SassyLassy Reading above the Clouds

I’m SassyLassy. If you’re new to Club Read, I start each year with the Pantone colour of the year. I will get going on books after I work this out of my system. This year it’s taken me a while to start as Pantone is certainly not offering me any inspiration. I certainly hope my reading isn’t Pantone bland this year!

Ask a child to draw something white. Chances are you’ll see a bunny, a lamb, or snow. A more advanced child might go with whitecaps or dandelion seeds. Then there are clouds, which children love to draw against a clear blue sky.

The thing is though, that none of these things are pure white in real life. Neither are the “cloud”colours beloved by paint designers. Take the Pantone colour of the year for 2026: Cloud Dancer.


image from CBC

Pantone tells us it is “a lofty white that serves as a symbol of calming influence in a society rediscovering the value of quiet reflection. A billowy white imbued with serenity…”

While I’d agree that serenity, relaxation, and focus are all desperately needed in this world, Pantone throws a spanner in the works. Cloud Dancer is not a pure white either. Look closely and you will see the dull grey underlying it. Look at any of the seven suggested colour palettes they provide to convince you it’s fresh - even the Lemon Icing and Peach Dust have grey tones. Difficult to allow our “imagination to drift” in that murk.



Colour Palette Powdered Pastels

How about a motorola phone in Cloud Dancer? Nothing calms and allows for quiet reflection like your cell:



This take looks like the model got caught up in all those billowy curtains, or maybe even the bedspread.



Vanity Fair Spring Summer 2026 Milan Fashion Week

Lastly, this perfume bottle looks like it is about to be smashed by a rock, rather than having its airy scent waft gently into the clouds.

It seems many in the world of colour trends were expecting some version of green for 2026. Going back in time, there was the wonderful “Emerald” in 2013, and the somewhat more crayon like “Greenery” in 2017. Even Forbes and Prada were betting on green.



Milan Fashion Week, Spring Summer 2026 Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

After all, as many have commented, in an era of DEI suppression, white is a problematic message. Pantone even felt moved to issue a statement saying the choice of Cloud Dancer was not a “statement on politics, ideology, or race”, as it “does not assign political narratives to colour”.

Let's see how it all works out.

As mentioned above, I do actually read. I'm a member of the Reading Globally, which keeps me reading books in translation.

This year had some excellent ones:

Fiction
The Lily in the Valley by Honoré de Balzac translated from the French by Peter Bush
Eyes of the Rigel by Roy Jacobsen translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw
Sun City by Tove Jansson translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal
Golden Age byWang Xiaobo translated from the Chinese by Yan Yan
Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke translated from the Chinese by Cindy Carter
Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei translated from the Chinese by Canaan Morse
One Man’s Bible by Gao Xingjian translated from the Chinese by Mabel Lee
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck translated from the German by Michael Hofmann
Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton
Your Steps on the Stairs by Antonio Munoz Molina translated from the Spanish by Curtis Bauer
The White Bear (two novellas) by Henrik Pontoppidan translated from the Danish by Paul Larkin
The Colonel’s Wife by Rosa Liksom translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers

Non Fiction
The Imposter by Javier Cercas translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne
A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters by Yang Jiang translated from the Chinese by Geremie Barmé

I also like to read from the nineteenth century, which didn't happen much this past year with only two Victorian novels plus Balzac. That will be something to correct this year.

My nonfiction reading went up in 2025, and I hope to continue that this year, on the CR nonfiction thread.

New to me authors I will certainly be following this year are:
Paul Auster
Jenny Erpenbeck
Olivia Laing
W G Sebald
Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Lea Ypi

I'm a very tardy poster. My excuse is that it gives me time to let the book sink in. I hope you'll follow along as I meander through the year.

A place to add books read by others:

Cape Horn and Other Stories by Francisco Coloane - rocketjk
The Peoples Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim - wandering star

Happy New Year Sassy. I look forward to following your reading this year.

LOVE the commentary on the color of the year.

Paradise Lost was featured in three of my favourite books of 2025, all read within about a month of each other. I took it as a sign I should read it this year.

Does anyone have suggestions as to which edition to select? I like them with lots of additional material.
Broadview Press, one of my favourite publishers, has a newish edition (2023) edited by Abraham Stoll, which looks like a possibility: https://broadviewpress.com/product/paradise-lost-2/#tab-description

>8 SassyLassy: I used an old OUP paperback student edition, Milton’s poetical works, which was fine, and useful because you get all the other poems in the same book, but I did find it was a bit over-annotated. Notes are all well and good, but sometimes you only get one or two lines of verse on a page…

I think Stanley Fish’s Surprised by sin was the most useful of the secondary literature I read during my Milton project, but Christopher Hill (for the Marxism) and William Kerrigan (for the theology) were fun too. You can probably skip Robert Graves’s Wife to Mr Milton!

>8 SassyLassy: I read the good old Norton Critical edition back in college.

Edited to add:
"-The 1674 text of Paradise Lost, with emendations and adoptions from the first edition and from the scribal manuscript. Spelling and punctuation have been modernized for student readers.
-An illuminating introduction and abundant explanatory annotations by Gordon Teskey.
-Source and background materials, including Milton’s greatest prose work, Areopagitica, in its entirety and key selections from the Bible.
-Topically arranged commentaries and interpretations—seventy-eight in all, thirty-nine of them new to the Second Edition—from classic assessments to current scholarship.
-A glossary of names and suggestions for further reading."

>2 SassyLassy: maybe whitewashing is an appropriate suggestion ??

>8 SassyLassy: this is exciting! I haven’t read it, but I feel like i’ve been working towards PL for years. (and I’m noting the follow up comments >9 thorold: and >10 labfs39: ). I like Broadview editions a lot, in general.

Oh, and nice new thread, Sassy!

Glad to see you are back.

>7 BLBera: Hello to you. Now that I've gotten that disappointment out of my system I feel much better!

>9 thorold: >10 labfs39: Thanks for the info. I do like Christopher Hill and his perspectives, so I'll look for that commentary. The Fish title sounds tempting too for after I've managed to get some coherent thoughts of my own - that may be never, but who knows.

>11 dchaikin: Whitewashing indeed!

As an aside, even whitewash is not really white, having just that little suggestion of whatever was in the chalk used.

Another aside is that there is a pure white paint, by Benjamin Moore called Whitewash White.

Here is an image from Wikipedia:



Det gamle hus bliver pudset op / Whitewashing the Old House 1908 by Laurits Andersen Ring (1854 - 1933) in the Statens Museum

>12 edwinbcn: Good to see you too Edwin. I hope you keep reading books from and about China so that I can get some new ideas.

