Smiler's Balancing Act - First Thread in 2016

  
From my ever-expanding "Reading Love" Pinterest board: Two illustrations from Sophie Blackall's Missed Connections.

Hi, I'm Ilana, living in Montreal with my three furkids, Coco (an adorable toy poodle mix who is getting more and more neurotic as he ages) and cats Mimi and Ezra (plenty on photos of my profile gallery). I read just about anything, more so than ever since I joined this group at the end of 2010, though my first loves are literary fiction, historical fiction, classics, mysteries and thrillers. I also want to introduce more non-fiction into my reading diet in 2016. This year I've instituted the Canadian Authors Challenge (CAC) by popular demand. The general thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/209622

Thanks to audiobooks—also introduced to me by the 75ers—I read more than I ever could before, since I tend to be a slow reader. When I'm not reading, I like to work on my art, which recently has taken the form of photorealistic pencil and also watercolour drawings which I show on FB and occasionally on my threads here on LT, and recently started creating little videos showing the process when the works are finished (videos can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ilanabanana69 and here: https://vimeo.com/user18386822/videos). I recently started work on a bird series too, and have as one of my goals this year to open an Etsy shop to offer prints and original artwork. Hopefully, I'll also find time and energy to start up a new art blog and keep it updated!

I completed just over 200 books in 2015, Mostly thanks to the fact that I can spend quite a few daytime hours listening to audiobooks, as I do chores and my artwork, for instance. I've been known to be very active in the group in the past, but since I entered into a relationship last year, am less present on the threads, but this group is still important to me, hence... the balancing act.



Table of Contents:
• Favourites of 2015
• Reading Plans for January / February
• Books Completed in January
• Reading Plans for 2016 (CAC, BAC, AAC, group reads, etc)
• Picked for Me! 2016 Challenge
• Booker Prize Books
• A Century of Books!
• Reading Bingo
• Ongoing Series

Currently reading, listening to, and occasionally browsing through:

✔ All the World's Birds: Buffon's Illustrated Natural History General and Particular of Birds by Georges-Louis Leclerc
✔ Slightly Foxed: No. 47: Curiouser and Curiouser by Gail Pirkis, Hazel Wood (Editors)
✔ War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
❉ⓔ A Celtic Temperament: Robertson Davies as Diarist by Robertson Davies
♫ A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin
❉ⓔ Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler

          



Favourites of 2016: (★★★★½ and up, by reading order)
Carry On, Jeeves P. G. Wodehouse
Eldorado by Laurent Gaudé
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
H is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Le grand cahier / The Notebook by Agota Kristof (review)
Heap House: Book One (The Iremonger Trilogy) by Edward Carey ★★★★★




My rating system:
★ - Hated it (May or may not have finished it)
★★ - Has some redeeming qualities (Just ok)
★★★ - Enjoyed it well enough (Good)
★★★★ - Loved it! (Very good)
★★★★½ - Favourites of the year (Want to read it again!)
★★★★★ - All-time favourite (Would read again, and again... and again!)

⅛ ¼ ⅓ ½ ¾ ⅞

* = Picked for Me
♫ = audiobook
✔ = off the shelf
❉ = library book
ⓔ = eBook



Reserving first 10 posts for organizational and planning needs.

Favourites of 2015:

                                                

★★★★★ Five-star reads:
The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal (review)
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (review)
Les gens de l'ours by LB (manuscript)
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
West with the Night by Beryl Markham (review)

★★★★½ and up, in reading order:
Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth (review)
The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace
Babette's Feast by Isak Dinesen
Clockwork by Philip Pullman (review)
Lamentation by C. J. Sansom
The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier (review)
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
Small Gods: Discworld #13 by Terry Pratchett (review)
Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim (review)
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (reread - tutored read with Liz)
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (reread)
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
The Leopard by Guisepe Di Lampedusa
Ross Poldark by Winston Graham (review—sort of)
The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble (review)
The Accursed Kings: The Iron King (Part 1) by Maurice Druon
The Accursed Kings: The Strangled Queen (Part 2) by Maurice Druon
The Accursed Kings: The Royal Succession (Part 4) by Maurice Druon
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (reread)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (mini-review)
Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess (review)
The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield
Parle-leur de batailles de rois et d'éléphants by Mathias Enard (review)
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (reread)
Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan (comments)
Farthing by Jo Walton
Cecilia by Fanny Burney
Le liseur du 6h27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent (review)
Man-Tiger by Eka Kurniawan
Rumpole at Christmas by John Mortimer (comments)
How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell (comments)
Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (comments)

January Plans:

✪♫ Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff - TIOLI #5: from a list of best or notable books of 2015 - COMPLETED
✭✔ Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse - #16 : part of a group read of either the author or the title - COMPLETED
✭♫ Le Spleen de Paris by Charles Baudelaire - TIOLI #18: a book with something bad in the title - COMPLETED
*✭♫ Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell - picked by Kerry/avatiakh, TIOLI #15 : a book from the travel literature genre - COMPLETED
✪✔ The Manticore by Robertson Davies - CAC, TIOLI #1: Read a book whose ISBN has at least one number in its correct numeric position - COMPLETED
✪✔ Ru by Kim Thúy - CAC, TIOLI #1 - COMPLETED
✔ I'm the King of the Castle by Susan Hill - BAC, TIOLI #17 : first line answers the question: 'When did it happen?' ("Three months ago, his grandmother died, and then they had moved to this house.")
✪♫+✔ Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth - BAC, Booker Prize Challenge, Doorstopper Challenge (640p), TIOLI #13: D or U starts a word in the title or an initial of the Author's name - COMPLETED
✪✔ Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler - AAC, Pulitzer, TIOLI #1 - COMPLETED
✪♫ H is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald - picked by Mark/@msf59, TIOLI #5 - COMPLETED
✭✔ War and Peace by Leo Tolstloy - Group read, Doorstopper Challenge, TIOLI #9: already owned on 1 January 2015, but haven't yet read - Reading
✭✔ Drawing is Thinking by Milton Glaser - TIOLI #2: received as a gift in 2015
✪♫ Funny Girl by Nick Hornby - TIOLI #5 - COMPLETED
✪♫ Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann - TIOLI #5
✭♫ La promesse de l'aube / Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary - TIOLI #8: a title word refers to something which is starting/beginning - COMPLETED
✭♫ A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman - TIOLI #7: a name in the title, in rolling alphabetical order - COMPLETED
✭♫ Le dernier ami / The Last Friend by Tahar Ben Jelloun - TIOLI #14: Novella that has been translated to English - COMPLETED
✭♫ Le vice-consul by Marguerite Duras - TIOLI #14 (Novella) - Unfinished
✭♫ Eldorado by Laurent Gaudé - TIOLI #14 (Novella) - COMPLETED
✭♫ Le grand cahier / The Notebook by Agota Kristof - TIOLI #14 (Novella) - COMPLETED
✭♫ La femme qui attendait by Andreï Makine - TIOLI #14 (Novella) - COMPLETED
✭♫ Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett - TIOLI #4: written by an author who died in 2015 - COMPLETED
✪♫ The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman - TIOLI #1 - COMPLETED

Spur of the moment:
✭♫ Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert - TIOLI #5 - COMPLETED
✔ World of Wonders by Robertson Davies - TIOLI #9 - COMPLETED
✭♫ Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri - TIOLI #21: mentions tea somewhere in the text - COMPLETED
❉ⓔ Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes - ACoB! (1984), Booker Prize Challenge, David Bowie's 100, TIOLI #21 - COMPLETED
♫ A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters - TIOLI #17 - COMPLETED
♫ The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth - TIOLI #11: a novel about real events, about which at least one other novel has been written - COMPLETED



***

February Plans:

✭✔ War and Peace by Leo Tolstloy - Group read, Doorstopper Challenge, TIOLI #11: part of a series adapted for tv - Reading
✪✔ The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys (CAC) - TIOLI #9: first line answers the question, 'Where did it happen'
✭✔ The Penguin Book of Stephen Leacock by Stephen Leacock (CAC) - TIOLI #8: Has an Animal, Bird or Reptile in the Title
✭♫ A Murder Is Announced Agatha Christie (BAC) - TIOLI #12: written at least 50 years ago
✪✔ From The Holy Mountain William Dalrymple (BAC) - TIOLI #19: nonfiction book about a people/religion/history/politics/country of the Asian continent
✭✔ Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo (AAC) - TILOI #5: a word in the title can be an action
✭❉ Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki - ACoB! (1914), TIOLI #1: a book of modern Japanese fiction (in rolling order)
✪✔ Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata - TIOLI #1
✭♫ The Colour by Rose Tremain - TIOLI #4: references a gold rush
✭♫ Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith - TIOLI #6: a book largely set in or on a means of conveyance
✪♫ The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli - TIOLI #10: the word 'extraordinary' or a synonym on the front or back cover
✪♫ Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson - TIOLI #15: read a book about black history eor Black History Month
✭❉ⓔ Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler - TIOLI #16: Read a book from David Bowie's Top 100 list - Reading
✭♫ On the Road by Jack Kerouac - TIOLI #16
✪❉ The Bird Artist by Howard Norman - TIOLI #16
✭❉ The Sailor Who Fell from Grace from the Sea by Yukio Mishima - ACoB! (1963), TIOLI #16
✭❉ⓔ A Celtic Temperament: Robertson Davies as Diarist by Robertson Davies - CAC, TIOLI #5: Read a book where a word in the title can be an action - Reading

Nonfiction Challenge: History possibilities:
♫ Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts
✭♫ Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff - TIOLI #7
✭♫ Victoria: A Life by A.N. Wilson - TILOI #13: a book in which the newspaper "The Times" is mentioned
♫ The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones
✔ The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf

Fantasy February possibilities:
✪♫ A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin - Fantasy February, TIOLI #3: fiction that reached #1 on NYT bestseller list in the 2010s - Listening
✭❉ⓔ Heap House: Book One (The Iremonger Trilogy) by Edward Carey - TIOLI #2: Read a book where a word in the title suggests damage - COMPLETED
✪♫ Uprooted by Naomi Novik - TIOLI #2: a word in the title suggests damage



***

* = Picked for Me challenge
** = Picked for Me challenge extra picks
♫ = audiobook
✔ = off the shelf
❉ = library book
ⓔ = eBook
✭ = TIOLI
✪ = Shared TIOLI

- Listening
- Reading
- COMPLETED

Books completed in February
25. ❉ⓔ Heap House: Book One (The Iremonger Trilogy) by Edward Carey ★★★★★
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.

January
1. ♫ Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff ★★★★⅓
2. ♫ Le Spleen de Paris by Charles Baudelaire ★★★★
3. ✔ Carry On, Jeeves P. G. Wodehouse ★★★★½
4. ✔ Ru by Kim Thúy ★★★½
5. ♫ Funny Girl by Nick Hornby ★★★★⅓
6. ♫ Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell ★★★★
7. ♫ Eldorado by Laurent Gaudé ★★★★½
8. ♫ Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett ★★★★⅓
9. ♫ Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert ★★★★⅓
10. ✔ Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler ★★½ (review)
11. ✔ The Manticore by Robertson Davies ★★★★⅓
12. ♫ Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth ★★★★½
13. ♫ Le dernier ami / The Last Friend by Tahar Ben Jelloun ★★★★½
14. ♫ Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri ★★★
15. ✔ World of Wonders by Robertson Davies ★★★★
16. ♫ H is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald ★★★★½
17. ♫ La femme qui attendait / The Woman Who Waited by Andreï Makine ★★★⅓
18. ♫ A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters ★★★★
19. ♫ Le grand cahier / The Notebook by Agota Kristof ★★★★½ (review)
20. ❉ⓔ Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes ★★★★⅓
21. ♫ The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth ★★★★⅓
22. ♫ A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman ★★★½
23. ♫ La promesse de l'aube / Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary ★★★½
24. ♫ The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman ★★★¾

Unfinished
♫ Le vice-consul by Marguerite Duras

2016 Plans

January:
see http://www.librarything.com/topic/210705#5395371

February:
see http://www.librarything.com/topic/210705#5395371

March:
✔ The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat (CAC)
♫ Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat (CAC)
✔ The Hero's Walk by Anita Rau Badami (CAC)
❉ How to Be Both by Ali Smith (BAC)
♫ The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (BAC)
♫ Some Luck by Jane Smiley (AAC)
✔ Venice by Jan Morris (NF Challenge - Travel)

April:
♫ The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (CAC)
♫ Galore by Michael Crummey (CAC)
♫ The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (BAC)
❉ The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi (BAC)
✔ Emma by Jane Austen (reread) - Tutored read with Liz
♫ Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant by Tracy Borman (NF Challenge - Religion & Spirituality)
ⓔ In Praise of Folly by Erasmus (NFC - Religion & Spirituality)
♫ Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (NFC - Religion & Spirituality)
Poetry Month (AAC)

May:
❉ C't'à ton tour Laura Cadieux by Michel Tremblay (CAC)
❉ Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel (CAC)
❉ The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam (BAC)
♫ The Ways of the World by Robert Goddard (BAC)
♫ English Creek by Ivan Doig (AAC)
ⓔ Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund - shared read with Ellen/@EBT1002

June:
✔ The Piano Man's Daughter by Timothy Findley (CAC)
✔ Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden (CAC)
♫ Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser (BAC)
♫ Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (BAC)
♫ The Shipping News Annie Proulx - reread (AAC)

July:
❉ Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery (CAC)
❉ Klondike : the last great gold rush, 1896-1899 by Pierre Berton (CAC)
✔ Mr Wakefield's Crusade Bernice Rubens (BAC)
♫ The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (BAC)
♫ Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck (AAC)

August:
♫ The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordechai Richler (CAC)
❉ Bonheur d'occasion by Gabrielle Roy (CAC)
❉♫ Sweet Tooth Ian McEwan (BAC)
♫ Lovely, Dark, Deep by Joyce Carol Oates (AAC)

September:
✔ A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews (CAC)
♫ L'énigme du retour Dany Laferrière (CAC)
♫ The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (BAC)
✔ Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee (BAC)
♫ A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (AAC)

October:
✔ The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (CAC)
❉ The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart (CAC)
✔ When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson (BAC)
♫ The Spire by William Golding (BAC)
✔ The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (AAC)

November:
✔ In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje (CAC)
❉ The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence (CAC)
✔ The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West (BAC)
♫ Berlin Game by Len Deighton (BAC)
✔ Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (AAC), (NFC - Essays)

December:
ⓔ The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro (CAC)
❉♫ De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage (CAC)
♫ The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (BAC)
Don DeLillo (AAC)

***

Weird_O's Doorstopper Challenge

Dead Weight:
War and Peace (1296 pages) - January/Febuary - Reading
Camilla (992 pages)
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (832 pages)
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (944 pages)
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (640 pages) - COMPLETED
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess (656 pages/)
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (1184 pages)
The Stonecutter by Camilla Läckberg (830 pages/16h)
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber (824 pages/41h36)
The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss (736 pages/27h58)
Skippy Dies by Patrick Murray (672 pages/23h41)
Birds Without Wings by Louis De Bernieres (640 pages)

Also
Possession by A.S. Byatt (528 pages)
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold (448 pages)
Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault (448 pages)

Wedge:

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (128 pages)
C't'à ton tour Laura Cadieux by Tremblay Michel (144 pages) - CAC
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (146 pages/3h00) - BAC
The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden (160 pages) - BAC
The Elements of Style Illustrated by William J. Strunk and Maira Kalman (176 pages)
Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell (178 pages)
Maigret Returns by Georges Simenon (160 pages)
Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat (183 pages/3h45) - CAC
Madame Sousatzka by Bernice Rubens (187) pages - BAC
Mr Wakefield's Crusade by Bernice Rubens (190 pages)
The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys (192 pages) - CAC
The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden (192 pages) - BAC
Crete by Barry Unsworth (192 pages) - BAC
All Shot Up by Chester Himes (192 pages/4h30)
Deceived With Kindness by Angelica Garnett (192)
*Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (182 pages/6 hours) - PfM!
Timbuktu by Paul Auster (193 pages)
Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym (193 pages)
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (198 pages) - Pulitzer Prize
*Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes (200 pages) - PfM!

***

Pulitzer Prize Possibilities from my tbr:

1923: One of Ours by Willa Sibert Cather
1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1941: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
1947: All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren
1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1975: The Killer Angels by Michard Shaara
1977: Roots by Alex Haley (Special Citation)
1981: Peter the Great by Peter K. Massie (Biography/Autobriography)
1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1989: Breathing Lessons Anne Tyler - COMPLETED
1989: Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann (Biography/Autobriography)
1997: Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2006: Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky (History)
2010: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt T. J. Stiles (Biography/Autobriography)
2011: The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (General Nonfiction)
2014: The Goldfinch Donna Tartt



* = Picked for Me challenge
** = Picked for Me challenge extra picks
♫ = audiobook
✔ = off the shelf
❉ = library book
ⓔ = eBook
✭ = TIOLI
✪ = Shared TIOLI

eta: Touchstones not working

Picked for Me 2016:
My fifth year with this personal challenge. I love having fellow book-lovers look through my "to be read" section and pick out their favourites. This year I limited it to twelve selections as there are so many other challenges I want to participate in, plus I want to completed books that are left over from the 2015 list.

