Avaland's 2009 Reading

Now Reading

-Kalpa Imperial : The Greatest Empire That Never Was by Angela Gorodischer (fiction, Argentine author ON HOLD)
-Great Classic Stories (BBC audio) Ongoing, mostly used when I'm hand sewing)

2009 Books

Last read:
-The Black Path, Asa Larsson (mystery, Swedish author)

Novels:
De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage (fiction, Canadian-Lebanese author)
The Quiet War by Paul McAuley (science fiction, UK author)
The Enclave by Kit Reed (science fiction, US author)
The City and the City by China Miéville (fiction, UK author)
The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll (fiction, US author)
The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels (fiction, Egypt/Canada, Canadian author)
*The Coquette by Hannah Foster (fiction, late 18th C, US author)
Tinkers by Paul Harding (fiction, US author)
The Man who Smiled by Henning Mankell (mystery, Swedish author)

Short Fiction/Connected stories:
I'd Like by Amanda Michalopoulou (short fiction, Greek author) 4/5
Flash Fiction: 80 Very Short Stories, edited by James Thomas
Stick Out Your Tongue by Ma Jian (short fiction, Tibet, Chinese author) 4/5
Dear Husband: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates (short fiction collection)
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (connected stories, Pakistan)
Inside and Other Short Fiction: Japanese women by Japanese women by Amy Yamada et al. (short fiction anthology, Japanese authors)
The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa (short fiction collection, Japanese author)

Nonfiction:
*A Good Master Well-Served: A Social History of Servitude in Massachusetts 1620-1750. Dissertation by Lawrence William Towner
*Rereads of significant portions of: The Transcendental Wife : The Life of Abigail May Alcott, The Alcotts: Biography of a Family, Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands . . .etc.

The Last of 2008

A Pilgrim's Guide to Chaos in the Heartland by Jessica Goodfellow (poetry, US).
Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Sherman (short fiction, UK)
The Imposter by Damon Galgut (fiction, South African)
The Situation by Jeff VanderMeer (fiction, US)
Firewall by Henning Mankell (mystery, Swedish author)
Delirium by Laura Restapo (fiction, Colombian author)
A Mercy by Toni Morrison (fiction, US author)

***********

I expect my studies to continue to direct some of my early 2009 reading. This involves several periods of New England history/social history thus, I do a fair amount of nonfiction reading (some period literature also). This affects my pleasure reading, done mostly at night and weekends, in that I have avoided nonfiction; deep, complex fiction, and anything else that might be too distracting. There are just not a lot of brain cells left over for it. That said, I do manage to read a fair amount of fiction and poetry.

Who knows which way the literary winds will blow me this coming year?

As the end of the year approaches, I'm trying to finish up some books that were left unfinished for one reason or another during the year. On that note, my current read is Delirium by Colombian author Laura Restrepo.

I just finished a stellar police procedural, The Fifth Woman by Swedish author Henning Mankell. Wonderfully moody and cerebral.

My 2008 reading is logged HERE, should anyone be interested.

I don't think anyone would be interested.

*snort* I haven't warned anyone about your sense of humor yet:-)

Let's say I'm One step behind on Mankell. It looks interesting. I just haven't got to it yet. It'll probably be an '09. On Restrepo I read Leopard in the sun this year and I would say it was somewhere between okay and good.

>let's just say that book 1 was good enough for me to read a 2nd. Book 2 was alright but he tried to make it thriller-eske and I'm not into that; I skipped books 3 and 4, and five was excellent. The guns are rare and the action is mostly cerebral. I'll keep you posted. Jury is still out on the Restrepo.

End of 2008 reading . . . (thought I'd post here my notes on the last few books of '08 to ease me into the new year:-)

The Situation by Jeff Vandermeer

If Franz Kafka and Terry Gilliam had collaborated on the television show "The Office" you might have something similar to this wry, often laugh-out-loud surreal novelette of an office 'situation'. Insects and other creatures on the low end of the food chain are as useful and common in this office as post-its and email. VanderMeer has created a delightfully bizarre world that ironically resembles our own. btw, my husband and I read this 'tag team' style - I read 5 - 8 pages, then he read them, until we got through the book. Great fun.

It's really a novelette, although packaged in a thin, hardbound book with the cover illustration in the binding, but no dust jacket. Maybe 15,000 words at most? The tag-team reading might not work for something longer, I'm thinking.

avaland, The Situation sounds like the perfect gift for a friend whose birthday is coming up, but alas, it doesn't seem to be stocked by Amazon.ca. Perhaps I need to order it directly from PS... Or do you know whether it is likely to be kicking around in bookstores right now?

>9 cocoafiend: we ordered it directly from PS Publishing. The $ conversion was pretty good at the time.

#8 - i dunno..we tag teamed the whole of the "Lord of the Rings" between 3 people on one bunk bed when our son was ~ 5. Took a good while..basically 1 or 2 pages per person/time for ~ an hour. But we were younger and had more endurance.

>11 bobmcconnaughey:,

But everyone but your son probably knew the story already, right? Imagine reading it for the first time, and having to hand over your copy to someone else just as you get to some exciting part.

It was Adam's first time through the Lord of the rings. I did come in one summer's day from doing some yard work and Patty and Adam had gone ahead and made the mistake of reading on their own. They were both sobbing inconsolably as they had just gotten to the end of the two Towers and Frodo had been tied up by Shelob.

Personally I always found the Eowin/Faramir tale far more emotionally gripping than the trek of Sam and Frodo (and, in fact, the whole steward/king/Gondor thing works v. well for me)

>ok you guys, you can take your Tolkien lovefest over to your own threads:-) I'm not a fan.

fair enough...my bad. But I have friends (well, one couple) who do tag team longish novels so it's doable. Patty and i watch dvds together (ellipses).

I finished 2008 with The Impostor by Damon Galgut and The Pilgrim's Guide to Chaos in the Heartland by Jessica Goodfellow (poetry).

2009 READING

1. The Man Who Smiled by Henning Mankell. I love these detailed police procedurals set in southern Sweden with it's depressive, brilliant yet all-to-human detective. This novel was a back-step in series order. I read these for the cerebral buzz and was not disappointed in this particular one, despite the action-packed ending.* That said, my favorite thus far is The Fifth Woman.

*I'm not allergic to action, but oftentimes, especially in thrillers, the crime is solved through the action (often gratuitous), not through hard work, beating the pavement, and thinking.

Now reading The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa.

Ooooh, "The Situation" sounds a bit like the weird stuff George Saunders (the writer, not the umpteenth husband of Zsa Zsa, if you're old enough to remember her) writes. I'm putting that on my "Hope to Read" list.

Thanks!

Yes, I am old enough, but please don't remind me!

2. The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa

This is a remarkable collection of three delightfully odd novellas which are gentle in tone, insightful, and somewhat eerie.

>19 avaland:, Lois, this sounds right up my alley! Adding it to the ever-growing wishlist.

Now reading Tinkers by Paul Harding and perhaps something else. . .

marietherese introduced me to the Women's Media Center which sends out a daily news brief with links to articles about and of interest to women. I recommend it highly. While I never get to read everything in their daily mailings, every now and again, I pick through the variety of articles. Here's an example from today's mailing (the title links to the article usually but not in my copy here):

WMC Daily News Brief:

Israeli Journalist Decries Civilian Casualties In Gaza
12/31/08
Editor and Publisher: Iraeli journalist Amira Hass has become the most prominent Israeli journalist reporting as often as possible from Gaza and the West Bank - breaking bans and earning the wrath of both Israeli and Palestinian officials. She earned headlines in this regard just in the past month.

For Privacy's Sake, Taking Risks To End Pregnancy
1/5/09
NY Times: Misoprostol is commonly, though illegally, used within the Dominican community to induce abortion. Two new studies suggest that improper use of such drugs is one of myriad methods frequently employed in attempts to end pregnancies by women from fervently anti-abortion cultures.

Marines Buy Cows For Iraqi Widows
1/2/09
LA Times: The program, suggested by an Iraqi women's group, is part of an effort to reestablish the country's once-thriving dairy industry as well as a way to help impoverished women and children.

MIDEAST: Media Banned From Gaza as Humanitarian Crisis Escalates
12/31/08
IPS: Israel is again preventing journalists from entering Gaza to report first-hand on the escalating crisis there as its military operation, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, enters its fifth day.

Prominent Magazines Lose Weight, Shedding Nearly Half Their Ads
1/4/09
NY TImes: January issues tend to be thin even in good years, and most magazines posted a decline in ad pages. But the average decline across all monthly magazines was only 17 percent, and most Condé Nast magazines fared much worse, according to analysis of Media Industry Newsletter data.

Web Passes Papers As A News Source
1/5/09
NY Times: The Internet overtook print newspapers as a news source this year, according to a report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which asked more than a thousand people where they got "most of" their national and international news.

Kenyan President Signs Controversial Media Bill
1/3/09
AP via Boston Globe: Kenya's president has signed into law a media bill that opponents say threatens the country's hard-fought reputation for having one of Africa's most vigorous press.

Media's Lazy Fixations Obscure The Real Michelle
1/1/09
Women's eNews: Given Michelle Obama's impressive credentials, Sheila Gibbons thinks the next first lady is bound to be an innovative first lady. But the media's fixation on her as celebrity wife and mom make it hard to know what to expect.

{post cut for brevity - but you get the idea - Lois}

About us:
The Women's Media Center (WMC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan organization making women visible and powerful in the media. Through our website, media training programs, and advocacy work, the WMC ensures that women are represented as they are: powerful newsmakers, informed experts, and sought-after media professionals. For more information, please visit www.womensmediacenter.com.

Thanks for this, Lois--I've signed up to get the news brief.

I will sign up as well!

In the meantime, here is a Powell's interview with Paul Harding.
http://www.powells.com/authors/paulharding.html

Nancy, I started to read the interview (thanks!) but decided to hold off until I've finished the book. I definitely agree with this statement: "An especially gorgeous example of novelistic craftsmanship," according to Publishers Weekly. I haven't had time to read since the weekend. . .trying to get settled again in schoolwork.

Great thread! Starred.

Ack, there are too many groups to track reading! I can't keep track of them all! Thanks for putting the link to this one at the end of your 2008 list so I could find you, though. Not that I need to read your list, my list of to-be-reads is long enough!

When are you coming back to St. Louis this year? I think of you whenever I drive by The Book House.

>27 sussabmax: maybe in the spring.



Tinkers by Paul Harding

This little paperback is covered with enthusiastic blurbs and glowing reviews; this always makes me skeptical. However, the story is set partially in Maine, my home state, and that is what attracted me most to this book, found while browsing the shelves (the following week it had been put on display).

The life of George Washington Crosby is winding down as he lays in the hospital bed with his family watching over him. George had been a teacher of mechanical drawing and a skilled repairer of antique clocks. The dying George shares the story of his father, Howard, a peddler and tinker who had epilepsy. In turn his father tells a little of his father, a Methodist minister.

This is a beautifully rendered novel, full of passages that can only be described as prose poems. The landscape of Maine, the intricacies of antique clocks, the experience of an epileptic seizures, and the cycle of the seasons and of life itself fill these 190 or so pages in lines and paragraphs and passages of fine craftsmanship. It's not so much the story as how the story is told that is so compelling.

