Charl08 (Charlotte) reads a little more #9

Reading update
I'm a would-be researcher / teacher who is not employed as either right now*, with the distinct side-benefit that I get a lot more time to read outside of 'my' field (although I like to do that too). Although I'm not a big goal-setter, given that just now reading is leisure activity, I'm making progress through the long-listed 'women's prize for fiction' and another list, of 50 books by women from the African continent, that two bloggers that I like and respect (along with the RCS) put together. On both lists I've found books I have loved, so :-) I've come to the end of the books I want to read from the Booker longlist for now.

More lighthouses I have known (!)
Where the oceans meet: Cape Point


The rather amazing Kalk Bay lighthouse


You can buy fresh fish direct from the boats near here when things are a bit calmer.

*Hope springs eternal!

To fit with the lighthouse, my current fitness goal is to 'swim the channel'

Best books of 2015 (so far)

Five Children on the Western Front; Lila; The Map of Love; An Unnecessary Woman; Dept of Speculation; Can't we talk about something more pleasant; The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing; Bad Blood; Aya of Yop City; History of the Rain; Sights Unseen; The Narrow Road to the Deep North; A Month in the Country; In These Times;The Bone Clocks; In Diamond Square; The Real Jane Austen: A life in small things; Displacement; On the Move, A Spool of blue thread. Crooked Heart, The Book of Aron , How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, The Shore, A History of Seven Killings, A Place called Winter, Sleeping on Jupiter, The Green Road, The Woman I Kept to Myself, Hark, A Vagrant, The Evening Chorus, Career of Evil, Voices from Chernobyl.

Updated to read targets

Gateway for Africa / Bookshy's list of 50 Books by African women everyone should read / 11 Read so far in 2015!
2. The Aya Series Aya of Yop City- Marguerite Abouet (Cote D'Ivoire / France) READ
5. Changes: A Love Story - Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana)
6. Our Sister Killjoy - READ
8. Our Wife and Other Stories - Karen King-Aribisala (Nigeria)
9. Everything Good Will Come - Sefi Atta (Nigeria)
10. So Long a Letter - Mariama Ba (Senegal) READ
11. Tropical Fish: Stories out of Entebbe - Doreen Baingana (Uganda)
12. Patchwork - Ellen Banda-Aaku (UK/ Zambia / Ghana)
14. We need new names - No Violet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)
15. Daughters of Africa - Margaret Busby (Ghana / UK)
17. Woman at Point Zero - Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt) READ
18. The Joys of Motherhood - Buchi Emecheta (Nigeria)
20. July’s People - Nadine Gordimer (South Africa) READ
21. The Collector of Treasures - Bessie Head (South Africa)
22. In Dependence - Sarah Ladipo (Nigeria/ UK)
23. Secret Son - Laila Lalami (Morocco)
24. Sundowners - Lesley Lokko (Ghana/Scotland)
25. Black Mamba Boy - Nadifa Mohamed (UK / Somaliland) READ
26. Your Madness, Not Mine - Juliana Makuchi (Short Stories, Cameroon) READ
27. Neighbours: The Story of a Murder - Lilia Momplé (Mozambique)
28. Ripples in the Pool- Rebeka Njau (Kenya)
29. Efuru- Flora Nwapa (Nigeria)
30. I Do Not Come To You By Chance- Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani (Nigeria)
31. The Promised Land - Grace Ogot (Kenya)
32. Bitter Leaf - Chioma Okereke (Nigeria / England)
33. Zahrah the Windseeker - Nnedi Okorafor (US / Nigeria)
34. The Spider King’s Daughter - Chibundu Onuzo (Nigeria)
35. Dust - Yvonne Adhiambor Owuor (Kenya)
37. The Map of Love - Ahdaf Soueif (Egypt) READ
38. This September Sun - Bryony Rheam (Zimbabwe)
39. Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories -Alifa Rifaat (Egypt) READ
40. As the Crow Flies - Véronique Tadjo (Côte d'Ivoire). READ
41. The Blind Kingdom (also by Véronique Tadjo)
43. Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria - Noo Saro-Wiwa (Nigeria / England)
44. Butterfly Burning - Yvonne Vera (Zimbabwe).
45. Nehanda (also by Yvonne Vera)
46. Teaching my Mother How to Give Birth - Warsan Shire (Kenya / Somalia)
47. The Ghost Le Revenant in French) - Aminata Sow Fall (Senegal)
48. Men of the South - Zukiswa Wanner (South Africa)
49. David’s Story - Zoe Wicomb (South Africa) READ

Total: 254

September 26
A Florentine Death ( Italy, M)
The Green Road (Ireland, F)
The Fascination of Evil (France, M)
In the Fold (UK, F)
Exit Wounds (Israel, F)
Did You Ever Have a Family? (US, M)
And Sometimes I Wonder About You (US, M)
The Snack Thief (Italy, M)
The Sea Detective (UK, M)
The Woman I Kept to Myself (US, F)
Paris in Love (US, F )
Girl Interrupted (US, F)
House of Orphans ( UK, F )
The Illuminations (UK, M)
The Dead Can Wait (UK, M)
Sweet Caress (UK, M )
The Known World (US, M)
Under the Frangipani (Mozambique, M)
Time's Arrow (UK, M )
The Great Fire (Australia, F)
Nightwalking (UK, M)
Ice Haven (US, M)
Persona non Grata ( UK, F)
Nimona (US, F)
A Study in Murder (UK, M)
Songdogs (Ireland, M)

October 29
Divorce Islamic Style (Tunisia, M)
Citizen: An American Lyric (US, F)
Is Shame Necessary: new uses for an old tool (US, F)
The New Confessions ( UK, M )
Hark! A Vagrant (Canada, F)
Cocaine (Italy, M)
The Evening Chorus (Canada, F)
What remains of heaven (US, F)
David’s Story (South Africa, F)
The Dead Lake (Uzbekistan, M)
Childhood (Canada, M)
The Harlem Hellfighters (US, M)
Human Diastrophism (US, M)
Hild (UK, F)
The Human Flies (Norway, M)
Minna Needs Rehearsal Space / Karate Chop (Denmark, F)
As I walked out one midsummer morning (UK, M)
Melisande! What are dreams? (Israel, M)
I saw a man (UK, M)
This is how you lose her (US, M)
Arab Jazz (France, M)
Career of Evil (UK, F)
Iphigenia in Forest Hills (US, F )
Invented lives: narratives of black women, 1860-1960 (US, F)
Voices from Chernobyl (Belarus, F)
I am Spain (UK, M)
My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises ( Sweden, M)
The Silence of the Sea (Iceland, F)
Barcelona Shadows (Spain, M)

Stats Oct
Africa 2, US & Canada 11, Europe 13 (UK 6), Uzbekistan 1, Israel 1, Belarus 1
F13 M16

Stats Sept
Gender F 10 M 16
Region: Europe 15 ( UK 10), Israel 1, US 8, Africa 1 (Mozambique), Australia 1

*waves cast--5 more days!*

Happy new thread, Charlotte - I love the covers of your favorites. Some of mine are there, too. And two by Julia Alvarez!

Happy New Thread, Charlotte! Love the lighthouse toppers.

It looks like you are having a great reading year. Keep it up.

Happy new thread!

>5 ronincats: Only 5 days? Hope you've got some fun planned for your freedom.

>6 BLBera: Thanks for the reminder: hoping to get hold of another novel by Alvarez soon.

>7 msf59: I'm going to run out of lighthouses soon, might have to try and go on a trip to find some more!

>8 banjo123: Thanks! The last one seemed to go by awfully fast.

From the library:

Is Shame Necessary, The Four Dimensional Human, I saw a Man which I've been waiting for for Ages and Silver Bullets (apparently Elmer Mendoza is 'the godfather of Mexican crime fiction.

All this And the Sun is shining :-)

Wow! 225 books! That's amazing! Congratulations. I had quite a successful time at the library earlier today. I won't list my books because I have a bad track record of reading all of them :)

Ah Deb, I'm hoping listing them won't mean someone holds me to actually reading them...

Congrats on your new thread (love the topper) and on hitting 225 books for the year (so far)!

I just got my copy of A Brief History of Seven Killings in the mail today. Only 12 days until the announcement of the winner.

That second lighthouse does look particularly spectacular!

>13 Storeetllr: Thanks. I'm hoping the lighthouses remind me I need to visit the swimming pool more often.

>14 EBT1002: The Kalk Bay lighthouse provides some dramatic shots, despite not being that far from a busy coast road, railway and homes.

Congratulations on another epic reading selection - here, have a lighthouse:


(Byron Bay in Australia)

Divorce Islamic Style was a surprisingly fun read given the title and the plot (man masquerades as Tunisian to try and find a jihadi plot).



Alternated between the first person narrative of two characters, Issa (the spy) and Saphia, a young migrant to Italy, unhappily married to a man who appears to be increasingly religious. I liked Saphia's voice particularly: she is convincing in her attempts to deal with Italy's racism, the pain of leaving a family behind, whilst retaining a sense of humour. There's also fascinating detail of Italian and Egyptian (film, music, proverbs) culture.

The name of Safia Zaghloul is often cited because of the role she played in her husband's life, and to illustrate the famous saying that in Arabic goes: "Waraa kull rajul adhim imraa," behind every great man there is always a woman. I've never completely understood what it means. I find it extremely ambiguous; it can be interpreted in different ways. To whom does the term woman refer?Grandmother, mother, daughter, wife, granddaughter, lover? And also: a woman who hides behind a man raises some suspicions: why doesn't she go in front? What is she plotting?

Went to see the Martian. V good.

Great news! Although I suspected that it would be... :)

Citizen: An American Lyric is a fascinating blend of poetry or short essays with a collage of print effects, paintings and photographs. I think for me the most striking is the short piece on Zidane's exit from the World Cup, weaving together images (tv stills), crowd jeering (unrepeatable), Zidane's own thoughts about nationality and what happened, and quotes from scholars on the impact of living with racist abuse. Powerful stuff.

>16 evilmoose: Thanks! Would like to go back to Sydney...

>19 drneutron: It's not exactly a spoiler... :-)

Guardian Reviews



Merciless Gods by Christos Tsiolkas reviewed by Neil Bartlett
I've yet to read The Slap. Too Many Books...

"Again and again, these stories probe the idea that contemporary Australia is a country built on the inadmissable, a place where unspeakable shames and unacknowledged wounds lie just below the surfaces of its many intersecting cultures. Sometimes the wounds are named: racism, misogyny, homophobia and colonialist genocide all stage sudden and devastating ambushes"

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
This sounds like my kind of thing. Very tempting...

"In “Homing”, the final story, Berlin observes the roosting habits of crows from her porch: “But what bothers me is that I only accidentally noticed them. What else have I missed? How many times in my life have I been, so to speak, on the back porch, not the front porch? What would have been said to me that I failed to hear? What love might there have been that I didn’t feel?” On the evidence of this wonderful collection, she had no need to worry: she missed nothing."

The White Road by Edmund de Waal reviewed by Kathleen Jamie
I've heard bits of this on the radio, and am quite tempted by the quotes about archaeology in the review.

" …I have a plan to go to three places where porcelain was invented, or reinvented, three white hills in China and Germany and England.” Three white hills, each yielding a white object. It does sound simple, elegant; even, dare one say, spiritual. A white road. But although De Waal sticks to the plan, it’s hard to know what the book is: is it a quest, a biography, a history, a travelogue or a bit of all? Certainly a bit of all."

A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk reviewed by Alberto Manguel
I don't do well with Pamuk, but maybe I should try again.

"The reader follows Mevlut through the sprawling plot, which winds its way in and out of the poorer neighbourhoods and the ancient alleys and passages of Istanbul. Though at times it reads as a cross between a history manual and private memoir, A Strangeness in My Mind is above all a love letter to the city in all its faded, messy, dusty glory."

Now Is the Time by Melvyn Bragg reviewed by Juliet Barker
Nope.

"though Melvyn Bragg has demonstrated repeatedly in previous novels that he possesses both historical empathy and imagination, he fails to give them free rein in Now Is the Time because he is hamstrung by his historian’s desire for accuracy."

They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper by Bruce Robinson
reviewed by PD Smith
Rather tempted by this, although the mason thing just makes me think Dan Brown, which rather points in the other direction...

"...sets out to prove that the so-called mystery of Jack the Ripper is in reality “an establishment conspiracy … an agenda to conceal a Freemason""

The Silk Roads by Peter Frakopan reviewed by Anthony Sattin
I couldn't work out from the review what was new about the argument of this book.

"The Silk Roads is full of intriguing insights and some fascinating details. Who it is aimed at remains a puzzle."

Weatherland by Alexandra Harris reviewed by A S Byatt
I liked Romantic Moderns so may well add this to my Cmas wishlist...
"The whole of this splendid book is about weather that is inhuman and also about language that is human, making endless attempts to understand weather. "

Turns out I inadvertently bought the Forward prize winner...


The Forward Prize for Best Collection (£10,000)
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (Penguin Books)

The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection (£5,000)
Mona Arshi, Small Hands, (Liverpool University Press)

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (£1,000)
Claire Harman, “The Mighty Hudson” (TLS)

The winner of the 2015 Forward Prize for the Best Poetry Collection is Jamaica-born Claudia Rankine for Citizen: An American Lyric, described by the jury as a “powerful book for our time”. AL Kennedy, chair of the five-strong jury, said: “This is writing we can recommend with real urgency and joy. It’s a stylistically daring poetic project about the dehumanization of those deemed outsiders – we found it exhilarating and genuinely transformative.” The press release is here.

“Citizen is a brave book, with many dimensions: it takes risks, gives courage and provokes profound self-questioning. We read it as a celebration of the power of language, not simply as a call to arms but a call to speak out and to share. Several of us have, individually, pressed this book on others with real fervour. It will, we know, raise questions about the nature, purpose and importance of poetry.

Citizen: An American Lyric (Penguin Books) is published as poetry and has also been described as a “lyric essay”, a creative non-fiction genre combining the essay form with poetic technique, using juxtaposition instead of argument or narrative. The book features extracts from documentary film scripts, an essay on Venus Williams, screen grabs of Zinedine Zidane’s 2006 World Cup head-butt, President Obama’s oath of office, JMW Turner’s painting The Slave Ship and witness testimony to acts of everyday racism.

>23 charl08: A lyric essay poetry? Well I guess if AL Kennedy says so I'll accept that! Those books are next to impossible to get hold of in Malaysia and just makes me the more homesick!

Another strong list of Guardian reviews this week. I have always enjoyed Melvyn Bragg's books and I do think that his posing on TV often distracts people from an appreciation of his writing.

3 X 75 already is stellar reading.

Have a great weekend, Charlotte.

