The Booky Adventures of Evilmoose

Welcome to my 2018 of books.

I'm Megan, an Australian/Canadian lurking in the Canadian Rockies, but dreaming of moving back to the Southern Hemisphere. I've recently been in the habit of reading more audiobooks, as I was always doing so many things (especially cycling and running, on top of keeping the house clean and actually making food for me and my 7 year old son) that I rarely found time to sit down with a paper book. But last year was a bit of a challenge, and I ended up overwhelmed with stress, then with mono, and then a resulting persistent fatigue that I still haven't really shaken (hurrah for stress). So I'm hoping to spend some quiet time reading as I work on recovering and getting my mind and body back to full health - no challenges for now, but I'm open to recommendations!

Oh, and here's one of the photos I took towards the end of last year, when we had an amazing spell of glassy frozen lakes and no snow!

And here's my trimmed down To Read list. Based on one I already had kicking around, but cut back so it's not quite so overwhelming!

TO READ 2018 (27/47 books)
• Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire (currently reading)
✓ Murray Bail - Eucalyptus
✓ Honore de Balzac - Pere Goriot (Somerset Maugham's 10 best novels)
✓ Muriel Barbery - The Elegance of the Hedgehog
• Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex
✓ Alan Bennett - The Uncommon Reader
• Erskine Childers - The Riddle of the Sands
✓ Kate Chopin - The Awakening
✓ Joseph Conrad - Nostromo
• Charles Dickens - David Copperfield ("BBC top 100")
✓ Charles Dickens - Bleak House ("BBC top 100")
• Benjamin Disraeli - Sybil
• Fyodor Dostoevsky - Demons
• Margaret Drabble - A Summer Bird-Cage/Jerusalem the Golden
✓ George Eliot - Middlemarch ("BBC Top 100")
✓ Carrie Fisher - The Princess Diarist
✓ Ian Fleming - On her majesty's secret service (narrated by David Tennant) (recommended by Mamie)
• Ford Maddox Ford - Parade's End
✓ Nancy Garden - Annie on my mind
• Lewis Grassic Gibbon - A Scots Quair
• Henrich Harrer - The White Spider
✓ John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meaney("BBC top 100")
✓ Clive James - Unreliable Memoirs
• Arthur Koestler - The Ghost in the Machine
✓ D.H. Lawrence - The Rainbow
✓ T.E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Lawrence of Arabia)
• Primo Levi - If Not Now, When? (LT recommendation)
✓ Erlend Loe - Doppler (recommended by Kate)
✓ Eric Lomax - The Railway Man
• HP Lovecraft - The call of Cthulhu & other weird stories
✓ Cormac McCarthy - No Country for Old Men
✓ Lorrie Moore - Anagrams (Ben Millen)
• John O'Hara - Appointment in Samarra
✓ Norman Ohler - Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (via Mum, Richard Fidler interviewed the author)
• Eugene O'Neill - Long Days Journey Into Night (magicians nephew recommend)
✓ Eugene O'Neill - Iceman Cometh (magicaians nephew recommend)
✓ Ann Patchett - Bel Canto
✓ Thomas Pynchon - V
• Jean-Paul Sartre - Being and Nothingness
• Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy ("BBC top 100")
• Graham Swift - Waterland (LT recommendation)
• William Trevor - The Children of Dynmouth (LT recommendation)
• Lionel Terray - Conquistadors of the Useless
✓ William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (BBC top 100)
✓ Leo Tolstoy - Resurrection
✓ Ivan Turgenev - Fathers and Sons
✓ John Updike - Rabbit, Run

RE-READ (1/5 books)
• Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
✓ Rudyard Kipling - Kim
• Malcolm Lowry - Under the Volcano (re-read)
• Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian (reread)
• Spike Milligan - Hitler: My Part in his downfall (re-read)

UH, AND ALSO... (3/4 books)
✓ John Green - Turtles all the way down
✓ Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology (audiobook)
✓ Amor Towles - A Gentleman in Moscow
✓ M.L. Rio - If We Were Villains

2018 books read

January (7 books)
1. E.M. Forster - The Longest Journey
2. Thomas Pynchon - V. (audiobook)
3. Charles Dickens - Bleak House
4. Rudyard Kipling - Kim (re-read) (audiobook)
5. Erlend Loe - Doppler
6. Brooke Davis - Lost & Found
7. George Eliot - Middlemarch (audiobook)

February (32 books!!!)
8. John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meaney(re-read?)(audiobook)
9. John Updike - Rabbit, Run (audiobook)
10. Ian Fleming - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (audiobook)
11. Alan Bradley - The Grave's A Fine and Private Place (audiobook) (Flavia de Luce #9)
12. Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology (audiobook)
13. Nancy Garden - Annie on my mind (audiobook)
14. Pam Muñoz Ryan - Echo (audiobook)
15. Eric Lomax - The Railway Man (audiobook) (NF)
16. Norman Ohler - Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (audiobook) (NF)
17. Ann Patchett - Bel Canto (audiobook)
18. Nick Offerman - Paddle Your Own Canoe (audiobook) (NF)
19. Amor Towles - A Gentleman in Moscow (audiobook)
20. Alan Bennett - The Uncommon Reader
21. Alec Wilkinson - The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andree and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration (audiobook) (NF)
22. Kate Chopin - The Awakening
23. John Banville - The Blue Guitar
24. John Green - Turtles all the way down
25. Agatha Christie - Crooked House
26. Ragnar Jonasson - Snowblind (audiobook)
27. Carrie Fisher - The Princess Diarist (NF)
28. Muriel Barbery - The Elegance of the Hedgehog
29. Lorrie Moore - Anagrams
30. Eleanor Catton - The Luminaries
31. Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending
32. P.G.Wodehouse - A Gentleman of Leisure
33. William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair
34. William Shakespeare - The Tempest
35. David Mitchell - Black Swan Green
36. M.L. Rio - If We Were Villains
37. Richard Flanagan - The Narrow Road to the Deep North
38. Honore de Balzac - Pere Goriot
39. Henry Miller - Tropic of Capricorn

March
40. Sue Grafton - A is for Alibi
41. Ivan Turgenev - Fathers and Sons
42. Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing
43. Mick Herron - Slow Horses (Slough House #1)
44. Joseph Conrad - Nostromo
45. M.R.Carey - The Boy on the Bridge
46. T.E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom
47. Clive James - Unreliable Memoirs
48. Cormac McCarthy - No Country for Old Men
49. Alan Cumming - Not My Father's Son
50. Murray Bail - Eucalyptus
51. Patrick Leigh Fermor - A Time of Gifts
52. Alan Bradley - As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)
53. Alan Bradley - Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mewed (Flavia de Luce #8)
54. Leo Tolstoy - Resurrection
55. Eugene O'Neill - Iceman Cometh
56. Colson Whitehead - The Underground Railroad
57. Timothy Snyder - On Tyranny
58. D.H. Lawrence - The Rainbow

April
59. Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
60. Peter Carey - A Long Way From Home

Welcome back! That lake looks awesome.

Beautiful Lake!!!!!!!!!! Just Wow!!!!

Love your name in fact made me chuckle evilmoose ha

Yay!! There you are. : )

So happy to follow you again this year. Starred!

Wow, Megan, that's some hardcore reading you've got planned!

How are you enjoying V.? That's on my list for later this year, as I re-read my way through my favorite Pynchons.

Very happy to see you back for 2018. Gorgeous picture up top. Here is to hoping that 2018 is a bit easier than 2017.

Happy reading 2018, Megan.

>4 drneutron: Thanks Jim! Here's another lake just for you:



(The bottom of the lake was not much more than a metre below at this point, but the ice was staggeringly clear)

>5 ALWINN: Heya Alwinn - thanks for visiting! I've been evilmoose for so many years I don't even think about it any more, but I started using it because it made me smile too :)

>6 Berly: Heya Kimbers! I'm here! Thanks for the gentle poking, it helped get me organised :)

>7 majleavy: Heh, it's easy to make plans, much harder to actually follow through on them! I'm notorious for barely getting 25% of the way through my To Read list in any given year, and due to the number of books I add to it, it's only been getting longer. This year I did some serious pruning. And I've been trying to read V via audiobook, and am beginning to think it's one of those books that's better read in paper.

>8 Oberon: Thanks Erik, lovely to be back :) I'm hoping for a much improved 2018. It's rather sad, as 2017 is a much nicer number than 2018, but I suppose these things happen.

>9 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara, you too!

Dropping a star, Megan, and I'm happy to see you back. That topper photo is stunning!

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

>2 evilmoose: trimmed down! Hahaha, good one ;) Oh, you're serious...

>10 evilmoose: this image freaks me out. I had a strange dream last night in which I was being flown in a helicopter over a frozen lake, and I could see sheep under the ice. They were moving around, as if there was a space under there that was survivable. It was fuzzy and furry, like your image shows the lake weed. Amazing!

eta: also, sorry to hear about your year last year! I hope you can/have adjusted things to a more clam level for 2018, and that that means more paper books (and better health, of course!)

>11 evilmoose: Yeah, Megan, Pynchon is print-only, I would think. Too many long long periodic and/or compound sentences and windy paragraphs. I often have no slow down or reread.

And because I didn't end up reading that much last year (well, only 55 books), here is my one book recommendation and review from last year. It might be available in libraries for the Canadians out there, anyone else might have to buy a copy.



This is Ramshackle - A Yellowknife Story, a graphic novel written and illustrated by Alison McCreesh (who works as an illustrator). It's a terrific introduction to one of Canada's northern-most cities, and I found it to be an absolutely fascinating and intriguing portrayal of life up near the arctic circle.

I came across it in the first place because one of my friends was moving up to Yellowknife, and another friend knew Alison from back when he lived up in Yellowknife. And so his farewell gift was a copy of this graphic novel. And so I sat there in the bar at her farewell looking at it, and was 25 pages in when I realised I needed to track down a copy at the library so I didn't have to read the whole thing then and there. So I did!

It tells the story of Alison's move up to Yellowknife with her boyfriend (via an epic roadtrip in a questionable van), and all of her first impressions on arrival - from living in a van, to pee buckets, the different sides to town, and just how on earth to manage when the sun disappears (or when it comes back, along with the bugs). And the conflict between the forces of gentrification and order vs the joyful chaos of ramshackle Old Town. The art captures the feel of the place well (unlike some other graphic novels where I struggle with the style of the art in combination with a story I might enjoy).

And now of course I want to go and visit Yellowknife too (and read the next installment of the graphic novel... what do you mean there isn't one!?)

