kidzdoc in 2013: Old World, New Imports part 15

Paul Klee, Full Moon, 1919




Currently reading:

  

Kafka On the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Homage to Barcelona by Colm Tóibín

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
110. Lost New Orleans by Mary Cable
111. Angel Agnes: The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport by Charles Wesley Alexander
112. Paradises by Iosi Havilio
113. Blue White Red by Alain Mabanckou
114. Buttoned-Up: The East London Line by Fantastic Man

December:
115. A Thousand Morons by Quim Monzó
116. Heads and Straights: The Circle Line by Lucy Wadham
117. Operation Massacre by Rodolfo Walsh
118. The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka
119. The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico by Antonio Tabucchi
120. The Woman of Porto Pim by Antonio Tabucchi
121. Prize Fight: The Race and the Rivalry to be the First in Science by Morton Meyers
122. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
123. Top 10 of London: 250 Lists About London That Will Simply Amaze You! by Alexander Ash
124. Good Offices by Evelio Rosero
125. The World Is Moving Around Me: A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake by Dany Laferrière

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 November (as always, subject to change):

Angel Agnes: The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport by Charles Wesley Alexander - completed
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 - reading
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
Lost New Orleans by Mary Cable - completed
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, Eve Harris
Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare - completed
Paradises by Iosi Havilio - completed
Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, Percival Everett
Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and Their Doctors, David Mendel
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

Hope you have a scrumptious, happy day, Darryl! (Missed a whole thread, somehow, but that's life.)

Peeking in .... safe to come in now, Darryl?

Watching the Macy's Day Parade? I have to record it... I'm watching a part of it, but I will miss Snoopy by the time he comes through because we should be on the road to NY by then.... or face Edd's sister's wrath if we're late to her table for Thanksgiving dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving, my dear friend!

>10 kidzdoc: Thanks, Linda! I hope that you have a lovely Thanksgiving Day as well.

>11 laytonwoman3rd: Ack! I'm not dressed yet, Caroline!

Okay, now I'm ready (sorry for the scare). I usually don't watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but I'll take a peek at it now, since you mentioned it.

Have a safe drive to New York (Long Island?). Sorry that I won't get to see you on Black Friday this year. I will visit my parents from December 29 to January 2 or so; please let me know if you'll be in or around NYC during that time.

What's up with Edd's sister? She sounds like his polar opposite.

Happy Thanksgiving, Doc, and remember how very many people young and old are thankful for you and your skills saving so many children from misery, even death.

The rest of us, well, we put up with you somehow. :-P~~~~~~

>14 richardderus: LOL! Thanks, Richard! And a Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

Messages from my previous thread:

#251 (wilkiec)

Thanks for your answers, Darryl and Rebecca :-)

#252 (qebo)

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-.

#253 (cameling)

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.

#254 (streamsong)

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.

>251 richardderus: You're welcome, Diana; your question led to an interesting discussion about Thanksgiving in the United States.

I believe that Canada is the only other country that formally celebrates Thanksgiving, and I'd be curious to know what the differences are from the US version. Is it as major a holiday there as it is here? (I suspect not.) I suppose that Suz and possibly Zoë would be the best ones to ask, although the other Canadians could certainly field this question. I'd also love to hear about the experiences of people not from the US or Canada who attended Thanksgiving, whether in North America or in their own countries.

>252 alcottacre: Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Katherine! The skies are medium blue and it's very sunny, with a current temperature of 31° F (-1° C).

If you took out our prayer and round of thanks around the dinner table our typical Thanksgiving dinners have little if any religious elements to them, and I suspect that they would be identical to ones held by most people in the US. Watching NFL football is essential (for the men, anyway), and the kids and younger adults usually go outside to play football before dinner.

>253 brenpike: Happy Thanksgiving, Caroline! Most of my close extended family is not getting together this year, which is the main reason why I decided not to travel to Philadelphia this year. My parents will visit a close family friend in central New Jersey, my brother and cousins will spend the day with their families in NJ and DC, and my mother's sisters will be in NYC, in a residential complex affiliated with Sloan-Kettering Memorial Medical Center (my oldest aunt has suffered a recurrence of cancer, so she will stay there until Monday, when she will undergo an operation at the hospital). And, even if I had come up I would have taken the train to NYC on Black Friday to visit my aunt, and I probably wouldn't have been able to meet up with you. I'm working over the Christmas holiday (Dec 22-28), but hopefully we can meet up in NYC or Boston if you're off from work at the end of the year.

>254 SqueakyChu: Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Janet! Thanks for your comments about the movie Contagion; I think I'll have to see it. You're right, the book Spillover is on my radar screen; for some reason I didn't buy it when I saw it at Book Culture in NYC earlier this year. I bought a book entitled Contagion: How Commerce Has Spread Disease by Mark Harrison from the Harvard Coop when I visited Caroline earlier this year; I haven't read it yet, though.

I would have enjoyed that talk by Ian Lipkin! I worked in a research lab at NYU in the four years after I graduated from Rutgers and before I went to Pitt for medical school.

You may be interested in a book that I won from the LT Early Reviewers' program this month: Prize Fight: The Race and the Rivalry to be the First in Science by Morton Meyers:

We often think of scientists as dispassionate and detached, nobly laboring without any expectation of reward. But scientific research is much more complicated and messy than this ideal, and scientists can be torn by jealousy, impelled by a need for recognition, and subject to human vulnerability and fallibility. In Prize Fight , Emeritus Chair at SUNY School of Medicine Morton Meyers pulls back the curtain to reveal the dark side of scientific discovery. From allegations of stolen authorship to fabricated results and elaborate hoaxes, he shows us how too often brilliant minds are reduced to petty jealousies and promising careers cut short by disputes over authorship or fudged data.

Prize Fight is a dramatic look at some of the most notable discoveries in science in recent years, from the discovery of insulin, which led to decades of infighting and even violence, to why the 2003 Nobel Prize in Medicine exposed how often scientific objectivity is imperiled.

I'll plan to read it next month, and I'd be happy to send it to you once I'm done, if you'd like.

Please keep me posted about the analyses about influenza and Streptococcus pneumoniae pneumonia. I see several sick kids every year with primary influenza infection and a secondary bacterial pneumonia, such as the kid I admitted on Friday and sent home on Monday. We worry most about Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia in these patients, so we cover them with IV clindamycin or vancomycin (anti-staphylococcal antibiotics) in addition to ceftriaxone (Rocephin) (our IV drug of choice for standard bacterial pneumonias caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, Moraxella catarrhalis and Haemophilus influenzae). Although I haven't seen or taken care of any personally, I know of several kids in years past who rapidly deteriorated and died from influenza and secondary bacterial pneumonia within a day or two of first becoming sick, so I and my partners have a healthy respect for what influenza can do in the worst case scenarios.

Love the new Paul Klee picture. I hadn't seen that one before.

Though I did not know of this painting, I immediately recognized it as a Paul Klee painting. His works are vibrant!

Happy Thanksgiving to you dear Darryl.
May your day be happy.

>18 Nickelini: Thanks, Joyce. I can't remember if I saw that one last month, when Bianca and I went to the Paul Klee exhibition at the Tate Modern. I do like it, though.

>19 Whisper1: Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Linda! I agree; his paintings are vibrant, especially the ones in his middle period. The Tate Modern exhibition was organized chronologically, so the public could examine his first experiments with combining colors, some of which weren't always successful IMO, and how he used different and more vivid colors in his paintings in the late 1910s and beyond.

Happy Thanksgiving, Darryl! I'm thankful that I got to meet you in Philadelphia this year, and that your thread today was short enough for me to stop by!

I hope all is going well for you!

Hi Darryl, and Happy Thanksgiving. We do celebrate it here in Canada too, but a month earlier and it's not nearly as much of a big deal here as it is in the States... And certainly not here in Quebec either.

I'm glad to see so many people interested in reading A Place of Greater Safety in 2014. As for creating a group read thread, please don't count on me for that. While I've gladly shared reads whenever possible, my track record for participating in group reads has been pretty terrible, though I'll gladly sign up on any TIOLI challenge if invited to do so.

I'm curious about something you said in your previous thread about certain childhood illnesses having long-term neurological consequences. I had mononucleosis when I was three years old, which I know is highly unusual at that age, being an adult illness. For most of my life, I suffered from what seems to be chronic fatigue syndrome, and have long suspected that maybe the mononucleosis had somehow affected me at developmental stages, and might be the cause for this recurrent fatigue. I'll never forget the deep sadness and dread I felt as a small child when one moment I was filled with energy and desire to do all sorts of things, then very suddenly completely drained and unable to do anything but sleep. Somehow, it seems that's always stayed with me. I've brought it up with a few doctors, who said there is no research on the subject, but there might be something in my theory. What do you think about it?

Love the Klee up top, Darryl. And >21 kidzdoc:.



Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, Darryl, and everyone else. You asked if I bought a cooked turkey: nope, I made my own stuffing and it's roasting in the oven. Jasper & Suki (my cats) are eagerly awaiting their treat of giblets. The weather turned out to be pretty nice here--sunny, but cold. (Although with that darn Daylight Savings Time, it's already starting to get dark.)

Love the Klee--it's darker than most of the ones I've seen before.

As Smiler says, Canadian Thanksgiving is earlier than it is in the US: the second Monday in October. The leaves are at the peak of colour, the harvest is all around; it's a glorious time of year for such a feast. It always made far more sense to have it then, than at the end of November, but then, it doesn't mark any Pilgrim arrivals here.

Theodore White has a story about learning about Thanksgiving in school when he was ten years old. For a play designed to teach the children about the first Thanksgiving, the completely Jewish class was divided into those who spoke English, and those who were recent arrivals and spoke only Yiddish (this would be about 1925). The Yiddish speakers were assigned non speaking roles as Indians and were supposed to make odd sounds, while White, the best English speaker, would "translate" for the Puritans. Those playing Indians started speaking Yiddish, pretending it was an Indian language. The teacher did not understand a word. One of the children said "Vos is dos vor traef?", (something along the lines of "You want me to eat that unclean pig meat/garbage?!"), which sent all the other "Indians" into fits of laughter. White gamely translated it as "What kind of strange food is this before us?"

White credits this teacher with ensuring that he went on to the Boston Latin School and thus starting his real education.

Taken from In Search of History by Theodore H White

Happy Thanksgiving to all and I want some of that stuffing Cariola.

Darryl Happy Thanksgiving to you.

>21 kidzdoc: harley-loo-ya!

Happy Thanksgiving Darryl. I bet you are glad for some down time (you do have some downtime, don't you?). It is Friday afternoon already here, so I am planning to take the kids to a friends place for an early communal tea, then bring on the weekend!

Tonight I plan not to fall asleep while reading at 8.10pm.....

Hope your Thanksgiving has been wonderful Darryl.

Happy Thanksgiving, Darryl! Nice new thread!

Woo hoo! It's Black Friday, the official start of the Christmas shopping season. Today Americans across the country put aside their Thanksgiving warmth and cheer, in order to maim and curse at their fellow shoppers and retail store employees in the true holiday spirit.



Yep. You couldn't pay me enough to go to the mall today.

>22 tloeffler: I hope that you had a lovely Thanksgiving, Terri. I had a very relaxing day, and for the first time I can remember I enjoyed being alone for the holiday. Must be gettin' old...

I loved meeting you, Brenda and other new to me and familiar LTers in Philadelphia this spring. Hopefully we can have a get together like that one in the near future.

>23 Smiler69: Thanks, Ilana. I suspected that Thanksgiving isn't as big a deal in Canada as it is in the US.

I haven't done well leading or participating in group reads either, so I'd also be a bit reluctant to join one. And, as I've said, I want to be more spontaneous in my reading plans for 2014, so I'd rather not commit myself to reading A Place of Greater Safety in a certain month. In the future I'll still post a list of monthly planned reads, but I'll only select a few books instead of the 12-15 that I had been listing.

I see that there is a TIOLI challenge for shared reads next month. Since we both plan to read The Sea, the Sea next month should I post the book there?

I'll admit that I don't know much about chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), for several reasons: it's nowhere near as common (or, at least, as recognized) in children as it is in adults; kids with CFS are rarely admitted to hospital (I only take care of hospitalized patients); and the syndrome lacks an easily describable set of diagnostic criteria.

The kids I was mentioning had far more devastating manifestations from their post-viral illnesses than those that are found in CFS. The most memorable (and heart breaking) patient I saw was an older girl who went from being a normal child with mildly altered mental status on admission to being unable to respond to commands, walk, talk, or eat within days. She had shown minimal improvement on the last day I saw her, when she was transferred to the hospital's Comprehensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit (CIRU). She was ultimately diagnosed with a condition known as anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, a condition in which antibodies attack the NMDA receptor, a protein in brain cells that is essential to learning and memory. In her case it was produced by a tumor that produced anti-NMDA antibodies, which we were able to measure in her cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood, and her symptoms began to improve once the tumor in her chest was identified and surgically removed. I didn't see her after she was transferred to the CIRU, so I don't know how much she improved after her surgery.

Ah! I need to prepare a talk for the pediatric residents this weekend, which I'll give on Monday. I hadn't yet thought of a topic, but this one would be perfect, as we've had two or three other kids with this condition on our service in the past couple of years. Thanks, Ilana!

>24 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe!

>25 Cariola: Well done on making your own turkey and stuffing, Deborah. In contrast, I made my entire Thanksgiving meal using my microwave. I'll bet your dinner tasted better than mine, but I was satisfied with what I had.

I agree with you about that painting by Klee. It is darker than the ones I remember seeing at the Tate Modern, which made it more striking to me.

>26 SassyLassy: You're right, Sassy; it certainly makes more sense to have Thanksgiving in October rather than at the end of November. I loved that story by Theodore White!

>27 luvamystery65: Thanks, Roberta; I hope that you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving as well.

>28 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan. Yes, I'm off from work until Monday, so I have another three days off, with little to do except prepare my talk for the pediatric residents this weekend. (Hmm...maybe I should cover encephalitis in general, as it needs to be roughly an hour in length.)

Tonight I plan not to fall asleep while reading at 8.10pm.....

It's about 8:10 pm in Christchurch now, isn't it Megan? Megan???

>29 leperdbunny: Happy (post) Thanksgiving to you too, Tamara!

>30 brenzi: Thanks, Bonnie!

>31 tymfos: Thanks, Terri!

Yesterday I started Lost New Orleans by Mary Cable, which I bought at the used book stalls under the Waterloo Bridge (South Bank Book Market) in London last month. I should finish it and Paradises by Iosi Havilio today, the first books I'll have completed in nearly two weeks.