>13 SassyLassy: now we have the painting for the Pantone color of the year. 🙂

Hello Sassy! Pantone's choice strikes me as bizarre (is white a colour even?) and utterly sus.

My thread is here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/377467#n9065464

Thanks for asking!

One of my pod casts, Vibe Check, is hosted by two gay black men (Saeed Jones!) and they chatted about Cloud Dancer.

Apparently the CEO for Pantone, who made the announcement, is a Black women and noted that the choice was controversial. The pod casters didn't see the the choice as racial, but instead talked about their associations of the color with sterility, artificiality, the lack of humanity, and the privilege on display of people like the Kardashians who can afford to have/keep clean, an all-white living environment. It was fun to listen to, knowing that Cloud Dancer eventually would make an appearance here.

Anyways, looking forward to your reviews this year!

>17 ELiz_M:

That's interesting to hear but I'm not sure that knowingly courting controversy for clickbait engagement is all that much better. As for the implication that race makes a difference in this case: Black capitalists are capitalists. A lesson learned many years ago right here on LT when someone thought it was a perfect gotcha to disparage Toni Morrison in words of a Black male author... as if that annulled the repulsiveness and wrongness of what was said. Or, take the unfortunate idea for a TV series about a US in which the Confederacy had been triumphant... that was proposed by some Black creators. And I don't need to go down the spiral of right-wing grifters who happen to be Black and cash precisely on that.

I'll check out your podcast, thanks for the link.

To return the favour, I like F. D. Signifier a lot, here's one of his recent videos: Charlie Kirk and the Conservative Death Cult. Of course I recommend checking out whatever intrigues you... he has a couple other channels with short or more casual takes.

And this I found very educational on history of the Black left (mainly US with some excursions): AfroMarxist

I thought I'd popped by already, but obviously not, so Happy New Year!

Can you believe that's the first of your Pantone colours of the year I've been excited about in a while! As someone you loves choosing paint for the house I could bore you forever about the dilemmas about getting just the right shade of white. And Benjamin Moore so often does some of the best - I'm so gutted that he's not more readily available in the UK.

My sister broke her heart this year over finding the right shade of white for painting many of the walls in her new house. Sherwin Williams had the perfect white that echoed Greek villas, and we just couldn't find anything else to touch it. Sorry - there I go... I did warn you...

I will say that Cloud Dancer is a bit too much of a cool white for my liking, though. No Greek villa vibes from that.

It seems to me that Cloud Dancer is evocative of the Pueblos Blancos (White Hill Villages) in Andalucía when my LibraryThing friend Bianca/drachenbraut and I saw when we traveled from Sevilla to Granada by car, and a Google search indicates that is the case.

>15 dchaikin: That's funny!

>16 LolaWalser: Saying it again - love your theme for the year.

>17 ELiz_M: It's unavoidable, wondering how all those white clothed people maintain it. As for white upholstery, yikes!

>18 LolaWalser: A rose is a rose is a rose, or as you put it correctly, a capitalist....
Technically, white isn't a colour, but then they say that about brown too.

>19 AlisonY: I've heard about the woes of obtaining Benjamin Moore in the UK from others.
I'm never bored by paint discussions! I definitely agree that Cloud Dancer is too cool a white. What was the colour your sister chose? Maybe it didn't work because of the colour of the skies where she lives.

>20 kidzdoc: I like that image.

>21 SassyLassy: It was more that she fell in love with the Sherwin Williams that conjured up Greek villas and then that spoiled her for every other white after that (you can buy it online in the UK, but she just wanted a paint she could buy locally). But you're right - I don't think it would have given her Greek villa vibes with our grey skies.

Time to move on to books. This next author is one I fell in love with in 2025.
By rights this book belongs to my 2025 reading. There were only about 40 pages left to read at dinnertime on New Year’s Eve, but then again, it was New Year’s Eve. I finished it the next day.

Once again, there don’t appear to have been North American publishing rights until 2025.
It is a continuation of Heaven and Hell, the best book of my 2025 reading. The third book in the trilogy doesn’t appear to be available in North America as yet.



The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton (2013)
first published as Harmur englanna in 2009
finished reading January1, 2026

>23 SassyLassy: Nice review. I read his Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night and really liked it despite some hiccups. I need to look for his other books including this trilogy.

>23 SassyLassy: I feel cold. I take it you enjoyed the book

>23 SassyLassy: An intriguing review, Sassy. I am not at all familiar with Stefansson, but given the strength of your recommendation, I should rectify that.

>23 SassyLassy: Great review of an interesting book, Sassy.

>23 SassyLassy: beautiful review. I’m feeling the hook dragging against my skin. Everything you wrote and shared appeals.

>23 SassyLassy: Great review! I’d never heard of this author, but he seems to be quite popular in France. He has about 10 books on the Kobo store, all with many high ratings. I wishlisted Heaven and Hell (Entre ciel et terre in French).

>2 SassyLassy:, >3 SassyLassy:, >4 SassyLassy:, >13 SassyLassy: Enjoying the color commentary.

I'm surprised Pantone didn't take the cop-out line that white actually contains all the colors of the visible spectrum—it's a gorgeous mosaic! Not.

Anyway, happy newish year, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about what you're reading.

Happy New Year!

>2 SassyLassy: At the risk of being rude, this is a very HGTV choice for colour of the year.

>23 SassyLassy: Really fascinated by The Sorrow of Angels and enjoyed your review very much.

>1 SassyLassy: & etc.

Love all your commentary on white and Cloud Dancer.

A few years ago I moved from a 110 yr old colourful house to a almost-new white house, and I'm enjoying the change. What bothers me about the choice of Cloud Dancer is that it's not new. Isn't Pantone supposed to be a taste leader? We've had so much white this century, from Apple stores to most Teslas, to white parties and white-clothed family photos, to all-white homes . . . it's just not new

>24 AnnieMod: That's another one I'm looking for.

>25 baswood: Yes, yes, yes! I think he's an amazing writer.

>26 Linda92007: I hope you do.

>27 kidzdoc: >28 dchaikin: Thanks, and do yield to the hook.

>29 FlorenceArt: When I was posting my review, I was surprised to see how many reviews there were written in languages other than English. It made me all the more sad that it takes so long to get his books to NA while everyone else seems to be enjoying them as they appear.

>30 qebo: I always enjoy others' ideas on it too.

>31 lisapeet: I was kind of expecting some puffed up version of the same cop out, but I guess they had their script and stuck to it!

>32 rasdhar:. Not rude at all, to me, maybe to Pantone. I think you've identified one of its major problems.

