SandDune's 75 in 2013 Episode 9

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Charlas75 Books Challenge for 2013

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SandDune's 75 in 2013 Episode 9

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2SandDune
Editado: Dic 21, 2013, 3:11 pm

Books Read in 2013:

1. The Lighthouse Alison Moore *****
2. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Alison Bechdel ***1/2
3. Clueless Dogs Rhian Edwards ***
4. Swimming Home Deborah Levy ****
5. Narcopolis Jeet Thayil **
6. Harriet Elizabeth Jenkins ****
7. Dotter of her Father's Eyes Mary Talbot Bryan Talbot ***1/2
8. Perelandra C.S.Lewis **1/2
9. The Last Sunset Bob Atkinson ***
10. Bring up the Bodies Hilary Mantel ****
11. The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making Catherynne M. Valente ***1/2
12. Pure Andrew Miller***1/2
13. The Garden of Evening Mists *****
14. Umbrella Will Self ****
15. Sixpence House Paul Collins **1/2
16. Father Christmas Raymond Briggs ***1/2
17. Tooth and Claw Jo Walton *****
18. The Lost Dog Michelle de Kretser ***1/2
19. Ethel and Ernest Raymond Briggs ****
20. When the Wind Blows Raymond Briggs ***1/2
21. My Dog Tulip J. R. Ackerley ****
22. Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury ***
23. The White Mountains John Christopher ***1/2
24. The City of Gold and Lead John Christopher ****
25. Moon over Soho Ben Aaronovitch ***1/2
26. The Pool of Fire John Christopher ***
27. The Unknown Bridesmaid Margaret Forster *****
28. Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward ****1/2
29. Angel Elizabeth Taylor ***
30. Black Swan Green David Mitchell ***1/2
31. The Chrysalids John Wyndham ****1/2
32. The Last Family in England Matt Haig ***1/2
33. Foreigner C.J. Cherryh ****
34. Blooming Books Nicolette Jones Raymond Briggs ***
35. The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff Margaret Forster ****
36. Ignorance Michele Roberts ***
37. Redshirts John Scalzi ****
38. The Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler ****
39. The Untied Kingdom Kate Johnson ***1/2
40. Shards of Honor Lois McMaster Bujold ****
41. This Boy Alan Johnson ****
42. The Humans Matt Haig ***1/2
43. And When Did You Last See Your Father? Blake Morrison ****
44. Anne of Green Gables L.M.Montgomery ****
45. The Warden Anthony Trollope ****1/2
46. The Detour Gerbrand Bakker ***
47. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair Nina Sankovitch **1/2
48. Delphine Richard Sala ***
49. Where You Once Belonged Kent Haruf ****
50. Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope *****
51. Boy James Hanley **1/2
52. Divergent Veronica Roth ***1/2
53. How I Won the Yellow Jumper Ned Boulting ***1/2
54. Dracula Bram Stoker ****
55. Island of Wings Karin Altenberg ***
56. Dark Eden Chris Beckett ****
57. The Gone-Away World Nick Harkaway ****
58. Where'd you go, Bernadette Maria Semple **1/2
59. A madness of Angels Kate Griffin ****
60. The Last of the Vostyachs Diego Marani ****1/2
61. A Long Walk to Wimbledon H.R. Keating ***1/2
62. A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki ***
63. The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman *****
64. The Damned Busters Matthew Hughes **
65. The President's Hat Antoine Laurain ***1/2
66. Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad *****
67. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot ***
68. Queen Lucia E.F.Benson ****
69. The Fortnight in September R.C.Sheriff***1/2
70. The Small Mine Menna Gallie ****
71. My Antonia Willa Cather **1/2
72. Maggie a Girl of the Streets Stephen Crane ***
73. Feet in Chains Kate Roberts ***1/2
74. The Meat Tree Gwyneth Lewis ***1/2
75. The Owl Service Alan Garner ****1/2
76. Ammonite Nicola Griffith ***1/2
77. The Awakening Kate Chopin ***
78. Suite Francaise Irene Nemirovsky *****
79. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert ****
80. Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy ***1/2
81. Five Children and It Edith Nesbit ***1/2
82. The Phoenix and the Carpet Edith Nesbit
***1/2
83. The Story of the Amulet Edith Nesbit ***1/2
84. Northanger Abbey Jane Austen *****
85. Union Street Pat Barker
86. The Accidental Time Traveller Sharon Griffiths **1/2
87. In Defence of Dogs John Bradshaw ****
88. Miss Mapp E.F.Benson ****
89. Behind the Scenes at the Museum Kate Atkinson ****1/2
90. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte ****
91. Sandman: The Doll's House Neil Gaiman ***1/2
92. Dombey and Son Charles Dickens ***
93. Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward *****
94. Castle of Wolfenbach Eliza Adams **1/2
95. Expo 58 Jonathan Coe ***
96. More than This Patrick Ness ****
97. Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl Wendy Jones ***1/2
98. Doomsday Book Connie Willis **1/2
99. By Light Alone Adam Roberts ***1/2

3SandDune
Editado: Dic 6, 2013, 11:41 am

Favourite books by year -one of my 13 categories is to fill in some gaps:
1793 Castle of Wolfenbach Eliza Adams
1811 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
1812 The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm
1813 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
1814 Mansfield Park Jane Austen
1815 Emma Jane Austen
1817 Persuasion Jane Austen
1818 Frankenstein Mary Shelley
1819 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott
1820 none
1821 none
1822 none
1823 none
1824 none
1825 The Talisman Sir Walter Scott
1826 none
1827 The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni
1828 none
1829 The Chouans Honore de Balzac
1830 none
1831 none
1832 The Lasy of Shalott Arthur Lord Tennyson
1833 none
1834 none
1835 none
1836 none
1837 Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
1838 none
1839 The Fall of the House of Usher Edger Allen Poe
1840 none
1841 The Old Curiosity Shop Charles Dickens
1842 none
1843 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
1844 none
1845 Modern Cooking for Private Families Eliza Acton
1846 Book of Nonsense Edward Lear
1847 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
1848 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Bronte
1849 Shirley Charlotte Bronte
1850 David Copperfield Charles Dickens
1851 none
1852 none
1853 none
1854 Hard Times Charles Dickens
1855 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell
1856 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
1857 Tom Brown's Schooldays Thomas Hughes
1858 none
1859 Adam Bede George Eliot
1860 The Mill on the Floss George Eliot
1861 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
1862 Les Miserables Victor Hugo
1863 The Water Babies Charles Kingsley
1864 none
1865 Wives and Daughters Elizabeth Gaskell
1866 Felix Holt, the Radical George Eliot
1868 The Moonstone Wilkie Collins
1869 He Knew He was Right Anthony Trollope
1870 none
1871 Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There Lewis Carroll
1872 Erewhon Samuel Butler
1873 Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne
1874 Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
1875 none
1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain
1877 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
1878 The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy
1879 A Dolls House Henrik Ibsen
1880 Heidi Johanna Spyri
1881 none
1882 The Prince and the Pauper Mark Twain
1883 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson
1884 The Complete Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales Hans Christian Anderson
1885 King Solomon's Mines Rider Haggard
1886 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
1887 The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy
1888 Plain Tales from the Hills Rudyard Kipling
1889 Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome
1890 The Picture of Dorian Grey Oscar Wilde
1891 Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
1892 Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith
1893 Maggie A Girl of the Streets Stephen Crane
1894 none
1895 The Time Machine H.G. Wells
1896 none
1897 Dracula Bram Stoker
1898 The War of the Worlds H.G. Wells
1899 Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. E. Somerville M. Ross
1900 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad
1901 The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter
1902 Anna of the Five Towns Arnold Bennett
1903 The Call of the Wild Jack London
1904 The Tale of Benjamin Bunny Beatrix Potter
1905 Where Angels Fear to Tread E.M. Forster
1906 The Man of Property John Galsworthy
1907 The Tale of Tom Kitten Beatrix Potter
1908 A Room with a View E.M. Forster
1909 none
1910 Howard's End E.M. Forster
1911 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
1912 The Lost World Arthur Conan-Doyle
1913 Pollyanna Eleanor H. Porter
1914 none
1915 The Rainbow D.H. Lawrence
1916 Trifles Susan Glaspell
1917 Summer Edith Wharton
1918 My Antonia Willa Cather
1919 none
1920 Queen Lucia E.F. Benson
1921 The Black Moth Georgette Heyer
1922 The Enchanted April Elizabeth Von Arnim
1923 Riceyman Steps Arnold Bennett
1924 A Passage to India E.M. Forster
1925 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
1926 Winnie-the-Pooh A.A. Milne
1927 The Midnight Folk John Masefield
1928 The House at Pooh Corner A.A. Milne
1929 Goodbye to All That Robert Graves
1930 Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome
1931 Boy James Hanley
1932 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
1933 Frost in May Antonia White
1934 Miss Buncle's Book D.E. Stevenson
1935 The Stars Look Down A.J. Cronin
1936 South Riding Winifred Holtby
1937 The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkein
1938 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day Winifred Watson
1939 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
1940 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
1941 Frenchman's Creek Daphne du Maurier
1942 The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis
1943 Lark Rise to Candleford Flora Thompson
1944 The Wind on the Moon Eric Linklater
1945 Animal Farm George Orwell
1946 An Inspector Calls J.B. Priestley
1947 If This is a Man Primo Levi
1948 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton
1949 1984 George Orwell
1950 The Grand Sophy Georgette Heyer
1951 The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham
1952 The Borrowers Mary Norton
1953 Childhood's End Arthur C Clarke
1954 The Fellowship of the Ring J.R.R. Tolkien
1955 The Magician's Nephew C.S. Lewis
1956 Harry the Dirty Dog
1957 The Leopard Giuseppe di Lampedusa
1958 A Bear called Paddington Michael Bond
1959 Tom's Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce
1959 Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee
1960 Our Ancestors Italo Calvino
1961 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
1962 The Slave Isaac Bashevis Singer
1963 The Spy who Came in From the Cold John Le Carre
1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
1965 Frederica Georgette Heyer
1966 The Witch's Daughter Nina Bawden
1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1968 The Wizard of Earthsea Ursula K Le Guin
1969 The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K Le Guin
1970 The Tombs of Atuan Ursula K Le Guin
1971 Dragonquest Anne McCaffrey
1972 Watership Down Richard Adams
1973 The Inverted World Christopher Priest
1974 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy John Le Carre
1975 The Periodic Table Primo Levi
1976 The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins
1977 The Road to Lichfield Penelope Lively
1978 The Far Pavilions M.M. Kaye
1979 The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
1980 Rites of Passage William Golding
1981 Goodnight Mr Tom Michelle Magorian
1982 On the Black Hill Bruce Chatwin
1983 Waterland Graham Swift
1984 Empire of the Sun J.G. Ballard
1985 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
1986 The Stone Raft Jose Saramago
1987 Moon Tiger Penelope Lively
1988 A Time of Gifts Patrick Leigh Fermor
1989 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
1990 Possession A.S. Byatt
1991 The Kitchen God's Wife Amy Tan
1992 Pigs in Heaven Barbara Kingsolver
1993 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
1994 Feersum Endjin Iain M. Banks
1995 Behind the Scenes at the Museum Kate Atkinson
1996 Neverwhere Neil Gaiman
1997 The Subtle Knife Philip Pullman
1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets J.K. Rowling
1999 Girl with a Pearl Earring Tracey Chevalier
2000 The Amber Spyglass Philip pullman
2001 Atonement Ian McEwan
2002 The Crimson Petal and the White Michael Faber
2003 The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time Mark Haddon
2004 Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood
2005 A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian Marina Lewycka
2006 A Brief History of the Dead Kevin Brockmeier
2007 The Arrival Shaun Tan
2008 The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman
2009 The City and the City China Mieville
2010 Room Emma Donaghue
2011 The Sisters Brothers Patrick Dewit

