Nathalie's (Deern's) Reading in 2018

Hi there and A VERY HAPPY NEW (READING) YEAR 2018 to everyone !!!

I finally made it to the new group and I hope you'll forgive me if I still take it slow. Lists and pics will be added later when I'm better organized. Right now I'm trying to enjoy as much time as possible with my parents who are visiting me in Merano until Sunday 7th Jan.

I've got a list of reading and other resolutions for 2018 that will be posted soon and I'll try and track my progress in all areas here.

This is also my first year in the ROOT group, and it'll be quite a challenge to keep three threads going (#2 is in the 1,001 group).

I've mentally signed up for the BAC and IAC and am hoping for the odd TIOLI book after years of absence. No promises yet, I'll try to read as pressure-free as possible, but to read better than in 2017.

Books read in 2018:

January:
1. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (1001, BAC, ROOTs, TIOLI) - 3 stars
2. My Brother's Husband by Gengoroh Tagame - 4 stars
3. Why I'm no longer to white people about race by Reni Eddo-Lodge -5 stars
4. The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien (1001, IAC) - 3.8 stars
5. Darm mit Charme by Giulia Enders - 4.5 stars
6. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 4.5 stars
7. An Italian Education by Tim Parks (ROOTs) - 3.5 stars
8. Untenrum Frei by Margarete Stokowski -4.3 stars
9. The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle - 3 stars
10. La Tregua by Primo Levi (ROOTs) - 5 stars

February:
11. Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne by Jean Améry - 4.3 stars
12. Hold your Own by Kate Tempest - 5 stars
13. I sommersi e i salvati by Primo Levi (ROOTs, 1001) - 5 stars
14. Fleischmarkt by Laurie Penny - 4.5 stars
15. Ma le donne NO by Caterina Soffici - 4.8 stars
16. His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle - 4 stars
17. Felicia's Journey by William Trevor (IAC, 1001) - 2.8 stars
18. The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - 4 stars
19. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne - 2.8 stars
20. Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling - 3.8 stars

March:
21. Cause for Alarm by Eric Ambler (BAC, 1,001) - 4 stars
22. La luna e i falo by Cesare Pavese (1,001) - 3.8 starsf
23. Time Present and Time Past by Deirdre Madden (IAC) - 4 stars

CHALLENGES 2018:

IAC:
- The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien (January: EOB)
- Felicia's Journey by William Trevor (February: WT)
- Time Present and Time Past by Deirdre Madden (March: DM)

BAC:
- Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (January: debuts)
- G. a novel by John Berger (February: the 70s)
- Cause for Alarm by Eric Ambler (March: classic thrillers)

ROOTs:
1. - Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
2. - An Italian Education by Tim Parks
3. - La Tregua by Primo Levi
4. - I Sommersi E I Salvati by Primo Levi
5. - The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Bookers:

11 Books to celebrate my 10th Thingaversary
1. The Woman that never evolved by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (BB from Lucy)
2. Se Questo È Un Uomo by Primo Levi (had read it as library book only and wanted it on my Kindle)
3. "L'Italia delle Donne" by Alida Ardemagni (bought at the Merano Museum delle Donne, a book about famous Italian women in RL and mythology)

CURRENTLY READING:
- A Literary Tour of Italy by Tim Parks (9%)
- A season with Verona by Tim Parks (60%)
- If This Is A Man by Primo Levi (reread)
- Drift by Rachel Maddow
- Underworld by Don De Lillo (1001 GR, 7%)
- The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux (audio, 30%)
- The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Found you and starred. Happy reading 2018, Nathalie.

>5 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara, Happy Reading to you, too!

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Reading update:
Still getting through those Holmes books on audio, now 2/3 through The Valley of Fear. I started Why I'm No Longer Talking About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, a BB from the Guardian's many "best of 2017" lists. For the IAC I downloaded Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls on audio which is also a 1,001. For the BAC I might finally read Trainspotting, should I find the copy. That one would also be a ROOT and a 1,001, but I can't say I'm looking forward to it.
Anyway, you see I'm trying to integrate challenges into my reading life again, and as efficiently as possible.
While my brain is hungry for good books, it still feels like the eye-brain connection isn't what it used to be, so this might be another year with many audios.

Life update (very personal, feel free to skip):
Having spent more than 2 weeks with my parents has taught me a lot about myself. I'm still trying to balance out their conflicts and terrible couple dynamics and to create harmony, and I was able to consciously watch what those efforts do to me. It went well for the first 10 days incl. Christmas, maybe because I'd been off working all through the first week. But by NYE I was as depressed and auto-aggressive as I haven't been in a very long time. My mum stopped talking to us by 8pm and that was it. Actually, I just didn't want to be "there" anymore. Clearly part of me still feels guilty for their strained relationship or thinks it's my job to patch things up. So I took a bit of distance yesterday by not seeing them for dinner and I'm also working all day today instead of taking the afternoon off. I'm telling myself that I really have to let go. There's so much anger, envy and resentment especially in my mum, it's literally making her sick. I've decided yesterday that this behavior will not prevent me from celebrating Chrystel's birthday tomorrow and my own one on Thursday. She can either come and enjoy it or stay at home and be angry and not eat. I've chosen a restaurant we've frequented a lot in the past 2 weeks and which she likes, "but not for the birthday and with those people, but of course you can do as you like... ". I've seen the same dynamics between my grandma and my youngest aunt and between my friend Karin and her mum, and can I please say I don't want that anymore? What's with the eternal guilt trips and manipulations?
Another thing I'm seeing clearly looking at both my parents is how bad nutrition affects one's health. 4 years ago, with the first light joint aches in my fingers, I let go off the meat and added more fruit and veg to my diet. Now, after a couple of very unhealthy food weeks with way too much sugar, dairy and daily alcohol, joint aches are back, this time also in the toes, and I feel overall terrible and wish eating wasn't such a bonding event in my family. So when those bdays are over and my parents have left and I can start cooking again, I'll get back to those lovely veggies, spices and pulses at once. I also want to continue the walks and I'd like to hike more again in 2018. I have to lose some weight, but hope that'll come as a side-effect of the other measures.

Found you :)

Happy New Year - though from the sound of it, you should count your start of the New year as the day after your parents go home? Big hugs - I suspect I'd be homicidal if I spent two weeks with my Mum. I think we have very different issues to you guys but with the same result - an overwhelming burden of guilt.

Planning on trying some of your recipes this year - so keep posting those :)

Happy New Year, my friend!

I ache for you and your parents. And I am glad to be hear for you to listen and empathize.

I too have noticed over the holiday that eating just that little bit more of the dairy and naughty stuff has made my joints ache more. Such a pity!

Beastly cold here too which doesn't help.

Happy New Year! I wish you to read many good books in 2018.

THERE you are, Nathalie! Happy New Year! I dropped a ☆...

>7 BekkaJo: That's a great idea! I should celebrate with a green smoothie instead of champagne! :)
I'll have a week of veggies, lentils and potatoes. Sounds like punishment for others, but I can't wait! Actually, I have to be careful as I can totally overeat on the healthy stuff.

>8 sibylline: Yes, isn't it unfair how those "little" (okay, bigger) indulgences always get punished? :/ Even my left elbow hast started hurting. I blame the alcohol more than the food, with all the Christmas market visits and Glühweins in the afternoon and aperitivi and wines for dinner. Even with just one glass per occasion, it adds up. The alcohol-free option at the stalls is hot applejuice which gives me stomach cramps and it's too cold for just plain water. You mainly need that stuff to warm your hands with the cup. :)

>9 The_Hibernator: Thank you Rachel, I'd love to have one of those. Cute dog, not champagne of course. :)

>10 PersephonesLibrary: Hi Kathy, thank you! Have to go looking for your thread right now!

Dropping a star, Nathalie. Happy New Year to you - may it be filled with good things.

Your struggles with your mother are something I understand completely. I never really got along with mine, and we ended up just not having a relationship for the last twenty or so years of her life. The thing is that she was toxic to me, and that is so draining. It was not even a bitter or an ugly separation, just a gentle letting go of something that wasn't working for either of us.

Happy New Year, Nathalie!! I'll switch out my smoothie for a sparkling water with lemon
Your life update saddened me. I look forward to when your days are back to normal and you find joy in cooking and hiking again!

Hope that your healthy eating days come soon (or feel as if they do, is perhaps a better way of saying that). I am also hoping to do more walking in the new year. Have told a friend that I am hoping to visit her in California towards the end of 2018, so plenty of time to save and get fitter for the trip!

Mothers. The only thing in life that parents get to choose for their children is the specific reason the kid will hate you.

I wish more would choose that one thing more consciously and carefully.

Hope your 2018 is filled with fabulous reads!

>13 Crazymamie: Thank you Mamie! Fortunately it's not that bad with me and my mom. I just got the impression that the older she gets the more she turns into a stubborn resentful child that cannnot be approached with reason.

>14 Carmenere: That looks delicious (for me at least), thank you Lynda!

>15 charl08: California this year, how lovely! So we'll again be treated with travel pics, something else to look forward to! :)

>16 richardderus: well, I don't hate her anymore, the relationship has improved much over the last years. But it has been a while since I spent more than a week with my parents. I'll have to learn to let go of the idea that I can help them out of their issues, this is what saddens me most.

>17 thornton37814: Thank you Lori, I hope the same for you. Will visit your thread later today.

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I'm sorry I started the new thread on such a low note, but I thought it explains why there isn't much time for reading and LTing this year during the holidays. When I'm not at work or with my parents I'm usually sleeping, because that whole thing exhausts me. I say it again - it is lovely most of the time having them here. It was a huge step for them celebrating Christmas away from home, first time actually for all of us, and they have been enjoying most of it. It's just that now they're ageing their dynamics are getting so much worse. They have always been terrible and after years of therapy I understand why. What I don't get is that neither of them ever wanted to change their own ways. For 50 years they now have been staring at each other and blaming each other for things that went not 100% well in their lives. None of them is able to take a step for themselves, and after so many years this circle of resentment/ guilt/ being stuck in life is taking a physical toll on both of them. Well... I can't really help them, can I? :/

Books:
Started Trainspotting in German (was a give-away at the library a couple of years ago) for BAC, 1,001 and ROOT. Also started The House of the seven Gables for ROOT and 1,001. Have several longer books going now, it'll be a while until I finish something.

Happy New Year
Happy New Group here
This place is full of friends
I hope it never ends
It brew of erudition and good cheer.

Happy reading in 2018, Nathatlie!

Looking forward to meeting you in April. We have booked a place a few km from Merano, will send details later.

Happy Birthday Nathalie. It's already the 4th here and I'm spending mine visiting my mother.

>19 PaulCranswick: Thank you Paul, such lovely words, and so true!

>20 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita, I'm much looking forward to meeting you and Frank here in South Tyrol this year! :D

>21 avatiakh: Ha, we cross-posted! I just visited your thread to leave bday wishes. Thank you, and again Happy Birthday to you, too! :)

I just returned from my friend Chrystel's party, and tomorrow for my own bday we'll have dinner with her and Karin and Giuliano (whose bday it is as well and we'll be celebrating together the third time now).

Happy Birthday, Nathalie!

Oh my! Happy Birthday. So glad I stopped by!

>6 Deern: wow, it sounds like many improvements will be made by the mere fact of you being in control of it again, your own way! I hope you get by the next however kong it is you have guests, and that your healthy eating improves you.
Your story of your parents sounds sadly familiar to me, not of my own experience, but a close friend's. It is heartbreak for her on a regular basis to be in the middle of all *that*.

Happy reading, and I look forward to the book tallies soaring:)

Happy birthday Nathalie! Wishing you a lovely celebration, and a great year.

Happy Birthday Nathalie. Hope you have a lovely day. With lots of cake - and lots of books.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

>6 Deern: Found you, Nathalie, Happy Birthday!

My mother left yesterday after a fortnight's stay over Christmas and New Year and, even though we get on perfectly well, I was glad to see her go. Holiday periods are stressful enough without long-term visitors.

Stopping in to wish you a very Happy Birthday, Nathalie! May it be full of fabulous!

Cara Nathalie, ti auguro tutto il meglio dall'amore e dal bene per il tuo compleanno, soprattutto salute, felicità e contentezza.

OMG I’m overwhelmed!!! Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes, even in Italian, and there are cakes as well!! :o
I’m off to (of course) aperitivo and then dinner in a couple of minutes and will respond individually tomorrow or on Saturday. So far I had a lovely day. :)

Oh, I think I missed it. Happy belated birthday!

>35 drneutron: No, I think it's today, Jim.

A very happy birthday to you, Nathalie!

Here is some cake...

>36 Crazymamie: Awesome! Happy birthday then!

>23 FAMeulstee: Thank you Anita

>24 sibylline: Thank you Lucy

>25 LovingLit: Hi Megan! :)
It seems we are through the lowest point of this visit, and I know I'll be sad next week when they're gone. I hope they stay healthy enough that we can enjoy more regular (and shorter) visits after their move to Bavaria, when we'll have less than half the distance. They became very friendly with some of my friends here, and I hope that they'll open up to new acquaintances in the new place as well.
And I so need a detox week, physically and mentally! :)

>26 charl08: Thank you Charlotte, we had a great little food party last night

>27 BekkaJo: No books and no (real) cake, but nice savory food and overall a lovely day. Thank you Bekka

>28 thornton37814: Thank you Lori

>29 The_Hibernator: Thank you Rachel

>30 richardderus: Thank you Richard, that's a lovely assortment of cakes, and with my name on the big one! :)

>31 CDVicarage: Thank you Kerry! You're right, the holiday season is always so overcharged with the expectation of joy and harmony, and every little tension can easily turn into a fallout. It'll be a bit of a relief for body and mind when my parents have left, but I'll also feel a bit lost, as usual after a visit. Well. I guess work won't leave me much time to be sad, Next week will be wild with everyone back.

>32 Crazymamie: Thank you Mamie, it certainly was!

>33 Ameise1: Wow Barbara, that's fantastic! E anche una torta con le candele! Grazie mille! :)

>35 drneutron:, >38 drneutron: Thank you Jim, I read your post when I was back from the restaurant, definitely before midnight CET. :)

>37 PersephonesLibrary: A "Written by life" book cake, thank you Kathy! It's almost too pretty to be cut! (I said "almost") :)

Had breakfast with my parents yesterday with a special coffee panettone with white chocolate frosting (which I cut off) that might count as my bday cake. Later we had all three appointments at a spa to finally use up a voucher I'd bought them for last Christmas. I got a facial and might have made a friend with the beautician who's also moved here from Germany a couple of years ago.

We then had coffee sans cake and I spent the rest of the afternoon at their place as it was raining and stormy and there wasn't much to do. We had dinner then with Chrystel, Karin and her husband Giuliano, and my dad allowed me to pay the big bill. :) (first time, aged 47)

I didn't eat much, I had the tagliatelle with porcini and passed all the porcini (which I can't digest) to Karin, but tha tagliatelle had taken the taste, just as I had hoped. I'd ordered mixed bruschette (tomato, funghi, tuna) and hummus with veggie sticks and flatbread as antipasti to share. My dad had a pumpkin soup, Giuliano had the French onion soup as starters. Then my mum, my dad and Karin had the sole with spinach and mashed potatoes, Chrystel had the pear, walnut and gorgonzola risotto and Giuliano the big ossobucco with polenta. Then 2 desserts were shared: a mixed one (chocolate mousse, torrone parfait and apple tiramisu) and one panettone torrone tiramisu. I totally forgot taking pictures of the food or the people, I'm sorry!

We had prosecco, red wine and coffee and everyone was very happy with the food, also my mum who at first didn't want to go to that restaurant.

Today the sun is shining and we'll soon be off to Bolzano. I hope to be back visiting threads on Sunday afternoon latest.

Have a lovely Friday everyone, thank you again and {{{big hugs}}}

Uh, it sounds like a delicious day in every way! I hope your day in Bolzano was lovely as well. Did you take any pictures? Happy weekend to you!

Ooohhh tagliatelle coi funghi secchi was a favorite pasta preparation of mine before wheat became a problem for me to digest. It all sounds lovely, though!

>42 PersephonesLibrary: Bolzano started nice, but then my mum started feeling unwell and we returned home. She catches every bug as soon as she hears about it, and the flu is making the rounds here. Let's hope she hasn't got it, as she always develops bronchitis. I took one pic in Bolzano which I might post on Monday, but unfortunately no pics of the bday dinner.

>43 richardderus: Those were even fresh funghi porcini, and you're right, fresh tagliatelle with funghi is a perfect marriage! I tried one and it was delicious, but that's also quite the limit I can have without cramps or far worse results.

I found one nice brand of dry kamut pasta here, but nothing to substitute the fresh varieties. And all the officially gluten-free ones with rice or corn flour are very different from the real thing in taste and texture, sadly.

*****
I'm reading, but still far from finishing anything. Made a dent into Trainspotting, but left it at my parents. Read about a quarter of 7 Gables and wonder if there will be plot eventually. No progress on the IAC or the other started books, I'm not used anymore to parallel reading.
Dreading next week and the mountain of urgent work tasks that's waiting.

Today is Epiphanias, another holiday, and the last day of Christmas and Christmas markets. I'll probably head to town for a last melancholy glühwein and a look at the lights. Next week, Merano will seem a ghost town, with half the shops and almost all restaurants and hotels closed for weeks, many until Easter. It's always such a drastic difference from high season to nothing. Hoping the weather will get better again or it will be quite depressing.

Happy Saturday, Nathlie. For breakfast I had a piece of Drei Königskuchen but didn't got the king. So we'll see if Thomas or Marina will be the king.

