-new-story-of-africa

I hope you are able to read The Natural this month. I think it is a lovely book to get a picture of a young, vibrant America as well as an interesting comment on baseball, in its heyday.

I will read it this month Karen no doubt, erm, about it.

Great picture of a young Paul! Love the quote too.

I really liked Tinkers when I read it earlier this year so I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I meant to ask you the other day what you thought of Dirt Music. I finished it last week and thought it was great. My gf is currently reading it and is hating it. I have suggested to her that maybe she is suffering from that old fashioned Australian ailment 'cultural cringe' - now largely extinct thankfully. But she does have me wondering whether the review I posted on my thread is too effusive?

I really enjoyed Dirt Music but for some reason I remember preferring The Riders.
Peter Carey is my favourite Aussie author (I love Jack Maggs to bits) but Tim Winton would be second and David Malouf third but I am hoping to like Kate Grenville too soon!

Hej Paul, I like the picture of the young you. I tried soccer at that time, too, but was never any good. I prefer volleyball.

And thanks for the book offer. That's very kind of you - so I always stay one book ahead of you :)
I usually don't PM (not pre- nor postM) but I do what I can

That's a lovely picture of the young Paul that you used to grace the top of your thread. I have to admit to skimming the last 100 or so posts on your last thread as I was so far behind after a week away. Prom-time for Yasmine and Kyran - how exciting. A fun night for them and a sleepless night for Mum & Dad.

Hello Paul -- happy new thread! My husband agrees completely with Mr. Shankly.

Very happy to see your new thread up, Paul. I am so far behind your last one I have decide to just start fresh here. Love the opening photo, although I have to say it did give me a bit of a chuckle when I saw everyone's arms crossed in front of their chests.... done on the instruction of the photographer, I am assuming.

I will be very curious to see what you think of Tinkers. I loved the writing but the ending...... I haven't bothered looking for Harding's latest because of that.

Merry Queen's Birthday, you old Colour Trooper you.

I was totally stalking your thread the past few days... And still missed the change! You're slick, Paul.

Love the hair do's in the newspaper picture :)
And the football quote is funny too!

>17 PaulCranswick: Troubled times ahead with no sleep awaiting her return from a hoopefully fun and incident free evening.
Wow, people really were right when they said to me upon news of my pregnancy....."there goes all hope of sleep in the years to come".
I remember staying out all night once, thinking I'd hate to wake mum and dad by calling- turns out mum was awake all night waiting and worrying! Oh boy.

31 > You get to be a parent for life - not just till they are 18 ! .....

>14 PaulCranswick: You have, of course, already won this year!

And that is relevant, how??

Not saying I'm competitive or anything....
but I am looking forward to reading The Road Home in July!

Paul - hahaha if you are only one book ahead of me then I'll be doing magnificently!

Judy - The photo is taken just before a cup final we fully expected to win and didn't. I don't know if you can see the overconfidence in the pic!

Anne - Shankly was such a legend. One of the few managers in his day to give my club Leeds the credit they deserved. We won our first title in 1969 via a draw at Liverpool's Anfield and their wonderful supporters encouraged our boys prompted by Shanks to a lap of honour. Really sport and sportsmanship at its very best.

Lori - In truth I don't remember the instructions or the photo but I have replayed some of the moments from the game over and over! We could have been following the trend at the time. Our colours were red and black vertical stripes a la AC Milan. Milan were cynical and won we were cavalier and lost.

50 posts later Paul I get to tell you my last was only a bit of lighthearted fluff!

I should be back before you hit thread 20 but alas I cannot guarantee it; you're likely to get there by Monday.

Paul, What a wonderful opening photo! I imagine the picture is a great trip down memory lane for you.

RD - Trust you to welcome in the weekend to an old republican like me with Trooping the Colour. Have to say I didn't realise it was yesterday and I hastily read the British press. Seems Kate is about to go into confinement and Phil has missed only his third troop and is undergoing exploratory operation. They are exploring to see if there is a specific gene that causes him to be so wonderfully politically incorrect.

Es - Stalking won't work! I keep different hours to everyone else so the new thread can appear at any hour of the day!

Megan - the hair was calculated to keep my ears warm. Actually lack of sleep justified. Kyran collected from prom full of beans and happy to have spent time with his pals, girls and boys. Yasmyne went on to the after prom and learned the hard way that friends who encourage you to drink at an early age are not to be cultivated. Vomit ridden regrets over and the second prom now completed after she returned home decidedly sober in the early hours yesterday.

Alex - Too right mate. I am also a sort of surrogate father to my SILs one of who is 39 and the other 26.

Ellen - hahaha RD has been first this year twice and gave up his second "win" but I suppose it is first come first served!

For the benefit of Es and RD and others, it's total luck. Just let go into the flow of the thing.....

Kathy - hahaha you had me wracking my brain to think if I had ever read a book with those opening lines and came up blank!

Linda - The photo was sent me by the chap standing on the extreme right; Timothy Jackson. Poor boy was centre-forward that day and missed a host of chances before getting substituted. I guess he remembers the loss just as keenly!

Ellen - I must say I am always fascinated and invariably charmed to see who is my first visitor. In 19 threads to have had 18 separate first visitors is simply wonderful but my "older" (in terms of LT time) friends here are special to me so I would be delighted if it meant sending you a book a month! The joy I get from hearing that a package has found its home is worth ten fold the small cost of its realisation. xx

Hi Paul, I've been a terrible LTer lately - hardly any thread hopping and barely any reading - but thought it past time to stop by here and say hello!

Nice photo up top - charming! 1977 - I should have guessed by the hair length. I graduated high school that year. And speaking of HS, glad to hear the proms went well and lessons were learned.

Paul, you know, you really are a very dear man.

Speaking of which, are the plans to do your US Tour on hold for now?

>34 PaulCranswick: What a great story! Sportsmanship like that can be hard to come by these days.

>42 EBT1002: Yeah -- when are you coming? The Tattered Cover is counting on you!

Joanne - I am also putting right my abstemiousness across the threads a little today by visiting most of my pals in turn. Keeping up is hard but much fun.

Ellen - Aw shucks! Plans are not on hold. We had of course hoped to come this Easter time but my mother interceded there with her health scare. This summer I have a series of visitors with my best friend from school visiting as well as my twin bro and his family (plus the no small matter of dear Rhian visiting Malaysia in high summer - well her high summer; we have perma-summer here) so it will be shunted to next spring and possibly next summer too.

Anne - hahaha I am sure that you keep that lovely store in healthy profit without me there to push them to Forbes territory.

Well, luck or no, I'm glad to be along for the ride that is the thread of Paul!

Thanks Es and glad to pass you your ticket to climb a-board I'm sure.

I have started also After Daybreak : The Liberation of Belsen, 1945 as it was in the car whilst we were dropping off Yasmyne last night. Very, very powerful stuff. It is amazing that despite the remove of 68 years well written narratives like this one can still chill me and bring me unashamedly to tears. How on earth could people have treated others like that, just due to the vagaries of race and religion?

Going to celebrate Father's Day with my crowd this afternoon by catching a movie and a meal.

"Phil has missed only his third troop and is undergoing exploratory operation. They are exploring to see if there is a specific gene that causes him to be so wonderfully politically incorrect."

Love the sentiment !

Happy Father's Day!

Looking forward to the day you can visit the USA.

Paul, just last week the hubs and I caught a film on TV which made me think of you: The Damn United, starring Michael Sheen as Brian Clough. I wasn't familiar with the story and am not even a huge football fan but still thought the film was well done. The next day we watched some videos of the real Brian Clough and Don Revie, and I was amazed what a great job the filmmakers and actors did, it was very true to life.

Hi, Paul! I'm not sure it's appropriate to say "nice new thread" when we are already 50+ posts in, but that's what happens when you take a day off LT! Love the photo of young Master Paul at the top. You certainly all LOOK like a winning team, even if reality did not match perception in this particular instance.

After Earth is getting the worst reviews.... was it as bad as all that?

Love the top photo of yourself front n'center!

On goals - I do think one of the great tasks of life is to figure out goals that are both challenging (and therefore satisfying to meet) but also meet-able realistically (with concomitant satisfactions of meeting goals). I'm constantly tinkering with my own reading goals. One problem is they keep changing according to mood and whim and necessity.....

Alex - He gave a speech to the Duke of Edinburgh Award Dinner and lauded the openmindedness of the group with the words "we even have blacks now!". You have to love him...........I certainly don't!

Karen - Thank you my dear. I am looking forward to making it over too!

Laura - They were both great managers actually and nowhere near as different as either of them thought they were. Leeds is of course my city and club and, whilst the book and film, are excellent they do skew the thing against us all slightly!

Julia - I probably hadn't heard of Malaysia at that point. Miss those halcyon school days when I could wear whatever I liked without worrying whether my tummy was showing.

Lucy - I am sorry to say After Earth is probably worse than the reviews. Smith junior cannot act and his dad, when serious, comes across as doleful and one-dimensional.
On the other hand saw Now You See Me with Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Michael Caine, Woody Harrelson and Morgan Freeman plus a delicious french actress whose name I cannot yet place, is good entertainment.

Now You See Me does look like a winner.

Only one today. I bought The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks to be able to join in with a proposed book read and TIOLI challenge next month. Read it aeons ago in UK but it was one of the things I left mistakenly with my now-ex-girlfriend when I ventured to these shores.

485 books so far added to the shelves in 2013.

Paul- Hope you are having a nice Father's Day and that the kids treated you grand. Congrats on #19! Love the photo at the top. You were a cute little fella!

It is great fun Lucy and I would recommend it heartily. Cinema was a tad chilly though and somehow an overtired SWMBO fell asleep wrapped around me like an anaconda. I woke her near the end of the movie and she dug her nails into my unprotected arm like an alley cat. Amazingly she subsequently had no recollection of the incident!

Now Mark it is the "were" that wipes the smiles away!

At least you smiled back in those days! LOL.

Hah! I knew it!

You mentioned a new thread around about the 270 mark on the last one, and then kept going past 300. You sneaked it in while I was out, and here we are at 50+.

Checking in.

Hahaha Mark - I will have to see whether I can unearth a more recent shot with me cracking my face on the thing. Just to disprove your theory. RD's throne as King of Curmudgeon is safe for a while yet.

Nina - Nothing nefarious at all involved!

Saw the poster for Now You See Me when we went to seeThe Great Gatsby yesterday and it immediately took my attention - I don't always like ensemble films but that is a great cast. Also, influence of antibiotics or not, you have forced me to write a review of The Great Gatsby on my thread to justify my assessment!!

Oh, I have seen you smile in a few photos and it's a good smile so I know you can do it and wonder why you don't do it more often.

Have a happy Father's Day, Paul!

Dropping in to wish you a Happy Father's Day, Paul. Hope they spoiled you!

Hi Paul, great photo to start the new thread, shame about the result. Hope you have a great father's day and thanks for the messages.

Happy Father's Day Paul!

53 > I think we are of the same mind here .......

Paul - I'd lost your thread again. Glad that I saw the bit about After Earth - I was thinking about taking our exchange student to see it this week so perhaps I will rethink.