Darryl, those photos are exactly why I intend to stay home today (aside from taking Jasper and Suki for their annual check-ups; the vet office should be quiet since everyone will be shopping). I need to get a few things, but nothing that can't wait until Monday or Tuesday.

I finished The Goldfinch last night. Not my usual fare, but still, quite page-turner, and finely written.

>34 Cariola: Right, Deborah. I'll probably go to the barbershop later today, but I'll skip my plan to go to Barnes & Noble until the weekend.

The Goldfinch is on my radar screen; I'll check your thread to see if you've written a review of it.

To someone who makes a difference daily.
To someone who lights up the group with his annual pilgrimage to London
Have a Happy Thanksgiving weekend Darryl.

Hope you've had a relaxingThanksgiving day.

>36 PaulCranswick: Thanks for that splendid tribute, Paul! I hope that you enjoy your weekend as well.

>37 avatiakh: I did, Kerry; thanks for asking.

Thanksgiving, then the madness of Black friday do seem poles apart .... craziness

>21 kidzdoc: YES.

>39 roundballnz: It's the sort of schizophrenic stupidity that increasingly defines what I see in Murrikin kulcher, Alex. It makes me feel physically nauseated.

I came back to say I **adore** that Klee! So beautiful. I love his work, but that one is just breathtaking.

I went to the mall on Tuesday to get my in-person Christmas shopping out of the way. I won't go back until after Christmas -- anything else I need I'll get online or from a local merchant.

>39 roundballnz: Definitely so, Alex. I normally avoid malls like the plague, and I wouldn't dream of going near one during Thanksgiving week. I pass Atlanta's two largest and oldest malls, Lenox Place and Phipps Plaza, on the drive to and from work, but I haven't been in either one since 2007, when I bought an international travel adapter prior to my first trip to London. I will go to shopping centers, such as the one that houses my closest Barnes & Noble, but the bookshop is separate from the other stores, which cuts down on the massive crowds that populate indoor malls.

>40 richardderus: Schizophrenic stupidity is a perfect descriptor for much of "American culture" (an oxymoron, perhaps?).

I'm glad that you like the Klee!

>41 lauralkeet: Right, Laura. My family normally eschews Christmas gifts, except for my brother, who has always liked to shop in malls. I'll bet that he and his GF spent much of the day in the malls of southern New Jersey.

40/42 > Sanity at this time of year seems a rare commodity ..... I Hope you are all having relaxing weekend away from any malls

I confess that I spent 45 minutes in a mall today. Very unusual for me, but I had to pick up my migraine meds and decided to see if I could find some gloves on sale. I did, and snaffled an Old Navy fleece top as well with less than 10 minutes in line -- and only $10. Not too mob-sceney, but then there isn't really a big electronics retailer there, either, so...

And I used the online 30% off any Amazon book coupon. What, you think I'd pass that up??

Canadian Tksgiving isn't a non-event, but it's nowhere NEAR the big deal it is here. If you happen to be in the same city with family, or have small kids, it's a long weekend (the day is a Monday, the same as Columbus Day) that makes it possible to travel. But the whole population doesn't set out on the roads! It's really just a harvest festival dinner, none of the whole Pilgrim mythology. Christmas (for those who aren't of other faiths) is a much bigger holiday for Canadians, and that's when people will make the effort to travel, especially since Canadians get Boxing Day (Dec 26th) off. Also -- no such thing as "Black Friday". Decorations start going up much earlier, after Thanksgiving, for Xmas/New Year's, which is absurdly early. Over the years, I've gradually become accustomed to the mania surrounding Thanksgiving here, but I confess I have never felt horrified and appalled at the idea of spending the day on my own doing nothing. Whereas doing so on Christmas I find deeply depressing. Not because I'm observing it as a religious feast, but because that's the day my memories have been tied to over the years.

I'm still chuffed by the fact you're going to finally be delving into Canadian books in the new year!

>43 roundballnz: Sanity at this time of year seems a rare commodity

Definitely, Alex. I also won't miss traveling from PHL (Philadelphia International Airport, a large and very busy airport) to ATL (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest airport) this weekend. The day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year, and I believe that the Sunday after Thanksgiving ranks second, which is why I normally leave on Thanksgiving morning and return two days later, on Saturday night; the airports are nowhere near as busy at those times.

>44 Chatterbox: Your mall trip doesn't sound like it was bad at all, Suz. There were several major accidents around the largest malls in suburban Atlanta, and the two major intown malls were exceptionally crowded. It may not be much better today, so I think I'll go to Barnes & Noble early Sunday afternoon.

I didn't see, or didn't get, that 30% online coupon from Amazon. However, I did take advantage of the Black Friday sale on Kindle books and bought Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela for $1.99. I also bought the Kindle version of The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt for $7.99, after I read Deborah's review of it yesterday (it's still available for the same price today).

Thanksgiving is a much more important holiday for my family than Christmas is, and although both days were very memorable growing up as a child I'd say that Thanksgiving was a bit more special. We lived in Jersey City until the summer of 1974, when I turned 13, and so did my mother's older sister and my father's oldest brother (who married each other and had three boys), my father's second older brother, his wife and their five girls, and my paternal grandparents; my maternal grandparents lived across the Hudson River in the Bronx. So, we never had to travel very far until we moved to Pennsylvania, but even then the 70 mile drive from there to Jersey City is less than an hour and a half by car, which was a trip that we or they would make every month or two anyway. I was much closer to my boy cousins than my girl cousins back then (as the evil girls would invariably pick on the angelic boys), but I still liked to see them. We would always have Thanksgiving dinner together, but we would usually visit them separately on Christmas Day, or sometimes not at all if they visited my aunt's relatives, who weren't related to us or my boy cousins (as we shared the same maternal and paternal grandparents). Christmas gifts weren't and still aren't as important to me as getting together with as many family members as possible, so large scale Thanksgiving dinners were more memorable than smaller Christmas gatherings, although the Midnight Mass services at the Lutheran church we attended in Jersey City were very special.

I had wanted to read more CanLit for several years, so I thank you, Joyce and other Canadians for encouraging me and giving me the idea for my challenge next year!

I do like that Klee painting. And how happy-making to see the Canadian flag up there for your Can Lit challenge. I envy you your Thanksgiving memories. Coming from a very small family spread out across two provinces for many years, I don't have those same big family gathering memories. As for the whole Black Friday phenom, I find it repulsive and wish like fury that it wasn't spreading its tendrils up here.

I think staffers ought to be paid double plus a combat bonus for working retail on Black Friday. Some shoppers are completely nuts. You couldn't pay me to shop on Black Friday at some of those stores .... I did make an exception yesterday but stepping into Barnes & Noble, but then it was next to my favorite Kosher deli on Long Island where Edd and I had gone for lunch. Plus since it's a bookstore .. we knew it wouldn't be a crush in there anyway. Still, we managed to pick up some good book deals and have part of our Christmas list completed.

>46 tiffin: Thanks, Tui. Unfortunately our family gatherings are much smaller affairs nowadays. All four of my grandparents are long since gone, along with my father's three siblings, a middle boy cousin (due to sudden death from an undiagnosed congenital cardiac condition at the age of 23) and my youngest aunt's husband. Only my mother's two sisters still live in Jersey City, and although my girl cousins have plenty of children and grandchildren the four boys (my brother, myself and my two cousins) have only fathered two children, both by my youngest cousin. My brother and two cousins generally spend Thanksgiving with their significant others' families, so Thanksgiving dinners have become relatively tiny gatherings (there were only nine of us that gathered last year, and an even smaller number met for dinner this year).

We may have gone shopping in NYC or Newark, the largest city in New Jersey, on the day after Thanksgiving when I was young, but it certainly was different back then than it has become now.

>47 cameling: Right, Caroline. Unfortunately for many of these employees working on Black Friday and Thanksgiving is a requirement and not an option, and I seriously doubt that Walmart is paying its employees more than the usual starvation wages it gives them. I believe the top photo was taken at the flagship branch of Macy's on Herald Square; I used to enjoy shopping there, on my way to or from Penn Station, but it's become so crowded now. I also miss Gimbels, Bamberger's, Orbach's, Alexander's, and especially Job Lot and A&S (Abraham & Straus), major department stores which aren't in existence anymore (nor are Strawbridge & Clothier or Wanamaker's in Philadelphia).

It's hard to pass up a good Kosher deli. Or Russ and Daughters.

I am bracing myself for a necessary trip to Sam's, hoping that the Black Friday frenzy has settled down.

I think you'll enjoy The Goldfinch, Darryl. It wasn't what I expected (a good thing, actually), and not my usual fare, but I found myself quite engrossed in the story.

So you haven't read Long Walk to Freedom yet? I loved that book. I knew very little about Mandela and, to be honest, not much about South African politics so I found it pretty enlightening. That might be why I liked it so much. If you're coming to it with more background, well, we'll see. But anyway, you can't go wrong for $1.99.

>32 kidzdoc: ew. Kath just 'taught' me about Black Friday, it sounds pretty gross.

>51 LovingLit: It is the height of stupidity here, IMO. A few years ago a store employee was stampeded to death - and it happened again yesterday.

They interviewed a woman on the news a couple of days ago who was sprayed with mace last year in a crush of shoppers. The woman who sprayed her was never charged with anything but she did claim that the victim was in her way to get some sale item. I wouldn't go near a store on Black Friday. Who are these people??

I nabbed The Goldfinch, too, as I had to return my library copy before I got around to reading it. But that was a pretty good Kindle price. I can't remember whether I got the notification about the 30% via e-mail or just saw it on the page, but it was just too good to pass up...

Some my my memorable Christmases didn't involve just family, but were when we were overseas. Sometimes grandparents would come (both my parents were only children, so no aunts/uncles/cousins at all, and thus family gatherings were rather small and could become a bit intense, which I picked up on more as I got older.) But we always had what I later dubbed "waifs and strays" -- people who didn't have families overseas, whether young couples or singletons in various embassies or that my parents had met in one way or another. One year, just after my parents went to Japan, I made my first holiday trip ever there, and a high school friend of mine, who is English and who was studying in Hong Kong, hopped on a plane and came to stay with us for Xmas and New Year's -- it was fabulous. It turns out that both of us still have our pictures of myself, Nicola and my mother wearing the kimonos my father bought for each of us that holiday -- mine in dark orange, my mother's cream, and Nicola's a blue color. For dinner, I think that year we had four or five extra people -- a journalist, a Danish diplomat, a Japanese friend of my father's and a couple from the embassy. It was one of my fave Xmases, because it was more about a great, relaxed get-together than presents. For a couple of years, especially when I was briefly posted in London, I had my own waifs & strays dinner -- it was supposed to be 12 people but 16 showed up! I confess I get depressed & grumpy if I don't have anywhere to be for Xmas dinner.

My brother said he heard a report on the news about people using stun guns on other shoppers to keep them from getting the stuff they wanted. Unbelievable.

I finished November in a reading frenzy, finishing five books in the last two days of the month. I'll write brief reviews of at least some of these books shortly.

>49 Cariola: I didn't go shopping yesterday either; I may or may not go to Barnes & Noble this afternoon, depending on my progress with the resident presentation that I need to finish today.

Your review of The Goldfinch was quite compelling, Deborah. I'll probably read it early next year.

>50 lauralkeet: I hadn't read Long Walk to Freedom yet, Laura, so I was happy to see it on sale on Friday. It's another book I'll read early next year.

>51 LovingLit: Black Friday, at its worst, is definitely gross, Megan. The majority of the uncivilized and violent activity seems to take place at Walmart stores, a hugely popular and almost equally reviled store that seems to represent the worst of American greed and attract the basest elements of American society. There is a store not far from me, but I've only been there once, to buy a particular item, and, after this week, I don't plan to shop there again.

Despite the horrible stories I'd like to believe that these behaviors represent isolated and rare incidents, and that the vast majority of Black Friday shoppers acted like civilized human beings.

>52 avidmom: I saw that story, avidmom. It happened at a Walmart (surprise, surprise) on Long Island, right?

>53 brenzi: Seriously, Bonnie? That is bad. I'll bet these people are the same ones who faithfully watch Jerry Springer's and Maury Povich's tabloid talk shows on television, in which guests verbally and physically assault each other, to the delight of the hosts and the audience. I'm not in favor of censorship generally, but I would definitely like to see those shows, reality TV programs, and gangster rap severely regulated, if not banned altogether.

>54 Chatterbox: I confess I get depressed & grumpy if I don't have anywhere to be for Xmas dinner.

I normally work over the Christmas holiday, so that I can have Thanksgiving off. We have to work at least one of the three major late fall and winter holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day), so I frequently have Christmas dinner at home alone (or at my favorite Indian restaurant in town), or at the hospital if I'm on call. Nobody likes working on Christmas, needless to say, but the nurses make the best of it by spreading Christmas cheer and bringing in homemade dishes to have a nice Christmas lunch. My favorite nurses on the third floor of the hospital always invite me to join them, and I'll bring something to share with them as well. I'm on call on Christmas Day this year, and I plan to bring meat pies and pasties from a nearby Australian bakery for them.

>55 Cariola: My brother said he heard a report on the news about people using stun guns on other shoppers to keep them from getting the stuff they wanted. Unbelievable.

Nice. I'll bet that some Black Friday shoppers, after hearing these reports about mace and stun guns, will go out and buy these items now, or plan to get them to use next year.

There is not now, nor has there ever been, some material object I wanted enough to stun-gun someone to get.

If there ever is, it will be food or water after the Apocalypse.

Book #110: Lost New Orleans by Mary Cable



My rating:

Purchased from the South Bank Book Market (a.k.a. the Stalls under the Waterloo Bridge) in London, 14 Oct 2013

This coffee table book was originally published in 1980, and it describes many of the most important buildings and structures built in New Orleans from its humble founding in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, to the early years of the 20th century. The author provides a brief history of the original settlement of the Crescent City along the Mississippi River, along with its subsequent transfers of power from the French Mississippi Company to France in 1722, from France to Spain in 1763, from Spain back to France in 1795, and finally from France to the United States in 1803. These frequent exchanges, along with the slave trade through the Caribbean and the influx of Cajuns from Canada in the mid 18th century, provided New Orleans with its unique blend of people and their influences on the architecture, cuisine and music of New Orleans and south Louisiana.

All but a tiny handful of the buildings erected in New Orleans' first two centuries are no longer in existence, due to several factors. Most early buildings were made of local wood, which was quite flammable, and despite its location between a massive lake and a large river the residents of the city depended on volunteer firemen, who were more likely than not to be drunken and incompetent. The often rickety and water logged buildings provided little resistance to the extreme winds and severe flooding from the Gulf Coast's frequent hurricanes and tropical storms. Finally, the flimsy brick used in construction of these early buildings would frequently erode due to the effects of humidity and moss formation, causing these structures to slowly crumble. In later years property owners and the city's fathers tore down several grand buildings, while fires destroyed many of the others, including the French Opera House and the St. Charles Hotel:





Lost New Orleans is nicely organized into sections on Transportation and Commerce; Residences; Hotels; Schools, Libraries and Places of Worship; and Places of Entertainment. It also contains dozens of superb black & white photographs, paintings and drawings of the buildings described in the text.

