RidgewayGirl and the Museums of Munich -- Part Three

Time for a fresh, new thread again. I'm pretty much keeping up and should finish in plenty of time this year. And I'm managing to both keep my categories balanced and read more by women. Stranger things have happened, but usually by this time of the year, I've found that one category is a lot more difficult than I'd thought.

I really like the museums here in my temporary home. I like them a lot. So I thought I'd combine them with my 2015 Challenge this year. I've also decided that my only real goal for this year is to increase the proportion of books written by women from 50% to 60%. As I've done for a while, I'm doing ten categories with a goal of ten books in each.



Currently Reading



Recently Read



Recently Acquired

Category One.

Books By Women

The Lenbachhaus is the home of The Blue Rider, an expressionist art movement that began in Munich and included Kandinsky, Klee, Marc, Macke and Münter. Gabriele Münter was Wassily Kandinsky's partner and a fellow artist. She remained in Germany and even after he returned to Russia and married, she saved his paintings and many others in the house they'd purchased in Murnau. Their work was considered "degenerate art" by the Nazis, and much was destroyed. Münter saved hundreds of works and donated them to the Lenbachhause in Munich. Recently, the museum was renovated and expanded, giving the works of The Blue Rider room to shine. Since a woman saved art, this is my category for books by women. The painting spotlighted here, however, was painted by Alexej von Jawlensky and is of the dancer, Alexander Sacharoff.

The Lenbachhaus remains one of my favorite museums.



1. Lovely, Dark, Deep by Joyce Carol Oates
2. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
3. Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes
4. The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones
5. Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum
6. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
7. Daydreams of Angels by Heather O'Neill
8. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Category Two.

Books set in Cities

The Munich City Museum (Münchner Stadtmuseum) is located in the middle of the old city, within the long gone city walls in an old arsenal and stables. The exhibits I've seen so far include photographs of Greenland by a local artist/actor and a collection of silver pieces made by a local Jewish business that was forced to close when Hitler came to power.



1. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs (Newark, NJ)
2. After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman (Baltimore, MD)
3. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters (London, UK)
4. Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Levy (Los Angeles, CA)
5. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (Naples, Italy)
6. Iphigenia in Forest Hills by Janet Malcolm (Queens, New York)
7. A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (Baltimore, MD)

Category Three.

Books I Brought with Me to Munich

The State Museum of Egyptian Art (Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst) is full of amazing things carefully taken/looted from Egyptian tombs and brought to Munich. Europe is full of Egyptian things, although there are fewer mummies than there should be due to the idea that pulverized mummies were good for you. I brought a fair number of books with me to Germany and would like to read them.



Here is a picture of the interior:



1. In Matto's Realm by Friedrich Glauser
2. Our Daily Bread by Lauren B. Davis
3. A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash
4. Addition by Toni Jordan
5. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
6. Barrel Fever by David Sedaris

Category Four.

New Books I Have Brought Home

The Haus der Kunst was built by the Nazis to celebrate the kind of art they liked. They burnt the stuff they didn't, called it degenerate and many artists either fled Germany, committed suicide or stopped painting altogether. The Haus der Kunst is a cold, haughty building. It was also one of the very few buildings in Munich to escape bomb damage, due to it being cleverly camouflaged and located at the end of the large Englischer Garten. After the war, it was first used as the recreation and mess hall for American officers (The lines painted on the marble floors to make basketball courts are still visible (although I haven't seen them). There was a debate as to what to do with the building, with many feeling that the best solution was to tear it down. Instead, it's been turned into a venue for visiting exhibitions of cutting edge art, the very stuff Hitler hated.





1. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
2. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
3. So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
4. Bitch in a Bonnet by Robert Rodi
5. Stoner by John Williams
6. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
7. Munich Airport by Greg Baxter
8. The Telling Error by Sophie Hannah

Category Five.

Borrowed and Library Books

The Hypo Kunsthalle holds temporary art exhibits that range from artifacts from Pompeii to Jean Paul Gautier. The museum is on Munich's most expensive shopping street, which joins Odeonsplatz to the Marienplatz. I haven't been here this year at all, although I'd like to see the current Keith Haring show before it's gone.



1. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
2. Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
3. Adam by Ariel Schrag
4. Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood
5. The Mad and the Bad by Jean-Patrick Manchette
6. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
7. Disclaimer by Renee Knight
8. The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell

Category Six.

Books that Catch My Eye

The Brandhorst Museum not only houses the kind of art that people want to see (Richard Avedon, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, etc...), but the building is gorgeous. The exterior is covered in ceramic rods in 23 different colors. It's a lot of fun to look at, especially on grey, rainy days, when the historic buildings around it look grim.



1. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
2. The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
3. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
4. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories by Hilary Mantel
5. Like a Charm edited by Karin Slaughter
6. Mr Mercedes by Stephen King
7. Edisto by Padgett Powell
8. Jane, the Fox, and Me by Fanny Britt

Category Seven.

Books Published Within the Last Five Years

The Pinakothek der Moderne has become the museum that I've visited the most since arriving in Munich. It houses art from 1900 to the present, along with excellent temporary exhibits. The two exhibits that I've liked the most were a retrospective of Canadian Jeff Walls' photography and a close look at Ernst Ludwig Kirschner's paintings.



1. The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith (published in 2014)
2. Us by David Nicholls (published in 2014)
3. Let Me Go by Chelsea Cain (published in 2013)
4. A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison (published in 2014)
5. First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen (published in 2014)
6. The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O'Neill (published in 2014)
7. The Sacrifice by Joyce Carol Oates (published in 2015)
8. It's Not Me, It's You by Mhairi McFarlane (published in 2015)

Category Eight.

Books That Have Been Nominated for an Award

The Alte Pinakothek is an enormous building that was once the largest museum in the world and holds the great masterpieces of Holbein, Dürer, Rembrandt, Raphael and many, many others. Despite its size, only a portion of the collection can be shown as there is a lot of it.





1. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (National Book Award Winner)
2. Outline by Rachel Cusk (Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist)
3. All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld (Costa Prize for Fiction Shortlist)
4. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill (NYT Notable Book of the Year)
5. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (Tournament of Books Shortlist)
6. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (Nebula Award and Hugo Award)
7. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (Tournament of Books Shortlist)
8. The Green Road by Anne Enright (Bailey's Prize Shortlist, Booker Prize Longlist)

Category Nine.

CATs

The Neue Pinakothek houses art of the 18th and 19th century. The CATs are themed side challenges with a new topic each month. The CATs for this year are the HistoryCAT, the SFFFCAT and the RandomCAT. There is no connection between the Neue Pinakothek and the CATs.





1. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (January HistoryCAT - Myths and Legends)
2. The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher (April RandomCAT)
3. The Day of Atonement by David Liss (May HistoryCAT - Plagues and Disasters)
4. MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (May SFFFCAT - Girl Power)
5. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer (May RandomCAT - Place name in title)
6. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (June RandomCAT - On the water)

Category Ten.

Books Set in the Past

Villa Stuck is a museum dedicated to the works of Franz Stuck, and also a mansion decorated in the art deco style.





1. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
2. A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
3. Longbourn by Jo Baker
4. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
5. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
6. Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín
7. The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

2. The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones
3. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
4. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
7. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
9. In Matto's Realm by Friedrich Glauser
11. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
12. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
14. The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith
15. Our Daily Bread by Lauren B. Davis
17. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
18. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
19. Longbourn by Jo Baker
20. A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
21. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
22. Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
23. Adam by Ariel Schrag
24. Jane, the Fox, and Me by Fanny Britt

Happy new thread! Gorgeous pictures, again.

Thanks, Birgit. I took the time to choose new pictures for this thread since I was thoroughly tired of the old ones.

Where is that picture in the top post?

Happy new thread!

Happy New Thread!
As to your post on the last thread asking for recommendations for short books by authors other than American, with recipes ( I applaud your specifics), I don't have suggestions that meet all three requirements. I usually shy away from novels that contain recipes, as the few I've read so far seem to be more about the food than the plot. But I can recommend these short books that won't be too taxing: The Housekeeper and the Professor, Paddy Clarke Ha, Ha, Ha, Bonjour Tristesse, or any Ngaio Marsh.

Your predicament sounds just like the episode of "Malcolm in the Middle" when the mom joined a book club and discovered that she was the only one who read the book. The other moms used the term "book club" to mean getting away from their families and drinking lots of wine.

New thread - Yay!

