Kidzdoc Reads Black Male Writers for Our Time in 2019, Chapter 5

  

Maurice Carlos Ruffin, one of The New York Times' Black Male Writers for Our Time, was born into a large and supportive family in New Orleans East. After he married his high school sweetheart he graduated from the University of New Orleans, and the Loyola University School of Law, also in New Orleans, and he currently works an attorney with the Social Security Administration. His desire to write led him to enter and graduate from the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop, and he is a member of the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance. He is a recipient of an Iowa Review Award in fiction and a winner of the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition for Novel-in-Progress. His work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas.

Ruffin's début book We Cast a Shadow is a dystopian novel set in a segregated American city, whose main character is a successful African American lawyer with an 11 year old biracial son who has a birthmark that identifies him as black, which puts him at risk for discrimination and failure and makes him a target to be eliminated. In a desperate attempt to save his son he engages in a risk filled endeavor to raise money for an expensive procedure that will remove excess melanin from his skin and turn him white. This book has received glowing reviews by NPR and in publications such as The New York Times, The Boston Herald, The Nation, Kirkus Reviews and elsewhere. I'll read it in July.

Currently reading:

    

An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma
What Dementia Teaches Us About Love by Nicci Gerrard
Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga

January:
1. Happiness by Aminatta Forna
2. The Queen of Harlem by Brian Keith Jackson
3. My Struggle: Book Three by Karl Ove Knausgaard
4. The Most Beautiful Bookstore in the World, Part 1 by Livraria Lello
5. The Most Beautiful Bookstore in the World, Part 2 by Livraria Lello

February:
6. An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden by Mary Schmidt Campbell
7. Survive FBT: Skills Manual for Parents Undertaking Family Based Treatment (FBT) for Child and Adolescent Anorexia Nervosa by Maria Ganci

March:
8. Spring by Karl Ove Knausgaard
9. Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar
10. Hardheaded Weather by Cornelius Eady
11. Mind on Fire: A Memoir of Madness and Recovery by Arnold Thomas Fanning
12. Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee
13. Juice! by Ishmael Reed
14. The Face: Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw

April:
15. Indian Instant Pot Cookbook by Urvashi Pitre
16. The Moor’s Last Stand: How Seven Centuries of Muslim Rule in Spain Came to an End by Elizabeth Drayson
17. Second Lives, Second Chances: A Surgeon's Stories of Transformation by Donald R. Laub

May:
18. The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vásquez
19. The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán
20. Black Deutschland by Darryl Pinckney
21. Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
22. The Face: Cartography of the Void by Chris Abani
23. Queen of the Sea: A History of Lisbon by Barry Hatton
24. Small Island (NHB Modern Plays) by Andrea Levy
25. The Firm by Roy Williams

June:
26. Lanny by Max Porter
27. Lord of All the Dead by Javier Cercas
28. Picasso: An Intimate Portrait by Olivier Widmaier Picasso
29. True Remarkable Occurrences by John Train
30. Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
31. Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey by Robert G. O'Meally
32. Now and at the Hour of Our Death by Susana Moreira Marques

July:
33. My Struggle: Book Four by Karl Ove Knausgaard
34. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

August:
35. Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry

Black Male Writers for Our Time

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Friday Black✅
Jeffery Renard Allen: Song of the Shank
Jamel Brinkley: A Lucky Man
Jericho Brown: The New Testament
Marcus Burke: Team Seven
Samuel R. Delany: Dark Reflections
Cornelius Eady: Hardheaded Weather✅
Percival Everett: Wounded
Nelson George: City Kid: A Writer's Memoir of Ghetto Life and Post-Soul Success
James Hannaham: Delicious Foods
Terrance Hayes: American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
Brian Keith Jackson: The Queen of Harlem✅
Major Jackson: Roll Deep
Mitchell S. Jackson: Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family
Tyehimba Jess: Olio
Robert Jones, Jr.: The Prophets
Randall Kenan: A Visitation of Spirits
*Yusef Komunyakaa: The Chameleon Couch
Rickey Laurentiis: Boy with Thorn
*Victor LaValle: The Ballad of Black Tom
*James McBride: The Good Lord Bird
Shane McCrae: In the Language of My Captor
Reginald McKnight: He Sleeps
*Dinaw Mengestu: All Our Names
Fred Moten: The Service Porch
Gregory Pardlo: Digest
Rowan Ricardo Phillips: Heaven
*Darryl Pinckney: Black Deutschland✅
Brontez Purnell: Since I Laid My Burden Down
*Ishmael Reed: Juice!✅
Roger Reeves: King Me
Maurice Carlos Ruffin: We Cast a Shadow
Danez Smith: Don't Call Us Dead
Colson Whitehead: The Nickel Boys✅
Phillip B. Williams: Thief in the Interior
De'Shawn Charles Winslow: In West Mills
George C. Wolfe: The Colored Museum
*Kevin Young: Book of Hours

Literature from the African Diaspora

Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
The Drift Latitudes by Jamal Mahjoub
The Emigrants by George Lamming
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
Happiness by Aminatta Forna ✅
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Ladivine by Marie NDiaye
Maps by Nuruddin Farah
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Rotten Row by Petina Gappah
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau

Nonfiction from the African Diaspora

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Beyond Black and White: From Civil Rights to Barack Obama by Manning Marable
Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga
Black in Latin America by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
BRIT(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging by Afua Hirsch
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois
Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
If They Come in the Morning … : Voices of Resistance, edited by Angela Y. Davis
In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture by K. Anthony Appiah
Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole
Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou
The Lights of Pointe-Noire by Alain Mabanckou
More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City by William Julius Wilson
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music by George E. Lewis
Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

Autobiographies, Biographies and Memoirs from the African Diaspora

Aké: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
Frantz Fanon: A Biography by David Macey
I Never Had it Made by Jackie Robinson
The Last Holiday: A Memoir by Gil Scott-Heron
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Mingus Speaks by John F. Goodman
Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim by Justin Gifford
Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood
Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire

Recommended Black American Women Authors

Elizabeth Alexander
Osa Atoe
Toni Cade Bambara
Gwendolyn Brooks
Octavia E. Butler
Lucille Clifton
Edwidge Danticat
Toi Derricotte
Bridgett M. Davis
Vievee Francis
Renee Gladman
Yona Harvey
Carolivia Herron
Zora Neal Hurston
N.K. Jemisin
Gayl Jones
Tayari Jones
Adrienne Kennedy
Jamaica Kincaid
Ayana Mathis
Shara McCallum
Toni Morrison
Harryette Mullen
Gloria Naylor
Lynn Nottage
Morgan Parker
Tennessee Reed
Sonia Sanchez
Safiya Sinclair
Tracy K. Smith
Martha Southgate
Natasha Trethewey
Jesmyn Ward
Phyllis Wheatley

Iberian Literature and Nonfiction

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective by Simon Harris
The Crime of Father Amaro by José Maria Eça de Queirós
The Dolls' Room by Llorenç Villalonga
Fado Alexandrino by António Lobo Antunes
The Gray Notebook by Josep Pla
The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago
The Inquisitors' Manual by António Lobo Antunes
Like a Fading Shadow by Antonio Muñoz Molina
Lord of All the Dead by Javier Cercas✅
The Moor's Last Stand: How Seven Centuries of Muslim Rule in Spain Came to an End by Elizabeth Drayson✅
The New Spaniards by John Hooper
Now and at the Hour of Our Death by Susana Moreira Marques
Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga
Private Life by Josep Maria de Sagarra
Queen of the Sea: A History of Lisbon by Barry Hatton✅
Things Look Different in the Light by Medardo Fraile
What's Up with Catalonia? by Liz Castro
The Word Tree by Teolinda Gersão
The Yellow Rain by Julio Llamazares

2019 Man Booker International Prize Longlist:



+Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi (Oman), translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth (Sandstone Press) ✅
Love in the New Millennium by Can Xue (China), translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen (Yale University Press)
*The Years by Annie Ernaux (France), translated by Alison Strayer (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong (South Korea), translated by Sora Kim-Russell (Scribe)
Jokes for the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf (Iceland and Palestine), translated from Arabic by Jonathan Wright (Granta)
Four Soldiers by Hubert Mingarelli (France), translated from French by Sam Taylor (Granta)
*The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann (Germany), translated by Jen Calleja (Serpent’s Tail)
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin (Argentina and Italy), translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell (Oneworld)
The Faculty of Dreams by Sara Stridsberg (Sweden), translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner (Quercus)
*Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
*The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Colombia), translated from Spanish by Anne McLean (MacLehose Press) ✅
The Death of Murat Idrissi by Tommy Wieringa (Netherlands), translated by Sam Garrett (Scribe)
*The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán (Chile and Italy), translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes (And Other Stories) ✅

*shortlisted book
+winner

Medicine, Illness and Public Health

AIDS at 30: A History by Victoria A. Harden
An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine by Howard Markel
Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries by Molly Caldwell Crosby
Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Katharine Arnold
Death in a Small Package: A Short History of Anthrax by Susan D. Jones
Hope in Hell: Inside the World of Doctors Without Borders by Dan Bortolotti
Jonas Salk: A Life by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science by Douglas Starr
The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in Our Times by Barbara Taylor
Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine by Andrew Scull
Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors & Lunatics by Roy Porter
The Man Who Closed the Asylums: Franco Basaglia and the Revolution in Mental Health Care by John Foot
Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder by David Healy
Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plagues by Martin J. Blaser, MD
The Price of Silence: A Mom's Perspective on Mental Illness by Liza Long
Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and Their Doctors by David Mendel
States of Mind: Experiences at the Edge of Consciousness by Wellcome Collection

Voices of Color/Social Justice

Al' America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots by Jonathan Curiel
Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones
A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by E. Benjamin Skinner
Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America by Tiny, aka Lisa Gray-Garcia
To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War by John Gibler
Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid by Joseph Nevins
The Ethics of Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, edited by Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
For the Muslims: Islamophobia in France by Edwy Plenel
A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America by Óscar Martínez
The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah
How Does it Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America by Moustafa Bayoumi
Howard Zinn on Race by Howard Zinn
Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation by Ray Suarez
Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South by Mary E. Odem
The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror by Arun Kundnani
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture by Hisham D. Aidi
Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen L. Ishizuka
Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques
Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move by Reece Jones
What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam by John L. Esposito
Who Are We: And Should It Matter in the Twenty-First Century? by Gary Younge

2019 Wellcome Book Prize longlist:

*Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee ✅
Astroturf by Matthew Sperling
Educated by Tara Westover
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
*Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar ✅
*Mind on Fire by Arnold Thomas Fanning ✅
*+Murmur by Will Eaves
*My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Polio: The Odyssey of Eradication by Thomas Abraham
Sight by Jessie Greengrass
*The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
This Really Isn’t About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein

*shortlisted book+
+winner

Planned reads for July:

Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga
Buried Dreams Planted Hope: Finding Hope in Life's Darkest Moments by Katie Neufeld
The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago
Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (July read of the members of the Literary Fiction by People of Color group on Goodreads)
My Struggle: Book Four by Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Spring by Ali Smith
We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Rats. One post too many. Umm...got it. I could reinvent my past idea, and create a Cute Author of the Month, starting with the author of the book I'm reading now, Susana Moreira Marques:



Oh, come now. Don't try to tell me that you don't have any favorite authors that you find attractive. Dang hypocrites.

Ooh, didn't realize this thread was so new. Will check back later.

>14 kidzdoc: Finally someone has the courage to draw attention to Atlanta's dreadful and worsening kangaroo problem. Kudos!

Happy new thread Darryl mate. Hope all is well with you dear friend and that you are having a good week. Sending love and hugs from both of us.

Alright, the scaffolding is down, the paint is dry, and we are open for business!

>15 Familyhistorian: Hi, Meg! Feel free to enter at your convenience.

>16 richardderus: Damn straight. Those roos are a public nuisance, even more so than the e-scooters that have littered the sidewalks in Midtown.

>17 johnsimpson: Thanks, John! Give my best to the top chef in Wakefield.

>18 kidzdoc:, Will do mate. She is at the Grand Theatre in Leeds with her best friend Tina to watch Grease- the musical.

Book #31: Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey by Robert G. O'Meally

  

My rating:

"A Picasso or a Miró will use Spanish background and culture—this is what they grew up with, it is a source of strength to them. But we must remember that people other than Spaniards can appreciate Goya, people other than Chinese can appreciate a Sung landscape, and people other than Negroes can appreciate a Benin bronze...An artist is an art lover who finds that in all the art that he sees, something is missing: to put there what he feels is missing becomes the center of his life's work." (Romare Bearden)

Between 1945 and 1948 the acclaimed African American artist Romare Bearden created four solo series of paintings based on written texts: The Passion of the Christ in the New Testament, the poem Lament for a Bullfighter by Federico Garcia Lorca, a series of poems by the 16th century French writer François Rabelais, and Homer's Iliad. He sought to visually illuminate the mythical figures represented in these works, and to give them a universal appeal and relevance to a society traumatized by war abroad and turmoil at home.

Three decades later, Bearden returned to this idea by creating a series of 20 collages based on his interpretation of the hero of The Odyssey as a black warrior/blues man who embarks on a long and trying search for home, overcoming numerous obstacles but bolstered by female lovers and mother figures who guide him to his ultimate destination, where his wife Penelope awaits him.

  

(Circe; Cattle of the Sun God)

Bearden puts his own spin on the Greek epic, as he draws parallels with Ithaca and Harlem and with the quest of Odysseus and his men and slaves and freedmen who must navigate a migration to a place of acceptance and comfort, while many lose their way. In his view The Odyssey is a tale that that should be read and appreciated by all, and his series is an effort to extract Homer from the ivory towers of academia: "It's universal. So if a child in Benin or Louisiana...sees my paintings of Odysseus, he can understand the myth better."

In this companion catalog that was shown in several galleries and museums, including the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, where I saw it, the exhibition's curator Robert G. O'Malley, the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, significantly enhances the viewer's understanding and appreciation of Bearden's overall effort, in an essay at the beginning of the book, and in his subsequent interpretations of each collage, as a full page image of each work is paired with O'Meally's comments about it, and the artist. I gained a new appreciation for the series thanks to O'Meally's insight, and those who were unable to see this exhibition in person would have almost the same experience by reading this excellent catalog, which is a worthwhile addition to the written word about this essential artist.

>19 johnsimpson: Sounds good, Paul John! I hope that Karen and Tina enjoy Grease.

I'd better get dinner started, since it's 4 pm; I'm making Greek Chicken Stew with Cauliflower and Olives. I'll check back in later.

>21 kidzdoc:, Paul ?

