Kerry (avatiakh) will be reading in 2017

Hi - just settling in, moving my stuff from 2016 to brand, new, fresh start in 2017.


Currently Reading:

Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil by Melina Marchetta (iPod audio)
Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra - crime
Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Lo Kuan-Chung

My Year in books 2016

My 2017 category challenge:

1) ANZAC - Australia / New Zealand literature
2) Israel & Jewish World literature
3) Nonfiction
4) Young at Heart - children's & YA
5) Scifi & fantasy
6) Books in Translation
7) The Big Read - doorstoppers & series
8) Challenges - CATS, TIOLI & Theme reading
9) Anthologies, short stories, essays, poetry
10) Thrillers - adventure, crime & espionage
+
Overflow / General Fiction

ANZAC challenge 2017

ANZAC Bingo 1x25
1: Read a book set around WW1 - Somme Mud by E.P.F. Lynch
2: Read a dystopian novel - The Quiet Earth by Craig Harrison
3: Read a book published between 1950-1979 - Living in the Maniototoby Janet Frame (1979)
4: Read a book about convicts or forced migration - The Second Bridegroom by Rodney Hall
5: Read a book by a dead author - The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde
6: Read a book from a 'best of' list - The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks
7: Read a book with a rural setting - The White Earth by Andrew McGahan
8: Read a book with yellow on the cover - Between Sky and Sea by Herz Bergner
9: Read a book less than 200 pages - News of the Swimmer reaches shore by Gregory O'Brien
10: Read a book set outside Australasia - The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth
11: Read a journal/memoir (can be fiction) - Looking for Darwin by Lloyd Spencer Davis
12: Read a book about colonists/settlers - Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar
13: Read a book with a name in the title - The Legend of Winstone Blackhat by Tanya Moir
14: Read a fantasy novel - The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan
15: Read a book about the goldrush - It's raining in Mango by Thea Astley
16: Read an award winner - Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher
17: Read a book with a murder - Trust No One by Paul Cleave
18: Read a book by a young writer under 35yrs - While we run by Karen Healey
19: Read a book with a school/education setting - Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
20: Read a book published in 2016/17 - The wish child by Catherine Chidgey
21: Read a book with a # or quantity in the title - Sixty Lights by Gail Jones
22:Read a book about a marriage - Perfect Couple by Derek Hansen
23:Read a young adult book - My sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier
24: Read a book by an indigenous writer - Mutuwhenua by Patricia Grace
25: Read a book with an animal/bird on the cover - All the green year by Don Charlwood

I've added titles but reserve the right to chop and change as the year progresses.

75er & other Reading challenges

I participate in the monthly TIOLI challenge and occasionally get a book read for the BAC (British Author Challenge), the Nonfiction Challenge here in the 75er group. In the category challenge group I've joined in a few already and I also try to read a book for the almost defunct Orange/Bailey's Jan/July group.
Group/shared Reads I'm hoping will get underway:

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth - May
Poldark series

Orange/Bailey's Jan:
The glorious heresies by Lisa McInerney

My Summer (Jan/Feb) reading plan -
_____
Several doorstoppers that I want to start and hopefully finish in Jan -
To green angel tower by Tad Williams, the final book in the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy
Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra - long on my tbr
Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong (14th century Yuan Dynasty) - my slow read for the year
King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett - have a few Macbeth dvds lined up for New Year viewing before starting this
more from my tbr pile:
The glorious heresies by Lisa McInerney - Orange/Baileys Jan read
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht - my AwardCat Jan read (category challenge group)

_
I have a pile of library books, not all will be read -
The Power by Naomi Alderman
The secret book of kings by Yochi Brandes

I'm also going to be reading through my tbr pile of children's and YA books - I have so many

Hi Kerry!

Hey there! Dropping a star! Looking forward to your 2017 reads. I actually finished The Secret Book of Kings not long ago - definitely recommend it! :)

Welcome back!

There looks to be a lot of great reading a great challenges in books ahead Kerry. I look forward to sharing in that where I can as usual. xx

Hi Kerry!

Dropping my star!

Hi Kerry, happy reading in 2017!

Thanks for dropping stars everyone. I'll start being more active here from New Year's Eve.

Hi! So funny to see you talk about Summer reading because it's dreary and cold on this side of the planet! Perfect weather to tuck in with a book. Enjoy!

Oh but the weather here is anything but summery - overcast, windy and not that warm.

Happy New Year!

I like the look of your Anzac Bingo. I might join in on 2X 12 (don't guarantee to read 12 though).

Dropping my star Kerry! I also thought the bingo idea for the ANZAC challenge this year was brilliant.

Hi Kerry. I'm joining the star-dropping party!

Happy New Year!

Hi, Kerry - great to see you back!

Don't complain about your weather: we're having a few delightful days of 98% humidity, ugh! :)

Hi Kerry--I'm looking forward to following your always interesting reading again this year. I was a frequent visitor to your thread last year, but mostly lurked. I hope to comment more this year.

Best wishes to you and your family for a wonderful New Year!

Oooh Kerry, that sounds like Winter in Florida... Hopefully you've got a few sunny days coming.

Cheers to a new year of great reading, Kerry!

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.

Hope you have a wonderful 2017!

Happy New Year! (dropping a star)

Happy New Year, Kerry!

>6 DianaNL: >16 DianaNL: Hi Diana - must do the rounds and say hello

>7 EllAreBee: hi - thanks for the feedback on The secret book of kings, one I'm very much looking forward to.

>8 drneutron: Hi Jim - good to see you

>9 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul, I think you've visited me a few times by now

>10 kgodey: Hi Kriti - Another thread for me to discover

>11 Berly: Hi Kim - must keep up, I missed your thread in 2016, but saw you around in other LT threads

>12 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita - looking forward to some more shared reads. Have just picked up War without friends.

>17 SandDune: Hi Rhian - I'm quite taken with the ANZAC bingo too!

>18 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie - I've seen the reading bingo challenges take off everywhere else and seems to be logical when there's only a few of us doing the challenge. Sort of a year long TIOLI sweep!

>19 EBT1002: Hi Ellen - drop those stars!

>20 mahsdad: Hi Jeff - welcome to my thread

>21 lyzard: Liz - weather in Australia is hot, here not so great. Still doesn't feel like summer

>22 arubabookwoman: Welcome Deborah - I've been guilty of lurking on many threads these past couple of years, all I get for my trouble is loads of BBs.

>23 cammykitty: Yes, we don't get the extremes of temperatures, mild summers, mild winters with lots of wind & rain.

>24 katiekrug: Hi Katie - yes, lots of ambitious reading plans underway or being considered

>25 The_Hibernator: Hi Rachel - love the pic

>26 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul - hoping for a bright wonderful beautiful New Year

>27 ChelleBearss: Welcome Chelle

>28 jeanned: Hi Jeanne - must be beautiful up in Northland right now

>29 ronincats: Hi Roni - many thanks, star away

>30 jnwelch: Hi Joe - Happy New Year to you, I read something about retirement and poetry on your thread?

Happy New Year.

Love the stack of books in the topper - looks like some good reading there. Happy new year, and new thread too.

Hi Kerry! Just dropping off a star. Thanks for setting up the ANZAC Bingo. I think it will be a really fun way to go this year. I have a few books I didn't get to in the challenge from last year, so I'm sure I will find a spot for them.

Hi Kerry! Happy new year! Looking forward to keeping up with your reading this year.

Nice to see your categories. It's on my to do list in the next few days to come up with my own.

Kerry, it is gorgeous here! Sunrise is the best, there is such a unique quality to the light, and I can hear the waves on the beach that's a bit down the road. However, we're not likely to get any rain now for a couple of months, so my garden needs more attention.

Hi Kerry! Happy New Year. Impressive list of categories and challenges; it will be fun to follow along with you this year.

Hi Kerry! I hope all is well with you. I'll be watching as you proceed with the Tad Williams. I have been wanting to engage another fantasy series, but I don't want to spend the time and get burned.

Happy New Year and New Thread, Kerry! My goal is be a more active member of this group, so here's to resolutions!

Happy Birthday and Happy New Year Kerry! :)
I starred you and hope to be able at half-follow this year.

>42 Deern: Lovely to see one birthday girl wishing another one!

Happy birthday, dear lady. It is still your birthday here so I suppose I just about made it although you'll be sleeping by now, I reckon. xx

Stopping in to say Happy Birthday, Kerry!

Happy Birthday, Kerry! May it be full of fabulous!

Happy Birthday Kerry!

Happy Birthday!!

Adding my birthday wishes to the pile. :D

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday, Kerry!

