Weird_O Bill's 2018 Rubber Room & Library #3

 #103  #102  #101  #100 

 #99  #98  #97  #96 

 #95  #94  #93  #92 

 #91  #90  #89  #88 

 #87  #86  #85  #84  #83 

Books Read: Fourth Quarter 2018



December (7 read)
103. The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick (12/31/18)
102. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (12/26/18)
101. Speedboat by Renata Adler (12/20/18)
100. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (12/14/18)
99. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (12/11/18)
98. West with the Night by Beryl Markham (12/8/18)
97. Old Filth by Jane Gardam (12/4/18)

November (8 read)
96. The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (11/30/18)
95. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (11/29/18)
94. Unnatural Causes by P. D. James (11/25/18)
93. Citizens of London by Lynne Olson (11/23/18)
92. Less by Andrew Sean Greer (11/15/18)
91. Dead Wake by Erik Larson (11/12/18)
90. Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (11/8/18)
89. Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie (11/6/18)

October (8 read)
88. Black Betty by Walter Mosley (10/28/18)
87. Endless Night by Agatha Christie (10/26/18)
86. The Shining by Stephen King (10/23/18)
85. It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (10/21/18)
84. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (10/14/18)
83. Looking for a Ship by John McPhee (10/9/18)
82. Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart (10/8/18)
81. Andretti by Mario Andretti (10/1/18)

Books Read: Third Quarter 2018



September (11 read)
80. Can't Argue with Sunrise: A Paper Movie by Lou Stoumen (9/30/18)
79. The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle (9/29/18)
78. The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien (9/25/18)
77. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells (9/22/18)
76. Curtain: Poirot's Last Case by Agatha Christie (9/20/18)
75. Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner (9/18/18)
74. Benediction by Kent Haruf (9/13/18)
73. My Reading Life by Pat Conroy (9/11/18)
72. Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (9/9/18)
71. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (9/7/18)
70. Laughing Gas by P. G. Wodehouse (9/2/18)

August (11 read)
69. The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter by Ambrose Bierce (8/31/18)
68. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (8/30/18)
67. The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers (8/28/18)
66. Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman (8/21/18)
65. A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman (8/17/18)
64. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (8/15/19)
63. France Is a Feast by Alex Prud'homme and Katie Pratt (8/13/18)
62. The Quick and the Dead by Louis L'Amour (8/11/18)
61. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (8/8/18)
60. A Dog's Life by Peter Mayle (8/7/18)
59. Mrs. 'Arris Goes to New York by Paul Gallico (8/2/18)

July (7 read)
58. Thurber on Crime by James Thurber (7/31/18)
57. The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan (7/30/18)
56. The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon (7/24/18)
55. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (7/12/18)
54. Chinaman's Chance by Ross Thomas (7/11/18)
53. Knots & Crosses by Ian Rankin (7/5/18)
52. Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie (7/2/18)

Books Read: Second Quarter 2018



June (13 read)
51. Michael Chabon's The Escapist: Pulse-Pounding Thrills by Michael Chabon (6/25/18)
50. Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene (6/24/18)
49. The Sense of a Ending by Julia Barnes (6/22/18)
48. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (6/20/18)
47. Eventide by Kent Haruf (6/19/18)
46. The Private World of Pablo Picasso and Picasso's Picassos by David Douglas Duncan (6/17/18)
45. Crooked House by Agatha Christie (6/14/18)
44. Through Irish Eyes: A Visual Companion to Angela McCourt's Ireland by Malachy McCourt (6/11/18)
43. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (6/10/18)
42. The Big Burn by Timothy Egan (6/8/18)
41. The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton (6/5/18)
40. The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley (6/3/18)
39. The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy (6/1/18)

May (9 read)
38. A River Runs Through it and other stories by Norman Maclean (5/30/18)
37. TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (5/21/18)
36. Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis by Peter Kuper (5/21/18) GN
35. Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo (5/20/18)
34. I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson (5/13/18)
33. Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee (5/12/18)
32. News Is a Verb: Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century by Pete Hamill (5/6/18)
31. Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey (5/6/18)
30. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan (5/1/18)

April (8 read)
29. The Crofter and the Laird by John McPhee (4/30/18)
28. The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan (4/26/18)
27. Duane Michals: Portraits by Duane Michals (4/22/18)
26. Tales from Grimm by Wanda Gag (4/21/18)
25. The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm by Lore Segal and Maurice Sendak (4/15/18)
24. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe (4/14/18)
23. The Nazis Next Door by Eric Lichtblau (4/5/18)
22. Peril at End House by Agatha Christie (4/2/18)

Books Read: First Quarter 2018



March (9 read)
21. The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty (3/31/18)
20. Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen (3/30/18)
19. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (3/23/18)
18. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (3/18/18)
17. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (3/17/18)
16. The Twits by Roald Dahl (3/11/18)
15. Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande (3/8/18)
14. This Boy's Life by Tobius Wolff (3/5/18)
13. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (3/2/18)

February (8 read)
12. Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (2/26/18)
11. On William Faulkner by Eudora Welty (2/22/18)
10. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (2/21/18)
9. A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie (2/15/18)
8. Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead (2/12/18)
7. The Hilliker Curse by James Ellroy (2/10/18)
6. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre (2/8/18)
5. Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley (2/1/18)

January (4 read)
4. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (1/30/18)
3. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (1/17/18)
2. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1/13/18)
1. Lucky You by Carl Hiassen (1/11/18)

         Agatha Christie's Ten Best 

Got the Christie bug. Not serious, but I don't want to ignore it. I caught it while watching Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express. Having seen three cinematic versions, I wanted to read Dame Agatha's original. At about the same time, Christmas wish lists started circulating, and two grands, who also saw the latest movie, asked for Christie books. Christie wrote a LOT of books. Which were the best?

An acceptable list I found at The Guardian, contributed by John Curran. His selections listed in order of publication:

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
Hercule Poirot has retired to the village of King's Abbot to cultivate marrows. But when wealthy Roger Ackroyd is found stabbed in his study, he agrees to investigate. A typical village murder mystery; or so it seems until the last chapter with its stunning revelation. This title would still be discussed today even if Christie had never written another book. An unmissable, and still controversial, milestone of detective fiction.

Peril at End House (1932)
The impoverished owner of End House hosts a party where fireworks camouflage the shot that kills her cousin. Which of the other guests is a murderer? Perfectly paced, with subtle and ingenious clueing, and an unexpected but totally logical solution. Of its type, perfection; this is how the classic detective story should be written. Poirot

Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
The glamorous Orient Express stops during the night, blocked by snowdrifts. Next morning the mysterious Mr. Ratchett is found stabbed in his compartment and untrodden snow shows that the killer is still on board. This glamorous era of train travel provides Poirot with an international cast of suspects and one of his biggest challenges. Predicated on an inspired gimmick, this is one of the great surprise endings in the genre.

The ABC Murders (1935)
Despite advance warnings, Poirot is unable to prevent the murders of Alice Ascher, Betty Barnard and Carmichael Clarke. Can he stop the ABC Killer before he reaches D? One of the earliest examples of the "serial killer" novel this classic Christie is based on a beautifully simple premise. But how many readers are as clever as Poirot?

And Then There Were None (1939)
Ten people are invited to an island for the weekend. Although they all harbour a secret, they remain unsuspecting until they begin to die, one by one, until eventually … there are none. Panic ensues when the diminishing group realises that one of their own number is the killer. A perfect combination of thriller and detective story, this much-copied plot is Christie's greatest technical achievement. Mystery

Five Little Pigs (1943)
Sixteen years ago, Caroline Crale died in prison while serving a life sentence for poisoning her husband. Her daughter asks Poirot to investigate a possible miscarriage of justice and he approaches the other five suspects. This sublime novel is a subtle and ingenious detective story, an elegiac love story and a masterful example of storytelling technique, with five separate accounts of one devastating event. Christie's greatest achievement.

Crooked House (1949)
The Leonides family all live together in a not-so-little crooked house. But which of them poisoned the patriarch, Aristides? Murder in the extended family always provided fertile ground for Christie, and this was one of her own favourites. Another example of a sinister reinterpretation of a nursery rhyme with an ending that her publishers initially considered too shocking, even for Agatha Christie. Mystery

A Murder is Announced (1950)
In the village of Chipping Cleghorn, a murder is announced in the local paper's small ads. As Miss Blacklock's friends gather for what they fondly imagine will be a parlour game, an elaborate murder plot is set in motion. This was Christie's 50th title and remains Miss Marple's finest hour. Notable also for its setting in post-war Britain (a factor vital to the plot) this is arguably the last of the ingeniously clued and perfectly paced Christies.

Endless Night (1967)
Working-class Michael Rogers tells the story of his meeting and marrying Ellie, a fantastically rich American heiress. As they settle in their dream house in the country, it becomes clear that not everyone is happy for them. A very atypical Christie, this tale of menacing suspense builds to a horrific climax and shows that even after 45 years she had not lost the power to confound her readers. The best novel from her last 20 years. Mystery

Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (1975, but written during the second world war)
An old and frail Poirot returns to the scene of his first case, the country house Styles, now a guest-house. He summons his friend Hastings to help identify the killer he suspects is a fellow-guest. Christie uses every trick in the book to produce a unforgettable, yet poignant, swan song for the little Belgian. This novel was written during the Blitz and stored in a safe to be published after Christie's own death. It was actually published in October 1975 (Christie died in January 1976) and Poirot received a front-page obituary in the New York Times. In a lifetime of literary tours-de-force, this is the biggest shock of all.

The check following the title designates a book I've read. When I first posted this list, back in January, I'd read four of them. I've doubled that number, and have the last two in hand: Curtain and Endless Night.

READ 'EM ALL, as of October 26, 2018

       Young Hercule Poirot 

mine. Mine! MINE!!!

That's quite the funny topper! Happy new thread!

Happy New Thread, Bill. Love the topper.

Happy new thread, Bill! I see that #75 is imminent.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Bill!

>11 harrygbutler: No longer imminent, Harry. B. A. G. Come and gone. Starting #77 shortly.

>9 jessibud2: >10 msf59: Glad you like the topper. Hat tip to R. Crumb.



>12 drneutron: >13 karenmarie: Thanks, Doc and Karen. Happiness back at yas.

>14 weird_O: Indeed! Congratulations, Bill!

Happy new thread, Bill and congratulations on reaching 75!

Congrats!

Bill--Hurray for a new thread and passing the magic 75!! After seeing all the recent book acquisitions that have come your way (on your last thread), I think you have your reading work cut out for you. : )

Happy new thread and congrats on reaching 75!

Happy new one, Bill. Any more library sales planned?

Well, I completely missed that you hit the big 7-5. Congrats.

>14 weird_O: Love it.

Congrats on hitting #75, Bill. Always a celebratory milestone around these parts. How was the Faulkner? Not familiar with that one.

Just sayin' that it's imperative to vote the straight Democratic ticket come Nov. 6.

 

Can't wait for that explosion...

Before the day slips away, I want to commemorate a birthday.



Thomas Stearns Eliot 1888—1965

Kay Bell Reynal 1905-77

Kay Bell took up photography as the result of a dare in 1943. She was working as an associate editor for Vogue in New York, and was given a camera by the then art director. Two years later she set up a studio in an Eastside townhouse, and there, working with a hand-held camera by natural light, she produced fashion photographs and portraits which are marked by their elegance and informality. In 1947 she married the publisher Eugene Reynal, and through him came into contact with many of the leading writers of the day, often photographing them 'after lunch', as she put it, in relaxed and less guarded moments.

The poet, playwright and critic T.S. Eliot sat to her in May or June 1955, when staying with his American publisher Robert Giroux, on his way to Boston to visit his two ailing sisters. He was by that time the 'elder statesman' of British letters, in whose work can be traced a spiritual quest which leads from the apparently despairing Waste Land (1922) to the religious fulfilment of the Four Quartets (1935-42). With characteristic prudence he gave three poetry readings on the trip - just enough to pay for it - and, with less circumspection, went to see his old friend Ezra Pound, 'il miglior fabbro' who had revised The Waste Land, and who was incarcerated in an asylum in Washington. On a visit the previous year Pound had criticized Eliot's Christianity as 'lousy', but this year things went better, and Pound wrote to Ernest Hemingway: 'Possum [Eliot] more relaxed this year . . . last year rather edgy'.

from Camera Portraits: Photographs from the [British] National Portrait Gallery 1839--1989 © 1989 by National Portrait Gallery

Thanks for joining in the Book 75 Fest. >15 harrygbutler: >16 FAMeulstee: >17 drneutron: >18 Berly: >19 figsfromthistle: >21 karenmarie:

>20 charl08: In fact, Charlotte, I've reserved a bag (or two...you never know) for Saturday's $5 bag sale at the Kutztown library. It's kind of a small sale, in tight quarters, but it is close by.

>23 msf59: Geez, Mark. I don't know if I want "weirdos" knowing where I live.

>28 weird_O: Two...definitely two for you. ; )

>27 weird_O: Great photo! Happy New Thread and congrats on hitting the 75 book mark too.

#27
I am intrigued by your birthday entry. Are you a fan of this artists work? I had never heard of her and I thought that photo portrait was outstanding. T. S. Eliot actually looked approachable and friendly. He probably was as relaxed as Ezra Pound said he was.

Happy New Thread, Bill. Congrats on 75!

I like that tribute to Eliot. He's always been a favorite. I'm sure I mentioned this before, but you can see Pound's editing suggestions in The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript. Fascinating.

The Eliot photo, Benita, is from a book I got a couple of weeks ago. It's called Camera Portraits and features photos from Britain's National Portrait Gallery. Each spread has a photo and a text block telling about the subject and about the photographer. It isn't a book you read necessarily, but I've liked photography and I've enjoyed paging through the book. I picked out a half-dozen portraits of writers to share. The nexus of that plan and Eliot's birthday got the thing going.

#33
That sounds like an interesting book. What a find. Was it one of your library book sale books?

I will be waiting to see what photo and photographer you post next.

