Susan reads on, quandame’s 2020 thread Part IIa

Hi, I'm Susan, just the right age to be killed off by Covid-19. I’m enjoying dachshunds, my family, my house, my husband's book stash, and rarely venture outside. Funny, not, this seems to have become the new norm.

January - 25 books

#1) The Persian Pickle Club ★★½
#2) Why is Nothing Ever Simple ★★★½
#3) Red, White & Royal Blue ★★★½
#4) Maggy Garrisson ★★★★
#5) Stay Down and Take It ★★★½
#6) The Dragon Republic ★★
#7) The Queen of Nothing ★★★½
#8) The Beadworkers ★★★★
#9) Olive, Again ★★★★
#10) The Case of the Spellbound Child ★★
#11) 1636: The China Venture ★★½
#12) The Breadwinner ★ ★ ★
#13) Children of Ruin ★★★½
#14) The Rest of Us Just Live Here ★★★½
#15) My Side of the Mountain ★★★½
#16) Aurora Blazing ★★½
#17) Starsight ★★½
#18) The Danger ★★★★½
#19) The Mysterious Affair at Styles ★★
#20) Waterland ★★★★
#21) The Curious Affair of the Witch at Wayside Cross ★★
#22) Nightwoods ★★★½
#23) The Game of Kings ★★★★ R
#24) Sovietstan ★★★½
#25) Malala's Magic Pencil ★★★★½

February - 33 books

#26) An Unkindness of Ghosts ★★★
#27) The Secret Chapter ★★★½
#28) A Month in Siena ★★★★
#29) In the Frame ★★★★
#30) Queen of the Sea ★★★
#31) Resurgence ★★★½
#32) A Longer Fall ★★★½
#33) The Raven Boys ★★★★
#34) Mount Vernon Love Story ★★★
#35) Brave Irene ★★½
#36) The Track of Sand ★★★½
#37) Gideon the Ninth ★★★½
#38) The City of Brass ★★★½
#39) House Made of Dawn ★★★½
#40) Night Night, Sleep Tight ★★½
#41) Caddie Woodlawn ★★★
#42) The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion ★★★★
#44) The Suffragette Scandal ★★★
#45) Tolstoy and the Purple Chair ★★★½
#46) The Governess Affair ★★★
#47) Penric's Fox ★★★★ R
#48) Pantomime ★★½
#49) Penric's Demon ★★★★½ R
#50) Every Heart a Doorway ★★★★
#51) The Dream Thieves ★★★½
#52) Magic for Liars ★★★½
#53) Penric and the Shaman ★★★★ R
#54) There There ★★★★
#55) Penric's Mission ★★★★ R
#56) Mira's Last Dance ★★★★ R
#57) The Prisoner of Limnos ★★★★ R
#58) The Orphans of Raspay ★★★★ R

March - 32 Books

#59) Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore ★★★★
#60) The Flowers of Vashnoi ★★★½ R
#61) Dr. Joyce Brothers: the Founding Mother of TV Psychology ★★½
#62) The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds ★★★
#63) Blue Lily, Lily Blue ★★★½
#64) A Field Guide to Getting Lost ★★★★
#65) Spin the Dawn ★★½
#66) The Raven King ★★★★
#67) Nevertheless, She Persisted ★★★½
#68) The Lost Future of Pepperharrow ★★★½
#69) Girl, Woman, Other ★★★★
#70) The Bookshop of Yesterdays ★★★
#71) Almost American Girl ★★★★
#72) Meet My Grandmother: She's A United States Senator ★★½
#73) Inside Out and Back Again ★★★★
#74) A Whole New Ball Game ★★★
#75) Tangled Up in Brew ★★
#76) Dancers in Mourning ★★½
#77) The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet ★★★★ R
#78) A Closed and Common Orbit ★★★★ R
#79) Chocolat ★★★
#80) Wolf Hall ★★★★ R
#81) Breaking Silence ★★½
#82) Bring Up the Bodies ★★★★ R
#83) The Mirror & the Light ★★★★
#84) The Fortunes ★★★½
#85) A Dead Djinn in Cairo ★★★½
#86) A Useful Woman ★★★
#87) Zodiac ★★★ R
#88) Father Christmas's Fake Beard ★★★½
#89) Sweep in Peace ★★★
#90) All Systems Red ★★★★ R

#91) Tarantula Scientist



A bit to golly aren't tarantulas amazing. They are and don't need any condescending praise. Lots of pictures, references and an index.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #1: Read a non-fiction book about an animal or animals

Hi Susan, at first I thought you had a new LT name (quandame)...

I'm usually off reading in bd by this time (we're on CST) but wanted to look for a BB that I had commented about and what bad timing on my part because so many new threads started in the last 12 hours...

That'll larn me to make better notes or copy-paste at least... (I gave up on WL-ing the titles).

Have great time with heading to that double-75 goal!

#92) A Troll's Phantasmagoria



A pre-appocolyptic saunter through a 70s New York City, with drugs, sex, art, ragtime, culminating in the a comet and a golem, an anti-anti Christ. I think there might be something of interest to someone familiar with the 70s NYC scene, but I'm not so maybe not. Lots of unpleasant descriptions, and off-handed mentions of sex acts.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #2: The long and the short of it: alternate between books with a 1-syllable title and with an 8+ syllable title

>6 SandyAMcPherson: Do you remember the name of the book or any detail? I have many lists, but still manage to lose track of books now and again.

Happy new thread, Susan!

>1 quondame: Very interesting that you put the dachshunds first! Looks like the books are in prison like the rest of us!

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Susan.

I'm right behind you on the 'just the right age to be killed off by Covid-19.'

>5 quondame: I scrolled right past that one. I'm glad you like tarantulas, and I'm fervent in my desire to never see one ever again. They showed up way too often after we moved to Diamond Bar, wanting to be inside with us.

Happy new thread!

>3 quondame: I spent a few weeks in New Mexico launching high altitude balloons. The tarantulas loved the big, flat concrete area where we launched - warm and easy to find prey, I suppose. Really cool animals!

Happy new thread, Susan!

Lori

>12 drneutron: How can New Mexico have tarantulas? I thought it would be way too cold for them.
(*not* a spider fan to the point of "can't even look at pictures")!

>8 quondame: not specifically enough to have some help. "It was a mystery series, but not book 1" which is so unhelpfully generic!
I think I marked it as a favourite so I am scrolling through the favourites so I might trip across it that way.

Happy new tread, Susan!

Happy new one, Susan!

Happy new thread. My sister had a tarantula when she was a teenager and lived with me and my then-husband. She lost it (it escaped?) somewhere in the house. Never found it. I still have nightmares.

Happy new thread Susan my dear.

Very much in the "DIE YOU EIGHT-LEGGÈD FREAKS!!!" camp myownself.

This despite having caught, killed, cooked, and eaten a tarantula for a college anthropology class.

>20 richardderus: Ugh, that is SO much creepier than having one as a pet, Richard!

Happy New Thread, Susan!

Happy new thread, Susan!

I do not mind the tarantulas. I used to play with them when I was a kid.

Omg you guys. I'm trying to eat dinner here while I cruise the threads. Barfo.

>9 PaulCranswick: >10 figsfromthistle: >11 karenmarie: >12 drneutron: >13 thornton37814: >16 FAMeulstee: >17 Dejah_Thoris: >18 Storeetllr: >19 johnsimpson: >20 richardderus: >21 ronincats: >21 ronincats: >22 alcottacre: Welcome and thanks for dropping by!