Joyce, that is the Residenz, a palace in the center of Munich. It has gorgeous gardens and there are places to sit outside and eat as well.

Hurray, new thread! Gorgeous thread topper, too!

Lovely pictures. I want to go to Berlin! I read a book set in New York that featured a lot of Iranian recipes. Not sure if this meets your criteria though. Aya has a recipe for peanut sauce which I want to try at the back of the book. I think Joanne Harris' books also feature food, but it's been a long time since I read one. I think Toast is quite short?

Happy new thread, Kay! I really need to get to Munich when we go to Germany again. I love the colored rods on the Brandhorst Museum. How great you have so many museums to choose from.

Going back to your last thread, I just recently finished Life After Life and am looking forward to reading A God in Ruins. I heard an interview by Kate Atkinson on NPR the other day which piqued my interest even more.

Thanks, rp. As the weather slowly becomes summery (we had a few days, and then back to cool and overcast), it's so much fun just to be outside.

Charlotte, I want to go back to Berlin! We have friends from there and we have plans to be in the city at the same time so they can show us around. My next goals are Hamburg and Copenhagen, I think. Charlotte (my daughter) should be allowed off of crutches in mid-July, so maybe she and I will do a road trip. Or, more accurately, a rail trip.

Betty, I look forward to finding out what you think about it. A God in Ruins moves more slowly and calmly than Life After Life, but the ending is quite something.

Happy new thread!

Looking forward to seeing what you think of How to be both.

Happy new thread! Hamburg and Copenhagen, both great choices! :)

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is a modern classic and as I read I had the feeling of having read it before. Which didn't impair my enjoyment of this imaginative and thought-provoking book in the slightest. The story concerns a mentally impaired man living in the 1950's in New York. He works as a general helper at a bakery owned by a friend of his father's and he also attends night class for people with learning difficulties and despite his low IQ, he has learned to read and write. He is enrolled in a scientific study, one which has had success in developing an operation that has succeeded in tripling the IQ of rats, although until the latest lab rat, Algernon, the improvements were temporary. Charlie is the first human this operation is tested on, and it is a success. But the rapid raise in his intelligence does not come with a corresponding raise in his social skills or ability to handle his altered circumstances. And then there is his growing awareness that he is nothing but a scientific prize to be shown off.

Flowers for Algernon is very much a part of the time in which it was written, giving an atmospheric view of the New York of sixty years ago, along with insight into how children were raised and how women were viewed at that time. Written as Charlie's diary entries, the book has an immediate and personal feel to it. I can certainly see why it has stood the test of time, and I'm sure that we'll still be reading it in another sixty years.

>26 RidgewayGirl: Glad you enjoyed it. Flowers for Algernon managed to tug at my emotional heart-strings when I read it a couple of years ago.

>27 AHS-Wolfy: I liked it much more than I thought I would - I thought it would be one of those books where you're glad you've read it because it's an important book, but I didn't think it would engage me so much.

In sad news, our dog Emmie has gone blind. I spent several hours at the eye vet's today and as there is nothing visibly wrong with her eyes, she has a further appointment on Wednesday for a CAT scan. But she is clearly blind and didn't react to any of their tests. She was fantastically good, to the point where they were able to do an uncomfortable test (involving needles and things in her eye) that normally dogs need to be put under in order to do. She's now back in her bed, happy to be done with that all for now. Until now, I hadn't even known there were dog eye specialists.

>26 RidgewayGirl:
Great review. You make it sound so intriguing. I read Flowers for Algernon in high school and I don't remember connecting with it then (probably because it was required reading). So, it's about time I did a reread.

Andrea, I can see why this book is so often chosen to be read in school, but it's worth a second read a decade or so later.

>28 RidgewayGirl: Sounds like an expensive vet bill!

Lori, I was laughing to myself that it was either very good or very bad that we've already paid for our week at the beach later this summer! Our cat went to the vet the same day to have a tooth pulled and the total vet bills for one day were...interesting. Wednesday, Emmie goes in for a CAT scan.

I'm sorry to hear about Emmie. I hope it's somethimg that you can all adjust to. I didn't know that there are pet eye specialists either, and I'm glad you found one.

Roz Chast is a cartoonist best known for her work in The New Yorker. In Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, she writes movingly of her experience watching her parents age and how difficult it was to negotiate all that goes with that. Chase was an only child of older parents and she was never that close to them. Once she left home, she didn't return for decades, until the fragility of her parents and their ability to manage on their own became less certain.



Her parents, especially her mother, were used to being independent. Chast was ambivalent about her feelings for them and busy with her life with a family and career in Connecticut. Visiting Brooklyn each week, she felt both burdened and guilty for feeling like they were a burden. This is a relentlessly honest view of what it's like to care for aging parents, especially when there have been no conversations or plans about what to do ahead of time.

Sorry to hear about Emmie, Kay. I assume she's an older dog. Ours is losing her hearing and it's difficult and sad to see a beloved pet getting older to where it's noticeable.

Sorry to hear about your dog's sight (and the bill). I did like the Chast and have recommended it to friends. Think she speaks with admirable directness about some difficult issues around family ageing.

The Chast GN is on my list and I think I may identify with both her (as a daughter with an aging mother) and with the parents (as a senior with daughters in their 30's) - should be interesting.

So sorry to hear about Emmie, and that Cat had to have a tooth pulled. I hope they are both comfortable.

I'm too old and scared to read the Roz Chast book. The oven glove cartoon reminds me of conversations with my own mother - yikes!

Betty, it is hard to see a pet age. In Emmie's case, she was badly abused for her first year or so - to the point where she was removed by police and charges filed. So I'd kind of assumed that the rest of her life would be comfortable. But we're figuring it out. She trusts me to take her for walks, although she'd really rather just hang out on her bed.

Vivienne, Judy, Charlotte, I thought that this was an excellent book for anyone who might need care or to care for a loved one. It made me grateful that my parents have relentlessly planned everything out, despite the discomfort of their offspring, who would rather not have to talk about it. It certainly emphasizes how important it is to have a plan and backed up the information in Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.

The Chast book comes too late for me. I've been through the end of life phase with both parents, with vastly different experiences. My mother had always assumed she would outlive my father. We all had. Her overall health was better. She wasn't prepared for aggressive cancer, and she spent too much time and energy fighting the wrong things.

My father learned from his experience with his mother and his wife. He filled out POA papers and advanced directives before they were needed so they would be in place at the end. It was still difficult, but not as stressful as it would have been if he hadn't initiated those conversations ahead of time.

Carrie, that's what I've taken from the Chast and Gawande books - that planning ahead means that there is less stress when things are at their most stressful. I've had some good conversations with my parents and they are terrifically organized, to the point of not having clutter to clear out, having both my brother and I given power of attorney, and both of us knowing exactly where all the important documents are kept.

And then I look at the jumble of paperwork my SO and I just stick in a box and realize that we need to start sorting through it all now if we want to be organized before we're in our eighties (it has helped that my SO's father saved every bit of paperwork and so there were decades of stuff that had to be painstakingly gone through when he died. My SO had thought he needed to save everything until he had to go through his father's rental contract from 1965, health insurance information from 1975 and bank statements from 1985 in order to find the information he needed.)

>41 RidgewayGirl: Well, my father kept more than he should have, too, but he and I both knew where the important papers were. Except tor the will. I never did find a signed copy, but he had set up his affairs to aboid probate so it didn't matter. He had also left a list of all of his passwords for his accounts. That's a very important condiseration that shouldn't be overlooked. Paperless billing may seem like a great thing, but it can be a nightmare for someone else to try to figure out after you're gone.

Although my husband and I have all the paperwork done, we've done a poor job of letting others know where the stuff is located. I've been slowly going through papers and files, trying to get better organized with the intent of getting everyone together and telling them where stuff is.

Carrie, that is an important point. I've been told where the list of passwords is.

Betty, be prepared for no one else wanting to talk about it. Whenever my parents would bring it up, my brother and I would either change the subject or start joking around. But the stress around my father-in-law's final illness and death changed my mind on that subject.

Dad had shown me where most of the stuff was. One of my brothers was also aware of most of the locations. There is one deed we couldn't find so we had to go to a courthouse in a neighboring county to get it. We would like to get rid of that property, but it's going to be hard to sell.

