Kidzdoc's Year of Uncertainty and Opportunity, Part 2

For Black History Month I have been honoring past and current African Americans who were born or spent much of their lives in Philadelphia, with daily posts on my Facebook timeline. This painting is "The Banjo Lesson", which was completed in 1892 by Henry Ossawa Tanner, the first Black painter to gain international renown:



Currently reading:

    

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Ordinary Light: A Memoir by Tracy K. Smith
Alzheimer's Canyon: One Couple's Reflections on Living with Dementia by Jane Dwinell & Sky Yardley

Completed Books:

January:
1. The Problem of Alzheimer's: How Science, Culture and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It by Dr Jason Karlawish
2. Pauli Murray's Revolutionary Life by Simki Kuznick
3. Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah
4. Autumn Rounds by Jacques Poulin

February:
5. Milongas by Edgardo Cozarinsky (DNF)
6. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis
7. Passing by Nella Larsen
8. The Search Warrant by Patrick Modiano
9. The Trees by Percival Everett
10. Mom's Gone Missing: When a Parent's Changing Life Upends Yours by Susan Marshall
11. Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems by Dulce María Loynaz

March:
12. The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
13. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
14. The Actual by Inua Ellams
15. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby

April:
16. Travelers by Helon Habila
17. Assembly by Natasha Brown
18. Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro
19. Heaven by Mieko Kawakami
20. A Guardian Angel Recalls by Willem Frederik Hermans

May:
21. The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Kracht
22. The Caiman by Maria Eugenia Manrique

June:
23. Aftermath by Preti Taneja
24. Brotherhood by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

July:
25. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
26. Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood by Mark Oppenheimer
27. What Goes Unsaid: A Memoir of Fathers Who Never Were by Emiliano Monge
28. My Broken Language: A Memoir by Quiara Alegría Hudes
29. Nothing Personal by James Baldwin
30. Bless the Daughter Raised By a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire
31. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
32. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout (DNF)
33. Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations by Dr Kathryn Mannix
34. milk and honey by Rupi Kaur

August:
35. Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

The African Diaspora: Fiction and Poetry (2022 goal: 25 books)

The Actual by Inua Ellams ✅️
Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah ✅️
Assembly by Natasha Brown ✅️
The Ones Who Say They Don’t Love You by Maurice Carlos Ruffin ✅️
Passing by Nella Larsen ✅️
Travelers by Helon Habila ✅️
The Trees by Percival Everett ✅️

The African Diaspora: Nonfiction (2022 goal: 12 books)

Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby ✅️
Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis ✅️

Asian Book Challenge 2022

January: Turkey
February: Israel & Palestine
March: The Arab World
April: Iran
May: The -Stans
June: The Indian Subcontinent
July: China
August: Japan
September: Korea
October: Indochina
November: The Malay Archipelago
December: The Asian Diaspora

2022 International Booker Prize Longlist



Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from Korean by Anton Hur ✅️
After The Sun by Jonas Eika, translated from Danish by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg
A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated from Swedish by Damion Searls
More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman, translated from Hebrew by Jessica Cohen
The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman, translated from French by Leslie Camhi
Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Samuel Bett and David Boyd ✅️
Páradais by Fernanda Melchor, translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park, translated from Korean by Anton Hur
Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated from Indonesian by Tiffany Tsao
Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated from Spanish by Frances Riddle ✅️
Phenotypes by Paulo Scott, translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft

Dignidad Literaria: Literature by Authentic Latinx Writers

Bless Me, Última by Rudolfo Anaya
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez
Dominicana by Angie Cruz
Everyone Knows You Go Home by Natalia Sylvester
Friction by Eloy Urroz
The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

Faulkner, Faulkner! Part 1: I own all five editions of the Library of America collections of William Faulkner's novels, and I intend to read one of them each year, starting with William Faulkner: Novels: 1926-1929.

Soldiers’ Pay
Mosquitoes
Flags in the Dust
The Sound and the Fury

Medicine, Public Health and Science

Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History by Dr Paul Farmer
How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France
Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations by Dr Kathryn Mannix
My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing “Slow Medicine,” the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones by Dennis McCullough, MD (re-read)
The Problem of Alzheimer’s: How Science, Culture and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It by Dr Jason Karlawish ✅️
Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing by Dr Victoria Sweet

Reading Globally Quarterly Theme Reads

Q1: Around the Indian Ocean
Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Q2: Outcasts and Castaways
Travelers by Helon Habila

Q3: When Alphabets Collide: Books Written in the Slavic Languages
Q4: Prize Winners in Their Own Language

I was shocked and deeply saddened when I first heard about the sudden and most unexpected death of Dr Paul Farmer, the highly influential anthropologist, global health expert and physician who chaired the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and was the co-founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health, the non-profit organization that "collaborates with national governments to provide care and strengthen public health systems in areas including cancer and chronic disease, child health, emergency response, HIV/AIDS, maternal health, mental health, and tuberculosis." In addition to his great work he authored several books, including two that I've read, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, and Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, and two which I own, Haiti After the Earthquake, and Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History. Dr Farmer was the focus of the bestselling book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder, which I own but haven't read yet. He was an inspiration to many of us physicians, and his loss is immense.

>10 kidzdoc: I have not read Farmer's books though I am familiar with him. Are there any you would recommend?

>10 kidzdoc: - Oh my. I had not heard. This is just devastating news. 62 years old. Yikes. I saw the documentary film about him a few years ago, Bending the Arc. Seek it out, Darryl, if you haven't seen it, it is excellent. He accomplished so much good in his life. What a tragic loss to the world. Also, read the Tracy Kidder book about him. It, too, is excellent. I read it right after seeing the doc film.

>1 kidzdoc: love the painting

>10 kidzdoc: this is a really nice post. I saw the headlines but didn’t know who Dr. Farmer was.

Hi, Darryl. Just checking in to your new thread. How are you getting along with the Ella Baker bio? The subject matter is fascinating, of course, though the writing style, I thought was a bit dry at times.

I have been following and greatly enjoying (and learning from) your Black History Month posts on Facebook. Thanks for those.

All the best.

>1 kidzdoc: That painting is just wonderful! Thanks for sharing it here.

I'm afraid I was ignorant of Dr. Farmer's work until I saw news of his passing, and read some of the tributes. All I can say is, the world didn't need to lose him just now. I hope he had an army of followers who will carry on.

Book #6: Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis with Michael D'Orso



My rating:

This well written and compelling memoir of one of the most important members of the Civil Rights Movement, and the representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district — including most of the City of Atlanta, my former home — covers his birth to a family of uneducated sharecroppers in Troy, Alabama — my mother's home town — to his surprising election to Congress in 1986, upsetting his longtime friend Julian Bond, who, like Lewis, was one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), one of the most important civil rights groups of the 1960s, along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and, to a lesser extent, the NAACP.

In Walking with the Wind, Lewis gives a detailed account of his modest upbringing in a medium sized segregated town in the Deep South in the 1940s and 1950s, in a stable family who was poor but not impoverished, as no one went hungry or suffered from want. As he later described in the award winning graphic novel March: Book One he first gained a love of the ministry by preaching to the chickens in his household, whose care was entrusted to him, which was enhanced in 1955 after he heard a sermon given by a young minister from Atlanta who led a church in nearby Montgomery, Alabama. Dr King's message of nonviolent protest against racial prejudice, the church's key role in the successful Montgomery bus boycott, and the brutal murder of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi that year deeply affected and influenced him, and despite his parents' fears and desires for him he decided to become an active participant in the nascent civil rights movement. He was an excellent student in the segregated schools he attended in Troy, but they provided him with a second class education and did not adequately prepare him to enter Morehouse College in Atlanta, where Dr King received his bachelor's degree, so he accepted a scholarship to the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee.

Nashville, a relatively tolerant city with several Black colleges and universities, served as the most important site where students engaged in successful sit ins and other peaceful protests against segregated lunch counters, movie theaters and other venues in 1960, and John Lewis was a key participant in the Nashville Student Movement. This movement directly led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which quickly became the most progressive and active of the major civil rights groups, to the dismay of the far more conservative and cautious NAACP headed by Roy Wilkins, and the SCLC led by Dr King. Lewis became a key organizer of and participant in the 1961 Freedom Rides, which challenged segregation on interstate buses and stations in the Deep South, and the violent response by local police and members of the KKK gave the Civil Rights Movement greater attention by the public and by new president John F. Kennedy, and led to greater participation by students of all races throughout the country.

Lewis was elected chairman of the SNCC in 1963, which provided the young but battle tested man a greater voice and influence in the movement, as one of the “Big Six” civil rights leaders. He first came to national prominence as a result of the fiery speech he gave during the March on Washington later that year, and enhanced his importance after he led the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965, which included the “Bloody Sunday” assault on peaceful marchers that directly led to the passage of the groundbreaking Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In the mid 1960s the Civil Rights Movement became less peaceful, less disciplined, and more separatist, as Whites and Jews were discouraged from participation. As part of this shift Lewis was removed from his leadership position in SNCC, and he struggled to find his place in the ascending Black Power struggle led by Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers. Ultimately he entered the political arena, which culminated in his successful campaign to win the race for Representative of Georgia’s 5th Congressional District after the 1986 election, a position he held until his death from pancreatic cancer in 2020.

Walking with the Wind is a valuable contribution to the narrative about the Civil Rights Movement, told by one of its key leaders, as it provides insights into the key participants, decisions, and internecine conflicts amongst the leaders and their followers, which is compelling and quite readable. Unfortunately, but very much in keeping with other biographies and memoirs of key male participants in the Civil Rights Movement, the invaluable contributions of women such as Diane Nash, Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker are given short shrift by Lewis, and for that reason I’ve knocked down my rating of this book by half a star. Reading Walking with the Wind inspired me to start the biography Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby, in order to get a more complete analysis and understanding of the movement.

My local PBS station had the 2 hour American Experience program on the Freedom Rides on Monday night and last night they broadcast a 1 hour documentary on Fannie Lou Hamer. Both were interesting and brought out parts of events like the Freedom Rides and the events leading to the Freedom Party and the dispute at the Democrat Convention in 1964 regarding the legitimacy of the Mississippi delegation. For instance, I didn't realize that there were two Freedom Rides and that SNCC was not involved in the first one. This is the one where the bus was burned in Anniston, AL. When news of this event reached Nashville, SNCC organized a Freedom Ride from Nashville to New Orleans and the first leg of the trip was from Nashville to Birmingham. I found the program fascinating and for me, so educational. I learned about the tactics that SNCC used in Nashville and about the training camps they held there, and how extensive and intensive those training camps were. It was impressive what these young people did. And John Lewis was the leader of SNCC in Nashville and then one of the Freedom Riders. I stayed up far too late watching this program and I can only say it was worth it. The Fannie Lou Hamer documentary was told entirely in her own words and singing. What a noble woman.

Happy new one!

>11 Oberon: Hi, Erik! I can highly recommend the two books by Paul Farmer that I've read, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, and Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, both of which I gave 4½ stars. I know that many people have read and enjoyed Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, but I haven't read it yet.

>12 jessibud2: Thanks for mentioning Bending the Arc, Shelley. I just saw that Netflix has it, so I'm downloading it now, so that I can watch it later.

>13 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. I found out about Paul Farmer's death on Monday afternoon, after one of my medical school classmates, who went to Harvard and works for a non-profit organization that helps communities in Ethiopia, shared the post from Partners in Health about the sad news on her Facebook timeline.

>14 rocketjk: I've only just started Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, but I hope to finish it before the end of the movement, or in early March at the latest.

I'm glad that you're enjoying my Black History Month posts on my Facebook timeline, Jerry. You'll like today's post, which honors the great jazz bassist Christian McBride.

>15 laytonwoman3rd: I'm glad that you also liked The Banjo Lesson, Linda. I was familiar with the painting, but not with the artist, and I had no idea that he was a native Philadelphian. My Black History Month posts on Facebook are nearly as educational for me as they are for my friends who read them, as I've only been thoroughly familiar with two of the 22 Philadelphians I've profiled so far.

Paul Farmer's death was shocking to me on several levels, not least of which is that he is barely older than me, and appears to be in better health than I am. Fortunately he has helped to develop an extensive network of health care professionals and global health experts in the United States, Haiti, Africa and South America, who will undoubtedly continue the great work he has led and participated in.

Happy new thread, Darryl. I love the painting in >1 kidzdoc:, it's such a lovely picture of teaching and sharing love.

I was also sorry to hear about Paul Farmer's death. I first heard about him by reading Mountains Beyond Mountains when our library had it as a town-wide read, and have since read Haiti After the Earthquake. He left quite a legacy behind.

The passing of Paul Farmer is such a tremendous loss. I had the pleasure of hearing him and Ophelia Dahl (his co-founder at PIH) speak years ago. Mountains beyond Mountains was incredibly moving and inspiring. I too will seek out the documentary on Netflix.

Great review of the Lewis memoir!

Happy new thread, Darryl.

Good review of Walking with the Wind. That one is on my list of books to read at the library. Unfortunately, they don't have a listing for the book about Ella Barker which is probably part of the reason why the women in the movement were not as well known. The information about them isn't spread as wide.

It's good to see your reading increase. Make sure you make time for yourself. Being a caregiver takes a lot out of a person so you need to take time to put something back.

>17 benitastrnad: Thanks for mentioning the American Experience episode on the Freedom Rides, Benita! I did not know about it, as we've not been watching much television at the house, save for Music Channel, which my mother enjoys, and The Weather Channel. I have PBS Passport through my contributions to WABE in Atlanta and WHYY in Philadelphia, so I can watch the streaming video of the full length episode of Freedom Riders.

I didn't realize that there were two Freedom Rides and that SNCC was not involved in the first one.

The first Freedom Ride in 1961 was actually not the first one of its kind, as I learned from reading Walking with the Wind. The Journey of Reconciliation, now known as the "First Freedom Ride", took place in April 1947, and, like the initial Freedom Ride of 1961, it was organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The Journey of Reconciliation was taken in response to the 1946 Supreme Court ruling in Morgan v. Virginia, in which the court ruled 7-1 that Virginia's state law enforcing segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional. In 1944 Irene Morgan, an African American defense contractor working in Baltimore, was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia after she refused a Greyhound Bus driver's order to move to the back of the bus after a White couple got on board. The lawyers from the NAACP who represented her successfully argued that Virginia's segregation laws did not apply to Morgan, as she boarded the bus in Maryland, which had no such law on its books. The two week Journey of Reconciliation traveled only as far as Durham, North Carolina, and it resulted in the beating of one man and the arrest of 16 riders. Future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was a member of the NAACP legal team in that case, but, ironically, he and the members of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund were strongly opposed to the Journey of Reconciliation, as they naïvely believed that legal victories in the courts were sufficient to overcome racial discrimination and segregation.

