SusanJ's 75 Books Challenge - Thread 5

Hello, and welcome to my fifth 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*
26. The Year of Living Danishly
27. The Button Box
28. Land Grabbing*
29. The Soul of a New Machine*
30. White Mughals*
31. The Making of the President 1960*
32. No Way to Treat a First Lady*
33. The Reproach of Hunger*

April

34. Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy*
35. No God But Gain*
36. The Great Partition
37. The Buried Pyramid
38. The Forest of Myrrh
39. Stand on Zanzibar
40. Midnight's Children
41. The Boy With The Topknot
42. A Strange Kind of Paradise
43. The Field of Reeds
44. Mecca: The Sacred City

May

45. Tamas
46. Partitions
47. Incarnations
48. My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises
49. Black Water Rising
50. Pleasantville
51. Keeping Their Marbles
52. Survivors
53. This Orient Isle
54. A Life Discarded
55. A Very English Scandal
56. The Days of Anna Madrigal
57. Off The Grid
58. The New Prophets of Capital*

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:



2016 Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick
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

Is it safe yet? Happy new thread, Susan!

>4 susanj67: It's safe! Thanks Diana :-)

I got most of my planned weekend reading done, but last night was slightly derailed by five episodes of Sons of Anarchy. But I did finish two books!



39. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

I saw this on Heather's thread, and it sounded like an interesting concept. I found a nearly-new copy at a cute little library in Newham, even though it was originally published in 1968. I hate to think what a first edition would look like in the London library system! It's set in 2010, when the world has seven billion people, and the author imagines what that might be like. Eugenics is very popular, people aren't supposed to live in more than a prescribed amount of space, and and the slang is truly, truly lame. The two main characters are men, and most of the women are "shiggies" - good-time girls who move between men with just a small bag of their belongings. Feminism hadn't made it to 2010, it seems. I don't tend to read sci-fi, but this was a good read despite the fact that I didn't love the author's imagined world. It was a bit long, but I returned it this morning well before its due date, and picked up a reserve :-)

40. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Carrie recommended this when I was looking for more to read about Partition, and it's a fascinating read. I'm not a magical realism fan, and it did overwhelm the last part of the book, but I loved most of the book, and particularly the parts set in the narrator's childhood, when he went back into his family's history. There's lots of modern Indian history in it too, so I have more of an idea now about what happened and when.

This morning I picked up Tamas, set in 1947 just before Partition. It was mentioned in The Great Partition and it's been republished as a Penguin Modern Classic, so once again it's a lovely new edition.

Happy new thread! I am not a fan of magical realism either, but I might be if it were all like Midnight's Children.

>7 susanj67: Is there no hope for our future slang?!

>8 susanj67: Love the cover of Midnight's Children, and you're tempting me with your comments about it. I'm trying to look away when you mention a lovely edition of an early novel about partition in a penguin classic! Temptation...

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Susan! Only eleven posts in, and already you have hit me with a book bullet - Midnight's Children goes onto the list. And I actually really like magical realism when it is well done.

Happy new thread, Susan. I wish you a good start into the new week.

>9 cbl_tn: Thanks Carrie!

>10 charl08: Charlotte, he had totally missed Awesome, wicked, really, seriously, "said no-one ever" and many others :-)

>11 thornton37814: Thanks Lori!

>12 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie! If you like magical realism, you will *love* it!

>13 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara :-) You too!

I've just been on the phone with the bank, arranging the reinvestment of a maturing savings account. Somehow I lost the pre-paid envelope for the form they sent and they didn't print the address anywhere *on* the form. D'oh! The young man took the opportunity to check their records were accurate.

Q. Where were you born?

A. New Zealand.

Q. Do you have dual nationality?

A. No.

Q. What is your nationality?

A. ...New Zealander.

I know they're just reading from a script, but sigh.

Hi Susan -- congratulations on your new thread. Glad you liked Midnights Children. I, too, am not a fan of magical realism but I also enjoyed it.

Happy new thread, Susan.

And what is your nationality, again? ;)

I need to read Midnight's Children again; I do like magical realism and have good memories of this novel. Your cover is prettier than mine.

Happy new thread, Susan!

>7 susanj67: Glad you enjoyed Stand on Zanzibar - the slang was very lame in a very 1960s way :-)

>8 susanj67: I struggled with Midnight's Children when I read it - I think most of my knowledge of modern Indian history comes from A Suitable Boy which is another huge book but one I really enjoyed. There keep being mentions of a sequel but it never seems to get published.

>15 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks Reba :-)

>16 BLBera: Beth, I did think of you with all the magical realism! I'm not sure what my nationality is today. I may be stateless.

>17 souloftherose: Hi Heather! I loved A Suitable Boy, but it's set just a bit later than Partition, so I couldn't use the Partition book as an excuse to get it. I do still want to reread it, though.

An ebook reserve has arrived! It's not the new C J Box novel, or the next Lee Child, or the new Daniel Silva (due in June), but I may also have reserved those *cough*. This one is Mecca by Ziauddin Sardar. I saw it a while ago in hard copy at the library and liked the cover, and I've just read a bit of The Penguin History of the World (seriously, why does that touchstone default to Great Expectations?!) about the beginning of Islam, so I thought it would be a good thing to read alongside it. And, while most places I've never been are down to my own timidity/dislike of Abroad, Mecca is somewhere that I couldn't go even if I wanted to, so reading about it is the only answer :-)

Susan, just want to put on record that the last three crime novels I read were *in order*. Somewhat unexpected!

>19 charl08: Yay! Now you know the right way to do it ;-)

Incarnations: India in 50 Lives was ready for me to pick up at the library today, so I've just got it. Another chunkster, but with pictures at least :-) I might have to put Sons of Anarchy on hold (again) and read a lot more in the next couple of weeks.

>20 susanj67: Hmm. I'm feeling rebellious so might have to pick up book ten in something soon.

Glorious sunshine here (is this the summer? or will there be more of it?)

>22 charl08: Charlotte, I'll pretend I didn't read that first sentence. But there are rumours of possible SNOW for the marathon on the weekend! It would be the first time EVER, apparently. It's sunny down here but really cold outside, although part of that is the inevitable Canary Wharf wind chill. Good news for puffa coat wearers who like to get their money's worth...

I hope your weather warms up soon. We're having our April showers right now.

Yikes! We just got (what they are calling) Snowmageddon 2016 here in CO last weekend. We had about 2 feet of snow at my house and 3 at school! We're sincerely hoping to be DONE with snow!

>24 BLBera: Beth, it's even colder today! I have had to resurrect my woollen scarf, which I thought I had finished with for this year.

>25 AMQS: Anne, those pictures on your thread at CRAZY! We couldn't cope with American weather ;-)

The Boy With The Topknot is an amazing read, and I should finish it tonight if I can resist the lure of Sons of Anarchy. I'm so pleased I'm reading it before the festival next month.

Today is the Queen's 90th birthday, and Buckingham Palace has published three new photos by Annie Liebovitz http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36093306 I *love* the one with the children. They must have co-ordinated all those outfits, because it all goes together so well, and it's so cute that Mia Tindall is holding the Queen's handbag. It's also funny to see Prince George not being held in a firm grip by either parent, as he usually is in photographs:-)

>26 susanj67: Oh my goodness, what sweet photographs! Annie Liebovitz is a genius! The little one holding the handbag is so cute. She looks like she's playing dress-up. The dog photos are fun, too. Is it usual for people to bring their dogs with them to see the queen?

No sign of snow here - I got BURNT yesterday sitting on the sunshine. Frantic watering of plants going on too. Hope the sons of anarchy isn't distracting you too much from all those reservations Susan (!)

>27 cbl_tn: Carrie, aren't they cute? I haven't read the hatey comments on the UK news sites - I decided just to like them and stick with my own opinion. I'm not sure how much the Queen is a dog person apart from her own dogs, but I've read that she doesn't like other people feeding or fussing over them, so maybe she's the same with other people's.

>28 charl08: Charlotte, you are having anomalously nice weather up there! It is coooold down here, although I did manage to go to Pret at lunchtime without a coat on. It is, however, in the mall just down an escalator from my office building, so no need to go outside :-) I might give Sons a rest tonight, as The Good Wife is on, and I really want to finish The Boy With The Topknot if I can. I need to stop watching so many or I'll soon have finished all of the series, and then I will be bereft.

>26 susanj67: Thanks for that link. Great photos. USA Today (a paper I'm not fond of but is usually provided in hotels here) had a photo of the four generations with George standing on a stack of books with the adults seated. It's adorable too.

>30 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, that four-generation photo has been turned into stamps for the big day: http://shop.royalmail.com/hm-the-queens-90th-birthday/hm-the-queens-90th-birthda... If you hover over the picture, you can see that each head is a stamp, and they needed George to be standing up at a similar height to the others. I might record The Good Wife tonight and watch the birthday coverage instead :-) I know there's a lot of Republican feeling in the UK (and on LT) but, given that we have a Queen, I think she's done an amazing job. I can't imagine getting up every day at 90, putting my face on and a nice outfit and going out to meet strangers. In a recent TV programme she was shown arriving at Euston station at about 11pm, to catch a sleeper train to Scotland for the next day. I'm not up at 11pm *now*!!

>31 susanj67: 'given that we have a Queen, I think she's done an amazing job' In theory I can sympathise with republican views but I also really like our Queen and am really impressed by how hard she works. In terms of the wider family, Kate and William also seem to have their heads screwed on. I don't think I dislike Charles as much as I used to but I wouldn't be sorry if we skipped a generation and just crowned William.

I hadn't realised they'd turned that picture into stamps either - I like that.

>32 souloftherose: Heather, I feel a bit sorry for Charles - all those decades of waiting and nothing to do but tinker around the edges. He'll be starting his "proper job" during what is most people's retirement. It must be an odd sort of life, notwithstanding all the castles and the butlers :-) I didn't watch the BBC One documentary last night, but I'll catch up with it at the weekend.



41. The Boy With The Topknot by Sathnam Sanghera

I *loved* this family memoir, which the author wrote following the discovery of a family secret. It really is a "memoir of love, secrets and lies", as the subtitle suggests. Although quite sad overall, there are parts that are very funny, particularly when he talks about Punjabi Sikh life, and his mother's constant search for a wife for him. The only qualifications are that she's from the right caste, and good at cooking, knitting and sweeping. For the author, living a very British life in London, that's the source of some tension...

I read a couple of extracts from this in The Times when it first came out, I think. The author is (or was) a Times columnist, and he's a very humorous writer. I definitely remember the bit about his first day at school, where the teacher looked down the class roll, full of Kaurs and Singhs (the traditional names for Sikh girls and boys respectively), and told everyone that they would have to give her their family names as well. Sathnam had no idea what his family name was, and had to ask his mother when he went home for lunch. She knew it, but couldn't speak or write English, so his older sister wrote it down for him on an envelope to take back into school. And then his uncle said she'd spelled it incorrectly...

Very highly recommended.

I returned it to the library this morning, and found myself in front of their Earth Day display (such a cute Google illustration today too). At one point I had four books in my hands, but eventually whittled them down to two - Survivors: The Animals and Plants That Time Left Behind and Ten Million Aliens. At some point I want to get A Sting in the Tale and Common Ground, but I have four other library books at the moment (not counting today's acquisitions), and aaargh.