Citizen: An American Lyric is a great book Paul. Not just beautiful use of language but shining a light at some grim things. Hope you can catch it at some point. I was reminded of the two books I read earlier in the year on the relationship between the police and the deaths of young black men.

Nice new thread, Charlotte. I wholeheartedly second your opinion about Citizen: An American Lyric, which is destined to be one of my top 10 books of 2015.

>26 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl, I must have missed your comments on your thread. Sorry!

This description of the next Cormoran Strike has me champing at the bit...

When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman's severed leg. Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible - and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.
With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike is increasingly sure is not the perpetrator, he and Robin take matters into their own hands, and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them....
A fiendishly clever mystery with unexpected twists around every corner, Career of Evil is also a gripping story of a man and a woman at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives....

>28 charl08: Hoo hoo! Gotta get that ordered, for me and for my wife.

Happy (Pretty) New Thread, Charlotte! I got hopelessly behind on the last one, but at least I'm not embarrassed to put in an appearance here.
As you know, I'm reading The Silkworm now. I won't buy Career of Evil when it comes out, but I may not be able to wait a year before I can afford it. This may be the one time I resort to the public library, always assuming that they get a copy or 2. Hmmm. I see that E. George has a new book out in October too. I used to love her, but now I'm 2 behind.

Congrats on your shiny new thread, Charlotte. I love all the lighthouse photos. So great to put a swimming ticker on this thread. From where to where would your virtuel goal be?

>29 weird_O: I'm hoping that the library gets their copies soonish...

>30 LizzieD: You're welcome anytime, of course. I hope your library comes up with a copy as a year seems a long time to wait.

>31 Ameise1: I looked online for the narrowest crossing! I was so pleased with myself yesterday, I swam a km for the first time in ages. It definitely helps me to have a goal.

>32 charl08: Sounds great, Charlotte. Wishing you good luck. I'm sure you'll achieve your goal.

Good for you, swimming a km . Having a goal and managing it does make one feel great! Thanks for the push on Did You Ever Have a Family. I'm now fairly well into it, and really enjoying it. As you say, it is more about people and small towns ( as far as I can tell right now). In some ways, it is not dissimilar from A Spool of Blue Thread. I also put a hold on Sleeping Jupiter at my library. I'll be first in line, but they are still purchasing it, so it will be a while til I get it. ( like a month or so ) .

I've had a couple of busy days - so I've not had a chance to update my thread as yet.

>33 Ameise1: Thanks for the encouragement! I am enjoying swimming more than the gym at the moment. I am quite tempted by the idea of wild swimming, but will wait for summer I think.

>34 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deb. I saw how well everyone was doing with fitbits and thought a similar idea might help. Glad you are enjoying Did you ever have a family. I heard Bill Clegg speak on the radio last week, he was interesting on small town life. Also talked about how much of the drafts he abandoned: sounded like there was a much longer book at one point.

Is Shame Necessary



(This is the US cover, as the UK one is plain white)

I was quite surprised when this book came in at the library as I was expecting a meaty tome, not less than 200 pages, a huge font and rather odd full page cartoon illustrations. It's an interesting read, but I'm not sure how much it adds to the debate. Jacquet opens the book with an account of her experience as a child of the dolphin friendly tuna campaign. She goes on to point to the failure of consumer guilt as a tool in permanently changing behaviour, and considers the possibilities for the role of shame (external, linked to community reaction) as an alternative.

This book is full of examples of public reactions to company choices, psychology experiments that aim to work out how group perceptions affect our behaviour and (to a lesser extent) interviews with individuals who have in some way been involved in 'shame' e.g. an academic who had an ironic article pupporting to make the case for postmodern critique of scientific truth. These anecdotes make for interesting reading. There is discussion of anonymity and how it makes people more willing to criticise others is fascinating, and I would have liked more on this. I finished the book unconvinced. Classic psychology experiments have recently proved almost impossible to replicate, and the ones here don't exactly inspire confidence (is it just me that thinks students that volunteer for experiments don't make a representative sample for statements about how we all behave?)

Another problem, as she notes near the end, her examples are US centric, and so for me at least there is a hole where an exploration of different community understandings of shame might be, and what happens in a mobile world where these ideas meet and contradict each other. I think it might have been a better book if she had focussed on shame and the environmental causes she mentions at the beginning as her early passion. But it's left me wanting to know more, so I'm now thinking that I'll order Jon Ronson on Internet shaming.

Happy Sunday, Charlotte! Hope you are having a good weekend. I am also very interested in A Manual for Cleaning Women. I have heard nothing but glowing reports.

It sounds good, doesn't it. I shall be jealous if you get an early copy!

Just read A Good Man is Hard to find from an edition of collected Flannery O'Connor. Wow. No prisoners. I don't think I'm going to read the whole collection as I have to return things to the library (ten items waiting. Ouch).

Happy new thread, Charlotte :-)

I also read the shame book recently, and the Jon Ronson, so I'll be interested to see what you think of that one too.

Excellent progress with the swimming!

I found this lighthouse today at Trinity Buoy Wharf, during the Maritime Blackwall walk, so I'm posting it here for your collection. They tested different types of lights in this building, and someone stood on a hill near Woolwich to see which ones were brightest.

>40 susanj67: I thought someone had read it, but wasn't sure - sorry! Did you like it more than I did? I think I was the wrong audience (wanted something else from it rather tham what it did focus on).

Lovely lighthouse. I wonder what was there before the modern flats behind...

I quite like the idea of being the person on the hill checking the lights. Sounds like your tour was really good then?

>41 charl08: I did enjoy it, but possibly I didn't have any expectations when I read it, so I just took it as I found it :-)

There were more buildings of a similar kind to the brick ones on the site in Victorian times (not all of them survive). It became the Thameside property of The Corporation of Trinity House in 1803, but the organisation got its charter in the 1500s, and it's responsible (or *was* responsible) for maintaining beacons and buoys around the UK, and there are some huge examples around the site. A lot of the new buildings are made from shipping containers, and it's very trendy out there (Royal Drawing School, offshoot of the ENO, a Parkour Academy etc) but the views are stunning and it's very unexpected in that part of London. I can't believe I've never been there before. You can climb the lighthouse but I didn't. The walk was excellent, so I'm going to book another one.

What is it about lighthouses? They are so appealing. Maybe because they evoke crusty old sea dog type loners... They only lighthouses I recall visiting are the Cape Reinga one at the top of NZ and one in Latvia. Both lovely.

>42 susanj67: Just once I want a book to meet my unrealistic expectations. Walking tour sounds rather wonderful. So much history.

>43 LovingLit: I think some of it is the amazing engineering, facing down the waves for decades (when they work as they're supposed to do).

The New Confessions is one of those books that made me wish I knew classical Euro lit (and particularly Rousseau) better. Told as the memoirs of an elderly man, the narrative runs from 1900s Edinburgh to the trenches of the first world war, to filmmaking in pre Nazism Berlin and then on to Hollywood. Along the way, John James falls in love, makes enemies and finds that his fortunes go down as well as up. Obsessed with a version of Rousseau's masterwork, his own life appears to take on traits of the philosopher's experiences. Fascinating stuff, and a gripping read (despite the length).

The New confessions sounds like a great read. I am going to look for it.

>46 banjo123: I've yet to read a book of his that I didn't like. Hope you like this one as much as I did.

Since you are doing lighthouses I thought I would leave you with one of Minnesota's more picturesque lighthouses. Split Rock Lighthouse overlooks Lake Superior. It is now operated by the Minnesota Historical Society and is a favorite stop of ours when we visit the north shore.

Wow what a beautiful image. Maybe I should start planning my world tour of lighthouses, it seems like there are some lovely ones out there.

Loving Hark a Vagrant. Some of the cartoons are laugh out loud funny, others making me snigger in an unattractive manner...





Thanks to everyone on LT who recommended this!

Cocaine, by Carlotto, Carofiglio and de Cataldo is a collection of three longish short stories, linked by their ficus on the Italian cocaine trade. I enjoyed Judges, which was a similar idea but different authors, and this had the same strengths - the contrasting approaches of the three writers made for interesting reading. I particularly liked The Speed of the Angel, where a writer meets a woman who used to be head of a police narcotics team. Why is she now working as a carer?

>50 charl08: This must be getting promoted around the internet somehow. A friend at work sent me links to several of the Shakespeare-themed comics and it was the first time I had encountered Hark a Vagrant. Great comic.

The Shakespeare ones are fun. She has an online comic as well, but I do like having them in a book format. I am tempted to get my own copy (and am thinking of a couple of friends who might appreciate one for Xmas).

The Evening Chorus

I'm officially now a fan of Helen Humphreys. This is a lovely book following the lives of James, a POW in 1940, his wife at home and his sister. In the camp, James finds birds to watch, whilst his bunkmates try to tunnel their way out. At home, his wife finds consolation with two crazy dogs, but is unsure of her marriage. Then Enid, James' sister, is bombed out of her flat in London. The natural world descriptions are lovely, from the redstarts James watches to the country lanes Rose walks with the dogs.

The dogs shoot through the door ahead of her the moment she opens it. They are gone - blurred, muscled forms racing across the bracken. They run so hard and so fast that the way their paws come together and then push apart in the action of their running reminds Enid of the clench and unclench of a heart. The dogs' gathering in and pushing off happening in the steady rhythm of a heartbeat.

I love this cover which reminds me of the beautiful old nature guides dating from this period.

Charlotte, the cover is lovely, and the book sounds wonderful. Onto the list it goes!

I popped over expecting to see the same cover as it is in Canada! That is lovely - but I think the Canadian Cover is even lovelier, though completely a matter of taste. I'm on hold about something I ordered that has gone AWOL. , so annoying , so I have to focus on that or I'd put the Canadian cover here right now. I really enjoyed the The Evening Chorus too and am a fan of her work. I loved Coventry. Great review! The Canadian cover has a more realistic looking bird, and some wispy sort of branches on it. Very pretty too.

>55 BLBera: Hope you like it as much as I do. I'm really tempted to buy a second hand copy of Coventry now as the library doesn't have one...

>56 vancouverdeb: I've seen a couple of different covers (including the one you mention). Sadly there's also a fairly generic 'woman stares into the distance' one too, although I don't know where it's from!

In other news, mightily miffed as the Ruth Downie that I'd brought home from the library turned out to be the same book I'd just read under the US title. Argh...

Don't you hate that , when a book has a different name in one country then another? Do look for a 2nd hand copy of Coventry. I really loved it! It was very popular here on LT, as was The Frozen Thames, which I have been looking for a second copy of myself. It's not carried at my library either, but people LT raved about it too.

I loved The Frozen Thames Deb. Again, beautifully produced: another small hardback that fits in your hand.

As I couldn't read my anticipated book in the Ruso crime series, I picked up on of my mother's crime novels. What remains of heaven is one of the Sebastian St Cyr novels. Although I read it to the end, and I was keen to find out what happened, I don't think it stands the comparison made to Georgette Heyer on the cover. In this novel, Sebastian and Hero's working relationship is under pressure. A crypt is opened up by mistake as part of church building work, and a body is discovered. The Bishop investigates and is himself injured. Sebastian is called in: Hero has her own reasons to be involved.

Happy Wednesday, Charlotte. I have only read The Frozen Thames, which I loved. I am looking forward to more Humphreys.

Me too Mark, me too! The library has a copy of her memoir about her brother's suicide, so I think I'll read that soon.

I feel like I've been reading David's Story for months, which is not to say that I didn't enjoy reading it. Fascinating look by Zoe Wicomb at the shift to a democratic state in South Africa through the eyes of anew anti-apartheid undercover fighter. But it is also a story about the complex racial politics and history of South Africa, as David tries to seek out his history as a member of the Griqua community(termed 'coloured' in apartheid terminology). These stories are unreliable, questioned by the narrator who appears at points to chammenge the narrative as told. So not a comfortable book, one that asks questions about what kind of equality is practiced in the border camps (not much), what happens to relationships between men and women trying to keep their work secret, and further back, what the absence of women from historical photos and narratives means.

In the bus a young man ties large gold, green, and black rosettes to their jerseys and pretty ribbons around their hats, and although Ouma wishes to nurse her bad temper and her scepticism, in the laughter and babble of the children, the guitar and the jolly singing, and Mrs January pressing her to eat just a teeny-weeny frikkadel before they even get onto the highway, soon lift her spirits, so that in no time she is singing along... the mood is too infectious, and by the time they arrive in Castle Street where the buses park, Ouma Sarie stumbles toyi-toying out of the bus like everyone else.

What did I tell you, everyone is crazy for The Frozen Thames. As a side note, today the last of the three major Canadian Lit prize list came out and Evening Chorus is on it, as is Outline. I am a bit disappointed in this years Can Lit prize lists, but at least I have read The Evening Chorus which I enjoyed, but I don't see it as worthy of a literary prize, unlike say, Coventry. You might be right, maybe Outline will win a prize.

David's Story sounds interesting , I may have to look and see if it is at the library .

I'm rooting for Helen Humphreys Deb!

I was put off David’s Story for ages because a friend told me it was 'hard'. I enjoyed it once I got used to the unusual structure, but I agreed that for me it doesn't have the accessibility of You can't get lost in Cape Town (Short stories) or Playing in the light her book about a family 'passing' as white during apartheid.

Reading update:

Currently reading The Four Dimensional human, although some of the phrasing is a bit pretentious, so I'll see how far I'm going to get (comparing waiting for an email response to Odysseus' weeping on the shore unable to return home. Really? !)

Also reading extracts from Harriet Jacobs's slave narrative, included in Invented Lives: narratives of black women. I was aware of the debate around the authenticity of this account (partly because of a similar debate around Equiano's narrative) but hadn't read it myself. The very clear introduction to the text explains why she wrote her experiences in the style of a 19c novel. Her life as a slave was horrific, demonstrating the way in which women in slavery were subject to their masters. Wonderful ending though:
"Reader, my story ends with freedom..."
Next up is an extract from the work of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

>66 charl08: Charlotte, there have definitely been instances in which I could have wept while waiting hours for emails. And sometimes I did think they were never going to come. That one's in transit for me :-)

Godrevy lighthouse in Cornwall is a picturesque one sitting on a rocky islet and daring ships onto its rocks (yep I know it was supposed to be the other way round) but those wreckers were dab hands at putting out false signals.

>67 susanj67: Whilst I have longed for responses, the occasions that stick in the memory are how often I have wished for the retract button to be invented.

>68 PaulCranswick: Ooh, those Cornish. Without them, so many Regency romance plot lines disappear (depending on your perspective, a Good or a Bad thing...).

(National Poetry Day)
http://www.forwardartsfoundation.org/national-poetry-day

Sometimes
Sheenah Pugh

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

And a more recent one

The Words Collide
by Eilean Ni Chuilleanain
The scribe objects. You can’t put it like that,
I can’t write that. But the client
is a tough small woman forty years old.
She insists. she needs her letter
to open out full of pleated revolving silk
and the soft lobes of her ears
where she flaunts those thin silver wires.