Oh thanks for all the birthday wishes. It was yesterday (NZ time) and I drove down to Hamilton to spend the day with my mother. So apart from going out for lunch we spent time checking her laptop, transferring photos and printing out the ones she wants to display around her home...and I finished my first book, a reread.


1) Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban (1999)
children's fiction
I've decided to listen to the Stephen Fry audios of HP. I've gone straight for the third book as I've read the first two many times and #3 is a favourite. I've only read the other 4 books once and that was when they first came out, so I thought I'd do a slow listen to them over the next year or so.
I'm only listening to them in the car when I'm on my own so I won't get through them that fast.

Anyway this was fun, I got through the last two CDs yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed the unveiling of Sirius Black as good guy, not villain.

2) Spice and the Devil's Cave by Agnes Danforth Hewes (1930)
children's fiction
Newbery Honour book, an historical fiction set in Portugal during the last years of the 15th century, it revolves around Vasco da Gama's voyage to discover the Spice Islands. I loved this, the politics of the times were really well done. There was lots of intrigue with the Venetian attempt to sabotage the Portuguese goal to wrest control of the spice markets from Arab domination. Also the expulsion of the Jews became an important part of the plot as the marriage of the Portuguese King to a Spanish princess would only go ahead if he expelled the Jews from Portugal. Magellan, as a young page, was also an endearing character. I need to find another book on this corner of history.

The illustrations at the start of each chapter by Lynd Ward were quite superb.

>51 avatiakh: That does look like a good one, Kerry and beautifully presented.

Happy New Thread, Kerry! Happy New Year! And Happy Birthday. Lots to celebrate over here, my friend.

>51 avatiakh: I love the cover and the illustrations. The plot sounds interesting.

>52 PaulCranswick: >54 brodiew2: It was a darn good read for juvenile fiction.
>53 msf59: Hi Mark - Yes, and now I have to wait 12 months for it to happen all over again!

Finding some interesting potential reads in this 29 Scottish Novels to Look Forward to in 2017 list from the Scottish Book Review: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/blog/reading/2017/01/29-scottish-novels-to-look...

I listened to the Dale readings of HP. I would love to hear Fry's, but I don't know how to legally it it in the US.

Oh, Happy Belated Birthday, Kerry!

>31 avatiakh: Yes to both. 98% retired, and lots of reading and writing poetry going on.

>56 The_Hibernator: We listened to Jim Dale narrating the HPs, too. You should be able to order the Stephen Fry ones from Amazon UK, although it may be a bit of a pricey way to go.

>56 The_Hibernator: Not sure how I got them, possibly from amazon uk. I would have got them for my children back when the books first came out. They got a lot of use at the time but I never listened to them.

>57 jnwelch: Thanks. Pretty low-key having a birthday at this time of year. Oh, so your reading time has had a big nudge.

3) Trust No One by Paul Cleave (2015)
crime
Read this for the ANZAC reading challenge. I lapped up this entertaining psychological thriller in a couple of days. My second book by Cleave and I'll definitely be back for more as I thought his debut, The Cleaner was a great read too.

Jerry is a fairly successful crime writer with the pseudonym, Henry Cutter, who at the age of 49 develops Alzeimer's. The disease's grip on him is sudden and rapid. He keeps a journal to remember who he really is because he sometimes gets confused between what is real and what is fiction, confessing to the murders from his books could land him in a lot of trouble but maybe he really has done murder...Jerry could be his own worse enemy, maybe Henry Cutter is some sort of alter ego? Where did he put his journal, it could have all the answers.
The book does a back and forward time thing using the journal to the point that the reader too becomes a little confused just like Jerry.

This was my first book that I actually started in 2017, I still have a few leftovers from 2016 to finish up.

>55 avatiakh: I like the sound of City of Circles and Unspeakable.

I hadn't realised there were so many Scottish crime writers.

I hadn't even known there was a Scottish Review of Books till a few days ago! Went looking for info on Kapka Kassabova's new book, Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe.

I read Trust No One last year (actually year before last--2015) and liked it a lot. I have a couple of other Paul Cleave books on my Kindle that I need to get to.

>62 arubabookwoman: Hi Deborah - I've noticed over on goodreads ratings that people either love it or hate it. I'm quite partial to that type of story so loved it. The cleaner is really good, the main character is the killer which not everybody likes.

My main discovery last year was Garry Disher, I had read him before but flew through the entire Wyatt series in a few weeks.

>56 The_Hibernator: -58 I'm pretty sure they won't ship the Fry audiobooks to US addresses. At least they wouldn't when I wanted them a few years ago. Not even Pottermore would sell it if your card was US based.

If you shoot me a PM Rachel, I might be able to help you out. ;)

Happy belated Birthday .... sounds like you had a great day

>64 leahbird: Tomm and I never had a problem ordering the Fry versions and having them shipped to us here in the U.S. I can't remember, but I think we ordered them from The Book Depository...?

Gotta love country by country licenses.

>65 roundballnz: Thanks Alex

>67 Morphidae: Yes, I'm fairly sure that the libraries here in New Zealand went with the Jim Dale audio cds which is why I went online to buy the UK versions. There are subtle differences of vocabulary etc in the US & UK book editions not just the title difference in the first book.


The cat from Hunger Mountain by Ed Young (2016)
picturebook
This is a cautionary fable set in old China. Basically the moral is not to waste what you have. The collage illustration style is simply superb and makes this a delightful read.
'A wealthy lord has everything, yet it’s never enough until deprivation teaches him life’s true riches.'

4) The Leaving by Tara Altebrando (2016)
YA
An interesting premise and held my attention though it finished up with a bit of a whimper. Eleven years earlier six 5 yr old children were taken from a small town in Florida. One night, 5 return, they are pushed out from a van, each with a map to their family home, each with no memory of the past eleven years. The story focuses mostly on two of these teens plus Avery, the sister of the boy who did not return, as they try to solve the mystery of those missing years.

The Book of Bees by Piotr Socha & Wojciech Grajkowski (2016) (2015 Polish)
children's nonfiction picturebook
I didn't read every page of this book but have to make mention of this gorgeous large-size (almost A3) picturebook which would be an ideal gift for any child who likes honey on their toast. The illustrations by Socha are fantastic and depicts the life of the bee, all about honey and the history of bees & beekeeping.

>59 avatiakh: I have at least one Paul Cleave on the shelves, Cemetery Lake and you will help it get nudged upwards for sure.

Have a great weekend.

>70 avatiakh: I'm disappointed. Neither my library nor interlibrary loan has this book.

Well I've hardly started the year and already feeling overwhelmed by the massive pile of library books that I haven't been able to get read. I've decided to cull the pile considerably as most are from December, I'll drip feed them back in over the next few months as I do want to read the majority of them. There is a tbr pile challenge that I feel drawn to, only read your own books for the first three months of the year, plus whatever you already have home from the library. I'd add a caveat to be able to read the latest edition to series I'm addicted to as I picked up the latest Montalbano the other day and I definitely want to read that asap.


Today I picked up (from the library) the new Taschen edition of a cookbook by Salvador Dali, Les Diners de Gala. Just flicking through it looks to be more a depiction of excess rather than creativity. Lots of photos of elaborate feasts with an older Dali in attendance plus some surreal illustrations that would possibly put you off eating. I had a teenage 'crush' on the younger Dali when I read The secret life of Salvador Dali back when I was about 17. I loved his rejection of the normal, the eccentric behaviour and his approach to the creative arts.
More about it here: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/04/29/salvador-dali-les-diners-de-galacookboo...

>72 Morphidae: It's very new and looks to be a UK publication. Definitely one libraries should get hold of, can you do 'suggestions for purchase'? I do this all the time and have been highly successful. An acquisitions librarian once told me that they really appreciate suggestions for children's literature as they don't get that many.

Happy belated birthday! It's the same day as my Mum's birthday. A good day. :) I sympathize with the need to back off on reading piles. I tend to make big plans and piles at the beginning of January and get a little overwhelmed by the middle of January. Lol

Happy New Year, Kerry!

>51 avatiakh: Spice and the Devil's Cave looks terrific -- I had never heard of it before!

>75 nittnut: Oh, it's @Deern's birthday as well. These past couple of years I'm making it a new tradition to visit my mum as we don't celebrate Christmas (she now spends Christmas Day with my brother's family, he & wife are Baptist ministers) and with all the holiday traffic, it's usually the first decent day to be on the road.