# 78. The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien Finished 9/25/18

The Weird Report^TM  

Quite the harrowing book this is. Fidelma McBride, who lives with her husband Jack in a quiet town, Cloonoila, in western Ireland, meets a newcomer who has moved there from an Eastern European country. He's a healer, a shaman, an herbalist, a naturalist. He seems to be able to talk his way into and through this unfamiliar culture and community. And to thrive in it. He's charismatic, charming, attractive. Ultimately, Fidelma, wanting a child, feeling her biological clock winding down, attracting no succor from Jack (who is 20 years older than Fidelma), approaches the healer for surrogacy. No, no, no, he tells her, but eventually, he consents. In a bizarre tryst, Fidelma becomes pregnant. But Vlad then pushes her away.

One day, she discovers coarse graffiti painted on the sidewalk fronting her former boutique, which now is Dr. Vlad's clinic. She races off to find him, and when she does, he's angry, hostile to her but also cautionary. His car's been vandalized: tires cut, windows smashed. They run to the clinic.

Where Wolves Fuck. He loomed over it, stared at it, then knelt and smelt it, as if he might guess the perpetrators.

'It's someone who knows us,' she said.

'You must deny everything, Fidelma.'

'I can't...I live here.'

'I thought I could trust you to be discreet,' he said with a cold contemptuousness.

'I am discreet,' she said far too loudly, hating the hysteria in her voice, in her being, in her headscarf, in all of her.

...'Nothing happened ... no broken window ... no graffiti ... no rendezvous . . . nothing .. . ne ... ne . . . ništa'

'But we're ...'

'Start forgetting ... Fidelma.'

'Forgetting what?'

'Everything . . .' He was wiping his hands in a gesture of wip­ing her out. No more letters. No communication. No tears. She is a grown-up lady, she can look after herself.

Then he was gone. Gone to where she would not find him. So this child, this wolf-child, was hers and hers alone to give birth to. Oh Jesus and Mary, she said... Start forgetting Fidelma. No ren­dezvous. No letters. No communication. Ništa.

And Vlad disappears. Gone from his clinic, gone from town. Vanished. About ten weeks later, he returns to take part in a poetry reading at the foot of Ben Bulben, an iconic mountain, something he promised to do. Everyone attending boards a bus, with Vlad settling into the seat behind the driver and losing himself in paperwork, editing. Further back sits Fidelma.

…[She] wondered if, after his poetry reading, she would manage a word with him alone. She craved it. She knew that there was to be no further commu­nication and she accepted it, but she hoped, if only for the child's sake, he would be there, at the rim of her existence. She had not yet told Jack. How to tell him. What to tell him. When to tell him. These were the questions that assailed her hour after hour, as she faked good cheer at home…

She doesn't get the chance. The bus is flagged down by police, his passport is inspected. He's told, " 'I'm afraid we have to ask you to come to the station with us.' "

'I'm afraid it's impossible because we are heading for a poetry recital,' he answered, quite nonchalant.

'That will not be possible sir ... we are arresting you,' the sec­ond, more senior guard said.

'My dear fellow, you must be mad ... arresting me ... you are chasing shadows,' Vlad said, still in total command of himself.

'You have been living under a false name,' one said, and his colleague, who was not quite so bristling, said that they were just doing what they had been instructed to do, as he held up the arrest warrant for him to see.

Those remaining on the bus, which is everyone but Vlad, are dumbfounded.

The last image they had was of his tall figure, unbowed but humiliated, starting down the steps of the bus and just as the sun had soaked into the young ash leaves, it now rasped on the bracelets of metal that bound his wrists.

It happened so quickly, so 'low key' as they said, that they were well nigh lost for words. The fact that he had co-operated and hadn't tried to escape was surely a sign that it couldn't be too serious. Yet the mood had changed, everyone felt uneasy and the driver was sweating and cursing his bad luck. A day wasted. Fidelma regretted that she had jumped up and was touched for the first time with a fatalistic terror.

When they return home, they all watch televised news.

On the television [some] spoke of him as the warrior poet, who had always had a mystical conviction of his role in history. He had risen from being an obscure doctor to the global notori­ety that he had always craved and was now on his way to the Tribunal in The Hague, to be indicted for crimes that included genocide, ethnic cleansing, massacres, tortures, detaining people in camps and displacing hundreds of thousands.

He's the "Beast of Bosnia," the leader of Serb forces that slaughtered thousands of Bosnians—men, women, and children— and that laid seige to Sarajevo. (Has no one heard of Vlad the Impaler? Read the WikiPedia entry here.) Jack knows now. So when three uncouth "bruisers" knock at the McBrides' door, Jack has no objection to their taking her away.

Oh, there's more. For Fidelma the ordeal is just beginning. Battered by the bruisers and left for dead, she's rescued and hospitalized. Rejected by her husband, she finds sanctuary with nuns. She goes to England, London, and struggles to find a place to stay, a job, and restoration of her psychological and spiritual well-being. And she seeks one final confrontation with Vlad.

A harrowing book yes, but well worth reading. I give it both thumbs up.  

>34 benitastrnad: Yep. Bethlehem Library sale.

Shhhh. $5 bag sale tomorrow morning. Kutztown.

$5-A-Bag Sale this morning. Took my own little tote, spent an hour, and got these five books (plus 20 others that are out-of-sight underneath).

Just $5.

>35 weird_O: Great review, Bill. I liked that book, too. I always saw Radovan Karadžić as Vlad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radovan_Karad%C5%BEi%C4%87?wprov=sfla1

Happy weekend.

Happy newish thread, Bill! Awesome book haul!!

What a great book haul!

Love that topper mate.

Slight tinge of jealousy at the tote filling.

Well done on passing 75 whilst I have been MIA.

Have a great weekend, Bill.

There is lots of reading in that bag. When will you do the reveal?

While you were purchasing books I was doing so as well. I only purchased two. Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies and Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald. 50% of my purchases were reruns. By that I mean that I already owned the book, and didn't know it. (That was Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies.) Fortunately, I purchased mine at a bookshop and paid full price, so I intend to take it back and do an exchange. There were plenty more titles that I would like to read.

What purchasing a rerun tells me, is that I really really think that book sounds good and I should really really get around to reading it.

Hi Bill!

>25 weird_O: Well. Tell us what you really think. *smile* I totally agree, by the way.

>37 weird_O: I’ve never even heard of The Pale King. Congrats on a great haul.

>52 Oberon: Ok, Benita. Here's the list from Saturday.

Mothers and Daughters by Carol Saline and Sharon Wohlmuth (hc, oversize)
1776: The Illustrated Edition by David McCullough (hc, oversize, boxed)
M. C. Escher: His Life and Complete Graphic Work by F. H. Bool, J. R. Kist, J. L. Locher, F. Wierda (hc, oversize)
Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka (hc)
Black Betty by Walter Mosley (hc)¹
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (hc)
The Accidental Theorist by Paul Krugman (hc)
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (hc)
Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson (hc)
Rather Be the Devil by Ian Rankin (hc)
The Color of Lightning by Paulette Jiles (hc)
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (hc)
The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde (hc)
Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver (hc)
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (hc)²

Andretti by Mario Andretti, edited by Mark Vancil (pbk, oversize)
The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle (pbk)
The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson (pbk)
In Suspect Terrain by John McPhee (pbk)
Table of Contents by John McPhee (pbk)
Montana 1948 by Larry Watson (pbk)
The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy (pbk)
High Notes by Gay Talese (pbk)

Automobile Quarterly, First Quarter 1978³
Automobile Quarterly, Fourth Quarter 1978
Automobile Quarterly, Fourth Quarter 1979

¹I've been pining for this particular volume of the Easy Rawlins series, because I'm stalled at this point in the series. I've got the two after this one. Now!

²Cover copy says this was the novel DFW was writing when he killed himself. Apparently unfinished.

³Automobile Quarterly was a hardbound, advertising-free periodical publication which focused on cars. It was published from 1962 to 2012. It was printed in Kutztown. I've had several issues; now I have three more.

>38 Ameise1: Thanks for the link, Barbara. Most (Some? All?) Vlads are horrible because they can cloak all their evil in their charm, warmth, charisma. O'Brien focused on that aspect of this particular beast.

>39 Carmenere: You know I always feel I want to read every book I buy right when I'm stuffing it in the tote. After it's matured on my TBR, I'm more sanguine.

>40 figsfromthistle: Such book buys are my pleasure.

>41 PaulCranswick: Glad you like the topper. You must be busy if you haven't time to buy a book or two. Nice you DO have the time to circulate here, though.

>43 benitastrnad: I do buy multiples. Often I's because I can't remember if this is the title I have from that author or if it is another one. If it IS a dupe, I keep the one that's in better condition and toss the extra back into library-sale circulation.

>44 karenmarie: Karen, I'm so flummoxed by people who can't SEE what is going on. I'm hoping for a cataclysmic blue tide. In less than two years, our society has been rolled back a century or more.

>46 weird_O: You're welcome.

I've read The Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Marseille Caper and The Cold Six Thousand. I hope yo'll enjoy them as much as I did.

I read 1Q84 and really liked it. Of course, I like most of Murakami's books, but this one ranks right up there with Kafka on the Shore and Windup Bird Chronicle.

Come to think of it - it might be time to dig out another Murakami. Maybe I should run and find a Wild Sheep Chase?

>49 benitastrnad: I've read only Kafka on the Shore, but I liked and admired it. A library sale buddy complained a couple of weeks back that Murakami books don't turn up in such sales. She's been looking for something Murakami for at least a year without a score. She didn't go the sale in Kutztown and missed out. Hahahaha!! It's mine now. Hahahaha. This one is a chunkster.

How many get to see a horse and wagon hitched to a shopping center signpost? We see it from time to time here in southeastern PA. Today, I drove my wife to an appointment in Kutztown, then walked to the other end of the strip to get a few groceries. Heard the horse clip-clopping into the lot and watched an Amish couple pass the supermarket and turn. The woman went into the grocery store, and the man continued on toward other stores. The supermarket actually has a hitching rail. At this end of the lot, the post with the handicapped parking sign has to do.

>51 weird_O: The small town where I grew up has a large Amish population (large compared to having none, I guess). Anyway, the local grocery store has three designated wagon spots too.

>52 Oberon: The Amish seem to have migrated to many pockets across the midwest—Ohio, Indiana, and...Minnesota.

# 80. Can't Argue With Sunrise: A Paper Movie by Lou Stoumen Finished 9/30/18

The Weird Report^TM  

Only three other LibraryThing members have copies of this book; it's not been reviewed. I got a copy just three weeks ago, and I got it because I knew who Lou Stoumen was, not because I knew of the book. I was dismayed to find it was a discard from the "Lehigh University Art Galleries Permanent Library". Lou Stoumen, you see, is likely the only Lehigh alum to win an Academy Award. And he won two! The book is a collection of black and white photos he took between 1938 and 1971, each photo displayed opposite some free verse sort of text.



Is it a great book? Nah. The photos are unfamiliar to me, but many are quite good. The sentiment of the book is beyond reproach. But it's unremarkable. Stoumen himself, though, is pretty remarkable. He once told the Lehigh student newspaper, the Brown and White, that his work centered not on stories with happy endings but on ways to make people aware of their own humanity.

After graduating from Lehigh in 1939, he worked first as a freelance photographer and journalist in New York City. (Many of the photographs he shot of Times Square were published in the 1985 book Times Square: 45 Years of Photographs.) In 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he served as a combat correspondent and photographer for Yank. Following the war, he continued his photojournalism and delved into documentary filmmaking.

In 1957, his half-hour-long documentary The True Story of the Civil War was released and won Stoumen the first Oscar awarded for a documentary. (While making this film, he created an innovative track along which the camera could be moved back and forth over historic photos and paintings. The camera could also be tracked up and down (in and out). Today, this technique is widely known as the "Ken Burns effect," primarily thanks to Steve Jobs, who bundled software to control the camera movement in Apple's iMovie editing program and identifying the app as the Ken Burns Effect.) In 1962, his feature-length documentary Black Fox: The True Story of Adolf Hitler earned him a second Oscar for documentaries.



Stoumen taught film production at UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television for many years. He died in 1991.

Fascinating about Stoumen. Typical that the person who invents a thing might not be the one to get credit for a thing. Time and marketing. :)

>54 weird_O:

Thank you for sharing all this intriguing information - have you seen the documentaries?

Read the full text of It Can’t Happen Here on Project Gutenberg.

Flap copy:

"A vain, outlandish, anti-immigrant, fear-mongering demagogue runs for President of the United States—and wins. Sinclair lewis's chilling 1935 bestseller is the story of Buzz Windrip, who promises poor, angry voters that he will make America proud and prosperous once more, but takes the country down a far darker path. As the new regime slides into authoritarianism, newspaper editor Doremus Jessop can't believe it will last—but is he right? This cautionary tale of liberal complacency in the face of populist tyranny shows it really can happen here."

I'm gonna look for this momentarily. A timely read, I think.

ETA: A link: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html
I overlooked providing it, since it isn't on gutenberg.org.

>45 weird_O: Excellent book haul, Bill. I don't think I know anyone else that can shop for book bargains like you, my friend. You will have to post photos of your book warehouse, one of these days.

>57 weird_O: - Yikes!

>55 mahsdad: Know what you mean. Stoumen was just trying to improve his art, and so, apparently, was Ken Burns. But Steve Jobs was scrounging for that tiny marketing edge and asked Burns for permission to use his name. Stoumen was already dead.

>56 m.belljackson: I haven't seen any of Stoumen's film work. Haven't even checked on YouTube. My bad.

>58 msf59: The books are widely dispersed, Mark. I might give you a glimpse...someday. :-)

>59 jessibud2: Yikes is correct, Shelley. I'm contemplating spending what is for me beaucoup bucks for a used copy. The only format in print is a mass-market paperback for close to $10 and I'm trying like heck to avoid that format (despite, or perhaps because, I launched my library more than 50 years ago by buying mm paperbacks). Anyway, I'm not sure I can really read a whole book on my computer.

But I will read it. Lewis was a brilliant writer. Hard to live with though.

>60 weird_O:

Abe.com has a couple of Very Good and Like New copies for slightly over $7.00.

>61 m.belljackson: So you checked abe.com for It Can't Happen Here. Does that mean you are going to get a copy and read it? :-) I looked too, but haven't placed an order. Yet.

