SandDune Reads in 2017 - Part 1

Welcome everyone to my first thread of 2017, and to my sixth year doing the 75 Book Challenge. I'm a 55 year old accountant and, after spending most of my career in the City of London, I'm now the Finance Manager of a local charity which provides support to children and adults with learning disabilities. I've recently returned to full-time work after a number of years working part-time, so unfortunately I don't have as much time for LT as I used to. I live about thirty miles north of London with my husband (aka Mr SandDune), who is Assistant Principal at a local secondary school, and our 16 year old son (aka J), who attends the same school. There's also our 4 year old Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Daisy, and 13 year old cat Sweep, who have an uneasy relationship in which Sweep permanently has the upper hand. I'm originally from Wales rather than England, so I do have an interest in all things Welsh (although I can't speak the language - at least only a few words) and I tend to get huffy if people call me English rather than Welsh! I read mainly literary fiction, classics, science-fiction and fantasy and tend to avoid horror, detective fiction, chick-lit and thrillers. I belong to a RL book group which has been going since 2000, and I also try to keep up with some of the challenges going on on LT, with varying degrees of success.

All my family are avid readers, although Mr SandDune doesn't get time to read as much as he would like. J has inherited a love of reading science-fiction and fantasy from me and a love of reading history from Mr SandDune so our books are increasingly shared. I read hardbacks, paperbacks, on kindle and listen to audio books particularly when driving or walking the dog. Apart from reading I love travelling, eating out, and going to the theatre. Over the last few years I've been doing a part-time English Literature degree with the Open University, and this year I'm on my final course: English Literature from Shakespeare to Austen.

For this year's illustrations I've gone back to a general theme of dogs in art. This month's picture is by Hendrick Goltzius (1558 - 1617) 'Goltzius's Dog' 1595-1600. A lovely spaniel.

Reading Plans for 2017:

Real Life Reading Group:
I usually do read most of my RL Reading Group choices unless I can't make the meeting date.

February: A Death in the Family Karl Ove Knausgard
March: All of these People: A Memoir Fergal Keane
April: The House by the Dvina Eugenie Fraser
May: The Miniaturist Jessie Burton
June: Nutshell: A Novel Ian McEwan
July:
August: no meeting
September:
October:
November:
December:

Open University Reading:
These are for my OU course English Literature from Shakespeare to Austen. There's some poetry as well but that's provided in the course text books:

Persausion Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
Gullivers Travels Jonathan Swift
The Confessions Jean-Jaques Rousseau
Tartuffe Moliere
TheTurkish Embassy Letters Lady Montagu Wortley
The Country Wife William Wycherley
Arabian Nights Entertainments

British Author Challenge:
Last year I managed four books out of a total of twelve. I hope to do better this year.

January: Elizabeth Bowen
February: Mary Stewart
March: Nell Dunn Up the Junction
April: Bruce Chatwin
May: Maria Edgeworth Castle Rackrent
June: Georgette Heyer
July: D.E. Stevenson
August: Winifred Holtby
September: Cynan Jones The Dig
October: Jo Walton
November: Carol Ann Duffy
December: Neil Gaiman

Booker Prize Shortlist:
My RL Reading Group is meeting to discuss the 2016 Booker Shortlist in March. I've already read Hot Milk so five more to go:

The Sellout Paul Beatty
All that Man Is David Szalay
Eileen Ottessa Moshfegh
Do not Say We Have Nothing Madeleine Thien
His Bloody Project Graeme MacRae Burnet

ANZAC Bingo 2x12
I doubt very much if I'll get around to reading more than a handful of these but I've enjoyed planning out titles to meet the challenge:

1: Read a book about conflict or war The Narrow Road to the Deep North Richard Flanagan
2: Read a book with more than 500 pgs The Luminaries Eleanor Catton
3: Read an Aussie crime novel True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey
4: Read a book using word play in the title Tirra Lirra by the River Jessica Anderson
5: Read a book about exploration or a journey The Hut Builder Laurence Fearnley
6: Read a book that's been longlisted for the International DUBLIN Literary Award The World Without Us Mireille Juchau
7: Read a book that's part of a series Plumb Maurice Gee
8: Read a memoir/biography (can be fiction) To the Island Janet Frame
9: Read a book written under a pen name The Getting of Wisdom Henry Handel Richardson
10: Read a book with a musical plot The Chimes Anna Smaill
11: Read a book with water featured in title/cover Mister Pip Loyd Jones
12: Read a book with an immigrant protagonist The Secret River Kate Grenville

Books Read in 2017:
1. Autumn Ali Smith ****1/2
2. Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift ****
3. The Country Wife William Wycherley ***1/2
4. His Bloody Project Graeme MacRae Burnet ****1/2
5. Talking to the Dead Harry Bingham****
6. Tartuffe Molière **1/2
7. All That Man Is David Szalay ***

Books Bought in 2017:
1. His Bloody Project Graeme Macrae Burnet (Audible £3.49)
2. Eileen Ottessa Moshfegh (Audible £3.99)
3. Do not Say We Have Nothing Madeleine Thien (Audible £4.49)
4. Talking to the Dead Harry Bingham (Audible 1 credit)

Favourite Books from 2016:

Fiction:
The Essex Serpent Sarah Perry
Gilead Marilynne Robinson
The Last Chronicle of Barsetshire Anthony Trollope
Uprooted Naomi Novik
Fifteen Dogs Andre Alexis
City of Stairs Robert Jackson Bennett
Cuckoo Song Frances Hardinge

Non-fiction
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail Cheryl Strayed
The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District James Rebanks

Hi Rhian!

That is a lovely spaniel up top, Rhian. We had a Springer Spaniel at home when we were growing up and we called him Toby. He was a live wire black and tan.

I am looking forward to keeping up with you as always in 2017. xx

Happy reading in 2017, Rhian!

Happy reading 2017, Rhian.

Found you and

Hi Rhian, found you! Happy new thread.

Starred! Happy new year, Rhian.

Welcome back!

Hi Rhian,

Happy new year and happy new thread!

Gilead also made it to my top 10 list last year or the year before. Great novel. And cheers if you succeeded on the Barsetshire series. Such a great series.

Looking forward to some more dogs in arts. Beautiful spaniel.

Hi Rhian - happy reading for 2017!

>6 DianaNL: >7 PaulCranswick: >8 FAMeulstee: >9 Ameise1: >11 charl08: >12 katiekrug: >13 drneutron: >15 ctpress: >16 susanj67:

Welcome Diana, Paul, Anita, Barbara, Charlotte, Katie, Jim, Carsten, Susan!

>7 PaulCranswick: My parents had a springer spaniel as well, Sam, when I was in my twenties. He was a very friendly dog, but managed to put Mr SandDune off dogs for the next twenty years or so, as he was a dog that really did not know his place. To be fair to the dog, it was as just as much lack of training as wilful disobedience that made him a handful, but a handful he was! And he probably needed a lot more exercise that he actually got: I think ideally springer spaniels are supposed to have a couple of hours a day. Looking at the picture it doesn't look like spaniels have changed much in the last four hundred years does it?

>15 ctpress: I did indeed finish reading all the Barsetshire novels in 2016! My favourites were Barchester Towers, Framley Parsonage and The Last Chronicle of Barchester. I'm intending to do Paul's BAC this year and the October author is Jo Walton, so I may reread her book Tooth and Claw which is loosely based on Framley Parsonage (but with dragons). When I read it first I enjoyed it greatly but hadn't read the original so it might be interesting to reread it now I have!

Happy New Year!

Dropping my star, Rhian!

Hi Rhian, love your idea for dog-themed toppers. Happy reading and ...

Hi, Rhian! - dropping off a star... :)

Hi Rhian!

Hi Rhian! I'm dropping off my star for 2017 ~~~

Yes, that is a gorgeous spaniel! I'll definitely be following your thread, if only for the artwork. Interested in your Open U class. I just (shhhh, keep this secret) Pearl Ruled Jane Austen's Emma. I figured out who was going to get together before I quit, and decided I didn't like Emma and she was going to make a match far better than she deserved. ;) So I just couldn't... I haven't read much Austen, but that's the first one I found a chore to read. I've loved the others.

Hi Rhian--I'm looking forward to following your reading this year. I mostly lurked last year, so I hope to comment once in a while.

Best wishes for a wonderful New Year to you, Mr. SandDune and J.

Hi Rhian! I think I lost you for a couple of years, but I'm back to see what you end up reading this year. *wave*

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.

Here's the New Year Book meme, completed with books I read last year.

