Labfs39 wanders the world of words in 2022

Currently reading:



The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
Speaking for Myself: An Anthology of Asian Women's Writing edited by Sukrita Paul Kumar and Malashri Lal

Books read in 2022:

January
1. Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Özge Samancı (GNF, 4.5*)
2. Miyazaki's Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki, translated from the Japanese (GN, 3.5*)
3. Snow by Orhan Pamuk, translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely (TF, 3*)
4. I have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson (NF, 4.5*)
5. The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak (F, 3.5*)
6. A Killer in King's Cove by Iona Whishaw (F, 2.5*)
7. Hyperbole and a half : unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened by Allie Brosh (GN, 4*)
8. Twenty Stories by Turkish Women Writers translated by Nilüfer Mizanoğlu Reddy (F, 3.5*)
9. In : a graphic novel by Will McPhail (GN, 4*)

Reading Globally

Books I've read in 2022 by nationality of author (a tricky business):

American: 1
Canadian: 1
English: 1
Japanese: 1
Slovakian: 1
Turkish: 4



Check out my Global Challenge thread, labfs39 reads around the world, for a look at a cumulative list since around 2010.

And I've broken out the US by state in my Labfs39 tackles the states thread.

Asian Book Challenge

January: Turkey
1. Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Özge Samancı
2. Snow by Orhan Pamuk
3. The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
4. Twenty Stories by Turkish Women Writers

February: Israel & Palestine

March: Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait

April: Iran

May: the Stans

June: India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh

July: China

August: Japan

September: Korea

October: Mongolia, Nepal, Burma, Bhutan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand

November: Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia

December: The Asian Diaspora

Graphic Novels

1. Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Özge Samancı
2. Miyazaki's Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki
3. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
4. In. by Will McPhail

Theme Reads

Jan - March 2022: Around the Indian Ocean

April - June: Outcasts and Castaways

July - Sept: "When alphabets collide" - books written in the Slavic languages

Oct - Dec: Prize winners in their own language

Remembering Rebeccanyc

Monica (Trifolia) has set up a thread challenging us to honor Rebecca/Sybil by collectively reading the books she had on her "Hope to Read Soon" list when she passed. It is a robust list of over 600 books. Of these I have read

8. Agus, Milena. From the Land of the Moon
13. Akpan, Uwem. Say You're One of Them
44. Beevor, Antony. Stalingrad
63. Bronsky, Alina. The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine
97. Chekhov, Anton. Sakhalin Island
138. Dennys, Joyce. Henrietta's War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942
144. Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities
179. Ferrante, Elena. My Brilliant Friend
186. Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary
216. Gogol, Nikolai. The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
234. Gruša, Jiří. The Questionnaire, or Prayer for a Town & a Friend
235. Grushin, Olga. The Dream Life of Sukhanov
238. Gurnah, Abdulrazak. Paradise
245. Hašek, Jaroslav. The Good Soldier Švejk: and his fortunes in the world war
255. Hrabal, Bohumil. Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age
256. Hrabal, Bohumil. I Served the King of England
286. Khoury, Elias. White Masks
296. Knausgård, Karl Ove. My Struggle: Book 1: A Death in the Family
347. Marai, Sandor. Embers
364. Mendelsund, Peter. What We See When We Read: A Phenomenology
375. Mo Yan. The Garlic Ballads
420. Poulin, Jacques. Mister Blue
433. Redniss, Lauren. Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout
436. Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front
469. Sansal, Boualem. The German Mujahid
483. Schulz, Bruno. The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories (The Complete Fiction of Bruno Schultz
485. Schwarz-Bart, André. The Last of the Just
506. Singer, Isaac Bashevis. Love and Exile: An Autobiographical Trilogy
508. Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
516. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
518. Soskice, Janet Martin. The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels
587. Vaculík, Ludvík. The Guinea Pigs
612. Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence
613. Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth
621. Willis, Connie. Blackout

I have the following ones on my physical shelves:

79. Camus, Albert. The Stranger
190. Foster, Thomas C. How To Read Literature Like a Professor
215. Gogol, Nikolai. Taras Bulba
373. Miłosz, Czesław. The Captive Mind
388. Myśliwski, Wiesław. Stone upon Stone
409. Pavić, Milorad. Dictionary of the Khazars
455. Rufin, Jean-Christophe. The Abyssinian
462. Rytkhėu, Yuri. The Chukchi Bible
472. Saramago, José. The Stone Raft
493. Serge, Victor. Memoirs of a Revolutionary
553. Teffi. Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea
576. Tsypkin, Leonid. Summer in Baden-Baden
577. Tuchman, Barbara W. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

I will also track books I read that I have marked as recommendations from rebeccanyc, i.e. books she had already read and reviewed. There are 36 of them.

Book stats for 2022:

I am trying to promote diversity in my reading and, for the lack of a more refined method, am tracking the following:

books total: 9

6 countries
3 (33%) translations

6 (67%) fiction
3 (33%) nonfiction

6 (67%) by women
3 (33%) by men

5 (56%) nonwhite authors

Happy New Year and welcome to my 2022 thread! As many of you know, I have always flown by the seat of my pants when choosing what I will read. This year, however, I have been inspired by all the wonderful reading plans popping up all over Club Read, and have decided to try a few. Wish me luck!

---

My name is Lisa, and I have been a member of Club Read since 2011. I enjoy reading literature in translation, memoirs, and World War II history. In real life, I am a semi-retired information specialist living with my daughter in small town Maine. We moved back to my hometown after 15 years in the Seattle area and most recently 2 years on the Florida panhandle. In addition to reading, I enjoy gardening and exploring the Korean culture and language.

Hi Lisa-looking forward to following your reading again this year. I didn't comment much last year, but I did read everything!
And thanks so much for taking over stewardship of Club Read!

Dropping my star for the year!

Hi new CR leader. Snow sounds good. (I actually have copy...somewhere). Wish you a wonderful year of reading.

Look forward to following you again this year. Will be especially interested to see how the Asian Book challenge shakes out for you and the others participating. It'll be nice to branch out a bit and collect some recommendations for places I don't read much of.

Hi Lisa, thanks for getting 2022s Club Read up & running. Looking forward to another year of reading & commenting.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Hi Lisa. Starring your thread. I imagine there will be a lot of book bullets here!

Happy reading 2022 :-)

Happy New Year, Lisa! Dropping off my star for 2022 and look forward to your interesting books and reviews. That's quite the list of books you've already read from RebeccaNYC's wish list - so many of the authors on her list are new to me, so for sure I'll be aiming to read some this year.

Happy New Year, everyone!

>10 arubabookwoman: Thanks, Deborah. Silent lurkers welcome. :-) Things are always hopping in January, and I am spending more time reading threads than books, but it's always a fun time on LT. Lots of enthusiasm and plan making.

>11 Dilara86: Hi Dilara!

>12 dchaikin: Although I continue to enjoy Snow, I liked My Name is Red more, perhaps because of the unique structure or the art history. With Snow I feel like I should know more Turkish history, which oddly I did not feel with MNiR. Snow has a lot to do with the modernization/secularization/Westernization of Turkey and the pushback from political Islamists.

>13 stretch: I too am hoping to get lots of new book bullets from the Asian Book Challenge. I read four books from/about Vietnam this year, three by Japanese authors, and one Chinese memoir, so primed the pump so to speak. But there are so many Asian countries whose literature remains a mystery to me. I hope to expand my reading to encompass as many of those as I can.

>14 markon: I feel like Club Read is off to a bang, Alison, in large part thanks to Monica's tribute to Rebeccanyc. It's been wonderful to see so many people chime in with their stories and lists. Although she was a very private person, I hope she would be pleased to be remembered in this way.

>15 DieFledermaus: Ditto, Stephanie. I too was AWOL for a couple of years, but when I came back in 2021, I looked for you. It was so nice to see you pop back up. I will definitely be following your reading again.

>16 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! You too

>17 AlisonY: Rebecca read such a wide variety of books that I was always finding new authors and ideas on her threads. She inspired much of my reading when I first joined CR in 2011. I used to tease that we were co-presidents of the depressing book club because we both enjoyed reading about Eastern Europe, war, and genocide. I still have 36 books on my wish list that are direct book bullets from her, as well as some already on my shelves, read and unread.

Happy 2022! I see you're running the show this year.

>19 qebo: I'm so glad you are back, Katherine. I missed you when I returned to LT last year.
I see you're running the show this year. Ha, ha. I set up the group and away it went! I've so busy reading threads that I haven't cracked open my book yet today.

I have a funny little library story I thought I would share. As many of you know, I am watching my 22-month-old niece during the week so my sister can return to work. Last week when we went to the library, she dashed ahead shouting "Children's Room, children's room!" When I asked her what type of book she wanted to check out, she said definitively "fish and owls." Huh. How do their little minds work?

Were you able to find her books about fish and owls? Because that is absolutely adorable and it brought a smile to my face.

Happy New Year, Lisa. Thank you for getting us started this year. I’ll be following along even though I may not comment often. It will take me all day today just to catch up, and we’ve only just begun. 😊

Happy New Year, Lisa. The story of your niece made me smile. A treasured memory of mine is trips to the library with my dad as a young child. We have two grandsons, one 6 and the other 1, and both are read to every night by their parents. While it's not practical for us to take them to the library, books are always on the list of presents. And this year, I found a Junior Scrabble game for our older nephew. Anything to promote words!

>22 shadrach_anki: Sadly the selection of nonfiction books in the children's room was dated with sad, grainy photos. The library does have the set of the World Book Hello, Beautiful animals books, however. She loves those, and we checked out Feathered Animals and Water Animals.

>23 NanaCC: I hear you, Colleen. I haven't done any reading today, other than threads. That and I watched an episode of Sherlock (with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman) with my daughter. We started them last night and laughed our way into the new year. They are very good.

>24 Linda92007: We read to my daughter every night too, until she was about ten. It was such a wonderful time, and I missed it. Fortunately I now have my two nieces to read to almost daily. The five year old read her first book a couple of weeks ago, but still likes to be read to. We are working our way through Jan Brett's picture books and the first Magic Treehouse book. The little one loves poetry and picture books of all sorts. She'll be an early reader.

Not sure if I will count this one as my first read of the year as it is only a short story. I saw this on Penny's (pmarshall) and thought I would try it. It's a Kindle Single that I could access for free through Amazon Prime. I never read on my phone, but I have the Kindle app, so I thought I would try it.



What Child is This by Rhys Bowen

World War II during the Blitz. Maggie and Jack are in their house in the East End of London on Christmas Eve when their house is hit by an incendiary bomb. They take refuge in an empty house with a seven-year-old boy. A feel-good short story written by a British mystery writer who now lives in the US.

Surprisingly, it was easy to read this short story on my small phone. The screen was black with white type, an automatic adjustment that made reading easier. For those of you e-book aficionados, my experience is not news, but I was pleasantly surprised. I wonder what other Kindle Singles I can find that would be on hand whenever I am stuck somewhere without a book. Better than playing endless sudoku.

Lisa, I downloaded a sample of a book - read the first 2 short stories and then decided not to buy the book. Can I count them?

Snow was also my first Pamuk, a long time ago. I definitely didn't get everything out of it that I could have - it's sort of a puzzle inside an origami box folded in on itself. Come to think of it though, that also applies to My Name Is Red.

Will stop by your thread periodically, of course :-) Very ambitious!

Happy New Year Lisa.

>29 dianeham: Totally up to you, Diane! No book police here :-)

>30 ursula: I do feel as though my appreciation of the book would be greater if I had a better understanding of Turkish history, but your suggestion to read the wikipedia article on headscarf rights in Turkey was very helpful.

>31 avaland: Very ambitious!

Lol. Yeah, we'll see how long it lasts! But it's January, and the urge to make plans is strong.

>32 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline.

I was looking at the statistics for Club Read 2022 and was intrigued by the list of the 25 most-held books by the current 60 CR members. The most widely held book is To Kill a Mockingbird followed by Wolf Hall. I have or have read all but one, The Shadow of the Wind. Does anything on this list surprise you?

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (35)
2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (34)
3. Middlemarch by George Eliot (32)
4. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (31)
5. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (30)
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (30)
7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (29)
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (29)
7. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (29)
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (29)
7. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (29)
12. Atonement by Ian McEwan (28)
12. Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt (28)
12. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (28)
12. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (28)
12. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (28)
12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (28)
18. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (27)
18. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (27)
18. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (27)
18. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (27)
18. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (27)
23. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (26)
23. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (26)
23. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (26)

>34 labfs39: I've read the full list. I would say what surprises me is the tiny number of European and Asian writers, which is kind of disappointing. I would think there are more female authors than a random sample would usually have.

Interesting way to look at things. Yay Wolf Hall!

Greetings fearless leader!

I love the fish and owls category... now I'm thinking what adult books I have on my pile fit into that... off the top of my head, Owls of the Eastern Ice and Why Fish Don't Exist, though I'm sure there are more.

What an interesting plan! I will definitely follow your thread and I'm prepared to learn a lot and find some book ideas!
And thanks for the admin role and making everything smooth in CR!

>34 labfs39: Interesting list. Many books I haven't read, although some are on my Victorian radar! I guess we are a well read group, with an interesting mix of contemporary blit and classics!

Happy New Year, Lisa. I look forward to the inspiration I get from following your reading. I hope 2022 is a good year for you.

Happy New Year, Lisa!
I admire your reading goals and ambitions for 2022. I will be following your thread again with great interest. Happy Reading!

> I have read 17 of those although not all of them are in my library. Its not a bad list, plenty of classics, but no Dickens or Shakespeare.

>28 labfs39: I’m not a fan of reading with the kindle app on my phone, but it is great on my iPad for the few books I can’t download to my kindle. I used to use it mostly when I was on the treadmill (the bigger size worked better for my eyes). Having moved to a condo, I no longer have room for a treadmill, so the need to use my iPad for reading has really gone away. I don’t know if you have a kindle, but one of the things I loved about it from the beginning is the ability to get the complete works of some authors for next to nothing in cost. For example, Trollope, Wharton, Dickens and others.

