Kerry (avatiakh) category challenge 2016

Hi - this will be a work in progress for a few days so bear with me while I setup house.
I'm aiming for 16 categories with a minimum of 4 read in each. I chose my categories a couple of months ago, but after looking at everyone's challenges over the past couple of days I feel I need some wriggle room as the Bingo and CAT challenges etc look so fun.

Plan for 2016 is to read MY OWN BOOKS
my categories:
1: Spotlight on Terry Pratchett
2: Time Out 1000 Books to Change Your Life
3: Serious Fiction
4: Hemingwayesque
5: Israel & Diaspora - Jewish & Israeli fiction
6: International Fiction - books in translation
7: Fiction: antiheroes/cult/unreliable narrators
8: Fiction: epistolary, diary or journal
9: Historical / Sagas
10: Favourites - writers, genres, series etc
11: Scifi with a focus on Peter F. Hamilton
12: Fantasy with focus on Dragons
13: Literary Collections - fairy tales, folktales, short stories, essays
14: Nonfiction Light: Travel & Food
15: Nonfiction Heavy: History, Politics & Science
16: Illustrated and books for the young
Overflow

Spotlight on Terry Pratchett

Only read Good Omens and The Colour of Magic so hope to read some more Discworld. I have a small collection of used paperbacks collected over the years from thrift shops etc.
1: Wyrd Sisters - finished 20 Jan
2:
3:
4:
Planned:
The Light Fantastic
Guards! Guards!
The Wee free men
A hat full of sky

Time Out 1000 Books to Change Your Life
Dipping into this book list and hoping to clear my shelves of a few of the great unread.
1:
2:
3:
4:
Possibilities:
Atomised by Michel Houllebecq
Call it sleep by Henry Roth
Money by Martin Amis
A suitable boy by Vikram Seth

Serious Fiction - I'll be following Paul's British Authors Challenge over in the 75ers group, though some of his choices are lighter fare, anyway I have many great books on my tbr pile as well. I've also organised the ANZAC challenge so will be reading quite a few Australian & NZ writers work.
1: Lovelock by James McNeish (NZ) - finished 16 Jan
2: All the light you cannot see by Anthony Doerr (US) - finished 23 Jan
3: Strange Meeting by Susan Hill (UK) - finished 24 Jan
4: The songs of kings by Barry Unsworth (UK) - finished 30 Jan
5: Gossip from the Forest by Thomas Keneally - finished 24 Feb
6: The Widow and Her Hero by Thomas Keneally - finished 14 Mar
7: The Pale North by Hamish Clayton (NZ) - finished 04 Apr
8: Spinners by Anthony McCarten (NZ)- finished June
9: Smith's Dream by CK Stead (NZ) - finished June
10: The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning - finished Jun 30

Possible Authors:
Barry Unsworth
Anthony Trollope
Bernice Rubens
William Golding
Joseph Conrad
Rebecca West
And the land lay still by James Robertson

Hemingwayesque - books by Hemingway or those who knew him, about Hemingway, titles with Hemingway, authors named Hemingway etc
I have read a little Hemingway and thought this would make an interesting mix.
1: Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood - finished 30 Apr
2:
3:
4:

Possibilities:
Hemingway's Suitcase by McDonald Harris
The Hemingway hoax by Joe Haldeman
Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood
Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War by Amanda Vaill
Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn or Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life by Caroline Moorehead
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
Hemingway's Notebook by Bill Granger
Amanda Hemingway
No wind of blame by Georgette Heyer (Inspector Hemingway series)

Israel & Diaspora - Jewish & Israeli fiction/nonfiction
making an effort to complete my read of David Grossman's books

Fiction:
1: Lineup by Liad Shoham (Israel) - finished 11 Jan
2: Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson (Holland) - finished 24 Jan
3: Someone to run with by David Grossman - finished 20 Mar
4:

Nonfiction:
1: Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter by Kazik/Simha Rotem (Israel)- finished 10 Jan
2: The Reckoning: How the Killing of One Man Changed the Fate of the Promised Land by Patrick Bishop - finished 13 Jan

Young
1: Audacity by Melanie Crowder (US)- finished 31 Jan
2: Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman (US)- finished 05 Feb
3: Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit (US) - finished 11 Feb
4: Adam and Thomas by Aharon Apelfeld (Israel) - finished 12 Feb
5: The Old Country by Mordicai Gerstein - finished 15 Feb
6: Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke by Anne Blankman - finished May

Possibilities:
Someone to run with, Be my knife, The Book of Intimate Grammar - all by DG

International Fiction - books in translation: adult and books for young people
1: The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke (German) - finished 03 Jan
2: The Man who spoke Snakish (Estonian) by Andrus Kivirähk - finished 19 Jan
3: Wonderful Clouds by Françoise Sagan (French) - finished 21 Jan
4: The Lover by Marguerite Duras (French) - finished 24 Jan
5: Andean Express by Juan de Recacoechea (Bolivia) - finished 26 Jan
6: Those Without Shadows by Françoise Sagan (France) - finished 27 Jan
7: The secret in their eyes by Eduardo Sacheri (Argentina) - finished 27 Jan
8: 100 Days of Happiness by Fausto Brizzi (Italy) - finished 30 Jan
9: Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras - finished 03 Mar
10: The Red Collar by Jean-Christophe Rufin - finished May

Young People
1:
2:
3"
4:

Fiction: antiheroes/cult/unreliable narrators
Not sure if I'll keep this category but there seems to be plenty of interesting reading material - another to trim the tbr pile.
1: Kickback by Garry Disher - May
2: Paydirt by Garry Disher - May
3: Deathdeal by Garry Disher - Jun
4: Crosskill by Garry Disher - Jun
Young People
1:
2:
3:
4:

Possibilities - not sure if these all fit will have to check:
Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray
Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Artemis Fowl - finish the series
The Stranger by Camus
Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
In cold blood by Truman Capote
The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Fiction: epistolary, diary or journal
1: Saving Mozart by Raphaël Jérusalmy - finished 08 Jan
2:
3:
4:
Youth
1:
2:
3:
4:
Possibilities:
Any human heart
Perks of being a wallflower
Ella Minnow Pea
Blind Assassin
Burn journals
Carrie
We need to talk about Kevin
Colour Purple
Flowers for Algernon

Historical / Sagas
Seem to have a ton of family sagas on my tbr pile
1: The Denniston Rose by Jenny Pattrick (late 19thC) - finished 27 Feb
2: The Beast's Garden by Kate Forsyth (WW2) - finished 28 Feb
3: The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure (WW2) - finished 24 Apr
4:

Favourites - favourite writers, favourite genres, favourite series etc
renamed this one as I didn't have a general fiction category
1: Pallet on the floor by Ronald Hugh Morrieson - finished 14 Jan
2: Jonathan Unleashed by Meg Rosoff - finished 27 Feb
3: Jennie by Paul Gallico - finished 09 Mar
4: Thomasina by Paul Gallico - finished May

Possibles:
Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace - favourite genre
Robert Goddard

Scifi with a focus on Peter F. Hamilton
Peter F. Hamilton:
1: The secret throne - finished 29 Jan
2:
3:
4:
scifi:
1: Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel - finished 08 Jan
2: The Children of Men by PD James - finished 20 Jan
3:
4:
Youth:
1: The Prince in Waiting trilogy by John Christopher - finished 05 Mar
2: Anything that isn't this by Chris Priestly - finished 07 Mar
3: Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill - finished 23 Mar
4:
Possiblilites:
mostly from my tbr pile including Hamilton's Void novels
Goblin Reservation

Fantasy with focus on Dragons
Dragon:
1: The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams - finished 17 Mar
2: Throne of Jade (Temeraire #2) by Naomi Novik - finished 22 Feb
3:
4:
fantasy
1:
2:
3:
4:
Youth:
1: The secret throne by Peter F. Hamilton - finished 29 Jan
2: The Red Abbey Chronicles: Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff - finished 02 Feb
3: Bone Gap by Lauren Ruby - finished 11 Feb
4: Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee - finished 25 Mar
5:

Possibilities
Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop
Temeraire series - to finish
Stoneheart
Icefire series - to finish
Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman

Literary Collections - fairy tales, folktales, short stories, essays
1:
2:
3:
4:

Nonfiction Light: Memoirs, Travel & Food
1: The Unexpected Professor: an Oxford Life in Books by John Carey - finished 07 Feb
2: Birds, Beasts and Relatives (Corfu Trilogy #2) by Gerald Durrell - finished 02 Apr
3: Garden of the Gods (Corfu Trilogy #3) by Gerald Durrell - finished May
4:
Possibles:
From the Holy Mountain: A Journey In The Shadow of Byzantium by William Dalrymple

Nonfiction Heavy: Religion, History, Politics & Science
1: Clandestine in Chile by Gabriel García Márquez - finished 12 Jan
2: Nine parts desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks - finished 19 Apr
3:
4:
Possibles:
For lust of knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies by Robert Irwin

Illustrated and books for the young
Graphic Novels
1: Baba Yaga's Assistant by Marika McCoole - finished 08 Jan
2: Human Body Theater by Maris Wicks - finished 14 Jan
3: Filmish: A Graphic Journey Through Film by Edward Ross - finished 21 Jan
4: Letting it go by Miriam Katin - finished 23 Jan
5: Two Brothers by Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon - finished 24 Jan
6: The Eternaut by Héctor Germán Oesterheld - finished 31 Mar
7: Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, Vol. 1 (Kimi ni Todoke #1) by Karuho Shiina - finished Apr
8: Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 1 (Library Wars: Love & War #1) by Kiiro Yumi - finished Apr
9: Bakuman, Volume 1: Dreams and Reality (Bakuman #1) by Tsugumi Ohba - finished 25 Apr
10: Princess Jellyfish Vol. 1 omnibus 2-in-1 by Akiko Higashimura - finished May

YA:
1: The Boy's Own Manual to being a Proper Jew by Eli Glasman (Aus) - finished 01 Jan
2: Winter by Marissa Meyer (US) - finished 05 Jan
3: Light Horse to Damascus by Elyne Mitchel (Aus) - finished 06 Jan
4: Resurrection by Mandy Hager (NZ) - finished 08 Jan
5: Fire Colour One by Jenny Valentine - finished 25 Jan
6: There will be lies by Nick Lake - finished Apr
7: Asking for it by Louise McNeill - finished May

children's
1: Would the real Stanley Carrot please stand up? by Rob Stevens - finished 21 Jan
2: The war that saved my life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley - finished 01 Feb
3: Pax by Sara Pennypacker - finished 22 Mar
4: The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth (The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow #2) by Katherine Woodfine - finished 25 Mar
5: The Safest Lie by Angela Cerrito - finished May
6: Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan - finished Jun 12

Picturebooks:
1: The fox and the star by Coralie Bickford-Smith - finished 14 Jan
2: Robert the Bruce: King of Scots by James Robertson - finished Jan
3: How to Be Famous by Michal Shalev - finished Mar
4: The Only Child by Guo Jing

Overflow for those that don't conform
1: Cold Granite (Logan McRae#1) by Stuart McBride - finished 29 Feb
2: Death in Valencia (Max Camera #2) by Jason Webster - finished 23 Apr
3: The Walking Dead by Gerald Seymour - finished May
4: The Anarchist Detective (Max Camera #3) by Jason Webster - finished May
5: Blood Med (Max Camera #4) by Jason Webster - finished Jun

Whew, I'm done for now. I'll save this post in case I need it for CAT or bingo.
I might possibly change one or two of my categories but for now I'm quite happy.

