PAUL C in the War Room - XIV : AT Quatre Bras Waiting for Blucher

The British squares were successful in repelling many French onslaughts in the final battles, including that depicted here at Quatre Bras in the lead up to Waterloo.

Opening Words

It is fairly obvious that I have obsessions and compulsions, if not outright addictions. Therefore I was interested to pick up Gabor Mate's In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts.





The mandala the Buddhist Wheel of Life, revolves through six realms. Each realm is populated by characters representing aspects of human existence - our various ways of being.

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

Books Read

January

1. Dear Future Boyfriend by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (2000) 90 pp Poetry / 150Y Challenge 15/150
2. Pax Romana by Adrian Goldsworthy (2016) 420 pp Non-Fiction / War Room / 150Y Challenge 16/150
3. The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff (1959) 306 pp Fiction / War Room / 150Y Challenge 17/150
4. Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken (1964) 286 pp Fiction / BAC / 150Y Challenge 18/150
5. Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Richard Miles (2010) 373 pp Non-Fiction / War Room / 150Y Challenge 19/150
6. When We Were Warriors by Emma Carroll (2019) 248 pp Fiction / War Room / 150y Challenge 20/150
7. Double Indemnity by James M Cain (1936) 136 pp Thriller / 150Y Challenge 21/150
8. Persian Fire by Tom Holland (2005) 376 pp Non-Fiction / War Room / 150Y Challenge 22/150

February

9. North Woods by Daniel Mason (2023) 369 pp Fiction 150Y Challenge 23/150
10. The African by JMG Le Clezio (2004) 106 pp Non-Fiction / 150Y Challenge 24/150
11. The British are Coming by Rick Atkinson (2019) 564 pp Non-Fiction / War Room
12. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather (1927) 297 pp Fiction 150Y Challenge 25/150
13. Redcoat by Bernard Cornwell (1987) 405 pp Fiction / War Room / 150Y Challenge 26/150

March

14. Fatal Colours by George Goodwin (2011) 239 pp Non-Fiction / War Room / 150Y Challenge 27/150
15. R.S. Thomas : Selected Poems by R.S. Thomas (2003) 343 pp Poetry / BAC / 150Y Challenge 28/150
16. The Maiden by Kate Foster (2023) 370 pp Fiction
17. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan (2024) 334pp Fiction / Warm Room
18. The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright (2023) 273 pp Fiction
19. The Brothers York : An English Tragedy by Thomas Penn (2019) 572 pp Non-Fiction / War Room
20. Pet by Catherine Chidgey (2023) 323 pp Fiction
21. Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshanathan (2023) 341 pp Fiction
22. Breakdown by Cathy Sweeney (2024) 217 pp Fiction
23. Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas (1954) 108 pp Drama / BAC / 150 Y Challenge 29/150
24. Bosworth: Psychology of a Battle by Michael Jones (2002) 220 pp Non-Fiction/ War Room / 150Y Challenge 30/150

Books Read 2nd Quarter

April

25. The Sweet Science by A.J. Liebling (1956) 232 pp Non-Fiction / AAC / 150Y Challenge 31/150
26. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (1955) 249pp Thriller / 150Y Challenge 32/150 / 1001 Books
27. Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad (2023) 319 pp Fiction / War Room
28. Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym (1977) 186 pp Fiction / 150Y Challenge 33/150 / BAC/ 1001 Books
29. A History of the Crusades I by Steven Runciman (1951) 281 pp Non-Fiction / War Room / 150Y Challenge 34/150
30. Loot by Tania James (2023) 289 pp Fiction
31. Field Work by Seamus Heaney (1979) 56 pp Poetry / 150Y Challenge 35/150
32. A History of the Crusades II by Steven Runciman (1952) 385 pp Non-Fiction / War Room
33. A History of the Crusades III by Steven Runciman (1954) 401 pp Non-Fiction / War Room
34. Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy (2023) 233 pp Fiction
35. The People of Hemso by August Strindberg (1887) 152 pp Fiction / 1001 Books / 150Y Challenge 36/150
36. Five Children and It by E. Nesbit (1902) 237 pp Fiction / 150Y Challenge 37/150
37. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1875) 766 pp Fiction / BAC / 150Y Challenge 38/150
38. The Details by Ia Genberg (2022) 151 pp Fiction / 150Y Challenge 39/150

May

39. Napoleon by Alan Forrest (2011) 331 pp Non-Fiction / War Room
40. The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey (2024) 449 pp Fiction

Currently Reading

The War Room



JANUARY - Ancient Wars (Greeks/Romans/Persians/Carthage/Egyptians/Alexander, etc) https://www.librarything.com/topic/356820
1. Pax Romana by Adrian Goldsworthy
2. The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff
3. Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Richard Miles
4. Persian Fire by Tom Holland

FEBRUARY - The American War of Independence : https://www.librarything.com/topic/358097#n8402612
1. The British are Coming by Rick Atkinson
2. Redcoat by Bernard Cornwell

MARCH - The War of the Roses : https://www.librarything.com/topic/358941
1. Fatal Colours by George Goodwin
2. The Brothers York : An English Tragedy by Thomas Penn

APRIL - Wars of Religion https://www.librarything.com/topic/359824#n8524265
1. Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
2. A History of the Crusades I by Steven Runciman
3. A History of the Crusades II by Steven Runciman
4. A History of the Crusades III by Steven Runciman

MAY - Napoleonic Wars : https://www.librarything.com/topic/360466
1. Napoleon by Alan Forrest

JUNE - English Civil War
JULY - Colonial Wars

AUGUST - WW2
1. When We Were Warriors by Emma Carroll
2. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

SEPTEMBER - American Civil War
OCTOBER - American Follies (Korea, Vietnam, Gulf-War, Afghanistan)
NOVEMBER - WW1
DECEMBER - Spanish Civil War

WILDCARD - Pick your own fight

British Author Challenge (Hosted by my friend Amanda)



JANUARY - Joan Aiken & Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle : Black Hearts in Battersea
FEBRUARY - Emma Newman & Ronald Firbank
MARCH - Welsh Writers : Selected Poems R.S. Thomas; Under Milk Wood
APRIL - Barbara Pym & Anthony Trollope - Quartet in Autumn; The Way We Live Now

American Author Challenge (Hosted with occasional assistance this year by my friend Linda)



JANUARY - Mark Twain
FEBRUARY - Susan Sontag
MARCH - Truman Capote
APRIL - Non-Fiction - The Sweet Science by AJ Liebling
MAY - William Maxwell
JUNE - Queer Authors

150 YEARS OF BOOKS

150 years; 150 books; 150 authors; 15 months

Done:
Row 1 : 1874, 1875, 1887


Row 2 : 1889, 1902


Row 3 : 1904, 1908, 1910, 1915


Row 4 : 1923, 1927


Row 5 : 1936, 1937, 1945


Row 6 : 1951, 1954, 1955 1956, 1958, 1959


Row 7 : 1964, 1966, 1977


Row 8 : 1979, 1987


Row 9 : 1994, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005


Row 10 : 2010, 2011, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023

Women's Prize List



Current Ranking
1. Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshanathan READ SHORTLIST
2. Western Lane by Chetna Maroo READ
3. Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy READ SHORTLIST
4. The Maiden by Kate Foster READ
5. The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright READ SHORTLIST
6. Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad READ SHORTLIST

A Trace of Sun by Pam Williams
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
Hangman by Maya Binyam
8 Lives of a Century Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee owned
Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie owned
In Defence of the Act by Effie Black
Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville owned SHORTLIST
River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure owned SHORTLIST
The Blue Beautiful World by Karen Lord owned
And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott

Up next RIVER EAST, RIVER WEST

Paul's Alternative Women's Prize Longlist

Current Ranking

1. The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey READ
2. Loot by Tania James READ
3. Pet by Catherine Chidgey READ
4. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett READ
5. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan READ
6. Breakdown by Cathy Sweeney READ

7. Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton owned
8. Julia by Sandra Newman owned
9. Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward owned
10. Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood owned
11. The Middle Daughter by Chika Unigwe owned
12. Absolution by Alice McDermott owned
13. The House of Broken Bricks by Fiona Williams owned
14. The Fraud by Zadie Smith owned
15. Penance by Eliza Clark owned
16. Land of Milk and Honey by E Pam Zhang owned

Next up The House of Broken Bricks

Books Added in 2024

January books 1-31
https://www.librarything.com/topic/357215#8360403

February books 32-73
https://www.librarything.com/topic/358698#8432568

March books 74-104
https://www.librarything.com/topic/359405#8476551

April books 105-130
https://www.librarything.com/topic/360210#8513437

131. Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein
132. Golden Age by Wang Xiaobo
133. The Expendables by Jeff Rubin
134. Napoleon : The Man Behind the Myth by Adam Zamoyski
135. The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey READ
136. Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-Yong
137. What I'd Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma
138. The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann
139. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate
140. Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo
141. Ada's Realm by Sharon Dodua Otoo
142. The Axeman's Carnival by Catherine Chidgey
143. The Guest by Emma Cline
144. The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt

Book Stats

Books Read : 40
Pages Read in completed books : 11,943 pp

Longest book : The Way We Live Now : 766 pp
Shortest book : Field Work : 56 pp
Mean book length : 298.58 pp

Books written by men : 21
Books written by women : 19

Non-Fiction : 13
Fiction : 21
Poetry : 3
Thriller : 2
Drama : 1

1870's : 1 book
1880's : 1 book
1900's : 1 book
1920's : 1 book
1930's : 1 book
1950's : 7 books
1960's : 1 book
1970's : 2 books
1980's : 1 book
2000's : 5 books
2010's : 7 books
2020's : 12 books

UK Authors : 22
US Authors : 9
Ireland Authors : 4
Sweden Authors : 2
France Authors : 1
Malaysia Authors : 1
New Zealand Authors : 1


Nobel Winners : 1 (79/120)
Carnegie Medal Winners : 1 (6th overall)
1001 Books : 4

Read : 40 books
Added : 135 books

Change to TBR : +96

Welcome to my 14th thread of 2024

Happy new one!