Megan! So glad to see you back. Sorry to hear about the stress and ill health in 2017, hope that 2018 is a better year.

And to agree with everyone above - beautiful pictures (although ypu would not catch me anywhere on that lake, far too much of a scaredy cat).

Megan! Glad to see you back! Dropping off a star, of course. :)

So good to see you back, Megan. I hope that 2018 is a much better year for you.

Hope your 2018 is filled with great reads!

>16 evilmoose: Look at you, doing reviews and everything. Welcome back. : )

Busy reading V. and Bleak House - neither of them are quick reads, but I am reading, honestly!

>18 charl08: It is slightly terrifying, but so fascinating at the same time. You tend to overhear a lot of arguments between people, as the more scared person in the group is reluctantly coaxed out onto the ice.

>19 MickyFine: Thanks for visiting Micky :)

>20 Familyhistorian: Heya Meg, thanks - I hope the same thing! I'm currently eyeing off 2018 suspiciously, but am willing to give it a chance.

>21 thornton37814: Thanks, you too Lori!

>22 Berly: I know! I'm so fancy!

Bleak House is one of my all time favorite books.

Spontaneous combustion!!?!

Still trying to actually finish a book (I did go and choose a couple of enormous ones to read simultaneously), but I did get out skiing with a friend today!

>1 evilmoose:

If meditation would help ease mind and body healing, a free online site just started: Winter Feast for the Soul.

It stays up all year so you don't have to feel behind if you didn't start on Day 1 of the 40 Days.

A variety of leaders offer Introductions to choose what feels good.
My daughter likes David G (whose OM is great!) while I've been listening to Casey Bledsoe and Breath.

>27 evilmoose: Glad you got out and about, Megan!

I'm sorry 2017 was bad - here's to the bestest New Year ever!

I always love reading about your adventures.

>27 evilmoose: What is the contraption behind you? Nice to see you posting outside adventure pictures. : )

>31 Berly: I wondered this too!

>31 Berly: and >32 charl08: - it's a Chariot! Although that's not actually me, that's the friend I was skiing with. I did have one too until my offspring got far too large though. They're amazing devices, you can get conversion attachments so you can ski, bike, stroll or run with them.

Here's me towing mine the first winter after the offspring was born:


It also had a handy amount of space for wine storage when winery touring by bike:


Here it is converted for bike adventures:


Sometimes in spring I would bike the 3km to the local nordic ski trails (carrying the ski and harness conversion for it, plus my skis, in the back storage), and then when I got there, lock up my bike, switch the Chariot wheels for skis, switch the bike attachment for the ski harness, then off and away. It's a very neat device.

>33 evilmoose: Wonderful photos! The technology of bike transport has made some significant advancements.

2. Thomas Pynchon - V.
There are certain American books that although I can appreciate as being good books, they just don't seem to resonate with me, and so I can never bring myself to give them as many stars as they'd otherwise get. V was one of those for me - I certainly enjoyed bits of it, but I never really cared. Sorry Thomas Pynchon, I'm sure you're great, and I'll try again.
PS. I read a book!
★★★½

The only Pynchon I've read was The Crying of Lot 49 for a course during undergrad and I have not once felt compelled to pick up another of his books. But congrats on finishing one!

Well, I'm on the opposite end of this: I'm pretty much a Pynchon fanatic. One of my goals this year is to reread his major works (which probably doesn't include V., though I loved it in high school. Different strokes, and such...

3. Charles Dickens - Bleak House
Ah, Dickens. So many characters, so many sub-plots! I keep being put off by the size of the books, and due to memories of struggling with him as a teenager. But once you get involved in a story (or at least a few of the twenty thousand stories jammed into each book), it's all great fun. A jolly romp with lots of death, marriage, sly asides at politics, pokes at the judicial system, and meanders through the streets of London and the English countryside.

Of note in the particular edition I read is a rather rambling note in the appendix that includes the gem "It is idle to say that a mature potato is perfect; some people like new potatoes." Also, the inclusion of illustrations - that on at least one occasion manage to spoil an impending plot twist! (Not that the said plot twist wasn't fairly easy to spot coming from a mile off, but still)
★★★★

>33 evilmoose: Awesome contraption! Thanks for the photos and explanation. Wish I'd had it when my kids were young.

>35 evilmoose: You read a book! And reviewed it. Points.

I have not read Pynchon at all, and based on the varied reviews, I will just have to decide for myself whether or not to like him!

>38 evilmoose: I have GOT to get back to Nickolas Nickleby...

Congrats on finishing a chunkster, Megan!

>38 evilmoose: Ahh - someone is reading a different Dickens! I do enjoy reading Dickens, but I typically read/re-read only one or two per year at most.

4. Rudyard Kipling - Kim
Re-reading an old classic, this one in audiobook form. I am only liable to double up on books these days if I'm listening to one and have another in hand-held form, so I was reading this and Bleak House at the same time (not literally the same time, just approximately)... although in the good old days I'd always have a stack of 5 to 7 on the go.

Hard to know how many stars to give a book that's a bit like a comfortable pair of slippers. They're great slippers and I really enjoy them, but I can't even remember what it was like when I first put them on anymore, and I'm probably not the same person I was then anyway. Maybe 4. Four seems like a good number. A jolly fun British colonial romp, only just as with eggs, don't think too much about the oppression.
★★★★

>36 MickyFine: Maybe I should follow your lead and just give up on the whole idea! I'd always meant to read that, or at least Gravity's Rainbow, but I don't know if I'm better off just sticking to books I properly appreciate. Maybe I'll give him another decade.

>37 majleavy: Life would indeed be boring if we all enjoyed the same things. We'd have nothing to argue about!

>39 Berly: Thank you for the points :) I've been busy earning even more... perhaps a gold star is in order? *raises an eyebrow expectantly.

And yes, Pynchon is a vegemite author. I think I could enjoy him spread thinly with a good dollop of butter, but I wouldn't want too much of him. Actually, now I just really want some vegemite toast.

And hah! That one is still on my list. I'm sure I must have started it at some point.

>40 MickyFine: Thanks Micky! Thankfully I got into it, had a bit of time to spare, and starting flying along at one point. I feel like I have to maintain a certain speed while reading Dickens else I just lose track of everything.

>41 thornton37814: There's other Dickenses being read?! I must get about the threads and have a look.

Ooooh, so many books. Congrats :)
Have you been meaning to read a few of these classics for a while? (I figure, the older the book, the more time you have to wishing you had got around to reading it.)

>44 evilmoose:, >39 Berly: I tend to think of Pynchon in the same category as people like Dostoevsky, Dickens, Melville, Tolstoy, Flaubert... essential reads if you want to understand the historical development of the novel and what it represents, but not necessarily fun (I guess that's the long-winded version of "vegemite authors"?). Of all the A-listers like that, the only ones I actually enjoy are Pynchon & Dostoevsky (and Steinbeck & Oates, if they're at that level).

>46 LovingLit: Yep, a lot of these come from working my way through the BBC Top 100 books list they published in 2003. Actually I think I started when they published it, so I've been going a while. Although the lists I can find of it now don't seem to match mine, I've got around 5 to go from memory. Plus I'm also working through ancient "To Read" lists made back in my early 20s (back when I devoured Russian classics but struggled with anything American, and just couldn't get into Dickens). Some of them when I come to reading them, I discover I already have.

>47 majleavy: Ah, I've definitely re-read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy through the sheer enjoyment of it, but yes, when I'm reading some of those other "A-listers", I definitely just feel like I'm being conscientious and edjumacational.

This afternoon I walked up a mountain while listening to the Middlemarch audiobook. Because there were so few people out, and it's nice to have an ear out in case a cougar politely announces itself before eating me, I just let it play on my phone speaker instead of using headphones (and only had to quickly turn it off only twice, as there were only two other people on the mountain).



It was nice out! And now I'm more than halfway through Middlemarch.

(And yes, I did cut it a little fine with my turn around time - it was getting pretty dark by the time I got back to town)

Beautiful walking spot, I mean really. It is gorgeous :)

5. Erlend Loe - Doppler
A startling beginning to a book, especially for someone with a username like mine. After the initial shock, this settles down into an amusing social satire with a pet moose thrown in the mix. Doppler has had enough of the modern world, and people in general, and has taken to living in a tent in a patch of forest in Oslo, abandoning his nice wife and children. It has some of the quaintness of being translated from Norwegian that is reminiscent of The 100 year old man who climbed out the window and disappeared (which is actually Swedish, but still), and it also shares an ending that seems a bit weak. But Doppler has the benefit of being quite brief, and so I never got to the point of going "Really, you're still going on?" that I reached with the 100-year old man (as it kept going on, and on, and on, with a conceit that was never designed to carry so many chapters).

All in all, a great little read that I thoroughly enjoyed, and some fantastic turns of phrase and moments.

★★★★1⁄2 (added an extra half a star a few weeks after the reading, just because it's stayed with me so)

Hi Megan! Love your thread topper!

Love that picture. Good luck with Middlemarch: it defeated me last year, despite a beautiful copy!

>53 ChelleBearss: Thanks :)

>54 charl08: Thanks Charlotte - it was going really well, I'd basically finished the audiobook. And then I realised I had somehow only downloaded half of it onto my phone, and I wasn't even half-way yet :( And then I also realised I'd read it back in 2004! I'd been wondering why some of it seemed familiar, but had assumed it was just the common themes in books of the era (expectations and all that). But I'll keep going, it's a very different book when you have a good deal more life and relationship experience under your hat.

6. Brooke Davis - Lost & Found
This made it's way onto my to-read list after I found out Brooke was an old friend of one of my (Australian) friends, and was actually in town visiting. I was even invited over for dinner and got to meet her, but rather exasperatingly I was having a bout of fatigue, spent most of the night half asleep on the sofa, and barely said a handful of words to her.

From the dustcover "An irresistible and heartfelt debut novel about the wisdom of the very young, and the mischief of the very old, and the magic that happens along the way" - and, I would add, grief. Each of the characters in the book is dealing with their own grief in their own way, and the book has as an appendix an article that Brooke wrote about grief - and how her journey with grief after her mother's sudden accidental and rather unpleasant death. She says "As I wrote Lost & Found, I became increasingly aware that it was... 'creating a social space and shared language for grief'", as she ends up dealing again and again with the "So what's your novel about then?" question, leading to stories, and sharing, and often tears.

I really enjoyed this, although I think I agree with a couple of other reviewers who've pointed out that the writing is at it's best when she's writing about Millie, the 7-year old of the tale. And according to my library copy it's "The #1 International |BARCODE|"... so it's a #1 something.