>33 susanj67: Agreed re Charles and whilst this is all speculation, I can imagine that growing up with a Mum so dedicated to her duty and role as Queen was probably not that easy either.

I'm rather fond of democratic monarchies ala Europe. Seems to me separating the ceremonial jobs from the governing is a good idea.

>34 souloftherose: Heather, yes, it must have been a very strange life.

>35 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, and the outfits are so pretty :-)

The Obamas are here today, for lunch with the Queen and for the President to tell Britain that it should stay in the EU. This is not going down particularly well. Even I, who have *lived* in the country for 21 years, do not intend to vote in the referendum because it's none of my business, so I have a lot of sympathy for the people saying he shouldn't have said anything. And, as one columnist put it, there's no way the US would open up its border with Mexico and agree to its highest court being in Venezuela.

So the cartoon of the day is this one, from the Daily Telegraph :

A bit slow to get to your new thread Susan but I will still belatedly wish you a happy newish one.

>36 susanj67: I love the Prince Philip cartoon. He really is a klutz. I remember a british business assembly when he visited here to Malaysia a number of years ago when, in a foul mood, he berated most of us for wasting our time here as the "locals obviously don't want you and you'll never make any money" - it was all so ham fisted that it was actually rather funny.

>36 susanj67: That's hilarious. I would pay to hear what he had to say about Trump.

>37 PaulCranswick: Wow. I wonder of Andrew's valuable business missions are so skilled.

All your books look interesting Sudan but I really fancy reading Common ground. I've heard great things about The Boy with the Topknot will have to see if any copies pop up on my library system. I wondered if you'd posted your comments in the nonfiction themed read for this month - they've defined the religion and belief theme very loosely.

>37 PaulCranswick: I tend to think Andrew's agenda may differ slightly from his fathers, although tales have been told of ladies and secret entrances to parts of the Palace. I will never be a Royalist and think that most of them misbehave themselves with seeming impunity. The Queen aside, I would add, morals wise anyhow.

>39 PaulCranswick: You are far more reasonable than me.

Susan I have seen little Prince George meeting Obama tonight and I am almost tempted out of my curmudgeonly republicanism (see Andrew comment above). Although that may just be the Obama aura talking...

>37 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. Yes, Prince Philip has managed quite a few eyebrow-raising comments. He reminds me of someone I worked with who was prejudiced against pretty much everyone for one reason or another, which meant that we were all on a level playing field, in a strange sort of way :-) But this is my favourite story:

*****

At a 2006 Palace reception honouring Australians, Philip met Joe Kerr, husband of Gill Hicks, who lost both legs in the July 2005 London bombings.

"You’re not Australian!" said Philip. "No, actually I’m not important, I’m just here because of my wife," said Joe.
"Tell me about it," said Philip, walking off chuckling to himself.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/359117/The-best-of-Prince-Philip-s-wise-words-a...

*****

>38 charl08: Charlotte, somehow I associate Common Ground with you. If you haven't read it, maybe it was in one of the Guardian reviews on your thread. I hope you get to it!

>39 PaulCranswick: Paul, it's a pity about Prince Andrew, after he was so popular when he was younger and flying helicopters in the Falklands.

>40 charl08: Charlotte, oh the cuteness! (but, alternatively, he's hard at work and he's not even 3). These must be strange times for childrenswear retailers. There you are, having a quiet Friday night dinner, when an alarm goes off on your website, all your stock has sold out and you're famous.

This morning is the marathon, and there is no sign of the snow they threatened, or the hail...ridiculous. It is quite chilly (good marathon temperature) and I am staying at home as we get locked in during the marathon because of all the road closures. Yesterday I was undecided about where to go for my steps, but I wanted to avoid the Presidential motorcade and all the associated kerfuffle, so I walked up to Liverpool Street and went out to Westfield, fairly confident that it wouldn't involve east London. Later I saw he'd been at the Globe, which I usually walk past on my river walk. Thank goodness I changed my plans!



42. A Strange Kind of Paradise by Sam Miller

This is a look at India through foreign eyes, since foreign eyes first visited and started writing about it. And some who wrote about it never having been at all. It's a really good read, and includes lots of Indian history too. I'm glad I read it before the festival next month. The only downside is that it's added another gazillion books to my list of possible books :-)

I read the introduction to Incarnations last night, and today my goal is to read the first ten lives (out of 50). Fingers crossed! I'm also keeping an eye on the marathon (there is a runner called Susan in the elite women, so I am cheering for her) and doing housework (the excitement!). And I have to make a batch of granola, which this time will include some puffed buckwheat, which I found at Holland & Barratt yesterday.

Oh, and I have a book acquisition to report - Simon Sebag-Montefiore's Catherine the Great and Potemkin, which I picked up yesterday at The Works. My "thank you for joining" points on my loyalty card meant that it was virtually free!

Ooh, I just earned my Great Barrier Reef badge from Fitbit! That means I've walked 1,600 miles since I got it, which was about a year ago. Now I'm inspired to get dressed and go out. I could always walk up and down my (long) street a couple of times, and drop into the supermarket...

I was just talking to Favourite Library Assistant, and confessed that my reading was suffering this year due to the Netflix. He said I needed to keep reading or their circulation figures would fall :-)

I did read ten lives from Incarnations: India in Fifty Lives yesterday, and I love the format - about ten pages per life, and lots of lovely pictures. I hope to read ten more lives tonight. Reading so much about India all at once means that some of the names, even from the olden days, are actually becoming familiar. But I will have to save up pronunciation questions as my guru is currently in Bombay (for three days with the inlaws) and then going to the Maldives. She emailed me from Heathrow on Friday night. I said "Have a jacuzzi for me!". The response was an emoticon with its tongue sticking out. I suppose I could always fill up the whiteboard as a reminder for when she gets back.

>43 susanj67: It's a worry, Susan. How nice of FLA.

The reviewer at the Guardian was quite snarky about the fifty lives book. How nice that you are enjoying it.

My back is still giving me grief otherwise the thought of my own jacuzzi would be a lovely one. I was so glad it rained yesterday and all my watering was done!

>44 charl08: Charlotte, I just looked it up on the Guardian website and the review by Siddhartha Deb is very critical! There's a much more flattering one by William Dalrymple. And I'm coming at the book from the point of view of someone who knows very little about the "real" India, so I'm not judging it from Deb's point of view, I suppose. It's so heavy though - twice the weight of a normal 600pp book. Neither makes that point so they must have stronger arms than I do.

Sorry about your back. At least nature helped out with the watering, and didn't snow on you. I managed 8000 steps yesterday, which was two round trips to the supermarket. It was blissfully quiet because the whole area was locked off to traffic. Amazingly, though, they still had three staffed checkouts. And no queues!

I didn't get any more lives read last night, as I got stuck at the office and didn't get home till nearly 8. But I did start Tamas, which is a novel about Partition. And I reserved the new Wellcome Prize winner. Ahem. My reserve slots are filling up again. I suppose FLA will be pleased :-)

That all sounds good. The Wellcome winner sounds like a good read - look forward to your comments.

>43 susanj67: 'He said I needed to keep reading or their circulation figures would fall' Oh, the pressure!

>47 charl08: Charlotte, I hope it comes soon but not too soon, due to existing books. My neck/shoulder/upper back pain seems to be thought by various doctors to be all in my mind, so I'll be interested to read her views on psychosomatic illness generally. If there's some different way I can think to make it all go away, I'm up for that!

>48 souloftherose: Heather, I know! We joke on LT about how we support our libraries by borrowing so many things, but to actually hear a librarian come out and say it was pretty funny :-) I'm vaguely thinking of giving up the Netflix after the new series of Orange is the New Black, which comes out in June. I'll have finished Sons of Anarchy by then, and I'd rather like my reading life back again. I read somewhere that you can give it up for ten months before they cancel your profile, so maybe I could try that.

"My reserve slots are filling up again." Okay. Now we're talking, Susan. This is how it is supposed to be. But selfishly, I am hoping that you don't give up your Netflix, as I love reading about your Netflix adventures.

>50 Crazymamie: Mamie, I'm just thinking about it, but there are an awful lot of things on there that will take up time, and the summer is supposed to be when I do my steps!

It has snowed in London! Not out where I am, but scroll down past the video in this link for pictures of the massive amounts of snow seen in other parts of the capital at lunchtime. Americans, don't y'all laugh too hard now. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-snow-wintry-showers-in-the-capital-...

We got snow just after I posted above, but only for a couple of minutes. Excitement, though! That's our only snow for the winter.

I read 12 lives from Incarnations: India in Fifty Lives last night, and it's continuing to educate and entertain. The illustrations are gorgeous. Last night William Jones made an appearance - one of the first orientalists. http://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Jones-British-orientalist-and-jurist But, as with so many other books I read, I'm getting a great big list of *other* things to read.

I picked Partitions up from the library this morning, thanks to Katie's suggestion. It's going to be a busy Bank Holiday weekend on the book front.

Last night there was a London edition of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, which involved only one scratched record sound-effect and one "boing" sound-effect when the quaint Briddish chefs said stuff funny. No sound effects for Guy Fee-airy's lame attempts at British accents, or the bizarre way he pronounced "mushy" peas. Mushy rhymes with "slushy" here (at least in the south), not "pushy". But fortunately no-one cooked anything containing "carmel", as he persistently says it. I'd never heard of the restaurants he went to (not that I ever go out) but they did look good. And he said he'd be back...

Snow! Amazing!

Your post about Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives made ma laugh. We love that show, but I have not seen the London edition. Loads of people here pronounce mushy and caramel just like that!

>53 Crazymamie: Mamie, I had no idea about mushy in the US! Carmel is quite common with the Food Network cooks, though - Pioneer Woman does it, and I think even the Barefoot Contessa has done it. So weird. It always makes me think of nuns, as the Catholic girls' school where I grew up was called Carmel College. When Guy is carmelising stuff, I imagine little head-dresses floating around in the pan.

Today was pasta day in the canteen (also Viet Market, but the themed counter has quite a struggle against pasta on Wednesdays). And, for the first, time, there was vegetable spaghetti! I had some with the butternut sauce, and it was so lovely that I could have eaten it all over again. Instead, though, I had a slice of New York cheesecake, the alternatives being a rather flat chocolate gateau, or a hot chocolate sponge pudding which is far too sweet. And now I have to continue drafting a witness statement. Good luck to me :-)

Yep. And it's not even a Southern thing because people said it that was in the Midwest, too. The carmelising bit made me laugh - now I will be picturing that, too every time i hear that phrase. LOL.

The vegetable spaghetti sounds delicious, I want some.

Good luck to you with the work thingy.

I like the sound of the cheesecake. I've done some hoeing so I feel entitled to something sweet now...

I never heard the word "caramel" (as opposed to "carmel") until I was an adult and I grew up in California albeit with Indiana parents.

As to snow -- coming home from Oregon on Monday we saw snow as we approached L.A. It was still on the ground beside the road although we missed the actual falling Really bizarre for April in California.

It's not a New England thing. We say it your way, i.e. the right way. :)

No snow in southern Massachusetts, but it sure was stinking cold!

Hail here this evening Susan. I am dithering over ordering your Indian lives book. It sounds great, the pictures sound wonderful but it seems like a bit of a brick? Are there any women?

