kidzdoc in 2013: Old World, New Imports part 14

Paul Klee, Remembrance Sheet of a Conception, 1918




Currently reading:

    

Paradises by Iosi Havilio
Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and Their Doctors by David Mendel
On Brick Lane by Rachel Lichtenstein

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 (review)
80. A Northern Line Minute: The Northern Line by William Leith
81. The Kills by Richard House (review)
82. Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty by Alain Mabanckou
83. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
84. Mind the Child: The Victoria Line by Camila Batmanghelidjh and Kids Company
85. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
86. Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis by Helen Bynum
87. The Remarkable Story of Great Ormond Street Hospital by Kevin Telfer
88. The African by JMG Le Clézio

October:
89. Fighting for Life by S. Josephine Baker
90. Ways of Going Home by Alejandro Zambra
91. A History of Capitalism According to the Jubilee Line by John O'Farrell
92. The Drugs Don't Work: A Global Threat by Professor Dame Sally Davies
93. Great Battles: The Battle of Isandlwana by Saul David
94. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
95. The Sea Close By by Albert Camus
96. Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
97. Earthbound: The Bakerloo Line by Paul Morley
98. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
99. Chimerica by Lucy Kirkwood
100. The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato
101. Adult Supervision by Sarah Rutherford
102. Appetite (Pitt Poetry Series) by Aaron Smith

November:
103. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
104. Asleep in the Sun by Adolfo Bioy Casares
105. A Good Parcel of English Soil: The Metropolitan Line by Richard Mabey
106. Waterloo-City, City-Waterloo: The Waterloo and City Line, Leanne Shapton
107. At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón
108. The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto
109. When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963 by Bob Huffaker

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)

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

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) ✔

September:
114. Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney (1 Sep; Amazon Kindle e-book)
115. The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwartz-Bart (8 Sep; Book Culture)
116. The Sculptors of Mapungubwe by Zakes Mda (8 Sep; Book Culture)
117. Operation Massacre by Rodolfo Walsh (8 Sep; Book Culture)
118. Hypothermia by Alvaro Enrigue (8 Sep; Book Culture)
119. Rice: Poems by Nikky Finney (8 Sep; Book Culture)
120. We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement by Akinyele Omowale Umoja (8 Sep; Book Culture)
121. Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare by Josh Blackman (8 Sep; Book Culture)
122. The Omni-Americans: Black Experience And American Culture by Albert Murray (12 Sep; Strand Book Store)
123. The Hero and the Blues by Albert Murray (12 Sep; Strand Book Store)
124. Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation by Ray Suarez (19 Sep; History Book Club)
125. Fighting for Life by S. Josephine Baker (19 Sep; New York Review Books) ✔
126. Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and their Doctors by David Mendel (19 Sep; New York Review Books)
127. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (23 Sep; Amazon Kindle e-book)
128. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (23 Sep; Amazon Kindle e-book)
129. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (24 Sep; Amazon Kindle e-book) ✔
130. The African by JMG Le Clézio (30 Sep; Amazon Kindle e-book) ✔
131. For the Public Good: Forced Sterilization and the Fight for Compensation by Belle Boggs (30 Sep; Amazon Kindle e-book)
132. The Drugs Don't Work: A Global Threat by Professor Dame Sally Davies (30 Sep; Amazon Kindle e-book) ✔

October:
133. Spring Tides by Jacques Poulin (2 Oct; Archipelago Books)
134. The Rule of Barbarism by Abdellatif Laâbi (2 Oct; Archipelago Books)
135. Melancholy by Jon Fosse (4 Oct; Amazon.com)
136. Aliss at the Fire by Jon Fosse (7 Oct; Amazon.com)
137. Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink (10 Oct; LT Early Reviewers book) ✔
138. Great Battles: The Battle of Isandlwana by Saul David (10 Oct; Kindle e-book)
139. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen (14 Oct; National Theatre Bookshop) ✔
140. Edward II by Christopher Marlowe (14 Oct; National Theatre Bookshop)
141. Liolà by Luigi Pirandello (14 Oct; National Theatre Bookshop)
142. The Empty Space by Peter Brook (14 Oct; South Bank Book Market)
143. Lost New Orleans by Mary Cable (14 Oct; South Bank Book Market)
144. Quarantine by Jim Crace (14 Oct; South Bank Book Market)
145. Worthless Men by Andrew Cowan (14 Oct; South Bank Book Market)
146. Everyman Mapguides Barcelona (15 Oct; Daunt Books)
147. Secret Barcelona: Jonglez Guide (15 Oct; Daunt Books)
148. Homage to Barcelona by Colm Tóibín (15 Oct; Daunt Books)
149. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (15 Oct; Daunt Books)
150. The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto (15 Oct; Daunt Books)
151. On Brick Lane by Rachel Lichtenstein (15 Oct; Daunt Books)
152. The Devil that Danced on the Water by Aminatta Forna (15 Oct; Daunt Books)
153. Small Circle of Beings by Damon Galgut (15 Oct; Daunt Books)
154. A Thousand Morons by Quim Monzó (15 Oct; Daunt Books)
155. London by Tube: A History of Underground Station Names by David Revill (15 Oct; Kindle e-book)
156. The Sea Close By by Albert Camus (16 Oct; Topping and Company Booksellers)
157. Archipelago by Monique Roffey (16 Oct; Topping and Company Booksellers)
158. The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris (16 Oct; Topping and Company Booksellers)
159. The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro (16 Oct; Topping and Company Booksellers)
160. Quesadillas by Juan Pablo Villalobos (16 Oct; Topping and Company Booksellers)
161. Black Vodka by Deborah Levy (16 Oct; Topping and Company Booksellers)
162. Roads to Santiago, Cees Nooteboom (19 Oct; London Review Bookshop)
163. No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod (19 Oct; London Review Bookshop)
164. The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies (19 Oct; London Review Bookshop)
165. Paradises by Iosi Havilio (19 Oct; London Review Bookshop)
166. Truth: Philosophy in Transit by John D. Caputo (19 Oct; Watermark Books)
167. Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman (19 Oct; Watermark Books)
168. You Can't Say That: Memoirs by Ken Livingstone (19 Oct; Watermark Books)
169. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (19 Oct; Watermark Books)
170. Chimerica by Lucy Kirkwood (23 Oct; Kindle e-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
          8. The Kills by Richard House
          9. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
          10. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
          11. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

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
               Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty by Alain Mabanckou
          *South American literature
               Ways of Going Home by Alejandro Zambra
     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
          1. A History of the Present Illness by Louise Aranson
          2. Palliative Medicine in the UK c. 1970-2010 by Caroline Overy and E.M. Tansey
          3. Childhood Asthma and Beyond by Lois Reynolds and E.M. Tansey
          4. Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients by Ben Goldacre
          5. The Philadelphia Chromosome: A Mutant Gene and the Quest to Cure Cancer at the Genetic Level by Jessica Wapner
          6. The American Plague by Molly Caldwell Crosby
          7. Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis by Helen Bynum
          8. The Remarkable Story of Great Ormond Street Hospital by Kevin Telfer
          9. Fighting for Life by S. Josephine Baker
          10. The Drugs Don't Work: A Global Threat by Professor Dame Sally Davies

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
          13. The Return by Dany Laferrière
          14. Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty by Alain Mabanckou
          15. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

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
              The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
          * 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

Recommended reads for the CanLit 2014 Challenge (by Canadian LTers):

   Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace (Joyce, Nancy, Cait and Cyrel)
   Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (Cait and Joyce)
   Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (Tui)
   Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride (Joyce and Nancy)
   Anita Rau Badami, Tamarind Mem (Tui)
   Anita Rau Badami, Tell it to the Trees (Cait)
   John Bemrose, The Island Walkers (Lori)
   Marie-Claire Blais, The Day Is Dark and Three Travelers (Suz)
   Joseph Boyden, Three Day Road (Suz and Cyrel)
   Joseph Boyden, Black Spruce (Suz and Cyrel)
   Wayson Choy, The Jade Peony (Nancy)
   Michael Crummey, Galore (Sassy)
   Robertson Davies, The Deptford Trilogy (Suz, Cait, Tui and Zoë)
   Suzanne Desrochers, Bride of New France (Zoë)
   Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers (Nancy)
   Kim Echlin, The Disappeared (Cait)
   Timothy Findley, The Last of the Crazy People (Lori)
   Timothy Findley, The Piano Man's Daughter (Tui)
   Timothy Findley, The Wars (Suz and Joyce)
   Kenneth J. Harvey, Blackstrap Hawco (Sassy)
   Tomson Highway, Kiss of the Fur Queen (Joyce and Tui)
   Helen Humphreys, Coventry (Tui)
   Helen Humphreys, The Frozen Thames (Tui)
   Helen Humphreys, The Lost Garden (Tui)
   Wayne Johnston, Baltimore's Mansion (Tui)
   Wayne Johnston, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (Cyrel)
   Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water (Joyce)
   W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe (Tui)
   Margaret Laurence, The Stone Angel (Tui)
   Mary Lawson, Crow Lake (Lori)
   Linden MacIntyre, The Bishop's Man (Suz)
   Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief (Cait and Nancy)
   Beatrice MacNeil, Where White Horses Gallop (Nancy)
   Rabindranath Maharaj, The Amazing Absorbing Boy (Cyrel)
   Rohinton Mistry, Family Matters (Tui)
   Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance (Tui)
   W.O. Mitchell, Who Has Seen the Wind (Tui)
   Lisa Moore, February (Cait)
   Alice Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (Suz)
   Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness (Cyrel)
   Alice Munro, The View from Castle Rock (Cyrel)
   Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost (Joyce)
   Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient (Cait)
   Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion
   Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table (Suz)
   Jacques Poulin, Mister Blue (Suz)
   Mordechai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Cyrel)
   Timothy Taylor, Stanley Park (Joyce)
   Kim Thúy, Ru (Suz)
   Michel Tremblay, The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant (Lori)
   Jane Urquhart, Away (Tui)
   Jane Urquhart, The Stone Carvers (Tui)
   Ronald Wright, What Is America?: A Short History of the New World Order (nonfiction) (Tui)

List of books from my library to choose from for the fourth quarter Reading Globally theme, South American literature:

Argentina:
   Adolfo Bioy Casares, Asleep in the Sun; The Invention of Morel
   Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones
   Julio Cortázar, Blow-Up and Other Stories; Hopscotch
   Juan Filloy, Op Oloop
   Ernesto Sábato, The Tunnel
   Juan José Saer, The Sixty-Five Years of Washington

Brasil:
   Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Quincas Borba
   Ignácio de Loyola Brandão, Anonymous Celebrity; Teeth Under the Sun

Chile:
   Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
   Roberto Bolaño, The Third Reich
   José Donoso, Taratuta and Still Life with Pipe; The Lizard's Tale
   Diamela Eltit, E. Luminata
   Alejandro Zambra, Ways of Going Home

Colombia:
   Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (I haven't read this yet!)
   Evelio Rosero, Good Offices

Ecuador:
   Ernesto Quiñonez, Chango's Fire

Guyana:
   Oonya Kempadoo, All Decent Animals

Peru:
   Mario Vargas Llosa, The Green House; Captain Pantoja and the Special Service; The Way to Paradise; The Bad Girl; The Dream of the Celt

Uruguay:
   Juan Carlos Onetti, Let the Wind Speak

Venezuela:
   Alberto Barrera Tyszka, The Sickness

Planned Reads for October (subject to change):

S. Josephine Baker, Fighting for Life - completed
Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins
Adolfo Bioy Casares, Asleep in the Sun - reading
Saul David, Great Battles: The Battle of Isandlwana - completed
Professor Dame Sally Davies, The Drugs Don't Work - completed
Sheri Fink, Five Days at Memorial - completed
Seamus Heaney, District and Circle - reading
Seamus Heaney, Death of a Naturalist
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland - completed
Anthony Marra, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
James McBride, The Good Lord Bird
David Mendel, Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and Their Doctors - reading
Paul Morley, Earthbound: The Bakerloo Line - completed
John O'Farrell, A History of Capitalism According to the Jubilee Line - completed
Evelio Rosero, Good Offices
Ernesto Sábato, The Tunnel - completed
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Green House
Rodolfo Walsh, Operation Massacre
Alejandro Zambra, Ways of Going Home - completed

I might be first......

A new thread : ). I love the Paul Klee you've posted, Darryl.

Darryl congratulations on your new thread. Looking forward to more tales from the old country and especially the insider's view of literary awards you promised.

Darryl, I saw that you listed Great Battles: The Battle of Isandlwana among your completed books for October. I was wondering how it was. I have been plowing through a number of books on the Zulu Wars following a trip to South Africa last year and would be interested to hear what you thought of the book.

Just coming in to take my seat, compare our CanLit lists, and look at the art. And wait for the show to start . . . .

Oh, man. Love that Klee thread-topper, Darryl. Congrats on the new thread!

Love the Paul Klee picture as well!

These are the books I purchased during this month's UK literary feeding frenzy:

14 October, National Theatre Bookshop:
A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
Edward II by Christopher Marlowe
Liolà by Luigi Pirandello

14 October, South Bank Book Market (also known as the secondhand book stalls under the Waterloo Bridge):
The Empty Space by Peter Brook
Lost New Orleans by Mary Cable
Quarantine by Jim Crace
Worthless Men by Andrew Cowan

15 October, Daunt Books (Marylebone High Street):
Everyman Mapguides Barcelona
Secret Barcelona: Jonglez Guide
Homage to Barcelona by Colm Tóibín
The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto
On Brick Lane by Rachel Lichtenstein
The Devil that Danced on the Water by Aminatta Forna
Small Circle of Beings by Damon Galgut
A Thousand Morons by Quim Monzó

16 October, Topping and Company Booksellers, Ely:
The Sea Close By by Albert Camus
Archipelago by Monique Roffey
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris
The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro
Quesadillas by Juan Pablo Villalobos
Black Vodka by Deborah Levy

19 October, London Review Bookshop:
Roads to Santiago, Cees Nooteboom
No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod
The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
Paradises by Iosi Havilio

19 October, Watermark Books (London King's Cross Station):
Truth: Philosophy in Transit by John D. Caputo
Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman
You Can't Say That: Memoirs by Ken Livingstone
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Such haulage! I don't envy you toting that load to the check-in.

Happy new thread! So so so enjoying The Luminaries.

Whew. It took forever to make this new thread! I'm sure it has nothing to do with all of the books I bought last week.

>11 EBT1002: Congratulations, Ellen; you are the first visitor to this new thread!

Sorry to hear about the Dawgfather's recent passing. He was a great coach, and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy.

>12 lit_chick: Thanks, Nancy. That painting was the one I liked best from the exhibition that Bianca and I saw at the Tate Modern on Sunday, Paul Klee - Making Visible, which opened there last week and is on until early March. It was superb, but unfortunately we only saw half or less of the entire collection. I want very much to see the rest of it; hopefully it will come to the US in the near future.

>13 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. More photos and accounts from last week's trip are coming shortly.

>14 Oberon: I thought that Great Battles: The Battle of Isandlwana was okay, Oberon; I gave it 3 stars (I've just increased my rating to 3½ stars, though). It's a Penguin Shorts e-book that's currently available from Amazon for $2.65. It was a detailed description of the disastrous campaign by the British Army at the onset of the Zulu Wars, which resulted in the near complete decimation of their men. This was due mainly to the gross incompetence of the commanding officers, who assumed that they could overwhelm the numerically superior Zulu forces by showing up and firing a few shots, which would cause the undisciplined and racially inferior Zulus to run like scared rabbits. The officers also ignored warnings that the British soldiers were being overwhelmed and massacred until it was far too late, as they refused to believe that they could be defeated by the Zulus. I found it a bit dry and technical in its descriptions of the battle, but I suspect that you would enjoy it more than I did.

>15 Nickelini: Hi, Joyce! I doubt that I can match your London travelogue, not including your youngest daughter's fabulous "I Love London" video, but I'll do my best.

>16 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. I'll post more paintings from the Klee exhibition in this and subsequent threads. If Delta didn't charge so much to change flights I would have stayed in London an extra day, in order to finish seeing it and the National Theatre production of Edward II, which I unfortunately missed on Thursday afternoon. I overslept during a nap that day, but I wasn't too worried, since I figured that Bianca and I could see it on Sunday. Unfortunately the NT and most of the major theaters in London were closed on Sunday, so I missed it. We were able to find a community theater in Finsbury Park that was open on Sunday, and we did enjoy seeing a performance there (details to come).

Speaking of the National Theatre today is the 50th anniversary of its opening. A special visitor traveled from Buckingham Palace to help celebrate:



Of all the things I love about London and the UK, if I had to choose my favorite thing the NT would be an easy choice (as most of you would probably guess).

>17 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian! It's definitely worth a visit, or probably two as one of the London dailies recommended. I especially liked seeing it with Bianca, as we spent a good bit of time viewing and discussing nearly every piece and listening to the descriptions and musical accompaniments on the portable media players. If I have a significant break in the first half of 2014 I may come back to London to finish seeing it, especially if the plays that I'd like to see at the NT are still on.

>19 richardderus: Toting those books back wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Fortunately they were almost all paperbacks, with the only hardback being Lost New Orleans, which was a relatively light coffee table book. So, my tote bag wasn't nearly as heavy as it could have been, and all 30 books easily fit inside of it. My hotel was just across the street from the Gloucester Road tube station, and I was able to take the Piccadilly Line from there directly to the Heathrow Terminal 4 station (I normally try to stay in hotels close to the Piccadilly Line, the only Underground line that provides direct service to the airport).

I'm thrilled that you're enjoying The Luminaries! I'm not as thick skinned as I'd like to be, and I do feel badly when a friend doesn't enjoy a book that I've highly recommended, although I do appreciate their constructive criticism of it; it makes me a more discerning reader.

The longlist for the 2014 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature was announced in New Delhi yesterday:

Anand: Book of Destruction
Benyamin: Goat Days
Cyrus Mistry: Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer
Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya: The Watch
Manu Joseph: The Illicit Happiness of Other People
Mohsin Hamid: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Nadeem Aslam: The Blind Man’s Garden
Nayomi Munaweera: Island of a Thousand Mirrors
Nilanjana Roy: The Wildings
Philip Hensher: Scenes from Early Life
Ru Freeman: On Sal Mal Lane
Sachin Kundalkar: Cobalt Blue
Shyam Selvadurai: The Hungry Ghosts
Sonora Jha: Foreign
Uzma Aslam Khan: Thinner Than Skin

"The jury will now deliberate on the longlist over the next month and the shortlist for the DSC Prize will be announced on Wednesday, November 20, 2013 at The London School of Economics in London. The winner will be subsequently declared at the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2014."