I really have very little interest in small eight legged creatures with exoskeletons, but I was once an involuntary owner of one of these, and well, short book about animals. Big ones that I can eat with lemon butter at a good restaurant is another thing altogether.

#93) Blood Sport



Gene's job of a screener for the civil service doesn't give a clue that he is a risk taking adventurer who suffers from depression made critical by the departure of a long time lover. While he is on mandatory leave his boss involves him in the apparently unsolvable disappearance of a racing stud. Though it begins on a boating trip upriver of London, NYC, Kentucky, Wyoming, Nevada and Santa Barbara all host scenes in this drama. Which is less a who done it than a how to recover the goods caper.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #4: Read a book by an author you have read before and the Dick Francis shared read.

I meant to take Gertie to the vet for her allergy shot yesterday, but Becky asked me to make an appointment for Manny's glucose curve and I was told to wait for a call back which happened this morning. They aren't doing glucose curves now, but could schedule him for a one shot mid day test on Sunday. Gertie however could get her shot, which usually doesn't have to be by appointment but now does, so that's done and there is some chance she won't have all the skin off her undercarriage before it kicks in.
In other news, I cleaned the range top and my shower stall this week. I must be going stir crazy.

>151 SandyAMcPherson: I am wearing a paper towel, no sew version of University of Florida Prototype that requires scissors, paper towels, scotch tape, staples and 4x15" ties. Out of 2 thicknesses of paper towel I cut out the pattern minus the big wedge in the center which I treat like a big dart taping it on both sides. The only thing that every one is less likely to have than I do is the cloth tape for the ties, but almost any strips of fabric will do and they can be reused. I think it takes less than 5 minutes to make.
(not me, not my mask, but this pattern with a dart where the front seam is.)


Cut and mark double thickness of paper towel.
Fold and tape down 2 side darts then central dart - no need to cut excess
Staple the ties into marked places flat side of staple to inside.

Hi Susan my dear, i hope that you are coping well during this Pandemic and hope you have as good a weekend as you can and send love and hugs from Yorkshire to you from both of us dear friend.

#94) The Chinese Bell Murders



Judge Dee in mid career as a magistrate, is posted to Poo-yang where everything seems to be pretty prosperous and the only crime is a rape murder with an obvious suspect. Then there are those Buddhist monks who are ever so prosperous and a crazy old woman who claims a merchant has ruined her family in Canton and killed her grandson here. More like an interesting tour through a novel judicial system and strange town than a modern mystery, still the characters are interesting and the puzzles, at least the first time through, intriguing. This may be my fourth time through, but at least it's been well over a decade.

@paulstalder reminded me about these books, my husband has a complete set so seeing as Paul posed a suitable challenge it was

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #15: Read a COVID-19-book (Crooks-Or-Venerables-I-Discover-in-19-countries-book)

>26 quondame: Two for one!! Dick Frances is always a fun read.

>28 quondame: And thanks for the mask info.

Happy new thread--stay well!

Happy new thread!

>26 quondame: As always, expertly and succinctly summarized. I just read Blood Sport again myself and enjoyed it thoroughly.

>27 quondame: I had to wait outside the vet last week until the one human customer in the reception/waiting area had left before I could go inside to pick up Inara’s arthritis medicine. I appreciated the social distancing. I’ve cleaned out my pantry and one small closet since this all started. Next up is inventorying the frozen food. Good luck with Gertie’s shot and more stir-crazy projects.

>28 quondame: Thanks for posting that link. It may come to my using it very soon.

Peeking in again {checking for those horrid 8-legged thing}... seems safe again.
That was an interesting overview of The Chinese Bell Murders. I'd never heard of this series.

>The vet we've been using for over a decade has a huge office, and could easily have 12 people+pets in the lobby 6" apart, but, pets don't know the rules and their staff was pretty occupied keeping the room pleasant for the human visitors while occupied by anxious animals. So, it's wait in designated spot and consult over the phone as standard practice.

#95) Gilead



Not exactly a novel, more a letter in a bottle memoir, though the bottle is time and chance. John, an elderly minister writes to the son of his old age, recalling his abolitionist reverend grandfather a Kansas Free-State settler, active in the underground railroad, and his father also a Congregationalist minister whose experience of the Civil War left him as strongly pacifist as his father was militant. So three generations of stories, views and experiences inform the first part of the book, while the last are John's own difficulties dealing with his namesake godson, son of his dear friend the retired Presbyterian minister. There is some theology and plentiful writing about faith, forgiveness, and love. John has no doubts about his faith, only how he can overcome his anger and discomfort to apply his faith to what may well be unsolvable pain to at least find peace that he has done what he should.
Beautifully written, the reader come to care for John and his unusual family and to understand from what he has made his life in the small dying town of Gilead, Iowa, before the religious themes come to dominate.

I'm not Christian, but my father's great-grandfather and his great-great-grandfather were Congregationalist ministers and abolitionists. If my grandfather had been as well and if late in life he had married a woman my mother's age, this could be their story the ages are so closely matched that the young son in the story is the same age I was in 1956.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #3: Read a book you might not have read this month without COVID-19

>30 quondame: I have several books in the Judge Dee series. I will have to give them a read.

>36 quondame: I need to give that one a reread and then continue on through the series. Thanks for the reminder, Susan.

I hope the mask-wearing helps keep you safe and healthy!

Hope you have had a lovely, peaceful, safe and healthy weekend, Susan

#96) Mash



This is a series of humorous medical Korean-war stories, for which the characters of Duke, Hawkeye, Trapper John and others were invented to be a consistent set of protagonists, and mostly it works pretty well, though the movie and TV series are much more amusing. This is so dated by it's dismissive attitudes toward women, that even the efforts to write the Swamp surgeons as tolerant (they send the Korean house boy to college in the US and are fine sharing quarters with Spearchucker{!?!}) I wanted to stomp on it from time to time. Also I wasn't much interested in the longish golf and football games in a couple of the chapters - those work when on-screen. Also no Klinger and Radar is just a plot gimmick.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #16: April birthstone challenge - read a book with a predominantly white/ silvery cover started by humouress

This is Gertie, a 12lb. force of nature, today in the midst of requiring my daughter to do something for her now!

>39 quondame: Certainly sounds like the TV series is better.

#97) Vodka Doesn't Freeze



Blech. Well enough written, and quick moving, but when the protagonist's inner voice says not to do something, but she does, repeatedly, well no. The milieu is Sydney police vs pederasts and it's as unpleasant as you'd guess, not to much point as there is so much unreal on offer.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #6: Read a book that has something you would put in a cocktail in the title or author's name

>40 quondame: awww quite adorable.

Sorry that your last couple reads were duds. Hopefully, the next one will be better. Have a great Tuesday

Well, Susan, even with two duds, I have no fear that you'll keep on reading and find some good ones.
I love Gertie's looks - a sort of combo of our May and our first dog Tricks. We love black dogs! (But not the Black Dog)
Stay safe!

>39 quondame: Yeah, I read M*A*S*H a few years ago and mostly ended up impressed at how the series developed into something so much more impressive.

>40 quondame: What a cutie!

