Paul C's First Draught in the Green Dragon

This is me:



In normal book acquisition mode.

My name is Paul Cranswick and I have tended to make my home in the 75ers. I can see that there are a number of my old friends from there over here already and I'll promise to try to bring a smile or an inquisitive frown to as many people as possible in the future.

I am married to a lady I refer to as SWMBO (borrowing from Horace Rumpole it stands for She Who Must Be Obeyed) and we have three children. Yasmyne who is 23 and living in Norway at the moment. Kyran (20) who is at University (sometimes) in Portsmouth, UK and Belle my 16 year old "baby" staying with me and our maid and wondrous maker of coffee, Erni, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

SWMBO is Malay but is currently staying in Sheffield - her stay lengthened by the global lockdown - and hopefully she will be back to Malaysia in the not so distant future.

I have varied reading tastes but for genres my absolute favourites are historical fiction, literary fiction, thrillers, Scandi and poetry. I will try Sci-Fi and fantasy and I read plenty of non-fiction too. I have in excess of 4,000 books unread at home from a collection of around 11,000. I also like to make plenty of lists and keep statistics of sometimes fairly useless information.

I guess I have a reputation for being "chatty" in the 75ers and have been drawn into political debate there the latter of which I obviously won't encourage here. I hope chatty will be interpreted as friendly. Please feel free to drop by - I will always welcome visitors and will always reply.

BOOKS READ FIRST QUARTER OF 2020

January

1. Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift (2016) 149 pp - BAC Challenge
2. Paper Aeroplane by Simon Armitage (2014) 232 pp
3. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (1985) 171 pp - BAC Challenge
4. The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Peter Handke (1970) 133 pp - Nobel winner
5. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (2006) 312 pp
6. Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn (1972) 93 pp BAC Challenge
7. I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti (2001) 225 pp
8. Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding (1931) 252 pp
9. Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminski (2019) 78 pp
10. Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham (2012) 377 pp
11. James II : The Last Catholic King by David Womersley (2015) 99 pp
12. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911) 313 pp
13. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot (1922) 41 pp
14. England and the Aeroplane by David Edgerton (1991) 172 pp

February

15. Loyalties by Delphine de Vigan (2018) 182 pp
16. The World's Two Smallest Humans by Julia Copus (2012) 52 pp
17. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1991) 110 pp
18. The History Boys by Alan Bennett (2004) 200 pp BAC Challenge
19. Dregs by Jan Lier Horst (2010) 310 pp
20. On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis (2018) 313 pp
21. The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski (1993) 280 pp
22. The Roominghouse Madrigals by Charles Bukowski (1988) 256 pp
23. Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane (1996) 233 pp BAC Challenge
24. As it Was by Fred Trueman (2004) 397 pp
25. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell (1973) 314 pp BOOKER WINNER
26. Varina by Charles Frazier (2018) 353 pp AAC
27. A Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry (1998) 216 pp AAC

March

28. Past Tense by Lee Child (2018) 461 pp
29. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (2009) 266 pp NOBEL
30. Over the Moon by Imtiaz Dharkar (2014) 155 pp
31. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006) 287 pp PULITZER
32. Witness : Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom by Ariel Burger (2018) 255 pp
33. Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara (1957) 52 pp
34. The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (2013) 183 pp
35. Ivanov by Anton Chekhov (1887) 58 pp
36. Snowblind by Ragnar Jonasson (2010) 252 pp
37. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811) 374 pp
38. The English Civil War by David Clark (2008) 154 pp
39. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (1996) 280 pp
40. The Librarian by Salley Vickers (2018) 385 pp
41. The Holy Fox by Andrew Roberts (1991) 414 pp

BOOKS READ SECOND QUARTER OF 2020

April

42. The Females by Wolfgang Hilbig (2010) 129 pp
43. Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill (1956) 110 pp
44. Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra (2007) 55 pp
45. Icarus by Deon Meyer (2015) 360 pp
46. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (2019) 452 pp
47. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (1972) 172 pp
48. Behind the Sofa : Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who by Steve Berry (2013) 216 pp
49. Please Sir! by Jack Sheffield (2011) 336 pp
50. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes (2018) 82 pp
51. The Sea Gull by Anton Checkhov (1896) 68 pp
52. The Memoir of an Anti-Hero by Kornel Filipowicz (1961) 70 pp
53. Divided : Why We're Living in an Age of Walls by Tim Marshall (2018) 288 pp
54. Frozen Moment by Camilla Ceder (2009) 378 pp
55. North by Seamus Heaney (1975) 68 pp
56. Cambridge by Caryl Phillips (1991) 184 pp
57. Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott (2017) 456 pp
58. The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers (2017) 363 pp