More info: http://dscprize.com/global/updates/2014-longlist-dsc-prize.html

Terrific picture at the top, Darryl.

I've been thinking how surprised I am that you haven't seen much Shakespeare over the years. Maybe that's just because I tend to drown in it. Last night Jim and I attended an 'open rehearsal' of Julius Caesar, in which the director of the CSC rep and some actors attempted to illustrate how a director and actors work on the text. I get very excited at these - as it's something I'd love to be doing myself.

>22 kidzdoc: Oh wow. Proof positive I'm nowhere near ready to die. I've read ONE of those books, heard tell of four others, and the rest...*blank stare*

Klee is such an interesting artist. I think he's more accessible than a lot of the surrealists. Welcome back home, Darryl.

Thank you for the photo of the Klee painting. He is one of my favorites. I've just ordered the catalogue for that show. I wish I could see it in person. I'm envious of your travels too.

#18 Not a bad book haul!

Welcome home, Darryl. Sounds like another lovely London vacation--doing the things I love to do in London.

Am I wrong, or have you not yet seen a play at the Globe? That's an experience you shouldn't miss (although it was probably closed this time).

What an interesting book haul! I read The Deptford Trilogy many years ago. Aside from that, I've only read Edward II and A Doll's House (and attempted The View from Castle Rock).

So happy to see Nadeem Aslam on the DSC Prize List. He is such an elegant writer.

For you and anyone else who remembers from the May meet-up my quest for books for my Seminar in Historical Fiction, I finalized the list over the weekend:

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
Restoration by Rose Tremain
Regeneration by Pat Barker
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Small Island by Andrea Levy

It was a really hard decision, but taking into account all the essential criteria, I think this is a pretty good batch. Hope the students agree! And thanks to everyone who made suggestions.

Delurking to wave hello and say "Welcome home."

Love the Klee art at the top!

I ran smack dab into a wall after lunch, and took a four hour "nap". I'm still wiped out, and I'm very glad that I won't have to go to work tomorrow.

>23 ffortsa: I'm glad that you like the Klee, Judy. I hope that this exhibition comes to NYC or Philadelphia, although I haven't found any mention of where it will go after it leaves the Tate Modern in early March.

Unfortunately my 11th grade high school English literature class set me against Shakespeare, and the RSC performance of Julius Caesar at the Brooklyn Academy of Music I saw in April was the first Shakespeare play I had ever seen. I mainly decided to see it because of its setting in sub-Saharan Africa, and now that I've experienced it and two subsequent Shakespeare plays that I've enjoyed I'm eager to play catch up and see everything I can by him.

>24 richardderus: From the DSC Prize longlist I've read How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, which I liked, and Scenes from Early Life, which I loved, and I've heard of The Illicit Happiness of Other People and The Blind Man's Garden. I read the entire shortlist last year before the prize announcement, mostly by accident, but now that the Man Asian Literary Prize has folded the DSC Prize is the main literary award for Asian novels published in English. I seriously doubt that I'll read the shortlist again ahead of time, but I'll take a close look at the longlisted books and buy or wishlist the ones that are most interesting to me (although I rightfully shouldn't buy any more books before next year's Booker Prize longlist comes out).

Which book did you read, Richard?

>25 ronincats: I wasn't very familiar with Paul Klee's work before this exhibition, but I'm very interested in learning more about him now, Roni.

>26 catarina1: You're welcome, catarina. I hope that the Klee exhibition comes to North America, and that you're able to see it.

Are you planning to post a summary of the plays you saw in London, like you did for the books?

I have mixed feelings about Shakespeare. Some of his plays I like, some not so much. But let me know if you're ever planning any theatre-going in New York!

>27 souloftherose: Right, Heather! We both did a fair amount of damage in Daunt Books on Tuesday, and I'm glad that we went there. I passed by the bookshop's Cheapside branch when I took the number 8 bus on Saturday morning, and it seemed to be much smaller than the Marylebone store, which I believe is the main one. (Do you know if that's so, Joyce?)

>28 Cariola: Thanks, Deborah. Yes, I'm certain that you would have done nearly the same things that I did.

I haven't seen a play at the Globe yet. I was thinking of going there on Sunday, as it's next to the Tate Modern, but it was also closed that day, along with most of the West End and South Bank theaters.

Most of those books came from my wish list, or were books I wanted to buy in anticipation of seeing the plays or ones I wanted to get for my probable visit to Barcelona next year. Checking...yes, 20 of the 30 books far into those categories. Bryony recommended The Empty Space, and Fliss recommended Born Weird and We.

I still haven't read anything by Nadeem Aslam, though I'm certainly heard of him. I may buy The Blind Man's Garden, and I definitely will if it's chosen for the DSC Prize shortlist.

Great list of books for your seminar! I loved Bring Up the Bodies and Small Island, and I own but haven't read the other three novels. Please let me know when you'll conduct your seminar, as I might like to be one of your online students. :-)

>29 avidmom: Thanks, avidmom! I'm glad that you like the Klee painting.

>31 _Zoe_: Hi, Zoë! Yes, I definitely plan to post reviews of all of the plays I saw in London on this trip. I wrote a review of The Drowned Man in my previous thread, and I'll review the others in order, namely Chimerica, Much Ado About Nothing, The World of Extreme Happiness, A Doll's House and Adult Supervision.

I liked Julius Caesar and Othello far better than Much Ado About Nothing, although the latter play was quite humorous in spots, and Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones were superb in the roles of Beatrice and Benedick.

I'll definitely let you and the other NYC area LTers know if I learn of any plays that I'd like to see in the city. I've only seen two plays in the past five years there, God of Carnage on Broadway in 2009, and Julius Caesar at BAM this spring. I'm waiting for my group's December work schedule to be published, in order to find out what days I'll be off for Thanksgiving week and especially if I'll have any days off after that following Sunday. If so I'd be interested in seeing something, although I'll have to look to see what's on. Do let me know if there is anything you've heard of and would like to see. I'd also be interested in seeing the NT Live rebroadcasts of Frankenstein and Hamlet, either at Symphony Space or on NYU's main campus.

>30 kidzdoc: Katiekrug sent me How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, a 3.5-star read for me, and I've got On Sal Mal Lane around here somewhere from a Graywolf Twitter giveaway. The Blind Man's Garden made it onto my radar screens because of Maps for Lost Lovers. The Illicit Happiness of Other People is such a great title that I couldn't resist asking for it...never got it, darn the luck, but its plot...father seeks truth in son's bizarre death, gets more than he bargained for...is truly an evergreen.

>28 Cariola: What a fascinating list, Deborah. I would be very surprised if your students ended up not having strong opinions about them all. What a great class that promises to be!

I passed by the bookshop's Cheapside branch when I took the number 8 bus on Saturday morning, and it seemed to be much smaller than the Marylebone store, which I believe is the main one. (Do you know if that's so, Joyce?)

I think you are right. The Cheapside branch is wider at the back than the front of the shop, and I believe it had a downstairs (or was it upstairs?). I only had 10 minutes, and I found heaps, so it was fine for me. One day I'm going to travel without my entourage and then I'll get to spend more than 2 minutes in a shop I like. Sigh. Did you get a cloth book bag? They have a "take a picture of the traveling bag" thing going on like Bellitrista had. I didn't know about that at the time, or I'd have made sure I got one. If you "like" them on Facebook you can see the traveling bags.

Darryl, the list for the South Asian Literature award is very interesting. There are several on there that catch my eye, although I am still burnt out on Sri Lankan literature after my intense period with it last fall (including that non-fiction book we both read for the ER program)

(and attempted The View from Castle Rock).

Deborah, like you, I hadn't had great success with Alice Munro in the past. She a well-known celebrity here in Canada (at least in my circles) and I've long thought she was a fabulous person, but I hadn't exactly loved Who Do You Think You Are? and The Love of a Good Woman. But I struck gold with Lives of Girls and Women, and now I can't wait to read more of her.

You might find this article on "10 Reasons Alice Munro is a Genius" interesting:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-genius-of-alice-munro/ar...

Darryl --looking forward to hearing what you think of Munro when you get to her.

Hi Darryl- Congrats on #14! Love the Klee. I am so glad you loved Five Days at Memorial. She did a stellar job. Looking forward to your review. You'll have to PM your opinion on what happened there. Did they do it or not?

I am nearly done with 2666, just a 100 pages or so but this will be a mixed bag for me. Some really good stretches and then some really slow and repetitive ones. Part 4, which was the LONG section on the serial killing was grueling.

Great book haul, Darryl! I still think you need a pied à terre in London, which you could finance by renting out to other LTers visiting the great city. Great plan, she said with a very vested interest.

#38 - what a great idea!

>33 richardderus: I also gave How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia 3½ stars, Richard. Thanks for mentioning those other DSC Prize longlisted books. It seems that most of them haven't been published in the US or UK and are only available from third party sellers. I won't plan to buy any of them yet.

>34 Nickelini: I did get a free bag from Daunt Books, Joyce, which is identical to this one:



I just "liked" Daunt Books on Facebook, and looked at some of the photos you mentioned. Unfortunately the contest ended last week, although I doubt I could have found any place in Atlanta to take a photo that would be worthy of that competition.

>35 Nickelini: Those DSC longlisted books do look interesting, but not as much as the books I bought last week. I have read several excellent novels set in Sri Lanka recently, especially Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka, which won the DSC Prize in 2012, Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne, and The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje.

>36 Nickelini: I'll have to look at that Globe and Mail article on Alice Munro; thanks for posting it here, Joyce. I'll read The View from Castle Rock in January, and if I remember correctly a few other 75ers also expressed an interest in reading it then, so I'll plan to create a group thread for it in late December.

>37 msf59: Thanks, Mark! I'm glad that you like the Klee painting as well.

I completely agree with you; Sheri Fink put a great deal of effort and time into writing Five Days at Memorial, and it should be a strong contender for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award next year (it definitely came out too late for this year's Pulitzer Prize, but I'm not sure if it would have qualified for this year's NBA for Nonfiction). I'll send you a PM shortly.

I liked 2666 overall, although the section you mentioned was a bit of a slog. My 4½ star rating is probably ½ star too high, but I'll let it stand.

>38 tiffin: Thanks, Tui! Yes, your idea of a pied à terre in London is a great one. If only I could afford it...

>39 Nickelini: The only problem with that idea is that I'd be tempted to fly to London whenever I had more than a few days off, and I wouldn't let anybody but me live there. Bye bye, retirement fund.

Yikes, it's 11 pm? So much for writing a review of Chimerica tonight. I'll do that tomorrow morning.

>7 kidzdoc:-10 now that is some reading list!
I swear, I feel like such a freak out amongst the general public. Friends reveal that I have read 89 books so far this year and people freak out. I find myself defending my time-allocation. Promising that far from reading all day, I save my reading for evenings, but just happen to read all evening instead of doing things like going out or watching TV. I sound desperate in my defense!
And then I log on here, and am amongst my own kind again.

I am not overly fond of Paul Klee, but I reckon that a close up detail of this work you have posted would suit me fine :)

>22 kidzdoc:: Well, I own and want to read On Sal Mal Lane, having heard Ru Freeman speak at Booktopia! in June, but I'm even worse off than Richard. I've not much heard of most of the works on that list. Hopefully, this means that both of us will live a very long time yet because there is simply so much reading to be done.

Your book haul from the UK is impressive, Darryl, and I love that you have worn out a canvas bag bringing books back from your various travels.

Yes, the passing of the Dawgfather is much in the news around here. There will be tributes to him at this Saturday's game against Cal. I will, however, be in sunny San Diego watching from a bar if I can find one.

A correction to my post in message 40: the CanLit novel that at least a couple of us are planning to read in January is The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler, not The View from Castle Rock. I'll probably read that book in March, as I plan to read February by Lisa Moore in February.

Lilisin, who heads the Author Theme Reads group, is looking for ideas of authors for 2014, so I mentioned my CanLit challenge for 2014 and the recommendations I received from Canadian and non-Canadian LTers.

>41 LovingLit: I'm glad that you like those reading lists, Megan! I'll have to update them, though.

I swear, I feel like such a freak out amongst the general public. Friends reveal that I have read 89 books so far this year and people freak out.

I'll occasionally get asked "How do you find time to read so many books?" by someone, although the question is almost always meant in a sense of admiration for my reading habits, and not because someone thinks I'm a freak. (Most of the doctors and nurses I work with are at least moderate readers, including the majority of my partners, and it's not at all uncommon for discussions of books to take place over lunch in the doctors' lounge.) Almost always I find that the non-readers watch three to four hours of television per night, mostly watching the mindless drivel that passes for entertainment. When I ask these questioners what their favorite programs are they almost always become embarrassed, as they sheepishly admit to watch reality TV and other crap. Even though the average American, and especially the average Southerner, isn't the brightest bulb in the world's box, most of them recognize that it's far more impressive to read books than watch "Dancing with the Stars", "Keeping Up with the Kardashians", or "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" (gack). I think that they are the freaks. :-)

I found the Klee paintings I saw were quite accessible, although they revealed themselves slowly and were open to different interpretations. There were a few that I wasn't fond of, particularly the ones in the early 1910s in which he was experimenting with color combinations that sometimes didn't work well.

>42 EBT1002: I doubt that many people here will have heard of these books, several of which were published by Penguin India or other Asian publishers and have not been released in the US or UK yet. I'd be interested to see if Gautam (mausergem) has heard of the majority of them.

I wish you and Richard long lives, though probably not together, given your different opinions about cats, tea and favorite sports teams.

Fortunately I think my Travelpro tote bag is salvageable, once I repair the small tear and provided that I don't overload it with books again. Except for that tear it still looks brand new, and I'd certainly buy it again, although the Columbia tote bags I've owned for at least six or seven years are more rugged and better built for literary booty.

San Diego sounds great! Have a great weekend there.

* I'm back-hug *

Thanks for the hug, Diana!

...I plan to read February by Lisa Moore in February.
But of course. I must join you in that one if only for the poetry.

Hi doc. Following your link from the Author Theme Reads, I would say you absolutely have to add Michael Crummey's Galore to >8 kidzdoc: above and Kenneth J Harvey's Blackstrap Hawco. Another author I would suggest is Marian Engel

Great suggestions in that list... where can I find out more about the read (it's probably somewhere really obvious, but I haven't seen it)?

>46 EBT1002: Great, Ellen! If anyone else is interested in reading February in February I might create a thread for it as well. I bought it after it was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2010, so it's been sitting on my TBR pile for far too long.

>47 SassyLassy: Hi, Sassy! It's good to see you here, since I've been neglecting my Club Read thread for several weeks. Since you're Canadian I'll add your recommended books to the CanLit list.

There isn't a particular location for my/our CanLit challenge, other than here. After a discussion of Canadian Literature Joyce (who also follows my much more active 75 Books thread) had suggested asking Canadian LTers for recommendations on CanLit in an older thread, which I thought was a brilliant idea, and her comment provided the spark for me to obtain recommendations from them, and my plan to make CanLit one of my themes for next year. I'll definitely mention this on my Club Read thread as well. At the moment I plan to read The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz in January, February in February, and The View from Castle Rock in March.

Good Morning Darryl

Thanks for sharing the memories of your lovely UK trip.

You're welcome, Linda! Now that I'm nearly caught up on LT threads I'll post more photos, theater reviews and LT meet up info from last week, after I take another postprandial nap.

Looking forward!

Hi Darryl, my copy of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz arrived last week so I am all set for the January read. I read Michael Crummey's Galore last year and absolutely loved it. I also have River Thieves on my shelf. Your book haul is staggering.

Theatre and book review:

Chimerica by Lucy Kirkwood
Harold Pinter Theatre, London

  

My rating:

This play, which has received rave reviews in the London press, ended its second run at the Harold Pinter Theatre in Soho last week, after a very successful initial run at the Almeida Theatre this summer. The term Chimerica was created by authors Niall Ferguson and Moritz Schularick, which was meant to describe the mutually dependent but uneasy and tense relationship between China and the United States.



In the play Chimerica, the key character is the so-called "Tank Man", who stood in front of a line of tanks during the Tiananmen Square uprising and massacre that took place in 1989, and who became a worldwide symbol for the bravery exhibited by ordinary Chinese citizens who stood up for freedom and against government repression on that fateful day. Joe Schofield (played by Stephen Campbell Moore) was a 19 year old American photographer who was in a hotel room overlooking the square that day, and his photograph of the Tank Man gained him immediate fame. The performance opens with that dramatic scene, then fast forwards to 2012, as Joe has become a self-righteous and idealistic yet jaded photojournalist for a New York based magazine. In the final days of the 2012 US presidential campaign he decides to embark on a quest for the Tank Man, with the help of Mel Stanwick (Sean Gilder), his bombastic and even more crude journalist buddy, and Zhang Lin (Benedict Wong), a teacher who participated in the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square as an 18 year old student along with his new wife Liuli (Elizabeth Chan), where he first met Joe. Joe views the Tank Man as one of the great heroes of the 20th century, and after he receives a tip that he is now living in NYC he embarks on a crusade to uncover his hidden identity and restore him to his rightful place as a great man, by any means necessary. On a plane ride from New York to Beijing he and Mel meet Tessa Kendrick (Claudie Blakely), a British consultant for a large company seeking to establish itself in the Chinese market, and the two become off and on lovers.



The action swings rapidly back and forth between the US and China throughout the play, as Zhang Lin has flashbacks to that tragic day in 1989. Zhang tries to help Joe in his single minded quest, as he simultaneously protests against the government and its policies, putting his career and life in serious danger. Joe and Mel pursue one lead after another to find the Tank Man, and Joe's efforts put his career and his relationship with Tessa in jeopardy.



Although I thought Chimerica was very well done I didn't enjoy it as much as the critics did, due to my dislike of Joe's self centered and at time immature behavior and the shallowness of Tessa, although Lucy Kirkwood clearly intended for them to be portrayed in this manner and the actors did a superb job of playing their roles effectively. Nonetheless it was a play that covered a lot of ground and pulled no punches, while providing no easy answers to the difficult relationship between the two superpowers, its heroes and ordinary citizens who speak out against injustice and for personal freedom.

Great review of Chimerica, Darryl. I'm glad it was a play you could appreciate, even if you didn't connect with the lead characters. The second image, of the bloody woman standing behind the two seemingly oblivious men, is quite chilling. What was happening there?

>51 Whisper1: Will do, Linda. I probably won't catch up completely until the weekend, though.

>52 brenzi: Excellent, Bonnie. I downloaded The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz onto my Kindle a couple of weeks ago, so I'm all set as well.

