Cushla's 2009 list

This is my first thread. I've moved over here now!

September
47. The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason 4
46. Foreign Correspondence by Geraldine Brooks 3 1/2
45. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer 4 1/2
44. Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther 4

August
43. The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert 4
42. The Magic Lantern by Timothy Garton Ash 4
41. Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie 4
40. Smiley's People by John le Carre 5
39. The Honourable Schoolboy by John Le Carre 3
38. The Third Miss Symons by F.M. Mayor 3

July
37. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre 5
36. The File by Timothy Garton-Ash 4 1/2
35. Stasiland by Anna Funder 4
34. Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs by Jeremy Mercer 4

June
33. The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett 4 1/2
32. The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell 4 1/2
31. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld 4
30. Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie 3 1/2

May
29. Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan 5
28. Up the Junction by Nell Dunn 3 1/2
27. Peking Picnic by Ann Bridge 4

April
26. The Island Walkers by John Bemrose 5
25. Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Armin 3 1/2
24. The Venus Throw by Steven Saylor 4 1/2

March
23. The Bernini Bust by Iain Pears 4 1/2
22. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell 2 1/2
21. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff 3
20. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff 4
19. Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World by James Chace 4 1/2
18. Property by Valerie Martin 4
17. The Time we Have Taken by Steven Carroll 2 1/2
16. Thinks... by David Lodge 3 1/2

February
15. Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre 4
14. At the Still Point by Mary Benson 4 1/2
13. Waiariki by Patricia Grace 4 1/2
12. Cicero by Antony Everitt 3 1/2
11. The Lost Traveller by Antonia White 5
10. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh 4

January
9. The Pankhursts by Martin Pugh 3
8. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West 4
7. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 5
6. The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro 5
5. Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn 3 1/2
4. The Zookeeper's War by Steven Conte 4
3. The World at Night by Alan Furst 3 1/2
2. South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami 3
1. The Untouchable by John Banville 5

Welcome!

Hi Cushla - have joined this Challenge Group also - have starred your thread to keep an eye on you!! Happy New Year.

Welcome to the group!

Thanks for the welcomes!

I have yet to figure out any kind of goals or plan for the year, but will add them to the top post when I do.

Book #1: The Untouchable by John Banville

5 stars.

I loved this book and couldn't put it down for 4 days and nights. I'm confident that it'll make my top 5 for the year. I bought it for $4 at a charity bookfair last year because I'd heard of Banville, but had a feeling it'd sit unloved on the shelf. The cover is kind of spooky, and I'd tried to read The Sea for about 2 minutes and gave up. I stuck it in a pile in my Booknudging thread and Thrin told me it was based on Anthony Blunt's life. I read Miranda Carter's biography of him a few years ago (Anthony Blunt: His Lives) and enjoyed it, and I think that made The Untouchable even better. It felt like I was inside Blunt's very interesting head. I'm going to skim Carter's book to see how closely Banville stuck to the facts, as much as they're known.

If you're thinking about reading it, avoid the reviews on LT because one has quite a bad spoiler.

I'm reading South of The Border, West of the Sun now but am eyeing The World at Night by Alan Furst after that while I'm in the mood for a spy novel.

Great book to start the year with, cmt! Congratulations. Now, I have to locate it so I can throw it on Continent TBR.

The Banville book sounds like a must-read, Cushla. I am bumping it up. Blunt's life is so interesting and 5 stars cannot be ignored!

>6 cushlareads:: thanks for the spoiler warning, Cushla. I definitely have this on my TBR list; I still haven't read any Banville (only Benjamin Black!) but I heard him speak in London last year and he came across so well it really made me want to read more.

Book #2: South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

3 stars.

I read this for the Reading Globally Japan read. My husband loves Murakami, and I asked him to choose the most accessible for me. We have very little overlap in favourite authors, so I was hoping I'd love it, but..... no.
I found the main character distant to start with, and the language on the boring side. It got better as it went on, though and I liked the ending, but I just wasn't blown away.

(All you Murakami lurkers out there, feel free to tell me what I am missing!)

It seems that Murakami is one of those authors that you either love or hate.

I have read Dance, Dance, Dance and his memoir on running. I enjoyed them both. Dance, Dance, Dance has the magic realism content that some love - I thought it was good, but I feel that Murakami is someone who works devilishly hard at his craft. Very good, but not the greatest in the world.

I hate to add this, but I do think he is a very 'male' author. Maybe these comments will get some of the lurkers up in arms and out in the open.

I think your husband chose well. Many of Murakami's books are steeped in symbolism relating to the culture of 1960s Japan. Understanding that, adds so much more to his books.

However, South of the Border, West of the Sun (originally to be a part of another novel but finding a life of its own), can be read as a simple love story. However, Murakami is also exploring the loss of much more, losses that we experience with age and responsibility.

I can't tell you what you're missing - either you connect with the author or you don't. You shouldn't punish yourself over that. Personally, this is one of my top 5 books - haunting.

I have The Untouchable on a list somewhere. I'll have to see if I can get to it this year. The mention of Alan Furst reminds of of how circular and never-ending this book thing is. I have, on yet another list, recommendations from authors I like. He gave a thumbs-up to Dawn Powell. I've been keeping my eye open for some of her books. Today, I found a used Library of America copy in good shape with four novels(1930-1942) in it for $7. Now, it's on my shelves.

Thanks for the comments on Murakami. Petermc, I think I missed a lot of the Japanese cultural references (apart from the obvious things). I'm glad I read it and am still thinking about it 5 days later, so it did get under my skin.

Kiwidoc, the maleness of the writing struck me too. I like to empathise with the main character, and it got harder when he did things like SPOILER ALERT!! - but not a very important one - sleep around while his wife was pregnant.

Visibleghost, which Alan Furst novels have you read? Night Soliders? I can see a copy on BookMooch Yesterday I finished... ta da....

Have any of you lurkers read The Revolutions Trilogy by John Banville? It's about Copernicus, Newton and Kepler. I might try it soon.

Book #3: The World at Night by Alan Furst.

I enjoyed this and gave it 3 1/2 stars. It's a spy novel set in Paris in 1940, and Furst did a great job at setting the scene. The main character, Jean-Claude Casson, is a film producer who gets tangled up in spying.
The details of everyday life in Paris as the war and the occupation unfolded were chilling - I've read and enjoyed Antony Beevor's book about Paris during and after the war, but I'll remember this better. The (large quantities of) sex got a little repetitive. The last 60 pages were fantastic.

I liked The World at Night enough to read more Furst, but not for a while.

I am ready for a girly book now!!

Ick, how do I do bold and then get rid of the bold?

Cushla: you need to put <strong> before and </strong> after (or 'b' instead of 'strong' if you want to type fewer letters :))

ET tidy up after my limited understanding of which HTML tags LT will allow...

aaah - thanks heaps. I was doing "\" not "/"!

Also, re >14 cushlareads:: haven't read the Banville you mention but it sounds a good one; my current book is in part about Newton, so it could make a good follow-up.

Cushla, I think I have two Furst books to go until I've run the table on his books. Night Soldiers is good. Probably one of my favorites. I think your approach is wise. Scheduling one a year or so is likely better than a back-to-back reading of them.

Stop mentioning those Banville books with the old science guys! ;) I like that kind of stuff. I'm not sure why I've never read any of them.

VG

Watch out, I might post them to you when I've read them! (don't worry, I have 250-odd TBR. Wonderful but terrible.)

Book #4: The Zoo-keeper's War by Steven Conte

4 stars

This book won the Australian Prime Minister's Award for Fiction last year, and if they're all this good I'd better find some of the earlier winners.

The novel is set in Berlin from 1943 to 1945. Vera is an Australian woman married to Axel, the director of the Berlin Zoo. The government assigns them, and they accept, Ostarbeiter (forced labourers from Eastern Europe) to help them keep the zoo running. Vera, Axel and their friend Flavia have different attitudes to the Nazi regime and as conditions worsen these differences matter more and more. It's hard to say too much without giving away some of the plot.

I almost gave this 4 1/2 stars but - without giving anything away - there was one part of the plot that I felt was too coincidental, one of those "I need to get a big moment in history in here somewhere" things.

The last 70-odd pages make for a harrowing read. I've had enough reading about World War 2 for at least a few weeks - after The World at Night last week, this, and The Madonnas of Leningrad at the end of 2008, I want something less grim. When I've got over that, though, I'm going to dig out Antony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin 1945 because it'll fit well with the last part of The Zookeeper's War.

Good review, Cushla. I read a review of it when it first came out and promptly forgot about looking for it, so thanks for the memory bump.

#21: Definitely one I will look for! Thanks for the recommendation.

Ooh! Visitors! Thanks for coming in! Now would you all please go and read the Zookeeper's War so that I can talk about it with you... I've read it early for my online Aussie book group and have to wait another month till I can blurt out the spoilers.

CK, I really wished I'd been to Berlin while I was reading the ZW. It always makes me love books more when I can visualize the place. And it's nice to find another non-fan of Murakami around here!

I thought Norwegian Wood was meh.

It's somehow comforting to find you two not loving Murakami! I think we have Norwegian Wood here somewhere.

Book #5: Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn - 3 1/2 stars

Said novel, addressed as a series of ledders, is a parable regarding un-slavery of language and rigid rule. Book is very ingenious, and I had do keep reading, however da people were under-developed. I gave book 3 ½ luninaries. Is done on da island of Nollop, labelled for da guy who worked ex “The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over the Lazy Dog”. When da sign over Herr Nollop’s grave begins losing paraphernalia, da elders of da governing body see happenings as a sign of Nollop no wishing islanders using dose ones. If people fail in following da rules, bad punishings happen.

A virtual chocolate fish for working out which letters I haven’t used in the previous paragraph! That took ages...

The Zookeeper's War goes onto the tbr/wishlist, and I am eagerly awaiting Ella Minnow Pea as a post-christmas present! Thanks for the reviews.

Enjoyed your thread and I like the way you're doing your cumulative book list backward -- how smart!

Great comments on Ella minnow pea. I thought that book was so clever.

Loved your Ella Minnow Pea review. Id was gread!
--BJ

Thanks for the comments - bythe time I finished writing one paragraph without those letters I felt like giving Mark Dunn 5 stars for managing 200 pages.

Lunacat, hope you enjoy Ella Minnow Pea, and congratulations on the new job!

Book #6: The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

5 stars

This is the first book I've read by Alice Munro and I loved it. I'm not usually a fan of short stories and haven't tried any for years, but I'm about to start looking for more by her. The View from Castle Rock is a blend of fiction and non-fiction, but it felt like a beautifully written true story of Munro and her ancestors. Each story stood on its own and felt like part of a chain linking her to her past. I suspect that Canadians would get even more out of it than I did, but a lot of the pioneer material reminded me of what early English immigrants to New Zealand must have faced.

So, more short stories going on the mountain, and even more Canadian stuff because I can't remember not liking a Canadian novel. And more Alice Munro.

I'm still going on The Pankhursts but slooowly - think I will go and find another library book now...

Book #7: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

5 stars

Another fantastic book that kept me awake till late. It felt like I'd been whacked with a sledgehammer by the end of it. World War One seems to have this impact on me more than any other war, for several reasons - the fuzzy motivation for the war, the endless waiting for battle and the pattern of trench fighting, and the high percentage of severely wounded soldiers and the misery of recovery (I think -I'm figuring this out as I type!). The book's blend of description of time at the front and time spent waiting to go back there or on leave was very affecting, especially his feeling that he was mentally much worse off for having gone home on leave. thankfully, the funny bits were really, really funny!

I'll definitely be looking for The Night In Lisbon by Remarque.

I need a happy book next.

I'm glad you enjoyed "All Quiet". After finishing "Lisbon" I had just had to read this one again myself. I posted my own review a few days ago.