Thank you, Anita and well done for being first to the party!

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread Paul!

>1 PaulCranswick: I've read about the squares several times, but the painting gives a more immediate sense of what facing them - and being in one - could have been like.

>17 amanda4242: Lovely to see you Amanda xx

>18 quondame: Thanks Susan.

I thought that the painting was wonderful in that the facial expressions on the participants conveys everything.

Blucher ist kommt.

Wowwww happy new thread Paul my pal!

Another wish for a happy thread, Paul!

Happy new thread, Paul.

Happy new thread Paul!

>20 richardderus: Indeed he is RD, but he will only make it in the absolute nick of time!

>21 Owltherian: Thank you, Lily.

>22 LizzieD: And as always gratefully received, dear lady.

>23 Kristelh: Thank you, Kristel.

>24 humouress: Howdy neighbour.

>25 PaulCranswick: your very welcome

>28 Owltherian: :D

Moving home today and I am safely in the office whilst the movers make the best of it and Brigadier Hani dishes out the orders.

Hah, sounds like a fun day!

>30 Owltherian: But ok for me! .......until I get home at least.

Yep, until you get home and you have to deal with all that

Happy new thread and hope you have a delightful evening sorting through your books in your new place.

Happy New Thread, Paul. Another book I wouldn't mind reading In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. He is a local author here and that would be a interesting book. Let me know if you can quell your desire to purchase books after reading it .

>32 Owltherian: I have a legal meeting in the office from 3pm until 6pm so I will unlikely make it home before 7pm. Eat, pray and then I am past 8 pm.

>33 avatiakh: Thanks Kerry. A day plus as I intend to take off tomorrow and Wesak Day is a public holiday on Wednesday.

>34 vancouverdeb: Hahaha it would be a disaster if it actually works on me, Deb! Thanks as always for stopping by.

>35 PaulCranswick: Wow, seems like your days go by pretty quick. Its about 1:28am EST for me right now

Happy new thread, Paul!

A belated thanks for the stats in your previous thread.

In your statistics my position is better than my post in your thread, but I try not to lose touch.
Happy New Thread, Paul.

>37 Owltherian: Same length, different place. I am speeding up when you are slowing down!

>38 FAMeulstee: Thanks Anita. You are always welcome as I enjoy keeping up with the stats anyhow.

>39 SirThomas: You do a great job of keeping in touch, Thomas!

>40 PaulCranswick: I had ended up falling asleep oof, but I'm awake again at 6am so 5 hours of sleep

>36 PaulCranswick: Surely shopping isn’t addictive behaviour if it’s not self-destructive ie over-crowding your living space with things you can’t afford.

https://www.sfcv.org/articles/feature/losing-yourself-music-confessions-classica... A very interesting account of Maté’s self-described “addiction” to classical music. I don’t recognise my book-buying habits. Hope neither does anyone reading this.

>42 Owltherian: Five hours is pretty good, Lily.

>43 booksaplenty1949: I think it is akin to hoarding a little at its worst. I don't really know where compulsion stops and addiction begins, but perhaps I will find out.

>44 booksaplenty1949: Well I will not tell anyone! I think though in real terms having almost 6,000 books unread at home is not quite the full shilling as some would say. (I am talking about myself by the way).

>45 PaulCranswick: I did some reading at one point on the difference between hoarding and collecting and was relieved to find out that organising and displaying is characteristic of the latter, not the former. Hoarders can’t actually even personally access what they hoard. We’re not at that point!

>46 PaulCranswick: Maté notes that he would spend (or perhaps still spends) thousands of dollars at a time on records/CDs and then lie about it to loved ones. You’re proudly sharing your (very modest, by comparison) shopping expeditions.

>46 PaulCranswick: I have a favorite quote that one day I will cross stitch and hang in my library. There are various versions of it.

"Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity." – A. Edward Newton, author, publisher, and collector of 10,000 books.

Checking in on the new thread, Paul!

Happy whatever!

How's the new place Paul? Does it feel any different to the old one?

Happy new Thread!!

>47 booksaplenty1949: You're right because I do take great pains to make sure that I know how to find all my books as quickly as possible.

>48 booksaplenty1949: We I have done the same on books and CDs over the years and I do certainly get quite obsessed.

>49 Murphy-Jacobs: That rings true with me too having altogether collected more books than Mr. Newton.

>50 alcottacre: Lovely to see you as always, Sis.

>51 humouress: Weirdly so, in fact, Nina.

>52 hredwards: Thank you, Harold.

Happy new thread Paul and hope the move is done and successful.

>54 PaulCranswick: Well, to be fair, there are more books now than there were when Mr. Newton was collecting :)

>1 PaulCranswick: And back to Napoleon! That is an impressive painting. Quatre Bras may not have the name recognition of Waterloo but certainly is a very famous battle.

>29 PaulCranswick: Congratulations on the move, including the thousands of unread books!

>49 Murphy-Jacobs: I can identify with the sentiments of the quote. Might have to squirrel it away for future reference.

Hi PAUL, Does the Slavery book you recommended cover African slavery by Muslims that extended into the 20th century ?

I noted this on WIKI after the cataclysmic horrors inspired in ISLAMIC EMPIRES.

>14 PaulCranswick: Happy new thread!!

>56 mdoris: Thanks Mary. We are moved but the books are as usual a daunting task to get into proper shape again.

>57 Murphy-Jacobs: True enough; he couldn't take a short walk to Kinokuniya bookstore!

>58 justchris: Thank you Chris. Quatre Bras was technically a Wellington victory but at the same time failed in the objective of joining Blucher thanks to Ney.

>59 m.belljackson: Yes it does, Marianne. There are 380 pages or so in the book so it doesn't cover an individual topic in huge detail but certainly slavery in the Islamic world and modern slavery ongoing are both given plenty of space.

>60 ocgreg34: Thank you, dear Greg.

Happy new thread, Paul!

>62 PaulCranswick: Middle Kingdoms includes the critical importance of the slave trade to the economic, and hence dynastic ambitions of their rulers, of regions in Central Europe from the Rhine to the Black Sea. Crusades against pagans were a source of money that didn't entirely cease when populations became Christians - there were always the wrong kind of Christians for raw material.

>53 PaulCranswick: One thing I do share with hoarders is a tendency to anthropomorphise what I collect. When I finally read a book I picked up on sale at my college book store a certain number of decades ago which has languished unread on my bookshelves at various addresses ever since I feel VERY HAPPY for it. “Hold your head up high! You may have been reduced for quick sale on the remainder table. You may have only felt a human touch on moving day. But that’s all in the rear view mirror now. You’re close to the pillow, feeling warm breath and maybe hearing the clink of ice cubes. You’re feeling a book mark between your pages. The long wait is over!” Unfortunately hoarders feel sympathy for piles of flyers for an event that took place three weeks ago and such, to the detriment of their (the hoarders’) quality of life, but the impulse is recognisable.

>64 drneutron: Thanks Doc Roc.

>65 quondame: In fairness not only the wrong kind of Christians, Susan. Pagans enslaved multitudes and the Islamic empires' number of slaves dwarfed that of Christendom, depending of course on your precise definition of slavery.

>66 booksaplenty1949: I certainly feel the craven impulses drawing me to bookstores on a regular basis. I need my fix of a book addition on a weekly basis!

Sorting my books today by the way and for some reason I cannot quite fathom I have started at the letter "H". There are in excess of 500 books in the house with the Author having the last name beginning with H.

>67 PaulCranswick: Oh, the slave trade from Europe to Scandinavia and Mediterranean area is as ancient as civilization, possibly older. I was just commenting on Christian Europe depending on slave trade. In Rome the definition of poor was not having a slave to do your dirty work. And who would want that? When there isn't a large pool of poor to hire, slavery was, and functionally some places, still is the default.

>62 PaulCranswick: Your Slavery book sounds fair, like my new hero of Kabul, Babur.

And have, coincidentally with Iran's latest news, moved on into the city of Isfahan.

>66 booksaplenty1949: I mentally do that all the time with things. Years ago, in my misspent youth, I worked in a warehouse, where a large part of my job was making boxes - taking the flats, unfolding them and refolding into shape, taping, stacking for use later - and in the dullness of the activity I imagined a whole mythos for boxes, with the old, worn out boxes telling the unmade flats about the hard life of a box...

>68 PaulCranswick: Paul, I have seen several times a t shirt I am considering getting. It says "I rescue books trapped in bookstores. I'm not a hoarder. I'm a hero."

So, maybe you're a hero saving unloved books :)

>69 quondame: Slavery has for me always been about the perceived (by the enslaver) superiority of one race, tribe or group over another. The perception of the essential equality of humankind is a surprisingly new concept in practice as well as theory.

