kidzdoc achieves TBR domination in 2014, part 16: A Preview of 2015

It's almost time!



Completed books:

January:
1. Homage to Barcelona by Colm Tóibín (review)
2. 1914: A Novel by Jean Echenoz (review)
3. How I Became Hettie Jones by Hettie Jones (review) (TBR)
4. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon
5. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordechai Richler

February:
6. Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and Its Secret Past by Giles Tremlett (TBR)
7. Christmas in Purgatory: A Photographic Essay on Mental Retardation
by Burton Blatt & Fred Kaplan
8. Down's Syndrome: The History of a Disability by David Wright
9. Lizard Tails by Juan Marsé (TBR) (review)
10. The Comedians by Graham Greene (TBR) (review)
11. No Name in the Street by James Baldwin (TBR)
12. The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop by Guthrie Ramsey
13. An Unexpected Twist by Andy Borowitz (TBR)

March:
14. The Enormity of the Tragedy by Quim Monzó (TBR)
15. Between Friends by Amos Oz
16. Chewing Gum Dreams by Michaela Coel
17. The Weir by Conor McPherson
18. Wounded: A New History of the Western Front in World War I by Emily Mayhew
19. The Husbands by Sharmila Chauhan
20. We Are Proud To Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915 by Jackie Sibblies Drury
21. Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks
22. 1984 (play script) by George Orwell

April:
23. Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England by Sarah Wise
24. Ruin Lust: Artists' Fascination with Ruins, from Turner to the Present Day by Brian Dillon
25. Secret Barcelona by Veronica Ramirez Muro and Rocio Sierra Carbonell
26. Barcelona by Robert Hughes
27. Everyman Mapguide Barcelona
28. Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry (TBR)
29. The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer
30. Notes for a Spanish Odyssey by Calvin Baker
31. Kicking the Sky by Anthony De Sa
32. I Am a Japanese Writer by Dany Laferrière (TBR)
33. Gone by Colum McCann

May:
34. The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (TBR)
35. Gasoline by Quim Monzó (TBR)
36. Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje (TBR)
37. Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut
38. Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen
39. Morphine by Mikhail Bulgakov

June:
40. The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra by Pedro Mairal
41. Quietly by Owen McCafferty
42. Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life by Alex Bellos
43. Shanghai Nights by Juan Marsé (TBR)
44. This Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood by Alan Johnson
45. Vlad by Carlos Fuentes
46. Rochester Castle by Jeremy Ashbee
47. The Sant Pau Modernista Precinct by Richard Rees
48. Lost Luggage by Jordi Puntí
49. Baedeker Barcelona by Baedeker Guides
50. Gaudí: Introduction to His Architecture by Juan-Eduardo Cirlot

July:
51. Barcelona Scams by Jonathan Stone
52. Gaudí: A Biography by Gijs van Hensbergen
53. Paul Robeson: A Watched Man by Jordan Goodman
54. The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat : The Story of the Penicillin Miracle by Eric Lax (TBR)
55. Kieron Smith, boy by James Kelman (TBR)

August:
56. All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu
57. How to Be German in 50 Easy Steps by Adam Fletcher
58. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
59. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris
60. Nevirapine and the Quest to End Pediatric AIDS by Rebecca J. Anderson
61. Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
62. History of the Rain by Niall Williams
63. Family Life by Akhil Sharma
64. When We Are Called to Part: Hope and Heartbreak in the Vanishing World of the Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement by Brooke Jarvis

September:
65. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
66. The Embassy of Cambodia by Zadie Smith
67. Strictly Bipolar by Darian Leader
68. Little Revolution by Alecky Blythe
69. Doctor Scroggy's War by Howard Brenton
70. Portobello Road: Lives of a Neighbourhood by Julian Mash
71. Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wiilson

October:
72. The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee
73. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
74. Before Ebola: Dispatches from a Deadly Outbreak by Peter Apps
75. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
76. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
77. J: A Novel by Howard Jacobson
78. The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke
79. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
80. Liolà by Liugi Pirandello

November:
81. Small: Life and Death on the Front Lines of Pediatric Surgery by Catherine Musemeche, MD
82. Win These Posters and Other Unrelated Prizes Inside by Norma Cole
83. Tales of Belkin (The Art of the Novella) by Alexander Pushkin
84. My Child Won't Sleep: A Quick Guide for the Sleep-Deprived Parent by Sujay Kansagra, MD
85. Transit by Abdourahman A. Waberi
86. Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them by Randy Christensen, MD
87. The Passport by Herta Müller
88. The Children Act by Ian McEwan
89. Aliss at the Fire by Jon Fosse
90. Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky
91. Wind in a Box by Terrance Hayes
92. The Life of Hunger by Amélie Nothomb
93. Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki
94. Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
95. Schizophrene by Bhanu Kapil
96. London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets by Peter Ackroyd
97. The Fall by Albert Camus

December:
98. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
99. Prehistoric Times by Éric Chevillard
100. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
101. The Good Cripple by Rodrigo Rey Rosa
102. Keep Out of Reach of Children: Reye’s Syndrome, Aspirin, and the Politics of Public Health by Mark A. Largent
103. The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
104. The Old Child & Other Stories by Jenny Erpenbeck
105. The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin

2015 Reading Globally Themes and possible reads from my TBR collection:

First quarter: Indian subcontinent

Aravind Adiga, Between the Assassinations
Tariq Ali, Night of the Golden Butterfly
Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age
Vikram Chandra, Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games
Roopa Farooki, Bitter Sweets
Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome
Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide
Intizar Husain, Basti
Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey
Uday Prakash, The Girl with the Golden Parasol
Salman Rushdie, The Moor's Last Sigh
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
Kamila Shamsie, In the City By the Sea

Second quarter: Iberian peninsula

António Lobo Antunes, Act of the Damned
António Lobo Antunes, Fado Alexandrino
António Lobo Antunes, The Land at the End of the World
Bernardo Atxaga, Obabakoak
Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife
Juan Goytisolo, Landscapes of War: From Sarajevo to Chechnya
Juan Goytisolo, The Marx Family Saga
Almudena Grandes, The Frozen Heart
Carmen Laforet, Nada
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Fernando Pessoa, The Education of the Stoic
Mercè Rodoreda, Death in Spring
Mercè Rodoreda, The Selected Stories of Mercè Rodoreda
José Saramago, Baltasar and Blimunda
José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon
José Saramago, Manual of Painting and Calligraphy
Llorenç Villalonga, The Dolls' Room
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game

Third quarter: Nobel Prize winners writing not in English

Knut Hamsun (1920), Hunger
Thomas Mann (1929), Death in Venice
Halldór Laxness (1955), Independent People
Albert Camus (1957), The First Man; Exile and the Kingdom
Ivo Andrić (1961), The Bridge on the Drina
Jean-Paul Sartre (1964), Nausea
Miguel Ángel Asturias (1967), The President
Yasunari Kawabata (1968), Beauty and Sadness
Pablo Neruda (1971), The Essential Neruda; Canto General
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978), Collected Stories, Volume 1
Gabriel García Márquez (1982), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Of Love and Other Demons; The Autumn of the Patriarch
Claude Simon (1985), The Trolley
Naguib Mahfouz (1988), Midaq Alley; Rhadopis of Nubia
Octavio Paz (1990), The Labyrinth of Solitude; In Light of India
Kenzaburō Ōe (1994), The Changeling
José Saramago (1998), Raised from the Ground; Baltasar and Blimunda; The History of the Siege of Lisbon; Manual of Painting and Calligraphy; Journey to Portugal
Günter Grass (1999), The Tin Drum
Gao Xingjian (2000), One Man's Bible; Soul Mountain
Orhan Pamuk (2006), Snow; My Name Is Red; The Museum of Innocence; Other Colors
J.M.G. Le Clézio (2008), Terra Amata; The Giants; War; Fever; The Book of Flights; The Flood
Herta Müller (2009), The Land of Green Plums
Mario Vargas Llosa (2010), Captain Pantoja and the Special Service; The Green House; The Way to Paradise; The Bad Girl; The Dream of the Celt
Mo Yan (2012), Life and Death are Wearing Me Out; The Garlic Ballads; The Republic of Wine

Fourth quarter: Women writing not in English

Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins; She Came to Stay
Assia Djebar, Algerian White; Children of the New World; The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry
Diamela Eltit, E. Luminata
Annie Ernaux, Cleaned Out
Sylvie Germain, The Song of False Lovers
Marlene van Niekerk, Agaat
Miral al-Tahawy, Brooklyn Heights
Delphine de Vigan, No and Me

2015 American Author Challenge

January: Carson McCullers, Clock Without Hands
February: Henry James, The Wings of the Dove
March: Richard Ford, Independence Day
April: Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
May: Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
June: Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety
July: Ursula Le Guin
August: Larry McMurtry
September: Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories
October: Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
November: Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior
December: E.L. Doctorow, The March

2015 British Author Challenge

January: Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger
January: Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
February: Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger or The Paying Guests
February: Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
March: Daphne Du Maurier, ?Rebecca
March: China Mieville, The City & the City
April: Angela Carter, ?The Radiant Way
April: W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
May: Margaret Drabble, ?Nights at the Circus
May: Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest
June: Beryl Bainbridge, Master Georgie
June: Anthony Burgess, ?Earthly Powers
July: Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out
July: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
August: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea
August: Graham Greene, The Quiet American
September: Andrea Levy, Fruit of the Lemon
September: Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
October: Helen Dunmore, The Siege
October: David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks
November: Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent
November: William Boyd, An Ice-Cream War
December: Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety
December: P.G. Wodehouse, Love Among the Chickens

Recommended reads for the CanLit 2014 2015 Challenge (by Canadian LTers) (books in bold are ones that I'm most interested in reading):

   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, Such a Long Journey (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)
   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)

TBR Books to Read in 2014 2015

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
      Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
      William Trevor, Selected Stories
      Patrick White, The Vivisector

Non-tomes (less than 500 pages):
      Stuart Altman and David Shactman, Power, Politics and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-Long Battle
      Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
      Bernardo Atxaga, Obabakoak
      Amiri Baraka, Tales of the Out & the Gone
      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
      Percival Everett, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
      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
      Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris
      Jonathan B. Imber, Trusting Doctors: The Decline of Moral Authority in American Medicine
      Hettie Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones
      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
      Juan Marsé, Lizard 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
      Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
      Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Petals of Blood
      Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
      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
      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
      Giles Tremlett, Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and Its Secret Past
      Mario Vargas Llosa, The Green House
      Richard Wright, Black Boy

Orange January/July

January: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
July: ?

We pause this thread for station identification.

Whoop de whoop. First?!

>9 lunacat: Yes!

Wow, are you already in 2015 or is the topper just a count down? Happy New Thread, Darryl.

>11 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I have a busy stretch of work days starting tomorrow and extending into the first two days of the New Year, so I wanted to get an early start on my plans for 2015 and make it easier to create my first thread of the year from this last thread of 2014.

Happy Countdown Thread, Darryl! We have wanted to go to SF forever. If we can ever squeeze it in, (and we hope to) we will let you know.

And if you can make it to Chicago, we will definitely try to catch a jazz show. The Jazz Showcase is historic!

>13 msf59: San Francisco is a fabulous city to visit, Mark, with great food, beautiful scenery within and outside the city, and a superb cultural arts scene (museums, music, theater). The city is compact, as it's basically a 7 mile x 7 mile square, and it has a very good public transportation system, which makes it easy to get around without a car. Definitely let me know if you decide to go; I'm also hoping that the Cranswicks tour will appear there next year.

I'm overdue for a visit to Chicago, as I haven't seen my friend Bilkis in at least five years. I love the city, and I was quite disappointed when I didn't match to the pediatric residency program at Children's Memorial Hospital after medical school (although Emory gave me very good training and the contacts I made there directly led to my current job). I'll definitely let you and Joe know the next time I go there.

Jumping in here rather than continuing the conversation on the old thread.

In terms of vegetables: I like very few cooked. I'm much more a salad person and will happily eat a whole bowl of salad all day long with no issues whatsoever. I would not say the same of vegetables.

Potatoes - in small amounts only. I don't like a large amount of carbs in my diet. A handful of chips (fries), one or two boiled or roast, half of a jacket, a few diced and fried, they're about my limit on potato servings per meal. I do NOT like them mashed - a horrible way to treat an already mediocre foodstuff, but I'll eat them that way on top of a shepherds pie when smothered in tomato ketchup.

Cabbage - a small amount if cooked al dente.

Asparagus - if good quality and cooked well with salt and butter on top.

Sweet corn - yes, one of the few I'll happily eat, but not in stuff, just on its one.

Peas - as with sweet corn. I love frozen peas straight from the packet, a lovely cold snack.

Beans - runner beans are nice, better raw than cooked. Green beans done al dente but not a huge amount. No to broad beans.

Cauliflower - only with cheese sauce.

Broccoli - yes, if not overcooked. Purple sprouting broccoli is best.

I love carrots.

No to: courgette, aubergine, any kind of squash, brussel sprouts, cooked peppers, spinach, kale, swede, turnip.

As I said, I'll happily devour salad. Even from two or three, if we were eating out my parents would order an adult size salad for me, take half the protein off for themselves and leave me happily munching raw veg, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes etc.