★★★★

*looks around, sighs, lays out a freshly boiled pot of chai, some cups, and a plate of biscuits... sits with elbows on table, head resting heavily on one hand, staring through the pattern on the teapot*

*scoops up a biscuit*

Hiya, Megan. Might I nudge you towards a visit to my thread? It might perk you up a bit. :)

Hello, Megan! *pulls up a chair*

*stokes the fire, pours some tea for everyone, pulls another tray of biscuits out of the oven*

Well, my suspicions about today proved correct. I slipped on ice while walking around town twice this afternoon, and the second time was a doozy - I slammed my tailbone and left elbow. My left arm isn't working well right now (thankfully I'm right handed!) and there's pain all up my spine and down my legs. Fun times! I'll see how I feel tomorrow morning, but on the plus side I may have an excuse to skip work and lay in bed reading.

Hey Megan!

I'm just trying to find all the threads from years ago and I'm so glad to see you are still with this wonderful group, although I may have caught you at a bad time with the fall and all! I hope you feel better soon.

It has been slippery here as well with the snow melting and then freezing countless times. Just dropping my son off at school has been a hazard each morning!

>61 jolerie: Heya Valerie! I just swung by your thread, I'm trying to get back into it this year again too. Despite the fall, this year is actually looking more promising in general than last year was. I would prefer it if every surface outside wasn't covered in ice though! Constant melt/freeze. I'm usually pretty good about not falling, but I think once you go over once it's easier to go over again. I think I might be a bit concussed, and I'm definitely very sore and taking the day off work.

>60 evilmoose: OUCH! Hoping you mend quickly. Good thinking to take the day off work and stay home.

7. George Eliot - Middlemarch
Finally done! I actually should have taken this off my To Read list, as I'd read it in 2004. But that was apparently long ago enough that the general plot outline seemed unfamiliar to me, and I didn't realise until about a third of the way through that I had actually read it before. A lot of the themes were just generally familiar (when aren't there dashed expectations or ill-advised marriages?)

Interesting to re-read 14 years later, and obviously very well-written, classic, lots of themes and all that (the thoughts on the 'woman' question and marriage were more striking to me than they were back then), and honestly ow my head, I am going to stop trying to write a thoughtful review now.
★★★★

Ouch! Sorry to hear about your falls, Megan. Hope the day resting at home helps. Because it's cute and helpful, I'll just post the video from AHS (Alberta Health Services for those not in the know) about walking like a penguin to help avoid falls. I definitely walked like this when we had a bunch of freezing rain a couple weeks ago and it worked.

Also congrats on your re-read of Middlemarch! Glad to see it holds new insights on the re-read.

>65 MickyFine: that is hilarious! The only thing missing is footage of actual people walking or I mean waddling like that!!

>64 evilmoose: In awe. Mine is still sitting on the shelf making me feel a bit guilty.

So sorry about your fall. Hope you don't go over again.
For me, I'm not so bothered about walking like a penguin, but I would like to swim like one.

*nibbles biscuit*
Sorry to see you took a tumble! Hope that it doesn't pain you too much tomorrow but perhaps skip work to read either way?

>65 MickyFine: *Snort!* I played that while Chloe was sitting with me and now I have a little penguin in the house!

>68 ChelleBearss: You're welcome! ;)

>65 MickyFine: >66 jolerie: >68 ChelleBearss: Rather ironically we'd just watched that video and had a warning from H&S at work about walking carefully on ice! I'm mostly good about being careful, but sometimes you're distracted and in a rush. I have some lovely lumps and bruises coming up, and lovely whiplash neck ache, and am wondering about what I should do in the way of health follow up - I don't think I need x-rays, but maybe physio and massage would be good.

>67 charl08: It tends to be a problem that once I go over once, I'm so stiff and sore and tentative that my chance of falling again seems to sky-rocket, like I've forgotten how to walk. Or maybe the ground just isn't supposed to be all horrible and slippery! It never was in Australia!

I'm just going to put this here:

>70 evilmoose: Did it happen while you were at work? Hope you filled out a workers comp form just in case. Hopefully all you need is rest (And books!)

>71 MickyFine: That!! (and snakes and spiders!)

>71 MickyFine: >72 ChelleBearss: But the snakes and spiders never bothered me, and here there are bears and cougars wandering round town! And sometimes enormous elks trying to eat me.

"The #1 International |BARCODE|" huh? An intentional barcode placement for humour? Or just a muck-up...

I would live where the air hurts my face too if the alternative was crocs and snakes- YIKES!

>74 LovingLit: Just coincidence I think, it was a pretty standard barcode placement, if slightly annoying to have words covered.

And but no! It's crocs/snakes/spiders VS bears/cougars/face-hurty-air/terrible-hard-slippery-ground-that-gives-Megan-concussion

>75 evilmoose: That's just because you live in the mountains. For most of us it's just the last two things. And maybe coyotes...

And now, here is what happens if you tell a boy, who maybe has been having a bit of a cantankerous afternoon, that he can maybe have a bit of screentime that evening only if he draws "a really good drawing":



He's an evil genius.

I seriously think kids are faking it when they pretend they don't know anything. The picture above is sufficient proof that they KNOW....haha. Hopefully the screen time helps improve the mood. It works wonders for my boys...until it's time to turn off the magical box. ;)

>44 evilmoose:


>47 majleavy: Well, since I enjoy Dostoevsky, Dickens, Melville, Tolstoy, Flaubert and Steinbeck , guess I better add Pynchon to the list!!

>50 evilmoose: That's GORGEOUS!! I am so jealous.

>77 evilmoose: Awwww. He's got your number. ; )

And I hope you recover from the fall quickly!

Wow, you're doing a good job of pumping out the classics! Very admirable.

>77 evilmoose: Evil!

>77 evilmoose: That's so sweet! I'd say that was worthy of a nice chunk of screen time!

>73 evilmoose: I'm sure there must be a story about the elk trying to eat you ... Can't say I've had that happen to me and I've never seen a bear in person (which I'd love to see someday ... from afar!)
My husband is from northern Ontario and finds it shocking that I've never seen a bear. He grew up seeing them wandering in town limits heading for a snack at the dump.

>81 ChelleBearss: I've definitely seen a few bears, Chelle. I think entirely on trips to the mountains, though.

8. John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany
Listened to as an audiobook with the gradual sneaking suspicion that I read it before in my early 20s when my book-reading spreadsheets sometimes missed a couple of things. I had no record of having read it, but the ending was familar, and a couple of of incidents were familiar too. So, what I'd refer to in rock-climbing as an Alzheimer's Onsight - it was basically like a first read, but solely because I'd forgotten about reading it before.

I had read The Tin Drum a few years ago too, and Owen Meany is an homage to that novel. Right, I'm still a bit concussed, I can enjoy listening to things, but trying to string together thoughts is proving challenging.
★★★★

>81 ChelleBearss: >82 MickyFine: Well, the elk haven't actually tried to eat me, but they have startled me a few times. There's a herd that likes to hang out around town, and it will pop up in unexpected places sometimes, especially as construction takes away some of their old regular patches. So it'll be early morning/evening, low light, you're walking along, and all of a sudden you're surrounded by a herd of enormous elk, and it's quite disconcerting. Also after dropping my son at the bus in December, I was walking the few blocks to work, in quiet downtown Canmore, and there was an elk standing in the middle of my sidewalk eating someone's garden. I nearly walked into him.

I've come across bears occasionally downtown, and they're permanently on the benches around town for a good chunk of the year. The backyard of my son's dayhome was a bear thoroughfare. The last time anyone was killed was over ten years ago now, and despite increasing numbers of people, we're largely doing a better job of managing human-wildlife interactions through education and closures. On the whole, like people, they won't bother you if you don't bother them.

9. John Updike - Rabbit, Run
Well, this was very craftsmanly and well-written, but I hated reading it.
★★

>85 evilmoose: LOL. That is my reaction to a lot of classics or "well-written" books. Glad I'm not always alone. :P

>86 jolerie: You're definitely not alone! I'm more liable to just be bored, Rabbit I struggled with because of the unpleasantness towards women. I probably should have just stopped reading instead of ploughing through unhappily to the end.

10. Ian Fleming - On her majesty's secret service (audiobook)
Recommended by Mamie due to the audiobook reading by David Tennant, and definitely worth it for listening to him read! I've binge-watched through all the Bond movies on multiple occasions, but I don't think I've ever read one of the books. So this was familiar terrain, but interesting all the same.

Reading the decades-old description of downhill skiing was hilarious, and the passage where Bond out-skis an avalanche is a bit alarming. Uh, here's hoping no-one followed his avalanche advice. Because no, you can't just ski straight down the hill and try and go faster than the avalanche, it doesn't work that way.

And interestingly, I wasn't at all bothered by the way Bond treats women (that infamous misogynist) - perhaps the difference is, this feels very fictional, Rabbit feels like real life. A bit of an oddity in the Bond franchise though, where he gets married and starts to think about settling down (with all the emotional complexity of a wet newspaper, but still).
★★★1⁄2

Poor Bond: no ski technique and "the emotional complexity of a wet newspaper". Ha! I'm hoping Tennant gets let loose on some great new Scottish fiction, as I would like to listen to that, but I suspect his fees are too high!

>89 charl08: What Charlotte said.

Megan, I'm glad you listened to that one. Nice review. All of those Bond books read by different celebrities were good - such a great idea, the celebrity narrators.

Hoping your Sunday is full of fabulous!

>88 evilmoose: My favorite Bond book and movie! Yeah, there's not much depth, is there? 😁

>89 charl08: >90 Crazymamie: Heh, I'm sure his ego will survive :)

>89 charl08: Yes, after listening to that one I went hunting to see if there were others, but it seems he's mostly done Dr Who books and How to Train Your Dragon kids series. Plus some Shakespeare.

>90 Crazymamie: Ok, it hadn't occurred to me that the other books must surely have been done as audiobooks too, I was just sad that David Tennant had only read one. Maybe I should dive into some more Fleming, he's very fluffy easy listening.

>91 drneutron: Favourite Bond movie? Controversial choice! I think I'd have to re-watch again before picking my favourite. I just know I would pay Timothy Dalton to not be James Bond.

11. Alan Bradley - The Grave's A Fine and Private Place
Was happy to discover there's a new Flavia de Luce novel. Reading Flavia is the same predictable pleasure that Famous Five was for me when I was a kid. Although rather more people end up dying. Fun listening anyway.

★★★1⁄2

Went to the doctor today as my concussion is no better. I'm doing my best to avoid screens, so that means almost no laptop time (being very naughty going onto LT, but it's nice to have some contact with the world). Also trying not to move too much. It does at least mean I'm getting a lot of audiobook listening done.

