Ursula Challenges Herself in 2016 ... Maybe (Part 2)

The Libreria Acqua Alta in Venice, taken when I finally visited the bookstore in January with my daughter.

Hi, I'm Ursula, and I've been a member of this group before, but I skipped it in 2015. If you remember me from 2013 and 2014, you may recall that at the time I was living in Belgium and then California, but now I live in Italy. Pretty much everything else is still the same - still married to a mathematician, still an artist and photographer, still have 2 kids in college (although my daughter will graduate with a degree in geology this year).

I read mostly what you might call "literary" fiction, with some "non-literary" (see, it sounds snobby when you turn it around like that) fiction, and some nonfiction, mostly in audio book form.

I am toying with the idea of participating in some of the challenges going on in this group, but we'll see how that goes because I tend not to plan my reading or do challenges like that. The most I've done is that the last couple of years have involved some sort of long read - 2 years ago it was a year-long project for In Search of Lost Time and last year it was a 3-month read of Infinite Jest. This year's challenge is reading Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady.

Currently reading:

      

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, World and Town by Gish Jen, Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson

Currently reading in Italian:



Uno, nessuno e centomila by Luigi Pirandello

Currently listening to:

Also listening to:

Books Read in 2016

▓▓▓▒▒▒▒░░░January░░░▒▒▒▒▓▓▓

The Secret History of Wonder Woman - finished Jan 7 (audio, 9h 5m) ☼☼☼☼
White Teeth - finished Jan 16 (464 pages) ☼☼☼1/2
Breathing Lessons - finished Jan 22 (327 pages) ☼☼☼☼
After Hannibal - finished Jan 23 (250 pages) ☼☼☼☼
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - finished Jan 25 (311 pages) ☼☼☼☼
The Woman in Black - finished Jan 28 (164 pages) ☼☼☼☼
The Family Romanov - finished Jan 28 (audio, 9h 23m) ☼☼☼
Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? - finished Jan 29 (228 pages) ☼☼☼☼1/2

Total Read in January: 8
January Stats

▓▓▓▒▒▒▒░░░February░░░▒▒▒▒▓▓▓

The Human Stain - finished Feb 6 (361 pages) ☼☼☼1/2
Operation Paperclip - finished Feb 11 (audio, 19h 25m) ☼☼☼☼
The Surgeon's Mate - finished Feb 14 (382 pages) ☼☼☼☼
Between the World and Me - finished Feb 14 (audio, 3h 35m) ☼☼☼☼☼
Bridge of Sighs - finished Feb 18 (527 pages) ☼☼
The Help - finished Feb 21 (526 pages) ☼☼☼
I Remember You: A Ghost Story - finished Feb 24 (370 pages) ☼☼☼
1968: The Year That Rocked the World - finished Feb 28 (audio, 16h 16m) ☼☼☼☼
The Pure Gold Baby - abandoned (186 pages)

Total Read in February: 8
February Stats

░░░▒▒▒▒▓▓▓March▓▓▓▒▒▒▒░░░

The Art of Fielding - finished Mar 3 (512 pages) ☼☼☼☼
My Life on the Road - finished Mar 6 (audio, 9h 18m) ☼☼☼1/2
Sally Heathcote, Suffragette - finished Mar 8 (163 pages) ☼☼☼
Il Piccolo Principe - finished Mar 12 (143 pages) ☼☼☼
My Friend Dahmer - finished Mar 15 (221 pages) ☼☼☼☼
A Thousand Acres - finished Mar 15 (371 pages) ☼☼☼1/2
Stoner - finished Mar 18 (278 pages) ☼☼☼1/2
The Girl on the Train - finished Mar 19 (323 pages) ☼☼☼1/2
Nothing to Envy - finished Mar 23 (audio, 12h 30m) ☼☼☼☼1/2
Annapurna - finished Mar 27 (257 pages) ☼☼☼☼

Total Read in March: 10

░░░▒▒▒▒▓▓▓April▓▓▓▒▒▒▒░░░

The Art of Crash Landing - finished Apr 1 (405 pages) ☼☼☼
Far from the Madding Crowd - finished Apr 9 (362 pages) ☼☼☼☼1/2
The End of Your Life Book Club - finished Apr 13 (audio, 9h 37m) ☼☼1/2
Modern Romance - finished Apr 22 (audio, 6h 14m) ☼☼☼1/2
Silas Marner - finished Apr 22 (240 pages) ☼☼☼☼
My Struggle Book Two: A Man in Love - finished Apr 25 (592 pages) ☼☼☼☼☼
La ragazza di Bube - finished Apr 26 (259 pages) ☼☼☼1/2
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage - finished Apr 30 (315 pages) ☼☼☼

Total Read in April: 8
April Stats

░░░▒▒▒▒▓▓▓May▓▓▓▒▒▒▒░░░

Old Filth - *abandoned* May 6 (122 pages)
A Little Life - finished May 9 (720 pages) ☼☼☼☼☼
It Ended Badly - finished May 10 (audio, 8h 8m) ☼☼
Negroland: A Memoir - finished May 14 (audio, 7h 51m) ☼☼☼☼

Total pages read: 9379
Total time listened: 111h 22m

Fiction: 23
Nonfiction: 14

Male Authors: 17
Female Authors: 20

======Favorite reads of 2015======

Fiction
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa (1001 list book)
I'm Not Scared by Niccolò Ammaniti (1001 list book)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1001 list book)
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (1001 list book)
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (1001 list book)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (I'd been meaning to get around to a book of his for at least 8 years)
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1001 list book)
My Struggle, Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgård (chosen for no particular reason)
Rabbit, Run by John Updike (1001 list book)
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (1001 list book)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (1001 list book)
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg (I had seen it mentioned)
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson (1001 list book)

Nonfiction
Se questo è un uomo by Primo Levi (1001 list book, Italian)
In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides (I'm a sucker for polar exploration)

A lot of nonfiction books were good, but I just didn't rate them 4.5-5 stars for whatever reason. Honorable mentions in that category go to:
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life and Cars by Neil Young

1001 Books List:

The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Human Stain
The Art of Fielding
Il Piccolo Principe
Far from the Madding Crowd
Silas Marner
La ragazza di Bube

Nonfiction Challenge:
January (Biography): The Secret History of Wonder Woman
February (History): Operation Paperclip, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World
March (Travel): My Life on the Road, Nothing to Envy, Annapurna

American Author Challenge:
January (Anne Tyler): Breathing Lessons
February (Richard Russo): Bridge of Sighs
March (Jane Smiley): A Thousand Acres

British Author Challenge:
January (Barry Unsworth): After Hannibal
January (Susan Hill): The Woman in Black
March (Thomas Hardy): Far from the Madding Crowd
April (George Eliot): Silas Marner
May (Jane Gardam): Old Filth*

*abandoned

Pulitzer Prize Winners:
Breathing Lessons (1989)
A Thousand Acres (1992)

Ursula has read about: Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Democratic Republic of the Congo, People's Republic of China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Germany, Egypt, Spain, Ethiopia, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Haiti, India, Iran, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Latvia, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Nepal, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, United States, Vietnam, South Africa, Zimbabwe.

2016
Nepal
Iceland

Covered in 2015:
Czech Republic
India
Portugal
North Korea
Turkey
Zimbabwe

Published dates:

1861 (Silas Marner)
1874 (Far from the Madding Crowd)
1943 (Il Piccolo Principe)
1951 (Annapurna)
1960 (La ragazza di Bube)
1965 (Stoner)
1980 (The Surgeon's Mate)
1983 (The Woman in Black)
1984 (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
1988 (Breathing Lessons)
1991 (A Thousand Acres)
1997 (After Hannibal)
2000 (White Teeth)
2000 (The Human Stain)
2005 (1968: The Year That Rocked the World)
2007 (Bridge of Sighs)
2009 (The Help)
2009 (Nothing to Envy)
2009 (My Struggle, Book 2)
2010 (I Remember You: A Ghost Story)
2011 (The Art of Fielding)
2012 (My Friend Dahmer)
2012 (The End of Your Life Book Club)
2014 (The Secret History of Wonder Woman)
2014 (The Family Romanov)
2014 (Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?)
2014 (Operation Paperclip)
2014 (Sally Heathcote, Suffragette)
2015 (Between the World and Me)
2015 (My Life on the Road)
2015 (The Art of Crash Landing)
2015 (The Girl on the Train)
2015 (Modern Romance)
2015 (The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage)
2015 (A Little Life)
2015 (It Ended Badly)
2015 (Negroland)

I don't really have anything new to start off with, but I needed a new thread so here I am. :) Hope to finish a book today to have something of interest to post!

