August 2015 - theme

So far this year our choices have matched the HistoryCAT every month. In view of this I think it is highly likely that our topic for August will be Medicine and Disease. If anybody would like to suggest another topic please feel free and we will vote as usual.

ETA - Here is the list from the wiki, including the suggested topic of Ireland (thanks for the reminder CurrerBell)

Biblical fiction
Civil wars
Communications (letters/telegraph/telephone/pony express)
Doorstopper - over 700 pages
Entertainment/recreation
Featherweight - under 200 pages
Industry
Ireland
Italy
Local/state/regional history
Multiple authors
One word title
Poverty
Red Scare/Mccarthyism
Slavery/human trafficking
Tricksters
Urbanization
War

cfk's been wanting to do something on Ireland and you said you were going to add it to the list for the next theme month.

I'm going to be spending most of the month primarily on ALL VIRAGO / ALL AUGUST so I was hoping we'd do Ireland later, maybe in October, because my read for Ireland is going to be a reread of Ulysses in print with a simultaneous listen on an unabridged audiobook. That's a big project to take on if I'm also doing ALL VIRAGO / ALL AUGUST — but if we do Ireland for August, I've got Edna O'Brien's new short-story anthology, The Love Object, that I can read instead of Ulysses.

Anyway, in view of cfk's interest, we did "sort of" commit to putting Ireland to a vote for an upcoming theme month.

My first reaction to "Medicine and Disease" was meh, I don't have anything in TBR on that, but then I did a tagmash of disease, fiction and came up with possibilities.

Gore Vidal's Kalki. Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm. Geoff Ryman's Was (reread). The Velveteen Rabbit (reread). La Peste (reread). And I guess medicine could also include Madame Bovary, and I'd like to have a go at Lydia Davis's translation.

ETA: Oooh, yeah, and The Plague Dogs, which I've been meaning to get to for ages. I started it years ago and for some reason or another put it down, got distracted or something, and it's one of the few Richard Adams novels I've never gotten to (except for Maia, which I've struggled through more than once and finally given up on).

>2 CurrerBell:, very good point about Ireland. Thanks for reminding me. I'll fix that up now.

>4 Roro8: And speaking of Ireland and Virago....

So if cfk's got a strong urge toward Ireland for August, I imagine I can go with it. I've got M.J. Farrell's Young Entry, and I'm pretty sure I have some Kate O'Brien around the house too — at least The Land of Spices, assuming I can find it. These give me a good combo of Ireland and Virago.

I will be reading a medicine book for the HistoryCat in August, but I would also be more than happy to include a book about Ireland. So whatever everyone wants is fine by me.

It doesn't need to be set for August--I'm not going until March 2016, so we've time enough to fit it in gracefully.

In addition to medicine and disease, I could do war, travel, or maybe door-stopper.

I'll put the vote up today seeing as we usually do this a little earlier in the month. So far we have Ireland, medicine and disease, war, travel or door-stopper.

All the choices sound good to me. Honestly, though, I got too excited over all the new challenges for '15 and got myself over-committed. Thus, I've ended up voting with the CAT challenge option each month. But, as I've already fallen short of my goals the last few months, I'm happy with anything chosen here!

With 5 yes votes for Ireland, I am going to call it.

The theme for August is Ireland!!

I wonder what everyone will choose Are we going to do books set in Ireland only or also books written by Irish authors but set anywhere?

I will probably choose the next up in the Dublin Murder Squad mystery series; have enjoyed those so far.
Or maybe I'll shoehorn in Iris Murdock along with the British Author challenge; she was born in Dublin.
Will wait and see what the group decides about parameters.

I am working my way through the Irish Country series by Patrick Taylor so I will be reading the 6th book in the series, An Irish Student Doctor which is set in Dublin during the 1930's.

I've got a couple to read by Irish author Molly Keane (a/k/a M.J. Farrell) — Young Entry and Devoted Ladies, both Virago so I can combine them with this year's upcoming ALL VIRAGO / ALL AUGUST (2014 thread). Devoted Ladies seems to be partly set in Ireland – not sure about Young Entry.

I really enjoyed the Irish Country series!

>20 cfk: I am enjoying it as well, and I've got my 94 year old mother totally hooked on the series too!

Has anybody read Edward Rutherfurd's Dublin series? I am thinking about taking it on for August, it's a big one at >800 pages.

