kidzdoc in 2013: Old World, New Imports part 11

Things that aren't there anymore: Third Ave El at Chatham Square, NYC, 1955.










Currently reading:

    

The Kills by Richard House
South to a Very Old Place by Albert Murray
District and Circle by Seamus Heaney

Completed books: (TBR = To Be Read book, purchased prior to 1/1/12)

January:
1. Quiet London by Siobhan Wall (review)
2. The Chip-Chip Gatherers by Shiva Naipaul (review)
3. Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif (review)
4. The Eleven by Pierre Michon (review)
5. Pediatric Advanced Life Support Provider Manual by Leon Chameides, MD (review)
6. Communion Town by Sam Thompson (review)
7. Damascus by Joshua Mohr (TBR) (review)
8. The Walls of Delhi by Uday Prakash (review)
9. Inspiring Quotes: The Greatest Quotes of Martin Luther King Junior by Martin Luther King, Jr. (review)
10. A Happy Death by Albert Camus (review)
11. Place of Mind by Richard Blanco

February:
12. Great House by Nicole Krauss (TBR) (review)
13. In the House of the Interpreter by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (review)
14. Bill Veeck's Crosstown Classic by Bill Veeck with Ed Linn (review)
15. Stone Upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski (TBR) (review)
16. Big Machine by Victor LaValle (TBR) (review)
17. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (review)
18. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid (review)
19. The Other City by Michal Ajvaz (TBR)
20. A History of the Present Illness by Louise Aranson
21. Domestic Work by Natasha Trethewey
22. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
23. Vertical Motion by Can Xue (TBR)

March:
24. Liquidation by Imre Kertész (TBR)
25. Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman (TBR)
26. Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah (TBR)
27. Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke (TBR)
28. Mortality by Christopher Hitchens
29. The Jokers by Albert Cossery (TBR)

April:
30. All My Friends by Marie NDiaye (review)
31. Palliative Medicine in the UK c. 1970-2010 by Caroline Overy and E.M. Tansey (review)
32. Childhood Asthma and Beyond by Lois Reynolds and E.M. Tansey (review)
33. Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (review)
34. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (TBR)
35. Pow! by Mo Yan
36. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
37. There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe
38. Burmese Days by George Orwell
39. Requiem: A Hallucination by Antonio Tabucchi
40. No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe

May:
41. A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis (TBR)
42. The Redundancy of Courage by Timothy Mo (TBR)
43. Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn (TBR) (review)
44. Bad News by Edward St. Aubyn (TBR) (review)
45. Some Hope by Edward St Aubyn (TBR) (review)
46. Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients by Ben Goldacre
47. Why Me? : A Doctor Looks at the Book of Job by Diane M. Komp, M.D. (TBR)
48. The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez
49. Skios by Michael Frayn
50. The Aftermath of War by Jean-Paul Sartre (TBR)
51. Where There's Love, There's Hate by Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo

June:
52. The Philadelphia Chromosome: A Mutant Gene and the Quest to Cure Cancer at the Genetic Level by Jessica Wapner (review)
53. The Alienist by Machado de Assis
54. The Singapore Grip by J.G. Farrell (TBR)
55. The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna (review)

July:
56. Enon by Paul Harding (review)
57. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
58. The Amen Corner by James Baldwin (review)
59. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (review)
60. The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh (review)
61. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
62. The Blue Riband: The Piccadilly Line by Peter York (review)
63. Drift: The Hammersmith & City Line by Philippe Parreno (review)
64. A Season in the Congo by Aimé Césaire (TBR) (review)
65. TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

August:
66. The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín
67. What We Talk About When We Talk About the Tube: The District Line by John Lanchester (review)
68. The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (review)
69. The 32 Stops: The Central Line by Danny Dorling (review)
70. The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal (TBR) (review)
71. Dark Heart of the Night by Léonora Miano (TBR) (review)
72. 419 by Will Ferguson (review)
73. The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah (TBR) (review)
74. Harvest by Jim Crace (review)
75. Massacre River by René Philoctète (TBR) (review)
76. Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson (review)
77. The Return by Dany Laferrière
78. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (review)

September:
79. The American Plague by Molly Caldwell Crosby
80. A Northern Line Minute: The Northern Line by William Leith

Books acquired in 2013: (✔ = completed book, bold = purchased book)

January:
1. The Eleven by Pierre Michon (5 January; LT Early Reviewers book) ✔
2. Place of Mind by Richard Blanco (21 January; Kindle e-book) ✔
3. A History of the Present Illness by Louise Aranson (29 January; Kindle e-book) ✔

February:
4. Old Man Goriot by Honoré de Balzac (15 February; Kindle e-book)
5. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid (15 February; LT Early Reviewers book) ✔

March:
6. The Return by Dany Laferrière (1 March; Alibris)
7. Brazil Red by Jean-Christophe Rufin (7 March; Alibris)
8. Palliative Medicine in the UK c. 1970-2010 by Caroline Overy and E.M. Tansey (9 March; free e-book) ✔
9. Lamb by Bonnie Nadzam (16 March; Kindle e-book)
10. All My Friends by Marie NDiaye (16 March; ARC copy received from avaland) ✔
11. Mortality by Christopher Hitchens (17 March; Barnes & Noble) ✔
12. Burmese Days by George Orwell (17 March; Barnes & Noble) ✔
13. Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora by Emily Raboteau (17 March; Barnes & Noble)
14. Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi (17 March; Barnes & Noble)
15. Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (19 March; LT Early Reviewers book) ✔
16. The Outsider by Albert Camus (21 March; The Book Depository)
17. Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (24 March; Kindle e-book)
18. The Marlowe Papers by Ros Barber (24 March; Kindle e-book)

April:
19. Childhood Asthma and Beyond by Lois Reynolds and E.M. Tansey (1 April; free e-book) ✔
20. El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency by Ioan Grillo (7 April; Barnes & Noble)
21. Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients by Ben Goldacre (7 April; Barnes & Noble) ✔
22. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (7 April; Barnes & Noble) ✔
23. There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe (7 April; Barnes & Noble) ✔
24. Crock-Pot Slow Cooker Bible (7 April; Barnes & Noble)
25. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (16 April; Barnes & Noble) ✔
26. The Crow Road by Iain Banks (16 April; Barnes & Noble)
27. Experiment Eleven: Dark Secrets Behind the Discovery of a Wonder Drug by Peter Pringle (21 April; Strand Book Store)
28. Lenin's Kisses by Yan Lianke (21 April; Strand Book Store)
29. Requiem: A Hallucination by Antonio Tabucchi (21 April; Strand Book Store) ✔
30. No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe (21 April; Strand Book Store) ✔
31. All Decent Animals by Oonya Kempadoo (21 April; Strand Book Store)
32. Julius Caesar (Modern Library Classics) by William Shakespeare (21 April; Greenlight Bookstore)
33. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (21 April; Greenlight Bookstore)
34. Firefly by Severo Sarduy (22 April; gift from Caroline)
35. The Gate by François Bizot (27 April; Kindle e-book)
36. In the Land of Israel by Amos Oz (28 April; Kindle e-book)

May:
37. You Were Never in Chicago by Neil Steinberg (1 May; free e-book from the University of Chicago Press)
38. Hack: Stories from a Cab by Dmitry Samarov (8 May; free e-book from the University of Chicago Press)
39. The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna (15 May; Amazon UK) ✔
40. The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (15 May; Amazon UK) ✔
41. The Remarkable Story of Great Ormond Street Hospital by Kevin Telfer (15 May; Amazon UK)
42. Basti by Intizar Husain (18 May; Joseph Fox Bookshop)
43. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (18 May; Joseph Fox Bookshop) ✔
44. What to Feed Your Baby: Cost-Conscious Nutrition for Your Infant by Stanley A. Cohen, M.D. (20 May; advance review copy)
45. Where There's Love, There's Hate by Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo (26 May; City Lights Bookstore) ✔
46. The Bottom of the Jar by Adellatif Laâbi (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
47. Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
48. And Still the Earth by Ignácio de Loyola Brandão (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
49. Blue White Red by Alain Mabanckou (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
50. Transit by Abdourahman A. Waberi (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
51. The Girl with the Golden Parasol by Uday Prakash (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
52. Salt by Earl Lovelace (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
53. A Muslim Suicide by Bensalem Himmich (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
54. The Philadelphia Chromosome: A Mutant Gene and the Quest to Cure Cancer at the Genetic Level by Jessica Wapner (26 May; City Lights Bookstore) ✔
55. Southern Cross the Dog by Bill Cheng (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
56. Raised from the Ground by José Saramago (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
57. From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia by Pankaj Mishra (26 May; City Lights Bookstore)
58. Ten White Geese by Gerbrand Bakker (29 May; City Lights Bookstore)
59. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam (29 May; City Lights Bookstore)
60. Percival Everett by Virgil Russell: A Novel by Percival Everett (29 May; City Lights Bookstore)
61. Algerian Chronicles by Albert Camus (29 May; City Lights Bookstore)
62. Blacks In and Out of the Left by Michael C. Dawson (29 May; City Lights Bookstore)
63. The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop by Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. (29 May; City Lights Bookstore)
64. Mingus Speaks by John F. Goodman (29 May; City Lights Bookstore)

June:
65. The Alienist by Machado de Assis (1 Jun; City Lights Bookstore) ✔
66. Ways of Going Home by Alejandro Zambra (1 Jun; City Lights Bookstore)
67. Satantango by László Krasznahorkai (1 Jun; City Lights Bookstore)
68. The World Is Moving Around Me: A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake by Dany Laferrière (1 Jun; City Lights Bookstore)
69. That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott (1 Jun; City Lights Bookstore)
70. City of a Hundred Fires by Richard Blanco (1 Jun; City Lights Bookstore)
71. On the Imperial Highway: New and Selected Poems by Jayne Cortez (1 Jun; City Lights Bookstore)
72. Engine Empire: Poems by Cathy Park Hong (1 Jun; City Lights Bookshop)
73. Disposable People by Ezekel Alan (2 Jun; Amazon Kindle e-book)
74. Sons for the Return Home by Albert Wendt (8 Jun; Amazon Kindle e-book (free))
75. The Secret River by Kate Grenville (11 Jun; gift book from Paul Cranswick)
76. Enon by Paul Harding (12 Jun; May LT Early Reviewer book) ✔
77. The Code of the Samurai: A Modern Translation of the Bushido Shoshinshu of Taira Shigesuke by Yuzan Daidoji (19 Jun; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
78. What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine by Danielle Ofri, MD (19 Jun; Harvard Book Store)
79. The Dark Road by Ma Jian (19 Jun; Harvard Book Store)
80. Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis by Helen Bynum (19 Jun; The Harvard Coop)
81. AIDS at 30: A History by Victoria A. Harden (19 Jun; The Harvard Coop)
82. Contagion: How Commerce Has Spread Disease by Mark Harrison (19 Jun; The Harvard Coop)
83. She Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir (19 Jun; The Harvard Coop)
84. The Quiet American by Graham Greene (19 Jun; Raven Used Books)
85. Chronicle of a Blood Merchant by Yu Hua (19 Jun; Raven Used Books)
86. Regeneration by Pat Barker (20 Jun; gift book from Caroline)

July:
87. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (4 Jul; Amazon Kindle e-book)
88. My Struggle: Book Two by Karl Ove Knausgaard (14 Jul; Archipelago Books)
89. The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico by Antonio Tabucchi (14 Jul; Archipelago Books)
90. The Woman of Porto Pim by Antonio Tabucchi (14 Jul; Archipelago Books)
91. Country Boy by Richard Hillyer (16 Jul; Slightly Foxed Bookshop)
92. Wreaking by James Scudamore (16 Jul; Slightly Foxed Bookshop)
93. Perfect by Rachel Joyce (16 Jul; Slightly Foxed Bookshop)
94. TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (16 Jul; Slightly Foxed Bookshop) ✔
95. Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (16 Jul; South Kensington Books)
96. Othello by William Shakespeare (16 Jul; South Kensington Books)
97. The Blue Riband: The Piccadilly Line by Peter York (17 Jul; Foyles Bookshop) ✔
98. Fireflies by Shiva Naipaul (17 Jul; Foyles Bookshop)
99. North of South: An African Journey by Shiva Naipaul (17 Jul; Foyles Bookshop)
100. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (17 Jul; Foyles Bookshop) ✔
101. Between Friends by Amos Oz (17 Jul; Foyles Bookshop)
102. The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee (17 Jul; Foyles Bookshop)
103. The Amen Corner by James Baldwin (20 Jul; National Theatre Bookshop) ✔
104. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (20 Jul; Waterloo Bridge stalls, South Bank, London)
105. The Reprieve by Jean-Paul Sartre (20 Jul; Waterloo Bridge stalls, South Bank, London
106. The Night Alive by Conor Mc Pherson (24 Jul; National Theatre Bookshop)
107. The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh (24 Jul; National Theatre Bookshop) ✔
108. East-West: Penguin Underground Lines (24 Jul; Kindle e-book) ✔

August:
109. 419 by Will Ferguson (9 Aug; LTER book)
110. Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson (9 Aug; The Book Depository)
111. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (12 Aug; Amazon UK)
112. Unexploded by Alison MacLeod (12 Aug; Amazon UK)
113. South to a Very Old Place by Albert Murray (19 Aug; Amazon Kindle book)

2013 reading goals (✔ = completed goal):

1. Booker Prize group
     a. Finish reading the 2012 longlist
          8. Communion Town by Sam Thompson
          9. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
          10. Skios by Michael Frayn
     b. Read the entire 2013 longlist
          1. Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw
          2. TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
          3. The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín
          4. The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
          5. Harvest by Jim Crace
          6. Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson
          7. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

2. 2013 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature ✔
     a. Finish the shortlist in advance of the award ceremony in late January
          Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif
          The Walls of Delhi by Uday Prakash

3. Orange January/July group
     a. Read selected books from the shortlist of the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction (WPF) in advance of the prize ceremony
          Bring Up the Bodies by Hilarly Mantel (read in 2012)
          NW by Zadie Smith (read in 2012)
          Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
     b. Read 8-12 or more books nominated for the Orange Prize or the WPF in any year, or novels written by women which would be eligible for the prize
          Great House by Nicole Krauss
          Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
          The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna
          Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

4. Reading Globally group
     a. Read 3 or more books for each 2013 quarterly challenge
          *Central & Eastern European literature
               Stone Upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski
               The Other City by Michal Ajvaz
               Liquidation by Imre Kertész
          *Southeast Asian literature
               Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw
               Burmese Days by George Orwell
               The Redundancy of Courage by Timothy Mo
          *Francophone literature
               A Season in the Congo by Aimé Césaire
               The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal
               Dark Heart of the Night by Léonora Miano
               Massacre River by René Philoctète
               The Return by Dany Laferrière
          *South American literature
     b. Read 6 or more books for the 2012 4th quarter challenge, China & neighboring countries
          Vertical Motion by Can Xue
          Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke
          Pow! by Mo Yan

5. Author Theme Reads group
     a. Read 2-3 books by Simone de Beauvoir

6. Literary Centennials group
     a. Read books by Albert Camus throughout the year
          A Happy Death

7. Patrick White 100th 101st Anniversary challenge
     a. Read at least 1 of the 3 books that I own and was supposed to have read last year

8. Medicine group
     a. Read 12 or more books on medicine, science and public health throughout the year
          A History of the Present Illness by Louise Aranson
          Palliative Medicine in the UK c. 1970-2010 by Caroline Overy and E.M. Tansey
          Childhood Asthma and Beyond by Lois Reynolds and E.M. Tansey
          Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients by Ben Goldacre
          The Philadelphia Chromosome: A Mutant Gene and the Quest to Cure Cancer at the Genetic Level by Jessica Wapner

9. African/African American Literature group
     a. Read 20 or more works of fiction from the African diaspora
          1. Big Machine by Victor LaValle
          2. Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman
          3. Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
          4. All My Friends by Marie NDiaye
          5. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
          6. No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe
          7. The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna
          8. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
          9. The Amen Corner by James Baldwin
          10. A Season in the Congo by Aimé Césaire
          11. Dark Heart of the Night by Léonora Miano
          12. Massacre River by René Philoctète

10. Read Mo Yan group
     a. Read 2-3 books written by Mo Yan
          Pow!

11. Other
     a. Read books longlisted or selected as finalists for these other literary prizes:
          * Wellcome Trust Book Prize (medicine in literature)
               Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif
          * National Book Award
          * Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards (African diaspora)
     b. Read more books spontaneously from my TBR collection:
          The Chip-Chip Gatherers by Shiva Naipaul
          Damascus by Joshua Mohr
          The Jokers by Albert Cossery
          Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn
          Bad News by Edward St. Aubyn
          Some Hope by Edward St Aubyn
          A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

Planned reads for August (subject to change):

Nathacha Appanah, The Last Brother - completed
NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names
Helen Bynum, Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis - reading
Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries - reading
Stan Cohen, What to Feed Your Baby
Jim Crace, Harvest - completed
Assia Djebar, Children of the New World
Danny Dorling, The 32 Stops: The Central Line - completed
Will Ferguson, 419 - completed
Richard House, The Kills
Dany Laferrière, The Return - completed
John Lanchester, What We Talk About When We Talk About the Tube: The District Line - completed
Alison MacLeod, Unexploded
Léonora Miano, Dark Heart of the Night - completed
Charlotte Mendelson, Almost English - completed
Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being
René Philoctète, Massacre River - completed
Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart - completed
Boualem Sansal, The German Mujahid - completed
Colm Tóibín, The Testament of Mary - completed

Eyes getting heavy...back tomorrow.

Oh. oh, oh...I just thought of another great Canadian author namely Alistair MacLeod and his book No Great Mischief. Lovely new thread Darryl.

Yay I'm first. I'm never first:)

Marking my place on your new thread, Darryl. I second Bonnie's endorsement of Alistair MacLeod and No Great Mischief; superb read.

Wow, that picture is older than I am. That's WAY old....

Just want to say "Hi" and "Happy new thread", Darryl. I've been following again for a bit, just haven't been posting. Loved all the NO pics on the last thread!

I am looking forward to your thoughts on Harvest. I rarely read a book twice, but in this case I'll have to.

Happy new thread Darryl

Congrats on the new thread, Darryl. I'm a ways into Transatlantic and liking it so far. Hope you can squeeze in A Fine Balance and The Bird Artist.

New thread! Ambitious reading lists! Interesting old photo!

I can always count on you, Darryl.

My reading has been way down this month, mostly due to a plethora of home projects but partly to the upcoming start of the new semester. I am about halfway through A Fine Balance, which I quite like and feel guilty about setting aside. And I just barely started The Lowlands for Amazon Vine, which is also quite good so far.

Wow! The old El in Manhattan...I'm too young to remember that. It was in the Bronx when I knew anything about it, and I only rode it once. So cool. Thanks for the memory!

I'd suggest Paul Quarrington or Pierre Berton as Canadian writers for you to investigate, but I suspect you'd hate them. They write something called "humor," which is a style of writing designed to alleviate instead of increase the misery and horror of life. People who read "humor" frequently "smile" and "laugh"--facial expressions and sounds that are unique to a sense of "enjoyment."

I was alive then, but I don't remember it (the 3rd Ave El), but I remember my parents talking about the El.

Always interested in your planned reading, and I don't think I focused before on how you plan your reading by categories -- very organized and ambitious! I look forward to your review of The Last Brother.

Hi Darryl, congrats on the new thread! I'd been lurking of late and am all caught up with you again. I had to smile with the last thread, with several people trying to help you figure out where you might have come across dame Judy Dench before. She seems to always have been a presence somehow, and I'm always happy to see her act in just about anything (Hellen Mirren and Maggie Smith are also in that category) and I would welcome the opportunity to see either or ALL three in a stage performance (that would be 'again' in the case of Mirren).

Had a difficult choice to make now that my reading obligations are done with the Coursera course over. The last book we read was Coetzee's Disgrace, a Booker winner as I'm sure you know, and while I wanted to stay with Bookers, had difficulty choosing between this year's candidates of which several are in my tbr, and The Remains of the Day, which I'd been wanting to get to for years and has been sitting by my bedside since the spring, but finally very happy I chose the latter.

