kidzdoc's No Fluff Zone, Act 1

Welcome to my first 2017 thread! This is a place for discussion of weighty literature, poetry and nonfiction only, in keeping with the near complete absence of any lighthearted or humorous books in my library. Those who dare choose to bring up books that don't meet my lofty standards run the risk of being disciplined or banned.



Just kidding, y'all!

In all seriousness though, 2016 was the worst reading year I've had in over a decade, and it was a terrible one politically for many liberals and moderates in the US and the UK. So far I've only read five novels by authors from the African diaspora this year, and only a handful of the nonfiction books in this category. I've also read very few of the meatier and more meaningful books that I've purchased over the past few years, as I was more focused on meeting an artificial goal of reading a set number of books. The result of the Brexit vote and the US election came as a shock to many of us on the left, and several LTers have expressed a wish to learn more about the rise of populism, the resentment of the white working and middle classes that is fueling it, and the minority populations in the US and abroad whose liberties are under greater threat from far right wing governments and emboldened xenophobic individuals.

With this in mind, I looked through my library and chose books that I was most interested in reading, which I've listed in different categories below. Obviously there is no way that I'll get to all of these books this year or next, but I want to keep these books on my radar screen, and hopefully finish the majority of them in the next two or three years.

I'll participate in at least one group read, which will be led by Rachel (@The_Hibernator) and is based on the article 6 Books to Help Understand Trump’s Win, which appeared in The New York Times shortly after Election Day. As usual I'll follow my favorite literary prizes, namely the Wellcome Book Prize, the Booker Prize, and the Man Booker International Prize, and read as many books about medicine, illness and public health as I can. I'll use a red check mark {} to indicate which books I've finished reading.




Currently reading:

    

A Question of Power by Bessie Head
Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known by Wole Soyinka
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

Completed books: (TBR = book acquired prior to 1/1/16)

January:
1. Nutshell by Ian McEwan

Classic 20th Century Novels from the African Diaspora

Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange
Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes
The Emigrants by George Lamming
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (re-read)
The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt
Maps by Nuruddin Farah
Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston
Native Son by Richard Wright
Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
A Question of Power by Bessie Head
Sozaboy by Ken Saro-Wiwa
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau

Notable 21st Century Literature from the African Diaspora

Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
Black Deutschland by Darryl Pinckney
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat
That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
The Drift Latitudes by Jamal Mahjoub
Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis
Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Juice! by Ishmael Reed
Ladivine by Marie NDiaye
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Pym by Mat Johnson
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Nonfiction from the African Diaspora

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Beyond Black and White: From Civil Rights to Barack Obama by Manning Marable
Black in Latin America by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois
Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
If They Come in the Morning … : Voices of Resistance, edited by Angela Y. Davis
In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture by K. Anthony Appiah
Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole
Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou
The Lights of Pointe-Noire by Alain Mabanckou
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City by William Julius Wilson
A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music by George E. Lewis
Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs from the African Diaspora

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
Frantz Fanon: A Biography by David Macey
I Never Had it Made by Jackie Robinson
The Last Holiday: A Memoir by Gil Scott-Heron
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Mingus Speaks by John F. Goodman
Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim by Justin Gifford
Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood
Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire

2017 Booker Prize longlist: TBD

2017 Man Booker International Prize longlist: TBA 3/17/14

2016 Booker Prize longlist:

Paul Beatty, The Sellout
J.M. Coetzee, The Schooldays of Jesus
A.L. Kennedy, Serious Sweet
Deborah Levy, Hot Milk
Graeme Macrae Burnet, His Bloody Project
Ian McGuire, The North Water
David Means, Hystopia
Wyl Menmuir, The Many
Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen
Virginia Reeves, Work Like Any Other
Elizabeth Strout, My Name Is Lucy Barton
David Szalay, All That Man Is
Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing

2016 Man Booker International Prize longlist:



José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola), A General Theory of Oblivion, translated by Daniel Hahn
Elena Ferrante (Italy), The Story of the Lost Child, translated by Ann Goldstein
Han Kang (South Korea), The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith
Maylis de Kerangal (France) The Heart: A Novel, translated by Jessica Moore
Eka Kurniawan (Indonesia), Man Tiger, translated by Labodalih Sembiring
Yan Lianke (China), The Four Books, translated by Carlos Rojas
Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Democratic Republic of Congo/Austria), Tram 83, translated by Roland Glasser
Raduan Nassar (Brazil), A Cup of Rage, translated by Stefan Tobler
Marie NDiaye (France), Ladivine, translated by Jordan Stump
Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan), Death by Water, translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm
Aki Ollikainen (Finland), White Hunger, translated by Emily Jeremiah & Fleur Jeremiah
Orhan Pamuk (Turkey), A Strangeness in My Mind, translated by Ekin Oklap
Robert Seethaler (Austria), A Whole Life, translated by Charlotte Collins

Iberian Literature and Nonfiction

A Bad End by Fernando Royuela
The Calligraphy of Dreams by Juan Marsé
Catalonia: A Cultural History by Michael Eaude
The Dolls' Room by Llorenç Villalonga
Fado Alexandrino by António Lobo Antunes
The Gray Notebook by Josep Pla
The History of Catalonia by F. Xavier Hernàndez
The Inquisitors' Manual by António Lobo Antunes
Life Embitters by Josep Pla
Monastery by Eduardo Halfon
Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga
Paris by Marcos Giralt Torrente
Private Life by Josep Maria de Sagarra
The Selected Stories of Mercé Rodoreda
The New Spaniards by John Hooper
Things Look Different in the Light by Medardo Fraile
The Yellow Rain by Julio Llamazares

Medicine, Illness and Public Health

AIDS at 30: A History by Victoria A. Harden
An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine by Howard Markel
Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries by Molly Caldwell Crosby
Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Katharine Arnold
Death in a Small Package: A Short History of Anthrax by Susan D. Jones
Hope in Hell: Inside the World of Doctors Without Borders by Dan Bortolotti
Jonas Salk: A Life by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science by Douglas Starr
The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in Our Times by Barbara Taylor
Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine by Andrew Scull
Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors & Lunatics by Roy Porter
The Man Who Closed the Asylums: Franco Basaglia and the Revolution in Mental Health Care by John Foot
Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder by David Healy
Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plagues by Martin J. Blaser, MD
The Price of Silence: A Mom's Perspective on Mental Illness by Liza Long
Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and Their Doctors by David Mendel
States of Mind: Experiences at the Edge of Consciousness by Wellcome Collection

The Rise of Populism and Related Current Affairs

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
Listen, Liberal: Or, Whatever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank
The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics by John B. Judis
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

Reading Globally

Quarter 1: Works by writers from the Benelux countries



The Assault by Harry Mulisch
The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verhulst
Rituals by Cees Nooteboom
Roads to Santiago by Cees Nooteboom
Three Bedrooms in Manhattan by Georges Simenon

Quarter 2: Travel writing by non-European and non-North American authors



The European Tribe by Caryl Phillips
Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa
One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina

Quarter 3: Works by writers who write in what are considered minority languages within their own country

Quarter 4: Writers from the Scandinavian countries and associated territories

Voices of Color/Social Justice

Al' America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots by Jonathan Curiel
Breach by Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes
Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by E. Benjamin Skinner
Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America by Tiny, aka Lisa Gray-Garcia
To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War by John Gibler
Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid by Joseph Nevins
The Ethics of Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, edited by Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
For the Muslims: Islamophobia in France by Edwy Plenel
The Good Immigrant, edited by Nikesh Shukla
A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America by Óscar Martínez
The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah
How Does it Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America by Moustafa Bayoumi
Howard Zinn on Race by Howard Zinn
Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation by Ray Suarez
Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South by Mary E. Odem
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
The Mosaic of Islam: A Conversation with Perry Anderson by Suleiman Mourad
The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror by Arun Kundnani
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture by Hisham D. Aidi
Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen L. Ishizuka
Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques
Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move by Reece Jones
We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades Against Muslims and Other Minorities by Anouar Majid
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness by Alice Walker
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam by John L. Esposito
Who Are We: And Should It Matter in the Twenty-First Century? by Gary Younge

2017 Wellcome Book Prize longlist: TBA 1/30/17

2016 Wellcome Book Prize shortlist:



Playthings by Alex Pheby
It's All in Your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan
The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink
Neurotribes by Steve Silberman
Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

2015 Wellcome Book Prize shortlist:



The Iceberg by Marion Coutts
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being by Alice Roberts
My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Planned books to read in January:

The Assault by Harry Mulisch
Chloroform: The Quest for Oblivion by Linda Stratmann
Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis
The Mortifications by Derek Palacio (LT Early Reviewers book)
My Struggle: Book Three by Karl Ove Knausgaard
A Question of Power by Bessie Head
Why Niebuhr Matters by Charles Lemert

The construction of this thread is done, and the paint is dry, so come on in!

Welcome back!

>12 drneutron: Thanks, Jim! And thanks as always for agreeing to be the Head Cat Herder for the group!

Happy 2017 thread Darryl! I'm hoping I will be able to read a little bit more outside my comfort zone in 2017 and possibly join in with some of the books from the NYT list as well as reading more fiction by minority authors.

And because your thread title made me smile and also made me want to be a bit naughty I thought I would leave this here - it's one of my favourite fluff books and it's 100% fluff.

I have you starred! Can't wait to see what all you read (and cook)!

>14 souloftherose: Gasp! I can't believe that someone has already broken the "No Fluff" rule! I can't possibly ban or discipline Heather, though, so I'll have to make an exception for now.

I hope that you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Heather! I'll probably return to London in the latter half of March, and I hope to see you then.

I look forward to seeing what you choose to read in 2017, and hopefully we'll share a few reads along the way.

>15 thornton37814: Thanks, Lori! There will be plenty of cooking and new recipes next year, as I plan to cook more fish and vegetarian recipes in 2017.

*SIGH*

Heather stole my idea.

But perhaps you'd prefer a bolder pink?

We chicks sure do love us some pink books!

(BTW, I am a fan of *good* chick lit (obnoxious term!) - and yes, it does exist!)

Happy readings in 2017, Darryl.
I have marked my copy of The Assault to be read :-)

Happy new thread, Darryl (though it's still too early to say happy new year; a week and a bit to go).

BTW, I've read both Obama's books and enjoyed them, particularly his first, Dreams From My Father, which he wrote long before the presidency was a glimmer in his mind (first published in 1995). He is a really articulate and insightful writer and I truly hope that there are more books in his future, now that he'll supposedly have more time!)

#14
I have read a couple of the books in that series. Pure fluff - but so much fun!

I hope you will read Roads to Santiago. I read it a liked it, but then I have a thing about the pilgrim way to Santiago. I would love to walk it someday.

Happy New Thread and first (in this group) of the new year, Darryl.

(Is this too fluffy for your thread?)

I will stick to the no fluff rule, just dropping off a *. Merry Christmas and a Happy New year of reading too you Darryl.

Hmph. Why am I feeling like this guy all of a sudden?



>17 katiekrug: Ack!

>18 katiekrug: Yikes!!! Where are my sunglasses?!

>19 katiekrug: I remember our discussion about good chick lit earlier this year. I'm sure that I'll need some lighter fare throughout 2017, maybe books about music or sports, so I'll mix them in on occasion (no chick lit, though!).

>20 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! I look forward to reading The Assault alongside you. I bought a copy of it at the Boekhandel Dominicanen in Maastricht in June; Bianca read it when we were together in Spain at the end of that month, and she loved it (I think she gave it 5 stars on Goodreads).

Monkey's husband Frans, who I met in Maastricht along with her, came up with a list of recommended Dutch literature in his blog earlier this year, which he shared with me. I imagine that she'll refer to the books he listed, and hopefully he'll participate in the Reading Globally theme as well.

>21 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley! I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read either book by our *sob* outgoing president, but I plan to get to at least one of them next year. I'm glad to hear that he is a talented writer, although I thought that would be the case since both books were on bestseller lists for months. I'd be surprised, and very disappointed, if he doesn't publish at least one book about his time in the White House, and possibly another about what Democrats need to do to regain power by 2020.

>23 benitastrnad: I'll almost certainly read Roads to Santiago in February or March, Benita. I brought it with me when I was in Europe in June, but I did very little reading that month, especially in the latter half when I was in Spain. I intend to visit the Basque Country in Spain and Portugal in June, which is why I chose Iberian literature and nonfiction as a theme for 2017. I'll probably also look for nonfiction books about the Basque Country next year, which I hope to find at either Daunt Books or Stanfords in London in March.

>24 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen! Is that puppy a husky?

>25 BBGirl55: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too, Bryony! I'm sorry that we didn't meet in person this year, but hopefully we can do so in 2017.

>27 kidzdoc: - Darryl, did you watch the hour-long special on tv last night, Oprah's interview with Michelle Obama? It was really interesting. I wonder if she will write about her time in the White House...

>28 jessibud2: I heard about it last night after it was on from friends on Facebook, Shelley, so I didn't see it. I'll have to see if I can view it online.

I hope, and expect, that she will also write about her experiences as First Lady. I'm also eager to see what she decides to do once they leave the White House; did she make any mention of this in the interview?

> She said they'd stay in Washington until their 15 year old finishes school (their oldest will be at Yale!). But her mom is returning to Chicago. I expect they will return to Chicago too, once Sasha graduates high school

>30 jessibud2: Ah. That makes sense.

BTW, did you see the "Couch Commander" video, in which Barack Obama attempted to figure out what he was going to do after his term of office ended? It's hilarious!

https://youtu.be/OIDEGN4Js40

All this talk of fluffy makes me think of Despicable Me...

IT'S SO FLUFFY!!!!!

>32 drneutron: Ha! I haven't seen that movie yet, but I just watched a clip of that segment on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/82utG7Q3G_k

Hi Darryl! I noticed your no-fluff rule at the top of the thread, so I won't mention here that my planned January reads include Searching for Pemberley.

I'm reading the Oz books, do those count as fluff. Hopefully not! *gasp*

>31 kidzdoc: - LOL! That is hilarious! Who is the guy at the end who walks down the hall with him and gives him advice in the film room?

>36 jessibud2: That's John Boehner, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. He's a moderate Republican, and Boehner and Obama frequently butted heads when Boehner was the speaker. It was surprising to see them together, and I laughed when Boehner said, "So now you want my advice?"

I cannot promise not to introduce the occasional fluff, Darryl, but I can guarantee that I will be a regular visitor here.

>34 cbl_tn: Hi, Carrie! I shall pay no attention to that fluffy book.

>35 The_Hibernator: I'm unfamiliar with the Oz books, Rachel, so I'll leave that for you to decide. Your new thread is decidedly unfluffy, though (what's the opposite of "fluffy"?).

>37 kidzdoc: Good to see you here, Paul! I may end up changing the title of this thread out of necessity to The Occasional Fluff Zone.

>37 kidzdoc:- Thanks, Darryl. I recognize his name but I would not have recognized his face. When Obama said that he knows who to turn to for advice, and given the tongue-in-cheek tone of the whole thing, I half-expected to see him on that couch sitting next to George W Bush. Now THAT would have been hilarious! (not to mention, ludicrous)

;-p

Hi Darryl! I've dropped a star and I'll wait patiently for the occasional fluff. ;-)

Extra fluff points for naming author/illustrator and story!

>42 streamsong: - I want to say Shel Silverstein... but I can't think what story (or poem, more accurately, for him)

>42 streamsong: - Something by Edward Gorey?

Hi, Darryl! The doctor doth protest too much, methinks (read: I just KNOW you've got a room full of romance novels at home...).

>40 jessibud2: You're welcome, Shelley. I actually think it was more humorous to have John Boehner appear alongside Barack Obama, since Boehner was openly critical of the president on a weekly, if not daily, basis, whereas George W. Bush rarely, if ever, publicly made a critical comment about his successor. My opinion about Boehner improved dramatically after that video, especially since he received a lot of criticism from far right conservatives after it aired.

>41 DianaNL: Hi, Diana! It's good to see you here.

>42 streamsong: That's outstanding, Janet! It reminds me of the famous Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles:



>43 jessibud2:, >44 katiekrug: I would guess Edward Gorey as well, although I wouldn't be completely surprised if it was by Shel Silverstein.

>45 scaifea: Shh, Amber!!! How much do I have to pay you to keep that knowledge a secret?

>47 kidzdoc: Huh. Interesting. Let me think about it and get back to you...

>48 scaifea: *applies for small business loan*

Perfect! Gorey's version of Trouble with Tribbles! You guys are good!

>50 streamsong: Ha! *exchanges high fives with Shelley and Katie*

I just finished reading an outstanding article by the book editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, which pays homage to Barack Obama's legacy as an avid reader, a champion of increasing accessibility to books and library cards for children of limited means, and a best selling author:

Farewell to the reader in chief

Hi Darryl, stopping by to drop a star here and I'm already 50 posts behind. And I thought I had outdone myself with the lists in 2017. Little did I know... I humbly acknowledge defeat.
But what's this, no Flemish writers for your Benelux theme? Surely, as one of the only, if not the only Flemish member here in this group, can I be an advocate for some brilliant fiction from my part of the world? For the sake of balance between the huge Dutch army of readers here and poor little, solitary me :-)
Looking forward to read your reviews, both on the books I have already read and the ones that will end up on my wishlist.