>22 johnsimpson: Oops. Apologies, John. You guys look so much alike that I couldn't help but mix you up.

Happy New Thread, Darryl!

The Romare Bearden exhibit and this catalog both sound good. Thanks for showing a couple of the paintings.

>20 kidzdoc: An amazing artist and cultural figure. Beautiful book, too.

Happy New Thread, Darryl. I like that author topper! We Cast a Shadow sounds like a promising read.

Ooh, I agree on Susana Moreira Marques, who, I had not heard of. I have a few in mind but I will go with Candice Millard, who I have had the fortunate opportunity to meet at an author signing, plus she is a heck of a writer:

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Darryl!

The Greek Chicken Stew looked really good!

Uhm.....nope, can't thing of a single author I find attractive.

Happy new thread!

The chicken stew sounds great--if it's really tasty, I want the recipe! And here's an article for you...
https://www.nextavenue.org/cheap-places-to-live-well-abroad/

Happy New Thread, Darryl!

>26 msf59: Shoot - Mark took my author who is both great to read and easy on the eyes.

Happy new thread, Darryl.

>23 kidzdoc: Hahaha - positively a doppelganger!

>24 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe! I love Bearden's vivid use of color in these collages, especially in Circe. Reading this catalog makes me want to read Madeline Miller's Circe very soon.

>25 richardderus: Absolutely right, Richard. I need to go back and write a review of An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden, which I read earlier this year.

(Argh...the touchstones have been even more troublesome these past two days than usual. I hope that The Powers That Be will create a fix for them in the new version of LT, but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed.)

>26 msf59: Thanks, Mark! I'm looking forward to reading We Cast a Shadow next month. I won a copy of it from the December batch of the LT Early Reviewers program, but I never received it, and apparently no one else did either.

As you said, I could easily come up with more than a dozen authors, female and male, who I think are attractive. Candace Millard definitely counts; I think I remember you posting a photo of the two of you together at a book signing.

>27 drneutron: Thanks, Jim!

>28 EllaTim: Thanks, Ella! I'll post my photo of that stew and the recipe shortly.

>29 tangledthread:. *gasp* Wow, tough standards.😎 Thanks, @tangledthread!

>30 ronincats: Thanks, Roni! Yes, I'll post the chicken stew recipe now.

Thanks for that article about the best places to retire. I may not be able to retire until I'm 66, which is eight years from now, and by that time the city of Lisbon will likely be far less affordable. For that reason I would look at cities and towns close to the capital, and two of Portugal's largest cities, Coimbra and Porto. DB (@deebee1) live in a suburb on the south bank of the River Tagus that is easily accessible by public transport from Lisbon. Lisbon does have a good public transportation system (subways, buses, trams, ferries, commuter trains), and I would probably want to live in a quieter neighborhood or town rather than the tourist laden center of the city. We'll see!

A link in the article you posted, The Top 10 Places to Retire Abroad Right Now, has several top 10 lists, including this usual one:

The International Living Top 10 for 2019
1. Panama
2. Costa Rica
3. Mexico
4. Ecuador
5. Malaysia
6. Colombia
7. Portugal
8. Peru
9. Thailand
10. Spain

Spain is progressively looking like a less likely place that I would want to live. One of my close friends from residency is costarriqueña, and she has been encouraging me to visit Costa Rica and consider it as a place to retire, and my long time barber raves about Ecuador and is seriously thinking of moving there. For me, the advantages of Portugal are that it's within Europe, and a short flight from my close LT friends and from my favorite European destinations, along with being closer to the US that any place else in Europe. Portugal is a stable democracy and ranks high on the Global Peace Index as well. Out of 163 rated countries Iceland was first, followed by New Zealand and Portugal. Canada was sixth. The United States is in 128th place, between South Africa and Saudi Arabia, which is down one spot from last year.

>31 Oberon: Ha! There are plenty of other authors, male and female, that fit the bill, Erik. Choose your own!

I did a brief Google search last night, and there were several links to articles about attractive authors, male and female, living and dead. Two other writers I would list are Colson Whitehead and Jesmyn Ward.

  

>32 PaulCranswick: Thanks, John Paul!

Here's my not very good photo of the Greek Chicken Stew with Cauliflower and Olives I took yesterday. The recipe is from Martha Rose Shulman of The New York Times, who is one of my two favorite contributors to NYT Cooking, along with Melissa Clark.



INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large red onion, chopped
2 to 4 garlic cloves (to taste), minced
6 to 8 chicken legs and/or thighs, skinned
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes, with juice, pulsed in a food processor
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Salt and freshly ground pepper
½ teaspoon dried thyme, or 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1 small or 1/2 large cauliflower, cored, broken into florets, and sliced about 1/2 inch thick
12 kalamata olives (about 45 grams), rinsed, pitted and cut in half (optional)
1 to 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 to 2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (optional)

PREPARATION:

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat in a large, deep, heavy lidded skillet or casserole and brown the chicken, in batches if necessary, about 5 minutes on each side. Remove the pieces to a plate or bowl as they’re browned. Pour off the fat from the pan. Add the vinegar to the pan and scrape up all the bits from the bottom of the pan.

Add the remaining tablespoon of the olive oil to the pan, and turn the heat down to medium. Add the onion and a generous pinch of salt and cook, stirring often and scraping the bottom of the pan, until it begins to soften, about 5 minutes. Turn the heat to low, cover and let the onion cook for 10 minutes, stirring from time to time, until it is lightly browned and very soft.

Add the garlic and stir together for a minute or two more, until the garlic is fragrant, then add the tomatoes and their juice, the cinnamon, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer and simmer 10 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the mixture is reduced slightly and fragrant.

Return the chicken pieces to the pot, along with any juices that have accumulated in the bowl. If necessary, add enough water to barely cover the chicken. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes.

Add the cauliflower and kalamata olives and simmer for another 20 minutes, or until the cauliflower is tender and the chicken is just about falling off the bone. Stir in the parsley, taste and adjust seasonings. Serve with grains, with the feta sprinkled on top if desired.

Advance preparation: The stew keeps for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator and freezes well. With leftovers, make a delicious rice casserole by spreading cooked rice over the bottom of a baking dish and topping with the chicken and sauce. Heat through for 20 minutes at 325 degrees.
______________________________________

I used eight boneless chicken thighs, which I cut into pieces before adding them to the stew. I would strongly advise against using chicken breast, which would probably be unbearably dry in this stew. I used couscous as a base. This stew is very filling, and with a base of grains it should provide no less than 8-10 servings.

that looks really good- with my favourite ingredients-chicken, cauliflower and olives- I will have to try it!

Hi Darryl and happy new thread.

From your previous thread and this thread: I love ‘Dear Independents and Liberals’ and might put it on my thread.

Also from your previous thread: Ha! I see your scrapple, Bill, and I'll raise you...hmm. Let me get back to you on that. A suggestion: Liver Mush. And yes, I have tried it. Absolutely hot and freshly delivered to the table, very good. About 2 minutes later, pretty awful. Cooling does it no favors.

>35 kidzdoc: Your retirement plans sound exciting. If I wanted to relocate outside the US, I'd want to go somewhere less humid than NC. I spent 2 weeks in Portugal in 1979 and loved it, was on the Algarve and don't remember if it was humid or not - but don't remember specifically that it was. Most of that top 10 list looks pretty humid. Is weather factoring into your equation?

>36 kidzdoc: Another excellent sounding recipe. All things I love – chicken thighs, cauliflower, Kalamata olives, feta cheese.

>35 kidzdoc: Re: easy-on-the eyes - My fav is Carl Hart, who wrote a few books on addiction. High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey being the one I've read.

I met him at an addiction conference and WOW, is he attractive. And a very good speaker. And intelligent. Downside is that he has one inch long fingernails with razor sharp ends. lol!!!

>35 kidzdoc: Interesting link. Costa Rica is definitely a country to consider retiring to. I absolutely get the draw of being in Europe but for natural beauty Costa Rica is hard to beat.

Sexy writers, it was Sam Shepard who did it for me (RIP)

>37 torontoc: Thanks, Cyrel! I'm about to have another bowl of stew for lunch. I'd love to know what you think of it after you make it.

>38 karenmarie: Thanks, Karen! Feel free to post that image.

Ah, liver mush. I hadn't heard of it until earlier this month, when I posted a humorous image on my Facbook timeline that classified you as a Southerner or Yankee based on the number of Southern foods that you had tried, which included liver mush. I should post that here, as it generated over 100 responses amongst my FB friends.



I got 26 points, more than twice as many as two native Atlantan friends, and more than all but two or three of the two dozen or so people who commented, both of whom are native Southerners. I credited food cooked by my Alabama born mother for most of these points, and the three years I lived in New Orleans for the Cajun and Creole foods. The only one of the 26 foods I hadn't tried before I moved to Atlanta in 1997 was boiled peanuts.

>38 karenmarie: Weather is somewhat of a consideration as a place to retire, but cost of living, infrastructure, and location are more important. I absolutely loved my brief visit to Sevilla three years ago, but Andalucía is way too hot in the summer, as high temperatures ranged from the high 90s to low 100s when Bianca and I were there in late June. Portugal can be warm, but the Atlantic sea breezes usually keep the temperatures within a reasonable range. Tomorrow's high temperature in Lisbon will be 81 F (27 C), as compared to 102 F (39 C) in Sevilla. Bianca loved that weather; I did not!

I hope that you try and like the Greek chicken stew, Karen. If you make it please let me/us know what you think of it.

>39 The_Hibernator: I think I remember you mentioning High Price on your thread, Rachel; I definitely heard about it from someone or somewhere, as I had meant to add it to my Amazon wish list but hadn't. Thanks for the reminder.

Yikes about his fingernails!

>40 Oberon: I've not been to Portugal, or anywhere else in Central or South America. The main downside for me to move there or Ecuador is that I wouldn't know anyone, although that isn't a deal breaker. Given its relatively cooler climate, from what I understand, Ecuador would have a slight nod over Costa Rica for me.

>41 Caroline_McElwee: Sam Shepard is another good looking writer! Good choice, Caroline.

>42 kidzdoc: - I got only 2 so I guess it proves that I am somewhere north of Yankee! ;-). Which I am, in fact!

>44 jessibud2: Wow! That's easily the lowest score anyone has reported, Shelley, far less than any of the Europeans.

>45 kidzdoc: - And I am not what I consider unadventurous with food. And goodness knows Toronto is as multicultural with food as with anything else. I just never heard of half those items on your *menu*. Well, ok, and a few I would definitely NOT be interested in (gator, squirrel, anything liver, for example)….. oh well.

Ha! And maybe others with low scores are just not *reporting*, ;-)

>23 kidzdoc:, Cheeky, lol.

Happy newish thread!

I will definitely try your recipe for the Greek chicken stew. Looks easy, yummy and makes a largish batch for further meals: all the necessary ingredients for me to give it a try.

Hmmm 9 for sure on your list; maybe 1 or 2 more.

So here's a game Ive been playing that you might think about while making your retirement plans. If you think climate change is real, (I do) and if you think it might be somewhat but not altogether reversible, then what do you need to think about that in 2050 you will say 'if only I'd thought of xxx'. There are maps on the net with prognostications of future temperature forecasts, sea levels, new coast lines etc. I'm not a prepper and I'm certainly not building a bunker in my backyard, but I have looked at the maps for my area, and if I was planning a big geographical move, it's something to consider. Or maybe I've just read too many dystopian novels lately. :)

>46 jessibud2: Ha! In looking back in the comments on my Facebook post I realized that one other person earned two points, our own Megan. I've had alligator, as you know, and liver, but not squirrel, although at least two of my three (not two) friends who scored higher than me have had it. I have had rabbit stew, though.

As Katie and others said some of those foods can be easily found outside of the South and are no longer identifiably Southern, such as peach cobbler, cornbread, hush puppies, tomato sandwiche, fried bologna, and deviled eggs. We all but decided that anyone who scores 16 or higher is probably from the South, although two of my born and bred Atlantan friends only got 11 points.

There were a couple of foods that none of us had heard of, even the ones who are lifelong Southerners, burgoo and chess pie, in particular.

>47 johnsimpson: 😉

>48 streamsong: Thanks, Janet! I like recipes that provide a lot of leftovers with minimal effort, as this one and the chicken & Andouille sausage jambalaya do.

Yep. Nine to 11 is a reasonable number for a non-Southern American.

Great point about climate change, which is unquestionably real. The interior of Iberia (Portugal and Spain) are predicted to be almost unlivably hot, whereas the coast of Portugal and, I think, the northern coast of Spain will see minimal increases in temperature. The shores of Portugal will rise, but places like Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto have steep hills that start within a few hundred feet of the water, so those areas will be safe to live in.

Happy new thread Darryl. On your list I got 8 but afraid that fried squirrel was not one of them. Lots of squirrels where I live though but I think i will wait on that.

Nope, just another sign that I'm getting old.

>42 kidzdoc: 14. Daughter was offered and tried alligator when she and I were in FL in 2011, but I wasn't offered any. :(

Some of the 'Southern' things I had in CA growing up although I don't have any Southern relatives except by marriage - frogs legs, chess pie, deviled eggs. The fried bologna was in sausage gravy - a secret ingredient. I wasn't eating pork at the time but tried a bite to be polite. It tasted awful, but everybody else loved it. Daughter's friend Brandon brought boiled squirrel for lunch in 1st grade - that would have been 1999. She didn't try it. She reports that he had it do a dance...

15 if you count oyster stuffing for oyster casserole at Thanksgiving in 1979. Oysters are one of only a handful of fish/seafoods I dislike.

My story about chicken fried steak took place many years ago in a 2 horse town in remote Arizona. We were heading for Cochise Stronghold and told to have dinner first before we got to our B&B up in the moutains. Yes, I ordered chicken fried steak as I thought it was some form of chicken but oh no.....It was a burger swimming in white gravy and sorry to say, I found it horrible. My P. loves to tell this story that he warned me that it was NOT chicken! Believe me no such advice was ever given.

I once got The Red Rooster Cookbook a cookbook by Marcus Samuelsson from the library and it was very interesting. (southern cooking). He was born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden. He has a very interesting story to tell.

>50 mdoris: Thanks, Mary. I don't think there will be many takes for fried squirrel, and I have absolutely no interest in trying it!

>51 tangledthread: *sigh* 😔

>52 karenmarie: Did your daughter like her gator, Karen? I had a bowl of alligator with white bean stew for dinner yesterday, as I got up too late from a nap to make swordfish amandine as I had intended to.

Fourteen is a reasonable number if you didn't grow up on the South or, like me, have a parent who did.

I only counted foods that I was certain that I had tried, so I left off fried bologna, oyster casserole, and pear salad.