#98) Hotel du Lac



Lovely, dreamy, evocative language, with interestingly portrayed, not terribly interesting people, mostly women, a sparse handful of out-of-place and time English staying at a Swiss hotel. The feeling is 1930s yet the time must be late 70s or early 80s. Romance novelist Miss Edith Hope, pressured to remove herself from her social circle after an embarrassment of some sort (we eventually told what), slowly confronts what her life was, is, and is likely to be and is offered a strange choice. I do wish she could have made the decision without the final piece of data, and in fact that she should find a social circle that wouldn't have pushed her out in the first place. Lord knows, the 1970s and 80s were quite rich in different social milieu. Also, anyone with the resolution to produce several novels probably is somewhat driven to do so and mistress of more resources that Edith credit's herself with.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #5: Read a book in which one of the main characters is blond(e)

>43 figsfromthistle: >45 Dejah_Thoris: My daughter calls Gertie "the little sister I never wanted", and wonders how she can be so fascinated by such a homely little creature. It is more the quality of movement and expressiveness and the imperiousness of her habits, that are attractive, rather than her appearance, which reaches "cute-little dog" at best. When I acquired her fresh from weaning puppies, she had only that way of moving to recommend her and seemed about 3 times larger than she has any claim to.

>44 LizzieD: As to duds, at least both were creditably written and not overly long.

>40 quondame: *baaawww* who's a schnozzlewozzle punkin pweshus earsy girl?!

>48 richardderus: Dumpling.

Happy New Thread, Susan.

Nice review of Gilead. It sounds like such an unlikely book to get such acclaim and devoted readership, doesn't it. What a writer she is.

How did you like the very similar (not!) All Systems Red? I'm a Murderbot fan, and can't wait for her new one to come out.

>50 jnwelch: I've had Network Effect pre-ordered since last November. I'm planning a reread of the novellas before it come out May 5th. I can't wait, either, lol.

>50 jnwelch: I did enjoy reading Gilead, but she does rather stack the deck for the reverend, doesn't she? I made the comparison to my grandfather because all family members spoke of his generosity and vigorous good nature, and that lot were a bad tempered complainers every one, so he must have been something quite special and I could well imagine him holding the unshakable, accepting Christianity as John Ames. From the portraits of the actual Reverend Haseltines, I don't think they were of that ilk.

>50 jnwelch: >51 Dejah_Thoris: I have been a Martha Wells fan since I picked The Cloud Roads off the library's new book shelf almost a decade ago. She has done fabulous work with All Systems Red and the sequels, and yes, I really am looking forward to Network Effect

#99) The Song of the Quarkbeast



Silly magical adventure, with the unmagical foundling Jennifer Strange, holding Kazam together amidst petrified sorcerers and evil competitors. Light, fast, and faintly amusing.

Meets April TIOLI Challenge #12: Read a book you consider a comfort read

Two more reads until triple digits....

>52 quondame: Interesting that you related Gilead back to your own family, Susan. I loved that book at well. I have similar feelings about my own grandfather, my father’s father who died before I was born. He was a devoutly religious man, and a deacon and founder member of the Welsh Baptist Church in the town where they moved in later life. I’ve never heard a bad word spoken about him whereas I’ve heard quite a lot of bad words spoken about my father’s mother. My Dad always used to say that if they asked my mother’s mother to look after the children for a few hours, when they were collected they had always been ‘as good as gold’ and ‘no bother at all’. If he asked his own mother there would be a list of complaints as long as your arm about what the children had done wrong and how much of a nuisance they had been!

>36 quondame: You got me. I have Gilead on my shelves, have just brought it down from upstairs, and will see if it ‘works’ for me right now.

>39 quondame: I loved this book when I first read it, was staggered at the concept of ‘meatball surgery’. I love the movie but don't care for the series.

>40 quondame: Very sweet picture of Gertie.

>42 quondame: On of the things that irritates me, too – protagonists doing stupid things that they know they shouldn’t do.

Happy newish thread, Susan. The pace of your reading is impressive. I can't believe you are almost at 100 already. I hope you are having a happy and peaceful long weekend, although in these days of social isolation all the days seem to blend into each other.

#100) Burial Rites



A strange novel about the last months of the condemned murderer Agnes Magnusdottir and a few of those who are witness to them, including the women of the household in which she is lodged and the young apprentice priest whom she has requested, tough not, as it transpires, to help her find peace with God and Church. The writing is flowing and persuasive, and the setting bleak but the resilience of the people is a low key amazement.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #7: Read a book you started before but put down unfinished

>55 SandDune: My grandfather died just after Kennedy's assassination and I was in 9th grade, so I knew him, but only in his 80s and 90s when he had lost the dexterity in his hands and was fading faster and faster, and the bitter quarrels of his sons eclipsed and other presence at family gatherings - but he always gave each grandchild a dollar at the end of every visit. His wife, my grandmother, sent back thank you notes with the spelling corrected. My mother's father has to have been among the worst parents ever, and much of our live was influenced by strategies to keep him at a distance, her mother dead at 38 in the age before penicillin could have helped her. Some of us are mostly sane, well much of the time. Families do make such good fodder for entertainments, but better it be other people's families.

>56 karenmarie: Hi, Karen!

>57 Familyhistorian: Well, the stay at home business is probably easier on me than anyone else I know - I've got Mike and Becky here with me and they are both working. Mike is going stir crazy, but at least he is taking Covid-19 seriously now, and Becky is got lots of online friends and games going to help. Maybe we should set up an archery range in the back yard...

Today is my 33rd wedding anniversary. I have ordered in (almost) all my favorite dishes from a great Lebanese restaurant a couple of miles from us, plus a few things for my husband and daughter. I may not be able to fit out the door once we are released from the stay at home order. I'm currently stuck in the middle of a too long book wandering with doubtful companions in a too grim world. But at least they get to be outdoors in the sunshine.

Congratulations on your 33rd wedding anniversary, Susan!
Bon appetit!

>58 quondame: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Susan!

>60 quondame: Happy anniversary!!

>60 quondame: Happy anniversary! Dinner sounds marvelous!

Happy anniversary, Susan and spouse!

>60 quondame: All best wishes to you and the spousal unit. 33 years is an achievement. And Lebanese food? How great is that!

Re >46 quondame:, I think I missed some of the nuances you commented about, such as not needing that final moment of realising that no, this wasn't a good choice. I had a sense that it was a "don't go there" situation, but I thought it was *my* reaction. Brookner's writing was clever that way. And absolutely, it felt very 1930's so yes, find a social circle that wouldn't have pushed her out in the first place.
Great review in fact!

I missed your anniversary on the day, Susan, but I congratulate you and wish you an equally happy 34th year!

I wanted my message this year to be fairly universal in a time we all should be pulling together, whatever our beliefs. Happy Celebration, Happy Anniversary and Happy Sunday, Susan.

Happy Anniversary, Susan, one day late.

Happy anniversary!

Hi Susan my dear, Happy 33rd wedding anniversary dear friend.

#101) (Previously #100) Lotus Blue



The author claims inspiration from Dune, and indeed we spend the entirety of the 3x too long journey in blistering dust, but really this is an unrelieved journey to Mordor, though unknown until the end to most of the travelers. And there are more Saurons out there. The writing is good enough to keep going through uninteresting characters, often improbable actions, all the plot bolts and gears clearly outlined, nothing hidden or inscrutable here.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #14: Read a book for the APRIL rolling challenge

>61 FAMeulstee: >62 alcottacre: >63 Dejah_Thoris: >64 richardderus: >65 SandyAMcPherson: >66 LizzieD: >67 PaulCranswick: >68 karenmarie: >69 drneutron: >70 johnsimpson: Thank you all for the anniversary wishes! The dinner was delicious, and it is a good thing I am well out of breath range until the garlic sauce is out of my system!

