kidzdoc Reads (and Cooks) Globally in 2015: Part 11

A view of Old Town Edinburgh, which features Edinburgh Castle and the spire of The Hub, home of the Edinburgh International Festival.




Currently reading:

    

Ring Roads by Patrick Modiano
The Gray Notebook by Josep Pla
When Doctors Become Patients by Robert Klitzman

Completed books: (TBR = book acquired prior to 1/1/14)

January:
1. Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers (TBR) (review)
2. Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward (TBR) (review)
3. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam (TBR)
4. A Distant Father by Antonio Skármeta
5. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
6. The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh (TBR)

February:
7. In the City By the Sea by Kamila Shamsie (TBR)
8. The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters by Wes Moore
9. I Called Him Necktie by Milena Michiko Flašar
10 Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy by Darryl Pinckney

March:
11. Grady Baby: A Year in the Life of Atlanta's Grady Hospital by Jerry Gentry (TBR)
12. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

April:
13. Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry (TBR)
14. March: Book One by John Lewis
15. Nada by Carmen Laforet (TBR)
16. Outlaws by Javier Cercas
17. Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal
18. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich (TBR)
19. Blank Gaze by José Luis Peixoto (TBR)
20. The Education of the Stoic by Fernando Pessoa (TBR)
21. Time Ages in a Hurry by Antonio Tabucchi
22. Navidad & Matanza by Carlos Labbé

May:
23. The Theft of Memory: Losing My Father, One Day at a Time by Jonathan Kozol
24. Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid by Sid Lowe
25. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
26. The Good Doctor: A Father, a Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics by Barron H. Lerner
27. Barcelona Travel Guide: A Weekend in Barcelona by Gerry Kerkhof
28. Guide to Troubled Birds by The Mincing Mockingbird

June:
29. The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda
30. Edinburgh: A Cultural History by Donald Campbell
31. Rick Steves' Pocket Amsterdam by Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw
32. No Word from Gurb by Eduardo Mendoza
33. Panther in the Basement by Amos Oz
34. Youth by J.M. Coetzee
35. The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Books purchased or received in 2015: (Bold = book purchased this year)

January:
1. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2 Jan, Kindle e-book)
2. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin (2 Jan, Kindle e-book)
3. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks (11 Jan, Kindle e-book)
4. A Useless Man: Selected Stories by Sait Faik Abasiyanik (12 Jan, Archipelago Books subscription)
5. The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters by Wes Moore (20 Jan, LT Early Reviewers book)
6. DownBeat: The Great Jazz Interviews, edited and compiled by Frank Alkyer and Ed Enright (20 Jan, free book as part of 2015 DownBeat subscription)

February:
7. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, (1 Feb, Kindle e-book)
8. Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Catharine Arnold (4 Feb, Kindle e-book)

March:
9. Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care by H. Gilbert Welch (2 Mar, LT Early Reviewers book)
10. Time Ages in a Hurry by Antonio Tabucchi (2 Mar, Archipelago Books subscription)
11. The Sellout by Paul Beatty (3 Mar, Kindle e-book)
12. A Man of His Word by Imma Monsó (29 Mar, Kindle e-book)

April:
13. Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal (1 Apr, Kindle e-book)
14. March: Book One by John Lewis (2 Apr, Kindle e-book)
15. The Bees by Laline Paul (2 Apr, Kindle e-book)
16. Selected Poems of Corsino Fortes by Corsino Fortes (3 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
17. The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips (3 Apr, Barnes & Noble)
18. Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson (5 Apr, gift from Karen W.)
19. Paris by Marcos Giralt Torrente (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
20. Things Look Different in the Light & Other Stories by Medardo Fraile (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
21. Tristana by Benito Perez Galdos (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
22. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
23. I Never Had It Made by Jackie Robinson (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
24. The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (10 Apr, Barnes & Noble)
25. My Struggle: Book Four by Karl Ove Knausgaard (22 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
26. Life Embitters by Josep Pla (22 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
27. This Life by Karel Schoeman (22 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
28. Amsterdam: A Brief History of the City by Geert Mak (24 Apr, Kindle e-book)
29. The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić (24 Apr, Kindle e-book)
30. The Theft of Memory: Losing My Father, One Day at a Time by Jonathan Kozol (25 Apr, LT Early Reviewers book)

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
G.V. Desani, All About H. Hatterr
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, Juan the Landless
Juan Goytisolo, Landscapes of War: From Sarajevo to Chechnya
Juan Goytisolo, The Marx Family Saga
Almudena Grandes, The Frozen Heart
Carmen Laforet, Nada
José Luis Peixoto, Blank Gaze
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 Turn of the Screw
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, The Lathe of Heaven
August: Larry McMurtry William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
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

Books about Medicine:



1. Grady Baby: A Year in the Life of Atlanta's Grady Hospital by Jerry Gentry

TBR Books to Read in 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
      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
      Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America
      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
      Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris
      Jonathan B. Imber, Trusting Doctors: The Decline of Moral Authority in American Medicine
      Robert Klitzman, When Doctors Become Patients
      Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book One
      Charles Lemert, Why Niebuhr Matters
      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
      Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
      Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Petals of Blood
      Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
      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
      Mario Vargas Llosa, The Green House
      Richard Wright, Black Boy

Literature from the African diaspora:
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
March: Book One by John Lewis

Nonfiction from the African diaspora:
Wes Moore, The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters
Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped
Darryl Pinckney, Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy

Planned reads for June (subject to change):

António Lobo Antunes, Fado Alexandrino
Bernardo Atxaga, Obabakoak
Donald Campbell, Edinburgh: A Cultural History
Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife
Laila Lalami, The Moor's Account
Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
Geert Mak, Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City
Imma Monsó, A Man of His Word
Josep Pla, The Gray Notebook
Mercè Rodoreda, The Time of the Doves
José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon
Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety
Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw, Rick Steves' Pocket Amsterdam
Marcos Giralt Torrente, Paris
Dubravka Ugrešić, The Ministry of Pain
Llorenç Villalonga, The Dolls' Room

I've given up on the British Author Challenge for this year due to too many other committments, including the upcoming Booker Prize longlist next month, but I hope to be able to complete it by the end of 2016.

I'm off to pick up my prescription from the pharmacy, go to the supermarket, have breakfast, and start cooking for the remaining days that I'll be in Atlanta, and so that I have leftovers in my freezer after I return on June 30th. Back later...

Happy new thread Darryl.

>11 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline!

Happy New Thread, Darryl.

Happy Sunday, Darryl! And Happy New Thread! Love the Edinburgh Castle topper! I hope you get to Stegner this month. He is one of my favorite American authors.

Happy New Thread, Darryl!

>13 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. I just looked at the powerful and moving photos you took at the 'Breaking the Silence' exhibition; thanks for sharing them. Hopefully that exhibition will travel elsewhere in Europe and North America.

>14 msf59: Thanks, Mark! I'll go to Edinburgh next week (June 15-18), and I'll be sure to visit the Castle and take plenty of photos. I have Crossing to Safety on my Kindle, so there's a good chance that I'll read it this month.

>15 scaifea: Thanks, Amber!

>16 kidzdoc: I hope so too, Darryl. As you could see on the link at my thread the Israeli aren't amused that Zürich's and Swiss's government supported it with tax money. I'm glad that we have such strong governments who do so even though there is coming protest from another side.

Lovely new thread. Look forward to all those photos (and reviews, of course).

Hi Darryl

I'm wondering how you are feeling. I am so sorry you went through a rough patch recentlyh.

>17 Ameise1: I'm glad that the Swiss government has decided to stand up for human rights and the right of the Palestinian people to exist in peace and prosperity alongside their Israeli neighbors. I fully support Israel's right to exist, but I do not agree with the brutal treatment that the Palestinians continue to suffer as a result of both the Israeli government and radical Palestinian organizations like Hamas. Too many innocent lives on both sides of the fence have been lost or harmed by this continued conflict.

>18 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte. I'll also take and post photos when I meet up with LTers in England this coming week, and in the Netherlands at the end of the month.

>19 Whisper1: I'm feeling completely fine, Linda, and other than the sensation of heart palpations when I was in A-fib (atrial fibrillation) I felt normal throughout that hospitalization. In the long run it wasn't a big deal, and I view it as a blessing in disguise, as that episode didn't happen when I was in Barcelona.

I made a new recipe for lunch, a modified version of African Peanut Stew from the Budget Bytes web site.



Here is Beth's original recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp vegetable oil $0.02
4 cloves garlic $0.32
1 inch fresh ginger $0.15
1 medium (1 lb.) sweet potato $1.32
1 medium onion $0.42
1 tsp cumin $0.10
¼ tsp crushed red pepper $0.02
1 (6oz.) can tomato paste $0.59
½ cup natural style chunky peanut butter $0.93
6 cups vegetable broth $0.81
½ bunch (2-3 cups chopped) collard greens $0.75
¼ bunch cilantro, garnish (optional) $0.21

Instructions:

Peel and grate the ginger using a small holed cheese grater. Mince the garlic. Sauté the ginger and garlic in vegetable oil over medium heat for 1-2 minutes, or until the garlic becomes soft and fragrant.

Dice the onion, add it to the pot, and continue to sauté.

Dice the sweet potato (1/2 inch cubes), add it to the pot, and continue to sauté a few minutes more, or until the onion is soft and the sweet potato takes on a darker, slightly translucent appearance. Season with cumin and red pepper flakes.

Add the tomato paste and peanut butter, and stir until everything is evenly mixed. Add the vegetable broth and stir to dissolve the thick tomato paste-peanut butter mixture. Place a lid on the pot and turn the heat up to high.

While the soup is coming up to a boil, prepare the collard greens. Rinse the greens well, then use a sharp knife to remove each stem (cut along the side of each stem). Stack the leaves, then cut them into thin strips. Add the collard strips to the soup pot.

Once the soup reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low and allow it to simmer without a lid for about 15 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are very soft. Once soft, smash about half of the sweet potatoes with the back of a wooden spoon to help thicken the soup. Taste the soup and add salt if needed (will depend on the brand of broth used).

Serve the stew hot with a few cilantro leaves if desired.

Notes:

Mustard greens or lacinato kale can be used in place of the collard greens.

You can eat this stew on its own, or add a scoop of rice (I used brown jasmine rice) for more texture and filling power. I added peanuts as a garnish in the photo so that people would know what they are looking at, but they’re not necessary for the soup. I used chunky peanut butter and that provides all the peanut flavor and texture you’ll need.
___________________________

I used kale instead of collard greens and twice the amount of red pepper flakes, substituted a large Vidalia onion for a medium yellow onion, and added jasmine rice and cashew halves to the stew when it was finished (as I forgot to buy peanuts when I went to Publix this morning). This was a very tasty and filling one course meal, and I'll add this to my list of favorite recipes.

I have another batch of chicken and Andouille sausage Creole jambalaya going in my oven, which I'm making as a thank you gift to my work colleague and her husband who brought me to the hospital when I had the episode of atrial fibrillation. I'll cook more chicken thighs and Spanish rice later this afternoon, and have it with the pickled tomato salsa and cilantro sauce I have left over in my refrigerator to make pollo ciudad. I'll cook a couple of dishes tomorrow, and after that I'll have a nice stash of food in my freezer that I can have after I return from my trip at the end of the month.

On Friday I cooked a "low fat" version of Penne Pasta With Bacon And Cream for lunch, as I wanted to use up the leftover bacon, mushrooms, half & half and Parmesan cheese I had in my refrigerator.



The recipe originally came from Southern Living magazine:

INGREDIENTS:

15 bacon slices
1 (8oz) package sliced fresh mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, minced
16 oz penne pasta, cooked
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
2 cups whipping cream
1/2 tsp pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp; remove bacon, reserving 2 tablespoons drippings in skillet.

Coarsely crumble bacon.

Saute sliced mushrooms and garlic in reserved drippings 3-5 minutes or until tender.

Stir in pasta and next 3 ingredients; simmer over medium-low heat, stirring often, until sauce is thickened.

Stir in bacon and green onions. Serve hot.
____________________________

My version is a "low fat" one, as I only used six strips of bacon instead of 15(!) and I substituted half & half for heavy whipping cream. It tasted great, but I don't think I'll make this too often.

Just a note to Jjmccaffery from the previous thread of yours.

ALA has a post office inside the exhibit hall in the conference center. It has boxes for sale and packing tape. Lots of packing tape that's free. Address labels as well. However, it closes at noon on Monday so anything I pick up for free has to be mailed from a local post office that has regular hours. Most conference centers do not have a post office. They will have a Fedex or a UPS store, but don't use those. It will cost $40.00 a box to mail books. The average cost for a box of books from the U. S. Post Office being mailed to a library is about $12.00. That is because librarians got together and lobbied congress to get better rates so they could do Inter-Library Loans and get books shipped to them at lower costs. It's a good thing. Those high shipping charges were killing small rural libraries.

Happy New Thread, Darryl! Glad you are better.

Last November I started reading A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel after a discussion with you. I read a great chunk of the book and then all spring could only get to it at odd times due to the reading commitments of the courses I was taking that semester. I finished it today.

It is a wonderful book. However, the problem with historical fiction is that I know how the story ends and most often it ends sadly and badly. As I got closer to the end I slowed down my reading because I knew what happened to Danton and crew. But I have to say this is a worthy book and even though it is a chunkster it is fast paced. You do need to read this book at some point in the future.

Happy new thread, Darryl. I love the thread topper. I hope you have a great time in Edinburgh!

Following along...off to a great start with recipes already!!

Edinburgh next week .... what fun! ...am slightly jealous loved it & would love to live there .....

>25 banjo123: Thanks, Rhonda!

>26 benitastrnad: I do want to read A Place of Greater Safety this year. However, Hilary Mantel is one of Paul's British authors for December, and that would be a difficult month for me to read that book. It would be best for me to read it next month, before the Booker Prize longlist comes out on July 29th, or possibly in the second half of October after the Booker winner is announced. My summer will be largely taken up with reading Booker longlisted books and TBR books for the third quarter Reading Globally theme, Nobel Prize winning authors who write in languages other than English.