>54 labfs39: Thanks, Lisa. I did like it, but I was a little bit disappointed after I saw numerous 5 star reviews listed of it. The man sitting in that photo is Zhang Lin, the woman behind him is his wife Liuli, and the man looking over his left shoulder is his brother, Zhang Wei. In that scene, which is taken in his tiny apartment, Zhang Lin is writing an article that is critical of the government's misreporting of pollution in Beijing, as his brother looks on with alarm and his wife with approval.

Darryl- Thanks so much for your wonderful PM, regarding Five Days at Memorial. I NEEDED to hear someone else's opinion and yours was perfect. Looking forward to your review, which I am sure will snag a few more readers.
I think 2666 will end up being about a 3.5 read for me. If you could have excised, that flabby, excruciatingly long middle part, it could have been a terrific read.

>56 msf59: You're welcome, Mark! As I mentioned to you I'll review Five Days at Memorial this weekend, and I'll include those comments.

I should downgrade 2666 to 4 stars, if not 3½ stars. I gave it 4½ stars after I read it, and in retrospect that was far too high. I agree with you, that middle part was painful to read, and it could have been at least 100-200 pages shorter from what I remember of it.

OK, now I'm in suspense, waiting for your review of Five Days at Memorial. You tease. Unfair!

Sorry, Laura! I will say that Sheri Fink has already won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a 2010 NYT Magazine article about the tragedy at Memorial, and I think she deserves to get the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction for this book in 2014.

>55 kidzdoc:. Oh, so that's her shirt? I thought it was blood! In which case, the scene takes on an entirely different aspect!

Great review of Chimerica, Darryl. If it could be thumbed, I would. Your reservations about it make sense.

Darryl;
I hope that you love/like The Invisible Bridge when you do get around to reading it. It would also fit into your 'An Orange a Month' challenge that you set up a few years ago as it was long listed for the Prize in 2011. I still keep that challenge in my monthly reading. You just can't get enough Vitamin C, you know.
Cheers,

Ugh. My return to work on Thursday was an exceptionally harsh one, and I'm quite grateful to have this weekend off even though I only worked two days. I put in a 13 hour day on Thursday, which isn't that unusual, but Friday was one of the worst call days I've ever had, with 14 admissions from the ER, 3 PICU (pediatric ICU transfers) and two consultations between 2 pm and 8 pm. Fortunately I had help after 5 pm, but I didn't finish seeing patients until just before midnight and didn't finish charting and billing until nearly 3 am. I only slept for 5 hours, so I'm still pretty brain dead.

>60 labfs39: I know that you've seen my private message about Chimerica, Lisa. I didn't reply here, in case this production comes to the US and anyone wants to see it.

>61 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. Actually I did post a review of Chimerica on LT, as I downloaded the script from Kindle and reviewed the book and the play.

I had planned to finish posting reviews of the other four plays I saw in London this weekend, but I'll probably only get to a couple of them by Sunday. I also need to post a review of Five Days at Memorial, which I'll do first.

>62 rainpebble: I hope that I like The Invisible Bridge too, Belva, although I'm not sure when I'll read it. I've unfortunately gotten away from the Orange Book a Month challenge I originally posted two years ago, partly because some of the books that have been shortlisted for the (Orange) Prize have not been ones I've wanted to read. I'll follow the prize peripherally, and I'll almost certainly continue to read books for Orange January/July, but I doubt that I'll read 12 Orange books next year.

I'll probably read The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton for Orange January, which I've had on my TBR pile for at least a couple of years. Hmm...now that I think about it and look at my bookshelves I probably own at least 6-8 books that were longlisted for the Orange Prize in years past that I've wanted to read. I'll take a look at this, and maybe I will see if I can include an 'Orange a Month', or at least every other month, in my plans for 2014.

That wasn't hard. I looked through LT's lists of books that were longlisted or shortlisted for the Orange Prize in years past, and I came up with 12 books that I already own and would like to read soon:

Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
Ros Barber, The Marlowe Papers
Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal
Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
Helen Dunmore, The Siege
Ellen Feldman, Scottsboro
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule
Marilynne Robinson, Home
Preeta Samarasan, Evening Is the Whole Day
Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Rose Tremain, The Road Home
Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger

I don't see any reason why I can't read these dozen books next year.

Good list, Darryl; I have several of those on my TBR shelves, too.

The way you read, I can't either!

I'm afraid many people had the experience of Shakespeare that you while in school. While I don't know what exactly sparked your avoidance, I do know that bad teaching of anything can alienate a student and establish a lifelong avoidance of particular authors, or reading, theater or music in general.

That said, since you've broken your resistance to Billy Rattledagger, I urge you to come to NY when you can this season. Aside from the filmed stage production of Hamlet, which Jim and I are already scheduled to see in December, there is Shakespeare galore in the city.

Last week we saw a production of Romeo and Juliet that I would NOT recommend, in a theater on 13th Street. There's another one on Broadway this season, with Orlando Bloom, a casting I'm not sure I can fathom. We are not yet scheduled to see that one - R&J is not our favorite Shakespeare.

Last night, however, we saw a fabulous production of Twelfth Night (spelled in the original way as Twelfe Night), done by an all-male troupe headed by Mark Rylance. Rylance is a dazzling stage actor, and it's not the first time I've seen his group do an 'authentic' production of one of Shakespeare's plays. What does authentic mean? All the players are male, the stage setting is pretty bare, the costumes are painstakingly constructed from similar fabric with similar closures and methods, and so forth. That wouldn't of itself encourage me to go, but these folks can do Shakespeare!

'Twelfe Night' is one of the most accessible plays in the cannon. You would not have had a moment's trouble with the language or the characters or the plot. If there is any way that you can come up to see this in the fall (I think they are extending the run, but it's become a hot ticket), I urge you to do so. It is a hot ticket for all the right reasons - terrific acting, direction, spirit, comedy - a deeply satisfying performance.

The company is performing this in repertory with 'Richard III', a very different type of classic, and I'm eager to see it in a couple of weeks.

In addition to that, an all-female troupe is doing 'Julius Caesar' at a theater in downtown Brooklyn. We were going to skip it, but then it got such wonderful reviews, we thought to go. Next week, I think.

And we are seeing a production of 'MacBeth' as well, at Lincoln Center, starring Ethan Hawke in the title role. I've seen him on stage in Stoppard's trilogy 'The Coast of Utopia', and he can command a huge stage and rivet an audience, so I'm hoping for a good production.

There's another one around, a production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at Theater for a New Audience in Brooklyn. It's directed by Julie Taymor, and might have some interesting ideas, but I'm worried about the potential for messing up, and it's not my favorite play, although it can be very funny when done well.

Directors who think they have to 'add' to Shakespeare, or 'interpret' his work, often mess it up. I have my fingers crossed for all of them.

Whew. Hijacked your thread - sorry.

>63 kidzdoc:: I also need to post a review of Five Days at Memorial, which I'll do first.
Taps foot impatiently. :)

#64 I"m a big fan of The Siege, Lord of Misrule, and The Little Stranger, and I remember liking The Blind Assassin too, although it's a long time since I read it.

I can weigh in on The Siege - great book.

I too liked The Siege, although I thought it a bit light in the literary sense, as the topic is, of course, anything but light. It's a fast read. I was impressed enough to read several other books by Helen Dunmore. The Invisible Bridge is in a similar style, but I didn't care for it as much as many others. I found the main character too naive for belief, and it bugged me throughout the book. I'll look forward to your take.

I had to be coaxed to read The Siege because I really disliked the Helen Dunmore I had read before that, With Your Crooked Heart. I agree with you, Lisa, that it's light in the literary sense, but I thought it was compelling and well written, and I was impressed by Dunmore's research. The sequel, The Betrayal, isn't nearly as good.

It's too bad, because after The Siege, I was looking forward to The Betrayal and the Jewish Doctor's plot. But it was not as compelling. And I apologize: when I said I read several others by Helen Dunmore, I misspoke. I only read The Betrayal. I was concatenating her with Helen Humphreys.

>66 ffortsa: I'm definitely hoping to see that production of Twelfth Night! I've gone as far as marking in my calendar the day that the NYU discount tickets go on sale. Twelfth Night has always been one of my favourites.

I'm feeling much better after I slept for about 14 hours between 5 am yesterday morning and 4 am this morning!

>65 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie. I suspect that I won't get to all of those books in 2014, as I'll probably want to read several books from next year's Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist (that's the new and very unwieldy name for the Orange Prize, of course). I definitely want to read The Blind Assassin, The Rehearsal, We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Inheritance of Loss, Lord of Misrule, The Siege and The Little Stranger, though.

>66 ffortsa: Judy, if I was going to teach Shakespeare to high school students I think I'd take the class to a live performance or show them a taped performance of it (movie, NT Live or RSC rebroadcast) after a brief discussion of it, and then have them read the script. In high school we only read the scripts of two or more of his plays, which was bloodless and painful, even for those of us who loved to read. I suspect that the only students that liked it were the ones who were involved in theatrical performances in and outside of school.

I hope to visit my parents during Thanksgiving Week, and to come to NYC on Black Friday; I'm definitely off from work from Wednesday through Sunday of that week. However, my group's December schedule isn't available yet, so I don't know if I'll have to go back to work on December 2nd, the Monday after Thanksgiving. If so, and depending what my December and January work schedules are like, I may decide to spend Thanksgiving with my friends in Wisconsin. I'll definitely let y'all know if and when I'll travel to the city before the end of the year.

I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to see Romeo and Juliet, so I'll certainly pass on the production that you mentioned. Twelfe Night sounds interesting, though. Apparently tickets are available on Black Friday, although I experienced a bit of sticker shock when I saw the prices of the tickets ($50-315!). We paid £28 (about $45) for our Orchestra seats (dead center, middle of the section) for Much Ado About Nothing with Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones at The Old Vic; a comparable ticket for Twelfe Nighton Broadway is selling for $263. However, it sounds like a once in a lifetime experience, so I'd be willing to see it, although I'd rather buy one of the "cheap" tickets.

I look forward to your comments about the other plays that you mentioned. And feel free to post anything and everything about theater on this thread!

I've met my unstated goal of seeing 12 or more plays this year. After this past weekend I've seen 12 live performances (11 in London, and one in Brooklyn), along with the NT Live rebroadcast of The Audience in Atlanta.

>67 lauralkeet: I hope to be able to review Five Days at Memorial today, Laura. If not I'll review it on Thursday, after I finish my three day work week on Wednesday.

>68 rebeccanyc: I'm glad that you liked those books, Rebecca. They have all been sitting on my shelves for a couple of years, so next year would be a good time for me to read them.

>69 jnwelch: I'm also glad that you liked The Siege, Joe.

>70 labfs39:-72 Interesting comments about The Siege and The Betrayal (which I also own), Lisa and Rebecca.

>73 _Zoe_: I hope that you're able to see Twelfe Night, Zoë. I look forward to your comments about it.

Feel free to get the cheaper seats for,Twelfe Night. the theater isn't that big and the style of acting is such that you won't lose by sitting towards the back.

I completely agree with you about the method of introducing young people to Shakespeare. It cones alive hen spoken by actors who understand how to speak it and move on the stage. Then you can return to the page and imagine it as you read it.

If that isn't possible get the students themselves on their feet, playing little scenes. That works well. My father, to his dying day, recalled acting out scenes from Julius Caesar in junior high school!

I really fell off the Orange wagon this year Darryl which is all the worse since I have so many sitting on my shelf. But I've identified a few that I absolutely want to read in the next few months including A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne, When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson and Rose Tremain's Restoration. I didn't think The Betrayal was as good as The Siege which I thought was excellent and quite a page turner.

x

y?

Book 96: Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death at a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink



My rating:



In 1926 the Southern Baptist Convention sponsored the building of a new hospital in the Uptown section of New Orleans. The Southern Baptist Hospital, known by locals as "Baptist", was an impressive building that combined the amenities of a grand hotel with the latest technologies found in the best hospitals. Its primary mission was to provide the best medical and spiritual care to the poor of the city, in order to glorify God and His great works, in a cheerful and uplifting atmosphere. Charity cases were accepted upon referral from local Baptist churches, whose congregations collected donations to help defray the cost of the free care their members received. This offer was not extended to all New Orleanians, however, as African Americans were not accepted as patients at Baptist until 1968.

Within weeks of its opening Baptist experienced its first weather related crisis, as flood waters from a severe storm flowed into the hospital's basement, which resulted in moderate damage and loss of medical supplies, although no patients or staff were affected by it. The city's ancient sewer system was long known to be inadequate in removing heavy rainfall that resulted from tropical storms, particularly in the sections of town that lay at or below sea level. However, the improvements that would have been needed to address this problem were extremely costly, and neither the state legislature or the residents of Louisiana were willing to pay for them. The Flood Control Act of 1928 was passed in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, which put the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of projects to reduce flooding in prone areas such as New Orleans, and the city's drainage capacity was greatly increased as a result. However, these efforts provided little benefit to the neighborhood where Baptist was located, which continued to flood routinely after moderate rainfalls.



In 1990 Baptist merged with Mercy Hospital, located in the Mid-City section of New Orleans, to form Mercy-Baptist Medical Center. Five years later Tenet Healthcare Corporation, a Dallas based, investor owned and profit driven company founded by three lawyers, acquired the two hospitals of Mercy-Baptist, and Baptist was renamed Memorial Medical Center the following year. LifeCare Hospitals of New Orleans, a non-Tenet organization which provided acute inpatient care to critically ill and severely debilitated patients, leased the seventh floor of Memorial Medical Center. Many of the LifeCare patients were on mechanical ventilation, which is commonly referred to as life support.

As Hurricane Katrina approached the United States, hospitals in flood prone areas in southeastern Louisiana and elsewhere made preparations and in some cases evacuated patients to what were believed to be safer areas. Several LifeCare patients in Chalmette, a city in low lying St. Bernard Parish, were moved to "LifeCare Baptist" within Memorial Medical Center. Other hospitals were equally proactive, including Charity Hospital, the city's massive public hospital, where only three patients died during the days following Katrina. In the case of Memorial Medical Center, whose top management was far removed from the path of the hurricane, the response to the crisis was slow and woefully inadequate, particularly after the levees in New Orleans broke after Katrina had passed, which unleashed massive and never before seen flooding that knocked out electrical power to Memorial.



Memorial found itself cut off from outside help, as temperatures inside reached as high as 110 degrees and care for the sickest patients became nearly impossible, especially the LifeCare patients that depended on electricity to power mechanical ventilators and IV line pumps that delivered life sustaining medications. The hospital's administrators and medical staff, not knowing when help would arrive, due to limited communication with Tenet and with local, state and federal government officials, were faced with the extremely difficult decision of how their patients should be managed and in which order they should be evacuated. In a reversal of the usual triage system, it was decided to remove the patients who could be most easily transported and were the least sick first, in the thought that they would be most likely to survive the journey and the unknown conditions that awaited them on the outside. The most critically ill patients, those who had DNR orders and those who could not be easily loaded onto helicopters or airboats were saved for last. On day five outside help in sufficient numbers arrived, and a mass evacuation of patients and staff finally began. Memorial's hospital administrators and medical staff found themselves under extreme external pressure to evacuate the hospital completely and leave no living patients behind, as several critically ill, extremely fragile and difficult to transport patients remained on the wards.

After the flood waters receded, investigators found 45 bodies at Memorial, several of whom appeared to have died suddenly and under unusual circumstances on the day that the hospital was completely evacuated.

Five Days at Memorial provides a thorough account of what happened at Memorial Medical Center during that harrowing and hellish time, using the accounts of the medical staff, administrators, patients and families who were there, and the aftermath after the extent of the tragedy became apparent. Sheri Fink, a physician and journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2010 for her ProPublica articleThe Deadly Choices at Memorial, has done a masterful job in exploring this story in an unbiased manner, including the ethical dilemmas that the administrators and medical staff faced in deciding who should be evacuated first, and what care the sickest patients should receive under the most extreme conditions that any health care provider should ever have to face. Fink leaves it to the reader to decide the guilt or innocence of the physician and two nurses who faced criminal charges, as the top brass at Tenet and government officials who abandoned the staff and patients at Memorial and placed them in an impossible situation were not punished. It also reads like a well written adventure novel, which made it a book that was nearly impossible to put down, and one that will be accessible to readers of all backgrounds. Five Days at Memorial will likely end up as my favorite non-fiction book of 2013, and it should be a strong candidate for a Pulitzer Prize or a National Book Award in 2014.

For-profit medicine is a rank and evil concept.

Excellent review Darryl, and worth the wait! This sounds like a really great book. Off to apply my thumb.

Ditto, Darryl. Well done.

Darryl, I need to add Five Days at Memorial to my list. I'm heading to NOLA in June of next year, so it would probably be a good book to read beforehand.

Hi Darryl- Outstanding review of Five Days. You nailed everything. Hopefully, you can inspire many other LTers to pick up this fine book.

Thumbed. I just received my copy of the book from a sweet LT pal and I am really looking forward to it Darryl. Excellent review.

>81 richardderus: For-profit medicine is a rank and evil concept.

I'm fully in support of measures to cut excessive health care costs, such as the elimination of unnecessary tests (are daily labs really necessary for most hospitalized patients?), outpatient follow up of people recently discharged from the hospital (to ensure compliance with the treatment regimen and decrease the likelihood of readmission within 30 days), etc. Unfortunately for profit medicine generally is geared toward ordering more tests, performing more surgeries and procedures, and decreasing staffing (e.g., making floor nurses take care of more inpatients than is ideal or safe).

>82 lauralkeet:, 83 Thanks, Laura and Joe!

>84 thornton37814: I agree, Lori; Five Days at Memorial would be a good book to read. I also want to read The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley, and get back to The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans by Lawrence Powell, which describes the founding and early history of the Crescent City. Hopefully I'll read both books next year.

>85 msf59: Thanks, Mark, and thanks for recommending Five Days at Memorial! I would have read this book anyway, but your glowing comments put it at the top of my wish list, and I was fortunate to win an LT Early Reviewers copy of it.

>86 brenzi: Thanks, Bonnie; I hope that you enjoy it as well.

The was a good reveiw! Might have to pick the book up. There is book problem on my thread that you may be able to help with.

80: Just... wow.

#80 & 89 What qebo said - excellent review.

>88 BBGirl55: Thanks, Bryony!

>89 qebo: Wow indeed, Katherine.

>90 souloftherose: Thanks, Heather!

Darryl, did you see this article in The Millions about CanLit?

>92 brenzi: I hadn't seen that article about CanLit, Bonnie. Thanks for posting it; I'll read it tomorrow or Friday.

Many of us consider you International Man, when it comes to books and culture. I picture: suave, sophisticated, with a whiff of danger. Have you heard of The Sound of Things Falling? I received it as an ER and just started it and I am really enjoying it. It feels like your cuppa.