>65 SandyAMcPherson: Thank you for your review of my review!

>66 LizzieD: You did get your message in on the actual day!

>67 PaulCranswick: Thanks for the lovely image and message!

A message for us all:



Brought to you by: Maks Viktor Antiquarian Books

The English Patient
Has
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On the Beach
I Should Have Stayed Home
She Said
Now
She Was
In Quarantine
In the Dark
House of Splendid Isolation
Still
Hope Springs Eternal
With a Little Bit of Luck
Common Sense
And
Proper Hygene
The Corona Book of Horror Stories
Must End Soon
Always Remember
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>73 quondame: How fabulous! Thanks for sharing, Susan.

Happy Easter, Susan.

Stay well.

>71 quondame:

>73 quondame: Ha! I love that!

#102) Notorious RBG



Biography lite, concentrating on RBG's fight for equal rights for women and including men, her belief that real lasting change is incremental, and finishing before 2016 and the current (April, 2020) disasters

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #13: Read a biography or autobiography

Dropping by to admire the wonder of a reader who completed #100 books by Easter Sunday!!

Meanwhile, in my neck of the woods... I'm drinking too much coffee ~
and as a result, , I washed some woollens in hot water. Ooops.

Edited to say, it was probs not hot water. It was a fast spin. As I said below, nope, not calling out the repair people.

>78 SandyAMcPherson: In my corner it's coffee or nothing, stupid or otherwise, gets done at all, at all.

I hear there's something to help with that - I used to run across it all the time on eBay, but all I can find now is to use either baby shampoo or hair conditioner. The internet provides plenty of instructions on how to unshrink a sweater. It's OK to wash wool in hot water 1) if the temperature is raised slowly and 2) the garment isn't agitated roughly. I got that from a museum textile curator. Garments with interior structure are not included.

Thanks for the advice.
My SIL said I could gently steam iron the blanket while block-stretching. It was a sofa throw to keep warm while reading, so not a huge loss if I can't rectify the shape a bit. The wool socks are now mine and the sweater turned out to be rescued by the light steam shaping.

The washer should have not spun fast and I think that's what did it. The water temp was quite cool ('cause the water from the cold tap is perishingly chilled), so I'm guessing it was the spin cycle. Ho hum. Not going to be calling out the repair service.

Glad you are handling this stay at home ok.

I love the Max Viktor book "poem"/thing!

Ow, (the blanket woes)!

#103) Call for the Dead



Early Smiley, I've read several of the later books, and don't remember them with the circles and arrows pointing to the inconsistent bits of evidence, but it was long ago if only a few miles away. It was interesting being introduced to George Smiley and catch a first whiff of Ann.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #8: Read an espionage thriller published in the 1960s

>71 quondame: Touchstone links to a Tin-Tin book, which I don't think is what you intended! I would be tempted by the description but your 2.5 stars has me considering how my valuable time could be better spent.

>83 ronincats: Maybe TinTin is a better bet?

>82 quondame: Regarding 1960's espionage thrillers, I used to devour those by Le Carré, Freemantle, Deighton and the like. When I was doing my huge book cull back in 2016-17, I vowed to re-read everything that I planned token.

*All* those authors went to the used book shop (trade credit! Who knew these authors were 'collectibles'?) I found the way the stories were written and how politics was portrayed really off. Did the writing strike you as acceptable? The plots were ok but I wasn't drawn in by them. I'd re-read them too many times perhaps.

>83 ronincats: Only it didn't - when I scroll over it or click it it's the John le Carré title. We seem to have a new bug!

>71 quondame: Yay for 100! Congratulations.

>73 quondame: Very clever. Thanks for sharing.

>86 karenmarie: Thanks! Glad you like it.

#104) Tell Me a Riddle



Less stories than spiky stream of conscious dips into lives on the bare edge of survival with blows that can't be born but must, helpless to protect much less nurture their children, parents, spouses. Also, this includes gritty, unromantic accounts of strikes and arrests for labor actions, but retains hope that the fight for a better life for more than just themselves might bear fruit. As ugly as our times are, we have no monopoly on ugliness, and our anger feels like pale echos of theirs.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #11: Read a book by a female author, dedicated to parent(s) or child(ren)

Definitely a bug, then, because when I go to your touchstone right now and hover over it, The Blue Lotus by Herge comes up. That is very, very weird!

Oh, wait, no. I was referencing Lotus Blue in message >71 quondame:, NOT the Le Carre book in >82 quondame:.

Congratulations on your anniversary and on reaching #100! Obviously the first one is more important. : )

>89 ronincats: OK, now I see what happened - Lotus Blue / Blue Lotus touchstones could work better, that's for sure.

>90 Berly: Thanks!

#105) A Plague of Bogles



Yet another London urchin series. CD has much to answer for. Jem, on the search for his ex-handler who sent him to be boggle food, connects a bar maid with a boggle problem to a retired boggle hunter and becomes an apprentice boggler's boy. Boggling and near escapes abound.

I intended, and still intend, to read The Plague, but don't own a copy and the e-books all have huge long wait lists, so we'll see if the Penguin translation by Robin Buss, which is available in Canada, reaches me this month. There appears to be lots of interest in the book just now.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #9: Read a book where someone is sick or confined or the title includes an illness

A couple of days ago I blistered the side of my hand on an unexpectedly hot pan handle - unexpected because I rarely have two burners going at once. I slapped some film over it and that's been fine - well until I took off my gloves after coming in from shopping. I just now noticed that the bandage must have come off with the glove, fortunately with no damage. Now I know how to safely remove that sort of film. Off to wash the hands an re-apply it.

This article has a lot of cool book images, but this is my choice for a comfort read!

>88 quondame: Adding that one to the BlackHole!

>94 quondame: I like it!

>94 quondame: Ah, I loved the images in the link. So cool.

#106) The Three



A novel without a central character, we get a close relative of each of three wildly unlikely survivors of separate plane crashes, and those who for one currency or another, try to invest the survivals with meaning. Mostly concentrated on mapping the three to the apocalyptic horsemen and the fallout from doing so, these bits form the novel within the novel, which would have been left stronger without the final bit of direct narrative.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #10: Read a book containing at least three different themes

>95 alcottacre: >96 PawsforThought: Isn't it full of mind tickling images?

>92 quondame: CD has much to answer for. Assuming you don't mean Catherine Deneuve, I've been saying that for *decades*!

>99 richardderus: But I rather like a number of his books and will probably read a few more if I've a few more years ahead of me. I'm just tired of decades worth of plucky, take care of themselves, urban orphans, whether in a version of London or some wildly fantastic metropolis, whose inventors never bothered to notice that CD's wee miscreants were the victims of ruthless adults.

>93 quondame: I hope the burn is healing up nicely. Film?

>101 karenmarie: It's doing pretty well, but I may in future want to try the on-brand version of . CVS products have proven inferior to others more times than I care to count, so this may just be another such - it peels at the edges after a couple of hours and even trimming it to shape won't keep it on 48hrs.

#107) One Fell Sweep



Dina hosts another group of problematical aliens with an offer she can't refuse, and this time a she has allies which include her sister Maud and Maud's half-vampire daughter Helen, both rescued from exile on a vampire waste world. Hunky guys, flashing blades, exotic intelligences abound and there is lots of action suspense. Great potato-chip read.