Describe yourself: A Face Like Glass
Describe how you feel: Uprooted
Describe where you currently live: The Frozen Thames
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
Your favourite form of transportation: The Underground Railroad
Your best friend is: The Country Wife
You and your friends are: Case Histories
What’s the weather like: Foxglove summer
You fear: The Essex Serpent
What is the best advice you have to give: The Quality of Mercy
Thought for the day: As you Like It
How I would like to die: The Mountains of Mourning
My soul’s present condition: Soul Music

Happy New Year! (dropping a star)

>19 Crazymamie: >20 lit_chick: >21 lyzard: >22 kgodey: >23 EBT1002: Welcome Mamie, Nancy, Liz, Kriti, Ellen

>24 cammykitty: Emma isn't my favourite Austen either. Probably my favourite is Persausion with Pride and Prejudice running a close second.

>25 arubabookwoman: Deborah there's nothing wrong with a bit of lurking! I was definitely lurking rather than posting myself last year.

>26 Kassilem: Hi Melissa, nice to see you!

>27 The_Hibernator: Happy New Year to you Rachel.

>28 PaulCranswick: That's a really nice thought to take into 2017 Paul. If the internet in general could be as tolerant as this group it would definitely be a better place.

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

Fingers crossed for a better, kinder 2017.

Happy New Year, Rhian!

Have you read the Fiona Griffiths mysteries by Harry Bingham, set in South Wales? I suspect you have, but if not, they're great. I'm on the third, and enjoying it just as much as the first two.

Happy New Year! Dropping off my star with good intentions of doing a much better job of keeping up with threads in 2017.

Happy New Year, Rhian. I am looking forward to following your thread in 2017.

Planned reading for January:

Hi Rhian.
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and fruitfully literary 2017.

Well it's 1st January so time for a little forward planning for 2017. At the moment it looks like we're going to have a very family orientated year. Next weekend is my sister and brother-in-law's Golden Wedding anniversary so we are all going to a family celebration at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, a restaurant I have always wanted to visit but have never quite managed to get to! It feels quite scary to have a sister who is celebrating her golden wedding but she did marry young, and I was only five years old at the time! Then in March we have another family get together for my sister's seventieth birthday. Over Easter we are going out to visit the same sister and brother-in-law in Cyprus, where they spend about half their time. It's quite a few years since we've done that and I'm looking forward to it a lot: we're going to try and get a few days in Northern Cyprus as well which we haven't visited before. At the beginning of September my youngest nephew is getting married in Portugal, so we're intending to combine that with our main summer holiday. Hopefully we'll be booking something over the next couple of days.

We'll also have some periods of it just being the two of us at home as J has quite a few trips - good practice for when he goes to University. He has a week's work experience in Germany in February. We'll have his exchange partner here at the end of January and I'm really, really hoping that this one eats a more varied diet than J's last German exchange partner did. He had me tearing my hair out at the end of the first week as he didn't like any of our normal meals, basically just ate salami, cheese, bread, chicken, chips, pizza and ice cream. Then J has a two week scientific expedition to Croatia in July, and there is talk of a history trip to Berlin in October.

Other events (hopefully) will be a graduation ceremony for me assuming I manage to pass my last OU course.

>30 ronincats: >32 Ameise1: >33 lyzard: >35 cbl_tn: >36 Familyhistorian: >38 Eyejaybee: Welcome Roni, Barbara, Liz, Carrie, Meg, James. Happy New Year to you all as well!

>34 jnwelch: I haven't read the Fiona Griffiths books Joe. For some reason I don't really read detective fiction, although I watch a fair bit of it on the TV. I have been thinking that perhaps I should dip a toe into the whole crime genre at some stage - maybe this is one to try.

Happy New Year, Rhian! You have a busy year ahead for sure. But it certainly sounds fun. Your January reading plans look ambitious. My daughter liked the new Ali Smith. How many of those books are for your course?

Happy New Year! Happy New Thread, Rhian. I hope you have a great reading year!

>41 lauralkeet: Four of them are for my course (Tartuffe, The Country's Wife, Gulliver's Travels, Arabian Nights Entertainments), but two of them are plays so won't take too long. I'm looking forward to the Ali Smith (that was a Christmas present from Mr SandDune). She's one of my favourite writers at the moment.

>42 msf59: Hi Mark!

>37 SandDune: Great to see you busy on the threads Rhian for as long as it lasts with work and courses and whatnot.

I will also be reading The Unwinding by Packer, but picked out a different Bowen in The House in Paris.

Hope you have a great 2017!

Happy New Year Rhian.

Happy New Year, Rhiann! I'm always happy to visit threads with doggy pics — that spaniel is very sweet looking. And I hope we'll get some pics of the lovely Daisy along the way as well!

Happy New Year, Rhian. Good luck with your reading plans.

>44 PaulCranswick: Paul, having bought the kindle version of The Last September I have discovered an old paperback copy upstairs this morning which I had no recollection of whatsoever! Oh well.

>45 ChelleBearss: Hi Michelle!

>46 calm: Calm, it's so nice to see you posting again.

>48 BLBera: Happy New Year Beth!

>47 rosalita: I'm always happy to oblige with a photo of Daisy! Here she is showing off her tongue in the early summer:

>50 SandDune: There's a happy girl! And oh, that green grass and yellow flowers and trees — it's making me long for warm weather and summer!

>50 SandDune: Thanks for the Daisy picture, Rhian, she looks happy and her coat is so shiny.

Dropping a star

>51 rosalita: >52 FAMeulstee: That is Hatfield Forest, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest near to where we live, and which apparently has 300 million buttercups in the summer. How they know they have 300 million buttercups I'm not sure - I don't suppose anyone has counted them! Daisy is only allowed off the lead in the meadows these days, after several incidents in the woods where she went charging off after the deer (there are quite a lot of fallow deer and some muntjac), and only reappeared quite a long time later.

It looks like you have some gorgeous travel plans for this year, Rhian.

Happy New Year and good luck with your studies

Dropping by to set a star and wish you a happy new year!

We've had a nice start to the New Year, meeting up with a group of friends that we first met seventeen years ago in antenatal class when we were expecting our first babies. Seventeen years later there is one family of five, one of three, three of two, and two of one. We met up pretty much on a weekly basis until the eldest children went to secondary school: now it's only a few times a year so it's great when it happens.

Hi Rhian, It looks like you have an eventful year ahead. Good luck with the studies! I've got you starred and I'm not planning on losing track of you this year. :)

>58 SandDune: that sounds so fun! Do the 17-year-olds know each other as well?

@39 You've got quite the travels coming up! LOL on the diet of your exchange person! I hosted a friend's daughter for a summer and she was vegetarian. No problem. I cook quite a bit of vegetarian - but she wouldn't eat pasta, tofu, tempeh, seitan, beans, cashews... and the list went on. So eventually I gave up and let her survive on a diet of cheese pizza and toast thickly spread with jam.

Happy new year, Rhian! Gosh, it sounds like you have a busy year ahead! And I love the photo of your gorgeous Daisy, of course.

>53 karspeak: >56 avatiakh: >57 qebo: >59 nittnut: >62 scaifea: Welcome Karen, Kerry, Katherine, Jenn!

>60 lauralkeet: Do the 17-year-olds know each other as well? The girls are pretty friendly; the boys have got less in common as they grew up and have drifted apart. So J's always quite reluctant these days to go along to these reunions. Which is sad, but I can see why: his current friends are quite different

>61 cammykitty: eventually I gave up and let her survive on a diet of cheese pizza and toast thickly spread with jam. That's pretty much what I did for the second week. We ate our normal food and I alternated between pizza and breaded chicken with chips for J's exchange.

Hi Rhian

Looks like you have your year well plotted out on all levels. Good luck with your final OU year, very satisfying to achieve that.

It sounds like you had a lovely start to what will be a busy year. You have some great travel planned. Good luck on your course.

I do want to read that Cheryl Strayed book - glad to be reminded and to see it in your best of list.

Happy New Year!!!

Hi Rhian. Happy New Year.

Hi Rhian, it sounds like a lovely year ahead with family, friends, and books. You can't go wrong with those dog portraits for thread toppers, either. Wishing you and your family all good things in 2017.

It's the last day of my Christmas holidays today and we've spent it planning our Portuguese holiday. We're going to be touring around the north of Portugal with a few days by the sea, a few days in the mountains and finishing off in the Douro valley where the port comes from. I think a visit to a few vineyards might be in order ... The nephew who is getting married is in the wine trade, so I think I might be asking him for some recommendations.

>39 SandDune: I think I remember reading about that. Was it two years ago? I wasn't around much last year.

>40 SandDune: The South Wales locale might help its appeal for you, plus she is about as unusual a detective as I've come across.

His Bloody Project is a bit of a detective story, too - so well-written.

>69 SandDune: that sounds like a wonderful trip! I've always wanted to go to Portugal!

That's some good January reading! I've launched into Leo Damrosch's bio of Jonathan Swift, which is fascinating (now that I've dumped a very poor audiobook and am actually reading it.)