For the full poem,
http://www.forwardartsfoundation.org/poetry/the-words-collide/

From my socialist past:

Death of a Capitalist

You died and were descended to your cold grave
beyond hypocrisy, fertilising reeking soil.
The elements permeate your wooded shell -
These, the most humble of creatures
are vastly superior to you now.
What did you build in that counterfeit world
that is worth citing now?

October 1988.

Decided to celebrate NPD and buy Don Paterson's book. Had to order it, so hopefully it won't take too long...

I will also seek out more of his anthologies Charlotte. I like the cut of his jib.

Glad to hear it Paul. Will you be writing anything inspired by Corbyn's recent win?

Caught some fascinating poetry on the radio this evening. Particularly liked Hollie McNish's riff on British identity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06g1nfr

>75 charl08: Loved that Charlotte. I will look at scribbling something in honour of Corbyn returning Labour to socialism - well until the establishment and its fawning media manage to get him.

>76 PaulCranswick: Sounds good Paul. I'm hoping for Good Things from Labour again. The latest Tory vileness on immigration makes me feel a bit sick, am hoping Labour can call them to account more effectively than has been the case.

Reading update

The curse of the library has struck again. After just taking out eight books in a couple of days *seven* have turned up at once on the reservation shelf!

The Dead Lake has restored my faith in the Peirene imprint after the grubby misogynist fantasy that was Reader for hire. Hamid Ismailov shows a world of radioactive fallout in Soviet era Kazakhstan.



Yerzhan's childhood idyll is disrupted and then dismantled as the effects of atomic testing are felt by his family. Ismailov's portrait of three generations of the family includes the musical grandfather and his poetic songs of the steppe, the grandmothers whose folk tales explain everything of significance, to the son who is a worker on the atomic plant and is convinced their work is essential to overcoming the US.

And once again his rebellion was put off until the next day. If this was the way of things in the world, then weren't his suffering, his imagination and threats, all his thoughts, like a flowing stream, like powdered snow, like a swirling blizzard and his life simply a short, sad song?

>77 charl08: Oh no, not the library curse! My reserves are stubbornly not coming in. That might mean I can finish a couple of current ones over the weekend.

>77 charl08: Every time. There's a long stretch of no holds coming in, and then they all do at once, or at least the largest books all arrive at once. I am reading as fast as I can and have discarded for now the idea of reading books from my own shelves. And, once again, I promise myself that I will be less liberal in my reserving of books, knowing full well that I will break that promise.

>78 susanj67: I'm mostly starting books at present. Finishing them, not so much. Maybe I should set myself a page limit when reserving.

>79 RidgewayGirl: I have rather foolishly bought about ten paperbacks from a newly discovered interesting second hand book place. I was sure I wanted to read them, but now, the question is When? Perhaps also time to note that I need to record the purchases for next year's thread.

Whew! All caught up with you again, Charlotte!

Hope you have a great weekend.

As a republican myself Charlotte this is a little tongue in cheek. But as promised:

A New Privy Councillor?

For those with republican zeal
did Cromwell forge the commonweal
such that Corbyn may refuse to kneel
before his Queen.

Perhaps it should not be ignored
that to his crown Charles was restored
such that Corbyn would be deplored
as base and mean.

If Labour ever does regain power
would it be a republican hour
or is Corbyn in an ivory tower
just venting spleen?

October 2015

>82 PaulCranswick: Wow, Paul, this is gorgeous.

>83 Ameise1: Hardly Barbara. Just a throwaway ditty. It is funny when austerity policies are working towards stabilising a deficit at the expense of those least able to afford it, the press heap attention on whether Jeremy Corbyn should sing the national anthem or kiss the hand of QE2. You can be a patriot as well as being a republican and the smears that have started against him do a disservice to the so-called free press in the United Kingdom.

>82 PaulCranswick: >83 Ameise1: >84 PaulCranswick: Nice one Paul. Although you are reminding me that I've not read anything remotely political for ages... Perhaps time to rectify that before the year is over. I also thought the fuss over singing (or not singing) the national anthem was ridiculous. I'd rather someone stuck to his principles rather than trying to be media friendly.

>81 katiekrug: Missed you! Thanks for visiting. Hope the company cutbacks don't trouble you.

Childhood by Andre Alexis, which I thought was memoir but is actually a novel. Told to a lover who remains unnamed for most of the book, this is the story of Thomas who when the book opens, lives with his grandmother. His mother has left the child with her mother, but has not returned. As far as Thomas knows he has been abandoned with a woman who was once a teacher, loved Dickens and was an active part of her community, but on widowhood or ageing appears to have lost her capacity to provide a good home for the child. For me, this first section where Thomas describes the casual racism of some of the neighbours, his love of insects and first 'girlfriend' was captivating.

On the second section his mother returns, and they go to live with an old boyfriend in Ottawa. This half of the book lost my interest as the boy reflects on how he didn't really know his mother or her partner well, or their relationship. I could have done without the last fifty pages and thought it would have benefited from a harsh prune. Nonetheless, some fun quotes about reading.

Neither of them seemed at all concerned by what I read. I remember sitting in the library's armchair, reading with wonder, shame and incomprehension Les Bijoux indiscret, a novel about talking vaginas, when Henry came in, too quickly for me to hide the book.
.Ah... Diderot, he said and went into the lab.

On honour of the Alexis book, a Canadian lighthouse



The Sambro Island lighthouse, the oldest operating lighthouse in North America, was built in 1758. (ANDREW VAUGHAN / The Canadian Press)http://thechronicleherald.ca/editorials/1134431-editorial-ottawa-in-the-dark-on-lighthouse-preservation

Guardian Reviews


This week's reviews: remember everyone 'Forget about the pig'

The Death of Rex Nhongo by CB George reviewed by F T Kola
Probably, yes.
"what is compelling is how much of the status quo is preserved: couples stay together, traditional rites are observed and the same failings are repeated. Like shell-shocked villagers after a war, the characters pick through the rubble of their lives, determined to put themselves together, convinced that life goes on."

Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume reviewedby Sinéad Gleason
Yes.
"If anything, the journey that comprises the book – sleeping in the car, surviving on spaghetti hoops – is an anti-odyssey, but it provides the skeletal framework for a story that uncomfortably examines social isolation."

Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor reviewed by Jane Housham
Yes.
"Into a meticulous re-creation of the Dickinson family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, Irish novelist Nuala O’Connor introduces a fictional maid-of-all-work, Ada Concannon, fresh off the boat from Dublin."

Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology reviewed by Keith Brooke
Ooh.
"...the editors have searched far and wide for source material, turning a collection that might have been worthy but dull into a diverse celebration of speculative fiction"

A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball reviewed by M John Harrison
Hmm, not sure...
"...a deceptively bland dystopia centred on the social construction of identity."

Fly Away Home by Marina Warner reviewed by Suzi Feay
Yes!
"Warner’s short fiction is a salmagundi of exotic settings, odd characters and lofty references. Mermaids and female anchorites seem obvious subjects; similarly, in “A Family Friend”, set in colonial Cairo, the dashing adventurer Ivor Whitaker and his consort, Lady Lucy, “fancy they’re living in The Arabian Nights”. "

The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks reviewed by Meredith Jaffe
Definitely! As soon as poss...
"...that The Secret Chord is an “almost” tragedy is no criticism. In writing The Secret Chord, Brooks has demonstrated her ambition: to uncover the story of this legendary man, with no real proof of his existence beyond religious texts, and to bring him richly alive"

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne reviewed by Philip Womack
Bit grim.
"In The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, 12-year-old Bruno believed he was in a place called “Out-With”; here, seven-year-old Pierrot finds himself in a large mountain retreat where the staff are terrified of the approach of “the master”. Adult readers will soon realise that the house is Hitler’s Berghof"

1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear by James Shapiro reviewed by Charles Nichol
Maybe.
" The chief theme of Shapiro’s 1606 is precisely Shakespeare’s profound engagement with that “troubled national mood”. In this year he produced three of his greatest tragedies – King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra."

Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life by Jonathan Bate reviewed by John Mullan
Too many laydees for me.
"He is, apparently, the jaguar of his famous poem. “After the end of his first marriage, never again would he allow himself to be fully caged.”

Pauperland: Poverty and the Poor in Britain by Jeremy Seabrook reviewed by P D Smith
Susan!?
"Seabrook’s fascinating book – part intellectual history, part heartfelt polemic – is a plea to redefine wealth and poverty in a less materialistic way. By pursuing the “reductive ideology” of economic reason for the last two centuries, we have succeeded in creating a more affluent society but at the cost of our psychological and spiritual wellbeing."

Margaret Thatcher: The Authorised Biography, Volume Two: Everything She Wants by Charles Moore reviewed by Andy Beckett
Ha. No.
"Now, with the Conservatives, unexpectedly, in sole command of the country once more, and gliding around their party conference this week with some of their old mid-80s confidence, Moore has produced his version of Thatcher’s life during exactly those years."

Call Me Dave by Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott reviewed by Ian Jack
No. But this review is V. Good.
"...forget about the pig. Oakeshott would have done better to outrage us by being clearer about the reasons for Cameron’s effortless progress."

http://www.theguardian.com/books/books+tone/reviews

Another lovely thread with so much to find. I must read all the reviews in detail over the weekend. Love all the lighthouses and will add a German red and white one (Westerhever) early next week when I got my holiday pics copied on the other computer.
Have a great weekend!

>89 charl08: I loved the work of Ted Hughes almost as much as I hated the work of the so called Iron Lady. I know which book I'll be looking out for.
Have a splendid weekend, Charlotte.

>90 Deern: Looking forward to seeing the German lighthouse!

>91 PaulCranswick: The Hughes bio sounds a bit too warts and all (lots and lots of ladyfriends) for me: I think I'll stick to the poems!

Bought a copy of The Meursault Investigation this morning as Waterstones is pledging to give the profits on this and a number of other paperbacks (including Marlon James' book) for Syrian refugee charities. I'm doing precious little for this cause so thought this was a good way to change that.

The Harlem Hellfighters has given me goosebumps. Just a brilliant GN about the young black men who fought in WW1, facing the horrors of trench warfare plus the prejudice of the US army. Max Brooks includes images of the soldiers themselves in a moving afterward, and describes the fictionalisation process (characters' back stories and in some cases individuals were invented for the sake of the story, but their heroism is more than authentic). I particularly admired the section illustrating the poem 'I have a rendezvous with death'. I think this would be a wonderful gift for young men and women interested in WW1 and/or the history of civil rights.

Happy weekend, Charlotte.

Thanks Barbara. That drink looks lovely!

I've heard as much as I want to of the Thatcher bio. And of Charles Moore, who seems to have been everywhere lately. And among the disgusting things Charles Moore said on Any Questions this week (Radio 4 political programme for those outside the UK) was that he wants the BBC slashed. I hope he's returning the money he may have been paid for his book's broadcast as Book of the Week on uh, BBC Radio 4 over the last week.

My not buying books by Tories rule extends to Call me Dave too (ridiculously inappropriate touchstone alert) and I don't really want to read it. Though I do have vol 1 in Kindle, it was a one off mad bargain on a day of lots of mad bargains, and Charles Moore hadn't been on every other programme that week making me cross.

As a committed Corbynista, I love your composition Paul!

>96 elkiedee: Am I allowed to keep the inappropriate touchstone? That made me laugh so much, thank you.

I'm tempted to read Call me Dave just so that I can mock it (quicker option to read the review, which does it for you!)

>88 charl08: My Irish grandfather was apprenticed to a lighthousekeeper though ran away to sea and ended up owning a coal mine here in New Zealand.

>89 charl08: I have The Secret Chord on request from my library though I've frozen most of my holds at present, as like you, too many of them are turning up at the same time.

Will have to add The Harlem Hellfighters to my to read list.

I am really behind with all the activity on your threads, Charlotte! Happy new thread. Great lighthouse pictures!

... and I love the swimming ticker! Cool idea! I miss swimming. I used to love swimming laps but I have found going to the pool is a bit of challenge as I would prefer to go swimming in the morning but I start work at 8 am so I cringe at how early I would have to be up to go swimming before starting work.

>17 charl08: - I have had the Lakhous book on my wishlist for sometime now. Have your read his previous book, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio! That was a 4.5 star read for me, which is why the Lakhous you read has been on my wishlist (but obviously, not on my radar screen when I am out book shopping. I must fixt that.)

>36 charl08: - Shame, or shaming, seems to be a big topic these days what with social media and people taking others to task through the internet. Making a note of Is Shame Necessary?.

Yay for becoming a Helen Humphreys fan! She writes such great stories. I haven't read The Evening Chorus yet, but I will get around to it at some point.

A world tour of lighthouses sounds like a fantastic idea! Joining into the lighthouse postings, here is a shot of Fisgard Lighthouse, which is a national historic site here in Victoria, BC. It was the first lighthouse on Canada's west coast, built by the British in 1860. It is now automated. This is not my picture, I found it on Flickr under a creative commons license.

Gorgeous lighthouse that Lori has put on your thread! I am quite hopeless with putting pictures onto anyone's thread, sadly. I took a trip down the Oregon Coast many years ago and had the chance to walk up to the top of one of the lighthouses. How scary! Turns out that the inside of a lighthouse is very narrow and claustrophobic, at least for yours truly. I was just reading the Saturday paper and in " The Best of B.C" - which is the current best sellers written by writers in my province of British Columbia aka B.C., Light Years: Memoirs of Modern Lighthouse Keeper by Caroline Woodward is listed as number 2. No touchstones, so I suspect no one has listed it. It made me think of you - and now I'll have to look into the book.

Well, if we're filling Charlotte's thread with lighthouses -- this isn't the prettiest one, but it's the oldest still in operation and was a part of a wonderful trip to Ireland a decade ago. Hook Head was close to the holiday cottage we'd rented on a farm and we visited it twice the week we were there.

>98 avatiakh: I love the family history: he must have had some tales to tell! I wish my library would let me freeze holds. Quite often the delay is due to the book coming from the other side of the county, so I suppose it would mean books in odd places (they seem to have a system that takes books to a central place and then on).

I really liked March and The People of the book so hoping Brooks' new one is worth waiting for.

>99 lkernagh: Thanks for the lighthouse and Lakhous enthusiasm. I must look for the earlier book. I saw a programme on TV about the Brownlee brothers, who built a pool with a current machine in their (tiny) garden in temperate Yorkshire (!) and have added it to my lottery list. A pool of one's own so that the early starts and / or lane rage could be avoided: bliss.