Happy Father's Day, Paul!

Charles - It is worth seeing I think. I will get along to see your review of The Great Gatsby.

Mark - Sometimes "mean and moody" is calculated to improve my photogenics. In RL I am not much of either.

Judy, Mamie, John, Lisa and Orlaith - Thank you so much. I'm not so sure about spoiled since Yasmyne and the Mother seem to be continuing their war of attrition. I was bought a new wallet (SWMBO claimed the last one - bought by my staff - was unlucky. It certainly was, she kept taking my money!) and a new neck-tie.

Alex - His visit to China whereupon he complained of "slitty eyes" also resonates as another reason for the British institution to be instutionalised in Britain.

Rhian - I have yet to meet anybody who liked it.

Hope you had a fantastic Father's Day Paul!

Thanks for the heads up on After Earth. I think I will give that one a pass. I saw The Internship last weekend which was fun.

Heidi - that one isn't over here yet. I think it will be the new Superman movie and World War Z next for us.

Trying to catch up here. Love the sports photo. It's nice to know that you had time for something besides books at one point.

I also enjoyed the photo of the ballgame on your thread Lori. I do still love my sports although I am theory over practical these days. x

Paul, whenever you can get here will be soon enough. I do hope I'm able to trek down to Portland for the meet-up, whenever it occurs.

I started reading The Wasp Factory yesterday and it sucked me in immediately. Still, I'm setting it aside for July.

Awards:

I have prepared a checklist on the incumbent winners of the World's major English Language Awards. I am not too au fait with Sci-Fi but I have included those I know.
This is the spreadsheet (virus checked)
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=73344eaf68&view=att&th=13f...

This is the list:

1 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards 2012 Fall on Me Featherstone, Nigel
2 Agatha Award 2012 The Beautiful Mystery Penny, Louise
3 The Age Book of the Year 2012 Foal's Bread Mears, Gillian
4 AKO Literatuurprijs 2012 Post Mortem Terrin, Peter
5 ALS Gold Medal 2012 Foal's Bread Mears, Gillian
6 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2012 The Beautiful Land Averill, Alan
7 Ambassador Book Award 2011 The Collected Stories Eisenberg, Deborah
8 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction 2012 The Forgotten Waltz Enright, Anne
9 Arthur Ellis Awards 2012 Before the Poison Robinson, Peter
10 Authors' Club First Novel Award 2013 The Marlow Papers Barber, Ros
Mountains of the Moon Kay, IJ
11 Bad Sex in Fiction Award 2012 Infrared Huston, Nancy
12 Barbara Jefferis Award 2012 All that I am Funder, Anna
13 Believer Book Award 2012 Maidenhead Berger, Tamara Faith
14 Bellwether Prize 2012 Good Kings, Bad Kings Nussbaum, Susa
15 Betty Trask Award 2012 Bed Whitehouse, David
16 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2013 Zoo Time Jacobson, Howard
17 Bram Stoker Award 2011 Flesh Eaters McKinney, Joe
18 BSFA Award for Best Novel 2012 Jack Glass Roberts, Adam
19 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize 2012 Billy Lynn's Long Half-time Walk Fountain, Ben
20 Chautauqua Prize 2012 The Sojourn Krivak, Andrew
21 Commonwealth Book Prize 2013 The Death of Bees O'Donnell, Lisa
22 Compton Crook Award 2013 Control Point Cole, Myke
23 Corine Literature Prize 2011 A Lie About My Father Burnside, John
24 Costa Book Awards 2012 Bring Up the Bodies Mantel, Hilary
25 Costa First Book Awards 2012 The Innocents Segal, Francesca
26 CWA Gold Dagger 2012 The Rage Kerrigan, Gene
27 CWA International Dagger 2012 The Potter's Field Camilleri, Andrea
28 Dayton Literary Peace Prize 2012 The Sojourn Krivak, Andrew
29 Desmod Elliott Prize 2012 The Land of Decoration McCleen, Grace
30 Dilys Award 2012 Before the Poison Robinson, Peter
31 Dundee International Book Prize 2012 The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up Appel, Jacob M.
32 Edgar Award 2013 Live by Night Lehane, Dennis
33 Edgar Allan Poe First Novel Award 2013 The Expats Pavone, Chris
34 Edmund White Award 2013 Monstress Tenorio, Lysley
35 Encore Award 2012 Wild Abandon Dunthorne, Joe
36 European Book Prize 2012 Madonna on the Moon Baueridick, Rolf
37 European Union Literary Award 2012 Khalil's Journey Kagee, Ashraf
38 Exclusive Books Boeke Prize 2012 Gone Girl Flynn, Gillian
39 Ferro-Grumley Award 2013 A Horse Named Sorrow Healey, Trebor
40 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize 2011 Solace McKeon, Belinda
41 Governor General's Award for English-language fiction 2012 The Purchase Spalding, Linda
42 Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française 2011 Return to Killybegs Chalandon, Sorj
43 Guardian First Book Award 2012 The Yellow Birds Powers, Kevin
44 Heartland Prize 2012 Canada Ford, Richard
45 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award 2013 The Yellow Birds Powers, Kevin
46 Hugo Award 2012 Among Others Walton, Jo
47 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013 The Detour Bakker, Gerbrand
48 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2013 City of Bohane Barry, Kevin
49 International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2013 The Bamboo Stick Alsanousi, Saud
50 International Thriller Writers Awards 2012 11/12/63 King, Stephen
51 Irish Book Awards 2012 Ancient Light Banville, John
52 Irish Book Awards - Newcomer 2012 The Spinning Heart Ryan, Donal
53 Irish Book Awards - Crime Novel 2012 Broken Harbour French, Tana
54 James Fenimore Cooper Prize 2013 Remember Ben Clayton Harrigan, Stephen
55 James Tait Black Memorial Prize 2011 You and I Powell, Padgett
56 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2010 The Still Point Sackville, Amy
57 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award 2013 This is the Way Corbett, Gavin
58 Langum Prize 2012 The Cove Rash, Ron
59 LA Times Book Prize 2012 Billy Lynn's Long Half-time Walk Fountain, Ben
60 LA Times Book Prize - Art Seidenbaum First Novel Prize 2012 Seating Arrangements Shipstead, Maggie
61 LA Times Book Prize - Thriller 2012 Broken Harbour French, Tana
62 Laurence L. & Thomas Winship/PEN New England Award 2012 The Call Murphy, Yannick
63 Libris Award 2013 419 Ferguson, Will
64 M-Net Literary Awards 2012 Homemaking For the Down-at-Heart Dowling, Finuala
65 Man Booker Prize 2012 Bring Up the Bodies Mantel, Hilary
66 Martin Beck Award 2012 Before the Poison Robinson, Peter
67 Macavity Award 2012 Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead Gran, Sara
68 McKitterick Prize 2012 Africa Junction Baily, Ginny
69 Media24 Books Literary Awards 2012 Groundwork Kozain, Rustum
70 Miles Franklin Award 2012 All that I am Funder, Anna
71 National Book Award for Fiction 2012 The Round House Erdrich, Louise
72 National Book Critics Circle Award 2012 Billy Lynn's Long Half-time Walk Fountain, Ben
73 Nebula Award 2012 2312 Robinson, Kim Stanley
74 Nero Award 2012 Though Not Dead Stabenow, Dana
75 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2013 Mateship With Birds Tiffany, Carrie
76 Nigeria Prizes for Science and Literature 2012 On Black Sister's Street Unigwe, Chika
77 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature 2012 Is Just A Movie Lovelace, Earl
78 Ondaatje Prize 2012 The Sly Company of People Who Care Bhattacharya, Rahul
79 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction 2013 Everything Begina and Ends at the Kentucky Club Saenz, Benjamin Alire
80 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize 2012 Zazen Veselka, Vanessa
81 Philip K. Dick Award 2012 Lost Everything Slattery, Brian Francis
82 Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2012 Foal's Bread Mears, Gillian
83 Prix Aurora Awards 2012 Wonder Sawyer, Robert J
84 Prix Médicis Etranger 2012 Spanish Charity Yehoshua, A.B.
85 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2013 The Orphan Master's Son Johnson, Adam
86 Quebec Writers' Federation Awards 2012 Carnival Hage, Rawi
87 Queensland Literary Awards 2012 Cold Light Moorhouse, Frank
88 ReLit Awards 2012 Monoceros Mayr, Suzanne
89 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize 2012 Siege 13 Dobozy, Tamas
90 Sapir Prize for Literature 2012 Mox Nox Adaf, Shimon
91 Scotiabank Giller Prize 2012 419 Ferguson, Will
92 Shirley Jackson Award 2012 Witches on the Road Tonight Holman, Sheri
93 SIBA Book Award 2012 Burning Bright Rash, Ron
94 Specsavers National Book Awards 2012 Bring Up the Bodies Mantel, Hilary
95 Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel 2012 The End of the Wasp Season Mina, Denise
96 The Sunday Times Fiction Prize 2012 Lost Ground Heyns, Michiel
97 The Hindu Literary Prize 2012 Em and the Big Hoom Pinto, Jerry
98 Thomas Head Raddall Award 2012 Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul Richards, David Adams
99 Toronto Book Awards 2012 Copernicus Avenue Borkowski, Andrew J
100 Townsend Prize for Fiction 2012 The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers Mullen, Thomas
101 Trillium Book Award 2011 Killdeer Hall, Phil
102 University of Johannesburg Prize 2012 The Landscape Painter Higginson, Craig
103 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction 2012 Foal's Bread Mears, Gillian
104 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award 2012 We the Animals Torres, Justin
105 Wales Book of the Year 2012 The Last Hundred Days McGuiness, Patrick
106 Walter Scott Prize 2013 The Garden of Evening Mists Tan Twan Eng
107 Washington State Book Award 2012 A Young Man's Guide to State Capitalism Mountford, Peter
108 Waverton Good Read Award 2012 Tiny Sunbirds Far Away Watson, Christy
109 William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2010 Shadow Country Matthiessen, Peter
110 Women's Prize 2013 May We Be Forgiven Homes, AM

Ellen - I wouldn't want to go all the way to the Pacific North West and not meet you. x

Brilliant list, Paul. Thanks so much for pulling it together. It would be interesting to create a chart or graph that also included the shortlists - it would make for an interesting constellation of works! (Not that I'm suggesting extra work for you, oh no...)

Charles some of the awards have shortlists and some dont. Some make multi-awards and these I have avoided. I have a list on the Orange/Booker/Pulitzer shortlists.

There are 97 different books listed in the 110 awards in my above Incumbent Award List. Gillian Mears Foal's Bread is the only holder of four of the awards listed (all given to Australian only writers), Peter Robinson, Ben Fountain and Hilary Mantel all hold three of the awards.

I own 16 of the 97 books and have read 4 of them which is pretty good going for me, being as I am on the outskirts of the bookworld in KL and normally a couple of years behind.

Fabulous photo!

Jenn - I was inspired a little by Morphy putting up photos of her formative years.

What a great thread topper! √ ing in

That is quite the list of awards to explore, Paul. Thanks for sharing it!