Envy you the Portugal trip. I've only been to Lisbon, Sintra and that area. The Douro valley sounds like it would be great. Will you get to Coimbra?

Happy New Year, Rhian! I wish you much happiness in 2017. I hope you have a lovely trip to Cyprus. Where in Cyprus does your sister live? It is my husband's home country, and we plan to visit this summer to visit yiayia and other relatives before my daughter starts at university. My husband is actually a refugee from the northern part. He has been able to cross the border and visit once, but the house his grandparents built by hand is no longer there, and the experience was very emotional, and not in a good way. The northern part is much less developed -- it looks as it used to before the war, the way the locals remember, but of course, it is off-limits to its former residents.

And Portugal! That's a place I've never been and always wanted to. My brother spent his Christmas there. Happy and safe travels!

I messaged you a link to an on-line wine guide that has a good section for Portugal.

>70 Morphidae: Was IT two years agoI think it was in 2014. J was equally unimpressed with the food at his exchange's family in Germany. His Italian exchange was another matter!

>71 jnwelch: I might give it a go. I did read some genre-bending (is that a word) detective fiction last year (Case Histories The Last Policeman) and enjoyed them.

>72 ChelleBearss: We went to Portugal for the first time at Easter 2015 and really liked it. We were thinking of going a little further into Western Spain to Santiago da Compostela, but there seems a lot to see in the north and so we've decided to limit our trip to Portugal.

>73 Chatterbox: We've only been to the area not too far from Lisbon as well, so it'll be great to see further afield. We won't be going to Cointra. I did suggest it but there wasn't much enthusiasm amongst my family to add in another stop.

>74 AMQS: My sister lives just outside Pafos. When we've been to Cyprus before I think you only cross the border at Nicosia, but now there are various crossing points which makes a quick round trip more practical. We're thinking of visiting Kyrenia in the North, and It will be interesting to see the difference between the two halves. I can imagine that it would be very emotional indeed for your husband to go back.

>75 karspeak: Thanks Karen. We won't be able to do too much vineyard visiting as J would start to protest, but I thin we'll get away with maybe one day spent doing some tasting! I'm anxious to try the port in particular.

Happy 2017 Rhian!

>76 SandDune: There are good recs for Porto port tastings, and info on which places require reservations, etc.

>76 SandDune: Wasn't everything boiled or pickled?

Happy New Year and Happy Reading, Travelling and Exchange Student Feeding! :)
I was sure I'd already been here, but now saw I'd just starred and not posted yet.

>69 SandDune: Your Portugal trip sounds amazing. The Boyfriend and I are debating one ourselves, but we are very definitely the type that talk about these things and don't get round to booking anything! However we both love port so it seems something that should happen sooner rather than later. He also reckons I'd enjoy Santiago da Compostela, so that is another one we keep talking about. One of these days we'll actually make firm plans and follow through on them!

Happy New Year, Rhian! Sorry for the late greeting, but I've finally finished with my Christmas and New Year's Day work stretch and now have time to make the rounds.

Rhian, I fell off the face of the earth last year and will continue to be lost in the perilous wastes for the foreseeable future. I did want to wish you all the best for 2017. Happy reading!

>77 souloftherose: Hi Heather!

>78 karspeak: We'll certainly be looking at whether we need to book. We went to Speyside in Scotland in 2015 and we weren't able to see the whisky distilleries that we wanted because we hadn't realised we needed to book. Don't want that to happen again.

>79 Morphidae: Wasn't everything boiled or pickled Not really - it was just the variety of things that he would eat was very limited. An example was when we out for traditional British roast Sunday lunch. The pub had roast beef, pork, lamb and turkey but unfortunately no roast chicken. We tried to persuade him that turkey was very similar to chicken but he wouldn't try it or any of the other meats. In the end he had fish and chips, but only ate the chips.

>80 Deern: Hi Nathalie!

>81 lunacat: we are very definitely the type that talk about these things and don't get round to booking anything

We tend to be exactly the opposite - I think because we always have to go in the school holidays when it's really busy, and also because we tend to be very precise ideas about where we want to go. So we pretty much always end up booking our summer holidays over Christmas. If I haven't got everything booked by end of January I start to worry!

>82 kidzdoc: >83 tiffin: Happy New Year Darryl & Nathalie!

I'll be very interested to hear about your Portugal plans, Rhian. I'm starting to think about my month off in June; I'll probably spend a week in Amsterdam, 1½ weeks in the Basque Region (Bilbao and San Sebastián), and another 1½ weeks in Portugal, mainly Porto, Coimbra and Lisbon.

>84 SandDune: I meant for your son in Germany.

I haven't read Guliver's Travels. I am interested to hear what you think.

>86 kidzdoc: We've ended up doing more touring than originally planned. We have four nights in Viana do Castelo north of Porto, as we wanted to start off with a few days by the sea. From there we'll be able to visit Porto. We're then going to Chaves near the Spanish border (and we should be able to travel there via Braga or Guinmares which I also want to see). Then we have a couple of nights in Bragança, near the Montesinho Natural Park, and then five nights in the Douro valley, where we'll also be able to visit Porto if we haven't already done so, or if we want to go again. We finish off with my nephew's wedding in the South.

After all my dental woes last year I was very unimpressed on the Wednesday between Christmas and New Year to discover that I had broken a tooth. My normal dentist couldn't see me until Tuesday this week, so after complaining to my family that I couldn't wait six days with a 'huge great hole in my mouth' (slight exaggeration) I found another dentist who could look at it the following morning. Apparently, the hole wasn't as large as I thought (they never are), but the dentist who patched it said that she couldn't guarantee that the repair would last and I was likely to need a crown. Then yesterday another piece fell off, so I've got another appointment tomorrow morning to investigate. I'm going to continue with a trial with this new dental practice as I wasn't very impressed with my previous one's charging policy - I ended up spending a lot more money that I needed to have done on dental treatment last year.

Ugh, good luck with the dentist. I avoided them last year, which was probably a mistake. She had work she wanted to do that was held over from the year before when I got a crown. ''

I'm already looking forward to photos from Portugal.

Oh ding dang to the tooth woes - I hope they can get you sorted quickly and smoothly!

I don't feel Daisy approves of sharing the sofa with books. She was desperately trying to get comfy earlier ...





Before anyone complains about the treatment the paperback is getting, that's one of J's books, and Daisy can't do anything to it that he doesn't do himself. I've never come across anyone who's harder on his books!

>91 cammykitty: >92 scaifea: Well, my tooth has been patched up again (free of charge as the first one didn't hold), and I've got an appointment on the 16th to fix it properly. She doesn't think I'll need a crown though, which is good news.

>93 SandDune: Life is hard when there are books where you want to rest ;-)

Aww .. I can't see any photos. I just see 2 tiny squares. :-(

>93 SandDune: LOL

>96 cameling: I'm not quite sure what's happening with the photos. They keep coming and going! At the moment I can see one photo only, but I could see two earlier.

It's a ploy by LT to keep us coming back to check your thread :-)

Hmm, I can see the photos. Daisy clearly has a very difficult life.

Those photos made me laugh! Thanks for sharing, Rhian!

I can see the pictures now, too. The second one is my favorite with her sitting on top of the book.

>93 SandDune: I can see both pictures of Daisy, and she's adorable. I can't quite make out the title of that book she's using as a tail rest, but perhaps her position is an editorial comment?

Such cute pictures of Daisy battling it out with books for room on the couch. Looks like my place! :) Sorry about your dental woes. Never fun.

Ha, ha - "what are books doing in MY sofa" - great pictures.

>95 FAMeulstee: >96 cameling: >97 Ameise1: >99 cameling: >100 qebo: >101 Crazymamie: >102 Morphidae: >103 rosalita: >104 vancouverdeb: >105 ctpress:

I think the problem was with Photobucket (which is where the photos link to) rather than LT. It seems to have settled down now. Daisy is sitting on Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia by Robert Lacey (J's book) and Autumn by Ali Smith (my book).

>93 SandDune: poor Daisy, it must be very frustrating for her, all this competition from inanimate objects! I have Ali Smith's Autumn in the pile, will look forward to your review Rhian.

As the animal photos are popular here's another one from yesterday. I always get a glass of water to take to bed with me: yesterday I just put it down for thirty seconds while I was looking for something else, and Sweep decides that I've obviously decided to provide her with waitress service ...

Ha! Your pets are clearly out of control, Rhian. Hopefully your husband and son are better behaved then they are.

1. Autumn Ali Smith ****1/2



As usual, after reading an Ali Smith novel I'm left trying to pin down exactly what the book was about, and not quite succeeding, or succeeding only partially. And also as usual, I'm thinking that it would really benefit from a reread, not because the book is very complicated, but because it's just very slightly odd.