>55 Crazymamie: Mamie, that is so odd :-) And YES to the vegetable spaghetti! Spiralisers are all the rage here, for making it, but now some of the supermarkets have started stocking it in their fridge cabinets. Super-fit friend says that all the goodness will have escaped from the supermarket product, but the DIY version looks like fun.

>56 charl08: Charlotte, hoeing should get you an even bigger treat! I just sit and gaze at my computer all day.

>57 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, that's so funny about "carmel". I had no idea it was such a widespread thing. Snow in April is crazy, isn't it? Particularly for California.

>58 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, that's a relief. About caramel, that is, not your cold weather.

>59 charl08: Charlotte, the book weighs 1.5 kg. I just saw this on the Penguin site, where I hoped they would have a list of the people in it. I meant to do a count of the women this morning but forgot. But, 26 lives in, there aren't many. Annie Besant makes an appearance shortly (weird) but so far the most memorable is Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi, star of the Indian Mutiny, and one of Time magazine's Top 10 Bad-Ass Wives http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2084354_2084355_2... I'd love to read more about her.

One of the main roads on the bus route was closed today, so the bus went through the Limehouse Link tunnel, which links Wapping with Canary Wharf in a couple of minutes. Bliss! We all dream of a bus route that goes through the tunnel but so far it's just dreaming.

"Carmel" is the usual pronunciation here, too. I looked up the pronunciation to see if I've been pronouncing it wrong all these years. The Cambridge Dictionary Online has sound recordings of the pronunciation as well as a phonetic pronunciation guide. It identifies "carmel" as the U.S. English pronunciation and "caramel" as the UK English pronunciation. Other dictionaries with phonetic guides list both as alternate pronunciations. So, they're both right, depending on your location!

>61 cbl_tn: Carrie, that's hilarious! I just looked up the dictionary myself, and listened :-) Fancy that. But does this mean I will have to stop judging Guy? Actually there are probably other things I could judge him for...

But does this mean I will have to stop judging Guy?

I don't watch the programme, but this made me laugh out loud.

'Bad-ass wives': boggling mind here. That said, I'll look at the kindle price of that book. Not a fan of lugging kilos around.

>63 charl08: Charlotte, I think the book would work best in hard copy, weight notwithstanding. Part of the enjoyment is the very heavy paper and the illustrations - it feels like a treasury to dip into. Definitely one for home and not travelling about!

The library website is down, meaning that I can't check on the progress of any of my reservations (or reserve anything more). Yesterday I got the "General Reading" update from the OUP and reserved the *very first thing I saw* in it. Poor. I may be forced to read the New Law Journal instead. Someone save me!

>62 susanj67: No, imho there are PLENTY of things to judge him for :)

>65 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, LOL! He did the fist-bumps in London. A couple of the chefs looked a bit taken aback, but bumped him back. The shorts and the hair looked quite out of place in grey old London :-) Some colours work best in stronger sunlight, I think.

43. The Field of Reeds by Jerry Dubs

Even though I have all the library books I had to find out what happened in the final instalment of the Imhotep series. The gang is still in the "new" (but old) time period of book 3, but various threads of the story come together in a way that means they need to escape (again). But can they find the doorway and paint the hieroglyphs in time? This has been a really good series, demonstrated by the fact that I've pretty much binge-read the last three. There's a real sense of place in the books, which either means the author has done his research well, or he's a great world-builder. And I've cared about what happens to all the characters. Really, what more do you need? Recommended for a fun romp through ancient times.

Well! After a conversation this morning, I may be applying for an ESTA over the weekend, just in case :-)

In other news, I've just been shopping for this new recipe: http://www.waitrose.com/home/recipes/recipe_directory/h/harissa-sweet-potatoandc... I had to look up harissa paste before I left, just so I knew what I was looking for, but they had it in stock, so whew! I wondered what the "Greek light salad cheese" might be but, as I was shopping at Waitrose (whose recipe this is) there was in fact a product called "Greek light salad cheese", which solved that problem. Any suggestions for what I can do with the rest of the salad cheese (apart from the obvious) welcome, as I only need 30g and I've got 200g. It's in the fridge, and I mustn't forget to get it out and take it home. I also found Twinings' new Turkish Apple Tea bags (flavoured black tea). I'm finishing up all the teas in the office as the roomie and I get distracted by shiny new teas, so this is my reward for when I do (and also a slight, um, distraction).

Goodness, that's some interesting shopping you're doing! What's the salad cheese like? (maybe a lighter Feta?)

>69 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I think so, although it's made from two types of milk. I'm not really a cheese person unless it's cheddar, so for me this is branching out! I also found a recipe for a cauliflower and pea frittata which has cheese on the top before it's grilled, so that's another option. Family-sized packaging is quite a challenge for the singleton household. But it's a long weekend here so I'm going to try at least a couple of new recipes. Tonight, though, is half of a M&S Indian Starter Selection, which is pakoras, samosas and onion bhajis. All vegetarian, and delicious. I'll have a look in the Indian fixings aisle to see what I could have with it.

#68 Harissa is awesome just be careful! Can be pretty insane depending on the variety!

I've not come across 'salad cheese' either... odd idea!

Ooh! Travel? Fingers crossed for that rescheduled meet up then...

>68 susanj67: - Is an ESTA the visa thing to visit the US? ARE YOU COMING TO DALLAS?!?!

(No pressure...)

If that Greek salad-type sort-of cheese-like product is anything like feta, I like to put feta in a cold salad of lentils with chopped red onion and some balsamic vinaigrette.

Also, I just got a FitBit to replace my super old Jawbone tracker, so PM me your email address if you have any friend slots open :)

I've tried a few of the restaurants Guy Fiari visited on "Triple D" (Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives). Some of them are excellent. I absolutely loved Fuel Cantina in Charleston when I visited there a couple of summers ago. There are, of course, a few that failed to impress me quite as much, but overall, it's worth checking to see if Guy had any finds in a city you are visiting. I'm the odd-ball Southerner who pronounces it "car-a-mel" rather than "car-mel."

>70 susanj67: I sometimes freeze cheese when I have too much. It works OK for cooked applications when thawed.

The Prince Philip quotes are great Susan. I remember one reception when he was discoursing on the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and he said "You know we have made great progress over the years, I mean nowadays, we even have blacks!"

The guy is a bigot and a menace and still has people fawning all over him.

Have a lovely weekend.

Love the Prince Philip quotes, Susan. The Boy with the TopKnot and A Strange Kind of Paradise both sound great. The Dubs series sounds interesting -- off to see if they are available in my library.

Have a wonderful Sunday; I hope you get some steps in.

My long weekend hasn't really gone to plan. Not that there *was* a plan, but I didn't plan on being poisoned by my lunch on Saturday (at Wagamamas, not my own cooking!). Ugh. Still, at least today's a holiday so I'll try and salvage some more reading. Before the poisoning I'd bought a pair of jeans (I think I'm too old for jeans, but then I manage to convince myself that I'm not, even though the current fad for faded/torn etc makes them look like something I would throw out, not pay money for) and a cute weekend watch, and I was having such a nice time. I even walked all the way from Shepherd's Bush to Bond Street before I got the tube home. Hmph.

>71 BekkaJo: Bekka, I will bear that in mind.

>72 charl08: Charlotte, possibly travel. It's all up in the air at the moment (ha! see what I did there?) but now you're supposed to have an ESTA three days before booking travel, so I thought it best to be prepared. I really should have one anyway, because if I had to get back to NZ in a hurry I could only go via Asia at the moment.

>73 katiekrug: Katie, not immediately, but an ESTA is the first step! And thanks for the cheese suggestion. I'll remember it for when I can face food again :-)

>74 DianaNL: Diana, I've been better! I hope your week goes well. I'm not sure if you have a May Day holiday but, if so, enjoy!

>75 thornton37814: Lori, occasionally they show people who've been to hundreds of the Triple D restaurants - what a fun way to spend a retirement!

>76 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I've frozen cheddar, so I could give that a try. Currently it's sitting unopened in the fridge, putting off the need to do anything with it.

>77 PaulCranswick: Paul, I think I'm less critical of HRH than you - he's a product of his time, and no doubt of trying to find something different to say to so many people. I think today we would say that he has no filter. And hey, the Americans are about to *elect* someone even worse!

>78 BLBera: Beth, the Dubs books only show up as ebooks on Amazon (UK, anyway) but the first one is only 99p, so probably even cheaper in the US, where everything is :-) The Boy With The Topknot really is excellent - I hope I can convince people to read it!

I have at least managed to finish a couple of books



44. Mecca: The Sacred City by Ziauddin Sardar

I saw this at the library a while ago, and then it came out as an ebook, with the same lovely cover :-) A few years ago now, Channel 4 ran a short series of ten-minute films after the 7pm news on pilgrims doing the Hajj in Mecca, which is what first interested me in this city. That, and the fact I can never go there. So this book seemed like a good opportunity to learn more. And what a read it was! It's literally a history of Mecca since it was first settled, which was considerably before Islam. That was the first surprise. The second was just what a turbulent time it's had, as various factions fought over who should control it, what a "good Muslim" should do and made various attempts to enlarge and improve the Sacred Mosque.

I thought it got bogged down a bit in the early 1000s, when everyone seemed to be called very similar names, but it does warrant reading a fair bit at a time, so that could have been my fault. But it soon gets to the bit where Mecca is affected by what's going on in the wider world as communications and transport improve, and then it's easier to place events and keep track of things. The author finishes by looking at what the city is currently like,and argues that it's lost its way, being non-stop glitz and seven-star hotels, with many of the famous old sites of religious interest bulldozed. It was sad to read that, because it sounded quite beautiful before, and it contrasts with the efforts made in other places to preserve ancient heritage. It was particularly interesting to read it at the very time that the Saudis announced that they wanted to increase tourism to the Kingdom. I'm not sure how they really plan to do that as non-Muslims can't go to the most famous places (Mecca and Medina) and plus there's all the beheadings and stonings and women not driving...But I'd recommend this for anyone who wants to know more about the history of the region, and also about the history of the different sects of Islam and why they fight so much amongst themselves.



45. Tamas by Bisham Sahni

This is a novel about Partition, which was repeatedly quoted from in The Great Partition. It's set in a small town just before Partition, in which the Sikh, Muslim and Hindu residents, who have lived together mostly peaceably, suddenly start killing one another after a dead pig is left on the steps of the town mosque. It's alarming in its portrayal of how quickly these things can happen, and how much misinformation was responsible, but I found it quite a difficult read, mostly due to the translation, which was done by the author himself. The back of the book describes the translation as "sensitive" but I would call it "ropey". He invents words that don't actually exist in English, and the British Deputy Commissioner (a weirdo) and his wife (a dimwit drunk) are cartoonishly ridiculous, certainly in translation and no doubt in the original. This was still a worthwhile read, but I'm not going to rave about it.

A history of Mecca sounds great. I've read a bit about folk trying to go in the hajj from Africa (and the British govt of the time getting very antsy about the idea) but nothing about the city itself.

UGH! Sorry about the poisoning - that's no good, Susan. Hoping that you are feeling much better very soon. Your day did sound lovely up until then. And one is never too old for jeans. Just saying...