What a fun picture! Glad I inspired.

Kath - I'll try to find one with us kids and our little ole mum for the next one, if that is not being presumptious.

Linda - I had quite a bit of fun researching that list. Source from Wikipedia but so many of their lists were a year or two behind and the list is not put together anywhere easy to retrieve that I could see.

Morphy - Thanks my dear. There are several other things that make you a veritable role model in my books. Your insatiable appetite for books. Your unfailing honesty evinced clearly in your reviews wherein you don't follow the flow in casting judgement. Your immense bravery in facing up to and usually facing down your problems with weight. Your stoicism in facing the health and financial scares visited upon you. Your adoration of a fine and clearly loving life partner.
I'm normally a bit quick with the glib remark or to make a gag or two. Not this time.

Paul I was able to borrow the first of the 87th Precinct series, Cop Hater from the Kindle lending library. I don't know if they have those pesky middle books or not but I don't think it will help you in Malaysia. I have a ways to go before I have to worry about it.

Thanks for the recommendation!

Lovely to see you over here Roberta posting responses to posts made over at your place! Not to worry I am always proud and pleased to host the party!

Paul, thanks for the work involved compiling the list of awards and most recent winners. I have added Message No. 77 to my favorites. It will be a handy reference tool. I had no idea that there were so many awards out there. I have read seven of the books and at least that many others are on my wishlist. I am embarrassed at the number of books there that I haven't even heard of. Must rectify that situation!

Hope you had a good Father's Day, Paul.

Looking forward to your non-U.S. take on The Grapes of Wrath. I sure loved that one.

I saw Hunger by Knut Hamsun on one of your tbr lists. I was quite taken by that one when I was a lad. It wasn't until later that I found out that he wrote that when young, and he turned into a Nazi sympathizer late in life. The classic dilemma of how to separate the book from the author.

Hey, Paul. I'm getting an error when I try to open your spreadsheet. Is it a Google Doc?

Es - I have just tried to re-openit myself and also cannot. Yesterday I had no problem with it at all. A bit stumped in truth. It is an excel file. I can open it in excel of course but not via the link.

Movies....Now you See Me has a great cast (Isla Fisher was great in the Great Gatsby I though, not so much Carey Mulligan though??!). Mark Ruffalo is my (not so) secret crush.

I will not be seeing After Earth, no way no how.

I hope you love The Wasp Factory- I found it shockingly wonderful and creepy.

Megan - I also, unsurprisingly perhaps, like Isla Fisher. Not a classic beauty in many ways but she has something. I read The Wasp Factory in the 1980s and remember thinking it full of warped wizardry. Looking forward to making its reacquaintance.

#77: Thanks for compiling the awards list, Paul. I am going to have to print it out and see how many titles my local library has.

Stasia - I hope you can print it out as I cannot open it myself this morning.

Paul, you are a dear! Thank you for the list in #77; the link doesn't work for me either, but I trust you'll fix it if it's fixable. No matter. It's great to have the list! I also have read only three of them.
And Happy New Thread! Truly, it hasn't been going for long.
I'm looking forward to The Wasp Factory next month, and that's the only thing I'm sure about in the book department for July.
And, of course, I love the school picture!

Fabulous list of award winners, Paul! I also couldn't open the spreadsheet when I tried to open it yesterday afternoon.

Paul

After Daybreak : The Liberation of Belsen, 1945 is now on my tbr pile.

Also, I love your lists. I know they take a lot of time and energy, so thank you for sharing this!

I have noticed that I only seem to be able to open the file from the computer I originated the data from - hardly ideal for sharing.

Should anyone want the spreadsheet please pm me your email and I will forward it to you.

Peggy - I am looking forward to The Wasp Factory next month and have one or two others in mind for a memoriam TIOLI if the books arrive on time.

Darryl - Come to think of it I can't remember anyone's excel files working except Morphy's for the TIOLI cats. Maybe Morphy can help me out.

Linda - I am about halfway with it and it is harrowing and emotional fayre I must say. I do have a fairly sizeable collection of books on the Holocaust and they never, fact or fictionalise, failed to terrify and sadden me.

I've read 4 on that list, I'm surprised I've read that many and am currently listening to another. I'll pass on the GR of The Wasp Factory as I read it a few years ago. I'm looking forward to reading more of his work though, his last book, Stonemouth was great.

Be interested to see Kerry who has read the most books on the list.

Paul, what lovely things to say. I've copied it elsewhere to read when I'm feeling low. Thank you.

Morphy there is a rather cynical saying that the "truth hurts" - it does not always have to do so. In this case the truth is actually pretty positive. x

Thought I'd try it again, just in case it was Google being a little temperamental yesterday, but nope, the spreadsheet still isn't opening.

I was trying to avoid writing a report, so I copied and pasted it into my own Excel spreadsheet and separated the data into columns, so now I have a very neat file. :-) ... But ... what's the one between 10 and 11?

Thanks for providing me with a more worthwhile use of my time, Paul ... as well as a list of award winners. Now to go through the list to see how many (or probably how few) I've read.

Hi dearest Paul..... Just checking in. You continue to stun me with your lists! :)
I have "favorited" the message too. Thank you for all your hard work!

Caro - Always knew you were a smart cookie! There is nothing between 10 & 11 - 10 had joint winners last year.

Tina - You are more than welcome my dear.

Paul

Like you, I have a lot of books regarding the Holocaust. I've read stories of hope. Have you heard of the Kindertransport? Brave, strong, kind England did not turn their backs and fostered 10,000 Jewish children, thus saving them from certain death.

I highly recommend

Rescuing the Children: The Story of the Kindertransport byDeborah Hodge.

Linda - Thank you so much for that I will definitely seek it out as I haven't read it. It has always been a moot point how much the Allies knew about what was going on. The British Foreign Secretary through the war Anthony Eden was regarded as mildly anti-semitic but it is certainly fair to say that the British were appalled and entirely unprepared for what they found at Belsen. The view seems to have been that the best way to save those under the heel of the Nazis was to win the war. It is also interesting to note that in my present book Himmler is said to have "spared" those at Belsen in direct contravention of Hitler's orders in the hope of cutting a deal with the Allies.

Paul, I'm weary, so please forgive me if you listed your "present book" and I didn't not the title.

What are you reading? I went to the library this afternoon -- took a break from hours and hours of proofing yearbook pages -- and I brought home a fascinating book Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth by Gittty Sereny. The author saw Speer on trial at Nuremberg and somehow managed to gain his confidence with the result that she had hundreds of hours of conversations with him.

The book was twelve years in the making. I perused a few pages, but am too weary to sort through it tonight. Have you read this one?

Good grief -- that's some list of awards!!

I keep losing your thread and when I find it again we're 500 posts further and I have no idea what's going on!! I must keep better track.

Linda - The book is After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen 1945 by Ben Shephard. I did read Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich but not the one you mention. His autobiography of course glosses over his role in the Holocaust.

Reba - 500 posts is a bit behind! Always welcome to dip in and out where and when convenient. If I had been on a cruise around the world I think I would be further behind!

Yes, I agree regarding Speer. He seems excellent at blaming all others for being led down the path of unrighteousness.

I'm 60 and I swear that if I live to be 100, I'll never understand human nature.

I believe Speer was imprisoned for 20 years and released. Am I right?

Paulie! Finally a book I've read. The Wasp Factory is quite a grotesque treat.

I actually rather enjoyed After Earth and thought lil Will was pretty good. The odd accent they dreamed up for the actors was off-putting at first but then I thought of it as a nice touch on their take of the future. I thought big Will was not so great. If you expect an action flick, though... you won't get it. It's a quiet movie.

Now, the new Superman movie Man of Steel, was a big disappointment! OK I suppose, if you don't know anything about the Superman mythos-- but other than children, who doesn't already have an idea of Superman?! They messed it up big time.

You my friend are a class act and I'm so glad you're here on LT.

Hi, Paul! Just dropping by to see what you're up to -- great reading, and impressive lists.

Linda - he was amazingly proud of his buildings and seemed to believe that those monuments in some ways set off all the terrible things that happened. It seems that he was an extremely effect minister of armaments and he thought nothing of putting non-aryan ethnic groupings and POWs to work in producing the weapons meant for their own destruction. He was locked away for a long spell and only just escaped the noose in the process.

Kathy - Lovely of you to say such nice things! Guess we saw different things in the After Earth movie. I didn't hate it quite as much as SWMBO did but I still think it the weakest film I've seen this year. I suspect I will have to sit through Man of Steel this weekend as Kyran believes that he, himself, is Superman re-incarnate.

Terri - Lovely to see you as always.

67.

The Wreck of the Zanzibar by Michael Morpurgo

Read for Luci's TIOLI on Children's Laureates. Told in the straightforward and unaffected style so familiar to Morpurgo's readers, Great Aunt Laura dies and leaves the nephew her diary of her adolescent years filled wih hardship, family strife, seafaring, and wrecking all set in the remote Scilly Isles.

Not many surprises and no disappointments.

6/10

68.

A Wanted Man by Lee Child

The arrival on the shelves (in my case in paperback form) of a new Jack Reacher is always a cause for celebration. Jack hitches a ride with three persons seemingly coming from some sort of corporate team building exercise. The roadblocks ahead quickly bring our hero to the conclusion that he should have kept his thumb in his pocket.

Far fetched as usual but no less entertaining for all that. My one worry reading the book was to avoid envisioning Tiny Tom Thumb Cruise as Reacher but Child seemed to anticipate that and the descriptions of the enormous ex-military policeman leave one in no doubt that Tom should not be in our minds-eye.

7/10

Paul, that wasn't my favorite Jack Reacher but it wasn't bad. I especially liked that so much of it was set right here in Iowa, though I'm a bit skeptical of his geography. I'm not sure some of the times/distances quite add up but that's a minor quibble that no one except an Iowan would fixate on.

Glad you enjoyed the new Reacher, Paul, even if it was a bit fetched from afar, as my sister used to say. Always fun. I still can't believe Lee Child praised the selection of Cruise, but at that point maybe he was just making the best of a bad job.

Julia - Now the great plains are a familiar landscape for Reacher as a few of the more recent ones have been in that locale. No idea on the accuracy of his geography but when you buy one of Lee Child's books you get exactly what you expected.

Joe - I'm sure that the money involved in having Cruise franchise the Reacher movie was sufficiently welcome to get Lee Child to overlook the fact that he himself could easily overlook Tiny Tom.

69.

After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945 by Ben Shephard

In April 1945 the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They were not prepared for what they found there. Of the near 50,000 persons "liberated" almost 14,000 subsequently died from the effects of typhus, starvation, TB and earlier neglect. This outstanding book examines the quantitative and qualitative nature of the British response.

Shephard's comments are fair minded and balanced on the whole in noting both criticism of the British effort in which Doctors Johnson and Hughes valiantly tried to mobilise medical assistance, food and basic resources to cope with a situation they were not expecting to face.

Whilst the British clearly made mistakes, giving the wrong food initially for a start, overall the impression is that they did their best and did so as humanely as possible. Josef Rosensaft leader of the eventual Jewish committee of management at the camp and a critic of the response still felt that:

"The British did, on the whole, show much good will, deep human sympathy and even friendship......did everything in their power, both materially and administratively, to help and ease the physical suffering and mental anguish."