>94 msf59: LOL! Thanks for the compliment, Mark, although pediatricians aren't normally thought of as dangerous. ;-) I'll take suave and sophisticated, though (my family, close friends and workmates would probably roll on the floor in laughter, though).

I have read The Sound of Things Falling and I liked it. I gave it 4 stars, but I haven't reviewed it yet.

You da man! What did I say? I love his writing style. Smooth prose. His first 2 books look very good too. Have you heard of those?

Planned reads for November (as always, subject to change):

Asleep in the Sun, Adolfo Bioy Casares - completed
At Night We Walk in Circles, Daniel Alarcón - completed
The Blue Hour, Alonso Cueto - completed
Blue White Red, Alain Mabanckou
District and Circle, Seamus Heaney
The Good Lord Bird, James McBride
A Good Parcel of English Soil: The Metropolitan Line, Richard Mabey - completed
The Green House, Mario Vargas Llosa
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, Eve Harris
Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare - completed
Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, Percival Everett - reading
Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and Their Doctors, David Mendel - reading
A Question of Power, Bessie Head
Teeth Under the Sun, Ignácio de Loyola Brandão
Unexploded, Alison MacLeod
Waterloo-City, City-Waterloo: The Waterloo and City Line, Leanne Shapton - completed
When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963 by Bob Huffaker - completed

>96 msf59: Yep. I've read both of Juan Gabriel Vásquez's earlier translated novels, The Informers and The Secret History of Costaguana, and reviewed them on LT. Vásquez is probably my favorite of the new generation of Latin American authors.

Well, that's great news on Vasquez. I will be on the lookout. Thank you, kind sir.

Just popping in to make sure you're aware that Sheri Fink (Five days at Memorial) will be at The Atlanta Marcus Jewish Center's Book Festival on November 11th.

And to ask if you've heard of Keeping hope alive: One woman: 90,000 Lives Changed by Hawa Abdi. Abdi is a Somali doctor living in Somailia, and it's about her and her family's experiences offering medical care and refuge to people displaced by the violence there.

>99 msf59: You're welcome, Mark.

>100 markon: Thanks for letting me know, Ardene. Unfortunately I won't be able to hear Sheri Fink speak, as I have to work that night (8 pm to 8 am), and her talk starts at 7:30 pm.

ETA: I hadn't heard of Keeping Hope Alive; I'll add it to my wish list. Thanks again!

Can't wait to hear what you think of The Good Lord Bird, Darryl. I liked his The Color of Water a lot.

I too am looking forward to your opinion of his book The Good Lord Bird. I had an opportunity to hear James McBride read from this book at the recent book festival here in Baltimore. It was particularly interesting to hear the research that he did for the book. I can recommend The Color of Water which I read on MLK day a couple of yrs ago and another Song Yet Sung, set just prior to the Civil War in Dorchester County on MD's Eastern Shore where I lived for a few yrs. All good reading.

>102 jnwelch: Will do, Joe. I've owned a paperback copy of The Color of Water for at least 15 years, but I haven't read it yet. Must get to it soon...

>103 catarina1: James McBride was in Decatur, which is just east of Atlanta, on Monday night, but I had to work late and couldn't make his talk about The Good Lord Bird.

Ambitious list of reading as usual Darryl.

I will join you on The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto during November.

btw I thought you had read most of District and Circle already?

Have a lovely weekend.

>105 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. As usual, it's probably overly ambitious, especially since I'll work several more shifts this month than I normally would.

As I may have mentioned earlier, three of my partners and I, all of whom work part time (I'm 80% of FT), have agreed to work full time schedules from November to March, the months when we have the most patients and need the most doctors. In return, we'll each get a month off from work during the late spring or summer, without having to use any vacation time. I'll be off in June, and I'm thinking of spending two weeks in London, a week in Paris, and a week in Barcelona (which is why I bought several books about Barcelona when I went to Daunt Books last month).

I'm glad that you'll join me in reading The Blue Hour (another book I bought at Daunt Books).

I've been carrying District and Circle around for several months, but I haven't read any poems in it for at least two months. I'll start reading it from the beginning, probably starting next week.

I've been slow to post my London travelogue from last month, so I'll make it a point to catch up over the next week.

On Tuesday the 15th at 4 pm I met Heather (souloftherose) and Luci (elkiedee) at the main branch of Daunt Books, the famed travel bookshop, located on Marylebone High Street close to Madame Tussauds wax museum. I had never been there, and when Heather mentioned that she was also interested in going and had never been it made for an easy decision to meet there.



The exterior of the bookshop was striking, but the interior was even better. I had seen numerous pictures of the shop, but seeing it in person filled me with awe.



The bookshop's collection is organized geographically, with European countries on the main level, the United Kingdom on the upper level, and remainder of the world's countries in the basement. Each country has its own separate section, and within each section the books are organized by region and city, regardless of genre. I bought four books about Barcelona that were sitting alongside each other: two guidebooks, Everyman Mapguides Barcelona and Secret Barcelona; one nonfiction book, Homage to Barcelona by Colm Tóibín; and one novel, A Thousand Morons by Quim Monzó, an author from Barcelona.

I left with a total of nine books, along with a lovely blue Daunt Books bag. Heather found several books about Uganda, for her upcoming trip there. Luci, the most frugal of the three of us, visited an Oxfam bookshop a few doors down.

We didn't take any photos, as we were in a hurry to get to Southwark by 5:30 pm, to meet Jenny (lunacat) and Lesley, a friend of a friend of Rachael's (FlossieT), for dinner and drinks before we saw Much Ado About Nothing at The Old Vic, near Waterloo Station. We met at The Cut Bar, a popular bar and restaurant located within the building that houses The Young Vic, located a short distance away from The Old Vic.



Rachael was originally supposed to join us to see the play, but she received an invitation to the Granta Books party for Eleanor Catton that evening, as the 15th was the night of the Booker Prize announcement; Lesley went in her place instead. Rachael did meet us briefly before the play started, which was very nice of her considering that she had to rush from her office in Bloomsbury south across the Thames, and then hurry back north to make it to the party.

This was my first visit to the nearly 200 year old theatre, and it was a visual treat.

On to the play and script:

Book #103: Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare



My rating:

A short background for the 0.1% of you who aren't familiar with the story (which included me until last month):

Much Ado About Nothing, which is believed to have been written between 1598 and 1599, is considered to be one of Shakespeare's best comedies, which combines sharp wit with jealousy, love and honor. The setting is the Sicilian city of Messina, where its governor Leonato, welcomes an army of Spaniards after a successful battle. The soldiers are led by Don Pedro, whose closest companions are Claudio, a young man who has distinguished himself in battle, and Benedick, a witty but cynical bachelor who vows never to marry. Don John, Don Pedro's black hearted brother who has recently gained his way back into his brother's good graces, is also part of the army, along with his friends Borachio and Conrade. Claudio falls hopelessly in love with Hero, Leonato's only child, a lovely and innocent girl who is equally enamored of him, and the two obtain permission to marry. As Don John and his henchmen conspire to disrupt the wedding, others engage in an equally devious plot to unite Benedick and Beatrice, Hero's acid tongued and clever but beautiful cousin, who engage in a near constant battle of wills until each expresses affection for the other.



The Old Vic production stars 75 year old Vanessa Redgrave as Beatrice and 81 year old James Earl Jones as Benedick, in an odd casting of the lovers who are supposed to be much younger. However, the two stars performed brilliantly in their roles, although the supporting cast was almost entirely forgettable. The play was set during World War II, as Don Pedro and his men were part of a U.S. Army division instead of a 16th century Spanish regiment. The performance was also aided by several humorous elements, including several Boy and Girl Scouts that played the roles of Watchmen, and a delightfully decrepit elderly man that performed a hilarious dance routine and played the role of Verges, the assistant to constable Dogberry.



Overall I'd give 3 stars to the supporting cast, 4 stars to the play as a whole, thanks to Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones, and 5 stars to the delightful afternoon and evening with Heather, Luci, Jenny, Lesley and Rachael.

Wow Daunt Books is aptly named ~ daunting indeed.
Huge fan of Ms. Redgrave who looks like she can still cut a swathe even alongside Darth Vader!

Wow, that's a way more impressive store than the Daunt on Cheapside! Not that I had any complaints about the one I went to, but that one has a wow factor.

>109 PaulCranswick: Definitely so, Paul.

Ms Redgrave and Mr Jones certainly held their own, which was doubly impressive given their ages.

>110 Nickelini: I only had a brief glance at the Cheapside branch of Daunt Books, Joyce, as I was riding on the top level of a double decker bus that passed by but didn't stop in front of that bookshop.

Book #104: Asleep in the Sun by Adolfo Bioy Casares
Originally published in 1973
Translated from the Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine
Reissued by New York Review Books in 2004

  

My rating:

Lucio Bordenave lives in a modest home in a small alley, along with his wife Diana, a woman of modest beauty and frequent, unpredictable tempers, and Doña Ceferina, an older relative who serves as the couple's housekeeper but excels at stirring up trouble between them and Diana's cantankerous family. Lucio is also surrounded by meddlesome neighbors who offer less than helpful advice on his troubled marriage, and his only escape is to his room, where he earns a profitable living as a repairer of clocks.

A friend of Diana's, noting her difficult behavior, encourages Lucio to have her committed to a nearby mental institution, as the man is a close friend of the head physician there, who he thinks can help her. Lucio reluctantly does so, but almost immediately regrets his decision. When she is released weeks later she is a changed woman, happy and full of life and love for her husband, but Lucio realizes that something isn't quite right, even though likes the "new" Diana considerably better. He visits the friend who recommended Diana's institutionalization, then returns to the asylum, where he makes a discovery that is shocking to him and a threat to his marriage and to the residents of his community.

Asleep in the Sun is a surreal and allegorical novel, mixed with wry humor, menace and a touch of magical realism. This is normally the type of book that I thoroughly enjoy; however, unlike The Obscene Bird of Night, the brilliant novel by José Donoso, I found myself far less interested in Casares' characters or the plot as a whole. Part of the reason may be that I read the description of the book on its back cover, which negatively influenced my approach to the novel, as other reviewers have said. It was an moderately enjoyable read, albeit a disappointing one, and I may give it another chance in the future to see if I like it better on a second reading.

...so Stepford moves from Connecticut to Argentina, eh? Bah.

Ah, I will definitely put Daunt Books on the list for my next visit to London (not sure when hat will be, however).

The Cut Bar looks quite familiar . . . I know that I saw something at the Old Vic and probably stopped in there, too. Much Ado about Nothing is a play I've seen quite a few times and even worked with in production. Glad to hear that the unusual casting worked out--I never would have imagined Beatrice and Benedick as senior citizens!

112> magical realism (((((shudder)))))

Book #105: A Good Parcel of English Soil: The Metropolitan Line by Richard Mabey



My rating:

Richard Mabey, one of England's most respected nature writers, was commissioned by Penguin to write this book for its Underground Lines series, in celebration of the London Underground's 150th anniversary in 2013. Mabey spent his childhood in Metro-land, a suburban area northwest of central London that was a creation of the Metropolitan Railway in the early 20th century. It was designed to attract city workers and their families to the benefits of pastoral life while making them dependent on the extended Metropolitan Line and the land the company purchased in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex.

  

Mabey provides a history of the Metropolitan Line, which began in 1863 as a link for city workers arriving at London's major railway terminals at Paddington, Euston and King's Cross stations, then spread outward after the company's owners realized that the poor and middle class residents of the city sought refuge out of the city to nearby villages and towns on weekends and holidays. Mabey aptly recalls his childhood in one of the Metro-land towns, and provides rich descriptions of the flora and fauna found there. Although the Metropolitan Railway bought the suburban land and created the towns of Metro-land for its own profit, most of those who relocated there did benefit from the move, as Mabey's family did when they escaped the London Blitz during World War II.

A Good Parcel of English Soil is a beautifully written and evocative book, which is easily one of the best of the Penguin Underground Lines series and one which would be appreciated by residents of suburban London as well as the casual reader.

>113 richardderus: Not exactly Stepford wives, Richard, but somewhat similar.

>114 Cariola: Daunt Books definitely earns a spot among my favorite bookshops, Deborah.

The Cut Bar is within the building that houses The Young Vic and is on the same street (the oddly named The Cut) as The Old Vic, and it's a short walk between the two theaters.

I hadn't seen Much Ado About Nothing before, so my opinion of it is based on the performances of Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones, and not in comparison to other renditions I've seen. Heather, Jenny and Lesley recommended seeing the film version of it that starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice. I'll plan to watch it over the holidays.

I like some novels that incorporate magic realism, but not all of them by any means.

Ah, now I remember--I actually saw a play at the Young Vic, World Music by Tony Kushner. (No touchstone coming up.) You would have loved that one. Had dinner down the street at an interesting place called Whitefish (or was it Whitebait?).

I finally succumbed . . . I knew that I would eventually: I just ordered a Kindle Paperwhite.

>117 Cariola: I haven't seen any of Tony Kushner's productions yet, Deborah. What was that one about? I can't find anything about it either.

I'll bet that the place you went to was Livebait, which was located on The Cut. Unfortunately it seems to have closed recently. Lesley was telling us about a superb Indian restaurant on a side street close to The Cut; I'll have to find out the name of it from her.

Congratulations on ordering a Kindle Paperwhite! I look forward to your comments about it. Is this your first Kindle? I have the original third generation Kindle (Kindle Keyboard) I bought nearly three years ago, and it still works perfectly. I read A Good Parcel of English Soil on it yesterday.

I tried to find some info on World Music on Amazon but as you may have found out, it wasn't listed. But I did buy a copy and found it on my shelf. I was mistaken--it wasn't by Kushner (and now it will drive me crazy trying to recall what that play I saw by Kushner was . . . ). 'World Music' was by Steve Waters. Here is the info from the back cover:

"You flowed through my country, friends. Birds we called you, 'Europeans': flying in with your plans. Promises made, friendships formed, foundations laid, then gone again, gone, like birds."

The troubled and bloody relationship between Africa and Europe spills into the personal lives of two generations. In his new play, WORLD MUSIC, Steve Waters draws from the tragic history of Central Africa to show how the deeds of the past contaminate our hopes for the future.
_____________

It was a very powerful play--very unusual as some scenes take place simultaneously. One actor plays an Member of the European Parliament in his 40s and his own 19-year old son; there are two other MEPs, one a Socialist and one a Caribbean woman. Other scenes take place in the African country of Irundi, which is beset by violence. Florence, a young refugee, ties the two settings together. In an author's note, Waters says that although Irundi is fictional, it is based on the tragedies in Rwanda.

______________

Yes, Livebait it was! Sorry to hear that it closed--it was a very lively seafood place with great food.

This will be my first Kindle. I've been thinking about it for awhile. I feel a bit guilty as I have so many unread books stacked up around here, but the features on the newest model were just too tempting, plus my eyes aren't getting any better as I age. It will help to be able to increase the font size, and the paperwhite is supposed to reduce eye strain. I had been waiting for the bugs in the first model to get ironed out, and it looks like they have been. I'm excited to be getting a new toy!

And I did find the Kushner play; it was Homebody/Kabul:

Set in Kabul, this play examines current day Afghanistan, its history, its long long-tortured relationship with the West and its current complex political and humanitarian crisis. As the story unfolds the Homebody, a bored, emotionally imprisoned but wildly intellectual English woman, finds refuge and escape in the alternate world Afghanistan, which she exoticizes in her mind's eye with the help of an out-of-date tourist guide book. Her mysterious disappearance prompts an ensuing search by her ineffectual husband and her emotionally detached daughter, who arrive in the foreign land unprepared for the adventures that await them. In their quest for truth and closure the lines between the real and the unreal, the political and the personal, the public and the private, the psychological and the sociological are intentionally blurred and artfully ambiguous. As in his previous work, Kushner's ability to provoke, entertain, reinvent and reconstitute language is nothing short of astonishing; with Homebody/Kabul, Kushner reaffirms his status as one of the most important and dynamic contemporary dramatists in the world.

>119 Cariola: Thanks, Deborah! You're right, from your description I would have loved to have seen World Music. I've added the script to my Amazon UK wish list, and I'll look for it at the National Theatre Bookshop next year.

I also found an article in The Guardian from 2004 written by Steve Waters just before this play was shown at Donmar Warehouse:

The truth behind the facts: The resurgence of documentary-style theatre underlines the importance of dramatic imagination

I'm now sorry to hear about Livebait's closing.

I've been tempted by the Kindle Paperwhite, but since my Kindle Keyboard is working perfectly I can't justify buying another one. I'll be very interested to get your take on it, and hopefully someone I know will get one so that I can compare it with mine. I can read Kindle books on my laptop, iPad and smartphone, but none compare with the ease and comfort of using the Kindle.

I had heard of Homebody/Kabul, but I didn't see it, unfortunately.

Book #106: Waterloo-City, City-Waterloo: The Waterloo & City Line by Leanne Shapton



My rating:

The Waterloo & City Line is easily the shortest and least used of the 11 current London Underground lines. It runs between two busy stations, Waterloo on the South Bank beneath the National Rail station and Bank in the historic heart of the capital's financial district. The trip is just under 1½ miles in length and takes barely 4 minutes, which is still longer than the similar Times Square to Grand Central Terminal shuttle along 42nd Street in Manhattan.

Waterloo-City, City-Waterloo consists of brief external descriptions and the imagined thoughts of several people riding the subway, along with mostly inscrutable diagrams that include scribbles on newspapers, large dots in meaningless configurations, and drawings of what appears to be water in motion, presumably from the River Thames, as this line passes underneath it for a portion of the short journey. The dialogues are mostly petty and mean-spirited, as all riders seem to hate their jobs, their lives and their lovers and friends, and most obsess about their attractiveness (or lack of it) and their personal miseries. The most appealing portions of the book were the two collections of photos of babies and toddlers, although all of the children were white, which was rather anachronistic in multicultural London and its diverse population of subway passengers. This was a very disappointing read, whose shallow depth matches the brief length of the Underground line it was meant to portray.

Five Days at Memorial sounds like a fantastic book! The staff there must have faced the kinds of decisions that no one would ever want to. To me, it sounded an excellent idea to move patients out into the unknown that were most likely to survive and the easiest to move. Criticisms must have been fired every which way when the crisis was over, however. You allude to a sinister-sounding set of circumstances when you mention the 45 bodies that died in unusually....I cant wait to read this book.

>123 LovingLit: Five Days at Memorial was a superb book, Megan. You're right in saying that the medical and administrative staff that was trapped in the hospital did not want to make the decisions they had to. All of them were dedicated to their patients, and I suspect that most of them think about those five days on a regular basis, and will continue to do so for the remainder of their lives. The physician who was criminally charged and arrested was portrayed as being dedicated and fiercely loyal to her patients, even when it meant butting heads with nurses, other doctors, and administrators, so I found it difficult to condemn her for her actions, as she was in the print and television media across the country.