I hope you're feeling better Susan.

Get well soon, Susan. Food poisoning isn't funny.

So sorry your long weekend was spoiled by food poisoning. Hope you've had a great Monday full of reading though. As to jeans -- I don't think you're to old at all!! Silly!! Besides, far as I can see jeans are the backbone of woman's casual wardrobe all over the western world...at all ages. (although the torn, tatty ones aren't...but good classic ones are)

I hope you're feeling better, Susan.

>81 charl08: Charlotte, it certainly wasn't what I expected! There were bits about British explorer-type people sneaking in as pilgrims (their families later insisted that they hadn't actually converted).

>82 Crazymamie: >83 charl08:, >84 Ameise1: >85 RebaRelishesReading: >86 BLBera: Thanks everyone :-) I'm back in the office today where there is real food, as opposed to my bread-based diet of the last few days.

>82 Crazymamie: >85 RebaRelishesReading: I will keep those positive jeans comments in mind! I did buy a pair of dark ones, and all the one colour, without fading and fake "wear".



46. Partitions by Amit Majmudar

I reserved this from the library after Katie mentioned it as a good novel about Partition. And it was! Thanks Katie! I read it yesterday morning and loved it. It was hard to believe it was the author's first novel, as everything about it was so good.

But then I hit something of a reading wall, so I decided to finish series 6 of Sons of Anarchy. I just had 11 episodes to go out of 13, so it seemed silly not to. Now I only have one more series left :-( And OMG re the end of series 6 - any Sons fans out there will know what I mean.

I returned a couple of books to the library at lunchtime and they had TWO displays of new books, plus the existing new books shelf. I borrowed My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises, but the author of A Man Called Ove, which I loved.

Your new jeans sound perfect.

Personally, I live in jeans, and I'm considerably older than you. I do eschew the tattered look, however.

Hope you like My Grandmother... I liked it but thought that Ove was better. In fact, I'm wondering if I might reread Ove now. I could do with some funny reading.

>88 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks Reba! Here they are - and £7 cheaper than what I paid on Saturday, grrr. http://www.debenhams.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/prod_10701_10001_120010685247...

>89 ronincats: Roni, I see people in jeans with so many rips that I wonder how they survive being washed :-)

>90 charl08: Charlotte, I hope I will, but I'm leaving it till the weekend, which is supposed to be lovely weather, making me hope for some balcony time.

It's lovely today too, and I got to work early even though I went and voted first. We have the London mayoral/ London assembly elections here today. In Tower Hamlets, there is a policeman at every polling station because so many of the locals don't believe in democracy, but my polling station has never seen any trouble as far as I know, so our policeman looked pretty chilled. There wasn't even a queue, so it only took me a couple of minutes.

One of the Kindle Daily Deals for the UK is excellent today - The Silk Roads: A New History of the World for just £2.89. It hasn't even been published in paperback here yet. I snapped it up while I was still lying in bed. But, as two of my reserves are in transit, I may not get to it for a while.

>79 susanj67: Sorry to hear food poisoning spoiled your long weekend. The jeans look nice too.

Jeans looks great. I was slightly thrown that there was no European vote option at the polls. You mean I have to come back? Again?!

>79 susanj67: That is certainly so, Susan. Either Hilary or The Donald. Rock and Hard Place.

Have a lovely weekend.

>92 souloftherose: Heather, I wore the jeans today for the first time and I like them so much that I think I'll buy a second pair :-)

>93 charl08: Charlotte, yes, you will :-) I had three forms to fill in for the Mayor and the London Assembly - all quite a kerfuffle. My polling station is the little primary school around the corner, and it has to close on election days, so it must be quite disruptive having two in a year.

>94 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. You too!

We are having a heatwave here in London. It is 73F. Americans, I can hear y'all giggling, but for us this is *hot*! There are a lot of coats out and about, though, because no-one quite believed it would happen. I've been out, but only had a coffee so I'm not poisoned this time. I'm making the recipe that I mentioned last weekend, and so far so good although I haven't actually tried it yet. Then I must finish Incarnations and the last two episodes of Sons of Anarchy, because I have to know what happens. Well, I know what happens, but not the whole story of how.

Hi Susan. I am slowly working my way through the threads. I saw on your previous thread that you made some banana pecan muffins.... Those happen to be my favorite muffins, after cranberry coconut. I think I will have to do some baking this weekend.

Sorry to hear you have suffered a bout of food poisoning.... what an unexpected downturn to your long weekend.

Love your new jeans. I like straight leg jeans over the skinny pairs that I seen the young things wearing. I hope you have been having a lovely weekend. Enjoy that heatwave!

I also love the new jeans. And your 73F heat wave made me belly laugh, but don't worry, you will get the last laugh when temps climb into the 90s here. Which is actually forecast for next Wednesday.

Happy Saturday, dear!

Hooray for jeans you love!!

You've got us beat here in southern New England with your 'heat wave'. It's 49 degrees and foggy right now. Haven't even opened the curtains as it will only let more chilly air inside.

>96 lkernagh: Hey Lori :-) The banana pecan muffins were a bit sweet, so I won't make them again but I'll look out for another recipe, because the pecans are lovely. I'm all out of muffins now, so tomorrow I'm going to make a recipe that I actually got from a novel set in a bakery - and I get to use the food processor to grate things.

>97 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie! Happy Saturday to you all too, because you have more of it left than I do :-) 73F is hot! No, really :-) And tomorrow will be 79!

>98 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks Reba! That's why I'm buying them all over again - I frequently wish I'd bought second pairs of things when I love them and they wear out, but I never do.

>99 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, see, I know London would be hotter than somewhere! Hotter than Istanbul, too, they say. Of course Istanbul may be be having a cold snap - we don't enquire too closely.

I've finished Sons of Anarchy, and I don't know how I'm going to fill the gap left by it (apart from all the other stuff on Netflix, of course). What a show! I've also read some more lives from Incarnations, but I really must get on with it. That's going to be my goal for this evening, as I've just finished the ironing basket (applause please).

47. Incarnations: India in Fifty Lives by Sunil Khilnani

I borrowed this from the library because the author is going to be speaking at the festival in a couple of weeks. It's a gorgeous book, with very heavy paper and beautiful illustrations, and I learned a huge amount about Indian history and the Indian present. Starting with the Buddha, the author looks at fifty lives of Indians over the centuries. Each life is about ten pages, so, although the book is huge, you can read it a few lives as a time. It's given me another great big list of things to read, too.

The best quote (actually in any book of the year so far) came in the life of Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi, who was famed for her fight against the British during the Indian Mutiny of 1857:

"In India, the uprising produced many heroes - but only one celebrated heroine: Lakshmi Bai, the Rani, or Queen, of Jhansi, a mid-sized kingdom in the Bundelkhand region, around 400 kilometres south of Delhi. General Hugh Rose, the British officer determined to capture her and take control of her territory, famously said, 'The Indian Mutiny has produced but one man, and that man was a woman.'"

Very highly recommended.

Great quote. Pretty much sums up the period. (Discuss...) I might add that one to the Xmas list.

I have lots of books to read, but think I might just reach for some crime. There is a new book about a 1940s marriage bureau that I am very tempted to ask the library for, but am trying to clear my library reservation list (stop laughing please). Or at least thinking about trying to clear it. Anyway, the review of the marriage bureau book had some great quotes from men and women about the kind of person they were looking for, including wildly optimistic and the amusingly practical.

But as I say, I'm going to try and cut back the reservation list.

>101 susanj67: - another one for the recommended by you list. Looks good.

>102 charl08: Charlotte, I had to look that book up, and now I've reserved it (Marriages Are Made in Bond Street). So the universe has a reservation for it, and you are excused, even if only temporarily :-) I will never clear my reservation list, but I would love to get through Mount TBR, and I'm slipping. I've only read 17 out of my goal of 50 so far. That means eight more by the end of June to stay on track. Hmmm. Anyway, speaking of crime, I'm reading the first Attica Locke book after you mentioned that Pleasantville was book 2.

>103 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, go for it! There's something of interest in every life. And I loved the pictures :-)

Well, today is hot hot hot again. Sky News is running a "Sunday Scorcher" weather-watch, as it's predicted to go to 81F today. I've just seen one of their people in Norfolk, on the beach. The studio host asked if she still had her shoes on, and the camera panned down to show that yes, she did. Mamie, you would have loved it :-) I'm going to stay in, as I turned pink yesterday even in the short time I was outside. I have granola to make, and muffins. The sweet potato/chickpea thing turned out really well yesterday but Bekka, I took your advice and went easy on the harissa paste, which was probably just as well. But the cheese crumbled over it nicely (I'd say it's like feta, really) and I had the mixed seeds to sprinkle over the top, and it looked just like the picture :-)

Oh crumbs. Surely on the beach she would be allowed to take her shoes off? No?!

Glad to hear the universe has a reservation for the marriage book.
It won't mind another one then?

>105 charl08: She said she was going to take her shoes off later. I just caught the end of an interview with a climate scientist. They are leaving no weather-related stone unturned today :-) I reserved that book to save you from having to do it, young lady...

I've been reading My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises while I waited for everything to cook. It's very cutesy so far, so I'm going to try and finish it this afternoon as I'm not sure I'd make an effort to read it otherwise. The sun has gone off the balcony sufficiently to go out there with a shady space for my head, so I'll give that a try.

48. My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrick Backman

I saw this at the library last week and borrowed it because I loved A Man Called Ove. But this one didn't work for me at all. It's about a bratty seven-year-old, who reminded me of the fantastically irritating Flavia de Luce in the Alan Bradley mystery series (and I see one of the LT reviewers thought the same, except in a good way) and a cast of other weird characters. Mostly just annoying. Still, it didn't take long to read, so there's that :-) Now I have a couple of sciencey books to finish, although I'm a little bit tempted to return one of them unread, just to clear the pile.

Thanks for taking one for the team, Susan. You are not a Flavia fan either? I liked the first book, but after that I was mostly annoyed.

>108 BLBera: Beth, no, I'm not a Flavia fan either ;-) I only read the first one and I wanted to throw it across the room.

The library is *bursting* with excellent new books this morning, but I was strong. Of course, it is only 9.21. In particular, I loved this brand new one:



Imagine glossy plastic on the cover, making it gleam. I picked it up twice, but put it back. Hmph. It's days like this that I wish I was retired* and I could just sit outside with a pile of books and a mug of tea and read, read, read.

*Actually I wish it every day. Even in bad weather.

Hate to tell you, Susan, but even in retirement you can get so busy it's hard to find time to read. Right now I'm longing for our cruise this fall in hopes that I can find time to just sit and read.

>110 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, somehow I doubt that will happen with me, but I'm prepared to give it a good shot and see :-)

I have to go to the supermarket after work (courgette and tomato frittata, so I can have some more of the cheese on top when I grill (broil) it) and it's so near the library and that tempting book...Maybe I should go to the little Tesco at the other end of the mall, just to be on the safe side. I am trying to think now whether courgettes have the same name in the US. No. Zucchini! It will taste the same, though, I'm sure :-)

Even in bad weather? Even when it's windy? I stung myself with nettles down on the allotment so I'm feeling Aggrieved at Nature. Who invented nettles? What were they thinking!?

Hope the courgette was tasty...

