SusanJ's 75 Books Challenge - Thread 3

Hello, and welcome to my third thread for 2016.

I'm Susan, a Kiwi living in London for the past 20 years. During the working week I'm a lawyer so I love nerdy legal stuff, which crops up in more books than you might expect.

Over the past couple of years I've started to read a lot more non-fiction, so my reading is now pretty much half fiction and half non-fiction although I'd like to make it one-third to two-thirds. I typically aim for 150 books and this year I want to read at least 50 books from Mount TBR (which counts as anything bought before the end of 2015) instead of maxing out my reserve slots at the library. I wonder how that will go :-)

* = book from Mount TBR

January

1. A Notable Woman
2. The Grand Duchess of Nowhere
3. The Worst Hard Time*
4. The Night in Question
5. Nicholas and Alexandra*
6. The Happiness Industry*
7. How the Other Half Lives*
8. The Book of Unknown Americans
9. The Making of the Atomic Bomb

February

10. A People's History of London*
11. The Queen's Man*
12. The Tenderness of Wolves
13. Some Luck
14. My Brilliant Friend
15. Missing Microbes
16. Captain Swing*
17. That's Not English
18. After You
19. How Music Got Free
20. Early Warning
21. Isaac's Storm*

March

22. Spillover
23. No Such Thing as a Free Gift*
24. The Plutocrats
25. Rising Tide*

This year I'm starting a new NF challenge, which is to read the non-fiction winners of the Pulitzer prize. I stole this idea from Reba, who is doing a fiction challenge. Hi Reba! This is a long-term project, rather than something to be completed this year. But I've read three of them already :-) If I can't find the relevant non-fiction winner easily in the UK, I propose to substitute the winner of the history category.

Here's the list:

2015 The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
2014 Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin
2013 Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King
2012 The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
2011 The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
2010 The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman
2009 Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A Blackmon
2008 The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer
2007 The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
2006 Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins
2005 Ghost Wars by Steve Coll
2004 Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum
2003 A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
2002 Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter
2001 Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P Bix
2000 Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower
1999 Annals of the Former World by John McPhee
1998 Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
1997 Ashes To Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, The Public Health, And The Unabashed Triumph Of Philip Morris by Richard Kluger
1996 The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg
1995 The Beak Of The Finch: A Story Of Evolution In Our Time by Jonathan Weiner
1994 Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days Of The Soviet Empire by David Remnick
1993 Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills
1992 The Prize: The Epic Quest For Oil, Money & Power by Daniel Yergin
1991 The Ants by Bert Holldobler and Edward O Wilson
1990 And Their Children After Them by Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson
1989 A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
1988 The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
1987 Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land by David K Shipler
1986 Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families by J Anthony Lukas
1986 Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White by Joseph Lelyveld
1985 The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two by Studs Terkel
1984 The Social Transformation Of American Medicine by Paul Starr
1983 Is There No Place On Earth For Me? by Susan Sheehan
1982 The Soul of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder
1981 Fin-De Siecle Vienna: Politics And Culture by Carl E Schorske
1980 Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R Hofstadter
1979 On Human Nature by Edward O Wilson
1978 The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
1977 Beautiful Swimmers by William W Warner
1976 Why Survive? Being Old In America by Robert N Butler
1975 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
1974 The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
1973 Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances Fitzgerald
1973 Children of Crisis, Vols. II and III by Robert Coles
1972 Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945 by Barbara W Tuchman
1971 The Rising Sun by John Toland
1970 Gandhi's Truth by Erik H Erikson
1969 The Armies Of The Night by Norman Mailer
1969 So Human An Animal by Rene Jules Dubos
1968 Rousseau And Revolution, The Tenth And Concluding Volume Of The Story Of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant
1967 The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture by David Brion Davis
1966 Wandering Through Winter by Edwin Way Teale
1965 O Strange New World by Howard Mumford Jones
1964 Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
1963 The Guns of August by Barbara W Tuchman
1962 The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H White

Reserved

17. That's Not English: Britishisms, Americanisms and What Our English Says About Us by Erin Moore

I liked Carrie's review of this last year, so when I saw it on the new books shelf at the library I had to have it. And it's a lovely read - very funny, but also thought-provoking. And a couple of times, as the author made her way through a sentence putting the US equivalents of words in brackets after the English ones, I realised how hard it must have been for her to adapt to what can seem like a foreign language. Although I'm an immigrant myself, I was greatly helped by having watched British TV all my life, so most of the words were familiar to me (if not the accents). That doesn't seem to be the case for Americans. There's lots to giggle about in this book, and lots to ponder. It's an excellent read, and very highly recommended. Or, as I believe y'all say in the US, quite good :-) Also, look at that cute cover!

Happy new thread, Susan! Hoping I get to be first.

Now that I have assured myself of first place, I'm back to say that I'm adding That's Not English to the giant WL.

Mamie, yes, you are first! And your prize is this handsome kettle, which apparently is not a common thing in the US. Who knew?

ETA: The author says: "The first thing a British person does on waking, on returning home, on being greeted with good or bad news, or on receiving a guest, is to turn on the kettle. Every British home and office has an electric kettle capable of boiling water quickly, usually in under a minute - to Americans, a distinctly superfluous piece of tat." But srsly, what do you use instead?!

Speaking of gadgetry, I bought a microwave rice steamer today:



And some brown rice. I walked down to the cornucopia of awesomeness that is the big Asda supermarket on the Isle of Dogs and had a good look at their "world foods" section, which has all sorts of pulses and lentils and spices, all excellent for vegetarian cooking. They have other useful things in other parts of the shop, but I can't help wondering why tins of beans are in so many places. However, if I persevere I'll get better at finding things. I'm already familiar with the large packs of coconut at a fraction of the price of the small bags in the baking aisle.

>7 susanj67: Well that explains why the guy in the Mentalist was always putting camping kettles on stoves...

Happy new thread.

Can think of quite a few friends who may well be getting a copy of That's not English. Made me think of a quite enlightening conversation with a long standing American friend. What do you mean, she said, when I ask a question, and you say 'Mmmmm'?
(I still don't know the right answer to this)

ETA Coconut rice!

>7 susanj67: - Hi Susan! My Friday cleaning people have a Krups electric kettle. That is the only one that I've ever seen in real life. I can see the point of it - it is probably more economical than using a kettle on the gas stove. However, I love my flame colored kettle because of its color and because it is a whistling kettle and makes me think of the one at Granny's house when I was little. Sometimes I let it boil like crazy so that I can hear it scream.

Happy new thread!

>5 susanj67: I love that cover! I received an ARC, but I don't think the US edition had a cozy-covered teapot.

>7 susanj67: I loved the electric kettle I had when I lived in the UK! You can find them here, but they're not must-have appliances in most U.S. kitchens. Since my counter space is limited, I usually heat water in the microwave for a single cup, or in a kettle on the stove/cooker for a pot of tea.

I LOVE my kettle! Thank you, Susan. Let's see, what do we use instead? Um...a coffee maker of course! I don't drink tea, but Craig loves it. We did actually have an electric kettle before the move, but it disappeared somewhere between Indiana and Georgia. The one we had was not nearly as handsome as the one you have gifted me, so I shall place in a spot of honor.

I love the idea of the electric kettle but there is already too much stuff on my kitchen counters, thanks to my husband's preference for having things "out" so he remembers them. I just heat water for tea or hot chocolate in the stove-top kettle. Its this one but in grass green or whatever Le Creuset calls their bright green:

Happy new thread! Think you got me with another bb. I too had watched enough British TV before I moved to the U.K. (in '71 I think) that I recognized many of the differences but every now and then.... Had an interesting discussion with the butcher one day when I asked for cutlets and he told me he didn't have any but did have some escalopes (which I had never heard of). When he brought them out from the back I found he was holding the cutlets I wanted :)

As to kettles -- I LOVE tea (although not in the "it will cure anything" way the British do) so I've had an electric kettle as long as they've been available in the U. S. The substitute is a stove-top kettle like Katie demonstrated.

Wow - I'm so startled. I didn't realise it was a British thing - I just kind of thought kettles were, well, essential items. We do a lot of tea runs (albeit mostly herbal tea) at work. How does that work in American offices?

I'm all socially confused now.

>15 BekkaJo: - What's a tea run?

ETA: Now I'm all socially confused, too!

The politics of tea making. My dad retired LONG ago and we recently had a conversation about some guy in his office who (he said deliberately) made bad tea so he wouldn't be asked, but always took other people up on their offers to make it for him. The horror! (I take a flask in of my own coffee.)

I love that kettle Katie's got. To me a hob kettle whistle is the sound of camping!

LOL - about every hour someone in the team will decide it's time for tea and get everyone a hot drink :) To be drunk at the desk I hasten to add - I rarely get a whole cup of coffee down as I usually get distracted and it goes cold. But our kettles do work overtime... there are about 40 people on my floor and only 2 kettles...

Oh, this is fascinating, isn't it? I've never worked anywhere with anything similar to a tea run nor heard of anything similar from friends. Occasionally, a friend/colleague and I will run out to a coffee shop and buy a coffee as a break, but in our office, we have individual cup machines to brew coffee or to dispense hot water.

This is rather disproving the recent news about the decline of tea drinking.
http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/18/tradition-of-cups-of-tea-and-slices-of-toast-are-d...

We used to have a tea machine - a few offices ago. Then we had one with a boiling hot water tap thingy. Then I was back to kettles again!

And there is less regular tea drunk - at least in my team. For a team in which I am the oldest (at 33) they are all a bit careful of their tummies - lots of peppermint tea.

AT home, it's the whistling kettle on the gas stove, but when I worked, I had one of these in my office at each school--90 seconds to boiling--for my tea.

Happy new thread, Susan. You've read some excellent books so far this year. I use the stove top kettle also.

Happy new thread, Susan. We use electric kettle at our place for making tea. I'm glad that is a common equipment at most places in Switzerland.

Susan, I think in the US we use "pretty" as a qualifier in the way you use "quite". If we descibe something as "pretty good", it has the connotation of "could be better".

I hope you're enjoying your Sunday!

>9 charl08: Thnks Charlotte. Are you using "Mmmmm?" in the sense of "What did you say?" Now I wonder what the American equivalent of Mmmm? is, because there's "Huh?" but that's not exactly the same. (I nearly said quite the same there. This language stuff is a minefield). We also have "Sorry?" but that would probably be even more confusing. There's a chapter on that, and all the meanings of "Sorry" depending on the inflection.