I think you have very interesting categories and I look forward to follow along. :)

I love your Favourites picture!

I've read a couple of your proposed reads, A Suitable Boy and Ella Minnow Pea, I enjoyed both of tem very much. A Suitable Boy is one of my all time favourite books.

I love your Favorites picture too. And I also recommend Ella Minnow Pea.

Very interesting categories!

I have a bunch of Peter F. Hamilton on my TBR and am working on the Void series myself.

Good luck with your challenge!

I love your category toppers. Lots of imagination! I will be most interested in your dragon books since I seem to have grown a fondness for them in recent years.
Looking forward to another great year of reading.

Great categories! Looking forward to ducking bookbullets next year as well. :)

I love the Literary Collections illustration in particular. A great selection of categories! Have fun with your challenge.

I've placed my star. I always get such interesting recommendations from you, Kerry, and I am looking forward to what 2016 will bring.

Thanks everyone for visiting. I'm still mulling my categories as even though I like them I can see some gaps and I like to feel I've covered most of my proposed reading. I read really widely and don't want to over use my Overflow slot.

>20 Chrischi_HH: Hi and thanks for following. I'm determined to be more active in this group next year.

>21 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie. Thanks for your recommendations. I've had a copy of A suitable boy for a long while now and from other reviews I know I should be picking it up. My current problem is reading too many library books.

>22 dudes22: Hi Betty. I googled 'I love books' and that came up near the top. It's sort of creepy in some ways. Ella Minnow Pea is another that I've seen other LTers enjoying over the years.

>23 MissWatson: Thanks for visiting.

>24 majkia: Hi Jean. I've read/listened to lots of Peter F. Hamilton and have the Void trilogy and the first of the new Chronicle of the Fallers series. I want to read his YA book too, The Secret Throne.

>25 mamzel: I really loved the Pern novels, so it was easy to decide to focus on dragons this coming year, especially as I just started reading the Temeraire series. Happy to take suggestions for dragon books, though I've read a few in my time.

>26 -Eva-: Hi Eva. Now that I'm set up I'm looking forward to next year.

>27 rabbitprincess: Hi. This category is generally one of my weakest ones. Each time I put it in I struggle to read a collection of anything. However my shelves are groaning with collections of tales and essays etc so I need to focus.

>28 DeltaQueen50: Hi Judy. I'm always looking around for interesting books to read, that's for sure.

>29 avatiakh: - Your response to rabbitprincess - I'm one essay away from finishing What the Dog Saw by Malcom Gladwell. If that's in your TBR, I would recommend it. I have another of his on my TBR which I planning to read for the Dewey next year.

Lovely to see you back for an other year of challenge reading. Like you, I am planning to read mainly books off my TBR shelves, but I know the new shiny books will still catch my eye. ;-)

If your Favorites photo could really be, I think I would like to be hugged by Colonel Brandon of Sense and Sensibility or Raoul the Viscomte de Chagny from The Phantom of the Opera. Well that is at least for now.

>32 LA12Hernandez: *joins the Colonel Brandon queue*

Very interesting categories! For the epistle category have you read 84, Charing Cross Road?

Ooh! Your Hemingway category caught my attention! I read 'The Paris Wife' (by Paula McLain), 'The Sun Also Rises (by Ernest Hemingway), and 'The Nick Adams Stories' (by Ernest Hemingway) earlier this year, and mean to read more "Hemingway-esque works next year. My interest in him began when I went to Petoskry, MI for a reading retreat, and I took a Hemingway tour (he summered up there up through his marriage to his first wife, and in fact, it is where he married his first wife.) Anyway, I'll be interested to see how your list develops :-)

>35 Tanya-dogearedcopy: That's interesting. I went to the Hemingway House in Key West a couple of years ago and also spent some time in Spain these past couple of years, scouting round some of the places where he visited. I read The dangerous summer when I was in Spain earlier in the year. We also checked out some Hemingway haunts in Paris a couple of years back after reading A moveable feast. All up I haven't read enough by him but thought the Hemingway-esque idea would give me some leeway.
I was also impressed with Martha Gelhorn's A stricken field so wanted to read a bit more by/about her as well.

>36 avatiakh: Oooh! I've never been to either Key West or Spain, though I would love to go, especially in the context of a Hemingway tour! The closest that I've been to Hemingway's Key West was in owning, for several years, a polydactic cat from the Albany colony that was an offshoot of the Key West colony. She was tiny and always looked like a kitten! We named her Thurman after the NY Yankees catcher (because her paws looked like catcher's mitts!)

I would love to go to Barcelona too. I might be able to swing it in a couple of years. There's a company there that I do business with, so maybe I can make a business trip when I place my next order...

I haven't read 'A Moveable Feast'! I put in my stacks, but got distracted; but I would really love to get back to it. Perhaps I'll build category around it over on my thread :-)

__
>37 Tanya-dogearedcopy: The Hemingway House in Key West was great, it's full of cats! I think over 30 or so on the grounds, lying on the beds, sleeping on the tables, a huge one on a chair in the bookshop too etc.
In Spain, one of the highlights for me was staying just outside Madrid (we had a rental car) and drove through the areas where lots of the fighting during the Civil War took place. Reading The dangerous summer as we drove around Spain was interesting as I could really appreciate the enormous distances Hemingway covered when zigzagging across Spain to attend all the bullfights. Not that I ever want to attend another bullfight, I went to one on my first trip to Spain and would never go to another. Though when you sit in a bar and they show the highlights on a sports channel, slow-mo of particular passes etc you do get to appreciate the art of the sport.

Hemingway bust outside Pamplona bullring

>38 avatiakh: The cats are my favorite thing about Key West.

>38 avatiakh: Wow, that is one huge cat! Adorable!

The Boy's Own Manual to being a Proper Jew by Eli Glasman (2015)
YA / Illustrated and books for the young category

One of the reasons I picked this one up is because it's written by an Australian writer and I thought it would be interesting to get an Australian perspective on living in a Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish community. Thebook is one of my 2015 leftovers, I have several to finish.
The story follows a Jewish teen,Yossi, who lives in a strict religious community, he has a predicament, he's gay. As Yossi grapples with how he can still be religious and yet come out as a gay man, we get to see how difficult a decision it becomes for Yossi and those around him. In the end Yossi finds a path of compromise within the religion itself.
'But Glasman doesn't trivialise the issues Yossi confronts as he deliberates with himself, backwards and forwards, in true Talmudic fashion. Around his wrist, he wears a rubber band that he pings every time he has sexual thoughts about a man. This he was instructed to do on-line by a New York rabbi who says the negative associations will soon stop the bad thoughts.
If he prays hard enough, Yossi thinks, somewhere, somehow, an answer will arrive because he's done nothing wrong. "Please make these feelings stop," he begs God. He will, he knows, disgrace his family if he's found out and may also ruin his adored sister's marriage prospects. But if he isn't, he'll have to marry a woman. Despite his efforts to rewire himself, Yossi holds on to his dignity and knows he can't.' sydneymorningherald

'‘When you’re gay, your sex life is on trial. All of a sudden you are being judged for what you do in the bedroom. But Judaism sees sex as a private thing between the two people involved, and God.’

Glasman grew up in a religious family and wrote this debut novel based on the experiences of a friend. He's also written several short stories, a couple feature his own battle with Crohn’s Disease.

I've heard of Hemingway's 6-toed cats. One of my friends had a 6-toe growing up so they don't look that weird to me, but they certainly don't have dainty feet! Your categories look great. I know you said you might get rid of it, but I love the anti-hero/unreliable narrator category.

The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke (1990 German) (2013 Eng)
novella / International Fiction - books in translation category

Not sure how I came across this one, though I asked my library to purchase it. It's a modern classic in Germany now and I loved it.
A mother and her two teen children prepare together a feast of mussels and chips, their father's favourite meal. It's in anticipation of news of his expected promotion, but the father is late and as the evening progress, the mother and her children share experiences so we discover that all has not been rosy in this family for a long time.


Winter by Marissa Meyer (2015)
YA / Illustrated and books for the young category

This is the final book in the Lunar Chronicles and a bit of a doorstopper in size. I started reading it in December but put it to one side so I could finish up some shorter reads. It was a wrapup that was everything you could hope for, the length meant that all the characters got their share of time on the stage.
Very satisfying. I've also read the novella Fairest and have noticed that she's bringing out a couple of other short works, prequels, about some of the characters.

A good selection of categories and lots of interesting possibilities listed. Hope you can get to Flowers for Algernon if you've not read it before. I thoroughly recommend that one.

>41 avatiakh: I really like the sound of that one.

Light Horse to Damascus by Elyne Mitchell (1971)
YA fiction / Illustrated and books for the young category

I interloaned this thinking it was a biography of Mitchell's father, General Sir Harry Chauvel, but actually it's a fiction based on his experiences of the Light Horse Brigade in Egypt/Palestine during WW1. That aside it's a darn good yarn, suitable for all ages. Told from the perspective of one of the horses in the troop, the book covers the entire campaign of fighting to overthrow the Ottoman Empire.
A real pity that this is out of print, I'd love to be able to recommend this to younger readers. As it stands there isn't a single copy in all of Auckland, I had to get it sent up from the National Library.
I'd forgotten how much I love reading books written from the perspective of an animal. I loved I am the great horse which is also about horses in war. maybe next year I'll have a category for this type of read.

Mitchell is well known for her Silver Brumby series for younger readers. If you read horse books as a youngster, no doubt you read at least one of these.

>46 avatiakh:
There are a few copies available second hand online, but they are a bit expensive, so wishlisted.... :)

Saving Mozart by Raphaël Jérusalmy (2012 French) (2013 Eng)
novella / Fiction: epistolary, diary or journal category
I grabbed this from the display shelf at my library, the writer's name caught my eye. He's French Israeli, who after aliya to Israel is a rare books dealer. His other book has an intriguing title, The Brotherhood of Book Hunters.
Set around the first years of WW2, an old man, Otto, a music critic, lives in a Salzburg sanatorium, he has TB and hiding the fact that he's Jewish. He's visited from time to time by his friend, Hans, a musician who is organising the annual music festival where everything must adhere to Nazi party standards. When Hans asks Otto for help he sees a possible chance to wreak a little havoc. Told in diary form. The short entries also convey the deteriorating conditions at the sanatorium, so quite a lot packed into a few pages.
I enjoyed this.

Resurrection by Mandy Hager (2011)
YA / Illustrated and books for the young category
This is the concluding book in the Blood of the Lambs trilogy and one I had been planning to finish in December, but my reading plans were as usual highly ambitious.
Hager is from a family well known for political activism, her brother Nicky Hager published a book, Dirty Politics: how attack politics is poisoning New Zealand's political environment during our last election that has caused a fair amount of ongoing strife. She fully supports him, as seen by her active twitter account.
Anyway, this is an interesting dystopian adventure, where some catastrophe has befallen the world and on a small Pacific Island the native people have become dominated by the descendants of the passengers of a luxury ocean liner that had been berthed there. A twisted interpretation of the Bible, an awful illness that the elite treat by blood transfusions of the 'chosen' young girls. I thought the second book was possibly the best one, and this third entry tied up all the loose ends very well with lots of great tension. Maryam was a very strong female character. I'd say more but I don't want to give away the plot.
I have about three more stand alone novels by Hager to read, Singing Home the Whale won Book of the Year Award last year.