So, yes, the blurbs are accurate this time around:-)

I am working between two short fiction collections at the moment and about to start another novel. Inside and Other Short Fiction is short fiction by contemporary Japanese women. I've had this arc a long time ---since the days of my Asian reading jag several years ago. I was not much of a short fiction reader at that time and just never got around to reading it. However, the Japan theme in the Reading Globally group has inspired me to pick it up again. Flash Fiction Forward: 80 Very Stories was started last year and then disappeared until recently. Most of the stories are no more than a page and a half long, perfect for those time you need very short reads. A private group I'm in decided to read Canadian authors this month. I'm hoping it's extended into next month also to give me a little more time to read some CanLit. Thus my next novel will be an arc I recently picked up: The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels. Michaels is the author of the much-acclaimed-but-not-read-by-me, Fugitive Pieces.

re: schoolwork. After months of research, I seem to finally be writing. Still, I've been rummaging around in reprint of old cookbooks: American Cookery by Amelia Simmons (America's first cookbook, 1796), The Good Housekeeper by Sarah Josepha Hale (1841), The American Frugal Housewife by Lydia Child (1833). I am amazed how much of this same relatively plain New England cooking carried down into my own childhood.

What did you think of The Impostor? I bought it when it first came out but it keeps getting shoved to the bottom of the pile.

Well work took over my week, so not much time for reading. I have the weekend free, so I think I will spend it with Tinkers. Glad you liked it as much as you did.

izzy, here's what I wrote on The Impostor on my 2008 log:

A depressed poet retires to his brother's cottage in the South African countryside to write but instead gets involved with a wealthy developer, an old school chum he fails to remember. The book's narrative starts out deceptively light (in fact, I was somewhat mystified by all the rave reviews at first), but deepens as our protagonist finds him sinking deeper into a moral quagmire. There's a lot here - about the individual, about South Africa, about race, history, lies, corruption, truth and honesty (and more!).

I have read the author's The Quarry and The Good Doctor, and this book seemed somewhat a departure from those, although it has been a number of years and I can't quite put my finger on why I think that.

Nancy, it is a book to linger through; I'm glad I was not rushed. My immediate thought upon finishing was to reread it again, but thoughts of unread books kept me from doing so.

My post just disappeared, but I did say that I would really like to read The Impostor -- I've put it on my wishlist. Interesting investigation of the old cookbooks, avaland. I used to have my mom's old Good Housekeeping, but frankly found very little in it of interest, so passed it on. I still have all her handwritten recipes, of course, and a few books that reflect pioneer cooking before her time.

I have a bean crock just like that one. Tinkers sounds lovely, Avaland. Tks for the review.

>28 avaland: Like the naughty twist in your review! And like the sound of the book, so I'll be looking for Tinkers, as well. Thank you, Lois.

Interesting reading Lois. And I'll be looking for Tinkers as well.

I found this short piece from the Women's Media Center an interesting read this morning. "Girls Need to See Women Rise to Political Power" by Nichola D. Gutgold. Some of the research cited is interesting and I am of the opinion that boys too, need to see women rise to political power.

http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/011209.html

>38 avaland: - the idea of role models is an interesting one at present. When children in the UK were asked want they wanted to be the most common answer was 'famous'. Not famous for doing anything, just famous. (Thank you, reality television and the popular media). It's not so much as a case of 'In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes' as 'in the future, everyone thinks they should be famous'.

>39 Jargoneer: That is pretty interesting. Celebrity is everything. I think there may be a lot of future disappointment.
****


Today's research reading includes a serious dip into the religious rhetoric of 17th century New England with Cotton Mather's 1693 Wonders of the Invisible World - a treatise/book written towards the end of the Salem Witchcraft trials to justify his part in them. Here's a little excerpt:

Wherefore the Devil is now making one Attempt more upon us; an Attempt more Difficult, more Surprizing, more snarl’d with unintelligible Circumstances than any that we have hitherto Encountred; an Attempt, so Critical, that if we get well through, we shall soon Enjoy Halcyon Days with all the Vultures of Hell, Trodden under our Feet

This is the closest thing to a thriller or horror novel our 17th century colonists had available (alas, there was no fiction around at that time).

Full book text available HERE

Today I was on the road most of the day including several hours spent back in the bookstore of my former employment giving an 'events' tutorial to a newer employee. They pay me in books now:-)

Speaking of which, newest acquisitions are:
*an anthology of contemporary Argentine women writers Streams of Silver picked up for the forthcoming Argentina theme in the Reading Globally group.
*Jonathan Carroll's latest novel The Ghost in Love which got a great review in the Boston Globe recently. http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/01/09/a_ghost_in_the_machine_of_liv...
*and a new quilting book called "Quilt Addiction".
*Last weekend dukedom and I were invited to peruse the reading copies in the back room of the bookstore where I picked up 4 or 5 arcs, mostly Random House. Novels by Anne Michaels, Barry Unsworth, Colson Whitehead, and Xialou Gao; and a debut novel called American Rust by Phillipp Meyer (at least I think it was a debut novel)

So, if I'm not reading, I'm probably accumulating . . .

Lucky you!

Today's reading includes:

A Good Master Well-Served: Masters and Servants in Colonial Massachusetts, 1620 - 1750 by Lawrence William Towner (no touchstone). I've had to read this on Google books with the usual missing pages, because the local library system doesn't have it and it costs around $140 to buy. It is a thorough, well-written, easily digestible study of the subject of servitude in early Colonial New England. Early chapters discuss the major influences when influenced labor and shaped the institution of servitude. He then begins with a 'servant elite' - the apprentices - and works his way down, explaining the relationships, legalities and so on. Fascinating stuff, really.



Also today, was the introduction to White Cargo : The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh. This is the book that Toni Morrison cited as one inspiration for her newest novel A Mercy. This looks to be a reasonably well-researched book about the subject, but definately aimed more at the popular audience. It focuses primarily on where a majority of indentured servants ended up - in Virginia, Maryland...etc. - where the large plantations were. Since I've already read several books and articles on this, I doubt this has anything new to offer; however, I'll continue to pick through it and see:-)

On our way to work today, we listened to a fascinating lecture (part of a series on hist. of Brit lit) on Olaudah Equiano. Unfortunate enough to be seized into slavery ~ age 11 (or perhaps born into slavery, history is uncertain) but..most certainly lived the first 15 or so yrs of his life as a slave - though he was permitted/encouraged to pick up skills - writing/navigation/accounting - that eventually allowed him to purchase manumission and then pen an autobiography that was important in helping to sway public opinion against the slave trade in GB. (one of the few advantages of a 40 minute commute)

Hello! Sorry it's taken so long to get over here to your thread... drowning in 75ers posts. A new Colson Whitehead, eh (>44 bobmcconnaughey:)? Willing to disclose any more? And if the Anne Michaels is the one I think it is, am v jealous.

**I finished what was available of A Good Master Well-Served (mentioned in #43 above) and now will see if I can find the rest of this dissertation via the internet or make the trek to the Boston Public Library in the near future. It's exactly what I need.

**I'm reading the Elna 7300 Instruction Manual (new sewing machine:-)

**Finished Inside and Other Short Fiction : Japanese Women by Japanese Women, an anthology by contemporary Japanese women writers. As noted in the introduction, these authors are all popular, award-winning writers in Japan but have been virtually unknown because their work has been previously unpublished in English. The collection seems to be arranged roughly according to age-progression ( The first two stories have teen protagonists, the last a woman approaching fifty) and is centered around "the exploration of female identity in a rapidly changing society." As with any anthology, I liked some of the stories more than others - I think the story I found most moving is a sexually explicit story called "Piss" by Yuzuki Muroi. I also liked "The Unfertilized Egg" by Junko Hasegawa.

I found the cover more interesting than I do most books. The cover is extract of ID400 by Tomoko Sawada, a bright young artist in Japan's contemporary art scene. In ID400, Sawada takes 400 photo booth shots of herself in a host of carefully crafted different guises. She forces the viewer to question the relationship between the inner woman and her outer appearance. To what extent are women consciously choosing to conform or differ in the costumes that they wear, and to what extent does society judge women by their looks?

Looking forward to the review of the sewing machine manual. I'm guessing it will be post-modernist meta-fiction with a knowing nod to Calvino and Borges.

>47 GlebtheDancer:: ROFL!

OK -- I'm illiterate -- what does ROFL mean?

#49, janeajones: ROFL = Roll On the Floor Laughing

#46, avaland: your review made me realise that all the post-WWII Japanese authors I have read are male. (It's not a long list: Haruki Murakami, Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima.) Beyond those mentioned in your review, who are the leading Japanese female authors I should be looking out for - or should I peruse the Reading Globally - Japan thread for that?

>50 timjones: I'm no expert, so I would refer you to Reading Globally. About 2/3rds of the authors in this collection have received or been nominated for the Akutagawa Prize, which is for short fiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akutagawa_Prize

>47 GlebtheDancer: You've got it!

Elna 7300 Instruction Manual.
In less than 100 pages, this captivating novelette written in a rigid, spare, technical prose, and lavishly illustrated, stimulates and broadens the reader's mind with its linear unveiling of the Elna 7300. Consider this excerpt, "It is possible to reset the machine so all personal settings for all stitches revert to the factory default settings." Straightforward, compact and clean, the English translation of the original Swiss suggests a nod to the great Hemingway, but falls short of emulation. Readers can expect a delightful afternoon immersed in Elna's story as the story captures motives and mechanisms, and her deep, inner workings.

I like the Hemingway reference, Lois. What a metaphor: words sewn to the page in a staccato style. As for "post-modern meta-fiction", well, no self-respecting sewing machine manual would indulge in such piffery.

#51 "the English translation of the original Swiss suggests a nod to the great Hemingway, but falls short of emulation." - well, I guess I'll have to drop that one from my TBR.

>53 dchaikin: rather a select audience, I'm afraid.

I guess I will have to get a copy, Lois. It sounds so....enticing!

>51 avaland:: Hilarious!

Readers can expect a delightful afternoon immersed in Elna's story as the story captures motives and mechanisms, and her deep, inner workings.

I don't care for all this talk of the Elna 7300's "personal settings". (To hell with its "personal settings", get on with the plot.) Sounds like too much characterization.

You know, Lois, I think this is the first and only time in my life I have ever participated in a literary discussion of a sewing machine manual. LT continues to broaden my horizons in unimaginable ways.

AYKB, "deep inner workings" too - new age angst?

>58 tiffin: me, too:-)

Skimming just a bit of Puritans and Yankees: The Winthrop Dynasty of New England, 1630-1717 by Richard S. Dunn this afternoon. Interesting man, maybe America's first dynasty(?).

>51 avaland:: Thanks for the link, avaland.

This Elna may be more postmodern than we imagine. In "It is possible to reset the machine so all personal settings for all stitches revert to the factory default settings", I see the influence of early J.G. Ballard. Is Elna following a bizarre personal quest in a world transformed by catastrophe and emptied of meaning? Does she encounter any drained swimming pools?

>60 timjones: She's leans a little to the Arthur C. Clarke side of things with her monolithic behavior.

If the Elna piece is more about characterizations than plot (as AsYouKnow_Bob suggests), I'm wondering if there is any character growth. Does she mature as you progress through the text? Come to any realizations about herself?