May

59. The Drought by J.G. Ballard (1965) 233 pp
60. A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt (1960) 163 pp
61. The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories by Amos Tutuola (1990) 115 pp
62. Tales of Long Ago by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1922) 186 pp
63. Fidelity : Poems by Grace Paley (2008) 87 pp
64. Atlantic Fury by Hammond Innes (1962) 308 pp
65. The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris West (1963) 375 pp
66. The War hound and the World's Pain by Michael Moorcock (1981) 208 pp
67. Boomerang by Michael Lewis (2011) 212 pp
68. Field Work by Seamus Heaney (1979) 56 pp

Books Read in 2020 Third Q

Books Read in 2020 Fourth Q

Best Reading of the last Decade

Currently Reading

The Shoes of the Fisherman Boomerang

Pleased to meet you! And particularly glad to meet someone with an equally embarrassing sized TBR pile (even if I am currently in lockdown away from it!)

>1 PaulCranswick: Welcome to the Green Dragon. I hope you have many happy hours swilling ale with the denizens of the pub.

Of course I am trying to enlarge the image and read the titles of the books. It would be unnatural not to.

>9 pgmcc: Of course. I tried too. But he has artfully made the images too blurry.

>8 -pilgrim-: And you too. My books are spread across continents, although I don't have many in Yorkshire at the moment. Noticed from your profile that we share favourite book shops.

>9 pgmcc: Abstinence will not lead to incontinence
But swilling is always fulfilling.

I saw you joined for Atlantic Fury, Peter. Have you already crested those particular waves?

Which part of Ireland do you hail from - my ancestors are from Letterkenny and Donegal Town?

>10 -pilgrim-: I will oblige with a list of them to put you fellows out of your respective miseries.

Books shown in >1 PaulCranswick: above:

The Mistletoe Bride by Kate Mosse
The Death of Lomond Friel by Sue Peebles
Tomasby James Palumbo
Heart Songs by Annie Proulx
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Foreigners by Caryl Phillips
The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
The Harbor by Ernest Poole
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

I bought those books on 17 May 2014 but have still only read two of the nine.

>11 PaulCranswick: It was @fuzzi who got me onto the Innes. I finished Atlantic Fury last night. Very enjoyable. I will be expounding on @fuzzi's thread when she is ready. It would encourage me to read some more of his books.

I am originally from Belfast but have been living in Dublin since 1982. My wife is a Dub.

In my teens and early twenties I spent a lot of time in Donegal. I have relations on Inch Island and made that my second home when I could get away. Inch is just north of Letterkenny so you are probably familiar with its name, if not the place itself. Had I not met my wife I would probably have moved to Donegal rather than Dublin.

I am working at the moment, so will have to sign-off now. More later.

>1 PaulCranswick: Welcome to the Green Dragon! Although I don’t think we have many reading interesting in common, I’m a fan of lists and statistics myself. I lurk in all the threads here even if I don’t often have much to say in them, so I’ll likely be skulking around unless you bar the door. :)

>1 PaulCranswick: It's great to see you here Paul! I have fond memories of the grand LT meet up at Cafe Also a few years ago, organised by Darryl, Joe and Debbi, when I was lucky enough to meet you and SWMBO in person! I hope that we will be able to arrange a similar occasion after lockdown is over.

Hi Paul and welcome! Here are things we have in common - a tag with a / in it, not reading much fantasy or sci-fi, and 754 books.

>13 pgmcc: Great to meet an Irishman here, Peter. My maternal family name is Walsh and there are a lot of Walsh's in County Donegal. I have been to Inch a long, long time ago and would like to revisit sometime in the none too distant future when this lockdown madness is over.

>14 YouKneeK: I guarantee, I'll never bar the door. A lurker beats a shirker. Will go and have a look for your reading journal.

>15 Sakerfalcon: I too have very fond memories of that lovely hot day in London, Claire. You were together with your sister too as I recall. I have promised Caroline that the next time I am over we will sack the poetry shelves in a couple of bookshops and I'd love to meet up again.

>16 Bookmarque: Another thing we have in common is the reading of several books at the same time. I am also an impulse buyer - it is only that my impulses are frequent and invilve very regular visits to the few decent bookstores in Kuala Lumpur.