>10 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I had overlooked the stovetop kettle! We have those here too. I hope your weekend is going OK - at least you have more of it left than I do, what with the time difference.

>11 cbl_tn: Thanks Carrie :-) I learned the other day that a NZ kitchen staple, the electric frypan, is not really a thing here. I'd never thought about it before, but I mentioned something my mother used to make in it to a friend and she had no idea what I was talking about.

>12 Crazymamie: Mamie, I'm glad you like your prize :-) Actually I like it too, and I had a good hard look at my kettle to see if I could justify replacing it :-)

>13 katiekrug: Katie, that's a lovely one! But if it's not "out" then you have to store it somewhere, I suppose. I lack cupboard space so I don't mind.

>14 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I've always thought of a cutlet as a chop, like this picture (which is from a recipe for lamb cutlets):



But, looking it up, all the other cutlets are indeed escalopes. Or what I would call a schnitzel. How funny!

>15 BekkaJo:, >16 katiekrug:, Bekka, me too! The things we don't know...:-) Don't worry Katie, we are all confused!

>17 charl08: Charlotte, that's "learned helplessness", an actual thing. It applies more widely to men and housework :-)

>18 BekkaJo: Bekka, there must be a constant queue! When we had a kettle (or, as we call them in NZ, a jug) occasionally someone would fill it and set it going and have first dibs on the water, but if they hadn't come back to the kitchen by the time it boiled, it was OK for someone else to use the water but to refill it and set it going again.

>19 katiekrug: Katie, we now have a machine, which is definitely more efficient than a kettle.

>20 charl08: Charlotte, I love that quote from the team man about how they're the only proper company! We now have loose tea bags in our new kitchens at work, and they're Twinings. Also quite a variety.

>21 BekkaJo: Bekka, we also have a hot water tap, which I adore. How funny about all the non-tea tea. Just wait till they get a bit older - they'll welcome the caffeine!

>22 ronincats: Roni, I have never seen one of those! It sounds pretty quick, though.

>23 BLBera: Thanks Beth :-)

>24 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara. Maybe they're a European thing. But then Australia and NZ also have them, and those countries were founded before electricity, so somehow they went the British/European way and the US didn't.

>25 cbl_tn: Carrie, pretty/quite does seem like a good fit. My Sunday has been pretty lazy, but I'm getting some reading done.



18. After You by Jojo Moyes

This is the sequel to Me Before You, and it's hard to say anything about it without giving away the story of the first book, which I *must not do* because everyone should read it like I did - with no idea of what's going to happen. I will say that this is a solid follow-up from an author whose books I enjoy.

Happy new one, Susan!

I, too, have an electric kettle and love it for my morning (and afternoon and evening) tea.

I've been retired for "quite" a few years now (do you Brits use it that way too?) but when I was working there was always a drip coffee pot (this was before the days of coffee pods), kept full all day, for those that drank coffee. I don't like coffee and love tea so (near the end of my working career because they're relatively new in the U. S.) I kept an electric kettle in my office to make my tea with.

>25 cbl_tn: that sounds right to me -- "pretty" good is less than "good" and that's less than "quite good" in my version of English

>26 susanj67: my mother and all of her generation (I believe) had an electric skillet and it worked hard in our house. I haven't seen one in like maybe 50 years now, however.

This conversation is making me realise I qualify (pretty much) everything (!)

Hope your Sunday continues to be lovely and relaxing Susan. Sunshine here (through the window).

>27 scaifea: Thanks Amber!

>28 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, yes, we use "quite a few" in that way, as "more than a few", which, thinking about it, is an instance of it being *more* than something, as usually it means less. Using your "good" example, we have "quite good/pretty good", "good" and then "very good". I'm now thinking back to how many years ago I left home - 24, and our electric frypan was still going strong then.

>29 charl08: Charlotte, I think I do too! Although then we have words like "brilliant", which I have read elsewhere bewilder Americans because they're used for quite ordinary feats, like cooking something. "You made this gateau? Brilliant!" And yet it's just a cake :-)



19. How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt

The UK edition is subtitled "What happens when an entire generation commits the same crime" but other subtitles appear here on LT too. Essentially, this is the story of the development and (mis)use of the MP3 format, which led to Napster, Pirate Bay and other famous piracy sites. The beginning is a bit dull as there's a lot about the techy stuff (MP3 squashes sound into a twelfth of the size it takes up in the non-squashed format), but after that it gets into personalities and a more human story. Overall it was excellent, and I'd recommend it to anyone who's read about internet piracy in the media and wants to know more.

If your electric fry pan, and Reba's electric skillet are the same thing and what I'm thinking of, then my mom had one of those! She made practically everything in it :)

I just leave the kettle out, since I rarely need all four burners of my stove at one time...

>30 susanj67: I think your 'brilliant' is our version of 'fantastic'. I'd venture to say that about 99% of stuff that is described as 'fantastic' by Americans isn't fantastic at all.

I had a stove top kettle for a little while: a cast iron Le Creuset orange one which I bought because it looked lovely in our kitchen. I lasted a few months with it before I reverted to a normal electric kettle. I just found it so annoying! Firstly, whenever you wanted water it utilitised a place on the hob, which was a pain if you had lots of other things on the hob. Secondly, it was too slow, and thirdly (worst of all) it didn't switch itself off! I just couldn't cope with a kettle that didn't switch itself off!

I get the impression from this (and previous conversations) with people from the US about kettles, that the assumption is that we mainly use them for making tea, which isn't the case at all. I will heat up any water that needs to be heated in the kettle, and then pour it into a saucepan, because it's quicker. And I wonder if another difference is that if we are making real coffee at home, using a cafetière is one of the most popular methods in the UK, for which you also need ... a kettle.

>33 SandDune: - I would love to get one of those cafetière thingys (which we call a French Press), but whenever I start searching for one online they only seem to get so-so ratings and people are complaining about poor quality. Oh, well. Perhaps I will find one to buy some day...

ooooh, look at the shiny new thread.

>34 Fourpawz2: I've got a few, had them for years from Bodum. Wouldn't be without it. mmm.
I love the look of those stove top kettles, but >33 SandDune: lists the impracticality.

>34 Fourpawz2: >35 Helenliz: We have two Bodum ones as well.

> we don't mind a kettle using a "hob" since we don't have those at all lol We cook on "stoves" rather than on "cookers" (as they were called when I lived in the U.K.) and our stoves have "burners" not "hobs". I was about to ask what in the world a "cafetiere" was (I've never encountered that word before) but got my question answered in >34 Fourpawz2:.

Thanks for this conversation. I just love exploring the differences in various versions of English.

>37 RebaRelishesReading: - I had no idea what it was either, Reba. I just pasted the word into Google Images and a bunch of French presses came up.

Happy new thread, Susan! I like the looks of that microwave rice steamer! Of course, I would need to buy a microwave to use it, but anything that can fool proof cooking rice so that it doesn't bubble over the pot has my vote.

I have the following electric kettle at home:



I love it because it is so easy to clean, including the stainless steel hot plate at the bottom that heats the water. Some kettles in Canada still have the coated heating element in the bottom to heat the water, making it almost impossible to properly clean the darn thing.

Are burners like a gas hob ring?

And mmmm properly timed cafetiere coffee is the best!

>31 katiekrug: Katie, is a frying pan always a skillet in the US? I remember, pre-internet, how long it took me to work out what "broiling" something was (grilling). I always wondered whether "broil the meat" meant fry it, or grill it, or something else entirely.

>32 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, we don't have "fantastic" much here (when brilliant is an option). I like to use "awesome" with the trainees, to appall them.

>33 SandDune:, >36 SandDune: Rhian, a stove-top kettle wouldn't work for me either. I have solid elements, and they are not fast. Plus the iron kettle... And yes, I was wondering how water was heated for all sorts of things.

>34 Fourpawz2:, >38 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I hadn't heard the term cafetiere before I moved here. In NZ, they're just called coffee plungers. And now I know what a French press is too!

>35 Helenliz: Helen, they certainly are pretty, though...

>37 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, NZ also has stoves, not cookers. I still can't get used to "cooker". Of course, the fashion now is for separate hobs and ovens. If I ever redo my kitchen, though, I'm getting a stove.

>39 lkernagh: Lori, I had never seen a clear kettle before, but I was just at the hardware shop buying some drain gel (sigh) and they had that very one!! (They don't keep the drain gel in the kettle aisle, but I may have strayed over there as a result of this conversation...)

>40 BekkaJo: Bekka, I think maybe, although googling a bit I see sites referring to all sorts of things as burners. I think of a burner as something with a flame, or otherwise I would call it an element (coil, solid, ceramic, induction - all elements to me). I grew up with these ones:

>39 lkernagh: Lori, I have an electric rice cooker, and I highly recommend them - makes it so easy to make perfect rice every time and never any mess.

It's Monday, Susan. I am loving all of the kitchen conversation on your thread - I am learning so much!!

Interesting discussion about kettles. I have a stove-top one, but I rarely use it. I tend to be more of a coffee drinker than tea drinker. I use my coffee pot for that. If I need water heated, I tend to use the microwave. I have a Keurig in my office. I have K-Cups for coffee, tea, hot cocoa, and hot cider. The coffee gets used most, but I have a feeling that I'll be making some tea this afternoon.

Tried jasmine tea yesterday. Forgot to take the leaves out. Yuk.

In contrast, today I experimented with crumpet bread from my local bread and pie selling emporium (although this is The North, so actually there are about five to choose from). It is Gorgeous! The lady said I'd be back and I suspect she's right.

>42 Crazymamie: Mamie, it *is* Monday! Mine is nearly over though. I went to the library at lunchtime and didn't borrow anything. I was supposed to be taking a friend to join, but we never seem to be free on the same day,

>43 thornton37814: Lori, our New York office has one of those K-cup machines. I failed to use it properly the first time, but then Roni rescued me when I bleated on here, and then I felt I should try all the flavours. I'm not sure they're over here, although there are machines that use pods like the K ones. And hot cider?! I'm assuming just flavouring, and not the alcohol content :-)

>44 charl08: Charlotte, ewww! But next time you're at Wagamamas, try their jasmine flower tea. They put the whole flower in and it's excellent. It costs a fortune, but I was trying something new as I was out with some young people, and one of them had it. Crumpet loaf?! Wow, I would run and get that. I'd never heard of it, but I googled. Greenhalgh's? I recently discovered Warburton's giant crumpets, but a loaf would be better. I wonder whether we have them in the south. Oh, checking the Greenhalgh website, my closest shop is 156 miles away. Darn.

