Charlotte's garden of reading in 2024 #4

Hi, I'm Charlotte, based in the north of England. I like to read (like all of us here, I'm sure) and enjoy using the categories to try and nudge my reading along a bit out of the usual tracks.

Plants are flowering, some are going over. Others making me wonder if I need to rethink for next year (Bright red flowers, I'm looking at you)



I'm recycling categories from last year:
Familiar Faces
New to me
Prizewinners
Women in translation
Graphic novels / manga
African Writers
History / Memoirs
Reading my own books
Plus books bought / books given away Given up on this one, as I've lost track.

Familiar Faces
I've got foxglove seedlings I planted a couple of months ago, they did quite well! Hoping some new plants might do ok for next year.


31. Funny Story
32.Lost and Found Sisters
33. In Which Matilda Halifax...
34.James
35. In Which Winnie Halifax...
36.The Execution of Justice
37.Blessed Water
38.The Shadows of London
39.Fangirl Down
40. The Cameraman

41. Blank Pages And other stories
42. The Rom-Commers
43. I Want! I Want!
44. Never Nicola
45. A Young Doctor's Notebook
46. The Virginity of Famous Men
47. My Lucky Charm
48. Lily
49. Not in Love
50. Crookstown

51. Angle of Pursuit
52. Hello Stranger
53. The Friend Zone
54. Countdown
55. Scandalized
56. The Best of All Possible Worlds
57. The Trouble with Love
58. Table for Two
59. Rocky Start
60. The Last Word

August
61. Viscount in Love
62. Addie Adjusts
63. The Love Hypothesis
64. Long Island
65. The Kiss Quotient
66. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
67. All Souls Day
68. The Winning Defense (Jamie Bennett)
69. What the Lady Wants
70. What We Know is True
71. Now You See Us

September
72.. Death at the Sign of the Rook
73. Earls Trip
74. Eye of the Tsar)
75. Portrait with Keys)
76. Business Casual
77. Hockey Wife
78. Lore Olympus 3
79. The God of the Woods

October
80. Artistic License (Lucy Parker)
81. The Fiancé Dilemma
82. Tell Me Everything
83. Death at the Sanatorium
84. No Words

New to me (authors I've not read before)

I do like it when the first bulbs come up.
---
21. Brotherless Night (lit fiction)
22. Clinch (crime)
23.The Painter's Daughters (fiction)
24. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (fiction / fantasy)
25.Exciting Times (fiction)
26. The Missing File (crime fiction)
27.How to Solve your own Murder (dit5o)
28. A Possibility of Violence
29. Nora Goes off Script (fiction)

30. Lucky Red (fiction)
31. Mirror of Our Sorrows (fiction in translation)
32. Everything's Fine (fiction)
33. Mayflies (fiction / book group book)
34. Change of Heart (romance fiction)

August
35. The Forward Book of Poetry 2024
36. The Shame Archive
37. The Ministry of Time
38. Mater 2- 10
39. Next Best Fling
40. All Souls Day
41. Nun too soon
42. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

September
43. Headshot
44. Fire pool
45. Random Violence
46. Paperless
47. Bird Monk Seding
48. Call and Response
49. Stella
50. The Alternatives

October
51. Good night Tokyo
52. The Coast Road
53. All the places by Musawenkosi Khanyile
54. Martyr!
55. Green Frog
56. The Chinese Gold Murders

Prizewinners (and nominees)

If I was going to give a prize to anything in my garden, I think it might be this miniature apple tree. If anyone has any unusual apple recipes, I'd love to hear them.

---
11. Wifedom (Women's Prize for NF longlist)
12. Soldier Sailor
13. Brotherless Night
14. I Remain in Darkness (Nobel)
15. James (author is Booker winner and 24 longlisted)

August
16. The Forward Book of Poetry 2024 (includes nominees and winners)
17. Long Island (Toibin previous Booker winner)
18. Mater 2- 10 International Booker longlist
19. Wild Houses Booker longlist
20. All Souls Day (Nooteboom prizes include Pegasus prize)
21. Enlightenment Booker longlist
22. Wandering Stars ditto
23. My Friends ditto

September
24. Death at the Sign of the Rook (Atkinson has won prizes incl Whitbread / Costa)

Graphic novels / manga
I love the vivid colour of these geranium


1. Hungry Ghost (YA)
2. Monica (horror?)
3. Insomniacs After School 2 (manga, YA)
4. Asadora 6 (manga)
5. Aya: Claws Come Out (GN)
6. Tsubaki Chou: Lonely Planet 6
7. Disaster Dates and Lucky Escapes
8. A Side Character's Love Story 17
9. The Russian Detective
10. A Side Character's Love Story 18

11. Young Hag
12. My Love Story with Yamada Kun
13. Lore Olympus 3

African Writers
This kniphofia did not last long in the garden. I think too damp. But maybe this year?
Nope. I think this one is gone. Maybe time to try again with a new plant in a new spot.



1. So Distant from my Life (Burkina Faso)
2. Season of Migration to the North (Sudan)
3. House of Stone (Zimbabwe)
4. Fire pool (South Africa) - essays
5. Random Violence (South Africa)
6. Portrait with Keys (South Africa) - memoir
7. Paperless (South Africa)
8. 1986 (South Africa) NF
9. Bird Monk Seding (South Africa)
10. Call and Response (Botswana)

11. Breasts, etc (South Africa)

To read from my shelves in this category:
The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera
The First Woman
Palace Walk
The Cry of Winnie Mandela
Three Strong Women
Going Down River Road
Beyond The Rice Fields
Season of Crimson Blossoms
Segu
Tales of the Metric System
This Mournable Body

History / Memoirs / Politics
I love these sweet peas. They smell amazing.

1. Still Pictures (essays / memoir / photography)
2. Shakespeare's Book (books about books)
3. Black Spartacus Biography
4. Some People Need Killing Memoir
5. Death in the Blood (Journalism / politics / history of medicine/ memoir)
6. The Years (Memoir / French history)
7. Wifedom (Memoir / feminism / literary history)
8. Diary of an Invasion (Journalism/ politics)
9. A Flat Place (Travel / memoir)
10. Human Rights, Robot Wrongs (AI/ Ethics)

11. In Search of Berlin (history)
12. Monsters (Lit Crit)
13. The Restless Republic (history)
14. 1986 (history)

Women in translation


---
11. Brothers and Ghosts (fiction, German)
12. Confrontations (fiction, Dutch)
13. The Communist's Daughter (fiction, Spanish)
14. The Bleeding (fiction, French)
15. I Remain in Darkness (memoir, French)
16. A Strange Woman (fiction, Turkish)
17. Body Kintsugi (fiction, Bosnian)

Reading my own (paper) books



July

1. A Young Doctor's Notebook
2. The Virginity of Famous Men
3. Lily
4. Monsters
5. Lucky Red
6. House of Stone
7. Mayflies
8. Look We Have Coming to Dover

August
1. The Forward Book of Poetry 2024
2. All Souls Day
3. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes
4. Now You See Us

September
1. Stella

October
1. Goodnight Tokyo
2. All the places
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God

Books read by month

July 31 (169)
1. A Young Doctor's Notebook
2. In Search of Berlin
3. How to Solve your own Murder
4. The Virginity of Famous Men
5. My Lucky Charm
6. Lily
7. My Love Story with Yamada Kun
8. Not in Love
9. Monsters
10. A Possibility of Violence

11. Nora Goes off Script
12. Crookstown
13. Angle of Pursuit
14. Hello Stranger
15. Lucky Red
16. The Friend Zone
17. Countdown
18. Mirror of Our Sorrows
19. House of Stone
20. Scandalized

21. The Best of All Possible Worlds
22. The Trouble with Love
23. Everything's Fine
24. Mayflies
25. Table for Two
26. Rocky Start
27. The Last Word
28. Change of Heart
29.Look We Have Coming to Dover
30. Barcelona

31. A Strange Woman

Library books read in July: 7

August 24 (193)
1. Viscount in Love
2. Addie Adjusts
3. The Forward Book of Poetry 2024
4. The Shame Archive
5. The Ministry of Time
6. The Love Hypothesis
7. Long Island
8. The Kiss Quotient
9. Mater 2- 10
10. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water

11. Wild Houses
12. Next Best Fling
13. All Souls Day
14. The Winning Defense
15. Lore Olympus
16. The Restless Republic
17. Nun too soon
18. What the Lady Wants
19. Enlightenment
20. Wandering Stars

21. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes
22. What We Know is True
23. My Friends
24. Now You See Us

Library books read this month: 10

September 17 (210)
1. Death at the Sign of the Rook
2. Earls Trip
3. Eye of the Tsar
4. Headshot
5. Fire pool
6. Random Violence
7. Portrait with Keys
8. Paperless
9. 1986
10. Bird Monk Seding

11. Call and Response
12. Business Casual
13. Stella
14. Hockey Wife
15. Lore Olympus
16. The God of the Woods
17. The Alternatives

Library Books read this month: 3

October 15 (225)
1. Goodnight Tokyo
2. Artistic License (Lucy Parker)
3. The Fiancé Dilemma
4. The Coast Road
5. All the places by Musawenkosi Khanyile
6. Martyr!
7. Green Frog
8. Tell Me Everything
9. Breasts Etc
10. Body Kintsugi

11. Death at the Sanatorium
12. The Chinese Gold Murders
13. No Words
14. Their Eyes Were Watching God
15. The Third Gilmore Girl

Library books read this month: 5

'Currently Reading'
(or books I've forgotten to finish)

All Souls' Day Reading this in memory of Anita.

Mater 2-10 Korean fiction in translation - really dense historical fiction, about 200 pages in. Nominated for the international booker.

Wrecked (IQ Novel)
This one started with a waterboarding, and I put it down.

American Indians and the American Dream: Policies, Place, and Property in Minnesota
I think this is one I will read on holiday in September

A Strange Woman
An early Turkish feminist classic, I've just hit the stream of consciousness second-half, and am questioning if I will finish.

Around the World in 80 Books: A Literary Journey (Pelican Books)
Finding the author's tone annoying, but some interesting books to add to the wishlist.

The Forward Book of Poetry 2024: Various Poets
Not sure what I've done with this...

Writing for busy readers : communicate more effectively in the real world
Keen to read, just have to er, find the time.

Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life & sudden death
Need to pick this up again!

Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism
Beautiful, heavy art book.

Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World
Need to get back to this. Should have waited for the paperback I think.

The Story of Art without Men
Great book, just got distracted!