The Remains of the Day is one of my all time favourites. It's just such a beautifully written book.

Hey, Darryl, when do you plan to be up in NYC? Jim and I will be gone the week of Sept. 21, returning just in time to see the rerun of September's NTLive show. Do let us know when you will be in.

I just finished Harvest by Jim Crace, as I continue to work my way through this year's Booker Prize longlist. I enjoyed it, but it didn't knock my socks off as I had hoped it might. I'll give it 4 stars for now; I don't think it will be chosen for the shortlist, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was included.

Here's my longlist ranking to date:

1. TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
2. The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín
3. Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw
4. Harvest by Jim Crace
5. The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan

Now that I've cancelled my planned trip to San Francisco I may alter the order in which I read the remaining longlisted books; I'll probably save the e-books I own, We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo and A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, until September, and read Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson and Unexploded by Alison MacLeod instead. I'll plan to start The Kills by Richard House tomorrow or Monday, and hopefully I'll be able to get it and the Mendelson and/or the MacLeod finished by next Sunday.

Loving seeing your rankings take shape, Darryl. I had trouble nabbing even The Kills from the library...thought maybe it would stay on the shelves on account of its length...but no.

>6 brenzi: Congratulations on being the first one to post on my new (and so far neglected) thread, Bonnie! Thanks for mentioning No Great Mischief. Tomorrow I'll create a file that lists all of these recommended books by Canadian authors, for further reference.

>7 lit_chick: Thanks, Nancy. Second and third recommendations of the same book are always appreciated, and will make it more likely that I will read it at some point.

>8 tloeffler: It's older than me too, Terri! I didn't have a pre-planned idea of what image to post on this thread, so I went through my Photobucket library on my iPad and chose this one. I had originally saved it for my mother, who grew up in NYC in the 1940s and 1950s. She took the Third Avenue El frequently, especially when she lived with her parents and sisters in the East Village and the East Bronx. I believe that it was the last elevated line that served all of Manhattan Island (several of the subway lines still in existence rise above ground in Upper Manhattan), and it was shut down in 1955, not long after that photo was taken (which is located in Lower Manhattan, in or near Chinatown).

A couple of years ago I found a YouTube video of a 10 minute movie entitled Third Avenue El, which was shot in color in 1955, I believe. I showed it to my mother and her two sisters, and they were excited to see a distant memory of their childhoods captured on film. It's a humorous little film, which features a photographer, a benign drunk, a man and his daughter, and a couple of young lovers, with great shots of the neighborhoods served by the Third Avenue El and nearby skyscrapers. If anyone is interested, here's a link to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEG4re43ub8

>9 Deern: Hi, Nathalie! I haven't posted on your thread for a while, either. I just saw that you've made great strides on reading this year's Booker Prize longlist, so I'll head to your threads to read your reviews. I liked Harvest, but not nearly as much as TransAtlantic and The Testament of Mary. I'll write a review of it tomorrow, and post reviews of the McCann and the Toíbín this coming week. I'm off from work until next Monday, so I should be able to read two or three more longlisted books by next Sunday.

>10 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian!

>11 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. I'm glad that you're enjoying TransAtlantic, which remains my favorite longlisted book to date. I'm looking forward to reading most of the other titles, but I wouldn't be surprised if this book remains at the top after I (hopefully) read the entire Booker Dozen.

I haven't reviewed it yet, but I did finish and loved A Fine Balance, which may be my favorite book of the year so far.

>12 Cariola: Thanks for that lovely compliment, Deborah! I have a lot of time off this month (seven days on the inpatient service, and the four days that I ate my way through New Orleans attended the Pediatric Hospital Medicine conference), so it will likely be my most productive reading month of the year. I've finished nine books so far, and with nine more days off I should be able to read at least another five or six books.

>13 richardderus: I'll have to look at the route that the Third Avenue El traveled, but I believe that the elevated tracks in Bronx are still in use by one of the current lines, maybe the 5 train. Hmm, let me check now...no, apparently those old tracks were torn down in the 1970s, but they were shared by the 2 and the 5 trains. When we lived in Jersey City in the 1960s and early 1970s my mother and I would take PATH from Journal Square to 33rd St station, and then hop on a 2 train from Penn Station to 219th St in the Bronx to visit her parents, who lived on 222nd St between White Plains Rd and Gun Hill Rd. Good times...

You're right, I should read more of this genre that you call humor. I'll start right away, with Massacre River by René Philoctète.

>14 rebeccanyc: My mother and her sisters have talked about the Third Avenue El now and then, too. It stopped service six years before I was born, and I'm sure that the tracks were removed soon afterward, as I don't remember seeing any elevated lines in Lower Manhattan when we went shopping in the Lower East Side on weekends, especially Job Lot on Church St near Chambers, which sold heavily discounted items from pushcarts. That was our favorite store, but it's long gone now.

>15 Smiler69: Thanks, Ilana! After talking with several of my partners last week it seems as though I'm the only person on the planet who hasn't seen anything by Judi Dench, or hadn't seen Helen Mirren prior to Sunday.

Good move on choosing to read The Remains of the Day instead of any of the books on this year's Booker Prize longlist. That is one of my favorite novels, and it's probably my favorite Booker Prize winning novel.

>16 SandDune: I completely agree with your assessment of The Remains of the Day, Rhian.

>17 ffortsa: Judy, I'll fly to Philadelphia in two weeks, on Sat Aug 31, and I'll return to Atlanta on Sat Sep 14. My primary intent for this trip is to spend time with my parents, as I haven't seen them much this year. I suspect that we won't go on vacation together as we had originally planned, as my mother has a pretty bad case of osteoarthritis of one of her knees; she doesn't want to undergo surgery, even though it has severely restricted her activity. We'll almost certainly visit my mother's sisters in Jersey City, and probably drive into NYC to see my grandparents' old neighborhood in the Bronx and some other sights. Zoë will be back in NYC in September, and we had discussed getting together sometime between the afternoon of Sat Sep 7 and Thu Sep 12. Maybe we could get a group to meet up on Sun Sep 8? I'd have to wait to see what my parents want to do that weekend, so I may not be able to make a commitment until early next month. I'll also want to visit two dear non-LT friends (who don't know each other), who I haven't seen in years, along with one former LTer (who was in Club Read but not this group), who recently moved to NYC from Boston.

Let me/us know if there are any particular good plays that are on in NYC. I'd love to see a weekend matinee if we do get together. I'll check tomorrow's NYT and this coming week's editions of The New Yorker and Time Out New York, as I have subscriptions to all three publications.

>19 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan. I bought The Kills from the London Review Bookshop within an hour after the longlist was announced and just before I met Rachael (FlossieT) for lunch. Fortunately I arrived there while copies of the longlisted books were still on the shelves, and I picked up The Testament of Mary, Harvest and The Spinning Heart along with The Kills while I was there.

Are you taking recommendations for Canadian novels, Darryl? I suspect like any country, there are good novels and mediocre ones... I seem to recall that you liked Cat's Table by Ondaatje? I know that you've read books you haven't liked from other countries without tossing the baby out with the bathwater, so hopefully you'll give Canada the benefit of the doubt! Not suggesting that you dump your reading plans in order to prioritize these, just that I think you will enjoy them.

If no one has mentioned Joseph Boyden, Three Day Road and the sequel, Through Black Spruce. The first has a part-elegiac, part-hallucinogenic quality to it; the narrator is traveling back to his home in northern Ontario, after being horribly wounded in WW1 and living in a hospital in Montreal (?) for a while. He is addicted to morphine, and returning to his aboriginal community, he has vivid flashbacks to serving as a sniper in the war, as well as his time growing up. The second book deals with the same community, in more or less contemporary Canada, and I ended up liking it even better, which I hadn't thought would be possible. He has a third book coming out. He is what is known in Canada as Metis -- mixed race, with I think either Cree or Ojibway ancestry. I don't think that Linden Macintyre's novels were quite as good as these, but I think that they certainly are worth trying. (Certainly, they are more likely to be your kind of fare than any of the books you mentioned disliking.) The Bishop's Man is the one I'd suggest; there is a prequel, The Long Stretch, which captures a point in time in Nova Scotia/Cape Breton, and there is a third book, which I haven't read yet, Why Men Lie.

If you haven't read anything by Margaret Laurence, you should try a novel by her. Mordechai Richler is iconic. And I think you would like The Wars by Timothy Findley (and it's a skinny book, too...) These are all emerging classics, along with the ubiquitous Ms. Atwood. You may also like Jane Urquhart's work. Have you read anything by Robertson Davies? If not... I'd start with The Deptford Trilogy and Fifth Business.

Among the French Canadians, I'd recommend Marie-Claire Blais. Ru by Kim Thuy, was, I think originally written in French but has been translated, and is beautiful, beautiful writing. As the author's name suggests, she is Vietnamese, and this is a story that is told in a kind of snapshot/vignette way, of traveling to Canada. It's a novel, but clearly draws on her personal experiences.

Quarrington is somewhat humorous; Terry Fallis you should avoid because he is writing humor, and unless you know and care about the Canadian political system and history, you will find much of it flies over your head. Pierre Berton is primarily a historian and rather 'meh' -- his best books were written in the early 1970s about the construction of the national railroad (The Last Spike). (Irrelevant tidbit: I worked briefly at a newspaper with one of his sons.)

Glad to see that The Testament of Mary is holding it's Booker LL position, Darryl. I'm looking forward to TransAtlantic.

I just put Harvest by Jim Crace on hold at the library (I loved Being Dead!). I am on the longish waiting list for TransAtlantic (which I may just break down and buy) and I will put Five Star Billionaire on hold, as well. I do love working my way through the Booker long list.

Happy Sunday, Darryl.

Oh, and - harkening back to your prior thread - next time I'm in SFO, I will definitely make it to City Lights Bookstore. And I'll take a photo to post. :-)

Five Star Billionaire: I'm #68 in the queue for one of 14 copies. It may take a couple of months....

If you want to read my LL reviews, better check my new Booker thread, Darryl. I haven't posted all of them on the 75 thread yet.

I had a nice misunderstandind early in Harvest (no spoiler): when the "Gleaning Queen" is asked to look for a grain and finds a "complete ear" I thought "yay, action" and wondered if she'd find other body parts as well. Then I couldn't believe that she didn't scream and instead blew on the ear, held it up and the people cheered. Two very different meanings for the little word "ear", obviously.

Love the photo Darryl. My Dad worked on the New York City Subway system back in the day and when he passed I inherited some of his own operating manuals.

Love trains.Love photos of trains. Love movies of trains. Trolley cars too

Three men in a boat is another one I'd love to get my book group to read.

>21 kidzdoc: In 1937 the power-mad racist Generalissimo Trujillo ordered the slaughter of thousands and thousands of Haitians and, as Philoctète puts it, death set up shop everywhere. At the heart of Massacre River is the loving marriage of the Dominican Pedro and the Haitian Adele in a little town on the Dominican border. On his way to work, Pedro worries that a massacre is in the making; an olive-drab truck packed with armed soldiers rumbles by. And then the church bells begin to ring, and there is the relentless voice on the radio everywhere, urging the slaughter of all the Haitians. Operation Cabezas Haitianas (Haitian Heads) is underway, the soldiers shout, "Perejil! (Parsley!) Perish! Punish!" Haitians try to pronounce "perejil" correctly, but fail, and weep. The town is in an uproar, Adele is ordered to say "perejil" but stammers. And Pedro runs home and searches for his beloved wife, searches and searches " The characters of this book not only inspired the love and outrage of an extraordinary writer like Philoctète," writes Edwige Danticat, "but continue to challenge the meaning of community and humanity in all of us."

My sides *ache* in anticipation of the gusts of laughter I would emit reading this jolly little bagatelle. I feel the laugh-tears forming. At least I think they're laugh-tears.

I just finished my 75th book of the year, Massacre River by René Philoctète, which was quite a wild ride. I'll give it 4 stars, and review it in the next day or two.

Anyone care for a slice of celebratory cake?



>23 Chatterbox: I definitely haven't given up on Canadian authors, Suz, although I'll probably forsake my plan to automatically read the future Giller Prize winners. Thanks for those recommendations. I don''t own and haven't read any of the books you mentioned, so I'll add them to my list.

My book buying for the remainder of the year will almost certainly slow down dramatically, although I'm sure I'll still get at least 15-20 books when I return to London in October. There aren't many more books available in the US that I want to get, although a couple have been added to the list after today's exceptionally impressive and interesting Sunday NYT Book Review section. I do hope that this is a sign of changes to come!

>24 lit_chick: I think you'll enjoy TransAtlantic, Nancy. I'll start The Kills tomorrow, which I may be reading all week. We've talked about how short The Testament of Mary is, but I wonder if The Kills, at just over 1000 pages, is the longest book to ever be longlisted for the Booker Prize?

>25 EBT1002: Happy Sunday, and Happy Birthday, to you, Ellen! I'm glad to see so many 75ers working their way through the Booker longlist; it's become my favorite literary project since I made my first trip to London in 2007. I should be able to finish three more longlisted books by the end of the month, which will put me at eight, and it looks as though I'll meet my goal of reading all 13 longlisted titles by October 15th, when the winning novel will be announced. I've read all the shortlisted titles by that date at least once, but I've never read all 12 or 13 books by then.

You definitely have to make one trip to City Lights the next time you go to San Francisco. However, there are other very good bookstores in SF and the East Bay, which are nearly as enticing.

What did you spot in today's NYT, Darryl? I saw that Daughters of Mars got a (deservedly) excellent review; there's also a review of The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit, which is en route to me via the library. I was intrigued by Brief Encounters with the Enemy.

Congrats on the 75!

Yes, I'm opposed to automatic reading of prize winners because to me it feels like approving of hereditary monarchs. You get a fabulous one, and you're predisposed to think favorably of the concept and everyone else with a crown, by association, and then you're disappointed repeatedly! What I like about prize longlists is the introduction to books I might not otherwise have heard of, and I'll pick out those that feel most interesting. I'm not sure I trust any prize committee or group of gurus -- even the 75ers! -- to curate my reading!!

OK, back to do some work.

>26 EBT1002: Oh. I gave my LT Early Reviewers copy of Five Star Billionaire to Caroline, otherwise I'd send it to you, Ellen.

>27 Deern: I fell asleep before I could look at your Booker thread, Nathalie. I will look at it tonight, though.

Ha ha! Yes, it would have been a surprise if the 4 year old Gleaning Queen picked up a human ear and wasn't freaked out by it.

I tried to figure out what time period Harvest was set in; my best guess, given that Walter prepared vellum for Mr Quill to use to make his map, is sometime during the 15th or 16th century.

>28 magicians_nephew: I'm glad you liked that photo, Jim. Travels on PATH and NYC subway trains are a key part of my best childhood memories, which is probably the main reason I'm so fond of them. My paternal grandfather & I often took PATH from Journal Square in Jersey City to what was then Hudson Terminal on Saturdays to have breakfast at Horn & Hardart (another thing that isn't there anymore!) or grab a sandwich at an Italian market near Chambers St, while we watched the original World Trade Center being built. He and other older residents of Jersey City referred to this subway as the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, as that was the line's original name until it was taken over by the Port Authority of NY and NJ in 1962, I believe. The older subway cars kept the "H&M" signage for several years after the official name change:



And I still remember the creaky 1930s era subway cars on the IRT 7th Avenue Line that my mother and I took to travel to the Bronx to visit my maternal grandparents:



(This is one of the IND 6th Avenue trains, of course, but I think that the IRT trains were similar if not identical.)

The trip from our apartment in Jersey City (bus, PATH subway, NYC subway) seemed to take forever, but the anticipation of seeing Nana and "Dan Daddy" (my pathetic attempt at saying "Granddaddy" as a toddler, which stuck to him for the rest of his life) made it exciting and memorable. My mother often took me to see plays and author readings for young children in Washington Square Park and elsewhere in Greenwich Village via PATH, and I'm certain that those early exposures are why I love reading and live theater as much as I do.

>29 richardderus: Oddly enough, Massacre River wasn't anywhere near as grim as its description would lead you to believe. It was filled with magical realism, and it was more concerned with the Haitian and Dominican people that lived on either side of the river that form the boundary between the two countries, who worked closely together and were intimate friends and lovers. The Dominicans in these border towns were unwilling participants, and occasionally victims, of the horrific genocide, as they were unable to stop the violence that was planned by President Trujillo and his army to eradicate as many Haitians that lived across the border as possible. There was quite a bit of warmth, and even humor, in the novel, which must sound bizarre, considering that this was a true event, but somehow it worked and even seemed appropriate.

>31 Chatterbox: What did you spot in today's NYT, Darryl?

Literally all the reviews (most of which I've skimmed but haven't read yet) were very appealing! The books I'm interested in the most are The Good Lord Bird by James McBride, who is best known for his memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother; The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson; Snow Hunters by Paul Yoon; Brief Encounters with the Enemy by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh; The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally; and The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights by William P. Jones. I may buy two copies of the last book, one for me and one for my parents, as my maternal grandmother attended the famous 1963 gathering and wanted to take me. I was barely two years old at the time, so my mother refused to let me go, as there was no guarantee that racists or the city's police department wouldn't physically assault the marchers (which fortunately didn't happen, to my knowledge).

>32 kidzdoc: o.O

If you say so.

O.o

Although I shouldn't take that attitude. I just reviewed FAVORABLY a collection of poetry.

Richard, I'll be overwhelmed when you favorably review something by one C. Dickens, Esq.

I'll compare notes with you on Brief Encounters with the Enemy, Darryl; I really strongly recommend the Keneally novel. If someone isn't going to read the wondrous non-fiction tome by Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, this is the modern novel that I think does the best job of capturing trench warfare. (Pls note by this I'm excluding Remarque, Barbusse, Sassoon, Ernst Junger, et al...)

>35 Chatterbox: If that were to happen, Suz, you should be terrified and worried. Demanding to see the pod would not be inappropriate.

Yes, I'm opposed to automatic reading of prize winners because to me it feels like approving of hereditary monarchs.

Right. I've been disappointed by the books that are chosen as winners for my favorite literary awards (e.g. this year's winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction), so I suppose I shouldn't condemn the Giller Prize for not choosing outstanding novels. It often seems like the winning books are "least common denominator" choices, the ones that most of the judges can agree upon, rather than the most innovative or enjoyable books. Ideally I'd read the Giller shortlist in its entirety, but I don't have enough time (or, to be honest, enough interest) to do that.

What I like about prize longlists is the introduction to books I might not otherwise have heard of, and I'll pick out those that feel most interesting.

I agree completely! I've been introduced to so many fabulous books from reading longlisted books that didn't ultimately win an award, including The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna, The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam, Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie, and The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt to name just a few.

I'm not sure I trust any prize committee or group of gurus -- even the 75ers! -- to curate my reading!!

Right again. Several LTers have tastes that are very similar to mine, and a recommendation from one of them can be enough to get me to buy a particular book. However, as I've said before, the only person who I've found to be 100% reliable is Maya Jaggi, who writes reviews for The Guardian every month or two. I've loved every book she's recommended!

>34 richardderus: I just reviewed FAVORABLY a collection of poetry.

*cleans glasses, re-reads message from Richard...still says the same thing*

*takes body temperature...normal*

*pinches self...awake*

*drives to nearest emergency room to be evaluated for altered mental status...cleared by ED doctor, pays $2,000 bill*

*calls Long Island crisis hot line to have mental health team sent to the Derus residence, awaits reply*

>35 Chatterbox: Suz, I don't think Richard will be reviewing anything for awhile. Books aren't allowed in maximum security insane asylums.

I'll definitely look for Brief Encounters with the Enemy on my next bookstore visit (please ignore previous comment about not buying more books). I do want to support my favorite local bookstore, even though it's a Barnes & Noble. I had planned to go to Target in the next day or two, and both stores are in the same plaza.

>36 richardderus: If you're reading and enjoying poetry, then anything is possible.

help help there are big muscular men trying to get me to go with them

wait

never mind no help needed

>39 richardderus: LOL! Never mind, all is well in RD Land.

"Brief Encounters" has been summoned -- accio book! -- from the Providence library. I may have to wait, as they don't have it yet and there is one person ahead of me, but I really have to limit my book-buying. The budget just won't stand it. I'm restricting myself to buying only things I can lay my mitts on any other way (eg The Salterton Trilogy, which I just ordered, since I thought I might as well add a book to the order for toner for my printer...)