When it comes to Remarque I find that I've become something of a cross between a drug addict and a religious zealot - I need more and I need to spread the word ;)

Book #8: The Return of the Solider by Rebecca West

4 stars

This was a good book to follow All Quiet on the Western Front because it looked at the effects of World War One from a different perspective. Rebecca West tells a story about Chris Baldry, who comes back from the war with amnesia. He cannot remember the last fifteen years, and is still in love with Margaret. Kitty, his wife, and Jenny, his cousin, struggle to cope.

West's depiction of class structure and poverty in England is really well done, and the characters of the three women are fascinating. But I didn't love this book. To give a book 5 stars, I think I need to relate to the characters. In an English lit course that would probably count as irrelevant, but this isn't an English lit course! I know Kitty and Jenny had their attitudes because of when they lived, but I found Kitty selfish and unlikeable and Jenny's unrequited love really irritating.

I have more Rebecca West to read (The Thinking Reed) and am looking forward to it. Her writing is beautiful. She's popped up in the book I'm reading (err, more like wading through molasses) on The Pankhursts too.

#35: That one is already on Continent TBR or I would add it again thanks to youre review.

It won't take you long - my VMC edition was 180 pages of very big font and double spacing!

>32 cushlareads: I'm so glad you enjoyed Munro - I simply love her short stories! I've heard pretty much everything she writes is good, though personally I can definitely recommend The Love of a Good Woman. I'm having a deja vu - I think might have mentioned that book too often on this thread :)

I was going to read All Quiet on the Western Front but the book I ordered ended up being an examination of the film instead of the book so I was too po'ed to continue. I will try the library for a copy.

Glad you liked Alice Munro. She is a phenomenon wrt to short stories.

Karen, that's annoying. I bet your library will have it though.

Girlunderglass you haven't mentioned it, and thanks! I've thrown it onto my Bookmooch wishlist.

Book 9: The Pankhursts by Martin Pugh

3 stars

This tells (in minute detail) the story of the Pankhurst family - Emmeline, Richard, and their children Christabel, Sylvia, Adela, and two sons - but the book is really about the girls. I'm not sure how well known they'll be to American readers but as a kid growing up I knew that the Pankhursts were the ones who got women the vote in the UK. This book shattered my pre-conceived ideas of Emmeline and Christabel as martyrs who brought the vote to women. Pugh paints a picture of a family riddled with jealousy and conflict. Christabel comes over as arrogant, self-righteous, flaky and prone to sponging off others.

At 482 pages this was too long for me, and I didn't need all the detail, e.g. who were the 10 pallbearers at Emmeline's funeral. So much happened to the family but the first 200 pages dragged. It was like a soap opera - suffragism, forced feeding (horrendous to read about), fascism, communism, World War One, adopted babies, abandoned kids, misappropriation of funds, oodles of sibling rivalry, Ethiopia, emigration to Australia...

I'd recommend it if you really are interested in the subject and are prepared for an epic. I'm glad I read it but even gladder that I'm finished it!

Book 10: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

4 stars

I have a lot of catching up to do on classics, and I bought this at last year's enormous charity bookfair. I enjoyed it very much. It tells of Charles Ryder and the Marchmain family, an aristocratic Catholic family. It's set in England in the 1920s and 1930s. It's very sad, especially the parts about Sebastian (avoiding spoilers here).

I remember the 1981 TV adaptation because I was 10, and I think there was a fuss (at least at our place) over Sebastian and Charles kissing. I wasn't alloweed to watch! Just goes to show that banning things makes them stick in your mind for much longer than they would otherwise.

I have about 50 pages left in Brideshead Revisited. I am enjoying it so far and am anticipating the wrap up. I might finish it tonight if there is nothing on tv. I have been waiting to finish before I watch the movie that came out at the end of 2008. Have you seen that yet? I am curious about compairing them. I like to compare books with movies. I will write a note to you when I finish the book and let you know what I think.

Cool!

The last 50 pages are excellent. I didn't put much detail up here, but a lot happens. Boy, it's pretty hard to make profound observations when you're avoiding spoilers.

I haven't seen the movie, but that's because I'm hopeless with movies since I've had kids. I get to the evening and have enough energy to read a book horizontally but not enough to watch TV!

Brideshead Revisited is one of my top 5 books. I have read it more times than I can count. But, if you really want a treat, listen to the audiobook version narrated by Jeremy Irons. His voice gives flight to Waugh's poetical prose.

The movie with Jeremy Irons, et al is very good. There is a new movie out, which I watched while flying to New Zealand, heavily sedated, so I am not a good critic. I remember thinking it is not half as good.

OK, maybe I have to start watching movies again. Soon. As soon as my daughter starts sleeping later than 5.30 am.

Peter, I've never done audio books. I'll see if the library has the movie or the audio book.

I finished Brideshead Revisited. My boyfriend has the flu so I was not forced to watch "24." I cannot read when that show is on. Everything about it stresses me out!

I really liked the book. You were right about the last 50 pages. The story really turned around.

In the review I wrote for my thread, I spoke about the religious aspects of the book. Catholicism kind of ruined their lives. I suppose that thought is subjective though. If one is a "true believer" in Catholicism, then the characters would have been steered on to the correct path. Now I am just confusing myself.

Anyway, I really like the characters. I thoroughly sympathized with Charles. He really liked/loved the Flyte's (Marchmain's), but their attitudes were foreign to him. He was an outsider.

I really wanted to know more about Sebastian. In my mind there could be a whole other book just about him. I wonder if maybe the book was originally about him and the Waugh went in another direction. I want to know the background on why he disliked his family so much. Why did he carry Aloysius around? What other scrapes did he get into? Did he end up living the life that Cordelia described?

I have not read Brideshead revisited, but loved the BBC series (and heard it was very close to the book). Loved Sebastian, I can still see him with Aloysius.
I especially loved the first parts, Charles and Sebastian as friends, young, enjoying their collegue years before "real life" interupted.
I might read the book someday
Anita

Hmmm, Cushla and visitors. I bought Brideshead Revisited at an estate sale this past summer. Perhaps it needs to move to the top of the heap... I have a goal to read more classics this year.

#48 -- Regarding watching movies: If you happen to be a member of Netflix, they have quite a large amount of BBC classics of British books that have been made in to movies. You can watch a good majority of them online as part of your membership. I recently watched Middlemarch this way. This prevents me ordering DVDs that my boyfriend in no way wants to watch and I can sit around and watch it when I have a moment.

Watching the movie of British classics really clears up questions I tend to have. I know a lot about Britain and its history. I get a lot of British humor. However, Britain is a foreign culture to me. I don't know a lot of the politicians or society personalities. I often find in Brit lit that the authors compare characters to these people of the day. While I generally understand the gist, the movie will tend to show it more plainly.

An example would be, I know of Punch and Judy. They are puppets. At some point in the past they were popular in British culture and considered funny. Punch is a jester type character and gets in trouble. They are iconic in British culture. There is/was a British mag called Punch that I am guessing had something to do with sending up British society. But I don't really know. I have never seen a Punch and Judy show or read the magazine. I have never even really ever thought about Punch and Judy except when I am reading something British and they discuss it. But if I saw something of the show, saw how people reacted to it, and Punch and Judy became an experience in my life I would then truly get the meaning of the line in the book and what it relates to the other characters.

And....That is why I advocate watching movies of books. This is particularly true when the author and story is foreign or not from my time. I also just really like movies. Now I will get off my soap box.

Wow, lots of visitors!

I'm still thinking about the book a few days later. Jmaloney, your comments about Catholicism were interesting. I think the book's more about Catholicism than anything else. I grew up Catholic but am now an atheist, so I have some strange attraction to Catholic books! But that was the modern day New Zealand version of Catholic, which is quite different from how strict it used to be. The strict version had such an effect on their decisions in the book. Frost in May, which I read last year, was similar, and now I'm reading The Lost Traveller. I guess the characters in BR wouldn't look at it as Catholicism ruining their lives - they just live with the consequences of believing.

I don't really get why Sebastian had Aloysius. I'm sure it's a metaphor for something. In one part someone says that Sebastian needed not to be looked after, and that was the key - maybe looking after Aloysius is something to do with that. Someone who does comp lit can probably help! Anyone??

Big chunks of British culture feel very familiar to me from growing up in New Zealand - that's probably changed in the last 20 years but a lot of TV then was English, my parents read lots of English books, I read oodles of English kids' books and European history, etc. I had a royal family scrapbook when I was little! I know next to nothing about Asia even though we live much nearer to it. I lived in the US (New York and New Haven) for 6 years all up and the couple of times I went to the UK it felt close to going home, at least in superficial ways (they understood my accent for one thing!). My English geography's terrible though - I need a map of England nearby to figure out where they are.

I laughed about "24". It started when we were in New York and there was a 4-storey high billboard for it across the street from our apartment block!

Ugh... I just lost my 2 paragraphs that I was just about to post. I can't even blame it on LT. It was my stupid computer. Grrr....

In a nutshell, I am an atheist too. I can understand believing in a god. I have a harder time understanding fierce belief in a religion. I was raised Lutheran, but my dad's family is catholic. I have knowledge of what catholic's believe and why. At one point I studied several religions trying to make sure I really didn't believe in god, since I first decided when I was 10. This would be why I think the Flyte's are very strange. All the repression in the Flyte's lives must be bad for the digestive system.

Also, I discovered today that the version of BR we are reading is not the original. Waugh rewrote it in the 50s. He thought it was too controversial. I want to know what he wrote the first time. If anyone knows where I can read the original, please let me know.

I cannot stop thinking about this book. I hope everyone reads it. Once you are done go and read the various reviews on the book page. They are pretty diverse. Many people found the book depressing, which surprised me. I wouldn't say it is uplifting, but not depressing. And yes Waugh was catholic, but he was a protestant and agnostic before that. I am sure when he wrote it he was saying, "be catholic," but I just didn't get that.

Jmaloney, I read that (about Waugh re-writing it) in my Penguin version too but decided just to get on with it. I'd love to see what he's chopped out. I agree with you that I didn't find it depressing, except the bits about Sebastian - those I DID find depressing and if the book had ended up being all about Charles and Sebastian I'd have felt down at the end of it.

I've just finished Book 11: The Lost Traveller by Antonia White .

I gave it 5 stars .

I read Frost in May late last year, my first Virago Modern Classic, and loved it. This was even better. Frost in May is the story of Nanda, who goes to a Catholic boarding school in England around 1910. Her father is a convert to Catholicism. Frost in May ends when Nanda's about 15 and ** Frost in May SPOILER ALERT ** she has to leave the school suddenly.

The Lost Traveller picks up from a slightly different version of the Frost in May story. It follows Clara and her family through about 5 years. The charcterisation is fantastic, and her relationship with her mother made me cringe in recognition at my teenage self. I will make sure this book's lying around in 12 or 13 years when my daughter's growing up (I'm sure that by then if I suggest it, she'll snort at the idea!) I loved this book and cried near the end. I'm looking forward to the next two in the series.

So, yet another book about Catholicism and yet another book set in England in the start of last century. Time to head somewhere warmer. Like Nigeria!
(oh, and Russia while I do my penance read 97 pages of War and Peace. Just kidding about the penance. The first 3 pages were excellent!)

Cushla, I loved The Lost Traveller too, and much more than Frost in May. I have a 16-year-old daughter so my cringes had real-time, real life parallels. I found the whole book excellent and quite moving. I'm eager to read the next one in the series -- I think it's The Sugar House, followed by Beyond the Glass but I may have the order mixed up.

Laura, ow! (My battles at the moment are along the lines of "I want pretty jelly for breakfast" "No, no jelly for breakfast". But I'm sure you're much nicer than Isabel... I liked her much more by the end of the book, as more was revealed about her life (argh avoiding spoilers!) but she was so self-absorbed. I have The Sugar House out of the library too so will try to read it in the next few weeks.