There was, however, an overriding feeling that the allies, particularly the British foriegn office and US State Departments knew more about the situation in the camps than filtered down to the men in the field and it left those involved bewildered, shocked and with feelings of impotence but most of questioning how it had been allowed to happen. This statement was from one of the British officers on the scene:

"The first 'coherent reactions' were not of disgust or anger or even, I think, of pity. Something else filled the mind, a frantic desire to ask: Why? Why? Why? Why had it happened? With all one's soul one felt; This is not war. Nor is it anything to do with here and now, with this one place at this one moment. This is timeless and the whole world and all mankind is involved in it. This touches me and I am responsible. Why has it happened? Why did we let it happen?"

As pertinent a comment today as it was then surely?

Not giving this one marks out of 10 as a scoring system for a book of this type seems a little crass.

Oh dear, I've been rather dilatory in visiting your thread this week! You are right, the Hugo and the Nebula are the big and traditional science fiction/fantasy awards, but also worthy of mention are these:

Arthur C. Clarke Award 2013: Dark Eden by Chris Beckett

World Fantasy Award 2012: Osama by Lavie Tidhar

Locus Award: to be awarded next weekend. These are the book finalists.

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)

FANTASY NOVEL

The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
Hide Me Among the Graves, Tim Powers (Morrow; Corvus)
The Apocalypse Codex, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

The Drowned Cities, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown; Atom)
Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen)
Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Dodger, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends; Much-in-Little ’13)

FIRST NOVEL

Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
vN, Madeline Ashby (Angry Robot US; Angry Robot UK)
Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
The Games, Ted Kosmatka (Del Rey; Titan)
Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson (Grove; Corvus)

I'm betting on Banks for the SF book because of his death last week. I've read Captain Vorpatril's Alliance and Redshirts in that category.

I've read three of the fantasy novels: The Killing Moon, Glamour in Glass, and Hide Me Among the Graves. Dodger is the only YA I've read so far, and Seraphina the only First Novel. All of them were quite good.

Winners of the Locus Awards 2012 were Embassytown by China Mieville (SF), A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Fantasy), The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (First Novel), and The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente (YA).

I've favorited your message with all the awards above--I join the others in tendering my thanks for all the work that must have involved! But I know you loved it.

After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945 sounds like a very interesting book, Paul. The second quote you have included does certainly give one pause.

I look forward to your next thread topper :) Sounds fun!

Roni - Thanks so much for that info. As you know Sci-Fi is not really my thing (despite my love of Doctor Who) but I really ought to have included the Arthur C Clarke award.
I included some of them and some of the mystery and thriller award to avoid the obvious conclusion that I am a literary snob! Hahaha you are right I got a kick out of preparing the list.

Linda - The book is chock-full of decent quotes and doesn't shrink from noting rather caustic criticism of several parties.

Kath - If you think the hair and fashions on the present topper are comical............

Just a drop in - I've been lurking for about 5 threads nd wouldn't want you to think I'd stopped ;)

Plus #120 my hubby has just started reading the Jack Reacher books and would NOT stop going on about the last one he read so I may have to get him this (he's just had knee surgery so is pretty crocked and reading a lot!).

Wow Roni! That was a superb recap of the SFnal world's status.

Hi Paul, nothing interesting to say. I've been reading for blog reviews. The books are so ~meh~ that I want to scream. That is all.

I came across an announcement for the next Jack Reacher book earlier today. I think it comes out September 3 and is entitled Never Go Back.

Wow, he really cranks 'em out, doesn't he? Seems like it hasn't been that long since the last one was new.

Hi Paul, hope everything is well with you and yours, things a bit up and down with the FIL at the moment but the reading is chugging along well and the books bought currently stands at 183.

What do you think to England's chances in the Champions trophy? I see that the Football fixtures are out and your boys have got Brighton at home as your opening league fixture so that may be a tough one to start with.

Bekka - The Jack Reacher books are fairly addictive to be fair to your hubby. Of the series I steadfastly follow the top tier of three would be Reacher, Montalbano and Lennox.

RD - I certainly have to bow to Roni on the subject matter. Don't know the first thing about SF. Friday ought to be my Axis time at the bookstore but one of my thoughtless business associates has organised a meeting during my splurge time.

Lori - There is a preview of the novel at the end of the one I have just read. I make a point to never read those previews as it may be fully 12 months before the book hits the shops here in a format I will buy.

Julia - The next one will be the eighteenth full epsode in 16 years. Lee Child is as hard working as his hero is accident prone.

John - 183 is a goodly number John and from your overall stats I take comfort from the fact that you have not been corrupted unduly by the denizens here in that your prior TBR is also impressive. Best wishes to your missus and FIL at his age recovering from major illness will never be a roman road but a twisty c road.

Tough in the Champions trophy. Buttler, Bopara and Morgan if in early enough can get quick runs but I hope we bowl first. Whether Brighton is tough depends on:
1 Whether Brighton's managerial situation is settled (Poyet is suspended)
2 Whether the new board give BMc a little money. I really believe as little as GBP5M would see us promoted.

Hey Paul - I have written a review of Murdoch's A Severed head - you might enjoy it - come visit!

Hi Paul.
If you tell me what obscure middle book in the wonderful 87th Precinct series you are wishing for next, I'll keep an eye out for it in the various used bookstores around here.
I like to be helpful. Let me be helpful. :-)

If we're talking sports, the Lions play the Wallabies (RU) tomorrow. Doubt I'll get to watch, though; I've pencilled activities in for the kids & myself. Should we decide to forgo our Saturday lie-in, come morning.

Dear Paul, I received your gift this afternoon, Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth. Thank you so much, I love the Victorian era in literature and I think you've chosen a perfect book!

Have a lovely weekend, Paul.

Stopping in to wish you a lovely Friday, Paul (I hope it was), and to catch up here. I love the list you compiled in post 77. WONDERFUL - thank you for all that hard work! I favorited (just created a new verb!) it and also Roni's post. I have not read much Sci-Fi, but I am having fun dipping my toes into that water this year.

And Craig is turning out to be a huge Jack Reacher fan - I had read the first one and commented that I thought he might like it, and now he has left me in his dust. So thanks for your rec - you got two of us with just one book bullet!

Very good review of After Daybreak up there - adding it to my list. The quote you chose is heartbreaking. DOn't suppose you posted your review to the book page? If you did, I will thumb it.

Paul, back to say that if you are at all inclined, you should post your review - the book only has one review so far, and yours speaks more to the book's contents.

Happy weekend!
All of Colorado is apparently burning to the ground again, so we'll be spending most of ours inside trying to avoid breathing smoke.

Prue - I had a quick read of your review earlier this morning as I was waiting for my morning dose of coffee in the office. You are right it is a strange book and Murdoch's writing is enchanting but leaves you perplexed later as to what the heck was really supposed to be happening.

Ellen - Hahaha let me go and look at fictfact and see where I'm stuck with the series.
It would be lovely if you could unearth one or two of them.

Nina - I'll stick my neck out and take the Lions to win tomorrow.

Diana - So pleased you are pleased! With your moniker the era should obviously appeal. I must say I really enjoyed the novel when I read it last year and it is such a shame that Ainsworth's work is nowadays difficult to find (I'm sure Liz would be able to track it all down of course)

Mamie - I am trying to follow Roni's (and Morphy's) lead and read more sci-fi but I tend to get lost in a jargon filled void of execrable grammar. Next post I will show the influence of Roni in my Friday swoops.
Craig's judgement is a sure one (he did after all pick out our dear Mamie and transported her to the Pecan Paradisio) but in truth you cannot go far wrong with Big Jack. I will post the review. RD has occasionally chided me for being lazy in rarely doing so.

Mamie - I will I promise.

Jenn - Stay safe. Keep reading. Have fun. x

Thank you, Paul. I will thumb it when it gets there! And speaking of A Severed Head - I read it last year, and while I quite liked it, as a fan of The Godfather, I was deeply disappointed that was no actual severed head in it. Just saying...

I was disappointed this morning in that I had an appointment away from my normal haunt on a Friday lunchtime. I arrived at the Bangsar Shopping Centre on time (with 10 mins to spare) and was delighted to receive a call that my appointment was running half an hour late.

To fill in the time I naturally sought out the bookstore. Roni has influenced me a little this week as several of my choices would I am sure meet with her approval:

Wool by Hugh Howey ( the Omnibus of five books)
1 Wool Part 1 by Hugh Howey
2 Wool 2 by Hugh Howey
3 Wool 3 by Hugh Howey
4 Wool 4 by Hugh Howey
5 Wool 5 by Hugh Howey
The King Arthur Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff; comprising
6 Sword and the Circle by Rosemary Sutcliff
7 Light Beyond the Forest by Rosemary Sutcliff
8 Road to Camlann by Rosemary Sutcliff
9 Railsea by China Mieville
10 Engine Summer by John Crowley
11 Gold by Chris Cleave
12 Distant Thunder by T.D. Griggs
13 The Jump Artist by Austin Ratner
14 May We Be Forgiven by AM Homes (Winner of the Women's Prize)

499 books added in 2013

Mamie - Done already; thumb away at your leisure! The horse's head in the bed is classic cinema isn't it? I have no conception where Murdoch got her titles from.

Hooooray for Wool!!

Nora - Dystopia is often the opposite of my utopia in fiction terms but I do take note of reviews and I do recall you loving this one.

My thumb has been applied!

Mamie - You are a gem of a lady.

>134 PaulCranswick:, I think you are correct that 5 Mil will be enough for BMc to get cracking and also Brighton's Managerial situation may also have an impact but I think BMc will get you into the playoff's at the very least, he has a good record.

499 books, I am seriously impressed.

Nice little book haul, I hope you enjoy The Jump Artist, I've got Ratner's latest one out from the library and hope to find time to read it.

Hi Paul, stopping by to wish you a great weekend. Your Friday book shopping looks to have been successful. I have the Wool Omnibus on my TBR shelves but don't know when I will be getting to it. Right now I am enjoying the very first Nero Wolfe book, Fer-de-Lance.

John - There is no sign of him getting any of it to spend though unfortunately. Don't understand why they would buy the club and then not kick on to spend the little required to get us back.

Kerry - I have seen it on the shelves for a while and gave in to its pleas for recognition yesterday!

Judy - say hi to Nero, Archie, Frittz and to West 35th.

Wow, only 41 posts between this one and my last! I'm getting better :-)

I've been eyeing that Wool.

Just let me know, Paul, and I will start sleuthing Ed McBain editions for you. I would love to be of assistance, as you know.

I just showed Lisa your books acquired in 2013 total so she will feel less bad about my indulgences! Thanks for your help sir! ;0)

>156 TinaV95:: Yes, I have been tempted to use Paul as my foil, as well. "See, honey?, I don't buy nearly as many books as my friend Paul does!"

Reba - hahaha you're getting better and I am getting definitely slower!

Ellen - The first in the series I am struggling to get hold of is Killer's Payoff #6 in the list. Wool - This is one where the display and the cover allied to positive reviews got me.