Hmm, what am I going to do when I am eventually committed?? You know it's inevitable, but to be bookless will just doom me completely.

Why am I awake at 4 am again?

>41 Chatterbox: What's an accio book? I googled this term, but I still don't understand it (Harry Potter Alliance’s annual book drive?).

If you're committed I'd request an institution that has an extensive library and is in need of a permanent curator. Actually that would be the only way that any of us could survive institutionalization.

Hmm. I just noticed that the five Booker longlisted books I've read so far this year were all written by men; seven of the 13 Booker Dozen titles were written by women, so my male:female balance is completely off. I haven't started The Kills yet, so I think I'll save it until September, and read Almost English, The Luminaries and hopefully Unexploded this week instead.

#33 I've been just skimming the NYT Book Review for years now, mostly just looking at the table of contents and the list in the back of what books are newly available in paperback. The one that jumped out at me yesterday was the new Marisha Pessl (as one to avoid, since I was so irritated by Special Topics in Calamity Physics), but I guess I should pay more attention!

>44 rebeccanyc: I missed that book, Night Film by Marisha Pessl, entirely, Rebecca. I saw the sentence "A group of investigators pursues a horror auteur known for shunning the public eye" at the top of the page that contained the review, and I didn't bother to read any more. That book and the three listed on the Political Journalism Chronicle page were the only ones that were completely uninteresting.

Book #74: Harvest by Jim Crace

  

My rating:

This novel takes place in an isolated village in pre-Industrial Age England, whose residents have just finished collecting a modest harvest for Master Kent, the benign and fair landowner who employs and befriends them. What should be a day of celebration is interrupted by the appearance of two tufts of smoke; one comes from a hut at the edge of the village recently built by three outsiders, but the other comes from Master Kent's dovecote and manor house, which suffers substantial damage as a result. Despite evidence to the contrary, the outsiders are accused of setting the fire and are punished for it.

Soon afterward the villagers learn that a new owner, Master Jordan, will replace Master Kent. His plan for redeveloping the land causes great consternation amongst them, and within hours the social fabric of the village begins to quickly unravel, as neighbors turn against longstanding neighbors, the new owner and his staff, and the outsiders. Walter Thirsk, a villager who is the narrator of this novel, also comes under intense scrutiny, as he is Master Kent's closest confidant and appears to be aligned with the new landowner. The villagers become progressively more agitated, which leads to violence that threatens to destroy the community and everyone in it.

I viewed Master Jordan as a pre-Industrial Era version of Carl Icahn, the corporate raider who is known for his hostile takeover of failing or marginally successful companies, which is followed by severe cutbacks to the established work force and a near complete change in its business goals and operations, as the previous CEO/COO (Master Kent) is rendered all but powerless. And the villagers seemed akin to late 20th century factory workers with limited education and skill sets, and an even more restricted ability to have a vote or voice concerns about the workplace, who must adapt to rapid change or find themselves marginalized or unemployed.

Harvest is a beautifully written and compelling novel about the imbalance of power, revenge and the effect of sudden change on a formerly peaceful village, whose theme of forced adaptation is both universal and timeless. I expect that it will be chosen for this year's Booker Prize shortlist, and I look forward to reading it again and exploring it further.

42: What's an accio book?
You need to get out more. Or ask one of your kids. :-)

Accio, in Potterspeak, is a command for a material object to come into the hand of the person uttering the spell.

Accio book! would likely have...unpleasant...unintended consequences if Suz uttered it in her home unless she was a VERY GREAT DEAL more specific.

Book #73: The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah, translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan

  

My rating:

We very rarely notice changes within ourselves at the time, we perceive them later, in the light of events and our reactions to them, but, sitting there as I did, motionless in the dark, I sensed it, a change in myself, I felt as if I were getting bigger, growing, like the trees around me, and it seemed to me that the exhalation of the green, dark forest had something to do with it.

This gorgeous and deeply touching novel is set on the island nation of Mauritius off the coast of east Africa, which is isolated from the horrors of World War II but not from the harshness of life under British colonial rule. It is narrated by Raj, a nine year old boy whose family was among the thousands of Indians that were brought to the island decades before to work in its sugar cane fields for subsistence wages. After a tragic accident he and his parents have moved to a safer town, where his father finds work in a prison that supposedly houses hardened convicts. Raj is a sickly and stick thin boy, who is loved dearly by his mother but is not immune from his father's frequent wrathful and violent outbursts after he returns from his demeaning job. He is bored and lonely in his new home, with no close friends and little to occupy his fertile mind.

One day Raj watches the prison from nearby woods out of curiosity of the men who are housed there, and he is surprised to see a boy who is similar to him in age and size, although his blond hair and blue eyes set him apart. The two make eye contact, and later meet in a local hospital, where they quickly become friends despite their language differences. Raj learns that David is part of a group of approximately 1500 Jewish émigrés who attempted to travel from Eastern Europe to Palestine to escape the Nazis in 1940, but were refused admission because they did not have proper immigration documents. The British government determined that they were illegal immigrants, and condemned them to internment in the prison.

David is returned to the prison after his hospitalization, and Raj continues to observe his new friend from the woods. He escapes after a skirmish within the compound, and Raj helps him to flee from his pursuers. Unfortunately David is not well, and the two boys struggle to find food and shelter, as David's health rapidly declines.

The Last Brother is a wonderful coming of age novel, narrated by Raj as he nears the end of his life, which also highlights a little known chapter of Jewish history. The love and friendship that the two boys share rivals that of the most intimate couples, and these two characters will stay close to my heart for a long time to come.

48: Accio book! would likely have...unpleasant...unintended consequences if Suz uttered it in her home unless she was a VERY GREAT DEAL more specific.
LOL!

>47 qebo:, 48 Ah. I haven't watched any of the Harry Potter movies nor read any of the books, so it makes sense that I wouldn't be familiar with that word. I think I get it now.

>50 qebo: ...or maybe not.

What a good review of The Last Brother, Darryl! Thumber from me, and onto the WL it goes.

Imagine you're in a shelter where there are 500 cats. Being a newly minted wizard, you decide to collect the cat of your choice by saying "accio cat!" and vigorously waving your wand.

All 500 cats, being members of the class of concrete noun "cat," fly instantly into, onto, and over you. Hijinks ensue.

>52 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe! I thought I would enjoy The Last Brother, but it exceeded my expectations.

>53 richardderus: Now I get it. Thank you, kind sir.

Nice review, Darryl. I have The Last Brother on my TBR shelves and really must make some time for it. I'm afraid it - along with so many others - tends to get displaced by the new and shiny...

#46 I Like the sound of Harvest but I've got a bit of a history of liking the sound of Jim Crace books but not enjoying the actual book. I expect I'll get around to it at some stage so we'll see.

Darryl, superb reviews of Harvest and The Last Brother. I also thoroughly enjoyed Crace and found Harvest a worthy selection for this year's Booker. The Appanah sounds like one I would really enjoy, so it's WL'd.

Congratulations on 75!!

Darryl, Big congratulations on the 75 books you've read this year. I don't think there was a lightweight one in the bunch!

I also enjoyed your review of Harvest. My star count for Harvest and The Testament of Mary is the same (4.2), but I think I'll put my money on Harvest for its greater length and the surprise factor. I have the Ozeki book waiting for me at the library so it will be my next Booker read.

Darryl, you are clearly a Muggle. Phrases like "accio" are now part of the popular culture, sir, and it may be worthwhile perusing these tomes so as to better form connections with your youthful customer base... :-)

Yes, Richard, I realize the problems of lack of specificity. The best case scenario that would follow is eviction, I suspect.

After reading comments about the complex themes contained within Harvest a light bulb came on, as I realized that there was much more to this story than I first realized. I went in a different direction in my analogy of it, and I've modified my review in message #46 to incorporate my thoughts. I've also increased my rating of it by 1/2 star, and I'll now put it in second place in my Booker longlist ranking, ahead of The Testament of Mary but still behind TransAtlantic. I'll definitely read it again, as I feel certain that it will be selected for the shortlist, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it may take over the top spot on my list.

>55 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie. I can't remember where I first heard about The Last Brother, but my copy of it was published in the UK, so I guess that it may have been a review in the Guardian or the London Review of Books that made me buy it.

>56 SandDune: Rhian, I've only read one book by Jim Crace, All That Follows, which I didn't like at all. I have Being Dead, and although I didn't come close to finishing it I did like what little I read of it. As I mentioned above, Harvest is thematically rich yet is a pleasure to read, and I'm eager to give it another go next month.

>57 lit_chick: Thanks, Nancy! I definitely agree that Harvest is Booker worthy, and even more so now that I've thought about it a bit more this afternoon. I think a lot of readers, including yourself, would enjoy The Last Brother, and I'm not sure why it didn't receive more attention here and in the UK.

>58 Donna828: Thanks, Donna. There were a couple of light reads in there, especially the humorous Three Men in a Boat (see, Richard, I do read humor, sometimes...). I've bumped my review of Harvest to 4.5 stars, ahead of The Testament of Mary at 4.2 stars, and I'd give TransAtlantic 4.7 stars. (I wish we could rate books on LT in this way!) I've barely started Almost English, which I hope to finish tomorrow, as it's just under 400 pages long.

>59 Chatterbox: *looks up Muggle in Harry Potter-English dictionary* I had heard of that term, at least, although I didn't know what it meant.

Accio Jhumpa Lahiri! Hmm, nothing happened.

Yes, I suppose that term would apply to me. Sigh.

Start with something likely to succeed: Accio credit card bill! and see how much faster it comes to you.

You read Three Men in a Boat.

O.o

o.O

You.

Uh huh.

>61 richardderus: Okay, that worked. Can I try Jhumpa Lahiri again?

I'm good for one or two comic novels a year, I think. I've read books by P.G. Wodehouse, Howard Jacobson, Ishmael Reed and Dany Laferrière, but my favorite comic novelist is definitely Percival Everett. I'll read his latest novel, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, soon, and I may read I Am a Japanese Writer by Dany Laferrière instead of The Return this month, if I have time.

Darryl, I'm glad I'm not the only one who changes ratings. I usually reconfigure at the end of the month as I compare the books I've read and their impact on me. I like the business metaphor. That was the most hostile takeover ever in Harvest!

RIP Albert Murray, the African-American novelist, jazz, literary and cultural critic, and biographer, who died yesterday at the age of 97. He was born in rural Alabama and embraced jazz music and the blues, which he chronicled in his memoir South to a Very Old Place, and a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels, Train Whistle Guitar, The Spyglass Tree, and The Seven League Boots. He attended Tuskegee University in Alabama, and later was introduced to Ralph Ellison, with whom he developed a close, lifelong friendship that was chronicled in Trading Twelves, a splendid collection of letters of correspondence between the two men that discussed jazz, civil rights, American culture and Ellison's efforts to write and publish Invisible Man. Murray was also close friends with the artist Romare Bearden, and the two influenced each other's work over the years. He was also known for his groundbreaking and controversial book The Omni-Americans, published in 1970, which challenged the prevailing mindset that activism and isolation was the only method for blacks to gain equality in American society. He later befriended the critic Stanley Crouch and the jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, with whom he co-founded the successful Jazz at Lincoln Center program. Murray was an underrecognized but highly influential man, whose voice will be sadly missed by many.

New York Times: Albert Murray, Essayist Who Challenged the Conventional, Dies at 97

>63 Donna828: Thanks, Donna. I reserve the right to adjust my ratings, and I often do for certain books, sometimes months or years later. Cait (Cait86) made some interesting comments about Harvest, which she compared to the Book of Genesis, as the story played out over a seven day period. That comment, and two subsequent ones, made me think about the timelessness novel a bit more, and suddenly I envisioned it as a corporate takeover, as I described above. This book seems to lend itself to different interpretations, which is the mark of an outstanding novel, so I'm eager to re-discover it next month.

ETA: I meant to mention that I downloaded the Kindle edition of South to a Very Old Place by Albert Murray, and I'll add it to the list of books I'll read in September.

We read Train Whistle Guitar in my book group about 2, 2 1/2 years ago, and I enjoyed it very much. I think the letters btwn him and Ellison would be interesting. I certainly got the feel for jazz from the rhythm of his writing.

You know, when someone dies at the age of 97, after a life well lived -- able to do what he loved and engage with interesting people -- it's hard to know exactly what to say. In so many ways, Murray had a wonderful life, and lived it well right up until the end, which was at a ripe old age. So I'll just say that it's a pity that there aren't more people like him to pick up the baton that has been laid down.

>66 Chatterbox: I enjoyed Train Whistle Guitar too, but I haven't read the other two books in his trilogy. It's been many years (B.L.E., or Before the LibraryThing Era) since I read that book, so I'll plan to read all three books next year. Trading Twelves is one of a very small number of books that I've read twice, and I'd gladly start it again now. Ellison and Murray are both witty, insightful and very humorous, and their fondness and respect for each other comes through in every letter.

Although I'm sad to hear of his passing, I was well aware that he was in his late 90s and that he was no longer actively writing; if I remember correctly he was one of the authors I profiled for Black History Month in February. I was mildly surprised to learn of his death when i looked at the NYT web site yesterday afternoon, but only for a moment. I'd say that I'm more mournful of an era that is passing than on Murray's not unexpected death, as there are few prominent remaining authors, musicians, athletes, etc. that were key figures in post-World War II culture, the civil rights movement, the development of modern jazz, etc. I was far more upset to learn about Dave Brubeck's death, to think of another nonegenarian that has died recently, possibly because he was actively performing well into his 80s and his death came as more of a surprise.

In any case, Albert Murray is certainly deserving of a toast for living an incredibly full and productive life, and as you said, I can only hope that someone else that he has influenced will follow in his footsteps and have a similar impact on society and the individual.

Book #71: Dark Heart of the Night by Léonora Miano, translated from the French by Tamsin Black



My rating:

From her point of view, the Africans' whole life was spent escaping death. They did not even seem aware that it surrounded them. It ran in rivers seething with worms that covered the children's skin in ulcers. It was in the water they drank, in the pools stagnating outside their huts, sending clouds of mosquitoes to cover the world at nightfall. Death was everywhere in the filthy poverty of Africa. Death was everywhere in the ignorance of peoples, and death was in the traditions; it was in these necrophiliac customs that often involved keeping dead people's skulls; in the witchcraft they practiced when potions would be concocted from crushed human bones or innards; in certain rituals that were liable to end in bloodbaths, and no one was unduly bothered when a woman died because she was not tough enough to restrain the flow of blood she lost at her excision. Death had made Africa its dominion.

This harrowing novel is set in an isolated Central African village, whose people have steadfastly maintained traditional roles and values that are not shared by the residents of neighboring towns and cities. Although Ayané was born there, after her father married a woman from another town and brought her to live with him there, she and her mother are viewed as troublesome outsiders, particularly after her father's death. Instead of staying in the village, Ayané left as a young girl to attend university, then moved to France to pursue a career and a better life. After several years abroad she has returned to the village, as her mother is in poor health, but she immediately antagonizes and angers the village elders due to her thoughtlessness and refusal to accept their mores.

The unnamed country is in a state of crisis, as militants roam the countryside and terrorize soldiers, government officials and ordinary citizens. While Ayané cares for her dying mother the villagers sense a malignant presence in the surrounding jungle, just out of eyesight. Within days they are set upon by a small band of armed men, who are fueled by drugs and their leaders' desire to unite their countrymen in their nationalist fervor. The militants propose a horrific ritual to ensure their solidarity, and after several villagers are openly murdered the remaining villagers, including the elders, passively accept and actively participate in the ceremony, in order to save their own lives. Ayané observes these events hidden from everyone, and after the militants take their leave she openly challenges the village elders for allowing such a thing to happen without protesting or fighting back, and she questions her own responsibility in silently accepting these monstrous acts without trying to save any of its victims.

Dark Heart of the Night, whose English title is a grievous translation of the book's original title L'intérieur de la nuit, is a disturbing look into the roles and responsibilities Africans have and must face when evil befalls them, their towns and their countries. She powerfully demonstrates the tragic effects that result when individuals act on their instinct to survive, instead of standing in opposition to those who torment their friends and neighbors. This was a difficult book to read, as Miano does not shy away from any of the gruesome details of the militants' and villagers' actions, but it is an unforgettable and necessary contribution to African literature, which applies beyond that continent as well.

>68 kidzdoc: I have a thumb applied. I will the book avoid.

Now don't get ambitious just yet. Next try Accio stupid rednick! and see if that one works. Build slowly to La Lahiri.

>69 richardderus: Thank you, sir. Dark Heart of the Night was one of the most disturbing books I've read recently, far more so than The Wasp Factory, as the author did not spare the reader from any of the macabre details of the ritual, and it was thoroughly based in reality. I'm glad that I read it, but I wouldn't recommend it to a wide audience.

Fortunately there are far fewer stupid rednecks ITP (Inside the Perimeter, or Interstate 285, the highway that encircles the immediate Atlanta metropolitan area, similar to the M25 that surrounds London). There are still plenty of them in town, but fortunately they are outnumbered by the transplants from the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast. I would have moved away years ago if that wasn't the case.

Credit card bill: check. Stupid redneck: check. Should I try Accio wannabe Housewife of Atlanta next?

My opinion of myself as a sophisticated man about town took a hit earlier today, as I drove to the supermarket. My local NPR station played The Barber of Seville, but all I could think of was the lyrics to the cartoon The Rabbit of Seville, starting Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd:

What would you want with a rabbit?
Can't you see that I'm much sweeter?
I'm your little señorit-er.
You're my type of guy,
let me straighten your tie,
and I shall dance for you.

Sigh...

Darryl, that's okay - every time I hear "The Ride of the Valkyries" I start singing "kill the wabbit! kill the wabbit!"

>71 katiekrug: LOL; same here! I'm glad that it isn't just me.

Ha! Me, too. Who can resist?

I think we're ready for Accio Buckhead Bimbo!

Ha! Loved The Rabbit of Seville!

What tune comes to mind with these words from a Gilligan's Island skit?

Neither a borrower
nor a lender be
do not forget
stay out of debt

Oh. My. God. The world of opera is reeling. *staggers back, hand over eyes*

My other Atlanta friend lives surrounded by rednecks, and it's driving him crazy. He'll call me a couple times of week almost gibbering in frustration. (We went to the same high school in Belgium and both have led lives that involve a lot of travel, but like a lot of folks, the recession has put paid to his ability to the travel and to the living in neighborhoods of people who aren't rednecks, for the time being. He's looking forward to the day that his younger daughter is on her feet and he can think about relocating.)

Accio Jhumpa Lahiri might work, as far as the book is concerned, when I have finished reading my copy of the ARC, if you really can't wait until the release date...

>70 kidzdoc: You mean thosearen't actually the lyrics to the Barber of Seville?

Sharing my favorite Bugs Bunny moment here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2djHEIxPVs

Also, isn't "stupid redneck" a little redundant?
Never heard of a "smart redneck."
Just sayin' ....

Book #76: Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson

  

My rating:

Marina is a 16 year old girl who lives with her English mother, Laura, in the basement flat of her paternal grandmother, an immigrant from Hungaria, and her two great-aunts, in the central London district of Bayswater. The older women love Marina dearly and desire that she read medicine at Cambridge, but they are insufferably opinionated and overbearing, which makes it difficult for her to express her own thoughts. Her mother, who separated from Marina's father 13 years before, has never remarried, and she works in a GP's office, where she has an intermittent affair with him.

The older women pool their limited resources in order to provide Marina with the best education possible, and the girl decides to transfer to Combe Alley, an English boarding school in Dorset that is notable more for its quirky traditions than its academic quality. Soon after her arrival Marina realizes that she does not fit in, due to her unfamiliarity with English manners and her lower middle class upbringing, and she is ignored by nearly everyone. However, she is emotionally paralyzed due to her suffocating home environment and inability to communicate with her mother, and she is unable to share her feelings of unhappiness and regret with her mother, her Hungarian relatives, or the few girls she is remotely friendly with.