I hope that you do get to read it. I mentioned in my Club Read thread earlier today that the lovely woman at the front desk at Daunt Books asked me about Five Days at Memorial, and wrote down its title so that she could read it as well.

I love the pictures of Daunt books--what a gorgeous store, and what an intriguing organizational system.

Thanks for the review of Much Ado About Nothing. It would be a thrill to see Redgrave and Jones, and I could imagine the older romance working with this play. Too bad the rest of the cast wasn't up to snuff. I have seen the play a couple of times, and recently watched the Joss Whedon film version, which I very much enjoyed.

I just got back from Barcelona! Great city!
When you start to plan your trip- I will have some suggestions for you!

>126 torontoc:: My daughter was just there last weekend with some school friends. Although I suspect the activities a group of 20-somethings engaged in might not be what Darryl is looking for, LOL!

>125 banjo123: I'm glad that you liked the photos of Daunt Books, Rhonda; they came from the Internet, though.

I had never seen Vanessa Redgrave or James Earl Jones on the stage, and given their advanced ages I wasn't sure if I would get the chance to see either of them, or certainly both of them together, on the stage in the future. Their presence alone made the play a worthwhile and memorable performance, and seeing it with Heather, Jenny and Lesley combined with our visit to Daunt Books and a nice dinner made it that much more special.

>126 torontoc: I'll definitely take you up on your Barcelona suggestions, Cyrel! I'm glad to hear that you had a lovely visit there.

>127 lauralkeet: Yep, you're almost certainly right, Laura. However, I wouldn't be too surprised if there may have been one or more things that your daughter did or places that she visited that I might be of interest to me.

Darryl, your description of Daunt Bookshop is really lovely and enticing. Perhaps this should be obvious, but given the size of the place, I'm wondering about the variety of genres. Does their inventory include fiction with setting or place as a central feature, as well as nonfiction about places? In either case, when I am next in London, this place is certainly on my list to visit.

#115 Excellent review of the Penguin Underground book, Darryl. I can't believe I grew up so close to Metro-land and had never heard of it before. I will definitely look out for the book.

>115 kidzdoc:: I ordered that based on your review, Darryl. I love stuff like this!

I'm on night call (8 pm to 8 am) tonight and Monday night, followed by two day shifts on Thursday and Friday, so I won't be on LT much until Wednesday, or possibly next weekend. It's quiet here at the moment, but it probably won't stay that way.

I did finish At Night We Walk in Circles by the Peruvian author Daniel Alarcón, which was my LT Early Reviewers book for September. It was a fabulous and captivating read that started out slowly but progressively built up steam and became an unputdownable book in its latter half. It was a signficantly better book than his debut novel Lost City Radio. I've given it 4-1/2 stars, and I'll try to review it during my day off on Wednesday.

>129 EBT1002: Does their inventory include fiction with setting or place as a central feature, as well as nonfiction about places?

Yes it does, Ellen. I bought two travel guides to Barcelona, along with Homage to Barcelona, a nonfiction tribute to the city by Colm Tóibín, and the novel A Thousand Morons by Quim Monzó, an author who resides there. All of these books were on one shelf in Daunt Books' section on Spain. The other novels I bought were also located in the country that it was set in or the one that the author originated from, and there was no obvious distinction between genres within a given section.

>130 souloftherose: Thanks, Heather. The Penguin Underground Lines series has definitely been a mixed bag, but A Good Parcel of English Soil was one of the three that I liked best.

>131 tiffin: Great! I hope that you like it, Tui.

For all the Pat Barker fans of LT, and I thought you were one of them, Darryl:

On Thursday 5th December 2013 Pat Barker will be talking about her novel Regeneration on World Book Club.

We need questions to be emailed from outside Britain and if you’re in the UK we need guests to be part of the audience at Broadcasting House, W1 at 12.30pm

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and now recognised as a modern classic Regeneration is the hugely acclaimed exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men.

If you wish to attend please send in your name for our guest list (we don’t issue tickets) and if you have a question please send it to worldbookclub@bbc.co.uk

Best wishes,
BBC World Book Club

Thank you for posting this, Richard. I will definitely tune in. I thought the whole trilogy was good, but Regeneration was the best. It should have gotten the Booker instead of the third one, IMO.

>133 richardderus: I would love to hear an LT persons question read on on the BBC World Book Club! It is a good format, and I listen when I remember.

Hi Darryl,
Another trip to look forward to! That is very exciting. I got close to Spain once, as close as the South of France. I would love to go to the Guggenheim Art Museum there, and see the Gaudi buildings.

133> Thanks for the info, Richard. Regeneration is one of the books I'm assigning next semester for my Seminar in Historical Fiction. Wish I could be there!

134> I SO agree with you about the Booker.

Darryl, just wanted to say that I really love the Kindle Paperwhite. I find that I am able to read faster and longer--much less eye strain with the light and being able to adjust the font size.

Livebait is CLOSED??? The horror.... That was an excellent fish restaurant...

Deborah -- interesting melange of books, although heavily tilted to 20th century. If you ever put together another list, I'd suggest Pure by Andrew Miller would make a good addition. There's also a new book about to be published in English about Jacques Coeur, a 15th century banker during the 100 years' war in France.

Also agree re Regeneration... May try to re-read it before the 5th so I can send in a quasi-intelligent question! Read it when it first came out but haven't re-read it since.

Shakespeare: I started reading him in 10th grade, with Macbeth, and spent six or seven weeks of my life in my senior year minutely analyzing Hamlet. But I was lucky because I'd been seeing dramatic productions off and on since I was a child. Julius Caesar is probably one of my favorites; of the "great" plays (Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Othello), Othello is the one I am least drawn to. Not sure why. Of the comedies, I adore Twelfth Night, which probably was the first one I saw as a child (I can't really remember...) and I also am a BIG fan of The Tempest, especially Prospero. For a while, I belonged to a Shakespeare reading group (that's how I met 75 group member Chexmix about a decade ago); we would meet every month or so and discuss the plays, read bits of them aloud and sometimes listen to audio recordings or watch snippets of the great BBC telecasts. The language & expressiveness is so rich that when I read his work at home, I can't stop myself from reading aloud. I think I need to fill in the gaps of the history plays, with the Henry IV and Henry VI plays. Wanna read about Hotspur.

Vanessa Redgrave is a fab actress. For a while, every time I went to London, she was appearing in a Shaw play, so I've seen far more GBS than I otherwise would have chosen!! Heartbreak House was the memorable one -- Imogen Stubbs was in it, also David Calder. Directed by Trevor Nunn, so I wonder if it was an RSC transfer to the West End??

I love my Paperwhite too. More than I love my Fire, and about the same as I love the basic Kindle (which is less reliable) and more than I love my Kindle keyboard. Just for context... :-)

Suz, you will enjoy Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V, but I couldn't recommend you read the Henry VI (parts 1,2, and 3!). They were early plays and not very good. Usually modern productions cut them severely and present them as one evening, which makes them slightly more palatable.

Of course, Henry VI... is followed by Richard III in historical context, and I've seen a compressed Henry VI end with the first few lines of Richard, just to bring in that ominous note. But of course, that's a much better play. Watching and listening to it last Friday, I was struck by how many lines are 'almost' lines - almost MacBeth, almost Hamlet. S. was pretty much full throttle with Richard.

But R3 turns the real-life R3 into such a caricature I have trouble stomaching it... I'm not a blind idolizing twit, like some members of the R3 society (i'm amazed that people can get so worked up about the character of a king who ruled for 2 years and has been dead for more than 500....) but I do like a wee bit of balance. Mr. S. does justice to Julius, Brutus, Mark Antony et al, after all...

137> I really wanted to include a novel set in the Victorian era, but nothing seemed 'literary' enough--or else it was an 800-page door-stopper, and that would have been too much for these students. The books are all purposely set in the UK as I wanted to narrow the focus. Small Island was kind of a last thought, partly because we get a lot of pressure to include multicultural works, and partly because it is quite different from the others. And I confess that I was also influenced to choose books that I know fairly well, would enjoy spending time with again and reading papers about, and that (with one exception) are available as DVD dramatizations. What can I say? This isn't exactly an ivy-league university . . .

I always teach Richard III, partly because it gives me a chance to talk about revisionist history under the Tudors. I also like to start my course with a kind of sub-theme of monstrosity: Titus Andronicus, Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, and The Taming of the Shrew (and sometimes Othello, although it's not a favorite of mine either)--all of which feature characters who are considered "outsiders" for one reason or another. That makes for a good discussion of what the social norms and inherent beliefs of the period were, and how Shakespeare sometimes challenged them.

BTW, Smithsonian channel has been running a fascinating documentary about the recent discovery of Richard's skeleton, how they made the final verification and actually put a face to it.

Woo! I finished my last night call of 2013 in grand style yesterday morning. I admitted 16 patients to our service from 8 pm to 8 am, and the neurohospitalist working alongside me admitted 6 General Pediatrics patients from 8 pm to midnight, for a total of 22 patients. That's the most I've ever had on a 12 hour night shift. I finished working just before 10 am, and proceeded to sleep for 17 hours in a 20 hour period from 11:30 am yesterday to 7:30 am today. Thankfully I'm off today, as I'm still very tired after a full week last week, two night calls, and the effects of a chest cold and sinusitis from a viral upper respiratory infection (which, fortunately, has not yet led to an asthma exacerbation). I'll have two day shifts on Thursday and Friday, then I'll be off for the weekend.

This time of year is the first crazy busy spell of the "winter" season, as RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and rhinovirus are in full force, which cause bronchiolitis in infants and asthma exacerbations in susceptible older children. We discharge 20-30+ kids daily from the hospital, but end up admitting 20-30+ more patients every afternoon and evening, so our work days seem quite Sisphyean in nature:



I'm nearly halfway through The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto, which has been excellent so far. I'll almost certainly finish it by this evening, after I take another nap.

>133 richardderus: Thanks for the information about Pat Barker's appearance on the World Book Club broadcast next month, Richard. I haven't read Regeneration yet (or anything else by her for that matter) and I'm working that day, but I'll try to listen to the re-broadcast of this show next month.

>134 labfs39: That's good to hear, Lisa. I may try to read Regeneration early next month in advance of the World Book Club broadcast.

>135 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan. I'll have this trip in mind frequently during our busy fall and winter season, as I'll need to have something to look forward to on busy and stressful work days.

>136 Cariola: I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying your Kindle Paperwhite, Deborah. I think I'll stick with my Kindle Keyboard for now, as it still works perfectly after nearly three years of use. If and when it goes bad I'll definitely upgrade to the Paperwhite version.

>137 Chatterbox: I think I'm the only person I know of who still has his original Kindle Keyboard, Suz. I did buy an Amazon cover for it (the one with the built in LED light), which may have something to do with it. Mine has been completely reliable so far, touch wood.

Back to sleep...

funny video of that poor cat mama on the slide. the kits must be having fun, though.

#141 I think I'm the only person I know of who still has his original Kindle Keyboard I've still got mine as well, and never had a cover for it!

Wow, with that many patients, I don't know how you are getting any reading done at all. Yes, respitory ick season is hitting in MN too. I'm glad you're asthma is behaving itself mostly, for now, knock on wood. I have it too, so totally understand.

I'll be interested in seeing what you have to say about The Blue Hour. I'm always interested in lit from Latin American countries.

Love that video, Darryl! Have been watching it over and over, and Cassie-the-deli-kitten has been eyeing it over my shoulder and trying to swat the cats with her paw against the laptop screen.

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy," as Camus opined...

Deborah, yes, that's an utterly logical way to go about it (and I wasn't trying to second guess you!) I'm kind of auditing a Coursera historical fiction class (not writing the papers etc. as I simply don't have time/energy right now), which is interesting. All of those are works of merit, and I do like including Small Island.

Fascinating re the outsider theme in Shakespeare, and I may revisit some of those plays with that in mind. or read "Titus" for the first time. Interestingly, few of those plays are faves of mine, and I wonder if that element has something to do with it? I do know that the misogyny in "Shrew" and anti-semitism in The Merchant of Venice -- however accurate historically -- make me uncomfortable. Though I do like that speech of Shylock's, and Portia on the quality of mercy. Odd, none of those venerable soliloquies ever sounds cliched, no matter how familiar it becomes over time. Shakespeare=genius.

OK, back under duvet to nurse obnoxious cold and feel sorry for myself.

I start to feel like that mama cat at about this point in the semester . . .

145> BTW, if I had to name one favorite, it would be King Lear (even though it is a hard one to teach--the students have little to no empathy for Lear).

And coincidentally, I just downloaded Pure about a week ago; meant to say that earlier.

No empathy for Lear??? Obviously, I was never young.

I still have my Kindle Keyboard. Works just fine.

Yay no more night shifts for 2013!

I did finish The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto. It started out very well, but the second half of the book wasn't nearly as good. I'll give it 3½ stars for now, and I'll review it this weekend; I'm still too brain fried to review anything more challenging than Green Eggs and Ham.

>137 Chatterbox: I now wish that I had heard of Livebait before it closed.

Pure is one of several dozen books I own that I've been very eager to read but haven't gotten to yet. I'm very tempted to make it the next novel that I read, but I think I'll wait until next year.

>137 Chatterbox:-140 *skipping over the Shakespeare talk for now* (too tired to think!)

>142 ffortsa: Yep; it looks like the kittens are having a far better time than their mother is, Judy.

>143 SandDune: Well done, Rhian. I know several people outside of LT who have gone through two or more Kindle Keyboards in the past two or three years.

>144 cammykitty: Katie, at this time of year I usually only read during my days off, as I get home too late and am almost always too tired to read when I get home. I managed to start reading The Blue Hour during one the three hours that I was awake yesterday afternoon, but I read nearly all of it today. I doubt that I'll finish anything else before the weekend.

>145 Chatterbox: I'm glad that you liked the animated .gif, Suz.

>146 Cariola: Deborah, during this time of year I definitely feel like Sisyphus, except that it seems as though the boulder occasionally rolls over me as it travels down the hill.

>147 Cariola: I'll be curious to get your take on Pure.

>149 luvamystery65: Yes, I'm glad to be finished with night call for at least the next 1½ months, Roberta.

Off to bed...

Omg I'm laughing hysterically over the Sisyphean cat. I can't wait to use that at work. Trust me, I can think of several valid use cases.

I am also loving the cats.

That's great information about the World Book Club interview. I just read Regeneration (really liked it) and had a question, so I've e-mailed it off. Apparently if they use the question, Pat Barker might even call me--wouldn't that be a thrill?

Lear is also my favorite Shakespeare. I saw a great version of it this summer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Rest up, Darryl! And we will wait for the review of Green Eggs and Ham.

passing thru, I am also still running a Kindle keyboard, which still word fine .... no upgrade till it starts to looks as though it will die ...

Hamlet will forever be my favorite Shakespearean play, Darryl, because I had a wonderful eleventh grade English teacher who took our class to Toronto to see Richard Burton star in the part. (I know, I'm dating myself here.) As a very uncosmopolitan teenager, I was totally impressed by the play and even by the Chinese restaurant we went to afterwards. I overheard our teacher tell the owner that we (the students) never got anything but meat and potatoes. Heh, she knew her students and their families. Anyway, I went on to minor in Shakespeare in college. Love the man and his plays.

On my Xmas wishlist is Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt. After reading his book about Poggio Bracciolini, I decided that anything else he wrote was probably brilliant and compelling as well... :-) I had been ducking it so there is simply so much written about Mr. S, and I'm more interested in the context in which he wrote and why than on the murky biographical details. (let alone the conspiracy theories...)

I haven't posted for a while Darryl, but over the past couple of days I managed to read up on what I missed. Very belated thank you for all the London posts and pics... It's been ages since I've been there and I so hope I'll find the time and courage to go for at least a weekend in 2014 or latest 2015. (courage because I am always a bit scared travelling to big cities alone, I am not great with maps :-) ).

Also thanks for reminding me of all the Shakespeare plays I still need to read. That first Henryad (or was it the second, the one with the War of Roses?) has been stopping my progress for years now, I never get over the first of 3 parts. I think I'll just skip those for now and get to Richard III directly instead of reading and watching them in order.

My Kindle keyboard is also still running after 3 years, but lately it had some small issues - half black screens which went away just by paging forward and backward. Early this year I set up a Kindle paperwhite for my neighbour, and though it is lighter and has more features, I prefer my keyboard one and hope it will live on for a while. I prefer the paging by keys to the touchscreen. There were some other things I didn't really like, but when the time comes I'll get a paperwhite no doubt.

Have a great Sunday!

Happy Sunday, everyone! Anyone in the US awake yet? I had a productive day yesterday (which probably correlates with my absence on LT), as I had my car's annual check up and preparation for winter, read medical journals, and finished my LT Early Reviewers' book for October, When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963 by Bob Huffaker, which was an eyewitness account and subsequent analysis by four still living reporters and photographers for KRLD TV and radio, the CBS affiliate for Dallas, of the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas City Jail two days later, Ruby's murder trial the following year, and the effect that JFK's assassination had on Dallas, the country, television as a medium for delivering news to the public, and the differences in news coverage in 2013 as compared to 1963. It was a bit uneven in spots, but overall it was a very good book, and a very timely one, since this coming Friday marks the 50th anniversary of that tragic day. I've given it four stars, and I'll review it later today.

11/22/63 also marks my first memory of childhood; I would have been a little over 2½ years old that day. I remember looking out of our large living room window on an overcast and gloomy day, and hearing my mother cry and sob as she called my father at work to let him know what had happened that afternoon in Dallas.

I'll catch up on messages after I return from the supermarket...

A day seared in my memory too, and probably in all of ours who are old enough to remember it.

158: which probably correlates with my absence on LT
Heh.

11/22/63 also marks my first memory of childhood
I was 5. My parents tell me that I was extremely upset, so much so that they sheltered us kids from this and subsequent events, but have no memory of it.

The CBS News program Sunday Morning, which I'm currently watching, is dedicating the entire 90 minute program to a remembrance of JFK.

>152 lauralkeet: I'm sure that many working adults and especially mothers of young children can relate to the Sisyphean cat, Laura.

>153 banjo123: Today is the first day I've felt truly rested in at least a couple of weeks, Rhonda. Reviews of books are coming soon!

>154 roundballnz: Same here, Alex. I love my iPad, but it's so much easier to read books on the Kindle.

>155 brenzi: Nice story about Hamlet, Bonnie!

>156 Chatterbox: That sounds like a potentially interesting book, Suz.

>157 Deern: Hi, Nathalie! I'm glad that you liked my latest London travelogue. You'll have to let us know when you do visit London! I'm hoping to make at least three or four trips there next year.