Virginia Woolf (Adeline Virginia Stephen, Mrs Leonard Woolf) 1882-1941
George Charles Beresford 1864—1938

The second daughter of the editor of The Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Leslie Stephen, Virginia Woolf possessed an ethereal beauty and a temperament of extreme sensitivity, both of which qualities seem reflected in her novels and in her exquisite historical fantasy Orlando (1928). In Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and The Waves (1931) she developed the 'stream of consciousness' style which is her main contribution to the development of the English novel. Throughout her career she suffered bouts of mental illness, and eventually took her own life. Despite her apparent fragility, she made a considerable impact on her contemporaries, and could be both mordantly witty and tough. With her sister Vanessa and their brothers Adrian and Thoby, she was at the heart of the Bloomsbury Group, a coterie of intellectuals and artists who dominated English cultural life in the first decades of the twentieth century, and counted among her intimates Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, E.M. Forster, and the political writer Leonard Woolf, whom she married in 1912.

Beresford, who was a brilliant talker and wit and also an antique dealer, is best known as the model for 'M'Turk' in his friend Rudyard Kipling's stories of Stalky & Co. But between 1902 and 1932 this versatile man was a respected commercial photo­grapher with a studio in Yeoman's Row, Brompton Road, London, specializing in straightforward portraits of writers, artists and politicians, many of which were reprod­uced in periodicals of the time. He photographed Virginia Woolf in the summer of 1902, at a time when she was beginning her literary career, writing reviews for The Times Literary Supplement. In addition to prints, the Gallery also owns a large collection of Beresford's negatives.

From Camera Portraits: Photographs from the [British] National Portrait Gallery 1839--1989 © 1989 by National Portrait Gallery

>62 weird_O:

Yes, I ordered It Can't Happen Here - and wouldn't Sinclair Lewis be unhappily surprised?

Also got inspired by reading Memoirs of Ulysses Grant and so ordered a book on W.T. Sherman to see what made him infamous
since Grant so admired him.

I ordered a copy too, Marianne. I don't expect it soon, since it's coming (to PA) from California. Don't know how Lewis would react to this news. Mockery, perhaps?

Sherman was infamous because he was very effective. He was of the "war is hell" faction, give no quarter. The march through Georgia he led was brutal and cruel and expedited the end to the war. Grant knew that the math favored the Union: the south would run out of cannon fodder before the north.

What book on Sherman did you order? (Not that I know about Sherman books. American General by John S. D. Eisenhower is the only Sherman bio I've read.)

>65 weird_O:

Both books expected on November 1st - not sure yet of origin states.

I knew Sherman was infamous in the South, but wondered if there was more...

The General Who Marched to Hell: William Tecumseh Sherman and his March to Fame and Infamy by Earl Miers
should give the answers. I couldn't resist the title.

A improved level of reading mojo has been observed. Finished the McPhee I started a week ago while icking around Mr. King. Near the halfway point in The Shining, but I just might put my immediate attention on a Christie book or a Mosley one. Thinking too about The Book Thief. Anyone read it?

Hi Bill! Glad to hear that your reading mojo has gone up a level or two. I have had The Book Thief on my shelves for 8 years. It always sounds wonderful when I read a synopsis, but it's currently at daughter's house on loan.

#54
I checked in WorldCat to see how many copies of Can't Argue With Sunrise by Louis Clyde Stoumen there are out there in the world. According to WorldCat (the largest book, article, and pamphlet database in the world) there are 90 copies of this book in libraries worldwide. Lehigh University has multiple copies of the book in its collection. There is at least one circulating copy and several in Lehigh's Special Collections. That is why Lehigh discarded the title. They are probably like most academic libraries and are simply running out of room for books. That means that they have to pare down the number of books on the shelves. When they have more than one copy the rest have to go. I am in the middle of a "weeding" project for just those reasons. I will probably discard around 1,000 books this coming year. I am glad that this one found a good home with you.

>67 weird_O: Hey Bill, I'll throw my 2 cents in on The Book Thief. I read it back in 2014 and I apparently "loved" it. I gave it 5 stars and to quote myself...

I won't say that I enjoyed this book, as the subject matter, really doesn't lend itself to "enjoyment", but it is a really excellent book and I'm glad I read it.

Happy Friday, Bill. I also loved The Book Thief and have a copy on my "keeper" shelf. I am really enjoying Frankenstein. What took me so long? It has only taken me 200 years. Sheesh...

>68 karenmarie: So you have a copy of The Book Thief but haven't yet read it. That was me too. But I just finished it, I mean like 15 minutes ago. You should read it. I have to say, it's the first book I've read, certainly for a looong time, that made me teary at the end.

I remember well how we came to have the book, but not exactly when. My wife's sister called her and urged her to get the book. And I looked diligently but unsuccessfully at B&N for it. Then I asked and was guided to a table of YA books. Oh. My wife read it, but hey, it was YA. I didn't even catalog it

>70 mahsdad: Thanks for the recommendation, Jeff. I'm glad I read it too.

>71 msf59: It's the right time of the year for reading Frankenstein, Mark.

#84. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Finished 10/14/18

The Weird Report^TM  

I'm late to this party, and I doubt I have anything to say about this marvelous book that hasn't already been said in one (or more) of the 1800-plus reviews posted. My appraisal of the story can be summed up by acknowledging that at the end, I was teary eyed.

Two thumbs up!

 

Anthony Trollope 1815-82
Julia Margaret Cameron 1815-79

In 1863 Julia Margaret Cameron, the wife of a retired coffee-planter, was given a wet collodion photographic outfit by her daughter and son-in-law. As a young woman she had corresponded with Sir John Herschel (no. 33) about the new medium, and she now began to practise photography with great enthusiasm and idealism: ‘My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art’. She took many portraits of her family and friends, servants and photogenic villagers on the Isle of Wight where she lived, but above all, like the commercial photographers of the day, she pursued celebrities.

This image of the novelist and postal-official (the inventor of the pillar-box) Trollope was taken when he was on holiday at Freshwater, Isle of Wight in 1864, at a time of crisis in his career with the post-office. In March that year his enemy Sir Rowland Hill, founder of the penny post, had retired, and Trollope hoped at last for preferment. He was, however, passed over, and, though it took him two years to make up his mind, he finally retired. It was the right decision for this passionate devotee of fox-hunting, who found daily attendance at the office to be 'slavery’, but it stung him. Yet he was by this time firmly established as a best-selling novelist; his great human comedies, the Barchester novels were, with the exception of The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867), behind him; the ambitious late political novels such as The Way We Live Now (1875), to come.

From Camera Portraits: Photographs from the [British] National Portrait Gallery 1839–1989 © 1989 by National Portrait Gallery

The U. S. Postal Service came through, delivering the copy of It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis that I ordered from a dealer in Cathedral City, CA last Monday (October 8) right into my mailbox. Nicely done.

I got a hardcover with a jacket, apparently printed in 1935, the year it was published. See >57 weird_O:. The jacket's overall background color is a light brown, rather than the blue-gray of the image above. Smacks of brown-shirts, to me. I'll have to scan the jacket and update the image.

I'm at the threshold of Part 4 of The Shining. I will take another break from it, and read the Lewis.

>75 weird_O:

Abe.com also came through today with a paperback of the Sinclair Lewis, with an afterword by Gary Scharnhorst.

Are you reading It Can't Happen Here as a fiction corollary to November's Political Non-Fiction Challenge?

>73 weird_O: Hooray for The Book Thief, Bill. I am glad you have joined it's legions of LT fans.

Adding my hooray for The Book Thief, Bill. Such a good one. He's got a new book out called Bridge of Clay that has been getting positive reviews.

>74 weird_O: Love that picture. I don't know how Trollope found the hours in the day to fit it all in...

Hi Bill!

>74 weird_O: reminded me that I have a book called A Victorian Album: Julia Margaret Cameron and Her Circle, filled with photographs taken by her. Mom and Dad gave it to me for Christmas in 1976 - I remember taking her to a B. Dalton bookstore to show her exactly the book I wanted. I love looking at old photographs.

Charles Robert Darwin 1809—82
Ernest Edwards 1837—1903

No scientist had a greater impact on Victorian attitudes than Darwin, whose theory of evolution, expressed in The Origin of Species (1859), destroyed the old biblical myth of creation.

He was photographed by Ernest Edwards for Edward Walford's Representative Men in Literature, Science and Art (1868), and is portrayed as a typical Victorian elder, lost in sober contemplation, very different from the young man who sailed on The Beagle to South America. For all his eminence Darwin remained modest and polite, judging himself only 'superior to the common run of men in noticing things which easily escape attention, and in observing them carefully'.

Edwards, who had a studio at 20 Baker Street, London, from 1864, specialized in portraiture and topographical work, and he published with H.B. George The Oberland and its Glaciers Explored and Illustrated with Ice-Axe and Camera in 1866. He developed an early form of pocket camera, and invented the heliotype (1869), a modified form of collotype reproduction. The first book to be illustrated with heliotypes was Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).

From Camera Portraits: Photographs from the [British] National Portrait Gallery 1839--1989 © 1989 by National Portrait Gallery

>76 m.belljackson: Yah, you got your book, too. I'm slow to reply, Marianne, so I can report that I finished the book. How about you? Started it? Finished it? I don't know what that Political Non-Fiction Challenge is. So the answer to your question is no.

>77 msf59: and >78 jnwelch: Thanks for welcoming me into the club. I enjoyed it, I must say. But don't try to seduce me with additional reading, Joe. I don't think I'm sinking, but the TBRs are rising above my waist, making it difficult to move around.

>79 charl08: Isn't that photo great? Charlotte. I didn't know about Trollope's toils in the postal system.

>74 weird_O: I have long known the name, Karen, though I'm not sure I can mentally picture particular photos she took. Nice to hear stories of difficult giftees (I'm one) who have to lead the gift-givers to the exact item wanted. Our three oldest granddaughters give us links to their Christmas lists on Google Drive (I know, I know; you hate Google) which are lists of links to the exact items they want.

'Morning, Bill!

The best thing to do is to 'google' Julia Margaret Cameron images. *smile*

Yup, I dislike Google, but I do love Amazon, and I sent my daughter links to things I wanted for my birthday in June. I kept saying OR, and she kept buying - AND. Darling girl.

Hooray for your granddaughters. They're practical and (I was going to say wired in, but that's passé) - wireless-ed in.

I'm conflicted - sometimes it's nice to get a surprise present, not on a list, never mentioned in passing, just something someone thought you'd love, other times I remember some of those unexpected gifts, which are either in a closet or long gone to the thrift store.

How's The Shining coming along? Doctor Sleep was a very good follow up.

>84 karenmarie: Ya know, I was thinking that's what I need to do: google Julia Margaret Cameron photos. So I just did. Wow! Except damn! Now I have to scare up J. M. Cameron books. Oh! I can put them on my Amazon wish list.



Sir John Herschel. This is a familiar (to me) image. (I'll leave it to you to google Sir John.)

I am impressed with your photographic taste. Two thumbs up.

>82 weird_O:

Haven't started It Can't Happen Here - I'm planning to read it with many others (ON TYRANNY, EIGHT YEARS...) for the November Political NF Challenge.

The NF thread for October is up as: The 2018 Nonfiction Challenge Part X: First Person Singular in October. i read Ulysses Grant's Memoirs.

You might also enjoy the new Alt Lit = ORANGE is the New Gasbag Hack thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/297680.

>86 m.belljackson: Thanks for the nudge on this NF challenge, Marianne. I participated in it two years ago, maybe. But I felt overbooked with challenges and felt I was letting them steer my reading. So I dropped this one last year. But having just skimming through the thread on the October topic, I'm "challenged" (ha ha) to get back into it. I believe I have a couple of books hiding in the TBR stash that fit October's gauntlet. And. I'll have a few days in October to reading something NF.

>87 weird_O:

Thread came up as a link on its own!

I'm done! The Shining by Stephen King. Kudos to me.

Bravo, Bill! Did you like it? Were you scared by it? Will you read the sequel Dr. Sleep, which I really loved?

Yes, Karen, I did like it. Not swept away, but yeah, it was good.

I get caught up in the links between books and the movies made from them. The Shining was no exception. I have a book on Kubrick that discusses in chronological order the flix that Kube made. Last night, I read the chapter on The Shining. Interesting. The conflict between King and Kubrick about the underlying source of evil got coverage.

One aspect that wasn't mentioned directly is the filmmaker's need to control the running time, to fit the story into an acceptable two to three hours. King's inclusion of backstory to explain Jack makes the novel very long and would, necessarily, turn a cinematic version into a series. I didn't know that a TV series was made of the novel, with King as the executive producer.

So...

I'm not going to pursue Dr. Sleep anytime soon. I've got other books teasing me.

Tonight I completed my challenge to read each of Agatha Christie's Ten Best, as selected by John Curran, a contributor to The Guardian.

The last, Endless Night, had on the back cover a list of 10 titles that were Miss Christie's personal favorites. A new challenge for me, though a limited one. Six are on Curran's list, and thus I have read them.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
And Then There Were None
Crooked House
A Murder Is Announced
Endless Night

Two others I have sequestered in the TBR. I'll read them before the end of 2018.

Towards Zero
Ordeal by Innocence

And two others are not in my collection. I'll read these two, but maybe not in 2018.

The Moving Finger
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

Happy Friday, Bill. Congrats on finishing The Shining. Sorry, to hear it didn't really resonate with you. It has been a couple of decades since I have read it, but always considered it, as one of King's best.

I enjoyed your comments on the Kubrick film. I liked the film but for different reasons than the book, mostly the stunning imagery. It is still 2nd level Kubrick.

# 87. Endless Night by Agatha Christie Finished 10/26/18

The Weird Report^TM  

Michael Rogers, the narrator of Endless Night, is a penniless young Englishman, unemployed by choice. Nevertheless, he has quite expensive taste. Walking by a shop, he sees a painting he admires in the window and stops in to find out the price. He assumes it will be several hundred pounds, which he doesn't have, and is surprised that the price is 25,000 pounds. Still, he'd like to have it.

Visiting a small town, he reads a notice of a property auction, views the derelict structure from a distance, admires the terrain, and wants to own it. No money he has, of course. Strolling out along a country road, the better to see the property, he practically knocks over an attractive young woman who is scanning the same landscape. Michael is smitten and cautiously tries to befriend her and quite quickly succeeds. As their stroll continues, an old woman confronts them, telling them the property is cursed; everyone connected with it is injured or maimed or killed, typically in accidents. Run away, run away, she screeches. Michael blows off the threats as superstition.