At the same time Laura, who is even more emotionally stilted than her daughter, struggles with her own feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction, as she misses Marina terribly but is unable to share her feelings with her, and she is unable to establish an independent identity for herself in a household where silence is frowned upon.

Almost English for me was a painful and unrewarding read, with two of the most spineless and emotionally repressed women I've ever had the displeasure to read about. The story lines were trivial, and although the book was well written, I couldn't develop any interest in the main or the secondary characters. The repeated use of accented Hungarian words such as von-darefool (wonderful), tair-ible (terrible) and nair-vairmind (never mind) was highly irritating, and the the novel's denouement was unsatisfying and overly convenient for my taste. This was a curious and disappointing selection for this year's Booker Prize longlist, and I can only hope that the judges put down whatever it was they were smoking when they chose this book and realize that it has no place on the shortlist.

So, not a fan? Just a guess.

Here is my updated Booker Prize longlist rank list:

1. TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
2. Harvest by Jim Crace
3. The Testament of Mary by Colm Toíbín
4. Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw
5. The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
13. Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson (I can't imagine that any of the remaining longlisted titles will fall below this regrettable choice)

>73 jnwelch: Right, Joe. Even though it had been several decades since I watched Rabbit of Seville* it is still firmly etched in my memory.

* I did watch it online this afternoon after I typed message #70. It's available on Vimeo and YouTube.

>74 richardderus: Accio Buckhead bimbo is even easier than Accio credit card bill or Accio stupid redneck. Atlanta is swimming with ditzy young Southern women, especially since Alabama and Floriduh are (unfortunately) nearby.

Rabbit of Seville is just as clever and entertaining as it was when I first saw it over 40 years ago, if not more so. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

I'm not familiar with that Gilligan's Island skit, unfortunately. I don't think I've watched any episodes of that show since re-runs were on WNEW, WOR or WPIX in the mid 1970s.

>75 Chatterbox: I'll bet that thousands of people from the US who watched The Barber of Seville also thought about Rabbit of Seville, and that a few wiseacres whispered or sang those lyrics during the performance.

Does your friend live ITP or OTP (Outside the Perimeter)? I've heard some scary stories from my liberal friends and colleagues about their experiences in the suburbs, especially those who dared to display Obama bumper stickers or signs on their front lawns. I tell them that I almost never travel more than 5-10 miles OTP unless it's on a Delta Air Lines flight to or from Atlanta, and to my knowledge this year I've only been OTP in my car twice, to go to two of my favorite restaurants.

Thanks for the offer of the new Lahiri, but I probably won't get to it before the release date anyway. I still have six other Booker longlisted books to read, including the two tomes, The Luminaries, which I'll start tomorrow or Thursday, and The Kills. I'll look for The Lowland in the basement of Strand Book Store next month, and hopefully I'll find an advance copy in the half price section there.

>76 avidmom: Nice video, avidmom!

I've heard some of my colleagues at work, especially the nurses (including Amy, the one who made me wear her Green Bay Packers cheesehead after I lost a Super Bowl bet with her several years ago), describe themselves as rednecks, as they come from small Southern towns. They certainly aren't stupid, though, and I love several of them, including Amy, as though they were my own sisters. I've also met dozens and probably well over a hundred families from well outside the Perimeter, most notably Brianah, my favorite patient, who appears in my LT profile photo, and her family, who are amongst the most delightful people I've ever met.

>78 richardderus: Nope, I didn't like Almost English at all, and I doubt that any male would find this book appealing. Nathalie (Deern) also read it today, and we expressed essentially identical opinions about it in the Booker Prize group; she gave it 1/2 star more than I did. At the risk of getting my hand slapped again I would categorize it as insipid chick lit.

Another friend, vancouverdeb, read Almost English, and also did not like it. I have to wonder how on earth, with all of the wonderful literature to choose from, something like this gets on the Booker LL.

I just wrote "accio glasses" on my thread and find you are accio-ing away over here, Darryl. *snort*

Harvest looks interesting. I haven't read any of this year's Booker nominations yet.

Hello, Darryl!

Well, I've added Harvest, Dark Heart of the Night, and The Last Brother to my Amazon shopping cart. I realize that taste is, well, taste, but I'm using your review as an excuse not to add Almost English to the already-out-of-control cart!

D is outside the perimeter these days, Darryl...

Can I suggest, once more, that you delay reading The Marrying of Chani Kaufman? While I haven't yet read Almost English and thus can't comment on their similarities or differences, they do sound like similar kinds of books, and not what I would have expected you to like (even without the dreadful decision to emphasize the accent...)

See #7 on the following list of "don'ts" by the late Elmore Leonard (who died yesterday), that a friend of mine posted on his Facebook page today, and that still make a tremendous amount of sense to me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/16/arts/writers-writing-easy-adverbs-exclamation-...

So you didn't like Almost English, I really enjoyed her When we were bad so will be interested to compare the two books when I get round to reading AE.

I enjoyed The Marrying of Chani Kaufman much more than Almost English - it has a better structure imo (despite its long and quite boring build-up) and although its characters could be taken from a rom-com I found them all quite likeable.

"Chani Kaufman" is not a deep book and I guess the author never thought it could be nominated for the BP. It's quite flat, an easy read, but happily so. Reading it was a bit like a guilty pleasure and it's clearly addressed to women. I read it on a sunny day on my balcony, it was a well-needed brain candy after a number of difficult books.

Almost English wants to be funny and deep and fails miserably in both. Both books shouldn't have been longlisted, but "Chani Kaufman" didn't really hurt. The reading of AE gave me pains. But I found very positive reviews on amazon, so as usual it all depends on the reader.

... I would categorize it as insipid chick lit.

You know how to sell a book, Darryl. ;-)

Almost English won't be on any of my wishlists.

>81 lit_chick: I see that vancouverdeb gave Almost English 3 stars; Luci, on the other hand, gave it 4-1/2 stars. Other reader reviews have been mixed; some have loved it, others thought it was mediocre, and several, like Nathalie and I, have strongly disliked it. I'll be interested to see what other readers make of it.

I do wonder how Almost English was chosen over Life After Life, The Hired Man and Americanah, and I'll bet there are at a couple of dozen other books that I haven't read yet, such as The Childhood of Jesus, MaddAddam and That Deadman Dance, that would have been much better longlist choices.

So far I'd have to say that this year's Booker longlist is a mixed bag, not nearly as good as last year's collection, but vastly better than the execrable pile of rubbish from 2011. Based on what I've read and heard about the books I haven't gotten to yet, this is my prediction for the shortlist (in no particular order):

TransAtlantic
Harvest
The Testament of Mary
The Luminaries
The Lowland
The Spinning Heart (I didn't like it much on a first reading, but many readers in The Mookse and the Gripes Forum have it at or near the top of their rank lists. I'll definitely give it a second chance if it is chosen for the shortlist.)

>82 tiffin: Yep. There has been a lot of accio-ing here, which is surprising since I had not heard of this word before this week.

Harvest was a very interesting read, and a richly rewarding book which seems to lend itself to multiple interpretations. I think it has a great chance to win the Booker Prize, especially if the judges are swayed by Crace's announcement that this will be his last book. However, I've read some glowing comments about The Luminaries, and TransAtlantic is superb, so I'd say that one of those three would be the most likely to come out on top.

>83 EBT1002: Hi, Ellen! I'd highly suggest Harvest and The Last Brother to all readers, but Dark Heart of the Night gets a guarded recommendation to everyone, due to the gruesome details of the ritual. I'd be very interested in your thoughts about it if you do decide to read it.

>84 Chatterbox: I should say that all OTP cities and counties aren't redneck or rabid Republican cesspools. Cobb County (which spawned Newt Gingrich and Bob Barr) and Forsyth County (which gained notoriety for a series of civil rights demonstrations in the 1980s and remains almost entirely white) are particularly hostile places, whereas Gwinnett County and DeKalb County are very culturally and politically diverse. The exurbs, especially in the north Georgia mountains, which many of us call "Deliverance Country", based on the 1970s movie, sound absolutely frightening, particularly to me as an African American Yankee, although I would probably be safe if I mentioned that I work as a pediatrician at Children's.

Yes, I took your previous recommendation about The Marrying of Chani Kaufman to heart; it will almost certainly be the last longlisted book that I'll read, unless it's chosen for the shortlist.

>84 Chatterbox: I liked that article, Suz! Charlotte Mendelson should have read it before she finished Almost English. I'll bet that tair-ible appeared at least 30-40 times in the book, and it seemed to be that the only role for the two great-aunts was to utter these inflected words. I was disappointed that the author didn't develop these characters more thoroughly, as it would have made the novel a much more interesting one.

>85 avatiakh: I'll be interested to get your take on Almost English, Kerry. It would take a lot for me to want to read When We Were Bad after this unpleasant experience, but I wouldn't rule out reading it.

>86 Deern: Thanks for your comments about Chani Kaufman, Nathalie. It doesn't sound like it has a chance to make the shortlist, and it seems like a book that I wouldn't rave about, so I'll save it for last.

I completely agree with your assessment of Almost English. This was one of the books I looked forward to reading the most, based on the glowing reviews in the London dailies, the topic of assimilation of a family into another culture, and its setting in London and the UK. So, I was that much more disappointed in it than I would have been if I didn't have such high expectations for it.

Well done on finishing nine of the longlisted books so far! You're far ahead of me and I suspect everyone else on LT, especially since you've read the two tomes, The Kills and The Luminaries. I'll plan to read The Kills and Unexploded this month, which will put me at eight books, and in September I'll read The Kills, We Need New Names and The Lowland. I'll save A Tale for the Time Being and The Marrying of Chani Kaufman for last.

>87 wilkiec: I forgot the promise I made to baswood from Club Read to include a culinary metaphor for my least favorite books. I guess I'd describe the experience as similar to eating a Twinkie covered with artificial butterscotch syrup and Cool Whip, topped with maraschino cherries, i.e., sickeningly sweet and nauseating.

Hi Darryl- How are you sir? Great review of Harvest. I hope to bookhorn that one in soon. the Last Brother sounds great too. I'll have to watch for that one. Hope all is well.

>90 msf59: Good morning, Mark! I'm doing well, as I'm almost midway through my third week of vacation. I had planned to spend this week in San Francisco but I decided to stay at home instead, which I think was a good decision. I hope that you're doing well; any new updates from the mechanic about your car?

Given that it's Wednesday (Hump Day), I should post the photo of two of the physician assistants on the GI service in my hospital that was taken two weeks ago:



Supposedly Kat and Jodi were going to parade around the hospital today, like the GEICO camel, shouting "MikeMikeMikeMikeMike! What day is it, Mike?", "Hump Daaayyyy!" and "WoooWooo!" It's nut jobs like these two that make my work days enjoyable.

I'm glad that you enjoyed my reviews of Harvest and The Last Brother; I think you'd enjoy both of them.

Book #75: Massacre River by René Philoctète



My rating:

"What isn't possible when power turns stupid?"

We people from over here and over there—we are, in the end, the people of a single land.

The Caribbean island of Hispaniola is shared by two countries, Haiti to the west and the much larger Dominican Republic to the east. The two nations are separated by a latitudinal border, part of which is formed by the Dajabon River, which is also known as Massacre River. Haiti is populated primarily by its African descendants, and it is the poorest country in the Caribbean and the Americas; the Dominican Republic contains a much richer mixture of people from Spain and other European countries, East and West Asia, and other Caribbean countries, including Haiti, and it has the second largest economy in the Caribbean.

Both countries have longstanding histories of colonization and subjugation by Western powers, violent civil wars, oppressive dictators, and bloody border battles. Because of the long porous border and the marked difference in the economies and standards of living of the two nations, Haitians have for years crossed over to the Dominican Republic to find work and better lives for themselves, and particularly in the border towns they often established friendship and not infrequently found love with their Dominican neighbors.

In 1930 the notorious dictator General Rafael Trujillo was "elected" president of the Dominican Republic, after a violent campaign in which many of his opponents were eliminated. Trujillo held great admiration for Adolf Hitler, particularly his views on racial purity, and later in that decade he declared the Dominican Republic was a country of white people, in stark contrast to its black neighbors to the west but also in opposition to his country's mixed race majority. The blancos de la tierra (whites of the land) were revered and rewarded, whereas darker skinned Dominicans were reviled and punished.

As part of this effort, Trujillo embarked on a campaign to rid the country of as many Haitians as possible, supposedly to prevent them from robbing their Dominican neighbors, but in actuality to achieve greater racial purity. He focused this effort on the border between the two nations, especially the region adjacent to Massacre River, and in a six day campaign of terror in October 1937 tens of thousands of Haitians were brutally murdered by soldiers in the Dominican Army. This act of genocide became known as the Parsley Massacre, as Dominican soldiers would show dark skinned residents of the border towns a sprig of parsley, and ask them to say the word for it in Spanish, perejil. The Creole speaking Haitians often could not pronounce the word properly, and those who failed to do so were beheaded with machetes on the spot, or taken to fields where they were executed by firing squads.

Massacre River is a novel about the Parsley Massacre, which is centered around a young couple who are deeply in love with each other, the Dominican Pedro Brito and his beautiful Haitian wife Adèle, who live close to the river. A premonition of the massacre comes in the form of an ominous large raptor, which swoops over and shadows the town and its residents. As the townspeople become aware of Trujillo's plans, Adèle becomes fearful for her own safety. Pedro attempts to comfort her and allieviate her concerns, and leaves her at home to go to work on the fateful day that soldiers enter the town. As word comes in on the radio of the massacre that is taking place, with the death toll in each town enthusiastically announced by broadcasters, Pedro rushes to get back home to find out what has happened to Adèle. When he returns he and other workers are met with a surreal and horrific scene, as the heads of the massacre's victims bounce around the bloodied town, giving voice to the day's events and demanding justice for the atrocities inflicted upon them by singing machetes swung by men loyal to Trujillo, "the Lord of demented death".

Massacre River is a superb story, which uses magical realism to both blunt the gruesome details and highlight the profound effects of the Parsley Massacre on Haitians and their Dominican neighbors. It is also a touching love story and, oddly enough, it contains an element of humor, which would seem to be inappropriate in the face of genocide but actually permits a view of the humanity of the Haitian and Dominican people and their respect and love for each other, which is unaffected by this tragedy. René Philoctète was one of the most revered authors in Haiti, but to date this is the only novel of his that has been translated into English, and he is not well known outside of the Caribbean. I enjoyed this unique and entertaining novel, and I hope that more of his work will be available in the near future.

*skips in bringing Darryl a posey of pretty little fleurs*

*reads post 92*

*posey wilts, eyes grow dull and cataracted over, liver failure sets in*

*trudges out to die in a less inconvenient location where the vultures can eat his flesh*

>86 Deern: But I found very positive reviews on amazon

I no longer put any stock in Amazon reviews ever since they were found to be paying people to write 5 star reviews. I like to use LT reviews especially those by people whose taste mimics my own so I will not be reading Almost English any time soon. Thanks Darryl.

>93 richardderus: So you don't want to read Massacre River???

>94 brenzi: I agree; I no longer find Amazon reviews to be reliable, and I'd much rather obtain the opinion of people I know and trust on LT.

I love the physician assistants up there^! Very cheerful duo! I like nut jobs, especially if they look like that. LOL.

ETA- I heard about a book today, called "The People in the Trees" (The touchstones are really screwy tonight), which really sounded like your kind of book. Have you heard of it?

>80 kidzdoc: Redneck-ery, IMO, is a matter of IQ and spirit (mostly spirit) - not geography. :)

Loved your review of Massacre River. I've never heard of the "Parsley Massacre" before.

FYI, I’d clicked through for another event, and noticed that James McBride will be at the Philadelphia public library on September 12: http://www.foxbookshop.com/event/free-library-philadelphia-james-mcbride-good-lo... , which seems to be within your window of opportunity.

>95 kidzdoc: Sooner I would die, thank you please.

>96 msf59: Kat and Jodi, besides being spirited and often funny, are very smart and highly valuable colleagues. My group employs several physician assistants and nurse practitioners to work with us at night, and Kat and Jodi work occasional shifts with us as well.

I looked up The People in the Trees on Amazon (as LT's search function is currently useless), and it does look like an interesting book. I've added it to my wishlist; thanks, Mark!

>97 avidmom: I agree, avidmom. There are plenty of rednecks in rural Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin and probably in all 48 contiguous US states, I would suspect.

I had heard of the 1937 massacre of Haitians in books by Mario Vargas Llosa (The Feast of the Goat) and Edwidge Danticat (The Farming of Bones), but I didn't learn about the use of parsley to distinguish Haitians from Dominicans until I read this book and did some research for my review of it.

>98 qebo: Right, Katherine. I found out about that author event from Facebook, either from the Free Library of Philadelphia or the Joseph Fox Bookshop, and I've registered for it (although it's a free event). James McBride was in Atlanta today, but I decided to wait to see him in Philadelphia instead.

>99 richardderus: I had no illusion that you would read Massacre River in this lifetime, Richard.

A public sanity announcement.

I'm sure that most of you have noticed that the touchstones are thoroughly messed up, due to a problem with LT's search index after a reboot yesterday, which also affects the touchstones. LT's system administrator, sryder, reported this morning that the rebuild of the search index is still underway, and it may not be complete until tomorrow.

I thought I'd see how the touchstones worked for the six Booker Prize longlisted novels I've read so far. None of them worked, and I've listed the name of the book that the touchstone links to:

TransAtlantic - Pride and Prejudice
Harvest: A Novel - The Time Traveler's Wife
The Testament of Mary - Testament of Youth
Five Star Billionaire - Surrender
The Spinning Heart - Storms
Almost English - Eragon

Lovely.

I hope that I'm wrong, but I have no faith that this will all be fixed by tomorrow. However, there is a relatively easy work around, which some of you but I suppose not all know about. If you are able to find the book's home page on LT (which isn't easy at the moment unless you or someone else has created a touchstone for it already), the number displayed in its HTTP address is LT's unique identifier for it. For example, the address for TransAtlantic is http://www.librarything.com/work/13353815. If you enclose that number followed by two colon signs and the book's name in square brackets you'll get the correct touchstone for it. For example {13353815::TransAtlantic}, but substitute the square brackets for the curled ones.

ETA: One way to find the book's home page on LT is to go to the author's home page, and select the book from there.

I'll give that a try, thanks for sherpaing that one for us!

Those are some entertaining touchstones!

Had to chuckle at your "public sanity announcement." And that 123456::Title tip is excellent. It's rescued me more than once.

Hmm, it seems as though several of the touchstones are working properly this morning. I'll try those six books again:

TransAtlantic - Pride and Prejudice
Harvest: A Novel - correct title, but wrong author, and the book by Jim Crace that I read isn't listed amongst the "others"
The Testament of Mary - correct!
Five Star Billionaire - Surrender
The Spinning Heart - correct!
Almost English - Eragon

Oh well, at least some progress has been made...

>102 richardderus: You're welcome, Richard.

>103 banjo123: I thought that many of the books that the touchstones matched to were bizarre choices before this fiasco, but it's completely surreal and absurd now. I can only hope that we can at least return to the standard strange choices, but at least this work around is reliable (touch wood).

>104 lit_chick: I saw that several people in this group and Club Read were being driven batty by the surreal touchstones this week, and that's what made me come up with that term. As you said, this work around has worked for me a dozen or more times in the past, especially since I tend to buy and read books that are owned by few if any other LTers, or ones from London bookshops or online UK booksellers that haven't been published in the US yet, such as Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty by Alain Mabanckou (wow, the touchstone actually works, but it lists the French title, Demain j'aurai vingt ans).

I started The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton yesterday, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. It's 832 pages long, so I'll have to read over 200 pages per day over the next three days to finish it by Sunday. (The touchstone I initially typed didn't work, so I used the work around to post the correct one.)

TransAtlantic - correct!
Harvest: A Novel - correct!
The Testament of Mary - correct!
Five Star Billionaire - correct!
The Spinning Heart - correct!
Almost English - correct!

Woo hoo!

But "Almost English" getting "Eragon" did make me chuckle.

That's a useful tip on touchstones. Several times I've been driven round the bend trying to find the right touchstones for more unusual books.

I didn't know the double colon trick was working again; thought that had been changed after the improved the touchstones a year or more ago? Glad to know it's still an option.