>33 Nickelini: Not new at all, and they didn't even try to claim it as classic! Not many Apple stores or Teslas in this part of the world, and I've never heard of a white party (at least a non political one), but I do remember those white clothed family photos from Ontario.
There are also a lot of white cars. Part of the reason is that a lot of the manufacturers charge extra for colour. Now every time I see one where it's obvious the driver could have afforded it, I think "Oh there goes a car they just primered. Why didn't they paint it too?"

Neither my Apple nor my car is white, but then that's just another way of being sucked into the great consumer maw.

Usually I start each year’s reading with a quick whatever detective stories are called now. This year’s was a continuation of Banville’s The Lock-up, read in 2025.



The Drowned by John Banville
first published 2024
finished reading January 2, 2026

John Banville has a series of detective stories set in the Dublin of the 1950s. This gives lots of scope for commentary on religious differences, politics (often the same thing), the Anglo-Irish hierarchy, and the rest of the class system.

His major character is DI St John Strafford; note the “r” in his family name, it’s important to get it right. Strafford plays off against DI Quirke, the morose pathologist*, whose daughter Strafford is seeing, while managing to evade discussing it with Quirke, his closest colleague. It’s all very messy in a very constrained polite way.

A car is found in a field, and a man turns up claiming his wife has run away from it after an argument. Is he believable? Much of the book turns on that.

This is the fourth in a series Banville has written about Quirke and Strafford. It’s only the second I’ve read, but it’s interesting to watch their relationship develop. This book links back to the third book, The Lockup in a twist that may not be successful for all. The fate of the suspect is ambiguous in a satisfactory way.

All in all a good quick start to the year, when I didn’t want anything too serious to follow immediately on The Sorrow of Angels.

——

* It’s understandable that pathologists are often morose, but maybe sometime there could be a more cheerful fictional one.

There is much history before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up, but that would be several books in itself. This book is about the actual commission. It was the nonfiction selection by my bookclub for January: a definite re-entry into serious reading.



North of Nowhere: Song of a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner by Marie Wilson
first published 2024
finished reading January 7, 2026

>35 SassyLassy: There are also 7 novels before this series in the Quirke series that features only the pathologist - I think Banville was testing the waters of the genre before publishing under his real name. :) I've read the first of them a long time ago and always thought I should go back (and reread the first I suspect - I remember liking it but that is all I remember). Thanks for reminding me to get back to these!

>36 SassyLassy: That sounds like a tough read.

>36 SassyLassy: Thank you for this great review of a very important book, Sassy.

>34 SassyLassy: and I've never heard of a white party (at least a non political one)



It means a party where all the guests are asked to dress all in white. It's not political or racist, and the pictures look rather nice.

It sounds funny, doesn't it? It was a popular party theme -- I attended a white themed birthday party here in Vancouver around a decade ago (and the host was not a white person), and a white theme banquet in the Bahamas in 2018, and another bday party in Australia in 2024.

Now every time I see one where it's obvious the driver could have afforded it, I think "Oh there goes a car they just primered. Why didn't they paint it too?"

That's funny!

>34 SassyLassy: Do i yield to the hook? It’s still sparkling over there in mental pool. The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson is on my ideas list. The 1st and, so far, only for 2026

>36 SassyLassy: how fascinating. Although i agree with Bas, it sounds like a tough read.

>36 SassyLassy: This sounds very interesting, despite your aside about the asides. Do you think this would be accessible to someone not as familiar with the situation in Canada, or is there a different book on the topic you would recommend?

Both The Drowned and North of Nowhere, although very different books, both sound interesting.

>36 SassyLassy: I wonder how many of those 94 calls of action had resulted in something in the 10 years since then. Great review!

>37 AnnieMod: I didn't know that about Quirke as a standalone. Interesting. Also, although I mentally pronounce his name with a silent "e", I suspect Banville is having fun with the reader by suggesting "quirky".

>38 baswood: >39 kidzdoc: >41 dchaikin: It was a difficult read with all the excerpts from the testimony, but Wilson balances it out well, interspersing it with activity on the ground, as it were.

>42 labfs39: I think it would definitely be accessible to others, especially those familiar with the process in South Africa. Wilson mentions that people from other countries, specifically the polar rim and the US made multiple inquiries as to the set up process.

>43 BLBera: I think I needed one to balance the other.

>44 AnnieMod: Here's a follow up from the government of Canada, last modified December 12, 2025:
https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1524494530110/1557511412801

>40 Nickelini: Well I could never go to one of those parties - I studiously avoid white clothing, and wouldn't have anything to wear! Did anyone try contrast?

>41 dchaikin: Yield, but start with Heaven and Hell

>45 SassyLassy: Oh, I am sure that Banville is playing on quirky with the name. And I don't really pronounce that 'e' in my head either - is it supposed to be pronounced? On a separate note - I knew that Benjamin Black was a pseudonym but it took me a very long time to figure out whose. Banville has a nice story about how Black was born if you are interested: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/22/john-banville-benjamin-black-autho...

Thanks for the link to the report update site. It had been moving faster than I expected (or am I too cynical?)

>45 SassyLassy: ooh. Noting. Thanks!

>45 SassyLassy: Well I could never go to one of those parties - I studiously avoid white clothing, and wouldn't have anything to wear! Did anyone try contrast?

LOL - yes, white is dangerous. Don't eat a hot dog with mustard at one of those parties! And I've never noticed anyone trying to contrast or not play along.

>35 SassyLassy: I didn’t enjoy Benjamin Black Quirke series And this might be why I was a bit prejudiced about The Drowned. I quite quite liked April in Spain where he first seemed to blend crime with his previous genre. Have you read it?

>40 Nickelini: I went to one of those dress in white parties way back when. It was hosted by a strange friend who said he was filming it for his debut film. Later we found out he had no film in the camera.

>50 kjuliff: how weird!

>40 Nickelini:, >45 SassyLassy: There was (is?) an annual Fête en Blanc here. IIRC invitation only and I never rated, but also I do not possess any white clothing. There's also a Fête en Noir fundraiser for a cemetery.

>51 dchaikin: Very Fellini

>13 SassyLassy: And the West Australian state government in particular, the removal of aboriginal children without their parents’ consent, giving them to white families in order to eliminate their “blackness”. White-washing.

This West Australian practice began to wind down in the late 1960s and was only legally abolished in 1972.

These children are now called. “The Stolen Generation”.

January was George Orwell month in the Monthly Author Reads group.

I have no idea where this copy came from. Usually I make a note, but this one is marked 5/ in pencil on the inside and 85c on a sticker on the back, neither offering a clue as to where those prices might have been in effect.



Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
first published 1933
finished reading January 24, 2026

>55 SassyLassy: Oh, I didn't know there was a group read going on. I've been thinking of rereading Down and Out in Paris and London. Some parts of it really stuck with me. I wrote on it for a history class at university, but I first heard about it from my psychologist, who recommended it (he also recommended Wild Swans and Siddhartha -- odd array of books, but I digress). When I wrote my essay I also brought in Road to Wigan Pier, which isn't as good as DAOIPAL but also very good. The thing that I found amusing was that when he was living like a destitute person, when things got too much, he took a break with friends and stayed in a nice home near Hampstead Heath (I've been there -- it has the blue "Orwell lived here" plaque). So on one hand, he really was never a truly poor person, but then on the other hand he died at 46 from TB that I suppose he got from the guy "coughing loathsomely in the corner" in one of the shelters he slept in while in London.

Thanks for the push to pull it out of my stacks again.

>55 SassyLassy: Enjoyed your excellent review of George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, which I have not read.

>55 SassyLassy: Interesting review of Down and Out. I should read more by and about Orwell. I've only read the usual suspects: 1984, Animal Farm, Burmese Days.

>55 SassyLassy: Seconding >57 baswood: and >58 labfs39:. I'm pretty sure I own a copy, your review tells me it's a book I should dust from the shelves.

>55 SassyLassy: Interesting review. I decided to go with one of his novels I had not read before but this sounds like something I should check as well...

>55 SassyLassy: Great review, Sassy.

Thanks all. I know some of you have read The Road to Wigan Pier, and now I feel that after many years I should reread it.

A new book from a favourite author; I'm surprised there aren't more copies of it on LT.



Looking for Tank Man by Ha Jin
first published 2025
finished reading January 31, 2026

>63 SassyLassy: I enjoyed your interview. Many male writers with describing how women speak, especially when it’s cross-cultural.

>63 SassyLassy: Definitely something I would like to read. Ha Jin is not easily available in France, so I hope this one will be translated, and I will need to keep my eyes open to catch it when it is available!
Thanks for putting this book and this author on my radar!

> Great review of Looking for Tank Man, Sassy. Many years ago (2012?) I attended a lecture that Ha Jin gave at Skidmore College and followed that up by reading The Writer as Migrant. I have five other books of his in my library, a few I have read and a few I haven't. I should go in search of them. While I have never been methodical in organizing my books, I always had a "visual" sort of memory of exactly where specific titles were. But we moved earlier this year, any pretense of organization was lost, and now I have to really look to find anything!

>64 kjuliff: While it's not a cross cultural difficulty here (Ha Jin's character is Chinese too), you're right about the difficulty some authors have.

>65 raton-liseur: Interesting that he is not easily available in France. I'd be interested in knowing why. I checked on amazon.ca for French editions, but no luck.

>66 Linda92007: Oh the dreaded moving redistribution! While it can bring to our attention books we ignored for too long, there are those it feels will never be found again. My books are organised fairly methodically, but when I packed them, I packed them by size as it protects them better, and while some cartons were homogeneous, others were a complete dog's breakfast.

I envy you having heard him speak.

>67 SassyLassy: "...a complete dog's breakfast..." Love that!

>63 SassyLassy: Great review. I really need to get back to Ha Jin.

Lack of recent exposure to native voices in their proper environment often leads to these almost generic voices. I did not notice anything like that in Waiting but then I am not sure I was looking... I am kinda used to that from authors who do not write in their native language (and yes, there are exceptions but...)

>63 SassyLassy: How reliable is the Narrator? I am referring to the author. When a dissident in exile writes about the common enemy - is it valid to ask that question? Your review does not reveal whether the book is anti-Chinese but I suspect that it maybe.

>69 AnnieMod: I didn't notice it in Waiting either. It's only been recently, when I think he is trying to develop female characters more. That's a good thing to try; it may just be me having read too many other novels where characters are in situations where they have to speak like that.

>70 baswood: How reliable is the Narrator? I am referring to the author. That's definitely a valid question.

I would say he has tried to be balanced. I didn't get the feeling the book was anti-Chinese people, rather it tried to reflect the record of suppression of information, so was critical of government agencies, as well as the actions of those in charge at the time of the Tiananmen Square events. There were instances of people in various roles, for instance young PLA soldiers, trying to help.
He avoided portraying the PRC as a monolith, rather he did include some of the internal turmoil leading up to Tiananmen, with leaders having conflicting views.
There was implied criticism of aspects of American academic life as well, a world the author knows well.

While Ha Jin doesn't have the humour of Mo Yan, one thing I did get a chuckle out of was a Chinese character in the US whose parents were considering a Canadian immigration programme from awhile back designed in part to attract wealthy Chinese. The verdict was "No" as they viewed Canada as "a socialist country"! Perhaps Ha Jin has become too American:)

I can't remember if you read Ai Wei Wei's 1000 Years of Joy and Sorrow, but that was far more critical, but then that was a memoir.

>70 baswood: A quick research - Ha Jin hasn’t been back to China for some decades and most of his books are banned there. It appears he was influenced by the events in Tiananmen Square and shortly after left the country to live in the United States.

>67 SassyLassy: By “cross-cultural” I meant writers of different cultures and different times can view women differently than the male writers in the West this century.

Of course the way it’s going in the USA we will probably need a more appropriate term for “the West”.

>71 SassyLassy: Thank you thats helpful

>63 SassyLassy: What an interesting way to approach Tiananmen. I like the cover too. I've only read two books by Ha Jin, but liked them both, especially War Trash, and keep meaning to get back to him. I own a few more of his books, and Nanking Requiem is the one I keep eyeing. He seems to write about many historically fraught moments

I have a thing for photos.


Street Sweepers Clean around a City Bus that was Burned in the Violence Photo by Jeff Widener from cnn.com website

Going back to the fact that there are no actual photos of Tank Man's face, here are a couple of non paywall articles about the photos from June, 1989. There were four widely distributed photographs taken by four different photographers.

The first article is from the NYT, with each of the four photographs and commentary by each of the photographers: https://archive.nytimes.com/lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/behind-the-scenes-...

The second is a Kyle Almond story from cnn, about a series of photos taken by Jeff Widener in May and June 1989 in and around Tiananmen Square: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/world/tiananmen-square-tank-man-cnnphoto...

>74 labfs39: What an interesting way to approach Tiananmen. I thought so too, and it made me want to instantly get out all my old books on China and read some more.