So what is the book about? It's the summer of 2016, going into Autumn, after the Brexit vote, and Elisabeth Demand, a lecturer in art history at a university in London, traumatised by the result and the consequent changes she's seeing in society, retreats to her mother's house in the country. Every day she visits a neighbour from her childhood, Daniel Gluck, who at the age of 101 is close to death in a nearby nursing home. Each time she visits he is asleep, (he's entered an 'extended sleep phase' explains the care assistant) but she reads to him anyway from A Tale of Two Cities. The novel alternates between the present day, Elizabeth's childhood (when Daniel, already an old man, was a somewhat unconventional baby sitter, and later friend), and Daniel's own earlier life. Throughout the novel the works of the (real-life) artist Pauline Boty recurr: Daniel was in love with Boty (or is it with her work) in the 1960's and introduces Elisabeth to the almost forgotten artist at an early age.

By bringing these threads together Ali Smith is bringing together periods of upheaval. One of Boty's better known works is a collage based on a photograph of Christine Keeler, the woman at the centre of the Profumo affair of 1963, a scandal which threatened to topple the government of the time, and could be seen as signalling the beginning of the changes in society of the 1960's. 2016 is another year of change, with the result of the referendum which bringing down the Prime Minister, and throwing the country into political turmoil. It isn't hard to guess at Ali Smith's opinion of the Brexit question, (as a writer born in Scotland who ended up in Cambridge it seems virtually certain that she was going to support Remain), and the first lines of the book make that clear 'It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times. Again. That's the thing about things. They fall apart, always have, always will, it's in their nature.'

I love the cover of my hardback, which has a partial dust jacket showing a country track heading into the distance through an autumnal landscape. But on close inspection there's a very fine vertical line across the track which unless you look very closely seems to be a join in the paper: the future is divided from the past.

>108 SandDune: Half of our cats queue at the bathroom sink whenever they hear one of us go to the loo, as they prefer that water in a gentle stream out of the tap rather than their bowls of water elsewhere. It can add a good 5-10 minutes to a quick wee if you then need to hang around in the bathroom waiting for the 3 cats to finish drinking so you can turn the tap off!

>110 SandDune: Great review, Rhian. Unfortunately my library hasn't got a copy of this book yet.

2. Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift ****



Gulliver's Travels was first published in 1726 and I can readily see why it has become such a classic of English Literature. Everybody knows the first two sections of the book: Gulliver travels to the island of Lilliput where the inhabitants are less than six inches tall, and then to the land of Brobdingnag where the inhabitants are giants. Lesser known are the last two sections where he travels to the floating city of Laputa and the country of the Houyhnhnms, horse like creature who are much more rational and civilised than humans. It was originally published as a satire on the society and politics of the day and as such it might seem to have very little relevance to a modern reader, but much of the satire mocks human nature, which evidently has not changed much in the three hundred years. I won't do a full review as it is so well known, but well worth reading.

Great start to the year Rhian and it is wonderful to see you so active again in the group.

I really must read Gulliver's Travels soon. Have a great weekend.

>113 SandDune: Glad you enjoyed that one!

>90 SandDune: Ugh to dental woes. I need a crown, and I have an appointment for Monday, but we've had a big snow and I don't know if I'll be able to get there. Ah well.

>113 SandDune: I loved Gulliver's Travels when I read it years ago. It probably wouldn't hurt to visit it again. My most favorite Jonathan Swift is A Modest Proposal. I remember reading it the first time in my high school literature class and one of my friends was absolutely horrified. Explaining that it was satire had no affect on her at all.

Nice review of Ali Smith's latest novel, Rhian. It will be published in the US sometime next month.

That book of J's looks interesting, Rhian. I've added it to my library wishlist. I suspect I'll like it more than Daisy does :-) And Gulliver's Travels has long been on my list of things I should read.

>110 SandDune: good review of Autumn Rhian, I'll get to it next month I hope. The cover is a Hockney painting, and I own it influenced my purchase. This volume is the first of a quartet I think, as 'Winter' is due later this year.

Hi, Rhian.

>113 SandDune: Oh, good. I loved Gulliver's Travels, too, and enjoyed the last two sections even more than the more well-known earlier ones.

>88 The_Hibernator: Rachel as you can see from the above, Gulliver's Travels was a success.

>109 kidzdoc: To be fair to Daisy she is very obedient and got off the books as soon as she was told to. Sweep, on the other hand, just ignored me ...

>114 PaulCranswick: >115 thornton37814: >116 nittnut: What struck me about Gulliver's travels was how relevant a lot of the satire is today despite it being firmly focused on the England of the early Eighteenth century:violent conflicts about minor differences of religious doctrine; self-serving politicians; political infighting; fickle rulers; and intransigent beliefs that only one way of doing things is correct. Sounds familiar, anyone?

>120 jnwelch: I didn't care as much for the third section to be honest, perhaps because it didn't focus as much on one single country, but the fourth section was great!

>121 SandDune: re: Gulliver's Travels. The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?

>111 lunacat: When I was young we has a cat who would only drink from the tap. Both Daisy and Sweep's water of choice is our garden pond, and they tend to ignore any nice clean water that we put down for them unless it's raining outside, or the pond is iced over, as it has been in the last few days.

>117 kidzdoc: I think I must make a point of reading all Ali Smith's novel as I really do find them interesting.

>118 susanj67: That book of J's looks interesting He says it's OK but not great, but it may just be him as it seems to have got some good reviews.

>119 Caroline_McElwee: I hadn't realised that was a Hockney painting. I tend to think of him as all Californian swimming pools, although I know that's not strictly speaking correct. I wonder if they will be using his paintings the other books in this series, as he seems to have done a whole series of them at different seasons.

LOL... I can see all the photos now. I love the Daisy's nonchalance while sitting on the books. It's HER sofa and no mere books are going to usurp her right to sit there.

You've hit me with a book bullet with your review of Autumn. Sounds like something that's right up my alley. Off to the overloaded wishlist it goes.

>123 SandDune: He did Rhian. It was one of my favourite exhibitions at the Royal Academy three years ago, I went three times. It would be nice if his work was used on the series.

>110 SandDune: Ooh, Autumn sounds good, Rhian. The only Ali Smith I've read is There But For The and I loved it even though I find myself utterly flummoxed when trying to explain why. Like Autumn, it sort of defies description in a lot of ways.

I'm lucky in that Maia pretty much ignores books. However, this also means she ignores any books (or Nook) I might have in hand and will sit between my hand(s) and face. She makes a better door than a window...

I am thinking of re-reading Gulliver's Travels this year. My first - and only - reading of it was in college for a wonderful course - "Political Thought in Literature." Glad you liked it!

>123 SandDune: Same here with the Ali Smith, I want to read my way through all of them now. When I read novels again, that is.
Great review for Autumn, one of my 2016 favorites.

Here we all are at Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons for my sister's golden wedding anniversary.



From left to right clockwise around our table we have Mr SandDune, my Aunty Betty, my sister, my nephew Tom, me, my mother (hidden), then my brother-in-law.



Here we have my sister in the middle holding the glass, with her husband to the left. Immediately behind them is Mr SandDune with J to the right of him (the tall one with the blue shirt). The two white haired ladies in the front row are my Aunty Betty again, then my mother and then me in the blue dress.

And here we have our menu which was very nice indeed!

>130 SandDune: And what was the occasion, Rhian?
I see you edited it, congratulations to your sister and her husband!

Lovely family photos, Rhian!

I got such a chuckle out of your anecdote about cats, past and present, and their preferences for the source of their drinking water. I never know from where Cairo will want to drink: he also loves a running faucet, but will drink from my water glass or from water in sink bowls kitchen/bathroom. He always has water in his own dish, but I swear sometimes it it untouched while he takes his pleasure elsewhere.

And I love the photos of Daisy on the sofa. Yes, she clearly dislikes sharing her space with others' books!

>130 SandDune: Looks like a festive group, Rhian. The facial expression of the guy on the front far left is cracking me up.

Portugal!
Autumn!
Family dinner!
Pets!

Your thread has it all, Rhian. I've yet to read Ali Smith, but your comments make me think I would like this one, but I do have others of hers on my shelf. Have you read other things by her? And did you like them?

>125 Caroline_McElwee: I think I saw that there was a Hockney exhibition at the Tate this summer. I think I might go and have a look at it.

>127 Morphidae: Daisy does that with newspapers. J tends to put the paper on the floor to read it, so Daisy comes to sit on it so that she has his undivided attention.

>128 katiekrug: I have read it before as well, but a very long time ago.

>129 Deern: I haven't read any of Ali Smith's earlier work so I must get around to Hotel World and The Accidental. I think I've read most of what she's published in the last few years.

Love the photos, Rhian! Looks like a good time was had by all.

The dinner looks amazing and what a lovely group I f people!