>35 SassyLassy: what surprises me is the tiny number of European and Asian writers

That surprised me as well. I guess even though we do read a lot of global literature in Club Read, most of us also own all the standard Western classics, although as >40 baswood: Barry said, no Dickens or Shakespeare.

Cynic that I am, I was actually surprised that 10 of the 25 books were written by women.

>34 labfs39: Interesting list. I think I've read 10 out of the 25? on the list. Middlemarch is the only one I own.

>36 lisapeet: I love the fish and owls category

I think her interest in fish stems from her recent fascination with the book Humu: The Little Fish Who Wished Away His Colors. She loves trying to pronounce the name of Hawaii's state fish, Humuhumunukunukukuapua’a (or humu for short).

For an laugh, check out this YouTube video

You are right, she may be secretly reading the titles of books on my shelves for inspiration! What do I have...

Gould's Book of Fish and two fish identification guides
Owl a memoir by William Service
There's an owl in the shower by Jean Craighead George
Owl at Home by Arnold Lobel
Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Interesting to see how things have evolved. I took a look at the list of of most-held list of the most characteristic works in 2012:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (51)
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (47)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (44)
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (44)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (41)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (41)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling (41)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (39)
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (38)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (38)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (37)
Atonement by Ian McEwan (37)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (37)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (37)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (37)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (36)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (36)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (36)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (35)
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (35)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (34)
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (34)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (34)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (34)
Animal Farm by George Orwell (34)
of Club Read in 2012, 10 years ago... :
Five Bells by Gail Jones (13),
By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah (13),
Potiki by Patricia Grace (13),
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (26),
The Siege by Helen Dunmore (23),
Sorry by Gail Jones (12),
This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun (15),
Who was Changed and Who was Dead by Barbara Comyns (13),
Icefields by Thomas Wharton (13),
Troubles by J. G. Farrell (21),
The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville (22),
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić (26),
The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys (12),
The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin (15),
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (20),
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (12),
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey (13),
The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa (11),
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (39),
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (16),
Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (14),
The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier (15),
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi (14),
The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg (12),
The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville (14)

But also the other years indicate that Club Read has become less global, if these lists are representative. But there may be other reasons, of course: members who are leaving the group, a more diverse reading by members, so that the international books are less visible,...

ETA >58 Trifolia:

>37 raton-liseur: Thanks, raton-liseur. I am looking forward to following you as well. Is there a French title that you might have thought would be common to many of us?

>38 BLBera: Hi, Beth. Thank you for enriching my reading in 2021. Looking forward to more good recommendations on your thread.

>39 Trifolia: Happy New Year to you too, Monica! You have been quite the busy bee with the Rebeccanyc thread. It's hopping! It makes me very happy to know that people still remember her. I hope you get some time for your own reading soon. :-)

>40 baswood: Yes, I would have thought Dickens would make the list. With Shakespeare there are so many editions and compilations, that we probably own too many different ones to make any one rise to the top.

>41 NanaCC: I don't own an iPad or any sort of e-reader, being a bit of a luddite when it comes to reading. Though I can foresee a time when portability, weight, and font size could factor into my getting one. The nice thing about the kindle app on my phone is that I always have my phone on me, so it would allow me to read in places at more times than I do now.

>43 markon: Aha! A maverick among us. Lol. I loved Middlemarch when I read it a million years ago. I want to reread it.

>45 Trifolia: Oh, that's fascinating. I have only read 11 of these, and a few more are on my wish list. Much more international in scope. We'll have to take a look at Club Read 2022's stats in a month when we are up to full member size.

The other group which I spend time at is Reading Globally. It was started in 2010, so is an aggregation over time. The most "characteristic" books there are

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (252),
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (162),
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al-Aswani (127),
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (85),
Troubles by J. G. Farrell (74),
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (170),
Property by Valerie Martin (77),
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (113),
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (87),
In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar (77),
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić (89),
Independent People by Halldór Laxness (100),
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (75),
The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell (89),
The Famished Road by Ben Okri (97),
The Secret River by Kate Grenville (114),
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (84),
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz (105),
The Road Home by Rose Tremain (79),
Old Filth by Jane Gardam (79),
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (81),
The Bone People by Keri Hulme (133),
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (213),
Embers by Sándor Márai (126),
Small Island by Andrea Levy (141)

I have read 13 of these and have 3 more on my shelves.

Most widely held are

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (543),
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (538),
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (525),
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (522),
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (504),
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (485),
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (482),
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (481),
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (466),
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (462),
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (448),
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling (447),
Animal Farm by George Orwell (446),
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (442),
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (437),
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (433),
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (420),
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (419),
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (414),
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (414),
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (413),
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (413),
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (397),
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (396),
The Odyssey by Homer (395)

The most widely held is not so different from Club Read. I have read all 25.

>46 labfs39: It's interesting to see that the one French author that make it to the top 25 is Flaubert, with Madame Bovary. I would maybe have expected a book by Victor Hugo instead, either Les Misérables or Notre-Dame de Paris probably.
But I think, as >39 Trifolia: suggests, this list is not necessarily representative of what we actually read (after all, we are a small bunch of diverse people...) and it's difficult to make sense out of it. But it's interesting to see how different those stats are from the overall LT stats. Harry Potter did not come first!

Wanted to say that my boys have always LOVED nonfiction books about all animals. National Geographic Kids has a fantastic series called "First Big Book of . . . ". And then we still get out field guides on every library trip from the adult section. My younger son has always found the field guides fascinating.

>48 raton-liseur: Yes, I would have thought Les Misérables or maybe even Germinal, since we have so many Zola fans, might have made it. Certainly more so than The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

>34 labfs39: There are only two of the "most held books" for CR 2022 that I don't have in my library - Life of Pi and Shadows of the Wind.

>50 labfs39: How many members are in Club Read 2021 vs. 2012 I wonder? It may just be sort of watered down. Or I also thinks it's possible that all of us have 100s more books in our LT libraries now than we would have in 2021 so only the very most popular books will make that list.

>49 japaul22: Thank you for the recommendation, these look great. My little library doesn't have them, but I've requested three through ILL: Animals, Ocean, and Birds. I too am a huge fan of identification guides.

>51 japaul22: Shadows of the Wind is the one I don't have.

>52 japaul22: As of this moment, CR2022 has 61 members (up from when I pulled the list, but I don't know that LT refreshes in real time, so the member book list is probably the same). CR2012 had 141 members. Of the "recent members" list in 2012, the only two members who are in 2022 so far are arubabookwoman and sassylassy. Of course, many more of us were members, like me. You are right in that my library has grown since then, but I'm not sure if that dilutes my impact or increases the likelihood that I will hold a book others do.

The lists of books held by various groups is fascinating.

>34 labfs39: I have read all of these except The Book Thief and The Shadow of the Wind. I can't help wondering if the list of most widely held for LT as a whole would be very similar. (And where are you finding this info, inquiring minds want to know?)

>45 Trifolia: What a huge difference 10 years has made in the list. Of this list, I have read all except: The Frozen Thames, The Dream Life of Sukhanov--have on my shelf; The Memory of Love, Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, Song of Achilles and Wizard of Crow--have on my shelf.

>47 labfs39: I wonder who makes the determination of what books are most "characteristic" of a group? Would the list at >34 labfs39: be more like the list at >45 Trifolia: if it were of the most characteristic Club Read Books than the most widely held?

>34 labfs39: I too have read them all Lisa. And I just reread The Great Gatsby (41st reread) and am about to reread The Remains of the Day (last read a decade ago).

>21 labfs39: maybe time for Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.

So much going on here. I read 17 or the 25 books, if you count The Scarlet Letter, which I certainly remember reading at least some of when it was assigned in high school. I've read 3 from the 2012 list.

Regarding Snow - interesting, your comments. I have a vague memory of a review or maybe interview where Pamuk was explaining why so much of the book was sort of concealed references, and how other Turkish authors did the same. He criticized one author, a Turkish acquaintance, for praising a bad politician, and that author explained that he praised him so much to make it obvious he was being insincere. So, I guess that stuff can be tough in a novel.

>45 Trifolia: - Oops, my mistake. I switched the most characteristic works (not yet available for 2022) and the most held works.

So the list in >45 Trifolia: is the list of the most characteristic in 2012. The list below is list of the most held in 2012:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (51)
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (47)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (44)
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (44)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (41)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (41)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling (41)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (39)
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (38)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (38)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (37)
Atonement by Ian McEwan (37)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (37)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (37)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (37)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (36)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (36)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (36)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (35)
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (35)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (34)
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (34)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (34)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (34)
Animal Farm by George Orwell (34)

>55 arubabookwoman: If you go to a group page (like Club Read 2022), on the left sidebar there are some links. Under "This Group", you with see a link to "Statistics". That's where you can find these lists.

I pulled up the list of most catalogued books on LT (under Zeitgeist at the top of the page):

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (113,555),
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (94,590),
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (92,310),
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (89,508),
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (88,563),
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (87,920),
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (84,100),
The Hobbit (80,060),
Nineteen Eighty-Four (70,433),
Pride and Prejudice (69,141),
To Kill a Mockingbird (67,916),
The Da Vinci Code (64,307),
The Catcher in the Rye (62,268),
The Great Gatsby (62,084),
The Hunger Games (53,899),
Twilight (51,891),
Jane Eyre (50,776),
Animal Farm (50,759),
The Kite Runner (47,362),
Brave New World (47,195),
The Fellowship of the Ring (45,732),
Fahrenheit 451 (45,505),
The Lord of the Rings (44,672),
The Odyssey (44,262),
Wuthering Heights (43,552)

Quite a difference from Club Read! I have read all of these as well, but only because I read a lot of YA books when my daughter was a young teen.

I have no idea how the Most Characteristic list was made, or why there isn't one for all the groups. It's interesting how it's so different from the widely held list.

If I remember correctly I started the first Club Read in 2009, and the first Reading Globally in 2007. It would be interesting to know the stats/books for those first years.

>55 arubabookwoman: I hope you get to The Dream Life of Sukhanov and The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, both very good reads for me.

>56 Caroline_McElwee: There are definitely some great books on these lists. Others a bit surprising to me.

>57 dchaikin: You know, surprisingly I don't own a copy of Owl Moon. Will look for it at the library.

so much of the book was sort of concealed references

That's interesting, Dan. I haven't read any reviews or interviews with Pamuk yet, because I wanted to look at Snow with fresh eyes. It does make me feel better as a non-Turkish reader without a knowledge of Turkish history to know this. Since My Name is Red is set in the Ottoman Empire and about art miniatures, I think it was easier for a non-Turk to read, because there weren't as many of these veiled references. Even Turks wouldn't be familiar with the topics.

>58 Trifolia: Ah, that explains it. The 2012 and 2022 Club Read most widely held lists are very similar, proving we haven't changed all that much, perhaps less enamored of Harry Potter.

I have read all but Rebecca and War and Peace of the 2012 list.

>60 avaland: The Club Read 2009 list is here. Unfortunately I don't know how to grab the Reading Globally stats by year, since it is an aggregate over time group. I tried using the Way Back Machine, but that page is not in the Internet Archive.

>63 labfs39: Oh, good point about RG.

I added the list of 45 books in 45 minutes( Nov 2021 presentation) to my thread- you can find it there! and I did add many of the books to my wish list.

>65 torontoc: I didn't look up all the books yet, but I did add All the frequent troubles of our days : the true story of the American woman at the heart of the German resistance to Hitler to my wish list, and am considering Ghost Forest and What Strange Paradise.

Kerry (avatiakh) and I are talking about starting a group dedicated to Holocaust Literature. Would any of you be interested in participating if we did? What would you like to see on it for threads, topics, etc.?

>67 labfs39: I would- there are so many interesting new histories being written and there is some controversy about using the subject of the Holocaust for novels.

Interesting to see the lists for all the groups. For >34 labfs39: and >58 Trifolia:, I have read or own all the books except for The Remains of the Day. It would be fun to see the Most Characteristic list for this group.

>68 torontoc: Great, Cyrel, it would be nice to have your input. Your Holocaust reads almost always end up on my wish list. The first article I chose for the the Articles thread is on this exact subject.

>69 DieFledermaus: I'll keep an eye out for it. It may just not be populated yet.

Continuing with my fetish for data, over on Deborah's (arubabookwoman) thread, we were talking about the members we share the most books with. You can find this information on the right sidebar on your profile page. In the weighted category, which we agreed seemed most useful, the Club Read members with whom I share the most books are:

#7 arubabookwoman
#12 dchaikin
#15 cushlareads
#18 torontoc
#20 DieFledermaus
#37 BLBera
#46 ELiz_M
#60 rebeccanyc
#67 avatiakh

Interesting.

I was and wasn't surprised at the most popular CR books in the list you posted (which I enjoyed - thanks for that). I suppose the maths of it stacks up (classic titles, and all that), although the CR reading is very eclectic and much wider ranging than this list suggests. The second Reading Globally list was more interesting - I'm going to take some titles as suggestions from that for this year.

On the most held & most characteristic, I wonder how they come up with these. I have few of my hardcopies catalogued on LT, and probably less than half of my ebooks entered. My "own' collection is at 135, "read but unowned" Is 422, and my tbr is 754.

>72 AlisonY: I found the "most characteristic" list much more interesting than the "most widely held," which resembled the CR lists. I wonder what the algorithm is for the most characteristic list.

>73 markon: Mostly widely held is probably a straight count comparison from all the member's libraries. There are many caveats though. As you point out, not everyone catalogues all their reading, some people include their wish lists, or spouses books, etc. All of these things mean the numbers provide amusement rather than true analysis, but I still can't resist. :-)

>71 labfs39: just you, Lisa, for my library. You’re #4 and one-time (and very much missed) member janeajones is #32 on my weighted shared library list.