The young woman, her name is Ellie Goodman, soon reveals to Michael that she's an heiress; in a few weeks, she'll turn 21, and at that age, she inherits astonishing wealth from her grandfather. Other obvious heirs—parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins—are deceased or disqualified. It's a fantasy! Ellie loves Michael despite his indigence and she's able and more than willing to indulge his every whim. The property, known as Gipsy Acre (yes, it is far, far more than one acre), is bought, a gifted architect designs a magnificent house and supervises its construction, and they move in. Life is good!

Issues intrude. Business advisors seem vaguely skeptical of Michael, suspicious. He lacks ambition, lacks a work ethic. He's a loner. Ellie has an assistant, Greta, who seems to run her life; Michael acts suspicious—or jealous—of her. He doesn't want to even meet Greta, and he's opposed to her continued employment and especially doesn't want her in the new house. Likewise, he doesn't want Ellie to meet his mother, and he is miffed when she shows up at Gipsy Acre. When she tells him that Ellie visited her, he's angry. The newlyweds meet several locals and discover curious, mystifying connections. Trouble intrudes. On their first night in their new house, a rock is thrown through a window. Minor vandalism damages the house.

It just might be that the gipsy curse is true.

Published in 1968, four years before Christie's death, Endless Night is, according to The Guardian's John Curran, "the best novel from her last 20 years." No Poirot, no Miss Marple. An excellent—and horrifying— story. Two thumbs up!

 

>94 weird_O:. Hmmmm...haven't read that one, and I do enjoy the non-Poirot-or Marple books.

# 86. The Shining by Stephen King Finished 10/23/18

The Weird Report^TM  

Meet the Torrance family: Jack, his wife Wendy, and their 5-year-old son Danny. They're embarking on a cross-country journey in a clapped-out VW beetle with a failing fuel pump, moving from Vermont to the Colorado mountains. Jack, you see, is a failed literature teacher, an unsuccessful and blocked writer, and an alcoholic. His final chance at life, at marriage, at fatherhood is on the line as the family moves to a rambling, shambling resort hotel to become its off-season caretakers. Once the snow flies, they'll be isolated, just the three of them, in the vast structure. The telephone line will doubtless go down, and a CB radio then will be their only means of communicating with civilization.

Arriving on the final day of the season, the Torrances are introduced to their "ward", with its maze of corridors, hundreds of guest rooms, creaky elevator, vast dining room and ballroom, and a temperamental boiler. Young Danny bonds almost immediately with the black chef, Dick, as he conducts the family through the well-stocked hotel kitchen. Dick recognizes "the shining" in Danny, a telepathic ability to sense what other people are thinking. Dick has the shining, but his is nowhere near Danny's. He cautions his young friend about guest rooms to avoid, and elicits his promise that he will, through the shining, ask Dick for help should he or his parents be in danger. Then Dick dons his parka and heads off to his winter job in Florida.

The last employees depart, leaving the Torrances to solitude. Well, as much solitude as a malevolent hotel will allow.

King is the master of tense situations (fictional). He knows the subliminal doubts and fears that plague us and he knows how to manipulate them and us. He's shameless in his larking about, poking and startling and generally grossing out timorous, trembling readers. He drags the story at a deliberate pace (meaning this book is looong). He wants to present the full panorama, with the backstories of all the important characters, just so you understand mindsets and motivations. The backstories of Jack and Wendy foreshadow their reactions to events.

The hotel's backstory is essential to King's tale. It has a checkered past, as Jack discovers through a tattered scrapbook he sees in the basement when making his twice-daily inspections of the boiler pressure. The more he learns, the less settled the family becomes. It's going to grind them up.

ETA: My own backstory with The Shining complicated and protracted the just-completed reading of it. Long ago I adopted a prejudiced, crabby, dismissive attitude to King and his oeuvre. I read and approved of non-fiction books like Danse Macabre and On Writing. Copies of Carrie and Misery—unread—collected dust. I've been whiny about fulfilling this challenge. I admit it, the damn book was good after all that. Oh, all right...I guess I should give it a couple of thumbs up. (But it was too long.) (And totally pervaded by Smilin' Jack Nicholson!)

 

Hiya, Bill.

That's a great list of best Dame Agathas to read. I'd add some (particularly Tuesday Club Murders, Cards on the Table, and the oddball The Mysterious Mr. Quinn), but I'm sure every fan has his or her favorites.

Nice review of Endless Night. That's an excellent and horrifying one all right. :-)

My wife and I were making plans for a late October getaway, but the venue we were interested in didn't get such great reviews.

>98 weird_O: Ha! Happy Halloween, Bill.

>98 weird_O: *snerk*

Hi Bill!

>96 weird_O: I adopted a prejudiced, crabby, dismissive attitude to King and his oeuvre. Me, too! Until I was desperate for an audiobook at the library in November of 2009 and listened to Dumas Key. Since then I’ve read or listened to nineteen unique titles, and plan on reading his newest, Elevation, this week.

>97 jnwelch: I love the three you mentioned, Joe.

>98 weird_O: Yay for Tom Gauld.

"King is the master of tense situations (fictional). He knows the subliminal doubts and fears that plague us and he knows how to manipulate them and us." Yup.

Aldous Leonard Huxley 1894—1963
Man Ray 1890-1976

Of formidable intellectual descent - he was the son of the writer Leonard Huxley, grand­son of T.H. Huxley, great-grandson of Dr Thomas Arnold, and nephew of Mrs Humphrey Ward — Aldous Huxley, while still an undergraduate of Balliol College, Oxford, was taken up by Philip Morrell and his wife Lady Ottoline. At their home, Garsington Manor, this virtually blind young man was introduced to the up-and-coming writers and artists of the day. In 1921 he published his first novel Crome Yellow, to an extent based on his experiences with the Morrells, the first of a succession which were to make him something of a hero with the young. Point Counter Point (1928) was a best-seller in England and America, and his Utopian fantasy Brave New World appeared in 1932. In 1938 he settled in America, where his eye-sight improved and he published The Art of Seeing (1942). His later interest in psychedelic drugs such as LSD led to The Doors of Perception (1954), which again brought him a cult following.

The American Man Ray (born Emmanuel Rudnitsky in Philadelphia) was one of the century's leading experimental photographers. He lived for much of his career as an emigre in Paris, and there photographed many of the leading writers and artists of the day. He was one of the first photographers to reject 'soft focus', and, under the influence of Dadaism, laid great stress on spontaneity. According to a contemporary, Huxley was so tall that he had to 'fold himself and his legs, like some gigantic grass­hopper, into a chair', and Man Ray, in this otherwise simple portrait, makes something of this effect.

From Camera Portraits: Photographs from the [British] National Portrait Gallery 1839--1989 © 1989 by National Portrait Gallery

>95 laytonwoman3rd: Endless Night was a slow-start for me. I didn't quite warm to the narrator/protagonist, so I didn't feel compelled to keep those pages turning. But toward the end, Oh my. Definitely a good'n.

>97 jnwelch: Thanks for the recommendations, Joe. I know we have Mr. Quin, but the others don't ring bells. I don't know if I'll pursue them this year anymore; too many in close order tend to cloy, I think.* There's always next year.

*Of course, folks DO rip straight through series without gagging. My wife tore through all the Louise Penny books, one right after another. (Shh, I don't think she knows a new one is coming out at the end of this month.)

>99 harrygbutler: Thanks, Harry. We had our annual job handing out candy at our son's house in Easton. Very fun. And surprisingly warm, too. Gracie the Grand made the rounds with her friend Alex. Alex was Peter Pan, and Gracie was Peter's shadow.



>100 drneutron: ;-) heeheehee

>101 karenmarie: Hmmm. I don't think I going to get carried away like that. ;-) Small doses rather than King-size. And yes, Tom Gauld is good.

>102 laytonwoman3rd:

Thanks, Linda.

>96 weird_O: Good review of The Shining, Bill. Glad it ended up garnering 2 Thumbs up!!

>98 weird_O: I love this!!

I am really enjoying Washington black. Keep this one in mind, for some time down the road.

What a clever idea! Love that dual costume.

I hope the reason I don't read King is not that I'm not snobby about him: it's more that I find that stuff terrifying!

Have some cake, and read it too.

Wowowowowow!!!

(and yum!)

>108 weird_O: !!!

Annie! Sitting up on her own. Still smiling. Yeah!

She is adorable - and quite the natural!

>105 weird_O: Very clever costume
>108 weird_O: Awesome cake!
>111 weird_O: Adorable Annie. What a great smile!

>111 weird_O: And proud of herself! So cute.

Love your author pictures (and the reviews!). Yummy cake, love Peter Pan and her shadow and Annie looks quite happy. Life ain't bad!! : )

Hi Bill!

>108 weird_O: As one who used to decorate birthday cakes when my daughter was young, I can appreciate the number of hours someone spent on that cake. It is totally awesome, and I rarely use that word.

>111 weird_O: Pretty 'dorable, is Miss Annie.

>106 msf59: Glad you liked the report, Mark. Gauld IS good. Just keep these reviews in mind if you ever chance to good birding in Eastern Europe.

I've got Washington Black on a list...ah...somewhere. I just checked to be sure, it was a Book Prize nominee. So, okay, yeah, it's a good possibility.

>107 charl08: I thought it was so clever for the two friends to cooperate on a costume theme, and I think it was their own idea. Gosh, they are all so smart and clever and creative. King is too, but, really, in discrete doses only.

>109 jessibud2: >110 jnwelch: Read your book and eat it too. Mmmmm.

>112 jessibud2: Spittin' image of her dad when he was that age. We all called him Little Fat Boy. He was always smiling.

>113 figsfromthistle: Gracie's costume knocked ME out; glad you liked it too, Anita. As big as that cake is, I doubt it'd last long enough to get stale. I'll tell Annie what you said; she'll get at least a smile.

>114 laytonwoman3rd: **smile**

>115 Berly: Thanks, Kim. I do feel blessed. As a bunch of my t-shirts say, "Life Is Good."

>116 karenmarie: Wedding cake for a librarian.

>103 weird_O:

# 85. It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis Finished 10/21/18

The Weird Report^TM  

What the devil can be said about this book? Published in 1935, written by Sinclair Lewis, America's first Nobel laureate in literature, it posits that the United States electorate chooses as president a demagogic populist who pretty quickly disbands the senate, the house of representatives, and the supreme court, and runs the country as dictator. The scenario copies Hitler's rise in Germany, but also Mussolini's in Italy, Franco's in Spain (though without the civil war), and Stalin's in the Soviet Union. All happening in 1935.

Today, this 80-year-old novel is being re-examined. Does it foreshadow the rise of Trump?

Lewis' protagonist is Doremus Jessup, the owner and editor of Daily Informer in Fort Beulah, Vermont. Born and raised there, he's married, has three children, two of whom are married, and two grandchildren. He's generally respected in his community. On the eve of the national election he's skeptical enough to answer the titular assertion (It Can't Happen Here), telling an informal gathering of community bigwigs, "The hell it can't." He tells them:

…[T]here's no country in the world that can get more hysterical—yes, or more obsequious!—than America. Look how Huey Long became absolute monarch over Louisiana, and how the Right Honorable Mr. Senator Berzelius Windrip owns his State. Listen to Bishop Prang and Father Coughlin on the radio—divine oracles, to millions... Remember our Red scares and our Catholic scares, when...the Republicans campaigning against Al Smith told the Carolina mountaineers that if Al won the Pope would illegitimatize their children? ...Remember when the hick legislators in certain states, in obedience to William Jennings Bryan, who learned his biology from his pious old grandma, set up shop as scientific experts and made the whole world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution?... Remember the Kentucky night-riders? Remember how trainloads of people have gone to enjoy lynchings? Not happen here? Prohibition—shooting down people just because they might be transporting liquor—no, that couldn't happen in America! Why, where in all history has there ever been a people so ripe for a dictatorship as ours!

I do see events today that parallel Jessup's list. Fox news and right-wing radio talkers reprise the real Father Coughlin and Lewis' made-up Bishop Prang. Red scares and Catholic scares foreshadow fears of Islam and immigrants in general. Evolution denial vs. climate science denial. Lynchings vs. mass murders with rapid-fire weaponry.

The "Right Honorable Mr. Senator Berzelius Windrip", of course, is the leading presidential candidate, a demagogue Lewis modeled on Huey Long (who was assassinated shortly before the book's release). Windrip never ran for his state's governorship, but he was the power behind the governor.

…His most original invention was quadrupling the state militia and rewarding the best soldiers in it with training in agriculture, aviation, and radio and automobile engineering.
   The militiamen considered him their general and their god, and when the state attorney general announced that he was going to have Windrip indicted for having grafted $200,000 of tax money, the militia rose to Buzz Windrip's orders as though they were his private army and...covering the streets leading to the Capitol with machine guns, they herded Buzz's enemies out of town.

Shortly after securing the Democratic Party's nomination, Buzz issued his 15-plank platform. For his wife, Doremus succinctly summarized each plank, pointing out that blacks would be squeezed out of jobs and business ownership, women would be forced out of jobs and careers and pushed into homemaking and child-rearing. Jews got a mix of praise and cautions. Unions would be investigated and sanctioned by "a commission", but the effect would be to control labor. Everyone would get a guaranteed annual income of $5,000 (but only after a special commission worked out the financing and other details). The fifteenth and final plank, continued Doremus, "well, that's the one lone clause that really does mean something; and it means that...they...can grab hold of the entire government and have all the power and applause and salutes, all the money and palaces and willin' women they want."

Specifically, that fifteenth plank stipulated that immediately after the inauguration, congress shall initiate Constitutional amendments to turn over control of government to the president, to sideline themselves to an advisory capacity, and to remove from the Supreme Court the power to negate any presidential act as being unconstitutional. Just for the time being, of course; just during the present time of crisis.

Buzz is swept into office and quickly executes that fifteenth plank. The states are abolished and the country instead is divided into districts. Most of the officials are appointed, and few have public service experience. In fact, the less qualified an individual seems, the more likely he is (yes, the reins are in male hands exclusively) to get the job.