Tina - Glad to be of help. Actually the name is useful to the group for over accumulation as Paul Stalder has a goodly amount more than I have, although I reckon I have spent hard cash on more books than himself!

Ellen - Actually I probably ought to count the books I bought for the kids (unfortunately I cannot remember how many!) and the ones I bought for my thread topping winners (18 so far) as then I would be probably over 600. The 499 are those added to my own TBR.

70.

Tinkers by Paul Harding

It is rare that I am stumped as to how to formulate my response in writing to a book I have just finished. This is especially the case when the short little tome in question barely amounts to 200 pages of well spaced font.

Ambivalence is the supreme emotion instilled by this Pulitzer winner. As a prose poem there are passages of superlative excellence. As a traditional story encompassing a discernible plot there is nada. Does the trade-off with literary tricks in abundance work? Well I'm not entirely sure.

George Washington Crosby is bed-ridden, eight days from his end and edging towards a preparedness of that end. His mental wanderings deal largely with his relationship to his father until the narrative passages of his hallucinations start to take on his father's story rather than his own.

Certain vignettes of scenes from the past and around the resigned bedside are extremely vivid but of an insufficient constancy to hold attention for more than short bursts of reading activity. The setting out of his eventual passing is written in a chillingly ordered and realistic manner that, for me, is one of the most effecting parts of the whole.

This is a novel as accomplished as it is frustrating and as poetic as it is disjointed. A second read will definitely be in order some day soon.

7/10

71.

Ten Little Aliens by Stephen Cole.

This is the first in a series of Doctor Who adventures rereleased to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the series. The first of eleven, one for each Doctor to date - this being the First Doctor.

The Tardis arrives on a rock in the middle of the universe. They are not alone as a squad of "space marines" are awoken from their slumbers on a mission they know little of. The story is complicated and in some ways overcomplicated by having a middle section where the story is seen from multiple perspectives in a hugely confusing manner. Not one of the best to celebrate this wonderful series.

5/10

Nice review of Tinkers, Paul. I'll read it soon, but possibly after his latest novel Enon, which I received as an LT Early Reviewers book earlier this month.

Paul,

I agree that Tinkers is all essences, sensations and reverie with some lovely episodic passages, but zero plot or character development to speak of. I did enjoy the writing and some passages carried me along. I also like the central conceit of three generations of somewhat alienated fathers and sons thinking and reflecting on eachother, pondering the substance of the other person's inner life after a lifetime of mostly neglecting the other.

Tinkers is a gem in my view, but it is equally lucky it is a short book as this approach definitely could not sustain a full novel. But the way Harding elicits how these 'tinkers' engage with their own identity in such a free-flowing, subjective way I found mesmerising.

I was strangely drawn to the crackpot mystic dreamer poet that was the pragmatic George's father Howard, but perhaps one of my favourite bits was where a grandson assumed that Howard's journals were George's.

Charles

Darryl - He can certainly write and I will read more of his work for sure. Of a preparedness to meet one's maker this was powerful stuff digestible in lovely bite sized passages if that is not mixing metaphors too shamelessly.

Charles - For me the exploration of mortality and within a generational male line of a family was extremely engaging. Readable despite the absence of a cohesive plot. As an asthmatic his painfully drawn last breaths (and I don't think spoilers are necessary as the plot is irrelevant) speak to me resonantly:

"His lungs were full of liquid and he felt like he was drowning. When he tried to speak, he could only make noises that sounded like a rusted pulley turning over a dry well. He looked from person to person around his bed for help. This upset his family, particularly Marjorie, his sister, who cried and looked at his wide eyes and said over and over, He looks so scared, He was like my daddy, He looks so scared, He was like my daddy - until she was taken to the kitchen by one of the cousins. A grandson said, Just relax Gramp, panicking just makes it harder to breathe........As his eyes closed, he still heard the gurgling and felt the nerveless weight of his body, but also felt himself falling away from it, as if he were lying just beneath the contours and boundaries of something that had formerly fit him perfectly, and which to fully inhabit it meant to be in this world. It was as if he lay faceup just beneath the surface of water. Voices rose and fell and the sounds of bodies in motion thumped above him. All seemed increasingly foreign, other."

Nice review of Tinkers, Paul. I agree with you and with Charles' comments in >162 Emrayfo:. Your well-selected excerpt in >163 PaulCranswick: reminded me how truly beautiful some sections of the book were.

I didn't find it an overall success for the reasons you mention. But I still found it an exceptional and worthwhile read because of passages like the one you quote, some of which reached that level for long stretches of the book.

Exactly Joe!

That was a very good review of Tinkers, Paul. My rating of 3.5/5 equals your rating of 7/10. I kept my lovely little hardcover copy to read again someday. I expect to like it better the second time around now that I know there isn't a linear plot. Awesome writing, though.

Hope you and yours are having a wonderful weekend!

Paul, I usually skip those end-of-book previews too for the same reason. I'm glad to know I'm not alone. If one reads the book when it is first released, is s/he really going to remember the first chapter well enough to skip it when the next installment comes out in a year? I've never really understood the point of including them.

I gave Tinkers a 3.5 too. Interesting book. I liked it but didn't love it. Not sure I'll spend the time to ever read it again.

Paul - I've read mixed reviews of Tinkers and your review is by far the more interesting because I'm of the impression now that it's a book that challenges as it intrigues. I hadn't yet, but I think I shall add this to my obese wish list.

Lovely review of Tinkers and I appreciate Charles' comments as well. Not sure if I'll pick it up in a hurry, I'm hunkering for a strong plot with lots of action at present.

Hi Paul! Just launching my LONG overdue catch-up with your thread - about 4 posts in and I'm already full of questions - that football kit in the photo up top: would that be red and black stripes by any chance? And black shorts? If so, then that's exactly the same strip as my school had! Not particularly important, but there you go...We got to the Croydon district school's final for under-11s - AT SELHURST PARK! I was an unused substitute. My footballing career was all downhill from there...

Fallen Angel: The Passion of Fausto Coppi - how was it? It's one I'd like to get a copy of.

>164 jnwelch:, 165 Joe, Paul - Yes!

Great review of Tinkers, Paul! I agree with the assessments raised.... when I read it a few years back I found the prose beautiful but found the story to be lacking in its delivery of a stirring plot or strong, memorable characters.

Donna - It was one of those books that one needs to be careful in reviewing as being dismissive would do it a disservice but rapturous acclaim would also not tell the full story. Unusually for me I read all the other reviews of Tinkers on the work page, yours included, before putting pen to paper so to speak. I have to say there were some jolly good reviews too.

Lori - I think it is even worse for me as there is little likelihood of the book being previewed turning up in our local stores in early course.

Reba - Mmmm I confidently predicted re-reading it yesterday without properly considering my 2,100+ TBR list and the outside chance I'll continue to buy more than I read until I run out of dosh.

Caro - Well it is intriguing. I may be wrong but I would hazard that you'd like it.

Kerry - Charles' comments were as usual well considered (what a number of great additions to the group we have had this year!). I would usually agree with you on what I want from fiction and being told a story via a well-written and planned plot is up there high.

Paul - I have noticed you around of course (as well as trawling interestedly through your catalogue which is tagged). Would be nice if you join up permanently as with three Paul's in the group we will start to challenge the Lindas and the Kathys and the Katies!
Yes the colours were old AC Milan or Manchester City (away). I did play for the Wakefield and District schools at several Football league grounds but never Selhurst Park but I was playing sweeper at school level and stopped growing (vertically anyway) so clubs all thought me too slow. Moved onto the wing in later school days to try to atone for my lack of inches but was never the same.
Cycling took over my life as I got into and out of my teens but pro-contracts simply paid too little in those days and I decided to go for the glamour of Quantity Surveying!
The Fausto Coppi book was well written and if you make it this far I'll save it for you!

Charles - :)

Lori - For those wanting a story don't bother for those who just get enamoured with well-polished prose it is a gem isn't it?

Interesting review of Tinkers, Paul. I've not read it, but I'm glad to see that you're considering a reread at some point. That's dedication!

Anne - it is also more in hope than expectation! Lovely to see you.

Paul, I really enjoyed Tinkers but I agree with your description of it as both "poetic" and "disjointed." I know that some struggled with the disjointedness of the narrative, but the poetry won out for me.

I'll keep an eye out for Killer's Payoff. It's odd that the novels in the middle of the series are quite obscure and hard to find.

I checked yesterday on availability and there are two or three out of the whole series that are "difficult" to get for some reason.

Apparently you can pay up to $166 for a copy of Killer's Payoff. Right.

Wow Ellen - I want to carry on the series but not quite so much!

^ Well, everyone must set their limit somewhere. :-)

1 book to go til you hit 500 bought for the year! (I smell a party), and only 4 to read before you reach the target!

Ellen - I certainly haven't reached my own limit that's for sure.

Megan - I guess I'll bring up both milestones at the same time next week. Present cycle of four books will be finished say Wednesday.

This afternoon we had an office function whereby all the staff got together to ride ATVs through the jungles North of KL (guided of course). Great fun and no mishaps other than Norul my sec having an argument with a tree in which she came decidedly second but wasn't hurt.

The company has a social fund policy whereby the staff contribute 1% of salary and I match it dollar for dollar for the company. We use it for such japes. Some may say my office is more akin to a Youth club than a serious place of business but it helps to keep morale high at least.

Imagining the teetering towers of books in your home.... and wishing I worked for you! Sounds fun.. and you could loan me books. You would wouldn't you? I rarely borrow but am careful when I do :)

I wish you worked for me too Kath. Have the jitters thinking about you walking home and looking constantly over your shoulders. No issue at all to lend friends books, especially the ones who I know would take proper care of 'em. x

I'm glad Norul was not seriously hurt. Trees usually do win those arguments. :-|

The staff were the most relieved as it is salary run this week and she has to work out the wages!

Hi, Paul! I'm not going to try and catch up on six months threads but wanted to pop by and let you know you're not forgotten. Good to see the amazing lists and Yorkshire photos continue (though I was a fan of the Malaysian pictures too).

Dee what a lovely surprise! I have seen you make the rare cameo appearance on one or two of the threads throughout the year and rather hoped you'd whizz by these tropical climes once in a while. Your thread is much missed by yours truly.

Well, thank you for the suggestion, but I don't think I'll be joining this group just yet! I'm running my first ever Club Read this year and that has taken plenty of my attention thus far. There are so many good threads over there, and over here as well, that I'll think I'll just satisfy myself with lurking here and there in those threads of my friends and interesting libraries for the time being. Besides, I'd never get anywhere near 75 titles in one year! (Not even half that!)

While I'm here again - and it seems that your threads have the same maximised characteristics of the climax culture of the tropical rain-forests you live near - so by the next time I check back in it will probably be about 100 posts later...!! ....While I'm here again - will you be following the Tour de France this year? It is a very climb heavy parcours this time around, and I think it's just as well for Wiggins that he is unavailable through injury/illness. For what it's worth I'm (foolishly) sticking my neck out and predicting a top 2 podium of:
1st) Chris Froome
2nd) Nairo Quintana
3rd) Tony Gallopin (or Dan Martin - I can't quite decide!).

