CarolineMc is keeping track - 2016 (Part I)

Some of the philosophy, thought, spirituality shelf Don't panic..... :-)

My name is Caroline, and I am a bookoholic. I love to read, have more books than I am likely to read in a life time, but that's not the point (I know I am in good company here!).

I live in London and my book collection has doubled since the availability of buying books online, curse it! This year I am going to aim to buy most of my (few) books in those buildings called bookshops.

I remember through my youth making lists, occasionally sending them to secondhand dealers (Bell Street rings a ... er bell!), and being patient as to whether they turned up the out-of-print book I required. I remember grazing in secondhand bookshops that ran over three or four floors (Brighton, I'm looking in your direction) and blowing dust off the volumes I reached from the shelf where they had been waiting there for my hand for so long (that only happens at the London Library now aachooo...).

Friends used to say that I should own and run a secondhand bookshop, but the problem with that would be whether I'd let many volumes cross the threshold in an outward direction!

It has been a few years since I last tried to run a reading thread, and I thought it was time to have another bash. I often have things to say about what I have read, but whether I am in the mood to say it just as I finish a book is another matter!

If you are passing by this little shack you are welcome to cross the threshold...

So, here goes...

Finally I get to Trollope! I bought these volumes in Rye in 2008. Unfortunately they didn't have the final volume in the same edition, so I am having to make do until I turn it up.



Currently Reading

Georgia O'Keeffe and her Houses (Barbara Buhler Lynes and Agapita Judy Lopez)
When Breath Becomes Air (Paul Kalanithi)
The Letters of Samuel Beckett vol 1 1929-1940 ROOT
Conversations with James Baldwin ROOT

Blood and Land (J.C.H. King)
A Writer's Diary: Virginia Woolf ROOT
Wolves and Honey (Susan Brind Morrow)

The European Union: A Citizen's Guide (Chris Bickerton) (Kindle)
Negroland: a memoir (Margo Jefferson)
The Literary Churchill (Jonathan Rose)
Letters to Poseidon (Cees Nootboom)

The White Room (Edmund De Waal)
The Shepherd's Life (James Rebanks)
The Furies: A Poetry Anthology of Women Warriors (various)
Six Facets of Light (Ann Wroe)
Selected a Poetry of Anna Akhmatova
Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope ROOT

Sometimes I can have up to a dozen books on the go, but one will take me by the collar and off I go...

ROOT= read our own tomes (owned for a year or more)

Read in 2016

January

1. The Warden (Anthony Trollope)**** (novel) ROOT
2. Small Hands (Mona Arshi) **** (poetry)
3. The Beautiful Librarians (Sean O'Brien) *** (poetry)
4. Chick (Hannah Lowe) ****1/2 (poetry)
5. 40 Sonnets (Don Paterson) **** (poetry)
6. Loop of Jade (Sarah Howe) ****1/2 (poetry)
7. Waiting for the Past (Les Murray) ***1/2 (poetry)
8. The Loney (Andrew Michael Hurley) ****

February

9. The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris David McCullough ****1/2 (history)
10. Ho'oponopono (Ulrich E Duprée) ****
11. The Long Ships (Frans G Bengtsson) ***1/2
12. Gratitude (Oliver Sacks) *****
13. Candide (Voltaire) ***
14. The Noise of Time (Julian Barnes) ****
15. Mothering Sunday (Graham Swift) ****

March

16. That Old Cape Magic (Richard Russo) ***1/2. LL
17. The Butcher's Hook (Janet Ellis) ****
18. How to Measure a Cow (Margaret Forster) - her final novel, unless there is a posthumous one! ***1/2
19. On the Move (Oliver Sacks) ****1/2 (31/03/16)

April

20. For Two Thousand Years (Mihail Sebastian) (07/04/16) ****
21. 84 Charing Cross Road/The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street (Helene Hanff) (08/04/16) ***** reread. ROOT
22. Tolstoy: A Russian Life (Rosamund Bartlett) (20/04/16) **** ROOT
23. 1984 (George Orwell) - reread (27/04/16) ***** ROOT

May

24. The Whistling Season (Ivan Doig) (06/05/16) ****
25. In Gratitude (Jenny Diski) (11/05/16) ****
26. The Little Red Chairs (Edna O'Brien) (12/05/16) ****1/2
27. The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) (16/05/16) ****1/2 ROOT
28. Men Explain Things to Me (Rebecca Solnit) (18/05/16) ****
29. Life After Life (Kate Atkinson) (30/05/16) ****1/2

June

30. Quicksand (Henning Mankell) (04/06/16) ****
31. A God in Ruins (Kate Atkinson) (13/06/16) ****
32. The Invisible Woman (Helen Walmsley-Johnson) (22/06/16) ****1/2
33-35. The Levant Trilogy: The Danger Tree/The Battle Lost and Won/The Sum of Things (Olivier Manning) (29/06/16) ****1/2 ROOT

July

36. A Country Road, A Tree (Jo Baker) (04/07/16) (LL) ****1/2
37. One Fine Day (Mollie Panter-Downes) (11/07/16) ***1/2
38. A House Full of Daughters (Juliet Nicholson) (17/07/16) *****
39. Long Time no see (Hannah Lowe) (29/07/16) ****

August

40. The Man Without a Shadow (Joyce Carol Oates) (01/08/16) ****
41. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (ed Mason Currey) **** ROOT
42. The Lonely City (Olivia Laing) (Kindle) (13/08/16) ****1/2
43. Peacock and Vine (A S Byatt) (13/08/16) ****
44. Chamber Music (Doris Grumbach) (14/08/16) (LL) ***1/2
45. James Baldwin in Turkey (photographer: Sedat Pakay/ text various) (14/08/16) *****
46. Secrets of the Sea House (Elizabeth Gifford) (15/08/16) ****
47.The Dig (Cynan Jones) (17/08/16) ****
48. Serious Sweet (A. L. Kennedy) (** as a reading experience **** as a writing experience)

September

49. How to Age (Anne Karpf) (04/09/16) ***1/2
50. The Trip to the Echo Spring (Olivia Laing) (05/08/16) ****1/2
51. Another Country (James Baldwin) (19/09/16) ****1/2 ROOT
52. His Bloody Project (Graeme Macrae Burnet) (Kindle) (25/09/16) ***1/2
53. The Book of Joy (Dalai Lama/Desmond Tutu) (28/09/16) ****

October

54.

I'm not sure about themes and challenges this year, but I will posit a couple of things that I am hoping to include. My problem is I'm not even competitive with myself, so I am easily side-tracked from very interesting prospects, by other very interesting prospects!

Thinking about the American Author Challenge again:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/209611#5387547

As well as the Canadian

https://www.librarything.com/topic/209622#5387833

I may just focus on writers I have never read before.

I love poetry, and sometimes I read a lot of it, as well as writing a little myself, but often when I look back over a year I have read far less than I expect. Of course, I have dipped and hence not added to the 'read' list, but this year I'd like to make a concerted effort to read a lot more. I have two bags of relatively recent volumes by my reading chair.



Current poetry volume on the go:

Black Country Liz Berry

Poetry read this year

Small Hands Mona Arshi
The Beautiful Librarians Sean O'Brien
Chick Hannah Lowe
40 Sonnets Don Paterson
Loop of Jade Sarah Howe
Waiting for the Past Les Murray

Returning to an old love, theatre. Years ago I wrote a few plays, and one very nearly made it into production at a small venue (until rules were changed that disqualified me!). It is some while since I attempted writing a play, but I hope to this year. So I will be reading play scripts and books about theatre.



Current theatre themed reading;

The Secret Life of Plays (Steve Waters)

Last year.....

Top reads of 2015

Deep Lane (Mark Doty) (Poetry) *****

Fiction

Plainsong (Kent Haruf) ****1/2
The Illuminations (Andrew O'Hagan) *****
Vanessa and her Sister (Priya Parmar) ****1/2
Go Set a Watchman (Harper Lee) ****1/2
Dear Thief (Samantha Harvey) ****1/2
Grief is the thing with Feathers (Max Porter) ****1/2
Our Souls at Night (Kent Haruf) ****

Non-Fiction

Being Mortal (Atul Gwande) *****
After Sebald (Ali Smith/Will Self/Robert MacFarlane et al) *****
The Future of the Past (Alexander Stille) ****1/2
Conversations with Frank Gehry (Barbara Isenberg) *****
The Nearest Thing to Life (James Wood) (Memoir Essays) ****1/2
Between the World and Me (Ta-Nahisi Coates) *****
M Train (Patti Smith) ****1/2
My Life on the Road (Gloria Steinem) ****1/2
Falling Upward (Richard Rohr) *****

I've read 70 books this year, fewer than usual, but I've started counting pages this year and they amount to 15,042 pages.

The surprise of the year for me was how much I enjoyed Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, and I note most of my favourite books of the year are American, including the two menoirs by female American Icons in their fields. On the whole I have been more interested in non-fiction this year too.

Favourite books of the year, first and foremost, are books that give me that overwhelming feeling of contentment, and pleasure in the read, even those that have difficult subjects. Books that I know in some way have made me grow on some level, whether through joy or learning.

***
Reading breakdown:

32 Fiction
30 Non-Fiction
7 poetry volumes
1 play
31 female authors
39 male authors

>2 Caroline_McElwee: So lovely to be surrounded by all those books. I was particularly interested in your Trollope set, as my grandmother gave me a set of Jane Austen in the same bindings, with the exception of the background colour for the titles. I had never seen that binding before and have not seen it since, but those six little books have always had a special place in my various homes along the way. Also intrigued by your miniature chairs.

All the best in the New Year and I look forward to following you once more, now that you're back.

Nice to see you here, Caroline! I don't think I've seen your lovely rug in #4. It suits you perfectly!

I'm so glad you have a thread this year, Caroline. You read great books, and I'm sure will add to many wish lists.

>7 SassyLassy: Hi Sassy, good to see you here. Wonderful that you have a set of Austen's in the series. Like you I haven't seen them before or since. But I love pocket sized books. Lovely too that yours have been handed down through family. Mine has an old fashioned Foyles sticker in.

As for the chairs, as well as being extremely useful to readers, I find chairs so aesthetically pleasing. I bought a history of chairs a while ago, I should dig that up.

I shall be over to star your thread next.

>8 cabegley: the rug was my Christmas pressie to myself Chris (well the non-book one anyway, the book one was a volume on Samuel Palmer and his work). We can chivy each other along as required, as we are both returners this year.

>9 NanaCC: Thanks Coleen. Well, I must owe some people book bullets, there are more holes in my wallet than in a colander from the book bullets I've been struck by!

I must say I am greatly enjoying The Warden. I haven't decided yet whether I go straight on to the next volume, or read another novel in between, but I suspect the hook has been sunk and I'm done for.

Echoing that it's nice to see you here, Caro.