Yay! A new thread!! What's with the leaning pole in the picture up top? And that is a LOT of books!

Happy new thread, Ursula! I love the topper!

I love the topper too Ursula - looks a little like my reading room!

Happy New Thread and I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Love the new thread, Ursula.

>6 Berly: It's a bookstore in Venice. The pole is in the style of the mooring poles found all over the city.

>7 Crazymamie: Thanks, Mamie.

>8 PaulCranswick: Oh dear, I would have hoped your reading room was more "controlled chaos" rather than simply "chaos."

I have to tell the truth, though ... this is not a good weekend, or a good week by any stretch of the imagination. On Tuesday, my husband, Morgan, found out that his mother's husband had died. And yesterday, he found out that his best friend had died. The mood is pretty low around here.

Oh, Ursula, I'm so sorry. That's a lot to take at one time. keeping you both in my thoughts and prayers.

I'm sorry to hear about your husband's recent losses, Ursula. I hope the mood at home improves soon.

>12 Crazymamie:, >13 kidzdoc: Thank you. His mother's husband (no disrespect intended, but they married when Morgan was a teenager and was therefore a little late to feel like a "stepdad" ... my kids don't call Morgan a stepdad either) had been around Morgan's entire life, he was a family friend from before Morgan was born. And Morgan and his friend had been best friends since they were in 8th grade. Both deaths were sudden but not entirely unexpected - the first was an alcoholic (I believe he was under 60) and the second a heroin addict (he was 34). It's just brutal to have these two deaths come so close together. There's always hope that things will turn around ... until there isn't anymore.

Congrats on the new thread, Ursula, and LOVE the topper. You are quite a talented photographer.

So sorry about your husband's recent losses. That's so tough.

>14 ursula: oh dear, sad news in your family. I'm sorry to hear it.
I hope you gather round him and just let him know you're there, I reckon it helps- as much as that is possible at times like these.

Ursala--I am so sorry about these loses. Sending big hugs to you and yours.

>15 banjo123: Thank you very much! I have so many photos ....

>15 banjo123:, >16 LovingLit:, >17 Berly: It's a tough time. I am there to listen and whatever else. His best friend should have been the best man at our wedding 5 years ago, but he wasn't able to be there. I remember a conversation Morgan had with him 4 yeas ago, when I encouraged him to express what he really felt, and he told him that he was terrified he was going to die, that every time he talked to him would be the last one. I'm glad he had said it, and I'm also glad that particular conversation didn't turn out to be the last one. Instead, in their last one his friend sounded good, and the last thing they ever said to each other is that they loved each other. You don't get many better last memories than that, really.

And it's got me pondering a lot about the mysteries of addiction. A bigger topic than I can tackle here, but it's got me thinking about how people react to the death of an addict. I understand sharing the good memories, of course, but seeing so many of them put together makes me think about how much gets swept under the carpet and chalked up to "fun" when for some people it's all along a trajectory to an early death, and they clearly weren't having nearly as much "fun" as people like to pretend. (Which reminds me of Infinite Jest and Joelle's "too much fun" ... and how difficult the addiction themes were for Morgan in that book. DFW was clearly writing what he knew.)

Thanks for listening to me. Obviously, at home I am a rock for Morgan and it's nice to have a bit of an outlet.

Edited to add: We don't really know how Best Friend died yet. We know where, but there are no details. We've now heard it may have been a non-drug accident of some kind, not an overdose. It doesn't change anything I said up there, but not knowing exactly what happened is difficult.

Hi Ursula - My condolences. It's hard when losses come together. And when you're far away.

>19 BLBera: Thank you. We're still waiting on more details, but we know that he died essentially around the corner from where we used to live in his/our old neighborhood in Denver. They found his body in the S. Platte River. Being far away makes the possibility of Morgan attending the funeral(s) remote at best, which makes him feel pretty helpless. (And me too - but it's so much money and so far away...)

A couple of days ago I finished listening to 1968: The Year That Rocked the World. I knew a lot of what had gone on in the US in that year (although not everything covered by the book), but I was unaware that there was so much else going on in the rest of the world, too. Or rather, I guess that I was ignorant about some of it and just didn't think about the fact that the things I knew had happened all in one year. The main thing I wasn't aware of: the massacre in Mexico city (10 days before the opening of the Olympic games, no less). The things I knew at least a little about but didn't place in the context of 1968: French student uprisings, the Biafran/Nigerian Civil War, the Prague Spring. And when you put those things against the backdrop of what was going on in the US, with assassinations, university occupations, the Democratic National Convention ... it was a year of real global upheaval.

It's a pretty interesting look at what was really a tumultuous year.

Sorry if that makes it sound lackluster, I don't think it really was but I had a hard time concentrating on the last half of it due to outside circumstances, and don't feel much enthusiasm now for writing down my thoughts either. It's Mark Kurlansky, I'm sure it's better than I make it sound.

Ursula--That's a pretty heavy topic to read about with all you are going through. You get points for even writing any review!! Perhaps something lighter next? Big hugs to the two of you.

>22 Berly: Thanks. :) I don't tend to check out many "light" books, so I will have to see.

On that note, though, I've decided to abandon The Pure Gold Baby. It was boring me before all of this happened, and it certainly hasn't held my attention since. I have spent days dreading when it's time to pick it back up, so I'm just going to admit that I'm not liking it at all and heave it off the list.

Time for some stats on the month!

February Roundup of Reading:

This month, I read 1 physical book, 4 Kindle/ebooks, and listened to 3 audio books.
I read 2352 pages and listened to 39 hours, 16 minutes of audio.
My reading was 62% fiction and 38% nonfiction.
I read books by 5 men and 3 women.
The earliest publication date was 1980(The Surgeon's Mate), and the most recent was 2015 (Between the World and Me)

Notes: I just realized I haven't been including my page count for Clarissa in my totals for the month. I'll have to go back and add that in - I definitely deserve credit for it!

Although this month had more male authors than female, the women are still ahead for the year. Considering the proportion my reading usually takes (overwhelmingly male), I'll consider this year a victory if I manage anywhere near 50/50, even.

I abandoned a book this month, and I feel relieved about it. I'm pretty much on track so far in the year as far as number of books goes, so even if I haven't really had a banner month yet, I have at least been steady.

Guess what time it is? It's the beginning of March, which means we have to check in with our priestly calendar man!



This month's image leaves me with many questions.

Me, too! I'm so glad you bought that calendar, Ursula!

>27 Crazymamie: :) I'm happy to have people to share its awesomeness with.

I love your calendar, Ursula!

>29 BLBera: :) It's certainly something to look forward to at the beginning of every month!

>26 ursula: LOL. I was just about to say the same thing as your caption under the image!! So many questions....

>31 Berly: Right? Like why is some woman feeding the priest?

>32 weird_O: Jeez, I would have gotten you a coaster!

I finished The Art of Fielding. I am pretty sure I wouldn't have picked this one up on my own (it's on the 1001 books list) because ugh, baseball. But luckily you don't really have to know or care anything about baseball to enjoy the story. It takes place at Westish College, when Henry Skrimshander gets encouraged to go there by a member of the baseball team because he's an amazing shortstop. They've had an eternity-long lack of sporting success, but they're sure he's just the thing they need. The story follows Henry and his teammates Mike (the recruiter) and Owen, Henry's gay roommate (which Henry's conservative parents do not approve of). Soon enough Pella, the daughter of the president of the college, arrives and becomes another point in the connection between the characters. It was a strongly character-driven story, and fortunately the characters were multi-faceted, complicated, and pretty realistic. I didn't like a couple of the plot turns, but I enjoyed spending time with these people.

>33 ursula: Perhaps he was hungry, Ursula.

Nice comments on The Art of Fielding, Ursula. A cousin of mine really liked it, and I've had the copy she gave me sitting, waiting patiently. It sounds like it might be a good vacation read?

>35 Crazymamie: I would have expected there would be a "Don't feed the priests" sign somewhere. ;)

>36 BLBera: It might be a good vacation read. It flows pretty well but it's also relatively long so it wouldn't be gone in a flash.

I'm glad to get caught up with you, Ursula, but sorry to hear about the recent losses in your family. Yes, to me, good friends count as family.

I read The Pure Gold Baby for the British Challenge last year. What a strange book. You were smart to give it up. I need to do that more often. Every year around this time, I think I'll read my copy of The Art of Fielding. I'm not a baseball fan either but one of my favorite books, The Brothers K, has a baseball theme so I can't rule it out.