1. ✔ Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Thurston - picked by Charlotte/@Fourpawz2
2. ♫ Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell - picked by Kerry/@avatiakh - COMPLETED / January
3. ♫ H is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald - picked by Mark/@msf59 - COMPLETED / January
4. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee - picked by Paul/@PaulCranswick - COMPLETED 2015
5. ♫ Being Mortal by Atul Gawande - picked by Mary/@mdoris
6. ✔ Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund - picked by Ellen/@EBT1002
7. ♫ Mystic River by Dennis Lehane - picked by Jim/@drneutron
8. ♫ The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezani - picked by Judy/@DeltaQueen50
9. ✔ The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru - picked by Deborah/@Cariola
10. ✔ Good Evening, Mrs Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes - picked by Heather/@souloftherose
11. ⓔ History of the Rain by Niall Williams - picked by Charlotte/@charl08
12. ♫ The Road Home by Rose Tremain - picked by Peggy/@LizzieD

Left over from 2015 (aka the list of shame)
✔+♫ Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts - picked by @lunacat
ⓔ The Midnight Bell by Francis Lathom - picked by @lyzard (tutored read)
✔ The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher - picked by @LauraBrook
✔+♫ A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry - picked by @kidzdoc
✔ The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat - picked by @Deern

Booker Prize Books
I try to read as many Booker books on the tbr as possible each year. I also keep track of those books I've already read to see how complete I can make this list over time.

Read in 2016: (in reading order)
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (Booker Prize 1992)
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (Shortlist 1984)




On my TBR (and previously read)
Bruno's Dream by Iris Murdoch (Shortlist 1970)
*Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault (Shortlist 1970)
¹⁴The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens (Booker Prize 1970)
¹⁴Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (Shortlist 1971)
¹⁴The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell (Booker Prize 1973)
*The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (Booker Prize 1974)
¹⁵The Children Of Dynmouth by William Trevor (Shortlist 1976)
Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym (Shortlist 1977)
¹⁵Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood (Shortlist 1977)
¹⁴A Five Year Sentence by Bernice Rubens (Shortlist 1978)
*The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (Shortlist 1978)
¹³The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch (Booker Prize 1978)
¹⁴A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr (Shortlist 1980)
*Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess (Shortlist 1980)
¹³Good Behaviour by Molly Keane (Shortlist 1981)
¹⁵Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (Booker Prize 1981)
¹⁵An Ice-cream War by William Boyd (Shortlist 1982)
¹⁵Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally (Booker Prize 1982)
*Waterland by Graham Swift (Shortlist 1983)
*Small World by David Lodge (Shortlist 1984)
¹²Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner (Booker Prize 1984)
The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch (Shortlist 1985)
The Bone People by Keri Hulme (Booker Prize 1985)
¹³The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Shortlist 1986)
¹⁵An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (Shortlist 1986)
⁸⁷The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies (Shortlist 1986)
⁸⁷What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies (Shortlist 1986)
¹⁵Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively (Booker Prize 1987)
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (Shortlist 1988)
*Nice Work by David Lodge (Shortlist 1988)
¹⁵Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (Booker Prize 1988)
¹⁴Restoration by Rose Tremain(Shortlist 1989)
The Book of Evidence by John Banville (Shortlist 1989)
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood (Shortlist 1989)
¹³The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro(Booker Prize 1989)
Possession by A.S. Byatt (Booker Prize 1990)
*Two Lives by William Trevor (Shortlist 1991)
¹⁴The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje(Booker Prize 1992)
Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer (Shortlist 1993)
¹³Morality Play by Barry Unsworth (Shortlist 1995)
¹¹The Ghost Road by Pat Barker (Booker Prize 1995)
¹⁰Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (Shortlist 1996)
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (Shortlist 1996)
*Last Orders by Graham Swift (Booker Prize 1996)
⁰⁸The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (Booker Prize 1997)
¹⁵Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge (Shortlist 1998)
¹⁴Amsterdam by Ian Mcewan (Booker Prize 1998)
¹³Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee (Booker Prize 1999)
⁰⁸The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Booker Prize 2000)
Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri (Longlist 2001)
¹²Atonement by Ian McEwan (Shortlist 2001)
⁰⁹True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (Booker Prize 2001)
¹⁰Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (Shortlist 2002)
*Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry (Shortlist 2002)
⁰⁵Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Booker Prize 2002)
Astonishing Splashes Of Colour by Clare Morrall (Shortlist 2003)
Brick Lane by Monica Ali (Shortlist 2003)
¹³What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller (Shortlist 2003)
¹⁵Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (Shortlist 2003)
The Master by Colm Toibin (Shortlist 2004)
⁰⁸The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (Booker Prize 2004)
¹⁵Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (Longlist 2005)
¹⁰Arthur & George by Julian Barnes (Shortlist 2005)
⁰⁸Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (Shortlist 2005)
⁰⁶On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Shortlist 2005)
⁰⁸Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (Shortlist 2005)
The Accidental by Ali Smith (Shortlist 2005)
⁰⁹The Sea by John Banville (Booker Prize 2005)
¹⁴The Ruby in Her Navel by Barry Unsworth (Longlist 2006)
¹⁵Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (Longlist 2006)
¹²The Secret River by Kate Grenville (Shortlist 2006)
Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn (Shortlist 2006)
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Booker Prize 2006)
¹⁵The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (Longlist 2007)
¹⁴Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (Shortlist 2007)
⁰⁹On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Shortlist 2007)
¹⁵Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Longlist 2008)
¹³The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (Shortlist 2008)
¹²Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (Shortlist 2008)
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz (Shortlist 2008)
⁰⁸The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (Booker Prize 2008) (to reread)
Heliopolis by James Scudamore (Longlist 2009)
¹¹The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt (Shortlist 2009)
¹²The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (Shortlist 2009)
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Shortlist 2009)
¹²Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Booker Prize 2009) (to reread)
Trespass by Rose Tremain (Longlist 2010)
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray (Longlist 2010)
¹⁴Room by Emma Donoghue (Shortlist 2010)
¹¹The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (Shortlist 2011)
Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch (Shortlist 2011)
¹¹The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (Booker Prize 2011)
¹⁴The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (Shortlist 2012)
¹²Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (Booker Prize 2012)
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Longlist 2013)
Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson (Longlist 2013)
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (Shortlist 2013)
¹³The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin (Shortlist 2013)
¹³Harvest by Jim Crace (Shortlist 2013)
¹³The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Booker Prize 2013)
*Orfeo by Richard Powers (Longlist 2014)
*The Blazing World by Siri Hustdvedt (Longlist 2014)
*History of the Rain by Niall Williams (Longlist 2014)
*We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (Shortlist 2014)
¹⁴The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (Booker Prize 2014)
*The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Shortlist 2015)
*A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Booker Prize 2015)

¹⁵ = read in 2015
¹⁴ = read in 2014
¹³ = read in 2013
& etc.
* = recent additions to the tbr

(Much more on the wishlist of course!)

A Century of Books! 1900-1999
I originally stole this challenge idea from Heather/@souloftherose. I'm trying to read a book published in every year of the 20th century. I've been at this one for a few years now, and hope to complete it in 2016 so I can move on to the 19th century!

1900
1901
1902
1903
1904 The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
1905
1906
1907 Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim
1908 The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913 O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
1914
1915 Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
1916
1917
1918 The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
1919
1920 In Chancery by John Galsworthy
1921
1922 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
1923 Murder on the Links by Agatha Chrisite
1924
1925 The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
1926 These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer
1927
1928 Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayer
1929 Journey Into the Past by Stefan Zweig
1930 Le Bal by Irène Némirovsky
1931 Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett by Georges Simenon
1932 Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
1933 High Rising by Angela Thirkell
1934 Miss Buncle's Book bu D. E. Stevenson
1935
1936 The Dark Frontier by Eric Ambler
1937
1938 Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
1939 Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
1940 Native Son by Richard Wright
1941 Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers
1942 Le joueur d'échecs / Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
1943 Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
1944 Dragonwyck by Anya Seton
1945 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
1946 Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
1947 Wolf Story by William Mccleery
1948 A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck and Robert Capa
1949
1950 Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert
1951 My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
1952 A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
1953 The Unstrung Harp: Or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel by Edward Gorey
1954 Bonjour tristesse by Françoise Sagan
1955
1956 The Accursed Kings: The Poisoned Crown (Part 3) by Maurice Druon
1957 The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier
1958 10146::The Leopard by Guisepe Di Lampedusa
1959
1960 The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning
1961 Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
1962 Cover Her Face by P. D. James
1963
1964 Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken
1965 Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
1966 The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott
1967
1968 A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
1969 The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
1970 Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
1971 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
1972 All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
1973 The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
1974 Greenwitch by Susan Cooper
1975 Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
1976 The Children Of Dynmouth by William Trevor
1977 Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood
1978 A Five Year Sentence by Bernice Rubens
1979 The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
1980 A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
1981 Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini
1982 Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally
1983 The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
1984 Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
1985
1986 An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
1987 Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
1988 Night Soldiers by Alan Furst
1989 Restoration by Rose Tremain
1990 The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard
1991 The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
1993 A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess
1994 The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri
1995 Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
1996 The Terracotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri
1997 Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin
1998 Amsterdam Ian McEwan
1999 Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Touchstones not working.

Reading Bingo (still editing)
Since I obviously don't have enough challenges going already, I got this card from the 2016 Catergory challenge, where there are two designs to choose from. I'll fill it in with whatever books I've picked up along the way and not worry about completing it: it's just for fun!

Here is the General Category Card:



✭1. Less than 200 pages: Le dernier ami / The Last Friend by Tahar Ben Jelloun
2. Senior citizen as the protagonist:
3. Survival Story:
4. About an airplane flight:
✭5. About a writer: The Woman Who Waited by Andreï Makine

6. About the environment:
7. Author born in 1916:
✭8. Autobiography or memoir: La promesse de l'aube / Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary
✭9. Adventure: Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
✭10. One-word title: Eldorado by Laurent Gaudé

11. Title has a musical reference:
12. Title uses wordlplay:
✭13. Category Challenge - FREE Space!
14. A body of water in the title:
15. About/by an indigenous person:

✭16. Food is important: Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri
✭17. Published before you were born: Le Spleen de Paris by Charles Baudelaire
✭18. Features a theatre: World of Wonders by Robertson Davies
✭19. Debut book: Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
✭20. In translation: Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri

21. Focus on art:
✭22. Coming of age story: The Manticore by Robertson Davies
23. Comics, graphic novel, manga, etc:
24. Self-published:
25. You want the protagonist's job or hobby:




And here is one centred on Women Authors (found here):



✭1. A "new-to-you" author: Ru by Kim Thúy
✭2. Author over 60 years old: A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
3. African author:
4. Male pseudonym:
5. Author from the Middle East:

6. Set in Latin America or Asia:
✭7. Made into a movie: Le grand cahier / The Notebook by Agota Kristof
✭8. About a female critter: H is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald
9. Published before 2000:
10. Set in Europe, Australia, or NZ:

✭11. Different genre by same author: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (self-help)
✭12. Award winner: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
13. By or about a woman
14. 1920-30s detective fiction:
15. Poetry or Play:

16. Women in non-traditional roles:
✭17. Less than 10 years old: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
18. From tbr pile:
19. Autobiography, memoir or correspondence:
20. About a spy:

21. Short story collection:
22. Women in science:
23. Women in combat:
24. About a female ruler:
25. African-American author:

✭ = completed

Ongoing Series
Series I have in my TBR but haven't started on yet are covered in the second list.

❉ African Trilogy - Next up: No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe (2/3)
ⓔ Alan Grant Mysteries - Next up: The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey (1/6 - read out of order)
*♫ All Creatures Great and Small" - Next up: All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot (2/5)
♫ The Australian Trilogy - Next up: Tommo and Hawk by Bryce Courtenay (⅔)
ⓔ The Balkan Trilogy - Next up: The Spoilt City by Olivia Manning (2 of 3)
*♫ Barsetshire Books - Next up: August Folly by Angela Thirkell (4/29)
♫ Bartimaeus Trilogy - Next up: The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud (Prequel)
Bernie Gunther - Next up: A German Requiem by Philip Kerr (3/9)
♫ Bloody Jack Adventures - Next up: Curse of the Blue Tattoo by L. A. Meyer (2/12)
✔ Border Trilogy - Next up: The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (⅔)
*♫ Brother Cadfael: One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters (2/20)
❉ Cannery Row - Next up: Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck (2/2)
♫ Cazalet Chronicles - Next up: Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard (2/5)
♫ The Cemetery of Forgotten Books - Next up: The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (2/3)
❉ Chief Inspector Armand Gamache - Next up: A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny (2/10)
Chocolat - Next up: The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris (2/3)
♫ The Chronicles of Barsetshire - Next up: Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (2/6)
♫ The Chronicles of St Mary's - Next up: A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor (2/4)
✔ Claudius - Next up: Claudius the God by Robert Graves (2/2)
♫ La Comédie Humaine - Next up: Le curé de Tours by Honoré de Balzac (31/88 - read out of order)
✔ Commissario Brunetti - Next up: Acqua Alta by Donna Leon (5/23 - read out of order)
*✔ Commissario Montalbano - Next up: The Treasure Hunt by Andrea Camilleri (16/19)
❉ Corfu Trilogy: The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell (3/3)
*♫ Cormoran >: Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (3/3)
♫ The Cousins' War: The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory (2/6)
✔ The Dark is Rising Sequence - Next up: The Grey King by Susan Cooper (4/5)
♫ Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Next up: Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor (2/3)
❉ De Luca Trilogy - Next up: The Damned Season by Carlo Lucarelli (2/3)
✔ The Deptford Trilogy - Next up: The Manticore by Robertson Davies (2/3)
♫ The Dresden Files: Grave Peril by Jim Butcher (3/15)
❉ Dr. Siri Paiboun - Next up: Curse of the Pogo Stick by Colin Cotterill (5/10)
*♫ Dublin Murder Squad - Next up: Faithful Place by Tana French (3/5)
*❉ The Earthsea Cycle - Next up: The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin (3/6)
♫ Easy Rawlins Mystery - Next up: White Butterfly by Walter Mosley (3/11)
ⓔ Elizabeth and her German Garden - Next up: The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim (2/2)
✔ Empire Trilogy - Next up: The Singapore Grip by J. G. Farrell (3/3)
*❉♫ Erica Falck and Patrik Hedström - Next up: The Stonecutter by Camilla Läckberg (3/9)
❉♫ Flavia de Luce - Next up: A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley (3/7)
♫ Forsyte Saga - Next up: To Let by John Galsworthy (3/3)
❉ Green Town - Next up: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (2/2)
❉ The Harlem Cycle - Next up: All Shot Up by Chester Himes (4/8)
♫ Harry Potter - Next up: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling (reread) (5/7)
*♫ Hercule Poirot - Next up: Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie (2/39 - read out of order)
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Dramatization - Next up: Tertiary Phase (BBC Radio Collection) by Douglas Adams (3/5)
♫ The House of Earth Trilogy - Next up: Sons by Pearl S. Buck (2/3)
❉ The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place - Next up: The Unseen Guest by Maryrose Wood (3/4)
Inspector Yashim Togalu - Next up: The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin (2/5)
♫ Isabel Dalhousie Mysteries - Next up: The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith (3/10)
♫ Jack Reacher - Next up: The Enemy by Lee Child (8/20)
✔ Jackson Brodie - Next up: When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson (3/4)
♫ John Russell - Next up: Lehrter Station by David Downing (5/6)
*♫Joseph O'Loughlin - Next up: Shatter by Michael Robotham (3/7)
♫ Kenzie & Gennaro - Next up: Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane (2/6 - read out of order)
♫ Kurt Wallander - Next up: The White Lioness by Henning Mankell (3/11)
*♫❉ Lady Trent's Memoirs - Next up: The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan (2/4)
The Last Lion - Next up: Winston Spencer Churchill, Alone 1932-1940 by William Manchester (2 of 3)
* Leo Demidov - Next up: The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith (2 of 3)
♫ Leviathan - Next up: Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld (2/3)
♫ The Lord of the Rings - Next up: The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien (3/4)
✔ Lord Peter Wimsey - Next up: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers (5/15)
♫❉ MaddAddam Trilogy: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (2 of 3)
*❉ Maigret - Next up: Maigret Returns by Georges Simenon (19/76)
ⓔ Mapp and Lucia - Next up: Lucia in London by E. F. Benson (3 of 8)
*♫ Marcus Didius Falco - Next up: Shadows in Bronze by Lyndsey David (2/20)
♫ Matthew Shardlake by C. J. Samson - Next up: Awaiting publication (7/7)
Miss Marple - Next up: The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (2/12)
❉ Night Soldiers - Next up: Dark Star by Alan Furst (2/13)
❉ The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Next up: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith (6/15)
♫ The Obelisk Trilogy - Next up: Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller (2/3)
Oxford Time Travel series - Next up: Blackout by Connie Willis (3/4)
Parker - Next up: The Mourner by Richard Stark (4/24)
✔ Philip Marlowe - Next up: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (6/9 - read out of order)
*♫ Phryne Fisher Mysteries - Next up: The Green Mill Murder by Kerry Greenwood (5/20)
*✔ The Power Of One - Next up: Tandia by Bryce Courtenay (2/2)
The Prairie Trilogy - Next up: The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (⅔)
✔ The Raj Quartet - Next up: The Towers Of Silence by Paul Scott (3/4)
♫ Ranger's Apprentice: The Icebound Land by John Flanagan (3/12)
❉♫ The Raven Cycle Next up: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater (2/4)
✔ Richard Hannay - Next up: Greenmantle by John Buchan (2/5)
❉♫ Les Rois Maudits - Next up: Quand un roi perd la France (7/7)
❉ Les Rougon-Macquart - Next up: La joie de vivre by Émile Zola (12/20)
♫ Ruby Trilogy - Next up: Sapphire Blue by Kerstin Gier (2/3)
✔ Sally Lockhart Mysteries - Next up: The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman (2/4)
*♫ Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (5/9)
*♫ Small Change - Next up: Ha'penny by Jo Walton (2/3)
♫ A Song of Ice and Fire - Next up: A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin (5/7)
❉ Sookie Stackhouse - Next up: Club Dead by Charlaine Harris (3/14)
❉ The Spiderwick Chronicles - Next up: The Nixie's Song by Holly Black & Tony DiTerlizzi (6/8)
♫ Tales of the City - Next up: Further Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin (3/6)
♫ Tales of the Otori - Next up: Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn (3/4+prequel)
*♫ Thomas De Quincey - Next up: Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell (2/2)
❉ Three Men in a Boat - Next up: Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome (2/2)
♫ Tom Ripley - Next up: The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (4/5)
* Victor Legris - Next up: La disparue du Père-Lachaise by Claude Izner (2/11)
Wolf Hall Trilogy - Next up: The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel (awaiting publication) (3/3)
Wolves Chronicles - Next up: Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken (3/11)
❉ Wyoming Stories: Bad Dirt by Annie Proulx (2/3)