Thanks Rebecca. Sharpening my pencil for the book bullet wish list :-)

Books bought in 2016

The goal is no more than 53 books this year (one a week + 1, I like odd numbers). I guess even if I go over just slightly each month, it will be considerably less than I've purchased in recent years! Lets see what happens:

January (last year 41 purchases)

1. The Long Ships (Frans G Bengtsson) (novel) - double book bullet from Coleen and Rebecca (failed already Rebecca) - Internet (02/01/16) Read
2. The Invention of Nature (Andrea Wulf) (biography) - Internet (05/01/16)
3. The Loney (Andrew Michael Hurley) (debut novel) - Internet (05/01/16), Read
4. The Greater Journey (David McCullough) book bullet from Linda - Internet (06/01/16) Read
5. The Ornament of the World(Maria Rosa Menocal)
6. 'The Value of the Novel' (Peter Boxall) (Guardian Review)
7. A Girl Called Jack (Jack Monroe) cookbook - Internet (30/01/16)
8. Mr and Mrs Disraeli (Daisy Hay) - Internet (30/01/16)
9. The Long View (Elizabeth Jane Howard - Internet (30/01/16)

5 over monthly quota, not great, but could be worse!

February (last year 25 purchases)

10. Famous Works of Art-and How They Got That Way (John B. Nici) - Book Bullet Lois - (Internet (02/02/16)
11. Last Bus to Wisdom (Ivan Doig) book bullet from Linda - Internet (02/02/16)
12. The Whistling Season (Ivan Doig) - Internet 02/02/16) Read
13. The Noise of Time (Julian Barnes) Internet - (04/02/16) Read
14. Keeping an Eye Open (Julian Barnes) - Essays - Internet (04/02/16)
15. The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velazquez (Laura Cummins) - Internet (04/02/16)
16. A God in Ruins (Kate Atkinson) - Internet (06/02/16) Read
17. The Green Road (Anne Enright) - Internet (06/02/16)
18. Ho'oponopono (Ulrich E Duprée) - Internet (06/02/16) Read
19. Augustus Saint-Gaudens 1848-1907 Master of American Sculpture (Alain Daguerre Hureaux) - Internet (06/02/16)
20. Slipstream (Elizabeth Jane Howard) - internet (06/02/16)
21. The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge (David McCullough - Internet 12/02/16
22. The Versions of Us (Laura Barnett) - debut - Internet (13/02/16)
23. The Story of the Stone (Cao Xuequin) Vol 1 - Guardian Review (13/02/16) - internet
24. The Ministry of Nostalgia (Owen Hatherley) (18/02/16) - Internet
25. The House of Twenty Thousand Books (Sasha Abramsky) (18/02/16) - Internet
26. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015 (Adam Johnson ed) (19/02/16) - Internet (RR Chris mentioned)
27. Measures of Expatriation (Vahni Capildeo) -Poetry Book Club subscription (19/02/16)
28. Beckett's Friendship (André Bernold) (20/02/16) - LRB (TA16.1)
29. On the Move: A Life (Oliver Sacks) (20/02/16) - LRB (TA16.2) Read
30. Gratitude (Oliver Sacks) (20/02/16) - LRB (TA16.3) Read
31. Incarnations: India in 50 Lives (Sunil Khilnani) (21/02/16) - Internet (TA16.4)
32. Mothering Sunday (Graham Swift) (21/02/16) - Internet (TA16.5) Read
33. The Life Project: The Extraordinary Story of Our Ordinary Lives (Helen Pearson) (26/02/16) - Internet, Guardian Review (TA16.6)
34. The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley (Diana Petre) (26/02/16) - Slightly Foxed subscription
35. The Butcher's Hook (Janet Ellis) (27/02/16) (TA16.7) - Internet Read

bust the month's quota by 20, however bought 31 fewer books than this time last year, it's a start.

Not been remotely successful at buying in real bookshops. I tried to get books by Ivan Diog in a large Waterstones, unsuccessfully.

March (last year 30 purchases)

36. At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails (Sarah Bakewell) Guardian Review (TA16.8) - (02/03/16) Internet
37. Exposure (Helen Dunmore) Guardian Review (TA16.8) - (02/03/16) Internet.
38. Shanghai Girls (Lisa See) - Hornbeam reading group (02/03/16) Internet marketplace
39. Passions and Impressions (Pablo Neruda) (TA16.9) (03/03/16) - Foyles
40. Letters to Poseidon (Cees Nooteboom) (03/03/16) - Foyles
41. Hieronymus Bosch. Complete Works (Stefan Fisher) (04/03/16) - Internet
42. All the Single Ladies (Rebecca Traister) (06/03/16) -Observer - internet
43. How to Measure a Cow (Margaret Forster) - (06/03/16) Internet Read
44. A Shepherds Life (James Rebanks) (06/03/16) - internet
45. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Matthew Desmond) (14/03/16) - Guardian Review 12/03/16.- internet
46. Living in Japan (photographer: Reto Guntly; authors: Alex Kerr and Kathy Arlyn Sokol) (15/03/16) - Foyles
47. A Magna Carta for All Humanity (Francesca Klug) (19/03/16) - Guardian Review) - Internet
48. For Two Thousand Years (Mihail Sebastian) 19/03/16) - Guardian Review - Internet Read
49. 'Selected Poems: Akhmatova (23/03/16) Folio Society
50. Down and Out in Paris and London (George Orwell) (23/03/16) - Folio Society
51. The Disappearing Dictionary (David Crystal) 23/03/16 -FS gift
52. Russia and the Arts: The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky (Rosalind P. Blakesley) (25/03/16) - Exhibition- internet

(45 less than this time last year, hmmm still to many though).

I've now read 10 of this year's books, with four others on the go. So nearly a quarter.

April (last year 16)

53. Six Facets of Light (Ann Wroe) 08/04/16 - Internet - Times Review
54. Outrun (Amy Liptrot - 08/04/16 - Internet
55. Landskipping (Anna Pavord) - 08/04/16 - Internet
56. Hunters in the Snow (D M Thomas 09/04/16) - Internet
57. The Abundance (Annie Dillard) - 09/04/16) - Internet - Guardian review
...
66.Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs (Eric Ravilious)
67. This House of Sky (Ivan Doig) - (027/04/16) - Internet.

May (last year 25)

I've got lazy with this, 83 books purchased this year so far, 11 books purchased in May (@ 20 May). Last years figure to the end of May was 137, so not too bad this year in comparison!

12 paper books @ end of May.

I'm not going to list books, just keep track of numbers now:

June (45 last year)

18 books (+ 18 e-books noting but not counting these, as the reduction is needed in physical books)

July (46 last year)

6 books (to 30/07/16)
7 e-books

August (33 last year)

11 books (to 24/08/16)
9 e-books

September (25 last year)

14 books (to 30/09/16)
10 ebooks

October (39 last year)

2 book (to 03/10/16)
1 ebook

To date this year then, almost 50% less than the first half of last year. Goal for second half of this year, to be at least 75% less than second half of last year.

Last year (2015):
July = 46
Aug = 33
Sept = 25
Oct = 39
Nov = 36
Dec = 52
Second half 2015: 231 (25%= 57)

Aim for second half 2016 under 57 paper books.

TOTAL to date: 131 (300 to end September last year)

American and Canadian Author Challenges 2016

American Author Challenge

For the American challenge my goal is to at least read something by the writers I have never read (names emboldened), but I’d also like to try and read something by old favourites (names underlined)

January- Anne Tyler
February- Richard Russo That Old Cape Magic (LL)
March- Jane Smiley
April- Poetry Month
May- Ivan Doig Last Bus to Wisdom (c)
June- Annie Proulx - new novel due this year
July- John Steinbeck
August-Joyce Carol Oates - always a new novel due out!
September- John Irving
October- Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (ROOT)
November- Annie Dillard
December- Don DeLillo - new novel due this year

Canadian Author Challenge

The only writers I have read on this list are emboldened. My goal is to read at least 6 of the writers I have never read.

January: Robertson Davies, Kim Thúy
February: Helen Humphreys, Stephen Leacock
March: Farley Mowat, Anita Rau Badami
April: Margaret Atwood, Michael Crummey - Galore (MC) (LL)
May: Michel Tremblay, Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven (ESJM) (ROOT)
June: Timothy Findley, Joseph Boyden
July: LM Montgomery, Pierre Berton
August: Mordechai Richler, Gabrielle Roy
September: Miriam Toews, Dany Laferrière
October: Lawrence Hill, Jane Urquhart
November: Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Laurence
December: Alice Munro, Rawi Hage

You've got some real treats on here, Caroline. Michael Chabon, in particular, is one of my favorites.

I just checked Chris, I have one of Chabon's novels (now added above), so my introduction will be that, unless you think there is a better one, for which I will have to go to the library.

I looked at a 'books due out in 2016' list this weekend, and so know that there will at least be 15 new additions this year.

But mostly I want to read from my own shelves, and occasionally those of the library. I've simply run out of space for more books. A bigger home resides only in my fantasies.

Is the Canadian Author Challenge set up somewhere on LT or is it your personal challenge? Those are certainly "interesting" pairings! For April, may I suggest Galore?

It's quite exciting that Annie Proulx and Don DeLillo both have new novels this year. Looking forward to them.

>16 Caroline_McElwee: That's one of my favorites, Caroline.

>18 SassyLassy: Just echoing the recommendation of Galore.

>18 SassyLassy: here is the Canadian author challenge Sassy: https://www.librarything.com/topic/209622#5387833

I'd heard rumours Proulx was not going to write another novel, I'm glad she changed her mind, even if I still have some unread!

OK, Galore it shall be.

>19 cabegley: Good news on the Chabon Chris.

2016 book bullets Twanggg, OUCH

Galore (Michael Crummey) (Sassy & Chris) (LL)
The Greater Journey David McCullough (Linda) (C) - read
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the new America (George Packer) (LL) (Arubabookwoman - Deborah)
Blue Latitude (George Packer) (Chris)
A Labyrinth of Kingdoms (Steve Kemper) (Erik)
The Prophets Eternal Fjord (Kim Leane) (Guardian Review - 15/01/16)
Something Like Flying Backwards (CD Wright) (Darryl)
Famous Works of Art and How they Got that Way (John Nici) (Lois's bullet) (C)
'This is London' (Ben Judah) (Guardian Review - 23/01/16)
Last Bus to Wisdom Ivan Doig (Linda) (C) (02/02/16)
The Ten Thousand Things (Maria Dermoût) book bullet Monkey (10/02/16)

(R=read/L=library loan/LL= LondonLib has it/C= caved in and bought it)

I'll be so interested in reading what you think of the Claire Harman book on Bronte. I listened to BBC Radio's greatly abridged audio of it, but the book won't be available in the states until March. I read Lyndall Gordon's Bronte bio a few years back, but I hear that this one breaks some new ground.