I hope the month of March is a better one for you and your husband. I'm going to Denver for ten days so it will be a good month for me.

>38 Donna828: Thanks, Donna. Good friends definitely count as family - in this case, they had been friends for 20 years, which when you're 34/35 is a good part of your life.

I'm glad to hear that I didn't miss anything earth-shattering by quitting on The Pure Gold Baby. I stuck it out to about 60%, and it really didn't seem to be headed anywhere. I applied the test of "do I really care what happens in this book?" and the answer was resoundingly "no." :) One of these years might be your year with The Art of Fielding! Interesting about The Brothers K, I've seen the cover around but didn't know anything about the book.

Hoping March is better for us, too. I am glad you're getting out to Denver this month! I kind of miss it, honestly.

I started Volume 3 of Clarissa, and something has finally happened in the story. At this rate, approximately 3 things should happen by the end of the journey!

Today was my fifth wedding anniversary. Morgan asked me a couple of days ago to draw him something as a gift, and so here's what I did:



The places around the edge are places we have lived - Colorado, Gent, Padova, and an empty space for our next destination, whatever it is.

Happy Anniversary, Ursula! I love the drawing you made for Morgan - what a lovely gift! As always, I am in awe of your talent. Hoping that your day is full of happy!

Ursala--Happy fifth anniversary!! Wow--talented with the camera AND the pencil. And I love how you left a space for the future. So very cool.

>41 Crazymamie: Thank you! We had a good day, definitely! We had already planned to stay in for it - his gift to me was to plan out an aperitivo hour and dinner - so it was not as bothersome as it could have been that the weather was cold, rainy and windy.

>42 Berly: Thank you! Yeah, instead of putting in a place of lesser importance, I decided I'd wait and finish it with our next adventure.

I finished listening to My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem. Well, actually, I finished by reading the last part. I had put holds on both the audio and the ebook versions at the library, and when they both came through, my husband downloaded the ebook version before I had a chance to tell him I didn't need it because I was already listening to the audio. As it turned out, this was lucky because there was some sort of glitch with the last part of the audio, so instead of waiting it out or being annoyed with it I just read the last section or so.

I found this book very interesting. I didn't know a lot about Gloria Steinem, even in her public life. I knew she founded Ms. magazine; I knew she was involved in many battles for feminist causes, but I wasn't sure if "feminist" could be considered a job description. As it turns out, "organizer" is the job description. Aside from the parts about her childhood, she shares anecdotally, jumping around in time and place, giving some insight into her world and ideas. The parts about her childhood touch on the fact that her father was a traveler, in the sense that he never seemed to be able to settle down, and that this made her think that there might be no other way of life. Or at least no other way besides the life modeled by her mother, which was one of only settling down with dreams unfulfilled. And in fact, Steinem spends much of her life on the move, and it's not until she is quite old that she realizes there are ways to have both a place of security and an adventurous spirit.

I haven't decided yet when or if I'll tackle Clarissa. I don't think it will be this year.

Lovely drawing, Ursula. Happy Anniversary. Nice comments on the Steinem. I have it from the library right now. I am of the age to remember her well when she was campaigning for the ERA and founding Ms. magazine, so I anticipate enjoying her memoir.

>45 thornton37814: I have been tackling something big every year, but I always want to start right at the beginning of the year. I suppose to give myself plenty of wiggle room. I think that if I started in March or April I would probably either feel rushed to get through it by the end of the year or depressed if it stretched into the new one. Just one of those mental blocks for me.

>46 BLBera: Thanks. When the Steinem came out, I had read the dedication, and that pretty much said it all to me. The dedication-

"THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO:
Dr. John Sharpe of London, who in 1957, a decade before physicians in England could legally perform an abortion for any reason other than the health of the woman, took the considerable risk of referring for an abortion a twenty-two-year-old American on her way to India.
Knowing only that she had broken an engagement at home to seek an unknown fate, he said, “You must promise me two things. First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.”
Dear Dr. Sharpe, I believe you, who knew the law was unjust, would not mind if I say this so long after your death:
I’ve done the best I could with my life.
This book is for you."

In checking out books from the library, I picked up Annapurna and was surprised to see when I catalogued it that I already had a copy of it in my library. But I remember now that it was one of the books I found at a little second-hand store in California. I debated not reading the ebook version since I have the physical one (in a storage bin under a house) in California, but then I realized how silly that would be. So I'm reading it now anyway.

I finished Sally Heathcote, Suffragette yesterday, appropriately enough, since it was International Women's Day. I didn't know a whole lot about the British movement for women's suffrage, aside from the incident with the king's horse, so this was mostly new information for me. Because of that I sometimes found it a little hard to follow as the movement splintered into different factions and groups. But overall the story was pretty well-told, using the fictional Sally to highlight the progress of the movement. Maybe the most interesting thing I learned was about the Cat and Mouse Act, which resulted from the suffragettes' hunger strikes in prison. After force-feeding them made the government look bad, this law was passed to enable the government to release the women when they had carried their hunger strike to the point of dangerous weakness - when they regained their strength at home and began agitating again, they were re-arrested, with the same result. It was an ugly business.

I didn't fully connect with this graphic novel, whether because of the format (I don't consider myself very good at reading them, but I keep trying) or because there was just so much information, which made it seem a little less like a story and more like a textbook at times. But I would still recommend it if you are interested in the topic.

>49 ursula: I think there was *a lot* of information in this book. One of the things that drives me a bit crazy about how "the media" represent this UK history of women's protest for the vote, the idea that it began and ended with Emmeline Pankhurst. Thought that the writers here did well to show how much more was going in.

I have The Art of Fielding on my TBR pile. Relieved to hear there is not much baseball. Must read it at some point.

Your comments about the Steinem have given me the required poke to order it from the library.

Beautiful drawing.

Every time I see a mention of The Art of Fielding I think of Henry Fielding and have to check myself getting excited!

Back to add - the drawing is exquisite! What a lovely gift.

Happy new thread, Ursula. Very sorry to see your February ended on such a bad news front. So happy to see that you are continuing to share the calendar pics. ;-)

Congratulations on finished the first two volumes of Clarissa! Whoot!

Happy belated anniversary. Your drawing is a beautiful personal gift.

>51 sibylline: I haven't read any Henry Fielding, but I would probably like him more than baseball! :) And thanks for the compliment on the drawing.

>52 lkernagh: February ended badly, and the middle of March is tough - Morgan flew to California to attend his friend's memorial, so I'm alone and the time difference is awful between here and there. Thanks for the congratulations on Clarissa ... I am chugging along and actually enjoying it although wondering where we're eventually ending up (nowhere...? ;)). Morgan said he felt a little bad requesting that I do something like that, especially on short notice, but I think we're both happy to have the drawing now.

I will definitely continue with the calendar images - they're too much fun not to share, and people seem to appreciate them. :)

I am slowly getting caught up around here, Ursula. I'm so sorry February ended on such a low note. That is tough.

I love your anniversary drawing, especially the unfinished part, because really, that's what it's all about. The next adventure/step/change and seeing it through together.

>54 katiekrug: March isn't going to be better for me until Morgan gets home again, but then things should start looking up. :)

Thanks on the drawing ... I was thinking that I would draw in the next place we live, but I may end up leaving it blank since it marks a moment in time when that was all still unknown. Or I may wait until we "settle down" (if that happens) and draw whatever that place is. Who knows? :)

>55 ursula: Therefore wishing for Morgan's speedy return.

Have a lovely Sunday, Ursula, nevertheless.

>56 PaulCranswick: It's already mostly gone, but thank you! I assume you're already into Monday territory. :)

On the agenda for my evening: finishing up last night's Dancing with the Stars (Ballando con le stelle) - I just can't stay up late enough to watch the tv shows here. For example, that one starts at 9 and runs until midnight. Thank goodness for on-demand viewing.

>47 ursula: Love that dedication. She was an interesting woman!

So, I finished reading The Little Prince. Or really, Il Piccolo Principe, since I read it in Italian (in the time-honored tradition of reading it in whatever language you're learning, it seems). I have dreaded this a lot, because I have tried to read it previously and really could not bring myself to go past about 5 pages. Partially it was the book itself, and partially it was the aficionados of the book. Yes, I know: "What is essential is invisible to the eye." It kind of made me want to barf every time I heard/read it.

But I read Saint-Exupery's memoirs a year or so ago, and it put this book in a slightly different perspective after knowing more about him and his life. I don't know that it really imparted anything profound, but it helped ground it in reality with his experiences of being a pilot when flying was very dangerous, his crash in the desert, etc. And I think that for me, I desperately needed that grounding in reality. Overall, I thought it was okay, and somewhat less annoying than I had expected, although parts of it still annoyed me.