According to Walking with the Wind, in the spring of 1961 John Lewis read an ad placed by CORE in The Student Voice, SNCC's monthly publication, which sought "volunteers for a campaign to test desegregation in interstate transportation facilities—the Boynton decision—by sending black and white passengers on buses into the South. The campaign had a simple title: "Freedom Ride 1961."" In that case, Boynton v. Virginia, Bruce Boynton, an African American law student, was arrested in Richmond after he sat in the White section of the bus station's segregated restaurant during a layover. Similar to Irene Morgan he successfully argued that, as an interstate bus passenger, Virginia's segregation laws did not apply to him, and in 1960 the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in his favor. Lewis applied to become a volunteer in the 1961 Freedom Ride, as he was about to graduate from the American Baptist Theological Seminary, and he was sent an acceptance letter, an itinerary, and a one-way bus ticket from Nashville to Washington, DC. As you correctly said, SNCC was not involved in the first Freedom Ride of 1961, although John Lewis was on the bus that was eventually attacked and firebombed in Anniston, Alabama; he was not on the bus at that time, though. He was beaten by racists when the bus reached Rock Hill, South Carolina on May 12, but after he reached the campus of Friendship Junior College that afternoon he received a telegram from the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization devoted to service, development and peace programs throughout the world, which included a money order and a one-way plane ticket to the group's national headquarters in Philadelphia for an interview the following day, following his application for a two year program helping to build homes in Africa or India. He took that flight, had a successful interview the following day, then flew to Nashville later that day, as he intended to travel to Birmingham on May 14 to rejoin the bus there, and continue to journey to New Orleans. Before the bus could reach Birmingham that morning it was attacked in Anniston. Lewis and his SNCC colleagues in Nashville heard radio reports about the attack in Anniston, and after James Farmer, the founder of CORE, ordered that the Freedom Ride be discontinued and arranged for the injured participants to be flown to New Orleans, Diane Nash and other SNCC leaders contacted Farmer, and informed him that they would resume the Freedom Ride from Birmingham to New Orleans. The second Freedom Ride was also disrupted by violence and arrests in Jackson, Mississippi, but news coverage spurred dozens of subsequent successful freedom rides through Mississippi and Louisiana.

In case I sound like a know-it-all I should admit that I only learned about these details after reading Walking with the Wind!

ETA: It's hard to believe that I had just been born (on 3.24.61) when the Freedom Rides of 1961 took place.

The Fannie Lou Hamer documentary was told entirely in her own words and singing. What a noble woman.

That sounds great. I'll also watch that documentary on PBS Passport later this week or next week. Thanks again!

>18 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita!

>20 bell7: Thanks, Mary. I agree with you; The Banjo Lesson is absolutely lovely.

As you said, Dr Farmer did leave quite a legacy, as he was committed to the education of local residents to become health care providers in their communities in Haiti and Africa. He was teaching at the Butaro campus of the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, a medical school which he was intimately involved in creating, at the time of his death.

>21 labfs39: A tremendous loss indeed, Lisa. I never heard Dr Farmer speak, unfortunately, but I look forward to seeing him in the Netflix documentary.

I'm glad that you liked my review of Walking with the Wind. I have some catching up to do, as I've finished four books since then.

>22 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg. I have Jerry (@rocketjk) to thank for letting me know about Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, as I put it on my Christmas wish list after he read and reviewed it last year. I hadn't heard of this book before, although I was marginally familiar with Ella Baker from her activity as a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party during the 1964 National Democratic Party convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

As time goes on and there is less to do here I'll have more time for reading, and for taking time for myself, although Mom will always come first.

>10 kidzdoc: Mountains Beyond Mountains
This is the only one of your list that I have read, years ago.
shocked
>19 kidzdoc: barely older than me
I also was surprised by his age. So young, and it seemed he'd been around forever.

>10 kidzdoc: I'm so sad to be introduced to this extraordinary man, his work and team, after he has departed this world, but what an impact he has had on it. Thanks for posting this Darryl. And thanks to Shelley for posting about the documentary Bending the Arc which I have now watched and highly recommend.

>23 kidzdoc: Bayard Rustin helped organized that 1947 Freedom Ride. (I remember that from reading his biography a few years ago.)

Book #7: Passing by Nella Larsen

  

My rating:

Nella Larsen (1891-1964) was one of the leading novelists of the Harlem Renaissance, whose novels reflected her mixed racial heritage, and her struggles to fit into Black or White America as a light skinned woman. She was born in Chicago to a Danish mother and an Afro-Caribbean father of mixed heritage, but after her mother remarried a fellow Dane she was a misfit in the White immigrant community and in the Black community in the city. She attended Fisk University, a prominent historically Black university in Nashville, Tennessee, but she continued to have difficulty fitting in, as she had little if anything in common with most of her fellow students, many of whom were born to former slaves and lived in the Deep South. She was expelled from Fisk for a dress code or conduct violation before she could receive her degree, and after spending a few years in Denmark she returned to the United States, and earned her license in nursing from Lincoln Hospital, a hospital in New York City that catered to African Americans. In 1919, while working as a nurse for the NYC Bureau of Public Health she married Dr Elmer Imes, a prominent physicist who was the second African American to earn a PhD in Physics, and the couple moved to Harlem. Her husband, who was a major contributor to modern physics, was able to fit in to the professional class of upper-class Harlem society, but Larsen, due to her lack of a college education, heritage in a prominent Black family, and membership in a prominent sorority, was not as readily accepted, which strained and ultimately doomed her marriage to Imes in 1933.

She became a volunteer with the New York Public Library in 1921, and, after she earned her certification, she became one of the first African American librarians in the system. She continued to write, and in 1925 she wrote her first book, Quicksand, a largely autobiographical novel about her mixed-race upbringing and difficulties finding a place in society, which was published in 1928. Her second novel, Passing, was published the following year.

Larsen's novels permitted her to join Harlem's interracial literary and arts movement, but she stopped writing after she was unfairly accused of plagiarism after she wrote a short story, Sanctuary, in 1930, and after she began to suffer from depression after Imes's death in 1937. She moved to the Lower East Side and resumed her career as a nurse. She did not publish any more works, and died in Brooklyn in 1964, at the age of 72.

Passing is largely set in Harlem, but it begins with a chance meeting between two childhood friends from Chicago, Irene Redfield, a light skinned African American woman who married to a Black physician and is living in upper class Harlem society, and Clare Kendry, who is also light skinned, but decided to pass for White, marry an overt racist, Jack Bellew, and remain in Chicago. Clare recognizes Irene after she escapes the summer heat by going to a rooftop restaurant in Chicago during a visit to the city, and they re-establish ties. The two are able to pass for White, and when Clare's husband joins them his vicious denigration of Blacks, and Clare's acceptance of his remarks, deeply offends Irene, who vows to have nothing further to do with Clare. Clare, however, is both manipulative and persistent, and since she wishes to surreptitiously see Irene again and re-enter Black society, she manages to convince Irene to invite her to social events in Harlem, which her husband Jack is unaware of.

The relationship between the two women strengthens, despite Irene's disapproval of Clare's passing as White, but it ultimately puts a strain on Irene's marriage, and on Clare's, as her standing and financial stability is dependent on keeping her racist husband in the dark about her true heritage, as she spends ever more time in the company of her newfound Black friends.

Passing, which was the inspiration for a critically acclaimed film produced and directed by Rebecca Hall in 2021 that is currently available for viewing on Netflix, was a revealing look into the lives of mixed race African Americans in the 1920s, both those who identified as Black and suffered from racial prejudice and lack of equal educational, job and housing opportunities, and those who crossed over the White world and enjoyed its benefits, as long as their true heritage remained a secret. The novel was undoubtedly more powerful and groundbreaking after its release in 1929 than it is currently, but it is still an important and relevant work, and a well written and compelling book.

>28 kidzdoc: We watched the film of Passing a few months ago and thought it was very well done. I’ve been meaning to read the book anyway, but the information you give about Nella Larson make me even more interested to do so.

>28 kidzdoc: terrific review

>16 kidzdoc:, >17 benitastrnad:, >23 kidzdoc: - I learned a lot in this review and these two follow up comments. Fascinating stuff.

>10 kidzdoc:
So sorry to learn of Dr Farmer's death.
I loved Mountains beyond Mountains and have been a contributor to his Partners in Health.

>16 kidzdoc:
Huge admirerer of John Lewis; may we finally do right by him and pass the voting rights act soon.

>28 kidzdoc:
Fascinated by Neila Larsen. I'll look for Passing.

I got to visit The Kingsley Plantation on Ft George Island, FL yesterday and learned about slave/free black woman/plantation owner Anna Kingsley.
Now l'm interested in her biography Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner by Schafer.

>28 kidzdoc: Passing was one of my top reads last year. I much preferred it to The Vanishing Half, which it inspired.

>25 qebo: I also was surprised by his age. So young, and it seemed he'd been around forever.

Right, Katherine. Dr Farmer is less than 18 months older than I am, and he was in seemingly excellent health, so his death made me question my own mortality, in addition to mourning his loss to the medical community and the cause of global health equality.

>26 Caroline_McElwee: You're welcome, Caroline. I'm glad that you liked Bending the Arc; I'll watch it later this week or next week.

>27 markon: You're right, Ardene. Reading about the Journey of Reconciliation reminded me that Bayard Rustin, who was a member of CORE beginning in the 1940s, participated in it. Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin earned 5 stars from me, and it wouldn't take much for me to read it again in the not too distant future.

>29 SandDune: I'm glad that you enjoyed the film based on Passing, Rhian. The novel is quite short, at just over 100 pages, and the UK Kindle edition probably won't be expensive. I just bought the US Kindle version of Quicksand, Nella Larsen's first novel, for 99 cents.

>30 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan! I think my best reviews are written several days after I finish a book, as doing so gives me time to think more about them.

>31 nrmay: I'm glad that you also contribute to Partners in Health, Nancy. I just realized that I failed to do so on Giving Tuesday last year, undoubtedly because my father was dying at that time, so I'll submit a donation as soon as I finish here.

Given the current "Republican leadership" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) I'm not optimistic that the John Lewis Voting Rights Act will be passed, unless the Senate filibuster as it stands now is modified or overturned.

Thanks for mentioning Anna Kingsley; I'll have to read more about her.

>32 Nickelini: That's right; I forgot that The Vanishing Half was based on Passing. Given your comment I highly doubt that I'll read that novel.

>28 kidzdoc: thanks for this background, Darryl. I am going to re-read Passing for my (new!) bookclub next month, so this is very useful.

>35 wandering_star: You're welcome, Margaret.

I recently finished Passing with an online discussion group, and one of the things I liked (and struggled with) is it's ambiguity. What motivates the two women isn't totally clear, and I, the reader, had to take an active role in speculating at what's happening behind the action.

It also intersects with a memoir I've just finished, Fairest by Meredith Talusan. The author is an albino Filipino who passes for white during her secondary & undergraduate education in the US. The primary thread of the memoir is her sexual orientation & gender identification and transition from male to female.

I was so sorry to read of Paul Farmer's death, and also surprised at his age. Once upon a time 62 wouldn't have sounded young to me, but now it is.

Thank you also for the review of Walking with the Wind—that looks like something I'd definitely like to read.

And, along with everyone, I love the painting in >1 kidzdoc:. I like when people include art and photos in these threads.

Oooops, I missed the new thread and wondered that there was no comment about Paul Farmer's death. Such a sad week for the world.

I read and reviewed his most recent book Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds last fall, (review is on the book page). For those looking to know more about his recent work, and for an understanding on how health inequities fuel pandemics, I highly recommend it.

Hope the trip to Atlanta goes smoothly.

Enjoyed reading through this thread, some of which I caught earlier on your FB page. Looking forward to your upcoming reviews.

>16 kidzdoc: Noting this book. Inconceivable that the man in the White House would not attend his funeral, or any form of memorial.

Will try to keep up on this thread. They usually go so swiftly I lose them!

Very, very behind Darryl (didn't even realise you were on a new thread), but have enjoyed catching up on your thread. Passing has been on my wish list for ages, so enjoyed your review (although given your 3.5 stars I'm unlikely to actively push it up the list).

I admire you greatly for what you are doing for your mum. The sacrifice with your job and Portugal plans, the move across States, the challenges of dealing with someone with Alzheimers. To only have lost your patience twice in several months sounds nothing but admirable to me.

I'm now back from Atlanta, so I plan to catch up here, and in the other Club Read threads that I haven't looked at in weeks.

>37 markon: Passing would be a great book to discuss in a book club, especially one with members of different races.

I hadn't heard about Fairest or its author, so I'll be interested to get your take on it.

>38 lisapeet: I was so sorry to read of Paul Farmer's death, and also surprised at his age. Once upon a time 62 wouldn't have sounded young to me, but now it is.

Absolutely. I turn 61 in two weeks, and the death of a person at that age, especially one seemingly in good health, was quite sobering and sad.

I'm glad that you liked my review of Walking with the Wind. I wish that I had read it sooner, and I regret not meeting John Lewis, my US congressman from 1997-2020, especially given that both he and my mother grew up in Troy, Alabama at roughly the same time; my mother was born in 1935 and Lewis was born in 1940. I would love to know if his and my mother's family knew each other, although my mother probably didn't know him personally, as her mother sent her and her older sister on a train to NYC in 1943 to escape the brutal segregation that Lewis refers to in his memoir. I went with my mother and her two sisters to Troy for a family reunion in the summer of 1990, and we visited Byrd Drug Store, which Lewis mentioned in the book as being a place that Blacks could buy items from, but not enter or dine in. We did go in, have cold drinks at the counter, which was almost certainly the same one that my mother and her family could not sit at, given the old photos in the drug store, and talked about their experiences at the drug store, and shopping in the town square of the city in the 1940s.

I'm glad that you liked the painting in >1 kidzdoc:. It's common for the members of the 75 Books group to do that, which is why I started doing that.

>39 tangledthread: I found out about Paul Farmer's death from one of my classmates from medical school, who received her bachelor's degree from Harvard and is working for WEEMA International a non-profit organization that partners with rural communities in Ethiopia to provide health care, education and economic opportunities to people living in the southwestern portion of the country. She knew Dr Farmer, and posted a link from Partners in Health on her Facebook timeline on the day his death was announced.

I started but have not finished Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History, but it's on my list of books to read this year. I'll look for your review of it.