>131 FAMeulstee: >132 lit_chick: >133 rosalita: >135 SandDune: >137 lauralkeet: It was a lovely day: four of my five grown-up nephews and nieces were there. Only the one living in Thailand wasn't able to make it. Then there were seven of her eleven grandchildren, apart from the two in Thailand only the littlest ones aged three and five (apart from the baby) were missing. They were invited too, but their parents view was they would have a much more relaxing time if they weren't trying to keep them amused through a meal that lasted several hours. What was nice as well was that sister's three best friends from school were able to make it.

I do feel it's quite disconcerting as well that I have a sister old enough to have a golden wedding! She was married very young at 19, and she's 14 years older than me, but it still feels slightly strange.

Great pictures, Rhian! Although I am the eldest of my sibs, I'd be surprised to find myself at the golden anniversary of a sib of mine. I'm still processing that my my husband turned 60 ( what?) in December of 2016. He is 4 years older than me, but still. Such an elegant family, Rhian! Great picture of Sweep :)

>130 SandDune: looks like a very fine celebration Rhian.

Rhian, I know what you mean about your sister - my oldest sister is fifteen years older than I am. I was the flower girl in her wedding when I was six, so she was 21.

Great photos and le menu . . . sounds delicious.

3. The Country Wife William Wycherley***1/2

>

The Country Wife was considered fairly shocking when it was written in the fairly laid back 1670's, and between 1753 and 1924 was considered too scandalous to be performed at all.

Mr Horner, a notorious rake, returns from France with a new scheme to seduce the ladies of quality of London. By paying a quack doctor to spread the rumour that he is completely impotent, he calculates that he will be allowed access to the wives and daughters that are usually kept closely chaperoned around him. This could be seen as a very predatory scheme, but the truth is that the wives and daughters are equally as ready to be seduced, as he is to do the seducing, as long as the pretence of Horner's impotency protects them from any suspicion of wrongdoing. Into this mix comes the newly married Pinchwife, who has married Marjory, the 'Country Wife' of the title, choosing an unsophisticated girl from the country expecting that she will be much more faithful and biddable than the sophisticated wives of his friends. But Marjory is very keen to experience everything that the big city has to offer ...

It's always difficult to properly assess a play by reading but I can see that a production of The Country Wife could be very funny indeed!

>143 SandDune:

One of my sideline projects is noting the strange evolution (as reflected in English literature) from the 17th century assumption that women were the sex-obsessed ones, to the 19th century assertion that "nice" women were disinterested in sex at worst, and incapable of enjoying it at best. :)

(My theory is that it was a consequence of the "commodification" of sex during the increasingly trade-focused 18th century, when a woman's virginity became a valuable item "owned" by her male relatives and sold to the highest bidder.)

>143 SandDune: Nice review of The Country Wife, Rhian. I'll bet it could be very funny performed! Goodness, I don't remember the last time I read a play, probably a few years ago when I reread Hamlet.

>144 lyzard: Liz, what a great project! Your theory sounds spot-on. It's somehow infuriating, isn't it, that a woman's virginity came to be owned and sold by her male relatives?

The golden wedding looks like it was a big success. The menu looks Very nice. :) The family photo is awesome. So cool when everyone can get together like that.

>139 vancouverdeb: >140 Caroline_McElwee: >141 Crazymamie: >142 Ameise1: >146 nittnut: There's a weird spread of ages in my family. My sister is fourteen years older than me and was married when I was five, and I was only six when my first nephew was born. Then my last nephew wasn't born until she was forty-two and her first grandchild was born only nine months later. So J is hugely younger than all his first cousins and even the eldest children of my eldest nephew are at least five years older than him. Then there's a gap and several children of that generation in the 6-9 age group, as well as a couple of younger ones.

Same thing happened in my generation. Because my Dad was the baby of the family (as well as me being born when my parents were quite old) my youngest first cousin was ten years older than me, while the eldest one was probably about thirty years older.

>144 lyzard: There's certainly a fair few sex obsessed women in The Country Wife! There's clearly a fair bit of owning and selling of virginity going on, but you get the impression that the women are getting their back on their husbands!

You may be interested in Complaints and disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness by Barbara Ehrenreich and Diedre English, which talks about how women's sexual function was used as an excuse for subjugation. Class warfare also comes into play. Wealthy women are merely sick, whereas working and poor women (and their pesky sex drives) are actually sickening. A very interesting read.

>145 lit_chick:

"Infuriating" is putting it mildly!

At the moment my reading is focused on the late 17th century, which was the peak of the "Look out for them wimmin, they will EAT YOU ALIVE!!" attitude. :)

>148 SandDune:

The male behaviour was taken for granted, of course, although at that time female payback was also very much taken for granted.

>149 michigantrumpet:

I haven't read that one, but have done some reading in the area, particularly with respect to how 19th century (male) doctors classified menstruation as a debilitating illness to, as you say, argue for female inferiority and subjection; although to get that theory to fly, they had literally to classify working-class women and servants as a different species, in order to explain why they didn't have to spend a week each month bed-ridden, like their middle- and upper-class sisters, but were perfectly capable of functioning through it.

Late in the century the same theory was twisted into the basis of a denial of better educational and employment opportunities for women, via the argument that too much thinking diverted blood to the brain and caused the reproductive organs to atrophy. (No, really.)

Hi Rhian! Just blundering into the middle of this fascinating discussion of the history of sex and gender politics to make sure you are safely starred!

It is trying to snow at the moment which is a very unusual occurrence here. I have emailed myself some work to do tomorrow on the offchance that the snow actually sticks, and I am prevented from getting to work. This will sound riduculous to people from snowier climes I know, but around here an inch or so of snow is considered a very good reason for not going to work. We had a meeting cancelled earlier today because the person concerned has been told by their employer, the local council, that they had to go home at 4pm because snow had been forecast. I should point out that they weren't forecasting loads of the stuff, just 2-4cm.

>152 SandDune: That's understandable if your area is not used to snow and does not have the means of keeping roads cleared. In areas like mine where snow is expected in large amounts our county is prepared to do frequent passes of the mains roads to keep them clear and have lots of plows available to do this.
Hope you get a day off at home tomorrow! Snow days are fun whether it's an inch or a foot, it's still a day off! :)

>153 ChelleBearss: No snow after all - at least there is a sprinkling of snow on the lawn but the roads should be clear. As a boarding school J's school tends to stay open whatever the weather and leaves it to parents to decide whether it's safe.

>149 michigantrumpet: That Barbara Ehrenreich book looks interesting. I've read one of hers before and enjoyed it a lot.

>150 lyzard: What I find interesting is how the expectations of acceptable behaviour changes over time. One of the Study units we've done is 'Poetry of Sex and Seduction' and it's certainly a lot more explicit than you'd expect a hundred years later.

When it comes to Restoration poetry, 'explicit' is putting it mildly! Amazing to think the same society got its knickers in a knot over the Romantics.

>156 lyzard: Amazing to think the same society got its knickers in a knot over the Romantics. Except I suppose to all intents and purposes it wasn't really the same society?

I have nearly finished His Bloody Project and am really enjoying it. Even more so because I have been to its setting of the Applecross peninsular on two occasions, and as it is probably about as remote as you can get in Britain and still be on the mainland and connected to the road network, I think I must be in a fairly small minority of readers in being able to say that! Not only have we been to Applecross, but we headed off down the road through Camusterrach and Culduie down to where the road ends in Toscaig, the even remoter hamlets where most of the events of the book takes place. I've been having an great time picking out locations on Google Earth!

>157 SandDune:

No, of course not, which I guess is the point---from the outside it was the same social group but the changes within were immeasurable.

>158 SandDune: that would certainly bring that novel more to life Rhian. Sounds like an interesting adventure. I enjoyed the book, just didn't find it as amazing as the Booker noise suggested.

>160 Caroline_McElwee: I think the fact that I had been there made a great difference to my enjoyment. To get to Applecross you have to travel over the Bealach na Bà pass which is a single track switchback of a road which apparently has the longest climb of any road in the U.K. (sea level to 2053ft). Both times I have been over it it has been completely covered in dense cloud even in the middle of summer. I would imagine it's impassable for much of the winter. The thought of walking the eighteen miles over what was probably no more than a track at the time to the nearest town is something that I couldn't even contemplate, and really emphasised the community's isolation. There is now a coastal road (which still takes a very long time to get anywhere) but that wasn't built until the early 1970's. If you look on Google Earth) Applecross seems a tiny oasis of fertile land sandwiched between the mountain and the sea, but if you look carefully you can see that all the green and fertile land is around the 'big house' and the crofters are largely squeezed into the marginal land further down the coast. If you look carefully you can still see the outlines of the individual crofts of Calduie, between the cottages and the road.

I can't wait to get a copy of His Bloody Project.