My main problem is I am very fussy with how things have been cooked, and I don't like mixing food. When eating a plate of food, I consume all of one item before moving on to the next, and won't put a little of everything on a forkful. I don't like my food fussed with.

It's lead to a reputation of fussiness but I'd rather have a plate of boring macaroni cheese, or three sausages and a slice of buttered bread, than I would a fancy meal.

Holy moley, I can't believe how much reading you already have lined up for 2015!! I used to do a lot more planning, very similar to yours, so I can relate. I tended to get a little too "stuck" on my plans though, and then found them too limiting. My sense is you will still read what you want to read, when you want to read it, and the plan is just an aide memoire. Am I right about that?

>16 lauralkeet: Holy moley
Yeah, really. Though I note "possible" and "recommended", not "committed".
I've stacked up three books to read in January, and that's about as far ahead as I ever plan.

Impressive plans! Woot!

>15 lunacat: Hmm. I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you on most everything you've said, Jenny! I like well prepared salads on occasion, but I certainly wouldn't want one more than a couple of times per week. I'd much rather have well prepared vegetarian or vegan dishes, and I loved the food at the two raw food restaurants (InSpiral in Camden, and The Wild Food Café in Covent Garden) and the vegetarian restaurant (Mildred's Restaurant in Covent Garden) that I've dined at with Bianca and others in London. I also love South Indian vegetarian dishes, which I ate frequently when I worked in NYC in the late 1980s.

I like potatoes in nearly all forms (mashed, baked, French fried, boiled (if not overly done), but not scalloped). I'm with you on cabbage, asparagus and sweet corn (especially farm fresh corn on the cob, but frozen is okay). Cold peas sound awful, but I haven't tried them that way. I'm lukewarm on string beans, but I'm fond of most other legumes, especially lentils and red beans prepared New Orleans style (red beans and rice, with Andouille sausage). Yes to all cauliflower dishes, and a big thumbs down to broccoli. Big ups to courgette zucchini, aubergine eggplant, squash, peppers and especially green leafy vegetables, especially spinach, kale, turnip and collard. And, as I've probably said before, I could eat well prepared Brussels sprouts and little else and be perfectly content.

I will say that one of my foibles is that I hate it when one food crosses over to the next one on a dinner plate, e.g. when the juices from one food (collard greens) runs into another one (macaroni and cheese), which is my main issue left over from childhood. I'll usually eat a bite of one food, followed by a bite of another one, and finish everything at nearly the same time.

I'm not one for most fancy restaurants, which I generally find to be overpriced and overrated. I'd rather eat in tiny places or "hole in the wall" restaurants, especially ones which make ethnic cuisine, such as Kingdom of Dumplings, the Chinese restaurant in a mainly Asian neighborhood of San Francisco where I had lunch on Friday. You probably couldn't fit more than 20 people in there, but the dumplings are the best that I've ever had.



>16 lauralkeet: You're right, Laura. I doubt that I'll finish half of those listed books next year, so your description of this collection of lists as an aide memoire is spot on.

>17 qebo: I do have a list of planned reads for January already, which I had meant to post in message #8.

Hi Darryl, we really are into the 2015 countdown now! I am going to like 2015 I think. The number pleases me to start with :) I am strange like that.

Great reading plans as usual....I am at least getting through some of the ones I have bought this year, so feel pleased. But beyond that, (reading some I own) I have made no firm plans. (don't tell the AAC and BAC boys!).

Happy new thread, Darryl. You did a LOT of reading in November! You have ambitious plans for 2015. I'll follow with interest. I'm trying to inject more diversity into my reading for 2015.

Planned reads for January:

Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity
Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome
Intizar Husain, Basti
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Marlon James, A History of Seven Killings
Hannah Kent, Burial Rites
Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger
Rohinton Mistry, Swimming Lessons: and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag
Carson McCullers, Clock Without Hands
Kamila Shamsie, A God in Every Stone

>18 lit_chick: Thanks, Nancy!

>20 LovingLit: Right, Megan. I would imagine that Jim will create the 2015 group in the next two weeks. Let's see...it looks as though the first 2014 threads were started on Christmas afternoon (Eastern Time in the US). Unlike last year and most past years I'll be off from work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so I'll probably get a thread up soon after the group is created.

I'm all in for the AACII and BAC challenges, as you can tell. The Australian author reading challenge is interesting, but I'm already well committed to the other challenges, plus my personal CanLit challenge and my plan to read the 2015 Booker Prize longlist in its entirety. I'll probably read at least one or two books by Australian and New Zealand authors that I have in my TBR collection, though.

Although I haven't mentioned it yet I do want to read more books by authors from the African diaspora in 2015, ideally one book of fiction and one of either nonfiction or poetry. Hmm...I think I'll call out sick all of next year so tht I can meet my reading goals.

>21 BLBera: Thanks, Beth! I wanted to keep my streak of reading 100 books every year since 2003 alive, and I knew that the only way I would do that is if I read at least 12-15 books in November, as I would have a hard time reading more than 8-10 books in December.

I look forward to your reading plans for 2015!

Happy New Thread, Darryl! I'm getting excited about the new year and the fresh start to all sorts of reading challenges, too!

>24 scaifea: Thanks, Amber!

Well, Darryl, there's a little problem with that. Besides my book club reads, I don't plan my reading. One book I will read soon is Susan Power's new one. I love her and have been waiting for this forever. So, if I don't get to it this month, I will read it in January. I'm close to the 100 mark, and I think I'll make it. My goal is 104 -- two books a week, totally arbitrary. We'll see.

Hi Darryl! I can't believe we are planning for and talking about 2015.

Your January selections are quite appealing. I hope you like Burial Rites.

It is hard to believe we're talking about 2015 reads, but it's right around the corner, isn't it?

I'll be joining you on Never Let Me Go. I used to be caught up on his books, and now I've fallen behind. I've seen a lot of positive reactions to this one.

Wow, you were really up early yesterday morning, Darryl! I just posted a Turkey Curry Soup recipe on your last thread--the squash discussion made me think of it.

Your lists overwhelm me! So I'm just looking at your January plans. I have two of those books in my stacks, A Golden Age and Burial Rites. I read and absolutely hated Never Let Me Go--I know, I know, everyone else loved it!

It's a good thing we're not a couple Darryl, what would we ever find to eat?!

Hi Darryl, I liked Burial Rites and I read Moon Tiger the year it won the Booker, and have re-read it since. It got me hooked on Lively's work. Quiet but resonant.

I'm such a mood reader that I end up ignoring most of my lists. I do read most of the local book-group books, and then have a couple of 'aim to' lists, I shall have another go at American Authors next year probably.

I gather books I think I might like to read soon near my reading chair, sometimes they get read sooner. A new book through the door has a good chance.

ETA: caught up with your previous thread and second the enthusiasm Bianca had for Anselm Keifa. I've been going to exhibitions of his work for a few years, and this retrospective was wonderful. His key work though can't be seen as it is built on his land: rooms, tunnels, buildings and installations. But this exhibition gave a great flavour. I went twice, and would have gone again if I'd had time.

Bianca, look out for the documentary about him that was part of Alan Yentob's series Imagine, if you didn't see it already.

Speaking of 2015, I'm trying to remember when "they" start the new group? I know that in the past some LTers were on their second thread of the year before midnight on the 31st....

>23 kidzdoc:, >32 EBT1002: Yeah, it was on Christmas last year, and as I recall DrN warned us a bit in advance because I was watching the group page that day. I think it has been somewhat earlier in other years, but DrN thankfully errs on the side of caution. I am always frantically trying to finish my 75th book before everyone else abandons me to a vacuum.

>22 kidzdoc: I love seeing everyone's reading plans for the coming year. Maybe for 2015 I'll actually get it together and come up with some semblance of a list.

>32 EBT1002: >33 qebo: New group day is one of my favorite days of the year. :)

Hmmm. The Aceman figured in The Empire of Sin (in a nonfiction way), so The Axeman's Jazz needs to make it to the Wishlist...

>34 RosyLibrarian: Reading plan? My reading plan is to read. I don't get much farther than that. Oh, you admirable planners!

Your latest trip to SF came at an opportune moment, since we are making a trip there in January to visit our daughter Mia. I noted the Cafe Greco from your last thread, and of course we'll visit city lights. Do you have a recommendation for good fairly reasonably priced restaurants (Asian food is not my first preference)? Or reasonable hotels. We'll only be two nights in SF, and we'll also be spending two days in Monterrey.

BTW my oldest son, his wife and our grandson have now moved to your old stomping ground, Jersey City, so perhaps our paths will cross there.

I've enjoyed your thread all year even tho' I haven't commented much. Best wishes for the holidays , and see you next year!

>31 Caroline_McElwee: Quiet but resonant is a great way to describe Moon Tiger! I agree wholeheartedly.
I hope you enjoy it, Darryl. I tried to force it on Ellen too :)

I will be reading Moon Tiger in January as well. I am also taking the recorded copy of Consequences with me on drive back to Kansas. I am not sure that I will read another Ishiguro as I just read Never Let me Go for my real life book club in November.

I am about half way through with Place of Greater Safety and enjoying it, but I am beginning to be at the place where I am putting off reading because I know how it ends. That is the trouble with historical fiction - you know the end of the story.

I agree with somebody up-thread who said that they clean the center of the spaghetti squash before they cook it. Those darn things take a long time to cool off enough to handle and shred as it is, so I clean the seeds before cooking so that they are out of the way.

I have not been to Cafe Greco but I know where it is. When I go to S.F. this summer I will make it a point to go there. Like you, I prefer to find the little hole-in-the-wall places, as I am not big on crowds. There is a funky little coffee shop in North Beach that I liked. It was very small and set at the end of a triangular point where streets come together, but I can't remember the name of it. It has about 10 bar stools and 4 tables, but it was cozy and made good coffee. I think it was the hangout of somebody famous, but can't remember that either. A restaurant I liked in the Castro district was Te Couz. It was a French style creperie and had the most wonderful Norman apple cider. I don't know if it is still there, but it is worth the taxi ride down there.

Re: next year's group...

I'm planning to get next year's group going in the next week or so.

Thanks for the recommendation Benita. Norman apple cider? I hadn't realized there was such a thing, until we went to Normandy in November, and visited an orchard and tasted their Norman cider. Normandy is also famous for Calvados and for Benedictine.

Morning, Darryl!
I'm off to be the substitute librarian at Charlie's school today. I was talking yesterday morning with another school mom, who is also a nurse, about how many kids have been getting ill (for every day that I've been in the school building (and that's most days lately) I've heard the administrative assistant get on the intercom and call for a mop and bucket to some room or another), and the nurse/mom said that this year is just nuts for the flu. Charlie has yet to come down with it, and in fact he's never vomited in his life (knock on all kinds of wood)! I'm happy to be librarian for the day (always am), but I'm not gonna lie - I'm a little nervous going into that germ-infested flu-haven. Wish me (and Charlie) luck! Ha!

>42 scaifea: Good Luck indeed! Alas, this year it was announced that the flu vaccine wasn't a good match for the prevailing strain of flu, so more people are getting sick. It's a good year to be a hermit.

I had a pretty easy work day today, after three tough work days to start the week, so I'll catch up here and post brief descriptions of the books I bought from City Lights last Friday.

>26 BLBera: Got it, Beth; so you don't plan the books that you'll read it advance. Which book by Susan Power are you referring to? (I'm unfamiliar with her.)

Good luck on hitting the century mark!

>27 EBT1002: Hi, Ellen! I'm working most of Christmas Week and on and around New Year's Day, so I wanted to post a 2015 preview here to make it easier to create my first 2015 thread of the year. I'm also very eager to get started on 2015 books, as I've met my goal of reading 100 books in 2014 and I'm interested in AACII and BAC, along with the Reading Globally first quarter theme on literature from the Indian subcontinent. I may get started early on those books next week, to give myself a running start going into the New Year.

I'm looking forward to reading Burial Rites, which will be the book I'll read for Orange January in the Orange Prize group. A couple of years ago I had proposed an Orange Prize book a month challenge, which I only kept up with for a couple of months. I have a bunch of unread Orange Prize longlisted books in my TBR collection, several of which I'm eager to read, and I may try to read one Orange book a month in 2015.

>28 jnwelch: Right, Joe. New Year's Day will be here before I know it, especially since I'll be working for most of the rest of the year.

I'm glad that you'll read Never Let Me Go in January. Once I finish that the only book I own by Ishiguro that I haven't read is The Unconsoled, which Rachael (FlossieT) gave me a year or two ago.

>29 Cariola: I'm a notoriously early riser, Deborah. It's unusual for me to sleep past 7 am, even on off days, unless I'm utterly exhausted (in that regard I'm definitely my father's child).

I like to get up early and go to Publix, my local supermarket, soon after it opens on Saturday or Sunday mornings, in order to beat the crowds and to be able to select the best fruits, vegetables, and meats.

I'll look at your turkey curry soup recipe after I catch up here. On the recommendation of a former LTer I purchased the book Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, which contains hundreds of enticing vegetarian recipes from around the world. I plan to cook far more vegetarian dishes in 2015, and I've already seen at least 20 recipes in it that I'm eager to try.

I shared the Moroccan vegetable stew that I made two weekends ago with my partners, and nearly all of them loved it and wanted to make it in the near future.