>53 Trifolia: Hi, Monica! It's great to see you here. This thread will undoubtedly slow down from its current escape velocity on or before Friday, when I start my long stretch of Christmas and New Year's work days.

Yes, I hope and expect that you will be a champion for Flemish literature, although it will have to be published in English and available to those of us who live in the US, UK, Canada and elsewhere. To my knowledge I only own one book by a Flemish author, Wonder by Hugo Claus, which I've already read (unfortunately, I wasn't fond of it). I listed books that I already own, but that's not to say that those are the only books I'll read for the first quarter Reading Globally challenge. Fortunately Monkey, who is leading the challenge, also lives in Flanders, along with her Dutch husband, who is also a member of LT and an avid reader of literary fiction, and I assume that she will list several books by Flemish authors that the rest of us can consider purchasing or borrowing. I'll post a link to the challenge thread here as soon as it's been created.

The only other Flemish novel that I've heard of is Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen, although I don't own and haven't read it.

Which books would you recommend for me, and the rest of us?

>54 kidzdoc: I am Dutch but I thought you own, or at least know, Dimitri Verhulst, who is Flemish...
I recommend his Madame Verona comes down the hill!

>54 kidzdoc: - Hi Darryl, I went over my shelves and listed the books that I gave a 4 or 5-star-rating and that have been translated into English. So here goes:

Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verhulst (2006)
A short novel that you might like if you like thoughtful, fragile, subtle books, like Philippe Claudel's books.

The Misfortunates by Dimitri Verhulst (2007)
Another book by the same author, but completely different from the first one. So if you don't like the first one, you might like the other one, or v.v. I liked both. This is a social-realistic novel about the dysfunctional family of the author. Amazing read.

War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans (2013)
A very intense, beautiful book that really grabbed me, about World War I and family-history. Memorable read.

While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier (2008)
Another book on World War I but so much more. Beautiful prose which I hope will be translated well, because it's part of the enchantment of book.

The Angel Maker by Stefan Brijs (2005)
A very special novel that might interest you, given your medical background, about human cloning and its ethical implications.

Chapel Road by Louis Paul Boon (1953)
A Flemish classic with a social theme.

In all fairness, I added some of my Dutch favourites too because I found them very good or special:
- A posthumous confession by Marcellus Emants (1894)
- Bonita Avenue door Peter Buwalda (2010)
- The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker (2006)

Not all books will be to everybody's taste, but these are my favourites. I know Hugo Claus is always proclaimed as The Flemish Author, but I never read anything by him that I even came close to me liking it. So my advice would be to stay away from his books. And Harry Mulisch for that matter might be a bit too inscrutable for everybody's taste, although I can safely recommend The Assault.

Anything that grabs your interest?

ETA touchstones and pleased to see that Anita is also an advocate for Dimitri Verhulst.

La la la *covers eyes* I can't see you until 2017!

P.S. I don't come here for the books since we rarely read the same stuff. I come here to read all about you. I love to read your stories.

>55 FAMeulstee:, >56 Trifolia: Thanks, Anita and Monica! Since you both recommended Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill, and because the Kindle version of it is only $8.99, I just purchased it. I'll keep your recommendations in mind, and choose one or two more books by Flemish authors to read for the Benelux authors theme. I'll try to read two books per month, one by a Belgian author and another by a Dutch one.

>57 Morphidae: Where's Morphy? There she is!!!



Sorry, I'm a pediatrician, I couldn't help it...

>58 kidzdoc: Cute. Did you put down the romance novel just to post that one, buddy?!

>59 PaulCranswick: Indeed!

Ooh, sounds like a rough place...backs out quietly, to find my latest James Patterson HB.

Happy 2017 Thread, Darryl! Hope you have better luck with the reads in the New Year. Our U.S. future, does not look promising but at least we have The Mighty 75 and a ton of books.

>58 kidzdoc: *giggles like a little kid*

>61 msf59: James who?! Oh no no no!

Thanks, Mark! Hopefully both aisles of Congress can keep Trump from singlehandedly destroying our beloved democracy.

>62 Morphidae: I thought you'd like that, Morphy!

One more book down, two to go to hit 75. I got this.

I'm late to the party, but have found this spot in the corner so will be here eavesdropping on the book and other talk. Your reading plans are impressive; I'm afraid I tend to read as the mood takes me, which means a fair amount of fluff. I start the year with aspirations to Do Better, but always end up backsliding. Looking forward to seeing you next year!

>27 kidzdoc: Looking forward to you reading non-fiction about the Basque Country. My plan is to read some of those this year too. My grandmother was from the Basque Country and immigrated in the 1940s.

I may also need to read the 6 books about the rise of populism. I don't know that I will ever truly understand, but I need something to help me get through this next year. ;)

>52 kidzdoc: That picture of him reading Where the Wild Things Are is fantastic.

>64 Sakerfalcon: Come on in, Claire! There's plenty of room for you.

I hope that by listing the books I want to read in advance it will be more likely that I'll read at least some of them in 2017, and not replace them with shiny new ones. And, even though the lists I posted may seem daunting, they represent only a small fraction of the books I hope to read in the next five years or so.

>65 rosylibrarian: Thanks, Marie. I don't own any nonfiction books from the Basque Country yet, but I'll see if the guidebooks I own can give me some ideas.

I hope that you do join in for Rachel's group read about populism. More than that, I hope that Democratic politicians and advisors are in the process of learning more about what happened, and didn't, on Election Day, and are taking concrete steps to reinvent the party so that it can move ahead and prepare to reassume power in 2020, or earlier.

>66 The_Hibernator: I agree, Rachel.

>52 kidzdoc: Wonderful article, Darryl. Thanks for sharing.

I'm doing some soul searching right now about what actions I can take to help the country through the next four years. Donations? Volunteering? I think there will be a lot of slack to take up in social programs and school funding.

In looking through my planned reads for 2017 I noticed one glaring and regrettable absence; in the list of books in Voices of Color/Social Justice there isn't a single book about the LGBTQ community, which is a sizable blind spot of mine. I definitely want to read pertinent books next year, but I don't yet own any, so I look to all of you, and my non-LT friends, for recommendations. I would prefer recent books, centered primarily in the US, which speak to the risks that the community may face under a Trump presidency.

After doing a bit of research earlier this morning I found a good article from Flavorwire, titled 25 Essential Works of LGBT Non-Fiction by Tyler Coates, which was published in 2013. I've read two of the books on the list, And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts, and Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D'Emiliol, and these are some of the other books I'm considering for next year:

The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America by Charles Kaiser
The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up in a Straight Man’s World by Alan Downs
A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights by Kenji Yoshino
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
Ceremonies by Essex Hemphill
Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein
Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua

Have any you read these books? Would you recommend them? Are there others that you would recommend instead?

TYIA.

>69 kidzdoc: - I have nothing to offer, but am eager to hear what others suggest. I'll also be looking into the ones you've listed.

>68 streamsong: I'm doing some soul searching right now about what actions I can take to help the country through the next four years. Donations? Volunteering? I think there will be a lot of slack to take up in social programs and school funding.

I think a lot of us feel the same way, Janet. I donated to several of my favorite charities on or after Giving Tuesday, particularly Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, ProLiteracy, Atlanta Ronald McDonald Charities (there is a Ronald McDonald House close to the hospital I work at, which provides free housing to families whose children need long term inpatient care), the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and the Southern Poverty Law Center, along with some new ones, including the Carter Center (which is very close to where I live), the ACLU, the Anti-Defamation League, the Urban League, the United Negro College Fund, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. I would love to volunteer with the Atlanta chapter of ProLiteracy, which helps adults learn to read and write, and I'll see if I can do so starting in the spring.

>70 katiekrug: Sounds good, Katie. I'll also post recommendations from my non-LT LGBTQ friends.

Happy Holidays to you Darryl. I'm sorry that you won't be able to visit your parents and Pennsylvania during the holiday season. I'm spending time with family in Beavercreek, Ohio, near one of the largest air force bases in Dayton, Ohio.

In keeping with the "no fluff zone", I'm writing regarding politics and Ohio. My daughter and son in law are both politically active and savvy. We have had some interesting conversations regarding how and why Trump won Ohio. Alas, they are firm in stating they did NOT vote for him. The children are well informed and all three attend a STEM school where classes are smaller and teachers are very dedicated. They also have negative thoughts and opinions (well researched) on Trump.

Basically, the thought here is that middle class people are disinfranchised. My daughter notes that many did not vote at all and that many she knows strongly did not like Trump, but also felt the Clintons too crooked, and some of those in the military have strong feelings about Hilary's handling of Benghazi. In addition, Nafta is discussed. There are many pockets of poverty in Ohio. Some who never voted, voted for Trump hoping that jobs would return.

One of my twin grandsons was emphatic in saying Trump was NOT presidential and he didn't like his treatment of women. The other twin chimed in that Mr. Clinton also treated women badly, but he really didn't like Trump either. I find it wonderful that young 12 year old boys are discussing the issue of treatment of women! Amen

>31 kidzdoc: I LOVED that. God, I'm going to miss having him in the Oval Office.

>40 jessibud2: and >46 kidzdoc: I expected the same thing, Shelley, but after some thought I agree that Boehner's appearance was both funny and spoke to the theme of finding common ground across differences. It's one of Obama's most palpable legacies.

>69 kidzdoc: You know, I would expect myself to have some suggestions here, but I don't. I will check in with some of my own non-LT friends, though, and share what I get.

And I love that you spotted this gap in your own reading plans and addressed it for yourself. This is, along with donating money and time as we are able, one of the things we all have to keep doing as we move into this future. Last month I also increased my monthly giving amounts to Planned Parenthood and added both the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center to my usual list.

>73 Whisper1:, >74 EBT1002: - While out running errands this morning, I was looking at a magazine stand. I bought the current special issue of Ebony because it is devoted to Obama and his legacy. I also saw (but refuse to purchase) the current issue of TIME magazine, with the hideous Trump on the cover as person of the year, but sighed at the little subtitle near the bottom: The President of the Divided States of American. Sigh...

Locally, one of our national newspapers recently had a couple of interesting political cartoons. I don't know how to embed an actual picture into a post but maybe this link will work. If so, use the *next/previous* to move back and forth. The 2 that particularly resonated for me are {{see edited note, below}} #14 and #2 (there are several that are Canada-specific and probably won't mean anything to most folks here but those 2 are fairly self-evident):

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorial-cartoons-for-december-2016/arti...