>70 m.belljackson: I don't hold the political and theological views of the Iranian leadership but I am not going to celebrate a tragic accident that took fathers and grandfathers from their families.

>71 Murphy-Jacobs: A bit like Proulx's Accordian Crimes there is surely a novel there as we follow the progress of the box through various homes.

I love the T-Shirt slogan and I can confirm that the books here get plenty of love!

>72 PaulCranswick: The Romans had Greek slaves who were not considered inferior, more unfortunate.

>72 PaulCranswick: True, there are exceptions to every rule.

>72 PaulCranswick: I tend to think that mindset of inherent superiority/inferiority associated with the practice of slavery is largely a fairly historically recent effect of the chattel slavery practiced in the Americas that deeply enmeshed blackness with slave status as some sort of intrinsic trait. Slavery has been around forever, but previously it was understood and often operated in practice that anyone could become enslaved under unfortunate circumstances (war, poverty, etc) and was not some sort of indictment of an entire group of people. Attitudes of superiority and inferiority based on people's identities (particularly around religion and social class) have been around forever too, and certainly intersected with slavery but weren't tied to slavery per se.

Indeed, the American chattel slavery system and the Middle Passage began with war captives being sold away from their home countries in Africa, and then the engine of capitalism turned a regional customary practice into an international market, such that people were captured far beyond the scale and geography of local conflicts for the purpose of selling them. It was continue to meet the external demand or risk becoming the human commodity themselves, ride the tiger or be devoured. Antiblack racism emerged out of that chattel slavery system in order to rationalize its ongoing practice.

>76 justchris: No Chris, historically that doesn't quite seem to be the case - the Arabian and Barbary slavers would indicate that they considered themselves racially superior to those they were enslaving and it wasn't a "blackness" issue per se.
It is quite clear that those enslaving the African peoples considered themselves superior and the subsequent treatment of those that survived in Brazil, the Caribbean and North America was barbarous in the extreme - the capture and sale of those same people by other African tribes was equally reprehensible.
History teaches though that - as tragically awful as it was - it was by no means unique - save perhaps for the distances they were conveyed into slavery.

>77 PaulCranswick: I think the “inferior race” idea arose in Western cultures which had otherwise grown uncomfortable with the idea of slavery. This discomfort didn’t arise elsewhere, apparently.

>74 quondame: The Romans had slaves from elsewhere on the Italian peninsula. Horace was the son of a freed slave. There was no racial component in their slave system.

>78 booksaplenty1949: The disconcerting thing for me is that it is Empires in decline that resort to soul searching at the expense of progress. The West is tearing itself asunder in a welter of self-critique whilst China awakes from its slumbers.

>79 booksaplenty1949: Again that is too much of a generalization. They did enslave most of the peoples they conquered to one degree or another and certainly did not consider the Gauls, the Britons, the Celts and the Germanic tribes as racially equal to "civilized" Rome.

>81 PaulCranswick: Not culturally equal, certainly, but that is not the same as “racially” equal, which is a pseudo-scientific concept which I think arose much later. But more research needed on my part.

>72 PaulCranswick: I note that the Iranian “poet laureate” and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize expressed the feeling that Raisi had too easy a death.

>82 booksaplenty1949: I think the terms are confused actually. I don't believe that it is really possible to think in terms of race in ancient times where travel was less comprehensive and most societies more or less tribal in nature. There is no doubt that prejudice against one tribe by the people of another simply because they come from that tribe fits most modern definitions of racism but it just would not have been recognizable to the Romans themselves.

>83 booksaplenty1949: I don't know whether Raisi was a good man or a bad man (I strongly suspect he was closer to the latter than the former) and it is not my place to cast judgement upon him. I will not celebrate his death, nor will I mourn his passing. I have heard tell that he was part of a four man "death-committee" responsible for sentencing to death literally thousands of people, but I have no knowledge personally of this.

>84 PaulCranswick: I agree that “race” is a relatively recent concept—-dating from the mid-17thC—-and a false one. I would distinguish “racial” from tribal or national prejudice because it is based on the idea, not that they do things differently somewhere else, or have a different (inferior) culture, which has always been a common human POV, but that people from Asia or Africa, or Jews, or whoever, are inferior in some meaningful *genetic* way that persists wherever they live. The scientific community now dismisses “race” as a social myth.

The last day im able to get on sadly is tomorrow if they do take my computer and I'm sad about it

>85 booksaplenty1949: It is all about POV isn't it though, as the Arab slavers considered the people of the shorelines it pillaged to be inferior to them and they just happened to be whlte.

>86 Owltherian: Get on line and touch base with us all when you can, Lily.

>87 PaulCranswick: Presumably the main factor was their religion, as Muslims are not allowed to enslave other Muslims.

>72 PaulCranswick: No, that would be cruel.

>76 justchris: Check out a rather complete WIKI on The History of Muslims and African Slavery.

>88 booksaplenty1949: Might want to read ISLAMIC EMPIRES to clarify this...

>87 PaulCranswick: i will try my best Paul!

>85 booksaplenty1949: This is the general point I was trying to get across. Absolutely, feelings of superiority have always been around, but based on cultural identities not so much racial ones because race is a relatively recent concept. And that sense of superiority certainly intersected with slavery practices, but they didn't necessarily go hand in hand.

>77 PaulCranswick: Plenty of people felt that sense of superiority without going around enslaving supposedly inferior peoples en masse. Slavers certainly felt a sense of superiority over the people they enslaved. Romans definitely felt superior to all of the tribal cultures they dominated, and they enslaved plenty of people from those groups. But there were also plenty of enslaved Romans too. And they didn't believe that those enslaved peoples were intrinsically meant to be enslaved and linked those other identities in with enslavement so that they became effectively synonymous. That's an artifact of our more recent chattel slavery system.

Originally, the justification for enslaving Africans and entraining the Middle Passage (and the genocide of indigenous Americans) had a lot to do with religion in terms of Christians considering themselves superior with a mandate from the Pope, reinforced by hundreds of years of stereotypes about various enslaved peoples coming from the beliefs and practices of those Barbary and Arab slavers you mentioned. It was rather disturbing to realize just how far back some of those stereotypes go upon reading Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry.

>93 justchris: Of course the subsequent conversion of African slaves to Christianity was the beginning of the end for slavery in the West, with images like “Am I not a man and brother?” and books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin underlining the moral unacceptability of one human being’s ownership of another, especially a fellow Christian.

Last country to abolish slavery was Mauritania, in 1981. Saudi Arabia banned slavery in 1961. Population at the time was about 4,000,000 of whom 300,000 were slaves.

>94 booksaplenty1949: Islamic law bans enslaving Muslims, so this provided a strong incentive for people in conquered territories to convert, which happened in a fairly short time in Iberia in the 8th century, for example.

Christianity did not have such religious doctrine with respect to slavery, so conversion did not directly lead to emancipation or the abolition of slavery. It might have been the beginning of the end only in the sense of the very long arc of history bending toward justice as Christians in the US certainly were willing to double down on the justifications for perpetuating the peculiar institution and indeed instigate civil war to maintain it. And yet, it was their religious convictions as Christians that motivated the abolitionists of the era too. Churches have long been the wellsprings of human rights movements.

I have a Lutheran friend who feels that the Roman Empire adopting Christianity as the state religion to become the Holy Roman Empire was the downfall of the Christianity because it enmeshed the religion and the power structure such that Christian leadership too often supports inhumane and unjust secular power systems because the Church benefits too much from the status quo then and now. Of course, this is not limited to Christianity, as demonstrated by recent news from Iran. Theocracies are always popular with authoritarians.

>88 booksaplenty1949: That is quite possibly true.

>89 m.belljackson: Indeed, Marianne, but neither will I particularly mourn his loss either.

>90 m.belljackson: There is no doubt that the Arab and Turkish and Persian worlds were the leaders in terms of enslaving people - their numbers dwarf those crossing the Atlantic and that is not to belittle either. We may be able to agree that the racial superiority component of the Atlantic slave trade was a heinous refinement in terms of choosing who would be enslaved but that is little comfort to another enslaved for entirely different reasons that were no less brutal and no less systematic.

>91 m.belljackson: You really ought to get commission on the distribution of that book, Marianne - I for one am looking for it given your wholehearted recommendations. x

>92 Owltherian: I will be disappointed if you don't keep in touch, Lily.

>93 justchris: I think in the discussions here, Chris, all our starting points are the same that slavery in all its forms is an evil that is rightly outlawed by every country on the planet (although in terms of enforcement some states do not practice what they legislate). Whether the motivations of superiority were simply an exercise in power subjugation, perceived tribal superiority or perceived racial superiority or perceived religious superiority the end result to the slave would have been pretty much the same.

The notion of "manifest destiny" definitely played a role in the genocide of the Native American population but I would hesitate to say that it had a Christian element to it. Those of sincere religious belief be that of whatever creed - Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, etc will not intend the deaths of others. Perversions of the respective religions on the other hand in terms of how they have been organised and subsequently work with the state has resulted in some of the worst examples of genocide and barbarism we have seen in human history.

Who were all the enslaved Romans, by the way? (and it is not a sarcastic question - it is just that I don't think that I have ever read about the Romans themselves being enslaved).