>27 tymfos: Thanks, Terri! I'm looking forward to my first visit to Scotland, and Edinburgh.

>28 Berly: Thanks, Kim! I had a very nice dinner with my friends, and they along with their son and his friend all loved the jambalaya.

>29 roundballnz: Alex, your and Fliss' enthusiastic comments were the main reason I decided to visit Edinburgh, so I thank both of you for that.

>20 kidzdoc: Darryl, since years we buy our olve oil from Palestinian farmers. They get every single Swiss franc we pay for it. We take twelve litres each year which is a little fortune but when it helps these farmer families to survive than it's worth it.

Congratulations on the new thread, Darryl!

>1 kidzdoc: Oh my, we loved Edinburgh and want to get back there. Envious . . . We did not think to look for good bookstores when we were there, so I'll look forward to hearing about your experiences on that front.

OK, I'm a third through Kent Haruf's final novel Our Soul's at Night which I will finish tonight. Then I shall start The Gray Notebook, and Wallace Stegner's The Spectator Bird.

>31 Ameise1: That's a great idea, Barbara. I'll see if it's possible for me to support those farmers as well. Your comment reminded me that I hadn't given to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund yet this year, so I sent them a donation today.

>32 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe! After I read your comment I searched for the best independent bookshops in Edinburgh, and I found a particularly good link, 15 Charming Edinburgh Bookshops You Must See Before You Die. One bookstore, Word Power Books, looked especially appealing, so I'll plan to go there next week.

>33 Caroline_McElwee: Great, Caroline. I've barely started The Gray Notebook, but I'll get into it fully after I finish When Doctors Become Patients.

>34 kidzdoc: Nice! *checking the charming link*

I picked up a copy of Reading round Edinburgh: a guide to children's books of the city when I was there a few years ago. It's interesting and features quite a lot of historical fiction and places to go.
For reading books set in Scotland I'd recommend either Iain Banks' The Crow Road or Stonemouth. I also love the Rebus novels, they give the best look at the real, gritty side of Edinburgh, literary crime writing at its best.
A book that I've had on my to read pile for far too long is And the Land Lay Still by James Robertson, all the reviews are good but I never seem to make time to read it.
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/podcasts/audio/book-talk-and-the-land-lay-still
eta: http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ScotLit/ASLS/SWE/TBI/TBIIssue8/Jamieson.html

>35 jnwelch: Glad to be of service.

>36 avatiakh: I have The Crow Road, but I haven't read it yet. Thanks for recommending And the Land Stay Still! That is exactly the type of book I was looking for, so I'll definitely buy it when I'm in Edinburgh.

>36 avatiakh: Stonemouth has been made for BBC tv http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/jun/08/iain-banks-st...

ETA Did I not mention Word Power Books? Oops!

I read on Facebook this morning that Julie (@juliette07) broke her foot while shopping yesterday. I'm not sure which LT group she's most active in (Virago Modern Classics?), but those of you who know her, online or off, may want to send her best wishes, on LT or Facebook.

Barring any other medical maladies I'll leave for London tonight; my flight is scheduled to depart from Atlanta in a little over 12 hours, and arrive in London tomorrow morning. I'll check in and post photos when I can, as I'll meet up with LT friends nearly every day that I'm there. Tomorrow I'll have dinner with Bianca and a friend, if I'm adequately rested; I have a lunch date with Rachael (@FlossieT) on Thursday, and will see Waiting for Godot at that Barbican Centre that evening; on Friday Paul Harris (@Polaris) from Club Read and I will spend a day out in North London and the East End, and Fliss and I will see The Motherf**ker with the Hat at the National Theatre that evening; and several of us will meet on Sunday about 40 miles north of London for a day in the country, and a proper Sunday roast. I just bought a ticket to see Luna Gale at the Hampstead Theatre on Saturday night, and I'll probably take it easy during the day. I leave for Edinburgh on Monday.

>38 charl08: I don't remember you mentioning Word Power Books, Charlotte. From what I've read it reminds me of my favorite bookstore, City Lights Books in San Francisco.

39 thanks for the nudge, Darryl. I just posted the news about Julie in the Virago group.

>40 lauralkeet: Thanks, Laura.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/190664#5154363

>42 charl08: Ah. Thanks for reminding me and linking me back to your excellent post about Edinburgh, Charlotte! I think I'll copy that into a document on my iPad (or the new iPad Mini I ordered from Amazon, which will hopefully be delivered before I need to leave for the airport), along with Fliss's e-mail with her equally great recommendations.

What books are you bringing with you to read, Darryl?

I'm glad you're able to salvage some part of your holiday this summer. Have a safe flight to London. Your itinerary looks great, as always ... can't wait to see the photos!

I saw a production of The Motherf**ker with the Hat here in Portland--hope you enjoy the performance and the company! Safe flight. Post photos. : )

Belated happy new thread and safe travels Darryl!

>44 cameling: Not counting travel books and the hundreds of books on my Kindle I plan to bring these books:

When Doctors Become Patients by Robert Klitzman (currently reading)
The Gray Notebook by Josep Pla
Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga
Selected Poems of Corsino Fortes
A History of the World for Rebels and Somnambulists by Jesús del Campo
The Ingenious Gentleman and Poet Federico Garcia Lorca Ascends to Hell by Carlos Rojas

I was also thinking of bringing Fado Alexandrino by António Lobo Antunes, but that was before my plans were altered by last month's hospitalization. I plan to leave all of those books behind except the Klitzman, as I'll undoubtedly buy many more in London, Edinburgh and Amsterdam.

>45 Berly: Thanks, Kim! Did you like the play?

I'll definitely post photos of Saffron Walden, Edinburgh and Amsterdam, and London to a lesser extent since that has become practically my second home.

>46 souloftherose: Thanks, Heather! I hope to see you during this trip, but I'll try to catch up with you in September if that's not possible.

RIP Vincent Bugliosi, the author and former Los Angeles prosecutor who was best known for his best selling book Helter Skelter, a nonfiction work about Charles Manson and his followers and several murders they committed, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people in her home in 1969.

Vincent Bugliosi, Manson Prosecutor And 'Helter Skelter' Author, Dies

Wishing you a save journey, Darryl.

Have a great trip, Darryl! I can't wait to hear about your adventures.

Yay, glad your trip is finally happening. Just be careful for the next few hours...

Have a fantastic trip, and safe travels, Darryl!

Bon voyage Darryl! I love my iPad Mini, particularly for traveling. I hope yours arrived in time for the trip.

Hope the flight is on time and you arrive well rested. Your first few days in London sound great.

>38 charl08: Oh, that looks really good, will look out for it in my part of the world. I liked Stonemouth more than The Crow Road probably due to the narration by audio which I felt was good though another LTer said they didn't get the accent right. So why don't they just get Scottish actors to narrate purely Scottish books? Btw Trainspotting is brilliant on audio.

>54 avatiakh: Probably because a true Scots accent would be impenetrable to many American ears. Glasgow, at least, and some other areas as well. Glasgow is incomprehensible to many non-Glaswegian Scots, as I understand it.

>55 jjmcgaffey: You are right with that. I thought that Stonemouth was narrated by Peter Kenny beautifully, there is a lilt but easy to listen to. The LTer had lived several years in Edinburgh and hated it.
Here's a sample -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk0I_zo5jIg
and for contrast a sample of Trainspotting by Tam Dean (obscene language warning)-
http://www.audible.com.au/pd/Fiction/Trainspotting-Audiobook/B00FGE92WM

>49 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I'm at the airport in Atlanta now, and the flight should start boarding soon.

>50 lauralkeet: Thanks, Laura. As Megan (@evilmoose) said, there will be adventures!

>51 qebo: Ha! I've thought the same thing the past couple of days, Katherine. So far I've managed to avoid being injured or getting sick since the weekend before last, knock on wood.

>52 scaifea: Thanks, Amber!

>53 cbl_tn: The iPad Mini arrived less than an hour before I left home, Carrie. My new neighbor (an internist whose wife works at Children's) showed me his iPad Mini and a fabulous travel case from Mobil IT, both of which I purchased from Amazon, along with PDF files he made of their journey to Catalonia, and the ones he's working on now for their upcoming trip to Croatia. Needless to say I haven't had a chance to try out the iPad Mini, but I'll probably do so tomorrow or Thursday.

>54 avatiakh: Thanks, Kerry. We had a couple of severe thunderstorm roll through Atlanta this afternoon, and there are others in the area, so it's conceivable that the flight could be delayed as yesterday's ATL-LHR flight was. My biggest concern is that there seem to be roaming hordes of *shudder* teenagers near the gate, and I fear that they will be on board this flight. If so, and if they act like typically loud and obnoxious spoiled American teenagers, then I and the other adults may not sleep well on this flight. Hopefully there will be chaperones (babysitters) on board that will keep them in line.

>55 jjmcgaffey: That's interesting, Jennifer. I've understood the few Scottish people I've encountered in London, but I have no idea where they were from. I assume that I won't have any significant problem understanding people in Edinburgh.

>56 avatiakh: I'll have to look at those links sometime tomorrow, Kerry.

>56 avatiakh: Maybe its the Aucklander in me (finely tuned ear for different dialects from migration) - but I prefer an accent which has not been globalised for perceived sensibilities .....

listening to that sample makes me wish I had got the Audiobook of Trainspotting

iPad mini's rock ....

Wow, Darryl! I did not know that about Vincent Bugliosi. I was a big fan.

Safe travels, my friend.

Cheers from London! My flight landed at Heathrow about 1-1/2 hours ago, and I'm having lunch and coffee at the Costa Coffee shop close to the Arrivals area in Terminal 4. I'll stay here for another 45 minutes or so, and then take the Piccadilly Line, which fortunately stops at Terminal 4 Station, to Kensington to check in to my hotel (I can't do that until 2 pm, about 75 minutes from now). The flight was a quiet one, despite the presence of dozens of high school students on board, but I didn't sleep as well as I usually do. I'll go to sleep soon after I check in, but I'll probably skip dinner with Bianca and her friend tonight.

Thank goodness for free WiFi! Heathrow allows four hours of free service, which is a considerable improvement from the 30 or 60 minutes that it used to provide.

>59 roundballnz: I like hearing non-pasteurized accents, but I have to pay closer attention to understand those Brits who live in the Midlands and to the North. I had a couple of painfully humorous encounters with people in London who I couldn't understand after I asked them to repeat themselves several times, and a few times I've just nodded yes to others even though I didn't understand what they were saying. The opposite doesn't seem to happen as often, though.

I'm thrilled that my iPad Mini came just before I left. I'll give it a try later today.

>60 msf59: I liked Helter Skelter, which I read in high school (that's nearly 40 years ago; yikes!). I didn't remember who had written it, but I'll never forget that book, which seemingly everybody I knew in high school also read at some point.

Oof, I'm still very sleepy after two cups of coffee on the flight this morning and a large mug of caffe Americano here. I'll probably crash shortly after I get settled into my hotel room.

Enjoy it! I hope your jetlag won't betoo worse.

Happy adventuring!

>62 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. I felt pretty good about 4-5 hours ago, when we were approaching Ireland from the west, but after I had lunch I was definitely ready for a nap. There is a five hour time difference between Atlanta (and the East Coast of the US) and British Summer Time, and I always find it tougher to adjust traveilng east rather than west. It's not unusual for me to be loopy after I fly from the US to Europe on an overnight flight, so I should be much more awake after a good night's sleep.

>63 streamsong: Thanks, Janet!

#61
I laughed when I read your reaction to some accents in London. I had the same problem when I moved to Alabama. For the first year I walked around the library with a piece of paper and a pen stuck behind my ear. I had to ask people to write down their questions - or at least key words - because I simply could not figure out what they wanted. I will never forget the time I went to a local car repair shop. I had an old car at the time and the guy was fixing my AC on the car. I simply could not understand a word he said. I finally stood there and just nodded. I finally figured out that it was not the pronunciation that was the big problem, but rather the rhythm of the words was completely off. Things are much easier now. I never really notice that the accents change when I travel from east to west, but when I come back east from Kansas as soon as I cross the Kentucky state line I know I am back in the South.

Have a good trip.

Best wishes for your having a great time, Darryl. I know you will!

Glad you made it to London. We are all looking forward to enjoying your vacation.

Safe and happy travels, Darryl.

>66 benitastrnad: I had a somewhat similar experience when I visited a friend (who is also from New Jersey) in her sportswear shop in College Park, very close to the airport in Atlanta, within a week or two after I moved from Pittsburgh. A guy came in and asked for a baseball cap, but we had a difficult time understanding him, due to his drawl that made it sound as though he had received anesthesia for a tooth extraction and the dentist left a dozen cotton balls in his mouth. After several attempts Karen and I figured out that he was asking for a "Hogs hat", and we figured that he wanted a University of Arkansas cap. She managed to find one, and he shook his head. After two or three more failed attempts and his explanation of what he wanted we finally determined that he wanted a "Hawks hat", for the city's NBA basketball team. He looked at the two of us as if we were idiots, and she and I laughed like lunatics after he left.

I had one bizarre exchange at a restaurant about 25 years ago when I worked in NYC. On my way from Penn Station to NYU Medical Center I stopped in a café and asked a Middle Eastern man for "an egg bagel with cream cheese" to go. He looked at me in confusion, and asked me if I wanted an "eck begel crim chiz". I repeated myself, he repeated himself, and I nodded yes, with a mixture of mild annoyance and befuddlement (egg bagels are a very common type in NYC, and I had ordered them from that café before). He was working behind a metal counter, and I couldn't see what he was doing, but it took an inordinate amount of time to complete my order. After five minutes or so, he passed a large bag to me, which contained eight bagels with cream cheese. I was completely frustrated at that point, and said "No! I wanted an egg bagel with cream cheese!!!" He nodded, smiled, and said "Yah. Eck begel crim chiz!" I walked out of the café, muttering to myself, "only in New York...".

