PAUL C WITH A CLEAN SLATE IN '22 - Part 24

PLACES FROM MY PAST

One of my proudest career moments was when I was sent to Sao Tome & Principe the small island nation off the West Coast of Africa by PEMANDU which is a Malaysian government overseas investment body as a representative to discuss directly with the Sao Tomean government investment projects in their country. I had two meetings with the then Prime Minister there (the second of which was for two hours on a one-to-one basis). I returned to Malaysia with an understanding on twelve projects covering schools, housing and water supplies and the first two actually eventuated into real work and benefits to the people there. The countryside looked like something out of Doyle's The Lost World but the small city was blighted by obvious poverty and the ex Portuguese colony still had vestiges (in terms of structures such as towers and dungeons) reminding its role in the slave trade as it was used as a holding point for the slaves before the Portuguese sent the unfortunates to the New World.

The Opening Words

Madeline's TIOLI challenge this month is a medical biography or memoir and it just so happened that my favourite bookstore had a display of exactly that in one of its windows last week very helpfully.
I bought a few that might fit the bill but will read Breathtaking by Rachel Clarke in which she recounts her experiences as a doctor coping with the COVID pandemic.



"He lies on hospital sheets, but he's drowning.

Behind closed doors, with neither fanfare nor drama, he's been quietly drowning all night. The act of voicing distress - alerting another human being to his plight - takes spare air he no longer possesses. Wide mouth, wide eyes, face stunned and stricken. The mask clamps down on skin slick with sweat. His lips are grey, fingertips the colour of bruises. And though the oxygen roars, the highest flow we can manage, it's still not enough, not remotely."

Interested..................................?

Books Read First Quarter

JANUARY

1. American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 by Khor Shing Yin (2019) 160 pp (AAC) - GN
2. The Forward Book of Poetry 2022 by Various Poets (2021) 155 pp - Poetry
3. Absolution by Murder by Peter Tremayne (1994) 274 pp - Thriller/Mystery
4. Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill (2008) 183 pp - (NF Challenge) NF
5. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (1998) 671 pp - (Asian Book Challenge{ABC}) Fiction; 1001
6. The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz (1962) 158 pp - (World Books/Food) Fiction
7. The Children Who Stayed Behind by Bruce Carter (1958) 216 pp - (BAC) YA Fiction
8. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (2021) 114 pp - Fiction
9. Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar (2020) 343 pp - (ABC) - Fiction (?)
10. Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings (1982) 192 pp - SF/Fantasy
11. Days in the History of Silence by Merethe Lindstrom (2011) 230 pp - Fiction/Holocaust
12. The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (1972) 208 pp - Fiction; Pulitzer
13. My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec (2008) - 103 pp Fiction/Rebecca NYC reads
14. Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine (2002) - 131 pp Non Fiction / Holocaust
15. Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin (2002) 384 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
16. Up With the Larks by Tessa Hainsworth (2009) 278 pp Non Fiction
17. Cheryl's Destinies by Stephen Sexton (2021) 88 pp - Poetry
18. Hotel Bosphorus by Esmahan Aykol (2001) 246 pp - Thriller/Mystery / Asian Book Challenge
19. The List of Books by Frederic Raphael (1981) 154 pp - Non Fiction / Reference
20. Disquiet by Zulfu Livaneli (2017) 163 pp - Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
21. Turkey : A Short History by Norman Stone (2017) 185 pp - Non-Fiction
22. Black Out by Ragnar Jonasson (2011) 247 pp - Thriller/Scandi
23. The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck (1992) 63 pp - Poetry
24. A Foolish Virgin by Ida Simons (1959) 216 pp - Fiction
25. Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson (1928) 329 pp - Fiction / 1001 Books
26. The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens (1969) 224 pp - Fiction / Booker Winner

5,715 pages

FEBRUARY

27. The Nest by Kenneth Oppel (2015) 244 pp - Fiction
28. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria (2021) 156 pp Non-Fiction/ABC
29. Redemption Ground by Lorna Goodison (2018) 164 pp Non-Fiction
30. The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa (2015) 288 pp Fiction /Asian Book Challenge
31. Door into the Dark by Seamus Heaney (1969) 44 pp Poetry
32. The Yellow Wind by David Grossman (1988) 218 pp Non-Fiction/Asian Book Challenge
33. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2017) 343 pp Fiction / Booker Winner
34. If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (1974) 197 pp Fiction
35. The Wrecking Light by Robin Robertson (2010) 90 pp Poetry
36. The Others by Sarah Blau (2018) 239 pp Thriller /ABC
37. Portable Kisses by Tess Gallagher (1992) 80 pp Poetry/ AAC

2,063 pages

MARCH

38. Rise Like Lions : Poetry for the Many edited by Ben Okri (2017) 258 pp Poetry
39. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1958) 179 pp Non-Fiction
40. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (2021) 225 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
41. Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (2013) 283 pp Fiction/ Asian Book Challenge
42. Songs of Mihyar the Damascene by Adonis (1961) 116 pp Poetry/Asian Book Challenge
43. Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau'ofa (1983) 93 pp Fiction /Short stories
44. The Twits by Roald Dahl (1980) 87 pp Fiction /YA
45. The Historians : Poems by Eavan Boland (2020) 67 pp Poetry
46. Night Haunts by Sukhdev Sandhu (2007) 144 pp Non-Fiction
47. The Old Boys by William Trevor (1964) 170 pp Fiction
48. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard (2015) 244 pp Non-Fiction/Memoir
49. The Fell by Sarah Moss (2021) 180 pp Fiction
50. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926) 203 pp Fiction
51. Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi (2018) 243 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
52. Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney (2021) 337 pp Fiction

2,829 pages

Books Read Second Quarter

APRIL

53. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979) 180 pp Science Fiction/1001
54. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (1874) 389 pp Fiction/Re-read Reassessment
55. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961) 128 pp Fiction/Re-read Reassessment
56. Mrs England by Stacey Halls (2021) 425 pp Fiction
57. The Moon and Sixpence by W Somerset Maugham (1919) 215 pp Fiction /Re-Read Reassessment
58. Poems : Giosue Carducci by Giosue Carducci (1907) 175 pp Poetry / Nobel Prize winner
59. White Mughals by William Dalrymple (2002) 501 pp Non Fiction / Shared Read (Stasia)
60. Weaveworld by Clive Barker (1987) 722 pp SF/Fantasy; BAC; Guardian Books
61. The Saddlebag by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani (2000) 253 pp Fiction /Asian Book Challenge
62. Pilgrims Way by Abdulrazak Gurnah (1988) 281 pp Fiction
63. A Village Life by Louise Gluck (2009) 71 pp Poetry/AAC wildcard
64. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (1938) 269 pp Fiction/Re-Read Reassessment

3,609 pages

MAY

65. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung (2017) 251 pp Fiction/Asian Book Challenge / Short Stories
66. Peterloo : Witnesses to a Massacre by Polyp (2019) 109 pp BAC / Graphic Book
67. Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid (1985) 148 pp 1001 Books
68. The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe (1844) 99 pp AAC/1001 Books/ Short Stories
69. Sovietistan by Erika Fatland (2014) 470 pp Non-Fiction/Travel
70. The Kids by Hannah Lowe (2021) 79 pp Poetry
71. Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin (2010) 228 pp Short Stories
72. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles (2021) 420 pp Fiction
73. The Devil's Dance by Hamid Ismailov (2016) 405 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
74. The Bell by Iris Murdoch (1957) 350 pp Fiction / Re-read
75. War : How Conflict Shaped Us by Margaret MacMillan (2020) 289 pp Non-Fiction
76. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859) 394 pp Fiction / Re-read

3,242 pages

JUNE

77. Has the West Lost It? by Kishore Mahbubani (2018) 91 pp Non-Fiction/Asian Book Challenge
78. Selected Poems : Anna Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova (1985) 147 pp Poetry
79. The 3 Mistakes of My Life by Chetan Bhagat (2008) 258 pp Fiction/Asian Book Challenge
80. Murmur by Will Eaves (2018) 176 pp Fiction
81. Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay (1997) 194 pp Non-Fiction / BAC
82. The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue (2020) 295 pp Fiction/Capitals-Dublin
83. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam (2007) 287 pp Fiction/ Asian Book Challenge
84. Promised You a Miracle by Andy Beckett (2015) 387 pp Non Fiction / History
85. Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree (2018) 732 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
86. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (1983) 135 pp Fiction
87. All the Names Given by Raymond Antrobus (2021) 77 pp Poetry
88. Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones (2021) 99 pp Fiction / Capitals-Pristina
89. A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare (2009) 186 pp. Fiction / Capitals-Tirana
90. Ludmila by Paul Gallico (1959) 65 pp Fiction / Capitals-Vaduz
91. Zorrie by Laird Hunt (2020) 161 pp Fiction
92. First Love by Gwendoline Riley (2017) 167 pp Fiction / Capitals-London

3,457 pages

Books Read Third Quarter

July

93. Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski (1993) 337 pp Non-Fiction /ATW (Poland)
94. The Late Sun by Christopher Reid (2021) 77 pp Poetry
95. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (2011) 129 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
96. Waiting by Ha Jin (1999) 308 pp Fiction / Asia Book Challenge
97. The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson (1993) 507 pp Fiction / Capitals- Vienna
98. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman (1998) 125 pp Non-Fiction
99. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (1995) 188 pp Fiction
100. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749) 877 pp Fiction /BAC / 1001 Books
101. Breathtaking by Rachel Clarke (2021) 217 pp Non-Fiction
102. The Mothers by Brit Bennett (2016) 275 pp Fiction

August

103. The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono (1953) 42 pp Fiction

Currently Reading

BOOKERS, PULITZERS, NOBEL WINNERS, 1001 BOOKS FIRST ED. & ETC

I have an ongoing challenge to read all the Booker Winners, all the Pulitzer Fiction Winners, something by each Nobel and all the 1001 Books First Ed Books. I will track my progress here:

BOOKERS READ BY DEC 31 2021 : 34 / 57
BOOKERS IN 2022 : 2 (36 / 57)
The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

PULITZERS READ BY DEC 31 2021 : 19 / 94
PULITZERS IN 2022 : 1 (20 / 94)
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty

NOBEL LAUREATES READ BY DEC 31 2021 : 74 / 118
NOBEL WINNERS IN 2022 1 (75/118)
Poems by Giosue Carducci

1001 BOOKS FIRST ED READ BY DEC 2021 : 319
1001 BOOKS IN 2022 6 (325)
My Name is Red
Tarka the Otter
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Annie John
The Purloined Letter
Tom Jones

GUARDIAN 1000 BOOKS READ BY DEC 2021 : 349
GUARDIAN BOOKS IN 2022 5 (354)
My Name is Red
Lolly Willowes
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Weaveworld
Tom Jones

WOMEN'S PRIZE WINNERS READ BY DEC 2021 : 7 / 26
WOMEN'S PRIZE WINNERS IN 2022

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE



January - YA - The Children Who Stayed Behind by Bruce Carter
February - Mo / Renault
March - Between the Wars - Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
April - Weaveworld by Clive Barker
May - Comics, Graphic Novels & Audiobooks - Peterloo : Witnesses to a Massacre
June - Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay
July - 18th Century - Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

AMERICAN AUTHOR CHALLENGE



January - Graphic Books - The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 by Khor Shing Yin
February - Tess Gallagher - Portable Kisses
March - Bernard Malamud
April - Louise Gluck (Wildcard) - A Village Life
May - Nineteenth Century - The Purloined Letter
June - John Dos Passos

ASIAN BOOK CHALLENGE 2022

Here is the link to the General Thread
https://www.librarything.com/topic/337731#n7692635

These will be the monthly jaunts for the ABC challenge.