Happy New Thread, Charlotte!

Thanks Deborah.

I forgot to add- the NYT did a readers' version of their top 100 list. I think if I was in charge I would disqualify any second book by an author with a book already in the list. That way you'd get 100 authors.
https://www.librarything.com/list/45708/all/NYT-Readers-best-of-21st-C

Happy new thread, Charlotte.

Happy new one, Charlotte!

I love the picture in >1 charl08: with the books and flowers.

>14 Helenliz: Thanks Helen. Have you finished the doggy embroidery now? What's next.

>15 katiekrug: Thanks Katie. Your thread continues to make me hungry, but there's only so many times I feel I can type that. I am the "hungry lurker"!

>16 charl08: Latest on my thread. >:-) 2 more squares to do, just baby's name & date details left.

I know what you mean about Katie's thread!

Happy new thread! You've had some impressive reads this year so far.

Happy New Thread! There's been a lot of discussion here on LT and other places about the NYT list.

Happy new thread, Charlotte.

Happy new thread, Charlotte! I second the weeding out of authors' second (or third!!) books.

Booker longlist is out!

Colin Barrett, “Wild Houses”

Rita Bullwinkel, “Headshot”

Percival Everett, “James”

Samantha Harvey, “Orbital”

Rachel Kushner, “Creation Lake”

Hisham Matar, “My Friends”

Claire Messud, “This Strange Eventful History”

Anne Michaels, “Held”

Tommy Orange, “Wandering Stars”

Sarah Perry, “Enlightenment”

Richard Powers, “Playground”

Yael van der Wouden, “The Safekeep”

Charlotte Wood, “Stone Yard Devotional

>17 Helenliz: Kudos, Helen. I'm sure the family will appreciate it.

>18 Jackie_K: Some fun ones and some heavier ones. Hoping to clear the currently reading pile at some point, too.

>19 dudes22: Yes, I think a good list is one that gets people talking.

>20 lowelibrary: Thank you!

>21 MissWatson: Right? It just seems a bit selfish to me (imho!)

Booker reading tracker:

Colin Barrett Wild Houses (requested from the library)
Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot (not out yet)
Samantha Harvey Orbital (requested from the library)
Rachel Kushner Creation Lake (not out yet)
Hisham Matar My Friends (requested from the library)
Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History (in the TBR pile)
Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars (requested from the library)
Sarah Perry Enlightenment (requested from the library)
Richard Powers Playground (not out yet)
Yael van der Wouden The Safekeep (requested from the library)

Read:
Percival Everett James
Anne Michaels Held
Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional

>16 charl08: and >17 Helenliz: - Ha! I haven't done much cooking lately but now I feel I should...

I've read My Friends and Stone Yard Devotional and am now feeling guilty for not yet having returned them to the library. I have just started reading Enlightenment on my Kindle and it's getting close to the top of the pile now - I did have a library copy out but there were reserves and it then came up as a Daily Deal - oddly, I keep seeing a copy on the new books table at that library.

I have Wild Houses on Kindle (another bargain a few months ago I think), also have a short story collection by him TBR. I loved Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room, enjoyed her essay collection and have her first two novels TBR - they both sound really interesting so I will be looking out for her new book anyway.

An exiting long list, Charlotte! I'm half way through My Friends and it is excellent. I own James and have a copy of This Strange Eventful History out from the library, so I think that will be my next read. I have holds on Wild Houses and Enlightenment at the library. Have you any Booker Long List reading plans ? The Safekeep and others interest me, but are not at my library. I'll wait to see about what I might purchase. Held will be easy to get , as it is Canadian and my library is sure to have it, as well as Wandering Stars. My library does not have Stone Yard Devotional. What did you think of James, Stone Yard Devotional and Held ?

>24 charl08: Interesting list, Charlotte. I've only read Orbital, which I loved. There are some others on my WL.

Happy new thread.

I am happy to see Tommy Orange on the list. I loved There There; I've been meaning to reread it before reading Wandering Stars

>25 katiekrug: The BLT convo was plenty to be going on with, Katie!

>26 elkiedee: I'm sure your library will forgive you holding on to the books. I bought Claire Messud's one (I had £10 off at Waterstones due to my loyalty card) but otherwise will wait for the library I think. No room for hardbacks!

>27 vancouverdeb: I'm going to try and read them all Deborah, but the ones that aren't available yet might make that a bit challenging. Glad to hear My Friends is good - I was a bit underwhelmed by his last one.

>28 BLBera: Thanks for your message, Beth. Hope you are feeling recovered from the flight issues and COVID. I've heard mixed things about Tommy Orange's new one, so was a bit surprised to see it made the list. But I will read it and make up my own mind (of course!)

Rocky Start
LT (well, Mamie) introduced me to Jennifer Crusie, and I love her sense of humour. I enjoyed this (the humour, the colourful characters) but not as much as the ones she writes on her own.

The Last Word
The fourth book in Elly Griffiths' other series (well, one of them) featuring misfit private detectives and (not so much) of Harbinder Kaur. I loved the asides about books (see the quote on my previous thread). A writers' retreat features as a key plot point which gives Griffiths plenty of fuel for reflections on writerly snobbery and workshopping. There's a murder or two as well.

Change of Heart
Body positive romance somehow managing to combine the lead setting up an ethical approach to teaching/ management in a hospital with a lot of steam. I'd read this author again.

Look We Have Coming to Dover
A poetry collection I have been meaning to read for ages. A bit disappointing to be honest. Maybe a reread will lead to more.

Barcelona
I found these to be very bleak short stories. All with an Irish focus (despite the title). Recurring themes of being haunted by the pain of animals, broken or breaking relationships, broken people.

She is in Spain for a week with members of Galway Bridge Club. Since retirement, he and Mona measure out their time in holidays and weekend breaks, often taken separately. He struggles to come up with destinations of his own. This week he visited his sister in London. Travel heightens the senses, makes small, easily forgotten details more acute, significant, imperishable. Travel makes of home a wound that accompanies him everywhere.

>24 charl08: - Maybe I don't follow this enough, but isn't it odd to have books on the list that haven't come out yet?

>31 dudes22: There are usually some books on the Booker longlist that are only published in the month that the winner is announced.

I hope to read the book by Tommy Orange too, but I have not read anything by him and they have not appealed, though admittedly I have not tried one either. Here is hoping for a pleasant surprise.

>33 vancouverdeb: I read his first book, and I think this one is linked to that. Not sure if I will get the chance to reread the first book.

A Strange Woman
I think the most joy I got out of this book was the imagined possibility people might see me reading this in public and think "well, that's appropriate"!

One of those novels that should come with student notes for me to make some kind of sense of.

The first half is centred on an angry young woman who has regular confrontations with her traditionalist mother in (70s?) Istanbul. In the second half, conventions are abandoned and the reader gets testimony about the assassination of early Turkish communists, the deathbed musings of the father of the young woman in the first half, and reflections of a (failed) attempt at becoming 'one with the people' in a shantytown. The introduction praises the author's innovation and her approach to updating the book as historical detail was released (I assume about the assassinations, which noone seems to agree about), but I could have done with a full set of footnotes.

Viscount in Love
Gotta love Eloisa James.

I'm not going to read There, There before Wandering Stars, Charlotte. I'm not even sure if I will read / like books by Tommy Orange. I've been able to pass them by so far. Thanks for the link to the voting on the Five Best Canadian Book in the 21 st century. I watched the video, and 5 books sprang to mind, but I will have to think more about it. I will submit my vote.

>36 vancouverdeb: Hi Deborah, that makes sense. I'm not sure how many I will fit in, will wait and see how the library loans and my holiday plans fit.

Weekend reading.

It's going to be a busy week with an event at work. (Assuming out visitors don't get put off by all the reports of violent rioting....)

Nice peaceful walk by the canal.

Read some more of The Restless Republic about the English Civil War and some of All Souls' Day, the book I'm reading in memory of Anita. Both are pretty dense so I'm just reading short chunks at a time.

Continued Jamie Bennett romance reading, the new one Addie Adjusts via kindle. Finished The Forward Prize 2024, just in time for the 2025 collection to come out next month. Lots of wonderful poetry but I especially liked those that were reflecting on language, here a short quote from Rowan Evans On Ēglond about reading old English.

The poem I hold in my hand is a single island,
a stone dropped in a river eleven centuries ago.

Shining, smoothed, altered by water.

It is also amorphous, a stringy mass of texts, pretexts, limbs, voices, heads, manuscripts, contested grounds, false lineages.

The Shame Archive
I picked this up from the shelf at the library not realising it was the third and latest in a series about a former MI6 employee. All very topical, lots about Russian spying, dodgy proceeds from the collapse of the USSR, sextortion and "kompromat". Pacey and gripping.

>38 charl08: Pea green Charlotte. That's lovely.

>38 charl08: Lovely picture.

>38 charl08: That is beautiful.

Gorgeous photo, and what a lovely place to walk, Charlotte.

>30 charl08: So that's where I picked up the nudge to read Jennifer Crusie. Love the humour in her books.

>38 charl08: The walk by the canal looks so beautiful and peaceful. Happy new thread, Charlotte.

I made it through This Strange Eventful History, Charlotte. What did you think of Held ? I just got The Safekeep in from the library, so I think that is next.

>39 Caroline_McElwee: >40 lowelibrary: >41 BLBera: >42 vancouverdeb: It's a lovely part of the world and it was a sharp contrast to the events in the news.

>43 Familyhistorian: I pre-ordered this one when I saw the release date was coming up on amazon. It's a fun idea to collaborate with another author for alternating chapters from different characters' POV.

>44 vancouverdeb: I'm guessing "made it through" means you didn't like it much, Deborah?
In terms of Held I had mixed feelings. The writing was beautiful but it didn't hang together terribly well for me. I think because I remembered her previous novel as so lovely I had very high expectations.

Two of the long list have come in for me at the library, Wandering Stars and Enlightenment.

I'm glad I read This Strange Eventful history, and it had value, but it was just such a slog. I put a bit of a review of it on my thread. No spoilers there. Thanks for the info on Held. The Safekeep seems good so far, and certainly not a slog. I did enjoy My Friendsvery much, but I know you have some reservations about the author, having read another book of his. Enjoy your holds that have come in. That is always exciting! I couldn't wait to get my mitts on The Safekeep when my hold came in.

>46 vancouverdeb: I have This Strange Eventful History here to read Deborah.
I was so tired yesterday I slept as soon as I came in (4) and got up around 9, had dinner and went back to bed. Today has been pretty much the same so far.