>112 charl08: Charlotte, yes, even then! Bad weather = tea and banana muffins. Windy = tea and toast. Not outside, in either of those cases, unless I had one of the glassed-in balconies that are becoming popular down here ("wintergardens" in marketing-speak). The frittata turned out really well. That reminds me, I bought a vegetarian special edition of the BBC's Good Food magazine on the weekend, and there was a section on cooking from your own garden. I thought of you :-)



49. Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

I saw some good reviews of this author's Pleasantville, which is an Orange nominee this year (or whatever that prize is now called) but Charlotte mentioned that there's a first book featuring the same main character, and this is it. Handily, my library has both of them as ebooks. Set in 1981 in Houston, this is about a lawyer who finds himself caught up in a murder, and I thought it was well done. He was, in his younger days, part of the civil rights struggle, and that forms part of a sub-plot. My copy of the book had a little interview with the author at the end, where she said that he was based on her father. I looked up her website when I'd finished the book, and discovered that she's a writer and producer on Empire, so I'm definitely going to read all three of her books now :-). I've started Pleasantville already.

Happy Tuesday, Susan! You have saved me the trouble of looking up which book comes before Pleasantville, which I added to my list after Charlotte reviewed it. I did not realize until she mentioned it that it was a sequel. SO, I'll be sure to read this one first - onto the list it goes!

Hey Mamie! Happy Tuesday. Well, I hope someone's having one. My nightmare case from h*ll is just getting worse and worse.

I haven't read much of Pleasantville yet, but so far the first one has the edge, I think. I'd better get on with it, though, as three library reserves are in transit, including one that I only reserved yesterday. Yikes! I've got Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended up in Museums and Why They Should Stay There, This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World and Narcoland, the last of which appeared to have an endorsement from Eric Foner in the email from Verso that I got yesterday, which I thought was a bit odd for a modern book (he's a famous Civil War historian), but it turned out Verso had used the wrong text in the email, and he was writing about a book I'd already read. Narcoland looked good anyway, though... This is why I need to be retired. Currently I'm wondering whether just walking out of the building and never coming back might achieve much the same thing.

Oh, dear! Sending you good vibes, Susan. Your reserves sound very interesting - especially the first one.

Yikes Susan. Any chance of a holiday? Does roomie have a discount voucher for the lovely room with the personal jacuzzi?

Hope better days are coming.

>116 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie. I am looking forward to the reserves. After so much time with no reserves, it's sort of thrilling to look at the list and see eight. Thrilling and terrifying.

>117 charl08: Charlotte, not for the time being. I'm in a perfect storm of a co-appellant who can't do anything on time, a client who isn't really interested despite wanting to join in the case, and now a witness who says that, actually, he can't speak to detail, but just generalities. Plus another giant mark-up exercise to go through, on a 4,000pp document. I may have to use Adobe Writer, which one of the young people demonstrated to me this morning. I shouldn't really be let loose with the ability to redact whole pages in multiple colours. It can't end well.

"I shouldn't really be let loose with the ability to redact whole pages in multiple colours. It can't end well."

Oh, this made me laugh, Susan! But the case sounds awful, so I will cease laughing. Any minute now... ;-)

What Katie said. You bring joy to us all even in the midst of your misery - what a woman! Hoping that today is kind to you.

>119 katiekrug: Katie, at least someone is laughing :-)

>120 Crazymamie: Ah Mamie, you're so kind :-) As well as the nightmare case from h*ll, now I have something else, but at least it's a diversion as the nightmare clients still aren't actually doing anything. I feel like my team is the only one who is acting like the deadline is MONDAY and not, say, in a month. The stress of nothing happening is actually far worse than being busy.

I have read a bit of Keeping Their Marbles, though (I wonder how this title will play in the US - is "losing your marbles" a common expression over there? If not, then the play on words will make no sense). It's excellent so far.

Ack, another case? Crumbs. I was trying to remember what film your coloured highlighting comment reminded me of - it's Clueless. Hardly a respectable reference, so I'll move swiftly on...

Yes. "Losing your marbles" is a common expression here - one that I happen to love.

Keeping you in my thoughts, Susan. Just remember - things are bound to get better. Unless they don't. (My Dad used to always say that, and it made me laugh every time.)

Hi Susan, just catching up here and I was sorry to see that you suffered through a bout of food poisoning. Hopefully that is well in the past now. I've taken a BB for the Attica Locke series, and I have to admit to giggling just a little over your case from h*ll - of course I offer my sympathy as well. ;)

Happy weekend, Susan.

>122 charl08: Charlotte, clueless is roughly how I feel about it all, so it's strangely appropriate :-) I've done about 10% of the mark-up now, but my Young Person wants to do a table to organise the rest of it, so I'll start again tomorrow. We got a last minute extension of time for tomorrow's deadline after our co-appellant admitted they couldn't meet it, despite having insisted on it in the first place. Grrrrr.

>123 Crazymamie: Mamie, it's "unless they don't" that I'm worried about. Particularly losing the hearing date, which will mean that cockroaches will rule the earth before it is ever finished.

>124 DeltaQueen50: Thanks Judy :-)

>125 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara. Cute picture!

At least I have some finishes to list. It's amazing how much time a person has without 92 hours of Sons of Anarchy to watch, really.



50. Pleasantville by Attica Locke

This is the sequel to Black Water Rising, but I think I preferred the first book. This one is set in 1996, as Houston is about to get its first black mayor. But a teenage girl is murdered in the part of the city where the black candidate has the most support. Is it a ploy by his opponent, or something worse? I'm a bit surprised that this is an Orange/Baileys nominee, not that I read many, but it reads more like a straightforward crime novel than something particularly literary.



51. Keeping Their Marbles by Tiffany Jenkins

This is a fascinating read. The author makes a very strong argument that museums should not be giving back their treasures countries that ask for them, and also at the reasons for the debate. There is a bit about US museums, but overall this is mostly about the UK, and particularly the British Museum. I tend only to visit that one for specific exhibitions, as it always seemed crowded. But my project for this summer is to "do it" properly, a few rooms at a time. It's a nice walk up there and back again, so good for steps too :-)



52. Survivors by Richard Fortey

Subtitled "The Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind", the author (the paleontologist who does those BBC programmes looking for trilobites) looks at a number of really, really old plants and creatures that have somehow survived extinction events that wiped out their compatriots. It's popular science, but quite hard popular science I think. There's a lot to take in, and I had to refer frequently to the timeline at the front of the book to situate each chapter. It's the sort of book in which the footnotes are not for the likes of me :-) It was a good read, although it took me a while.



53. This Orient Isle by Jerry Brotton

If you like Tudor history, you'll LOVE this. The author examines the relationship between Elizabethan England and the Islamic world. Because apparently there was one, and it was aimed at wiping out the Catholics. It's an action-packed look at the various travels undertaken by traders and then ambassadors, and then some people who were just adventurers. ("Accusations of the family's flagrant personal aggrandizement and corruption began to circulate as early as the 1580s and more sober recent biographical studies have uncovered a dizzying trail of betrayal, debt, embezzlement, dishonesty, espionage, conversion, heresy, privateering, incarceration, treason, drunkenness, elopement and murder wherever the brothers went." And now we have Bear Grylls. It's just not the same, is it?) It also looks at how Muslims were portrayed in drama in England, with analysis of plays by Marlowe, Shakespeare and others. Very highly recommended.

How did the guys in This Orient isle fit it all in? That sounds like an unmanageable number of activities. Surely sometimes the elopements had to be cut back (!?) Will look out for it.

I thought Pleasantville was a particularly well written novel for the genre but I did wonder about the nomination too.

It's amazing how much time a person has without 92 hours of Sons of Anarchy to watch, really. :-) Isn't it though...?!

whoa! Lotsa books there. They sound interesting but I think I'm going to dodge your bullets this time.

>127 charl08: Charlotte, I think the answer to your question is that they had what is now known as "Beyonce's Clock": http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-34952681 I do not have it. I have to give up one thing (the Netflix) in order to do another thing (read all the books). So annoying. I did watch an episode of Breaking Bad last night, and then the first episode of Narcos (excellent) but neither has the same addictive quality as Sons so I have things under control for the moment.

>128 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks Reba! I'm sure you'd like This Orient Isle, but sometimes it's nice to get away with no BBs, isn't it?

I took a giant bag of books (well, five) back to the library this morning and picked up A Life Discarded, which was waiting for me. Then, on the way out, I saw A Very English Scandal, about the Jeremy Thorpe trial, and in a moment of weakness I borrowed that. They have a new books stand with a picture of sweets on it, and "Take your Pick!" on a sign. Cruel.

Today holds marking-up, but my goal for this week is not to fry my neck as I need to stay well for the weekend, when it is the Jaipur Literature Festival. I'm going to take a proper lunch break and go for a walk to get away from my screen. It may possibly take me to the little branch which has Rush Oh! in stock. I've wanted to read that one for a while.

Mornin' Susan. Hope you week is starting well. :)

>130 RebaRelishesReading: Hi Reba! Yesterday went pretty well, although I was super careful to keep changing hands with the mouse and doing regular stretches. The roomie was working to a tight deadline on something, so I had to leave the room when people wanted to ask me questions (for my ACTUAL job, which is not managing client cases) and that gave me a bit of a break from the keyboard too. I went home last night determined to sit quietly and that worked (see below).



54. A Life Discarded by Alexander Masters

This is about what happens when you find 148 old diaries in a skip, and set about trying to reconstruct the life of the person who wrote them. It's a fast read, mostly because there are lots of illustrations from the diary, but also it's pretty short :-) The diarist is just as irritating as the one in A Notable Woman, but the book is more about the author's experience of trying to piece together her life, while wondering whether he should be doing it at all. If you're thinking of reading this, don't read the author's long article in The Guardian about it, because it has a lot of spoilers in it, and I knew how it turned out. But I still enjoyed it. I read it yesterday evening, and it took me no longer than two episodes of Sons of Anarchy would have.

Wow that was quick! I think I want to read this. The Guardian review (by Mary Beard) made some points about anonymity which I thought were interesting (but rather spoiler ish, so won't detail).

Hope you have a good day.

Hi Susan! >131 susanj67: I can't decide whether I want to read that one. It's on the WL for now.

>132 charl08: Charlotte, I was pretty impressed that I read it in an evening :-) When I took it back this morning, though, I did think that one of the staff might see it had been returned, after being taken out yesterday, and think that I was just wasting their time ordering it for me.

>133 cbl_tn: Carrie, it's not a huge time commitment, so I'd say go for it!

In other news, the mark-up is pretty much done!! I am hoping that my arms won't be called on this afternoon for lots of repetitive work, and in the meantime there is a seminar to go to and sit still for an hour.

hmmm I'll keep that one in mind. It's tempting but Mt. TBR is so darned high...

>135 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I know that feeling! I'm making very little progress whittling it down this year, although I haven't bought as many as I've read, so I suppose that's something. And I did get out of the library this morning without anything else...

Great news on the markup. And well done on the buying books ratio. I was so embarrassed by my splurging I stopped listing them!

Hi Susan! I added A Life Discarded to my library list before you had a chance to read it. The article in The Guardian sounded intriguing. And - although I read the whole article, (I have a tendency not to reviews very closely when I think I may read the book myself), I know I will have forgotten the particulars completely by the time I get around to reading it.