>99 PaulCranswick: Heh, if i dont get my computer taken i will try to be as active as possible!

>94 booksaplenty1949: That is a very interesting point - did conversion to Christianity hasten the freeing the slaves? I have absolutely no idea whether that is true or not but it is something that does have more than a semblance of credence to it.

>95 booksaplenty1949: Yes, all true, but I am not sure that the reality has expunged slavery in any meaningful way. Sex trafficking and child trafficking is still an evil to be uprooted and tales from Indonesian and Filipina ladies who worked as domestic helps in the Arabian world even to this day are still often treated as slaves and abused in unspeakable ways.

>96 justchris: Certainly all interesting points, Chris, and the role of religion both supporting and fighting slavery is a nuanced and complicated one and one I am not well qualified enough to pontificate upon other in general terms.

>97 PaulCranswick: Here's to the formation of the computer preservation society!

>99 PaulCranswick: The conquered people largely. The men were sent to latifundia as farm workers often kept in hideous ergastula. Some of the women of course too, but they would have mostly been house slaves. Most of the women went to cities as house slaves and whores. The army officers made their fortunes out of plunder and slaves.

Added: Sorry wrong slaves. Yes a couple of eastern Roman armies were defeated and mostly disappeared into the east. Also a Roman could go into debt and sell or be sold as a slave. Also, everybody needed slaves, so raids at borders or piracy within would have catered to those markets.

>101 PaulCranswick: A Search states that Parthians and Sasanians enslaved your Romans.

American Christian colonists had first to be convinced that Indians and Blacks were not sub-human.
For the Indians, this meant forced relocation instead of extermination...
...For African Americans that Christians could no longer be accepted as Property.

Conversion to Islam meant convert slaves could not be killed.

>99 PaulCranswick: I'm referring to the Doctrine of Discovery in terms of Christianity's role in indigenous American genocide. But then, the last Indian boarding school in the USA closed in 1973, during my lifetime, and many of these schools were run by Christian groups even if they were instituted as part of government policies, so the role of the religion in indigenous genocide has continued from the Age of Exploration into the modern era. Of course, this is nothing uniquely Christian, as I think most major religious groups have been involved in genocidal activities at some point or other in history, and far too many happening today.

>102 PaulCranswick: Yeah, I'm not really any more qualified than you to pontificate beyond generalities.

I see your point as to sense of superiority of whatever flavor being a starting point and definitely agree on the evils of slavery and glad that it has been officially outlawed even if it still exists in practice in far too many places today, including here in the US.

>103 quondame: Ah Susan you did get to answer my question! I was a little baffled by the first paragraph because that was pretty much my existing perception. Yes of course where the Romans lost its surviving soldiers captured would not be given salubrious bed and breakfast accommodation!

>104 m.belljackson: "My Romans", ha ha, Marianne - I cannot claim them! Very interesting empire though in as many ways advanced as they were backward!

The very idea of needing to be convinced that certain peoples are not sub-human seems incredible barely 150 years on doesn't it?

>105 justchris: Thank you Chris.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the discussions on the evils of slavery and its motivations and causations. Its completed eradication would be something wouldn't it?

>87 PaulCranswick: "touch base" such an American expression.

>98 PaulCranswick: Yes, ISLAMIC EMPIRES is commanding reading, with unknown marvels and bizarre terrors unfolding in nearly every paragraph.

If you find a copy, I will read it along with you, one who hopefully can answer a question for a Lutheran (Mother's Father was a Church Pastor) Buddhist
(which my daughter insists I cannot be because I use mouse traps to prevent more disasters).

The question: How can three major religions be based on Abraham,
a man who "sold" his wife twice,
who sent his son and mistress into the wilderness with nothing to sustain them,
and who, instead of turning his knife on himself, raised it to kill his son...?

>106 PaulCranswick:

Still not quite human? = just listen to many trump followers.

>99 PaulCranswick: I just realized I didn't address your question about enslaved Romans. My understanding is that most of the slave population came from within the Roman Empire itself, moreso than from conquered people. Roman agriculture was built on slave labor. People could be enslaved due to debt or criminal sentencing. It seemed like there was more fluidity in terms of being free, slave, or freed that could happen in the course of one lifetime or across the generations of a given family (or community), along with social status in terms of class and income levels. Thus, being enslaved not so much considered somehow an immutable trait or state of being but more a question of circumstances.

>108 dianeham: Hahaha indeed Diane. I guess you guys rub off on me!

>109 m.belljackson: I will let you know, Marianne, on the book.

I am not well qualified to answer theological questions, but I am not sure that they are exactly based on Abraham - they would surely argue that they were founded on God and that Abraham was a prophet to each of them - presumably meaning different things to each.

>101 PaulCranswick: There was certainly debate among Christians about the wisdom of converting slaves, because the more cynical could see the potential for a significant rethinking of the morality of enslavement, to the detriment of the institution. But those who regarded missionary effort as a moral imperative were in the majority, with the consequences the other side had feared. Methodism was particularly active in this area.

>105 justchris: I think that “cultural” genocide as practised in the Indigenous residential school system, while morally offensive, is not the same as genocide or slavery.

>108 dianeham: Doesn’t cricket have bases?

>109 m.belljackson: This reduction of Abraham’s story is puerile.

>116 booksaplenty1949: But is at base accurate and the values of women and children belonging to men and less valuable are still very much with us. The foundations matter.

>110 m.belljackson: Whatever happens that fellow is going to poll over 40% of the vote, so that is a large group of people to denigrate, Marianne.

There is some crazy stuff said on both sides to be quite honest and as a non-American, who happens to think that:
1) Your system is close to being broken;
2) Both your main candidates are hopeless

I don't honestly think that the world is a safer place to be than it was four years ago but I don't credit the orange wind-bag for that by the way. People are desperate and in desperate times......
On the one hand you have someone making statements that border on the intention to assume dictatorial powers and on the other incoherence.

Trump should not be allowed to stand for President due to the terrible and unbecoming way that he tried to frustrate the handover of power last time out. He is not fit to be President in the simple terms that he did not fulfill his oath to defend the constitution in that regard. Whether that is actionable or not, I am not qualified to say - but all this Stormy Daniels nonsense does the left no credit whatsoever, either and may prove counter productive.

Surely the USA can do better than these two.

>111 justchris: I think the misunderstanding I had was that the Roman citizenry was not enslaved by the Romans - at least not unless they lost that citizenry.

>113 booksaplenty1949: It isn't an area I am particularly au fait with to be honest but on the continents of America, Asia and Africa the consequences of missionary work both from Christianity and Islam was generally pernicious if some times well intended.

>114 booksaplenty1949: True but still correct to call it out.

>115 booksaplenty1949: Haha no it doesn't, but in cricket we do have what we call a crease in which the batsman has to "make his ground". Sort of the same principle. There is one just in front of each wicket (the three stumps at either end that the batsmen must cross to score a run.

>116 booksaplenty1949: I would have said a tad simplistic.

>117 quondame: From the Patriarch comes the patriarchy! I am not sure that it is alive and well in my household at least!

>119 PaulCranswick: Absolutely true about residential schools, but not, I think, about missionary efforts. I don’t think anyone is sorry that Aztecs are not cutting the heart out of a victim on a pyramid at sundown every day. One could multiply examples.

>120 PaulCranswick: I attended a cricket match once, in France, involving British and colonial ex-pats. I think they would have been happy to make it a somewhat casual affair but the umpire was a Sri Lankan who had officially qualified for this role via some sort of distance learning and was keen to ensure that everything was MCC kosher. A friendly Brit attempted to explain the game to me in depth but I have to admit that as the afternoon wore on, what with the game and the sun and the g&ts I sort of lapsed into a coma and missed the fine points, such as the lack of actual bases.

>123 booksaplenty1949: Believe it or not I have the same issue with the finer points of the American national pastimes.

>99 PaulCranswick: I've read that travel could be dangerous - pirates, and land-based brigands were happy to enslave as well as rob anyone they could catch. Or if the captive had a family with money, hold them for ransom.

What I'm remembering - without much detail - is a story that some now famous Roman got caught this way and eventually ransomed (he was upper class), and started making his name thereafter by leading aggressive efforts to put down piracy/brigandage.

Unfortunately, I don't currently remember who it was, but the context was history, not historical fiction.

Aha - Google is my friend. The Roman was Julius Caesar. See https://www.britannica.com/story/the-time-julius-caesar-was-captured-by-pirates

Another source of Roman slaves was abandoned children.

My source is The kindness of strangers : the abandonment of children in Western Europe from late antiquity to the Renaissance by John Boswell

Note that this book starts with late antiquity, well after the time of Julius Caesar.

>125 ArlieS: Believe it or not, I did know that one and that JC managed to charm the pirates and them turned against them.

>126 ArlieS: I honestly don't understand how anyone could abandon a child.

The book sorting in the new house is a laborious process. Almost 2 days down and I have sorted out A, B, H to L and my poetry. I estimate I am about a third of the way through.

KAIROS has won the International Booker Prize. Written by Jenny Erpenbeck. She shares the prize with her translator Michael Hofman.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-69046361

You are well into this thread before I had a chance to stop in and wish you a happy new one! I just can't keep up!

Paul i got some bad news- my school computer is being taken today and i wont be online much or even at all

>128 PaulCranswick: Is it fun to touch them? Do you have any “Why the hell am I hanging on to this one?” moments?