As far as I can make out the event we were organising / supporting went well. Our academic visitors said nice things and the discussion (at least from where I was sitting) never stopped. I wasn't doing half the amount of things I normally do (the academic programme was designed by another team, so we just printed it) thank goodness. And the rain (mostly) held off.
Looking forward to two days of not answering questions about anything at all and reading my book.

Glad your event went well. Enjoy your recovery.

>48 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks Caroline. It was lovely to have visitors on campus but a bit like houseguests - also lovely when they leave!

>47 charl08: It sounds like your event went well. Congrats.

Sorry you have been feeling so tired, Charlotte, but I am glad the event went well. I did finish The Safekeep and have a short review on my thread. I'm going to read a nice cozy mystery next , I think.

>50 BLBera: Thanks Beth. My boss reminded us that we have been talking about this for two years, so nice to have it behind us.

>51 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deborah. It was a lot of extra hours, so I'm using up the flexitime now :-)

I thought I'd posted reviews, but clearly not. I will try and remember what I wrote the last time!

The Ministry of Time - new to me
I loved this book, a time travel mystery set in a dystopian version of future London. The narrator, an ambitious Cambodian-British government employee, is asked to work with a man from the past - a 19th century Arctic explorer. I remember thinking there was lots here for a book group to discuss - from the ethics of the original project (does it make it any better that the people brought to the future were all known to die early?) to the narrator's involvement in the project.
It's really funny too.

I became ecstatic on spite. This firstly manifested as sitting at the kitchen table, eating an entire jar of pickled onions with a pair of chopsticks. I needed vinegar. After I'd given myself stomach cramps, I threw up and went for a post-puke run.

When I came back, I showered aggressively, painting the bathroom with soapy water. I wanted to bite a train, or maybe fuck one. I wanted to beat myself bloody in the burial chamber of the pyramid of Giza. As this sort of thing was prohibited by the laws of man and the Ministry, I decided to do the next best thing, which was go to the pub

The Love Hypothesis - familiar faces
A reread of this academic-set romance. Still liked it, even if it is as realistic as those billionaire ones.
(Who's here for realism, anyway?)

...and while you were talking, I had a vision of your future in academia."
Olive wrapped her arms around Anh. "What vision?"
"You were a high-powered researcher, surrounded by students who hung on your every word. And you were answering a multiparagraph email with an uncapitalized no."
"Nice. Was I happy?"
"Of course not." Anh snorted. "It's academia."

Long Island - award winner

Behind the bar, he was a prisoner. Anyone could say what they liked to him. He would never be able to predict when it would come. It could be a lone customer on a bar-stool after a few drinks saying in an insinuating tone, 'I hear that Lacey one went back to America.' On one crowded night, someone he had never seen before, as he was gathering his change from the counter, muttered, 'I'd say you're better off without that Eilis Lacey...

Colm Toíbin's sequel to the amazing Brooklyn. I wasn't sure what / why the point was here really though. From the beginning of the book we know that Tony has had an affair and a baby is about to be born. It's not really clear what Eilis is going to do, and we're revisiting (again) the closed world of the small Irish town, just a decade or so later. I'd like someone to explain to me Nancy's actions at the end. Surely that's not the recipe for a great future?

The Kiss Quotient (familiar faces)
Another reread, this time of one of Helen Hoang's.
Question: if you were setting up a foundation, what would you give grants to?

Mater 2- 10
Very long and (for my money) overly exposition-y Korean bestseller that was nominated for the international Booker list. The afterword talks about the author's meeting with a man in Pyongyang who had a similar history to the characters in the novel - working for the (Japanese) rail industry and then fleeing north at the end of the war (WW2). He wanted to write a long book engaging with workers and their concerns in Korean history.

Could quite easily have been two separate books, one about a man carrying out a protest on a tower in present-day Seoul, and the other the history of a family linked to communist / worker protest in Japanese-occupied Korea. Having said that, fascinating on the role of the US in Korea in suppressing worker-led opposition to the occupation, and also rather horrifying on the efficiency of the state (first Japanese, then US occupiers) in capturing and torturing political opponents. I'm not sure what the magical realism bit (some of the characters can see dead people) added, but this was probably the most novelistic part of the book.

'Nuna, you said that between Jeon Tae-il taking his life in the 1970s and Juik Hyeong taking his in 2003, Korea hasn't changed at all.'
'Wasn't I right?'
Jino asked her the same question he'd asked his grandmother.
"Then why do we have to keep fighting?'
Yeongsuk sat down next to him.
'It's okay to stop now, if it's too much.'
He hung his head for the longest time before answering.
'It's not really about me, it's about the three hard years that my colleagues down there went through. And it's not just us. They say there are ten million workers.'
'Where'd the company vanish to after laying everyone off? The Philippines. They went looking for a country with cheaper, more-docile workers with even less power than us, and moved their entire operation over there. They just started, and already dozens of Filipino workers have been injured or killed.'

The Ministry of Time sounds like one I would like. Not sure about Long Island; I loved Brooklyn but I don't know why we need a sequel.

>53 charl08: Hello Charlotte, I loved Brooklyn when I read it ten years ago. My local library has Long Island. I've put put it on my never ending list.

>55 BLBera: I think it's hard to follow such a powerful book. I would have liked more about Enniscorthy without Eilis' "dilemma" being the centre.

>56 Ameise1: He writes beautifully, Barbara. I think lots of people will be picking this up. The copy I borrowed has been requested by someone else!

>53 charl08: I really liked The Ministry of Time as well, and agree about the humor -- I loved the author's writing style!

>53 charl08: Taking a BB for The Ministry of Time

I did enjoy Brooklyn and Long Island, but less so Long Island. Could there be a third in the series to tie things up ?

>58 christina_reads: I read in the acknowledgements that the book was written in the first instance just to entertain a small group of friends, and I think the tone reflects that (in a good way).

>59 lowelibrary: Hope you get as much enjoyment from it as much as I did.

>60 vancouverdeb: I did hear Toíbín being interviewed and they asked him the question. He pointed out given how long it took him between the two books, he'd be lucky to make it to the third! (He clearly has a sense of humour.)

Hi Charlotte, finally stopping by here!

>38 charl08: Beautiful picture!

>53 charl08: I have only recently discovered Ali Hazelwood and read three novellas by her. I liked them, but they were unrealistic indeed. Still, I'm looking forward to reading her novels when I am in the right mood.

...oh, and I also looked at your previous thread and saw that you went to Edinburgh. How wonderful!
The Berlin book sounds great, too. I don't know Berlin well, but I love the little I know. It is a great city for sure.

>53 charl08: Sounds like Toibin was encouraged to write a sequel so they could film it Charlotte. I do have it, but need to get to Brooklyn first.

>62 MissBrangwen: Mood reading is definitely a "thing" with me too.
I've only been to Berlin once, but am hoping to go again - fascinating place.

>63 Caroline_McElwee: You do wonder, don't you. I have been collecting (second hand mostly) his novels in paperback, but I think I might give this one a miss.

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
I loved this - thanks to Beth over in the 75ers I think - fabulous look at the life of a woman in her 50s trying to get a job in 2008 through one of those 'job support' schemes. Reminded me a bit of Alan Bennett's monologues in Talking Heads (this may be because it's A level results this week, and we studied this for English Lit).
No one else gets a chance to speak, but we still get different perspectives on a life. I think this would work well as a commuting book, as it's broken up into separate interviews / meetings.

Previous Employment

Employer Name: The factory of little lamps. Job Title: Whatever job needs to be done.

Supervisor Name: The good one or the bad one?

Employer Address: You cross the George Washington Bridge.

Dates Employed: 1980-2006

Reason for Leaving: The factory left to Costa Rica.

Position(s) Applying for: All the positions available.

How did you hear about this position?

Neighbors, families, friends, La Escuelita.

What days are you available for work?

Every day.

What hours or shifts are you available for work?

All the hours. All the shifts. Except between 8 to 10 at night, because I see the telenovelas. And not before 7 in the morning because I need the sleep. After 10 at night, I am not so good. On Sundays, I like to clean and do laundry and visit Ángela and Hernán and the children. I have to come home by 5 to make the dinner. But yes, I am available all the hours

Wild Houses

The crow flew down into the garden and began to pick its way across the grass. A crow's coat was black from a distance but if you got near enough and the light caught the plumage right you could see that the feathers were a deep navy folded through with tints of iridescence, like petrol in water. It was the way the feathers were layered, tight and overlapping as tiles of slate, that multiplied the navy into blackness.

This is the first book from the Booker24 longlist I've read since the list was announced.

Gripping story set in small-town Ireland. The focus is on three characters caught up in a drug deal gone wrong, pretty much against their will
This is not a plot that would normally appeal to me, but here I was worried about what was going to happen to the "nice" characters (and hoping for some kind of comeuppance for the awful ones). The grim characters are so well drawn, believably awful rather than cartoonishly extreme.

Mulrooney looked to be a decent bit older than Gabe, likely his late forties. He had a woollen cap on, an open coat, a paunch under his jumper, curly tints of grey in the hair over his ears and mild brown eyes already fixed thoughtfully on Dev. Dev supposed that whatever a gangster should look like - scars, tattoos, a coarsened, daunting physique - Mulrooney was not it.

Booker longlist tracker - update

Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot (ordered my own copy)
Samantha Harvey Orbital (bought my own copy)
Rachel Kushner Creation Lake (not out yet)
Hisham Matar My Friends (requested from the library)
Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History (started)
Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars (out from the library)
Sarah Perry Enlightenment (out from the library)
Richard Powers Playground (not out yet)
Yael van der Wouden The Safekeep (requested from the library)

Read (in order of preference)

Percival Everett James
Charlotte Wood Stone Yard Devotional
Colin Barrett Wild Houses
Anne Michaels Held

I am so happy to see that you loved How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water. I loved it and saw Angie Cruz talk about writing it. The structure is so interesting.

Thanks for your Booker update, Charlotte. My library has The Stone Yard Devotional on order and I've put a hold on it. Nice review of Wild Houses , I have a hold on it as well . I recently got Held from the library, so I think that will be my next read.

>68 BLBera: It was lovely, Beth. I'd like my own copy.