Also, I began a book for the non-fiction challenge this year that I haven't yet finished. I'd like to get back to it as I think it's important, maybe even more now so than when he wrote it, in 2012. It's called The Myth of the Muslim Tide by Doug Saunders

~~~~~~~~~

**edited to add that today (Friday), the 2 cartoons I indicated above are now #3 and #15, the *populism* one and the *farewell to 2016* The rest probably won't mean much to folks here who aren't Canadian

>46 kidzdoc: I loved that episode.

I can see that you are not doing at all well at routing the fluff Darryl, more discipline is needed clearly :-)

Hi Darryl. I am SO impressed by your thoroughly thought-out and well-planned approach to your 2017 reading. Wow! (not to mention impressed that you have 77 posts on your first thread and it won't even be 2017 for another 10 days).

>69 kidzdoc: I got a couple of recommendations for you, from the a friend/colleague who is friends with a member of the selection committee for the American Library Association LGBT Books of the Year. He wasn't saying these were winners, but did recommend them when my friend/colleague asked for recommendations.

How to Survive a Plague by David France (also a documentary film) -- Here is the NYT Review.
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing -- Here is the NYT Review for it.

He also recommended Jam on the Vine a novel by LaShonda Katrice Barnett, which my friend/colleague raves about.

>69 kidzdoc: Audre Lorde! It's been forever since I read Sister Outsider, but I think it's really good. A few months ago my bookgroup did Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, which I think you'd like.

ETA: Jeanette Winterson. Why Be Happy WHen You Could Be Normal is a powerful memoir. Also a novel I really liked Written on the Body

>78 EBT1002: I have read The Lonely City and it is a fine, edgy book, as is her book about writers and alcoholism: The Trip to Echo Spring, both top reads for me this year.

>80 Caroline_McElwee: Oh, that is good to know, Caroline. I'll add The Trip to Echo Spring to my wish list along with The Lonely City.

I just finished cooking oxtail stew, the first time I've made it in at least two years. The meat is very tender and flavorful, but the stew as a whole is far fattier than usual, as the oxtails weren't well trimmed. I've put the entire pot in the refrigerator, to allow the fat to come to the top and congeal, and to allow the flavors to mature further. I'll skim off the fat tomorrow after work, cook egg noodles to go with it, and post a photo and the recipe tomorrow.

I also bought ingredients to make New Orleans slow cooked beef chili, using the recipe of the famed NOLA chef Emeril Lagasse. That will be my contribution for Christmas potluck lunch in the hospital, and I'll share some with one of my partners, who loved it the last time I made it. I'll take and post Christmas at Children's photos on Facebook, and include some of them here.

>73 Whisper1: Happy Holidays to you too, Linda. Working on Christmas Day is the norm for me, since my partners and I have to staff the hospital 24/7/365(366), and since I'd much rather be with my family on Thanksgiving I almost always have to work on Christmas Day. This year is different in that I'll work the Christmas (Dec 23-27) and the New Year's (Dec 30-Jan 3) holidays, instead of just one of them. I don't have a spouse or children, of course, so I may as well be working if I can't visit my parents.

In short (since it's approaching 11:30 pm and I have to get up in about six hours to go to work tomorrow) I agree with your assessment of the election, and the white working and middle class voters who overwhelmingly voted for Trump.

>74 EBT1002: I agree, Ellen. Could you imagine the thin skinned and egotistical president-elect being mature enough to make fun of himself? I can't.

I thought that you might have some recommendations too, Ellen! Several of my colleagues at work are openly gay or lesbian (and I'm glad to say that no one at Children's blinks an eye or has ever made a single derogatory comment in my presence), so I'll see if those who are working over the next two weeks have any recommendations. I'll post any I receive here, of course.

>75 jessibud2: I didn't look at the magazine racks when I went grocery shopping at Publix this afternoon, so I missed the issues of Ebony and TIME that were certainly there.

Given the late hour (it's just past 11:30 pm) I'll look at those cartoons tomorrow. TYIA for posting the link to them, Shelley.

I look forward to your thoughts on The Myth of the Muslim Tide. I'll probably read a somewhat similar book, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America by Moustafa Bayoumi, next month.

>76 Caroline_McElwee: The Trouble with Tribbles was one of my favorite Star Trek episodes as well, Caroline.

Yes, there is entirely too much fluff here! I'll accept it for now, since we're still in 2016, but once the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve I won't be anywhere near as lenient. ;-)

>77 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks, Reba! I can't remember if it was me or someone else, possibly Richard Derus, who had to start a second thread several years ago before the New Year had started. This thread will become far more quiet starting tomorrow once I return to work, though.

>78 EBT1002: Thanks for those recommendations, Ellen! I'll look at them and the NYT reviews more closely tomorrow or this weekend.

>79 banjo123: Thanks for your recommendations, Rhonda. I don't own and haven't read anything by Audre Lorde, so next year would be a good time to do so.

>80 Caroline_McElwee:, >81 EBT1002: Thanks for recommending those two books, Caroline. I'll look at them more closely as well.

Have a good night, everyone!

Have you thought of adding Bellevue: three centuries of medicine and mayhem at America's most storied hospital to this list?

I'm on the wait list for it at our library. Heard him on NPR: http://www.npr.org/books/authors/502335881/david-oshinsky

>71 kidzdoc: I donated to NRDC, Reading Partners, Give Directly, and Against Malaria. I wanted to donate to a US charity that targets education/development opportunities for the rural US, since charity in the US is directed disproportionately to the urban areas, but I wasn't able to find one that specifically helps rural populations. I know that rural charities are less efficient, since people are more spread out, which requires more driving, etc, but I think after the election results, with the rural populace predominantly supporting Trump, charities need to take a harder look at the rural/urban disparity...

>27 kidzdoc: You might find the food recs (and other travel info) for the Basque region helpful on the following cut-paste document link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/164APdvCy8ijUeG-8RCyt_68d7c1a-HbwAa6ti6U6QSk/.... Page 50 is the Basque region. If you are into wine, the first page of that document links to a fantastic wine guide for Europe.

My family had a different experience in Granada, as well. While my husband was in line for us to enter the Alhambra at our assigned time, I took our then-4-year old to the bathroom. He slipped, bleeding ensued (I'll spare your readers the details). I was led to the EMT station, and I sent my 7 year old to get my husband out of line. They wanted us to go to the ER, but thankfully my husband had a card in his wallet proving he was a doctor. So they helped him bandage up my son, with me trying to translate words like "gauze pad." The EMTs were great, and we made it with no time to spare to see the Alhambra, taking turns carrying our injured son. It made for a very memorable trip.

Leaving my wish for the season here on your new thread....

>1 kidzdoc: HaHaHa! You didn't fool me one second, Darryl! Happy 2017 Thread!

How can it still be December 2016 and I am behind almost 90 posts on your 2017 thread?!?! : )

Dropping my star.

I just bought Democracy in Black in an Audible sale! So I'll try to get to it this year too. :)

Happy New One, Darryl.

Found you and

Waving as I'm trying to catch up on threads. Hotel wifi left much to be desired. It was pretty much non-existent.

We have similar ideas for 2017 reading, although our lists don't overlap much. One of the few overlaps is Hillbilly Elegy, which I am reading for a January book club.

I'm starring your thread so I can keep track!

I'm missing nearly 100 comments already, but I'm dropping off a breadcrumb to try to find my way back in the new year.

69> Recently given away most of my LGBTIQ books - but Gender outlaws is great book will have a think abt others as they relate to the Trump angle ...

Nice reading lists up there - suspect as always we will have a bit of cross over

I finished my five day Christmas work stint yesterday, and I have two days off before I start the five day New Year's work stretch, from Friday through Tuesday. Hopefully this upcoming work week won't be as busy as the last one was.

I was on call on Christmas Day, and worked from a little after 7 am until nearly 10 pm. The nurses on the 3rd floor of the hospital invited me to have Christmas lunch with them. The hospital provided a ham and turkey from HoneyBaked Ham, and nearly everyone else made or brought something from home. My contribution was Emeril's Slow-Cooker Chili, from the famed New Orleans chef Emeril Lagasse, which I haven't made in two or three years. I prepared it on Christmas Eve after work, and let it cook overnight. It was a big hit, as several people said it was the best chili they had ever had. I'd also agree with that assessment, not because I'm a great cook (I'm just a technician who can successfully follow instructions), but because the recipe is outstanding.



Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup chili powder
2 tablespoons whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon cayenne
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons dried Mexican or regular oregano, crumbled between your fingers
3 bay leaves
2 teaspoons light or dark brown sugar
4 pounds boneless beef chuck, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2- to 2-inch cubes
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 medium onions, coarsely chopped (about 4 cups)
1 1/2 cups chopped celery, including leaves
6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
2 jalapeño chiles, roughly chopped
One 12-ounce bottle dark Mexican beer, such as Negro Modelo
2 tablespoons tomato paste
One 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 ounce semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons masa harina (corn flour, not cornstarch)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
Grated cheddar cheese, for garnish
Chopped green onion, for garnish
Sour cream, for garnish

Instructions:

Combine the chili powder, cumin seeds, cayenne, cinnamon, oregano, bay leaves and brown sugar in a small bowl; set the spice mixture aside.

Add the beef to a medium bowl and season with the pepper and 1 tablespoon of the kosher salt. Heat 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil in a 12-inch or larger skillet over high heat. Add enough beef to fill the pan and cook until nicely browned on one side, about 2 minutes. Turn the pieces over and cook for another 2 minutes. Transfer the browned beef to the crock of a 6-quart slow cooker. Repeat with the remaining beef, adding the remaining vegetable oil between batches as necessary.

Add the onions, celery, and 1 tablespoon of the remaining salt to the skillet and cook, stirring, until the vegetables begin to soften, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic, jalapeños and spice mixture and cook for 1 minute longer. Pour in the beer, tomato paste and crushed tomatoes and simmer for 3 minutes. Stir in the chocolate, masa harina and remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and cook for 1 minute longer. Transfer this mixture to the slow cooker.

Cover and cook the chili on high, undisturbed or stirring only once during cooking, for 6 hours, or until the beef is very tender. Remove the bay leaves and stir in the cilantro and parsley. Serve the chili hot in bowls, topped with grated cheddar, chopped green onion and sour cream.
__________________________________________

The chili came nearly to the brim of my six quart slow cooker. We started lunch at around 1:30, and by 7 pm it was completely gone! It has a rich smoky flavor, with slight hints of chocolate and cinnamon and a mild amount of heat from the peppers at the end. I brought two cups of chili to a lovely young couple whose very frail baby girl has a severe genetic disorder who I've become particularly fond of, and their 3 year old son ate nearly all of his mother's chili with relish, so it isn't as hot as it would seem to be.

Two people who tried the chili said that Emeril Lagasse's Macaroni with 4 Cheeses! recipe is also amazing, so I'll give that a try very soon, possibly as early as tomorrow. I'll also make a pot of soup or stew TBD for New Year's Eve lunch with the 3rd floor nurses.

>85 tangledthread: I am planning to read Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital. One of my particularly bookish partners owns a copy of it, and I'll get it from her once another partner finishes reading it.

>86 karspeak: That's a good idea to focus on charities that benefit rural populations preferentially, Karen.

Thanks for sharing that travel guide with me! The author mentions that (s)he couldn't find any books that were specific to the Basque Region, but I do own the Bilbao & Basque Region Handbook, which was published last year by Footprint Handbooks. I'm pretty sure that I purchased it from Daunt Books in London earlier this year, probably in March, but it's published in the US as well. I just looked at Amazon's web site, and it's available as an e-book as well for $11.99. I also have the excellent Spain Baedeker Guide, which has great information about Bilbao and San Sebastián, to refer to, and I'll look at all three of these resources closely in the next month or two.

>87 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen. I pray that 2017 will be a Year of Peace, although I'm highly doubtful that will be the case.

>88 Carmenere: Thanks, Lynda!

>89 Berly: This thread is moving quickly, but it will slow down as I get into my busy work stretches, Kim. Good to see you here!

>90 The_Hibernator: Excellent, Rachel! I received Democracy in Black as an LT Early Reviewers book earlier this year, so I'd like to get to it ASAP in 2017.

>91 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I'll follow and star your thread as well.

>92 thornton37814: *waves back at Lori*

>94 carlym: Hi, Carly! That being the case I'll be sure to follow your thread closely in 2017.

>95 London_StJ: Hi, Luxx! It's great to see you here. I'll follow your thread as well.

>96 roundballnz: Thanks for your recommendation of Gender Outlaws, Alex; I've added it to my wish list.

I look forward to more LGBTQ recommendations from you, and everyone else.

Hi Darryl, I got Mildreds: The Vegetarian Cookbook for Christmas, so I'm making a list of ingredients for tomorrow's grocery shop!

Glad your chilli was appreciated. I'll maybe try it without the beef!

>100 Caroline_McElwee: Excellent, Caroline! I look forward to hearing about the recipes in that cookbook, and to returning to Mildred's in March.

Glad your chilli was appreciated. I'll maybe try it without the beef!

That reminds me of my attempt last week to make oxtail stew without oxtails...

This is the best Christmas card ever, courtesy of Sara, one of the 3rd floor nurses that I shared Christmas lunch with last week:



Here's an equally outstanding alternative:

I forgot to take a photo, but this is most of the 3rd floor crew who I had lunch with on Christmas Day, including Sara:

You forgot to take a photo.... I guess that must be because they are not on plates :-))

>104 Caroline_McElwee: Right! I did take a photo two years ago, though, but I was on call on Christmas Day and knew that I wouldn't be able to sit down long before the Emergency Department called me to admit a kid to the hospital (which happened about 30 minutes after I sat down).

>97 kidzdoc: I have the cookbook with that recipe, but I don't think I've ever tried it. I don't know that I've ever had chili with the beef cubed instead of ground. I might have to try it sometime.

Happy New Year!

>106 thornton37814: It's a great recipe, Lori. I would highly recommend giving it a try.

>107 DianaNL: Thanks, Diana, and the same to you!

Hi, Darryl! Goodness gracious, 108 posts already?

Hope amidst the work you're having a good holiday. Debbi asked me to be sure to tell you Happy New Year, and that she thinks you're adorable. :-)

Hope you have a wonderful 2017!

Hmm. Most of my comfort reading involves people being horribly murdered. I'm not sure what that says about me, but since I don't think at any rate you could call it "fluff" I'll dare to venture in...

My thread visiting suffered like many other things in 2016 but I'm trying to reconnect!

Hi Daryl--I mostly lurked on your ever interesting threads last year, but this year I hope to comment more. I'm stopping by to wish you a peaceful and joyous New Year!

Hi Daryl - I've been away from the 75ers for a year, and am happy to see this zone goes along with my own political beliefs, although I'm thinking JK Rowling was right in comparing the Orange-one Elect with Voldemort. And she didn't say this, but I'm thinking the less I mention his name, the less power he'll have. ;) So this month my thread is going to try to focus on Human Rights. Which if he really does approve of the way Duterte is handling alleged drug dealers in the Philippines, he might have a tenuous understanding of. As always, I'll be interested in seeing what you are reading and what you are thinking.

Here's wishing you a great 2017 Darryl. I'm looking forward to following your reading.

Wishing you a slightly early Happy New Year, Darryl. I hope work goes smoothly and that 2017 is a much better year for us all in every way. Looking forward to seeing you in London in the spring!

I am part of the group.
I love being part of the group.
I love the friendships bestowed upon my by dint of my membership of this wonderful fellowship.
I love that race and creed and gender and age and sexuality and nationality make absolutely no difference to our being a valued member of the group.

Thank you for also being part of the group.

I wish you from my heart health, happiness, satisfaction and much exciting read in 2017. May all your wishes come true.


from my hometown Zürich, Switzerland

HAPPY NEW YEAR Darryl, I look forward to catching up, and reading of your 2017 adventures.

Happy New Year, buddy!

Happy New Year! (dropping a star)

I hope the New Year started good for you, Darryl, happy reading in 2017!

Happy New Year Darryl!

Have a Happy New Year my Friend!

Happy non-fluffy New Year, Darryl! :-)

You have some great reading plans.

(And I loved The Trouble with Tribbles, too.)

Happy New Year, everyone! Thanks to a short work day today (as I knew all of my patients from Saturday and didn't get any new ones) I was able to finish Nutshell by Ian Mc Ewan, which was good but didn't knock my socks off. I've given it 3½ stars, and since it's after 10 pm I'll write a review of it after work tomorrow.

I bought 20 e-books from Verso Books end of year sale, and two more today, for a total of $19. I also used the Amazon gift card my brother gave me to purchase two books I had planned to read for the challenges I listed above. I'll post those books here tomorrow.

Catching up...

>109 jnwelch: Happy New Year to you and Debbi, Joe! Friday and Saturday were very busy work days, but we have had significant diuresis of our service the past two days, which made today a much easier, and more typical, holiday work day. Hopefully the next two days won't be bad, either.

Tell Debbi that I'm now wearing fedoras on a daily basis, now that the weather is finally turning cooler in Atlanta. I had a humorous encounter one day last week as I was waiting for the Children's shuttle bus to take me to the Medical Center metro station after work. As I was sitting on a bench reading the NYT, while wearing a fedora, an Asian woman carrying a suitcase politely asked me if I was waiting for the shuttle. It took about two seconds for us to recognize each other; Jumi is one of the infectious disease physicians, and a good friend of mine. We both jumped simultaneously, and laughed about the episode for a good minute. She was taking the metro to the airport, to spend Christmas with her boyfriend in San Francisco, and we had a pleasant conversation on the shuttle bus and metro before I got off at Arts Center station. Now that I think about it, one of the Children's shuttle bus drivers who knows me well also didn't recognize me another day last week, and two of my colleagues who I went to a Hawks-Knicks basketball with on Wednesday passed right by me initially when we met at CNN Center to have dinner before the game. I'm becoming a man of mystery.

>110 ChelleBearss: Thanks, Chelle! I hope that 2017 is a good year for you and your family as well.

>111 lyzard: Hi, Liz! No, I wouldn't say that books that feature gruesome murders count as fluff, either.

>112 arubabookwoman: It's good to see you here, Deborah! I look forward to reading your enticing reviews, although with some trepidation, as you're one of the leading threats to my TBR reduction plans. Happy New Year to you and your family.

>113 cammykitty: Welcome back to the group, Katie! I look forward to hearing about the Human Rights books you'll read this month. I refuse to call Trump "President", as he is completely unworthy of the title, and is clearly the most unqualified and unfit person to assume that office in my lifetime, and possibly in the history of the United States.

This recent image that has been making the rounds sums up my state of mind about the incoming POTUS:



>114 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian, and Happy New Year to you, Alan and J.

>115 Sakerfalcon: Happy New Year to you too, Claire! I hope that 2017 isn't as dreadful a year in the UK, US and the rest of the world as I fear that it will be. I just submitted my vacation request today for late March/early April, and once I get confirmation of my time off I'll let you and the others know when I'll make my first trip to London this year.