>85 evilmoose: what? I loved this one (it is the first one, right?) I disliked Rabbit, but I loved that feeling of getting in his head.

>77 evilmoose: A superb drawing! I'm not sure I could ever get one of those out of mr W, but Mr L would give it a shot for some screen time:)

>84 evilmoose: I would find that very cool but I imagine the novelty of seeing the animals so close would wear off. When we visited Invermere a couple years ago I was shocked to see the long horn sheep just hanging out in town. Makes for neat photos as a tourist but I bet for the locals it gets old quickly.

>93 evilmoose: Sorry to hear that the concussion is still pretty nasty. Hopefully your recovery isn't too long.

Sorry to hear about the concussion!! Take the time to relax and let your body do what it needs to do. Sending you healing vibes!

>93 evilmoose: I'm a few installments behind, but I'll probably catch up in the next year. I've been doing the audio version which I like quite a bit.

>94 LovingLit: It was definitely a good book, but the way he treated the women in his life poked at some sore spots for me. I've had a few sub-optimal experiences with men, and sometimes I just don't feel like being reminded I guess.

>95 ChelleBearss: Yep, the bighorn sheep are infamously oblivious to everyone!

>96 MickyFine: >97 jolerie: Thanks! One of my side-effects has been fatigue, so apart from the temptation to jump on the internet occasionally (like now *cough* uh, does it still count as screen time if I mostly just keep my eyes closed and touch type?), uh yeah, but apart from that I've been pretty good about resting as I'm so tired and nauseous that it's hard to do much else.

>98 thornton37814: I've read them all via audio too - she's got an interesting voice, I think it works well for Flavia though.

12. Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology (audiobook)
Concussion: highly recommended for getting through audiobooks as you can't do much else.

I love Neil Gaiman, and it was great to hear his re-telling of some classic Norse myths. The gods and folklore have percolated through so many of his books, and his enthusiasm for them draws me in. And his reading of some of the deadpan dialogue is fantastic (as is his reading in general).
★★★★1⁄2

Sorry about the concussion, Megan. Hoping you are felling much better very soon.

>100 evilmoose: I loved that one, too, on audio.

Those How to Train Your Dragon books are SO funny on audio - totally worth listening to for Tennant's fabulous narration.

Each of the Bond Books was read by a different celebrity narrator, so yes, Tennant only read one:

>101 Crazymamie: Ooooh, interesting (although there are quite a few of those that I don't really recognise... although maybe it's just the photography not doing them any favours, now I read some of the names). And good to know about the How to Train Your Dragon books. Maybe they'll be a good option for listening to with the offspring - car journeys and all that. Plus night-time reading while concussed.

13. Nancy Garden - Annie on my mind (audiobook)
Got through this last night, and hmm. It's a fairly classic (published in 1982) young adult fiction coming of age sort love story between two 17-year old girls. In places the writing and characterisations are really clunky and awkward (Evil Principal is Evil! Engineer Father Believes in the Rules!), and for me it suffered because the narrator is the same one who reads Rainbow Rowell's audiobooks - and hers are much stronger books. But... points for telling an important story, and for... hmm, it's hard to express this thought in my current dopey state. But I have had a couple of female friends realise that they would really rather be in relationships with women, and it's not necessarily an easy thing to process/come to terms with as an adult, let alone as a teenager (and much harder a few decades ago than now thankfully).

Oh, and I very nearly couldn't bring myself to read it because of the cover art on the audiobook - so pink, so girly.
★★★

14. Pam Muñoz Ryan - Echo (audiobook)
I stumbled across this book because I was looking for audiobook recommendations. And wow. I went into it knowing nothing except that the audiobook format was used well for the music that was woven throughout the novel, which it really is (even if I'll admit I don't love the harmonica that much - that might be because my 7 year old has one that he adores making noise with). A book of magical realism that covers the decades, and the stories of different children, and that leaves you feeling good about the world. A nice uplifting antidote if you've been reading too many tragedies recently.

"Your fate is not yet sealed. Even in the darkest night, a star will shine, a bell will chime, a path will be revealed."

★★★★1⁄2

15. Eric Lomax - The Railway Man (audiobook)
First non-fiction of the year - this one has been on my list for so long that I've forgotten how it ended up there. A really interesting read, and not as overwhelmingly depressing as I would have expected for a book that is primarily about his experience as a POW in WWII, and being tortured and such. The fact that the story continues after the end of the war helps, but also the very matter-of-fact telling perhaps makes it easier to read. Oh, I enjoyed the reader of the audiobook too - Bill Paterson did a great job (*googles*... oh, HIM! I think I know him mostly from the Singing Detective and Murder Most Horrid, but he's very familiar... has he really never been on The Bill?)

I'll leave you with Lomax's thoughts on The Bridge on the River Kwai: "who has ever seen such well-fed POWs?"

★★★★

16. Norman Ohler - Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (audiobook) (NF)
Another non-fiction! This one recommended by my Mum, after hearing the author interviewed by Richard Fidler on ABC radio absolutely yonks ago. I won't try and summarise the contents, they're fairly easy to gather from the title.

My thoughts:
* Personal physicians are BAD NEWS.
* It's an interesting thesis, but I'm always a bit suspicious of these pop-history books, with their tendency to make leaping jumps of logic for the sake of a good story.
* All of the descriptions of injecting needles and drug addiction made me quite queasy and uncomfortable.
* It took me far too long to get the pun in the title. I'm blaming the concussion.
* And that's now three books in a row with a WWII theme (purely accidental).

★★★1⁄2

Congrats on making such great audiobook progress. How's your head?

>107 MickyFine: Thanks Micky - I haven't churned through books at such a rate in ages. There's something about being bed-bound to the extent that reading is all you can do. Head hurts, I'm nauseous and fuzzy-headed. Tailbone and lower back are aching quite a lot too (that's where I impacted... is impacted a word? eh, whatever). I was really assuming I'd be feeling better by now. Should stop looking at the screen *tells self off*

>108 evilmoose: I have a friend who had some ice and snow fall off a roof and on her head over a month ago. She ended up with a concussion and is still dealing with side effects from it. Fervently hoping your recovery time isn't that long.

>99 evilmoose: fair enough. Old Rabbit is a bit of an a$$ really, that is for sure.

>101 Crazymamie: Wow, I love this (visually). And how cool that they are all narrated by a different reader. Or do people dislike that? I suppose you'd have your faves...

17. Ann Patchett - Bel Canto (audiobook)
At the start I was wondering how I'd make it through this book. How on earth was she making a hostage situation seem so boring? "His blood wasted no time making its exit". Eh. And then argh, an explicit description of someone sewing a wound shut! (I'm constantly nauseous with the concussion, so I'm much more sensitive to this sort of thing than I'd otherwise be at the moment I think).

But then as the background of the various characters was revealed, it gradually it grew on me. And in the end I rather liked it.
★★★★

Oh, it did give me a bit of a flashback to an episode of a British kids TV show I watched (which isn't a spoiler) that was originally aired between 1989 and 1993. Did anyone else watch Press Gang? It was a great show, based around the kids at the school producing a newspaper. The level to which I shipped the characters of Julia Sawalha and Dexter Fletcher has rarely been equalled since.

18. Nick Offerman - Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living (audiobook)
I delighted in watching Parks & Rec when I discovered it - it soothed some of the angst and confusion caused by working for municipal government. And so although I'm not much of an autobiography reader, thanks to my Parks & Rec watching I knew enough about Nick Offerman (aka. Ron Swanson) to suspect that I might enjoy his. And I was right!

One of my favourite metaphors I've heard of late came up in a paragraph where he was telling the reader about the value of a canoe/kayak:

"If you think that a doe and a couple of fauns standing a few yards away watching you float by... won't chill you out and heal the hole that getting too many e-mails is eating in your brain's ozone layer, then your thinking parts might be in need of repair."

The idea that my brain's ozone layer has a hole in it, and needs some time to repair itself, just makes so much sense to me at the moment.

Although not all of his advice relates directly to me (although I'd secretly love to have a wood workshop, it's definitely not my passion, and nor is canoeing... and I'm not that fussed about meat) I loved his outlook on life in general - the value of happiness at home, of living slowly and purposefully, avoiding wasting time staring at screens, following your passions, working hard, having fun, and the importance of spending time with loved ones. All interspersed of course, with stories from his own life and career, that made me smile - it was a bit of a soothing warm blanket of a book.
★★★★

Concussion update: Still concussed, although feeling a little more alert, a little less headachey and nauseous. And yesterday's tailbone/sacrum aching has mostly faded.

Brilliant blue skies outside, lots of snow, warming up to closer to -10oC than -30oC. Starting to listen to A Gentleman in Moscow.

We are still in the mid -20s...brrr.

Snow everywhere but good ol' Calgary, we don't declare a snow day unless you open the door and the snow is covering your entire door.

Hope your head is feeling better and you have a restful weekend, Meg!

>113 evilmoose: Sorry to hear you are still concussed. Unfortunately, I have heard stories of people feeling effects for weeks. Hopefully your recovery is a fraction of that time.

>114 jolerie: Heh, I always find the idea of declaring a 'snow day' kind of odd - I guess we're a small enough here that mostly people manage one way or another. On the big ~50cm snowfall day in Nov 2016 I ended towing my son to school on my fatbike as none of the buses were going to make it. Thankfully his school teacher had actually been able to make it in, although not many kids were there yet - quite a few skied in, or parents dragged them on sleds. I got in to work and then spent a good chunk of the day just helping shovel (sidewalks, for senior citizens, etc etc). That was a fun day :)

>115 Oberon: Thanks Erik - yes, I've never had a long-lasting one before, but I'm at 10 days and counting now, and still get headaches and pressure if I try walking any distance. Thankfully I'll less nauseous and tolerating screens better (but still trying to avoid them). I know a few people in town here who've had long-term concussion issues lasting years - but they've had worse concussions, or more, than me. Still, it's one of those vague injuries that'll get better when it's better. *practices patience*

19. Amor Towles - A Gentleman in Moscow (audiobook)
This one swiftly made it onto my To Read list after seeing how many people in the group had enjoyed it last year. The basics - the main character is a Russian aristocrat living under house arrest in a luxury hotel for thirty years. Like others, I took a while to warm to the story - I don't think I was thoroughly engaged until Sophia came along. But then, when it came time to end, I really didn't want the book to be over (and I still would really like to know what happens next). It's a book that could certainly stand up to a re-read, I feel like there's a lot I missed the first time around.