I'm curious to get a look at the Kindle Paperwhite, although I don't see any reason to get one while my Kindle Keyboard is working perfectly.

Breaking news: CNN has just reported that Nobel Prize winning author Doris Lessing has died at the age of 94.

>159 rebeccanyc: Definitely so, Rebecca. I was too young to appreciate the significance of JFK's assassination at the time, of course, but I think it's the most significant and saddest news story of my life, even more so than MLK's assassination on April 4, 1968, RFK's assassination later that year, and 9/11. I was choked up a couple of times during the CBS Sunday Morning broadcast, and again when LBJ's daughter talked about her memory of that day on Face the Nation just now. The optimism, hope and innocence that many Americans had died permanently on November 22, 1963, and we as a country have never been the same since that day IMO.

>160 qebo: Interesting comment about 11/22/63, Katherine. Were you at home that day or in school? How did you and your parents find out what happened? I don't remember anything other than my mother crying on the phone that afternoon, but I have no other memories from that day.

My mother tells me that I was very distressed and asked “Is that what happens to presidents when people don’t like them?” but I have no memory whatsoever of JFK or MLK or RFK except a generic image of the TV in the dining room. I was the oldest of three (at the time of JFK) then four (at the time of MLK and RFK), and I’d guess that my parents did some serious sheltering from TV coverage. My parents were politically involved, my mother co-chair of the city Democratic Party, both members of NAACP, so the assassinations were super significant to them. JFK would’ve happened when I was attending the private preschool (this was before kindergarten became a standard of public school) run by Psyche Cattell, who surely would have had an opinion on how to convey traumatic information to children, but again, I have no memory whatsoever.

I don't remember as I was three and a half months old, but I was probably having my diaper changed. I've always thought my first public memory was the Apollo Moon Landing (1969), but now that I think about it, I remember celebrations for Canada's Centennial, which was 1967. So that's a nice first public memory.

Book #109: When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963 by Bob Huffaker, Bill Mercer, George Phenix and Wes Wise.

  

My rating:

On November 21, 1963 President John F. Kennedy arrived in Texas for a two day visit, which was designed to bring together the liberal and conservative wings of the state's Democratic Party, and to gain support for Kennedy's planned campaign for re-election the following year. After successful visits to San Antonio and Houston, President Kennedy and Jackie, his lovely and even more photogenic wife, spent the night in Fort Worth. On the following day, Kennedy gave a breakfast speech in front of hundreds of supporters there, then made a short flight to Dallas, where he was to give another speech at the Dallas Trade Mart after a motorcade through the heart of the city.

Dallas had acquired a reputation for extreme right wing activity in late 1963, particularly after United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was heckled, spat on, and struck on the head by a picket sign after a speech he gave there on UN Day, barely a month before Kennedy's planned visit. Several of Kennedy's closest advisers urged him to cancel the Texas trip, or at least his visit to Dallas, as they feared for his safety. However, the President, looking ahead to the 1964 campaign, felt that it was more important to proceed with this visit.

Friday November 22nd was an unusually warm and rainy day in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but by the time Air Force One landed at Love Field the skies had cleared, and the decision was made to remove the bubble top of the presidential limousine, to allow the hundreds of thousands of Dallasites who gathered on the well publicized motorcade route to get a glimpse of the Kennedys as they proceeded from the airport to the Trade Mart.

Television was still in its early stage in 1963, particularly in its coverage of live events. Broadcast cameras consisted of two main types, bulky shoulder models which could capture images but not sound, and even larger ones that had to be connected to news trucks by thick wires, which took many minutes to warm up before they were ready for use. Film from cameras had to be carried back to the news studio for processing, as the use of satellites was at a primitive stage. As a result, most Americans received news coverage via newspaper and radio, until that fateful weekend.

Most of Dallas's local media were out in force to cover the President's visit, including the staff of KRLD, the city's CBS television and radio affiliates. As the news was announced that three shots had been fired at the presidential motorcade and that Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally had been seriously wounded, local and national reporters and cameramen headed en masse in a mad scramble to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where the men were taken, and the Texas School Book Depository, where the shots were fired, while others reported from the Trade Mart as the crowd learned with horror what had taken place.

When the News Went Live is an excellent set of descriptions of the events on that tragic day in November, the subsequent arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, his assassination by local club owner Jack Ruby two days after the president was cut down, Ruby's trial the following year, the effect that the two shootings had on the reputation of Dallas and the United States, and an analysis of how news coverage has changed in the nearly 50 years since then, as told by four members of the KRLD staff: Bob Huffaker, the television reporter who became known to millions of Americans as he described the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Dallas City Jail live on CBS Television; Bill Mercer, who was present during the midnight news conference on Friday where Oswald was interviewed by reporters from all over the world; George Phenix, a newly minted news photographer who captured images at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Oswald's assassination, and Ruby's trial; and Wes Wise, the reporter who was approached by Ruby on the day of Kennedy's assassination, who later became mayor of Dallas, and was instrumental in helping the city's residents heal from the tragedy and in restoring its national reputation.

Huffaker, the author of many of the book's chapters, provides an excellent background of Dallas leading up to the shooting, first hand descriptions of the weekend's events with information that was new to me, and balanced analyses about the city's conservative and extreme right wing elements, along with rebuttals to the misinformation that came out about Dallasites after the shooting, especially the grevious and incorrect report by CBS News that schoolchildren had cheered when they learned of the president's assassination. Huffaker also compares the role of the media in 1963, when most cities had three major television stations and limited ability to cover breaking news stories, and the present day, in which cable news stations provide "strident hypercoverage of celebrity murder and scandal". The book closes with prescient comments by all four men, which provides a superb closure.

When the News Went Live is a valuable addition to the history of the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, which provided this reader with new information about that day's events, along with background information that placed this tragic event in greater context. I would highly recommend it to all readers, but especially those who are interested in or remain deeply affected by Kennedy's premature death.

Very good review of When the News Went Live, Darryl. I saw your comments on the Alonso Cueto we have both been reading. I was enjoying the first half of the book that I took it with me into the service station restaurant on our way back to Kuala Lumpur and promptly left it behind! I will go and buy another copy post haste but now with no little trepidation considering your view that it tails off somewhat.

>164 qebo: Thanks for that description, Katherine. (BTW, I thought that you were younger than me!) Yes, you must have been deeply upset to make that comment, but also wise beyond your years at that time. 1963 was a very eventful year for my family; my maternal grandmother went to the March on Washington that spring (she wanted to take me and my cousin with her, but our mothers refused her request), and they were deeply affected by the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham by KKK members that summer, which claimed the lives of four innocent African American girls (my mother's family was from Troy, Alabama; they didn't know the girls or their families, but they were horrified by what was happening in that city and elsewhere in the state).

>165 Nickelini: I vividly remember the CBS News coverage of the Apollo moon landing in 1969, Joyce, especially Walter Cronkite's enthusiastic and pleasantly childlike description of the touchdown and Neil Armstrong's first steps on its surface. That year was a memorable one for me, highlighted by that event, the New York Mets' improbable World Series win that fall, and (sadly to say) the inauguration of Richard Nixon as president of the US (my mother kept the composition book in which I wrote the name "Richard Milhous Nixon" at least a dozen times as I watched the inauguration on television). My mother took my brother and I to Montreal in 1967 for the World's Fair (Expo 67), the only time I've been to Canada, but I don't remember anything about it.

Nice review of When the News Went Live.

I have a vague memory of the JFK assassination. I think it came onto the news when I was watching Captain Kangaroo. We were living in Oakland at the time, and those public events had a big impact in our neighborhood.

168: my maternal grandmother went to the March on Washington that spring
Regretfully, my family missed it. The NAACP was running buses from Lancaster to DC, but my parents bought a house that summer, and had to move by the end of the month or the beginning of the school year or some such, and with three little kids, they decided they couldn’t manage it.

>161 kidzdoc: I am sorry I missed the "Sunday Morning" program about JFK. (And also shocked that you actually turned on your TV!)

>166 kidzdoc: When the News Went Live sounds excellent. I wasn't born yet, but my mother remembers that day very well. She had gotten on the bus in St. Louis to go home after a short day of work there and couldn't figure out why everyone on the bus was so eerily quiet. She was a big fan of the Kennedy's and saved quite a few newspapers from that time. As much as the assassination of JFK upset her, it was the death of Robert Kennedy that really crushed her.

My mother took my brother and I to Montreal in 1967 for the World's Fair (Expo 67), the only time I've been to Canada, but I don't remember anything about it.

That's cool, although it would be even cooler if you remembered it. Living in western Canada, I didn't know anyone who attended. Travel like that wasn't done back then (in our circles anyway--3,700 km might as well have been the end of the world).

Aging myself here, I was in third grade in 1963 and learned about the assassination when our teacher was informed. That day and the next three are permanently etched in my memory. I was glued to the television as the news covering the shootings and the funeral services ran. I wrote a paper following the events that my teacher sent away for publication review. Of course, I have no recollection of whether or not that happened, but the Kennedy story is still vivid.

#158 11/22/63 also marks my first memory of childhood; I would have been a little over 2½ years old that day -even with it being such a traumatic event I'm amazed that you can remember that far back. My first memory is the much more prosaic one of a new carpet being laid in my sister's bedroom.

I can't say that I blame your mother not letting you go on the march at such a young age. I would have been terrified about losing such a young child in the crowd. I did take J to a climate change demonstration when he was six or seven, but he was of an age then when he could remember the instructions in case of getting lost, and in the age of mobile phones I could write my number on his arm.

>167 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. I'm sorry to hear that you left your copy of The Blue Hour behind. Let me know if you are unable to get back your original copy or obtain a replacement one; I'd be happy to send my copy to you.

>169 banjo123: Thanks, Rhonda. I'll have to ask my mother how she had first learned of the shooting, but I imagine that it was also from a television or radio bulletin that interrupted regular programming, or from one of her neighbors in our apartment building.

>170 qebo: That's understandable, Katherine. My maternal grandparents lived in the Bronx, and there were special buses running from NYC to Washington as well.

>171 avidmom: I'll bet that you can watch the segments of Sunday Morning on CBS.com. During the subsequent Face the Nation broadcast, Bob Schieffer announced that the web site would provide continuous streaming video of the CBS Television coverage from November 22-25, 1963, starting at 1:40 pm EST, when Walter Cronkite broke into the broadcast of As the World Turns with the first bulletin of the shooting.

Interesting comments about your mother's reaction to JFK's assassination. I have some faint memories of MLK's death in 1968, mainly from the day after when my teachers at school were crying, but I don't remember anything about RFK's assassination a few months later. I suspect that the teachers and our parents were shielding us from the series of awful news events that year, as I have several vivid memories from 1969. I'll have to ask my parents about this next weekend.

>172 Nickelini: I remember seeing a brochure from Expo 67 years ago, Joyce, but if my mother hadn't told me that she took me I wouldn't have known anything about it. I can't remember if we took a bus or a train from NYC to Montreal, either.

>173 brenpike: Thanks for sharing your story, Brenda. I suspect that your parents, and millions of others in the US, were torn between allowing their young children to watch the news coverage of the assassination and subsequent events, or shielding them from it as best they could.

>174 SandDune: It would have to have been early evening by the time that confirmation of JFK's death reached the UK, Rhian, so I'm not surprised that you have no memory of it. The shooting took place just after noon in Dallas, so the entire country would have been awake when it occurred.

I'm surprised that my very sensible and protective maternal grandmother would have suggested bringing me and my slightly older cousin with her to the March on Washington. I suppose that she recognized the historical significance of the event, but it would have been all too easy for us to have become separated from her in the massive but orderly crowds.

I was only about 1.5 on 11/22/1963, so no memories of it whatsoever and don't even remember my parents talking much about it later on. I also have no memory of MLK's assassination, but we were living in Germany at the time. I'm pretty sure my first public memory was the moon landing. We were visiting my grandparents and everyone (grandparents, my family, aunts, uncles, cousins) was clustered around the TV.

>174 SandDune: even with it being such a traumatic event I'm amazed that you can remember that far back

What I remember from 11/22/63 is my mother crying on the phone while talking with my father, which must have been very disturbing to me at that time. My parents and I talked about it years later, and we concluded that it had to have been the day of JFK's assassination. So, I remember my mother's reaction to the event, and not the actual event itself.

>171 avidmom: I just looked, and most if not all of the stories from yesterday's CBS Sunday Morning broadcast are available for viewing at http://www.cbsnews.com/sunday-morning/.

>177 lauralkeet: If I had been napping during the 1½ hours between the first bulletin and the confirmation of JFK's death I wouldn't have had any memory of that day, Laura. I think practically everyone of our age was watching the coverage of the moon landing, especially since it happened in July when we were all out of school for the summer.

Good review of When the News Went Live, Darryl. I doubt we'll ever be able to sort out what really happened. Oswald acting on his own doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?

I don't know whether you've read Packing for Mars, but Mary Roach has a fun description of how they got the U.S. flag to look like it was blowing in the wind on the moon, when the moon has no wind. And how that in turn helped fuel for many the belief that the moon landing was a hoax.

Darryl, will you be in PA for Thanksgiving? I just noticed Bryn Mawr Film Institute has added a second NTLive Macbeth screening on Saturday, November 30 at 1pm.

>164 qebo:/168/178 My mother tells me that I was very distressed and asked “Is that what happens to presidents when people don’t like them?”
Kids are so perceptive. Being so upset as a youngster proves that. Also being able to intuitively read the (obvious of not) emotions of the "big people" around them must add a lot to a small child's experience of an event.
The one time my biggest little one ever saw a lot of adults crying, he certainly knew something big was up (that was immediately after the Feb 2011 earthquake here when we were huddled around the radio listening for news).

Great review of When the News Went Live, Darryl!

Whew. Another hideous day on call, with 14 admissions to the General Pediatrics service on my long call (10 am to 8 pm), three of whom had to be transferred to the PICU. Fortunately I won't be on long call or night call until at least the Monday after Thanksgiving, two weeks from today, so the worst part of my work week is now behind me. I'll work every weekday this week, Monday and Tuesday next week, and then I'll be off from Wednesday through Sunday of Thanksgiving week. I thought I had caught up on sleep yesterday, but today clearly demonstrated that I hadn't.

>179 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. As one CBS news reporter or interviewee mentioned yesterday, is the doubt that many Americans have about JFK's assassination in part due to the disbelief that such a slightly built and otherwise insignificant man as Lee Harvey Oswald could have single handedly cut down our beloved President, and changed history and the optimism of two generations of Americans forever? Or was there truly a conspiracy that has remained a mystery because Jack Ruby murdered the killer before he could be brought to trial? I still cannot believe that LHO could have taken the life of Kennedy with a single bullet from long distance, but it also seems to me that, with the intense attention the assassination has received in the past 50 years, there should have been some credible evidence that someone else was involved in the murder plot by now.

I haven't read Packing for Mars, and I hadn't heard that story before. Very interesting! However, my family was like most Americans in our unfailing belief in Walter Cronkite and CBS News, so if Uncle Walt said that a man walked on the moon no one short of God could have convinced us otherwise.

>180 lauralkeet: Unless something changes I won't be in PA or NJ for Thanksgiving week, Laura. I'll fill in details later (as it's nearly 11 pm and I'm struggling to stay awake long enough to catch up on messages on this thread), but due to the failing health of my mother's older sister and my parents' advice I'll stay in Atlanta all of next week, and spend my post-Christmas break with them at the end of December and in early January. I'll have to check to see if that re-broadcast of Macbeth is being shown in Atlanta or Macon that day.

>181 LovingLit: Right, Megan. I knew on the afternoon of 11/22/63 that something was seriously wrong, and that's why I have that early memory, although the context of that day's events was far beyond my understanding.

Sorry to hear you won't get to spend Thanksgiving with your family, Darryl. At least Christmas isn't all that far away.

>183 lauralkeet: Right, Laura. My aunt was readmitted to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan last week, due to a recurrence of her malignancy. She, her sons, and her doctors are in the process of determining how to treat her, given that she is 80 years old and a bit frail. My mother said that they were leaning toward putting her in hospice care after discharge, which implies that they are leaning toward keeping her comfortable rather than starting an aggressive radiotherapeutic and/or chemotherapeutic regimen. I had planned to fly to Newark or JFK on Thanksgiving Day and spend a day or two with her there, but my parents strongly urged me to stay in Atlanta, as she is stable and not in danger of dying anytime soon, and because I'd probably only be there from Thursday to Saturday (I hate flying on the day before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving, as the airports are insanely crowded those days). I also have to prepare an hour long lecture for the pediatric residents which I have to give the week after Thanksgiving, so I need to use a part of the five day break (Wed-Sun) to research my talk and prepare a PowerPoint presentation for it. I'll definitely visit my parents and my aunt after Christmas, though, and hopefully I'll be able to visit my best friends in Madison, WI just before Christmas (I'm on call that day).

Sorry to hear about your aunt, Darryl.

Your review of When the News Went Live is marvelous. I think I'll look for that one!

The winners of this year's National Book Awards were announced last night:

Fiction: James McBride, The Good Lord Bird
Nonfiction: George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
Poetry: Mary Szybist, Incarnadine: Poems
Young People's Literature: Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck

>185 tymfos: Thanks, Terri.

Loved your review of When the News Went Live, Darryl.

I've just started Jeff Greenfield's alternate political history of JFK's second term and hope to get to the Huffaker book and to the Jim Lehrer novel, Top Down, during my 3-day weekend.

>188 lindapanzo: Thanks, Linda. I look forward to your comments about the Greenfield and the Lehrer, and the Huffaker when you get to it.

I'm very glad to see Friday come! I'll be off this weekend, work Monday and Tuesday, and not again until the following Monday. This is the first year I can think of that I'd rather stay at home by myself during Thanksgiving week; I need to catch up on rest and sleep!

I've read a total of 20 pages or so in two books since Saturday, as I've been getting home too late and have been too tired and brain dead to get anything accomplished. Hopefully I'll finish at least one book this weekend.

Yay for some time to rest and recharge. Happy weekend to come.

I think I must be the only person on earth who is not eager to relive the Kennedy assassination. Once was horrific enough, thank you very much. Of course, a lot of you are younger than I am and don't have those awful memories . . .

191: I'm keeping the TV off too.

I guessed there would be a heap of coverage of the 50th anniversary in the US. We heard a witness interviewed on the radio here, and I am sure there will be stuff on the TV news, but I dont generally watch that so wont know. Having just seen the film, The Butler, I feel like the event was already at the fore for me.

A sad anniversary of a terrible day, for sure. What a waste.

Have a great few days off, Darryl.

I have seen The Good Lord Bird in the stores here and will go and look it up.

Have a great rest and a wonderful weekend.