I can get back to reading Booker books now that I have scared off the latest migraine -- 72 hours' worth, more or less. ARGH.

#86 -- Nathalie, knowing Darryl's tastes, I was suggesting for the sake of any incipient ulcer or nervous condition, he defer reading 'Chani Kauffman'. Odds are it would cause another Almost English style flareup, and a lot more ranting about the iniquities of Booker juries!

So events like #91 make it psychologically possible for you to immerse yourself in books like #92??

109: It was removed then returned in response to Zoe’s persistent complaints popular demand.

>107 tiffin: I think I shrieked in horror when Eragon showed up in place of Almost English, Tui. Then again, it's entirely possible that I may have enjoyed Eragon more than Almost English.

>108 SandDune: Same here, Rhian.

>109 Chatterbox: Glad to hear that your migraine is now history, Suz.

At least it can be said that I don't pull any punches in my negative reviews, right? That has to be worth something.

I stand corrected in my brash statement that no males would like Almost English. The British novelist Philip Hensher wrote an interesting article about this year's Booker longlist that will appear in tomorrow's edition of The Spectator. Here's what he had to say about Almost English:

Charlotte Mendelson is much admired by the cognoscenti and Almost English (Mantle, £16.99) ought to be a bestseller. The account of a girl from a family of Hungarian aunts, dealing with love and old lechers at a ghastly boarding school in the 1980s, is sheer bliss — pure rueful comedy with endless resourcefulness. Though this one being written in the dreaded historic present for no reason whatsoever, I adore her novels and wish there were many more of them.

...The shortlist should comprise McCann, Tóibín, Mendelson, Crace, House and Catton. House’s novel is the one you ought to read, and Mendelson’s the one that everyone will read and love. The prize will go to Crace.

The novels he puts on his shortlist are TransAtlantic, The Testament of Mary, Almost English, Harvest, The Kills and The Luminaries, with Harvest coming out on top. I certainly agree with him on McCann, Tóibín and Crace, and if I had to choose my top pick today without reading anything else I would also go with Crace.

So events like #91 make it psychologically possible for you to immerse yourself in books like #92??

Absolutely. I have to read grim books to counteract the happiness that comes from working with people like Kat & Jodi and seeing cute kids every day at work. It helps me keep my life in a proper balance.

>110 qebo: Ha! Way to go, Zoë!

have to read grim books to counteract the happiness that comes from working with people like Kat & Jodi
That explains a lot!!

LT has prompted me to read less grim books, I'm reading 'lighter' now.

Have a fabulous weekend, Darryl!

I've just finished Part One of The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, and so far this book is brilliant and unputdownable. I'm on page 363, so I have 470 pages to go, and I'll be interested to see if the book is able to keep its momentum going to the last page. I'm not working this weekend so I should be able to finish it by tomorrow afternoon or early evening, and review it by Sunday night.

>112 avidmom: Definitely, avidmom!

>113 wilkiec: There is clearly something wrong with me, Diana, as I almost never enjoy 'light' books anywhere near as much as the 'grim' or thought provoking ones. I did read one classic comic novel this year, Three Men in a Boat, which many have loved, but I found it to be a waste of time that could have been better spent on a more substantial read.

I hope that you enjoy your weekend as well!

Darryl, I will put Massacre River on my TBR list. My nephew, his wife and their baby just moved to the Dominican Republic last week.

>68 kidzdoc: ...and after several villagers are openly murdered the remaining villagers, including the elders, passively accept and actively participate in the ceremony, in order to save their own lives...
This is a position that would be utterly traumatising to find oneself in. I hope I never have to test my true self in this way. You'd hope you could stand up to the wrong-doers. But who knows how you would feel when in that position.

Great review Darryl.

I just read you review of The Spinning Heart too, now that I am 3/4 of the way through it myself. My initial positivity about it has waned. A lot. I loved your review, and agree with the gossipy and snarky nature of the characters interactions. ick.

I'm going to start seriously reading The luminaries this week. I've been on a go slow with book reading of late though I did just start Writing Love: A Modern Syrian Novel by Khalil Sweileh and wondered if you had read it.

>115 luvamystery65: I look forward to your comments about Massacre River, Roberta.

>116 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan. Dark Heart of the Night has applicability beyond war torn nations in Africa or elsewhere in the world, and it bears some similarities to The German Mujahid in questioning the responsibility of the individual when atrocities are inflicted upon innocent citizens. The novel by Sansal deals with active participation in evil acts, whereas the one by Miano is concerned with passive acceptance, in order to save one's own life.

I just read (and thumbed) your review of The Spinning Heart, and it seems we have the same opinion of it. The concept of having ?21 different narrators who each contribute a piece to a larger story was a unique and interesting one, but the persistent sniping and mean-spiritedness of seemingly every single character became more and more annoying. I highly doubt it will make it to my personal shortlist, but I wouldn't be completely surprised if the judges chose it.

>117 avatiakh: I'll definitely finish The Luminaries tomorrow (Sunday), Kerry. I just finished Part Three, and I'm now on page 625 of 832 of the UK edition, as I've read just over 300 pages so far today. It flagged a little just before the midway point, but it quickly regained its momentum. This is truly a cracking good read and a fantastic work of historical fiction so far, not as good as Wolf Hall or The Glass Room, but comparable to The Children's Book or The Stranger's Child. If Catton can stick the landing it has a chance to overtake Harvest as my favorite of the seven Booker longlisted novels I've so far.

ETA: I hadn't heard of Writing Love before, but the description of it sounds interesting. I look forward to your opinion about it.

Darryl - At least in my suffering working week I largely missed the touchstone blips although I did notice it when I had a small aborted attempt at doing a review of This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun, but I thought it was my own computer playing up. It (the Ben Jelloun) is a wonderful read by the way; thanks for prompting it via your TIOLI challenge.

Have a great Sunday

I finished The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton within the hour, which was astonishing and brilliant until the very end, which was a bit rushed and tied up a bit too neatly and carelessly. So, I'd say that she didn't nail the landing, but this literary symphony up until then was near perfect. I'll give it 4.8 stars, and it now replaces Harvest at the top of my Booker longlist ranking:

     1. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (4.8)
     2. Harvest by Jim Crace (4.6)
     3. TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (4.4)
     4. The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín (4.3)
     5. Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (4.1)
     6. The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (3.1)
     7. Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson (1.8)

I'll wait until later today or tomorrow to review it, after I give it a bit more thought.

>119 PaulCranswick: I'm glad that you enjoyed This Blinding Absence of Light, Paul. I thought it was superb, and I gave it 4½ stars.

Got your costume all ready for next week's DragonCon in Atlanta? ****runs away and hides****

****peeks out from behind couch**** Is it safe yet?

Actually, there are several of the authors that I would be interested in hearing although I haven't read their books. And, the LT thing would be fun.

>121 streamsong: I'll repost the message from my Club Read thread:

Ha! No, I'll be leaving town (again) on Saturday, to spend two weeks with my parents in the Philadelphia area. I don't read fantasy or SF, so I wouldn't go even if I was going to stay here. I happened to be in Peachtree Center several years ago (pre-LT), and I was very entertained by the costumes that the DragonCon attendees wore.

Oh...that also means that I'll miss the Decatur Book Festival, which is also held on Labor Day Weekend in the city of Decatur, which is the first town east of central Atlanta. It usually has 200 or more authors, and I'm sure that there are authors that I would have wanted to see. Checking...Richard Blanco, who read the inaugural poem in January...John Lewis, the civil rights leader who also serves as our US congressman...the poet Carl Phillips...Manil Suri...and Kevin Young, who teaches here at Emory. Hmm, that isn't many authors I would want to see, out of a total of 300. I won't change my plans for next weekend in that case.

And, the LT thing would be fun.

What LT thing?

Yeah, I know about you and the SFF. Just a case of the Sunday morning sillies and I hope that the thought of you-in-a-costume maybe brought a quick smile to you. (Here's a deal: I'll get in a costume if you do!)

What LT thing?

It's so far geographically that I haven't much paid attention. There's a short thread on the Green Dragon board with a few people mentioning being there and Janny Wurtz, (whose thread here on LT I've enjoyed), inviting all to her reading and to her booth. I only read a small bit of SFF, but I would enjoy hearing and meeting Janny.

I read a great and extremely long review for Luminaries on goodreads. It explains the structure (astrology, chapter lengths, timejumps, chapter introductions) and that helped me to understand why I had issues with the last 25%. While my rating is clearly lower than yours (3.8, but I'll upgrade to a full 4), I really loved the book and thought that Eleanor Catton had just stumbled a bit over her own literary over-ambitions towards the ending. The story was so strong, for me it felt like she had unnecessarily constrained it, she wanted to do so much "and was running out of pages/ chapter space". The first half was so good, it was steering towards 5 stars. There was just one point where she really hit a bad nerve with me and for a couple of pages my disappointment was immense, but then luckily she was smart enough not to explain everything with that device.
instead of a real spoiler: the moment when the reader suddenly understands why Anna lost weight and other coincidences.

I don't think L. will win the BP (though I could well live with that decision), but it should be shortlisted.
I am looking forward to Catton's future works very much and will soon read her first book.

Book #78: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

    

My rating:

'There's no charity in a gold town. If it looks like charity, look again.'

This astonishing historical novel opens in Hokitika, New Zealand in 1866, a gold mining town along the West Coast of the South Island. Founded two years previously, Hokitika is in the midst of a population boom, as prospectors, hoteliers and other businessmen have flocked there after news of its vast riches and promise of easy wealth has reached people living within and outside of New Zealand. One of those men is Walter Moody, a young Englishman who is trained in law but seeks gold to provide him with material comfort and the start of a new life. He arrives in town after a harrowing and emotionally distressing voyage at sea, and after he checks in at a local hotel he proceeds to its smoking room, where he hopes to unwind with a pipe and a stiff drink. Upon his arrival he notices that 12 men are already there, who appear to be from different backgrounds but also seem to have gathered in secret for a particular reason. The atmosphere in the room is tense and troubled upon his entry, but in his agitated state Moody doesn't sense that he has disturbed them. He is approached by one of the men, while the others appear to direct their attention toward their conversation, and after slowly gaining their confidence the men begin to share their intertwined stories with Moody, and the reason for their confidential meeting.

The story is centered around several mysterious and apparently interconnected occurrences that took place two weeks previously on a single night, including the death of a hermit in a shack overlooking town, the disappearance of a young man who has struck it rich in a gold mine, and the apparent near suicide of the town's most alluring prostitute. Every man in the room claims to be innocent of any direct involvement, yet they all appear to share some responsibility in the events that led up to these crimes, and each one fears that he may be accused and held accountable.

The reader learns more about these 12 men, Moody, and several other key players, as the story takes on a more defined shape. However, just as it seems to become more clear new twists arise and relationships emerge between previously unconnected characters, which made the tale more compelling and delightfully puzzling. I exclaimed out loud numerous times at various points ("Wait, what?" "Whoa!", etc.), and except for one relatively dead spot near the novel's midway point I was captivated from the first page to the last.

No review could adequately convey the intricacy and complexity of this novel, along with its numerous subplots and themes, and Catton's ability to maintain its momentum through 832 pages was akin to a performer riding a fast moving rollercoaster while juggling various objects of different sizes for hours on end. My biggest critique is its ending, which felt rushed and overly tidy, and despite its length I would have preferred for it to have been extended by another 50-100 pages.

The Luminaries is a masterful literary symphony, and a work of historical fiction that compares favorably with similarly superb novels such as The Children's Book, The Stranger's Child and The Glass Room. There are few books of this size that I would love to start reading again immediately after finishing it, but this is one of them, and young Ms Catton is to commended for a brilliant novel that should be a strong contender for this year's Booker Prize.

>123 streamsong: Ha! I should have known that you were kidding, streamsong! I'll probably dress in a costume for Halloween this year, assuming that I'm working, especially since my group is thinking of making another video at work after last year's successful one.

I should have suspected that some of the members of Green Dragon would attend DragonCon, but I don't follow the group, and until today I was unaware that the convention was this coming weekend.

>124 Deern: Thanks for mentioning the review of The Luminaries on Goodreads, Nathalie; I'll read it, and post my review there shortly. I do agree with you that the ending felt constrained, which was quite different from its intricate and thoughtful development over the first 775-800 pages. It makes me wonder if her editor or the publisher asked her to cut the ending short, or if she had a hard time coming up with a better conclusion, for some reason. I originally gave it 4½ stars, due to the less than satisfying ending, but I decided to give it the extra ½ star as it was a significantly more exciting and compelling novel than Harvest, and it wasn't nearly as uneven as TransAtlantic. Right now I'd be surprised and very disappointed if it wasn't chosen for the shortlist, but I wouldn't be heartbroken if it didn't win this year's prize.

I haven't read The Rehearsal, Catton's debut novel, yet, but I know many people loved it, and I'll plan to read it for Orange January.

BTW, The Luminaries will be published in the US on October 15th, the day of the Booker Prize announcement.

Great review of The Luminaries Darryl. Another book for my wish list.

>127 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian!

I'm forced to just skim your review as I'm currently reading Catton's book, just in the very early stages at present. Pleased that it got a 5 star rating.

Now you're talking Darryl. Wonderful review! Too bad I have to wait until October for it to be published in this country. In the meantime, I should read the books you compared it to and The Rehearsal.

Even though they seem to be fixing the touchstone issue, I appreciate the work around you posted. There are some books for which the touchstone seems almost never to work.

I have now added The Luminaries to my hold list at the library. Wonderful review, Darryl.

And I'm chuckling at how effectively Geico has added "Hump Day" back into our current cultural lexicon. Heh.

Great review of The Luminaries, Darryl. You've got me intrigued. I need an all-reading vacation soon, as Mount Tbr is starting to approach the heavens.

I should have mentioned here, as I did on my Club Read thread, that Rachael (FlossieT) interviewed Eleanor Catton for Belletrista in 2009, after her debut novel The Rehearsal was published; that book won a couple of minor literary prizes and was chosen as a finalist for several major ones, including the Orange Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Catton briefly referred to her next book, which I assume ultimately became The Luminaries, at the end of this interview. I had lunch with Rachael in London last month, barely an hour after the Booker Prize longlist was announced, and we talked about The Luminaries and the positive buzz it was receiving from those who had read excerpts and advance review copies of it (she hasn't read it yet). We chatted on Facebook a few minutes ago, and after reading this book I agree with her assessment of Eleanor Catton: "The woman is a GENIUS."

>129 avatiakh: I'm glad that you've started reading The Luminaries, Kerry. Hopefully Megan can get hold of a copy as well, as I think it would be a perfect book to read while she's recuperating from foot surgery. I look forward to your comments about it.

>130 brenzi: Hopefully the US release date of The Luminaries will be moved up, but I certainly wouldn't count on it, Bonnie. Rachael and others loved The Rehearsal, and my copy is staring at me now, begging to be read ASAP (and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that I may read it sooner than January, once I finish with this year's Booker Prize longlist). The three books I mentioned, The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt, and The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst, were all outstanding historical novels that were chosen for past Booker longlists, and each easily could have been Booker winners. The Glass Room and The Children's Book had the misfortune of being published in 2009, the same year that Wolf Hall was, and The Stranger's Child was published in 2011, the same year as The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes was released.

>131 EBT1002: I'm glad that I could help others with the touchstone work around, Ellen, and I'm also happy that Zoë requested that it not be removed from LT.

I'm glad you liked my review of The Luminaries, and I hope that you're able to read it soon. I thought it would be good, especially after I talked with Rachael, but I didn't expect that I would enjoy it as much as I did.

That GEICO commercial is priceless! I love the exasperated looks of the office workers who apparently have to deal with that camel every Wednesday. It's all but certain to win at least a "Best Commercial of the Year" nomination. BTW, for non-television watching Americans and my friends from other countries, here's a YouTube video of the commercial (BTW, GEICO is an auto insurance company, which promises to save people who switch from other companies hundreds of dollars after they do so):

     GEICO Hump Day Camel Commercial

Hump Daaaay, yeah!

I forgot to mention that I unplugged my television Friday of last week just before I left to go to work, and I haven't plugged it back in since then. So, I've gone 9½ days without watching any TV, and I haven't missed it at all. I think I had mentioned that I learned recently that at least three of my work partners don't have television sets in their homes, so I wanted to see how long I could go without the urge of turning my TV on during my nine day staycation, which ends today. It will be much more difficult starting next week, as college football season starts on Thursday, and the NFL regular season soon after that.

>132 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. I think I need a two year reading sabbatical to get caught up with the unread TBR books at home that I'm most eager to read.

133: I hadn’t seen the GEICO commercial either. I’m not anti-TV, just apparently not tuned in at the right times. Hmm, so the commercial is priceless, but Three Men in a Boat was a waste of time... (I thought it was hilarious when I was 12, which perhaps makes your case. I haven’t read it since.)

Great review of The Luminaries! Now I am anxious to read it.

Darryl, that is a fantastic review of The Luminaries. This one I have on request from my library. Let's hope it makes the SL.

>134 qebo: I don't like most television commercials, Katherine, including the ubiquitous ones by GEICO, but I thought the one with the camel was hilarious. The pained facial expressions of the office drones, especially the guy and the second woman, contrasted with the ultra-obnoxious and overly enthusiastic camel made me laugh out loud, as I thought it was an apt portrayal of an all too common workplace, where everyone is just trying to get through another boring day but one co-worker makes everyone's lives that much more miserable.

I probably would have enjoyed Three Men in a Boat much more when I was 12 years old. There were several sections that I enjoyed, but as a whole I found it to be tiresome and overrated.

>135 banjo123: Thanks, Rhonda!

>136 lit_chick: Thanks, Nancy. I hope, and expect, that it will be chosen for the shortlist. I'm still amazed that Eleanor Catton is only 28 years old, and that she followed up a superb debut novel with a spectacular sophomore effort.

I cant not read your review of the Luminaries...but I also cant read it. I want to read it with fresh eyes...but I did catch the first paragraph before tearing my eyes away. I see it is set in Hokitika- that is the closest big town to where my dad lives. Even so it is a 1.5 hour drive away, but still :)

You're right about it being a good recuperation book for me....I shall visit the Book Depository website soon.....just to see....

Very enjoyable review of The Luminaries, Darryl!

Excellent review of The Luminaries - now dutifully added to the WL!

Interesting about unplugging your TV, Darryl. When my sweetie, the cable news and sports junkie, isn't here, I think I turn it on in the morning to get the local weather and that's it. It's so quiet . . .

Darryl, great review of The Luminaries... I am most intrigued.

I am very much looking forward to The Luminaries. If it weren't so long, I would plan to buy it in London this week, but I think I will wait for the Kindle version to be released in the US.

Darryl, I recently got rid of my cable TV and it's fantastic. We got a really strong digital antenna so I get all the broadcast networks, which means I can still get my football fix this fall :)

Hi Darryl
I just found out that the publication date in Canada for The Luminaries is Sept 24. I reserved a copy through a book store in Toronto.

Planned reads for September (subject to change):

Camila Batmanghelidjh and Kids Company, Mind the Child: The Victoria Line
NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names
Helen Bynum, Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis
Patrick Chamoiseau, Texaco
Molly Caldwell Crosby, The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History - completed
Assia Djebar, Children of the New World
Seamus Heaney, District and Circle - reading
Richard House, The Kills - reading
Abdellatif Laâbi, The Bottom of the Jar
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland
Patrick Leith, A Northern Line Minute: The Northern Line - reading
Yan Lianke, Lenin's Kisses
Alain Mabanckou, Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty
Albert Murray, South to a Very Old Place

Wow! Great review of The Luminaries. Earned you a Thumb and it immediately went to the WL. I have not heard of this title or the author.
Good luck with that September To-Read list!

>138 LovingLit: I agree, Megan; don't read my review in full until you've read The Luminaries, so that you're not swayed by my opinion of it. Some people weren't fond of it, and Nathalie didn't enjoy it as much as I did. The biggest challenge in reading it IMO is keeping the characters straight, as there are probably 20 or more of them that play prominent roles throughout the book.

I definitely think this is a great recuperation book, as it's meaty, long and cracking good read. I'd say the same thing about A Fine Balance as well.

>139 richardderus:, 140 Thanks, Richard and Prue!