Dear Nathalie, I do so wish you a happy, healthy, useful, joyful, bookful 2018!
I wish I hadn't missed your birthday. The meal sounds amazing. Anyway, bless you for being your family's good glue. I wish it didn't cost so much, but I do look forward to your taking your life back. No guilt!
And I do look forward to hearing about your good reading!

Happy Epiphany, Nathalie! Like Merano, many people I know keep their Christmas Decorations up till today. Not me, the sooner I can pack it all up after New Year the better.
Your dinner out with parents and friends sound delightful and delicious! Glad to see everybody was pleased and you became a paying adult. ;0)
Is it your birthday weekend? In any case, hope the weekend is lovely and remember be in the Now. Don't worry about the work till you get back into your office, Ok?

>44 Deern: I know what you mean about the rice or corn flour pastas...not *right* somehow. I've found my gluten intolerance is significantly helped by using einkorn wheat products. Jovial produces them in Italy.

Epiphany is the end of the Twelve Days of Xmas, and the end of my own family's Holiday month from St. Nicholas Day to today. A bit sad-ish.

>45 Ameise1: In the US, King Cake is a Mardi Gras tradition, not an Epiphany one!

I hope your mom will feel better quickly! It is going around here too: I managed to keep it off for the past week - I organised the stocktakings in our company and in every place there were sick People around me. But I am afraid that I have caught it now.

That is a harsh difference between Christmas fun and nothing. But when the weather gets warmer people also tend to go outside more. Aren't they in Merano?
I know it is easily said. But don't try to think of next week. What will come, will come. But I can relate to your feeling: I will be back in the office after three weeks of absence.

Enjoy your weekend - and hopfully you will find some time to read and regenerate before next week arrives!

You guys are truly wonderful! Thank you so much for the lovely posts! I'll respond tomorrow from my office PC, tonight I'm typing too many errors on that mini ipad.

Eyes are terribly tired as I forced myself through 250 pages of Trainspotting in tiny print to be finally done with it! Not a great start star-wise, but it fulfills all possible challenges, even that TIOLI one with a category I usually avoid: drug novels. Also my first ROOT, BAC and a 1001, so I'll have several threads to update tomorrow.

Parents have left and arrived well in Bavaria where they'll stay for two days. It was a teary goodbye of course, but I'm also enjoying a very relaxed night at home with just me and my books and LT.

Hope you are having a peaceful night - and well done for finishing Trainspotting. I completely understand your issues with the genre, so I'm glad for your sake you can tick it off and move on.

>45 Ameise1: Does the king get to do anything special? Those different traditions are so fascinating! :)

>46 LizzieD: Thank you so much Peggy! "No guilt" is on a sticker on my computer (in Greek letters, so no-one else can read it :) )

>47 Carmenere: We always kept the Christmas decorations that long, even in the Protestant part of Germany where I come from. The trees are usually collected by the voluntary fireworker youths a week later, you just put them in front of the house and they pick them up. Don't know if they make a fire or compost them or anything?
Thank you for the good advice, I did my best to follow it! :)

>48 richardderus: Thank you Richard, I'll check next time I visit the organic store. Right now I still got much types of wheat, buckwheat and whole meal pasta which I'll try and use up, but then I'd like to go for some other alternatives.
I know I looked up King Cake last year, but forgot about it again. Will check again. Though I should better not even look at cakes the next couple of weeks...

>49 PersephonesLibrary: I hope you managed to avoid it Kathy, or get only a very weak version. I listened to an interview with a virologist(?) yesterday who said the actual virus is a weak one, but there are more to come, also a very late one that will hit in April and affect the lungs. Let's all stay safe and healthy!

In Merano everyone who works in tourism and has no school children escapes Merano as soon as Epiphany is over. It's their vacation season, so the town really becomes quite dead for about two months - and then it fills up again from one day to the next a week before Easter. It still fascinates me! :)

>51 BekkaJo: It even followed me into my dreams and I am awake since 2am this morning, so sadly not so peaceful. I'm really glad I can check it off.

Just lazily copying my short 1,001 review over here:

1. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (1,001 #415/366)
I didn't hate it as much as expected, which doesn't mean I liked it. Very drunk people/ people on drugs scare me, scared me all my life on a very low, instinctive level. It's the possibility of a sudden outbreak of violence, especially in crowds. I avoid big sports events, festivals, etc. So reading about a gang of junkies in Edinburgh was like confrontation therapy, though a mild form of course. Of course there were lots of icky and some very sad scenes, but again it was the violence that got to me most (Begbie just casually hitting people to pulp, the aggression against women) and all I wanted was close the book and not open it again.

The book is in fact really good, but because of my personal zero-enjoyment I rate it with only 3 stars.

Can't judge the famous play with language as I read it in German, it was a library give-away copy, falling to pieces. The translators tried to add some slang, but I guess it's not comparable to the original which I probably wouldn't have understood anyway.

?52 Eeep - I remember having much the same issue after reading Crash. I suggest something nice and soft and possibly from the YA genre :)

>54 BekkaJo: I thought The Country Girls might do that, but so far it's more heavy drinking and violence against women and overall sadness. At least Edna O'Brien's voice (she narrates it herself) is soft, which makes it all more heartbreaking, if anything. At least I'll happily return to the action-free plot of "7 Gables". :)

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I saw an interesting docu on Elena Ferrante on Sky some days ago, and how she's an international phenomena, while being denied prizes in her home country (it would be the same in Germany, our cultural elite can't deal with success authors). Anyway, I'll soon take up Days of Abandonment again and should maybe reread L'amore molesto. I got some more feminist Italian books on my tbr that I could also add to ROOTs.

Well, at least Trainspotting is behind you, Nathalie. Hoping that you can find a book that you love very soon.

I admire you for taking Trainspotting on. I wouldn't at this point. You definitely deserve to read some less demanding fiction. I am about to pick up Jude the Obscure which I suspect is Hardy's most depressing work, and yet, I have loved everything of his I have so far read even if I think it is not terribly smart in the middle of winter . . .

A very belated happy birthday to you, Nathalie. The older I get the less I can tolerate overly graphic violence in books and movies, even if it serves the plot and is not gratuitous. I've not read Trainspotting but I remember seeing the movie quite a few years ago, and even then the level of violence stood out to me. I hope you find a gentle book to soothe you soon!

>53 Deern: Of all the ways to start a year...I was a two-star reader of the damned book a decade-plus ago. Did not wish to spend any more time with those people than I *had* to.

Unfortunately not. I am glad, Trainspotting is behind you. I understand your hesitance with the combination of drugs, crowds and violence. That's why I never managed to watch A Clockwork Orange - reading was ok, because I could influence in how much details I want to "see" and "imagine" the scenes. I am not sure if I will ever read Trainspotting...

PS: I hope your week started smoothly and the work wasn't too overwhelming!

>56 Crazymamie: Thank you, I hope so, too. Though yesterday I wondered if my brain has become muddled in the last two/ three years and if I have to relearn appreciating good fiction, also the classics I once loved.

>57 sibylline: Oh dear, good luck with it! It was my first Hardy and was the only one for several years. I quite loved it and would probably reread it some day, but it was a depressing read. Better try to keep an emotional distance from the characters from the beginning.

>58 rosalita: Hi and thank you! :)
You'd have to pay me money (and some!) to make me watch the movie. I watched both Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill on DVD in more digestible mini bits first, but I'm not tempted to do the same with TS. KB1 is now among my favorite movies, but the violence there is so unreal and choreographed. Watching TS I know I'd have my eyes closed and fingers in my ears all the time.

>59 richardderus: You're so right Richard, sequel, prequel? Not for me, thank you!

>60 PersephonesLibrary: I quite liked CO (typing on the ipad, avoiding those hidden brackets) the book, the language thing and the sci-fi setting made it more poetic, but it had its hard bits as well, that nightmarish home invasion! I found it interesting that there are two versions on the market with different endings, I had the happier one and was glad for it. I don't think I'd ever watch the whole movie though, but maybe some easier scenes to get a taste of the famous looks, clothes and music and to hear that language spoken.

Work was bad as expected and will be for a while. All the extra pressure with the year results. Well... business as usual.

>52 Deern: Well, it depense. Usually he/she doesn't have to do chores etc. during that day. Ah, and btw it was Thomas' turn this year.

Just a drive by wave Nathalie - we've nearly made it to hump day...

>62 Ameise1: Sounds like a nice tradition to end all the festivities

>63 charl08: So cute, it's the TV penguin, isn't it? I just reached the hump - Wednesday lunch break. :)

Somewhere among the Guardian's 2017 bestselling books I found My Brother's Husband about Mike the Canadian visiting the family of his deceased husband in Japan, and bought it right away. I thought my brain might need a good graphic novel, and so far I like it a lot. It's very simple, I like the approach how it is all explained to the little daughter Kana who had no idea that a man can love and marry another man. She is confused - but not because man/man, but because it's okay in one country (Canada) and unmentionable in another (Japan).

It is Pingu, yes! Adding My Brother's Husband to the wishlist.

I agree with you about Clockwork Orange. I didn't know there were two endings - now, I am wondering, which one I got...
My Brother's Husband goes on my wishlist as well!

I'm starting my new year a bit late, too, Nathalie, as I was traveling to various places to visit my lovely grandchildren. So much fun to deliver all their presents just like Santa. I am looking forward to a new year of reading. I can't even keep up with one thread so I wish you well maintaining three of them! I do keep track of my 1,001 books but just by noting it with a tag. I'm not very chatty these days.

Happy New Year! And belated Happy Birthday! I was wih my oldest son in Denver for his birthday on January 3rd…same age as you which makes me really old. Haha.

2. My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame contains many spoilers!

This isn’t an easy review, as on a purely rational level this first book of a planned series was just an okay read for me, at times even a bit flat and obvious. I know however that it is of a significant importance, so I’m adding an extra star and will make sure to read the sequels which I expect to lead much further than this very basic introduction. I’m not used to reading graphic novels, so the dialogue felt sparse and I didn’t look too closely at the illustrations. I should read more of those, Italy has such a rich GN culture.

I should add that you have to read each page from right to left, I was quite confused during the first chapter.

Yaichi is a single dad in Japan, living with his young daughter Kana after the divorce from his wife. His parents died about ten years ago in a car crash, and last year he also lost his estranged twin brother Ryoji. Ryoji was gay, lived in Canada and was married to a Canadian man, Mike. Now Mike comes to a visit to see all the places Ryoji had told him about, and Yaichi is confronted with his reluctance to deal with the loss of his brother and the reasons for their estrangement. While Yaichi had never been openly judgmental, he also wasn’t supportive, he basically tried to ignore what his brother went through. Yaichi ‘s young daughter Kana is fascinated with the big hairy Canadian uncle, and without hesitation asks many questions, but also reacts without prejudice. For example, she doesn’t say that it’s wrong for a man to marry another man, she just wonders why it’s possible in one country and not everywhere else. I believe this is a natural reaction. When I was a kid and asked my parents what “gay” meant, they wisely (really, this was great, given they are quite prejudiced people) answered “it’s when a man loves another man and not a woman”. I accepted this without asking anything else except for the obvious “and what about women?” question, and that was it.

This book starts many threads which I’d like to see deepened and continued in later books. A neighbor teenage boy confesses to Mike and Yaichi that he’s gay as well and doesn’t know what to do. The mother of Kana’s best friend forbids contact because of possible “negative influences”. Yaichi is forced to finally confront everything he has suppressed, also his failed marriage (we only get an idea that his rage that’s mentioned by Kana might have its roots in his silent fall-out with his brother and/or the fact that he never openly mourned his parents). He will eventually be forced to deal with all those buried emotions, and this will be very interesting to watch.

So, there’s much room for further development in this series of at least 4 planned books. In this first one, I guess the author was also very carefully testing the waters to see if his country was finally ready for it – and then, for many readers in Japan it will be just the basic introduction it is for Kana.

I don’t like the typical Manga style very much, so the illustrations didn’t do much for me and especially Kana often looked like a toy doll and a bit out of place between the more realistic adults. But that’s me, and as I said, I’ll read and buy on.

Rating: 4 stars, and I'm hoping to get to 5 in the series

>65 charl08:, >66 PersephonesLibrary: I hope you'll enjoy it! For me, it's a format I'm not at all used to, a good entry.

>67 Donna828: Thank you for the good wishes Donna! It was similar for me, my parents left on the 7th, and then the new year started for real on the 8th. But if I had hoped for more reading, work had different ideas. :)

So far I'm half managing with LT, but if I lose just one day, chaos will break out. I'll try and stay on board this year, even if I'm not always 100% up tp date with the starred threads. Going into hiding again shouldn't be an option...

>68 Deern: Oh drat. My library has a tree book of the first two GNs in the series.

Four stars. Challenging prejudice. I hate you! Meanie! Now I *have* to read this by my own rules of challenging myself to stay open-minded. (Well, as open-minded as possible.)

>70 richardderus: #2 is out already in the US?
As tree book it will be easier to read than on the smart phone which is NOT a good device for GNs at all.
Except for Maus and some old Asterix I have no GN experience, it wasn't great (yet - book #1), but I'm hoping it will help open some minds.

Books 1 & 2 are in omnibus edition here. I suppose it's a matter of translations and rights as to when the various countries get the various editions.

Mexico has a HUGE graphic storytelling tradition, called "novelas" and I'm completely uninterested in the form so I'm completely ignorant of the content. This despite seeing them daily for the first two decades plus of my life.

I was totally surprised that Italians have such a strong GN tradition. I went to a huge shop in Torino some years ago where they also had all the classics in GN form. About 3 years ago I treated myself to a huge coffeetable book about "fumetti" (GNs) to get an entry to the genre - which then I never read.

Now that I'm typing I remember that there's one GN series I really do follow - the German gaycomix by Ralf König, mainly the "Konrad und Paul"s. They're really great fun, very well observed, and sometimes very explicit when Paul falls in love with yet another Spanish or Italian construction worker. I don't think they're translated though.

I tend to doubt they would be translated for the US audience. Too much trouble would rain down on the publisher from our vocal hatemongering religious nuts.

>68 Deern: I saw My Brother's Husband review as well, and thought it looked interesting. I've added it to the wish list.

>74 richardderus: You might be right. They're not just explicit, they're also all about enjoying your life and anti-establishment.

>75 SandDune: I hope you'll enjoy it, Rhian :)

Just dropping in to wave - hoping the slide on down to the weekend is going well ;)

>77 BekkaJo: Had a horror morning when a colleague told me, a certain very critical and complicated tariff declaration must this year be done until Monday (normally March 31st). False alarm, thank God, he got it confused with another deadline. Anyway, now I feel tired and old and can't wait to get home tonight. :)

Horror morning was followed by a very bad afternoon, and when I got home I felt totally numb. Spent part of yesterday analyzing my feelings - is this the usual "it's all getting too much, can't cope, want to escape" reaction, or is there more?

Result: that panic and flight part is there and might never really go away. But the other question is how much do I value relative job security and a comparatively high income (much lower than in my old job, but I can live well on it after the move to a smaller place), when on the other hand I have to deal with certain personalities that spread fear and extreme stress with totally unreasonable demands and play out their power when you try to reason with them? I don't want to use certain expressions, you never know who reads what, but it's a real problem.

I have another 20 years to work if I don't win the lottery or the world crashes somehow, I have no debts and no kids, I'm basically free to move. Working 10 to 12 hours regularly and having to deal with stuff like on Friday for another at least 5 years doesn't seem like a good option anymore.
Anyway, talked to a friend yesterday who's got lots of connections and knows me well, and she'll hear around.

Finished my IAC yesterday, and also the importantissimo Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race which gave me a new PoV on feminism as well. This book will be with me for a long time and is a great starting point for my anti-discrimination reading in 2018. Okay, Brother's Husband fell into that category, too, but didn't yet bring me anything new, though I hope it did for many Japanese readers.

Wanted to go mountain and snow hiking with Chrystel today, but the bright sun that had been promised on every single forecast isn't showing yet. Waiting for her call to see what we'll end up doing.

@79: Nathalie, we seem to make very similar experiences... I don't want to go too much into details but in a nutshell: Last autumn I reached a negativity peek and had to go on sick leave for two months due to depression. I had to rethink and reevaluate everything in my life - also jobwise.

As I read it you have already took your decision not to stay. Listen to your gut feeling which is usually more helpful than completely "reason-based" reflections. Fingers crossed that all will turn out well for you in the near future! I wish much strength to you!

And of course, a happy reading Sunday!

>80 Deern: I’ve been eyeing that one for reading this year. Glad to hear it was thought provoking.

>79 Deern: I hope a better fitting job finds you soon.

>80 Deern: And... did the sun come out so you could hike?

>79 Deern: {{{Nathalie}}}

Oh, I'm sorry things are tough at work. Hoping it will alleviate soon and that you will find something more congenial.

>79 Deern: Completely understand your feelings - hoping you can find something that works better for you. Panic and flight are a natural reaction, but it seems like there is far more to your feelings than just that. Staying doing something that brings you so low, so often, is not good for you. Pot calling kettle black I know - it took me so long to get out of my job that was breaking me, and now I'm struggling with the flight feeling as new role is proving much more stressful than anticipated. But I do know I won't go back to finance - so sometimes you just need to move on in order to find out what you don't want.

I also realise that you know all of this and that I'm basically now just waffling on and somehow my fingers have taken on a life of their own and I can't seem to stop typing...

Just a short answer, as it's another busy day... I know I've been there before and not just once, but I think I've by now done all possible "work on my own attitude" exercises. They did help - I'm getting along perfectly with many colleagues that seemed difficult at first, I work well with everyone but there is the one exception, or maybe 1.5. I'm also not angry or partly offended as I used to be. Just inwardly quite done with it all.