>76 AMQS: Hi Anne, I wouldn't have come across it either except I was on twitter one evening and noticed a tweet from LT's Tim Spalding, looking for children's fiction set in Portugal. I did a LT tagmash search and it came up. So he was happy as I was the only one to reply and I thought it looked an interesting read, only took me a couple of months to finally get to it.

Popped in to a Salvation Army charity shop that has recently opened close to home and they had all books at $1 each. I was able to get my mother a couple of books that I've already read that I know she'll like:
The Cuckoo's Calling, the 1st Cormoran Strike book
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

I also got:
Love as a stranger by Owen Marshall - his latest bk
The Journals of Sylvia Plath
The constant nymph by Margaret Kennedy
The Celestial Railroad & other stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
and some old children's fiction
The whale's child by Gillian Rubenstein (aka Lian Hearn)
The painted garden by Noel Streatfield
When Marnie was there by Joan G. Robinson

Nice haul, Kerry! I wish they had that kind of sales here as well.
Loved the 3rd Harry Potter and still think it was the best one plot-wise.

>72 Morphidae: >74 avatiakh: As a collections librarian I can tell you it can sometimes be tricky to get UK books in North America. It can often be a year or more (if ever) before someone acquires the publishing rights.

Oh, I hope you enjoy The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Kerry. I sure did.

>74 avatiakh: Wow, that was a challenge. The library revamped the website to make things more "user-friendly." You know how that goes. It meant that I couldn't find where they put purchase recommendations and had to use the chat function. Ah well. The librarian took my request and showed me where to send my purchase requests in the future. It seems obvious now, not so much when searching for it. (The Contact page.)

I've also added it to my LT Recommended collection. Again, not so easy to do. I had to go to the second page to find it!

Why do I have the feeling I might not be getting a chance to read this any time soon, if ever?

5) The Flaw by Antonis Samarakis (1966 Greece)
fiction
I wanted to read this novel after coming across it in a Spanish novel I read last year, love in lower-case where the main character is meeting the love of his life in a bookshop cafe and buys it for her as a gift. Luckily my library had it stored in their stacks.
It's a great little read, dated but really well done. I'll quote Graham Greene from the back cover of the book - '...a story of the psychological struggle between two secret police agents and their suspects told with wit, imagination and quite outstanding technical skill...'
It won a few awards in Greece and France way back when and was a bestseller and widely translated, and a film in 1974. '...his novel “The Flaw” was honored in Greece, receiving the prize of the “12” in 1966, and in France, receiving the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière Grand Prize for Crime and Detective Fiction in 1970. In recognition of his entire opus, he was awarded the “Europalia” Literary prize in 1982, and the French National Prize for the Arts and Literature in 1995.'
An obituary for the writer here explains he had an impressive life outside of his writing & poetry: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/antonis-samarakis-37031.html
'His work is a testimonial on the tragedy of totalitarianism, the absence of freedom and people’s struggle to attain it. His work also has a strong element of denunciation of social ills, and it reflects his personal concerns for the present and future of modern society.'

The NZ Herald has a Sunday feature, my bookshelf where a well known person is asked about their favourite or formative books. I found lots to like in this most recent one featuring writer, Marilyn Duckworth.
Favourite authors:
Loving by Henry Green
Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
Books that inspired her to become a writer:
The Far Distant Oxus by Katherine Hull - read when 11yrs, quite a good story behind this book
Seven days in Crete by Robert Graves - read when 16yrs and based her first novel on the structure of this one.

A suitable boy by Vikram Seth - has not finished it despite starting several times, main reason is it's too heavy to read in bed -

I haven't read anything by Duckworth but if this little peek into her reading life is anything to go by then maybe I should. Her sister is the well known poet, Fleur Adcock.

I loved listening to Harry Potter on audiobooks, but being in the US listened to the Jim Dale versions.

Happy Belated Birthday.

6) The Essential Leunig: Cartoons from a Winding Path by Michael Leunig (2012)
cartoons
Read through this collection of Australian Leunig's cartoons, a mix of philosophical, silly and anti-war statements.
http://www.leunig.com.au/

Rivers of London: Body Work by Ben Aaronovitch (2016)
graphic novel
A short story featuring Peter Grant is given the graphic novel treatment and it all works out rather well. The first in a series of graphic novels that slot into the overall Peter Grant series. It was fun seeing the characters in full colour.

>82 avatiakh: Your review makes me want to read The flaw, Kerry!
A Dutch translation was published in the 1970s, I hope I can find a copy.

>86 avatiakh: I've heard good things about the GNs. I guess I need to get 'em on my list! :)

>87 FAMeulstee: Once I read about The Flaw I just had to read it and was lucky my library had a copy. I also have the sequel to love in lower-case out from the library and hope to make time to read that as well.

>88 drneutron: I'm in the library queue for the next one.


What I was doing while you were breeding by Kristin Newman (2014)
memoir
Not counting this one. This is billed as a sexy travel memoir and I thought it would be a fun read as Newman has worked as a writer or producer on several well known comedy shows such as 'How I met your mother' & 'Chuck'. After reading the first chapter I decided to flick through and read bits n pieces, so flicked through the chapter on New Zealand, another where she spent a month in South America and then the chapter on Israel. Went on to read the last chapter about meeting and dating the guy she ends up marrying. So I read quite a bit after deciding not to read the book, but it was only mildly amusing/interesting and sort of superficial gloss as far as travel goes. I'm not the target audience, though a good book should rise above that and this doesn't.

7) The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth (2013)
historical fiction
Well, first I can say that I'll be using this read for my ANZAC challenge to read a book set outside of Australasia. I loved this, probably not as much as Bitter Greens but close second. I'll have to read some of her YA fantasy.
This tells the story of Dortchen Wild, the young girl who lived next door to the Grimm family and was one of the main storytellers who supplied the Grimms with the tales that made them famous.
From the age of twelve Dortchen knew she was in love with Wilhelm but it took many years for them to be married (she was 32 and he was 39 when they finally married). She grew up in a time of war and Napoleon's thirst to conquer all of Europe including Russia.
There's a good article about Forsyth and the book here: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/missing-piece-of-puzzling-tale-2013032...

>90 avatiakh: I really loved that one when I read it a couple years ago.

>91 MickyFine: I'm liking it even more since I put it down. I kept wanting that marriage to happen!

Well late for Christmas but my swap books arrived today and I'm very happy. My santa had made contact, thanks helenoel for a great selection from my wishlist. Helen went to betterworldbooks.com for my books so I was always confident that they'd arrive. I had said that I was happy to receive used books, and these are used but all in good condition, a couple ex-library.

The mote in God's eye by Larry Niven - scifi first contact novel
The sound of the sundial by Hana Andronikova - a Czech novel, sad that the author died after writing a couple of books
The bone season by Samantha Shannon - dystopian novel
The Ten Thousand Things by John Spurling - historical novel set during the Yuan Dynasty
The husband's secret by Liane Moriarty - Australian writer

>90 avatiakh: BB taken for The Wild Girl.

>92 avatiakh: Looks like a really nice list of books - looks like she put a lot of thought into it. So nice. :)

8) The Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky & Moebius (1981-88 French) (2015 Eng)
graphic novel
A fun scifi adventure in graphic novel form. Starring John Difool, a rather shabby detective, who basically gets chosen to save the universe when all he wants to do is have a holiday with the woman of his dreams.
The artwork is extremely good. The Incal was first released in serial form.
_

There's a film trailer that's pretty amazing based on the same artwork as in the book - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Vkyzrs1Fk

>90 avatiakh: I loved Bitter Greens so will give this a go.

>94 avatiakh: Your summary sounds great. Will see if the library can get hold of it. I enjoyed vol 5 of the new Ms Marvel series.

>95 charl08: I'm really interested in trying her fantasy now. This one was better than The Beast's Garden which I still enjoyed, just felt it was a little light for the subject matter.

Not sure if you'll like The Incal, it gets a little weird at times.

9) Crush by Frédéric Dard (1959 French) (2016 Eng)
fiction
This has aged well. What starts out as a merely interesting read turns outright creepy to finish. One of the Pushkin Vertigo imprint, classic crime novels from around the world.
17 yr old Louise talks her way into a job as maid to a young American couple. She's seen them driving a big beautiful car near her home, a small neighbourhood on the outskirts of Paris and they only live a few streets away. Their home and way of life is so different from her own and while they are the perfect couple there does seem to be some unhappy secret.

Hi Kerry! Just a quick hello. Your Santa swap books are a great haul, and late Christmas is always fun.

>94 avatiakh: Oh, wow, that looks awesome! I'll have to dig it up.