>137 charl08: Charlotte, I'm still buying a few things, but not more than 17 so far :-)

>138 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I hope you do forget! There were a couple of points where I lost the "wow" factor.

I started A Very English scandal last night, which is excellent, although also mind-boggling. I'd heard of Jeremy Thorpe, but didn't really know much more than "there was a trial". I think by the end of it I'll know a lot more :-) I could conceivably finish it tonight if I'm not stuck at the office until all hours. And C J Box's Off The Grid has come in as a reserve, so I'll pick that up at lunchtime. That will be a quick weekend read.

Chipping away at Mount TBR, I've started Ashes to Ashes, which is about "America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris" (American publishers do love their subtitles!). It's a Pulitzer winner and a real chunkster, but it looks good. I'll start Big Chief Elizabeth too, as it got sidelined in the library book rush. (Why does the touchstone come up as Moby Dick? Why?)

Hi Susan! Just waving as I try to get caught up!

>140 katiekrug: Hi Katie!

I'm the team leader for seven of us doing the GCC get moving challenge, which is a corporate-sponsored thing allowing them to tick a box for "looking after employees". We just got approved last night, and it starts on 25 May. It's like Fitbit, but for teams https://www.gettheworldmoving.com/ And we can use our own trackers, so I've hooked up my Fitbit to the challenge website. I am operating at the zenith of my technological powers. Fitbit buddies, be prepared to see a DUST CLOUD in front of you, as I zoom around London :-) The goal is 10,000 steps a day for 100 days, and we unlock exciting new locations to, um, visit (on the computer). I hope there are badges too, because I love a badge. My next step is to pick our team colours, but that's going to be a reward for when I finally finish the last of the mark-up.

I nearly finished the Jeremy Thorpe book last night, but fifty pages from the end I started to doze (no reflection on the book). I'll finish it tonight. I picked up the C J Box novel yesterday and they had a *brand new* copy of The Days of Anna Madrigal, which is the final one in the Tales of the City series. The existing copy was very tatty, so it was lovely to see a new one.

"I am operating at the zenith of my technological powers." This made me laugh, Susan!

"Fitbit buddies, be prepared to see a DUST CLOUD in front of you, as I zoom around London :-)" I love me some trash talk, so bring it, sister!

Speaking of badges, which I also love, yesterday I earned my Monarch Migration badge for walking 2500 lifetime miles. I am most disappointed - I want India back. They replaced India with a butterfly. REALLY?! I guess I have to hurry up and earn the next one to get rid of the dreaded thing - I am really not liking the graphic.

I eagerly await your choice of team colors.

>141 susanj67: - Please, please, please make purple one of your team colors! What a fun challenge, and I look forward to eating your dust :)

Speaking of badges, I just got my Penguin March for 70 "lifetime" miles. I think that's pretty good for less than a month, but I haven't done the math to see if it actually is....

>142 Crazymamie: Mamie, I am sad about India for you. I wonder whether it included a picture of the Indian map, because funnily enough I have just read about a new Indian law which gives a huge fine to anyone reproducing a map of India without being licensed. The butterflies may be less well organised :-) Congratulations on earning it anyway! I'm working towards my 1,869 miles badge.

>143 katiekrug: Katie, our colours do include purple! See the terrible picture below - purple appears on the right shoulder (this is the back of the shirt). It's a virtual shirt, which we can print out in colour and put on our desks. And well done for your Penguin badge already!

Okay. SO India looked like this:



And here is the stupid butterfly:



Not that I'm pouting or anything. *pouts*

I love the virtual shirt, but I think they should give you an actual one if you complete the goal.

>145 Crazymamie: Mamie, I agree - India was prettier. But I think I misunderstood - India was for fewer miles and this one is the next badge up? I am currently on Great Barrier Reef, but I did get my 747 badge the other day for a gazillion flights of stairs (which I haven't walked up - ha!)

I agree. A real shirt seems fair. Also book tokens. Didn't someone have the sweet work deal that they stepped for amazon vouchers? I want to work for them.

Possibly.

"India was for fewer miles and this one is the next badge up?" Right.

>147 charl08: Charlotte, oooh, book tokens :-) I don't think there's any prize. Just feeling better and having more energy, so we can put in more hours at our desks. There is no such thing as a free step tacker, it turns out.

>148 Crazymamie: Mamie, then you'll just have to march even more quickly towards the next badge! I have 182 miles to go for my next one.

How do you see how long you have until the next badge?

Asking for a slightly obsessed friend.... *blinks*

>149 susanj67: I have 480 more miles to go.

>150 katiekrug: Katie - if you your slightly obsessed friend clicks on the "quick view" that drops down from the badges portion on your dashboard, then you can mouse over the badge, and it will show you how many more whatever you have to do in order to get the next badge in that category.

Question - my 747 badge keeps telling me I have 8,000 more flights of stairs to go in order to get the next badge, but I already have 4,851 flights - so really it should say I have 3,149 more to go. Why isn't it tallying correctly?! This is really bugging me. Anyone? Anyone?

>150 katiekrug: Katie, I do it by going to my page on the Fitbit website, with all my stats. It will include a leaderboard with Mamie always at the top. That's the page. There should be a block for badges, and if you left or right-arrow through it, you can see your top badges to date. If you hover over your Penguin badge, it will tell you how many miles it's for, and what mileage you need for the next badge. Now click on the badge and hover over it again, and it will tell you how many miles you have left to go to get the next badge. I hope this is helpful for your, um, friend. *blinks*

You guys are all doing a very good job of getting me active again. I went to check my highest "lifetime steps" badge and was amused to find I've walked to New Zealand. Appropriate, don't you think? Lifetime climb I've done 1000 floors, 14 of which were yesterday :)

When I hover over a badge it just tells me how many steps or miles or flights I have and when I earned it so I'm even more perplexed about your tallying problem, Mamie.

I agree that giving team members an actual shirt if they meet the 10,000 for 100 goal is a great idea.

>151 Crazymamie: and >152 susanj67: - Okay, that is so weird, I can't see it anywhere on the website. I did find a helpful list online - my next distance badge is 250 miles, so I've got a ways to go!

ETA: Never mind, found it :-P

I just got my Japan badge.

Sorry for your working woes -- at least you've had some good books to read. And you can drown your sorrows in Netflix.

**sigh* I'm still in underground London, with miles to go before I rest. At least that puts me close to you digitally, Susan, if not in your bailiwick in any other form.

>151 Crazymamie: Mamie, my page shows the same with the flights of stairs - weird, isn't it?

>153 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, there are a few idiosyncrasies with the Fitbit, definitely! But well done for New Zealand!

>154 katiekrug: Katie, excellent! And 250 miles will go faster than you think*

*I'm really just saying that to be supportive

>155 BLBera: Beth, congratulations! The working woes continue, but at least it's Friday. Our co-appellant will expect us to work the whole weekend on it, but I'm just not. It's their faffing around that has led to the problems. I do worry about my Young Person, though, who is still in search of perfection rather than meeting the deadline.

>156 ronincats: Roni, ha! Welcome to London. Today is cool and cloudy. I think you get the best deal - being virtually in London while having Californian weather :-)



55. A Very English Scandal by John Preston

This is about the Jeremy Thorpe trial, although actually only the very last part is about the trial itself. Most of it is about what led up to the trial - namely the leader of a political party getting involved with a young man at a time when that was illegal, and then trying to convince his friends that the young man should be killed, and making them organise it all. Four people ended up in the dock as a result, but all were cleared after an extraordinary summing-up from the judge which shredded the prosecution witnesses in what people think was a deliberate attempt to save Thorpe from being convicted and going to jail. It's an extraordinary story, and well told.

I read 100 pages of The Days of Anna Madrigal last night so that will be my next finish. I remembered to appreciate the nice clean new paperback at all times :-)

But tomorrow is the Jaipur Literature Festival, which I have been looking forward to for weeks, so that will occupy pretty much the whole day. I'll walk there if it isn't pouring with rain, and then home again, to get my steps.

Oh I hope you have a wonderful time at the festival. The programme looked really good. Will you be getting any books signed?

I'd got the Thorpe book mixed up with the one about a famous judge's cases told by his son, so good to have learned what it's actually about. Shocking stuff.

>158 charl08: Charlotte, I don't have anything to take to get signed, but I suppose I could buy something while I'm there :-) The roomie isn't coming, as her husband's cousins are in town, "and we have to go to Stonehenge or Windsor or somewhere like that," she said glumly. She told them to bring jackets but, coming from 49C in India (yes, that's right) they turned up with hooded sweatshirts and are now freezing. Or, more accurately, are now wearing all her coats.

I popped down to the mall at lunchtime, to go to Pret as there was nothing appealing in the canteen. And I thought I may as well have a look at Schuh, because they have a really cute pair of Skechers that I've had my eye on. And the new Liberty print Superga sneakers. Ahem. When I got back, I showed the roomie. She was polite about the Skechers:



Before I showed her the other ones I cautioned that "You might think these are old-lady shoes" because of the floral print, but she loved them, and said (surprised) "They are SO HIP!" That surprised tone never fails to remind me of the 20-year age difference. Somewhere, my mother must be feeling vindicated.



She then told me exactly what I must wear them with, even though I own none of those clothes. But if they're THAT hip, I'll wear them tomorrow, to add at least some hipness to my outfit.

Love the shoes Susan. Floral is very in right now (apparently).

I do feel sorry for the roomie's cousins - unless they have a particularly good day they'll get blown away at Stonehenge. I'd be lobbying for the protected grounds of Hampton Court (and a trip to Edinburgh Woollen Mill or similar! )

I should be reading about Sartre (the book has lovely photos and everything) as it is due back next week, but there's some ivy that refuses to die that I want to take my secateurs to...

I also love the shoes (both pairs) - and the shared conversation. Too funny! I tried those Sketchers on and really wanted them to fit because they are so lightweight and comfy, but sadly, I am between sizes, so none of those for me.

And I am happy to hear that your 747 badge is also misbehaving - ay least it's not just me. however, if I get to 8,000 flights of stairs, and I don't get the next badge, they will be hearing from me. Ha! I WANT my badges.

>157 susanj67: I will have to go and look for that one Susan. I am sorry to say that I can remember the trial and feeling it to be a little on the shabby side. Fellow wasn't cut out to be a political leader but still, it was the Liberal Party, which was a bit of a joke at the time with the amazingly unpleasant Cyril Smith prominent in more ways than one.

I am starting to get itchy feet with all this talk of walking and badges. I reckon my first badge will be for walking into the kitchen and organising some arabica. Can the badges be issued for inches gained rather than miles?

Have a lovely weekend.

>160 charl08: Thanks Charlotte :-) And also for the suggestion of Hampton Court, which I passed on to the roomie. She's never been there, so details have been forwarded to her husband, for discussion. It's a lot easier for them to get to, and it's one of my faves, so I lobbied quite heavily :-) I hope you got that ivy. It will only annoy you until you do.

>161 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie! That's a shame about the Skechers. I know you'll reach the 8,000 stairs before I do, so I'll await your report :-) At one point there must be an International Space Station badge for flights of stairs climbed.