***

First in Series on my TBR
♫ Albert Campion: The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham (1/19)
✔ The American Trilogy: American Pastoral by Philip Roth (1/3)
✔ Aristide Ravel Mysteries : The Cavalier of the Apocalypse by Susanne Alleyn (1/4)
✔ The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson (½)
♫ Aubrey-Maturin: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian (1/21)
♫ Avalon: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (1/7)
*♫ Bernard Samson Novels: Berlin Game by Len Deighton (1/9)
✔ The Book of Lies - Twins Trilogy: The Notebook by Ágota Kristóf (1/3)
✔ The Borrible Trilogy: The Borribles by Michael De Larrabeiti (1 of 3)
*♫ Captain Gregor Reinhardt : The Man from Berlin by Luke McCallin (1 of 3)
✔ Carl Webster: The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard (1/3)
♫ Chief Inspector Adamsberg: The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas (1/9)
♫ Cicero: Imperium by Robert Harris (1/2)
♫ A Dance to the Music of Time: A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement, Spring by Anthony Powell (1/4)
✔ Danzig Trilogy: The Tin Drum by Günter Grass (1/3)
✔ Empress Orchid: Empress Orchid by Anchee Min (1 of 2)
✔ Eustace and Hilda: The Shrimp and the Anemone by L. P. Hartley (1 of 3)
✔ Hank Thompson: Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston (1/3)
✔ Haroun: Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (1/2)
♫ Harry Hole: The Bat by Jo Nesbø (1/10)
✔ Henrietta's War: Henrietta's War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 by Joyce Dennys (1/2)
✔ The Hummingbird's Daughter: The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea (1/2)
♫ The Inheritance Cycle: Eragon by Christopher Paolini (1 of 4)
♫ In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (1/8)
♫ James Bond: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (1/14)
*♫ James Maxted: The Ways of the World by Robert Goddard (First in series)
♫ Joona Linna: The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler (1 of 3)
*♫ Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (1 of 2)
*♫ The Kingkiller Chronicle : The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (1/3)
✔ Latin American Trilogy: The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Bernières (1/3)
♫ Leonid McGill: The Long Fall by Walter Mosley (1 of 4)
✔❉♫ The Magicians: The Magicians by Lev Grossman (1/3)
♫ McCaskill Trilogy: English Creek by Ivan Doig (1/3)
✔ Micah Dalton: The Echelon Vendetta by David Stone (1/4)
♫ Michael Forsythe: Dead I Well May Be by Adrian McKinty (1/3)
✔ Mistress of the Art of Death: Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (1/5)
*♫ Neapolitan Novels: My Brilliant Friend) by Elena Ferranted (1 of 4)
✔ On Foot to Constantinople: A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor (1/3)
♫ Outlander: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (1/9)
♫+ⓔ Patrick Melrose: Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn (1/5)
✔ The Psammead Trilogy: Five Children and It by E. Nesbit (1/3)
♫+✔ Quirke: Christine Falls by Benjamin Black (1/6)
♫ Revelation Space: Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (1/7)
*♫ Rumpole of the Bailey: The Trials of Rumpole by John Mortimer (2/20)
*✔ Sacred Hunger: Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (1 of 2)
*♫ San-Anonio: Réglez-lui son compte! by San-Antonio (1/175)
*❉♫ Sean Duffy: The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty (1/4)
♫ Shanghai Girls: Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (1 of 2)
*♫ Ship Breaker: Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (1 of 2)
♫ Sprawl: Neuromancer by William Gibson (1/3)
♫ Swallows and Amazons: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (1/12)
♫ Sword of Honour: Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh (1 of 3)
♫ The Vampire Chronicles: Interview with the Vampire (reread) by Anne Rice (1/10)
❉♫ The Wolves of Mercy Falls: Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (1/4)
♫ World War II Saga: The Winds of War by Herman Wouk (1/2)



✔ = in my TBR
♫ = audiobook (in my TBR)
❉ = library book
ⓔ = eBook
* = recent changes

Next one's free: Welcome visitors! :-)

Err... Am I really first?
Wishing you a Very Happy New Year, Ilana and loads and loads of great reads and listens!
I'll try to read AND post more in 2016 also on your thread.

>12 Deern: Hi Dear Nathalie! You are indeed the FIRST visitor! Hurray!!! :-D

I'm sorry I've been so out of touch this year. I can't make promises (as I like to keep those I make), but I definitely intend to visit you more often in 2016.

Have a great New Year!

Dropping off my star on folks' 2016 threads now that 2015 is in its waning hours.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Ilana!!

I love how organized your thread is!

Welcome back!

Happy New Year, Ilana! Dropping my star...

Dear Ilana, This group would not be the same without you. I look forward to stories of our fur kids and of your wonderful reading! I wish you all the best for 2016. May it be a year of good health with endless possibilities.

Happy New Year, Ilana - What a lot of planning you've done for 2016. Good luck.

>14 EBT1002: Hi Ellen, thanks so much for dropping by my new home. Wishing you all the best this New Year. xx

>15 countrylife: Thank you! It must be the only corner of my life that is! :-)

>16 drneutron: Thanks Jim. And thanks for keeping this group going!

>17 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie, lovely to see you here!

>18 Whisper1: Thanks so much for those lovely wishes Linda. I could say the same to you. Big hugs. xox

>19 BLBera: Thank you Beth. I can assure you that the only part of my life that bears any planning at all is my reading life. Overcompensation of sorts, maybe? ;-)

Happy New Year and Happy New Thread, Ilana! Love the toppers. I hope you have a healthier year ahead and I look forward to following you on your bookish pursuits.

« Je vous souhaite des rêves à n’en plus finir.
Et l’envie furieuse d’en réaliser queques-uns.
Je vous souhaite d’aimer ce qu’il faut aimer,
et d’oublier ce qu’il faut oublier.
Je vous souhaite des passions.
Je vous souhaite des silences.
Je vous souhaite des chants d’oiseaux au réveil,
et des rires d’enfants.
Je vous souhaite de résister à l’enlisement,
À l’indifférence, aux vertus négatives de notre époque.
Je vous souhaite surtout d’être vous. »

***

"I wish you never-ending dreams
and the furious desire to realise some of them.
I bid you love what should be loved
and to forget what should be forgotten.
I wish you passions.
I wish you silences.
I wish you birdsong upon waking,
and children's laughter.
I wish you to resist to floundering to indifference,
to the negative virtues of our era.
Above all I wish you to be yourselves."

>21 msf59: Thank you so much Mark. Better health would certainly be welcome this year! Looking forward to another great year with you in it, buddy! xox

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing that, Ilana!

Howdy Ilana and Happy New Year! I look forward to another year of your book bullets, art and adventures.

>24 Crazymamie: The pleasure is mine, believe me Mamie! ♥︎

>25 luvamystery65: Thank you so much Roberta. It's snowing outside, which makes my day: perfect way to start the New Year. I look forward to sharing with you in 2016 too! xo

Found you!

Happy New Year and Thread, Ilana! I'm delighted to see Mansfield Park and Cecilia on your list of favourites for 2015. Is February still okay for Emma? If so I will start 'advertising' it.

Hey, Ilana, Hope 2016 is beginning well for you. If I happen to see any snow down here, I'll be sure to re-direct it your way as you do seem to enjoy it.

As ever, I am super-impressed by your lists. My own pale into insignificance.

Happy to see your thread here in the 2016 group, Ilana! Happy New Year and best wishes for 2016!

>27 lyzard: Hi Liz! I was just looking over my reading commitments for this year, and as I think I'll probably spend a couple of month on War and Peace I would prefer we move Emma to another month so I can give it all my time. Would March, or preferably April work for you? May through to September are better for me to add anything that requires added effort—such as a tutored read to the list, so any one of those for The Midnight Bell would suit me. Let me know what works best for you.

>28 Fourpawz2: Hi Charlotte, I really shouldn't complain, but I slept very badly and had very anxiety-provoking dreams all through the night and early morning hours and woke up feeling rather off balance. I must say though that sharing New Year's greetings with a few of my friends made me feel a whole lot better as the day progressed. I also had a long and fruitful session with my latest art project, Metro Series #9: The Red Handbag. This one is done in watercolours, so a new challenge added to the series. Having fun with it, and grateful as ever that working on my art helps me forget the migraine, as it was being a drag today and insisting on being taken notice of.

Don't mind my lists. My life is pure chaos. The reading lists make me feel like I have a small part of it under control. Also, I've had years to hone them, and then copy them from thread to thread, just updating them as needed. Also, I don't feel an obligation to complete them, otherwise I would find them much too oppressive. Thanks for dropping by, lovely to *see* you as ever!

>29 lkernagh: Thank you so much Lori! I meant to drop by today to wish you the very same, but there are not enough hours in the day to visit everyone in here on LT in one day. I shall drop by to catch up with you very soon as am very much overdue and curious to see what you've been up to.

Favourites of 2015:

                                                

The list can be found in post >2 Smiler69:.

Have a wonderful bookfilled 2016, Ilana.

>32 PaulCranswick: Thank you dear Paul!

***

Finished my first book of 2016: Fates and Furies, which I found truly excellent. The last sentence or two threw me for a loop, but other than that it was a piece of fine writing in the he said/she said genre which definitely packs quite a few surprises. Very glad I finally picked it up. Very good on audio too.

Next up? Will have to pick blind—too many great options on the list!

Belated happy new wishes and happy new thread, Ilana!

>2 Smiler69: I enjoyed your list of favourites from 2015 (and relieved that someone else struggles to restrict their favourites list to a set number). I think I will have to try to get to Ishiguro's The Buried Giant this year.

>33 Smiler69: Glad to hear you also enjoyed Fates and Furies - that's also on my library list.

>34 souloftherose: Hi Heather! I really loved The Buried Giant last year, and especially the audio version as one of my favourite actors narrates it, David Horovitch. Definitely one I shall revisit.

As for restricting the favourites list, I read a comment somewhere which has me thinking it isn't quite fair that I've left out all the four-star books, considering how much enjoyment four-star reads give me. I will probably make a second list therefore to make up for the omission.

I've completed my second and third books of the year, Paris Spleen by Charles Baudelaire, a wonderful French audiobook narrated by a fabulous actor who made these prose poems quite sing.

Also, Carry On, Jeeves, which was my second book by Wodehouse and was quite a blast. The first Jeeves book I read didn't really catch on with me, but I suspect it was a mood thing. This time around, I was definitely receptive and there will certainly be more in future.

Will probably be tackling Ru and War and Peace next. No later than this afternoon, in fact, to do my bit for the readathon, which I shamefully neglected these past days.

eta: Oh yes, was forgetting to mention that I just started the audio of Funny Girl by Nick Hornby last night. Read by Emma Fielding, whom I really enjoyed on Longbourn. So far I'm finding it quite delightful!

Happy New Year, Ilana!

Love those Sophie Blackall illustrations up in >1 Smiler69:.

Excellent "favorites of '15" list in >31 Smiler69:. You're right, we have a good bit of overlap - The Gift of Rain, Nimona and The Grand Sophy among them. If my list hadn't been so filled already, The Real Jane Austen would have been on it, too. Loved that book.

>36 Smiler69: Hi Joe! Lovely to see you here, away from your ever-bustling café! :-)

I knew beyond a doubt that The Real Jane Austen was on your best of list in spirit. How could it not be considering how enthusiastic you were about it?

eta: Oh yes, and glad you enjoy the Blackall illustrations. I've been admiring her work from afar for years, and finally decided to pluck down a few dollars to get the book containing the full series of Missed Connections drawings. Must make time for it asap!

I was so sure that I'd visited your thread before. Here now to wish you a bountiful New Year and lots of good reading.
I've started the ANZAC challenge, but I know you are fairly tied up with your own one, so will leave the link in case you had already intended to read one of the writers. I've tried to lessen the pain of all the challenges by making this one across two months and increasing the number of writers.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/211009

>39 avatiakh: Thanks Kerry, I'll definitely make time to fit in some of the authors you'll be featuring, starting with Thomas Kenneally this month or next, as Suzanne did such a good job of convincing me I must read his latest effort, Napoleon's Last Island that I rushed to spend one of my precious Audible credits on it.

I also LOVED Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth last year and have both The Beast's Garden and The Wild Girl in the listening stacks, one, or both of which I'll have to make room for.

I'll go over there now to make suggestions and whaton.

Screaming migraine all day. Woe is me. Will have to lie down in the dark for a bit before Pierre gets here. I can't even muster up the energy to do any artwork. We'll be ordering gourmet Pizzas from a little restaurant that just opened down the street in the last couple of years and really makes to die for thin-crust Pizzas with delicious and fresh ingredients. Perfect for nights you don't feel like cooking or washing up.

Did I mention I really, really enjoyed Funny Girl by Nick Hornby? I thought it was rather fabulous and for such a lightweight topic (a tv comedy show), it had quite a lot of substance, all things considered. I don't think I was in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate Ru, unfortunately, which is a gorgeous piece of writing, but too packed with wretchedness for me to take to at this time, when pain is my constant companion. War and Peace is proving a great entertainment, quite surprisingly. Of course it helps that the French bits don't come in the way for me and that I have a teensy bit of background on the Napoleonic wars, thanks to various readings. Down and Out in Paris and London, as selected for me by Kerry is amazingly good, especially as narrated by Patrick Tull. It describes very hard times, but somehow made very diverting. Great stuff.

Off to make an invalid of myself, in 19th century parlance, and lie down and do quite nothing for a while.

Sorry to hear that you are suffering from a migraine, Ilana. Sending you healing vibes and my good wishes. Ordering out gourmet pizzas sounds like just the thing.

I am also enjoying W&P, and I am surprised at how much I remember from my first attempt at it several years ago. Glad to see you're liking Down and Out in Paris and London - I really liked that one, although I must confess I liked the Paris part better than the London part. You are reminding me that I need to get back to Orwell.

Hi Mamie! After a lie-down, a couple of fiorinal pills, and a scrumptious pizza dinner, the headache has abated somewhat, so that I almost feel like I can do things other than lay about and moan to the animals. I'm still very much in the Paris portion of DaOiPaL and really enjoying all the details about his life as a plongiste. Wretched and funny at once. W&P is quite delightful and I'm glad I've decided to take it in daily small doses instead of trying to power through the thing with the aid of an audiobook, as I feel I'm getting more out of it that way. The end notes are helpful too, which of course won't have been included in any audio version.

Am well enough to do artwork now, hurrah! Off to it then.

>9 Smiler69: I am going to grab that first bingo card and do that one too, I think. I amm not tagging in to any challenges this year (hang on- isn't 75 books in one year a challenge?). But the bingo one, as you say, is simply just too much fun.

Of course my puerile mind saw one of your 2015 favourites Farthing , as "Farting". I though, huh, what a bold title!

>44 LovingLit: You remind me Megan I need to continue editing that post to put in the correct categories. Just seems like I've spent too much time on the 'puter with the change of year. I don't think many people can help looking at the title Farthing and making puerile associations. ;-)

Hi Ilana - here to notify you of my intent to lurk. I think we're bound to have some overlapping reading again this year!

Thank heavens for Fiorinal/Fioricet, right?? it makes such a difference.

Are you reading or listening to W&P?

Sorry to see you have been struggling with migraine, Ilana. Not stopped you topping the TIOLI meter whilst Suz continues her leave of absence there.

Ilana, is this really the first time I've spoken to you this year? That is not right.
So I wish you a fabulous, stellar 2016, which will include getting some real help for those headaches.
I do look forward to hearing about your reading and your painting and your animals and all.
I'll be back!