I found this book to be an interesting read, albeit dry in spots. This is definitely recommended for anyone interested in the early history and development of New Orleans, although the buildings depicted here will be unrecognizable to anyone familiar with the modern Crescent City.

Morning Darryl- Hope things have slowed down for you. I am deeply into Troubles. It is such a terrific book. Have you read Farrell? Probably a dumb question.

Book #111: Angel Agnes: The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport
by Charles Wesley Alexander



My rating:

This fantastical novella describes the short life of Agnes Arnold, a young Christian woman who, having been spurned by the man she loved, decides to travel to Shreveport, Louisiana in 1873, during the height of the city's yellow fever epidemic, in order to nurse and minister to the sick and dying. Despite having no formal training in nursing, our Agnes proceeds to save lives left and right, using a simple remedy that she learned years earlier in New Orleans, along with her own abiding faith. All are amazed by her healing powers, and she is given the name "Angel Agnes" by the city's grateful residents. Her beloved travels to claim her, before he is stricken by the illness. Although grief stricken, Agnes continues to work tirelessly to save lives, before she meets her tragic end.

>59 kidzdoc: Sounds interesting enough.

>61 kidzdoc: *sugar coma*

>58 richardderus: There is not now, nor has there ever been, some material object I wanted enough to stun-gun someone to get.

I beg to differ, sir. I could easily envision you maiming anyone who stands between you and a plate of bacon or a cronut.

>60 msf59: Happy Sunday, Mark! I'll have a busy day today, but it's been a relaxing and necessary five days off from work. I'm glad that you're enjoying Troubles, which is one of my favorite books that I've read in the new millenium. I've read all three novels in J.G. Farrell's Empire Trilogy; Troubles was my favorite of the three, and I absolutely loved The Siege of Krishnapur. The Singapore Grip was very good, but it's not as good as the other two books.

>62 richardderus: Right, Richard. Reading Angel Agnes was akin to eating a bowl of Lucky Charms, with two tablespoons of sugar added to the milk and topped with Cool Whip. A large dose of Pepto-Bismol or a dose of IV Zofran (a powerful anti-emetic) is highly recommended to anyone who dares to give that book a go.

Club Read member MJ (detailmuse) posted this message earlier this morning:

"Through today (Dec 1) at Amazon (at least the US site): extra 30% off one book (max discount $10) when you enter “BOOKDEAL” in the gift card/promotional code box at checkout."

I assume that this is the same discount that Suz was referring to. I ordered Paul Klee: Making Visible, the catalogue from the current exhibition at the Tate Modern, and I saved $10 on the price of the book.

Ten bucks ain't hay! I'd never tazer someone over bacon, I'd simply dismember them INTO bacon. No one gets between me and my pig-meat and lives to tell about it.

Hi Darryl, happy belated Thanksgiving. Was wondering why your thread was so quiet … because you'd started a new one, LOL!

Love the Paul Klee you've opened with. And your Canadian Lit list looks great, as does your global reading one.

The only Black Friday shopping I do is online. Less chances of being trampled to death! Some truly horrifying stories. Think I'll pass on Angel Agnes, but I'm off to see if that Amazon discount works in Canada.

Oh, and yes, that's the TIOLI challenge I was talking about i.e. Liz's challenge. Feel free to list me there too when you sign yourself up. I'm finishing one book, which I'm sharing with Liz soon, and will get started on The Sea, The Sea right after that.

Eta: no luck with Amazon.

Book #112: Paradises by Iosi Havilio



My rating:

This novel is set mainly in modern day Buenos Aires, narrated by a woman who has moved there from a small town after her husband has died and left her and her young son destitute. She finds lodging at a rooming house, where she is befriended by a Romanian immigrant who helps her land a job at a local zoo. She subsequently moves into a nearby abandoned building, which houses a community of squatters that is headed by a woman dying of cancer, who relies on the new resident to give her intravenous injections of morphine to relieve her pain. The narrator integrates herself into the settlement and its shady characters, while maintaining close relationships with her Romanian friend and a running buddy from her old neighborhood, who has moved in with a wealthy drug addict nearby.

All three women and those around them are lonely, desperate people, bored with life and in search of temporary pleasure, in order to mask their anxieties and fears. The narrator frequently abandons her rambunctious son, as danger exists within and outside of the squatter settlement and whenever she meets up with her old friend.

Paradises was a pleasant and well written but not particularly memorable read, with characters who live on the edge of society. I didn't find them or the story to be particularly unique or enlightening, as people like these can be found in any major city in the world, but I liked this book enough that I would be willing to try other books by this author.

Thanks for the thumbs up on the Guests on Earth review, Daryl. I was glad to receive it as an Early Reviewers selection.

Black Friday...I jumped into the madness by using a B&N online coupon to pick up a copy of Cotton: the fabric that made the modern world No stores were entered in committing this seasonal cultural atrocity. But I must wait for the mail carrier to deliver.

Thanks for the link to Deborah's review of The Goldfinch. I picked it up at Costco last month and it's sitting on the 'to read' pile. A nice thick book for dark winter days....and Donna Tartt's writing tends to fit that atmosphere.

>66 richardderus: Right, Richard. I balked on buying Paul Klee: Making Visible when I saw it listed for nearly $35 on Amazon, but the $10 discount makes it definitely worthwhile.

Yikes. I knew that anyone who got between you and bacon was in mortal danger, but I didn't realize how much peril they were in.

>67 lit_chick: Thanks, Nancy! My thread will resume being quiet after I return to work tomorrow, although hopefully next week won't be as busy as the past ones have been.

In addition to my CanLit plans for next year I also intend to read Spanish fiction and nonfiction books set in Spain during the next 6-7 months, in preparation for my probable trip to Barcelona in late June. I bought several books set in Barcelona when I went to Daunt Books last month, and I started reading one of them, A Thousand Morons, a short story collection by Quim Monzó, earlier this morning.

>68 Smiler69: I had mentioned on Liz's TIOLI thread that you and I were planning to read The Sea, the Sea this month, Ilana. Margaret (wandering_star) also expressed an interest in reading it with us, and she listed the book and our names in the TIOLI wiki for December.

>70 tangledthread: You're welcome, tangledthread. If I don't go to Barnes & Noble to use the Black Friday coupon today then I'll order a book online, probably The Good Lord Bird.

Paradises sounds like one of your usual jollifications, Darryl. I shall give it a respectful, if wide, berth.

>72 richardderus: Good idea, Richard.

Book #113: Blue White Red by Alain Mabanckou



My rating:

Alain Mabanckou's debut novel is narrated by Massala-Massala, a young Congolese man who is a neighbor of Moki, a slightly older man who is revered by the villagers where his parents and brothers live in luxury. Moki is a Parisian, one of the few Congolese who has emigrated to Paris and found success there. He is welcomed like royalty when he makes his annual return to his home during the dry season, as he represents the hopes and dreams of his people. He dresses in the latest Parisian fashions, hands out gifts to extended family members and friends, speaks proper French French instead of speaking in French, quotes de Maupassant, Saint-Exupéry and Baudelaire freely, causes local girls to swoon openly in his presence, and holds court at his father's home and in local bars, as he talks about the French capital, his opulent life, and what it takes to succeed there: "Paris is a big boy. Not for little kids." In the Congo, Parisians like Moki are revered, whereas Peasants, those emigrants who live in towns outside of Paris as they pursue higher education, don't dress like dandies, and associate with Congolese villagers as equals instead of as lesser beings, are viewed with disdain.

Massala-Massala decides to emigrate to Paris, and with the help of his father, his uncle and Moki, he manages to get a visa and passport, and travels by air to Paris with his idol. However, instead of the wealth and easy living that Moki has promised, he quickly discovers the truth about the sordid lives of African immigrants in France, most of whom live there illegally and in poverty, as they face the constant threat of police harassment and deportation back to their homelands. His legal visa soon expires, and he is forced to participate in the underground economy that provides him with enough money for food and lodging, but little else.

Blue White Red, named after the tricolored French flag and the winner of the 1999 Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire for the best novel published in France and written by a sub-Saharan Francophone author, is an apt and biting commentary about the sordid lives of African immigrants in France and their countrymen who are caught up in the hype about the greener grass that they believe awaits them in Europe. Although it isn't as well developed as his later novels it is still a very good effort, and a valuable addition to Francophone literature.

>72 richardderus:...I'm looking forward to The Good Lord Bird too....am 3rd on the library waiting list, which means it will be available in 6 to 9 weeks. There's plenty on the book pile to work on until then.

Book #114: Buttoned-Up: The East London Line by Fantastic Man



My rating:

This is another of the dozen books in the Penguin Underground Series, written in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the London Underground in 2013. Unlike the other 11 books in the series, which are based on current Underground lines, the East London line is no longer in service, as it closed in 2007 and was replaced by London Overground services in 2010.

In keeping with the closure of the East London line, the writers of Fantastic Man, a London men's fashion magazine, eschew any mention of the past or current train services, and instead focus on the fashion sense of ordinary men and male celebrities who work and live there. The title of the book refers to the current trend of tasteful young men to wear dress shirts completely buttoned and without ties. The book contains numerous pictures of these fashion plates, along with occasional photos of East London street corners.

This book was a complete waste of my time, and it may possibly be the worst of the 11 Penguin Underground books that I've read so far.

>75 tangledthread: There's plenty on the book pile to work on until then.

I completely agree, tangledthread! I could go for at least two or three years without buying a single book, and still not be completely caught up on the books I want to read.

*off to place another order using Barnes & Noble online coupon*

It looks like you have been very busy reading. Luckily, not too many book bullets for me--I did have Blue White Red on my list, but perhaps I will try one of his later works instead.

I read Long Walk to Freedom last year, and thought it was really good. If you read it in the first part of the year, it will be good for the Reading Globally African theme read.

Yup, BOOKDEAL was the 30% off that I was thinking of. Found it was perfect to convince me to get Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin. We all have a book like this, don't we -- a bit too pricey by normal standards, but when there's a big discount or a gift certificate involved...

I just downloaded the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote, which is one of December's Kindle specials.

>78 banjo123: Right, Rhonda. However, four of the five books I read were short and easy reads, and although Paradises was roughly 325 pages long it was also a quick read.

Blue White Red was good, but it was my second least favorite of Mabanckou's novels that I've read. I'd much more highly recommend Broken Glass and Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty.

>79 Chatterbox: I loved Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote. I definitely wan to read it again in the near future.

>74 kidzdoc: that book is screaming at me to read it. However I am not listening to its urgent call, and am placing it on my library WL instead. It will have to wait its turn :)

>76 kidzdoc: I ordered Mind the Child from Book Deop's mega 25 hour sale a few days ago. It is the one about the Victoria Line, and I presume it is one of the set. (The subtitle says "Penguin Underground Lines". I hope it is better than some you have reviewed so far. I see you have it/have read it, but cant find a review.

Woo! I've just finished preparing my talk and slides on childhood encephalitis, which I'll give to the pediatric residents tomorrow afternoon after rounds, and it didn't take me as long to create it as I feared it might. With time allotted for questions and discussion it should last for 45-50 minutes.

>81 LovingLit: Books can be so rude sometimes. They should wait their turn in proper order, and not jump the reading queue.

Sorry that I didn't write a review of Mind the Child, Megan. However, it was one of the three Penguin Underground Lines books that I liked best, along with A Good Parcel of English Soil and What We Talk About When We Talk About the Tube.

Ah well, Darryl, fate has stepped in anyway and made the book wait. My library doesn't have it. I will come across is no doubt in my travels.
Good news on Mind the Child being one of the better ones. I am so looking forward to the parcels (the BD ones and my Xmas swap one) arriving!

Another crazy night in the hospital. A pre-teenaged patient of one of my partners, who sells drugs in his middle school, has multiple sex partners, and was kicked out of the previous psychiatric hospital he was admitted to after he punched out a staff member there, was admitted to hospital due to a drug overdose. This evening pills were found in his bed, and when he dropped his shorts to take a supervised bath two bags of psychotropic pills fell out of his anus, along with a number of fragmented pill fragments. He became poorly responsive and unstable after I saw him, so he will be transferred to our PICU shortly. I've seen a lot in 13 years of practice, but this is beyond the belief of me and my other partners, as we were all shocked and horrified by this story. Hopefully this little monster will be transferred to a psychiatric facility after he is ready for discharge from hospital, and stay there for the rest of his life.

Then there was the 1-1/2 week old baby who was born to a drug addicted mother (but for some reason was sent home with the parents, even though the mother tested positive for heroin), who was admitted because she lost 2 lb of body weight in less than one week (about 25% of her birth weight), despite the mother's insistence that she was feeding her every 3 hours at home (yeah, right), along with jitteriness consistent with drug withdrawal. I think that this baby needs a parentectomy (nonsurgical removal from her parents).

>83 LovingLit: I hope that you are able to get Blue White Red soon, Megan. I look forward to your thoughts about Mind the Child.

Off to bed...

Ee gads, what terrible stories!!!!

Hi Darryl! Nice review of Blue White Red. I think I'll take your recommendation, however, and add Broken Glass or Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty to my wish list.

#84 - Wow, the things you see. Really sad stories, those, as well as infuriating. I'm glad you're there to pick up some of the proverbial pieces, Darryl.

Take care ---

Wow Darryl, just wow. Mouth hanging open here.

OMG Darryl, such awful situations, both of them. Hang in there.

Whoa, mouth hanging open here, too. What a night!

I'm gobsmacked, too, Darryl, How can a guy become that much of a problem before he even hits the teen years? Wow. And the poor baby. A few years ago I was involved in a lot of adoptions by grandparents of their grandchildren, because the parents had too many drug problems. Making the best they could of a bad situation.

Hope you're able to clear your mind all right after experiencing a night like that. Tough.

Sad, sad, sad, all of it. And Mandela has died. I think I'll go pull the blankets over my head.

Woo! It's Friday, and I'm off for a three day weekend. For the rest of you:



The little drug dealer was discharged from the hospital and transferred to an inpatient psychiatric facility yesterday (two of the facilities refused to accept him, as he was deemed to be too dangerous). The local police department came to the hospital last night to interview him, and he assaulted one of the officers. So, he will almost certainly be incarcerated in a local juvenile detention center after he is released from the psychiatric facility.