The impact of the takeover, much more than the mechanics of it, is what makes the tale. It isn't really about Buzz Windrip, it's about the mindset of the electorate, the thinking of the captains of local chambers of commerce and of the small-beer rank-and-file. It's about reactions to hot terms: the "isms." (They still trigger hot reactions today.) Socialism. Marxism. Communism. Fascism. Anarchism. Lewis presents a citizenry quite ready to spy on, squeal on, lie about, and brutalize family, friends, neighbors--anyone who isn't specifically them.

According to Lewis biographer Mark Schorer, "It Can't Happen Here would never have been written if Sinclair Lewis had not been married to Dorothy Thompson, if he had not absorbed a good deal more than he often pretended from those excited discussions, in which she was the center, of the situation in Europe…, especially in Hitler's Germany, and of its reflection in the political situation in the United States. The long tradition of irrational demagoguery in American politics seemed to have come to a climax in the threatening power of a figure like Huey Long, and in the proliferation during the 1930s of dozens of fanatical political groups, each giving its fealty to its own crackpot leader." [Emphasis mine.]

The takeaway from It Can't Happen Here is that an enormous portion of the electorate is—and always has been—ignorant, ill-informed, uninvolved, fearful, gullible, just ripe—in other words— for some loud charlatan to win them over and take them over. Lewis acknowledged it was not a good book, maybe second tier, but it did, he thought, skewer all the "ism" and their believers and disbelievers.

I'm glad I read the book. It is dated in its pacing and dialogue. Seemed odd to focus on a small town in a rural locale, though the injustices and inhumanity were thoroughly depicted. Read it for yourself.

>120 weird_O: - Yikes. My gut instinct response was: don't let this book anywhere near trump; don't want to hand him a blueprint. But, since he doesn't read, maybe there is no danger of that. Still, it is a pretty creepy testament or foreshadowing or prophecy of current events, isn't it? Thanks for your excellent and insightful review. I honestly don't have an urge to read it, myself but your review was plenty!

>119 weird_O: - Well, it's doing a pretty good job of being OUR planet's hell, if you ask me...

Good review of It Can't Happen Here, Bill. I have been wanting to read that one, for awhile now.

It would be nice if we could pull together a Group Read for The Satanic Verses for next year. Fingers crossed.

Hi Bill!

>119 weird_O: Not at all unreasonable, unfortunately.

>120 weird_O: Excellent review, very informative, beyond scary. I think I'll play ostrich on this one.....

>122 msf59: I posted on your thread, Mark - four of us have now expressed interest and we can have a conversation in January about what month makes sense. (you, me, Bill, Anita so far)

And thus it ends today. The Hunt for Blue November. edited to add: (courtesy of Shelley on the Alt Lit = ORANGE is the New Gasbag Hack! thread)

*keeping my fingers crossed*

>123 karenmarie:

Link to The Hunt for Blue November: https://www.librarything.com/topic/297680.

Took me a while, but I'm done with Salman Rushdie's memoir Joseph Anton. Rage, leavened by name-dropping and anecdotes. I liked it.

>123 karenmarie: >124 m.belljackson: Rushdie and friends had a similar game to The Hunt for Blue November. They called it Titles That Weren't Quite Good Enough. Among them:

Mr. Zhivago
A Farewell to Weapons
The Big Gatsby
For Whom the Bell Rings
Mademoiselle Bovary
Love in the Time of Influenza
Snag-22
Raspberry Finn

>125 weird_O: - Those are hilarious!

'Morning, Bill!

>125 weird_O: Laugh-out-loud funny.

>126 jessibud2: >127 karenmarie: Wow! Youse guys ladies are early birds. Posting at 7:30 in the morning. Glad you like Sir Salman's book titles.

I'm working up some enthusiasm for the election results. Overall I feel down. But there's a lot for me to like. In Pennsylvania, we got new districting during the summer, thanks to the state's Supreme Court ruling that the districting established by the GOP house, senate, and governor after the last census was illegally gerrymandered. The GOP legislators immediately murmured about impeaching the justices.

With the new districting, several GOP reps dropped out, knowing they wouldn't win, knowing their advantage was gone. 8 GOP reps, 7 Dem reps (including 4 women). Good governor and senator re-elected handily.

Oh I love the alternate titles!

I do feel better since Tuesday. Not great, but better.

And . . . of course Doremus is from Vermont. I think there is something in the water here -- most people, whatever their political leanings are fundamentally pragmatic. That's a generalization, yes, and those are generally foolish, but it holds.

Right now our town is engaging in a fight with our state house over the right to retain control of our elementary school, not join up with the other elementary schools in "Eastern Chittenden County". (We fear closure, teachers and admin being randomly moved around, weird purchasing ideas, etc-- think USPS). We have resolutely voted against joining this district thing and the Statehouse voted that we HAD to, they overturned our vote. I expect this is the sort of "Vermont color" story that will end up on NPR.

OK so I am rambling, but it has brought our village/town together in a most extraordinary way.

Here's my Reading Roundup for October 2018. I shamelessly copied the format from Lucy [Sibyx]. Couldn't find anything I liked better, and I certainly wouldn't have come up with the format on my own. Thank you, Lucy.

October

88. Black Betty by Walter Mosley (10/28/18)
87. Endless Night by Agatha Christie (10/26/18)*
86. The Shining by Stephen King (10/23/18)
85. It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (10/21/18)
84. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (10/14/18)
83. Looking for a Ship by John McPhee (10/9/18)
82. Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart (10/8/18)
81. Andretti by Mario Andretti (10/1/18)

Total read: 8
Male author: 7
Female author: 1
Non-fiction: 2
Fiction: 6
New-to-me author: 3
Reread: 0

Book source
2018 acquisition: 6
ROOT**: 2
Borrowed: 0

*The red R indicates that I posted a review.
**I consider any book on my shelf on January 1 of the current year to be a ROOT.

Books Acquired in October 2018

279. Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler (hc)
280. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks (pbk)
281. American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin (pbk)
282. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (pbk)
283. Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon (mmp)
284. Dracula by Bram Stoker (mmp)
285. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris (hc)
286. Paper Towns by John Green (pbk)
287. Here, There, Elsewhere by William Least Heat-Moon (hc)
288. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (hc, one-volume slipcase)
289. Puppies by William Wegman (hc, oversize)

Reflections for October 2018

Oh, man, I did good in my October reading, completing 8 books, including a couple I had long balked at starting (The Shining because Stephen King, The Book Thief because YA, you know…whispering...kid's book). How wrong I was; two very good reads.

I wrapped up the month reading two solid crime thrillers. One—Endless Night—was the last of the 10 Agatha Christie novels picked as her best by some authority or other. Slow start, then zooom! Pretty grim, though. I luved it. Interestingly, the cover copy on the particular edition I read listed Dame Agatha's 10 favorites. Some overlap with the list I used as a reading challenge, but now I have 2 TBRs to read and 2 others to buy and read. (Geez, and then Joe Welch dove onto the pile I was under and hit me with his favorites. Uh...thanks, Joe. Just what I needed. More Christie books to look for.)

The second thriller was Black Betty, the 4th novel in Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series. I just found it in September; I already have the next six (and I actually read one of them without knowing I should read them in order). Stalled for a long time, but now I'm free to barge ahead.

The first three books I read in October were okay but not special. Mario Andretti is a local racing hero, having lived in Nazareth, PA (home to C. F. Martin Company, maker of unexcelled acoustic guitars) since his family immigrated to the U.S. from Italy after WW II. I'm a big fan of John McPhee, so Looking for a Ship was a pleasure read. Never read Gary Shteyngart, though I'd heard of him. Absurdistan is a catchy title. The picaresque story was pretty good, to me, though I noted that not everyone who reviewed it here was on board with its humor. (Perhaps they are more perspicacious than me. *pause* Nahh.)

I reviewed three of my 8 reads. Click on the title to hop to the review:
Endless Night
The Shining
It Can't Happen Here

Hi Bill!

>128 weird_O: My husband's boss, Tom, is despondent that there wasn't a blue tsunami, but there was a pretty large blue wave, all things considered. The national wave was in regaining the House and locally in my state of NC in eliminating the GOP super majority stranglehold and in defeating two power-grabbing constitutional amendments that would have taken away more power from the (currently Democratic, 'natch) governor. Plus, all our county commissioners were re-elected, all Democrats.

>130 weird_O: I always report my statistics as YTD and will continue to do so, but I might just start posting my monthly stats too, in the body of the thread, just for S&G shits and giggles. Thanks for the nudge.

I never met a glass that wasn’t half full, Bill, but I’m happier and happier about the election results. Lots of positive changes in so many parts of the country. I just read that the huge voter turnout for Beto in TX resulted in 19 black judges being elected there. (Our judges are elected, too, and we actually got a bad one OUT in Chicago, which hasn’t happened in 28 years).

Can’t wait for the 100+ Diverse background ladies to show up in the House. There’s a great new New Yorker cover showing them crashing the white male party.

>131 karenmarie: >132 jnwelch: Yeah, Karen, Joe. The election is still playing out, and it's looking better for us citizens. Continuing vote-counting in Florida and Arizona and, I hope, in Georgia. How about Kansas? Less wrong with Kansas than when Frank Thomas wrote the book. Pleasing to note that "Dems ousted at least 15 House Rs with 'A' NRA ratings, while the candidates elected to replace them all scored an 'F' NRA rating," according to a twitter tweet. The Kremlin's favorite congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, was defeated. The electorate opted to reelect two GOP congressmen who are under indictment for financial misdeeds. Nevadans in one district elected a dead guy to represent them in Washington, a pimp no less.

>98 weird_O: HA!

>108 weird_O: YUM!

Hey there Bill, glad to see your weird light is still screwed in.

>134 richardderus: The light kinda blinks randomly. Probably not screwed tight.

Heh. Well said.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde 1854—1900
Napoleon Sarony 1821—96

Oscar Wilde, playwright, wit and representative of the London aesthetic movement, arrived in New York on the steamship Arizona in January 1882, with "nothing to declare but his genius." Early on he called on the photographer Sarony at his studio on Union Square to commission publicity photographs for his series of lectures on "Art for Art's Sake." Sarony, who was himself one of the best known of New York's eccentrics, found in Wilde "A picturesque subject indeed!" He was the greatest curiosity of the New York season, and wrote home: "Great success here; nothing like it since Dickens, they tell me."

Like the great French photographer Nadar, Sarony began his career as a caricaturist, but turned to photography under the influence of his brother Oliver, who was one of England's most successful provincial photographers. He specialized in theat­rical sitters, and his work, with its use of painted backdrops and carefully chosen acces­sories gave him a contemporary reputation as "the father of artistic photography in America."

From Camera Portraits: Photographs from the [British] National Portrait Gallery 1839--1989 © 1989 by National Portrait Gallery

Completed a second narrative non-fiction book for November. Dead Wake. Read by many, and I believe admired by every reader. I do. Admire it.

I did start Less, and I will finish it. But I seem to be less (haha) susceptible to its charms, so I took up Dead Wake and buzzed through that quickly. I might now dip into something more better than Less.

Hi Bill!

>137 weird_O: Wonderful photo of Oscar F.O.W. Wilde, fascinating info.

>138 weird_O: Dead Wake is a good'un, glad you admired it.

It took me about 100 pages or so to really 'get' Less, after abandoning it the first time after 20 pages. Persevere!! It will be well worth it, IMO.

The first and nearly final cut has been made for the 2019 American Authors Challenge, so pop over to the discussion thread and help choose the last couple names for next year.

Hi, Bill. Glad to hear you loved Dead Wake. Perfect NNF, I have to say.

I am tickled to pieces that you like my format so much and I think you've made it your own too.

Love the photo of the Wilde Oscar.

>142 sibylline: Oh, thank you, Lucy. I liked it, and I'm glad you didn't mind my using it.

>141 msf59: I seem to have made you happy, M. Warbler. Two nonfiction books so far this month, and both of them outstanding.

>139 karenmarie: I did go back to Less and finished it in short order. Thanks for the encouragement. I won't say I loved it. I liked the word play, but it was an exercise in frustration. Is the ending supposed to make up for the crap Arthur put himself through? I guess.

Okay, okay. It was nice.

>143 weird_O: I read about 50 pages of Less and haven't gotten back to it. Still not inspired to....

Six wonderful granddaughters came to Gram's house for Thanksgiving. (L-R) Annie, Gracie, Lia, Claire, Olivia, Helen.

What a beautiful photo. Frame and place prominently on centre mantlepiece! You have a lot to be Thankful for, my friend!

Oh, what a lovely crew that is! (Must have been considerably warmer at your place yesterday than it was up here.)

>145 weird_O: Such a lovely bunch of granddaughters you have, Bill. Lucky man.

I am sure you had a wonderful holiday with the family. Get much reading in?

Smiling happy family!

>145 weird_O:

All that Love and Happy Faces!

>144 Berly: I can relate to that. Not long ago, trying to find a book to pull me in, I started three or four books from a pile of a dozen that I was enthusiastic about. Each book's "taste" lasted about 5 pages; Ding!!! Onto the "Ummm. Oh, but not now" pile. I only recently expunged the "STALLED!!" category from my collections.

So Less was a hard sell, but I picked up steam and got through it. I do see its merits, but I didn't love it.

>146 jessibud2: >147 laytonwoman3rd: >148 msf59: >149 richardderus: >150 m.belljackson: Aren't they great?! We don't see the three youngest often enough, 'cause they are the Jersey girls. And we don't see the three oldest because they have too many activities in and out of school (for example, Gracie's on a traveling field hockey team and her dad spent today driving her to Richmond, VA, for a tournament being held tomorrow).

It wasn't that cold, Linda. Low 20s, probably. Everyone (but Gram) was hot and enjoyed cooling off on the deck. Weren't out long.

Not getting as much reading done as I might have liked, but it was an active week. I did wrap up Citizens of London by Lynne Olson. Third non-fiction of the month. Turning now to P. D. James' Unnatural Causes.

" Everyone (but Gram) was hot " Yeah, my MIL is here now, and she's humped up on the couch in a fleece-lined L.L.Bean shirt while the rest of us are sitting in ordinary cotton shirts and quite comfy.

Completed number 94 for the year. Unnatural Causes by P. D. James. 'Twas ok but not among The Best. Short comments to come. Shortly, even.

Spent part of the afternoon setting a roster for December reading. I looked over my reading stats for the year to date, and I decided that I want to focus on books written by women. Of the 94 books I've read, only 22 were authored by women, while 74 were written by men (yeah, two books were credited to a man and a woman).