JANUARY - Europe of Asia - Turkish Authors link to thread
https://www.librarything.com/topic/338244
1. My Name is Red
2. Last Train to Istanbul
3. Hotel Bosphorus
4. Disquiet

FEBRUARY - The Holy Land - Israeli & Palestinian Authors
Link to thread : https://www.librarything.com/topic/339017
1. The Blue Between Sky and Water
2. The Yellow Wind
3. The Others

MARCH - The Arab World - Writers from the Arab world
link to thread https://www.librarything.com/topic/340000
1. Frankenstein in Baghdad
2. The Songs of Mihyar the Damascene
3. Celestial Bodies

APRIL - Persia - Iranian writers
link to thread : https://www.librarything.com/topic/340943#n7802013
1. The Saddlebag

MAY - The Stans - There are 7 states all in the same region all ending in "Stan"
link to thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/341521
1. The Devil's Dance (Uzbekistan)

JUNE - The Indian Sub-Continent - Essentially authors from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
Link to thread : https://www.librarything.com/topic/342060#n7866381
1. The 3 Mistakes of My Life
2. A Golden Age
3. Tomb of Sand

JULY - The Asian Superpower - Chinese Authors
Link to thread : https://www.librarything.com/topic/342727#n7879104
1. Waiting by Ha Jin

AUGUST - Nippon - Japanese Authors
Link to thread : https://www.librarything.com/topic/343245#n7895968

SEPTEMBER - Kimchi - Korean Authors
1. Cursed Bunny

OCTOBER - INDO CHINA PLUS - Authors from Indo-China and other countries neighbouring China

NOVEMBER - The Malay Archipelago - Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian Authors
1. Has the West Lost It?

DECEMBER - The Asian Diaspora - Ethnic Asian writers from elsewhere
1. Homeland Elegies
2. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
3. Intimacies
4. Night Haunts
5. The Buddha in the Attic

I was able just about to cover the whole of the continent and I didn't include one for Russia as most of the authors are decidedly European in their ethnicity and leaning.

AROUND THE WORLD IN BOOKS SINCE 2021

Around the world in books challenge. I want to see how many countries I can cover without limiting myself to a specific deadline. Continued from last year.


1. United Kingdom - The Ways of the World by Robert Goddard EUROPE
2. Ireland - The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde EUROPE
3. Lithuania - Selected and Last Poems by Czeslaw Milosz EUROPE
4. Netherlands - The Ditch by Herman Koch EUROPE
5. Armenia - The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian ASIA PACIFIC
6. Zimbabwe - This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga AFRICA
7. United States - Averno by Louise Gluck AMERICA
8. Australia - Taller When Prone by Les Murray ASIA PACIFIC
9. France - Class Trip by Emmanuel Carrere EUROPE
10. Russia - The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov EUROPE
11. Denmark - Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard EUROPE
12. Democratic Republic of Congo - Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanze Mujila AFRICA
13. Canada - I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven AMERICA
14. Italy - The Overnight Kidnapper by Andrea Camilleri EUROPE
15. New Zealand - Dove on the Waters by Maurice Shadbolt ASIA PACIFIC
16. India - A Burning by Megha Majumdar ASIA PACIFIC
17. Libya - The Return by Hisham Matar AFRICA
18. Pakistan - Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid ASIA PACIFIC
19. South Korea - Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha ASIA PACIFIC
20. Morocco - The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers by Fouad Laroui AFRICA
21. Thailand - Arid Dreams by Duanwad Pimwana ASIA PACIFIC
22. Norway - Echoland by Per Petterson EUROPE
23. Belgium - I Choose to Live by Sabine Dardenne EUROPE
24. Sweden - Still Waters by Viveca Sten EUROPE
25. Trinidad - Half a Life by VS Naipaul AMERICAS
26. Sudan - Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih AFRICA
27. Uruguay - Springtime in a Broken Mirror by Mario Benedetti AMERICAS
28. Syria - My Country : A Syrian Memoir by Kassem Eid ASIA PACIFIC
29. Ghana - The God Child by Nana Oforiatta Ayim AFRICA
30. Austria - Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl EUROPE
31. Germany - Cat and Mouse by Gunter Grass EUROPE
32. South Africa - No Turning Back by Beverley Naidoo AFRICA
33. Mauritania - Arab Jazz by Karim Miske AFRICA
34. Cuba - The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier AMERICAS
35. Nigeria - Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie AFRICA
36. Portugal - The Return by Dulce Maria Cardoso EUROPE
37. Japan - Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe ASIA PACIFIC
38. Senegal - At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop AFRICA
39. Malta - The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi EUROPE
40. Chile - A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende AMERICAS
41. Lebanon - The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf ASIA PACIFIC
42. Spain - The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon EUROPE
43. Somalia - The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed AFRICA
44. Malaysia - Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw ASIA PACIFIC
45. Mexico - Sudden Death by Alvaro Enrigue AMERICAS
46. Latvia - The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaian Berlin EUROPE
47. Malawi - Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver AFRICA
48. Turkey - My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk ASIA PACIFIC
49. Egypt - The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz AFRICA
50. Argentina - My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec - AMERICAS
51. Iceland - Black Out by Ragnar Jonasson - EUROPE
52. Jamaica - Redemption Ground by Lorna Goodison - AMERICAS
53. Palestine - The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa - ASIA PACIFIC
54. Israel - The Yellow Wind by David Grossman - ASIA PACIFIC
55. Iraq - Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi - ASIA PACIFIC
56. Papua New Guinea - Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau'ofa - ASIA PACIFIC
57. Oman - Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi - ASIA PACIFIC
58. Iran - The Saddlebag by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani - ASIA PACIFIC
59. Tanzania - Pilgrims Way by Abdulrazak Gurnah - AFRICA
60. Antigua - Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid - AMERICAS
61. Uzbekistan - The Devil's Dance by Hamid Ismailov - ASIA PACIFIC
62. Singapore - Has the West Lost It? by Kishore Mahbubani - ASIA PACIFIC
63. Ukraine - Selected Poems: Anna Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova - EUROPE
64. Bangladesh - A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam - ASIA PACIFIC
65. Albania - A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare - EUROPE
66. Poland - Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski - EUROPE
67. China - Waiting by Ha Jin - ASIA PACIFIC


Create Your Own Visited Countries Map

100 NOVELS 100 AUTHORS

1 Things Fall Apart Achebe, Chinua
2 Watership Down Adams, Richard
3 Half of a Yellow Sun Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
4 Jack Sheppard Ainsworth, William Harrison
5 Northanger Abbey Austen, Jane
6 The Twin Bakker, Gerbrand
7 Another Country Baldwin, James
8 The Black Sheep Balzac, Honore de
9 Silence of the Girls Barker, Pat
10 The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
11. Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres
12 The Sheltering Sky Bowles, Paul
13 Orenda Boyden, Joseph
14 Rumours of Rain Brink, Andre
15 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
16 Wuthering Heights Bronte, Emily
17 The Good Earth Buck, Pearl
18 The Plague Camus, Albert
19 Jack Maggs Carey, Peter
20 O' Pioneers Cather, Willa
21 The Woman in WhiteCollins, Wilkie
22 To Serve Them All My Days Delderfield, RF
23 David Copperfield Dickens, Charles
24 Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky, Fyodor
25 Justine Durrell, Lawrence
26 Invisible Man Ellison, Ralph
27 The Round house Erdrich, Louise
28 Passage to India Forster, EM
29 The Promise Galgut, Damon
30 Sea of Poppies Ghosh, Amitav
31 I, Claudius Graves, Robert
32 The Quiet American Greene, Graham
33 The Growth of the Soil Hamsun, Knut
34 The Return of the Native Hardy, Thomas
35 The Go-Between Hartley, LP
36 Plainsong Haruf, Kent
37 The Rainbow Troops Hirata, Andrea
38 Les Miserables Hugo, Victor
39 A Prayer for Owen Meany Irving, John
40 The Dig Jones, Cynan
41 Mister Pip Jones, Lloyd
42 The Far Pavilions Kaye, MM
43 Small Things Like These Keegan, Claire
44 The Dictator's Last Night Khadra, Yasmina
45 Darkness at Noon Koestler, Arthur
46 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Kundera, Milan
47 To Kill a Mockingbird Lee, Harper
48 The Grass is Singing Lessing, Doris
49 If Not Now, When? Levi, Primo
50 The Road to Lichfield Lively, Penelope
51 How Green is My Valley Llewellyn, Richard
52 Lovely Green Eyes Lustig, Arnost
53 Palace Walk Mahfouz, Naguib
54 The Fixer Malamud, Bernard
55 A Place of Greater Safety Mantel, Hilary
56 One Hundred Years of Solitude Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
57 The Moon and Sixpence Maugham, W Somerset
58 Bel-Ami Mauppasant, Guy de
59 The North Water McGuire, Ian
60 Docherty McIlvanney, Hugh
61 A Fine Balance Mistry, Rohinton
62 The Redundancy of Courage Mo, Timothy
63 The Colour of Blood Moore, Brian
64 The Bell Murdoch, Iris
65 A House for Mr Biswas Naipaul, VS
66 The Financial Expert Narayan, RK
67 Hamnet O'Farrell, Maggie
68 1984 Orwell, George
69 Jean de Florette Pagnol, Marcel
70 Cry, the Beloved Country Paton, Alan
71 The Sunne in Splendour Penman, Sharon
72 The Memory of the Forest Powers, Charles T
73 The Yellow Birds Powers, Kevin
74 The Shipping News Proulx, Annie
75 The Wedding Queffelec, Yann
76 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
77 Shame Rushdie, Salman
78 The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
79 Fame is the Spur Spring, Howard
80 Golden Hill Spufford, Francis
81 The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck, John
82 This Sporting Life Storey, David
83 Waterland Swift, Graham
84 The Gift of Rain Tan Twan Eng
85 The Heather Blazing Toibin, Colm
86 Lord of the Rings Tolkien, JRR
87 The Road Home Tremain, Rose
88 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Tressell, Robert
89 The Children of Dynmouth Trevor, William
90 Breathing Lessons Tyler, Anne
91 Sacred Hunger Unsworth, Barry
92 Rabbit, Run Updike, John
93 The In-Between World of Vikram Lall Vassanji, MG
94 Fingersmith Waters, Sarah
95 Ethan Frome Wharton, Edith
96 The Nickel Boys Whitehead, Colson
97 Night Wiesel, Elie
98 A Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde, Oscar
99 The Shadow of the Wind Zafon, Carlos Ruiz
100 Germinal Zola, Emile

GENRE BOOKS

FICTION FROM THE EUROPEAN CAPITALS
(Started 1 June 2022)

1. DUBLIN (Republic of Ireland) - The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue COMP JUNE 22
2. PRISTINA (Kosovo) - Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones COMP JUNE 22
3. TIRANA (Albania) - A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare COMP JUNE 22
4. VADUZ (Liechtenstein) - Ludmila by Paul Gallico COMP JUNE 22
5. LONDON (England) - First Love by Gwendoline Riley COMP JUNE 22
6. VIENNA (Austria) - The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson COMP JULY 22


Create Your Own Visited European Countries Map

BOOKS OF THE MONTH

January - Small Things Like These
February - If Beale Street Could Talk
March - Intimacies
April - Mrs England
May - Sovietistan
June - The Pull of the Stars