>99 drneutron: Jim, I watched the trailer for the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune (2014), he had the rights to make the movie but failed to raise enough money for his ambitious project back in the 1970s. Looks interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg4OCeSTL08

Wow. Gotta see that. I'll have to check netflix tonight when I get home!

Hi Kerry, I've got a lot of catching to do here, and haven't had dinner yet, so for now I thought you'd be interested to know I just downloaded and am about to listen to A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life by Ayelet Waldman. I wouldn't have known the audiobook was out hadn't been for the fact that it is an editor recommendation on their home page today. Off to listen to it now as I sup and work on 'RIP, Rat' for a while... I'll be back! :-)

>94 avatiakh: I had a lot of fun with Incal, Kerry. Sounds like you did, too. What great artwork!

>102 Smiler69: Hi Ilana, I hope that it is a useful read. I'll be looking out for your comments.

>103 jnwelch: Hi Joe - Yes, it was fun and I'm happy to have discovered both Jodorowsky & Moebius.

10) Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher (2007)
crime fiction

Hal Challis #4. Read for the ANZAC Reading Challenge - read a book that won an award. This won the 2007 Ned Kelly Award for best novel. I'm really enjoying this series, have become a real fan of Garry Disher over the past year when I read through his Wyatt series. This book is one of those perfect police procedural reads, you know the characters well from the previous three books and the plot is intricate and satisfying.
Challis is on a month's leave visiting the remote rural area in South Australia where he grew up. His father is dying and he also wants to look into his brother-in-law's mystery disappearance from five years earlier.
Destry is left to manage on her own, there's a missing child and it looks like a paedophile ring is operating in the area.

2016 Reading stats:
I'm just doing a gender & country split:
Books by women: 73
Books by Men: 118
I'm happy with this as I don't choose books by the gender of the writers

Countries:
Australia: 25
New Zealand: 17
UK & Ireland: 63
USA: 44
France: 12

South America: 6
Israel: 8
Japan: 7 (manga & GNs)
Germany: 1
Estonia: 1
Italy: 1
Finland: 1
Netherlands: 3
Spain: 1
Iceland: 1
Canada: 1

You can see how running the ANZAC reading challenge really upped my NZ & Australian authors.
Surprised I didn't read across Europe more than I did. No India & only manga & GNs from Japan. Need to do better in Asia, Africa & across the Middle East.

Stats from Goodreads which includes picturebooks:
216 books / 61,080 pages
Just flicking through the book covers, I'm reminded of so many excellent reads
https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2016/1674550

Best Books in 2016:
I looked over my reading and almost all the books I read were good to excellent. I posted on LT's Top Five Books in 2016:

The Lie Tree by Francis Hardinge
Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton - I listened to lots of his scifi this year, but this is a stand-alone - note that John Lee is a wonderful narrator
The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and Anime by Toshio Ban - a graphic biography of an amazing creative genuis
Asking for it by Louise O'Neil - impressive YA
The Eternaut by H. G. Oesterheld & Francisco Solano López - Graphic Novel - classic scifi from author who along with his family became part of Argentina's Disappeared

I held back from adding series books, more YA and graphic novels, but honorable mentions to:

Two Brothers by Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon - graphic novel, based on book The Brothers by Brazilian writer, Milton Hatoum.
The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley - children's book
Black light Express by Philip Reeve YA

Overall last year was really positive in that I finished up or got up to date with some series reading:

Peter F. Hamilton - Void Trilogy & Chronicle of the Fallers duet - completely up to date with all his scifi, just a children's book & short story collection to read
Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles - finished
Jason Webster's Max Cámara - up to date
Garry Disher's Wyatt - up to date
and got 2/3 done of The Dragonbone Chair trilogy by Tad Williams

I also read the first book in several crime/espionage series such as Stuart McBride, Fred Vargas, David Downing, Len Deighton, Denise Mina.

I think I'll do a country by country highlight over the weekend rather than an overall 'best of' as there were too many good reads.

>106 avatiakh: I've really enjoyed everything I've read by Frances Hardinge but my favourite has been Cuckoo Song. Have you read that one?

>107 SandDune: That's on my tbr pile, I've read several of her books and enjoyed them all. I'll have to move it up the pile. My problem is that I'm reading the more recent YA from the library and ignoring the ones I own. I really have to limit borrowing books and start reading the ones around the house.

I spent my birthday money on a few books and they arrived today:


Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service by Michael Bar-Zohar - I love the cover
Farthing by Jo Walton - BAC challenge
The White Space Between by Ami Sands Brodoff - Canadian Holocaust novel
1917: stories and poems from the Russian Revolution
A Room by Youval Shimoni - Israeli novel '...a dense, stubborn, daunting, exhilarating masterpiece.'

Looks like a nice batch o' books!

>109 avatiakh: I have read Farthing from your interesting new adds. The White Space Between is one I will look for.

11) The story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor (2002)
fiction
William Trevor died in November 2016 and I meant to read this for a 'In memoriam' TIOLI challenge that Paul set in December but never got to it.
A lovely read. Trevor describes the times and the local setting vividly. Lucy is a delightful little girl, in love with the rural setting that she is growing up in.
The Gaults are an old Anglo Protestant family who have lived in Ireland for several generations. It's the 1920s and after some disturbances at the family estate the parents decide it is best that they take their young daughter and move to England until all the violence settles down. The night before they're to leave the unhappy Lucy does a disappearing act...an act that has consequences that echo down the years.

I had started listening to Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar but decided that I wasn't enjoying the narrator, so I've decided to read the book instead. I've switched to Melina Marchetta's first adult novel, Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil, which I'm already enjoying much more.
Library books still dominate my current reading rather than the doorstoppers I promised myself to get going on.
On the go currently:
The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz - children's
Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Griff - children's
The Power by Naomi Alderman - scifi
The spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson - tbr pile
A Voice in the Night by Andrea Camilleri - Montalbano #20
Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps' Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life by Patrick Van Horne - e-book read
The thrilling adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua - GN
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling - car audio

in the wings:
Good People by Nir Baram
Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
Poldark by Winston Graham
Romance of the three kingdoms by Lo Kuan-Chung
Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar

Nice review of The Story of Lucy Gault, Kerry. I'll try to read it later this year.

Hi Kerry! I've added The Story of Lucy Gault to my wishlist. It sounds like a book I'd really like.

I'll be interested to see what you think of Poldark. Of course the new series is yummy.....

I bought The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage last year and should try to get on with it this year.

Books, books, and more books! I need to have a reading clone.

>114 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl - I hope you enjoy it, I'd definitely read more of his work.

>115 karenmarie: I haven't seen the new Poldark as yet, thought I'd read the books first.
I've had the Lovelace & Babbage out from the library a couple of times before but am finally reading it.
A reading clone would be very helpful for me too, though limiting what books I borrow from the library would be equally useful.

Hi Kerry! Wow -- you're reading an amazing number of books! I enjoyed your review of The Flaw. I'm going to look for it -- maybe in Greek -- for my husband.

Anne - the book cover leaves a lot to be desired as it's a nifty little read and Samarakis was an amazing person. Possibly easier to find in Greek than in English.

12) Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff (2002)
children's fiction
A great read. Hollis Woods is 12yrs old, shunted from foster home to foster home, she runs away a lot. She's also a talented artist and at the start of the book she's come to stay with a retired art teacher and her tough old cat.

I liked The Power a lot - such an interesting idea. Your review of Lucy Gault makes me want to find a copy. I passed on one in a charity shop but should go look again.

>119 avatiakh: Oh, Kerry, I loved Pictures of Hollis Woods back in 2010, I am glad you enjoyed it too.

sorry double post

>112 avatiakh: - I loved The Story of Lucy Gault. I'm glad it found another appreciative reader!

13) A voice in the night by Andrea Camilleri (2016)
fiction
Montalbano #20. So the series rolls on. I'd seen the tv episode of this one but not remembered enough for it to matter. Montalbano starts the week with a run in with an impatient motorist and ends up with two murders to investigate.
At the library I'm first in line for the final season of the tv series Montalbano which is on order and also requested another Italian tv series to try, Murders at BarLume which is from the makers of Montalbano and is based on books by Marco Malvaldi. It's set on the Tuscan coast. So a new series to read as well.
http://www.mhzchoice.com/wordpress/from-the-makers-of-montalbano-murders-at-barl...

I'm glad you like The Story of Lucy Galt, too, but for another reason. I have it planned for a January TIOLI challenge (by an author who died in 2016) and I'm happy someone I trust liked it.