I scrolled through the TBR Whatsis, jotting down a list of women authors and books. I didn't put every woman on the TBR onto my December Damsels Database, but I did get 42 on there. How to whittle down that number? Strike those authors I've read. Down to 30; still too many. Well, I picked books off the shelves and out of the stacks and—some legerdemain transpires—and I have a list of 15 books, each by a different woman, each a woman whose work I have never read.

Nooo, I am not going to read every one of them. Not in the days remaining in 2018. But I may carry it into 2019. And then???

I like your December reading objective. There are scores of talented female writers out there, so you should have no problem there.

I am loving Where the Crawdads Sing. Keep that one in mind.

Here is the December Damsel Database. I am reading Nadine Gordimer now. What should I tackle after that? Recommendations? Recommendations?

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
Possession by A. S. Byatt
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm
Gentleman's Agreement by Laura Z. Hobson
West With the Night by Beryl Markham
Elmet by Fiona Mozley
The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
End in Tears by Ruth Rendell
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

       
       

If you want to read things that your granddaughters loved and should have read at some point please pick up Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume. It is a classic.

I loved Possession by A. S. Byatt. It made me think that someday I will visit Brittany and see the area where all those folktales and fairytales originated. It was one of my favorites of the year 10 years ago. Loved it.

I am in the process of listening to West With the Night and can tell you that this is a very lyrical autobiography. Not only did Markham live quite a life she was a great writer and her love for Africa and what she was doing owns in every word of that autobiography. I am working my way through it slowly and after I finish it, I intend to read the biography Straight On Till Morning that is about her and written in the last five years just so I can get a more unbiased understanding of her life. Then I will read some of the work of Isak Dinesen just so I can find out the other half of the story of the Dinesen, Hatton, Markham triangle.

You have some great choices in those you picked out. Some amazing women authors and some amazing women.

I forgot to add that there is a recent novelization of Markham’s life. It is Circling the Sun by Paula McLain. She is the author of The Paris Wife. I have a copy of it somewhere but intend to read the autobiography and the biography first.

I went back and looked and Possession by A.S. Byatt was on my favorite’s list back in 2008. I still think about that book, so it is another I would recommend.

Old Filth, Gentlemen's Agreement, and The Puttermesser Papers.

You're welcome.

Old Filth is fantastic, as is The Stone Diaries. And I am a big fan of Edwidge Danticat, so those would be my three recommendations :)

Old Filth, West With the Night.

The Bell Jar and Are You There God? Also Danticott although I haven't read that one...yet. : )

Another big fan of Old Filth here (although warning that it is part of a trilogy, so you're signing up for three really!)

Hi Bill!

>145 weird_O: Sweet pic.

>156 weird_O: Excellent list. You’ve got some heavyweights there, for sure. I love Ruth Rendell although I don’t own and haven’t read End in Tears. It's 20th in the Inspector Wexford series so perhaps isn't the best choice for this exercise. I’ve read Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt and have Possession on my shelves. Old Filth is on my shelves, too, waiting to be read, so’s Gentleman’s Agreement, and The Bell Jar. I’ll follow along in your thread, and perhaps read along with you if you pick one of those.

# 94. Unnatural Causes by P. D. James Finished 11/24/18

The Weird Report^TM  

A dingy bearing a corpse is discovered, adrift off the coast of England. The vessel has neither oars nor oarlocks nor a mast. Also absent are the corpse's hands. Hmm. The deceased is identified as Maurice Seton, a middling sort of crime novelist, who lives in a cottage by the sea. It is in a remote area and the residents are few. But almost all congregate to share what they know (or most of it, or very little of it) and to test their alibis. This dress rehearsal—carried out before the inevitable police interviews—takes place at the home of Jane Dalgliesh, the spinster aunt of Adam Dalgliesh, a well-known investigator with New Scotland Yard's Metropolitan Police. And, gosh, Adam just happens to be spending his holiday with his aunt.

Dalgliesh wants to stay out of the investigation, but the local police investigator named, of all things, Reckless keeps drawing him in.

An interesting mix of characters, many of them writers: A drama critic for a London newspaper; a past-her-prime author of romance novels who is sheltering a glum niece; a remote literary giant, author of three excellent novels, who's published nothing in more than a decade. The victim was predeceased by his wife, a suicide, and he has a ne'er-do-well half brother. He leaves behind a crotchety, handicapped assistant who has done typing and clerical work for many people in the neighborhood. Affairs come out and grudges are revealed.

But who would cut off Maurice's hands? Where were the hands?

Not a bad mystery, though I thought the crime, as revealed, was awfully complicated and unlikely to come off without a screw-up.

Chiming in to praise West With the Night----I loved that. Puttermesser Papers, not so much. Links for these two will take you to my reviews.

Gentlemen's Agreement was good, I think; it's been years since I read it, and my memory is probably overwritten by the film version. I didn't care for The Stone Diaries...may have Pearl-ruled it, as a matter of fact. Danticat is amazing, although I have not yet read Farming of Bones. Everything I've read by Ruth Rendell has been very good, but again, I'm not familiar with that particular title.

I read West With the Night several years ago. I was quite caught up in Markham's life. As I tend to do with books that grab me, especially non-fiction, I did some googling after. Apparently, there was some controversy about where it was really her who wrote it. I tend to believe that it was; her male compatriot (I am blanking on his name at the moment) just seemed somewhat jealous of her accomplishments and it didn't surprise me that this controversy would crop up.

I have to admit, I never got into Carol Shields. She is an author I wanted so much to like. But I read 2 by her, tried a few others and in the end, had to resign myself that no matter how accomplished she is, how many prizes she has won and how many avid fans she has, like Alice Munro, she is just not a good match for me.

I read the Plath and the Blume eons ago and liked both (in different ways, of course). I have read Danticat but not the title you have, above. She is a good writer and a voice of importance.

Ran across this photo just this morning. It is of a new monument in Berlin, a tower of books in memory of the burning of books during nazism.

>168 weird_O: - Wow. Is the building behind it a library, perchance? It ought to be.

Hiya, Bill.

Great to see someone reading P.D. James. She's a favorite of my daughter's and mine.

>168 weird_O: Love it!

>169 jessibud2: I think it may be the library of Humboldt University, Shelley. That library fronts on the Bebelplatz, with the Opera House on the other side of open square. It's the site of the infamous Nazi book burning of 1933. In the 1990s, a memorial was installed. A glass plate set flush with the cobblestones provides a view into a subterranean room of empty bookcases, enough to hold all 20,000 burned books. Nearby, a plaque quotes Heinrich Heine from his prescient 1821 play, Almansor: “Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people."

I tried to locate the Buchdruck using Google Maps, but failed. I did locate the memorial, but not the tower of books. I don't know how old the satellite image is. In the image, stacks of building blocks fill half the square and the Opera House is covered with scaffolding.

>157 benitastrnad: >158 benitastrnad: Thanks for your recommendations, Benita. I had Possession and West with the Night pretty high in my sort. Judy Blume maybe in the middle. Good to have endorsements.

Stopped at Goodwill yesterday, because books.

Here's the complete list. And yes, the numbers reflect how many books I've acquired this year. With a couple of library sales on the schedule before Christmas. It's sick.

347. The Drowned World by J. C. Ballard (pbk)
348. Confessions of a French Baker by Peter Mayle with Gerard Auzet (pbk)
349. I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron (pbk)
350. Charming Billy by Alice McDermott (pbk)
351. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (pbk)
352. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (pbk)
353. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien (pbk)
354. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson (pbk)
355. Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi (pbk)
356. The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman (pbk)
357. Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney (pbk)
358. The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid (hc)
359. Fear by Bob Woodward (hc)
360. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (hc)
361. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (hc, illustrated)
362. Battle at Sea: 3,000 Years of Naval Warfare by R. G. Grant (hc, oversize)
363. Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat by R. G. Grant (hc, oversize)

Several books fit my December challenge criteria (female authors I haven't read anything by). Jamaica Kincaid, Ursula Hegi, Alice Hoffman, Alice McDermott. The Heaney translation of Beowulf has lots of handwritten notes and underlinings, just for me. Fear I didn't want to buy at full retail, so the FSM presented me a copy for 97 cents. Also good: Pulitzer winner The Sympathizer and Booker winner Life of Pi, the latter in a spiffy oversized illustrated edition.

Nice!

Digesting the December reading recommendations. But gotta transport my honey to a routine medical test. Taking Nadine Gordimer along. :-)

Bill. I didn't get to the Bethlehem Library sale today. I hope to be there Saturday. Perhaps I'll see you then.

The Bell Jar and Old Filth first...

West with the Night, The Farming of Bones, Possession, and Gentleman's Agreement follow...

With Are You There God?... trailing...

And The Stone Diaries and The Puttermesser Papers having difficulties at the starting gate, but may get to the finish line.

No one gave Nadine a mention, but I'm half through The Conservationist. And, for Kim and Benita, I've trepidatiously read about 40 pages. Oh my! Hope to wrap both up by midnight Friday.

>175 Whisper1: Linda! I traveled away from the book sale so I didn't get to it. I am going Saturday. I'm doing a lot better in book buying this year than I am in book reading. Sick.

>168 weird_O: Thank you, Bill!
Looking at that picture, we booked Berlin for our short city holiday in May next year :-)

>173 weird_O: Vault #357 to the top of every pile. It is glorious.
Signed,
A Card-carrying Dyed-in-the-Wool To the Manner Born Poetry Bashing Hater-cum-Curmudgeon.

>178 FAMeulstee: My pleasure, Anita. Have a swell time in Berlin.

>179 richardderus: Vault it I shall, RD. But since neither Beowulf's author nor the late Mr. Heaney are women, the book has to wait until 2019. I am absolutely committed to finishing out the year reading books by women. By the by, I thank you for your recommendations on that front.

I added one more to the completed pile. Just an hour or so ago. Judy Blume. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. Confirmation that I'm not in the group it is intended for. But I persisted. Back to Nadine.

>180 weird_O: I wondered if any of your grands had read the Judy Blume: I'm not sure how popular she is with teenagers these days.

>181 charl08: I don't know that they have read Judy Blume, Charlotte. I expect to see them next week for their mother's birthday, and if I remember, I'll ask. I personally thought the particular book in question seems dated. It is nearly 50 years old. My wife is not at all sure she ever read it (she's reading it now), but she's pretty sure our daughter read it. My daughter-in-law's mother (a not-quite-really-retired elementary school librarian) doesn't know if her daughters read it. She is certain she read it.

A day filled with books today was (well, and still is). The final library sale of the year in Bethlehem was today. I was there. I swear books were still filling the shelves when I left. I'll report more for sure.

'Morning, Bill!

I didn't realize you had acquired so many books this year. Good for you! And yes, it's a sickness that we share.

I've pulled Old Filth off shelf S24 and just may read it this month, too.

Okay, I started Old Filth, am about halfway through. Good choice!

>184 karenmarie: Crikey Karen. Not only found that someone, I say someone, stuck books in my tote at the library sale on Saturday, but found that my car—I didn't realize it was one-a them self-drivers—took me to my original hometown library for a $5-a-bag clearance sale just yesterday.

Properly, I am too embarrassed to report on The Loot.

>185 karenmarie: Old Filth. Folks here are correct, aren't they. It's a great read. Less than 90 pages to go I've got.

Hey Bill!

Mysterious people and vehicles. You are the victim of some very malicious Powerfully Wonderful energies.

Aww, c'mon, share! Give us a chance to ooh and aah over your new books.

They are correct. Old Filth is a great read. You're ahead of me, but I was going to go out this afternoon but changed my mind, so should be able to read quite a bit today.

Oh my. I do kinda sorta feel that WTF reveal pressing on me.

Tomorrow may make it worse. I have to take the car to the mechanic and the last time I saw Don I noticed there's a spacious Goodwill store a couple of blocks from his shop. Checking it out is obligatory.

November

96. The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (11/30/18)
95. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (11/29/18)
94. Unnatural Causes by P. D. James (11/25/18)*
93. Citizens of London by Lynne Olson (11/23/18)
92. Less by Andrew Sean Greer (11/15/18)
91. Dead Wake by Erik Larson (11/12/18)
90. Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (11/8/18)
89. Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie (11/6/18)

Total read: 8
Male author: 4
Female author: 4
Non-fiction: 3
Fiction: 5
New-to-me author: 5
Reread: 0

Book source
2018 acquisition: 5
ROOT:** 3
Borrowed: 0

Year-to-Date
Total read: 96
Male author: 74
Female author: 24***
Non-fiction: 29
Fiction: 67
New-to-me author: 43
Reread: 4
2018 acquisition: 48
ROOT: 45
Borrowed: 3

*The red R indicates that I posted a review.
**I consider any book on my shelf on January 1 of the current year to be a ROOT.
***Of this number, Agatha Christie wrote 6. So really, I read works of only 19 women. Sad.

Books Acquired in November 2018

November 2, 2018: Once Again Thrift Store
328. The Book and the Brotherhood by Iris Murdoch (hc)
329. The Little Friend by Donna Tartt (hc)
330. Nexus by Henry Miller (pbk)
331. KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann (pbk)

November 3, 2018: Firefly Bookstore
332. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (hc)
333. Independence Day by Richard Ford (hc) Upgrade; discard pbk
334. The New Republic by Lionel Shriver (hc)
335. A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone (hc)

November 13, 2018: Tilghman Square Goodwill
336. To the Castle and Back by Vaclav Havel (hc)
337. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (hc) Upgrade; discard pbk
338. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (hc)
339. When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson (hc) Upgrade; discard pbk
340. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris (pbk)
341. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (pbk) Drat! Dupe of #206 above. Discard.
342. Great Irish Humor, edited by Peter Haining (pbk)
343. Swimming Across: A Memoir by Andrew S. Grove (pbk)
344. Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel (pbk)
345. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (pbk)
346. Everyday People by Stewart O'Nan (pbk)

November 27, 2018: Tilghman Square Goodwill
347. The Drowned World by J. C. Ballard (pbk)
348. Confessions of a French Baker by Peter Mayle with Gerard Auzet (pbk)
349. I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron (pbk)
350. Charming Billy by Alice McDermott (pbk)
351. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (pbk)
352. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (pbk) Upgrade; joins mmp
353. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien (pbk)
354. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson (pbk)
355. Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi (pbk)
356. The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman (pbk)
357. Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney (pbk)
358. The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid (hc)
359. Fear by Bob Woodward (hc)
360. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (hc)
361. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (hc, illustrated)
362. Battle at Sea: 3,000 Years of Naval Warfare by R. G. Grant (hc, oversize)
363. Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat by R. G. Grant (hc, oversize)

November 30, 2018: Once Again Thrift Store
364. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (pbk)
365. Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman (pbk)
366. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley [Norton Critical Edition] (pbk) Upgrade; joins mmp on the shelf
367. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please by Raymond Carver (pbk)

Reflections for November 2018

November is the month I recognized that I've failed to read books by females. Ninety-six books, but Holy Moley, only 24 by women (including six by one woman, Agatha Christie). Not so good. So I made a plan to read only new-to-me women writers in December. Gave myself a fast start by reading four woman-writer tomes to conclude November.