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (2014)
fiction / scifi category

My first audiobook of the year, and a really good one too. I loved this especially how the plot wove backwards and forwards, before and after. In just a few days a plague wipes out most of the world's population, all the infrastructure breaks down. I didn't have a clue what I was getting into, but this book worked its magic on me.

Baba Yaga's Assistant by Marika McCoola (2015)
YA graphic novel / Illustrated category

A teenager who has grown up on her grandmother's stories of Baba Yaga decides she'd be better off trying out for the position of Baba Yaga's assistant than staying with her father and his new fiancee and her obnoxious young daughter. This didn't quite work for me.

>48 avatiakh: I'm taking a BB on Saving Mozart. Sounds like a good short read.

Ditto what >52 Chrischi_HH: said!

George by Alex Gino (2015)
children's fiction / Illustrated and books for the young category

I don't think I've read a book about a transgender before and didn't think I'd be starting with a children's book. This is quite wonderful, we are introduced right at the start to a girl with the name George, the fact that George is physically a boy comes a little later. There is a need for books about transgender so those born into the wrong bodies can identify with characters and this is an ideal story. George knows she's a girl there's no second guessing for her, just that she needs to tell her Mum and others and to be acknowledged.
My own concerns with books like these is that the story only works because the protagonist has an accepting best girl friend. For a friendless or isolated child in this situation the book will possibly become that friend.

>48 avatiakh: I've just added that to my basket too! (I've found a less than £2 used copy, so won't feel guilty about buying rather than wishlisting it!)

>52 Chrischi_HH: >53 lkernagh: >55 Jackie_K: This is great. Over on my 75er thread everyone went off to read The Mussel Feast novella and here it's Saving Mozart!

I've decided to add a nonfiction section to my Israel & Diaspora fiction category.

Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter by Kazik (Simha Rotem) (1994)
nonfiction / Israel/Diaspora category

Kazik gave testimony at the end of Claude Lanzmann's 1985 documentary, Shoah and it was like all the testimony very sad. He was often asked when he came to Israel after the war, how did you survive?, a question which made him feel very guilty for the act of surviving, to the point that he stopped talking about the Holocaust. He was pushed to write his memoir by one of the other survivors, one of the leaders of the ZOB (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa/Jewish Fighting Organization) who felt that documentation of their actions was important. It's very immediate, in the introduction Rotem makes it clear that he's not a writer, and he related his memoir by dictation, he also says there are incidents he refused to relate, preferring not to bring them to the surface of his own memory. Rotem was very active in helping many Jews in hiding to survive, he fought in the Warsaw Ghetto and escaped through the sewers, and returned trying to rescue more fighters only being partially successful. Later he took part in the fighting in the Warsaw Uprising.
The memoir was the basis for a 1990s miniseries, Uprising.

Wow! 10 books already! You are off to a great start -- 10 books in 10 days.

I won't be able to keep this book count up, just that a few that i've read have been novellas and children's books.


Lineup by Liad Shoham (2011 Hebrew) (2013 Eng)
crime fiction / Israel/Diaspora category
A deeply satisfying crime novel. This is my second book by Shoham and I can say that I'll continue to read all his work as it's translated. A man who fits the description of a rapist is seen loitering with intent in the neighbourhood and is arrested. He's not the rapist, though he has just committed a crime. By the end of the book the real identity of the rapist is almost superfluous to the story.

You've already read several very interesting books.

Clandestine in Chile by Gabriel García Márquez (1986)
nonfiction / Nonfiction - politics category
Marquez reports on an undercover trip to Chile by film maker Miguel Littín after 12 years of exile. Litten poses as a Uruguayan businessman while secretly filming a documentary about how life really is under Pinochet. Told in the first person it is quite an interesting read.

Read for the South America GeoCAT challenge, hoping to also read The secret in their eyes before the end of the month.

>61 hailelib: Thanks, I've enjoyed most of my reads so far.

Human Body Theater by Maris Wicks (2015)
children's graphic nonfiction / Illustrated and books for the young category

What a wonderful way to learn about human anatomy and how your body works. The skeleton puts on a show and invites all the organisms and bodyparts that make up a human body to the show and tell. Full of humour, this makes learning fun. There are 11 acts (chapters) covering the immune system, the endocryne system, senses, the digestive system etc


The fox and the star by Coralie Bickford-Smith (2015)
children's graphic novel / Illustrated and books for the young category

I've waited for several weeks for my library to get this in, one I've been wanting to look at as I considered getting my own copy. Bickford-Smith is a well known book designer for Penguin, she's done those pattern covers that everyone loves. Here she takes those patterns and uses them as an illustrative style for a cutish story.
For me overall this is a book to be admired for its design, production values and the artwork, though the story isn't quite good enough for me and I can't see it appealing to children. It's more of a gift book for adults who love those book covers.
The book won Waterstones Book of the Year.
Here's a short youtube interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qiP9qMc-Hg

Pallet on the Floor by Ronald Hugh Morrieson (1976)
fiction / Favourites - favourite writers category

My first read for the ANZAC challenge was this novella which can be most easily found in Nine New Zealand Novellas. I've now read all Morrieson's work and have to say I love them all. This one was published in unfinished form after Morrieson's death and while it doesn't get to the standard of the other books, there's enough dark humour in there for a full enjoyment.
Set in a small town where almost everyone is employed at seasonal work at the local freezing works, most characters seem to be alcoholics, drowning in beer or sherry, flagons, jugs, kegs and home brew. There's a death after an attempted rape that needs to be covered up and blackmail follows. All this on the last week of work for most of the men.

>64 avatiakh: The Fox and the Star was marketed as an adult book through our leased book program. We have a copy sitting on the shelves (unless it is checked out). I will admit that I really liked the cover. Maybe I need to check it out?

ETA: Okay - it was on the shelf. I quickly read it. One of the other librarians is going to read it before we reshelve it! Great illustrations!

Wow - lots of great reading already! I'm coming away with a huge pile - The Boy's Own Manual to Being a Proper Jew, Saving Mozart and two series, Blood of the Lamb and Lunar Chronicles.

I've never read Peter F. Hamilton but I saw that I have a copy of The Dreaming Void - I can't remember why I picked it up but certainly there is a lot of good LT chatter about him - so I guess it's about time.

>66 thornton37814: That would be a much better classification. My library has it under children's graphics. The illustrations are beautiful.

>67 LisaMorr: Hi Lisa - I've enjoyed my Peter F Hamilton reads. I started with his Greg Mandel trilogy, they're much shorter books set on Earth. I still have the Void trilogy to read so am expecting The Dreaming Void to be good. I generally do these space operas by audio as John Lee is such a great narrator.

Lovelock by James McNeish (1986)
serious fiction challenge / ANZAC challenge

This is a biographical fiction based mainly on Lovelock's training diaries. Lovelock approached running like a science, his diaries covered all nutritional and medical aspects.
New Zealander, Jack Lovelock ran the perfect race to win gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin in the 1500 meters, also setting a new world record in the process, New Zealand's first ever gold in athletics. He surprised the field by sprinting the last lap, usually the sprint took place on the last straight.
The book begins in early 1932, Lovelock is a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in the UK studying medicine. He sets a new British record for the mile at a university race and gets included in the 1932 New Zealand Olympic team for Los Angeles. His inexperience in international athletics shows as he is overwhelmed by the whole Olympic extravaganza, does not place in his race but comes away with his sights set on Berlin.

The novelisation tries to give an insight into the private life of Lovelock, his diaries are extensive about his training, but he also struggled to juggle his medical studies with athletics, suffered recurring bouts of depression & insomnia and was always financially challenged. After he wins gold in Berlin he retires from running and focuses on his medical career, but head injuries and vision problems from two horrific falls from horses do not help. The fallout from these injuries were definitely factors in his death in 1949 when he fell into the path of a subway train in New York. It's an interesting account that tries to get right into the mind of an extremely driven but perplexing personality.
MacNeish also injects the flavour of 1936 Berlin with Lovelock's acquaintance with German runner, Otto Peltzer who had been freed from imprisonment just before the Olympics. Also a visit to jazz clubs and a gay nightclub that gets raided by Nazis. Lovelock, as flag bearer of the NZ team of seven, dipped the flag early by mistake when entering the stadium, thus snubbing Hitler at the Opening Ceremony. There had been talk beforehand between the British, Australian and NZ teams about how to 'salute' the Fuhrer.

Another interesting fact was that from 1935 he worked at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London and was friendly with Sir Alexander Fleming who provided him with an experimental vaccine for his swollen knee. He injected these vaccines, 'Flem's juice', throughout 1935/36.

I got a copy of As if running on air: the journals of Jack Lovelock by David Colquhoun out from the library which has lots of photos of Lovelock's races and was great as an additional reference.

The 1936 Olympic 1500m race as filmed by Leni Riefenstahl here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr0ihgPjo3k with excited commentary by Harold Abraham for the BBC.

Also a good short film: http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/lovelock-1992

The Man who spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk (2007 Estonian) (2015 Eng)
fantasy / International fiction category
I really enjoyed this, another leftover from my December reading. A folk fantasy that is difficult to sum up in a few words so I'm just going to quote from the dust jacket - 'How to describe this book? Imagine it is the end of the world, and Tolkein, Beckett, Mark Twain and Miyazaki (with Icelandic Sagas and Asterix comics tucked under their arms) are getting together in a cabin to drink and tell stories around the last bonfire the world will ever see" - Le Magazine Litteraire
The action does tend to violence from time to time. This was a bestseller in Estonia, one of the reasons I couldn't resist picking it up...what makes a book a bestseller in Estonia?

LOL, A couple of years ago, I picked up a book in my stacks, 'Chariots of Fire', thinking that it was the book upon which the film was adapted; but it was actually a novelization of the film, and a poor novelization at that. I adored the film, though I'm wary of re-visiting it as I've recently discovered many of my favorite films from the '70s and '80s haven't aged as well as I have! :-D

Anyway, though I'm not much into sports bios, 'Lovelock' looks appealing. I do like history, and the 1936 Olympics, Leni Riefenstahl, the athletes and the politics are a fascinating microcosm of the time. It looks like I'll take the BB on this one! :-)

The children of men by PD James (1992)
scifi / iPod audio
Dystopian novel set in 2021 Britain in a world where mass infertility has meant that no children have been born for the last 25 years. Britain's leaders are preparing for the last days of humankind and are brutal in their treatment of the old and the criminal. The last generation, the Omegas, have no hope for a future beyond themselves yet as society breaks down there is resistance to the authoritarian rule.

I enjoyed this, especially since it has lurked on my 'to read' list for so long. I've enjoyed PD James' crime novels in the past.