>100 vancouverdeb: I hadn't thought about claustrophobia Deb! I think the lighthouses I've seen inside must have been larger examples, as they had quite a bit of room.

>101 RidgewayGirl: That image looks rather wild! Although I like lighthouses, I'm not sure if I would have lasted v long as a keeper (especially in the winter).

Happy Sunday, Charlotte! I am so glad you liked The Harlem Hellfighters. I thought it was excellent too. I hope your warbling attracts more LTers to this gem.

I am also looking forward to The Secret Chord. I am a big Brooks fan.

Hey Mark
Sounds like there will be a few of us interested in The Secret Chord. Looking forward to lots of comments to read.

Sadly, I still NEED to get to Caleb's Crossing. The only one I haven't read by her. I have it, in both print and audio, so there is no excuse...

Wow! You've hit me with so many books to add to the list. From The Guardian: Miss Emily, Sisters of the Revolution, Fly Away Home and The Secret Chord. The Harlem Hellfighters sounds awesome. Off to see what's available in the library.

Have you read People of the Book? My local library has an audio of it.

Adding to the lighthouses.

A Dutch one!

>105 msf59: That's a lovely one Mark. Hope you will like it as much as I did.

>106 BLBera: I've hit myself with those Guardian bb's as well Beth, so I feel your 'pain'!

>107 Ameise1: Yes, love that one. Although there are scenes of book destruction, which were a bit traumatic... (I did feel a bit guilty that I was worried about the books when the novel describes such difficult times for people, but there you go).

>108 connie53: This photo is a bit puzzling. What happened to the sea? Or is it just the angle?

>109 charl08: Thanks so much, Charlotte. I'll pick it from the library.

> It's in a village, Charlotte.

https://www.google.nl/maps/place/Vuurtoren+Westerlicht/@51.708875,3.6915948,15z/...

From Wikipedia:

The Westerlichttoren on West Schouwen is a lighthouse in Haamstede, Netherlands. Designed by L. Valk, it was built in 1837. At 53 m above ground and a light stand at 58 m above sea level it is one of the tallest lighthouses in the Netherlands.

The lighthouse is built in brick and iron, the walls are 2.4 m thick at the bottom, tapering upward. It is painted in a red-and-white spiral. A stair of 226 steps, in stone and partially in iron, leads to the top. The lighthouse is unattended.

>110 Ameise1: Hope you like it!

>111 connie53: Thanks for the link - seems pretty much sea in every direction, as I should have realised given the location!

It's on one of the Dutch islands in Zeeland.

Thanks again Connie. Looking at the pictures on Google maps, I now want to visit!

AAC Challenge

Mark's list of authors has got me thinking about books I might want to read next year.

April: Poet month - so much to choose from!

John Steinbeck Maybe East of Eden

Richard Russo I don't know, probably whatever the library has...
Anne Tyler I'm pleased to find that I've got at least four books of hers still to read!

John Irving

Jane Smiley I've not read anything by this author, so plenty to choose from.

Ivan Doig I've got a copy of Work Song so I should probably read that!

Joyce Carol Oates Don't know: overwhelming choice.

Stewart O'Nan Prayer for the Dying

Michael Chabon Maybe Mysteries of Pittsburgh. Or a reread of one of the others?

Annie Proulx I might read her memoir.

Jack London I've read the famous ones, so wondering whether to give his memoir a go too.

Annie Dillard Not a clue!

Other considerations:

Erskine Caldwell
Zora Neale Hurston
Robert Penn Warren
Alice Walker
Don DeLillo
Shelby Foote
Philip K Dick

For No!vember (ie read my own books, don't bring any new ones into the house). Goal to recycle some (at least one? Back out the house again. Challenging!). I'm clearing out (ordering) my books as I go, so will keep updating this post.

I have started, so should aim to finish:

Malcolm X : a life of reinvention
Saraswati Park
The Institute for Taxi Poetry
The Book of the Dead
A Good Man in Africa
The Silent minaret
Ancestor Stones
If on a Winter's night a traveller
Second Class Citizen

(Yes, I do start a lot of books!)

I want to read:
Vanishing for the vote
The Story of an African Farm
Marcus Aurelius Meditation
Kintu
In a Free State
My friend says it's bullet proof
The Master
Maru
Patchwork
The Yacoubian Building
The Echo Chamber
Young Stalin

I may join you and Susan in No!vember, depending on my travel schedule.

I am excited about mark's potential choices for next year's AAC. O'Nan is a favorite of mine, and I don't think you can go wrong with him. I read A Prayer for the Dying most recently and liked it very much.

I am already wondering if I have bitten off more than I can chew, so some company would be great!

Flaw in the plan re reading own books (No!vember, as Susan snappily titled it) is that I still have some 18 books from the library to read before the end of the month....

Hard choices must be made, I think!

I'm about half way through Hild, one of the most detailed historical fiction books I've read in years, but gripping. Set in the 7th century, Hild is set up by her mother as a child 'seer' for the king...

>88 charl08: I had not noticed your Canadian lighthouse in honour of Childhood by Andre Alexis. Makes me smile. Thanks! Sorry that book Childhood by him did not work out to be a better book. Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan sounds interesting. I've only read one book by him, Emily, Alone and I really enjoyed it, despite the fact that was about elderly people struggling with day to day problems. Well written and to me, quite fascinating.

I'm also in for No!vember. Mount TBR seems to be glaring at me. I did pick up a library reserve this morning but I'm going to try not to reserve any more from now (I have six on my list currently). And a flurry of reserving in the last week of October is frowned upon :-)

Thanks for the Guardian reviews. I like the sound of the Shakespeare one, and the poverty one, and I'll think about the Margaret Thatcher one (or more accurately the first volume, because otherwise that would be *reading stuff out of order* - faints) as part of my "reading about Britain before I arrived" strand of books. But I have three of those big books about the 70s, 80s and the 90s first. Of course, I was here for the second half of the 90s but I'll still read the whole thing :-)

>118 vancouverdeb: Glad the Canadian lighthouse made you smile. I am enjoying seeing the images of them from all over the world.
The Andre Alexis novel Childhood was a funny one: I liked a lot about it, and he described such an interesting world (in places) - his stepfather's rather bizarre ambition to write his own encyclopedia, the clash between his mother and the housekeeper over Trinidadian cooking, his childhood theft. But the wobbling over knowing and truth and relationships just left me a bit cold, perhaps because I had read it elsewhere, done in a way that was more persuasive to me. The child's mother clearly was not someone he could rely on, but there was never a sense (at least to me) why she found it so hard to commit to her son, her relationships etc.

>119 susanj67: Since (my) old habits die hard, I'm adding the books to the TBR list on the library website instead. Not sure this is within the spirit of the challenge, but the journey of a thousand miles (etc)

I think the level of detail in the Thatcher books would defeat me. Plus what I really want is a feminist analysis of her life and work - she is such a bizarre character from a gendered perspective, given that she remains the only female PM we've had in the UK. The James Shapiro does sound interesting. I watched a doc about the James era theatre and was surprised how different it seemed from the theatre under Elizabeth.

I don't remember any of this history being discussed when we studied Shakespeare in school (amusingly, as this would have been the kind of thing that interested me far more than text analysis! )

Aaargh... None of my lighthouse pics turned out well. It was a very grey day.

This is the best one and shows how it is located in the very flat land between sea and dike. It's built on a warft, an artificial hill, as all the old farmhouses in the region:


And this is from the net and shows what it looks like every other year when the grass land is flooded in a winter storm:

>121 charl08: Wishlisting is fine. It's just bringing actual books into the house that we're trying to cut down on. If we didn't wishlist, we might actually forget stuff we want to read later :-O Also, sometimes I find with wishlisting that I'm not so keen on something after a while, mainly because something better has come along. So in a way it *saves* money/reserve slots.

I may get enough about the Thatcher years from A Classless Society: Britain in the 1990s but I'll have to wait and see. I really must get on to the 70s, which is Crisis? What Crisis? And the Dominic Sandbrook ones that I haven't caught up with. At least there's no new David Kynaston book on the horizon.

I agree about Shakespeare - I still don't understand the plays, really. We read Macbeth at high school and I just didn't get the language. I'm always slightly suspicious of those young people who get taken to a Shakespeare play and say that it's changed their lives and it was *so easy to understand*. I would love to have known more about what was going on at the time the plays were written rather than endless analysis of the words.

>122 Deern: Love that lighthouse. What a dramatic difference to the level of the water.

>123 susanj67: I know teachers who say that Shakespeare in performance makes much more sense (the rhythm?) I do think that having a good teacher for such complex ideas must make a diference as some of my teachers did make learning the plays a good experience. Our Othello and Merchant of Venice classes in particular were fascinating, but I should no doubt read some more about the plays myself!

OK, so I am quite seriously behind! I just posted this on your last thread!:

Oh, you hit me with a BB on Colum McCann's Songdogs, Charlotte. Loved TransAtlantic! Also read The Illuminations recently and very much enjoyed the perceptions of truth of the main characters.

The Shakespeare does sound good, and the plays must also be read. I have to try all kinds of tricks with my students. Win some, lose some. We'll be reading Othello soon -- I'll let you know how that goes.

>125 lit_chick: Hope Songdogs treats you well. I did enjoy reading this novel, will try to get to some more McCann soonish (2016?!)

>126 BLBera: Hope that the students appreciate the work that goes into the Shakespeare teaching Beth. I don't envy any of my former English teachers. All I wanted to do was read the novel and go on to the next one.

Human Diastrophism was an unexpectedly dark visit to Palomar, described as across the US Mexican border. Everything from monkey riots to earthquakes happened during the course of these stories reproduced in this GN, part of the Love and Rockets series. There were so many characters and flashbacks I got confused (despite the cast of characters graphic) but I think this might well have something to do with the fact I wasn't reading the first book in the series... The first long story, of a mysterious killer and the attempts to catch him, was the most gripping.

I've been reading Hild for the past couple of days, a real brick of a novel at over 500 pages of small font hardback. But completely gripped by it despite the length. It's the imagined history of Abbess Hilda, of Whitby Abbey, before she was one of the most powerful women in the UK church (which obviously wasn't then the UK!). I've found her fascinating since I visited the abbey ruins as a kid and tried to imagine myself back 1200 years. Nicola Griffith took her own fascination with the scanty biography and fictionalised it. Here, Hild is imagined before the abbey. We are plunged into a fascinating world where allegiances to leaders and Gods are changing, and it is possible to use the study of nature (and Griffith describes skies like double dyed indigo, birds returning early to nests, the wounds of pollarded trees) and strategic thinking to convince of supernatural powers. She then sets Hild's story in motion: what would it mean to be seen to have this power? How would you convince the powerful to listen? How to deal with the patriarchal Christian leaders, who think prophecy (and women decision makers) evil?

The afterword promises a sequel, which I hope to get my hands on when published here.

I've always been rather fond of lighthouses! I've enjoyed seeing all the ones on your thread!

>96 elkiedee: Thanks Luci! Ben Okri has had a poem dedicated to Corbyn published in the Guardian today. He was quoted by Corbyn in his address to conference if you remember.

Like the thoughts on your future reading Charlotte. Will get my own together in time for Auld Langs Syne

Hild sounds really good, I had taken note of it before so some other LTer must have liked it as well. You have made me think about all the chunkster books I have lying around that I don't rush to pick up.

>130 thornton37814: There is something about a lighthouse - I like the wild landscape. Although I'm not sure that I would live in one full time!

>131 PaulCranswick: So long as we're all clear that they're just thoughts, and no one checks up on me, I'll be fine. I did like the Okri poem. Despite loving much Nigerian lit, I've never got on with Okri's fiction. Perhaps I should try again: something short!

>132 avatiakh: Don't get me thinking about my shelves of chunksters. I was sceptical I'd get through this, but it gripped me. It reminded me of some of the fantasy fiction I read many years ago, and also of (other people's) descriptions of Game of Thrones - that kind of unpredictable violence and ruthless political machination.

I checked the mention list and you are right - several 75ers got there long before me. It was only published here in 2015, not sure why.

No, Hild was published in 2014. I didn't read it until this year, but I got a copy around the time of publication in July 2014.

Charlotte, I just saw a tweet from Janina Ramirez publicising this BBC Four documentary tonight on The Faerie Queene, and I thought you might like it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/39DKqMvvk7RYlbckHy56mC1/the-faerie-quee...

It's not one I've ever tackled, but I do love her documentaries :-)

I love the sound of Hild. There's one up at Whitechapel, so maybe that will be a stepping errand at some point. The reserves are currently sitting at 5, and I'm determined not to add to them, in preparation for No!vember.

ETA: The documentary now seems to have been last night. Lucky, in a way, because tonight it would clash with Empire. To the iPlayer!

>134 elkiedee: Thanks! Not sure how I got that idea.

>135 susanj67: Intrigued by the Ramirez doc. I know nothing about the Faerie Queen, so plenty of scope to be interesting. I just picked up a new book by Don Paterson, so I'm hanging my head a little (whilst feeling rather pleased with my shiny new poetry book)

Saw a kingfisher on the canal this afternoon. And not only did it fly past in a flash of crazy aquamarine blue, but it perched on one of the canal boats to be admired. Such a beautiful bird.

>136 charl08: I just checked the TV guide and it *is* tonight - that link is wrong with the details. And it's 8.30, so I can watch half an hour of culture followed by an hour of absolute trash :-)

Marlon James wins the Booker. Nice one.

>137 susanj67: Sounds like the perfect balance to me!

Charlotte - Hild sounds great - and we were just talking about James this afternoon at school. I didn't know that he lives in Minneapolis -- practically a neighbor. So, two chunksters to read.

Just saw this pic of the lighthouse at Castlepoint, Wairarapa in my twitter feed, 17 Stunning Spots In New Zealand You’ll Want To Visit.

>140 BLBera: It really is an amazing novel, and I was tempted to buy it as my local chain is giving all the profits in the paperback to Syrian refugees just now. Whether that will continue now it has won I don't know! I didn't check the font size either (the hardback was a real brick). (Although I still have a soft spot for Tyler!)

>141 avatiakh: Just 17 places I need to visit?! It's on my bucket list (and added to the lighthouse world tour). Beautiful picture.

Guardian piece on James' win:
"Violence crowds the pages, and so does James’s dazzling dexterity with language. You could describe it as a Quentin Tarantino film wrestled down on paper, or a Faulkner novel updated for the 21st century, but as an achievement it stands alone. In the end, that’s what makes it an uncompromising and exhilarating winner."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/13/marlon-james-is-an-uncompromising-a...

>141 avatiakh: Wow that looks stunning Kerry. All of New Zealand that I saw was worth seeing if that makes any sense at all.

>142 charl08: Tarantino meets Faulkner over a reggae vibe. Must pick it up and read it soon.