>67 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe! I did pass on meeting Bianca and her friend for dinner and a visit to the British Museum, but I had a traditional supper for room service: salt and pepper squid, lamb rogan josh, naan, and a bottle of Shiraz wine. Given Bianca's post about her disappointment in the restaurant they went to, I think I was better off with what I chose.

>68 catarina1: Thanks, catarina!

>69 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda!

It's just past 12:30 am here, but my body has absolutely no idea what time it is. I'm still very sleepy after a five hour mid afternoon nap, so I think I'll call it a night, so that I don't miss lunch with Rachael tomorrow.

Glad you arrived safely! I hope you adjust quickly to the time difference. I always have more touble with jet lag when I travel west. Eastward travel is a much easier adjustment for me.

>70 kidzdoc: Glad you made it safely. Loved the bagel story. What did you do with the other 7 bagels?

>71 cbl_tn: The opposite is true for me, Carrie. I have a much easier time heading back to the U.S. from Europe or traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast than eastward travel across three or more time zones.

>72 avidmom: I didn't buy those bagels, Susie! I walked out of the café and went to another one.

I had forgotten that Monday was my eighth Thingaversary. I'll meet Rachael (@FlossieT) for lunch at the London Review Cake Shop, which is within the London Review Bookshop, so I'll buy a few celebratory books while I'm there.

Happy Thingaversary. You are in the right place to celebrate.

Happy Thingaversary, Darryl. It was highlighted on my home page a few days ago and I meant to stop by and say something sooner. looks like you joined just a few months before me. What a great time it's been eh? I am sure you will have no problem finding books to mark the occasion.

>75 avatiakh: Thanks, Kerry!

>76 lauralkeet: Thanks, Laura. It's actually my ninth Thingaversary, so I'm entitled to 10 books. I won't purchase that many at the London Review Bookshop today, though.

My Thingaversary was highlighted on your home page?

LT has been and continues to be a great ride, both online and offline. If I remember correctly Rachael was the first LTer I met in person, back in 2009, so it seems appropriate to have lunch with her today.

>77 kidzdoc: My Thingaversary was highlighted on your home page?
Yep! There's a Thingaversary module you can add to your home page. You can choose to see your "connections" and/or a random list of Thingaversaries. It also lets you know how many days until your next one.

Accents: in Paris we were perplexed by a crepe vendor's offer of "Almond Cheese" crepes, which we'd never heard of. Should we try them? It seemed so strange. Then we cracked up when she pointed to one in the works and we realized she was offering us "Ham and Cheese" crepes. She probably thought, more goofy Americans.

>78 lauralkeet: Thanks, Laura; I'll add that Thingaversary module to my LT Home page as well.

>79 jnwelch: Ha! I'm sure that I would have thought the same thing and had the same reaction as you did, Joe.

I'm back in my hotel room after I had lunch with Rachael at the London Review Cake Shop, the small but lovely café within the splendid London Review Bookshop. It's on Bury Place in Bloomsbury, within eyesight of the British Museum and a short walk away from the offices of the London Review of Books, where she works. We each had the quiche and salad special, which was a bargain at £6.25 each with her employee discount:



Unfortunately I probably won't get to see her at any other time during this trip, so we were both glad that we could catch up, although we would have liked to have more time to chat.

While I was waiting for Rachael I bought seven books:

Ring Roads by Patrick Modiano: This is a novella by last year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, set in Paris during the Occupation by the Nazis, in which a Jewish man looks for the father who abandoned him a decade before, and finds him living a dangerous and unsavory life amongst the enemy.

No Word from Gurb by Eduardo Mendoza: "A shape shifting alien named Gurb has assumed the form of Madonna and disappeared in Barcelona's backstreets. His commanding officer and best friend has set off in pursuit, scrupulously recording his observations of human life in the city while munching his way through vast quantities of churros." How could I pass that book up?

Rituals by Cees Nooteboom: A philosophical novel set in Amsterdam narrated by a man who failed in his attempt to commit suicide, and uses the gift of life he has received to observe and explore the lives of some people who surround him.

Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli: An inventive novella about a young woman living in Mexico City, who is obsessed with an obscure poet from the Harlem Renaissance and begins to write a novel about him. In the process of writing her book her life and the one of the late poet converge and merge into a joint existence in NYC.

Scars by Juan José Saer: A modern classic of Latin American literature, which explores a crime committed by an Argentinian laborer, and the circumstances of the laborer and three other people who have some connection to this act of violence.

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (no introduction needed)

Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh: The long awaited final novel in the Ibis Trilogy, which is set in 1839 at the start of the First Opium War between Britain and China, as a ship sails from Bengal to China, where the conflict between the two nations is underway.

I'm currently reading A God in Ruins, Darryl, and enjoying it very much.

>82 kidzdoc: Love the sound of Faces in the Crowd, and hoping to get to Ring Roads. Think 7 books is quite restrained in the LRB bookshop!

Oooh.... I'm as green with envy, Darryl. I'm still on the wait list for Flood of Fire and I just know that with my luck, I'll get a notice from the library telling me I can come in to pick it up when I'm in KL or Singapore next week. They only keep it for 3 days and if not picked up, it goes to the next person on the wait list, which is, of course, only fair.

LOL re your NY bagel story. I had a slightly similar experience once in San Francisco. I went into a cafe and ordered pancakes for breakfast. The waiter, who was Indian, took my order and then asked if I wanted a yegga. "A yegga?" I asked, to which he nodded vigorously, "yes, miss .. a yegga with your pancakes". I had no idea what a yegga was, but it sounded interesting, so I just said yes. He smiled happily and went off. My order was delivered ... beautiful fluffy pancakes with a very generous chunk of melting butter on the top and... 2 very pretty eggs sunny side up. Ah hah! Yegga = eggs!

Happy Thingaversary, Darryl! And happy travels!

Happy Thingaversary, and it looks like you are off to a great start!

>66 benitastrnad:, >70 kidzdoc:, >79 jnwelch:....all of which reminds me of the Two Ronnies' Four Candles sketch.

Great to see you are having a good time, Darryl. Looking forward to meeting up on Sunday.

So its true, someone managed to buy 7 books in 20 minutes ...... nice haul there

>83 lauralkeet: (Hmm, I thought I had replied to your message last night.) I'm glad that you're enjoying A God in Ruins, Laura. I'll probably read it in the next month or two, especially if it makes this year's Booker Prize longlist.

>84 charl08: Faces in the Crowd and Ring Roads should be quick reads, as each book is just under 150 pages in length. I'll probably read them this weekend.

I could have bought at least twice that many books at the London Review Bookshop, but I wanted to complete my purchase and nab one of the precious tables in the Cake Shop before Rachael walked over from work, as she only had an hour to meet for lunch. (I do remember typing that reply last night!)

>85 cameling: According to Amazon Flood of Fire won't be published in the U.S. Until August 4th, which is the main reason I bought a copy of the UK edition of it. I'd be surprised if your library had it in stock this month.

I like the outcome of your breakfast experience better than mine! There was no way I was going to eat eight bagels, and since I couldn't make myself understood I simply left and bought a bagel elsewhere.

>86 tymfos: Thanks, Terry!

>87 ronincats: Thanks, Roni! I'll meet up with Paul Harris from Club Read in a couple of hours for a Jewish breakfast in Golders Green and a day out, and Fliss and I will see the play "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" at the National Theatre tonight . Unfortunately BBC One is forecasting that this will be the hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures in the mid to possibly upper 20s (roughly 80 F) with humid conditions and the possibility of heavy rain and thunderstorms late this afternoon and evening. Even though I'm used to hot weather 80 F feels considerably less comfortable in London than it does in Atlanta.

>88 laytonwoman3rd: I liked that segment of The Two Ronnies! That was perfect.

>89 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian. I'm looking forward to Sunday as well, and I'm glad to see that the weather that day is supposed to be very pleasant and considerably cooler than it will be today.

>90 roundballnz: Definitely, Alex. Rachael and I usually have lunch at the Cake Shop once or twice a year, and I always arrive at the Bookshop a few minutes early and buy 4-6 or more books in short order, especially if it's my first visit there.

I'd better get going. I'll pop back in tonight after the play, or tomorrow morning.

>10 kidzdoc: Sorry to see that you have too many balls in the air to continue with the BAC mate. Just drop by it every now and again - I have realised myself this year that keeping up with everything is beyond me too.

Tentative attempt to climb back aboard the red bus. Have a lovely stay in the UK as you always seem to do. There is a possibility that business will take me there in July and I will be there with the family in August.

>92 kidzdoc: Golders Green! Now you're making me homesick. Golders Green was wthin my orbit when I lived in North London.

Hi Darryl. I wish you a fantastic weekend with all your meet-ups.

Were you aware that Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is showing on BBC American this weekend? I am trying to find out if I have access to it on my local cable. If I can watch it you can bet I will be planted in front of the TV! I wonder why nobody from the UK has mentioned this TV show here on LT, especially since the book was so popular? If you get a chance ask around and see if anybody there has watched it.

>96 benitastrnad: Thanks for mentioning this! I'd heard it would be on TV, had no idea that it was imminent.
http://www.bbcamerica.com/jonathan-strange-and-mr-norrell/schedule/

Glad you landed safely Darryl. Love the LRB Bookshop (and cake shop). The Cees Nooteboom novel will definitely go on my list. I'll wait for the Ghosh til it's out in paperback, I still have Vol 2 to read.

Enjoy the rest of the week. Shall be watching for tales of.

Oh, and Happy Thingaversary.

I had a splendid and very full day with two LT friends yesterday. Paul from Club Read and I met in Golders Green, a traditionally but not entirely Jewish residential neighborhood in North London. From the Golders Green Underground station on the Northern Line we walked on Finchley Road and visited Café Also and the affiliated Joseph's Bookstore next door. They are owned by Michael Joseph, a Polish-born Jewish lawyer, and Ali Al-Sersy, an Egyptian chef who runs the café. The vegetarian café is filled with books, and it is connected to the bookstore by a small set of doors.

We had breakfast in the inviting and comfortable café, which was served to us by an attractive and very friendly woman. Paul recommended shakshouka, a Tunisian dish that is also popular in Israel, which consisting of "eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers, and onions, often spiced with cumin." It is "traditionally served in a cast iron pan or tajine with bread to mop up the sauce." I hadn't heard of it before but it sounded good, and I wasn't disappointed.



We both had freshly made juice with the shakshouka; Paul had a mixture of oranges and carrots, and I had pomegranate and beetroot, which tasted as good as it looked:

After breakfast we crossed over to Joseph's Bookstore. Paul said that it's his favorite bookshop in London, and I could see why. It had a very nice selection of new and secondhand books, and within half an hour I came away with seven books:

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel: Her latest book, a collection of short stories about the former Prime Minister and other topics that has received good reviews.

The Trial by Franz Kafka: I purchased this because I wanted to reread it before Fliss and I see the play on the 23rd at The Young Vic; Rory Kinnear will appear as Josef K.

Dearest Father by Franz Kafka: This is an open letter to his father, which was never sent to him, in which Kafka discusses his troubled soul and his obsessions while indicting his father for his lack of empathy toward his extremely sensitive son.

Panther in the Basement by Amos Oz: A short novel about a 12 year old boy living in Jerusalem in 1947, who dreams of being an underground fighter in the active Israeli campaign against British soldiers in Palestine.

The English by Jeremy Paxman: This is supposedly "an insightful portrait of what makes the English quite so, well...English. It asks such questions as: why do the English enjoy feeling persecuted? What is behind their obsession with games? Where did the funny attitudes to sex and food come from? And how does hypocrisy comes so naturally?"

The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck: The winner of this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, which is a novel about the 20th century as seen through the various lives of one woman. As mentioned earlier, it has been compared to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, but this novel was published in Germany before that novel came out.

Youth by J.M. Coetzee: This was a surprise find, as I had been looking for this book for a few years. It's a semi-autobiographical novel about a young South African man in the 1950s who seeks to escape his native country, and moves to London in the early 1960s to experience life to its fullest intensity, but finds boredom and experiences a series of failed relationships instead.

I love shakshouka*. I must put that cafe/bookshop on my list for a visit. Glad you had a great time Darryl. I have about five of your seven acquisitions. I just bought the Mantel stories recently.

*I use Ottelengi's version http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/apr/07/foodanddrink.shopping5

After our visit to the bookstore we visited the Wellcome Collection, a museum about medicine run by the Wellcome Trust located on Euston Road close to Euston Station and Univeresity College Hospital. We saw the exhibition Forensics: The Anatomy of a Crime, which was a superb examination of the history of forensic medicine. For good reason no photography was allowed in that exhibition. We were there for nearly two hours, and we both enjoyed it. It's a free exhibition, but it's only on until next Sunday.

The Wellcome Collection has a small branch of Blackwell's within it, and I bought the three books shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize that aren't available in the US:

Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us by Alice Roberts
The Iceberg: A Memoir by Marion Coutts

After we left the Wellcome Collection we took the Underground to Whitechapel Station, and walked through the heart of London's diverse East End, which used to be a largely Jewish community but has now become the home of a sizable segment of the city's Muslim population. We walked the length of Brick Lane, made famous by Monica Ali's novel of the same name, and stopped at Beigel Bake for salt beef beigels (bagels):



As Paul said, they couldn't have fit any more salt beef into our beigels!

Paul and I parted ways on a westbound District Line Underground train. I went back to my hotel, and after a quick shower and change of clothes I was back on the Underground, as Fliss and I had tickets to see the evening performance of "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" at the National Theatre. It was raucous, vulgar, quite funny, and enjoyable, but it wasn't profound, although the actors in it were very good. I'll write a review of it later this weekend, as I'm getting sleepy again.

I'll have an easy day today, and tomorrow a group of six of us will meet in Saffron Walden, about 40 miles north of London, for a Sunday roast and a day in the country.