>141 rebeccanyc: That's pretty much what I do on work days, Rebecca, watch one of the local channels for 5-10 minutes to get the weather and traffic reports. I did that this morning, and I almost certainly won't turn on my TV again until tomorrow morning.

I'd probably watch much more television if I had a cable
TV package, especially if I could watch sports and the BBC (I'd love it if we could get BBC One and BBC Four here, and not just BBC World News, and I'd be willing to pay extra for those channels). I'm a moderate sports junkie, and I could easily and happily watch the Sunday NFL early afternoon, late afternoon and evening tripleheader in succession, especially if I'm with my father or a group of sports loving friends.

I love the solitude of not having the television on, whereas my mother and her sisters must have it on constantly, as it keeps them company even when they have company and aren't watching it. I'd rather not have that aural assault, especially after a long and trying day at work (as today was).

>142 lauralkeet: Thanks, Laura; I hope that you read The Luminaries soon. Have you read The Rehearsal?

>143 katiekrug: It's a monstrosity of a book, Katie; I just checked, and it's as wide as my 1300+ page Everyman's Library edition of The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, as the paper used for the pages of the UK edition is considerably heavier than the ones used in the Everyman's Library editions.

When do you leave for London? Or are you already there?

>144 torontoc: Excellent, Cyrel. I hope that you read it soon.

>146 msf59: Thanks, Mark. I first learned about Eleanor Catton after her debut novel, The Rehearsal, was chosen for the Orange Prize longlist in 2010, and especially after Rachael interviewed her for Belletrista.

I hope to get to most if not all of those books in September. I'll only work 10 days next month, but I'll spend most of my days off with my parents, and I don't get anywhere near as much reading done when I visit them (no complaints, though; they are dear to me and it wouldn't matter if I didn't read a single book, as long as we enjoy each others' company, which is always the case).

Finally, I'm caught up.

Darryl, I'm always impressed with the currency of your reading, and your list will serve me well when I have more time to read. These days I can barely keep up with my book group selections.

We are in total agreement about three men in a boat. I read it not that long ago, and cannot understand its reputation.

The Sunday after Labor Day is a possibility. As of now we have a quiet weekend, no plans. Keep us posted on your travels. I'm sorry to hear your mother's arthritis is so confining.

>147 kidzdoc:: no Darryl, I haven't read The Rehearsal. So this is another new author to discover.

Jhumpa Lahiri in her writing room.

You're welcome.

>149 ffortsa: Thanks, Judy. My reading output depends entirely on how many shifts I'm working in a given week or month. We work far fewer shifts from late spring to early fall, as there are less inpatients on our service, and our individual patient loads are less than they are from late fall through early spring. However, summer can be bad for us if we're on the teaching service, as the interns are brand new and the second year residents are trying to learn supervisory responsibilities. Unfortunately I'm the teaching attending this week, and the residents have been working as slow as molasses these past two days. So, I may not get any significant reading done until the week is over, although I'd like to finish Unexploded by Alison MacLeod, another book from this year's Booker Prize longlist, before I leave town on Saturday.

Three Men in a Boat was probably a hilarious read in the late 19th and early 20th century, but I thought it was forgettable and a waste of time. The book I read by P.G. Wodehouse was slightly more amusing, but I wasn't exactly howling with laughter when I read it.

I'll keep the Sunday after Labor Day in mind. My parents haven't yet given me any direction in what they would like to do, so my plans for the first half of next month are in limbo. There are quite a few LT, former LT and mostly non-LT friends that I'd like to meet up with in NYC next month; hopefully I can see all of them, including you and Jim. None of these friends, save one, knows the others, so it would be difficult and awkward to arrange a meet with all of them at one time. I'll let you (and the others) know when my plans with my parents become more defined.

>150 lauralkeet: I'm looking forward to reading The Rehearsal, Laura, though I suspect I won't get to it before Orange January.

>151 richardderus: Thank you, Richard! Maybe I can find a similar photo of Eleanor Catton, who is also strikingly attractive.

I'm enjoying Unexploded, but so far (pun fully intentional) I haven't been blown away by any of the offerings the way that I was by both Garden of Evening Mists and Bring Up the Bodies last year. I'm waiting to fall in love with a book, but each, thus far, has something missing.

ETA: I think you should have a Darryl Open House in NYC and have your friends meet each other! Pick a venue (relaxed one) and see what happens... I had groups of friends that didn't overlap all that much, and used to throw parties that brought people together. It even led to one marriage!

Why not come to the I, Claudius book circle chez moi on the 21st, and leave from here? So far as I know, Suz and Judy & Jim will attend or make appearances....

>153 Chatterbox: So far The Luminaries is the only book from this year's Booker Prize longlist that has blown me away. The section about Frederick Douglass in TransAtlantic was magnificent, but the other sections, especially the ones about George Mitchell, weren't nearly as good.

I'm eager to give The Kills a go next week, but I suspect that nothing will displace Catton's novel from my top line after I finish the longlist.

Several of the non-LT friends I want to meet, two in particular, are from different periods in my life, and they would have very little in common with each other. So, a group meet up wouldn't work well.

>154 richardderus: Nice photo of Eleanor Catton!

I won't be around on September 21st, unfortunately; my return flight leaves on the 14th.

Stopping by to wave hello. I hope all is well with you dear friend!

>156 Whisper1: Hi, Linda!

It's a bit late, but I'm in the process of trying to organize a LT NYC meet up on Sunday, Sep 8, the weekend after next. I'll spend the next two weeks with my parents in suburban Philadelphia starting on Saturday, so I could take the train into the city for brunch, book shopping, etc. that day. If anyone is interested and can make it please let me know, either on this thread or as a private message.

I had been thinking of coming down to NY for the day on the 8th to see 'The Audience' at Symphony Space -- there is a show at 2 or 3 or both, I think. I haven't booked a ticket, and I don't think I have a place to stay overnight that weekend, so I'm not yet committed. Depending on the timing, I could do something. If I did come in, I'd be shooting to take the 7 a.m. bus in, which arrives by noon (more or less, often a little less) and then come back on the 7:45 p.m. train.

>159 Chatterbox: I hope that you can make it, Suz! Zoë is definitely in, and I assume that Judy & Jim can make it, based on her comment in message #149. Hopefully several others can also come.

OK, I just booked the 3 p.m. show as the 2 p.m. is sold out. I'd assume that I'll be available for a couple of hours, although I'll want to be on the UWS by 2:30 at least to get a reasonable seat... (You know how short I am...) If anyone wants to join me, the website from which to order tickets is www.SymphonySpace.org. In a perfect world, I'll find somewhere to stay on Monday so I'll have time to clean out my mailbox and run errands, but that's far from certain. Or I could just take the very late bus home, although that's Megabus two ways -- dire dire dire.

ETA: the good news: the bus trip down is only $12! The bad news: I need to be at the theater by 2:20, the box office confirmation says. So I'll have 2 hours max around lunchtime.

158: Hmm, maybe. I’ve been thinking about a day trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and that may be as good a day as any.

>161 Chatterbox: If I hadn't already seen The Audience earlier this month I would absolutely join you.

Actually I don't think of you as being overly short, compared to several other LTers, non-LT friends, work partners and colleagues.

Darryl, you must have a lot of very short friends. I'm about 5' 1 1/2", maybe. Heels might add another inch, if I wore 'em. That's short (and I speak from a lifetime of staring at the backs of peoples' necks in cinemas, etc.

>162 qebo: Hmm...I haven't been to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in several years, and I think there was an exhibit at the nearby Brooklyn Museum that I wanted to see. Checking...actually there are several exhibits that I'd like to see there, particularly Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt; Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas; Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn; and African Innovations.

>164 Chatterbox: Wow...I thought you were 5'3" or 5'4" or so, Suz. You certainly seem taller than a couple of other LT friends I've seen on several occasions (names withheld to protect life and limb, namely mine).

ETA: I wonder if we could meet up for lunch in the Upper West Side, maybe the Popover Café on Amsterdam Ave & 86th St, which Jim mentioned on Caroline's thread earlier today. It's one of my favorite NYC restaurants as well. Perhaps we could split up after that, as some might like to go to see The Audience, whereas I'd like to go to the Brooklyn Museum (although I could go there on another day in the next two weeks) and possibly the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

The Popover Cafe would be excellent, although they have a policy of only seating complete parties, so we'd need to be organized... (and then I could order some popovers and strawberry butter to bring home with me...)

Not lotsa train options on Sunday. I’d get there at 10:49am and leave at 7:53pm. Brooklyn Botanic Garden is open 10-6, so that’ll work. Brooklyn Museum looks good too if I have time.

>167 Chatterbox:, 168 Should we try to meet at noon at the Popover Café? That would give you plenty of time to get there, Katherine, even if your train pulls in late; it's a pretty quick ride from Penn Station to B'way & 86th St on the 1 train (although I usually take a 2 or 3 express train to 72nd St and transfer to the 1 local there). The trip from there to the Brooklyn Museum station will be a far longer one, of course, but Suz will have a very short ride to Symphony Space.

I'll take NJ Transit from Trenton to Penn Station, as usual. There are at least two trains every hour on the Northeast Corridor line, so I can get to the city at any time that's convenient for everyone else. I might go to Book Culture (on 112th St between B'way and Amsterdam Ave, close to the Cathedral of St John the Divine) when it opens at 11 am, and take the 1 train back to 86th St in time for lunch.

ETA: I just noticed that Suz's bus will arrive in NYC at roughly noon (at Port Authority Bus Terminal, the bus station near the GW Bridge, or elsewhere?). Should we shoot for lunch at 1230?

BTW I'll have a very busy day at work, and my group is having a dinner meeting tonight, so I probably won't be back here until well after 9 pm.

>163 kidzdoc:: Actually I don't think of you as being overly short, compared to several other LTers
>166 kidzdoc:: (names withheld to protect life and limb, namely mine)
YOU TALKIN' TO ME?

Jealous of a gathering at dear old grumpy Richard's and also with the air full of Robert Graves and his excellent I, Claudius - definitely a top ten of mine.

Will look out carefully for the appearance of The Luminaries over here Darryl and Ms. Catton almost gives Jhumpa Lahiri a run for her money as belle of the longlist.

Have a great weekend.

Let's shoot for 12:15. Nice compromise. My bus arrives at the corner of 27th & 7th -- it's Megabus and doesn't go to Port Authority. But it's on the 1/2/3/ line, which is all I need. The only question is traffic. If it's smooth, and the bus is on time, the scheduled arrival is 10:45. More likely, it will be at least 11:30.

Same is true for Katherine, who can hop on the 1 at 86th and switch to the 2/3 at 72nd (depending on weekend track work) and be right outside either the museum or the gardens (right next door) within 35 minutes. Literally, step out of the 2/3 train and the museum is in front of you. Easy peasy.

How I would LOVE to join y'all in NYC! It's been so long since I've travelled and I've been dying to get back to the big city. Last time I was there was in 2007. Last time I was ANYWHERE was in 2007, mind you. Might be quite an expensive proposition, coming down from Mtl. just for one day, and then I don't have anyone to stay with for longer than that and have spent the last of my available credit on very expensive books, but I'll give it a think.

Really enjoyed your review of The Luminaries Darryl. As someone else mentioned, it's available in Canada on Sept. 24, though I did see it could be obtained from the Book Depo right now. I'm eager to read this book, all the more so after your glowing review, but it's so huge that I'm loath to get it in print, so will resign myself to waiting till its available on Kindle.

Just a question about Kindle pre-orders to anyone who might know: are the prices usually the same once the books are released, or do they tend to go up?

Back to your review Darryl, the fact that you've compared Catton's book to two other books I thoroughly enjoyed (i.e. The Children's Book and The Glass Room) makes me all the more eager to read it. As for Hollinghurst's book, I guess I'll never know how it compares, since I swore I'd never read anything else by him after getting through The Line of Beauty. Hated isn't a strong enough word. I was eager to read The Rehearsal after hearing so much praise about it, and did so two years ago, but my review and rating clearly indicate I was annoyed with her unusual narrative approach. (review here if you're curious). Something tells me I'd enjoy it a lot more the second time around, so perhaps I'll pick it up again eventually.

Do I dare admit that I actually quite enjoy Three Men in a Boat?

Loved the Geico camel commercial. Brings back not so fond memories of working in office environments. There really is always one such obnoxiously annoying individual making the endless grey hours seem that much longer. I go through periods of watching lots of tv, and much longer periods of watching none at all. I've been on such a streak for a couple of years now, with exceptions made for certain series I watch on HBO or purchase on iTunes, as I really detest being forced to watch commercials, most of which are the equivalent of the worst kind of email spam. Some rare exceptions of course; I've so far enjoyed all the Geico commercials I've seen as I am particularly of the Geico gecko. Wouldn't mind seeing that camel again. Priceless ad, and I agree it should win awards.

I sure there are other things I saw here I wanted to comment on, but I've taken up enough space on your fascinating thread for now.

Oh yes! How could I forget? Sad news about Seamus Heaney today... 74 seems like such a young age to go nowadays. He's left behind a tremendous legacy of course. I recently got a deluxe edition of his Beowulf (by the Folio Society) which I might pick up today, if there are enough hours. I'd like to familiarize myself with his poetry as well, but don't know what collection to start with. Suggestions welcome.

RIP Seamus Heaney.

Woo hoo! This painful work week is finally over. My flight leaves for Philadelphia in just under 12 hours, so I have to pack and get some sleep between now and then.

>170 lauralkeet: YOU TALKIN' TO ME?

*Looks around, doesn't see anybody.*

Hello? Did someone say something???

*Looks down. Way down.*

Ohhh. Hi, Laura! Was that you?

>171 PaulCranswick: We won't be meeting at Richard's house, Paul. He lives on Long Island, which is well east of NYC, so that's quite a haul for those of us who are coming into the city from out of town. We'll meet up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for lunch, and proceed from there. Suz will see the NT Live re-broadcast of The Audience (which I saw earlier this month) at Symphony Space, which I believe is on B'way and 105th St, a bit further north of where we'll eat lunch (Amsterdam Ave between 86th & 87th Sts). Some people may join her; Katherine, myself, and possibly others will take the subway to Brooklyn after lunch. The Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are adjacent to each other. Depending on the timing I might visit the museum and skip the garden, although I enjoy both venues and would prefer to go to both if possible. Katherine will likely do just the opposite.

My parents live about 70 miles SW of NYC, and the trip by train from Trenton, New Jersey (which is about 8-10 miles from my parents' house) to NYC is similar in distance and time to the trip from London King's Cross to Cambridge (just over an hour on the express train, closer to 1½ hours on the local). They live just north of the Philadelphia city border, which is about 20 miles north of downtown Philadelphia, and about a 40 minute trip on the slow commuter train from the station close to their house. So, it's very easy for me to get to either city by train from there.

Sorry, that was probably TMI...

I hope that you enjoy your weekend as well!

>172 Chatterbox: Let's shoot for 12:15. Nice compromise.

That sounds good. Let's see...so far I count you, me, Katherine, Peg (plt) and Zoë as definite attendees, Jane, Judy and Jim as probable ones, and Tad, Julie and Ilana(!) as possible ones. That's a nice group, I'd say.

Same is true for Katherine

Right, and for me as well. I've been to the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden numerous times, and I'm familiar with taking the 2 or 3 train there. It's also very convenient that both subway lines stop at Penn Station, which makes it easy for each of us to take trains back to NJ and PA from there.

>173 Smiler69: That would be great if you could join us, Ilana! Let us know if you're able to make it, and I'm sure that one of us could meet you at Penn Station and escort you around the city. I'm very familiar with Penn Station and the NYC subways, as I grew up in the NYC metropolitan area and commuted into and out of Penn Station for a little over three years, so I could easily meet up with you there and travel with you during the day. I suspect that Katherine is also familiar with Penn Station and the NYC subways as well.

I'm glad that you enjoyed my review of The Luminaries. It's truly a brilliant book, and I'm very glad that the Booker judges chose to nominate it for this year's prize. It is a monster of a book when you look at it, but it was such a quick and compelling read that the size of it didn't matter very much.

Good question about Kindle prices pre- and post-release. It seems to me that the prices usually stay the same or go down, rather than up, but I'd be curious to see what others have to say.

Yes, I do think that The Luminaries is very comparable to The Glass Room and The Children's Book, both of which I loved dearly. I haven't read The Line of Beauty yet, so I can't comment on it, but I greatly enjoyed The Stranger's Child, which is the only novel by Hollinghurst that I've read so far. I bought the Kindle version of The Line of Beauty when it was on sale recently, so I'll probably read it in the next year or two.

Nice review of The Rehearsal. I'll keep your review in mind when I read it, which will likely be early next year for Orange January.

You are certainly allowed to say that you enjoyed Three Men in a Boat on this thread, or any other book that you favor.

Loved the Geico camel commercial. Brings back not so fond memories of working in office environments. There really is always one such obnoxiously annoying individual making the endless grey hours seem that much longer.

Exactly! That's why I thought that the commercial was so brilliant.

I've taken up enough space on your fascinating thread for now.

I have always enjoyed your interesting and very relevant comments on my thread, Ilana. Feel free to take up as much space as you would like. :-)

>174 Smiler69: I did see the sad news about Seamus Heaney this morning, but was too busy on morning rounds with the residents and medical students in the hospital today to comment about it. At the age of 74 he is younger than my parents, so it does seem as though he died at a young age. Heaney was closely linked to Emory University in Atlanta, my alma mater from my pediatric residency, as he taught here and regularly visited the campus as a professor of English. He gave the first Ellman Lectures in Modern Literature at Emory, and a good portion of his papers were acquired by Emory 10 years ago.

Emory Report: Remembering Seamus Heaney

I'll plan to read his poetry collection District and Circle next month.

172: Let's shoot for 12:15
Works for me.
172: be right outside either the museum or the gardens (right next door) within 35 minutes
Thanks. I’d checked the route, wasn’t sure of the time frame.
175: Katherine will likely do just the opposite.
Yup. Both would be nice but timing will be tight, and I’d already had an idea to get to the garden before fall is upon us. (They’ve just expanded the native plant area. Also eliminated all the scientists in budget cuts.)
175: I suspect that Katherine is also familiar with Penn Station and the NYC subways as well.
Enough to get by. Comfortable. Never lived there, but lived daytrippably north or south for most of my life.
169: I'll take NJ Transit from Trenton to Penn Station
Envy. New York was so much easier from Philadelphia, never had to worry about the schedule. Lancaster, alas, is a constraint.

175: *Looks down. Way down.*
Laura, doesn’t this make you want to get to New York too?

Hi, Darryl. I've got a lot of catching up to do on your thread. August has been a reading bust for me, what with contractors and the start of the new semester, but I hope to fit in some reading time over the long weekend.

120> What made you place Harvest ahead of Transatlantic, which was still listed as your #1 in 106? Was it Henscher's ranking? That seems to be where you made the switch (111).

I'll definitely have to look for The Luminaries; if you think it is better than Transatlantic, it must be some book! From your review, it certainly sounds like one I'd really enjoy. At its length, perhaps a Christmas break read . . .

I agree with you that the Douglass section was the best of the first three in Transatlantic, but I thought the George Mitchell section was quite fine in its own way. One of the things I liked was the way McCann let us see him both from the outside--how the people around him reacted to him--and from the inside--how he saw himself. That contrast seemed to me to really be the heart of the man. And I thought the structure--developing the stories of women who had appeared as fairly minor characters in the Important Men stories in the second half of the novel--was brilliant. I find I'm still thinking about the book, and it has been more than a month since I finished it. It will definitely be going on the reading list for my Seminar in Historical Fiction.

I second your recommendation of The Children's Book; I also liked The Stranger's Child, though not quite as much.

And I confess to being underwhelmed by Three Men in a Boat as well.

Ilana, I just learned of Heaney's passing. I had the privilege of being chosen to participate in a poetry writing seminar with him back in the '80s. I remember going out for a beer with him at the local dive. He had been making the circuit of American universities for months and was eager to get back home, missing his daughter. Such a lovely man . . . and of course, a brilliant poet. I will cherish my signed copy of his collected poems. So, so sad.