Susan, you're doing it wrong. You are supposed to report back on what you just couldn't resist checking out even though you told yourself ahead of time that you wouldn't be getting anything. If you could please try it again tomorrow...

Suddenly I want tea. And Coffee. And giant crumpets...

>41 susanj67: - Ithink skillet and frying pan are used pretty interchangeably here, but I could be wrong. I am no kitchen expert :)

Huh. To me, grilling and broiling are very different. Grilling is done either outside on a grill/barbecue or on the stove in a grill pan. Broiling is done in the oven with the top and bottom heating elements (in an electric oven; not sure if it's the same for gas ovens).

>48 katiekrug: What Katie said - skillet and frying pan are the same item and grilling and broiling are very different things. And the broiling works the same in my gas oven as it does in Katie's electric one.

My mother had an electric skillet that she used almost daily for years until something happened to the heating element. She was never able to find a replacement that suited her. She used it for making pikelets, among other things. (She made two trips to NZ to visit her brother during the 6 years he lived in Nelson, and she came home with lots of recipes.)

>50 cbl_tn: - what's a pikelet? Is it a tiny fish from the pike family?

>46 Crazymamie: Mamie, I know. I did feel like something of a failure, but I still have two books to finish. Well, strictly speaking, one to finish and one to start and finish.

>47 BekkaJo: Bekka, there is no bad time for crumpets.

>48 katiekrug: >49 Crazymamie: Katie and Mamie, it turns out that "grilling" has different meanings in the US and UK :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grilling Over here, the heat source for grilling comes from above. Something cooked on the stovetop in a grill pan (with the marks on it?) isn't grilling as we know it (but, confusingly, there are some benchtop "grills" with a top and a bottom, like a toasted-sandwich maker). For example, cheese on toast - you take the toast or bread, put the cheese on top, and put it under the grill so the cheese melts. There's no way of grilling it with a heat source from below.

>50 cbl_tn: Carrie, did you like pikelets? They were always part of an afternoon tea when my grandmas came over.

>51 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, fortunately it isn't :-) It's like an American pancake - the smaller, thicker ones, not the large flat crepe-style ones. And yet somehow it's different.

And now I want pancakes! I have to stop visiting - it's very bad for my diet.

Hi Susan, I am enjoying all the cooking talk and definitions. Here in Canada we tend to mostly use the same terms as the U.S. but sometimes we are closer to the British definition. My mother also used to make pikelets and she often served them at afternoon teas, rolled up with jam. They are similar to pancakes but the texture is slightly different.

Okay then - sounds like your grilling is the same as our broiling. Have you tried out the new rice steamer yet?

And I would be ever so happy if you would return to the library tomorrow and check something out. LOL!

>52 susanj67: - Apparently I have been making pikelets all these years and never knew it.

"Pikelets" -- a totally new word for me. Thank you :)

"Skillet" and "frying pan" mean the same thing but are regional. For example, I grew up in California and say "skillet" while my mother, who grew up in southern Indiana, said "frying pan."

>40 BekkaJo: I think "burners" and "hobs" are the same thing. The one Susan showed in >41 susanj67: is an older electric one but it can also be gas It's the part of the stove/cooker top that you put the pan on. Most stove/cookers have 4 of them but I've seen them with 5 or 6 as well. Here are some gas ones:

>45 susanj67: The cider is just a flavored mix. They actually sell it pre-packaged to use in microwaves and such. I'm not sure what they do with pods. I assume it's a mix that has mulling spices in it.

According to my midlander husband, pikelets are crumpets. But then he's usually wrong, imo. >:-)

#57 Ah! Okay - so I have 5 gas burners :)

#59 Mine too... as in pikelets are crumpets. And the usually wrong tbh ;)

And grilling is broiling? Anyone else's head feel a bit explodey?

Having American pancakes for breakfast (ish). Possibly related to this conversation!

I am also wanting pancakes.

>53 BekkaJo: Bekka, I posted the plainest pikelets I could find! Not the cream and jam variety. Oooh.

>54 DeltaQueen50: Judy, why do you think the texture is different? I agree that it *is*, but can't quite say why. Maybe they're lighter - more baking powder?

>55 Crazymamie: Mamie, I haven't tried the new gadget yet. I am not having a good kitchen week, as my sink won't drain (well, it finally has, but that won't last if I run more water) so I am faced with a Strange Man in the house at some point. The drain gel hasn't worked. I've bought a plunger but the instructions seem confusing (yes, I know...). Maybe I'll try it tomorrow morning.

>56 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, and aren't they nicer than little fish? :-)

>57 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I'm pleased you like "pikelets"! Thanks for the frying pan explanation too. It's fascinating how language travels and changes.

>58 thornton37814: Lori, I have never seen that flavour in anything here. We do have lots of fruit tea bags, though. Actually I suppose apple and spice flavour would be sort of like cider?

>59 Helenliz: Helen, he definitely is in this case!

>60 BekkaJo: Bekka, five burners? I bet you've got a lovely range stove in your proper kitchen. Sigh of envy. Although, as I have never cooked on more than two elements at the same time, maybe I should get a grip!

>61 charl08: Charlotte, yum! I hope the birthday deliciousness continues!

>62 Crazymamie: Mamie, I had bread and butter pudding for lunch (well, after lunch). Might that do? Mine came with custard. Mmmm.

Susan, if only you lived closer, I could just send Craig over Daniel over. Your sink would be right as rain in no time.

>63 susanj67: Yes. That will do nicely, thank you.

>64 Crazymamie: Mamie, if only I lived closer I would take you up on your very kind offer! Also, I would live in a house and not have to worry about flooding the downstairs neighbours, which is my major worry with anything water-related. How lovely that would be. Anyway, I did a basket of ironing while I watched Fixer Upper (now on a lifestyle channel instead of the Food Network) so that was something (in terms of tidying up for the Stranger). I would love to just turn the flat over to Chip and Joanna to revamp the whole thing!

I LOVE Chip and Joanna!! Abby bought me one of their Magnolia mugs like you see her drinking out of sometimes, and it is my new favorite!

Hi Susan! Yes, I did like pikelets. It's been years since I had them, though.

I think that American pancakes are more fluffy in order to soak up the syrup better whereas the the pikelets have more of a "cake-y" texture which makes them good with jam and cream, but since I very rarely make either I don't have the recipes for both to compare. My husband is the pancake maker in our house and he goes with the American style. I will have to check my Mom's recipe next time I visit cause I know she still makes the pikelets.

And now I am craving pancakes in a very big way! Pancakes with syrup, sliced strawberries and whip cream!

Chip and Joanna are based in Waco. Which is only about an hour-hour and a half from Dallas. Just sayin'. One could come to Dallas and make a pilgrimage. Just sayin'. Ahem. Susan and Mamie.... Ahem.

>66 Crazymamie: Mamie, what a cute gift! I love them too - so funny, esp the way Chip is always trying to pretend he's 6'3". Last night I saw an episode in which they helped a singleton. I've only seen couples before. Chip tried to build him a basketball court and a beach volleyball court in the back yard without Joanna finding out. But then there's limited scope for crown mouldings and shiplap outside :-)

>67 cbl_tn: Carrie, we get them in the supermarkets here, although labelled as pancakes.

>68 DeltaQueen50: Judy, that's interesting. I'll have to see if I can compare and contrast. I must have a pikelet recipe in my Edmonds cookbook, which is like the NZ cooking bible. I'm rather craving pancakes now too!

>69 katiekrug: Katie, I was wondering how far Waco was from Dallas :-) I'm always impressed at what a pretty town it is, and how enormous the houses are. I'd only ever heard of Waco before in the context of that siege at the cult community years ago, and I imagined it to be quite different. I was a bit unimpressed last night, though, when they were using books purely for decoration - namely two volumes of American law reports on a side table, just because they looked good. The client wasn't even a lawyer! (and I can't imagine anyone else voluntarily reading law reports by the volume).

>70 susanj67: I have an Edmonds cookbook! Did I mention that my mother loved NZ?!

Law reports? In the house? Is that allowed outside of a John Grisham film?

I have been for a walk. It was very muddy, but my phone's pedometer thingy is beside itself with joy because this is the furthest I've walked with it switched on. I may now pass out (as I nearly did earlier, when the bus turned up at the time advertised. In the middle of nowhere! Unexpected...)

>72 charl08: - I don't think law books show up in real houses very often. Although - I do have a Real Property law book in the house that was given to me by one of the attorneys when we moved our offices from the re-purposed old house to the newer set of offices in the re-purposed mill building with the better parking. I took it because it was a book and I couldn't bear the thought of it ending up in the dumpster. I think it might be good for pressing flowers the way they used to do in the olden days or perhaps as a door stopper. I can't imagine that I would ever actually attempt to read it.

SO hate the concept of books used as bits of decoration. Especially when they are chosen just for the color of their spines. There's a lot of that going on on Etsy. A definite book violation which ought to be punishable by some kind of stiff fine.

I am obsessed with Chip and Joanna. I love to record a batch of their programs and then just veg out in front of the TV for hours!

>71 cbl_tn: Carrie, how funny! I have my mother's one, which is at least 50 years old. All the measurements are imperial, and it's held together with melted butter and splashes of egg. When I was younger, I used to think it was sooooo boring, because all the baking recipes can be made with pantry basics, but when I see some of the modern recipes calling for tiny quantities of impossible-to-find ingredients I'm glad I have a simple alternative!

>72 charl08: Charlotte, actual volumes of law reports are not really allowed. I'll admit to reading the occasional case at home, printed off the internet, but a whole book would be too much :-) Good on you for the walk! And yay for the bus!

>73 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, those heavy textbooks *are* good for that :-) I had a few of my law school texts for a while, and I might still have a New Zealand legal dictionary, but I try to keep home free of work. Last week on Fixer Upper they renovated a spare house on a farm in Texas, that no-one in the family had lived in for ten years (yes, it was a *spare house* - the sort of thing that makes me hyperventilate) and the huge living room had a number of bookcases full of books, slowly mouldering away - heartbreaking. Even if no-one wanted to live in the house, you'd think at least they could have rescued the books.