>116 The_Hibernator: Happy Year of the Rooster to you too, Rachel!

>117 PaulCranswick: Thanks for that lovely sentiment, Paul; I couldn't agree with you more about this group, and especially the wonderful people I've met in person. I look forward to seeing you and Hani again in the UK, hopefully later this year.

>118 jeanned: Happy New Year to you too, Jeanne!

>128 kidzdoc: LOL! That is a great image! Wow, doesn't bode well for the country though. No one has escaped from the Twilight Zone to the best of my knowledge.

>119 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I hope that 2017 is a good year for you and your family as well. Your photos of Zürich, including that one, are very enticing!

>120 Caroline_McElwee: Happy New Year to you too, Caroline! I look forward to seeing you in the spring.

>121 jnwelch: Happy New Year, Joe!

>122 ronincats: Happy New Year, Roni!

>123 FAMeulstee: Happy New Year to you and Frank, Anita! Today was a good day, even though I had to work, as I was able to leave early and finish my first book of 2017. Hopefully I can get off to a good start this month, and maintain the momentum throughout the year, especially since I plan to make a sizable dent in my TBR pile in the next few years.

>124 luvamystery65: Happy New Year, Roberta!

>125 BBGirl55: Happy New Year, Bryony! I hope to see you in the spring as well.

>126 tymfos: Thanks, and Happy New Year to you too, Terri! I think that I'll be much more successful in reading books from my TBR collection this year now that I've listed books from my library that I want to read the most.

>130 cammykitty: Right, Katie. I can't remember anyone exiting The Twilight Zone alive or mentally intact either.

Happy New Year, Darryl, and a star! I wish you a year of great satisfaction and lots of good reading!

I've decided that every time I visit your thread, I shall bring fluff with me, in whatever form takes my fancy. Therefore, I start with:

Happy new year, Darryl. Only a few days before you get to go on leave, right? You've been on a long working stretch over the holidays. I ended up not being able to visit with Judy and Jim while I was in NY because unfortunately a friend passed and we had to attend the wake and funeral.

We have to do better about meeting up this year. :-)

>127 kidzdoc: Ha! I'll let Debbi know about the fedoras. Love the stories. I'm becoming a man of mystery. You lucky bum. That's an ambition for most of our gender, I think. To me, your musician/music-loving side comes out with the fedora on. You don't look like a doctor; too hip.

>1 kidzdoc: wow, you scared me for a second thre, Darryl! I mean, I like my literary fiction too, but wouldn't want to be barred for talking fluff ;)

>6 kidzdoc: I will have to follow this, I am very interested in structural societal political issues that make us act the ways we do. Which, IMHO, is not all down to individual choice, by any means.

>128 kidzdoc: can I get an explanation of what that image means? I don't recognise the significance of the man in the foreground (>130 cammykitty: uh, ok. Scratch previous comment! Makes perfect sense now)
I agree Darryl that trump is the most unsuited to hold office in the last 60 years, and I only stop there for not knowing much about presidents before Kennedy.

>128 kidzdoc: "...clearly the most unqualified and unfit person to assume that office in my lifetime..."

You know I agree with this sentiment and I had a lot of problems with Tricky Dick and Dubyah.

Without the "my lifetime" restriction, I wonder how it will look in 50 or 100 years to historians. Will he be considered up there with Harding or A. Johnson as epitomes of unfit?

Happy New Year, Darryl. Finally caught up with you.

>127 kidzdoc: Pics or it didn't happen. I want to see a pic of you wearing a fedora.

>128 kidzdoc: Oh, man. That dates me. I had to double check with MrMorphy to be sure but, yep, it dates me that I knew exactly who that was. (The man that is. You know, the actual person.)

Book #1: Nutshell by Ian McEwan



My rating:

This short novel is a modern retelling of Hamlet, narrated by an unnamed late third trimester fetus who is the witness to a murder plot concocted by his mother Trudy and her lover Claude to murder his father John, who happens to be Claude's brother. Trudy is separated from John, a failed poet and publisher riddled with debt and afflicted with psoriasis, and she lives in the crumbling, filthy North London house that her husband inherited, which Claude, a property developer of little charm and fewer morals, claims is worth millions of pounds. Once the fetus learns that he will likely be put up for adoption after his birth if the couple's plan succeeds he vows to do whatever he can to foil their nefarious scheme.

Nutshell is an entertaining work and a quick read, although I found the fetus's witty comments to be a bit too clever at times, which kept me from giving it 4 or more stars.

Chiming in with more good wishes for the new year, Darryl. I plan to be lurking here again but will occasionally make a comment or two. I love your Chili (with chocolate) recipe. I like chili and I like chocolate but never thought about that combo. Live and learn.

Yes, picture with fedora is needed.

>133 LizzieD: Thanks, Peggy!

>134 Berly: Cheers, Kim! *clink*

>135 lunacat: Now hold on, young lady! That cover looks like a tragedy about to happen, as that poor defenseless midget boy is set to be devoured by the ravenous dog and cat that have pounced on him. I see nothing fluffy there.

>136 cameling: Happy New Year, Caroline!!! It's great to see you back here. I'm sorry to hear about your friend's passing, and that you weren't able to meet up with Judy and Jim.

Tomorrow is the last day of my holiday work stretch. For the first time in 17 years I had to work both the Christmas and New Year's holidays, five days around each holiday with a two day break last Wednesday and Thursday. After tomorrow I'll be off until the following Monday, and I won't have more than two days off in a row from then until March. Fortunately I'll be finished with my four month concentrated schedule at the end of February, and I'll have another vacation free month off from work in June.

Yes, we definitely have to meet up this year, in NYC, Boston or elsewhere.

>137 jnwelch: Right, Joe. Very few people recognize me when I wear a fedora coming to or leaving work. This morning on my way in I saw one of the hospital's senior respiratory therapists, who I'm very fond of for her personality and expertise. I said hello to her as she was speaking to someone in the Supply Department, and it took her a second to realize who I was.

>138 LovingLit: Ha! You're always welcome here, Megan. (Hmm, I seem to be making exceptions for visitors already, which is not a good sign.)

That theme in >6 kidzdoc: was Rachel's idea, and several of us will be reading those six books this year in that order, one every two months, starting with The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer, which I'll read later this month or in February.

I did wonder if I would have to explain that image, which would be far more familiar to Americans in their 50s and older than anyone else. If anyone didn't get it, the person in front is Rod Sterling, the narrator of the hit television show The Twilight Zone. The original version of it was on the air in the US from 1959-1964 on CBS, but, at least in the NYC area, reruns were nearly constantly broadcast during the rest of the 1960s and the 1970s.



I'm not a great student of the US presidents, especially ones who held office before Herbert Hoover was elected in 1928, but I suspect that you would have to go back to at least the 19th century to find a less qualified and competent president than Trump. Then again, he has proven all of us wrong since he first announced his candidacy for the presidency, and it wouldn't be a complete surprise if he turned out to be a better POTUS than many of us fear he will be (I'm not exactly holding my breath, though).

>139 TadAD: Right, Tad. I certainly wasn't fond of Nixon or George W. Bush, but I can't say that neither was qualified to become POTUS, based on each's history in government as governors of large states.

It will be interesting to see what historians make of Trump's presidency. I can only hope that this is a fluke, and not reflective of future leaders in this country.

>140 Familyhistorian: Happy New Year, Meg! I haven't had time to visit many threads since I started my holiday work stretch on December 23rd, but I'll start doing so on Wednesday.

>141 Morphidae: Pics or it didn't happen. I want to see a pic of you wearing a fedora.

Your wish is my command, Morphy. I'm all but completely certain that Joe took this photo of Bianca, Debbi and I in September 2015, when the four of us met in Old Spitalfields Market in East London, on the day that I bought my black fedora there:



I also have a dark brown fedora that I purchased there last year, although I don't think I have a photo of me wearing it.

Oh, man. That dates me.

Not necessarily. The Twilight Zone was on the air when I was a toddler, as I would have been three years ago during its last season in 1964, but it wasn't until I was considerably older that I started to watch it, probably in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

>143 Donna828: Thanks, Donna. That chili recipe is a great one, and the chocolate and dark Mexican beer add a lot to it. Marianne (@michigantrumpet) said that she also includes dark beer, chocolate and cinnamon when she makes chili, and I've seen other recipes that incorporate those ingredients as well.

>144 Familyhistorian: Done!

>147 kidzdoc: You look AWESOME in that hat. Not many people can pull off hats.

Both MrMorphy and I are in our 50s. So we both are familiar with shows in that time period.

Wow, two days into the new year and I'm already way behind on your thread!

Sorry you didn't enjoy Nutshell as much as I did. Overall, 2016 was a pretty good reading year for me. Which is a good thing since so much else went south last year.

Got my own threads all decorated and launched this afternoon. This year's theme: Scandalous Ladies at the Court of James I.

>148 Morphidae: Thanks, Morphy! I've always liked hats, especially fedoras, so I'll continue to purchase and wear them from now on. I also bought a nice straw hat in Barcelona for next to nothing last June, but I foolishly decided to leave it behind when I flew back to Atlanta at the end of my trip. I'll have to find a similar one here in Atlanta this spring.

Ah. I thought that you and your husband were in your 40s. That makes sense.

>149 Cariola: I enjoyed reading Nutshell, Deborah, but clearly not as much as you and Katie did. I'm still glad that I read it.

I'll visit your thread, and others, later this week, after I finish this current work stretch.

Hi Darryl! Happy New Year!

>151 seasonsoflove: Hi, Becca! Happy New Year to you (and the mighty Sherlock), too.

>150 kidzdoc: Nope, I'm 51 and he's 57. I did NOT like turning 50. No indeedy. I was really surprised at how much it upset me. I cried for two weeks beforehand. However, for my 51st birthday, I was like, "Meh, whatever." :D

>148 Morphidae: well....anyone can pull off a hat if you take it literally. ;) (sorry, couldn't help it)
My sister aces hats, I don't fare so well. I can't figure it out, and always try to prove myself wrong, but the fact remains. I am bad in hats.

Eta: clearly, Darryl rocks a hat.

>142 kidzdoc: This one is on my reading list for this year, too.

Wishing you a lovely day, Darryl.

>153 Morphidae: Interesting comments, Morphy! My reactions to momentous birthdays were mainly based on my life situation at the time, rather than the age I achieved. 20 was bittersweet, as my girlfriend at the time and I were starting to drift apart, but what would have been a lonely and miserable day was saved by a good friend who surprised me with a birthday cake that night. I had no idea she knew it was my birthday, and I was so touched that I cried in her arms. 30 was also tough, as a close friend (and lover) at work had just moved back to Boston and I was torn between deciding to pursue a career in biomedical research or one in medicine (fortunately I made the right call). 40 wasn't bad, as it took place during my first year working as a hospitalist and I was enjoying my job. 50 was a bit sobering, but wasn't anywhere near as bad as 20 and 30 were, and I'm more than halfway to 60, which is unbelievable to me, especially since I feel more like a thirtysomething than a fiftysomething.

>154 LovingLit: I love it when women wear hats! That will catch my eye more than anything else, especially when a woman combines a long sleveless summer dress (one that ends just above the ankles) with an appropriate hat. Obviously everyone can't pull off that look, though.

I would have thought that you would rock a hat, Megan, especially a fedora. If we ever meet up I'll have to go hat shopping with you.

>155 Ameise1: Nutshell was a good read, Barbara, although Deborah and Katie liked it better than I did.

Woo! Today is my last day of my Christmas and New Year's work stretch. Unfortunately I'm on long call today (10 am to 10 pm), so I probably won't come back until tomorrow morning. Have a good Tuesday, everyone!

>156 kidzdoc: Interesting that you have such memories of your birthdays, Darryl, for none of mine have any particular memories attached. I vaguely recall that I was at a friend's housewarming party on my 30th birthday, and when they found out, they drove to Walmart to buy me a cake. My 20th is totally gone from memory. My 40th won't be for another three years. :)

Happy New Year and Happy fluff-free Reading in 2017, Darryl!
Sorry I'm late, I couldn't deal with the year-end frenzy this year and ignored the new group until yesterday.

>156 kidzdoc: ...especially since I feel more like a thirtysomething than a fiftysomething.

That's what upset me. I wasn't "young" anymore even though I felt "thirtysomething," inside I was 50. 50 isn't young. It isn't OLD, but it isn't young. 30s and 40s are young. 50s aren't. 50s are middle aged. I should be okay at 60. I'm afraid I'll have trouble at 70 though. Yes, I know age is just a number. But those numbers are stamped into my brain. 50s are middle aged. 70s are old. 80s mean every day is blessing. (And 90s mean, "Oh my lord, I can't believe you are still alive." LOL)

I look ridiculous in hats. I have a large, round head that simply isn't suitable for hats so I don't even try.

Well hang on all of you, hopefully you have several more "birthdays that end in zero" left to come! I just had one last month (70) and it was the first one that really bothered me largely because physically I feel like I thought I would feel at 50 and partly because I'm just coming to terms with being "middle aged" and am shocked to find that term doesn't apply any more. All of that said, I think what's important is how old you feel and I'm healthy and happy and very fortunate in my life so what does that silly number mean?!

I should wear more hats as I've been told they suit me, but I'm just never sure how to pull them off (except for the obvious way!). I hope work goes quickly for you and you can get some good resting and reading in, once you've caught up on a bit of sleep.

I only dreaded my 30th birthday, Darryl, so I celebrated my 29th three times in a row, then I was ready for 32 ;-)
I used to love hats and had a fairly large collection. When we had to downsize I gave them away...

>160 RebaRelishesReading: The funny thing is... it's only the zero birthdays that bother us, eh?

>142 kidzdoc: Nutshell sounds completely absurd, in a really enjoyable way. I'm going to have to pick it up soon.

>159 Morphidae: I'm afraid 60 is right around the corner for me...as in, weeks. Unfortunately, I have the same type of numbering system wired into my brain as you do, Morphie, and 60s for me are: sliding down toward old.

Woo! I'm very happy to be finished with my Christmas and New Year's work stretch, the first time I've had to work those holidays back to back in at least 17 years. My last day was a hellish one, as I was on long call, and it was the worst one I've had since I started working for Children's in 2000, with 16 admissions in less than eight hours. I must have done something to my back the night before last, as I woke up with a sore, stiff back and had intermittent lower back spasms throughout the day, which made the shift that much worse. Fortunately it's behind me now, and I can rest and recuperate for the rest of the week. I'll need it, as I'll start another intense work stretch that will last through the end of February, with no more than two days off in a row in that time. Those of you who work may think, "So what? I work five days a week and only have two days off in between." I'd respond by saying that all of my partners, even the youngest and fittest ones, find a five day work stretch to be exhausting, especially at this time of year when we're running around like felines that have had too much catnip. If there is a potential light at the end of the tunnel (other than an approaching locomotive similar to the one that ran me over yesterday) it's that January tends to be an unusually quiet month for us, as our inpatient census is typically far lower than it is in the other months from late fall through early spring. Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet, especially after yesterday when my team admitted at least 30 patients in a 24 hour period, but hopefully next week won't be as crazy for us.

My back is still very sore, so I won't do much for the next day or two. However, I'm very grateful that this problem happened on the last day of my work stretch instead of the first one!

Wishing you a good time to relax and get well soon, Darryl.

I hope you are able to get lots of rest and make sure your back doesn't get any worse. You've earned a break!

Fingers crossed for a decent amount of rest, and I hope your back issues subside soon. As someone with almost permanent back problems, I can sympathise. It sounds like the beginning of your year is going to be somewhat akin to a nightmare, but I hope your desires for a slightly less intense January materialise, and the foot can lift off the floor a little.

Interesting on Jan being a quiet month for you. Here in Toronto, the current news stations have been reporting that the hospitals in this area have seen a big rise of people suffering from the flu.

>157 The_Hibernator: Wow. I think I'm as surprised that you don't vividly remember your 20th and 30th birthdays, Rachel! I can remember my 20th as if it happened yesterday: my girlfriend at the time "treated" me to a romantic birthday lunch at a Burger King in Uptown New Orleans close to Tulane's campus (mmm!), and treated me to a Whopper meal, along with a lopsided and dry pineapple upside down cake that she made (I think this was the only thing she could cook at the time). I thought we were going to spend the day together, but IIRC she had made an appointment at the beautician later that afternoon, which she refused to cancel. It was a Saturday in late March on a beautiful summer day, and my roommate and all of my closest friends were off campus, save for Tia, a stunningly beautiful Creole freshman at Tulane who I was assigned as a mentor. I had nothing else to do, so I tried to study in my dorm room that afternoon, and that evening she called and asked if I wanted to study with her (and, frankly, I would have agreed to clean public lavatories with her if she asked me to). I went to her dorm room, still very depressed. When I arrived Tia presented me with a freshly made Betty Crocker Stir 'n Frost cake with a lit candle in the middle and sang "Happy Birthday" to me (off key, if I remember). I laughed then broke down in tears, as I didn't think I had mentioned my birthday to her, even when we had spoken on the phone earlier, as I was too embarrassed and hurt at my girlfriend's snub to talk about it. That cake is still the best birthday present I've ever received.



That was the beginning of the end of my relationship with my girlfriend, as we were never as close after that. Unfortunately the lovely Tia had a steady boyfriend who attended another university in town, and they married soon after they graduated and before Glenn started medical school. Disturbingly, my ex-girlfriend is the same one who has been writing me creepy love letters at least once a year for the past five or more years. Apparently I became far more appealing to her once she found out that I became a phy$ician.

>158 Deern: Happy New Year, Nathalie! I'm way behind on threads as well, as I just finished working 10 out of the last 12 days. I don't intend to catch up with all the greetings, and I'll mainly skim threads and look for reviews of books that are of interest over the next two months. I'll also focus more on Club Read this year than I have in years past, as I've missed some good book discussions there by trying to keep up with the conversations in this group. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy those non-book related conversations, and am as guilty as anyone else for contributing to them, but I don't have the free time that many people here do, and I need to spend more time reading, and less time chatting in 2017.

>159 Morphidae: Spot on comments, Morphy. The most troubling thing about 50, as you said, is that I could no longer claim to be young, although one good thing is that retirement is now on the distant horizon now that I've hit 55. I'll work until I'm at least 65, if not 70, although I'm not sure how many more years I'll want to work as a hospitalist. I think 25 years would be a good goal, which would mean that I would retire from Children's sometime in 2025, or possibly in 2026 when I hit 65, God willing, although my parents' health may cause me to retire before then. They are in relatively good condition now, considering that they are both octogenarians, but at that age, as you said, every day is a blessing.