>162 PaulCranswick: Paul, I was just too young (and far away) to have known anything about the trial while it was happening, but it was pretty shocking reading about it now. For all that people criticise the current lot, I can't see any of them plotting to murder their former lovers. Maybe they're just too dull! Have a good weekend. You are closer to yours than I am!

>163 susanj67: So close, I am in it already, Susan. Today's politicians are as dull as ditch water really in comparison with those of thirty or forty years ago. I remember working for Tony Benn when he won the Chesterfield by-election in the early 1980s and some of the crowd around him was fascinating to say the least.

I don't get badges for stairs climbed because the Alta doesn't track that :( But honestly, there are very few stairs around here to be climbed anyway!

>164 PaulCranswick: Goodness Paul, it is later than I thought!

>165 katiekrug: Katie, my Fitbit doesn't *really* count flights of stairs accurately either. The other day it told me I'd done 49 flights, when I'd actually climbed about half a flight. It measures changes in pressure, so you can rack up flights by leaving it in your car on a hot day, according to some comments I've seen. I was walking on a very windy day, which is why I think it gave me such a high total. I felt quite guilty when I got my 747 badge, because I hadn't climbed anywhere near that amount of stairs!

>166 susanj67: - I remembered some people questioning the accuracy of that feature which is why I didn't really mind getting a model that didn't have it :)

>157 susanj67: LOL It's May in San Diego so it's cool and cloudy here as well. (For those who may wonder why, in May and June the desert on the other side of our mountains is heating up dramatically, causing an updraft that pulls air from our side of the mountains, which pulls in the moisture from the ocean, which results in a "marine layer" of clouds that sometimes doesn't clear at the coast all day but rarely produces any rain.)

Love the shoes. I can't wear Skechers either--not enough arch support and too wide--but they produce some cute shoes.

I saw those Skechers in a catalog the other day and was sorely tempted. I'm anxious to hear if you find them good for walking. IF so, there may be a pair in my future.

>167 katiekrug: Katie, yesterday I apparently racked up *91* fights! True, I did climb a lot of stairs, but not 91 flights :-)

>168 ronincats: Roni, but it's still California! I read something today about a vodka produced from San Francisco fog. Maybe that's a similar concept? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fog-vodka-san-francisco-fog-point_us_573f02f...

>169 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I wore the Skechers yesterday and they did just over 18,000 steps with no trouble. Mind you, I do find they're like slippers - instantly comfortable for me.

What a fun day I had yesterday at the Jaipur Literature Festival! I walked to the Royal Festival Hall nice and early, and then sat outside doing my emails as all the doors were closed...But they opened about 9.50, and there was music in the main room to start the day (gorgeous) and then an address by the festival organisers and the Indian High Commissioner, who was very funny. At the end of that, some people came in with placards and started protesting against one of the sponsors, but they did look suspiciously well-co-ordinated and their placards were all nicely drawn. The organisers played the welcome video again over the top of them, but I did wonder...

Anyway, then it was time for the first session. The introduction overran, so everyone who'd been to that was 15 minutes late for those sessions, but as the latecomers doubled the audience in "British Asians: The Changing Face" (Mukulika Banerjee, Sathnam Sanghera and Yasmin Khan in conversation with Patrick French), Sathnam said that it was just his family down from Wolverhampton on their hired bus, which got a laugh. It was a good session, but the sound system was a bit feeble so it was hard to hear.

The second session was "Tears of the Rajas" (Ferdinand Mount and Nick Robins in conversation with William Dalrymple), which was excellent. I've read Mount's book, Tears of the Rajas, but not Nick Robinson's book about the East India Company, although it's been on my list for a while. They talked about how the official Victorian history of India focuses on state activities, but glosses over the fact that India was actually a corporate takeover, if you like, and the Government had to bail it out numerous times (which it did because a startling proportion of MPs held stock in the company). It was a really different look at the period, and the sound was much better in that room.

After lunch I went to "Incarnations: India in 50 Lives", which was about the book, with the author speaking to William Dalrymple. This was also in the room with the good sound :-)

Next was "Women Writing War" (Shrabani Basu, Yasmin Khan and Alex von Tunzelmann in conversation with Sidin Vadukut, who was hilarious). This was my favourite session of the day, because there was just so much of interest in it, and the conversation flowed really well. The writers had lots of anecdotes about their research, and the place of women in writing about war, and it was very thought-provoking. I've read both of Yasmin Khan's books, but I want to read what the other two have written.

Then it was "Tipu's Tigers", with Susan Stronge, a curator at the V&A, in conversation with William Dalrymple. She gave a great presentation about Tipu Sultan and the role of the tiger in his propaganda, including its inclusion on lots of treasures now with the V&A and other museums.

The last session I attended was "Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi", with William Dalrymple, who must have needed a lie-down by the end of the day. Again it was a great presentation with lots of pictures, looking at the 1707 - 1857 period, which apparently is not as much studied as the earlier mughal period. (Various people nodded along when he said this. I felt a bit clueless).

So all in all, I learned tons, have a great big list of new things to read, and had a great time! I'll look out for next year's festival, which they said would be advertised soon. In the meantime, any LTers near Boulder might want to look up details of the JLF there: https://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/boulder/

Happy Sunday, Susan and good luck with your 'walking' challenge. Interesting discussion about the steps here. My average steps are 7500 per day so I would have to make more if I would participate for that challenge.

>170 susanj67: Thanks for describing this in such detail. Sounds like an absorbing day.

Hi Susan! The festival sounds like a success. I hope William Dalrymple didn't damage his voice with all the speaking he did yesterday. I would love to have heard him!

I'm curious to find out if the roomie went to Hampton Court. I love going by boat. Windsor is fun, too. Both are far more interesting than Stonehenge. There isn't much to do there once you've looked at the stones.

St. Albans is one of my favorite outings. It has a cathedral, Roman ruins, a great place for tea in the Waffle House, and Saturday is market day.

>171 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara! I have fallen into bad habits over the winter so it will be good to get back into it.

>172 charl08: Charlotte, it really was. And quite tiring, just sitting and listening, oddly. They should have seats that recline ;-)

>173 cbl_tn: Carrie, I hope they did. It's one of my very favourite places to visit. I'll find out tomorrow. I've been to St Albans once, but on a guided walk.

I'm in the checkout queue at Asda. The people in front of me have a full trolley, but it's actually just six multi-packs of beer. Sadly the lady in front of *them* has an overflowing trolley of actual food.

Hi, Susan! Sounds as if you had a busy day yesterday. There always seems to be so much to do in your neck of the woods. Lucky girl!

I like the Sketchers quite a bit. Did not know about the floral thing. (You don't pick up much in terms of fashion knowledge in the cleaning lady business - mostly because it is such a solitary kind of job.) The other shoes, I am afraid, don't appeal much. I have big feet and I think they would just make mine look bigger to me.

Your day at the festival sounds like a great success...as do the Sketchers. I think I'll see if I can find them -- walking in "slippers" sounds wonderful and I like shoes that are comfortable without socks.

Thanks for the Jaipur Literature Festival description. It sounds fabulous. Will you share a list of books you'd like to read?

>175 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, yes, there is always plenty to do :-) I'm pleased with the Skechers - they're a blue and purple with a shiny thread running through them, hence their name, "Glisten". It's not too shiny, though.

>176 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I'm very pleased with them. They're new in the collection, so your local stockist should have them.

>177 BLBera: Thanks Beth :-) My book list is:

The Corporation The Changed the World by Nick Robins. For some reason this is *insanely* expensive, but I can get a copy of the first edition through the library. I'd like the newer one, but at £17 for the Kindle version, um, no.

Various things by Patrick French (one of the moderators), including India: A Portrait, Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land and Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer

For King and Another Country: Indian Soldiers on the Western Front 1914-18 by Shrabani Banu
Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant by Shrabani Basu
Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu
Curry: The Story of Britain's Favourite Dish by Shrabani Basu

Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex von Tunzelmann

I also want to read the Tahmima Anam trilogy about Bangladesh, although that's also been on my longlist for a while. I was waiting for all three parts to become available, and volume 3 has just been published here. (A Golden Age, The Good Muslim and The Bones of Grace).

And some V S Naipaul. And Edward Said. And and and... :-)

So. Many. Books.

I went out this morning to get away form the stone cutting going on at the new block of flats just along the river (they were supposed to be finished some months ago, but apparently still think it's OK to send clouds of dust all over the neighbours just when people are home and likely to want some outside time) and when I got home I opened the balcony door hoping that they would have finished, and found a cloud of *smoke*. My neighbour the Queen of Shopping was also outside looking down to see where it might be. Normally I would think "barbeque", but there is a certain eye-watering quality to barbeque smoke caused by the firelighters everyone uses. This smelled like a proper great big fire. Slightly alarmed, I closed the door again, and waited. The smoke disappeared, although the smell was still terrible, but there were no sirens, and people continued to walk along the river path without gesturing in horror at something I couldn't see, so goodness knows what it was. But I spent the afternoon in the bedroom, which is on the other side of the house, reading. Sometimes with my eyes closed, but that's definitely what I was doing.

The festival sounds absolutely fascinating, Susan. Maybe some of the Denver people will be able to check it out on this side of the Atlantic.

>179 ronincats: Roni, I hope so. It looked very scenic in the video :-)

The roomie and guests went to Hampton Court and LOVED it, so Charlotte, thank you for that suggestion :-) On Sunday they went to Camden Market, so they had a fun weekend, although the roomie is ruing the fact that we don't have the step trackers yet, because it was a wasted stepping opportunity. I did get an email from TNT saying that a parcel is on its way though - and a *tracking button*! Excitement :-)

Super-Fit Friend (or maybe "Friend") invited me to go walking at lunchtime, and suggested a route that takes about an hour. But the morning deteriorated into a flurry of emails and other demands, so by the time lunchtime came I could really only do half an hour as I needed to be back to deal with the Drama of the afternoon. She decided that, rather than doing a shorter route and maybe repeating it (so that I could do one lap) she'd do the longer route by herself. And dumped me. Nice. Still, I suppose it means I never have to hurry around Millwall Dock again, worried about falling over the whole time.



56. The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin

This is the final instalment in the Tales of the City series, and is brought right up to date. Much of it takes place at the Burning Man festival, which I see is actually a thing :-) It seemed like a caricature when it was written up. I enjoyed it, but it's sad to think that there won't be any more. I've enjoyed the whole series, even if I've read it all over the course of a year or two. There's a lovely review on the review page from someone who started right at the beginning, which is a great read.

I read a chunk of Ashes to Ashes last night, which is very entertaining. And then a bit of Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt, which so far is just a potted summary of All The Wicked Things The Empire Did. I was hoping for a bit of cohesion - maybe a world view that led to Empire-style views...but no.

>178 susanj67: I looked Sketchers up and found there's a store near where I have a meeting this morning...I guess it's meant to be.

>178 susanj67: A book on the history of curry. I wonder how long it takes for that to go down the toilet?

Morning, er, Afternoon, Susan! I'm trying to think of something witty to say to distract you from Paul's comment :-P

I am looking forward to following along on your corporate challenge adventures! I've started scheduling two blocks of time for myself during the day to do two circuits around our building. It's a nice break in the morning and afternoon, and I'm certainly not using it as an excuse to get away from my work for a bit. Nope. Not at all. No sirree Bob.