Fred Clark is a popular blogger, whose posts about religion and culture can be found online under The Slacktivist, but his main claim to fame is his systematic analysis of Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye's bestselling series of rapture fiction. While the authors of the Left Behind series have admitted that each book takes about 28 days to plan, write and edit, Clark has been writing about these books for a decade, and is nowhere close to finishing. In The Anti-Christ Handbook: The Horror and Hilarity of Left Behind, he has published his explanation of the first 200 pages of Left Behind, detailing why the book is both bad theology and bad literature. It's a class in eschatology and a writing workshop, simultaneously taught by a professor with a sense of humor. Whether you've read the books, or just seen them in plentiful stacks in every used bookstore, this is a valuable guide to their flaws and why it matters that the authors got so much so very wrong.

>46 RidgewayGirl:
Wow! That's some dedicated analysis. lol. I've never read any of the Left Behind books but I remember when they were hugely popular. I kind of want to read Clark's analysis, though.

It's so funny, Andrea. The writing is really, really bad and the two main characters are such Marty Stus that there is much fun to be had.

>44 RidgewayGirl: - when my sister got cancer and passed away rather quickly last year at young age, I think we all realized that this is not something to be put off. I'm pretty sure they'll be glad to listen at least to where stuff is.

>46 RidgewayGirl: - like andreablythe, I've never read any of the Left Behind books although I had a couple of them in my TBR pile for a while before deciding not to read them. This sounds like it would be interesting although I wonder if reading the book first would be enhance reading this book.

Betty, from the excerpts in The Anti-Christ Handbook, the writing is just slightly worse than that of the Fifty Shades of Grey only with no sex, of course. A great deal of the action involves downloading emails or finding a phone. You know how reading a really witty takedown of a book review is far more fun than reading the book itself? I mean, I only made it to chapter three of 50 Shades, but there have been reviews of the entire trilogy that were immensely entertaining. This is the book equivalent to that.

Ok, off to pick up my old dog, Emmie, from the animal hospital and find out what the MRI and spinal tap shows. : (

Good luck with Emmie! I hope she's doing well.

What a coincidence that this conversation about wills and such is happening- I just spent 3 days visiting Mom in Vegas, where she pulled out her "death binder" and shook it at me while naming off her banks and lawyers. Never mind that she recently had a physical and the doctor said she might live another 30 years.

My dog died today. The MRI found a large brain tumor that was causing her pain. We just expected to have so much more time with her.

I'm so sorry! My dog died recently and I know how devastating it is, particularly when you weren't prepared for it. Best wishes to you and your family.

Oh Kay - I'm so sorry. I dread the day when I have to face that. I can tell from what you've written of her that she had a much better life after you got her.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I know your whole family will feel it. I hope you were able to say goodbye to her.

So sorry to hear about your family's loss, Kay.

Sad to hear that your family has lost a friend.

My condolences for your loss. I know it's never easy to say goodbye

Oh no! Poor Emmie. I am so sorry for your loss.

>52 RidgewayGirl: I'm so sorry for the loss of your dog. It's never easy to lose a loved one, even if they are furry!

Sorry about your dog. Big huge hugs.

I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of your dog.

52 Oh no! What a shock. So sorry.

>52 RidgewayGirl: I'm so sorry, Kay. She knew you loved her, you gave her such a great life. ((Hugs))

>52 RidgewayGirl:
I'm so sorry to hear that. I send hugs and prayers.

Sad news. At least she's not in pain any more.

I am sorry to read about Emmie and your family's loss of a trusted and loved family friend.

Kay, I'm so sorry to hear about Emmie. It is a heart-breaking time.

Thank you all, so much. I've had dogs before, but she was the dog of my heart. She came to us having been through terrible abuse and it took three years to make her comfortable enough to behave like an ordinary dog. I felt like it was my job to give her nothing but happiness and love and security and looking back on all the pictures, that's what she had. She was happy -- a dog who loved small children, who watched over the cats (if a cat was out and it started raining, she would keep watch and let us know as soon as the cat came home), who loved sleeping on her corner of the sofa or on our bed, who loved wrestling at the dog park. She got to dance in the surf and hike the Alps and go on car rides.

For now, I'm leaving the dog bed in the living room where it is.

Thanks again for all the condolences. It does help to have people who understand that losing a pet is a painful thing.

(if a cat was out and it started raining, she would keep watch and let us know as soon as the cat came home),

Aaaahhhhh, that's SOOOO adorable.

My dad (who presently has four abandoned dogs) says that it takes a lot of petting to make a good dog. Obviously Emmie got that in spades.

So sorry to hear about your loss - losing a friend like that is so very, very hard, but I'm happy to hear that you got to turn her life around and make her happy.

I am so very sorry to hear about your dog. It's so hard to lose one of our pets.

Also, very happy that you liked Flowers for Algernon - it completely engrossed me. The Roz Chast book was so moving and scary.

Joyce, her concern for those smaller than herself was just lovely.

mamzel, your father sounds like he knows what he's talking about, and is doing a good thing with his dogs.

Thanks, Stacy and Eva. And, Stacy, thanks for Flowers for Algernon. I would otherwise never have read it!

I'm not a science fiction reader, but I'd heard so many intriguing things about Ann Leckie's novel, Ancillary Justice, that I had to see what the fuss was about.

Told from the point of view of Breq, with chapters alternating from her past and her present, Ancillary Justice tells the story of an ever-growing inter-planetary Radch empire, and what is required to keep control. I spent the first chapters just getting my head around how this society functioned and how the different people and groups interacted. Leckie's world-building is impressive, but she doesn't let that overshadow the action and plot. There are interesting things done with how the Radch language regards gender, and how that affects how I imagined each of the characters. She also does something interesting with who the Radch consider human and who they do not.

At it's heart, this is a classic story of a group of misfits trying to change something much larger than themselves, although the main character is less of a charismatic leader than is usual, and more blindly determined to do everything on her own. It was a gripping story and I enjoyed how much I had to readjust my assumptions and scramble to figure out what was going on for much of the book.

>76 RidgewayGirl:
Ah! I'm so glad you liked Ancillary Justice. It's one of my favorites. I loved that for all the world building and unique language, the story was quite accessible.

Andrea, the world building was fascinating. There's no question that Ancillary Justice was an amazing book -- I mean, it was so far outside of my wheelhouse that you can't even see my wheelhouse from this book, but I was totally engrossed while reading it. I loved that she just jumped right into the action, trusting the reader to figure things out as the book progressed.

Meanwhile, last night it was just my daughter and I home and I suggested we watch the first two episodes of this mini-series:



We both loved it. Basically, it's a soap opera in fabulous costumes in a gorgeous setting. And there's tons of Aidan Turner, brooding around the place, sometimes Without A Shirt. And given how many shirts he has ruined in the first two episodes, he will surely have to not wear a shirt for much of the rest of the mini-series, purely for budgetary reasons. Also, who doesn't like a duel?

Rats! I don't see Poldark on my Guide listings.

I had to get it from iTunes. Which was money well spent - unless it goes downhill from here, I'll watch it again. I think you'd love this, Victoria.

It's showing on Sunday evenings in the US.

>78 RidgewayGirl: Haha yes, I agree he should just not bother with the shirts ;) Also that reminds me I still have to watch Episode 2.

>80 RidgewayGirl:
Poldark runs for 7 or more seasons and books have been published based on it. It was first on t.v. in 1975. I didn't see all the t.v. series but I read the books and it was good.

>78 RidgewayGirl: I'm watching too and had to laugh at the shirt remark. In the last episode Sunday night we saw him splashing around out in the water having a bath so they definitely upped the hunk factor.

Luanne, I know. We were watching that scene, my daughter and I, and she was scandalized. Her favorite show is American Horror Story, but that scandalized her.

I've lately only been reading Stephen King's collections of short stories, finding his novels somewhat longer than they need to be. He is a talented writer, though, able to bring a character or a scene to life in a way few popular authors can. But I had to read Mr Mercedes when I found out that it was a crime novel.

Bill Hodges is a retired detective who is struggling with retirement when he receives a letter from a man who murdered several people by driving a Mercedes through a crowd of people waiting to enter a job fair. Hodges had investigated the crime, and it was one of the few he had been unable to solve before he retired. Soon, with the help of an intelligent and computer-savvy teenager and the sister of the woman who had owned the Mercedes in question, Hodges is, once again, trying to solve this crime.