>69 vancouverdeb: I am struggling a bit with the giant hardbacks, Deborah. I did have a moment this weekend where I wondered about reading the prize longlist the year after, so I could just read them all in paperback. (End of moan)

It was unforgivable, as if she were writing a novel, a trumped-up story in which you could twist the truth to suit your own needs and say, 'At that moment Urraca thought ...' though you would never, ever know what she'd really been thinking. You could read a dozen books about courtly life in the Middle Ages and still not find out what you wanted to know what they smelled like, how they talked, how they made love. Whatever you said would be pure speculation. In a novel you could let a mediaeval queen have an orgasm, but was an orgasm then the same as one now? How different had people been back then? And by the same token, how similar? Their sun had revolved around the earth, the earth had been the centre of the cosmos, and the cosmos lay safely in the hands of God; every- thing was as it should be, the world was part of a divine order and everyone had a place in its hierarchy - all of which was so far removed from our own reality that you could barely understand it, much less empathise with it. On the other hand, aren't there physical constants in the human race that enable you to imagine -anything you want?

I finished All Souls Day, read in memory of Anita.

Found it very dense, I can imagine reading as a pair would be a great way to get more from the book. I loved the reflections on walking Berlin. I've only visited once but the obvious changes since the book was published made for interesting comparisons.

It's going to be another one of those typical winter days in Berlin, a grey twilight between two nights. ....a cup of coffee at Zoo station, standing at one of those round chest-high tables without chairs that give you such a fine view of the homeless, the Vietnamese cigarette vendors, the security men with their muzzled dogs, the sawdust, the vomit, the Romanian clean-up crews, the junkies, the beggars, the all-pervading smell of sausage, the newspaper peddlers in their down-at-heel shoes shouting 'Bildzeitung', a new day of hustle and bustle, all very real, Metropolis employees at work while he was their servant, portraitist and archivist, drinking his coffee with Bulgakov's cat, standing six feet tall beside him, its furry arm around his shoulder....

I liked the discussions about the history thesis on an ancient Spanish Queen. The possibilities of history vs fiction when sources are limited are always interesting to me.

Overall I thought it worked well as a book to remember Anita, as I had met up with her and with Frank when I went to Berlin. Also as it has plenty of reflections about the Netherlands.

'Compassion.'

Arno had said it. Or had he used the German word Mitleid? And was Mitleid the same as compassion? Arthur asked Victor.

'It's the same as the Dutch mededogen. To feel someone else's suffering. A mixture of pity and love. A mantle to wrap around someone else, like St Martin.'

'My meaning exactly,' said Arno. He tried pronouncing the word. 'Mededogen.'

'But compassion for what?' Zenobia asked.

'For the past. For that loaf of bread. And for Galinsky. For things that die, that die out. The last time I talked to...' He looked over at Arthur.

Happy belated birthday James Baldwin (he would have been 100 this month)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/books/james-baldwin-life-in-pictures-annivers...

>72 charl08: Thanks for posting that Charlotte. Some new to me photos. Love the one of him dancing. He was certainly a lover and liver of life, no matter how tough it could be.

I think I have preferred the big Hardcovers from the Booker Longlist , Charlotte, those being My Friends and This Strange Eventful History. I read 20 pages of Held and though I thought it would be a relatively short and thus easy read, it bored me so much I went to Enlightenment, which, like you, I am finding weird, but it's keeping my interest. Moan away, I do!

>73 Caroline_McElwee: There are some lovely ones, Caroline. Funny the person the family sees is so often quite different from the public figure.

>74 vancouverdeb: It's not so much the content as the weight, Deborah! I should be counting my blessings I can access them from the library at all, of course.

The Restless republic
Due to the weird english history school course design, I can tell you quite a bit about Hitler and Stalin but almost nothing about the English civil war (when Charles I was executed). I really liked Keay's approach to this period. She uses individual characters' stories (and not particularly the obvious ones) to highlight how Cromwell took over and how the Protectorate collapsed with the return of royalty via Charles II.

In the process, she covers coffee shop culture, the development of colonialism via attempts to conquer Hispaniola, press freedoms and a divine inspired (?) prophetess. Here too are some of the elite families and their experiences of conflict including several of the period's impressive elite women who ran castle defences during their husbands' absences. It's accompanied by some entertaining images which even worked on my kindle edition.
Recommended.

Well, I'm 3/4 of the way through Enlightenment it's a strange book. And not that interesting either! Argh! My library has almost all of The Booker Longlisted books, or has them on order. I'm still waiting for quite a few though.

I just finished it >77 vancouverdeb: Deborah.

I had mixed feelings about this Booker longlisted novel (Enlightenment). I've not read Perry before as the book blurbs didn't sound like my kind of book (plus the hype surrounding The Essex Serpent really put me off.

Although set in the 20th and then 21st century, the tone feels like something more historical. The book centres around an antiquated baptist sect that still expects women to wear headcoverings in church, which helps with that atmosphere of being out of time (or at least, out of the modern).

Split into three periods around three astronomical events, Thomas, a semi-lapsed member of the congregation and local newspaper columnist, stumbles upon a mystery about a former resident who may or may not have discovered a comet.

After the early chapters, the archival/astronomical mystery pulled me into the story, but there is a lot of description to read before any kind of resolution. Some of the nature writing is lovely.

I assume she's reaching for deeper things about love and reciprocity given how much that came up, but this felt a bit forced and a stretch for me as a reader. I felt it was overlong and could have done with a trim of 100 pages or so.

Morning on Lower Bridge Road, the house taking in its solitary hour of sun: scent of good coffee, and of toast; scent of tulips sorrowing over the lip of their vase. Vagrant light passing over the diary with its broken spine, and arriving at the sheets of paper on which Dines was bringing Maria Văduva into English: I would have been a sinner, he'd written, had I ever had the chance.

So not one I'd shortlist.

Updated Booker read list

Percival Everett James
Charlotte Wood Stone Yard Devotional

Colin Barrett Wild Houses
Anne Michaels Held
Sarah Perry Enlightenment

Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot (bought my own copy)
Samantha Harvey Orbital (bought my own copy)
Rachel Kushner Creation Lake (not out yet)
Hisham Matar My Friends (borrowed from the library)
Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History (started)
Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars (out from the library)
Richard Powers Playground (not out yet)
Yael van der Wouden The Safekeep (currently reading from the library)

>76 charl08: I added this to my impossibly long wish list. To me, this period is hard to grasp, so this sounds like an interesting approach.

>78 charl08: Good comments, Charlotte. They don't make me want to rush out and read this one.

>80 MissBrangwen: I've seen others comment on the way the book feels like it is "out of time" even though the earliest of the three time stamps is 1997 (although letters from the historical astronomer are included in the book too).

>81 BLBera: I think this author is just not for me! I've seen some comments from others who love this book. I wouldn't be surprised if it is shortlisted for the Booker.

>75 charl08: I agree about big hardbacks, Charlotte! I struggle to hold them now (not helped by ongoing RSI meaning I wear a wrist splint a lot of the time). My goodness I sound old. I just love my kobo, which doesn't get any heavier despite holding hundreds and hundreds of books (and I can enlarge the font if I need to. Creak).

>75 charl08: and >83 Jackie_K: I'm quite daunted by really large print books. It took me several years to start reading one of the most recent biographies of Sylvia Plath, Red Comet and I was really pleased when, just as I started reading, it came up as a Kindle Daily Deal (a few months ago). I'm planning to hang on to the hardback, for photos etc, but at over 1100 pages with footnotes etc, it was definitely easier to read on my Kindle.

>83 Jackie_K: Great to hear that your kobo makes reading easier.

I don't have RSI but have had some issues with my dominant hand side recently. I have had had to adjust/ think about much more how I sit to read (and what I do in the garden). I hadn't realised until the last year just how much I list to the right!

>84 elkiedee: I do get quite annoyed by hardback books which seem to be deliberately printed in a massive font to make a large book (and presumably make people think it's worth paying the ££££). Although as I'm writing this I'm wondering how many people rely on the hardbacks who need a bigger font... I do love a neat hardback: the library copy came of The Safekeep and I was tempted to just return it and get my own copy, it has been printed so nicely.

When Tommy Orange's followup to There There, Wandering Stars made the Booker longlist, my library copy was promptly requested back. I bumped this up the reading order. If you've heard of the book at all you'll know it is linked to the previous one. If you've not read either and are avoiding spoilers, avoid the comments below.

The book is split into two halves, the historical first half tracing all the way back to the 19th century, attempts to wipe out the tribes and imprisonment at Star garrison in Florida. There's a lot here, but I found the characters memorable: if anything would have liked more here (for once a book I want to be longer). The second half picks up after the shooting of There There and is heartbreaking.

I had heard mixed things about the novel, with discussions about whether you needed to read There There first to get the most out of it, whether this one even stood up as a free standing novel. I really admire it and hope it is shortlisted.

It was one thing to be grateful for the ancestors, and another thing to know them on the page. I always felt like we didn't do good enough. That our family line was in some way weak. And yes weakened by the effects of history, colonization, historical trauma. But also not strong enough to pass down the traditions or language successfully. Because we lacked something. I hadn't considered everything that had happened. How far back it'd been happening to us. We come from prisoners of a long war that didn't stop even when it stopped. Was still being fought when my mom helped take over Alcatraz. I was part of the fight too. So were my grandchildren. But surviving wasn't enough. To endure or pass through endurance test after endurance test only ever gave you endurance test passing abilities. Simply lasting was great for a wall, for a fortress, but not for a person.

So my preferences of those I've read so far:
My shortlist
Percival Everett James
Charlotte Wood Stone Yard Devotional
Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars

My not-shortlist
Colin Barrett Wild Houses
Anne Michaels Held
Sarah Perry Enlightenment

Well, Charlotte, I finished Enlightenment last night , and have yet to create a review. It had promise initially, but I think of the four I have read from the Longlist, it's least favourite. My Friends is head and shoulders about the other 3 I have read.

You are doing well with your Booker Longlist reading.

Great comments on Enlightenment and Wandering Stars. I took Held back to the library after reading 20 pages. Maybe I'll try it again if it is short listed.

I've created an LT List

https://www.librarything.com/list/45765/all/Booker-Prize-Longlist-2024

I admire your commitment to reading the booker list each year.
>76 charl08: That looks good, focusing on individuals in a boarder sweep of history. My proudest Civil war fact is that when Charles II tried to hire a boat to take him to France after the battle or Worcester, none of the sailors in my home town would take him. I quite like the contrariness of them.

>87 vancouverdeb: I read your review Deborah, I think I liked this book a bit more than you. Hops your next read is more successful!

>88 elkiedee: That's great, thanks for sharing that.

>89 Helenliz: Well, I try. There are usually a couple I miss. I still haven't read The Sellout.