I saw another reivew somewhere mentioning a Wes Anderson feel - and there's certainly a quaint lightness to it, and the Count is so terrible self-assured and in control (while getting up to slightly wacky hijinks) that it seems an apt description. Hard to describe properly.... anyway, apparently a studio has bought the rights to turn it into a TV series, so we'll see what becomes of that.
★★★★1⁄2

(Oh, and as always, Paul Cranswick beat me to it - not surprising in this case, but it seems that nearly every single book I read, he's read it already *shakes my fist*)

20. Alan Bennett - The Uncommon Reader
A lovely little book dealing with the simple question of 'What would happen if the Queen got into reading?'. It's short, and sweet, and easy to read, and has lots of moments that may seem familiar to those of us obsessed with reading.
★★★★

>117 evilmoose: *shakes fist too*
I want to read this one too, boo hoo. I haven't yet.
*wail wail*

>117 evilmoose: I'm still in the holds queue for that one but I'm getting closer to holding it in my hands.

You are a reading maniac!!! Sorry the head is taking so long to heal. Hang in there! Glad you enjoyed A Gentleman in Moscow so much as my bookclub is reading it later this year. : )

>117 evilmoose: I really loved that one.

>118 evilmoose: That one was so fun, wasn't it?

Happy Sunday, Megan! Sorry that you are still concussed - hoping that you feel better very soon.

21. Alec Wilkinson - The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andree and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration
I've had this audiobook for ages, meaning to listen to it, I think it was a recommendation from this group that first put me onto it - and it's a really well-written, and well-structured tale of polar exploration/disaster.

There were quite a few sections with excerpts from the journals of various Arctic explorers, as Wilkinson laid out the details of other expeditions as a background to the story of Andree and his balloon. In comparison Andree and his crew were not exactly wordsmiths, so there's a lot of piecing together their final days - which to be fair seemed to consist mainly of pushing sledges about, making homes on ice floes, and occasionally killing a polar bear and eating it.

I've realised too that I'm a lot more familiar with the Antarctic expeditions. And I really do enjoy a good tale of exploration and hardship and endurance - I must hunt down some more stories of the Arctic.

But honestly Andree, what were you thinking? It's a very typical example of summit fever - a lot of things were wrong with his plan to balloon to the North Pole, but he just kept forging ahead.

Oh, and eating snow's not that bad! I can't remember who it was that was commenting on the degraded nature of snow-eaters on arctic expeditions, but they were very scathing. To be fair, it's not a reasonable source of hydration, but still "eating snow was seen as a failure of character"... seems a bit harsh.
★★★★

>119 LovingLit: *pats Megan soothingly, hands over a half-eaten block of Cadbury's Crunchie chocolate in consolation* It's not fair at all is it

>120 MickyFine: Woops, looks like I should have saved some chocolate for you too Micky! Hopefully you find it worth the wait :)

>121 Berly: Yep, there's nothing like a concussion and being bed-ridden for a week or so to really up the reading numbers! I'm even finding screens a bit easier to look at now.

>122 Crazymamie: Heh, yep, they were both just good reads. I've had a pretty good run on choosing books so far this year!

***

And although I'm feeling some improvement with the concussion, I was up a few times last night with a vomiting child. So... at least between that and my nausea our food bill might not be too much this week? Does that count as a silver lining?

Sorry to see that you and your kiddo are not doing well. Great reading though! Hope you guys have a restful day!

Hope you both feel better soon.

>123 evilmoose: This reminded me that I saw an exhibition of photos in Stockholm from a failed Antarctic exhibition by balloon. I was amazed the photos survived.

>111 evilmoose: I loved Bel Canto when I read it a few years back.

22. Kate Chopin - The Awakening
Well that was interesting. Hard to believe it was written in 1899, before it's time, etc etc (except for the occasionally startling use of racist language). A feminist classic, it's a languid, depressing, melancholy, intense, sad story. The main character, who is certainly flawed, and not necessarily that likeable, feels so dreadfully trapped, wants so awfully to escape.
★★★★

You are reading up a storm and posting reviews like a madwoman and adding to my crazy list!! :D

I hope you continue feeling better! You haven't mentioned your arm, since saying that it wasn't quite working right. I'm assuming it's doing better?

I also had a nephew who got concussed in a wrestling match and struggled with it for a long time. May yours heal more quickly!

Have you listened to Odd and the Frost Giants? It's very short, only a couple hours. But since you enjoyed Gaiman's Norse Mythology, I bet you and the munchkin might both enjoy this one.

23. John Banville - The Blue Guitar
I don't know, the language and writing were beautiful, but it wasn't enough this time around. It's essentially just the thoughts of one unreliable narrator, and not much plot, and not much depth to anyone beside him, and there's some beautiful language, but eh. Not for me, this one.
★★★

24. John Green - Turtles All The Way Down
I don't feel like I can properly review this one (especially as I'm starting to get nauseous because I've been pushing my luck by looking at the laptop a little too long, sorry concussed brain), but I'm very glad I read it, even though it made me feel so thoroughly anxious throughout. I can see why it's ended up on so many favourite lists. The dialogue is sometimes overly neat, and some of the premise seems fantastical if you stop to think about it, but I never really did because I was drawn along by Aza and how real she felt. (Oh, and I can totally relate to the social media sleuthing that Aza undertakes - been there, done that!)
★★★★1⁄2

>125 ChelleBearss: Thanks Chelle - there's been lots of resting, I think we're both finally shaking the tummy bug at least, although I've still got a bruised brain

>126 charl08: Thanks charl08 - oooh, that's amazing - I'm always intrigued at the number of times people are actually able to retrieve useful records (journals, photos) from expeditions like that.

>127 thornton37814: It was definitely a fun read, different.

>129 jolerie: I don't think I've read at this rate in a long time! And mwah hah! I was hoping to suck at least some people in, it only seems fair given the number of books that end up on my To Read list every time I visit this place.

>130 streamsong: Thanks - and gosh, my arm. Yes, it was bad back in summer 2016 after a long bike ride and some stress. I went into another long bike race a bit worried about making it worse, but in the end it seemed that 560km of solo gravel riding was just the thing, and it felt great afterwards. It flared up once or twice in the few months after that when I got stressed, but I think the nerves settled down and started behaving and it's not bothered me in a while now - I've found new things to go wrong instead!

And I love Odd and the Frost Giants! It's actually the first book of mine that my son has claimed from me, and actually set out to read to himself.

>132 evilmoose: I enjoyed this one ! Made me want to go through his back catalogue.

>135 charl08: Me too! I'd heard the buzz about The Fault in our Stars in particular, but never read it.

25. Agatha Christie - Crooked House
A solid Christie mystery, that I'm fairly sure I've read at some point, possibly when I was a teenager though. I couldn't remember who the killer was at any rate :)
★★★★

---

In other news, still concussed - I find I'm not feeling too bad if I rest a lot, but as soon as I walk/think/screen too much, the symptoms come rushing back. I've started listening to Snowblind by Ragnar Jonasson, and am finding the main character incredibly irritating. Does he get less irritating? He's sulking because his girlfriend hasn't sent him anything for Christmas, but he took a job on the other side of the country without even talking to her about it, and he didn't actually send anything to her for Christmas anyway!

Sounds like your Snowblind guy might be an arse. There's no cure, unfortunately.

Sorry that you are still concussed! You are whipping through the books though so that's a plus!
Hope Snowblind becomes less annoying. That one was on my wishlist

>137 evilmoose: "Does he get less irritating? " Um...no. But I did like how the mystery played out.

26. Ragnar Jonasson - Snowblind (audiobook)
Well, on the plus side, I haven't been sucked into a new series that I now have to track down and read in its entirety.

I don't read too many crime books, so maybe my expectations were too high? I'd just come straight off reading a Christie book. But the main character is a jerk. And he is a rookie cop - and at one point his boss hits his desk with two fists and tells him that if he keeps pursuing the investigation he'll be off the force! I could handle the tropes, but I couldn't handle his whining about not getting anything from his girlfriend for Christmas. I started to cheer on team murder, and ended up somewhat disappointed that Ari Thór made it through the book alive.

The narrator of the audiobook is also not recommended - he seemed to be trying to read me to sleep, and was persistently mumbly.

Points for it being Iceland, and the bits that weren't irritating. Maybe it deserves 3 stars, I'll think about it.
★★1⁄2

Annoyed reviews are one of my favourite kinds. :)

"I started to cheer on team murder"
Ha!

Can I recommend the series that starts with Slow Horses? Funny and spy-y whilst also very dry.

Hope you're feeling a bit better.

>141 evilmoose: Your review made me giggle.

>141 evilmoose: Ha! Team Murder, eh! Sorry this one wasn't a great read but I like your positive attitude about not having to track down a new series :)

>142 MickyFine: :) They're so satisfying to write!

>143 charl08: Ooh thanks *notes it down* - and recovering slowly

>144 thornton37814: Excellent Lori :)

>145 ChelleBearss: Heh, it's actually a bit satisfying when the main characters annoy you so much that you can just switch to cheering on the bad guys.

27. Carrie Fisher - The Princess Diarist (NF)
This was... fine I guess? Listening to the audiobook was interesting, as Carrie read it herself. It's essentially nothing but tangents, and it was interesting getting the backstory of the beginning of her fame, and her writing is definitely something.
★★★


28. Muriel Barbery - The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Beautiful and philosophical and elegant and delicately put together, a fascinating read that I feel like needs repeating. And great to be reading something set in Paris and originally written in French, to give myself a break from the overwhelmingly anglo-saxon onslaught of my reading so far this year.
★★★★

29. Lorrie Moore - Anagrams
This was an odd way to have a book recommended - I did a ski race a few years ago, and at the dinner after the race ended up sitting at a big round table where I didn't really know anyone well, although a few people were tangential acquaintances. And then a guy around my age, probably a bit younger, ended up sitting next to me. He didn't know anyone there either, and I'd seen him a couple of times out on the course, and we ended up chatting and getting along quite well - one of those people who you meet and kind of want to ask for their contact details so you can keep being friends, but it feels weird to do that, and like assumptions might be made about your intentions (I had no intentions, he was just interesting and fun to hang out with). And so I didn't get his contact details, but did at one point stumble across his twitter feed (and by stumble I mean I deliberately looked to find it). And he had posted recommending this book, and so I made a note to read it.