>62 Nickelini: I didn't want to include spoilers, but it's clear there isn't any self-realization. She allows herself to be completely manipulated by others:-)

Dipping into the first couple of chapters of American slavery, 1619-1877 by Peter Kolchin. So far, I haven't read anything new, but he did a nice succinct page or so on the history of slavery in the world (generally-speaking). It's only the Colonial period that I'm interested in at the moment.

The Coquette by Hannah W. Foster

This novel of a young coquette's ruin told in epistolary form and first published in 1797, is based on a true story. A vivacious and beautiful young woman, not quite ready to be harnessed with the marital yoke, is wooed by two very different men. Her subsequent choices will be her undoing in this moral story that was a hugely popular early novel here in the post-Revolutionary War era. I enjoyed the story and the format, I'm not sure I cared much for Eliza Wharton but I sympathized. Who can blame a young woman for wanting to ignore the pressure to marry and enjoy some unattached time first.

I had the very distinct feeling I had read this book before!

Well, "the tears of strangers" did "water her grave."

P.S. I've said it before, but for the sake of repetiveness let me say emphatically, Read Cathy N. Davidson's Revolution and the Word. She does a brilliant analysis of early American novels by women.

</b>Mary dearest, I did, on your recommendation, get my hands on Davidson's book; however, I am not at liberty to indulge in such delightful and brilliant analysis until this project is done. The book lurks somewhere nearby. . .

Lovely. It really is too bad here's not more money in book pushing. If book pushers enjoyed the kinds of returns drug pushers do, think how wealthy we would all be. I might even be able to purchase the Arthur Mathews painting that is currently for sale (price available on inquiry).

>67 avaland: Yes, really too bad. Consider it just another notch on your book-pushing belt then.

This thread is reaching new heights of interestingness and innovation!

Rum, Slaves and Molasses; the Story of New England's Triangular Trade by Clifford Lindsey Alderman.

This turned out to be a 'teen' nonfiction book, and not exactly what I was looking for, but I nonetheless zipped through this book at the library on Friday. It tells a succinct story of New England's participation in the slave trade, mostly through its triangular trade which went like this: Ships would go to the Caribbean for molasses and bring it back where it was made into rum at the numerous New England distilleries. The rum was then taken to West Africa to be traded for slaves. The slaves were transported and sold in Caribbean for more molasses and so so cycle continues. This was never in my history books growing up.

The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels (forthcoming)

'For the mind, every thing is in the future, for the heart, everything is in the past." - Andrei Pantonov (as quoted in the book)

Languidly told, this mesmerizing and melancholy love story moves back and forth between the building of the St. Lawrence seaway in the 1950s to the building of the Aswan high dam in Egypt in the 1960s to Poland and England during World War II. Avery Escher is an engineer, his wife Jean is passionate about plants. At the opening of the book, the two are living on a houseboat on the Nile. Avery is helping to dismantle the Great Temple at Abu Simbel ahead of the flooding that the Aswan dam will create.

The story is built on memory, on reminiscences full of great detail of all kinds, architectural, engineering, botanical, the characters' inner lives intimately connected with the exterior world around them the processes of building, growing, restoring, and destroying.

The book is Michaels' first in a decade, and displays great craftmanship in itself, as if it is an organic part of the story. The prose is dense in its lyricism, and there are large passages are what can only be described as prose poetry. There are no quotation marks used which only adds to the sense of watching this story through a window of reminiscence. I want to recommend this book to everyone, yet not everyone will have the patience for it. At moments I did not. Caught up in the book's dreamy, slow-moving river, I feared drowning, but my head never went below the water.

#72--Lovely review, Lois.

>73 cabegley: I don't normally take notes while I read, but in this case, I jotted down words and phrases that came to mind while reading the book. It seemed fitting for such an artful book. That's two books so far this year whose form is intimately connected to its story. The other is Tinkers.

I think I need to get The Winter Vault when it comes out. I was living in Montreal as a child when the Seaway was being built...in fact, I still have my memorial pin handed out to all school children when it was completed. Architecture, botany...a must read! Thanks, Lois.

echoing cabegley - lovely review. Sounds like a wonderful book.

>75 tiffin: quite a bit of it is set in and around Toronto also, Tui. I think 'Jean' grew up an hour from Toronto towards Montreal (if I'm remembering that correctly).

Heavens, that's somewhat near my area. Now I MUST read that!

>78 tiffin: correction, it may be that Jean grew up in the Montreal area and that it is Avery's mother who lives about an hour from Toronto near Holland marsh (NW?) When I googled the marsh, it was not where I thought it was. I think I have been mixing the two together in my head.

>72 avaland:: thanks for the review, Lois - v envious of your advance copy! I'd put this on my list already from the 2009 previews in the book pages but your review is even more convincing: it sounds fabulous.

Message 72:
"Caught up in the book's dreamy, slow-moving river, I feared drowning, but my head never went below the water." Reading your reviews makes me realize how much I miss your participation in the 75 book challenge.

So, I'm reserving the right to check your posts periodically to read your incredible book selections and reviews!

As in 2008, I'm adding many of your suggestions to be TBR pile, including
Tinkers, The Diving Pool and The Winter Vault. You continue to amaze me with your selections!

I hope New England isn't too cold right now. We are anticipating 5-7 inches of snow followed by freezing rain tonight - tomorrow here in NE PA.

>81 Whisper1: I usually don't write much more than comments for the books I read and I'm usually happy with that. Every now and again, though, I'm inspired to write more. Thank you for the compliment.

re: cold. Not horribly cold but we are expecting 10 inches or so of snow. There are no schools open. . .

The new 75 Book thread seems to be running at a high octane level. I fear I will not be able to keep up with people there due to the massive amounts of unread messages accumulating!

During my lunch break, I read my mother's diary, 1953. First, let me say, that my mother is still alive. She's 90, has Alzheimers, and lives in a home in Maine. During the time of this diary, she is 34, married, and the mother of only one child at the moment (my oldest brother would indeed be put-out to discover how little he is mentioned in here:-)

This diary is, on the surface, a dry tale. She chronicles the weather, visits away from home, birth, deaths, marriages, purchases, and on Fridays, what I think is my father's paycheck amounts. Yep, dry. No emotion, she doesn't even use the pronoun "I"; however, one learns to look for patterns and bits of information that say more. There was a certain rhythm to her life. At least before the rest of us showed up and blew it to pieces:-)

Here is today's date, 1953, also a Friday (with my notations in brackets):

"16º Fair & Cool. Walked up to Marjorie's {sister-in-law} in the afternoon, walked down to the shop {canning factory, where my father was the electrician} to meet Lloyd {my father} on way home. Stopped at Marion's {another SIL} on way back from Bradford's {store of some kind}. Lloyd went down to shop to work on boiler for over an hour. Sent income tax.
82.33 1.23 8.60 72.50 {I think this is gross pay, Social Security tax, income tax, and take-home pay}."

Here is Thursday, February 12th:

"20º Had inch of snow when we got up. Snowed all day. Mailed Lennie's package {brother-in-law in the service}. 10 lbs. 52¢ Included fruit cake - stuffed dates, lb Len Libby Kisses, Tin chicken, Butterscotch, Bosenberries, Shaving Tin, Books."

There are odd phrases like "went over home" when she went to visit her parents. And she chronicled her purchases of clothing and gifts (she bought at least two new girdles that year). It would be interesting to see if I have one for my grandmother for the same year (the diary entries are very similar).

I love your post avaland. It reminds of A Midwife's Tale and some early 17th and 18th century diaries I have read, with details about housekeeping and little emotion.

>84 urania1: I was indeed trying to channel Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (a hero of mine) for that post! Interesting, though, that she seemed to only write about what departed from mundane activities at home (unless someone was sick).

Wow, Lois... I think it's awesome that you have your mother's diary. I'd love to be able to have something like that from my mother or grandmother. Even though it may be dry in some places, I think it would be a treasure.

Enjoy!

The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll

Ben fell and hit his head. He was supposed to die, but he didn't. Some glitch in the computer system back at headquarters, his ghost is told, could you please stay with him, observe him and report back? Ben has a ex-girlfriend named German which he still shares a dog (Pilot) with. The complications are only beginning when the ghost falls in love with German. Soon we learn what happens when humankind decides to take control over their own lives, to thwart fate in favor of free will, and what it takes to do that. A Jonathan Carroll novel is always a wild ride with the top down, one never knows what's around the corner, and this novel is no different. It gets a bit slow and muddy in the middle but rallies to a satisfying conclusion. And yeah, don't underestimate the dog.

And yeah, don't underestimate the dog - yes, a mighty endeavor To Say Nothing of the Dog ;-)

I've only read one Jonathan Carroll book and felt threeish about it. This book sounds intriguing. Should I rush off to AbeBooks and look for it?

>83 avaland:: that diary is really something, Lois. Did you read the whole thing? Do you have diaries for other years? I would be fascinated by the little rhythms of daily life.

Lois, my mother has ALL her diaries since the year she got married, in 1941.
Not only did she note household expenses but, like your Mom, she commented on events inside the family and outside. Fascinating reading!

P.S. Now, almost 89 years old, she still does it religiously, every day!

Lois -- I found my mother's diary right after she died. It was from the years that she started dating my dad through their wedding and the birth of my oldest brother. Like your mom's, reading between the lines was the interesting part. The space allotted for each day was very small, so she wrote just the facts and none of the emotion. But through it I could trace their romance, and what it meant to her. And I used that un-articulated emotion to write her obituary and eulogy. People who knew her then told me they didn't know how I captured her so well. I will cherish that diary always. The funny things are, 1. she only kept the diary for those few years out of all her 80, and 2. it was so easy to find--but I never knew it existed.

How wonderful for you, Lois and Paola, to have your mothers' diaries. They are treasures that you will always be grateful to have. And Nickelini too; your post only appeared after i posted mine.

>89 lauralkeet: I do have diaries for other years and she may have kept more that I don't have.

I must echo how fortunate to have such a diary. I have one or two father issues. My parents divorced when I was eight, we left the country when I was thirteen, and it took about thirty years before I was able to reestablish a positive relationship with my father. The last five years of his life we did have a good one, with past hurts having been let go. I certainly do regret, however, that although he assured me repeatedly that he had written down the story of his life, the key moments and his feelings, it turned out after his death that there was no such document. I wish we had had more time to talk, if he did not in fact have it in him to commit anything to paper.

You are lucky.

All this talk is making me think about my own journals. I've never been consistent with keeping one but this is certainly an inspiration to do so.

It's reminding me of the time I saw Bill Clinton speak at the Texas Book Festival (right after he published his memoirs) and one of his points was the importance of writing down your life even if you know it won't be published and you won't make lots of money from it. Someone, at some point, will treasure what you've written... no matter how mundane! And I think this conversation proves his point!

Wonderful discussion here! I, too, have my mum's precious journals. Again, there is very little recorded on the emotional plane. There is a consistent record of the small amounts spent on various items from food to clothing, and so on, and there are the numerous visits from cousins, sisters, parents, to our family home.

What is invaluable to me is that I have the journal she kept of the days before my birth and after - when I first lifted my head, opened my eyes, who bathed me (apparently grans and aunts all took in turns - the extended family was a big part of life), my christening, my first cereal, first tooth, first vaccination, and first steps. Absolutely wonderful to have!