I really enjoyed The Restless Republic,a really entertaining read as well as fascinating history. I was thinking about the crime fiction series The Seeker at several points. Sometimes the extreme tension made me wonder if people were really so suspicious of each other, and if it was all a bit overdone, but the NF backs it up.

In terms of your fact: Keay emphasised just how much dissent was about. Even shortly after the king was killed, some of the legal signatories to the order were terrified when they walked in public, as they had been attacked in the street.

Thanks Charlotte. I think that you did enjoy Enlightenment more than me, yes. I do enjoy books about religious faith, but this just did not work for me. I really enjoyed a book by Darcie Hossack Friesen, Mennonites Don't Dance, and just ordered her new book, Stillwater . I was so delighted that a hold came in for me at the library today, Death at The Sign of the Rook. Just what I need, I hope. I'll go check out Elkiedee's Longlist . Thanks!

>91 vancouverdeb: I've added Mennonites Don't Dance to the wishlist, Deborah. Thank you! I hope you enjoy Death at the Sign of the Rook. I'm waiting on a library copy, but it shouldn't be too long as there are many copies new in circulation.

Trying to work out which books to take on holiday.

As well as the digital ones, at the moment the selection is:
Orbital
Headshot
And then I don't know...

>86 charl08: Hopelessly behind, but Hi! I loved There, There so now I have to add Wandering Stars to the WL. Book bullet! Thanks. : )

Hope you have fun on holiday and, yes, you should add another book to your list. ; )

I'm so pleased that you added Mennonites Don't Dance to your wishlist, Charlotte. I hope you enjoy it is much as I did . I'll let you know how I enjoy her newer book , Stillwater, when I get to it. I am enjoying the new Kate Atkinson very much. I can't chose for you between Orbital or Headshot as I confess, neither look enjoyable to me. Enjoy your holiday. Where are you going on holidays too ?

I LOVED There There and have been wanting to read it again before Wandering Stars. Your comments about WS are the most positive I've seen.

>94 Berly: >96 BLBera: Hope you get as much from it as I did. (Enjoy seems wrong to say when the characters have such a hard time - but you know what I mean?)

>95 vancouverdeb: I'm at the airport tomorrow and am hoping that there will be an airport paperback edition of the new Jackson Brodie. Fingers crossed!

My Friends
I've been thinking about this book for a couple of days. I've read Matar's previous books, liked both the memoir and fiction, but kind of samey (endlessly circling a family member's disappearance).

This one flips the focus to the person disappearing, a young man who is identified at a protest and has to abandon his foreign degree and go into hiding. For years he can't even tell his family in Benghazi just why he can't come home.

It's very readable, as the main character reflects in his choices wandering around London after the Arab Spring and the collapse of Gaddafi's regime. But I felt like I'd been here before, so not a "stand out" read for me.

And there was no point, he maintained, in owning a book unless one intended to reread it multiple times.

'In which case, a handsome edition,' he said. 'But to have an endless number of books sit on the shelf just because one has read them or might one day read them is absurd. Besides, is there anything more depressing than a wall of books? But you, my dear, disagree. Like Montaigne, you believe that the very presence of books in your room cultivates you, that books are not only to be read but to be lived with.'When he would visit me upstairs and his eyes would fall on my wall of books, something resembling delight and regret would pass across his face, as though what he secretly found troubling was not the sight of a large number of books but the stability" implied.

Have been travelling with my dad, cut down on my opportunities to read.

Now You See Us
I picked this up in a recent visit to Indy bookshop Ebb and Flo. The novel follows three Phillipino women working as "helpers" in Singapore. One is back after the death of her nephew: we slowly realise why she has come back.* Another is missing her partner, a third is new to the job and working for the boss from hell. The blurb promised a mystery (did another woman kill her boss?) but the focus really is on the crimes perpetrated against the migrant workers. I've enjoyed this author before and would pick up her next book.

*Unexpected link to recent NF read Some People Need killing here.

Death at the Sign of the Rook
I loved this, was annoyed each time I had to put it down during my journey.

The deer congregated near the church at night and were usually still there in the morning, wandering around in the graveyard. He thought of them as part of his flock, although obviously they were, technically speaking, a herd. There were many more of them than the human worshippers in St Martin's, indeed in all of his parishes put together. The most congregants he ever managed was for his annual service on St Francis's Day, when he held a service to bless people's pets. It was always lovely. He wished the pets would just come on their own every Sunday.

I think I'll have to go find the TV version of Jackson Brodie to watch again.

Earls Trip
Romantic fiction, technically regency but I would say very loosely so. Fun and mostly frothy, so the parent with dementia was an interesting note. I'd read the next one, coming soon.

>100 charl08: I can't wait for this!

I haven't read anything by Matar and have heard good things about My Friends, so I may give it a try.

I'm so glad you enjoyed - and found Death at the Sign of the Rook. It was a fun read, perfect for you while on holidays. I did finish Stillwater by Darcie Friesen Hossack and I loved it. I'm curious to where you will put My Friends on your Booker List, once you get a chance to do so. Enjoy your time away with your dad.

Eye of the Tsar
Picked this up second hand, thanks to LT I can report this is the second time I've read it. Russian, set in the 1920s. Pekkala is asked to find the lost gold of the Tsar by the same men who sent him to the gulag.

Headshot
One of the Booker longlist, set in the finals of a young women's boxing competition. I wasn't expecting to have much time for this as I don't understand the appeal of boxing. I still don't understand it, but I did admire how the author used the frame of the fights to talk about a lot more than boxing. All of the young women are ambitious in different ways, approach the fights differently and have contrasting experiences of defeat and loss. Bullwinkel pulls in their pre and post fight choices, and those of their families, making this (I think) much more than a novel about a sport. The fragments of memory and future lives put together a collage of women's lives, briefly connected by boxing.

Outside the Reno casinos is a walkway along the Truckee River where men flip prostitution calling cards at men passing by. The cards have fuzzy, 1980s-looking nudes on them, and numbers to 'the women's direct lines'. The card flippers slap the cards against one another to get the attention of the passers-by. The thrum of the flipping cards sounds like a buzzing cloud of bugs. To walk the Reno river walk is to walk a gauntlet of card slapping. The sound the cards make as they are slapped almost sounds like hands clapping. Some men take the cards and stick them in their pockets, while other men take the cards and then immediately throw them on the ground. In this way, the Reno river walk ground is littered with discarded Carlas and Emmas and Sarahs and Claudettes.

My updated preferences from those of the Booker longlist I've read so far:
My shortlist
Percival Everett James
Charlotte Wood Stone Yard Devotional
Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars
Ruth Bullwinkel, Headshot

My not-shortlist
Hisham Matar My Friends
Colin Barrett Wild Houses
Anne Michaels Held
Sarah Perry Enlightenment

>102 BLBera: Hope you like it as much as I did. Definitely worth reading if you've not read Matar before.

>103 vancouverdeb: I've updated my list now Deborah. Not sure I will manage many more books from the list before they announce the shortlist. Although the Kushner is on my kindle, so...

Hmm. The Bullwinkel was not on my WL -- because of the boxing -- but you have piqued my interest.

I've been in Cape Town for a week. Staying with family for the most part, but I booked a hotel in town for a couple of nights to catch the Open Book book festival. I bought a few books.


Fire pool
How to be a revolutionary
And Wrote my Story Anyway
Portrait With Keys
Call and Response: stories
Simunye One We Are
Weeping Becomes a River
Paperless
A Soft Landing
Little Suns
No Be From Hia
Three Egg Dilemma
Breasts etc

>108 charl08: Oh how wonderful! I hope the books don't tip your baggage too far over the allowance!

>108 charl08: "a few" she says! That's an impressive looking pile. Hope you've been having a lovely time.

>108 charl08: That it is an impressive haul! Enjoy!

>107 BLBera: I had low expectations because of the boxing, but it reminded me of other novels I've read that use that fragmentary style (none of which I can think of now).

>109 Jackie_K: I am hoping that too!

>110 Helenliz: I went to hear several of the authors and was persuaded, especially since I wasn't sure how many I would be able to find in the UK (yet).

>111 MissWatson: Thanks, will do.

Hooray for book festivals! Nice haul. None of them look familiar to me, so I expect to learn about some new-to-me authors when you read and comment on them.

>104 charl08: I've read The Red Coffin and I liked it.
>108 charl08: Nice book haul.

Happy Tuesday, Charlotte.

>108 charl08: Great haul! I'm looking forward to your comments on these books when they come.

Fire pool
Interesting series of essays originally published in other publications, some South African, others more international. The author is an English lit academic and reflects on everything from his own school experiences to the legacy of Coetzee on Cape Town University's English department (an essay rather undermined by the comment at the end, written for the book, where he says no one is studying Coetzee any longer.) I think the most interesting one for me was the essay on South Africa's nuclear policy. I hadn't realised that at one point they were in the small band of nations wanting to expand their nuclear power collection.

Further down Buitenkant is more evidence to suggest that he is widely read beyond the corridors of academe. In the Book Lounge on Roeland Street, there are no works by Coetzee on the shelves. A little sign tells you to ask at the counter, as if for 19th-century pornography. Coetzee, the staff informed me, is a regularly shoplifted author. This makes him part of an exclusive club that includes William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Gabriel Garcia Marquez...and Paulo Coelho. Those manning flea-market stalls in Greenmarket Square know that these literary goods can be shifted quickly...

Random Violence
The first in a series about a private investigator who returns to Johannesburg after travelling. Jade is the daughter of a policeman who was killed in the line of duty.
Gradually we discover why Jade left, and (inevitably) the link between her new case.

Portrait with Keys
This author was one of the speakers at the book festival. This is one of his earlier books, non-fiction, an exploration of the city of Johannesburg. Broken into small sections, often less than a page long, Vladislavić roams the city, often on foot, describing the locals, changing environment and city incidents. The story of the burglar who ended up in the gorilla cage at the zoo illustrates the comic edge to his stories.

Genpei Akasegawa's most beautiful sculpture is A Collection of End Bits of Lead from a Mechanical Pencil, a small and delicate china bowl containing a frittering of pencil leads, none of them more than five millimetres long. These are the stubs that were too short to be gripped by the mechanism of the propelling pencil with which he draws and so had to be ejected. If you look closely you can see - or imagine - the flat edge at one end and the rounded edge at the other where the lead pressed against the paper, a contour that captures the size of the hand that held the pencil, the strokes it preferred to make, its chosen paths across the page, unique as a brush stroke. What this bowl of leavings represents is time spent, work done, measured against an insignificant deficit.