On a personal note, my mom has come down with shingles (she had only had the older, no longer used Zostavax vaccine). Her doctor recommended strict isolation, which I was surprised to hear. I have had both Shingrix vaccine doses, and am the most protected in my family, so I feel less concerned about keeping her company. However, I watch my 22-month-old niece, who has only had the first of her childhood shots against varicella/chicken pox. I don't want to bring it home to her. I'm trying to find out from my doctor whether I should stay away or not.

My dad had shingles a few years ago and suffered terribly from postherpetic neuralgia. He still feels pain from time to time. It's not a fun illness. Although in the states you have to be 50 before you can get the vaccine, I have known several people who have gotten it much younger.

>75 dchaikin: I'm honored, Dan, ha, ha. It's interesting that you are 12th on my list but I'm 4th on yours.

>34 labfs39: Most widely held books . . .

I have owned all but three of those, and those three I read and returned to the library. Of the ones I own, I haven't read five yet (and may never read them, but I'll keep them just in case)

>76 labfs39: Gil could not get the shingles vaccine because of the transplant, but he has been taking the anti-viral drug used to treat shingles since the transplant to protect him. Despite that, he came down with shingles in his eye after cataract surgery, and has been battling that for 2 months now. Very painful.
Hope your mom feels better soon.

>71 labfs39: As I mentioned on my thread, I don't understand why my library is #1 for sassylassy, but her library does not even appear in my top 30 or so. And now my library is #7 for you, but your library is also not in my top 30.

>76 labfs39: Your poor mum. As you say, shingles can be very unpleasant. My aunt took Ramsay Hunt from it a few years back and couldn't close her eye for a year, bless her. Thankfully she's fully recovered now - was it something similar that your dad got with it?

In the UK you can only get the shingles vaccine if you're over 70, which sounds pretty appalling to me.

Sending best wishes for your mum! And you remind me that getting the shingles vaccine is on my list. I had it once (in my 20s) and don't want to repeat the experience.

sorry. I need that Shingles vaccine, although I'm not quite 50 yet. I actually got shingles maybe 6 or so years ago. It was weird for me, but not particularly painful. But I don't want it again.

>78 Nickelini: but I'll keep them just in case

Exactly. Because you never know...

>79 arubabookwoman: I can't imagine having it in one's eyes. Wow. My dad had it around his ear, which is where the pain lingers. My mom is in a lot of pain, and the nurse today told her to take Tylenol.

I think Liz and I figured out the difference in rankings over on your thread.

>80 AlisonY: This is the first time I've heard of Ramsey Hunt, but I didn't live here when my dad had shingles, so I didn't get all the details. I don't think he had any facial paralysis, he just wanted to cut his ear off it hurt so bad.

It's really surprising to me that the UK only gives people between the ages of 70 and 79 the vaccine. I looked on the NHS website, and the vaccine they use is the older Zostavax, which is only 51% effective and is a live vaccine, whereas Shingrix is 90% effective and not live. Since Sept 2021 the NHS does use Shingrix for people that can't have live vaccines. I wonder why the reluctance to vaccinate for shingles in the UK? Is the prevalence less than in the US (30% of Americans will get shingles in their lifetime and the trend is upward)?

>81 markon: Please do get it, Arlene. A sinus infection is bad enough, and you've already had it once.

>83 labfs39: You were lucky to get a mild case, Dan. Most people I've talked to have said it's very painful, and many end up with postherpetic neuralgia. I hope to dodge that particular bullet. If it's not one thing, it's another...

>71 labfs39: My top 25 list of weighted LT members include eight who I occasionally or regularly communicate with here, three of whom I've met in person:

4. deebee1 (met in Lisbon)
6. arubabookwoman
9. EBT1002
11. brenpike (met in Philadelphia)
12. charl08
15. AnneDC
18. banjo123
22. rebeccanyc (met in, where else, NYC)

>76 labfs39: I'm sorry that your mother has shingles. That is a most unpleasant and painful infection. I received both doses of the Shingrix vaccine last year, and although the second jab knocked me on my tail for a couple of days it was nothing compared to the actual infection.

>80 AlisonY: One of my British LibraryThing friends, possibly Rhian, mentioned at the time I received one of the Shingrix jabs that the shingles vaccine was limited to UK citizens older than 70. That is appalling, and shortsighted, IMO.

>71 labfs39: is there an actual numbered listing or did you have to count them?

I wonder why the reluctance to vaccinate for shingles in the UK?

Kids aren't vaccinated for chickenpox in the UK at all, and apparently the official reasoning behind it is to create herd immunity to reduce the risk of catching shingles in later life, hence why adults are vaccinated at such an old age. No doubt it's totally driven by money (or lack of), but I'm sure the cost of parents taking off work when young kids get it more than offsets the cost of administering a vaccine. I think it's totally illogical. My son never caught chickenpox when my daughter had it, for instance, so is now at risk of getting it later in life. I myself only caught chickenpox when I was 19 and at university - you can imagine how much fun that was looking like a pepperoni pizza for several months before they started to fade.

>76 labfs39: Not nice for your Mum!

>87 AlisonY: I was wondering if that was the reason. I caught chicken pox in my mid-twenties. That was not fun and I ended up taking two weeks of work as I felt dreadful.

>85 kidzdoc: Interesting that Deborah/arubabookwoman ranks high on almost all of our lists (mine, SassyLassy, Eliz_M, Darryl). She must be the poster child for reader of characteristic works of Club Read.

And what is equally astonishing to me is that the vaccine is not given to UK citizens older than 79, because, according to the NHS, the risk of getting complications/dying from shingles drops after 80.

>86 dianeham: There is not a numbered listing, Diane, I counted them.

>87 AlisonY: In addition to your point about the loss of productivity/economic impacts of not vaccinating, it disregards those who do get complications from chicken pox and pregnant women. I was thought to have had chicken pox, but by the time I was pregnant, I was tested and found to have no antibodies. Either it was too mild a case or it was misdiagnosed, but I could have had issues, especially since I had a toddler at home.

>88 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian. I wonder sometimes if people consider the impact of time off for illness. Certainly it doesn't seem to register with some people vis a vis covid and long covid.

I thought I had stopped by here all ready, since I had you starred. I was wrong. Happy New Year, Lisa. Nice to reconnect with you again. I just picked up When Stars Are Scattered from the library. You mentioned not having read The Shadow of the Wind. I highly recommend it.

>89 labfs39: Interesting that Deborah/arubabookwoman ranks high on almost all of our lists (mine, SassyLassy, Eliz_M, Darryl). She must be the poster child for reader of characteristic works of Club Read.

Definitely. The only surprise to me is that @rebeccanyc ranks so low on my list; I thought that she would be in my top 10, at least.

And what is equally astonishing to me is that the vaccine is not given to UK citizens older than 79, because, according to the NHS, the risk of getting complications/dying from shingles drops after 80.

I have a suspicion that the cost of vaccinating all UK adults ≥50 years of age must outweigh the amount spent on the care of this population that develop shingles, in inpatient and ambulatory settings, including those who develop postherpetic neuralgia. Even so, why would a health care system in a highly developed society deny an effective vaccine (Shingrix, not Zostavax) that causes so much morbidity in its citizens? According to the Shingles Support Society, "By the age of 85, around 60% of us will have had shingles at least once. About 224,000 people in the UK get shingles every year. About 60,000 people of these are affected by post herpetic neuralgia (PHN) – that’s just over a quarter."

Sorry to hear about your mom, Lisa. I hope she has a light case.

I am loving the lists as well!

>71 labfs39: I just checked mine out, and no other Club Read members show up in my weighted list, even if I pull open the "see more" option. I'm pretty sure my cataloged manga collection is skewing the data (see also: why the read-alike recommendations for my account are completely useless).

>90 msf59: Happy New Year to you, too, Mark. I hope you enjoy, When Stars are Scattered. When you finish it, you should run to the library and pick up Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey. Very fun and interesting graphic novel I learned about from Kerry/avatiakh. Quick read, but very enjoyable.

>91 kidzdoc: I agree. Shingles is so painful, why not vaccinate, from a humanitarian standpoint, if the economic reasons fail to convince.

>92 BLBera: Thanks, Beth. She's having a hard time at the moment.

>93 shadrach_anki: I suspect you are right, Anki. Although some Club Read members read manga (like AnnieMod), I don't think it's common. Perhaps through our graphic novel thread, we'll convert a few!

>76 labfs39: I'm so sorry to hear about your mom. I hope she'll recover soon.

Interesting discussion about the weighted LT members. It seems all my colleagues are Dutch or Flemish, although I do not read or even own that many Dutch or Flemish books. It must have something to do with obscurity...

>91 kidzdoc: "...a health care system in a highly developed society..." Many people in the UK seem to think that the Tory government is trying to break the NHS so that it can be sold off to private companies. Bad choices about vaccine coverage could be part of that.

>95 Trifolia: Thanks, Monica. The algorithms that LT develops for all these fun statistics and charts are mysterious and highly unscientific, but sometimes interesting things percolate to the surface. Other times, not so much.

>96 dukedom_enough: I haven't the least pretentions to understanding the American health care system, never mind that of other countries. To me, it seems like preventive care, like vaccines, are worth their weight in gold, but there are darker forces at work.

First book of 2022:



Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Özge Samancı
Published 2015, 190 pages

I loved this graphic memoir—what a great way to start off the year!

Özge Samancı was born in 1975 in Izmir, Turkey. Her memoir begins with her six-year-old self using binoculars to see her sister waving from school across the street. "School," Özge says, "was the place where you could wave to your mother and your sister, who were watching you with binoculars. I wanted to be on the other side of the binoculars." Her whole childhood was spent thus, trying to keep up with her smart and accomplished sister, who always seemed one step ahead, and to be in the limelight of her parent's approval. Always slightly off-kilter from the expectations of her family, teachers, and Ataturk (whose hagiographic presence in Turkey during the '80s was ubiquitous), Özge struggled to find her own path and dare to disappoint these expectations.

The tone of the book, as well as the drawings, are funny and sweetly expressive. I was reminded of Ramona the Brave, but life in Turkey was not as saccharine as American suburbia. I learned a bit about Turkey's ban on imports, educational practices, and political tensions, but without any explicit lessons. Dare to Disappoint was a fun book to read, and I enjoyed following Özge into college. She is currently an artist and assistant professor at Northwestern University in Chicago.

>98 labfs39: I'm going to enjoy following your Asian reading challenge.

I had shingles when I was in my 50s. It wasn’t nearly as painful as I expected. I wasn’t allowed to go to work though because there were 2 women undergoing chemo for cancer and they had compromised immune systems.

Sorry to hear about your mother, Lisa. My mom also had shingles a number of years back--she said it was extremely painful--and my parents had a lot of trouble getting the shingles vaccine. I don't remember every issue they had, but they couldn't get it at the local clinic, and I think the pharmacy where they made an appointment canceled a couple times because they were out of vaccines.

>89 labfs39: - Deborah is also on my list, although Liz is the top CR member (#7; Rebecca is also on there, as is deebee)

>98 labfs39: - Good review--it sounds like an interesting book!

to add to the international shingles conversation . . .

In Canada, the shingles vaccination is promoted strongly to over 50 yr olds.

In my province, the vaccine isn't covered by our universal health care (there MAY be some groups who are covered, as that's normal). It may or not be covered by the extra insurance that employers provide (mine does) otherwise it's like $250 for the 2 shots.

My husband and I have this on our "we need to do this!" list, but we keep putting it off. I hear the side effects are not fun (way worse than COVID, which mine were mild). I know people who've had shingles and it sounds like the vax side effects are nothing compared to the actual disease.

Must get on this.

Happy new year, Lisa as I put my tippy-toes into the group waters.

>34 labfs39: Maybe not so surprising but I won't impact your stats at all there as I own all 23 of those listed.

>76 labfs39: I do hope your mum will be ok and make a full recovery.

I am thrilled to see that you are quickly stuck into Turkish writing and very honoured that you put up a link to my challenge. x

>98 labfs39: That sounds like a great read! I have not really ventured into graphic novels so far, but this might be one that interests me.

>97 labfs39: >102 Nickelini: All this talk of Shingles vaccines has made me think I should get one (at age 60). I’ve looked it up and prices range from £170 upwards (depending on vaccine) if you do not qualify under NHS.

>98 labfs39: This goes into my ever-expanding wishlist!

>98 labfs39: This sounds great, Lisa. I'll look for it. I can tell my reading from my shelves resolution is not going to last long.

I hope that your mother is doing better, Lisa.

>94 labfs39: Right. I saw two men during my third year rotation in Family Medicine who had shingles, and their stories were unforgettable. One had severe chest pain, and underwent a huge and expensive inpatient workup for suspected cardiac disease, before he developed the telltale rash on the right side of his chest a day or two into his hospital course. The other man had severe lower abdominal pain, and because of that he received an exploratory laparatomy for what was thought to be an unusual presentation of appendicitis or other intraabdominal pathology. The exploration was normal, but as he was being closed up the surgeon noticed the herpetic rash on his abdomen. I also remember seeing an older woman with postherpetic neuralgia as a medical student, who sobbed when she told me how painful and disabling it was.

I assume that policymakers are too far removed from the bedside or examination table to understand what an awful illness shingles can be.

>96 dukedom_enough: Good point, Michael. The husband of Rachael (@FlossieT), one of my favorite former LTers, is a British physician, researcher, and former Tory supporter, who holds a dim and pessimistic view of what the Conservatives are doing to the NHS, and he would agree with that assessment.

>98 labfs39: Nice review of Dare to Disappoint, Lisa. I'd love to know if Özge's parents' view of her has changed, and what her golden child older sister ended up doing. I suppose I'll have to read the book to find out...