Nice anecdote of chewing the fat with Seamus Heaney, Deborah. I would have had him as the greatest living poet....until yesterday. I don't think that there is anyone left quite of his ilk writing poetry today. Sad.

>175 kidzdoc:: ooh, don't mess with me Darryl!!
>176 qebo:: and Katherine, yes it does make me want to go to NYC. I would give Darryl a piece of my mind for sure!

#173 : Ilana, the camel Geiko commercial still airs here and I love it. I have a new favorite though.. the owls. It's a new commercial and it's just nudged the camel off its throne for me.

Darryl - the planned MeetUp sounds positively divine. I haven't been to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in years. Drats .. if only Edd's race wasn't on the 7th.

Oooh, Darryl, you must be smarting from that dressing down you just got at #179, LOL.

>175 kidzdoc: I am sorely tempted to make my way down and meet all you wonderful people Darryl. On the 7th I'm having a garage sale, which on the one hand make the timing a bit tight, but on the other might bring in a bit of cash and help finance the trip. I still have plenty of time to think it over and study my options, but you'll be one of the first to know for sure either way. Must admit that the thought of having an escort around town does sound mighty appealing. I'm somewhat familiar with the city from many trips and stays there, but not well enough to find my way around with any sort of ease.

I'd been meaning to comment on your recent ranking for the Booker titles, which somewhat surprised me, not so much for the ranking itself as what you had to say about it. You said something about finding Catton's book a better historical fiction work than Crace's (haven't tried to find your exact words again, so bear with me), but I remember you highly touting Harvest and being very gung-ho about it. Same for TransAtlantic, which I felt, when I read your comments about these books, that my life would not be complete if I did not read them ASAP! But now it seems you aren't quite so sold on them... A sober reminder that a reader's heart--no matter how engaged he might be, remains most fickle.

On second reading, I thought my review of Catton's first book was quite terrible, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. Do you think I've made my point about not liking the mental gymnastics clear enough, or should I go back and insert the words "mental gymnastics" in there a few more times?!? All it shows really is how lazy I've become about exercise of any kind. :-)

>177 Cariola: Deborah, I think I never thanked you for your comments to me on Darryl's last thread regarding TransAtlantic. You've quite convinced me that I must make time for it in very near future.

What a special time you must have had during that seminar with Heaney, hanging out at the local dive and all. Sounds very memorable and worthy of cherishing for sure.

I started reading his Beowulf last night and its really delightful. Will try to finish it today or tomorrow.

I'm now at my parents' house just north of Philadelphia, after a short and pleasant two hour flight from Atlanta. I'm off from work for the next two weeks, and my return flight is scheduled for Sat Sep 14, but I might leave here a couple of days earlier than that.

>176 qebo: So it sounds as though we're set for 1215 at the Popover Café next Sunday. I'll touch base with Judy, Jim, Jane, Peg and Zoë to let them know.

I didn't know how long it took to get to the Brooklyn Museum from Manhattan either. I thought it would be about half an hour from Penn Station, and closer to 45 minutes from 86th St (especially since we would have to transfer from a 1 train to a 2 or 3 train at 72nd St or further south).

Since you venture outside of Manhattan you're already more advanced that the average NYC visitor, so I thought you would be comfortable with the MTA subway system. I generally keep a map with me, now that I no longer commute or live close to the city, as I'll forget which subway lines go to particular stations, especially in Brooklyn.

I'm within striking distance of Laura here in Bucks County, so she doesn't need to go to NYC to inflict any damage. However, I'd be very happy if she could join us next Sunday!

Oof. Really sleepy all of a sudden. I'll catch up with the remaining messages after I take a nap.

Ilana, there is also airBNB if you're thinking of spending a night. Very affordable. I may try it myself if I can't find a place to lay my head. I'd like to see if I can get my hair cut on Monday, and it would make Sunday feel less rushed.

>194 kidzdoc:: I'm within striking distance of Laura here in Bucks County
Yeah: don't make me come over there!!

I'd love to do the NYC thing, but next weekend won't work for me. I hope you all have a great time!

>177 Cariola: Hi, Deborah! August was a good reading month, and hopefully September will be nearly as good.

What made you place Harvest ahead of TransAtlantic, which was still listed as your #1 in 106? Was it Henscher's ranking?

No; I had moved Harvest to the top line before I read Philip Hensher's article. I think I did so after a conversation I had with Joe on his thread, in which we both felt that TransAtlantic was a bit uneven, particular in the sections about George Mitchell. The first chapter about Frederick Douglass was magnificent, but the rest of the book wasn't nearly as good. I'll try to give it another go if it's selected for the shortlist, as it certainly should be, and I wouldn't rule out that I may place it above Harvest on a second read. At this point I prefer The Luminaries, but I would be happy if Harvest or TransAtlantic won this year's prize.

I'm surprised at how quickly I devoured The Luminaries; the last two days I read it I woke up well before dawn thinking about it, and I started reading it right away. It will almost certainly be one of my 10 favorite books of the year, but A Fine Balance will likely remain my favorite novel of the year.

Mmm, very interesting and insightful comments about Colum McCann's portrayal of George Mitchell in TransAtlantic. I see what you mean; I'll definitely have to make time to get back to it in early October.

I agree with you; I'd rank The Children's Book above The Stranger's Child, too, but I'd put The Glass Room above both of those books.

Lovely comment about Seamus Heaney. I know that he was beloved by the Emory community, and I had hoped to see him speak on campus (he was last there in March or April of this year), so I regret not having seen him in person. I did bring his poetry collection District and Circle with me to Philadelphia today, so I'll read it in the coming days.

BTW, do you and others have any favorite poetry collections of his?

>178 PaulCranswick: Unfortunately I haven't read any poetry by Seamus Heaney yet, Paul, although that will change very shortly. I do like Natasha Trethewey, the current Poet Laureate of the US, who is about to start her second term in office, and professor at Emory, and Toi Derricotte, who I learned about when I was in medical school at Pitt (she has taught there for many years).

>179 lauralkeet: Laura, I laughed out loud when I saw that cartoon this morning, as I was having coffee in the ATL airport. I'm still chuckling at it now. I'd love it if you could join us in NYC next Sunday, although it's admittedly short notice. If not, maybe we can get together in Philadelphia later this year; I'll be off for Thanksgiving, but I haven't decided if I'll visit my parents, or possibly travel to Madison, WI to see my best friend from medical school and his family.

>180 cameling: I haven't seen that new GEICO commercial, Caroline, probably because I've watched almost no television in the past two weeks. I'll have to look for an online version of it.

Tell Edd I said that you and he should join us in NYC next Sunday! I'd love to see both of you again.

*weep weep*
I cant get past the NYC meet up conversations......my eyes cannot continue for lack of sight from obstruction by tears of jealousy.
That is all.

>181 lit_chick: Nancy, my rib muscles are smarting from repeated laughter after seeing that cartoon!

>182 Smiler69: It would be great if you could make it to NYC, Ilana! I and I'm sure the rest of us would be happy to help you navigate the city. If you came how would you get here (plane, train, bus or car)?

Good observations about my comments about those three Booker Prize longlisted novels. In retrospect, I enjoyed Harvest and TransAtlantic, but neither book rose to the level of the best longlisted novels of
years past. The Luminaries, on the other hand, was, as I mentioned in my review, astonishing.

LOL! No, I think you made your point quite clearly in your review of The Rehearsal

>183 Smiler69: I'll look for Heaney's translation of Beowulf next week; thanks for mentioning it, Ilana.

>186 lauralkeet: I'm sorry that we won't see you in NYC, Laura. Hopefully we can meet up later this year!

>188 LovingLit: Aw...we have to find a way to get you to the US soon, Megan. Could you hide in the Cranswicks' luggage when they come here, or sign on as a groupie?

Must pre-order The Luminaries. It looks like a good one, Darryl. I really chuckled at the image of you as Foghorn Leghorn being told off by the little brown bird aka Laura.

I'm glad you liked the cartoon, Darryl!!

>190 tiffin:: Tui, that little brown bird would be Henery Hawk. I'm quite a fan of his little feisty self. Says Wikipedia, "Henery is a tiny, brown chicken hawk with a forelock of feathers. The young bird lives at home with his parents, and speaks with tough-guy bravado. ... Henery has a high-pitched voice with a New York accent (a la Bugs Bunny) and perpetually angry temperament."

>190 tiffin: I hope that you get to read The Luminaries soon, Tui.

You're right; that image is hilarious!

>191 lauralkeet: I had forgotten Henery Hawk's name, Laura. Tough-guy bravado...high-pitched voice with a New York accent...perpetually angry temperament. Yep; that describes you to a T.

>187 kidzdoc: Darryl, my favorite Seamus Heaney collection, of what I have read so far, is Human Chain. Last year I read this, scattered selections from his earlier works, and Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. The last is mainly organized chronologically, with chapters that correspond to his poetry collections. Some day I would like to revisit specific sections of it while reading the relevant collections.

Thanks, Linda. I'll look for Human Chain and Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney.

Morning Darryl- Just checking in. I hope you are having a good time visiting the folks. I hope you are sneaking in some reading too!
"A Fine Balance will likely remain my favorite novel of the year." Amen, my friend! I feel the same way.

Good morning, Mark! Yes, I'm enjoying a relaxing Sunday with my parents, and I'll definitely get some reading done. Yesterday I started The Kills by Richard House, which I believe is the largest book ever longlisted for the Booker Prize, at just over 1000 pages. I'll also read The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby, which I was inspired to read after I visited the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans last month and saw several mausoleums of people who died in one of the city's 19th century yellow fever epidemics, including this one from 1878:



I'll also start District and Circle, a recent poetry collection by Seamus Heaney, the Nobel laureate who died earlier this week.

I put aside Unexploded by Alison MacLeod, another book from this year's Booker Prize longlist, as I was having a hard time getting into it. I was also annoyed by one sentence in the book, in which a character mentioned that his tooth abscess would improve once he received a prescription of penicillin. The book is set in the English coastal town of Brighton in 1940, which was nearly a decade before penicillin became commercially available. It's one of those medical details that most people wouldn't notice, but it drives me bananas!

Thanks again for encouraging me and others to read A Fine Balance! I'll definitely read the two other books of his that I own later this year or early in 2014.

>191 lauralkeet:: thanks, Laura! If you ever get too stroppy, Henery it shall be!

187> I still love Heaney's first collection, Death of a Naturalist. Most of the poems he's best-known for are in this one--"Digging." "Mid-Term Break," the bog people poems.

I haven't read The Glass Room, which is why I made no comment on it. It has been on my wish list for quite some time.

I've just created a thread in the LibraryThing Gatherings and Meetups group for next Sunday's meet up:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/158476

If anyone else is interested and able to come please let us know!

>198 Cariola: Thanks for mentioning Death of a Naturalist, Deborah. I'll look for that collection as well.

I hope you get to read The Glass Room soon.

I did notice that detail in Unexploded, Darryl, and it took me aback, too. To me, it's such an obvious error, since early-generation antibiotics did become available for troops at least during the war -- it's one of those factoids that has been stuck in my brain forever. It was particularly glaring given how on-target the rest of the novel is. I ended up thinking it was very good, but not excellent, and the second half is kind of chilling. Especially good in capturing atmosphere.

I should go back and read some Heaney. Went through a phase of reading his work in my 20s and 30s, but not recently.

Mid-term Break is a heart wrencher, Deborah. I love Death of a Naturalist.

Hope you're having a good holiday weekend, Darryl. I agree that A Fine Balance is terrific, if sad as all get out. Have you read Montana 1948? That's coming up for me soon on strong recommendations from Mark and Richard, among others.

I've just created a TIOLI challenge for people to read a book by Seamus Heaney. I have District and Circle with me, and I just downloaded Death of a Naturalist, so I'll read at least these two books.

>200 Chatterbox: I'm glad to hear that the penicillin error is not a harbinger of more bad writing, as was the case with Annabel, Suz. I didn't bring it with me, but I'll read it this month after I return to Atlanta.

>201 tiffin: I just read Mid-Term Break, and I agree with you, Tui. Thanks to comments from Deborah and you I've just purchased the Kindle version of Death of a Naturalist, which I'll read after I finish District and Circle.

Hmm...I think I'll create a Seamus Heaney memorial thread based on my TIOLI challenge, and ask people to post their favorite Heaney poems there.

>202 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe, I hope that you're enjoying Labor Day weekend as well. I haven't read Montana 1948, so I look forward to your comments about it.

I've just created a thread for my Seamus Heaney memorial challenge:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/158492

It still may not be your kind of book, Darryl, but I'd urge you to read it with an open mind. MacLeod does wonders with the overall atmosphere of threat. The relationship between husband and wife and its breakdown is rather predictable, but not set against this kind of background. And there are elements of sheer horror that have incredible power. I can see why it ended up on the longlist. Having read only half of those books, I'm not sure whether I'd put it on my "personal shortlist", but it would be a contender. The only two certainties so far are Harvest and The Testament of Mary. Lahiri's novel impressed me with the language, but left me cold emotionally, with a very few exceptions, and while I found Donal Ryan's short work fascinating, I don't think it's of the same caliber as the two 'definite' personal choices. I suppose I'm forming a shadow shortlist! Although I don't especially care whether the jury gets it 'right' or not. Still hoping to read The Luminaries this month, and will struggle to finish the Tash Aw novel.

ETA: Don't think I'll be re-reading any Heaney this month, though. My poems of the month will be Robert Graves' collected poetry, which I was delighted to find in the library system. I think it's been out of print for a while in the US, and while just released for Kindle in the UK, it's a little too pricey for me.

>205 Chatterbox: Thanks to your comments I will be able to read Unexploded with an open mind, Suz, so thanks for that. The penicillin error is a very minor one, especially in comparison to the auto-fertilization that was a key element in the execrable Annabel.

Harvest and Testament of Mary are all but certain to make my shadow shortlist, along with The Luminaries and TransAtlantic. I'd be disappointed if those books weren't chosen for the shortlist, which will be announced on Tuesday 9/10. I don't feel strongly about Five Star Billionaire and The Spinning Heart, and I'd be surprised if Almost English made the cut.

I've not read Annabel; I think the descriptions that I heard of it led me to file it mentally under "too clever for its own good", a category that I loathe. These tend to be critically-praised books that do win a lot of fans among readers, but that annoy me in the same way that a cat or dog is annoyed by having its fur stroked the wrong way...

ETA: Hope I didn't sound bossy or officious in #204. You still may not like it, but I'm glad I didn't chuck it out the window on reading that error. I do wonder what kind of copy editors her publishers had... Clearly, she was more caught up in structuring the narrative than dealing with off-topic details. On the other hand, she had so many details of real life at the time so spot on accurate, it's all the more jarring.

The only reason I finished Annabel was that I agreed to participate in a conversation about the book for Belletrista with Joyce and Cyrel in 2011. I think I was clear in my comments that I strongly disliked the book.

No, I didn't think your comments about Unexploded were bossy or officious; I found them to be encouraging and positively persuasive.

Darryl - Thanks for putting up the Heaney thread even though I have noticed that I am the only poster there so far. So much for the irresistible lure of verse!
I noticed Linda's comment about Human Chain but feel that Station Island has more depth. I have ordered District and Circle , North and Death of a Naturalist today and managed to snag Station Island (to reread) and Field Work which I will read this week.

>209 PaulCranswick: You're quite welcome, Paul; your comments about Heaney were the main ones that inspired me to do so, but everyone else's comments certainly helped.

Several of Heaney's poetry collections by Faber & Faber are available as Kindle e-books in the US, including District and Circle and North. I bought District and Circle at Foyles last year, and it is a lovely little book (as you can see in message #1 of this thread). It wasn't cheap, though; I paid the list price of £9.99 for it (roughly 16 USD), whereas the Kindle edition of Death of a Naturalist I bought yesterday was 9.99 USD.

Hopefully other LTers will contribute to the Seamus Heaney memorial thread this month.

Lahiri's room has totally bare walls. How can she stand it? Or is it to avoid distractions and concentrate on her writings.

Just catching up after being away.

The restaurant you're going to next Sunday, Popovers, is right in my neighborhood and I'm sorry I can't join all of you but we already had plans for Sunday. Popovers does have some tables that can be put together to accommodate larger groups, but I'm a little concerned that they might be very busy at Sunday brunch time because they're so popular and wouldn't be able to seat you all together. Or you might have to wait a long time.

I've had Heaney's translation of Beowulf on my TBR for a long time. I hate it when someone has to die to make me think I should take a book off the TBR. I've never read any of his poetry.

Darryl, I hope to find some time to read more Heaney this month. I hope that the memorial thread will remain active for awhile.

>209 PaulCranswick: Paul, I have not yet read Station Island, but I trust your recommendations and I will look for it.

Morning Darryl- I hope you are having a swell time with the folks! It's going to be a gorgeous day in the Midwest! Ahhhhh...

>211 xieouyang: I didn't notice that, Manuel. I suspect that my focus was mainly on the lovely Ms Lahiri (who seems to be smaller than I would have thought).

>212 rebeccanyc: Sorry that you won't be able to join us, Rebecca. I was in touch with Peg (plt), who also lives in the neighborhood, and she offered to make reservations for us. So far there are seven definite attendees (myself, Jim, Judy, Katherine, Peg, Suz and Zoë), and Jane (janepriceestrada) will probably come as well.

I agree; I would also prefer to honor a person while he is still alive rather than after they have died. I also deeply regret that I wasn't able to see Seamus Heaney speak at Emory before his death. He was a frequent visitor to campus, as he donated most of his papers to the university several years ago, and he gave the first Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature at Emory, which has featured such notable writers as Umberto Eco, Mario Vargas Llosa and Margaret Atwood. His last appearance there was in early March, when he gave a public reading, which I wasn't able to attend. I'll see if I can find a video of that talk, and if I do I'll post it here.

>213 Linda92007: Yes, Linda, I'll keep that thread active for the year, as I'll probably buy one or more of his poetry collections when I return to London in October and read them in subsequent months.

>214 msf59: Happy Labor Day, Mark! I'll spend a pleasant day with my parents, but the weather won't be particularly nice here, with a high temperature in the low 80s and an 60% chance of afternoon thunderstorms. It's pretty gloomy and humid here now, and we've had off and on light drizzle for the past couple of hours. Fortunately the good weather you're experiencing will reach here by Wednesday, and the rest of the week looks to be superb.

209> Paul, I'm also a fan of Station Island. The Human Chain and District and Circle are on my shelf, waiting to be read; maybe now is the time.

>216 Cariola: Station Island isn't available for the Kindle in the US, unfortunately. I'll look for it when I go to Book Culture on Sunday.

Woo hoo! CNN has just reported that American swimmer Diana Nyad successfully completed the 103 mile, 52 hour journey from Cuba to Key West, Florida. I remember her attempts from 30+ years ago, and it's incredibly impressive that she was able to do so at the age of 64.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/02/world/americas/diana-nyad-cuba-florida-swim/index....

Wow. Even more incredible now than it would've been.

Darryl, I just posted on your Heaney thread about the anthology I got called Open Ground: Poems, 1966-96, along with a poem I adore from Death of a Naturalist, which I'll post here too (hope you don't mind):

Blackberry-Picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Seamus Heaney

Rebecca, yes, I'm also slightly concerned about this factor -- relatively few tables and long lines. That said, if we're all organized and all there promptly, and someone doesn't mind going early, we may still be able to manage it. Let's hope the weather cooperates, because almost certainly we'll be waiting outdoors for a little while, at least.

#215, 221 Not sure if they take reservations, Darryl; you might want to check that.

>219 qebo: Right, Katherine. This has to be one of the most impressive athletic achievements of the 21st century.

>220 Smiler69: Great poem, Ilana! Thanks for posting it here.

>221 Chatterbox: Peg (plt) has done great work today looking into restaurant possibilities. I'll post the messages she sent to me on the meetup thread shortly; she's already made a reservation for eight at Jacob's Pickles on Amsterdam Ave between 84th & 85th Sts. I looked at the restaurant's lunch menu, and it looks good to me.

>222 rebeccanyc: You're right, Rebecca. Peg found out that the Popover Café doesn't take reservations.

Just to be sure everyone sees it, I'll post Peg's second message here as well.