I read Nanjing Requiem some years ago. Recently I've been thinking of going back to it, as it was the first of his longer novels I had read, and at the time I wondered about the construction. It was an interesting story, however, written at a time when the Japanese occupation of Nanjing didn't figure much in the west. I had read Iris Chang not long before that, and maybe that was what influenced me - perhaps I wasn't finding him as "serious" as Chang. I have a tendency to be hard on authors sometimes.

>75 SassyLassy: Thank you for those links. It's amazing to me that the photos are still banned, or unknown, in China. I'm even more interested in reading Looking for Tank Man now.

>55 SassyLassy: Great review of Down and Out in Paris and London, which is a book that I somehow know a lot about but haven't not read - this makes me feel I should at last!

I am very intrigued by Looking for Tank Man but I cannot find it here, atleast not in the public libraries. Enjoyed your review.

If you are interested in learning more about the impact of June 4, I highly recommend The People's Republic of Amnesia by Louisa Lim which looks at the stories of different people involved in the events.

>63 SassyLassy: terrific review of Looking for Tank Man. Was it written in English? (Asking because i’m Booker obsessed and wondering which award it may have a shot at)

>79 wandering_star: Thanks so much for that recommendation. I've added it to my list. I have a lot of catchup reading to do.

>80 dchaikin: Ha Jin lives in the US and writes in English, which to me accounts for some of his difficulties in writing the conversational language of young women in Looking for Tank Man, as he lived in the PRC up until his twenties.
I don't know about the Booker, as I'm not sure if this has been published in the UK or Ireland yet. However, he has won the PEN/Faulkner Award twice, one of only four writers to have done that. He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
If you're interested in reading him, I'd suggest Waiting or War Trash, the two that won the PEN/Faulkner, and would probably appeal to you most.
Interesting random fact - he has an asteroid named after him - 58495 Hajin.

>78 rasdhar: It was only published at the end of 2025, so may not yet be available where you are.

It seems that for some unknown reason I have read two John Banville Inspector Quirke novels in two months, this one following The Drowned in >35 SassyLassy: above. . This one was a break after Tank Man.



Even the Dead by John Banville
first published 2016
finished reading February 4, 2026

Doctor Quirke, the senior pathologist consultant of the Dublin Police Force is on medical leave. It turns out a beating he sustained years ago, combined with his alcoholic blackouts, has damaged his brain. This is making him even more morose than ever, as he tries to avoid the drink that is available anywhere at all it seems in Dublin. He has moved in temporarily with his brother and sister-in-law, where things are starting to get complicated.

One day he received a call from his second in command, David Sinclair. Sinclair was looking for advice about a supposed suicide with a strange blow to the head.

What follows is a complex investigation ultimately involving the Catholic Church and questionable schemes. Along the way, Quirke will discover much about himself, and more importantly, his relations with his family and coworkers.

This is the seventh of Banville’s novels featuring Quirke, however, only the third I’ve read. Although I like Banville’s character Inspector Strafford, and the interplay between the two, it was good to see Quirke on his own, and find out a bit more about him. It may be awhile before I read another Quirke book, it may be next week, but now I’m ready to go back to more serious reading.

It seems that somehow I have missed my fifteenth anniversary on LT, only made aware of it by a message from those who keep track of these things. It certainly doesn't seem like that long, but I can't imagine reading without it (although I'd probably get a lot more done).

>83 SassyLassy: Congratulations!

>82 SassyLassy: I keep meaning to look out for more Banville — I was in the library yesterday and didn’t think of him… The two I’ve read were very good.

>82 SassyLassy: I might give this one a shot. I generally haven’t liked the Quirke books, but maybe this one will be more enjoyable for me, as Banville his put his own name to it.

>83 SassyLassy: My 18th thingaversary is coming up in March, but I will be away then, so I'll probably skip the celebratory buying.

>82 SassyLassy: I have read Dr Copernicus by John Banville which I enjoyed. It was nice to read a review of his alias Benjamin Black.

>84 thorold: >85 kjuliff: I think seeing Banville's name on the covers is what led me to these books, having read some of his more "serious" work.

>86 labfs39: Eighteen - That's an adult. I did skip the celebratory buying, having bought too many books already this year, although I'm probably not at the 15 mark yet.

>87 baswood: Dr Copernicus was an interesting one. I've also read Kepler in the same series, but think Copernicus was more interesting. I still have The Newton Letter to go.

Stitching Freedom: Embroidery & Incarceration by Isabella Rosner
first published 2024
finished reading February 14, 2026

>89 SassyLassy: Too bad this one didn't fulfill expectations. The book I finished this week, I Who Have Never Known Men, mentioned several times that the women were given scraps of cloth to make clothes, but no thread, so they had to plait strands of their hair to use. It was such an unusual (to me) idea, I wondered if there was an historical precedent.

Some of the work mentioned in Stitching Freedom: Embroidery and Incarceration

Frayed and worn over time, Mary Stuart's A Catte, showing the crowned orange cat and the small mouse



image from jstor.org

Suffragette signatures from Holloway prison 1912


image from Selvedge Magazine

Ashley's Sack 1921


image from Cultural Environments: January 2016

>90 labfs39: I'd definitely recommend Clare Hunter's Threads of Life.

>90 labfs39: Oh! I read an excellent book called All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack by Tiya Miles. Highly recommend if you want more detail and context about that story.

>91 SassyLassy: I love these images, thanks for sharing.

>92 SassyLassy: Noted. I'm particularly interested in the idea of sewing as protest at the moment, after learning about the Melt the ICE Hat project started by needle & skein in Minnesota. So far they have raised almost $700,000 USD selling $5 patterns for a red knit hat. They are donating the money to immigrant aid organizations in the Twin Cities. The pattern is based on the Norwegian knit hats made during WWII as a protest against the Nazi occupation of their country. The Nazis later made the making and wearing of these hats illegal. I purchased a copy of the pattern and now have to get the yarn.

>93 japaul22: I have that book, but have not yet read it.

>94 labfs39: I think there have been a number of times that women have protested using sewing or knitting (women’s tools). In the Australian state of Tasmania, “The Tassie Nannas” a group of grandmothers settled in a Hobart street protesting in silence, knitting while handing out flyers. They were protesting against the federal conservative government’s policy of sending refugees to the island of Nauru.

>95 kjuliff: Absolutely, Kate. The subject came to mind, however, with this latest instance.

>93 japaul22: Thanks for that recommendation. I will certainly look for it. It was an odd coincidence, as I was reading Beloved at the same time when I came across it.

>94 labfs39: That is a great project with an amazing response.

>95 kjuliff: I hadn't heard about that one, although I knew about the protests.

>91 SassyLassy: thanks for finding these photos, it's wonderful to see them

And more recently, there was the Tiny Pricks project during the first Trump administration, and the pussy hat.