Now I can check it off my list and consider myself thoroughly done with it. And I don't even have to feel bad about owning the book since there was some sort of giveaway at the grocery store and so I got it for free.

>47 ursula: It's a great dedication. She still is interesting, I think. :)

>58 Berly: IS an interesting woman!! LOL

>59 ursula: Oh, yay for someone else who finds The Little Prince sort of insufferable! I generally feel pretty alone in that belief. Ha!

>61 Berly: :)

>62 scaifea: You are not alone!

At the Uffizi, with the Venus de Medici in the center. As The Dude would say, it really ties the room together.

>64 ursula: Lovely photo. Even without the art the room is spectacular.

Ditto what Eric said!

It's (Inter)National Pi day (3.14), Ursula. Treat yourself to a slice of your favorite pie. Here's a sampling to whet your appetite. 

>65 Oberon:, >66 lkernagh: Indeed, the room is amazing. Then they had to go and clutter it up with all that stuff. ;)

>67 weird_O: We try to avoid mention of that day around here. My husband may be a mathematician but he's not a fan. (Of the day ... pie, we both like.)

I read the very quick graphic novel My Friend Dahmer. The title sort of explains it all, and sort of doesn't - The author went to junior high and high school with Jeffrey Dahmer, and they were "friends," but it isn't quite that cut and dried. If you expect to read about someone hanging around with Jeffrey Dahmer all the time and being able to give you insight into his personality, you may be disappointed. First of all, Dahmer was pretty clearly already odd and damaged - whether or not something could have been done to change all that came later will be forever unknown. But this was the 70s and anyway, kids don't think too deeply about what's going on with other kids, especially if the kid in question is seen as a weirdo. And although it's lovely to think that someone would have behaved with more empathy and understanding to him, it's a lot to ask of the 12-17 year-old crowd, who are above all preoccupied with themselves. The big question, though, as the author points out:



Where were the damn adults? It seems no adults noticed anything particularly unusual about Dahmer.

Secondly, in terms of reasons you may be disappointed, is that the author was not really friends with Dahmer. Dahmer never had friends. He briefly became odd in an amusing way, and a group of kids let him hang around and some of his oddities became in-jokes, but he was dropped like a hot rock when the other kids became unsettled at the fact that Dahmer never seemed to be "normal." But knowing these things, I think it's an interesting look at what it's like to realize that you spent time around a future serial killer. The author uses his own memories of Dahmer and recollections from other schoolmates, bolstered by information provided in interviews by Dahmer himself to fill out some of the details.

It's a super-quick read, but not an easy one. The art style is appropriately off-putting in its odd portrayals of faces and human forms, and black and white is perfect for the story.

>26 ursula: so many questions indeed! Someone is feeding him, right?

>40 ursula: that is a lovely drawing! You are so talented! And I love that you have left a space for the next adventure. I hope things are well for you both.

>70 LovingLit: Yes, someone is feeding him! This seems ... an odd scenario.

And thank you about the drawing. Things are better now that he's back home from the memorial in California. Too much time away, too many time zones. I'm glad he was able to go, but we just don't like being apart.

>59 ursula: and >62 scaifea: - I am another non-lover of The Little Prince which I've (been forced to) read in both English and French. Um, no thanks. I was taken to task quite vociferously a couple of years ago here on LT by someone who is a great fan. Apparently, I am wrong in my reaction to the book :-P

Hi Ursula: The Steinem dedication gave me goosebumps. I am anxious to get to the book.

The Dahmer graphic memoir sounds a little too creepy for me.

Another non-fan of The Little Prince.

Beautiful Uffizi picture. I dragged my dad through it, and his comment after (he's not a big museum guy) was that he never had to see another Madonna and child. He was a good sport while we were walking through it though.

>72 katiekrug: Don'tcha just hate it when you go and read a book wrong? ;)

>73 BLBera: Quick hits: It's a super-powerful dedication. - I didn't find it creepy except maybe a little at the end, but I know we all have different thresholds for that. - Non-fans, UNITE!

Thank you! Yeah, you certainly can see a lot of Madonnas and child. You'd think after almost a year here I'd know more about Christian symbolism and paintings than I do (I've seen a lot of madonnas, a lot of last judgments, a lot of scenes from Jesus's life), but I've managed to remain mostly blissfully ignorant.

I am *loving* all the un-love for The Prince! Ha!

>75 scaifea: - But I love 'The Prince' by Machiavelli!

>76 katiekrug: Katie: Ha! Me, too. And also, um, Prince. Purple Rain and all that.

>76 katiekrug:, >77 scaifea: And Prince William. I don't know if I'm alone in that (shame about his hair, but...).

Happy Friday!

>78 ursula: - I'm more of a Prince Harry kind of girl :-)

>79 Thebookdiva: Thank you!

>80 katiekrug: Ah, well, I can understand that. :)

I read A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. It's a modern retelling of King Lear, set in rural Iowa in the 1970s. Aside from the obvious changes necessitated by the change in setting (farmers in Iowa are unlikely to end up at war with France), the story is also told from the point of view of one of the daughters, Ginny. Larry is the father and his daughters are Ginny (Goneril), Rose (Regan) and Caroline (Cordelia) - he suddenly decides he wants to divide up his farm between them, but Caroline isn't quite as ready to jump on the deal as the other two sisters are. If you know King Lear, you know what will ultimately happen, if not in the details then at least in the trajectory.

It's an interesting exercise, telling the story from the point of view of Goneril - she was not a sympathetic character in the play, and Smiley obviously works to give Ginny some depth and back story that paint her more in shades of gray. She is successful at making her more well-rounded, but I have to say that I always felt a distance from her, as well as the rest of the characters. On the other hand, I did always want to pick up the book and keep reading, though, so most of it worked in spite of that.

A quote from the book: "I liked the silence and the sense of companionship I felt from the animals, and I experienced, for the first conscious time, the peaceful self-regard of early grief, when the fact that you are still alive and functioning is so strangely similar to your previous life that you think you are okay. It is in that state of mind that people answer when you see them at funerals, and ask how they are doing. They say, "I'm fine. I'm okay, really," and they really mean, I'm not unrecognizable to myself."

Well, I'm a fan of The Little Prince and the Machiavelli one, but not the purple (rain) one! Ha- that's almost every combination of likes and dislikes with the three princes! (I'm indifferent to William)

>82 ursula: what a fabulous idea! I wonder how much of King Lear I would remember in reading the 'spin off'. I also wind if that book is taught alongside or instead of Shakespeare in schools?

We had a lovely dog named Prince when I was myself a pup. Up to me would be the only Princes left as I do think the Royalty has had its day.

I really must find my copy of A Thousand Acres, Ursula, great review.

Have a lovely weekend.

>83 LovingLit: All varieties of feelings for Prince(s) welcome! I think that if you remember the main idea behind Lear (hard to forget) and a couple of the major events, you'll recognize it pretty clearly. I think in addition to Lear it would be a bit much for school - Lear is a long and involved play, and A Thousand Acres is a long book.

>84 PaulCranswick: Prince is a pretty popular name for dogs, I think, or at least it used to be. Thanks for stopping by!

This photo was taken in Naples, at the Certosa (Charterhouse) di San Martino. My daughter is standing there, taking a photo and providing a sense of scale.

I've finished two more books, Stoner and The Girl on the Train, which I've rated the same (3.5) but were very different reading experiences. I'll get around to posting some thoughts on them soon, hopefully.

I really love that photo, Ursula, especially with your daughter in it. You don't see her at first, and then there she is.

>86 ursula: - Stunning photo!

>87 Crazymamie:, >88 lkernagh: Thanks! Mamie, I like that about it, too - that it takes a second to realize she's there. When I showed her the photo, she said she didn't remember the place as being that big! :)

I finished The Girl on the Train in about 3 days. It's pretty much what I needed, between everything that has been going on here and the fact that I'm still plugging away on Clarissa. It's a thriller with an extremely unreliable narrator. Rachel is a drunk; she's lost her job, but she doesn't want her roommate to know so she still takes the train in to London every day. The route passes behind the house where she used to live, and her ex-husband still lives there - now with his new wife and daughter. Rachel can't seem to let him go, but when she passes on the train she's actually become more interested in seeing what is going on a few doors down with a couple she's called Jason and Jess, who seem to be living a perfect life together. It turns out that "Jess" is actually Megan, a fact that Rachel learns when she reads about Megan's disappearance in the newspaper.