BOUGHT AND READ IN 2022

1. Appaloosa by Robert Parker
2. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare. READ JUN 22
3. Without a Claim by Grace Schulman
4. Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
5. Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
6. There, There by Tommy Orange
7. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura READ MAR 22
8. Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin READ JAN 22
9. Another Now by Yanis Varoufakis
10. A Separation by Katie Kitamura
11. Travelling in a Strange Land by David Park
12. Free Food for Millionaires by Lee Min Jee
13. Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller
14. The Lady from Tel Aviv by Rabai Al-Madhoun
15. Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon
16. Manchester Happened by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
17. The Others by Sarah Blau READ FEB 22
18. The Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard
19. Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay. READ JUN 22
20. King Cnut by W.B. Bartlett
21. Dear Future Boyfriend by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
22. Ottoman Odyssey by Alev Scott
23. Has the West Lost It? by Kishore Mahbubani READ JUNE 22
24. A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth
25. A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
26. Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely
27. Days in the History of Silence by Merethe Lindstrom Open Library Loan READ JAN 22
28. My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec (Open Library Loan) READ JAN 22
29. Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine (Open Library Loan) READ JAN 22
30. Benjamin's Crossing by Jay Parini
31. Outlawed by Anna North
32. Bestiary by K-Ming Chang
33. The Ruin of Kasch by Roberto Calasso
34. Roundabout of Death by Faysal Khartash
35. The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
36. Salt : A World History by Mark Kurlansky
37. The Greek Myths : The Complete and Definitive Edition by Robert Graves
38. Liar by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
39. The Histories by Tacitus
40. Silent House by Orhan Pamuk
41. The Generation Game by Sophie Duffy
42. Wild Grass by Ian Johnson
43. This Living and Immortal Thing by Austin Duffy
44. Until I Find Julian by Patricia Reilly Giff
45. The Boy With the Tiger's Heart by Linda Coggin
46. The Day of Silence and Other Stories by George Gissing
47. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams READ APR 22
48. The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney
49. Beast by Paul Kingsnorth
50. The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe
51. Heading Inland by Nicola Barker
52. Rift by Beverley Birch
53. The Cry of the Go-Away Bird by Andrea Eames
54. Modern Gods by Nick Laird
55. Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington
56. The Sands of Mars by Arthur C Clarke
57. Coromandel Sea Change by Rumer Godden
58. A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons by Geoffrey Hindley
59. The Profiteers : Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World by Sally Denton
60. In the Wolf's Mouth by Adam Foulds
61. Daydreams of Angels by Heather O'Neill
62. The Red-Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk
63. Opium by Salar Abdoh
64. The Nest by Kenneth Oppel READ FEB 22
65. Three Light-Years by Andrea Canobbio
66. Prague : A Novel by Arthur Phillips
67. The Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig
68. The Dark Circle by Linda Grant
69. Portable Kisses by Tess Gallagher READ FEB 22
70. Down Among the Wild Men by John Greenway
71. Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann
72. The Lover of Horses by Tess Gallagher
73. The End of the Day by Bill Clegg
74. The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan
75. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
76. Mad Boy by Nick Arvin
77. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria READ FEB 22
78. Sleeping on Jupiter Anuradha Roy
79. Son of the Century by Antonio Scurati
80. Political Order and Political Decay by Francis Fukuyama
81. The Manningtree Witches by A.D. Blackemore
82. Vertigo by WG Sebald
83. In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova
84. Redemption Ground by Lorna Goodison READ FEB 22
85. The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
86. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam READ JUN 22
87. Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
88. The Powerful and the Damned by Lionel Barber
89. The Better Half by Sharon Moalem
90. Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
91. Downsizing by Tom Watson
92. Desert Flower by Waris Dirie
93. Common Ground by Naomi Ishiguro
94. The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa READ MAR 22
95. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
96. They by Kay Dick
97. Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
98. The Silence of Scheherazade by Defne Suman
99. Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford
100. Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
101. The Tyranny of Merit by Michael J Sandel
102. Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen
103. In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi
104. The Inequality Machine by Paul Tough
105. 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
106. The Fell by Sarah Moss READ MAR 22
107. Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney READ MAR 22
108. Learwife by JR Thorp
109. Matrix by Lauren Groff
110. Ghosted by Jenn Ashworth
111. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
112. The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey
113. I Will Miss You Tomorrow by Heine Bakkeid
114. The Fine Art of Invisible Detection by Robert Goddard
115. All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton
116. The Late Sun by Christopher Reid READ JULY 22
117. A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies
118. The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka
119. Things in Jars by Jess Kidd
120. A Vicious Circle by Amanda Craig
121. How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
122. The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
123. The Collapse of Globalism by John Ralston Saul
124. Land : How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World by Simon Winchester
125. Moonglow by Michael Chabon
126. We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
127. The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
128. Fault Lines by Emily Itami
129. Tenderness by Alison MacLeod
130. The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
131. The Great Level by Stella Tillyard
132. The Pact We Made by Layla Alammar
133. Spring by Ali Smith
134. Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith
135. The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini
136. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
137. The Book of Form & Emptiness Ruth Ozeki
138. This One Sky Day by Leone Ross
139. The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
140. The Push by Audrey Audrain
141. When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
142. A Very Nice Girl by Imogen Crimp
143. Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
144. The Familiars by Stacey Halls
145. Ill Feelings by Alice Hattrick
146. How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
147. Burntcoat by Sarah Hall
148. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
149. Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
150. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung READ MAY 22
151. Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
152. Assembly by Natasha Brown
153. The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
154. Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
155. The Colony by Audrey Magee
156. For the Good Times by David Keenan
157. The Anarchy by William Dalrymple
158. The Lost Girls of Rome by Donato Carrisi
159. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
160. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
161. Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski READ JULY 22
162. Only Killers and Thieves by Paul Howarth
163. Southernmost by Silas House
164. A Man by Keichiro Hirano
165. Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
166. Songbirds by Christy Lefteri
167. Pandemic by A.G. Riddle
168. The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton
169. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
170. Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
171. My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
172. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
173. Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
174. Male Tears by Benjamin Myers
175. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy READ APR 22
176. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
177. The Moon and Sixpence by W Somerset Maugham READ APR 22
178. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
179. The Bell by Iris Murdoch READ MAY 22
180. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
181. The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch
182. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
183. Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
184. The Clocks in this House All Tell Different Times by Xan Brooks
185. The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
186. O'Pioneers by Willa Cather
187. The Four Winds by Kristin Hann
188. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
189. Nostalgia by Mircea Cărtărescu
190. Mansfield Park by Jane Austin
191. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
192. The Kingdom by Emmanuel Carrere
193. Push by Sapphire
194. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
195. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene READ APR 22
196. Dignity by Alys Conran
197. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark READ APR 22
198. Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
199. A Burnt Out Case by Graham Greene
200. The Rack by A.E. Ellis
|201. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard READ MAR 22
202. Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard
203. Spring by Karl Ove Knausgaard
204. Summer by Karl Ove Knausgaard
205. The Magician by Colm Toibin
206. Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
207. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
208. Careless by Kirsty Capes
209. Pilgrims Way by Abdulrazak Gurnah READ APR 22
210. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
211. The Angel of History by Rabih Alameddine
212. The President's Gardens by Muhsin Al-Ramli
213. In the Country by Mia Alvar
214. Poetry Will Save Your Life by Jill Bialosky
215. Multitudes by Lucy Caldwell
216. Confession of the Lioness by Mia Couto
217. Transit by Rachel Cusk
218. West by Carys Davies
219. In the Name of the Family by Sarah Dunant
220. The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis
221. The Witches of St. Petersburg by Imogen Edwards-Jones
222. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
223. The Turner House by Angela Fournoy
224. A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes
225. Old Men in Love by Alasdair Gray
226. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
227. The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths
228. Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff
229. The Evening Road by Laird Hunt
230. Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All by Jonas Jonasson
231. The Transition by Luke Kennard
232. A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline
233. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
234. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
235. The Man Without a Shadow by Joyce Carol Oates
236. Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
237. Almost Love by Louise O'Neill
238. The Portrait by Willem Jan Otten
239. First Love by Gwendoline Riley. READ JUN 22
240. Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner
241. The Humbling by Philip Roth
242. The Butt by Will Self
243. The World to Come by Jim Shepard
244. The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons
245. The Dictionary of Animal Languages by Heidi Sopinka
246. In the Days of Rain by Rebecca Stott
247. The Neighborhood by Mario Vargas Llosa
248. Remember Me by Fay Weldon
249. Kipps by HG Wells
250. Resolution by A.N. Wilson
251. Animalia by Jean Baptiste Del Amo
252. The Autumn of the Ace by Louis de Bernieres
253. White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht
254. The Mother by Yvette Edwards
255. The Human Factor by Graham Greene
256. Memory of Departure by Abdulrazak Gurnah
257. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
258. Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes
259. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
260. Writers & Lovers by Lily King
261. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
262. The Painted Veil by W Somerset Maugham
263. The Razor's Edge by W Somerset Maugham
264. On Politics by Alan Ryan
265. The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
266. Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones READ JUN 22
267. Dottie by Abdulrazak Gurnah
268. Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
269. Sovietistan by Erika Fatland READ MAY 22
270. Mother Mother : The Sunday Times Bestseller by Annie Macmanus
271. Evelina by Fanny Burney
272. Go Big by Ed Milliband
273. Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
274. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
275. 20 Fragment of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo
276. Bomber by Len Deighton
277. Mrs England by Stacey Halls READ APR 22
278. The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky
279. Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
280. Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
281. The Cruel Way by Ella Maillart
282. Travels With Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski
283 The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
284 The Abyss and Other Stories by Leonid Andreyev
285 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
286 The School for Good Mothers Jessamine Chan
287 Dear Child by Romy Hausmann
288 Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz
289 The Answer to Everything by Luke Kennard
290 Good Neighbours by Sarah Langan
291 The Couple Next Door Shari Lapena
292 Pleasantville by Attica Locke
293 She Lies in Wait Gytha Lodge
294 How to Disappear by Gillian McAllister
295 Little Girl Lost by Brian McGilloway
296 Paradise Lost by John Milton
297 The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid
298 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
299 On the Eve by Ivan Turgenev
300 Ten Great Works of Philosophy commentaries by Robert Paul Wolff
includes:
301 The Death of Socrates by Plato
302 Poetics by Aristotle
303 Meditations on the First Philosophy by Rene Descartes
304 An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume
305 Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant
306 Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill
307 The Will to Believe by William James
308. The Waves by Virginia Woolf
309. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
310. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
311. The New Oxford Book of War Poetry edited by Jon Stallworthy
312. The Wish Child by Catherine Chidgey
313. Peril at End House by Agatha Christie
314. The Foundling by Stacey Halls
315. Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey
316. Prep by Curtis Sittenfield
317. The Years by Virginia Woolf
318. Darkness Visible by William Golding
319. The Last Family in England by Matt Haig
320. Seasons of Purgatory by Shahriar Mandanipour
321. Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal
322. Naked Earth by Eileen Chang
323. Child of God by Cormac McCarthy\
324. River by Esther Kinsky
325. Stet by Diana Athill
326. Animal by Lisa Tadeo
327. The Silent Woman by Janet Malcolm
328. Sonnets by William Shakespeare
329. The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
330. Flamingo by Rachel Elliott
331. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (replacement as someone borrowed it and failed to return it)
332. Suttree by Cormac McCarthy (I closed the book and left it on the train station platform)
333 Dark Avenues by Ivan Bunin
334 The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
335 The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
336 Wild Palms by William Faulkner
337 Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
338 The Mother by Maxim Gorky
339 Cathedral by Ben Hopkins
340 Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence
341 The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
342 The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre
343 Desiree by Annemarie Selinko
344 In America by Susan Sontag
345 Smoke by Ivan Turgenev
346 Virgin Soil by Ivan Turgenev
347 The Castle of Otranto by Hugh Walpole
348 The Attack on the Mill by Emile Zola
349. The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh
350. The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
351. Things I Don't Want to Know by Deborah Levy
352. Real Estate by Deborah Levy
353. Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin READ MAY 22
354. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
355. Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi
356. Katalin Street by Magda Szabo
357. The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil
358. The Devil's Dance by Hamid Ismailov READ MAY 22
359. The Behaviour of Love by Virginia Reeves
360. A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos
361. All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
362. Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
363. Complete Poems of John Keats by John Keats
364. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
365. Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
366. Martin Eden by Jack London
367. War and War by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
368. Selected Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Percy Bysshe Shelley
369. After the Sun by Jonas Eika
370. Selected Poetical Works of Blake by William Blake
371. The Poetry of Lord Byron by George Byron
372. Daughters of the Labyrinth by Ruth Padel
373. Gigi by Colette
374. Zorrie by Laird Hunt. READ JUN 22
375. Love in Idleness by Amanda Craig
376. Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal
377. The Slaughterman's Daughter by Yaniv Iczkovits
378. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
379. Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor
380. Salt Lick by Lulu Allison
381. Wilhelm Meister by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
382. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
383. Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
384. Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
385. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez
386. First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami
387. Salka Valka by Halldor Laxness
388. My Cleaner by Maggie Gee
389. The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
390. The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa
391. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
392. A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
393. Enon by Paul Harding
394. Purposes of Love by Mary Renault
395. The Guts by Roddy Doyle
396. Lanterne Rouge by Max Leonard
397. In One Person by John Irving
398. Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belorusets
399. Lean Fall Stand by John McGregor
400. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles. READ
401. The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
402. Murmur by Will Eaves READ JUNE 22
403. The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones
404. My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
405. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
406. The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
407. A Love Story by Emile Zola
408. Madam by Phoebe Wynne
409. Below Deck by Sophie Hardcastle
410. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
411. Men Who Feed Pigeons by Selima Hill
412. The Kids by Hannah Lowe READ MAY 22
413. Still Life by Sarah Winman
414. Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro
415. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
416. Transcription by Kate Atkinson
417. Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
418. Civilisations by Laurent Binet
419. Plain Pleasures by Jane Bowles
420. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
421. I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke
422. The Death of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
423. Second Place by Rachel Cusk
424. Roxana by Daniel Defoe
425. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman READ JULY 22
426. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
427. A New Name by Jon Fosse
428. The Double Tongue by William Golding
429. Admiring Silence by Abdulrazak Gurnah
430. A Small Revolution in Germany by Philip Hensher
431. The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman
432. The Golden Bowl by Henry James
433. Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner
434. Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
435. Severance by Ling Ma
436. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
437. Tangerine by Christine Mangan
438. Greenlights by Mathew McConaughey
439. Shakespearean by Robert McCrum
440. Beastings by Benjamin Myers
441. Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
442. The Wanderers by Tim Pears
443. Mama Amazonica by Pascale Petit
444. The Colossus by Sylvia Plath
445. Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
446. King Lear: Arden Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
447. Should We Stay or Should We Go by Lionel Shriver
448. Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic
449. The Aenid by Virgil
450. Fools Crow by James Welch
451. Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
452. War : How Conflict Shaped Us by Margaret MacMillan READ MAY 22
453. The Europeans by Orlando Figes
454. Money and Government by Robert Skidelsky
455. A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman
456. Time and Power by Christopher Clark
457. Dearly by Margaret Atwood
458. Four Soldiers by Hubert Mingarelli
459. East West Street by Phillipe Sands
460. Breakout at Stalingrad by Heinrich Gerlach
461. The Hidden Pleasures of Life by Theodore Zeldin
462. The Road to War by Richard Overy
463. English Pastoral by James Rebanks
464. Stalingrad by Antony Beevor
465. Blood, Tears and Folly by Len Deighton
466. Justine by Lawrence Durrell
467. Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell
468. Mountolive by Lawrence Durrell
469. Clea by Lawrence Durrell
470. Bunny by Mona Awad
471. Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen
472. Britain Alone by Philip Stevens
473. The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
474. Perfidious Albion by Sam Byers
475. Promised You a Miracle by Andy Beckett. READ JUN 22
476. Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
477. Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
478. Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
479. The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
480. Dominion by Tom Holland
481. Silverview by John Le Carre
482. China Room by Sunjeev Sahota
483. KL : A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann
484. Seasons in the Sun by Dominic Sandbrook
485. Who Dares Wins by Dominic Sandbrook
486. The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
487. The Other Name by Jon Fosse
488. All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami
489. Paradais by Fernanda Melchior
490. State of Emergency by Dominic Sandbrook
491. The Bones of Grace by Tahmima Anam
492. Mr Palomar by Italo Calvino
493. The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri
494. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
495. Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif
496. See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid
497. The Answers by Catherine Lacey
498. The World Made Straight by Ron Rash
499. Picture Palace by Paul Theroux
500. From India : Over 100 Recipes to Celebrate Food, Family & Tradition by Kumar Mahadevan
501. The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
502. The Murderer by Roy Heath
503. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka READ JULY 22
504. Shadowplay by Tim Marshall
505. Governing the World by Mark Mazower
506. Adults in the Room by Yanis Varoufakis
507. My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
508. Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through by Duncan Weldon
509. The Great Crash 1929 by JK Galbraith
510. The Wars of the Roses : The Bloody Struggle for England's Throne by Hugh Bicheno
511. The Yellow House by Martin Gayford
512. The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
513. Under the Blue by Oana Aristide
514. Shadowless by Hasan Ali Toptas
515. All the Names Given by Raymond Antrobus. READ JUN 22
516. Never Had it so Good by Dominic Sandbrook
517. White Heat by Dominic Sandbrook
518. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
519. Closed Circles by Viveca Sten
520. The Hunting Dogs by John Lier Horst
521. The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron
522. Collected Poems : Louis MacNeice by Louis MacNeice
523. The Evenings by Gerard Reve
524. Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov
525. The Conquest of Plassans by Emile Zola
526. Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko
527. The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson READ JULY 22
528. Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay
529. A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare READ JUN 22
530. Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi
531. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman READ JULY 22
532. Emergency by Daisy Hildyard
533. Echoes of the City by Lars Sabye Christensen
534. Maud Martha by Gwendolin Brooks
535. The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
536. Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
537. The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kaweabata
538. The Country of Others by Leila Slimani
539. Every Fire You Tend by Sea Kaygusuz
540. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
541. Identity : The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama
542. The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
543. The Real Iron Lady by Gillian Shephard
544. Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan
545. The Fellowship : The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip Zaleski
546. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
547. The Left Handed Woman by Peter Handke
548. Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein
549. The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy
550. Dog Park by Sofi Oksanen
551. There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe
552. Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum
553. Two Tribes by Chis Beckett
554. The Victim by Saul Bellow
555. The Mothers by Brit Bennett
556. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore
557. Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
558. Grant by Ron Chernow
559. A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett
560. Suspicion by Friedrich Durrenmatt
561. Returning to Reims by Didier Eribon
562. The Whisperers by Orlando Figes
563. Effi Briest by Thoedor Fontane
564. The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster
565. Never Again by Peter Hennessy
566. Too Far to Walk by John Hersey
567. Fen by Daisy Johnson
568. The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy
569. Carthage Must be Destroyed by Richard Miles
570. Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
571. The Boat by Nam Le
572. Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara
573. The Moon and the Bonfires by Casare Pavase
574. The Brothers York by Thomas Penn
575. The Storm of War by Andrew Roberts
576. Oreo by Fran Ross
577. This is Happiness by Niall Williams
578. Black Shack Alley by Joseph Zobel
579. Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble
580. Hard Choices : What Britain Does Next by Peter Ricketts
581. Many Different Kinds of Love by Michael Rosen
582. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
583. The Light That Failed by Ivan Kratsev
584. The Classical School : The Turbulent Birth of Economics by Callum Williams
585. The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier
586. Straw Dogs by John Gray
587. Stiff by Mary Roach
588. Breathtaking by Rachel Clarke READ JUL 22
589. Statistics Without Tears by Derek Rowntree
590. The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker
591. The Teacher of Cheops by Albert Salvado
592. Lenin on the Train by Catherine Merridale
593. A Shock by Keith Ridgway
594. The Package by Sebastian Fitzek
595. Chinatown by Thuan
596. Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
597. Oh William by Elizabeth Strout
598. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
599. Glory by Noviolet Bulawayo
600. The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
601. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
602. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
603. Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico
604. Heritage by Miguel Bonnefoy
605. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
606. Everything is True by Roopa Farooki
607. Trust by Hernan Diaz
608. Telephone by Percival Everrett
609. Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
610. The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir
611. The Golden Ass by Apuleius
612. Shadows on the Road by Michael Barry
613. Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge
614. A Spare Life by Lidija Dimkovska
615. Enbury Heath by Stella Gibbons
616. The Gardens of Mars by John Gimlette
617. The Quarry by Ben Halls
618. For the Glory by Duncan Hamilton
619. Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka
620. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
621. The End of the World is a Cul de Sac by Louise Kennedy
622. Paul by Daisy Lafarge
623. The Goose Fritz by Sergei Lebedev
624. The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
625. Pure Gold : Stories by John Patrick McHugh
626. The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
627. Adventures in Morocco by Alice Morrison
628. The House on the Hill by Cesare Pavese
629. Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym
630. The Way Back by Erich Maria Remarque
631. The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage
632. Improvement by Joan Silber
633. Havana Year Zero by Karla Suarez
634. The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam
635. The Listeners by Jordan Tannahill
636. The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono READ AUG 22
637. The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James
638. Trouble with Product X by Joan Aiken
639. What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
640. The Washington Decree by Jussi Adler-Olsen
641. Moscow Stations by Venedikt Yerofeev
642. Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
643. Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
644. August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
645. The Outsider by Frederick Forsyth
646. Boys in Zinc by Svetlana Alexievich
647. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
648. Between the Wars 1919-1939 by Philip Ziegler
649. The Dark Knight and the Puppet Master by Chris Clarke
650. The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder

ADDED : 650
READ : 48
BALANCE : 602

BOOK STATS

Books read : 91
Books added : 535

Days per book : 1.94
Projected total : 188
LT yearly best : 157

Pages read (completed books) : 20,748
Daily average : 117.22
Projected total : 42,785

Longest Book : 732 pages
Shortest Book : 44 pages
Average Book Length : 228.00

Gender
Male : 49
Female : 40
Various : 2

Genre :
Graphic Books : 2
Poetry : 14
Thriller/Mystery : 4
Non Fiction : 17
Fiction : 48
Short Stories : 3
SF/Fantasy : 3

Origin :
USA : 18
UK : 32
Turkey : 3
Germany : 1
Egypt : 1
Ireland : 4
Norway : 3
Argentina : 2
Canada : 4
Iceland : 1
Netherlands : 1
Jamaica : 1
Israel : 2
Iraq : 1
Syria : 1
Papua New Guinea : 1
Oman : 1
Italy : 1
Tanzania : 1
Iran : 1
South Korea : 1
Uzbekistan : 1
Antigua : 1
Various : 2
India : 2
Bangladesh 1
Singapore 1
Russia 1
Albania 1

Challenges :
British Author Challenge : 5
American Author Challenge : 4
Non-Fiction Challenge : 1
Asian Book Challenge : 21
New Nobel Laureates : 1
1001 Books First Edition : 3
Guardian 1000 Books : 4
Around the World Books : 17
Holocaust Reading : 2
Booker Winners : 2
Pulitzer Winners : 1
Rebecca NYC Reads : 1
Fiction from European Capitals : 4

Next is yours.......................................

Happy new thread Paul!

Another wish for a happy new thread!! : )

>19 quondame: Thank you Susan. I think (although I haven't checked) you have been most consistent at arriving here first this year.
The virtual bookshelf again belongs to you.

>20 Berly: Thank you dear Kimmers! I am so pleased to see you posting again. xx

Happy New Thread Paul

>23 WhiteRaven.17: Thank you Kro. Lovely to see you here as always. x

happy new one

>1 PaulCranswick: That is some impressive view!

In a bit you will get a chance to fill in all your 2-18, but I expect there will be a few more greetings to get through before then.

>25 figsfromthistle: Thanks Anita. I would guess from your normal and consistent thread size that I may be returning the favour very soon!

>26 quondame: It was a startlingly interesting landscape and place to be honest, Susan, and made quite the impression upon me.

It will take me a while to get fully set up as I am also trying to write a report of a determination of claims by a Subcontractor of ours which is boring me to tears!

Happy new thread!

>28 amanda4242: Thank you, Amanda. Some decent progress yesterday with Tom Jones which is not unusual!

Happy new thread, Paul! Stunning tread topper!

>30 tymfos: Thanks Terri. I was humbled by my visit to Sao Tome and I would like to think that it gave me a better and fuller perspective of the world, my place in it and what - in my own small way - I could do in it to make a little bit of a difference.

Happy new thread, Paul!

>1 PaulCranswick: To me Sao Tome was only a name, a shape on the map. How cool you got there.

>27 PaulCranswick: I hope the boring report is finished soon.

>27 PaulCranswick: I too am suffering through finishing a boring report! I keep putting it off....this is not doing me any favours. lol

Happy new thread - You've been in beautiful places, Paul.
But as you said, there is not only the beautiful appearance...

Happy new one, Paul. Beautiful picture up top as always. As you so wisely note, the beauty can hide some ugly things.

Checking in on the new thread, Juan! Happy whatever!

>32 FAMeulstee: The pesky report will be finished by hook or by crook tomorrow, Anita. I am about 30 pages into my report with another 20 or so pages to go.

Sao Tome is a beautiful but very impoverished country. The island has a strange mixture of lean-to properties alongside Portuguese colonial buildings and villas. The countryside is lush and obviously the sea and seafood plentiful but the city itself, though small, is a shabby little affair that brings little cheer. The airport is a despondent place with the "shuttle" waiting area replete with local opportunists looking for charity from tired travelers.

>33 LovingLit: The longer we put them off the more they will weigh us down, Megan.

>34 SirThomas: Thank you, Thomas. There is more than the surface of a place, but it was a very rewarding experience.

>35 drneutron: Thanks Jim. The poverty is very much in your face and the history of the island has plenty of dark secrets in its pockmarked walls.