I hope you didn't get hit too hard by the storms this week.

>100 labfs39: It was a blizzard level storm over Sunday night, but then it's winter, and in winter it snows.
At least unlike the last storm two weeks ago, the power stayed on. It was off for 37 hours in that storm.

This isn’t a book I would have picked up on my own to read, but it was the February choice for my book club. I was really looking forward to discussing it, but unfortunately a snow storm the night before the meeting meant the roads were not plowed in time, and only four members turned up. I wasn’t one of them.



Beloved by Toni Morrison
first published 1987
finished reading February 10, 2026

The germ of the idea for Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a real life story, tragic enough in itself. Infanticide is at the heart of both stories. The enslaved real life Margaret Garner escaped with her husband and children to the free territory of Ohio in 1856. They were pursued there under the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed for the recapture of slaves, even those in free territory. Rather than have her children returned to be brought up enslaved, the pregnant Margaret murdered the youngest and tried to kill two others.

Morrison took this story from a newspaper clipping and spun it into a gripping tale of the supernatural. Sethe is Margaret. Eighteen years ago she had killed her daughter Beloved in similar circumstances. No matter what else she had faced in those eighteen intervening years, guilt had been a constant.

Eventually she had found her way back to her mother-in-law Baby Suggs, one of a crew of interesting characters. You could take any of them and spin a story, but they would probably all be a a version of Baby’s life, one where

…men and women were moved around like checkers. Anyone Baby Suggs knew, let alone loved, who hadn’t run off or been hanged, got rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, mortgaged, won, stolen or seized…. What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children.

This was a woman who could provide care to and for Sethe. There were odd unexplained forces in her house though. Baby Suggs withdrew to her bed to die, seeking only scraps of colour for her quilt after a long life lived in grey.

Sethe took over, and so did the spirits, recognised by some, ignored by others. One day a young girl appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. The spirits disappeared. Who this young girl is, and what her connections to the spirits was, is something for each reader to decipher for themselves. Each of the major characters had an opinion; each deciding whether or not to share it with others. The biggest impact was on Sethe’s remaining child, her daughter Denver, born just after the murder.

There are no extraneous details here. As each of the characters builds the story, Morrison draws on their individual backgrounds to create a realistic yet unimaginable record of their lives, a record which invites the reader to track the story from each of their perspectives, creating a tenuous whole. Each reader must create their own version alone.

>102 SassyLassy: Snow derailed my book club this week as well. We were going to discuss Isola.

I remember loving Beloved. Reading your review, I realized I am due for a rereading.

>103 labfs39: What is the process when a meeting is derailed? Do you postpone the book until the next meeting, or continue on as planned?

Have you read any more Morrison?

>102 SassyLassy: >103 labfs39: Like Lisa, I really loved this book when it came out. I remember the emotions that it evoked but not the detail. So I too should read it again. Strangely, I haven’t enjoyed other Morrison books as much as Beloved. I think that’s because I was so taken by Beloved, the first Morrison book I read.

Thank you for this enticing review

>104 SassyLassy: We try to reschedule for later in the week. That normally works okay, but this week I tweaked my back shoveling, so I couldn't make the rescheduled meeting. :-(

I have only read The Bluest Eye, which I also loved, and Song of Solomon, which I did not. After reading the reviews of some other CRers, I wonder if I simply didn't understand SoS. I would be more interested in rereading the two I liked, however, than in revisiting it. I also own A Mercy and Recitatif.

>102 SassyLassy: I absolutely loved Beloved. I've not loved other books I've read of hers as much, but that one was special.

>105 kjuliff: >106 labfs39: >107 AlisonY: Interesting about your responses to other books by Morrison. I had been wondering about whether to pursue her or not. Now I suspect I will just leave it to the fates.

>106 labfs39: That is discouraging, especially if you've gone out of your way to read a book you might not otherwise have thought about. Hope your back has recovered in time for your trip.

Re: Morrison. I've read almost all of her novels over the years. Oddly, Beloved is one of those I have not read. I loved Song of Solomon and Sula, and also Jazz. It's been quite some time since I read Jazz, but a fellow I met at a bookstall near the Columbia University campus who was teaching a course on African American literature told me he thought that Jazz was one of the best depictions of life in Harlem that he'd ever read. I also remember enjoying Tar Baby. Cheers!

Thérèse Raquin by Emile Zola translated from the French by Andrew Rothwell (1992)
first published in serial form in L’Artiste August to October 1867
finished rereading March 1, 2026

>109 rocketjk: I will say I was tempted by Jazz, so thanks for the prod.

Enjoyed your review of Thérèse Raquin which I read along time ago. I did not realise it was an early Zola novel

I do have to weigh in on Toni Morrison, since she is one of my favorite authors. I read The Bluest Eye in an American Lit class in college in the 90s and it blew me away. I had (sadly) no idea that there were living American authors writing so beautifully and deeply - I was very immersed in 19th century classics written by males at that point.
I have since read Song of Solomon, Beloved, Paradise, Tar Baby, Sula, Love, and A Mercy. I've really loved them all. Morrison's writing is challenging and brings an important voice to the U.S. experience. And she does it in such a lyrical, beautiful, and imaginative way while not losing the brutality of the eras she writes about.
I think she's a truly special author.

>102 SassyLassy: I loved this one as well. I've read all of Morrison's novels, most of them more than once. I loved Paradise and Song of Solomon, especially. And most of them are even better on rereading.

>102 SassyLassy: I remember that I enjoyed Paradise and wanted to read more by Morrison. I got a copy of Beloved but could not read it because of the subject matter being too close to heart. It waits on the shelf. I want to read more of her novels but I don't want to be destroyed in the process. What would you recommend?

>109 rocketjk: >113 japaul22: >114 BLBera: >115 VladysKovsky: Thanks for the encouragement to read more Morrison - perhaps this summer.
>115 VladysKovsky: This was the first of her novels I read, so can't recommend any others. However, I think the @japaul22 and @BLBera cover it well.

>112 baswood: I didn't realise it was an early novel either, but knowing that, I think there are some marks of it there.

I saw the latest film version in the city, and pulled my old copy of the book off the shelves as soon as I got home.



The cover is a portrait of Emily Brontë by her brother Branwell

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
first published in 1847
finished rereading March 7th 2026

>117 SassyLassy:
Love your comments on Wuthering Heights. That's a novel I like to reread every now and then. I haven't seen the latest film but I will eventually when it shows up on streaming

>118 Nickelini: Thanks it really holds up well. However, I would say see it on the big screen if at all possible. It is definitely one of those kind of movies.