Yes, I'm going to be picking up The Good Lord Bird at some point, too. Have you heard anything about The Unwinding, Darryl? It looks interesting. The other three I'm sure I'll read.

Sorry about your aunt. Tough call in that situation. With my mother we eventually had to go to comfort care.

Hope you have a good and relaxing weekend.

I struggled to find a book that I wanted to read yesterday, but last night I finally found one that has grabbed me so far: Paradises by the Argentinian writer Iosi Havilio, which was published by And Other Stories earlier this year. I bought it at the London Review Bookshop last month, and it's currently available in the US (the Kindle edition is $5.99). I only read 55 pages of its 324 pages yesterday, so I might not finish it today, depending on how much football I watch.

Good news! Influenza is here! I admitted my first patient who tested positive for influenza A on Friday afternoon, who also had a secondary bacterial pneumonia and a severe asthma exacerbation. He deteriorated rapidly within two hours after I saw him, needing a large amount and concentration of oxygen to keep him from going into respiratory failure, but he seems to be rallying today so far (I'm not working today, but I can check the hospital's electronic medical record (EMR) to follow his progress).

My friends in private practice in metro Atlanta have seen cases of proven influenza and influenza like illness (ILI) in their offices this past week. It's both earlier in the season than usual, and it seems to be infecting more kids than we usually see in the first week of illness.

Despite the fact that this little guy has been hospitalized twice for asthma exacerbations he did not receive a flu vaccine this season, so he was unprotected. Infants, young children, the elderly, and people with chronic respiratory conditions like asthma and COPD and those with compromised immune systems are the most at risk for developing moderate to severe illness that can lead to ER visits, hospitalizations, and, not that commonly, death in the worst cases. My best friend's wife's mother, who had a rare form of chronic leukemia, died several years ago after she contracted H1N1 in Belgium. Before that she had been rallying and it seemed as though she would at least surpass her doctors' grim prognosis, but after she fell ill her immune system wasn't robust enough to fight off the infection before multi-organ system failure set in.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has an excellent web site for patients, families and health care professionals about influenza:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

>190 richardderus: Thanks, Richard. I didn't sleep well yesterday and feel a bit under the weather today, so my rest will come next week, during my Thanksgiving break.

>191 Cariola: You're right, Deborah; I certainly don't have any direct memories of President Kennedy, as he died when I was 2 years old, so watching news coverage and reading books and articles about JFK isn't as traumatic for me as it would be for you and others. I am deeply saddened by his death, though, and I do want to remember his legacy, especially in his efforts to enact meaningful civil rights legislation.

>192 qebo: That's understandable, Katherine. I will say that I see strong parallels between 1963 and 2013: both years feature a deeply divisive President who is both beloved and virulently hated; extreme right wing and racist elements are prominent and very influential; and, IMO, our current President is in as much danger of being assassinated on American soil as JFK was.

>193 LovingLit: I'll probably watch some of the video stream of the CBS News coverage of November 24, 1963 today, Megan. Oswald was shot that afternoon, which was shown live or after a short delay on CBS Television, and the 8 pm EST segment featured a CBS Special Report on gun control, which we are no closer to (and possibly farther away from) achieving today than we were then in this country.

>194 PaulCranswick: I had planned to go out today to buy a copy of The Good Lord Bird, Paul, and I still might if I feel better this afternoon. If not I'll get it this coming week.

>195 jnwelch: Joe, I thought that someone on LT that we know (Suz?) read The Unwinding, and had a very high opinion of it. I plan to buy it when I pick up The Good Lord Bird.

Hi Darryl, it took me a while to get all caught up with you and there's been so much going on here that I don't know what to comment on anymore... Too many options. I will say I really love your thread topper. Somehow I remember Klee being very popular when I was a kid in the 70s and really disliking him then, but one of the art teachers I often study with is very fond of him and has made me gain a real appreciation for his work. We've done several exercises based on his colour studies, which were really fun to do.

I wanted to tell you that I definitely plan to read The Sea, The Sea in December, in case you still want to do a shared read. I haven't been participating in TIOLI this year but will be happy to do so next month if only to list this book if it fits in somewhere. Also, I'd be honoured if you could pick out something for my 2014 reading*, but no pressure as I see you've been running yourself ragged with work lately. Speaking of which, I loved the cat video which I stared at for quite a while. Much of life seems like that at times, doesn't it? And I don't even have any kids!

* If it doesn't seem like work but actually like fun to do, then please find simple instructions in the following post: http://www.librarything.com/topic/160751#4361450. No rush!

>198 Smiler69: Good to see you here, Ilana! I've been remiss in following threads this month as well, so you're in good company.

I was largely unfamiliar with Paul Klee before I saw the exhibition with Bianca last month at the Tate Modern. I loved seeing it with her, as we took our time and talked about the paintings that interested us the most. Unfortunately we weren't able to see the entire exhibition, as we had to grab lunch and travel to Finsbury Park to see a play that afternoon. Hopefully I can see the remainder of the exhibition, either in London or perhaps in the US if it comes here.

I'd love to read The Sea, the Sea with you next month; thanks for reminding me about it.

I posted a message on your thread; I've chosen A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel, as it's at the top of the books I want to read the most next year.

Darryl, I need to run out with Coco before night falls in the next 30 minutes, but just want to say I'm very excited about your choice for me. I've been badly wanting to read more Hilary Mantel this year and just didn't manage it, so it'll be a pleasure to reserve a special spot for her in 2014.

I'll be back to say more, maybe. Sometime, anyway!

Adding When the News Went Live to the wish list, Darryl. Excellent review.

I've skimmed my way through your thread and am sort of caught up. Thanks for answering my question about the Daunt bookshop. Now I more ardently want to go there one of these days!

Cute and funny cat video. I do feel that way some days.....

>200 Smiler69: I also look forward to reading A Place of Greater Safety next year, Ilana. Except for my CanLit self-challenge I plan to read much more spontaneously iin 2014 than I have in years past, and I'll decrease or eliminate my participation in TIOLI and the Reading Globally, Author Theme Reads and Orange January/July groups, so that I can finally get to some of the books that I have been most eager to read.

I'm happy to say that I'm now feeling well, and I suspect that the influenza vaccine shot I received earlier this fall kept me from developing a full blown case of the illness. I woke up yesterday with muscle ache, headache, a sore throat, chest and neck pain, malaise and a fever of nearly 101 degrees, two days after I saw my first patient with proven influenza on Friday afternoon (two days is the typical incubation period between exposure and the onset of illness in adults). Fortunately by yesterday afternoon my symptoms had completely resolved. I think that I was infected with influenza, but my immune system was already primed to kill the virus, thanks to the vaccine, and it quickly rid it from my body.

I didn't know when I first saw the boy that he had tested positive for influenza A, so I didn't take the normal precautions that I would have (i.e., wearing a disposable gown, gloves and a mask), and I sat close to him while he was coughing frequently. Whew!

>201 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen. I only wish I had made my first trip to Daunt Books years ago.

Morning Darryl- Just checking in. It sounds like you've been extremely the past couple weeks. I hope things begin to wind down for you. I hope you have a terrific Thanksgiving.

Hi Darryl, I'm glad you're feeling better. I got my flu shot over the weekend. It's so easy to do these days -- I just popped into my local pharmacy on the way to the supermarket. Even supermarket pharmacies offer them now so you can do one stop shopping! It's well worth it to avoid being laid up for a week (or worse).

Darryl- I too would hope that the Paul Klee show comes to the US in the future. I have the catalog from the current show. It doesn't say anything about any travel locations but that is often the case. I saw a show on Serge Diaghilev at the V&A in Oct 2010 and it showed up at the National Gallery in Washington this past summer. So you never know. I'll let you know if I hear of any travels.

Sorry to hear you won't be in PA over Thanksgiving. Jim and I scored a pair of tickets to the encore showing of 'MacBeth' in Bryn Mawr. Now if I can find some other LT folks who might be going, we can have a little meet-up (sans you, alas).

Hi Darryl, my symptoms of my 3-day illness last week sound much like yours. I'm glad I got my flu shot this year.

I'm delurking to say that both you and Ilana are in for a treat with A Place of Greater Safety. It was a highlight of my reading this year.

A Place of Greater Safety is my favorite Mantel, and I've got a lot of favorites with her.

Hm. Maybe I'll jump on the Greater Place of Safety in 2014 bandwagon.

196: Good news! Influenza is here!
Oh super. I've never gotten a flu shot, but after last year's illness I'm less cavalier, so I inquired and found, as Laura says, that it's extremely simple so it's on the list for this week.

Glad you are over the flu, and thank goodness it was mild, but don't you think the flu shot should keep it away entirely? I used to skip the flu shot, because of an egg allergy, but it turns out not to be as big of a problem now, and my doctor practically begged me to get one, so I had mine back in October.

I am eager to read Good Lord Bird. I heard Ann Patchett speak last week, and she was raving about it.

I understand your desire to read more spontaneously in 2014. I go back and forth between whim and planning. But I hope you will at least peek in on the Global Reading themes next year.

>203 msf59: Good Tuesday morning to you, Mark. Yes, we continue to be extremely busy at work; my partner who worked the Sunday evening shift (8 pm to 8 am) admitted 24 new patients to the hospital in less than 12 hours, so she inherited the Black Cloud Award from my other partner, who admitted 23 patients on night shift last month:



I only admitted 22 patients during my night call a couple of weeks ago, so I avoided this most unwanted award. It takes us 25-30 minutes to do the simplest admission, and 45-60+ minutes to admit complicated or chronically ill kids, so you can see the impossibility of trying to admit that many patients solo in one night, and manage 60-70 sick kids on the wards with several dozen nurse calls, along with the calls from our ED docs and calls from EDs in surrounding hospitals who want to send their patients to us.

My reading and LT time screeches to a halt when I'm this busy; I haven't finished a book since the weekend before last. Today is my last work day of the week, though, so I'll read at least a couple of books by this coming weekend.

I'm sure that you and your colleagues are also very busy, and that it will only get worse now that the Christmas shopping (and mailing) season is about to go into full swing. It's called 'job security', right?

I should get ready to go to work. I'll respond to the other messages later today or tomorrow.

I'm also keen to read A place of greater safety in the near future. Currently I'm struggling my way through The blind owl which I see over on GR that you did not much care for when you read it.

I think we all need a less structured reading year from time to time.

Saw this and thought of you. Want to adopt a skull?

>212 kidzdoc: ...and manage 60-70 sick kids on the wards with several dozen nurse calls, along with the calls from our ED docs and calls from EDs in surrounding hospitals
Woah. It's no wonder I didn't see an actual doctor when I was in hospital! That sounds extremely full on Darryl. How do you cope? No wonder we haven't seen much of you around lately :)

In other news, Wilbur still talks about his flu jabs of last winter. He was very anti the delivery method. I made the mistake of saying some people get them and some people don't so now he is of course of a mind to be amongst the people who don't next winter.

I'd love to get to A Greater Place of Safety next year too Darryl and will also read The Good Lord Bird. I really liked his memoir and Miracle at St. Anna. I got my flu shot a couple weeks ago and last year I got the pneumonia vaccine.

Good news! Influenza is here! I admitted my first patient who tested positive for influenza A on Friday afternoon, who also had a secondary bacterial pneumonia and a severe asthma exacerbation.

I'm glad you mentioned this--my husband always gets the flu shot, but I'm afraid I'm squeamish and have skipped it for . . . many years. But your message reminded me that my 16 yr old has asthma, and after my mentioning this, she's decided she's going to get a flu shot on Thursday. So thank you for mentioning this! (And yes, I'm going to be brave and get one too).

And since I'm talking to you, and she found out you live in Atlanta, and you're a physician, and she's a big fan of The Walking Dead (a zombie tv show),. . . she wants me to ask you if there is a catastrophic crisis and the CDC ultimately runs out of power (back ups run out of energy), does the building self-destruct? My husband and I have told her not likely, but it sure is clever.

Darryl I hope you manage to get some reading done on your down time. Not "enjoying" seasons here we don't have the winter flus and such like. Off course the tropical bugs would do for the flu bugs in the blinking of an eye.

Today is another weird weather day in the eastern half of the US. It's 35 degrees and raining in the Deep South capital of Atlanta, with snow flurries to the west and east of the city. It's also raining in Philadelphia and NYC, over 500 miles to the north, but it's 56 degrees and 59 degrees there, respectively.

I saw my second patient that required hospitalization for influenza A yesterday, a teenage boy with high fever and altered mental status (seizure? delirium?). He had to undergo a spinal tap (a procedure that is just a bit more painful than a flu jab) to rule out meningitis and have blood work and a CT scan of his head. Fortunately he was back to being a normal, surly teenager by the time I saw him, and he should be discharged home today.

Fortunately my work week is over, save for our monthly administrative meeting this afternoon (which I'll call in to), and I'm glad that I decided to stay in Atlanta rather than fly home in this inclement weather for Thanksgiving. I'll leave soon to do some early morning errands before the pre-Thanksgiving rush starts, then settle in for a peaceful day.

>204 lauralkeet: Thanks, Laura. I'm completely well (touch wood), and I only felt sick for about six hours on Sunday. I'm glad that you received your flu vaccine now; it will probably be another week or two at least before influenza arrives in the Northeast in significant amounts, so you should be protected against it by then. And, as you said, I'd much rather deal with a simple jab and a day or two of a possibly achy arm and some mild malaise than be sick as a dog for a week!

>205 catarina1: Thanks, catarina. I didn't buy the Klee catalogue when we were at the Tate Modern, but I'll add it to my Christmas wish list, or buy it if none of my friends or family get it for me.

>206 ffortsa: I hope that you can find other LTers to meet up with, Judy. Even if I was going to PA for Thanksgiving I probably wouldn't have been able to meet up with you and Jim, though. I have to work over Christmas, but I'll definitely come up there for the New Year's break (Dec 29 to Jan 1 or 2); hopefully we can meet up then.

>207 Donna828: Do you think that you contracted the flu, Donna? Influenza typically doesn't cause much of a runny nose, in comparison to other respiratory viruses such as RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), rhinovirus or parainfluenza virus, all of which are far more prevalent than influenza at present. BTW the standard flu vaccine is less effective in older adults, so there is a special flu vaccine (Fluzone High-Dose) for people aged 65 and older that has a higher dose of the vaccine (you're only 29, of course, so this wouldn't be a concern for you).

This photo was just taken in a town west of Atlanta (Newnan, GA). I can drive in snow just fine, but most Southerners can't, and there has already been a bad accident in Midtown Atlanta. I think I'll stay in until mid-morning, after the snow has passed and whatever accumulation we may get has melted.

>208 rebeccanyc: Right, Rebecca. You're the person who
has made me want to read A Place of Greater Safety the most.

>209 EBT1002: Sounds good, Ellen! I hope that you also decide to read A Place of Greater Safety in 2014.

>210 qebo: Good, Katherine! Laura's right, it's very easy to get a flu jab in a variety of public places, including most CVS stores. I just looked at the CVS web site, and you can very easily make an appointment for the vaccine at your local pharmacy.

My hospital has become increasingly strict about having its employees vaccinated, and from what I can tell everyone, whether clinical or not, is expected to receive the vaccine by December 1, except for those who claim medical or religious exemptions. That may sound harsh, but I completely agree with this policy.

>211 banjo123: don't you think the flu shot should keep it away entirely?

Actually no, Rhonda. If you're exposed a sufficient amount of any pathogen (a disease causing microbe) it will generally colonize your nasal or oral mucosa and infect some cells before the immune system has a chance to recognize that an infection has taken place. That's why illnesses such as influenza have an incubation period, the time between your first exposure to a pathogen and the time that symptoms of illness develop (many of which are caused by the immune system's reaction to the pathogen). My very brief and mild illness was very typical and expected, as it occurred two days after I was exposed to the boy who was infected with influenza A. My immune system produced memory cells against the four subtypes of influenza that were in the quadrivalent vaccine I received, roughly two weeks after I was vaccinated, and the ones that were active against the strain of influenza A I was exposed to quickly identified and eradicated the virus before a significant infection could take place. So, in a sense, I was infected with influenza, but it was a very mild and short illness compared to a full blown case. (This is what I think happened; I can't prove that I'm right, though.)

ETA: I have been looking at the threads in the Reading Globally and Author Theme Reads groups that are discussing next year's themes, and I did vote on the themes for RG last week. I'll probably participate to some degree, but I'll choose books from my library rather than buy new ones, and I won't read as many books for each theme as I've done in years past. I'll only read books for the themes that I'm interested in; I'll probably skip postwar German literature and, but I have plenty of books for the Central American literature, Travel Literature, and Sub-Saharan African literature themes.

>213 avatiakh: I hope that you decide to read A Place of Greater Safety with us, Kerry. You're right; I wasn't fond of The Blind Owl, although I can't remember anything about it at the moment.

I think we all need a less structured reading year from time to time.

I agree. As I've said repeatedly I own several dozen books that I've been eager to read but have left aside, as I've focused more of my attention on themes and group reads. I'll still list a couple of books that I plan to read in any given month, but far fewer than I have been posting. I'll still plan to read one or more novels or short story collections from Canada every month, and I'll definitely participate in and lead the Booker Prize group next year, but I won't commit to anything else.

>214 qebo: Nice, Katherine! I do like the Mütter Museum, but I'd rather reserve my usual year end donations for the skulls of the living rather than the dead.

>215 LovingLit: Woah. It's no wonder I didn't see an actual doctor when I was in hospital! That sounds extremely full on Darryl. How do you cope?

In a word: triage. I have to prioritize the tasks that are thrown my way, and decide which ones need to be handled now or in very short order, which ones can wait, and which ones can be put off until the day team arrives. Code Blues, patients who are seizing uncontrollably, and other very sick kids have to be attended to immediately, regardless of phone calls from others, and I'll sometimes have to bark at nurses and doctors who want to talk to me right now about a non-urgent matter. New admissions of stable patients, asthmatic kids who are having increased distress but are stable are less urgent, and I can usually write or give the nurses or respiratory therapists some orders, and assess them later. Parents who decide that they want to discuss their child's plan of care at 2 am, IVs that have gone bad but don't need to be used until morning, and middle of the night consultations from specialists for kids who aren't seriously ill can all wait until normal daytime hours. In that regard I suspect that it's similar to what a busy mother has to do on a daily basis, juggle several balls at once and handle the most important tasks first.

I loved Wilbur's comment about the flu vaccine! Do you have the intranasal influenza vaccine in New Zealand? In the US it's called FluMist, and it can be given to healthy people from 2-49 years of age. So, maybe he can be amongst those who don't get the flu jab next year.

>216 brenzi: Although I'm not a huge fan of group reads I wonder if Ilana or someone else will want to create one for A Place of Greater Safety, Bonnie.