>40 janeajones: It's good to see you back, Jane! I'll try to catch up on reviews next week.

>41 SassyLassy: It's also inconceivable to me that the former occupant of the White House has openly praised Vladimir Putin as "savvy" and a "genius" for invading Ukraine. I have no respect for anyone who continues to support him.

>42 AlisonY: Hi, Alison! Passing was more of a historically important novel than one that is an excellent read IMO, as it's quite dated, although I do plan to watch the film based on it on Netflix in the near future.

Thanks for your kind comments. It has been a challenge, although my mother has made my role as primary caregiver much easier by her good spirit and willingness to help in any way she can.

The longlist for this year's International Booker Prize was announced yesterday:



Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from Korean by Anton Hur (Honford Star)
After The Sun by Jonas Eika, translated from Danish by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg (Lolli)
A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated from Swedish by Damion Searls (Fitzcarraldo)
More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman, translated from Hebrew by Jessica Cohen (Jonathan Cape)
The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman, translated from French by Leslie Camhi (Virago)
Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Samuel Bett and David Boyd (Picador)
Páradais by Fernanda Melchor, translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes (Fitzcarraldo)
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park, translated from Korean by Anton Hur (Tilted Axis)
Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated from Indonesian by Tiffany Tsao (Tilted Axis)
Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated from Spanish by Frances Riddle (Charco)
Phenotypes by Paulo Scott, translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn (And Other Stories)
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell (Tilted Axis)
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft (Fitzcarraldo)

The shortlist will be announced on 7 April, and the winner on 26 May.

Links:
The Booker Prizes: The 2022 International Booker Prize Longlist
The Guardian: International Booker prize announces longlist ‘tracing ring around the world’

>44 kidzdoc: That's quite a list - and I've actually already read one - Phenotypes. There are two more I know I want to read (Grossman and Tokarczuk), and then who knows?

>44 kidzdoc: Thank you for this -- I had seen the list of titles, but not the languages, so you just saved me 5 minutes of googling. :)

I've read Love in the Big City and was pretty meh about it. I also own Happy Stories, Mostly and Tomb of Sand (last year I was a subscriber to Tilted Axis press who must be very happy with this list!)

Tomb of Sand is a huge brick of a book but I think this is the push I need to pick it up.

>45 SassyLassy: So far I've purchased Kindle versions of Phenotypes and Cursed Bunny, and ordered the print edition of Happy Stories, Mostly. I just read your excellent review of Phenotypes, and I'll start reading it next week.

I definitely want to read More Than I Love My Life, but I'll hold off on The Books of Jacob for now, given its length of nearly 1000 pages.

>46 ELiz_M: You're welcome, Liz!

>47 wandering_star: The apparent topic of Love in the Big City (lonely, angst-ridden millennials) doesn't interest me in the least, so I probably won't read it. Claire (@Sakerfalcon) was telling me about Tilted Axis Press yesterday, so I'm glad that it earned two nominees for the International Booker Prize.

I haven't yet found a page count for Tomb of Sand, but Amazon US indicates that it weighs 1.3 pounds. I'll wait to buy it for now.

I own Heaven and will try to read it soon. Cursed bunny appeals to me a lot. My colleague with whom I swap Japanese and Korean book recommendations was also unimpressed by Love in the big city. I'm tempted by The books of Jacob but I must read Flights and Drive your plow first as I already own them!

>44 kidzdoc: Cursed Bunny is a surprise inclusion to me. It's beyond rare for something so rooted in genre fiction, especially horror to considered for a literary prize. I'll be rooting for it make the shortlist. I think the Booker International is a tremendous resource year over year. It feels like that it is more willing explore all areas of literature and not as laser focused as other prizes.

>49 Sakerfalcon: I look forward to your thoughts about Heaven, Claire.

I finished Cursed Bunny last night, and it was one of the best short story collections I've ever read. Even though it's the first book I've read from this year's International Booker Prize longlist I would be more than happy if it won the award.

Love in the Big City doesn't appeal to me at all, including its title. The Books of Jacob is apparently more than 900 pages in length; I agree with you, I should read my copies of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and Flights first!

>50 stretch: Cursed Bunny is nothing short of brilliant, and I'm thrilled that it made the International Booker Prize longlist.

ETA: I agree with you about the value of this award. I should check to see if the longlist for this year's Best Translated Book Award, the US equivalent of the International Booker Prize, has been announced.

>51 kidzdoc: High praise from you for Cursed bunny! I'm definitely adding this to the wishlist now!
Inspired by this conversation, I started reading Drive your plow last night and the first chapter has me hooked.

I meant to tell you that some years ago at a meetup, you had recommended A tale of love and darkness by Amos Oz (I'm sure it was you; if not, apologies!) Well I read it last month for Paul's Asian challenge and it was outstandingly good. So thank you very much for the recommendation!

>51 kidzdoc: That is high praise indeed - particular as the synopsis does not make it sound like a book that would suit you. I confess that when I looked through the list Cursed Bunny was one of the ones I skipped over, based on that synopsis. Correcting that now!

ETA I have found my copy of Tomb of Sand. It is almost too thick for me to hold comfortably! - just over 2 inches/5 cm, so I think it will have to be a read-at-home book...

>52 Sakerfalcon: I look forward to your thoughts about Cursed Bunny, Claire. I'll write a review of it today or tomorrow.

I'm glad that you're enjoying Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. I brought my copy of it when I visited Atlanta in January, and I'll try to get to it next month.

It was probably me who recommended A Tale of Love and Darkness, which is easily one of the best memoirs I've ever read.

>53 wandering_star: I hope that you like Cursed Bunny as much as I did, Margaret. I like well written works of magical realism, including books such as The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso and The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa, so Cursed Bunny was right up my alley.

Oof. I'll wait to read Tomb of Sand for the time being.

>52 Sakerfalcon: I read Tale of Love and Darkness so long ago, you are making me think its time for a reread

Got this email today.

Bookstores in Philly near Convention Center

>55 cindydavid4: Agreed.

>56 dianeham: Nice! Thanks, Diane.

Happy 61st birthday Darryl!

Happy birthday! wishing you a year of joy and surprise. And many books as well!

Happy birthday!

¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

On your birthday wishing you love and joy, good health and prosperity.
And peace and liberty for all of us, and for the world.
!Que Viva Ucrania!

Adding my good wishes to the growing pile, Darryl

Hey, there! Happy Birthday. Laissez le bon temps rouler!

Happy Birthday, Darryl.

Happy birthday, Darryl! Hopefully this one will be a lot less taxing than the last!

Adding to the birthday wishes Darryl. I hope the year ahead will have some joy and treats.

>58 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian! I hope that you also had a good birthday yesterday.

>59 cindydavid4: Thanks, Cindy! I did order five books for myself:

Assembly by Natasha Brown
Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro
How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy by Julian Baggini (recommended by @Caroline_McElwee)
Albert Murray: Collected Essays & Memoirs (Library of America)
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (recommended by one of my work partners, which was recently named as the winner of the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction)

>60 bell7: Thanks, Mary!

>61 labfs39: ¡Gracias, señora!

>62 nrmay: Thanks, Nancy!

>63 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley!

>64 rocketjk: Thanks, Jerry! Yeah, you right.

>65 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda!

>66 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie! I did have a very special birthday, thanks to my best friend from high school, who comes over twice a week to help me with my mother's hygienic needs and declutter the house; her mother also had Alzheimer's disease, and she provided most of her care until she had to be moved into a nursing home. Cheryl bought me a cake, several starter herbaceous plants, and made lunch for us, although I made a special lunch for my mother, Cheryl and myself (more details in the next post).

>67 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline! I purchased How the World Thinks based on your recommendation of it.

Last week I went to a local halal meat market to look for lamb, in order to make Irish lamb stew for St Patrick's Day as I often do. The butcher didn't have lamb, but he did have goat, so I bought that instead. I love curried goat, and after finding an easy recipe for it from lowcarbafrica.com I decided to make it.



Curried Goat

Ingredients:
▢1.5 lbs goat meat with bones
▢2 tbsp olive oil
▢1/2 onion
▢1 red bell pepper
▢1 tomato
▢2 cloves garlic
▢1 inch ginger root
▢1/2 cup water
▢1 cup coconut milk
▢1 tsp paprika
▢1/2 tsp cinnamon ponder
▢1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
▢1 tsp salt
▢1 tbsp curry
▢1 tsp bouillon powder
▢1/4 tsp cumin

Instructions:
1. Wash the goat meat and drain.
2. Cut the onions, ginger, tomato, and red bell pepper, and mince the garlic.

Instant Pot:
1. Turn the instant pot to sauté mode.
2. Heat some olive oil, then add onions, ginger, garlic. Cook for about 2 minutes.
3. Add the chopped tomato, red bell pepper, cayenne pepper, and bouillon powder.
4. Stir for about 2 minutes, then pour in half a cup of water.
5. Add the goat meat, curry powder, paprika, cumin, salt, and cinnamon.
6. Mix together and let simmer for about 5 minutes.
7. Pour in the coconut milk and stir together one more time.
8. Set the instant pot to manual mode and cook on high pressure for 30 minutes.
9. Let the instant pot naturally release its pressure.
10. Turn off the instant pot and switch back to sauté mode.
11. Taste for salt and adjust if necessary.
12. Let the goat curry continue to simmer till it thickens up some more.

Stovetop: The steps are basically the same, but you cook it on the stovetop till the goat meat gets soft. This might take anywhere from 1.5-2 hours.

Notes:
1. This recipe serves 6 and contains 2 net carbs per serving.
2. If you want the goat meat in your curry to fall off the bone, set the instant pot to 40 minutes.
3. This recipe uses bone-in goat meat. For boneless, use the same 30 minute time if you want it very tender, or reduce it to 25 minutes if you want it a bit tougher.
4. Let the instant pot naturally release its pressure. Don't do a quick release because this can cause the goat meat to get tough.
5. You can cut down on the cayenne pepper if you want it less spicy.
______________________________________

I made this recipe in my father's Ninja FOODI, which is basically an Instant Pot with an attachment for air frying. I wanted the meat to be tender, so I pressure cooked it for 40 minutes. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. It turned out fantastic, and since I have another 2 lb of goat meat in our outdoor freezer I'll make it again next month when my cousin from Michigan visits.

Keeping with the African theme I also made jollof rice for the first time, using a recipe by Yewande Komolafe from NYT Cooking:



Jollof Rice

INGREDIENTS:
FOR THE OBE ATA:
1 (14-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes with their juices
1 medium red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and roughly chopped
½ medium red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 red habanero chile, stemmed
2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil

FOR THE JOLLOF RICE:
½ cup canola or other neutral oil
2 medium red onions, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon smoked paprika (optional)
3 cups parboiled long-grain rice (such as Carolina Gold or Ben’s Original), basmati or jasmine rice (about 1¼ pounds)
5 fresh thyme sprigs
1 fresh bay leaf
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups beef, chicken or vegetable stock

PREPARATION:
1. Prepare the obe ata: Working in batches if needed, combine all the obe ata ingredients except the canola oil in a blender and purée on high until smooth. The liquid from the can of tomatoes should suffice, but you can add up to 1/4 cup of water if necessary to get the purée going. (You should have about 3 cups of purée.)

2. Heat the 2 tablespoons canola oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high. Add the purée and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium, cover and simmer until the sauce is slightly reduced by about a third of its original volume, 18 to 20 minutes. (It should make about 2 cups. Obe ata can be cooled and refrigerated for up to 2 weeks, or frozen for up to 1 month.)

3. Prepare the rice: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the 1/2 cup canola oil in a large Dutch oven over medium until shimmering, about 1 minute. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove half the onions to a plate and set aside. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant and translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, turmeric and smoked paprika, if using, and toast, stirring occasionally, until turmeric is fragrant and tomato paste has deepened to a dark red color, about 2 minutes.

4. Stir in the obe ata sauce and bring to a simmer over medium heat. The habanero oils love to disperse in the air, so you may want to turn on your stovetop fan or open a window while simmering the obe ata. Stir in the rice, thyme and bay leaf, and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the stock and cover with a lid. Transfer the pot to the oven and cook until rice is just tender, 35 minutes.

5. Remove the pot from the oven and let sit, covered (no peeking) for 15 minutes. Uncover, fluff the rice with a fork and stir in the reserved sautéed onions. Adjust seasoning, if necessary, and discard the thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Serve warm.
_________________________________________

I used grapeseed oil, and Ben's Original Parboiled Rice, and followed the recipe exactly. It tasted fabulous, and it was a perfect accompaniment to the curried goat. I'll make this much more often from now on!

I was going to make Yewande Komolafe's Fried Plantains as another side dish, but I chose to wait until this weekend, as the pound cake Cheryl brought was a sufficient dessert for that scrumptious meal.

Happy belated birthday, Darryl! Thank you for the recipe for Jollof Rice, a dish I have often wanted to try since so many novels and memoirs mention it in passing. I'll give your recipe a try when there are fewer boxes sitting around.

I hope things are going well with you. I miss the weather in SC right now, as it's chilly and cloudy here in the middle of Illinois.

>70 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, Kay! Please let me know how you like the jollof rice after you make it.

I think we'll be getting the weather you're currently experiencing on Sunday and Monday, after a week of mostly warmer than normal temperatures.

Happy belated birthday, Darryl. It sounds like you had a special day.

Thanks, Beth!

Belated happy birthday, Darryl!

I am catching up with the threads, after a week away.
Herinneringen van een engelbewaarder (A Guardian Angel Recalls) by W.F. Hermans is on its way from the library, I expect it will arrive next week.

>74 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita!

I have my copy of A Guardian Angel Recalls on hand, so I can start reading it whenever you're ready.

>75 kidzdoc: I have put it on my April reading list, and will let you know when I start reading.

>76 FAMeulstee: Perfect. A Guardian Angel Recalls is on my list of books to read in April, along with the following:

Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson (I'll read Book 1 over the next three months, to catch up with the group read)
Assembly by Natasha Brown ✅️
Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro ✅️
Heaven by Mieko Kawakami
Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations by Dr Kathryn Mannix
My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing “Slow Medicine,” the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones by Dennis McCullough, MD (re-read)
The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr
Travelers by Helon Habila ✅️
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho

Edited.

>77 kidzdoc: Quite the lineup, Darryl. I look forward to your thoughts on Phenotypes. I was quite intrigued by SassyLassy's review and the ensuing discussion on her thread.

>78 labfs39: Same here, Lisa. I had already purchased the Kindle edition of Phenotypes, after it was chosen for this year's International Booker Prize longlist, but Sassy's review made me want to get to it sooner rather than later.