I'm a fan of Ali Smith and I've added Autumn to the wish list.

>160 Caroline_McElwee: I think it deserved its nomination especially when compared to some of the books that were actually shortlisted. I mean Eileen - it has to be the poorest book ever put up for the Booker.

>157 SandDune: I suppose the Restoration period was reactionary in its own way. Reacting in this instance to the social austerity of the commonwealth time.

4.His Bloody Project Graeme MacRae Burnet ****1/2



In the 1860s, in the remote and impoverished village of Culduie on the Applecross Peninsular on the west coast of Scotland, 17 year old Roderick MacRae calmly walks towards the house of his neighbour Lachlan MacKenzie, purportedly to do some work on digging a ditch behind the house. When he returns half an hour later he is covered in blood, and seemingly still calm, announces that he has killed Lachlan. So there is never any doubt as to who has committed the murder of Lachlan MacKenzie and two other member of his household. What is in doubt is the motive, and whether Lachlan is or isn't in his right mind.

Very much in the style of many nineteenth century novels the story purports to unfold through a series of documents discovered by the author while researching his own family history. Roderick's own memoir, which he has supposedly been encouraged to write by his advocate, is contrasted with the statements of the doctors who performed the autopsies,
and the other witnesses, and with the supposed newspaper account of the trial. But what I found most interesting was the evocative descriptions of the way of life of one of the remotest parts of Scotland. But this isn't any nostalgic account, the lives lived by the crofters are harsh in the extreme, and the lack of control that they have face becomes painfully obvious.

Applecross is one of the remotest parts of mainland Scotland even today, and as somewhere I have visited more than once I found it fascinating to look at this portrait of what it would have been like to live them a hundred and fifty years ago.

Thankfully I've already got your latest book on my wishlist or your review would have convinced me. I'll keep my eye out for it :).

Here are some photos to give you a bit of the flavour of Applecross:

Here is J in July of 2015 at the top of the Bealach na Bá pass. Both times I have driven over it has looked like that: apparently there is a lovely view when you can see more that 10ft in front of you!



Here is the rather easier (as long as the cows will move) coastal road that did not exist in the nineteenth century.

(

And I couldn't resist a photo of one of the cows taken from our car window.



And here is the Applecross Inn, where we had a very nice lunch. If you follow the road to the right it will take you to Culduie.

Love the cow. There are days commuting in London when a pair of those horns would be very useful!

Yup, that how I imagined it. Books set in that era in rural places often leave me wondering how they coped with the cold.

Well the last twenty-four hours have not turned out according to plan. Yesterday evening I started experiencing some chest and back pain which I was concerned about so we phoned NHS 111 who sent around a paramedic. He did an ECG and assessed my condition generally and advised that although everything seemed OK I should go to A&E to be checked out properly. To be fair to the paramedic he was there very quickly (probably within 3-4 minutes) but A&E took all night. To be honest 11pm on a Saturday night is probably the absolutely worst time to go to A&E anyway, especially given the location of my local hospital, but at the moment the NHS is stretched to the limit (I blame the government) and we were there all night, eventually getting back home at 8.30am this morning. Anyway, they have pronounced me perfectly OK, and decided it was musculoskeletal pain probably exacerbated by me coughing for the last three weeks. (I've had the general LT lurgy and as per usual haven't managed to shake off the cough).

>168 SandDune: Glad to see your health concerns were unfounded but it is always advisable to check. xx

I watched the select committee discussions on the NHS with interest this week as it's senior administrator directly contradicted the statements of Hunt and May regarding the state of the NHS. With an ageing population it is difficult to maintain the NHS but it is something that marks us as a civilised society and a priority for any government surely? I don't think the last Labour government pulled up too many trees by all accounts either, but this lot don't seem to care.

>169 PaulCranswick: I don't see how you can be constantly cost cutting without investment. To make real efficiencies, in my experience, you need to invest in the right systems up front, and that needs money. There's a lot that could be done in the adult social care sector by having a more integrated approach between health and social care to free up hospital beds, which would help a lot. Rather than all this fuss the government is making at the moment about all GP's surgeries being open 7 days a week, personally I would extend the hours of the minor injuries clinics (who deal with minor wounds, broken bones etc) and that would take a lot of pressure off the A&E departments. Personally, I don't much care whether my GP is open 7 days a week. If I do have an emergency requiring a GP appointment at the weekend it is possible to get one with an emergency doctor if necessary.

To be fair didn't see the sort of chaos that is being depicted in the media - it was very very busy and people who didn't have anything immediately threatening we're having to wait a long time. I've been to A&E numerous times for myself MrSandDune and J over the last fifteen years or so, and I think this is the only time that they have (massively) missed their target to deal with the patient within 4 hours. There was perhaps one other time but there were extenuating circumstances as we had to make a decision as to whether J should have an elective procedure or not, and we were finding it a difficult decision to make.

Glad the health issues were nothing serious Rhian.

It's sad seeing the state the NHS is in, and to think it was something, in times when there was less money available generally, that we could be very proud of.

There seems to have been several waves of mismanagement, and I'm not seeing anything that leads me to believe that will improve any time soon. On the whole I tend to feel that if you are unlkely to be reliant on using it yourself, then it enables you to take decisions that will reduce its capabilities to support the general population, and I imagine the majority of the cabinet use private medical care.

>171 Caroline_McElwee: The problem with even the best private medical cover is that it doesn't cover emergencies, critical care, normal maternity or ongoing conditions after a certain amount of time. And I would imagine becomes prohibitively expensive for virtually everyone after a certain age. We have been extensive users of the NHS over the last couple of years and have had treatment and investigations that I think we still can be proud of. But clearly things need to change at the moment.

>166 SandDune: Lovely pictures, how many days a year there is a view up there, Rhian?

>168 SandDune: That must have been an exhausting night, I am glad it was nothing serious!

Rhian, it's good to hear that they didn't find anything serious. What a wait, though. >172 SandDune: is exactly the problem with private medical cover. I think a lot of people would happily take the pressure off the NHS A&E if they could, like they do with other treatments, but there's just no alternative in really serious cases. Even if you're a squillionaire and don't need insurance, there's nowhere else to go for really serious things. The Princess Grace (private) hospital in central London has an urgent care facility, which is good for fractures etc and other "minor" urgent/painful things (between 8am and 10pm, I think), but I don't think people could go in with a suspected heart attack.

Superb review of His Bloody Project, Rhian. It's wonderful to be able to relate to the setting of a book the way you can with Applecross ... fabulous photos!

Goodness, you had a scare last night! I'm glad that you are fine. Expect today will be a quiet one having spent the night in the hospital.

Interesting comments re Applecross and His Bloody Project Rhian. That's one of the books from last year's Booker list that appealed to me and it appeals to me more now that you've pinpointed the location for me. I haven't been to Applecross but we have holidayed in Skye before so I can go some way to imagining it. I do love the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

>168 SandDune: I'm glad to hear that wasn't anything more serious but you must be feeling shattered now.

I'm sorry you had to go through that. I can sympathize. Our ER waits (equivalent of your A&E) can be about the same when you have those vague chest pains with no corresponding vitals to go with it (low oxygen, low/high BP, etc.) While on one hand, it's a relief to be told you're okay, on the other hand you can sometimes feel put off (it's just stress, go see mental health.) I'm glad you are home safe and sound again.

>174 susanj67: To be honest if the incident is in the week our local Minor Injuries Unit is great. Our local hospital (no A&E unfortunately) is a nice new(ish) building and they're very efficient. When J broke his arm a couple of years ago he was assessed at 9:00am, X-rayed and plastered and back at school at 9:45am. Similarly when my mother had a nasty cut last Christmas, they dealt with it very promptly. I had private medical insurance for years with my last job, and it was more convenient in that you had more choice about where you went, but in practice I saw the same consultant whether it was on the NHS or privately, just the private hospital which had comfier chairs and free coffee. I had a recurring problem of breast cysts at the time and I was always given an appointment within two weeks whether NHS or private. But of course this was back in the heady days of the early 2000's.

>175 lit_chick: >176 souloftherose: I am very tired indeed. I would have been very happy to have been given one of those 'trollies in corridors' that the media is up in arms about, as I'm sure I would have got to sleep no matter what was going on around me, but of course I didn't really need a bed at all!

>176 souloftherose: It's Applecross that you look out onto from certain parts of Skye. It's not very far as the crow flies, but it's certainly a long way around by road.

I've found this picture of the start of the road to Applecross. Just in case anyone had any illusions about what the road was like. To be honest I found it much less hair-raising when we were in the cloud as then I couldn't see how far down the drop was!



>173 FAMeulstee: I would imagine it's cloudy up there a lot, but I know it's a nice view as my parents pretty much followed the same route as we did in 1989, just a couple of months later in September. They raved about it - we hadn't seen a thing! (I think my family have always had a bit of a thing about remote mountain roads!).