Cycling being cycling though, that call is very likely to be completely spoilt by about Stage 3 or 4! It will be lovely to follow the race starting in Corsica next weekend. I can't believe they've waited until this year's 100th edition to visit that island!

All the same - Vive Le Tour!

Paul, saw this on Twitter:

Malaysia declares a state of emergency as Muar and Ledang experience hazardous air pollution over 750 on the index. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/06/23/malaysia-declares-state-emergency-... …

That doesn't sound good....

Paul - Well you're very welcome as a visitor without portfolio! I don't think anybody (with the possible exception of my stats) pays that much attention to whether you do actually read 75 or not ~ it certainly is no form of qualifying mark. There are several in the group for many years who have never got very close to that figure and some who have exceeded it several times over.
Your Le Tour picks are interesting ones and I will be watching it avidly. Nice to see a few more climbs in it too but I would like still more. I miss Puy-de-Dome and that extra day in the alps but still. Chris Froome has a fighting chance as does Contador of course. Daniel Martin you have rightly pointed out has climbed well and Cadel should do ok as should Richie Porte. I would love a frenchman to step up. John Gadret, Pierre Rolland or most likely Pinot.

RD - In truth mate it is really very bad. School has been cancelled in our area for the immediate future and I am a little concerned being asthmatic. One can smell and indeed taste the smoke filled air which cannot be good.

Keep us posted on the air situation. I like hearing from the "boots on the ground." Reading these postings (and remember Wookie Benders from a year ago? About the fires in Sydney?) makes think of ham radio operators - keeping the world informed by any means possible. I saw the news about these fires a few days ago on DWTV, but I haven't heard much about it in the news media here.

Benita - Eyes also a bit itchy. Breathing so far quite ok. Visibility murky.

Way to go, Paul, for venturing into the speculative fiction realm, but of course you picked three that I haven't read, although I do have the Wool omnibus on my Kindle.

Hope your breathing is okay. I've only been in that situation once when the wildfires here in the East County blew out to see right over us--we were in masks and indoors for a week. Hopefully, yours won't last that long.

Posting wise how do we compare to last year:

Here is last years top 9 at 24 June 2013

Paul 4455 posts 18 threads
RD 4113 15 threads
Kath 4000 14 threads
Joe 3705 15 threads
Mark 3322 13 threads
Stephen 2458 9 threads
Ilana 2421 9 threads
Cee 2315 posts 9 threads
Darryl 2204 posts 9 threads

This year

Paul 5408 posts 19 threads
RD 4535 15 threads
Mark 3904 14 threads
Mamie 3329 13 threads
Joe 3128 13 threads
Stephen 2674 11 threads
Ellen 2526 9 threads
Kath 2246 8 threads
Megan 2183 9 threads

Last Year at this stage top 9 total posts 28,993 posts 111 threads

This year 29,933 posts 111 threads

4% more posts but the same number of threads remarkably.

191 > Interesting picks there .... I hoping there will be a move away from risk adverse tactics of recent years

Alex - Quintana could be high in the GC - up there with Rodriguez and Contador in the climbs but also a half-decent time trialler. I have a feeling the sapping rouleur stages will catch him out once or twice though.

Paul and RD seem to have a firm lock on first and second place. Makes sense, really.

Sounds a little like our air - smoke plus record pollen counts. Stay inside and keep well!

#202 'it is really very bad. School has been cancelled in our area for the immediate future and I am a little concerned being asthmatic. One can smell and indeed taste the smoke filled air which cannot be good.'

Paul, worried for you and to be honest also worried for our holiday, being slightly asthmatic (or at least having asthmatic tendencies myself).

Paul, I hope all will stay well with your asthma. Even in Holland the air conditions in Malaysia are in the news, including the school closures.

I can imagine your concerns, having an asthmatic son myself. Take care!

Ellen - Makes sense? RD and myself being the biggest gas bags round these parts?

Jenn - It is ironic that I was just exhorting you to stay safe and then we have much of the same thing.

Rhian - It will be fine. They are waiting for rain to clear things away. For once we have had a couple of days without rain. By the weekend it will be hunky dory once more.

Diana - One of my staff is worried today because his wife, asthmatic, is already needing her nebuliser. Don't want to tempt fate but so far I am fine - this is nothing compared to the South Yorkshire coalfields in full go.

Hi Paul! How are you my friend? Just swinging by to say hello. I am nearly finished with Wool and I am sure you will like it. It's light & entertaining. It sounds like many of us feel the same about Tinkers. There are some amazing passages but just not consistent enough.

Hej Paul, just come out of hiding in order to say hello. I am busy sorting my pix from Greece. The kids gave me a Tomtom as birthday present (no books), since they all argue that I have enough books and they would like me to get rid of them *sigh*.

My son-in-law travels to Singapore and Penang - they may touch KL. May I tell them to look for you on facebook? What should they have seen in KL? He said, that Penang is more interesting than KL. Would you agree? :)

Mark - I will get to Wool soon as I like the look of the series. I have heard tell that Paul Harding's new novel is very much Tinkers 2 - much to admire but I am old fashioned and need more story.

Paul - Nice to see you mate and I am looking forward to trawling through your photos of a place that has always fascinated. No problem, I would be happy to assist your son-in-law. Penang is great for food but I prefer KL. I am a buildings guy and the buildings are worth seeing here. A trip up KL tower affords a brilliant view.

Thanks, Paul, I let him know. Since he has also a facebook account, he should be able to trace you ...

No problem Paul - I don't think I am difficult to find with my uncommon name.

Sorry, television show novels don't count as "real" science fiction! :D

Wool, however, does. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on that one.

Just keeping up here, Paul! Hope your Monday was a good one. Nice stats - too funny about the number of threads being exactly the same as last year!

No Morphy I don't really count Doctor Who books as real sci-fi ~ possibly because I generally like them! My additions in Sci-fi on Friday were Wool, Railsea and Engine Summer - all perfectly legit methinks. x

Mamie - Murky Malaysia was ok today. I am going up to Langkawi on Wednesday to hopefully get my project up there kick-started. Sometimes stats throw up those quirky little anomalies don't they? You were already starting your run to the top six last year and were in the top 20 already after "only" 200 first quarter posts - still the most astonishing charge I've seen in my time on LT.

The news here has been all about Edward Snowden and all those nasty countries who are helping him, so I appreciate the updates I am getting through you regarding the situation there. I looked at purchasing Railsea for the library as steampunk is hot right now. I decided against it and purchased the new Guy Gavriel Kay book River of Stars instead. I admit it is pure prejudice that prompted that purchase. I read Under Heaven and loved it and can't wait to read the sequel. Since I am on short rations for book purchases for the next year or so, until I get the new furniture paid off, I am happy when the library purchases things so I can read them without owning them. I admit - I am a content hog. I love the stories. I don't have to own the books.

Hi Paul... Quick catch up. I enjoyed your review of Tinkers, but I think I'll skip it for now.

Take care of you & yours!

Hi Paul, here's hoping that air condition in KL improves as quickly as possible. I think Tinkers was an example of the Pulitzer committee making another bizarre choice and opting for something put out by a small, unheard of press. I recall that they were so flabbergasted by the choice that they had to ramp up production because they never expected it to be read by very many people.

Benita - The Russkies and Chinese are trying to get under USA's skin aren't they? I haven't really followed what information he is supposed to have whistle-blown but there is clearly a fine line between standing up for freedom of information and simply being a traitor. Can't comment on his case but I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.
Steam-punk? I should quickly read Railsea just to see if I can fathom what the heck that is!

Tina - It is always a pleasure to see you in these parts.

Bonnie - I would agree that it was a strange choice, especially considering the following year they decided nothing was worthy enough!
The air quality does look a little better this morning.

Railsea is terrific.

Snowden made public the extent and the means of US technospying on China and also its own citizens. Patriot and hero, not traitor. Lawbreaker for sure. Person of conscience and honor, also for sure.

Mmm RD I can see why they're not overly happy with him then considering China's burgeoning economy and apparent IP cheating. If the west is shown to be just as bad it puts a different slant on the joke that is "free trade". All for freedom of information.

Paul

Listening to NPR en route to work this morning and they mentioned the poor air quality in Malasia.

So, naturally, I'm concerned for you. How are you?

>204 PaulCranswick:: Well, I would never have put it quite that way.
Hope you're hanging in there with the air quality.
Here in the states we're just waiting for the Supreme Court to make a decision.....

Humph, got totally ignored last time I visited (#196)--*full scale pout*--but I don't hold grudges so I'll express my hopes that your breathing is not suffering once again. Dr. Who books are definitely science fiction, sorry, fella!

>212 PaulCranswick: have fun in Langkawi- will the smoke be absent there?
I hope you dont get followed home by a weirdo when there, and then have to barricade your motel door with the wardrobe in defense of any imagined (or otherwise) intrusions! That is what happened to me when I was there, which although frightening, now makes a funny travel story.

ETA >222 ronincats: HI RONI!!!
You dont see me ignoring you ;)

Linda - It is a little bit better today in truth - all about the wind direction. A little bit of rain also helps. The Indonesians are blaming Singaporean and Malaysian companies for the problem although they admit no regulation.

Ellen - hahaha I know you are far too polite to think like that!

Roni - I am always mortified when it is brought to my attention that there is a post unanswered. Posts crossed whilst I was posting more stats and I didn't notice. Thousand and one apologies my dear for my slip! I was being my usual flippant self with my Doctor Who comment in response to Morphy whom it was questioning whether it was "real" science fiction. I have read most of them anyways.

Megan - I am more likely to be doing the following than being followed!
Your ETA was a dagger thrust straight through my heart! x

Well, if Singaporean and Malaysian companies are to blame, I hope their respective governments fine them to the extent of any and all profits they gain from such irresponsible behaviour.

Nina - From what I heard 2 of the companies are Singaporean based but owned by Indonesians and 1 is a government-linked company from Malaysia. I think the bigger issue is why the Indonesians know full well about these practices but do nada to stop it happening. They are paid off locally by these companies. It is a disgrace and must be stopped.

I got fed up of waiting for the Book Depo deliveries to take me above 500 for the year and I know full well that I won't be around on Friday for my spree. This evening I had bills to pay so it coincided with the purchase of 11 new books.

I am not going to tell you what books I bought (for 48 hours anyways) I want you to guess!.
The first one to get all 11 right will win 4 books from book depo.
If no-one gets all 11 right but whoever is the first to get the most right will win 2 books from Book Depo. Answers by PM.
I will give you the opening lines from each book.
Of the eleven 2 are thrillers.
Of the eleven 1 is non-fiction
All books published originally within the last 20 years.