You guys have whet my appetite! Could I read The Lost Traveller as a stand-alone book? I can't see myself reading a whole series, but your five star rating and review is so tempting!

Yes, you could, but it'd probably be best to read Frost in May first. (I loved that one too!) They're pretty fast reads.

I'm grumpy. I just found The Sugar House (the new VMC edition) and started to read the back of the book. There were about 5 spoilers in 3 sentences! Aaaaagh. And if you haven't read The Lost Traveller don't even pick up The Sugar House because the first spoiler is a spoiler for the whole of The Lost Traveller.

Well I made the mistake of reading the back covers of The Sugar House and Beyond the Glass, at least one of which had spoilers right there. How awful!

Yep, I meant to say the back cover (not the back of the book). I feel an email to Virago coming on!

I've just had a look at my January reading:

9 books
Fiction: 8 (much higher than pre-LT days)
Median rating 4
Female authors: 2
New Zealand authors: 0
Total pages: 2824
Average pages per day: 91
The best news... 3 were library books, the rest were TBRs! Of those 6, 2 were mooched and 2 were secondhand.

CMT - Thanks for the review on The Untouchable sent to TBR Nation.

Cushla, I picked up Frost in May in a charity shop late last year after a big piece in the Guardian celebrating the VMC anniversary... may have to bump it up! Although if it's one of a series, it may annoy me to finish it and not have the others immediately available... hmm.

I've kind of given up reading book jackets. I figure, if the writer can't get me to understand what's going on better than a blurber, they cant be worth all that, right?

Frost in May works well as a stand-alone. But you'll want to read the rest!
I'm not reading any more book jackets for a long time.

Book 12 (and a very long time coming it was too..)

Cicero by Antony Everitt 3 1/2 stars

This took 12 long days to read, and I don't know why. Others on LT and Amazon love this book. I didn't love it - I found some of the writing a bit pedestrian, and I kept comparing it unfavourably to Rubicon by Tom Holland. I found that a much denser read but more rewarding. I love this period of Roman history so Cicero was still a good read, but I wasn't racing to pick it up.

I have From the Gracchi to Nero somewhere and am going to try to re-read it later this year.

Well done on finishing such a dense read, Cushla. That one is waiting for me, also - and might have to be interspersed with other lighter fare!!

Book 13: Waiariki by Patricia Grace – 4 ½ stars

This turned out to be the perfect follow-up to Cicero. It was 89 short pages, beautifully written, and reminded me of being a kid in New Zealand.

Patricia Grace is one of New Zealand’s best known writers. This is her first book, a volume of short stories written in 1975, and it was the first published short story collection by a Maori woman. The stories are very short – most are 3-4 pages – but the characters come through very strongly. Most of the stories are set in rural New Zealand, and many of the characters are old people and children. The themes of urbanisation, the relationship of Maori to the land and sea, and racism come through in many of the stories, but they are never heavy-handed.

I loved this book and am going to look for more of Grace’s work. I’ve read very little New Zealand fiction. Thanks to depressaholic for pointing me in her direction.

>68 cushlareads:: I told timjones last year that I really wanted to read more NZ fiction and so far I've failed miserably (apart from rescuing my small trove of Maurice Gee from my mum's on my last visit!). This sounds like a great one to put on the list - thanks.

Flossie,
I buy Nz fiction, but I don't read it! I think I have Under the Mountain here somewhere by Maurice Gee and Plumb was a required text in 7th form English, but I didn't take it. I'm going to try to read The Book of Fame by Lloyd Jones soon. I haven't even managed Mister Pip yet!

Kiwi, I hope you enjoy Cicero more than I did...it probably won't take you long. I can't work out why I feel ambivalent about it. I think it was Everitt's writing style.

I have the Grace book you have just read, Cushla, and have pulled it to the top of the pile. I also have a book by Elizabeth Knox about growing up in the 1970s in NZ - which fits my teen years so I mean to read that one too. I think Cicero is sinking down the pile now!!

That's another push in the direction of Patricia Grace, then - thanks, Cushla. (It was depressaholic that originally sparked my interest as well).

Book 14: At the Still Point by Mary Benson - 4 1/2 stars

I chose this book for the Reading Globally Africa challenge and am so glad I did. I bought it earlier this year in one of my recent VMC trawls and it would have languished for months if Christina (christiguc) hadn't recommended it.

Mary Benson was a white South African who was involved in the struggle against apartheid in the 1950s and 1960s. She wrote biographies of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Luthuli, and was friends with many of the leading anti-apartheid campaigners (including Mandela). Here's a link to her obituary:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2000/jun/2/guardianobituaries.nelsonmandela

At the Still Point feels like it's semi-autobiographical. It's written from the persepctive of Anne, a South African journalist who's been living in London and New York. She comes home for a visit but, through her group of liberal friends in Johannesburg, gets drawn into the trials following the Sharpeville massacre. I won't say much more because I want to avoid spoilers.

This was a very thought provoking book about race, apartheid, and the spectrum of white community behaviour towards the government and Africans. The only other book I've read about apartheid is Long Walk to Freedom, which was fantastic, but very different. At the Still Point was written in 1969 when the repression of the ANC and all opposition was at its strongest. The desperation and yet the hope that come through are very moving.

I'm going to move Cry, the Beloved Country further up my TBR list, and would love any other recommendations for books set in South Africa.

You might try the one I read earlier this year by Christina Lamb, House of Stone, although it is not South Africa, but Zimbabwe.

>70 cushlareads:, I just read Mister Pip and really enjoyed it--though haven't commented on it in my threads yet.

Thanks Stasia - I really liked The Sewing Circles of Herat and Small Wars Permitting so will look for House of Stone.

Bonnie I'll lurk on your thread to see when you review Mister Pip!

Yay! :) I'm glad you read (and liked) At the Still Point, Cushla. I think it is unfortunate that it is no longer in print and readily available.

Since you're looking for suggestions: I'm reading a South African book right now (for the Reading Globally African theme read) that might interest you--The Way of the Women by Marlene van Niekerk.

Edited for touchstones

Thanks - it's going on the list! I didn't realise it was out of print. I might try her Mandela biography too, but I have no idea when...

Book 15: Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre

4 stars

This was a recommendation from torontoc and cabegley's thread and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Eddie Chapman was a crook in England in the 1920s and 1930s. He jumped bail, fled with his latest girlfriend to Jersey, and threw himself out a window while they were having dinner to escape the police. This gives you an idea of the book - if it were fiction, it'd be really bad.

Chapman got caught, and ended up in a Jersey cell. The Nazis occupied the Channel Islands and he volunteered to be a German spy. Many more unbelievable things then happened. As soon as he could, he offered his services to the Brits as a double agent. Many more unbelievable things happened, but I don't want to give the story away.

It's an easy read and I didn't want to put it down. My son ended up in hospital on Wednesday night with asthma and we spent from 9pm - 2 am in A&E waiting to get onto the ward. This was a good boredom fighter. Macintyre could've done with a better editor though - I notice "decent" instead of "descent" and "Nante's" one sentence after "Nantes". Ick.

Oh, Cushla - bad luck with the asthma :( Did you know already or was this a first attack?

I keep seeing Agent Zigzag mentioned about the place but it's never quite grabbed me somehow - I guess because of that line you threw in there, "many more unbelievable things then happened"! Glad it was the right book at the right time though.

Great review on Agent Zigzag. As I've mentioned somewhere on LT before, this has been sitting in my bedside draw now for well over 6 months, but other books keep jumping the queue! And with 12 new books arriving within the next week or so, it may be about to fall even lower in the list! Agggghhhh - so much to read - but if only all problems were so pleasant.

Cushla, sure hope your son is doing better! My best friend's son suffered through a few stays in the hospital when he was a preschooler, but seems to have grown out of it. Re: Agent Zigzag, I bought it for my son last year and am waiting for him to remember to loan it back to me. :-)

Thanks for the nice messages! He's much better - back to his usual monkey-ish self, and negotiating for Pirate Lego because he's sick. Flossie, nope it's not the first time - our second hospital admission and we've had lots of attacks, but at least this time he wasn't in acute distress at 3 am. We've had a good run for about 6 months now since we got him onto a grunty preventer, and thought we might be over it.

Bonnie I give my Dad books like that! Just got back Mao and Stalin last week. Hope you retrieve it soon...

Peter, I look forward to reading your 12 new reviews!

Eek, I've been ambushed by real life and my LT visits have been replaced by work at last - uni started back last week.

Book 16: Thinks... by David Lodge

3 1/2 stars

An enjoyable read, especially if you are a David Lodge fan. The book is in turn very funny and very sad.

As usual, the book is set in a British university and the vagaries of university processes feature, although not as much as usual. And as usual, the main male character is obsessed with sex. Ralph is an academic in cognitive science. Helen is a recently widowed novelist who's hired on contract to teach a creative writing course. The novel starts when she arrives on campus and ends at the end of term. Ralph is doing a stream of consciousness experiment and records all his thoughts into a glorified dictaphone. Helen keeps a diary.

I love the way Lodge writes about university machinations - I suspect his novels are much funnier if you've spent time working in a university system like the British one.

I've seen a few reviews that thought Lodge was showing off by having parts of Helen's creative writing course incorporated - there are exercises where students have to write in the style of a famous author - but I enjoyed those bits. I got a bit sick of Ralph though, in fact so sick of him that I only gave this 3 1/2 stars. I enjoyed Nice Work and The British Museum is Falling Down more.

I agree with you that Thinks is not as good as Nice Work. (Haven't read The British Museum is Falling Down). My favorite Lodge is Therapy. Have you read it? I highly recommend it, even though it does not have an academic setting. I read his newest, Deaf Sentence, in January, and it was quite amusing too.

Hi ABW! I haven't read it yet - but I bumped thinks up to the summit of Mt TBR because you liked Therapy so much. I'll put it onto my library list.

ABW, I've just had a look on the bookshelf and I own Therapy but haven't entered it on here! I thought the cover looked familiar...

Book 17: The Time We Have Taken by Steven Carroll

2 1/2 stars

This is the third in a trilogy that starts with The Art of the Engine Driver and The Gift of Speed. It won the South-East Asia and South Pacific region award in the 2008 Commonwealth Writers′ Prize for Best Novel, won the 2008 Miles Franklin Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2007 Age Book of the Year Award. I don't really get it.

I read it for my Aussie online book group and it sounded great - he tells the story of a Melbourne suburb in 1970 through four characters: Rita, her estranged alcoholic husband Vic, their son Michael, and Mrs Webster, the widow of a local industrialist. But I struggled to finish it and was counting the pages often from around p 120 to the 327th... I didn't empathise with any of the characters, found the lack of plot irritating, and some of the scenes hard to believe. Spoiler alert - spoiler in strikethrough The scene in which someone committed suicide just didn't ring true. Would Michael really just leave the house when he finds Bunny Rabbit there? The absence of direct conversation in the novel really got to me!

I do like slow novels sometimes. I loved The Idea of Perfection, but this one just didn't do anything for me.

Book 18: Property by Valerie Martin

4 stars

I finished this a week ago, but wanted to let it stew in my mind before I wrote anything. I had read quite a few reviews on it, including the discussion on Laura's thread, so knew what it was going to be about.

I liked it very much, but "enjoyed" is not quite the word I want. It felt strange being inside the head of someone who believed that slavery was a worthy institution, and whose bitterness about it was due to her husband preferring a slave to her. The writing was so good that I really did identify with Manon, up to a point. Manon's perspective was so warped, and she came close to recognising that she was just a different type of property, but she couldn't shake off her beliefs.

spoiler I was so happy when one person was killed, but as Laura said in her review I really wanted the other person to escape!

Book 19: Acheson by James Chace.

4 1/2 stars

Highly recommended.