(Of course, I cannot be sure that this sculpture is evidence of an actual process. It is presented as the accumulated labour of years, but it may have been manufactured in ten minutes, which is all you would need to snap ten cases of unused pencil leads into fragments. I take the artist at his word.)

Had missed you were in Cape Town Charlotte. I look forward to hearing what you think of the books you are hauling home!

Argh, I seem to have lost my responses. Sorry!

>113 BLBera: It was the first one I've been to in ages, and I'd only read stuff by Vladislavić before, so lots of new-to-me authors. Also a little break for me/ my dad in the middle of the trip.

>114 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara, hope you are still enjoying your retirement.

>115 MissBrangwen: Thanks! I'm trying to finish a few before I leave so that I don't have to haul them home / work out where to put them on my shelves.

>118 Caroline_McElwee: I hadn't said much as I wasn't sure if my dad would get on the plane. This is his first trip back without my mum in decades. As it was, it was all smooth sailing and he's been in great form. Still, bittersweet without her, she loved it here.

Nice Haul, Charlotte. I'm really glad that your dad got on the plane, and that it's been smooth sailing. Enjoy your holiday. I know you both miss your mum so much.

Thanks Deborah. I am also waiting for the shortlist next week! Do you have any ideas about which ones will make it?

Paperless

"A writer is a writer is a writer." He cleared his throat. "You write to communicate to the people, to the reader. In any medium, in any form that suits your message best, you write. Sartre did it. He wrote academic papers, philosophy tracts, biographies, plays, novels. Iris Murdoch did that expertly for the longest time, writing philosophical books and penetrating, serious literary fiction. Your James Baldwin wrote fiction and essays. It's the same with Graham Greene and VS Naipaul. Nawal El Saadawi. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Chinua Achebe. Lewis Nkosi writes fiction and literary essays. You won't be the first, nor the last. I do it. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. But it's better than not doing it, it you can do it."

I heard this author speak as part of the book festival I went to last week. He put me off by declaring that he was the only person to wrote a novel in this setting, a campus style novel set in the early 2000s about African experiences in Oxford. It's such an academic line (my research is important because no one else has done this) and it raised my hackles because it had (or seemed to have) so much Oxbridge snobbery bound up in it as he acknowledged that there were novels about Manchester and London...

So I guess I started the book with the author at a disadvantage. And I can't say I finished the book won over. There's so much going on here and so many characters that the author (never mind the reader) seems to have lost sight of his plot. The main character Luzuko is (like the author) writing a PhD thesis on African politics. Alongside this, Bulongo a fellow South African, is in the country without papers, working illegally to save enough to return a success. The two narratives run side by side with Bulongo running from the police and Luzuko dealing with slightly politer forms of racism in the college bar. Sisiwa doesn't seem to know which characters or themes to follow, and the result is he chucks them all in. Loss of
a parent, the impact of political exile, academic racism, classism and national rivalries all get touched upon, but without much of a bearing on either of the two main characters' choices or character development. The tragedies that affect some of the characters are difficult to care about as we've spent hardly any time with them.The death of Notsume's mother and Josh-the-Sudanese-doctor comes with little weight.

Sisiwa's prose is often clunky and the endless details of the streets of Oxford geography made for dull reading for me. He doesn't describe the city from the perspective of the student or the unpapered migrant so much as list it. The point where the book made sense for me was in the discussion of writing. Something about the desperation of the unpublished postgraduate enabled the author to convey passion. I finished the book thinking that it is in many ways a typical first book, but also that like the characters, it was stuck between identities: in the book's case, a character driven novel and a novel of ideas around exile.

"But I did not see myself as a refugee. I was a freedom fighter. I had been displaced from my own country. For me then, freedom could come the next day, or the following week. It had been coming 'tomorrow' ever since I was displaced from my home country in 1976. And it continued to come 'the following day' throughout my exile. Until that 'tomorrow' eventually became 1990. And so, until my freedom came, I lived in other lands - lands that considered me foreign.

"The challenge of my paperlessness is how foreign lands - Britain and the rest of Europe, in this context - consider Otherness. Their perceptions of the other are fixed. They feel 'other' must be there, because he is not us, not 'we'.

That's an impressive book haul from the festival, Charlotte. Best of luck whittling it down before you come back.

Speaking of book festivals, I got an email from the Edinburgh Book Festival this morning telling me that many of their online events are still available online https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/events?event_date=on-demand.

>124 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg. I'm trying!

I visited the Irma Stern museum, her house converted into a gallery. Beautiful, recommended if you are in Cape Town.

>125 charl08: That looks great Charlotte. Glad your dad is enjoying it. The first time revisiting somewhere without a loved one is always hard, but hopefully will become a joyous experience.

>126 Caroline_McElwee: It was lovely, Caroline. Such a contrast to my last visit, when we went to the massive new modern art museum on the Waterfront. I bought At Home with Irma Stern at the gallery (they didn't have many postcards).

1986
This was a fascinating take on a very difficult year of South African history. The author follows the approach of 1947, using dated news reports and a range of other sources to plot the shifts toward negotiations across the year. Aided by the insights of the Truth & Reconciliation Committtee in particular, but also by the memoirs that have been written since, there is much that wouldn't have been known to many outside government or the protest movements themselves. Censorship of the news media meant that more was known by those outside SA about protest and government abuses than inside. William Dicey includes some of the attempts by the press to get round the censorship, from printing images of Mandela to including blank "editorial comment" sections.
Recommended. As you would expect, the TRC informed info on torture and murders is pretty grim reading.

Hilton-Barber evokes the political atmosphere of Grahamstown in the early Eighties in her memoir Student Comrade Prisoner Spy. The surveillance and harassment of '82 and '83 usher in the mass action of '84 and '85 - the boycotts and stayaways and general ungovernability. Repression shifts up a gear under emergency rule, first partial in '85 and then full-blown in '86:

I can't bear another funeral; we've been to, heard about, so many funerals. They are the battlefronts now. The clunk of a stone against an armoured vehicle is met with a 37-mm gas canister that lands on a shack. Defiant chanting crowds face rubber bullets. Then always, the screams of panicking people ... youth falling to the ground, and always the toyi-toyi through the streets, security forces, stones, petrol bombs, sharp ammunition, and more burials -- a never-ending cycle of protest and death.

The Booker Prize 2024 shortlist
James by Percival Everett
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Held by Anne Michaels
The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

Interesting shortlist! Of the six I've only read 3, James being the standout.

Bird Monk Seding
Oh this was grim. Kind of stream of consciousness, a writer reflecting on living in a deprived community in South Africa.

I struggled through it. Didn't give up and put it down, only because it (unoriginally) occurred to me about half way through that he was writing about his own experience. Clearly reading about rape, violent attacks and deprivation is nothing compared to those living it. But I kept having to read something else in between chapters.

My mind feeds on human bits and pieces strewn gratuitously about. I have carried the smell of blood in my nostrils for as long as remember. I remember, as a child, saying to my mother that I wanted to be a gynaecologist and she was proud... then endless knife-fights and torn flesh, skin pulled roughly apart under Okapi and butcher-knife tearing, tomahawk slashings and the air heavy, wet and warm in some perverse kind of exsanguination cured me of that. Still... the stench of the life-fluids stays with me.

I grew up watching my mother get her face split under the fists and boots of a multitude of men, who, when she (I imagine) could take no more, were pushed on to expend whatever excess anger, energy, fury, fueled by their own emasculation they had left on me. I carry the scars on my back, face, body as a reminder. Anyway... I am here. What more do you want know?

What more do you want to know?

How, after June 16, 1976, I stood at the door of a gutted bottle store, dressed in slippers torn just so that my toes showed, my nose full of teargas and a case of beer on my head even though i had never tasted alcohol in my life...

Call and Response
I was trying just to buy books published by South African publishers (on the basis that I could buy the rest easily and probably more cheaply at home). Then I heard the author of this collection speak about her work as part of the Open Book festival and I made an exception.

"Ausi?" I asked. "Didn't I tell you that my name is not Ausi?"
"Askies," he said.
"Do I look like an ausi?" I asked. His eyes traveled from my face to take in my pink halter-neck top, my tight-fitting dark blue jeans, my heels.

"I am nobody's auntie," I said. Nobody's mother. Nobody's wife. There are no names to lend to me, no names to decorate mine with. But the boy has been taught that a woman's name, on its own, is not enough. So every time he needed to talk, this issue of my name hung between us.

Reading the Streets panel: Ohene Yaw Ampofo-Anti, Gothataone Moeng and Ivan Vladislavić with interviewer Amrita Pande.



Business Casual
Final book in this cosy romance series set in a lovely (idyllic) small town. Tattoo artist meets fund manager here.

What lovely pictures of South Africa, Charlotte. It looks very beautiful. The Irma Stone Museum looks lovely too. I hope you are both continuing to enjoy yourselves.

Thanks Deborah. I'm back at work, wondering when I can take another trip.

It was lovely to see family and it's a beautiful part of the world, but it made me appreciate how much I take for granted some of the freedoms of travelling on my own.

Stella
I meant to read this on the plane but managed to leave it at home when the taxi turned up.
Short novel translated from the German. A wealthy young Swiss man leaves home after his mother leaves the family home. She's a nazi sympathiser, his father is much more cosmopolitan, travelling for business.

Friedrich wants to find out more about Berlin, and take drawing lessons, so he goes there. Unfortunately, it's the middle of WW2 and one of the people he meets modelling for the class is a Jewish young woman (Stella) who is informing against other Jewish families. The novel is based on a real historical person who spent time in prison after the war, and throughout the narrative are texts taken from evidence lodged against her. It's not clear in the novel why she did it, and from the afterword the real historical figure never explained herself either.

For me it felt very atmospheric, added to by the list of real historical events at the start of each chapter. The blurbed claim that the book asks the reader to consider wartime rights to decisions over someone else's life (to save your own) didn't engage me, as it wasn't really clear that much beyond self-preservation was involved.

>132 charl08: Beautiful pictures!

>135 charl08: This has been on my WL since it was published in Germany. Great review!

Thank you for showing us so many books from South Africa. I took note of some for when I wish to read something from that country.

>136 MissBrangwen: Oh, I'd love to hear what you make of Stella. The translation can make such a difference, and being for all practical purposes a monoglot it's all a mystery to me.