Meets April TIOLI Challenge #5: Read a book in which one of the main characters is blond(e)

>97 quondame: I may give that one a shot. Thanks for the review, Susan.

Stay healthy and safe!

#108) Sweep of the Blade



This volume is all battles in a vampire court, endless overwhelming odds against battles, which don't half compare to the fun of watching an Innkeeper. Granted, it's nice to see Maud doing her thing(s), but since she's invariably good at what she does and we know how these books work, it's just calisthenics.

Meets April TIOLI Challenge #12: Read a book you consider a comfort read

>105 quondame: It's interesting - Ilona Andrews tried to pull this from publication because they didn't feel it was ready, but they waited a bit too late. I enjoyed it far more than you did, but I do find the Inns fascinating.

>102 quondame: Ah, thanks. It's always a crapshoot with generic brands.

I'm getting deeper into Lonesome Dove now, not sure how long it will take to reach the end of the trail - but why ever did Larry McMurty put such a massive set of spoilers in his introduction?

I read the first two Sweep books, but haven't continued the series, Susan. Hope the hand is healing well.

Impressive reading as always, Susan.

I might join you on Lonesome Dove but I'll never catch up!

#109) Lonesome Dove



Wow. Full of amazing storytelling, able to lasso every cattle drive adventure in a single novel, bring to life a various band of wild-west misfit has-beens and wannabes, and cover an astounding amount of territory. He seems to manage to retell the myths as if they were real not just by choice of viewpoint character, but by using the chosen characters deepest flaws or weaknesses, even if it is only inexperience, to get the traction on the event - so we see the dust storm, stampede, the locust swarm with teenage Newt trying to see past his horse's ears and just finding relief when conditions clear. We follow the abductors with the experienced Gus who knows it may be his last chase but feels he owes it to Lorena rather than with the besotted young Dish. These men don't just have feet of clay, they are mostly just baked enough for occasional service, but McMurtry makes the total improbabilities and excesses of his incidents real by filtering them through such vessels. I'd have gone the full 5 stars, but I was worn out by the end, and Deets is pretty much standard issue Magical Negro.

Meets April TIOLI Challenge #5: Read a book in which one of the main characters is blond(e)

>110 PaulCranswick: It seems unlikely unless you found a good time-warp service.

>111 quondame:, Hi Susan my dear, i loved the Lonesome Dove series, the story telling is fabulous.

Bill/@weird_O in t2-c60 credits Jeff/@mahsdad t2-c68
For bringing up this list of
The 50 Best Contemporary Novels Over 500 Pages

And there is a lively discussion going on with @PaulCranswick starting at t10-216

Of the 50, I've read:

N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (512 pages)
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (512 pages)
Min Jin Lee, Pachinko (512 pages)
Tana French, The Witch Elm (528 pages)
John Crowley, Little, Big (538 pages)
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (559 pages)
Neil Gaiman, American Gods (635 pages)
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (639 pages)
Ken Liu, The Grace of Kings (640 pages)
Ian Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost (691 pages)
Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (704 pages)
Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren (801 pages)
Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth (806 pages)
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (864 pages)
Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (864 pages)
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy (1,488 pages)

In order of best liked, the ones I'm very glad to have read and would recommenced wholeheartedly to someone I thought had any chance to enjoy them

Neil Gaiman, American Gods (635 pages)
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (559 pages)
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy (1,488 pages)
Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (864 pages)
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (639 pages)
John Crowley, Little, Big (538 pages)

If I thought it your thing I might recommend:
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (512 pages)
Min Jin Lee, Pachinko (512 pages)
Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth (806 pages)
N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (512 pages)

I think these are way overrated:

Ian Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost (691 pages) but interesting
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (864 pages) has interesting aspects

I can't remember much of:

Tana French, The Witch Elm (528 pages)
Ken Liu, The Grace of Kings (640 pages)
Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren (801 pages)

I strongly disliked:

Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (704 pages)

Hmm I've read 21 of these. Some don't strike me as all that worthy, but oh well. I have four right on my tbr shelves!!!

My kind of song! The Liar Tweets Tonight

>115 sibylline: Which ones do you rate most highly?

Only read 7 of them. There are a bunch I have no interest in reading.

>114 quondame:, I didn't like The Bonfire of the Vanities either.
My reading group (back in the day, when I thought a book club was "A Good Idea") considered it stellar and oh-so-insightful or was it philosophical? Can't remember. Thankfully. I now know I am in good company for not taking to the novel.

I couldn't get past the first 100 pages of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and always felt I was missing something, but I despaired of picking it up again. Probably its sheer size put me off.

I need to visit Paul's thread, I see.

>118 ronincats: I only found 4, all under 600 pages, that I currently have any interest in and they were all mentioned recently on LT. And it's not that I don't like big books, though I admit when I'm trying to rack up challenges I do select, among other things, for shortness.

>119 SandyAMcPherson: I did finish Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but while I liked a lot of the magic bits, I found the rivalry absurd, the milieu annoying and the ending buggered. Bonfire was just a depressing drag - except for the term "social x-rays" but that's more mean spirited than insightful.

>118 ronincats: Always welcome, Sandy, but Susan has read considerably more of the Lit Hub list than I.

>120 quondame: Yes I do find myself doing that these days. I used to read more chunksters before LT.
John Simpson on the other hand reads little else.

>121 PaulCranswick:, Ha, ha, ha, ha

I did the seedling hunt, though I did need the clue to find #5, but then I have a black thumb.

#110) Kingdom of Copper



Another longer than necessary volume, though it didn't drag quite as much as the first, however, no one seems to have learned much from mistakes as this is a continuation of them and the consequences grow. But all the view point characters are still with us.

Meets April TIOLI Challenge #4: Read a book by an author you have read before

>124 quondame: I liked The City of Brass quite a bit more than I did The Kingdom of Copper. I'm hoping it was bit of the middle book blues and the the third will be much better.

>125 Dejah_Thoris: I rated Brass higher than Copper, mostly because same deadly idiots, not so much new magic, but Copper was a bit easier to read.

#110) The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo



Why set a story in the 1920s and have zilch period feel? This tale was a little bit clever, but not as clever as it thinks it is, and it has very little originality.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #16: April birthstone challenge - read a book with a predominantly white/ silvery cover

>127 quondame: Yeah, I was disappointed with this one. I thought her Sorcerer to the Crown - have you read it? - was pretty good, but bailed on the sequel The True Queen.

Btw, you've got the title as Kingdom of Copper.

The weather has really warmed up here. After weeks and weeks of our winter (usually 5 weeks straight of cold is all LA can do before going 90s) now we get 80s and 90s for about 10 days. I wonder if we're going to be done out of our June gloom, having already had it.

>123 quondame: I did the seedling hunt, too.
Has to be the first hunt I finished without resorting to the hints and tips thread. I think LT staff made the clues a little less obscure this round.

#111) Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk



I like Lillian Boxfish and her walk. She's the archetype which I've long admired - takes care of herself, values her friends and fun, is aware of what she isn't, but is alert and flexible enough to follow passion, and eventually resilient enough to survive washing up on passion's shore. She values wit, people, courtesy, and city life. And she keep on walking. And thanks for the flâneurie!

Meets April TIOLI Challenge #2: The long and the short of it: alternate between books with a 1-syllable title and with an 8+ syllable title

>131 quondame: Book cover is that inscrutable blue box with a question mark... now fixed! Yay.

Title and review very interesting though!