>30 lunacat: Ha, Jenny! I'll bet that I would have an easier time dining on food that you like than the other way round. I do like well prepared vegetarian dishes, though, so I guess that I, or we, would have to prepare something to your liking if we were a couple.

Hi Darryl: Susan Power's new one is Sacred Wilderness. I loved The Grass Dancer, her only other novel. She is a wonderful writer. I heard her read about 10 years ago -- from a novel that was close to being done. I'm not sure what happened...but I am ready!

I hope you are feeling better and don't catch any new bugs.

>31 Caroline_McElwee: I'm glad that you liked Burial Rites and Moon Tiger, Caroline. Rachael (and Fliss?) enjoyed Hannah Kent's book too, so I expect that I'll like it as well.

Fortunately for me the books I've chosen to read for the AACII, BAC and Reading Globally are ones that I'm very eager to read.

I'm glad to read that you're also a fan of Anselm Kiefer's work. I'll probably go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, early next month, and I'll look to see if any of his works are on display there.

>32 EBT1002: I think that the 2014 group started on Christmas Day. BTW, Club Read 2015 is already up and running. I had to work last Christmas, so I didn't start my 2014 thread until New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, if I remember correctly. I'll be off on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year, so I'll probably start my first 2015 thread much earlier.

>33 qebo: Ah, so it was on Christmas Day, then. Jim has been very good about keeping us abreast on the coming year's new group (and in leading the group in general, of course).

>34 RosyLibrarian: Same here, Marie; I also like to see what other members' reading plans are for the upcoming year, as they inspire me to make my own lists and sometimes I'll join in, including the upcoming AACII and BAC. I'm also interested in the Australian/New Zealand challenge, but I only own a small number of unread books by the selected authors, so I'll probably only read a couple of books.

I love new group day, too. I'm usually working on that day, though, so I have to catch up several days later.

>35 drneutron: Thanks for mentioning Empire of Sin, Jim. I hadn't heard of that book before, so I'll add it to my wish list.

>36 ffortsa: I like to plan my reading in advance, so that I can get to books that I purchased in the past that I'm eager to read, but are at risk of being forgotten in favor of newer and shinier books.

I have to work over New Year's Day this year, so I won't be able to visit Book Culture and take advantage of its January 1st sale. :-(

>37 arubabookwoman: Hi, Deborah! I used to check http://www.hotelres.com to find the cheapest rates and availability for hotels in San Francisco, but that site has been replaced by something else. I usually stay at the Hotel Whitcomb, which is next to the Civic Center BART/MUNI station, as it's (obviously) convenient to BART and MUNI, and it's within walking distance of the SFJAZZ Center, Davies Symphony Hall (the home of the San Francisco Symphony), and the Herbst Theatre, which hosts music concerts and author readings. The Civic Center is a bit of a dicey area, though, with numerous homeless people milling about and occasionally harassing passers by, so I can't recommend it as much as I'd like to. As I walked from the SFJAZZ Center to the hotel I passed by a street person who threw a liquid at two well dressed women, and proceeded to curse at the people who were leaving the SFJAZZ Center and Davies Symphony Hall, for wearing nice clothes and being able to attend concerts, including me.

I do like the Hotel Donatello in Union Square, which is on Post Street, one block west of Powell, the street that the cable cars travel on, and Hotel Nikko, which is even closer to the Powell Street BART/MUNI station. Most of my favorite SF restaurants serve Chinese or Japanese food, but a couple of my favorite non-Asian restaurants are L'Osteria del Forno on Columbus Avenue in North Beach, Hog Island Oyster Company in the San Francisco Ferry Building, Roosevelt Tamale Parlor in the Mission District, Caffe Museo, located within the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MoMA), and Tartine Bakery in Noe Valley.

What part of Jersey City did your son move to? My mother's oldest sister is now the only member of my family who lives there, as her youngest sister recently moved from J.C. to Yardley, PA, close to where my parents live, so now there isn't much reason for us to go there, unfortunately.

I hope that you enjoy the year end holidays, and I look forward to following your thread in 2015!

>38 LovingLit: "Quiet but resonant" sounds good to me, Caroline.

>39 benitastrnad: I'm glad that you'll also read Moon Tiger in January, Benita. I loved Remains of the Day by Ishiguro, but that's the only book I've read by him that I would wholeheartedly recommend.

I won't get to A Place of Greater Safety this year, but I'll ?definitely read it in 2015.

Sunday was the first time that I cooked spaghetti squash, and I followed that recipe exactly, which instructed me to cook the whole squash before cutting and cleaning it. The recipe tasted great, but next time I'll clean the center of the squash before I cook it.

The triangular point in North Beach that you described sounds like the corner of Columbus Avenue and Stockton Street. In the following image Columbus Avenue is on the left, and Stockton Street, which runs through Chinatown, is on the right.



I haven't been to, or heard of, Ti Couz, but unfortunately it looks as though it has closed.

>40 drneutron: Thanks, Jim. I eagerly await the 2015 version of the 75 Books group!

>41 arubabookwoman: I haven't heard of Norman apple cider before. Where can you get or buy it?

>42 scaifea: Hi, Amber! This has been a bad flu season so far, as I've already taken care of at least 15-20 patients who were hospitalized due to complications from influenza. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recently reported that the predominant strain of influenza that is prevalent in the US is influenza A (H3N2); only 48% of the isolated strains are not covered by the current vaccine, which is lower than the usual 60-80% protection that is typically afforded by the vaccine in any given season. I'm not certain of the exact percentage, but I'd guess that roughly half of the patients I've taken care of who were infected with influenza A were vaccinated appropriately, which would fit the data in the CDC report. Although those kids did have to be admitted to the hospital, none of the vaccinated one were sick enough to be in our PICU (pediatric ICU) to my recollection, so it's still worthwhile (and not too late!) to get the vaccine. According to the latest FluView from the CDC the greatest activity is in the Deep South (Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi), so it will likely spread to the Northeastern and Midwestern states in the next week or two.

>43 ffortsa: Right, Judy. The nurse practitioner who was supposed to have worked with me on Monday night called out sick due to the flu, and a different NP called out sick on Sunday night. I received my vaccine in November, and so far I haven't come down with the flu (knocking madly on wood).

Today was my father's 80th birthday, so we had a long and very pleasant conversation on the phone while I was typing these messages. It's now 10 pm (yawn), so I'll post descriptions of the books I bought at City Lights tomorrow, or on Sunday when I'm off from work.

>48 kidzdoc: Yep, Charlie and I had our vaccines in October, so I'm hoping that carries us through or at least, as you say, softens the blow. Plus, (and I'm really knocking on wood as I type this) Charlie is just a super-healthy kid who loves eating fruits and raw vegetables and has lots of them both every day, who gets a healthy amount of sleep every night without any complaining about bedtime and who just seems to be naturally of a good constitution (he's never vomited in all of his 6 years, believe it or not). How did I get so lucky with this kid, eh?!

Happiest of Birthdays to your dad! I hope he has a wonderful day.

Woo! I had another relatively easy day on service, as our inpatient census has dropped dramatically over the past two days. I hope that this bodes well for my call day tomorrow, and my three shifts during Christmas Week (Mon, Tue, Fri).

>45 BLBera: Sacred Wilderness sounds very interesting, Beth. I've wanted to read more Native American literature, so I look forward to your comments about this novel when you do get to it.

Thanks for that good wish. My voice is still intermittently hoarse from the ?RSV infection I had a couple of weeks ago, and I continue to have an intermittent productive cough, but other than that I feel completely well. My biggest concern is that I get exposed to the strain of influenza A (H3N2) that this year's vaccine doesn't cover. One of my patients, the cutest two year old boy on the planet, suddenly developed fever and vomiting yesterday, and he tested positive for influenza A last night. He wasn't vaccinated, though, so I can't say that it's the worrisome H3N2 strain. All of my remaining patients have infections that led to their hospitalization (two with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), one with influenza A, one with human metapneumovirus (HMPV), and one with a bacterial pneumonia), but so far I've stayed symptom free this week (knock on wood).

>49 scaifea: Oh now you've done it, Amber. Your boastful comments have caught the attention of Nergal, the god of pestilence, who I suspect is currently concocting a plague that will descend upon the Scaife household one day before Christmas.



I will sacrifice one (and preferably two) ER doctors at the feet of Asclepius, and pray that his healing powers will counteract Nergal's evil spell.

>50 kidzdoc: Ha! Too late - come on over to my thread and check out how Nemesis has already descended upon us...

>51 scaifea: Aw...poor Charlie. I hope that he feels better soon.

We in the medical profession are generally a superstitious bunch, even though we all know better. If I ever say anything like "I haven't gotten sick at all this year", it seems like I come down with something within a week or two.

Here's my book haul from City Lights last Friday:

Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah: Appiah, who recently accepted a position as Professor of Philosophy at NYU after teaching for several years at Princeton, writes about the famed black intellectual's experiences as a student at Harvard and the University of Berlin, and how these dual exposures shaped his ideas of race and social identity.

Black Diamond by Zades Mda: A satirical novel set in modern South Africa, in which a magistrate threatened by a pimp who she has sent to jail is assigned a bodyguard who moves in with her, to the consternation of the man's girlfriend, a model and businesswoman who wants to turn him into a Black Diamond, a member of the wealthy new black middle class in the post-apartheid country.

The Good Cripple by Rodrigo Rey Rosa: A wayward Guatemalan young man is kidnapped by several men, including a high school classmate, who demand ransom from his wealthy father. Their demands are ignored, so they slice off one of the man's toes and threaten to amputate his foot unless they are paid off. Years later the young man tracks down his former kidnapper, which leads to a fateful meeting.

A Distant Father by Antonio Skármeta: A soulful novella set in a Chilean town about a son, who is a schoolteacher and a French translator, and his Parisian father, who recently left abruptly to return to France, to the dismay of his abandoned son and wife.

I Called Him Necktie by Milena Michico Flašar: A sad but beautiful novel about a 20 year old hikikomori, or recluse, who has recently emerged from his room in his parents' house in Tokyo after two years of estrangement from everyone else, and a salaryman he meets in a park, who has lost his job but is too ashamed to tell his wife of his dismissal.

A History of the World for Rebels and Somnambulists by Jesus del Campo: "From the beginning of the world, when God created Audrey Hepburn, the guilt complex and worker ants, to the end, broadcast live on a TV chat show, A History whips through our tortuous past with the deftness of a surgeon's scalpel." The author is from Gijón, Spain, so I bought this difficult to describe novel for the second quarter Reading Globally theme on literature from the Iberian peninsula.

The Penguin's Song by Hassan Daoud: A novel set during the Lebanese civil war, centered on a crippled young man who lives with his parents in a temporary shelter and lives in a fantasy world of books and eroticism, while his parents contemplate their purpose in life and their son's future in an uncertain world.

The Old Child & Other Stories by Jenny Erpenbeck: This book consists of one novella and four short stories about outcasts and eccentric characters living in modern German society.

I am almost half through Jenny Erpenbeck's novel End of Days and liking it. I only discovered her recently, but will certainly be reading more of her work.

>53 kidzdoc: Ah, the usual fluff and cheer. But you've BBed me w/ Lines of Descent.

Continued...

The Back Room by Carmen Martín Gaite: The story of a woman coming of age in the repressive Spain of the Franco era, which she tells to a stranger (who may or may not be real) that appears in her bedroom.

Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry: A collection of stories about the residents of Firozsha Baag, an crumbling apartment building in Bombay populated by middle class residents poised between the old ways and the new ones.

Suspended Sentences by Patrick Modiano: A recently translated collection of three novellas set during the German occupation of France during World War II, by this year's Nobel Prize in Literature laureate.

Out of the Dark by Patrick Modiano: A melancholy existential novel about two drifters, who run away to England, fall in love and then separate, then meet 15 years later in Paris, and again 15 years after that.

Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga: A novel set in an elite girls' Catholic boarding school on the edge of the River Nile in Rwanda in 1979, during a time in which the country was beset by growing racial tensions and violence that would lead to genocide 15 years later.

Ready to Burst by Frankétienne: A critique of the Duvalier regime in Haiti during the 1960s, as told through the eyes of a struggling young man, written by arguably the greatest writer in that country's history.

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami: "A lonely boy, a mysterious girl, and a tormented sheep man plot their escape from the nightmarish library of internationally acclaimed, best-selling Haruki Murakami's wild imagination."

Navidad & Matanza by Carlos Labbé: A novel set in a Chilean beach town, in which the two children of a wealthy video game executive go missing. The son is frequently sighted around town, but the girl remains unseen. A journalist narrates the story, as he and other "subjects" engage in a novel-writing quest.

And finally...

The Infamous Rosalie by Évelyne Trouillot: A Creole woman recounts her horrific journey from Africa to Haiti aboard a slave ship in the mid-18th century.

A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning by Robert Zaretsky: An analysis of Camus' moral character and the themes that preoccupied him, and how they affected his writings and how he chose to live his life.

Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe: A story about the journey of a NYC-based cab driver from Nigeria, who attempts to steal the statue of a war deity from his home village and sell it to a high end Manhattan gallery, which also serves as "a meditation on the dreams, promises and frustrations of immigrant life in America".

Brother and the Dancer by Keenan Norris: A coming-of-age tale about two young African Americans in California's San Bernardino Valley who live close to each other, but are widely separated by the lines of class, violence and history.

Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy by Darryl Pinckney: A "meditation on a century and a half of participation by blacks in US electoral politics", from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement to Barack Obama's two presidential campaigns.

Becoming Richard Pryor by Scott Saul: A comprehensive and unique biography of the famed but troubled comedian and actor. My friend Scott at City Lights read and highly recommended it to me.

>54 Caroline_McElwee: I read Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck several years ago, and was impressed by it, so it was an easy choice to get The Old Child & Other Stories. The one English language review of End of Days sounds interesting, so I look forward to getting your take on it, Caroline.

>55 qebo: Yep, this was my usual haul of light and breezy books, Katherine. I'll probably read Lines of Descent soon.

Again, a very interesting list of books. I'll look forward to your evaluation of the Modiano books (I checked one of his out of the library and just could not get it read by the time it was due). I'm, of course, very interested in I Called Him Necktie, just ordered it on Amazon. Thanks for the heads-up. I have a non-fiction book about hikikomori, Shutting Out the Sun, that has been on the TBR for a long time - I should probably read them together - another project for the new year.

And happy birthday to your father and good luck not acquiring any illnesses this season.

>52 kidzdoc: aaaah, that's because you didn't say (and enacting the action of) "touch wood". Not that I am superstitious.

>53 kidzdoc: The Good Cripple by Rodrigo Rey Rosa
Woah, that one sounds like a crazy ride. And are we taking on a theme? Navidad & Matanza by Carlos Labbé sounds similar? What a fab haul from a fantastic bookstore (or so I have heard.... on good authority).

Ooh, a few that I actually fancy reading here, although none enough that I'll be purchasing them. Maybe I'll crack open my library card and see what I can find.

The ones I like the look of:

The Good Cripple
Swimming Lessons and Other Stories
Suspended Sentences

And definitely The Infamous Rosalie. Just my kind of book.

Darryl, I wish you a lovely weekend and Merry Christmas.

I've seen all of my patients, and now I'm waiting for any admissions or PICU transfers to come my way. Hopefully I can get some reading done before my shift ends at 10 pm (hopefully I'll be able to leave soon after 8 pm).

>59 catarina1: Thanks, catarina. I may wait until the third quarter of the year to read the Modiano books, as that will be when the Reading Globally group will focus on Nobel Prize laureates who write in languages other than English. I Called Him Necktie would fit into the Reading Globally fourth quarter challenge of women who write in languages other than English, but I suspect that I'll read it well before then. Interestingly Milena Michiko Flašar is an Austrian author whose mother was Japanese, so although this book is set in Tokyo it was originally written in German. I look forward to your review of Shutting Out the Sun.

>60 LovingLit: Au contraire, Megan. Whenever I make one of those foolish pronouncements I knock on wood, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

We are also superstitious when it comes to our call days and nights. Residents and attendings used to frown on the use of the "Q word" (Q for quiet), as mentioning it or giving any other indication that things were calm was thought to jinx the team that was on call. Obviously we all have strong scientific backgrounds, and superstitions like these are foolish and wrongheaded, but they are common and persistent "beliefs".

I did read The Good Cripple last week, and I enjoyed it. I'll review it tomorrow, or one day next week when I'm not working. You're right about Navidad & Matanza sounding similar to The Good Cripple; I didn't think about that.

City Lights remains my favorite bookshop, even though there are several others in the UK and the US that I love (e.g., the London Review Bookshop and Daunt Books in London, Book Culture and Strand Book Store in NYC, and the Joseph Fox Bookshop in Philadelphia).

>61 lunacat: I can definitely recommend The Good Cripple. I'll probably read Swimming Lessons next month, and I'll likely read Suspended Sentences over the summer. I would expect the last two books to be easier to find in the UK than the first one, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was published in the UK.

I'll read The Infamous Rosalie in the last quarter of 2015, if not sooner.

>62 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I look forward to my day off tomorrow, after working six days in a row, and to being off on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Oh, that reminds me; I had planned to order smoked salmon, smoked sturgeon, whitefish salad, bagels, bialys, rugelach and halvah from Russ and Daughters (the 100 year old Jewish appetizer shop in the Lower East Side of Manhattan) or Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King (an even older appetizer shop on the Upper West Side), and a cheesecake or two from Junior's in Brooklyn (the restaurant that makes the best cheesecake on the planet), so that I can have a New York Christmas in Atlanta. Oh, crud...it's too late for me to order from Russ and Daughters; I'll have to try Barney Greengrass instead. I'll probably also buy a Christmas ham from my local HoneyBaked Ham shop on Christmas Eve.

I hope that you have a very Merry Christmas, too!

Wow, it's great to hear about your food order. It sounds delicious.

On the 23rd we have Christmas with my father and on the 24th with Thomas' family. Isabelle and her boyfriend Marc will arrive from Vienna on the 23rd just in time for the dinner. They promised to bring the dessert a Sacher Torte.

Great book haul, Darryl! As you know, I'm reading Our Lady of the Nile now. It's quite good so far.
I also have A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning in my TBR library. My friend Nick, who is one of the people who order books for the U Bookstore (how is it that I didn't think to pursue that line of work?), recommended it. He and I don't always agree but his description of this one appealed to me.

The Winter Solstice is here.



I finished my last long call last night, and it wasn't bad at all, save for a burst of hospital admissions from 3-5 pm. I still have five work days left in the year, but I'll just round on inpatients those days. I'm off today, so I hope to read The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin, a novel based on the true story of the Axeman of New Orleans, a serial killer who terrorized the residents of the Crescent City from 1918-1919. Rachael (FlossieT) gave it to me when we met in Cambridge in September.

Sunday is my usual cooking day, but since I worked on Saturday I think I'll wait until Christmas Eve to do my cooking for the week, especially since I have plenty of leftovers from the last two weeks.

>64 Ameise1: The food is supposed to arrive on Tuesday, so that's another reason to not cook today. Given those orders, the food I already have, and the Christmas ham that I plan to buy on Wednesday I hope that there is enough room in my refrigerator and freezer.

Your holiday plans sound great, Barbara. What is a Sacher Torte? I normally work on Christmas Day, as we have to work one or two of the three major end of year holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day), and I would much rather be able to spend Thanksgiving with my family in Pennsylvania. I'm working on the 22nd and 23rd, off on the 24th and 25th, and working on the 26th, so that isn't enough time to go anywhere. So I'll have a quiet Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home, surrounded by lots of good food and my new book acquisitions, which I'm looking forward to. Many patients and families get very uptight and inpatient with us if they have to stay in the hospital those two days (and they seem to forget that we would rather not work those days either!), so I'm glad that I'll miss that unpleasantness this year.

>65 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen! I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying Our Lady of the Nile. I had read about it on the Archipelago Books web site, and decided to get it , and Ready to Burst by Frankétienne, at City Lights after I cancelled my Archipelago subscription a couple of years ago. Hmm...I think I'll look at the upcoming offerings for 2015, and perhaps I'll resubscribe if more than half the books look especially appealing.

A Life Worth Living was on display in the front section of City Lights. I hadn't heard of it before, but its enticing description made it impossible to pass up.

You'd think people would be grateful that they can get the medical treatment they need over the festive season, rather than getting annoyed at the care-givers? But I guess when you throw disappointment, pain and disrupted lives into the mix, it's hard to think rationally.

I'm glad you'll get to avoid it anyway, and hope you have a lovely time curled with with good food and good books. I'm rather jealous to be honest!

>66 kidzdoc: Darryl, I strongly recommend that you should visit once Vienna. It's one of the most beautiful city in Europe with a lot of historical background as well as a load of charm. I love being there and so does my daughter Isabelle. Vienna has an old coffeehouse tradition and they are very famous for tortes and all sorts of different pastries. There is no other place on this planet where you'll get such good things.

Here is the wikipedia link for the Sacher Torte.

>67 lunacat: You would think so, Jenny. To be fair, the vast majority of families are pleasant and appreciative of what we do, but on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the percentage of parents and grandparents who become demanding and quite nasty to us rises significantly. I've had parents yell at me for visiting them "late" (9 or 10 am), or get angry at me when I tell them that their child won't be able to leave that day. I've had to put several of them in their place, and firmly explain to them that the staff don't want to work on those days either, and that we aren't the ones who caused their children to become sick and end up in the hospital.

I think I mentioned several years ago one mother whose toddler was hospitalized with influenza and a secondary bacterial pneumonia, who required supplemental oxygen, as she was in respiratory distress, and IV fluids, as she had high fevers, was vomiting and couldn't keep any liquids down. She was pissed off at me when I told her that the girl couldn't go home that day (duh), which I think was Christmas Eve. Several hours later her nurse told me that the father had come to the hospital, and demanded to see me right away. I went into the room, expecting to get an earful from him as well. Instead, he said something like "Doctor, I have one question for you. Would my child have had to stay in the hospital on Christmas if my wife had decided to get her vaccinated against the flu?" (his wife refused the vaccine, due to the "pain and distress" that it would cause her daughter (duh again)). I could have explained to him that the flu vaccine is only 60-80% effective most years, and that she may have still contracted influenza even if she was vaccinated, although the chance of her becoming ill enough to be hospitalized would have been less than if she wasn't vaccinated. Instead, and particularly because I was pissed off at the mother's attack against me, I simply said "No." He shot his wife a look that would have instantly frozen Lake Michigan, and she burst into sobs. I also gave her a knowing look when she pleadingly looked to me for help, as if to say "Lady, this is your fault, not mine", left the room, and warned the nurse that it might get ugly in there.

My other "favorite" holiday parent was a well-to-do racist Cuban woman who looked at me as if I was covered in excrement when I entered the room. I was wearing a protective gown and my ID was on my jacket. She demanded to see my identification badge before she would speak to me, looked at it with more scrutiny than an airport security agent, and only then would she lower herself and communicate with the negro doctor. I was absolutely livid. Her husband (who was a perfect gentleman) came into the room a minute or two later, and for the rest of that visit and the one on the following day I completely ignored her, as I refused to look at her, speak to her, or shake her hand as I usually do when I leave the room (and I did shake her husband's hand those two days). She tried to act more civilized once she realized that she had pissed me off, but I wasn't having any of it.

So, I'm very glad that I'll avoid parental drama and nastiness on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and I look forward to two quiet days at home, even though I'll be by myself.

>68 Ameise1: There is a good chance that I'll visit Vienna next year, Barbara. I've heard nothing but good things about the city, and I'm very eager to go there.

Thanks for that link to Wikipedia's page on Sachertorte; it looks heavenly!

Happy Sunday, Darryl! That is quite a book haul up there. Wow! Enjoy your day and may it be filled with nothing but books and football.

I am sure I will regret it, but I'll probably watch some of the Bears/Lions game, anyway! What an ugly, ugly season.

Yikes! It's informative to hear some of the lousy stuff you experience at the hospital, Darryl. We gripe sometimes about insensitive doctors (who in some instances are probably just overworked), but it's good to be reminded of the other side of it - insensitive parents and no doubt others. Foolish, foolish, foolish.

I hope you're having a relaxing day off. I'm reading Lila, and I'm sure will join the many raving about it.

>68 Ameise1: Barbara, thanks for the link describing Sacher Torte. I've heard of it, of course, but never investigated, as I'm leery of pastries, which might well contain things I'm very allergic to. However, this sounds WONDERFUL. My waistline might suffer.

>72 ffortsa: Judy, when I'm in Vienna I forget everything about my waistline. I just enjoy all those delicious sweets.

>70 msf59: Thanks, Mark. I haven't done much reading yet, although I am enjoying The Axeman's Jazz. I don't think I'll be able to finish it today, so I'll start reading The Old Child & Other Stories by Jenny Erpenbeck shortly, then go back to The Axeman's Jazz after I'm finished.

The Eagles suffered a crushing loss to Washington last night. Mark "Butt Fumble" Sanchez returned to his usual mistake prone form, as his two turnovers led directly to Washington points, including the field goal at the end of the game that broke a 24-24 tie. As I predicted in the preseason, former Eagles WR DeSean Jackson, who now plays for Washington, did have a big game against his former team, which let him go at the end of last season, and his new team won in large part because of him. Philadelphia now has to hope that the Cowboys lose twice, and that they beat the Giants next week; if that happens the Eagles will win the NFC East. If not, their season is over, as they have been eliminated from any wild card consideration after losses to the Packers, Seahawks, Cardinals and 49ers during the season. Unfortunately the Cowboys are already up on the Colts 21-0; if that score holds the Eagles are done after a meaningless game next week.

I'm not sure which is worse, rooting for a team that was hapless for most of the season and had no chance of making the playoffs (Bears), or one which was in control of its own playoff destiny and had a chance to get a first round bye until three straight losses (Seahawks, Cowboys, Washington) put them at the brink of elimination (Eagles).

The Falcons (6-9) won today, so the winner of next week's game against the nearly as pathetic Panthers (6-8-1) will make the playoffs as the NFC South champion. Whoever wins will join the 2010 Seahawks as the only other NFL team with a losing record to make the playoffs. How sad is that?

>71 jnwelch: There are plenty of arrogrant and insensitive doctors out there, Joe, many of whom can't use overwork as an excuse for their ugly attitudes. My older cousin was married to a very attractive dermatologist who was making a killing taking care of an upper class African American population in Washington and suburban Maryland and sold her own line of beauty products, but she was one of the most petty and mean spirited physicians I've ever had the displeasure to meet, and she divorced him several years later.