If I have time I'll also try to get to Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro next month, as it also made the International Booker Prize longlist.

Happy belated, Darryl! I've been off at a conference (my first in two years!) and then digging myself out from said conference—away working, and now behind on work. So it goes. But I wanted to tell you, my son matched with one of his top two choices and is going to be a general surgery resident at SUNY Upstate, in Rochester. An easy four hours from us, because it's all about me... no, seriously, I'm over the moon happy for him. And he and his fiancee are getting married June 10, so he's having a whirlwind spring and summer.

You've totally put Cursed Bunny on my list now.

>80 lisapeet: Congratulations to your son, Lisa!

>81 kidzdoc: Thank you! (And argh not Rochester, Syracuse. I am clearly still very downstate-centric.)

>82 lisapeet: I always joke that everything north of Yonkers is terra incognito to me! (Not that that's anything I should be proud of.)

>82 lisapeet: Ha! I knew that SUNY Upstate Medical School was in Syracuse, and I started to question whether you meant Syracuse instead of Rochester, but I don't know anything about New York State north of the Bronx, where my maternal grandparents lived, so I assumed that SUNY Upstate had branched out into Rochester. That would have been odd, though, given that the University of Rochester already has a medical school and medical center.

>83 rocketjk: Yonkers? Isn't that next to Buffalo?! Terra incognita, indeed.

I need to get some reviews written, especially of two of the superb books I read recently, Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby, and Travelers by Helon Habila.

Sorry to have missed your birthday my friend - I cannot access my FB (embarrassed to say that I can't remember my password and I don't keep the email account I had when I started there) - and FB had all my birthday reminders.

Also been a bit distracted as Hani's mums cancer is worse than we thought as she has colon, bone and lung cancer and her diagnosis is not too positive.

Looking forward to the Booker International Shortlist announcement - I have five books on the list and will read the ones that make it onto the shortlist. That includes Cursed Bunny, of the fabulous cover and enthusiastic reviews.

The shortlist for this year's International Booker Prize was announced earlier this morning:

The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from Korean by Anton Hur
Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated from Spanish by Frances Riddle
Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Samuel Bett and David Boyd
A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated from Swedish by Damion Searls
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell

So far I've read Cursed Bunny, which was superb, and I'll finish Elena Knows later today. I'll read the remaining shortlisted novels this spring and summer, along with the other longlisted novels I purchased earlier this year.

>85 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul! All birthday wishes are appreciated by me.

Oh, no...I'm very sorry to read about Hanni's mother's metastatic cancer. I'll pray for her and reach out to Hanni shortly.

I also plan to read the entire International Booker Prize shortlist. The two longlisted books I've read so far both made it to the next round, and I downloaded The Books of Jacob onto my Kindle earlier this morning.

That's a great shortlist! I can't wait to read Cursed bunny after your enthusiatic review, and I already own Heaven so will get to that soon. And I am very interested in The books of Jacob.

>88 Sakerfalcon: I can't yet comment about the quality of the International Booker Prize longlist or shortlist. What I can say is that the two books I've read so far, Cursed Bunny and Elena Knows have both been outstanding, and they are certain to end up amongst my favorite fiction books for 2022. I finished Elena Knows this evening, and I gave it 4½ stars; I've ranked Cursed Bunny slightly higher, mainly because of its inventiveness and uniqueness, but I wouldn't be the slightest bit upset if Elena Knows was chosen for the winner of the prize.

These books are more evidence, IMO, that the International Booker Prize judges choose far higher quality books than the Booker Prize judges do.

Next up: The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.

>89 kidzdoc: I’m reading Elena Knows and liking it very much. I downloaded the sample of Cursed Bunny and really didn’t like the first story.

>90 dianeham: *gasp* If you're referring to "The Head", the first story in my copy of Cursed Bunny, I absolutely loved it, and I thought it was hilarious!

I'm glad that you're enjoying Elena Knows so far.

Behind here, there, and everywhere, but popping in to wish you a Happy Monday. Why is everyone loving the Cursed Bunny so much...what about the Easter Rabbit? Poor thing. JK. I have heard such good things from several LTers and your thread is the tipping point, so onto the WL Cursed Bunny goes. Although I am still hoping for some jelly beans and chocolate. : )

>92 Berly: Thanks for visiting, Kim! I really need to write a review of Cursed Bunny, along with Elena Knows by Claudia Piñiero and Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, the three books from this year's International Booker Prize shortlist that I've read so far.

I've just started reading A Guardian Angel Recalls by Willem Frederik Hermans, one of De Grote Drie (the Great Three) postwar Dutch authors, along with Harry Mulisch and Gerard Reve. I'm reading the new English translation of it by David Colmer that Archipelago Books published late last year, and my dear friend Anita (@FAMeulstee) will read the original Dutch version of it this month. The Archipelago version contains 510 pages of a relatively large font size, so it's nowhere near as lengthy as it would seem. I'm completely hooked after reading 40 pages, so I may have to slow down to finish it by the middle of next week.

>93 kidzdoc: Read on as you like, Darryl. I can make it my next book, and start tomorrow :-)

I'm reading Heaven now. It's good but the bullying is painful to read.

>94 FAMeulstee: That's great, Anita. I read another 40+ pages of A Guardian Angel Recalls before breakfast, so I'm now on page 83 of the Archipelago Books version, at the beginning of what seems to be the second chapter.

>95 Sakerfalcon: You're right, Claire. The bullying of the narrator and his friend Kojima is difficult to take, especially if, like me, you experienced bullying as a preteen or teenager. I was bullied by one classmate in grade school, when I was somewhere around nine or 10 years old, which lasted for several months until it suddenly ended, probably when my tormentor, who was a poor Polish kid, a bad student, and presumably suffered from a horrible home life, left our parochial school in Jersey City for good. The bullying I suffered is hardly worth mentioning in comparison to the horrific treatment that the poor kids in Heaven had to experience, though.

Happy belated birthday. I'm glad you had a good one!

I'm adding two books from the International Booker shortlist to my pile, though who knows when I'll get to read one of them. I'm intrigued by Elena knows and Tomb of sand.

The prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. is also going on my must read list.

>96 kidzdoc: I finished Heaven last night and found it a desperately sad, powerful read. I've seen reviewers saying "Why didn't the adults do anything" - sadly, their blindness seemed all too true to life. Like you, I experienced bullying at school but nothing like on this scale. The confrontation in the park had me practically holding my breath as I read, unable to stop reading. A very different book to Breasts and eggs.

>93 kidzdoc: I've been wanting to read more Hermans since reading An Untouched House last year. A Guardian Angel Recalls has an interesting premise. Does the GA remain a character in the story?

>96 kidzdoc: Started reading Herinneringen van een engelbewaarder today, Darryl.
I have a few other books going, so I won't be very fast.

>98 Sakerfalcon: I had the same experience. adults told me to ignore it, stop being a crybaby (this was from my mom) some blaming me. When I was a teacher I sought out kids who seemed to be on the outside, or who were getting teased to at least let them know someone cared. There is (or was before everything went haywire) on the part of school districts to address it and try some interventiohns, but for the most part they didn't work all that much

>99 labfs39: The guardian angel tells the story.

>97 markon: Thanks, Ardene! My birthday was an especially good one, considering the circumstances.

I've been pleased with this year's International Booker Prize shortlist so far. I downloaded the Kindle version of The Books of Jacob last week, I received A New Name: Septology VI-VII in the mail earlier this week, and I'll receive Tomb of Sand from the Book Depository in another week or two. It's possible that I'll be able to finish the shortlist by the time of the award ceremony on 26 May, but given the length of The Books of Jacob and Tomb of Sand I probably won't do so.

I'll probably resume reading The Prophets next week.

>98 Sakerfalcon: That's a great description of Heaven, Claire. I suspect that most victims of bullying suffer in silence, out of fear that they will suffer even worse torture if they name their oppressors, and their teachers, parents and other adults are unable to address the abuse that takes place. Reading this novel and about real instances of bullying makes me extremely grateful that there was only one boy who bullied me over a few months throughout my entire childhood, and that this kid never physically harmed me.

How did you like Breasts and Eggs?

>99 labfs39: I did not receive An Untouched House from Archipelago Books, which I presume was because I stopped my membership for a few years before resuming it two or three years ago. I'll probably get the Kindle version of it in the near future.

The guardian angel is the narrator in A Guardian Angel Recalls, and is ever present.

>100 FAMeulstee: How are you liking A Guardian Angel Recalls, Anita? I'm currently on page 377 of 510 in the Archipelago Books edition (the new English translation of it by David Colmer), and I continue to enjoy it. I should finish it no later than Saturday.

>103 kidzdoc: I am liking it as well, Darryl, currently at page 262 of 443. I will probably finish it today.

This is my fifth Hermans since 2008. I liked The Darkroom of Damocles best, closely followed by Beyond Sleep and An Untouched House. His Bookweekgift of 1993 In de mist van het schimmenrijk (not translated) was the least of my Hermans reads.

>104 FAMeulstee: Sounds good, Anita. I'm not sure how much reading I'll get done today—I'm currently cooking a birthday lunch for one of my closest friends (oxtail stew and dodo (Nigerian fried plantains)—but I should finish A Guardian Angel Recalls if I don't do so by this evening.

I own a copy of The Darkroom of Damocles, but I haven't read it or anything else by Hermans yet. As for the other two members of De Grote Drie I read The Assault by Harry Mulisch several years, which I gave 5 stars, but I haven't read and don't own anything by Gerard Reve yet.

>105 kidzdoc: I would say skip Reve, Darryl, I am not a fan. Others love him, some even read The Evenings each year in December.
I like Hermans best, with Mulisch as very close second.

>106 FAMeulstee: Will do, Anita. I think it was you that told me that you weren't fond of Gerard Reve. I would consider reading The Evenings, to give him a fair try, but I'm not chomping at the bit to do so.

It was easy for me to choose to read A Guardian Angel Recalls, as I received it as part of my membership to Archipelago Books, a non-profit Brooklyn based publisher of quality literature in translation from highly regarded mostly European authors who are largely unknown in the United States; my annual subscription allows me to receive every book that Archipelago publishes in a year, and for a price of $150 US I get roughly a dozen books, which is a good bargain. To my knowledge Archipelago hasn't published anything by Reve yet.

I'll plan to read The Darkroom of Damocles sooner rather than later. Other than The Assault are there other books by Harry Mulisch that you would recommend?

As I suspected I haven't done much reading today, so I'm only on page 402 (of 510) of A Guardian Angel Recalls, but I should finish it on Saturday.

>107 kidzdoc: I probably did tell you my thoughts about Reve before, Darryl.
Indeed a book a month for $150 is a good bargain.

The other book from Mulisch I have read is The Discovery of Heaven, a big tome, and at the moment my favorite. At our shelves are many unread books of both Hermans and Mulisch that I want to read some day. But the books from the library have to be returned, so I prioritize reading them, and only a few of my own books get read.
At the moment I try to read one book a month by an other famous Dutch writer Simon Vestdijk.

I finished A Guardian Angel Recalls on Friday.

>108 FAMeulstee: I strongly suspect that it was you who warned me about Gerard Reve, Anita. I'm certain that it was one of my Dutch LT friends who did so, and you would have been more likely to do so than Connie, Sanne or Ella. Does Frank like his work?

Thanks for mentioning The Discovery of Heaven. I've heard of it, but I don't own a copy of it yet.

I need to start borrowing e-books from the Fulton County Public Library in metro Atlanta more often, especially for books that I don't wish to keep.

I haven't heard of Simon Vestdijk, so I'll have to see if any of his works have been published in English translation.

I see that we both gave 4 stars to A Guardian Angel Recalls. I'll give it some thought before I write a review of it, hopefully next week.

>109 kidzdoc: Frank and I have usually the same thoughts about most Dutch writers, he might even dislike Reve more than I do.

I like to borrow e-books from the library, especially big tomes, as in e-format they are much easier on the hands.

Simon Vestdijk was before De Grote Drie, we have all his 52 novels. They were rebublished in the 1980s, when we collected books in Cranswickian style. His best known work is The Garden Where the Brass Band Played, as far as I know not much else was translated. He wrote a lot, besides novels also poetry and essays. It was said he could write faster than God could read.

I might get to my review of A Guardian Angel Recalls tomorrow, or else the next day.

>110 FAMeulstee: Ah. I don't think I knew that your and Frank's tastes in books aligned so closely. Despite our half dozen or so meet ups in person in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht it seems that we talked about practically everything but books!

I look forward to being able to travel to Europe again and meeting up with you, Frank and my other friends in the Netherlands, England, Scotland, France and Portugal. I still have hopes of retiring to Portugal, but moving into my parents' house just outside of Philadelphia, where I'm living now with my mother, seems much more realistic at the moment. Even if I do that I'll still want to travel to Europe on a regular basis.

Yes, it makes much more sense to get e-books of tomes, although I do like the feel and look of big paper books.

Thanks for the information about Simon Vestdijk. Given his prodigious output you would think he would be better known in the United States, but it seems that very little of his works have been translated into English. I'll keep my eye out for The Garden Where the Brass Band Played. Let's see...the public library system in Atlanta doesn't have any of his books, unfortunately, although the Free Library of Philadelphia does have one copy of that book.

I look forward to your thoughts about A Guardian Angel Recalls.

>111 kidzdoc: Yes, Darryl, we talked about all kind of things, except books. And we look forward to do so again :-)
Most of Franks readings happened in his highschool days and early years of university. He manages up to 5 books a year now, and had like me years with no reading at all. We always kept collecting books.

Taking care of your mother and travel don't match. It won't be easy to leave her now.

At least you have located a copy of Simon Vestdijks The Garden Where the Brass Band Played!

I just put my (short) review of A Guardian Angel Recalls on my thread.

>112 FAMeulstee: Absolutely! Earlier today I was thinking of all the good times we've had together, and I eagerly look forward to seeing you and Frank again in the near future. However, as you correctly said taking long vacations is absolutely out of the question at the moment. My mother was deathly afraid of flying until very recently, and now she wants to go to Europe, for the first time in her life. Unfortunately her worsening dementia and her increasing frailty make that a near impossibility, although I haven't told her that she can't make that sort of trip (she does have a US passport that I need to renew), and I wouldn't want to completely close the door on her request.

This may sound morbid, but I'll be able to resume my previous life after my mother dies or deteriorates to the point where she will be best managed in a memory care facility or nursing home, when she no longer recognizes me or others and I can't adequately care for her (with support) at home. I pray that we have at least two or three good years together before that happens, though, and I will not prematurely put her in an assisted living facility for my own convenience. I told my father the last time I saw him, just before I gave the intensive care physician permission to take him off of the ventilator, that I would take care of Mom, whatever it took, and I would sooner have my right arm cut off before I go against my promise.