>1 PaulCranswick: welcome to the Green Dragon! Glad you ambled over and pushed your way in...

No social distancing necessary here, yippee!

Thanks for providing a list of your books. I don't recognize one title or author, but as my mother used to say "So many books, so little time..."

BTW, your use of "fellows" is fine by me. I work with fellows, and they aren't just male.

>13 pgmcc: I'm guilty of infecting others with Innes, I confess. Paul started it.

And I've not only finished Atlantic Fury but have reviewed it.

>19 fuzzi: I wouldn't have come over to the group, without you pointing it out to me. xx

>1 PaulCranswick: Welcome to the pub! If I can find @mrgrooism and his Hazmat suit, I'll invite you to risk your life on a PGGB, the speciality of the pub -- but only Groo has the recipe!

Lovely to see you here, Paul. Welcome to the clubpub!

>1 PaulCranswick:

Welcome, Paul. Did @fuzzi explain some the unique features of the Pub? Like the spitting cobras in the closet, the rogue Roombas, the water buffalos in the pool, etc. It helps to be informed.

Just joining in the chorus of welcome! Has anyone mentioned cheese so far?

Did I hear someone say cheese? Mmmmm... cheese...

Welcome, Paul! I don't keep a reading thread here but I lurk around the pub and occasionally cast comments about.

>24 haydninvienna: >25 ScoLgo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-BBoVUdOf4

Welcome, Paul.

>21 hfglen: Thanks, let the fasting month be finished and I'll be up for anything!

>22 libraryperilous: Nice to see you here too, Diana.

>23 suitable1: Looks like she lured over here on false pretences, Riley! Still I am here now.........

>24 haydninvienna: Ah Richard!, anyplace there is cheese will be a haven to me.

>25 ScoLgo: You'll always be welcome. Cambazola, Stilton, Sage-Derby, Smoked Gouda with Black Pepper, Camembert some of my favourites...

>26 fuzzi: Well I love it too, Fuzzi

>27 clamairy: I am hungry. Going to eat some cheese. Can't think what gave me the idea.

Welcome to the group!

>27 clamairy: Nice cheeses! That's just mean. :)

>30 Karlstar: Thank you, Jim.

>30 Karlstar: It wasn't meant to be. :o)

Goodness - I get to say happy new thread, Paul - again!

>32 clamairy: :D

>33 Dejah_Thoris: Always welcome, Princess.

Hello, welcome, I am also somewhat of a lurker, piping up when I have something to say (at least in my own mind). Now, can I have some cheese, please?

Here you go @MrsLee:

>36 fuzzi: Whatever that is, I want it. That creamy color with the delicate little holes... *sigh*
It resembles a morbier, but there is no ash line.

>36 fuzzi: >37 clamairy: Ye gods and little fishes, what a spread! I can feel my arteries narrowing just looking at all that!

>37 clamairy: it might be Tilsit.

>35 MrsLee: Lovely to see you MrsLee. Don't worry, I'll gladly share whatever provisions arrive!

>36 fuzzi: Oh yes, thank you dear Fuzzy.

>37 clamairy: Well spotted, Clare. Help yourself, please.

>38 haydninvienna: After Clare's spread in >27 clamairy: I had me a mini feast with aged Irish cheddar, Gouda smoked and spiced with black pepper and some Danish blue. I can see a recurrence and a trip to the deli counter at the supermarket in my near future. Problem is cheese is so darned expensive here.

>39 fuzzi: Good pick, I think. Perhaps a little too runny for Tilsit.

To my visitors:

Here are some British cheeses.
The shropshire is a particular favourite of mine:

>41 PaulCranswick: Yum! -- to all of them. It's a good thing that virtual CHEESE is infinitely renewable!

>42 hfglen: And calorie free!

>41 PaulCranswick: I need to get to Britain some day...

>42 hfglen: I am really missing the Shropshire Blue now - virtual cheese maybe renewable but is also making me rueful.

>43 Sakerfalcon: There is that, Claire.

>44 fuzzi: Abide until I get back there as I wouldn't want to miss out on the fun.

Hmm. There is a lovely farm shop in the Lake District that sells cheeses from all over the country, plus their own...I must go back...soon....

I just did the first cut of the week's shopping and got some Ossu-Iraty. Could have got some more exotica but out of respect for my waistline didn't. Never mind Paul, I'll send you some virtually, and some virtual gorgonzola too.