According to my partner that took care of him on Tuesday, when the mother was informed about his drug dealing, drug use and sexual activity, she replied, "Kids are doing things younger these days." And, her slightly older daughter is also in a psychiatric facility at the moment. She easily gets my award for Mother of the Year. Her reward should be incarceration, for raising the most demonic child I've ever seen.

The hospital kept law enforcement officers busy last week. Our security officers maintained a constant presence outside of the room of the drug dealer; three parents of kids that one of my partners was taking care of were arrested in the hospital yesterday, for abusing their children; and I saw a Georgia State Patrol officer manning a side entrance of our ED (I don't know why he was there, though). Fortunately all of the children and parents I saw yesterday were functional, stable and pleasant, so it was a good although busy day.

>85 avidmom: I have plenty of other stories, avidmom, but I'm sure that no one wants to hear them.

>86 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen. Broken Glass and Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty should be available in the US.

That first family is completely broken, and the two kids should be taken away from their completely useless mother (who, IMO, deserves to serve jail time for her son's actions). And, I still think that the boy is just too evil to ever be placed back in society. He will be, of course, until he commits a violent crime and is incarcerated for life.

Kids like this make me no longer willing to take care of psychiatric patients in a children's hospital, or at least in a general ward where they could harm nurses, patients or other families. He was loaded with psychotropic drugs, and could have potentially given some to another hospitalized patient in a common area. If something like that had happened and that other child became ill, guess whose fault that would have been? Yes, it would have been the hospital's fault. Likewise, if he assaulted a patient or parent it would have been our fault as well. I am going to bring this up with hospital administration, and argue that these patients need to be placed in a secure portion of the hospital, away from others and guarded closely, or they shouldn't be admitted here at all.

I also took care of a 20 year old severely autistic child this week, who is seen by an internal medicine physician and an adult infectious disease specialist, yet somehow ended up coming to a children's hospital instead of a general hospital to receive care. He was at least 6'1", weighed 240 lb, was as strong as an ox, and became combative when he was told that he couldn't eat or drink anything for several hours, until his MRI scan had been completed. He could have seriously injured one of the nurses if his parents weren't able to calm him down. I understand that we have to accept certain risks in performing our work duties, but cases like these are unacceptable IMO.

>87 Nickelini: Everyone who heard about the little drug dealer had the same response, Joyce; everyone's mouths were hung open, and most said something along the lines of "You're kidding, right?"

>88 lauralkeet: Thanks, Laura. Fortunately I saw plenty of cute kids (especially babies hospitalized due to RSV bronchiolitis) and lovely families, and I only saw the demon child very briefly on Wednesday night.

>89 lit_chick: It was a busy and crazy night, Nancy, with lots of admissions along with the drama.

>90 jnwelch: Joe, I'm still amazed that a mother who was addicted to heroin was allowed to take her newborn baby home. Hopefully DFCS (the state's Division of Family and Children's Services) will take custody of this little one before she starves to death.

>91 tiffin: Very sad indeed, Tui. I didn't hear about Nelson Mandela's death until last night, and I was only able to stay awake long enough last night to finish my progress notes and off-service notes before I crashed and fell asleep. I'm glad to hear that he died peacefully at home in the company of his family, rather than in the hospital.

Rest in peace, Madiba. While we mourn your passing, we also celebrate your rich life and the many lessons you have taught us.

>92 kidzdoc: I have plenty of other stories, avidmom, but I'm sure that no one wants to hear them.
Yep. I hear that. For a while I worked in a psychologist office working with patient files, and boy, the stuff I got to read (& listen to!). Makes you want to go home and wash your brain out with soap!

>94 kidzdoc: Beautiful pic.

I thought that here, as in the US, babies whose mothers have been using drugs would have been kept in longer after birth because of the dangers presented by withdrawal issues.

I can only think the mini drug dealer's parents/family must have their own issues - kids with good parents aren't immune to drug dependency etc but to get in that state so young - he and his sister have a grim future wherever it might be.

My cousin S is a junkie, after some very worrying years S's older sister K has taken the main responsibility for bringing up N who is now 9, with S and K's mother taking on a supporting role. S also has a younger daughter who lives with her father - he also has a drug history but cleaned up after their daughter was born. He refused to return the child from a visit with him and took her to live in Wales, sad for my aunt who is their grandmother, but I think he had a point - N had some very unsettling years when S was given too many chances and some shocking stuff happened, and he does seem to have put the child before the drugs. (The girls don't have the same dad).

>94 kidzdoc: Well said, and lovely photo.

Aw, Darryl, your stories just make me sad. My nephew's girlfriend is a social worker at Barnes Hospital, and she has some of the same sad stories (although some of hers are adults). My 16 year-old grandson has been bipolar since he was very young, and he has had some violent episodes, but nothing to that extent. I guess it's the old nature/nurture discussion--where does one start and one end? I believe it has to be a combination.

Anyway, Happy December to you!

It appalls me that people become pregnant while on drugs and are allowed to keep their children. IMHO, those kids are already starting life with several strikes against them, and should be immediately placed with potential adoptive parents. It's bad enough that some teenagers or adults choose to take addictive drugs and wreak havoc on their own lives; to inflict this on a child?? I'd go as far as suggesting that chronic drug abusers should be given Norplant or something of that kind. Yes, even if it's against their will. And to have it removed, they need to demonstrate that they've been clean for a significant period of time.

The autistic child is a horrible tale, too, but in that case, clearly, it's the disease rather than the child or the parents that is the biggest issue.

As for the psychopathic juvenile -- the prospect that he'll one day be out on the streets is horrifying. I can only hope -- and this is a bizarre kind of "hope" -- that some rival dealer ends up taking him out of the picture permanently at some point. I'm not a believer in capital punishment, but do rather hope that the Darwinian struggle will claim at least some of these people.

Many of these tales are great arguments in favor of licensing prospective parents. Sigh. Thankfully, I see less of the day-to-day juvenile delinquency that I witnessed in Brooklyn. Most of the kids in this neighborhood belong to the city's very close-knit Hispanic community, and while I'm sure there are some bad apples, there is also some very "present" parenting going on. For instance, there's a school bus stop across the street from me, and even though this is a hyper-residential neighborhood with few if any strangers and almost no traffic, parents will wait there to pick up even their middle school kids and walk them home.

>95 avidmom: Right, avidmom. I will say, though, that it's one thing to read about sad and disturbing cases, and another thing entirely to see them yourself. One of my senior partners, who is roughly 10 years older than I am and has more than twice as much clinical experience as I do, were talking about the junior drug dealer, the three parents of her kids that were arrested in the hospital yesterday, and our worst experiences as physicians. She told her story, but mine (which I won't share here) topped hers, I think. I usually become misty eyed or get choked up whenever I tell that story or think about that beautiful little baby, and yesterday was no different.

We also agreed that we usually can't tell our closest family members or non-clinician friends about our worst stories or experiences, as they are too upsetting to them. I met one LTer for the first time over lunch several years ago on vacation, and I talked to her about a patient that I was very worried about, after she asked what my job was like. She became teary eyed, so I stopped mentioning that child (who, I believe, died before I return to Atlanta), but I made her teary eyed a few minutes later after I talked about another patient.

>96 elkiedee: I thought that here, as in the US, babies whose mothers have been using drugs would have been kept in longer after birth because of the dangers presented by withdrawal issues.

As it turns out, I had that case a wee bit wrong. The story I mentioned was the one that the ED physician who initially saw the child told me. It was toward the end of my shift on Wednesday, so I asked one of the nurse practitioners who works with us to see the child first, and the neurohospitalist working with me saw the baby instead of me. The mother was actually a former heroin addict, and was on methadone to reduce her opioid dependence. However, she was on a daily dose that was significantly higher than the maximum recommended dose. The baby was not started on methadone after birth, and the mother was allowed to breast feed the baby in the nursery and after discharge. So, the baby developed withdrawal symptoms, because she had been exposed to relatively large doses of methadone from her mother's bloodstream during pregnancy. The baby was apparently not observed in the hospital longer to see if she would develop signs of neonatal abstinence syndrome (the medical term for drug withdrawal in the newborn) and was not placed on a weaning dose of methadone, as she rightfully should have been. So, you're right, Luci; normally these babies are observed for longer, and the neonatologist and obstetrician that took care of this mother and infant dropped the ball in this case, and this directly led to the baby's feeding difficulty, poor weight gain and signs of opioid withdrawal.

I can only think the mini drug dealer's parents/family must have their own issues

Oh, I have no doubt about that. Before the pills fell out of his anus, and while he was still lethargic and ataxic, the mother suggested doing a cavity search on him to see if he had any drugs hidden on him. What mother of a pre-teen child would say that???

>97 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe.

>98 tloeffler: Sorry, Terri. I'll have to balance these stories with the far more common ones about my cutest patients, especially those that involve toddlers who say things that make us howl with laughter.

I agree with you; this child almost certainly has a genetic predisposition toward mental illness, and that combined with a dysfunctional family has doomed him to his current fate.

>99 Chatterbox: It appalls me that people become pregnant while on drugs and are allowed to keep their children.

Right, Suz. Although that mother was on a legal medication, the dose was so high that it adversely affected the baby. And, given how symptomatic the baby apparently was, I wouldn't automatically assume that she wasn't still taking illegal drugs in addition to the methadone. This case was badly handled during and immediately after pregnancy, IMO.

I'd go as far as suggesting that chronic drug abusers should be given Norplant or something of that kind. Yes, even if it's against their will.

I'd go one step further, if it was legal. I and others sometimes use the phrase "snip snip" (or "snip snip, snip snip") to describe what we would like to see happen to extremely dysfunctional mothers (tubal ligation) or parents (tubal ligation and vasectomy). Society is going to be responsible for caring for the f***ed up offspring of these 'families' (using the term extremely loosely), so I don't think it's completely unreasonable for society to have some say in whether drug-addicted or otherwise incompetent mothers should be allowed to bear children or not. This is a controversial stance, which smacks of forced sterilization, but if you asked my partners and primary care pediatricians privately, I suspect that the majority wouldn't disagree.

The parents of the autistic child were as nice as they could be, and they were doing the best they could in a very difficult situation. That scenario was no one's fault, but he still should never have been admitted to a children's hospital, since he was followed by an internist. If he was still being followed by a pediatrician and under the age of 21, or if he was less than 17 years old, then Children's would have been the most appropriate place. In either case, he did represent a potential danger to the nursing staff, but thankfully he wasn't a violent guy.

As for the psychopathic juvenile -- the prospect that he'll one day be out on the streets is horrifying.

There have been one or two other kids I've seen in 13+ years of clinical practice who absolutely scared me, not because of their physical size, but because they were evil, and seemed to be beyond any hope of redemption. One kid was quite young, maybe 6 or 7 years old, and the look he gave to me and his parents chilled me to my core. I pray that I'm wrong about the junior drug dealer, but I honestly fear that he will be placed into juvenile detention, get released when he turns 18, and then murder one or more people in a violent crime shortly after he is back on the streets.

I'm not a believer in capital punishment, but do rather hope that the Darwinian struggle will claim at least some of these people.

I agree completely.

Many of these tales are great arguments in favor of licensing prospective parents

We are all required to study and pass written and performance tests to get a driver's license, right? So why not ensure that prospective parents are taught how to raise a child properly?

Wow. I just don't know what to say. I was a juvenile delinquent (though mostly harmed myself and not others) and hung out with some very disturbed people for a while, was put in juvenile hall (for my own protection) for some time and got to meet kids with incredible problems (which put mine in perspective, I assure you), but I don't think I ever heard of someone that young and that troubled. How incredibly scary.

I'm sure you are willing to qualify your statement about psychiatric patients as I'm also sure you know that they are far from all being dangerous to others.

On a lighter note, I started on The Sea, The Sea a few days ago and am making slow progress so far.

I think there's a big difference between being reckless and careless and thoughtless, joyriding in cars, etc. and being a sociopath. I think there are a lot of mental health practitioners who have run across even young children that they were convinced were already sociopaths (devoid of empathy) and who would love to find a way to address that. It's a troubling conundrum, because any provision for pre-emptively protecting the rest of us from them is vulnerable to abuse (as is the sterilization that you mention, Darryl). I did ponder the sterilization thing, but the potential for abuse and the difficulty reversing it in the case of abuse makes me back away from it. But then my contemplation of the whole question is more academic, since I don't have to deal firsthand with the consequences of these individuals' disastrous lives.

I'm sure you are willing to qualify your statement about psychiatric patients as I'm also sure you know that they are far from all being dangerous to others.

Which statement was that, Ilana? I did say that "Kids like this make me no longer willing to take care of psychiatric patients in a children's hospital, or at least in a general ward where they could harm nurses, patients or other families." I was referring to kids with psychiatric disorders who were either combative or violent; those kids have no place in a children's hospital.

The hospital I work at no longer has a med-psych unit, where patients who need inpatient admission for drug overdoses, suicide attempts, eating disorders, and acute psychotic episodes were previously managed. Those patients are now on the general wards; most of them pose no danger to anyone but themselves, but the ones who do are the ones that I and my partners don't like taking care of. We find the anorexic and bulimic patients very frustrating and unrewarding, and we don't think that a children's hospital is the proper place for them, especially when there is more than one of them on the ward and they negatively influence each other. They often stay for days to weeks at a time, until an inpatient psychiatric facility or outpatient eating disorders center agrees to take them, and they take up beds that are sorely needed for kids who truly do need to be in a children's hospital, especially during the busy late fall to early spring months when we have to turn away some patients or refer them elsewhere.

ETA: I may start The Sea, the Sea as early as tomorrow, but I'll probably put it off for a couple of weeks, when I have a longer break from work (Dec 19-22).

>103 Chatterbox: I think there's a big difference between being reckless and careless and thoughtless, joyriding in cars, etc. and being a sociopath

I agree completely, Suz. Recklessness, carelessness and thoughtlessness is normal in the vast majority of teenagers to some degree, but dealing drugs (especially in middle school!) and assaulting police officers is another thing altogether.

any provision for pre-emptively protecting the rest of us from them is vulnerable to abuse (as is the sterilization that you mention

Definitely. In an ideal world we could all be protected from sociopaths and not have to support the offspring of dysfunctional families, while at the same time ensuring their rights as free individuals. On one level I would be in favor of tubal ligation of drug-addicted mothers, but realistically I know that it would never happen, and even if it were to ever come to a public vote I'd probably vote against it, due to the high likelihood of abuse.

On a lighter note: dogs overcome their fear of their feline tormentors.

You Shall Not Pass, Dog

106> That was funny! Cats rule (but some of those dogs were pretty cute, too).

#92 - Love that!

I'm feeling so sad at the passing of Nelson Mandela, an amazing man. His legacy is huge. His impact will be eternal.