I'll look at your review of A Guardian Angel Recalls now.

Hi Darryl! Your thread has been interesting. I am glad you (and your mother) are doing well. Yes, I’ll be praying for those good years for the both of you as well.

And now I feel I must stick up for Reve a bit. He’s a good writer, with a real way with words. His first book The Evenings is unfortunately very depressing as a result.

Have added some TBR’s, from your thread.

>113 kidzdoc:
I find myself in the same position with my mother so I don't think you are being morbid. I realize that there is only a limited time with my mother as well. She is 86 and in good health but frail. (She has to use a walker and getting her in and out of a car is very hard work.) She would love to travel and wants to do so, but taking her with me on trips is so much work. She is simply unable to do much by herself. I am trying to get her to do shorter trips with me when I go home and that seems to work well. The problem there is that we can't agree on what we want to see first! Then when we do have a trip planned, something happens to spoil our two or three days. During Spring Break this year I went home, specifically to take her to see the birds on the Platte River around Kearney, Nebraska, and I was the one who got sick. I must have caught a bug of some kind along the way home, as I got an upset stomach about noon on the first day of our trip. I managed to make it outside of the restaurant before up-chucking but I felt so awful that we headed home. Fortunately, it was early enough in the day that I was able to cancel our hotel reservation with no penalty, but both of us were disappointed that the short trip was off. I hope to go back this summer and we are going to make a three day loop trip to Western Kansas and Southwestern Nebraska. I think it will be a great change of scenery for both of us and it will be mostly driving with a couple of state parks that say they are handicapped accessible. I am looking forward to the trip and the time spent with her.

>103 kidzdoc: I and my colleague both enjoyed Breasts and eggs a lot. it reveals quite a lot about the experience of being a woman in Japan through the narrator and her sister and niece. Heaven is more powerful but B&E is well worth reading.

>108 FAMeulstee: I've added The discovery of heaven to my to read pile. I was a religion major as an undergrad, so it sounds appealing to me.

>111 kidzdoc: I looked up The discovery of heaven and The garden where the brass band played on World Cat, and it looks like it is mostly university libraries that have it in the US. Didn't you attend U. Pitt at some point? You might be able to get a free alumni card there that might give you access to some translated fiction. Or, in some states, since you're a taxpaying citizen you can get a free card at a state university library. Georgia is not one of them.

>114 EllaTim: Thanks, Ella! I haven't been as active as I would like to be, especially in writing book reviews, due to my roles as primary caregiver for my mother, the executor of my late father's estate, and, for all intents and purposes, the owner of a nearly 70 year old house that is in good condition but needs work. I'm also reading and studying to acquire the continuing medical education (CME) credits I need to apply for medical licenses in Pennsylvania, where I'm living now, and New Jersey, which is less than 10 miles away. The state of Georgia requires 40 hours of CME credits every two years, but both Pennsylvania and New Jersey require 100 hours/2 years. Once I have these medical licenses I can apply for non-clinical physician jobs in this area, ones that hopefully will allow me to work from home and care for my mother at the same time.

Good for you for sticking up for Gerard Reve. I don't dislike depressing reads, so I may give The Evenings a try at some point.

>115 benitastrnad: My mother is also 86 years old, Benita. She is able to walk short distances with a cane, and I'm working on improving her stamina and stability by using her recumbent bicycle and performing strengthening exercises on a daily basis. She has no trouble getting into my father's car, a Toyota Camry sedan, but until recently she couldn't climb up to the passenger seat in my BMW X3 SUV. After trying different things I purchased a Bluestone Mobility Step Stool from Amazon (just over $41 with taxes), and that did the trick; she is easily able to step onto the stool placed at the edge of the passenger side door, and from there she can pivot, sit on the passenger seat, and swivel to bring her legs inside the compartment.



My mother is thrilled that she can get into my SUV, and to be able to listen to my collection of jazz recordings from the 1960s in my CD player. We've taken some longish drives over the past two weeks, and I intend to take her for longer day trips and short vacations in the coming months, particularly a visit to her parents' house in the North Bronx combined with a drive through Jersey City, where she moved after she married my father and where my brother and I were born.

>116 Sakerfalcon: Thanks for your recommendation of Breasts and Eggs, Claire. I'll be on the lookout for it.

>117 markon: I do want to read The Discovery of Heaven, although I doubt I'll get to it this year.

I did attend and graduate from the medical school at Pitt, the University of Pittsburgh, and my undergraduate degree is from Rutgers, which is considerably closer (40 miles to New Brunswick versus 315 miles to Pittsburgh). My Rutgers Alumni card does allow me to borrow books from the Rutgers libraries, although access is currently limited to Rutgers students, faculty and staff due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though I didn't earn a degree there I am an Emory alumnus, as I completed my residency in pediatrics there, and I can borrow books from the libraries there. Now that I've moved into my parents' house, just north of the Philadelphia city line, I am eligible to get a library card for the Free Library of Philadelphia system, as a resident of Pennsylvania. It does have a copy of The Discovery of Heaven, and a drive to one of the branches in Northeast Philadelphia is very doable; the Katharine Drexel Library is 7.7 miles away, and there may be branches that are even closer.

I had my SUV emissions tested and registered last month when I was in Atlanta, and since I'm keeping my flat in Midtown as a second home for the time being I'll keep my Georgia license plate and driver's license for the remainder of this year.

>113 kidzdoc: That doesn't sound morbid to me, Darryl. It is a fact of life that people die.
It is awesome how you take care of your mother!

>113 kidzdoc: I'm joining the chorus here, but to me it sounds like you have made a very clear assessment of your mother's situation, and intend to make the best of it for both of you. Shortly after my father passed away in 2004, I made the decision to cut my work-week to 4 days, and to spend at least two Mondays a month doing something with my mother. At that time she was hale and energetic, good company, and still knew how to enjoy herself. We had many quiet afternoons chatting, or baking something, or going out to lunch; we took road trips to visit her sisters, look at scenery, do a little antiquing, etc. When things got bad, I felt just as you do now; it's hard to watch life leave our loved ones behind and I think it's normal to hope that phase doesn't last very long.

>118 kidzdoc: If you and your mom find yourselves in the North Bronx and have a few minutes to visit, give me a yell and I'll come to wherever you are to say hi. I'd invite you both over gladly, but our house has a bunch of stairs up from the street and I don't think your mother would have an easy time with that.

I don't think you're morbid. Life has an end run, and acknowledging it isn't the same as wishing for it. And wishing for an easy end to it isn't wishing for it either. I know you know that; just saying because it does me good to do it.

like others I don't think you are morbid at all; you are realistic in what you know will happen sooner than later. I agree with Lisa; wishing for an easy end to it isn't wishing for it either. Be easy on yourself.and you are doing your best to be a good son (she obviously raised you right :)

It's been quiet for a while over here, how are things going Darryl?

I'm imagining the smile on your mom's face riding around in your car listening to good jazz.

Hey Darryl, I just finished The Startup Wife the other night and though I probably saw your review last year, I saw it again today. It was an excellent read, and I'll be looking to read her other books now too.

Best wishes for your mom, and hope you're keeping well.

Apologies for my protracted absence. I've been very busy in my roles as primary caregiver for my mother, the de facto owner of a nearly 70 year old house that needs upkeep and repairs, and manager of my parents' affairs, and in acquiring enough continuing medical education (CME) credit to apply for medical licenses in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, so that I can eventually return to work in some capacity. My reading tailed off dramatically, but it's picked up again in the past couple of weeks, and in that time I've finished two superb books, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, which deservedly won the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and was longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction, and Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood by Mark Oppenheimer, which is a look at the massacre of 11 Jewish worshippers in a synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and the people who live in "the oldest, most stable most internally diverse Jewish neighborhood in the United States." I spent untold hours in Squirrel Hill during my four years of medical school at Pitt, even though I lived in the adjacent neighborhood of Shadyside, as my best friend (who didn't own a car at that time) lived there, and we frequently spent our Sundays having breakfast or brunch in a Jewish dairy restaurant while reading The New York Times then studying until dinnertime.

My reading mojo is back, at least temporarily, and after finishing Squirrel Hill this morning I'll now get started on What Goes Unsaid: A Memoir of Fathers Who Never Were by Emiliano Monge, my LT Early Reviewers book for May, and My Broken Language: A Memoir by Quiara Alegría Hudes, which is this year's "One Book, One Philadelphia" selection. Hopefully I'll finish both books by Sunday.

Nice to see you posting Darryl. (I missed all of June here, so I can’t give you a hard time. I don’t even have a good excuse.)

>119 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita. My mother's dementia continues to worsen, which makes taking care of her progressively more challenging. Having said that she has done significantly better since the weekend, when my cousin from Michigan who visits us regularly had a "come to Jesus" talk with her, after she was very abusive and angry with me on Friday for moving the three of us into a nearby hotel after our central air conditioning unit failed beyond repair and needed to be replaced, during one of the hottest weeks of the year so far. I slept in the hotel room that night while my cousin Tina worked the night shift as an IT support staff member for the University of Michigan, and since I returned home on Saturday my mother has been extraordinarily polite, pleasant and appreciative of what I do for her. Tina may have warned her that caring for her was becoming excessively burdensome for both me and her, and that I was seriously considering transferring her into a memory care center or nursing home, which was true. That will clearly be necessary at some point, but I would like to continue to care for her at home, with support, for as long as I can. To be fair, I was becoming impatient with her more than I should have, due to my frazzled nerves, which adversely affected our relationship and her view of herself, but since Saturday I've done my best to be patient, understanding and caring, and we are getting along as well as we have since I originally came back during Thanksgiving week.

>120 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda. My mother loves going for long rides in the Delaware Valley and central New Jersey in my SUV, so we do that at least a couple of times per week. After we saw her neurologist at the Penn Memory Center in May she received physical therapy and occupational therapy twice a week for 4-5 weeks and saw a speech therapist, which has helped her mobility and ability to eat without choking or sputtering. We regularly get take out from local restaurants, although we haven't dined in one yet, mainly due to COVID-19 concerns. We're both double boostered, but far too many people are not for me to feel comfortable dining with strangers.

>121 lisapeet: Thanks, Lisa; that sounds great! I would like to take Mom to see her parents' old home (959 E 222nd St, which is largely unchanged from when she lived there in the 1950s), but I'm not sure when yet. I was originally thinking of driving to Jersey City, my home town, renting a hotel room along the river, and driving into the city on a weekday after the morning rush hour, but her meltdown after we stayed in a local hotel room on Friday makes me think that a day trip would be a much better option.

>122 cindydavid4: Thanks, Cindy. My neighbors, best friend from high school (who comes over twice a week to bathe Mom and do light house cleaning) and cousin from Michigan (who visits us every 1-2 months) all tell me that I'm doing a fabulous job caring for her, but they are also concerned that I'm burning out and need respite. My cousin's visit last week did provide me with a much needed break, even though it was limited to sleeping by myself in a comfortable hotel room for three nights while she stayed with my mother and worked those nights, but my plans to take a couple of day trips to nearby NYC to see plays and visit museums was scuttled by the failure of our central AC unit. Fortunately it was successfully replaced on Tuesday, and since Tina will be coming back in less than two weeks I'll hopefully be able to go to NYC for a day or two then. It will be quite a while before I take a proper vacation, though.

>123 Caroline_McElwee: I'm taking each day as it comes, Caroline; some days are better than others. My mother is about as much of a jazzhead as I am, so she is happy riding in comfort and listening to Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, or whomever else is performing.

>124 bell7: Hi, Mary! I'm glad that you also enjoyed The Startup Wife. That is the third book I've read by Tahmima Anam, along with two books in the Bangladesh Trilogy, A Golden Age and The Good Muslim. I'll read the final novel in the trilogy, The Bones of Grace, soon.

>126 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. I hope to catch up with everyone's threads by the weekend.

>125 kidzdoc: >127 kidzdoc: You are doing an extraordinary job Darryl. We were lucky our parents didn't have to suffer that way. I don't know I would have had the level of required patience. I suspect you have grown some of that in the job you do. Little can prepare you though for the emotional pain of watching a loved one shape shift into someone less recognisable. I am so glad your mom still has moments of being her recognisable self and you can share pleasure in things that have always brought you joy.

Glad too you have the support of your cousin and others. Keeping you both in my thoughts.

I'm really looking forward to reading The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois which is not far from my reading chair, and I hope to get to next month. Glad it was a hit for you.

>128 kidzdoc: so glad to see you back! Id been thinking about you lately. Your friends and neighbors are right, try to find some time for yourself every day, try to delegate tasks (tho it sounds like you are) Im not surprised you are thinking of a memory center; certainly when the abuse has gotten to much to take and its too much for yuo even with all the help you have. Do you have one in mind? be well and keep reading!

Good to see you back, Darryl. I can so relate to the stresses of increasing dementia as I continue to deal with my mother's. We moved her to a full-care facility in march of this year and I have since been back twice and am going again next week. For the most part, she is doing ok but it isn't easy, living 6 hours away. I don't know how you do it full-time and have great admiration for you and your cousin.

Just last week, I saw a film that was part of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival called *A Tree of Life*, in which the survivors and family members of the victims talked about how the tragedy unfolded and how it impacted them. There were also *experts* who talked about ways to prevent this sort of thing again, but pessimist/realist that I am, I have a hard time believing there is anything anyone can do to prevent gun-crazy lunatics or racists from doing what they do. One thing that totally shocked (and repulsed) me to see was, near the end, they showed a former synagogue in that area that was no longer being used as a place of worship. It had been converted into...a gun shop. The building, its beautiful stained glass windows, all of it still intact, but the inside was, plain and simple, a gun shop. And the owner seemed quite fine with that. I was thoroughly disgusted and found it incredibly disrespectful. Other than that, though, the film was sensitively done and worth watching. I did not realize there was also a book.

Hi Darryl, happy to see you checking in when you can. I am adding my admiration of you stamina and the care you are taking of your mum and happy to see you're both finding joy where you can.

If you ever do make it into NYC, let me know.

Glad to see you back. Yes, do take care of yourself.

>125 kidzdoc: I was thinking a lot about that shooting since my birthday was marked by a shooting upstate of me in Highland Park, a community with a large and vibrant Jewish population.