Would the real Stanley Carrot please stand up? by Rob Stevens (2015)
children's fiction
This would be a middle grade read. Stanley Carrot is 13 yrs old, he has bright ginger hair, is not popular and bullied at school, not sporty at all and he's adopted. His only talent is writing poetry, not exactly a crowd pleaser. On his thirteenth birthday he receives a card from his birth mother who suggests a meeting, but Stanley is a little angry and decides that maybe she will regret the adoption if she thinks he's a super cool kid, so he has to find someone to stand in for him. What could go wrong?
This is a surprisingly thoughtful book that I really engaged with. Stanley's mother had a natural child seven years after the adoption, and little Bruno is loud and attention seeking which gives the impression that the parents have less time for Stanley. Recommended.

Filmish: A Graphic Journey Through Film by Edward Ross (2015)
graphic nonfiction
I sort of liked this. It's the exploration of cinema through various themes such as time, architecture and sound. Ross quotes many academics on theory of film which makes this quite an informed read that is illustrated with many well known and lesser known films. I liked that he includes a large number of foreign films. He touches on power and ideology in Hollywood which is quite topical considering the current boycott threat against the Oscars.

Wonderful Clouds by Françoise Sagan (1961)
novella / International fiction
I raced through this enjoying and being repelled simultaneously. It's about a destructive marriage, a young French woman, a free spirit marries a handsome American boy whose love for her turns obsessive. All through the story you are screaming at the girl to 'get out of this relationship', but she doesn't and in the end you have to wonder why you read the darn thing.

Another novella on obsessive love is Sábato's The Tunnel.

Dear Santa, Love, Rachel Rosenstein by Amanda Peet & Andrea Troyer (2015)
picturebook
A picturebook dealing with the dilemma of being Jewish during the Christmas season. Rachel's parents don't indulge their children in the Christmas season and little Rachel would love a visit from Santa like the other neighbourhood children. On Christmas Day, the mother goes to work at a children's hospital as life must go on even on Christmas Day, and the father takes the family to a Chinese restaurant where they find friends from school who also don't celebrate Christmas (Hindis, Muslims and Chinese).
This worked better for me than I thought it would, I had read a few negative reviews.

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett (1988)
fantasy / Spotlight on Terry Pratchett category
Fun entry in the Discworld series, this was recommended as an alternative starting point. A king is betrayed, the heir is lost and the throne seized by treachery. Only the local coven of three witches can possibly put all this to rights. Add in one king's fool, a ghost king, a travelling company of players and Death with a hilarious walk on part.

"what makes a book a bestseller in Estonia?"
I have no idea, so I'll take a BB on that one! :)

Hi Eva - hope you enjoy it.

Strange Meeting by Susan Hill (1971)
fiction / audio / serious fiction category
The title comes from a poem by Wifred Owen. http://genius.com/Wilfred-owen-strange-meeting-annotated
I listened to this novel on audio and while I enjoyed the narrator I really didn't like the 'voices' he adopted for the dialogue but persevered as the story was good.
Hilliard, is quite a withdrawn character who is home from the WW1 trenches recovering from a leg injury. He suffers from insomnia and also the optimism everyone around him, family and friends, express about how the war is going. On returning to the trenches, a new fellow officer, Barton, becomes his friend and Hilliard is at last able to express his feelings about home, at the same time he wishes that Barton didn't have to change into another disillusioned soldier.

Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson (1947) (2010 Eng)
novella / Israel & Diaspora category
A Dutch couple take in a Jewish man during WW2. After several months of hiding him, he dies from complications with pneumonia or some such illness so they must dispose of the body without incurring suspicion. Keilson was a noted German/Dutch Jewish writer who worked for the Dutch Resistance during WW2.
I'll definitely read his other work that's been translated to English - Life goes on and The Death of the Adversary


The Lover by Marguerite Duras
novella / internationsal fiction category
This is an autobiographical novella about Duras' childhood spent in Indochina, the main focus is on the period of her fifteenth year when she became the lover of a young Chinese man from a rich family. It was an interesting read though I don't think I would have picked it up if it was novel length. The French parents took their family out to the colonies and the father seems to have died fairly quickly. The mother, instead of returning to France, decides to make a go of it there and ultimately it all fails.

All the Light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr (2014)
fiction / serious fiction category
Last of my December leftover reads. I started this at the beginning of December but it didn't fit any challenges or category fields so got left behind, again this month it was on the back burner due to all the ongoing challenges.
Engaging story set during WW2 about two young people who are fated to meet briefly. The timeline of the novel zooms backwards and forwards in time as we follow Marie, the young blind girl growing up in Paris and Werner, the German orphan who is forced to become a soldier even though he's only sixteen.

Letting it go by Miriam Katin (2013)
graphic memoir
I adored Katin's We are on our own about her experiences as a young child with her mother surviving the Holocaust in Hungary's countryside. This one, I'm not sure about at all. Katin's son decides that he is going to live in Berlin with his Swedish girlfriend and he wants to get his Hungarian citizenship so he has an EU passport. This all stirs his mother's blood, how can he live in Berlin, home of the Nazi leadership? The Hungarian citizenship application brings lots of unwanted memories along with the endless number of forms. Katin visits Berlin with her husband and on their return to New York she decides that she wants to attend the opening of an art exhibition in Berlin's Jewish Museum that includes her work.
The only thing that kept me reading is that I like her illustrative style and also that I saw a similar exhibition in Amsterdam at the Jewish Museum there in 2008.


Two Brothers by Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba (2015)
graphic novel
I loved this story of twin brothers set in Manaus. As I was reading it I thought that it would make a great novel, and coming to the end in the acknowledgements section I read that the GN had been adapted from Milton Hatoum's The Brothers, so I've added that to my 'to read' list.
The artwork in this is stellar, bringing Manaus and the Amazon to life.
_

More about the GN: Two Brothers is a masterful achievement in adaptation: http://www.avclub.com/article/dark-horses-two-brothers-masterful-achievement-ada...

fire colour one by Jenny Valentine (2015)
YA / books for the young category
This is on the nominations list for the UK Carnegie Medal 2016. Enjoyed this. Iris is disenchanted with her life with her spendthrift Mum and wannabe actor stepdad, so she dabbles as an arsonist. She has a weirdo friend who does performance art. The whole book pivots around art and her real father's scheme to give Iris her inheritance without the Mum getting her hands on any. Iris also finds out the truth about her father and how she was stolen from him.
I also discovered an interesting new artist, Yves Klein, a French pioneer of performance art as well as Minimal and Pop Art. The title refers to one of his more famous works.

Andean Express by Juan de Recacoechea (2000)
International fiction
Enjoyed this Bolivian novel, I think this is my first Bolivian read. On an overnight train trip between La Paz and Arica in Chile almost all the passengers of the sleeper carriage seem to be united in their hatred of one of their fellow passengers. LT75er Tad drew my attention to this writer a few years back but it took me all this time to finally read one of his books for Jan's GeoCAT South America theme read.

Those without shadows by Françoise Sagan (1957)
novellal /International Fiction category
I'm enjoying Sagan's novellas, I have another three on my shelves, part of a stack I got a few years back at a book fair. This is about a group of Parisians who appear to be quite cool, falling in and out of affairs with each other, mixing in the theatre and literary scene, but really they are each making a mess of their lives.


The secret in their eyes by Eduardo Sacheri (2005)
crime / International Fiction category
I was really impressed with the film when I saw it several years ago so picked up the book for Jan's GeoCAT on South America challenge. The story is told through the recollections of Benjamín Chaparro who has retired after a long career in the judiciary system. He decides to write a book based on a brutal murder case that he was involved in. The story is mainly set in 1970s Buenos Aires and follows Chaparro's attempts to get justice for the young husband of the murdered woman, an obsession that ends up involving him in Argentina's dirty war. The film won an Oscar for best foreign language film in 2009 and has recently been remade by Hollywood.


The Secret Throne by Peter F. Hamilton
children's fantasy
I really enjoyed reading Hamilton's first foray into children's fantasy. This is the first in the Queen of Dreams trilogy, the next book is due out later this year. When sisters Taggie and Jemima spot a white squirrel wearing glasses in their garden they don't realise that they are about to embark on an amazing adventure in another realm doing battle with the King of Night.

The David Fickling edition has a far more interesting cover.

I love Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, so Two Brothers are on my list, for sure!

I seem to be flying through the books this month, I'm sure I'll be reading less in February as the holiday season slows down.


Robert the Bruce: King of the Scots by James Roberston (2014)
YA illustrated nonfiction
I was checking my library's catalogue to see if they had any of James Robertson's books in digital format and saw this listed as a graphic nonfiction so requested it. It's the story of Robert the Bruce, simply told and illustrated with bold vibrant art by Jill Calder. Lovely. No Robertson e-books so I'll have to dig into my book piles for the elusive paperbacks.


Jill Calder illustration - http://www.jillcalder.com/jillcalder_illustration_people.php

The songs of kings by Barry Unsworth (2002)
fiction category
I listened to the wonderful narration by Andrew Sachs, he truly made this book for me. Helen has been taken to Troy by Paris. The Greeks have taken up arms, the armies are all ready to sail to Troy, but...the wind won't die down. All the action takes place in those frustrating few weeks spent waiting for the wind. Perhaps a sacrifice will appease the gods and allow them to sail. As leader of the armies, Agamemnon must send for his beloved daughter. The irony that the godly, beautiful and virginal daughter, Iphigeneia, must be sacrificed in order to rescue Helen who has most probably run off with Paris.
What makes this into a minor masterpiece is that Unsworth gifts the band of heroes modern day speech and what they have to say isn't the stuff of heroes.

100 days of happiness by Fausto Brizzo (2015 Eng) (2013 Italian)
International fiction
This was a bestseller in Italy and that striking book cover is the reason I pulled it off the shelf at the bookstore, and the fact that it was an Italian writer was the reason I went home and requested the book from the library.
To start with I almost gave up in the first few pages as I didn't get on with Lucio the main character, he cheats on his wife, and treats his infidelity lightly, that is until his wife throws him out. He's living in the stockroom of his father-in-law's bakery, which specialises in doughtnuts, and finds out that those stomach pains he's been ignoring is actually terminal cancer. The rest of the book is Lucio climbing out of the hole that he's made for himself and seeking the forgiveness of his wife, spending quality time with his children and friends. It's delightful, sad and funny. Lucio is quite endearing (eventually), he decides a few days after the diagnosis to give himself 100 good days and books into a Swiss clinic for day 101. I was shedding tears for the last 20 days, my father also died young from cancer and the comparison thing didn't help.
A light read but full of lovely literary references, Italian food, hearty love, zest for life and a road trip.

Audacity by Melanie Crowder (2015)
YA fiction / Israel & Diaspora fiction
A delightful verse novel about the life of Clara Lemlich. It starts in the Ukraine and continues through the family's journey to the US and Lemlich's work in the sweatshops of New York which led her to organise a union for the women workers. Included is a few pages of historical notes and photographs, an interview with her grand daughter, a glossary and a list of references.
I became aware of this book thanks to the National Jewish Book Award, Audacity was a finalist in the 2015 YA section.
There's a picturebook about Clara as well, Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909.

>88 avatiakh: Wow! Beautiful illustrations!

>90 avatiakh: that's gone onto the wishlist!

>93 Jackie_K: Onto mine, too!

>92 rabbitprincess: I loved them, Calder also does calligraphy and there's some great examples sprinkled through the artwork.