I mooched this last year because the moochee required 2 books to send me Cicero (and fair enough too). I'd never heard of the author and I knew little about Dean Acheson, except that he was US secretary of state some time after World War 2. The Cicero book was close to a clunker, but this one was fantastic. There is lots of fascinating detail about the Marshall Plan, the founding of NATO, the buildup of the cold war, the Korean War, Japan, China, the Berlin blockade, McCarthy, and much more.

Of course now I want to read many more books, starting with McCullough's biography of Truman (for whom Acheson was Secretary of State, and who comes off very well in here) and eventually the Robert Caro biography of LBJ (who, not surprisingly, does not).

The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because at times I felt like Chace was a bit easy on Acheson, but that's more a suspicion than based on a thorough knowledge of events.

cmt, I have to admit I still haven't caught up with all the 75 group messages but I'm pretty sure I haven't seen anybody else mention Dean Acheson. I've not read this particular book but have read others about that period in US history. Like Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century (father of the hyperlink) and most recently, Soldiers of Reason which is about the RAND Corporation. They battled with economics and game theory, along with their strategic military aims.

Since WWII there has always been a American myth that some politicians play on. Government should be small. But the reality since WWII has been the opposite. From FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and on through even Reagan, Bush, and now Obama, each administration has been more than willing to spend huge sums of taxpayer money on whatever they perceived as the problem of the moment. Huge gobs of money. That government spending is a big part of why America is what it is.

Some of it was spent on dubious projects that failed. But that never stopped the next administration from spending twice as much on their pet projects. The arguments never end on the positive and negative effects on such spending but the fact remains that huge government spending is ingrained in the US way of life.

Acheson and others were some of the founders of spending big to combat problems. You've got me interested in this Acheson bio. But then again, I haven't even read the last book you sold me on- The Untouchable.

>88 cushlareads:: enjoyed your review of Property !!

#89 - Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World by James Chace, sounds interesting. The Cold War is one area that I have yet to apply myself to, but have made a start with The Bay of Pigs by Howard Jones, which I started reading casually a few days ago, and is so far proving to be a very good read.

There is lots of fascinating detail about the Marshall Plan, the founding of NATO...

Do you mind if I chuckle a little bit, Cushla? You are one serious reader! I'm laughing with you, though. I can really relate; I get equally excited about brain research or reading about teaching reading. :-) Not sure I would be quite as excited about reading all the details in Chace's biography, but you've make me interested enough to add it to my "political pile." I'm really looking forward to reading Property though. Love your comments!

VG, thanks for dropping in - I've added Soliders of Reason to my list. It's not in the library, but Borders might have it... I don't think I've mentioned it in this thread, but I went to grad school in CT and did economics and Rand's journal was a veyr well regarded game theory/IO journal. I'd never clicked that it just stood for R & D!! And yes, the big spending thing (and big regulating as well, compared to many other economies) is kind of ironic.

Bonnie I don't do science reading at all and it intimidates me(eg brain research...)! My serious stuff is in a pretty limited range, and compared to many on here I feel like under-read even in those areas. And I should've mentioned that the Acheson book was great because it had plenty of funny anecdotes.

Peter, get back to your new bubba!! I see many new books on your thread - glad the commute is giving you some quiet time. I'm sure you're still running round like a chook when you're at home. There's a bit of Bay of Pigs material in Acheson.

Laura, I bought Property mostly because of all the discussion on your thread. It's the type of book that in pre-LT days I'd have bought then not read, or not bought because I often find "serious" fiction a bit hit-or-miss. But it was gripping.

Anyway, book #20 was short and very good:

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff - 4 1/2 stars

This was a really charming book, and one that many LTers have raved about. It's a collection of letters from Helene Hanff, a New Yorker, and various people associated with Marks and Co., a second-hand bookshop in London. The letters span 20 years, starting in 1949. I read it in one night and loved it. And I was quite excited when I realised that her New York address was 6 short blocks north and one block west of our first apartment in New York!

It was a good one to read straight after Acheson, because it highlighted how difficult conditions were in London straight after WW2.

In case you did not know, Cushla, Hanff lived in the apartment that she talks about in the book for the remainder of her life. She has a couple another book out where she talks about the fact that one of the fans of her Charing Cross Road book bought her the sign from the old book shop in London.

Funny how books and lives come together like that. How neat to think that you walked the same streets and maybe visited the same places. I've had 84 Charing Cross Road as a 'Wanna Read' for years, but always forgot to look for it at the bookstore. This year in planning for my 999, I was going to read it then made the mistake of watching the film which I didn't like at all! I've been waiting for that memory to recede a bit more before I get the book, but a good review helps too. Just don't tell me if you loved the movie--that always sets me back! ;-)

Stasia, which ones have you read? I didn't know that she stayed there the rest of her life.

Bonnie, I haven't seen the movie, but book #21 might put you off too...

Book 21: The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff

I decided to read the sequel to 84 Charing Cross Road straight away because it's in the same volume. This was probably a mistake because I just didn't love it as much as the first one. It's her travel diary from when she goes to London after 84 Charing Cross Road was published, and she came across to me as a bit neurotic about travel and just a tiny bit whiny. It tainted the first book a bit, especially her comments about not liking bookshops or being interested in new books. But some parts were really funny. I gave it 3 stars, and will still look out for her other books.

Cushla, I have read Apple of My Eye, Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, Q's Legacy, and 84 Charing Cross Road. She mention in CC Road that she is buying an apartment in a building 'that isn't even there yet!' and that is the apartment that she lived in until she died. The apartment building that she lived in has been named 'Charing Cross House' in her memory.

I walk by that building frequently. It's in the neighborhood where I work. There's a plaque on the building that tells the story of the book.

Ooooohhhhh, it's been over 2 weeks so now I have 5 books to update.

Book #22: Julie and Julia by Julie Powell - 2 1/2 stars

Blah. I wanted to like this book, and fit the author's target market pretty well. I am biased in favour of any book about New York, I love to cook (well I did before we had the great time sucking machine that is two small children), I love French food, and I can be quite obsessive about things so I get why she suddenly decided to cook every recipe in Mastering The Art of French Cooking within a year. But I think she should have kept it as a blog. I like books more when I like the narrator, or at least can empathise with them. I struggled with her whinginess - and her total lack of hygiene in the kitchen! Cockroaches under the dish rack anyone? And yes I have seen some pretty skody New York apartments...

It's been a while since I finished it, and I know at the time there were enough things in it that I didn't loathe it, or I wouldn't have given it a 2 1/2. I just can't remember what they were!

#100 - Now you can look forward to the August film release of "Julie & Julia" staring Amy Adams as Julie Powell and Meryl Streep as Julia Child. (Good grief!).

And, Powell will release her next book "Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession" to coincide with the movie.

I got to say. I glanced at the Julie and Julia book recently, then put it back on the shelf. I think that says everything!

Tell me you're joking about the next book!!!
I found out about the movie after I'd finished it.
Never mind, it was all of NZ$10 in an otherwise great binge of sale books...

If you put it into that "will you like it" thing, I'd be pretty confident that with your taste in books it'll say "YOU WILL HATE IT"!

Am I joking? I only wish I was. Am I feeling a little jaded with books like this? Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Maybe I am! Here's the blurb...

Her marriage challenged by an insane, irresistible love affair, Julie decides to leave town and immerse herself in a new obsession: butchery. She finds her way to Fleischer's, a butcher shop where she buries herself in the details of food. She learns how to break down a side of beef and French a rack of ribs--tough, physical work that only sometimes distracts her from thoughts of afternoon trysts.

The camaraderie at Fleischer's leads Julie to search out fellow butchers around the world--from South America to Europe to Africa. At the end of her odyssey, she has learned a new art and perhaps even mastered her unruly heart."

Order it NOW!!!!
http://www.amazon.com/Cleaving-Story-Marriage-Meat-Obsession/dp/0316003360/ref=s...

They're using her affair to help sell the book? Big Yuk!

edit. to fix egregious spelling error!

Ha! That reads like a Monty Python skit, petermc - I am doubled over with the giggles.

I really loved Julia Child, and was turned off by the premise of Julie and Julia. Now I'm totally gagging at the idea of both a movie AND a follow-on book. Yech.

Book 23: The Bernini Bust by Iain Pears - 4 1/2 stars

It's weeks since I finished this! The Bernini Bust is the 3rd in Iain Pears' art history mystery series, and I think it's the 4th I've read in the series (if you haven't started them, it **is** worth going in order because there is a plot devlopment in the last book that changed my perspective on the early ones!)

I really enjoyed this one. It's set in LA, which was funny to start with because the Italian setting is one of my favourite things about the books. But I managed to keep up with the plot in this one and even guessed whodunnit just before all was revealed.

Getting back to Julie and Julia for a minute, I went and checked out the Amazon link Peter. Yikes, not for me. I already felt that her husband was under-appreciated in the first book. Sounds like he was even less appreciated after she became famous!

I've been missing in action for over a month. I expected to have LT withdrawal symptoms, but I've been too busy writing lecture notes for a new course (for me). And lurgy season has hit. I have so many threads to catch up on and 6 books to write comments on, so here goes:

Book 24: The Venus Throw by Steven Saylor - 4 1/2 stars

This is the 4th in the Gordianus the Finder series of mysteries, set in ancient Rome. I'm reading them out of order but have loved all of them so far.
This one is the 4th in the series. Dio, the Greek philosopher, gets murdered. Gordianus hasn't seen him since he studied with Dio in Alexandria decades earlier, but he feels bound to investigate the murder after Dio turns up at his house. It turns out that he has closer links to Dio. Highly recommended if you like mysteries and classics.

Book 25: Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Armin - 3 1/2 stars

This was another good read from my growing-out-of-control Virago Modern Classics collection. It's a fast read, and one that'd go well with a fireplace in winter. I picked it because it was the most nudged book when I asked for suggestions on which VMC to read next. Von Armin was Australian, but married a German count. It's autobiographical and tells the story of her year living at her country estate and gardening. Not much really happens, but anyone who's had unwanted guests will enjoy her sarcasm, and anyone who loves gardening will enjoy it.

One thing that really got to me though is how peripheral her 3 small children seemed! I know that's how life was if you were an upper-class woman back then, but it made it hard for me to relate to her. Perhaps I'm just
jealous... I haven't gardened since my first kid was born 5 years ago!

I liked it enough to look for her other books. I have The Solitary Summer somewhere on the bookshelf.

Book 26: The Island Walkers by John Bemrose - 5 stars

I mooched this Canadian novel based on LT recommendations, but I can't remember who. I suspect it was someone in the Canadian LTer group - maybe tiffin or kiwidoc - anyway, thank you wherever you are! This will probably be one of my top 10 books for 2009.

The Island Walkers is set in a town in Ontario in the 1960s at whose heart is Bannerman's textile mills. When Bannerman's is sold to Intertex, everyone in the Walker family is affected, especially Alf, the father, but also Margaret, his wife, and their three children. It's a dense read and not an easy one but well worth the effort. Recommended if you like family sagas, Canadian novels, or trade union battles.

#110: One thing that really got to me though is how peripheral her 3 small children seemed! I know that's how life was if you were an upper-class woman back then, but it made it hard for me to relate to her. Perhaps I'm just
jealous... I haven't gardened since my first kid was born 5 years ago!

I do not know what time period the von Armin book is set in, but I am reading The Sisters by Mary Lovell and she discusses how much (little!) time the parents actually spent with the children in the Victorian era. The Mitfords were an upper-class family, so basically the parents only saw the children first thing in the morning and last thing at night (if they had no social engagements). The children were looked after by nurses, tutors or governesses.

I think it was set in the late 1800s - I'd check, but there's a mouse running round the kitchen and I'm too freaked out to move! It was earlier than the Mitfords but same structure - nannies and governesses galore. Mind you my 2 year old is in day care 4 or 5 days a week and my big one's at school, so it's not like I have mine around 24/7 either... it was more the "hand them back now" tone! If I were doing an English Lit course I'm sure I'd get marks taken off for letting it affect my enjoyment because it's just how things were.