4SandDune
Editado: Dic 6, 2013, 11:42 am

These are my categories for the 13 Category Challenge. All the category names are from books in my library or wishlist.

The Welsh Girl Peter Ho Davies
Fiction about Wales or by Welsh authors set in the twentieth or twenty-first century. No Celtic mythology or Arthurian fables or medieval history.

Astonishing Splashes of Colour Claire Morrell
Picturebooks and graphic novels. This one will include at least some of the Sandman novels by Neil Gaiman

My Dog Tulip J.R. Ackerley
All things dog related.

The Gardens of Kyoto Kate Walbert
Fiction by Japanese authors.

Love on the Dole Walter Greenwood
Working-class fiction.

The End of Your Life Book Club Will Schwalbe
RL book club choices.

Is There Anything You Want? Margaret Forster
Recommendations from LT and elsewhere.

Possession A.S.Byatt
Books that I've possessed for more than 6 months and that really need reading. Several Persephone books fall into this category.

Touching the Void Joe Simpson
Filling in the gaps on my reading by year list.

Hothouse Brian Aldiss
My Open University reading: nineteenth century novels at the start of the year and probably twentieth century writing at the end.

The Thirteenth Tale Diane Setterfield
Series that I'm currently working through.

Oranges are not the only fruit Jeanette Winterson
The (ex) Orange prize and Booker prize and any other prizes that sound interesting.

A Brief History of the Dead Kevin Brockmeier
Dystopian fiction and the end of the world

5SandDune
Editado: Dic 6, 2013, 11:43 am

Here is my star system

* I hated this book. Can’t understand why anyone would read it. No literary merit. I wouldn’t usually even start a one star book as it would be so obvious I wouldn’t like it.

*1/2 I didn’t like this book. I can see that it might appeal to some people but certainly didn’t appeal to me. Struggled to finish it.

** Passes the time if there's really nothing else to read - no more than that. Wouldn't read anything else by the author without good reason.

**1/2 Just about OK but wouldn’t read anything by the same author if I didn’t have to. Might be a decent book from a genre that I don't like or one where I can see it has literary merit but it really didn't work for me.

*** An reasonable read – although not something that set the world on fire. I'd try something else by the author although maybe not in a great rush to do so.

***1/2 A good solid read with decent writing and story. I'd be looking out for more books by the same author.

**** Book was very good – a well written book that I really enjoyed. I’d be looking out for more books by the author. Would warrant re-reading. Might well go out and buy something by the same author very soon.

****1/2 Book was excellent – an exceptionally well written book that I really enjoyed. One of my favourite books of the year. I’d want everybody I met to read this book. Would definitely want to re-read.

***** A wonderful book that speaks very personally to me. I’d tell everyone I met about this book. Would re-read again and again.

6ronincats
Dic 6, 2013, 2:19 pm

Good day, Rhian!!

7katiekrug
Dic 6, 2013, 2:28 pm

Happy new thread, Rhian!

8SandDune
Dic 6, 2013, 2:34 pm

Hi Roni - it didn't start off as a good day! I was lying in bed this morning wondering why it was so cold, only to discover when I got up that it was not a sudden cold snap but the boiler had broken down and there was no heating or hot water either. Which I was not happy about as the boiler had only been serviced on Wednesday and was supposedly in perfect working order then (I have my suspicions about that service). So I had to reorganise my day to take this afternoon off to wait in for the gas man - my appointment was between two and four, he eventually turned up at 5.15. But at least it's fixed now - I was starting to worry about having no hearing over the weekend... and I'm not very good in the cold!

9SandDune
Dic 6, 2013, 4:04 pm

We had my RL book group here on Tuesday as it was my choice: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. I read this earlier in the year and gave it four and a half stars, after rereading it I am increasing that to five. It really didn't lose anything in the second reading and is a book that will stay with me for a long time.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book group didn't feel the same way. Of the six people who were there only two really liked it and even those two were close to giving up half way through because they thought it was too depressing. I did think it was a book that people would either love or hate whereas the reaction was much more subdued which really surprised me. I did feel a bit disappointed as it's a book that's not particularly well known in the UK that I came across because of LT, so I did feel like I was introducing them to something new that they wouldn't have necessarily come across in the normal course of events.

Anyway here's my review from earlier in the year:

93. Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward *****



I was apprehensive about reading this book as I'd heard rumours about the dog-fighting, and thought that I might struggle with those scenes. But in the end, rather than being shocked by the dog-fighting, what I found truly shocking was the extreme poverty and lack of opportunity which was the lot of the poor black Batiste family who are at the centre of this novel.

Esch Batiste is fifteen years old and pregnant: she tries to keep her nausea and ever bursting bladder from her family. Her mother died during the birth of her younger brother Junior, leaving the family to the care of their alcoholic and neglectful father, and the care of Junior has fallen almost exclusively on the older children. The eldest brother Randall is desperate to get the basketball scholarship that will take him out of The Pit, the run-down and scrap covered piece of land where the Batiste family live. The second brother Skeetah lives only for his prized pit bull China, a beautiful white dog who has defeated all the local dogs in the fights run by the local boys. And in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, as the father tries to prepare for the approaching storm, both Esch and Skeetah have their own battles. Skeetah that of trying to keep China's new puppies alive, when he can't afford the medication that they need, while Esch tries to get Manny, her baby's father, to notice her.