>46 -pilgrim-: I have so many happy memories of the Lake District. I used to train up there when I was racing bicycles in the days when I could sit on a bike without twisting the frame. Hardknock Pass is possibly the toughest road climb in England.

>47 haydninvienna: Yummy!

The Lake District, one place I'd like to visit. Author Joyce Stranger uses it as a setting in many of her books.

>46 -pilgrim-:, >48 PaulCranswick: & >49 fuzzi:

In my first year at college I was studying Geology, Geography & Statistics. Fieldtrips were always organised for the Easter holidays. In that year we went to North Donegal for Geology, and to The Lake District for Geography. The Lake District is beautiful, even when you are traipsing over hills and by lakes wearing rain gear and trying to use sheets of plastic to keep the water off your clipboard & notes.

I think my college course choices let me visit some beautiful places.

The Statistics fieldtrips were never as beautiful.

>50 pgmcc: What DOES a Statistics field trip look like?

>50 pgmcc: I still think my undergraduate Botany field trips were the greatest privilege ever in that direction. In second year we went to Blyde Canyon, third year to Oribi Gorge and Honours (4th year) to Sinamwenda on the shores of Lake Kariba.

>52 hfglen: I still think my undergraduate Botany field trips were the greatest privilege ever...

That is exactly how I feel about mine.

>51 -pilgrim-: That would probably depend on what percentile of the population one is in with reference to the measurements of interest. Each field-trip would be different with various dependent and independent variables, but there would need to be a strong correlation between certain attributes of the trip and one's preferences if the trip is to be considered good, beneficial, interesting or excellent. Of course, a strong correlation does not indicate any causal relationship, but neither does it exclude one.

>53 pgmcc: But did you get to experience hungry lions, annoyed elephants and miles and miles of trackless Africa?

>55 hfglen: Sure that is nothing; I had the first bath of the season in a hotel in Scourie with bits of peat coming out of the tap(this has now been remodelled as a special health spa treatment); there was a massive spider in a friend's wash-hand basin and I had to remove it for him; another friend came on the trip with one brown shoe and one black shoe and we had to find a shoe shop in Fort William to return balance to his life; we got to see the most northerly palm tree in the world; we visited a salmon farm hatchery; we got to see the oldest rocks in Scotland. Don't talk to me about hungry lions, annoyed elephants and miles and miles of trackless Aftrica. We were in deepest, single-track Scotland.

:-)

>55 hfglen: On the more serious side of wonderful things on trips, we got to climb to a height in Mull with a golden eagle flying above us; from the top we could see the remnants of a caldera across the land and we could look down on a line snow showers passing over the sea onto the land like a series of giant mushrooms crossing the surface of the World; we had a stag rush out of a curtain of falling snow and pass us as we descended; etc...

On a trip to Dorset in the South of England, we were unfortunate enough to find a dead body at the bottom of a cliff. She was still warm. That was one of the less pleasant moments.

Apart from that incident I have nothing but fond memories of the trips.

You two are making me feel that I may have chosen the wrong subject.

>49 fuzzi: Manages in a very British way to be pleasing on the eye without being over stated. Ambleside is a place I like very much indeed.

>50 pgmcc: Does sound close to my idea of heaven, Peter, especially in the days that I would have been up to such jaunts across the scree and the fells.

>51 -pilgrim-: Good question. I guess that someone would be keeping tally of all the inns visited and ales imbibed?

>52 hfglen: The place names are suggestive enough to make the trip sound magical.

>53 pgmcc: I can remember very little about mine. I remember vaguely giving a sozzled closing address at our field trip in Abergavenny - apparently I was hilarious but not everyone was smiling.

>54 pgmcc: That sounds like one heck of a complicated field trip, Peter.

>55 hfglen: I'm not sure that I would be over keen consorting with hungry lions. I have enough problems coming home to my own lioness having forgotten to pay a particular bill or having bought ten books when she had sent me out to pay her mobile phone.

>56 pgmcc: Hahaha, it is all relative, Peter, isn't it? I haven't been to Southern Africa but Scotland deserves its epithet of "Bonny". A more beautiful place than its highlands and islands I will struggle to suggest.

>57 pgmcc: An accidental death? I think an event like that would stick with one indefinitely.

>58 -pilgrim-: Exactly. Most of my university anecdotes would not place me in much of a favourable light, I fear.