>124 PaulCranswick: The scoring system of tennis has been explained to me many times but my brain cannot take it in.

>130 thornton37814: Thank you, Lori. I am struggling to keep up myself - especially with house moving!

>131 Owltherian: That sucks.

>132 booksaplenty1949: Mostly they get loving caresses, but I do have a few which will be given away in early course.

>133 booksaplenty1949: I know the scoring of tennis of course, but I cannot remember how it was derived - presumably something to do with the pesky French.

>134 PaulCranswick: yeah, it does but i will try to beg my father to get LT on my phone.

I also have to go for the summer at 11:05 unless i go and eat lunch

>112 PaulCranswick: All three religions could have chosen a Superior Prophet = Joseph? Moses? Jesus? ...even Jonah? to follow.

Instead they chose this horrible example of "Manhood."

I read the Quran awhile back and am again finishing the Christian Bible - about 50 more pages of the New Testament to go...

...and I still do not get why Abraham is a sterling example to follow.

>116 booksaplenty1949: And True...read the Old Testament for Abraham facts.

Also wonder how Thomas King would answer that the destruction of the Indigenous soul is more than "morally offensive."

>118 PaulCranswick: Yes, the USA can do better, but Michelle Obama will not run.

Other supremely well qualified candidates are not rich enough to defeat "Make America Germany Around 1938"...

>136 Owltherian: I

>135 PaulCranswick: I think that the fact that love=nothing tells us all we need to know.

>137 m.belljackson: I think Hebrews 11: 8-19 will answer your last question, when you get to it.

>138 m.belljackson: Did someone destroy the indigenous soul? I must have missed that.

>127 PaulCranswick: Desperate poverty (i.e. can't feed them), or fear of the consequences of having a child out of wedlock - or in places like Romania under Ceausescu, simply having more than one wants/can handle and presumably believing that orphanages offer a decent life.

>137 m.belljackson: _If_ you believe that _obedience_ is a cardinal virtue, Abraham is your man.

He did what God told him to do, even at considerable expected personal cost.

I guess nothing else matters.

>145 ArlieS: The alternative is purporting to know better than God what is the right thing to do. Not really compatible with any form of religious belief.

>136 Owltherian: Internet on your phone does seem to be the answer, Lily.

>137 m.belljackson: Religion is a very sensitive issue, Marianne, and I would rather not pretend to be competent to criticize a leading prophet of three of the world's leading faiths.

>138 m.belljackson: I was taught even at school that we have to look beyond and behind the words to discern the intended meaning. I am too much of a thinker to be satisfied with the bare stories without asking myself why.

>139 m.belljackson: A country of several hundred million souls cannot do better and the only choice is an ex-first lady is has never held a political post in her life, albeit she is obviously a good person? A decent candidate and Trump beats himself.

>141 booksaplenty1949: Hahaha yes that is probably true!

>142 booksaplenty1949: Yikes now going off to see the reference.

>143 booksaplenty1949: I must admit to being lost, indigenous soul is a monotheistic term?

>144 ArlieS: Yes, Arlie, I suppose sometimes we must put ourselves in the shoes of those less fortunate than ourselves, but I still cannot comprehend the abandoning of children.

>145 ArlieS: A Muslim would call it submission to God.

>146 booksaplenty1949: I think it is important in life to be humble and self critical and I could certainly never compete with a Supreme Being (who I currently can hear is awaking from her slumbers!)

>146 booksaplenty1949: The problem of course is that in real life, we rarely (never?) get clear communications that we know come from a deity - instead we get messages from humans who purport to be relaying them from deity. Or we get dreams and such, which might just be our own subconscious acting up.

>152 ArlieS: The fact remains that it is a waste of time, not to mention quite offensive, for those who reject revealed religion to offer advice to those who do not about how to practise their faith. Let’s agree to stay in our lanes.

>150 PaulCranswick: No idea what m bell was talking about, actually. Thomas King a so-so contemporary novelist of First Nations background.

>152 ArlieS: I will do my best to follow Hani's every word and command, Arlie, and then I shouldn't run into too much trouble.

>153 booksaplenty1949: I think we can agree that religion is a very sensitive subject and I always do my best not to upset anyone's sensibilities in this regard. I think we can debate issues and ask questions but religion is one to tread carefully with and it wasn't a topic I began either.

>154 booksaplenty1949: I will admit that the reference went over my head completely. I thought that as a non-American I was missing an obvious reference.

Happy newish thread, Paul. I hope the move is going well and you've been able to get more book cataloguing done.

>157 Familyhistorian: Back to work today, Meg, so my progress was a bit slow.

>106 PaulCranswick: The very idea of needing to be convinced that certain peoples are not sub-human seems incredible barely 150 years on doesn't it?

I am currently reading The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson's newest nonfiction release about the U.S. Civil War, and in which he mentions how 2 men had "proven" that black people were not even human - that they are a separate species altogether. All I could do was shake my head that anyone would believe such nonsense.

>118 PaulCranswick: I agree with both point 1 (and have thought so for quite a while now) and point 2 (neither Biden or especially Trump is someone for whom I will vote). I have been voting independent for I have no idea how many years now.

>129 PaulCranswick: I had seen that news elsewhere and just sighed. It is highly unlikely that my local library will ever get a copy. I broke down and ordered 2 of the books from the 2024 Women's Prizes books, one fiction and one nonfiction, as it appears that my local library is never going to get them.

Happy whatever, Paul!

>156 PaulCranswick: King has written an informal history of indigenous-“settler” relations in North America.

*Waving* hello before it's too late to comment on this thread. Hope you have a good day!

>159 alcottacre: It is amazing isn't it how ignorant people were especially about each other barely 150 years ago.

It does pain me to see the mess that the US and the UK are in politically - there seems no direction, no pride, no fortitude and no willingness to work hard for the country.

>160 booksaplenty1949: I must admit that he is a writer that I am not particularly familiar with and I don't believe that his books are readily available in Malaysia.

>161 bell7: It is never too late to say hello, Mary. I treasure all your visits dear lady. x

>159 alcottacre: I think we have many examples more recent eg the Shoah. Racial theories are generally adopted for self-serving reasons, not as rational analyses.

>155 PaulCranswick: Abraham of the Three Religions is definitely based on Faith, not his facts as revealed in Genesis.

(and then, there are the Doubters in other religions or atheists or agnostics who still are concerned
about a god who tells you to murder your son. When kids say 'Dad, you wouldn't do that, would you?!? ...)

The Inconvenient Indian is Thomas King's inspiring book. Many wish that he would update it!

>162 PaulCranswick: It is amazing to me how ignorant people still are, Paul. We see it everywhere here in the U.S. these days.

It does pain me to see the mess that the US and the UK are in politically I could not agree more!

>164 booksaplenty1949: Oh, yes, I know. How many people during the Civil War deluded themselves into thinking that the slaves were happy? How many people throughout history have deluded themselves into thinking a "different" people were not human or less than they themselves were just because the others were "different?"

>164 booksaplenty1949: Racial theories are definitely not empirically supported when attempting to establish the superiority of one over another.

>165 m.belljackson: Abraham the founder of religion whose example showed his faith and submission in God and whose faith was rewarded by being shown the true path. That is what he is meant to represent rather than the literal simplification offered. Not really sure, Marianne, why the subject came up.

>166 alcottacre: We have an election upcoming in the UK where the voters are being asked to chose between two sides a significant minority are opposed to both.

>168 PaulCranswick: In the parliamentary system a “significant minority” can be represented and, if no party wins a majority, exercise considerable influence on government policy. In the American system—-not one, I note, which any other democracy has chosen to follow—-a vote for a third party candidate, rather than for the red/blue candidate you dislike less—-is a vote wasted. Ralph Nader’s supporters ensured George Bush II got elected. Probably did not forward any causes they believed in.

>169 booksaplenty1949: Britain's parliamentary system has been effectively a two party system although the two parties in that system have evolved from Tories and Whigs to Conservatives and Liberals to Labour and Conservatives (the last 122 years for the latter). Our first past the post system (which America sort of adopted) means that the geographically concentrated support for one of the two parties effectively keeps the smaller parties away from being properly represented. Greens, Lib Dems, Reform probably have 30% support between them and 4% of the seats.

>171 OwItherian: Heads up. This is a spoof of Owl/Lily.

>167 PaulCranswick: Related, no surprise, to informed ISLAMIC EMPIRES.

>171 OwItherian: Hatred is a bad thing

>172 drneutron: Thanks Jim, I did quickly notice the slightly different moniker.

>173 m.belljackson: Ah I see.

>170 PaulCranswick: Well, I’m not a fan of proportional representation. Generally means that no one has a majority and someone must cobble together votes with the support of the One Issue Nutbar Party. Watching Borgen convinced me that first past the post works okay. US uses it for elections to its legislative bodies; the system of electing a President is, however, unique and uniquely terrible.

>176 booksaplenty1949: The electoral college is one of those robust engines of class discriminations that still run in the US. With the current "fad" in our Judicial system for "originalist" interpretations of our Constitution, and thus all laws and standards, there isn't much chance of removing it before I die, I'm sure. If you're curious, there's a marvelous book, The Founding Myth, that gives a lot of background to the current US political and social maelstrom. I think Andrew Seidel has a second book out, but I haven't had the bandwidth to look for it and read it. I read The Founding Myth twice in succession.