It took me a bit to notice that the timelines were different between different narrators (I admit it, I'm not always a careful reader and tend to skip chapter headings), which confused me at first, and I'm not entirely convinced that multiple narrators were really required anyway. But it didn't bother me too much, although the voices between the women were not completely distinct. None of the characters are particularly likable, but I guess I didn't feel a need to vilify Rachel for her drinking problem or Megan for her past, so I didn't really dislike them either (unlike in Gone Girl, to which inevitable comparisons are made). The male characters on the other hand ... well, they didn't fare as well. I didn't like the end, but I suppose it's about how I expected it would go. For me, the read was better than average.

I know I've seen some people complain that they figured out the mystery well before the end, but I'm just not that kind of reader. I don't spend any time at all trying to guess what's going to happen, I just read.

Hi U! Cool photo and no, I didn't see your daughter at first glance. Beautiful!! And I like Girl on the Train a little more than you did. Pretty good unreliable narrator!

>91 Berly: Thanks! I liked the book fine, although it had flaws.

I read Stoner, which I had vaguely read good things about (I try not to read reviews, but sometimes I skim a sentence or two to see whether it's positive or negative). As I started it, a quiet story about a quiet man from a farm who finds a love of literature and decides to go into academia, I kind of wondered what was so terrific about the book. It was introspective to the point of feeling like it was being written under a microscope. But it began to grow on me, in no small part because of the beautiful writing. Williams manages to distill a life lived into its very purest form: a series of small moments that build on each other. Stoner doesn't live large, or deeply - but he lives to make the best of what he's been given. I read the book with some melancholy, although in John McGahern's introduction he quotes an interview with Williams in which he says that he didn't think Stoner's life was sad but rather better than many people's. I have to wonder if maybe those are not mutually exclusive, really.

Read it for the writing, and maybe for the resigned feeling of recognition you'll get if you've spent any time in or around academia. But read it with patience, because rushing will make it difficult to be involved to the extent the book really deserves.

A quote, capturing the tactical aspects of a dinner party:

"The party was like many another. Conversation began desultorily, gathered a swift but feeble energy, and trailed irrelevantly into other conversations; laughter was quick and nervous, and it burst like tiny explosives in a continuous but unrelated barrage all over the room; and the members of the party flowed casually from one place to another, as if quietly occupying shifting positions of strategy."

Have a wonderful Easter.

>94 PaulCranswick: Thanks. Hm, Easter ... aka, just another Sunday.

Although it's a holiday weekend in Italy - Easter Monday is a holiday known as Pasquetta.

In other news, I finished listening to an audiobook: Nothing to Envy, about North Korea. It's my second book in recent memory about North Korea, having listened to Without You, There Is No Us just a few months ago. Nothing to Envy is more of an overview of the whole disaster that has been the country's history since the Korean War, so that was valuable. Nothing beats personal stories to help you understand what it's like to live under a regime where things just keep getting worse. Recommended if you're interested in the subject - although it was written before the death of Kim Jong Il, so what would happen when he died was still a question mark. (Without You There Is No Us takes place right around the time of Kim Jong Il's death.)

I thought Nothing to Envy was fascinating, but it was also my first read on the topic.

I hope you have a great long weekend!

>96 katiekrug: I would probably use the word "horrifying", but yes, it was definitely a good read. It's just so sad. Our weather is looking good, so it should be a pleasant weekend, thanks! Hope yours is good as well.

>97 weird_O: Thankfully, peeps don't exist in Italy. :) The picture is nice, though!

No on the peeps, huh? Chocolate?

>99 Berly: Chocolate always welcome. :)

I finished reading Annapurna, the account of the 1950 expedition to summit the mountain for the first time. It certainly doesn't disappoint in terms of mountaineering adventures. The expedition set out without even knowing which mountain they were going to climb, exactly, just that they were going to try for the top of one of the 8000-meter peaks. Annapurna ended up being the one which presented their best chance. The actual summiting is a small part of the book, unsurprisingly really. The last push up to the top of a mountain is done in a matter of hours, because the window of opportunity is very small. You have to start out very early and get off the top as soon as you possibly can, because the weather turns in the very early afternoon and you simply cannot be caught up there. So, the book is mostly concerned with the dithering about which mountain to climb, the climbing and dithering about whether or not to summit and who would do it, and the very, very long journey back afterward. As it turns out, that was the most brutal part of the whole thing. Although no one died on the climb, there were certainly casualties in the form of fingers and toes. Maurice Herzog, in fact, lost the greater part of all his fingers. If you're into mountaineering tales, this is a good one to read. I understand that there was some controversy surrounding Herzog's account, after two other members of the expedition published their versions. David Roberts wrote a book about the whole thing, too, and I'm intending to get around to it one day.

Also, there is a movie camera buried somewhere up on Annapurna with the footage of the summit adventure. It was lost the first night after they conquered the mountain, when they had to hunker down in a crevasse in bad weather and there was an avalanche. Wonder if that'll ever turn up.

Well, this week is turning out to be a little busier than I would have hoped. Monday was a holiday, so it pushed everything that needs doing out into later in the week. Tuesday we had our language exchange, which is great but eats up a large portion of the middle of the day. Today we have a plumber visit (he's here right now, in fact). Tomorrow my husband has to go to Vicenza, which throws that day right out the window. Friday we'll have to go to the post office to start the renewal process for our visas/permessi di soggiorno, and then drop the dog off at the dogsitter's. Then Saturday we have a long day of travel for what is really a short trip, it's just that there's no easy and inexpensive way to go from where we are. Ugh.

I prefer long days with nothing in particular planned for them. :)

You've got to wait for one more day for our new priest (and I know you're all anxious to see what's in store for April). So in the meantime, I'll post another picture from Venice.



I took that one last June when I was there with my son. This is the view from the top of San Giorgio Maggiore.

I'm a little disappointed I'm not going to finish another book this month - I had particularly (deludedly) hoped to finish my Thomas Hardy book, but I haven't been spending a lot of time reading, I have to admit. On track with Clarissa still, though! I'll try to post up the month's statistics soon.

>102 ursula: - Where you headed on Saturday (if that isn't too nosy of me to ask)?

>103 ursula: - GORGEOUS!

>104 katiekrug: Erm ... I didn't really want to say because ... uh ... it's *whispering* Dubrovnik.

HA!

Well, enjoy it for me :)

>103 ursula: Wow. What a gorgeous scene.

>106 katiekrug: I will do my best! :)

>107 charl08: Thank you! It was a gorgeous summer day, hard to ask for better.

>104 katiekrug: I will be interested to hear whether Dubrovnik has recaptured some of its former elan. It was much damaged apparently during the war.

>105 ursula: >109 PaulCranswick: Oooh...elan! Now there's a fancy word you don't hear often. Ursula, I hope your find some of that in Dubrovnik!

>103 ursula: Stunning!

Our train leaves tomorrow slightly before 6 AM. It's a 20-minute walk to the train station. Argh!

The transportation situation is unbelievably dumb for going from here to Dubrovnik. Apparently it's fabulous in the summer (Italians love Croatia), but it's spotty at best in the off season. Our options were - take an extremely expensive flight from Venice to Dubrovnik (not actually an option due to price), take a train to Bari and a ferry across (kind of not much of an option due to amount of time it would take and the scheduling - they don't run very often out of the summer season), take a train to Trieste (2.5 hours) followed by an overnight 16-hour bus ride, or take a 4-hr train to Rome, and a 1 hour flight (which is only available on certain days, and only once a day, at noon).

So we're taking the Rome/flight option. Plus side, it gives Morgan a free day with me on Sunday. Down side, well - the time, and it's going to be a long travel day for a very short distance.

But I shouldn't complain. :)

>109 PaulCranswick: I'll let you know. There is a museum of war photography that I'm hoping to get to as well. I'm assuming the city is pretty well recovered since they film Game of Thrones there, and not for rubble. ;)

>110 Berly: I'll be on the lookout for élan!

>111 Crazymamie: Thanks!!

Okay, it's that time again.

Here is April's image from the priest calendar.

>113 ursula: Would love to read an interview with whoever commissioned that calendar. Bizarre.

>103 ursula: Siamo visitati una delle chiese vicina quando mia moglie ed io siamo stati in Venezia il scorso estate. Lei conosco uno dei monaci e abbiamo avuto un tour speciale con lui.

>112 ursula: - We were experiencing the travel difficulties to get to Dubrovnik, as well. I was going to go through London and then to Rome to get that quick flight direct to Dubrovnik, as well.

>113 ursula: - Oh, hello there :)

>114 charl08: I just want to know if there are people out there who take it seriously - buy it for their grandma or something?!