>74 DeltaQueen50: Judy, I do that too, sometimes! I bought next week's TV guide last night and I see that the current run is finishing here on Friday (sob!) - we're nearly at the end of series 3, according to the website, but I know they've shown at least one episode from the end of the series out of order. I haven't caught all of them (and I lost a few when my PVR broke), but they're sure to be repeated before the next series (I hope there is one).

Early Warning, the second book in the Jane Smiley trilogy, is really not going very well. I struggle to take an interest, and then find myself watching Orange is the New Black instead. So I've started Spillover, which is excellent, and going much faster. No Netflix last night!

>75 susanj67: Leaving books to moulder away is most definitely a book crime. If you don't want them, find something to do with them - give them away or even - gasp - destroy them. Letting them rot on the shelf will only result in having to do the same thing later on.

Spillover looks scary, but probably I feel this way because of the cover with the baboon on it. Do not like baboons. I'm okay with some monkeys and apes, but there are others that give me the creeps.

Katie does have a brilliant idea! I have only seen a couple of shows from the new season - but they will run a marathon of them here once a week or so, and Abby and I usually catch that and just binge watch. I want to see the one with the spare house - yowza! We could use a spare house for all of Craig's junk really important tools and stuff. We are hoping to build a smallish "pool house" that could serve that purpose...someday. Most of the houses down here have attached garages and also a separate free standing garage, but our house just has the attached garage. Poor us. LOL!

>76 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, my cover doesn't have the baboon - just things that are probably viruses seen under a microscope. It's a great read, but it was published before the most recent Ebola outbreak, and I'd be very interested in reading about that, because I'm sure it has advanced what we know.

>77 Crazymamie: Mamie, I can see it now - a group of us at their shop, clutching merchandise and wearing the #shiplap t-shirts - "Joanna, we love your show, but we do need to talk to you about your use of books"... The programme with the spare house is the only one in which the client already has the house, and they had to do so much to it that I did wonder whether it might have been easier just to pull it down and start again, but it turned out beautifully. I can't get over the *room* and the *space* and the huge gardens! A couple of nights ago they were standing with their clients in a kitchen which was "so small" and words failed me. Which is rare.

Sorry to hear about the Jane Smiley. Hope it picks up soon... I must get on with the Dalrymple. May well resort to bribing myself via mini eggs again.

I love the idea of an intervention for Joanna - I have noticed that she likes to use white books and place them backwards on things like the mantle, so that they are stacked with the pages showing out and the spines facing the wall. I mean, if she is going to do that, they should at least be deckled edge pages. *blink*

Our kitchen here is small, but what saves it is that it is open, and you can see out into the living room. Funny because one of the things that I have always wanted is a big kitchen, as I love to cook and Abby loves to bake, but I had to compromise to get that view of the pecan grove. It was worth it, I think.

>79 DianaNL: Thanks Diana!

>80 charl08: Charlotte, I just need to make an effort with it. I'll have to get on to that :-)

>81 Crazymamie: Mamie, I've seen that "edges out" display, now you mention it. And of course the pages should be deckled! The "small" kitchen they were looking at was, by my standards, enormous, but, admittedly, not as big as the one that they did for Waco's most eligible bachelor, which had *two* islands in it. Two! Last night they did one for two newlyweds "but they're in, like, their late 40s or early 50s" Chip said, as if that was virtually unthinkable. I have six recorded to catch up with, but series 5 of Person of Interest started on Wednesday with a double bill, so it could be a busy weekend :-)

Sometimes, though, I look at those really big kitchens and think I'd need roller skate to work in there -- and I can't roller-skate so what would I do then ?! I'm astonished at how much space some people need to live in.

It's the thought of the cleaning that gets me. Bad enough cleaning small places. Big place it would never end...

Have a good weekend with Netflix Susan. Incidentally, can one 'amazon prime and chill' or is it product specific?

>84 charl08: I amazon prime and chill all the time!

>83 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, think about all the steps, though! Last night I watched an episode in which they did up a 4000 square foot house for a family of four. And two of them were really little. I think that was a bit excessive.

>84 charl08: Charlotte, yes, I do sometimes feel smug that my entire flat can be vacuumed from a single power point. That's on the days when I'm not lusting after one more room. I think it's just "Netflix and chill" - but there are probably new euphemisms by now. I will have to try and eavesdrop on conversations among the trainees, which is difficult given I can barely hear someone sitting right in front of me, but I will do my best.

>85 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie! I have done my steps for today. Well, most of them. Probably all the steps I am going to do. I was about to start baking this morning when I realised I was missing a crucial ingredient, so I decided to walk to the huge Tesco on the other side of the river, which means going west a bit to cross Tower Bridge and then east, to end up directly south of where I started. Fortunately it's on a tube line so the trip home was quick. I even dared get a couple of frozen things.

Yesterday I took a pal from work to join the library, and she was very excited to get her card and my tour (probably more the card than the tour). She borrowed two books. I borrowed no books, but I was sorely tempted by Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature and Andrea Wulf's The Invention of Nature. Look at the pretty cover!



Anyway, I resisted, because I really need to finish the two books I have, before I get a pre-overdue notice (grrrr). Plus that whole Mount TBR thing. Ahem.

Ooh that is a pretty cover. Very restrained not taking it out. I could do with applying that attitude to my pile of books on loan. At the moment I am justifying it on the basis that the library needs all the evidence it can get people use it.

Restraint?! What? Now Susan, I thought we talked about this.

>86 susanj67: A little jealous reading about the joys of joining the library. Sometime in the next five years I am sure that I will buy a place back in the UK and the first thing I will do in whatever locale we will be buying into will be to join the local library.

Have a lovely weekend, Susan.

Book edges facing out??? How does anyone find anything? Sounds like an attempt to be different just for the sake of being different. Or the doings of a non-reader.

>87 charl08: At the moment I am justifying it on the basis that the library needs all the evidence it can get people use it.

Hmm, see, that's a really good reason. Dang!

>88 Crazymamie: Mamie, I know. But I've just seen the giant pile on your thread, so there *are* books being borrowed...My friend thinks she will stop buying books now and save up for a deposit on a house :-)

>89 PaulCranswick: Paul, yes, that should be your first stop! I hope your weekend goes well too - I suppose Saturday must nearly be over.

>90 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I think it's just for decoration. Presumably the clients aren't allowed to tut and go over and move them round while the filming is going on. Still, I think I'd be tempted...

The muffins turned out nicely - slightly darker than last time as I found the date nectar at Waitrose last night so I thought I'd give it a try. Now I'm heating up a Linda McCartney Vegetarian Leek and Cheese plait for lunch. I love supermarket freezer cabinets :-)

Hi Susan! I will have to look for Chip and Judy on HGTV. My mother and I used to watch HGTV together and shake our heads in wonder at the empty bookcases decorated with knicknacks instead of books.

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the self-cleaning house. I will be first in line to move in. (It would be nice if the self-moving house would arrive on the market at the same time!)

I have 35 books that I have listed as recommended by you, Susan. So, I have decided that I am going to be reading a bunch of them in the months that remain in 2016. I've ordered Dirty Old London through ILL (because the local library did not have it) and it is on its way.

Morning Susan (or, where you are "good afternoon") I hope you're having a lovely weekend. We have the grandkids over and when they wake up we're going to make waffles. I'm a bit hungry so I'm really looking forward to it.

Did you hear the news about the ban on high powered kettles?! EU treading carefully to avoid upsetting British tea drinkers pre the referendum. Ha!

>92 cbl_tn: Carrie, I would love a self-moving house! I hope you find some Fixer Uppers to watch :-)

>93 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, 35! Oh my word. The pressure is on me now :-)

>94 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, yum, waffles! I could eat those at any time. But dinner is a baked sweet potato with a three-bean chilli. From a can, but it's beans...

>95 charl08: Charlotte, ha! I looked it up. I see they've dropped plans to ban high-powered toasters (but what IS a h-p toaster?) and hairdryers too. That may indeed have sent people voting no - who has time for all their key morning appliances to take twice as long?!

I'm not doing very well on the reading front, and a small nap may have intervened. And now it's 6pm! I wish someone would confirm, using maths, why time goes faster on the weekend. But I did finish series 2 of Orange is the New Black, so that's something. Early Warning is due back on Tuesday, so I really want to finish it this weekend, although there is another copy on the shelf which I noticed yesterday, so I could renew it. Spillover is due back on the 7th.

>86 susanj67: I have just ordered The Invention of Nature as a 70th birthday present for my brother-in-law, so I hope it lives up to its cover!

#96 I second that - let's find some maths bods to do the analysis. Cos I'm pretty sure that this working week has taken 10.4 years and this weekend so far 9 seconds...

>97 SandDune: Rhian, it does look good from what I've since read online (in a purely interested capacity and not, say, to justify getting it out tomorrow).

>98 BekkaJo: Bekka, and today is going no more slowly! But at least I have done another supermarket shop, and mixed up some granola, which I will bake shortly.

Yesterday I read 150 pages of Early Warning. I have 210 to go. That's my goal for today. I can do it! (maybe). No, wait, that's not how positive thinking is supposed to go...

I have nothing else pressing, save for continued wondering about the d*mned upstairs neighbours, who clomped around *all night* (their kitchen is above my bedroom), and had people ringing their buzzer in the small hours. (I can hear the chirping tone it makes). But I may have an answer to the perennial question "Why would you wear hard soles in the middle of the night instead of slippers?". Hard soles are part of proper shoes. Or boots. And you would wear those if you couldn't risk spilling stuff on yourself when you were cooking it up. What stuff? Well, that's the question. But they're up to something up there.

And speaking of cooking, here's a link to an article in the Guardian today about porridge. "Hipster porridge" as one of the commenters describes it. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/28/its-porridge-but-not-as-we-k... Some of the alternative recipes in the comments are very funny. I love "Boil with Irn Bru and a pinch of heroin..."

Finally!



20. Early Warning by Jane Smiley

This is the second book in the trilogy, and I found it slow to get going, but it seemed to go much faster once I read it in bigger chunks. I'll have a bit of a break before I read the last one, and I want to finish Spillover too.