There's always a question mark next to a book by an established author writing in a genre that they aren't known for. Will they respect the parameters of the genre, or even know what they are? King delivers here; not only does he stay well within each unwritten rule of the genre, but he does so in a way that demonstrates a real understanding of the hard-boiled private detective novel. What's more, Mr Mercedes is a good book. The characters, from Hodges himself, to the tertiary characters, are all fully developed. King follows the rules of the genre, but in a way that makes them appear less like strictures, than like naturally occurring events that had to happen that way. And he has created a lovely team of investigators, from Hodges, whose gruff exterior hides the inevitable warm heart, to Jerome, the ivy-league bound seventeen-year-old who forms an unlikely friendship with both the retired cop and to Holly, who is one of the best characters King has written - an anxiety-prone, unattractive woman in her forties who is valued by the other two for who she is. I hope so much that the next novel in the series includes all three characters.

I watched part of the original Poldark series on Netflix until it was removed from the streaming collection. I watched the first episode of the new Poldark series and I didn't think it measured up to the original. Demelza is my favorite character from the original series (played by Angharad Rees) and the Demelza in the new series is a disappointment. I decided I would rather read than watch the second episode on Sunday evening, but I'll likely watch it through my cable company's On Demand service while it's available.

>85 RidgewayGirl: Going on my WL. I didn't realize this one was a crime novel from King. But that premise, the horror of the murders juxtaposed with a mundane job fair, is what King is really good at.

Carrie, I haven't seen the original series or read the book. But I am enjoying this version a lot. And it's fun to have something that my daughter and I both like.

Jennifer, I kept waiting for Mr Mercedes to turn into horror, but King kept to the genre. There was one thing that I wished wished hadn't happened, but it was in total keeping with how hard-boiled genre is structured. But, yes, he really did bring home the horror of murder.

>85 RidgewayGirl: - you're the second person that's mentioned that this series by King is good. On the BB list it goes!

>85 RidgewayGirl: The 3 characters do return in Finders Keepers, although not until well into the story. I liked the second one better than the first because I thought the villain was more interesting and because a lot of it is about writers and readers. I also thought it hewed to the form of the crime genre very well.

>78 RidgewayGirl:
Ooh, I'll be watching that! :)

I hope you like it, Betty.

I'm on the library waiting list for the ebook copy of Finders Keepers, Shannon. It'll be awhile. Although it is my birthday today and I am planning to go downtown and there is a bookstore selling English books right there...

I think you'll like it, Eva.

Happy birthday! I have a cousin who has a birthday today. It's fun to have a summer holiday birthday. When mine falls on Monday it's Memorial Day.

Heather O'Neill is a Canadian author who sets her stories in a gritty, half-magical Montreal neighborhood. Daydreams of Angels is her first collection of short stories. O'Neill, who writes like Karen Russell would, had she been raised in Quebec, rather than Florida, excels at the short story, which perfectly suits her off-beat and fairy tale-like writing style. Her stories are alternately bright, but with a dark, foreboding undertone, or bleak, with a touch of magic realism, as though George Saunders and Sarah Addison Allen had decided to collaborate.

In Messages in Bottles, two children are shipwrecked on a deserted island:

The girl wondered if they spent their whole lives on the island, whether she would have to marry a walrus. They were respectable and dependable. They wouldn't cheat on you. But it would be a loveless life. Some of the swans told her that it took seven years to learn to love a walrus. After that, though, everything was okay. More or less.

There are stories based on other tales, like Sting Like a Bee, which follows three characters, a boy, a dog and a girl, all named Ferdinand, like in the story by Munro Leaf. Another, The Isles of Dr. Moreau, has a grandfather telling his grandchildren about his experiences there, and the odd things he saw. Swan Lake for Beginners imagines a Soviet program secretly operating in a village in northern Quebec, where Rudolph Nureyev is being cloned in the hopes of creating a group of great ballet dancers.

In The Saddest Chorus Girl in the World, a woman returns home, broken and unhappy:

The winter wind knew that Violet was coming back. The sky was holding its breath, and when it saw Violet step out of the train station, it finally exhaled and beautiful snowflakes began to fall. Children all over the city were noticing the gigantic snowflakes that were stuck on their mittens. They had been specially designed to impress Violet. The winter wanted Violet back.

She went for a walk in the east end. The gargoyles wanted to crawl right down off the buildings and put their arms around her. She was the only one who had loved them and who had thought they were beautiful. She was the only on who had chosen this neighborhood over Westmount.

Every story in this collection was different. I hope she continues to write short stories, although I'll continue to read what ever she writes.

Happy Birthday Kay! My birthday fell on Easter this year which it's never done before in my whole life. I think a treat at the bookstore would be a great way to celebrate.

Happy birthday! I hope the weather is still bearable in Munich!

Happy birthday. The short story collection sounds good. I just read Things to make and break short stories which just completely grabbed my attention. So am feeling very enthusiastic about the format despite having hardly read any beyond Amy Bloom and Lorre Moore. Your comments came at just the right moment for my next one!

Happy Birthday Kay!!

Happy Birthday Kay! I'm looking forward to mine later this month combined with my thingaversary also!

Thanks, Betty. It's a weird thing sharing a birthday with a national holiday, and one in the middle of the summer at that. I feel like I've gotten more attention than most people do. I'm not complaining, mind you, but it does seem unfair to others. So it's nice to just have a quiet Saturday. My son is in the US, staying with his best friend. My daughter has been interested in felting, and we found a class happening today while looking around the internet last night. My husband and I were going to go downtown, but it is hot here (95!) so I read and we'll go out to dinner tonight.

Chrischi_HH, it's so hot, but at least it will cool down in a few days. It went from weather to be sitting outside in the shade to weather to stay in the coolest part of the house very quickly!

Charlotte, I was delighted by every story. I hope you like it.

Thanks, Victoria! I still think fondly of the delicious cake you baked me two years ago. Have a fantastic fourth of July.

Lisa, how many books would a combined Thingaversary and birthday entitle you to?

Happy birthday! Will you miss the fireworks?

Happy birthday!! :D

Happy Birthday! Great review of Daydreams of Angels.

Happy Birthday, a trip to a bookstore does sound like the perfect birthday outing! ;)

>78 RidgewayGirl: My daughter-in-law and I are watching Poldark, which she calls "eye-candy". I saw the old series and agree with >86 cbl_tn: that Angharad Rees was excellent as Demelza. Maybe Eleanor Tomlinson will grow into the part as the series progresses. I much prefer "eye candy" Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark!

Thanks, all, for the birthday greetings.

Vivienne, I agree with your daughter-in-law.

Hi Kay:

I hope you had a good birthday weekend. Let's see how many books am I entitled to for the combined birthday/Thingaversary? This is my 8th year with LT, so that's 9 right there. I was thinking maybe ten and then trying to stop myself.

This involves careful planning and getting something I'm going to read soonish instead of stockpiling like I do.

I don't think my NOOK can hold too much more though, it's not holding its charge very long these days sigh......

So this is what I watched today.



The thing about Poldark is that so much happens in every episode. There's no careful pacing here. In this episode, Ross Poldark has to scythe things. There's also a really pretty dress. And some incidental stuff about poaching, which meant that Poldark had to both glower and brood. And a wedding, which made Poldark smile. So this was a good episode.

Love your recaps of Poldark. I smiled when Ross was scything cause I thought of you and how pleased you would be with that scene!

You've got me curious about Poldark now.

Judy, that was a very nice scene. I like Demelza so much. She's stubborn and sarcastic and brave and much more enthusiastic about housework than I am.

Lori, it's a lot of fun and Cornwall is so pretty. It's a Masterpiece Theatre costume drama only turbocharged.

Happy belated birthday!

I'm glad to see that you enjoyed Ancillary Justice. I finished the sequel Ancillary Sword recently and thought it too was very good, though quite different from the first in a number of ways.

I'd forgotten how well Colm Tóibín writes about quiet lives until I was halfway through the first chapter of Nora Webster, and entirely hooked. Set in Ireland, in 1968, the novel centers on a woman in her mid-forties, whose husband has recently died, leaving her to negotiate child-rearing, find a way to support the family and to become someone other than half of a couple. Nora's awesome though, being stubborn and willing to stand her ground when she needs to.

Tóibín is writing about an Ireland that doesn't exist anymore, just as it began to change with the Troubles beginning in Northern Ireland and the conflict a growing concern in the Republic. And women's roles were changing, with Nora's daughters experiencing vastly more freedom than she did. Nora, herself, gets to experience some of that independence, slowly and reluctantly choosing hobbies and interests outside of what her family circle enjoys.

There's no great action in this book, no central conflict to resolve. It unfolds like ordinary life, a series of challenges and decisions to be made and lived with, as Nora works to keep her family going and to find her own feet. And the writing is lovely; unassuming and clear. I'll always read whatever Tóibín decides to write because of the quality of his writing, but I also love the care with which focuses on women who live their lives largely unnoticed by others.