I also have letters my parents wrote to one another, as newlyweds. It's very beautiful and deeply moving! And I have my mum's song book, in which she recorded all the lyrics of songs she loved in the 60s. It's in her handwriting, which makes it so special, but also when I page through it, I can still hear her sing the songs she loved in her sweet, melodic voice.

Thank you, Lois, for this wonderful trip down memory lane. I'm off to read my mum's baby journal of me! :)

I am very glad that years ago I persuaded my father to write down what he knew of his family's history -- I had to pester him for years, but he did it. This information has turned out to be fascinating for my cousins and their children as well. Now that my father is dead, I wish I had also asked him to tell me more about what his own life was like as a child and young man, and my mother as well. I encourage everyone whose parents are still alive to encourage their parents to share their stories while they can.

Some years ago, I was nosing around in the rafters above the garage of my childhood home looking for books (what else?). This was the precarious equivalent of their attic. While rifling through the kids scholastic books in an old trunk, I discovered a huge cache of old letters. I called down to my mother below and inquired; she had no idea what they could be. It turned out that it was all of the letters written to my father from his family during the war years, and many of his back to them. What a find! My mother and sorted them out according to recipient or sender and we read a fair number (they filled a standard shopping bag). Unfortunately, my oldest brother got a hold of them, a hoarder and not inclined to share (a power thing) and that was the end of it for the rest of us. My mother didn't know what happened to all their letters from the same time period, but thought she might have destroyed them. We never found them when we cleaned out her house before it was sold either. But, I have this one short letter, written in November 1942, before they were a couple but just friendly co-workers. Note: My mother lived and grew up on Fortunes Rocks, a beach area in Biddeford, Maine. They were the only year round residents.

Hello Lloyd;

Received both your card and letter and was quite surprised to hear from you so soon. The Army sure sends you South without loosing any time. I suppose any one has to get used to the climate there. I know when I was in Washington I suffered for the few days I was there although the people living there didn't think it hot at all. I would to get into that pecan grove but if the snakes got there first I'd let them stay for snakes give me the creeps even if they are harmless.

. . .

The beach here is rather quiet now. The Coast Guard patrols regularly. They have taken over one of the houses used summers for tourists. It's about a mile from where I live. . .. The Coast Guard's main station is at Biddeford Pool but this is a sub-station. We also have the Coastal Artillary, Battery "7" at Biddeford Pool. They are a branch from the 240th C. A. from Fort Williams in Portland. So you see the coast is well protected at least we hope so. We don't dare go near the beach after dark because the Coast Guards have orders to shoot and ask questions after.

Didn't they take your gas ration card when you joined the Air Corp? I know a fellow and they did. I don't think it quite fair although they do funny things. Guess I'd better end for now.

Note: My father was a crew chief in the Army Air Corps during WWII. I know he was shipped to various bases all over the country before he finally was shipped overseas to the UK & France. He was with the planes that towed the gliders. A crew chief, is the head of the airplane's maintenance crew, I think.

Lois, what wonderful treasures. And ditto for everyone else who has diaries and letters from previous generations. My maternal grandmother always kept a diary, in my recollection. She often stayed with us during my childhood, and shared my bedroom, so I watched her write in it night after night. I wish it had inspired me to do the same. I think my mother has most of those diaries. We've dipped into them from time to time together. I also have a collection of letters between my paternal grandparents before they were married---priceless. He was 50-ish, widowed with grown children; she was an almost-30 spinster who owned her own farm and had rejected other suitors over the years. Apparently nobody in either family thought the match was a good idea. If I ever decide to write that novel...

Please DO write that novel, Linda!!

Hi Lois

I'm checking in our your thread, as I promised to do. I sure do miss you on the 79 book challenge. It is a very busy group and I'm having a great deal of trouble reading the posts.

I love the conversations you sparked re. reading your mother's journal. How I wish I was fortunate enough to have a journal of my grandmother's life. It was a difficult one and it would be fascinating to hear about it from her perspective. I kept letters she wrote to me and they are very telling.

I like your description of The Ghost in Love. I'll add this to my tbr pile.

take good care,
Linda

The City & The City by China Miéville

The premise of Mieville's new novel is that of a police procedural set in a vaguely eastern European city. The murdered body of a young woman is found and it falls upon Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad to find her killer.

I have enjoyed all of the Miéville novels I have read, from the darkly-imagined world of Bas Lag to the whimsical Un Lun Dun, and this novel is something different yet. There is a certain energy to Miéville's imagination that I find invigorating and irresistible. As an added note, I also enjoy police procedurals, but this is the most unusual police procedural I have ever read.

The prose is clipped, spare, in keeping with the character of his procedural (he gives a nod to Raymond Chandler along with others in the acknowledgments). None of the characters are particularly vivid but, in this case, that is easily forgiven. All is not just cerebral and pavement-pounding, there is also some well-wrought tension and action. As dukedom_enough's review notes, one cannot say much without spoilers. In the first six or so chapters, while Borlú begins to unravel his mystery, the reader is also unraveling another - following clues, positing theories...etc. It's exhilarating. Eventually the detective and the reader's mysteries combine and we continue on with the investigation together. In the end, the mystery is, of course, satisfactorily solved and the reader is left delightfully satiated but also thoughtful as one wonders about the very human implications behind Miéville's conceit.

A Good Master Well Served by Lawrence Towner (unbound dissertation).

I read about a third of this on Google books and finally finished it after acquiring the dissertation from UMichigan. My comments in message #43 are still valid. While slavery is still slavery whether North or South, but I was interested to discover that, by law here in Massachusetts, ALL servants were to be taught to read. There's a lot more in the book/dissertation that's intriguing but i won't belabor it here. And while my Puritan ancestors could be real sanctimonious bastards, they still got us off to a good, if idealistic and imperfect, beginning.

------

I seem to now have THREE short fiction collections going at the same time. It sounds crazy, but it's geographically based. Flash Fiction Forward is in the bathroom (Best - Bathroom - Book - Ever). None of the stories are over two pages long. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is upstairs (I've only read the first story thus far; it's excellent!) and Dear Husband, an arc, is downstairs. I read the first story in this while dinner was cooking (yum. salmon).
-----

I'm also flipping through the pages of a book which arrived today - Basket of Leaves : 99 Books that Capture the Spirit of Africa by Goeff Wisner. I came across this author on the Words without Borders website where he is doing some guest-blogging (link is on the "Interesting articles" thread). I had seen the book come up on my home page when Akeela (I think) entered it and remember checking it out then. He has some interesting choices.

I've been listening to the audiobook of Blindspot. It takes place in Boston in the 1760s and touches on the issues of slavery and indenture; also includes some historical figures (the Bradstreets and others) as secondary characters. When you're in the mood for historical fiction, you might enjoy this one.

I'm eager to hear what you think of A Basket of Leaves after you finish it.

>105 kidzdoc: well, it's not the kind of book I would read cover to cover, I think. It's a synopsis of 99 books about Africa by various authors, most African but some not. He has a choice or choices for every country in Africa. There is a fair amount of literature mentioned that I haven't read so it will be a great shopping guide:-)

>104 Cariola: I'll keep that in mind for after the project is finished. Set in the 1760s and includes the Bradstreets? Are we talking Anne? She would certainly have been dead by then, as she would've been born about 140 years before. I do like good historical fiction and haven't read much of it in the past year or two. (Is that touchstone correct?)

Touchstone corrected!

I bought a copy of Basket of Leaves as well--will have fun, I'm sure, when it arrives on my doorstep.

>107 Cariola: There's a website for Blindspot here. (Touchstone options aren't loading at the moment.)

Just requested Basket of Leaves from the library. I swear, you are doing very bad things to my reading lists.

>103 avaland: I added Basket of Leaves:Books that Capture the Spirit of Africa after Medellia mentioned it on her thread, I think! I thought it would be a good tool to have on great African literature.

>11 bobmcconnaughey: hmm. perhaps it was someone else I saw add it, maybe Izzybee. It seems to be from a South African publisher.

>110 nancyewhite: mea culpa, mea culpa.

>112 avaland: Oops! Maybe I wasn't clear - I did add it to my library! I couldn't resist the title after I'd seen Medellia list it. And it is indeed a South African publication. I hope to get to it soon!

>113 akeela: yes, but I remember seeing it earlier than when Medellia mentioned it, so this time it must not have been you (but, oh, never fear, you rattle my TBR pile from time to time:-)

That's real good to know :)

For the record, you rattle my TBR pile as well, akeela--you'll see that The Whale Caller sneaked into my library this weekend.

(And you, Lois--well, nothing needs to be said on that subject. :)

>116 Medellia: Yeah I know. The Whale Call is on order for me. I haven't received it yet, so gratification must be delayed.

Ooh, now I'm totally flattered! :D

I hope you guys enjoy The Whale Caller as much as I did! I feel a bit responsible now!

And, um, I agree - there's nothing to be said about Lois' effect on one's tbr. And you and urania aren't completely blameless either, Medellia.

Reading for today has included the forms and instructions for US Individual Income Tax Form 1040, Missouri state income tax form 1040, and New York Part Year Income Tax Return IT-203. This is for my daughter who moves about every third year. Here's my review:

A frustrating narrative that has the reader jumping through proverbial hoops while tensely eking out clues to the resolution of our main character's dilemma (and it's always a dilemma, isn't it?). Clearly a post-modern gem as it is both self-referential and has an insanely circular narrative that cleverly and eventually proves to be linear. All is resolved in the end (lines 37, 39 and 66, respectively) sometimes painfully, sometimes not. Perhaps this might be best described as a They'll-Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story.

Lois, you have a rare talent. Excellent review . . . yet, after reading it, I'm not sure if I want to read the US Individual Income Tax Form 1040, or not. Is it available from Amazon? Perhaps I'll just add it to my Amazon wishlist for now and see what else people say about it.

That's hilarious!

>120 Nickelini: like all modern literature, it's available online.

Lois
I'm simply stopping by to say hello and to say how much I miss you on the 2009 75 book challenge.

I don't think I'll be dropping #119 into my Amazon basket any time soon. I understand that the Canadian version is already out, though.

Blessings on my daughter, who moved to Tennessee, where they don't have a state income tax, but just charge everyone unconscionable sales tax on necessities, like food. At least it doesn't involve filing forms. My husband is a big fan of the IRS publishing house...he reads nearly everything they put out. I will share your review of this latest opus with him, Lois, but I'm sure he'll read it anyway.

Lois, I recently bought a new washer & dryer, fondly known as the Whirlpool Twins. They greatly enjoy the weekly duet of washing & drying. However, writers they are not. I had considered sharing a review of the owner's manual but it was a "DNF" for me. It simply couldn't hold a candle to Elna or the IRS.

If you liked Form 1040, then you simply MUST read Form 940, Form 941, and Form 1120, epic classics of the struggles of working class slaves against greedy multi-national corporations.