>93 PaulCranswick: Will do, Paul. There are several books by British authors that you've chosen that I intend to read this year, particularly A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, The Siege by Helen Dunmore and The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, but I won't necessarily read them in the months that they are supposed to be.

I hope that you're able to meet some of the friendly British LTers when you come here in the summer.

>94 cbl_tn: Nice, Carrie! I enjoyed our walk through Golders Green, and I definitely want to visit Café Also and Joseph's Bookstore on future visits to London.

>95 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I'll have a quiet day today, and tomorrow should be a lot of fun.

>96 benitastrnad: I wasn't, Benita. I don't have cable TV at home, and I haven't read and don't own that book. I'll ask the group that I'll meet up with tomorrow if they have seen that adaptation of it. It looks as though it appeared in four parts on BBC One, with the last episode broadcast on 7 June. Since I'm in the UK I view it on my iPad using iPlayer, so I may watch it while I'm in the UK.

>97 qebo: Thanks for that link, Katherine.

>98 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. Yes, the London Review Bookshop and Cake Shop are definitely amongst my favorites. I always see the same soft spoken and friendly bookseller, who recognizes me, and the woman in the Cake Shop recognized me from prior visits there as well. Does that make me a regular, even though I live over 4000 miles away?

>101 Caroline_McElwee: I hadn't had shakshouka before, and I loved it. I definitely want to try it; Paul makes it, and he also mentioned the Yotam Ottolenghi cookbook. On the recommendation of someone here I bought the Kindle version of Plenty, so I'll check to see if that recipe is in there.

>104 kidzdoc:It looks as though it appeared in four parts on BBC One, with the last episode broadcast on 7 June No there are seven parts in total I think - you can probably just see the four that have been broadcast so far. We're quite enjoying it, but I haven't read the book so can't tell what sort of a job they're doing with the adaptation.

Looking forward to meeting up tomorrow.

Yes, Plenty does include the same recipe that you posted, Caroline; he calls it shakshuka, though.

ETA: I highly recommend that restaurant and bookstore. A man who I assume was Michael Joseph, one of the owners, smiled at me warmly in the café and chatted with me briefly in the bookshop. The woman who served us breakfast was in the bookshop when we were there, and I had a nice conversation with her and one of the booksellers as I purchased my books. I felt very comfortable and welcomed in that environment, and I would be there all the time if a place like that (or the London Review Bookshop and Cake Shop, for that matter) existed in Atlanta.

I found a nice recent online review of Café Also and Joseph's Bookstore from The Independent:

Café Also, 1255 Finchley Road, Golders Green, London

>106 SandDune: Thanks for that clarification, Rhian. That would make sense, since the 7th was only this past Sunday. I assume that BBC One will broadcast Episode 5 tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow as well! See you soon.

Happy Saturday, Darryl! Sounds like you are having a merry old time in London. Yah, for Meet-Ups & bookshops! Enjoy!

Thanks, Mark! Yesterday was a perfect example of why I love coming to London so much: great meet ups with book loving friends, good food, friendly people in book shops (I also had a very nice conversation with a lovely young woman at the Blackwell's Bookshop at the Wellcome Collection), and great museums and theaters. My biggest wish is that we were all closer to each other, on either side of the pond, so that we could all get together on a regular basis.

Would be in for meet-ups but unfortunately there are too long distances and I can't take holiday when you're in Europe.

I sounds like your vacation is off to an amazing start, Darryl!

Glad that you are having such a good time- Yotam Ottolenghi has written three great cookbooks- and has one or more restaurants in London.

>110 Ameise1: I see that there is a high speed train that runs from Paris to Zürich in just over 4 hours. Maybe I could pay a visit to your lovely city in the next year or two.

>111 scaifea: Definitely so, Amber! I'm enjoying London so far, and I'm looking forward to my trip to Edinburgh on Monday.

>112 torontoc: Ooh, thanks for mentioning that, Cyrel! One of his restaurants is on Upper Street in Islington, within sight of the Almeida Theatre where several of us will meet for dinner on Thursday before we see "Oresteia". Unfortunately there are no tables available that evening, but I'll keep checking to see if something opens up. There is also a branch in Spitalfields; maybe I can convince one of the LTers to join me for dinner there, or at one of his other restaurants. I'll certainly mention it if I go there on this trip.

Sounds like a great day in London, I read Panther in the Basement a few years ago and also saw the film, The Little Traitor which was also good. The best Israeli novel I've read of late is Assaf Gavron's The Hilltop.
I'll have to tell my London-based daughter to visit Café Also and the bookshop, that juice looks divine.

I was lucky enough to have Sunday brunch at the Ottolenghi in Islington a couple of years ago, his shakshuka was really good. I make it fairly often though don't favour any particular recipe, I get the flavours for the sauce right, it's just a matter of not over cooking the eggs. Earlier this year we went to Dr Shakshuka in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, a restaurant that's famous for guess what...
This is another good recipe: http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/food/43418/camdens-cool-katz
and here's another version with a few photos of Dr Shakshuka: http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2010/07/summer-2010-travel-blog-shakshuka/

In Israel the green version of shakshuka is very popular as well:
http://immigrantstable.com/2015/06/08/green-shakshuka-israeli-breakfast/#.VXyV4v...

>113 kidzdoc: That would be gorgeous :-)

What a great vacation--and some great book buys. Can't wait for the reviews!

Oh, that shaksouka sounds good, Darryl. How hot (spicy) is it? I'm thinking Debbi and I would like to try it, but she struggles if the dish is spicy hot.

I envy you seeing The Trial. I'm a big Kafka fan, but I doubt it will still be around in the fall when we come.

Thanks for keeping us posted on your trip. It's fun to follow along.

I am really enjoying the descriptions of your meet-ups. Thanks so much for the posts.

When I am in Washington D.C. I try to go to Kramer's Books and Afterwords Cafe. It is a bookstore and cafe combo in DuPont Circle. It is usually very crowded and busy. I have noticed lately that they are hosting more author events and some of these have been broadcast on BookTV, otherwise known as C-SPANN2. I have always enjoyed the food at Kramer's even though they are more famous for their part in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Monica Lewinsky purchased books there as a gift for Bill Clinton and Kramer's sales records were supeoned because Kramer's claimed that as a bookstore they were protected by privacy rights. The ALA took up the case and the Supreme Court decided that bookstores are not the same as libraries and sales records are not protected. Of course the USA Patriot Act changed everything and now libraries are not exempted from searches anymore.

Patronizing Kramer's is my way of supporting them in their efforts to protect privacy.

Happy new thread, Darryl (times 2, since it has been that long since I last visited)!

Sorry to read about the health issue on your last thread but glad to see that it has been diagnosed and you have a clean bill of health for traveling!

Edinburgh.... Love that town! I love compact cities steeped in history with harbour access to the ocean. Scotland remains one of my choice regions for visiting and possibly retiring.

>22 kidzdoc: - Making note of the modified African Peanut Stew.

Have a wonderful trip!

Hi Darryl! I've been neglecting LT but I skimmed your thread! Lovely pictures, nice food!!

Glad to hear you're having a great trip - and making a note of the London bookshops, which sound wonderful.

I'm trying to catch up on threads after a successful conference last week. I see that you have safely arrived in Europe and are enjoying yourself.

Thanks to Rhian for suggesting and organizing another splendid meet up today! She, her husband Alan, Bryony, Fliss, Jenny and I met at The Fighting Cocks, a pub in the town of Wenders Ambo, about 45 miles north of London, for a proper Sunday roast just past noon. I decided to try the Moroccan lamb with couscous, despite heavy pressure from Bryony and Rhian to have a traditional Sunday roast, although I did try, and like, the Yorkshire pudding, which I hadn't had before.

The Fighting Cocks:



From left to right: Fliss, me, Bryony, Rhian, Alan and Jenny:



After our meal Alan, Fliss and Jenny drove the rest of us to the towns of Saffron Walden and Thaxted, and we visited two established churches, the ruins of the 12th century Walden Castle, and the center of both towns. I'll post photos early next week, as it's nearly 11:30 pm here and I'm falling asleep, but we thoroughly enjoyed our day out.

I think I'll call it a night for now, and catch up here tomorrow during the train ride from London to Edinburgh.

This sounds like a gat way to spend a vacation! Dining with the locals - it looked like great fun.

Meeting up with everyone yesterday has reminded me that I haven't really dropped by anyone else's threads (or mine to be fair) in quite some time, so I thought I'd drop by.

Glad to hear that I was jointly responsible for your trip to Edinburgh! ;o)

Funnily enough, I was thinking of trying A Place of Greater Safety as part of my "I must give Hilary Mantel another go" kick (I've mentioned before that I got put off in a big way by Beyond Black, years ago, pre-Wolf Hall). She's good at the historical research and I do find that period fascinating. I ended up going for An Experiment in Love instead (as a result of a review I read somewhere), but sounds like I should add A Place of Greater Safety to the pile again after all.

#36 Hi Kerry! I may appropriate that recommendation for Reading around Edinburgh for myself ;o)

I'm also going to add a recommendation for Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh to your list Darryl. It may be a bit tough to get into the vernacular (he writes as he speaks and the Scottish accent can be hard to understand if you're not used to it, even when not written down!) and his writing can be a bit gruesome at times (actually, Trainspotting isn't too bad by his standards), but it is a bit of a modern classic, it's set in Edinburgh and it'll give you another side to the city (although I should add that Leith has cleaned up considerably since it was written and is now pretty gentrified).

(Edited to add - ah, I see others have recommended it too at some point. There you go. You have to read it!)

#55 True! Apparently the (very good 1980's) film "Gregory's Girl" (set in Glasgow) was dubbed with more gentle Scottish accents for the US audience!

#58 Scottish people in London probably sound very English-ified to your average Scot! Glasgow is an hour from Edinburgh by train if you fancy a day trip to see how you do ;o)

#77 Hah! I can't remember if you or Rachael was the first LTer I met in person - given the proximity, I would assume it was Rachael, but actually, I've got a suspicion it was you. LT has certainly been something I'm glad I took the plunge with (I ummed and erred for a long time before actually writing on other people's threads...)

#96 The Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell TV adaptation - sorry, I would have done if I'd actually been on LT - it's been quite well done (although I wasn't one of the book's fanatics, so I may be less picky - I enjoyed it, but preferred Ladies of Grace Adieu).

#100 Hope you'll enjoy The Trial - it's quite a disturbing book, but definitely worth reading - it translates well to the theatre too. Looking forward to seeing it!

Funnily enough, I bought The End of Days on Saturday too. I'll try to read it before I next see you!

PS Darryl, I don't think Wendens Ambo would really qualify for town status - you basically saw most of it walking from the station to the pub! ;o)

>127 flissp: Apparently the (very good 1980's) film "Gregory's Girl" (set in Glasgow) was dubbed with more gentle Scottish accents for the US audience!
Really? I didn't know that! I have seen subtitles used for Scottish speakers on American news broadcasts (the football manager Gordon Strachan comes to mind). Anyway, I agree "Gregory's Girl" is a wonderful film. So is "Local Hero," another 1980s gem set in Scotland.

#128 I wondered if it was just urban legend, but I just looked it up on Wikipedia (that trustworthy fount of all knowledge) and apparently not - although they didn't have a reference. Anyone got a copy of the American DVD to verify that it has both versions?! ;o)

I've not seen "Local Hero", but the title rings bells - I shall have to look it up!

I'm on my way to Edinburgh on a Virgin East Coast Main Line train from London King's Cross station, which will arrive at Edinburgh Waverley station in a little less than two hours.

Catching up...

>115 avatiakh: I did have a great day out with Paul on Friday. He hasn't met any other LTers yet, mainly because he lives in Wales and only comes to London three or four times a year, but he's interested in meeting others who come here.

I loved Café Asbo and Joseph's Bookstore, and I definitely want to return there later this year. It's not hard to get to; we met at Golders Green station (on the Edgware branch of the Northern Line), found Finchley Road just across from the station, and walked from there to the café.

Did you like Panther in the Basement? I brought it with me (I left most of my things in my London hotel room), and I'll probably read it early this week. The Hilltop sounds interesting, so I'll add it to my wish list.

Thanks for that information about Ottolenghi and shakshuka. Hopefully there will be a cancellation and we can nab a table at the Islington branch on Thursday.

>116 Ameise1: Great! Hopefully I can visit Zūrich in the next year or two.

>117 banjo123: thanks, Rhonda. I'll probably start writing reviews later today or tomorrow.

>118 jnwelch: I didn't think the shakshouka I had at Café Asbo was hot at all, Joe. It was well seasoned and very tasty. I hope that you, Debbi and I can go there, hopefully with Paul, later this year.

Ooh, Newcastle looks beautiful from the train. A day trip there in the future may be in order.

I took a few dozen photos yesterday, and I'll take a lot more this week, in Edinburgh and London.

>119 benitastrnad: I'll have to keep Kramer's Books in mind the next time I visit Washington. I go there very infrequently, though, the last time being about 20 years ago.

>120 lkernagh: Thanks, Lori! This will be my first visit to Edinburgh, and Scotland, and if I like it as much as I suspect that I will, then I'll come back here in the future.

The African peanut stew was very good. I hope that you like it as much as I did.

>121 connie53: Thanks, Connie!

>122 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte. I'll visit at least one bookshop in Edinburgh this week as well.

>123 thornton37814: Definitely so, Lori. I don't leave until the 30th, so most of this vacation is still ahead of me.

>126 benitastrnad: Right, Benita. I've made several good friends in the UK from my past visits to London, and seeing them again is the major highlight of these trips.

>127 flissp: Hi, Fliss! Actually you are the main reason for my decision to visit Edinburgh, so I thank you for that, and for your excellent list of resources. The train will arrive there in just over an hour, as we're approaching Berwick-upon-Tweed.

I'll very likely buy Trainspotting along with And the Land Lay Still. I started to buy Welsh's book on Friday, but thought it would be proper to buy it in Edinburgh.

I noticed that Glasgow is a short distance from Edinburgh by train, but with only two full days there I thought I would postpone going there for a future trip to Scotland.