>36 alcottacre: Thank you, dear Juana.

Thought I would share this from the weekend. We went up North and spent an evening breathing in sea air.

That is a wonderful picture of you two lovebirds, Paul. I am so happy you have been reunited after a separation due to unfortunate events. Have a great week!

>41 Donna828: I can bask in the shadow of my better half, Donna. Thank you for the lovely words. xx

Happy New Thread Paul

>43 ArlieS: Thank you dear Arlie

Happy New Thread Paul and a wonderful picture of you two!! Love it!!

>40 PaulCranswick: *baaawww* Y'all're so cuuuute

Re: Never Had It So Good...Alec Issigonis screwed y'all's car industry with that Mini design. WAAAYYY too small for US market and, the year it came out, the US market started its swing to smaller cars. (The Studebaker Lark sold 300,000 units...225% of predictions!) Had he put ~6in extra in every dimension and offered a 1.5L powerplant to us, he'd've sold 100,000 here!

>40 PaulCranswick: Lovely photo! Hani is looking happy and beautiful (as usual). I'm glad you two are back together again finally!

>1 PaulCranswick: Wow, that does look all Land That Time Forgot! The history of many beautiful places is dark and horrifying. I'm glad you were able to help the people living there now.

Happy new thread!

Totally agree that your picture looks like Lost World. Happy new thread.

Happy new thread, Paul. You and Hani look relaxed and happy in that photo.

>45 hredwards: Thanks Harold!

>46 richardderus: Thank you, RD. My best friend at school (pre-U) had a mini as his first car and he used to drive us both to classes in it. It was a horrid little thing and I could never understand the British enthusiasm for it.

>47 Storeetllr: Thanks Mary.
I have kept in touch a couple of people I met over there in my brief time in Sao Tome - Esteban De Souza who was my guide and driver whilst I was there regularly communicates with me via email and regularly updates me on his family (5 daughters and 2 sons). I enjoyed the hospitality they afforded me at his home where we barbequed fish and drank the local beer. His second child Estella is now at University in Aveira in Portugal doing marine biology and four of his kids are now at one of the schools built with the funding arranged via Pemandu following my visit there.

>48 Kristelh: Thank you, Kristel. I must say though I was not disappointed that I failed to see a single T-Rex!

>49 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg. Indeed we were in a relaxed mood on the beach approaching sunset!

Happy new thread, Paul! A lovely thread topper, and such a great photo of you and Hani. I'm glad you were able to get away for a bit.

>53 bell7: Thanks Mary. Always wonderful to have you visit.

Wordle 395 5/6

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I struggled today for some reason as my brain doesn't seem to be working!

>40 PaulCranswick: Lovely picture!

>51 PaulCranswick: What Paul!?! No enthusiasm for your own Jurassic Park adventure?

>56 Kristelh: Thanks Kristel. It is a collector's item in a way because I so very rarely wear a cap. It was Yasmyne's cap I was "safeguarding" whilst she was soaking her feet in the Indian Ocean.

>57 quondame: None whatsoever, Susan! I don't think I would be very effective pitted against any type of reptilian creature.

>46 richardderus: In my first job, I worked for a railroad company. They sometimes transported cars, which sometimes got damaged. When this happened, after whatever insurance compensation got paid, the cars wound up painted orange and used as company cars. Some were pretty decent cars; others were not so great.

As a very junior software engineer, when I and my peers travelled, we generally got last choice of company car. And there was this company mini ... one of the group was short enough he could see out its windshield even while sitting up straight, so he drove it, and the taller people were passengers. Meanwhile, at serious highway speeds, the poor old thing shook. It really didn't want to go over 80 kph...

>59 ArlieS: It was a style icon in the UK for some reason, Arlie. Actually, the newer versions are meant to be pretty good.

Happy New Thread, Paul. Love the topper.

>40 PaulCranswick: Great photo!

>60 PaulCranswick: They are/were cute little things, if they were in good shape, and the driver wasn't too tall. But perhaps better in cities than on long Canadian highways. Maybe they got a bit larger later?

>40 PaulCranswick: Awww! So cute! Thanks for sharing the photo. Now, good luck finishing the blinkin' report tomorrow...

>61 msf59: Thanks Mark. As a group collective I would guess that we have knocked off a fair old number of countries.

>62 ArlieS: I think that they have a version that is a good bit bigger but they certainly have improved performance wise.

>63 Berly: I still haven't finished it and will start to come under pressure on it soon!

>40 PaulCranswick: Wonderful to see both of those faces! Hani is looking good despite recent events.

Happy whatever, Paul!

>66 alcottacre: "Hani is looking good despite recent events." ..........and then there is Juan!

I know what you mean, Juana. xx

>37 PaulCranswick: Has Portugal done anything to help the country they ruined?

Hi Paul - Gteat friendly new photo!

One more to add to this new list of 68:

A catalogue mentions A TOWN LIKE ALICE -s it one you recommend?
also showed a copy of Cosy: The British Art of Comfort...

>68 m.belljackson: Honestly, Marianne, I don't think that they have done much. In 2020 they gave US$13.9m in aid to Sao Tome. What I really do not understand is why the western countries are still giving aid dollars to China. In the same period Portugal gave $44.1 million in aid to China, a country much richer than they are. Simply bizarre.

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/12c61cf7-en/index.html?itemId=/content/compo...

>69 m.belljackson: Thank you. x
A Town Like Alice is a good wartime story set on Malaysia's East coast.

Wordle 396 2/6

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Back to better days again. Perfect score of course still eludes but my habit of choosing words from the covers of books occasionally pays off. treat...trite

Hi Paul, just cruising through to check up on you. Seems like you are having a very good reading year. That's a lovely picture you posted in >40 PaulCranswick:. Both you and Hani look to be enjoying your day.

>72 DeltaQueen50: Lovely to see you dear guru!
Hani and I are in a good place at the moment all things considered. xx

>40 PaulCranswick: Very nice pic Paul!
Happy Reading!

>60 PaulCranswick: They're good cars indeed, nowadays. The 60s ones were...not.

They got popular because they cornered so well in rallying. Their transaxles were pretty slushy and imprecise. Now? Excellent machines.

>59 ArlieS: 80kph! Must've had the 998cc motor. (Student drivers were almost universally, and then the rest of the USA from 1974-1982, limited to 90kph "to save gas".)

>70 PaulCranswick: China pays off better.

>74 kaida46: Thanks Deb. Lovely to see you. x

>75 richardderus: That is spot on, RD. I wouldn't have fancied my friend's mini exceeding speeds of 50mph.

>76 quondame: Indeed, Susan. I find it an astonishing confidence trick.

I'm sitting at my brother's house waiting on my cousin's wife to get her act together enough that she'll schedule the memorial service. She seems to not be functioning. I told Jim that we may have to go down there and help her get that set up and find a place she can live.

>79 thornton37814: Hugs to you, Lori. People do react to grief quite differently don't they?

Wordle 397 4/6

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Back to my default score but I am actually quite pleased that I unearthed this one.

Arrived from Book Depo:

591. The Teacher of Cheops by Albert Salvado

Added because the author is from Andorra.

Happy newish thread, Paul!

>2 PaulCranswick: Well written intro, but no, too much for me.

>40 PaulCranswick: Great picture!

>1 PaulCranswick: It looks wonderful, and I would love to see it. I’m glad you could make a difference to the people there. A daughter at university and four kids at school, not bad.

>81 PaulCranswick: For once, I beat you to it! Three turns.

>67 PaulCranswick: I was not going to mention it :)

Happy whatever, Paul!

>82 PaulCranswick: Andorra! An author who's from Andorra! I think I'll go buy it because I just want a book on my shelves written by an Andorran.

Behave yourself this weekend. Break the habits of a lifetime and don't annoy Hani with more book purchases.

Ah minis. I remember a friend picking me in one in Halifax to take us to work in Dartmouth. It worked well until she started giving a lift to a larger lady. The car developed a list on the passenger side.

Happy new thread!!!

>83 EllaTim: Lovely to see you, Ella.

The book is really well written but I can see why it would still upset some people so close to the pandemic.

>84 alcottacre: Hahaha - it was a fairly obvious error of omission.

>85 richardderus: I know, RD, that is exactly why it has found its way to Malaysia.

It is extremely unlikely that my conduct will be exemplary this weekend.

>86 Familyhistorian: That is a lovely story, Meg. I dread what would happen if I was to ride in one of the Mark 1 Minis!

>87 ocgreg34: Thanks Greg. Great to see you here, buddy.

Kyran returned to the UK yesterday and Hani and I took him to the airport as he traveled to London via Bangkok.
The night before the family went off to try out Gordon Ramsay's new restaurant in Kuala Lumpur and we really enjoyed ourselves very much at my expense!

Belle and I both had his signature Beef Wellington.

>40 PaulCranswick: Lovely photo Paul.

Glad Kyran had a good family send off too.

>93 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks Caroline. xx

>92 PaulCranswick: Gorgeous! Love me some beef Wellington!

>91 PaulCranswick: Safe journey, Kyran.

>89 PaulCranswick: *gasp* No. Not you. *shockhorror*

>95 richardderus: Poor lad's luggage has not arrived with him! He will have to wait a couple of days I guess and see what they send him in the end.

Wordle 398 5/6

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I got home but this is a strange one.

>96 PaulCranswick: Sorry Kyran arrived without luggage, Paul. There seems to be a lot of problems with luggage and flying these days.

>97 PaulCranswick: Indeed, I had never heard the word. Finally it was the only option I could find in the dictionary.

Wordle 398 5/6

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>91 PaulCranswick: >92 PaulCranswick: Yay for a good meal, sob about the luggage. I hope Kyran is reunited with it soon.

>98 FAMeulstee: I actually like the word very much, Anita, I just wasn't really expecting it!

>99 quondame: I am not quite so sure that he will be reunited with his play-station which was also in his luggage.

C'est la vie, I suppose, Susan.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/343015

Thanks Silver. I will need the Readathon this weekend!

>2 PaulCranswick: I have 3 Rachel Clarke books - have read the first but still owe a review, the others are both Kindle TBR. But I've started reading a different NHS doctor's pandemic memoir - like Rachel Clarke, Roopa Farooki trained in medicine after another career - actually, at least 3 or 4 other careers. Her slightly older sister had died of cancer just before COVID hit the UK. I can see why lots of people won't feel ready to be taken back to the fear, sadness and anger of 2020

>103 elkiedee: One thing from Ms Clarke's book that I found interesting was the certainty she had that the virus started in the market in Wuhan. Not sure that there is any proof as to where it really started.

Sorry to hear about Kyran's missing luggage. We heard about the luggage problem and picked up air tags when we were in Edinburgh. Of course, they didn't loose our luggage this time but better to be safe than sorry, I suppose.

>105 Familyhistorian: I hope it gets it back soon, Meg, otherwise he will want an entirely new wardrobe!

Wordle 399 4/6

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Default score again.

>97 PaulCranswick: >98 FAMeulstee: I got both of those in 4, but I agree that the one in 97 was strange. I had heard of the word, but not in recent years. I think the one in 98 was difficult because you had to run through all the vowels to get it. I almost said that word for #3, but I thought of a letter with "u", the only vowel I hadn't used. I tried it first.

>108 thornton37814: Sometimes I suppose we must expect the unexpected, Lori!

Wordle 400 3/6

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Better than average!

>104 PaulCranswick: I might find that annoying, personally. But news headlines here were reporting with high certainty that it had started in Wuhan, even the less rabidly right wing. My opinion: it might have started in Wuhan, but if so, we're probably lucky it didn't start here. I don't think that in the UK (or the US) anyone should be confident that a major worldwide pandemic couldn't start where they're living.

Apparently the flu pandemic at the end of WW1 was called the Spanish flu because Spain wasn't involved in the war so that country's government was unusually honest in allowing reporting of the extent of the illness, compared to other countries who felt they couldn't report truthfully because of the need to maintain the sense that their side could win, etc.

>111 elkiedee: I think it is clear enough that it started somewhere in the vicinity of Wuhan - whether in the market, the lab or elsewhere, but the author seems absolutely decided that it was in the market which, as I understand it is not certain at all.

I have often wondered why it was called the Spanish flu, Luci.

Happy new thread, Paul!