Here goes:

1. "Some years later on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin's feet were placed in a tub of cement" (389 members)

2. "I'm not a bad guy." (682 members)

3. "In these times of ours - and we don't need to be precise about the exact date - but, anyway, very early in the year, a young man not much over thirty, tall - six foot plus an inch or two - with ink-dark hair and a serious looking, fine-featured but pallid face, went to keep a business appointment and discovered a hanged man." (620 members)

4. "In the afternoon hush of the last day of the year, Mat Joubert thought about death." (146 members)

5. "The notion was to cut a crude "V" into the sprawl of the city, to vandalise dormant energies by an act of ambulent signmaking." (328 members)

6. "This is what happened. An unmarried woman in her thirties implored her mother to leave their studio apartment for one night so she could bring home a lover." (62 members)

7. "By Sunday the wedding would be over, and for that Winn Van Meter was grateful." (296 members)

8. "She had found it on a google map of Brooklyn, a narrow strip making its way up towards the long, arching span that connects the two islands." (12 members)

9. "Izzie called me Marnie after her mother." (317 members)

10 "I don't have to look up to know Mom is making another surprise visit." (504 members)

11. "Whatever's wrong with us is coming in off that river." (145 members)

Good luck!

Added the number of LT members having the particular book. So no hugely obscure ones (no. 8 is a fairly recent book)

I have edited #6 as the first sentence is shared with The Mist by Stephen King which it is not.

Gerard has so far quickly set the standard with 8 out of 11.

Morphy has 9.

Actually there are four books with that sentence as the first.

Yeah Morphy I realised that would be a bum steer which is why I added the second sentence.

I'm pretty sure I've read none of those books, whatever they are!

Interestingly Rebecca - a quick search of your library reveals that you have one of the books listed and a different book by another author in the list.

Of my friends and "interesting libraries" - Darryl, Luci and Judy (DQ) have three each of the books.

So whoever can Google the fastest wins? ;-)

Hi Paul! Just catching up, as I've been away and barely able to keep up with my own thread. Glad to see things continue apace over here!

>226 PaulCranswick:: We can apportion blame wherever, but someone has got to take responsibility and stop it happening once and for all.

227: I shall lead the charge on the first-liners, with precisely 11 out of 11 'not a clue's.

Haha.. I know the first one because I happened to pick it up and the first page last week at one of the bookstores I was in with Darryl.

1) Live By Night - Dennis Lehane

4) Dead before Dying - Deon Meyer

9) The Death of Bees - Lisa O'Donnel

I don't know the others. *hangs head in shame ...shuffles off*

Well, Paul, just because I have a book in my library doesn't mean I've read it! In fact, it's just as likely to mean I haven't read it! I could probably just read from my unread books for the rest of my life, but that would cut out all the fun of discovering new books!

Not a clue on any of them!

No idea either.

Katie - Possibly! I tried to do that on the premise that google will give up everything but it leaves one or two unaccounted for.

Nina - I couldn't agree more. The three governments of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia are looking to blame each other when, frankly, not one of them has done enough to stop the practice of stubble burning.

Caro - Well done but not good enough to bring home the bacon.

Rebecca - Absolutely right. I have a formula calculating my unread number of pages in my TBR at my present rate of reading which tells me how long it will take me to finish all my unread books. I am running at nearly 21 years at the moment! I don't see any possibility of me stopping the practice of accumulating more books.

Kerry/Rhian - To be fair most of the books are not in the least obscure.

Update. Paul Stalder has 10 out of the 11 and leads. The missing one is in Darryl's library.

I'm thinking I've not read any of them. I'm just as blank as I can be. :)

To be fair #6 was familiar to me and when I googled the sentence found that it was a book I recently read.

Tina - You have read 42 books so far this year and none of them are in the 11 so you can rest assured on your mind at least!

Kerry - I did notice that you had read it recently!

I only got 9, as numbers 5 and 8 aren't producing any google results.

Not even going to try, Paul-- none of them are familiar to me! Then again we don't often read in the same genres. Also, my head hurts to google them. ETC: Nope, not a clue.

I hope your air quality is steadily improving. I meant to post in here last night but realized this morning I had left my post unposted. Oops. I went off googling the air situation and never came back. It's horrid, and gets precisely zero media air over here it seems. I think we're too enamored with "green fuel" to expose the public to its side effects.

All those sentences are intriguing and I wish I could put up a competitive front but I have Not A Clue!

Hmmm, three of them are in my library ... must be three I haven't read. Only one seemed familiar to me, #4, I think I recognized the character's name. I will be embarrassed if it turns out I have read the three, but at this point I haven't a clue.

Roni - Number 8 is the one that has most stumped. Fairly recent release. Number 5 a few have. I ran a google search and was able to find it.

Kathy - The air quality is returning to normalcy here slowly. I didn't release a google search would enable you to come up with most of the first lines.

Charles - I had high hopes for you too mate!

Judy - You have six books by one of the authors but I am not sure whether you've read 'em or not.

Yeah, I'm not trying either but happily spectating from the stands......

But I can't wait to see the final list and I hereby vow to go purchase/acquire every one of them (in part because the opening lines are so great!).

#1 I know because I recognised the character name but not the scene. Turns out there is a sequel that I didn't know about!

>241 PaulCranswick: the hint leads me to a book published by Cairo Press with 192 pages, right?

Mr. Paul Stalder has a perfect score! He wins 4 books from book depo!

1. "Some years later on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin's feet were placed in a tub of cement" (389 members)
Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

2. "I'm not a bad guy." (682 members)
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

3. "In these times of ours - and we don't need to be precise about the exact date - but, anyway, very early in the year, a young man not much over thirty, tall - six foot plus an inch or two - with ink-dark hair and a serious looking, fine-featured but pallid face, went to keep a business appointment and discovered a hanged man." (620 members)
Armadillo by William Boyd

4. "In the afternoon hush of the last day of the year, Mat Joubert thought about death." (146 members)
Dead before Dying by Deon Meyer

5. "The notion was to cut a crude "V" into the sprawl of the city, to vandalise dormant energies by an act of ambulent signmaking." (328 members)
Lights Out for the Territory by Iain Sinclair

6. "This is what happened. An unmarried woman in her thirties implored her mother to leave their studio apartment for one night so she could bring home a lover." (62 members)
There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband and He Hanged Himself by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

7. "By Sunday the wedding would be over, and for that Winn Van Meter was grateful." (296 members)
Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead

8. "She had found it on a google map of Brooklyn, a narrow strip making its way up towards the long, arching span that connects the two islands." (12 members)
Brooklyn Heights by Miral al-Tahawy

9. "Izzie called me Marnie after her mother." (317 members)
The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell

10 "I don't have to look up to know Mom is making another surprise visit." (504 members)
The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

11. "Whatever's wrong with us is coming in off that river." (145 members)
City of Bohane by Kevin Barry

Mightily impressive.

Hej Paul, your challenge just intrigued me to see how far I can find the right books - the first lines always fascinated me, even more when I had found a short story all written with first and last lines (I passed it on to the Woman's Library and never catalogued it, shame). The CK feature is very interesting, fascinating, and , in this case, very helpful. Most of the titles I found with the help of CK and I am so thrilled having found them all (with the last hint of yours).

I am pleased about your offer of 4 books. thank you very much.

Congratulations Paul.

Paul - I am not sure what the CK feature is but it sounds very useful. It is good that the books will go to someone who rarely gets any new books into his home. hahaha!

Kerry - Both Pauls got a kick out of that.

Aha! I haven't read Armadillo but I have a number of books by William Boyd because a man I once was interested in recommended him to me. And I haven't read my Junot Diaz either. But I am impressed that you took the time to check my library to see whether I had any of these books; I don't understand how you have time to run your business!

Arrghh... I've read Brooklyn Heights ! *hangs head even further, forehead almost touching bellybutton ...and whimpers off*

And I have the Petrushevskaya in my TBR Tower.

Nice set of first lines - I wouldn't have got a single one of them though:)

CK = Common Knowledge. Every work has a page where any member can add information - look at the left hand side of the work page.
for example - http://www.librarything.com/work/12362315/commonknowledge

CK is also searchable via the link at the bottom of every page.

Rebecca - And I don't understand how the said business seems to go from strength to strength. I have good staff I suppose. Had a nice experience today at the office as it was salary review time (for all save I) and they got 8% each except for Norul my secretary who got 20%. She managed to go to night school and get herself a diploma in HR management. It was lovely because when I took her on 6 years ago she could barely speak english and she is now thriving.
My Korean staff who will not be returning to Libya, Mr. Kang, referred to me today (I was eavesdropping!) as a true friend in discussion with someone else which really touched me.
Off to Langkawi now tomorrow so I won't have time to look up anyone's libraries tomorrow! x

Caro - I wouldn't have pointed that out although I had noticed!

Wish you a good trip and fresh stay in Langkawi.

257, 260> CK: click on the little 'history' button on the Common Knowledge page (or 'view history' on the 'Main Page' and you find a search field with which you can search for first lines, important places, characters, awards, etc. for works, or birthplace, nationality, occupations, etc. for authors. LT tells me that I added over 40'000 CK items so far.

Calm - Thanks my dear, I am still able to learn something new every day.

Paul - I can see I will now be spending an inordinate length of time checking through that particular feature.

Good bosses create an atmosphere where employees thrive. When employees thrive, businesses tend to do well. :)

Yikes! I've missed a whole thread!! I'll just sit tight and wait for the new one. Have a great day, Paul!

Oh dear...

Just a quick skim... so busy here!

Keep well...

Finally all caught up with you - always a pleasure! Hope Thursday was good to you.

All caught up on this thread (finally) although I shudder to think of all I missed of your other threads. I hope your week is going well and that your family is doing all right, and I hope to talk to you soon.

Phooey about the First Doctor being misrepresented in that book! I hate it when it happens to any of the Doctors. All of them are spectacular. I'm actually watching a Sixth Doctor episode right now, Trial of the Time Lords, and it is brilliant! Six is so brazenly honest and rude that I adore him.

Nice list of books, and well done Paul S!

264 > I concur !

Paul, I have a copy of Killer's Payoff for you. I paid a mere $4 for it and I'll send it to you after I read it, probably near the end of the summer.

Well I am back from Langkawi and a little on the exhausted side. Touch wood the project is starting to move up there and it will mean fortnightly visits for the next couple of years at least. Managed a bit of reading in the hotel last night, but no Friday afternoon splurge.

What? No Friday afternoon splurge?! Paul, you know we live vicariously through your book purchases. *pouts a bit*

Jenn - My staff certainly contribute greatly to the success of my miniature empire. Whether the youth-club atmosphere is the main cause thereof I hesitate to confirm but it doesn't hurt!

Lynda - Look forward to seeing you on my next thread!

Kath - After a couple of days of enforced absence I am going to go into headless chicken mode myself shortly in a vain attempt to catch up. Unfortunately I have a busy Saturday morning of work planned with two clients coming to my "contracts surgery" this morning and two more possibles.

Mamie - And it is always a pleasure to have a visit all the way from the Pecan Paradisio. Thursday was busy in Langkawi, Friday still busy in Langkawi although I did manage to bring the troops back a suitcase full of duty-free chocolate.

Eris - I guess some of the books written much later just fsiled to capture the essence of the incarnation if that makes sense. The First Doctor is certainly not my favourite but he should at least be depicted in keeping with the show.

Charles / Alex - Thanks guys, I will accept the praise for both us Pauls! I subsequently tried to see if I could google and/or CK my way to an answer of the opening lines and I would have failed to get all of them so Paul's detective skills are worthy of Hercule Poirot himself.