>93 Jackie_K: >94 Chrischi_HH: Just be prepared not to like Lucio for a while, he has to earn our forgiveness too.

OMG! You've been busy reading lots of great books! Too bad Baba Yaga's Assistant wasn't better because the cover looks cool and the premise might work - and it's a graphic novel which is always a plus if I'm trying to find a book to pass on to the kids I work with. The Man who Spoke Snakish looks interesting too, yes because it is Estonian, and also because that description from the book jacket looks like it could be anything.

The war that saved my life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (2015)
children's fiction
Reason I read this is the recent awards it picked up, both a Newbery Honor (2016) & Schneider Family Book Award (Middle Grades, 2016). It's a wonderful story.
It reminded me of Goodnight, Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian which I finally read last year, in that evacuee children are saved from an abusive London mother. 10 yr old Ada has never left the London room that her mother rents, her younger brother does have more freedom, but Ada can't walk due to her deformed foot and her mother is ashamed of her, calls her useless, locks her in a little cabinet under the kitchen sink as punishment. When her brother is on a list of evacuees, Ada sneaks out early with him (she's spent months learning to hobble across the room) and gains her first taste of freedom.
While Ada's survival instinct serves her well in getting away from her mother, it does make it almost impossible for other adults with good intentions to get close to her. Ada is a tough little nut earning our respect for her determination and loyalty to her little brother. Recommended.

The Red Abbey Chronicles: Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff (2016) (2014 Finnish)
YA fantasy
Ooh, my first 2016 book, hot off the presses! I read a couple of reviews late last year and couldn't wait to read this one. Maria Turtschaninoff is apparently quite an established fantasy writer in Finland and this is her first book to be translated to English.
The Red Abbey is on an island and is a sanctuary for women. Maresi is a young novice who came to escape the Hunger Winter which claimed her younger sister. New arrival Jai has come to escape her father and the repressive society she grew up in. The Goddess is made of three aspects: the Mother, the Maiden and the Crone.
Enjoyable and finishes as Maresi is on the cusp of a new adventure.

Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman (2014)
YA / Israel & Diaspora category

The sequel to Prisoner of Night and Fog was a finalist in the YA section of the Jewish National Book Awards which is how I found out about this excellent historical fiction set in 1930s Germany. And it really is excellent, I've already got Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke on request and hope to get it early next week.
Gretchen's father served in the same unit as Hitler during WW1, they'd spent four years together. Then during the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch her father was one of the ones who died, he pulled Hitler down and shielded him with his body. Now in the early 1930s Gretchen, her mother and brother are living on a stipend from the National Socialists, her older brother is in the brownshirts and Gretchen is often invited to evenings with her Uncle Dolf and is friends with Geli, his half-niece and is best friend with a young impressionable Eva Braun.
When Gretchen is contacted by Daniel, a Jewish reporter, who asks her if she wants to find out the truth about her father's death she is finally forced to question all her beliefs about Hitler, the party and even about Jews, all the beliefs that she has been raised on...and then there is her brother, is he a psychopath?
While Gretchen and her family are fictitious, the book is based on true events, Blankman includes some notes at the end of the book explaining this, plus a fairly extensive bibliography.
What I liked is that when Gretchen finally reads and muses on Mein Kampf, it's Hitler's own writing that begins her questioning his character. Blankman's book is a thriller of sorts but also an intellectual and thoughtful read.

Blankman's next book, historical fiction set during the times of Charles I, looks really interesting. Traitor Angels ....'the daughter of notorious poet John Milton, Elizabeth has never known her place in this shifting world—except by her father’s side. By day she helps transcribe his latest masterpiece, the epic poem Paradise Lost, and by night she learns languages and sword fighting. Although she does not dare object, she suspects that he’s training her for a mission whose purpose she cannot fathom.'

They Call Me Alexandra Gastone by T.A. Maclagan (2015)
YA
Teen spy novel that's quite appealing. Madagan is from the US but now lives in New Zealand and this is her debut novel.
It's a fairly complicated setup involving a young girl who survives a car crash in Europe that kills her parents, she's sent to live in the US with her grandfather, her sole relative, but she's actually a sleeper agent, an imposter, from a country that borders Iran. Now seven years later she's about to graduate highschool but she's also about to be activated years ahead of time.
Quite good twists in the story that keep you on your toes.


The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge (2015)
YA
This recently won the Costa Book of the Year Prize, an unusual feat for a children's book and last done by Philip Pullman in 2001. The judges described it...'“It is part horror story, part detective story and part historical novel. The tone throughout is extremely accurate, not only is it cleverly the voice of a 14-year-old girl ... but it is also the voice of a precociously intelligent girl within what is a very male-dominated society. We all loved this dark, sprawling, fiercely clever novel that blends history and fantasy in a way that will grip readers of all ages.” ”
I loved this, as I've loved others by Hardinge.

It's set in Victorian times, in the world of natural history, exploration and fossil hunting. Darwin's theory of evolution challenges religion, and our young heroine Faith, who would love to follow in her father's footsteps finds herself stymied by society's expectations of a woman's role in society. Her family suddenly leaves their comfortable home in southern England as some scandal involving her father and a fake fossil specimen becomes public knowledge. They journey to a remote island where he's been invited to join a dig for fossils but dies in suspicious circumstances within a couple of days of their arrival.
Faith is sure it has something to do with a strange plant that she helps her father to hide in a cave only hours before his death.

Bone Gap by Lauren Ruby (2015)
YA / Fantasy category
This won the 2016 Printz Award for YA. I listened to the audio and while it was a bit difficult to follow at first as the action jumps between various characters I eventually sorted it out. The story is laced through with magical realism and is based on the story of Persephone, love and loss.
Two lonely brothers living in Bone Gap befriend Roza, a beautiful Polish woman who turns up one day in their barn. Then she goes missing again. Finn, the younger brother, sees her abductor but can't describe him.
This is a complex story with lots of threads that only come together towards the end. Yes, there are bees.
Review here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/books/review/bone-gap-by-laura-ruby.html?_r=0


Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit (2016)
YA / Israel & Diaspora category
This debut novel is a wonderful read, it starts out feeling like a fairytale, mainly as it is told from the POV of the child, Anna, who is completely innocent in a time of war. It's set in Poland during World War 2. I won't say anything more about the plot and just say this is a story for all ages and will be one of my highlight reads for the year.

From the Jewish Book Council: 'When her father is taken in the purge of intellectuals from Krakow in 1939, Anna is 7 years old and alone in a city with little kindness left to spare. She meets a mysterious man with more promise than those her family once called friends, and together they set off with urgency to go away rather than toward anything....Anna and the Swallow Man is a book billed for ages twelve and up, but as Anna’s father once said, “Men who try to understand the world without the help of children are like men who try to bake bread without the help of yeast.” Readers who have delved deeply into Holocaust literature and history will still have what to discover in Anna’s story.

Part fairytale, part magical realism, and part psychosocial exploration of what it may mean to grow up surrounded by horror, this short novel cannot be contained within its pages. An exquisitely haunting narrative written in prose that dances, Gavriel Savit’s debut will take your breath away.' - http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/anna-and-the-swallow-man

Adam and Thomas by Aharon Appelfeld (2015)
children's fiction / Israel & Diaspora category

I still haven't read any of Appelfeld's adult work so this recent publication, a fable for children based loosely on his own Holocaust story, is an easier place to start.
Adapted from wikipedia: Appelfeld was born in the Bukovina region of the Kingdom of Romania, now Ukraine. In 1941, when he was eight years old, the Romanian Army retook his hometown after a year of Soviet occupation and his mother was murdered. Appelfeld was deported with his father to a Nazi concentration camp in Romanian-controlled Transnistria. He escaped and hid for three years before joining the Soviet army as a cook. After World War II, Appelfeld spent several months in a displaced persons camp in Italy before immigrating to Palestine in 1946, two years before Israel's independence. He was reunited with his father after finding his name on a Jewish Agency list. The father had been sent to a ma'abara (refugee camp) in Be'er Tuvia. The reunion was so emotional that Appelfeld has never been able to write about it

This is a story about two Jewish boys, classmates, who meet in the forest in the last year of the war. Their mothers have told them to wait there until the war ends. They are able to survive by building a nest in a tree and foraging for berries and forest fruits, also through the kindness of a young girl, who brings them small amounts of food from a nearby farm. This is all gently told, the harshness of the war is rarely alluded to. They hear shots fired in the distance, help an occasional injured person, but there is no betrayal or cruelty the focus is on kindness and humanity...

Illiustrations by Phillipe Dumas throughout. Discovered this book through the Jewish National Book Awards, it was a finalist in the 2015 children's literature section. http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/2015-national-jewish-book-award-winners-...

The Reckoning: How the Killing of One Man Changed the Fate of the Promised Land by Patrick Bishop (2014)
nonfiction / Israel & Diaspora category
Bishop tells the story of the Stern gang who operated during the British Mandate Period in Palestine leading up to the creation of the state of Israel. After the death of Stern the group adopted the name Lehi (Freedom Fighters of Israel). Bishop also backgrounds the Palestine Police during the 1930s and early 1940s. The book focuses on the parallel fortunes of Geoffrey Morton, the Assistant Superintendent at Jaffa Police Station and Avraham Stern, leader of the Stern gang. It also covers the controversy around Morton's shooting of Stern during his arrest. Over the years there were several court cases in England where Morton sued various publishers as books were published contesting his version of the events.

I was motivated to read this as I visited the Lehi (Beit Yair) Museum last year when I was in Israel, it's located in the actual building where Stern was arrested and shot. You walk through the tiny rooftop apartment where Stern lived in hiding, it's now dedicated to the life story of Stern and includes the original furnishings and some of his poems.
I also visited the Irgun/Etzl Museum which is located right by the sea in a beautiful adapted building. We bought a museum pass that included so many museums that we couldn't do justice to them all. The IDF History museum was also well worth visiting.

Stern was sitting here just before he was shot


Irgun museum


The IDF History museum

Fiction set during this period that focuses on the British presence includes:
The sergeants' tale by Bernice Rubens
When I lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant
Panther in the Basement by Amos Oz

Jerusalem: the story of a city and a family by Boaz Yakin - graphic novel

The Old Country by Mordicai Gerstein (2005)
children's fiction / Israel & Diaspora category
I loved this folktale about a girl who is warned about looking for too long into the eyes of a fox.

I'll be on holiday for the next three weeks and will update when I get back. Visiting Chile and Buenos Aires in Argentina so January's GeoCAT South America challenge was timely for me.

>105 avatiakh: Have safe and FUN travels!

Have a wonderful trip!

Your trip sounds fantastic, have fun!

Bon voyage!

Enjoy your holiday! :)

Have a great trip!!

Thanks everyone, just about to head out.

I took a couple of BBs - They Call Me Alexandra Gastone and Anna and the Swallow Man.

Have a great trip!

Hope your travels are wonderful!!

Some photos here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/208639#5490394
and on my next thread here http://www.librarything.com/topic/219649#5491709
also scroll down to post #21

ok, going back and commenting on my last 4 weeks of reading -


Jonathan Unleashed by Meg Rosoff (2016)
translated fiction
Rosoff is well known for her YA fiction. She's an American who lives in the UK and mostly her writing is set in the UK. Here she writes an amusing adult novel set in New York. Hapless Jonathan is working a crap job at an advertising agency hoping to be discovered for his creativity. He's also just taken charge of two dogs for a six month period while his brother is working in Dubai. Having two neurotic dogs in his life forces Jonathan to make changes, reassess his going nowhere job, his relationship with his longterm girlfriend and begin visiting his local vet for support. I enjoyed this slightly madcap romance.