>127 arubabookwoman: Perhaps I will look for these when I'm craving some light reading!
>125 laytonwoman3rd: Dukedom is currently immersed in 1040 and it's various companion volumes. He might even be mesmerized.
>126 lauralkeet: Come on, Laura, I know you have some BS in your veins. We all do:-)
>124 tiffin: Notice that volumes I read were my daughter's. I suspect she prefers Georgette Heyer at the moment to any of what I've been reading.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

This outstanding debut novel is a collection of connected short stories centered around an aging feudal landlord and his estate in Pakistan. They profile family members and servants, managers and mistresses. Each narrative is compelling, each character richly and vividly created. All of these portraits together creates an equally vivid picture of contemporary Pakistan - the social divisions, the rich and poor, the retreat of the old ways, the adjustment to change. Once started, this book is irresistible.

Recommended to those of you who have enjoyed By the Sea, Half of a Yellow Sun, Interpreter of Maladies . . .etc.

Avaland,

Will you stop adding books to my list!

>130 urania1: I'm afraid my comments don't do it justice. I was pretty much paralyzed by all the wonderful blurbs on the back which seemed to describe the book so much better. Of the five reviews on LT, no one gives it less than 4 1/2 stars.

Oh stop it avaland! Don't make the matter worse. You're a baaad girl.

How can one resist such an endorsement?! Urania, resistance is futile...

>133 akeela: akeela,

I know (sigh). I just ordered the book from Abe's. But I repeat, avaland is a baaad girl.

I know! It looks like another one I need. . .

>135 christiguc: And urania is such a good girl.

>136 urania1: I am not too sure. I've heard stories that I cannot repeat here.

>137 viragodiva: Miss D.

I wouldn't talk if I were you. The stories about you . . . let us just say I'd like to keep my LT account.

You two both have peas to shell in the corner and not a peep out of either of you.

You give decent folk grey hair.

Urania, I said "Not a peep".

Sorry about that, Avaland. Tough love is necessary with these wayward ones.

Back to your thread.

Didn't Eleanor Roosevelt say something like, "No one can make you buy books without your consent"?

>140 avaland: Eleanor Roosevelt was wrong!!!

>129 avaland:: Lois - impossibly jealous. You keep reading all the books that I have been putting on my list from the 2009 previews... months before I have any hope of getting my hands of them over here in the UK. gah.

#142: Rachael, I wonder if there is a "reverse" Book Depository, i.e. a US bookseller that will ship books to the UK with free delivery.

Thanks again, avaland! This book will be high on my wish list.

>143 kidzdoc: kidzdoc--Book Depository also carries US books. For example, the book Lois mentions in 129 is available here.

>144 christiguc:: christiguc <<fingers in ears >> la la la I can't hear you... today I acquired 3 books from the charity shop, 4 from the library, 1 from Amazon, and then read a third of another off the review copies shelf while working late. I don't need any more encouragement.

Hmm. I appreciate my comment is a little inconsistent with that in >142 FlossieT:. Sorry.

>145 FlossieT: I have you beat. We just calculated how much we spent via Amazon and AbeBooks in 2008. We haven't added in library sales, Book Depository, NZ Books Abroad, actual physical bookstores, and publisher orders.

Enclave by Kit Reed

The world is said to be self-destructing and the very rich are unloading their problem adolescent children...er...saving their children by paying an ex-Marine to shelter and school them in a renovated, remote and isolated former monastery atop a great butte. Sarge, our Marine, has a plan, and with his staff of misfits (all of them running from something), they begin to shape the lives of these teens, now stripped of their makeup, fashions, electronics, and media attention. All seems well, until the unexpected happens and threatens the closed society.

Enclave is a dystopian satire adventure novel. It's rather light reading, but the characters and story are engaging enough to carry me through to the end. Perhaps Reed's commentary is aimed at entitled parents happy to be rid of their problem children, or at the teens themselves, or perhaps at how good intentions (albeit also commercial ones) can go awry, I'm not exactly sure. Perhaps all of the above. It comes close but stops short, imo, of being a coming-of-age novel for some of the teens. Not as good as Reed's Thinner Than Thou, imo, but an easy and entertaining read, if that's what you are looking for.

>148 avaland::

Hmmm, maybe I'll see if the library has that one; the highly mixed ratings leave me wondering.

PS - The touchstone takes you Faith Hunter's Bloodring. Something's amiss in LT land. :-)

>149 TadAD: fixed touchstone, thanks!

Not to bring up the subject of YA literature, but . . . a really excellent book that sounds somewhat similar to Enclave is Little Fearless. Based on your description, I would hazard a guess that Little Fearless is the better read, but I haven't read Enclave, so who am I to say :-) Little Fearless is quite serious and heartbreaking.

>147 avaland: We just calculated how much we spent via Amazon and AbeBooks in 2008.
Oh, you brave, brave people.

#147, 152: Hmm...LT has over 619,000 book buying fanatics...I wonder how much we've collectively contributed to the book industry.

Thinking about that is less scary than thinking about how much I spent on books last year. This year will probably be worse; I bought 38 books in January alone!

#151 - Enclave DOES sound v. similar to Little Fearless which is all that urania says it is.

Why thank you Bob. It is nice to be of one accord with you :-)

i#152, 153 I think the powers higher up (the Spaldings etc) should negotiate special discounts for LT members who purchase from Amazon and Abe books, don't you? I mean, we must be buying heaps after all these recommendations and nudges. Our collective purchasing power must be pretty considerable.

>153 kidzdoc:: this is why I try to seed threads with little admissions of my own purchase failings - there's always someone out there who will be worse and make me feel like a model of self-control ;)

Lois, the only Kit Reed book I have read, The Baby Merchant, seems to have a similar theme to one of the themes in this one. Among other things that the book explores, it really seems to get into what people expect from their children, especially privileged parents. I find it interesting, because she doesn't exactly say that these people think of their offspring as commodities--they really do seem to love the children, even though they expect very specific things from them--but it comes close. I think I will look out for this one; Reed is someone that I would like to read more. Thanks for reminding me.

Edited to fix a typo.

>157 FlossieT: - someone I know has a theory that among your group of friends it's important to have people who are worse than you at all your vices - one who buys more handbags than you, one who is less well-organised, one who is more reckless about men... I feel that we shouldn't discuss details, but can all sit here smugly thinking that there is someone on LT who buys more books than we do!

>159 wandering_star: Sure, it's kidzdoc! :-)

>158 sussabmax: Send me your address again and I'll send it to you (I'm making more room for the book piles on the floor; despite what my library says, we have about 6,000 books in the house).

Avaland. I have missed you!!! I was looking for you on the 75 thread and Fourpawz told me that you are over here this year. Who is going to tease me about my unhealthy obsession about Richard Armitage? :) Okay I may just join this group just so that I can get chastised by you with pictures of Mr. Armitage.

By the way you have read some amazing books. There are too many to chose from. Gosh, I can't be around you people, you make me spend too much money.

>161 TrishNYC: Oh, Trish, do come in and share your pics of the lovely Mr. Armitage.

>161 TrishNYC: Ha! Cariola is the other member of the Armitage fan club! Hiya, Trish. I do sneak over to the new 75 group from time to time but the message totals there scare the bejeebers out of me!

Currently, I'm reading an excellent collection of short fiction by Joyce Carol Oates and a science fiction book, The Quiet War by UK author Paul McAuley (I have enjoyed a number of his books).

avaland, in case you didn't see my review, scratch Blindspot off your wish list. It started off so well, ended in detailed sexual drek.

>164 Cariola: thanks for the head's up.

avaland just dropped by and what a treasure trove of wonderful reviews, I'm sure I'm echoing someone else here when I say you are bad for my TBR pile. My aim is to reduce it not add to it exponentially ;-)

>166 KimB: hiya, Kim:-)

I'm continuing in several books, the Oates collection and the McAuley science fiction. Each story thus far in the collection has been excellent. Stories about family relationships, very perceptive. The McAuley is excellent. A bit of slow start but a engaging story with good characters (many of them women) and much detailed environmental and biological science. I need to read some poetry; actually I need to get busy and write more. . .

I do think I need to go underground for a bit to get more schoolwork done. Deadlines looming.

Lois, I'm reading my first Joyce Carol Oates at the moment, entirely because of repeated recommendations of her work from you and a couple of other LTers - it's Middle Age: a Romance; don't know if you've read it? Anyway, I'm enjoying it - thanks!

I thought I posted this here already. Hmmm. Mysteries of cyberspace and/or LT.

As an eastern European (although many cultured Czechs have always insisted that Bohemia is NOT in eastern Europe but TOTALLY CENTRAL Europe, much closer to France than to Russia LOL), I must agree with Mary that eastern Europe is ever so much sexier than Oates.

I would be happy to make many recommendations, sexy or not.

>168 rachbxl: I have not read that one, Rach, so I'll be interested in what you have to say about it. I have read relatively little of her work when one considers how much she has written. But I have liked what I have read, some books, short fiction, poetry more than others, of course.

>169 polutropos: Andrew, clearly then, sexy is not what I'm looking for:-) But thank you for the offer.

I'm spending my morning catching up on the many Club Read 2009 conversations that I missed while I was on holiday.

The Winter Vault, Basket of Leaves and Inside and Other Short Fiction have been added to my wishlist. I thank you, but my overloaded groaning book shelves curse you and your interesting and varied reading!

The Quiet War by Paul J. McAuley

This is a fabulous, inventive and science-laden tale of competing ideologies and the lead up to war over them. McAuley creates a vivid picture of two societies: that of "Greater Brazil" here on an Earth which is reclaiming and reviving the land and resources after environmental devastation (with such fervor that it has become a religion), and that of the "outers", people (and their descendants) who moved away from earth into the frontier of the outer solar system, creating different and comfortable enclaves for themselves as they went. I particularly enjoyed McAuley's choice in making his two brilliant geneticists, one from each group, women. I've read a fair number of McAuley's novels and if this book isn't his best, it's one of them.

#172: This looks like good fun, Lois. Must seek it out.

Books in the immediate virtual pile which I'm thinking about reading:

American Rust. I have an arc and lriley just read and loved this.

Secret Weavers: Stories of the Fantastic by Women of Argentina and Chile or The Kalpa Imperial : The Greatest Empire that Never Was by Angelica Gorodischer for the Reading Globally Argentina theme.

The Housekeeper and the Professor something I bought after reading a collection from the author and kidzdoc's review keeps it on my mind.

eta, Four Freedoms by John Crowley (no touchstone) is also under consideration.

I keep getting the quiet war confused with Sarah Zettel's the quiet invasion - which isn't one of her better books.

The Quiet War sounds like the kind of science fiction I like. I have never heard of McAuley--I see you have read some of his other works. Which would you recommend and what are they about? Thanks.

>176 arubabookwoman: aruba, McAuley is a UK author and many of his more recent books have not been published in the US (I'm not sure why exactly). He is a biologist/botanist but now makes his living writing novels. I liked his Confluence trilogy which begins with Child of the River. I suspect these are out of print now. I'm at a loss to tell you what they are about, they're rather complicated to explain.

This new book, with its competing ideologies, made me think back to Adam Robert's Salt which presented competing ideologies but through different colonies on the same planet. The McAuley is more complex, better characters, i think; and heavy in biological, botanical and environmental sciences (I don't think there was that much physics but we'll see what dukedom has to say when he finishes the book.

This probably doesn't help you much, aruba.

>175 bobmcconnaughey: I've not read Zettel. Just never was attracted to her stuff.

De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage, winner of the Impac Dublin prize.