>115 scvlad: Che figo avere un giro privato! Quando pensate di tornare in Italia?

>116 katiekrug: It's crazy, but I guess I wasn't really that surprised. All the countries of the former Yugoslavia are kind of hard to get to from Italy considering how close they are. And Dubrovnik is an isolated part of Croatia with the way the borders are. By the way, it was one of the smallest and weirdest airports I've flown into. It's cut into the hills and so you come over the sea, barely losing any altitude, then you're surrounded by hills and suddenly you're on a (very small) runway. The shuttle bus into town has a schedule that says it runs "after landing."

I'm almost ready to make a comeback! We're flying back home today - although that involves the same short flight + long train rides from Rome. But still, yay! I am looking forward to a return to routine.

Meanwhile, here is a panorama of Dubrovnik.

Beautiful! I hope you'll share some more when you get back!

>119 katiekrug: Of course, if there's one thing I always have more of, it's photos!

Lovely photo. Thanks for sharing, Ursula.

>121 BLBera: Thanks! It was a long, uphill and upstairs walk to get to that point, and then I didn't even find what I was looking for, but I suppose the view was worth it. :)

Before I left, I had finished The Art of Crash Landing, which I find I don't have a lot to say about. It centers around a 30-year-old woman, Mattie, who has just left her boyfriend and is unhappily pregnant. She is not interested in being a mother at least partially because she still has a lot of baggage about the relationship she had with her own (deceased) mother, who was an alcoholic. At loose ends, she decides to finally stop ignoring the calls she's been receiving from her mother's hometown, which are about her grandmother's estate. She goes to see what it's all about and finds herself trying to decipher her mother's past. Mattie is sarcastic in the extreme, and makes no bones about the fact that she has a string of failed relationships of every sort: familial, romantic, friendship, in which she was the party in the wrong. She is surrounded by a cast of characters who mostly seem to want to hinder her in her efforts to find out more about her mother, for some strange reason.

Although this was a quick read and Mattie amused me a lot of the time (I can understand that she might irritate others), I just didn't really believe this book. It was all just ... too much. It's a first novel, though, and it showed some promise, so I wouldn't rule out trying something from the author in the future.

And when I got back, I finished Far from the Madding Crowd. I have read Tess of the d'Urbervilles, but so long ago that I remember essentially nothing from it (I liked it, though). This was really, really good. The writing is really easy to get into - descriptive of the surroundings in a beautiful way, but not so much of it that you get sick of hearing about the fields and trees. The main story involves Bathsheba Everdene, who has taken over her uncle's farm on his death and instead of marrying someone or getting a man to run it for her, is doing it herself. As you can imagine, the presence of a woman on market days conducting business really stirs up the area and Bathsheba is constantly being watched, with everyone waiting for her to make a false step. I actually don't want to get into the plot anymore because for me, watching it unfold without knowing what was going to happen was really enjoyable. The characters are vivid and understandable, even if they're not always likable.

>124 ursula: I didn't read past your "This was really, really good." here, because I'm reading this one, too, right now and don't want spoilers. I'll just say that I'm really enjoying it as well and I'm glad that you liked it!

>125 scaifea: I totally understand, because I do the same thing and skip reviews of books I'm reading or want to read. But there are no spoilers. :) I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Ursula, that latest photo is so gorgeous - I always love whatever scene you capture because you have such a good eye.

Nice reviews! I want to read Far From the Madding Crowd - I even have the beautiful Penguin clothbound classic of it. But I already read Hardy earlier this year, so it's going to sit for a bit. Anyway, your review is very encouraging.

>127 Crazymamie: Oh thank you! I can totally understand wanting to wait on another Hardy. I rarely read the same author more than once in a year. (As in, I'm sure I've done it at some point, but I can't remember a time.)

>124 ursula: Nice review and endorsement without giving anything much away. I will keep an eye out for Far from the Madding Crowd. : )

>129 Berly: Thanks! I know that I am a bit strange in really not wanting to know anything about books when I start them but sometimes a book really calls for starting it without knowing exactly where it's going to go and this is one of those.

>118 ursula: Gorgeous view. Somewhere I'd love to visit.Thanks for posting.

>131 charl08: It's a nice place, a little out of the way.

Today I finished listening to The End of Your Life Book Club. I dunno, it didn't really speak to me. Far be it from me to criticize anyone's memoir of their mother's death (well, okay, be it not that far from me), but I just didn't connect for some reason. It was fine.

>133 ursula: - I *loathed* that book...

I shared some pretty strong feelings in my "review" back in 2013.

"...well, okay, be it not that far from me..." This totally cracked me up!

>134 katiekrug: Oh! I loved that rant review!

>134 katiekrug: Hm, okay. I wondered if maybe I was being harsh, but I guess not. :) I don't think I could work up enough feeling even to loathe it, though.

>135 Crazymamie: I have to be honest, it's not that far from me! ;)

Here's another photo from Dubrovnik. If you look at the panorama above, this was taken standing near the big round part you can see in the middle left.

That's a gorgeous shot, Ursula! I love how the longer you look at it the more you see. I didn't notice the people sitting against the wall at first. And the lighting!!

Yes, the lighting is beautiful!

>138 Crazymamie:, >139 katiekrug: Thanks, both of you for the comments on the light! There was never a really spectacular sunset that I was in a position to capture, but I'm not too upset about this one. ;)

There are a lot of benches all along the wall. The small doorway on the left leads into the city, as does the one in the left-center of the photo. The three arches on the right are those of the restaurant where the conference dinner was held.

Update on Clarissa: I finished Volume 3 yesterday, which is about 3 days behind schedule (catching up after the trip). My goodness, that Lovelace. He sure can play everyone like a fiddle. Until it presumably all comes crashing down around him? I have no idea. Well, I have 6 more volumes to suss that out. *making the face from The Scream*

I'm kidding, it's a decently interesting read, even with the (figurative) mustache-twirling and (literal) fainting and falling into fits.

>137 ursula: I love, love, love your photo!

Ditto what Kim said. You are an artist, Ursula.

Wow. That is a stunning photo of Dubrovnik, Ursula.

>142 Berly:, >144 kidzdoc: Thank you both very much!

>143 BLBera: Thank you! I appreciate it - artistic endeavors are kind of my job. :)

>141 ursula: Clarissa is mentioned as a favorite novel of Anglican households in 18th-century Virginia in a book I'm reading. I thought of all of you tackling it this year!

>146 thornton37814: I don't think they had that many choices at the time! ;)

>147 ursula: They probably wanted it to "linger."

Finished something! It was another audio book, Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari. (And I don't often/ever complain about touchstone issues but seriously, 50 titles come up and none of them are this one, most of them have neither word in the title. Pride and Prejudice and other titles that are undoubtedly published by Modern Library or something and are a "romance" but holy bejeesus, so annoying.)

So, right, the book. He explores the pros and cons of trying to find people to date in the modern world of texting, online dating, Tinder, etc. Is more choice good, or bad? As might be expected, it's a little of both. We don't have to "settle" for someone we know, we can go out and meet people until we find someone who really seems to set the world on fire for us. On the other hand, that's a big expectation and we don't always give people much of a chance to do that. If it doesn't happen immediately, we might just move on to the next person. Ansari did actual research, focus groups, etc. and talked to experts on the topics he was exploring. So it's not just all one long joke. (Although there were definitely things in the book that were also explored on his show "Master of None.") If you find the topic interesting and you're looking for a considered but not completely involved look at it, this might be the book for you.

And if you like Aziz Ansari, you should definitely make him read it to you even though he calls you lazy and a lot of other names for it. :)

Some lovely photos of Dubrovnik which clearly retains at least its visible charm.

Glad also to see that Far From the Madding Crowd hit the spot.

Have a lovely weekend, Ursula.

>150 PaulCranswick: I have some others that show some of the effects of the war -- not in the city proper, since they've mostly cleaned up and rebuilt aside from a few spots where you can see divots in the walls. But in a neighboring town there are definite reminders. My husband and I did some urban exploring in abandoned buildings. I find the places and photos fascinating but they get a lot of "sad face" reactions on Facebook so I doubt I'll be posting more of them there.

Far from the Madding Crowd was definitely a highlight. And oddly for my usual reading habits, it was my first book of the year written before 1950. This year's reading has been very modern, apparently. Probably at least partially driven by trying to read more books by women.

Modern Romance might be worth reading so I understand dating from the perspective of my kids, especially my middle one who is always finding new friends online. Thanks!