Sirius: The remarkable story of a little dog who almost changed history by Jonathan Crown (2015 Eng) (2014 German)
fiction
A bestseller in Germany by a well known journalist, but published under a pseudonym. This tells the story of Sirius a little dog who has big adventures. Sirius is living with a wealthy German Jewish family in Berlin and at the outbreak of war the family moves to Hollywood in California where the father, a well known academic ends up as chauffeur to a movie star. Soon enough Sirius ends up in the movies, he's a big star but overworked and through a mix-up he ends up back in Berlin where he becomes a mascot for the Nazis.
A silly, enjoyable enough read. The end was a little weird, I can't see that Jews would rush back to Germany as the war is ending, the only part in the book which I really couldn't agree with, just felt even for a comic read that it didn't feel right

Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik (2006)
fantasy
The second Temeraire book in which the ownership of Temeriare becomes an issue between the British and the Chinese. Laurence and Temeraire must travel with a Chinese delegation back to China to sort it all out. Definitely want to keep reading the series.
A Fantasy February book.

Gossip from the Forest by Tom Keneally (1975)
fiction / australia
My first Keneally novel since The chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. This one is about the armistice negotiation that shut down WW1 and is quite an interesting read even if it doesn't completely engage the reader. I have to admit to being a bit ignorant of the details till I read this. The personalities especially those of the Germans really stays with you once the book is finished and I am keen to read more on this part of history. Mattias Erzberger was the chief German negotiator and struggled with the harsh conditions that were presented by the Allies, he was later assassinated for signing the Armistice.

From wikipedia: According to the New York Times Book Review's Paul Fussell, Gossip from the Forest 'is a study of the profoundly civilian and pacific sensibility beleaguered by crude power.... it is absorbing, and as history it achieves the kind of significance earned only by sympathy acting on deep knowledge.'

Read for the ANZAC challenge - http://www.librarything.com/topic/211011


The Denniston Rose by Jenny Pattrick (2003)
fiction / new zealand
I've had this one on Mt tbr for some years so the ANZAC challenge was again helpful in clearing another book from there. I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would. Pattrick has brought the early years of this small mining town to life in a very human story.
It's set on the West Coast of the South Island and about the bleak life of a small isolated community stuck in the hills and built around a lucrative coal mine. Stuck because the only way in or out was by the coal company's coal wagons via the steep incline. Most of the women never went down the incline again, the trip up was enough for one lifetime.

Here's a poem on the Denniston website that sort of sums up the situation:
Damn Denniston
Damn the track
Damn the way both there and back
Damn the wind and damn the weather
God damn Denniston altogether
ANONYMOUS


A more modern photo from the 1940s gives you an idea of Denniston's isolation

http://www.denniston.co.nz/history
'The Denniston Plateau is home to one of the richest, high quality coal seams in New Zealand. For decades it was the country's largest producing coal mine, with an estimated 12 million ton carried down the incline during its operation from October 1879 to August 1967.
Widely referred to as "the Eighth Wonder of the World", the Denniston incline was recognised the world over as a remarkable feat of engineering. Linking Denniston with the Conns Creek rail head below, the incline fell 510 metres over 1.7 kilometres in two sections, incorporating dramatically steep gradients.

Read for the ANZAC challenge

The Beast's Garden by Kate Forsyth (2015)
fiction / australia
A novel set in Nazi Germany that's a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. To save her father, Ava marries a young German officer who serves in the intelligence ranks of the hated regime. The story revolves around those who don't agree with Hitler's vision for Germany and is quite a good read though not outstanding.
Forsyth did a lot of research for this and inserts many well known personalities such as Diana Mitford who were sympathisers as well as those who stood up to Hitler. The author notes were quite informative on her passion for this project.
Here are her pinterest pages where she collected online resources: https://www.pinterest.com/kateforsyth/the-beasts-garden/
https://www.pinterest.com/kateforsyth/german-resistance/

Read for the ANZAC challenge - I also started Forsyth's The Wild Girl but the book was too big for taking on holiday, will finish it later in the year.

Cold Granite by Stuart McBride (2005)
crime
Set in Aberdeen during a cold wet winter. DC Logan McRae has just returned to work after months off recovering from awful injuries caused on his last case, now he's expected to quickly solve a possible serial killer case, a killer who is targeting young boys.
I liked this debut and will pick up the others in the series when I come across them.

Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras (2003)
translated fiction
This Argentinean novel is set during the 1976 military takeover of Argentina. The boy's parents are low level left wing activists and at risk so the family suddenly goes into hiding. The boy renames himself Harry and the book is mostly focusing on his experiences rather than giving us an insight into the coup itself. So we follow his adventures with his brother while hidden on a rather bland country home, the problems of toads drowning in the swimming pool, the loss of favourite possessions as the family goes into hiding so suddenly.
The title comes from a place name used in the boy's game of 'Risk' which he plays against his father. Kamchatka, a peninsula in the Russian Far East is a strategic place to hole up in during the game and is also the last word he ever hears his father say (not a spoiler).
I enjoyed this but not possibly as much as other recent readers. Another fairly long term resident of my tbr pile, mine was an uncorrected proof copy so had been there for a while.
I sold my copy to Walrus Books, a used English language bookshop in Buenos Aires. The first thing I was asked was if I'd seen the film, so I'll have to look out for it.

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The Prince in Waiting Trilogy by John Christopher (1970)
YA dystopian
This is three books but I raced through all of them so fast I'll consider it one book, especially as I read them in an omnibus edition. An excellent dystopian story that is more realistic than predictable. The young Luke becomes the Prince in Waiting when his father is chosen to be Prince of their city state and the three books follow the fate of the young lad as he grows into his inheritance.
The story is set in a future England, one that has been ravaged by some sort of technological disaster which has led to the banning of all machines and each small region is a city state, ruled by the strongest.

Anything That Isn't This by Chris Priestley (2015)
YA fiction
A dystopian style story that Priestley was inspired to write after visiting Prague. I enjoyed this quite a lot.
Frank's world is dull, there is a greyness that seems to suck the vibrancy out of the surroundings and also the people. He shares his room with a 'student' who observes the family and notes down everything they say, so they are careful not to say anything of note. Now that school is over, he should get a job, and that means employment at the Ministry where his Dad and sister go every day. The setting feels East European, stasi-like and the plot kafkaesque.
Sprinkled throughout are stark illustrations by Priestley which do add to the atmosphere of the tale.
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2015/oct/18/chris-priest...

Jennie by Paul Galico (1950)
fiction
A sensitive story about a young boy named Peter who in the aftermath of an accident slips into the body of a cat. He's befriended by Jennie, an abandoned cat who teaches him how to be a cat and survive on the streets. Together they have numerous adventures. Sounds adorable but it's much more than just a cute story.
Alternative US title is The Abandoned.
It's set at the end of WW2 in a bombed out London, lots of abandoned cats living in the ruins. Peter's father is hardly home, he's in uniform and his work takes him around the world. His mother is a social butterfly, glamorous and never home nor has time for Peter. All Peter wants is attention and a cat, but his Scottish nanny is allergic to them so this is a no go. Rushing across the street to greet a pretty cat in the park, he is knocked unconscious by a passing taxi and wakes up as a cat and thrown out of home and onto the streets by the nanny...

The Widow and Her Hero by Tom Keneally (2007)
fiction / australia / audio
Another ANZAC challenge read, this time on audio. Quite an interesting novel, still didn't totally engage me though I appreciated the focus of Keneally with this one. It's based on a real event from the war, Operation Rimau.
The story is told by Grace looking back from her old age to the glory days of the war. She marries the dashing Leo Waterhouse in 1943 and is widowed in the last days of the war. Her dead husband was a hero and over the years she is intruded upon time after time with journalists, Japanese ex-servicemen, a US ex-military who all add to Leo's story whether she wants it or not. The novel tells Grace's story over her lifetime but also gives us the story of Leo's war service and what happened on Operation Rimau.

From the Guardian review by PenelopeLively - 'Commando training, submersibles, limpet mines; the furnishings of Thomas Keneally's 25th novel could make it sound like a conventional tale of second world war derring-do. And, at one level, it is indeed just that; but it is also a subtle examination of the concept of heroism, of what it is that makes young men risk their lives, and why - especially in the climate of that time. (Grace) is tormented by the thought that bravery was its own end, that the purpose was to be brave, even to be doomed. This clever, compelling novel asks some uncomfortable questions.'

Operation Rimau - https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/operation-rimau-account-top-secret...

The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams (1988)
fantasy
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn #1 of 3
Oh, I'm free again. This is classic high fantasy, over 900 pgs, so I was lost in an enjoyable 'Lord of the Rings' style quest for a couple of weeks while I made my way through this. I've had the book on my tbr pile for several years, I was gifted a second copy through the LT Santathing as well, so it's long been on my reading radar.

Simon is the 'castle kitchenboy', he doesn't really fit in anywhere, his parentage is long forgotten but the castle wizard decides to have him as a part time apprentice. Eventually after much scene setting, story backgrounding, Simon goes on his quest, meets a troll with a pet wolf, does a few good deeds, grows up a little etc etc. Meanwhile the Evil influence is gaining power, it's more than just a bad king, it's an old power from hundreds of years before, out of the books of legends and founding myths....can't wait to get into the second book for all the glut of book #1.
I really enjoyed the ending, though it's a bit of a cliffhanger?

Someone to run with by David Grossman (1983)
translated fiction
I loved this right from the first page. Assaf, a 16 yr old boy with possibly Aspergers or mild autism, is working a summer job at the Jerusalem City Council not doing much when he's called in by his boss. There's a dog that's come into the pound and won't stop barking and being disruptive. Assaf's job is to take it and hopefully it will lead him to its owner. The dog takes him on a merry chase all over the city, stopping be greeted by an array of eccentric characters who all recognise the dog. Slowly he realises that the dog's owner is in danger, that whatever she's been doing has led her down dangerous paths. Assaf and the dog need to find her before it's too late.
I can't wait now to see the movie of this book, I'm fairly sure that I got it when I was in Israel last year.

Looks like you had a great lineup of reading! Thanks for the pictures of the Denniston Plateau -- that is a very steep incline! And the cover of Jennie is very cute :)

It was an old Penguin edition with that cover that I read and then donated to a used English language bookstore in Buenos Aires. The cats go on a tramp steamer up to Glasgow and back, paying their way by catching mice and rats.

How to be famous by Michal Shalev (2016)
picturebook
Published by NewZealand's Gecko Press, this is by UK based Israeli artist Michal Shalev. A bit of a roundabout way to get a book in print!. Anyway I'm not so much a fan of the illustration style and the story is just so-so. I became aware of the book through a librarian friend on FB, who says it was a hit with several classes of younger students at her school.
At the zoo a pigeon gets a puffed up idea of her/his own importance and then comes the fall....
http://www.michalshalev.com/

>116 avatiakh: BB for Jonathan Unleashed...you had me at "slightly madcap romance"!