>117 SassyLassy:

I read it only once but it seems to me a miraculous book, an elemental phenomenon.

Never watched any of the screen adaptations, somehow.

>55 SassyLassy:

The one tolerable Orwell... and yet at the root of my restaurant-phobia. :)

>120 LolaWalser: The one tolerable Orwell... and yet at the root of my restaurant-phobia. :)


LOLZ. That part is the only thing I remember about the Paris section of the book. Seared into my brain.

>102 SassyLassy: I enjoyed your review of Beloved, which is the next book that I will be discussing with an informal group of friends. I have read it before, but am looking forward to this re-read. The last of her books that I read was Song Of Solomon and I loved it.

Morrison taught at UAlbany from 1984-1989, which was the period when she was working on Beloved. This spring they unveiled an exhibit related to her time at the university. If you are interested, a transcription of a 1988 radio interview conducted with her, where she talks about what inspired her to write the novel, is posted at nyswritersinstitute.org/toni-morrison. It's the last segment, so you need to scroll down to find it. It's kind of choppy to read, but still revealing and I thought added to understanding Morrison's purpose behind the novel.

>120 LolaWalser: ...a miraculous book, an elemental phenomenon - best review of it ever

>120 LolaWalser: >121 Nickelini: I have to confess I'm not fond of restaurants, and Orwell definitely confirmed that for me.

>122 Linda92007: Thanks for that. It's always interesting to hear from the source.
Is your group completely informal, or does it have a book club feel to it?

>117 SassyLassy: Thats a nice quote from the anonymous 1848 reviewer. I certainly remember Wuthering Heights being in the same list of books for young readers as Little Women, Jayne Eyre, Coral Island and Black Beauty

>117 SassyLassy: >124 baswood: I am definitely going to reread Wuthering Heights which I haven’t read since childhood. I remember thinking of rereading it after I read Wide Sargasso Sea in adulthood. . There’s another book - Caryl Phillips’s Cambridge that for some reason I tend to group with both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea.

>117 SassyLassy: I read Wuthering Heights as a teen and remember nothing about it, except maybe a vaguely oppressive atmosphere, but that may be more from what I read about it later. I don’t especially feel compelled to reread it, but your review does make me wonder.

I should read A Passage To India.

>123 SassyLassy: Our group is completely informal, just a small group of friends who love literature. Several of the members are extremely well read, two are retired English teachers, and our discussions are quite intense and usually very lively, but not at all structured.

Just lost my post so recreating it here.

>124 baswood: I have all those books in one form or another! R M Ballantyne seems to have disappeared completely from the reading world.

>125 kjuliff: I'm not familiar with Cambridge, but I did like the riff on Jane Eyre in The Wide Sargasso Sea

>126 FlorenceArt: You might find a vaguely oppressive atmosphere in A Passage to India too! Wuthering Heights might appeal more now, or else it could be a disaster for you. Worth a try whichever way it comes out.

>127 Linda92007: That sounds like the best kind of discussions. I'm in a group which meets for other purposes, but we usually wind up discussing books in that way.

One of my loose reading aims for this year is to become acquainted with some of the current writing from francophone Canada. Searching the Biblioasis catalogue I found this next book:



The Music Game by Stéfanie Clermont translated from the French by J C Sutcliffe (2022)
first published as Jeu de la musique 2017
finished reading March 9, 2026

There are still some people who grow up in line with their parents’ expectations, who live in an insulated cocoon, skipping easily from one life stage to the next. Then there is the rest of the gang, often more creative or adventurous than the straight line followers, but also more vulnerable.

These are by and large the teenagers and young adults Stéphanie Clermont concerns herself with. Their paths are interrupted by gap years, by drugs, drink, relationships, travel, meaningless work, or by any combination of off ramps. Sometimes death is the only out, be it by accident or suicide.

Clermont tells their tales in a series of related short stories, with Sabrina as the main character. She had moved from Ottawa to Montréal after finishing school. Although a francophone, right away, her accent marked her as “other”. She does manage to find a loose group of friends, though, augmented by the ongoing struggle to find room mates with whom to share her apartment, or even better, to move in with.

Sabrina’s friends and her succession of dead end jobs allow Clermont to portray a range of backgrounds. One was the Jean Talon Market, where well off urbanites and tourists expected Sabrina to love working at the fruit stand, attending to them amidst all the colour and lush produce: The typical customer wandered around, latte in hand, eyes half closed or hidden behind smoked glasses, a satisfied smile playing on their lips… Sabrina felt she was living in an ad for the market. My sympathies were with her immediately.

Montréal is a great pull for any young person, but there is also the pull of the more traditional rural areas. Montréal is a place where you never stop learning new things. … there are books and music, readers and musicians. On the other hand, those whom Sabrina knows who have moved to the country “hardly read anymore”, but then there is less pressure to keep up. Is that more soul destroying than living in the city?

Sabrina did visit the country periodically, going to the home of a wealthy roommate, one whose parents’ country home was straight out of a Denys Arcand film, as was the dinner table conversation. It was obvious though to her that those days were gone. The parents may have been able to make their way in the world, but options for any kind of regular income now were severely curtailed. Even university wouldn’t solve that.

This may not be so different from the lives of young people elsewhere in the country, however, underlying it all was the belief that it was important to be in the province of Québec, that identity lay there, that part of yourself would be lost if you moved outside that world. There was an engagement, however low key, with the political and cultural milieu which is often not present in other parts of the country. That was encouraging.

Out of order, thoughts written down at least.
This was the latest selection from my book club. Carol Off is a well known political journalist in Canada, and over the years conducted 25,000+ interviews on the radio programme As it Happens.



At a Loss for Words: Conversation in an Age of Rage by Carol Off
first published 2024, this 2nd edition published 2025
finished reading April 8th, 2025

Inspired by Robert MacFarlane’s The Lost Words: A Spell Book, Carol Off decided to look at words in the political world. In her case she chose words we have kept, but yet their meanings have changed somehow. It’s a great premise for a book.

Her chosen words were freedom, democracy, truth, woke, choice, and taxes. What do we mean when we use them in our own political stance? What meaning do we derive when others are using them? Do they still mean anything at all?

Off starts with freedom, a word which has evolved far beyond its original Greek use as describing a person who is neither a slave nor a prisoner. Going through various rights to freedom of expression, religion, movement and so on, she discusses the emergence of democracies, which granted those freedoms. This felt a bit like Political Philosophy 101 at times. She then skips ahead centuries to look at recent episodes which have used “freedom” as a rallying cry in assaults against the very democracies which granted freedoms.