Hi Ilana! I'm hoping to do better than I did last year at visiting and keeping up with threads, while still keeping up with my own reading. I hope to read a book per month for your Canadian authors challenge, and I've got a library hold on the only copy of Ru in the library system. It should be available for pickup within the next few days.

Enjoy!

Visitors! :-)

>46 evilmoose: Hi Megan! Happy lurking! I'll be doing plenty of that too, and have done already. I'll try to leave a sign of presence once in a while though; always nice to know who's in the background watching!

>47 Chatterbox: Thank heavens for Fiorinal/Fioricet, right??

No kidding!!! I find I can sometimes take it late in the day when the migraine has just gotten progressively worse; with two capsules it often takes the edge off and makes me able to cope better. I can't be popping them first thing or I'd be taking them almost every day.

As for War and Peace, I'd originally intended to accompany my Penguin Classics Pevear/Volokhonsky translation with the Naxos audio version, which I believe is translated by the Maudes. But I stupidly got the first volume from Downpour.com, not thinking then that I would so much come to depend on 1.25 and 1.5 listening speeds (which they've failed to integrate into their app yet, though I keep pestering them about it), and it just seems nuts to me to have to drag through slow narration for such a long haul. So I've revisited my plans and now reading just 20 pages a day, as slowly as I like from my print copy, which also enables me to look up the historical notes and go back and forth to the characters pages when I get muddled.

It'll take me a couple of months to get through it at that pace, but I really enjoyed reading Cecilia that way at the end of the year, and I think a masterpiece like W&P deserves to be taken in at a deliberately contemplative pace, if possible. I went all out yesterday, and ordered myself the Folio Society edition, which costs a small fortune even with the 23% member reduction with the current New Year sale, but I'm so taken with this novel that I know I won't regret having it in a beautifully illustrated edition to go back to over the years (I believe it's based on the Penguin edition I'm reading from; same translation with notes etc.)

>48 PaulCranswick: Dear Paul, I'm "lucky" enough with the daily standard migraines (if you can use that term), that most of the time I can still listen and visually read books, which tend to help take my mind off the edginess I'm always under. I've found even with intense pain I can usually manage to lay back with a book, which is pretty amazing considering how sensitive to light I can get. I'd just rather have that discomfort than sitting or lying there with nothing to do but think about the pain I can't do anything about. Lots of short books: that is why I've managed to top the TIOLI meter so far, but as I tackle larger tomes I'll fall behind I'm sure. Can't wait to get into Sacred Hunger!

>49 LizzieD: Ilana, is this really the first time I've spoken to you this year?

Whatever gave you THAT idea?!? We've been chatting on your thread and FB nearly all the time! It might be the first time you've visited this thread, which is just fine; glad you made it! But as I doubt I'll be able to be as assiduous with keeping up with my friends as I'd like, I don't expect anyone to be constantly keeping up with me either. As for the nasty migraines, I'm looking forward to the second botox treatment in March, during which my neurologist will give me 8 more injections (for a total of 39), and which, if I'm lucky, will *take* next time. If not, we'll try other medications, and I'll also turn to alternative treatments, and will consult a naturopath and perhaps a hypnotist, as Pierre has read this works for some migraine-sufferers.

I'm about to post an update on my latest drawing, stay tuned! :-)

>50 cbl_tn: Thanks so much for dropping by Carrie, and believe me, I'll be grateful for your visits whenever you do manage them, no matter how frequent or not (though of course I love having lots of visitors, who doesn't?). I hope you enjoy Ru. I read it and have mixed feelings about it, which I've been withholding from the group read thread, as I don't want to influence anyone at this stage. Interesting to see the comments coming in about it though.

>51 DianaNL: How very sweet Diana, thank you! :-))

Ilana,
I used to take Fiorinol for my migraines but although they killed the headaches, they also made me exceptionally dizzy. I eventually switched to Zomig (and more recently, the generic form of that one, zolmitriptan, which I find just as effective with no side effects at all). I am lucky, though, that I have good medical coverage through my work because they are costly (though the generic is half the cost).

I can't imagine coping without drugs, that's for sure! And I have tried everything: acupuncture, ice, yoga, chiropractic, etc. Everything works, to some degree, for awhile but when they don't, give me drugs any day!

>54 jessibud2: Hi Shelley, someone recommended Zomig to me in December, and I called my neurologist's clinic and begged them to have him call in the prescription at my pharmacy, since I'd just had my consult and botox treatment with him the week before. The lady who recommended it to me said it worked miracles for her, and even stopped migraines that were well established. I've tried three of the nasal sprays and basically, it's a disaster for me and actually makes the migraine worse, if that is even possible. Extremely expensive stuff too, yes! I'm lucky to have an extensive health plan with my employer's group insurance so I do have access to just about any drug on the market, but the trick is finding which one will actually work for me and also not negatively interact with the other drugs I have to take for my mood disorders. Eek! Drugs definitely work for me in that area, because I'm more stable now, and have been for quite a few years, than I've ever been before, but as for the migraines, so far nothing seems to be working. And yet, if I don't take anything it's so much worse! Sorry to go on and on, but I've tried seemingly everything too, and I do get discouraged sometimes. But then, I always thank my lucky stars because I know the pain could be so much worse and at least I'm functional most of the time, though I couldn't get out there and work to earn a living, and again, so grateful I don't have to be on welfare! Eeeeek!!!

As I posted on FB a short while ago: around 50 hours in, "Metro Series #9: The Red Handbag" is coming along...
Working with watercolours for this sort of "realistic" effect certainly is an interesting challenge. I'm glad all the classes I took left their mark, and also that watercolour allows a bit of flexibility. Still lots more work to do, but it's starting to take shape.

I'm here to drop my star and wish you a very Happy New Year, Ilana. I am looking forward to another year of following your via your reading and artwork. I am skipping the CAC this month but hope to join in next month with Helen Humphreys. I have so many challenges on the go that I can see I am going to have trouble keeping track of them all!

>56 Smiler69: Nice to see your art decorating the thread again.

>52 Smiler69: I'm really enjoying the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace, Ilana. I can't compare it to other translations, but I'm impressed with the smoothness and beauty of the writing and the always-consistent "voice."

>56 Smiler69: Wow!! Love it!

>56 Smiler69: The addition of color is wonderful. Good work, I like it.

>Well, I still recommend the Zomig (or generic; it's the same product). I have no side effects from it at all. If you haven't tried it yet, ask your doctor why not!

Hi, Ilana. You are way ahead of me already; I just finished book #2. I see a number of books on your 2015 collage that are in my TBR stacks. Now if I could just resist buying more new ones . . . !

Just stopping in to catch up with you, Ilana! And what a treat to see some of your GORGEOUS artwork! Stunning!

>56 Smiler69: Wow - that looks amazing!

Sorry to hear about the ongoing migraines. I hope one of the new treatments you're trying starts to have an affect soon.

Hi friends! More visitors, yay, I feel so lucky!

Wish I could say I'm doing well physically, but my head is a very reliable barometer apparently, and we started entering a low pressure system last night which means I'm half mad with headache. But all the same, spirits are not bad at all*. My artwork and reading and kind and patient partner (not necessarily in that order) are helping to keep me on an even and contented keel, so amen for that!

Since the arrival of 2016, an impressive amount of books have already come into my possession, some still on their way. Couldn't resist the New Year Member's sale at Folio Society, and then there's always something I want to grab as an Audible daily deal, and plenty to be had from the municipal library system and the national library's OverDrive collection, especially as they frequently purchase titles I've suggested. Here is a list of titles added to the tbr since Jan 1:



From The Folio Society:
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater
Restoration London, Everyday Life in London 1660-1670 by Liza Picard - Rec'd by Heather/@souloftherose
Edward Lear's Complete Nonsense by Edward Lear

      

Various booksellers (Amazon, Abebooks, BookDepot, etc)
The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Life of the Society by A.L. Rowse
The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Cultural Achievement by A.L. Rowse
Alice au pays des merveilles by Lewis Carol illustrated by Benjamin Lacombe
Very Good, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
The King's Touch by Jude Morgan - Rec'd by Deborah/@Cariola
Passion by Jude Morgan - Rec'd by Deborah/@Cariola

From Audible:
♫ A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson
♫ Isaac's Storm: A Mann, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson

From Library & OverDrive:
♫ The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferante
♫ The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
♫ The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa El Aswani - by the author of The Yacoubian Building
♫ Moderato Cantabile by Marguerite Duras
♫ Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
♫ Watch the Lady by Elizabeth Fremantle - final book in the Tudors trilogy
♫ Negroland by Margo Jefferson
♫ The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
♫ The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge by Michael Punke
♫ Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas

Still to arrive:
♫ Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
♫ Les dames de Rome by Françoise Chandernagor
♫ The Gallows Bird by Camilla Läckberg
♫ The Hidden Child by Camilla Lackberg
♫ The Drowning by Camilla Lackberg
♫ The Lost Boy by Camilla Läckberg
♫ Buried Angels by Camilla Lackberg - full Erica Falck & Patrik Hedström series translated to French
♫ The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe by Romain Puertolas
♫ Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie
♫ Street of Thieves by Mathias Énard - 2015 Goncourt-winning author
♫ The man who walked through walls by Marcel Aymé
♫ Submission by Michel Houellebecq
Hyperbole and a Half : unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened by Allie Brosh
Highly recommended graphic novel.

*Also, in the hour or so it took me to finalise this post, seems the Fiorinal has taken the intensity down a notch. Alleluia!

Happy Saturday, Ilana! Love how well The Red Handbag is coming along. Beautiful job!

Those Folio editions are gorgeous. I have still not brought one. Call me cheapskate but I sure love the look.

I do not think you would like either of my current reads, A Little Life or The Invasion of the Tearling, so I am saving you the trouble. You are welcome...grins.

Congrats on an amazing book haul. Sweet.

>57 DeltaQueen50: Hi Judy, thanks so much for dropping by! I'm glad you'll be joining us for some of the authors on the CAC. I'm really looking forward to The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys, the book came so highly recommended, both for the text and its physical beauty from so many quarters, and it is indeed a beautiful little object of beauty. Should be a rewarding reading experience. What will you be reading by her?

>58 Oberon: Thanks so much, that's very nice of you to say Erik.

>59 jnwelch: I have to agree with you on the quality of the Pevear/Volokhonski translation Joe. And like you, I haven't anything to compare it with so far. I do have the Maudes translation on audio, which I will probably listen to as a "reread" eventually, though my memory being what it is, I'm afraid I won't be able to make comparisons as I wish I could. Many people say they still think that is the ultimate translation, probably because the Maudes were friends with Tolstoy and he approved of their translations of his work.

>60 catarina1: Thanks Catarina. The use of colour for this series is a new challenge and is pretty exciting. I'll still be drawing other portraits in the series in graphite (i.e grey tones), but I have at least one other very colourful metro portrait planned as a watercolour also, and I'm also toying with the idea of doing at least one in oils, though I may keep that for straightforward portraits I've been wanting to work on.

>61 jessibud2: Shelley, you probably missed my reply to you in >55 Smiler69:, since I'd put in the wrong post number as a reference originally. In short, I tried the Zomig nasal spray three times over the last few weeks, and it's basically been a disaster. Very sad it's not working for me and hopefully we'll find something else that does.

>62 Cariola: Now if I could just resist buying more new ones . . . !

Isn't that the story for all of us, Deborah? You've got ample proof of my lack of discipline in that department in my post above. Obviously, this isn't the year I've resolved to cut back on book acquisitions... As for books completed so far, I guess I'm somewhat compensating for the fact that War and Peace will take me a while to complete, and so taking on shorter works at the same time, to get the year started nicely. Overall, lots of good reading to start the year with, and I need to make time to write some reviews, but I guess not today as I've already been on the computer too long.

>63 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie, thanks for the visit, and compliments like that are always appreciated! 😘

>65 Smiler69: Hi Mark, didn't mean to skip over you! I would never call you a cheapskate for not purchasing Folio books. It's quite the opposite: I'm much too profligate with my money considering I have a large debt to pay off for a few years to come, but then, the Society reels in people like me with their "easy" monthly payment schemes, which gives one the illusion their books are actually affordable. I'm a sucker for well-designed beautiful objects, and I guess it was a matter of time before I became a true book collector. Now I'm even into the limited editions, which is sheer madness, but also makes me happy.

Speaking of which, thanks for the warning on your two latest books. I've been considering giving A Little Life a whirl since it's gotten so much love from reviewers, but every time I read the synopsis, I get a bit discouraged, and then, lucky for me, I intensely dislike the narrating style of the reader they chose for the audio version, so no temptation there at all. That combined with your warning, I will definitely stay away now! The Tearling series hadn't come to my attention yet, but I'm always happy to give a series a miss! You're a real buddy! ;-)

I really like the narrator for A Little Life. His style works perfectly for the narrative flow. This is truly a gut-wrenching read.

I now have W & P on audio, print and ebook. I am armed and ready. I should be able to start it, once I get back from vacation.

>67 Smiler69: - Oh, Ilana, so sorry to hear that. You know, I had no idea Zomig came in a nasal spray format! I have only ever used it in pill form. I wonder if the format would make a difference. But I certainly know what you mean about the head being a *barometer*. I have no food triggers (which is a pity, since controlling what you eat is something that would obviously give you *control*!). The environmental triggers are completely out of our control and that makes it a bitch.

By the way, in your post #>65 Smiler69:, I haven't read most of what you have listed but in the short audible list, I have read (in book form) Erik Larson's Isaac's Storm and like all of Larson's writing, it was excellent. I love his style and have read nearly all of his books

>65 Smiler69:, >67 Smiler69: That's quite a diverse list! I hope you enjoy the Jude Morgans as much as I did. I tried listening to The Tsar of Love and Techno but ended up returning it to audible--something I very rarely do. I really loved Marra's first book and was quite disappointed. I have Watch the Lady on my kindle; didn't realize it was part of a series, so I will need to check out the first two. I did read another novel by the same author about Katherine Paar.

>69 msf59: Mark, obviously tasted in narrators vary as much as tastes in book. But once again, I'm happy to give this one a miss, especially if you think I won't like it. I trust your know me well enough by now to make that kind of judgment!

I've been really enjoying W&P, taken in daily small doses. I thought I'd do the audio/print combo, but finally I'm finding I'm enjoying reading just 20 pages a day from the book this time around. Hope you enjoy it when you get there. My guess is you will, very much so.

>70 jessibud2: Thanks for your sympathy Shelley. I was really disappointed to find the Zomig didn't work for me. I do wonder if the pills come in higher doses, which might make a difference? I'll try to get an appointment with my neurologist asap to see if that would be a possibility. I've been in crisis mode since the beginning of December, as we've had lots of overcast weather and it's been a bit much to take, honestly. I know what you mean about food triggers being "easier" to control. A lot of my triggers are olfactory, like cigarette smoke and perfume and tar, as well as auditory, like low frequency sounds. Both are sort of hard to avoid. At least I can walk away from smells and put my scarf over my face, but usually the first whiff is enough to get the migraine going. Sounds are trickier and that is what in fact started this two-year migraine run; they were digging foundations for a basement in my building and by week three of noise, the migraine decided it wanted to stick around for good. I've joked with my landlords that I might sue them for my health crisis, but they didn't find it very funny. Bad joke I guess. :-b

>71 Cariola: Diversity is my middle name! But seriously, I do like jumping around a lot with my reading and to have something for every mood handy. and since I can get my hands on so many free audiobooks from the library system, I'm even more willing to try things. I haven't read A Constellation of Vital Phenomena yet, but have seen lots of glowing reviews for it. I'm curious about this short story collection, especially since the stories are apparently interconnected. We'll see how I take to it.

The Fremantle books are known as a trilogy, starting with Queen's Gambit, about Catherine Parr, which you've already read, but I don't think you need to read them in order, since there is no connection between the first two that I've seen, other than they being set in Tudor times and being chronologically ordered. The second book, Sisters of Treason, is about the sisters of Lady Jane Grey during the reign of Queen Mary, then Elizabeth I, so no connection at all to the first book. I thought they were both quite good and will be curious to see what you make of the other two books you haven't read yet.

***

I finished Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett this evening, and found it to be quite a riot. If you like the humour of the Monty Python crew, you should be able to enjoy Pratchett's brand of humour too. I chuckled out loud quite a lot. A lot of jokes are outright juvenile, but then they are also very clever in the genre. There will be more Discworld in my future for sure, and exclusively on audio too, as the recordings are like audio plays, with individual funny voices for every character and occasional sound effects. Now I've picked up Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert for another short'n sweet book and a complete change of pace. I plan on starting on Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth following that and am much looking forward to it, as he is among my favourite authors and an amazing writer of historical fiction, one of my favourite genres.

>65 Smiler69: I like the look of the folio War and Peace and how sensible to put it into two volumes. Must follow you and add Terry Pratchett onto my list of authors I have read.

Have a great Sunday.

>72 Smiler69: - Oh, I know what you mean about smells. Cigarette (and any tobacco, really) takes only one whiff to wake up a migraine, as do some - not all - perfumes. There is one in particular that took me awhile to pinpoint. When I was teaching, there was one staff person who always wore it and it drove me crazy until they finally made our school a scent-free environment. What I can chuckle about now is that the name of her perfume was *Poison*. Seriously. And it was, for me, haha

By the way, your artistic talent is incredible!!! Wow!