>113 banjo123: Thank you, dear Rhonda

Wordle 401 5/6

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Struggled with that one until the Eureka moment.

Quiet weekend spent cataloguing and following along with Tom Jones!

Additions I thought I had logged from Friday:

592. Lenin on the Train by Catherine Merridale
593. A Shock by Keith Ridgway
594. The Package by Sebastian Fitzek
595. Chinatown by Thuan

Fiction from London and Vietnam.
A thriller from Berlin and the analysis of a historical moment of moment.

Hello, Paul! I enjoyed learning a bit about Sao Tome and Principe up top. It is truly stunning, but as you and others have said, the beauty coexists alongside grinding poverty and other problems. I'm glad you made a lifelong connection there. That's the real treasure of travel.

>2 PaulCranswick: Too soon, I think.

Any word on Kyran's luggage? Marina and Stelios travel soon and Marina is worried about her luggage as well. We got air tags and we'll hope for the best.

>118 AMQS: It was a very rewarding experience, Anne, but a sobering one too as it brought home just how difficult it is existentially in some parts of the world.

I spoke to Kyran last night and he was still in the dark about his luggage - hopefully these couple of days.

>96 PaulCranswick: I hope that Kyran's luggage has arrived by now!

>117 PaulCranswick: Nice haul, if a bit small for you, Juan.

>119 PaulCranswick: Still no sign of his luggage? Wow.

Happy whatever, Paul!

>117 PaulCranswick: I quite enjoyed Lenin on the Train - it's non fiction but it's quite story based, and you can imagine it as a film or something, though getting all the locations in would present a challenge. And I can't see Putin being keen on the project - he's much keener to connect his rule with the Tsars than the Bolsheviks.

Grrr to whichever airline is misplacing your son's luggage.

>120 alcottacre: Good news, Stasia, I got a message from Kyran that his luggage is being delivered this evening.

>121 elkiedee: It did catch my eye, Luci, and it is a story that resonates through history as his arrival in Russia had such an impact.
I am worried about my own travel now - not so much my luggage but the container sending my books!

The top 140 threads passed 70,000 posts for the year yesterday which is on a par with recent years.

Top 20 threads as at midnight 25 July 2022 LT Time

1 PaulCranswick 6,445
2 richardderus 4,163
3 katiekrug 4,023
4 scaifea 3,609
5 msf59 2,754
6 karenmarie 2,322
7 alcottacre 2,186
8 laurelkeet 1,939
9 jnwelch 1,799
10 bell7 1,679
11 FAMeulstee 1,601
12 Familyhistorian 1,461
13 figsfromthistle 1,386
14 CrazyMamie 1,264
15 MickyFine 1,200
16 Berly 1,131
17 BLBera 1,105
18 drneutron 1,104
19 RebaRelishesReading 951
20 jessibud2 901

Wordle 402 4/6

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I seem to have the measure of the game just at the moment.

>122 PaulCranswick: I am glad to hear it!

Oh wow! 13th place! Quite a surprise. thanks for posting!

>123 PaulCranswick: You had mentioned you thought I'd end the year in the top 10 for posts, but wow, it's still a little surprising to see my name up there. And what illustrious company I'm in, too :)

>123 PaulCranswick: Happy to see you have the stats back in order, Paul.
Very pleased to be #11 :-)

>124 PaulCranswick: I got today's in 4 as well.

>123 PaulCranswick: Look at Katie run, nipping at my heels! I'll end up in 2022's basement soon.

>125 alcottacre: He is so happy, Stasia, because he got all his stuff back without exception.

>126 figsfromthistle: You have had a great posting year, Anita, and I am so happy with that.

>127 bell7: Told ya, Mary! Every year you keep getting more and more active.

>128 FAMeulstee: I know you like the stats, Anita and I am so pleased to oblige!

>129 richardderus: Great minds and all that, RD.

There is no way you will follow sleepy Joe to the basement, RD!

Wow. More than 70,000 posts. That's amazing!

>112 PaulCranswick: Today in an article in Science all evidence points to the market in Wuhan: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337
More explanation on Twitter by one of the scientists who did the research: https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1551937870709100545

>133 drneutron: In 2012 our end of year tally for 140 threads was 186,558 so we are a way away from those sort of numbers but we are on par with the last four years or so.
2019 is the lowest end of year total with 106,421. The the end of July that year we were at 70,343 so we are about 6 days in front of that.

>134 FAMeulstee: That could well be right too, Anita. I don't suppose we will ever know definitively given the obstructiveness of the Chinese authorities.

>135 PaulCranswick: we just need to figure out how Dr. Fauci got the specially prepared bat out of hell from the lab to the market. 😉

Meanwhile avian influenza is getting way out of control

>136 RBeffa: I'm tired of the fact, Ron, in all seriousness that the powers that be seem signally uninterested in fully and properly investigating the cause of the outbreak.

>137 PaulCranswick: I think the links that Anita provided shows serious investigation. Natural mutation is the norm of these sorts of things, Paul. Not weaponization. Monkeypox, something i probably have never heard of before a couple months ago is now looking to be the latest epidemic if not pandemic. Certainly in the Bay Area with the promiscuities that abound.

ETA: https://www.ktvu.com/news/we-are-one-of-the-epicenters-bay-area-responds-as-monk...

Mother nature.

>134 FAMeulstee: and thank you Anita. I thought the twitter link maps pretty interesting.

>138 RBeffa: I did see that monkeypox seems to be the next epidemic, Ron.

The Science report is undoubtedly interesting, if a little difficult to follow for the layman. The twitter explanation is more enlightening certainly. It could well be that the first cases started in that market but there is still no definitive active governmental investigation afoot that I am aware of.

The evidence certainly depends upon data provided by the Chinese and frankly, I remain doubtful of their honesty. Look at the mortality rates reported from China and tell me honestly that you believe them, Ron.
I don't think for a minute that the outbreak of COVID in Wuhan in 2019 was deliberately done by the Chinese for weaponisation or other purposes but there remain a lot of unanswered questions about the same and about the Wuhan lab and its funding.

>139 PaulCranswick: Yes, the super low infection rates and minimal reported deaths defy conventional explanations and seem outrageous, although I think they claim it is the severe lockdown policies they use. That would naturally make one distrust other data, so I see and accept your point. But perhaps living with coronaviruses has given the Chinese a greater natural resistance. That is something I would reasonably expect. But we will never know.

>140 RBeffa: That is true also, Ron, of course and sometimes I also accept that speculation without full facts can be unhelpful too - I am referring to my comments on death rates - but it is also the case that as the place where the virus first spread and was presumably the most virulent the death rates reported - certainly initially - are quite obviously political not actual.

>141 PaulCranswick: well, how about we get back to reading great books! My brain is still digesting Ha Jin's Waiting. Sometimes I keep going back and thinking on recent reads. I was disappointed with events and the direction of the second half of the book. I do not know what I would do differently if I were the writer but the rape event really bothered me and it also set the rest of the book on a different track. The author sort of spins it all into a crcle at the end to create a slightly happy ending out of everyone waiting their entire lives for happiness and desire.

>142 RBeffa: Yeah, I get that Ron - I was impressed by the book overall but that particular scene did jar and wasn't really in keeping with the rest of the novel tonally. Whether that was the author's intention or not, I'm not sure.

I am reading The Mothers now by Brit Bennett which has a much different setting and is well told but not overly high-brow (not a criticism) but covers some of the same ground in a way.

Wordle 403 6/6

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I played out all the possibilities and could only come up with one alternative based on the available letters left and therefore I scraped home.

Checking in on you, Paul. I hope you and Hani are doing OK.

>145 alcottacre: We are both ok, Stasia and I trust and hope that you and yours are in good form. xx

The Booker Longlist was announced yesterday and we got a very varied 13 books listed

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/26/booker-prize-longlist-of-13-writer...

The Booker prize 2022 longlist

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 Shahan 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 Lynn Schwartz

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

I have read the book by Claire Keegan and loved it although its inclusion surprised me because of its short length. I also own the Audrey Magee but am interested in most of the others too.

Wordle 404 4/6

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Steady today.

Happy Thursday, Paul.

>148 PaulCranswick: Also wordled in four today, with three other words first.

>147 PaulCranswick: The only one on the list is Small Things Like These and I loved it. I will have to see how many my local library actually has. Thanks for posting the list, Paul!

Happy whatever!

I was a 3-fer on #404...I find that the words they've used fade almost instantly from my memory. They could use this one next week and I just wouldn't notice.

Happy new thread Paul!

Sao Tome looks lush. It's a shame that the economy doesn't live up to the landscape.

>149 FAMeulstee: I am in good company, Anita!

>150 alcottacre: I have The Colony on the shelves and read Keegan's wonderful short novel early in the year.

Happy Thursday, Juana!

>151 richardderus: You are right, RD, I don't think I can remember the words we guessed last week either!

>152 humouress: A fascinating place Nina. The economy is started from a very low place but I am sure that, given some help, they will prosper.

>151 richardderus: >154 PaulCranswick: I go to the archive every few months when I'm bored and do the old Wordle puzzles. I never remember the words from the last time I did the puzzles.

>155 Storeetllr: An archive?! Oh dear I had better not start that, Mary, or I would never get any work done!

>153 PaulCranswick: I checked my local library and it has exactly three of the titles on its shelves. *sigh* I guess it is better than none!

>157 alcottacre: I will sweep the local bookstores here tomorrow/today, Stasia but the books don't jump out at me as having been available locally.

Wordle 405 5/6

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Struggled a bit with that one today.

>157 alcottacre: Are they likely to get more, Stasia, or does the Booker not have that impact in the US - are they more likely to buy Pulitzer or National Book Award nominated books?

Islington, the library service where I've most used the reservations system seemed last year to order 4 copies or additional copies of each longlist title, even ones like the Kazuo Ishiguro where they had already bought in numbers

>160 elkiedee: Good point, Luci. It is clear that the longlisting process greatly helps book sales and this will be more noticeable in the UK due both to market size as well as the fact that the Booker emanates from there. I really don't understand why the Pulitzer doesn't become more inclusive and help book sales by going Longlist/Shortlist/Winner rather than their near-papal elective process in selecting a winner.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/343177

>162 SilverWolf28: Thank you, Silver. Have four books to finish before the end of the month.

Friday additions

596. Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
597. Oh William by Elizabeth Strout
598. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
599. Glory by Noviolet Bulawayo
600. The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
601. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
602. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
603. Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico
604. Heritage by Miguel Bonnefoy
605. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
606. Everything is True by Roopa Farooki
607. Trust by Hernan Diaz
608. Telephone by Percival Everrett
609. Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
610. The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir

Five from the Booker Longlist.
Happy with the other ten - Harbach I have been looking for for a while, Ditto Gallico (1001 books), I wanted to give Moshbegh another chance after disliking her Booker shortlisted debut, Bonnefoy is for my around the world challenge, Philyaw and Everett both got recognised in American literary awards shortlists last year, I loved Barker's earlier book on the Greek myths, Oshetsky was tipped for honours, de Beauvoir's newly discovered novel is a must and Farooki's book on healthcare and the pandemic has been much praised.

>159 PaulCranswick: I struggled with 404, but 405 was a turnaround for me. Wordle 405 2/6

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Have a great weekend.

>160 elkiedee: Honestly, Luci, I think my local library pays more attention to the bestseller lists than it does any kind of prize winners!

>164 PaulCranswick: Wonderful, Juan! I cannot wait until I can buy books again.

Happy whatever, Paul!

>147 PaulCranswick: I think we have 3 of them in our library. I'll see if I think we'll have demand for the others, but the chair of the English department is the most likely to read Booker prize longlist books. The others all stick pretty much to their niches.

>166 alcottacre: I agree. My library is more concerned with best sellers and I don’t think there pay any attention to any awards except our state awards. Also our closest bookstore really only cares about bestsellers. My local library has about 3 of the list books and I thought that was actually more than normal. Elizabeth Strout is a popular author so that one of course.

>164 PaulCranswick: I suspect you'll come to regret a few of those purchases.

But hey! At least you'll know why. *delicate shudder*

>165 Kristelh: Impressed, Kristel!

>166 alcottacre: I will probably get enough for the both of us in the meantime, Juana!

>167 thornton37814: I would have thought that the inclusion of American writers in Booker eligibility would have helped broaden the availability of the longlisted books there. Seemingly not really, Lori.