>164 SandDune: Good review of His Bloody Project, Rhian. If you post it on the book page, I'll thumb it.

His Bloody Project was one of my top reads of '16. Really well done.

>177 Morphidae: Well they didn't say it was stress! They thought it might be an side-effect of me coughing for the last three weeks which is gradually getting better.

Sorry to hear about your health scare, Rhian, and the protracted A&E visit. But I'm glad everything checked out okay!

>181 SandDune: No, that's what I got one time. I'm happy you got an actual reason rather than getting blown off.

Sorry about your interminable A&E visit, but glad you are fine. You've been reading some fine books and plays.

>164 SandDune: Glad to see you enjoyed His Bloody Project so much.

>180 jnwelch: Thanks Joe - I've posted it! I am going to try and post my reviews this year.

>182 lauralkeet: >183 Morphidae: >184 sibylline: Thanks for the good wishes. It's now getting to 9.30pm here and I'm realising that I still have a bit of sleep to catch up on!

>186 SandDune: Thanks - thumbed. Yes, you write such good reviews; please post them!

>187 jnwelch: 'blushes' - thanks Joe!

Nice review of His Bloody Project, Rhian; it appears that you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Thanks for posting those photos of Applecross! They helped me gain some appreciation of the area. I love the hippie cows!

I'm sorry to hear about your experience in A&E, but glad that there was nothing serious going on.

I found the comments about A&E and the NHS to be of great interest. I'm Facebook friends with Rupert, Rachael Beale's husband, who joined us briefly when we all met in Cambridge two or three years ago at the pub where we had lunch. He is an NHS consultant, and frequently posts about the problems facing the system, the pressures and unreasonable expectations that the junior doctors face, and the lack of support provided by Jeremy Hunt and the Conservative government. Talking with Bianca has also been enlightening; as you probably know she is a NICU nurse at King's College Hospital, and they are under increasing pressure to do more with less. She enjoys what she does, but her work is becoming progressively less enjoyable, and more onerous.

I spent most of last night running into and out of my hospital's ER to admit one kid after another, along with my partner. That ER is one of the largest pediatric only one in the country, as we have 50 regular ER rooms, four trauma bays, and at least 20 "Fast Track" rooms for simple matters that don't require emergency care, such as ear infections, simple colds, and benign rashes. It's almost always busy in the evenings, regardless of the time of year, and there are almost always at least 50 patients in rooms or the waiting area, and the number can get as high as the low 100s. Ideally the best time to go there is around sunrise on a weekday (7-8 am), when most of the patients from the evening have left, and the kids who have woken ill haven't come in yet.

Sometimes what you say to the intake person or triage nurse can allow you to jump the queue and get seen more quickly. When I had my first bout of atrial fibrillation I could feel that I had an abnormal heart rhythm, and heard it when I auscultated my heart with my stethoscope. I was a bit light headed with mild exertion, but was otherwise comfortable. However, when I arrived in the Emergency Department of my local hospital I told the intake person that I had an abnormal heart rhythm and chest pain, as I wanted to quickly find out what was going on before I returned to a normal sinus rhythm. After I filled out paperwork I sat down with the other people waiting to be seen that Saturday early afternoon, but within five minutes a triage nurse came to put me into a room, to the chagrin of the people that were already waiting there (I'm sure it didn't help that I looked far younger and healthier than the rest of them!). I was quickly hooked up to an EKG machine; the nurse allowed me to look at the print out, and I could see right away that I was in A-fib.

I've been to that Emergency Department five times in all, and was admitted to hospital three of those times, once for acute appendicitis, and twice for A-fib. I talked the ER doctor out of admitting me for an asthma attack (although in hindsight I would have been better off receiving hospital care for 24 hours, as I nearly had to go back to the ER that evening), and the other time I was able to convert from A-fib to NSR (normal sinus rhythm) shortly after I arrived there, otherwise I would required hospitalization for A-fib a third time. I doubt that I've ever had to wait more than 15 minutes to be seen; even though Piedmont Hospital is one of the city's major hospitals the ER is nowhere near as busy as the one at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, where I work, is.

>189 kidzdoc: I definitely wasn't able to 'jump the queue' as the paramedic had done an ECG at my house and had been pretty certain that I was OK, but said that I should go to A&E to make sure! A&E departments aren't supposed to deal with things not are not 'emergencies' even if they can't wait until the GP surgeries reopen (assuming it's the weekend). That's supposed to be dealt with by out of hours GP's - so for instance when I realised that my asthma inhaler had run out on the morning of Christmas Eve I phoned NHS 111 which was able to arrange an out of hours GP appointment, but they wouldn't have done that at A&E. I have found an app which gives you a video appointment with an online doctor for a reasonable cost, which might be useful for basic things, but that would then mean getting a private prescription. The advantage of an NHS prescription is that you always pay the same price (£8.40) for each item, although they are free for children, over 60s, pregnant women or people on certain benefits.

Oh dear, what a night. I'm glad to read that it isn't something more serious. Coughing over several weeks can be very hurtful. My coughing started mid December. With meds it got better but it restarted a few days ago. I'm so fed up about it.

Very glad that in the end it wasn't anything serious! I have next to no experience with A&E (one broken arm aged 11) and it can stay like that, please! I know that here in Merano you get a color code and if you're an "unlucky" green or white you can wait a day if there are many reds and ambers. With the flu you'd be green I was told, so they give you plenty of time to spread whatever you have. :/

Your pics are great and the place looks just like I imagined it. Interesting for a trip, but I wouldn't want to move there. I like solitude, but this might be too much.

How are you feeling? The chest getting better?

>192 Deern: I have next to no experience with A&E Since J was born 16 years ago we seem to have no end of experience. Between the three of us we have gone to A&E with:
- broken arms x3 (2 of J's and one of mine)
- burn to ear (J when he was eight-nine months old caused by another mother putting cup of hot tea on floor)
- impressive bump on head (caused by the same mother accidentally hitting him on the head with a large CD player at his third birthday party. I don't think she had it in for him - just clumsy!)
- pneumonia (Mr SandDune)
- gastroenteritis leading to dehydration x2 (one involving trip to hospital in ambulance.)
- perianal haematoma (very painful)

I feel sure that there have been other occasions as well but I can't bring them to mind! We have also tried out the emergency services in Italy (J had a fever as a baby) and Japan (me with a broken arm).

>191 Ameise1: >192 Deern: I'm feeling much better now thank you but still feeling tired. Problem was I was already feeling tired and very much looking forward to my lie-in on Sunday and then I didn't get any sleep at all. Next week is looking very hectic and I'm really not looking forward to it. So far the program is as follows:

Monday evening - meeting at J's school re coursework
Tuesday evening - Book Club social
Wednesday evening - Governance training finishing at 8pm (so should get home by 9pm)
Thursday evening - Board Meeting (ditto timings)
Friday evening - off (hurray)
Saturday morning - (Board strategy morning)

I looking forward to the Book Club social but I'd enjoy it a lot more if it was a different week!

Edited to add: I have now realised that the supposedly free Friday evening is actually taken up by welcoming J's exchange partner from the airport.

>195 SandDune: Oh dear, I feel absolutely with you. My days start with leaving the house at 6.45am and returning around 9-9.30om all wrapped up with teaching and meetings but there is nothing social in it like a Book Club.
Hang in there, better days will follow.

Ooof, somehow I missed your ER trouble up there. I hope you're feeling better!

5. Talking to the Dead Harry Bingham ****



I don't really read crime fiction. But I've been starting to wonder recently if the reason that I don't read crime fiction is merely because I'm not in the habit of reading crime fiction. After all Scandinoir is one of my favourite TV genres. So when Talking to the Dead was recommended to me as being set in my home patch of South Wales I thought I'd give it a go. And I did very much enjoy this story of Fiona Griffiths, an inexperienced detective constable in the Cardiff branch of the South Wales Police.

Fiona (or Fi), a Cambridge Philosophy graduate, is good at her job when she wants to be, but unexpectedly and unpredictably bad at others. Her colleagues perceive her as slightly 'odd', she doesn't drink or smoke and has an unexplained two year blank in her history that she won't talk about. And her father seems to have a slightly dodgy past as well. Certainly her superiors officers are a little doubtful, but when a prostitute and her young daughter are found dead in a run down area of Cardiff, with the daughter having been murdered in a particularly gruesome way, all available officers are called in to assist. Gradually Fiona becomes convinced of a connection between that case and a much more mundane one of embezellment that she is working on, but with nothing more than a hunch to go on how can she convince her superiors? But Fiona is never one to let a little thing like rules get in her way ...