>56 Smiler69: For some reason, ever since my stroke, I've been staying away from FB so I'm glad you're willing to post your art work here, as well. I love watching the progress and I really love your choice of subject(s).

Hmm, you're making me think I'd like to try a Barry Unsworth. I've not read anything by him.

Another doozy of a migraine today, thanks to lingering low pressure system with lots and lots of rain. I used to love rainy days. Yesterday I took a total of 6 to 8 Fiorinal capsules just to reduce the pain a modicum (not all at once, obviously), so I'm not touching it today, since it's still just the beginning of the month and I can't take the stuff more than 12 days in any given month. Result: agony. But somehow, I still manage to smile once in a while, and my partner Pierre manages to tolerate me, even though I'm mentally reduced to a vegetative state, more or less and have trouble talking much above a whisper (only a slight exaggeration). Still we moseyed on over to the municipal library so I could pick up a new batch of mostly audiobooks, and also the graphic novel Hyperbole and a Half, which I've heard a lot of good things about and expect I should get a few laughs from, no matter how many brain cells happen to be functional when I peruse the book.

I want to write some reviews, as I've already read several really great books in this new year, but that seems to demand too much intellectual effort, so I hope those of you more interested in book talk than anything else will be content for now with the general comments I pepper my threads with here and there.

Currently listening to Elizabeth Gilbert narrating her own Big Magic, and about a third of the way in I'm finding it a real delight to listen to. She's engaged and casual and presents her material with heartfelt sincerity. I don't know that I really need to be reading a self-help book that encourages you to be more creative at this point in my life, when I'm being more creative than ever before and making time for my art every single day (or close enough), but it's certainly a heartening read. The part about ideas and concepts being like free agents roaming around looking for a human being to make them concrete is really interesting and her examples are great. There. Haven't finished it yet, but that's as close to a review I'll get until this massive head congestion clears.

>73 PaulCranswick: Paul, I wouldn't say Terry Pratchett offers much as far as literary merit, but he's certainly extremely clever and offers amazing entertainment value per sentence and paragraph, if you're inclined to keep track of that sort of thing.

I can't wait to see my War and Piece volumes in person, as what I've seen on the Folio site was very tempting indeed. It will take a few weeks for them to get to me, but I'm sure I'll still be reading the novel by the time it gets here, as I'm taking it very slowly indeed. Now I've reached the War parts, I'm finding it a bit more difficult to get through. Somehow, my eyes just start glazing over when any battle descriptions are featured in a book, no matter how well written, but at 20 pages per day, I think I'll manage it all the same.

>74 jessibud2: I know what you mean about some perfumes being worse than others. Some perfumes I'm really fine with, and can even enjoy quite a lot, whereas others are pure poison to me (like that aptly named one you mention). I'm almost certain it isn't the scent per se that affects me so much as a particular additive (or maybe it is a particular essence), that seems to turn up in all the... what I call "magazine strip" perfumes, i.e. the most commercial ones, which all seem to have something in common which just makes my head thump and my stomach churn. I have a similar story as you, which happened when I was studying graphic design ages ago; we all had assigned drafting tables (gives you and idea of how long ago this was, do they even still have drafting tables for design students, I wonder?). The girl sitting just in front of me wore a perfume every single day that made me very sick, but it took me weeks (maybe even months) to work up the courage to ask her to please avoid wearing that scent during classes. I eventually did, and she took it with rather good grace, though she seemed annoyed with how much I was falling all over myself with apologies for making that request in the first place.

Lucky for me, the one time when the migraines seem to fade into the background is when I'm involved with making my art pieces. I notice it because the moment I stop working, whatever migraine I'd been suffering from that day suddenly makes it's presence very much felt. But the trick is getting myself working, because when I'm in really bad shape, it feels like more of a challenge than I can handle.

>75 EBT1002: Hi Ellen, one of the reasons I share my work here is that a) I like sharing my work and b) I realize that most people who visit my threads don't get to see my pieces on FB. That being said, anyone who would like to is welcome to friend me on FB. My attendance on the site varies a lot. I can go months without visiting it, and then sometimes (like lately) I visit several times a day. I try not to spend to much time there though, because as you are probably all too aware, it can be a huge time sink.

I definitely recommend Barry Unsworth. The first book I read by him was Morality Play, which is rather short and truly excellent. Just thought I'd mention that.

Hi Ilana, sorry about your ongoing bad migraines and I wish there was anything else I could do than just sending "good vibes".
That watercolor experiment is amazing! How do you decide with your works when they are finished? Because now in that state it already has a degree of perfection and with more color it will be a different work. Not a worse one, just a different one. I thought that earlier when you showed your work in progress - if I were you I'd probably like to keep all of them, even one-eyed Rocky. So with sharing them here and on the other blogs/sites at least all the stages are preserved for later.

>76 Smiler69: Phew, I'm relived you like that book! I know there are very mixed feelings here re. EG, but I quite liked this one although (as you'll see) it is drawn out a bit too long for what she has to say. But I'm among those people who have to read that they're not too old/stupid/left-handed and yes - too fat to do something creative and I also had to read that books don't write themselves and mean long and hard and dedicated work as all art. And I really loved that concept of ideas being there all around, wanting to find a host (or as I imagine it, want to be plucked like apples from a tree).

Btw. I'm planning a pink wall for my future kitchen, similar to your book shelf wall in the last thread. Loved that color and I can imagine enjoying cooking with such a color around.

I'm finally getting around to your thread. I am hoping I will have visited all of the threads by the end of the day. If everyone will just quit posting for about an hour, I think I could do it. ;-)

>78 Deern: Hi Nathalie, I slept in very late into the afternoon today, trying to escape the pain, and then allowed myself to pop a couple of fiorinals as soon as I got up, so the migraine is now in a more or less tolerable range. Not sure why it's sticking around, since we have beautiful clear blue skies right now. I guess it has grown attached to me as a host and doesn't like to let go. I've had to cancel a get-together with my elderly friend Liselotte (now going on 97), but she was very understanding over the phone yesterday as she is well aware of my condition. I'm supposed to have a lunch date with a friend I lost track of over 25 years ago and just accidentally pumped into a few days ago, but again, not sure I'll be able to make it if I'm still in a similar state. Certainly makes maintaining a social life more difficult than it already is. Am I complaining again? Sorry, it's just after a long streak of pounding pain, I get more and more impatient and wish I could resume a normal life. I'm trying to get an appointment with my neurologist this week so he can hopefully prescribe something for me that WILL work.

I really enjoyed Big Magic all the way through. I'd read that criticism before, about how she tends to go on a bit too much at lengths and repeat herself more than necessary, and expecting that, I was pleasantly surprised to find I didn't especially notice any such thing. Maybe it helped that I listened to it at x1.5 speed, which made it just a 3 hour listen, most of which was spent while I was working on my latest piece.

When do I know a piece is finished? I don't. I just work at it till I find there is nothing else I want to do to it. Sometimes (often) I probably overwork things. My friend Liselotte was telling me on the phone yesterday she thought my "Red Handbag" was finished and I should leave it as it is, which got me thinking that perhaps I should leave it in a "non finito" state eventually, but then there are still lots of details I want to work at, like the hands, which are currently flat, and the coat I found was too flat too when I saw it as a picture on the screen (worked a couple of hours at that last night and I think it's ok now). I'd like to complete the ad above her head too, since it adds colour and more importantly type, an element I like including in this series. As you say, taking pictures of the evolving process and then posting them is my way of preserving the image at different stages.

>79 thornton37814: Hi Lori! Thanks for making your way here. I know it isn't easy getting around to everybody, and I haven't managed it yet, because I like to take my time with each thread and then of course there is the business of keeping up with everyone once you've had the initial visit. An ongoing struggle here at the 75ers! I decided to give up on being up to date a couple of years ago and just do what I can manage and hope everybody understands. Good luck with getting the rounds done!

Hi Ilana, sorry about the headache...hope the changing weather can settle down and help all of us head sufferers mellow out! Finally getting around to stopping by and dropping a star. Look forward to seeing what interesting reads you come up with this year.

Book #10: ✔ Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler ★★½
Source:The Word Bookstore
Edition: Berkley Trade (1998), Paperback, 324 pages
Awards & Distinctions: Pulitzer Prize, Guardian 1000 (Love), The Observer's 100 Greatest Novels
Read for: American Author Challenge, Pulitzer Prize Challenge,
TIOLI #1: Read a book whose ISBN has at least one number in its correct numeric position
Original publication date: 1988

Finished Breathing Lessons last night, and good riddance. I started off wanting to give it up after a page or two. The tone and characters reminded me of Olive Kitteridge which I found incredibly depressing and a slog to get through. I'm coming to the conclusion I don't much enjoy novels about modern marriage and regular daily irritations and hardships. Not sure why Fates and Furies worked for me, considering that is the case, but maybe because there was some kind of element of magic to it (which I can't put my finger on), and the switch of narrative voices was a device that worked very well in that case. I decided to stick to Breathing Lessons all the same, following Maggie and Ira to a friend's funeral where the widow expected everyone present to do a reprise of the songs they'd performed during her wedding, to everyone's consternation. Then discover just how much Maggie can't help herself meddling in people's life and making a mess of things, when she desperately tries to get her daughter-in-law back with her son, well after they've gone through a divorce because she is convinced they are still in love with one another. This despite the fact they married because Fiona had gotten pregnant at seventeen and only married Jesse, a singer in a band whom his father is convinced is a loser, because of Maggie's insistence and unabashed reliance on what seem to her to be tiny lies to convince Fiona that Jesse is serious about wanting a family with her. After a while, Anne Tyler's writing started to draw me in, despite the sinking feeling the story and characters gave me. Nothing goes right in this story, and Maggie's relationship with her husband is a bitter one, and she is constantly deluding herself she is out to do the right thing, when she seems to make things worse almost by default. Her loneliness and sense of disconnection are almost palpable. By the time I got to the last third, I started disliking the book intensely again, no matter how good the writing was. Not that I was expecting a happy ending, which wouldn't have suited the tone of the story, but it was all just so... depressing. Regular, struggling, bumbling lives getting along and being described in all their wretched sordid details. Again, beautifully written, which is the one saving grace of this book, as far as I'm concerned, but next time, I will drop any book that makes me feel this way. Life is too short and I have my own longstanding and deep relationship with melancholy to keep a handle on. Two and a half stars, because of how well it was written, but to say I *enjoyed* it would be a lie.

>81 tututhefirst: Thanks so much for dropping by Tina! I'm only sorry my first review of the year is such a negative one, which isn't fair really because I've read several other books so far this year which I really loved! Will have to make an effort to review those too to balance things out. I guess the above review just got written on its own out of my sense of frustration with the book, which I read more out of a sense of misplaced obligation more than anything else.

Ilana, I've never been an Anne Tyler fan myself (although I found her latest A Spool of Blue Thread to be quite a departure from my normal reaction) - like you, I find her writing depressing, and often shy away unless I'm forced to indulge.

edited to TRY to get the touchstone to work....GRRRRR

>82 Smiler69:, >83 Smiler69: I loved Anne Tyler way back in the late '70s/early '80s. I think I read Breathing Lessons around that time. A few months ago I read A Spool of Blue Thread, and while there were some things I liked about it, I ended up feeling that it was more of the same.

I just started Fates and Furies a few days ago and am whipping right through it. What I like most (at least in these first chapters) is the wonderful writing.

Oh, and I had about the same reaction to Olive Kitteridge. She was such a nasty person, so mean to her husband.

Stopping by to get caught up and to wish you a lovely week, Ilana!

I hear you on the whole reading and listening to War and Peace! The different translations out there can make it a bit challenging, without having to deal with a strange listening speed.

>56 Smiler69: - WOW! That is so realistic, I thought it was a photo! Wonderful attention to detail!

Here is hoping that the migraines will start to abate.

>82 Smiler69: - Making note of the rating for Breathing Lessons and happy to dodge it. I have yet to dip into my Anne Tyler read The Clock Winder and I am getting a tad bit pensive that it may not grab me, just like my reaction to An Accidental Tourist.

>65 Smiler69: Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous Books!
I'm overwhelmed by the color in the Red Handbag too. I think you know when you're finished.
Perfumes are such a problem. People in general do not react nicely when asked to refrain from wearing their favorite scent. It's as though this stuff they bought has become an integral part of their very selves, and they are hurt and offended if everybody isn't entranced.
I am daily grateful that I don't have migraines. I'm sorry that you do. On the other hand, I do have sinuses that drain and stop up and hurt and drain and drain and drain. In very high pressure or very low pressure, I get a sore throat and feel weak and dizzy. I never know whether I'm about to be ill or whether it's just the weather. That's just to say that you are not alone.
And I've never quite warmed to Anne Tyler either. I know I've read a thing or two and liked them well enough, but not well enough to remember what they were.....

Too bad about Breathing Lessons, Ilana. I'm going to dodge that one, too. My current plan is to try her Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel with War and Peace!

>87 LizzieD: I'm with you on the sinuses. Today is a bad day; I've been up for hours and still feel half awake. The last few nights I've had really bad sleep due to coughing/post nasal drip.

>67 Smiler69: I have The Lost Garden on my bookshelf so that will be the one I read for next months' CAC. I do however, really want to read The Frozen Thames as some point as so many people seem to love that one.

Thank you visitors! In lots of pain today. Will come back another time to respond to your messages. Thanks for keeping my thread warm. xx

Beautiful sunny day. It had been a while. First time my head feels almost clear in a while, which is probably not a coincidence. All things being relative when I say "head is almost clear", since I haven't known a migraine-free day in over two years. Oh, I've already mentioned that? over and over and over again? Sorry, I just feel like I'm trapped in Groundhog Day. Eventually I'll figure out how to move on and have a pain-free life. Is that even possible once one is well into middle age?

In the meantime, loving revisiting The Manticore by Robertson Davies for the Canadian Authors challenge. Also looking forward to completing this Deptford Trilogy with World of Wonders. Reading from my gorgeous Folio Society edition (as shown above).

Loving Sacred Hunger, though it's subject matter—a crew on board a slave ship in 1752—is obviously rather harsh. But my, what an amazing writer Barry Unsworth is!

Off to walk Coco, but will be back to respond to comments later. Hope you are all having a wonderful day or night, wherever you may be.

Popping in for a quick howdy Ilana. I hope your migraine disappears quickly.

We're getting more snow today, but despite the cloud cover, my head is behaving humanely so far. Amen to that. Will be finishing The Manticore today probably. Am tempted to continue right ahead with World of Wonders, but as I've got quite a few reading plans I'd like to stick to as much as possible, think I will wait to do so. Outside of all reading plans is The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Simon Mawer out from the library, which has been sitting and staring at me for a couple of months now. Will I manage to get to it before my renewals end?

I'm itching to get "The Red Handbag" finished. Lots of details to attend to still, but I always run out of steam toward the end. Still, I figure I should be able to move on to something else a week or so from now.

>84 tututhefirst: Tina, I don't think it would be fair to say I won't be reading Anne Tyler again, but let's just say I'm not in any big hurry to read more of her work.

>85 Cariola: I agree with you about the wonderful writing of Fates and Furies Deborah. I listened to the audio version and it shone through.

>86 lkernagh: Hi Peggy! I seem to have found my cruising speed with my 20 daily pages of War and Peace. I've decided I'm okay with it taking me a couple of months or more to finish which I read other things too. I won't quite skip over the battle scenes completely, but as I've been reminded this is a common practice, I won't feel badly about letting my eyes glaze over a little bit when I reach those parts. The social comedy aspects of the novel have me enthralled however.

Your sinus troubles sound like you've got your share of health nuisances to deal with. I wouldn't trade, as I'm sure you wouldn't either. Better the discomfort you know I guess, though I wouldn't mind migraines and me becoming strangers someday in near future.

>88 jnwelch: Joe, I hope you're not dodging Breathing Lessons because of my comments! We all know our reactions to books are very personal, and obviously the timing for this one wasn't great for me. I'm just a couple of hundred of pages into War and Peace, so will be living with it for a long while yet, but congrats on making so much headway!

>89 Cariola: Sorry to hear you've got that health nuisance to deal with too Deborah.

>90 DeltaQueen50: Judy, I'm really glad I took people's advice on the CAC planning thread last year and purchased The Frozen Thames after they told me the physical book itself is an object of beauty. Very true! Filled with gorgeous paintings and imagery of the frozen Thames over the centuries. Really looking forward to dipping into those short stories, and yes, The Lost Garden has been on my wishlist for quite a long time, so I'll look forward to your comments.

>93 luvamystery65: Thanks for dropping by Roberta! xx

I love, love, love the way in which you set up this thread. Like your artwork, it is very visually appealing.

All good wishes for a lovely day, one in which headaches are not part of it.

Ilana, do you sell or exhibit your art? You really have a wonderful talent!

Have a lovely weekend!

>94 Smiler69: Your comments on Breathing Lessons did influence me, Ilana, but no worries. I'm just trying to find a good "beginner" Tyler, and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant has sounded the best to me for that. If I love it, I'm sure I'll move on to others at some point.

>94 Smiler69:, >98 jnwelch: Ladder of Years was the one that really put me off Anne Tyler.