I really enjoyed The Mitford Girls (which was the NZ and maybe British name for The Sisters).

I checked the copyright page of the book, and The Mitford Girls was indeed the British name for The Sisters.

I have been lucky in the respect that my girls have never been in day care, which I guess would be the modern-day equivalent to the nannies and governesses of the late Victorian period.

cmt, I was beginning to think aliens had abducted you. Glad to see that you remain among the unabducted.

I'm very behind here, so I'm going to make my comments even shorter than usual...

Books 27 and 28 were both Virago Modern Classics - I'm buying them much faster than I'm reading.

Book 27: Peking Picnic by Ann Bridge - 3 1/2 stars

I enjoyed this, in a quiet kind of way. Its main character is Laura Leroy, an Englishwoman whose husband is in the diplomatic service. It's set in Beijing in the 1920s - they have been living there for quite a few years, and she feels like she has two lives, one with her children back in England, and one in China. She gets roped into going on a weekend trip (complete with Chinese servants, of course...) to a famous temple with a group of friends and acquaintances. Something disturbing happens (don't read the back cover before you read the book). I liked the character development but overall it didn't stick with me for long after I'd finished it. I liked it enough to buy her other VMCs though.

#116: I just checked my local library for that one and it looks like it has one of the original editions of the book from 1932. I am going to check it out next week. Thanks for the recommendation!

#117 Hi Stasia - that's nice that it's the original 1932 edition! Hope you like it.

Book 28: Up the Junction by Nell Dunn - 3 1/2 stars

Up the Junction is set in Battersea, London in the early 1960s. It's a bleak yet funny short story collection about life for working-class women back then. I enjoyed it, and finished it feeling pretty happy that I wasn't born then and there. It was later made into a BBC programme and a movie.

I have Nell Dunn's Poor Cow waiting for me.

Hi, Cushla. Haven't talked to you in a while. I've got to try out some of those VMC's; I've looked for particular titles, but haven't found any yet. It's funny, I grew up in the 60's (which is often associated with free love, protest, drugs...) but sometimes don't feel like I did since I got married so young (19 in 1969) and was living a very conventional, conservative life during those times. I try to remember that when I'm reading history or historical fiction. Anyway, it looks like Poor Cow has a similar theme? Did you pick it for that reason, or is it just serendipity?

Hi bonnie,lovely to see your message. I have been AWOL and need to catch up on so many threads, including yours.

I picked Poor Cow because I collect all of them! I have about 100. Which ones are you after? I'll keep my eyes out in NZ if you want - there seem to be more in Commonwealth countries than in the US. And the Virago group on here is extremely generous with sending books around!

My Mum got married in 1968 and had a pretty conservative upbringing too. There are lots of books that I wouldn't pass on to her!

That's so nice of you, Cushla, but I already know it costs too much to send something to and from Australia, so it must be equally expensive to and from New Zealand. I'll just savor the generous thought. I finally just started getting books from the library and am having great success. I got all six books I reserved in less than a week, so I've got lots to read for a while. I'll have to remember to ask for The Brontes Went to Woolworths though. I don't really know anything about it; I just love the title--and people have been saying good things about it.

#121 Bonnie, I haven't read that one yet but have heard the same good comments! Great that your library's working out.

Book 29: Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World - 5 stars

This is the best non-fiction I've read this year. It's a dense read, packed with geography, history, and politics, but with enough funny stories to stop it from getting too difficult. I loved it.

Margaret MacMillan tells the story of the carve-up of the world after World War 1, starting with chapters on the 3 men who did most of the carving: Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau, and David Lloyd-George, her great-grandfather. From there she moves onto a detailed look at the different regions. There is tons of detail - if you're looking for a rough and ready overview of the world in 1920, this isn't your book. I found the Central Europe section rewarding but very slow going, because it was the least familiar to me. The maps are really good and kept me from getting lost.
It's a very depressing book though. She is clear about how the Paris deal-making contributed to Hitler's rise, World War 2, and many current conflicts. (For NZ and Aussie readers, our dear leaders don't cover themselves in glory, and contributed to the mess with Japan. NZ's prime minister at the time sounds like a real plonker...)

#122 - I only saw this book at my local secondhand bookshop last week. I'll have to go back and grab it, if it's still there! (I might have a free 30 minutes early this afternoon). As for Australian/NZ/Japanese relations during and following WWI, well that would be worth a book alone! Thanks for the great review :)

P.S. - Got it!!!

#122 I've seen this book around too and wondered about it. I shall be requesting from my library any time soon.
I saw in post #1 that you had recently read Stasiland, I've seen it in Borders on a few occasions and wondered what it was like. Having recently watched The Lives of Others and Goodbye Lenin, it would be interesting to read more about life in East Germany.

#124> I'd recommend Stasiland as well. I read it for my F2F group a couple of years ago, and thought it was fascinating.

Hi Cushla! I've found you here, and have starred you. Nice list of books!

Peter, I'm really pleased you found it and bought it. Hope you enjoy it too. Aviatkh, I'm going to write a review of Stasiland soon but am still figuring out what I thought of it. The narrator annoyed me, and the feeling hasn't gone away in the few days since I finished the book. She was in the book more than I wanted her to be, getting hammered, hungover and being quite cool, without explaining how she'd ended up in East Germany etc. But the stories she uncovered were very disturbing and she managed to get a huge range of people to trust her.

I'm enjoying The File more than Stasiland and should finish it today. Both are making me want to read more about East Germany.

Hi Wookie! (I mean Tania. But you're Wookie to me.) Thanks for coming over!

Cushla, I've requested the Stasiland as an audio book from the library, so will be interesting to see how it goes. I'll wait for your review of The File.

#122: I read that one several years ago and agree with you - it is excellent. I may re-read it after I read another one I have in line to read about WWI. Thanks for the reminder about it.

Stasia, what's your other WW1 book?

I'm still catching up on June books, so here are the next couple:

Book 30: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie - 3 1/2 stars

I mooched this one a while ago based on a LT recommendation but I can't remember whose thread it was. I must start taking notes... hmmm, just had another look... I think it was Valerie's 999 challenge - thanks! Stasia I see that you read it last month too and didn't see why it got the Pulitzer.

I *did* like it, but not enough to get why it got the Pulitzer, either. The two main characters are academics in the same English department at an American university that sounds like Cornell. They're on sabbatical in London. It was very funny in places, sad in others, and good to read a book about an older single woman for a change. I liked the Virginia parts much more than the Fred parts, although I did feel very sorry for him when I read about what his wife did...

Anyway, good but not good enough to make me go and mooch all her other books.

The Perfect Summer by Juliet Nicholson. It is about England just prior to the start of WWI.

Looks like you enjoyed Foreign Affairs better than I did. I still have no idea what made it Pulitzer worthy. I wish someone would explain it to me, lol.

That looks excellent - I remember reading Tiffin's review. I gave up on The Edwardians by Roy Hattersley earlier this year, set in the same period, more-or-less.

I picked it up specifically because of Tiffin's review. I hope I enjoy it as much as she did.

I didn't care for Foreign Affairs either. I've been disappointed in several of the Pulitzer winners.

ABW, which other ones have you read? I always like knocking things off my TBR pile especially if I don't own the books!

I've decided to ding Foreign Affairs half a star to 3 1/2 - 4 was too many - not that I'm very consistent about stars anyway...

Book 31 was un-put-down-able to me - American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld . This one definitely gets 4 stars from me. I'd seen lots of comments about it on here, but in New Zealand it hasn't had much publicity. I found it at a book fair for $4 and for once it didn't just sit on the bookshelf waiting its turn, which at the rate I read would have been some time in 2016...

Alice Lindgren grows up in a small town in Wisconsin. Spoiler coming to those who have had their head in a pillow, or live outside the US, or both : She ends up meeting Charlie Blackwell, who becomes POTUS. The book is her memoir, and Alice's life has many things in common with Laura Bush's.

I don't want to give anything else away, but thought that the early parts of her life were the best written. I really felt like I was inside her head. The last chapter, when she's, er, moved house, didn't grab me as much, but that's holding it to the standard of a West Wing episode.

Just got an email from Open Letter Books at the Uni of Rochester talking about a new book coming out later this year to celebrate 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down. It looks excellent: http://thewallinmyhead.com Oooh, I wonder if it'll be an early reviewer book? I wish NZ was part of that scheme!!

>136 cushlareads: I got a Facebook message saying the same thing - it looks fab, doesn't it! And really interesting stuff going on between now and then. Suddenly very envious of all the people I seem to know who've moved to Berlin this year (one of whom is trying to open a bookshop...)

#135: American Wife looks very good. On to the Planet it goes (2016 may be too soon for me to get to it, though).

Hi Cushla - lurking in your thread. Well done for reading so many Canuck books! Margaret MacMillan also wrote a few other non-fiction books, including one about the Women of the Raj, which was quite good.

Proud to say that I have only heard of one book in your list of books read so far this year, and have heard of only two of the authors! Aaaah I have so much to learn...
Looks like this'll be a thread which will double my reading list, love your reviews.

Eek, please forgive the inhospitable visitor treatment - I've been buried in lecture notes again! Thanks for popping in. Roseliot, I've just been looking at your books and it looks like we're bad for each other!

Flossie, I mean Rachael, I'm jealous of your friend opening a bookshop in Berlin. The only part of Germany I've been to is around Frankfurt/Bonn/Darmstadt/Koln,and I'd love to go back for a much better look. One day, when the kids are bigger... Have you been there?

Stasia, I hope you like American Wife and will be interested to see what you think,eventually. I didn't know very much about Laura Bush, but as it was it felt like almost an autobiography.

Karen, I'm going to see what other books of Margaret MacMillan's the library has. I can't remember being disappointed by a Canadian book (except maybe the last bit of Fugitive Pieces,which I think you loved.)

I'm still about 5 books behind. I've ended up on a thriller/spy kick for the last month and have turned into a Henning Mankell fan...

Book 32 - The Dogs of Riga - 4 1/2 stars . This is the second in Henning Mankell's Inspector Wallender series, and it had me awake in the middle of the night finishing it. On my first night away from my daughter since she was born, you would think that I'd delight in an uninterrupted night's sleep, but no - I woke up at 2 and read till it was finished at 5 am!! I took off 1/2 a star for one implausible plot twist. There were many others, but at the time they seemed believable.

Inspector Wallender is a detective in Ystad, a small Swedish town. He's depressed, lonely, and within about 5 pages I knew that I wanted to read the whole series. The setting is bleak, and gets bleaker when two bodies turn up on a beach. Eventually Wallender heads to Latvia to investigate. I don't want to say much more, except that if you like nasty murder novels, you'll probably like these books. I've found 8 of his other books in the last month and can't wait to get my hands on the first in the series, Faceless Killers.

Cushla - the BBC have done a good series on TV on the Wallender mysteries/thrillers. Kenneth Branagh is Wallender and he does a superb job. The plot lines are very similar so it may spoil any reading. My hubbie is also working his way through Hankell's books and loving them.

#141 Cushla - Finally added the latest translation in the Wallander series, "The Pyramid", to my collection. Now, we can wait for translations of the next two novels, "Het Graf" and "Den orolige mannen" :)

Your review makes me want to elevate these books to the top of my TBR list!

Karen, I can't imagine Kenneth Branagh as Kurt Wallender!! Thanks for letting me know - I'm going to wait till I've read a few more. Have just checked the library catalogue and Faceless Killers is sitting there.... hmmm, should I write my lecture notes or do a quick library trip?! Mankell's books are so popular - there are 5 copies of FK and this is the first time I've looked and found one available.

Peter, have you read any of his other books? I've grabbed whatever I could find and have a couple of the one-off novels (Depths, and I forget which other ones.)

My sister likes murder mysteries, so I'll have to look into them. The only thing is, she herself is very sick, so I hesitate to give her books in which someone dies. What do you think?