The warmer weather requires me to go up and down stairs to let the dogs in and out as open doors all day pretty much don't allow for the basic necessity of air-conditioning. I also realized that without pet groomers there are going to be a lot of scratched pet owners now all the claws have grown out!

#112) Lord Peter Views the Body



While clever and well written, these mysteries have less of what I like about the Lord Peter Wimsey books and more of the gimmicky bits I can do without.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #5: Read a book in which one of the main characters is blond(e)

>134 quondame: Interesting how you would rank the leading female crime writers of that era:

My own rank

Christie
Marsh
Tey
Sayers
Allingham
Wentworth

Would you include Georgette Heyer's crime books (I haven't read any of them)

Hi Susan!

>116 quondame: I loved it and forwarded it to my daughter.

>131 quondame: I chose Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk for my book club meeting last year and most people seemed to like it as much as you and I did.

>133 quondame: I need to clip the new kitties' claws. They catch on everything.

>134 quondame: Short stories, okay, but not at all like the delicious novels.

>135 PaulCranswick: Sayers, Christie, Tey, Marsh, haven’t read Allingham or Wentworth. IMO Heyer’s mysteries are Christie-wanna-bes.

>135 PaulCranswick: I have only read 1 Christie book, a bad one, accounting for my low score on @Morphidae's 50 Mysteries to Read Before They Find the Body in PC12:40. I don't remember any Wentworth books. I loved Sayers, remember liking March and Tey, know I've read Allingham, own a couple, and am familiar with the name of her detective, but it's been 30+ years. Heyer's mysteries are interesting curiosities.

Hi, Susan.

Good review of Lonesome Dove, and I'm really glad you liked it as much as I did. I resisted reading it for years (too much hype), and when I finally did - wow was my reaction, too. Good point about pretty much Magical Negro Deets.

I also liked Lillian Boxfish.

My list would go Christie, Sayers, P.D. James, Kate Atkinson (too recent?) and Tey.

I love Heyer's Regencies but found her mysteries (I read 2, 3 at most) distinctly meh.

Hmmm... I'd have to say:

Dorothy L. Sayers
Ngaio Marsh
Agatha Christie
although they a very different (or perhaps because they are very different) a tie between Patricia Wentworth and Josephine Tey
Margery Allingham

I, too, love Gerogetter Heyer's romances, but can't stand her mysteries.

>138 jnwelch: I think James and Atkinson don't fit the period profile, heavily pre-WWII sensibility, else I'd also include at least James and Ellis Peters

#113) Artificial Condition
#114) Rogue Protocol
#115) Exit Strategy



They are good. Read them.

Re-Read for April TIOLI Challenge #4: Read a book by an author you have read before

Hello there! I hope your hand has healed up nicely by now, despite the inferior bandage product. You've been reading some fun books -- I am a definite Lillian Boxfish fan.

Now, I have a question for you....

>114 quondame: How do you make the links ( bold below) to specific posts in other people's threads?

"Bill/weird_O in t2-c60 credits Jeff/mahsdad t2-c68"

>142 Berly: Thanks for asking. The burn has healed cleanly and I'm sure the brand will fade before I get out of lock down.
At the bottom of each post I click on More, the Link. I copy the link location form the top of the window and use it as follows:
(a href="link")Text I want to show(/a) with the (s & )s replaced by angle brackets.

>141 quondame: Well drat - I wish you waited until May to reread these! I'm waiting for May 1st - 4th to read a novella a day ahead of Network Effect. If I start to reread them too soon, the wait will be far more annoying, lol.

>144 Dejah_Thoris: Well, I spent so much time with Lonesome Dove and Kingdom of Copper that I had to do something to narrow the gap a bit. Besides, shared reads just waiting to happen. I suspect you won't be alone.
I found that they have pretty much all the same plot - Murderbot goes looking for something, it hacks a lot of other systems and sometimes has relationships with them, its search both complicated and facilitated by humans leading to "developments". Which is why I knocked a half star off the 3rd & 4th.

>131 quondame: Absolutely agree about Lillian. What a fun book that was.

>141 quondame: Won't argue there, either.

Spend a happy day today.

>145 quondame: Yes, the plots are rather similar, but I enjoy them all the same. It'll be interesting to see where she goes with Network Effect.

#116) To Be Taught, If Fortunate



A message in a "bottle" narrative which describes the voyage of one of a number a publicly funded space explorations. Using a modest palette of notions the encounters on the planetary bodies of a system are wondrous and baleful or both.

Re-Read for April TIOLI Challenge #4: Read a book by an author you have read before

>146 richardderus: I hope your Sunday was good, too!

>147 Dejah_Thoris: As are many of us. Bring it on!

OK, I have started The Plague. This is the book! I read it in my youth, Camus being my (French teacher of a ) mother's favorite author and had it pounded into me that the plague was a metaphor for fascism. Well, it's a pretty good metaphor for the plague as well!

From the translation by Robin Buss:

"A pestilence does not have human dimensions, so people tell themselves that it is unreal, that it is a bad dream which will end. But it does not always end, and from one bad dream to the next, it is people who end, humanists first of all because the have not prepared themselves. The people of our town were no more guilty than anyone else, they merely forgot to be modest and thought that everything was still possible for them, which implied that pestilence was impossible. They continued with business, with making arrangements for trade and holding opinions. Why should they have thought about the plague, which negates the future, negates journeys and debate? The considered themselves free and no one will ever be free as long as there is plague, pestilence and famine." (30)

Yup, here I am again. Re visiting here a lot, I think it's because we have several philosophies for reading in common, although my library doesn't match yours hugely.

I long ago marked yours as 'interesting library' in member connections when I was first exploring LibraryThing. We share what I think of as 'the soul' or perhaps better 'the heart' of my library books, the ones that had a great impact or changed my way of thinking after I read them or ones I return to often for re-reading. We like many similar fantasy authors.

I also note that you've pointed me to some authors I never would have discovered like Bujold for instance. Other members have similarly hit me with a lot of BBs too, but their libraries have less of the Fantasy, historical adventure and strong female leads appeal.

>150 quondame: I took an existentialist class in Literature at U-Victoria back in about 1967/68. It was fascinating and my biggest introduction to Camus. I know I had to read The Plague en français in my first-year French class, but the Lit class was better at elevating my understanding (not to mention way cool with discussions and philosophy etc). Very addictive material.

Haven't peeked at Camus since the mid-70's though. My loss ~ now I've forgotten a lot of what those those Nilhilism authors had to say.

>151 SandyAMcPherson: Oh, I always associated Camus with existentialism rather than nihilism, as my mother fancied herself one, but really was fundamentally involuntary fear-locked conservative. I don't aspire to philosophy, just hold a few values to get on with, and I guess absurdist comes closest. I never learned much French and as I understood what my mother was saying without regard to the language in which she spoke, I imagined, quite incorrectly, that I did know it. I could at one time read aloud with a comprehensible accent, no more. I entered college in 67, aiming at a chemistry degree, but that didn't last past a few pair of acid splashed panty hose. Those things cost and my legs weren't quite up to being bared in mini-skirts.

The Plague

From the beginning of Part II:

"One of the most remarkable consequences of the closing of the gates was indeed a sudden separation of people who were not prepared for it. Mothers and children, wives, husbands and lovers, who had imagined a few days earlier that they were embarking on a temporary separation, who had embraced on the platform of the station with some pieces of last-minute advice, sure that they would see one another a few days or a few weeks later, deeply entrenched in their idiotic human faith in the future, this parting causing barely a pause in the course of their everyday concerns, found themselves abruptly and irremediably divided, prevented from meeting or communicating with one another, because the gates were closed some hours before the prefectural decree was published and, of course it was impossible to consider individual cases." (53)

Two sentences. All the anxiety, all the heartbreak.