Pax by Sara Pennypacker (2016)
children's fiction
Beautiful story about a boy and his pet fox, Pax. In the first chapter the boy is being taken by his widowed father to stay some months with his grandfather. On the way they stop in the wilderness and release Pax, a decision that the boy immediately regrets and does his best to rectify. In the meantime Pax must survive in the wild. All this taking place in a country at war. Includes delightful illustrations by Jon Klassen.


A good NYT review here by Katherine Rundell: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/books/review/pax-by-sara-pennypacker.html?_r=0

>131 christina_reads: Highly enjoyable, I want to comment more but that might end up with a slight spoiler and I'd hate to do that to any reader....

>115 avatiakh:
Looks lovely!

Wow, that is a huge amount of reading! I'm in awe!

>134 -Eva-: Thanks, I'll add my last set of photos here as it includes a great bookstore. Pity the books are all in Spanish.

>135 Jackie_K: I'm definitely slowing down in my reading now that the year is settling in.

A few photos of Buenos Aires, the bookshop ones I took especially for LT consumption.

Typical Buenos Aires dessert: flan with dulce de leche & cream.

El Alteneo bookstore on Santa Fe Ave from third floor looking towards stage which is now a cafe
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This edition of Lord of the Flies had fantastic illustrations, I took the photo in order to remember the illustrator and look up his work now i'm home

At entrance to another bookshop, this one in Palermo, a bohemian style neighbourhood. I ended up buying an Argentinean cookbook (in Spanish).

Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill (2014)
YA dystopian
I hadn't heard of Irish writer O'Neill till last year when her second book, Asking for it, came out. I decided to read her first novel which sounded interesting in a Stepford Wives sort of way.
Only Ever Yours is truly discomforting. Set in a future where females are bred to become submissive and docile 'eves'. They are raised at an isolated school by 'chastity sisters.' Their only concern is to be the perfect weight, perfect shape and look stunning, all their lives revolve around how they rank in their class of 30. Of the 30 eves, only 10 will be chosen to be companions to the male Inheritants, 10 more will become concubines and the rejects will serve as chastities or just go 'Underground'. #630 or Freida is in her final year, desperate to remain in the top 10 rankings, be chosen as a companion and finally step into the outside world that she's only seen through the tv.

Definitely moving on to Asking for it which is about a girl who is ostracised through social media after being raped by a group of teen boys.


Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee (2014)
children's fiction
I loved reading this Snow Queen retelling. Ophelia and her sister accompany their father to a foreign city where he is curating a sword exhibition at a magnificent museum. It's a modern day fairytale, Ophelia must rescue the Marvelous Boy from a locked room so he can fulfill his quest.

The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth by Katherine Woodfine (2016)
children's fiction
This is the second in the quartet that began with The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow and is lots of fun. Set in Edwardian London this one involves debutantes, the Chinese community in Limehouse, the mysterious criminal the Baron and our intrepid shopgirls, Sophie and Lil, who work in the glamorous Sinclair Department Store. Each book brings us a little closer to discovering the mystery around orphaned Sophie's family.
I'm officially a fan of this series and can't wait for the next outing - Feb 2017 unfortunately.

>136 avatiakh:
What a gorgeous space for a bookstore!

That bookstore is a work of art! I have taken a BB for both books by Louise O'Neill, it sounds like she tackles interesting subject matter.

LOOOOOVE the bookstore! Beautiful!

>136 avatiakh: That bookshop looks stunning! I really want to go there! (despite my complete lack of Spanish)

I am jealous that you got to go to such an amazing bookstore. I am also taking BBs for the Louise O'Neill books.

The bookshop looks amazing, it must be a fantastic place to.

>136 avatiakh: I just drooled all over my keyboard. That bookstore!!

Thanks for all the love for the bookstore. I've been to it several times on previous visits to BA, but this was the first time that I felt comfortable with taking photos there. I'm usually trying to just be a littlemore incognito! On a previous trip I sat in the cafe and was lucky at the timing as they had a guitarist start playing lovely Latin melodies.
A few of the boxes are open for patrons to sit and quietly read, hard to get a chair in there as these are quite sought after by one and all
Buenos Aires is home to many many bookshops and has the highest person to bookstore ratio in the world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK1tizRhYCk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdcpFwD4wRQ

>146 avatiakh: - That bookstore is so beautiful! Thanks for sharing the pictures. Love that statistic about BA - I'll have to put it on my list of places to visit someday.

The Walking Dead by Gerald Seymour (2007)
thriller
I picked this up off the library sale table and started it the other day when looking for a battered old paperback that could take splashes of tomato soup. I was drawn in immediately, this starts out on an Iraqi border with the recruitment of youths who aspire to become martyrs. One of the group is chosen for a special hit, a suicide bombing in the UK.
I enjoyed this as the story follows both the players in the terrorist cell, the personnel in the UK authorities that are on alert, and the members of the public who will be there on the final morning who each will play some part.
This was my second book by Seymour, I read The Outsiders a couple of years ago and noticed that I have his The Collaborator on my 'to read' list.

The Eternaut by Héctor Germán Oesterheld artwork by Francisco Solano López (1957-9 Argentina) (2015 Eng)
graphic novel
This was a richly rewarding classic scifi. I'd seen the street graffiti on various trips to Buenos Aires, it's all over the place but didn't realise that those images were the main character of this classic homespun tale. The fate of writer, Héctor Germán Oesterheld, and his daughters remains unknown, they were disappeared during Argentina's military dictatorship and the illustrator fled to exile and lived in Spain.

I was fully immersed in this lengthy graphic novel which is about surviving what at first looks like nuclear fallout and then becomes clear is an alien invasion. Our hero doctors a homemade diving suit to go out and explore the ruins of Buenos Aires.
I could go on and on but recommend instead that you read the Guardian review which gives all the political allegory info: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/15/the-eternaut-hector-german-oesterhe...

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street graffiti

Birds Beasts and Relatives by Gerald Durrell (1969)
memoir / audiobook
This is the second in Durrell's Corfu Trilogy, the books are narrated very well by Nigel Davenport and I've started the third one now. Just as much fun as My friends and other animals, I won't go into too much detail as you want to enjoy these for yourself. I can't understand why I didn't read this trilogy when I was a teen, oh well, better late than never.

The Pale North by Hamish Clayton (2015)
fiction
I loved his debut novel, Wulf and have been looking forward to this one which I read for the Mar/Apr ANZAC challenge. This time he's gone for style over story and delved into art especially photography and the creative process. Quite intellectual stuff and built into a two-part structure that I won't give more away on as you want to discover all this while reading.
A man returns to Wellington, some months after a devastating earthquake has changed the city forever. As he wanders the ruins he ruminates on his past life here as a student who fell in love with the vibrant art scene, and became besotted with one particular photographer's style.
Not a pageturner, more a meditative novel that worked well when I disciplined myself to read a set number of pages each day.

There will be lies by Nick Cave (2015)
YA
I've now read three of Cave's novels and enjoyed them all. This one is shortlisted for this year's UK Carnegie Medal. I especially recommend his Haiti one, In darkness.
Shelby's led a protected life with her mother. She's homeschooled and only goes on one outing a week, to the library, then for some icecream and back home. When she's knocked down by a car outside the library, Shelby's name is entered into the computer and her records don't match up. Her desperate mother takes her on the run away from the authorities and then Shelby finds out her whole life has been made of lies.
Ok, what sets this apart is Shelby's dream world which is set in some form of North American Indian folklore. Shelby's friend is Coyote who is sometimes the attractive young librarian she had a crush on, but sometimes a real coyote, and Shelby must rescue the child before it's too late.

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks (1994)
nonfiction
I listened to the audiobook edition which included a short recap of how things had progressed in the ten yrs after she wrote the book. Brooks was the Middle East correspondent for The Wall Street Journal from about 1986 and traveled all over Africa and the Middle East chasing stories. Along the way she met many women, some in positions of power, others just mothers or American women who've married and embraced Islam in an Arab/Persian country.
Brooks has written not only about these women, her experiences among them and their stories but also about the first women of Islam, the wives of Muhammad and tried to draw parallels between the old and the present day. She shows how women living in Iran have perhaps more freedoms than those living in Saudi Arabia, though from a Western viewpoint it is all perhaps less free. This is a great introductory text.

A death in Valencia by Jason Webster (2012)
crime
The second Chief Inspector Max Cámara novel. The Pope is about to visit Valencia, there is a body on the beach and a story involving fraud and abortions going back into the past. Oh, and Cámara is made homeless due to corruption at the time his apartment building went up. Another intriguing mystery set in Valencia and giving us an insight into the corruption of the local politics.
I picked up the third book in a library sale so will be tackling that soon, it's about the saffron mafia operating in La Mancha.

Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, Vol. 1 by Kimi ni Todoke (2006)
manga
First in a series about a young highschool student who doesn't fit in though the popular boy does want to be friends. Sawako is your average girl except she's not, she tends to not smile and can look a little creepy at times. My daughter loved this series though I found this first book a bit saccharine.


Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 1 by Kiiro Yumi (2008)
manga
(Library Wars: Love & War #1)
Not bad and probably will get better as the series continues. Involves battles against media censorship where the libraries employ trained personnel to protect their books.


Bakuman by Tsugumi Ohba (2009)
manga
(Bakuman #1)
Really liked this and will probably continue reading the rest if I have time. Follows a couple of highschoolers who have dreams of being manga artists. The series continues after they leave school. Good because it covers the question of what manga is, what are the skills of a manga artist and some other technical stuff.

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure (2013)
fiction
Set in Paris during WW2 this is basically about an architect, Lucien, who designs hiding places for Jews using his skills to make them completely undetectable.
My problem with the book was that I never really got on with Lucien, he's really reluctant at the start and only does it for the money. So by the end of the book when he's a 'hero' I was still not completely feeling the love.
For all that it's a good read and you do get to appreciate the grandeur of the buildings in Paris.
This is the debut novel for Belfoure who is an architect.

Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood (2014)
fiction
I liked this. The book is divided into four parts for the four wives of Hemingway. Each part alternates chapters between the beginning and the ending of the particular relationship, with the encroaching new wife moving in. So while in part one your sympathies are with Hadley losing Hemingway to Fife (Pauline), by the end of part two you realise just how much Fife loved Hemingway and so on.

Kickback by Garry Disher (1991)
crime / ANZAC challenge
The first in the Wyatt series. Thoroughly enjoyable crime caper starring Wyatt, a seasoned criminal, who bankrolls himself a rather nice though fairly frugal lifestyle. Just does the occasional job in order to stay in funds, but this current one just goes from bad to worse.
These early Wyatts were quite hard to source but recently became available as e-books.


Paydirt by Garry Disher (1992)
crime / ANZAC challenge
Wyatt #2. This picks up where Kickback finished off, Wyatt is organising a payroll hoist in a remote rural area where a gas pipeline is being built. He has a hitman after him and there's a chance he's being doublecrossed.