Book #65



The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris West

Date of Publication : 1963
Origin of Author : Australia
Pages : 375 pp

Celebrated novel and even more celebrated movie. Morris West had a tremendous gift of prescience. His novel tells of the election of an Eastern European Pope some 15 years before the same thing happened and some of the moves towards a political role and a Pontiff who goes out into the world to meet his flock is prophetic of the actions of John Paul II. He even remarkably tells in the sequel to this of another Pope who resigns and goes into retirement as of course the last Pope did.

This is an interesting discourse in Papal politics and is very well written but the action is so slow moving that it eventually becomes a little turgid. The constant referring to "Kiril the Pontiff" also starts to pall after a repetition into the several hundreds. Some of the characters are well formed and others less so but some of their actions are less than believable and, I think, are constructs to make a point rather create a satisfying tale.

It is a strange feeling putting down the book because I wanted to know where the story was subsequently headed whilst being relieved that the book was over.

>60 PaulCranswick: Fortunately we had excellent local guides, from whom we learned much more than from the lecturers. And so we could beat a circumspect, hasty retreat when necessary (a very important skill, methinks).

>62 hfglen: Students out on the grassy plain
Their wits must always retain.
It is obvious the slouch
Will be thundering an "ouch!" -
Stay alert and avoid the pain.

>60 PaulCranswick:
No accident, unfortunately. When we got to car park we met her husband out looking for her. A colleague of ours had taken the cliff path along the top and had found her little dog at the edge of the cliff looking down and whimpering. The lady had recently been released from a psychiatric hospital.

Yes, it does stick with one.

>64 pgmcc: Oh dear, that would stay with you. My mum tells of a school trip when she was 11 years old (1956) to Flamborough Head in East Yorkshire, when one of the party in her glass fell from the cliffs to his death. I must say it is one place that I would have questioned the wisdom of such a visit with 80 or so youngsters being controlled by four or five teachers.



This is Flamborough Head.

>64 pgmcc: my first reaction was being glad her dog was okay. Some people take their pets with them on that last journey.

>65 PaulCranswick: yikes!

>58 -pilgrim-:

I thought about studying agriculture so I could be out standing in my field.

>57 pgmcc: Oh good grief, Peter. How desperately awful.

>65 PaulCranswick: Not great for your mum either, Paul. Nor for the child either, I suppose.

My field trips were very peaceful by comparison. Broke my arm on a cliff in Carnarvon National Park in Queensland when I was 16 or so, and got stuck in a small opening in a lava cave full of bat droppings a couple of years later, but that's it.

>67 suitable1: bwahaha!

Craziest field trip I ever had was to Los Angeles for a school Future Homemakers of America convention. From my hotel room I watched a gang fight across the street in the park. Quite unnerving as there were several bodies on the ground by the time the police arrived and scattered the participants. For this little girl from a town population of 300 that was something else.

I prefer quiet scenic trips all in all.

>66 fuzzi: Hahaha wonderful Fuzzi that your first thought was for the dog!

>67 suitable1: I wanted to study dentistry but realised I was a little long in the tooth.

>68 haydninvienna: It is all relative I suppose, Richard. I remember a school skiing trip when we were being brow-beaten all the way to the Frech Alps by our teachers to be careful and stay safe on the piste. Arrived at the hotel and checked in and on the way upstairs to the rooms one of our number fell down the stairs and broke his arm.

>69 fuzzi: :D Indeed, Fuzzi.

>70 MrsLee: Wow that must have been unnerving. I have visited the States but once, for business to Jacksonville, Florida. As per usual I found myself a decent second hand bookstore and engaged the young lady cashier in conversation having bought about six or seven books. "Is it safe to walk around here at night?" , I asked her. "Oh yes", she said "If you have a knife!"

I am celebrating the end of Ramadan at the moment and it is a time for thanks and forgiveness. I am new to the group although I have been on LT for the last decade (primarily in the 75ers) and I want to take this opportunity to thank all my friends on LT for helping to keep me somewhat sane these last years.

Hi Paul! I don't have a thread over here, but I do follow a few folk. They aren't nearly as chatty as over (psst) there, but it's interesting.

>72 PaulCranswick: Sane? In the GD?

Actually, I feel much the same. I live alone, and in lockdown the only face to face communication I have with another human being is with shop assistants—and the occasional good morning exchanged on my morning walks. LT makes up for a lot.

>71 PaulCranswick: "Oh yes", she said "If you have a knife!"

I was on an assignment in Manchester for about twelve weeks. During that time I stayed in a hotel in Oldham. The Production Manager from my client was also staying there. We often had a meal and a pint together after work.