>106 kidzdoc:; aww!

Love the video & promptly posted it on my FB page. Of course, Molly reacts to Cassie that way (backing out of rooms if she sees Cassie is already there) and they are both cats, so...

>107 Cariola: And those dogs did little more than drool (and whine), Deborah.

>108 EBT1002: Same here, Ellen. His emphasis on reconciliation with the former members of the apartheid government and his former captors were essential for South Africa to make a peaceful transition to a democratic government. There are still plenty of disparities that exist there, but no one can say that it isn't a vastly different country than it was prior to his release from prison in 1990.

>109 lauralkeet: Poor dogs.

>110 Chatterbox: So cats can be evil to other cats as well. I can't say that I'm surprised.

>106 kidzdoc:: That made me grin and laugh this morning. Thank you for sharing!!! Shared it with my family immediately -- my brother and his wife have two dogs, and one of them is terrified of my parents' cats. I believe this has happened during visits before!

>112 dk_phoenix: You're welcome, Faith! I'm glad that you enjoyed the video.

#106 - That is hysterical!
Um.
Cats rule.
Dogs drool.
:-)

>114 EBT1002: Here's a cute video in support of dogs:

Why Dogs are Better Than Cats

>115 kidzdoc: LOL, awesome. Why did I see that coming? My Coco (almost 10 year old toy poodle mix) still goes down our two flights of stairs that way, so I suspect he was never properly taught as a puppy.

Book #115: A Thousand Morons by Quim Monzó

  

My rating:

Quim Monzó is one of the most highly regarded contemporary Catalan authors, who has only recently been recognized in the English speaking world thanks in large part to Open Letter Books, which has published three of his books in translation in the past three years, Gasoline, Guadalajara, and A Thousand Morons. Although he has written several novels, articles and essays, he is best known in Spain and Europe for his short stories, which are generally surreal and comedic works filled with identifiable characters who find themselves in absurd situations, largely of their own doing.

A Thousand Morons, originally published in 2007, is the latest collection of short stories by Monzó to be translated into English. The first portion of the book consists of longer works, such as "Mr. Beneset", in which a man visits his somewhat unorthodox father in an old people's home, and "Love Is Eternal", about a man who decides to marry his apparently dying girlfriend, whereas most of the stories in the second part are less than five pages in length, including "Next Month's Blood", where the archangel Gabriel receives a surprise when he tells Mary that God has decided to bless her with a son, and "A Cut", in which a boy with a large neck wound is upbraided by his teacher for interrupting class and spilling blood on the floor.

Monzó excels in portraying an ordinary character in a everyday situation that slowly unfolds into a wickedly surreal one. My favorite was "Saturday", a story about a woman who progressively gets rid of everything was owned by and reminds her of her former husband, but then goes just a bit overboard in the process.

I thoroughly enjoyed this short story collection, and I look forward to reading the other three books by Monzó that I already own.

>116 Smiler69: I saw that coming too, Ilana, but it was still hilarious!

Book #116: Heads and Straights: The Circle Line by Lucy Wadham



My rating:

This is another of the books in the Penguin Underground Lines series, written in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. In keeping with many of the books in this collection, the author does not discuss the Circle Line at all, but she has written an interesting and readable book about her experiences growing up in a posh family in Chelsea in the 1970s, at a time when the neighborhood changed to a bastion of the upper middle class to one divided into Heads, the young people like Lucy and her older sisters who smoked marijuana and took heroin, attended hard rock and punk music concerts and partook in promiscuous sex, and Straights, the mostly older residents who maintained a staid 1950s lifestyle. Waldham describes her sisters and parents, but she mainly writes about her maternal grandmother, a free spirit who was influenced by her neighbor Virginia Woolf and, in turn, had both negative and positive impacts on her granddaughters. This book was just the right length to hold my attention, although I would have liked it more if she had included something about the Underground in it.

Darryl, I am catching up on reading threads and was surprised that you call the Tea Party and Cruz et al morons. If you disagree with their policies or thinking, say so but resorting to vilifying them publicly only turns what could be disagreement into animosity.
For instance, I personally disagree with Obama's policies and actions, but would never call him demeaning names in public; much less call his followers the same.

>120 xieouyang: It was only a joke, Manuel; lighten up!

You are right Darryl- taking things too seriously.

Thanks, Manuel. I could have said the same thing about the sorry lot that designed the HealthCare.gov web site, Congress as a whole, or any other collection of individuals.

Sorry if my lame attempt at humor offended you. I'll remove that comment from my review (which I did not post anywhere else).

Yep. I'm glad that I didn't travel to Philadelphia this weekend.



That photo is from today's Eagles-Lions game at Lincoln Financial Field in South Philadelphia, which is a couple of miles north of Philadelphia International Airport. BTW, the Eagles are two minutes away from a big win, as they lead the Lions 34-20 after they scored 28 points in the 4th quarter.

No need to do that Darryl. The problem with online communication is that you don't see the facial expression of the person making the comment. If somebody says that in person, one can immediately see the accompanying expression of sarcasm or at least a humorous smirk.

Hi, Darryl! I spent Sunday afternoon switching my TV between the game in Philadelphia and the game in Pittsburgh. What weather! My favorite moment of the day was when the officials in Philadelphia had to halt play at a key moment and call in the snow removal crew because they couldn't see the goal line. My second favorite moment was the entertaining last play of the Steelers game. (It would have been my very favorite if the Steelers had actually managed to score!)

It's me again, Darryl. I was thinking about the stories you told, especially about the young man with autism. You're absolutely right that a children's hospital was not where he belonged. Why did they put him there?

I think his story is symptomatic of a problem of society at large which is my pet peeve -- no one knows what to do with ADULTS with autism. There's this accepted image of "autistic children," and services for children with autism have improved markedly in recent years, as have protections with IDEA (individuals with disabilities education act). But everything just fizzles out as the folks reach that 18-21-year-old range. Pennsylvania is the only state, as I understand it, with a program geared to adults with autism -- but I've heard it has a waiting list of about 10,000 people and is only for the most radically disabled folks on the spectrum. It's like society associates autism with children, and those kids aren't supposed to grow up, or are supposed to magically disappear or become "normal" when they get older. As someone to describe, in generic terms, what people with autism are like, and they'll almost always describe a CHILD with autism.

*jumps off soapbox*

Darryl, who would pass up a title like A Thousand Morons? But with that title, your star rating and your review, there's no way I wouldn't be adding this to my OWL.

By the way, I thought you'd like to know I'm kicking back with pigs in a blanket, loaded nachos, 5 alarm chili (all homemade, ahem) and cold bottles of beer, watching Monday night football. Life is good ! I hope you're having a good evening.

>92 kidzdoc: And, I still think that the boy is just too evil to ever be placed back in society. He will be, of course, until he commits a violent crime and is incarcerated for life.
This is a really really sad situation, probably all too familiar to social worker and the like. This boy has probably been neglected and abandoned his whole life, and maybe even encouraged to sell drugs to boost the family income. It is disgusting, but is also the predictable consequence of drug addiction.
IMO there should be dedicated drug addiction treatment centers. Money would of course need to be poured endlessly into them. But this money would then need not be spent on incarceration later on, perhaps.

>104 kidzdoc: We find the anorexic and bulimic patients very frustrating and unrewarding, and we don't think that a children's hospital is the proper place for them
Same story! eating disorders are mental illnesses. There are very specific and well-performing programmes that really do work. A hospital....putting in a drip to feed a tiny youngster who is only going to pull it out when they can is so not the solution.

Mental health is such a hard treatment area, I have so much respect for the professionals who deal with those struggling to maintain their mental health.

Sorry Darryl, I know you have already talked this issue out- but I was late to the discussion :)

^ Caro, I had pigs in a blanket for the first time at my recent Xmas Bookclub- they were delicious! We also had slow roast lamb and roast veges, and a variety of other Xmas treats.

#119: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Darryl.

Hope all is well with you!

>125 xieouyang: I've already removed my controversial comment, Manuel.

>126 tymfos: I only saw the highlights of the Lions-Eagles game, Terri. We were treated to the Falcons-Packers game here in Atlanta. I'm glad to see that the Eagles (my second favorite team after the Giants) are alone in first place in the NFC (L)East, after the Cowboys lost to the Bears on Monday night. The Steelers are pathetic this year.

>127 tymfos: That 20 yo autistic patient I mentioned was admitted to our service because his mother brought him to our ED, instead of the ED of an adult hospital. He was over 17 years of age, and his primary care physician and infectious disease specialists were both adult clinicians, so his mother should have taken him to the general hospital where his internist and/or ID specialist had privileges. Needless to say, neither of these doctors have privileges to admit and treat patients at our hospital. If he was still being followed by his pediatrician (which some do up until the age of 21), or if he was younger than 18 years of age, admission to our hospital would have been completely appropriate. He would not have been admitted to our hospital if he was over 21 years of age, unless there was a physician on call willing to accept him and the hospital administrator on call agreed with admission to our facility. Occasionally we admit or consult on adult patients with chronic illness that began in childhood who are still followed by pediatric subspecialists, such as the 28 yo who I was consulted on last month by Orthopaedic Surgery. That is a rare situation, though.

I think his story is symptomatic of a problem of society at large which is my pet peeve -- no one knows what to do with ADULTS with autism.

Yes. And that's also true for many adults with chronic childhood illness, including complex congenital heart disease, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, and a number of other conditions in which patients are living into adulthood. I know of one group in Midtown Atlanta who will accept a limited number of these patients, but otherwise the parents of other adult children must find a family practitioner or internist who is comfortable with and willing to accept these patients, along with the subspecialists that they need.

>128 cameling: Nice MNF dinner, Caroline! I couldn't handle that, though; I'd be up all night with gastroesophageal reflux symptoms.

>129 LovingLit: IMO there should be dedicated drug addiction treatment centers.

I'd only add the word sufficient to your comment, Megan. And the same goes for centers for eating disorders. Georgia is woefully lacking inpatient mental health facilities for children, and at least a couple of times per year I have to transfer a patient to an out of state center for a child to receive proper mental health care.

Mental health is such a hard treatment area, I have so much respect for the professionals who deal with those struggling to maintain their mental health.

I agree completely. And I greatly appreciate our inpatient Psychiatry team; they share a work space in the hospital with us, along with the Palliative Care team and the neurohospitalists, and we have a very close relationship with them both professionally and personally.

>130 alcottacre: Hi, Stasia! It's been a busy work week, but a pleasant one so far. I'm on the teaching service this week, with two pediatric residents and two medical students from Morehouse School of Medicine, and a PharmD student from UGA (the University of Georgia). They have all been enthusiastic and hard working, which makes it a pleasure for me to round with them on inpatients in the hospital and teach them during morning rounds and in our conference room in the afternoons.

#131 the parents of other adult children must find a family practitioner or internist who is comfortable with and willing to accept these patients

As someone who works for a charity that provides short break and residential care to adults with learning disabilities (including autism) I find that hugely shocking. A family practitioner can refuse to treat someone just because they have autism or Down's syndrome? Aren't there any anti-discrimination laws?

Darryl, you didn't have to remove it but thanks anyway.

131 It's interesting to read that it was the parent who opted for the children's hospital. I wonder if it was a matter of what was familiar -- that was where they went for emergency care when he was younger? I know how hard it is to get someone with autism to accept the unfamiliar, and especially in a time of stress, such as when there's acute illness. Maybe the Mom went with what seemed the path of least resistance from the son? I could totally understand that.

I agree with the issues of adults with autism. My cousin's son is 29 and severely autistic. He's very tall and weighs several hundred pounds, and my cousin & his wife worry about what will happen to him is something happens to them. He has two older sisters, but they have their own families and small children, and they wouldn't be able to give him the care he needs. Everyone thinks of autism as a children's disease, but these children grow up, and then what?

Great discussion going on over here!

>136 tloeffler:: I listened to a fascinating episode of the public radio program This American Life this week: Unconditional Love. The second part dealt with a family who had a severely autistic son. The first part is also excellent; it's about a couple who adopted a Romanian boy.

Hi Darryl, just popping in to say I finished The Sea, The Sea today. I can't say it was my favourite novel ever, but have a feeling it'll stay with me, and of course it's beautifully written. I threw a review together real fast, though I suppose you won't want to read it till you've gotten through the book too. Wishing you well!

Darryl - enjoyed your review of A Thousand Morons and have been looking for Quim Monzo's books here for a while. I recently purchased a "modern Catalan classic", Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal and it is pleasing to note that the gems of world literature are slowly becoming more widely available.

I am thankful that my three children were born without any impairments either physical or mental and I often wonder how Hani and I would have coped had it have been otherwise. Unconditional love is not discerning of such things I believe but life is very tough when professional care and assistance is not at hand.

Have a lovely weekend.

>133 SandDune: A family practitioner can refuse to treat someone just because they have autism or Down's syndrome? Aren't there any anti-discrimination laws?

In my comment, I used the word "willing" a bit sloppily, Rhian. What I meant was two things; first, that the FP or internist was accepting new patients, in general, and if so, that the physician accepted that patient's insurance. Many of these young adults with chronic conditions from childhood are on Medicaid, the government run health system for lower income families, which provides far less reimbursement to physicians and hospitals than private insurers such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna and Kaiser do, and some health care providers either do not accept patients with Medicaid, or only accept a few number of these patients. The group I work for and the hospital in general loses money whenever we admit and treat a patient with Medicaid insurance. We don't turn away these patients, or treat them differently than those who have good private insurance, but the hospital does have to reimburse my group to the tune of nearly $1 million per year to make up for the money we "lose" taking care of children with public insurance, whether it's Medicaid or PeachCare, Georgia's Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for families who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but don't earn enough to afford a private insurance plan.

>135 tymfos: It's interesting to read that it was the parent who opted for the children's hospital. I wonder if it was a matter of what was familiar -- that was where they went for emergency care when he was younger?

That's a great point, Terri; I hadn't thought of that. Needless to say, children's hospitals are far more friendly places than general hospitals are, and although he wasn't a violent kid, it was a major and unpleasant ordeal for him to stay in the hospital. He kept pulling out peripheral IV lines, and wouldn't cooperate for examinations, vital sign checks and administration of medications. Fortunately we were able to discharge him after a two day stay; otherwise we would have been faced with the difficult decision of whether we should sedate or restrain him or not, which would have been the last thing I would have wanted to do.

>136 tloeffler: Right, Terri. Clara Claiborne Park brought up that same issue in her book Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter's Life with Autism, which was mainly about her adult daughter Jessy, who has autism. Jessy was working in the mail room at Williams College, where her parents taught, but she was prone to angry outbursts and could not live independently (I can't remember if she was still living with her parents or in a group home at the conclusion of the book). The man-child I took care of was nowhere near as functional as Jessy was, and he was considerably taller and stronger than I. He wasn't violent, as I mentioned, but I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving him around small children or in unfamiliar environments.