Three of the books I most enjoyed reading were non-fiction, narratives scheduled for the November AAC topic. Joseph Anton about a death threat to a novelist, made because a religious figure didn't like what the man wrote about a particular religion; Dead Wake about a u-boat torpedoing a civilian ocean liner, because; Citizens of London about the diplomacy, politics, personalities, privations, and heroic in World War II London.

The last of those three was by Lynne Olson and was the first of 4 books by women that closed out my month's reading. Following Olson's history, I tackled a P. D. James mystery that my twin granddaughters had read for their 12th grade "forensic lit" course (after the James, they started Chester Himes' Real Cool Killers). The book was an easy read, but the complexity of the villainy was over the top. Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret was short and quickly read. Pioneering YA that's now dated. The Conservationist is the first book I've read by Nobelist Nadine Gordimer. This particular title shared the Booker Prize for 1993. Not an easy read. South African apartheid from the perspective of an entitled, wealthy white man.

A running start on December reading. No chick-lit for me, please.

Book acquisitions got fevered, I admit. Another running start for December.

Ha: Touchstones app has gagged on all the titles in this post.

Bill--You get lots of points with all your book-buying: honesty points for full disclosure of just how many books you purchased this year; insanity points for the same reason; jealousy points (oh, those might be my points); points for spending December trying to even out your M/F author ratio; and points for just being you. : )

>190 Berly: Aw shucks.

Finished Old Filth last night. I wouldn't mind reading the other Filth stories by Gardam. It was full of surprises. Well done.

>189 weird_O: Good GRAVY, Bill! The Tilghmann Square Goodwill is a veritable paradise for the biblioholic. It should have its own website so those of us who live elsewhere could participate in the denuding of their shelves.

You really need to find out who's donating some of those books to the Goodwill store, and invite him/her to join us here. Darn good taste, I'd say.

>192 richardderus: I am glad that's unlikely to happen, RD. Elsewise you (and others) would empty the shelves of the good stuff. I'm not familiar with Goodwill's book departments in general, just that one. Today, I stopped at one in a small town I get to only when the car needs attention. It had about the same shelf-space as the Tilghman Square location, same topsy-turvy book array. But lousy stuff.

>194 weird_O: Happy for our loss. Oh thanks. But Linda3rd's idea of discovering the donor merits some consideration.

Good luck with tracking down people who donate good books to Goodwill. :-)

I am a hundred pages into West with the Night. It is not what I expected, but it is compelling reading. The cover has a photo of Markham with aviator's cap and goggles. But much of the story, so far, is of lions and warthogs and hunting with spears.

Dear Residents of {County Name Here},

Please be prepared for a county-wide in-home inspection of any and all printed and bound material. Your President authorizes this in-home security check as a way to ensure you are safe from any and all undue literary influences.

Please note all confiscated books will not be returned.

Obstruction of the Librarian Looters League is a Federal offense punishable by not less than $100,000 in fines and fees (or confiscation of your house, whichever is greater), plus a minimum sentence of 200 hours community service in minority neighborhoods.

Sincerest indifference,
Ivanka Trump
Directorate of Handbags and Clutches

HA!

I've added six worthies to my pool of books juried for December reading. Books by ladies whose work I haven't ever read. These are titles I acquired since Thanksgiving. Stating the Obvious: I won't read all books in the pool. I have now read three titles from my initial selection of 16, two in November, actually, to get a running start on December, and one in December. I'm reading a fourth now.

Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Room by Emma Donoghue

      

Hi Bill!

I read Stones from the River for my RL book club in January of 1998. I'm sure a lot of it went over my head, but I still remember it as a stunning read. I listened to Room in February of 2012 for RL book club and was also stunned by it. The others I'm not familiar with.

Homegoing! Homegoing! Homegoing!

Stones from the River and Room are also very good.

I will be jumping back into West With the Night tomorrow. I started listening to it and then had to read another book for my real life book discussion group, so it had to go back to the library. Tomorrow I will get it and I hope to finish it before I leave for my winter break.

Super duper story by Beryl Markham that I just read. As Hemingway is quoted on the back cover: "I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book."

What next?

I didn't mention here yet, I received a package of books from a seller in Indiana. Santa, oh Santa. Thanks! Whoever you are.

Got a Christmas tree this afternoon. Took me more time to buy a breakfast bun at the Wanamakers General Store than to select and pay for a tree. Geez Louise.

>200 karenmarie: Thanks for the recommendation of the Ursula Hegi book, Karen. I'm thinking it is too much book for the December challenge, though it sounds worthy of early January attention. Room, on the other hand, is one I will get to before the year's out.

>201 katiekrug: I hear you, Katie. I hear you. Homegoing is on my short list.

>202 benitastrnad: Excellent, Benita. Did I mention that West with the Night is super duper?

>177 weird_O: 2018 was a year in which I curtailed book buying. Though, as a retirement gift, the department gave me a Barnes and Noble card and a Bookoutlet.com card. I had a lot of fun spending this thoughtful gift.

All good wishes for a wonderful holiday!

Y'know, I've been hearing about this book West with the Night by Ruby Someone or Esmeralda Thingy and can't really find anything that helps me decide whether I should read it. Got any advice for me, Obi-Wan?

# 98. West with the Night by Beryl Markham Finished 12/8/18

The Weird Report^TM  

On the back cover of West with the Night is an encomium from Ernest Hemingway:

I knew her [Beryl Markham] in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer's log book. As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer...But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers....[R]ead it because it is really a bloody wonderful book.

I do agree with Hem on this. I give West with the Night both thumbs up. It is a wonderful book.

Markham's memoir begins with a tale of rescue. She's awakened by a messenger bringing a request from a remote encampment to fly in with a tank of oxygen to save a desperately sick gold miner. Oxygen strapped into the passenger seat of her biplane, she flies in the dark to the spot where a few torches delineate a very rough landing strip. She's confident she can land her plane, but questions whether she'll be able to take off from so short a strip. She needs to get airborne by daylight to continue a search for a fellow aviator who is presumed down. It's the life of a pioneering flier in a vast and largely unexplored, unmapped country.

Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or a cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just "home." It is all these things but one thing—it is never dull.

Born in England, Beryl moves at the age of 4 with her father, an accomplished thoroughbred trainer, to what was then (in the early 1900s) British East Africa, now Kenya. There's no farmhouse on the farm he establishes, only individual huts for himself and his daughter. While her father tends to business, Beryl learns about her new homeland from the children of the native workers. She follows two boys along their path to manhood, which will be completed when the two are circumcised. As part of their maturation, the three, along with Beryl's dog Buller, venture into the bush to hunt warthogs, armed only with spears and bush knives. Lions are confronted.

From her father she learns about horses and how to train them. A drought destroys her father's farm, he heads to Peru, and at age 17, Beryl is on her own, running a training stable, a venture that peaks in a race expected to be dominated by a stallion named Wrack, a horse she trained until its owner succumbed to a fear-mongering rival trainer. No 17-year-old girl could successfully prepare a winner. She preps a different horse, a filly named Wise Child. The race is thrilling, as is Markham's narration. "Wrack is a picture of driving power—Wise Child a study in coordination of muscle and bone and nerve. She's fast, she's smooth. She's smooth as a blade. She cuts the daylight between Wrack and herself to a hand's breadth—to a hair's breath—to nothing."

Sometime later she turns to flying, inspired by a pioneering flier named Tom Black who glides into Nairobi carrying "a message of enterprise, a cargo of pain, and a vessel of death." A pair of hunters cornered a lion and shot it, the pilot tells Beryl, and Beryl tells us.

He was an old lion, prepared from birth to lose his life rather than leave it. But he had the dignity of all free creatures, and so he was allowed his moment. It was hardly a glorious moment…[The hunters] shot him without killing him, and then turned the unconscionable eye of a camera upon his agony. It was a small, a stupid, but a callous crime.
   When Tom Black...landed...at the camp site near Muscoma, one man lay dead and a second, mangled and helpless, was alive only by the caprice of chance.

Black educates Markham as a pilot. She buys a plane and begins a career as a free-lance aviator, ferrying machine parts, critical supplies, and other cargo to isolated towns and encampments. She shared flying and hunting adventures with a variety of men, particularly Denys Hatton-Finch and Baron von Blixen. These two were introduced in 1938 in the pages of the novel Out of Africa, written by Baron von Blixen's wife Karen, better known to the literary world as Isak Dinesen. Eventually tiring of her African business and drawn to England, she flies north. In England, Markham finds a new venture, flying east from England to America, and a financial backer who has a plane built for the flight. And she does make it to Nova Scotia before fuel-system icing ends the flight.

A wonderful book it is.

# 91. Dead Wake by Erik Larson Finished 11/12/18

The Weird Report^TM  

Dead Wake reported on all the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the luxury passenger steamship Lusitania by a German u-boat, causing about 1,000 civilian deaths. World War I was raging in Europe and German u-boats were terrorizing ocean travel and shipping and Woodrow Wilson was more afraid of patriotic American isolationists than he was of American deaths and property losses on the high seas. Unknown to all but a tiny cadre in the British Admiralty, intercepted wireless communications between the u-boats and their bases allowed u-boat movements to be tracked. So how was it that a lone u-boat could torpedo a singularly identifiable civilian ship off the coast of Ireland, just hours from its scheduled arrival in Liverpool? How is it the ship's captain was not warned? How it is the ship was without a British Naval escort? Another thoroughly researched and compellingly told story by Erik Larson.

>205 richardderus: Read the book.

>206 weird_O:, >208 laytonwoman3rd: Wow, you're quite the book warbler when you set your mind to it.

>207 weird_O: Avoiding because I possess the book and wanna read it innocent.

>206 weird_O: I agree! West With The Night is a wonderful book. There is some speculation that she did not write the book. I still find it intriguing after reading it twice.

Another vote for West With the Night. I read it several years ago and loved it. I am also a big fan of Larson, and hope to get my hands on Dead Wake soon. I know a friend has it so I will borrow his copy.

You're closing in on 100! I think I mentioned on my thread that I know I had a copy of West with the Night on my shelves for several years. I think I let it go without having read it. What was I thinking???

Dead Wake, on the other hand, I read and loved. Actually, I think I listened to it as an audiobook and it worked well in that format.

>199 weird_O: I can recommend Homegoing, Room, Charming Billy, and Persepolis. I have heard excellent things about Stones From the River. I've been carrying Pachinko around on my kindle for several months. And I've not heard of Autobiography of My Mother but I read several by Jamaica Kincaid back in graduate school and she is SO good.

I am about 50 pages from the end of West With the Night. Markham as a very novelistic approach to writing. By that I mean that this memoir reads more like a novel or a book of short stories. It is very episodic and not at all biographic. Put simply she is just a great story telling and her descriptions of Africa make you want to go there and see the great herds of elephants and see the night skies unpolluted by the lights of cities. Her book if filled with nostalgia for an Africa that is now mostly myth or legend.

However, it is clear, that this is a person from a different age. She is clearly early 20th century in her thinking. The superior white man comes through in almost every sentence. Her assumption that the Africans are happy with their station in life and yet she recognizes that there is something changed in her relationship with African children with whom she had a close association as a child and what kind of relationship they can have as adults. Her entire life is an exception to the rule for women and there is not a word said in the book about that. She is an exception to the rule of her age and there doesn't seem to be any comprehension of that. She would not have been a horse trainer or an aviatrix had she been living anywhere other than British East Africa.

The book also lacks in personal details. There is no discussion of her many loves and of her family. The book is definitely not a biography. For a true version of her life I will have to seek out a biography. There is a recent one title Straight On Till Morning by Mary S. Lovell that will has gone on my TBR list as a result of reading this book.

There is a total disregard for the deprivations that the colonial powers were having on the populations of Africa. Both the human and the animal populations. Markham's descriptions of elephant hunts are horrifying. There is a whole chapter on the myths that surround elephants that have since be found out to be facts. Like the fact that they morn their dead and have funerals and burial grounds. Markham is very unapologetic about any of this and she repeats several times that hunting all these animals is great fun. If she could see the state of African animals today would she say that same thing?

For what it is this is a very good book. Read it and weep.

The Bell Jar done! #99 for the year.

Oh, and a good book.

'Morning, Bill!

Congrats on two excellent reviews, >206 weird_O: and >207 weird_O:.

And look at you, coming in on #100. What's next?

>210 Whisper1: Hi, Linda. I did read about the authorship squabble, in think on WikiPedia. As I recall, Markham's third husband made the claim in the 1980s, when a small publisher in California brought West with the Night back into print. His allegation was largely dismissed because so much of the original ms was extant.

>211 jessibud2: Hi, Shelley. I've read several Larson books, and Dead Wake is eye-opening.

>212 EBT1002: >213 EBT1002: Thanks for your recommendations, Ellen. I just started Homegoing last night. Room and Persepolis are high on my list. I have been surprised by the number of recoms offered for the Hegi book; I hadn't heard of her or the book, just bought it on a whim. But it's awfully long and I'm wanting to squeeze in all the books I can during this here challenge. Obviously I've too many books on the list. Nice (for me) to be able to choose.

I finished West With the Night and think this is an outstanding book. I am just not sure if it is a novelized memoir or a memoir. I wanted to hear more of this woman's story. I thought she was awfully careful to not put in the details of her life. Her relationships and business partners, etc. etc. But it was so engrossing to read and to listen to. She has a way with words. And that ending - so mysterious and yet encompassing.