I met Rachael in 2009, and I think she is the first LTer I met, in the U.S. or UK. I assume that I met you in 2010 or 2011, as I don't think I met anyone else other than her in London that year.

I have read The Trial in the past, pre-LT I suspect. I'll probably read it before we see the play on the 23 rd, or shortly afterward.

I look forward on your thoughts about The End of Days. I suspect that I won't finish it by Saturday, though.

I thought that The Fighting Cocks was in Audley End, until I noticed that it's listed as being in Wendens Ambo on its Facebook page.

>128 lauralkeet: I've also noticed the use of subtitles on occasion when non-London UK speakers appear on television in the U.S. I think that would be useful for Americans with thick Southern accents and Cajuns as well.

Glad your Sunday meet up was fun. Have a lovely time in Edinburgh Darryl.

#132 (Edinburgh decision) Excellent, excellent! Now I'm worried that it won't live up to expectations (although actually, I can't imagine it won't)!

Yep, I would hold off on Glasgow for another time - there's too much else to see (I was just joking about making the trip there to examine the accent ;o)). Berwick's a pretty place too - good 2nd hand bookshops there also.

Re Meeting other LTers - yup, but I think you met other LTers quite a bit before I did, so I still could have met either of you first. I'll have to trawl my previous threads!

Audley End is just the name of the house and the station, there isn't an Audley End village (which would, effectively be Wendens Ambo). I don't know why the station isn't called by the name of the village it's in, but I assume it's just that there's bu**er all in the village, but people might actually want to visit the stately home (which, after all, is pretty close by, albeit a bit of a hairy walk/cycle).

>130 kidzdoc: Oh! Edinburgh! I spent the summer there when I studied abroad in college. I loved, loved, loved it. I hope you get to see both the old and the new towns, as that's an excellent way to get a scope of the history. Have fun!

Wow! What a great Meet-up photo! Enjoying LTers from shore to shore. I love it.

Continue to have a wonderful time. How are feeling?

I had never heard of shakshouka before reading your thread, and then yesterday I was talking to my daughter Mia and she mentioned she had made shaksouka the night before for dinner and was going to have its leftovers for lunch. She first had it at Doctor Shakshouka restaurant in Jaffa, Israel last year on her trip there, and liked it so much that she has been experimenting with various shakshouka recipes ever since! LT is so educational, and these types of coincidences always amuse me.

BTW I thought I'd let you know that my other daughter Sonia has finished her fellowship in developmental pediatrics at Texas Childrens and will now be a professor at Baylor Medical School and continue seeing patients at the Texas Childrens clinic. The majority of her patients are autistic, although she sees children with other developmental disorders as well.

Your trip looks wonderful so far--I'm jealous of all the LT meetups you get to attend!

Guid mornin from Edinburgh! It's just past 8 am here, and I'll leave in about an hour to go out. I'll stay in Old Town, where my hotel is located (on St Giles' Street, 1/2 block from High Street on the Royal Mile and within eyesight of St Giles' Cathedral).

I took a few photos as I walked from Edinburgh Waverley, the city's main train station, to my hotel. First is the Scott Monument, dedicated to the famed author Sir Walter Scott, which is the tallest monument to a writer in the world. It was only 2 pm when I took this photo, and although the monument has been darkened by decades of smoke it isn't that dark. I'll take a better photo in the next day or two.



A view of Old Town from the Waverley Bridge, which sits above Edinburgh Waverley Station, the main train station in the city, which was named for the protagonist of Sir Walter Scott's novel Waverley.



The Museum on the Mound, dedicated to money, coinage and the economy, which is the former headquarters of the Bank of Scotland.



The Bilmoral Balmoral Hotel, which is adjacent to Waverley Station.

A view down High Street, part of the Royal Mile. The 17th century Tron Kirk, a former parish church, can be seen at the far left of this photo.



The St Giles' Cathedral, which dates back to the 15th century, also located on High Street.



A monument near the Heart of Midlothian and St Giles' Cathedral; I'll find out what this is later this morning.



I'll also find out what this building is shortly, as it's less than 200 yards from the entrance to my hotel, as is St Giles' Cathedral.

Today I'll visit the National Museum of Scotland, the University of Edinburgh and its famed medical school, visit Word Power Books, have lunch at Elephants and Bagels, and walk through Old Town along the Royal Mile to Calton Hill, per Fliss's suggestion. I'll visit Edinburgh Castle, the Scott Monument, the National Gallery of Scotland and New Town tomorrow. I can already see that it would likely take a week to see everything that I'd like to in Edinburgh, so I view this trip as a small appetizing taste of this lovely city. God willing, I'll spend more time here in the next year or two.

>133 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. Today is supposed to be a considerably nicer day than tomorrow, but I have a raincoat and umbrella, so I'll still go out if it rains as expected on Wednesday.

>134 flissp: I think that Edinburgh has already lived up to expectations, Fliss!

Even if I wanted to visit Glasgow on this trip there are major delays on the train service between here and there, due to signaling work, so it isn't a great time to go. I suspect that I'll want to return to Edinburgh in the near future, so I'll visit Glasgow and Berwick then.

Hmm...looking at my map, the MapEasy's Guidemap to Scotland & Edinburgh, I see that both Black Medicine Coffee Company and Elephants and Bagels are located close to the Museum of Scotland, and are on the way to Word Power Books on West Nicolson Street. Decisions, decisions...

I'll have to go back to my 2009 75 Books thread, but I'm pretty sure that Rachael is the first LTer I met. I definitely met LTers in NYC the following year, but it wasn't until 2011 that I started participating in meet ups on a regular basis. Did you and Rachael first meet when you, she, Jenny and I spent a day out in Cambridge? That was the day that we (not you, though, since you had to work that day) went punting on the River Cam with Rachael's children, then met you for dinner. Had you and I met before then? (I suspect that we had.)

Thanks for clarifying the Audley End/Wenders Ambo confusion; that's why I first assumed that The Fighting Cocks was in Audley End. What is bu**er? I keep seeing "butter", but that doesn't make any sense. I'll see if Google can help me.

ETA: No, not really. I found a book that has "Bu**er" in the title, but I still don't get it.

Gah! How cool that it is morning there and you are about to head out to do a load of cool stuff. I am winding down here readying myself for a quiet night in reading ;)
Have fun!! My main memory of Edinburgh is the fantastic baked potato shops there, cheap and filling.

>135 lycomayflower: Thanks, Laura! That's fabulous that you were able to spend a summer here. I'm all but certain that I will return to Edinburgh in the future, and although I'm planning to visit New Town tomorrow (and definitely Old Town today) I may just stay in Old Town tomorrow as well, and save New Town and other sections of the city for a longer visit here.

>136 msf59: Thanks, Mark! There are many more photos from our day in the country on Sunday, which I finished uploading to a Facebook album last night but haven't yet labeled. I'll do that this weekend, and post photos here at that time.

I'm feeling well; thanks for asking! Oh, I did have a little bit of an asthma flare up when I decided to walk up the steps between Cockburn Street and the aptly named High Street on the way to my hotel yesterday, but I had my albuterol inhaler with me and so far I feel back to normal. Here's a photo of most (but not all!) of those steps:



>137 arubabookwoman: I hadn't heard of shakshouka either before Paul and I went to Café Asbo on Friday. I will try Ottolenghi's recipe for it if when I return to Atlanta, as I enjoyed the café's version of it.

Congratulations on your daughter's completion of her fellowship and appointment at Baylor! That's great news, and you must be overjoyed with pride.

I've been fortunate to meet so many splendid LTers in the US and UK (and the Netherlands will be added to that list later this month). The ones I've met who live in the UK, in particular, are lovely people and are eager to meet up whenever possible, and although a day like yesterday was very memorable and enjoyable it fortunately hasn't been unusual. Through them I've seen much more of England than I would have on my own, which makes me appreciate this country that much more and want to return here whenever I can.

In contrast, I have yet to meet an LTer in Atlanta, and although there is an LT group for people who live in the area it is moribund, at best. I proposed two meetups for literary events in that group, but after I met with dead silence both times I've removed myself from it. There are plenty of LTers to meet elsewhere, though, so I don't mind not meeting anyone in the ATL.

>141 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan! I continue to think of New Zealand as Upside Down World, as it seems that whatever time of day or season of the year it is in the US or Western Europe it's the opposite there. Have a great time reading today tonight!

I'll have to keep an eye out for a baked potato shop here.

Wow, it's almost 10 am here. Back later.

>140 kidzdoc: The * are g's - it's a very mild word in American English, much stronger in British English*.

I've been to Edinburgh once, by...train, probably, though my memory says bus. My university roommate and I spent a break there - just three or four days. Lots of walking, lots of neat sights, but they've blurred over the years - I'm enjoying your views as they trigger my own vague memories. The only things I remember clearly are the view of Edinburgh Castle, the panoramic pinhole camera just below it, and a fantastic piper playing as we climbed the hill.

Is it "Bilmoral" or "Balmoral" Hotel? It's Balmoral Castle, I'm almost certain...

*Joke/true story; my father has told me of a cousin of his who accompanied his Canadian girlfriend to her home for the first time, to meet her parents and sibling(s). One of the family was a much younger boy (7-8?); the cousin, meeting him, patted him on the head and said "Aren't you a cute little bu**er!". Not sure how the relationship went, but the rest of that visit at least was a disaster, with the parents regarding the cousin with some horror.

Loving the photos of Edinburgh, Darryl. It's a beautiful city and I hope you enjoy your time there. I do remember struggling with the hills when I was there though - the walk up to the castle in particular.

Glad you're enjoying Edinburgh Darryl.

The Scott monument pic probably looks that dark because you've got a very bright sky behind it, so the light meter on your camera is fooled - it probably would have come out better from a different angle. :o)

Can I recommend Black Medicine Cafe over Elephant and Bagel? The former is easily my favourite cafe in Edinburgh, and it does do lunch stuff too (similar fare, if not quite the varied bagel fillings that you'll get at the latter).

I do believe you are smitten with dear Edinburgh ...... see your friends would not put you wrong

>142 kidzdoc: "...I continue to think of New Zealand as Upside Down World..." or is it the opposite way round ?

will be interested to see what your thoughts are on Trainspotting

Oh man, Black Magic coffee shop. Sigh. Your photos are making me "home" sick. :-(

>143 jjmcgaffey: Is it "Bilmoral" or "Balmoral" Hotel?
It's "Balmoral," like the castle. I stayed there once and it was quite nice.

Great pictures Darryl. Enjoy your time in Scotland.

Now I want to go to Edinburgh too!

I had a very enjoyable first full day in Edinburgh. I visited the National Museum of Scotland for nearly three hours, ate a far too expensive but tasty lunch of scallops and sea bass at the Tower Restaurant at the top of the museum (I was starving and the photo I saw of the food was irresistible), visited the campus of the University of Edinburgh and its world renowned medical school, went book shopping at a very good indie bookshop, had coffee and a scone at a café that Fliss recommended, walked around Old Town for a bit, and went inside St Giles' Cathedral before I returned to my hotel. Out of sheer laziness I've just ordered room service for dinner, and I may go back out later if there is a late night coffeehouse nearby.

>143 jjmcgaffey: Ah; thanks, Jennifer. You're right, I don't think of that word being a particularly bad one, unless it's used as a vulgar description of a particular act, so that word didn't dawn on me.

I didn't make it to Edinburgh Castle today, or Calton Hill, but I'll almost certainly go there tomorrow. I'll probably have to save a visit to New Town for a future visit here. I'm in love with what I've seen of Edinburgh so far, and I definitely want to return as soon as I can.

You're right; it's Balmoral, not Bilmoral. Thanks for noticing that.

Oops. I wonder if your cousin got a second date with that girl. That word isn't in my vocabulary or on my radar, and I shall do my best not to utter it in the presence of polite company.

>144 souloftherose: Thanks, Heather. Edinburgh is a beautiful city, as you said, and I definitely want to explore it in more detail than I'll be able to on this short trip. I suspect that I'll do better on the more gradual ascents to Edinburgh Castle and Calton Hill than I did on the much steeper trip up the steps from Cockburn Street to High Street yesterday. Fortunately I didn't have any more asthma related bronchospasm when I walked through Old Town today, so hopefully I'll do fine tomorrow as well.

>145 flissp: You're probably right, Fliss. Now that I think about it my view of the Scott Monument was dark from that angle anyway.

I read this message when I was in the museum, so I took your suggestion to go to Black Medicine Coffee instead of Elephants & Bagels. I liked the atmosphere there although I only stayed there for an hour or so. I might give Elephants & Bagels a try tomorrow, since it isn't that far from my hotel (I walked everywhere today and didn't consider taking public transportation).

Wow, these photos bring back memories. Especially the first two, as I took pretty much exactly those same snaps when I was there! Glad you're having a good time!

>146 roundballnz: Right, Alex! Fliss is a very reliable source of information, and positive comments from her, you, Rachael and others made me eager to travel to Edinburgh on this trip. My only regret is that I planned a trip of only two full days. Next time I'll spend more time here.

>or is it the opposite way round ?

Ha! It all depends on your frame of reference, I suppose.

I did buy Trainspotting at Word Power Books this afternoon, along with the two other books I had planned to buy, And the Land Lay Still by James Robertson, and Scottish History Without the Boring Bits by Ian Crofton, which the bookshop highlighted on its web page. Word Power Books reminded me of a smaller version of City Lights Books in San Francisco, still my #1 favorite bookshop, as both are well stocked with activist and left wing books and both are supported by prominent authors in and beyond their respective areas.

>147 charl08: Sorry, Charlotte! At least you can come here much more easily than I can.

>148 lauralkeet: The Balmoral does look like a nice hotel, from what little I saw of it. I passed in front of it when I crossed Princes Street to go to the Apple Store just after I arrived at Waverley Station yesterday. I can see it prominently from my hotel room window (the Fraser Suites on St Giles' Street).