Maybe it's time for something Netflix-y :-)

Hi Susan - Early Warning was my least favorite of the trilogy. I delayed in picking up Golden Age but ended up loving it.

>102 BLBera: Beth, I remembered your experience as I was struggling with it, and that helped to get me through. It was OK yesterday and today when I read a lot at once, so maybe I should have tackled the first part like that.



21. Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson

I've had this going for a while, and after I finished Early Warning I picked it up to see where I was up to, and somehow managed to finish it. It's subtitled "The Drowning of Galveston 8 September 1900" and it's a fast read - lots of tension as the signs of the storm are ignored and then it hits with virtually no warning, and is far worse than anyone could imagine. And it's another one finished from Mount TBR. Check me out!

Another from the TBR? I fear I am going to have to have a go at another go at a TBR only month. (Or more realistically, mostly TBR with bits of library books that I can't resist!).

>104 charl08: Charlotte, March Over To Mount TBR starts tomorrow, so you could always try that :-)

I returned Early Warning this morning and skedaddled right back out again, even though I could see FLA at the desk and could have gone over to say hello. But the desk is very near the new books display.

Next up, I think, is going to be Rising Tide, and then for my fiction choice, Bleak House. I have a Penguin Classics edition that I bought years ago before ereaders, but I've never opened it. And I loved Dickensian when it was on the BBC recently, and it made me want to read more Dickens.

>105 susanj67: Good try! Hmmmm. The attraction of November is that it's a Long Way Away.

I watched the capital punishment programme again last night. Awful crime, but the jury members talking was eye opening. I really hope I don't get called. Ever.

>107 susanj67: Well, there's always April-ieve I'll Read My Own Books This Month, or May I Leave My Library Card With You? Then June-o I Think I'll Stick To My Own Shelves, or July've Always Wanted to Finish Mount TBR. Quite a few choices, you see.

I tried to find the programme, but wasn't sure whether the one I found was your one. Now I think it is. There's one called Murder on the BBC on Thursday: http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/d2b4pf/murder--s1-e1-the-third-voice The one about the Crown Prosecutors on BBC Four is good too - how they make charging decisions and so on.

Life and Death Row. It's BBC 3 so it's only online/ iplayer now. For me I think one of the reasons it's so awful is that they focus on young people. Some of those accused have baby faces, barely look able to shave.

I'd seen the ads for the CPS one, will look out for it.

I've just got the June one. Slow here...

>108 charl08: I'll look for it tonight. This is the day on which my Sons of Anarchy marathon was supposed to start because the document in the case from hell was supposed to be filed. However, now it's tomorrow. Humph. Meanwhile, I started Breaking Bad, mostly to look carefully at the type of footwear someone might need if they were making drugs in their kitchen, and just how much clomping is involved.

>109 charl08: Heh :-)

Happy Leap Day, Susan!

>111 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie :-)



Yesssssss! Today is my Friday, as I have the next two days as holiday, and then the weekend. That makes four whole days. The documents were finally filed in the case from h*ll, so I am making the most of it. It all starts up again in a month.

I have 200 pages of Spillover left to go, and I need to make an effort. I've been good and not started anything new, so I have no distractions. I may have looked at the library catalogue a couple of times, though, and seen something handily available up in Bethnal Green, a branch I have never visited, but so far so good. Weather permitting, I'm going to go to an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum tomorrow, and the members' day of the new "Botticelli Reimagined" exhibition at the V&A on Friday. And do lots of steps. But mostly just enjoy the four days in a row. Did I mention there were four?

I was wondering if you had been trapped underneath the enormous spreadsheet unable to escape. Glad to hear not.

That sounds like a very classy plan for the long weekend. Four whole days you say? I have a feeling that both museums you mention have Very Good Gift/Bookshops...
Just saying. No pressure.

(Have you been to the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green? Kind of a trip down memory lane).

Hooray for a holiday!! And for four whole days! Abby and i are eagerly awaiting the evacuation of the house this weekend - Craig is leaving on Saturday morning to pick up his mom and take her to her time-share, and Rae, Birdy and Daniel are going along. They will be gone for the week, so Abby and I will be on our own!!! We cannot wait!

>113 charl08: Charlotte, actually the spreadsheet has been my nice calm escape during periods of the c-f-h*ll. It's for another case, and there are a few of us working on it. Yes, I have four whole days! And now the National Portrait Gallery booking site is up and running again, I'm going to go the Vogue exhibition there tomorrow as they have good ticket availability, and save the Imperial War Museum for the weekend (if I can actually go out three days in a row without turning into a pumpkin). I have been to the Museum of Childhood a couple of times, most recently to the dolls houses exhibition, where many of the other patrons were knee-height. This required some care in walking around it. But it's only about half an hour away from me so it's a good walk for stepping purposes.

>114 Crazymamie: Mamie, yes, hooray! And it sounds like you and Abby have a fun week planned. What's on the itinerary apart from lots of reading? One of my pals asked me yesterday what sort of Fitbit I had, so my group may be getting another member ;-)

Well, definitely Netflixing, and we have a list of new movies that we want to watch. Probably baking and loads of coffee drinking. Shopping. Whatever we feel like, basically, which should be great fun as Abby is a lovely companion - one of my very favorite people!

Hooray for a new Fitbit friend - I love comparing stats.

Congratulations on four days in a row off!! Sounds wonderful and you sound like you have great plans. Enjoy!!

Oh, yes, four days off sounds wonderful!!

Happy Thursday, Susan!

>116 Crazymamie: Mamie, that sounds great! I may have to work some Netflixing into my plans too. Ahem.

>117 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks Reba! Today has been excellent.

>118 scaifea: Hi Amber! I should do it more often :-)

>119 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie! You too.

Today I've been running around like a tourist, which has been fun. I went to the National Portrait Gallery for opening time, to see their 100 Years of Vogue exhibition, which is very good. The website advises booking, but I had no trouble getting a ticket for immediate entrance, so anyone wanting to go midweek should be fine. Even if you have to wait for a later slot, there's plenty o0f other things to see.



Then I walked up Charing Cross Road, stopping in at the new Foyles. I'm not sure how long it's been new, but it's a beautiful building, with five floors of amazingness. They've also retained some of the random shelving that the old one was known for - I found vegetarian cookbooks in the Gardening section, for example. It's definitely worth a look, and there's a cafe at the top too.

After lunch at Wagamamas, where I replaced my favourite chicken katsu curry with the vegetable katsu curry (slices of sweet potato, butternut squash and aubergine fried in the same delicious breadcrumbs) I went down to the Imperial War Museum to see the Lee Miller: A Woman's War exhibition, which was excellent.



I was tempted by much of the bookshop, but I wanted to walk home. And that walk included a stop at Pret for afternoon tea :-) So no shopping for me, but a really fun day, and it was sunny and clear so a perfect day to walk around London.

Sounds like you're doing a great job of making a mini-vacation out of your four days off.

That sounds like an excellent day, Susan! Well done, my friend!

Four days off.

*Jealous sigh*

have a wonderful break :)

>121 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I'm doing my best!

>122 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie!

>123 BekkaJo: Thanks Bekka - I hope to have more to report tomorrow.

But, for now, I have finished my last library book:



22. Spillover by David Quammen

This excellent book was mentioned in Missing Microbes which I read recently, and I was pleased to find a copy on the shelf at the library. It did seem to have fallen into a puddle (I hope) but I borrowed it anyway. It looks at zoonotic diseases (those that come to us from animals) and it's fascinating. The author and the experts he interviews speculate about the Next Big One, which many seem to think will be a flu of some sort (particularly bird flu). It was published in 2013, so before the most recent and most serious Ebola outbreak, and of course before Zika, but certainly some of the gaps in our knowledge of Ebola have been filled since the book was published. The science in it is well-explained, although the author admits that some of it is never going to be understood by a lay audience, and frequently says things like "Take a deep breath and focus" and "If you understood that, you know more about flu than 90% of the population". The chatty style works well. Highly recommended.

Happy Friday, Susan!

>125 DianaNL: Thanks Diana :-)

>126 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie - it's like Friday doubled :-)



Today I went to the members' preview day for the Botticelli Reimagined exhibition at the V&A. It was very well done, starting with modern reimaginings, then going back to when Botticelli was rediscovered in the 1800s, having been forgotten about for centuries, and then finally back to his own paintings. Like most V&A exhibitions, there was a lot to see, and it was pretty popular but not too crowded. Being a members' day, there was no timed ticketing, but they were doing a "dwell" survey, which involved giving everyone a slip of paper at the beginning with their time of entry on it, and asking them to please return it afterwards. Quite low-tech :-) Afterwards I walked east till I got to St Paul's, and then got the bus home after visiting M&S for a few bits and pieces. I have another exhibition to see tomorrow depending on the weather, but I saw a report on the BBC this morning which involved rain and high winds, so I'll see what happens. I've been so lucky with the last couple of days - it's been *perfect* weather for walking, and the step count is looking pretty good :-)

That sounds like another day full of fabulous, Susan! You are doing a great job of spending your vacation! The Botticelli exhibit sounds so interesting.

Good work on the step count. Both exhibitions sound lovely. Horrible weather here. The kind of snow that doesn't settle, but that makes going outside seem *very* unattractive (or maybe that's just me!).

Lettuce shoots showing in my plant trays, so I'm hoping for good weather to appear at some point so I can eventually plant them out...

I bet your step count is off the chart (I don't dare go and look). Good on you!! Even if you have a rainy, windy day among your days off it'll just give you a perfect day for reading. Enjoy.

Happy weekend, Susan.

>128 Crazymamie: Mamie, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a couple of days off so much. I woke up convinced today was Sunday but it's *still not*!!

>129 charl08: Charlotte, I think any kind of snow is prettier to look at than go out in, so I sympathise. I hope it warms up soon so the lettuces can go and do their thing outside.

>130 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, it's pretty good :-) Today was a tiny bit rainy, so I decided not to walk far, but just to go down to the supermarket at Surrey Quays. I bought all the ingredients for a cauliflower curry, and discovered that Tesco do frozen chopped onions, and also garlic. I expected to be felled by a thunderbolt sent by one of my cook-y ancestors as I left the building, but so far so good :-)

>131 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara :-)

I started Rising Tide yesterday, and it's looking good. And on the Kindle I've started No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy, which I bought in the Verso sale at the end of last year (unsurprisingly). It's not just about the Gates Foundation, but looks more widely at "philanthrocapitalism" and whether it's really as beneficial as its fans say. The author is going to struggle to convince me that the Gates Foundation's efforts to eradicate malaria etc aren't worthy aims, but apparently it does other things that are more controversial.