Happy New Year, Caroline! I look forward to following your book exploits, and seeing you again in London when I return there later this year.

I used the Amazon gift card I received from my brother for Christmas to purchase two books, one of which was Ottolenghi: The Cookbook. After our lovely dinner at Ottolenghi Islington last June I'll start going through it this week, and try at least one recipe in it this weekend.

>22 theaelizabet: Hi Teresa - I shall let you know, I've been dragged away from it by Trollope the last few days, but will take another big bite at the weekend. I'm still very much in the earlier years to have an opinion on content at the moment, but it is an easy, interesting read.

>23 kidzdoc: Ha, you spotted me Darryl. I agree the food at Ottolenghi's was very tasty, I have his Plenty which I have used a few times. He does like lots of ingredients though, and they can't always be bought locally, so I don't always use it as much as I might.

That said, I often find I use half a dozen favourite recipes in a cookbook, and forget to explore the rest! One of my favourite books recently is Hugh's Three Good Things, yummy dishes that have only a few staples plus three main ingredients.

Yes, I'll be looking forward to seeing you (and no doubt some theatre) when you are in London next.

>5 Caroline_McElwee:

Good wishes for your play-writing, Caroline. If you don't mind talking about such projects, I'd always be interested in hearing more.

As would I.

>25 LolaWalser: >26 theaelizabet: Hi Lola and Teresa, well when I have something properly underway, I may post some thoughts about the process. It will be a while though.

1. The Warden (Anthony Trollope) - novel

I found it a little stodgy in the first couple of chapters but was soon hooked, and one eye closed, 'no, don't do that...' And snickering or cringing at the machinations. What has snagged me is the absolute vividness of the characterisations, not least the Warden himself, sawing at his imaginary violincello when under duress.

https://www.librarything.com/work/15281/reviews/36633181

>28 Caroline_McElwee:. More love for the Warden here. He was such a lovely character. I loved the entire series, and thought that book set it up beautifully.

>28 Caroline_McElwee: Well, you read that fast! I'm not loving it as much as the Palliser series, but I'm warming to it and hope to finish it today.

>29 NanaCC: I'm glad to know it sets up the series.

>29 NanaCC: >30 rebeccanyc: yes, I think I'm hooked. I started Barchester Towers last night (more than twice the length of The Warden.).

I have a sense that they are very different series Rebecca. I remember watching tv dramatisations of both in the 1980s. Always tricky when you love one, not to necessarily feel the same, easily, about the other.

Just stopping by to say hi. Love your photos - I love when people put some personal pics on CR, and especially love seeing people's 'sweet spot' reading places.

>31 Caroline_McElwee: i finished The Warden and I liked it better in the end. I'll take Barchester Towers on my vacation in 10 days. I know they are different series and I started with the Pallisers intentionally because I thought parliamentary politics was more up my alley than church politics!

>32 AlisonY: Hi Alison, nice to meet you.

Yes, I too enjoy people's photos. You are right, I'm sitting in it now and it is a 'Sweet spot'

ETA: I notice on your profile you mention a weakness for interiour design books, me too. 'World of Interious' is my guilty pleasure to which I have a subscription.

My dad was raised in Limavady (born in Scotland).

>33 rebeccanyc: Rebecca, tonight I passed Hatchards (famous London Bookshop) and they had a window dedicated to The Warden which came out top of their 200 favourite books of the past.

https://www.hatchards.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/hatchards_favourite_novel...

ETA: I've read 48.

>34 Caroline_McElwee: Counting the children's books, I've read 55. Thanks for the list.

>28 Caroline_McElwee: added link to review.

>35 rebeccanyc: that leaves us both some prospects Rebecca.

Sad to hear of the death of David Bowie, he was one of the major soundtracks to my life. I also loved The Man Who Fell to Earth and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence , extraordinary films.

I saw him once in concert, during the era of 'The Duke' in the '80s. Very talented man.

2. Small Hands (Mona Arshi) - poetry

Arshi is new to me, and this volume has some beautifully formed poems, and exquisite lines. They offer a peek behind the curtain of a different culture, addressing both positive and negative aspects. Love, death, grief.

3. The Beautiful Librarians (Sean O'Brien) - poetry

The undertow of this volume is time. The passing of, the time in which set, the acknowledgement of.

It shifts tone and a couple of times sounded Dylanesque, or was I just hearing Richard Burton reading a poem or two, like 'Mutatis mutandis' (Medieval Latin for 'the necessary changes having been made' - looked up on the internet I should add), for example.

Individual poems engaged me, including the title poem, but overall I wasn't ensnared.

>34 Caroline_McElwee: I had starred your thread but somehow it didn't work so sticking it on again. Another Norin' Iron connection - excellent!

Interested to see that we shared a few favourite reads last year. Will enjoy keeping up with your reading this year - I've a feeling you'll add a few new ones to my list.

4. Chick (Hannah Lowe)

I really enjoyed this debut collection by Hannah Lowe, a poetic memoir exploring her relationship with her miscreant Jamaican-Chinese father. In the opening series of poems her descriptions of the gambling parent put me in mind of Hammett. Dark but a little romanticised through the eyes of a young daughter. Later, through maturer eyes, there is pain and a harder edge, but still love.

Chick, is her fathers gambling nick-name and his persona shapes and colours the life that is hers.

Because both my novel and non-fiction reads are chunksters, I'm doing well with the poetry reading at the moment, as they fit nicely in my handbag for tube journeys.

>40 AlisonY: That has happened to me before Alison. I've been perusing your own reading thread, and suspect you'll be firing off a few book bullets yourself. Better get some padding for me butt.

5. 40 Sonnets (Don Paterson)

A mellow, mature volume from the bard of Dundee.

6. Loop of Jade (Sarah Howe)

Another fine debut volume which draws you into the mixed culture world of migrant children, this one duetting with Hong Kong.

There are also some exquisite poems outside the main cycle which threads through the book. I can see why this deserved its TS Eliot Prize.

The tip of the tbr bookburg!



A few of the most recent books that came into land.

I'm patting myself on the back that so far only 4 new additions have found their way through the door this month. That is really my goal for a month. It's the 17th, so there is still a way to go, but fingers x'd. I just keep reminding myself how many of the wonderful books I already own will never get read, if I keep adding too many more! Not to mention the books that I want to re-read, there are at least 3 on that list this year:

War and Peace
Middlemarch
David Copperfield

Chunksters all....

7. Waiting for the Past (Les Murray)

Poetry of the Australian rural landscape pecks from Murrays fingertips. Understanding is sometimes through the senses rather than the rational mind, word meaning; I will certainly need to reread a few of these. Many have edges and sharps, but no brittleness. Some are wry and sly, a few touch the heart.

An interesting interview with Murray from a few years ago:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/nov/22/les-murray-poet-life-profile

Nice book haul, Caroline!

One of my goals this year is to only buy or request books that I intend to read this year, and track my reading of them closely to see how close I come to accomplishing that task.

>45 Caroline_McElwee: Not that I want to tell you what to do, but please read The Long Ships. I think you'll love it. :)

>48 NanaCC: +1!

>47 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl, Like you, I am asking myself, 'do I want to read this soon?' before I buy it, as all too often the paperback has been out years before I get to it!

I worked out a few years back that if I didn't read the book the year I bought it, it could often be about twelve years before I got to it. The fact that I wanted to read it still twelve years down the line at least means I'm a good picker!

>48 NanaCC: >49 cabegley: Chris and Colleen, you two, and Rebecca put the book bullet in my butt anyway. But I'm looking at it for an early February read.

>50 Caroline_McElwee: I say read it first. I say that to everybody.

>51 SassyLassy: :-) there is a slim chance it might get started at the end of next week.

8. The Loney (Andrew Michael Hurley)

Interesting characters, a tint of darkness, a sense of place, but I wouldn't describe this as a gothic novel, as many reviews have.

I also think there are a few unresolved aspects, but an impressive debut novel.

(May elaborate on this when I have more time).

I'm not getting as much reading time as I'd like at the moment harrumph.

I'm half through The Greater Journey but haven't had time to pick it up for over a week, it's too big to tote around for reading time in transit. I'm now toting Ishiguro's Nocturnes, for Friday's reading group.

How are you liking The Greater Journey? It was one of my first audiobooks. I was ready to give up on it early, but then slowly became more and more attached to it. Maybe the beginning just lowered my expectations.

Hi Daniel, it snagged me from the go-get, maybe because I love Paris, and have read a lot about the later Americans in Paris, so was fascinated to read about their predecessors, many of whom I had not heard of.

It's also made me interested to learn about Lafeyette.

I'm hoping to take a big bite out of the book over the weekend, as well as to start on The Long Ships (I can hear the clapping, you know who you are!)

9. The Greatest Journey: Americans in Paris (David McCullough)

There is so much that could be said about this book, already said by others. Most of us are familiar with the American’s in Paris of the 20th century: Hemingway, Baldwin, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein et al, so it was interesting to learn about their predecessors.

The book is expansive, but focused mainly on the creative visitors (painters especially) and the medical students who lived in or visited Paris in the 1800s. There are far too many to name them all, many of whom I had not heard of, which was wonderful, as I met new friends, including George P A Healy, Elizabeth Blackwell, Samuel F B Morse (artist and inventor of the code) and Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his wife Gussie, Mary Cassat (who I did know of), as I knew of John Singer Sargent (an admirer of his work since a young person). I also became curious about Lafayette, as he was so dearly loved and admired by many of these visitors. There are friendships between Americans, and friendships between Americans and their hosts.

I knew less of the medical students and schools in Paris, which was also fascinating to learn about.

McCullough really captured the passion for the city. As someone who made their first visit as a seventeen year old, and have repeatedly returned for holidays, the book allowed me the fantasy of living there for a while, through the eyes of earlier travellers. I will have the whispers of more predecessors when I next walk the streets, and areas of Paris I have not visited so far to add to my list.

This history told me things both about the French and the Americans. I liked McCullough’s tone and his fascination with his subject.

We have a copy of Saint-Gauden’s Lincoln standing in Parliament Square. I go past it on the bus regularly and have often wondered who it was by!

I am already reading a short book about Lafayette, and a book on Saint-Gauden’s and his work is likely soon to fall just fell into my shopping basket!

>57 Caroline_McElwee: David McCullough's books are very readable. I've enjoyed the ones I've read. Nice review.

Nice review of The Greatest Journey, Caroline. I've added it to my wish list.

Enjoyed your review of The Greatest Journey

>57 Caroline_McElwee: I liked your review of The Greatest Journey, Caroline. I've been eyeing this one for a while.

>57 Caroline_McElwee: Nice review of The Greater Journey. I hadn't heard about this book but it's likely to end up in my wishlist. I think French historians tend to view Lafayette with contempt. His behavior during the revolution was not very admirable.

Thanks Coleen, Darryl, Barry, Chris and Florence.