>102 Nickelini: I hear the side effects are not fun (way worse than COVID, which mine were mild). I know people who've had shingles and it sounds like the vax side effects are nothing compared to the actual disease.

I received the Shingrix vaccine last year. The first jab wasn't bad, but the second one, which I received 2-3 months later, kicked my rear end, and was much worse than the second Pfizer-BioNTech SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. However, I would gladly go through that again to avoid getting even a mild case of shingles!

I was just thinking, with you, Kay and I all moving out of the Deep South, the chances of another group meet up at the Decatur Book Festival are very slim.

>99 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. I'm excited about The Asian Book Challenge, and a friend just loaned me a bunch of pertinent books that I can't wait to delve into. I'll try to post a list later.

>100 dianeham: I'm glad your case wasn't painful, Diane. I think it's safe to say you were a lucky exception, based on my anecdotal evidence. Several people I know have said it's the worst pain they ever experienced.

>101 DieFledermaus: Were your parents living in Seattle when they were trying to get the shingles vaccine? It would surprise me if they had trouble there; was it when the Shingrix vaccine first became available?

Deborah does seem to be the common denominator for most of us.

>102 Nickelini: I'm glad the vaccine is available to people over 50 in Canada, Joyce. The UK policy doesn't make sense to me. I got the vaccine when I became eligible a few years ago, and I don't remember any significant side effects other than a sore arm, but perhaps it's been overshadowed by Covid?

>103 PaulCranswick: I own all 23 of those listed

Ha, somehow that doesn't surprise me. You own a fair number of books :-)

I'm halfway through Snow and hope to get back to it in a day or two, but Dare to Disappoint was a quick one to sneak in during a lull.

>104 MissBrangwen: I have not really ventured into graphic novels so far

Which graphic novels have you tried so far, Mirjam? There are so many types and genres that perhaps you just haven't found your niche yet. Dare to Disappoint was an easy to digest graphic memoir. Her drawings added so much to the story that it's hard for me to imagine it as a text-only memoir.

>105 SandDune: After helping my mom the last few days and hearing about my dad's experience a few years ago (I wasn't living here then), I would encourage everyone to get vaccinated asap.

>106 Dilara86: I hope you like Dare to Disappoint when you get to it, Dilara!

>107 BLBera: I'm always willing to bend my resolutions when it comes to a good book, Beth. :-)

How is your mum faring, Lisa? Better, I hope. Had she had the shingles vaccination?

Good grief! I turn my head for a second and you're already up to 111 posts on your 2022 thread!

I remember when I was much younger, my best friend's father had shingles. The memory of the discomfort he experienced last long enough for me to run and get vaccinated the instant I got old enough to be covered for it.

I don't see anybody I recognize from CR among my top 25 weighted Members With Your Books list. That might have to do with the large number of military history and baseball history/bios in my library. A bit lower down my list I find arubabookwoman and Paul Cranswick! The Ernest Hemingway page is #24 on my weighted page, and the Carl Sandburg page is #40!

Anyway, I'll look forward to keeping up with you here a bit better going forward.

>108 kidzdoc: I assume that policymakers are too far removed from the bedside or examination table to understand what an awful illness shingles can be.

It's unfortunate and reminds me of the people who don't believe in covid until a family member dies of it.

Dare to Disappoint only goes through the author's college years, so I'm not sure how she got to the US or if her parent's views have changed. Her father's motivation seemed to be that he did not want his daughters to have to be dependent on a man for survival (i.e. him or a husband), although marriage was expected. I liked how the author was able to channel her childhood excitement to go to school, her adoration of Ataturk, her love for Jacques Cousteau. She was bright and a little out of step with her peers. I could relate.

Maybe we can aim for the Brooklyn Book Festival instead of Decatur's? I've never been, have you?

>111 avaland: Thanks, Lois. Her doctor prescribed gabapentin which has helped with the pain. She had had the older Zostavax vaccine, which was discontinued in the US in November 2020. She had not been inoculated with the Shingrix vaccine yet unfortunately.

>112 rocketjk: Ha, you snooze you lose, Jerry! I bet you are right in that the military history and baseball books are obscure enough to skew you into a different cohort. That's okay. We'll still let you hang out with us. ;-) I have hundreds of children's books in my catalog, and I'm sure they have an effect on who is in my list as well.

>113 labfs39: Maybe we can aim for the Brooklyn Book Festival instead of Decatur's? I've never been, have you?

No, I haven't. As long as someone can watch my mother for a day I would love to go to it. Hopefully Liz can join us.

>114 kidzdoc: And the other Lisa (lisapeet)

Next Up:



Twenty Stories by Turkish Women Writers

Lois is the only reviewer of this book, and in her review she wrote "I originally bought it back when Reading Globally was doing a Turkey theme and everyone were tripping over themselves to read books by male authors. Granted, I had to search for this, but I thought it worth it to hear from those who hold up half the Turkish sky."

That was in 2011. Ten years later books by Turkish women authors are much more available and half our group is reading Elif Shafak alone.

The introduction to the book, presumably written by the translator, is written in language that we would consider dated now, but one thing in particularly struck me and may bear upon the observation above. She writes that in 1927, 95% of women were illiterate. By 1980 55% of women were literate, but the gap in literacy between men and women had increased.

Kerry (avatiakh) and I have created a new group dedicated to Holocaust Literature. We have created threads for discussing articles, exposing the fakes, graphic novels, juvenile literature, films & documentaries, the Righteous Among Nations, and more. If this topic interests you please stop by and join the discussions and/or create a thread to track your Holocaust-related reading.

>115 labfs39: Absolutely! There are several NYC area LTers in the 75 Books group that would probably go, along with others from the Delaware Valley and SE Pennsylvania, such as Katherine (@qebo).

>117 labfs39: Joined.

>98 labfs39: Ataturk (whose hagiographic presence in Turkey during the '80s was ubiquitous)

Still is!

>118 kidzdoc: I've only met qebo once, and would love it if she could join us. Someday, if this pandemic ever eases.

>119 rocketjk: Thanks, Jerry. And what a mess I had made of things with duplicate threads, but it's (mostly) fixed now.

>120 ursula: It was interesting how the author, as a child, had wanted to please Ataturk and talked to the picture of him in their house. I am used to thinking of only Communist Dictators having this sort of presence (Stalin, Mao).

Hi, Lisa. I am really enjoying When Stars are Scattered and will request Dare to Disappoint. Thanks for another rec.

>121 labfs39: His image and signature are everywhere. Every November 10 at 9:05 for the anniversary of his death people stand still for a minute (this includes most of the traffic). (I can't really call it a moment of silence because there are sirens to mark the time.)

Also, I see the library has Dare to Disappoint, so I'll definitely check it out.

>122 msf59: I'm glad you are enjoying When Stars are Scattered, I thought it was a special book. I'll look forward to what you think of Dare to Disappoint as well. I've had good luck with graphic novels lately—several excellent ones in a row.

>123 ursula: If Snow is anything to go by, the politics of Turkey are as polarized as in the United States. Of course Snow was published a while ago, but from what little I glean from the news, things are still complicated and messy. Currently in the book Ka is trying to get several factions to sign off on a join proclamation. I can't see it going well.

I hope you enjoy Dare to Disappoint.

Picked up a few books at the library the other day. $5 for a bag, so I got my mom a bunch to read while she's laid up, and a few for me as well :-)



1066: The Year of Conquest by David Howarth
Portland by Joyce Bibber (a pictorial history of Portland, Maine)
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (rec by dchaikin et al)

>126 labfs39: Nervous Conditions is a terrific look at the modern/traditional cultural clashes in 1960’s Zimbabwe. I loved it. (But I compare it somewhat with Paradise, except this is tighter to a real experience.)

Happy New Year, Lisa!!

>109 labfs39: - My parents were in Seattle then (about 30 min north of the city or so) but it might have been when Shingrix first came out. I asked my mom about it today, and I guess they had gotten the older one and were annoyed they had to get another one.

>116 labfs39: - Interesting note about the change in available Turkish authors. I'll wait until your review, but I was wondering if more works by the authors in the anthology are now available.

>126 labfs39: - I'm currently reading Nervous Conditions. I don't remember exactly when I first learned about the book, but it was a review of Rebecca's that inspired me to pick it up several years back.

>116 labfs39: I just caught sight of this: She writes that in 1927, 95% of women were illiterate.

The year after that, the Turkish language reform happened, moving from Arabic script to the Latin alphabet. A big part of this was to drive literacy. Wikipedia has this chart of literacy rates throughout the country in 1927, and the numbers are not good. It was all part of the drive of the Republic to boost overall literacy but also to change women's role in society. They were granted the vote in local elections in 1930 and universal suffrage in 1934.

>127 dchaikin: I look forward to reading Nervous Conditions, Dan, but not sure when I'll get to it. Wanted to have a copy on hand when that moment comes.

>128 karspeak: Thanks, Karen.

>129 DieFledermaus: It would be lovely if all scientific/medical discoveries had already been made, wouldn't it? I think of that whenever people I talk to or the news gets huffy over changing covid guidelines. Yes, it would have been lovely if we had known everything there was to know about covid before it got here, but by definition impossible (previously unknown coronavirus). Anywho, I'm glad your parents jumped on the bandwagon and got the Shingrix vaccine. I wish mine had.

I will answer your question about other works by the Turkish women writers in a separate post, but in brief, the ones I've checked so far are in LT already, but most without English translations. I'm going to look for some.

I saw that Rebeccanyc also owned Nervous Conditions, but I haven't read her review yet; or rather, I probably read it years ago and have forgotten. Are you enjoying it?

>130 ursula: I'm curious to learn more about the Turkish language reform. I wonder why moving to the Latin script was seen as necessary to improve literacy? The link between literacy and an improvement in women's status is clear. The short stories by Turkish women that I am reading have given me many different windows through which to see women's lives in the sixties and seventies. I don't usually read a lot of short stories, but reading these had given me a myriad of perspectives that is difficult to get from a novel or two.

This is cross-posted from the Asian Book Challenge Turkey thread:

I'm currently reading Twenty Short Stories by Turkish Women Writers and, in the process of adding biographical information and links to the authors' LT records, found a wonderful resource. Women Writers of Turkey is a website providing the biographies of hundreds of Turkish women authors and lists of their works (but not translations).

ETA: Here is some information on the first few authors:

Nezihe Meriç: couldn't find translations
Sevim Burak: possibly Everest My Lord in English
Selçuk Baran: couldn't find translations
Leyla Erbil: first Turkish woman to be nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature
-Her novel A Strange Woman will be published Mar 1, 2022 per Amazon.
Füruzan:
-Her novel A Summer Full of Love (2001) is available on Amazon in Turkish/English (other titles in other languages)
-″In the Park by the Pier″ is available online
-"The River" is available online
Sevgi Soysal:
-Her novel Noontime in Yenisehir is available on Amazon, other titles in French and German

That's it for now. Terribly time-consuming.

>130 ursula: >131 labfs39: We watched such an interesting BBC programme a little while ago called ‘The Secret History of Writing’ which mentioned Turkey several times. Apart from wanting to westernise one thing that they mentioned was that the Arabic alphabet isn’t actually that great at conveying the sounds in the Turkish language, and that the Roman alphabet does a much better job.

They also mentioned that one reason that printing didn’t take off in Turkey until relatively late was the different styles of the handwritten script when printing was introduced. In Europe the style of handwriting was ideally structured to be replaced by print, as each letter was written separately, to such an extent that it can be very difficult to distinguish an early printed book from a handwritten one. Whereas in the Ottoman Empire, the Arabic script was virtually impossible to print without making major alterations to its form, so print was seen as very much a second class medium, and definitely not suitable for the Koran.

>133 SandDune: ok, that’s fascinating.

>133 SandDune: >134 dchaikin: Yes, fascinating. I'm trying to find where I can watch it. There are some YouTube videos, but I'm not sure they are legal copies. Investigating.

>135 labfs39: I’m not sure it is available at the moment as I looked this afternoon. Once I thought of it I realised that I would quite like to watch it again. It was quite a recent programme, no older than 2020 so I was surprised that it didn’t seem to be around.

>133 SandDune: Oh, what a rabbit hole you've sent me down! I think part of the problem is Arabic isn't written on a letter by letter basis, but on a letter block basis - so it was hard to come up with standardized movable type, and spaces between letters in type make it hard to tell where a word ends. (I'm extrapolating from this article.)

>137 markon: Yes, that’s exactly it! I’d really like to find a book that covers the same topics as the programmes, written for the layperson, as I did find them fascinating.

>137 markon: And because it is an abjad and not an alphabet, there is an additional challenge when used outside of the language(s) it is designed for. And abjads really need to have the words separated properly unlike alphabet-based writings or it gets hard to get the vowels in your head while reading (or something along these lines). Now you all made me look at my Writings and alphabets set of books... :) Nice article (and site) - thanks for sharing!

>133 SandDune: "print was seen as very much a second class medium, and definitely not suitable for the Koran."

I've heard that one as well. Plus the fact that printing was invented in the Christian/infidel lands so using it for holy books is seen as unclean. Or something.

>131 labfs39: Just chiming in - I will also be interested in the Turkish perspective though... Part of the switch from Arabic-based Ottoman Turkish script to a Latin-based one (with letters being added for the specific sounds of the language that do not exist in the usual forms) for Turkish was also an attempt to modernize the nation and to make it appear more a European and less of an Asian/Arabic one and to have a standard - even if the Arabic based alphabet was the official standard, a lot of things were not written with it during Ottoman days including some of the official records in some periods (using Armenian script for writing the Turkish language in the records in mid-19th century is what I remember for example). Plus alphabets are easier to teach than abjads (IMO) and alphabets that can be used to write phonetically with all the phonemes and sounds you may need make the process much easier.