>149 Oberon: Thanks, Erik. I took roughly 100 more photos today, which I posted in three albums on Facebook. I'll post some of them here later this week. (If anyone wants to see these albums feel free to send me a Facebook friend request.)

>150 connie53: you should visit Edinburgh, Connie! For a minute there I thought that I was the only LTer who hadn't already been here. ;-)

>152 lycomayflower: Thanks, Laura! There are more photos to come. Oh, I also need to post some of the photos I took in Saffron Walden and Thaxted on Sunday.

Your lunch sounds gorgeous. It's one I would like to have eaten, too. Darryl, I love all your photos I saw on FB and your comments here. Enjoy it.

>153 kidzdoc: I'd love to see your photos but do you know how many "Darryl Morris's there are on Facebook. I don't think you are the "meat cutter from Piggly Wiggly"!

>153 kidzdoc: and earlier

Glad you are having a great first day. Empathise with the astma grrr. Lunch sounded good.

I'm reading James Robertson's 365 Stories, bit behind at the moment, but loving them. 365 x 365 word stories.

BTW: will you be investing in a kilt, or at least a sporran?

I feel suitably chastised for my bad language!

Darryl, I think I'm probably posting this too late, but just in case I'm not (and given your recent asthma trouble etc), if you do go up Calton Hill (which I do recommend), you can cut out part of the climb by going up from the Greenside Row (off Leith Walk) side, which is higher up that Regent Terrace. The top of the hill isn't a long walk, but it is quite steep.

The Librarything Gods are once again offering Lter's free passes to the Exhibit Hall at the American Library Association Annual Conference in San Francisco, CA. The conference exhibit hall will be open at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 27, 2015 and close at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, June 29, 2015. This is a great opportunity to get lots of swag in the form of low cost or free books from publishers. This is no small gift from the LT Gods as day passes to the exhibit hall are now $60.00 per day.

Here is the URL for the free passes: https://www.compusystems.com/servlet/ar?evt_uid=449&oi=UZyvT5onQxXHoIiGjo9vo...

To get the pass, go to the above URL and follow the directions. You must fill out the information on the second page of the process and print out the pass at the end. The company code is found at the end of the URL and you will need it to fill out the information for the printed pass. Take the printed pass to the Registration area of the ALA and present it at the proper desk. At Registration desk you will get a conference badge. You will not be admitted to the exhibit hall without the conference badge so go there first and then go to the exhibit hall. The pass is good for only one day, so you will need to repeat the process for each day you plan to be in the exhibit hall. Once you have the conference bag you can enter and leave the exhibit hall whenever you wish to do so.

Remember, no wheeled carts or bags are allowed on the exhibit hall floor. There is a coat check facility in the conference hall where you can check a bag. You can make trips back and forth to fill the bag. I have a back pack that I use as they are allowed on the conference floor. Vendors also often have free shopping bags that come in handy in the exhibit hall.

Advanced Reader's Copies of books are usually free, but books in the exhibits are not. Hardbacks are usually for sale for $10.00 and paperbacks for $5.00, but it varies from vendor to vendor. If you have questions ask one of the publisher sales reps and they will help you. Also, take note of the posters advertising when authors are going to be in booths. Even though you may have to stand in line for popular authors you can often get free signed books. But be warned the lines for popular authors are usually very long. There are also readings going on throughout the three days of the conference so take a look at the advertising and sit in and listen to them. Many times free books are given away at these talks as well.

If you would like to have an LT meetup I will be in the exhibit hall on Sunday afternoon and later on Monday morning. You can contact me using a Personal Message here on LT or we can pirate Darryl's thread for a few posts to make arrangements.

Darryl, I know you loved the Verso sale at Christmas, so I wanted to let you know that they have 90% off all ebooks today. I hope you can fit in some mobile shopping :-)

Hi Darryl, lovely to catch up.

I hope you all enjoyed The Orestia.

Here are a couple of photos from my camera of our pre-theatre meet-up:

Your good self with Bianca and Laura



et avec moi



It was lovely to meet you for the first time Bianca and Laura, and I enjoyed my first visit to Ottelengi's too. Won't be the last.

There is quite a bit of graffiti art in Islington, here are a couple of pieces I saw on the way to the bus stop:

This looked like great fun! Wish I was there. I love Ottelengi and have two of his cookbooks. I think the recipes are very inventive with common ingredients. I am glad that you had a great time. You take good pictures.

More lovely meetup photos! Thanks for sharing them.

Thanks Benita and Laura. We had a lovely time. I didn't go to the theatre, as I have seen two previous productions. I'm looking forward to hearing the reviews.

I can't believe you just went straight to bed without reporting Darryl :-)

Great travelogue of Edinburgh, Darryl! You are already making me wish I was back there.

Oh, what wonderful meet-up photos.

Note to self - must remember to go to Ottolenghi's some day. I've walked past it several times, but never actually gone in.

Sorry for falling badly behind on my own thread! Let's see...I had a very nice second full day in Edinburgh on Wednesday, as I walked the length of the Royal Miles from St Giles' Church to the funky new Scottish Parliament building, had a delightful roast pork sandwich with haggis ("a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock") and chunky apple sauce for lunch, and rode on an Edinburgh Tour bus around central Edinburgh. It was a cold and windy day, as it only topped out at 57 F (a full 40 F cooler than Atlanta!), but it felt 10 degrees colder than that. I was going to take Fliss' suggestion to walk up Calton Hill, but as the bus left the Scottish Parliament and went up the hill on my second go round it began to rain, so I decided to save a journey there for another time, hopefully next year if not later this year.

Yesterday I returned to London on a West Coast Main Line train, unpacked and changed clothes, then went to Islington in North London to have dinner with Bianca, Caroline and Laura, my work partner who is visiting her sister and her family who live here. I arrived early, and on Laura's suggestion I went to Yotam Ottolenghi's restaurant in Islington, which was a stone's throw away from the Almeida Theatre, to have coffee. Fortunately I was able to make reservations for dinner there, and we changed our dinner plans. The food was outstanding, and practically everything on the menu looked delightful. We (Bianca, Laura and I) finished in just enough time to walk to the theatre to see a fabulous modernized adaptation of Aeschylus's Greek tragedy Oresteia, which we all loved. The play lasted nearly 4 hours, ending just before 11 pm. Bianca's flat mate picked her up, and I escorted Laura part of the way back to her sister's house, so I didn't arrive at my hotel until just past midnight. I only slept for four hours yesterday morning, so I fell asleep not long afterward.

I'll stay inside this morning (it's nearly 10 am here), and this afternoon I'll meet Caroline again for a picnic lunch and tour at the Chelsea Physic Garden. Claire and I will view the Australian exhibition at the British Museum later this afternoon, then have dinner at Tas, a Turkish restaurant in Bloomsbury.

I forgot to add that there are plenty of Edinburgh photos on Facebook, and I'll post some of them here this weekend. I think I'll go back to sleep for a bit, and catch up here tonight after dinner, or tomorrow before I meet Fliss to see a play in London.

>161 Caroline_McElwee: Great photos, Caroline! I wish I could have joined you all but at least I can see the pictures.

Darryl, I've been following your photos some on FB and very much enjoying them. Your not-technically-vacation trip is sounding lovely!

Sounds great, Darryl. I'm making a mental note to remember that restaurant in Islington, as we'll be staying in Islington again this fall. Was casual dress okay?

Hi Darryl

I hope you had a lovely Turkish dinner. It was lovely to catch up with you again today and spend some time at Chelsea Physic, and the British Museum. Here are the couple of photographs I took of you at Chelsea Phys.





And here is that cheeky robin, in case you didn't catch him:



>172 jnwelch: Joe, we met when you were here last year, at the Globe Theatre. Darryl said he thought you and Debbi might enjoy the Chelsea Physic Garden, and so possibly we could all arrange to meet there when you are here in the fall. Bigger picnic required!

Here's the link to England's second oldest garden:

http://chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/

Enjoy the rest of your Euro-travels Darryl, I shall enjoy watching what you get up to.

Sent you a friend request so I can see your photos of Scotland!

>173 Caroline_McElwee: we remember, Caroline! What a nice time that was at the Globe. We'd definitely enjoy the garden visit and picnic, so let's hope we can all get it coordinated.

Great photos! I showed them to Debbi, and she said to ask Darryl where his adorable pork pie hat is. :-)

Yeh, we never did get the photo of him in his pork pie hat, you are right Joe. Darryl... When you get home, we'll nag you....

Fun pics Caroline and Darryl :)

The garden looks lovely and what a nice picnic. I like to eat simple when I travel and love picnics in gardens. When I was in Belfast we had a picnic in the Queen's university botanical garden and aside from it being quite cool it was a wonderful time. Did the same thing at a local baroque country churchyard in Bavaria. My usual picnic menu is cheese, bread, olives, and fruit along with a local brew.

Sorry, I haven't done a good job of posting photos and meet up descriptions so far! I should be able to catch up by no later than tomorrow, though. I'll meet Fliss shortly to see the play "Everyman" at the National Theatre, and we'll likely have an early dinner afterward. Tomorrow is completely open so far, and Claire and I will spend a day in Winchester on Monday. Back later...

Hi Darryl, I wish you a fabulous weekend.

I love to keep up with all things concerning your trip to the UK, Darryl. I can't wait to read what you think about Holland. And looking forward to seeing you on Saturday in Utrecht.
My daughter and son in law think I'm nuts meeting some one I know only from the internet.
"Mum, you can not do that. There are all kinds of men pretending to be nice and all that".
But I think I will risk it anyway ;-))))

Catching up, first with Connie's post:

>181 connie53: Good morning, Connie! I'm eager to make my first visit to Holland, and to meet up with you, Tad and Julie. (Ooh, I need to send e-mail messages to them, now that our visits are quickly approaching; I haven't been in touch with them since I arrived in London.) I'm looking forward to our meet up on Saturday as well, and hopefully they will join us.

I don't want you to feel obligated to our meet up plan on Saturday, particularly if your family is uncomfortable with it. Other than the Fleurine & Brad Mehldau concert at Bimhuis on Sunday I haven't made any other fixed plans yet, so my schedule is wide open and entirely flexible. If any of your family members would like to join us it's absolutely fine with me, too. I can certainly understand their feelings; I would be a bit nervous if my sister (if I had one) or mother was going to meet someone she met on the Internet!

>155 Ameise1: Caroline prepared a splendid lunch, and it was a far better day to have a picnic than the weather forecast originally called for. When we were at the Chelsea Physic Garden it was mostly sunny and comfortably cool with a light breeze, which was perfect weather for dining, chatting, and walking through the garden.



The Chelsea Physic Garden is the second oldest botanical garden in England. "Tucked away beside the Thames, Chelsea Physic Garden is a celebration of the beauty and importance of plants. This walled Garden was founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries for its apprentices to study the medicinal qualities of plants and it became one of the most important centres of botany and plant exchange in the world." The Garden features sections dedicated to plants that have medicinal benefits, and numerous signs and posts provide information about these plants and their discovery.

Some random photos from the Garden:







Caroline under a flowering tree:

More photos from the Chelsea Physic Garden:

>151 kidzdoc: your first full day in Edinburgh sounds like a dream. I am all for room service after a busy day day-tripping. What a fun luxury....and topping it off with a jaunt out for a late coffee? Genius!

(the second day sounded alright too..)

The flowers and plants are lovely, not winterty like here at all! The ferns (4th down) look so similar to native NZ ones that are all over our forests.

>155 Ameise1: Oh...I just realized that you were referring to my lunch on Wednesday at Tower Restaurant, at the roof of the National Museums of Scotland, not the picnic lunch I had on Friday at the Chelsea Physic Garden with Caroline. I didn't take any photos there, but I had scallops and sea bass, which were expertly prepared and very tasty. It was an expensive meal, but it was worth it to me.

>156 catarina1: You're right. I'm not the meat cutter from Piggly Wiggly, nor the new late show radio host on Rock FM in Manchester (http://radiotoday.co.uk/2012/08/new-late-show-host-on-rock-fm-key-103/), nor the defensive back for the San Francisco 49ers (http://www.nfl.com/player/darrylmorris/2541629/profile), nor the San Francisco Police Department inspector who befriended the young women in the TV show Charmed (http://charmed.wikia.com/wiki/Darryl_Morris).

>157 Caroline_McElwee: The two full days I had in Edinburgh were very enjoyable, Caroline. There was no way I could have seen everything I wanted to in that short period of time, though. Other than the books I bought at Word Power Books on Tuesday I didn't purchase any other items while I was there. I'll definitely return to Scotland very soon, and I'll likely buy a few things then.

>158 flissp: Bad Fliss! ;-)

I intended to walk up Calton Hill on Wednesday, after I noticed that the Edinburgh Tour bus I rode stopped there. The first time around I realized it too late, as I hadn't been on the bus for long (I picked it up at the Scottish Parliament stop). I did a complete circuit, but by the time it came around again, roughly an hour later it had started to rain, so I decided to save a walk there for another time.

Thanks for a lovely afternoon yesterday!

>159 benitastrnad: Feel free to pirate my thread, Benita!

>160 susanj67: Thanks for mentioning the Verso Books sale, Susan. Unfortunately I saw it too late to take advantage of it. I still haven't transferred the e-books I bought over the holidays to my Kindle, so I'll have to get to that soon.

>161 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks for posting those photos, Caroline! We were fortunate to get a table at Yotam Ottolenghi's restaurant in Islington on Thursday, which is conveniently located on Upper Street at its intersection with Almeida Street, within eyesight of the Almeida Theatre, where we (Bianca, my work partner Laura and I) saw Oresteia that evening. Laura was in town this week to visit her sister, who lives in Islington, and we made plans to meet up last month. I took a Virgin East Coast Main Line train from Edinburgh Waverley to London King's Cross earlier that day, which arrived early that afternoon. I returned to my hotel, changed clothes, and since I had extra time and wanted to get to Islington early Laura suggested going to Ottolenghi to have coffee and a pastry before we were planning to have dinner at Le Mercury, a French restaurant directly across Upper Street from Ottolenghi. When I arrived there I asked one of the staff if any tables were available for dinner; when I looked for reservations on Open Table the first available opening was on July 6th! To my great pleasure and surprise it did have an opening for four people at 5:30-7:00 pm, which was perfect since the play started at 7.