I'll respond individually tonight or tomorrow. Wanted to this morning, but - with my head probably already at work - I almost burned the house down by switching on the wrong burner stovetop. Not the one with the moka and my coffee in it, but the one with the electric kettle (the only socket is right there). Kettle base melted totally, fuse jumped with a bang, kitchen was full of smoke, stove is most probably ruined. Insurance doesn't pay because there was no open fire. :)

I need a couple of days off in the snow to clear my head, maybe I can manage a short holiday.

>50 Deern: Eyes are terribly tired as I forced myself through 250 pages of Trainspotting in tiny print to be finally done with it
Eek. Tiny print huh? That is a drag.

Work issues sound not good- constant exposure to negativity like that can really drag you under :( I hope you can investigate some alternatives, and maybe even doing that will help?!

First quickly copy-pasting two reviews:

3. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

Well, this was a difficult one, in a good way. I had to take frequent breaks to let information settle and to see what the book was doing with me. This is of course the author’s intention – confront white readers with the privilege we often were not aware we had and let us see if we are willing and able to admit to it and to adjust/ widen our point of view.

This book is focused on racism in Britain, which was also very interesting as in the German media it is usually all about the US or our own country. The author gives an overview of black British history, then tells about her own life, later gets to white feminism and ends the book with a look at the class system and how rightwing politicians invented “white working class” as a focus group to gain votes from people they don’t care about at all. There’s a hair-raising interview with Nick Clegg (spelling?), where I had to take a week-long break half-through, in total desperation. The feminism chapter was the most important one for me, as that was where I found myself – quite fresh to feminism (you might remember my 21 days forgiveness practice in 2015 that made me realize I had grown up totally misogynistic, like many other women), but so far clearly on the white spectrum. Much food for thought there. I was planning to read more about discrimination in general, but with a focus on race and gender, and here I got a very good starting point for both.

Rating: 5 stars

This review was very long, but I cut out most personal stuff. I don't know yet where it will take me.

4. The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien (IAC, 1001 #416/367 )

I listened to the audio read by the author and quite enjoyed it, but should warn that many others (native speakers) didn’t. There are frequent breaks, and O’Brien’s breathing isn’t even, overall it’s quite slow, but for me it added to the story.

It’s the 1950s. Caithleen is 14 and lives in Limerick with her beloved mother and her alcoholic and violent father. On the day when she learns she’s won a scholarship to a convent school, her mother dies tragically. She spends summer with her so-called friend Baba and family, then both girls go to the convent together for 3 years. The last part is set in Dublin where Caithleen and Baba share lodgings, Baba going to school while Caithleen works in a shop. There are nights in dance halls, drinking, first encounters with (much older) men.

It’s not easy for me to decide if I liked it. It’s a first-person narration, and Caithleen is a very passive character that in a way reminded me of myself, though I doubt I would have had all that patience with egocentric and empathy-free Baba. I found all the men terribly creepy – Hickey (spelling?), Baba’s father, most of all sad-faced manipulative “Mr Gentleman”. I think I enjoyed the convent chapters most and liked the Dublin part least, which is why I hesitate to get straight to the next book, Girl with Green Eyes.

As I posted on the IAC thread, I wondered if Ferrante’s Lenu and Lila might have been partly inspired by Caithleen and Baba. Anyway, I prefer Ferrante’s characters and writing, it had a passion that pushed me to read on and on. This book – though of course very good – made me feel uncomfortable most of the time, in a “I want to duck and cover” way.

Rating: 3.5 stars for the book, 3.8 for the audio

>81 PersephonesLibrary: Thank you very much for sharing this, {{{Kathy}}}! Actually, I've been at lower points, personally and work-wise, and I've been close to where you were. I got help and managed "somehow" to see things from different angles and to create an inner distance most of the time. My screen is full of post-its (in English, written in Greek letters) with stuff like "No guilt" or "I could see peace instead of this", that have helped in many a situation.

Since the big crisis in 2015 I've changed roles twice, I'm (almost) guilt-free now because I know I'm doing my job very well, which was not the case then. I've established a system of positive feedback giving with many other colleagues here, especially the women, because, well - we need it more than the men (those here anyway). I've watched and learned and try not to take certain outbreaks personal anymore, because who knows which problems are really behind it. But... it's just that requests should be founded in reality and made without aggression, and if that isn't possible I should consider other options.

Overwork and too much on my plate are things I'm used to, even if I sometimes complain a lot, and I'll probably fall into those traps everywhere else as well. It's unfounded sudden aggression I can't deal with.

>82 drneutron: Yes, I'd recommend it for people willing to adjust their PoV. It's clear many will react defensively, at least at first. I'd read the blog entry first and also of course Darryl's post last year, so I was already in self-criticizing mode (okay, I'm most of the time, but I'm can also be very defensive, and here I tried not to be).

>83 FAMeulstee: The sun didn't come out, but Chrystel drove us far, far into a valley (Passeiertal) where there was some sun left. It had the most fantastic snow and was heartbreakingly lovely! I wanted to take pics, but my camera died on me. No net, so the battery was empty when we arrived at the Alm.

>84 richardderus: Thank you {{{Richard}}}, hugs are very appreciated!

>86 BekkaJo: I SO get you, this could be me! I struggled for years with the Frankfurt job, with 2 small nervous breakdowns (nothing bad, just 2 days away each time), and when I got here, it got worse, and there was always the guilt feeling, because "they" (whoever) had hired me might find out I'm totally stupid and punish me.... It's not easy to get out of it and put more realistic expectations on yourself. Says the person who sits in this office 11 hrs on most days and happily comes in on Saturday "if needed". :)

>88 LovingLit: And I did that thing with tipping on the page to page forward again, and that movement to increase font. I'm clearly e-reader conditioned. :/

Actually, constant negativity is one thing. Extreme mood swings are worse. If someone goes from friendly to threatening within a minute, I feel like I'm choking. Yes, investigating is what I'll do, and then we'll see.

>85 sibylline: Sorry Lucy, I somehow missed your post. Thank you for the good wishes!!!

****
Want to add that the other 3 stovetops burners still work, and I was able to make coffee this morning. Giuliano is trying to scratch the plastic off today and will see if he can get a substitute without me having to buy a new stove and oven (they're connected). I made an excel sheet, saying "HERD!!!" (stove) in pink big letters with a date table below which I'll stick to my kitchen door and have to sign every morning, just to make sure no more stove-related accidents happen.

It took awhile for electric kettles to catch on over here -- I had to put huge signs on it NOT to place on the regular stove!

I'm glad you have three other burners that work. -- I think that is (the american anyway) word you want? Stovetop means the whole top of the stove, whatever number of burners there are. I was sitting there puzzling how you could have three stoves in your house and then it occurred to me. Your English is so extraordinarily good that I puzzled longer than I should have.

I suspect too that men, all men, even the nicest ones have similar issues with thoughts/ideas/assumptions about women that are so embedded they have no idea.

>93 sibylline: Thank you, I checked for "Herdplatte", and it returned "stovetop" and "burner", but burners sounded more like gas stove, so I went for the wrong one. :)

And yes to the last sentence. I guess it's normal. We just have to be open to the idea that we have been carrying ideas and values with us that require to be looked at again in a new light.

Hey Nathalie, I have lurked rather than posted, it seems. Glad to read your hob isn't as bad as you first thought. I dropped a mug of soup today in the office kitchen, so you definitely have my sympathy.

I do hope your friend can find something that suits you, is less fraught (and with a shorter working day - 11 hours, you must have admirable stamina).

>95 charl08: Hi Charlotte :)
Oh I'm sorry - this must have been quite the mess!
My colleague told me she managed to melt a plastic sieve on an induction stove where the burners usually switch themselves off when you remove the pot. She just put the empty pot back on with the pasta sieve inside. :)

Yes, I'd like to work only 8-9 hours for once in my life. I probably wouldn't know what to do with all the spare time, but right now, and looking back on my professional years, it's all workworkwork/eat/sleep during the week, a bit boring.

5. Darm mit Charme by Giulia Enders (Gut: The Inside Story of our Body's Most Underrated Organ)

This book has been a great success in Germany and then internationally a couple of years ago. As I usually avoid hyped books, I missed out on this little big gem so far. Instead I read another book about intestinal health (Weizenwampe) and wrongly concluded that it was all about low-carb. Now with the post-holiday issues, mainly the aching joints, I was looking for information on anti-inflammatory nutrition and intestinal health and finally came to this book. Fortunately it was not at all what I had expected. When writing this, Giulia Enders was still a medical student. She explains the then actual state of knowledge about digestion and intestinal bacteria, and in an indeed very charming way. Okay – it’s quite vulgar actually, but “nicely” so. We’d call it “schnodderig”. The thing is, that if someone calls crap crap and not stool and a fart a fart and not gas or a wind, and if it is all accompanied by childish-looking, but equally charming illustrations (for example of mouth bacteria dancing the can-can on a slice of cake), you’re much more likely to keep your interest up and to actually remember what you read.
I read the second revised edition where she adds some of the latest science in the afterword. If you’re interested in the topic and open to the language, I can really recommend it. Regarding my food, I already reduced the cheese, sugar and refined flours, and I’m going to eat more artichokes, chicories, and cold rice (sushi) and potatoes. Unless the stomach flu bug that makes the rounds here catches me first.

Rating: 4.5 stars

So, I fear I now have to return to the boring House of the Seven Gables…

>91 Deern: I decided that my new year's resolution this year was a simple one. Forgive myself more. It's not going well tbh...

>97 Deern: Oh no! I haven't read Seven Gables yet. I'm not a great Hawthorne fan at the best of times. Sigh.

Sorry about the kettle/hob debacle - what a nightmare! Glad it's still all sort of working. Hugs!

House of the Seven Gables must be read early in life. If you are over 21, you are given Bibliopapal Dispensation from having to read it.

I'm trying to eat less gluten and less lactose, on an 'IBS friendly' diet. Day 3, and so far I have already eaten 2 Magnum ice creams, so probably an indication of how well it is going!

>98 BekkaJo: It is very, very (...) very difficult to learn. :)
I'm getting better at it, and I'm 47, much older than you. What really helped me, though it cost much time and effort I had then, wouldn't have now and know you don't have, was that 21-days book, with a good 2 hrs of writing and other exercises daily. I identified many of the often ridiculously stupid ideas that are behind the guilt and had to forgive myself for those, and others for instilling them into me. I often sat there and cried when I reread what I was really thinking.
Like "being stupid and being afraid someone might find out" (guilty for mistakes at work where I hadn't hidden my stupidity well enough) , but also "that my main value lies in my body and is defined by men" (so I felt guilty for overeating/ not exercising/ not dressing well and so reducing my total value) or that "women deserve to be punished" (feeling guilty when boyfriend complained about something). The day I had to deal with my real thoughts on women was the day when I realized I had grown up a female misogynist, this was quite a shock and I'm working hard on turning this around.

Right now I feel guilty for considering other job options, because "who am I" that I'm not glad with what I have when elsewhere people are starving and so many people in my country are jobless and would be endlessly grateful... (you know the rest). We are so very hard on ourselves, and while we're often willing to forgive our nearest and dearest and even the next best person almost everything, we're so unforgiving towards ourselves for much smaller things. It's ridiculous what a backpack some of us are dragging around, but it's also so incredibly difficult to take it off, or at least make it lighter. Sending you lots of {{{big hugs}}}, you're really doing great!!! When I read your thread, I often think I wouldn't know how to manage it all.

>99 richardderus: Thank you {{{Richard}}}, I might take it if it wasn't a 1,001. At least I now chose a new ROOTs book and took the pressure out of it.

>100 charl08: I had grilled artichokes (store-bought) for dinner, but before that I had 2 mini croissant-like but salty crisp rolls which are of course made of the cheapest wheat and totally addictive. So addictive they never make it to my kitchen, I always devour them in the car.

Just ate very intestinal flora friendly cold boiled potatoes for lunch, but no need for sympathy, I'm strange and like cold potatoes. Kiwis and a plain lactose-free yogurt with oats for breakfast. Magnum and most ice creams don't really tempt me much, my comfort and addiction lies in white soft or crunchy breads. Before she moved to the nursing home, my grandma ate a Magnum classic every night, sometimes followed by a bar of nougat chocolate, then once a week she called and complained about her digestion. :)

Caught a new BB from the Guardian for "Brit(ish)", by Afua Hirsch, another book about racism in the UK. At this point, there are 26 comments, of which 6 had to be deleted and some are immediately defensive.
Amazon says it will be published on Feb 1st, and then led me straight to another BB, Feel Free Essays by Zadie Smith, to be published on Feb 8th. Both are on my WL now and should fit well into my "awareness reading".

I bought and downloaded (yes, one ROOT read and about a dozen new books bought this year...) Tim Parks' A Literary Tour of Italy and then remembered I had an unfinished Parks in my Kindle cloud that would qualify for ROOTs: An Italian Education. I stopped reading it back then one third in, as too much was reminding me of my ex and his family. I should now be able to finish it. It's quite old, he's telling events of 1991, but I feel that nothing much has changed in the minds here. It's a very honest, yet affectionate look at Italian family life.

Now this is interesting news: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/18/elena-ferrante-to-become-guardian-...

6. We Should All be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is such a short essay that I didn’t want to list it, but then saw others treated it as book, so why not? It’s developed from a talk I think you can also find on YT.

It’s so basic, accessible, honest, charming and short and non-exclusive, that it could easily be added into any syllabus. The author comes from a culture where feminism is seen as sad, un-African, ugly, etc. so she decided to become a Happy African Lipgloss-Wearing-For-Herself etc. feminist. She describes the situation in her home country where tradition forbids women to go to a bar unaccompanied by a man, where you might be thrown out of a hotel when you’re on your own because the receptionist will think you’re a prostitute, where a waiter greets only the man at your side. But she also tells stories of her Western friends, of how behaviors fully accepted and even praised in a man are judged negatively in a woman, how women are overlooked in the workplace and are afraid to speak up. She takes a closer look at the role boys are pressured into everywhere in the world, to be manly, to be the one who courts and pays, to carry all the economic luggage and responsibility. It's a 10 minute read, so go for it if the topic is of interest.

Rating: 4.3 stars

>104 Deern: Nice review, Nathalie, very compelling.

>105 richardderus: It was such a wonderful contrast to a feminist book of which I'm only trying to read the sample and that's so full of highly-erudite expressions that on both attempts I had to stop after a couple of minutes and stare at the page, feeling the words were thrown at me like stones, saying "you're not worthy, keep out". No sense reading it in German, the reaction would be the same. I never learned to speak "Intellectual", that's why I could never review modern art or become a politician.

I still hope it's just the introduction, as the book has been highly praised and I'd really like to read it. Anyway, like many other women I have what we call "Schwellenangst" (the fear to step on/ obver a threshold), looking at all those super-smart intellectual feminists you are presented with in the media. There should be easy access to feminism and other anti-discrimination movements when we take our first tentative steps. This essay >104 Deern: is just great in this respect, it's inviting and friendly and respectful towards everyone.

>104 Deern: I loved We should all be feminists when I read it last year, Nathalie, short book, important message!

>106 Deern: You are referring to the Zadie Smith book?
I think both easy acces as more in depth are important to any movement.

>89 Deern: huh. I thought this one was an article. This is based on an article that I read that had this title, maybe the author expanded it for a book.
The title was provocative, but the content made a lot of sense.

>91 Deern: ...constant negativity is one thing. Extreme mood swings are worse...
I'd agree wit that. At least yo know where you stand with the former. There is not place in a professional environment for extreme mood swings.

Nathalie, I can't catch up, but I do want to assure you that you deserve a good job. That means one in which your work is valued, you are and feel productive, your co-workers cooperate as well as they can, and one that leaves you a normal amount of time off the job to have a life and enjoy it. Go for it!

>107 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita, I was referring to Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed. I don't even know how to describe my difficulties, it's like reading a text about maths. If I find the time today, I'll post a quote. Maybe the rest of the book is easier than the intro, but I must decide based on the sample if I want to spend the money. No chance to find it in a library here, and it isn't cheap, more than 10 Eur for the e-book.

Edit:
This is an example:
But the figure of the policing feminist is promiscuous for a reason. Feminism can be more easliy dismissed when feminism is heard as about dismissal; as being about making people feel bad for their desires and investments. The figure of the feminist policer is exercised because she is useful; hearing feminists as police is a way of not hearing feminism. Many feminist figures are antifeminist tools, although we can always retool these figures for our own purposes. A retooling might take this form: if naming sexism is understood as policing behavior, then we will be feminist police. Note that retooling antifeminist figures does not agree with the judgement (that to question sexism is to police) but rather disagrees with the premise by converting it into a promise (if you think questioning sexism is policing, we are feminist police).

Or:
By working out what we are for, we are working out that WE, that hopeful signifier of a feminist collectivity. Where there is hope, there is difficulty. Feminist histories are histories of the difficulty of that WE, a history of those who have had to fight to be part of a feminist collective, or even had to fight against a feminist collective in order to take up a feminist cause.

After having read this a couple of times, of course it makes sense. But I'm not reading statements, I'm reading a longer text. After every partial sentence I have to pause and reflect what exactly this means, if it still makes sense, then reread the first part. This is exactly how I read and digested books about science, mainly maths, in the past. I understand this part and that part, so I should derive this third part as well. After 5 readings I usually get what she means, and looking just at one sentence is easier, but after a couple of pages I find myself glancing over it, having already forgotten what has been said earlier.