>176 booksaplenty1949: The two parties in the UK seem to have converged on a lot of issues which makes a choice between them usually a choice between its leaders and to cast blame on the incumbent.

>177 Murphy-Jacobs: A system whereby essentially it is a choice between two candidates, it seems somewhat specious that the one with less votes between the two can actually win the election.

>178 PaulCranswick: The Founding Fathers were good in many ways, but they were landed gentry determined to preserve their power. Like any landed gentry, they feared those who were not of their "class", who did not share their particular views and values, and therefore when they spoke of freedom and democracy and all that, they had asterisks all over the place.

>179 Murphy-Jacobs: They did a decent job in the same year that the French were tearing themselves apart. As a result their deliberations and formulations have largely stood the test of time - especially with the exercise of a modicum of common sense.

I understand the idea of trying to discern what the Founding Fathers intended but the passage of 235 years means that there also needs to be a sensible application of those intentions to fit modern times.

Here's the Memorial Day readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/361025

>181 SilverWolf28: Thank you, Silver

Interesting discussions going on here, I don't have anything to add. Wishing you a good weekend and I hope you get your books sorted.

>177 Murphy-Jacobs: Just curious, does Seidel address the situation that without the Electoral College the 7-8 largest cities on the east/west coasts would elect the president?

>184 Tess_W: As opposed to the so-called “swing states,” where candidates focus their campaigning?
Looking further into this, I see that only 3 of the 8 most populous cities in the US are on the east or west coast. Or did you mean most populous of those *on* the east or west coast? Still confused as to why either would be a decisive factor in a direct election for President.

>184 Tess_W: Thank you.

>183 avatiakh: Thank you, Kerry. I bought another Catherine Chidgey this afternoon.

>184 Tess_W: But surely, Tess, the candidate with the most votes across the whole of the USA should be President? I get that all the states need to feel included in a Federal system but I don't see how they aren't included if all their citizens' votes get counted.

>185 booksaplenty1949: The two main seaboards are seen as housing the liberal elites of the USA, I suppose, but I don't see how they sway the election one way or another if every single voter gets one vote each.

>186 hredwards: I would have thought though, Harold, that the winner takes all version of the electoral college system probably results in conservatives not voting in liberal areas and vice versa. Surely if all the votes cast were simply counted then no one could possibly feel that their vote was wasted.

>189 PaulCranswick: The States with the biggest populations would get more votes than the smaller states, therefore the states with the least population votes would not count.
You'd have every election chosen by the most populous states with the less populous states not having any vote basically.
The Electoral College is designed to even it out.
I am not a fan of politics.

>190 hredwards: I have seen that theory posited often, Harold, but I just don't see the logic in it. How does a Republican voters vote count in NY or in California or a Democrats' in Louisiana?
If there is no Electoral College at all then the states are not at all choosing the President, the people are.

>191 PaulCranswick: Which is why the system's set up the way it is: THEY don't want a plethora of candidates to run because then THEY can't do the nominating.

>185 booksaplenty1949: Don't know, that's why I asked the question. I did read that if we nix the electoral college, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other large population cities would more than likely "elect" the president. Even if you add the population of 7-8 small states, that would not equal the population of NY. (about 8 million?) So in fact, NY would have a much larger part to play than the smaller states. It is the feeling that the east/west coast does not represent the heartland (middle) of America. That's why our founding fathers chose that the House would be based on population we well as the electoral college. As for me, not arguing any point. I simply asked a question to determine if it would be worth my while to read the book!

If every voter had one vote, then each vote would count equally. As it currently stands the number of voters represented by one electoral vote in Texas is about three times the number represented by one electoral vote in Wyoming. Before we get to the fact that the “winner take all” system leads to the situation described by Mr Cranswick in 191 above.

>193 Tess_W: Well, there was no “west coast” when the Constitution was written, and barely any “heartland,” so I doubt this was the motivation. The slave states were of course keen that the House be “rep by pop,” because a slave counted as 3/5 of a person even though he or she couldn’t vote. I think the Electoral College was about the dangers of democracy. They were not initially obligated to vote for anyone specific, after all. They were supposed to debate the issues.

>188 PaulCranswick: Paul, I'm not touting either, just asking a question to determine if I would be interested in reading the book! And no, being a student of history, and having read and studied the constitution and the Federalist Papers as well, I am not ready to commit to a one man, one vote system; i.e. democracy--there are multiple issues. We are a republic. I could/can be convinced, if certain issues are addressed, but I doubt they will be in my lifetime! Didn't mean to start a debate!

>191 PaulCranswick: Paul: see this: https://imgflip.com/i/2wqivt

Personally, I being in Missouri want a voice in how my country is run and don't want the East Coast or West Coast telling me how it should be.
They already treat middle America like we don't count/don't know anything. It's always the Liberals that want to do away with the Electoral College, for exactly that reason. Our Founding Fathers were a lot wiser than they are given credit for.
and that's why I hate political discussion. I come here to learn about books and enjoy reading and the discussion of books. Not politics, I get enough of that on the news.
Sorry, this is my opinion. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program...

>198 hredwards: Well said and your opinion is nothing to feel sorry for expressing and in fact I am writing this with gratitude.

>187 PaulCranswick: Oh which Chidgey did you find? I need to read her The Axeman's Carnival as it gets good reviews.

>192 richardderus: It seems a machine thing rather than an attempt at getting the best Presidential candidate.

>193 Tess_W: No and I think you raised a very good and interesting point, Tess. Personally, I think the issue of State rights and influence and the office of the President have become somewhat conflated.

>194 booksaplenty1949: Yes that is surely the case is it not?

>195 booksaplenty1949: From what I can see, the slaves didn't seem to feature very heavily in the Founding Fathers thinking when it came to drafting the constitution. John Adams was vehemently anti-slavery but he didn't have sufficient caucus to carry the day against the Virginian and Southern slave owners also in positions of power and influence.

>196 Tess_W: I do appreciate that, Tess. I am not a huge fan of winner takes all systems myself as I think it results in areas where one party holds sway over the other, those with differing views feel disenfranchised. My point is not a leftist or even centrist point of view and I don't have a "pig-in-the-poke" so to speak in the US elections.

>197 Tess_W: I will go and watch this shortly and come back. x

That is a hugely interesting population map, Tess, but I still don't quite follow the logic that, for a presidential election, if each person gets one vote each irrespective of which city they live in or which state they are from, why this means that the people of individually smaller states are somehow disadvantaged. I'm not being obtuse but I genuinely don't see how that is the case.

>198 hredwards: Harold as you know I will discuss anything that is brought up - although books rightly remain my priority and the source of much annoyance for my good wife at the moment as I continue to slowly get them all sorted out!

I do think that there is a difference between the promotion of and the preservation of state rights (which I am a believer in if you are to maintain a federal system - the UK does not have a federal system) and the election of the office of President.

You may see from other comments I have made that I am no longer a fan of huge government and not of economic globalisation. I have come to the view propounded by Schumacher that "small is beautiful". There are constitutional limits on the office of the President and you have your separation of powers. The Federal government's roles and tasks should be more clearly articulated and bound and the states' rights similarly so. Some things are obviously better off decided in Wachita than Washington.
That said I don't really see how the states lose anything by a simple one person one vote for a federal officer which is the President and head of the executive branch after all.

>199 mdoris: I do agree with Harold that the liberal elites seem to look down on middle America as if they somehow count less, intended or otherwise. The Senate has its hundred seats (2 per state) and some might argue that the smaller states are therefore over represented in the Senate but it seems to work in practice. My point was more to do with first past the post systems in which people are effectively disenfranchised rather than on the electoral college itself. I am sure some hybrid would help to make all peoples votes count.

>200 avatiakh: The one you mentioned, Kerry!

Yesterday lunchtime mini additions:

141. Ada's Realm by Sharon Dodua Otoo
142. The Axeman's Carnival by Catherine Chidgey

>201 PaulCranswick: I have to say that when I looked up how many countries directly elect their head of government the number was surprisingly small. Most of them seem to be in South America and that hasn’t worked out particularly well as far as I can see. Most countries have a system where voters elect their local representatives and these representatives choose the head of government in some way. Not sure why the drafters of the American Constitution didn’t go with some version of the parliamentary system but I gather they hoped to avoid the creation of political parties. A dream that died quite quickly. I guess taking sides is more appealing to human beings than achieving consensus. Too bad.

>202 PaulCranswick: I think the issue of slavery was hugely influential in the drafting of the US Constituion. “Checks and balances” were meant to ensure that opposing views on the subject could somehow be reconciled in day-to-day governance. A fantasy.

>204 PaulCranswick: No one would argue, surely, that smaller states are NOT over-represented in the Senate, which is also the body where members are elected for six years rather than two ie they do not have to spend most of their time thinking about raising money to get re-elected.
I would of course prefer to be talking about books. Maybe I will read Advise and Consent

>207 booksaplenty1949: Yes that is interesting isn't it? In the UK we do not vote for the Prime Minister at all and elect only local representatives on a first past the post system. Whichever party is able to form a government will determine who will be Prime Minister. Certainly not an ideal situation in my view.

I do think that the two party system - both in the UK and the US are a chain around the necks of the voters.

>208 booksaplenty1949: Perhaps. I don't know enough about the thought processes and motivations of the drafters of the document to really comments other than some were slave owners and some were not.