I found this book heart-breaking in many respects: these teenagers have been failed by so many people, even ultimately by their own mother, whose refusal to have medical assistance when giving birth to Junior in all likelihood led to her death. Day to day life is such a struggle with little money for food, and less for the hurricane supplies that they desperately need. I found that even Skeetah's fighting of his beloved China became almost understandable: her prowess in fighting provides him with the only thing in his life that he can be proud about.

Not knowing much about the American South outside the period of segregation and civil rights, one thing that surprised me on reading Salvage the Bones was what completely separate lives the Batistes led from their white neighbours. And the conditions in which they lived seemed not to belong to the twenty-first century, or even the late twentieth, but to an earlier period.

So a book that is highly recommended, and one which drew me in almost as if I were reading about real people.

10SandDune
Dic 6, 2013, 4:09 pm

#7.Katie re your comment on the last thread - in the end Mr SandDune didn't get beyond page 70 in Salvage the Bones despite much encouragement from me.

11SandDune
Editado: Dic 15, 2013, 7:18 am

94. Castle of Wolfenbach Eliza Parsons **1/2
Challenge: Touching the Void (filling in the gaps of my reading by year - 1793)



My current course offers the following quotation from 1798 on 'terrorist novel writing' (or in other words the gothic novel):
Take - An old castle, half of it ruinous,
A long gallery, with a great many doors, some secret ones,
Three murdered bodies, quite fresh.
As many skeletons, in chests and presses.
An old woman hanging by the neck, with her throat cut.
Assassins and desperadoes, 'quant. suff.'
Noise, whispers and groans, three score at least.
Mix them together, in the form of three volumes, to be taken at any of the watering places before going to bed.

Eliza Parsons must have been working from a very similar list when she wrote Castle of Wolfenbach, one of the 'horrid novels' loved by Catherine and Isabella in Northanger Abbey. There aren't any skeletons (in either chest or press) but one of the quite fresh murdered bodies goes into a chest instead, so I expect that will do. And I think Eliza's list must have included an extra line, something like: 'one heroine, able to weep and faint with great regularity' as really Eliza's heroine Matilda weeps and faints at the slightest pretext no matter whether the occasion be happy or sad. So to be honest, it's not great literature. But I found it very interesting to read one of the books that Jane Austen was parodying in Northanger Abbey, one of my favourite books.

The basic plot is far-fetched to say the least. Matilda escapes from an uncle who seems to have incestuous (or are they) designs upon her virtue, and finds herself at the supposedly haunted Castle of Wolfenbach where she discovers the equally badly treated Countess of Wolfenbach, unjustly imprisoned by her husband for the last sixteen years. The Countess is kidnapped, her maidservant murdered and Matilda must flee again from her pursuing uncle. There is much pursuing going on throughout the novel, of Matilda and of the Countess, as the location moves from Switzerland, to Paris, to London and beyond. There is a somewhat strange sense of morality throughout, where the villains who are guilty of murder, kidnap, and false imprisonment are forgiven, whereas someone who is guilty of nothing more than a nasty piece of gossip seems to be guilty of a mortal sin.

I've not read a lot of gothic novels but I have a feeling that this one probably isn't the best of the genre. But as I said an interesting read nonetheless.

12Chatterbox
Editado: Dic 6, 2013, 5:42 pm

I don't think I could face this Jesmyn Ward book, however good it is.

Rhian, yes, there's still a lot of separation. What saddens me most is when I read about students who choose attend the same schools as folks from many different groups, but who choose not to mix outside the classroom, sitting at different tables for lunch, etc. It hits the news when parents are bizarre enough to want "white only" proms or something idiotic and extreme like that, but when that happens it seems to be a reflection of a broader separation. Perhaps it's more acute in the south, but I saw it at work at an NYC school where I worked as a literacy tutor. One of my "tutees" was getting teased by her peers for having a white tutor, which was a little sad.

13katiekrug
Dic 6, 2013, 5:49 pm

It's a special book. I'm sorry you didn't get the kind of reaction or discussion you wanted from your group. There is so much in that story...

14SandDune
Dic 6, 2013, 6:05 pm

#12 It hits the news when parents are bizarre enough to want "white only" proms or something idiotic and extreme like that Suz do people actually do that? I can't imagine that people would even consider asking for something like that.

15rosalita
Dic 6, 2013, 8:28 pm

Lovely new thread, Rhian, with those illustrations up top!

16lauralkeet
Editado: Dic 6, 2013, 8:38 pm

Ach, it's a bummer your book group didn't enjoy Salvage the Bones. Good on you for introducing them to something they might not otherwise have discovered.

I love the Beatrix Potter illustrations. I have a complete set of little books (maybe about 4" square?) in a box set. They are adorable. I did my older daughter's nursery in Beatrix Potter (wallpaper, bedding, etc.) including a Tom Kitten needlework piece that I made into a pillow. Oh, I miss those days!!

ETA: I just visited Darryl's thread where he posted a video that reminded me of Daisy & Sweep. Your situation may not be as unusual as you think!
You Shall Not Pass, Dog

17Chatterbox
Dic 6, 2013, 10:18 pm

Rhian, ripped from the headlines:

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/22086349/wilcox-county-white-prom
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/05/georgia-students-...

I've heard of cases in Mississippi, too. If it's an official school event, it would be illegal, but not if it's an 'informal' parent or student organized thing.

And do check out that video -- I've also posted it on my FB page!

18PaulCranswick
Dic 6, 2013, 10:44 pm

Enjoyed your review of Salvage the Bones it is one I have been meaning to read for a while.

Hope you can get to 100 books this year.

Have a lovely weekend and please say hi to Alan and I hope he's not abandoned us after such a promising cameo.

19LizzieD
Dic 6, 2013, 11:25 pm

Rhian, I love B. Potter! My DH has carved (in wood) a wonderful Mr. Benjamin Bunny for me; it's one of my most highly-prized possessions - along with carvings of Andy Capp and Santa Claus. (If these are my heroes, I'm not sure what that says about me.)
Thanks for your good review of Salvage the Bones. I haven't read her, but I'm glad to say that our little southern town is beyond requests for single-race proms at least. In fact, several years ago when the principal decided two weeks before the prom that girls wouldn't be allowed to wear strapless dresses (!), the parents of all three races got together and organized an alternate prom for their kids, which was well attended. We certainly have our problems, but that's not one of them.

20PaulCranswick
Dic 7, 2013, 3:16 am

I for one hope and believe that the world has changed considerably for the better over the last 20 years or so and I do notice that the UK on my less than frequent trips back each time seems more comfortable in the diversity of its people. I remember there being a big fuss at the end of the 70's when Laurie Cunningham and Viv Anderson were the first black players to be chosen to represent England at soccer - I don't think people much notice the colour of the players these days. My own team for all its unpopularity with the press pioneered the integration of afro-caribbean and african players into the game in England. Albert Johanneson tore up the flanks for us in the 1960s and Paul Reaney has the second most appearances. Outside our golden era our favourite captain would be Lucas Radebe who yesterday wrote an open letter to the people of South Africa in homage to Nelson Mandela.......another person whose example has set the cause of race forward no end.
Having a mixed race family myself I am sensitive a little to these things and have tried to bring up my three terrors in the full belief that all people are people. Hurts just that little bit more to have my children referred to as "half-breeds" by my own father but that is another story entirely.

21Helenliz
Dic 7, 2013, 6:14 am

Lovely pictures at the top of the thread. The Peter Rabbit illustration was one of 4 that formed a cross stitch pattern for nursery clock that I made. Made for an enormous clock - especially once framed. That got given away to a suitably impressed/bemused new parent quite quickly.

Picking books for a club is always difficult. It's difficult to know how they'll react to the books. We've had a couple of instances where we've read a book I've loved and it's met with a mixed reaction. And I can understand people loving or hating a book, but that sounds not so much like a mixed reaction as no reaction, which is probably more disappointing.

22SandDune
Dic 7, 2013, 7:17 am

#15,16,19,21 Hi Julia, Laura, Lizzie, Helen I do love those little Beatrix Potter books. I remember as a child I had The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes, The Tale of Mrs Tiggywinkle, and The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies. I still remember learning the word 'soporific' from the last one.

#16,21 Laura, Helen I don't know why Salvage the Bones didn't appeal more. It's perhaps a little bit outside the sort of book that we normally read but not hugely so. People just seemed to find it too bleak and didn't engage with the lead character of Esch in the way that I had expected. But it is disappointing when people don't share your love of a book even a little bit.