>108 LovingLit: I read that article as well, and yes, she made a book out of it, and imo developped it very well.

About those mood swings: that particular mood swang back in the other direction on Monday, but a colleague and I had a stressful weekend with Friday's outbreak. I should just have left on Friday after the discussion and see what would be left after the weekend. Maybe that's what I can learn from it.

>109 LizzieD: Thank you so much, {{{Peggy}}}. Does that job exist? :D
I learned that much is in the personal attitude towards the work and the colleagues. The situation here has improved very much over the years - with the exception of all the extra hours and that special issue. It would be great if something else came my way.

>101 Deern: Hugs. We will persevere, right?

>111 BekkaJo: Definitely!! Hugs to you! :)

>110 Deern: I had to read that a few times too, Nathalie!
Don't think I would manage a whole book like that. Maths is easier ;-)

>113 FAMeulstee: There's one review up for the book, and the reviewer says that stylistic device (chiasmus?) was the only bit that she didn't like about the book and it confused her as well. I'll try again, maybe I'll get used to it. For now I checked out 3 feminist books from the library.

******
Caught the cold bug my mum and half the office had, but it's okay, since it's weekend and I can be all lazy, and it gives me time to read! I just hope it will be better by Monday and that the persistent cough I usually get will stay away this time.

Finished ROOTs #2, the Tim Parks book, and remembered why it was a hard read the first time around. After all he describes life in Italy, and the issues he has are generally my issues as well, and at times I lose all hope I'll ever find my place here. But I have never found my place in Germany either (nor he in the UK, nor my friend Chrystel in the UK and despite her permanent complaints about Italy she would never return), so maybe for all of us it's easier to be a stranger in a strange country than back home.

>110 Deern:. That is ghastly writing--and there is no excuse for it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you! Trust yourself and your judgement!

And I agree with Peggy. You deserve a job you like, if not love, with people you get along well with and who don't take advantage of you. It's not unheard of.

I can see that the Parks might be hard to read for personal reasons. Golly he can write!

>115 sibylline: Thank you for the confirmation, I feel relieved! I get it that some writers enjoy playing with stylistic devices, but in a text that should be read and digested by many? The content is lost in the structure.

And thank you again! "it's not unheard of", you're right! We're too often told to be quiet and content, because "elsewhere it's not better".

Yes, he can write! I'll try his works on literature next before facing another chapter of Italian life. Reading his experiences, I'm also always made aware of the machismo here. As a foreign man, the guys draw him into their (quite comfy) corner, where they take time off the family by gardening, fishing, etc., and every little thing like nappy-changing is oh so special and praised! I know some Italian families now, and yes, the women my age mainly clean and iron and cook when they're not working, the single children are spoiled rotten for the first couple of years, then not allowed to grow up, controlled non-stop and put under much pressure. Not much has changed since the 90s. It is an extremely conformist society.

The cold is worse than I'd thought. It's day 4 and I'd hoped it would be a bit better than yesterday, but it's worse, now with bad stomach cramps and nausea as well. It's an unfortunate day for a sick day as we're introducing a new product line, but I better stay home and in bed and not spread those bugs. Can't remember a cold when I used that many tissues in 2 days.

Urgggle! Poor you. Sending healing thoughts.

Hope you feel better soon Nathalie. I'd have declared that flu, so time off sounds more than sensible!

Sorry to read you're under the weather, Nathalie! I hope you're resting at home and beginning to recover.

I hope you feel better soon, Nathalie!

>118 BekkaJo:, >119 charl08:, >120 Carmenere:, >121 rosalita: Thank you Bekka, Charlotte, Lynda, Rosalita! I might call it "flu", but fortunately it's not the badbad influenza (which I last had about 20 years ago, together with my parents, and my then boyfriend brought us all beef broth his mum had made).

I got a headache from the coughing- yes, it's there- so I can't read as much as I'd like, but I might finish one of my library books.

Sorry that you are not feeling well, Nathalie. Hoping you feel better soon.

Hey Nathalie! Sorry you're feeling sick! I still haven't quite recovered from the flu that I came down with shortly after New Year. I'm moving around fine, but still have a cough and shortness of breath sometimes. Hopefully you recover much more quickly. :)

Get better soon. I wish I could bring you some nice broth!

Take it easy Nathalie. Virtual hugs.

>123 Crazymamie:, >124 The_Hibernator:, >125 sibylline:, >126 charl08: Thank you Mamie, Rachel, Lucy and Charlotte! I'm better today, and of course I'm back at work. :)
My bug was on the local news this weekend, a colleague told me. I'll be avoiding unnecessary contact (coffee breaks - coffee makes me still nauseous *sniff*) for the rest of the week.

I didn't read anything yesterday, instead I watched Sky's non-stop re-runs of "Sex and the City". A show I didn't particularly like (I never saw the films and don't want to) , but when ill I always need a program I can fall asleep to and not find some murder or horror when I wake up. I still hate dislike Carrie, I still like the other 3, and I'm clearly ageing as this was the first time I thought "the Russian" was atractive and not just "way too old".

7. An Italian Education by Tim Parks

I started this one directly after Italian Neighbours 2 or 3 years ago, but after the first chapters couldn’t continue for personal reasons. Blending those out however, I can wholeheartedly recommend the book to those interested in Italian life. Parks narrates his own experiences in starting and raising a family with his Italian wife Rita in the small town of Montecchio near Verona. If some of it might seem exaggerated, I can confirm it isn’t, and while his stories are set in the early 90s, starting with the second pregnancy and ending 6 years later with the third, nothing much has changed. Except that kids now have smartphones and better toys and are even more spoiled in their first years, and probably more controlled and put under pressure when they’re older.

“Family” in Italy is different, and as a man Tim Parks (who I just learned got divorced some years ago) got the better side of the deal of a mixed marriage. If he wanted he could sit with the guys and lament over a bottle of wine about feeling neglected by his wife. Going for a walk with the kids or taking them to the beach already made him the hero with all the women. I'd say he was also lucky the in-laws were living several hours away. When I talk to my female Italian colleagues – not to the German-speaking South Tyroleans – it’s all kids, what’s for dinner, and ironing methods. The houses I visited were dust-free. You’ll surely find exceptions, but the normal people are very traditional and conformist, and I’m sure this played a big role in my ex’s decision to leave me for a divorced Italian woman with children, with whom he could continue playing the roles he knew and “be a family man again”. They may all say (also the women) they feel oppressed, want more freedom and more options for their lives, but they’ll almost always go for what they know, also because otherwise their friends and family would be confused. The endless lamenting about others is a great part of everyone’s lives. When they live in the same town they see each other every single day, even here in the North. There isn't much room for outsiders.

Okay, the book is well written, entertaining and informative, except for some too drawn out chapters which I skim-read. However half the time I felt very bitter while reading it.

I got a book from the library about Italian feminism and the question why it retreated after the good beginnings in the 1970s. I guess that in a country with corrupt politicians and a blocked legislative, where the mafia still is everywhere and the church puts their foot down on the smallest progress, people find consolation and a fake safety in a traditional and conformist family model.

Rating: 3.7 stars

8. Untenrum Frei by Margarete Stokowski

Short, because available in German only: Margarete Stokowski is one of two female column writers in the online edition of the German magazine Der Spiegel. I read her feminist columns every week, and while I don’t always agree with her to 100%, she often gives me new ideas. Her style is a bit like that of Giulia Enders – that blunt and brash writing you can do when you’re still young. In this book she tells her personal story, her own experiences which would well fit the #metoo movement, her first steps on the way to become a convinced and open feminist. Her main idea in this book is that to be “free above (i.e. in your mind)” you should also be “free down there” (in your sexuality). The book is well researched and not a difficult read, as she weaves in theories and international developments, then switches back to her own life, her family and friends, before it can become too dry.

Rating: 4 stars

>127 Deern: I hate it when bugs make coffee unpalatable! Keep taking care of yourself - or you'll end up sick again. Grrr!

I used to quite like Sex in the City (haven't watched it in a long time), but I agree - Carrie definitely the least favourite character.

>130 BekkaJo: I had also forgotten how terrible Charlotte was during the Trey episodes. That whole arc was horrible, the only good thing was it led her to Harry.
Well, when I first watched the show, I was younger than all the characters, now I'm older than season 6 Samantha! The only one older than me is Petrofsky! :(

>128 Deern: This sounds really interesting to me, Nathalie. It reminds me of a recent news items about a female journalist or broadcaster who came forward with her own #MeToo story of sexual harrassment and was flooded with hateful messages and threats of death and violence. And from Italian women just as much or more than Italian men. At the time it baffled me, but your review makes me understand more clearly the obstacles.

Edited to correct myself: It was model Asia Argento, not a journalist, whose story I read about here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/world/europe/italy-sexual-harassment.html

>132 rosalita: Well... I'd like to say I find it shocking too, but I'm not surprised. It's successful (and not necessarily intentionally "bad") conditioning.

I wrote somewhere above that in 2015 I learned I didn't really like women, and it shocked me. I'd rather not think about what maybe 5 years ago my own reaction to that movement would have been. I wouldn't have written hateful comments, because that's not me, but... It's very difficult to explain some things. Italy isn't a very women-friendly country, although 99.99% of Italian men would probably say that "they love women" and "that behind every man there's a woman who rules" and all that c**p. Recently an Italian friend who met my dad for the first time said "your dad is like an Italian". That was another reason why the Parks book was painful. I might be German, but our family dynamics is similar to the typical Italian family, and it hasn't done me very good.

As a single child, and then a daughter, of a narcissistic man (and there are many) you grow up with a load of ideas that are often contradicting. You can be everything you want because you're a princess; but you're a woman so you have to look good - basically ALL your value is in your looks, brains are a nice addition; you'll have to be as strong as a man or stronger to be respected, actually you have to be perfect; you have to show some weakness however so they can rescue you from time to time to feel better about themselves - it's endless. And you also learn that other women can't be trusted, are using men (you are told to use men as well), it's a whole big mess. And it's a form of emotional abuse as well, because you're basically prepared to agree on the terms of a misogynist men's world to be allowed to play. When I read about a casting couch, I just used to shrug and say "that's business". You become complicit with a certain type of men - first your father, then boyfriends, managers... you just accept their attitude, try to share it and get positive feedback for it. You're a woman, but you're a "good woman", not one of those men-hating ugly probably lesbian feminists, basically you're one of the guys. I believe that lots of powerful women have been fed positive feedback by such men from an early age. They might call themselves feminists because they are women in important places, but they look down on other women "who could do better if they just also accepted the game and played along its rules". This is so sick and twisted! And blaming the male figures for being "evil" is wrong as well - that's the way they thought you should deal with a girl/woman. When you call them sexist, they'll look at you and really not get what you're talking about - and then they'll get defensive. (which could bring me to the "talking to white people about race" thing..., it's all related).

Women writing hateful messages as you mentioned are often women who have given in - to fathers, husbands, bosses. Not necessarily sexually, but women who gave up something, or never even dreamed of something else than "what everyone does and what is best for me". If you did what daddy wanted, you were his darling. Now they are outraged that others call things by their name, they feel threatened in their own life construction. It's like my mum's refugee reaction. She was one and was told by her parents never to ask for anything. Now those foreign people dare asking for... asylum, money, safety. How dare they? It's a "I supressed my needs, now don't tell me that person here can't as well" reaction. They fear every value their life was built on could come tumbling down. They don't want those discussions in their lives and would like to put a lid on it all.

I guess most hatred comes from feeling threatened, and if women feel threatened by other women speaking up, we see where we still are, despite of all the successes.

What's the fun about making reading plans if you can't overthrow them the next day?!
I didn't want to read any more "Parks on Italy", but frustrating 5% of "7 Gables" led me to the sample of A Season with Verona, and as it seems not to deal much with family and relationships, I downloaded it. It starts off very well, with a bus trip from Verona to Bari with the hardcore fans of the premier league (Serie A) soccer club Hellas Verona.

>133 Deern: what a wonderful précis (if that is the right word).
you have to show some weakness however so they can rescue you from time to time to feel better about themselves
This resonates with me, and possibly explains how mansplaining plays out. Such as when women (I have done this at least twice in the last wee while- both times to not make a big deal in front of the male so he wouldn't feel bad).

Tell me, was the process (from one type of thinking to another type of thinking about women) a difficult, lengthy, or struggled one?

You are so wise and considered in your thoughts!! I guess most hatred come from feeling threatened
Thanks for sharing :)

I totally agree. Wonderfully put.

Just started trying to write down some thoughts but it got all muddled and smushy. I have no brain today. Will try again another time :)

FYI you are REALLY not making me look forward to Seven Gables!

>133 Deern:, >134 Deern: Thank you, it isn't easy describing your negative sides in a public forum, but I've been thinking so much about those themes in the last 2-3 years.

>133 Deern: Just threw awaymuch of this post, reminding myself "public forum". And the more I think about it, the more muddled and smushy (thanks Bekka! :) ) my thoughts become.

After the shock, I just let it settle, to see what this discovery would do with me. After a while I noticed that my relationship with my parents changed. I stopped openly supporting my dad in everything and I started being more gentle with my mum with whom I'd been fighting since I was 5. It was like my field of vision was growing wider. I recognized she was acting under the same influence - she finds fault with every woman, for not being a good housewife, for being too fat (no discipline), etc. Not much criticism against men. She's wasting her life cleaning the house and starving herself, and additionally hating herself for wasting her life.

I'd say we're now having a loving mother-daughter relationship, still a difficult one, but so much better than before. I told my dad he can still tell me everything and I won't love him any less, but I'm not taking sides any more. He still tries to draw me in, and it's not always easy not to become complicit again, it's tempting. It helps that his illness last year has made him a bit wiser and milder as well.

With that done, I started looking around at the other women in my life - some aunts, some friends, reaching out to them more often. I had to learn to see myself as one of them instead of somewhere apart and to look at everyone, the men as well, with my new wider focus. No, it doesn't always work well. Yet.
In my head I am quite clear, but old reactions still kick in, I try to be as aware as possible. And this is the year when for the first time I start consciously informing myself about "feminism", a word that still sounds not too positive in my mind, but hopefully this will change as well.

>137 Deern: you make a lot of sense, and sound like a person who has definitely taken the time to examine themselves. Which is an unsettling process to say the least.

I hear what you say about so many of these issues- and I think about my friend. She is 42 (like mw) is single, and doesn't have children. She wants to be in a relationship, and although her parents are supportive and see a lot of her, her mother constantly makes comments to the effect of "if you were kinder/nicer/more whatever, he wouldn't have left you", and "if you lost some weight {and she isn't even large!!}....".
I find it shocking, but when I look at it from the perspective you talk about, her criticisms are merely part of a broader set of (subconscious?) beliefs about the way women should be. I would love for my friend's mum to look at her own situation- in a stable and supportive relationship since she was 20...she has absolutely no idea what it is like to be alone, to live alone. It feels like she has no empathy at all for her daughter, and merely wants her to be in a societally sanctioned relationship for the sake of normalcy.
When people in my own circle (like my BiL- who, incidentally, is known for mansplaining) ask how she is, they immediately ask- has she got a boyfriend (with a heavily implied YET!)? I'm like- what does that matter!? She is a fun, funny, intelligent woman with a cool career and heaps of stuff happening in her life, and all you want to know about is boyfriends. Sheesh.

>133 Deern: & 137 Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Nathalie. I recognise some from my working years in IT, being "a good one" & "one of the guys".

>133 Deern: >137 Deern: >138 LovingLit: Would it have been easier to have been a Victorian? I guess not. I love that you work intentionally to see your way through the mess we've made of relationships - "we" being Western culture in general. Keep on!
Hope your bug is finally leaving you, Nathalie. Take it easy as you get back into work!

>137 Deern: Unsettling it is.. :)
Wow, what you write about your friend hit home. When my last ex, "the Italian", left me in 2015, and I was crying on the phone, my mum told me in very clear words that it was all my fault. She had never met him/ seen us together, but it had to be my fault, because if I had been "better", he'd have stayed with me. I didn't argue that one time, I just hung up the phone before completely breaking down. She later called again and apologized and said she was shocked about her own reaction. Actually, this might have been the turning point in our relationship - or one of them.
The last time I saw all my family on my dad's side on one of my grandma's birthdays about 4 years ago, there was my cousin's wife who'd given birth 10 days earlier. My mum got all worked up about her looks, said she was "neglecting herself", "didn't make an effort" and basically "deserved to be cheated on by her good-looking husband". I realized that those ideas "keep her alive" in a sense, it's all self-justification, and very sad.

>139 FAMeulstee: Oh yes, in IT I needed and used this very much as well. *sigh*

>140 LizzieD: NO! Definitely not!! :) (the Victorian thing I mean, the bug is very slowly on his way out through my nostrils, or so it feels)

*****
I'm now reading too many books at once, started Primo Levi's The Truce, The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese (1,001 group read), have two feminist library books on the go (one in Italian), there's "7 Gables" which might take all of 2018, and I'm stuck in that last Holmes novel. Oh, and TWO Tim Parks. I guess that's February for me!

My "flu" is better, but I'm feeling weak, nose is still running, taste isn't back and cough is persistent. Can't wait for the weekend to start. If any possible, I want to stay in and readreadread.

I usually don't mention my TA on the day, but I woke up this morning and found LT has given me a shiny new badge, yay! I love badges, almost killed my knees collecting online yoga badges last year. :)

So, it's 10 years today! I am so happy I found this wonderful place with all you wonderful people in it. Sending a big round of {HUGS} into the world, and Happy Weekend everyone!