On the other hand, any historian working 19th century history in the area had seen occasional (and sometimes not that occasional) Greek texts written in the Ottoman abjad, Turkish ones in Greek or Hebrew or Armenian scripts or even Latin and Cyrillic alphabets and the different other languages in the area written in the abjad. :)

>133 SandDune: That is fascinating.

>113 labfs39:, >114 kidzdoc: Yes!

Vietnam also went through a similar change, from a language which used Chinese characters to one which uses a modified Roman alphabet. This was about improving literacy and the change was, I believed, linked to the movement for independence from French rule.

There were also some people in China in the mid-20th century who supported a plan to change Chinese from a character-based system into a Roman alphabet system, but this was never implemented.

>136 SandDune: It's unfortunate that "The Secret History of Writing" isn't available as I'm sure they would have had lots of new viewers after your post.

>137 markon: Interesting article (and site), Ardene. Rabbit hole indeed. I went off to investigate how hangeul works digitally, as it too is written in letter blocks, although seemingly less complicated than Arabic. I found this unicode chart. Theoretically there are 11,172 possible blocks. Fortunately hangeul blocks (or letters) don't connect, so that complication is avoided.

>138 SandDune: Let us know if you find one, Rhian.

>139 AnnieMod: An added benefit, moving everyone to a new alphabet unified a country with so many different languages and scripts, instead of giving preference to one by making that one the standard.

>140 BLBera: I agree, Beth.

>141 ELiz_M: A post-covid book party!

>142 wandering_star: I did a little research on Vietnam's use of a modified Roman alphabet, and it was created and used by Catholic missionaries as early as 1620, but enforced once the French colonized Vietnam (1910). It became easier to publish popular literature, which the Chinese had not encouraged, and also cut the average Vietnamese off from their traditional literature. Interesting.

>116 labfs39: I missed your post earier. Interesting notes! Wikipedia has a nice piece on Turkish authors who happen to be women.

>142 wandering_star: Yes, though I think digitally China is moving toward using Romanized text - see this 1994 article. Who knew? I didn't until I started googling.

>144 avaland: The Wikipedia article even calls out the short story book you read/I'm reading. The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation (2001) notes a boom in women's writing, but notes that these writers have failed to attract attention outside Turkey. One of the first major anthologies of Turkish women authors was a collection translated by Nilüfer Mizanoğlu Reddy (1988).

>145 markon: Interesting. Thanks for sharing the article, Ardene.

I had an interesting conversation with the librarians at my little local library today. I asked if the graphic novels were all co-located, and the new librarian, whom I don't know yet, said yes, in the children's room and led me to the Big Nate, Amulet, etc. books. I asked about adult graphic novels, and she looked at me blankly. The main librarian came by and said that there has been no interest in adult graphic novels, so she hasn't bought any. I asked about Maus or Persepolis, but nada. It led to an interesting conversation about the genre. I did pick up one book from their selection: Spirited Away, Vol. 1. I have seen the anime, but enjoyed a quick read through the beginning of the story.



Note that the cover of the volume I have is all in sepia tones and is entirely forgettable.

>147 labfs39: That’s disappointing but not totally unexpected I guess. :(

My library has graphic stories in 4 sections (there used to be 3) - the first two are age based and house what is marked that way; the third and now the fourth are the adult ones: children, the YA room, the non-fiction adult shelves (that’s where all non-novels live - poetry, drama, non-fiction, short stories - ordered by Dewey numbers while the novels are ordered by author name) and as of a couple of years ago, the last bookcase of the general fiction section, before it gets changed to mystery (science fiction and romance follow after that) had been converted to the GN section for all fiction adult GNs (memoirs and other non fiction are still with the non-fiction - that’s where all GNs were before). Sometimes it gets funny to chase what is where - one volume marked as YA, the next is not and so on but still.

>145 markon: Maybe for inputting, as it's much quicker and easier to type characters by what they sound like rather than the traditional way of the different elements of hope the character is written. But even then, with touchscreens, I've seen a lot of people using apps which just let you write the character with your finger on the screen and it turns it into type.

On the other hand, one technique used by the Hong Kong protestors when discussing their plans online was to write in Roman letters a phonetic form of Cantonese, as it was harder for PRC surveillance agents to read, whereas if they had written in characters a Mandarin-speaking Chinese person would have been able to understand it easily.

>147 labfs39: there has been no interest in adult graphic novels - I was in my local library this week and there was a notice saying that graphic novels had been taken off the open shelves as they kept being stolen!

>76 labfs39: Ugh. I've known a bunch of people who had shingles, generally in their 60s, and from their descriptions it is excruciating. The new vaccine appeared just about when I turned 60, and it was in high demand; I was on a waitlist for several months. My father had shingles in his eye at age 90, despite being vaccinated, and it was quite a mess.

>118 kidzdoc:, >121 labfs39: Casually scrolling the thread and see my name... Yes, in normal times NYC is a day trip by train (either a straight shot from Lancaster, or switch in Philadelphia). I haven't taken the train since COVID hit.

>148 AnnieMod: In a way, separating the graphic stories into their constituent parts makes me happy: the librarians are treating them as novels, memoirs, etc and not as separate entities because of their format. On the other hand, I sometimes want to read a graphic story, regardless of subject. It's the age old dilemma librarians face. Thankfully the online catalog makes it possible to create virtual shelves of every sort.

>149 wandering_star: one technique used by the Hong Kong protestors when discussing their plans online was to write in Roman letters a phonetic form of Cantonese, as it was harder for PRC surveillance agents to read

That's interesting. Possible because the protesters in Hong Kong would have known more English?

>150 SandDune: graphic novels had been taken off the open shelves as they kept being stolen

Quite the opposite situation from here! Was this in the adult room, Rhian, or the YA room? Having only been back in Maine for a year, and the library having been closed for most of that time due to Covid, I'm not sure of the demographic of library users (town of 3,000), but if recent visits are any indication, I would say 90% of users are over 60. I have no doubt that plays into the lack of requests for graphic stories here. I imagine they are unfamiliar with the format with no exposure.

>151 qebo: You are the second person to mention shingles in the eye. That sounds absolutely dreadful. Did he lose his vision in that eye? I took my mom for a ride yesterday. She hadn't been out of the house for a week. Unfortunately we stayed out past time for her meds, and she ended up in pain.

It would be lovely to see you again. Someday...

Snow by Orhan Pamuk, translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely
Originally published in 2002, English translation 2004

I read My Name is Red a few years ago and thought it amazing, so I began Snow with anticipation and high hopes. Unfortunately, I struggled to like this book, or even finish it. I think it would have made a good novella.

Ka is a self-absorbed poet who lives in political exile in Frankfurt, Germany. Returning home for his mother's funeral, Ka learns that a woman he formerly had a crush on, İpek, is now divorced and living in a town in the far northeast of Turkey called Kars. When he hears news of a rash of suicides there by girls forbidden to wear headscarves to school, Ka boards a bus for Kars with the intent to write about it for a Frankfurt newspaper. En route it begins snowing heavily, and he barely makes it to Kar before the roads are closed. For the next three days, Ka investigates the headscarf girls, gets involved in a coup, and woos İpek.

The novel is riddled with literary wannabes who seem to have a hand in creating the plot. It is a story within a story with two plays in the middle and peppered with poems which are never revealed to the reader. From page one, the reader is aware that someone is narrating Kars story, and, although he claims omniscience by dint of having read Ka's diaries, the narrator (a novelist) also mimics Ka and seems jealous of him. Is he relating Ka's story or writing it? Ka, who had been in a creative drought prior to his return to Turkey, is flooded with fully composed poems as soon as he arrives in Kars. Is he creating them or simply recording them? Journalists fabricate stories which then come true, actors stage plays with live action consequences, and everyone wants to pass along a message to the West.

The love stories in the book are facile, with little sincerity but lots of angst on the part of our protagonist. I failed to connect with the characters and had little sympathy for their machinations. The only characters I found truly sympathetic are a couple of religious school students and the headscarf suicides whom we never meet.

Pamuk touches upon many issues in his novel—secularism vs Islamist politics, militant nationalism, Kurdish guerilla fighters, the wearing of headscarves, the role of art in Turkish politics—about which I know little. Perhaps if I were more conversant with Turkish history and politics, I would have gotten more out of these sections. As it was I either appealed to Wikipedia or muddled my way through.

Snow was Pamuk's first novel after the wildly successful My Name is Red, and I felt as though he were trying to be as clever and innovative as he had been in that book, but missing the mark.

>152 labfs39: Possible because the protesters in Hong Kong would have known more English?

Could be - you are right that young Hong Kongers are more likely to speak English than people from the mainland - but also Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible by sound - the same characters are pronounced very differently in the two dialects. (In fact there's a debate about whether the different variants of Chinese should be called dialects or separate languages, but I don't want to hijack the thread too much!)

>153 labfs39: Same as you, I read My Name is Red and, a few years latter Snow and had the same feeling about the latter.
As I liked My Name is Red so much, I decided to try to read another book by Pamuk. It was A Strangeness in My Mind and I loved it (I've just re-read my review after reading this book at the end of 2018, and I am raving about the book!).
I own The White Castle but have not gotten to it yet.

>152 labfs39: It was in the adult section.

>153 labfs39: not fun to muddle through. Sounds like he was playing a lot games... maybe he forgot to make those games fun. Still, I have copy and might have a go some day.

Read your review of Snow, Pamuk with interest as I have three unread books by Pamuk on my shelves (including Snow).

>154 wandering_star: Hijack away! I am enjoying the conversation and learning a lot. So many rabbit holes...

>155 raton-liseur: I'm glad to know that Snow may be the aberration and that I too might enjoy other books by Pamuk. I was thinking I was done with him.

>156 SandDune: Huh. I wonder why people felt the need to steal the graphic novels. Embarrassed to be seen checking them out? How odd.

>157 dchaikin: Have you read My Name is Red, Dan? If not, I would heartily recommend you start there.

I've only read Pamuk's nonfiction work. I really loved Istanbul having read it after I had visited Turkey on a port of call on a cruise. Pamuk captured melancholy so perfectly. I read his collection of essays Other Colours and really liked it too. I think I'm scared to read his fiction because I've read such mixed reviews, and I know I liked his NF. I'll have to remember that My Name is Red is the one to look for.

>158 baswood: If one of them is My Name is Red, I'll give you the same advice I gave Dan, start there.

---

I read about Pamuk's trial today, which was very interesting. In an interview in 2005, Pamuk said, "Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here, and a million Armenians. And almost nobody dares to mention that. So I do." An ultra-nationalist opened a criminal case against him for, among other things, violating his honor. The law at the time said "A person who publicly insults the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months to three years." There was a public outcry from Europe and beyond, including an open letter in his defense by José Saramago, Gabriel García Márquez, Günter Grass, Umberto Eco, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Goytisolo, John Updike and Mario Vargas Llosa. Eventually charges were dropped on some sort of technicality, right before the EU was going to be investigating the Turkish legal system prior to being considered for membership.

Turkey is dead serious when it comes to defending Turkishness, and the writer’s international success has made him all too European for the conservative establishment at home. His recent novel, Snow, draws on all the latest Western literary techniques to show how backward and un-European that establishment is.

-From The Novelist Walks: Why did Turkey drop the charges against Orhan Pamuk?, an article in Slate magazine

The article goes on to talk a bit more about Snow.

Edited to fix link

>159 labfs39: My Name is Red is the only book by him that I've read. I enjoyed it (although I remember having to push a bit)

>161 labfs39: this is really interesting. Glad you shared.

>161 labfs39: Very interesting on Snow and Pamuk in general. Thanks!

>159 labfs39: "Huh. I wonder why people felt the need to steal the graphic novels. Embarrassed to be seen checking them out? How odd.

It might also be a sort of backwards indication of popularity. While I haven't seen this recently, I know that for years bookstores would put anti-theft sticker things in volumes of manga (and possibly other graphic novels) because they were more likely to "walk off" than other books.

Regarding the general lack of interest in graphic stories for older audiences that is prevalent at your library, it almost seems like a chicken and egg problem. If people aren't familiar with a particular type of media, they probably won't be asking for it, so there won't seem to be any demand for it, so the library won't stock it, so people won't be able to find it...it's sort of a vicious circle. And when a library has a limited budget--which I am sure is the case for most, if not all, libraries--the priority would be to acquire items with known demand first. Most libraries do have a way for patrons to request that materials be purchased, but again, the patrons need to know what they want to request first.

For some reason this puts me in mind of a children's/teen lit class I took in college where the professor was 100% convinced that fantasy for those age demographics was a dying genre. All of her source material for this conclusion came from mailing lists, tellingly all a year or two before the first Harry Potter book was published. And yeah, at that point in time there was something of a dearth of new speculative fiction for younger audiences, but by the time I took the class there were already a whole pile of Harry Potter books published, plus a slew of other new stuff.

>160 raidergirl3: I have heard good things about Istanbul. I think it's the one I will try next, although not immediately. Are his essays political?

>162 dchaikin: I vaguely remember hearing about Pamuk's trial and thinking it was another Salmon Rushdie affair. Although I don't think Rushdie is a particularly nice man, his life was pretty hellish for a while. His stepdaughter attended the same college as me, and she didn't have it easy.

>163 raton-liseur: Thanks, raccoon!

>164 shadrach_anki: chicken and egg problem

Absolutely, Anki. With limited library funds, the librarians are hard pressed to meet stated demand, never mind things that only a few people might look at. It would be nice if they had the funding to provide people with books that might tempt them outside their usual reading, but it's not the case at present. I'm very fortunate to have LT to keep my on my reading toes! I'm hoping they can purchase some up-to-date nonfiction for the children's room. That would be my priority, if it were up to me.

>165 labfs39: I'm hoping they can purchase some up-to-date nonfiction for the children's room. That would be my priority, if it were up to me.

Yeah, that does seem like it would be a higher priority than buying graphic novels that may only get limited circulation. Keeping nonfiction collections up to date and relevant seems like an incredibly daunting task. Sure, some categories are fairly evergreen and only need updating on occasion, but others seem to change before the newest new books can even get processed and on the shelves!