Hi Kay. I haven't popped in for a while. I just read your review of Nora Webster and I have to say I agree with every word. I also enjoy reading Toibin's beautiful writing.

Roro8, I love how understated he is.

For anyone wondering if Poldark is a show they'd be interested in, here's a description of exactly what it is for the uninitiated.

http://decider.com/2015/06/24/poldark-pbs-masterpiece-guide/

But I do want to remind everyone that it has duels.



And dancing.



And this guy.

>117 RidgewayGirl: OOOHHHH! Swoonworthy!

>114 RidgewayGirl: One of our English professors got me hooked on Toibin. I enjoyed that one when it first came out.

>119 thornton37814: Tóibín reminds me a little of William Trevor, who wrote The Story of Lucy Gault, which I also really liked. Have you read any of him?

>114 RidgewayGirl: I love Toibin (and his Benjamin Black stuff) but this one was a bit too 'quiet' for me. I was underwhelmed. But I agree with your point re his writing of women characters.

>117 RidgewayGirl: Haha, good summary of "Poldark"! I'm enjoying it too. :) I have to say, though, I find the show's pacing really weird (having only seen the first two eps so far). In Episode 2, there's that whole story with Verity's love life, and it seems to escalate really quickly! Didn't she JUST meet that guy at the ball? Or did she know him from before, and I just missed the fact?

Charlotte, Benjamin Black is John Banville, and I will admit to a shocking hole in my reading experience - despite having read several of his Benjamin Black novels and despite owning both The Sea and The Book of Evidence, I have not yet ready anything by him.

Christina, it does move at a breakneck pace! Wait until you see episode three - the last five minutes pack in what a usual series manages to stretch out over weeks. As for Verity and her sea captain, I think that the episodes take place over weeks, rather than days. She'd been met him in secret at Ross's house several times.

>114 RidgewayGirl: - that one's going in my BB list. I like quiet well-written books.

>120 RidgewayGirl: I've not read any by Trevor.

I love Toibin's writing too and I'm glad to see your review. I haven't gotten to it yet but will before the year's over...he'll probably have a new one out by then! There are several Irish writers that sit at the top of my favorites list and I think I'm behind with them all!

>123 RidgewayGirl::Oops! Thanks for the correction. I've read The Sea but that's it.

Hi Kay:

Thanks for the BB regarding Nora Webster, I will read it shortly. I remember I really enjoyed another books by this author, I think it was Brooklyn.

>114 RidgewayGirl: The Nora Webster BB hit here too! Excellent review.

>117 RidgewayGirl: I have to say Ross Poldark looked very masculine while doing that very mincing dance!

Ah, well, Lori, I thought it likely you might have. Will we manage to read all the books in our lifetimes?

Betty, Luanne, Lisa and Vivienne, I really enjoyed it. It was similar to Brooklyn, but Nora's more assertive and willing to stand her ground.

Vivienne, he did. : ) I will refrain from listing all the other times Ross Poldark looked manly.

I had been warned that The Warden is not Anthony Trollope's most exciting novel, but as it is the first in the Barsetshire Chronicles and I had a copy at hand, it was the first Trollope that I've read. It hasn't generally aged well, nineteenth century Church of England politics being somewhat out of fashion as a topic of interest, but the writing is strong and reminded me why I enjoy Victorian authors so much.

Reverend Harding is a pleasant, ineffectual man who has a sinecure as the warden of a small retirement home for deserving working class men that includes a house with pleasant gardens and an annual salary of 800 pounds, given to him because one of his two daughters had married the son of the bishop. Here he lives comfortably, enjoying his music, reading books and visiting the old men in the adjoining hospital now and again. His life would have continued in pleasant routine had not a spirit of reform begun to sweep England and a young reformer, the aptly named John Bold, questioned the generosity of the annual allowance.

Trollope is clearly on the side of the status quo, and he breaks from the narrative to complain about the tactics of an author (supposedly Charles Dickens) whom he calls Mr Popular Sentiment, and who he accuses of biasing the public by creating characters and situations that manipulate the reader into sympathy with his poor working class characters. Of course, Trollope is doing exactly the same thing here; Harding is so mild and inoffensive that it is impossible not to hope that he can keep his generous and largely unearned salary.

Outside of the machinations of the lawyers, clergymen and journalists, there is a sub-plot involving Harding's unmarried daughter and John Bold. They had feelings for each other before Bold discovered possible shady dealings on the matter of the wardenship and it's uncertain as to whether their love will survive the conflict. This part of the novel is particularly satisfying, as Eleanor is an interesting character and Bold's conflict as he tries to do what he sees is right without losing her love results in the most satisfying chapters in this brief novel.

I'm looking forward to continuing on with the Barsetshire Chronicles.

>131 RidgewayGirl: You'll be glad you've read The Warden when you get to Barchester Towers. That one was much more enjoyable for me.

Great review of The Warden. When I read it a long time ago I really enjoyed it. I kind of lost interest in the series later on although I plan to begin again sometime in the near future (not sure just how near).

>130 RidgewayGirl:
I've always had a soft spot for The Warden, despite its faults. Mr Harding is just such a nice man... But it is a bit like Rheingold: perfectly respectable by itself, but if you know what's coming next it just turns into a kind of amuse-gueule. Barchester Towers is great knockabout fun, the next two are decent novels everyone should read once, and Last chronicle of Barset is the real highlight of the series.

(I've been enjoying your screenshots from Poldark, but I really don't want to let myself get sucked into watching another TV series. Anyway, who needs more shirtless men when we can fantasize about Colin Firth in P&P...?)

I'm eager to read Barchester Towers. I've owned a beautiful hardcover copy for decades - but the print is really small inside and it's currently in storage until we move back to SC. But I've got a copy on my ipad ready to go for summer reading.

thorold, no one could possibly dislike Rev. Harding. As for Poldark, I suggest saving it until you need a diversion that is full of drama and beauty. And there's been lots of talk about Turner's "Darcy moment," which the actor is taking with good grace and a lot of humor. It's a moment worthy of comparison with Firth's pond scene. And Poldark is my favorite kind of protagonist - deeply flawed and living in difficult times, but doing his best to do the right thing.

BTW: I don't know if it's still available, but there was a great TV version of The Warden/Barchester Towers in the 80s, with Nigel Hawthorne, Geraldine McEwan and Donald Pleasence leading the cast. No Darcy moments, I fear...

Not even John Bold alighting from a curricle in a sexy manner? Oh, well. Are there at least whiskers?

Less frivolously, thanks. I'll have to watch it after I've read Barchester Towers.

I've been enjoying Radio 4's serialization of Barchester books (with lots of familiar actors from all the classic period BBC adaptations). Seemingly all very cosy on the surface with those barbs underneath.

>137 RidgewayGirl: Mr Rickman is almost dangerously clean-shaven. I don't know whether that was a design requirement for the face-slapping scene or just to give him more villain-cred.

Will start Barchester Towers soonest. I will watch anything Alan Rickman is in.

> 140 He is deliciously slimy and villainous! Alas, no whiskers.

Killing me with the Poldark, Kay. Must find.

You will love it, Victoria. I promise.

The only person I miss is my English teacher, Mrs. Colgate. She told me to keep in touch and to "read, read, read." I called her once, but hung up when she answered the phone crying, "Curtis, listen. For the love of God, Curtis, I can explain everything."

Barrel Fever is a collection of short stories and personal essays by David Sedaris. Written earlier in his career, the stories are quite a bit more raw and unfiltered than one might expect. From Glen's Homophobia Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2, to Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!, the stories are told in a close first person narrative, with the events describes quickly veering into the bizarre, with each character competing to see who can make the worst life choices.

The book finishes with a few personal essays about Sedaris's time before he became an author. SantaLand Diaries concern a holiday season spent working as a elf at Macy's.

There was a line for Santa and a line for the women's bathroom, and one woman, after asking me a dozen questions already, asked, "Which is the line for the women's bathroom?" I shouted that I thought it was the line with all the women in it.

She said, "I'm going to have you fired."

I had two people say that to me today, "I'm going to have you fired." Go ahead, be my guest. I'm wearing a green velvet costume; it doesn't get any worse than this. Who do these people think they are?

"I'm going to have you fired!" and I wanted to lean over and say, "I'm going to have you killed."

Love that one! It does veer into the bizarre.