Happy 10th Thingaversary, Nathalie!
We are all glad to have found this place, that give us the opportunity to interact with fellow booklovers.

LT tells me my 10th is in 39 days.

Congratulations! I know what you mean about badges, I'm two off a full run on audible.

Wow! 10 year pin - doesn't that mean that you are allowed to buy 10 books in celebration? I'm sure that's the rule ;)

Edited to add: Got carried away with my own wit in the above (*insert snigger*) and forgot to say that I was very glad you found LT too. Wouldn't be the same without you :)

Happy tenth!

Thingavesary greetings! What 11 books did you get?

Thank you Anita, Charlotte, Bekka, Jim and Richard!

At first I thought I shouldn't buy 11 books, as I've already bought so many in January. But then I decided #10 has to be celebrated, and I will try and make a little seperate list for books I count as TA/special this year. I didn't buy any yesterday, but I went to the library and spent most of the day reading Holocaust books ( the Levi and one in German I got from the library) and watching dokus.

Today I'll take myself and my Kindle for a walk and hope we'll end up in a place that has cake.

I'm so moved by everything you've written about how your thinking shifted. I must have been there since we've been "friends" since the time of your shift, but these things run deep, I've found and can be very hard to trace back to 'a moment'. Often you don't even get until months go by that you have shifted!

All I know is that relations between the genders are tremendously complex and all of it goes both ways, and there are factors that are so deeply embedded in our human experience, so recently altered, that it is unknown how we, all humans, will evolve now.

One book I'd love to recommend is Susan Blaffer Hrdy's The Woman That Never Evolved. Since reading it, I've been able to place women in a context that takes into account the physical limitations women faced until very recently, basically with antibiotics, sterile medical practices, etc. Without modern medical practice women would still be at the mercy of their bodies.

The book made me simultaneously more forgiving with everyone, men and women, for the past, more understanding too at how quickly and radically everything has changed without the threat of death hanging over everyone.

Think about this -- until this last century and ours, the average marriage lasted less than fifteen years BECAUSE THE WOMEN DIED. In childbirth. Or of complications after. Or of grief. Nobody really expected to live all that long either, female or male.

In the sf Mars series by Kim Stanley Robertson, many people expect to live for several hundred years and you can bet they learn that even the best relationship has a time limit.

If you are interested and have trouble finding the Hrdy I will send it to you! I need to get a new copy too as mine has vanished--that's what happens to really good books! It should be required reading for "all" genders!

>149 sibylline: First of all: found it, bought it as Kindle (12 Eur, paper copy costs 85!!!, TG it was digitalized!). It will be my first official TA book in "awareness year". Thank you for the BB, and thank you for your lovely thoughtful post!

The shift.... I don't want to say I was ever a cold-hearted person or an open hater of anything or anyone. In my worst moments I would never have written abuse in a forum, but I might have bitched about "the annoying feminist" in talks with likeminded women and men. I guess I did. I gave up most gossip about two years ago, as I couldn't do it anymore, and before it had seemed natural. It's been years since I visited my favorite celebrity gossip forum with all its discussions about female bodies, and when I visited my parents I couldn't participate in the "you know what female neighbor XYZ did" gossip anymore, because suddenly I didn't feel better than her. No, I didn't feel the need to put myself above her anymore to get validation from others.

I never needed to do that here, which is probably one of the reasons LT turned into a home for my mind and heart.

It is still very difficult to allow emotions and also to express them without running away the next minute, feeling I've exposed too much of myself and made myself vulnerable in a way I learned to always avoid. But I guess I'm not alone with that. :)

Happy Thingaversary, Nathalie!

Have some chocolate:


Thank you for sharing your personal insights (not only the book-related ones) with us!

>150 Deern: I totally understand how you feel vulnerable. to me your posts are very open, but balanced about the issues involved.

I frequently write long things here that I then erase! I'm happy to have thought the thing out, but I can't burden anyone (not even myself!) with my outbursts.

And Happy Thinga!

What a good idea to acquire the Hrdy via e-book.

>151 PersephonesLibrary: Thank you Kathy, that chocolate looks delicious! :)

>152 sibylline: If I told you how much is not posted...:)
(also in the above). Sometimes I pre-write in Word and don't post at all, in most cases I cut it back. But if possible I try to post something, because I revisit older threads from time to time to see if anything has changed at all. I did journaling as well, but my handwriting is terrible and the journals are quite a mess.

As you say, typing something out, editing it until it feels right, makes my thoughts much clearer than an "I hate today" entry in a journal.

I really hope I don't put a burden on anyone here. I sometimes mark those posts with "personal" and if possible add something book-related.

*****

So, book-related stuff: finally finished The Valley of Fear, the last one of the 4 longer Holmes novels, and am now back in short story territory. Not my favorite, that last one.

My little walk totally exhausted me yesterday. I got my coffee and cake (flour-free nut and chocolate) , but when I returned home I went to bed and felt quite bad and still fluey for the rest of the day. Didn't visit any threads nor read, eyes were red and itchy. Now, Monday 6am, it's better, but I'll see how the day turns out. I might have to go to that doctor eventually, but I hope not. I'm not doing well with antibiotics.

9. The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

2 reasons why it took me so long to finish this audio: no office walks with the infection, and then “the adventure” took forever to take form. When I write “the adventure”, it isn’t the criminal case, happening somewhere around London, it is the background story we are served for almost every case. I don’t mind them too much for the short stories, but in the novels they are way too extensive and also too exotic and "romantic" for my personal liking. I fully understand that a reader in the late 1800s/ early 1900s happily gobbled up the stories about treasures in South East Asia or mysterious sects in America, and that they also preferred those motifs to something more trivial that might happen in the neighborhood. It probably gave them some extra distance to the murder cases and they could tell themselves that “good British folk” wouldn’t act as violently.

I personally never liked adventure stories very much, I’m happy with the country mansion cases. The case here – I almost forgot it in the meantime – wasn’t bad, I even guessed the outcome. But then started the background story and felt like it took up at least half of the book. Freemasons in the US, forming a kind of murder mafia. The ending of that story was good, but not terribly surprising either, and getting into the setting took forever. Now on to His Last Bow.

Rating: 3 stars thanks to Stephen Fry

10. The Truce/ La Tregua by Primo Levi (ROOTs #3)

I was totally convinced this one was a 1,001, and it should be!!
It takes up the moment the (listed) Se Questo È Un Uomo/If This Is A Man (aka Survival in Auschwitz) ends, but is written 15 years later. The Russians arrive in Auschwitz, and Levi, miraculously still alive because he was too ill for the death march, begins the slow hard road to physical recovery. The Russians are there, but they brought no doctors and no drugs, and not enough food, they’re completely overwhelmed with what they found. Many others don't make it and die within the first days after liberation.

When Levi can finally leave the lager after several weeks, he starts out on an odyssee that first leads him to Krakau and Kattowicz where he spends the first months until the war ends in May. Then he’s put on a train “back to Italy”, which instead goes North-East, via Belarus, deep into Russia where he stays in a small camp in the forest until September, with 1,400 other Italians – ex-soldiers, criminals, workers, some other camp survivors. There they pass summer, a dull, disorganized summer, not knowing if they’ll eventually return home or if, as Italians and ex-allies of Hitler, they might be transported to Siberia. In September they finally travel South, via Rumania, Hungary, Austria, take an extra loop to Munich, until finally, 9 months after the liberation, they arrive in Italy.

This was the first book that gave me an idea of the incredible chaos that reigned in Europe after the war, with millions of displaced people, who all somehow wanted to get home. There are cattle trains, sometimes, but no timetables. Trains drive 30 km a day, then stop, drive back, change direction for no reason. Roads are destroyed. There is no organization of transport, no-one has documents, there’s a Babylon of languages, and the one everyone speaks a bit, German, is better not spoken. You need an incredible talent for organization – also to get food and clothes, or you have to know the right people. Then again there are periods of absolute dullness, yet in the background always the fear never to make it home, and the question what you might find once you get there.

I’ve got part three of the trilogy, The Drowned and the Saved, on my shelf, where Levi deals with the resistance he meets after his return. No-one wants to know the story he so urgently has to tell, no-one wants to be reminded.

Rating: 5 stars

A typical book coincidence:
I brought back another Holocaust book from the library on Saturday, Jean Améry’s Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne. I hadn’t heard of it before, it just fell into my hands. Améry is another survivor, a German Jew who worked in the Belgian résistance and changed his name after his return from Auschwitz. He states that as an intellectual and atheist, it was harder for him and likeminded people to survive the camp mentally. I’m not yet sure what to think of that. Anyway I read today on wiki that Levi’s The Drowned and the Saved contains an article he wrote about the book. It will be interesting to read both texts so close to each other.

>155 Deern: That is a difficult subject to make into tolerable portions. Levi might be famous for bodily survival but it is the art he made from his agony that bids fair to survive beyond his culture's dissolution.

I remember reading somewhere that some study (vague, so vague, sorry) had concluded the pessimists were more likely to survive the camps because the worst was what they had been fearing all along, whereas the optimists had to deal with their whole world view being challenged as well as the horrors and privations. How anyone studies that kind of thing is beyond me, but it is weirdly consoling in a world that seems increasingly obsessed with happiness literature.

>155 Deern: Beautiful moving review Nathalie.

>156 richardderus: Once I'm through with The Drowned and the Saved, and maybe a reread of If This Is A Man because it is so often referred to in TDATS, I will jump right into The Periodic Table. It's fascinating that he felt generally so driven to write, also fantasy stories, poems, and even found a way to mix in chemistry.

>157 charl08: There are more theories... Jean Améry claims it was easier for those with a faith in religion or politics (like communism) who thought their sacrifice might lead to something good, but then also for the uneducated, because they were used to be treated badly and to blindly obey orders without looking for a logic. Levi agrees partly, but he says that Améry, as an Austrian with no bonds at all to Jewish life, but a great love for German culture and the language, was a lost soul before coming to Auschwitz (he'd been hiding in Belgium for a while), the moment when the Nazis made it impossible for him to live and enjoy his culture and forced a culture on him he didn't know. It was less about being an intellectual, it was more that the lager, including the lager-German language, was a total violition of his world. They never met and I don't think they ever concluded the discussion in their letters to each other.

Then it is said that some survived in the hope to return to loved ones, then again I read from a French survivor she had to switch off all thoughts of family at home in order not to despair completely. On Saturday, a Greek survivor who later lived in Italy said you had to forget about everything decent, others say if you did that, you lost humanity and the will to live. Viktor Frankl somehow managed to stay kind of positive and believe in humankind! I don't think there was a formula, Levi's account shows how much sheer and multiple luck was required. It is something beyond any understanding.

>158 sibylline: Thank you Lucy. I am trying to get better informed about Italy and the Holocaust this year, I knew next to nothing. It's strange - the Holocaust was discussed at school almost yearly in various subjects - German literature, history several times, social sciences - but except for the Netherlands (probably because of Anne Frank) we didn't talk much about other countries. Some years ago I learned here about the Kindertransporte to the UK for the first time!

Okay, reading plans for February... I have 9!!! books on "currently reading", but thanks to IAC and BAC I'll need to add another 2. I'm thinking about reading G. A Novel for the BAC (1970s) because I already own it and I could check off another ROOT, 1001 and Booker winner. For the IAC (William Trevor) I got the sample of Felicia's Journey which is also a 1,001. If I make it through all of those, it will have been a good February! :)

I loved Felicia's Journey - though it is rather disturbing. I will be reading my only 1001 remaining Trevor - Fools of Fortune - hoping it's good :)

I've just totted up and also have 9 on the go (that I can think of) (ignoring ones where I've only read about 10 pages). I'll be adding the Trevor and The Siege of Krishnapur for BAC. And possibly the 1,001 GR The Idiot and maybe a GR of Arthur and George... I have a problem! Make me stop!

>155 Deern: Very good review Nathalie. I loved this book as well. There is something hopeful and even funny about it, as he talks about the friends he made who helped him survive during this trip.

>The Periodic Table is very good as well. I'll be interested in your thoughts about it.

Not about the the kindertransport, but When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is about leaving from a child's perspective, based on Kerr's childhood. Not sure if it's as popular outside the UK too, maybe you've come across it?

I want to read more Levi.

>163 charl08: I'm no use in a poll because I'm in the UK (ish) - but I adore When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit.

>161 BekkaJo: I just read it was "unputdownable", so I'm hoping it'll be a quick read. G. A Novel certainly isn't or I wouldn't have put it on hold 10% in.
Fortunately I already read The Idiot, but I'll try to participate in March.

>162 EllaTim: Thank you! And I want to get to The Periodic Table as soon as I'm done with this month's must-reads.

>163 charl08:, >164 BekkaJo: I read this on my own when I was maybe 12, got it from the library. We didn't read any Holocaust "novels" or memories in school, it was all very factual. I also read part 2 then, but never #3. And your posts reminded me that Bekka and I had that discussion a while ago and I then ordered all 3 as paper copies. So another round of ROOTs for me, it seems. :)

******
I'm reading furiously, but make no progress, or so it feels. Both the Améry and the Levi are very demanding, and I've been reading in parallel as their essays touch so many similar themes from different viewpoints, and Améry uses complicated intellectual language. Finished that one today and hope to finish Levi tomorrow.

Tried to read some Tim Parks to clear my head, but my issue with his books, entertaining as they are, is that they are too long for their genre. I'm reading and reading, and still I'm only at 40% and Hellas Verona hasn't even finished half their season, and I realize I'm not really THAT interested in a soccer team in the 2000 seria A. Oh, and I took up the forgotten Hold Your Own by Kate Tempest again which I started about 6 months ago. Love it to bits, poetry in English that's accessible for me - yay!

Kate Tempest for the win, then. Drop Tim Parks guilt-free. *smooch*

>166 richardderus: Hi Richard, *smooch* :)
Not bad enough to drop, but I'll "re-prioritize"

>165 Deern: I sort of thought we might have discussed Pink Rabbit - but I couldn't remember!

The Idiot looks long...

>168 BekkaJo: It IS long. I quite liked it though, but I don’t remember why, as usual.

Hurrah for Kate Tempest. I think she and Rupi Kaur seem to have (started to?) challenge the poetry stockists at some of the recent bookshops I've been to, finally a bit more than dead poets and anthologies.

>165 Deern: If you fancy some company, please shout. I haven't read When Hitler stole pink rabbit since I was in school and it was the read aloud book from a truly amazing teacher. It would be fun to revisit. How amazing that you found it in the library yourself.

Hope you have a good weekend.

All caught up on your thread, Nathalie. I really enjoyed reading through all of the thoughtful reviews and conversation. Hoping that your weekend is full of fabulous!

>170 charl08: I'd love to read it together! Just maybe not this month. we could plan it for March if you like?

>171 Crazymamie: thank you Mamie, it was full of fabulous reading!! :)

11. Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne by Jean Améry (English: at the Mind's Limits)

That this book fell into my hands at the library was one of those many little coincidences that happen in a reader's life. I had just picked up Primo Levi’s The Drowned and the Saved, but hadn’t realized yet that and how often he refers to Améry’s texts, directly responds to them. There was a connection between them through a German reader who exchanged letters with Levi over decades. I’d recommend reading both books in parallel, both consist of essays, looking at general themes like “intellectual life” or “safety” or “communication” in reference to their experiences in the camps, and both try in different ways to give the reader an idea of “how it really felt to the mind".

This book for example contains a chapter on the torture Améry had to undergo when he was captured in Belgium for his work with the resistance. He basically knew what would happen, that he’d be in handcuffs and driven away in a certain type of car, as he’d seen it before and discussed with others. Now, when it was really him, it was the same as in his imagination, and yet so much worse. He’d never imagined the pressure of the cuffs against his wrists, the smell of the car, the heartbeat. When he comes to the beginning of the torture, the first hit, he says the worst thing wasn’t the pain, but that in an instant something very basic, an inborn trust into a certain world order, was destroyed, and a feeling of utter helplessness and hopelessness set in.

This is a very good book, but my impression overall, also after reading up on wiki, was that – third Reich or not – Améry wasn’t a very happy or balanced person. He makes much effort to distinguish himself and his suffering from everyone else’s. When he describes the extra difficulties as an intellectual in a death camp he makes so many exclusions to the meaning of “intellectual” that you get the feeling he was the only one. Levi saw this similarly, saying the definition was more of a self-description. He clearly felt Austrian and non-Jewish and had an extreme struggle with falling out of his culture and being forced to take on another, one (according to wiki) he had rejected by exiting the Jewish community in 1933 and re-entered only to get married in 1937. He had extreme difficulties with the loss of the language he loved and couldn’t use anymore. The language that was abused extremely in the camps where it became a bastardized Lager idiom he refused to speak. After the war, he worked much with the German media (and clearly hated himself for it), but shows deep disdain for those survivors whose life wasn’t determined by resentment for all of Germany. He doesn’t mention Levi’s name in the essay, but Levi responds to this in his own book as well.

At one point he bitterly claims that the German way of dealing with history will in the near future lead to students learning that Goebbels and Hoess were heroes. Fortunately this didn’t happen, on the contrary, but Améry committed suicide before he could experience what the 1968 revolution changed in the heads of most people. Those post-war years, when with the help of the Western allied forces many Nazis and even SS people were reinstated in power, are now the part of German history no-one wants to talk about. It must have been horrible being a survivor in 1950s and 1960s Germany.

Rating: 4.3 stars

12.Hold Your Own by Kate Tempest

This was a BB from Charlotte’s thread in summer 2017. I started it, loved it, put it aside for whatever reason, and it slowly sank to the bottom of my Kindle library. When I went through the list recently looking for possible ROOTs I remembered it and finally finished it this weekend. This is modern and extremely accessible poetry imo, and poetry that wants to be read aloud. There is a certain rhythm in it that drives you on from one poem to the next.