Saying that the books for the next few months don't particularly appeal to me. We have:

Tulip Fever Deborah Moggach - I've read this one before and found it only so-so, so I'm not particularly keen on rereading this one. I've read three of Deborah Moggach's books and I've always found that they promise a little more than they deliver.
Brazzaville Beach William Boyd - I've read this one as well and enjoyed it much more but probably wouldn't reread from choice.
The Secret History Donna Tartt - this didn't appeal back when it came out first and there was so much hype about it, and it still doesn't appeal now.

23SandDune
Dic 7, 2013, 7:48 am

#17 Suz it seems incredible to read about segregated proms in the 21st century. But as you say there must be very little mixing outside the classroom for that situation to be acceptable to the students, which in itself is very sad as the situation is then more likely to be continued in future generations.

#20 Paul I think the acceptance in the UK as regards mixed-race relationships has changed hugely over the last thirty years or so, and so your father's reaction is extremely unusual these days, thank goodness. That must be so difficult, if not impossible, to deal with. A report recently showed that only 15% of Britons felt uncomfortable with a mixed-race marriage compared with 50% in 1980, and that most of those were in the over 65 age bracket. For young people between 18-25 it was down to 5% and race was actually the factor that they were least concerned about, coming after factors such as marrying a partner from a richer or poorer background. I get the impression that there is more 'mixing' in the UK than in the US, for example. The same report quoted the figures that in the UK over 25% of Black Caribbean Britons were in a mixed race marriage, which rose to 40% for British born black Caribbeans, compared to around 10% in the US. I always used to notice it on American TV shows that there seemed to be much less mixed race relationships than were shown on British TV, although that seems to have changed somewhat. It seemed on British TV that it was quite unusual not to have mixed race relationships, and in the US it was the other way around.

24Helenliz
Dic 7, 2013, 7:52 am

I've not read the Moggach, but have read another title and would agree; the surmise is a good one, the execution just doesn't carry it through.
The Boyd I read put me off trying any others, so good luck with that one!

We selected our list for the next 12 months at the last meeting. Titles & authors are suggested & I then make a list, providing the library has sufficient copies. It's then lucky dip. Some of them I'm looking forward to more than others. The highlight (which I will have to schedule early) will be Terry Pratchett's collection of shorter writings, which I bought when it came out and still haven't read. I already know what some of the group's reaction will be to that one. But stuff 'em, I'm going to lap it up.

25PaulCranswick
Dic 7, 2013, 8:07 am

Great stats Rhian. For a change it is nice to see figures that resonate positively about the old place.

26Morphidae
Dic 7, 2013, 8:48 am

The You Shall Not Pass, Dog is a trip. Loved it!

27kidzdoc
Dic 7, 2013, 9:05 am

Not knowing much about the American South outside the period of segregation and civil rights, one thing that surprised me on reading Salvage the Bones was what completely separate lives the Batistes led from their white neighbours. And the conditions in which they lived seemed not to belong to the twenty-first century, or even the late twentieth, but to an earlier period.

That is definitely still the case in many small Southern towns, Rhian. Metropolitan Atlanta is, for the most part, pretty diverse, with blacks and whites living alongside each other, particularly in the northern half of the metro where most of the professionals and middle class families live. The neighborhoods to the south of Interstate 20, the major east-west highway that cuts the metro in the middle latitudinally, are far poorer than those north of I-20, with some pockets of very substandard homes.

Even though I've lived in Georgia since 1997 I almost never travel by car outside of the Perimeter, the highway (Interstate 285) that forms a ring around the city and its closest suburbs. I think I've been OTP (Outside the Perimeter) twice this year, both times to go to restaurants that were in suburban Atlanta, not far from I-285. And the last time I've been 'way OTP' was in 1997, when the pediatric residents in my class went on a retreat in Helen, in the north Georgia mountains, and when we all traveled to Macon in central Georgia to take our board exams. The only other Southern city I've visited is New Orleans, a city very familiar to me which is very atypical for the Deep South. So, I can't honestly say that I've seen how blacks and whites live in these small Southern towns, and I'm not originally from the South, but my understanding is that there are vast differences in living standards between blacks and whites, and that the neighborhoods, churches, and elementary schools are still largely segregated, and that blacks and whites generally keep to themselves with very little intermingling except at sporting events, such as high school football games.

So a book that is highly recommended, and one which drew me in almost as if I were reading about real people.

Jesmyn Ward grew up in De Lisle, a small town along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and she and her family had to flee their home after Hurricane Katrina after it became flooded. From her Wikipedia page:

In 2005, Ward received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. Shortly afterwards, she and her family became victims of Hurricane Katrina. With their house in De Lisle flooding rapidly, the Ward family set out in their car to get to a local church, but ended up stranded in a field full of tractors. When the white owners of the land eventually checked on their possessions, they refused to invite the Wards into their home, claiming they were overcrowded. Tired and traumatized, the refugees were eventually given shelter by another white family down the road.


I've read elsewhere that the characters in Salvage the Bones were strongly based on people that she grew up with in De Lisle, including her own family members, although it certainly isn't an autobiographical novel. I do plan to read her memoir Men We Reaped soon.

As Suz posted, there is one high school in south Georgia that has gained local and national notoriety for its segregated proms. I suspect that the locals, both black and white, have far less problems with this than the people of Atlanta and the rest of the country do, though; in their view I imagine it's "just the way things are down here". I certainly don't endorse it, but I'm a liberal Yankee, so what do I know?

Laura, Rhian did see that evil cat video, which I also posted on my Facebook page. My first thought when I saw it was the problems that Daisy is having with Sweep.

Paul, I feel very comfortable as a black American in the UK cities that I've visited (London, Cambridge and Ely), and as I believe I've said before, I've been amazed and immensely pleased with the hospitality and friendliness I've received there, which far exceeds anything I've experienced on my home soil. In public settings like cafes, bookshops and bus or tube stations I'm generally greeted with a neutral or friendly look, but if I say something with my American accent I generally receive a brief look of mild surprise, which is quickly followed by a smile and frequently the comment "oh, you're American?", and several inquisitive questions and a brief, friendly conversation. Oddly enough, even though interactions like this identify me as an 'outsider', they make me feel much more comfortable there, in the manner of a welcomed guest at a family gathering.

28Whisper1
Dic 7, 2013, 9:13 am

Happy Day Rhian

I love your opening illustrations. Lately I've been reading and appreciating children's illustrated books. The art work is stunning.

I've meant to read Salvage the Bones for a long time. I'll check to see if my local library has this one. Thanks for your great review.

29kidzdoc
Editado: Dic 7, 2013, 9:27 am

there must be very little mixing outside the classroom for that situation to be acceptable to the students, which in itself is very sad as the situation is then more likely to be continued in future generations.

Right. There are plenty of blacks in the US, especially the Deep South, who remain very distrustful of and uncomfortable around whites, even those who are well educated. There are dozens of HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) that black students can attend, where there are extremely few if any white students. One of my partners attended an all-black high school, followed by historically black colleges to receive her bachelor's degree, her medical degree and to complete her residency. Although I certainly wouldn't call her racist, she is clearly far more comfortable around blacks than she is with whites. On the other hand, I went to a Lutheran church and associated elementary school that was probably 60:40 white:black in the 1960s, in one of the most racially diverse cities in the US, and I had close friends of all races. We moved to a nearly all white neighborhood in suburban Philadelphia in the mid 1970s, and I had no significant difficulty adapting to my new, essentially all-white schools (my high school graduating class had three other blacks in a class of roughly 500, and I don't believe that there were any Latino or Asian students at that time). I've attended majority white universities since then (Rutgers, Pitt, Emory), and I'm very comfortable around all races.

I get the impression that there is more 'mixing' in the UK than in the US, for example.

Absolutely; and it seems to be much more acceptable as well. I dated a woman who came from a Boston Irish family when we worked together at NYU in the early 1990s, and hardly anyone blinked an eye when we went out in Manhattan. After I started working at Children's I became very close to an attractive nurse I worked with who happened to be white, and we would usually go out on weekends in and just outside of Atlanta. We were often met with looks of deep hostility, and it wasn't uncommon that people, both white and black, would make snide comments about us, even though we weren't dating and didn't display any signs of overt affection (holding hands, kissing, etc.). Interracial relationships is one of the last taboos in places like the Deep South, and I don't know that I would feel comfortable dating a white woman "down heah", even in a supposedly liberal and tolerant city like Atlanta.