>168 Kristelh: To be fair Kristel some of the books might not yet be published in the States which would put some of them automatically out of the reach of local lending libraries. There is, however, a concentration these days on what is safe and easy.

>169 richardderus: This message has just been read by Intrigued of Kuala Lumpur. You almost always get me pondering RD.

Paul, Once again, your opening image and background information is incredible! And, of course I am impressed with the number and content of books you read this year!

The August BAC thread is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/343200

>173 Whisper1: Lovely as always to see you here, Linda. xx

>174 amanda4242: Off to peruse! Have a great weekend, Amanda. x

More month end splurging!

611. The Golden Ass by Apuleius
612. Shadows on the Road by Michael Barry
613. Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge
614. A Spare Life by Lidija Dimkovska
615. Enbury Heath by Stella Gibbons
616. The Gardens of Mars by John Gimlette
617. The Quarry by Ben Halls
618. For the Glory by Duncan Hamilton
619. Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka
620. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
621. The End of the World is a Cul de Sac by Louise Kennedy
622. Paul by Daisy Lafarge
623. The Goose Fritz by Sergei Lebedev
624. The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
625. Pure Gold : Stories by John Patrick McHugh
626. The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
627. Adventures in Morocco by Alice Morrison
628. The House on the Hill by Cesare Pavese
629. Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym
630. The Way Back by Erich Maria Remarque
631. The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage
632. Improvement by Joan Silber
633. Havana Year Zero by Karla Suarez

The Dimkovska book was delivered by Book Depo.
Lessing is a replacement of one of my favourite debut novels which I no longer owned.
The rest are a goodly mix of fiction and faction - the Morocco one is obvious but Gimlette's book is about a country I know nothing about but would like to - Madagascar. There is a book on cycling and one on the great Olympian and hero Eric Liddell.
The John Patrick McHugh book seems to have no touchstones yet but is apparently a wonderful short story collection according to a British friend of mine who is rarely wrong.

>171 PaulCranswick: Our library just purchases limited recreational reading each month, and that is spent over multiple genres, including those not likely to be considered for prizes.

Illyrian Spring makes up for a couple dogs you'll regret buying, and how! Oh...wait...you *liked* the Lessing...no, then there's only that dreadful, sentimental whinge about cold coffee to really get soaked in "why why why was that tree sacrificed for this bilge?" regret.

>164 PaulCranswick: & >176 PaulCranswick: Quite the hauls back-to-back, I always enjoy looking over what you've picked up. I just recently finished Before the Coffee Gets Cold and found it an enjoyable quick read.

>147 PaulCranswick: I've been thinking about paying more attention to and trying to read awarded books but can't decide which awarded list to start with. I tend to see Booker mentioned more often. Seeing how you read a sampling of ones >7 PaulCranswick:, curious if you have a preference?

Hope you're having a nice weekend.

>177 thornton37814: I wish public libraries were better funded, Lori, as their importance is so undervalued in my opinion.

>178 richardderus: At least you don't think that they're all duds, dear fellow! I have been on the lookout for Illyrian Spring for the longest time.

>179 WhiteRaven.17: I am pretty pleased with my weekend's work on the book acquisition front, Kro!

My favourite is definitely the Booker although to be honest I like it less now it opened its doors beyond the Commonwealth and Ireland as I think Indian, ANZAC and African authors generally now have a harder time to reach a bigger audience.

The Women's Prize is impactful upon me recently as it (rightly) encourages me to read and appreciate female authors more.

Wordle 407 6/6

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Missed playing yesterday and I almost floundered today, talk about pulling the fat out of the fire!

Happy weekend, Paul! An interesting list for the Booker. I wasn't blown away by either of the one's I read (Oh, William and The Trees)

>183 banjo123: I have only read Small Things Like These and I was surprised given its short length that it qualified but it is my favourite read of the year thus far.

Lovely to see you as always, Rhonda. xx

>181 PaulCranswick: I was definitely leaning towards the Booker, but well noted.

And yes, that is a good one to add. I recently started reading books with my cousin who makes a point to read female authors and I hadn't realized just how unbalanced my library leaned towards male authors. Something I've been trying to be more aware of now.

>185 WhiteRaven.17: It is actually clear to me Kro that many of the books I most like are written by female authors. 5 of my 6 books of the month this year are written by ladies.

>164 PaulCranswick: I watched the old film version of Mrs 'Aris Goes to Paris recently, which was amusing. Angela Lansbury played Mrs 'Arris. I'm looking forward to the new version which comes out later this year, where the French characters are played by french actors. Lesley Manville will play Mrs A.

You are certainly splurging at the moment Paul. I didn't quite manage to stay within single digits this month (10 additions). Maybe next month. September will be the struggle as the month with the most new publications.

>187 Caroline_McElwee: I expect it to be fun, Caroline.

I am on "target" for over 1,000 book additions this year which is more than a little over the top I guess.

Hi, Paul. I hope you had a good weekend. I may have asked you this before but how do you keep track of the books you own? That must be as difficult as finding a place to put them.

>189 msf59: Nice to see you Mark! Weekend has been good although Belle is not feeling well today.

I maintain a spreadsheet to keep records of my books and despite my loss of my computer this is mitigated by the fact that every quarter I send an email to myself with the catalogue just in case. Hani is invariably amazed that she can name any individual book from my library and I can present it to her within 30 seconds.

Hi Paul, and a belated happy new thread.

>1 PaulCranswick: Beautiful view, interesting tale of your work in Sao Tome & Principe.

>5 PaulCranswick: Congrats on 100 books read. An excellent one to mark the milestone with.

>92 PaulCranswick: I can’t see the photos no matter which browser I use, but the Gordon Ramsay’s Beef Wellington sounds and, from duckduckgo-ing its image, looks fabulous.

>123 PaulCranswick: 6 and 2322. 6 + 2 = 8. (3*2) + 2 = 8. Sixth. I'm happy.

>147 PaulCranswick: I’m gobsmacked. Our Library has 7 of these titles. Brava to our Branch Librarian Rita. Jenna and I are going to have lunch with her this coming Friday. I'll have to tell her about your thread and her perspicacity.

>191 karenmarie: I look forward so much to your posts, Karen!

Ramsay deserves his reputation as the food was marvellous.

That is a librarian to keep!

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Two near misses in a row and a distinct lack of concentration here!

The August thread of the Asian Book Challenge is up and we are off to the land of Samurai, haiku, Geisha, Mount Fuji and distinctly odd but often wonderful writing.

It is Japan!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/343245#n7895968

Link above.

Reading Review of July 2022

Books Completed : 10
Year to date : 102

Pages Completed : 3,040
Year to date : 23,955

Pages per day : 98.06
Year to date : 135.00

Longest Book : 877 pages (Year to date 877 pages)
Shortest Book : 77 pages (Year to date 44 pages)
Average Length : 234.85 pages

Books Over 500 pages : 2 (6 year to date)
Books 200-499 pages : 4 (46 year to date)
Books less than 200 pages : 4 (50 year to date)

Books Originally Published this century : 4 (59 year to date)
Books Originally Published last century : 5 (39 year to date)
Books Originally Published before 1900 : 1 (4 year to date)

First Quarter : 52 books & 10,607 pages
Second Quarter : 40 books & 10,308 pages
Third Quarter : 10 books & 3,040 pages

Books By Males : 4 (53 year to date)
Books by Females : 6 (47 year to date)
Various : 0 (2 year to date

Genre :
Fiction : 6 (55 year to date)
Non-Fiction : 3 (20 year to date)
Poetry : 1 (15 year to date)
Thrillers : 0 (4 year to date)
SF/Fantasy : 0 (3 year to date)
Short Story Collections : 0 (3 year to date)
Graphic Novels : 0 (2 year to date)

Origin by Author :
4 UK
3 USA
1 China
1 Belgium
1 Poland

Origin by Author Overall Update:

37 UK
21 USA
4 Canada, Ireland
3 Turkey, Norway
2 Various, Argentina, Israel, India
1 Germany, Egypt, Iceland, Netherlands, Jamaica, Iraq, Syria, Papua New Guinea, Oman, Italy, Tanzania, Iran, South Korea, Uzbekistan, Antigua, Singapore, Bangladesh, Russia, Albania, Belgium, China, Poland

Book of the Month :
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding



Best Book First Quarter :
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Best Book Second Quarter :
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

>195 PaulCranswick: Woo hoo! Tom Jones made book of the month!

>196 amanda4242: Yeah, Amanda, thanks for very gently pushing me towards it - it was well worth the effort and I can see why it has remained in print for 280 years.

>195 PaulCranswick: Always good to see the stats at the end of the month, Paul.
You are doing way better with the number of female writers than I do...

Tentative reading plan for August:

1 Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
2 The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata
3 Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami
4 The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima
5 The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
6 Heaven by Meiko
7 Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
8 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
9 Lost Illusions by Honore de Balzac
10 Aesop's Fables by Aesop
11 Never Again : Britain 1945-51 by Peter Hennessy
12 The Colony by Audrey Magee
13 Dead Lions by Mick Herron
14 Pure Gold : Stories by John Patrick McHugh
15 Glory by Noviolet Bulawayo
16 Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
17 The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
18 The Emigrants by WG Sebald
19 Enbury Heath by Stella Gibbons
20 The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
21 A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchmann
22 Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz
23 The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins
24 Vertigo & Ghost by Fiona Benson

>190 PaulCranswick: That is an impressive system, Paul. Wow. I hope Belle is feeling better.

>176 PaulCranswick: Another nice haul, Juan!

>199 PaulCranswick: That ought to keep you busy for a minute or two :)

Happy whatever, Paul.

Again impressive stats, Paul - thank you for sharing.
I wish you a wonderful start into the week!

>200 msf59: She seems a little bit improved today, Mark, but coughing.

>201 alcottacre: It will detain me far longer than it would your goodself, Stasia! xx

>202 SirThomas: Thank you dear Thomas.

>190 PaulCranswick: That is an amazing system Paul.
I have books stacked in four different rooms and vaguely know what is where, but I am constantly finding something "new" that I forgot I had and can't wait to read.

Dropping by, Paul! I'm not good at keeping up lately but wanted to say hi.

Tom Jones didn't make a great impression on me when I had to read it in college but at least I can say I read it! It was for an English Novel survey class that also featured Pamela, Emma, Middlemarch, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and I think one more that I'm forgetting... I'll noodle on that one.

A Distant Mirror! Oh, what a pleasure...in a weird way...that read was. I read it long enough ago to make it part of my mind's furniture. It was a perspective check for a privileged boy inclined to see our world as his buffet. Societal change? What's that to me?

Then, of course, her words painted a nuanced picture of how change wrecks stuff.

>205 hredwards: I believe I am slightly autistic, Harold, which helps me to concentrate my thoughts unduly on something I care so much about!

>206 curioussquared: Lovely to see you, Natalie.
I guess I was in the right mood for Tom Jones and the pages sort of skipped along for me. I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much as a student, but who knows. Of the other books in your class the only one I have actually read is Tess - to my utter shame I have still not read anything by George Eliot.

>207 richardderus: That has heightened my enthusiasm for it somewhat, RD. Agreed as a shared read with Stasia.

Don't know what is wrong with me but I keep stumbling over the line:

Wordle 409 6/6

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>208 PaulCranswick: Well Paul I have OCD so that helps me in a lot of ways I wouldn't expect. So I kind of understand.

Happy whatever, Paul!

>208 PaulCranswick: I do recommend Middlemarch! I liked everything we read in that class except Pamela and Tom Jones.

>211 hredwards: You join Hani there, Harold. I do feel so terribly for her as I know she suffers so much with me and my books everywhere, my habit of throwing my clothes towards the basket and missing occasionally and toothpaste marks on the double sink.

>212 alcottacre: Thanks dear Stasia. xx

>213 curioussquared: Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Don Quixote, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov & The Hunchback of Notre Dame are six gaping holes in my reading record, Natalie which I slowly need to correct.

>215 PaulCranswick: I'm 3/6 for that list, Paul. I don't know that I'll ever get to Don Quixote -- it just doesn't really appeal. But I have semi-recently acquired the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace, so I do mean to get to it at some point. Victor Hugo is a tough one for me because I feel a little obligated to try to read him in French, but that also makes his books doubly intimidating.