Fried bologna in sausage gravy? Boiled squirrel for lunch?! No, thank you!

I like oysters, preferably on the half shell, but I rarely eat them compared to other forms of shellfish, and I wouldn't bat an eye if I was told I could never have another one...oh, wait a minute: oyster po' boys! I love them!!! It's rare that I eat them, though, as I've only had them in New Orleans and, oddly enough, at Cheeky Sandwiches in Chinatown in NYC, which serves authentic po' boys and beignets.

>53 mdoris::Ha! I tried chicken fried steak...once. I think I enjoyed it as much as you did, Mary.

I still haven't been to The Red Rooster! I think it's on 135th St in Harlem...wrong. It's on Malcolm X Blvd & 126th St, which is easily to get to by subway (7th Ave Express). One of these days...

ETA: There's also a branch of The Red Rooster in East London, not far from the Shoreditch High Street station on the London Overground. Maybe I can make it there in September if I can't get to the original restaurant this summer.

>53 mdoris: - Mary, if you ever get a chance, do read Marcus Samuelsson's memoir, Yes, Chef. Even better is to listen to it on audiobook as he reads it but wow, what a story, indeed. Excellent!

>55 jessibud2: I'm glad that you enjoyed Yes, Chef, Shelley. I purchased the Kindle edition of it when it was on sale earlier this year, but I haven't read it yet.

Speaking of cooking I think I'll make Southern buttermilk biscuits for breakfast shortly, using a recipe that I tried and liked several years ago.

>42 kidzdoc: >49 kidzdoc: Heh, I was going to suggest I was a Yankee in Southerner clothing. I've had 11-12 of those dishes, which I consider impressive as a Midwesterner/East Coaster that has not spent more than a week in the South (and that was on vacation in FL) and has been pesca-tarian for all of adult life.

Most of the dishes I've eaten have been in Brooklyn restaurants. :)

I've had 23 of those items, grew up outside of Pittsburgh and most of my adult life near Detroit. Some of those items are more characteristic of having parents who grew up during the Depression and being solidly in the working class: Pickled Pigs Feet, Souse, chicken livers, red beans & gravy, fried squirrel, & rabbit stew.

No Pon Haus or scrapple on that list (which are not the same thing, no matter what google says)?

>42 kidzdoc: Only two! Tomato sandwich, and chicken livers. For the rest I need translations. I have heard that alligator tastes just like chicken though.

Spain has an early heat wave right now, people are worried over there.

Sooo, I did make Southern buttermilk biscuits, using the same recipe that I used successfully last year, not several years ago. This time I used White Lily Flour as recommended in the recipe, taken from a newly purchased and opened bag, instead of Publix's store brand flour. Uh...it didn't go well.



The centers of these biscuits were doughy and heavy, instead of light and fluffy as they were the first time I made them, and after eating two of them I threw the remainder away. I have all the ingredients to try this again, and I'll probably do so tomorrow, using Publix flour, to see if that is what made the difference.

>57 ELiz_M: Hi, Liz! That's a good point total for the average non-Southern American, and even two of my non-vegetarian friends who were born in Atlanta achieved the same total, much to my (and their) surprise. One of them is an admittedly picky eater, but the other is a foodie. I'd say that 8-10 of those foods are not really "Southern" any more, particularly peach cobbler, cornbread and deviled eggs, and should not be included in this list, whereas shrimp & grits, jambalaya, po' boys, alligator tail, etc. are clearly foods you are unlikely to find "up North"...although there are plenty of Southern restaurants in NYC, including Brooklyn, where you'll be able to find a majority of foods (but probably not fried squirrel) on that list.

>58 tangledthread: I could see that, @tangledthread. Given the large migration of whites and blacks from the South and Appalachia to work in the steel mills and coal mines in western Pennsylvania I would expect that these foods would be more readily found than in Philadelphia and other cities along the Northeast Corridor.

I've never heard of Pon Haus/Pannhaus! I'll visit my parents in Philadelphia from this coming Saturday through Friday, and we'll like go to an Amish farmers' market close to where they live, just north of the city. I'll look for scrapple/Pannhaus there, although I strongly doubt that I'll buy any.

>59 EllaTim: Hi, Ella! Even my LT friends who have spent their entire lives in the South, including one of my partners who is in her mid 60s and has lived entirely in North Carolina and Georgia, were unfamiliar with at least three of these foods; no one knew what burgoo, chess pie and poke salad were. Several foods are unique to New Orleans or Louisiana, namely gumbo, jambalaya and po' boys, and alligator tail is mainly served in the Deep South, particularly in Florida and Louisiana, where they are plentiful.

I've cooked alligator three times in the past two years, now that I've found frozen alligator tail in my favorite local supermarket chain, and I developed a taste for it when I lived in New Orleans from 1978-81. If anyone asks me what alligator tastes like my reply is usually "Alligator tastes like alligator." The taste very much depends on what part of the gator you're eating; most of what is served in restaurants or sold in stores is tail meat. It's generally juicy and tender, with a very mild taste of fish. I personally don't think it tastes like chicken, but it doesn't truly taste like fish, either. I'd like to see what my Cajun(?) friend Jim, our Fearless Leader, thinks, though.

>59 EllaTim: I found an article about the Spanish heat wave this week, which included an image that showed the high temperatures by city on Thursday:



Central Spain is defintely hotter than usual, although when I was in Madrid in late June two years ago the high temperatures were not that much different, 35-37 C if I recall correctly. The year before, when Bianca & I vacationed together in Andalucía, the temperatures in Sevilla and Granada were mainly in the mid to upper 30s, especially in Granada, although it was cooler in the Pueblos Blancos (White Hill Villages) between those two cities, which were situated atop large steep hills. The 33 C temperature at El Prat de Llobregat SW of Barcelona, where the airport is located, is definitely hot for Barcelona. The coolest areas, as I would have guessed, are Cantabria and the País Vasco (Basque Country) on the northern coast of Spain, with 21 C in Santander, and probably similar temperatures in Bilbao and San Sebastián. I visited those two Basque cities two years ago, which were unusually hot at that time and, from what I can tell, far worse than they were this week.

Things are bad in the summer if it's considerably cooler in Algiers than Madrid!

Portugal, on the other hand, is relatively cool, especially in Porto (22 C). It was actually chilly when I first arrived in Lisbon in early June last year, which I'm reminded of when I see that I was carrying or wearing a jacket on my first full day there in photos that DB took of me when we toured the city. We definitely needed jackets after the LT group meet up for dinner that evening!

Thanks for the tip about Yes, Chef. I will track it down. I also enjoyed his book Aquavit his cookbook about Scandanavian seafood.

Sorry about your biscuit challenge! i love baking with buttermilk. A fav. recipe is the soda bread from Gourmet Ruth Reichl, her bible.

Wow, that is hot in Spain. We have had snow on interior highways in the last few days. They are calling it "thunder snow".

>63 mdoris: You're welcome, Mary. Hopefully you can locate or download a copy of Yes, Chef.

Fortunately this is only the second time I can recall throwing away something I've made. I attempted to make Irish lamb stew at my parents' house several years ago, and instead of going to Center City Philadelphia to buy lamb as I had intended I listened to them, and bought lamb that was frozen at a local meat shop. Unfortunately the lamb was rancid, and I had to throw away the foul smelling stew. I'm glad that the biscuits turned out well the first time I made them; otherwise I wouldn't be encouraged to make them again.

Mmm...soda bread.

Yikes. The last time I heard thunder snow was probably eight years ago, when I visited my best friend from medical school and his family in Madison, Wisconsin. They received nine inches of snow in four or five hours early that morning, and there haven't been many times I've seen snow fall that hard.

>60 kidzdoc: My friend Michelle makes cheese biscuits. I stole the recipe 25 years ago, ditched the cheese (although sharp cheddar makes great cheese bicuits) and these buttermilk biscuits work well for me. More Crisco doesn't hurt. I use a 2 3/4" cookie cutter, 1/2" tall. I very rarely use this recipe, though, just throw in a bunch of flour, bp, Crisco, and buttermilk. This is about the only recipe I use self-rising flour with.

Buttermilk Biscuits

3 cups Self-Rising flour, sifted
1 T baking powder
½ cup Crisco
1 ½ cups buttermilk
3 T butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400F.

Mix flour and baking powder. Cut in Crisco until pea-sized and smaller. Add buttermilk and mix with fork until dough forms a ball. Add buttermilk as need, but only sparingly.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 30 seconds. Roll out to desired thickness and cut with cookie cutter. Dip cookie cutter in flour between biscuits to prevent sticking.

Place on ungreased non-stick cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned on bottom.

Remove from oven and brush with melted butter.

>65 karenmarie: Thanks for that recipe, Karen! I think I have self rising flour, but I definitely don't have Crisco. Amber and Linda helped me troubleshoot what may have gone wrong on Facebook. Linda asked if my baking powder had expired, and it had, but it was good when I made these biscuits last year, which looked like this:



I'll buy new containers of baking powder and baking soda when I go to Publix tomorrow morning, along with a new bag of Publix's store brand flour, and I'll probably give this a try again tomorrow, to see how it turns out. If it's a success then I'll try White Lily Flour again, the recommended flour in that recipe, sometime next month. If the White Lily Flour biscuits turn out awful again then I'll know not to use that flour in this recipe. Old fashioned Southerners swear by White Lily Flour to make buttermilk biscuits, so I was greatly surprised to see how bad these biscuits turned out.

BTW, I love cheese biscuits!

>49 kidzdoc: I've had a variation on chess pie! :)

https://www.birdsblack.com/buttermilk-chess

I LOVE chess pie. It makes me think of my beloved Tennessee Aunt Jean.

>1 kidzdoc: Hmm. I think I might see if I can obtain a copy of We Cast a Shadow to read in July.

>42 kidzdoc: I got 24 points. I'm not saying I still eat some of the things on the list, but I certainly have done.
No fried squirrel, though. Thank god.

I have 17 or 18 on the list. My parents were from the south, but I do have an aversion to gamey meat and organ meats, so that pulled me down. Also, some I have eaten, but would never eat again, like pickled pigs feet.

I ended up with a score of 10 from the list which was kind of a surprise but I lived for a while in Nova Scotia and my MIL was French so there would be a connection to New Orleans cuisine there. Good luck with your biscuits, Darryl.

Happy Sunday, everyone! I've had a busy and productive morning so far, starting with an appointment with my local barber at 7 am, followed by a run to Emerald City Bagels in East Atlanta, which sells the best bagels in Atlanta that are comparable to ones sold in NYC, and trips to Target, Publix and Whole Foods; I returned home just after 9 am, and by that time it was already steamy and hot outside. I'll probably stay inside for the rest of the day, and get ready to return to work tomorrow.

>67 ELiz_M: Ooh...that looks way too sweet for me, Liz, the way that shoo fly pie is now too sugary for me. Most of my Southern friends would love it, though.

>68 EBT1002: Nice, Ellen. I've never seen chess pie served in a restaurant or sold by a bakery in Atlanta.

I still haven't visited my favorite local bookshop to buy We Cast a Shadow. I'll probably do so one day next week after work.

I'm with you; there are several things on that list that I'll almost certainly never have again: frogs' legs, chicken fried steak, pickled pigs' feet, chicken livers and chitlins, in particular. One main reason is that my grandmothers and great aunts from the Deep South have all died, so no one in my extended family cooks those foods anymore. I do like chicken gizzards, so I wouldn't turn those down.

I think we can all agree that fried squirrel is a hard stop.

>69 banjo123: Good score, Rhonda! I think that anyone who gets 16 points or higher either grew up in the South, have parents who did, or lived there, in the past or present. I will eat organ meats (I adore sweetbreads!!!) along with some unusual meats, such as rabbit or alligator, which probably accounts for my higher score, along with living in the Deep South (Atlanta and New Orleans) for a quarter of a century.

>70 Familyhistorian: That's an excellent score for a non-American, Meg! Very well done.

I probably won't make biscuits today, even though I bought new containers of baking powder and baking soda and a new bag of Publix flour, as I've aleady had breakfast and am the proud owner of 13 mouthwatering bagels.

Have you considered the merits of JIFFY mixes? Their buttermilk biscuit mix is never-fail goodness. Makes a tasty, fast biscuits-n-gravyable biscuit.

>73 richardderus: No, I haven't! Thanks for mentioning this, Richard; I'll look for JIFFY Buttermilk Biscuit Mix the next time I go to the supermarket. No one in my immediate or extended family makes buttermilk biscuits from scratch that I know of; my father makes biscuits often, but he doesn't use buttermilk. I think I got a taste for them from living in New Orleans, probably from the Camellia Grill on St Charles and Carrollton Avenues, where the St Charles streetcar makes a right hand turn onto Carrollton at the western end of St Charles in Uptown. Let's see...my Publix app doesn't specify whether it sells that biscuit mix or not. I'll likely go there later this week, maybe on Wednesday, as I was hoping to find rhubarb to make another strawberry rhubarb custard pie or two for my colleagues and favorite nurses who have to work on Independence Day, but neither Publix nor Whole Foods had it in stock this morning.

Thanks also for reminding me that I want to learn how to make red-eye gravy!

>73 richardderus: Ooh, this recipe by Emeril Lagasse sounds perfect: Country Ham With Redeye Gravy And Buttermilk Biscuits. His biscuit recipe is very similar to the one I used yesterday.

>75 kidzdoc: That's a terrific recipe for red-eye. Love that stuff! Also, a note about biscuit scraps: the very last scraps can profitably wadded into a pancake shape and pan-roasted into your gravy. Their Maillard-reacted crusty bits make the gravy that much more layered in flavor.

>35 kidzdoc: Friends from #5 would make you most welcome in your dotage!

Have a great Sunday, Darryl

>76 richardderus: Great tip! Thanks, bro.

>77 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul! I hope that your Sunday was a good one.

I came her to wish you a happy new thread, Darryl, but I see I am 78 msgs late ;-)

>42 kidzdoc: Well, uhm, two I think: I have eaten froglegs and chicken livers. I also have eaten rabbit, but not sure what rabbit stew is, no alligator, but crocodile once... about half of those I have no idea what it could be, except that it is probaby food.

Happy Sunday, Darryl. As usual all the food chatter and photos, make my stomach growl. One more day left on my vacation. Boy, I could get used to this. I plan on starting The Nickel Boys tomorrow. I have heard good things and Whitehead has been on a roll.

Hej Darryl, SqueakyChu told me that you cook with black garlic. I did make some of my own, but I eat them mostly just like that. Do you make your own black garlic, too?

Too late to wish you a happy new thread?