I'll probably buy The Good Lord Bird this weekend, although I won't read it until next month.

Good news: we didn't get any snow in Atlanta. I'll go out soon.

>217 Nickelini: Great, Joyce! I'm glad that you and your daughter will get the flu vaccine.

Good question about the CDC! I suspect that it must have its own back up power supply, at least in the portions that house extremely dangerous pathogens such as Ebola virus and the Spanish flu virus that killed millions of people worldwide in 1918-1919. If those or others were released into the atmosphere it has the potential to lead to a major pandemic, as almost no one alive has any protection against either of those viruses. Atlanta's airport is the busiest one in the world, and if someone from the CDC contracted the Spanish flu virus, went to the airport and infected a few dozen people on different flights (e.g., by traveling on the Plane Train that transports passengers from the main terminal to the six concourses it serves), the virus could quickly spread across the US and worldwide.

>218 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. I may put aside several planned reads in place of easier reads that I can sink my literary teeth into.

From what I've heard about tropical illnesses I suspect I'd much rather have a full blown case of the flu than most of the worst pathogens that you have there.

I skimmed your post that said it was 35 degrees with my Celsius hat on, and thought 'Lucky Darryl - nice warm weather!' I see now from the snow picture that that wasn't quite what you meant. Must learn to read things more carefully and engage brain!

I have to go back up and read a few missed posts but just wanted to thank you for finding and recommending the Metropolitan Line book. Just finished it and loved every minute of it. It's making me want to find more in the series.

#219 It's also raining in Philadelphia and NYC, over 500 miles to the north, but it's 56 degrees and 59 degrees there, respectively.

If it makes you feel any better, the temperature is supposed to drop throughout the day and get into the 20s tonight.

The weather is indeed strange. I'm not that far from Philly, yet it's only 38 here, and that's the expected high. It's raining, but snow is supposed to start around 5:00.

>224 SandDune: Ha! I'd much rather have 35 F (2 C) weather than a 35 C (95 F) day, Rhian, almost regardless of the time of year but certainly now. My body is much more acclimated to cold weather than hot, even though I've lived in Atlanta for 16 years. It's 37 F (3 C) now, but the wind chill is 25 F (-3 C), due to 18-19 mph winds. It feels like proper late November weather in the Northeast, so I'm happy about that.

I picked up supplies for my solo Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I and a good portion of metropolitan Atlanta's residents went to HoneyBaked Ham to buy turkey, ham and side dishes for tomorrow. There were too many people going there to fit in the parking lot, and a county police officer was on hand to direct traffic in and out of the store's entrance. It wasn't bad when I arrived there, but it started to fill up rapidly after I left.

>225 tiffin: You're welcome, Tui! I'm glad that you enjoyed it. There have only been a few of the Penguin Underground Lines series I liked, specifically the ones about the Metropolitan Line (A Good Parcel of English Soil), the District Line (What We Talk About When We Talk about the Tube) and the Victoria Line (Mind the Child). I still have two books to read, Buttoned-Up: The East London Line and Heads and Straights: The Circle Line, which I'll get to next month.

>226 rebeccanyc: Actually I'm very happy that it stayed well above freezing in most of the Northeast, Rebecca. It's much better to have rain measured in inches than snow measured in feet! I knew that the temperatures would plummet there tonight, as they have here. It's supposed to drop down to 21 F (-7 C) tonight, but we'll start a slow warming trend to the low 50s starting tomorrow and lasting through the weekend. It could have been far worse for all of us!

>227 Cariola: I watched a few minutes of CBS This Morning when it first aired, and included was a brief segment by a reporter for KDKA, the CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh, which showed the snowfall there. It looks like western and central PA will get much more snow than Philadelphia and SE PA will, presumably because of the temperature difference. It won't get much warmer here, as our high temperature is only supposed to reach 39 F (4 C); the normal high in Atlanta for November 27th is 60 F (16 C).

Basking in the tropics of SE PA today: 40F and wet, temperatures will fall today but only to about 33. It's a great day to be indoors with no obligations.

>229 lauralkeet: Definitely so, Laura. The precipitation has stopped here, but there is a huge swath of rain and snow extending from Maine to South Carolina. I'm very happy I'm not traveling today!

Ha! I'd much rather have 35 F (2 C) weather than a 35 C (95 F) day

I'm with you on that. At 35 F you can pull on your blue jeans and grab your favourite sweater. At 35 C all you can do is jump in a pool (I guess you could go inside to air conditioning, but the logic of that is absurd.)

Thanks for your comments on the CDC--that sounds like the makings of a disaster movie! (Which I'm sure has already been done).

Darryl, I just returned from doing the same thing: picked up my turkey and other things I will need for my solo Thanksgiving. I'll be visiting family over Christmas, so I don't mind doing this one on my own. I can make the things I like and skip some of those traditional dishes that I'm not so crazy about. I'll make the dessert today--opted to try something new (Apple, Cranberry and Raisin Crisp) instead of pumpkin pie, even though I like it. I'll probably just watch movies tomorrow in between the cooking and phone calls. Oh, and there's a dog show on after the parade--love to watch dog shows, even though I'm a cat person.

My other Atlanta friend actually cycles to work each day; shall have to check in with him later on...

Yes, the first thing I thought when reading Darryl's CDC comments was think "apocalyptic disaster movie here"...

Re JFK -- I'm a couple of months younger than Darryl and have no first-hand memories at all of that day, although my mother says she dropped me in the supermarket when she heard the news. (which would explain a few things...) Nor do I remember MLK or RFK -- we weren't living in the US by then, or even North America, which might explain some of that.

My earliest clear memories are of moving to Ottawa in late 1965, and then my brother being born in February 1966, and me being scolded for putting my teddy bear into the crib with him. I wanted to share; my mother was convinced I was trying to suffocate him. After that, my first vivid memories are of that year and the next year -- like Joyce, the Canadian centennial celebrations. I saw the Queen in her motorcade in Ottawa, and won a prize for my centennial costume (pic is somewhere on my FB page...) which I still have somewhere. That was the year that my kindergarten teacher tried to get us to understand the idea of "opposites" by going around the class and getting each child to provide an example. She would say night, and the child was supposed to respond with "day". She got to me and said "black and white TV", and I said "no TV". I'd never seen a color television at that point. If I told that tale to my niece and nephews, they'd be incredulous... :-)

Thankfully the very high winds have died down here. But it's weird -- after daytime temps in the high 20s on Monday, today we're up to 60! And the storm has brought a super low pressure system in, which is bad for migraines and other ills of that kind, as a friend with arthritis has reminded me.

Flu shot -- I should, but... I tend to think I'm more insulated than I am, since I work from home. But I wonder whether that's actually resulted in my having less immunity?

233: I tend to think I'm more insulated than I am, since I work from home.
That's what I thought too, and then I got absolutely walloped last winter. Not flu, but some sort of upper respiratory far-worse-than-a-cold thing. I blame the gym, but it could've been the grocery store.

>231 Nickelini: Right, Joyce. It's amusing to see how Southerners dress in "cold" weather; many of them dress like Eskimos, with heavy coats, hats, gloves, scarves and sweaters, yet they still look like frozen chickens.

There was at least one disaster movie involving the release of a deadly virus from a CDC lab, Contagion, which was released in 2011.

>232 Cariola: Did you buy a precooked turkey, or will you make it yourself, Deborah? I love the ham and turkey at HoneyBaked Ham, and I usually stop there on Christmas Eve if I'm working that holiday. Are there any stores in your area?

I won't cook anything tomorrow, and I have plenty of supplies for the next few days. I do have an invitation to have dinner at the home of a good friend and former work partner tomorrow, and if I crave company I might go there. And, if I feel a need to get out of the house but want something non-traditional I might go to my favorite Indian restaurant for buffet, or feast on Shanghai soup dumplings at a great Chinese restaurant about 10 miles away.

>233 Chatterbox: Nice comments about your first memories, Suz. Another early memory, one which is shared often by my parents, is my father's unwise decision to let me have a sip of beer when I was a toddler after I begged him repeatedly for his bottle when company was over (I think my godparents and great-uncle were there). He apparently didn't realize that I was eating saltine crackers at that time. I took a sip of beer, handed the bottle back to him, and just as he was about to take a sip he noticed cracker fragments floating in the beer. Everyone laughed, except me, as he wouldn't give me back the bottle of beer that I had cleverly claimed for myself.

Another early story my parents tell frequently is about one of my first words, which my maternal grandmother first heard at their house in the Bronx in the early 1960s. I was either an older infant or a young toddler, and while my MGM was watching me I successfully climbed the stairs of their house for the first time. The problem was that I couldn't figure out how to get back down. Apparently I paid close attention to my parents' favorite swear words, and knew how to use them appropriately. So, I started saying "damnshit! damnshit! damnshit!" repeatedly (my mother used to say damn, and my father shit when they were upset). My parents came in as I was still upstairs, and saw my grandmother sitting at the foot of the stairs, crying and laughing hysterically. When they asked her what was wrong, and where I was, she couldn't speak, and could only point upstairs at me, as they heard my exclamations. Needless to say, they were embarrassed as, well, you know.

It's still very windy and cold here, currently 35 F (2 C) with 20 mph winds and a wind chill of 20 F (-8 C).

Flu shot -- I should, but... I tend to think I'm more insulated than I am, since I work from home. But I wonder whether that's actually resulted in my having less immunity?

I must say that your colds seem to be far worse and longer lasting than most people I know. Except for RSV and influenza, which kicks everyone's tails, most colds last no more than 7-10 days, and a routine respiratory illness rarely affects me for more than 2-3 days. I suspect that your isolation has a lot to do with your apparently subpar immune system, and I'd be concerned that if you did contract influenza it would hit you far worse than the average person.

>234 qebo: I think that people, certainly kids, who aren't exposed to the usual childhood illnesses don't develop proper immune responses to routine illnesses, and are more likely to develop complications as a result. Every so often I'll see a kid who tests positive for an every day virus that normally wouldn't cause anyone to blink an eye, yet they suffer severe and life altering neurological complications as a result. It's sad for us to see cases like this, as there is little if anything that we can do for them, and many of them will never be the same again.

I've always thought, but here I should knock on wood, that I've developed a good immune system by being on the NYC subway so much and being exposed to germs from around the world!

>236 rebeccanyc: Yes, Rebecca! That would be a great way to develop a robust immune system.

I saw the Queen in her motorcade in Ottawa,

I read this to say "the Queen on her motorcycle." Even in 1967, when she would have only been 41 yrs old, that would have been a sight!

Holy! Atlanta presently has more snow than we have here in BC! Got such a chuckle out of your Southerners dressed for winter quip: many of them dress like Eskimos, with heavy coats, hats, gloves, scarves and sweaters, yet they still look like frozen chickens.

I used to get bad colds once every three months, and when I started freelancing, they dropped off in frequency but went up in intensity. This year has been bad -- the really nasty flu that I had in March/April, which dragged on for about 3 weeks, and then the bad cold I caught in England that took about two weeks to shake off (and even then the cold lingered). Thankfully, the last one, which started about two weeks ago, was very short-lived!

LOL re juvenile swearing. Whenever I upset my milk, my mother would say "Oh, damn!" and go to clean it up. So of course, we're all at a fancy restaurant of some kind with my grandparents, and me in my high chair, about 2 1/2. I spill my own milk, and shout at the top of my lungs, "OH DAMN", loudly enough to reduce the rest of the restaurant to utter silence... That's a family story, not a memory, although I remember reducing some nice old ladies to silence when they asked what I had in my cute little patent leather purse (hey, this was about 1965...) and I whipped out some Matchbox toy cars.

>235 kidzdoc: So, I started saying "damnshit! damnshit! damnshit!"
LOL
My 4 year old nephew was having trouble with some fiddly task, and said "*sigh*, I cant get the friggading in!". I knew that what he meant was "friggin thing", so said to him "I don't think that is a word that kids say, M, it's just an adult word".
Wilbur (of course) piped up, and said "but Mum, he didn't say f^#k!".
Oh boy, did I crack up silently, and then loudly when I recounted the conversation with my sister, who does say "friggin thing".

>238 Nickelini: Ha! That would have been a sight, Joyce.

>239 lit_chick: Actually we didn't get any accumulating snow in Atlanta, Nancy. That photo was taken in a town about 30 miles southwest of the city. It looked as if we would get at least a dusting, but the temperature in the city was a degree or two higher than in the western suburbs.

>240 Chatterbox: I remember you talking about your long lasting respiratory illnesses this year, Suz. My bout of pneumonia with the worst asthma flare up I've ever had probably lasted for two or three weeks, but the only other time I've been sick that long was when I came down with whooping cough (pertussis) during my last year of residency. It lived up to its name in Chinese, the 100 day cough, as I was sick from late January until sometime in April or early May.

Nice story about your spilled milk. Your mother must have been horrified when you swore in the restaurant!

>241 LovingLit: Good story, Megan! So where did Wilbur learn how to say f**k???

Kids are incredibly observant. They pick up on curse words, and almost invariably know how to use them in proper context.

Happy Thanksgiving, Darryl! It sounds like you have some good choices for the day, so I hope you get rest, relaxation, and some reading.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I have a lot to be grateful for, including the LibraryThing community, my online friends, and especially those LTers I have had the pleasure in meeting in person. I hope that all of you have a rewarding and meaningful day in the company of your loved ones, and may God bless all of you throughout the remainder of the year and in 2014.

>243 ronincats: Happy Thanksgiving to you, Roni! I'm planning to have a quiet day here in Atlanta, and I've got plenty of food on hand for a nice lunch and dinner. It's the first Thanksgiving I'll spend alone in years, but I'm happy that I didn't travel to the Northeast yesterday. I'll almost certainly stay home today, but I do have an invitation to have dinner with a good friend and his family.

Today is the coldest Thanksgiving morning in Atlanta since 1911; it's currently 22° F (-6° C), and it's colder here than it is in the Upper Midwest cities of Minneapolis (23° F) and Chicago (25° F).

Darryl, we Dutch don't have a Thanksgiving Day, so I read something about it to understand the meaning. What I didn't find: Is there also a religious meaning in it?

Have a beautiful quiet day!

>246 wilkiec: Good question, Diana. I looked at the Wikipedia page Thanksgiving (United States) to help me reply to your comment. The first Thanksgiving in the United States is thought to have taken place in 1621, and it was an autumn harvest festival shared by Puritans and the local Native Americans who helped the immigrants survive their first difficult year in Plymouth Colony at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. During the Revolutionary War the First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving was made by the Continental Congress in 1777, which was a day to give thanks to God and to ask for His help in the war against the British. Subsequent proclamations by the first US House of Representatives and by Presidents Washington and Lincoln also mention the duty to acknowledge God as the ultimate benefactor on Thanksgiving day.

As the years have passed Thanksgiving has taken on a more secular role, as members of families come together to have dinner and celebrate the year that has nearly passed. And, unfortunately, it has become the day that marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, as many retail stores that used to be closed to allow its employees to spend the day at home with their families now stay open or open in the evening, to allow early shoppers to flood stores en masse to take advantage of early special offers. Tomorrow, known here as Black Friday, had been the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season up until a few years ago.

Thanksgiving isn't as "religious" a holiday as Easter and Christmas are, but many Christian families, including mine, still think of it as a day to give thanks to God for his many blessings, and to ask for His guidance for others and ourselves in the coming year.

Happy Thanksgiving Darryl! Whatever you decide to do today and complete R & R is not a bad option, enjoy yourself.
The South seems to be getting a nice kiss of winter, early this year. Good luck.

I have never thought of Thanksgiving as a religious holiday. In fact, I have always thought of it as one of the US holidays that I could unambiguously celebrate since I am not Christian, as many of our "national" holidays are in fact Christian holidays (e.g., Christmas, Easter).

>248 msf59: Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, Mark! I hope that yours is an enjoyable one as well. I think most of my Southern friends would think of today as being a smack in the mouth of winter rather than a kiss, though. :-)

>249 rebeccanyc: I wouldn't call Thanksgiving a religious holiday either, Rebecca, although it was created as a day to thank God for his blessings; the original Thanksgiving Day proclamations are included in the Wikipedia link I posted in message #247.

My family and I regularly attended church through my childhood, and I don't believe that there were ever any Thanksgiving Day services held at our Lutheran church in Jersey City. However, whenever I have Thanksgiving dinner with my family (and, usually, at least one or more guests who are invited to break bread with us) we always stand in a circle around the dinner table and hold hands, as one person says a prayer of thanks, and everyone else takes a turn and states aloud what they are thankful for.

BTW, the last time I spent Thanksgiving away from home I went to dinner outside of Atlanta with one of my dearest friends, who is Jewish, and her Vietnamese husband, both of whom were residents at Emory at the same time I was. I think I said a silent prayer before we started eating, but I believe that was the only religious element of our splendid day together.

Thanks for your answers, Darryl and Rebecca :-)

Happy Thanksgiving! Indeed, yesterday's “wintry mix”was not ideal for travel in these parts. Today the sky is bright blue. I don't think of Thanksgiving as a religious holiday at all. A subset of my family say Christian grace before the meal, but gratitude is surely a feature of all religions and (in my case) non-.

Happy Thanksgiving, Darryl! I'm sorry you're spending it on your own this year instead of with your family. I'm sure they're missing you, but I'm glad you didn't have to deal with the travel mess yesterday. I'm also sorry you won't be visiting your parents for another reason ... I was hoping we'd be able to catch up in NYC over the weekend. We'll just have to do this over the Christmas holidays.

Hi Darryl - Happy Thanksgiving!

The movie Contagion actually involved a virus spread from bats disturbed by human activity into the food chain- a pig farm. I think you said that the book Spillover is on your radar. It's exactly the sort of scenario described in that book for several of the emerging viruses.

Scientist Ian Lipkin, whose amazing CV is longer than my arm, was the scientific director of the film. He was very proud that this is the first apocalyptic (would you go that far?) film that is scientifically accurate. He even had big name actors/actresses working in his lab for a week, running DNA gels and doing actual BL4 training (in a training lab, not a 'hot' lab of course.)

He gave a seminar at my lab a couple weeks ago--and then had a public talk that evening about his role in overseeing the movie, along with film clips from other movies with highly unlikely scenarios.

An interesting bit from his seminar that I meant to comment on earlier, was that he said that very recent analysis from South American countries that have a higher prevalence of S pneumoniae (because they don't vaccinate for it) shows that the combo of influenza and S pneumo is exceptionally deadly - so much so that he believes that the guidelines will be changed for increased vaccination for S p here in the states once the work that is in progress and in press is all published. I'm in a group that is currently not vaccinated for S pneumo that he believes should be- so I will talk to my doc about getting the shot.

I've created a new thread, so I'll move the discussion there...