I just spent a good hour or two editing the list for David Bowie's Top 100 Books on LT, which was incomplete and inaccurate. Why? Because I'm a nerd maybe? Also because it's my way of making some small tribute to the man? Something like that. Anyway, I've been over it a few times, and I think I'm missing one. Several of the 100 can't be included here because he's also listed magazine publications. But I think one book title got away. If you can find it, good for you!

I'm off the computer for now. To finish Sacred Hunger and... do other stuff.

>98 jnwelch: Hey Joe, well... I guess I'm glad I encouraged you to not read a depressing book right now. Yay!

>99 Cariola: Yeah, well there's another one I'll be sure to avoid! Thanks Deborah! :-)

Hi Ilana, for some reason my star on your thread came unstuck, and now, finally I'm back and caught up. Love 'The Red Handbag' watercolour, all the new books especially your Folios. After you posted about Sacred Hunger by audio on my thread, I checked at the library and am now downloading it through their Borrowbox app.

I'm also reading Pratchett, The Wyrd Sisters and enjoying it. I've only read Good omens and The Colour of Magic, so am a Pratchett novice.

Hi Ilana. I checked your pintrest book illustrations...incredible. I pinned a good number of them.

>9 Smiler69: >45 Smiler69:
My book club are doing this challenge this year: http://modernmrsdarcy.com/2016-reading-challenge/

My first five books of the year have fitted neatly into the categories, so I feel chuffed. I loves these bingo style challenges as you are not hemmed in and can remain completely arbitrary in your choices and still sometimes complete a challenge!

>100 Smiler69: I love it that you took time with the Bowie list. I think it is a compulsion to have the correct information that drives you:)

Eta: I just compared my list to the LT one, and I have some differences....on mine but not on the LT one are the following books.....
The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christophe Isherwood
Halls Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art
Blast by Wyndham Lewis
The Waste Land by TS Elliot

The last one on the LT list may be a repeat? Animal Farm/1984 ...(1984 is already on there), and my list doesn't have The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothey Parker. I wonder if my list is different. It was the one going around Facebook.

>65 Smiler69: Those Folio editions look gorgeous. And I've heard good things about Jude Morgan's books although I haven't tried any yet.

>72 Smiler69: Thrilled you enjoyed Men at Arms so much :-)

So sorry to hear you've been combating so many migraines :-(

Another doozy of a migraine today, which isn't surprising since yesterday evening I was in so much pain I had to lay down in the dark for a while to calm things down a bit. I had to cancel a get-together with my elderly friend Liselotte today, who is getting used to this sort of thing since I'm constantly cancelling out of friends, but after I'd told her I was sorry to be such a bad friend she said "I'm very proud to have you as a friend", which literally brought tears to my eyes. What a lovely thing to say, and from such a lady too! Going on 97 and sharp as a tack. We should all live such a full life.

More books have come in (for a change), as I've reserved several from the David Bowie list from the library's online catalogue, which they've filled up this week with several books from said list in anticipation for the fact that many patrons would want to pick up books the artist loved.

I've acquired, borrowed and reserved the following:
♫ A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
♫ The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
ⓔ Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler
ⓔ Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima

Most of these are quite short, so I'm hoping to get to them very soon, but for "A People's History", which may wait around for a good while. Flaubert's Parrot has been on the wishlist for ages, so I'm quite keen on that one, as I am on "Mr Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder", which I hadn't heard about before, but am quite eager to discover, especially with the intriguing subtitle "Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology"

Also, not from the Bowie list:
♫ The Love Object by Edna O'Brien
ⓔ Heap House by Edward Carey - first book in the YA Iremonger Trilogy, highly recommended by NPR.

Now enjoying Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri, which I picked up on a whim, because the cast of characters as interpreted by Grover Gardner on the audio version has become quite a familiar source of pleasant chuckles.

>101 avatiakh: Kerry, I'm very pleased you were able to find the Sacred Hunger audio through your library. I didn't hesitate to spend an Audible credit on it, as I did for every one of the other four Unsworth titles they have on offer. I'm really looking forward to receiving my Folio order, especially as I'm keen to continue reading War and Peace from those sublime volumes. The watercolour "The Red Handbag" has progressed as far as finicky details go, but I must say going on 65 hours on it now I'm getting rather impatient with it and am considering putting it aside to start on something else, and completing it in a week or two to get away from it for a while.

I'm also a Terry Pratchett novice, having only listened to Small Gods, Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms so far, though all three were big hits with me. Small Gods is a really hilarious send-up on organized religion and extremism, and I highly recommend it. I've got Dodger on the listening pile, which is a YA non-Discworld book, but I'm rather keen on listening to Wyrd Sisters next, so will probably spend a credit on that one. Not that I'm lacking in TP options though, as I have over a dozen of his books on the wishlist so far!

>102 Whisper1: Hi Linda! I was rather pleased yesterday when I noticed you'd repinned some of my "Reading Love" images. Have fun pinning away, I'm all too glad to share the goods!

>103 LovingLit: I had a look at the challenge you're participating in Megan, and can see it gives you plenty of leeway while encouraging you to broaden your horizons a little, which are always great attributes in a challenge. I like the bingo challenges for exactly the reasons you mention. As with most challenges, I don't feel compelled to complete everything and tend to take them on to help me make selections from the endless reading possibilities out there (and my seemingly endless tbr!). I tend to follow the challenges more than not, but for example, didn't finish my bingo board last year, with just one category remaining, and didn't suffer over it too much. ;-)

Thanks so much for poring over the David Bowie list! I based myself on all the lists I could get my hands on. As it states on the FB list, most of the ones out there are not complete, but I did start off working from the recently reposted Telegraph list, and then went to the Open Books Toronto list (which I believe has been re-edited to include missing titles), but must admit by the time I got to it, I was rather weary from entering 50-something titles and probably wasn't paying as close attention as I should have.

In any case, I can confirm that I had indeed included The Road to Wigan Pier. I was also sure I had entered Mr Norris, but something must have happened along the way. The Portable Dorothy Parker came from the above-mentioned Open Books list. There's something wonky about that "Animal Farm/1984" edition, which is an obvious mistake, but it's clearly something gone buggy because the work page doesn't even include a mention of the David Bowie list, so not sure what that's about. Will now check on the others from your list against both Open Books and FB, which will probably result in as complete a list as we can get. Thanks so much for your input! That many more books for my wishlist, is what it all boils down to!

eta: all fixed. I had to fudge a little to include the periodicals (liked to the ones in his legacy library), and can't get that Orwell omnibus removed, but all the titles are there now.

Happy Sunday, Ilana! Hope you have been feeling good. Glad you liked Sacred Hunger so much. I will read Morality Play, although it might be next month, with my book back-up. I am going to start The Manticore today and I will finally start W & P on Tuesday.

>104 souloftherose: Yes, Men at Arms definitely made me want to pursue with Discworld. I think when the Monty Python connection came to mind I finally made a link to why I like his stuff and when best to take it on.

Can't wait to get my latest batch of Folios! But I also have the Alice in Wonderland limited edition making its way to me... had I mentioned that? Maybe not, as I'm a bit ashamed to be spending that much money (I don't have) on LE's, but what can I do? I've succumbed to the love books as beautiful objects and will be making payments for a good while, although Pierre paid for half by giving me rolled up small change he'd accumulated over several years; and now I've read and adored Gulliver's Travels, I'm obsessed with the desire to get that one in the same LE series as well...

>108 msf59: Mark, my first words in the first post I put up here today were "Another doozy of a migraine today". So... yeah. You obviously have no time at all for catching up with your many followers. But then, I'm not one to talk, since I don't spend much time visiting threads these days, but then, I do like taking time to see what's been happening when I do, so to each his/her own. I'm sure you'll love Barry Unsworth. The Manticore might not be to everyone's taste since it deals primarily with a man going through a year of analysis with a Jungian psychiatrist in Switzerland, but I found it fascinating. Both times I read it.

eta: toned down my comments, because migraine making me extra cranky today.

I am guilty of skimming some posts, but I do try to keep up. As we all know, keeping up around here can be difficult and time consuming. Sorry, I missed the comment and sorry about the "killer" migraine.

>111 msf59: It's all right Mark, I do understand. It's impossible to keep up with everyone here, no matter how much we'd like to. As I said, I'm just extra cranky today. Constant pain doesn't make people especially nice, and though I try not to let it affect my moods, sometimes it really does.

>107 Smiler69: thanks so much for seeing the Bowie list to its completion! I wasn't sure if I should add my own 'findings' in case we were working off different lists or something. So, basically, I just handed you over some extra work and then for your tbr as well (the cheek!).

Sorry to hear about the migraine. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm so grateful to not suffer from that particular torture. I can only hope that it passes swiftly for you!

I hope you're feeling a little better. I'm also lucky not to suffer from migraines.

Regarding Pratchett, my library has lots of his stuff on audio, but most I have to put a hold on as they're very popular. I put Pratchett down as one of my focus authors for the year as I know I'll like his books but never get round to them.

Unsworth - I'm a fan and have several on Mt tbr, never sure which one to pick up next. I think I'll tackle Sacred Hunger on audio sometime this year, just not this month.

The Folio of Alice in Wonderland looks beautiful, I have my mother's old copy and a Helen Oxenbury illustrated edition for children...some of the editions in this Brainpicking post look fab
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/07/07/best-illustrations-alice-in-wonderland/

Stopping by and sorry to see that the migraines just are not giving you a break. ;-(

I've felt like my brain was being bashed to death from the inside all day. Marvellous feeling, you should try it. :-|

In reading news, I've started listening to H is for Hawk and it's simply gorgeous.

>107 Smiler69: I removed the Animal Farm/1984 book from the list - was that right? If not I'll put it back.

It had been entered under the Russian Common Knowledge rather than English which was why you couldn't see it. When you're on the CK section of the work page it shows the different languages at the top and you just click each language to see what's entered there or to edit if needed.

>109 Smiler69: Ooh, that Alice in Wonderland edition looks lovely!

I think this is going to be another year when I enjoy all the commenting on the various author challenges and add books to 'the list' but rarely manage to join in. I'm enjoying all the comments on Barry Unsworth and he definitely sounds like an author I would enjoy but for some reason complex historical fiction is not calling to me right now.

>116 Smiler69: :-( I'm glad you're enjoying H is for Hawk though. I do really hope you get some relief from the migraines soon.

>109 Smiler69: OMG how beautiful is that book?? Even I wouldn't be able to resist it if it was offered to me.

>113 LovingLit: Hi Megan: no cheek; I was happy to work on that list, as some sort of tribute to the man, as I've said. I wouldn't wish my migraine condition on anyone, except maybe a few enemies here and there, and definitely all terrorists, but then that would only give them added motivation to blow themselves up!

>114 avatiakh: Not better, unfortunately. Yesterday I took some Fiorinal and it helped a lot, but I can't take it every day and thought today the skies are bright and clear and blue, my migraine has decided to stick around, the beast!

I wish our libraries had Terry Pratchett recordings, but the only one I was able to find was Dodger. None of the Discworlds, but I'll gladly spend my Audible credits on those because they're so well done.

Thanks for the link to the BrainPickings Alice post. I'd seen it before, and it had prompted me to look for Lisbeth Zwerger's version at the library. Really beautiful work. I just now found the library also has a Ralph Steadman version, and reserved it right away. I'd also love to get my hands on the John Vernon Lord edition, which is probably less likely. His work looks so fascinating, and I've of course seen examples of what he did for Finnegan's Wake (including on the BP blog). On the other hand, I'm not at all fond of the Dali version, which was re-released by Princeton University Press last year, nor of Yayoi Kusama's which is too much of a departure for my liking, besides which I don't like the illustrations for their own merit either. I've always adored the Arthur Rackham version, and may someday get my hands on one of those*. Call me a classicist.

*I see Pook Press just released one such last year. Wasn't familiar with them before. Are you? http://www.pookpress.com

>115 lkernagh: Thanks Lori. Lots of naps, that's the secret these days.

>117 souloftherose: Thanks so much for taking out that book Heather! I had no idea what could be wrong with it, but now you've given me another insight into the CK that I hadn't considered before. Only been up a couple of hours, but worn out already thanks to my head not giving me a break. I see a nap coming my way very shortly!

>118 Deern: Nathalie, I love the illustrator on that project, Charles van Sandwyck. He illustrated The Wind in the Willows, also for the Folio Society and also in a limited edition, but this was before I'd joined and I had no knowledge about it then, or I would have ruined myself to get my own numbered copy. Now they are incredibly expensive to get on the second hand market. Luckily, they put out a regular edition with the same drawings, which I own and cherish. I'm almost sure they'll do the same with the Alice, but only time will tell.

Keep on truckin', Ilana. I hope the other side of this particular migraine is not far away! I guess on those days you just have to do whatever it is that eases the pain.

>121 LovingLit: Yes Megan, I just gotta keep truckin', as you say. Today is gorgeous outside, but I spent the better part of it sleeping. Head much better now. I think exhaustion sets in from the constant pain. Again though, ever so grateful I can still manage to read and do a few things I love.

Finished The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies last night with World of Wonders. I'm so thrilled to have completed this set of books, one, because they're really good of course, but also because I started on Fifth Business back in 2009 and thought it was awesome and was determined to get through the trilogy, but then... life intervened. Now I'm ready to tackle another of his trilogies, but the great question is whether I should take on the as yet unread The Salterton trilogy, of which I have the first two books, starting with Tempest-Tost, or if I should yield to temptation and reread The Cornish Trilogy, which I read back in 1987 or 88 and made me fall in love with Davies in the first place. Decisions, decisions... in the meantime, there is no lack of other books by other writers to keep me busy.

Will be completing H is for Hawk in a short while today. Really beautiful book, and as I'm keen on animals and natural history, there's plenty there to keep me satisfied. Also really interesting partial biography of T H White, whom I now want to read more than ever before. The thread of grief the novel is built on is both incredibly touching and poetic, and also wearisome after a while, so I keep going back and forth with how the book is affecting me, but overall a wonderful reading/listening experience. Macdonald has a wonderful voice and it's rather special to hear her narrate her own story so beautifully.

I turn around once and I'm 35 posts behind. Just saying....
Hope this has been a good day for you. there is no lack of other books by other writers to keep me busy --- Ain't life grand?!?!
I do so need to start over with Davies. Maybe later in the year.

>123 LizzieD: Gosh! I guess... I'm sorry? Not that I keep this thread all that active. I know posting a review once in a while would make it more interesting. But then, you'd have more to keep track of! I'd say you should definitely give Davies another chance. If you find he still isn't for you, move on! I'm certainly looking forward to reading (and rereading) everything he's written... but then I've been a fan for almost 30 years...

>124 DianaNL: Thanks Diana, that's very sweet. Hope you're having a lovely weekend too!

***

In reading news... really REALLY enjoying Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes. It had been on my wishlist for ages and ages, and I'd delayed picking it up because I wanted to read some Flaubert beforehand. I read Madame Bovary and his most well-known short stories in recent years, but then also wanted to pick up L'Education sentimentale / Sentimental Education and Salammbô. Then David Bowie passed away, and though I had already been somewhat familiar with his Top 100 Books list, and knew this one by Barnes was on it, I suddenly felt like NOW was the time to pick it up. I'm reading an ebook edition from the online library resources, but I think I'll have to get myself a nice paper copy to keep, because I can see this is a book I'll want to return to. Fascinating biographical fiction and so creatively constructed that every new chapters comes as a complete surprise.

On audio, am enjoying my first Ellis Peters Brother Cadfael book with A Morbid Taste for Bones, with the ever-wonderful Patrick Tull narrating. I can see I'll want to listen to the whole series as narrated by him, although I obtained most of it as ebooks when they were on sale at Amazon. He just makes the text come alive so! Would love to see the TV series with Derek Jacobi too, if I can get my hands on it once I've gotten through the novels.

A third beautiful sunny day in a row. Light won't be around much longer, so I need to get out there with my little Coco asap.

Oh no! I didn't mean that I didn't like Davies! I LOVED him, and ate up quite a lot of his novels 40 or so years ago. I just haven't ever gotten back to them.
I'm happy to hear about *F's P*, which sits amid all my other wealth unread.
I was also quite a fan of Brother C. They are all written to a formula, as you will see, but since I like the formula, I read quite a number of them. And I hope that you get some of the Jacobis too.
Now I'm keeping up!

>125 Smiler69: I also really enjoyed Flaubert's Parrot. I have both Sentimental Education and The Salterton Trilogy omnibus on my tbr pile. I can't see myself reading either in the near future but if you do I might be tempted.

I'm listening to Susan Hill's Strange Meeting and I like the narrator's voice except for when he does the dialogue for the main two characters, I'm really hating those voices though am now used to it at least. I started Unsworth's The songs of kings but I'm not quite in the mood for a book about the ancient Greeks at present, so might ditch it for another of his on a different theme.

Hmm just now downloading the audio of The songs of kings, it's narrated by Andrew Sachs so should get into it a little easier this way.