Bonnie, sorry to hear that she's really sick. The Henning Mankell books are pretty grim, so I probably wouldn't.
oops, back later, 2 year old has just plonked the chair onto her foot. ow!

#144 - No, I've not read (or own) any of of Mankell's non-crime fiction novels. Within the crime fiction genre, I do have The Return of the Dancing Master and Kennedy's Brain, which are outside the Kurt Wallander and Linda Wallander series of books. I've picked up all these at second hand dealers around Tokyo when the price and condition are right, but faster than I can read my way through the piles I've already got! It's the same for several other mystery series too! Must stop, must stop, must stop....

My husband started working his way through the Wallender series after watching the BBC series mentioned in #142. He started with Pyramid since that provides a kind of "back story," and then read Faceless Killers. Enjoyed them both and is looking forward to reading more!

I also watched the BBC series and it was FAB. Have started collecting Wallenders - hadn't realised how hard they were to get hold of secondhand! Practically the first week after the last episode was shown in the UK, the secondhand bookstall on the market had a whole bunch of them - and I stupidly passed them over, not realising that it was a blind concidence that would NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. I've got 3 so far, including Faceless Killers, but not started reading yet - want to fill in the gaps and will then enjoy as a holiday treat...

We've had difficulty finding them secondhand in the US, too, FlossieT. Well, it adds a new dimension of challenge & fun to book hunting I suppose! Someday we'll find one and be thrilled to bits.

I've found quite a few here but definitely at the expensive end of second hand books, and can't find FK new or secondhand. I don't think the BBC series has been on here though so that'll be why (no TV here, so I might be wrong!).

I managed a blissful child-free trip to the library yesterday and came home with Faceless Killers so will finish The Honourable Schoolboy then start it. I also brought home Burnt Shadows and The Monsters of Templeton because I'd read good comments on here... eek!

Edited to explain "blissful childfree trip without kids"... before you all nominate me for the Whingy Mother of The Year award, I adore taking the kids to the library and we hae about 50 kids' books scattered, but I never get to browse for myself! Even yesterday I found myself speed-browsing then looking for books about pink flamingoes.

speed-browsing sounds so familiar - we haven't been to the library for ages actually - they just changed our opening hours grrrrrr - but my normal experience is, hover anxiously over kids for 45 minutes while they pick their books, then while they are busy checking out their stashes at the desk, zip around what's been put on the face-outwards shelves near the desk and hope there's something I actually want to read.

Unread-book issue at home really has hit critical now so I am barring myself from library visits until the central library re-opens in September.

I'm adding my voice in about taking kids to the library: lots of fun, Mr Bear piles up books (and CDs and DVDs and computer games) while I read some books to Miss Boo and their dad searches the shelves for stuff for himself.

Then he wanders over with a pile of CDs and says "right, shall we go then?".

He's a great dad, but he doesn't have the patience for letting me browse for hours through the bookshop/library. (And he knows just how large Mt TBR is as well, so he's probably quite right that I have no need to look at more books!) Usually a lifted eyebrow and a smallish child dumped in his lap does the trick while I get to dash down a few aisles, looking for a particular author's books, and then a quick browse through the "new" shelves.

My trick: to look for one particular (prolific) author, pick out one I haven't read yet, and leave it at that.

I don't think I've been to the library without the kids ever!

Just a quick note about the Mankell Wallender books--they're written in sequence, and if you bounce around too much, you will miss backstory developments which become part of later stories. I love the books and I thank the 1001 Must Read list for introducing this fabulous writer! He also writes excellent children's books and he has several books about Africa and African themes were are quite good.

Ah! Those younger years when even going to the grocery store by yourself feels like a real treat! I laughed reading your description of your library outings; it describes kid, mom and dad behavior so perfectly. I have to say I think you're pretty lucky that your husband comes along. Going alone, I always had hopes that I would find time to pick out a book for me too, but I always ended up with 10-15 books for my sons and none for me. I finally figured out that if I went during "story time," I got a few minutes to look for myself--that is if I didn't get captivated by the picture book reading myself and forget to go search.

#154 Prop2gether, thanks for the warning. I'm going in order now that I have Faceless Killers. I could tell in The Dogs of Riga that I was missing a bit, mostly about his wife and daughter and the luuuurve connection.

Nice reading about all your kids' library trips. Wookie, going to the library on my own is one of my favourite treats since we had the kids... much easier than bars, movies and restaurants. I laughed at your description of your husband.

Rachael, my haul on Saturday was mostly from the display section too. One of the nicest things about getting most of my reading ideas from here is that I seem to be out of sync from the locals - I was really happy to see Burnt Shadows and Monsters of Templeton in the "new books" section instead of the " bestsellers" section - $5 for a week's borrowing!!

Bonnie I still feel happy going to the supermarket on my own. I wonder when that stops?! speaking of which I must go and cook dinner...

Ah, I tried to persuade my husband to let me do the grocery shopping on my own on the weekend. Didn't work (he got to do it on his own, which wasn't quite the plan; but considering he had both kids for a full day on Friday - school holidays for Mr Bear and no care for Miss Boo - his need was probably greater at the time).

Cushla, you have to pay to borrow from the library? Ouch!

Hmm, I can get Faceless Killers from the local library... You are all very wicked people, recommending books all the time!

Wookie, most books are free, but they have a bestsellers collection of super-duper-popular books that are $5 a week. Most books are nothing and we get a month. DVDs and CDs cost a bit but not much. I adore our library network - lots of branches, issue slips done by email, lovely kids' areas with story time and a huge range of books.

I'd probably be okay if our library started charging for the super-duper popular books because I never read them either. :)

I'm torn. I think it's rather clever of the library to make it "fairer" with the most popular books - this way they'll go around a larger number of readers, and only the more interested will borrow them - but, well, what if they started expanding that towards other sections of the library?

I got shocked and appalled murmurs once for mentioning that I have to pay - a gobsmacking AU$11 per annum - to join the library I use because it's not technically my local library. It's where I shop/browse/socialise, but I'm actually one council over. I'm okay with $11 a year, especially since I don't pay rates to the council that runs the library!

I can get something like 20 items (books/games/DVDs/CDs) out for 3 weeks (and renew them - online - twice). It's quite ridiculous.

Public libraries really do rock, don't they?

Although as a borrower I don't like it, it seems quite savvy of the libraries to charge for "bestsellers" - kind of like video shops charging a bit more to borrow new releases! In my idealistic little head, they would also use the money they raise to partly subsidise the purchase of additional copies; I placed a hold yesterday for Wolf Hall and I'm 20th in the queue. They have 5 copies spread across all the libraries in the county.

(So I've cancelled my hold and am borrowing it from a friend instead... have replaced it with a hold for Dogs of Riga. And I am meant to be only reading the unread books I have already. Sigh.)

I don't have to pay for library membership, and actually belong to Camden Libraries in London too (who seem to have a much better stock policy than Cambridge).

My library system offers bestsellers, at rental rate of $5 for 2 weeks, that can't be placed on hold so if they are available in the library you can grab them. But there are also copies of same books in general circulation, and because they are bestsellers you are usually about number 50-250 in the queue to borrow them.
Just put Wolf Hall on hold too and I have 152 people ahead of me in the queue for the 3 copies in circulation.
Cushla - yours was the first good review of American Wife I've come across lately. I ended up taking it back to the library unread after seeing a couple of negative LT reviews earlier in the year.

152!!! OK, you win. Wow.

I have an amazing library. There is no charge for any book or video. The only charge is if you want to hold a book - and that is 50c. Even joining is free. The line up of new releases and videos is superb too. One major reason I don't want to move away from my district is the library (could I admit this to anyone else but LTers??)

I am extremely lucky in that not only does my local library not charge for anything other than late books, but they also are able to pull books for me from another municipal library as well as 2 college libraries (without having to use interlibrary loan), and I can pick up all the books at one location - that is only about a mile from my house.

I have to pay for holds, orders and requests; there's also a fee for audio and video but I virtually never borrow these as the loan period is shorter and I'm hopeless at bringing books back (argh - have just remembered my daughter has several overdue books out too....). And fines, of course, which I try to look on as tokens of appreciation of the library's service.

Infuriatingly, our central library has been closed for well over two years while they redeveloped the town centre. The stock has still been available, but because it's all in closed storage you have to request it - which they charge you the holds rate for if it's anything but non-fiction. On the bright side, this has led to me 'discovering' my little local library, which while it may not be amazingly well stocked, does have some lovely friendly librarians and a really nice children's area. Their opening hours have also been extended during the closure of the central library, although sadly they went back to normal a few weeks ago - even though the redevelopment of the central library is not due to finish until September, apparently they need to redeploy staff in preparation.

The only slightly annoying thing about the little local library is that it is closed on a Wednesday. Emails notifying me of holds ready to be picked up invariably arrive on Monday evening, and I'm in London on Tuesdays and a lot of Thursdays, so I usually have to wait several days before I can actually get my hands on the book. Torture.

I'm holding library cards for three local library systems, and they are all different! One charges for holds; two charge for holds over the pick-up date, but one drops your name from the reservation list and passes the book on when that date is passed); two charge for videos and electronic stuff; two allow two renewals of books not on a reservation list, the third only allows one renewal; only one will list for you how many renewals have been made (you have to track yourself with the other two).

Mine is 87.00 a year with no fines or other charges.

Sorry for vanishing on my own thread! I have 2 more weeks of too-busy-ish lecturing then a lovely 2 weeks off. Tonight's job is to get a midterm maths test written, so here I am!

It's really interesting reading about all your different libraries. Karen, that's how I feel about Wellington's libraries! We pay $1 for renewals and reserves, and a very annoying $1 for returning a book somewhere other than the branch where we borrowed it. DVDs for kids cost $1 a week, and for adults $4 a week. I think they've got the balance about right.

Kerry, I hadn't hear of Wolf Hall but now I've looked it up and it sounds really good - and now I've just had to reserve it to see how many are in the queue! There are 33 of us,and 6 copies going around. Plus there are about 8 copies that you can pay $5 a week for if you don't want to wait.

Have you all come across www.LibraryElf.com? I don't know how well known it is. It links to lots of libraries around the world, including ours, and it checks your library cards and emails you about books that are coming due. We often have 30 or so out at once, including lots of kids' ones, and since I signed up a year or so ago our overdue fines have plummeted. Our library leaves anonymous voicemail in an American accent saying "Cuuuusssshhhlllaaaa you have THREE ITEMS overdue", but doesn't give you warning or tell you which books they are.

I'm with Manukau Libraries which is free for requests, renewals and books can be returned to any branch for no fee. Dvds just gone down to $2 for a week and audio books are now free. Also almost all my recommendations for purchase are successful and that I really like.
Wolf Hall has just been longlisted for the Booker prize which is why there's starting to be demand for it.
Haven't come across libraryElf but I changed my library options to receive all my notices by email, they send out a reminder email 3 days before a book is due back and another a few days later.

Hello all.
Wolf Hall sounds very good. I think this is perhaps my favorite era of history. Have any of you been watching the Showtime version of The Tudors series? I am so hooked on that. But they only have about 6 shows a year and with the price of Showtime for just that one show (oh and I must confess to watching Weeds as well, as it is hilarious!~!) IDK if I should buy the DVDs or continue to watch on the tube.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
belva

Belva, we don't have a TV any more - just a DVD player, and that's mainly for the kids... The Tudors sounds good though.

Our library leaves anonymous voicemail in an American accent saying "Cuuuusssshhhlllaaaa you have THREE ITEMS overdue"

That's just plain ol' spooky.

I get no notification for overdue books, which really annoys me. (And I have no idea how they attempt to notify me when books I've requested turn up at the library, because I get nothing, and then have to re-request when they get sent back to the stacks.) Maybe I mispelt my email address or something.