And that ended up being a fairly relevant way to find the book, because it's a book of imagined futures, and imaginary friends and relationships, and endings. It's more kaleidoscope of stories than narrative, and I enjoyed it to the end, but then just felt kind of sad.
★★★½


30. Eleanor Catton - The Luminaries
I enjoyed this despite having no idea what was going on most of the way through, and even after it finished. It's a Booker Prize winning historical mystery sort of thing set during the New Zealand gold rush - I don't know if I'd even realised New Zealand had a gold rush, I thought it was all just birds, mountains and rain :P I was slightly heartened on doing some googling to find that a lot of other readers were even more confused than I was by the whole thing (although, a lot of them were on GoodReads, so *cough*, you know). 4 out of 5 laudanum bottles.
★★★★

I don't know if I'd even realised New Zealand had a gold rush, I thought it was all just birds, mountains and rain
Hey! - actually...upon reflection, we do have rain forests, so...and right now we are experiencing the tail end of Hurricane Gita, and is *is* actually raining.....so I will forgive you for that :)
I don't know if I knew what was going on either, but I loved the ride!

Eta- we had a few gold rushes, Rose Remain's The Colour tells a fictional tale set in one of them.

Loving all your reviews here. Spot on with Carrie Fisher's memoir. You made me laugh up in >134 evilmoose: with "I've found new things to go wrong instead!" That feels like me right now! Hope your head decides to cooperate in the near future. In the meantime, you are tearing through books. : )

31. Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending
Another Man Booker prize winner that I enjoyed. Beautifully put together, neat mystery, complex for being quite short. On the unreliability of narrators, and memories, and history, and personal history. Don't know that I'd bother re-reading though.

Oh, and it did seem terribly familiar though. I'm sure I haven't read it before, but .... perhaps there needs to be a name for this sort of novel, where an older person is sitting there remembering the details of their youth, revolving around a particular incident, which usually involves some sort of death or tragedy.
★★★★

Then I tried listening to Kevin Hearne's A Plague of Giants, as recommended by a friend who is far more into sci-fi/fantasy than I am. I couldn't get into it, and have officially decided to stop bothering. On to the next book!

>149 LovingLit: Hehe. And yes, I definitely enjoyed the ride too! And thanks for the recommendation, I'll add it to my list (it's actually getting shorter for once thanks to the pace I'm reading at!)

>150 Berly: Thanks Kim :) Here's to improved health for both of it. I've decided to try knitting a bit today - it's an effort for my poor concussed brain, and I can only do a little bit, but it's progress!

32. P.G.Wodehouse - A Gentleman of Leisure (audiobook)
This was fine, and washed my mouth of the taste of boring fantasy. P.G.Wodehouse feels like the adult equivalent of re-reading Famous Five novels. It's not ground-breaking of particularly memorable, but it is companionable.
★★★

Vale Bun-Bun. She was hanging out on the deck and was killed by an owl :(

You are powering through the books, Megan. Are you still home dealing with your concussed brain or are the symptoms letting up? It has been a long time since I visited your thread. The bit about wildlife was interesting and, really, you don't have to be in a small town close to mountains to have bears and coyotes running around or these guys either:



They were on the Skytrain Line in the City of Port Moody.

>154 evilmoose: Sorry to hear about the loss of your pet. *hugs*

>154 evilmoose: Oh! I am so very sorry, Megan.

>155 Familyhistorian: Yes Meg, still off work and doing very little except listening to audiobooks (or those occasional life things, like looking after the offspring, making food, and ensuring the house doesn't descend into chaos). I'm slowly improving, but I have to remember not to overdo it - it's easy to get excited about feeling a bit more normal, and then before I know it all the symptoms are back in full force.

And golly! A cougar on the skytrain is a bit disconcerting! I always find it odd when moose turn up in Calgary too, poor things.

>156 MickyFine: & >157 Crazymamie: Thanks Micky and Mamie - we'd captured her as a baby rabbit, as Canmore is full of wild pet-store-style bunnies (some of them are lovely black and sandy colours too). She was very tame and friendly though, and a lovely pet. It never would have occurred to me that owls were one of the things keeping the local rabbit population in check - I'd assumed it was mostly coyotes, and maybe the occasional cougar.

Crumbs, and I used to get bothered by the mice on the underground. And in several flats.

Sorry to read about your pet - I love the pic of your son reading the rabbit book to him.

Oh no...so sorry to hear about Bun-Bun... :(

We have so many rabbits/hares (I'm exactly sure) running around our neighbourhood. Right now they are all white so sometimes they give me a bit of a jump when they dart out into the middle of the road.

I finally caught up here. You did some fantastic reading. I'm impressed how many books you read. Sending big waves from my ski holiday at Davos.

So sorry for the loss of your bunny! That's terrible

>83 evilmoose: loved

>100 evilmoose: Want

>117 evilmoose: Will read for book club in the upcoming months

Sorry about the bunny. :(:(:(

>159 charl08: It was adorably serendipitous :)

>160 jolerie: Thanks Valerie - I'm always fascinated by the animals that change colour in winter (and by the ones that have been caught out by changes in climate that mean their snowy winter white doesn't really fit in, as there's no snow any more)

>161 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara! There's nothing like concussion and hours of audiobooks and the like to lead to my biggest reading month ever (at least since I was a kid anyway)

>162 ChelleBearss: Thanks - yes, there was much sadness. Bun-bun v2 has been caught and installed in the house now, and is proving to be very placid and snuggly. She has a very similar patterning to v1, but is black and white rather than grey and white.

>163 The_Hibernator: Thanks Rachel! Good luck with A Gentleman in Moscow, it would definitely be an interesting one to discuss.

33. William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair
Another classic I'd not gotten to before. Though it's hard to get through life without having heard of Becky Sharp - she's a delightfully wicked character. Anyway, for such a classic, I unsurprisingly enjoyed it, but did feel longer than it needed to be. Droll social satire started to drag for me, and I'd have been just as happy if it was a bit shorter.
★★★★

>164 evilmoose: Ah yes, audio books during winter is gorgeous. I enjoy it when I'm on the way on public transportation..
Happy Sunday.

>165 evilmoose: I have that one in the stacks, and I am wanting to get to it this year, so I am very happy to see your four stars for it. I have it on audio, too, so I'll probably switch back and forth. I like doing that with the classics.

Welcome to Bun-bun v2. May she live long and prosper. Photo, please.

34. William Shakespeare - The Tempest
How on earth do you review Shakespeare? I'll simply say that it's been a while since I last read this one.


35. David Mitchell - Black Swan Green
Oooh, I really enjoyed this. I've read Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and liked them all, but I think this is my favourite Mitchell so far. I enjoyed the fact it didn't have the fantasy elements that never really worked for me in his other novels, and squirmed at the overly realistic depiction of teenaged schooldays.
★★★★½

>166 Ameise1: Happy Sunday to you too Barbara :)

>167 Crazymamie: Yep, switching back and forth is a good way to make progress on some of the heftier works - attack them from all fronts! It's fairly easy listening, but I didn't need the overly long descriptions of games of charades.

And here you go (the patch on his eye is due to a lazy eye, not injury), Bun-bun v2:

>169 evilmoose: AW! Very sweet photo - thanks for sharing!

Aww cuties!

36. M.L. Rio - If We Were Villains
This was almost a better book. And I really enjoyed it, and found it very readable. But there were a few clunky bits, or errors that glared. What theatre students would use the name 'Macbeth' instead of calling it 'The Scottish Play'? Even I know that and I'm not a proper theatre person. And I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll put the rest behind a thingy.

I found the sections of the book with Oliver's family to be much weaker, and a bit purposeless - the random insertion of the side plot about his sister having an eating disorder was odd, and the idea that his parents would suddenly stop paying for college when he's 3.5 years through a 4 year degree? Was that just an excuse so he'd have a reason to be cleaning? That made no sense to me.

The ultimate reveal of the mystery, and then the final twist, was a bit bleh, as was the lack of character development, and the lack of a satisfying story circle. I don't think Oliver changed a single bit, and there was no indication that any of the other characters did either.

But I still enjoyed it, so stars for being engrossing.
★★★★

>168 evilmoose: I read the Mitchell book three years ago and enjoyed it too.

>169 evilmoose: Beautiful photo. Thanks so much for sharing it.

Wishing you a good start into the new week.

>169 evilmoose: Aww. Cuties.

The reading storm continues. I'm curious who the reader was for your version of The Tempest (I'm going with the assumption that all reading continues to be audio reading)?

>174 MickyFine: Yep, all audio Micky - and oh I forgot to mention, but Sir Ian McKellan was Prospero and it was great. Listening to plays is tricky if you're not familiar with them though I've decided, it requires quite a bit of concentration.

>175 evilmoose: I'm not huge into audiobooks but I do enjoy radio/audio plays. I can highly recommend the recording of Neverwhere that has James McAvoy amongst its cast. I've also listened to a few Noel Coward plays and those were all a delight.

Wonderful picture of Bunbun v.2. :D
If you didn't explain the eye patch, I would have thought how cool! He's pretending to be a pirate holding a bunny hostage. ARRGGG..matie! ;)

37. Richard Flanagan - The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Well, I liked it better than Gould's Book of Fish, that's for sure. Something about Flanagan doesn't sit quite right with me though. There's this sense of certainty, or superiority, or something like it, that gets my hackles up. I mean, the Japanese sure are evil aren't they? Interesting to have another read about the Burma Railway after recently reading the autobiographical account in The Railway Man. Although I've had enough of the talk of protruding anuses due to starvation (not actually a spoiler, just a distasteful phrase.

Feeling a bit more concussed at the moment for some reason, so I won't attempt to make the above more coherent. As you can see from the stars, despite the negativity I still thought it was a good read.
★★★★

>173 Ameise1: Have you read many of his others Barbara? I can't remember from reviews what peoples favourite tends to be in the 75ers. And thanks :)

>176 MickyFine: I remember listening to a very excellent multi-cast recording of Neverwhere, it's probably the same one. I don't know if I've ever actually read/watched/seen/heard any Noel Coward plays - that's a gap that needs to be filled in. I'm still not sure about listening to plays in audiobook form though - do you find it hard to keep track of who's who if you don't already know the play?

>177 jolerie: Heh, you reminded me that I went to a wedding a couple of years ago wearing my lovely green medieval lacey dress. But I also had managed to get pink eye in one of my eyes, so I opted to keep it covered up with a pirate eye patch. Apparently it blended with my garb and personality so well, everyone assumed it was just part of the outfit - success?