>153 labfs39: Wonderful review but I'm sorry it did not work for you. It seems he wanted to do too much and made it all quite complicated? I had planned to read My name is Red this month as this book has been on my shelves forever. Fortunately, you liked that one better.

>161 labfs39: Thanks for the info and the link to the article! I, too, will put My Name Is Red on my wish list as the book to start reading Pamuk.

Well, my strategy of reading new comments from the bottom of the list up clearly isn't working very well, because threads like this keep getting new comments and moving back up to the top again and I find myself way behind. Happy New(ish) Year, Lisa!

I need to get a shingles shot (I'm in my late 50s), deterred a bit because I don't want to get it at my local drugstore/pharmacy—the woman there gave me my Covid booster and flu shots and she was awful, most painful injections I've ever gotten. My doctor can do it but I haven't been in a while. I thought I had chicken pox as a teenager but I got something as an adult, about 15 years ago, that was entirely miserable and acted exactly like chicken pox. So who knows, but I'm assuming either way I've had it by now... weird to think there's no one alive who would remember if I had it as a kid or teen. I hope your mom is feeling better by now.

Fascinating conversation about language/text. I wonder what a good contemporary book on the subject might be.

>115 labfs39: Absolutely, I'm in.

>166 shadrach_anki: Yesterday, my local librarians followed up on our conversation about graphic novels and shared a resource available through the Maine Public Library system. Is it called ComicsPlus. It is a subscription service for libraries. I searched for probably 20 titles, and only found three (Collected Essex County, Little White Duck, and They Called Us Enemy), but that's three I don't have to ILL. I also found three more of interest: The Rise of the Graphic Novel, Fagin the Jew by Eisner, and My Beijing.

>167 Trifolia: I think part of the problem with Snow was that it was too long (a claim some have made about My Name is Red). The beginning and ending of Snow were faster-paced than the middle section which is when I considered abandoning ship.

>168 MissBrangwen: I hope you like it when you get to it. I think it helps if you have an interest in art history.

>169 lisapeet: I too thought I had had chicken pox as a kid, and it wasn't until my daughter was young that I was tested for the antibodies and none were found. So we got vaccinated together.

I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust by Livia Bitton-Jackson
Published 1997, 224 p.

The author, née Elli Friedmann, was born in what is now Slovakia, but at the time was part of Hungary. At the age of thirteen, she, her mother, and older brother were deported to Auschwitz. Her father had been taken to a Hungarian labor camp. She and her mother are taken to Camp C, a half-built pen with no water. Within a couple of weeks, they are transferred to Camp Plaszow to work flattening hills by hand. Back to Auschwitz, then forced labor in Germany, prison camp, cattle cars to nowhere. It's a horrifying story, told very matter-of-factly. Unusual in that Elli was so young and that she survived particularly harsh treatment.

This book was written for young adults; the author has also written an adult memoir called Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust.

>147 labfs39: That's too bad about the lack of graphic novels. For a small library; it might take someone buying a few for them to put on the shelves (sort of a 'seeding') to get the ball rolling. Or, perhaps they feel the high schools are covering it sufficiently.

>172 avaland: That's a really good idea, Lois. I should donate some. One of the librarians did mention something about Maus being used in the school. I love Maus, but to be honest, I wonder if that is the best example for kids: a middle-aged man writing about his relationship with his elderly survivor parents. There have been some excellent YA Holocaust graphic memoirs that might resonate more with students.

It raises an interesting question: should kids read "classics" even when they don't have the life experience to relate, or should they read more "coming of age" type books while they are young?

I remember reading a thread last year where people were saying they had had to read Ethan Frome in high school and hated it. At the time I thought, well, that's understandable. How could a teenager relate to a man struggling with conflicting feelings about his wife and an extramarital relationship? But on the other hand, I liked it when I read it in high school, although when I reread it as an adult, it was a completely different reading experience.

Trying to catch up here!

>142 wandering_star: The New Yorker magazine has an interesting article in its January 17th edition on modernization of the Chinese writing system, based on Jing Tsu's Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern (Riverhead). I'll need to look for this book. A good number of years ago I attended a similar talk on the Japanese writing system and I wonder if I still have my notes.

>153 labfs39: Although it's been some time since I read it, I agree with your assessment of Snow. Based on that, I have hesitated to read My Name Is Red, but have greatly enjoyed several of his non-fiction works.

>173 labfs39: I think its ok to give kids something to read that is outside their experience; in my case thats what I craved, which led me to scifi/fan and other books. I think the teacher needs to be good at guiding them through it, and related it in someway to their lives. But you might be right about Maus; dealing with survivor parents is on a whole other level. Other books might be better. Re coming of age books, again I think it depends on how it relates to them.

>174 Linda92007: Thank you - I will read that article!

I think they should read classics even though they may be outside their experience. Ethan Frome was also assigned at my high school ( perhaps because it is shorter, despite its "mature" subject matter??). I didn't particularly care for it then, but it led me to The Age of Innocence and House of Mirth, both of which might be more interesting to teenage girls than Ethan Frome. I did reread Ethan Frome as an adult and loved it.

>174 Linda92007: I found My Name is Red to be very different from Snow and, for me, highly enjoyable. I found both the structure and the art history interesting. It's a nod to The Name of the Rose in plot, if you liked that.

>175 cindydavid4: I think the teacher needs to be good at guiding them through it, and related it in someway to their lives.

I think you are right that a good teacher is key. My personal opinion is that English teachers should be striving to create lifelong readers. Boring teens is a quick way to turn them off, and for some teens, perhaps permanently.

I think Maus became popular with teachers because it was a graphic novel, and one of the first of its ilk that became so widely known. For many teachers graphic=juvenile or YA and thus appropriate without stopping to separate format from content. Now there are so many graphic novels to choose from, I think it's time to update their reading lists.**

As for "classics" and that in itself is a loaded term, I again think that it's possible to expose students to great writers without focusing on content that is inaccessible. That doesn't mean that I think that the reading should be a mere reflection. I think it's essential to expose students to other cultures, ways of thinking, and lifestyles. I just wonder sometimes if we couldn't do a better job of choosing books that aren't outside their age experiences, for lack of a better term. Mid-life crises, caring for aging parents as a parent yourself, extramarital affairs... let's save those for down the road and engage students where they are. Just my two cents!

**Those of you who followed my thread last year may remember the issues I had with my daughter's high school required reading. It's extreme lack of diversity and dearth of woman authors was appalling.

>177 arubabookwoman: but it led me to The Age of Innocence and House of Mirth, both of which might be more interesting to teenage girls than Ethan Frome

Then why start with Ethan Frome? I think for some teens who are already voracious readers, you could give them Ulysses, and they would be thrilled. I know I read everything I could get my hands on regardless of topic, author, or plot. But when I think of other students I have known who struggle with reading or who simply don't read outside of assigned reading (and sometimes not even that), I wonder if Ethan Frome is the right place to start. My goal would be to create readers, even if that meant forgoing some of the classics.

P.S. I love Ethan Frome and don't mean to single it out. It's on my mind because of a conversation last year about people who read it in high school and hated it.

lisa I think you are right on target; There are so many books that can be appreciated in later decades. But if kids don't get a chance to learn to love readinng, they may not get to that point

>180 cindydavid4: It's an interesting question that I revisit periodically, especially being the mom of a teen.

So call me contrary, but I am a third of the way through The Bastard of Istanbul and enjoying it. I was prepared not to like it, but it fits the Turkey theme of the month and it's been on my shelves forever, so I gave it a go. So far I am finding the characters quirky but endearing (and there are a lot of them). Primarily it's the story of two extended families: one Armenian family in San Francisco and a Turkish one in Istanbul. We'll see how the author pulls things together.

>181 labfs39: by the time I was able to go to the library myself I checked out what I wanted and my parents did not stop me from reading "difficult" books. When I was 11 I was reading grapes of wrath At some point I came to the dinner table in tears; my dad took the book and later talked to me about it. I learned that it was ok to stop a read, and ok to talk when i did not understand. From that point on I chose what I wanted, asked questions and except for required reading, stopped reading a book when I didn't like it.
few years later I checked out valley of the dolls snuck it in the house and read it at night. Somehow my dad saw it and asked me to tell him what I thought because he wanted to read it! uh ok dad. I probalbly missed most of what was going on, but I finished it

I read a great deal of different books through my teen years and have continued to. I think if I had kids, this would be the approach i would take. Unless of course I had a child that had trouble learning to read. I might approach choices differently.

This is where I usually insert my rant of Why on earth do they assign Death in Venice to tenth graders? But maybe I'll skip it this time around.

Lisa: As a college English instructor, my goal is exactly that, to make students enthusiastic about reading although by the time they come my way, they are often set in their habits.

>184 lisapeet: Seriously, we need to review high school curriculum and revisit the whole idea of what is a "classic." The canon was decided on by white male college professors at the beginning of the twentieth century, so I think we can feel free to revise it. And certainly look at what we're assigning to students.

I remember reading The Great Gatsby in high school and feeling pretty meh about it. When I reread it years later, I finally appreciated it. By the way, Maureen Corrigan, who is a huge Gatsby fan, visits this discussion in So We Read On, which I loved.

>179 labfs39: I myself was one who hated Ethan Frome in high school, but love it now. My opinion, based on nothing, is that it is chosen for HS because it is a shorter novel. As I recall, we read one Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, which I think is one of his shorter works (and it turned me off Dickens until my Victorian Novel course in college). Most of my High schools (I actually attended 4), did not have a lot required assigned reading (in fact those are the only 2 I can recall at the moment, other than a required Shakespeare play or 2 each year), but rather we were provided with fairly extensive lists of recommended books to choose from. I know in HS I became a voracious reader of Thomas Hardy and Dostoevsky. Can't think of others I got so engaged with in HS, but there might have been others as well.

Ugh. I wrote a lengthy post and lost it. Hate it when that happens. Starting over...

>183 cindydavid4: I too believe in letting kids/teens read difficult books, or whatever they want. It's funny which books were "taboo" and thus highly desirable to read when we were growing up. Valley of the Dolls, ha.

>184 lisapeet: Yes, Death in Venice seems a bit of a stretch for a tenth grader. Not that I wouldn't have read it, if I could have gotten my hands on it, but I'm not sure I would have gotten much out of it, besides reading the words. And for assigned reading to a classroom of indifferent teens? Egad.

>185 BLBera: Yes! I won't reiterate my diatribe about the Florida virtual school English curriculum again this year, but suffice it to say that it lacked diversity in every possible sense of the word.

I am one of those who read and hated The Great Gatsby in high school and again in college. So We Read On sounds interesting.

>186 arubabookwoman: It sounds like you had a quality high school education, Deborah, despite moving frequently. I love the idea of letting students choose what they want to read. Yes, I think sometimes more attention is paid to length (Ethan Frome) and/or format (Maus) than relatability.

I can't remember any of the assigned reading in high school, other than Shakespeare. Made that much of an impression on me ;-) I did read a prodigious amount on my own though, as I think most of us did. I don't remember a particular favorite author, although it's when my love affair with the 19th century novelists began.

My daughter and I watched the BBC tv series Sherlock last week. It was fantastic. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman were inspired casting choices. I want to read the originals now. I have the first, A Study in Scarlet, on my shelves. So many competing demands on my reading time!

"Sherlock" is a great series, Lisa. I don't think I've seen all the episodes, so I should check it out.

There's currently a lot of discussion about changing the reading curriculum to reflect more diversity, but it seems like changes in education always come slowly.

>189 BLBera: Yes indeed, Lisas statement "Seriously, we need to review high school curriculum and revisit the whole idea of what is a "classic." Ive heard since starting online book groups in 2000. And sometimes what was changed for the better suddenly takes several steps back (re our current testing of kids and our expectations of teachers) So I suspect it will be up to individual teachers and schools to sort it out - I know some have alternative lists or options which is a good start

What worries me is that our esteemed (see voting audit) arizona legislature will be starting a bill that would ban discussion of "controversial subjects" in school unless teachers give "equal weight" to both sides (slavery, anyone? the holocaust) If this becomes law I am afraid we will have no teachers left in the state.

>189 BLBera: There were four seasons of Sherlock, each with three episodes of 90 minutes each. I enjoyed all but the very last episode and was sad when it ended. I'm glad I was able to binge watch it, as some of the end-of-season cliffhangers were doozies.

>190 cindydavid4: I wish that teachers had more autonomy to customize the curriculum to their students' needs and interests. I'm sorry to hear that Arizona is headed down the same path as Texas with regards to controversial subjects. Yikes.

The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Published 2006, 360 pages

The Bastard of Istanbul is the story of two extended families: one Turkish and living in Istanbul, the other Armenian and living in San Francisco. Armanoush is the grandaughter of an Armenian deportation survivor, but with an American mom. In her struggle to integrate the two halves of her identity, she decides to go to Istanbul and stay with her stepfather′s Turkish family. What better way to feel Armenian than be surrounded by enemy Turks? And she can look for the house her grandmother′s family owned prior to deportation. Asya is a nineteen-year-old nihilist with a desire to have no past since she doesn′t know who her father is anyway. She lives with her mom, aunts, grandmother, and great-grandmother, a warren of women with disparate views on everything. When Amanoush arrives on their doorstep, the past begins to make itself felt in unexpected and alarming ways.

There are many characters in this novel, and the author does a wonderful job of making each one distinct and memorable. The plot is interesting and surprising enough to keep me turning pages. But primarily this is a book about memory, both personal and national, a topic I find endlessly fascinating. Some characters are trying to cultivate amnesia, to forget their pasts as though they never happened. Others revel in the past as a unifier for their family and their people. Secular, modern Turkey wants to forget that Armanians were ever a part of their Ottoman past, never mind confront the question of deportations and death marches. American Armenians push genocide onto the national agenda as a rallying cry in their diaspora. Why do people choose to remember or to forget? Is remembering always a good thing?