Ellen - You are a dear and a gem! xxx

Mamie - I did have the splurge earlier in the week though!

#274 a suitcase full of duty-free chocolate. - I like the sound of that - especially as we will be in Langkawi on Sunday. Did you get it all back unmelted? J brought a generous amount of chocolate back from his visit to a chocolate museum on his exchange trip to Germany. Unfortunately it was 35 degrees the day they went so it wasn't exactly in pristine condition by the time it got home!

Rhian put it in the minibar first and then in the bag well wrapped up. Try not to buy it too early. There is a good chocolate shop called Group Haji Ismail in Kuah town and you should buy shortly before going off to the airport ideally.

I hope your Langkawi project will prosper, Paul. Have a lovely weekend!

72.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

This was a no-brainer really wasn't it? I have over 2,000 books unread on my shelves and have a thread that for two years has received the most posts on the busiest group on the most frequented of "book-club" websites in the universe. I spend every Friday that commitments permit trawling the bookstores. A book about a secret book society operating around a mysterious bookstore in San Francisco is hardly likely to fail with me - and it didn't.

Some of the prose could hardly be described as high literature but the story had a flow and charm that more than compensated.
Entertaining and uplifting. Recommended.

8/10

Diana - Thank you so much. There is a lot of politics involved in and around the project through which we need to steer very carefully, but so far so good.

73.

The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson

This is the first in the Rebecca Martinsson series. Our hereoine is a lawyer with a past working in Stockholm but from the north of Sweden. A brutal murder occurs among the group of christian zealots that Rebecca had previously been embroiled with and Rebecca is drawn to get involved.

Well told and with a good sense of place this is a promising beginning to a series that is extremely popular in Northern Europe.

7/10

74.

The Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda

I have seen Neruda described as the "Homer of his age". I didn't realise the reference was in fact to Homer Simpson.
I found this collection of earthy love poems adolescent and leaden. Almost every poem included the words "blood", "waist", "breast", "soul", "earth", "sea" and "waves". After a couple of poems this became extremely tedious indeed.

I am sure that Neruda's reputation is based on foundations much more solid than the rubbish published here. Unfortunately it is all I've read of his to judge and I'm not impressed even allowing for the vagaries of translation.

4/10

I have seen Neruda described as the "Homer of his age". I didn't realise the reference was in fact to Homer Simpson.

*Snickers with delight* Now, that is funny!

Mr. Penumbra's is one of those great summer beach reads, IMO - light, fun and entertaining. I hope you are having a lovely weekend Paul

Oh I loved Mr Penumbra!

Happy day to you Paul

Feeling slightly contrarian, Paul? Dissing Neruda! Imagine the cheek!

you go, boy

Lori - Maybe glib but I'm sure some of his acolytes would be less than pleased.

Kath - It was indeed an extremely enjoyable read and Penumbra himself a good creation.

Linda - Same to you my dear. Closing in on my 75 before the year is half way through and life is good!

RD - Must be the Langkawi air or the lack of it in Kuala Lumpur. I know you love poetry so much (hahaha) but this really was pap.

*Ahem* Mr. Penumbra falls into the science fiction/fantasy category.

Mmmm Roni stretching a genre a little a think but the genre doesn't matter if the story is good.

A suitcase of duty-free chocolate does sound heavenly. I've always said that my love for chocolate comes from my Swiss ancestry; however, I might just want to claim to be related to the Thorntons who manufacture the chocolates in England. Do you think they might send me a lifetime supply?

Lori - I certainly think it is worth a try! Their "Thornton's Continentals" are an absolute joy.

YUMMMMMMMM . . . my mouth is waterin!

>290 PaulCranswick: There's pink chocolate? How weird.

Congratulations to Paul for sussing out the books from the first lines given. This just proves to me thatI need to spend more time reading those books on my wishlist andshelves.

Paul, I really liked the first two of Asa Larsson's books and there's another series that I need to get back to!

#292 There's pink chocolate? How weird. - no -those ones are wrapped in pink foil! An awful lot of Continentals are consumed in our household so I could probably tell you the flavours by heart.

Would your fortnightly visits to Langkawi include weekends so you also then have fortnightly beach holidays, Paul? I could see some benefit in the visits then, and maybe you can purchase a little holiday apartment there while you're at it... you do need more room for your book acquisitions after all. ;-)

Hi Paul- I loved your review of the Sloan book but I think the book should have been called Mr. Cranswick's 24-Hour Bookstore. Hope you are having a nice weekend.

Hej Paul, it's busy over here. Welcome back from a busy trip. We had our daughter's graduation for a 'BA in ... design and industrial design ... specializing in design management' - what a mouthful, 13 words! She finished her studies, got a document with that title on it and I had to pay the apéro. So we were the whole day in Lucerne. She celebrates now with her friends - but she has to look for a job now. Seriousness of life has started... (one of the speakers mentioned).

And thanks for comparing me with Monsieur Hercule Poirot, je suis flatté, mon ami, quel honneur, mais I didn't consider it too difficult - it was fun. I hope I don't appear so boastful as Poirot.

Wish you a more quiet Sunday.

Glad you liked Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, Paul. Right on target description of it. Fun summer read.

Mr. Neruda can do much better than the sappy early love poems. You might want to dip into his Neruda Selected Poems, which is what got me hooked.

Lori - They are probably my favourite type of chocolate selection available in the UK.

RD - As Rhian points out it is a pink foil cover.

Judy - I was impressed by the Asa Larsson book I must say. It is probably lucky that I was since I already have the next three on the shelves!

Rhian - Christmas wouldn't be the same without Thorntons in Wakefield. Another reason to be a proud Yorkshireman as the company was founded by Joseph Thornton in 1911 in Sheffield. One of the three great Yorkshire confectioners with Mr. Rowntree of York and Mr. Mackintosh of Halifax. Of course the last two eventually merged and then were taken over by Nestle and then Kraft.

Good idea as always Caro. I am looking at a few options up there actually. One is to take advantage of the tax concessions via duty free cars up there.

Mark - Hahaha anyway my reading room is always open!

Paul - Your daughter could do worse than look to this neck of the woods for employment. Korean companies are extremely busy in the region and, if she's bilingual I am sure she would be extremely marketable so to speak!
I thought it better to compare you to dear old Hercule rather than Jane Marple but boastful is not a word I would associate with your goodself.

Joe - I do figure that Neruda must have much more to offer than the love poetry I frankly struggled through. It was a dual language book and I got far more pleasure in reading out the spanish text and sounding like Manuel, the spanish waiter in Fawlty Towers.

Rowntree's Fruit Gums? That Rowntree? I loved the blackcurrant ones.

One and the same RD. One thing I never figured was why they made the yellow "lemon" ones - don't know anybody who like them. You're right the blackcurrant flavoured were the tops.

The lemon ones weren't so very good, but the strawberry ones were vile.

Funny richard I liked the strawberry ones second least if that makes any sense. Black, oragne, green, red and yellow in that order.

I switch lime & orange, so I'm black, green, orange, yellow, red. I used to put the orange and yellow ones in my gob together and always fobbed the reddies off on some poor slob who didn't know any better.

Thanks for coming by, Paul. I was going to point out Alun Wyn Jones from the Lions tour, but sadly, he's no relation to Dianna Wynne Jones - so I can't put in any genre digs. :0(

A distant relative of mine is heading to Langkawi in a few weeks, to get married, with family in tow. I'm sure it'll be wonderful and very romantic.

Hope the rest of your weekend is peaceful and full of good reading.

ETA: I was never a huge fan of fruit gums, but chocolates now; I liked the Quality Street chocolates.

RD - Same technique, I never ate the yellows on their lonesome.

Nina - Mackintosh came up with Quality Street - another Yorkshire treat!

I'm with Paul. I really didn't see any SF/F elements in Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Everything mentioned can actually be done now or awfully close.

Didn't see too much Sci-Fi in it to be honest Morphy but it was a good read whatever the genre.

Congratulations to Paul Stalder for an impressive win!

Yay to dear Paul for such fun games ~ I'll just sit and watch, since I've not been reading any of your first line quiz books.

I do have Mr. Penumbra sitting on my shelf awaiting me, however. If I could just stop succumbing to book bullets that require me to request other books from the library that have a deadline for return! :)

Hi Paul! I have not yet read Mr. Penumbra but it is on the radar...sounds like my kind of book. I'm in the midst of prepping for my organization's annual July 1st barbecue fundraiser today. It must finally be summer! Hope you had a fabulous weekend!

So glad you bought the Sutcliffe's. She is a great favorite of mine.

I did very badly on the quiz!

Paul, thank you very much for your kind remarks in my thread. This has been a singularly difficult year for Mr. Bohemima and myself, but it's only what I expected. My regrets are mostly limited to my lack of attention span which cuts my reading and my LT time. It's getting a bit better as I adjust.

Hope the coming week will be a great one for you.

Thanks Paul for refraining from comparing me with Jane Marple, Monsieur Poirot is more in my age league.

Esther would like to work in Korea, but since we have no relatives in bigger companies it's not easy - vitamin B (or R in English) is still the most effective door opener.

Thanks, Tina for the praise.

RD and PC: this is our variety over here: yummy

Hej Paul, I finished Tinkers and also feel at a loss how to treat it - a good story with some 'grands mals' in it?

ETA: you put the book into TIOLI challenge 2 (faceless cover), please add your cover into the 'faceless' thread, because my cover has no (faceless) person on it. (or should we move it to challenge 1: apple on page 23?)

Tina - Books about bookstores. A marriage made in heaven for me really isn't it?

Heidi - good luck with the barbie and even better luck with the fundraising.

Lucy - All gathered together nicely in one volume and at the price of just one book - I couldn't resist.

Gail - I have always thought that the positive vibes emanating from this group must be helpful. I look back to the miraculous survival of my flying cat Bambi and think that the group played a role in saving the little fellow against "medical" advice.

Paul - The best bet for Esther would be to tackle the Korean firms in a third country where their poor communication skills are at issue. I have several korean friends exiled here in Malaysia very much in demand with the Chaebols here.

Paul - I have put up the cover as requested mate.

Book #74 I found this collection of earthy love poems adolescent and leaden.
Oh dear, bummer. I had held out high hopes that Neruda and me would get along, perhaps because I love Chile. But maybe it is not to be. Ill still try and find out for myself - one day.

Alt least the bookshop book you loved. Sounds like a good one for sure - and likely as not I will get to it .....thats right....one day!

It wasn't for me Megan but if it caught someone, love-struck and thinking constantly about blood, breast and waist then it may have been a different story!

Hi Paul -- I enjoyed your review of Mr. Penumbra, AND the Neruda (*snort*)

Hope your next read is stellar.

Have a great week!

Paul? No new thread?

Paul S: I'm drooling...I want a blackcurrant one now!

RD: have a bite:

Anne - My present read is What a Carve Up! about finished in time for inclusion in June listings and very good.

RD - Coming, evening my time.

Paul - Good fellows go by our name my friend - I didn't see anybody prepared to share a fruit gum previously!