Frank Mackey and girlfriend Rosie Daly made the decision to escape their dead end families and prospects on Faithful Place and take the ferry to England on a late December night. But Rosie didn't make it. A note left behind in their favorite hideaway led Frank to believe she'd changed her mind and gone off on her own.

Frank went on his own to begin a new life which eventually led him to joining and rising through the ranks of the Dublin guard. Twenty-two years after their missed date, her suitcase is found hidden in the fireplace in the old hideaway. Her body is found sealed in a basement wall and it's all down hill from there.

I found the whole dark and dysfunctional family storyline far too depressing and fatalistic to enjoy. My daughter loves the series and recommended it to me, so others might enjoy it as well.

Okay, I decided to try "The Princes of Ireland" by Rutherford by skipping most of the first section. What turned me off before is the image of women as merchandise and the source of most of the trouble, if not the root of or excuse for every war. That theme was still present through the rest of the book. Add to that petty kings battling to become the High King, Christianity, and the Vikings pushing in on top of the Celtics, Irish, Scots and Norse and you end up with endless bloody battles.

The biggest irony of all to me is that one of those petty kings named Diarmait invited King Henry II
in by way of gaining fighters. And the rest is history...........

Did I like it, no--way to bloody for me, but it does provide a window on Irish history though not for quick read.

"The Music Lesson" by Katharine Weber is a small, beautifully written novel. It is staged around a mad love affair between Patricia Dolan, an Art Reference Librarian in NYC, and an Irish cousin in need of her particular expertise.

I've just about hit my limit on depressing literary novels written by and/or about the Irish. My daughter has also recommended Colm Toibin and Colum McCann.

I have a couple books by Tana French on my shelves.

The "TransAtlantic" of thus novel's title is the connecting link between each of the vignettes tracing the generations of one matriarchal line set against historical backdrops and characters. The story actually begins in the middle, then drops back picking up the characters at important points along the way, but not in chronological order.

By the end of the book it became clear why the author chose to structure the story in this way, though on the downside, I never truly connected with any of the characters because of the way in which it was structured. Also, a death which might have had much more emotional content didn't because his death had already been revealed in an earlier bit.

This novel has received outstanding reviews. It was well written, poignant. But the structure did prevent me from feeling a real sense of connection to the story and characters. Not quite as depressing to me as others I have read.

I am almost halfway through No Country, which is shaping up to be a very good book.

Also, I have put up the thread for October.

I've just finished Devoted Ladies, which with Young Entry gives me two Molly Keanes, which also tie in which the Virago Modern Classics group's All Virago / All August read.

My Ireland-themed reads were:
Something Special by Iris Murdoch (short story set in Dublin; author born in Ireland) - 2.8 stars
Faithful Place by Tana French (crime fiction mystery set in Dublin; author grew up in Ireland) - 3.8 stars

I read A Dublin Student Doctor by Patrick Taylor which is set during the 1930's.

I read Shannon by Frank Delaney: It's 1922 and Marine Chaplain Robert Shannon has crashed mentally, physically and emotionally into the depths of shell shock. With ulterior motives, Boston Cardinal O'Connell has sent him to Ireland to walk along the Shannon River in search of his ancestry and healing. Friends of the Cardinal have sent along their own stalking horse to make sure he doesn't return.

But Father Shannon has landed in the midst of civil war in Ireland and is caught up its tangles from the very first day of his arrival. Unknown to him, his mentor has written to local Archbishops to keep an eye out for his well-being. The care of his invisible support network begins his healing, allowing him the silence he needs to rediscover his soul.

I just received Leon Uris' Trinity, so I've one more to complete for August.

I finished No Country: A Novel and I have to say it was an excellent read. Probably the best book I have read this year. It is the story of Padraig Aherne, an Irishman, and his decendants over a period of 200 years. The author has done a wonderful job of intertwining the lives of the characters that would not have existed without Padraig. So much history of Ireland and India is incorporated into this wonderful novel.

For me, the August theme was a Molly Keane (1904-1996) read: Young Entry, Devoted Ladies, and Full House. Keane (who wrote her earlier books – most of her work – under the name M.J. Farrell) was an Irish novelist and playwright, many of whose novels have been reprinted in Virago Modern Classics, making her a good tie-in to the ALL VIRAGO / ALL AUGUST thread on the VMC group. The early novel Young Entry wasn't particularly good, but the later two were excellent.