Exiting Nirvana and Park's first book, The Siege: A Family's Journey Into the World of an Autistic Child, are absolutely brilliant and are among my favorite nonfiction books.

>137 lauralkeet: Thanks for mentioning that episode of This American Life, Laura; I'll listen to it shortly.

>138 Smiler69: Hi, Ilana! I'll read The Sea, the Sea this coming week. I have to work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but I'll be off for the remainder of the week. I won't read your review until I finish it.

>139 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. Stone in a Landslide sounds interesting; I look forward to your comments about it.

There have been several excellent books, including the ones I mentioned above, about children with chronic illness. My all time favorite book in this regard is The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, which is about a Hmong child with epilepsy who lives with her family in central California, and the different perceptions that her family and the medical practitioners, social workers and others have about her. The book's title refers to the translation of the Hmong term for epilepsy; children born with this condition are viewed by the Hmong as being especially blessed, so the parents were opposed to medications that would treat her condition. It's a classic and brilliantly written work of cross-cultural medicine, and it's probably the only book I've read more than twice as an adult.

I was pretty fried throughout the day yesterday, but I did manage to finish one book, Operation Massacre by Rodolfo Walsh, which I'll review later today.

#140 Many of these young adults with chronic conditions from childhood are on Medicaid

Darryl, I hadn't considered the health insurance aspect of it at all to be honest. In the UK private health insurance doesn't generally cover general practitioner appointments anyway, so people who do want to see a GP privately would have to pay themselves. So I don't think even a GP who practiced privately would be able to limit patients by insurance company, as it would mean that their case load was fairly non-existent.

>142 SandDune: Are there multiple private health insurance providers in the UK as there are in the US, Rhian? BTW, I know that I can see several GPs in London who will accept my insurance plan (Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Georgia), and I can go to A&E or be admitted to University College Hospital if the need arises (touch wood).

#143 Are there multiple private health insurance providers in the UK
Yes there are, but I imagine that they operate rather differently to the US. Private health insurance is a fairly normal perk of a professional job and I had it when I worked in the City, but in the main people don't see it as an essential. I certainly didn't consider taking it out when I no longer had it via my work. I think only about 8% of the population have private medical insurance whereas about 50% of dog owners have insurance against vet bills. We tend to see it as something that's nice to have rather than an essential: if you have private insurance and need an operation you'll have a private room, more choice of timing, better food when you're in hospital but you will in all likelihood have a surgeon who also works in the NHS. I've had the same condition treated in both the NHS and privately and to be honest there wasn't much difference in the time to see the doctor or what was done, but the private hospital had comfier chairs and better magazines and free coffee in the waiting room. In the UK private health insurance is frequently used to have non-urgent operations performed more quickly, but if you're taken to a hospital as an urgent case it'll be the NHS that deals with it. And very few people see a GP privately. Again when I was working in the City we had access to a private GP practice but people only tended to use it for minor things where they didn't want to take time of work to attend their normal GP, for anything more serious people would see their normal GP at home. And there's a real disincentive to using a private GP, as they can only write a private prescription which means you pay the actual cost of the drugs. NHS prescription charges are capped at around £7.50 (I think) and children or people who are unemployed or pregnant don't pay anything. So for anything where you need any expensive drugs at all you definitely don't want a private prescription, especially as GP services are not covered in the main by insurance.

>141 kidzdoc:...Couldn't agree more on the recommendation for Anne Fadiman's book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

>144 SandDune: SandDune I wish your post about the NHS and private care could be broadcast all over the US. The fear mongers are hard at work over here.

I absolutely loved The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Darryl! Fadiman was so very insightful about the multiple viewpoints involved in the child's medical situation.

Hi Darryl,
My last visit here had me talking about addictions, and now here I am back to tell you I finished reading Mind the Child- which is full of adults and children with drug and alcohol addictions.
I really enjoyed the book, and the message from it was clear- if it were more local I would think about sending it to a few politicians!

>143 kidzdoc:/144 less and less people here in NZ are relying on our free public health system because of the long waiting lists and an arrogance about having to "slum it" with the poor people. It is a shame, as it looks to be moving towards user pays, and by that I mean insurance pays, which means users pay more.

>144 SandDune: Thanks for your detailed and very interesting response to my question, Rhian. Bianca (who is a NICU nurse at King's College Hospital) told me about the differences between NHS and private patients when we met up this past summer, and she also mentioned the differences in patient rooms in hospitals. Although the hospital I work for is poorly reimbursed by patients who have public insurance compared to those with private insurance there are no differences in the care each group receives, and kids who have Medicaid or PeachCare are not refused admission or referred to a public hospital.

The only time I remember that a patient with public insurance was treated differently was when a dermatologist refused to see one of my inpatients in consultation because he had Medicaid, but did see another patient of one of my partners, who had private insurance. I found this out because both kids were on the same floor, and the mothers talked to each other about their kids; the mother of my patient told me what happened that next day. I made a referral to our Peer Review committee about this dermatologist, and I believe she was censored by the doctors on this committee.

My best friend from medical school completed his pediatric neurology training at Stanford (which is located about 35 miles south of San Francisco); patients with MediCal (California's version of Medicaid) who were seen in the ER at its children's hospital (Lucille Packard)were transferred from there to the county hospital in San José, ~20 miles to the south, unless they needed care that could only be provided at Packard. I was shocked and appalled when he told me this, as this didn't happen at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh (the children's hospital associated with our medical school) or at the three hospitals that comprise Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, where I work.

Sad news: CNN has just reported that a portion of the ceiling of the Apollo Theatre in London's West End collapsed during a performance, which has caused multiple casualties.

>145 tangledthread:, 146 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is required reading for the physician assistant students at Emory, and I also recommend it to the medical students and residents that rotate on our service.

>147 LovingLit: I'm glad that you also enjoyed Mind the Child, Megan. It was an eye opening and grim read, but one that should be widely read by politicians in the UK, especially those that want to cut back services to poor children and families.

On a somewhat similar note, The New York Times featured a five part series in last week's papers about Dasani, a homeless child living in a filthy and decrepit shelter in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. The series was written by Andrea Elliott, an investigative reporter who has already won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism. This series was the best one I've read in the NYT or elsewhere this year, and she should get a second Pulitzer Prize for it next year.

Invisible Child: Dasani's Homeless Life

>>#148

They're saying multiple "injuries" rather than multiple "casualties" now, Darryl.

It sounds like they've been very lucky, actually.

>150 lyzard: Right, Liz. The BBC now reports 88 injuries, with seven seriously injured and no fatalities. Hopefully all of those who are seriously injured will make full recoveries.

BTW, casualties includes both non-fatal and fatal injuries, although (at least in the US) many people equate casualties with fatalities.

Ah! There's usually a distinction meant here.

#149 Everyone in NYC was talking about Dasani's story last week (including the thankfully outgoing mayor who made some typically insensitive comments) -- I think there's no doubt the reporter will get a Pulitzer for it.

>152 lyzard: In medicine we use casualties to refer to both fatalities and non-fatalities. Last month the hospital I work at had a mass casualty drill, which is something it does every year in case an event that causes multiple injuries takes place, such as a school bus accident or the destruction of a school by a tornado (which nearly happened during my residency and has happened in other US states in the past few years, including the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma in May that caused the deaths of several children in an elementary school). We have the largest pediatric emergency department in the state, with 50 regular beds, two or three trauma bays for critically ill patients, and several dozen "fast track" beds for kids who come to the ED for more routine illnesses, which functions like a clinic. So, many of the child victims of a mass casualty in metro Atlanta would very likely come to us, and every physician and nurse on duty would be expected to help out, if needed.

>153 rebeccanyc: I'm glad to hear that this series was widely discussed in NYC, Rebecca. I subscribe to the print edition of the NYT seven days a week, and I read the paper on the subway I take to go to and from work. Christopher Collins, a former LTer, mentioned that Andrea Elliott was interviewed on WNYC last week, and another friend mentioned that she appeared on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday.

Andrea Elliot was interviewed on my favorite WNYC show, the Brian Lehrer show. You can hear the interview here.

>155 rebeccanyc: Thanks, Rebecca. That's the show that Christopher was referring to; he loves it as well.

>149 kidzdoc: Have you provided a link to this before, Darryl? (Invisible Child: Dasani's Homeless Life) I have been to the site and had a little look, but my computer being as it is, I would rather print it off to read. It looks good.

In medicine we use casualties to refer to both fatalities and non-fatalities.
I didn't know that! I always thought casualties referred to deaths.

Our main hospital here in Christchurch apparently coped very very well with the multiple casualties it received directly after the Feb 22 earthquake. People were being carried in by strangers, in the back of police cars, on the back of utes and just wandering in in all states of injury. As it turned out, they had done comprehensive scenario training on disasters. Proving you never can be too prepared.

>157 LovingLit: I did post a link on my Facebook page last Sunday, Megan, but not here. Let me see if I can post links to the actual articles.

For the moment, here's the link to the video interview of Andrea Elliott from ABC's This Week, which is roughly 8-1/2 minutes in length:

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/t/video/week-yorks-invisible-child-21225907?sourc...

I've tried multiple times, but I can't seem to find a link that displays the series about Dasani in print format. However, you can still read the series online; the other parts are accessible via the icon in the upper left hand corner of the link I posted.

I would have clicked on the link from your facebook page, I suppose, Darryl. It looked like it was going to be an in depth and gritty article. Thanks for the links!

>160 LovingLit: You're welcome, my dear.

The Kindle version of José Saramago's comedic novel Death with Interruptions, which I thoroughly enjoyed, is on sale today for $1.99 from Amazon US.

In awed and jealous amazement at your stamina and your generosity in sharing so much of a very interesting and exciting life with all your online pals, Darryl:



Celebrate the return of the light with feasts, merriment, and gratitude for all the wonders of this wide green earth.

RMD

Thanks, Richard!

Any of you who are familiar with the cartoon Pinky and the Brain from The Animaniacs series on Fox from the 1990s will remember how each show ends:

Pinky: What are we going to do tomorrow night?

The Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the world!

The Brain invents elaborate schemes in his mouse cage to achieve world domination, but they are either badly flawed or fatally disrupted by Pinky.

In the spirit of these two lovable lab mice, I will try once again in 2014 to take over my TBR pile, or at least a significant portion of it. In past years these schemes have been doomed to failure practically from the beginning, but next year will be different! Bwahaha!

So, my plan for next year is to read 50 books from the following lists, 10-15 or more tomes (500 pages or longer), and 30-35 shorter works (less than 500 pages). This is a first draft, so the books that are listed here will almost certainly change before January 1st.

Books to Read in 2014

Tomes (500 pages or more):
      Nicole Barker, Darkmans
      Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins
      Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
      Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
      Ralph Ellison, Three Days Before the Shooting...
      Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí
      David Grossman, To the End of the Land
      Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name
      George E. Lewis, A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music
      A.J. Liebling, Just Enough Liebling
      David Macey, Frantz Fanon: A Biography
      Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety
      Paul Murray, Skippy Dies
      Patrick O'Brian, Picasso: A Biography
      Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul
      Paul Preston, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain
      Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
      William Trevor, Selected Stories
      Patrick White, The Vivisector

Non-tomes (less than 500 pages):
      Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
      Stuart Altman and David Shactman, Power, Politics and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-Long Battle
      Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age
      Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
      Bernardo Atxaga, Obabakoak
      Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal
      Patrick Chamoiseau, Texaco
      Randy Christensen MD, Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them
      Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel
      Jean Echenoz, I'm Off and One Year
      Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
      Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
      Paul Farmer, Haiti After the Earthquake
      Juan Eslava Galan, The Mule
      Jerry Gentry, Grady Baby: A Year in the Life of Atlanta's Grady Hospital
      Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome
      Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife
      Juan Goytisolo, Juan the Landless
      Graham Greene, The Comedians
      Mark Harrison, Contagion: How Commerce Has Spread Disease
      Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris
      Jonathan B. Imber, Trusting Doctors: The Decline of Moral Authority in American Medicine
      James Kelman, Kieron Smith, boy
      Robert Klitzman, When Doctors Become Patients
      Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book One
      Eric Lax, The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle
      Charles Lemert, Why Niebuhr Matters
      Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
      Juan Marsé, Lizard's Tails
      Juan Marsé, Shanghai Nights
      David A. Mendel, Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and their Doctors
      Simon Mawer, Mendel's Dwarf
      Claire McCarthy, Everyone's Children: A Pediatrician's Story of an Inner City Practice
      Ian McEwan, Atonement
      Andrew Miller, Pure
      Quim Monzó, The Enormity of the Tragedy
      Quim Monzó, Gasoline
      Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
      Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
      Shiva Naipaul, Fireflies
      Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Petals of Blood
      Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
      Cees Nooteboom, Roads To Santiago: Detours and Riddles in the Land and History of Spain
      Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost
      Laura Katz Olson, The Politics of Medicaid: Stakeholders and Welfare Medicine
      Brian Orr, MD, A Pediatrician's Journal: Caring for Children in a Broken Medical System
      George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
      Orhan Pamuk, Snow
      Roy Porter, Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad Doctors and Lunatics
      Graham Robb, Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris
      Edward W. Said, Out of Place: A Memoir
      Jean-Christophe Rufin, Brazil Red
      Colm Tóibín, Homage to Barcelona
      Giles Tremblett, Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and Its Secret Past
      Mario Vargas Llosa, The Green House
      Richard Wright, Black Boy

I also plan read at least 12 books for my CanLit challenge, along with all of the books chosen for next year's Booker Prize longlist.

As always, the proprietor of this thread asks visitors to keep their shrieks of laughter to a minimum. TYIA.

Ahem. Yes. Well, it's always good to have plans, Pinky.

Drat! Drat! And double drat! It isn't January 1st yet, and already my not-so-trusty sidekick is laughing at me.

Heartily. With huge schadenfreude. Oh what fun it is to ride!

I'm looking forward to your reports on many of these, particularly The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí (although shame doesn't seem like an emotion Dali spent much time on).

A number of those books are sitting on my shelves, too: A Place of Greater Safety, A Golden Age, Pure, and Snow among them. And I'll be rereading Atonement with the students in my Seminar on Historical Fiction.

I'm afraid that I'm too much of an impulse reader to follow a plan like yours!

Sounds like a great reading plan, Darryl. I am still perusing your list. :)

Mrrrhahahahaha. Of course you are Darryl.

You have some wonderful reading lined up for 2014, Darryl. I'm participating in Mark's American Author Challenge but also hoping to get back to some intentional reading of international authors in the coming year. And I'm not laughing. Really, I'm not.