>62 FlorenceArt: I know little about Lafeyette Florence, but he seems to have played a big part in the American Civil war, in The Greater Journey he is discussed more on a personal level, the kind of man he was. Very loyal, very intelligent to the Americans at least. I shall learn more. And, OK, being rather shallow, the portrait in the book made me think of a slightly older, more solid, poor mans Javier Bardem ... Ha, not that I choose sides based on looks you understand :-)

ETA: I've just looked at other portraits, could be a different man, that will teach me to be shallow!

Great review, and interesting to read about The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.

Thanks Edwin, good to see you about.

>57 Caroline_McElwee: enjoyed your review of The Greater Journey. It's one of my favorite audio books, partially because it was so much better than I expected, partially because I love these sort of off-center histories - a history of the US and France through Americans in Paris. I especially loved the section on the American medical students. But so many previously obscure figures really come alive.

10. Ho’oponopono (Ulrich E Duprée)

This is a concise overview of the Hawaiian Forgiveness ritual, Ho’oponopono. The core belief is that everything in the universe is intimately interconnected, and everything therefore affects everything else, whether knowingly or unknowingly. So by taking responsibility for participating in that change, good and bad, progress improves, obstacles are removed. The mantra ’I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I Love You, Thank You. works both as a distraction from stress and anxiety in an individual, and can change the environment around one, and the universe in general.

My sister brought this mantra to my attention, and I use it most days when I want to keep my mind unblocked from distracting, sometimes negative niggles, or in environments I don’t find particularly sympathetic – it’s great on the tube in the rush hour. But also in calm environments like a garden, it leads you to a kind of meditatory state.

>66 dchaikin: I totally agree Daniel. I shall certainly be adding more of McCullough's histories to my library down the line. I'm eyeing the one on Brooklyn Bridge, as I saw an interesting documentary about the building of it a few years ago.

>67 Caroline_McElwee: The Great Bridge is fantastic! Among many other things, it was during the building of the Brooklyn Bridge that "the bends" was discovered. Truly a fascinating engineering feat and the organization required is overwhelming.

Thanks Eliz, that might just nudged the book into my shopping basket a bit quicker. Yes, I did know that about the bends. An amazing construction.

Goodness, Caroline, I'm just making my first visit to your thread this year! I love your reading chair and the gorgeous rug beneath. Everyone should have such a dedicated spot. I'm glad you enjoyed The Greater Journey. I listened to it on audio, as you know, and I think I liked it that way better than in print. I would rarely say that, but the reader was Edward Hermann, and he was so wonderful. I'm listening to another of his narrations now, The Boys in the Boat.

Yes I owe The Greater Journey book bullet to you Linda. A lovely voice makes all the difference to an audio book. Because I don't drive, I rarely listen to them, but I have some on my iPad just in case.

>67 Caroline_McElwee: loving that mantra. I need to write that down somewhere, as I totally agree when you're busy with life and work it can be easy to get sucked into a negative mind frame.

>72 AlisonY: it does become habitual after a while Alison, just quietly running in the head. It's very calming.

McCullough seems to be consistently pretty good. I use him for audio because his books are very interesting but also very clean and easy to follow. But I wouldn't mind having to actually read one (i have listened to three)

>67 Caroline_McElwee: there is some irony in that Ho’oponopono comes from an island chain unknown to the rest of the world before Cook's discovery. But it's a nice notion.

Oops I'm behind on my reviews. Will set too in the next day or so.

>74 dchaikin: I like a bit of irony Daniel!

11. The Long Ships (Frans G Bengtsson)
A rousing Viking Saga following the life of Red Orm as he goes a-viking, travelling, revelling and becoming a chieftain. Along the way he meets many fascinating characters, good, bad and indifferent. The style is of the oral tradition, where people on the journey tell their tales to those gathered around.

Although I enjoyed this book a lot, I did find that it benefitted from being consumed in large bites. I was engaged when I was in it, but it didn’t always drag me back. For me it wasn’t an ‘every spare moment’ book.

12. Gratitude (Oliver Sacks)

Four short, late essays by this great and great-hearted polymath. ‘Mercury’, ‘My Own Life’, ‘My Periodic Table’, and ‘Sabbath’. Each moved me in a different way. ‘Sabbath’ reminded me of the fact that once upon a time, there was one day of the week (whether you are religious or not) that was so different from the rest of the week. Many people groaned at the ‘boring’ day, but I remember always loving it. Reading Sack’s tribute to a dying/dead aspect of our lives, made me want to create a Sabbath-like day, even just once a month, where you don’t do the usual round of activities and jobs, where you prepare ahead for a day dedicated to other things, like reading, thought, meditation, music, meeting with friends and family, where nothing should be work or duty, and that does have some ritual element to it, some brief moment to open and close the day perhaps.

It also reminded me of an old family friend in the north of England (at the time I am writing about) who during WWII delivered milk as one of her jobs, and on the Sabbath, she would go into the rabbi and set his fire. She wasn’t Jewish, it was just something she did. She also worked in a munitions factory, and her hands were forever after yellow, from the chemicals she had handled.

Sack’s autobiography is the next non-fiction on my reading list. He is certainly one person I wish I had had the opportunity of meeting.

13. Candide (Voltaire)

Well I surprised myself in that for some reason I had thought this book was a play, it isn’t. Another journeying story, with stories told and retold along the way (obviously a precursor to ‘The Long Ships’, but perhaps reading it so close to the other, I had run out of steam a bit with the style). As well as a romp, it is an exploration of some of the philosophical ideas at the time, though well subdued beneath the rape and pillage that ensue. I don’t think there was one female character who hadn’t been repeatedly raped. I didn’t find this a book I enjoyed, though I had expected to. Read for my local book group, which I was then too tired to attend!

14. The Noise of Time (Julian Barnes)

Barnes’s fictional exploration of the life of Shostakovich, and the trials and tribulations of a creative person at the mercy of an oppressive regime, whose work is praised, then scorned, who becomes an enemy of the people, then a puppet to the regime, forced to spout speeches about beliefs he doesn’t hold. Barnes manages to successfully take you to the claustrophobic and surreal place that you might suspect it to have been, in this fine short novel.

15. Mothering Sunday (Graham Swift)
Described as ‘A Romance’ Swift’s short novel is tight and evocative of an era. On a Mothering Sunday the maids and cooks are generally given the day off and the household make arrangements to be elsewhere so as not to be inconvenienced. We are in the 1920s. Jane’s employers are going to a pre-wedding celebration with the families of the bride and groom, whilst Jane is surprised by a call that changes her day, and her life, forever.

I'm just finding your thread now, Caro! At least now I can keep an eye on you!

I loved The Long Ships -- in fact, it seems like it might be time for a reread.

>76 Caroline_McElwee: Yes Sundays as they were 50 years ago have largely disappeared for many of us now

>77 avaland: lovely you stopped by Lois.

>78 rebeccanyc: Rebecca, you, Chris and Collen were responsible for me reading it. I love it when you get that urge to reread something. I have a couple of potential rereads winking at me.

>79 baswood: Hi Barry, living n London where every town has shops open on Sunday's, it's hard to recreate that feeling. Rural areas may be different, and certainly other countries visited have retained some element of that quality.

I'm reading and really enjoying Oliver Sacks's On the Move.

16. That Old Cape Magic (Richard Russo)

Well I had to get to the end of the novel to decide whether I liked it or not. Another of those novels that, when in my hands it absorbed me, but it didn't draw me back. However, ultimately I enjoyed it. I think Russo draws these characters well and despite the quiet tone of the domestic, he does engage you in lives of people that perhaps otherwise, and seen in passing, you may have had no interest in. They are both familiar, and unfamiliar. He finds something to show, that you might have missed.

It may be a while, but I'll certainly pick up another of his novels down the line. Maybe Empire Falls.

>16 Caroline_McElwee: Sometimes I really enjoy those "sleepers" and sometimes they just don't work for me. I wonder if it's as much about my mood at the moment as it is the author's skill. I haven't read this particular Russo, but I enjoyed Empire Falls very much, and Mohawk was a good read for a first novel.

I enjoyed Empire Falls too; haven't read any more Russo.

>83 laytonwoman3rd: 'Sleepers' is a good discription Linda. I read the last thirty pages in bed this morning and concluded it a satisfying read ultimately. I agree mood probably has a lot to do with it too.

>84 rebeccanyc: so it looks like it will definitely be Empire Falls down the line than.

Glad to hear that Empire Falls seems to get a general thumbs up as it's been lurking on my wish list for a while now but I noticed that lots of Russo's other novels have been getting panned here recently.

17. The Butcher's Hook (Janet Ellis)

This is a very accomplished debut novel by the children's presenter/tv personality Janet Ellis. Set in lower middle class to underclass Georgian England, a romance that gets very dark.

It begs one or two questions about the arc of the main character, and the speed at which it changes, but I still found it a page turner, wanting to know what happened next, and I've a suspicion that some of the characters could find themselves in another novel.

>86 AlisonY: I know Alison. And I think I can understand why, if not articulate it.

>88 Caroline_McElwee: by 'getting panned here' I meant on CR generally, not just your thread!

18. How to Measure a Cow (Margaret Forster)

An interesting exploration of what it would be like to be required to change your identity.

After a period in prison, Tara moves to Cumbria and attempts to become Sarah, a quiet mousy woman who she wants to disappear into the background, and become unknown, but part of creating a personality entails interaction with others, and it is not as easy to leave her past behind as simply moving away.

A carefully wrought novel for Forster's last.

Catching up. Enjoyed all your reviews. I was really interested in your comments on Gratitude. I was on a waiting list at my library for the audio version and it just came available.

19. On the Move (Oliver Sacks)

This is one of those memoirs you want never to come to the end of. It is fit to bursting with the lively personality of its author, his life, his inquisitiveness and curiosity. It is also packed chock full of science, neurology especially, but the other sciences too. And people, lots of extraordinary people, both patients and peers. A wonderful cochophony of voices, minds, lives, experiences. All life and brilliance and potential is here.

We share so many favourite subjects and places, and seeing the photo of him not that long ago, in my treasured De Hortis in Amsterdam, and at Darwin's Downe House just tweeked my heart a bit.

This book will certainly be reread in full, but it is certainly dipable too, and will take up residence on the bedside table.

However, I did think there was something stylistically out of kilter with the first 20-30 pages (which is why it doesn't get a rare first read five *'s), but then it settles into Oliver's natural storytelling mode and doesn't stop.

Read this book, you will love it. I don't make such commands often.

>91 dchaikin: Daniel, I'm sure you'd love the memoir as well.

Did you enjoy Gratitude?

>92 Caroline_McElwee: High praise, indeed!

I did enjoy Gratitude. And I was happy to read your review of On the Move. Noting.

>94 NanaCC: >95 dchaikin: you certainly have a treat in store Coleen and Daniel.