I was surprised by how many of the books and authors discussed were South African. I must admit I was hoping for more pan-african contributors. Having said that, I am reminded to look for a copy of the Algerian author Hamza Koudri I heard speak (who discussed how his historical novel Sand Roses about a community of dancers has yet to / may not be published in Arabic).

Hockey Wife
Fake(ish) relationship for an odd couple. Minor complaint: this series has gone on so long the nods to the earlier characters feel like they take up a big chunk of the book!

Lore Olympus 4

Ongoing series (originally a webtoon) reimagining the relationship between Persephone and the God of the underworld.

Here Persephone further questions her studentship with the maidens. Hades tries to fix some of his past actions and Persephone confronts her attacker (without any help from Hades). Beautiful illustrations, but I'm not sure I'll carry on with the series.

The God of the Woods
This crime thriller kept me up past my bedtime. Set on a rural estate, lots of opportunity for misdirection between the wealthy (warped) family who lived in the big house and the temporary visitors at the summer camp down the hill. Found it very atmospheric, lots of period details, but was a bit disappointed by the resolution: seemed a bit of a cop out.

>98 charl08: Just bought My Friends and I'm reading it later this year with friends. You didn't seen enthralled with it, but a lot of others seem taken by it. We'll see!

>108 charl08: Nice book haul!!

>132 charl08: What an amazing trip -- totally jealous. ; )

>140 Berly: Thanks Kim. Hope you like My Friends. It wasn't so much I didn't like it, but that I felt I'd read it before - twice.

Great photos, Charlotte. It sounds like you had a lovely time.

Stella sounds really good, as does The God of the Woods.

>142 BLBera: Thanks Beth, nice to be away, nice to be back in my own bed.
Lots of rain not so nice. A kind colleague gave me a lift home, fortunate as there was so much water on the road pedestrians were getting free showers. And my umbrella gave up the ghost this morning. This is the second one I've broken in less than a year! Not good. I used to lose them before i got the chance to break them I suppose.

Just finished The Alternatives and adding the author's back catalogue to my wishlist. Lovely book.

It occurs to Nell that she's been in North America for too long. If you made this demand in Wicklow town, the shopkeeper would fill the kettle and tell you to hold on till the next customer wants AstroTurf and see will they donate you a scrap of it; meanwhile, you'd be asked in a tone of profound concern: What lamb a the lord jaysus situation has you needing four inches of fake grass?

The Alternatives

I can see from the reviews on the book page that this is a book that doesn't please everyone, but I really loved it. Following four adult sisters who have been through a childhood bereavement. Olwen steps away from her life as a geology lecturer in an Irish university and just disappears. Her sisters, a London based celebrity chef, a philosophy adjunct working in the US and a high-flying political scientist professor, decide they need to find her. Apart from the relationship between the sisters (unbreakable, but not necessarily understanding) I loved the humour of the book, particularly Olwen's new community in the local pub. It's not quite a campus novel bit there's plenty here about the failures of the academy, particularly biting when it comes to Nell's lack of health insurance. There are no easy answers but for once I'm not complaining about the lack of neat bows on the last page (not least because I would love to see these characters again).

(The auto touchstone for this book made me laugh. I'm not reading a book about my lawn.)

Goodnight Tokyo
A collection of interlinked short stories, as characters explore late night Tokyo. Full of idiosyncratic and odd occupations and businesses. A woman works collecting abandoned telephones from former customers. A man repurposes broken objects in a second hand shop, with more hope than expectation about a sale. A late night taxi driver takes a prop-master around the city in the hope of finding rare and unusual objects sought by a film director.

Short enough for the whimsy to be charming.

>144 charl08: This does sound great, Charlotte.

>146 BLBera: I'm not sure where the nudge came from to order it at the library, but very glad I did.

Managed to pick up a bug (it's not hard at a university at this time of year) so am feeling sorry for myself again. Have not been to the library all week.
Although on the plus side, things seem to have stopped spinning, so there's that!

Glad things have stopped spinning at least Charlotte. Hope you feel better soon, there's a lot of it about. I'm lucky enough to mostly wfh, but did my last office visit this week. Unlikely to be there til early Spring now.

Drat, you've picked up a bug. I hope you are soon feeling better and feel well enough to get some reading time in , or some good TV time .

>148 Caroline_McElwee: Yeah, definitely thinking about the benefits of wfh this week.

>149 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deborah. Hoping I will have some more umph by Monday!

Sorry to hear you're feeling rough, Charlotte, there's a lot of it about, not helped as you said by the dreaded start of term lurgy. I hope you feel better soon!

Thanks Jackie. I plan to return armed with large amounts of antibacterial handgel.

Lovely article about Lore Segal which should be free to access with this link:
A Master Storyteller, at the End of Her Story https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/magazine/lore-segal-writing-death.html?unlock...

>145 charl08: my library has got an ebook copy of it. I'll probably give a try.

>153 Ameise1: I'd be keen to hear what you think Barbara. I couldn't find your thread, apologies. Do you have a link?

ETA Thank you! I've found you and starred.

I've sent you a PM with the link.

I should catch up with reviews.

Artistic License (Lucy Parker/ Elle Piersin)
Romance, familiar faces category. Parker's written several books set in "London's glamorous West End" so it was quite a surprise (for me) to find she's actually aNew Zealander. This book is set in a small New Zealand coastal town and is charming. A shy art postgrad student has an encounter with a security guard in an art gallery. Interestimg supporting characters and (for me) and unusual setting. I liked it a lot.

The Fiancé Dilemma
Another by Elena Armas. She seems to like the fake relationship (ETA as a plot device!!). Here it's to avoid being shamed on a podcast. Nice writing but it didn't quite click for me.

The Coast Road
One I'd seen a lot of discussions about on Litsy.

This came highly recommended to the point where I got a bit annoyed (do I really care that Gillian Anderson liked it enough for a blurb?) It sucked me in anyway, a portrait of a small fishing community in Ireland before the legalisation of divorce. I couldn't believe this was only passed in 1997! A poet and "blow in" (despite having had four sons in the town) Colette returns after leaving her husband for another man. Living in a cottage that is usually only rented in summer, she is banned from seeing her children, and the subject of local gossip. Trying to earn some money she runs a writing class and meets Izzy, the wife of the local government rep, who is not happy in her marriage either.

The book creates very different, but believeable relationships, all with this background of not having the option to leave. Also woven in are those people who have left, and had to deal with the consequences, living alone for years 'like a widow' as the husband moved on. As well as the wider point about the power of the Catholic church to hold back reform for so long, and their continued lobbying to preserve the status quo.

Reform is not an answer for everyone: as one of the characters reflects, the legalisation of divorce has limited benefit if you have no financial resources to make a new life.

'Hello,' he said and walked straight to the end of the table where he hung his anorak on the back of the chair.

Under the stairs, she thought, under the stairs. They had the same conversation every evening about him hanging his anorak under the stairs. But she would not engage with any of that now. She took the plates from the oven and served up the food. She carried James's dinner to him just as he pulled some letters and his diary and keys from the pocket of his anorak and piled them on the table. Say nothing, she said to herself, say nothing.

All the places by Musawenkosi Khanyile
Part of my haul from Cape Town, a book of poetry by a psychologist. The focus of the book is his journey from a life of extreme poverty in the township to professional security. The poems reflect on the toll of poverty and crime on the other children he grew up with, the gap between rural living and the township, and finally his experiences of racism in his new life.

AT THIS TAVERN

Our friend runs to hide when he sees her approaching, almost knocking over the Hennessey he just bought.

She gathers her breath before she greets us and asks: Where is Thami? Have you guys seen him?

Our loyalty answers: No. Not today.

The frustration is clear on her face:
Eish, OK.
Please tell him I came looking for him here.

He's not answering my calls.
It's about his son.
He has nothing to eat.

Martyr!
A trip of a book. In 2017 Cyrus, a recovering addict tries to work out what to do with his (relatively) newly sober life. He aspires to be important, significant, be remembered. But he can't quite work out how, so spends his time being paid to be a medical volunteer for trainee doctors. From here the story jumps back to how Cyrus's dad brought them both from Iran and the loss of his mum. Although ultimately the story ends in a cliché worthy of a soap opera, followed by the last few pages of a surreal fever dream that passed me by, still a great read.

THE IRON LAW OF SOBRIETY, WITH APOLOGIES TO LEO TOLSTOY: the stories of addicts are all alike; but each person gets sober their own way. Addiction is an old country song: you lose the dog, lose the truck, lose the high school sweetheart. In recovery you play the song backward, and that's where things get interesting. Where'd you find the truck? Did the dog remember you? What'd your sweetheart say when they saw you again?

I'm glad you enjoyed The Coast Road. I read it this summer and really loved it. I have a hold on Martyr! but with my luck it will come in while I am the midst of reading a number of other books. I'm glad it was a great read for you.

Hey Deborah. I look forward to hearing what you think of Martyr!. Someone on Litsy told me that there is a shared read going on on Youtube, with people finding out about all the different martyrs mentioned. (Sounds a bit like homework. But also interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ofhTdupik)

I hope you're feeling better, Charlotte. What a lot of great reading you have managed this year.

Thanks Beth. Yep, the bug has gone, and it's Friday.
(Only 22 years till I can claim my pension.)

Currently reading Green Frog from the library and have picked up Around the World in Eighty Books again. Have reached Japan.

Hi Charlotte! I've found you again. Lovely photos of your garden and your holiday. Sorry we missed you and I hope your feeling better now.

Glad you've shifted the lurgy, there's a lot of it about. 'Tis the season.
bee good to see what you make of Green frog.

So many great reads, Charlotte! I love the sound of The Alternatives (not the lawn care version) in particular. Sorry the lurgy got you, but I'm glad you're feeling better.

>163 humouress: Thanks Nina. I'm impressed you managed all that football museum visiting.

>164 Helenliz: I'm loving Green Frog: funny and poignant.

>165 susanj67: Thanks Susan. I definitely should have gone for the flu jab sooner.

Sometimes the mantis goes on dates. She's never disappointed by the males she meets, because she never expects much from them. ...

Green Frog

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories from the Korean/American author Gina Chung. Lots of them feature magical realism: talking dolls, reanimated dead children, a mantis that goes to therapy.
Dark and comic by turns, the stories are also domestic. They reflect on the impact of unplanned pregnancy, parental expectations, divorce and grief.
Recommended!

Thanks to Ridgewaygirl for the rec, which made me order this from the library.

Now reading Tell Me Everything, the latest Lucy/Olive novel from Elizabeth Strout. It's rather lovely.