38. Honore de Balzac - Pere Goriot
Apparently this made it onto my list because it was on Somerset Maugham's list of his top 10 novels. Which makes me ponder what my list would look like, and how it would change if I had the same cut-off date Maugham would have been working with. Right, now I'm getting off on tangents. Fantastic boarding house novel set in Paris, with all of the social climbing, debt, greed and general cutthroat behaviour that makes it a good pairing with Vanity Fair, which I finished a few days ago. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would (damned with feint praise, sorry Balzac!... hang on, I think someone was referencing Balzac in The Narrow Road to the Deep North too - I love the connections and themes that pop up accidentally between books read).
★★★★

39. Henry Miller - Tropic of Capricorn
Uhh, well that was interesting. I grabbed this just knowing vaguely that the name was familiar, and it had been a banned book. I was initially unaware of the semi-autobiographical nature, or the erotica-style literature that Miller is infamous for. I enjoyed some of the early pages, with the madness of working for HR in the telegram company - and then things got weird, and even more misogynistic and racist.

Definitely an interesting read, but I don't know that I feel the need to read any more of his works.
★★★

>179 evilmoose: No, it was the only one. I think it was in the context of a challenge that I read it.

>179 evilmoose: I don't find them too bad but it depends on the size of the cast. Noel Coward plays usually have no more than a half dozen characters so they're pretty good. If your library has hoopla, there's a good collection of 4 plays in there that might be worth trying out.

>183 MickyFine: Thanks Micky, good to know :)

40. Sue Grafton - A is for Alibi
Fun fluff, of the sort where instead of being all-knowing, the person investigating the crime keeps doing things that has you yelling "No, what are you doing? Stop that! That's a bad person!!" which is always kind of fun.
★★★½

Hope your concussion is starting to ease!

Care to join in at the Alberta Meet Up Thread:)

"I love the connections and themes that pop up accidentally between books read." Me, too! Nice string of reviews - I am considering the Balzac.

Almost Friday, so hooray for that!

>186 ChelleBearss: Thanks Chelle, it's here and there. I'm having more better days, but I overdid it a few days ago, and had a couple of really bad days, full of nausea and head-exploding sensations. I am starting to properly meditate and do yoga nidra every day though, so at least I feel like I'm being a bit productive in helping recovery.

>187 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie - and hurray for you I guess! I'm in concussion world still, so it's all much of a muchness, which is a weird feeling.

41. Ivan Turgenev - Fathers and Sons
A Russian classic I hadn't yet got to. Apparently it's not very memorable? Well, I remember what happened, I just don't have very strong feelings about it. Generational differences, ideologies. Hmm - it was good.... I'll give it 4 stars anyway.
★★★★


42. Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing
I'll admit to sometimes finding these family history novels a little tedious sometimes, where we see the story of generation after generation, and there's often some sort of mystical object or whatnot. But I really loved these characters, and found their stories captivating (and educational a lot of the time). I have a cousin down in the States who has adopted a brother and sister from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and it was an interesting insight into some of the challenges that they may face. (I wasn't in love with the ending, it was fine, but eh... maybe I'm being too picky - I thought about cropping points for it, but in the end left it as is)
★★★★½

>185 evilmoose: Like panto then? ;)

>190 LovingLit: Hah, definitely like panto :)

43. Mick Herron - Slow Horses
A recommendation from Charlotte after my rage read of Snowblind - and yes, I enjoyed Slow Horses far more! I wasn't sold at the start, but it gradually grew on me, and by the time I got to the end, I was convinced I needed to read the rest of the series.

London, England: Slough House is where the washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated here. .... and then stuff happens (kidnapping! mystery! drama! beer! guns! inappropriate footwear! balaclavas! double-crossing! desire for redemption!)

Oh, I thoroughly enjoyed the character of Peter Judd too, who is described as “a narcissistic sociopath with family money, a power complex and a talent for bearing a grudge.” Hang on, I'll borrow a quote from another review that expresses it perfectly "a fantastic fictional creation that is so obviously meant to be Boris Johnson that Herron hasn't so much nailed Johnson as crucified him to the wall". And it was the delightful skewering of characters, power dynamics, and work relationships/interactions that really had me enjoying this book. Looking forward to more :)
★★★½

>192 evilmoose: Oh, goodie! I have that one out from the library, also courtesy of Charlotte. Your review made me laugh, Megan, so thanks for that!

>192 evilmoose: Sounds like a good one! Glad you liked it more than Snowblind!

>193 Crazymamie: :D

>194 ChelleBearss: Definitely - although I do occasionally enjoy reading through a book with so little attachment to any of the characters and plot that I just start imagining alternate plot lines (bad guys succeed and spend the rest of the book contemplating whether murdering actually makes them that happy? zombie attack? inexplicable disappearance of all shoes from the world?)

44. Joseph Conrad - Nostromo
I've read (and re-read) Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and The Secret Agent, so I know Conrad can be kind of hard going, hard to get into. And this definitely felt hard to get into. I don't know if it was just me, or the reader of the audiobook, but it just didn't work for me this time round, so I'm giving it 3 stars for now and planning to re-read later.
★★★

>196 evilmoose: I admire you so much for finding something difficult to get into and still planning to re-read. I'd do it once and then say, "Good riddance." ;)

>197 MickyFine: A lot of other books definitely end up on the "good riddance" pile after slogging through them! There's something about Conrad though, I find him worth the struggle. Maybe eventually a few other authors will make it onto that list, and I'll actually get to Proust and Joyce? Ehhh, probably not!

>198 evilmoose: Ugh! Joyce. I struggled through Dubliners while I was in undergrad and I have no desire to touch another Joyce book ever. But kudos to you for tackling some of those classics!

>199 MickyFine: Hah, I tried Ulysses once. And I've gotten at least 50 pages into In Search of Lost Time and feel like it was about nothing except eating a sandwich and looking at some curtains.

45. M.R.Carey - The Boy on the Bridge
I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed The Girl with all the Gifts, this is a good follow-up set in the same world - fun, easy reading dystopia that kept me engaged all the way through. Sometimes that's all you want from a book! Thanks to Mamie for alerting me to its existence. And Finty Williams is a great audiobook reader.
★★★★

>201 evilmoose: Yay! I just got notified that my hold is in for this one!

>201 evilmoose: Oh, I'm glad you liked it - I am wanting to get to that one!

I've finally slowed down a little, firstly because #46 was pretty big, but also because the physio I've been seeing for my concussion has got me being a bit more active again finally. Recovery is slow, but it's happening! Also, it was sunny and 13oC today!! It's going to be snowy again later in the week, but still.


46. T.E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Enjoyed far more than I anticipated, although I admit to glazing over during battle scenes. I really enjoyed the adventure sections, with details of the endurance life, crossing remote desert via camel, and Lawrence's thoughtful musings were likewise engrossing. He really was a very interesting character, and I'm very glad I read this.
★★★★


47. Clive James - Unreliable Memoirs
Short, but some lovely turns of phrase, Clive James was a ubiquitous presence in my childhood. This is the first of his autobiographies. Oh, and the third book of the year for me where the Changi prison and POWs in WWII are discussed - in this case, James' father was an Australian POW himself, made it all the way through the war after ending up in Changi, but was killed when the plane he was flying back to Australia in crashed.

"It was the usual Australian Christmas dinner, taking place in the middle of the day. Despite the temperature being 100°F. in the shade, there had been the full panoply of ragingly hot food, topped off with a volcanic plum pudding smothered in scalding custard."
★★★★

Glad to see that your recovery is progressing! Enjoy your sunny days while you have them!

Yay for the recovery even if it means the reading slows down a bit.;) Hoping it continues for you and you're back on your feet sooner than later!

Glad to hear your recovery is progressing, Megan! Enjoy that spring-ish weather. ;)

>204 evilmoose: never heard of T.E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom, but am now keen thanks to your mini review. And I lived the Clive James one, which I read as a teenager, I think!

Another fan of the Clive James here - I think I've got to book three or four in his memoirs, but the first one is definitely the best.

>204 evilmoose: If you enjoyed the book and were interested in something in a similar vein without the warfare I would highly recommend Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger. He does an even better job of describing the environment and people than Lawrence IMO.

48. Cormac McCarthy - No Country for Old Men
I hadn't realised Cormac McCarthy was still kicking about writing novels. I read Blood Meridian in my early 20s and think I'd just assumed he was one of those old classic American authors, and hadn't actually looked into the details. Gosh he's good! The sparse style (due to being turned into a novel after originally being written as a screenplay) made for interesting reading, very easy to turn things into a film in my head. Now I'll have to actually get around to watching the movie, can't believe I've not seen it.
★★★★

And I've gotten into a 4-star spate. Some of those 4-stars should probably get an extra half a star, but now I'm having trouble deciding which of them deserves the extra, and so I'm just going to leave them all at 4-stars for now. Lots of good books though, there are worse problems to be having!

>205 ChelleBearss: Thanks Chelle - so much for sun, we're at 5cm of snow and counting. Actually, I haven't looked outside for at least an hour, so you can probably add an inch to that. *shakes fist at the sky*

>206 jolerie: Yay indeed! I'm allowed to do most-everything with my concussion now, although I'm holding off on starting driving until my symptoms aren't set off quite so easily. I still don't quite trust my brain again yet. Once it stops snowing I might even go for a bike ride!

>207 MickyFine: Thanks Micky. Total spring. 13oC yesterday, wet blanket of snow today.

>208 LovingLit: I don't think I'd clicked about him until I watched Lawrence of Arabia a year or two ago. He's an interesting fellow!

>209 charl08: I'd been pondering whether to read further. I really do enjoy the things he does with words (I should have written down a few more of them, one of the disadvantages of audiobooks). Maybe I'll get to them eventually.

>210 Oberon: Ooh, thanks Erik. I'd been meaning to ask for recommendations for more non-fiction from the area but forgot, thank you for reading my mind :)

Glad that you liked your McCarthy. I'm working on Blood Meridian and I'm not as in love with it as I was with The Road.

Boo to so much snow! We had some fluffy snow today but it's not sticking. I was hoping spring would show up soon.

>213 ChelleBearss: I'd been planning to re-read Blood Meridian Chelle, but your reports of reading it aren't encouraging. And it's still snowing outside! Big fat fluffy flakes of unending snow!

>212 evilmoose: Sounds exactly right for spring in Alberta. Especially in the mountains. Happy Friday! Hope you have a great weekend with the kiddo.