>143 PaulCranswick: Maybe I'll get to NZ one day! And you must read Marlon James. As Darryl said, would also be good to read his back catalogue too.

Aware that November is ever closer, and that I currently have 17 books out, reading I am Spain, David Boyd Hancock's book on the Spanish civil war from the perspective of British writers. It's a zippy read, with some good anecdotes.
From the British Consul in 1936 as they prepared to evacuate by boat (taking Laurie Lee, amongst others)
'Do not go out of doors... and if you meet any of those fellows with guns just do this' -he clenched his fist delicately in the air- 'and smile nicely'
!!!

>144 charl08: It really was a different world wasn't it Charlotte? As you can imagine Laurie Lee was a particular favourite of mine and, although I like Orwell's books much less, his Homage to Catalonia also captures a great sense of the place at the time.

I just picked up Voices from Chernobyl from the library yesterday which was my last hold request. I have 8 books checked out now and I'm way behind on my ROOTS challenge to read from my own shelves. So I'm cutting myself off, too. {Sob} As of November 1st. Because there are two more I **really** want to acquire before then. ETA: Maybe 3. 4 at the most. ;-)

>145 PaulCranswick: >145 PaulCranswick: I wish I could say that the clichés about the British civil service from Yes Minister were exaggerations of the truth, but...

Homage to Catalonia is an audio book I really want to finish next month. Orwell is pretty heavy going. I'm hoping his letters are more fun to read (also out from the library).

>146 streamsong: Good luck with reading those reservations. For once I'm hoping my outstanding requests at the library (including the new Galbraith) Take Their Time...

>147 charl08:: I predict they turn up in record quick time. I joined the queue for Marlon James today.

Ha! I suspect you are right...

I picked up The Human Flies in the library the day before yesterday, wanting to read something less demanding than my current books. It was an original crime novel set in 1960s Norway. A resistance hero is found shot in his home, and the residents of the apartment home come under suspicion. Detective Kristiansen is lost until an unlikely source of help (a young woman effectively 'locked in' by her circumstances). Not quite cosy, but very much in the style of Poirot (and with sly nods to Christie in places).

I gave up on The Four Dimensional Human before I'd finished the preface. Just too weird :-) Or wordy. And the author looks about 14 in his photo.

>150 susanj67: Can't win them all! (I also noticed the author photo!).

I notice my exclamation point level is up again. I will try to go cold turkey.
(!)
Maybe not.

I was reading Logicomix, a rather nice GN which turned up at the library, about the life and work of Bertrand Russell. Anyhow, I showed it to my dad who had been making noises about me reading 'comics' (to be fair, I did this to my brother before he lent me Persepolis).

I guess I'll get it back at some point before its due to be returned... (more seriously, I do love it when this happens, a book I've recommended appears to be a winner).

The Human Flies looks just sort of Nordic noir I like to tuck into in these tropical climes.
Have a great weekend Charlotte. No exclamation marks either.

It was a good read Paul: apart from the Beck series I've not read much Scandinavian fiction set in the 1960s.

Continuing the Nordic theme with Karate Chop/ Minna Needs Rehearsal Space (it's a dual edition published back to back). The library ordered it for me, so it's a lovely new book.



Minna is a kind of poem (it doesn't rhyme) about a woman who is dealing with her grief over a breakup. It's a lot funnier than that description suggests though. The Karate Chop section (in this Pushkin edition published on the reverse) is short stories, bleak in places but striking. I enjoyed it.

The street clatters with bikes and cars.
The sun's risen over Amager Strandpark.
Baresso's opened.
The coffees to go are warming palms.
The coffees are out walking.
The cellphones, the blankies, the coffees to go.
People trickle toward City Hall Square.
People look like shoals of shiny herring.

This is Dorthe Nors talking about books in Denmark.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06f239c

As I walked out one midsummer morning was a lovely wander into 1930s Spain.



Lee left home at 19 to work in London on building sites. After a year he decided to go to Spain, walking and busking his way across the country. He describes a world where music was still rare enough to provide a living, meeting German refugees from Hitler and ultimately the gear up to civil war when he was in Malaga. There are some descriptions (particularly of his London landlady's daughter) which read oddly to modern ears but for the most part still feels fresh. On Madrid

That's how I remember it: under the terracotta roofs, a proliferation of caves of ice. With carters, porters, watchmen, taxi-drivers, sleek dandies, and plump officials sipping their golden wines, fastidiously peeling a prawn, biting into the tart pink flesh of a lobster, tasting the living brine of half-forgotten seas, of half-remembered empires, while the surge of conversation continued like bubbling water under the framed pictures of bulls and heroes. It was a way of life evolved like a honeycomb and buried away from the burning sky....

The Lee book sounds wonderful. Onto the list it goes. Have a great weekend, Charlotte.

Charlotte, you read and want to read such interesting things that I wouldn't know about otherwise! Thank you! (I think.) (I'm not about to swear off exclamation points!!!)
I liked Hild; didn't love it as much as you did, but I'll surely be on the watch for the sequel.
I've tried two different days to snag a picture of the Hatteras Lighthouse from the web. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but LT downloads a gray blank. I'm pretty sure I'm doing what I've always done before. Oh well.

>156 BLBera: I loved it and am keen to read the other two books he wrote about Spain. He reminded me of Patrick Leigh Fermor which is always a good thing.

>157 LizzieD: I think Hild hit me at a good time, I was totally on the mood for something completely different to my reality. Plus I've read quite a bit of non-fiction on the conversion experience, and thought that Griffith was convincing on how the Deirians reacted to a new faith.

I loved all the Laurie Lee books about being in Spain. Another good travel memoir is Norman Lewis's The tomb in Seville also about a journey in the 1930s.

Thanks! Added to the wishlist....

Guardian Reviews 17th October (in progress)



Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann reviewed by Erica Wagner
Love McCann, so yes!

"In the summer of 2014, Colum McCann was assaulted outside a hotel in Connecticut after going to the aid of a woman he believed to be involved in a domestic dispute. The woman’s husband knocked him to the ground.... Now that attack has fuelled his latest book, which further explores, and tests, the limits of empathy."

High Dive by Jonathan Lee reviewed by Jake Arnott
This sounds rather fab.

"Lee is quite brilliant at excavating the disappointment of characters constantly chasing lost opportunities."

The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida reviewed by Sarah Ditum
Maybe!

" Like Katherine Mansfield, she has a gift for needling into the corners of experiences so familiar that a less careful writer might choose to ignore them. We feel the sickening horrors of wild hope, definitive absence and self-reproach that come with losing something important."

The River Is the River by Jonathan Buckley reviewed by Jane Housham
Ooh yes.

"marvellously absorbing novel that is both an account of the relationship between sisters Kate and Naomi and, with the lightest of touches, a disquisition on the nature of storytelling itself."

Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears by Thomas Dixon reviewed by John Gallagher
Maybe...

"Like reading an old document and coming across a joke you don’t get, digging into how, when and why people wept can offer surprising new insights into the lives, beliefs and assumptions of past centuries. Thomas Dixon’s Weeping Britannia takes as its central premise that the British “stiff upper lip”, far from being the defining characteristic of the nation throughout its history, was in fact the creation of a particular historical moment, out of which has grown a transhistorical myth of national restraint."

The Last Love Song by Tracy Daugherty reviewed by Laura Miller
Not for me.

"In photographs and interviews, (Didion) appeared tiny, fragile, listless and glum, even when posing next to her curvy Corvette, a model of sports car also driven by Maria, the pretty, passive main character in Play It As It Lays. Daugherty stresses that this neurasthenic persona was just that – a well-crafted mask not to be confused with its wearer. Where The Last Love Song falls short is in Daugherty’s inability to track the continuity between this persona and the ladylike matron Didion was raised to become."

Peter O’Toole: The Definitive Biography by Robert Sellers reviewed by Xan Brooks
Hmmmm....

"The actor talked big and covered his tracks to such an extent that even his closest friends and relations could not quite figure him out. Visiting him on the set of a film, his sister fell into conversation with O’Toole’s fellow players, asking: “At the end of this picture, will you tell me who my brother is?”"

The Great British Dream Factory by Dominic Sandbrook reviewed by Matthew Sweet
No!

"the theorist Slavoj Žižek, who, in 2004, used the expression to characterise the narcissistic delusions of his fellow Slovenes. If you say you’re a cultural superpower, he suggested, you’re probably nothing of the sort. “Britain, Britain, Britain!” as Tom Baker once boomed on behalf of Matt Lucas and David Walliams. “We have exported so many great things around the world. Slavery, hooliganism and Starlight Express.”

Golden Age by Jane Smiley reviewed by Hannah Beckerman
I want to read the trilogy in 2016

" a powerful, moving and rewarding experience; a rare chance to witness, from the sidelines, five generations of a family unfold."

Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist by Niall Ferguson reviewed by Greg Grandin
Not unless someone paid me.

"Ferguson doesn’t dispute Kissinger’s responsibility for such atrocities, but suggests, in his introduction, that they shouldn’t bear on how we assess his legacy: “Arguments that focus on loss of life in strategically marginal countries – and there is no other way of describing Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile, Cyprus, and East Timor – must be tested against this question: how, in each case, would an alternative decision have affected US relations with strategically important countries like the Soviet Union, China, and the major western European powers?” The US won the cold war, and that means that the “burden of proof” is on critics to show how different policies “would have produced better results”.
The logic is wobbly. How can it be simultaneously true that Cambodia and Bangladesh were strategically marginal and that the outcome of the cold war depended on their destruction?"

Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay by Simon Napier-Bell reviewed by Victoria Segal
Probably not.

"Napier-Bell, who co-wrote the lyrics to Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” before managing the Yardbirds, Marc Bolan and Wham!, is a fabulous guide to the industry’s pitfalls and pleasures, combining lightly worn knowledge with gossipy twinkle as he moves from the invention of music publishing in 1710 right up to dance music and downloads."

Thanks Charlotte: The McCann and the Vida are calling my name.

A new McCann! That's good news. And I agree about the Kissinger book - Niall Ferguson is a blowhard jerk.

>164 susanj67: Why no to the Dominic Sandbrook?! I saw it the other day when I was looking up just how many of his I still have to read, and wanted it immediately.

>162 BLBera: Mine too!

>163 RidgewayGirl: I wholeheartedly endorse this message.

>164 susanj67: The review just didn't appeal. I will happily read your thoughts on it though!

Gorgeous day for a walk in and around a park that was new to me. It fulfilled a key criteria for my walks (pass or end at an excellent bakery) (see also coastal walk to Gullane). Not particularly nice views, but the trees are all changing colour, making the ordinary rather spectacular. Add what may have been a willow tit sighting, and it was a v good walk.

Melisande! What are dreams!? I picked up from the library shelves, wanting a bit of serendipity in my reading. A lovely book about the failure of a relationship (not a spoiler, revealed in the first pages) between two young people who meet in New York as they work on a high school literary magazine. The text makes no concessions to those of us without a classical education (or knowledge of several modern European languages) but still possible to enjoy it without that (I did). Beautifully written and in places heartbreaking.

Ricky threw himself into books as if sure of finding the answer there. I followed, not wanting to be left behind. We emptied the shelves of the Bloomingdale branch of the public library on 100th Street like shoppers at a clearance sale. There was no rhyme or reason to it. We read Plato, and Hermann Hesse, and the Magic Mountain, and Portrait of the Artist, and Thus Spake Zarathustra, swallowing all we could get down.

Good morning, Charlotte. Have you read other Vida books?

>161 charl08: McCann is clearly the standout. There is the masochist in me that impels me to read about those whose politics I generally abhor so I am a little intrigued by Ferguson writing what appears to be an apologia for him. The meddling by the so-called enlightened west in areas of the world that they understand so poorly is the root cause of most of the problems facing us today. Realpolitik didn't work without Gorbachev and his will towards perestroika we would be in the same position today as we were when Kissinger was ousted with Ford in 1976.

>168 Ameise1: Hi Barbara,
A new author to me: hope that the library will have a copy!

>169 PaulCranswick: I agree the politics of this period is interesting. I have no problem reading about Kissinger, I just don't like Ferguson. For me he's the kind of celebrity historian Bennett mocks in The History Boys par excellence.

Start the Week this week (Radio 4) featured Niall Ferguson and Jane Smiley, he was so rude to her that Feedback was full of complaints. He denounced her and historical fiction in general for making things up, and for distorting things.

>171 elkiedee: Glad I missed this: I have a bad habit of arguing with the radio as it is.

On a nicer note, caught this picture online after trying (and failing) to upload one of my photos of the picture the right way round folowing a visit to the gallery in Liverpool. Such a lovely picture of reading.


Original held at The Walker, Liverpool.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/a-young-emir-studying-97846

I also had a nice walk yesterday, Charlotte. For once, not too much wind. The leaves here are approaching the peak, too. Lovely picture.

Sounds lovely Beth. I have nice Autumn leaf pictures too but the tech still not cooperating... Never Mind!

I saw a man is one of those books that is really difficult to say anything meaningful about without ruining the book. I love Sheers: his poetry, his earlier novel and his presenting/ speaking stuff. He comes across as passionate about poetry without being pretentious. I found this book to be compelling but it was a bit of a shock to be reading something so different to the (historical) novel he wrote before. As the novel opens, Michael has moved back to London alone, meeting a couple and their young children. The family take him under their wing, as he is recently widowed. He loaned the father, Josh, a screwdriver, and goes to their house to retrieve it. But though the back door is open, no one appears to be home. What's going on? Flashbacks, not just from Michael's perspective, explain how the characters found themselves in Hampstead. But the Twist was not what I expected, and very cleverly tackles issues of grief and culpability. And of course, beautifully written. The house backs on to Hampstead Heath, so the ponds, trees and Londoners enjoying the green lung are an evocative backdrop to the plot.

Couldn't resist a browse at the library this afternoon.

Came away with Black Sky, Black Sea set in 190s Istanbul, Arab Jazz translated from the French, and another Mio Couto novel Confessions of the Lioness.

Plus the reserved book Madness in Civilisation which is good so far - lots of stuff about ideas of madness in classical times.

>175 charl08: Ahem. Thirteen days till No!vember. Just saying.

The new ones are fiction. It's the non-Fiction ones that are worrying me. I want to read them, but... I think I might go back to uni practice and sit at a desk with a notebook!

>177 charl08: A late change to the rules?!!

I'll try and renew them to December (the ones I don't finish) but even if not, still planning to focus on the shelves. Honest!

>172 charl08: What a gorgeous painting. Love it.

It's from a lovely gallery in Liverpool. I should go more often!

Woman's Hour is hosting a' best of the last ten years ' Women's Prize for Fiction vote. Really tough to choose just one! (I went for How to be Both in the end, but really I want 4 votes!)