De Niro's Story is the story of two childhood friends, now young men, who take different paths in the Lebanese Civil War. It's told from the viewpoint of one of the two, Bassam, in a spare prose laced with western pop culture references and a wonderful kind of urban verse.

Bombs fell, warriors fought, people ate, and the garbage piled up on the corners of our streets. Cats and Dogs were feasting and getting fatter. The rich were leaving or France and letting their dogs roam loose on the streets: orphan dogs, expensive dogs, potty-trained dogs, dogs with French names and red bowties, fluffy dogs, well-bred dogs, china dogs, genetically modified dogs, and incestuous dogs that clung to one another in packs, covered the streets in tens, and gathered under the command of a charismatic three-legged mutt. The most expensive pack of wild dogs roamed Beirut and the earth, and howled to the big moon, and ate from mountains of garbage on the corners of our streets. p. 31

The result is a unique voice and a mesmerizing tale of life in a war zone.

Dear Husband: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates

This latest Oates' collection is fourteen stories mostly about family dynamics. Several of the stories were mesmerizing, others darkly humorous, but each are strangely perceptive. A good number of the stories are told from the view point of children, whether that child be nine years of age or twenty two. Some of my favorites are "Special", the story of a nine-year-old named Aimee who had a sister with special needs. "In the Zacharis household there were two daughters: Sallie Grace and Aimee. . . . Sallie Grace had been born first and had sucked up all the oxygen in the household as she had sucked up all Dadda's and Momma's love in her greedy way of devouring food. . . " In "The Blind Man's Sighted Daughters" a difficult father, possibly a murderer, now elderly and blind, is dependent on his two grown daughters for his care. In "A Princeton Idyll" , a story told in epistolary form, a young woman gets more than she bargains for when she makes contact with her grandparents' housekeeper in hopes of being enlightened about her grandfather's mysterious death.
Darkly humorous are "The Gravers" and "Suicide by Fitness Center". The final story and the title story, "Dear Husband" reimagines the story of Andrea Yates who drowned her children in 2001. The story is told as a letter written by Lauri Lynn (Yates' fictional stand-in) to her husband after the act.

In each story, Oates reaches into the human heart and finds its edgiest parts, the place of secret thoughts and unborn actions, and probes it. The result is provocative and eerily insightful.

I'm glad to know that JCO has published another book, I was getting worried - it must have been at least 4 weeks since the last one. I'm convinced that when JCO dies it will be revealed that she was a front for a factory of writers - it's hard to think of any other reason to explain the sheer volume and quality of her output.

# 180 I'm glad to know that JCO has published another book, I was getting worried - it must have been at least 4 weeks since the last one

Good one, jargoneer. LOL

Lois, did you say that you hadn't read much in the way of novels by JCO? Have you read any at all, or just her short fiction? If you have, I'd be interested to know what you think - I'm getting really bogged down in Middle Age: a Romance; it just seems to be too darned long for the story it's trying to tell. I've read a couple of JCO's short stories and have really liked them - I'm wondering if Middle Age is a blip, or if she's just better at short stories?

>182 rachbxl: I have read a few novels and novelettes, a few collections and some of her poetry. I've also read some of her journals, essays, and a bit of litcrit about her work. I imagine she has works that are less than satisfactory to many readers, but I have not come across one yet though not everything has been stellar (I have not read Middle Age).

>180 Jargoneer: It is pretty impressive. I think she must be writing all the time, with perhaps less drafts than most; however, I'm looking forward to spending some time in her journals to find out (just as soon as this project is finished, I'm planning a JCO jag, and another African lit jag, and. . .

>180 Jargoneer:, I am glad to find someone else who feels as I do about JCO.

Stick Out Your Tongue by Ma Jian

Well, it might be because my brain is elsewhere engaged but I just can't seem to formulate much of a review for this book of vivid, semi-autobiographical, connected stories of Tibet in the 1980s. I thought the author's afterword as interesting as the stories themselves, especially his comments about Westerns idealizing Tibet. For a more extensive review I refer you to pamelad and nobooksnolife's reviews HERE (although I did not rate it quite as highly).

Love the title! It probably has a totally different connotation in Chinese society... I look forward to your review to find out :)

>186 akeela: will try to get to it this weekend!

Apropos different meanings in Chinese, a fascinating story about how the Chinese are thumbing their collective nose at censorship from yesterday's New York Times.

>188 rebeccanyc: Very interesting, rebeccanyc!

>185 avaland: The title reminded me of something I'd come across in Psych I at varsity ages ago. I just pulled out my textbook, "Introduction to Psychology" by Rita Atkinson et al to see if I could find it, and did! The discussion is around emotional expression — that it is learned, and thus diplayed and understood differently across cultures.

An excerpt: "The following quotations from Chinese novels would surely be misinterpreted by American reader unfamiliar with the culture:

"They stretched out their tongues."
(They showed signs of surprise.)

"He clapped his hands."
(He was worried or disappointed.)

"He scratched his ears and cheeks."
(He was happy.)

"Her eyes grew round and opened wide."
(She became angry.)

Good thing translators change the expressions to make it understandable to non-Chinese readers! Else we'd be in a fix :)

Hi Avaland~
I'm still mulling over Ma Jian's book, but I'd like to offer this link in reference to the gesture of sticking out the tongue in Tibet: http://articles.latimes.com/p/1997/nov/08/local/me-51420

I never saw the B. Pitt movie, but I have a copy of Harrer's book Seven Years in Tibet. I haven't read enough of it to run across the tongue reference.

I'll soon have some comments up on my thread about Ma Jian's work.

>191 nobooksnolife: that was a good little piece, nobooksnolife. It adds dimension to the young woman sticking out her tongue (beyond a simple Western interpretation).

During my research, I came across this book list and, being the literary voyeur that I am, set about to decipher it.



I doubt this image will be very clear, even in its larger form (click on it), below is my deciphering of it (unlined words are guesses, parantheses indicate additional information from me although I have not researched each title. . . yet.)

This is a 1844 list of the personal books of Abigail May Alcott, wife of transcendentalist Bronson Alcott and mother of author Louisa May Alcott. Abigail had the equivalent of a Harvard education as seen to by her older brother, Sam.

Catalogue of my books, 1844

*Shakespeare (12 vol)
*Homer (4 vol)
*Wakefield's Testament (2 vol)(The new testament translated by Gilbert Wakefield, published around 1820)
*Darwin's Botanical Guide
*Pope's Works
*Taylor's Holy Living
*Madame Guyon (17th C. French mystic)
*Bolingbroke (probably Henry St. John, English politician and philosopher, 1678-1751)
*Bigelow's Botany (Jacob Bigelow, medical botany, published 1817-21)
*Eaton's Manual (Amos Eaton, 1776-1842, botany)
*Letters from New York
*Vegetable Diet (the Alcotts were vegetarians)
*Vegetable Cookery
*Cheering Views ("Cheering Views of Man & Providence" by Warren Burton, 1800-1866, US minister, politician & reformer - particularly with regards to education. Book published 1832)
*Addison's works (Jospeh Addison, 1672-1719, English scholar, poet, essayist. . . )
*Hendon's Thoughts
*Philothea (novel, Lydia Maria Child, 1802-80, abolitionist, women's and Indian rights activist, close friend of Abby Alcott)
*History Kings Chapel
*Mrs. Child's Appeal (Lydia Maria Child, full title likely "An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans called Africans", 1833)
*Zimmerman on Solitude (Johann Georg Zimmerman, published 1799, subtitle: "In Which the Question is Considered, Whether it is Easier to Live Virtuously in Society, Or in Solitude")
*Queen's Wake (Scottish poet James Hogg)
*The Muse? Nurse? Noise?
*Calebs
*Gilman's vic? vil? lelion?
*American Commonplace (probably the "American Commonplace Book of Prose: A collection of Eloquent and Interesting Extracts from the Writings of American Authors", George Barell Cheever, published 1830)
*Young's Night Thoughts (English poet Edward Young, 1681-1765)
*More on Education
*Fashionable World
*Bulwer's Pompeii (novel, 1834, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, see below under "The Disowned")
*England and English
*Thomas A. Kempis (German mystic, 1380-1471)
*The Disowned (novel, published, Edward Bulwer Lytton, 1803-1873, English novelist, poet, politician. . .)
*Married Life
*Art of Being Happy
*Enfield's Prayers
*Mrs Barkauld's Works
*Fredericka Bremer's Works (4 vol)(Swedish writer and feminist activist, Marmee reads Bremer the the girls in Little Women)
*Nina (Fredrika Bremer, novel, 1843)
*President's Daughters (Fredrika Bremer, novel)
*Neighbours (Fredrika Bremer, short fiction)
*Home (Fredrika Bremer, novel)
*Bible

It appears the scan is pretty much unreadable for you all. I scanned it, enlarged and enhanced it, and still can't quite decipher some of the titles.

Would that be Karl Bodmer's "Pompeii", Lois?

ETA: he was an artist, so maybe not, unless it was a book of his prints she had?

Well, Bodmer is a possibility but I can't find a link with Pompeii (there's clearly a "P" at the beginning and double dots at the end of that word; all the letters fit for 'Bodmers', except that the 'o' is questionable). The timing is right for Bodmer as he was in the country in the years prior to 1844 painting native americans (in particular). Of course, I've been down the wrong path on at least one other of these books.
----------------
I think I found this one: it's Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s popular 19th-century novel “The Last Days of Pompeii,” 1834 (don't know why I didn't see that before when I came across Lytton for another book).

>195 tiffin: Her handwriting is interesting to decipher. Sometimes, it's obvious and other times . . .

Married Life may be by Timothy Shay Arthur - he was a popular, or at least prolific, 19th century American author.

The Queen's Wake by James Hogg is a 17 poem sequence about Mary Stuart.

I imagine the Kempis volume is The Imitation of Christ.

Bremer was translated by Mary Howitt - the works she translated are listed Howitt - could the other title be listed here?

William Enfield is the author of the prayers - he was a 19th century Unitarian minister.

Here's an enlarged view of what I think is "Mince" but that could be an "N" also. . .



You're probably correct about the Kempis; however, I don't see any of Arthur's pre-1844 works that resemble this title. . .

#196: well I feel like a dolt because I have that book too! Good for you.

Could the first letter be an N - it looks the same as the N in Neighbours.

I think it could be Nina - Bremer wrote a novel by that name.

>200 tiffin: It's sort of a Google game, tiffin, finding just the right search words. . .
>201 Jargoneer: Yes, it could be an 'N", so then it would be Ni __ ce? (I have to set this obsession aside until tonight. I have been immersed in this woman's life for quite a while now; is it any wonder I want to peek into her private library? However, I do have to get some work done)

I thought the first one was Mirror, although the first letter does look like the N in Neighbors. I can see Nina.

I can see Nina too.

"Nina" is also what I see.

Well you are good! There is a novel titled "Nina" by Bremer, published 1843.

The art of being happy: from the French of Droz, 'Sur l'art d'être heureuse'; in a series of letters from a father to his children: with observations and comments (1832)

Author: Droz, Joseph, 1773-1850; Flint, Timothy, 1780-1840

Just a guess.

I'd Like by Amanda Michalopoulou, translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich.