Sorry, there's not been much activity here abouts, I've not had a lot of reading time, and have several books on the go. Though I have been keeping track of my book buying sins here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/211101#5403594

>96 Caroline_McElwee: I work that out to about only 46% of last year's purchases to March 31st, so congratulate yourself and go out and buy another!

I give myself a free pass for gift books, so that would make your percentage even better.

Have been looking forward to reading On the Move for a while now. You've just pushed it up the list...

>92 Caroline_McElwee: Aye, aye, Commander! It sounds like just my kind of thing.

ETA: Apparently April Fool's Day is not over here on LT....I just tried to add this title to my wishlist collection from the book page, and it gave me Liberation Lite instead. I know the touchstones have been wonky lately...I assume this is part of the ongoing problem. I was able to add it to my Amazon wishlist, though, so I won't lose track of it.

They have been having problems lately Linda, it comes up with the most bizarre possibilities at the top lately, I've noticed. I kept getting something like 'Water for Elephants' (can't remember the exact title). I appreciate elephants might require some water whilst On the Move, but I didn't realise touch stones were becoming so cryptic!

One of the beautiful wooden finial sculptures at 2 Temple Place, London

I love to visit the annual exhibition here.

http://www.twotempleplace.org/

ETA: a little tv snippet, Downton Abbey's Rose's wedding was filmed at 2 Temple Place.

Interesting! My good lady wife is reading and enjoying this at the moment

Sorry - this was a reply to #92, about On the Move by Oliver Sacks

Hi Rob, glad she is enjoying it. I've read a number of his books over the years, and see so many interesting things in them. I think 'The Man Who Thought his Wife was a Hat' was the first I read. Then I saw the film Awakenings.

Table flowers at Chelsea Physic Garden

20. For Two Thousand Years (Mihail Sebastian)
An extraordinary novel, only recently translated into English. Written in the form of a journal, short, tight, evocative prose. A young man records his daily life and explores anti-Semitism, and other big issues. A rare exploration of anti-Semitism in the round, and I believe the writer, who was Jewish himself, was accused of anti-Semitism for it. The novel follows the lives of the narrator’s friends, and he draws them with vigour, igniting their various views and personalities. It is also very fine on place. Certainly a book to be reread, to imbibe all its nuances, and ideas.

21. 84 Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street (Helene Hanff)
I needed a trusted voice, so this was an indulgent re-read of books I love. Need I say more!

Currently reading Rosamund Bartlett’s biography Tolstoy: A Russian Life.

Enjoy Chelsea! I always meant to go when I was living in Essex but never quite managed to get there.

Looking forward to hearing about the Tolstoy biography. I read a short piece about him in Married to Genius some years back which was very interesting. I think all these creative geniuses made for terrible spouses!

I think you are right Alison. I've only just got to their marriage. Sonia was almost half his age, and chosen as much for his ability to mould and form her. From other things I've read over the years, they had periods of happiness,and periods of friction, but as his help-mate and mother of his children she was often happy, but the level of compromise on her part was certainly necessary for the relationship to function. And sadly things fell apart at the end of his life.

Chelsea Phys is neat and preparing for Spring. I'm a member, so try and go as regularly as possible. This was my first visit of the year

22. Tolstoy: A Russian Life (Rosamund Bartlett)

A readable and detailed exploration of the life of a very complicated and often contradictory literary genius.

The reality is, this great literary giant was somewhat curmudgeonly and humourless. That said, he drew people to him and tended to leave them impressed and in awe of his gifts as historian, novelist and for some, philosopher.

The book gives a powerful sense of what it was like to be Tolstoy in the era and place that he lived. Bartlett makes no attempt to justify some of her subjects behaviours, especially to his wife and family, which left much to be desired in many respects. What I don’t doubt though, is how much he loved Sonja, even when his behaviour towards her was less than it should have been.

Sonja is drawn equally clearly, and ultimately, aside from at the end of his life when she was excluded from his side until he lost consciousness, was a great help-meet to him. I can imagine few other women capable of both being his ‘secretary’ and being responsible for raising the large family he imposed on her (there was a time in which it would have been better for her not to have another child, but Tolstoy didn’t believe in limiting the size of family, despite health issues!).

There is much information about the inspiration for the characters and storylines of Tolstoy’s great novels, as well as the many tracts and philosophical writings of his latter life. Ultimately, Tolstoy was against any kind of State or Government, which the majority of people now would acknowledge is an impractical stand-point. His Christianity was stripped of any kind of ‘church’ element, ritual or paternalism. There is much in his beliefs that many would find attractive, but like any extreme point of view, it was flawed.

An interesting read for anyone wanting a more rounded picture of Tolstoy and his time.

>107 Caroline_McElwee: This is a book I have been circling in the stores, hoping someone would comment on it. You have convinced me to pick it up.

Sassy, I found it quite a page turner on the whole. It sticks in a couple of places where it gets bogged down a bit, and a few repetitions in the first third, but on the whole a satisfying read.

I'm now rereading Orwell's 1984 for Friday's book group. I realise I haven't read him since the 1980s! What great writing though. Sadly, the novel is as relevant today as it has ever been.

Great review of the Tolstoy biography. Sounds fascinating.

Nice review of Tolstoy: A Russian Life, Caroline.

Thanks Alison and Darryl.

23. 1984 (George Orwell) reread for book group.

I first read this and several other of Orwell's books in my twenties. It really is an outstanding novel, as relevant today as it was when it was written, and at several other times in the recent past.

The stark life of party members, the not unhappy proles who are the unresistant majority, and the inner party.

The re-writing of history, or even unhistory. Do the alleged wars even exist? Is the party lobbing the odd bomb into the city to suggest it does, when it doesn't. if it does exist, who and where are the military?

The squeezing of language down til the pips squeek, where if words don't exist to describe something, the thing itself can't exist. Our book group enjoyed interesting debate about whether a word can be totally obliterated, the consensus being not in a single or even two generations. And possibly harder if due to intentional suppression rather than just going out of fashion. Suppression would probably lead to some underground resistance.

The novel itself has added to our own language: 'Big Brother is watching you' 'room 101', the thought police.

Was Orwell's book-within-a-book inspired by Tolstoy's war disquisition in War and Peace?

My Polish friend was reading 1984 for the first time and Orwell's prescience made her breathless, how did he know? she asked. She had lived in a version of this world (she is in her late 60's).

Winston Smith resists, but doesn't have a chance.

I'm definitely planning to read some more Orwell in the near future.

If it's available, I'd recommend the 1984 screen version of the book starring John Hurt, and Richard Burton (his last performance before his death).

>113 Caroline_McElwee: Great review! Even though Orwell was recognized as a great writer in his own time, I believe he is even more appreciated as the years go by. I can't give you a favourite book, I love them all, but I particularly enjoy his diaries that note the smallest events as well as the major ones: the date of a certain plant emerging in spring, how best to plant peas, to the details of how WWII affected Londoners.

>113 Caroline_McElwee: I loved 1984. I intend to read everything I can by Orwell, but so far it's only been 1984 and Animal Farm. His writing style is so clear and easy to read and I'm looking forward to reading more. I just can't decide which to read next.

Thanks Vivienne and ValkyD. I hadn't thought of the letters, hmmm. I have both a volume of essays, and Down and Out in Paris and London on deck to read soon, the latter being a reread.

I read both 1984 and Animal Farm decades ago. There are references to 1984 in the book I'm reading now, My Happy Days in Hell.

>113 Caroline_McElwee: That is an excellent review of 1984, which I have to admit is a book I've vocally hated for 50 years. I think it's because I was required to read it at a time when it simply scared the bejesus out of me, when I thought this was a true picture of what our world could be like when I had to cope with it as a "grown-up" in ten years or so. It went with air raid drills and other such terrors of my late teens. Perhaps as a more mature and stable individual I should revisit it one of these days. Perhaps.

Nice to see you peeping in Rebecca and Linda.

>118 laytonwoman3rd: Linda, I guess the US had a much stronger resistance to anything Communist/Socialist at the time you were growing up too. I'm sure you'd find a reread very interesting, and I'd love to hear your thoughts if you get to it.

Nice review of 1984, Caroline. I hope to get to it later this year.

Did you see the theatrical rendition at the Almeida Theatre a year or two ago? It was brilliant, and chilling. I saw that it will be coming back to London this summer.

Yes Darryl, someone told me about it returning to London, so I'll try and see it this time, good to know it passed muster with you.

Oh, Caro, I have finally caught up on your reading. I like your short reviews. I think I may have to let myself be inspired by these if I am to ever catch up with my reviews.

I'm intrigued with your friend's response to 1984. But then, how did Margaret Atwood, in her dystopia warning against the dangers of conservatism, predict our current political climate ;-) I am fond of dystopias, as you probably know, but haven't felt the urge to reread Orwell or Huxley.

Thanks Lois, good to see you about. I'm not often in the mood to write reviews immediately, but leaving it too long to digest means I forget bits, so trying to catch the essence in a short piece works for me, and can be enough of a reminder to bring more back, and maybe whet people's whistles, so to speak.

I've got Brave New World in the pile. As someone at book group pointed out, they are often perceived as a pair, but in reality, BNW evolved out of a more optimistic time. I tend to pair 1984 more with Bradbury's Farenheit 451 where language and literature are perceived as a danger.

I really must also do a reread of The Handmaid's Tale which also came up in the group discussion.

Talking of Bradbury, I have The Martian Chronicles near the top of the pile, a delicious first time read ahead.

24. The Whistling Season (Ivan Doig)

A wonderful paean to the single room school. Strong characterisation. A quality of the pastoral. I'm looking forward to the next book in the trilogy.

25. In Gratitude (Jenny Diski)

As sharp and edgy in her final memoir as one would hope. Not a comfort or comfortable read. Juxtaposing a recording of her terminal diagnosis, with an exploration of her complicated relationship with Doris Lessing, who gave her a home aged 14 (Lessing was 44) and was a constant although often contradictory presence throughout her life.

I sometimes got the feeling that in some way Diski didn't want the reader to like her, or perhaps she didn't trust that they would, just as she always asked herself what would happen to her if Doris realised she didn't like her 'adopted daughter'.

Ultimately you know you do like her, despite her or yourself. She didn't have an easy start, she didn't sandpaper down her edges later. Her novels challenged all sorts of ideas and were thought-provoking. Her memoirs have an honesty about the flawed state of being human.

26. The Little Red Chairs (Edna O'Brien)

As ever O'Brien takes us into the darker corners of life, and with her we are in safe hands. A foreign stranger arrives in a small Irish town and as suspicion is overcome he embeds himself into the community. It is not too long, however, before he is exposed as someone who is not what he seems.

O'Brien makes no secret at the outset that the novel (among other things) explores the horrors of Balkan history of the 90's and beyond.

How do people live with their actions? How can those responsible for vile acts submerge themselves so fully? How do victims find their resilience and go on? None of these questions are answered in the novel, but it might lead you to pose them, among many others.