30SandDune
Editado: Dic 7, 2013, 2:49 pm

#24 Helen we take it in turns to select books - there are 12 of us all together and we don't have a meeting in January or August. So it comes round to each person every fourteen months or so. We each choose our own books with no restrictions, but in the main we read literary fiction, some classics and the odd non-fiction book. But usually they appeal a bit more than the current selection.

#26 Morphy those dogs look just like Daisy does when she's trying to get past Sweep. It's actually quite reassuring to know that she's not the only one!

31SandDune
Editado: Dic 7, 2013, 3:42 pm

#25 Paul I think people in the main are so much more liberal than they used to be with most things. And certainly I think it is better in that respect here than somewhere like France or Italy for example.

#29 Darryl to be honest I hadn't realised that there were so many specifically black institutions in the US. I suppose that because we don't have those historically in the UK it had never really occurred to me. And so there is going to be necessarily more mixing here I suppose, as there just isn't the option to be so separate. It's probably the Asian communities that are more separate here, where there are more cultural and religious, and sometimes language differences .

Edited to add: I have seen that Ward has written the memoir Men We Reaped and I am also keen to read it as soon as possible. I found that in Salvage the Bones she did such a good job of introducing the reader to a way of life that might be very foreign to them (as it was to me) but in such a way that I could at least empathise with the characters even when I didn't approve or understand their choices.

32SandDune
Dic 7, 2013, 3:31 pm

#28 Linda although there is a difficult section dealing with the dog fight (at least I found it so) it is well worth persevering with Salvage the Bones.

I thought I has to have Beatrix Potter as the last illustrator of the year as she seems to be the quintessential children's illustrator that everyone loves.

33SandDune
Editado: Dic 15, 2013, 7:18 am

95. Expo 58 Jonathon Coe ***



I've enjoyed Jonathan Coe books before, but this one didn't hit quite the right note for me. Thomas Foley, a young civil servant working in London, is sent to Belgium to oversee the operations of The Britannia, a replica pub forming a key part of the British exhibits for the Brussels World Fair in 1958. With a wife and young baby at home he is initially reluctant to take the post, for which he has no qualifications other than being half Belgian and having had a father who ran a pub, but as his wife pays more and more attention to the baby he realises that the six month assignment might provide rather more excitement than the dull domesticity of his home life. And excitement he certainly finds, rather more than he was bargaining for, as a pair of cheerful secret policeman seem to follow his every move, and the mixing of nationalities at the Fair means that he's spending his spare time with a Russian journalist who seems remarkably interested in the exhibition on atomic energy in the British pavilion.

But somehow the tone of this book just didn't seem right to me. Much of the comedy derives from looking at what it means to be modern in 1958, but it's done in much too heavy heavy handed a way. It's almost as if Coe has got a checklist of whatever was new in Britain in the late fifties and is ticking items off it one by one. Coffee with froth on top - check (not cappuccino yet though, not for a long time) .... Continental quilts or are they called duvets? - check (personally I don't remember the word duvet coming in until the 1970's at least) ... toothpaste with stripes - check. And I understand that in the 1950's you could smoke everywhere, in the office, on the tube, on a plane, I don't need to have it sledgehammered into me by descriptions of fug filled rooms on every other page.

There are some amusing characters, in particular the two secret agents (shades of the Thompson twins in Tintin) but most of the characters seems strangely grey. I didn't find myself engaged with Thomas very much at all whether in his exploits in the world of espionage or in his clandestine romantic entanglements. And the ending, which brings the story up to date, is something of a mystery to me. I just don't understand what it was for at all ...

So overall, a somewhat unsatisfactory book but one which has had good reviews elsewhere. So maybe it's just me.

34kidzdoc
Dic 7, 2013, 7:32 pm

>31 SandDune: According to Wikipedia there are 106 historically black colleges and universities in the US. Most of them were created after the end of the US Civil War, when freed blacks seeking higher education were not permitted to attend any white institutions in the South or Southwest, and were severely restricted from attending other colleges. Many taught students industrial trades, or educated them to become teachers or clergymen, two of the few professions that blacks in the Jim Crow South were allowed to practice. HBCUs still serve a valuable purpose in higher education, although many of the best African American students are courted heavily by and attend top notch general universities.

35BLBera
Dic 7, 2013, 11:53 pm

Hi Rhian - Happy New Thread. I love Beatrix Potter and have many fond memories of reading her stories to my children.

My book club chooses books together at a January party. So far, it's worked pretty well. But, as with you, there are always selections that I'm not crazy about.

36SandDune
Dic 8, 2013, 11:25 am

#34 Darryl that's very interesting about the black colleges. I suppose I had assumed (as far as I'd thought about it at all) that since the civil rights era, there would no longer be a 'need' for black colleges and they would become integrated. From what you are saying am I right in thinking that although in theory both black and white can go to a historically black college, in practice very few white students do attend? I had thought of it in a similar way to the situation of male and female colleges at Oxford and Cambridge: when women were not allowed to attend the all-male colleges separate ones were created for them, but as society changed both types gradually became co-ed and so there are no single sex colleges left at Oxford, and I think only two or three female colleges at Cambridge. (Incidentally, there are no single-sex male colleges at all now). By the way, Mr SandDune went to Oxford in 1979 in the first year that his college went co-ed: apparently there were 15 women out of 300 men!

We certainly do have schools here which are predominantly a single (non-white) race: Mr SandDune's father was Head of a primary school which had virtually 100% children of Bangledeshi origin, but I think this tends to happen when you have large numbers of a single community settling in close proximity to each other. But I'm not aware of any further education institutions which specifically target different races.

37SandDune
Dic 8, 2013, 11:40 am

Beth so far this year I have read the following for my Book Club:

February: Pure Andrew Miller ***1/2
April: Angel Elizabeth Taylor ***
May: The Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler ****
June: And when Did You Last See Your Father Blake Morrison ****
September: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot ***
October: Suite Francaise Irene Nemirovsky *****
November: Behind the Scenes at the Museum Kate Atkinson ****1/2
December: Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward *****

So out of the nine books I've read for Book Club, I've rated five at four stars or more, and there's been nothing below three stars, so I suppose that's a reasonable record.

38qebo
Dic 8, 2013, 11:51 am

37: I'd say that's an excellent track record for a book club.

39Helenliz
Dic 8, 2013, 11:57 am

37> me too - we've read a couple of complete stinkers over the last few years. Some I've really enjoyed as well, so it's not been all bad.

40souloftherose
Dic 8, 2013, 1:41 pm

#8 Glad they managed to sort your boiler out! You're the second person I know who had their boiler break shortly after a service... Which reminds me we're not signed up to a service plan yet so I ought to sort that out!

#11 Rhian, I love that quotation on 'terrorist novel writing' - very apt - and your review of Castle of Wolfenbach! I've paused in my read-a-long after the first volume to give Madeline a chance to catch up and because I needed a break!

I think Rafcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho is a much better-written gothic novel and probably one of the best of the genre, but it is 600 pages long and I can understand one gothic novel being enough for you!

41LovingLit
Dic 8, 2013, 4:06 pm

Wow- you have some great reviews up on this thread already! Impressive. I am very interested in Salvage the Bones, and the Coe one.

42kidzdoc
Editado: Dic 8, 2013, 4:43 pm

>36 SandDune: I suppose I had assumed (as far as I'd thought about it at all) that since the civil rights era, there would no longer be a 'need' for black colleges and they would become integrated.

Some HBCUs have become integrated, most notably Tennessee State University in Nashville, which merged with the predominantly white University of Tennessee at Nashville. Most of these colleges and universities have continued to enroll a vast majority of black students, though, including Howard University in Washington, DC, my father's alma mater.

From what you are saying am I right in thinking that although in theory both black and white can go to a historically black college, in practice very few white students do attend?

That's generally true. There are a few medical schools in the US that are historically black, one of them being the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, which is affiliated with Morehouse College, one of the leading HBCUs in the country. The city has two medical schools, Emory University (a very diverse but largely white and prestigious school where I completed my pediatric residency), and Morehouse. Medical students and residents from both medical schools train alongside each other, particularly at Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta's massive public hospital, but also at the hospital I work at, as nearly all of the 3rd year pediatric residents and several physician assistant students from Emory and half of the 3rd and 4th year medical students and all of the pediatric residents from Morehouse serve their Inpatient Pediatrics rotation with us (I'm on the teaching service this coming week with the Morehouse team, which will include the Emory physician assistant student as well). Of the six Morehouse pediatric residents in each class, usually one or two of them are non-black (this year's intern class includes one Chinese-American woman, and the second year class has two white male residents, one of whom I've advised since he was a high school senior 10 years ago).