The makers of Poldark have decided that every time Ross Poldark gets inside his house he has to take his shirt off. This in Cornwall, and winter is coming, but apparently his stone farmhouse is very, very warm inside. This week, Poldark made both the autumn pilchard harvest and copper mining subjects of breath-taking suspense. I don't know how they did that exactly.

Also, the female characters are fabulous. Demelza, Ross's new wife, is the most obvious, being stubborn and determined and loyal. But my favorite is Verity, who really puts up with a lot. By the end of the fourth episode she's already lost the love of her life to a duel and her brother, the odious Francis, as well as various other insensitive jerks, love to make comments about spinsters or unsuitable matches in front of her.

>146 RidgewayGirl: I love Verity too and I think I'm watching now as much to see what happens to her as anything.

Her sea captain must return to her!

Ok - I just looked and noticed that the first episode is available to view until July 19 online. I think I'll try to watch it tomorrow. Then I'll try to catch some of the other episodes as I have time before they expire until I'm caught up.

I am loving the Poldark updates you have been providing! Such fun and as you have pointed out, I am a bit surprised Poldark doesn't feel the cold, given the location and the time of year. ;-)

I hope you like it, Lori.

Thanks, other Lori. I enjoy writing them. Technically, since the series is based on a series of novels, it's not so very off-topic.

I picked up Munich Airport by Greg Baxter on a whim, knowing nothing about it. Usually, this ends badly for me, but this is the exception that will keep me bringing books home based solely on the cover and descriptions written on the dust jacket.

The nameless narrator and protagonist is in Germany, helping his father bring home the body of his sister, who has died in her apartment in Berlin. The narrative takes place entirely within a long fog delay at the Munich airport, and the format of the novel is that of one man narrating the wait with his frail father and the official from the American consulate in Berlin who has been guiding them through the process. His memories range back through his childhood to the weeks spent waiting in Berlin for his sister's body to be released by the coroner. The format makes the absence of quotation marks and the way the novel jumps around feel entirely natural; we are accompanying this man as he spends his hours in the airport with his father or walking aimlessly about, privy to his random thoughts and rising agitation.

Munich Airport feels a lot like Herman Koch's The Dinner, with a growing sense of something being wrong, although this is a much more restrained falling apart. The sister was troubled and distanced herself from her family, especially after her mother died. There were long stretches between encounters with her brother, making the changes in her stand out all the more. But the narrator has also been unsuccessful in many ways. He's in his forties, and despite a modest success in freelance consulting, he is remarkably unmoored to anyone.

This is not a cheerful novel, but it is a good one. And the way it's written gives it a forward momentum that kept me reading.

Nice review of Munich Airport. I really liked Koch's The Dinner, so I will keep this one in mind.

So, Kay, I managed to DVR the latest Poldark episode with the serving girl and the dress and what happened there. Oh my!! I definitely have to get this series on DVD and catch up and then replay....

I liked it, Paulina. Enough to be interested in his other novels.

I knew you'd like it, Victoria. Tomorrow's another episode!

So, with an empty house, I thought I'd get to bed early and so get a jump on tomorrow. Neighbors were having a big party, with white tent in the backyard and caterers, but it started early and they've been quiet, so I got ready for bed...and they pulled out the karaoke machine and many speakers. Such terrible taste in music, too. I'll admit no fondness for seventies classic rock. Highway to Hell has now been chosen twice, although this group is marginally better. Oh, well. It's not like staying up late reading is a terrible punishment!

Note: I do not love Arrowsmith.

>155 RidgewayGirl: I used to walk past a Karaoke bar on my way home. They were Truly Awful. Hope you managed to get your reading done despite the racket.

I heard Mariella Frostrup on the radio talking about German novels of/ about the 1920s/30s in English translations - Blood Brothers (translated by Michael Hoffman and Reunion by Fred Uhlman which has been put out with a new afterword by Rachel Sieffert. I'm tempted by both, needless to say.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062hx63

Charlotte, I was happy when they turned off the sound system at midnight.

Those books sound interesting. I need to look into them.

Another episode of Poldark and we get to watch Ross become a father and fall in love with his infant daughter. And we watched him discuss smelting and local copper prices. Seriously, the show is just messing with me at this point, because it was all very interesting. I was thinking of finding a book about mining in Cornwall in the eighteenth century (it would fit in the HistoryCAT!) and then I came to my senses, realizing that if such a book exists, it would not be delivered to my house by Ross Poldark in his tricorn hat. He also does this thing, where when he really hates someone, he smiles extra-nicely.

Here he's wearing his tricorn hat and not smiling:



Here he is smiling, and in his tricorn hat:



But the heart of the show was Verity and her sea captain. Demelza meddled and it's a good thing, too, with both Verity and Captain Blamey being all about honor and moping around instead of breaking a few rules in order to get together.

Okay, I came here to catch up on your thread and all I can think is that I have to watch Poldark now.

Yes, I'm hoping it goes on Netflix because I will definitely binge watch it. Your recaps have been very entertaining.

The second book in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series, The Story of a New Name, picks right up after My Brilliant Friend ends. The books are really all part of one longer story and so I'm reading them all in a row. This segment is even better than the first, beginning as it does with Lila's marriage and Lena's subsequent difficultly in taking her education seriously, with her best friend married at sixteen. Both girls mature into women and their lives diverge sharply.

It's during this handful of years that the dominant traits of both girls, Lila's contrarian attitude and her need to push against the tight restrictions governing a new wife's life in Naples in the 1960s, as well as Lena's dogged diligence and her inability to speak out for what she wants, have permanent and long-lasting effects on their lives. It's in this book that Lena begins to shine and for her horizons to expand beyond the working class neighborhood they both grew up in, while Lila sees the walls closing in and all the fine clothes and power that goes with having some money in a neighborhood where most residents are mired in poverty isn't of the slightest comfort.

I'm falling more and more in love with the stories of these two strong women trying to find their way in a world that is both difficult and stuck in rigid gender roles. I have already started the third book.

Great review!

Andrea and Shannon, Poldark is just a huge amount of fun. I highly recommend it.

Thanks, Lori. I am enjoying these books so much. I'm so glad the last one has now been translated and I can just read straight through.

And, ugh, it is hot here. Mid-nineties and humid in a land with no air conditioning. I stayed in most of the day, but just needed to get out, so I walked up to the small produce store and to the bakery, which are all of three blocks away. I've returned home hot and sweaty. It's thundering pretty steadily, but all that has meant so far is a jump in the humidity.

Ugh, no air conditioning anywhere? Yuck. Sending humidity-clearing thunderstorms your way!

Kay, I love your comments on Poldark. The actor who played Demelza in the old series, sometime in the 80s, was wonderful, I didn't think her performance could be matched. I was wrong. And Ross Poldark in a tricorn hat, smiling or not, is the treat of the week! I hope the house in Cornwall remains toasty ;)

Thanks, Vivienne!

I started reading Anne Tyler years ago, with Dinner at the Homesick Restaurantand The Accidental Tourist. She was a big deal at the time and I loved her novels about introverted oddballs and their take on living ordinary lives. But over time, I slowly stopped reading Tyler, beginning again with A Spool of Blue Thread because I ran across it in a bookstore just after it had been put on Baileys Women's Prize shortlist.

And it's a perfect book, combining Tyler's keen eye for the ordinary and the idiosyncratic, with a master writing at her peak. This is a quiet book, about a family, about aging and about the history of a family home, but there is nothing bland or boring about it. Like Alice Munro and John Cheever, Tyler has the ability to make a deceptively domestic story resonate.

Abby Whitshank is the central character, appearing first as the mother of four adult children, a wife to a steady husband, dealing with a son who is having trouble gaining traction in life and her own failing memory. It's through her eyes that we watch her family grow. A Spool of Blue Thread is divided into two sections; the first follows the Whitshank family as Red and Abby age and decisions are made about how they are to cope with the family home and their reduced abilities, the second takes the form of a series of short stories, giving the family history back to Red's parents, the history of the house they all love, how Abby and Red began their relationship and the background of their children.

Really, this should be nothing special, a pleasant book to enjoy on a summer's afternoon. But the writing is very fine and places Tyler firmly in with our very best authors.

I just noticed tonight that Robin Ellis who played Ross Poldark in the first series (1975 I'm told) made a cameo appearance tonight as Reverend Dr Halse, the harsh, sneering judge.