>209 booksaplenty1949: Yes, Harold is right that books are a far safer and generally more interesting subject but elections are certainly of consequence. If I was American I would be an advocate of state rights and I don't see anything wrong with having one part of the legislature formed in that manner. I do think many issues are best left to local decision making and that the federal or central government's role should be distinct and different.

>211 PaulCranswick: As to the theory of states rights there may be some good arguments. In practice it has been used to keep elites in power and to disenfranchise "unwanted" voters. I'm not sure if that's the sort of results you favor.

>212 quondame: No Susan, you haven't read the summation of my posts. I am saying that for Presidential elections I don't see how one person one vote has anything to do with states rights. The minorities in each "safe" state irrespective of party who favour the other side have effectively no say in the election - be that a Republican in San Francisco (the state was 63% Democrat last time) or a Democrat in Cheyenne, Wyoming (69.94% Republican in that state last time).

I was referring to the electoral college system and not state rights. Governments the world over are too big and spend way more than they generate in revenue which is unsustainable over time. Many issues are best decided at a local level. Those are the state rights I am talking about within the framework of the US Constitution.

>213 PaulCranswick: Yet in >211 PaulCranswick: you say you would be an advocate of states right, and that is what I was responding specifically to that statement. They were very much a Constitutional sop to the elite of the southern states. Local administration is not the same as local flouting of national policy, which is very much the way states rights are, whatever they were intended to be.

>214 quondame: I'm not talking about historical hang-ups, Susan, I am talking about the common sense of deciding local matters locally. Remember I am not American and I am a believer in looking forwards rather than backwards in order to achieve progress.
I never mentioned the flouting of national policy - I am saying that the Federal government should have its defined role and the States theirs, but each is constantly treading on the toes of the other.

It’s usually a financial issue: If you want federal financial assistance with health care, education, roads, etc you have to adhere to federal standards. Seems reasonable.

>170 PaulCranswick: I think the British system allows for more representation than the US one; as you point out, the Liberals gave way to Labour - but they're still in politics, having helped to form coalition governments in the not so distant past. And for the Green Party to consistently get one or two seats at least? (sorry - not a history student and currently hold no right to vote in any country, so I follow politics even less avidly than before) each election is pretty solid. It is, at least, a three-horse race because that third horse can have an effect on the final governance.

From the outside looking in, the US system seems locked in its current form because it costs millions to campaign - to run for local election, for the right to head the party, for the national elections ... So, effectively, only the rich can afford to run, which of course, skews the outlook of the government. It seems odd, to me, that people raise money for politicians to run their campaigns when I'm used to (when I lived in the UK) toddling up the road to cast a vote for the local representative - or, given I usually haven't heard of them, the party whose policies seem most friendly. And probably spend my money in the High Street on the way back.

>216 booksaplenty1949: Yeah, I am not sure which services should be federal and which should be state wide but there is a division and there is no reason whatsoever why money cannot be raised at the local level.

>217 humouress: I don't think that there is much difference between the UK and the US when t comes to representation. It will be Labour or Conservative in the UK and Dem or Rep in the USA.

>218 PaulCranswick: But it’s difficult to justify that poor areas should have inferior schools, bad roads, and no libraries or local health care while affluent areas have top-drawer public services. This just perpetuates social inequality.

I'm having a crisis of conscience as to what to vote in the election. I'm a member of the Green Party, who very surprisingly gained control of the local council at the last local election but have no history of a big vote in a general election. And so usually I would vote for them, especially as our constituency has such a big Conservative majority that to be honest it doesn't usually matter who I vote for. But this time they are predicting such a big swing from Conservatives to Labour that there is just a chance that the Conservative candidate might lose. And she is not a popular MP locally, her own constituency executive tried to deselect her). But it's probably only the tiniest chance ...

>220 SandDune: So why do you want to help her hang on to her seat at the expense of supporting the party you actually prefer?

>219 booksaplenty1949: There is no evidence to suggest that state wide solutions to problems need necessarily be less effective than federal solutions. Has the federal government done such a sterling job to date?

>220 SandDune: I really don't much care for the first past the post system, Rhian. I have been a member of the Labour Party since my teens but there have been time, especially in the Blair years, when they have lost the plot. I could see the Green Party offering a radical alternative to politics as usual but they have little or no chance to effect change with the system as it is. Hence your quandary on tactical voting.

>221 booksaplenty1949: I think that the point Rhian was making that she was thinking of voting Labour instead of her preferred choice in order to get rid of the Conservative MP.

>223 PaulCranswick: Duh! Of course. SMH.

>222 PaulCranswick: It’s true that a mainstream party can lose the plot, but at least there’s a plot to lose. Small one issue parties are often the creatures of a forceful leader or a small cadre whose ideological base is unclear, or a work in progress.

>224 booksaplenty1949: :D

>225 booksaplenty1949: In the UK there are probably 5 national parties that merit consideration to some degree. The Conservatives (currently the Government and sort of right of centre), the Labour Party (my party and sort of left of centre but to varying degrees), the Liberals or Liberal Democrats (supposedly centrist but occasionally with a quite attractively radical agenda), the Green Party (Rhian mentioned who propose policies geared towards the environment but whose policy positions on other issues can be a tad quirky) and the Reform Party (the current incarnation of a right wing party that is anti-immigration at its core). To be fair I do think that these are distinct choices but in reality only Labour and Conservative have a serious chance of forming the government hence plenty of tactical voting.
Of course in Scotland and Wales there are nationalist parties that have areas of concentrated support.

>226 PaulCranswick: As I mentioned earlier, in countries with Proportional Representation it is common for no one party to get a majority, so leaders compete to create a coalition. In the UK this might mean the leader of the Labour Party trying to create a legislative agenda with the support of the Greens and the Reform Party. In the Borgen TV series I mentioned the PM had to govern with the help of some very sketchy one-issue parties, based, I gather on real parties in Denmark. I did not find that prospect attractive.

>227 booksaplenty1949: I don't foresee circumstances that Labour and Reform could work together - the Greens and the Liberals perhaps. The Conservatives with Reform and the Liberals at a stretch.

I did watch Borgen and thought it great television.

>228 PaulCranswick: Logically you would be right about possible/impossible alliances, but stranger things happened in Denmark, apparently.

>198 hredwards: Challenging to not discuss politics on a War Thread...

>230 m.belljackson: I can’t remember if war is politics by other means or the other way round.

>229 booksaplenty1949: Well yes that is true - the pursuit of power will make people do very strange things.

>230 m.belljackson: Is Ithis a war thread, Marianne? It isn't intended to be given up solely to conflict!

>231 booksaplenty1949: I think it works both ways!

>232 PaulCranswick: I dunno - just went with the WAR ROOM title!

>233 PaulCranswick: 👍

>232 PaulCranswick: A lot of energy currently being expended on boycotts, name changes etc to reassure ourselves that we are not enjoying/supporting/benefitting from anything that has any connection with bad people. Unfortunately in this fallen world saints are in very short supply.

>234 m.belljackson: And this is the 14th thread of the year....has it all been about war, Marianne?

>235 booksaplenty1949: Sad but true.

>236 booksaplenty1949: I agree with that too.

>223 PaulCranswick: I think that the point Rhian was making that she was thinking of voting Labour instead of her preferred choice in order to get rid of the Conservative Yes exactly! Usually I wouldn't bother about this, as the Conservative majority is very large in this constituency and I wouldn't usually consider that they could be beaten. But with the current very large lead that Labour has in the polls it might just be possible.

I would like to live somewhere where my vote was going to make a difference. I think the Conservatives will almost certainly still win here ...

>237 PaulCranswick: As one of your favorite outliers, notably adverse to violence, murder, horror...

when the War theme was introduced, I only rarely posted, so cannot offer an answer to your question.

>240 m.belljackson: Reminded of the scene in The Life Of Brian where everyone is singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” One approach, certainly.

>196 Tess_W: This could be a very interesting debate, but, sadly, would be far more likely to engage emotions in all the worst ways. I'm currently biting my metaphorical tongue to keep myself from posting more substantively about political systems.

Perhaps next year we could have a challenge for reading about political systems; discussing what-the-author-said or what-they-did-in-historical-place-and-time rather than what-is-obviously-right-to-us might give us enough emotional distance.

>242 ArlieS: Trollope certainly made political life an unexpectedly entertaining subject for fiction. Also enjoyed All the King’s Men and The Manchurian Candidate.

New Zealand has had MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) since the early 1990s, there are still electorates but also Lists. The voter gets two votes, one for their electorate and then a Party vote. Your party gets a seat in parliament once over the 5% of vote. This sounds great on paper but not so much in reality.
You get a list only kingmaker party such as the one that went with Labour in 2017 instead of National which had won the most seats in the election but needed a few extra seats to form a majority. We have never been told what the agreement was between Labour and the NZFirst party. The latest election (2023) saw the NZFirst party deciding to go with National.
At least in Germany and Israel the party that wins the most seats gets the first chance to form a government. Here it was a small party holding our country to ransom.
We also have 7 Maori seats and a Maori electoral roll. Anyone with an oz of Maori blood can go on this roll which ensures Maori representation in parliament since 1867. These seats are no longer needed as many New Zealander MPs have Maori heritage.

>243 booksaplenty1949: All have to look into those books.