The overall themes are love, sexuality and life in a world where gender isn’t clearly defined. Kate Tempest uses the mythological character of Tiresias, a priest of Zeus, who was born as a boy, then turned into a woman when he killed a female snake. She became a priestess of Hera and had children, but after 7 years, after killing a male snake this time, was turned into a man again. There are many poems where the reader can’t identify the gender of the lover and the beloved, and it clearly doesn’t matter at all. Great book and not my last Kate Tempest.

Rating: 5 poetry stars

13. I Sommersi E I Salvati (The Drowned and the Saved) by Primo Levi (1,001 #417/368)

I already wrote a bit in my review for #11. Those two clearly weren’t friends, which also shows in Levi often using Améry’s birth name which he himself not once writes out in his book. I’ll have to read a Levi biography, as I’d like to understand better what led to his death a year after this last book was published. It’s “suicide” or “might have been suicide”, never simply “died”. He had some surgery shortly before and had announced his leave from the literary world, but also the world of people who’d hold the memory alive. This is usually interpreted as a farewell letter announcing his suicide, but maybe he was just ill and tired of re-telling and re-analyzing those years? He isn't at all pro-suicide in this book, on the contrary.

His essays are of a great clarity and (imo) very well written. I read the chapter about his correspondence with German readers of the first translation before everything else. It was important for him to put letters into the essay written by people who had been adults during the Nazi years, not by their apologizing children. There’s much self-justification, but less than I’d feared. I guess his readers, and more so the people who wrote to him, were those who felt they had a pure conscience “of not having known”, certainly not the active ones offering apologies.

His resentment is limited to the offenders and he contradicts Améry’s accusation of being an apologist. I got the impression that he generally liked people and is really looking for answers from them, not seeking confirmation of ideas he pre-formed in his own head. Améry gives me the impression of a lonely philosoper, Levi was a dialogue person.

I’ll definitely read more of his books. He’s still much celebrated in his home town Turin which I’d love to visit again, maybe this year.

Rating: 5 stars

Edited to add that this book contains an essay that fits very well to current events: how we reconstruct our memories, especially about events we feel ashamed about. He uses both survivors (who often had to do terrible things to get into a privileged position that allowed them to survive and later had to suppress those memories to be able to live on) and SS people as examples. He says he believes that most of those high rank Nazis during the trials told the "truth" (in their understanding) when they said they'd only followed orders, or were just comitting minor administrative acts. They had turned it all around in their heads long enough to believe it, because as goes a German saying "nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf" - what isn't allowed to be real, can't be real.

When I transferred it all to current politics and realized this means that those "populist" leaders probably by now really all believe in their lies, I became more scared than I already was.

That's another reason for the 5 stars, the book not only keeps the memory up, but has a huge relevance for today.

14. Fleischmarkt (Meat Market) by Laurie Penny

Penny’s writing is blunt (and catchy) in English and blunt English doesn’t translate nicely into German. I was stumbling quite often over expressions or phrasing that wouldn’t normally be used, and I had to re-read or half re-translate bits of the first chapters until I got used to it. Well, this is a blunt book, but it’s also a good one. Actually, when I picked it up yesterday, it gave me quite the kick I’d needed. Yesterday morning there was that moment when I was looking around in my chaotic apartment (“I’m not even able to keep my house in order”), saw myself in the mirror (“how can I keep my house in order when I can’t even keep my body slim, I’m such a loser”), had a mini breakdown (“I can’t handle life at aaaaaaaaall, I’m useless!!”). Some hours later, I found all those eternal arguments in this book, felt much better and had a pc chocolate cookie (vegan, spelt flour, plam-oil-free and yet yummy) after all the steamed broccoli.

I believe that most of what she writes is true, and it fits in well with a book I’m currently reading about feminism in Italy being totally stuck. We’re forever distracted by our concentration on/ our fights with our bodies, then add the housework if we need further self-punishment. I’ve been fighting my body more or less continually since I was 10 or 12, and despite more friendliness in the past 2-3 years, there’s a constant awareness about my actual looks, and the feeling can change from one instant to the next from “okay” to “incredibly ugly”. I grew up with the idea that for women, it’s their looks that open the doors, and our brains will then help us through. If you’re not pretty (i.e. not slim, because that’s what you can control best), you need extra-extra brains to open the same door. Being upper normal weight or slightly overweight – while being the norm for all men in my family – has always been seen as a character failure in a girl or woman, even if it was never explicitly said so. “You look good, you’ve lost weight”, was the greatest compliment, often followed by a “I didn’t want to say anything last time, but I thought you were quite at the limit”. “You look healthy” means you gained weight, and you were expected to take measures. When I met business partners of my dad, he only ever referred to me what they had to say about my looks, never if they’d thought me being smart. Some time in 2016 I told my parents I didn’t want any more comments on my body, neither positive nor negative. I just didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Now it’s still the elephant in the room. When I meet people I haven’t seen in a long time, I give them a warning: “I gained so much weight since last time, please let’s not talk about it”. It’s better, but it’s far from relaxed.

Important book for people with similar issues.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Reading update: Done with the planned February ROOTs, now I'll have to finish another library book on feminism in Italy before getting to IAC and BRC. And I'll need smething lighter or my brain will explode. Some Holmes, that might help.

You weren't kidding about the great weekend reading :)

Wow, that was a great reading weekend. I didn't do nearly so well. I've got a book on contemporary feminism to read that I really want to read, but at the same time, I picked it up and it opened to a section on domestic violence and I just thought: maybe later.
>173 Deern: I read something fairly recently about holocaust survivors in Israel not feeling like they could talk about their experiences in the 50s and 60s, which I was really shocked by - somehow denial in Germany made sense to me (guilt), but that really struck me as very hard, probably unfairly (what do I know about what it was like to live in Israel in the 50s and 60s?!).

I just added the following to my post #175, I had forgotten the maybe most important part:

Edited to add that this book contains an essay that fits very well to current events: how we reconstruct our memories, especially about events we feel ashamed about. He uses both survivors (who often had to do terrible things to get into a privileged position that allowed them to survive and later had to suppress those memories to be able to live on) and SS people as examples. He says he believes that most of those high rank Nazis during the trials told the "truth" (in their understanding) when they said they'd only followed orders, or were just comitting minor administrative acts. They had turned it all around in their heads long enough to believe it, because as goes a German saying "nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf" - what isn't allowed to be real, can't be real.

When I transferred it all to current politics and realized this means that those "populist" leaders probably by now really all believe in their lies, I became more scared than I already was.

That's another reason for the 5 stars, the book not only keeps the memory up, but has a huge relevance for today.

>178 BekkaJo: My brain was very book-hungry this weekend. And sugar-hungry as well .... :/

>179 charl08: I read something similar, but don't remember what were the reasons.

I just deleted much of what I had posted earlier, I don't want to be misunderstood, I must read more to be better informed. The post-war politics confuse me, and what I recently learned disgusts me. That period has been so much glorified, the economic miracle, but what was it based on?

>180 Deern: >179 charl08: I think it was because the future was considered important, not the past. Mental trauma was not taken very seriously either at that time.

>180 Deern: Politics confuse me either way. I mean, I understand the issues I find important, but the intricacies are beyond me.

>181 FAMeulstee: This is true, think of all the ex soldiers as well.
>182 The_Hibernator: From time to time I try to understand it a bit better, but I don't really have the nerves for it. Looking closer at Italien politics can make you suicidal. :/

*sigh*
It's like every year - February is totally crazy work-wise and just 2-3 days without LT means I'm losing threads quickly. I'll try and catch up tomorow and over the weekend. Reading has slowed down as well. I should get through my challenges and library books this month, but not much else.

I read your earlier post Nathalie, I didn't think it was underconsidered. There has been a lot covered up in the interests of economic growth. And rockets. And medicine...

>181 FAMeulstee: That makes sense, Anita.

>155 Deern: argh, I need to read this one! I have his The Periodic Table on my shelf, and have done for years. But this one sounds like a story I haven't heard told before, about the aftermath.

>184 Deern: I have had a slow few days with reading too. Work drinks (successfully rescheduled, and resulting in much fun and book-reaging-on-the-bus), and then work all day yesterday, and a cider-haze last night....meant not much reading. Although I did laze in bed yesterday morning and finish Arthur & George, which was lovely (I didn't start with til 10am).

No way I can catch up, Nathalie, but I'm grateful that you and I both found this community here at LT! I wish us many more years of reading and commenting and enjoying each other!

Nathalie, how is your reading weekend going on?



I just wanted to add a little comment to QualityLand by Marc-Uwe Kling: I honestly think it is a fun and clever approach to the current trend. But his quality of being very "up to date", very "current" comes with the price of being not "timeless". It won't have the longlasting effect of a e.g. George Orwell. But at the moment it is a great "dystopia" - and something you could give to teenage readers as a warning.

>185 charl08: thank you Charlotte! However, I'm German, which makes a difference when it comes to discussing anything about Israel. In a RL exchange it's different, but here you post something and then leave the forum for many hours.
I wasn't worried about you or any other friends posting here, you know me well enough. But it's an open thread, everyone can read and all members can comment. It happened on other threads, and as much as I'd love to discuss some themes in much more depth, also because I have no occasion to do so in RL, I try to be careful, I don't want to lose my second home here. And then, I have enough to do complaining about the current politics of my own 2 countries. :))

>186 LovingLit: I'm very glad I finally read it. I still/again have 8-9 other books to read, but I should get to The Periodic System by March.

Cider-haze sounds good! :)

>187 LizzieD: {{{{{Peggy}}}}}

>188 PersephonesLibrary: Aaargh, must check if my library has it. I'm so overbooked already and catching BBs from all sides! I'd like to read that one.

*******
My weekend.... I finished another book today, Ma le donne NO, a 2010 book about the retreat of feminism in Italy. Sadly, I don't see many improvements in the years since. It will be a difficult review, I could write miles of text. Anyway, the author compares certain situations, like women in the media, in Italy and other countries. One of her "other women who'd never be successful in macho Italy" is Rachel Maddow, and of course I downloaded and started her Drift, as audio.

Spent much time with Chrystel and dog Floh yesterday, we had lunch in a new type of Chinese-Italian bar, that offers (very basic) dim-sum, a total novelty here. On my way home I decided to watch a manifestazione by one of the top politicians of the "Movimento 5 Stelle" who is touring Italy in a camper, and in the party's tradition, speaks in the towns' public places. I wanted to get an idea about them, they are different from the usual populist parties in that they can't clearly be allocated to the right or the left. I might write more about that tomorrow.

Today I spent a long time on the phone with my cousin whose father had died 10 days ago. I haven't seen him or my uncle in the last 5 years and we weren't close, but we shared many childhood memories of my very energetic uncle and actually laughed a lot. I'd like to hear more from him and his family again.

Went for a walk in the sun, listening to Rachel Maddow and some Holmes, then read through the afternoon to get through my library book. Tomorrow winter should be coming back, but just for one day.

Feeling like c**p, and I fear this time it's the real flu, the bad thing I haven't had in decades. :(((
Totally different cough, whole body hurts, almost no sleep last night and a temperature, fortunately not yet too high, now a headache is starting as well. With my lovely workload I'm in the office, hugging my electric kettle for some warmth and probably passing it on to all my colleagues. I hope it won't get worse. If I stay at home now just for 3 days, it will be a massacre when I'm back.

The forecast was right, my car was nicely covered in snow this morning.

Oh no Nathalie. Hope you feel better soon. I have been trying to swerve round people with sneezes and colds but I have a feeling at some point it's going to hit me this winter. I had the jab, but...

(whispers: I still think you should stay home!)

Oh, Nathalie, I am sorry to read that you are feeling so poorly. Sending you healing mojo and hoping that you are feeling better soon. And I agree with Charlotte - you should stay home. Keeping you in my thoughts.

>190 Deern: sometimes I read back over my posts, and wonder what on earth I was doing. There are so many spelling errors in >186 LovingLit:! I swear it is my Mac auto-correcting, and not me :)

Yikes on the whole body hurts thing, sounds like the flu to me. What a pain that you can't take time off to recuperate!!

As awful as this sounds, I hope like hell you're home being wretched in peace and letting this hideous flu wreak its havoc on you so it will GO. AWAY. ALREADY.

*smooch* from the safety of Long Island.

Uh oh. That sounds like flu all right, and I'm really sorry.
I echo RD's hope: you need to be home taking care of yourself. The office will take care of itself. They're going to have to do that sometime anyway because I clearly see a better job appearing on your horizon.

Virtual hot lemon delivery

Hey all you wonderful people, thank you for the get well wishes. You were so right and I should have listened!!

Went to work Mo, Tu, Wed, taking something prescription-free my digestive system started refusing yesterday.
Without it, it got really worse again last night with the fever returning, so I went to the doctor this morning and am now on my first official sick-leave that's not related to my surgeries. 4 days, and the good thing is that in Italy you're forced to stay in, because the state (or the employer, but mine wouldn't do that) might send you an inspector. So when I returned from the doctor, I first had to tidy up a bit, just in case, and then went straight to bed. Slept 4 hours, but so far no improvement, still feverish. The diagnosis was URI, but only because "influenza" would have meant going to hospital for all kinds of tests, and probably catching the next virus there.

Half my office, boss included, has been on sick leave since Monday for the whole week. The sales team is reduced from 4.5 to 1.5 and our shop runs with just one staff, so you got an idea. :/
Fridge and pantry are quite empty, but as long as I got no appetite that's fine. Karin and Giuliano are in Spain once again, but fortunately Buesi lives quite happily on the stairs, eats, sleeps, goes out at night and so far doesn't scream for cuddles. Better not add the cat hair to the mix right now.

Anyway, I must have corrected 100 typos here and I'm sure there are many left. I'll be back reading and visiting threads when my head is ready. Sending virus-free virtual {{{hugs}}}!

{{{Nathalie}}}

>198 Deern: Sorry you feel so bad you had to take sick leave, Nathalie. I hope a few days at home will do the trick.
Sending healing vibes and (((hugs)))

>198 Deern: Of hun - so sorry you are sick. Sending many healthy healing vibes. I had my only real flu about 2-3 years ago now and it is like nothing else :( Hope you are up and back with us soon. XX

Nathalie, I hope you recover fully soon! ❤

Thinking of you Nathalie.

Thank you again for the good wishes, Richard, Anita, Bekka, Kathy and Charlotte, Mamie, Megan and Peggy! I'm feeling much better, fever is gone, still coughing and sneezing and a bit wobbly and dizzy. I'll return to work tomorrow, as the alternative would be sitting for hours in my doctor's waiting room and maybe catching the stomach flu this time... If my boss is back I'll try to talk to him how best to manage all the actual work without doing extra hours right away. I'll happily (okay, not really...) come in some hours on Sat/ Sun instead.

Additionally, my parents now have their moving date, March 9th. I wish they could have delayed it another 10 days, as Feb/March are really a nightmare every year and I don't know how to take a week off now at a time when all the critical balance work has to be done.
Better think of sth else... books!

Sherlock Holmes read by Stephen Fry was a great helper the last days, I usually fell asleep within minutes after pressing play :)
I can't remember ever having slept so much in 3 days.
I also eye-read a book yesterday, my IAC Felicia's Journey. Maybe it was the flu, but I really didn't like it. It's possible I didn't get it, I rushed through it (it's short) just to be done and because it was easier than my other books.
If I make an effort, I should get through my last Holmes today and maybe also my BAC, G. a Novel by John Berger. And then I fear my serious reading might come to a halt until Mid March, we'll see.

>204 Deern: Sorry to see you a little under the weather still, Nathalie.

I am reading Felicia's Journey too and like it a little better than you did. I don't think it is the best of his work though.

Enjoy your Sunday. xx

>179 charl08: >180 Deern: I'd recommend reading Aharon Appelfeld's slim memoir A Table for One: Under the Light of Jerusalem. It will give you some insights into Israel's Holocaust survivors in those years. Appelfeld was a child survivor and the book is about his habit of writing at various cafes around Jerusalem in the 50s & 60s, the people he meets and talks or doesn't talk to.
Also his novel The man who never stopped sleeping. I'm sure other of his books will give insights too.

Hope you are feeling a little better now.

>205 PaulCranswick: It even followed me into my dreams, not in a good way, of course... :/

>206 avatiakh: Thank you Kerry! I'll try the second one, the first seems out of print and not converted to e.

15. Ma le donne NO by Caterina Soffici

One of the most important and most depressing books I’ve read in the last years. It tells how feminism, after its successful years in the 1970s and early 1980s, slowly started retreating again, and how Italy now is last or close to last in many important statistics (like number of women in parliament, pay gap) compared to other European countries. It’s not that it was stopped in its tracks by some big event, it’s more that it slowly withered and died and that there’s no energy left behind it. Women don’t support it, it’s like they all just turned around and silently returned home. The book was published in 2010, since then Berlusconi has been away for a while (but is just returning in full glory). Some small things might have improved, but not much imo. I’m in the North, in one of the richest regions with full employment and mainly Austrian heritage. Misogynism is obvious if you come from outside, mixed here with extreme provincialism and anti-Italianism.