Happy Independence Day to the world's largest, but far from greatest, democracy, on a day in which its Dear Leader will spend more than $90 million on a military parade reminiscent of ones in North Korea and Russia, while hundreds if not thousands of innocent children of color from Central America are detained in modern day concentration camps without access to basic needs or care in this so called Christian country. Maybe we could provide these kids with American flags and have them wave them through the bars of their cages.



Apologies to my fellow Americans, but I'm not in a patriotic spirit today.

>83 kidzdoc: They're spending how much on a military parade?

I'm just finishing Just Mercy by the hero Bryan Stevenson and it's such a shocking eye opener and confirms where you are coming from.

Darryl, so well said. I actually thought exactly the same thing about how this *parade* sounds like something Russia or N. Korea does.

I'm just finishing dinner after a longer than expected day seeing patients in the hospital. I probably won't be awake for much longer, though, as I stayed up late last night to make jambalaya for the nurses I'm working alongside this week. (They loved it, so it was well worth effort the effort.)

>79 FAMeulstee: All wishes and greetings are welcome, Anita, regardless of how many messages have been posted.

Congratulations to the Leeuwinnen for their hard earned win over Sweden in the World Cup semifinals yesterday. I wish them well in Sunday's match against the USWNT, although I'll be rooting for my home team, of course.

Yes, all of these items are foods, believe it or not. There is a significant amount of regional variation in foods in the US, and I don't think it would be that hard to come up with similar lists for New England, California, New England and other areas.

>80 msf59: Thanks, Mark. The Nickel Boys is at the top of my books to purchase when it comes out on July 16th.

>81 paulstalder: Hej Paul! I've probably mentioned using black garlic in recipes that I've seen in Ottolenghi Simple I'm interested in trying, but I haven't done so yet. I did come across an easy method of preparing them in an Asian rice cooker, which I own, and I'll probably give that a try later this month.

>82 katiekrug: Nope, never too late. Thanks, Katie.

>84 Familyhistorian: According to the story I listened to on NPR's Morning Edition on the drive to work, the cost for trump's parade has been estimated at roughly $90 million. Guess who will have to pay for it?

>85 mdoris: Thanks for reminding me about Just Mercy, Mary. "Southern justice" doesn't seem to be much different now than it was during or before the Civil Rights Movement in much of the Deep South. I suppose that most people have heard about the pregnant woman in Alabama who got into a fight with a friend of hers, who shot her in the abdomen multiple times, resulting in the death of the fetus. The formerly pregnant woman had been charged with manslaughter for the death of the fetus, but that charge was finally dropped yesterday.

>86 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. trump does seem to admire Putin and Kim Jong-Un more than any other leaders, so I suppose his d*ck waving parade makes sense in that regard.

So you have the Ottolenghi Simple cookbook! I made the chocolate fridge cake recipe and it was FANTASTIC! I had the book from the library so don't know the exact name of the recipe or the page number but it was decadent and delicious. You might like it!

>87 kidzdoc: I use an old rice cooker as well (it is not used for cooking rice anymore :)). I put the garlic bulbs in the cooker and let it cook for three weeks. Just put the rice cooker outside because otherwise the whole house will get the garlic smell ....

Hi Darryl.

>83 kidzdoc: Apologies to my fellow Americans, but I'm not in a patriotic spirit today. I understand and agree. I have cut back on my news consumption (NPR and online) severely because it’s all so depressing. And the idiot in chief scares me to death.

>88 kidzdoc: d*ck waving parade Got that one right. Small hands…

As to who pays for the parade. The National Park Service - that's who. And to do so, they have to rob from every other National Park's budget.

In my recent trip to Washington, D. C. I noticed that all of the National Monuments are minus any flowers. Instead they are all surrounded by low maintenance shrubs and trees. This cuts down on workers needed to maintain the flowers as well as on water use. However, it made many of the monuments look bare and uncared for.

Like you, I am in a decidedly unpatriotic mood right now.

I just checked out the schedule for the Decatur Book Festival. There is an impressive array of authors who will be attending and signing books. The speaking schedule is not out yet, but will be posted in July.

I would like to attend this year, but the only problem is that is the same weekend as DragonCon. Last year DragonCon had 40,000 people attend. I am not sure if it will be practical to try to attend the Book Festival the same weekend. However, I thought perhaps I could stay out on the west edge of town - Douglasville? and take MARTA into the festival. Do you think that would work? Could I avoid the downtown traffic doing that?

The whole concept of celebrating Independence Day seems outdated and wrong to me...what are we actually celebrating? Independence from the best friend we've got? (Unlike Donald the Orange, I don't count Russia and North Korea as good friends of the US.) I'd like to substitute Constitution Day...and let's make people READ it.

*yawn* Happy Saturday, everyone! I'm now off for the next seven days, after a moderately busy week that ended with an unusually bad long call last night. I stopped admitting patients at 8 pm, but didn't leave the hospital until nearly 11:30 pm, as I had to finish seeing patients, write progress and off service notes, and review two dozen physician reappointment applications that showed up on my desk yesterday. I would have finished sooner, but I kept falling asleep at my desk. Fortunately I was awake enough by the time I left that I didn't fall asleep driving home.

I'll fly to Philadelphia tomorrow morning to visit my parents, and stay with them until Friday afternoon, as I have to work a seven day stretch starting next Saturday. I'll work for two weeks, then spend two weeks with them from the end of July until early August. Hopefully I can meet up with NYC and Philadelphia area LTers during that second visit.

I haven't read anything so far this month, so I'll get started today. I'm very interested in the third quarter theme of the Reading Globally group, Turning the tables - Postcolonial Writers on the Colonizers, so I'll readjust my reading plans for the next three months, as I have several applicable books that I've been wanting to read for some time, including The Emigrants by George Lamming, a novel about the Windrush generation of Caribbean immigrants to the UK after World War II, Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon, The Nature of Blood by Caryl Phillips, and undoubtedly many others. I'll have to go through my book shelves later this month to find other books to read for this theme.

>89 mdoris: I do own a copy of Ottolenghi Simple, Mary, and I gave a copy to my parents as well. The Mint and Pistachio Chocolate Fridge Cake recipe is on page 288, with a lovely photo of it on the following page. That does look very tasty, and simple...I may try to make that when I visit my parents next week. Thanks for mentioning it!

>90 paulstalder: Thanks, Paul. The YouTube instructional video on preparing black garlic gave the same recommendation, although she only cooked her garlic for two weeks. I'll probably give this a try after I return from Philadelphia on Friday.

>91 karenmarie: I agree with your opinion of our Dear Leader, Karen, but I think I'm a little more likely to listen to NPR and follow the news to keep abreast of his evil and immoral plans, especially as they apply to children, especially the poor and those born to recent legal and illegal immigrants. The hospital system I work for provides care to a sizable minority of kids from Central and South America, most of whom were born in the US and, at the present time, are considered to be citizens of this country and are eligible for Medicaid, if their families are poor, or one the states' Children's Health Insurance Plans, if they live in low or low middle income families who can't afford private insurance. trump and his Republican cronies would love to scale back, if not eliminate, these programs for children of undocumented immigrants, and declare these kids to be non-citizens even if they were born here, which would have a devastating impact on the health of these kids, and ultimately prove more costly to the health care system in this country, as many of them they wouldn't be able to afford well child and sick visits to their primary care pediatricians and family practitioners, and would be more likely to show up in already overcrowded urgent care clinics and emergency departments with illnesses such as status asthmaticus and pneumonia that perhaps could have been managed effectively by a PCP, but may require hospitalization because the illness has gone untreated for too long. (We already see that now.) Needless to say the cost of a sick visit to a PCP and medications is far less than that of an ED visit and a two or three day hospitalization, and if Republicans cut off insurance to these kids the health care budget in this system will rise markedly, and there will be increased morbidity and mortality in children in this country.

>92 benitastrnad: Agreed.

>93 benitastrnad: Last year I spent Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend with Kay and Pattie from LT, as we attended the Decatur Book Festival together. They stayed in a hotel in Buckhead, close to the Buckhead MARTA station, and we took MARTA to the Decatur station, which is on the Square and in the middle of the festival. On Saturday I picked them up from their hotel and drove us to Candler Park station on the East-West lines, which avoided having to go through Downtown, especially Peachtree Center, where the festival is located. We took MARTA a few stops east from Candler Park to Decatur, and the trains weren't very crowded. You may want to touch base with Kay (@RidgewayGirl) about her hotel plans for this year's festival, especially if you want to hang out with us, but I think that you could stay in a hotel in Douglasville or elsewhere west of the city, drive to Hamilton E. Holmes station, and take the Blue Line from there to Decatur station, and by doing so you would avoid most of the people who will be attending Dragon Con all weekend and the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday afternoon, which pits Alabama vs Duke.

Labor Day weekend in Atlanta is probably the busiest one of the year, with hundreds of thousands of people coming into the city from out of town (an estimated 724,000 did so in 2018, which is considerably more than the actual population of roughly 500,000), and all of the hotel rooms, especially in Midtown and Downtown, will fill up fairly soon. You would be much better off staying on the west side!

>94 laytonwoman3rd: I agree, Linda. It's also hard for descendants of slaves like myself and Native Americans to get excited about July 4, 1776, as we either weren't free or were undergoing genocide.

That's my 2¢

>96 kidzdoc: Yes Darryl, that's the recipe. It is very scrumptious. If you make it I will be interested to know what you think.

>98 richardderus: That's worth much more than two cents, bro.

>99 mdoris: Will do, Mary! I think it's highly likely that I'll try that recipe next week, especially since the cookbook is also in my parents' house.

>96 kidzdoc:, >99 mdoris: - Please post the recipe if you make it. Sounds delish!

>102 jessibud2: Here's a link to the recipe:

https://www.delicious.com.au/recipes/mint-pistachio-chocolate-fridge-cake/2sgg36...

>103 kidzdoc: - Thanks, Darryl. Looks terrific

>104 jessibud2: You're welcome, Shelley.

Morning, Darryl. Happy Sunday. I hope you had a good week. Finally shut the a/c off last night, so that felt really good. I like that fresh, cool air. I started The Great Believers and it is shaping up to be a terrific read. Award worthy.

Ottolenghi's cookbooks are so gorgeous and fun to peruse. I've been to London a number of times and never been to any of the restaurants!

Edited to remove a political comment. Don't worry, it was anti-Trump. I haven't gone MAGA.

>106 msf59: Thanks, Mark. I had a busy five day work week, and I've spent most of this weekend catching up on sleep. I'll fly to Philadelphia tomorrow to spend a few days with my parents, and start a seven day work week on Saturday. I haven't read a thing this month so far, but I'll probably get started on My Struggle: Book Four and The History of the Siege of Lisbon tomorrow.

>107 libraryperilous: I agree, Diana; Ottolenghi's cookbooks are gorgeous, and not as expensive as they could be. A group of us (three LTers and one of my work partners, whose sister lives in London) met for a pre-theatre dinner at Ottolenghi Islington before we saw a play at the Almeida Theatre several years ago; I enjoyed my meal, but Bianca wasn't fond of hers.

I haven't gone MAGA.

I suspected not. If you had then all hope is lost for this country, and I would speed up my Amerexit plans and leave for Lisbon ASAP.

Hi Darryl! I hope you're having a good time with your parents.

>109 karenmarie: Thanks, Karen! I didn't arrive here until yesterday, as I somehow managed to get the departure time of the flight I was supposed to have taken on Sunday wrong, and arrived at ATL too late to get to the gate on time. All of the subsequent ATL to PHL flights on Delta were completely full, but I did get a seat on the first flight yesterday morning. This will be a short visit, as I have to work a seven day stretch starting on Saturday, but I'll return for a 10 day visit from late July through early August, and plan to meet up with some of my LT friends in Philadelphia and NYC then (one Philly meet up is already in the works).

I did get started on My Struggle: Book Four by Karl Ove Knausgaard during my trip to Philadelphia yesterday, in which Karl Ove, aged 18, takes on a teaching assignment in a small picturesque fishing village in northern Norway. I'm a little over 100 pages into it, and, as usual, I'm completely hooked, although possibly more so than any of the other books I've read in this series.

>111 kidzdoc: My, volume four, and he is only 18. Not sure I will get to this series.

Enjoy your flying visit with your parents Darryl.

>111 kidzdoc: Enjoy, Darryl. Completely hooked sounds good.

>112 Caroline_McElwee: It would be reasonable to assume that the My Struggle series is in strict chronological order, and surmise that if Karl Ove is 18 yo at the beginning of Book Four then the first three books were about his childhood: ugh. Fortunately that isn't the case. Book One starts with his father's decline and death when he was a young man, Book Two concerns his life as a young father with his first wife, affair with a second woman (his current wife, IIRC), and the dissolution of his marriage, and Book Three is about his childhood. So, if you were going to list the books by number in chronological order, it would be 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, and 6, I think. I plan to complete the series, and I would like to do so this year, although Book Six is nearly 1200 pages in length and I may not finish it until early 2020.

If you or anyone else has any interest in this series I would suggest borrowing Book One, and giving it a go for 50-100 pages. If you're not hooked then I wouldn't bother reading any other books by him.

>113 EllaTim: Thanks, Ella. "Hooked" for me means waking up thinking about the book and wanting to get back to it as early as possible. That's been the case for Books One, Three and, so far, Four in this series.

If I had to choose 10 Desert Island books (similar to Desert Island discs, the recordings you would be limited to if you were isolated on a desert island for a prolonged period of time), and I could choose a series instead of one book in it, My Struggle would be an easy choice, even though I'm little more than halfway through the six book series. James Baldwin's collection of Essays published by the Library of America would also make it, along with the LoA's complete works by my two favorite Southern Gothic authors, Carson McCullers and Flannery O'Connor. I would also consider bringing The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz. Those four collections are all in one volume, so no cheating would be involved, as may be the case for the My Struggle series.

>114 kidzdoc: What not Proust's 3000+ page In Search of Lost Time or the five volume Story of the Stone at about 2000+ pages?

>115 ELiz_M: Great choices, Liz. Reading Knausgaard has made me interested in reading Proust, and after reading about The Story of the Stone it stands a very good chance of making the cut. Other strong possibilities are The Bible and Don Quixote.

>114 kidzdoc: I just checked my LT library, and I did actually buy the first volume. Maybe I'll add it to winter reading Darryl. Knowing the breadth of your reading, that it finds itself on your list of 10 desert island books is some recommendation (despite the cheating).

Could I have 10 fiction and 10 non-fiction, and sew 10 volumes of poetry together to make 1 volume. And I think Shakespeare and the bible should be there already, Doesn't DiD do that? Years since I listened to that programme.

>117 Caroline_McElwee: Excellent, Caroline. I hope that you enjoy My Struggle: Book One as much as I did.