Many physicians are overworked, frustrated by the dysfunctional US health care system, and burnt out by the demands of private practice. I'm sure that their unhappiness affect their attitudes toward patients, although I don't excuse them for it. There are times when I'm frustrated on the job, but it's only rarely due to a patient or family, and I do my best to act professionally and courteously toward them.

I'm glad that you're enjoying Lila, and I look forward to your comments about it. I must have dreamt about that book earlier this week, as I remember going to a bookstore, seeing it on sale (or possibly being given away for free), and regretting that I didn't get a copy of it. I haven't gone to any bookshops since I visited City Lights last week, and I wasn't looking for it there, so I must have dreamt about it (either that or I've been hallucinating at least once this week).

>72 ffortsa: Sachertorte looks like a waist line buster. Then again, Junior's cheesecake (which I should receive on Tuesday) isn't exactly on the Weight Watchers menu, either.

>73 Ameise1: Now you're talking, Barbara!

Dallas now leads Indianapolis 28-0 just before halftime. Are the Colts trying to lose this game?

Hi Darryl. I will be very interested in your reactions to Our Lady of the Nile when you get to it. I loved it.

As I read through your thread, I find myself musing on the stresses of various professions. As a Student Life professional (and psychologist by training and identity), I encounter my share of entitled students and parents, those whose expectations for what an Institution of Higher Education can and should do for them, and it's always difficult to stay calm and professional in those interactions. And, like many doctors who are frustrated with the US health care system, I am one of those who is frustrated with some aspects of the higher ed system. But staying calm and professional is part of my job. And, usually, when I can stay calm and professional, the angry student or parent shifts their stance, just a wee bit. Not every one, and not always very much, but in any case I go home at the end of the day feeling better about how I conducted myself. So, I'm just resonating with your attitude.

I had a much better football weekend than you did, I fear. I'm surprised by the Eagles' disintegration at the end of this season. I know it's frustrating for their fans. And I agree that it's hard to figure which is worse: cheering for a team that consistently fails or cheering for a team that has a very good shot at post-season play and falls apart.

I figure it was a dream you had about Lila because it's hard for me to imagine any bookstore giving it away for free. :-)

I've certainly had my share of insensitive doctors, as well as a couple of medical mistakes. The most recent was needing stitches from a cut in my leg cause when I dropped a glass, but the A&E doctor immediately accused me of doing it to myself as it looked like a knife wound, not glass, and then said I was wasting their time!

And even though it was on my middle thigh, quite wide and obviously NOT going to stay closed on it's own, he just steri-stripped it instead of stitching it, which came off within the day and meant the cut had to fill with scar tissue instead. It's now a quite big, ugly scar rather than a neat one that it could have been if he'd just stitched it.

I don't know what I was more annoyed by, not having it accepted that I was telling the truth, or the insensitive way I was accused of self-harming - if I HAD done it to myself, I would never have admitted it to him because he was so brusque and offensive in his questioning. My best friend was in there with me and backed me up that she had been there when it happened, and she was appalled by my treatment as well.

Previously I was given morphine following an injury, then sent to another hospital where they admitted me and obviously ran further tests, and then accused me of taking drugs because the morphine had been flagged up on their drugs test!

>66 kidzdoc: Beautiful Solstice scene Darryl

The morning I left Tuscaloosa for Kansas I threw two of Madhur Jaffey's cookbooks into the car and I hope to make some great dishes while I am home. I did so because of all the talk here about her cookbooks and my realization that I have underused them. My mother has a Kitchen Aid mixer and I love using that kitchen tool so will be making cookies and fancy bread's tomorrow and Christmas Eve. Having that dough hook speeds making the recipes so much that it is easy to make lots of doughs.

Tonight we are having beef and barley soup and I can't wait and some homemade bread.

My mother is having a hard time adjusting to cooking for one since the death of my father last spring. She resents my interfering in her kitchen and last night exploded when I asked her where the veggies were? The meal was two hamburger patties. She snapped at me that she wasn't a vegetarian like I was and since beef is what we grew that is what we were going to eat. I know it is the grief talking, as you, and others know that I am not a vegetarian, but I do know that greens and veggies need to be in a diet as well as meat.

I am also angered to see that she has two cartons of Boost in the kitchen but few veggies in the refrig. Boost is not food. Again, I know it is the grief, but not eating properly is only going to make it worse.

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Darryl.

Happy Holidays, Darryl. Nice book haul. Our Lady of the Nile and THe Back Room looked especially appealing. I recently picked up The Strange Library.

I hope you're still on the mend. I'm with you about tempting fate. Two things I never say: "I never get sick," and "My car never gives me any trouble."

Darryl, as I was catching up on your thread, the national news was reporting the 50th anniversary of Sam Cook's "A Change is Goin' to Come". How appropriate! It's Chrismas Eve's eve, and so I am starting the rounds of wishing my 75er friends the merriest of Christmases or whatever the solstice celebration of their choice is.

Merry Christmas, Darryl.

Hi Everyone Christmas eve eve here already down under just a quick message

I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow, drink, eat & be merry

Looking to be perfect BBQ weather down here :)

Darryl, have a wonderful Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Doing the rounds with a festive Connie to wish you a very Merry Christmas full of joy, love and books.

Hi Darryl, just stopping by to wish you a very merry Christmas!!

Woo! My tough stretch of days (eight out of nine) is now behind me, and I'll be off for five of the next six days. Since I have to work on Friday I can't spend the Christmas or New Year's holidays with family or out of town friends. That isn't as bas as it sounds, though, as I ordered smoked fish (pastrami salmon, sturgeon and sablefish (also known as black cod in the UK and Canada), bagels, bialys, rugelach and babka from Barney Greengrass, a 100+ year old Jewish appetizer shop on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and two cheesecakes from Junior's, a restaurant on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn that is famous for making the best cheesecakes; those packages arrived on time yesterday. Early this morning I bought half a ham from a nearby branch of The HoneyBaked Ham Company, then went to Publix to buy cream cheese, tomatoes and red onions, to use in the bagel and bialy sandwiches with fish; a whole cauliflower, which I'll use to make roasted cauliflower shortly; and ingredients to make Heather's white chicken chili. It finally stopped raining here about two hours ago, after a full day of moderate to heavy rain with thunderstorms yesterday, and hopefully the next two days will be much more pleasant ones.

Have a great Christmas, Darryl. I will be going it alone and am doing something similar to what you have planned (although cooking will be involved).

Happy Holidays!

Happy Christmas, Darryl! Let me know if you need any help with all of that amazing-sounding food and I'll be right over...

Catching up...

>75 EBT1002: I'm glad to hear that you loved Our Lady of the Nile, Ellen. I'll can read it during the fourth quarter Reading Globally challenge, which will focus on books by women who don't write in English, although I may read it well before then.

I liked and agreed with your comments about the stresses in your profession. Every profession or job has its undesirable aspects, especially those that involve dealing with the public. Fortunately my relationships with patients and families are nearly always pleasant and rewarding, but I know I and I think we all tend to remember on the particularly negative ones, such as the two examples that I posted.

I think the Eagles were exposed in their games against the better teams, namely the Seahawks, Packers, and Cardinals (I can't bring myself to include that team from Dallas in that group). Mark Sanchez played progressively worse with each game, but Nick Foles, the starting QB, also had a subpar season, with as many INTs and fumbles as Sanchez had. The Eagles' secondary was porous, the offensive line didn't protect the QBs well or allow the RBs, especially LeSean McCoy, to have big gains, and the team as a whole had way too many turnovers and penalties. I think they would have been lucky to win one game in the playoffs, and once the wheels started to come off I knew that this team wasn't a serious Super Bowl contender.

So, my focus will now be on the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of my secondary teams, which qualified for the playoffs after last week's win against the Chiefs. And, as always, I'll root for whoever plays Dallas, as I'm a lifelong member of the ABC (Anybody But the Cowboys) Club.

I still have no idea why I dreamt about a free giveaway of Lila. Then again, most of my dreams make no sense at all, unless I'm descending into madness (which isn't completely out of the question). ;-)

>76 lunacat: Yikes...those are two horrible medical experiences, Jenny. Even if you had done that to yourself, what was the point of that doctor's accusation, and why was your decision to go to A&E a waste of their time? WTH are emergency physicians and nurses there for then? That was a foolish decision on his part to use Steri Strips instead of suturing that laceration properly, and I'm sorry that you were left with an unnecessarily ugly scar as a result.

That morphine story is utterly pathetic as well. I can understand if a trainee made such a stupid assumption, but not an experienced physician or nurse. That would be like accusing a teenager with ADHD of being a meth addict because his urine tox screen showed the presence of ampethamines (Ritalin, Concerta, Vyvanse and other medications prescribed to people with ADHD are all central nervous system stimulants that are derivatives of amphetamine).

>77 magicians_nephew: Thanks, Jim!

>78 benitastrnad: Your cooking plans sound lovely, Benita! I'm eager to see what you decide to make for the holidays. This coming weekend I'll start looking at recipes in Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian and Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, a book that one of my favorite partners gave me earlier this year. Karen is a vegetarian, and she uses her slow cooker regularly to make meals for her family. We worked together last Saturday night, and we shared a portion of our dinners with each other; I gave her some of the Moroccan vegetable stew I made a couple of weeks ago, and she gave me some of her barbecued seitan and layered vegetables, which tasted delicious. My comments about my cooking has stimulated others in my group and the office in which I work to talk about their favorite recipes and cookbooks, and I'm certain that will continue into the new year. I plan to prepare a lot more vegetarian dishes in 2015, and instead of eating the substandard slop in the hospital crapeteria for lunch I'll bring in home cooked food.

Hmm...speaking of cooking, I think I'll make the Spicy Whole Roasted Cauliflower now, so that it will be ready in time for lunch. Back later.

Merry Christmas

Darryl, just stopping by to wish you a great Christmas and New Year!

>87 kidzdoc: You are having lots of delicious things to eat, Darryl! They all sound very good! Enjoy! Or as we would say: Eet smakelijk (eat with taste)

The spicy whole roasted cauliflower is finished cooking in the oven. The recipe is super easy: combine the yogurt, lime juice (I used lime juice instead of a zested and juiced lime) and spices, coat the cauliflower with it, and stick it in the oven for 30-40 minutes. If it tastes as good as it smells so far I'll make it on a regular basis.

Back to >78 benitastrnad: Beef and barley soup sounds good! I'll have to find a good recipe for that.

I'm sorry to hear about your mother's grief at the death of her husband, and that it has affected your relationship with her for the time being; hopefully it will improve soon. Do you see yourself moving back to Kansas in the near future?

>79 connie53: Thanks, Connie! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.

>80 BLBera: Happy Holidays to you too, Beth! The Back Room was published by City Lights in 2001, and Matt (msjohns615), who reads Spanish language literature and whose opinion I respect, gave it 5 stars. I'll read it for the second quarter Reading Globally Iberian literature challenge that I'll be leading.

I read The Strange Library on Sunday. I would call it "Murakami Lite", as it's too short and there isn't enough development of the plot or characters. I gave it 3½ stars, as it was an enjoyable read, but not a particularly memorable one.

I've felt well for the past two weeks ago (knocking madly on wood), although my voice comes and goes at times. I'm with you; any mention of good health or reliable car service is guaranteed to backfire on you within a week.

>81 ronincats: I missed the news about "A Change Is Gonna Come" yesterday, Roni. I knew that it was recorded in the mid 1960s, but I wasn't sure when. I had forgotten that he was murdered a few days before it was released as well. Thanks for mentioning it!

Today is also the 50th anniversary of the recording of tenor saxophonist's Wayne Shorter's 1965 album Speak No Evil one of the best modal jazz albums of all time.



Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, too!

>82 lit_chick: Merry Christmas to you too, Nancy!

>83 roundballnz: Merry Christmas, Alex! It should be Christmas morning there now, I think...yes, it looks to be just past 10 am in Auckland (it's a bit past 4 pm on Christmas Eve on the East Coast of the US).

We're still drying out after 2-4 inches of rain in metro Atlanta, and we're under a flood watch. Definitely not what I would call BBQ weather.

>84 Deern: Thanks, Nathalie! I hope that you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year as well.

>85 lunacat: Merry Christmas to you and Connie, Jenny! I hope to see you sometime next year.

>86 lauralkeet: Merry Christmas to you too, Laura! Let's see...we met in Philadelphia in 2013 and in London this year. On which continent will we meet in 2015?

>88 Cariola: Merry Christmas, Deborah! I'll do a little bit of cooking over the next few days, but my refrigerator and freezer are already quite full.

>89 qebo: Happy Holidays to you too, Katherine! I love the caterpillar image.

>90 scaifea: Happy Christmas to you, Charlie and Tomm, Amber! Can I give you this strawberry swirl white chocolate cheesecake from Junior's? I bought one cheesecake too many.



>92 BBGirl55: Merry Christmas to you too, Bryony! I hope to see you again next year as well.

>93 SandDune: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Rhian! We'll definitely meet up at least once in 2015.

>94 connie53: Thanks, Connie. I have a ton of great food here, and I'll share it with my friends at work tomorrow and next week.