It's not easy to take care of a parent with dementia and to be patient all the time. I'm glad you've discovered that you both enjoy music. That worked for my Mom, with me playing the music I remembered she listened to when I was a child. She also liked looking at old family pictures and that sometimes she would be content for an extended stretch of time, just looking through them, which was a good time to grab a small break, even just on the other side of the table with my book. I'm glad you got the AC taken care of, too!

>132 jessibud2: oh my god that is horrible! really disrespectful, and they obviously care less. That does look like a book I will read

Hey, Darryl. Welcome back to the fold. I remember quite well the challenges that came with my mother's dementia, so my hat's off to you for all you're doing, now, and I wish you all the best, as always. On a side note, I don't know if you're aware that my radio show, the Jazz Odyssey has moved, at least for the time being, to every other week (same time slot, though). The guys I'm now alternating with do a great program called Radiorama which features Cuban music of many genres, so you can't go wrong, either way. I do hope I get to go back to a weekly schedule soon, though.

Welcome back Daryl, it's good to see you.

Welcome back Darryl, it's good to hear your news. I think of you and your mom often, and am glad to hear that you frequently have good days together. It's inevitable that you will lose your patience at times, so try not to beat yourself up about it. I imagine the move to a hotel must have unsettled and disoriented her, however clearly you explained the situation to her. It is so hard but you are doing a great job. I hope you can get to NYC for a day or too soon to give yourself a break and enjoy some art in the city. And I can't wait until the time we are able to meet up again in person.

Darryl, great to see you. Remembering managing my mom during her dementia years—and we weren't even living in the same house—my hat is off to you. I found it a lot like living with a young teenager: good days, bad days, but the bad ones don't necessarily stick. Sounds like you're doing right by her, and yourself.

I think your cautions about traveling with her are on the money. Stick to what you think she can handle, and plans you can change easily if things don't seem to be working out. I think flexibility was the best tool in my toolbox during that time, and our most difficult incidents came along with plans that couldn't be changed (doctors' visits, holidays and at least one family wedding that we really should have sent regrets to, etc.). If you do find yourself taking your mom on a Bronx tour, let me know! A quick meetup would be fun.

P.S. Last month my son graduated with his MD, got married, and is now ensconced in his general surgery residency in Syracuse. I'm glad I got to see a lot of him beforehand...

It is good to see you here. I wish you much happy reading. I am happy to let you know that my mother is finally recovered from her COVID related illnesses. She is much more like herself and even though she is 85 she is more active than she was last year. She told me that she feels so much better, but it took her a year to get over COVID. (She contracted it in November 2020.) My sisters and I had been thinking that we were going to have to find some sort of long-term care for her but when I was home in March for Spring Break she was so much better that it was fun to be around her. Last week the refrigerator ice maker began leaking water and ruined the flooring in her kitchen. She has dealt with the insurance company, the plumber, and the carpenter by herself! This is a big change from a year ago.

>125 kidzdoc: Hoping things continue (relatively) well.

>125 kidzdoc: I can see why reading has dropped to a lower priority! Your professional life is demanding but it has time off.

Hi Daryl, Glad to see you check in. Wishing you all the best as you care for your Mom and work on your continuing ed. requirements.
Thanks for the recommendation of Squirrel Hill. I just checked out the audiobook. I have a similar interest in the area from my time at Pitt and living on Clyde St., just at the edge of Shadyside. In fact my wedding cake was made by Silberberg's bakery on Murray Ave.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/squirrel-hill-documentary-...

Great to see you here Darryl. Take care of yourself and pop in when you can.

Thank you for the update, Darryl - and sending thoughts. It is good to hear about your mother enjoying listening to music - I read something once that with music you are always in the present moment, which is good for dementia sufferers. Keep looking after yourself.

Nice to hear from you Darryl. You have so much going on and I know that you are doing it all from a place of amazing love. My mom and dad are coming out for my daughter's wedding this fall and I am a little worried about how things are going to go with my mom. She is pretty far down the dementia path and I know changing environments is really going to mess with her. Luckily, she is past the suspicious, angry phase, and seems pretty happy if everyone else around her is. Her knee is also shot, but she doesn't remember that until she is out and about. Of course. I have managed to borrow a wheelchair for her visit -- I just hope I can get her into it! LOL. I really want them to be here because I am not sure how many more trips they'll really be able to make. This may be the only grandchild's wedding they make, so we are going to enjoy it no matter what. : )

Happy weekend and have fun reading!

So much for catching up by the weekend...I should have said the end of the month.

This weekend I finished my LT Early Reviewers book for May, What Goes Unsaid: A Memoir of Fathers Who Never Were by Emiliano Monge, which was...okay. I gave it 3½ stars, and I'll plan to write a review of it later this week (famous last words).

I plan to read four books this week: My Broken Language: A Memoir by Quiara Alegría Hudes, this year's One Book, One Philadelphia selection; Nothing Personal, a short, searing and prophetic essay by James Baldwin that was written in 1964 but is as applicable today as it was then; On Juneteenth by the Harvard historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author Annette Gordon-Reed, an exploration of the historical importance of this momentous day, which was chosen as one of the Top 10 Books of 2021 by The New York Times; and Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire, an award winning Somali British poet whose previous poetry collection, "Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth", was outstanding. I purchased the last three books from Harriett's Bookshop, my new favorite independent bookstore in Philadelphia, last month.

>130 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. My mother's local neurologist (not the dementia specialist she sees at the Penn Memory Center in Philadelphia) started her on a new medication, mirtazapine, to help her mood and anxiety just before the AC crisis, and it has made a tremendous improvement in her cognition, memory and mood. As a result the past two weeks have gone as well as any stretch of time we've had together since I returned home for good in late November, and I could not be any happier or more relieved.

Speaking of happier, I'm sure that you're beyond pleased and relieved that the record breaking heat wave in England has now passed. I'm "talking" with Jenny (@lunacat) about the weather there as I'm typing this, and I was in touch with over half a dozen of my/our fellow British friends in the past day or two. We're now starting what will be our hottest stretch of the year in Philadelphia, as high temperatures are supposed to range from 36-39°C (97-102°F) between now and Sunday.

I look forward to your thoughts on The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.

>131 cindydavid4: Thanks, Cindy. One other benefit of two of the new medications my mother started in the past two weeks, mirtazapine and trazodone, is that she is sleeping more during the day, which allows me more time to get things done...and read. Now that the situation has improved dramatically here I'm no longer thinking of placing Mom in a memory care center, which will break my heart when the time comes to do that.

>132 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. That must be tough to live so far away from your mother. Are any of your siblings closer in distance to her?

Given the unwillingness to enact meaningful gun reform in this country (not counting the recent legislation that was passed a few weeks ago in the aftermath of the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas) and the rise of White nationalism, anti-Semitism and racism in the country I share your view that these events will continue to happen. That is beyond horrible and utterly unbelievable that a former synagogue has been converted into a gun shop! Did the film mention the name of that synagogue, or the neighborhood it was in? There is a synagogue in East Liberty that is no longer in use, but I believe that it's being converted into an upscale apartment complex. (I don't expect you to know either question, since you're not from Pittsburgh.)

Squirrel Hill was a good book, but I suspect that it would resonate better with people who are from Pittsburgh or, like myself, lived there for a significant period of time and are familiar with the neighborhood.

>148 kidzdoc: - Hi Darryl. I do have a brother but he lives in Vermont and although he is closer, geographically - only a 3-hour drive for him as opposed to a 6-hour trip for me - he also still works full time and is therefore not as flexible in his schedule as I am, being retired. I just got home from a visit last night and my biggest concern now is how much my mother seems to sleep. 12 hours or more at night and dozing a fair bit during the day. No wonder her stamina is so low! Sigh...

As for your questions. I can't remember if the name of the converted synagogue or the neighbourhood were mentioned in the film. They may have been but if so, I don't remember.

Good news about your mother and the new medication. It must be a real relief for you (and her).

>133 ELiz_M: Hi, Liz! I do want to take a day trip to NYC in the very near future, and I had intended to do so last month, before our central AC suddenly failed. My MoMA membership is still active, and it allows me to purchase $5 guest tickets, so I would love to meet up with you and others to go there and see a play, if possible. I have to wait until I know when my cousin Tina is coming and can stay with my mother, but once she lets me know I'll be in touch with you and my other NYC area past and present LT friends, hopefully next month.

>134 torontoc: Thanks, Cyrel.

>135 RidgewayGirl: I'm a bit familiar with Highland Park, Kay, as one of my closest friends and classmates from residency lived there for several years; I stayed with her twice during visits to Chicago, and took commuter trains from the station to the city on days when she was seeing patients in clinic. It's a lovely suburb, and it's shocking that a crime like that occurred there. (Then again, it's equally as shocking that a White supremacist massacred 11 innocent worshippers in Squirrel Hill.)

It helps tremendously that my mother and I are both huge jazz fans, and we keep the Music Choice Jazz cable channel on practically 24/7 on the TV in our living room. The music selection is excellent, and it takes many hours before a song is repeated. I have accounts with YouTube TV and Netflix, and since I donate to our local PBS station I can use PBS Passport. (Since she's listening to music I'll log on to BBC World News in a few minutes to find out which of the three remaining candidates for British prime minister has been eliminated, most likely Liz Truss.) My mother also enjoys looking at old photos, and doing so with her helps stimulate her memory as she recalls old faces of long gone relatives.

I'm especially glad that we have central AC this week!

>136 cindydavid4: I'm curious to learn if the gun shop in the former synagogue opened after the Tree of Life massacre. Squirrel Hill, the adjacent neighborhood of Shadyside, and Oakland, where the University of Pittsburgh is located, would be about the last places in Western Pennsylvania where I would expect to find a gun shop. I wonder if a good number of Jewish people (rightfully) horrified and frightened by the Tree of Life synagogue and the rise of White nationalism and anti-Semitism under Trump expressed an interest in purchasing firearms for self protection, and that this gun shop opened to meet that desire.

Several of our local public libraries had Squirrel Hill in stock, but that isn't all that surprising since we're on the other end of the state in suburban Philadelphia, a little over 300 miles to the east of Pittsburgh.

>137 rocketjk: Thanks, Jerry. I haven't listened to your podcast, or the one that one of my best friends from Tulane hosts every Saturday night (Funky, Jazzy and Smooth with KD), as I'm usually doing something with my mother during those times. I told Karl that I would start listening to his show when I had free time, especially in the late afternoon and overnight hours, and I'll do the same for your podcast. Radiorama sounds interesting, so I'll check that out as well.

>138 rhian_of_oz: Thanks, Rhian!

>139 Sakerfalcon: Hi, Claire! I hope that your flat is much cooler today than it was yesterday.

Unfortunately the hotel room that I was able to book wasn't an ideal one. We have plenty of hotels nearby, but it was the July 4th weekend, and since many out of town families with young children spent it going to Sesame Place, the Sesame Street amusement park which is two miles from our house, the best local hotels and their rooms were booked solid. The room we were given in Morrisville, just across the Delaware River from Trenton, looked nothing like the photo, and although it was a great place to sleep, with excellent AC, it wasn't a great option for three people to stay there, particularly given my mother's dementia and our frazzled nerves and short tempers from being without AC for several days.

Yes, I think a day trip to NYC is likely to happen soon, both because I can easily get there (it takes 15 minutes from here to drive to the Trenton Transportation Center, where I can take a NJ Transit into Penn Station New York), and because there are a number of LTers who would be willing and eager to meet up there. I also hope to make it to Pittsburgh in mid September, to attend the 25th class reunion of my medical school class at Pitt.

I eagerly await our next in person meetup, whether here, London or elsewhere.

>140 lisapeet: Thanks, Lisa. Fortunately for the past 2½ weeks my days with my mother have been very pleasant ones, and we haven't said an angry word to each other since that horrible day we briefly spent in the hotel nearly 3 weeks ago. My patience and willingness to do anything for her is almost boundless as long as I feel appreciated, which wasn't happening last month but is definitely the case now.

Although I'm not sure my mother could handle another hotel room she would certainly enjoy a drive to Jersey City and NYC, especially if she sees the places she and we once lived. Her parents lived on E 222nd St in the Bronx during her teenage and early adult years, and I have many fond memories of visits to see my beloved maternal grandparents in the 1960s when we were living in Jersey City. It wouldn't take more than two hours to get to her old home from here, and I take her on car rides of that length or longer at least twice a week.

I'll definitely let you know when we decide to visit the Bronx. I suspect that I'll wait until autumn, when the weather isn't as brutally hot and she can go for short walks outside of the car.

Congratulations to your son! Yeah, I don't think you'll be seeing much of him between now and next June...

>141 benitastrnad: Thanks, Benita. I look forward to an especially good reading week, as it's too hot to spend any significant time outside of the house or the interior of my SUV, and even though it's a comfortable 72° downstairs I am not motivated to be particularly productive when it's this hot.

I'm very glad that your mother is doing so much better! It doesn't seem to take much for people in their 80s and beyond to go badly off the rails, and it's a great relief when they get back on track.

>142 dukedom_enough: Thanks, Michael.

>143 qebo: Exactly, Katherine. After cutting back my hours substantially to visit and help care for my parents more often in 2020 I only worked 12-13 days a month, so I had plenty of down time. Although things have dramatically improved here it's still a 24/7 on call job, and because my mother continues to have night terrors practically every day I essentially never have a full night's sleep while I'm here. Long afternoon naps after lunch usually keep me sufficiently rested, though.

>144 tangledthread: Thanks, tangledthread. I've now earned more than 100 CME (continuing medical education credits) since the beginning of last year, so I'm in the process of applying for my Pennsylvania medical license.

I look forward to your thoughts about Squirrel Hill. I vaguely remembered Clyde Street, and after looking it up on Google Maps I now know where it is. I routinely took the 71C PAT bus to go from my apartment on Ellsworth Ave to campus and back (Pitt students could ride city transit for free with their IDs back then), and the bus passed by your street in both directions.

From what I could tell Silberberg's Bakery closed operations in 1981. Looking up the address (2111 Murray Avenue) on Google Maps suggests that it was very close to a Jewish dairy restaurant that several of my classmates and I liked to have Sunday brunch during our first two years of medical school; I don't remember the name of it, though, and I suspect that it's long gone (I haven't been back to Pittsburgh since shortly after I graduated from Pitt in 1997).

Thanks for the link to that documentary! Maybe that will tell me the name of that restaurant. We loved going there, as the staff treated us especially nicely after they found out we were medical students at Pitt.

>145 markon: Thanks, Ardene; will do.

>146 wandering_star: Thanks, Margaret. That makes sense about music keeping you in the present. On the other hand a good percentage of the music we listen to, whether on television or CDs in the house and my SUV are recordings that she is familiar with, particularly songs and recordings from the 1960s that were taken from albums my parents had at home back then.