>168 charl08: I read the first volume of this series years ago and really enjoyed it. I've now added the second volume to my library list.
I can't wait to hear what you have to say about the third.

>169 Ameise1: Hope you can find a copy of both of them, Barbara.

I'm glad you are enjoying Tell Me Everything. I have out from the library , and I hope I will get to it.

>171 vancouverdeb: There was a copy in Waterstones and it was beautifully bound and that smaller hardback size I really like, so somehow it came home with me.

Tell Me Everything
I loved Olive Again but was a bit more ambivalent about the last Lucy book, so this new one featuring both Lucy and Olive had the potential of going two ways. I found it a bit slow getting into - I'm not that interested in rich people's problems, it turns out, but Olive drew me back in again. Here she's in sheltered accommodation, and Lucy and she develop a kind of stories club, telling each other about other people's lives. Their idea of a good story varies a lot, and there is some amusement here (I love how honest, even when sometimes a bit mean, Olive's inner voice is - and sometimes her outer voice too).

Lucy said, "Bob, I wish I could still do cartwheels!"
"You did cartwheels?" Bob thought of Lucy's childhood as being so dismal that she never would have done cartwheels. But then he remembered in a memoir Lucy had written about William, that William had told her he married her because she was filled with joy, and how could she have been filled with joy coming from the wretched background she had come from?
"Yes! My brother and sister never did, but I did, I just loved it. The body. Oh, the body weighs us down."

Breasts Etc
I bought this in Clarke's bookshop when I was on holiday - I'd found a list of six books shortlisted for the U of Johannesburg prize. I can't say the prize has had a great strike rate with me so far: I was underwhelmed by Paperless and this one was a bit of a slog to get through. The protagonist has a photographic studio taking pictures of women's assets, whilst he also narrates his nightmares, dominated by a vision of an apocalyptic world, where only (some) men survive. Apart from (I guess) the benefit of 100 pages view into someone else's perspective, this wasn't a read I could see much point to, and I was glad to finish it. I liked this bit though.

....beds can be churches, red-light districts, libraries, hospitals, laboratories, restaurants, prisons, courtrooms, graveyards, battlefields and warfronts, massage parlours, confessionals, brewing pots for philosophy and art, transit trains to depression or bliss, boardrooms for daring and elaborate business propositions, concealed tombs for plotting and deceptions on an unimaginable scale, pubs, torture chambers.

I just googled to find the shortlist announcement, and see that they've announced the winners too. I still have the other four to read: Three Egg Dilemma (winner), The Institute for Creative Dying (which won the new author category), Guerrillas and Combative Mothers and A Soft Landing.

https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/2024/09/19/the-jrb-daily-morabo-morojele-a...

Nice review of Tell Me Everything.
Have a wonderful Tuesday. 😃

Thanks Barbara! You were too quick for me - I added some quotes from the books :-)
Hope you have a good day too.

Body Kintsugi

I was convinced before I picked this Peirene up that it was by a Japanese author. Quite how I'd managed that, I don't know - read the term Kintsugi and made the leap, I guess.

It's a novel / autofiction by a Bosnian novelist and magazine editor, inspired by her own experience of breast cancer. I found it incredibly hard to read, even though it is, like all Peirene's books, a short text. It's structured in short, couple of page long chapters, which jump between the narrator's experience of being a girl-child (first masturbation, period pains, being groped in public as a young woman, being shamed in front of schoolfriends by a drunk father) and her violent, traumatic treatment for the cancer. I found it devastating, even as I was wanting to put it down. The narrator desperately tries to stay upbeat, to reject the limits cancer places on her. This seemed to increase the poignancy for me.

I did wonder if those who have been through this experience might find it helpful or too raw.
I'm going to rehome this one, so if anyone in the UK wants it, please shout.

I had a bit of a reorganisation of my room, and moved a load of books in the process. I thought I'd just check if the ones I'd moved were on LT - and most of them weren't. Oops.

Good to know the new Strout is a good one; like you, I was underwhelmed by the previous one(s) and was hoping she was done with those characters and could move on. I'll give this one a try.

>176 BLBera: Hope you like it Beth. If nothing else, it's a beautifully bound edition...?!

Enjoy your scandicrime / crime books when you get to them, Charlotte. I need some crime and creepiness after reading a few too many serious books. I like a good escape !

Thanks Deborah. I'd ordered several crime in the hope one would come in sooner.

In the end I picked up five crime novels at once!

The Chinese gold murders
Deep harbour
Pretty girls
Death at the sanatorium
Death of a lesser god

Death at the Sanatorium
First of my weekend crime spree. Jumping between time periods, between a young criminologist who is investigating a murder case in the 1980s for his dissertation. Interviewing the staff who were there in the 1980s, he turns up some interesting new discoveries. He's obsessed with his dad's collection of golden age detective stories, but there's a mystery at home too.

This is newly published in English but was out in Iceland in 2019. There's a lovely short afterword where Jonasson talks about visiting the National Library of Iceland with his dad - to read detective stories.

I'm still reading the Dark Iceland series and haven't started the Hulda-Helgi series. Now you remind me to go on with Jonasson's books.

I'm glad you enjoyed Death at the Sanatorium. I really did , and have passed it to my sister to read. I think my husband Dave would enjoy it too. The main character is Helgi Reykdal . True story, my maternal grandma's name, before she married, was Helga Reykdal. Not that made me like it more or less, it just struck me of course. My nephew has friend in town and he is half Icelandic and his first name is Lief. But my brother spells it " Leaf" in texts. He is otherwise an intelligent well read brother - English Lit major. What happened to my brother ? :-)

>181 Ameise1: Oh, I hadn't realised this was a new series, Barbara. I will look for the translation when it comes!

>182 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deborah. I enjoyed it too. Very atmospheric. I think autocorrect has a lot to answer for re spellings (or that's my excuse!)

Elif Shafak's latest substack post about her speech to the Frankfurt book fair "A hopeless introvert's guide to public speaking"

Rather than pretending to know the answers, be there to share your questions. Don’t be afraid of saying, “I don’t know”. We are mudlarkers, walking by the shores of our civilisation, and through the muddle, we find discarded and unloved beauties: shards of ceramic, pieces of lapis lazuli.

https://elifshafak.substack.com/

>184 charl08: I like this quote. Perfect 😀

>185 Ameise1: Me too. She says it so beautifully.

>184 charl08: A thoughtful woman. I like the quote too. Need to acquire her latest novel.

>187 Caroline_McElwee: Good point, Caroline. I will try and hold off buying until I can order a copy of the paperback. Hope springs eternal...

I read No Words by Meg Cabot. I buy her contemporary romances when I see them on kindle, so this was not a tricky choice for me. It made me laugh that it took me about two thirds of the plot to notice a fictional cat playing a key subplot role again. I think the ones set in a fictional NY newspaper continue to be my favourite though.

The British Academy have announced the winners of their NF prize, Language City. I am tempted by this one, it sounds like it would tick all my NF boxes: a bit of history, obviously lots of language stuff and migration themes in there too.

From the judges' comments:

“New York City is home to more than 700 languages — ‘the most linguistically diverse city in the history of the world’ – and by examining them Perlin opens out new ways of thinking about the exuberant variety of these aspects of the urban soundscape, which we might otherwise take for granted or ignore.

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/language-city-wins-the-british-academy-...

>189 charl08: ooh I like the sound of that one!

>189 charl08: - Ooh, that does sound good!

Added that to the TBR list! It looks great.

>184 charl08: Love the quote. I am waiting for her new novel...

>189 charl08: That sounds like one I would like.

>180 charl08: Your weekend crime spree? Love it.

>189 charl08: That is tempting Charlotte.

ETA: It slipped into my cart!

>190 Jackie_K: Glad to see I'm not the only one tempted by Language City.

>191 katiekrug: I wondered if you would be interested in this with your local perspective.

>192 rabbitprincess: It does look tempting, doesn't it!

>193 BLBera: Maybe we could have a Shafak readalong (she says, already abandoning the idea of waiting for the paperback!) I signed up for lots of emails from writers via substack, and am gradually unsubscribing from most of them. I have been reading her one, the one by Jami Attenberg and Margaret Atwood though, as they all seem like they have something to say (that I want to read!)

>194 Caroline_McElwee: Nicely done, Caroline!

I finished my work bookgroup book Their Eyes Were Watching God. I was convinced I'd read this before, but about half way through decided I must have mixed it up with something else. I'm not sure that I would have kept reading Janie's experiences of serial monogamy had I not had the bookgroup to nudge me along. I was glad I did for the last section. The dramatic account of the hurricane hitting Florida was so compelling in contrast, and heartbreaking, reminiscent of recent news in the state. I did wonder if it was being written today, if ZNH would have set it all during the last days of the book, with flashbacks!

On the post flood clean-up"Hey, dere, y'all! Don't dump dem bodies in de hole lak dat! Examine every last one of 'em and find out if they's white or black."

"Us got tuh handle 'em slow lak dat? God have mussy! In de condition they's in got tuh examine 'em? Whut difference do it make 'bout de color? Dey all needs buryin' in uh hurry."

"Got orders from headquarters. They makin' coffins fuh all de white folks. 'Tain't nothin' but cheap pine, but dat's better'n nothin'. Don't dump no white folks in de hole jus' so."

"Whut tuh do 'bout de colored folks? Got boxes fuh dem too?"

"Nope. They cain't find enough of 'em tuh go 'round. Jus' sprinkle plenty quick-lime over 'em and cover 'em up."

"Shucks! Nobody can't tell nothin' 'bout some uh dese bodies, de shape dey's in. Can't tell whether dey's white or black."

The guards had a long conference over that. After a while they came back and told the men, "Look at they hair, when you cain't tell no other way. And don't lemme ketch none uh y'all dumpin' white folks, and don't be wastin' boxes on colored. They's toohard tuh git holt of right now."

"They's mighty particular how dese dead folks goes tuh judgment," Tea Cake observed to the man working next to him. "Look lak dey think God don't know nothin' 'bout de Jim Crow law."

I read this for my book group at the beginning of the year. Well, actually I listened to it as an audio book read by the actress Ruby Dee and I thought it was very good. It will be one of my top books for this year.

>197 dudes22: Glad to hear it.
I think I'm more interested in her life than her fiction. I do feel sad she got so much attention after her death, given how much she struggled at the end of her life.

>198 charl08: I enjoyed Valerie Boyd's biography of Hurston Wrapped in Rainbows Charlotte.

>199 Caroline_McElwee: I'll stick it on the wishlist!