>153 quondame: The king of the run-on sentence there... is the whole novel like that??

>154 SandyAMcPherson: Yes and no. There are concise statements followed by elaborate restatements, followed by descriptions of the whole of Oran, followed by individuals' actions and struggles. His style, as translated but consistent with what I remember from (a different translator's) The Stranger, is like a dry desert wind, merciless in stripping to the bone human values and motivations, elegant or decayed.

>150 quondame: Oh my. What a quote. I’m going to save it and might even use it for my next thread. I’d read it, but my daughter borrowed my copy aeons ago and she’s 3 hours away.

>155 quondame: I should be joining you and Anita for The Plague - I'm looking forward to it!

>152 quondame: You entered college in 67? Good gracious, Plato's Academy must've been very exciting then! Were you sad when it closed forever in 83?

>150 quondame: It was the sixties. Naturally I can't remember.

>159 quondame: Snort.

More quotes from The Plague: These are from Part II. Page numbers are those in Penguin edition first published 2001 (that was the right year!)

No one had yet really accepted the idea of the disease. Most were chiefly affected by whatever upset their habits or touched on their interests. They were annoyed or irritated by them and these are not feelings with which to fight the plague. (61)

At the beginning, when they thought it was a sickness like any other, religion had its place. But when they saw that it was serious, they remembered pleasure. (93)

Paneloux (the priest) is a scholar. He has not seen enough people die and that is why he speaks in the name of eternal truths. But the least little country priest who administers to his parishioners and who has heard the breath of a dying man thinks as I do. He would treat suffering, not try to demonstrate what a fine thing it is. (Rieux speaking, 97)

But the narrator is rather inclined to believe that by giving too much importance to fine actions one may end by paying an indirect but powerful tribute to evil, because in so doing one implies that such fine actions are only valuable because they are rare, and that malice or indifference are far more common motives in the actions of men. The narrator does not share this view. The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance, and goodwill can cause as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened. (100)

This would be to give truth its due, to give the sum of two and two its total of four, and to give heroism the secondary place that it deserves, just after - but never before - the generous demand of happiness. It would also define the nature of this chronicle, which is to be that of an account made up of good feelings, which is to say feelings that are neither visibly bad not designed to arouse emotion in the unpleasant manner of a stage play. (105)

On to Part III!

Part III was short.

"There were no longer any individual destinies, but a collective history that was the plague, and feelings shared by all. The greatest of thes were feelings of separation and exile, with all that that involved of fear and rebellion." (129)

"Inside the town someone had the idea of quarantining certain districts which had been especially hard hit and only allowing people whose services were indispensable to leave them. Those who had lived there until that time were bound to consider this measure as a for of victimization particularly directed against them; in any case, the considered the inhabitants of other areas to be free men. Meanwhile, people from these other areas found some consolation in hard times in the idea that there were those still less free than themselves." (30)

about hurried mass burials:
"But in time of plague, these are considerations which cannot concern us: everything was sacrificed to efficiency. Moreover, while at the start the morale of the people was affected by such practices - because the desire to be decently buried is more widespread that you might think - luckily, after a short while, there was an urgent problem of food supplies and the attention of the inhabitants turned toward more immediate concerns. Taken up with queuing. pulling strings and filling forms if they wanted to eat, people did not have time to worry about how others were dying around them and how they themselves would one day die." (134)

luckily!?! This is black humor!

Part IV awaits!

(While still very bad at typing, I'm much, much better than when I joined LT. Be afraid......)

>158 richardderus: LMAO.
RD is one of the drollest members. I am totally cheered up!

>161 quondame:, 162 Susan!! These are rocking' good quotes. I love this bit ~ it is SO current...

No one had yet really accepted the idea of the disease. Most were chiefly affected by whatever upset their habits or touched on their interests. They were annoyed or irritated by them and these are not feelings with which to fight the plague.

Your labours with typing are highly appreciated. Thank you. I'm a 4-finger whiz myself, a pair for each hand... my kids scoff at my lack of "key boarding". In this case I have a thick skin.

Edited to remark that, it is actually kind of scary how uncanny these quotes are! Yes, I guess that's why you are posting them.

>163 SandyAMcPherson:

The Plague Part IV

This section goes into the activities and final days of several of the significant characters as deaths continue at a fairly constant level after 6 months.

Part IV

Tarrou, an observer, says of Cottard:
“He has a clear assessment of the contradictions in the inhabitants of Oran, who, while they feel a deep need for warmth, which brings them together, at the same time keeps them apart. You know very well that you cannot trust your neighbor, that he is quite capable giving you the plague without knowing it and taking advantage of your lowered guard to infect you. When, like Cottard, you have spent your days looking for possible police spies in everyone, even people you liked being with, you can understand the feeling. One can very well sympathize with those people who live with the idea that from one day to the next the plague might touch them on the shoulder and that it is perhaps getting ready to do so just as one is congratulating oneself on still being safe and sound. As far as one can be, Cottard is at ease in terror. But because he has felt all this before them, I think that he cannot really feel how cruel this uncertainty is. In short, with us, who have not yet died of the plague, he is aware that his freedom and his life are on the brink of destruction at any moment. But since he has himself lived in terror, he considers it normal that others should experience it in their turn. Or, more precisely, terror seems to him a less heavy burden than if he were all alone.” (154)

“Of course, no one could fault the equality of death, but it was not one that anybody wanted.” (183)

Of himself, and his anti-death penalty views (plague = killing others) Tarrou says:
“Yes, I have continued to feel ashamed, and I learn that we are all in the plague, and I have lost my peace of mind. I am still looking for it today, trying to understand all of them and not to be the mortal enemy of anybody. All I know is that one must do one’s best not to be a plague victim and this is the only thing that can give us hope of peace or, failing that, a good death. This is what may give relief to men and, even if it does not save them, does them the least possible harm, and sometimes even a little good. This is why I have decided to reject everything that directly, or indirectly, makes people die or justifies others in making them die.” (194-195)

>164 SandyAMcPherson: I'm glad you find these interesting. Yes, Richard is a great asset.

Thank you for the labor of sharing the quotes with us, Susan. As your exact contemporary, I also had the pleasure of attending Plato's Academy...

I thought >150 quondame: and >153 quondame: especially spoke to me and to some of the issues here in America in particular with our historical emphasis on individuality.

>167 ronincats: I totally admit to picking ones that strike my contemporary elbows.

Part V - The deaths slow, the last of the deaths due to plague, the first of the disturbances of the open city.