We each chose a cold dish from the counter, and a hot dish from the kitchen. Everything on the menu looked delightful, and I think we were all very pleased with what we had. My cold dish was roasted aubergine with sorrel yoghurt, turmeric pickled radish, spring onion and almonds:



My hot dish was grilled lamb cutlets, rose harissa, spiced aubergine and ash goat’s cheese:



I dug in to both dishes before I realized that I hadn't taken photos of them yet.

Oresteia was superb. I'll read the script and write a review of it soon.

>162 benitastrnad: Ottolenghi (the restaurant) was outstanding. He has four restaurants in London, in Soho, Spitalfields, Notting Hill and Islington, and I would love to try each of them. I'll definitely go to the Ottolenghi Islington whenever I see a play at the Almeida Theatre.

I do have the Kindle version of his cookbook Plenty, and I'll take a look at it if after I return to the US. The restaurant had his cookbooks prominently displayed near the entrance, and I'll have to get one of his other ones the next time I come to London, which will likely be in mid-September.

>163 lauralkeet: You're welcome, Laura. I'm glad that Caroline posted photos in my absence!

>164 Caroline_McElwee: Ha! I was utterly pooped after a very long day on Thursday, which carried over into Friday. I didn't get much sleep on Wednesday night/Thursday morning after multiple unsuccessful attempts to dry my clothes in the hotel's laundry room before I left Edinburgh, and I only slept from 2-6 am. So, that day began at 6 am in Edinburgh and ended not long after I returned to the hotel in London after midnight. The play ended just before 11 pm, and I escorted Laura on the Underground part of the way back to her sister's house, due to the late hour (Bianca's flat mate picked her up at the theatre). I didn't get back to my hotel room on Friday until 10:30 pm or so, as it took nearly two hours for our dinner to be served after we left the British Museum.

>165 lkernagh: Thanks, Lori!

>166 Ameise1: Caroline does take good photos, Barbara!

>167 SandDune: Definitely pay a visit to one of Ottolenghi's restaurants, Rhian, even if it's just for coffee and pastry. I had a pear and plum frangipane tart before dinner, and it was divine (sorry, I forgot to take a photo of it).

>170 Sakerfalcon: I wish that you could have joined us, Claire. We'll have to pay a visit to one of Ottolenghi's restaurants in the near future.

>171 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen! My holiday is roughly half over, and there will be more meet up photos in England and the Netherlands over the next week and a half.

>172 jnwelch: I think semi-casual dress would be fine for Ottolenghi Islington, Joe. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable going there in jeans and a T-shirt, but I doubt that it would trouble anyone there.

Good morning, Darryl. What a wonderful holiday you have even though you don't get much sleep. What are your plans for the upcoming week.

Indeed, I love seefood and fish and I was a bit jealous to read what marvellous dish you had in Edinburgh.

>173 Caroline_McElwee: Great photos, Caroline, especially the one of the robin! He moved too quickly for me to capture him, so very well done on getting him in a close up view.

>174 thornton37814: Friend request accepted, Lori! If anyone else wishes to do the same please let me know, especially if you can't find me amongst the others who share my name.

>175 jnwelch: Ha! The adorable pork pie hat, which I bought last year in Old Spitalfields Market, is in Atlanta. I thought it would be too warm here to bring it in June. I suspect that it is lonely and homesick, though.

>176 Caroline_McElwee: I shall have to bring and proudly wear the porkpie hat in September, Caroline.

>177 brenpike: Thanks, Brenda.

>178 benitastrnad: Your picnic venues and choice of foods sound good, Benita.

>180 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I hope that you are enjoying your weekend, too.

>185 LovingLit: Although the room service dinner in Edinburgh was satisfying I wish I had gone out instead. I was a bit wheezy that night, though, so it was probably for the best that I stayed inside that night. Fortunately that asthma flare up was only a brief one, and I was back to normal by the following morning.

Winter? I thought that today was the first day of summer!

>189 Ameise1: Good morning, Barbara! Today will be a day to catch up on rest and sleep. I was going to go to a laundrette this morning, but I think I'll hand wash sufficient clothes in my room instead and wash the rest on Tuesday morning. I did buy a ticket to see a play at the National Theatre tonight, but that is the only plan I've made for today. Tomorrow Claire and I will spend a day in Winchester, and tomorrow night Fliss and I will see The Trial starring Rory Kinnear at The Young Vic. I leave for Amsterdam on Wednesday morning; I'll take a Eurostar train from St Pancras to the Lille Europe station in France, then transfer to a Thalys train from there to Amsterdam Centraal. Tad (@TadAD), his wife Julie and their kids will arrive in Amsterdam the following day, and Connie and I are planning to meet in Utrecht on Saturday.

>191 kidzdoc: Your plans sound fantastic, Darryl. I don't think you have time to make some sightseeing in Lille. It's a most beautiful town and worth to visit it.
Enjoy your time.

>192 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. I definitely won't have time to do any sightseeing in Lille; if I remember correctly the Thalys train departs in less than half an hour from the time that the Eurostar train arrives there. I hope that is enough time, especially if I have to get my passport stamped there.

Keep my fingers crossed.

>194 Ameise1: Thanks! I'll be doing the same thing on Wednesday.

Your mom's going to enjoy all your lovely flower photographs Darryl.

What a pain you had to wait so long for your meal.

I shall look forward to seeing that pork pie hat.

>196 Caroline_McElwee: I'll have to ask my parents if they have been looking at my photos on Facebook. My father has an active account, but he rarely looks at it.

We were mildly miffed about having to wait so long for our meal, after repeated requests for service. I think the initial (clueless) waiter was confused when Claire and I told him that we were waiting for a third person to join us (Luci, who came about an hour later). Even after we told him roughly a half hour after we were seated that the two of us wanted to go ahead and order no one had come to take our meal requests until well after Luci showed up. I think that we arrived there at roughly 7 pm, and we didn't start eating until after 9 pm. If I had been by myself I would have left my table and gone elsewhere. Fortunately the food was very good, but it didn't make up for the poor service.

I had patlican salatasi (grilled aubergine purée with tahini, olive oil, yogurt and garlic), and kalamar yahnisi (squid cooked with green lentils, chickpeas, double cream and orange rind):





There is a photo of me wearing the porkpie hat on my profile page.

I slept for at least six hours last night, took a three hour nap, and I'm still beat. I think today will be an inside day, even though it's a very nice day outside.

Darryl - Thanks for sharing photos of your trip. I think Edinburgh will be on the agenda soon. The food and meet ups and book acquisitions are all wonderful. This sounds like it's shaping up to be a truly memorable vacation -- even if it didn't start as you had planned.

>198 BLBera: You're welcome, Beth. I still have a lot of catching up to do, as I haven't yet posted photos from our Sunday LT meetup, when we visited Saffron Walden and Thaxted, or the photos I took in Edinburgh on Tuesday and Wednesday. I also need to write two book reviews and three theatre reviews. There will also be photos from tomorrow's meet up with Claire in Winchester. I should be able to do all of that by the time I arrive in Amsterdam on Wednesday.

It has been another memorable vacation so far. As someone said earlier, Barcelona will always be there, and hopefully I'll be able to visit Catalunya in October.

And the weather in Barcelona is great in Oct- warm but not heavy heat.

>200 torontoc: Perfect! And there should be fewer tourists as well, I would think.

Are all the plants in the Physic Garden considered medicinal? That garden looks lovely and not the usual kind of tourist place.

My mother is going to have children on opposite coasts next weekend. I will be in San Francisco and my sister will be in Washington, D.C. for the annual meeting of The Daughters of the American Revolution. She has visits planned to the library and reading room at the DAR headquarters and I have a visit to the Twitter library planned. It seems we have a thing about libraries in our family.

To me your trip to London seems more like you are visiting friends than it does the usual tourist vacation. All those theater visits and eating establishments probably give you some extra insight to the culture and the people. It sounds like the kind of vacation/visit I like to do. This is in contrast to s friend of mine who just traveled 2,700 miles to The Black Hills, Yellowstone, and then to Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. To me it seemed more like it was a contest to put more notches on a belt or check off things from some sort of bucket list than it was a vacation. Or a trip. I like what you are doing much better.

>202 benitastrnad: I don't believe that all of the plants in the Chelsea Physic Garden have medicinal properties, Benita. There was a section for ferns, some plants were notable for their fragrances, and others were displayed for other reasons, including the relatively dull plants whose leaves served as food for aphids, so that those insects wouldn't feast on the more prominent flora.

The Garden was anything but touristy, and it was lovely.

I look forward to your reports from San Francisco!

This trip has been a very typical one so far, at least for my visits to London since 2013. I've been very fortunate to make friends with several active and formerly active members of LT, along with a non-LT friend of an LTer. It would be nice enough to come here on my own, but it is significantly more meaningful to be able to do things with my UK based friends. And, along that line, I just made plans to spend next Sunday with Bianca in Cologne, which will be my first visit to Germany. I'll see Tad and his family while I'm in Amsterdam, and hopefully Connie in Utrecht on Saturday. I'd much rather do this sort of thing instead of your friend's recent trip.

As others have said, the gardens are absolutely lovely. I'm also glad to hear that the restaurant lived up to its hype. I have had the cookbook on my wish list for awhile. I'll be able to access it at the library if I ever get moved to Raleigh without taking on the wrath of Jeff for buying another cookbook that we won't have room to house. Did I mention how hard it is to try to part with cookbooks when you are forced to downsize?

Darryl, what exquisite pictures! I'm so happy to see you're enjoying yourself and feeling well, despite the strain of the steps to your hotel. Sounds like you've got quite a lot of vacation to go so continue to enjoy the sites and cuisine!

LT Meet-Ups Galore! Hooray! Sounds like you are having a wonderful time, Darryl!

Love all the garden photos!

>182 kidzdoc:
Well, I'm coming to Utrecht! Or something dreadful must happen, like me breaking a leg or something or becoming really ill with fever and such. They should be used to me meeting up with friends from internet. And I'm perfectly certain you are really you. So no fear, I'll be there!

So glad to see you are having a good trip, the Chelsea physic garden looks beautiful from your photos. I've never been, but your photos make it look very tempting.

Oh, this all sounds so good, Darryl. I've never visited Germany either; I look forward to tales of Cologne and your visit with our friend Bianca - please say hello to her for us.

Chelsea Physic Garden looks great - I hope it works out that we can all visit there in the fall.

hi Darryl
Kerry (avatiakh) was so nice to tell me you are visiting the Netherlands, maybe we can sqeeze in a meeting?
If not, no problem ;-)

Oh, I'll never get caught up with your thread, Darryl. But did see that you made a great book haul and have been eating well! I've been seeing the Edinburgh photos on facebook. I long to go back--two days was not nearly enough!

Thought of you this weekend when I saw a review of an inexpensive but recommended hotel in Barcelona.

Enjoy the upcoming travels and meetups!

Wonderful photos of your trip and especially of the meetups! And the food!

Altho, did you really eat the haggis? :)

Claire and I had spent a very enjoyable and special day in Winchester, a city located 63 miles SW of London on Monday. I took nearly 150 photos and uploaded them to an album in Facebook; I think I'll create smaller bite sized albums, though. I'll post some of those photos here soon.

Today is my last full day in London, unfortunately. I have a number of errands to run, and I'll go to Daunt Books, have lunch with Claire, and meet Fliss tonight to see The Trial, starring Rory Kinnear, at The Young Vic.

>204 thornton37814: I bought the Kindle version of Yotam Ottolenghi's cookbook Plenty earlier this year, when Amazon was selling it for $2.99, I think. Ottolenghi Islington had his cookbooks prominently displayed in the restaurant, which were visually appealing, but I didn't succumb to that temptation.

>205 Carmenere: Thanks, Lynda! I have a full week of vacation left, and the next seven days should all be very good ones.

>206 msf59: Definitely, Mark! There will be more garden photos from Winchester to come, and I still need to post photos from Essex and the two full days I spent in Edinburgh.

>207 connie53: Great, Connie! I'll see you in Utrecht on Saturday.

>208 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte. The Chelsea Physic Garden is a lovely day to visit, and I was blessed to have good weather and even better company when I went there with Caroline on Friday.

>209 jnwelch: Will do, Joe. Cologne is roughly 2 hr 40 min from Amsterdam on ICE, the Intercity-Express train service operated by Deutsche Bahn. Bianca and I will meet at Köln Hauptbahnhof station Sunday morning and part that evening, as she is leaving for Berlin early Monday morning. I'll give her your best wishes, and I've mentioned to her and Claire that you, Debbi and I will likely be in London at the same time later this year.

>210 FAMeulstee: Hi, Anita! Yes, I leave for Amsterdam tomorrow, and I fly back to Atlanta next Tuesday. I'plan to tour Amsterdam on Thursday, Friday and Monday, visit Connie in Utrecht on Saturday, and Bianca in Cologne on Sunday. I don't see any reason why we couldn't meet up while I'm there. Would you be interested in joining Connie and I on Saturday? If that's not possible I'm open to other suggestions.

>211 Cariola: You're right, Deborah; two days in Edinburgh was a nice appetizer, but I long for a more substantial Scottish entrée in the near future.

I saw that Barcelona hotel review in the NYT last week, as I receive e-mails from the paper of record whenever any articles that mention the city are posted.

>212 Storeetllr: Thanks, Mary! The haggis tasted great in that sandwich from Oink, although I'm not sure that I would have liked that pudding on its own.

Good morning, Darryl. Enjoy the play tonight. I saw a gorgeous performance of 'The Trial' last year here in Zürich. It's a story I can strongly recommend.

Leaving London tomorrow and back home next Tuesday? This seems like a whirlwind. But it also seems as though you have had an enjoyable vacation and seen a lot.