Princess Jellyfish Vol. 1 omnibus 2-in-1 by Akiko Higashimura (2016 Eng) (2008 Japanese)
manga
I really liked this one. I noticed it on a list of must read manga and then had to wait for my library to get it in as it has only just been published in English. My daughter devoured it in a couple of hours and when I picked it up this morning I was quite entranced by the characters and also finished it quickly.
I suggest you venture to the book page and read the review there by LTer @PhoenixTerran if you want to know more about this than just that the main character, Tsukimi, is obsessed with jellyfish and lives in a home with other geek girls who all have quirky obsessions. Tsukimi chances to meet a stylish young girl who is everything the group would normally shun, the girl in turn becomes obsessed with the group. Not a girl but a young man who chooses to wear women's clothes, heterosexual, but insists on defying normal societal expectations. It's a fun read and Kuranosuke, the boy-girl is a great character.
There's a glossary at the end that explains all the Japanese terms such as this type of gender melding behaviour.

The Only Child by Guo Jing (2015)
picture book
This is a wordless picturebook cum graphic novel that shows the influence of Shaun Tan, but doesn't quite have that magnetic pull for me. I liked this, the dreamy quality of the fantasy segment, the limited colour palette etc etc but I wasn't totally charmed either. Maybe I'm growing too cynical in my old age!

Guojing has based this on a particular incident from her own childhood experience as part of the 'one child' policy of the Chinese government. Her lonely life, one of isolation and being left alone at times by a busy mother who worked.
A young girl, at home alone, decides to visit her grandmother but gets lost on the way and ends up in a fantasy world in the sky.

The Safest Lie by Angela Cerrito (2015)
children's fiction
Not a particuarly compelling cover on this book. Cerrito knew once she heard about Irena Sendler in 2004 that she'd have to write a book that would commemorate in some ways the heroic actions of Sendler in managing to smuggle over 2000 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during WW2. She travelled on a fellowship to Poland and managed to meet Sendler who was 98 at the time. She also did a lot of research, reading the testimonies of the many Jewish children who had been farmed out to Polish households and survived the war.
Many couldn't cope with the idea of being Jewish without any surviving relatives and just wanted to return to their host families where they had lived pretending to be Catholic. This was especially true of the youngest ones who had no memories of their parents.

Anna is 9yrs old when she learns Catholic prayers and her new identity before she's smuggled out from the ghetto. She lives in an orphanage run by nuns for many months before arriving to a Polish family who live in a small village. Her host family have lost their young daughter to the Lebensborn or Generalplan Ost programme (involved taking children regarded as "Aryan-looking" from the rest of Europe and moving them to Nazi Germany for the purpose of Germanization, or indoctrination into becoming culturally German).
Anna comes to love her new family, though she tries hard to remember her memories of her own real family. As the war ends she is eventually collected by a Jewish group and taken to give her testimony and learn about the fate of her parents. All she wants is to return to her host family.

I enjoyed this having watched the film, The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, last year it was a good followup. My husband was contacted last year by a woman who said she was probably a distant relative. She had been a baby when her Jewish parents left her with a Polish young woman during the war. Only her father survived and when he went to collect his daughter, the Polish woman was so reluctant to return the child that they married, she converted to Judaism and they moved to Israel. The cousin never knew her 'mother' wasn't her true mother till after the father died and the mother confessed to her. There are many Poles who are only now discovering that they have Jewish heritage as one of their parents was one of thesw hidden children during the war who lost their identity. http://unitedwithisrael.org/young-hidden-polish-jews-rediscover-their-jewish-her...

The Red Collar by Jean-Christophe Rufin (2015)
fiction
I enjoyed this Europa editions read. About a French soldier, a hero, jailed at the end of World War One for an act of disrespect. The Major who is sent, on this his last case, to pass judgement wants to find him not guilty, but the soldier continues to insist he is guilty as charged and deserves to be shot. Outside the jail, his loyal dog who has followed him everywhere through all the fighting is waiting.

The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell (1978)
nonfiction
This is the final book in The Corfu Trilogy and was as entertaining as the first two books. It ends with a birthday party for their favourite guest. I listened to the audiobook version.

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke by Anne Blankman (2015)
YA
This is the sequel to Prisoner of Night and Fog which I read at the beginning of the year, not sure if she'll continue to write more on Gretchen & Daniel. It's 1933 and Daniel returns to Germany around the time of the Reichstag Fire and when he goes missing Gretchen also returns to look for him. Gretchen & Daniel, with the help of a German Ring group (German-style mafia) try to uncover the motives for a suspicious murder before Hitler's Enabling Act is passed.
I liked this as we are shown what life was like in Germany as Hitler rises to power and the signs are all there that he is preparing for a war.


Asking for it by Louise McNeill (2015)
YA
Definitely not a comfortable read but also a very necessary book. Emma isn't a likeable character, it's clear from the first few pages that she feels the world's her oyster and she seems to be quite promiscuous. However when she gets out of control at a party, drinking too much and then taking pills her friends don't step in and look after her. She's woken by her parents who've found her lying in the full sun on their verandah when they arrive back from a weekend away. She's terribly sunburnt, wearing no knickers, her dress is on backwards and she's hurting and got grazes everywhere. Louise has no memory of what happened the night before but everyone else in the world does know as a facebook page has been set up in her name with explicit photographs, tags and comments. Trial by social media commences. And when an official investigation begins it looks like the four responsible young men will have the backing of the community as she was just 'asking for it', her reputation is known and she did dress and act provocatively.
The book looks at the aftermath of the incident, how Emma is shunned, the effect on her parents and older brother as well as herself.

The Anarchist Detective by Jason Webster (2013)
crime
Chief Inspector Max Cámara #3. Enjoyed this. Cámara is on extended sick leave and is in his birth town of Albacete to look after his only relative, the ailing Hildago, his grandfather. The Civil War, the Spanish saffron industry and a murder of a teen girl are all stirred into this plot.

The saffron scandal that Webster based his novel on:
According to figures released by Spain's ministry of industry, the country exported 190,000 kilos of saffron in 2010, a sale that netted £40 million.
But local production of the tiny filaments from the purple crocus blooms amounted to only 1,500 kilos...barely one per cent of saffron labelled as Spanish is actually grown in the country, the rest being made up of poor-quality imports from Iran, Morocco and Greece.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/8293582/Spanish-saffron-s...

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Thomasina by Paul Gallico (1957)
fiction
Thomasina is the beloved pet of a young girl with no mother. Her father is a brusk, no nonsense country vet who has become even more brusk and no nonsense since the death of his wife. The novel follows his redemption when he faces losing his daughter over the death of her cat, her broken heart and accusation of murder.
Sounds rather dire but this is a lovely story about faith, one is sure throughout that the cat hasn't quite died, surely not because who is the new feline companion of the one the local children call the Red Witch.
This was made into a film, The Three Lives of Thomasina, starring Patrick McGoohan & Susan Hampshire in 1963.

I hadn't realised that I'd been away from this group for so long. My reading is on a go-slow and so I've fallen behind on several planned reads. I've just updated 2 month's worth of reading and am currently reading Wyatt #3 by Garry Disher and listening to Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds.

Spinners by Anthony McCarten (1998)
fiction
Read this for the ANZAC May/Jun challenge on the 75ers thread. I've enjoyed the two other books by McCarten that I've read and many years ago we took our staff to see his play Ladies' Night which was highly entertaining. Anyway I loved this one too. Set in a small Taranaki beachtown the story revolves around the fallout when 16yr old Delia declares that she was abducted by aliens and that the abduction included some form of interspecies' intercourse. Eventually she discovers that she is pregnant. She's so sincere and her story is believable when a nearby barley field is discovered with a flattened dead cow and a perfect burnt circle that could only have been done by some form of landing craft. Then two more teen girls declare their pregnancies. All this when the local mayor has begun an ambitious waterslide pool project to bring in tourism, the local freezing works announces the loss of most of the jobs in the town by replacing workers with technology and the long defunct town library is reopened by the mayor's nephew who has just been discharged from the army for a violent offence.
Hugely entertaining with a very 'human' cast of characters, the truth is a long time coming here.

Deathdeal by Garry Disher (1993)
crime
Wyatt #3. Continuing the series and enjoying them for what they are. Professional crook, Wyatt, is still recovering from the bad luck and fallout of the last couple of jobs. Now there's a chance to score a cool $2 million from a bank, what could go wrong?
Read for the ANZAC challenge


Crosskill by Garry Disher (1995)
crime
Read for the ANZAC challenge. Wyatt #4. Wyatt finally comes back to Melbourne to get revenge on the crime family that fouled up his payroll heist in book #2. He's just after the money that's 'rightfully' his after all. Crooked cops feeling the heat add to the plot and make this a highly enjoyable outing.

Garry Disher is one of my favourites. I was waiting for another Challis and Destry but your reviews have encouraged me to give the Wyatt series a go.

I'm enjoying them, they don't feel too dated. Now I have to wait for the next two which come in a 2-in-1 volume to come into the library, I'm second in the queue so that's all that's holding me up from continuing.
I've read the first two of the Challis series and will continue that when I finish this series.

I'm distantly related to Disher which is how I came to start reading his books in the first place. Our greatx4or5 grandparents came out from Scotland in 1838 to South Australia. I think that makes us 4th cousins removed once or twice!

Blood Med by Jason Webster (2014)
crime
Chief Inspector Max Cámara #4. A great installment dealing again with the corruption of Valencian local politics. Cámara is back at his job, the newly promoted boss, his hugely disliked rival, Maldonado. There are going to have to be cuts in the homicide department and Maldonado pits Cámara against his partner Torres in two murder investigations, the onus is on each of them to perform or lose their job. Cámara is saddled with the newly arrived and ambitious head of the Sex Crimes division.
Again I really like how Webster gives you a good look at how Spain actually works what with the political corruption, all the varying activist groups, unemployment problems etc etc.

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Smith's Dream by CK Stead (1971)
fiction
Another read for the LT75ers' ANZAC challenge. I've long wanted to read this book that the film Sleeping Dogs was based on. I found it fairly dated but still an interesting read. Having spent a week in the Coromandel last year it was interesting to read about guerilla warfare taking place in familiar locations.
A politically naive New Zealand population is hoodwinked into a fascist dictatorship by a wiley politician. When the protesters are found to include some communist sympathisers the US sends in their military to help subdue a growing guerilla movement. Smith, an innocent bystander, gets caught up in the action when he is mistaken for a rebel spy when in fact he's left the city for a back to basics rural life after a failed marriage.
I'll probably rewatch the film at some stage this year, it was the first New Zealand feature film I saw at the cinema and launched Sam Neill's career.

>158 avatiakh: Thank you! Found them on Amazon. Predicting a binge.

Years ago I went to a writing course led by Garry Disher (not that I ever wrote anything, but it was interesting). Nice man.

Oh great, before they were available as e-books I had to track them down as used books, not easy and not cheap.
A writing course would be interesting. I'm not a writer either but you learn so much from these courses regardless.

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan (2015)
children's fiction
What a great read. There's a whiff of enchantment to hold the plot together, apart from this the book tells three stories of children with great musical talent who all find themselves in dire predicaments. What's in common is a particular harmonica. The stories are set around the 1930s & 40s. One in Germany about the rise to power of the Nazis, the other two in the US, one is about orphans during the Depression and the other about a Hispanic family in California managing a small orange grove farm for the Japanese owners who have been interred in a camp.
I really loved this and the 500+ pages just flew by. now I must read Esperanza Rising.
This was a 2016 Newbery Honor Book.