Yes, as far as I'm concerned you may compile that volume of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

I hope you have a good visit with your parents, Darryl, and a much better trip back!

Stopping by to see what you've been reading--a lot of BIG books! I'm so glad to see that you enjoyed Small Island. I loved that novel and even taught it in a senior seminar on Historical Fiction. Such great characters! I won't be making it to London this year but I will be seeing the musical version of Small Island on NT Live in September. If others are interested, it's showing throughout the US. I missed the June showing, but many theaters will have it back in September. So sad that Andrea Levy passed away recently at quite a young age.

>114 kidzdoc: I think you know that I can't resist a list, Darryl!

Lord of the Rings would make it despite the supposed lack of love for fantasy
I'm with you on the Cairo Trilogy - the first book is wonderful. I also love the Holt County books of Kent Haruf.
Probably a real cheat because I would take Zola's Rougon MacQuart books (all 20) and Balzac's wonderful Comedie Humaine (God knows how many).

Five "normal" books would see me with
A Fine Balance
David Copperfield
Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
Collected Poems of Ted Hughes
Collected Poems of WB Yeats

Have a wonderful weekend.

In case you visit here before FB, here's a Kindle deal you NEED to procure: My Lisbon by Nuno Mendes for $2.99!!!

>42 kidzdoc: I scored five, Darryl.

>83 kidzdoc: One would think. My five-year-old granddaughter told me: "Donald Trump is a bad man. He puts kids in cages." Seems about right.

Woo! My seven day work week (Sat-Fri) is over, and I'm off for the weekend before I start a week of nights on Monday.

I received copies of two of the books I plan to read this month in the mail today, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead and We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, two of the Black Male Authors for Our Time. I'll get started on the Whitehead tomorrow, as I'll probably crash shortly (I arrived home from work just after 9 pm and finished dinner a few minutes ago), and I should finish it by Sunday evening.

Oof...I'm fading quickly, so I think I'll call it a night and reply to messages tomorrow.

Happy Saturday, everyone! Oddly enough much of the Deep South, including Atlanta, won't experience the extreme heat that much of the rest of the country will this weekend, as it will be seasonably warm (85 F (30 C) today and 90 F (32 C) tomorrow) with scattered thunderstorms likely on both days. I've already done my grocery shopping for the week, and found more rhubarb to make another strawberry rhubarb custard pie for my colleagues that will be working nights with me next week, and especially the stellar pediatric resident who I was fortunate to work with this past week.

I did finish My Struggle: Book Four this past Friday, which was very good, but I haven't read a thing since then, as the inpatient census was extremely heavy for mid July (71 patients on Thursday, and 73 on Friday). We had to call in an extra doctor to see patients the past two days, which essentially never happens in the summer months.

Catching up...

>119 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg. It was a very enjoyable trip to visit my parents, although the A/C wasn't working for the entire time I was there, which made it uncomfortable. Fortunately they had plenty of fans, and the repair was made last Friday, in advance of this weekend's brutal weather in Philadelphia.

I'll fly back to Philadelphia next Sunday, and spend 10 days with them. My parents both get very teary when I leave, so I'm glad that I'll see them again in barely a week.

>120 Cariola: Hi, Deborah! I loved Small Island when I read it several years ago, and the play based on it was just as good. I'm glad that it's being shown again via NT Live in September; I'd encourage everyone to see it, and you don't need to read the book first to understand or appreciate the play.

Andrea Levy's death earlier this year was a great loss. The only other novel I've read by her is The Long Song, but I do own Every Light in the House Burnin' and Fruit of the Lemon, and I'll move both books higher up my TBR list. I don't have the program for the play handy, but I'm all but certain that she collaborated with Helen Edmundson, who brilliantly adapted the play for the stage, in the last months of her life. It's tragic that Levy didn't live long enough to see her most important book performed at the National Theatre.

>121 PaulCranswick: Ha! If I don't know anything else about you I do know that, Paul.

I'd gladly take A Fine Balance with me, especially if it was a part of a compilation of all of Rohinton Mistry's work.

>122 richardderus: Thanks, Richard, especially for posting that link on my Facebook profile as well; I would have missed out if you hadn't done that.

>123 BLBera: Yep. I think it's safe to say that you don't have a single drip of Southern blood in you, Beth!

Wow. When five year olds have more of a moral compass than the POTUS and the Republican Party do this country is in deep trouble.

It's only 10:30 am, but I could use a nap. Back later...

Hi Darryl! I haven’t read your thread yet, but I’m so excited about the DC United versus Atlanta United game this weekend!!!! You bet I’ll be watching. It’s time for my team to win a few games. So far we have 8 DRAWS! :O

Erik, I’m glad the Loons are doing so well this year!

I just heard from Joaquim who agreed to finally join LT. I hope to make him as active here as Shelley (*waves to Shelley*). It’s hard to bring BookCrossers to LT, but I’ll never stop trying to do that. :D

I have to run to finish a few more pages of a good novel The Life We Bury before heading off to a BookCrossing Meetup. Talk to you soon.

Darryl, I started The Nickel Boys last night. I only read the Prologue, but I can already tell that it's going to be a good one.

"My five-year-old granddaughter told me: "Donald Trump is a bad man. He puts kids in cages." Seems about right." Sure does.

Hiya, Darryl. Mark had nothing but good things to say about The Nickel Boys. I'm going to have to buckle up and get ready for the . . . evil, when I read it.

A Fine Balance is excellent, but it currently is #1 on my "Saddest Book Ever" list. I'm still trying to get my heart up off the floor.

Hey, enjoy the weekend and the work break, buddy. I hope the heat isn't too bad where you are. It's ridiculous here right now.

BTW, we've been working on booking tickets for London plays. Hurray!

Hi Darryl, hope you are having a good start to the weekend mate and enjoy the whole weekend, sending love and hugs from both of us mate.

>42 kidzdoc:

Late to the game with the Southern US foods -- I score 5 but I'm confused. Tomato Sandwich, devilled eggs, and peach cobbler, all of which I've had, are just normal foods. I'm puzzled as to what makes them Southern if people all over the place eat them. I grew up in Vancouver in the 60s and 70s and these were all common.

Also, I don't think my poke salad is the same as this list because I learned mine in Hawaii and it's made with raw tuna.

That leaves jambalaya, which is delicious!

I woke up about an hour ago from a very long nap. That wasn't the worst thing in the world, as I'll have to make the adjustment from being awake during days to being up at night by Monday afternoon, although I'm still very groggy. I'll have a very weird dinner (two microwaved Gabila's knishes with mustard, a banana, Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk cheese on Triscuits, and a glass of Rioja), and drink a cup of coffee, which I would normally never do this late at night. I bought plenty of groceries from Publix this morning, but I'm far too brain dead to do anything more taxing than using the microwave at the moment.

I'm thrilled to pieces that my local Whole Foods Markets sell Cowgirl Creamery cheeses! I used to only be able to get them from the shop in the Ferry Terminal Building in San Francisco.



>127 SqueakyChu: Hi, Madeline! Tomorrow's match between Atlanta United and D.C. United is a huge one, and I'm sure that Mercedes Benz Stadium will be loud and rocking. We're in third place behind the Philadelphia Union and D.C. United, but we've played one less game and can tie Philadelphia for first place with a win. The Five Stripes have made an impressive turnaround after finding themselves in last place of the Eastern Conference after the first month of the season, despite numerous injuries and having to adjust to a new coach and the loss of Miguel Almirón, our second best player, to Newcastle United of the English Premier League, whose season was unfortunately cut short by a hamstring injury. Atlanta United is particularly tough at home, with only one loss in its last 21 MLS matches at the Benz, and are coming off of a 5-0 throttling of the Houston Dynamo at home on Wednesday, so D.C. United will have their hands full with the Five Stripes and what should be a noisy and intimidating atmosphere. Best of luck to both clubs!

>128 Cariola: I'm glad to hear that, Deborah. I'm still on the first page of the Prologue, but I plan to get back to it this evening.

>129 jnwelch: Right, Joe. I think we'd be much better off with that wise beyond her years five year old as POTUS, her press conferences would probably be more coherent, and we wouldn't have to watch any more white nationalist rallies.

This presidential election is going to be as nasty as any one in our lifetimes.

I would guess that the most disturbing thing about The Nickel Boys is that it's based on an actual reform school in Florida, the Florida School for Boys, where at least 100 deaths occurred, which only closed in 2011. I imagine that I'll want to read more about the actual school after I finish Whitehead's novel, which has received glowing reviews so far. I suspect that this reform school was far from alone in its abuse and murders of its "students", though.

A Fine Balance is a very sad book, and in my current brain fogged state I'm hard pressed to think of any others that were more depressing, although it's absolutely brilliant.

Oddly enough it's much cooler in Atlanta than it has been this month. The high temperatures were mainly in the low to mid 90s for most of this week, but it didn't get any higher than the mid 80s today. Fortunately I have a very robust A/C system at home, and I'm very comfortable here.

Excellent re: London plays! I definitely want to see the play based on The Secret River by Kate Grenville in early September, and I've started to look at plays in other venues at well. I'll create a Facebook Messenger meet up thread sometime tomorrow to discuss plans with our British LT friends. Maybe we can have lunch at Ishtar, my favorite Turkish restaurant in London, and visit La Fromagerie, a fantastic cheese shop that Claire told me about last year; both establishments are within easy walking distance from Daunt Books in Marylebone.

I'm looking forward to meeting Dan (@dchaikin) from Club Read for the first time this month, as he, his son and I will visit the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia on the 29th. I'll visit my parents from July 28th through August 6th, and hopefully I can see other LTers while I'm up there.

>130 johnsimpson: Thanks, John. I'm getting some much needed rest after a tough seven day work stretch, and before what may be another busy week working nights starting on Monday. Please give my best to my cooking buddy Karen, and I hope that you're doing well. I hope to meet up with both of you in September, and I'll include the two of you when I create a Facebook Messenger thread tomorrow.

>131 Nickelini: Hi, Joyce! You're absolutely right; tomato sandwiches, deviled eggs and peach cobbler may have originated in the South, but they are all foods that are easily found in homes and restaurants throughout North America. A tomato pie would have been a much more appropriate choice for that list than a tomato sandwich; I saw a recipe for Heirloom Tomato Pie in a recent issue of Southern Living that one of my partners shared with me, and I'll probably give that a try when I visit my parents, as the tomatoes in their garden should be coming in soon:



I've not had poke salad, so I'm completely unfamiliar with it.

Jambalaya is fantastic when it's made well. I made a huge batch of chicken and Andouille sausage Creole jambalaya for the nurses on the unit where I worked on Independence Day, which ended up being the only entrée. Fortunately they loved it, as everyone went back for seconds and some for thirds, and there was enough left over for the night nurses to have for dinner that night. Have you seen my recipe for it? It came from Heather, my group's former administrative assistant, who grew up in New Orleans, and it's incredibly easy and makes a ton of jamb. A couple of the nurses made it for their families last weekend after they tried mine, and they loved it as well. Heather gave me permission to share this recipe, and I'm happy to do so again.

>134 kidzdoc:
Yum -- that heirloom tomato pie looks amazing. My husband's family is Italian and it looks like something they'd make. Looking at the recipe, they'd switch out the bacon with pancetta, the mayo with olive oil, and the cheddar with any delicious Italian cheese.

My husband is the jambalaya maker in our family and he has his recipe from a Cajun cookbook, but send me the list and I'll pass it along to him. We love the jambalaya leftovers.

>135 Nickelini: Those are great ideas, Joyce. I suspect that I'll make more than one tomato pie, so I may try the original recipe first, and try it again with your suggested changes. I also have a recipe for tomato and mozzarella pie which my mother and I absolutely love that I'll have to dig out.

Jambalaya, like many Cajun and Creole recipes, tastes even better when the flavors are allowed to blend in the refrigerator for a day or two.

Here is Heather's jambalaya recipe, which went viral in my group several years ago; five or six of my partners and friends made it in a single weekend!

Ingredients:
2 bunches chopped green onion (or shallots)
2 celery stalks chopped
1 green bell pepper chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 cups UNCOOKED rice (I use Uncle Ben's parboiled...I think the brand makes all the difference)
1 can beef broth
1 can French Onion soup
1 can tomato soup or sauce (depending on which flavoring you like better)
3/4 stick butter
2 lbs chopped smoked Andouille sausage
2 lbs chopped cooked chicken
parsley

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spray Pam or olive oil on a 9x13 glass baking dish.
Combine all ingredients in the dish and cover with foil.
Bake for 1.5 hours at 350 degrees stirring at midpoint (45 minute mark).
Add Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning and salt and pepper to taste.

Ingredient Notes:
Chicken can be canned, baked, grilled, rotisserie, etc. Can add raw shrimp too or sub shrimp for sausage or chicken (if using shrimp, peel them and don't put them in until the last 45 minutes so they do not overcook). All canned ingredients are regular size (Campbell brand) soup cans. When placing the butter in the dish I cut it into tablespoons and strategically place around the dish so it does not all land in one spot.

This is the easiest one dish wonder you may ever make!
_________________________________

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of using Uncle Ben's Original Parboiled Rice in this recipe. It's the most common rice sold in the US and UK, I think, and hopefully it's as easily available in Canada. I wouldn't recommend trying this recipe if you can't find it. I use tomato sauce, not soup, and I cook boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs in a 450 F oven for 8-10 minutes on each side, coated with olive oil, a touch of salt, and a generous amount of black pepper. I prefer Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, which is easily found in Atlanta, but Zatarain's or another Cajun or Creole seasoning, or one you make yourself, is fine as a substitute. I can get authentic Savoie's Cajun Andouille sausage from Opelousas, Louisiana here in Atlanta, but Johnsonville New Orleans Sausage, Mexican chorizo or Portuguese chouriço are perfectly acceptable.

ETA: I'd also strongly advise not mixing shrimp with chicken or Andouille sausage, which Jane (@janemarieprice) would readily agree with. I made chicken and shrimp jambalaya using this recipe several years ago, but I hated it.

>136 kidzdoc:
Thank for that -- I'll print this out and give it to my husband. I imagine he'll be most interested! A couple of notes right off . . .

Uncle Ben's Parboiled Rice --I can say I've never bought that product, but it's widely available, so if it's important, no problem there

Andouille sausage -- years ago when he started making this, we went on a hunt in Vancouver for this. Very poor results, and *maybe* now we could find it somewhere . . . anyway, we threw in the towel with this one and he uses Portuguese chorizo ,. . . sad, I know. (BTW I've seen New Orleans cooking shows that feature Andouille sausage, and then I ordered it in France. Very different food. The French version was horrifying for me.)