Just passing through. I've added The Story of Lucy Gault to my pile.
I don't know if you're a tea drinker, or just strictly coffee and books *grin* but a friend sent me a lovely herbal tea at Christmas called Summer fruit with Manuka leaf, the brand is Ti Ora, and it's sooo good that I must warble to someone.

Hi Kerry
Glad to see you are still enjoying Montalbano! I am waiting for number 18 to be available from the library!

Kerry--#13 already! Whew! And congrats on your birthday book haul. Lucy Gault looks good....

>120 charl08: I'm only in the initial pages of The Power and am enjoying it.
Now have a lot of due dates staring me down with all these library books.
Do pick up the Lucy Gault if it's still there or another by Trevor, his writing is well worth experiencing.

>121 FAMeulstee: Anita, Hollis Woods had been on my radar for ages and finally got it done. Delightful and reminds me of one which I'll have to look up. Ellen Foster isn't it though is a good read and covers similar ground. Ok, detective work uncovers The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson. I've added it as a recommendation on the book page.

>123 katiekrug: Katie, most probably was a book bullet from an LTer, I don't note where I get my recommendations from unless I read the book almost straight away.

>125 Morphidae: Oh, it'll be a shared read, i've already added it to the wiki. It also fitted Madeline's challenge, but I thought the 'died in 2016' was more appropriate.

>126 nittnut: Jenn, I gave up on black tea during a pregnancy when tea made me feel ill. I will look out for it though in case it is more a herbal tea which I do drink, though mainly chamomile.
Ok, I looked it up and haven't seen Ti Ora packaging in my neighbourhood supermarkets, so will note to look out for it the next time I go to the specialist food store in the city.

>127 ChelleBearss: Hi Chelle, yes, I'm still enjoying them but not as much as at the beginning. I'm going to read the Young Montalbano stories later this year.

>128 Berly: Hi Kim - thanks for visiting. i'm so puffed out reading all the threads that I'm guilty of often visiting and not adding a comment.

14) Goth girl and the ghost of a mouse by Chris Riddell (2013)
children's fiction
This is the first of four in the Goth Girl series. Riddell is probably better known as an illustrator, he's done the UK editions of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I knew him first as the illustrator of Paul Stewart's The Edge Chronicles. I love his style and he's also written a few children's books before. This book is a fun story about a young girl, Ada, who lives with her grieving father, Lord Goth of Ghastly-Gorm Hall. Her mother, a Thessalonikan tightrope walker, died tragically on the roof of the Hall during a thunderstorm when Ada was only a baby.
Ada must wear big heavy boots as her father believes that children must be heard and not seen, so when he hears her he has time to make an escape. One night Ada wakes to find the ghost of a mouse at the end of her bed.

some of the characters in Goth Girl

>119 avatiakh: I have her Water Street on the shelves and should get to it sooner than later.

>124 avatiakh: Unfortunately this one is not available in the shops in Malaysia yet but I am hoping to get to the UK at the end of next week and will have a look whether I can add it.

Finally getting round to visiting some more threads Kerry - Goth Girl's been on the list for a while.

>132 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul - I'm fairly sure this is the first by her that I've read. I haven't read that much about Irish American immigration to the US so Water Street looks interesting. I see that it's the 3rd in a trilogy so would probably look out for the earlier books.

Another success for me, after going through a long list of Irish children's writers best 2016 Irish reading lists a few weeks back I asked my library to get Kings of the Boyne which I was able to pick up yesterday. It was picked by several of the writers. I'm finding that following Martin Doyle on twitter very much steps up the Irish literature that ends up on my tbr lists. He's a literary editor on the Irish Times and posts links to interesting articles.

Yes, the Montalbano novels make great relaxing reading.

>133 souloftherose: I've also overlooked Goth Girl for a long while. I keep seeing the series when I walk through the children's section at my local bookshop. Probably not one that I feel compelled to continue reading though, I'll try his Ottoline book next.

Also picked up from the library shelves (I just shouldn't be allowed to browse there) was the first in a series, The Boy from Reactor 4 by Orest Stelmach.

15) The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz (2016)
children's fiction

Wow, this was a wonderful and very different read. Gidwitz has chosen the style of The Canterbury Tales, set in 13th century France. The book is set out like an illuminated manuscript, with beautiful chapter headings done by Hatem Aly, just a shame that it's all black & white. The book isn't perfect but will be lapped up by children and so it should, it will make them aware of history, persecution, sainthood, religion, all the while they are being totally entertained by these three incredibly different children.
A passing stranger stops at a village inn and asks for tales about the three children and a greyhound who are being pursued by the King. Are they saints or heretics?
Here's a quote from a review by children's literature expert, Betsy Bird: '...so let’s talk religious persecution, religious fundamentalism, and religious tolerance. As I write this review in 2016 and politicians bandy hate speech about without so much as a blink, I can’t think of a book written for kids more timely than this. Last year I asked a question of my readers: Can a historical children’s book contain protagonists with prejudices consistent with their time period? Mr. Gidwitz seeks to answer that question himself. His three heroes are not shining examples of religious tolerance born of no outside influence. When they escape together they find that they are VERY uncomfortable in one another’s presence. Mind you, I found William far more tolerant of Jacob than I expected (though he does admittedly condemn Judaism once in the text). His dislike of women is an interesting example of someone rejecting some but not all of the childhood lessons he learned as a monk. Yet all three kids fear one another as unknown elements and it takes time and a mutually agreed upon goal to get them from companionship to real friendship...Yet here we have a man who has found a way to tie-in stories about religious figures to the anti-Semitism that is still with us to this day. At the end of his Author’s Note, Gidwitz mentions that as he finished this book, more than one hundred and forty people were killed in Paris by terrorists. He writes of Medieval Europe, “It was a time when people were redefining how they lived with the ‘other,’ with people who were different from them.” The echoes reverberate today. Says Gidwitz, “I can think of nothing sane to say about this except this book.” '
Here's the link to her review which sums up this book far better than I'll even try to: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2016/07/07/review-of-the-day-the-inquisito...
another:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/books/review/inquisitors-tale-adam-gidwitz-ha...

Happy Weekend, Kerry! Hope you had a good week. It looks like the books have been taking good care of you.

16) The thrilling adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua (2015)
graphic novel

All I can say is that you are taken on a journey exploring a sort of 'what if' alternate history. What if Babbage had actually built his difference engine, what if Lovelace had been right alongside him helping in the process. The graphic novel gives you the actual true story of Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, a master mathematician and Charles Babbage, father of the computer, but also explores a sort of weird steampunk world where the ideas no longer remain on paper but are built and put in action.
It's an interesting read with lots of footnotes and endnotes supplying details of their lives and also the lives of their contemporary mathematicians and writers.
_

>137 avatiakh: Oooh! Sounds really interesting. I'm going to but that on my wishlist.

Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay by Susan Hood (2016)
picturebook

An informative picturebook telling the true story of a small Paraguayan village, Cateura, that built musical instruments out of items they found on the nearby landfill so their children could learn to play. The resulting orchestra has traveled the world raising funds that go back to help the villagers build a better life. The text is a bit workmanlike, the art lovely and the story inspiring.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/jul/13...
There's also a documentary: Landhill harmonic
http://www.landfillharmonicmovie.com/




We found a hat by Jon Klassen (2016)
picturebook
Klassen's third 'hat' book and he still manages to delight with subtle subversive humour and minimal text.

>136 msf59: Hi Mark, we are having lousy summer weather, hoping for hot and humid Feb/Mar.

>138 PawsforThought: A really interesting read, I didn't dwell on the end note pages, there is so much information on them. I did persevere with the footnotes and think that this period of mathematics is really fascinating, also several women were involved in the field.

Ideas are all around by Philip C. Stead (2016)
picturebook

A delightful, whimsical picturebook that just wallows in the everydayness of a neighbourhood walk. Stead takes his dog, Wednesday, for a walk as he's out of ideas for the story he must write.
I loved the art which is a combo of small instamatic-like photos, collage and drawings. He talks a lot about typing and typewriters and the font choice reflects that too. Overall, a lovely artistic evocation of writer's block.

___

>109 avatiakh: Sorry for arriving so late to your thread, Kerry. I love the mix of reading you do. Your birthday books look great. Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service would fit in really well with the reading streak I've been on (books about the SOE and SAS). And I added The White Space Between to my wishlist. Another for the wishlist? The Inquisitor's Tale. The book bullets are flying!

>142 labfs39: Hi Lisa. I'm also finding it hard to do justice to all the threads. That's quite a few BBs.