Oh. That book I want to read. Gah, book envy.... look forward to the comments.

Cauliflower curry sounds lovely - takes on beautiful colour with the spices. I must dig out my recipe for a butternut one, it's the right kind of weather for something good and warming.

Enjoy the remainder of your 4 day weekend!

>120 susanj67: I don't get into London that often but I love the new Foyles.

Susan, I am thrilled that you are enjoying your free days so much! Fun! Hooray for still having the weekend before you!

Hi Susan! I'm glad you're still enjoying your long weekend. I'm looking forward to the long weekend at Easter!

I an envious of the 4 days off, I am particularly envious of the 4 days in London. I lived there for 4 years (the unfashionable bit of East London) you end up taking the availability of museums and culture right on the doorstep for granted. It's a bit different living in the sticks. Go on, make me more jealous...

>133 charl08: Charlotte, I've finished the book and my comments are below. I'm going to make the curry tomorrow, as there will be enough for a lunch or two, and I even have naan bread :-)

>134 souloftherose: Heather, I only found out there was a new one when I was looking at Time Out. I suppose it's been there some embarrassing length of time :-) The website says they lost their old premises to Crossrail, which is the case for a lot of other businesses too. The new shop looks wonderful, though.

>135 Crazymamie: Mamie, I have one whole day left! And I've done all the laundry other other house-y stuff. Yay!

>136 cbl_tn: Carrie, I am looking forward to that too. I might add on an extra day and make it a five-day spectacular.

>137 Helenliz: Helen, I didn't go to anything today as it started raining, but I have plans for tomorrow...There's an exhibition on at Somerset House that looks good, and which I only saw because I was walking along the Embankment and saw it advertised. I need to get on more mailing lists.



23. No Such Thing as a Free Gift by Linsey McGoey

In this book, the author looks at "philanthrocapitalism" and whether it really is the answer to the problems it seeks to address, or whether the money would be better spent elsewhere, namely in taxes which governments could then distribute. Although it focuses on the Gates Foundation, the author discusses the concept generally, as so much money is now funnelled away from governments and into philanthropic enterprises which might not necessarily be of use to the poorest (why, for example, should people get tax breaks for funding museums that already have plenty of money (the example given was the Guggenheim)?). Comparatively little ends up with the very neediest.

When I saw "Gates Foundation" I thought "malaria", as one of its projects is the eradication of the disease (something the author of Spillover thinks will be impossible, by the way, as it's a zoonotic disease, meaning that it's always living somewhere in an animal reservoir, ready to pop up again when the population of susceptible humans makes it worthwhile). But it turns out that the foundation does a lot more in the health arena, and has many other interests. Even the health work is controversial - their attempts to finally get rid of polio, for example, have been criticised because they take attention and personnel away from the delivery of other vaccines, like measles, which is apparently of more concern in those few regions where polio is still an issue. But there is even more controversy about the foundation's involvement in the US education system, and their support for companies like Monsanto and Coca Cola.

The book raises a lot of excellent questions about philanthrocapitalism, and is very thought-provoking. I didn't realise, for example, that the WHO, which once received most of its funds from countries, now receives a huge chunk from individual donors, *and that those donors can specify how the funds are to be used*, meaning (allegedly) too much attention on infectious diseases and too little on things like obesity, heart disease and diabetes, which will soon be killing far more people in the developing world than AIDS and TB. Recommended.

Sounds really good Susan. Added to the wishlist. I picked up Exposure from the library, the new Helen Dunmore. Really good so far. But you're not getting any books out from the library, right.

>132 susanj67: discovered that Tesco do frozen chopped onions I noticed this week that Tesco also do fresh chopped onions, which also went against the puritanical element of my soul.

I was woefully behind on your thread, Susan, but am now all caught up. Your mini-vacation sounds lovely. I hope to do something similar later this month - maybe take a Friday and Monday off...

I am a big fan of things like the frozen or fresh chopped onions and such. I don't like to cook, and a lot of what I don't like about it is all the prep work, so anything that eases that is a plus in my opinion. I am willing to pay for convenience and saved time :)

There are a few things I'm willing to pay someone else to cut for me. Watermelon (or any other melon) and butternut squash are among them. I love adding butternut squash to soup, but it's not easy to dice.

So I stand alone, I guess. I love the prep work in cooking - I find it relaxing. Yep. Totally warped, I know, but there you have it. If only we all lived closer, I could be your sous chef!

>138 susanj67: 'The website says they lost their old premises to Crossrail

Oh, I hadn't realised that was why they moved. That explains why the old building is still empty.

Finding the conversation on pre-chopped veg interesting. I'm with Mamie and generally find it quite soothing but only if I'm not in a rush. The one exception is chopping onions which I hate because they make me cry but I don't cook with onions at all anymore (they don't like my stomach) and leeks are a lot nicer to chop.

>139 charl08: Charlotte, that's right, I'm not. Not. Not. Not. Not.

>140 SandDune: Rhian, I think it started the day I bought my first packet of grated cheese. Since then I've been picking up speed down the slippery slope. After trying to grate ginger today, I'll be picking up some prepared ginger next time.

>141 katiekrug: Hi Katie! I have had a lovely time. I went to another exhibition today, and did lots of steps, and even walked all the way home too. True, that was mostly because the bus was 22 minutes away, but still. I quite like cooking but generally can't be bothered because there's just me. However, I will never cry over another onion again :-)

>142 cbl_tn: Carrie, I'm with you on squash! Actually I have a bag of that in the freezer too...I still have a scar visible on one finger after an incident trying to cut pumpkin 20+ years ago.

>143 Crazymamie: Mamie, I would totally hire you as my sous chef!

>144 souloftherose: Heather, I agree about the onions. I had one left today, but that was my last onion forever, or at least while frozen onion is available :-) Apparently it cooks from frozen in just six minutes!

I made the cauliflower curry this afternoon and it turned out beautifully, although I did struggle to get enough ginger into it. I had it with naan bread, as I have six little naan breads. And there's enough curry for a couple more meals. Just as well I like it!

I intended to read this afternoon, but Orange is the New Black got in the way. It's interesting, though, because one of the issues discussed in yesterday's book was the privatisation of formerly government-run things like prisons, and lo! The prison in OITNB has been sold to a private company which has no interest in prisoner welfare whatsoever. There's a lot of criticism of similar privatisations here in the UK, and, while I'm sure it's exaggerated in the TV programme, I do wonder whether it's exaggerated by much, based on some of what I've read. I have one episode left to go and then I'm all up to date, but tonight is the final of Call the Midwife and the first episode of Doctor Thorne, so I'm engaged for the rest of the evening :-)

Oh, grating ginger. Ugh. DO you have this available to you:



Our grocery carries it in the refrigerated part of the produce section, and I tried it after attempting ginger - so messy and also not easy. Now I use it all the time in place of fresh ginger.

I was reading your discussion of That's Not English: Britishisms, Americanisms and What Our English Says About Us and it sounds so fascinating! I"ve not read it as yet, because I suspect as Canadian, my language would fall somewhere in between . But for me a kettle is something that sits on the burner. In the past , plug in electric kettles were popular, and by that I mean ? 35 years ago. Now it's more usual to have a kettle that sits on the burner . And yes, virtually everyone has 4 burners on their stove top, be they gas, electric, induction or ceramic. And I thought a hob was some sort of wood burning cooker from the 1920's! :) I would call a skillet a frying pan. Electric frying pans were popular back 35 years ago, but like an electric kettle , have gone out of style, likely because of how much counter space they take up. Fun discussion!

>146 Crazymamie: Mamie, apparently we do have that brand, although listed as out of stock on the supermarket comparison site. But I'll go for frozen ginger, as the use-by dates on the refrigerated things are quite short compared to the amount that I use. Things are still not packaged for the singleton household!

>147 vancouverdeb: Hello Deborah! So nice to see you. And thank you for confirming "burner" - to me it sounds like something with a flame, but I see it's not. I've never seen an electric frying pan here but I looked up an Australasian site and they're still a thing down there. I suppose everyone's using the space for slow cookers these days :-)

I just returned Spillover to the library, and a moment of weakness crept up on me, so I came away with The Button Box: Lifting the Lid on Women's Lives and Plutocrats, which is about the new super-rich. I think it will go well with the book I just read on philanthrocapitalism. I saw both of these in bookshops on my travels last week, so they weren't entirely impulse borrows. OK, The Button Box was, because I saw it on the new books shelf, but I'd looked up the other one and remembered the Dewey number. The writer of The Button Box is the one who wrote Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue, which I really liked a few years ago.

The button box sounded great from the review - hope it is! I am wrestling between finishing the Dalrymple (it's good, but it's so long!) and starting shiny new books from the library.

"I just returned Spillover to the library, and a moment of weakness crept up on me..." YES! Now we're talking! Glad to see you back in fighting form.

And I didn't think about the singleton household and use by dates - obviously that rarely applies to the Pecan Paradisio.

Happy Pre-Tuesday, Susan!

I don't mind chopping my own garlic and onions. I rarely cry with onions any more. I've watched TV chefs handle these items enough that I can usually do them almost as quickly as they can. I'm not really crazy about cutting butternut squash, but I do my own.

>149 charl08: Charlotte, I see you caved and went for the crime novel :-) The Button Box has a really cute cover, which was mostly what made me notice it. But I've started Plutocrats first.

>150 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie! And happy actual Tuesday to you! Today I get to work with TWO spreadsheets. Exciting. Lucky I have my two screens. The young people have kindly sent me links that go right into the documents, instead of trusting me to find them on the appropriate drive. They must realise what they're dealing with.

>151 thornton37814: Lori, I've never got over the crying with onions, so I envy you! Mind you, I don't chop them that often.

I told the roomie about my curry attempts yesterday, and she looked slightly disapproving that I was doing Indian cookery but rallied and gave me some suggestions for next time. Apparently the dish I made used a classic curry base which can be used with any vegetables. I'm thinking of adding chickpeas next time, too.

I did cave. So unlikely, I know..