Waaaay behind on the threads but glad to see you're well again. I enjoyed the photos of Edinburgh; it's a delightful city.

Oh my, what a treat your thread is these days, Darryl. The Chelsea Physic Garden photos are lovely and the food looks and sounds delicious! You've got me mooning around the house saying to P "I want to go to England and spend some real time in London." It's not knocking Alaska off the travel plans for next summer but it has me scheming for 2017....

eta: if you're ever in my part of the world, I think you'd enjoy a trip to Victoria, BC, and the Butchart Gardens.

As always, I'm having a fine time following you around on your travels and food adventures.

Cologne is only about 100 km from my home town, Darryl. Isn't that a coincidence?

I will contact you on FB Darryl

I have never been to London, Amsterdam, or Utrecht - but I have been to Cologne. I will never forget walking out of the train station on a very early misty November morning and wondering why it was so dark. It was early in the day, but the reason it was dark was because the train station is in the shadow of the cathedral. Literally. I met a friend at the train station and so we were talking and walking, and going up some steps. I had on a heavy backpack and the steps seemed endless. I began to wonder where they were leading. I started looking up. And up. And up. And I nearly fell over backwards because my heavy backpack was pulling me backwards. It was then that I realized that I was looking at the Cologne cathedral. This building is designed to make you feel small.

Later that day I did climb the steps to the top. Or at least the top of where you are allowed to go. Of course, that was in 2002 and I was 13 years younger so I could do that then. I am not sure I could do that now.

I won't tell you what to see in Cologne, but I will tell you to drink a Kolsh beer. It is the local type of beer and the people of Nord Rhine/Westphalia love the stuff. Don't worry the glass is regular size. Not at all the supersized containers found in Ireland or Bavaria.

Happy traveling Darryl.

Safe joourney, Darryl.

Happy Landing in Amsterdam, Darryl.

>213 kidzdoc: I think if I'd spotted it at $2.99, I would have purchased it. Hopefully someone will mention it (and I'll see it) if it is ever that price again!

Hallo from Amsterdam! I arrived here mid afternoon, after taking a Eurostar train from London St. Pancras to Gare de Lille Europe, then a Thalys train from there to Amsterdaam Centraal. The trip took a little less than five hours, including a 35 minute layover at Gare de Lille, and it was a very pleasant and relaxing journey, particularly after I cleared Security and Customs at St Pancras. At St. Pancras you stand on lines that correspond to the train you are scheduled to take (to Paris, Brussels, or Marseilles), scan the barcode on your ticket on automated entry gates, pass through Security in a process essentially identical to the process in airports, and have your passport stamped by French border agents. That stamp serves as an exit from the UK, and an entry into France and the other European countries that are part of the Schengen agreement. So, I didn't need an additional stamp to enter the Netherlands when I was in Gare de Lille. That was a major concern of mine, as there was barely half an hour between the time the Eurostar train arrived in Lille and the time the Thalys train departed the station. Both trains were on time, and I had more than enough time to purchase a late breakfast, buy the Guardian newspaper, use the toilet, and board the Thalys train without rushing.

I was pretty pooped after two full days on Monday and Tuesday, so after I had a late lunch at a restaurant in Amsterdam Centraal Station, Grand Café 1e Klas and checked into my hotel I slept for nearly three hours and decided to stay in for the night. It's just before midnight here, and I'm still sleepy, so I'll catch up on posts and post photos here if I'm not nodding off by then.

>215 Ameise1: A very belated good evening to you, Barbara! I enjoyed last night's performance of The Trial, which I saw with Fliss at The Young Vic. I bought the script of the play and purchased the novel soon after I arrived in London, and I'll write a review of it later this week or after I return to Atlanta next week.

>216 catarina1: I have seen a lot so far on this three week vacation, catarina, but I did leave London with a twinge of regret, as there were several things I didn't get to do, and I didn't spend nearly as much time with my British friends as I would have liked. I'm excited to be in Amsterdam and I'm looking forward to meet ups with Tad, his wife Julie, Anita, Connie and Bianca, of course, but I look forward to returning to London ASAP.

>217 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks, Reba. I still have to post photos from my two full days in Edinburgh last week, and I may not be able to do that until I return to Atlanta.

>218 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen! I'm glad that you've been able to see the photos I've posted on Facebook so far. I enjoyed visiting the Chelsea Physic Garden with Caroline on Friday afternoon, and the gardens in Winchester that Claire and I saw on Monday. I'll post selected photos from those days out in the next week or so as well.

I need to visit the Pacific Northwest, although I'm not sure when that will be. I'm off from work for most of the month of August, and I'll spend five days in San Francisco, then fly to Philadelphia and spend two weeks with my parents there.

>219 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda!

>220 connie53: I can believe that, Connie. Bianca's parents live close to Cologne as well, as it will take her roughly an hour to travel there by train on Sunday. I'm still surprised that I was able to pass through four countries (England, France, Belgium and The Netherlands) in less than five hours by train today!

Brussels and Antwerp looked relatively unappealing from the train compared to Rotterdam and what little I've seen of Amsterdam so far.

>221 FAMeulstee: See you on Friday, Anita!

>222 benitastrnad: Thanks for that mini-travelogue about Cologne, Benita. Bianca's father gave her recommendations for restaurants and beer(s) to try there, so I'll have to see if he also mentions Kolsh beer.

>223 Caroline_McElwee:, >224 Ameise1: Thanks, Caroline and Barbara.

>225 connie53: Thanks, Connie. See you soon!

>226 thornton37814: I should have mentioned the Kindle sale on Plenty; sorry about that. I bought it on December 1st, and it was $2.99 then.

I think I'll turn in, since it's nearly 12:30 am here, and post photos later today.

#229
I don't know if that is the correct spelling of the word, but it is phonetically correct. Kolsh is a kind of beer only made in Cologne and for which the city is famous. Almost as famous as it is for cologne. Especially 4711 cologne. And that cathedral.

I've been trying to figure out what our second play will be when we're in London in August. Can't wait to read your review of The Trial...maybe that's it.

Darryl, Brussels is a very beautiful and charming town. I would revisit it any time.

>231 benitastrnad: According to Wikipedia it's Kölsch beer, Benita, so you were close enough. I'll give it a try on Sunday when I visit Bianca in Cologne, unless her father recommends another beer.

Yesterday I had Grolsch Rijke Herftsbok, a dark ale, with lunch, which was very good. The brewery is celebrating its 400th anniversary this year.

>232 RebaRelishesReading: I'm glad that you'll visit London this summer, Reba! Are you planning to meet any LTers while you're there?

I liked The Trial, and Rory Kinnear was brilliant as Josef K., although it was a bit odd to hear his internal monologue in what Fliss described as "pigeon English" and what I thought was a form of Old English. I bought a copy of the script, and here's an excerpt from one of those dialogues:

an almost woke ee up one morn - like baby
innocent an bold, the great white hole, lord of all
surveys, unslandered, clear of mind an hurt, future
ahead an ee all indestructible - Josef K

like crushed out dog on motorroad side

eyes a-glass an full of blood and vim for the day

im watched from all round windows, sunk all
stary eyes in bobby heads on spring, slobberjaw
and blanken lips

Of the four plays I saw I'd rank Oresteia first, followed by Everyman, The Trial, and The Motherfucker with the Hat.

>233 Ameise1: I'm glad that you found Brussels to be a charming city, Barbara. I suspected that I wasn't seeing the best of it from the train yesterday. It's a short journey from London to Brussels by train, and I would like to make at least a day trip there in the near future.

Here are some of the few photos I took in Amsterdam yesterday:

Amsterdam Centraal Station:





Grand Café 1e Klas within Amsterdam Centraal Station, where I had a very nice late lunch. The customers were treated to squawks from the restaurant's resident white cockatoo, whose perch was seated at the far end of the bar. I took a photo of that lovely bird, but you can't see him well in it.



I took these last two photos as I rode a tram from the station to Dam Square, where my hotel is located:





It's just past 8 am here (Amsterdam is on Central European Summer Time, one hour ahead of British Summer Time). I'm still a bit sleepy, but I'll get dressed and walk through the center of the city, using Rick Steves' Pocket Amsterdam as my guide.

Have a wonderful time in Amsterdam. Fascinating city. Are you going to hire a bike?

>229 kidzdoc:: Darryl: Rotterdam is a beautiful city, with lots of modern arcitecture. My husband was born and mostly raised in Rotterdam. I lived there for almost 25 years, it is still the city of my heart :-)

Not much to add to the conversation, but just wanted to Ooooh and Aaaaah over your travel photos, Darryl!

Loving the photos of Amsterdam which is very much on my travel bucket list!

I had a nice first full day in Amsterdam. I quickly deviated from Rick Steves' walking tour, as it would have had me walk down the very congested Kalverstraat, which was thick with thousands of tourists and dozens of speciality shops. Instead, I walked between the Royal Palace and the Nieuwe Kerk (the New Church, if you call a former church built in the early 15th century "new"), then proceeded south on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal to the nearby Amsterdam Museum, where I spent several enjoyable hours with relatively few visitors. I bought two books at the Athanaeum Boekhandel & Nieuwscentrum, A Short History of Amsterdam for my mother and Pocket Rough Guide Amsterdam for me, and had a very nice and leisurely outdoor late afternoon meal at the Museumcafé Mokum in near perfect weather (mostly sunny and 22 C (72 F)). Afterwards I did walk on the Kalverstraat, as I left the Amsterdam Museum at the other entrance (mistake!), then walked along the Flower Market along the Singel canal (I've never seen so many tulips!). At the end of the canal I boarded a number 16 tram, which indicated that it was headed back to Centraal Station. However, after a few minutes I realized that it was going away from Centraal Station, so I took in the view until we reached the Museumplein stop, where many of the major museums are located (Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum), along with the Concertgebouw, one of the world's great concert halls. I saw that Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, two world famous Brasilian musicians, were performing there tonight; unfortunately the concert was completely sold out. I did get a ticket for a jazz performance on Saturday night, though. I then boarded another number 16 tram, this time headed in the right direction toward Centraal Station, and my hotel on Dam Square.

I've also been making meet up plans for the next three days. Tomorrow Anita, Frank, Tad, his wife Julie, their girls and I will go to the Stedelijk Museum, the city's major modern art museum, and then have dinner at a beer café nearby. Connie, I and possibly Tad and his family will spend an afternoon in Utrecht, which is less than half an hour from Amsterdam by train, and that night I'll attend the jazz concert at Concertgebouw. I'll travel by train to Cologne, Germany on Sunday and spend the day with Bianca, and Monday I'll explore Amsterdam on my own, before I return to Atlanta on Tuesday.

You are such a busy bee, Darryl. See you on Saturday.

>236 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte. If I hire a bicycle it will be on Monday, but I'll probably just walk and ride trams to whereever I want to go.

Oh. I forgot to mention how surprised and impressed I was at the ethnic diversity here! There are far more people from the African and Asian diaspora than I would have expected, and it was interesting to hear them speak Dutch.

>237 FAMeulstee: Rotterdam looked appealing from the Thalys train I was on yesterday, Anita, and the photos I saw online were also enticing. I'll have to consider a visit there in the near future. I bought a Museumkaart at the Amsterdam Museum today, and since it's good for a year I suspect that I'll make at least one more visit to Amsterdam before it expires, and visit Rotterdam then.

>238 scaifea: Thanks, Amber! I posted a few dozen photos I took today on Facebook, and I'll post some of them here later tonight or tomorrow morning.

>239 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen! I've been very impressed by Amsterdam so far, and I'm eager to explore the city more in the next few days.

>241 connie53: Ha! I thought I should have done more today, Connie. See you on Saturday!

Great pics and vacation info, Darryl! It all sounds and looks good. Continue to enjoy your break from the daily grind :0)

What, no photos of bicycles! Ha :-)

Yes, Amsterdam is very diverse, but unless things have improved over the last ten years, most of the less cosmopolitan cities are less so. I stayed in (Dutch) Haarlem for a week, and didn't see one non-white face. I decided that's why I wasn't totally at ease there, having been raised in the melting pot that is London.

Looking forward to further travellers tales.

>240 kidzdoc: wow, I love hearing your news, so much more comprehensive than a postcard :)

My dad was in Amsterdam last year and has lent me his Rijksmuseum Guide guide (a long term loan I hope!). It is a great book, distinctly formatted with a lot of close ups, comparisons, and details of artworks. It is cleverly segmented into art periods too with cardboard fold out dividers.

I'm really enjoying the photos of your vacation, Darryl.

>243 Carmenere: Thanks, Lynda! The daily grind is coming up soon, as I go back to work on Wednesday, the day after I return to Atlanta. Fortunately I work a 5 pm to 1 am shift, so I'll have over 24 hours to rest before then.

>244 Caroline_McElwee: There are almost certainly photos of bicycles and trams in the ones that I'm about to post, Caroline. I just hope that I don't get taken out by a bicyclist before I leave; they are everywhere!

So, the "original" Haarlem is far less diverse than the American version? I was thinking about making a quick visit to there and to The Hague, but my schedule is filling up, so I'll have to save that for a future visit.

>245 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan; I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what this city has to offer, though. Last night I read the brochure that listed the museums I could see with the Museumkaart that I bought, and I was overwhelmed by how many there are here! There is no way I'll get to see everything I'd like to, and since the Museumkaart is good for a year I think that I'll make a return visit here between now and next June. Fortunately Delta Air Lines provides daily direct flights from Atlanta to Amsterdam (as Schiphol Airport is one of its major hubs), so it would be easy to get here from there.

Eurostar is supposed to provide direct train service from London St Pancras to Amsterdam Centraal, but apparently that won't go into effect until the end of next year. That will eliminate the need to change trains in Brussels or Lille.

Thanks for mentioning that book on the Rijksmuseum. I think I'll wait to go until Monday, as it's probably too much to do that museum and the Stedelijk Museum in one day.

>246 thornton37814: Thanks, Lori!