>152 Berly: I could see that it would be interesting in that perspective. I did think about my kids a bit, but they aren't really much for dating so far, and none of it has been as a result of online meetings thus far.

>149 ursula: I sympathize with your touchstones frustration, Ursula! I can't remember which book I was trying to link the other day but it was nowhere to be found in the Others list and most of the books there were completely unrelated, like your example. I really wish they would fix that soon.

>154 rosalita: Yeah, it's definitely changed for the worse recently. So annoying - I too hope it will be fixed. And that this result isn't a "fix" for something. (It's not a bug, it's a feature!)

I finished My Struggle, Book Two: A Man in Love. I continue to be enthusiastic about this series. This one took me a little longer to get through than the first one, but I don't think that reflects on the book in any way. It continues to be a very real, very honest look at life. Sometimes painfully so - you wish that he would hold back a little, almost. I know that the later books get even more meta, but it was a strange feeling of deja vu to read in this one about him starting to write the first book.

I'm glad that you liked My Struggle: Book Two, Ursula; I plan to read it next month.

>157 kidzdoc: I definitely liked it. This volume definitely gives you a look at a different version of Knausgaard. The first one was so wrapped up in him as a child/teenager - even the parts where he was an adult centered around his relationship with his father - and this one is firmly rooted in Knausgaard as an adult, and as a father himself. The book deserves more commentary than just "I liked it," but I am not in a mental place to really give it its due at the moment, unfortunately.

>158 ursula: "I liked it" is good enough for me. I had already posted My Struggle: Book Two on my list of books to read in May before I read >156 ursula:, as I plan to read one book in the series each quarter and get to My Struggle: Book Five early next year.

>93 ursula: Stoner was one of my fave books last year (or the year before?). I'm glad you liked it too.

>137 ursula: wow, those buildings! That water! Beautiful

>159 kidzdoc: I knew you were planning to read it anyway. I just mean that in general, the book deserves more consideration. You'll surpass me quickly in the series then; I doubt I'll get to another one until next year.

>160 LovingLit: Stoner was a good one - I think I would have enjoyed it even more had I read it at a different time. And thank you for the comments on the photo of Dubrovnik. It was an interesting place to see.

Found this on the instagram account for Letters of Note.



I think we've all been there.

>162 ursula: - Oh, that is priceless!

Oh yeah, I finished another book, too - La ragazza di Bube, or Bebo's Girl. It's off the 1001 Books list and since it is from Italy (and not written a long time ago), I decided to read it in Italian. It's the story of Mara, a teenager in 1945 Tuscany. Her brother was a partisan, or part of the Italian resistance to the Nazis and Fascists, and he was killed. His compatriot, Bube, comes to visit the family and begins a relationship with Mara. Sort of - they're both very young and sheltered and beyond awkward, so it's unclear a lot of the time if they even like each other very much. They certainly don't know each other well. But Bube has been involved in some trouble since the war and, pursued by the carabinieri, has to leave the country to wait out the passage of an amnesty which he hopes will clear him of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, Mara goes to work for a family in another town and meets Stefano, a very different kind of young man. It's a typical story of uncertainty in relationships, but the backdrop is unique. Ultimately, it's about the little guys in larger movements - who they are, how they get persuaded to do things, and the consequences of those actions. In any group, whether it's the military, a gang, or whatever, the people on the bottom seem to fall into two categories: either they're idealists, true believers who may not realize those above them are more cynical, or they're not thinkers at all and don't consider what fallout may come from actions they and the group take.

>163 katiekrug: Isn't it, though? I love that sort of thing - the very genteel insult/sarcasm.

I finished The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. It's a graphic novel which takes Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage as the jumping-off point for the aforementioned adventures. He was the inventor of the first computer (though it never got built) and she was the author of the first programs (which therefore of course never got run). She was also Lord Byron's daughter and unsurprisingly was 1. a little weird and 2. raised in a completely bizarre way (her mother was afraid that she would turn out to be "poetical," which of course must have been what was wrong with Lord Byron). Babbage meanwhile seems like he was his own kind of weirdo. The first part of the book talks about the actual events in their lives, which I found fascinating. After that, the rest takes place in a "pocket universe" where things are entirely different - Babbage's computer actually gets built, and they interact with lots of people of their time with whom they only had brief interactions, including George Eliot and Lewis Carroll. Many footnotes ensue.

I dunno, I liked the part about their real lives and some of the episodes in the pocket universe, but once it got fictional, it often just felt like so much road to travel for those small amusements. If you like reading graphic novels that are totally fictional and whimsical, but which also feature long footnotes on actual mathematics, you might enjoy this one.

>166 ursula: Still haven't read a graphic novel but I may start there I suppose.

Have a lovely weekend, Ursula.

Time for stats!

April Roundup of Reading:

This month, I read 2 physical books, 4 Kindle/ebooks, and listened to 2 audio books.
I read 2173 pages and listened to 15 hours, 51 minutes of audio.
My reading was 75% fiction and 25% nonfiction.
I read books by 5 men and 3 women.
The earliest publication date was 1861(Silas Marner), and the most recent was 2015 (take your pick - applies to The Art of Crash Landing, Modern Romance and The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage)

I still haven't added in my pages for my Clarissa read - I guess I'll just get a giant boost to the total near the end of the year.

I'm holding steady at 50/50 male/female authors. This is a huge change from my usual reading! In fact, I've raised the percentage of female authors in my library overall by 2% this year.

Best of the month: My Struggle, Book Two: A Man in Love. Worst: The End of Your Life Book Club.

>167 PaulCranswick: Don't get too excited by the idea. ;)

New month = new priest.



Hm. I'm not really feeling May.

I am also not feeling May.

He also looks a little grim for May. Come on, lighten up! It's about to be warm and sunny! He looks like a Mr. November to me.

November?! Um... He looks like just no, actually. I mean, there are only twelve months, right?

>170 ursula: I think he's mad about being objectified. Just to defend Fr May there.

Love the quote about the bills and the hat. I want that book about letters of note.

>170 ursula: Aw, poor Fr. May. Now myself, I look at that borderline surly expression as a challenge. I'm pretty sure I could get him to smile (not like THAT — he's a priest!)

>173 Crazymamie: Hahaha! I guess I was just sayin' ... if he had to be a month, he should be something like November. But I love your comment of "there are only twelve months, right?" :)

>174 charl08: Perhaps. Maybe he's just giving his best "stop taking my picture and get to Mass" look?

I used to read the Letters of Note website pretty religiously (ha) but I quit a while back for some reason. I should start up again, they always have something interesting.

>175 rosalita: Haha. I guess I don't think of priests as smiling ... but I am not Catholic so I don't know where I get any of my ideas anyway. But maybe I can imagine something like a sort of kindly Irish priest - beyond that, in my mind they're probably all surly.

Popping in...mmm...May is not filling me with joy either. I am sure he has a wonderful, caring disposition. And maybe his face lights up when he smiles. : )

>177 Berly: So generous! Well, we'll all just have to hold on till June and hope things are looking up then. (I'm not peeking ahead so I can be surprised with the rest of you.)

I feel like this is unfortunately becoming a regular sort of update around here, but here goes ...

My son, Jacob, lost a good friend a little over a week ago. My son is 20, and at university in Boulder. His friend was a fellow student, 21, that he's been friends with since he started there. A group of 4 of them went to a concert at Red Rocks, then back to the home of one of their parents, which was closer to the venue (the parents were not at home). They stayed up for a while, and then two of them (Jacob and one other friend) went to bed. The other two stayed up, and some drugs were involved, though Jacob said everything/everyone seemed fine when he went to sleep. In the morning, one of the friends woke Jacob up and then tried to wake up the other friend, but he didn't respond. He and Jacob called 911, and were walked through steps to take, but it was too late. The paramedics arrived, but there was nothing to be done.

Today was the first time I got to skype with Jacob, and he is pretty destroyed. I can't imagine how he feels. I guess they're waiting for tox reports to give an official cause of death, whether it was an overdose or some sort of interaction, or a heart problem triggered by the drugs, but in any event, it's been a terrible time.

Maybe Fr. May is not happy to be part of the calendar?

Ursula, I'm so sorry to hear about your son. I can't imagine how he must be feeling. It must be hard for you to be so far away.

Oh, Ursula! I am so sorry about your son's friend. That is devastating.

>180 BLBera: Maybe. We'll see, maybe there just weren't enough good-looking and happy priests to go around for the year. :)

And thank you - it has been very hard to be so far away. The time difference plus not having the means to directly communicate (messages are so easy to ignore) have made it difficult. Plus since he's not at home I can't even get any information from his father. He's taking his finals now and then at least he'll be done with those obligations, which he's had an impossible time concentrating on.