His recipe also calls for Tasso, which I've never seen here. It says if you can't get it, use ham. Both ham and sausage are bit porky for me, but I'm not the cook, so . . . .

No idea how much 3/4 of a stick of butter is . . . I can figure out any actual weight (lbs or grams) or cups, but sticks? What even is that?

French onion soup in a can . . . hmmm. Not sure I've ever seen that.

Creole seasoning -- we have all sorts of questionable versions available - his recipe uses salt, cayenne, black pepper, thyme.

All the other ingredients are the same. His is done on the stove, but this oven variation is a wonderful idea. We're definitely going to try this. Thanks.

>137 Nickelini: You're welcome, Joyce. I'm glad that you can get Uncle Ben's Original Parboiled Rice locally. My brother made jambalaya with Carolina Rice for us several years ago, and it was a complete disaster. The insides of the grains were undercooked, and despite the best efforts of my mother and myself we couldn't prepare the rice to an acceptable consistency, and we had to throw the jamb away. A colleague also made it using a different rice, and she said her version didn't taste anywhere near as good as mine.

I thought that authentic Andouille sausage would be a problem, as I haven't found it in the Philadelphia area. Products made by Johnsonville Sausage Company do seem to be sold in Canada (https://johnsonville.ca), and even though Johnsonville, Wisconsin is probably about as different from New Orleans as anyone could imagine their New Orleans Smoked Sausage is a very good substitute for the real thing made in Cajun Country. I use this whenever I make jambalaya at my parents' house.



I did say that chorizo/chouriço are acceptable substitutes for Andouille sausage. I haven't used these sausages in this recipe, though, and I don't know how similar chorizo and chouriço are to each other, so please ignore that comment for the time being.

BTW I've seen New Orleans cooking shows that feature Andouille sausage, and then I ordered it in France. Very different food. The French version was horrifying for me.

Right! I remember that this point came up when I first mentioned this jambalaya in my Club Read thread several years ago. IIRC Barry and possibly other Europeans mentioned the French version of Andouille sausage, which to them tastes like 💩. I'd love to cook jambalaya for my British friends, especially Rachael (@FlossieT) and her husband Rupert (research physician and chef extraordinaire), who had Fliss (@flissp) and I over for Sunday roast earlier this year and last year in their home in Cambridge, as did Rhian (@SandDune) and her husband last year in their home, but finding an acceptable substitute for Andouille sausage could be a challenge. I've never tried making it with chouriço, which I can get in Atlanta and London, so I may do that first here before I try making it there.

Savoie's, a company in Opelousas, Louisiana that produces Cajun meats, does sell tasso (pork and turkey), but I've not seen it sold routinely here, whereas I can usually find their Andouille sausage in Publix.

  

No idea how much 3/4 of a stick of butter is . . . I can figure out any actual weight (lbs or grams) or cups, but sticks? What even is that?

😂 I'm surprised that butter isn't sold in sticks in Canada...although I can't definitively remember seeing it when I've purchased butter in Europe. One stick of butter is 8 tbsp, so 3/4 of a stick is 6 tbsp. A lot of the recipes I use call for tsp or tbsp of butter, including the preparation of Uncle Ben's and other rices.



Campbell's, the most popular canned soup version in the US, sells condensed French onion soup in individual cans, which many people keep handy to use in recipes, rather than consuming it directly. You can find it in any supermarket in the US. Heather's crawfish étouffée recipe calls for a can of cream of shrimp soup, which is also sold by Campbell's.

  

Cajun and Creole seasoning are easily found in the US, especially in the Deep South, although it's much easier to find Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning here. It's my favorite, and I think that it's the blend preferred by most New Orleanians.



Hmm. Making authentic jambalaya in the UK may be more difficult than I had thought it would be. I had planned to bring a can of Tony Chachere's with me, but I thought I could find everything else there, except for Louisiana Andouille sausage, with minimal difficulty. I'll have to ask Fliss and Rachael about this.

Let me know how it turns out when you try it!

Morning, Darryl. Happy Sunday. I am so glad to hear you are starting The Nickel Boys. It is a tough, haunting read and you will not be able to shake it off, or at least for awhile anyway. I also want to warble about, If You Want to Make God Laugh. She is such a good author, who offers so much for the reader. The South Africa setting is also a treat. This might be your cuppa.

Back to >127 SqueakyChu: Well done on encouraging Joaquim to join LT, Madeline! Do you know his username? If not I can ask him on Facebook. I hope to see him in October, if my vacation request to return to Lisbon that month is granted.

>139 msf59: Thanks, Mark. I'm hopeful that The Nickel Boys will be chosen for this year's Booker Prize longlist, based on the glowing reviews it has received so far; we'll find out on Wednesday.

Thanks for mentioning If You Want to Make God Laugh. I'll keep an eye out for it.

I hope we can meet up with you in Philadelphia some day. Debbi and I want to get back there (it's been too long), and Mark is talking about organizing an LT meetup there not too long from now.

>142 jnwelch: Mark is talking about organizing an LT meetup there not too long from now.
Yes: Apparently ALA will be in Philly this January! I'm definitely up for meeting LTers then.

>142 jnwelch: Same here, Joe! As Laura mentioned, the ALA Midwinter Meeting will take place in Philadelphia from January 24-28, 2020 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Center City. Due to my intense winter work schedule, which allows me to be off from work for the month of June without taking any vacation time, it's not very likely that I could make it without using precious vacation days that could be better spent in Europe. I'll keep the dates on my mental calendar, and if I happen to be off I may make the trip, although I think that likelihood is low. I can easily get to the convention center by commuter train from my parents' house in the northern suburbs, as there is a direct connection between it and Jefferson Station.

>143 lauralkeet: I would love to meet up with LTers, more so than attend the ALA conference. Fingers crossed that I can make it.

I just started The Nickel Boys yesterday as well- ( although I am alternating it with a spy mystery)

...note to self: do NOT visit Darryl's thread at lunchtime...too expensive

>145 torontoc: Excellent, Cyrel. I think I'll take a postprandial nap, cook while I watch the Atlanta United vs D.C. United soccer match, and start reading The Nickel Boys afterward.

>146 richardderus: Wise move, sir. I try to avoid looking at the threads of several Facebook friends when I'm hungry.

>142 jnwelch:, >143 lauralkeet: Would love to participate in another Philly meet-up, assuming the weather in January isn't too bad. I have about a 3-hour drive.

>148 Cariola: It would be great to see you again, Deborah! If January doesn't work out perhaps we could organize a meet up in the spring in Philadelphia.

>138 kidzdoc: Well we do sort of have sticks of butter in the UK although they are probably more like blocks.

Wishing you a good start into the new week.

>150 PaulCranswick: Interesting. I haven't seen butter in that form in any stores or stands in London.

>151 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. Hopefully the hospital service will be less busy this week.

This year's Booker Prize longlist was announced at midnight BST (1900 EST):

Margaret Atwood (Canada), The Testaments
Kevin Barry (Ireland), Night Boat to Tangier
Oyinkan Braithwaite (UK/Nigeria), My Sister, The Serial Killer
Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport
Bernardine Evaristo (UK), Girl, Woman, Other
John Lanchester (UK), The Wall
Deborah Levy (UK), The Man Who Saw Everything
Valeria Luiselli (Mexico/Italy), Lost Children Archive
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), An Orchestra of Minorities
Max Porter (UK), Lanny
Salman Rushdie (UK/India), Quichotte
Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
Jeanette Winterson (UK), Frankissstein

I've only read Lanny from this list, which was very good, and I don't yet own any of the others.

I've created a thread in the Booker Prize group to discuss this year's longlist (https://www.librarything.com/topic/309391), and I'll make threads for the longlisted books no later than tomorrow.

>153 kidzdoc: The virtual absence of US authors is interesting, Darryl. I remain of the view that the previous format was better in that there are enough literature awards in the USA that don't open their doors to foreign writers in any real sense and I'm mindful of young writers in the Commonwealth getting as much chance as possible to bloom.

I have read books by six of the authors but none of the books on the list yet.

>154 PaulCranswick: I agree with you completely, Paul. I would like to see the Booker Prize exclude authors from the US in the future, and I would much prefer to see books by noted Commonwealth authors such as Tahmima Anam, Tan Twan Eng, Amitav Ghosh and Kamila Shamsie appear instead.

I've also read books by several longlisted authors, namely Deborah Levy, Valeria Luiselli, Chigozie Obioma and Salman Rushdie, at least.

The only book on the list I have read was My Sister, The Serial Killer. Which I thoroughly enjoyed but I am not sure it's Booker worthy. I see that there are some books I am very curious about on the list, so I will star your thread.

And I am not sure of my opinion on the inclusion/exclusion of US writers. It seems a bit unfair either way.

Hope that your week is going well

Back to >154 PaulCranswick: It could be argued that there are no Americans on this list, as Lucy Ellman moved to the UK when she was a teenager and currently lives in Scotland.

>156 banjo123: Sounds good, Rhonda. The books that interest me the most on a first glance are Girl, Woman, Other, An Orchestra of Minorities, Quichotte, The Wall and Lost Children Archive. I'm also glad to see The Testaments make the list, as it will spur me to finally read The Handmaid's Tale, which I have on my Kindle.

As many people feared, the decision to include American authors for eligibility for the Booker Prize several years ago caused the award to be heavily tilted toward US and UK authors, especially those who are part of the largest publishing houses, as the ones who have had success in choosing books that were previously longlisted, shortlisted or winners, as they are allowed to nominate more books for consideration. Books by smaller publishers and writers from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. American writers are eligible for plenty of awards that those from other countries cannot quaiify for, and I would much rather read a book by an established or up and coming author from a country foreign to me than another mediocre book by a well connected and popular American author.

My work will be half over in less than five minutes, as I'll leave at 1 am. Two night calls down, two more to go!

>153 kidzdoc: Fascinating long list - I liked things about the Lost Children Archive, and enjoyed My Sister the Serial Killer. The Winterson, Evaristo and Shafak were on my radar to read but will try and get to the others too.

>2 kidzdoc: I am way behind here, so I'll do my best to skim and comment. I am excited to see Colson Whitehead author of The Nickel Boys as part of Literary Arts in the fall.

>12 kidzdoc: Love it and so true!!

>21 kidzdoc: Yum!! But then nothing new there--you are the King of Recipes.

>42 kidzdoc: I scored 10, which is not bad since I am definitely a Northerner. : )

>83 kidzdoc: I agree completely on the ridiculousness of spending that much on a parade when there are people in need.

>132 kidzdoc: Cheese, of any kind--I am in!!

>153 kidzdoc: Thanks for sharing the list. I only have Lost Children Archive in my stacks. I'll have to get a few more.

Phew! All caught up. Happy Wednesday.

>157 kidzdoc: Agree with you Darryl, I no longer bother with the Booker, it seems that they have forgotten that Australian & New Zealand writers exist since the US got added in. Lots of other awards to follow.
I've only read My Sister, The Serial Killer, and while enjoyable is probably not a worthy contender.

>153 kidzdoc: Thanks for posting this, Darryl. I also shared it on my thread. I have read two and own 2 others, including Lanny. Are there any other unknown authors on here, that are worth exploring?

Thanks for posting the Booker longlist, Darryl. I'm chuffed and very surprised that My Sister, the Serial Killer made it. I enjoyed it very much, but didn't expect this. I need to read Lanny. I know you liked it a lot.

>153 kidzdoc: A retelling of Don Quixote and a serial-killer comedy. Oh my.

Well, nothing good lasts forever and forty-five years is a good run.

Daniel Callahan, one of the most prominent and influential bioethicists in modern history, died on July 16th at the age of 89. He taught at Harvard for many years, and founded The Hastings Center, the first organization in the world dedicated to "social and ethical issues in health care, science, and technology". I've read excerpts from at least two of Callahan's books, What Kind of Life: The Limits of Medical Progress and Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society, as an undergraduate student and a medical student, and I would imagine that every health professions student who has trained in the past 30 years has also been influenced by him.

New York Times: Daniel Callahan, 88, Dies; Bioethics Pioneer Weighed ‘Human Finitude’

>158 charl08: I agree, Charlotte; on first glance this looks like a strong Booker Dozen. The only book which would seem to be a questionable choice at the moment is My Sister, the Serial Killer. Two of Deborah Levy's previous novels, Hot Milk and Swimming Home, were recently shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016 and 2012, respectively, but I disliked both of them, and am admittedly not eager to read her latest novel, at least not until it's been reviewed by people whose opinions I value after it's been published. Everything else on the list looks great.

>159 Berly: Hi, Kim (slacker)! I hope that you get to see Colson Whitehead's talk in Portland; I'll have to see if he's coming to Atlanta. I should finish The Nickel Boys no later than this weekend...although I said that last weekend as well.

I may be the King of Recipes in this group, but I'm far from the best cook. As I've said in the past I've been fortunate to have Caroline's (@cameling's) home cooked meals on at least three occasions, and I'm a minor league benchwarmer compared to her. I'm also sure that there are plenty of folks in this group who don't talk about cooking as much as I do who could put me to shame as well.

Ten is not a bad score for a non-Southerner. Two of my Atlanta born and bred friends only got 11, which was quite surprising to them and the rest of us.

Good cheese is nothing short of heavenly. You can have all the chocolates and other sweets; give me a nice selection of cheeses with proper crackers, olives and wine and I am as happy as a clam. Cowgirl Creamery is easily my favorite cheese maker in the US, and I've had some superb cheeses from fromageries/fromatgerias and markets throughout Europe, especially in Portugal and Spain.

>160 avatiakh: Right, Kerry. I suspect that I'm not the only reader whose primary exposure to authors from Australia and New Zealand has come from their books that have been longlisted for the Booker Prize, most notably The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I also suspect that very few people outside of AU and NZ follow the literary awards there closely, which makes it difficult to keep up with new and established authors from there and other countries outside of North America and Western Europe.

Your comment about My Sister, the Serial Killer being an enjoyable read but not a Booker Prize worthy one was repeated several times today in the group dedicated to the award on Goodreads, along with those here who have read it. I purchased the Kindle edition of it early this morning, but I'll probably read it much later, unless it is unexpectedly chosen for the shortlist.

>161 msf59: You're welcome, Mark. The Booker Prize judges would undoubtedly say that all 13 books are worth exploring, and since I've only read Lanny I can't comment about any of the other books yet.

>162 jnwelch: You're welcome, Joe; I'm glad to see that you're using British vocabulary in honor of the Booker Prize and in advance of our upcoming vacation in London. Lanny earned 4-1/2 stars from me, and I was pleased to see it chosen for the longlist. As usual, Rachael (@FlossieT) chose another winner when she recommended it to me in May.