Actually, I predict that you'll do that reading and so much more in 2014.

Some of the books on your list that are also on my (tentative) list are:
The New Jim Crow
Skippy Dies
Invisible Man
Petals of Blood and
Snow.

I'm hoping to tackle reads in 2014 that may have daunted me in the past, so we'll see how that goes.

#165: As always, the proprietor of this thread asks visitors to keep their shrieks of laughter to a minimum. TYIA.

Too late. . .

*snort* Yeah, right.
But no matter which books you read, Darryl, I know you'll be bringing us your usual insightful commentary so it will be just fine! Have a great holiday!!!

165: I’d laugh, but you do so much good in the world that you deserve leeway to be delusional in your private life.

ssh.... don't tell anyone but I've quietly making lists, too, in an attempt to get some of the books that I really want to read off Planet TBR. I'm planning on joining the 2014 category challenge - those people over there LIKE lists!

>168 richardderus: Just you wait, sir. 2014 for me will be like 1955 was for the Brooklyn Dodgers.



>169 Nickelini: Thanks, Joyce. I plan to read several books about Spain in the first half of the year, in preparation for my one (or possibly two) week stay in Barcelona in June. I'll be off for the entire month, without using any vacation time, which I'll receive in exchange for working more shifts from this November through next March. So, I want to read this book, the Picasso biography, books about Barcelona and Spanish history, and novels by several of the leading contemporary Spanish authors, especially those from Barcelona or who have lived there, such as Colm Tóibín.

>170 Cariola: Hopefully we can compare notes about the books that we both plan to read, Deborah.

I definitely like to have a plan in place, despite my desire to read spontaneously as well (typical former medical student behavior). I certainly won't and don't plan to read all of these books, but I wanted to set them aside on my thread, so that I could choose to read these books preferentially. If I read half of these books this year, and half next year, then this project will be a successful one.

>171 leperdbunny: Thanks, Tamara! I'll post these lists, and the list of CanLit books, at the top of my 75 Books and Club Read threads in 2014, and check them off as I read them.

>172 brenzi: Hmph. Another disbeliever. I thought that you would be in my corner, Bonnie. *sniff*

>173 EBT1002: That kitten is too cute, Ellen!

I would have considered participating in Mark's challenge, but I knew that I could do it and my Canadian literature challenge at the same time. I do want to read some classic American literature that I haven't gotten to yet, and if any of them from my list coincide with Mark's chosen authors then I'll mention them here or on his thread.

Speaking of international literature, Lois (avaland) posted a link to an interesting article from World Literature Today on her Facebook page (with a link to mine) earlier this week:

World Literature Isn't Foreign Food

>174 EBT1002: Great! Hopefully we can compare notes about those books as well. 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of Ralph Ellison's birth, so I want to re-read Invisible Man and Three Days Before the Shooting..., the massive and unfinished second novel that he worked on for decades but never finished. I'll probably read The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison as well.

I would also like to tackle some daunting books soon, such as Umbrella by Will Self, but I'll probably put that book and other similar ones off until 2015.

>175 alcottacre: Right, Stasia. Some visitors to this thread don't know how to behave properly...

>176 lauralkeet: ...such as a certain person from the Delaware Valley.

I hope that you have a splendid Christmas week, Laura! I'll be working from Monday through Saturday night, then I'll fly to PHL on Sunday afternoon to spend the next five days with my parents and other relatives.

>177 qebo: Et tu, Katherine?

>178 streamsong: My lips are sealed, Janet.

>179 kidzdoc: Got yer 1955 right here, o delusional one:

>182 richardderus: Ha! I'll bet that car was smokin' in 1955, though.

Cool old Ford! That's a Studebaker:



Still stylin', though.

And, in case you're having a low-math day, I'll remind you that 1955 was 58 years ago...

>184 richardderus: I'll take it!

I try my best to make every day a low math day.

My dream 1955 Studebaker, the President Speedster:



Yum.

Nice! It's gonna be hard to top that; this is the only car I can find that comes close to it.



Sigh. Cars these days seem so dull in comparison.

That is some list above Darryl. I may join you for a fair few of those next year.

Dick and Muttley were great favourites of mine as a boy and, I'm not sure what it says about me, but I always wanted them to come out on top at least once.

Have a great weekend, mate.

I love Pinky & The Brain. Remember the theme song? "... one is a genius, the other insane..." They never specified which was which. ;)

>187 kidzdoc: Ooo the 300SL! Yes please.

>188 PaulCranswick: Me too...maybe because my mother called my father Dick Dastardly until one of my sisters pointed out that she was. logically, Muttley.

Looks like a high quality reading plan, Darryl. Like Deborah, I'm too much of an impulse reader to do that. Maybe your reaction will help get me to finally read The Adventures of Augie March, which I've only thought about doing maybe 1000 times.

Cool cars. You're right, designs these days seem so ho-hum in comparison.

>188 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. Hopefully I can encourage others to join me in reading some of these books.

My favorite team from the Wacky Races was the Ant Hill Mob. They had the coolest car IMO, although I couldn't understand why all of them had to jam into the front seat.



I hope that you have a great weekend as well!

>189 avidmom: Right, avidmom. However, Pinky bouncing about in a straitjacket made me assume that the Brain was the genius of the operation.



>190 richardderus: LOL!

Yes. But I think it takes a genius to have that much fun in a straitjacket. XD

165 > How can anyone not LOVE Pinky & the brain ???? even thinking about them should put a devious smile on your face ( which can be a good thing when at work in meetings !)

as for your reading list, I am too much of a magpie to even contemplate creating such a thing .....

I had a lovely evening with my work partners, office staff and their significant others at our holiday party last night. The star of the party was Karen's 4 month old daughter Molly, who cooed and smiled her way into everyone's hearts.

Fortunately the slow moving cold front held off until today. The line of rain is now just west of Atlanta, and we're supposed to get 1-3+ inches of rain today and tomorrow, with thunderstorms and a chance of localized flooding. We won't be under a tornado watch, as yesterday's forecast suggested that we might be. I've already gone out for my usual early Sunday morning trip to the supermarket, so I'll probably stay inside until I leave for work tomorrow morning.

>193 avidmom: That's true, avidmom. Pinky certainly has more fun than his terminally frustrated and irascible partner, so maybe he is the genius of the two.

>194 roundballnz: My medical school graduating class's senior play in the spring of 1997 was based in part on Pinky and the Brain. At that time the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was acquiring hospitals in and outside of the city, in an effort to dominate health care delivery in southwestern Pennsylvania, which earned the top administrators a fair amount of criticism in the local media. If I remember correctly the play started out with the CEO of UPMC (the Brain) and a clueless assistant (Pinky) started out by reciting slightly modified lines from the opening of the cartoon, essentially the same ones I quoted above, which was followed by a song and dance number, again based on that show.

My reading list will mainly serve as a handy guide and a reminder that these are the books I want to read the most in the coming year. The chance of me reading more than 75% of them is nearly nil, but if I can read half of them I'll be very pleased.

I love Pinky and the Brain. It's so sad that they don't screen it on Cartoon Network anymore.

I want you to know that I, for one, am not rolling on the ground with peels of hysterical laughter at your reading resolution for 2014, Darryl. What am I doing? Oh nothing, just slowly moving all sharp objects away ... consider this my Christmas gift helping you tidy up your apartment so you ....err..... have more room for books, that's it .. more room for books.

>196 cameling: That snarky comment is worthy of a double hmph, Caroline.



Just for that, I won't renew your guardian angel subscription for 2014. So there.

Actually I think the Institute of Guardian Angels have placed me on a blacklist and are no longer accepting requests for my protection detail. They've had too many injuries themselves in the course of their duties. I hear these guys may be up for the task though....

>198 cameling: Ha! That's a good start, but I'm not sure that even this formidable crew is enough to keep you completely out of harm's way next year.

I can't be the only one here who owns Pinky & the Brain on dvd? I have the whole Animaniacs set.
One of the joys of parenting was teaching my pre-teen son how to pick out the inside jokes for adults in a child's cartoon. These were perfect for that.
sigh...where are the "intelligent" cartoons today?

Think I'll watch some episodes this afternoon....

***GASP***

Pinky and the Brain is available on DVD and I never knew?!?

Time to exercise that Amazon Prime....

While you're there, you can also own all of Rocky & Bullwinkle if you should be in the mood for a little Cold War humor.

Dropping by with some Christmas thoughts, Darryl : ).

>200 tangledthread: where are the "intelligent" cartoons today?

For that matter, where are the intelligent TV programs in general? Other than the lineup on PBS there isn't much worth watching on the tube IMO.

>201 richardderus: Pinky and the Brain is available on DVD and I never knew?!?

I think that most of the classic cartoons have been released in DVD format in recent years.

>202 tangledthread: Mmm. Point taken.

>203 lit_chick: Much obliged, Nancy!

>191 jnwelch: Sorry that I missed your earlier post, Joe. Thanks for your compliment on my reading plan. I've also wanted to read my copy of The Adventures of Augie March for several years, but I've continued to find other books to read instead.

I still love my car (1999 BMW Z3 Roadster), but I've owned it for nearly a dozen years (I bought it in the spring of 2002). It still looks and runs great, and it only has roughly 85,000 miles on it, but eventually I'll have to replace it.

Darryl, how sporty! This really spices up my image of you.

203 > looks like Santa has been taking Yoga lessons ..... impressive flexibility going on there for the big fella!

Dear Friend

Just stopping by to say your light shines brightly and your spirit glows. It was a highlight of 2013 to meet you at the Philadelphia gathering.

So, it seems that I'll meet my original goal of reading 125 books this year after all; I only have to finish two more books in the next nine days. I finished five mainly short books this week: two short collections of short stories by Antonio Tabucchi that were published by Archipelago Books last year, The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico, which was quite forgettable, and The Woman of Porto Pim, set on the Azores that was a much better written book but nowhere near as good as his novels; Prize Fight: The Race and the Rivalry to be the First in Science by Morton Meyers, my LTER selection for November, a good but not great book about the dark side of academic research and the external pressures and internal flaws that cause some to lie, cheat and discredit others in order to gain recognition and fame; The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh, a wickedly funny post-WWII satirical novel about several Englishmen living abroad in deepest darkest Hollywood, oxymoronic American culture, and the funeral industry; and Top 10 of London: 250 Lists About London That Will Simply Amaze You! by Alexander Ash, a compilation of over 100 top 10 lists about London, its residents and visitors that had an occasional gem but was mostly of little interest or amazement. I'll write short reviews of these books, particularly the LTER book, during the coming week after I return home from work.

Proper credit goes to Fliss for recommending The Loved One to me as we shopped at the secondhand book stalls under the Waterloo Bridge this summer. I'll certainly look for more books by Evelyn Waugh in the near future.

>206 ffortsa: Hmm...so what was your image of me before you saw a replica photo of my car, Judy? One of my lovely partners described me as a "handsome librarian" a couple of weeks ago, a compliment that this vain middle aged male will remember for quite a while. :)

>207 roundballnz: Santa is clearly ready for his long night tomorrow!

>208 Whisper1: Thanks for that lovely sentiment, Linda! You are certainly one of LT's brightest lights, and your love of life and your tenacity are both inspiring and heart warming.

Off to work...

I'm flying to NH for the holiday this afternoon but couldn't leave without dropping by to say Merry Christmas--and congrats on (apparently) making 125 books this year.

Just noting that the Pinky and The Brain Christmas special is well worth watching. Brain's plan actually works.

>211 Oberon: There's a Pinky and The brain Christmas special! *Noff* Must. Find. Now.

If I understood your post above, you'll be working over Christmas, Darryl. Blessings on you for being there, but I hope you feel totally useless because not one child needs you this week. In any case,
Molly and I wish you all the best, and hope you enjoy your family gathering.

>212 avidmom: Season 1, Disc 2, Pinky and the Brain Christmas.

Thank you Oberon! XD

>213 laytonwoman3rd: Yes. Also with laytonwoman3rd on you being absolutely not needed this week!

Darryl, just popping by to wish you a very happy Christmas and New Year.

Darryl, just to wish you have a very Merry Christmas and another successful and happy year in 2014!

Dear Darryl,

Best wishes to you, Darryl!


glitter-graphics.com

Happy (almosy) Christmas!

Darryl, I'm just now getting to the article you posted in #180, and it's great. Thanks for the link.
I love the observation that holding authors "from elsewhere" to standards of innovation doesn't make sense without challenging Western authors in the same manner: "Why should Western authors be exempt from the obligation to produce fiction that is international?"

I know that I struggle sometimes with novels whose structure strays much from my very western expectations, but I also know that (like so many things) when I push through it, I'm often rewarded and it does become less difficult with practice.

Oh, and..... Happy Christmas to you!

Darryl, when you get your new car, you can send that old one to me. I'm just a little ol' lady who will keep it in my garage to drive it to the grocery store one day a week. Ha ha! Congratulations on making your reading goal for the year…barring any unforeseen events, that is. I will be joining you on reading more Canadian authors next year. Some of my favorite books this year have been written by Canadians. I just finished my first Alice Munro book and would like to read more of her wonderful stories.

Merry Christmas to you!

Wishing you a quiet and uneventful working Christmas week, Darryl. I hope there will be moments when you can share some Christmas cheer with your coworkers and chirpier little patients.

Have a very Merry Christmas Darryl!

Darryl your warm heart, fine eye in literature and great sense of humour marks you out as one of the very best. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to follow your year as always in these pages. Have a wonderful Christmas.

Happy Christmas, Darryl!

Merry Christmas, Darryl!!

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!!

Merry Christmas, Darryl!

Merry Happy Christmas!

I'm in awe of the fact that not only did you plan your year's reading but you ALPHABETIZED it. I'm doing well if I remember it's 2014 by mid-April.

*feeling ineffectual & slinking off to hide in a corner*

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that all of you have a lovely holiday with friends and family.

Thanks to all of you for your Christmas wishes; I appreciate each one of them. I'm on hospital call today, so I won't be able to respond to messages until this evening. Fortunately we've had far fewer inpatients this week that we've had the past two Christmases; hopefully it will stay this way for at least a few more days.

Merry Xmas Darryl, I hope to don't get too many patients today either ..... Hope you all make the best of working this day!

in the weird situation myself this year of having time off work till the 6th - I think this is the 2nd time in my whole adult working life not to have worked thru .....

Merry Christmas, Darryl!

Sending warm wishes for the New Year.

Best wishes for a peaceful Christmas season Darryl:)

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas, Darryl! I am sure that is not easy, while working. LOL. I hope you get some time off soon.

Hi, Darryl. I hope the Christmas patient load was light for you. How is your aunt doing?