17) The Realist by Asaf Hanuka (2015)
graphic novel / Israel
This is a collection of comic strips that follow the reality of Hanuka's life as a family man, struggling to make enough money to live the life he had once hoped for, domestic and lifestyle choices and the nitty gritty of ordinary day to day interactions. I loved it, his art is beautiful and full of irony and imaginative ideas. Hanuka has an identical twin brother, Tomer, who is also a graphic artist and they collaborate on projects such as sharing the artwork for The Divine.

__

>140 avatiakh: Ada Lovelace is one of my favourite women of history and I get excited about any book featuring her. And if there is info about other rad women of her time, even better!

>144 avatiakh: Very helpful review, Kerry. I hadn't heard of this one. Added to the WL.

>141 avatiakh: Oh, I need to track that one down - we love Stead!

Good afternoon, Kerry!

>137 avatiakh: I saw this on a couple of threads last year. It looks to be both fun and educational.

>139 avatiakh: Excellent illustrations and a great idea for a story. I'll be looking for this one.

>145 PawsforThought: That's great. I want to read more about her definitely.

>146 jnwelch: Easy one to read too.

>147 scaifea: I really enjoyed the whole idea of it.

>148 brodiew2: I hope you enjoy both of those.

18) The Age of Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality, and the Financial Crisis by Darryl Cunningham (2015)
graphic novel

This nonfiction read gives an overview of Ayn Rand's life and her legacy, Alan Greenspan & the financial crash. I was wondering if I could find something Ayn Rand-lite so I didn't have to read Atlas Shrugged or Fountainhead but would inform me a little on the who, how, what of Rand's philosophy. This graphic novel fits the bill very nicely. The first third tells of Ayn Rand's life and growing influence, the second third is about the how the 2007/8 subprime mortgage crisis and financial crash happened and the last third is about the current politics of the US in the age of selfishness. Really interesting.

>150 avatiakh: That looks a really fascinating graphic novel. I love how wide ranging their subject matter is now. I must be better about reading more.

Kerry--Man, you are reading some really cool books! Ideas are all Around and The Age of Selfishness are calling to me.

>150 avatiakh: The Ayn Rand graphic looks interesting. I will have to see if I can get hold of it. Also, Ada's Violin looks really good. I think my kids would like it too.

You've had so much awful weather this summer! I really hope you get a nice February.

>150 avatiakh: The age of selfishness sounds good, Kerry. Frank bought Atlas shrugged a few years back, maybe I should read it, although I probably won't like her ideas.

Kerry I want to read all the books you've reviewed. I always try to read a picture book in the bookshop and the hat ones are so cute. And I might just treat myself to the Babbage.

Hope the great GN reads continue.

>151 lunacat: Hi Jenny - it's a good introduction to the topic of economics and also Ayn Rand. There are so many great graphic novels around, I've also got another Moebius to read, The World of Edena.

>152 Berly: Yeah, but I'm not actually reading the ones I was planning to read! I have 3 doorstopper paperbacks still waiting for me and only one week left in the month.

>153 nittnut: My son has been watching Adam Curtis documentaries - Hypernormalisation, The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, The power of nightmares, Bitter Lake and All watched over by machines of loving grace. He read and enjoyed the graphic novel and said it was similar to the first episode of The Trap (vimeo.com has most of these)
So far I've watched Hypernormalisation and will have a look at the others as Curtis explores the concept of power in politics and society.

>154 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita - I've also held back from investing time in reading those huge novels by Rand which is why I went looking for a graphic novel and was suitably rewarded. I sometimes see Atlas Shrugged in the charity bookshops but I just know I'll never crack it open.

>155 charl08: I want to read more about Babbage and Lovelace definitely, or watch a movie! Actually this graphic novel would be so great as a cartoon. B & L are both portrayed as eccentric loonies but with large large dollops of genius.
I have to confess that I get many recommendations through following some great children's literature people on twitter. I don't do facebook, just check in from time to time, but I'm a little addicted to twitter where I express my political self a little more freely.

Kerry, fantastic review of The Inquisitor's Tale! Did you see that it won a Newbery Honor yesterday? In many ways, things are much the same now as they were in the 13th century, and there is just no way to make that okay. I hope the book is widely read.

I LOVE Ada's Violin, too. Amazing. I read hundreds of picture books but never read/review them for LT. You're inspiring me!

19) The Book Boy by Joanna Trollope (2006)
novella

I've put this down as a novella, it's part of a Bloomsbury series - 'Quick Reads is the initiative for adults who have never got the reading bug or who have lost the habit, or indeed avid readers wanting a quick read.'
I thought it was a great little story about Alice who has a secret, a secret that has mightily impacted on her life...she's illiterate. How she solves this problem is done really well here. Trollope covers Alice's feelings of being disenfranchised by her husband and also her teenagers who feel emboldened to question her authority as she doubts her own worthiness and value.
I had this in my handbag as something to read as I was out and about but after I started it I just polished it off once I got home. The vocabulary is fairly basic and the font size fairly large but never were that noticeable once you got to know Alice.

>157 AMQS: Hi Anne. Yes, I was on @foggidawn's thread yesterday and also noted down other winners and Honour books.
Just want to make sure you realised that I did a cut and paste of part of Betsy Bird's review from the School library Journal, such an interesting review and saved me from having to engage my own brain. I really did like this book and also hope it will find the readers it deserves.

Ada's Violin being based on a true story makes me aware of the recycled orchestra. Did you realise that the rock band they toured with was Metallica (on a Latin America tour). I've visited Paraguay and came away totally enchanted by their harp players, I was attending a travel conference so got to see some of their top musicians.

Ooh yes, please do review your picturebooks. I love doing this from time to time. Some are just so deserving of a bigger audience and I love to give the illustrators a bit of exposure.

Hi Kerry, wondered if you'd come across Kingdom of Twilight? I'm not sure how I came across it, but wondering if you mentioned it. It's new in English translation - interlinking stories of two Jewish women in Poland at the end of the war, goings on to attempts to get into Israel, with some magical realism.

>157 AMQS:, >159 avatiakh: - Interesting to catch this mention of reviewing picture books here on LT. Just yesterday, I was mentioning in someone else's thread, about some children's books with gorgeous illustrations. There are 4 in the set (I own 3 so far but will be getting the 4th soon, I hope), the author is American and the illustrator is Canadian. I hadn't looked at them in quite some time but I pulled them off my shelf as I was writing about them and that inspired me to fully reread them. But I wondered if I should review them since they are children's books and don't have much in the way of writing, quantity-wise. But what there is, is stunning. The pictures are definitely in the magical realism style, and the author has interpreted each one so poetically. They are called Imagine a Night, Imagine a Day, and Imagine a Place. The newest one is called Imagine a World. I have added them to my shelf but haven't reviewed them yet. But I will now!

>160 charl08: Charlotte, I haven't heard of that one as yet. I'm usually finding new Jewish fiction through the Jewish Book Council. There are a few good ones I'm dying to get to and have now added Kingdom of Twilight to the list. Lucky that my library gets so many of these books. I'm really enjoying The power, should finish it today.

>161 jessibud2: Shelley, I love getting to hear about good picturebooks, I'm going to check out this series and also visit your thread to read more about them. My library has two of the books so I've requested both of them.
I have 3 picturebooks to write about, I came across all of them on recent awards lists.

Happy Belated Birthday Kerry! And, Happy 2017. May it be filled with books that take you to magical places!

Hi Linda - thanks.

Cry, heart, but never break by Glenn Ringtved (2001, Norway) (2016 Eng)
picturebook

This won the 2017 Mildred L. Batchelder Award for an outstanding children’s book translated from a foreign language and subsequently published in the U.S. It is a soulful look at death and grief, and is a very sympathetic read. The cover shows a young girl comforting Death before he must go upstairs to the ailing grandmother. It's Death who tells a story to the grandchildren that gives them the ability to cope with their grandmother's inevitable death. Inspired. Illustrations by Charlotte Pardi are just right for the narrative with lots of hopeful colour.


They all saw a cat by Brendan Wenzel (2016)
picturebook

This won a 2017 Caldecott Medal Honor Award for illustration. Simple repetitive text showing how different animals and insects 'see' the family cat. Imaginative rather than scientific.
_


Journey by Aaron Becker (2013)
picturebook
The first of three books in this series of wordless fantasy. A young girl escapes her room by drawing a door with her red crayon. Helped by her imagination she draws a boat and has a lovely adventure in this fantasy world. Delightful, quiet, unassuming and finishes with a new friendship, just perfect. Followed by Quest and Return. I saw Return mentioned on someone's LT thread so had to have a look. I'll be getting the others from my library if it has them.
_

Lovely video of the making of The Return - Becker lived in Spain while creating this book - http://www.storybreathing.com/making-of-return/

20) The Power by Naomi Alderman (2016)
scifi

I enjoyed this. The premise is that teen girls suddenly start developing a power, sort of an ability to give electric shocks, mostly they can control the intensity. They are able to 'wake up' this power in adult women. This becomes a world wide phenomenon and causes all sorts of changes in gender equality. Women in Saudi Arabia rise up against the male domination and in East Europe women hidden away by sex trafficking gangs are able to overcome their captors.
It is premised that the power has come from leftover WW2 chemical agents that got into the world's water supply and has taken a couple of generations to take hold. The book follows the fortunes of several women as they rise to power and a young male journalist who documents it all.