The undertow for me was about belonging, about home, and in this novel Edna O'Brien suggests that home is as much, if not more, in the people than in the place. Her characters find solace in each other, even those whose actions have been and will again be reviled.

She also offers us the grace of human kindness as a counterweight to the pain.

I'm sure other thoughts will percolate up in time. Edna's great skill is in the layers she sets down. Her writing appears effortless, but has the depth of the Irish lough beneath.

>113 Caroline_McElwee: Let's hope that someday people will read 1984 with honest confusion over how anyone could imagine such a story.

Here's hoping Michael.

Thanks for reminding me about In Gratitude, Jenny Diski, which will be a must read for me.

>123 Caroline_McElwee: Yes, I know what you mean about waiting too long to write a review.

>125 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks for your thoughts on the O'Brien. I thought her structure was interesting in that the first part of the book is about the loss of innocence of a community but then the second part focuses on one woman's journey. And her use of dreams is also interesting.

I do pick up the "undertow" as you call it, of home and community, but I also pick up a echo in the interestingly named "Fidelma's" journey... self /home.

I think the book could be an excellent book club book for the right book club. (apologies that my links didn't work, my program put the wrong quotation marks in, and I missed a few)

For me the only bit of the book I'd tweak Lois, is Fifi. She appears at the beginning and gives the stranger a home, and then aside from a few passing comments is deserted. I kept expecting something from that.

I agree it could be a good book club read, and may throw it onto the suggestions list for our group, when we choose the next lot of books in July.

I thought JCOs review exquisitely literary, she has an amazing breadth of knowledge. She's extremely erudite.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/books/review/the-little-red-chairs-by-edna-obr...

>128 baswood: I thought it was a fitting finale Barry. It also makes me want to revisit earlier works.

>130 Caroline_McElwee: That's true about Fifi. And the nun that got the massage is surely another book in itself :-) There really is so much to talk about in that book...

Also very true of JCO. Her knowledge is breath taking at times, but then we are both "fans." I did wonder if she has been a longtime reader of O'Brien (O'Brien is 8 years old than JCO)

27. The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)

A wonderful collection of linked stories, although generally described as Bradbury’s first novel, full of wit and metaphor, about the trials and tribulations of Americans moving to Mars, and their interactions with Martians, when they meet them. The cusp of what was to become Farenheit 451 published four years later is certainly found here with banned and burned books, and attack dogs. However, mostly this volume is about failed expectations, about dream and memory, about projection and loss, and maybe about the grass being greener, and home.

You know, I just asked myself for the first time why I never read Bradbury. I think that when I got interested in scifi, I saw it as my own private domain, a modest form of teenage rebellion, and unconsciously I rejected him as an author recommended by my mother (although I frequently read and enjoyed books she recommended, and still do, but she never read scifi. In fact she probably recommended Bradbury without having read him.) Anyway, I just added The Martian Chronicles to my wishlist.

It's a fine book Florence, though Farenheit 451 is my favourite of his, of those I've read.

I once told someone who asked what books to avoid if they were buying for me 'I don't do science fiction', then looked at some of my favourite books that included books by Bradbury, Dick, Atwood, and realised I just don't genre'ise them!

28. Men Explain Things to Me (Rebecca Solnit)

A collection of Solnit's often eye watering feminist essays. The title essay was inspired by an incident where a man she met insisted on telling her about a book (it turns out he had only read the review for, but claimed to have read) that she herself had written, but it took him some long time to hear her telling him so. And how some men persist in perceiving themselves as the sole bearers of wisdom, even when they don't have it.

Other essays look at the rape and abuse statistics in the US and other countries. And how societies are still not taking these behaviours seriously, or putting enough focus in how to avoid raising male children to become such abusers. She is careful not only to give examples of those from deprived backgrounds, but also the wealthy and famous (Strauss-Kahn for example).

It is sad to say that if you watch the evening news most nights, the things that have gone wrong in the world are likely to have done so at the hand of the male of the species 90+% of the time*. How can we wind that figure down? I presume it evolves out of the fact that the power resides, and has done so in most cultures for so long, in the hands of men, who have permitted no constraint on their actions.

This is far from saying Solnit (or most feminists) are anti-men, she is not, and acknowledges that many men are feminists too. However, it still leaves the concern that change is painfully slow.

What she also acknowledges is how the actions towards change - wherever it is needed - can often have delayed reverberations, and impact in areas that are unexpected, she cites, among other things, women's striving for equity in marriage (via feminism) years down the line benefitting the gay and lesbian community in its desire for equity with heterosexual couples for the right to marry. Adding that same sex couples can offer an example back as their marriages are less likely to have inequities within them.

I also enjoyed Solnit's essay on Virginia Woolf included in this collection.

This may be a slim volume, but it packs a punch and poses many questions.

*It should also be acknowledged that the male of the species is/was responsible for a lot of what is right in the world.

I'd like to point out also that if men are responsible for 90% of the things that are wrong in the world, it's because men are responsible for 90% of how the world goes. Giving power to women won't make the world magically better, it will just make it more balanced in terms of power. Which, of course, is in itself better, but not because women make better decisions than men, just because it's more fair. Why shouldn't women get to mess things up too?

Why shouldn't women get to mess things up? good question Florence. Some way to an answer, because the men in power think women will mess things up, and don't acknowledge that they themselves mess things up... Power sharing is not their favourite hobby? Thousands of years of '...it's always been this way', as Solnit says, you can't break that in a couple of hundred years...

I know most people love the Ferrante Naples series, but My Brilliant Friend is not doing it for me, probably because I'm not much into reading books about children. I'll put it aside for the time being, and revisit in a different mood, as I know by volume two they are adults!

>139 Caroline_McElwee: probably because I'm not much into reading books about children
Elena and Lila grow up quickly. By the end of the first book they are in their teens and having more adult experiences. I can understand the difficulty getting into it, though.

I had a lovely few days at Lyme Regis recently.



The tower of John Fowles's house (right of centre). The house can be rented for functions now.

I didn't go high enough up the hill to get a good photo of the Cobb. That iconic image of Meryl Streep at the end of the Cobb in the storm sticks in the mind though. I really should watch The French Lieutenant's Woman again, it's been a while.

>140 lauralkeet: I'll probably give it another go sometime Laura.

I'm rattling through Kate Atkinson's Life after Life at the moment, and really enjoying it. I suspect I'll go straight on to the sequel. For some reason I didn't really pick up what kind of novel it was, and hence have only just picked it up to read now.

>139 Caroline_McElwee: I'm just a little way into that one. So far it's okay even though I think I'm not really a big fan of reading about children either. I can't say it's really dragged me in completely but we'll see.

Well I'm in the minority as far as this series is concerned Ursula, so good luck.

>142 Caroline_McElwee: I adored Life After Life. I'm glad it's a winner for you!

>143 ursula: for what it's worth, I didn't get hooked on the Ferrante novels until the second one. The first was good enough to keep going, but I was not in a hurry. Then I read the second and had to keep going.

Just catching up, Caroline. I have The Little Red Chairs on my wishlist, along with The Whistling Season. I really would like to get to them this year.

>27 Caroline_McElwee: I don't think I ever read The Martian Chronicles (and didn't Michael just tell me that there is a film or tv adaptation being made of it). Like you, my favorite is Fahrenheit 451 but I also adored a collection I read in high school, The Vintage Bradbury.

>28 Caroline_McElwee: The Solnit book sounds intriguing*. Her title reflects what is commonly referred to as "mansplaining."

*I'm tempted to compulsively run off and order it, but then I think of the several books of feminist bent that are in the TBR pile, and I restrain myself.

>145 lauralkeet: I finished Life after Life last night Laura, and really enjoyed it. I will start the sequel soon.

>146 NanaCC: I don't think you will be disappointed in either book Coleen, though they are very different from each other.

>147 avaland: I think you'd find the Solnit interesting Lois. It's the second of her books I've read, and I think I have another somewhere.

I have Bradbury's complete short stories on the shelf, and two of his other novels as yet unread. It's lovely to have treats ahead, from a trusted teller of tales. I used to hold back from reading all of a loved but dead writers work, so I had something 'new' to read ahead of me. I think I still have a few unread F Scott Fitzgerald stories. Though I read the novel I was holding back from, The Beautiful and the Damned, about 5 years ago.

29. Life After Life (Kate Atkinson)

I quickly slid into the rhythms of this conceit. The tone, and the sense of authenticity kept me galloping along. A breadth of characters, including some historical, roundly drawn. It's hard to isolate favourite bits, but bombed out London and its life felt very real. Ursula is a fine companion, version after version. She allows you totally inside.

>149 Caroline_McElwee: I haven't seen anyone having a bad word to say about this book yet. Will have to move it up the wish list!

30. Quicksand (Henning Mankell)

In this memoir written just before his death Mankell addresses the feeling of knowing you are on a short rope, so to speak, and reflects back on death and near death incidents of others and himself, through his life, as well as on thoughts of time, and how people in the past and future have or will leave messages.

The thread that runs through the book is the question of how the people of the future will inherit our nuclear waste (rather than cave paintings), and how we can ever manage to protect that waste for the 100,000 years we think it will need to no longer be toxic, and who the people then might be, post another ice age. He noted the irony of being refused access to one nuclear storage site because they couldn’t guarantee his safety!

So the book is about life, death, traces, memory, and as the sub-title says: What it means to be a human being. Fallible, flawed, hopeful, egotistical, humane, pessimistic, loving, stupid, angry….

31. A God in Ruins (Kate Atkinson)

I really enjoyed this 'companion' to Life after Life, but the latter was certainly the better book IMO.

>30 rebeccanyc: Inheritance. What we leave behind. Interesting thoughts.

32. The Invisible Woman (Helen Walmsley-Johnson)

A personal, inciteful look at the experience of middle aged women in the UK. Funny, angry, and if you are one you will often be nodding. Change needs to happen, ageism is rife and we aren't all entrepreneurs or able to employ ourselves, but with stamina, will and desire, these years will be some of the best. We have to make them so.

33-35. The Levant Trilogy: The Danger Tree/The Battle Lost and Won/The Sum of Things (Olivia Manning)

I reread The Balkan Trilogy a couple of years ago, but this was the first visit to the Levant. Some familiar characters, as well as some missing, I did miss old Yakimov, as irritating as he could sometimes be.

I felt as if the main theme of these three novels was loss and disintegration. The unraveling of time, war, relationships. A sense of weariness. All drawn so well you could feel it pulling you in and down, though despite this Manning sustains momentum, she pulls you forward. I'm not sure I end up liking a Guy Pringle, or even Harriet for that matter, but they are real.

36. A Country Road, A Tree (Jo Baker)

A fine novel that fictionalises the life of the writer Samuel Beckett during the Second World War, in France. Baker captures the slightly strange, alienated, vulnerable nature of this complicated man, who evolved into a literary genius. She also captures his kindness.