43humouress
Dic 8, 2013, 5:12 pm

Salvage the Bones sounds too tough for me. But Castle of Wolfenbach sounds quite (unintentionally) funny, apart from the annoying heroine. I've always thought I should investigate some of the novels that make the background to Northanger Abbey, but I've never got around to it.

>17 Chatterbox:, 23 etc: I've often wondered if there is sometimes a sort of reverse racism (without trying to be offensive here) in the US. For example, the Cosby show was always lauded for breaking new ground with portraying (now I'm stuck, trying to find a PC term)(going to go with Darryl's) black people on TV, but after a while it dawned on me that there were very few (or no) white actors on the show, and - though some of the actresses were obviously mixed race - there were never any mixed race relationships. Given Darryl's comments, maybe it just wouldn't have flown. That situation seems to be changing slowly now.

44BLBera
Dic 8, 2013, 5:21 pm

Hi Rhian - Your book club selections look great. I don't have the list in front of me, and I can't remember what happened last week, much less January! Overall, this year hasn't been as good as last year, but we have read some good books. I know we read The Hare with Amber Eyes, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Kafka on the Shore, perhaps my favorite reads.

45SandDune
Dic 8, 2013, 5:26 pm

#38,39 Hi Katherine, Helen We've done some great books over the years, but I'm trying to think of the worst. There was The Da Vinci Code which I did not like and I absolutely hated John Banville's The Sea. Mr SandDune always votes for The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood as his worst ever book. We do also have a member who's inclined to pick 600 pages of non-fiction and then wonders why not many people finish her book.

#40 Heather I will definitely be trying some more gothic fiction in the future! To be honest, our heating has broken down before after a service (the thermostat that time). It is quite suspicious ....

46lyzard
Dic 8, 2013, 5:33 pm

Madeline is very taken with the Gothic novels so there will probably be more tutored reads in the near future, and anyone who wants to join in will be more than welcome. At one point we were talking about taking on something more serious, Ann Radcliffe's The Italian (which I think is better than Udolpho; it's also shorter, though that's a relative term), but Madeline has been looking into The Midnight Bell by Francis Lathom, another of the "horrid novels" from Northanger Abbey, so we'll have to wait and see... :)

47kidzdoc
Dic 8, 2013, 8:01 pm

>43 humouress: The Cosby Show ran from 1984-1992, and it was a groundbreaking series, in that it portrayed a black upper middle class family, won numerous awards, and was very popular across all age and racial groups in the US. It was also one of the longest running series of the late 20th century. Despite its popularity there probably wouldn't have been any mixed race couples on it, because of the controversy that would have ensued. As recently as this spring a very benign and generally well received Cheerios cereal commercial that featured a biracial child, her white mother and her black father drew thousands of messages and letters of protests from racist far right conservatives here. Some may claim that the US has entered a post-racial era with the election of Barack Obama as president, and there is no question that race relations have improved dramatically here in the past 25 years, but we still have a long way to go before true racial equality becomes a reality for all Americans.

48humouress
Dic 9, 2013, 1:21 am

>45 SandDune:: Isn't there any kind of guarantee, so if it breaks down within a month of service they redo it free, or something?

>47 kidzdoc:: That is odd, looking at it from the outside. Mind you, Singapore and Malaysia have their own issues. I suppose human beings will always find some way of going 'Nya nee nya nee nya nya'. :0(

49Helenliz
Dic 9, 2013, 1:58 am

47> Indeed, still some way to go. But I fear humouress has it right. We'll always find ways to differentiate people, be that colour or some other physical characteristic over which they have no control. Although the situation as described by kidzoc (and thanks for that, it's been most interesting) does put the current argument that calling someone "ginger" is tantamount to racism into some sort of perspective.

50lit_chick
Dic 9, 2013, 8:56 pm

Hi Rhian, I'm terribly behind here. Just driving by your new thread, the last one of 2013 : ).

51SandDune
Dic 10, 2013, 2:42 am

#44 Beth, sounds like your book group reads pretty similar things to mine. We did The Hare with the Amber Eyes this year (although it was one I didn't get around. to), Kafka on the Shore last year, and although we haven't read For Whom the Bell Tolls we have done A Farewell to Arms a few years ago.

52SandDune
Dic 10, 2013, 2:57 am

#43,47,49 Darryl, Nina, Helen I looked at that Cheerios advert and it seems really shocking that people would find that offensive in this day and age. I get the impression that multi-racial couples in British TV ads are much more common, but of course now I'm trying to think of specific examples, I can't! I can't think of any couples of any races in ads for that matter, as Mr SandDune has a real objection to watching them, so virtually everything we watch is recorded so that we can fast forward the ads.

53alcottacre
Dic 10, 2013, 5:39 am

#33: Can you recommend a good place to start with Coe's books, Rhian? It does not sound like that one is it.

54SandDune
Editado: Dic 10, 2013, 4:32 pm

#52 Darryl once I started looking out to see if mixed race adverts were common I found one quite easily. This is the current TV licence commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RTq1JKK18g&sns=em

#48 Nina we didn't pay for the second visit as it is covered by the service plan. I was cross enough as it was, I'd have been livid if I'd had to pay as well! I did get a little bit worried though as our boiler is quite old so they can't guarantee that they can get all the spare parts, which would mean a new boiler. We wouldn't freeze without the central heating: the hall and the kitchen have underfloor heating which is usually on low but I can crank it up to actually heat the room; we have a gas fire in the sitting room; and there's separate heating in the conservatory. So we can keep downstairs reasonably warm, but upstairs it does get very chilly if the central heating is not working.

55SandDune
Dic 10, 2013, 4:49 pm

#53 Stasia Coe's best known books are What a carve Up and The Rotters Club so that's probably where to start. I enjoyed The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim as well until it came to the last chapter, which just didn't seem to go with the rest of the book.

#41 Hi Megan sorry I missed you previously - been struggling to keep up last few days.

#46 Liz I would definitely like to read some of the better known gothic novels at some time. Maybe not just at the moment, I've just started Middlemarch!

#50 Hi Nancy hope you're having a good day!

56sibylline
Dic 10, 2013, 8:06 pm

And in an interesting 'close the loop' - Weren't there more than a few episodes of Cosby dedicated to whether their oldest daughter would choose an HBCU - I can't think which one now - or something else. In the end I think she chose the HBCU.

57lyzard
Dic 10, 2013, 8:08 pm

Ooh, I hope you enjoy Middlemarch, Rhian - it's one of my 'desert island books' - and perfectly understand not wanting to take on anything else significant at the same time! :)

58alcottacre
Dic 11, 2013, 12:39 am

#55: Thanks for the recommendations, Rhian. I will see which books of Coe's my local library has on hand.

59lit_chick
Dic 11, 2013, 10:47 am

I've just started Middlemarch, too, Rhian! I'm listening to Juliet Stevenson narrate; she is fabulous! Have also got the book in my iPad which I'm following.

60luvamystery65
Dic 11, 2013, 11:35 am

Juliet Stevenson is a wonderful narrator.

61lauralkeet
Dic 11, 2013, 11:42 am

I really enjoyed Middlemarch, Rhian. I started out reading a bit each month intending to draw it out over several months, but after a few months I became so involved in the story that I decided to read it straight through.

62jnwelch
Dic 11, 2013, 3:13 pm

I'm a Middlemarch fan, too, Rhian. It's on my "best books ever" list.

63SandDune
Dic 13, 2013, 2:13 pm

#57, 59, 60, 61, 62 Hi Liz, Nancy, Roberta, Laura, Joe - sorry for taking so long to get back to everyone. I've been out for the last couple of evenings so haven't had much time on LT at all. Sounds like Middlemarch is universally popular: I'm enjoying it so far but I wouldn't say that it falls in the best reads of all time category, but it's early days yet. I'm listening to the Juliet Stevenson audio book as well. I've read quite a bit of George Eliot in the past (Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede, Felix Holt the Radical) but I've always been put off Middlemarch because of its length!

#56 Hi Lucy I don't remember that one, but then I only caught Cosby periodically. It was on over here but I don't remember it being a particularly big thing like it was in the States.

#57 Stasia I wonder what you'll make of Jonathan Coe if you get around to him. To me he seems a particularly British writer who throws in lots of those little details that resonate with people who were living in Britain in the 70's and 80's. I've noticed on the review pages that non-Brits seem to like him as well, so I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.

64Morphidae
Dic 13, 2013, 2:53 pm

I couldn't get past the first ten pages of Middlemarch so you are doing so much better than I! More power to you.