Monday 19 October: Martha Kearney on On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Tuesday 20 October: Muriel Gray on Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Wednesday 21 October: Kirsty Lang on The Road Home by Rose Tremain
Thursday 22 October: Fi Glover on Home by Marilynne Robinson
Friday 23 October: Daisy Goodwin on The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Monday 26 October: Bettany Hughes on The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
Tuesday 27 October: Joanna Trollope on The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Wednesday 28 October: Miranda Richardson on May We Be Forgiven by A. M Homes
Thursday 29 October: Helen Fraser on A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
Friday 30 October: Shami Chakrabarti on How to be Both by Ali Smith
Monday 2 November: We reveal the winner

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3ZShwLBwGrSXrpfQ90MdnNz/womans-hour-bes...

Funny, the list of winners, at least the ones I've read, are probably not the ones I would have chosen in that year. I haven't read the Smith yet. I must try to fit that in this year.

Maybe if I join you and Susan in reading off my shelf in November, I can fit it in. I am feeling a little overwhelmed by my library books right now.

>182 charl08: I picked up a battered copy of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing at my local charity shop yesterday. Still to read How to be both.

>183 BLBera: The more the merrier! There are some great books on the list so I am intrigued to see what the winning book will be. No particular favourite?

>184 avatiakh: I have to add that to my list of TBR for next month. I bought it a few months ago and promptly forgot about it. Not good.

No!vember list (read my shelves).

I have started, so should aim to finish:

Malcolm X : a life of reinvention
Saraswati Park
The Institute for Taxi Poetry
The Book of the Dead
A Good Man in Africa
The Silent minaret
Ancestor Stones
If on a Winter's night a traveller
Second Class Citizen

(Yes, I do start a lot of books!)

I want to read:
Vanishing for the vote
The Story of an African Farm
Marcus Aurelius Meditation
Kintu
In a Free State
My friend says it's bullet proof
The Master
Maru
Patchwork
The Yacoubian Building
The Echo Chamber
Young Stalin
A Girl is a Half-formed Thing
The Stranger
The Meursault Investigation

>183 BLBera: Beth, I know that overwhelmed feeling!

>184 avatiakh: Charlotte, great list! I'm just going to make my goal no new library or other books, but read freely from the TBR pile or the Kindle. That gives me quite a lot of scope :-)

>187 susanj67: Sounds good Susan. The List may be added to as I find other TBR hiding!

ETA Has already been added to...

Reading I am Spain

...life for John Cornforth and his friends (in the International Brigade) was comfortable. One day they were delighted to discover a cache of English books in the departmental library, and staggered upstairs with armfuls of Everyman Classics. Sommerfield settled down to read Thomas De Quincey's Recollections of the Lake Poets - burying himself in stories of Coleridge, Wordsworth and Southey - whilst Cornforth relaxed with a Victorian historical novel.
After an hour's silent reading there was a sudden explosion which, Knox wrote, 'seemed to rip my head open and I was thrown to the floor'....

I enjoyed hearing Muriel Gray talk about the Adichie this morning - Woman's Hour - by one of my favourite writers. I think my favourite of those though is May We Be Forgiven - The Lacuna was a great read too. Gray also said she'd originally been very anti the Orange Prize but had changed her mind.

I liked, but didn't love those three. Do think it's a great idea to promote how many good novels the prize has celebrated.

>186 charl08: Ambitious reading plans Charlotte. Will be interested to see how you get on with that.

>182 charl08: Of those I have read I would choose Half of a Yellow Sun.

Sadly can't open the BBC site (office policy...). Of the 6 I read I'd choose Half of a Yellow sun or How to be Both which you can't really compare. I loved Home as part of the trilogy, as a stand-alone it might be a bit lost.

So you started a Calvino, I hope you'll enjoy that one much more than I did. (maybe I should put it on my 2nd-chance-list).

>192 PaulCranswick: So will I Paul, so will I. Mostly I'll be glad to knock any of them off the list, as some of them have been hanging around making me feel guilty for a while...

>193 Deern: I should probably subset the 'started' books with a section of those I've started and forgotten all I read, so will have to start again.... Calvino definitely fits that category.

This is how you lose her



I really enjoyed this collection of short stories, although I was Googling the Spanish at points. Each story (as suggested by the title) is in some way connected to the loss of a relationship, whether a young man who is sleeping with an older woman despite his better instincts, or a lecturer trying to get over his long time girlfriend as his body crumbles...

Did I mention that it's funny too?

Surprisingly to me, I really enjoyed May We Be Forgiven, but I preferred Half of a Yellow Sun. Those are the only two of the books listed that I have read. I am reading quite slowly lately, due to happy real life events - my adult sons and brand new daughter in law etc and just socializing. My focus is to read another of the Can Lit listed prize books.

^Eagle Bluff Lighthouse, Peninsula State Park, Door County WI.

^This is more of a "junior-sized" lighthouse but still charming. We saw it on our trip. It was built in 1868 and is still in service, overlooking Green Bay.

Hi Charlotte - Of the ones I read, Half of a Yellow Sun is my favorite. I didn't like The Lacuna, thought it was not Kingsolver at her best at all. I did love Home, too.

I love Diaz and think he is very funny. Have you read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao? That is a masterpiece -- LOVE it.

>196 vancouverdeb: There are some lovely books on the list. I haven't read them all either, Song of Achilles just didn't grab me at the time it came out. Glad things are good.

>197 msf59: I like that lighthouse, thanks Mark.The continuous use is pretty impressive too.

>198 BLBera: I haven't read Oscar Wao but I'm thinking I should add it to the list of books to read, as I did love this one. I hate to admit it but I think I was swayed by the cover redesign for this one (the dna looking graphic did nothing for me). I thought the Lacuna was OK but not as good as some of the earlier ones. But she set a high standard for herself really.

>195 charl08: Added to my library list. :-)

Nine days until No!vember starts, and I have rather a lot of books still out from the library unfinished. Plan is to finish the following before the end of the month:

To live an antislavery life : personal politics by Erica Ball
Gandhi before India Ramachandra Guha
I am Spain by David Boyd Haycock
Invented lives : narratives of black women, 1860-1960 by Mary Helen Washington
Madness and Civilisation ( this might be a big ask, enormo-book)

>200 Ameise1: Hope you like it when you get to it.

Arab Jazz is a translation from the French funded by English Pen. Fascinating look at Paris life in a neighbourhood full of different languages and religions, far away from the tourists. Ahmed fears being set up for his neighbour's murder so tries to investigate himself, whilst the police are trying to work out whether fundamentalism played a role in the -deliberately grisly and symbol laden- death.



I like this cover better though:

>198 BLBera: I acquired a hardcover copy of "Oscar Wao" recently, and I will read it early in 2016. Through library sales, I've accumulated about a dozen Pulitzer awardees, and I'm thinking I'll do a Pulitzer challenge next year: read one winner a month. Oscar Wao will be an early read.

>203 weird_O: A Pulitzer challenge sounds like a great idea. I'll watch out for the other books you're reading from that group.

Full disclosure: I downloaded the new Galbraith.
Shiny. New. Book!

Wow! Arab Jazz sounds fascinating! That one I am going to look into. Congratulations on the shiny new book! Bravo Charlotte.

The postman delivered the new Galbraith directly into my hands yesterday. I may take it with me when we go on vacation next week.

>206 vancouverdeb: It was a good read. And despite the grisly subject matter, ultimately hopeful about the possibilities for French young people to see beyond faith labels. Which I like.

>207 RidgewayGirl: I admire your restraint. According to my gadget I have 49% left. So good to read a thumping good story that has me guessing where (and what) might be next.

>203 weird_O: As with most challenges Bill, I am usually up for them. You do a Pulitzer challenge and I'll be doing it with you for sure. You may want to touch base though and synchronise your challenge with Mark's (msf59) American Author Challenge. So for example if he has picked Hemingway for a particular month your Pulitzer reflects that.

Charlotte, "Galbraith"? I am familiar with John Kenneth Galbraith and whilst I admire his writings very much I don't believe that he would occasion such excitement. Different kettle of fish right?

>209 PaulCranswick: You're kidding, aren't you Paul?
http://robert-galbraith.com/books/

>210 charl08: Ah silly me - you mean him, erm, I mean her.

>211 PaulCranswick: Phew! Thought it was unlikely you'd missed that.

Whee! Career of Evil is very good. Gripped I was, gripped. Although now I am v keen to read the next one. Hope it's not too long a wait....

>211 PaulCranswick: Paul, I saw on your own thread the list of female authors who wrote under masculine pen-names--i.e. Mary Ann Evans/George Eliot. I thought we were well past that time, but here's J.K. Rowling using a masculine pen-name. Has any male author used a feminine pen-name?

Regarding a Pulitzer challenge...I was thinking of such as a personal challenge. I'm not sure how a group challenge would be structured. Having everyone reading a particular book is...well...dumb. Maybe you'd have readers just pick a book and report on it each month. Or commit to a list (of their choosing) in January. Like the TBR Challenge and the ROOTs Challenge.

One that springs to mind is the writer of Downton Abbey who wrote romances as Rebecca Greville.

Michael Derrick Hudson submitted a poem under the name "Yi-Fen Chou" in order to get published. It was quite the scandal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/08/a-white-guy-named-m...

>216 RidgewayGirl: Can of Worms right there....

I finally got my hands on a copy of Iphigenia in Forest Hills a book that reminds me of the other works I've read this year on gun crime. In this case, a man shot in New York and his wife accused of hiring the assassin in a close knit Jewish migrant group from Russia. >216 RidgewayGirl: has written a comprehensive review on the book page, so I don't plan to go on at length. Just to say that it left me with a horror of he family law system, not to mention a judge who decides to adjust court schedule based on his holiday arrangements. The errors and misunderstandings would be funny if it weren't a little girl's life. I'm also wondering what happened next to the families involved.

Thanks to Devon libraries, who sent this book to my library!

There was a man who wrote some historical novels - family sagas and strong females overcoming problems with a bit of romance chucked in - as Emma Blair - he died a few years ago - I was quite surprised when I found out. Apparently publishers thought his books would sell better under a female author's name, and it was secret until he won a romantic fiction award and he had to admit it!

>218 elkiedee: Fascinating circumstances - would like to think that wouldn't be done today (but would not be that surprised to be proved wrong).

>211 PaulCranswick: I am up for a Pulitzer challenge, structured or not, Bill as I have so many of them on the shelves attracting mildew to their spines. Smiled at your forthright views and will be interested to see how you set it up.

Good question on gentlemen writers using a female nom-de-plume and you are right that there aren't so many. One that does spring to mind would be Yasmina Khadira whose name is Mohamed Moulessehoul and previously an officer in the Algerian army. Required a cover to avoid military censorship.
John Creasey wrote over 600 novels with 28 preudonyms including more than a dozen as Margaret Cooke.
Dan Rhodes the english writer for some inexplicable reason published The Little White Car as Danuta de Rhodes.
Benjamin Franklin used to write to editors satirical letters under various assumed names including as Alice Addertongue.
Carolyn Keene was credited as writing the Nancy Drew books. There was no such person; it was various writers some of whom were men.
Finally the French poet Stephane Mallarme published also as Madamoiselle Satin.

My point over on my thread was more to do with the use of initials and how some gents were mistaken as ladies and vice versa.

>220 PaulCranswick: The initial use is interesting - I heard that J K Rowling was initialled because publishers thought as a she, she wouldn't sell Potter books to boys.

Invented lives: narratives of black women, 1860-1960 by
Mary Helen Washington is a collection of extracts from black women's fiction over 100 years in the US, with each section including an introductory esay by the editor.

I initially picked this from the library catalogue because I was aware how little I knew about African women's fiction, and search terms being what they are, this popped up in the results bundle. And I thought: I know nothing about that either. In her introductory essays, Washington makes a compelling case for reading the extracts, whilst explaining the background of the writers, the way that their work has been published and received, and how she feels they fit as part of the wider canon of African American literature. In many cases she shows how critics' assumptions often fuelled by the gendered boundaries given to their work (household novels, domestic fiction, insufficiently politicised) can be rejected. Very dangerous for the wishlist this book: I'm keen to read longer biographies of almost all the women included, particularly Nella Larsen and to find the full books in some cases too.

>220 PaulCranswick: You force my hand on the Pulitzer reads. I will put something up on my thread. Pretty soon...

>223 weird_O: Good to hear Bill.

Voices from Chernobyl turned up at the library.

This is not a book about Chernobyl, but about the world of Chernobyl. About the very thing about which we know so little. Almost nothing. Missed history is what I would call it. I was not interested in the event per se: what happened that night at the station and whose fault it was, how decisions were made, how many tons of sand and concrete were needed to build the sarcophagus over the fiendish pit. I wanted to know the feelings, the sensations of people who had touched the unknown. The mystery.

I think I will like this book.

Guardian Reviews


I'm trying to be 'good' and not reserve any shiny new books this week...

Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern by Francine Prose reviewed by Kathryn Hughes
"...the woman who had a legitimate claim to be one of the great heroines of 20th-century art. For without Guggenheim’s sharp eye, personal pluck and frenzied determination – as the Germans marched into Paris she embarked on a mission to save a painting a day – it is quite possible that seminal works by Brâncuşi, Klee, Mondrian, Magritte and Kandinsky would have disappeared in one of the Nazis bonfires of “degenerate” art."

I like the sound of this!

No Such Thing As a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy by Linsey McGoey
"she casts an unsparing eye over “philanthrocapitalism” – as she and some of its practitioners call it. A small group of private donors, she writes, play “an outsized role in national and global policy-making”: they “want to revolutionise the last realm untouched by the hyper-competitive, profit-oriented world of financial capitalism: the world of charitable giving. Gates is currently the best known of these hard-nosed modern philanthropists, and the foundation that he and his wife, Melinda, run from a headquarters in Seattle the size of a large city block is the focus of about half this book. But first McGoey explores the thinking and methods of earlier conscience-stricken tycoons. Starting with John D Rockefeller Sr in the late 19th century, she shows that charity organised on business lines is not new, as philanthrocapitalists claim. "
Also of this!

Dietrich and Riefenstahl by Karin Wieland reviewed by Farran Smith Nehme
"The comparison is illuminating, even if the women would no doubt resent having to share the spotlight."
And of this one too.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro reviewed by Oliver Burkeman
"For more than four decades, this particular urban planner was the most powerful man in New York, an unelected emperor who dominated the mayors and governors who were supposedly in charge, and who physically reshaped the city through sheer force of will. Caro’s enormous book, meanwhile, is less a life story than an epic, meticulously detailed study of power in general: how it’s acquired, how it’s used to change history, how it ultimately corrupts those who get it."
I'd nor heard of this early book by Caro, sounds good.