>216 curioussquared: I was posting over at your new dogs digs whilst you were over here, Natalie.

I am a fan of Les Miserables so I am not sure why exactly I haven't read Quasi and Esme yet but, despite speaking an English schoolboy version of French, the original would be beyond me.

>217 PaulCranswick: Forcing myself to read Les Mis or Hunchback in French would honestly probably be a wonderful refresher course for me, but I'd definitely need a dictionary for some of the more obscure words and I'm sure it would take me a few months at the very least!

>218 curioussquared: It would be a balance between achievement and reading pleasure, Natalie. I am pretty proficient in Bahasa Melayu (Malay) but I don't enjoy reading the language despite loving prattling along in it.

>215 PaulCranswick: Have read all of those, Paul, but I have a few others I want to read.
So now I am thinking about dedicating September for reading a few very big tomes.

>220 FAMeulstee: I have done quite badly this last couple of years with that sort of planning, Anita. I am thinking that one tome of that nature a month may be manageable. Lost Illusions is on the immediate horizon for me in August.

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Slight improvement on my recent efforts despite as decidedly dodgy start.

HI Paul, it is wonderful to keep up with your thread, your visitors and your reading and your amazing book acquisitions! Hope is well with you and family.

>223 mdoris: And it is wonderful to have such lovely friends visit, Mary! xx

All the tribe are in fine form, despite a visit to the dentist two days ago for Hani and Yasmyne. Belle has recovered from flu, Kyran got excellent results in his first year Uni grades, and Erni is still the best maker of coffee and fried rice known to man (well this man at least).

Hi Paul, mate, a very belated happy new thread, lol.

>225 johnsimpson: Better late than never, John, my forgetful friend. I am pleased that you are reunited with laptop and walking-stick. Love to Karen.

Wordle 411 3/6

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Bit happier today as that is more like it.

>194 PaulCranswick: Thanks for that link, Paul. I like to see what people are planning to read for the challenge each month. I will finally get to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. With a title like that, I'm pretty certain I'm in for a treat! Murakami's books are always a fun puzzle for me.

>199 PaulCranswick: Best wishes for your August reading. That's quite a lineup!

>224 PaulCranswick: Glad to hear the family is doing well. Would Erni care to share her fried rice recipe (if she even uses one)? I've tried several that were pretty bland.

>228 Donna828: I have been looking forward so much to catching up with some of the Japanese literature on my shelves, Donna. I am currently alternating between The Master of Go and Earthlings and both are characteristic of my experiences with writing from that fascinating nation. Quirky, for sure.

I will certainly speak with Erni to get her to share her recipe with me so I can share it with you! It is just before 4 am here and I couldn't sleep so I had better not bother her just now!

It has been great to have you back in the group again this year, dear lady. xx

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/343333

>230 SilverWolf28: Thanks Silver

Wordle 412 5/6

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That was a strange one until I finally woke up!

Friday additions:

634. The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam
635. The Listeners by Jordan Tannahill
636. The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono
637. The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James
638. Trouble with Product X by Joan Aiken
639. What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
640. The Washington Decree by Jussi Adler-Olsen

>233 PaulCranswick: Nice haul again, Juan! I have The Good Muslim and the rest of that trilogy here to read myself. I have never heard of any of the rest of the books, lol.

Happy whatever, Paul!

>234 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia - I actually added 8 books but one of them was replacement of another edition which had really small font and was available in a great new Vintage Earth Collection:

The Last Quarter of the Moon by Chi Zijian
The Tusk That Did the Damage
&
The Man Who Planted Trees




Really beautiful covers and I will add another 3 before the month is out.

Wordle 413 4/6

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Steady Eddie today.

>235 PaulCranswick: Beautiful covers!

>236 PaulCranswick: *gaaak* on this Wordle. *ickyicky ptooptoo*

>235 PaulCranswick: Oh, The Man Who Planted Trees! I really hope you'll get there soon.

Happy weekend's reads, PC!

>235 PaulCranswick: Those really are eye-catching.

>237 Storeetllr: They really are, Mary!

>238 richardderus: I haven't had too much success recently with the game, RD, merely grinding out 5s and 6s.
I may read it this weekend - it is less than 50 pages, I think.

>239 quondame: They were on display in the store, Susan, so they easily caught my eye.

>240 PaulCranswick: Quite short indeed. It's a concentrated dose of fabulism in service of repairing the damage one can reach. I quite loved it!

>242 richardderus: I might have it for breakfast tomorrow, RD!

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One of those with plenty of options today and somehow you never get the right one first!

I am a happy chappy today. The EPL English Premier League recommenced last night and we won our first game coming from behind to beat Wolverhampton 2-1. Our American coach has brought in two USA national team players and, whilst both did well, Brenden Aaronson will be our new star player. He was fantastic and it was slightly comical to hear chants of USA! USA! ringing out seemingly without irony across West Yorkshire.

>245 PaulCranswick:, that is funny, Paul

>246 Kristelh: It was bloody wonderful!

Wordle 415 5/6

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Always felt I would get this one but heavy weather, I guess.

Been a while since I visited, Paul. Happy to see the stats and see I’m not falling too far behind because it feels like I am this year.

>249 Familyhistorian: Always lovely to see you, Meg. Post COVID and possibly long COVID, I simply don't have the energy to be as much on the threads these days but I am trying to get back to normal. x

Weekend Additions:

641. Moscow Stations by Venedikt Yerofeev
642. Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
643. Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
644. August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
645. The Outsider by Frederick Forsyth
646. Boys in Zinc by Svetlana Alexievich
647. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
648. Between the Wars 1919-1939 by Philip Ziegler
649. The Dark Knight and the Puppet Master by Chris Clarke
650. The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder

A couple of famous Russian novels. A couple of American female authors of repute. A trio of well known literary figures writing on disparate topics - espionage, Afghanistan and the Space Race. A trio of topical
non-fictions about international relations, the labour party and the world between the wars.

>233 PaulCranswick: I've picked up a few used paperbacks of Jean Giono over the past months, still to read one of them. I have The Horseman on the Roof as my first pick as I'd like to watch the film at some stage.

Do you have a plan when you go into a bookshop or are these all the result of browsing?

I just read Vinegar Girl last month, not Anne Tyler's best but I enjoyed it.

>252 avatiakh: There is always a "list" in my mind of what I have and what I want to have but it does of course depends on availability. For example I really like Maurice Gee and Maurice Shadbolt but simply cannot get their books here. If for some reason there was a re-release locally I would of course gobble them up!

>253 Kristelh: I am something of a completist, and believe that I now only have her latest release to add to my shelves, Kristel.

>254 PaulCranswick: I think that both Gee and Shadbolt would be hard to find in a bookshop even here in New Zealand.

Wordle 415 2/6

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>254 PaulCranswick:. I am going to be reading Anne Tyler’s Amateur Marriage this month.

>255 avatiakh: Interesting, Kerry. I would have thought they were institutions there!

>256 Kristelh: Kristel, I am hugely impressed!

>257 Kristelh: I need to have a spell of reading and re-reading all of her books.

Vinegar Girl is one of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. Its Taming of the Shrew. I thought it was pretty good. Worth the read. I've read 4 of them so far. My favorite is definitely MacBeth by Jo Nesbo

I liked Vinegar Girl as well, the Hogarth Shakespeare series was fun. I think my fave was the Jeannette Winterson one.

I've not read that one, but its on the WL.

>260 mahsdad: I have Dunbar on the shelves which is apparently a retelling of King Lear.

>261 banjo123: It sounds like a series to target, Rhonda.

>262 mahsdad: I haven't read any of them, Jeff.

The ones I've read...

Nesbo - MacBeth
Chevalier - New Boy : Othello
Atwood - Hag-Seed : Tempest
Tyler - Vinegar Girl : Taming of the Shrew

I need Dunbar, Shylock is My Name by Jacobson (Merchant of Venice) and The Gap of Time by the aforementioned Winterson.

Supposedly Gillian Flynn is or has written a version of Hamlet, but I haven't seen an official announcement

>265 mahsdad: Jeff, I am impressed!

Hmmm, not sure you should be, but I'll take it. LOL.

I got Hag-Seed and New Boy in 2016 and 2017 from Early Review, so they're what started me, but 4 books in 7 years, isn't much of a flex. Ha!

Apparently, Gillian Flynn has been working on a re-telling of Hamlet.

>265 mahsdad: Ive read hag seed which ismy fav so far and read new boy have the Nesbo somewhere
. need the others eventually; looking forward to Flynns Hamlet

>199 PaulCranswick: I hope you enjoy The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. It's one of my favorites from Mishima.

>269 cindydavid4: The concept is a great one as there is such a wealth of material to work on and develop, Cindy. Of course authors have been doing just that for a good while as evidenced by A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (King Lear).

>270 ocgreg34: I hope to start it next week, Greg. I have quite a number of books almost finished at the moment and must push a few of them over the line!

Very sad to read of the passing of David McCullough and Olivia Newton-John. I remember the impression she made on young minds and those late waking hours of growing boys in that wonderful summer of 1978. She will always be twinned with Travolta in my mind and those two smash hits that they made together.
I also recall the DJ Dave Lee Travis terming her Olivia Neutron-Bomb. Gorgeous lady who will be much missed, I am sure.

Wordle 416 3/6

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That worked out well!

>272 PaulCranswick: I am also sad to hear of Olivia Newton-John's death and if I was at home would have been playing Summer Nights on my TV's Youtube app feature. But your reference to "the impression she made on young minds and those late waking hours of growing boys in that wonderful summer of 1978" did make me laugh. Were you old enough to have a teenage crush?

Mike was saying he had a poster which upset his mum, but I rather think he should stop looking - it's kind of asking to be bombarded with some very dodgy spam.

>274 elkiedee: I was twelve, Luci, and very much in love!

>265 mahsdad: Of the Hogarth Shakespeares New Boy is possibly my least favourite Tracy Chevalier book. I've also read (and enjoyed) Vinegar Girl though not Anne Tyler's best. I thought Hag-Seed was excellent. I have most others TBR and the library might have Macbeth in its ecollection.

This includes giving Howard Jacobson another chance. I have enjoyed some of his broadcasts and particularly a TV series on his take on Australian culture. But I hated his Booker winner The Finkler Question's meanness and very much the references to Jews who support Palestinian rights as self hating. And I have forgotten many of the contenders I've read and very much want to reread Possession, Nadine Gordimer and many others.

>276 elkiedee: I haven't read The Finkler Question despite it being on the shelves for the longest time. I am astonished given the negative reviews it has overwhelmingly generated that a panel decided to award a prize to it.

Ben Jonson's plays would also be worth the Hogarth treatment - Volpone would morph into a wonderful novel, I am sure.

>277 PaulCranswick: I liked both The Finkler Question and Shylock is my name. I read them too long ago to be able to comment further.
I gave up on Jo Nesbo's Macbeth even though I read all his Harry Hole books, felt like it followed too closely to the original plot line whereas Jacobson reinvented the story of Shylock. New Boy was just ok.

>278 avatiakh: Good to know, Kerry and I will read his winning book sooner rather than later. I don't know why but Jo Nesbo doesn't seem to go with MacBeth - maybe Ian Rankin or Stuart MacBride or Val McDermid may have suited it better.

>235 PaulCranswick: I love those covers!

>251 PaulCranswick: Nice, Juan!

Happy whatever, Paul!

>272 PaulCranswick: Living in Independence Missouri the birthplace of Harry Truman, I enjoyed very much David McCullough's bio of Harry. I have several of his books but Truman is the only one I've read. I enjoyed him in interviews and television also.

Olivia was my High School crush. Saw Xanadu probably 10 times the summer it came out all because of her. She will be missed.

>280 alcottacre: Some more just like it may find a way into my house before the week is out, Stasia.

>281 hredwards: I have his John Adams biography and I always felt that if a historian was to win the Nobel Prize then McCullough had a chance to win.

ON-J was wholesomely dreamy, Harold. Xanadu also featured music from ELO, one of my absolute favourite bands.

>282 PaulCranswick: I agree on Xanadu. I liked Grease, but between ONJ and ELO Xanadu was my favorite.

>283 hredwards: I remember in 1978, Olivia and John Travolta spent 16 weeks at the top of the British music charts between June and September with "You're the One That I Want" and "Summer Nights" and she was a revelation.