65SandDune
Dic 13, 2013, 5:02 pm

As well as reading Middlemarch I have finished More than This by Patrick Ness (review to follow) and halfway through Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl by Grayson Perry and Wendy Jones.

66tiffin
Dic 13, 2013, 5:09 pm

Rhian, I still have my Tom Kitten book from childhood but somehow all the others got given away in various family moves, I think. I like Middlemarch very much but it isn't on the top 10 life list.

67LovingLit
Dic 13, 2013, 7:58 pm

>47 kidzdoc: ...her white mother and her black father drew thousands of messages and letters of protests from racist far right conservatives here.
O.M.G.
Unbelievable.

68PaulCranswick
Dic 13, 2013, 8:35 pm

Rhian - I am glad of course that the world is a more tolerant and accepting place than it was when I was a boy. There are of course set-backs like in Australia repealing its same-sex marriage safeguards and the occasional rearing of the ugly head of racism in european football stadia and in "conservative" places elsewhere.

Have a lovely weekend.

69humouress
Dic 14, 2013, 11:09 am

>68 PaulCranswick:: Paul, after those observations, I'm not sure her weekend is going to be so lovely ;0)

70SandDune
Editado: Dic 15, 2013, 7:15 am

96. More Than This Patrick Ness ****



'Here is the boy, drowning' begins the new novel by Patrick Ness, and the boy who is to be the hero of the novel does indeed drown. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say he is killed instead by the massive injuries he recieves as the waves smash him into the rocks just as he is about to drown anyway. Either way by the end of the first chapter he is well and truly dead.

So it's surprising to find that by the middle of the second chapter the boy (Seth) wakes up to find himself lying on a concrete path leading to the front door of a house. And seemingly not dead at all, which he is as surprised about as the reader. And he is not in the coastal Californian town where he has spent his teenage years, he is in a street that is clearly English, and outside the house that he has not seen since he was eight years old when his parents emigrated. But it's not a happy homecoming: there are clearly memories buried in that house which are best left undisturbed, something to do with his brother which he can't remember clearly. And the England in which he finds himself is very different to the one he remembers: empty of people and clearly abandoned, and with everything just left. Even the climate has changed. So is this his own personal hell?

This was an enjoyable an thought provoking read: one of those where you're never entirely sure if you know what is going on. There was one point where I thought 'Oh no, it's The Matrix (insert name of well known film) all over again, but it didn't turn out quite like that. So recommended.

71sibylline
Dic 14, 2013, 5:00 pm

Stopping by to say hello mainly! Hoping the cat and dog situ is improving.

72SandDune
Editado: Dic 15, 2013, 7:12 am

97. Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl Wendy Jones ***1/2



I don't know how familiar Grayson Perry is to people outside the UK, but here he is a well known ceramic artist, who was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003 and who has presented a number of critically acclaimed programmes on TV and radio including the 2013 Reith Lectures. Of course, what everyone in the UK knows best about Grayson Perry is that he is a transvestite, frequently appearing as his alter ego Claire: a rather overgrown and middle-aged small girl wearing a frilly frock and with a bow in her hair.

So this book (narrated by Grayson to Wendy Jones) tells the story of his life from his early childhood through school and art college to the time in his early twenties when he first discovered that pottery was for him. And to be honest it's not really a childhood or adolescence that you would wish on anyone: he mentions that he is estranged from his parents as an adult and it's clear why. From the time that his parents' marriage collapsed when his mother discover that she was pregnant by the milkman (I thought that only happened in sitcoms) to being told by his violent and abusive stepfather not to come back when he left for college at the age of 18, there was certainly very little love or support shown by either parent. The portrait of his mother makes me wonder, not for the first time, why some people have children and then spend the rest of their lives being so uninterested in them.

And of course Grayson's childhood was complicated by his growing realisation of his transvestism: not a very acceptable lifestyle choice for adolescents in an Essex town in the 1970's. And, to be honest, it's not a lifestyle that I'd previously given much thought to, so this part was quite enlightening, to say the least.

Overall, an honest and thought-provoking memoir. Just having listening to some of Grayson Perry's Reith Lectures though, I was expecting a little bit more somehow.but worth reading none the less.

Edited to add:

Grayson Perry as Claire with his Turner Prize winning work:



and a further example of his pottery:

73SandDune
Dic 14, 2013, 6:15 pm

#66 Tui I was looking for a picture of Tom Kitten but couldn't find a nice one. Another of my favourites.

#67 Megan my thoughts exactly!

#68 Hi Paul I think the world (at least certainly the part of it that I am familiar with) is a lot more tolerant about a lot of things. Same sex marriages in the UK will start in March, and the Church of England have finally approved women bishops, after years of wrangling.

#69 Nina the weekend didn't start well yesterday evening. My supermarket shopping was booked between 5pm and 6pm and eventually arrived at 7.37pm after I'd been on the phone three tines to Tesco's to see what on earth was going on. When the delivery arrived, it was apparently the driver's first day working for Tesco's and he couldn't find any of his houses, so I felt rather guilty about having complained. But much better today.

#71 Lucy I think it's improving slightly but it's a slow process.

74humouress
Dic 15, 2013, 3:00 am

Glad it's improving!

75DeltaQueen50
Dic 15, 2013, 6:51 pm

Hi Rhian, that's a great review of More Than This and I am adding it to my wishlist.

76SandDune
Dic 17, 2013, 5:56 pm

Finished Doomsday book - haven't read a book that frustrated me so much for a long time!

77rosalita
Dic 17, 2013, 7:54 pm

Rhian, two things drove me completely bonkers in that book; I wonder if they are the same things that bugged you?

78Morphidae
Dic 18, 2013, 9:00 am

I gave it 5 out of 10 stars - pretty bad.

My micro-review: "You know it's not good when you wish it were over. I finished the book because the story was interesting enough but her style and dialogue were rather tedious. She tried too hard to be humorous in the current time and in the past, everything was confusing. It had potential but needed tighter writing and an editor's heavy hand."

79SandDune
Editado: Dic 18, 2013, 3:17 pm

98. Doomsday Book Connie Willis ***

At the end of last year I was annoyed no end when I read Connie Willis's Blackout which as far as I could see consisted of everyone rushing around like headless chickens getting absolutely nothing done. But everyone said that it wasn't her best book, and the whole idea of her books appealed so much that I thought I needed to give her books at least one more try. And people were right, Doomsday Book is a much better book which I did enjoy in parts, but as well as the enjoyable sections there were parts which made me equally, if not more annoyed, than I had been in reading Blackout. I won't go too much into the basic plot (student historian (Kivrin) from the Oxford of the 2050's travels back in time to the Middle Ages, accidentally ending up in 1348 right in the middle of the Black Death, rather than the relatively safe 1320 as intended, while meanwhile an unknown virus ravages the Oxford she has left behind) but these are some of the reasons it annoyed me so much:

Why, oh why does everyone in the Oxford of 2050 sound as if they came from 1950? I can cope with the picture of the future when the book was written being different from what we might envisage today (although the lack of mobile phones is a little odd given when it was written) but the picture that's presented just doesn't seem believable. It's like a Disneyfied, Hollywood, picture of England where everyone speaks with a cut-glass accent and has a stiff upper lip. It's just too formal, and too religious, and just well wrong ... And at the same time it's not different enough from the real world to form a credible alternate universe, like the Oxford that Philip Pullman creates for Lyra in The Northern Lights which in contrast seems just right ...

And if you're creating a book where the plot hinges on the nature of the deadly diseases that are ravaging the fourteenth and the twenty-first centuries, you would do a little bit of research on what deadly diseases are a possibility, wouldn't you? Is it the cholera? asks Lady Eliwys in the fourteenth century. Well actually, no it isn't as cholera didn't find it's way to the UK from India until the 1830's. (As a history teacher Mr SandDune nearly choked on his glass of wine when i told him that one) And Kivrin assures herself that the illness she is suffering from couldn't possibly be malaria as it had never been endemic to England. Well actually yes it was, when England was a much marshier place than it is now malaria was very endemic, except that they called it ague instead.

And the whole organisation of the time-travelling itself just seemed a disaster waiting to happen. Why on earth would you send time travellers into an unknown situation on their own? It makes no sense at all. I mean Britain is still part of the EU in this future world, so where are the health and safety regulations, the risk assessments, the government committees governing time travel?

I know I'm taking it all too seriously, but there were just so many things that irritated me! And it's such a shame because underneath everything there was a good book waiting to get out. But overall the irritation won and so I don't think I'll be trying any more Connie Willis.

80qebo
Dic 18, 2013, 3:22 pm

79: I get irritated by excessive sit-com elements of missed connections and communication glitches and purposeful withholding of crucial information and such, but I like the good parts so much that I skim as needed.