ETA: I'll take a quick nap, then catch up on everyone else's thread afterward, or no later than tomorrow if I sleep for awhile.

>96 kidzdoc: Oh good lordy lou, that cheesecake looks amazing!! Thanks!!

>wow Darryl. Who is going to eat all that yummy food?

I would jump on the cauliflower recipe, but I doubt it would be well received here.

And hooray for "Speak No Evil"!!

Merry Christmas, Darryl, and a joyful Happy New Year!

I have been pretty much absent from your threads for most of 2014 but I wanted to stop by now to wish you a happy holiday season and all the best in 2015!

>96 kidzdoc: Bingo you were right, been offline most of the day though - my the cheesecake does look impressive !

Merry Christmas, everyone! I wish everyone God's blessings and good health, peace and happiness, and, of course, a productive reading year in 2015.

>97 scaifea: You're welcome, Amber! ;-) If you find yourself in NYC Junior's has two convenient locations in Midtown Manhattan, in addition to the original restaurant on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. One is in the food court in the lower level of Grand Central Terminal, and the other is on Times Square. You can also order cheesecakes online, as I did, for special occasions, at http://www.juniorscheesecake.com. Not that I'm trying to tempt you, of course.

>98 ffortsa: Right, Judy. I may refrigerate or cut and freeze some of the bagels and bialys, as I bought a dozen of each. I'll dine on the ham and fish over the next 7-10 days at home and at work, along with leftover stews and vegetable dishes from the past couple of weeks. I think I'll wait until Sunday to make white chicken chili or cook anything else. I'll bring the rugelach and babka for the nurses tomorrow, and share some of the cheesecake with them and my partners. However, the yummy pastrami salmon, sturgeon and sable is only for me!

>99 msf59: Merry Christmas to you and your family, Mark! And a double hurrah for Speak No Evil!

>100 LizzieD: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you too, Peggy!

>101 lkernagh: Merry Christmas, Lori! I've been largely absent from your thread as well, but I'll do better in the New Year.

>102 roundballnz: Merry Christmas, Alex! Hmm...there isn't much left of it in Auckland, is there? It was great to meet you in London this September, and I hope that we can get together again in the near future.

That cheesecake is the one I received, and not a glamorized photo from the restaurant's web site. Junior's cheesecakes are amazingly good, and they taste even better than they look. I'm not much on sweets, but I'll take one of these anytime.

ETA: I'll have breakfast, and then make the holiday rounds.

Christmas Trees by Robert Frost (1916)

A Christmas circular letter

The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out,
A-buttoning coats, to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees, except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth—
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.”



“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”

“You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.

He said, “A thousand.”


“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”


He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece)—
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.

A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

Darryl, thanks so much for sharing this story. I wish you Merry Christmas and enjoy your time off from work. xx

>106 Ameise1: You're welcome, Barbara. I do have to go back to work tomorrow, but hopefully it will be a short day, and it will be followed by a relaxing three day weekend.

>107 streamsong: Thanks for that lovely image, streamsong! Merry Christmas to you, too.

Happy Christmas, and I hope you enjoy all that festive food.

>109 elkiedee: Thanks, Luci! I hope that you and your family have a Happy Christmas, too.

Darryl,
Merry Christmas to you and your family. I am also looking forward to meeting you again next year and don't worry I was a good mom (also reluctant) and gave the book to Alex, who was absolutely delighted and currently is showing it to everyone who likes to see it (or not :).

I hope you enjoy the food you ordered and wish you a wonderful time with your family in the New Year!

> 111 Merry Christmas to you too, Bianca! I'm glad that Alex likes the book. Have you already read it?

I am very much enjoying my NYC food. I had pastrami salmon with cream cheese and sliced red onions and tomatoes on a bialy for breakfast, and I'm about to have grilled ham with deli mustard on a bagel and the spaghetti squash that I made a few days ago for lunch. BTW have you cooked your spaghetti squash yet? If so, how did it turn out?

No, I didn't have time to read it yet, as I have been incredible busy since my return to Germany
It took days and lots of patience to get my new number plates and Alex had some minor surgery (he got the pin out of his ankle). I only managed to finishe reading Fragile Beginnings my number 75 -------- HOORAY! which I enjoyed immensly, also I do have some questions for you for clarification.
I also finished listening to The Garden of Evening Mists which I absolutely loved and The Gift of Rain will be next.

Well, the Spagetti Squash. It was pretty easy to prepare (I actually removed the seeds before baking)........used a little more sage, but ......... I didn't like it. It's like a lot of other sqashes and pumpkins rather soft, which didn't quite appeal to me as much. My fave pumpkin (squash) are butternut and the grey qeen as their flesh are more firm and chewy.

However, I am glad that you enjoyed your NYC food.

Merry Christmas Darryl and enjoy your Big Apple meals! Thank you for all of your wonderful book suggestions over the years. I hope that your work day tomorrow is easy and calm and that you will be able to get lots of enjoyable reading done in your days off.

I'm sorry that you didn't like the spaghetti squash, Bianca; I take it that this was the first time that you have had it. I loved that recipe, and I enjoyed the squash when I first made it, and it tasted just as good when I had it an hour ago. I also love nearly all squashes, although I'm less fond of yellow squash than zucchini (courgette), and I adore butternut squash soup. I'll have to find a recipe for it, along with one for pumpkin soup, and make them soon.

Hmm...so spaghetti squash, pumpkin and Brussels sprouts are on your forbidden foods list. I think I like more vegetables than you do!

Yes, the sturgeon, pastrami salmon, bagels and bialys from Barney Greengrass are superb, as usual. I wonder if London has any appetizing stores similar to Barney Greengrass and Russ & Daughters in NYC? I'll have to explore Brick Lane and surrounding streets the next time I'm there, or, better yet, I'll ask Paul (Polaris), who lived in the East End as a child and introduced me to Beigel Bake on Brick Lane.

I'm glad that you got your new license plates and that Alex had the pin removed from his ankle.

Congratulations on finishing 75 books this year! That's quite an accomplishment, given your delayed start to your reading in 2014. I'm glad that you enjoyed Fragile Beginnings, and I'd be happy to answer (or try to answer) any questions you might have about it. I'm also glad that you liked The Garden of Evening Mists; I suspect that you'll love The Gift of Rain as well.

>114 catarina1: Thanks catarina, and a Merry Christmas to you as well! I think I'll finish The Axeman's Jazz and The Old Child & Other Stories ASAP, and then make a head start on one or two books that I plan to read in January.

Merry Christmas, Darryl! Your NYC food sounds fantastic. It's Boxing Day here now and you've reminded me that there is leftover Christmas pudding in the fridge for breakfast.

#113 Bianca, I *loved* The Gift of Rain. I bought it by accident instead of The Garden of Evening Mists, which I still haven't read.

>116 cushlareads: Nicely Played I think Christmas pudding & trifle are very popular breakfasts this morning ..... still prefer Bacon Butties myself :)

Happy Christmas! Love the Robert Frost poem.

>116 cushlareads: I hope that you had a Merry Christmas, Cushla! The food has been excellent, and I have plenty of it to eat over the next week before I leave town next Saturday. Despite my numerous trips to London I still haven't had any British puddings, so I have no idea what Christmas pudding looks or tastes like.

>117 roundballnz: It's hard to argue with a bacon butty, Alex! I didn't have a single one all of this year, so I'll have to rectify that on my next trip to London. I usually get mine from Roast to Go, a takeaway in Borough Market (foodie heaven) that is next to Roast, an upscale British restaurant. The pork belly with crackling and apple sauce sandwiches and Scotch eggs sold there are also outstanding.

>118 banjo123: Happy Christmas to you too, Rhonda!

Just in case you're hungry, this is what a plum pudding (=Christmas pudding) looks like. It's a very dense cake-like thing, chock full of raisins and currants and sultanas soaked in alcohol (rum or sherry usually), then with the usual flour/butter/eggs mixed in. You cook it by boiling it in a pudding bowl for many hours then keep it in the fridge for a few weeks. Traditionally it's served by pouring brandy over it, lighting the brandy, then eating it with brandy butter, runny cream and custard.

I know the boiling in the bowl part sounds very unappetizing but it is the most delicious thing! And I am back to the fridge for the last wee bit now...

I still haven't made it to Borough Market but it is on my London radar, not that a trip is likely any time soon, but you never know!

>119 kidzdoc: You sure know how to make someone 's mouth water don't you ? Roast to go sounds divine .... Have you tried those amazing cheese toasties ( toasted sandwiches) ? they are to die for

>120 cushlareads: If we said steamed, might not sound so unappealing - here a pretty good recipe if you feel the need to indulghttp://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/ultimate-christmas-pudding - in my opinion very much a winter pudding, but due to European heritage/colonisation of NZ many here still try to eat a Winter Christmas dinner ....

>120 cushlareads: Ooh...your description and photo of Christmas pudding was delightful, Cushla! I want to try it ASAP.

I have Caroline to thank for telling me about Borough Market, and bacon buttys (is it buttys or butties?). The market is one of my most favorite places to visit in London.

>121 roundballnz: At least I didn't post photos of bacon buttys, pork belly sandwiches or Scotch eggs (not yet, anyway)! Roast to Go is fabulous, although my arteries shrieked in horror whenever I stood in the queue there. I haven't tried cheese toasties, but if they are similar to cheese toast sandwiches I would definitely like them, as they combine two essential food groups, bread and cheese.

Off to work...

>120 cushlareads:. Mmm. That looks good.

Merry Christmas, Darryl! Hope you"re having a great holiday.

>120 cushlareads: I think I would like a plum pudding very much.

I know you're working today, Darryl (as am I, all evidence to the contrary). I hope your Christmas was merry!

Let the madness begin!

http://www.librarything.com/groups/75booksin2015

>120 cushlareads: My, that's pretty!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

Echoing your comments on my thread, Darryl. I really hope to be able to meet up with you at some stage in 2015. Have a great holiday.

>123 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe! Today was a relatively easy day at work, as the inpatient census was lower than usual due to Christmas. However, the ER was jam packed when I left this afternoon, with 85 sick kids in exam rooms or the waiting area, so I suspect that things will be much different when I return to work on Tuesday morning.

>124 EBT1002: Yes, I'll gladly exchange a slice or two of Junior's cheesecake for that plum pudding.

I hope that your work day was as pleasant as mine was, Ellen. Are you working next week?

>125 drneutron: Madness is right, Jim! I suspect that we'll all be quite busy catching up on the old and new threads this weekend. Thanks for getting the new group up and running!

>126 avidmom: That is a mouthwatering photo, indeed.

Thanks, Susie. I did have a very pleasant and relaxing Christmas Day, as I didn't have to work. I hope that you had an enjoyable day, too.

>127 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul! I hope that you have a very enjoyable holiday as well, and I look forward to meeting you in 2015.

I only ever had a Harrod's plum pudding with M&S brandy butter for Christmas many years ago and everyone was surprised that the black weird looking thing actually tasted so good. Wondering now if it is difficult to make.. ?

>129 Deern: I don't think I've ever baked any sweets from scratch, so I wouldn't try Christmas pudding first. If I didn't have so much food at hand already I might look for it in the local café that specializes in British and Australian pies.

Have you truly never had a Christmas pudding? Wow, you're missing out (I don't like it but it's a wonderful tradition).

In our family we pour the heated brandy over the pudding, set fire to it so it flickers and flames, and then sing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' until the flames go out. The aim is to keep the pudding alight until you've got through the whole song.

It looks like this, with a gorgeous flickering blue fire that dances over the pudding.

>131 lunacat: I haven't had or even seen a Christmas pudding, Jenny, or any other traditional British pudding. Unless I'm mistaken they aren't part of American cuisine at all, and our puddings tend to be made with vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch, banana or tapioca, similar to the photo below:



Puddings are definitely not part of Christmas tradition here (then again, neither are the pastrami salmon, sturgeon or sablefish with cream cheese, red onion and tomato on bialy or bagel sandwiches that I've been feasting on for the past few days, although they are part of my Christmas tradition, along with Caroline's I suspect). Your photo and the one that Cushla posted earlier make me want to try puddings during my next visit to London, or in the US if I can find them.

The aim is to keep the pudding alight until you've got through the whole song.

I would guess that you sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas at double speed, so that you're not left with ashes instead of pudding.

Not really, as the pudding is so moist and luscious that it doesn't catch fire itself, it just burns the alcohol off (like you'd flambe something, or the alcohol in a sauce might catch fire for an instance). I've been told there isn't a hint of a burnt flavor or any bitterness, you just end up with a non-alcoholic pudding tasting of brandy.

My cousin's 15 month old absolutely adored eating it this year, and went round mine-sweeping everyone's bowls for more, before flirting outrageously to get her own portion. Very cute. So definitely not tasting burnt if she was happy to eat it as well!

>133 lunacat: Mmm, that sounds good. Can you get Christmas pudding throughout the year, or is it only generally available at Christmastime, like our fruitcake?

Is your cousin's toddler the same one we briefly met last year before we saw Much Ado About Nothing at The Old Vic?

Yup, that's her. Hard to believe she's so old now! I am beginning to understand why everyone used to say to me 'you're getting so old' as a child! Now I'm doing it!

Very very much a seasonal item, I think you'd really struggle to find one outside of the festive season. If I remember (hint, if you remind me) I'll get a ready made one for you next November and pop it in the post - shop bought ones are just as good as homemade and can come as individual ones so it would be easy enough.