Glad I read it.

I read Stones From the River years ago and liked it. It was an Oprah book club pick and that is why I picked it up. It to is an engrossing read. I am sure you will enjoy it.

>215 benitastrnad: West with the Night isn't billed as autobiography, Benita. But you know that. I view it as a memoir. Reading most any 75 year old book, written about a period between 85 and 100 years ago, is going to reflect the attitudes of the past. Seen through 21st century eyes, yes, it reveals bad stuff and so exposes how much those attitudes have changed.

You've singled out many of the attitudes that some of us have shed.

I'd like to read a Markham biography myself. Regardless of the society in which she lived, she achieved remarkable things. Three husbands, well... Countless lovers, hmmm... Prejudiced in many things, yes. But also a victim of prejudice.

ETA: Ah ha. I've jumped the gun, so to speak. >219 benitastrnad:.

I agree with you - remarkable woman, and WOW! Can she write. What a vocabulary she had. She even used the word quintessinal. I think mr. Hemingway had it right when he praised her writing.

Like you, at first I thought this is just a series of short stories, but it was powerful writing. Shocking at how much they took for granted and what we now realize was wholesale slaughter of the wildlife - not to mention the people. Of course, that is looking back on it, but even so, didn’t they have an inkling of what they were doing?

ever since I was a child in school I wondered what the person that shot the last Carrier Pigeon was thinking? How could they do that when they could see that every year there were fewer and fewer of them.

I am taking Straight On Till Morning home with me on the break and hope to get it read. I think that will give me a better picture of the life of Ms. Markham.

Alright. I lied. So sue me. My one hundredth book for 2018 is not Homegoing. It is Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, a GN by Marjane Satrapi. Good, quick read. A learned a lot.

Back to Gyasi. And maybe Cynthia Ozick.

Hi, Bill. As usual, I love following your book choices. Always something interesting. I LOVED Homegoing. One of my very favorite reads of 2017. I also loved Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. Nice to see you read a GN. Her follow-up is excellent too.

I am enjoying Transcription. This could easily be your cuppa. Just sayin'...

Glad the books made it safely. Hope they bring plenty of good reading!

If I were a rabbit...

This here bloomin' holiday stuff is knocking my reading off kilter. It's just going to be what it will be. Knowhutamean?

I am currently reading Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and Speedboat by Renata Adler. Plus I've stuck my metaphoric toe into The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick because Richard Derus and Larry McMurtry. If you frequent seldom this thread, you know I've got a plethora of fine books penned by women. And that I intend to read as many of them as I can.



Feminine role model Rough House Rosie, portrayed in 1928 by Clara Bow. That's quite a roundhouse punch, miss. As for you, ya mug, it's only what you deserve.

>225 weird_O: *chuckle*

>226 weird_O: Go Clara! Plus I've crossed things that haven't seen each other for years in hopes it will make your Puttermesser experience positive.

Here's where I am on December 20, 2018, finishing out the year reading books by women. All but P. D. James are first reads.

93.  94.  95.  96.  97. 

98.  99.  100.  101.  

Currently Reading. 

How was Speedboat? Looked like a lovely NYRB edition. I am tempted!

Hi, Bill.

How did you like Persepolis? That's the one I gave to an English prof relative who was skeptical about graphic novels (or graphic anything). He came around, and even thought about teaching it.

Wow, amazing reading and book acquisitions going on here! I loved West With the Night -- read it when it came out and was jangled by aspects of it, which over the last forty years I've become even more sensitized to, nonetheless.

Love your reading lists. I'm mad for Iris Murdoch, Mary Wesley, Muriel Spark. I've been working my way through all of George Eliot perpetually awed by, well, everything about her work. Uh oh, now my brain is emptying out as it always does when faced with listing favorites . . .

Find the Light—Reflect the Light—Be the Light

Happy Yule 2018!

Great reviews of West with the Night and Dead Wake, Bill!

Hoping your holidays are filled with good friends and good books

Congrats on making it to 100, Bill! I hope to complete another century next year as I fell short this year.

Merry Christmas to you and yours! Looking forward to a very bookish 2019

Happy holidays, Bill

Happy Christmas from Santa Mouse and Rudy the Red Shelled Lobster, Bill!

Happy holidays to you and yours, Bill!

Happy holidays. Bill, to you and all your family.

^I hope you are having a wonderful holiday with the family, Bill and I hope you get plenty of bookish gifts.

Happy Holidays!

Imagine my surprise and joy when I opened my thread just now.



All the wishes of season, the lovely artwork. Thank you one and all: Darryl, Lynda, Ellen, Jeff, Paul, Harry, Shelley, Mark, and Lucy.

Not only was I mostly away from LT, I was away from reading. This afternoon, at last, I got back to Homegoing and wrapped up another book. Another good one. Another written by a woman-writer whose work is new to me. Still a bit of time left in 2018 to digest one and maybe two more.

Ze hollydays they are pretty much over in our household. I have to get out of my comfy bed at, like, 7:30 a.m. so I can drive my daughter to the bus that'll transport her to NYC, from where she'll entrain for Boston and her own apartment. My wife and I will miss her.

Late this afternoon, we were visited by Son the Elder, his wife, and three daughters. Oh, and their dog. Fun was had by all. And all butts were dragging by the time they headed home.

I've started The Puttermesser Papers and it IS a hoot. It stars a woman named Ruth Puttermesser (which translates from German as butter knife). Ruth is displaced from her civil service job in the NYC government by a political appointee. A female golem who favors the name Xanthippe comes into Ruth's life. I believe some degree of mayhem will follow. Been funny so far.

Hope you all had as much good fun as we did.

Hi, Bill. Glad you got to spend time with the family. Sorry they tuckered your butt out; I am sure it was all in fun and games. ; ) Congrats on making the big 100! Graphic Novel or no. It still counts.

BTW...The title of your latest read is fantastic: The Puttermesser Papers. Seriously! Say it out loud. See?

I've been neglecting my own swell thread for a week. Sorry for being slow to reply.

>229 charl08: Speedboat is a singular novel, Charlotte, unlike anything I can remember reading. It's devoid of a plot, but it is nonetheless interesting, entertaining, easy-reading. It's a scrapbook. A collection of brief encounters, vignettes, scraps of dialogue, but a picture emerges of a purposeless, empty, somehow striving lifestyle in the 1960s.

>230 jnwelch: I liked Persepolis, Joe. Got it a library sale and discovered, as I cataloged it, that what I got was the first of a series. I've been aware of the GN Persepolis for several years, but never grasped that "it" was really several GNs. Having now read the first, I'm ready to read more.

>231 sibylline: I've just started think about the best of the books I read this year (so far, but not too much farther, eh whot?). West with the Night is rising close to the top. I've read only one each by Murdoch and Spark, none by Wesley. My DiL loves Murdoch and named the family dog Iris. I'm honored that you like my reading lists.

Along with choosing favorites, I must also collect stats and such for the December Roundup.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, Bill. Year end's fun, isn't it, with favorites choosing and stats, and such.

The Puttermesser Papers sounds like a hoot. Drat you. Onto the wish list it goes.

>158 benitastrnad: Circling the Sun by Paula McLain. is a great book! It captures the life of East Africa during the time of the great hunts of majestic animals. Sadly, the sport of killing animals for the pure sake of keeping the skins, bothers me.

I hope you had a good Christmas Bill. Congratulations on reading, and accumulating so many wonderful books.

>247 karenmarie: Last night, I recalled that Linda Laytonwoman3rd had been cautionary about Ms. Puttermesser in >166 laytonwoman3rd:, so I looked at her review. Maybe you will want to read her comments, as well as others, about the book. I am past halfway, and still think it is entertaining.

I have to scare up copies of the "Filth" sequels. Hope you and those others can chill 'til I find them.

>248 Whisper1: Linda, we had a great time. Daughter Dear came down from Boston, Son the Elder came up from South Jersey with his girls, and we spent the day at Son the Elder's place on College Hill.

I think we can wait for the Man of the Hour, he who inspired me to read Old Filth this year and started the whole level of interest in the trilogy. *smile*

>249 weird_O: Thanks for the plug, Bill. I think I may have taken Puttermesser too seriously, and not approached it expecting humor. That can be detrimental. When I wrote my review I noted that it was supposed to be comic, but I may only have realized that after the fact, when doing some review-reading before writing my own. (BTW, I have fixed the link in >166 laytonwoman3rd: above; both those links led to my review of West With the Night originally.)

Wishing you a new year filled with joy, happiness, laughter, and all the wonderful books you could wish for.

Of what I read in 2018, my ten faves are:

     
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan         All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

    
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan                  Draft No. 4 by John McPhee

     
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes       A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman

     
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje    The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

     
Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie         West with the Night by Beryl Markham

You have some great books on the top ten. Some happen to be my all-time favorites. West With The Night still haunts me with the beauty and lyrically portrait of East Africa. The Book Thief is an incredible book, as you know! All the Light We Cannot See was read when it first arrived on the scene. It too haunts with the beauty of a well-written story.

Happy New Year to you!

Happy New Year's Eve!!

>254 weird_O: , >255 Whisper1: Interesting....Linda and I have the same response to your Top Ten. I loved the three she mentioned as well. A couple of the others are on my TBR piles

2018

Books read: 103
Authors read: 94 (including second authors of 2 books)
Single-read Authors: 85 (including second authors of 2 books)
Multi-read authors: 9<sup>1

1</sup>6 by Agatha Christie
3 by John McPhee
2 by David Douglas Duncan
2 by Eudora Welty
2 by Jasper Fforde
2 by Kent Haruf
2 by Neil Gaiman
2 by P. G. Wodehouse
2 by Walter Mosley

Author gender
Male: 74
Female: 23

Author Birth Country
US: 47
UK: 24
Ire: 5
Australia: 2
Austria: 2
Italy: 2
Sweden: 1
Norway: 1
Sri Lanka: 1
India: 1
Iran: 1
Ghana: 1
Russia: 1
South Africa: 1

Dead or alive
Currently breathing: 55 (afaik)
Deceased: 36

First published
1700s: 1
1800s: 4
1900—1925: 2
1926—1950: 13
1951—1975: 19
1976—2000: 19
2001—2010: 24
2011—2018: 22

Genre
Fiction: 76
Non-fiction: 28
Graphic/Photo/Art: 10
YA: 2
Juvie: 1

Format
Hardcover: 37
Paperback: 58
Mass-market paperback: 9

Source
2018 acquisition: 51
ROOT: 50
Loaner: 3

Yearly Totals
2018: 103
2017: 93
2016: 85
2015: 102
2014: 80
2013: 90
2012: 68
2011: 74
2010: 78

Last posting for 2018. I'll get a 2019 thread started tomorrow.

Books Acquired in December 2018

December 1, 2018: BAPL
368. Dorling Kindersley Concise Atlas of the World, Andrew Heritage, editor-in-chief
(hc, oversize)
369. The Double Helix by James D. Watson (pbk)
370. Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson (pbk)
371. Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (pbk)
372. Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winter (pbk)
373. Trinity by Leon Uris (pbk)
374. Roots by Alex Haley (pbk)
375. Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery (pbk)
376. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (pbk, GN)
377. Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart by Joyce Carol Oates (pbk)
378 Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter (pbk)
379. Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout [The Franklin Library of Mystery Masterpieces] (hc)
380. The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens (hc)
381. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (hc)
382. Personal History by Katharine Graham (hc)
383. The Diamond Caper by Peter Mayle (hc)
384. The Final Solution by Michael Chabon (hc)
385. A Subtreasury of American Humor, edited by E. B. & K. S. White [Modern Library
Giant] (hc)
386. Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks (hc)
387. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (hc)
388. My New American Life by Francine Prose (hc)
389. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (hc)
390. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (hc)
391. Room by Emma Donoghue (hc)
392. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison (hc)
393. My Struggle, Book Six by Karl Ove Knausgaard (hc)
394. The Woman Who Wouldn't by Gene Wilder (hc)
395. King's Mountain by Sharyn McCrumb (hc)
396. Circling the Sun by Paula McLain (hc)
397. The Story of Ernie Pyle by Lee G. Miller (hc)

December 3, 2018: WyoLib $5-a-bag sale
398. Dusklands by J. M. Coetzee (pbk)
399. Roscoe by William Kennedy (pbk)
400. Dunkirk by Joshua Levine (pbk)
401. The Witch Elm by Tana French (hc)
402. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (hc)
403. Nemesis by Philip Roth (hc)
404. The Rosewood Casket by Sharyn McCrumb (hc)
405. Death of a Doxy by Rex Stout (hc)
406. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner (hc)
407. Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates (hc)
408. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon (hc)
409. Finn by Jon Clinch (hc)
410. What Now? by Ann Patchett (hc)
411. Forgetfulness by Ward Just (hc)
412. The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (hc)
413. Humans by Donald E. Westlake (hc)
414. Heat by Ed McBain (hc)
415. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan (hc)

December 5, 2018: Robesonia Goodwill
416. Holes by Louis Sachar (pbk)
417. Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges (pbk)
418. The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike by Philip K. Dick (hc)
419. The Mask of Command by John Keegan (hc)

December 12, 2018: Tilghman Square Goodwill
420. The Art of Forgery by Noah Charney (hc)

December 19, 2018: Tilghman Square Goodwill
421. The Fault Is in Our Stars by John Green (hc)
422. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (hc)
423. Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory by Cathy Davidson, Bill Bamberger, photographer (hc)
424. Great French Paintings from the Barnes Foundation (hc)

December 24, 2018: LT Top Secret Gift Swap (from Charl08)
425. Ballad of the Sad Cafe and other stories by Carson McCullers (mmp)
426. Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of Our Gendered Minds by Cordelia Fine (pbk)
427. Speedboat by Renata Adler (pbk)
428. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (hc)
429. Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan (hc)

December 25, 2018: Christmas!!! Yay!
430. Educated by Tara Westover (hc)
431. Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead (pbk)
432. Dali's Mustache by Salvador Dali, photos by Philippe Halsman (hc)
433. The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey Stewart (hc)
434. 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List by James Mustich (hc)

>260 weird_O: You are out of control!! LOL And I like you that way. : )

I wish you from my heart a healthy 2019 filled with happiness, satisfaction, laughter and lots of good books.