I'm excited about the women's fiction prize (even if they barely chose any of the ones that I thought they would).

Curry reports sound good. Making me hungry, in fact...

Stopping by and finally getting caught up. I don't think I have ever heard of a high powered kettle before. I know the one we have at work definitely isn't - it takes 5 minutes to bring the water to boil! The only 'high-power' item I have at home (unless my hair dryer counts) is the battery charger for all of our wireless devices.

The only thing I like to buy pre-cut is pineapple. I love pineapple but I hate all the fussy work to cut it up.

I do most chopping on my own but onions...only way I can even begin on that job is if they're cold from the fridge. Then I might, just might, be able to get the whole darned thing chopped before I can no longer see it through the tears. As a result, if it's going into a stew or soup or the like, I often go for the frozen ones. Better than sliced bread in my opinion.

I found the 'books and reading' tag on the library catalogue. I'm a bit worried my TBR pile might collapse and bury me as a result. Phantoms on the Bookshelves has a lot to answer for...

How is the library resistance movement coming?

>153 charl08: Charlotte, I saw the list on your thread and also the review of the one set in Zimbabwe, which looks interesting. Thanks for posting both!

>153 charl08: Lori, I think a high-powered kettle (in EU terms, anyway) is just an ordinary one. They were bringing in regulations requiring appliances to be less energy-intensive (or whatever the correct term is) and they did it for vacuum cleaners, at which point there was a run on all the vacuums that were too high-powered for the new regulations. A bit like the run on lightbulbs before they nixed the old carbon filament ones. I still have a cupboard full of them. Well, half a cupboard.

>155 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, yes! Better than sliced bread, because at least that doesn't make you cry.

>156 charl08: Charlotte, I had never heard of such a thing. I looked up the "Advanced Search" option in my catalogue, and there was a tags field, so I typed "books and reading" into it, and two results came up: The War of the Worlds and She's Come Undone. That's right across the consortium, four million books. I may be doing it wrong. I haven't been back to the library since Monday, and The Plutocrats is coming along well, but this week has been crazy on the work front. A squillion more documents have appeared for urgent review in a case, so it's all hands on deck, or more accurately on mice. "What are you still DOING here?" asked the roomie as she left the other day (we typically have very different hours as she's an owl and I'm a lark). "You'll turn into a pumpkin."

Oh my goodness I was so far behind! Howdy Susan!!!

I've caught 2 BB from you, Spillover and That's Not English.

>158 luvamystery65: Howdy Roberta! Those are both great books and you will love them. That's official :-)

Treats for today: A tiny L'Occitane hand lotion in Cherry Blossom, from the Advent calendar, and a box of pomegranante green tea bags. I finally finished the black tea bags from my s-i-l's Christmas hamper and I'm euphoric :-)

Your treats sound so good, Susan!

>160 DianaNL: Thanks Diana!



24. The Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland

This is a fascinating look at "The rise of the new global super-rich and the fall of everyone else", as the subtitle says, but it's a lot more than just a list of rich people and details of all their outrageous spending. It goes back to the age of the American "robber barons" to trace common themes, and looks at who today's plutocrats are, and how some of them differ from those historical figures who made fortunes using questionable business practices, but who actually created something useful at the same time (the railways in the US, for example). The first two LT reviews don't think much of this book, but I disagree. It's an eye-opening look not just at the super-rich, but at how and why they have such an influence on political decisions and what this means for the rest of us. Globalisation adds an interesting new dimension to this, because, whereas once businessmen like Henry Ford needed an affluent middle class to buy his cars, and there was a limit to how much damage could be done to those people without losing customers, now there are plenty of people overseas to buy products or services. In fact the author argues that, because of globalisation, the super-rich now have less in common with ordinary people from their home countries and more in common with other super-rich, wherever they might hail from. They have created a group defined by their net worth rather than by anything else. Very highly recommended for everyone.

Hmmm, this time last year I'd just finished book 44. Darn that Netflix! :-) This weekend was supposed to be warm, and I had vaguely planned some steps, but it's showing no sign of warmth so far, and I may be sitting here at nearly 10am in my pyjamas. It's so tempting to have a reading day - I'm determined to make some progress with Rising Tide this weekend - but I suppose I should go out somewhere. I have a £3 off a £20+ spend voucher for Tesco and a 10% off any spend card for Waitrose (multiple uses!). It's like a school maths problem. But there is laundry doing itself at the moment, so I am spared a decision for the time being.

Hi Susan! If it doesn't warm up there, you can come here and hang out with me and the dogs! It's supposed to get up to 80F today and I've turned on the AC. Oh, and I have Netflix. ;-)

Just to say in case you're interested in owning Nicholas and Alexandra that it's a Kindle Deal of the day again. It looks nice out here, just about to venture out, hope you're enjoying whatever you do.

Hope your Saturday is treating you well. I accidentally walked ten miles so am now tempted to go lie in the bath for the rest of the day. I finally picked up Inconvenient People. It's a rather sad hardworn hardback, and I am tempted to download a kindle edition instead...

{The Plutocrats sounds interesting but I'm afraid it would put me into either a major funk or a major grump. Hope you have a good weekend though. Wish you were here to share our 70 degrees and sunny. We could lay down some steps together :)

We had a foggy start, but it was quite still out, so not as cold as it has been. Go on, venture out. Netflix can wait until a rainy day. >:-)

>163 cbl_tn: Carrie, that would have been fun! It cheered up enough to get me out of the house, but only to the supermarket.

>164 elkiedee: Thanks Luci, but my version is the Amazon one. I see what you mean about them being on special quite a bit - I think that's the third time I've seen it!

>165 charl08: Charlotte, TEN MILES?!! Wow. You win the steps for today :-) Well done, and I hope you're not too tired to get some reading in this evening. I haven't read Inconvenient People but her book The Blackest Streets is good. And speaking of the grim streets of London, there's an excellent "Secret History" series on BBC 2 which started last week and traced the families of three pickpocket sisters from Shoreditch. Fascinating.

>166 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, yes, it might have that effect :-) I'd love to step my way through San Diego!

>167 Helenliz: Helen, I did eventually, and actually got quite a bit done in the way of admin etc before I went. Tesco wasn't as bad as I thought it might be at 12.30, but then it's a huge one.

I think my Kindle Fire might be on the way out, if taking an AGE to charge is a sign of that. Dangnabbit - there could be technology decisions in my future. I've said before that I wouldn't get another Fire, because it's so distracting, but I do like having the Overdrive app on it for library books. Hmmm. And how can the cheapest one only be £49.99 when the basic ereader is more than that?! Craziness.

I've read quite a bit of Rising Tide this afternoon, so I'm pleased about that. Now I just need to hide the TV remote for the evening.

I made cookies earlier for Sky's dad to take home with him, and now I'm watching Chip & Joanna on HGTV.

I just got a newer Kindle Fire because my old one would not take some apps that I find essential such as Hoopla. My Kindle keyboard has finally given up the ghost. I will miss that beauty. I loved it for before bed reading.

Yep, I paid $49.99 for mine. Actually, I used my Amazon gift card so I paid less than $3.00 after taxes. ;-)

>168 susanj67: I think the Kindle Fire is designed to sell stuff, so it makes sense for it to be cheap. I have one but I prefer my Paperwhite for reading books.

>168 susanj67: I had a good walk around the condo grounds today about 5 km in total but it is quite hilly and 90 plus degree temperatures.

Have a great Sunday, Susan.

Hi Susan! Sounds as if you had a nice little vacation going for a while. Very envious of your expeditions.

I've added Plutocrats to my "rec by susanj67 - Group 2" category. I've got so many recs from you that I need to start another recommended group of books for reading at a future date. Am closing in on the end of Dirty Old London so it will be time, very shortly, to choose another book from the first group of recs. Hmmm - which one shall it be? I think I'll just close my eyes and point.

Will add The Blackest Streets to the list Susan. Sarah Wise is such a good writer, I'm gripped by the stories of people put away because they were inconvenient. Although I still think the size of the book is also inconvenient...

I mentioned the tags on the library catalogue - I used the wrong word. They're boxes that show up at the bottom of the record and are subjects not tags. Sorry!

>169 cbl_tn: Carrie, cookies and Fixer Upper sounds like the perfect end to the weekend!

>170 luvamystery65: Roberta, I could pretty much do the same, with a combo of gift cards and vouchers if I buy it from a shop near the office. But, in the meantime, I googled and tried the suggestion of turning it *right off* and then charging it, and that seemed to perk it up a bit. The cheap version is out of stock for the next 6 - 8 weeks. I loved my keyboard Kindle too, but it met a sad end on a work trip (darn those business class flatbeds).

>171 elkiedee: Luci, that's probably right, although the whole selling thing fails with me, apart from the Kindle Daily Deal which I access from my PC anyway.

>172 PaulCranswick: Paul, good on you! London lacks hills, and also the 90 degrees...Yes, that's my excuse for not walking on Sunday :-)

>173 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, it seems like a long time ago now :-) I need a second group already? Wow. I rock :-) I use the random picking at times, but usually then wish I'd picked something else. I'm seriously considering making 2017 the year LTers pick my books for me, or at least 75 of them, as we discussed at the end of last year.

>174 charl08: Charlotte, I'm not sure we have the boxes, but I will check later. I returned The Plutocrats this morning and swung by the new books shelves, but came away with nothing. I didn't even reshelve a novel in the non-fiction section onto the fiction shelf. I'm not sure I could read Inconvenient People but it's the sort of thing my mother would have loved. She was a "misery-lit" fan long before it became a thing. She died before Angela's Ashes was published and it really got going, but if there was a book written about a child fed on gruel and shut in a cupboard, she'd read it. I think I'm still rebelling :-)

Did your mum read Catherine Cookson, by any chance?!

What I like about this book is that the people who are victims don't go down easy - they write about what they suffered, they try to run away, they form groups and petition the government. Plus its all the fascinating 18/ e19c politics about political freedoms vs fear of it all going to inspire 'another French Revolution'.

Hope you find lots of books about reading. I am hovering over a book that claims to have pictures of fancy design Bookshelves (but will they actually be full of books, or have pots instead?!).