I loved The Balkan Trilogy and was disappointed by The Levant Trilogy because I didn't feel it was as good as the Balkan.

I agree it is the weaker of the two trilogies Rebecca, but it was still a good read.

>139 Caroline_McElwee: I tried My Brilliant Friend recently and had to abandon it fairly quickly. It just did not attract me at all.

37. One Fine Day (Mollie Parker-Downes)

I love it when a book or writer that has been totally off my radar is brought to my attention, and not least if it is a gift. This is how I came upon MPD. I was gifted this novel, and a volume of non-fiction 'letters' written for journals.

Not surprisingly, this is a novel that spans a day in the life of Laura Marshall, just at the end of the Second World War. As she goes about her day she remembers the past, projects into the future and offers her musings on what she is doing in the minute.

There are some beautiful prose, and some thoughtful meditations throughout the novel, and I wished I was laying languidly under a tree on a summers afternoon, as the narrator does, to read it. You could almost smell the day.

If it has a flaw, being a big Virginia Woolf fan, it was clearly attempting to do for the post Second World War, what Woolf was doing in Mrs Dalloway, for the WWI, but for me Parker-Downes doesn't quite succeed. This, I think, had something to do the characters she chose to offer. There were certainly moments though with glimpses of her intent, and if you haven't read Dalloway, it won't bother you at all.

That's a nice review of One Fine Day.

Going back a ways, i was really interested in your review of the Rebecca Solnit (>138 Caroline_McElwee:), and glad you liked Life After Life and sequel.

>158 Caroline_McElwee: that's an interesting and valid point about Mrs Dalloway. I glad you enjoyed the book though!

>159 dchaikin: Thanks Daniel. Yes, I was really impressed with Life after Life.

>160 lauralkeet: I did enjoy the book Laura, and I'd have missed it without your gift. And of course, the narrator is a Laura. I'm looking forward to London War Notes too.

38. A House Full of Daughters (Juliet Nicholson)

I loved this memoir come family biography of the Sackville-West/Nicholson women. Despite their flaws these are stories about flesh and blood, who often made a bit of a hash where love, and raising their daughters were concerned, swinging from deep love of their children, to destructive obsession, and that's before you get to the booze. Juliet is the fifth of the eight daughters, the lives of her daughters and grand-daughter covered fleetingly out of respect for their privacy. Their forebares: Pepita/Victoria/Vita/and Philippa, are drawn with honesty, frustration, respect and love.

Not a daughter, but a grandfather, Harold Nicholson (Hadji), Vita's husband, is also drawn with great warmth.

39. Long Time no see (Hannah Lowe)

An biographical novel about the author's relationship with her Jamaican/Chinese father. Fascinating, moving, complicated. Hannah and her brother are as white as their mother, so during her childhood and early teen years it wasn't obvious to others that Chick was her father, and sometimes she said to school friends that he was a taxi driver. Her schools were predominantly white, and she didn't want to turn herself into an outsider.

Half of the book tells his story in Jamaica and briefly America, before he came to the UK. She learned most of this story after his death, although they did once go to Jamaica as a family in her teens.

Chick mostly made his living as a gambler and card sharp, a skill he'd been taught by an old Chinese man in Jamaica.

An interesting insight into the world of mixed cultural heritage.

I read her volume of poetry about him earlier in the year >41 Caroline_McElwee:.

"An interesting insight into the world of mixed cultural heritage. "

Sounds interesting. Nice review, Caroline.

Nice review of Long Time No See, Caroline. That does sound interesting, so I've added it to my wish list.

Catching up here, Caroline. You've done some interesting reading while I've been on vacation. You've reminded me that I have The Balkan Trilogy on my shelf. I really should get to that one.

40. The Man Without a Shadow (Joyce Carol Oates)

At the age of 37 Eli Hoopes suffers from an illness that goes untreated and leads to brain damage, leaving him with a memory that lasts 70 seconds. Still living in the house of an aunt, he attends a research facility where a team of professors and researchers test and experiment on him over a period of 30 years in order to understand the neurology of memory.

A fascinating exploration in fiction into the workings of memory (as far as we do understand it), the complexity of subject/researcher relationships, obsession – for knowledge/for a person. And the ethics of research.

I was fascinated particularly by the suggestion that the lack of memory appears to obstruct projecting a life into the future. Hoopes remembers up to the time the damage was done to his brain, and despite the evidence in the mirror, still believes he is 37.

If anything might have been added to the book, the theme of how not being recognised impacts on those repeatedly denied recognition.

I had a strong feeling that in recent years I had read another story about someone with very short memory, but it was a fleeting memory, and I’ve not been able to home in on where it was (perhaps an essay, or something in Oliver Sacks’s work).

Oates likes to take readers into places they might not normally go, and discomfort them. There is also an element of tolerance of repetition, as the story circles and circles around its main subjects.

Thanks Darryl and Coleen.

>167 Caroline_McElwee: You might be thinking of the novel, The Housekeeper and the Professor, Caroline. The professor had a similar memory issue, but managed to accomodate it in daily life with multiple little tricks. I think his lapse period was a bit longer than 70 seconds.

That's it Linda, thanks. I read it a few years ago, really liked it. He pinned reminders to his clothes, I recall.

I had a strong feeling that in recent years I had read another story about someone with very short memory, but it was a fleeting memory, and I’ve not been able to home in on where it was (perhaps an essay, or something in Oliver Sacks’s work). That made me smile.

Barry, look out for the pinned reminders to my clothes. I'm ok I think, I can project into my future!

41. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (Mason Currey)

Collected together around 200 entries detailing the working practices, mainly of writers, but also artists, architects, scientists and a few others, across 150 years.

The most regular practice appears to have working in the morning as the habit. I was surprised at the volume of individuals reliant on prescription drugs. The regularity of naps made it an activity that might be pleasantly pursued. For the most part an actively creative day of three hours was most common, with other hours allocated for the work of research or practice.

If predominantly a book about the male practitioner, less than 20% were women, it was clear in many cases that in the background there were women oiling the wheels.

A wonderful gift from an LT friend last year.

Yes you certainly need your naps during the daytime if you are going to produce anything worthwhile.

Time to catch-up with recent reviews:

42. The Lonely City (Olivia Laing)

Laing explores loneliness via it’s capture in art and photography primarily, looking at the lives of art outsiders, the most well-known of whom are Edward Hopper and Andy Warhol, but also include David Wojnarowicz, Henry Darger – as I write this I realise that her subjects are primarily male, aside from herself and Valerie Solanas. The generally broken lives of many of these creatives has given them a perspective on isolation and loneliness that the majority of us are likely to only glimpse/experience fleetingly in our lives, and yet, because of those glimpses, we recognise in the work something profoundly authentic. The book focuses primarily on loneliness in the urban environment, loneliness surrounded by the hugger-mugger, bustle and population that a city encompasses. The book is also semi-memoir of Laing’s own outsiderhood and at times loneliness, she empathises with the experience of her subjects.

43. Peacock and Vine (A S Byatt)

Although beautifully illustrated, I didn’t find this long essay by Byatt as inspiring as I had hoped, although I did enjoy the semi-autobiographical elements of the book. Little windows into her life. Morris’s life has been extensively written about (Fiona McCarthy’s fine biography), and I don’t think this book especially added anything to the knowledge of him. I knew little of Fortuny and am interested to find out more. Worth the purchase for the photographs though.

44. Chamber Music (Doris Grumbach)

I came to Grumbach via several autobiographical pieces in The American Scholar over the past few years. Chamber Music was an interesting novel about the life of a composer and his wife. The life of a wife whose relationship with her husband is to support his creative life, rather than to be a partner of any equity. In his thirties he becomes tragically ill with what turns out to be syphilis, which he has allowed to go undiagnosed and hence it becomes terminal. His wife grows close to the young nurse she hires to help her care for him, and the latter part of the story follows their running of the Composer’s community.

I have another of her novels in the pile, but based on this one feel I am probably more drawn to her autobiographical/non-fiction work.

45. James Baldwin in Turkey (photographer: Sedat Pakay/ text various)

A lovely volume of photographs by the photographer Sedat Pakay, a friend of Baldwin’s, who took photographs of him over a ten year period when Baldwin spent a lot of time in Istanbul during the 1960s-1970s. The photos were companioned by a number of essays about that time, and were produced as part of an exhibition at the Northwest African American Museum.

It’s lovely to have a volume of photographs of James Baldwin, whom I fell in love with at the age of 14. One could say he was a very photogenic person, but it is more than that, something essential about the man seems to communicate itself to film. You feel you know him. It isn’t just a representation, it is something more intimate. These photographs capture him in quiet moments at his typewriter, and enjoying time with his friends. I wish it was a larger volume.

46. Secrets of the Sea House (Elizabeth Gifford)

I really enjoyed this novel set in the Scottish Hebrides and spanning two key stories across time, the modern and the 1860s. The discovery of the body of a deformed baby is found under a house under renovation, and Ruth, the young woman living there with her husband Michael, can’t rest until she unearths its history. In tandem with the story of how anthropological history can become entwined in the myths and legends of a culture, it is Ruth’s story of displacement/orphan-hood and connection to the past that weaves itself into the story of Reverend Alexander Ferguson’s attempt to prove the existence of the Selkie or Seal Man in an era on the borders of superstition and science. Ruth’s story of how the acts of a mother impact on the life of the daughter; stories of how things are not always quite what they seem.

47. The Dig (Cynan Jones)

A searing short novel (as a pescetarian and animal lover I read through half closed lids at times) of the hunter and badger bater, and a local farmer recently bereaved. Written in sparse language and short paragraphs, it takes you into the heart of the rural landscape, and the minds of two very different men in isolation.

A couple of BB's in that list, Caroline. The Baldwin photos especially. I must see if I can find a copy of that.

>167 Caroline_McElwee: - that other book on long term memory loss - was it Incognito? That was a great book that does have a touching (nonfictional) story on a similar theme.

Nice flurry of reviews, Caroline. The Lonely City and James Baldwin in Turkey are the most appealing titles to me.

>176 laytonwoman3rd: >178 kidzdoc: my only criticism of the Baldwin book is that it isn't a thicker volume.

>177 dchaikin: Linda nailed it in >169 laytonwoman3rd: Dan, tho I'll add Incognito to my list.

Well I'm glad to say I've got my book buying under better control this year. 115 to last year's 261 at the end of Aug. It's a start. It has to be no more than 115 for the whole of next year if I'm to nail the addiction! This doesn't include e-books of course.

48. Serious Sweet (A. L. Kennedy)

One of those novels that leaves me conflicted. I can see its intent, and how it achieves it, and yet the experience of reading it was not a pleasure.

Two not so extraordinary misfits living lonely lives in the metropolis that is London are slowly drawn together as they reveal their stories.