Some part of the book describes the phenomeon of the veline, the "showgirls", some of which even found (thanks to Berlusconi) a way into politics without having any education or political background. I googled the examples - most of them are still active/ were re-elected, despite the hair-raising statements they made in the past. When I started watching Italian TV here, then with my Italian ex-partner, I couldn’t believe the number of pointlessly present half-naked young woman in every serious show, the grotesque masks “older” women in TV seem to be wearing (fillers, botox, extreme fake lips, blonde extensions are the standard and with 50+ there’s all the surgery as well) when they’re sitting among much older men who look like they just got out of bed and didn’t even use a comb. He thought it was “normal” and that after all, women should look “after themselves”. Looking back, he was absolutely typical.

Right now, I feel as discouraged and paralyzed as the women described here. For now I’m just rating it with 4.8 stars and hope to find someone in RL to discuss it with. What the book lacks is at least a list of organizations or websites (even if outdated).

16. His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle

Quite nice Holmes short stories which I mostly immediately forgot again. Has a nice “German spy” story set in the days before the beginning of WWI, and Mycroft makes his second (?) appereance.

Rating: 3.5 stars/ 4 stars audio

17. Felicia’s Journey by William Trevor (IAC, 1001 #369/418)

The premise was great: pregnant Irish girl travels to England, looking for her lover of whom she knows only name and town, but has no address. She meets a sinister older man who seems to be harmless helpful, but clearly has his own agenda. I really enjoyed the first third, then it became a bit repetitive and boring, and the ending was imo totally unsatisfactory and didn’t really make sense. Yes, guilt, etc. But still… People say Trevor is a great writer. I wasn’t at my best while reading it, and I mainly noticed how I was thrown into completely new situations/ circumstances/ character worlds several times and found it quite tiring. I’ll try another Trevor some time, as he has several books on the 1,001 list, but not this month.

Rating: 2.8 stars

18. The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes by Arthus Conan Doyle

I might have read this one many years ago, but I’m not sure. These last short stories are a great collection, not exceptional, but solid cozy mysteries. I’m watching “Elementary” on Sky, so meeting the original Kitty Winter and Shinwell Jones in one of the stories was fun. I guessed most of the outcomes, and it was just the perfect listening material during my flu.

Rating: 4 stars/ audio 4.5

19. G. A Novel by John Berger (BAC, 1,001 #370/419, Booker winner 1973)

I started this last year in July as Booker preparation, put it on hold when the 2017 longlist was out and then quite forgot about it until I saw it fit this month’s BAC. G. is the illegitimate son of a rich Italian and his English mistress, born in the late 1800s. He spends his childhood years in England on the farm of his mother’s relatives, later meets his father in Milano during the big riots, but returns to England to conclude his education. Later episodes see him again in Northern Italy (Milano, Domodossola) and finally in Trieste during the first days of WWI. This was for me – for the most part – a great book, but the last 30%, set in Trieste, were totally lost on me, and it wasn’t the flu. Berger uses G., whose name is never spelled out, as a Don Juan character. He experiences his life mostly sensually. How does it feel to drink milk or to touch the rough fabric of a skirt? How do we feel inside our body, and inside our clothes? Later, in the Domodossola chapter, I really liked the portrayal of his lover Camille and highlighted complete pages. But the last chapter, the conclusion, somehow doesn’t fit.

Not an easy book, and certainly a courageous and non-traditional choice as a Booker winner.

Rating: 3.8 stars

My head is still way too tired/ dizzy for anything much (like thinking about reviews), but I managed to go grocery shopping and will try to cook some veggies tonight. Managed another 5% of "Seven Gables" last night. Please, it can't be 600 pages of "how sweet young Phoebe made everyone's lives better", can it?!? There will be plot eventually??

Hey Nathalie! Hope the flu bug is gone and you're able to function again at work. You're only human so I hope you don't stress over the things that need catching up on.
Wishing you a good week ahead!

So sorry you have had the flu -- glad you are a bit better. Hope you didn't have to work this last weekend!

I've been away for a little bit, a weekend with no computer! I must admit that while I missed everyone I loved being cyber free too.

Does Soffici offer any theories as to why Italian women retreated?

>208 Deern: All I can say to that is, ack. How disappointing.

You should read Arthur & George to supplement your Arthur Conan Doyle reading!

Hope you are on the mend.

Seven gables sounds atrocious... :(

Big healing waves from Davos.

I FINALLY (kind of) finished 7 Gables!!! Then I read up on wiki on why it's important. I must have read a different book. I've read my share of lon and sometimes very boring classics, but often enough I found something that made me love or at least like them in the end. These must have been the most pointless 600 or so pages I ever glanced over. Was the author paid by the word?!? I mean - almost 10% of book to describe a person who doesn't get up from a chair (for good reasons)?!? "Little" Phoebe makes even the flowers bloom nicer and the hens lay more eggs?? There's plot for 10 pages max, and that's already adding in the chicken and the shop!

Other life news:
- work is bad, but today an all-day appointment was cancelled, so if I get everything done today and tomorrow, I might have Saturday off
- my boss is finally publishing the job ad for the person who'll take over part of my tasks (as promised a year ago)
- the people who bought my parents' house have already caused a big water damage and now want to move out again, they're looking for renters.
- now the other half of my office is ill, but I'm feeling much better, except for lack of appetite which I hope will continue for a bit. And I still sleep a lot.

>212 Carmenere: Hi Lynda, thank you! :)
I'd say I'm 80% well again, fortunately my boss was sick as well, so is quite understanding this time.

>213 sibylline: It's interesting that whenever I try to think about this book I feel like having a big blank in my head despite having been fully engaged and very agitated during the read. Basically it's "there was progress, there were new laws, then they were not applied because they weren't really enforced, then everyone shrugged and went home, then came Berlusconi with his media emporium and his showgirls and gave young women a new easy career option".
The book was full of examples of women fighting with or without success elsewhere, then women in Italy who in all similar cases fought against windmills, because it is so incredibly difficult to prove your case that even lawyers will tell you not to bother.

What is very important imo is that this is such an individualistic country. Everyone looks at their own interest, at best also at their close friends/ relatives. But taking the side of a co-worker against a boss who otherwise might one day do your a favor for having been quiet? Never!
This is a country where everyone is used to a law that never seems to work for you, also (independently from your gender) used to be being overlooked for promotion if the competitor is somehow "related" to the boss. You just try to get into the good books of the guy who might be the next boss. It's paralyzing, generally. There is no vision of a better society, only of a materialistically better life for you or your kids if you play along with those in power.

>214 LovingLit: Never heard of A&G, thank you, I'll have a look! :)

>215 BekkaJo: You might like it better, but actually - I don't really think so. A very painful read! :/

>216 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara, waving back to Davos! :D

I can't seem to post... my posts are vanishing? Hmmm.

It boiled down to 'be well'!

My posts vanished as well on Thursday or Friday, no matter how often I posted (was updating my stats, must have added 7 gables 10 times, today it was still missing), very strange! Thank you!! :)

>220 Deern: Many had trouble posting last Thursday, Nathalie, Talk seems to work well again now.
I hope you feel better now, happy Sunday!

>220 Deern: Argh!
Tempted to just read under warm blankets today: yesterday had such a nip in the air.

I hope that you're having an enjoyable Sunday, Nathalie, and that you've completely recovered from the flu.

Nathalie, I've been reading your thread and not commenting. Sorry you've been so sick. I had bronchitis for almost 6 weeks but it was more a nagging cough than being sick in bed with the flu. Still, definitely not fun. It sounds like I haven't read The House of the Seven Gables for a reason. There are some classics that just don't call to me, and that is one of them. Thanks for taking a bullet for the LT Team! I hope your next book is fantastic.

Wishing you a good start into the new week, Nathalie.

19. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (ROOTs #5/24, 1001 #371/420)

Done! I recently looked at my excel with my 1,001 reads and clearly something happened to my brain. I’d read 106 from the 2008 list before 2010, then read 60 in 2010, 44 in 2011, 25 in 2012, 80(!!!) in 2013, 35 in 2014, 8 in 2015, 6 in 2016, an extremely embarrassing 2 in 2017. In those earlier years I read my way through the 1800s classics, many long ones, without any big issues. In the last couple of years however I notice I enjoy them far less, that I also have far less patience with them. Maybe it’s partly because I’m through the really popular ones, but it also feels like something in my brain had been switched to different understanding of text. I find myself reading more non-fiction recently.

Anyway – this was my first Hawthorne, and I found it dreadfully boring. For the first 25% of this long book, I still believed it was all irony, but when the whole sermon of “Little Phoebe’s presence making everyone’s life better, and even the chickens lay more eggs and the flowers have more blossoms…” didn’t end, I started skim-reading. There is a little plot hidden in there that could be blown up to 100 pages and still not feel compressed. At least it’s a painless read in the sense that there aren’t any terrible injustices to suffer through (as I’m expecting from The Scarlet Letter). This is a “gothic” novel, but there wasn’t a moment that felt gothic to me. It just felt very, very pointless.

Rating: 2.8 because at least 1 star might be attributed to my loss of “classic brain cells”

20. Qualityland by Jens-Use Kling

A BB from Kathy’s thread. I’d planned to see if my library had it, then forgotten about it, but when I was there Saturday to check out my 1,001 March GR (Don De Lillo’s Underworld), I stumbled over it, it was exposed on an extra shelf. It’s a very quick read, and it’s entertaining. It’s a kind of dystopia about a world where androids have taken over all the basic jobs and people are mainly consuming, with algorithms deciding for them which news they receive, which products to order, etc. I’s a bit like Brave New World updated to our RL in 2018 and what it might turn into.

The strong points for which alone I’d give 5 stars are the world the author created and the fun he’s clearly had with it. Between chapters, there are product offers or news articles, commented by readers – some of them being part of the main plot as well.

The weak points are the plot and the writing. A plot was needed for a novel, but it feels far less enthusiastic than the descriptions of the fictional world. The writing is bland and too simple for my taste, but I imagine perfect for the main readership. This feels much like a YA novel, I don’t know if it’s meant to fall into this category.

Interestingly, it threw me into quite a depressed mood yesterday. Didn’t know what to do with myself – it was very cold, but I needed some air, so I walked the 20 mins to the shopping center that’s open on Sundays to look for an electric pressure cooker at one of the stores (I want to cook more beans from scratch, I hate buying cans). I felt so bad once I was inside, the music and all those useless, useless gadgets out to collect your data (above all the drones!) that I had to leave. Ironically this means I’ll have to order that pot (they didn’t have any anyway) from amazon, renamed “The Shop” in this book. If we were already in Qualityland, no doubt a delivery drone would already have dropped one at my place.

Rating: 3.8 stars

Hi everyone, I feel much better! Still sleepy, but that might be caused by the up and down of the temperatures. From Mo to Thu we had cold wind, then 2 days spring temps and sun, and now yesterday the “Siberian cold” has arrived.

>221 FAMeulstee: I half-thought TPTB had noticed I’d only skim-read 7 Gables and didn’t want to let me list it under my reads. :) Happy week to you, Anita!

>222 charl08: Tempted to read under warm blankets today as well, sadly it’s Monday. :/
Was too tired and cold this morning to get out of bed to make my coffee, arrived here with a headache already. Fortunately my colleague just called me downstairs for my espresso, feeling much better.

>223 kidzdoc: Yes, the flu is finally gone. Appetite and taste have returned as well though, trying to stay careful with the wheat and sugars and eat more veggies and beans again.

>224 Donna828: Hi Donna, thanks for visiting! I’m so behind on threads after the last two weeks… No, bronchitis doesn’t sound good at all, I hope you’re much better now! I read 7 Gables because I thought it was time for a Hawthorne, and I’m scared of The Scarlet Letter. Off the list it is, at last!

>225 Ameise1: Thank you, the same to you Barbara! :)

Hey Nathalie, it's been a weather roller coaster in my neck of the woods too. Periods of warmth and sunshine keep me optimistic that spring is well on its way.
I read The House of the Seven Gables many years ago during my Gothic period and I recall that I liked it but, hahaha, I can't remember why.
From your review and the length of it a reread is out of the question!
Have a wonderful week!

Truly sorry you hated The House of the Seven Gables -- I remember going with my mother to see to the actual house in Salem, Massachusetts -- it is a wonder of olde New Englande style of architecture. Hawthorne was, I think, playing with the new gothic genre. The family is curséd (pronounce that way to heighten playfulness element) but subtly--the Pyncheon's decay and decline is almost imperceptible even to themselves. One Hawthorne novel that is truly amusing if not downright funny at times is The Blithedale Romance truly a spoof on Bronson Alcott's communal living experiment "Fruitlands".

In my view Hawthorne's short stories are his finest serious work. The Scarlet Letter is a little histrionic for my tastes, though arguably by a man who was thinking hard about what women have to put up with.

Speaking of which, thanks for that elaboration about the failed women's movement. By the time I finished reading it I thought, Natalie! Move to USA! Limpy and pathetic as the democratic process might appear to be at the moment here, nepotism IS illegal as is bribery etc.

>229 Carmenere:, >230 sibylline: Hi Lynda and Lucy! :)
I should have added that I thought the writing was good. I can imagine he could do humorous writing, as those first 25% felt very funny (though too long) and quite biting. But then... I'm sorry. Still don't get over the (funnily written, but way too long) "man in chair" part. Okay, so I'll not completely give up on his books yet. I actually expect Scarlet Letter to be understanding towards woman, I'm just absolutely not in the mood for a classic book about female suffering (Tess is another one I'm dreading), I tend to get too involved and angry.

>230 sibylline: The Guardian had a portait of Emma Bonini today, finally an inspiring Italian woman, a real fighter according to the article. Should I ever apply for that citizenship, her 3% party might get my vote. I really wouldn't know who to vote for otherwise. None of the others can be half-trusted imo.

Nepotism and bribery are forbidden here as well. Which means nothing at all, they just hide it better in the north. I guess that happens if a country's last really stable government were the fascists and it had the mafia and the church influencing politics ever since, with new governments almost every year. People will only put their trust in personal connections, not in the law and political parties. And not really a miracle so many are glorifying Mussolini again and forgetting about all the terror, the war and the alliance with Hitler. All quite depressing. I need some happy thoughts!

Reading update:
- 7 Gables was my 5th ROOT of 24, so I'm already done with one of the March ones. Haven't selected #6 yet, it has to be a paper book. Maybe the next Levi.
- still reading La luna e i falò by Cesare Pavese. Great book, short, but very slow, might take another couple of weeks
- made a bit of progress with Tim Park's A season with Verona and should finish it early in March
- started the March 1,001 GR, Underworld by Don De Lillo, in German from the library. It's such a long book (960 pages), but judging by the prologue (70 pages) it might be a quick one. Or it would be if it wasn't too big and heavy to carry around.
- listening to The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux, but slowly, because I enjoy it so much.
- BAC March (classic thrillers): the only option I found is Eric Ambler's Cause for Alarm which is also a 1,001, but I'll have to buy it.
- IAC March: no idea yet, I'll put this towards month end - or skip that month entirely.

Oooh - I wasn't going to BAC this month, but they have that Ambler in the library (though it is in reserve stock so it may not be there at all...).

May give that one a go too :)

>233 BekkaJo: I just testread and bought it. The sample is fun, it feels like being read to by a guy from a black and white movie who has a cigarette between his lips while speaking. There's fog and a murder on the first pages and it seems to be a spy story, set in the 1930s.

Happy Wednesday, Nathalie. I'm reading a John le Carré for BAC March.

>235 Deern: Sounds like a good change of pace - I'll swing by the library next week and hope it still exists.

>236 Ameise1: Happy Wednesday, Barbara! I can't wait for the weekend - they promised bad weather, this means I can make a dent in my March reading before travelling to my parents the week after.

>237 BekkaJo: Yes, it's promising. I stopped yesterday because I didn't want to accidentally finish before March 1st.

I updated my 1,001 thread yesterday with my February reads. I looked through it, wanted to check an old review and started reading through two of my 2013 threads in the 75 group. Can't believe that year! I read 175 books, of which 80 were 1,001s. Among those 80, there were two long series that counted as one 1,001 book each (Dance to the Music of Time and the Forsyte Saga - in the normal book list I counted them seperately). I read a long list of difficult Italian classics and several long other classics which I rated highly and don't remember having touched. I read books in French! I had the time and nerves for monthly stats. I worked a lot, took a painting class and went to yoga twice a week. And I had a relationship I didn't write about. HTH did I manage?!? Nowadays I'm constantly tired and I'd be happy to somehow reach 100 books with graphic novels and children's books added in. It's just 4 years! And it can't have been the meat because already then (and many years earlier) I hardly ate any and iron levels were lower than now. Do brains age that quickly? I mean, it's better now than last year (so far), but far from old form.

Mustreadmoremustreadmoremustreadmore.....

So - another reading update:

Reading update/ March plans:
- La luna e i falò by Cesare Pavese (1,001)
- A season with Verona by tim Parks (brain candy)
- Underworld by Don De Lillo for the 1,001 GR
- listening to The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
- Metamorphosen by Ovid for Kathy's GR, also a 1,001
- BAC March (classic thrillers): Eric Ambler's Cause for Alarm (also a 1,001)
- IAC March: Time Present and Time Past by Deirdre Madden
- Devil in the White City by Erik Larson - a BB from Peggy's thread
- sill need a paper ROOT, and it should better be an easy one...

Nathalie, I can't really catch up, but I'm happy that you're on the upswing. Obviously, you NEEDED bed rest and sleep. Stress does strange things to our brains. I'll be happy to hear that your parents are settled and that you're no longer doing 2 or 3 jobs. I also notice that you've been reading some frankly distressing stuff. I haven't read Trevor, but *Felicia* seems to be a downer.
Take care of yourself! Find some time to enjoy being where you are!