>160 RebaRelishesReading: Belated Happy Birthday, Reba! I certainly agree that age is nothing more than a number, but now that I've hit my mid fifties I've started to give far more thought to retirement plans, and my parents have been talking with my brother and I about their plans once they are no longer able to, or wish to, live in the home they have owned for the past 40+ years. Fortunately my father was making a very good salary at the time he retired and has an excellent pension plan and insurance coverage, so they are in very good shape financially (knock on wood).

>161 lunacat: I think you would look great in suitable hats (although not the one you posted), Jenny! I bought my two fedoras and my porkpie hat in Old Spitalfields Market, which were far less expensive than I thought they would be.

>162 FAMeulstee: Ha! We got on my younger cousin Jay late last year when we saw his Facebook post, which indicated that he was celebrating his 50th birthday, for the second time. He was born in the same year as my younger brother, a few weeks earlier than him in 1965, so I immediately recognized that something wasn't right. He said that he made a mistake; he had intended to change his birthday to 1967 so that it looked like he was still 49, and to advance his birth year so that he would stay 49 for the foreseeable future. Fortunately he, like my brother and I, all have baby faces, and most people think we're in our early to mid thirties instead of our fifties.

Apparently I became far more appealing to her once she found out that I became a phy$ician. Holy moly, that is creepy!

Congrats on surviving the stretch in one (albeit sore) piece! Rest sounds well-deserved.

>163 Morphidae: it's only the zero birthdays that bother us, eh?

That was true for me until I hit 55, although it didn't bother me near as much as 20 and 30 did. Thinking about my 60th birthday in a little over four years is unsettling, though.

>164 London_StJ: Do read Nutshell, Luxx. Although I only gave it 3½ stars I found it enjoyable and clever, and if you favor absurd stories I think you'll like it as well. I love absurd stories, and magical realism when it's done well, but it seems as though Latin American writers do a far better job of it than anyone else, IMO. The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso, Dance with Snakes by Horacio Castellanos Moya, and The Autonauts and the Cosmoroute by Julio Cortázar are amongst my favorites in this category.

>165 TadAD: I thought you were younger than me, Tad! Fortunately there are plenty of men in their 50s and 60s who are still vibrant and young, including us of course.

>166 kidzdoc: Glad you made it through and hope your back heals quickly.

>167 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. I was going to go grocery shopping and get my car washed today, but I'll put that off until tomorrow, or Friday if my back is still sore. Fortunately it usually responds well to rest and anti-inflammatories. I have a slipped disc between my fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae (L4-L5), but it hasn't gotten so bad that I've seriously thought about surgery. I only have significant flare ups two or three times a year, although I will have develop back pain if I do too much walking. I need to be more vigilant about performing daily back exercises, and exercises in general, so I'll resume them later today or tomorrow.

>168 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire! Only one of my partners worked both holiday stretches this year, but he is a machine: he's working 21 days in a row, from Dec 22 though Jan 11! He prefers to do that, though, as his wife and kids moved to Connecticut a few years ago after she accepted a position at Yale Medical School. He'd rather work here than there, so he works 2-3 week stretches, which allows him to spend weeks at a time with his family. Fortunately her parents live nearby, so they were able to celebrate the holidays together at their home.

Years ago my partners and I worked 12 days in a row once or twice a month, from the Monday of one week through the Friday of the following one, and it was doable. However, we've become so busy the past 8-10 years that this would be inhumane to do routinely now.

>169 lunacat: Thanks, Jenny. The night team (8 pm to 8 am) had a far easier time of it than I did during my shift, when I admitted patients from 11 am to 8 pm. Hopefully yesterday was a post-holiday bolus rather than an unusual early year trend.

>170 torontoc: Interesting on Jan being a quiet month for you. Here in Toronto, the current news stations have been reporting that the hospitals in this area have seen a big rise of people suffering from the flu.

Influenza normally peaks in the Deep South in mid December to late January, and it spreads northward from there. However, we didn't have a significant spike in our number of patients testing positive for influenza until last week. Children's microbiology department posts a weekly Virometer on Mondays, which tallies the number of patients testing positive for common viral pathogens the previous week, and this Monday was the first time we've had more than 10 patients who tested positive for influenza. I didn't care for my first patient with influenza until this past weekend and I don't think there were any other patients on our service who were diagnosed with it, which also goes along with the Virometer report. That doesn't bode well for our usual early January drop in our patient census, unfortunately.

Our biggest problem now is a virus called RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), which is a common late fall, winter and early spring pathogen. It causes bad colds in older kids and adults, but in infants and young toddlers it often leads to a lower respiratory tract infection called bronchiolitis, an infection of the tiny airways in the lungs. The infection causes an intense inflammatory response, as the cells in these airways produce copious amounts of thick mucus which young babies have a hard time clearing without support. Many need supplemental oxygen, as air has a hard time getting into the bloodstream through these gummed up airways, along with intravenous fluids, as most kids lose their appetite and vomit, frequently so much so that they become dehydrated. Of the 16 kids we admitted on my long call at least 8-10 had bronchiolitis, due to RSV, human metapneumovirus (which is similar to and as bad as RSV, though less common), and coronavirus. Infection with influenza can also lead to bronchiolitis, and I suspect that we'll start seeing many more of those infants in the next week or two.

>173 London_StJ: Holy moly, that is creepy!

Yep. Her last message was the creepiest one yet. She wrote my last name as the return address in the envelope, and she signed the letter with my last name as well. She's now decided that we are destined to be married, and she's just waiting for me to come to her and make things official. (I am not kidding.) Unfortunately I'm left to conclude that she's become a bit unhinged, and even if I was still in love with her (which I definitely am not) there is no way that I could meet up with her now, even though she lives in the exurbs of Atlanta. Unfortunately she has been sending the most recent letters to my office in the hospital, so she knows where I work. I've shown the last letter to my front office staff, in case she decides to show up in person, and asked them to not let her know that I'm working if she does appear, and to notify Security, just in case she does anything crazy.

>175 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks, Reba. I'm sitting in my very comfortable glider with its rocking ottoman, but my back is still quite sore and I'm still having brief spasms. Hopefully this will improve over the next day or two.

>176 kidzdoc: Yep, back exercices are the best to protct you from pain. I can sing a song on that. I always get 'punished' with pain when not doing the exercices regulary.

Today is January 4th, which means that it's time for The Millions' Most Anticipated: The Great 2017 Book Preview! As usual, there are several enticing titles in this biannual list, which has become a menace to my plans to restrict my book purchases in the new year. These books appeal to me the most:

January:

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay: Gay has had an enormously successful few years. In 2014, her novel, An Untamed State, and an essay collection, Bad Feminist, met with wide acclaim, and in the wake of unrest over anti-black police violence, hers was one of the clearest voices in the national conversation. While much of Gay’s writing since then has dealt in political thought and cultural criticism, she returns in 2017 with this short story collection exploring the various textures of American women’s experience.

Human Acts by Han Kang: Korean novelist Kang says all her books are variations on the theme of human violence. The Vegetarian, her first novel translated into English, arrested readers with the contempt showered upon an “unremarkable” wife who became a vegetarian after waking from a nightmare. Kang’s forthcoming Human Acts focuses on the 1980 Korean Gwangju Uprising, when Gwangju locals took up arms in retaliation for the massacre of university students who were protesting. Within Kang tries to unknot “two unsolvable riddles” — the intermingling of two innately human yet disparate tendencies, the capacity for cruelty alongside that for selflessness and dignity.

(I loved The Vegetarian, so I'll definitely pick up this book.)

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran: Set in Berkeley, Sekaran’s novel follows two women: Soli, an undocumented woman from Mexico raising a baby alone while cleaning houses, and an Indian-American woman struggling with infertility who becomes a foster parent to Soli’s son. Kirkus called it “superbly crafted and engrossing.”

The Gringo Champion by Aura Xilonen: Winner of Mexico’s Mauricio Achar Prize for Fiction, Xilonen’s novel (written when she was only 19, and here translated by Andrea Rosenberg) tells the story of a young boy who crosses the Rio Grande. Mixing Spanish and English, El Sur Mexico lauded the novel’s “vulgar idiom brilliantly transformed into art.”

Selection Day by Aravind Adiga: If Selection Day goes on to hit it big, we may remember it as our era’s definitive cricket novel. Adiga — a Man Booker laureate who won the prize in 2008 for his epic The White Tiger — follows the lives of Radha and Manju, two brothers whose father raised them to be master batsmen. In the way of The White Tiger, all the characters are deeply affected by changes in Indian society, most of which are transposed into changes in the country’s huge cricket scene.

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa called Schweblin “one of the most promising voices in modern literature in Spanish.” The Argentinian novelist’s fifth book, about “obsession, identity and motherhood,” is her first to be translated into English (by Megan McDowell). It’s been described “deeply unsettling and disorientating” by the publisher and “a wonderful nightmare of a book” by novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez.

Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke: Clarke’s award-winning short story collection Foreign Soil is now being published in the U.S. and includes a new story “Aviation,” specifically written for this edition. These character-driven stories take place worldwide — Australia, Africa, the West Indies, and the U.S. — and explore loss, inequity, and otherness. Clarke is hailed as an essential writer whose collection challenges and transforms the reader.

February:

The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee: This sequel to the Nobel Prize-winning South African author’s 2013 novel The Childhood of Jesus picks up shortly after Simón and Inés flee from authorities with their adopted son, David. Childhood was a sometimes thin-feeling allegory of immigration that found Coetzee meditating with some of his perennial concerns — cultural memory, language, naming, and state violence — at the expense of his characters. In Schooldays, the allegorical element recedes somewhat into the background as Coetzee tells the story of David’s enrollment in a dance school, his discovery of his passion for dancing, and his disturbing encounters with adult authority. This one was longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.

(I enjoyed The Childhood of Jesus, and I purchased The Schooldays of Jesus when I was in London in September. I'll probably read it in the spring.)

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen: Pulitzer Prize Winner Nguyen’s short story collection The Refugees has already received starred pre-publication reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly, among others. Nguyen’s brilliant new work of fiction offers vivid and intimate portrayals of characters and explores identity, war, and loss in stories collected over a period of two decades.

Amiable with Big Teeth by Claude McKay: A significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance, McKay is best-known for his novel Home to Harlem — which was criticized by W.E.B. Dubois for portraying black people (i.e. Harlem nightlife) as prurient — “after the dirtier parts of its filth I feel distinctly like taking a bath.” The novel went on to win the prestigious (if short-lived) Harmon Gold Medal and is widely praised for its sensual and brutal accuracy. In 2009, UPenn English professor Jean-Christophe Cloutier discovered the unpublished Amiable with Big Teeth in the papers of notorious, groundbreaking publisher Samuel Roth. A collaboration between Cloutier and Brent Hayes Edwards, a long-awaited, edited, scholarly edition of the novel will be released by Penguin in February.

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li: The Oakland-based Li delivers this memoir of chronic depression and a life lived with books. Weaving sharp literary criticism with a perceptive narrative about her life as an immigrant in America, Your Life isn’t as interested in exploring how literature helps us make sense of ourselves as it is in how literature situates us amongst others.

Autumn by Ali Smith: Her 2015 Baileys prize-winning How to Be Both was an experiment in how a reader experiences time. It has two parts, which can be read in any order. Now, Smith brings us Autumn, the first novel in what will be a Seasonal quartet — four stand-alone books, each one named after one of the four seasons. Known for writing with experimental elegance, she turns to time in the post Brexit world, specifically Autumn 2016, “exploring what time is, how we experience it, and the recurring markers in the shapes our lives take.”

The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso: Set in South Africa, Omotoso’s novel describes the bitter feud between two neighbors, both well-to-do, both widows, both elderly, one black, one white. Described by the TLS as one of the “Best Books by Women Every Man Should Read.”

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: A sweeping look at four generations of a Korean family who immigrates to Japan after Japan’s 1910 annexation of Korea, from the author of Free Food for Millionaires. Junot Díaz says “Pachinko confirms Lee’s place among our finest novelists.”

(I liked Free Food for Millionaires, so I'll almost certainly buy this book.)

Sorry to hear about the back, but glad you have a little time to rest it Darryl. >177 kidzdoc: that should help! Hmmm, hopefully the creepy ex will stay only on paper!

I love hate this time of year with these lists >179 kidzdoc:. We start getting them in this weekend's papers. I have the Ali Smith novel in the pile.

Continued:

March:

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid: In an unnamed city, two young people fall in love as a civil war breaks out. As the violence escalates, they begin to hear rumors of a curious new kind of door: at some risk, and for a price, it’s possible to step through a portal into an entirely different place — Mykonos, for instance, or London. In a recent interview, Hamid said that the portals allowed him “to compress the next century or two of human migration on our planet into the space of a single year, and to explore what might happen after.”

The Idiot by Elif Batuman: Between The Possessed — her 2010 lit-crit/travelogue on a life in Russian letters and her snort-inducing Twitter feed, I am a confirmed Batuman superfan. This March, her debut novel samples Fyodor Dostoevsky in a Bildungsroman featuring the New Jersey-bred daughter of Turkish immigrants who discovers that Harvard is absurd, Europe disturbed, and love positively barking. Yet prose this fluid and humor this endearing are oddly unsettling, because behind the pleasant façade hides a thoughtful examination of the frenzy and confusion of finding your way in the world.

May:

Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami: The seven stories in Murakami’s new collection concern the lives of men who, for one reason or another, find themselves alone. In “Scheherazade,” a man living in isolation receives regular visits from a woman who claims to remember a past life as a lamprey; in “Yesterday,” a university student finds himself drawn into the life of a strange coworker who insists that the student go on a date with his girlfriend.

(Murakami. 'Nuff said.)

The Leavers by Lisa Ko. Ko’s debut novel has already won the 2016 Pen/Bellwether Award for Socially Engaged Fiction, a prize created and selected by Barbara Kingsolver. The contest awards a novel “that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships,” and Ko’s book certainly fits that laudable description. The novel is the story of Deming Gao, the son of a Chinese-American immigrant mother who, one day, never returns home from work. Adopted by white college professors, Deming is renamed and remade in their image — but his past haunts him.

No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal: Satyal’s novel takes place in a suburb near Cleveland and tells the story of Harit and Ranjana, who are both Indian immigrants that are experiencing loss. Harit’s sister has passed away and he’s caring for his mother; Ranjana’s daughter has left to college and she’s worrying her husband is having an affair. These two characters form a friendship amidst grief and self-discovery in a novel that is both heartfelt and funny.

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul. Ah, the current frontrunner for Most Relatable Title of the Coming Year. The Canadian writer’s debut essay collection is “about growing up the daughter of Indian immigrants in Western culture, addressing sexism, stereotypes, and the universal miseries of life.” Fans of her work online will be eager to see her on the printed page. Canadian journalist (and Koul’s former journalism professor) Kamal Al-Solaylee said of her writing, “To me, she possesses that rarest of gifts: a powerful, identifiable voice that can be heard and appreciated across platforms and word counts.”

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan: In her debut novel, Alyan tells the story of a Palestinian family that is uprooted by the Six-Day War of 1967 and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. This heartbreaking and important story examines displacement, belonging, and family in a lyrical style.

June:

So Much Blue by Percival Everett: In Everett’s 30th book, an artist toils away in solitude, painting what may be his masterpiece. Alone in his workspace, secluded from his children, best friend, and wife, the artist recalls memories of past affairs, past adventures, and all he’s sacrificed for his craft.

Hunger by Roxane Gay: A few years ago, Gay wrote Tumblr posts on cooking and her complex relationship with food that were honest yet meditative. It was on the cusp of her breakthrough essay collection Bad Feminist. Now she may be a household name, but her second nonfiction book delves into the long-running topic of the role food plays in her family, societal, and personal outlook with the same candor and empathy.

The City Always Wins by Omar Robert Hamilton: A debut novel about the Egyptian revolution from filmmaker and activist Hamilton, who has written about the events of Tahrir square for The Guardian and elsewhere

Continued:

And beyond:

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward: The Odyssey has been repeatedly invoked by early reviewers of Sing, Unburied, Sing, which follows its protagonist on the journey from rural Mississippi to the state penitentiary and beyond. In the hands of a less talented writer, that parallel might seem over-the-top, but in the hands of one of America’s most talented, generous, and perceptive writers, it’s anything but.

The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet: A madcap critical theory mystery by the author of HHhH. In the new novel, a police detective comes up against the likes of Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Julia Kristeva. It sounds bonkers.

Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang: Zhang’s got range: the poet/Rookie writer/essayist/ and now fiction writer has a voice that’s at once incisive and playful and emboldened. “If I fart next to a hulking white male and then walk away, have I done anything important?” she asks in her chapbook Hags, when wondering about ways to fight imperialism; she has written of encounters with white privilege as a Chinese American, of messiness and feelings and depression, of errata and text messages and Tracey Emin, and of resisting Donald Trump. Zhang’s sure to bring this force to her first collection of short stories, Sour Heart, which will be the first book published by Lena Dunham’s Lenny imprint.

What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons: A debut novel from Apogee Journal cofounder and contributing editor at LitHub. Thandi loses her South African mother and navigates the process of grieving and growing up in Pennsylvania.

This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins: Jerkins is way too accomplished for her age, but her range of skills and interests – 19th-century Russian lit, postwar Japanese lit, speaker of six languages, editor, assistant literary agent — is so awesome I just can’t begrudge her. Jerkins writes reportage, personal essays, fiction, profiles, interviews, literary criticism, and sports and pop culture pieces. Now she has an essay collection coming out: This Will Be My Undoing. Some of her previously published essays include “The Psychic Toll of Reading the News While Black”, “Why I Got a Labiaplasty in My 20s”, and “How Therapy Doesn’t Make Me a Bad Christian” — all of which may or may not be collected in the new book; but you get a feel for the great stuff we can expect.