This was an enjoyable read which kept me hooked until the end, and I liked the portrayal of South Wales. Fiona was an interesting character who will clearly develop in future books. But the character that I absolutely loved, suprisingly, was Fiona's father. I would never have thought that I could warm so much to a character whose business is running pole-dancing clubs, but I did absolutely. (I feel sure that I have been lulled into a false sense of security and he may turn out to be an axe murderer in future books but we will see).

^Yay!

Wonderful review of Talking to the Dead, Rhian! I didn't read much crime pre-LT either. It was Deb and Carsten who got me motivated with their endorsement of some superb Scandinavian authors. Haven't looked back!

>198 SandDune: Nice review, Rhian, I found it as e-book at our national library, so lended a copy :-)

I had similar views about reading crime fiction until a few years ago. Thanks to LT I was tempted into several well-written series. I'm glad you enjoyed Fiona and I've made a mental note of it!

>198 SandDune: So glad to see how much you liked Talking to the Dead, Rhian. I discovered it recently myself and think I talked a few other people into trying it as well. I know what you mean about Fiona's da, too. I appreciate that the author doesn't seem interested in having his characters fulfill the usual stereotypes. I need to get to the second book sometime soonish.

Very nice review, Rhian - if you posted that, I will give it my thumb. I really enjoyed that one, too, and I am looking forward to reading the next in the series.

So glad that you are OK, even after a long and frustrating night. So much better, though to get checked. I had chest pains last year. Similar to you, it turned out to be a chest bruise from all the coughing. I ended up needing treatment for bronchitis!

Lots of lovely reading here. Especially liked the Applecross book - the pictures making it even more interesting!

Hi Rhian, Glad you are OK, and pains turned out to not be serious. I LOVE the photos of Applecross and it's added to my Bucket list. :)
Happy Weekend!

>194 SandDune: My word Rhian, you are an accident prone bunch!

I would steer clear of the mother who seems to be determined to see whether J has the lives of a cat.

Have a lovely and accident free weekend. xx

Oh boy, Talking to the Dead goes on the heap!

I know just what you mean about reading mysteries -- I wasn't in the habit, but somehow, here on LT, I have been suborned!

>193 Morphidae: >197 scaifea: >205 michigantrumpet: >206 nittnut: Thanks for the good wishes everyone. I'm feeling fine now, although it took me quite a while to get over the lack of sleep!

>199 jnwelch: Thanks for the recommendation, Joe.

>200 lit_chick: >201 FAMeulstee: >202 lauralkeet: >204 Crazymamie: >208 sibylline: When I started on LT I started reading much more Sci-Fi. I'd always liked it, but hadn't really known what to read. Maybe I've had the same problem with crime.

>203 rosalita: I think the reason I liked Fiona's Dad so much was he reminded me slightly of my own. By that I don't mean that my Dad was a slightly shady businessman who could procure a gun at short notice - he wasn't and he couldn't! But he was one of those people who knew everyone and who everyone knew and who could send round someone to fix things if something needed fixing. And also like Fiona's father, was guilty of buying my mother completely inappropriate presents which everyone apart from him would realise that she would hate!

>207 PaulCranswick: Well she hasn't managed to do him any damage for the past thirteen years so I think we're safe!

6.Tartuffe Molière **1/2



Tartuffe is a charlatan posing as a man of extreme piety, who has been invited to stay by the gullible and trusting Orgon. All Orgon's family see through Tartuffe's pretence , but their attempts to convince Orgon fall on death ears. But when Orgon announces his intention of marrying his daughter Mariane to Tartuffe instead of to her beloved Valère, the family decides that things must change.

This isn't my favourite play in the world to be honest, and has an unsatisfactory ending. I'm pretty sure that I've seen it on stage (in an Indian version, not sure why), but a very long time ago, and I don't recall it as a great production.

I've started All That Man Is byDavid Szalay as the third of last year's Booker Prize Shortlist but I can't say it's grabbing me.

>210 SandDune: I read this in high school, I think. But the highlight was seeing it done by the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis:

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/02/theater/stage-a-new-vision-of-tartuffe.html

This quote seems like it could have come from straight from some political carping head talk show today:

"Good God! Do you expect me to submit
To the tyranny of that carping hypocrite?
Must we forgo all joys and satisfactions
Because that bigot censures all our actions?"

>208 sibylline: Hi Lucy

>212 michigantrumpet: I do find it difficult reading plays rather than seeing them performed. A good production makes all the difference.

I've been plodding through my week from hell. The meeting at J's school was very useful, dealing with their choice of topic for their extended essay which is an integral part of their IB qualification, and also covered the University application process. Then Tuesday we had out "Christmas" book club social. That was a nice evening but as usually happens I've ended up with a book for my secret Santa that I've already read. I usually try and pick something for other people that hadn't been on the shortlists for any of the major prizes, or been on recent best seller lists, to increase the likelihood that people won't have read my pick, but this doesn't seem to occur to most of the people there. Unfortunately, this time even Mr SandDune had read virtually all the books on the table so he ended up with my choice Talking to the Dead which is OK as I'd listened to it on audible and I think he'll enjoy it. I got The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters which I read when it first came out.

Then yesterday we had our governance training which went on till 8pm so I didn't get home until nearly 9pm.

Hi Rhian! I like the sound of Talking to the Dead even though, like you, I'm not much of a crime fan. I will keep an eye out for it.

Hello Rhian! First time visitor, after a mention by Anita (@FAMuelstee) that she became interested in Talking to the Dead from reading your thread. I'm reading it right now (and skipped your >198 SandDune: review). I read Love Story, with Murders last year and loved it and even though I usually read series in order, have so far found that reversing 2 and 1 hasn't been a problem.

>210 SandDune: My university put on Tartuffe when I was a freshman but I don't remember a single thing about it. Sad, and from your review I think I'll pass on the source.

>214 SandDune: I can only do it with family members, but I provide the titles/authors of 2 or 3 books for anybody inclined to buy me a book for a birthday or holiday. I put in a really inexpensive one, a middle-of-the-road-cost one, and a splurge item if they are so inclined. It's been quite successful in the last several years. I would think that perhaps a book club might be amenable to wishlists.

Sorry about your recent health woes, Rhian.

I love your photos! The Applecross Road looks daunting! We may have an approximation here with Independence Pass, which is closed for good chunks of the year, and can be hair-raising. It tops out at 12,095 feet!

>215 HanGerg: Hi Hannah - I think I might stretch my wings a bit and try reading some more crime.

>216 karenmarie: Hi KarenMarie! Our Secret Santa books are supposed to be something that you read in the past year and really enjoyed, but we don't buy a present for an individual, just have a big pile of presents in the middle of the table so that we're picking a parcel at random. The problem for me is that I probably read more than anyone else in the book group (which wasn't always the case) so I'm probably most likely to be the one who's read the books already.

>214 SandDune: Rhian, that must be very frustrating about the Secret Santa! But, assuming you donate it somewhere, just think how delighted someone is going to be to get a brand new Sarah Waters for a second-hand price :-) I loved that one when I read it.

I've now finished All That Man Is by David Szalay. It was reasonable, but no more than that and I'm not convinced it's a novel either.

So far my Booker shortlist ranking is as follows:
His Bloody Project
All that Man Is: A Novel
Hot Milk

Glad you are all better now, Rhian. Pity about the Secret Santa books--I like our Christmas swap much better and really hit the jackpot this year, all books I had not read but want to. Better luck in the future.

>220 SandDune: I wasn't convinced it was a novel either. Thought it made more sense as a collection of short stories.

Heavens! We put on Tartuffe in high school. En francais, bien sur. Brings back memories. I think it was severely simplified, of course, by our teacher. But we had fun. Performed it for all the french students and anyone else who felt like attending.

>218 SandDune: That's an issue sometimes with our book club. The person in charge of the selection for the following month will give three selections then turn to me and ask, "Okay, (Morphy), which of those have you read?"

:D

>224 Morphidae: *snerk* That's why nobody in my family buys me books for gifts...

Just a quick hello, Rhian. Gift cards to local Indies, and even, gasp! Amazon, work well for those of us who intimidate other people out of buying books for us. I got an Amazon gift card for Christmas and was pleased as punch about it.

Sorry I haven't responded to people individually. A hugely hectic couple of weeks! Last week was the week from hell as regards work and social events and then Friday J's German exchange arrived and we have been busy keeping him amused.

Should get back to normal on Saturday!

Keep my fingers crossed that it will be better soon. It's terrible when life is so busy. For how long will the German exchange stay?

And is he a better eater?

Dup.

>228 Ameise1: >229 Morphidae: >230 Morphidae: Our German exchange is going home tomorrow and then J goes over to Münster next Friday. This one is a much better eater! He has eaten everything that has been put in front of him, and we have been out for a curry this evening. He doesn't eat pork as he is Muslim, but that has been the only thing that we have had to avoid.