Upon publication of this novel in 2006, the author, Elif Shafak, was charged with ″denigrating Turkishness,″ a crime punishable with up to two years of jail time in Turkey. She drifts too close to the topic of the Armenian genocide, and some of her characters say things that touched nerves. Despite this, the book became a bestseller in Turkey. Recommended.

"But primarily this is a book about memory, both personal and national, a topic I find endlessly fascinating. Some characters are trying to cultivate amnesia, to forget their pasts as though they never happened. Others revel in the past as a unifier for their family and their people. " I suspect we'll be seeing this theme play out in many books this year!

"Secular, modern Turkey wants to forget that Armanians were ever a part of their Ottoman past, never mind confront the question of deportations and death marches" Well apparently the rest of Europe or at least Germany knew about them; when hitler was told the world would rise up over the persecution of the jews, he said, they didn't care about the armenian genocide, they wont care about this ....

Excellent review.

I have started reading Speaking for Myself: An Anthology of Asian Women's Writing to satisfy both the Asian Book Challenge and the Reading Globally Quarterly theme on the Indian Ocean. I am going to start by reading works by authors from islands in the Indian Ocean. I will post blurbs about the selections I read as I go along.

Tonight I read pieces from Sri Lankan authors:

Poems by Jean Arasanayagam (b. 1930)

"Weddings Photographs"
A woman talks with her mother-in-law about her wedding. Traditional, nostalgic.

In that dawn, so distant now,
Childbride my mother-in-law woke from sleep
Still swathed in folds of vermillion marriage silk
Her jewels warmed against her body,
Their heirloomed heritage adorning flower-fragrant
Flesh, her loosened hair with its crushed jasmines
Flowing over her shoulders, wandering alone in the garden
Dew glistering on her white feet
Silver toe-rings misted over,
Whispering below her breath
'Now I am a woman
I will carry on the sacred traditions
Worship the gods and goddesses at my shrine
Bring forth sons and daughters.'

"Telephone Conversation"
A woman reflects on living in foreign lands, while her daughter tries to convince her to seek political asylum.

...A derelict soul on a lonely park bench
Feeding pigeons who speak a different language
In a far-off country.

...Exchanging the patois, the argot
With this one or that as if I am on a silk
Route caravan travelling through history.

"Death by Drowning," a short story by Kamala Wijeratne (b. 1939)
An educated woman brought up to think herself above the riffraff is relegated to a remote village when her husband takes an administrative position there. Her servant boy regales her with gossip about a woman who has drowned, and she is torn between feeling herself above such doings and sympathy for the drowned woman.

>193 cindydavid4: Thanks, Cindy!

I thought I would share the weather I woke up to this morning:



Yup, that's -26 F. Tomorrow it will warm up enough to snow. Oh boy

>195 labfs39: That’s crazy. It’s raining here.

>192 labfs39: this is a lovely review. I'm thinking maybe this is the next Pamuk I should read, and maybe I should skip Snow altogether. The Armenian Genocide and its denial (attempted cultural brainwashing - as in washing this out of the cultural memory) is, well, it's a terrible thing.

>194 labfs39: enjoyed the poem.

How did I get so behind here?

>193 cindydavid4: Thanks, Cindy. I've read a little online about the Armenian genocide and Turkey's denial, but I would like to read more. Most of the world agrees it's genocide, but pander to Turkey on this issue for political reasons, which I have a hard time understanding.

>196 dianeham: And the snow has arrived. 6" so far, and it's near whiteout conditions. Another good reading day.

197 This isn't by Pamuk, but I would definitely read it before I read Snow. It's interesting to me that some people absolutely hate The Bastard of Istanbul. I didn't think it was amazing, but it's far from drivel, IMO. Be forewarned that the book there are a couple of disturbing scenes deserving of trigger warnings.

>198 labfs39: ah, I missed that it was by Shafak. That does temper my enthusiasm a bit. Hmm.

>195 labfs39: Im not bragging but its going to be 70 with mostly blue skies. But dont worry you can brag when we are getting 115+ days around June. Sigh.

>198 labfs39: I have several books on the subject but the one that is very thorough is Secrets of the Bosphorus: Ambassador Morgenthau's Story also Burning Tigris is good. I remember reading a really good novel about it but I don't remember which. Anyway all thats a good start

>194 labfs39:

What an incredible image!

>193 cindydavid4: I'll look for this book. There is a Turkish series on Netflix The Club which is starting to deal with the 1950s version of Turkey for Turks at the expense of the many contributing minorities. It will be interesting to see how it will develop, whether or not the Turkish producers will become wary of authorities.

Thanks for your review of Bastard of Istanbul. I have found it confusing, with the two settings, but have been plodding through. Your review encouraged me to keep going, and I have arrived at the day Armanoush arrives in Turkey. Will be interested to see what happens going forward.

>199 dchaikin: ah, I missed that it was by Shafak. That does temper my enthusiasm a bit

Because it is by Shafak or because it's not by Pamuk? Have you read other books by Shafak? I think you read My Name is Red back in the day, didn't you?

>200 cindydavid4: Extreme weather seems to be becoming the norm. Another "new normal."

>201 cindydavid4: Thank you for the book recommendations. The novel that I read that kicked off my interest is The Gendarme.

>202 SassyLassy: I hadn't heard of The Club, thank you for mentioning it. Do you like it?

>203 markon: The multiple settings and numerous characters do require work to keep straight. About halfway through though, I got sucked in and finished it quickly. I hope you find the same. I did sketch out a quick family tree at one point that helped me keep track of things, especially toward the end.

>204 labfs39: both. I listened to Shafak’s Booker longlist novel - 10 minutes 38 seconds etc and felt the tone was off for me and had kind of decided she’s not my author.

>195 labfs39: Wow - I just converted that into Celsius and that's seriously cold. The comment of 'very cold' under the igloo feels insufficient, somehow - I think what warrants some expletives before the 'cold'.

>204 labfs39: we have always had high temps before but usually things cooled off in the night time and the mornings were chilly. But while we might have had 115 about two times, now its many days in a row, and the low is 90...

It's been cold here as well, Lisa. Great comments on Bastard of Istanbul; I read it a few years ago and really liked it. There is a lot to talk about in this novel.

>192 labfs39: Great review, Lisa.

I haven't read any Shafak books yet but I have plenty of them on the shelves.

>205 dchaikin: I had heard lots of mixed (or bad) reviews of her works, so I wasn't sure if she were my author either. But the Bastard of Istanbul worked for me. Since it was written in 2006, I can only imagine that her style had changed between then and 10 minutes. It wasn't amazing enough for me to recommend you give her another try though, if you didn't like her other book. Too much else out there clamoring to be read.

>206 AlisonY: Yes, -32 Celsius is a bit chilly even for here.

>207 cindydavid4: I would still rather have cold temps than hot. I had heat exhaustion and then heat stroke in Florida, and that was no fun.

>208 BLBera: I thought there was lots to talk about too, Beth. I zeroed in on memory, but there was the Armenian genocide, secular vs religious ideas of state, head scarves, ethnicity, food, extended family relationships, sexuality in Turkey, culpability, etc.

>209 PaulCranswick: This one had been on my shelf for a long time. So far the Asian Book Challenge has helped me get to two BOMBs.

>210 labfs39: I agree. In the winter you can put more on to stay warm, or at least not freeze. In the summer there is only so much you can take off without being arrested. In the winter you don't get a 2nd degree from touching the door handle. However, one plus of summer: you don't have to shovel sunshine!

>187 labfs39: >191 labfs39: I teach German and English at a school/college where among other things you can do your university entrance certificate (Abitur), for which you need to do German courses for three years, on a more basic level or on an advanced level. The topics and assigned readings are decided upon on state level. I live in the smallest of the German states, Bremen, which is also the state that is politically most on the left (there has never ever been a conservative government here since the state was founded in 1947). However, despite of that, the assigned reading was white males only for years and years, even on the advanced level, although most of the students on the advanced level are female students. Teachers have voiced their disagreement with this for a long time, and slowly more texts by female authors have been introduced. Moreover, a new topic next year will be novels written by migrants living in Germany, so it seems that the call for diversity was heard.

Through teaching these courses, I also discovered the author Louise Aston, a 19th century author who even lived in Bremen for some time, but who was persecuted by the Prussian authorities because she fought for women's rights. I was astonished because although I studied German literature, I had never ever heard about her. I think she should definitely be included in the literary canon because she describes the situation of women in Prussia in the 19th century so well, both in her poems and in her nonfiction. I think it is such a shame that her name has largely been forgotten. She really has been silenced, until this day. I hope to use her texts in more of my lessons in the future.

Just my two cents when it comes to defining the canon and my experiences as a teacher!

>188 labfs39: I'm another Sherlock fan! I installed the main theme as my mobile ring tone and have kept it ever since. I love it!

>192 labfs39: Great review!
"But primarily this is a book about memory, both personal and national, a topic I find endlessly fascinating. Some characters are trying to cultivate amnesia, to forget their pasts as though they never happened. Others revel in the past as a unifier for their family and their people." This has struck a chord with me.

>212 MissBrangwen: I am thrilled that we are seeing more changes like this. Its been along time coming.

BTW I know Bremen for the folk tale Town Musicians of Bremen
Fairy tale Had my preschool students act it out over the years which was great fun.

>195 labfs39: Those temperatures are eye-wateringly low!

>212 MissBrangwen: the author Louise Aston, a 19th century author
That's fascinating! I'd never heard of her before. It looks like she isn't available in translation, which is very disapppointing.

>211 cindydavid4: you don't have to shovel sunshine

How true! My snowblower broke down yesterday, so my daughter and I had to shovel 8" of wet, heavy snow. No fun. And now everything is a glare of ice.

Unfortunately, here in Maine we have had unusually hot summers too and are in the midst of a multi-year drought. Not as hot as AZ of course, but people die every summer because nothing here is air conditioned, and the elderly in particular are susceptible.

>212 MissBrangwen: Thank you for sharing, Mirjam. I'm always curious how other countries and places do things. Louise Aston sounds interesting. Is there a particular work of hers that you would recommend?

>213 MissBrangwen: Wasn't Sherlock well done? Have you read the books?

>214 cindydavid4: Agreed.

>212 MissBrangwen:, >214 cindydavid4: Rats. Nothing in translation, huh?

I want to give a shout out to a resource that Cyrel (torontoc) shared on the Holocaust Literature group's nonfiction thread. It's called Lockdown University. Here is some information about it from an email I received:

About LU
Lockdown University started in early 2020, when I set out to enrich the time my family and I were spending in Lockdown. What started as us learning from a few friends expanded to our larger circle of family and friends, and quickly evolved through word of mouth alone into the robust lecture program you see today, each viewed by thousands of people all across the globe. The goal of LU has always been to create free and dynamic educational content, build an engaged and diverse community, and combat feelings of isolation by fostering connection.

Our Sessions
At Lockdown University, my faculty and I strive to introduce a wide variety of topics to our participants. These include Jewish culture and history, geopolitics, current events, art history, contemporary and classical performing arts, design and architecture, literature, psychology, and more! We aim to speak to your current areas of interest while also offering opportunities to explore ideas and subjects that may be new to you.

Our Speakers and Community
Most of our speakers are personally connected to myself or one of our core faculty members in one way or another, and it’s part of what makes Lockdown University so special. Our speakers and community members contribute equally to the LU “ecosystem.” We may not always agree each other, but we ask that everyone be respectful of the diversity of opinions and experiences within our community.

Here is a taste of some of the lectures we offer to get you started:
9Yards Capital- The Economy in 2022
Professor David Peimer- Samuel Beckett’s Life and Plays
Rabbi Lord Sacks and Daniel Finkelstein in Conversation
Trudy Gold- The Jewish World in 1945
William Tyler- Napoleon: A Figure of Controversy
Yotam Polizer- An Unlikely Rescue: IsraAid and Afghanistan

Warmly,
Wendy Fisher

They don't have a website yet, so I sent an email to info@lockdownuniversity.org asking to join. I immediately received information back, including links to the sample lectures above (they ask that links not be shared, but signing up is free). I also received the schedule for the week. The lectures take place on zoom at 12 pm EST. Cyrel says that if you miss a lecture you can email them and they will send you a link. So far I've watched:

The Jewish World in 1945 given by Trudy Gold
The Empress Maria Theresa and Joseph II by William Tyler
Freud: Ideas for the 21st Century, Part 1 by David Peimer

I missed the ones this week on Don Giovanni and Haydn.

Although it's hard for me to commit to noontime lectures, since they are everyday, there is always something going on. So far I've found them quite interesting and a welcome addition to my reading.

A Killer in King's Cove by Iona Whishaw
Published 2016, 408 p.

I decided to read this "cozy mystery," a genre I am not usually drawn to, because it was compared to Maisie Dobbs, the protagonist is a female ex-WWII intelligence agent, and it is set in British Columbia.

Lane Winslow has just moved to the remote village of King's Cove, British Columbia, and is settling into her new home, trying to forget the war and her role as a spy. When the water shuts off, she and a neighbor check the creek for problems. Lo and behold there is a dead body in the sluice. Moreover the dead man has her name written on a scrap of paper in his pocket. The handsome young detective suspects she must have something to do with it, and Lane must prove her innocence.

As far as mysteries go, I had solved this one about half way through and spent the rest of the book mentally urging the characters to make the obvious connections. This is the author's first adult book, and it is apparent in the writing, especially at the beginning of the book. Sentences like "After looking inquiringly at the kettle to see if she could hear it heating up, she took a delicious amble through the rooms" had me laughing out loud. The main character is sympathetic though, and I was curious to learn more about her work during the war, which is alluded to, but never made explicit.