>178 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. I'll certainly resume those exercises no later than tomorrow.

>180 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I'll resume reading Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City this afternoon.

I keep hoping that my ex-GF will take the hint, since I haven't replied to any of her letters, and realize that I'm not interested in marrying her. I loved her fiercely when I was in college, but it's been over 35 years since I last saw her, and I have absolutely no feelings for her anymore. She dropped out of Tulane, never finished college, and (I think) is struggling to make ends meet after her husband died, so if I married her I would be basically supporting her and her son, with little in the way of return. The chance of me marrying is becoming increasingly unlikely, but if I do marry I would strongly prefer that my wife is well educated, works at least part time, and is financially independent, so that she doesn't become a burden on me.

The Millions' list is absolutely lethal. If LTes fire book bullets on occasion this list is akin to a high powered bomb, for me at least.

I took advantage of Verso Books fabulous end of the year sale last week. Their ebooks were either free or $1 USD, so I ordered 20 books on NYE and two more on NYD, for a total of $19:

The Mosaic of Islam: A Conversation with Perry Anderson by Suleiman Mourad: Today, 23 percent of the global population is Muslim, but ignorance and misinformation about Islam persist. In this fascinating and useful book, Perry Anderson interviews the noted scholar of Islam Suleiman Mourad about the Qurʾan and the history of the faith.

Corbyn and the Future of Labour: A Verso Report: The leadership election has come to an end with a huge victory for Jeremy Corbyn. He is given the mandate (again) to demand support from the Westminster rump that still resists his authority. Corbyn and the Future of Labour looks back on an extraordinary year – in which the Labour Party and its membership changed almost beyond recognition – and offers a variety of prescriptions for what needs to be done.

Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois: The distinguished American civil rights leader, W. E. B. Du Bois first published these fiery essays, sketches, and poems individually nearly 80 years ago in The Atlanticb, the Journal of Race Development, and other periodicals. Part essay, part autobiography, Darkwater explicitly addresses significant issues, such as the oppression of women and Eurocentric standards of beauty, the historical rise of the idea of whiteness, and the abridgement of democracy along race, class, and gender lines. Reflecting the author’s ideas as a politician, historian, and artist, this volume has long moved and inspired readers with its militant cry for social, political, and economic reforms for black Americans.

The Brexit Crisis: A Verso Report: The Brexit Crisis gathers together some of the most insightful and provocative reactions to this moment, from the UK and abroad, examining what happened on the 23 June and what this might mean for the UK and the EU as a whole. It looks at the ruptures, false promises and ingrained racism revealed during the campaign and afterwards. As the UK heads towards the exit, what is to be done?

Corbyn: Against All Odds by Richard Seymour: Corbyn: Against All Odds presents a new essay from Richard Seymour, in which he examines the bizarre, and thus-far unsuccessful, coup attempt against the Labour Party leader, and attempts to outline Corbyn’s prospects in such unpredictable and turbulent times, alongside an extract from his new book Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics.

Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move by Reece Jones: Forty thousand people died trying to cross international borders in the past decade, with the high-profile deaths along the shores of Europe only accounting for half of the grisly total. Reece Jones argues that these deaths are not exceptional, but rather the result of state attempts to contain populations and control access to resources and opportunities. “We may live in an era of globalization,” he writes, “but much of the world is increasingly focused on limiting the free movement of people.”

Beyond Black and White: From Civil Rights to Barack Obama by Manning Marable: Many in the United States, including Barack Obama, have called for a “post-racial” politics; yet race still divides the country politically, economically, and socially. In this highly acclaimed work, Manning Marable rejects both liberal inclusionist strategies and the separatist politics of the likes of Louis Farrakhan. Looking back at African-American politics and the fight against racism of the recent past, he argues powerfully for a “transformationist” strategy that retains a distinctive black cultural identity but draws together all the poor and exploited in a united struggle against oppression.

If They Come in the Morning … : Voices of Resistance, edited by Angela Y. Davis: One of America’s most historic political trials is undoubtedly that of Angela Davis. Opening with a letter from James Baldwin to Davis, and including contributions from numerous radicals such as Black Panthers George Jackson, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and Erica Huggins, this book is not only an account of Davis’s incarceration and the struggles surrounding it, but also perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough analysis of the prison system of the United States.

The City: London and the Global Power of Finance by Tony Norfield: The City, as London’s financial centre is known, is the world’s biggest international banking and foreign exchange market, shaping the development of global capital. It is also, as this groundbreaking book reveals, a crucial part of the mechanism of power in the world economy. Based on the author’s twenty years’ experience of City dealing rooms, The City is an in-depth look at world markets and revenues that exposes how this mechanism works. All big international companies—not just the banks—utilise this system, and The City shows how the operations of the City of London are critical both for British capitalism and for world finance.

The EU: An Obituary by John R. Gillingham: The European Union is a besieged institution. It is struggling in vain to overcome the eurozone crisis and faces an influx of refugees not seen since World War II. The Schengen Agreement is a dead letter, and Britain stands on the brink of leaving altogether. The EU is unfit for the challenges of the coming age of increased global competition and high tech. In sum, the drive for an “ever-closer union” has set Europe on the wrong course: plunged it into depression, fuelled national antagonisms, debilitated democracy, and accelerated decline. In this pithy, rigorously argued book, leading historian John Gillingham examines a once great notion that soured long ago.

For the Muslims: Islamophobia in France by Edwy Plenel, translated by David Fernbach: At the beginning of the twenty-first century, leading intellectuals are claiming “There is a problem with Islam in France,” thus legitimising the discourse of the racist National Front. Such claims have been strengthened by the backlash since the terrorist attacks in Paris in January and November 2015, coming to represent a new ‘common sense’ in the political landscape, and we have seen a similar logic play out in the United States and Europe. Edwy Plenel, former editorial director of Le Monde, essayist and founder of the investigative journalism website Mediapart tackles these claims head-on, taking the side of his compatriots of Muslim origin, culture or belief, against those who make them into scapegoats. He demonstrates how a form of “Republican and secularist fundamentalism” has become a mask to hide a new form of virulent Islamophobia. At stake for Plenel is not just solidarity but fidelity to the memory and heritage of emancipatory struggles and he writes in defence of the Muslims, just as Zola wrote in defence of the Jews and Sartre wrote in defence of the blacks. For if we are to be for the oppressed then we must be for the Muslims.

>177 kidzdoc: Whoa. Not to scare you or anything, but this type of person doesn't typically go away, they escalate. I strongly suggest taking the letter (and any previous letters if you have them,) to the local police department. I'm hoping that maybe you have a good relationship with someone there? Or that they are race conscious enough not to blow you off?

Continued:

Drought: A Novel by Ronald Fraser: A brilliant novel about memory, love, and the clash between the old world and the new, set in 1950s Spain.

Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques: In July 2012, aged thirty, Juliet Jacques underwent sex reassignment surgery—a process she chronicled with unflinching honesty in a serialised national newspaper column. Trans tells of her life to the present moment: a story of growing up, of defining yourself, and of the rapidly changing world of gender politics.

A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America by Óscar Martínez, translated by Daniela Maria Ugaz and John Washington: El Salvador and Honduras have had the highest homicide rates in the world over the past ten years, with Guatemala close behind. Every day more than 1,000 people—men, women, and children—flee these three countries for North America. Óscar Martínez, author of The Beast, named one of the best books of the year by the Economist, Mother Jones, and the Financial Times, fleshes out these stark figures with true stories, producing a jarringly beautiful and immersive account of life in deadly locations.

Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship Between Classes in Victorian Society by Gareth Stedman Jones: At the time the largest city in the world, Victorian London intrigued and appalled politicians, clergymen, novelists and social investigators. Dickens, Mayhew, Booth, Gissing and George Bernard Shaw, to name but a few, developed a morbid fascination with its sullied streets and the sensational gulf between London classes. Outcast London explores the London economy, in particular its vast numbers of casual and irregular day labourers and the artisans and seamstresses engaged in seasonal and workshop trades.

Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen L. Ishizuka: Until the political ferment of the Long Sixties, there were no Asian Americans. There were only isolated communities of mostly Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos lumped together as “Orientals.” Serve the People tells the story of the social and cultural movement that knit these disparate communities into a political identity, the history of how—and why—the double consciousness of Asian America came to be.

The Man Who Closed the Asylums: Franco Basaglia and the Revolution in Mental Health Care by John Foot: In 1961, when Franco Basaglia arrived outside the grim walls of the Gorizia asylum, on the Italian border with Yugoslavia, it was a place of horror, a Bedlam for the mentally sick and excluded, redolent of Basaglia’s own wartime experience inside a fascist gaol. Patients were frequently restrained for long periods, and therapy was largely a matter of electric and insulin shocks. The corridors stank, and for many of the interned the doors were locked for life. This was a concentration camp, not a hospital. Basaglia, the new Director, was expected to practise all the skills of oppression in which he had been schooled, but he would have none of this. The place had to be closed down by opening it up from the inside, bringing freedom and democracy to the patients, the nurses and the psychiatrists working in that ‘total institution’. The first comprehensive study of this revolutionary approach to mental health care, The Man Who Closed the Asylums is a gripping account of one of the most influential movements in twentiethcentury psychiatry, which helped to transform the way we see mental illness. Basaglia’s work saved countless people from a miserable existence, and his legacy persists, as an object lesson in the struggle against the brutality and ignorance that the establishment peddles to the public as common sense.

A People's History of London by Lindsey German and John Rees: In the eyes of Britain’s heritage industry, London is the traditional home of empire, monarchy and power, an urban wonderland for the privileged, where the vast majority of Londoners feature only to applaud in the background. Yet, for nearly 2000 years, the city has been a breeding ground for radical ideas, home to thinkers, heretics and rebels from John Wycliffe to Karl Marx. It has been the site of sometimes violent clashes that changed the course of history: the Levellers’ doomed struggle for liberty in the aftermath of the Civil War; the silk weavers, match girls and dockers who crusaded for workers’ rights; and the Battle of Cable Street, where East Enders took on Oswald Mosley’s Black Shirts. A People’s History of London journeys to a city of pamphleteers, agitators, exiles and revolutionaries, where millions of people have struggled in obscurity to secure a better future.

The Invention of Paris: A History in Footsteps by Eric Hazan: The Invention of Paris is a tour through the streets and history of the French capital under the guidance of radical Parisian author and publisher Eric Hazan. Hazan reveals a city whose squares echo with the riots, rebellions and revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Combining the raconteur’s ear for a story with a historian’s command of the facts, he introduces an incomparable cast of characters: the literati, the philosophers and the artists—Balzac, Baudelaire, Blanqui, Flaubert, Hugo, Maney, and Proust, of course; but also Doisneau, Nerval and Rousseau. It is a Paris dyed a deep red in its convictions. It is haunted and vitalized by the history of the barricades, which Hazan retells in rich detail. The Invention of Paris opens a window on the forgotten byways of the capital’s vibrant and bloody past, revealing the city in striking new colors.

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones: In modern Britain, the working class has become an object of fear and ridicule. From Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard to the demonization of Jade Goody, media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminalized and ignorant a vast, underprivileged swathe of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, hate-filled word: chavs. In this acclaimed investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from “salt of the earth” to “scum of the earth.” Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, he portrays a far more complex reality. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient fig leaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems and to justify widening inequality.

The Lives of Things by José Saramago, translated by Giovanni Pontiero: Combining bitter satire, outrageous parody and uncanny hallucinations, this collection of José Saramago’s earliest stories from the beginning of his writing career attests to the novelist’s imaginative power and incomparable skill in elaborating the most extravagant fantasies. Each tale is a wicked, surreal take on life under dictatorship: in ‘Embargo’ a man drives around a city that is slowly running out of petrol; ‘The Chair’ recounts what happens when dictator Salazar falls off his chair and dies; in the Kafkaesque ‘Things’ the life of a civil servant is threatened as objects start to go missing.

Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe by Charles Glass: Since the upsurge of the Arab Spring in 2011, the Syrian civil war has claimed in excess of 200,000 lives, with an estimated 8 million Syrians, more than a third of the country’s population, forced to flee their homes. Militant Sunni groups, such as ISIS, have taken control of large swathes of the nation. The impact of this catastrophe is now being felt on the streets of Europe and the United States. Veteran Middle East expert Charles Glass combines reportage, analysis, and history to provide an accessible overview of the origins and permutations defining the conflict. He also gives a powerful argument for why the West has failed to get to grips with the consequences of the crisis.

The Verso sale is over, but these e-books are still available for $5.99, and the three Verso Reports e-books are free.

>185 Morphidae: I agree with you, Morphy. However, she hasn't done anything illegal, and no one can say that she is stalking me. There's no crime in writing love letters, even disturbing ones, as long as she hasn't threatened me, which she hasn't. Although I'd like to think that she'll go away, deep down I don't think that will happen, and I'm mentally prepared to seek legal guidance or even report her to local authorities should the need arise.

Fortunately in the hospital I work at my race and gender will work strongly for rather than against me. Wow...I didn't think about this until just now, but I'm now the only African American male physician there who rounds on inpatients! There are at least a dozen women physicians from the African diaspora who are on staff, including seven in my group, but there is only one other African American male physician on staff, who happens to be the senior partner of the group that staffs the Emergency Department (interestingly he is also a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine). As a result, I am very visible and well known, especially since I've worked there for 16½ years. I'm very friendly with practically all of the Security guards, and I would trust them as much as anyone else to protect me in case my ex-GF created a public scene or tried to commit an act of violence if I rejected her advances outright. Outside of the hospital the fact that I'm a longstanding physician with a clean record at Children's, a beloved institution in metro Atlanta, would carry a lot of weight if something were to happen or if there was a conflict between me and her. I seriously doubt she would do anything violent, but I'm also sure that she is (or was) mentally distressed if not disturbed after the death of her husband, as her current behavior is not like her at all, so I can't be completely comfortable that her actions couldn't escalate in the future.

ETA: The fact that I was unaware until just now that I'm the only African-American male physician who sees inpatients at Children's speaks volumes about the absence of racial problems there. Although I hate ridiculously busy and stressful work days like yesterday I'm also very comfortable there, and that family like atmosphere that Children's likes to promote is very much the case for me. It will be a very sad day for me when I do decide to retire, and I'll miss the dozens of friends I've worked with over the years.

Woo! I just found out that I won an LT Early Reviewers copy of Human Acts by Han Kang.

>187 kidzdoc: I was a bit worried too, Darryl, when I read about this woman.
I am glad you feel so safe at work and hope she does back off when she has delt with her grieve about her lost husband.

>147 kidzdoc: I love that photo! You've got all the particulars right, including me taking it. That was a wonderful time that day at Spitalfield's Market.

>187 kidzdoc: Very sorry to hear about your stalker - dealing with people who are mentally off-kilter can be difficult enough, and now you have one fixated on you.

On the other hand, I love your description of your workplace. It sounds most excellent.

>189 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita. The hospital I work at is in a very nice part of metro Atlanta, in Sandy Springs, a wealthy suburb that is immediately north of the city. Having said that, though, there are no metal detectors in the building as there are in Grady Memorial Hospital, the massive public hospital in downtown Atlanta, and Hughes Spalding, one of Children's three hospitals which is adjacent to Grady, which Children's bought from Grady a few years ago. My hospital also doesn't require routine visitors to check in at the Information/Security desk at the main entrance from 6 am to 8:30 pm, so someone with bad intentions could conceivably walk in the hospital unchecked and create havoc. We haven't had any major events in the 16+ years I've worked there, but that is only small comfort if I think about what potentially could happen. I've never felt unsafe there, though.

>190 jnwelch: That was one of many great days we've had in London and the UK, Joe. I look forward to more of the same in 2017.

One or two nonthreatening letters a year is relatively benign in the overall scheme of things, but hopefully it won't go beyond that.

Children's is a great place to work overall. Last year Forbes Magazine selected it as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, which is the 11th consecutive year that it's won that honor; I'm pretty sure that no other hospital system in the US can make the same claim. The only reason that I still live in Atlanta is because I love my job, and the opportunities it allows me to travel and have sufficient time off as reward for hard work. I mentioned above that one of my partners still chooses to work here, even though his family moved to Connecticut. We all assumed that this was going to be a temporary arrangement until he found a suitable job in or near New Haven, but he has assured us that he is happy with the way things stand, and that he has no desire to find a job up there.

>187 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl. Speaking from a policing perspective I don't think it would hurt anything if you made a police report about this. Clearly she is not doing enough to warrant an arrest or even being spoken to by the police, but you have the right to have it on record that this is happening. That way if it escalates you would already have a file started for tracking. Domestic issues are a big ticket issue with my police force and we take domestic harassment very seriously as those situations can get out of hand quickly if someone's mental health is starting to become an issue.