>147 Berly: Thanks, Kim. I hope that your parents' visit for your daughter's wedding turns out well.

>148 kidzdoc: Three hours is still a long drive, especially if there is an emergency!

My mother is definitely sleeping more, but part of the reason is her frequent awakenings during the overnight and morning hours due to her night terrors. Her stamina when she is rested is relatively good, though nowhere near what it was this time last year.

Hi Darryl,

Just saying hi after a 6 month absence from LT. What you are doing for your mother is amazing - and I can't imagine how patient you're being. I have unpleasant memories of night terrors with one of our kids. We've just been through the process of moving Mum from her house into a lovely retirement community, and 3 months later I'm still feeling slightly bruised from some of our interactions over selling her house. She is in great shape at 82 but lonely since Dad died. I'm about to take her out for coffee - but there is no way I could be unselfish enough to spend a lot of time looking after her.

The John Lewis bio sounds excellent and I've just reserved it at the local library (which has removed all fines...going to be bad for my already non-existent book-borrowing discipline!).

Hope your AC keeps working and you have a book-filled few days.

Hi Darryl

Sorry to hear about the upheavals you've had in your life, and I hope you can sort out the CPD so you can return to some paid employment.

On music and your mum, I've heard quite a lot on the radio about how helpful listening to music, including older stuff that brings back memories, can be for people living with dementia, for example in care home settings.

My brother Gareth who normally teaches swimming (kids and adults) has done quite a bit of care work with older people needing help at home. Apparently this work has involved learning more than he ever wanted to know about our Royal Family and watching documentaries etc about Queen Elizabeth with them. Listening to music, whether or not it's music I know well, sounds much more appealing.

Just by the way, there is a fascinating documentary from some years ago, called Alive Inside, about music and dementia. Worth seeking it out.

>154 cushlareads: Hi, Cushla! I hope that you and your family are doing well. Everyone who visits us and is most familiar with our situation highly commends me for my patience and what I'm doing for my mother, which I appreciate, but I also know that I can be doing a better job, for her and myself.

Her night terrors, after initially decreasing in frequency and severity, have now become a daily occurrence, especially if she sleeps well past sunrise, as she did today.

I'm grateful that my mother is as nice of a person as one could ask for, and that we have had an excellent relationship throughout my life, which has only deepened as the years have gone on. My mother's older sister, who died last year, was a handful, especially in the last few years of her life, and I'm almost infinitely relieved that I didn't have to be her caregiver.

I look forward to your thoughts about Walking with the Wind.

Fortunately our new central AC unit is working perfectly, which I especially appreciate now, as this will be the hottest weekend of the year so far, with high temperatures that will range from 97-100°F (36-38°C).

>155 elkiedee: Hi, Luci! Thanks for your concern. Now that it's too hot to spend much time outside I'll have more time to work on getting my Pennsylvania medical license. It should be a formality once I complete the required tasks, as my Georgia medical license has been in good standing since 1998, I have sufficient continuing medical education (CME) credits, and I'm in good standing as a board-certified pediatrician. I'll probably look for a non-clinical position that requires an MD degree and will allow me to work from home, something two good friends from residency did in the past. It won't be as rewarding as caring for patients in the hospital, but many of these positions pay well, from what I understand.

My mother responds very well to music, which is a constant presence in our home, and in my SUV when I'm driving with her. I set up my Netflix account on the TV in our living room, so we can watch documentaries on it, especially ones about African American history on PBS, which she enjoys.

>156 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley! There is a full length version of Alive Inside on YouTube, so I'll watch it this weekend or early next week.

Good to see you back posting again, Darryl. I'm glad there's been some improvement since your mum switched onto new drugs; I'm sure it can't be easy.

Night terrors are awful to witness - I sympathise. My oldest child used to suffer from them a lot from the age of 4 or 5 up to around 10 or 11, and it was just horrible watching him be so utterly terrified yet not being able to easily rouse him from sleep. It's truly like watching something from a horror movie when you see someone having night terrors.

I hope that your days and weeks ahead continue to be easier ones, and look forward to more reviews.

>158 AlisonY: Awful to witness indeed. A friend of mine in college had extreme night terrors. He acted out dangers only he could see. Threw himself out a window, lacerated his feet on an upper bunk, and assaulted a roommate. Does your mother get up and sleepwalk with her night terrors, Darryl?

>158 AlisonY: Thanks, Alison. I'll start catching up on your and others' threads this week. I need to write reviews of books I've read recently, starting with What Goes Unsaid: A Memoir of Fathers Who Never Were by Emiliano Monge, my LT Early Reviewers book for May.

I finished three books this weekend, all of which were superb and earned 4½ stars from me: My Broken Language: A Memoir by Quiara Alegría Hudes, this year's One Book, One Philadelphia selection; Nothing Personal: An Essay by James Baldwin; and Bless the Daughter Raised By a Voice in Her Head, a powerful poetry collection by the Somali British poet Warsan Shire, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite contemporary poets. It contains one of the most searing and unforgettable poems I've ever read, titled Home:

Home
By Warsan Shire

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,

because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here.

You can listen to Warsan Shire reading Home here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI9D92Xiygo

My mother's improvement since she started taking mirtazapine four weeks ago is nothing short of astonishing, and I'm grateful beyond words for it; I suspect that my mother may appreciate her improvement more than anyone else.

Her night terrors have improved for the time being, as she has not had one in the past 3-4 days. What's especially disturbing about them is that she responds to me when I talk to her (I usually don't respond unless she calls out for me, usually in distress), and sometimes she will look at me blankly, but she is still not completely conscious. Creepy...

>159 labfs39: Yikes! That sounds horrible, Lisa. My mother will occasionally try to get up during a night terror, so I'll push two ottomans adjacent to the couch in the living room she sleeps on, so that she doesn't fall, and often times sit on one of them, and prevent her from getting up (she no longer feels comfortable sleeping in her bedroom, both because my father isn't there and because that is where he had his seizure just before Thanksgiving, early on a Saturday morning, the last day of his life at home).

This year's Booker Prize longlist will be announced at 1500 BST (1000 EDT) tomorrow. Most of you know that I'm the administrator of the Booker Prize group on LT, so I'll post the longlist and links for each book shortly after the announcement. Now that my reading has (finally!) picked up this year I hope to finish the shortlist, and possibly the entire longlist, before the winner is announced on 17 October.

>160 kidzdoc: Thank you for posting that poem, Darryl.

>160 kidzdoc: thanks for the poem. Glad mom is doing better.

Welcome back :) Glad to see that you resurfaced - I was starting to get worried :)

>160 kidzdoc: Wow. That poem is incredibly powerful, and gut-wrenchingly depressing...

>160 kidzdoc: That's a wrenching poem. Thank you for posting it.

And I'm glad to hear about your mother's improvement—every little thing that helps is really valuable.

>162 rocketjk:, >163 dianeham:, >165 labfs39:, >166 lisapeet: I'm glad that you were as moved by Home as I was. It's powerful enough on the page, but hearing her read it aloud in the YouTube video is even more chilling.

I've just increased my rating of Blessed the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head to 5 stars. I gave her earliest short poetry collection Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth 4.5 stars, and I think it's fair to say that Warsan Shire is my favorite young poet (under 35). I'll write a review of this book sometime this week.

>164 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie. All is well here, and vastly better than it was at this time last month.

>166 lisapeet: Thanks, Lisa. A small improvement is a blessing, but one as large as this one is a near miracle.

>160 kidzdoc: I saved the poem to my poetry collection. It's powerful...and true.

This year's Booker Prize longlist has just been announced:



Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
Trust by Hernan Diaz
The Trees by Percival Everett
Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
The Colony by Audrey Magee
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

The shortlist will be unveiled on 6 September and the winner on 17 October.

I've read The Trees, which I loved and is fully deserving of the longlist. I just downloaded the e-book of Small Things Like These from the Fulton County Public Library in Atlanta, and purchased the Amazon Kindle edition of Oh William!, which only cost $1.99, as I had a $5.00 Kindle credit, so I'll read them first.

The Guardian: Booker prize longlist of 13 writers aged 20 to 87 announced

>169 kidzdoc: I've only read the The Trees which was a great and fun read. So it's very cool to see it make the longlist.

>170 stretch: I agree completely, Kevin! The Trees was an excellent book, and I'm thrilled that Percival Everett will now get the attention that he has deserved for years.

>168 SqueakyChu: I agree, Madeline; Home is easily one of the most honest and powerful poems I've ever read.

>169 kidzdoc: Ooh I did not know that Shehan Karunatilaka had a new book out. I was just thinking the other day how much I liked his first book and how I hadn't heard anything of him since then!

>173 wandering_star: I was also thrilled to see that Shehan Karunatilaka has a new book out, and that it was good enough to make the longlist, as I enjoyed his earlier Booker longlisted book, Chinaman. I pre-ordered the UK edition of it from The Book Depository this morning, as I suspect that it won't be available in the US before the winner is announced in mid October.

I should receive my new Pennsylvania driver's license in the mail this week, which will allow me to access the local county library system and, more importantly, the massive Free Library of Philadelphia system, which has more than 300,000 e-books. I intend to borrow as many longlisted books as I can, rather than buying them en masse as I usually do.

Hi Darryl, glad to see the new meds are really helping your mom, and that it's giving you time to read and post again. Hooray for getting a new library card! The Philly system sounds fabulous. I have one in Maryland, as the library near my sister's place allows out-of-state cards for a fee, and I love being able to use her library when I visit, as well as their e-books year-round.

>175 bell7: Hi, Mary! The new medication is truly a gift, although I may ask my mother's neurologist to increase the dose slightly, depending on how she does over the next week or so, as its effects do seem to be lessening somewhat.

I haven't gotten a library card yet, as I'm waiting on my new Pennsylvania driver's license, but when I looked at the email I received from USPS Informed Delivery this morning there is a letter from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation that is coming today, which presumably contains my new license. I would have received a license on the spot when I went to the DMV center 12 days ago, but I requested a Real ID license, which I was told can take up to two weeks to be sent. Assuming I get it then I'll go to the nearest Free Library of Philadelphia branch in Northeast Philadelphia, which is 11 miles away, probably on Friday, visit our local Bucks County Free Library branch with Mom tomorrow, and the Margaret Grundy Library in Bristol with Mom on Saturday, the only day of the week it's open so far. That library sits on the western bank of the Delaware River and has an outdoor patio, so it's a great place to borrow books and sit and read. This is how it will look in a few weeks, when the construction project is finished:



I should be able to borrow books from the Rutgers library system in person or remotely, and e-books from the Emory libraries, as an alumnus of both universities, so I'll look for Booker longlisted books from these libraries as well.

I've only read The Trees and Small Things Like These. of which I liked The Trees the most. I liked Small Things Like These, but found it rather slight. I have Oh William (Kindle deal like you), but since it's the third of a trilogy I wanted to read the first 2 books before reading Oh William. I've now read My Name Is Lucy Barton (liked) and need to read the second.

>176 kidzdoc: It's too bad that they require a driver's license for ID. My library (albeit one in a small town) will accept a driver's license with the past address plus a piece of mail or a bill that confirms an address. It sounds like a really great system(s) you have access too, though!

>177 arubabookwoman: Good point about Oh William!, Deborah. I've also read My Name Is Lucy Barton, which I wasn't fond of, and I would hope that I don't have to read Anything Is Possible to fully understand or appreciate Oh William!. I'll have to look for reviews or comments about it today or tomorrow, as I'll finish Small Things Like These as early as today. If it seems that I need to read Anything Is Possible first then I'll hold off reading Oh William! until I know that it's made the Booker Prize shortlist.

>178 bell7: Right, Mary. According to the Bucks County Free Library website, "Proof of identity and evidence of current Bucks County residence, business ownership, employment, or school enrollment are required." I suppose that I'll need to bring my driver's license and a piece of mail with my name on it to qualify for a library card. We can't have any of those damned illegals getting access to library books! (*rolls eyes*)

>177 arubabookwoman: Wait a minute. Is Oh William! a sequel to Anything Is Possible, or Lucy by the Sea, or both books?! Forget that; I'm not reading two additional books to be able to fully appreciate Oh William!, especially since I didn't like My Name Is Lucy Barton. I don't expect to like her latest book, so I'll read it and rate it as a stand alone novel, as it shouldn't have been nominated for the Booker Prize if reading her previous three books about Lucy Barton was a requirement.

>180 kidzdoc: "it shouldn't have been nominated for the Booker Prize if reading her previous"

The Testaments won. So did Bring Up the Bodies. So not really uncommon to nominate later books in series either for the Booker or for almost any other award. Annoying - yes. But not uncommon.

>181 AnnieMod: True. I can't remember how essential reading Wolf Hall (loved it) was to fully appreciating Bring Up the Bodies (also loved it), or The Mirror & the Light (which was longlisted for the Booker; I haven't read it yet), and I haven't read The Testaments yet (I enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale). There may be other examples of this as well.

>176 kidzdoc: I’m jealous. I’m a retired librarian and you have more resources then I do. I just went to check out what I can get from NYU (where I got a BFA) and they allow one library visit per year! And while my local library is far better than one might expect, I’m not likely to find the Booker long list there. They are also the ones picking the Overdrive purchases for all of South Jersey so not much in terms of international literature.

But I checked NYU alumni services and they have elibrary resources that require an alumni card. So I wrote and asked for a card.

>183 dianeham: "And while my local library is far better than one might expect, I’m not likely to find the Booker long list there."

You may be surprised. My library has more than half - and it is one of the small library systems. The missing ones are the few that had not had a US release yet (predictably) and a few which are just too new... So you may want to still check your library (or mine is really unusual...)

>182 kidzdoc: I am sure there were others - I just thought of these two off the top of my head. I hate it when a later book in a series is nominated but on the other hand... are they to be excluded just because they are part of a series? And if you had read the earlier books, how easy it is to judge solely based on that one new entry in the series (I know I cannot - there is the knowledge and the feeling of the previous ones in your head -- and I suspect judges/people who nominate have a similar issue). Which does not make it less annoying but... Catch-22, isn't it? Sorry for grumbling (this is a much bigger issue in the genre awards - both speculative and mystery/crime ones) than it is for the literary ones so I am almost always grumpy on the topic...)

>183 dianeham: It turns out that I was wrong about my ability to borrow books from the Emory University libraries; as an alumnus I can borrow print books, but not e-books. I'll have to see what the policies of Rutgers and Pitt, where I received my BA and MD, respectively, are for alumni. (I didn't earn a degree from Emory, but I did finish my pediatric residency there, and thus I am considered an alumnus.)