49. Alan Cumming - Not My Father's Son
I suspected I'd enjoy this, with so many positive reviews kicking around in this group, and it was indeed an entertaining read. It was good to hear his journey with his father too, and that abuse. I just can't fathom how he's so emotional and gregarious! All the Scots I know are a dour and stoic lot (my own family included), so it's particularly hilarious to hear some of Cumming's fabulousness being read aloud with his Scottish accent.
★★★★


50. Murray Bail - Eucalyptus
Well. This was definitely a Good Book (it won the 1999 Miles Franklin award and all). I loved all of the eucalyptus talk, and I sat googling trees to be reminded what they all looked like. And the mention of trees and rivers and places near where I grew up had me rather homesick. I'll admit to feeling slightly disconcerted by the role of basically the only female in the book though, to be a beautiful princess kept in a tower until she is rescued by an appropriate prince - I know there's a little more to her than that, but scarcely. Just a lot of men running around trying to obtain her. It felt uncomfortable. Now, Miles Franklin! There's someone who could write a feisty and driven Australian female character.
★★★★

51. Patrick Leigh Fermor - A Time of Gifts
I picked this up after reading some of the talk of travel writers in the Non-Fiction Challenge threads. Most of interest to me were Fermor's travels through Europe at around the same time that my grandfather was cycle touring around the same locations from his English home. How similar were his experiences to my grandfather's? I'd love to know. But Fermor does go on a bit sometimes doesn't he? I really enjoyed his talk of travels, and meeting people, and the impact of the Nazi regime. I was less interested in some of his detailed thoughts on particular buildings or art, but that's probably just because I'm a philistine.
★★★½

Here's my Grandad on a shorter Scottish trip; all I've got from his full European trip are passport stamps:

52. Alan Bradley - As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)
Somehow I didn't click when I read my last Flavia book, that I'd missed the intervening two. Catching up now!
★★★★

Golly, can't believe I'm already at 52 books and it's only March! The last time I read this heavily I was probably no more than 12 years old.

>217 evilmoose: I love that photo, Megan! SO great that you have it. And I am thinking that I might like A Time of Gifts, as I really love travel writing - adding it to The List. Glad you enjoyed the Cumming audio - I thought that was so well done, and of course that lovely voice speaking directly in your ear. *sigh*

It is super impressive that you're over 2/3 of the way to the magic number and only a 1/4 of the way through the year. Go Megan!

>217 evilmoose: How special your grandfather went through Europe at the same time, Megan.
I read A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods a couple of years agao, when I started reading travel books.

It is amazing how much reading you have done this year already Megan! I'm super jelly. Hopefully your head is bothering you much lately?

>219 Crazymamie: It's great isn't it? I've got a few of him and my grandmother in their cycling club days (they met in a cycling club). And there are probably some exceptions about the wonderfulness of Scotsmen gently reading audiobooks into your ear, but Alan Cummings and David Tennant are both on my highly acceptable list.

>220 MickyFine: Thanks Micky :) Makes up a little for the massive reading slump of last year. And makes up a little for the irritations of concussion recovery - I'm still trying to convince someone to drive me somewhere fun over spring break.

>221 FAMeulstee: I'm wondering whether to read Between the Woods too - perhaps eventually! I think I'm more of an adventure/endurance book person, although I have enjoyed this dalliance into travel.

>222 jolerie: I can thoroughly recommend concussion to anyone who wants to get a lot of audiobook listening done! Disclaimer: May not work if you have a herd of demanding small children to look after. In general I've been improving though - I actually slowly made my way through a paper book even! Definitely still getting flare ups, and things like driving/being a passenger/riding a bike all make me quite nauseous - anything with a lot of visual processing, or just a lot of brain work full stop.

>218 evilmoose: I listened to that one this month. Flavia is delightful as always!

53. Alan Bradley - Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mewed (Flavia de Luce #8)
Didn't quite find this as good as #7 or #9. The mystery didn't quite grab me, and things felt a little disconnected. Still fun to spend time with Flavia of course though.
★★★½

54. Leo Tolstoy - Resurrection
This one has been on my To Read list for a while, I'd been putting it off a little because of the length of the audiobook. Once I started listening I kicked myself, because I seem to really enjoy Tolstoy (and then made a note to self to re-read Anna Karenina). The first two-thirds of the book worked better for me than the ending though, which seemed a little rushed. There's interesting pieces of Russian history in there though, and some interesting characters.
★★★★

55. Eugene O'Neill - Iceman Cometh
Thanks to magician's nephew for the recommendation for this one. I really haven't read many plays (or seen many come to that) aside from a whole lot of Shakespeare. It's interesting to branch out a little, and I really enjoyed this audiobook/reading of the play (which apparently runs to about 4.5 hours when performed, hence isn't performed a whole lot). It's set in a bar in early 20th century New York City, peopled by drunks and dreamers.
★★★★

Tolstoy is intimidating in print. I can only imagine how intimidating he would be in audio.

56. Colson Whitehead - The Underground Railroad
This made it's way onto my list this year after seeing it pop up a few times on 75er threads, and winning the Pulitzer Prize of course. And yet I obviously didn't read any of the reviews closely, as I went into it thinking it would be a non-fiction. It's not! And I found myself constantly niggled by the idea of an actual physical underground railroad - it just doesn't make any sense! How would it even work? So although it was thoroughly readable, it was overshadowed for me by a constant vague puzzlement, a slightly jarring disconnect from reality, something that was almost felt true but wasn't. The language and imagery is beautiful though. It would pair well with the more historically meticulous Homegoing, though my vote would go to Homegoing as my favourite book of the two.
★★★★

57. Timothy Snyder - On Tyranny
Go read this book. It's short, won't take long. It's easily earned a place in my top 5 of 2018, and I've been reading some good books.
★★★★½

I agree with you, Megan. The Underground Railroad was very good, but Homegoing was even better IMO.

>228 MickyFine: There's nothing quite like sitting and staring at a 30-45 hour audiobook waiting for you on your phone

>231 kidzdoc: I was wondering who else had read both and which they preferred :)

>232 evilmoose: 45 hours audiobook? Oh dear, that would take me a year!

Morning, Megan! Happy Friday! I listened to War and Peace on audio a few years ago and really enjoyed it.

I looked for The Iceman Cometh on Audible, but they did not have it. *sad face*

>233 ChelleBearss: Some of them I feel like I'm listening to forever! At the moment I'm roaring through everything though, thanks to all the concussion-induced listening time.

>234 Crazymamie: Hmm, maybe such a thing is possible. But then how would I skim over the interminable battle scenes? The last time I read War and Peace I was 17 though, perhaps I should revisit it. And aww - the version I listened to was an old BBC radio play I'd managed to track down, apparently not a proper full version as it removed a couple of characters.

58. D.H. Lawrence - The Rainbow
My review, in the form of thoughts that went through my head as the book went on:
Oh, this is quite good. It's a great description of the interaction in relationships, the desire, the things that go wrong between people.
Hmm. I'm sure this sentence was repeated almost verbatim about a minute ago. He does rather go on a bit.
Right.. it's still going? Well a lot of it is still quite good, but I'm starting to care a lot less.
Is he going for some sort of record for the most frequent use of the word 'fecund'?
Right - and that's the end now is it, well sort of I guess, apparently there's another book. But there's the eponymous rainbow. Ah well, another classic done!
★★★½

>225 evilmoose: I think that's the next one up for me. It will likely be a summer listen.

>229 evilmoose: I enjoyed that one, giving it the same rating as you.

QUARTERLY ROUNDUP! (Which I don't usually do, but given I'm at 58 books, I thought I'd better get them in order)

Total books 58 - 48 fiction| 10 non-fiction
Pages read Hah! I'm not going back and calculating that. It'll be a lot though, as I've gotten through quite a few hefty books, classics and such, and not much in the way of anything really short. I think On Tyranny and Unreliable Memoirs were probably the shortest.
Gender split 46 male| 12 female (urgh, I'm the worst at this, must try harder)
Book form 52 audiobook| 6 paper (concussion-induced reading ftw)
Country of origin 20 Britain| 20 America| 4 Canada| 4 Australia| 8 Other European (France, Russia, Germany, Norway, Ireland, Iceland)| 1 New Zealand

Non-fiction favourites
Timothy Snyder - On Tyranny
Alan Cumming - Not My Father's Son

Fiction favourites (ones that stayed with me for one reason or another - they're not necessarily the best, and even I may have given them a lower rating than others not on the list, and it might be different if I made it tomorrow)
Erlend Loe - Doppler
Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology
Pam Muñoz Ryan - Echo
Eleanor Catton - The Luminaries
David Mitchell - Black Swan Green
Amor Towles - A Gentleman in Moscow
Murray Bail - Eucalyptus

Least favourite (the one I'd travel back in time and tell myself not to bother with, and to just read the wikipedia plot summary instead)
E.M. Forster - The Longest Journey

And some recent adventures - concussion has eased to the point where I can get out hiking and jumping about - I just can't do anything that involves fast processing of visual data (so no driving, and only very easy and slow biking), and anything that involves concentrated thought is challenging.

But I went hiking with my small person:


and took some silly jumping photos, this landing one was my favourite though:


And maybe, just maybe, it will stop snowing eventually. Any day now!!

Great photos! You live in such a beautiful area!
Looks like your little person had fun :)

Looks like great fun!

59. Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
Such a good book, how had I not read this before? The author and title are familiar, but I can't think why. A friend mentioned they were re-listening to the audiobook on a family roadtrip, and how great it was, so I thought I'd add it to my list. Feeling foggy brained and can't think of much to add, except I'd really like to go to Africa.
★★★★½

>242 evilmoose: Wonderful book.

Lovely pictures, the snow looks beautiful although I guess you've probably had enough of it by now!

>239 evilmoose: Lovely photos, Megan. The stopping of the snow and also the cold are high on my wishlist also. It will be actually spring soon, right? (please lie)

Love the photos, Megan!

>242 evilmoose: I loved The Poisonwood Bible and despite being a proponent of most things African, I don't recall the book making me want to visit. Rather the opposite.

Good to see the 4-star spate has ended now!
There's nothing wrong with a solid 4-star read, but it does make one question one's rating system when there are a run of them :)

>240 ChelleBearss: Thanks Chelle, I get so used to them that I sometimes forget the mountains are there - really must remember to keep making the most of them!

>241 drneutron: It definitely was Jim :)

>Thanks Charlotte - yes, definitely had enough snow by now. It snowed again yesterday! Oh, and gosh, there goes the avalanche control bombing on a nearby mountain. Feeling thoroughly awake now, it's a startlingly loud bang.

>244 MickyFine: Yes, definitely Spring from here on. No more snow or cold. Just lovely lovely sun.

>245 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie :)

>246 Oberon: Hah, yes, it really wasn't that much of a tourism brochure - more it reminded me that I still want to visit, despite some of the awfulness.

>247 LovingLit: I was beginning to question everything I know about life Megan! Thankful that order has now been returned to the universe.

Right, and with that I call this thread to a close. Onwards!