I found this collection listed on the 'Best of' longlist of 2008 translated fiction from the University of Rochester, one of the few women-authored books on the list.

The author says herself that she wrote stories that would read like "versions of an unwritten novel. Or, better, to write the biography of those stories as well as of their fictional author." This is an intriguing collection of interconnected short fiction pieces, but interconnected in a variety of ways - repetition of sentences or phrases, characters, settings, other details - but often turned and twisted. The result, at least at the beginning, is a little disconcerting, one wants to create a continuous narrative from story to story. But soon one settles in and enjoys the hall-of-mirrors effect and it's fascinating what is able to be communicated through it. The translation is very smooth. Anyone who enjoys innovation in their fiction might enjoy this.

From the book, "If you dig down deep enough in any story, you'll find an explanation of your own life. That's how it works. That's why we read books."

As an added note: might possibly be considered post-modern because of its self-referential tendencies and non-linear narrative. . .

Flash Fiction Forward: 80 Very short Stories, edited by James Thomas & Robert Shapard

This collection of flash fiction, which in this book is defined as being a story anywhere from roughly a third of a page in length to 750 words, has been ongoing reading for me for quite some time. It features stories from recognizable authors such as, Donald Hall, Ismail Kadaré, Katharine Weber, Etgar Keret, Robert Coover, Grace Paley, Ann Hood, and Paul Theroux; yet, also has stories from authors whose names I don't recognize. The stories, most of which are about a page and half, vary, some are poignant and moving, others witty or satirical. There are more than a few that when finished, one can't help breath the word 'wow" or perhaps find oneself chuckling an hour later. Of course, as with any collection, there are always some stories which I fail to connect with emotionally or intellectually. The editors quote Grace Paley in the introduction when she says that a very short story can be read like a poem - slowly. I think I agree.

This is the perfect volume to carry in one's purse or briefcase, or keep in the car glove box, or, yes, even in the bathroom. I've picked up another volume, Flash Fiction edited by James Thomas, Denise Thomas * Tom Hazuka to continue with. The editors mention also Sudden Fiction International, international short stories no longer than five pages in length . . . might have to get this one also. . .

Mmm...both of these books sound yummy. They are going on my wish list. Thanks avaland!

Avaland,

Have finally read through this entire thread (had been meaning to do so for a while, but wanted to have enough time to give it justice)... and wow. I'm enthralled. From your mother's diary, to everyone finally figuring out 'Nina', this is one of the most interesting reads I've had in ages, on LT or elsewhere. THANK YOU for sharing.

I noticed your interest in early American stuff. Have you read much about Barbary captivity/redemption narratives? Susannah Rowson, better known for Charlotte Temple and others, did a really fascinating play called Slaves in Algiers in 1794; it resembles the typical Indian captivity narrative in some ways but is especially interesting for the fact that she tries to represent Jewish and Moorish accents (which all come out like something from 'Gone With the Wind') and that she initially played a part in it herself. Don't know exactly why your entries have me thinking of her, but I do wonder if you know that play and, if so, what you thought.

And Joyce Carol Oates... (sigh). It's been so long (too long!) since I read anything of hers. I started with Marya: A Life in my teens and quickly fell into a two-year obsession with her work. I can't remember for sure which I liked best, but I remember reading American Appetites, Cybele, Do With Me What You Will and several of her more recent short stories in Harper's and other places with bated breath... I'm not an afficianado of gothic fiction, and I've never gotten into contemporary vampirey stuff, but her work really spoke to me when I was in my late teens; loved the creepiness of delving into seemingly successful adults' insecurities and imperfections, I guess. So I would *love* to know which of her titles has impressed you most, so that I could give her another spin now that I've had time to grow up a bit...

Will be reading you religiously now! ;)

Elizabeth ('Blue')

ETA touchstones, gah...

>221 amandameale: Blue, thanks for stopping by. You leave me such ineresting tidbits. I've read Charlotte Temple and a bit about Rowson, but my reading in the last year or so has been all directed by my project. In a few weeks I will be 'set free' :-)

re: Oates. I was not attracted to Oates back when I first encountered her. Certainly some of her fiction is gothic but not all. I have actually not read very many of her contemporary novels, but mostly her short fiction. The new collection mentioned above is not gothic (at least as far as any definition of the sub-genre I'm aware of), but she does seem to have an uncanny ability to unearth those edgy parts of the human psyche and sometimes add a little suspense. She can make a seemingly harmless tale a bit creepy. In one of the stories, "The Garvers", a young woman is being brought to her boyfriend's home to meet the family. The family is all men, Dad and the four brothers; there's no mention of mom or moms. In the girl's head, Oates manages to make this increasingly creepy. When the teen brother makes a joke about them all being clones of their father, she goes right over the edge (despite the boy telling her that he's joking). I think this collection would be a great one for you to reacquaint yourself with her. I hope to read much more of her work later this year.

Somewhere in the Alcott literature I've been reading, I read that Oates took Little Women as inspiration for her Bloodsmoor Romance(perhaps inspiration is not the right word here). I find this unbelievably intriguing, so that may be the first book of my future Oates reading jag!

>212 avaland: - I've read three of the four big gothic novels she published in the early 1980s - they were the first Oates works I read. I didn't pick up on A Bloodsmoor Romance being an alternative Little Women at the time - probably wasn't reading that closely then - I think it may be full of literary references, as I remember that one of the suitors is Mark Twain. The one that has really stuck with me though is the Mysteries of Winterthurn, which is actually three linked novellas, each detailing a separate murder case. (I feel a little warm glow knowing that this is Oates favourite as well).

>213 Jargoneer: I have Oates titles all over the house, literally. I have Mysteries but apparently not Bloodsmoor ...yet. So many books! (one could live on Oates alone for months. . .)

Oooh. The way you describe it, "The Garvers" does sound pretty creepy. I'll definitely be on the lookout for that collection.

And I haven't read Winterthurn yet either... hmmm!

Yesterday's reading had me rereading and skimming parts of some favorite nonfiction books including: the introduction to A Literature of Their Own by Elaine Showalter, bits & pieces of How to Suppress Women's Writingby Joanna Russ, and a few chapters of Silences by Tillie Olsen. Later in the day, I read chapters in two history books by Nancy Cott - No Small Courage and The Bonds of Womanhood. (Is it any wonder that by evening I can barely get through a short story?)
Still, I love reading this stuff ---once again (and wondering why I marked certain passages and not others. . .).

216 -- '(and wondering why I marked certain passages and not others. . .)'

Isn't that always interesting? I have multiple copies of a few books now (copy from taking a class, copy from teaching a class, sometimes even a third 'clean' copy with just one or two post-its...) and it's amazing how different the marks and notes are. Someone needs to come up with a sort of Kindle for academics, where you can take a single electronic text but save multiple sets of completely different mark-ups.

ETA: I've just scanned my closest shelves and saw a few examples of this: Camus' The Stranger, Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love, Plato's Symposium and Herculine Barbin: Being the Memoirs of a Nineteenth Century French Hermaphrodite. I hate wasting space on multiple copies, but I feel like it would take ages to go through each and reconcile them to a single copy.

>217 Fullmoonblue: I think there is good reason sometimes to want to read a clean copy that one hasn't marked up, but I haven't actually done so. I have been working hard to eliminate multiple copies around here so as to have room on the shelves for the new stuff:-)

re 193> avaland, have you considered putting Abigail Alcott's books in a Legacy Library here on LT: http://www.librarything.com/groups/iseedeadpeoplesbooks

I think she'd be a wonderful addition, and I'm sure you need a new project (like a hole in the head ;-} )

>219 janeajones: I have thought about it but have set it aside for a few weeks until the project is done. I'm sure there is a list of Bronson's books, and perhaps the books that Bronson & Lane took to Fruitlands also. I was watching the I See Dead People's Books group for a while in 2008.

This is a great thread! I've just read over 100 posts and there's so much of interest and so much diversity.
Thank you.

I spent part of the day reading parts of An Encyclopedia of Domestic Economy: Comprising Subjects Connected with the Interests of Every Individual . . . by Thomas Webster and Mrs. Parkes. ©1855 (what! no touchstone???) It's found HERE on Google Books (do you know about Google books?). Here is everything you need to know about domestic doings. How to clean the fire irons, fenders and grates, what the duties of each servant is, what the hierarchy of servants is (servant-related stuff begins around pg. 370). The early chapters discuss household furnishings in detail (beds were stuffed with all manner of stuff!). It's actually rather fascinating if you like history, or historical fiction, or 19th century classics.

Is there a Tagalog translation? I think my maid needs to read this book.

Thanks Lois! I would really like to read that Encyclopedia. Of course I have to mop the floors and clean the bathrooms first but my fire irons, fenders and grates do need some attention.

>222 avaland:: No, Lois, I do not know about Google books. What can one do with it? As to the domestic doings, who has time for that with all of the books piled up hiding the dust bunnies?

>225 LisaCurcio: Search 'google books' and it should come up. You can search it by topic or author or keywords. It has great chunks of books online for you to read (but they always leave out some pages). It has a fair amount of old books...

The Black Path by Asa Larsson, translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy. 3.5/5

This is the third book in Larsson's mystery series and the second I have read. A woman dressed in running clothes, is found dead in an ice-fishing shack; she has been tortured and struck through the heart. It's up to Inspector Anna-Maria Mella and her partner Sven-Erik Stalnacke with assistance from lawyer-turned-prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson to solve this complex case. There are some really excellent things about this novel. Larsson writes intelligent, psychological mysteries and really is able to bring the reader into the lives and minds of her characters. And I find Anna-Maria, Sven-Erik and Rebecka very compelling characters. In this mystery, as with the previous one, she continues to show her characters in relationship to their pets or other animals; a unique touch, imo. She also gives fair treatment to all of the women in the novel. However, I was disappointed with two things in this particular installment. 1. Larsson is into the lives & heads of so many characters (including most of those under investigation), I found it too much. I just didn't want to be made to care about that many people (and know their entire lives' histories). 2. Ultimately, it is the narrator who reveals the resolution, imo, not our detectives and lawyer. Perhaps I've been spoiled by the wonderfully morose and cerebral Wallander (Mankell's books), perhaps I was just in the wrong frame of mind, but this time I can't quite agree with the professional reviews. I do, however, recommend Larsson, but start with book one.

As my research appears to be coming to a close, I'd like to mention four historians of women in American history whom I have come to admire. While the average reader may only recognize Ulrich, the other three scholars/authors are very readable, imo.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of Good Wives : Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England 1650-1750, The Age of Homespun, A Midwife's Tale and most recently Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.

Thomas Dublin, author of Transforming Women's Work: New England Lives in the Industrial Revolution,and Farm to Factory : Women's Letters 1840-1860

Nancy F. Cott, author of The Bonds of Womanhood:Woman's Sphere in New England, 1780-1835, No Small Courage: A History of Women in the United States, and more recently, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation.

Mary Beth Norton, author of In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Liberty's Daughters:The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800, and Major Problems in American Women's History.



A couple of the works mentioned are textbooks. The Norton book on Salem is one of the best I've read on the subject (and I've read more than most) and my personal favorite.

#228 - Thank you, thank you. I was never able to sneak any women's or gender studies classes into my design curriculum and have been looking for a good set of reading to do on the subject. I think this will do quite nicely.