I've been eagerly awaiting your next Poldark update.
taps foot impatiently
I watched the episode and am so curious to read your take on it.
(When you're on vacay you are more than welcome to watch it over here with me)

>167 RidgewayGirl: Really appreciate your comments on the Tyler, as you say, what should be ordinary in her hands becomes so much more. One of my favourites from the long list.

Victoria, that sounds like fun! We should do that! Since I'm hanging out with the parents, I'll have plenty of time.

A Spool of Blue Thread was really, really good, Charlotte. Thanks for bringing it to my attention the day before I saw it in a bookstore.

So, Poldark

This week featured more scything, except the one wielding the scythe was this guy:



And Francis, at best, is ineffectual. At his worse (or usual) he ruins everything he touches. Currently, he is in a giant sulk. Having destroyed his family's finances in record time, he's very busy making sure that he is the only one who is allowed to feel any sort of regret or self-pity.

All of this means that the women of Poldark must continue to be awesome. Verity continues to see her sea captain, which is pretty much the most important thing. Captain Blamey wants her to tell Francis about their intentions, but Verity knows what a twit Francis is and how telling him will only give him an excuse to whine harder. Really, it cannot be over-emphasized how vile Francis is.

And Ross Poldark had something bad happen, which caused him to go on a five day long bender. Granted, it was a very tragic thing, but it almost caused Demelza to miss the ball, and her with a new dress and all. Verity, continuing in the vein of all Poldark women by being awesome, insists to drunk Ross that he has to go. He goes, but less because of Demelza and her new dress and more because balls have ample supplies of brandy and Ross is determined to drink all of it.

Yes, I was a bit worried about Ross this episode. Especially what he and D had to say to each other at the ball.
As for Verity, I just love her.

Enjoying the Poldark updates, even though I have no intention of watching it myself!

Victoria, Verity is just the best. And she puts up with an awful lot, especially from Francis.

Charlotte, the show is great fun.

And in a blink of the eye, the first season of Poldark is over! Can't hardly wait till next year and Season Two!

Judy, I'm on vacation with family and so am saving that last episode until I'm back.

I get to meet up with VictoriaPL for bbq tonight, and then on Thursday for a booksale. I'm excited. And then off for a week at the beach, with a bit of time to read, I hope.

>177 RidgewayGirl: Booksale on Thursday? It's tempting, but I'd be in so much trouble. I'd better stick to downsizing what I have at home. I still haven't managed to finish reading the ones from the last Greenville book sale I did with you two.

I'm 7th in line for the Poldark DVD at the library, thanks to my compulsive (daily) checking of the On Order section of the library catalogue. Really looking forward to bingeing on it!

BBQ, books and the beach sounds like an excellent combination of events! Have fun! :)

>167 RidgewayGirl: I'm happy to see your positive review of Anne Tyler's book. I put a hold on this at our library after seeing it on the Booker longlist, but it looks like I'll have a bit of a wait.

>178 thornton37814: Hey Lori! I had forgotten you joined us for that Sale. It's happening again Aug 14th-16th.
http://www.greenvilleliteracy.org/news/38-2015-really-good-really-big-really-che...

>181 VictoriaPL: I do think I would be in big trouble if I acquire any more books before the merger of personal libraries. I'm trying to make it through some of the ones in my stash.

>182 thornton37814: I completely understand Lori. 20 years on, D and I still have trouble merging our libraries.
He should go over here! No, he belongs over there, with MY collection! LOL.

This is a difficult book to review, both because it is the third of a four book series, and because I sped through it, not so much that I needed to find out what happened next, but because I was enjoying it too much to stop reading. And, having inhaled Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, I now feel that I consumed it too quickly to have given it the attention that Elena Ferrante’s novel deserved.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay continues the story of Lila and Lena, although their life circumstances and the nature of their relationship has kept them largely apart. While Lena continues on as a university graduate and author, Lila can’t continue in her role as the wife of a man she hates. Both come face to face with the changes beginning to sweep Italy, Lena through contact with student activism and Lila seeing the need for workers to unionize and in the clashes between communists and fascists.

I don’t know how successful this book would be without the two that came before, but each segment of the larger story is more compelling than the last. I’m planning on reading the final book, The Story of the Lost Child, as soon as it's released in English in September.

Don't you just love how a book series can captivate you so much that you find yourself uncontrollably racing through it? I currently own just book two in the series, but my local library has all three books and the fourth one in their "on order" queue so this is a series I can look forward to enjoying this winter. ;-)

I hope you like them, Lori.

Joyce Carol Oates clearly regards the old adage to “write what you know” in some contempt. While her new novel, The Sacrifice, is set in her native New Jersey, the protagonists range from a police detective of Hispanic ancestry to an African American teenage girl living in a poverty-ravaged neighborhood in Biscayne.

At the opening of the book, Ednetta Frye searches frantically for her missing daughter, Sybilla. Sybilla will be found in the basement of a derelict factory, bound and battered. Her story of what happened to her, as well as her mother’s reaction, will lay bare the ever simmering racial tension still present in the late 1980s in a city deeply affected and still scarred by riots twenty years earlier.

Although it proceeds at a breakneck pace, this is a hard book to read. Oates does not shy away from the dark underside of human behavior and here there is no victim who is entirely free of blame. I’m not entirely sure what to think about this book, that creates villains only to humanize them, and never hesitates to look at complicated and muddy situations. I’m pretty sure I’ll be reading her previous novel with a similar theme, them, sometime soon.

Disclaimer by Renee Knight is a novel in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. There’s an unreliable narrator and a story that twists and turns on itself as each new revelation sheds a different light on the story being told. The novel concerns Catherine, who upon reading a book that just showed up at her house, comes face to face with the events of some fifteen years ago, and sees herself clearly identified as the villain of the piece. It throws her into a tailspin, unable to sleep and uncertain of what to do next.

It’s a good enough set up for a decent beach novel, but it’s uneven in the execution. Too much of the book depended on information being withheld from the reader, although it’s known to the main characters. While this strategy kept me reading, it didn’t make me trust the storytelling. And just as I started to become bored enough with the initial pattern of the book, Knight stands the entire premise on its head and delivers an unexpected and unexpectedly powerful reveal, which is then marred by the reaction of the main characters. There’s one individual whose reaction to a version of the secret being revealed is so unlikely and over the top that I wondered at Catherine’s ever allowing them to become a part of her life. Taken as a whole, Disclaimer was a decent enough entertainment, but nothing more.



Sophie Hannah writes a series of crime novels whose convoluted plots are matched by the convoluted personal lives of the detectives who solve the crimes. And yet, for the most part, it all works well, and with the ninth book in the series, The Telling Error, Hannah is sure-footed and wields a plot even more complex than usual, featuring a disparate cast of characters and a plot based on internet infidelity.

This was a fun book to read and it’s a pleasure to read a crime novel by an author who’s been writing them for awhile, but who clearly is still enjoying herself. One does need a certain suspension of disbelief in places (the plot and motivations can be stretched at tlmes), but The Telling Error was still tremendously readable.



I do like a good Chick Lit. Unfortunately, they are hard to find, the genre being, in this reader’s opinion, being mostly composed of trite, formulaic and lazily written stock pieces. Someone mentioned that Mhairi McFarlane’s novels were both fun and readable and so I gave It’s Not Me, It’s You a go.

I am so glad they were right. In It’s Not Me, It’s You, Delia is living a happy life in Newcastle. She loves her city, her incontinent dog, her flat, and especially her easy-going boyfriend. So her job’s not great, working on press releases and social media for the local council, but it pays well enough and at the end of the day, there’s home to go to. On their tenth anniversary, Delia proposes to her boyfriend, Paul, whose reaction is a little off, and then a lot off, sending Delia into a search to find out what really matters to her.

What’s fun about this book is that it’s less about Delia finding the right man (and whether or not the right man is the one she’s been with all along) than it is about her finding her feet (and confidence) in her working life and in how she relates to the people around her. And her group of friends is pleasantly diverse, from a successful lawyer as a flatmate, to a socially anxious guy who prefers to meet only online or on skype than in real life. Also, there is no shopping.

I started a Chick Lit Sunday by a popular author I hadn't read. I got to page 34 and decided I couldn't do it for the reasons you mention above. I'll definitely give McFarlane a try. I wonder why there is this big gap in fiction aimed at women readers. Meaning, do the publisher's realize they are ignoring a market?

I don't know, Luanne. Maybe publishers just consider them the new Harlequin romances? Maybe they sell even when they're badly written? I've learned to just wait for someone here to review one favorably before I'll give it a go, although I'm a sucker for chick lit based on Jane Austen's novels, so even though I've been burned more often than not, I'll still read those.