>163 richardderus: I loved Don Quixote, and I'm looking forward to reading Quichotte as much as any book on the longlist. Unfortunately it won't be released until late August, unless the publisher decides to make it available earlier.

Well, nothing good lasts forever and forty-five years is a good run.

Hi Darryl, the fact that My Sister the Serial Killer is on the longlist makes me really wonder what's going on with this prize anymore. It was a fine, very lightweight book but come on! The Booker used to mean something. I don't care that there aren't any Americans on it.

I'm less than inspired by the Booker Longlist. The only one I have read - like many others, is My Sister the Serial Killer. It was a good read, but I did not think it was " Booker Worthy."

>168 brenzi:, >169 vancouverdeb: There seems to be widespread agreement that My Sister, the Serial Killer was a questionable choice for the longlist. However, the other 12 books seem at first glance to be superb choices, so I wouldn't judge the entire longlist on one book. The only book I've read so far is Lanny, and IMO it does deserve to be there.

ETA: I've followed the Booker Prize closely since 2007, and even in the best of years there has been at least one curious choice. 2009 has been my favorite year, with Wolf Hall beating out The Children's Book, The Glass Room, Love and Summer, Brooklyn and Summertime, which were all fabulous, but even that year Me Cheeta was chosen for the longlist. I could barely stomach reading 50 pages of that book.

Loving all the cheese talk here Darryl. We are visiting in Denver at the moment and I am drooling at the cheese counter at W.Foods. I did see a Cowgirl Creamery cheese but sadly passed it by. I did buy St. Agur (French) and Humboldt Fog (a current fav) and a cave aged Gruyere. There were many temptations. Please list the tomato pie recipe if you make it and it's good!

>171 mdoris: Hello, fellow turophile! Cheese is the primary reason I could never become vegan, although giving up eggs would also be very difficult. I bought Mt. Tam and Red Hawk Cowgirl Creamery cheeses last weekend, and I'll probably return to Whole Foods Market this weekend to buy more cheese to bring to my parents' house when I visit them on Sunday.

Will do regarding the tomato pies. I'll probably make the tomato and mozzarella pie I first cooked in 2015, which I haven't seemed to have made since then, provided that I can find the recipe that my partner shared with me:

Turophile is definitely a new word for me but I now realize I have been one for a very long time. I make a leek pie that is very yummy which has gruyere cheese. Have you ever tried Humboldt Fog? It is a goat cheese by Cypress Grove (California).

>170 kidzdoc: 2009 was definitely a stellar year! We may not see it's likes again. One has to wonder if they decided to include at least one pop-ish book on the long list each year just to dispel the idea that the Booker is elitist. I haven't read any of the 2019 long list but have read other books by four authors.

I'm about 80% done reading The Nickel Boys and hope to finish it tonight. It's very good, but not, IMO, as good as The Underground Railroad. When I finish, I will read some reviews. Maybe I'm missing something.

>153 kidzdoc: I enjoyed Winterson's Frankissstein but I don't think it should win.

The only other one I have is My Sister, the Serial Killer

Turophilic temptation: Cambozola. *swoon*slobber*moan*

>173 mdoris: Same here, Mary. I've loved cheese for as long as I can remember.

Leek pie with gruyere cheese sounds interesting. Do you have a recipe for it that you can share?

I'm all but completely certain that I have tried Humboldt Fog cheese, presumably during one of my trips to San Francisco. I'll look for it at Whole Foods Market on Saturday.

>174 Cariola: You do have to wonder how the stellar Booker Prize judges from 2009 came up with Me Cheeta as a longlist choice. I thought it was crude, vulgar, not one bit funny and very juvenile. I gave it one star, and that's probably at least 1/2 star too high.

I'm only on page 48 of The Nickel Boys; I should finish it no later than tomorrow (Saturday), as my last shift of the week will end in a little less than 20 minutes and I'll be off for the next 12 days (not counting the hour I'll have worked today).

>175 Caroline_McElwee: Frankisstein won't be published in the US until October 1, so I'll read it late or buy a copy when I travel to London in September. I purchased the Kindle editions of My Sister, the Serial Killer and The Wall, and I'll receive the UK edition of Night Boat to Tangier tomorrow. Only five of the longlisted books have been published in the US and Canada so far, so I suppose I'll start with them, and the Barry, and get the other books in September.

>176 richardderus: 'Cambozola is a cow's milk cheese that is a combination in style of a French soft-ripened triple cream cheese and Italian Gorgonzola.'

>173 mdoris:
I am also a fan of Humbolt Fog cheeses. Great stuff.

>177 kidzdoc:
I have a copy of Frankisstein that I would be willing to part with. I am not going to read it. Maybe I can get it to you at the Decatur Book Festival?

I don't make an effort to read all of the Booker Prize titles. I find that the Walter Scott Prize titles are usually more to my liking and reading tastes. However, because Nicola Barker's work frequently appears on both lists I decided to give her book The Yips a try. It was a no fly. Then I tried Darkmans and it was totally awful - IMO. I simply don't get her writing and I don't understand why her work would appear on any list. On-the-other-hand, I read Moon Tiger, Possession, Ghost Road, Blind Assassin and several other past winners and either loved them or thought them to be good reads. I don't think that US books should be considered for this prize. There are plenty of awards available on this side of the pond. I do think that opening it up to Commonwealth authors is a good idea. I am truly amazed at the quality of some of the works I read from countries outside of the UK that have thriving literary scenes and are doing really good writing. If the books were originally written in English, and from a British Commonwealth country, I think they should be considered for the Booker Prize, while leaving the American's out of it.

*blinks*

Happy Saturday, everyone! Yesterday was nearly a complete blur, but apparently it was a necessary one. I celebrated the end of my week of four nights with tacos from a local 24 hour Mexican restaurant, which offers a brisk drive-thru service, went to bed at 4 am, and immediately crashed and burned, sleeping for at least 16 of the next 18 hours. I added two more hours of sleep in the next six hours, and my 24 hour total of 18 hours of sleep is probably the most I've had since I was a pediatric resident two decades ago, if not longer. Either I was absolutely exhausted or those tacos were laced with Benadryl and melatonin.

Thankfully I decided to fly to Philadelphia tomorrow afternoon, so I can do some chores and errands today and tomorrow morning and not have to rush this morning to get packed and head to the airport.

>178 benitastrnad: I would love to have your copy of Frankisstein, Benita, and the Decatur Book Festival would be a perfect time to get it. TYIA!

I looked at the Festival's web site a few minutes ago, and the schedule hasn't been posted yet. If this year is anything like 2018 I'll be there all day Saturday and Sunday, at least. Kay, her friend Pattie and I met for dinner Friday through Sunday, and for brunch on Sunday morning; Lisa and her friend (John?) joined us for dinner on Saturday. There are plenty of great restaurants in the heart of Decatur, all within easy walking distance of the festival grounds and MARTA's Decatur Station. I assume that we'll do the same again this year, as I'm off from work that entire week.

>179 benitastrnad: The Walter Scott Prize is one of the literary awards that I should follow more closely, along with the Orwell Prize.

I own several books by Nicola Barker, but I've only read two of them, The Yips, which I apparently liked (4 stars) but can't remember a thing about, and The Cauliflower, which was far less enjoyable that a head of the vegetable (2 stars). I suspect that she appeals far more to the English than to anyone else.

Up until five years ago the books eligible for the Booker Prize had to be written in English and not translated into the language, published in the UK, and composed by an author from the UK or one of the former Commonwealth countries, Ireland, South Africa or Zimbabwe. Thanks to this prize I've been exposed to a number of authors whose works I may not have read otherwise, especially outstanding Asian authors such as Tan Twan Eng, Timothy Mo, Rohinton Mistry, Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid, Amitav Ghosh and Tahmima Anam. Now that two major literary awards that honored Asian literature, the Commonwealth Prize and the Man Asian Literary Prize, are no longer active, it's even more difficult to learn about the best books being published in that fertile region. The United States is simply too large and contains far too many authors, the vast majority of whom are mediocre and add little or nothing to the world's literature (Ottessa Moshfegh? Karen Joy Fowler? Joshua Ferris?! Oh, please no!), and their appearances on past Booker Prize longlists was the literary equivalent of replacing a great Indian, Nigerian or Malaysian restaurant with a McDonald's or a Pizza Hut on a high street, IMO. American authors receive plenty of exposure already, and since most of our major literary awards exclude writers from outside of our borders I'm very glad that none of our writers were selected for this year's Booker Prize longlist (the only author who was born in the US, Lucy Ellmann, has lived abroad for nearly half a century), and I hope that this trend continues in future years, or, better yet, the prize returns to its former policy of excluding American authors.

Now that I've completely trashed writers from my own country I can say that I'm eagerly looking forward to the mostly under the radar authors who will appear at the Decatur Book Festival, as there were several whose talks and books I thoroughly enjoyed from last year's event.

>180 kidzdoc: Can I recommend the Neustadt International Prize for Literature? Awarded every other year, it is an international prize recognizing an author's body of work (but they do list a representative book in the nomination). I am impressed by the list of past winners, both for the authors I recognize (Edwidge Danticat, Dubravka Ugrešić, Rohinton Mistry, Assia Djebar, Octavio Paz, Gabriel García Márquez) and by the fact that I don't know many of the other winners.

Also, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature looks interesting.

>181 ELiz_M: You certainly may, Liz. I do pay attention to the Neustadt Prize, and I was pleased to see that Edwidge Danticat, one of my favorite living Caribbean authors, was chosen for the most recent award. I do need to pay more attention to the DSC Prize; I used to follow it closely but haven't done so in the past couple of years. Thanks for those great suggestions!

Books to read in August:

Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga
Book of Hours: Poems by Kevin Young
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
A Lucky Man: Stories by Jamel Brinkley
Medieval Bodies by Jack Hartnell
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma
The Wall by John Lanchester

I just finished The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead and I did like it very much.

Excellent, Cyrel! I hope to finish The Nickel Boys this evening.

Hi Darryl, just popping in to say Hi. Have a good time in Philadelphia and save travels.

Have a fine time with the rents!

>184 torontoc:, >185 kidzdoc: I finished The Nickel Boys last night, too. About to go in to write a review. Did you find Part III confusing until you got close to the end?

There are certainly a few books here I plan to read Darryl:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/26/tade-thompson-afrofuturism-black-p...

>186 connie53: Hi, Connie! I'll meet up with two LT friends in Philadelphia, one for the first time, on Monday and Wednesday, and spend quality time with my parents, so it should be a very enjoyable trip.

>187 richardderus: Thanks, Richard!

>188 Cariola: I haven't finished The Nickel Boys yet, Deborah. Today hasn't been a good reading day so far, as I'm still in a mental fog, but I should be done no later than tomorrow.

>189 Caroline_McElwee: Ooh, thanks for that article, Caroline! I suspect there will be several books I'll read as well.

I'm glad that you'll join Debbi, Joe & I for the play based on The Secret River on September 5th. I own but haven't read Kate Grenville's Orange Prize winning novel, and I'm inclined to wait until after we see the play. Have you read it?

> 190 Yes, I read it when it first came out Darryl, but own I don't remember much of the detail.

The National have a lot of good stuff on at the moment.

Kevin Young's Book of Hours: I plan to read that one, too. Right now I'm reading Tracy K. Smith's Eternity: Selected Poems.

Looks like you have another great London trip coming up, Darryl. I’m hoping to travel to London in September the next time I visit, hopefully next year.

Enjoy your time with your parents, Darryl.
I do not much care what these various book prices suggest. I read as well as just what I just feel like it. So I do not have to worry about whether a book deserves a prize or not.

Happy Monday, everyone! I arrived in Philadelphia yesterday afternoon, and will be here until early next week. I'll meet up with Dan (@dchaikin) from Club Read for the first time later this morning, and he, his son and I will visit the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, go book shopping, and hopefully have a cheesesteak lunch.

I had some time to kill yesterday afternoon at 30th Street Station, Philadelphia's majestic primary passenger rail station, while I waited for a commuter train to take me to the town where my parents live, so I stopped into Faber Bookstore and bought two books from the top of my wish list: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, and Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family by Mitchell S. Jackson, one of the NYT's Black Male Writers for Our Time.

>191 Caroline_McElwee: There are plenty of interesting plays in London in September, at the National Theatre and elsewhere. My record of seeing eight plays during one visit may be challenged; I already have tickets for three performances, The Secret River (NT), Bartholomew Fair (Globe Theatre) and Appropriate (Donmar Warehouse), and seven others have caught my attention.

>195 kidzdoc: Oh, I have always wanted to see a performance of Bartholomew Fair! Hope you enjoy it, Darryl. I read and enjoyed The Secret River but can't quite imagine it onstage.

I think you will like The Great Believers.

>195 kidzdoc: Yay for The Great Believers Darryl.

Look forward to hearing about your LT meet-up.

I hope your parents are doing well.

Good news: My parents are doing well, I had a very nice meet up with Dan (@dchaikin) from Club Read on Monday (photos and description to come), and I finally finished a second book this month earlier this morning. Bad news: I chickened out on today's planned lunch with Laura (@lauralkeet) and her husband in Philadelphia, as we're supposed to get strong and possibly severe thunderstorms this afternoon with strong wind gusts, heavy rain and flash flooding. I've developed a healthy respect for severe weather after living in the Deep South for over two decades, and I'll go into Chicken Little mode if there is a reasonable chance for severe thunderstorms, especially if outdoor walking is involved. It now seems as though the worst of the weather will start later this afternoon than this morning's local forecast suggested it would, so I may have acted prematurely.

>196 Cariola: I'll see Bartholomew Fair with Debbi & Joe, which will make it that much more enjoyable of an event.

>197 Caroline_McElwee: It may be awhile before I read The Great Believers, but I should get to it by the end of the year.

It looks like we made the right decision to cancel lunch, as we would have been in the middle of this mess.

We interrupt this weather report for another type of public service announcement: The Ernest J. Gaines thread for August's American Authors Challenge is up and running here. Darryl will be providing refreshments. What? *Darryl whispers frantically* No? Well, come by anyway. There's other good stuff.

>200 laytonwoman3rd: 😂 I suppose I could provide some refreshments, depending on how many are coming over...

Count me in! I just purchased the Kindle edition of A Lesson Before Dying, using my $5 Kindle discount.

You know the weather is bad in your town if The Weather Channel features it prominently in its prime time broadcast.


We had two rounds of pop up severe thunderstorms this afternoon, as a cold front passed through. The rain is gone, the sun is back out, the temperatures have dropped, but we're under a flash flood watch until late this evening, after 3-4 inches of rain fell today. I hated cancelling lunch with Laura, but that was definitely the right decision.