222, 228: The Encyclopedia sounds absolutely fabulous... and I have just recently mooched a copy of Good Wives... I believe I may have to skim them both this evening, along with the April edition of Martha Stewart 'Living' magazine! ;)

I have been reading The American Frugal Housewife by Lydia Maria Child (1833). It's amazing but many of the traditional New England recipes I was taught to cook (when I was paying attention) differ very little from the "receipts" in this book. Baked beans, Indian pudding, beef stew & biscuit...etc. I'm afraid the long line of tradition has been broken. I hated Indian pudding and when I bake beans, it's in the crock-pot. I did, however, learn to make something new - pigeon stew.

And, it seems there was a depression going on around 1833: "Perhaps there never was a time when the depressing effects of stagnation in business were so universally felt, all the world over, as they are now."

"Perhaps there never was a time when the depressing effects of stagnation in business were so universally felt, all the world over, as they are now."
Plus ca change, right Lois? Hope we don't have to get to the pigeon stew stage.

Stewing pigeons is no way to treat them. They ought to be eaten raw, warm, with their feathers.


You humans know nothing.

Pigeon stew is quite nice - I cooked it once for guests. (There was a butchers nearby that sold lots of game and pigeon was nice and cheap).

After my husband was the unfortunate witness of some pigeon's being captured here on the streets of New York, I don't think I could eat pigeon. At least not here. They are quite the dirty lot.

>228 avaland: Damn, damn, damn, quadruple damn. Avaland, as me sainted Mum used to say, "I'm going to jerk a knot in your tail." I have read almost all the books you mention in post 228, but I have not read the Norton book. Alas, I lusted, I looked, I found it in Baron von Kindle's library, and once again I found myself helpless in his embrace. Ah he's one seductive rake is Baron von Kindle. And soooo dreamy.

The ones you eat are a different kind of pigeon. But I quite agree about NYC pigeons -- the rats of the bird world, as we fondly call them.

>234 Jargoneer: How many pigeons did it take? This "receipt" calls for eight! I have a flock of wild turkeys who semi-regularly stop by the house, wonder if they might be a decent substitute.

>236 urania1: Are you referring to the Salem title? Yes, very excellent.

>I took a break from the project to pick up an order of books waiting at the bookstore. Included were four works of African fiction and the new Elaine Showalter. I only peeked in the Showalter as I am terrified of the distraction (at this moment in my project), but I did read her pages related to Joyce Carol Oates' writing in the 1960s...

>238 avaland: - the recipe I used only required using pigeon breasts - the butcher sold them in packs of ten for approx $8. I've tried pigeon pate as well - the French love their pate - and it's quite tasty.

>239 Jargoneer: Pigeons, young, have light red legs, and the flesh of a colour, and prick easily---old have red legs, blackish in parts, more hairs, plumper and loose vents---so also of grey or green Plover, Black Birds, Thrash, Lark, and wild Fowl in general. (just in case you're looking for some). ---American Cookery, 1796, by Amelia Simmons.

However, by 1841 and The Good Housekeeper by Sarah Josepha Hale, all those other birds mentioned are 'out'. About the only birds in New England worth cooking, are the pigeon and partridge. A few quails and woodcocks are occasionally found; the robin is sometimes killed; but it is a sin against feeling to destroy a singing bird---one, too, so innocent and gentle. Any one who kills a robin to eat, ought to have it hung round his neck as the albatross was around the "Ancient Mariner." (turkeys, btw, are under 'fowls')

Oh, I definitely agree with her about the robins!

>240 avaland: The pigeons eaten in America before the 20th century were almost all passenger pigeons, which is a wild cousin of today's city pigeons (the mourning dove is the passenger pigeon's closest cousin). As many North Americans know, they were hunted to extinction by the beginning of the 20th century. Per Wikipedia they were once the most common bird in North America: "They lived in enormous flocks and during migration it was possible to see flocks of them a mile (1.6 km) wide and 300 miles (500 km) long, taking several hours to pass and containing up to a billion birds."

This is interesting, and sad (also from Wikipedia): "Pigeons were shipped by the boxcar-load to the Eastern cities. In New York City, in 1805, a pair of pigeons sold for two cents. Slaves and servants in 18th and 19th century America often saw no other meat. By the 1850s, it was noticed that the numbers of birds seemed to be decreasing, but still the slaughter continued, accelerating to an even greater level as more railroads and telegraphs were developed after the American Civil War. Three million pigeons were shipped by a single market hunter in the year 1878."

Oh, and Lois, my guess is the turkeys would taste a lot gamier than the pigeons - you'll have to go after the mourning doves, if you have them. BTW - mourning doves are also known as squab, which is what most restaurants call them. I don't think putting "mourning dove" on a menu would go over too well!

Okay, enough of the nerdy bird-watcher post!

There's something disturbing about that image.

224... only something...?

But re pigeons, I have to chime in. My husband and his family used to raise them; they had a room built onto the roof specifically to let the pigeons use, or roost, or whatever they do. Open the door once a day, they all fly out, then they all circle back. Not the brightest perhaps, but I can attest that they do indeed taste lovely. In Moroccan cooking, there's a dish specifically meant to highlight pigeon; they call b'steeya (or pastilla, or bistilla). You bake the pigeon meat between layers of puff pastry, together with ground nuts and spices. In fancy restaurants, they even make a pie lattice decoration across the top with powdered sugar and cinnamon (which sounds odd, but really isn't that bad). The only problem was, what with the pie-looking top, I could never get that old 'four and twenty blackbirds' rhyme out of my head while eating it... ;)

>242 Talbin:, 245 et al. I have to confess here that once upon a time in a decade far, far away I had a boyfriend who raised messenger pigeons. I had completely forgotten that until I read Blue's first line. . . (let's see, his name was Ramiro...) Perhaps, this is why the pigeon stew caught my eye.

I have only to write an introduction and finish one last poem to add to my 37 page project and then... (I'm making a list).

Poem of the day from Knopf today, Joyce Carol Oates:

Waiting On Elvis, 1956

This place up in Charlotte called Chuck's where I
used to waitress and who came in one night
but Elvis and some of his friends before his concert
at the Arena, I was twenty-six married but still
waiting tables and we got to joking around like you
do, and he was fingering the lace edge of my slip
where it showed below my hemline and I hadn't even
seen it and I slapped at him a little saying, You
sure are the one aren't you feeling my face burn but
he was the kind of boy even meanness turned sweet in
his mouth.
Smiled at me and said, Yeah honey I guess I sure am.

>247 tiffin: oh, thanks for that, tiffin! I love that line he was the kind of boy even meanness turned sweet in/his mouth.

I haven't even had time to keep up with the poetry that poets.org and poetrydaily is sending me...

I'm going to mention one last book used in my research, and then, honestly, I'll shut up about it:-) I'll even start a new thread to show that I have indeed moved on!



The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth-Century Woman, edited by Elaine Forman Crane

Elizabeth Sandwich Drinker (1735-1807) was a Philadelphia Quaker, an educated woman, a wife, mother and grandmother, and yes, a reader! Her diary spans the years of 1758-1807 and totals 2100 pages, but this abridged version has been edited to about 350 pages in book form. It makes for some pretty fascinating reading. She chronicled births, deaths, marriages, illnesses, visits in, visits out, home renovations, sometimes the weather, problems with the hired help/servants, her courting, incidences related to the Revolution, and yes, her reading...

Here's a few examples:

22 Nov 1777 ...one thousand Men, attack'd the Picquet guard this morning about 11 o'clock, they drove them off, when some took Shelter in J. Dickensons House, and other Houses thereabouts, the English immeadatly set ire to said Houses and burnt them to the Ground,---the burning those Houses tis said is a premeditated thing, as they serve for skulking places; and much anoy the guards...

29 Feb 1796 ...finished reading a foolish Romance entitled The Haunted Priory: or the Fortunes of the House of Rayo. ---read also, Mrs. Barbalds hymns for Children in prose, very beautiful in my oppinion---finished knitting a pair large cotton Stockings, bound a petticoat, and made a batch of Gingerbread---this I mention, to shew, that i have not spent the day reading...

22 April 1796 ...I have read a large Octava volume, entitled The Rights of Woman, By Mary Wolstonecroft. in very many of her sentiments, she, as some of our friends say, speaks my mind, in some others, I do not, altogether coincide with her---I am not for quite so much independance.

12 October 1807 ...Our Jude, whom we sold 51 years ago when she was a Child, was here this Afternoon, I thought she was dead, as we have not seen her for many year, she is now, not far from sixty years of age---when we sold her, there was nothing said against keeping or selling Negros---but as we were going to board out knew not what to do with her---some time after we were more settled in our minds, were very sorry we had sold the Child to be a slave for life, and knew not what would be her fate, we went to Springfield to repurchase her, but her mistress sold her to Parson Marshal, it was several years, when she was grown up, and when much talk was, of the inequity of holding them in bondage---My husband called on her Master, and had some talk with him, he did not see the matter as he did, but at his death left her free...

There is more than a little about various illnesses, injuries and pain and what was prescribed for any of it. And she and her loved ones were bled more than a few times! If you're a fan of social history, you might find this irresistible. Many thanks to MaggieO for sending it to me.

Wow, I wanted to keep reading.

"this I mention, to shew, that i have not spent the day reading..."

Love it.

251 - I loved that part as well and have made such lists to justify my days many times.

i'm a huge fan of the social history of medicine in particular - I'll forward the Drinker diary reference to my now retired advisor up in St. Johns whose specialty was the relationship between folk/"official" medicine through history.

Bob, have you read any books by the British medical historian Roy Porter? I have two of his books, Quacks: Fakers and Charlatans in English Medicine and Flesh in the Age of Reason, but haven't read either one yet.

nope - not yet. Reading the synopses though makes me defn. want to get hold of the latter book, in particular. And then reread the birth of the clinic (the latter gets dissed alot, but i really thought it very interesting.... 25 yrs ago). I wonder - back when my advisor was getting his PhD in England in the history of med, it was assumed (and he did) that one would get an MD, a Pharmacy degree and then, finally the history PhD. John is about 15 yrs older than I, while i'm a little older than Dr. Porter, so it's kind of a mid-generational shift, perhaps.

Bob, most the remedies she mentions are elaborated on in footnotes using the following references:
"Domestic Medicine" by Willian Buchanan, 1797 (15th edition, first published in 1791);
"Practice of Physic" by Cullen,
"Dictionary of Medicine" by Gould (I could find no further details on these last two.

There are a number of references for the Yellow Fever epidemic and several references to 18th century books on the affects of the moon on disease. It's really amazing the amount of time the average family spent dealing with disease & injuries (and death). One read of this diary would teach most anyone to not romanticize any of the past centuries!

"Practice of Physic" was something of an all purpose title for both home and "professional" medical books in the 17- early 19th C. Porter's probably referencing William Cullen's text - Edinburgh ~ 1789-90 that was reprinted in GBrit and the US for at least a few decades after his death.

Lois,

this does not fall into the Virtual Giving thread since that one only calls for books from catalogs, but I have just come across two books I thought would be right up your alley:

Women's Work: the First 20,000 Years and
The Cavalry Maiden.

>258 polutropos: thanks, Andrew. I think I might have the first one or something similar.

I have a new thread, btw, a part II:-)