Some of these quotes indicate survival or death of a character so:


Rieux, the doctor at the center of the book, has tended a dying friend.
“The night that followed was not one of struggle bur of silence. In the room, Rieux, now dressed, cut off from the world and standing over this dead body, felt the surprising calm that many nights ago he had felt on the rooftops above the plague, after the attack on the gates. Already at that time he had been thinking about the silence that rose from the beds where he had left men to die. It was always the same pause, the same solemn internal, the same lull that followed a battle, it was the silence of defeat. But in the case of the silence that enfolded his friend, it was so compact, and harmonized so closely with the silence of the streets and the town liberated from the plague, that Rieux really felt that this time it was the definitive defeat, the one that ends wars and make of peace itself an irremediable suffering.” (223)

“But if that is what it meant to win the game, how hard it must be to live with only what one knows and what one remembers, and deprived of what one hopes. This was no doubt how Tarrou had lived and he was aware of the sterility of a life without illusions. There is no peace without hope and Tarrou, who denied men the right to condemn anyone. yet who knew that no one can prevent himself from condemning and that even victims can sometimes be executioners - Tarrou had lived in a state of turmoil and contradiction, and he had never known hope.” 225

“Those were the ones who, like Rieux himself, had been rash enough to count on time; now they were separated forever. But there were still others, like Rambert, whom the doctor had left that very morning with the words; ‘Courage, now is the time to prove you're right’; and these had unhesitatingly reunited with the absent love whom they thought was lost. At least for a period they would be happy. They new now that if there is one thing that one can always desire and sometimes obtain, it is human affection.” (231)


“However, he knew that this chronicle could not be a story of definitive victory. It could only be the record of what hd to be done and what, no doubt, would have to be done again, against the terror and its indefatigable weapon, despite their own personal hardships, by all men who, while not being saints but refusing to gibe way to the pestilence, do their best to be doctors.” (237)

#117) The Plague



Note: this is the 2001 translation by Robin Buss.

If there is anything true about people facing deadly realities that is not in this book, I've never encountered it. The language sweeps though the book as the plague sweeps thought the city, steady and unrelenting and suddenly there is a dust devil of passion, love, loss, frustration, helplessness as the story touches individuals.

Read for April TIOLI Challenge #9: Read a book where someone is sick or confined or the title includes an illness

Just cruising over to say hi!

>170 quondame: The Plague is a great little gem.

>170 quondame: I should read that one. Adding it to the wish list. I don't need to buy anything until I've read a few things on hand.

>170 quondame: What a pleasure it is to find the book in times of trouble. Nothing is new in this world, and surprisingly to me, that's a comfort. Our present is theirs plus time.

Goddesses please bless all fiction that tells us truths without time-stamps.

>170 quondame: I have to agree with you, Susan, The Plague is a brilliant work of fiction. Makes many of my best of lists.

A little earlier

>138 jnwelch: Yep Joe, I was referring to that particular era, but I do acknowledge that there are a number of excellent female writers of murder mysteries from later and some still active:

Christiana Brand
Ruth Rendell
PD James
Val McDermid
Ann Cleeves
Elly Griffiths

Being just a few of the British ones that I like.

Kate Atkinson, I also like and also Susan Hill but it is difficult to conceive of them as mystery writers given their success with more "serious" writing.

It seems from feedback that many consider Allingham a little behind the others. I agree and found her creation Campion a bit of a prig.

>170 quondame: I'm about 1/3 of the way through The Plague - it's compelling writing. Beautiful review.

>166 quondame: >170 quondame: One more quote from Part IV - I found a marker hiding in the book.

The townspeople had adapted, they had come to heel, as people say, because that was all they could do. Naturally, they still had san attitude of misfortune and suffering, but they did not feel its sting. Dr. Rieux, for one, considered that the misfortune lay precisely in this, and that the habit of despair was worse than despair itself. Previously those separated had not really been unhappy, their suffering had a brightness that had just gone out. Now one could see them on the corner of the street, in cafés or with their friends, placid, their mind speaking about their absent ones, adopting the language of all and studying their separation just as they would study the statistics of the epidemic. While up to this point they had fiercely subtracted their suffering from the sum of collective misfortune, now they accepted it as part of the whole. Without memory and without hope, they settled into the present. In truth, everything became present for them. the truth must be told: the plague had taken away from all of them the power of love or even friendship, for love demands some future, and for us there was only the here and now. (140)

>171 figsfromthistle: >172 thornton37814: >173 richardderus: >174 PaulCranswick: >174 PaulCranswick: It's good to see some one is reading my efforts! Thanks for dropping by and leaving bread crumbs.

>174 PaulCranswick: Ruth Rendell books always seemed to have the same sort of twist to them, so while I liked them, after the first two I was always checking for a certain sort of connection. I prefer P.D. James. If I've read Christiana Brand it was last century an none of her titles rings a bell. I've read 1 of Val McDermid's mysteries and rated it 3 stars - too many co-incidences. I've read 2 Ann Cleeves, one a 3 star and one a 4, so I may try more. I've only ever wish listed Elly Griffiths. I liked When Will There Be Good News. Is the Susan Hill you mention the author of the Simon Serrailler books?

#118) Mort



Mort is one of Terry Pratchett's earlier half dozen Discworld books that proceeds with almost the same zany heart as the bulk of his later work in the series. While Reaper Man remains the laugh out loud fall in love with it Death story that bonded me to Discworld for life, this one is a worth per-cursor.

Re-read for April TIOLI Challenge #2: The long and the short of it: alternate between books with a 1-syllable title and with an 8+ syllable title

>177 quondame: They're all coming to TV. I thought you should know.

>176 quondame: Yes, Susan Hill is the creator of Simon Seraillier as well as books like The Woman in Black.

Green for Danger is a book by Brand that I would recommend.

>178 richardderus: It will be interesting to see how they manage to realise that slightly warped vision.

>178 richardderus: Thanks! I'd noticed a headline and assumed it had something to do with the ones I'd already seen, but yay! new ones, if I live so long and still have hearing. I don't think I read the first few in order as the came out - I thought the first two amusing but somewhat mean spirited, but I liked Equal Rites, and Mort, and by the time Men at Arms showed up and Vines became my favorite character, we been buying them as they came out.

Hi, Susan. If P.D. James and Atkinson are too modern, I'll happily substitute Ngaio Marsh in. But the fifth is tough - I guess it would be Ruth Rendell, although I haven't read her in years and probably won't re-read her. I still enjoy Ngaio Marsh and the others.

>174 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. Those all look fine to me, although I've yet to try Christiana Brand. I'm a nut for Elly Griffiths, and for the Fiona Griffiths mysteries by Harry Bingham.

I'm so glad to see you highly rate To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Susan. I love that one. I was disappointed by her one just before it, but this one rekindled my enthusiasm.

>181 jnwelch: I want to see more of the characters in every Chamber's book, but I always like the new ones.

>180 quondame: Thank goodness for modern medicine, then. And audiology!

#119) Last Call



This book is compelling and, for me, difficult. Neither understanding or liking card games, I have to accept Powers statements at least within the world of this novel, and it is a strange, dangerous, and fascinating world. His characters aren't innately attractive, rather the reverse, but he wields them to collective and individual ends that suit them and the structure of a fantasy quest.

When I slotted this in for poker on challenge 14-P I had forgotten 1) how long it was - 546 pages and 2) that while I find Tim Powers in general an author I can read at a brisk pace, this book is a big exception. Well, if I don't understand poker, I do understand Tarot, and enough to leave it alone, most of the time.

Re-read for April TIOLI Challenge #14: Read a book for the APRIL rolling challenge

>184 quondame: It resides on my Kindle, patiently awaiting my attention to fix on it.

Reading for the current crisis.

#120) Blood from a Stone



A professional hit on an African immigrant street vendor is outside the realm of the ordinary and nothing follows ordinary procedure as Commissario Brunetti is warned off the case immediately after he discovers something that compels him to keep on looking, though he must keep his efforts from his superiors.

Re-read for April TIOLI Challenge #15: Read a COVID-19-book (Crooks-Or-Venerables-I-Discover-in-19-countries-book)

>186 quondame: Too funny !! :D