Edisto Island sits among the other sea islands along the coast of South Carolina, midway between Charleston and Savannah. Both those cities have islands nearer; Tybee for Savannah and John’s and Pawley’s for Charleston. The out-of-staters and affluent go to Myrtle Beach Hilton Head, where there are golf courses, resorts and t-shirt emporiums. This leaves Edisto for families from the Upstate to congregate for their annual beach vacations, in a place where the fancy end of Edisto Beach holds a modest marina, a nine-hole golf course open to the public and a scattering of condos. The rest of the town is composed of beach houses of varying sorts, from the modest and run-down variety to newer three story constructions of wide balconies and cathedral ceilings. There’s a bookstore that features both free wifi and a cat and the local Piggly-Wiggly became a Bi-Lo just last year, although the changes appear to be slight and entirely cosmetic. People buy their vegetables and key lime pies on the drive across the island to the beach, at farm stands down dirt roads or from pick-ups parked along the roadside.

Edisto by Padgett Powell is set in Edisto before the beach houses were built, when the island had not yet begun it’s transition from a sparsely populated African-American enclave that began as a refuge for escaped slaves, when people made modest livings fishing, farming and weaving grass baskets for the market in Charleston. Twelve-year-old Simons Manigault is being raised out there by his educated and heavy-drinking mother, going to the local school and is an expert in fitting into environments where he is clearly an outsider.

So he goes in the house and reads W.P.A. stories on the walls where the roaches have eaten away the flour but not the ink of the newspapers, and he naps, wakes, and emerges into the old, bored heat of this named but never discovered small place of the South and hears the tin roof tic, tic in that heat.

Simons is a wonderful narrator. He’s clever and observant, but also very much a boy about to enter puberty. Lots of what he sees and experiences he doesn’t fully understand, but he explains as best he can. This is not a book with a lot of action (although things do happen), but one that captures the atmosphere and feel of a world that has been gone for some time, of juke joints and old women fishing, of boxing matches and drunken faculty parties, and of a boy learning about his world and figuring his place in it.

The Father wipes the silver chalice with a beautiful linen rag large as a small tablecloth, turns the cup two inches each time to keep you from having to drink where the last worshipper lipped it, as if that takes care of the germs. But I don’t care, I always reach out very piously — that’s to say, in slow motion, the way you move for some reason to take and eat the body of Our Savior — reach out and lay my hand over the Father’s in somber reverence to the moment and then press down and suck a slug of wine that should have fed six communers. I have to, because the bread of His body is stuck to the roof of my mouth like a rubber tire patch, and if I can’t wash it loose by swishing His blood around, I’m going to have to dig it off with a finger, in slow motion, and possibly gag.

>191 RidgewayGirl: I love Edisto Island!

Me, too, Lori! I love the old-fashioned slowness about it, the uncrowded beaches and the utter lack of entertainment outside of the Serpentarium (I'll bet you've never visited!) and the golf course.

>193 RidgewayGirl: Your guess is entirely correct about the Serpentarium. I have no desire to visit.

Just putting my place marker here. I've missed so much (sorry!) that it would be futile to try and catch up. Here's hoping you and your family are doing well!

Lori, I've grown to like our annual visit to the Serpentarium. My son bought a long (6 ft) plush snake there this year and as there was too much snake for the suitcase, he carried it with him as his carry-on. The plane home was not full, so the flight attendant had the kids move to empty window rows where they could stretch out. Just after dinner we saw one of the flight attendants walk by with the snake. My guess was that it was confiscated for bad behavior, but no, they just wanted to show the pilot.

Laura, I was only away from my laptop for a week and it seems I will never catch up!

Scout, now called Jean Louise, returns to Maycombe, expecting the usual friction with her Aunt Alexandra about the expectations put on a young lady, but eager to spend time with her father, Atticus, who is now aging and struggling with arthritis, and with Henry, a childhood friend who is eager to marry her. What she finds instead is an onslaught of memories and that Atticus is not the man she thought he was.

If you didn't know by now, Go Set a Watchman isn't a sequel or companion novel to Harper Lee's beloved To Kill a Mockingbird, but an earlier draft that her editor at the time suggested she rewrite, focusing on Scout's childhood. I'm not sure this book could have been published at that time, and the end of the book lacks both power and decisiveness. That said, having prepared to dislike Go Set a Watchman, I found it to be an entirely readable book, with much of the charm of the later book. It lacks coherence and the conflict at the heart of the book is resolved in a manner unsatisfying to a modern reader, but it isn't a bad book, let alone a stain on Lee's literary reputation.

At the heart of the novel lies Jean Louise's disillusionment on discovering her father's racism. After having worshipped him as a hero for so long, her reaction is much stronger than her reactions on finding out that other people she knows share his abominable views. There's a powerful confrontation between the two that is simultaneously difficult to read and impossible to put down. There is so much honest anger and frustration in Scout. I found myself egging her on and frustrated when she didn't give as strong an argument as I wanted her to, arguments clearly put forth earlier in the book through her actions and experiences from her childhood. Which is one of the strengths of this book; while the climactic scene is open and raw, Lee still allows many of her most powerful arguments to exist quietly in scenes far removed from the one between Atticus and Jean Louise.

While this is a flawed novel, with an abrupt and lackluster ending, it was a much better book that I had anticipated and it would be worth reading without Harper Lee's name behind it.

My copy of Blood, Salt, Water by Denise Mina has just been delivered. And now the attempt to put off reading it until Mina announces her next book begins!

>197 RidgewayGirl:
I've been curious about Go Set a Watchman ever since I heard about it and it sounds interesting in that it addresses complex issues. But as I understand it and as you mentioned, it was just a draft, which makes the lack of coherence understandable. It would have been interesting to read what Lee would have imagined the final version to be.

Given that her new executor has recently "discovered" a third novel, maybe we'll see?

Hrm. That sounds slightly ominous. I just hope her words are treated fairly and with respect. :/

The more I read about Tonja Carter's management of Lee's estate, the more the whole thing looks shady as hell. Maybe it's all fine and Carter is simply someone who is just off-putting by nature, but doing her best. I don't know.

>200 RidgewayGirl: - Say what?!

>202 RidgewayGirl: - Shady is the first word that comes to my mind as well, but I don't know enough to go beyond that.

Great review of Go Set a Watchman!

The Green Road is one of those quiet, understated novels that I always have trouble reviewing. It's centered around a family of grown children and their widowed mother, and it's written so plainly and effortlessly that I suspect quite a lot of work went into the writing. The first section of the book is a collection of short stories, each centering on a different member of the family. They stand alone, except that the reader knows that each protagonist is a member of the Madigan family, and each is very different from the others. The second section of the book brings them together for a final Christmas in the family home, in which old patterns continue to hold steady, even as new conflicts arise.

The Green Road has been long listed for the Man Booker Prize and it is well deserved.

>204 RidgewayGirl: As soon as I finish the Anne Tyler book with which I'm struggling, I'll get to Enright's. I have it checked out.

Jane, the Fox and Me is a graphic novel by French Canadian author Fanny Britt about a lonely girl who finds refuge in reading Jane Eyre. For Helene, Charlotte Brontë's novel is a way of hiding from the girls in her class who bully her, a way of hiding how alone she is, and a genuine escape into the life of a girl who persevered, looked clearly at things, and triumphed in the end. Her mother, struggling to raise Helene and her two younger brothers, doesn't help Helene's lack of confidence by worrying about how much Helene eats. Then a class excursion is announced, and Helene has something new to dread -- a week of camp with her entire class, which everyone else seems to be looking forward to.



The illustrations by Isabelle Arsenault are really lovely, switching between black and white panels in a traditional comic book set-up with larger panels, often full page, in full color and a more painterly style. The illustrations of the parks and woods are especially beautiful. The style in which the characters are drawn remind me of Kate Beaton's (of Hark! A Vagrant fame) style; deceptively simple, but with an uncanny ability to render expression.



Jane, the Fox and Me successfully combines an unhappy and bleak reality with a sense of optimism and hope. The conclusion of the book was realistic, but satisfying and lovely as well.

>206 RidgewayGirl: - Wow, so many thinks to like about that one. On the wishlist it goes.

Jane, the Fox, and Me looks lovely. What gorgeous art!

I am still upset about the Edisto Piggly Wiggly becoming a Bi-Lo. It just won't be the same.

>209 VictoriaPL: Oh no! Not the loss of a Pig! That just isn't right.