The Dissident Mullah by Ulrich von Schwerin reviewed by Gavin Smyth
"Reading von Schwerin will not provide answers as to who will emerge victorious from the manoeuvring already under way within and around the assembly, but he does remind that, given what happened last time, our assumptions about Iranian politics should be flexible"
I don't think so.

Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-1995 edited by Avril Horner and Anne Rowe reviewed by D J Taylor
"The woman who, as friends attest, enlivened train carriages on the Oxford to Paddington line with her views on the 1984-85 miners’ strike and the woman who addressed her friends, lovers and professional colleagues went about the business in exactly the same way: at all times impulsive, affectionate, brainy, loyal, free-associative and, at least occasionally, horribly vulnerable. The effect is oddly appealing and – whatever you happen to feel about her novels – deeply impressive."
I should read a novel by her first.

The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell reviewed by Marcus Sedgwick
"Set in Russia in the lead-up to revolution, her book tells of “a dark and stormy girl” called Feo and her mother, Marina, who are “wolf wilders” – they find wolves that were once the pets of the St Petersburg elite, and, in the snowy Russian forest, teach them how to be wolf again."
Love the cover.

One Point Two Billion by Mahesh Rao reviewed by Anuradha Roy
"In the best stories here, meaning shimmers between the lines; apparently humdrum observations and innocuous happenings, taken together, create a resonance that lingers in the air like a vibration..."
Sounds wonderful.

Due North by Peter Riley reviewed by Evan Jones
"Song is the cohering force in Due North, but Riley’s “we” are not universal. Walt Whitman is present, but the style is rather more like the William Carlos Williams of Paterson or the Charles Olson of The Maximus Poems. This is a poetry of a specific people and place. The “we” are immigrants to the north of England – “and still they come, Croatia, Moldavia, Poland, Ukraine” – escapees from the continent fleeing a historical situation muddled by the end of the book."
Maybe?

City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg reviewed by Sandra Newman
"There is prose in City on Fire as transporting as any you’re likely to see in a book in the next 10 years. Then there are the other 500 pages."
No, I don't think so.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith reviewed by Christobel Kent
"The game is on, to identify the young woman and track down what’s left of her, then to isolate the serial-killer-with-a-grudge responsible for her murder and mutilation. And finally, as it becomes clear that Robin and not Strike is the killer’s target, to stop him before he claims his next victim Fortunately for the plot, Strike has made a significant number of enemies over the course of a colourful life..."
Loved this, now waiting for the next one.

Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga reviewed by Rachel Cooke
"...something about it called to me, not least its irresistible opening lines, which go like this: “There is no better lycée than Our Lady of the Nile. Nor is there any higher. Twenty-five hundred metres, the white teachers proudly proclaim.” Though there were at least a dozen other things I should have been reading at the time, I had no choice but to give myself up to it."
Ordered this already.

Ghost River by Tony Birch reviewed by Meredith Jaffe
"Birch describes his childhood memories of the Yarra as central to his imaginative thinking and says he longed to write a novel about his beloved river. Ghost River began as a short story that focused on the river men — the homeless alcoholics who lived on the banks of the Yarra behind the factories of Fitzroy. In the novel, the river men are important but are secondary to the narrative. This is the story of two 13-year-old boys, Charlie “Ren” Renwick and his neighbour Sonny Brewer, who discover friendship in the slums of Collingwood and freedom by the Yarra’s polluted banks."
This sounds very good.

>220 PaulCranswick: Paul - as a past keen reader of the Nancy Drew series, I knew that Carolyn Keen was a ghost writer and that the series was written by a number of authors, but I am happy to report that even so, most of the writers were women, as was the one who wrote the first book in the series, according to Wikipedia. I might fall over with sadness if I thought most of the Nancy Drew books were written by a man! :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Keene

Quite interesting , really! Thanks Paul for making me check into it. Looking forward to the rest of the Guardian Reviews, Charlotte.

>223 weird_O: I am pleased to know that, Bill. I look forward to seeing how you plan to set it up.

>225 charl08: I am reading it too, Charlotte. It is pretty effective methinks.

>226 charl08: Nothing springs off the thread for once there

>227 vancouverdeb: I didn't mean to allude most were by men as it was in fact only 10 out of the 78 books, Deb.

Happy weekend, Charlotte.

Thanks for the reminder to bring the new Cormoran Strike book with me on vacation. I've already packed a Danish crime novel (we're going to Denmark!), but I'll be kicking myself if I leave it behind.

>226 charl08: I like the sound of No Such Thing As A Free Gift, but the library doesn't even have it for wishlisting! I love the snark of the City on Fire review. It sounds like one to skip :-)

>227 vancouverdeb: Interesting stuff Deb. I tend to wonder how a group of people manage to fit in with a style like that (like the recent Bond novels). Perhaps some more successfully than others?

>228 PaulCranswick: I am enjoying it a great deal Paul, but oh bits are so sad. I like the odd spectacle of the old ladies who have gone back to the evacuation areas talking about their plans to take down any bandits. I certainly wouldn't mess with them.

>229 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara. I was out and about in a local bird reserve yesterday: beautiful colours.

>230 RidgewayGirl: I didn't review it:I struggle with avoiding spoilers in a series. No reflection of the plot.

>231 susanj67: The City on Fire book might have done better if the reviewer hadn't gone green over his advance. Cynically speaking.

Making plans for the BAC

March :

Ali Smith Hotel World
Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd

April :

George Eliot Middlemarch
Hanif Kureishi My ear at his Heart

Wow - I haven't even finished my plans for this year! I'm impressed.

The Murdoch letters and Our Lady of the Nile caught my eye this week. As always, thanks for the reviews.

Charlotte, Hotel World is amazing. It made me a huge Ali Smith fangirl.

And Middlemarch rewards patience. Wait until you meet Casaubon.

>234 BLBera: I'm looking forward to reading Our Lady of the Nile as soon as it appears at the library. Not often I get the chance to read an African novel translated from the French.

>235 RidgewayGirl: Definitely going to be a challenge! I've tried reading Middlemarch before without much luck.I might well end up listening instead though!

>233 charl08: Middlemarch is also on my list.

>237 Ameise1: For the BAC Barbara? Phew, I won't be alone then...

No!vember list (read my shelves).

I have started, so should aim to finish:

Malcolm X : a life of reinvention
Saraswati Park
The Institute for Taxi Poetry
The Book of the Dead
A Good Man in Africa
The Silent minaret
Ancestor Stones
If on a Winter's night a traveller
Second Class Citizen

(Yes, I do start a lot of books!)

I want to read:
Vanishing for the vote
Watching the English
The Story of an African Farm
Marcus Aurelius Meditation
Kintu
In a Free State
My friend says it's bullet proof
The Master
Maru
Patchwork
The Yacoubian Building
The Echo Chamber
Young Stalin
A Girl is a Half-formed Thing
The Stranger
The Meursault Investigation
Quiet: The Power of introverts...

Kindle books (less bothered by these, as nice to have some books when travelling. However 'some' appears to have become rather generously defined...)

The reinvention of Love
The President's Hat
Burying the Bones
The Information: a history, a theory, a flood
The Boys in the Boat
The Neruda Case
The Wake
The Story of Film
The Holy Woman
Lawrence in Arabia
The Peculiar life of a lonely Postman
And When did you last see your father?
Mediterraneans
Three Sisters
Out of place: A Memoir
Tiny Sunbirds far away
Measuring the World
Mao's Great famine
Sharpeville: apartheid massacre

>238 charl08: Yep, for the BAC 2016. Glad you'll be reading it, too.

>239 charl08: Wow, when do you have time for doing such a lot of reading?

>240 Ameise1: More optimistic than realistic plans I think...

Voices from Chernobyl was published in Moscow back in the 190s by Svetlana Alexievich who was awarded this year's Nobel prize for Literature.



My edition was translated by Antonia W Bouis. When I was looking at cover art it seems that there is a Norwegian book with the same title and another translation of this too. I found this book a powerful read. Alexievich mostly cuts herself out of the process, so that the book is made up of monologues and quotes from group interviews. From the opening account, of the devastating death of one of the fireman at the explosion, the tone is set. Unflinching, raw emotion in the face of horror. The widow recounts how her husband died horribly, whilst she fought medical staff to be with him, to nurse him. Other accounts are quieter, such as the elderly woman who refused to leave her home in the contaminated zone. Soldiers who shovelled earth unprotected and uneducated about the risks they were taking. Scientists reflecting on the death of their belief in he Soviet technological dream, as their warnings were ignored by party bosses in Belarus, and the population was exposed to damaging radiation.

I can see why the writer would not be popular with anyone who was involved in the government in Russia and Belarus: the cumulative effect of these narratives is an exposé of government failure to deal with the crisis, and in many cases, made it worse. For those who would like to forget, it reminds that the effects of the disaster continue to be felt.

>226 charl08: I ended up buying a copy of The Wolf Wilder for my children's lit collection, the paperback edition has beautiful illustrations throughout that are missing in the hardback. I liked Rundell's last book.

>239 charl08: I'm probably not going to post my November hopes for reading as my list will probably be even longer than yours!

Hey Charl. I'm a bit behind...
Regarding They All Love Jack, I love your comment:
"Rather tempted by this, although the mason thing just makes me think Dan Brown, which rather points in the other direction..." I totally agree.

I read Our Lady of the Nile last year and loved it.

Great review of Voices from Chernobyl, Charlotte. I found my copy of it this morning, which was published in 2006 by Picador US and translated by Keith Gessen. I'll add it to my list of books to read in November.



ETA: Voices from Chernobyl and Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War are now available as Kindle e-books in the US.

>244 EBT1002: Oh, so great that you've read this already. I'm looking forward to my (!) copy turning up at the library.

>245 kidzdoc: I was surprised to see iit had been translated twice Darryl, given the usual complaint is that not enough gets translated in the first place. I'm hoping there will be an article out there on the difference between the translations ( I've not found it yet but will try looking a bit more). And I am tempted by her other books now, but am trying to avoid new books for a bit!

The death of historian Lisa Jardine was announced in the papers today.

Jardine was known for her research into the early modern period and, in the later part of her career, she worked as a professor of renaissance studies at University College London (UCL). She was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Society this year and won its prestigious medal for popularising science, as well as being awarded a CBE.

Jardine’s friend and UCL colleague Prof Melissa Terras called her an “astonishing scholar” and said she would be missed. Jardine was “immensely supportive of colleagues and the causes she cared about, passionate about equality, an effortless communicator and had a vital energy that encouraged and galvanised those around her”, said Terras.

http://gu.com/p/4dj2e?

I've not read her research (not my period, also known as the Pub Quiz Defence...) but the enthusiastic writing about her work means I'm keen to rectify this. Her book about Erasmus, in particular, looks appealing, as I have a thing about 'books about books' - Erasmus Man of Letters.

Finished I am Spain, which became a much quicker read towards the end where the familiar run up to war against the Nazis, and the Orwell publication history, which I'm familiar with, dominated the focus of Boyd Hancock.


There's a lot of positives to list about this book: it's very readable, includes a helpful cast of characters in the back and beautiful black and white photographs including work by Robert Capa, illustrate the text. I thought the strength of the book was the interweaving of different writers' and fighters' stories, from the different International Brigades and in Orwell's case the anti-Stalinist POUM. However, sometimes he seemed to get carried away with who shot who, whose gun misfired and who wasn't good at leading military advances. I got the sense that it would be very difficult to be a winning Republican soldier given the lack of arms, dubious political infighting and the role of Hitler and Mussolini's blitzkrieg. Evaluating skill in that context seems odd to me.

But perhaps that's more about me not really being a fan of military history. I did like the way he acknowledged that women were there too (and I finally found out what Eileen Orwell was doing in Spain: mostly working for the Republican government it seems). Overwhelmingly this is a sad episode in history. The book ends with the few English- speaking survivors (the casualty rates of the international brigades were appalling) returning to Britain and the US doubting that they achieved anything, and their communist beliefs under strain or shattered. Others who had escaped being shot by Franco and made it out of Spain were kept in French refugee camps (and then forced back to Franco under German occupation of France). The Russians come out of this picture pretty badly, providing arms on the condition that anti-Stalinists are shot. The British and French don't do much better (why didn't they enforce the arms embargo?). But perhaps the biggest (panto?) villain is Ernest Hemingway, who looks stupid for claiming a great knowledge of war and what it was like (and for being the author of: Did the earth move for you?).

And now for a completely different book: just started My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises.

Hi, Charlotte! That is an impressive November reading list. Wow! And good luck.

Will this be your first time reading Middlemarch? If so, it is soooooooo good.

It will not be the first time *starting* Middlemarch. Ahem.

Thanks for the encouragement though: appreciated. I am not a fan of 19c lit (with the notable exception of Austen), so I will take as much positive vibes as possible.

Just went to look up I am Spain and add to my huge wishlist, to find I bought it as a Kindle bargain 2 years ago. Have downloaded 4 previously bought Spanish Civil War books to my Kindle. I've always been shocked that the US used the term premature anti-Fascists (as code for communists) of those involved in the Spanish Civil War.

>252 elkiedee: I did finish the book wondering how many of the soldiers who were in the Lincoln and Washington companies struggled when McCarthyism took hold. I have still to finish Homage to Catalonia and will get hold of Laurie Lee's civil war book soon. I was tempted to make a list of memoirs I wanted to read, but think I'll stick to finding something on Gerda Taro, the photographer.

I'm reading a biographical novel about Gerda Taro now, Waiting for Robert Capa by Susana Fortes.

David Boyd Haycock has also written A Crisis of Brilliance about artists in WW1 - and I seem have that to.

> 254 Just seen this novel advertised on Amazon. What a beautiful cover.

I finished My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises in one sitting this evening. Just a lovely story about people healing through a community, in the same vein as its predecessor A Man Called Ove which I also loved. Some wonderful snigger moments, and may well be particularly enjoyed by fans of Marvel, Harry Potter and gender equality.

Maybe, this time, trying Middlemarch will be magical. Fingers crossed.

Charlotte, I'd like to join you for Middlemarch. It won't be my first time starting it either :-) I think it was last year or maybe earlier this year that I tried it as part of a Group Read, but I was over-booked at the time and gave up.

Incidentally, Fiona Shaw presented last night's Secret Life of Books and it was Mill on the Floss - well worth iPlayering if you didn't see it, although I'm a bit cheesed off that she gave away the ending. I thought that maybe I could try that instead of Middlemarch by that other popular author of the time whose name I couldn't quite remember...and then the penny dropped.

>248 charl08: I am Spain looks interesting. I've read The Battle for Spain and also waiting for Robert Capa among others. I have Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War by Amanda Vaill on my tbr pile.

>257 susanj67: Sounds like there'll be a few of us. Phew. I'm not a fan of Mill which read a long time ago and was told by an English teacher my opinion wasn't valid because I was too young. I had the same issue with Tess (after that I think I stopped reading the 19c chunksters for a good long while).