Although I spent a pleasant couple of hours reading, I don't think I'll rush out to get the next one. Instead I might pick up my Vera Atkins book and read about real female espionage agents, as that is what most drew me to the book.

>218 labfs39: This is not something I'd normally be drawn to, but it sounds interesting. Making a note . . . .

Sorry this didn't work for you, Lisa. There's more about her work in the war in later books, but really, if you didn't like the first one, this series may not be for you.

>219 Nickelini: Beth and others enjoyed them more than I did, and part of my tepid response may be due to the fact that I don't read a lot of mysteries, but I do read nonfiction about the war and the Resistance, so I had different expectations.

>220 BLBera: I am curious to see how Lane's backstory plays out, there is a lot there (her life in Riga, her father, her work in France). I will keep the series in mind for times when I need something easy and entertaining. They would have been very welcome reading when I was in quarantine for three months with Covid.

Thanks for the info on LU. Might check that out - sounds interesting. Just not sure if I've any receptive brain cells left after a day at work to take it in.

>222 AlisonY: I could not do it everyday, but I'm hoping to watch them occasionally on the weekend and days off. Cyrel watched one on the Hare with the Amber Eyes exhibit, which I would really like to have seen. Maybe I can ask for a link.

>218 labfs39:, >221 labfs39: I do read nonfiction about the war and the Resistance
Yeah, I can imagine that a cozy mystery wouldn't be up to your standards in this area, though maybe it's partly a matter knowing what to expect going in.

Good to try a fun mystery every so often, even if it’s not perfect. I’m thinking I should do that too sometime… (but a different one)

>217 labfs39: A friend of mine told me about Lockdown University and she heard from a friend in Montreal! The lectures have been wonderful during this pandemic. The big issue is that you have to register- the organizers don't want people to use links that belong to their family or friends- it is important for the organization's security system.

>224 qebo: >225 dchaikin: It's good for me to step outside my box once in a while. I liked the idea of these. I wish I could skim through the mystery parts and just read about the war! I guess that defeats the purpose of a mystery though, and doesn't do much for getting me outside my usual fare.

>226 torontoc: Even though you have to register, it was not at all intrusive. All they asked for was a name and email address. I hope they continue doing it. It will be nice when they get a website. Hopefully then there will be a way to watch the older lectures.

>227 labfs39: Maybe a mystery that has nothing to do with the war so you aren't hoping for things that aren't there? Lotsa flavors to mysteries too. I go for psychological, creepy beneath a surface normalcy, am bored by action-packed. OTOH, if mysteries are just not your thing, then head outside in a different direction. I tried space opera because several LTers I respected were raving about a couple of series, but I would just dread picking up the books to dutifully slog through. Or stay inside your usual fare. I like that you have a theme, because I'm unlikely to read most of the books but I learn just by reading your reviews.

>214 cindydavid4: Oh yes! There is a statue of the four musicians in a corner of the historic market place and it's a must see for tourists :-)

>216 labfs39: I have only read one short story so far, but I liked it very much. I have a penguin edition of the complete stories which I would like to read in autumn, but each year I postpone that project because there is so much on my plate!

>228 qebo: I only read mysteries once in a while, and usually it's as a comfort read, which this was. Light and entertaining for a few hours. Who knows, I may even ILL the next one just to see what happens.

>229 MissBrangwen: I know what you mean about so many books and so little time. I knew someone in college who only needed about four hours of sleep a night. While everyone else was snoozing, he read for pleasure. I would love to be like that.

Hyperbole and a half : unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened by Allie Brosh
Published 2013, 369 p.

What a gem of an illustrated memoir this is! The title was been on my radar for years, and I finally put it on my Amazon wish list and received a copy as a gift. I laughed, snorted, and empathized my way through the book.

Allie Brosh started a blog in 2009 instead of studying for her physics final. It became a smashing success, and the book, a compilation of her blog posts as well as some new stories, was published in 2013. The book begins with letters she exchanges with her childhood self and gives snapshots of various points in her life. Mostly they are very funny: getting lost with her mom and little sister in the woods, a goose coming into her house and chasing her and her boyfriend, her life with two wacko dogs. But in 2011 she posted a blog about the severe depression she was experiencing, and then in 2013, when she returned to public life, she posted a second. The two posts were very moving and have been lauded by psychologists and others as a very good depiction of depression. The book ends with a couple of chapters on identity.

The artwork is very crude, almost stick-figures, but the expressions and postures convey a wealth of emotions. The book itself has stiff, glossy pages that made it a pleasure to hold. Can't wait to read her second book, which was published at the end of 2020.

I also find mysteries to be comfort reads, Lisa.

>231 labfs39: I love Hyperbole and a Half. Her other book is more complex and deeper, but still very much her. I think you'll like it.

I'm so behind on your thread now! Just going to say that I agree with your thoughts on Snow and your review made me more likely to read My Name is Red. I actually read Snow for my book club at the time, and we all had similar thoughts--not liking the characters or the romance and thinking some of the issues were handled clumsily. It sounds like opinions on Shafak are divided, but you do make The Bastard of Istanbul sound interesting.

I also remember enjoying Hyperbole and a half. Thanks again for steering me over to the Club Reads GN thread. I sure enjoy getting GN recs and many of them over there are of the nonfiction sort, which I prefer.

>231 labfs39: I have Solutions and Other Problems on my TBR pile. I'm waiting to be in a good headspace to read it.

>232 BLBera: What other comfort reads do you have? I used to keep a shelf of books that I could turn to when I needed a lift. Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, Miss Buncle's Book, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, Stories from the Vinyl Cafe, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, etc. "Cardigan books" I think I've heard them called.

>237 labfs39: Ooh, that's a juicy list of comfort books! I had never heard of A Guide to the Birds of East Africa but since it is in a list with Vinyl Cafe and Major Pettigrew, I've found it and requested it from my library. I can't wait!
I'd add Blue Castle by LM Montgomery to this list, and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, which is so perfect that both Pettigrew books are delightful.

>233 RidgewayGirl: I was impressed with Brosh's ability to convey so much emotion through such simple drawings. Even her dogs were a riot. I'm looking forward to book 2.

>234 DieFledermaus: My Name is Red is such a different book. I wonder if I would have liked Snow more, if I had read it first? MNiR had such an interesting narrative structure, and I learned so much about Persian art of the time. If I had to hazard a guess, I think you will like it, if you get to it.

Opinions on Shafak are divided. She seems like an author capable of writing very different books. I'm not sure I would like all of her books, but I found The Bastard of Istanbul interesting enough.

>235 msf59: I'm glad you are enjoying the GN thread, Mark. I've gotten a lot of recommendations too. I wish it were easier to get them from the library here. I have to ILL everything, which is slow.

>236 rhian_of_oz: After having read Hyperbole and a Half, I understand what you mean about getting in the right headspace, Rhian. Especially if, as Kay says, Solutions and Other Problems is deeper. The segments on her experience with depression were very affecting.

>238 raidergirl3: And I will add those two to my list for the next time I want something warm and fuzzy!

GN thread?

>240 cindydavid4: See The graphic stories, part 1

>237 labfs39: I thought of a comfort book to recommend: The Women in Black by Madeleine St John

>242 Nickelini: I have that on my tbr, and I'd start it immediately, but it is in the part of my tbr that now lives in boxes, so it will have to wait until I unpack.

>237 labfs39: That's a good question, Lisa. I'd say Louise Erdrich and Penelope Lively are two go-to authors if I'm in a reading slump. Otherwise mysteries by writers that I like. I love the Donna Leon series, for the setting (Venice) and the food.

>240 cindydavid4: I habitually call all graphic novels, memoirs, illustrated stories, manga, etc. graphic novels or GN, which is sloppy. Annie started a Graphic Stories thread, and that term is much more encompassing. Mark/msf59 is a 75 Books member and friend to many of us in Club Read, and a graphic "novel" fan too.

>241 markon: Thanks, Ardene, for posting the link.

>242 Nickelini: Noted.

Do you think we should create a thread for comfort reads and we can list suggestions? I would like it because I wouldn't have to add so many books to my wish list, but just visit the list when in the need. Thoughts, all?

>243 RidgewayGirl: The travails of moving. I still have most of my history, biography, and Holocaust books in boxes, and I moved a year and a half ago.

>244 BLBera: I want to read more Louise Erdrich; I've never read Penelope Lively. I'm not sure I would find Erdrich's books comfort reads though. At least The Round House was not easy. Excellent, but not comforting.

A couple of titles that I have read several times, but aren't really comfort reads are Outlander and Baba Dunja's Last Love. Sometimes I get in the mood for an escape and both of those take me out of myself well.

>241 markon: ahhhh! good, a well needed thread!

>245 labfs39: Why not a thread for recommendations in general, instead of just comfort reads? A thread where people can ask "I'm looking for a book that....." I think of all my ridiculous and specific challenge prompts where it would be helpful to ask the group (Fantasy novel written by an Asian woman, preferably not Japanese or Chinese?) rather than identical posts on various people's threads that I think might be able to help....

>245 labfs39: Do you think we should create a thread for comfort reads and we can list suggestions? I would like it because I wouldn't have to add so many books to my wish list, but just visit the list when in the need. Thoughts, all?

My first reaction was "sounds great!" but then I thought about all the people who have different ideas of what makes a comfort read. We all seem to be on the same page, but as soon as we start this thread, someone will pipe up with "when I need a comfort read, I like WWII fiction with lots of battles," or "nothing gives me comfort more than reading about future worlds where the last 3 humans fight off the robot overlords."

Reminds me of a few years ago when I posted on Facebook that I had a dark winter night to myself and I was going to hunker down and watch Brigit Jones's Diary for the 10th time. Some aggressive guy I know posted "no, you need to watch Ozarks." I ignored him, but no! I'd watched a few episodes of Ozarks and I couldn't imagine anything I'd want to watch less at that time. And that's just one of the reasons I quit Facebook.

>247 ELiz_M: - that's an idea worth considering

Trying to catch with your thread.
>179 labfs39: - This reminds me of wanting to read Ethan Frome ever since I saw the movie and ever since I read Edith Wharton's Summer, which I loved. But I also wonder why teenagers should be put off by books they can't really grasp at that age when there are so many other beautiful books out there. Maybe you should try to put together an alternative book list for them to use at school :-)

>192 labfs39: - I'm glad you enjoyed Shafak's book, Lisa, and it looks like I would enjoy that one too. Wonderful review! Somehow she seems a bit different from other authors and I wonder if that has to do with the fact that she grew up in different cultures. Or maybe I'm biased because I've seen her TED talks.

>218 labfs39: - I had to look twice because first I thought I ended up on someone else's thread and then that someone else had hijacked your thread. You and cozy mysteries... I guess it'll never work :-).

>245 labfs39: >247 ELiz_M: - 248 - Maybe the choice we make as a comfort read says more about us than it does about the book. If your interests align it can work, of course, but for that you need to know someone pretty well. I collect comfort reads here and there as I go through the threads. Or I try to continue a series. I started.

>247 ELiz_M: There is a whole group about that: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/23175/Book-Recommendations-Requests (not that new anymore but it is kinda newish

We can do it in the group but that won't get you the genre people for some cases... :)

I'm not sure if Erdrich would be a comfort read on the first read, but I love the books so much, that I can pick them up and reread favorite sections. Even in The Round House, the parts when the priest was chasing Joe's friend and when the boys are skinny dipping are funny.

>250 AnnieMod: True, it was a thought.

>251 BLBera: That's true. Favorite authors can be comfort reads even if the subject isn't warm and fuzzy.

>252 labfs39: I am not saying not to do it - I was just providing a link to a group people may have missed :)

Twenty Stories by Turkish Women Writers translated by Nilüfer Mizanoğlu Reddy
Published 1988, 129 p.

The short stories in this anthology are all written by women born after the establishment of the Turkish Republic, but have little else in common. The stories range from domestic vignettes to avant-garde experiments to social commentaries. Some of the authors achieved fame within their lifetimes, while others remain obscure. Some authors have books that have been translated into English, but most have not. This collection was a good introduction to female Turkish authors and to social issues in Turkey between the 1950s and 1988 when this book was published.

I'm trying to get up the oomph to write a blurb about each story. I should have done it as I went along, because now it seems onerous...

One of the short stories is available online: "In the Park by the Pier" by Füruzan (1970). As is one other short story by the same author, "The River" (1973).

Next Up:



The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

For the Reading Globally group's theme read on the Indian Ocean. The novel takes place in the Sundarbans, the island archipelago at the delta of the Ganges River.

The library reopened today after being closed for a Covid outbreak downstairs in the town offices, and I was able to pick up the stack of ILLs that were waiting for me.

I Will Never See the World Again by Ahmet Altan
Memed, My Hawk by Yasar Kemal

were both for the Turkey challenge, which ends today. I still want to read the Altan memoir (thanks raton-liseur for the recommendation), but may skip the Kemal, based in part on Deborah/arubabookwoman's review.

Contract with God Trilogy by Will Eisner
In. by Will McPhail

Two graphic novels, the latter of which I read this afternoon (thanks wandering_star for that rec).

In. by Will McPhail
Published 2021, 267 p.

Nick Moss is an artist always watching and drawing people, but unable to make meaningful connections with them. He never knows what to say, and when he does say something, he feels like the conversation is a performance, not genuine. Yet every once in a while, there is a moment of transcendence, when he shares something about himself, and it is heard and reciprocated. These moment are depicted in gorgeous colored pages, in a book of otherwise black and white graphics.

The author, Will McPhail, has been a contributor to The New Yorker magazine since 2014. This is his first book. His cartoons can be found on his website and Instagram (@willmcphail4).

January was a crazy month in Club Read, and my thread filled up quickly. So I'm started the new month with a new thread. Sadly, I forgot to use the "continue this topic in another topic" link, so you need to click here to go to it. After all these years, you think I would have this down!

I missed these last few posts. Good review of the Turkish women anthology. Your reading is so wonderfully varied.