Here is Peg's second message to me:

Hi Darryl,

I've called bunches of places and here's what I've learned:

Popovers - no reservations and wait times vary.

Barney Greengrass (which, btw, I love too!) doesn't take reservations, or credit cards (cash only). It's sort of small, so I don't know if they will accomodate us. They are only open during the day, so I'll have to call tomorrow, but I am positive about the cash only and no reservations policies.

Jacob's Pickles - 509 Amsterdam b'twn 84th and 85th). I made a reservation for 8 people for noon. I can always cancel if you folks aren't keen on it.

Fred's 476 Amsterdam on the corner of W83rd - I've never been here but passed it thousands of times. Looks okay. No reservations, but they were really nice and suggested that we send an "advance" person to give the name and wait earlier than the rest of the crowd to cut down group wait time. She implied there wouldn't be a huge "group wait" this way. I'd be happy to be the advance person.
Other places I tried:

Nice Matin - no reservations. Said wait time depended on many factors.

Sarabeth's West. They don't take reservations for Sunday brunch and the woman on the phone wasn't sure she could accomodate a group.

I will keep looking around, but at least we have some options: an advance person at Fred's, a reservation at Jacob's Pickles and a possible advance person at Popovers.

This is a superb plan, IMO, and I'm completely fine with it. Majority vote rules the day.

Lurking as usual... hello, Darryl!

OH! A restaurant about pickles! Never heard of such a thing.
Awesome!

>225 EBT1002: Hi, Ellen!

>226 avidmom: I'm looking forward to Sunday's meet up, avidmom, and to having lunch at Jacob's Pickles. There are plenty of enticing dishes on the menu, but whatever entrée I choose I'll be sure to get at least one sour pickle.

Book #79: The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby



My rating:

The fever attacked each person in the Angevine family, one after the other, until none were well enough to help the others. It hit suddenly in the form of a piercing headache and painful sensitivity to light, like looking into a white sun. At that point, the patient could still hope that it was not yellow fever, maybe just a headache from the heat. But the pain worsened, crippling movement and burning the skin. The fever rose to 104, maybe 105 degrees, and bones felt as though they had been cracked. The kidneys stopped functioning, poisoning the body. Abdominal cramps began in the final days of illness as the patient vomited black blood brought on by internal hemorrhaging. The victim became a palate of hideous color: Red blood ran from the gums, eyes and nose. The tongue swelled, turning purple. Black vomit roiled. And the skin grew a deep gold, the whites of the eyes turning brilliant yellow.

During a trip to New Orleans for a medical conference last month I and several colleagues visited Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, the city's oldest public cemetery, which has been featured in several books and movies. It contained numerous tombs from the 19th century; the one that struck me the most was the Ferguson tomb, which listed the names of three children that died on consecutive days due to yellow fever in 1878: one day old Sercy and 22 month old Mary Love on August 30, and four year old Edwin Given, on August 31.



After I pointed out the Ferguson tomb to my friends we stood in front of it for a minute in quiet reflection and mourning for the deaths of three young siblings in such a short space of time, and how it must have affected their parents. I read more about yellow fever in New Orleans after we returned home, and learned that the worst epidemic in the United States took place in 1878, which killed thousands of people in New Orleans and Memphis. I remembered that I owned The American Plague, and made plans to read it this month.

In The American Plague, Molly Caldwell Crosby focuses on two major topics: the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, and the efforts of Dr. Walter Reed and his fellow researchers to determine the cause of that dreaded disease, risking their own lives and health in doing so.

In 1878 Memphis was one of the major cities of the southern United States, as it was a transportation hub for steamboats from New Orleans to the south and the Ohio Valley to the north that arrived there via the Mississippi River, and trains that came from all over the country. It prided itself on its diversity and rich culture, and it served as the last major southern city between the developed eastern US and the largely untamed frontier that extended from Arkansas just across the Mississippi River westward to California. However, the city was also in severe financial difficulty, due to corrupt local politicians and the national Panic of 1873, which hit the South especially hard. As a result, the city was filled with thousands of people who migrated there from small towns, and the city's sanitation and water supply were public health hazards to all Memphians.

Ships coming to southern cities like Memphis, New Orleans and Charleston from Cuba and other Caribbean countries were supposed to be kept in quarantine for 40 days some distance away from the cities' ports, so that the crews could be observed for signs of yellow fever, malaria, cholera and other transmissible diseases. However, local business and civic leaders put pressure on government and public health officials to relax these standards; that, in combination with a lack of understanding of epidemic disease by medical and public health professionals, climates that were hospitable to Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that served as the insect vector for transmission of yellow fever from one person to another, and the high susceptibility of Caucasians to serious and fatal disease in comparison to people of African descent, led to frequent epidemics during the later half of the 19th century.

The 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis was the worst of all, due to a combination of hot weather, frequent rains that allowed mosquitoes to breed and survive in higher than usual numbers, and a worse than usual yellow fever outbreak in Cuba. As news of the extent of the epidemic spread Memphians who had the means to do so fled the city by the thousands, decreasing the city's population from 47,000 to 19,000 in a matter of weeks. Of those who remained, 17,000 contracted yellow fever, and over 5,000 of them died. The mortality rate for whites who contracted yellow fever was approximately 70%, versus 8% for blacks, many of whom were previously exposed to the virus in the Caribbean and Africa. Those four years of age and under were particularly hard hit, including the Ferguson children mentioned above.

The author uses archived letters, books and media to provide a vivid portrait of the "city of corpses", told by nurses and doctors who tended the ill, many of whom succumbed to the plague itself. After the epidemic was finally over in autumn 1878 the city, which was the second largest in the South after New Orleans, never recovered spiritually or financially, as many of the wealthiest Memphians moved elsewhere, and immigrants from other states and countries chose other places to live.

The second part of the book describes the tireless and heroic efforts by Major Walter Reed and his colleagues in the United States Army to determine the mode of transmission of yellow fever, through experiments conducted primarily in Cuba at the turn of the century. Although it would be many years until the yellow fever virus could be identified, their work conclusively determined that Aedes aegypti was the insect vector that permitted the disease to be passed from person to person. Several researchers and soldiers died of yellow fever or were left permanently disabled by it. As one doctor wrote, "I can think of no other disease who killed so many scientists studying it."

Crosby closes the book with a brief discussion of the yellow fever vaccine and the disease, which still exists in South America and Africa. Aedes aegypti is a common species in the southern US (and I can personally attest to its presence in Atlanta), so this country is at risk for yellow fever epidemics in the future, due to easy travel, a lack of knowledge of the symptoms of the illness in nearly all US medical professionals, who have never seen a case of the disease, and the preponderance of an unvaccinated and unprotected population.

The American Plague is a superb book about the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis and the work and personal sacrifice that led to the discovery of its mode of transmission and the development of an effective vaccine against the causative virus. Other topics are only lightly discussed, such as the epidemic of the same year in New Orleans and other cities in the Mississippi Valley, which killed a total of 20,000 people, the 1793 epidemic that decimated Philadelphia, and current efforts to control yellow fever in South America and Africa. It reads like a well written novel, making it a very enjoyable and enlightening book, and it is highly recommended to all readers.

That was a pretty enlightening review kidzdoc. That next to last paragraph is kind of scary!

When I asked my aunt where our family was from originally, she told me she didn't know too much except that we had originally settled in (and around) New Orleans, and had lost some people (mostly children) due to yellow fever or malaria. They (great great ???) decided to pack up and move - not because of the scare of the disease itself, it was just too painful to stay. How sad.

>229 avidmom: Thanks, avidmom. It's also one of the lengthier reviews I've ever written. The first paragraph in combination with the next to last one, and the fact that I live in Atlanta, where Aedes aegypti mosquitoes abound, makes me want to get the yellow fever vaccine ASAP!

That is sad to hear about your relatives, but I'm not surprised that many people fled New Orleans after the 1878 yellow fever epidemic. I definitely want to read about the effect on the city, and the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, so I'll look for more books about it later this week and next week. I'll almost certainly go to Philadelphia tomorrow and/or Friday, so hopefully I'll find something then.

I've vigorously upgethumbed that essay. I mean, review.

You deserve to rest up after writing that review, Darryl. You must feel a bit like Diana Nyad swimming from Cuba. Thumbed by me, too.

228: Upthumbed and wishlisted, averting my eyes from Amazon's "people who bought this item..." which is a frightening array of diseases.

Wow, that's an awesome review, Darryl. Thumbed you, and if I could have double thumbed it, I would have.

How sad for the Ferguson family to have lost 3 children in as many days. I really hope they had siblings who survived. It would be just too tragic if the parents lost all their children to the disease. It's pretty incredible how many diseases we've been able to eradicate thanks to the dedication and persistence of the medical community and scientific researchers.

By the way, I learned something today ... we have similar DNA to fruit flies! I'm sure you don't think so, but that boggled my mind for a while. The genes operate somewhat differently from that of humans, but still... they're the same genes. I will never look at a fruit fly the same way again.

234: I first read that in The Art of Genes, and it struck me as about the coolest thing I'd learned in ages.

>231 richardderus: Ha! Right you are, Richard; that review cum essay is a long one, even by Club Read standards. I'm sure my next one won't be half that long. I did enjoy writing it, though. Thanks for the thumb!

>232 jnwelch: I am a bit out of breath today, Joe, but I think it's due to my current asthma flare up. My father noticed that I became short of breath as I was talking when we ate lunch. Fortunately I have all the asthma medications I need with me, and this exacerbation is far less severe than the one that landed me in a local ED in March.

>233 qebo: I have at least half of those books, Katherine, which I suppose would be of no surprise to you or most people.

>234 cameling: Thanks, Caroline! I am curious to learn more about the Ferguson family, and if their parents survived the epidemic. The photo I posted in the review isn't the one I took (which is in message #196); I found it when I did a Google search that included the names of the three children, which produced several hits. If I find out any more information I'll post it here.

Yellow fever is a perfect example of disease that has been conquered primarily by public health preventive measures, rather than by medical science, although the vaccine is pretty effective (I think). As I mentioned in my review the southern US and Caribbean could experience small scale outbreaks and possibly significant epidemics if we were to let our guard down; there is no cure (e.g. antibiotic) for yellow fever, and care is mainly supportive. The American Plague mentions a case of a man from the US who went to South America on a hunting trip in 2001, where he contracted yellow fever. He became ill upon his return to the US, and later died. Apparently his health care provider told him that he didn't need the vaccine for that trip.

I don't know if Aedes aegypti is the predominant species of mosquito in Atlanta and the Deep South, but I've certainly seen hundreds of them in the ATL over the years.



I knew that the genomes of fruit flies and humans were similar, but I still find it amazing. You may have learned in school that Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, studied fruit flies (Drosophila) in addition to plants. He would be pleasantly surprised to learn that the fruit fly continues to be a focus of genetic analysis.

>235 qebo: bzzz...

I always find it so sad, but fascinating at the same time, looking at these old graveyards. So many people lost child after child and even after such a long period of time has passed you can't help but feel for the parents. Great review of The American Plague: it had never occurred to me that yellow fever was something that had ever been present in the United States.

Morning Darryl- Excellent review of The American Plague. It earned you a Thumb and landed, rather heavily on my WL. Hope you are continuing to have a wonderful vacation.

I'm feeling better today, thankfully. I ran 100-101 fevers most of the afternoon and evening and was noticeably short of breath to my parents, but I slept well and my temperature is normal this morning. I thought I was going to have to make an appointment with my parents' internist, but I should be okay now (fingers crossed).

>237 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian. The cemeteries in New Orleans are major attractions to visitors and locals; it isn't feasible to bury bodies underground in most parts of the city, which generally lie below sea level, so the tombs are housed in mausoleums such as the ones I posted in my previous thread and in message #196 of this thread. The Ferguson mausoleum was one of the smallest we saw that day (although we only stayed there for 15-20 minutes due to the heat), but it was the only one I saw that mentioned yellow fever, so I was immediately drawn to it. My friends had passed by it, so I called them back to see it. It was the only one that had an emotional impact on us, and I'll never forget it.

I searched on Google for more information about the Ferguson children, and although several other web sites have information about that mausoleum, none mention the children's parents. I did learn that the children's grandfather or great-grandfather emigrated from England, and practiced as an architect in the city until his death in 1857. The web site below also mentions that other family members are buried in the mausoleum, but the children's mother is not amongst them.

Three Siblings, Two Days, Yellow Fever

ETA:

>238 msf59: Thanks, Mark! I hope that you enjoy The American Plague. I am enjoying my vacation, despite the current cold and asthma flare up, and I hope to be right as rain in a day or two.

Today's Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets is taken from the book I'm currently reading, District and Circle by Seamus Heaney.

Anything Can Happen

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightening? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven's weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

"Anything Can Happen" from District and Circle by Seamus Heaney. Copyright © 2006 by Seamus Heaney.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23684

Hi Darryl, wonderful review of The American Plague which is now sitting atop my teetering tower. It's hard to believe that yellow fever is still a possibility in this country.

>241 brenzi: Thanks, Bonnie. Crosby mentions that the female yellow fever mosquito often bites multiple humans during a single meal, rather than feeding on one person; that feature makes it much easier for yellow fever to spread within populations. Cases of yellow fever in the US have been extremely rare since the last major outbreak in 1905, but conditions in the Deep South are somewhat favorable for its development. The main feature of the disease that would make a US epidemic less likely is the short period of time between the introduction of the virus and the onset of symptoms, the severity of those symptoms, and the rapidity in which it kills its victims. In other words there aren't many people who are infected with yellow fever in non-endemic areas that are asymptomatic and out in public; they're either moderately or severely ill, dead, or, if they're lucky, in recovery mode.

Marvelous review of The American Plague. I may look for that one, Darryl.

ETA to fix touchstone

The Seamus Heaney poem is well selected Darryl. Darn it that I was five minutes late on Tuesday to pick up District and Circle.
Have a good weekend mate.

Feel better... Is this weather-related, do you you think? There has been all this heavy rain, which may have stirred up spores or summat?

Is yellow fever vaccine more effective than cholera? I remember getting the cholera shots when I was a kid and we were traveling, but they had stopped giving them by the 1990s as not that effective, I think? It always amazes me at how complacent we are about the prospect for epidemics, given the factors that you mention, such as global travel. We couldn't contain a real epidemic if it started, I suspect -- especially one that is passed via contagion rather than something like a mosquito bite. It worries me that parents are insisting on the right not to vaccine their children against measles; they don't realize they are putting others at risk with that decision...

Darryl, excellent review of The American Plague. There's another book bullit!

Have a good weekend.

>245 Chatterbox: Thanks, Suz. I appear to have acquired two URIs in a week. The first one almost certainly came from a toddler I took care of last week, who was admitted with severe pharyngitis that was so painful that she refused to eat or drink anything at home and became dehydrated. Her pharynx and uvula (the projection that hangs down from the back of the mouth) looked like raw hamburger meat, and earlier this week my throat had a similar appearance, though not nearly as red, along with one large ulcer on my uvula and smaller ones on my posterior pharynx. The second one probably came from my mother, who had a cold when I arrived here last Saturday. I had a 100-101˚ fever on Wednesday, which fortunately broke Thursday morning, but I coughed most of Thursday and yesterday due to a so far mild asthma flare up (touch wood). My symptoms are better now, but my voice is nearly gone, so you guys will probably get to hear my rendition of Froggy from the Little Rascals tomorrow.

Good question about the effectiveness of yellow fever vaccine in comparison to cholera vaccine. I'll look that up shortly.

It would be all too easy for at least a small scale outbreak of an infectious disease that is not prevalent in the US to occur, especially if we let our public health guard down, and if conditions are right, an epidemic may well occur. The potential infection that frightens
most health care professionals the most would be a particularly virulent strain of influenza, similar to the 1918-19 Spanish flu that killed millions around the world.

>246 wilkiec: Thanks, Diana! I hope that you're enjoying your weekend as well.

Hope you feel better, kidzdoc. You doctors are a brave lot.

When my son had strep throat when he was little all he would eat for days were pickles. I told his pediatrician, of course. She said let that kid eat all the pickles he wants! Water in the pickles was good + the salt would make him thirsty so he would drink some water and not get dehydrated.
It struck me as kind of funny, but it worked. :)

Feel better! I am recommending chicken soup with lots of garlic.

Nice reviews on the Bookers ... am rather taken by The luminaries after taking a look at the kindle sample

But suspect it will be read via kindle due to its size

Darryl---thanks to you, I am finally reading The Glass Room:-)

Hi Darryl- I have ordered The Luminaries as the waiting list at the library is ridiculous now. And I am keen to read it!

I have had The Glass Room on my mental list for ages now, and regret not buying it at the second hand shop a few months ago, as it was higher than their average price (a now cheap-sounding $7). So another reminder for me to pick'em up when I see'em. :)

A great first half of the review of the Yellow Fever book (*confession*) I didn't read the entire review ;) But another reason to dislike the mosquito I suppose.

I am over half way through TransAtlantic now and am loving it!

Post 215 - but then, having bare walls leads the eyes directly to her, as you did, that may have been the intent

And your review and comments on The American Plague are great. Although, despite your praise, I stay away from books dealing with medical topics, i find them too painful to read.

By the way, my copy of The Luminaries arrived from The Book Depository. It is a TOME!

I'm on a train to NYC for today's meet up with 8 other LTers. I'll respond to the above messages and create a new thread, with meet up photos, later today.

Just stopping by for a whirlwind tour of the thread.

Wow...you guys cover a lot of territory! The American Plague sounds interesting. Great review, Daryl!

Today's LT NYC meet up was a successful one, with nine LTers in attendance, a fabulous lunch and visits to two bookshops on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I'll post a summary and photos in my new thread shortly.

>248 avidmom: Thanks, avidmom. I feel pretty good overall, but as I expected my voice was strained and high pitched for most of the day, and it's nearly shot now. I have chronically inflamed vocal cords and vocal cord nodules, and once or twice a year a simple case of pharyngitis develops into a moderate case of laryngitis that can last for a week or longer.

That's a smart son you have. It's funny how kids are able to innately select the foods and liquids that are best for them when they are ill.

Pickles...there will be a discussion of them in the new thread.

>249 banjo123: Thanks, Rhonda! Chicken soup with garlic sounds good, even if I wasn't sick.

>250 roundballnz: Thanks, Alex. I look forward to your comments about The Luminaries when you do read it. It's quite a hefty tome, but The Kills, which I'm currently reading now, is considerably larger in size and in length, at just over 1000 pages.

Speaking of The Kills I nearly finished with the second of the four books within it, The Massive. It's okay, but not early as good as the first book, Sutler. I had hoped to finish this by today, but hopefully with a concentrated effort I can get it done by Tuesday.

>251 brenzi: Great, Bonnie! I hope that you enjoy The Glass Room as much as I did.

>252 LovingLit: I look forward to your thoughts on The Luminaries, Megan. I fell behind on threads this weekend, after spending most of Saturday with my family and my cousin, his wife and young son, and this afternoon in NYC, so I'll have to check Kerry's thread later tonight or tomorrow to see if she has finished it yet.

>253 xieouyang: Good point, Manuel.

>254 xieouyang: I'm glad that you liked my review of The American Plague, even though you have no desire to read it.

>255 rebeccanyc: Right, Rebecca; The Luminaries is a tome. However, I finished it in four days, and it's a much quicker and more compelling read than The Kills is so far.

>257 tangledthread: Thanks, tangledthread!

Darryl

I saw photos of the NYC meet up that were posted on facebook. I'm glad you had a lovely time.

Seeing the photos, made me miss you and all those I know who were at the meet up.

All the best to you!

Hi Darryl, hope the meetup goes well. I finished The Luminaries last night, I was up till the early hours so I could get through the last 100+ pages. Loved it. Won't say anything more as too many have yet to read the book. I'll probably tackle Almost English for my next Booker as the mixed reviews have me a little intrigued and I loved her When we were bad.

>260 Whisper1: Thanks, Linda; it was a short meet up, but a very nice one. The lovely meal was exceeded only by the great conversations we had.

Best wishes to you for a good week ahead!

>261 avatiakh: We did have a nice time in NYC, Kerry; I've just posted a summary with photos in my new thread (see below).

I'm glad to hear that you also loved The Luminaries, and I look forward to your comments about Almost English.