>239 SandDune: I do think some form of PR instead of First Past The Post would help make many of us feel that our votes truly counted.

>240 m.belljackson: Ok Marianne but it was introduced as a reading challenge not as the permanent and singular topic on my personal threads.

>241 booksaplenty1949: Hahaha what a great moment in cinematographic history!

>242 ArlieS: That would be an interesting book challenge, Arlie, although I am not certain that I will have the "legs" for hosting another challenge next year.

>243 booksaplenty1949: A favourite book of mine related to politics would be Fame is the Spur by Howard Spring.

>244 avatiakh: So it is a case of "be careful what you wish for" Kerry?
The original point came up because of the use of an electoral college between the states in the election of a President where you are electing a person not a party per se.

>245 ArlieS: A list of books on politics is something that I will ponder upon, Arlie.

>247 PaulCranswick: OMG What?! Pull yourself together, man.

>245 ArlieS: Do. Especially rewarding as they inspired first-rate movie versions.

>248 PaulCranswick: Will certainly look into getting ahold of Spring’s book.

>249 PaulCranswick: I'd personally like to separate political theory (and systems) from day to day politics. At a guess, there are far more books about J Random Politician and/or Why-Policy-X-Is-Good/Bad than about the constitutional systems in which their activities take place.

I fear that a list that just specialized in politics would be drowned in biographies/exposes of favorite/hated leaders, not to mention books by those leaders advertising both themselves and their preferred policies.

>250 booksaplenty1949: Hahaha mid year ennui.

>251 booksaplenty1949: They were good films indeed.

>252 booksaplenty1949: On the rise of a fictional Labour politician.

>253 ArlieS: Well I was thinking about "political" novels, Arlie, in the main.

>248 PaulCranswick: A lot of people with buyers remorse on our MMP system. We chose it via referendum and it could be better with a few tweaks.

>256 avatiakh: It is very difficult probably, Kerry, to find a voting system that works wholly satisfactorily but at least men and women do get to vote these days!

Read “It Had to be Murder”, the short story on which Hitchcock based his movie Rear Window. Reminded me that it is often the case that inferior works of fiction make better movies than literary classics. A movie cannot capture all the nuances of the writer’s craft, even if time permits the inclusion of all the characters and details of the plot—-not often the case when it comes to 19thC fiction, at least. If the main plot outline is the best feature of a work of fiction otherwise lacking literary merit, it may be better suited to the big screen than would a superior work of art.
The main character in Woolrich’s story is given no back story and has no personal interest for us, and instead of Grace Kelly we have his houseman Sam, who would be right at home in Gone with the Wind. Read the short story apropos of seeing a play based on it—-also heavily adapted and borrowing some elements of the movie version. All very “meta.”

>258 booksaplenty1949: Not always true of course but some fairly inconsequential books have made great movies for sure.

Almost done with my Napoleon read. Thanks, The Battle won the Prix Goncourt and I'm always willing to read an award winner. This is a good book, the horror and glory of battle is always interesting to read.
Now looking toward the English Civil War. Alan Moore devoted a chapter or so to Cromwell and family in his epic Jerusalem.

Hi Paul, hope you are well!

I am not a fan of the electoral college, for a multitude of reasons; but of course any change would be difficult to manage. I used to always think that a parlimentary system would be better than ours, but then I watched "Borgen" and it seemed there's plenty of room for corruption in that system also. I guess it's never pleasant watching sausage being made.

>261 banjo123: Borgen is specifically about Denmark, which has proportional representation, unlike the British parliamentary system as used in many countries worldwide. Of course no system of human government will be immune from corruption, but the winning party in the British parliamentary system has a better chance of carrying out the legislative program it campaigned on.

>260 avatiakh: The English Civil War was of course none too civil, Kerry and I am looking forward to it too! I really need to find The Battle.

>261 banjo123: I suppose, Rhonda, that there are faults in all systems but it does seem to me that the electoral college for the Presidential election tends to produce results that are disputed and also perverse. How does someone get more votes in a two horse race and still lose?

>264 PaulCranswick: Corruption will always hover at the edges of any system but I think one needs to decide what do you want from your system. Strong and effective government or a parliament that more closely represents the actual wishes of the populace?

>261 banjo123: Hi Paul! How are you doing? Moving as well? I found out that you need two bookboxes per meter bookshelf. Good luck sorting.
I will refrain from commenting about parliamentary systems, as Holland is finding itself in the strangest of situations. The leader of the biggest party is not allowed to become MP (thank God!), the next candidate is found to have a black spot, and a next next is not found yet. Fun and games.

>264 PaulCranswick: <cynic> Or perhaps just whatever government is most beneficial to the elite owners members of society</cynic>

More seriously, elite interests are always over-represented; the only real questions are "by how much" and "how much harm do those elite interests do to the overall society".

A good government is one where the privileged provide proportionately more value for the benefits they receive, and are limited in their ability to arbitrarily abuse everyone else.

>265 EllaTim: Harold has the right idea, Ella! Politics the world over, and for a variety of different reasons is in a mess.
Good calculating on the bookboxes and I share with you the pain of moving house!

>266 ArlieS: Yes, Arlie, there is some cynicism there but not entirely misplaced cynicism either!

Hi Paul! I started reading The Frozen Thames today. Feeling less stoic today.

>268 dianeham: I haven't read that one, Diane, but I did read Coventry a few years ago and thought it quite good.

Keep your chin up dear lady. Your friends are here for you. xx

>199 mdoris: Thank you.

>270 hredwards: You're welcome!

Have a wonderful whatever you're having, PC!

>270 hredwards: Lovely to see you as always, Harold.

>271 mdoris: Et tu, Mary

>272 richardderus: Thanks RD. I am still recovering from the house move and my back is still aching from lifting, shifting and sifting my book collection.

The June BAC thread is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/361107

Thanks Amanda. I will go and check it out.

>269 PaulCranswick: The Frozen Thames is a good read and short, Paul. I've never read Coventry and should probably remedy that sometime.

I read anything I can get my mitts on by Helen Humphreys. Finished Followed by the Lark recently and it was good!

>277 Familyhistorian: I found Coventry interesting, Meg, partly because I lived there when I was at university at Warwick.

>278 mdoris: She is not easy to find in Malaysia. Hopefully, I will have news on moving back to the UK fairly soon.

Keep us posted on your news back to the UK Paul! I'm sure we all want you to meet your beautiful grand-daughter in person!

>280 mdoris: Will do Mary, of course. I can share some Nami/Pip news already in that Yasmyne plans to bring her here on 24th June 2024 so I don't have too long to wait.

Oh that is good news!

>282 mdoris: I am pretty excited actually, Mary. Of course, Yasmyne wants her dad to buy the flight tickets!

>283 PaulCranswick: Ha, ha, same old story, I know it well!

>284 mdoris: The dad is a softie so I know full well that I will be paying.

>285 PaulCranswick: Isn’t that what dads are for?

>281 PaulCranswick: That is great news, Paul!

>286 booksaplenty1949: Pretty much, I guess!

>287 FAMeulstee: I am excited already.

Yeah for dads! 🎉

>285 PaulCranswick: Expect to see pictures!!

Glad you have finished the move (save the books) and that you are going to have a visitor soon! Yes, we expect pictures. : )

>289 mdoris: And especially Grandads!

>290 hredwards: For sure, Harold.

>291 Berly: Thank you, Kimmers. Lovely to see you. Pictures will be plentiful for sure.

>292 PaulCranswick: Agree whole heartedly....especially Grandads!

Glad you are able to see your granddaughter soon. I may have missed it in another thread but is the baby's father still in the picture and stepping up to his role?

>294 mdoris: Indeed, Mary.

>295 figsfromthistle: Yes he is still with them, Anita. I don't know about stepping up to his role but he is helping to take care of Pip while Yasmyne is working but he isn't generating any income at the moment and is still waiting for the finalisation of long term visa papers in the UK.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/361148

>297 SilverWolf28: Thanks Silver. I desperately need this one as I am having a pretty disastrous reading month with work and my moving house.

>298 PaulCranswick: Work and domestic responsibilities eating into your reading time? Far be it from me to comment on your priorities, however inexplicable they may seem to some. But we will look forward to a time when reading can once again assume its rightful place in your day’s schedule. 🙂

>299 booksaplenty1949: Hahaha exactly!

Friday lunchtime additions:

143. The Guest by Emma Cline
144. The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt

>301 PaulCranswick: I love that you are moving house and still purchasing books!

>302 thornton37814: The shelves are almost done so I need to fill in a few spaces!

>303 PaulCranswick: I recall once my father having an adverse reaction to mixing a glass of wine with some medication he was taking. It was temporary but frightening and he tottered away from the table towards the sofa convinced, I’m sure, that he might be on his last legs. But as he assumed the horizontal position he reached out for a book he saw lying on the coffee table. We may be going out, but we’ll be going out reading.

>304 booksaplenty1949: Yes, I'm pretty sure that a book will need to be prised from my dying fingers.

>304 booksaplenty1949: Good for him!

I recall my mom, rereading favorite books for the last time, knowing she was dying. (She was in hospice care at the time, or about to be.)

>306 ArlieS: That is very poignant, Arlie.

I don't know if would go for rereads in a similar situation or go for ones on my bucket list that I hadn't gotten to yet. I'd probably mix them.

>181 SilverWolf28: Exciting grandpa.