>181 Crazymamie: Thank you. It really is. I talked to Jacob via Skype yesterday morning and "devastated" is a good word for how he is feeling. I just wish I could do or say the perfect thing to make it all easier for him, but of course there's no such thing.

U-- I am so sorry for your son's loss. We have lost two of my children's friends this year, but my children were not right there with them. How horrible. Again, so sorry. Sending hugs to you and your son.

>183 Berly: That is so difficult to watch them go through - I know you can relate to how helpless you feel as a parent. Being there is definitely an added level. My heart broke when he was describing how his friend asked him if he thought the other friend was all right after he'd tried to wake him, and Jacob said he noticed how pale he was and that his ears were turning blue. :/ I wouldn't wish that experience, those images, those memories on anyone.

Oh gosh, that helpless feeling as a parent - I'll be thinking of you and your son.

>11 ursula: Ursula, I am so sorry for the losses! Two major losses back to back is big time grief. Thinking of you and your husband.

>185 scaifea: It's the worst feeling in the world. Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts. I'm waiting to talk to him again once his finals are over, or maybe after the funeral. It's on the 6th, and his friend was local to Colorado (Colorado Springs), so Jacob will be driving down for that.

>186 Whisper1: It's been quite a couple of months. My husband is slowly getting back to normal, or I suppose finding a new normal. And then right as he finds some equilibrium, I'm thrown for a tailspin with this situation with my son. I feel like I'm taking a crash course in how to support grieving people. Useful, but we could all use a break at this point. Thank you for your good thoughts.

I certainly understand the need for a break from grief. Approximately four years ago, I lost a dear 54 year old friend to ovarian cancer. I was with her until the very end. It was one of the most sad, yet incredible experiences I've ever had. She taught me so much! And now, every single day is a blessing.

>188 Whisper1: That must have been very difficult. I'm glad that you are able to take away such positive thoughts and memories from it.

>179 ursula: Oh! I'm so sorry to hear about your son's friend. It's always such a tragedy to lose someone you're close to - and even worse when you feel like you're involved in the death. I hope he recovers soon!

>190 The_Hibernator: Thanks. He's making it through, but it's been tough.

Well, I'm about to express an Unpopular Opinion.

I've been reading Old Filth, since Jane Gardam is an author for the British Author challenge this month, and I seem to remember lots of positive comments about this book. I am 47% through, and I hate it. I kind of feel like I would need to be British, male and of a certain age to enjoy it at all. I know this isn't true, and I also enjoyed The Remains of the Day, which might on the surface seem to be that sort of book too, so I don't think that's really the problem, but it's kind of how I feel.

I hate this guy, I am bored to death by his life, and I cannot imagine anything that would redeem it for me. I thought about it hard, and even if the last 1/3 is absolutely unbelievably blow-your-doors-off amazing, I just am not interested in slogging through the sucking mud of the rest of it.

So, done. Abandoned. Not looking back.

I loved Old Filth, but I'm always happy to see opposite opinions. It gives us something to talk about.

Some of the worst book club discussions I've ever been in are the ones when everyone agrees.

Hmm. I wonder what it is...

>192 ursula: Right then. Put it down. Step away. Move on.

Ursula, so sorry for your son. And for you, too, it's hard when you want to support your kid, but there is nothing really to do.

>193 BLBera: I know what you mean - agreeing makes for boring discussions. Kind of like the Chris Farley interviewer sketch on SNL - "Remember when you did ____? ... That was awesome!"

>194 Crazymamie: Done!

>195 banjo123: Thank you. That desire to just make everything better doesn't go away, but it's true that sometimes there really isn't much you can do. Particularly with this much distance between us.

My husband posted something on Facebook to me on Mother's Day, and his mother responded to it by saying, "Morgan, you are a very good man." Full stop.

I agree, he is a good man. But, uh, that's your whole response to a Mother's Day post? I am trying not to read into it but it's hard. (And it wasn't a super-amazing, soul-baring post, written to bring tears to your eyes. It wasn't extravagant - he wasn't saying he was taking me on a trip or something to celebrate. He just said I raised awesome kids. Nice, but not something that inspires awe.)

I am baffled.

It's hard not to "read into" things like that, Ursula. You felt the meaning of your husband's message much more strongly than your mom did. But that's as it should be. Is she usually rather clinical about such things?

>197 ursula: - I read a lot into things my MIL says and doesn't say. Eventually, I usually talk myself out of being upset, because I think she is completely unaware of how things come off, but in the moment, it's baffling and sometimes hurtful.

>198 The_Hibernator: I wouldn't really describe her as clinical, no. She doesn't necessarily always say the right thing (obviously!) but I would characterize her as the type who usually tries to look on the bright side, say encouraging things, etc. So I don't know what she was going for here. :)

>199 katiekrug: Yeah, I wasn't really upset (I actually said to Morgan, "your mom is so weird" when I saw it), but it was confusing because I couldn't figure out exactly how to make that not a very strange thing to say. *shrug* It's not as bad as the time we were at Thanksgiving at his dad's and stepmom's - they were taking photos of everyone, and first there was a big group shot of Morgan, his sister, their step-siblings, me, etc ... then his stepmother said "okay, now family only" meaning I should vacate the picture. Ha.

I finished reading A Little Life yesterday. It was a long book, and sometimes a difficult one. We pick up the story of the main character, Jude, when he is in college. He is reticent to share anything at all about his past with his group of friends, and although it sets him apart from them, they still manage to accept him. Little by little, the story of the abuse that characterized Jude's early life is revealed to the reader. You follow him through his life as he struggles with the consequences of the abuse and the results of his coping mechanisms.

My thoughts: I always wanted to pick this book up again. Which is good when the book is over 700 pages long, or you're never going to get through it. I've skimmed some of the criticisms - that Jude and his friends are all ridiculously successful, that it's a story of unrelenting misery, that the friends are credulity-strainingly patient with Jude's idiosyncrasies, that no one reads like a real person. I think that it's not that unusual for a group of friends who go to a good university and who are all driven and talented, to be successful. I also think it's not that surprising that a group of people who are talented and driven would be friends with each other - like attracting like. It is a story with a lot of misery, that's true. But there's a lot more to it than that. It's about getting through awful things and coming out on the other side, damaged but functional (and what's functional may not be pretty, may not be the best way to deal with it ... but it may be impossible to strip those techniques away without doing more harm than good). It's about love - love in spite of extremely trying situations, and love in frameworks that are unexpected. His friends are overly patient, but they aren't always patient. My opinions about the last two complaints are sort of wrapped up with each other, because it's okay to me that the friends aren't fully fleshed out people. First, it's called A Little Life, not Little Lives. And secondly, they're seen through Jude's eyes, and his vision isn't exactly reliable.

It's not a perfect novel, but I am so glad I read it. It's not a book I would recommend to anyone though, not only because I realize that not everyone can tolerate reading about difficult subjects like sexual abuse and self-harm, but also because I think you have to have (or be open to) a certain amount of understanding about the thought processes of abuse survivors and how hard it is to overcome those.

I listened to It Ended Badly, which is subtitled "Thirteen of the Worst Breakups in History." It's supposed to be a snarky take on love (or arranged marriages) ending in terrible ways, and maybe part self-help, like "hey, your breakup isn't that bad because it didn't end with a beheading, like poor Anne Boleyn." I like snarky humor, but there was not too much of it on display here. She thought she was being clever, I imagine, but most of it fell flat. Then there's the history. I get that she was being *hilarious* by saying that she got some info for one of the pieces from the Wikipedia page, but honestly, she might have been better off if she'd gotten all of her information there. At one point, she describes something that supposedly happened by saying "This is real, actual history, folks" ... and then cites Manchester's pretty much universally discredited A World Lit Only by Fire as her source. The modern-day relationship advice or comments appended to some of the essays is pretty hit or miss, not only in content but in whether or not she really even attempts to tie it in to real-world experiences. Also, she talks about the amazing love affair that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had - they were just so crazy in love, isn't it romantic how they were alcoholic and abusive to each other but couldn't stay away? Or, you know, toxic and co-dependent. I wouldn't exactly hold them up as the greatest love story of all time.

On the plus side, she does revile Norman Mailer and his disappointment that something like stabbing his wife would probably keep him out of consideration for the Nobel Prize.

I've realized that I have a much higher tolerance for finishing terrible books on audio because I'm always doing something useful while I'm listening to them, so it doesn't feel like such a waste of time and also because I can just tune them out for a bit when they annoy me too much.