Glad to hear the Hampton Court visit was a success. I never knew where to take people when they visited me on London. There are so many options, and I always used to forget that just because it's on the tube line doesn't mean it's quick to get there (Kew Gardens, I'm looking at you). Plus I was convinced for a while that the British Museum was moving to avoid me / confuse me (my map reading has improved since then, I like to think). Will you go to the underwater Egypt exhibit BTW? It looked good to me (from the poster!) I think endless Blue Peter programmes about the raising of the Mary Rose way back when may have been more influential than I realised...

I am trying to avoid requesting all your suggestions from the Jaipur day. I will probably come back and do it later when I am feeling less strong willed.

Are you winning the corporate challenge yet? Or is that not the point (sorry!)

I think I'm giving up on Existentialist Café for now, annoyingly just as it is getting good. Like Neurotribes all the academic debate was seriously impacted by the Nazis. I need to get better at combining the gardening and the reading.

>181 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I saw on your thread that you bought two pairs!

>182 PaulCranswick: Paul, yes, I wonder too :-)

>183 katiekrug: Katie, I sometimes do circuits around the block at lunchtime and it really does get the step count up, although I do wonder whether the people at the mozzarella bar think they're hallucinating as I pass them three times at 10-minute intervals.

>184 charl08: Charlotte, I've seen the photos of the visit and everyone looked happy. I may go to the Egypt exhibition, but they really pack people in to the timed slots, so I'm not a big fan of the special exhibitions. I do want to visit all the other rooms, though. Maybe I'll tick them off in my guidebook :-) The corporate challenge started this morning (woo-hoo! as I say in my emails to the team) so I walked to work, and I've done 5,200 steps so far. The website isn't letting me spy on the others yet - it seems to update the following day. Hrmph. But I did find some suggested text for a motivating email. Oooh. I've been following your gardening, just not posting. I hope the new beans do better :-(

Thanks is for the bean sympathy. Slug traps (beer in modified milk cartons) have been set up. I fear this side of gardening brings out the evil dictator in me (cue much evil laughter), but they are horrible slimy things.

>185 susanj67: Hubby liked the tread on the bottom and thought he would like a pair to wear in wet weather so we stopped at an outlet mall today and he bought a pair. He didn't want two, though, and it was buy one get one half off soon I couldn't just leave that on the table and bought another pair for me :) This one is a pair of the elastic lace ones, navy with teal trim :)

>186 charl08: Charlotte, I think your evil dictator side would be pretty slender :-) It's a shame you can't plant a slug-friendly variety just for the slugs, so they'll leave your other beans alone. But I don't suppose they think like that.

>187 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I love your thinking! That was exactly the right thing to do :-) I'll have to check your thread to see how the trip is going.

I walked in to work again this morning and the first thing I did when I arrived was to check my team's stats for yesterday. Hmmm. Only 30,000 steps between seven of us (and I did just over 10,000 of those). I wonder whether the others have to enter theirs manually. I'll check again later, and then it might be time for the motivating email.

On the book front, I'm still on Ashes to Ashes and the book about the British empire. I'll have to add in something else or I won't have a finish for days.

20,000 steps among 6 walkers!!! Good grief, I did that many today when we were driving all day. Get moving folks!!

>189 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, that's what I thought! But it turned out a few people hadn't entered their steps, so once we got all the steps in it looked better. The website is a bit fiddly to use but I think I've found where all the information is now. We started at the Colosseum in Rome, and now we're in Assisi!



57. Off The Grid by C J Box

This is the latest instalment in the Joe Pickett series, and sees Joe reunited with his friend Nate Romanowski in the Red Desert of Wyoming, chasing baddies with Nate's giant guns. The writing is a bit iffy, but I do like Joe and his family, and I love the setting.

This weekend has been very steppy so far, and tomorrow is a holiday too, so the corporate challenge board is looking pretty good, and so is my Fitbit dashboard. I woke up and checked my stats to see that I was 8,000 steps behind Mamie, so I had to put that right as my first job of the day :-) But oof, I think there might be a nap in my future. I'm having a super-healthy lunch first, though. OK, there may be garlic bread, but the rest of it is healthy :-)

Enjoy the garlic bread Susan. Sounds like you have deserved it. I tried something new with my fitness app, counting the swimming from the time I left the changing room. Of course, that meant I was counted in the shower too. Hmm. Not quite right.

Hope the group walking continues to go well. Next stop Florence?

>191 charl08: Charlotte, I'm definitely a lot hungrier! But, as they say, you can't outrun cake. Or chocolate croissants. Etc. I'm trying to add more protein to every meal, to see if that keeps me full up. I hope you get that app sorted out, or you'll have to circle your arms in the shower :-) I just discovered that I can earn trophies by answering trivia questions about the locations we walk to. I'm on Einstein-Bronze level, which I think might be over-egging just one successful answer... The next location is "Transport" but then we're going to Turin. I just wish I was making as much progress with the books.

Sounds like you are getting your group whipped into shape, Susan! And you're doing a great job with me, too. LOL! I woke up to find that once again you had passed me and left me in your dust. I am still trying to catch you.

Good luck with your walking challenge, Susan.

My back is "out" and we had a long drive today so I have only 3443 steps here at the end of the day which means I'll fall even further behind y'all :(

>193 Crazymamie: Mamie, so far they're doing pretty well, but we're missing six days of steps entries due to the long weekend, so we should be in Turin by tomorrow :-) You overtook me overnight, so that motivated me to get up and out this morning! I've stopped now, though.

>194 BLBera: Thanks Beth! I still remember the day you got your 10,000 without leaving the house, while you were looking after Scout :-) One of the girls in my team has two children - a boy of 10 and a girl of 6, and they were intrigued by her tracker so I gave her the spare one we had (as I'm using my Fitbit) so they could do some stepping over half term. She said one of them had it clipped on within ten minutes of her getting home, and they spent the rest of the evening fighting over it, but things have settled down now and they're taking turns with it. She said that she wasn't expecting to do that many steps over half-term, but I think she might be now, to keep them within sight :-) Former office roomie says he might clip his to his toddler, who can now walk in straight lines, but he's not sure what might happen to it during the inevitable faceplants into the carpet.

>195 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I'm so sorry to hear about your back. That's not what you need with a long drive. I hope it's feeling better soon.

Last night I thought I'd start something new, in the hope of a finish sometime soon, and I found the perfect short book:



58. The New Prophets of Capital by Nicole Aschoff

This is one of a series of short books published by Verso, in the "Jacobin" series. The author looks at four people she calls the new prophets of capital, who put forward views of how people can improve their lives, but always within the capitalist system, instead of challenging that system. The first is Sheryl Sandberg, and the ideas in her book Lean In, which apparently has sold a gazillion copies, although I'm not sure how popular it is over here. Apparently it's one of those "you can do anything if you want it" books, which the author says overlooks the fact that not everyone can make it to the top, and by suggesting that it's people's own fault if they don't make it, Sandberg is saying that there is something wrong with the people rather than the system. I think the book was written before Sandberg's recent statements on how hard it is to be a single parent, and how more effort needed to go towards helping women in that situation, or at least realising how complex their lives could be. The author also makes the point that putting women in charge doesn't necessarily mean the workplace will improve, and cites the example of Marissa Meyer, who fired 30% of the staff at Yahoo shortly after taking over, and abolished the flexitime system which many employees used to help with their family responsibilities.

The second person is the CEO of Whole Foods, the third is Oprah Winfrey and the fourth is the Gateses and the philanthrocapitalist movement more broadly, but I thought the Sandberg chapter was the most interesting. I think it's accurate to say that the UK doesn't have the same tolerance for the type of psychobabble that most of these theories of life seem to contain (or, as one senior female said to me: " 'Lean In'? F*** off") but we are still told (in more straightforward language) that anything is possible when, as the author points out, going to a state college and joining Linked-In is just not the same as going to Harvard and having an uncle who's a CEO. Some people just do have more advantages, and the gap is getting wider.

I'm going to continue with Ashes to Ashes now, but it will be quite a while before I have a finish to report on that one. It's interesting, though, even if it would benefit from some illustrations of the various packaging and advertising that it describes. But I don't suppose the tobacco companies were ever going to say yes to that.

I'm with your senior colleague. I seem to have fat thumbs this evening after a longer than expected walk, so will come back tomorrow and try and say something intelligent about Sandberg. (No promises it will be intelligent though: just vaguely accurately typed...)

Susan - Lean In does sound like it's full of #$**. After teaching at a community college for several years, I have to tell you that this whole idea of "pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps" is crap. I have students whose parents are in jail or on drugs or just too busy working two or three jobs to survive. These students have never learned how to succeed at anything. They come to college, wanting to improve their lives, but have no idea how to go about it. Things that we think are simple such as asking questions when you don't understand something have to be taught to these students.

This is something I've had to learn over the years. I would challenge Sandberg to spend time with people who are poor and see if she feels the same way.

Sorry for the rant - I just see too much of this attitude that definitely comes from privilege -- that too many people don't admit they have.

>197 charl08: Charlotte, I've discovered that Lean In is available as an ebook, so out of curiosity I've put a hold on it. There are seven people ahead of me, so it does seem to be popular over here after all. Excitingly, though, there are now only TWO people ahead of me for the Jack Reacher novel I reserved in April, so that's positive :-)

>198 BLBera: Beth, the author of The New Prophets of Capital certainly had quite a bit to say about it, and particularly that much of the advice was about working longer and harder and essentially forever (again, feeding in to the capitalist system). I have an acquaintance who was recently told that she needed to be more "flexible" about her working hours, which meant "work longer" - stay at her desk till well after her contractual finishing time just in case someone needed her for something, and then be available by BlackBerry all evening. Now, we all stick around if there is stuff that has to be finished - that's a given in my job, and the hours can be very long. And yes, the BlackBerry has intruded on home time. But presenteeism for the sake of it Drives Me Mad. And I agree with you that the "Anyone can be anything" mantra is doing more harm than good. Because what if they can't be? What if they just want a normal, middle of the road job that pays the bills? There are fewer and fewer of those sort of secure jobs to go around, and even if you get one these books make you feel like somehow you've failed anyway. Sandberg does seem to have changed her view a bit since her husband died, but it will be interesting to see if it lasts.

My week is disappearing fast, with little reading done, but I've nearly finished Breaking Bad, so that's something :-)

Hope you're having a good weekend. Will be interested to hear what you think about Lean In. I'm just not tempted.

>200 charl08: Charlotte, so far so good. I've done 13,000 steps, so now I'm only 10,000 behind Mamie. That's virtually a win! I walked from home right round the edge of the Isle of Dogs, and then stopped in at Canary Wharf for a few bits and pieces. It's so quiet on the weekends, although maybe it gets busier later in the afternoon. I've reserved Lean In more out of curiosity than anything. I may start it and not finish. (Interestingly, the first touchstone that comes up is Oliver Twist. Maybe it's that whole workhouse things) But I picked up Tracy Borman's new The Private Lives of the Tudors at the library on Monday, and I want to start that this afternoon. I was in Waterstone's this morning and saw Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years so I've reserved that. It took me so long to find it in the half-witted library catalogue that I feared I would never be able to replicate the search. (Does that sound convincing?)

Time for a new thread! http://www.librarything.com/topic/224275