The two major examples are the storming of the US Capital in January 2021, and the Freedom Convoy which held downtown Ottawa hostage in January 2022 using a blockade of vehicles. In both cases, the protestors used the word in an attempt to achieve their particular movement’s own limited goals, without regard to what that might mean in a democratic context.

Although they appear as separate sections of the book, her discussion of the words freedom, democracy and truth overlap, as you might expect.

Moving on to woke , she develops her discussion from a nineteenth century usage in the American Black population, where to “Be woke” meant to look out for danger, to be aware of what is around you. She goes through the positive and negative implications of the word, so that it almost seems like two different words. Using it, you would have to be clear on your own and your listeners’ interpretation.

Off’s discussion of choice focusses solely on the right to abortion. Interestingly, she quotes Margaret Atwood as saying to her that perhaps it’s time to create a new vernacular, one that speaks directly to what women need. According to Atwood, choice is “ a consumer term, a frivolous one, born in a time when marketing and branding seemed essential to sell the product, all the more difficult when the competition had the word life in its brand”.

Taxes was the most interesting discussion for me, and surprisingly for most of the group. Using a variety of dictionaries, Off puts definitions at the beginning of each section. The one for taxes reads “a strain or heavy demand”. Had I grown up with this definition, perhaps now I might have the American attitude which strives to avoid the imposition of taxes in all forms. Here she gives a very Canadian discussion of what they can do for the people, while worrying that Canadians are beginning to resent them.

The first edition of the book was published in the fall of 2024. In an Afterwords published in this second edition, she says of the first edition

it was meant to be a cautionary tale - a warning that illiberalism and anti-democratic movements were ravaging the political landscape in the United States and in many other parts of the world. I wanted to alert Canadians to be vigilant so the same would not happen here. The key to that vigilance… lies in the language we choose and in our ability to communicate with each other across political divides. I did not expect that the dire predictions laid out in the book would come to pass.

With the US election now over and the new President in charge, Off adds two words: “hope” and “meaningful”. The former is passive, requiring nothing of us, and yielding nothing. “Meaningful” she views as “active and forward looking”, requiring us to search out meaning.

While all the discussions were interesting, I felt there was too much journalism here, too much jumping around looking for the book equivalent of sound bites on which to hang a point of view. I wouldn’t have read it had it not been for my book club, but it did make for good group discussion.

I somehow missed starring your thread at the beginning of the year, so I'm catching way up! Particularly making a note of The Music Game.

Another one way out of reading order, but this is the Francophone World reading quarter over in Reading Globally.



Standing Heavy by GauZ' (Armand Patrick Gbaka-Brédé) translated from the French by Frank Wynne (2022)
first published as Debout payé 2014
finished reading May 28, 2026

>132 SassyLassy: We also see the once colonised in the home of the coloniser.

Yes it’s so ironic that Europeans in particular as shocked when those they colonised return to them.

Your review sounds interesting and I’ll keep my eye out for a copy.

>132 SassyLassy: This sounds very good. How is it out of reading order?

>133 kjuliff: Hope you're able to find one.

>134 FlorenceArt: Usually I post my reviews in chronological reading order. That means my next review should have been the book following The Music Game (another book originally written in French), which I finished reading way back on March 9th. I am woefully behind in my reviews.

Standing Heavy was shortlisted for the International Booker in 2023 after its translation into English. It was a first novel, followed by Camarade Papa, and then Black Manoo. I don't think there would be any problem finding it in the original French.

>132 SassyLassy: Great review of Standing Heavy, Sassy. It was a thought provoking novel about a group of people that many of us, including I suspect at least some African American tourists like myself, looked at without much consideration. It made me more aware and sensitive of their plights, and I gave this book 4 stars.

ETA: I'll keep my eye out for Camarade Papa.

ETA(2): The Free Library of Philadelphia has three copies of it, so I've added it to my wishlist.

>135 SassyLassy: unfortunately Standing Heavy is not available in audio. It’s really limiting for me now as there’s no other way I can read in this such a shortage of good books available.

>137 kjuliff: An audio book of Standing Heavy exists. The Brooklyn library has it, but it doesn't look like NYPL or Queens has a copy.

>138 ELiz_M: oh thanks for that information. It’s really lovely of you you to check for me.So it must be commercially available as well, but I couldn’t find it. Does the Brooklyn Library give you the publisher information, as that might help me find it.

>135 SassyLassy: Ah I see!

Debout-payé is not available as an ebook, but my library has it on paper. I will look for it next week when I go to renew my membership and pick up some holiday books. Black Manoo is available on Kobo.

>139 kjuliff:

Creators:
Gauz' Author
Frank Wynne Translator
Diontae Black Narrator

Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
Edition: Unabridged
Release date: August 27, 2024

OverDrive Listen audiobook ISBN: 9798855511994

>141 ELiz_M: Wonderful! Thanks so much.

>132 SassyLassy: Seems really interesting, I'll try to find it!
>140 FlorenceArt: And I love the French title, one reason more to read it!

>140 FlorenceArt: My English translation of Débout payé gives 20230478034 as a call number for an ebook edition.

>143 raton-liseur: I did read something about why the French title was so good, but can't find it now.

Interesting review of Standing Heavy - while waiting for my wife in Monoprix I managed to have a laugh with the security guard - but perhaps its not the sort of shop as Sephora in Paris

>144 SassyLassy: Thanks! Indeed it’s available on Kindle, but not on other ebook shops that I know.

>145 baswood: I would imagine that Sephora on the Champs Élysées is a world apart. I think I went there once, but I was concentrating on getting out of there as fast as possible. I hate Sephora, it’s an assault on my senses, especially smell. I can’t imagine working there.

Possibly I'm giving up on chronological reading order here.



Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar
first published 1982
finished reading May 2, 2026

>147 SassyLassy: Ooh, that went straight to my wishlist.

ETA: That would make a great list (or Avid Reader Question): greatest female characters of all time.

>148 labfs39: Great idea - now an Avid Reader Question.

I'd like to know what you think of Rachel if you read the book.

>147 SassyLassy: Interesting that you reference the preface by John Carey a very interesting writer and reviewer - enjoyed your review

>147 SassyLassy: I enjoyed your review and have put this book on my list. Love thee John Carey quote. The Brits are so good at putdowns..

>147 SassyLassy: I am very interested as well. Thank you for the Booker story from John Carey!

>147 SassyLassy: I've seen that book and next time I'll buy it. Excellent review!

Definitely making a note of Wish Her Safe At Home!

>147 SassyLassy:
That cover is beautiful. Would make for an easy cover buy.

>155 lilisin: I agree