Despite my mother's moderate Alzheimer's disease she continues to be an avid reader. While we were having dinner not long ago she asked me if I could read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison alongside her, so that I could explain it to her. She's using the paperback copy my father gave her 20 years ago, so I'll look for a print or electronic copy tomorrow after I gain access to the Bucks County Free Library. I haven't read it yet and it's high on my list of books to read, so I'll be even more happy to do so with her. I would get it from the Fulton County Public Library in Atlanta, where I remain a member, but the electronic editions of it are already being borrowed.

>184 AnnieMod: I searched the Bucks County Free Library, the system in suburban Philadelphia just north of the city, and at least six of the longlisted books were in the system. None are in the branch closest to our house, so I'll request at least two of them online tomorrow. I suspect that the much larger Free Library of Philadelphia system will have most if not all of the titles that have been published in the US.

I have no problem with books that are part of a series being eligible for literary awards, but readers of those books should not have to read earlier books in the series in order to fully appreciate them, IMO; they should be evaluated on their own merit. After reading, and disliking, My Name Is Lucy Barton I am loathe to have to read one or two more books in the series before I start Oh William!. On the other hand, even if I did like the author's work (e.g., Hilary Mantel's Cromwell Trilogy) I still wouldn't expect readers to have to tackle Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies to properly evaluate The Mirror & the Light (I really need to get to that book, so I'll add it to my list of books to read before the end of the year.)

I loved Lucy Barton, sorta liked the second and really didn't like the third. She can write btter than that. I agree - a book in a series is fine, but it really should be one that stands alone to some extent.

>184 AnnieMod: I must have looked up the ones they don’t have yesterday. You’re right - they have 7. I’m retired from that library.

Just stopping in to see how you and your mom are, Darryl. Glad to hear the new meds might be helping your mom. And, as usual, you are reading some interesting stuff. How wonderful that she can still enjoy reading. You are an amazing son :-)

>185 kidzdoc: I'm of the opinion that only standalones should be egilible ofr awards. Or if they want to include a series then it should be the entire series and not a single book from the series since the idea of series is a long and continue story. It's a harsh line, but it's impossible to judge a single book in series of books without the context of the others. Then agian I'm not the biggest fan of series and prefer self contained stories even if they are set in the same story universe.

>176 kidzdoc: That library looks amazing! And my kind of reading environment. Looks ideal use of waterfront.

With your use of multiple libraries, you might want to look into a browser extension for chrome/firefox called Library Extension - it atomically searches libraries for copies and availability of books in both physical and digital editions. Works on LT, Amazon, Goodreads, and a bunch of bookish websites. Makes searching for library editions super easy. The universities are not there it would seem, but the Free library and Bucks County appear to be in the list.

>169 kidzdoc: Only a few of the longlist is avaibale within my library system. Luckily Nightcrawling and Glory the two I'm most interested in are. Only a couple chapters into Nightcrawling and it is so far outstanding. Griping from the start. I'm no judge of literature, but I already have high hopes for it making the shortlist.

>185 kidzdoc: You have a treat ahead reading Song of Solomon Darryl. I was so stunned when it didn't get onto the Guardian list of what Morrison to read. It's in my top 2. Definitely due a reread soon. Enjoy reading with your mom.

>191 Caroline_McElwee: Yes! I just reread Song of Solomon for my book group (it was my selection, actually). One of my favorites, not only of Morrison's but of all the American novels I've read.

>190 stretch: Or maybe treat a trilogy as a single entity? I hate it when the last book in the trilogy gets the prize, even if it is the weakest book, as happened with Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy.

Darryl, you don't need to read the other books to enjoy Oh, William!. Unlike Mantel's Cromwell trilogy, the books about Lucy Barton don't need each other in order to be understood. However, if you disliked My Name is Lucy Barton, you will likely not like Oh, William!, which is a quiet book about the relationship between a difficult man and his ex-wife. It's very much in the Alice Munro/Laird Hunt vein of being understated. In my opinion, Anything is Possible, a book of inter-related short stories about people struggling to get by in a dying Illinois town, is a perfect book. In it, Lucy Barton appears in a few stories, but that's it.

>193 labfs39: Yeah, that's kind of my feeling. If your giving an award to a book like at the end of the trilogy it seems kind of arbitary. Since it is some respects arbitary who cares if the award body just deems the whole series award worthy it's not like readers are going to pickup the second of trilogy before the first just because it was deemed award worthy, if anything the ones who do by mistake are going to be frustrated that they bought a book in the middle of a series and have to go back and read the others.

I made it through 106 pages of Oh William!, despite the author's patently false description of night terrors (it didn't help that my mother was recovering from a bad night terror early this morning while I was reading it), and a cast of affected and privileged characters who I could not identify with and had absolutely no interest in. The comment from one of Lucy's lovers during sex ("I'm shooting into Mommy! I'm shooting into Mommy!") was the last straw for me. I'll give Oh William! a generous two stars, and refuse to read anything else by Elizabeth Strout.

I finished Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, another longlisted novel, on Thursday, and I did enjoy it (4 stars), although it's rather slight for what my concept of a Booker novel should be.

I purchased the Kindle edition of Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley earlier this morning, as the copies in the local libraries are all unavailable and apparently won't be for a while.

I've met my goal of reading three longlisted novels this month, and I'll attempt to read at least one novel a week until mid October, a schedule which will allow me to finish the longlist in advance of the prize ceremony.

My Booker Prize longlist rating to date:

1. The Trees by Percival Everett
2. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
13. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout (I'll be surprised if I dislike any longlisted novel more than this one)

I should finish two more books by Sunday, starting with Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations by Dr Kathryn Mannix, a wise, compassionate and insightful British cancer care specialist, palliative care physician and cognitive behavioral therapist who I met and spent a lovely afternoon with at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2018 after I attended her talk about her first book With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial. Her latest book teaches the reader the skill of listening to family members, friends, clients, patients and even strangers who face difficult situations and major problems in their lives. It's superb so far, and with a little more than 100 pages to go I'll probably finish it today. I'll also read milk and honey by the Indian Canadian poet Rupi Kaur, which spent 77 weeks on The New York Times' best seller list. I've barely started it, but I've enjoyed what I've read so far.

>186 cindydavid4: I didn't like My Name Is Lucy Barton, but at least I was able to finish it, unlike Oh William!.

>188 dianeham: Great news, Diane!

>189 avaland: Thanks for your kind comments, Lois. The new medications are helping her mood and cognitive ability, and decreasing her anxiety, but she continues to have night terrors, which have gotten worse in the past few days. She was supposed to see her psychiatrist last month but the appointment was cancelled by Dr Weston, and since her follow up appointment isn't until late October I've asked for an earlier appointment, whether in person or by Zoom.

I need to write reviews of what I've read so far, starting with What Goes Unsaid: A Memoir of Fathers Who Never Were by Emiliano Monge, my LT Early Reviewers book for May.

>190 stretch: Several sources, including the reviewer of Oh William! in The Guardian and Deborah (@arubabookwoman), stated that this novel could be evaluated on its own without reading the other books in the Lucy Barton series, and I would agree with them.

The Margaret R. Grundy Memorial Library is absolutely lovely. The street it's on runs along the Delaware River, which separates Pennsylvania from New Jersey, although the library is one level below the street, and is only a few feet above the bank of the river. It makes for a beautiful setting, especially if you sit on the patio between the library and the river, but it makes it susceptible to flood damage, and it's now undergoing a major renovation and expansion that should be completed later this year. As a result it's only open on Saturdays, so I'll go there with my mother later today.

Thanks for the tip about Library Extension, Kevin! I'll start using it this weekend, especially since I want to borrow as many Booker longlisted titles as I can. I'll probably also get library cards to the Bucks County Free Library and the Free Library of Philadelphia, along with the Grundy Library, this week.

I'm glad that you're enjoying Nightcrawling so far. One of my partners read it early this week, and she loved it. I should be able to get a copy of Glory from a local library sometime next month.

ETA: If I didn't say so already, which I don't think I did, the 20 year old Leila Mottley is the youngest author to have a novel nominated for the Booker Prize, and 87 year old Alan Garner, author of Treacle Walker, is the oldest.

>196 kidzdoc: refuse to read anything else by Elizabeth Strout
I arrived at the same conclusion several years ago when my RL book group read My Name is Lucy Barton (my review: "Why is this a book?") and Anything is Possible (my review: "I am lacking whatever literary sensibility is necessary to appreciate the style.").

>191 Caroline_McElwee: I'm eagerly looking forward to starting Song of Solomon, Caroline, and I'm glad that you rank it so highly. It's currently available at the Grundy Library, so I'll borrow it when we go there later today. After reading Beloved last year I've been eager to read more of Toni Morrison's work, and since my mother asked me to read it alongside her I have even more reason to start this novel ASAP, either tomorrow or Monday.

I would love to see your Toni Morrison rank list!

>192 rocketjk: That's high praise indeed, Jerry!

>193 labfs39: It does pose some difficulty when evaluating books that are part of a series, but I still maintain that the book under consideration should stand on its own. That was certainly the case for Wolf Hall and, I think, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light.

>194 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, Kay. You were right; I didn't like My Name Is Lucy Barton, and that went double for Oh William!. I will say that I approached it with an open mind and tried to like it, but it fell apart for me within a few pages.

>195 stretch: I agree, Kevin. One should not have to go back and read previous books in a series to properly evaluate a book chosen for a major literary award.

>198 qebo: Ha! I was under the impression that I was the wrong gender to like Elizabeth Trout's writing, Katherine. I'm heartened that you dislike her work as much as I do.

I am also decidedly not a fan of Elizabeth Strout. It's interesting to me that among the LT reviewers that I trust and often agree with, opinions on her novels are very split with a love or hate relationship.

>200 japaul22: I was under the same impression, Jennifer. One of my work partners, who is also an avid reader and whose tastes closely parallel mine, loves the Lucy Barton series, including Oh William!, but another partner of mine dislikes her work as much as I do.

>198 qebo: her first two books were amazing and are among my all time favs. Liked Lucy Barton, mainly because I was reading it in the hospital and was imagining my mom being in the room. the second not as much, but o william was very disappointing

Interesting about Strout. I read her first novel as an LT early reviewer and was mildly amused but also not a big fan. So I was surprised afterwards to see lots of praise (and now 8 more books). And now Oh William is on this list.

Part of me is curious what I missed in Olive Kitteridge, so I am legitimately interested in trying Strout again, warily. I plan to work through the full trilogy.

Nice to see your thread light up again.

Catching up! Glad you're back and finishing some books! It sounds like you are doing an amazing job with your mom, and I'm happy to hear that she is improving.

>160 kidzdoc: - Thanks for posting the poem--very moving.

I've had Olive Kitteridge on the I-should-read-that list in my head for awhile now. Interesting to hear the mixed reactions to her other works. I have to admit your description of Oh William made me snort. I'll be following your comments on the rest of the Booker list.

>196 kidzdoc: I read Kathryn Mannix's With the End in Mind a few years ago and liked it very much. I will have to look for her new book.

>197 kidzdoc: I didn't have an opinion on whether Oh William could be evaluated on its own. I bought it as a Kindle deal, and said I thought I should read the first two in the series before I read Oh William. For me personally, I would prefer to read the earlier books in a series before reading a later book in the series, but that's just my preference.

I now have read My Name Is Lucy Barton. I mildly liked it, but with so many good books waiting me on my shelf I'm not sure I'm going to follow through on reading the next two books, especially given your opinion on Oh William. I will say that I was a fan of Olive Kitteredge, but I think that was largely because Olive reminded me a good bit of my grandmother.

All that by way of saying that I am not a Booker "completetist." In the past I've found the Booker lists (nominees and winners) frequently pointed me toward very good reads. I've found that to be less so in recent years. I now tend to just read the books on the list that sound interesting to me for one reason or another.

Hope the medications continue to work for your mother. I've just had a brief respite from caregiving for my husband as I was exposed to covid so he stayed with our son and I was home alone. But I've now tested negative several times, and it's been over a week since exposure so we are both back at home now, and it's back to the old routines.

I read Olive Kitteridge several years ago, primarily because it is set in Maine. I heartily disliked it and gave it 2.5 stars.

>206 labfs39: Same here. I gave Olive Kitteridge a generous 3 stars, and removed all books by Elizabeth Strout from my reading lists.

I'm so glad you're finding time to read again Darryl. It's wonderful that your mom also loves to read; my dad completely lost his attention span when he got Alzheimer's and couldn't sit through a 30 minute TV programme, let alone read even a magazine. The library by the river sounds idyllic, and I hope they manage to protect it from flooding.
Song of Solomon was the first novel by Morrison I read, on a literature course at University. I should reread it, as that was a loooong time ago!

>202 cindydavid4: Disappointing, indeed. After giving Elizabeth Strout two chances I'm convinced that she is not the right author for me.

>203 dchaikin: Good luck with trying Strout, Dan. I won't be joining you!

>202 cindydavid4: Thanks, Maus! Some days with my mother are better than others, but overall there has been a significant improvement as compared to the period before her neurologist started her on mirtazapine.

I'm glad that you were also moved by that powerful poem by Warsan Shire.

I'll be interested to see what you, Dan and others think of Olive Kitteridge, but there is almost zero chance that I'll read it, considering how many books I already own that I'm eager to get to.

I'll start reviewing the 2022 Booker longlisted novels I've read in the next day or two.

>205 arubabookwoman: Listen was also superb, Deborah; I finished it on Sunday. I gave it 5 stars, and I'll write a review of it this week.

Sorry about the mixup; I think it was Kay who said that Oh William! could be evaluated without reading the prior books in the series.

My inner completist is moderately strong, although I've never managed to finish the Booker longlist; I have finished the shortlist before the prize announcement date, though.

I'm glad that you've recovered from COVID-19, and that you've resumed your home routine.

>206 labfs39:, >207 FAMeulstee: Yikes. Thanks for the warning about Olive Kitteredge, Lisa and Anita!

>208 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire. I had an exceptional month of reading in July, as I finished 10 books and firmly regained my reading momentum. I've now finished 35 books, 18 of them written by women, and there is a very good chance that this will be the first year that I'll have read more books by female than male authors.

I'm not sure how much my mother comprehends what she reads but she does enjoy reading (she's reading the library book she chose from the Grundy library yesterday). Her attention span for television programs is very poor, so we "watch" the Jazz channel on the Music Choice, which is enjoyable and soothing for both of us.

I hope that you get to Song of Solomon again soon. I'll start it sometime this week.

Time for a new thread...