The tradition of Christmas pudding is that it's made with fruits in the autumn that have been soaked in alcohol (brandy or rum). Most traditional recipes say it should be made the last Sunday before the first Advent, known as 'Stir-up Sunday' which this year was the 23rd November.

he pudding is made and everyone in the family stirs it for luck before it's put into its pudding bowl and part steamed. Homemade puddings will have good luck tokens within them - we use old money silver sixpence and three pence which brings luck to whoever finds them in their portion and adds a little excitement to the eating.

The pudding then has alcohol added to it every week in the run up to Christmas Day to keep it moist. It's then steamed on Christmas Day to finish it's cooking, and has the heated brandy or rum poured over it and set alight as it's served.

>135 lunacat: Right, Jenny. It's amazing to see how quickly children grow up, especially in the toddler and preteen years.

Thank you in advance for your kind offer of Christmas pudding! I'll definitely take you up on that, and I'd be happy to send or bring you something in return. I did see that a local shop, the Australian Bakery Café just outside of Atlanta, does offer Christmas puddings for sale. I'd go there and get one, but I'm already overloaded with cheesecake and chocolate babka as it is. (I brought the rugelach I had shipped from NYC to my favorite group of nurses yesterday, and I'll probably bring the babka to work on Tuesday.)

Thanks for the information about the preparation of Christmas pudding. That's quite complicated, so I'm sure that I'll never make it.

Darryl, I don't post a lot over here, but I enjoy following your reading and traveling life! Thank you for seeking out those global books that you make so enticing with your excellent reviews. I also appreciate the poetry that you post. Wishing you an incredible new year of reading and travel.

Check out Cost Plus World Market (worldmarket.com) for a lot of British goodies in America. There's a few stores in the Atlanta area (had to check that - I'd never seen it before I came to California). Scones and scone mixes, English candy bars (I got addicted to Flake when I lived in London!), peppermint pigs, clotted cream...I don't think I've ever seen a Christmas pudding there but I haven't looked, bet they have them. They _might_ have some left in the After Christmas sales... Also German goodies, and probably others.

Wishing you a Happy New Year, I've been offline for a week so missed all the Christmas rush.

Need to hear your verdict on the cauliflower - didn't see further comments after you put it in the oven.

I've just done finished a bit of a road trip from Valencia with stops in Teruel, Belchite, Fuendetodos, Tudela and arrived in Olite in early evening. It's been a long day but gratifying to see so many amazing sights. We are staying in the parador here, it is a palace/castle of the ancient Navarre kings, really beautiful.

The history in Spain is so overwhelming, I'm constantly toing and froing between the civil war, the reconquest, the Peninsular War, the Romans, the Moors etc with each place we visit. I've just started Hemingway's The dangerous summer.

#139
If you are in the Valencia region you might consider reading Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain by Maria Rosa Menocal. It is an excellent kind of history to read about Moorish Spain. It made me want to visit that part of Spain.

>140 benitastrnad: Yes, I have a copy but it's at home, chatterbox recommended it last year to me. I still have to read it, I've read several books around this part of history. I'm now reading about bullfighting with Hemingway's book as Jason Webster's crime novel Or the bull kills you covered some interesting aspects on the origins of bullfighting. I read Webster's book last week and found it excellent for its depiction of Valencia during the fallas week.

>137 Donna828: Thanks for those lovely compliments, Donna! I plan to do at least as much traveling in 2015 as I did this year, believe it or not. I'll have another vacation free month to look forward to in the summer, as I'm working full time (just over 100% FTE, or full time equivalent) from November through February instead of my usual 80% of FTE the other months of the year. Those extra work days will be given back to me in one month in the summer, when we're less busy, giving me essentially eight weeks of vacation instead of my usual four weeks off. June was my vacation free month this year, which I spent in London and Barcelona, and I'll almost certainly spend my upcoming month in Europe again this coming year.

I also plan to read many more books for the quarterly Reading Globally themes than I did this year, which is why I named my first 75 Books thread of the new year kidzdoc Reads Globally in 2015.

I haven't read anywhere near as much poetry this year as I had been, which is a direct result of only visiting City Lights Bookstore once this year. After my 22 book strong haul two weeks ago I didn't make it to the upstairs Poetry Room, which has hundreds of poetry collections and is my usual source for new poetry.



I enjoyed my mini visit to San Francisco two weeks ago, so I'll make more trips like that one next year.

I loved the photos of your children and grandchildren that you recently posted on your thread. Keep them coming in the New Year, please!

>138 jjmcgaffey: Thanks for that tip, Jennifer. I checked, and as you said there are two Cost Plus World Markets near me. I have far more sweets at home than I usually do, including a loaf of the delightful blueberry zucchini bread that the mother of one of my partners made for me last week, so I don't need anything else at the moment. I will visit one of the Markets in the near future, though.

>139 avatiakh: Happy New Year, Kerry! I didn't realize that I didn't post anything about the Spicy Whole Roasted Cauliflower on this thread; here's a photo of the finished product:



It was incredibly easy to make, and turned out very nicely. I used lime juice instead of a zested and juiced lime, and instead of dunking the cauliflower in the marinade I used a rubberized spatula to slather the marinade on it, similar to frosting a cake.

I also created my first Club Read 2015 thread of the year, kidzdoc's Books, Theatre, Music and Recipes in 2015, and that's where I posted the photo and recipe of the cauliflower. I'll do the same on my 75 Books threads as well.

I'll be very eager to see photos and detailed descriptions of your most recent travels in Spain! It's highly likely that I'll go there at least once next year. BTW, do you speak any Spanish?

I'll have to check to see if The Dangerous Summer is in my Hemingway collection...no, unfortunately it isn't. I look forward to your take on it.

BTW, I posted the following list of the 10 best books published in Spain in 2014, according to El País. I haven't seen this list on the El País in English web site, so the article is in Spanish.

Los 10 mejores libros del año 2014

>140 benitastrnad: Thanks for mentioning The Ornament of the World, Jennifer; I'll add it to my wish list.

>141 avatiakh: Have you seen any bullfights on your travels to Spain, Kerry? As you probably know, Catalonia recently banned bullfighting, and the Arenas de Barcelona in the Plaça D'Espanya was converted into a shopping mall. I took this photo of it in June:

>142 kidzdoc: >143 kidzdoc: Thanks for posting the list of Spanish titles. I just read a novella by Javier Marais that turned out quite well. I haven't been into too many bookshops here as the titles in English are usually a fairly unimaginative selection. In Seville I noticed that one of the book chains had at least 13 titles by Patrick Modiano available in Spanish.
I did a year of Spanish in the early 1990s, a university course, but all that remains is a few words. I do understand much more than I can say though even that is limited. If I was on my own I'd probably be more adaptable to the language.

Thanks, I'll keep note of that cauliflower recipe for when I return home.

Regarding the bullfights, I went to one in Madrid on my first visit to Spain, many many years ago. I hated it, I couldn't get over how wounded the bull was by the time the matador appeared....and I didn't realise that you had to sit through it 6 times and see 6 bulls downed. My interest in reading about it is how modern bullfighting has evolved, the scandals, the recent grand age of bullfights (Manolete) and the various styles of the matadors. hemingway writes about it all really well and the Webster book also touched on interesting issues. The Dangerous Summer is about a season of fights and the rivalry between 2 great matadors in the 1950s. Hemingway was commissioned to write an essay but ended up writing much more.
What I dislike more than the bullfights is all the bullruns that keep popping up around Spain, many seem to cater for tourists. There's one in Denia where bulls go against men on a quay and one or other end up in the sea.
Spanish tv has highlights of bullfights on the sports channels from time to time and thats probably the best way to watch. In Ronda we ate lunch at a bar that had the program 'Todos al Toros' running.

Anyway must go we are off to Pamplona this morning and I have a 'date' at the Cafe Iruna.

>144 avatiakh: You're welcome, Kerry. One of my longer term goals (3-5+ years) is to become fluent in Spanish, instead of conversant as I currently am, and to be able to read novels in Spanish. Many of my favorite writers are from Spain and South America, and not all of their works are translated into English, so I'd love to be able to read and appreciate their books in Spanish.

I only went to one bookstore in Barcelona in June, Come In Llibreria Anglesa, which is an English language bookstore that has a good selection of literature and nonfiction written by authors from Spain and elsewhere. It's located in Gràcia close to the Diagonal station at the intersection of Avinguda Diagonal and Passeig de Gràcia, so it's very easy to get to via the Barcelona Metro or bus.

I took four years of Spanish in high school and another year in university, so I have a decent background and vocabulary in the language. However, I use Spanish every day at work, as we have a sizable percentage of patients whose parents were born in Latin America, many of whom speak little or no English. Only one of my regular partners speaks Spanish fluently (he's from Madrid), so Javier and I tend to see more of the Latino patients than the rest of my partners. I'm able to communicate with families quite well, based on their comprehension and on the input I get from several nurses and patient care technicians (nurse's aides) I work with regularly, who are all from Colombia, and from the Spanish language translators who are sometimes in the patients' rooms when I visit.

Years ago one of my high school Spanish teachers told me that once you're able to speak in Spanish without thinking about translating what you say from English you've achieved fluency. I can certainly do that, but I know that I'm not yet fluent, or at least as fluent as I want to be. I need to work on my vocabulary, verb conjugation and speed, and listen to more Spanish language television and read newspapers and magazines. I had little trouble reading El País while I was there, but I struggled to understand the announcers on La 1, Cuatro and Telecinco.

Ugh on bullfights. I would be mildly interested in seeing the pagentry that surrounds a bullfight, but seeing six bulls hacked to death doesn't appeal to me at all. I read a book about Manolete as a teenager, and a book about bullfighting over 10 years ago, but I don't think I've ever seen a televised bullfight. I didn't see any excerpts from bullfights in the week and a half that I was in Barcelona this year, as I watched very little television, and what little I did was dedicated to the World Cup, the abdication ceremony of King Juan Carlos, which took place the day after I arrived from London, and the proclamation ceremony of his son Felipe VI, who ascended to the throne the following day.

Have a nice time in Pamplona! I assume that there won't be any running of the bulls there today. ¡Hasta luego, mi amiga!

Dear Friend Darryl

Many thanks for your wonderful reviews, your kind spirit and your generosity of sharing knowledge.

You are indeed a very special part of the glue that holds the 75 challenge group together. I am blessed by you!

All good wishes for a wonderful 2015 year of reading. I look forward with anticipation to learning of the treasures you will choose.

>146 Whisper1: Thanks for the lovely compliments, Linda! Likewise, you are also an essential and welcomed part of this fabulous community, and we wouldn't be the same without you.

As usual I've gone overboard with my reading plans for the year, but IthinkI'll be much more successful in 2015, and hopefully I'll be able to say at the end of the year, in the spirit of the long suffering Brooklyn Dodgers at the end of the 1955 World Series:

I posted this on my 2015 thread, but I'll include it here as well.

Verso Books, "the largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world", is currently offering its e-books on sale from now until January 1st. Several of these books are ones I've seen at City Lights Bookstore but didn't buy, so this sale was too good to pass up. I bought 21 e-books for $43.80, and ordered an additional free e-book of selected excerpts from the 100+ books that were published in 2014:

Theodore W. Allen, The Invention of the White Race, Volume 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control
Theodore W. Allen, The Invention of the White Race, Volume 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America
B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste
Alain Badiou, The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings
Daniel Barenboim, Music Quickens Time
Carla Blumenkranz, et al., Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America
Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life
Juan González and Joseph Torres, News For All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the
American Media
Alfredo Gutierrez, To Sin Against Hope: How America Has Failed Its Immigrants: A Personal History
Anabel Hernández, Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers
Wang Hui, The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity
Arun Kundnani, The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror
Óscar Martínez, The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail
Hsiao-Hung Pai, Scattered Sand: The Story of China's Rural Migrants
Shlomo Sand, How I Stopped Being a Jew
Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People
Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland
José Saramago, The Lives of Things
Rebecca Solnit, A Book of Migrations
Nadya Tolokonnikova and Slavoj Žižek, Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj
Daniel Trilling, Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain's Far Right
Verso Books, Verso 2014: Free Ebook Collection

Here's a link to the sale: All ebooks are 90% off until Jan 1st!

>148 kidzdoc: Sigh. The titles on this website are why I feel so unevenly educated.

>149 ffortsa: It's never too late, Judy!

I sent the link about this sale to my cousin who is much more intellectually versed than I am and who also got a Kindle for Christmas - he said he had an enjoyable time browsing, so thanks.

Thanks for the link, Darryl. I'll check them out.