>176 charl08: Charlotte, why yes, she *did* read a lot of Cookson :-) You're making me interested in the book now - maybe if I see it on the shelf...Oh, I see it *is* on the shelf at the branch where my card doesn't work. Just one jobsworth grimace and it's mine! I've just tried the catalogue search again, and I see what you mean. Down the side of the record there's an "expand search" area, and one of the possibilities is "Subject". Options for Phantom on the Bookshelves are Book collecting, Book collectors - biography and Private Libraries. Interesting! And in the Advanced Search box, I tried "Books and reading" in the *subject* box, rather than the tag box, and there are 425 items. Ooh :-)

D'oh of the day: *alternating* packets of plain and cheese + onion potato chips in a single slot of the vending machine. I mean really.

>178 susanj67: What?! That's completely bizarre.

>177 susanj67: Well, only 425 books to choose from?!

>179 Crazymamie: Mamie, it's like they think that all junk food is interchangeable or something.

>180 charl08: Charlotte yes, not a huge selection :-)



25. Rising Tide by John Barry

This is about the great Mississippi flood of 1927, although in fact it looks at the earlier history of attempts to control the river as well. Full of personalities and politics as well as a huge natural disaster, it's an excellent read. And it's another book finished from Mount TBR! I'll donate it to the book exchange later, and start to put in place my new plan to label the non-fiction according to Dewey number. There aren't *that* many NF books, and with the library catalogue bookmarked on my BlackBerry I can do three or four per visit. And I visit twice a day as my colleagues were *raised by wolves* and the shelves look ransacked five minutes after I've tidied them. I'll have to go to Ryman at lunchtime and get some little stickers. Oooh, stationery shopping!

My next chunkster is White Mughals, but my bus book (something lighter and smaller) is The Soul of a New Machine which is a Pulitzer winner about computers from 1982. I read 20 pages on the bus this morning, and there's lots of talk of mainframes and mini-computers - terms I vaguely remember from long ago. I think it will be interesting to see just what the author predicts about the future of computing from 35-odd years ago, particularly as we now have more computing power in our phones than NASA had when it sent the first men to the moon (at least that's what I've heard - it could be an urban myth).

You get to do stickers? Oh I'm jealous...

Have fun with the reorganisation.

I'd heard that thing about the spaceship and the phones. How on earth they made it - the mind boggles. Although I suppose they weren't using up their battery checking funny cat videos?

I really liked White Mughals, but it has left me with the problem that I want to take a long trip across India with elephants (at least one for my books).

>182 charl08: Charlotte, yup, I've bought my stickers. And looked up one book, the title of which I could remember. I'll go down and stick its number on later :-) I'm not sure what to do for books that aren't held by the library, like the ones I've had to buy from World of Books etc and later donated. I don't think there's a database with the Dewey numbers of *all* books in it.

>168 susanj67: I would love to take you steppin' through San Diego! There are non-stop flights from Heathrow to San Diego, you know...just saying' :)

Susan, I've *finally* caught up on your thread. I was over a week behind... Plutocrats sounds very good - I will have a look-see for it at the library.

>184 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I'll definitely keep that in mind!

>185 katiekrug: Katie, I am behind too :-( It's the spreadsheet + the database, but today I have to teach for three hours (two different lots of young people, fortunately for them) so I should get a break from the endless mousing and typing which is causing me to limit my other computer time to avoid seizing up completely.

I started White Mughals last night, and it is excellent! Yay :-) The Soul of a New Machine is less promising, mostly because it is so out of date, and is all about a company that ceased to exist in 1999. Of course, I only learned that by looking up Wikipedia. Also there are bits like this, about the failure of a group in the company to get its project approved:

"Rosemarie Seale, the Eclipse Group's secretary, watched the proceedings from afar. "Engineering is a man's world. I don't know how much territorial interests have to do with it, but they're all fighting for that piece of the pie"...She was sad for her troops. She had made special arrangements to get the document...nicely typed up."

Hmmmm. That surprised me a bit in a book by "Tracy Kidder", but then it turned out that Tracy is a boy.

Happy Wednesday, Susan! I am very excited about the stickers.

I was going to suggest the British library website for dewey but my phone doesn't like their catalogue pages to see if they even use that system... The uni cataloguer COPAC night work? They seem to have almost everything.

>187 Crazymamie: Mamie, the stickers are pretty exciting! I'll try and get a picture. Only LT would care about spine stickers :-)

>188 charl08: Thanks Charlotte :-) COPAC doesn't seem to list the Dewey number, and when I go into the individual library records they don't either (does no-one use it any more?). But the Library of Congress lists Rising Tide as 977/.03 I don't know what the forward-slash means, or why it's under America rather than disasters, like Isaac's Storm, which is labelled 552 on the spine already. I would think they should both be in science (disasters) or America, but not one in each. It's confusing, this cataloguing :-)

I have finally finished hours of talking to young people. Exhausting. But only one fell asleep at lunchtime today, which was better than during the trainee induction last week when a third of the room was in dreamland...at 10am. And apparently it didn't improve as the day went on. Five speakers complained about the amount of flagrant napping, one of them to the partner in charge of trainees. Oooh.

Okay, Susan, I looked up Rising Tide in our library system and it is filed under 977.03

>190 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie! (hey, I just typed the capital M and my predictive text suggested you). I'll sticker that one tomorrow. I'm aiming for ten books a day.

Hi Susan - If they weren't sleeping, were they on their phones? Two of the peeves I have about my students.

Hooray for stickers. Someone needs to come and organize my library.

Oh! I love that I am now a part of your predictive text!! *preens a bit* Let me know if you want me to look anything else up - our online library system is pretty much the entire state of Georgia (but not Atlanta), so they have heaps of stuff in the catalogue.

>192 BLBera: Beth, no, phones are still a no-no in training, particularly trainee training. At group meetings partners may sneak a look at theirs, but they're usually in the middle of some crisis or other. Trainees aren't doing things that are time critical in the same way (or, if they are, they're too busy to attend anyway). So I am spared competing with emails, or Candy Crush :-)

>193 Crazymamie: Mamie, I will definitely take you up on that offer, thank you! Some US books just don't appear in my library catalogue at all.

In totally unrelated news, I just got an email from Twinings with a buy-one-get-one-half-price offer on tea caddies, and I see that they have a blend for the Queen's 90th birthday. http://www.twinings.co.uk/gifts/tea-caddies/queen-90th-birthday-tea?utm_source=e... I must get one, so I can keep the tin. They also snuck some Prestat Easter Eggs into the email. Maybe my steps this weekend will take me past their shop in the Strand.

I read some more of The Button Box last night, and it really is a charming read. And such a clever idea - social history told through buttons.

Looking forward to hearing the verdict on The Button Box. I think my granny's BB has been dispersed to the 4 winds....

>195 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, already I would recommend it, and I'm only 100 pages in. I was wondering what happened to my mother's button box. It was probably thrown out and, to be fair, at 24 I wouldn't have been that interested anyway. But there were some intriguing buttons in it, including a single button on a shank that was all over faceted diamante, if that makes sense, which I couldn't imagine on any of the women in my mother's family, ever. It looked like it had come from a coat, or some outer garment, and it was probably my favourite. I can definitely identify with the author as she goes through her own family's box, remembering where the buttons came from.

I have both my mother's and grandmother's button boxes. Battered old tins, I could easily put them into one pot, but there they sit, in the craft cupboard, still the same old buttons in the same old tins.

I remember my grandmother's button box, too. Sounds like a great read.

Happy Weekend!

I don't know what ever happened to my mother's button tin but I followed suit and made my own, years ago, which is still intact. When my granddaughter was quite young she got an assignment from school to bring 100 of something. She choose 100 buttons from my tin. She had fun choosing them and they went over well at school.

Are you still soldiering on with White Mughals, Susan?

Have a lovely weekend.

I'm glad The Button Box is turning out to be so good. It's nice to know that sometimes it's OK to judge a book by its cover!

Happy Saturday, Susan! I love that Twinings tea tin!

I am loving hearing everyone's stories about the button boxes- my mom had one that I loved to play with - it was a round red tin and I loved sorting through all those buttons. I have no idea what happened to that tin, but I am hoping that one of my sisters has it. Be sad if it just got chucked.

>194 susanj67: Living all the button box stories you've kicked off Susan. I'm hoping I get to read that book.

I walked far yesterday, and it included hills (or at least inclines) which are my nemesis. I was very glad I didn't pick the walk that was *billed* as having hills, or I might be still there now.

Ugh, I've lost the last two days to another whopper headache, caused by all the mousing and keyboard work at the office. My whole right side seized up and pow! Straight to my right eyeball. I knew I was taking a risk by doing so much with my arms, but it seems I'll never learn. At least it doesn't hurt to breathe any more :-) I watched a lot of Breaking Bad, and read a whole book, but as this thread is now 205(!) posts long, I'll review it on the next one. Thanks to y'all for keeping my thread warm while I was felling sorry for myself.

>197 Helenliz: Helen, how lovely to have them both. And of course they can't be mixed :-)

>198 BLBera: Beth, I was trying to think whether there's even anywhere to buy buttons where I work, and I don't think so. I think the button box is a dying art. Well, you know what I mean.

>199 DianaNL: Thanks Diana :-) I'm hoping to salvage Sunday, at least.

>200 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, what a great use of the box! I have a collection of the extra buttons that come on things I buy, but as I don't sew I don't cut buttons off things as I throw them away so it's a pretty small collection. Plus people would wojnder what garments we wore in the 2000s that only had one button :-) Or one large button and a small one.

>201 PaulCranswick: Paul, I only started it on Wednesday, so I haven't reached the soldiering on point yet, but I read a bit more yesterday. I'm looking forward to continuing with it.

>202 cbl_tn: Carrie, this is definitely a book that delivers everything that the cover promises! I'm going to try and finish it today.

>203 Crazymamie: Mamie, yes, I loved sorting through my mother's button box too. It never seemed to get boring. I remember once my parents went away for a conference for my father's work, and they hired a live-in child-minder for me and my brother. She was a bossy boots, and not only reorganised the kitchen cupboards, but went through the button box and threaded all the matching buttons together into sets, so that they were easy to find, I suppose. I was allowed to cut the threads when my mother discovered what she'd done :-)

>204 charl08: Charlotte, I've been following the trip on your thread. What a great idea! What anti-inflammatory spray are you using? I've tried Voltarol gel without success but I'll give anything a try...

OK, new thread time... http://www.librarything.com/topic/220334