Kennedy is clearly inspired by Virginia Woolf, not solely by the twenty-four hour timeframe, but in her use of stream of consciousness. There is a quiet relentlessness in her telling which will leave the reader with an authentic sense of the damaged, dry lives of Jon and Meg, which suggests a successful telling, and yet, and yet... I felt the thing that would have given me a more rounded experience as a reader was a counter weight.

I'm far from a reader who only wants happy clappy material (I rarely read such writing), but this novel felt burdensome. A slog. Even when I was agreeing with some of the social comment. It left me frustrated and dissatisfied.

As a reading experience I would give it ** as a writing experience it is ****. Flawed because it didn't draw these two functions of a novel together for me.

Nice review of Serious Sweet, Caroline. Sigh...another dud from this year's Booker Prize longlist.

>180 Caroline_McElwee: One of my favourite authors and you summed much of her writing up so well with "...there is a quiet relentlessness in her telling which will leave the reader with an authentic sense of the damaged, dry lives of (fill in characters' names) which suggests a successful telling, and yet, and yet... However, she always leaves me thinking of her books and her characters long after. I also think she has a great quirky humour which lightens her work from time to time. If you ever get the chance to hear her in an interview or a talk, she is a wonderful speaker.

Have you read anything else by her?

>175 Caroline_McElwee: I'm also a big fan of selkies (autocorrect wants to make that selfies; definitely not the case there).

>181 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl.

>182 SassyLassy: I read and loved Day, and read possibly one earlier book, as well as her memoir On Writing Sassy, and was really looking forward to this. There was some humour, but mostly I didn't enjoy the experience. Time to look at some reviews to see what others thought. She used to be on one of the review shows, and I always enjoyed her contribution.

(I really don't understand the touchstones, there were loads of listed possibilities before anything with the word 'day' in!).

>183 Caroline_McElwee: My understanding is that if ANY edition of a more popular work contains the word "day" in the title (as a member has listed it) it will come up before the simpler title "Day" in the touchstone list. This makes the whole system fairly useless, in my opinion. For example, I recently found the touchstone for Alfred and Emily yields Jane Eyre first. This is probably because someone has entered Jane Eyre in an omnibus edition with Wuthering Heights and put Emily Bronte's name in the title box. So Jane Eyre being a much more common title here than Alfred & Emily, that one erroneous entry with "Emily" in the title box will throw the whole thing off.

Sadly, in the case of Twilight (which is the first thing in the list when you try to touchstone Day ), I found this entry: "Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) bella swan moves to a small town named forks to live with her dad but on her first day she meets a misterious teen named edward cullen and he has a dark secret hes a vampire bella soon finds out and its a life or death situation as she is being hunted by vampires. / Stephenie Meyer / (ISBN 0316015849) (separate)" Yes, someone put that book in their catalog with ALL that in the title box.

ha Linda (re Twilight), I came across an entry where someone did similar a while ago. Thanks for the explanation about touchstones, they really frustrate me sometimes.

49. How to Age (Anne Karpf)

An interesting exploration on the perception of aging in a youth culture, and how even positive behaviours and attempts to circumvent stereotypes can lead to negative perceptions. The conclusion? Older age is probably the time we are most individual, and hence do it as you want to do it, be your essence.

A great bibliography at the back. I've read several of these little School of Life books, and got something useful out of each.

50. The Trip to the Echo Spring (Olivia Laing)

Fascinating journeying at the elbows of some of the great male American writers : F Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemmingway, John Berryman and Raymond Carver, and their drink problems. I was surprised to learn how the fathers of at least three of them had committed suicide, as some of them also did.

What it made me want to do more than anything was return to Tennessee Williams, Fitzgerald and Ray Carver.

Another fine book by Laing.

I'm intrigued by The Trip to Echo Spring. Looking at it on Amazon it's lengthy enough - is there enough of interest to sustain 352 pages?

For me, certainly Alison. Some biography of six great writers, as well as psychology, science and medicine about alcoholism and suicide. Along with memoir about herself and what has drawn her to her subjects, and a travelogue. I'd have happily gone another fifty pages!

>189 AlisonY: I'm convinced. The wish list creaks some more.....

51. Another Country (James Baldwin)

The novel starts with the last days of Rufus, before his sad suicide. He is a lost soul, and his dark ultimately violent relationship with a poor white woman, which drags on him, and he takes his own life. The rest of the book tells the stories of the lives of his sister Ida and friends after this event. How their lives intermingle, weave and snag upon each other.

This was Baldwin’s third novel, and at the time of publication he believed it was his best. I had read it in my late teens, but had no recollection whatever of it, nothing was familiar. Structurally I think Baldwin was correct in that the novel was his most complex, and I really liked the relative plotlessness, the swaying in and out of the lives and relationships. This is probably what you might call his first race novel, and he owns that he got a bit polemical at times. It took him a long while to write, much of it written in Turkey I think. Most of the relationships cross race and gender, and they slip and slide around. One of the many things that has always drawn me to the work of James Baldwin was his eye for detail, not just physical detail, but emotional detail. He certainly captures a number of complex situations and emotions in this novel.

Half way through, I wasn’t sure whether this novel would get a third read, but by the end I was certain it would. It has depth and feeling. In my mind’s eye I was seeing Baldwin sitting on the sidelines observing, and ink-snatching what he saw. I’ve been slowly rereading Baldwin, but with the later novels I will be in ‘first time reading’ territory. However, that is for next year, I am going to slowly re-read all the essays between then and now.

Potential Autumn/Winter reading

I'm starting to think about what I want to read over the next few months, hibernating time in my book.

With the publication of the fourth and last volume of Samuel Beckett's letters, I've pulled the first three (unread) volumes off the shelf, with the intent of reading one a month.

I want to read Hillary Clinton's second volume of autobiography Hard Choices. I liked the woman I discovered in the first volume, and am interested to hear more. I'm not naive enough to believe any autobiography, let alone a political one, is the full story, but with the hope that she will be the next US President, knowing her version of her more recent life may shine a light on the future.

I think my main winter reread will be Dickens's David Copperfield, I just love so many of the characters in this novel.

With the publication next year of some previously unpublished stories by F Scott Fitzgerald, I'm going to read the complete (I think) published short stories. I think I've maybe read half of them before, so some new to me Fitzgerald will be delicious.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37345902

I'll soon have completed the reread of James Baldwin's three early novels, so winter will hold the reread of his essays; along with Annie Dillard's and Marilynne Robinson's latest volumes of essays too.

I've got a number of volumes on slow read that I'm enjoying, but not carting about, so I hope to make some headway with those. And I seriously need to get back to some reading of poetry. I started the year well then flagged.

I'm also going to read some Tennessee Williams: Plays 1937-1955

As there is a strong American theme running here, I might add some Steinbeck I didn't manage earlier in the year, for the American Author Challenge.

A photo for you, Caroline. This is Baldwin at home in Saint Paul de Vence.

I love that photo Linda, thank you. They are trying to save what is left of his house in Saint Paul De Vence at the moment. I've been reading some interviews with him today, in Conversations with James Baldwin, and I'm on the last 70 pages of Another Country.

Btw, first time I noticed he's a leftie!

Some great photos of Baldwin in these pages, a number I've never seen before. As well as a few sound bites at the end.

http://baldwinandbishop.tumblr.com

I look forward to your thoughts about Another Country, Caroline!

The review for Another Country is here: >190 Caroline_McElwee:.

52. His Bloody Project (Graeme Macrae Burnet)

Sometimes being on a long or shortlist for a literary prize can be obstructive perhaps. I really liked this novel, and if it hadn’t been on the long then shortlist for the Booker prize, it would have sat among the list of books well enjoyed this year, but being shortlisted for a prize makes me ask the question why does this novel stand out sufficiently to be nominated? Not a question I ask when reading books not on a prize list. With this well-crafted novel, I couldn’t really come up with a significant enough answer, beyond its well-craftedness. You learn early on that Roderick Macrae is on trial for the murder of three people, and hear his story from several perspectives, along with the various documents that report on the trial. I kept waiting for a twist, and imagining any number of possibilities, only to discover that the twist was, there was no twist! Certainly worth your reading time as a good exploration of place and criminal processes of its era, which were the nascent years of criminal psychology.

Interesting comments about His Bloody Project, Caroline. I'll probably read it next week, after I finish Do Not Say We Have Nothing.

53. The Book of Joy (Dalai Lama/Desmond Tutu)

What I most loved about this book was the relationship between these two spiritual people, mischievous, warm and deep.

This is an uncluttered route in to thinking about how to bring more joy into the world. Having read many books by the Dalai Lama, on a practice level, this book didn't add much for me, but would be a good introduction to his work, and thoughts, and the comparable and occasionally different beliefs of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

>198 Caroline_McElwee: - I need this book. Just last week I was wondering if any political parties have a policy on joy. It may be a good thing if they don't, given politicians there are. But I could think of sending a few of them a copy. And we seem to have an imbalance of how much actual joy is actually encouraged as compared to other things, like working hard, feeling bad if you cannot etc.

I don't think you will be disappointed in the book Tony.

Young people somehow appear to pick up fewer life skills now: emotional intelligence, happiness and joy skills. I don't know whether it is because we live in a more competitive world now and all education seems to be about training for work skills, I'm not sure. Most adults can fall pray to the negative, nagging inner voice, but I think many are finding tools to change that, or trying at least.

>198 Caroline_McElwee: Our local library has The Book of Joy: lasting happiness in a changing world on order so I will watch out for it although it can take an inordinately long time to get books on the shelf.

Joy is difficult to measure, especially in others. There are so many outside influences on our lives that the loss of "control" must have a negative effect. I'm interested in what the Dalai Lama has to say, I've not read any of his writing before.

>196 Caroline_McElwee:

There was some kind of twist, I thought. I don't remember how to make spoilers alert, so I will first give a

SPOILER ALERT by His Bloody Project!

Regarding the primary victim of the murder, I think Dr Thornton had an interesting point of view, which makes Roddy's own account of the story completely unreliable. I liked that twist but perhaps you thought of that possibility from the start?

>201 VivienneR: I agree, Joy is a tricky one Vivienne, as they say in the beginning of the book, it is different from happiness. It isn't always just felt in the intellect, but can be felt in the body, not sure if they say it or I've picked it up somewhere else but I agree with it. Joy has an effervescence to it, and can overwhelm you out of nowhere, or it can be a quiet tickle. A secret bubble inside.

I particularly like the Dalai Lama's The Art of Happiness, I also read a volume of his more esoteric lectures every five or do years, and small seeds of increased clarity are evident with each reading. That volume is in my winter reading pile.

>202 Simone2: hmm, I think I found that a bit too obvious Simone. But also would he target a girl who rejected him, more than the man who raped his sister, maybe both died because they had damaged his family, not sure why the child was killed though..

Btw to get spoiler, put the word between the arrows the way you would get bold or underlined Simone.