Fiction Top 10:
J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel
Nathan Filer, The Shock of the Fall
Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Dinaw Mengestu, All Our Names
Rohinton Mistry, Family Matters
Amos Oz, Between Friends
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
Niall Williams, History of the Rain
Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

Nonfiction Top 10:
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine
Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Jordan Goodman, Paul Robeson: A Watched Man
Robert Hughes, Barcelona
Alan Johnson, This Boy: Memoir of a Childhood
Hettie Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones
Eric Lax, The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle
Darian Leader, Strictly Bipolar
Catherine Musemeche, Small: Life and Death on the Front Lines of Pediatric Surgery
Colm Tóibín, Homage to Barcelona

Fiction Honorable Mention Top 5:
Ray Celestin, The Axeman's Jazz
Damon Galgut, Arctic Summer
Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Anthony de Sa, Kicking the Sky
Birgit Vandebeke, The Mussel Feast

Nonfiction Honorable Mention Top 5:
Burton Batt, Christmas in Purgatory: A Photographic Essay on Mental Retardation
Susannah Cahalan, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
Randy Christensen, M.D., Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them
Julian Mash, Portobello Road: Lives of a Neighbourhood
Guthrie Ramsey, The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop

Best Novel Published in 2014: The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Best Nonfiction Book Published in 2014: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Best Debut Novel: The Shock of the Fall

Best Memoir: How I Became Hettie Jones

Best Poetry Collection: Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box

Best YA Book Published in 2014: Brown Girl Dreaming

And, finally, The Best Book of the Year: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Congratulations to all of the winners!

>151 lunacat: You're welcome, Jenny! Will you be checking out the Verso books as well?

>152 BLBera: You're welcome, Beth!

>154 kidzdoc:

Errrrrrrr............well, I had a quick look but it's all way WAY above my head - I'm not exactly very intellectual in my reading.

>155 lunacat: I'm not exactly very intellectual in my reading.

That may be true, Jenny, but your comments about current affairs on LT made me think that you might be interested in some of these books, especially since they are so deeply discounted in price. They are also available in the UK, as Verso Books has offices in London and NYC.

ETA: I'm sure that several of these books will be above my head, but for $3 or less I was willing to give them a try.

Belated Christmas wishes and Happy New Year Darryl!

With apologies to ESPN and alumni of SMU, UConn, Iowa State, and other universities with dreadful football teams:



Bottom 10 Books of 2014:

Peter Apps, Before Ebola: Dispatches from a Deadly Outbreak: A self absorbed and incredibly annoying journalist writes about himself and his journo colleagues instead of the Ebola outbreak that unfortunately did not fell him. This is easily the worst Kindle Single I've ever read.

Norma Cole, Win These Posters and Other Unrelated Prizes Inside: A completely inscrutable collection of poems, which probably should have come with mescaline or synthetic marijuana as a comprehension aid. Here's an example:

Blackberry bushes beside the freeway. Ajuga (bugleweed). Without
leave. Howl, Homer. Sylvia rode up on her bike smiling younger than
springtime. A child is able, hears music as other music.
I wasn't sleeping. The government begins without bees, rocks,
figuring out how much time's gone by by how cold the coffee gets.
Now is the cover of your pen and ink. Names the human project:
earmuffs: shamrocks: a verbal gap. In the early part of the morning a
small hole in the ceiling, a foot pulls up into the hole, ceiling covers
over paradise or charade. You never hear from her. Picking up tissue
from the floor. Transport. They can't stand and shoot. And talk
to each other (even) can't talk to each other, as I said. Up-coming
passages. Epistle of forgiveness: spat on the hair, spat on the faces,
spat on the other foot. Mount Brake-up or Back-up. Heals the words
in her foot. She got plenty. To be or not the little dot bouncing
toward her.

Joshua Ferris, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour: A self absorbed and incredibly annoying dentist from the Upper East Side of Manhattan ruminates about his difficult and unhappy life. This is one of the three books that were chosen for the Booker Prize shortlist that are included in my Bottom 10.

Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves: Another inexplicable choice for this year's Booker Prize shortlist, which should have been named We Are All Completely Full of Ourselves, narrated by an angst ridden middle class suburban American teenager with a most unusual sibling. This novel and the Ferris were perfect examples of why it was a huge mistake to make American novels eligible for the Booker Prize.

Howard Jacobson, J: A Novel: The noted comic writer tries his hand at a serious novel about a dystopian society, which the Booker Prize committee loved for some unknown reason.

James Kelman, Kieron Smith, boy: This was the biggest disappointment of the year for me, as I thought I would love this coming of age novel about a troubled Glaswegian boy.

Dany Laferrière, I Am a Japanese Writer: It's possible that Laferrière is correct, as this slight and far too clever novel about a struggling writer from Montreal who passes as a best selling author in Japan would probably make more sense in that language than it did in its English translation.

Kiese Laymon, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A pathetic collection of essays by an African American writer who needs to put on his big boy boxers and stop wallowing in ennui and self pity.

Quim Monzó, Gasoline: This novel by the noted Catalan writer received the lowest rating of any book I've read this year (one star). As I said in my review, "Gasoline was a thoroughly maddening read, as I found Heribert to be a useless, pathetic and intensely dislikable tortured artiste. This book was supposedly about the creative process in art, but none of its characters captured my attention or earned an ounce of sympathy from me."

Herta Müller, The Passport: Oof. Unremitting bleakness and despair prevail again in one of this Nobel Prize winner's early works, set in a Romanian town in which a German minority is cruelly persecuted ad nauseum. Reading this book was about as enjoyable as sticking my hand in a food processor.

The winner of the Worst Book of the Year Award is To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, due mainly to its mystifying choice for the Booker Prize shortlist.

>157 souloftherose: Happy New Year to you too, Heather! I hope that you had a lovely Christmas as well.

Love your lists, Darryl. Great to see The Shock of the Fall and The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat making them. I just read Brown Girl Dreaming and was wowed by it. Among other things, I'm impressed that she chose that form (verse) for it, and pulled it off so well. The closest I can think of is Spoon River Anthology, which tells stories in easily read verse.

Have you read Patrick Modiano? I can't remember. I'm halfway through Missing Person, and it's plenty okay, but I'm still mystified by the Nobel award.

>160 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. Rachael (FlossieT) served as a juror for the Costa Award for New Writers last year, and she and her fellow judges chose The Shock of the Fall as their choice for that Award. It was later chosen as the overall Costa winner as well. She spoke highly of it when she, Fliss and I met for dinner in Cambridge in March, so I bought it without a second thought.

I purchased The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat years ago, and my best friend's wife (who has a doctorate in physics and taught at City Unversity London before she moved to the US after they became engaged) loved it when I lent it to her, so it has been high on my TBR list for the past few years.

I agree with you, Jacqueline Woodson did a masterful job in using verse to tell her story. One other memoir that used that technique which I adored was I Love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston, which also earned 5 stars from me. Adam Foulds also used verse in his outstanding book The Broken Word, which was about the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya; I gave it 5 stars as well.

Thanks for mentioning Spoon River Anthology! I saw that one of the Kindle versions of it is available for free, so I just "purchased" it now.

I did read Missing Person by Patrick Modiano, but I don't remember anything about it (and I can't seem to find my copy of it). I did buy two of his books at City Lights earlier this month, Suspended Sentences, which consists of three of his novellas, and Out of the Dark. I haven't read them yet, and I can't say that I'm in a rush to get to either of them, as Missing Person clearly didn't make much of an impression on me.

ETA: I may have been premature in choosing The Axeman's Jazz as an Honorable Mention choice, as I'm only halfway through it. Rachael gave it to me in June or September, and so far I'm loving it. I should finish it today, and it will almost certainly be my last book of 2014.

Great lists, Darryl. I have several from the "Best of" on my TBR pile. I haven't read Brown Girl Dreaming yet, but it's close to the top of my pile. One question though, is it fiction? Or memoir?

>162 BLBera: Thanks, Beth. Brown Girl Dreaming is a memoir in verse form, similar to I Love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston.

Meredith (Mabith) from Club Read astutely pointed out that I incorrectly listed Brown Girl Dreaming in my Top 10 Fiction list, as it is a memoir in verse. So, I've updated my Best Books of 2014:



Fiction Top 10:
J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel
Nathan Filer, The Shock of the Fall
Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Damon Galgut, Arctic Summer
Dinaw Mengestu, All Our Names
Rohinton Mistry, Family Matters
Amos Oz, Between Friends
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
Niall Williams, History of the Rain

Nonfiction Top 10:
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine
Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Jordan Goodman, Paul Robeson: A Watched Man
Robert Hughes, Barcelona
Alan Johnson, This Boy: Memoir of a Childhood
Hettie Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones
Eric Lax, The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat: The Story of the Penicillin Miracle
Catherine Musemeche, Small: Life and Death on the Front Lines of Pediatric Surgery
Colm Tóibín, Homage to Barcelona
Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

Fiction Honorable Mention Top 5:
Ray Celestin, The Axeman's Jazz
Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Neel Mukherjee, The Lives of Others
Anthony de Sa, Kicking the Sky
Birgit Vandebeke, The Mussel Feast

Nonfiction Honorable Mention Top 5:
Burton Batt, Christmas in Purgatory: A Photographic Essay on Mental Retardation
Susannah Cahalan, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
Randy Christensen, M.D., Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them
Darian Leader, Strictly Bipolar
Guthrie Ramsey, The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop

Best Novel Published in 2014: The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Best Nonfiction Book Published in 2014: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Best Debut Novel: The Shock of the Fall

Best Memoir: How I Became Hettie Jones

Best Poetry Collection: Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box

Best YA Book Published in 2014: Brown Girl Dreaming

And, finally, The Best Book of the Year: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

>161 kidzdoc: Thanks for the tips on the Maxine Hong Kingston and Adam Foulds books, Darryl. WL'd.

thank you for the Christmas wishes, Darryl!
Belated Christmas wishes to you.

And may 2015 be your best reading year ever!

PS..I agree with your ranking of Being Mortal, such a very important book to start some much needed conversations.

(edta PS)

Wow at that Verso sale - Susan mentioned it on her thread and I bought even more than you last night, have just spotted another 5 goodies in your list.

>165 jnwelch: You're welcome, Joe.

>166 tangledthread: Thanks, tangledthread! 2015 does hold promise as being my best reading year ever in terms of quality, even though I almost certainly won't come close to the number of books I read in 2011 (167).

You're right about Being Mortal being a conversation starter, both internally about yourself and externally with family.

>167 elkiedee: Well done, Luci! I thought that you would make a killing at the Verso sale.

As much as I enjoyed you "Best of 2014" post, I love "The Bottom 10"! What a perfect community service! Thank you for turning me away from the Fowler book. I don't do angst at the best of times so a definite pass from me!

>169 lkernagh: You're welcome, Lori! I enjoyed making the Bottom 10 list more than the Best of 2014 one.

>158 kidzdoc:, >169 lkernagh: I quite enjoyed We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves... :-)

I've just finished my last book of 2014, The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin, which was an excellent book to close the year with, and, as I thought as I was reading it, it is deserving of a Honorable Mention on my list of Best Books of 2014. If I have time tomorrow after work I'll review it here, and then close out this thread.

>171 qebo: Several LTers liked We Are Completely Beside Ourselves, Katherine, so you're in good company.

Happy New Year everyone ...

>173 roundballnz: Happy New Year, Alex! It looks as though you're 18 hours ahead of me, as it's a little before 5:30 am here.

Happy New Year, Darryl. Hope to see you up here in NYC soon.

I'm enjoying your end of the year lists!! I'm thinking those Man Booker people don't know what they're doing ....

Thanks for a wonderful 2014. meeting you has been such a pleasure. I don't know what I like more -- your travelogues or your book reviews/discussions. Either way, you've been an inspiration. looking for forward to many more discussions about books, food and ... college sports. (Yes, Santa has been very good to the Maize and Blue this year!)

Have a safe and Happy New Year!

>175 ffortsa: Happy New Year, Judy! I'm flying to Philadelphia on Saturday to visit my parents, and returning to Atlanta the following Wednesday. I don't know if I'll have time to travel to NYC next week; I'll be in touch, though.

>176 michigantrumpet: Thanks, Marianne! In most of the years that I've followed the Booker Prize (starting in 1997) I've agreed with the judges on the vast majority of the books they chose, but this year and 2011 were notable exceptions. The former members of the discussion group that used to be on the Booker Prize's web site have migrated to The Mookse and Gripes Forum. They are amongst the most devoted Booker fans, but they were also highly critical of many of the books that were longlisted this year, as they were in 2011. My comments are tame in comparison to many of theirs.

I enjoyed your company this year, too! I'm glad that you liked my travelogues and my all too sporadic book reviews, and I hope to do a better job in writing reviews in the coming year.

Did I tell you that my partner who I share an office space with is a rabid UM alumna? She is from Flint, received her undergraduate and medicine degrees there, and goes to at least one game in the Big House every year. She was thrilled that Jim Harbaugh agreed to become the new head football coach there, although she didn't appreciate my comment on Sunday that he would be a good choice as the new HC of the Atlanta Falcons.

I and other Pitt alumni are also thrilled that Pat Narduzzi, Michigan State's defensive coordinator, agreed to become the HC of our football team after Paul Chryst left to take the job at Wisconsin. Narduzzi should be a much better fit for the Panthers than Chryst was, and he seems to be as good a choice as anyone else to return Pitt to their past glory years, when these two guys were tearing it up (200 easy bonus points for anyone who can name both of these Pitt All-Americans, both of whom are in the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame):

  

Hail to Pitt! And Happy New Year to you, too! I'm back home after a busy day at work, and since I have to work tomorrow I won't go back out tonight.

Making my last swing through the 2014 threads. See you on the other side, Darryl!

>174 kidzdoc: Always ahead of the curve down here ..... There have to be some benefits to living on the bottom of the planet :)