>258 avatiakh: Look forward to hearing how Hotel Florida goes. Sounds interesting!

>257 susanj67:, >259 charl08: - Hmmm..... I've been wanting to try Middlemarch.....

An entire thread behind - golly things move fast!

And I'm a Humphries fan too. Oh how maddening when you brought the Downie home!

Hild does sound very enticing -

The cover of the Backman you just started is marvelous.

>256 msf59: I missed you - I hope the book proves to be a winner. I feel rather foolish not to 'get' it!

>261 sibylline: I was convinced that he couldn't repeat the success of A Man Called Ove, but I got a couple of chapters in, and I realised he'd achive it. I even got something in my eye AGAIN. Instead of a grumpy old man in this one it's from the perspective of a precocious 7 year old who has a way with words and a rather amazing granny. So some of the emotion was remembering my own amazing gran, but a lot was the book itself. Underneath it all the rather cheering conviction that everyone has redeeming characteristics and that connections and reconnection is possible. Cheesy but wonderful.

Time for some Nordic crime now: The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurdardottir. A yacht.mysteriously crashes in Reykjavik but what's happened to the family who were on board?

Hope you don't mind, Charlotte, but I got The New Yorker Album 1950-1955 at a library book sale, effectively paying 25 cents for it. One of the covers reproduced fits right in with your lighthouse theme.

>264 weird_O: Ohh, such a lovely drawing.

The only thing I mind is that I don't own that. Gorgeous cover. I wonder if it was it a Valentine issue?

>265 connie53: Agreed!

I've been given a lovely copy of The bookshop book, tag line 'every bookshop has a story'. OF course, the problem being that now there are even more bookshops I want to visit!

Canadian Challenge

I'm thinking about the books I'll try and read next year (as I am trying not to reserve any more just now!)

January: Robertson Davies,
Library had loads, but What's bred in the Bone for starters.

Kim Thúy Maybe Ru or Man - library doesn't have then, but I'll ask.

February: Helen Humphreys, Stephen Leacock
I have The Reinvention of Love on the kindle, so I might use that. Library has The Penguin collected Stephen Leacock.

March: Farley Mowat I have five to choose from at the library...

Anita Rau Badami Library has Hero's Walk

April: Margaret Atwood
Michael Crummey library has Sweetland

May: Michel Tremblay library has Making room
Emily St. John Mandel three to choose from at the library, not including the amazing Station Eleven

June: Timothy Findley The Butterfly Plague
Joseph Boyden The Orenda has a 5 star rating from my fellow library users, so I'll look at that.

July: LM Montgomery I'll probably reread Anne of the Island which is a favourite.
Pierre Berton The Dionne years

August: Mordechai Richler Solomon Gursky was here looks like fun.
Gabrielle Roy Where nests the water hen has a lovely title...

September: Miriam Toews,
I have A boy of good breeding on the TBR pile.
Dany Laferrière the library has copies of The Enigma of the Return :-)

October: Lawrence Hill, Jane Urquhart
Someone knows my name by Hill and Sanctuary line by Urquhart sound good.

November: Michael Ondaatje, Coming through Slaughter sounds good, if I can get hold of it. I've read a fair bit by him, so not too worried by this month.
Margaret Laurence

December: Alice Munro, There was an article in the paper about Lives of Girls and Women a while back, so I should probably aim to read that.
Rawi Hage - Carnival (on my TBR pile)

Need to keep looking though...

Charlotte, you're so organised for next year! I've heard of Robertson Davies and keep meaning to try him. But now I want to read My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises, after seeing your review. I loved A Man Called Ove. One for the list for December!

It was a fun read Susan. Not earth shattering but certainly a bit of light relief after the horrors depicted in Alexievich's book about the aftermath of Chernobyl.

Happy Wednesday, Charlotte. I like your CAC list. I have not heard of many of those authors and I have very few on the TBR piles, but I will participate.

^^Love The New Yorker cover!

>271 msf59: Hey Mark. It's going to be fun. I'm going to try and do all three (famous last words...).

In possibly the longest process to upload a picture to lt EVER, I bring you: the beach.

And just so that I can prove to Myself I can do it more than once... (picturesque Lancashire village from recent walk)

Lovely photos!

>268 charl08: I need to go see the current status of the CanLit challenge. It looks like lots of authors I don't yet know!

Beautiful photos, Charlotte.

Very gorgeous pictures!

>275 katiekrug: >277 Ameise1: >278 connie53: Thanks! And finally the right way up... after trying various different sites for an alternative link, ended up emailing them to myself. Irritating, but at least a system that works now without rotating the image to the side when LT uploads it.

>266 charl08: There is plenty to be discovered on the challenge site. I'm looking forward to reading some new authors next year.

The Silence of the Sea was a great bit of Scandinavian crime that I enjoyed. A boat has landed in Reykjavik but none of the crew are on board.

The services of a lawyer,Thóra Gudmundsdóttir are engaged by the parents of the loss adjuster and his family who were on board, taking the ship back to Iceland after it has been repossessed. They need Thóra to sort out the insurance claim to ensure the couple's smallest daughter, left behind on the trip, is provided for. Initially the case is baffling: where has everyone gone - and why are none of the lifeboats missing? Then news of a radio communication of a body in the ship's freezer, and of massive life insurance policies on both missing parents, and the plot becomes murky. Iceland's financial meltdown is the background to the plot, from stockbroker greed to characters looking overseas for work.

>280 charl08: Charlotte, that one sounds excellent! And it's apparently on the shelf at Cubitt Town. Hmmm. *Checking calendar - no, not No!vember yet*

I'm glad you figured the photos out. I used to email them to myself but then that stopped working, so now I have to upload them to LT from my BlackBerry. Fiddly, but it works. I love your beach one. Where is that?

Gorgeous pictures, Charlotte! Perhaps like you, I am extremely challenged as far as being able to post a picture on LT. I've only read My Soul to Take by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir , and I was not that keen on it, but your review makes me think that I might like to try another by that author.

As far as you choices for the Canadian Challenge, Ru is wonderful and also very short. I've read every book that Anita Rau Badami and enjoyed them all, and Hero's Walk is a great choice! Someone Knows My Name is one my favourite books ever, so I hope you give it a try. As far as Margaret Laurence goes, I really enjoyed her book The Stone Angel. I familiar with I suppose all of the authors, though I certainly have not read a book by every author, but those are the ones I am keen on. Sounds like you are super organized already!

Happy Thursday, Charlotte! " I'm going to try and do all three (famous last words...)" That might make a perfect LT T-shirt. What do you think?

>281 susanj67: It's the fact that Google was working fine, and then they took something out which meant it stopped working with LT. Glad I'm not the only one having the grief though. Hope you like the Icelandic crime book. Just realised I should have mentioned it's one of a series, and this is not the first...
*ducks*

>282 vancouverdeb: Thanks for all the recommendations. I'm really looking forward to reading a whole group of authors who are new to me (and some very famous Canadian authors too of course).
I was so pleased that for most of the less known writers my library had copies. Well done my library!

>283 msf59: I don't wear slogan t shirts much Mark, but stick it on a bag with a nice picture of books and you've got a buyer...

>283 msf59: >284 charl08: I would go for the bag too!

Woops , Charlotte, Margaret Lawrence did not write Stone Diaries, she wrote Stone Angel, which I am not if I have read. If I have, it was for school at some point . I mixed up those two "Margaret " Can Lit authors! :)

I read that you solved the issue with the upside-down pics, but must have missed (and don't find it) how to solve it. I have the same problem which keeps me from opening a new thread, because not one of the pics I was planning comes out the right way after the upload. I'm always copying from my phone to my computer and from that picture folder I upload to LT. They are upside down on LT only.
Anyway, your pictures are beautiful. Happy weekend!

I've no problem uploading photo's to LT. I use a website to upload them to (Photobucket.com) and then copy/paste the code to my LT post. I like the idea of my photo's being rather save on a website and somewhere in the cloud. That's why I started uploading my pics to that side.

>285 connie53: I'm waiting for Mark to tell us where we can buy from Connie.

>286 vancouverdeb: No worries Deb. (I didn't notice!)

>287 Deern: It was very convoluted involving attaching it to my email, sending to myself, redownloading from the email and uploading to LT. Even worse, it (now) seems to have stopped working again. Grrr. I don't understand. I even found the code to make the picture spin, just not to sit 90 degrees right or left (or at least, the code I did find didn't then it work on LT).

>288 connie53: I'm on a couple of cloud sites Connie, but none of them seem to be cooperating well with LT. Very frustrating! Glad yours is working though!

Another attempt at a picture:



Brooding sky over Derbyshire this evening.

Great picture of a brooding sky! We had oodles of rain overnight, but it is kind of clearing now and I am to walk my dog. Tomorrow, Halloween, is supposed to be a heavy rain day. ( That is a lot of days over the winter here - rain, rain, rain , overcast skies day after day , you get the idea. ) . Where I live we seldom get snow , but endless overcast and rain. Off to walk the dog and hope it does not start to rain. But if I let rain stop me I'd never leave the house! I'm all set with a gortex jacket and hood, and even pants that created to be waterproof. Off I go! Ruins my hair!

>284 charl08: Google does work, Charlotte, but they've made it a bit more complicated. To get the LT required URL with the ".jpg" extension, you have to "share" the photo through Google+. You upload the photo to Google Photo, but you can't get the URL mit ".jpg" from G-Photo. You have go through Google+ and share the photo. I share the photo with my wife using her e-mail address. I can then open the photo in G+, right click on the image, and obtain the LT-required URL mit ".jpg".

Does that help? Let me know if I need to explain it better.

>291 vancouverdeb: Sounds like Vancouver should be twinned with Manchester, also know for its rainfall. Hope your hair survived the humidity Deb. I'm set for 90% today, so all thoughts of a reasonable hairstyle have been abandoned.

>292 weird_O: Thanks Bill. I did try this method (you very helpfully described it on your thread) but found I couldn't grab the link from Google plus. Not sure if that's because I'm using my phone.

Guardian Reviews (or a list of books I covet)

Dictator by Robert Harris reviewed by Edith Hall
" In this final instalment, which begins in 58BC, Cicero returns from exile. It ends shortly after his brutal execution in 43BC, when his name was put on the hitlist comprising everybody who opposed the authority of the ruthless Second Triumvirate (Antony, Octavian and Lepidus)."

Beatlebone by Kevin Barry reviewed by Edward Docx
"The Lennon of Beatlebone is 37. The story opens as he arrives by night and incognito on the west coast of Ireland in May 1978; “all he asks” is to “spend three days alone on his island”. The island in question is Dorinish in Clew Bay, County Mayo, which the real‑life Lennon bought in 1967"

Slade House by David Mitchell reviewed by Liz Jensen
"If this faux-scary, read-in-one-sitting crowd-pleaser has a single mission, it is to enjoy itself. Think The Bone Clocks’s naughty little sister in a fright wig, brandishing a sparkler, yelling “Boo!” – and highlighting an element of Mitchell’s talent that has been present but underexploited from the beginning of the writer’s award-studded career: a rich seam of comedy."

The Women’s Pages by Debra Adelaide reviewed by Meredith Jaffe
" In the hands of a less gifted author, it could have failed miserably. But Adelaide creates a cohesive narrative around her themes: creativity, the struggle of women to define who they want to be and the impact of missing mothers on those left behind."

Forty Sonnets by Don Paterson reviewed by Kate Kellaway
"He is not one for fuss, fancy or folderol – very Scottish in that way (a Dundee man). Even the most spiritual of the poems (Lacrima, Funeral Prayer, Souls) are unornamented as plainsong. And there is a pull towards dark subject matter."

Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone – 125 Years of Pop Music by Peter Doggett reviewed by Ian Penman
"...his basic thesis: how uproariously fast things change in pop, not just the music itself but the whole manner in which it is delivered and consumed."

Why the World Does Not Exist by Markus Gabriel reviewed by Stuart Jeffries
"Gabriel’s main target is the arrogance of science. He wants to attack the suggestion that only by means of scientific method will we someday be able to comprehend the whole of reality. "

Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan reviewed by Richard Williams
"The music’s sublime artistry provides a counterpoint to the lurid details of four marriages, countless affairs and fist fights and a web of connections with America’s ruling elites, from the back rooms of mob-run casinos to the White House, all spanning a period of great cultural upheaval."

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard reviewed by Catharine Edwards
"Beard is a wonderfully lucid guide to its murky beginnings, shining a spotlight on dark corners of the Roman forum and the disturbing frequency with which stories of sexual violence (the rape of the Sabines, the rape of Lucretia, the almost-rape of Verginia, averted only by her death) punctuate Rome’s political history."

To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914-1949 by Ian Kershaw reviewed by Susan Pedersen
"If you are looking for a reliable one-volume account of that “struggle for mastery” in Europe, this is the book for you. Kershaw’s version has all the virtues not only of this author but also of a particular English historical tradition: it is precise, analytical, judicious, empiricist and slightly Olympian in tone. "

Like the brooding skies and the comparisons with Vancouver ladies but I reckon that Kuala Lumpur beats you for rainfall. Vancouver averages 57 inches of rainfall yearly but Kuala Lumpur is at 93 inches. Derby averages 27 inches of rain a year.

Have a lovely weekend Charlotte

>293 charl08: Could be the phone. I think Caro reported having trouble with either an iPad or a cell phone that disappeared when she used her laptop.

I just finished The Uninvited by Liz Jensen, and thought of you, since you introduced me to the author. It was very good and very creepy. Have you read it?

>295 PaulCranswick: Hope you've got an umbrella there Paul...

>296 weird_O: That makes sense. I don't understand why though (perfectly working for jpgs in other contexts.)

>297 katiekrug: I have - not my favourite, but good seasonal scarey reading perhaps?

Thanks for the reviews, Charlotte. Slade House and The Women's Pages look good to me. Not sure why the touchstone doesn't work...

Charlotte, happy No!vember! Thanks for the reviews - Electric Shock is definitely going on the list. I may have seen it at the l*br*ry. I'll have to look again in December :-)

>299 BLBera: Thanks to Mark's warbling I've put Slade House on the reservation list (for December).

>300 susanj67: It looks like a chunksters Susan, hope you like it.

Barcelona Shadows was the last book of October, purely accidentally well timed for Halloween. A dark look at the police trying to catch a woman stealing children in early 20th century Barcelona. The authorities aren't interested because they're the children of prostitutes, but two policemen are prepared to disregard orders. Narrated by Death, this is a gory, macabre look at the underworld of historical Barcelona.



And that's it for the library books. Please join me on my next thread as I read from my own shelves for No!vember...

>294 charl08: Pretty bumper week with Kershaw, Barry, Mitchell and, of course, Paterson catching my eye.