>238 Deern: I think it's important to realise that sometimes it flows and sometimes it doesn't - every time I say to myself mustreadmoremustreadmore, I end up in a funk! I also think you are like me - we often push ourselves to read 'worthy' things. Sometimes that's fine - sometimes you just have to read for the pure pleasure of it (and not feel guilty about that!).

That said, I also find that sometimes, the more you do the more you feel you can. I've become more and more reclusive lately and I'm therefore finding it harder and harder to get motivated enough to get out. I suspect work has a lot to do with your fatigue too from the sound of it.

Did I sound patronising in the above? If so I didn't mean to. Just meant to say that I understand and chin up.

>239 LizzieD:, >240 BekkaJo: Thank you {{{Peggy and Bekka}}}!!!
Talked to two female colleagues yesterday - we're all feeling down, tired, lonely (even the one with a new boyfriend) and reclusive lately. They're both considerably younger than me, so it can't just be my ageing. Maybe it's the weather/ the end of winter as well.
I noticed I tend to read distressing/ difficult books in January, maybe triggered by all the new year enthusiasm. And then I just remembered that in 2013 I wasn't yet working in my current role - that started in 2014, and in 2015 when a colleague left, I was alone with the load. And through those years I always had an enthusiastic January followed by the first funk in Feb/March with all the annual statements, statistics, etc.

>239 LizzieD: Find some time to enjoy being where you are! I really should, you're absolutely right!! :)

>240 BekkaJo: Not at all patronising! Thank you! :)

Another downer of course is the moving date next Friday and my mum's daily complaints on the phone. They got their new kitchen, bedroom furniture and two wardrobes for storage (hallway and basement) this week, and now they're convinced (as I am) that the rooms are way too small for the old furniture and all the stuff in the boxes.
It has also been confirmed that the new owner of our old house is already putting it on the market again. It's too small for him (for his stuff I should say) and he wants 50,000 EUR more than he paid - despite the water damage he caused in the meantime. I think my parents feel a bit guilty towards the house for having chosen such a bad new owner. I know it's "just a thing without a soul", but there are emotions attached after so many years. We hope he'll soon find a buyer, maybe a young family with kids who'll enjoy the garden.

>226 Deern: If you weren't entranced by The House of Seven Gables, make a big fat X through Hawthorne. That's as good as it gets.

{{{Nathalie}}}

Once again I agree with RD with my whole heart.
(((((Nathalie)))))

>242 richardderus: {{{Richard}}} thank you!

>243 LizzieD: Thank you {{{Peggy}}}!

I needed those hugs this morning! :)
It's white and slippery outside, almost fell on the stairs when I went out to put the rubbish container on the street for the collectoes. Will make another coffee and get on with my reading, at least until Giuliano (house owner) has put salt on those stairs.

I just saw that Don De Lillo's Underworld is on my shelf, as paper copy and in English. Got it in German from the library last weeek for the 1,001 GR, so now I also have my second ROOT for March, yay!

21. Cause for Alarm by Eric Ambler (BAC March, 1,001 #372/421)

Finished my BAC, also maybe my first espionage thriller ever. Lots of action, almost too much for my nerves, and a sad relevance with our world today. Set in fascist pre-war Italy, giving much thought to "doing the right thing" as opposed to "just fulfilling orders" and "doing business without looking at the impact because otherwise someone else would do it anyway". Makes you even more worried for the state of things and the never ending stupidity and shortsightedness of us humans. But an entertaining read it was!

Rating: 4 stars

>244 Deern: Book bullet! Thanks Nathalie. Will try and get hold of the beautiful black and white penguin edition!

Hope you have a relaxing weekend. I'm not surprised you're more stressed and tired if you are doing the job of two people, that would try anyone's stamina.

Sorry to hear about your parents' house. Funny how places get embedded with our memories. Have been reading Jenny Erpenbeck's Visitation about a lake house in East Germany, and there's a lot of that kind of emotion in her book (but much better expressed than I can even attempt!).

>245 charl08: Oh, you read it! :) So German - we're very "when we build a house we'll die in it".

Well, I went to work yesterday, otherwise I wouldn't survive this week, with my holiday starting Thursday afternoon. It's bad enough despite all the stuff I checked off my to-do list yesterday. Still managed to read a bit. Looks more than it was - the Madden was a short one and the Pavese abruptly ended at about 70%, the rest must all be acknowledgements, afterword, etc. I also managed to read the second book of the Metamorphoses - all about gods chasing women that are then transfigured into cows, trees, stars. Of course I dreamed of being chased, but by a killer, not by a god. But I'm no nymph after all. :)

22. La Luna e i falò (The Moon and the Bonfires) by Cesare Pavese (1,001 # 373/422)

This was the January GR in the 1,001 group. I started late, and this short book took me forever to finish. I had some language issues (my agriculture vocabulary is really weak), but there also was hardly any plot, just atmosphere. Another book about memories and “what ifs” (see #23), although the narrator seems to be strangely detached from everything, both his past and present. The I believe nameless narrator returns to the Italian village where he grew up in the 1920s. As a “bastardo”, an orphan left at the church door (of which it seems there were many), he was taken on by a family - not as one of their own, but as a future help. He grew up in poverty, later changed families, and at some point moved to Genoa where he got involved in a group of resistance people and had to flee on a ship to the US. After many years, having made a good life in the US, he returns a wealthy man. The village is changed and yet the same. Most of the people he knew are gone – died or left, but his best friend has stayed, never moved away, basically still lives his old life. Very slowly he opens up and tells what really happened in the meantime.
This was a good book and the writing was /felt great, but I couldn’t connect to any of the characters or their stories except for feeling grateful I hadn’t been there.

Rating: 3.8 stars

23. Time Present and Time Past by Deirdre Madden (IAC March 2018)

I’m glad I didn’t skip the challenge this month, and I’m glad I asked on the thread for a suggestion. This was a short and quick read, not too painful, but with some impact for the very middle-aged reader. Madden sets her novel in 2006 Dublin and uses the older members of a middle-class family to reflect on how we deal with time and memories at a certain age. I’ve been thinking much about ageing the last couple of months. I see my parents clearly getting older and weaker now they’re in their 70s and I notice it in myself. Where just 2-3 years ago there was a feeling of “inner youth”, I now often feel detached. “Something” clearly is different, and when 47year-old Fintan tells himself in an early chapter that “something isn’t right with me” I felt understood and a bit comforted. It’s not just Fintan, also his wife and his sister start seeing the world differently, are haunted by memories and by “what ifs”. To deepen the issue, Madden added discussions about color photography and about certain pictures. When Fintan’s youngest daughter, 7 year-old Lucy (i.e. born in 1999) looks at old black and white photos, asking “when did the world become colored” it shows a generation gap. But Fintan, looking at very old photos, also sees a world he cannot connect to his own. His second son Niall keeps reminding him “you wouldn’t have liked the early 1900s, you can’t see the smell in the photos, it all smelled of horse p**s”, or looking out of the window on a rainy day ponders that “this must have been the weather during the famine”, trying to relate to a past he can only imagine. For him, his father is part of that remote past, just like the people in the 1900 photos, and he keeps asking him how it was visiting relatives up North “during the troubles”, but Fintan’s memories aren’t those that connect to the newspaper pictures of those times.
A melancholy book I enjoyed very much. I didn’t really need the glimpse into the future and was glad it didn’t end there yet.

Rating: 4 stars

>226 Deern: Anyway – this was my first Hawthorne, and I found it dreadfully boring. For the first 25% of this long book, I still believed it was all irony
Oh, that made me laugh!
I have had no luck with Hawthorne either.

>231 Deern: so many are glorifying Mussolini again and forgetting about all the terror, the war and the alliance with Hitler. All quite depressing. I need some happy thoughts!
Oh dear, that is depressing. Really!! I am reading THe Periodic Table, by Primo Levi at present (having just finished his If this is a Man and the Truce about Auschwitz...enough said). I said to myself after that, and maybe even in my review, that people need to keep reading these personal histories, as they explain just how the world lets things happen!

Another book bullet for Time Present and Time Past - always glad to get a recommendation for a female writer I haven't come across yet. Speaking of which - women's fiction prize longlist is announced on the 8th. Hoping for a nod for Ali Smith (despite claiming not to have any predictions for it!)

>247 LovingLit: Oh, I had The Periodic Table planned for March, but am too busy right now, and I guess it needs much concentration (and time to think things over) as the other Levis. I can't wait to get to it!

>248 charl08: I hope you'll enjoy it, Charlotte! I'll miss the LL announcement, but hope to read some candidates later.

******
Sorry guys - I'm here to say that I'll most probably be off until March 18/19. I might check in for book updates if I get internet, but I won't be able to follow threads and comment much. The last couple of days in the office were crazycrazy (worked Sunday, 12 hrs Monday, 11 hrs Tuesday), and tomorrow afternoon I'll drive North to my parents to help with the move on Friday. They don't have phone and internet yet. We'll be in a holiday appartment for the first 3-4 days and they have wifi there, but given that I'm the only helper I might be too tired to read and post in the evenings.

Wishing you all a lovely time until then, and that spring arrives wherever there's still winter!

Good luck helping your parents with their move.

I do wish you and your parents the easiest move possible! I'll miss knowing that you're here.
I really enjoyed Molly Fox's Birthday, so thank you for reminding me that I should read more Deirdre Madden.

>250 FAMeulstee: Thank you Anita, I'll need some luck! :D

>251 LizzieD: I might be able to check in at some point, but I know my parents won't have phone/ i-net for a bit because they'll be taking over the contract they had in the house and then in the intermediate appartment until they moved out on Wednesday, so they haven't even started organizing that part yet.
On the IAC thread someone said that all Madden's books are similar, but as my #23 was my first one, I can't confirm that. I really liked it.

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Just downloaded 3 audio books, I might need those earphones in the next days... :)
- Judgement Detox by Gabrielle Bernstein (I'll definitely need that one!)
- Cristo si è fermato a Eboli by Carlo Levi - it's a 1,001 and while I'm terrible with Italian audios, maybe I'll feel the need for some "Italianity" next week
- Public Library and other Stories by Ali Smith - Ali Smith, short stories (better when I'm busy) and all about books, this should be my comfort listen

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY today to all my female LT friends and a Happy Time and Happy Reading for everyone! {{{big hugs}}}

Happy Women's Day to you too Nathalie - hope the packing goes well. I loved Public Library and other stories - hope it is the comfort reading you need.

Oh I loved listening to The Great Railway Bazaar too!

I always have that reaction when I look back over what I did previous years! How did I do that? Survive that? etc. Yes, there are years with less running around, but often later I see that other things were going on -- needing a different kind of energy.

Reading Jude, the Obscure in January was one of the stupider choices - really set the mood for the month and not in a good way.

Good luck with the move and traveling!

Happy moving! I hope it goes smoothly, and without breakages ;)

Hope everything is going okay Nathalie. X

Ugh, moving. So hoping nothing awful happened.

Hi guys, no internet, but I activated mobile data and the lamest mobile phone network ever. No idea if this will work, opening a site takes as long as in the early 90s with a modem. Move went okay, stressful as expected, but no serious breakage. We stayed in the holiday appt until Thursday, and since we moved in here, everything turned from bad to worse. My mum is unbearable, negativity and rage on feet. Just succumbed and had the first real fight with her in years, had almost forgotten, how able she is in manipulating and hurting. We’re not talking right now.
Returning home tomorrow, and next week will be hell at work too, so yay! :/
Finished the Parks and read half of Underworld, there was no free time except for a couple of short walks I insisted on taking. The weather has been cold, rainy and very windy, so there hasn’t been much occasion for those rare escapes.
Happy Weekend and lots of hugs, hoping to read you all again soon!

Well, the mobile posting worked!
So sorry about your mum, that must be so difficult. Sending virtual positive stuff and hugs.

>258 Deern: Sorry your mother got on your nerves, Nathalie, big (((((hugs))))) to you!
Going back home and knowing there is way too much work waiting for you is no fun. Hope you can rest a bit in the next weekend...

Back home, and feeling totally exhausted. The drive was okay, it's SO much closer, 3 hrs instead of 8! During those 3 hrs I had all the weathers spring has to offer: snow, ice, fog, sun, rain. :)

The situation with my mum was half-okay as long as we left the new place every night and slept at the holiday appt, somehow it wasn't hers then. As soon as the suitcases were in and we prepared the beds for the first night, she started arguing and complaining about everything, and I mean everything. Like the cables of the TV and stereo showing because they haven't decided yet where to place them finally and only then the local TV guy will come and wrap them up and hide them. My parents argued about this every single day, and yesterday when my dad was in the garage, my mum came to me and said "Nathalie, honestly, what did your dad arrange with the TV electrician, when will he come?". So a) she either hadn't listened the other 5 times when she brought that up or b) she didn't believe my dad that he had talked to the guy. I had been there as well! So that's when I finally, after a week of such things, snapped. Guess what came next: "If you always (after a week!) react like this, it can't be nice working with you. What do your colleagues say?"
At that point we'd already had the "you're reading too much/ fiction is just for people escaping from the real world/ you could have made something of your life if you hadn't hidden behind fictional books" discussion and she hadn't been able to manipulate me into an argument. She'd also unsuccessfully tried the "you know, if your appartment was nicer and tidier, you might be able to find a man" routine. :)
But in the end, she always "wins".

As I said in my last post, the place is lovely! Quiet, spacious, bright, fantastic wooden floors, the most beautiful bathrooms, the nicest kitchen they ever had. The town Aschau is full of nice shops, you can walk everywhere, there are lots of doctors, activities for older people, a paradise for pensioners. My mum hasn't made one positive remark about anything all week, and if you remember my posts from last year, they rented the more expensive place she wanted! *sigh*
I'm totally, utterly helpless and can only hope that once she feels she has taken possession of the place she'll calm down a bit. Right now, they both regret the move. And yes, I feel guilty though I know I shouldn't.

The first thing I did when I arrived here was chopping up a big bag of vegetables I'd bought yesterday at a fantastic Turkish shop, and I made a minestrone with beans, potatoes, zucchini, tomatos, broccoli and some Brussel sprouts. Just had a small bowl, it's much nicer than expected. After all the salt and fats of the Bavarian cuisine (we only went to pubs/restaurants, cooking would have added more disorder) and the daily beer or wine I needed some healthy comfort food and this should get me through half of the week at least.

>259 charl08: When I clicked on "post message" the whole site disappeared, I'm glad it worked. Thank you for energies and hugs, I needed them! :)

>260 FAMeulstee: I'll be counting the hours... :)
It's Easter in 2 weeks and unless the weather will be really bad I'll travel to Bavaria again then, so I hope I can avoid working over the next weekend. Thank you for the hugs!!

>261 Deern: Happy to see you are safely back in Merano, Nathalie!

Sorry you had such a hard time with your mother, and I hope she does calm down when she is settled. It was very good you didn't react on her other routines to trick you into an argument.
No need for guilt, but I know it doesn't work that way :-(

I'm another who is glad you are safe back home and away from all the anger/negativity. Much, much love. Hoping you have a peaceful week in which to find some equilibrium.

((((((((((Nathalie))))))))))!!!!!!!!!!
You do know that most people would have completely cut all contact with such a mother years ago, don't you? Bless you for holding on, and one of the great blessings is getting home so you can detox. I'm pretty sure neither parent could have made the move without you, so feel justified and saintly. You are!

Some belated replies to earlier posts:

>253 charl08: So far I didn't even get to the first chapter of the Ali Smith, but I'm happily saving it for later, really looking forward to it.

>254 sibylline: Thank you for good wishes and understanding! :)
I'm currently praying/ meditating for "positively exciting" events with the emphasis on "positively". I feel like I need a bit of a happy energy kick. At least my reading is still better than last year and I'm still feeling enthusiastic about new books.

>255 LovingLit: Thank you! There was only light breakage: a vase and a cake platter, and then some damage to a glass shelf that's still usable. Could have been far worse.

>256 BekkaJo: Thank you!

>257 richardderus: Ugh indeed! Thank you, nothing really awful happened.

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>262 FAMeulstee: My mum often behaves like a small spoiled stubborn child who never admits she's been wrong or apologizes for any of the pain she causes. If she was a kid I'd have put her on the "silent chair" for most of the week. Of course she explains her stubborness as "Anspruch" - I didn't really find a translation, is it exigence? She acts like this because she needs a "well-kept home" or similar. It might actually get better when I'm not there anymore, there's a showing-off element in it all, maybe she can relax a bit when it's just the two of them.

>263 BekkaJo: {{{Thank you!!!}}} - I hope so too! :)

>264 LizzieD: {{{{{Peggy}}}}} thank you!!
Yesterday when I got home, had unpacked and settled on the couch with a book I felt my body reacting, it was quite interesting. Everything hurt, and I suddenly felt empty without that dark cloud that had been weighing us down all week. Then last night Karin and Giuliano invited me upstairs for some wine and very interesting cheeses she'd brought from a cheese festival. At some point they started arguing a bit and I found myself moving to the other side of the table towards the door. So yes, I guess I need a bit of a detox!

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I just renewed my library books, I won't get through Underworld until the end of this week and I haven't even started Julia Franck's Die Mittagsfrau. I listened to about 1/3 of Carlo Levi's Christo si fermo a Eboli, the first Italian audio I enjoy, but when I listen in the evening it sends me to sleep immediately.
The Devil and the White City is a gem and I'm loving it to bits, thank you Peggy!!! From the description I didn't expect to love it so much (I mean: a world fair in Chicago in 1892/93 doesn't have much meaning for me), but it's really gripping for a non-fiction book and I enjoy the architecture chapters just as much as the ones about the serial killer. What a smart mix!

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Starting a new thread in a minute, see you there! :)