One evening he told me he had an aunt living in Oldham. I asked did he not want to go and visit her one evening. He said he would love to but when he spoke to his aunt on the phone and said he would visit she told him not too. She said Oldham was the type of place where the Alsatian dogs go around in pairs to be safe.

>73 quondame: Self inflicted somewhat Susan but I decided to also have a thread here which would be politics free as my threads over in the other place - revel in them as much as I do - can be a little bit controversial.
I will upkeep two homes for the foreseeable future, xx

>74 haydninvienna: Sanity can be a relative term!
Since my fasting month has finished would you care to share:

>75 pgmcc: I know Oldham fairly well and I don't think the dogs are safe even in pairs!

Book #66



The War Hound and the Worlds Pain by Michael Moorcock

Date Published : 1981
Origin of Author : UK
Pages : 208
British Author Challenge

Escaping the horrors of the massacres at Magdeburg in the Thirty Years War Von Bek finds himself in a seemingly abandoned castle he meets the gorgeous but mysterious Sabrina who eventually introduces him to her Master - Lucifer. In order to save their souls he sets out on a quest to find the Holy Grail and redeem both their souls as Lucifer wishes to be reconciled with God.

Compelling story which also considers the nature of good and evil and how the lines between the two can be blurred. First in a two part series and I shall certainly read the second.

>72 PaulCranswick: glad that I might have been helpful at keeping you somewhat sane.

>76 PaulCranswick: Thanks muchly for the offer, Paul—glad to if you can find a way of getting it here. Qatar is officially “dry”, and the import of alcohol is forbidden except for the government monopoly store. Incidentally, the only time I have ever been asked here what religious faith I profess was on the application for my liquor-buying permit. But apparently they will issue permits to Muslims, and in places that are permitted to serve liquor, such as the large hotels, it’s not uncommon to see obvious Qataris, who are of necessity Muslims, with a beer or wine. Even saw one in a hotel restaurant with a wine during a Ramadan at lunch time once.

Delighted to see you in the Pub Paul! I see you've found the cheese and the ale. Good for you!
I'll be following along.

>79 fuzzi: Has to be somewhat Fuzzi as there are more than a few would attest to the odd marble missing!

>80 haydninvienna: I hadn't thought of the exigencies of getting the stuff piped into your apartment!

>81 majkia: I was happy to see your thread here too, Jean.

>78 PaulCranswick: Thanks for the review, I have not read that one by Moorcock, it sounds interesting.

>83 Karlstar: I have the omnibus version as you can see from the review but I'll save the follow up for a while good as the first book is.

Book #68



Field Work by Seamus Heaney

Date of Publication : 1979
Origin of Author : UK/Ireland
Pages : 56 pp

Page counts are funny things because I never read a Seamus Heaney poem just the once. This is the follow up to one of my favourite collections of his, North, and in parts treads similar ground with the Troubles interspersed with the natural world of his upbringing and his upcoming. There are elegies as well as celebrations for life as it is and as it has become. Heaney had spent time as a visiting Professor in the USA but, more importantly, he had relocated from the North to Glanmore in County Wexford in the Republic of Ireland. This brings in part a pastoral contentment but also space for reflections on what was being left behind. Readers like myself troubled a little by the lack of rigour in adhering to form in say Terrance Hayes's American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin will point to Heaney's Glanmore Sonnets here as coinage as to how traditional can be respected without it being binding.

I am biased and all my regular visitors know he is a permanent fixture in my top five poets but this is Heaney doing what he does better than almost any writer who has ever lived.

A taster? Well suitably then I'll give you "Oysters"

Our shells clacked on the plates.
My tongue was a filling estuary,
My palate hung with starlight:
As I tasted the salty Pleiades
Orion dipped his foot into the water.

Alive and violated
They lay on their beds of ice:
Bivalves: the split bulb
And philandering sigh of ocean.
Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.

We had driven to the coast
Through flowers and limestone
And there we were, toasting friendship,
Laying down a perfect memory
In the cool thatch and crockery.

Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,
The Romans hauled their oysters south to Rome:
I saw damp panniers disgorge
The frond-lipped, brine-stung
Glut of privilege

And was angry that my trust could not repose
In the clear light, like poetry or freedom
Leaning in from the sea. I ate the day
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.

>85 PaulCranswick: Lovely. I can practically taste "The frond-lipped, brine-stung glut of privilege..."

Am gradually catching up on thread reading. Actual book reading... not so much.

>64 pgmcc: I am sorry about your field trip experience, Peter.

::peeking::

Anyone here?