I thought you'd be interested in this Darryl, as I remember you visited this restaurant:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49150997

>203 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline! The lunch I had with Margaret at The Clink Restaurant within HMP (Her Majesty's Prison) Brixton was the most memorable and inspiring dining experience of my lifetime, and I still talk and think about it fondly. I would love to go back there sometime soon, as the food we had was superb.

Sweet Thursday, Darryl. Somehow you missed me up there. Never mind. Today is our national holiday. For years, we spend it again in Switzerland. Most of the time we are on vacation abroad that day.

>205 Ameise1:



Happy Swiss National Day, Barbara! I missed several posts, as I wasn't able to fully catch up before I needed to leave my parents' house to take a commuter train to Philadelphia to meet Dan and his son. For that matter I forgot to post a description of the meet up. I'll catch up now; thanks for telling me!

>206 kidzdoc: Thanks so much, Darryl. As I could see on FB, you had a great day out with Dan.

>192 jnwelch: I hope to get to Book of Hours this month, although August and September will be mainly spent on the Booker Prize longlist, starting with Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry. I still haven't read anything by Tracy K. Smith, and I haven't been able to locate my copy of Life on Mars, which I bought in San Francisco several years ago. I look forward to your thoughts about her new poetry collection.

>193 Familyhistorian: It should be another great trip to London, Meg, with plenty of meetups, especially with my favorite LT couple, Debbi & Joe.

>194 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. It's been a very enjoyable visit so far, and I'm glad that we'll have five more full days together before I return to Atlanta on Tuesday.

I do enjoy following certain literary prizes, which introduce me to authors and books I may not have learned about otherwise.

>207 Ameise1: You're welcome, Barbara. How are you celebrating today?

>208 kidzdoc: Tracy K. Smith's new "Eternity: Selected Poems" (which seems to have no touchstone) is well worth your time, Darryl (I'm about halfway through). Life on Mars won the Pulitzer and all sorts of "Best Books of the Year" recognition. She was our Poet Laureate and is one smart cookie.

Monday's meet up with Dan (@dchaikin), a longtime friend from Club Read who I hadn't met in person before, was a very enjoyable one. He, his son and I took commuter trains to 30th Street Station in Center City Philadelphia, had a quick breakfast at Au Bon Pain, and walked to the Mütter Museum, one of the finest museums of medical history, located within the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. From there we walked a few blocks to Joseph Fox Bookshop, a small indie bookstore close to Rittenhouse Square that has a superb collection. The three of us could have purchased far more books than we did, and I left with only four:

  

Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing by Victoria Sweet, MD: I first became familiar with Dr Sweet after I read her book God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine, a superb story about Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, which provides long term rehabilitative care to patient, and the years she spent in practice there. This book is a follow up to that one, in which she elaborates on the concept of slow medicine, a holistic and deliberate approach to the patient that runs counter to the administrator driven concepts of cost effective, client driven and inefficient "health care system" (truly an oxymoron) that currently exists in the US. I didn't know that she had published this book, and once I saw it I immediately added it to my growing pile.

Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America by Ayaz Virji: I watched a story about Dr Virji from a story on the PBS NewsHour last year. He decided to practice family medicine in a small town in rural Minnesota, and became angered after the 2016 election and the rampant Islamophobia that resulted from trump's campaign and "election" to office. In an effort to educate those communities around him he gave a series of talks to their residents about Islam and Muslims living in America, which was only partially successful in combating their prejudices against his faith. This book describes those meetings, and other encounters with his patients and fellow Minnesotans.

Two books from the Booker Prize longlist:
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma

After we left the bookshop it was just past noon, and since it was a hot day we popped into the Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop that was located next door to Joseph Fox Bookshop, which ended up being our lunch. Dan's preteen son was getting bored listening to the adults chatter about books, and after we asked him what he wanted to do we walked to The Franklin Institute, the science and technology museum for children close to the main branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia and not far from the Barnes Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He was in his element there, and proceed to run himself and us ragged! After a couple of hours there we walked to Suburban Station, and took separate commuter trains out of the city. It was a great first meeting, and we'll definitely get together in the near future, especially since Dan and my mother's sisters all live in metropolitan Houston.

>210 jnwelch: Right, Joe. I think I bought Life on Mars after it won the Pulitzer Prize, but I never got around to reading it, and I knew that she was the US Poet Laureate. I'll have to make it my business to read at least one of her books this year.

>211 kidzdoc: Lost children archive looks great. This year's Booker longlist is more interesting to me than any other I can remember. Maybe it's that my tastes are broadening, or maybe it's just a better list!

I'm very glad to see that Joseph Fox is still thriving. It was one of my favourite places in Center City. I do miss the little Chinese tea and dumpling shop which used to occupy the unit below it though.

>213 Sakerfalcon: I've heard good things about Lost Children Archive, so I look forward to reading it this month. I agree with you, this seems to be the best Booker Prize longlist in quite awhile, which makes me very eager to dive into it.

Joseph Fox Bookshop seems to be doing well, based on my past visits there. It's in a great location, close to Rittenhouse Square, City Hall and Suburban Station, and even though there is competition nearby, from a branch of Barnes & Noble, I suspect that it will remain open for far longer than its local competitor.

There was another bookshop on, I think, 11th or 12th Street between Market and Chestnut that has closed or significantly curtailed its operations. Checking...I can't find the name of it.

You and I must have seen the same PBS NewsHour broadcast! I purchased Love Thy Neighbor a few weeks ago and have it sitting on my coffee table where I will see it. I want to get this one read before Christmas so I can regift it to my sister. (how's that for frugal Lutheranism from the Midwest. Of course, I won't tell her I read it first. Although, she might suspect ... especially if I talk about it.)

I am glad that you had a good meetup. I love that part of downtown Philadelphia. I didn't know there was a book store that close to the Franklin Institute. As I recall they had a good book selection in the gift shop at the Franklin Institute as well.

Hi Darryl! Glad you had a good meet-up.

I just finished Lost Children Archive and wasn't too fond of it. She is a bit too academic for me. It might be more your cup of tea, however.

>215 benitastrnad: I'm now wondering where I first heard about Ayaz Virji; it may have been a story on NPR or a newspaper article, as the PBS NewsHour segment I looked at isn't familiar at all. I do remember his story, though, and once I read the inside cover description of Love Thy Neighbor I recognized his story.

Joseph Fox Bookshop is on Sansom Street between 17th & 18th Streets, which is about 3/4 of a mile from The Franklin Institute and a very short distance from Rittenhouse Square.

>216 banjo123: Thanks, Rhonda! I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy Lost Children Archive. What do you mean when you describe Luiselli as "too academic"?

>214 kidzdoc: I remember that bookshop but like you I've forgotten its name!

>215 benitastrnad: There is also the Friends of the Free Library used bookstore just off Logan Square, which has a huge selection of books at really low prices. It's next to the new Barnes Foundation.

>218 Sakerfalcon: I still can't think of the name of that bookshop!

Thanks for the information about the used bookstore.

Unfortunately it won't be on when you are here, but interesting:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49176524

>220 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline! I'd love to see 8 Hotels, and with any luck it will appear elsewhere after it closes in Chichester later this month.

Oh goody, a new Victoria Sweet book! Thanks for mentioning it.

This may be of interest to you because of your parents: I started reading Elderhood by Louise Aronson this weekend. You can add to your books about medicine list.

>222 tangledthread: Excellent! I ordered a copy of Elderhood when I went to Joseph Fox Bookshop in Philadelphia on Monday, and hopefully I'll have time to pick it up on Tuesday on my way to the airport. The book's author, Dr Louise Aronson of UCSF, was a featured guest on NPR's Fresh Air in June, and fortunately I was listening to the broadcast that evening, which you can listen to here:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/17/732737956/a-clearer-map-for...

Even better, Dr Aronson will appear at the Decatur Book Festival just east of Atlanta on the 31st to talk about Elderhood, so I'll get to see her in person.

https://www.decaturbookfestival.com/presenter/louise-aronson/

>217 kidzdoc: When you read Lost Children Archive you will see what I mean by academic. Lots of reference to various obscure texts, and it seems to be an emphasis on documenting rather than action. The main character is very much in her head, and in a way that seems unhealthy for her children. It's well written though, and most people seem to really like it, so maybe I am just curmudgeonly.

It was interesting that so many people enjoyed My Sister the Serial Killer, but didn't think it was Booker-worthy. That was my original take, but now I think that maybe the book has something more to it, that seems simple, but isn't quite.

I wonder why My Sister the Serial Killer was chosen for the Booker if it was good but not THAT good? I have been wanting to read that one, and just bought a copy. :)

Thanks for stopping by my thread Darryl!

>224 banjo123: Given the hotch-potch of books that I have seen selected for the Booker longlist over the last ten years, I am not really sure that "Booker Worthy" is a valuable judgement call anymore.

Darryl commented above on Deborah Levy getting her third book in a row long-listed when the other two were slight affairs to say the least. It seems to me that the vagaries of the judges will determine the "merit" of a year's worth of reading. They don't usually get it right in my opinion but that makes the awards more interesting not less so.

Thanks Daryl, the NPR interview is what prompted me to request the book from the library. I'm finding it very interesting, not the least because I am in my own elderhood. Lucky you, to be able to hear her in Decatur!

>224 banjo123: Thanks for your explanation about Lost Children Archive, Rhonda. I'll probably read it next week, after I finish Night Boat to Tangier, which is very good so far, and An Orchestra of Minorities. I've had very little reading time during this visit to my parents, but I'll definitely finish Night Boat to Tangier no later than tomorrow, during the return trip to Atlanta.

Reading the comments about and harsh criticisms of My Sister, the Serial Killer makes me eager to read it this month. Hopefully I can get to it next week as well.

>225 The_Hibernator: Excellent, Rachel. I look forward to your thoughts about My Sister, the Serial Killer.

>226 PaulCranswick: I agree with you, Paul. I've also come to the conclusion that "Booker worthy" is an outdated and overly judgmental term; I'd suggest replacing it with "traditional Booker novel", which for me would be a meaty historical novel such as The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt, The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.

>227 tangledthread: I'm glad that you're enjoying Elderhood, @tangledthread. I learned quite a bit from listening to her on Fresh Air, and I'm eager to read the book and listen to her talk.

>211 kidzdoc: What a wonderful meet up! Looks like you found some interesting books as well :)

Sad news: Toni Morrison died yesterday.

The Guardian: Toni Morrison, author and Pulitzer winner, dies aged 88

>229 figsfromthistle: Yes, last Monday's meet up with Dan was fruitful and very enjoyable.

>230 kidzdoc: Sad news indeed.

>232 charl08: Right, Charlotte.

I'm now back in Atlanta, and during the flight from Philadelphia I did finish Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry from this year's Booker Prize longlist, which was superb (4.25 stars for now). So far this does seem to be a fabulous year for the Booker Prize; I'll start An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigoze Obioma next.

I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the Kevin Barry. I haven't read anything of his yet but I see there are a couple of titles on his back list. I have Night Boat to Tangier on hold at the library. In the meantime, I'm listening to John Lanchester's The Wall on audio and I have the Obioma as well. I heard a great interview with him on the BBC World Book Club podcast last week.

I hope that your shifts aren't too onerous prior to your September trip, Darryl. I envy you your time back in London and will have to content myself with a short trip to NYC. But, speaking about London, I was checking my holds list at my library the other day and saw that Outrages had mysteriously disappeared. I checked the whole library site and it is no longer on order. According to the info I found on other sites, it looks like the book is going through a whole rework before it comes out in the US (and, presumably, Canada.) I wonder if my library will reorder it or stay well clear? Looks like the book that you picked up in London might become a collector's item

>234 vivians: Thanks, Vivian. Night Boat to Tangier was superb, and for the moment I've ranked it slightly behind Lanny. although I may reread both books if they are selected for the Booker Prize shortlist next month. I received the UK hardcover edition of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak in the mail from The Book Depository today, and I may read it ahead of An Orchestra of Minorities, as it's a much shorter book that I should be able to finish this weekend.

Lot: Stories. 4.8 stars of five.

That is all.

Hey Darryl - hope you are planning on attending the Atlanta United open cup championship. I can mail you out a Minnesota United scarf so you can cheer for the right side.

Woo! TGIF!!! I'm off this week, and since it be extremely hot in Atlanta this weekend, with forecast high temperatures of 96 F (35 C) tomorrow and 97 F (36 C) on Sunday with poor air quality I'll only go out early those mornings, cook both days, and read; I hope to finish 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World and What Dementia Teaches Us About Love by Sunday evening.

>235 Familyhistorian: Apologies, Meg; I was exhausted last night and couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to reply to your message. This week on service wasn't bad at all, but the inpatient census typically spikes 2-3 weeks after the kids return to school, and share their germs with each other. I'll work Monday through Friday next week, and Monday through Sunday the following week; after that I'll be off service until mid September, save for a backup shift on Labor Day.

Have fun in NYC next month! I haven't visited the city all year, but I intend to return this autumn, especially after MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art) reopens on October 21st.

I saw a copy of the US hardcover edition of Outrages when I went to Joseph Fox Bookshop in Philadelphia last week, which had a different cover from the version I purchased at the London Review Bookshop on the day we met in May. I didn't think to ask when it was published, to see if it was the corrected version or not. I'll try to get to my copy of it this autumn, and I'll hold onto it, since, as you said, it may become a collectors' item. I'll also look to see if a new edition has been published in the UK next month.

>237 richardderus: Thanks, Richard. I'll take a look at Lot: Stories.

>238 Oberon: I'd very much like to go to the future Atlanta United thrashing of Minnesota United on the 27th. I'm off from clinical service that week, and hopefully I can convince one or more of my work mates to join me.

I'm reading "New Blood" about the research for leukemia (some for children) in the NYer mag July 22, 2019 by Siddhartha, Mukherjee. It is such an interesting article.

>240 mdoris: Ooh, thanks for mentioning that article, Mary! I subscribe to, but, shamefully, rarely read The New Yorker, so I'll look for my copy of that issue this weekend.

Happy Friday, Darryl. It appears, that I have not been by in 2 weeks. WTH? I wanted to let you know, I really enjoyed Lost Children Archive and I am currently loving Lanny. Enjoy your weekend.

>242 msf59: Happy Saturday, Mark! I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed Lost Children Archive and that Lanny is also a good read so far. I've only read a few pages of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, but it's already grabbed my attention. So far this looks to be a fabulous year for the Booker Prize!

>225 The_Hibernator:, >226 PaulCranswick:, >228 kidzdoc: I just finished this year's Booker winner, Normal People. I rated it a 3.5.