I'm tempted by Wolf Hall too, but it is rather enormous. And I've heard good things about The Tudors, but haven't got cable. (I don't keep up with the good stuff on the free-to-air stations as it is!)

I must go and update my own thread!!

>#161:
Amazon.com shows Wolf Hall as being released on October 13th, '09 and they are taking "pre-orders" currently. I guess the libraries get their copies a little early. It sounds like such a good book. I can't imagine being 152nd in line for a book. Wowza!~!
belva

Wolf Hall has already been released here in the UK so I'd be intrigued if it wasn't also released in the USA...........

Isn't the internet fabulous?! I just started using the library again and I just love that my library sends me an email warning in advance that books are coming due, and with a link so that I can "click" and renew. I'm only using the library again because of all you guys who are reading new hardbounds and making them sound so delicious that it's the library or paying too much for a book that's going to end up with spaghetti sauce on it. When I had children, though, I had to use the library card. Even so, I still have a couple thousand children's books.

Bonnie, your kids' book habit sounds even more out of control than mine! I try hard not to buy new books, but I make an exception for the kids.

Anyway - I am way behind on book comments, and my great intentions of attempting "proper" reviews are vanishing. And I've ended up on a spy kick. Of my last 7 books, 5 have been fiction or non-fiction about espionage - Stasiland, The File, The Eye of the Needle, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy.

The fastest read of the 5 by far was my 33rd book of the year: The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett. I read it till 1 am while I was on holiday without the kids, which should tell you how unputdownable it was - I could have been sound asleep! And my heart was racing by the end. Yowser, that sounds cheesy, but it was! Far-fetched plot? Yes. Believable? Somehow. The main character, Die Nagel, is a German agent living in England during WW2. Without wanting to give too much away, he tries hard to get information home to Germany about plans for D-Day. He's nasty, but somehow likable. The usual kind of spy things happen. There are plenty of big picture military and political bits, which I really enjoyed. The romantic stuff was harder to believe, but still good enough that I couldn't stop reading by that stage in the book. I read Agent Zig-Zag earlier this year, and this fitted in well with that book. I gave it 4 1/2 stars (for its genre, blah blah - any book that keeps me awake that late gets lots of stars...)

Back later to talk about the others...

Edited to try in vain to fix touchstones...

I have Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy home from the library now, so I will be reading it over the upcoming weeks. I am looking forward to your comments on it.

The film version of Eye of the Needle was pretty good as well.

Prop, I think I need a marathon spy movie weekend with the 3 Smiley ones and the Eye of the Needle! Will look out for it.

#177 Stasia, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Books 37, 39 and 40, all by John le Carre
Tinker Tailor Solider Spy - 5 stars
The Honourable Schoolboy - 3 stars, just
Smiley's People - 5 stars

I finished Smiley's People last night and have that slightly deflated but happy feeling when you finish an amazing series of books. I read two others of his when I was a teenager - The Russia House and The Spy who came in from the cold - but can't remember much about them, except that I really liked them. I read these now because rebeccanyc had just read and recommended them - thanks rebecca!

I'm going to try to avoid giving anything away below. I read them in order and TTSS would have been a very different book for me if I'd known whodunnit before I started. If you're going to do this, don't even open The Honourable Schoolboy till you've finished TTSS. There's a spoiler on line 1 or 2 of the book. If you know what happened with Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, and the other British spies in the 1960s, you'll have a fair bit of background anyway.

These 3 books make up le Carre's famous Karla trilogy. The main character is George Smiley, who has recently been edged out of the British Secret Service, called the Circus. Smiley is called in to work out whether there's a Russian mole in the Circus. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is all about this, and it's set mainly in England. There's plenty of spy action, cool gadgets, etc, but the characters are what made this book a 5 star read for me. Smiley is shy, seems a bit of a bumbler, and often sits in meetings with his eyes almost shut. He cleans his glasses on the end of his tie. Etc. His relationship with his wife Ann is complex and a crucial part of the story. He reminded me of Kurt Wallander. Karla, Smiley's nemesis, runs Russian counter-intelligence agents throughout Europe.

I liked The Honourable Schoolboy much less than Tinker Tailor. It was longer, and it felt much much much longer! It follows on from TTSS. It's set largely in Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and its main character is Jerry Westerby. I found the Asian setting much harder to visualise, which didn't help. Westerby was a British agent in the first book and I liked him in that one, but just didn't like his character enough to last 587 pages. Smiley and the other Circus characters are important in this one too. The plot is complicated and very clever, and the material on the end of the Vietnam War and the US pullout is excellent.

The third one - Smiley's People - is fantastic. Smiley has retired - again - and gets dragged in when something happens to one of his old agents. This one is set in London, Paris, Germany and Switzerland. I can't think what to say without giving anything away... The book had me feeling edgy by about page 10, and it lasted the rest of the way. This one will probably get into my top 5 reads of the year. (Hmm I think I've said that more than 5 times already!)

Do you think someone could enjoy just reading Smiley's People? I think I read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ages ago, but can't remember it and don't really want to read 3 spy novels--not my favorite genre, but you've got me interested.

Yes, especially if you've read TTSS. There's a good wikipedia page on Tinker Tailor if you want to refresh our memory!

Catching up...

Book 34 - Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs by Jeremy Mercer - 4 stars

(In the US this is called Time was Soft There.)

Jeremy Mercer was a crime reporter for a Toronto paper till his life started going wrong (I'm avoiding spoilers!). He heads to Paris, with hardly any money, and not much clue what to do with his life. He ends up living and working at Shakespeare and Co, the English language bookshop on the Left Bank of the Seine, and writes a book about it. I really enjoyed this one.

Be warned - the squalor of the bookshop and its residents was pretty gross! (As I get older I think I'm turning into my mother...)

I spent a good chunk of the book trying to work out if I'd been to Shakespeare and Co, but I haven't - I was confusing it with Abbey Books.

Just found this article with a list of Mercer's 10 favourite bookshops...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/dec/06/top10s.bookshops

#182: I have a copy of Time Was Soft There around my house somewhere . . .

At last, some comments on Stasiland and The File...

Book 34 - Stasiland by Anna Funder - 4 stars
Book 35 - The File by Timothy Garton Ash - 4 1/2 stars

I finished these two books about life in East Germany before the fall of Communism in July, and am still thinking about them 6 weeks later. Why did some people resist and others - many, many others - collaborate with the regime? I recommend either book to anyone who wants to read about life under communism, repressive regimes, and the fine line between collaboration and maintaining some kind of integrity.

Anna Funder is an Australian author who went to Berlin and ended up chronicling stories about the Stasi, from both victims of the repression and Stasi officials. She found her subjects through classified ads in the local paper. It's a very disturbing book - one of the stories about a family with a sick child had me in tears. I dinged it a star because I felt there was too much of Anna Funder's voice in there. The book starts with her in a subway trying not to throw up after a big night out...I really didn't need to know, thanks!

Stasiland won the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in 2004 and was shortlisted for several other prizes. I see from wikipedia that it beat Tom Holland's Rubicon - I think I'd have given it to Rubicon over this book, but they were both excellent. (Hmmm, I've just realised that 2 other favourites of mine have won this prize - Stalingrad and Paris 1919. )

I enjoyed The File more than Stasiland. I've read quite a few of Garton Ash's more recent newspaper columns and if I had to fill in one of those "10 people to drink wine with" forms I might put him on the list. Garton Ash moved to West Berlin as a grad student in 1978, then East Berlin in 1980. After reunification, the archive of Stasi files was opened up and Garton Ash requested his file - 325 pages of detail about his life, some of which he'd forgotten. He works out who'd informed on him, tracks most of them down, and talks to some of them about why they did it. The book is a blend of personal history and more philosophical writing about political freedom and the choices people made. I agree with other reviewers that his personal story isn't as dramatic as some of Anna Funder's stories, because he was a foreigner, so he was better protected from the worst of the repression than the East German citizens.

I've been waiting to hear what you thought about these, Cushla! I'm sure they both were better for reading them together. So, which one would you recommend if I was to only read one?

I liked The File better, but if you want stories about what happened to people in East Germany, I'd pick Stasiland. If you want more ruminating on why people do what they do, read The File. I couldn't get over finding Anna Funder annoying, that's why I gave Stasiland a lower rating. And I really love Garton Ash's writing style whatever he's talking about.

#184: Both of those look very good, Cushla. Thanks for the recommendations.

Hope you like them Stasia! I started catching up on your August thread yesterday... will sit down with a coffee soon and keep on reading!

I'm interested in both books too, and am putting them on my list. Thanks for the reviews.

Stasiland has been on my wishlist for a while-thank you for the review.

Book 38
The Third Miss Symons by F. M. Mayor - 3 stars

My Virago Modern Classics collection has been growing much faster than I've been reading them, so I grabbed this one for a car book. It turned out to be a good, very fast read, which was lucky because the main character gets less and less likable as the book goes on. It's set in Victorian England, and was bitingly funny as well as depressing.

The opening lines set up the story beautifully: "Henrietta was the third daughter and fifth child of Mr and Mrs Symons, so that enthusiasm for babies had declined in both parents by the time she arrived." Henrietta is desperate for someone - anyone - to love her, and gets less lovable as she tries harder. She retreats into a very grumpy shell. And if there's an award for "unpleasant siblings in fiction" this novel would be on the shortlist...

wrt to Stasiland, I must read that one. I often wonder if prizes have a political side to them, with Rubicon being much less currently topical than the East Germany issue. They both stay on the TBR pile.

#192 Karen, I hope you like them both when you get to them!

Book 45 - The Glass Room by Simon Mawer - 4 1/2 stars

The Glass Room begins in Mesto, Czechoslovakia in 1929. (Mesto is fictional – see below…) While Viktor and Liesel Landauer are on their honeymoon in Venice, they meet a German architect called Rainer von Abt. He builds them a spectacular modernist house overlooking the city. The Glass Room tells the story of the Landauer family, their friends and loved ones, and the house through the rest of the century.

Viktor –a Jew – owns the Landauer car factory and has no shortage of money. He’s pessimistic about Czechoslovakia’s survival, and his own, with Hitler’s rise to power, so he shovels some money into a Swiss bank account. When Germany annexes the Sudetenland, the family gets ready to leave. The Landauers spend several years in Switzerland, and take Kata, a refugee from Austria, and her daughter Marika with them. We see life in Mesto during the war through letters from Hana, Liesel’s friend, and Lanik, Viktor’s rather slimy driver.

The characters were beautifully written, especially Viktor, Liesel and Hana. There were two big coincidences in the plot though, one in the middle and one at the end. I’m not a fan of big coincidences driving the story, but it was still an excellent read. I hope it makes the Booker shortlist!

Thanks to kidzdoc for the recommendation – I wouldn’t have picked it up at the library if I hadn't just read your review.

** spoiler alert about the setting of the book **

Now that I’ve finished it, I’ve been googling to see where the book was set – it’s in Brno. von Abt turns out to be based on Mies van der Rohe, who built the Villa tugendhat, now a World Heritage site. Very cool, because my husband loved van der Rohe’s work and we once did a walking tour of Chicago looking at his buildings. Here’s a Wikipedia link: http://tinyurl.com/y9jxvo

Cushla - I have just picked up the Mawer book today - so will have to see if I am as enticed as you and kidzdoc with your 4 to 5 star reviews.

That was a really interesting link, thanks! Hope their descendants win their case!

>193 cushlareads: Cushla, I've seen both of yours and Darryl's highly-starred reviews, the bloggers all think it's beautiful and yet somehow... I don't feel compelled to pick up The Glass Room. What am I missing? What for you was the thing (or things) that really set it apart? You've mentioned the characters - was there something really distinctive about what he did with them (or how he did it)?

I read The Fall by Mawer recently, because I could not get my hands on his latest. I thought it was very good, but not great. He wrote quite a bit of narrative and had a more emotive style wct Coetzee, Trevor, Mantel, etc. I think I will definitely read his latest though (and it did reach the short list of the Booker which may mean something).