Just my two cents there but I would hate to see anything happen to you!

>187 kidzdoc: I am glad that you've made her a known entity (" I've shown the last letter to my front office staff, in case she decides to show up in person, and asked them to not let her know that I'm working if she does appear, and to notify Security, just in case she does anything crazy."), that you have the support and understanding at your hospital and in your community, and that you face so few difficulties that you didn't realize that you're "the only African-American male physician who sees inpatients at Children's." I know we're talking about a crazy ex writing uncomfortable letters, but at the end I find I just feel happy for you...

>177 kidzdoc: At least it sounds like she doesn't know where you live. That would be worse I suspect because if she showed up there you wouldn't have any backup around.

Glad to see you posting again, Darryl! Happy New Year, my friend. Do you have some down-time now? Fingers crossed.

>188 kidzdoc: Just saw a review on Charlotte's thread. My library has a copy of it.

>192 ChelleBearss: Thanks for the advice, Chelle. If she persists with or escalates her behavior I'll certainly consider reporting her to the police. I feel foolish doing so now, though.

>193 London_StJ: Thanks, Luxx! I'm happy with the way things stand overall, and my ex-GF is only a minor nuisance at this point.

>194 RebaRelishesReading: Actually she does know where I live, as the first letter she sent was to my home address. That was quite surprising, as I got rid of my landline at least a dozen years ago and I'm not listed in the phone directory. For that matter, if I enter my name and address in a Google search I can't find me! I spoke to my cousin, who is a former state trooper about this, and he concluded that she used a private investigator to locate me. It's easily enough to find where I work online; all you need to do is enter my first name, profession (pediatrician) and city (Atlanta) in a search engine, and my name and plenty of pages about me appear, including the hospital's address, my work phone number, and information about my medical education and professional career.

Fortunately I live in a gated community, which has two levels of security before you get to my front door. It's certainly possible that someone could unknowingly let her through and that she could reach my front door, though.

>195 msf59: Happy New Year, Mark! Yes, I'm off for the next five days after working 10 of the last 12 days, including the past two weekends (i.e. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day).

Yikes! How is it 5 pm already?!

>196 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. I'm still making the rounds, so I'll check out Charlotte's thread shortly.

I must have felt my ears burning! I haven't done a proper review of Human Acts, but definitely recommend it. Powerful stuff.

Your lists of new books make me happy, although for me the Coetzee fell flat.

Stedman Jones was a big name when I was an ugrad doing British History courses. I like that book a lot.

>199 charl08: I'm glad that you liked Human Acts, Charlotte. I would have purchased it had I not won it from the Early Reviewers program.

I enjoyed The Childhood of Jesus, so I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.

Outcast London will likely be a summer read, as will several of those other books, since I'll load them onto my Kindle.

Stopping by to plop my star, dear Darryl! I have an ARC of the Han Kang book as well. I was a big fan of The Vegetarian. Not an easy read, but one that resonated for quite a while. I have big hopes for the latest, too.

Wishing you lots of reading and happiness in 2017. (Not that they are mutually exclusive!)

>201 michigantrumpet: Hi, Marianne! I'll probably read Human Acts in February. Do you already have your copy of it? I loved The Vegetarian, which was very deserving of being awarded the Man Booker International Prize last year, so I'm looking forward to this newly translated book of hers.

I think that 2017 will be a better reading year for me than last year was. And, as we all know, good reading = happiness!

>202 kidzdoc: I got Human Acts in the December ER list. Just got my copy. Took with me on vacation, but never got to it. Sometimes I think my books should get their own frequent flyer miles!

I am on my way back to Alabama and tomorrow back to work. It is the end of my vacation. I tried to catch up on all your threads and I gave up and skipped to the end. Once back into my routine it will be easier to keep up with you.

It has been a cold and windy drive back South. Even though I am in my car I need more layers of clothes!

>203 michigantrumpet: Nice. I requested it in December, but oddly enough I received a second copy of The Mortifications by Derek Palacio, which I also received in October. I gave my extra copy to my neighbor last week, who happens to be one of the ER physicians at Children's.

>204 benitastrnad: Hi, Benita! I hope that you have a safe drive back to Tuscaloosa.

BTW, we're supposed to get a dusting to 3 inches of snow in metro Atlanta from Friday night to Saturday morning, and the forecast models indicate that the heaviest snow will fall through the heart of the city, instead of in the North Georgia mountains as it typically does:



I imagine that Tuscaloosa will see at least some snow as well, given the track indicated on that map. I'll be fine, as I'm used to driving in snow from living in Philadelphia and especially Pittsburgh, and I suspect you'll be fine as well. It's the other motorists here, some of whom can't drive safely even in perfect conditions, who make me nervous!

I hadn't planned to read Nutshell but your review is giving me second thoughts. And I love the fedora! I love hats but can't wear them myself without looking silly.

>207 cbl_tn: I'm glad to hear that, Carrie. Even though I only gave Nutshell 3½ stars I still enjoyed it and would certainly recommend it.

I've loved fedoras for a long time, although I didn't buy my first one until 2015, and I've worn waterproof herringbone flat caps for years, especially on cold, rainy or snowy days.



I wonder if old fashioned hat shops could choose appropriate hats that would look good for each individual, or it could be that some people just don't look good in hats. I don't know if I do or not, but I do like wearing them.

>208 kidzdoc: You look good in hats. And believe me, I am not the type of person who says something looks good on a person if it doesn't. The best I'll do is say nothing at all.

Happy New Year, Daryl! You had a long and busy Christmas Day! Your chili recipe looks divine ... safely copied into my computer for future reference.

Not in a million years could I ever keep up with your threads, Darryl, but I did want to stop by to wish you all the best for 2017. Good health, wonderful journeys, and brilliant reading, chum!

Love your birthday story! Sorry about the creepy letters though. Sounds like you dodged a bullet, but yup, a Whopper on your birthday just doesn't sound like the plan of a soul mate.

Nutshell sounds good, although it sounds like something thought up at a pub after a few too many beers and completed because of a dare.

And your list of 2017 books! I'm afraid to look! Too many book bullets on that list. And my unofficial New Years resolution is to read the books I own before running after new shiny!

>209 Morphidae: Thanks, Morphy! I'm cut from the same cloth as you; I find it hard to pay a compliment if I don't think it's deserved or is something I'm not interested in, particularly when it comes to books, clothes or food and recipes, especially in person.

>210 lit_chick: Thanks, Nancy! Emeril Lagasse's slow cooker chili was a huge hit, as the PCA (patient care area) 3 nurses were still talking about it on Monday. Anyone who can follow a recipe can make it as well as I did if not better, IMO, as I followed his instructions to the letter.

>211 tiffin: Hi, Tui! I'm glad to see you here, although I know I'll hear much more from you on Facebook. I hope that you have a very good, and not too snowy, 2017 as well.

>212 cammykitty: Thanks, Katie. Tia's Stir 'n Frost cake was only marginally better than my ex-GF's dessicated pineapple upside down cake, but the love she put into it made it far tastier and definitely unforgettable. My BK Whopper birthday meal (which would have been acceptable for an 8 year old, but not a 20 year old!) combined with Tia's surprise cake led me to drift away from that ex-GF, and vice versa. Weirdly enough she wanted to get back together after I left New Orleans and returned to Philadelphia, when I was getting my life back in order and she was still floundering. I was better off without her then, and that certainly holds true now.

Ha! Nutshell was a clever concept, and McEwan's writing is very good, but the novel felt stretched thin, and I think it would have worked much better as a short story.

I'll admit that I posted the Millions' Most Anticipated List more for my own reference than for anyone else, as I'll want to refer to it later in the year.

Speaking of snow and cooking my back is feeling considerably better today, so I'll go out later this morning, after rush hour traffic in Midtown dies down, and go grocery shopping. I'm still thinking about what I want to make, but I'll almost certainly want to give Emeril Lagasse's Macaroni with 4 Cheeses! recipe a try, probably the Quinoa Vegetable Soup with Kale that I recently saved to my Interesting Recipes board on Pinterest, Asiago Chicken Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Spinach, which I only made one last year even though it was very tasty, and One-Pan Lemon Herb Salmon And Veggies, with asparagus and new potatoes, which I saw a video of in November.

My Year of Reading:



Number of books read: 73 (the fewest I've read since 2002!)

Male: 44 (62%)
Female: 27 (38%)
Both: 2

Fiction: 38
Nonfiction: 25
Poetry: 6
Plays: 4

US: 24
UK: 16
Canada: 4
Mexico: 2
Nigeria: 2
Norway: 2
Russia: 2
Spain: 2
Angola: 1
Austria: 1
Brazil: 1
China: 1
Colombia: 1
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 1
El Salvador: 1
Finland: 1
France: 1
Ghana: 1
Indonesia: 1
Israel: 1
Kenya: 1
Pakistan: 1
Somalia: 1
South Africa: 1
South Korea: 1
Zimbabwe: 1

Top 5 Fiction (in chronological order):
My Struggle: Book One by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler
Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves
Judas by Amos Oz

Top 5 Nonfiction (in chronological order):
Walking Prey: How America's Youth Are Vulnerable to Sex Slavery by Holly Austin Smith
Stokely: A Life by Peniel E. Joseph
It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan
One Righteous Man: Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York by Arthur Browne
What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear by Danielle Ofri, MD

Novel of the Year: My Struggle: Book One

Nonfiction Book of the Year: It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness

Head spinning Darryl from far too much to digest or even begin to comment upon.

New books to look forward to my own little list of those I will be looking out for:

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Kevin Wilson
Dan Chaon
Penelope Lively
Aravind Adiga
Samanta Schweblin

Rest up that back and creep away from the crawlies or is it crawl away from the creepies?

>216 PaulCranswick: Kay and Dan in Club Read felt likewise about the Most Anticipated Books posts, although Barbara appreciated it.

I would have added Devil on the Cross by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o to that list, but I already own it and I read it last year. I gave it 3½ stars, so it didn't knock my socks off.

Hopefully I won't have to crawl away from my one creepy this year or in future ones.

ETA: Although my back is much better it's still sore, so I think I'll actually postpone shopping and cooking until tonight after dinner or tomorrow morning, to avoid aggravating it again. I'll stay inside again today and, unlike yesterday, I plan to get some good reading done.

Wow. Lots of stuff on this thread. Happy New Year, Darryl, a little late, of course.

I think you look fine in a fedora. I would like to wear hats, (other than winter ones), but at my non-height most of them make me look like a mushroom. They'd have to be very small, so people would still be able to see my shining face.

Your book acquisitions are impressive. Time to read, even now that I'm retired, has been rare, but I'm determined to set some aside. I look forward to your reviews and comments.

I hope the back improves shortly. Take care.

I imagine I'd remember my 20th better if something memorable happened. I clearly remember my 21st.

That's pretty concerning about the ex girlfriend. Creepy! But if nothing has happened in five years, then maybe nothing's going to happen. Has the content been escalating? But it is totally weird that she knows where you live!

As for participating in more book discussions and fewer off-topic discussions, I totally hear you. Off topic is fun sometimes, but there's so much going on! Also, I'd like to spend more time reading as well.

Also, I agree, you look very handsome in a fedora.

>213 kidzdoc: When it comes to clothes/accessories that aren't attractive, first, I don't like fibbing. And, second, I'm not doing the person any favors by saying it looks good. I won't say anything mean, but I will, depending on the relationship, either suggest something else or redirect the conversation. (Or if it's my mom or MrMorphy, "Are you out of your mind?" and laugh at them.)

I wear a tweed flat cap when it's cold. My wife likes the look and that's 90% of the voting block right there. Unfortunately, I don't look good in a fedora..."unfortunately" because I like the style of the '20s and '30s and think fedoras are a big part of it. My head is too big and my face too round. You, however, I think would look good.

I wore a boater once to a summer party once with a seersucker suit (again with the love of retro) but a slightly inebriated friend (?) somehow thought it was a costume shop hat instead of $100 thing and broke it goofing around. Oh well, I had my Gatsby moment and maybe it's best that I don't do that again. Julie has an extremely good, "You're a dork!" look when she wants to.

>218 ffortsa: Happy New Year, Judy! I was late in my New Year's greetings as well, due to my work schedule.

Thanks for the compliment! I generally think I look and act like a goofball, so any genuinely kind words are greatly appreciated.

I think you could pull off wearing a hat, but as you said it would need to be an appropriate one. Bianca is about your height, I think, and I helped her pick out a summer hat when we visited Parc Güell in Barcelona that I thought looked very good on her. Let me see if I can find a photo of her wearing it...yes, I thought I took one while we were there:



I don't think there's a photo of me wearing the chocolate brown straw fedora I bought there, as we waited for our entry time to Antoni Gaudí's famed park. I think my hat only cost 6-8€ and hers was 10-12€, so we left them behind before we left Barcelona at the end of the month. I now wish I had kept mine, though.

I have way too many unread books, both paper and electronic ones, so I really need to make a dent in my TBR collection this year, especially since I'm not getting any younger! I suspect that I'll be more successful in 2017 than in years past, but we'll see.

Hopefully you can find more time to read this year than last.

My back feels much better today, but I'll still play it safe and not do too much until at least this evening, although I'll probably wait until tomorrow morning to go grocery shopping.

>219 The_Hibernator: I don't remember my 21st birthday at all! That would have been in March 1982, and that was the month that I started working as a lab technician ina quality control lab in suburban Philadelphia. I don't think I had a big celebration, and I doubt that I met up with any of my old high school friends.

I'd like to think that my ex-GF will do nothing more than write love letters, and if that's all she does then it's almost a non-issue. Hopefully she's gotten some counseling, as she clearly was badly traumatized by her husband's premature death. I would have been happy to have been a friend in need to her after he died, even though I'm no longer in love with her, but she was deceitful about her intentions in the first letter she sent, to my unlisted address, and it wasn't until the second letter that she told me what had happened (which I had found out by doing a Google search), and what her true intentions were. She was dishonest with me during our relationship, so I did not appreciate a repeat of that behavior.

I'll probably spend more time in Club Read this year than 75 Books, as the book discussions there are generally more rich and rewarding and there are little, if any, off topic discussions. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm as guilty as anyone else of posting non book related topics (cooking, wacky ex-GFs, politics, etc.), so hopefully that group will provide me with a bit more discipline as well, so that I can spend more time reading.

>220 The_Hibernator: Aww...thanks!

>221 Morphidae: I agree, Morphy. However, I also have a hard time making unsolicited recommendations about the items that friends wear, especially when I think they would look far better in another style of clothing. The closer I am to the person and the more comfortable I am with our relationship the more likely it is that I'll feel comfortable making suggestions (and, for that matter, receiving them, as I can be sensitive and thin skinned at times).

>222 TadAD: I also think you would look good in a flat tweed cap, Tad, although Julie's vote far outweighs mine. I do have a relatively small head, and almost always when I go hat shopping the seller shows me one that's too big for me.

I could absolutely see you in a boater and seersucker suit! I think you would rock that look.

Julie has an extremely good, "You're a dork!" look when she wants to.

Ha! I think I've seen that look a time or two, either in NYC, Philadelphia, Amsterdam or Utrecht. One of those withering gazes might have been directed at me, for all I remember.

>223 kidzdoc: "I'll probably spend more time in Club Read this year than 75 Books"

Not to make you feel bad or anything, but this makes me sad. :(

>225 Morphidae: Aww! If I can expand that comment I would say that I greatly enjoy the conversations and friendship in this group, but my work days when I'm on service give me no time to catch up on threads here, including my own. I generally come here first and visit Club Read last, and I do intend to reverse that trend this year, to be able to keep up with the books and topics discussed there. Although I would ideally like to have one home instead of two I have far too many friends in both groups, both online ones and those I see regularly in person, for me to be able to choose one group. After this week I'll work five to six days a week until March, and my presence in both groups will be limited, as I don't finish writing my patient progress most nights until 9-10 pm or later. I'll do my best to keep up, especially on my lighter work days and off days.

Our weekend weather forecast has taken a decided turn for the worse. Metro Atlanta is now under a winter storm warning starting at 4 pm tomorrow, meaning that frozen precipitation will occur here, and most of the models suggest that we'll get 2-4 inches of snow in the city, with one model suggesting that we'll only get a dusting, and another predicting that we'll receive 6-7 inches. The heaviest snow is still supposed to pass through the heart of the city, instead of the north of it as is usually the case. I've spoken with the head of my group and one of the senior nurses at Children's this afternoon, and Children's will likely issue a Code White at noon tomorrow, which means that essential personnel are expected to make whatever arrangements are necessary for them to work their shifts. Most of my partners who are working this weekend have already made plans to sleep in the hospital from Friday through Sunday nights; those of you who have followed my thread for the past few years will remember that I spent two three night stretches in the hospital in 2014, and another night there in 2015 or 2016. Our severe winter weather usually occurs in mid to late January, so this is a very typical time of year for this to happen, although the snowfall will likely be considerably higher than we saw during the last three storms here. Those snowfall totals will undoubtedly sound insignificant to those of you from the Northeast or Midwest, but I'm also originally from the Northeast, and have driven through dozens of snowfalls of 4 inches or more, and I can tell you that it's completely different to drive in 4 inches of snow in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh than it is to drive through the same amount in Atlanta, where many people don't know how to drive in snow and where there are far fewer snowplows and salt trucks to keep the roads clear and free of ice. We're supposed to get sleet and freezing rain before the change over to snow, so there is a potential that the roads could be even more treacherous and impassable than they were during our Snowmageddon in 2014 that paralyzed the city for several days. There has been plenty of advance warning for this storm more than 24 hours in advance, though, so hopefully the city and metropolitan area will be better prepared this time around.