>126 LizzieD: Oh but yes! I'm so forgetful! I remember now you saying things in praise of Robertson Davies on your thread and even commenting on it. Curious to know what you've read and haven't yet. Flaubert's Parrot is rather short and quite the page turner in its way. Just saying. I can well imagine that the Brother Cadfaels follow a forumla—don't all long-running series? Whatever it is, I can well imagine it working for me in this case. No obligations to keep up; I'm just happy when you do drop by and leave a sign of your passing. xx

>127 avatiakh: Well, seems you've helped me decide which of the Davies trilogies I'll tackle next, thanks! The Salterton Trilogy it is then. It's available to me on audio via OverDrive, but I have a rather set idea of what sort of voice/accent is right for RD's works, and Frederick Davidson definitely isn't it, so I will stick to the print copies I have. Tempest-Tost isn't very long, just 288 pages in my Penguin Canada copy and I'd be happy to tackle it along with you in a month or two...

I've only read/listened to The Woman in Black by Susan Hill so far, and was meaning to pick up I'm the King of the Castle for the BAC. I'm not sure I'll get to it this month though, and also not sure whether I mightn't give a listen to The Various Haunts of Men first.

>128 avatiakh: I really love listening to Andrew Sachs. He narrates The Ruby in Her Navel, which I really enjoyed. My only complaint is there aren't enough audiobooks by him. Maybe I'll join you along for The Songs of Kings which I have in the same version as you, if I can fit it in, otherwise in February.

Oh, Ilana, how wonderful that you have the entire Brother Cadfael series still ahead of you. I read them quite a while back (and, honestly, it being well before LT, I have no idea whether I actually read all of them) but I think they would work very well in audio with a good narrator. I'm not sure I've listened to Patrick Tull yet but I'll keep an eye out for him as I continue my slow foray into the audio format.

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead of you!

>129 Smiler69: I'm now really enjoying Andrew Sachs and The songs of the kings.

>130 EBT1002: I agree Ellen, really glad to have finally started on Brother Cadfael. I enjoyed the first one very much and have already obtained Books 2 and 3 from Audible, again narrated by Patrick Tull, who sounds like he's spent years rolling on the seas from shore to shore, drinking plenty of sherry or brandy or ale, or whatever there are stores a'plenty of, and has lived to a ripe old age to tell his grandchildren (us listeners) all about his grand adventures. Yes, I do quite like him actually, in case you were still wondering! ;-)

Unfortunately, he passed away in 2006, so all his recordings are rather old and we can't expect anything new to be released anytime soon either.

>131 avatiakh: Well Kerry, I decided to join you right along with The Songs of the Kings, and started listening to it this evening. I'd just finished Ágota Kristóf's The Notebook, which packs an incredible punch for such a slight volume. Will tell more about that tomorrow, but after that, wondering what to pick up next, and seeing your note a bit earlier before settling down into my new drawing, I felt some more Unsworth this month would be just the thing.

Finally getting caught up my dear. Was sorry to see Breathing Lessons flop so badly but, on the other hand some of my other favourites - the Unsworth and H is for Hawk fared much better.

You have certainly had a very prolific January so far reading wise.

Got my first bingo line! (see >9 Smiler69:). I don't look for books to fit this challenge, but just try to find a category for the books I've read. We'll see how well I do with those two (one of the boards is for female authors) over the year.

>133 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul! Nooooo... I did NOT like Breathing Lessons, and though can't remember what I wrote about it now, I hope I did convey that I thought her writing was really great, because had I not found so, I would certainly not have finished the book. But wayyyyyy too depressing for me, and much too lifelike in the description of the ugliness of North America as you drive along the roads and highways. This is the type of thing I put my imagination hard at work to, so I can blot it out of my mind in real life. Grey and commercial and "modern" cheaply constructed crap all along the roads does not make for cheery scenery. I see it all the time... do I need my literature to remind me of it also? No.

But yes, getting through a lot of good stuff reading-wise. Helps that I listed quite a few novellas for Kerry's TIOLI challenge.

>134 Smiler69: Well I just got back from a night away in Melaka which I am sure you will agree is anything but grey:

>134 Smiler69: - Ilana! Where do I find these bingo boards? What fun! I doubt I would be able to fill them all but I'm sure I could fill some of them! And how do you do the *dabbing*?

My second review so far... Considering I've read/listened to over 20 books in January, it seems I'm not doing to well with recording them... again. As I did last year, in order to encourage myself I will comment on books in any order as the reviews come to my mind and when I am not suffering overly from the migraine.

A bit of a strange experience with this nineteenth book this month, which was like a punch in the stomach. For the second time this month, I listened to novellas I'd copied from library CDs and had a rather postmodern experience; at first thinking the authors had deliberately deconstructed the stories so that chapters jumped back and forth in time, seemingly at random. It became apparent something wasn't right when a character who had just died, was suddenly introduced in the following chapter. Seems the order of tracks became mixed up when I copied them to iTunes. Thankfully, this doesn't happen a lot, but it's speaks strongly for the two authors and their novellas that I still found them both so gripping, it only made me want to read the books a second time to get the get the narrative order straight. The first book was The Last Friend by Tahar Ben Jelloun, which I'll write about soon. The second is the following. Yesterday, as I'd finished listening to the mixed up tracks, I picked up the print copy a friend had pressed on me a few years back and speed-read the story through again. Its impact had not lessened in the least on second reading.

  

Book #19: ♫&✔ Le grand cahier / The Notebook by Agota Kristof ★★★★½
Source (1): Loan from my friend Kim
Edition (1): Editions du Seuil (1995), Poche, 167 pages
Source (2): Municipal Library
Edition (2): Livraphone (2004), Unabridged MP3 CD; 3h23
Awards & Distinctions: Grand prix littéraire européen de l'ADELF (1986)
Read for: TIOLI #14: Read a novella that has been translated to English
Original publication date: 1986

A mother from an unnamed European country—probably Hungary, which is where the author comes from— brings her two small city boys, twin brothers, to their grandmother who lives in a small town. The old woman is mean, dirty and stinks because she never washes herself. She curses at and hits the boys constantly and refuses to feed them unless they do all the hard work required with the gardening and tending of the household. They sleep on a bench in the kitchen, without sheets or blankets, which their mother had provided, but which the old woman has sold at the market to make extra money along with their change of clothes. Not surprisingly, the old woman is known as "the witch" by the townsfolk because she is suspected of having poisoned her husband. We don't know the exact age of the boys, only that they should be in grade school and they still have their milk teeth. The boys are an inseparable pair, unusually clever. They never play. Instead they spend their time either doing chores or educating themselves, often at one and the same time. They train themselves to endure hunger with deliberate fasting exercises. They hit each other to learn to endure pain during another exercise and in yet another hurl verbal abuse at each other until it ceased to sting. They own a bible and a dictionary, and from this they teach themselves to write, with a daily exercise which consists of writing essays about their days. Once the essays are corrected, they are entered into a notebooks, which relates their life during the war, then once the country has been taken over by the "liberators", i.e. the USSR. The prose is deliberately spare and devoid of feeling or embellishments. The boys come off as very scary sociopaths, but also incredible survivors who will stop at nothing to endure and thrive. A fascinating read, and strangely, or maybe not so strangely, very emotional, because the reader can't help fill in those bits the boys are working so hard to cut out of their personalities: feelings of love and tenderness and empathy. Makes for compulsive reading and highly recommended. This is part of a trilogy; I've reserved the next book from the library.

>134 Smiler69: Ah, how colourful! Thanks for that splash of Eastern charm, Paul!

>135 PaulCranswick: Shelley, the first one is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/195965#5340671
The woman bingo board is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/201420#5340675

In the code provided, there are already dots included, which of course you can remove. Basically you just indicate the number of the square where you want to have a dot. If you need more help with that, just holler. Also, I'm sure the people who've organised this year's bingo boards will be happy to help if you ask on those threads.

>125 Smiler69: It's been ages since I read any Cadfael but I do remember enjoying them. Perhaps I should try that series again (because, you know, I don't have enough series on the go).

>137 Smiler69: Wow, Le Grand Cahier sounds very powerful (and I went to thumb your review but couldn't find it). I'm not sure it's one I'm up for reading at the moment but it sounds like powerful stuff.

>138 Smiler69: Was just about to put my review on the main page, glad you liked it, thanks! :-)

Hiya, Ilana! Thanks again for all the help on the audio books.

Love those Sophie Blackalls up top! :-) I just WL'd Missed Connections.

>138 Smiler69: - Wow!! That's a lot of info and fun there! I think I may just try to print out my own board and do it myself here because I think it's too techie for my little pea brain to figure out. In her initial instructions, in the very first sentence, she wrote "...then fix it so it shows the right markers". She lost me right there. I have no idea how to do that. Anyhow, I don't mind keeping track on my own (ie, not on my thread). I think it's a fun idea anyhow and probably a lot less stressful for me!

>141 jnwelch: Happy to share the wealth Joe. Helped me out too, as I hadn't realised I had access to Hoopla via my library, and seems I do, which I wouldn't have thought to check on had someone not mentioned it on your thread. Will look into it tomorrow. As if I didn't have enough listening options as it is!

>142 jessibud2: It's really very easy, and if you like I'll explain how simple the code really is, once you get over just being SCARED because "BUT IT'S HTML!!!". Really really easy. But if you really want to do it offline, of course you can do so too.

***



Will be starting on Heap House: Book One (The Iremonger Trilogy) by Edward Carey tonight, which trilogy I found out about via NPR in December. Quite excited about this YA gothic Dickensian adventure. Off to it then!

Ooo, Heap House looks intriguing! Looking forward to your comments on it.

>105 Smiler69:, Oh, no, another bad migraine....not that any migraine is "good." I'm so sorry. I know that I am prone to migraines when there are fluxuations in barometric pressure. I hope you are feeling much better.

I note that you added A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. This is a fascinating book! I'm anxious to hear what you think of it. I read it many years ago.

Hi, Ilana! I am still working my way through Book 2 of W & P. I am enjoying the book but it does have it's slow spots. Mamie mentioned, that it picks up the pace, in the 2nd half, so I am looking forward to that.

I LOVED The Manticore. He has made me an instant fan. Not only, am I looking forward to the final book but I would like to make my way through all of his work.

ETA- Oooh, Heap House sounds good...

So glad to see that you found The Deptford Trilogy a good read, Ilana! I started Fifth Business last night and made it through the first 90 pages before finally closing the book to get some sleep. I had no idea Davies wrote in such an accessible style! I should have no problems finishing it for the January CAC. ;-)

Joining Ellen in saying how wonderful it is that the Brother Cadfael series is a new series for you. They were my go-to reads when younger... I am pretty sure I re-read them all a dozen times at least. (I didn't go in for teen romances like my friends did).

>132 Smiler69: "...Patrick Tull, who sounds like he's spent years rolling on the seas from shore to shore, drinking plenty of sherry or brandy or ale, or whatever there are stores a'plenty of...."
I love that. I will seek out something narrated by him. Maybe I'll even revisit the Cadfael novels in audio format.

Anyway....., I'm stopping by before heading to work just to say that I started reading The Manticore last night and I am loving it! I am going to put World of Wonders on hold and I will not wait several months to finish out the trilogy. I don't know why I waited so long to get to this second one (well, yes I do.... I'm sure I had "too many" challenge reads that month).

So, thank you for designating the magnificent Robertson Davies as a January author in the CAC!

I hope you're having a Sweet Thursday, as Mark would say. :-)

>143 Smiler69: - Thanks, Ilana. For now, I think I will just give it a go with the copy I printed out. Too much on my plate at the moment... But thanks for pointing it out to me. Fun stuff

>144 jnwelch: Joe, so far Heap House is proving to be most entertaining and very imaginative. It's a sort of upstairs/downstairs about a family who have made their immense wealth out of the "dust heaps" of London. The main protagonist is a young man from "upstairs" called Clod, who comes to meet one of the newly recruited maids, much against the rules. One of the characteristics of the story is that each person in the family is given a "personal object" at birth, which they must carry with them at all times and which is supposed to reveal their innermost selves. Very intriguing, and I'm certainly motivated already to pursue the trilogy, although I'm only about halfway through this first book at this point.

>145 Whisper1: Linda, the migraine is under control right now, mostly because I took some Fiorinal to nip it in the bud a couple of hours ago. Thank God that at least works, because nothing else seems to. I came back this morning from a most dispiriting interview with the neurologist who is doing my botox injections. Will relate that in a bit.

As for A People's History of the United States, I'll gladly add you as a recommender. I look forward to it with some trepidation, only because it is such a massive tome; close to 35 hours on audio, though of course I will cut that back by speeding up the tracks. Still, not one I can easily fit in, so might be a little while before I get to it as I've already settled on quite a few Doorstoppers for Bill's challenge this year.

>146 msf59: Mark, I'm THRILLED that you've come to love Roberston Davies. I've had a longstanding affection for his writing, which is both imaginative, humorous, profound, and yet immensely accessible.

Have just completed book 2 of War and Peace, and what excitement in the last chapters! I meant to only read my 20 pages last night, but was so intrigued with the high drama in that section that I sat through 50+ pages as couldn't put it down till I'd gotten to the end of the episode. You shall see.

>147 lkernagh: That's a very good point you bring up about Davies' writing being accessible Lori. I let your comment influence me just above when I responded to Mark. You'd think such a great mind might have put out highbrow literature of the sort only "lofty minds" might have access to, but I think that's precisely one of the elements of his writing which hooked me in from the very beginning, some 30 years ago now, in that he makes some subjects which might seem difficult to approach (the spheres of high education, theatre, jungian theory, etc) actually FUN to read about. I'm really enjoying reading his diaries right now in A Celtic Temperament: Robertson Davies as Diarist which I got from OverDrive as an ebook and started reading a couple of nights ago. These are excerpts from his diaries dated between 1958 and 1963 and quite entertaining to read. I'm impressed with how in love he was with his wife at this point, close to 20 years into their marriage.

>148 EBT1002: I'm glad my description of Patrick Tull pulled you in Ellen, as it was meant to. That's really the most apt description of his style I can come up with, which is probably influenced by the fact that he also narrated the full Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, which takes place aboard the King's naval fleet and which I intend to get through eventually after an unsuccessful beginning, when I let all the naval terminology scare me away.

The day started out a bit oddly, but I've settled down now, and will shortly go for a much-needed nap.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Hello, Ilana! Stopping in to catch up, and what a lot there is to take note of.

I think I had the first in the Brother Cadfael out from the library last year or maybe even the year before, but the copy was not in great shape and actually kind of gross, so I returned it without reading it. I had forgotten, but now your praise of Patrick Tull has me wanting to investigate the audiobooks. I will definitely check him out!

Hooray for your first bingo - most exciting and so very quickly, too!

Your experience with the out of order iTunes tracks made me laugh because I have done that before! It's strange how far along you can get before you realize that something is most definitely not right, isn't it?! Any way, at least you had a print copy that you could turn to, and what a most excellent review you have written. I will go to thumb it as soon as I am finished here.

Heap House looks and sounds right up my alley, so I am adding that one to my list - LOVE that cover!

Really enjoyed all the Davies talk as I am reading Fifth Business and enjoying it immensely. Good to know that the rest of the trilogy holds up. My first Davies, so fun to have found a new author to explore. Your CAC has inspired my reading this month as I also read two by Kim Thúy and liked both of them.

Hoping that your weekend is full of fabulous, dear!

So glad to see all the love for Davies! I'll be starting to read the Cornish trilogy next month, when the first book arrives from Amazon.ca. (Library doesn't have it, and oddly, it's oop in the US.)

We upped the dosage of Topamax in December, which has brought my migraines under a bit better control once more. That said, I've been battling one today, so once I got my column done, I gave up for the day (except for food shopping). Alas, I can't read with a migraine. I'm glad that David convinced me to try audiobooks, as that is something I CAN do, as long as it's the right book and the narrator has the right kind of voice. Patrick Tull would certainly qualify! If I hadn't read all the Cadfael books (several times...) I'd definitely earmark them for acquisition... But I did try one of the Davies books and loathed the narrator, so, not a good idea. Frederick somebody? Still, since I don't think I was going to participate in the Feb. Canadian author challenge, I can just read Davies in Feb. instead. :-)

I think the migraine is due to a storm system heading our way, but I hope it vanishes overnight, as I have a heavy work weekend ahead of me, and this coming week sees the start of a new gig: on Mondays and Wednesdays I'll be getting up at 4:45/5 a.m. to compile a top 10 story list for Crain's New York. Gotta pick up work where I can get it... I bought coffee with the groceries, though I rarely drink it. I think I will be needing it.

Clever fellow was that Robertson Davies. Clever lady for putting him up first for CAC.

Have a lovely weekend, Ilana. xx

Started listening to A Dance with Dragons last night, which I picked up to participate in Fantasy February. I'd been hoping to put it off till the next book in the series came out, but this could take a few years more still considering George R. R. Martin doesn't seem so eager to feed the HBO series. Overcast today, but head is ok so far, which I can only be grateful about, as I woke up with migraine yesterday, which I'm almost sure was caused by the fact that the apartment next door is being renovated and they had varnished the hardwood floors, and the incredibly strong smell of the varnish was thick in the air. I thought I'd have to live with it for a few days, but today I can't detect the smell anymore; another small mercy.

>153 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie, what a lovely visit! I must say I'm awfully pleased to see the level of participation to the CAC this month. Thrilled you sought out and enjoyed both Kim Thúy books and even more so that you're loving your first Robertson Davies, as I've been a huge fan for nearly three decades now. Am enjoying reading his diaries from 1959 to 1963 at the moment which were just released at the end of the year. The book is called A Celtic Temperament, and there will definitely be more Davies this year for me with another series starting with Tempest-Tost. Much looking forward to it.