#193 Rachael,
Well, remember I star highly!! I've given 7 fiction reads 5 stars this year... yikes, I didn't realise that till now... and a ton of 4 1/2s.

For me, I would say it was on the edge between very good and great. I don't think it should win the Booker (without reading the others!) but I'm happy it's on the shortlist. I'm not very good at describing why I like books....ummmm.... This one had a headstart because I generally like novels set in Europe around WW2, and I thought he described the time and place really well. I loved the way he got the political material into the book without hammering it. I could really picture Viktor and Liesel and their life in Czechoslovakia, and I liked how he used the house to anchor the story. And I'm still thinking about bits of it days later.

Karen, I still haven't read any Coetzee but I own a couple of his novels. He feels intimidating and a bit depressing, and at the moment my reading gets down at the edge of Karori swimming pool in 20 minute bursts! But The Life and Times of Michael K. is downstairs...

I have Wolf Hall on reserve from the library - I don't usually read Booker books but LT has really changed the way I read.

I came home to clean the house before I go to school and swimming, eek, but this is more fun!

I loved the way he got the political material into the book without hammering it.

Yes, that really is a sign of a good writer, isn't it? I hate that about a book or a movie--when writers have characters artificially talking to each other as a device to give us information.

>198 cushlareads: Karori swimming pool... wistful nostalgic dreaming...

Thanks for further thoughts on Mawer. Particularly interested in your comment about the house - should have realised it really given the title, but I do kind of like books that make use of a location like that.

I'm about 7 books behind, and it's Saturday morning, so instead of finding the 72 magnetix pieces for toy library I'm going to sit here and type!

Book 41 - Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie - 4 stars

I saw this book on Kidzdoc's thread and grabbed it when I saw it in the Librarians Picks at Wellington Library a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed it. It starts off in Nagasaki right before the bomb with Hiroko and Konrad. Konrad is German but has been living in Nagasaki for a few years. Hiroko is Japanese. Then the bomb falls, and the book takes off.

I really hate spoilers and in this book the first couple of chapters were beautifully written and very tense. I've seen some reviews that talk about who survives but I don't want to give that away, so it's hard to write much about the plot. But you can probably guess that the book is linked to Hiroko and Konrad. It moves around India, Pakistan, and New York (just after September 11). I found the background on the partition of Pakistan and the Brits going home fascinating - I haven't read much at all about Indian history. This book had tons of plot - maybe even too much plot! - and great character development, especially the main character.

Ghost Wars by Steve Coll is a good non-fiction book to go with the last chunk of Burnt Shadows. It's long but worth the effort.

Book 42 - The Magic Lantern by Timothy Garton Ash - 4 stars

More great writing from Timothy Garton Ash. It's subtitled "The revolution of '89 witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague". Garton Ash managed to be in all 4 places that year, and to describe them vividly - a lingering fear of repression, chaos, and joy. Now I want to read a history of Solidarity in Poland.

Some nice recent reading, Cushla!

Thanks Stasia! Yep, no clunkers for ages now...

Interrupting this broadcast to ask a favour (lurkers too!)

We are moving to Basel in Switzerland at the end of the year, for 2 years. I'm hugely excited and have found the Swiss LT group already - haven't got up the nerve to say hi yet but will do soon.

I'd love to read some novels set in Switzerland (apart from Heidi, which I loved as a kid). I have Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier but not much else. I don't mind if they're in German, and should really start trying to read in German...I'm rusty but used to be not too bad. So, if you have any recommendations please post 'em here!!

I'm going to post this in Reading Globally too.

How exciting for you! I don't have any ideas for you off the top of my head. Just wanted to say that I'm trying to read Cold Mountain in German. Haven't gotten very far yet, even with my English copy close by. I may have to go to a children's book. If you find any good sources for popular titles to buy over the internet, I'd love to know.

>205 cushlareads:: Well, Spyri's translator also wrote Heidi Grows Up and Heidi's Children. I still have my mother's old copies.

Tender is the Night was partially set in Switzerland.

Schiller's play, "William Tell", is about the Swiss hero and set in the country.

The only book I ever read in German was Homo Faber by Max Frisch. The book is set all over the globe, but Frisch was Swiss and, I believe, wrote a version of "William Tell" that flipped the roles, making Gessler the good guy.

One of the better of Robert Ludlum's thrillers, The Holcroft Covenant, was set in Geneva and surroundings, though there's not much of the countryside in the portrayal.

For mysteries, you could read Friedrich Glauser.

Ooh, how terribly exciting! Can't help with any literature suggestions though, I don't think I've read anything by a Swiss writer, or anything even set in Switzerland! (Is the Swiss Family Robinson a Swiss book? I haven't read it, I was just wondering!)

Switzerland? Well, you could always breakout all the John Calvin you've always wanted to get to. After all, it;s the 500th anniversary of his birth. };->~ I'm gonna go geeky on ya for a rec. The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider by Don Lincoln. It's underneath the border of France and Switzerland. C'mon, don't look at me like that. It is one of the biggest most powerful toys ever built. And it's supercool. You'll be in the neighborhood, so stop in and push some buttons and see what happens. ;)

Congratulations! Enjoy your stay there. Your kids might grow up and become ski-bunnies.

Jean Piaget was Swiss and wrote plenty of books about child development.
I know that there have been a few nonfiction books about the Swiss banks and their actions during WW2 with Jewish money and the Nazi influence which might be interesting.

The only fiction I've come across so far is Patricia Highsmith's last novel Small g which is set in Zurich.

How exciting for you to be able to live in Switzerland. My sister lived in Basel for 5 years and loved it.
I can't think of Swiss writers off hand, but Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain is set in the Alps, perhaps the Swiss Alps, I can't remember.

Hermann Hesse is Swiss. I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Swiss_novelists
List of Swiss novelists on Wikipedia.

I'm so thrilled with all your replies - thanks!!

VG, I laughed at your post about the large Hadron collider. I know hardly anything about it but I know it's in Geneva and I know my 5 year old (and husband) will be really keen to get as close as they can to it... have you read it that book?

jmaloney, that list looks really good. I haven't really done any homework yet - like searching for Switzerland under tags but will go through that list later on...

Am running to class now but will come back later.

Swiss Family Robinson is by a Swiss author Johann David Wyss.

Actually, I haven't read the Hadron collider book yet. It's on one of my 'get to someday' lists. I have read Heidi though. ;) Way back sometime in the 20th century.

Cushla, you may wish to look at: http://www.librarything.com/profile/cmt/stats/places

If I've got the URL right, it should show you a list of all the places your books are set (using LT's Common Knowledge). If I don't have the URL right, go to your profile, click on memes/statistics, and then on places. You then just have to search (ctrl-f) for "Switzerland", and you'll find books in your collection that are set there. (Don't forget to check each page!)

Or you could check out the Places directly in Common Knowledge, if you're looking for books to buy. Eg, Geneva: http://www.librarything.com/place/Geneva%2C+Switzerland

Or, finally!, you can search Common Knowledge: http://www.librarything.com/commonknowledge/ - there's a search form in the top right hand corner - chose "Important Places" from the drop down, plug in "Switzerland" (or "Geneva" or "Berne" or whatever) and see what shows up. That will get you results for Switzerland, or Berne, or Geneva, etc.

Actually, if the Large Hadron Collider is involved, clearly you should read (spit) Angels and Demons ;-)

There's a Graham Greene - Dr Fischer of Geneva that might be worth a read? Also recommended to me: I'm Not Stiller - Max Frisch.

The good ol' LibraryThing tagmash is always good for a whirl...

Good luck with the move!!

good luck from me too - you must be very excited!!

ETA: Hermann Hesse was not Swiss, but he does have a novel (Peter something?) partially set in Zürich.

Hi and yes very excited! (still!! I'm sure it will wear off on Jan 1 when I am on the 35 hour trip with a nearly-3-year-old in tow...we are taking one kid each and doing separate flights, because they really wind each other up and we think this will be better.)

Thanks for the help wookie and Rachael - I knew about CK and tagmashes but hadn't really had a good look! I've half written a post about 3 times but have been waylaid.

GUG thanks for the Hesse tip. I'm not too good on Really Serious Literature but I'll look for it at the library.

I've found one book in my TBR mountain set in Geneva - Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad. Anyone read it? Two Swiss tags I've already read - Hotel du Lac and A Thread of Grace. I have Heidi out from the library for a reread, and will find Swiss Family Robinson next time... loved it as a kid. I had the kids with me at the library last weekend so didn't get any book hunting time there, but I managed to find a Swiss German CD Rom with 2 very earnest, enthusiastic people who stare out of the computer saying "Jo jo!" when I get a word right. time.

**blushing** FlossieT I have read Angels and Demons already!! But not those others. I'll have a look this weekend.

A tag hunt on Basel found some German novels - Hunkeler und der Fall Livius by Hanjoerg Schneider. Never heard of him, but it looks good. And it led me to a real live LTer from Basel, paulstalder.

Right, back to painting with a carrot - the 2 year old, not me - and deciding which books to pack into boxes. There are too many good unread books in our house. DH has been offering helpful comments like "just put the ones you definitely want to take to one side and I will pack the rest." He doesn't get that there are 2 1/2 months of reading time left here!

Oh, this sounds hard! How long are you going to be gone? Do you have a good friend or relative who make room in her/his house for your TBR library? Boxes of books are pretty easy to store.

gregtmills has just finished Selected Stories of Robert Walser, who's apparently Swiss, and given it a good review on his thread - might be worth a look!

Thanks Rachael - just saw your post now. Those stories look good (just from the works page - haven't been to Greg's thread yet. I usually read his thread but am very behind...)

Bonnie, we're going to be gone 2 years, and it's not too bad. We have a storage unit that is filling up with junk and boxes of books, and we're filling a container with furniture and some books to take with us. But I went to the library at the weekend, remembered that it is full of great books, and think I'll get on with the packing up!

I'm going to try catching up with quick reviews, so here goes:

Book 43 - The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert - 4 stars

I read this back in August but the 3 stories in The Dark Room have stuck in my mind pretty well. They're all set in Germany, and show Germans before, during and after World War 2 from different angles, all of them subtly looking at how people made their decisions in the war. The stories themselves aren't linked (or not that I could tell) except by their themes.

The first is about Helmut, who lives in Berlin before and during the war and whose arm is paralysed. The second was the most harrowing - Lore is the oldest daughter of Nazi parents. At the end of the war her father is imprisoned - it's not spelled out in much detail - and she has to try to get her brothers and sisters to her grandmother's house in Hamburg, from somewhere in the south, without any papers or money. Along the way she learns more about what the Nazis did, and what her father might have done. This story had me in tears. So did the third! It's set in the 1990s and explores German guilt for the Holocaust. Micha is obsessed with his dead grandfather's wartime actions, and traces his Waffen-SS unit to a town in Byelorussia.

The Dark Room was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001. It was one of the most sombre books I've read this year but I recommend it if you're interested in the World War 2 or the German people.

Right now I'm off to get dinner on the table and write a first novel that gets to the Booker shortlist. Back in a few hours ;)

You always make me laugh, Cushla; I think you should write that book! I'm going to add The Dark Room to my wish list, thanks!

#224 - Well, I'm "interested in the World War 2 or the German people" so this might be a book I'd be interested in. I have been collecting a few nonfiction titles recently on the issue of German guilt, as well as exploring the extent to which the German people were accomplices to the regime, such as Life and Death in the Third Reich by Peter Fritzsche, and The Question of German Guilt by Karl Jaspers. Also, a few books on 'denazification'.

Just popping in to say hi and catching up on threads.

Hi Bonnie, Peter and Diane!

Peter, those books sound very interesting - will be keen to see if the Jaspers one is readable to a non-philosopher.

I've started a second thread over here.

(and am thrilled to see that it's a lovely round topic # 75000!)