I need to track down Cry, Heart, but Never Break. And I LOVE the Becker books, as does Charlie. Gorgeous and so imaginative. For months after we read the first one, Charlie would search the ground everywhere we went for a magic crayon.

Hi Amber, yes the artwork in the Becker book was really beautiful. The narrative itself was excellent too. I love wordless picture books when they really work like this.
Cry, heart, but never break is a quite original approach to the subject of grief and death and works very well. I like it much more than Erlbruch's Duck, death and the tulip, one I've never warmed to despite its acclaim.

>130 avatiakh: I read The Story of Lucy Galt yesterday and liked it even though it's not my usual fare. Whoo hoo!

Cart's Top 200 Adult books for Young Adults: two decades in review by Michael Cart (2013)
nonfiction

This is an annotated list of books put out by the ALA (American Library Association) of adult books that would appeal to teen readers. There are two sections, fiction and nonfiction and two appendix lists - 'books noted for their originality' and 'books notable for their overall excellence.' The ALA has an annual Alex Award, given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18, and these books are also noted.
While I'm aware of many on the list, there are others that I've not heard of so browsing through the book is quite illuminating. Each entry gives a wealth of information and there's an interesting introduction as well.
A sampling of those I hadn't been aware of:
Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan - graphic novel
Getting In by James Finnay Bolan
More like not running away by Paul Shepherd
Snow in August by Pete Hamill - well, I own this one!
Youth in Revolt: the journals of Nick Twisp by C.D. Payne
Fist stick knife gun: A Personal History of Violence in America by Geoffrey Canada - NF graphic novel
Nickle and dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature by Ilan Stavans
True Notebooks by Mark Salzman

>169 Morphidae: Ooh Morphi, I love it when that happens. I tend to stay clear of Irish lit as it can be so 'misery' inclined and yet it is all so beautifully written.

>171 avatiakh: Ha! I like that - "misery inclined." That's similar to what I call literary fiction - "miserable people being miserable."

Just a quick hello, Kerry. I hope things are going well for you.

21) The spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson (2014)
fiction
I've had this on my to read list since it won the Betty Trask Prize in 2015. It's a rather brutal look at life in Berlin at the end of World War 2. The city is a pile of rubble, to survive one must use the black market and there are many ready to exploit the vulnerable. Kasper Meier is a minor player in the black market but now he's caught up in a blackmail attempt that turns darker and darker. Almost every character is a ruined version of their former selves here, Meier was once happy running a bar with his lover, Philip, but that was long before the war, now he survives on the dregs that Berlin offers while trying to uncover who is behind the blackmail. I liked this for all the unrelenting darkness.
Another book set in Berlin about the direct aftermath of the war is The Good German.

Bandette Volume 3: The House of the Green Mask by Paul Tobin (2016)
graphic novel
Cute heroine, Bandette, always seems to be one step ahead of everyone else. I enjoy these, Bandette is fun, a chocoholic Robin Hood- style thief.

Plans for February:
Reposting all the books I noted for reading in January minus the one I did read...sigh
To green angel tower by Tad Williams, the final book in the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy - read one chapter
Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra - read one chapter
Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong (14th century Yuan Dynasty) - my slow read for the year
King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett
The glorious heresies by Lisa McInerney - Orange/Baileys Jan read
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht - my AwardCat Jan read (category challenge group)

The secret book of kings by Yochi Brandes

also adding:
The wish child by Catherine Chidgey - ANZAC read
Tell the truth, shame the devil by Melina Marchetta
Blood Moon by Garry Disher
Shylock's Daughter by Mirjam Pressler
Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtliff
Girl at War by Sara Nović
The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach

and lots more

Poldark group read:
#1 Ross Poldark by Winston Graham
#2 Demelza by Winston Graham

Well, that should keep you busy for February at least, Kerry!

22) War without friends by Evert Hartman (1979)
YA
This was one that Anita read last year which sounded interesting and as there was an English translation at my library I was able to read it too.
What makes it interesting is that the story is told from the POV of a teenage boy, Arnold, whose father and hence the family is part of the Dutch NSB (National Socialist Movement) which supported the Nazis. Arnold must eventually confront his family's steadfast support for the Nazis when all around him his classmates are defiant in their opposition.

>172 Morphidae: Definitely, though some of it is still worth picking up, just not part of my staple reading diet.

>173 karenmarie: Hi Karen

>177 ronincats: Hi Roni - I'm getting more and more distracted from my reading goals and we're only at the start of February!

>179 avatiakh: Oh, certainly. It's not all like that. Just a large portion of it. Like I really enjoyed A Man Named Ove by Fredrik Backman which has a significant literary fiction tag.

23) Wabi Sabi by Francesc Miralles (2016) (Spain 2013)
fiction
This is the sequel to Love in Lowercase and at first I thought it wouldn't have the charm of the first book, however I was soon back into the life of hapless Samuel, the literary academic, who ends up taking a holiday in Japan on a whim. Like with the first book, Miralles loves to name drop numerous books and this time I'd read most of them, but his use of Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's In praise of shadows was pretty much perfect and I just have to read this essay on aesthetics for myself. A quick delightful read.

>180 Morphidae: I've seen lots of mentions of A Man Named Ove so I should check it out. I've just started The Grand Tour which is proving to be a good read about a road trip (actually a book tour) by two misfits, a writer and his biggest fan.

Kerry- I loved Ove!!! You should check it out. Not that I want to derail your reading goals or anything sinister like that. Bwa-ha-ha!!

More great reading here, Kerry. I love They All Saw a Cat and Journey also. I have both of the other books in the library also. So lovely and imaginative.

>184 AMQS: Thanks, I have a couple of graphic novels from the Alex Awards out from the library.

24) The grand tour by Adam O'Fallon Price (2016)
fiction
It's a debut novel, a road trip novel and a great read. Richard, failed writer and disgruntled old man has managed to write a bestseller, a memoir of his Vietnam service, so he's off on a book tour. First stop, he's met by Vance, a depressed recent college dropout who is also Richard's biggest (only?) fan. Together they make a deal that Vance will drive Richard on the tour. Richard needs looking after, he's alcoholic and completely not prepared to do readings and just be normal. Vance is a wannabe writer, awkward, just out of adolescence and already on the road to being a loser.
It's funny, painful, makes you wince but so wonderfully real and human. I loved this.

"You asked me the other night, at the thing, what advice I’d give young writers,” Richard tells Vance. “And I gave you some glib answer, and I feel shitty about that. I probably acted like I think it’s all a waste of time, which I do, but still. Everything’s a waste of time, but books are better than everything else. There’s some kind of dumb honor in it, at least.”

I'll definitely be hanging out for his next book.

Hi, Kerry! Just checking in. I hope you are doing well.

The Grand Tour looks very good. I will have to see if I can track down a copy.

I'm playing desperate catch-up, and I've decided that >131 avatiakh: and >137 avatiakh: absolutely belong in my house. You're off to quite a roll this year!

>187 msf59: Hi Mark - this is a good one.

>188 London_StJ: Hi Luxx. Yes, I'm behind on lots of threads too. I liked those two.

25) I am Rosemarie by Marietta Moskin (1972)
YA
This is an autobiographical novel of Moskin's experiences as a teen girl in the Holocaust. She wrote it as a novel so she could composite some characters, put some emotional distance between herself and the main character and also so she could make the character more mature and reflective.
Rosemarie and her parents have been living some years in Amsterdam, having moved from Austria. While most of their relatives are leaving for America or Palestine, they are happy to stay in Holland. Once war breaks out it soon becomes clear that this was a bad decision. They spend about 18 months in Westerbork Transit Camp in Holland, while there they are able to get Paraguayan passports sent to them from a family member in Switzerland. These passports give them some protection and they are moved to Bergen-Belsen for a year and then after a prisoner transfer with Switzerland falls through, spend some months in a Red Cross Camp in Biberach with civilian internees who'd been deported from the Channel Islands.