Fortunately I don't have to return to work until Monday morning, so I can hunker down here for the next three days. Unfortunately I had planned to spend Sunday with Zoë, who is in town for a conference with her husband Mark. One of my friends, a pediatrician in town, posted a photo on Facebook from her local Costco a couple of hours ago, which showed massive crowds of people in line to purchase necessary items for the weekend, as the Georgia Emergency Management Agency has warned residents in metro Atlanta to make preparations to stay indoors from Friday through Monday. I had originally planned to go to my local Publix supermarket to buy groceries later this afternoon, but I'll go there first thing tomorrow morning, or possibly to the nearby Kroger in the middle of the night, as it's open 24 hours a day. So, I'll definitely postpone any cooking until tomorrow.

>227 kidzdoc: Well that doesn't sound good! Glad that you don't have to work the weekend and can stay inside hiding from the snow!
I am a big fan of middle of the night shopping! I could do that when we lived in the city but our small town groceries all close by midnight or earlier.

Thanks for posting the link to The Millions, Darryl. I just added about 25 books to my wish list. Wonderful that you won a copy of one of the books you seem most excited about.

It says a lot about the harmony of your work place that you just now noticed that you're the only African-American male on the team. That's what I hope we can achieve as a nation some day: acceptng people as people instead of colors, ethnicities, or religions, and loving them as individuals.

We are expecting snow showers off and on through the night but it doesn't look like anything to worry about--no winter storm watch or warning posted. Snow is always worse in the South where people aren't as prepared for it. Good thing you don't have to drive too far if you get hit with the white stuff. Being a northerner born, you know how to handle it, but others on the road may not. We get the same rush for supplies when a Winter Storm Warning is issued. I've tried the late night shopping routine, but the stores here put away all the fresh vegetables around 7:30 p.m.

I agree with all those who said that you look good in hats. I've seen photos of you in both the fedora and the flat cap, and both are very becoming! I have ONE hat that I will allow myself to be seen in, and when I put it on, it has to stay on because I get horrible "hat hair." The hat discussion reminded me of Trevor Noah's first show of the year. He shared a photo of himself at Machu Pichu wearing a rather funky-looking sun hat: "No, no, I'm way too cool for hats, it's fucking hot, I'll take it!"

I never thought I would see the day, but I counted today and I reached 75 books read this year! First time ever. While you lament your low numbers for the year, I am celebrating mine. Like you I retreated this year from all the stuff going on in life, but I found solace in science fiction and fantasy reading. And boy did I read.

>228 ChelleBearss: Thanks, Chelle. I've had to work, and sleep in the hospital, for the last three Code Whites, as they have all occurred in January when I'm working most days of the month. The head of my group (who is a classmate of mine from residency and a close friend) teasingly suggested that I should come in this weekend, as I need to supply the team with home cooked soups and stews as I did in previous years when I was stuck there, so that they don't have to eat crappy hospital cafeteria food.

I prefer to shop first thing in the morning, but if I'm working the swing shift (5 pm to 1 am) I'll sometimes stop at the 24 hour Kroger supermarket on the way back home (Publix closes at 11 pm). Although I prefer Publix the Kroger down the street from it has an excellent selection as well, so I'll probably go there sometime between midnight and 6 am. Fortunately I have plenty of prepared food and essential supplies to last through Sunday, but I'll run out by the middle of next week if I don't cook before Monday. Actually, I do have plenty of bread, granola bars, eggs, cheese, pasta, pasta sauce, beans, frozen vegetables, berries, ground lamb and mixed seafood, rice and other grains, oatmeal and other items in my kitchen, so even if I didn't cook this weekend I could easily subsist on what I have at home for another week or possibly two. Most importantly, I have plenty of coffee!!!

I'm very spoiled by living in the center of a major city, as there are plenty of 24 hour supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies, restaurants and other establishments within a 15 minute drive of where I live, along with round the clock delivery service.

>229 Cariola: You're welcome, Deborah. There are plenty of books in that list that I didn't post which would be appealing to others.

I agree with and love your comment about race neutrality, Deborah, and that's part of the reason why I love working at Children's. Unlike my experiences as a medical student at Pitt, racism is not an issue here, certainly not for me, as I can only recall one parent (a nasty Cuban-American woman from South Florida) who I strongly suspect treated me disrespectfully because of my race. There have been numerous parents that I have strongly disliked over the years, but more than 99% of the time the (mostly Caucasian) nurses and other staff members hated them as well.

Note to anyone who will need to spend time in the hospital in the future, i.e. everyone: You can get away with treating your doctor like crap, but don't try that on your nurses, especially the good and caring ones! You'll receive the bare minimum treatment in return, and you'll end up seeing a variety of nurses who don't give much of a damn about you and will spend as little time in your room as possible. Do complain if you have a bad or incompetent nurse, but don't harass the good ones, especially if they are overworked and stressed out, which is frequently the case. They aren't your personal servants, they are highly trained, competent and dedicated caregivers, who are often your or your child's best advocates, and doctors like me who love the nurses I work with will get royally pissed off at you if you abuse them, especially the ones I'm most fond of. I hate parents who treat their nurses like crap and then act nicely toward me, and I won't be nice to them at all. Fortunately the vast majority of parents and grandparents I meet couldn't be any nicer or more appreciative, but this also makes the mean and nasty ones stand out that much more.

As I'm typing this message I'm also communicating via Facebook with one of the nurses who I'm most fond of, about the carrot ginger coconut shrimp soup that she made for her family for dinner and about the Code White that Children's will put into place tomorrow, as she is unfortunately working this weekend and will almost certainly have to spend her entire weekend there. Nurses like Beth are good friends and are dear to my heart, so any parents who treat them badly are automatically placed on my sh*t list, even if they are nice to me.

(Unsolicited and definitely unwarranted rant over. We resume our regularly scheduled program, already in progress.)

We're now forecast to receive 3-4 inches of snow in the city and immediate suburbs, with 4-6 inches in the northeastern suburbs. If this holds this may be the heaviest snowfall since I moved to Atlanta nearly 20 years ago, in June of 1997. I did see that the Mid Atlantic is supposed to get significantly more snowfall than we are, but I haven't yet looked at the forecasts for Philadelphia and NYC.

Thanks for the compliment! Hat hair for me is almost never a problem, as I usually get my hair cut every 10-14 days, before it has a chance to get too long. Do you have a photo of youself in your favorite hat?

>230 benitastrnad: Congratulations on hitting the 75 books mark in 2016, Benita! I should have done more retreating and reading last year.

We may or may not get much of anything here. We have a winter weather advisory through 7 a.m. tomorrow followed by a winter storm watch tomorrow afternoon through Saturday morning.

>232 cbl_tn: I'm glad that East Tennessee will be spared from the worst of this storm, Carrie. It looks as though Tuscaloosa, where Benita lives, will only get 1/2 to 2 inches of snow tomorrow into Saturday. The bulk of the snow seems to be restricted to an area from North Georgia into the Carolinas and Virginia. This is the latest image from the National Weather Service's Atlanta office in Peachtree City, GA:

Wow, you folks in the US don't do storms by halves, do you?! Good luck getting through, Darryl.

On the significant birthday note, I remember my 21st well, I crashed out at my own party early (suffering from missing my siblings and being the only one 'home' to deal with our parents breakup), my 30th was lovely, with my dad and his partner at their place and about 14 friends. And my 40th was wonderful too, friends and kids this time too, at a big shared accommodation in Hanmer Springs. The 30th and 40ths were good times in my surrounding life too. happily not studenting for my 30th and very happily studenting for my 40th!

>234 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan. Fortunately I'll be able to hunker down after I go grocery shopping early Friday morning, as I don't have to be anywhere until Monday morning, although I still hope to be able to meet up with Zoë & Mark on Sunday. 3-4 inches of snow wouldn't cause much distress to most people in the northeastern or midwestern US, but it is a big deal in the Deep South.

I'm glad that your 30th and 40th birthdays were better ones than your 21st birthday was. I can't remember my 21st birthday at all, which tells me that it was neither overly good nor dreadful.

They can't decide how much we're getting in East Tennessee. For Thursday night to Saturday, I've heard estimates ranging from 1 inch to 6 inches. I know they said flurries were in the viewing area around 6, but it's so dark I can't really see anything falling, and I haven't looked outside. The cats don't seem to be watching though so we must not have much accumulating at this point.

>236 thornton37814: I can confirm flurries this evening. I drove home in light flurries shortly before 6 this evening.

>233 kidzdoc: I like how they have "High Confidence," "Medium to High Confidence," and "Medium Confidence." I wish they'd do that up here in Minnesota. They're either, "Oh, no! We're getting 8 to 12 inches!" and we get 2". Or they're are, "Oh, don't worry, we're getting just 2" and we get 12"!

Ha, I like your rant! Long time ago, but when my mom was in hospice, I totally appreciated the nurses and they kept me sane throughout that time period. So good to know the doctors have got their backs!

And the food you've been talking about, yum! I'm hungry! But not for the stuff I've got in the house... and yes, it's too cold for a grocery store run at the moment.

I hope the back is responding well to rest, Darryl, and stay warm and safe during the storm.

AH, I can combine fluff and my favorite hat:



And the only other picture I have of myself in a hat:

Happy New Year, Darryl and a little fluff for your thread . While looking, I discovered that "Fluff " is a brand of marshmallow creme. Ugh!

Hooray that you won a copy of Human Acts. I have a copy waiting to be reviewed that I received a few months ago. It's been waiting for long enough, in fact, that I am feeling a little guilty and I am surprised that I won an ER book thls month - Dance of the Jakaranda by Kenyan author Peter Kimani.

It's after 3 am, I'm wide awake, and I'm mentally prepared to do some early morning grocery shopping at Kroger. Unfortunately my back spasms returned last night, even though I wasn't on my feet very much, and they have now returned with a vengeance, which now makes standing and bending over pretty torturous. As a result I'll lie down in bed for the rest of today, postpone any shopping or cooking plans until Sunday at the earliest, and I suspect that I'll probably want to stay inside the rest of the weekend, so that I'm not dealing with a bad back when I return to work on Monday. Fortunately, as I mentioned earlier, I still have plenty of prepared food in my freezer, and the only things I need to do are cook oatmeal and heat up soups and stews for the next three days. I'm thawing out the pound of ground lamb I had in my freezer, and I'll probably use it in some sort of pasta dish, possibly a variation of Morphy's Baked Prego, either Saturday or Sunday, as I have plenty of pasta, canned tomatoes, and a jar of unopened pasta sauce in my pantry.

I've told Zoë that this snowstorm is all her fault, as she clearly brought winter weather from upstate New York with her. It was in the mid 60s to low 70s with sunny skies in Atlanta last weekend, and Christmas Day was absolutely gorgeous, although I was in the hospital all day and didn't get to experience that lovely day outside.

>236 thornton37814: You're not kidding, Lori. When I fell asleep last night the National Weather Service office in Morristown, TN was predicting that most of eastern Tennessee would receive 1/2 to 1 inch of snow. The forecast has changed dramatically since then:



The latest forecast map for metro Atlanta and North Georgia hasn't changed, as we're still expected to get 3-4 inches in the city and immediate suburbs starting late this afternoon or early evening.

>237 cbl_tn: I hope the flurries you saw were an isolated phenomenon, rather than the start of your snowfall, Carrie, especially since it's supposed to snow all night tonight.

>238 Morphidae: The certainty of this forecast is unusual for metro Atlanta, Morphy. The meteorologists often have a difficult time predicting the severity of the weather we'll receive, especially when systems come from the south and west. Most storms begin to peter out once they cross from northern Alabama to North Georgia, and many of the tornadoes that hit Alabama and South Georgia, including the ones that killed four people in Alabama and Florida earlier this week, fizzle out. I'd like to think that the same thing will happen tonight, but that doesn't look to be the case so far.

Darryl--Sorry your back is acting up again. Glad that you have food in the house and that you can hunker down. We are in for snow and ice this weekend and will be in the same boat, or on the same sled rather. I can't believe all the book synopses you posted above--some awesome reads there! I just picked up The Vegetarian today and I am psyched to fit that one is sometime soon. Good luck with the crazy lady in your life, stay safe and warm!!

>239 cammykitty: Thanks, Katie. Most physicians who work in hospitals know that the nurses are the most important members of the health care team...or at least I think they do. I certainly do, and I view them as teammates, colleagues, and in many cases, good friends, including excellent ones like Beth (who is standing next to Santa at the far right of the photo in >103 kidzdoc:). Although they don't necessarily identify themselves as nurses anyone who follows my Facebook posts will see the warm relationship I have with many of them, especially when I post messages on my timeline about work (or cooking!). If I didn't like the nurses I have worked alongside over the years I would have left Children's years ago. They are, in general, underpaid and underappreciated, and I have the greatest respect for them (although I will openly fuss at the ones who don't provide good care to the patients we share).

it's too cold for a grocery store run at the moment

Yep. I can appreciate that sentiment, not now in Atlanta of course, but when I lived in Pittsburgh when I was a medical student at Pitt, especially that first winter of 1997-98 when the city had record setting snowfalls and brutally cold weather. I did a lot of cooking then, especially during sub-freezing and sub-zero weekends, which I got away from after I moved to Atlanta until the past four or five years. I'm especially grateful at the moment that I have plenty of prepared food on hand, and that I won't need to make a run with a bad back on snowy and possibly icy roads this weekend to go grocery shopping for the weekend.

>240 ronincats: Thanks, Roni. Unfortunately my bad back reared its ugly head this morning, but I don't need to work or go outside for the next three days, so I'm in good shape.

>241 The_Hibernator: The snow hat is presumably very warm and functional, but you look great in that fedora, Rachel! As I mentioned above, I wish more women would wear them and similarly attractive hats.

>242 vancouverdeb: Thanks, Deborah. Fluff was a common household item in many homes in New England and the Northeast from the mid 1960s to early 1970s, and it was used to make Fluffernutter sandwiches, which combined marshmallow Fluff and peanut butter on white bread. I loved those sandwiches as a kid, but you couldn't make me eat one now.



>243 streamsong: Thanks, Janet. Have you read your copy of Human Acts yet. If so, what did you think of it?

Congratulations on winning Dance of the Jakaranda; I look forward to your thoughts about it.

>245 Berly: Thanks, Kim. I'm very grateful that I don't have to go to work today or this weekend suffering with back spasms, and that I don't have to cook or go anywhere.

You're in for a treat with The Vegetarian, IMO. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

Ah! I just found a recipe online for One Pot Mediterranean Lamb & Mushroom Pasta, which looks divine. I think I have everything I need to make this recipe, although I'll substitute ziti rigati or penne rigate, which I have, for macaroni, which I don't. I'll make this later today, if I'm feeling up to it, or tomorrow.

>246 kidzdoc: The snow hat is presumably very warm and functional

Ah! An example of not giving an attractiveness compliment when compliments aren't due! :)

Fluff & Peanut butter sandwich - another USA delicacy which has not travelled here :)

Anti-Flam rubs + stretches + acupuncture seem to be the prescription which keeps my back in functional order

Keep up those stretches

Funny thing birthday years not had too much impact on me ... Not sure why could be my tendency to have friends who are significantly older or younger than me ? Maybe ...

>249 The_Hibernator: Ha! You won't turn (m)any heads with that snow hat, but you'll get plenty of attention with that fetching fedora, Rachel!

>250 roundballnz: Calling a Fluffernutter sandwich a "delicacy" is a bit of a stretch, Alex!

I took two 220 mg naproxen tablets about 1-1/2 hours ago, and now that I did that and am laying on my stomach my back feels much better. I won't tempt fate, though, and now that I've found a great looking recipe that uses ingredients I have at home I don't have any reason to go shopping anymore. I'll probably look online for another pasta recipe that calls for shiitake mushrooms and spinach or kale, or alternatively one that uses mixed seafood. If I find at least one then I can make enough food to last until the following weekend and I won't have to cook during the week.

Hmm. I started medical school and residency 10 years after nearly all of my classmates, since I worked full time and took university classes at night after my fiasco with my ex-GF and worked in a medical school research lab for four years before I decided to pursue a career in medicine, so many of my physician friends are younger than I am.

Hope your back is better soon Darryl. Love the look of that pasta dish.

Rachel's fluffy hat comments made me chuckle. I have a wide range of unflattering summer and winter hats - and don't get me started on how awful bike helmets look. Your fedora look is great, of course.

>248 kidzdoc: Yes, it is 2:30 in the morning. Yes, I have insomnia from Prednisone. Oh well--at least I got a new recipe out of it! I've copied that recipe to my Onetsp account--yum! If I can get to the store tomorrow, I want to try it this weekend. Thanks.

I hope the rest is good for your back and that it doesn't flare up again. I'm glad you're well provisioned to wait out the storm, and don't need to go out until it's time for your next work shift.

We've had a spell of very cold weather in London, with heavy frost each morning. As the university where I work was closed for 2 weeks over the holidays the heating wasn't on at all, so we came in on Wednesday to a very cold library! It will likely take several days to get up to a reasonable temperature, so it's a good thing that we have very few students in at the moment.

Take care of yourself and make use of the enforced rest to make a start on your reading plans!

Good plan to stay inside when the weather gets bad, Darryl. You must have enough to eat as I know you regularly freeze some if you have more than you need. Hope your back stops bothering you.

>252 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte. I'm eager to give the Mediterranean lamb pasta recipe a try, and hopefully I'll be able to do so this evening.

I also loved Rachel's fluffy hat comment. No one will (or should) claim that bike helmets are meant to make a fashion statement!

>253 Berly: Sorry to hear about your insomnia, Kim, but I'm glad that I could supply you with a new recipe. Do let me know how it turns out!

>254 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire. I'm having spasms again, so I'm very glad that I don't have to go out and risk injuring it further today.

Brr! How cold did it get in London? I hope that your library warms up soon.

I'll mainly read for the next three days, and I hope to finish all three books that I'm currently working on.

>255 FAMeulstee: Right, Anita. Slight twists in the wrong direction have been inducing spasms today, so I think I would be well advised to avoid walking on snowy and icy roads in supermarket parking lots for the immediate future. Fortunately my building has indoor parking as does the physicians' parking garage at the hospital, so I won't have to walk on icy sidewalks on Monday.

It's time for a new thread...

>256 kidzdoc: It's got down to about -4 celsius overnight, and not much above freezing during the day. Although it could feel warm in the sun, as soon as you stepped into a shady patch it was icy cold. Last night it clouded over and we had a little bit of drizzle, so hopefully today will be warmer. No snow yet this winter ...

>257 Sakerfalcon: Let's see...-4 C is about 27 F, which is quite cold, especially in an unheated building. My smartphone says that it's 50 F (10 C) there this afternoon, and the temperatures will fluctuance between the mid 40s to low 50s F (roughly 8-12 C) for high temperatures for the next seven days.

Hopefully London will stay snow free this winter (assuming that you'd rather not have snow).