I've lost track of your travel plans. Are you going to be in New York before New Year's Eve?

Happy Holidays, Darryl! Hope the working hasn't been too tough.

Woo hoo! I just completed my goal for the year by finishing my 125th book, The World Is Moving Around Me: A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake by Dany Laferrière.

My best friends in Madison, Wisconsin gave me six books for Christmas, all from my Amazon wish list:

   Hope in Hell: Inside the World of Doctors Without Borders by Dan Bortolotti
   Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
   Downs: The History of a Disability by David Wright
   Deep Rivers by José María Arguedas
   Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins
   Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries by Molly Caldwell Crosby

I'll likely read all of these books next year.

My work week is almost over. I have one 12 hour shift tomorrow, then I'll fly to Philadelphia Sunday morning to spend five days with my parents, brother and other relatives. I doubt that I'll get much reading done while I'm there, so I think I'm done for 2013. So, I'll now make the transition to my 2014 reading plans, although I'll wait to create a thread in the 2014 group until Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll probably start with Kafka On the Shore by Haruki Murakami and Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and Its Secret Past by Giles Tremlett.

Catching up on messages...

>210 Cariola: I hope that you're enjoying your visit to NH, Deborah.

>211 Oberon:, 212 I had no idea that there was a Pinky and the Brain Christmas special!

>213 laytonwoman3rd: I did have to work this week, Linda; today was day 5 of 6 for me. I and my partners were certainly needed, although we only had half of the number of patients that we did during Christmas week last year, when we were all stressed out and very crabby. This week was a much more relaxed and enjoyable one in comparison. We are starting to get busier, now that Christmas has passed, so I hope that I don't get killed on long call tomorrow.

Thank you Rhian, Manuel, Diana, Terri, Bryony, Ellen, Donna, Caroline, Katherine, Roberta, Paul, Cushla, Tamara, Tina, Chelle, Roni, Suz, Alex, Katie, Kerry, Bonnie, Mark and Joe for your lovely holiday wishes! I wish all of you a Happy and Prosperous New Year in 2014.

>233 Chatterbox: It only took me a couple of hours at most to come up with that list of TBR books, Suz. I simply went through all of my book shelves, pulled out and set aside the ones I wanted to read most, and arranged them in alphabetical order.

>240 ffortsa: Thanks for asking about my aunt, Judy. She is doing fine, all things considered. She had her third surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center this week, and she's staying in a residential facility for MSKCC patients close to the hospital.

I will be in Philadelphia from 12/29 to 1/2. A cousin of mine from Ohio, who recently finished her JD, will also be visiting at the same time. I won't know what my plans are and when I'll visit NYC until after I arrive. I'll definitely want to visit my aunt, and if possible I'd like to go to the New Year's Day sale at Book Culture (20% off practically every book in the store), assuming that the bookshop has the same sale again this year. I probably won't know my exact plans until early next week, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to meet up with you and Jim on this trip.

From their website:

New Year's Day Party 2014
Start the New Year off right with 20% all discountable items in the store and mimosas while you browse. On New Year's Day Book Culture is hosting a party. The store's hours will be from 11am to 7pm and we will have drink and snacks available for our customers all day.

Thanks, Richard! I've been to that sale at least twice. The last time I went I bought 30-40 books; hopefully I'll practice a bit more restraint next week.

*smirk* Uh-huh.

I'll try to find out how many books I bought that day. As long as I buy one less book then I'll count that as showing restraint.

O.o

uhhhmmm

okay

o.O

any takers on how long that'll last? I've got 31min

#249: 31 minutes seems a trifle high to me. I am in for 27.

27! A lovely number indeed. Who's next? Pool's open!

Come on in! Don't be shy. . .

I'll go with 45. He'll need time to move through the crowds . . .

Hi Darryl :)

Hi Darryl,

I have not had enough time to follow everyone's threads this year, but I did want to stop by and wish you a Happy New Year.

I had been praying that I would not have to take the home health care coding exam for 2014 (with the ICD-10) and got my wish in a bizarre sort of way. I was laid off my job so I've been forced into retirement unwillingly. I'm not a happy camper about this, but I'm thankful for my supportive family and friends and visits from my 7-month-old grandson. My daughter has been especially helpful in this regard. That support has helped to put things into perspective.

Enjoy your 2014 reading. I really did like Kafka on the Shore. It was quite an imaginative book that in some ways reminded me of The Zig Zag Kid by Israeli author David Grossman. Hint: If you've not read the latter yet, you might want to squeeze it into your 2014 reading. :)

I hope that 2014 is the year I'll finally get to meet you. Have a safe and wonderful holiday vacation with your family in Philadelphia.

Congrats on hitting your goal! I'm with Madeline - I hope 2014 offers an opportunity to get together in real life.

Two hours to go, then I'll be finished with my last work shift of 2013. Fortunately it's been an unusually quiet call day, with only three hospital admissions in eight hours (10 am to 6 pm).

>249 richardderus: any takers on how long that'll last? I've got 31min

Is that 31 books minimum, or 31 minutes? From what I can tell I bought 31 books at Book Culture in 2008, the year before I joined this group, but I only bought nine books the last time I went to the New Year's Day sale there, in 2011.

>250 alcottacre: I think I'll be closer to nine books than 27, Stasia. There aren't many books I can think of offhand that I'm eager to buy and read ASAP (not that that has even stopped me from buying books before, though). One book I do want to get straight away is 1914, the latest novel by my favorite French author, Jean Echenoz; it will be released in English translation in the US on January 7th.

>253 brenpike: No way, Brenda! 45 books would be a Cranswickesque book haul; I can't match the master.

>254 SqueakyChu: Happy New Year to you too, Madeline. I'm sorry to hear that you were laid off; that's not the way to avoid having to learn ICD-10. We're already in preparation for the roll out, with EHR training sessions early next year and ICD-10 implementation starting in April. I can hardly wait. *rolls eyes*

I'm glad to hear that you liked Kafka On the Shore. I'm a fan of Murakami, and I've wanted to read this book for awhile. Your comment about David Grossman's novel reminds me that I did want to read To the End of the Land next year; I'll add it to my 2014 TBR list, and I'll look for The Zigzag Kid next week.

I do hope that we can meet up in 2014! Hopefully the timing will be good for me to travel to Baltimore or Washington, or perhaps we can meet up in Philadelphia.

>255 drneutron: Thanks, Jim. I also hope to meet you next year.

By my count I met 31 LTers in 2013, in Philadelphia, NYC, London, Cambridge and Ely, including multiple meet ups with several people, particularly Fliss, Zoë, Rachael (although I'm not sure if she still counts as an LTer), Bianca, Judy and Jim. I saw each of them at least four times! Maybe 2014 will be the year that I actually meet an LTer in Atlanta. :-)

Have a wonderful visit with your family and enjoy Philly and NYC, Darryl. And Happy 2014!

(Going off to look for the 2014 75ers threads.)

Have a good and healthy 2014! No more of that stinky respiratory crud, you hear?

Happy Holidays! ( a little late for Christmas--I have been out of my house for 5 days - no power- as a result of Toronto's big ice storm last week) Looking forward to the Canadian Lit challenge.

Hooray for a quiet shift! Have a great time with your family over the New Year.

Kafka on the Shore is one of my favorite Murakami's. I am off-and-on about his work, but generally prefer his shorter novels.

All good wishes for a lovely time spent with your family.

Hi Darryl, have a Happy New Year!

I arrived safely in Philadelphia early this afternoon. It was a most unpleasant flight, though, as a middle aged loudmouth New Yorker seated right behind me was talking nearly nonstop for an hour and a half to his seat mate, and two kids across from Mr Big Mouth were shrieking throughout the flight, as if they were undergoing appendectomies without anesthesia. I couldn't sleep or read, but fortunately it's a relatively short flight between ATL and PHL.

The most unbelievable part of the trip occurred at the security checkpoint in ATL. A six or seven year old girl, who looked to be Indian or Pakistani, had a Hall of Fame worthy temper tantrum; she sat down several times, screamed and shrieked louder than a 747, and hit her mother repeatedly, as her parents and, I assume, grandparents, stood by and did nothing to correct her incredible misbehavior. It got so bad that two TSA workers had to intervene to maintain some semblance of order. Everyone was staring at the girl and her family in disbelief and disapproval, and I suspect most were praying that this little monster wasn't going to be on the same flight they were on.

>257 Cariola: Thanks, Deborah. I'm at my parents' house with my cousin, who just finished law school; she, I and my brother will likely spend the day in Philadelphia tomorrow. She'll fly back to Michigan on Tuesday, so I'll almost certainly go to the New Year's Day sale at Book Culture in NYC (anyone else want to join me?).

It's too early for me to start a 2014 thread or read the hundreds of 2014 threads in this group and Club Read, IMO. I'll probably start one in each group late on New Year's Eve.

>258 cammykitty: Thanks, Katie; and the same to you, too! I've been free of any significant URIs, touch wood. We have had a lot of kids admitted due to complications of influenza so far this year, far more than usual; I've probably had at least 20 patients since early November.

>259 torontoc: Happy New Year, Cyrel! I'm glad that you have power again.

>260 banjo123: Thanks, Rhonda. I hope that you have an enjoyable New Year's Day as well.

I loved The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, A Wild Sheep Chase and Norwegian Wood, and I liked 1Q84 and most of Murakami's earlier novels. Kafka on the Shore is the one book that Murakami that I've wanted to read for a while, especially after I read several glowing comments about it on LT.

>261 Whisper1:, 262 Happy New Year to you too, Linda and Manuel!

>165 kidzdoc:
Love the list! So well-planned, so soon.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins
Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Particularly, I love the ones below, and plan to read them also.
Ian McEwan, Atonement
Patrick White, The Vivisector
Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Of course, I would love to limit my reading to ones I own.....at at least 90%, but I would have to wear blue blinkers here in the group to avoid seeing any books. Impossible.

>256 kidzdoc: I love your meetups for the year, it is an enviable list! I hope to meet a person a year.....which (being this far away) would be an achievement! Although, having said that, I failed this year, and didn't meet up with anyone...I don't think?

>264 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan! All of the books you mentioned first are ones that I've owned for several years and wanted to read ASAP but haven't gotten to yet.

I was impressed when I compiled that list of LTers I've met up with this year, too. I did make one slight mistake; I only met up with Bianca three times.

Where are you in comparison to the other LT NZers?

That child with the tantrum could well have been autistic. I remember how awful it felt when my son had a meltdown in public and people stared and judged me who hadn't walked in my shoes.

>266 tymfos: That's a great point, Terri; that possibility never crossed my mind. I've met some amazingly rude South Asian kids in the hospital (although, of course, the vast majority of these kids are well behaved and lovable), and I may have unfairly assumed that the girl was just a ridiculously spoiled little princess. Thanks for opening my eyes a bit more than they were yesterday.

Oh my, the Internet Explorer version 6 group still exists, who'd'a thunk it. Well, while the rest of us are au courant with the latest, we'll see if we can spare a moment for those still stuck in a bygone day.

Unfortunately I can't see that image you posted on my Internet browser. I'll have to upgrade from Mosaic to Netscape next month.

Oh, all right. Since Megan and I seem to be the only 2013 holdouts I'll create a thread there soon. *grumbles*

Hmph. Some people will be on their 2nd thread by January 1. I’m in 2013 until I finish and review book #75.

Right on, Katherine! I'm glad to see that you're in with us. Power to the (holdout) people!

And NO NEW THREADS cuz that'd be unamurrikin!!

Sad...so sad...

Ha! You read my mind, Richard. I thought that the only way you would force entice me to join the 2014 group before tomorrow would be to compare me to a member of the Party of No.



You win, sir. I'll create a new Club Read 2014 thread now, and my first 75 Books in 2014 one afterward.

*preens* It's all in knowing where the pressure points are.

I'm laughing so hard all the way from Spain.

272: Darryl may be arbitrarily oppositional, but _I_ am holding out for a reason!

Hi Darryl, I applaud your reading goals for 2014; trying to clear the tbr seems to be the biggest challenge most of us have to face and somehow never manage all that well. I've joined the 2014 group, but holding out on creating my thread for one more day and I'm sure by the time I start visiting threads on that side I'll be well behind on everybody, which won't be all that different from how things have been in 2013...

Wishing you a wonderful New Year and see you on the other side!

Tsk tsk, Darryl. That is all I have to say. Until tomorrow which is New Years Day!

Yippee, then I can start my own new thread!

I'm on the fence as far as the 2014 group goes--meaning that I joined and starred some threads but haven't put up my new thread yet. Same goes for Club Read.

Do what I did just create a shell ....... no talking on it till 2014 .... less that 24 hours till 2014 anyway, for all we know it is already as its just an arbitrary date on a calendar

>280 roundballnz: How do you prevent people from posting on your "shell" before the year turns?

You can't ...... well you could ask nicely - but I just don't converse on it :)

281> Right--that's why I'm waiting. I have to find the right art work to head it up, and I don't want people who post early to miss it!

>274 richardderus: Yep. I have no response for political attack ads other than fold like a wet noodle.

>275 cushlareads: I think that Richard, Caroline, Megan, I and a few other LTers could form a group and earn a decent living on the comedy circuit.

>276 qebo: Actually, I was going to create my initial 75 Books and Club Read threads on New Year's Eve, until I realized that I would have more free time today than I would on that day and New Year's Day. Except for that I would have held out until tomorrow.

>277 Smiler69: Thanks, Ilana. My previous attempts at TBR reduction have failed miserably, but hopefully this plan will be a more successful one.

Happy New Year to you as well!

>278 LovingLit: Sorry, Megan; I couldn't withstand that political pressure from the Long Island liberal. It's already New Year's Eve morning in NZ, right?

>279 Cariola: I expect that there will be a flood of activity in the 2014 versions of 75 Books and, to a lesser extent, Club Read tomorrow and Wednesday, Deborah. There's almost no chance that I'll finish another book by midnight tomorrow, so now it seems reasonable for me to migrate to the new groups.

>280 roundballnz:-282 I went ahead and created a mostly full fledged thread, Alex, based on my reading plans I laid out earlier this year.

Darryl, I am halfway through book #75 (The Good Lord Bird) and hope to make it to goal before midnight tomorrow!

Excellent, Deborah! I look forward to your comments about The Good Lord Bird. I also own it, and I'll probably read it in January or February.

Darryl, I'll send you a pm with my cellphone number. I'm not sure yet whether our schedule will allow a full-fledged visit to Book Culture, but perhaps we can meet for coffee, brunch, or something?

>287 ffortsa: Thanks, Judy; I saw and responded to your PM. I'll be in touch with you later today, or tomorrow morning when I'm on the train to Penn Station.

This show is now over. Please join me in my 2014 production here.