Every time this iTunes-jumble thing has happened with audiobooks, it's taken me forever to figure out what's happening because so many authors have played around with the order of narration since the modernists that it's impossible to tell something is off just because the timeline seems skewed. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has found this utterly confusing.

Heap House just keeps better as it gets stranger, and I will definitely try to get through the whole trilogy this year. Really great stuff, and I'll be happy if other LTers are inspired to pick up this wonderful story. Really quite unique and quite a page turner actually.

>154 Chatterbox: I'm thrilled to see all the Davies love too, Suzanne. Really doesn't matter when you pick him up; as with your challenge, the months are set just for convenience, but of course anyone is encouraged to pick up any of the chosen authors whenever suits best. I know I'll continue reading more Davies throughout the year, as I was just mentioning to Mamie above.

Sorry the migraines prevent you from reading. That must be a real added hardship for you. When mine reach a level 9 or 10, I can't do very much of anything at all either, but thankfully they usually stick to 6-8, which isn't fun, but at least still allows me to function more or less, and most importantly READ! Helps pass the time at least when I feel unable to do much of anything else, least of all think for myself. I'm trying to remember now whether we've tried Topamax before...

Really bad news for me as far as neurologist is concerned this week; Dr. Veilleux, the neuro who is currently doing my botox treatments, and whom I had been told would be doing my follow-up now Dr. Aubé is retired told me that he had no intention of continuing to treat me if the botox injections don't work as he has a full workload with his current patients and won't be able to do anything for me if this last-ditch effort (the bottox) doen't prove helpful. I can't quite believe we've tried EVERYTHING (ex: Topamax), but then again because of all the meds I take to keep my mood disorder under control, there are meds I can't touch because of drug interaction. There is one last resource open to me, which is something called the Pain Clinic, though as I understand it, there is a very long waiting list and they only take people on for a few months. I had been given the impression that the second botox treatment had better chances of working, but Dr. Veilleux made sure to discourage me as much as he could manage during the follow-up appointment this week by telling me the second treatment had less than 10% chances of working if the first one didn't take. Charming. In any case, getting the next round of injections at the end of Feb. Would be very nice if I was part of that less-than-ten-percent. Fingers crossed.

Frederick Davidson was a terrible, terrible choice to narrate Robertson Davies and I have no idea who ever thought it might be a good idea. I have access to the Salterton Trilogy on audio via OverDrive, but as he is the narrator, I won't touch it. My paperback copies will do nicely, so I can insert my own neutral Canadian and perhaps Scottish-inflected accent, which seems to be the only suitable one, in my mind. Davidson has this incredibly snooty delivery, as you probably noticed, and apparently was very much in demand when he was alive because he recorded an amazing number of audiobooks. He works for some things, but I generally try to avoid him—much too affected!

Changes in barometric pressure seem to be a problem for lots of migraine sufferers. Amazingly today there's a cloud cover, yet at this point only have a level 4-5 or so, which is really good. Have to stop thinking about it this minute though, because as soon as I start paying too much attention it wants to assert itself, the beast!

>155 PaulCranswick: Dearest Paul, we'll see how things progress of course, but I'm of a mind that a select few of our "Classic" Canadian authors, such as Robertson Davies, Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro might become regular features of the CAC, if ever there is demand to continue the challenge in coming years. My thinking is we have a necessarily narrower selection of authors to choose from than do our US and UK counterparts, and since those three have been very prolific, there would be plenty of material to justify their repeat inclusion. Just a thought. We'll see how things evolve of course.

Hope you're having a great weekend too Paul, I gather it's already Sunday sometime in the morning or mid-day for you. xx

eta: just checked and was surprised to find you're only 13 hours ahead of us. Had assumed it was more as I always know to calculate 16 hours difference with Sydney. Geography has never been a great strength of mine...

Making good progress on my new drawing, "Metro Series #10: Romeo and Juliet". A couple of teenagers obviously in young love. I hadn't been able to take a pic till today because it was too dark in the house, but managed it this morning. Just posted this on FB and reposting here.

 

>125 Smiler69: doesn't it just set your reading back when you have to read a book or two before reading the one that you have in mind?! Looks like I will use to read something before I read Flaubert's Parrot too!

Incredible detail in the images above, I don't know how you do it :)

Eta: >157 Smiler69: sorry to hear about the retiring of your neuro guy. Is there any hope of a new person showing up who might have a miracle cure....no...prob not. But I have found different doctors can have surprisingly divergent care plans.

>159 Smiler69: - You have such a gift, Ilana. Truly.

For many years, I went to a pain clinic here in Toronto to help with my migraines, where they did chiropractic adjustments and acupuncture on me. It helped quite a lot. I don't go there any more but my physiotherapist is also certified in acupuncture and she does that for me occasionally. It certainly doesn't replace drugs, but have you tried those alternative methods?

Happy Sunday, Ilana. Yes, I am still plugging away at W & P. I thought I would finish it before the end of the month, but no such luck. Overall, I am enjoying it but did it need to be 10, 000 pages?

Good luck with the "Romeo and Juliet". looking forward to following your progression.

So much to respond to! And where have I been? Who knows? In that winter place, I guess, even though so far it hasn't been much of a winter (it still could turn into one, I know! I'm not trying to tempt fate!).

First I'm sorry your migraine's have been so relentless of late. I hope they abate soon.

Next, those Folio books really do make me drool when I come over here.

Let me see, I think Ann Tyler needs to take a serious break from writing--her early books were very good, but now it is just formulaic and rather dreary as if she can't stop herself.

Have to check out Heap House!! The dust heaps were very much a part of that Dickens book . . . the one with the family living by the river, the father who digs things out of the Thames . . . Our Mutual Friend -- it was very intriguing, the whole concept. A dust heap is more . . . appealing as a concept than ' a mound of garbage'!

Back to add -- I got Big Magic for my daughter for xmas and she rather scoffed (without even opening the covers, I should say). I am glad you found something good in it. I rather think it might be one of those books that is all about timing. I will leave it in her room for a rainy day after I read it!

Oooh! Visitors! And lovely comments! Thanks so much for dropping by friends. I want to take the time to respond to each of you individually and have spent way too much time on the computer today already, but I will be back soon. Will also write up a review for Heap House, which I'm really excited about and about to finish today or tomorrow. Also, drawing extra long hours (almost 4 hours yesterday) because am motivated to make lots of listening time for A Dance with Dragons; some 50 hours of audio! Though at x1.25 speed, that's "only" 40-ish instead! Off to draw (and listen) for a bit now, then off to see Pierre's new developing painting at his apartment/studio (just 5 minutes from my place) and thence to the library all together with Coco to pick up the latest batch of goodies.

eta: head is feeling as good as it ever can so far today, although we have quite a bit of cloud cover. Amen to that and alleluia!

>164 Smiler69: Good news on the clear head, Ilana. I have a tired one. Drove back up from JB and have struggled because of a faulty air-conditioning unit in the bedroom and Hani wanting to watch her "real-life" ghost stories on TV, but not alone.

>156 Smiler69: I might join you with A Dance With Dragons as that's the only book I have left to read in that series too. Feel like I may have left it too long since reading A Feast for Crows and may need to remind myself of the key plot points from wikipedia.

Also glad you've had some relief from the migraine for the last couple of days.

>157 Smiler69: That doesn't sound like good news from the neurologist though. I'm quite taken aback by that. I can sort of understand if they feel there's nothing they can do but seems quite harsh to me to turn someone in severe pain away. I will keep hoping the second botox treatment has an effect or a referral to the pain clinic may help.

>159 Smiler69: Stunning as always. Looking forward to seeing the development on that one.

>159 Smiler69: So cool!

I've got Heap House on my radar, thanks.

Hey Ilana. Happy new week! :-|

I downloaded and started listening to A Morbid Taste for Bones yesterday and I'm enjoying it. It's a perfect to-and-from-work commute audio so thanks for the tip! The narration is indeed perfect.

I have placed Heap House on hold at the library.

And I read and thoroughly enjoyed The Manticore although it was perhaps less wonderful than Fifth Business. I purchased a used copy of World of Wonders and I'm thinking it will be one of my vacation books (P and I are going to Tucson for a long weekend in February and there will be reading by the pool!).

I don't know anything about the Salterton or Cornish Trilogies but I have a not-so-secret goal to read all three trilogies. I like the symmetry.

I hope you are well, my friend.

Just wanted to throw something else in here, for the Robertson Davies discussion. Yesterday at our Bookcrossing meetup, I snagged a copy of a rather old book (published in 1989, 6 years before his death) called *Conversations With Robertson Davies*. It is a collection of transcripts of conversations and interviews he had over the years with a variety of journalists and radio personalities. The print in this small paperback is smaller than my eyes would have noticed back in '89, but I hope to skim through it, sooner rather than later.

edited to add that I meant to post this in the Canadian challenge thread, so I will repost it there too.

>159 Smiler69: Gorgeous already. You are SO talented! Thanks for sharing that - I love his expression and her small hint of a smile.

I have requested Heap House from the library, and I am hoping it comes in quickly as your comments are making me want to get to it.

Agree with your comments about Frederick Davidson - I just can't listen to him. His voice and his delivery puts me off. And speaking of narrators, I might have to use a credit to pick up Brother Cadfael - you got me with that one!

Wishing you a week full of fabulous, dear!

Finished Heap House last night. My first book in February, my 25th this year, and my first five-star read in 2016. I've spent way too much time on the computer and am exhausted... put together this mont's CAC thread, so that at least is done, and will be back tomorrow to respond to lovely lovely comments and write up a review for the much-deserving Heap House. I'm thrilled to see I'm getting the word around for this book. Have reserved Foulsham, book 2 in the Iremonger trilogy from the library and can't wait to plunge into it.

>160 LovingLit: Hi Megan! I have several books in my collection on hold because I mean to read other books in preparation. I guess that's bound to happen. I make notes of it in my tags to help me keep these things in mind.

The only way I can manage to put in that level of detail in my drawings is by doing relatively short sessions of about two hours at a time at most. Some days I manage to do more than one session. I find it very meditative and it kind of brings me into a very pleasant zone, where I forget the pain of the migraines, for instance, which is a big bonus. No way could I do this kind of thing working away 8 hours straight though!

Miracle cures... who knows? Sometimes you hit on the right formula and things just seem to clear up miraculously, which is why I'm not giving up. I've tried cutting out milk from my diet for the past 10 days and so far no difference. I love milk and drink more than a normal adult ever does. Next up, I'll have to try giving up sugar for a week or two to see whether THAT has a positive effect. Though I not so secretly wish that won't be a conclusive test either, what with my prominent sweet tooth and all. :-)

>161 jessibud2: Thanks for sharing your experiences with me Shelley. I'll definitely be looking into the pain clinic if this next Botox treatment I'll be getting at the end of the month doesn't work, though of course I'm keeping fingers crossed it does... I've given acupuncture a fair chance when I visited someone highly recommended for a series of 10 treatments or more, though unfortunately this had no effect at all. I do get it once in a while when my back flares up, though that hasn't happened since my partner got me a heating blanket. I've grown really attached to it and always move it around the apartment to put is as a back rest on whatever seat I happen to use, whether at the computer or while drawing or reading in bed, and that seems to be very helpful. I guess the warmth keeps the back muscles supple. I'll find something to help my head eventually. Fingers crossed again.

>162 msf59: Mark, your comment about W&P being 10,000 pages long made me smile. I was initially going to combine the print version with audio to get through it as quickly as possible, and though I have the audiobooks, I've decided I'm enjoying this slower pace, taking in just 20 to 40 pages a day and treating it like a serial. So much happens in 20 pages since the chapters are really short and I feel like I'm giving this masterpiece due consideration and respect that way. That being said, I won't hesitate to combine audio and text again for other huge tomes and will probably listen to the audio version next time I decide to re-read W&P as I have a different translation and curious to see the difference it makes.

>163 sibylline: Talk about strange weather this winter eh? We've been walking around with Coco Pierre and I, telling each other this winter feels more like an extended Autumn than anything else. Very very strange being able to walk around hat and gloveless on the first of February, and after sundown too!

Glad you made your way over to my thread Lucy, though I perfectly understand it can take a while to make the rounds, something I need to work at too...

I remember joining a group read of Our Mutual Friend and Liz explaining the concept of dust to us at it would have been understood by Victorian society. Loved that novel! I fully intend to write a proper review for Heap House. My favourite books so far this year and I can't wait to continue with the trilogy.

>165 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul, sounds like you were in need of some rest and hope you've managed to have proper shut-eye time since you left your comment. I've been quite well these past several days, with the usual increase in pain at night. I'm not sure how it'll go in coming days with a extreme low pressure system coming in... will have to take it as it comes and have the Fiorinal at the ready!

Pierre is on his way for us to do errands and I've just received my Alice in Wonderland limited edition from Folio... so will have to take this up when I get back!

>174 Smiler69: You'll have to tell us more about the Folio limited edition Alice when you get back!

Hi, Ilana. I've been watching the new production of War and Peace. I haven't read the book (it's in a box somewhere) so I can't say how well it compares, but I'm enjoying the story, the gorgeous scenery and costumes, and some fine acting. It's a four-part BBC One mini-series showing on Lifetime, A&E, and History Channel.

Hope your migraines are letting up at least abit.

>166 souloftherose: Hi Heather, I was really pleased to see you'd listed A Dance With Dragons alongside me on the TIOLI wiki page. It took me a little while to get into it too (saw your comment about having a little trouble with this on the Fantasy thread, I believe), but was soon enough pulled in. Only now that I'm reading book 5 do I realise just how much they've played around with the story sequence in the HBO series. I was rather confused to see story elements I hadn't read about yet in the past three seasons, but somehow just assumed they'd made changes for the TV series. Not so.

I must say I knew I was going to lose someone important when Dr. Aubé would retire, but it's sinking in more and more just what an ally I've lost now he's done it for real. I'm hoping I'll be able to find someone else who is just as empathetic and hopefully also committed to helping me find a solution. Too much to ask for? I don't think so, but then of course I know that any smart person must take their healing process into their own hands. Needless to say I'm not overly keen on continuing on with Dr. Veilleux, but if the botox treatments do work next time, I won't make a point of avoiding him either.

>167 jnwelch: I'm so glad I've been able to get people interested in Heap House without having written a single line of my review yet! :-)

>168 EBT1002: I'm so glad you're loving listening to Patrick Tull, Ellen. I've downloaded the next book, One Corpse Too Many and looking forward to that one soon.

So pleased you've reserved Heap House from the library! I hope you like it. I think it's wonderfully imaginative and written very well too. But then... of course I do! Will write the review soon. Felled by bad migraine since this afternoon, so it won't be for tonight I'm afraid. Low pressure system had been in the forecast for a while, so not exactly surprised the pain has shot up. Could do without, but then I've got a good life overall, so won't complain. Too much.

>169 jessibud2: Shelley, thanks for brining up Conversations with Robertson Davies. I've reserved it from the library, though don't know if I'll be able to get to it, given all the other books on Davies I've got lined up. I currently have One Half of Robertson Davies out from the library. Not sure when I'll get to it. Seems like 2016 will be a big Robertson Davies year for me.

>170 Crazymamie: Thanks for your kind comments regarding the initial steps of my drawing Mamie. I had a really good time conveying their expressions, which I find so telling of where is young couple is at in their relationship.

Thrilled you've reserved Heaped House and keeping fingers crossed you'll adore it and try to convince everyone you know to read it too!

Frederick Davidson: I guess he has/had his public, because he certainly recorded lots of books. I can't listen to him most of the time, but there have been a couple of exceptions when his style of delivery suited the book just fine. Thinking of The Last Lion, the first part of a biography of Sir Winston Churchill by William Manchester. He also works well for John Galsworthy's Forsyte Chronicles where his tone is just pitch-perfect somehow. I've got his Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie, which I think he'll work on well too, and several Orwell books, which... we shall see when I get to them. On the whole though, I try to avoid him whenever possible as he makes me cringe if his tone isn't absolutely the one wanted, which is all too often the case. Hate to speak ill of the dead, but there you have it.

>175 jnwelch: Joe, I wrote a comment which somehow got eaten up. I was saying the Alice is a superb quality production. My only criticism of it is that while I love Charles van Sandwyck's illustrations and he has a marvellous way of representing animals and making them wonderfully expressive, his human characters always come out quite wooden, and his Alice is no exception. The paper, the printing quality and colours and level of detail are really outstanding. My copy came with a few defects though, which I will alert the Society to tomorrow morning, and I know they will offer a replacement in no time at all as they have outstanding customer service. I'll take photos and post them soon.

>176 Cariola: Deborah, I had been hoping to find the W&P BBC series via some official distributor, such as the BBC or PBS stores or via iTunes, but unfortunately it is not available. I cut off my TV and cable (other than for the internet) about a year ago now, because I hardly ever watch it and it was proving an unnecessarily high expense, but have found some links online where I can watch it all the same, and will be sure to do so soon; I'm sure Pierre will want to watch it with me too. I'm sure the production quality must be gorgeous, as the BBC usually don't pull any stops when it comes to historical fiction. Can't wait to see it!