Westerbork Transit Camp: From this camp, 101,000 Dutch Jews and about 5,000 German Jews were deported to their deaths in Occupied Poland. In addition, there were about 400 Gypsies in the camp and, at the very end of the War, some 400 women from the resistance movement. Only 5,200 of them survived, most of them in Theresienstadt or Bergen-Belsen, or were liberated at Westerbork.

Imagine a place by Sarah L. Thompson, illus. Rob Gonsalves (2008)
sophisticated picturebook

Lovely illustrations along with quiet contemplative text, asking the reader to imagine...
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Plumdog by Emma Chichester Clark (2014)
graphic novel

Diary of Clark's dog, Plum, so lots of walks to the park, meeting other dogs etc, based on her Plumdog blog. Got a bit repetitive and I gave up at about March. I picked it up because I've seen Clark's work on other picturebooks.
_

Did the graphic Rivers of London have any maps??

I've got The Grand Tour waiting on my new book shelf. (Took some work to find this in the touchstone lists!)

>192 sibylline: Hi Lucy, I don't think there were any maps in the GN. I'm still on the waitlist for the next one.

Oh, i'm sure you'll love The grand tour, it deserves a good readership. I love a flawed character or two.

26) Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk (2016)
children's fiction

Oh wow, this was brilliant. Very thoughtful plot with wonderful characters. Annabelle is being bullied rather viciously by new girl Betty who threatens to hurt Annabelle's younger brothers if she doesn't cooperate. Betty is a real nasty piece of work and she manages to divert the blame of a serious incident onto a harmless tramp, Toby, who has lived in the woods for several years. Annabelle, her brothers and Betty must all pass by the woods and Wolf Hollow on their way from the farms where they live to school. This was a Newbery Honor Book (2017).

>190 avatiakh: I'll add this to the wishlist. Her reasons for writing the book as fiction make sense to me. I got hold of the graphic novel you recommended about a refugee travelling from West Africa to France. I'm finding it very poignant, and even rather too much emotionally, even though the book itself is almost dry about the risks faced by the migrants. I want my own copy, really.

>194 avatiakh: - Admittedly, the content doesn't appeal to me much, but that is beautiful artwork on the cover!

>195 charl08: I remember that GN, it does have give an emotional kick, the artwork makes an impact for all that it's rough at the edges.
I don't like to comment on Holocaust literature written by survivors but will just say that this is a fairly lite version compared to others I've read. One of the best ones I've read was Castles Burning; a child's life in war by Magda Denes, very raw and completely written from a child's point of view.

>196 jessibud2: Yes, rather a lovely cover. The book is far more than what I've described, while the plot revolves around Betty's actions and the consequences of those actions, she's not that present in much of the book.

27) Fist stick knife gun: a personal history of violence: a true story in black and white by Geoffrey Canada & Jamar Nicholas (2010)
graphic novel

This graphic novel is an adaption of Canada's 1995 novel of the same name. It's a story of growing up in the Bronx in the 1960s, poor, black, no father figure. Canada eventually rose above it all to get a college education and to come back to found the Harlem Children's Zone. This is rather impressive, showing how the hierarchy of the street worked back then - boys had to fight to be accepted, had to learn how to fight, to stand up for themselves and their friends. Once they'd established their place on their street, then they had to do it all over again once they got to school, where the kids from all the other streets turned up. This was a time before the current gun culture, before crack cocaine changed the way things were.
There's a TED talk with Geoffrey Canada here: https://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_canada_our_failing_schools_enough_is_enough


The white cat and the monk: A Retelling of the Poem "Pangur Bán" by Jo Ellen Bogart (2016)
picturebook

Illustrations by Sydney Smith of Sidewalk Flowers fame.
Quite delightful, the text is very simple and the fact that the poem has lasted down through the centuries makes it quite the marvel. The art is all in muted browns and set out like a graphic novel.

'Sometime in the ninth century, somewhere in present-day southern Germany, this solitary scholar penned a beautiful short poem in Old Irish, titled “Pangur Bán” — an ode to the parallel pleasures of man and feline as one pursues knowledge and the other prey, and to how their quiet companionship amplifies their respective joys.' 'The poem has been translated and adapted many times over the centuries (perhaps most famously by W.H. Auden' - Brainpickings

Irish version:

Messe ocus Pangur Bán
cechtar náthar fria saindán:
bíth a menma-sam fri seilgg,
mu menma céin im saincheirdd.

Version by W.H. Auden:

Pangur, white Pangur, How happy we are
Alone together, scholar and cat
Each has his own work to do daily;
For you it is hunting, for me study.
Your shining eye watches the wall;
My feeble eye is fixed on a book.
You rejoice, when your claws entrap a mouse;
I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem.
Pleased with his own art, neither hinders the other;
Thus we live ever without tedium and envy.

Another version:

I & Pangur Ban my cat
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit & find
Entertainment to our mind.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye,
Full & fierce & sharp & sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

So in peace our task we ply
Pangur Ban my cat & I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine & he has his

And The scholar and his cat, translated by Robin FLowers: https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/pangur-ban.html

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From wikipedia: In the 2009 animated movie The Secret of Kells, which is heavily inspired by Irish mythology, one of the supporting characters is a white cat named Pangur Bán who arrives in the company of a monk. A paraphrase of the poem in modern Irish is read out during the credit roll by actor and Irish speaker, Mick Lally.

>194 avatiakh: Wolf Hollow looks great Kerry; I will keep an eye out for it.

Love the Psmgur Ban illustrations. I'd never come across that poem before, lovely to read. Striking how similar people are hundreds of years ago.

>199 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul. A bit junior for you though Belle would probably enjoy it.

>200 charl08: I also hadn't come across the poem before.

Jane, the fox and me by Fanny Britt (2012 Canada/French) (2013 English)
graphic novel

The attraction here is illustrator Isabelle Arsenault whose work I've enjoyed before. This is about Helene, a lonely school girl who is bullied by classmates. She escapes into the story of Jane Eyre, comparing herself to the heroine.
When the class goes on a school camp, Helene ends up in the outcasts' tent, meets a fox and comes home with a new friend. Lovely and the illustrations really do capture the idea of loneliness.
More here at brainpickings: https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/11/25/jane-the-fox-and-me/

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A year without mom by Dasha Tolstikova (2015)
graphic novel
I liked this. It's set in 1990s Moscow and covers the year that 12 yr old Dasha lives with her grandparents while her mother goes to the US for postgraduate study. The illustration style is all clean lines, b&w with a focus on the use of red and also occasional other colours.

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a studio visit with the real Dasha: https://penandoink.com/2016/02/15/a-studio-visit-with-dasha-tolstikova/

Pangur Ban is wonderful!

>202 avatiakh: Glad that one found another fan. I enjoyed it a lot when I read it last year.

28) Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps' Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life by Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley (2014)
nonfiction
This was an interesting read about the Marine's combat hunter program and how you can use some of the tactics to keep yourself safe as the world evolves into an increasingly unsafe place. The term left of bang is referring to noticing and taking some sort of action before an incident (bang) rather than reacting to one that is/has taken place (right of bang). This involves becoming self aware of one's situation, the environment, becoming more observant of others.

'Staying left of bang, write Van Horne and Riley (the son of a police officer), starts with enhancing your observational skills. Drawing on scientific research findings, they describe in detail how to detect and analyze suspicious human behavior in six “domains” that “communicate current emotions and possibly future intentions” to determine a potential threat. The domains, or cue sources, are:

Kinesics, people’s conscious and subconscious body language
Biometrics, human beings’ “uncontrollable and automatic biological responses to stress”
Proxemics, the way subjects use the space around them and interact with surrounding people
Geographics, reading familiar and unfamiliar patterns of behavior within a given environment
Iconography, the expression of beliefs and affiliations through symbols, and
Atmospherics, “the collective attitudes, moods, and behaviors present in a given situation or place.”
The book points out that by searching for “clusters” of cues from these domains, you can learn to enhance your abilities to observe your surroundings and improve the skills you already possess.' - https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/situational-awareness-lets-stay-left-bang/

Some of the videos mentioned in the book can be found here:
http://www.cp-journal.com/articles-videos-mentioned-left-bang/

So what did you think of it?

I found it interesting. On a personal level we were already aware of the need to observe and keep safe, my husband is from Israel, so it's sort of ingrained. I'll probably recommend it to my daughter as she lives in London and travels around Europe quite frequently with her partner.

It does add to your understanding of military procedures and gives you a lot of respect for the soldiers out in war zones having to patrol in areas where the enemy could be anyone in plain sight.