81rosalita
Dic 18, 2013, 3:24 pm

Well ranted, Rhian! I pretty much agree. It drove me absolutely mad that the idea Kivrin had landed in the midst of the plague was treated so coyly (did she or didn't she?), when every description I read INCLUDING THE ONE ON THE BACK OF THE BOOK gave this supposed plot twist away. Also, basing a huge chunk of the action on the inability of future-people to contact each other by phone was just too stupid.

The only Willis book I would fairly confidently recommend is Lincoln's Dreams, which at least isn't a time-travel book, but it does sort of assume the reader will be at least passingly familiar with the American Civil War to plumb the most depth out of the plot. Blackout and the sequel All Clear made me want to bang my head against the wall. Or someone's head, anyway.

82SandDune
Dic 18, 2013, 3:42 pm

#74 Nina the weekend definitely improved. From feeling quite stressed about Christmas at the end of last week, I'm now feeling quite well organised with everything bought and in most cases wrapped as well!

#75 Judy we've got several other Patrick Ness books here. I've been meaning to get round to The Ask and the Answer for some time, and A Monster Calls.

83SandDune
Dic 18, 2013, 3:56 pm

#80Katherine up until about half way through my enjoyment of the book was outweighing my irritation, but then things just started to grate more and more.

#81 Julia, Morphy - glad i wasn't the only one who found it frustrating! 'basing a huge chunk of the action on the inability of future-people to contact each other by phone was just too stupid' - the whole plotline about the Head of History missing in action on a fishing trip on Scotland was just silly. I mean Scotland's not exactly the Amazon rainforest is it? You'd think that if you had a major pandemic affecting your place of work you would possibly notice it in the news and get in touch, wouldn't you, except I suppose that there didn't seem to be any news or TV or radio or newspapers at all for that matter.

84jnwelch
Dic 18, 2013, 5:10 pm

I like Julia's phrasing, Rhian - well ranted. I was much more charitable/oblivious than you when I read The Doomsday Book, so I missed some of what bugged you. E.g., so that's what ague was! I'd always wondered, but never looked it up. For me, the book was bloated, but I got caught up in it enough to enjoy it. Blackout, on the other hand, frustrated me in the same way you describe. I could never get motivated enough to try All Clear.

To Say Nothing of the Dog was fun, I thought, and Passage was interesting and good until the end, which was a big letdown. Because of rec's like Julia's, I have Lincoln's Dreams on my tbr.

85tiffin
Dic 18, 2013, 7:58 pm

Ok, now I'm laughing about the Head of History missing in action on a fishing trip in Scotland and I haven't even read the book. Although I can see certain parts of the Highlands being off the beaten track...but even up single track roads beside wildly raging torrents of rivers, we still ran into mad people in wet suits lunging in to them with kayaks, so you'd have to work awfully hard at getting totally incommunicado.

86lauralkeet
Dic 19, 2013, 6:44 am

Excellent rant, Rhian! Sounds like a book to avoid. Although I'm pleased I now know what "ague" actually is.

87rosalita
Dic 19, 2013, 9:05 am

Joe, I'm impressed that you were able to stop after the huge cliffhanger at the end of Blackout and not bother going on to All Clear. I felt like I had so much time invested in the first book that I was damn sure going to make it to the payoff at the end of the second. I'm not sorry I did, exactly; more that I kind of wish I had never started Blackout to begin with.

88jnwelch
Dic 19, 2013, 10:53 am

>87 rosalita: Ha! Yes, it's reactions like yours to All Clear, Julia, that fortified me to resist reading it, even after the cliffhanger. I just hadn't enjoyed Blackout, and I wasn't hearing anything from others that would motivate me to spend more reading time on the next one.

89SandDune
Dic 19, 2013, 2:41 pm

#84 Joe I forgive you for not knowing what ague was: I think I only found that out quite recently. But cholera in the UK is very well documented, as the man that discovered that the disease was caused by contaminated water did so because of a ground-breaking study into a cholera epidemic in London in the 1850's. It's taught as part of the History GSCE (the exam children take here at 16) module of History of Medicine, and I think I've seen at last a couple of TV programmes on it. And I do think that if you're writing a historical novel (at least I suppose the medieval part counts as historical) you ought to do a bit of research. Incidentally, I'm still reading Middlemarch set in 1829 and this afternoon got to the line 'is it any wonder the cholera has got to Dantzic?'

#85 Tui I couldn't help thinking that if the head of history was as truly uncontactable as he seemed to be then in real life he probably wouldn't have a job to come back to anyway!

#86 Laura Connie Willis seems one of those writers who divide opinion a lot. Some people seem to really love her books (there are a lot of five star reviews for this one) and others (like me) feel very different.

#87 Julia I did mean to read All Clear but I was so annoyed with Blackout and it was another long book so it just didn't get to the top of the pile. And now I can't remember what happened in Blackout anyway, so if I was going to read All Clear I'd have to reread Blackout first, and that's just not going to happen.

90Helenliz
Dic 19, 2013, 2:54 pm

I'm not sure I fancy the sound of the Connie Willis book. getting details wrong winds me up something chronic. I've had her recommended as Sci fi/fantasy - the book suggested was To say nothing of the dog but on the basis of the reports of her other work I may give that a miss.

91lyzard
Editado: Dic 19, 2013, 4:54 pm

George Eliot is more historically accurate than Connie Willis!? You astonish me. :)

Yeah, I'm with MrSD on the whole "choking on your wine" thing.

92LovingLit
Dic 19, 2013, 6:11 pm

>72 SandDune: I saw the picture of the potter, and thought- that is great, an "older woman" wearing such an out-there style.She looks great, and the book sounds very interesting. It reads differently if it has been transcribed from speech, don't you think?

>79 SandDune: (As a history teacher Mr SandDune nearly choked on his glass of wine when i told him that one)
LOL
Me too, just reading that he did! Looks like more research was needed on that one!

93humouress
Editado: Dic 20, 2013, 2:38 am

>79 SandDune:: Just literally came over from MickyFine's thread, where she reviewed the connected book To Say Nothing of the Dog, and walked slap-bang into your review of Doomsday Book.

The ensuing discussion here gave me a good chuckle. :0)

ETA: link to Micky's review.

94alcottacre
Dic 20, 2013, 5:32 am

#63: Regarding Coe: Unfortunately my local library only has The Rain Before it Falls. Any thoughts on that one?

95SandDune
Editado: Dic 20, 2013, 1:42 pm

Quote from J who's currently reading The Day of the Triffids and isn't used to reading older books: 'This is so sexist! If I was the woman in this book I'd punch him (referring to the hero). All she's expected to do is scream and ask questions.'

96SandDune
Dic 20, 2013, 1:58 pm

#90, 91, 93 Helen, Liz, Nina I've definitely finished with my trial of Connie Willis. Part of the problem for me is that although some of it is clearly meant to be funny, I just don't 'get' the humour. I do find some books funny (this year there's been Skios and The Hundred-Year-Old man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared) but I'm much more likely to read a book that's supposedly hilarious without laughing once. Three Men in a Boat is one of those that I do find very funny though, but based on my experiences of Connie Willis I think I'll stick with the original.

#92 Megan going on what he says in the book I'm sure Grayson Perry would be very flattered with you thinking him a woman! That is the outfit that he wore to the Turner Prize award ceremony, and is probably one of his more striking ones.

97lkernagh
Dic 20, 2013, 9:10 pm

> 95 - Love it! The perspective younger readers can bring to a book never ceases to amaze and delight me. ;-)

98lit_chick
Dic 21, 2013, 1:53 pm

#95 Go, J! I'm with Lori that younger readers perspectives amaze and delight me.

99SandDune
Dic 21, 2013, 3:03 pm

#94 Stasia I haven't read that one I'm afraid so I can't really comment. We've got it sitting upstairs on a shelf though ...

#97, 98 Lori, Nancy J is actually quite good at picking up on that sort of thing in books or films. But he very rarely reads anything that was written more than twenty years ago and so he isn't used to the different position that women used to have. He's in an interesting place with his reading right now, just at that crossover point between children's and adult fiction. Before The Day of the Triffids he was reading Neverwhere, and before that The God Delusion by Richard Dawkin which I am pretty sure I would not have been reading at his age.

100SandDune
Dic 21, 2013, 3:13 pm

Finished By Light Alone by Adam Roberts: just one more book to go before I reach my 100, which will almost certainly be Middlemarch!

101TinaV95
Dic 23, 2013, 1:56 pm

Hi Rhian!!

To add to the college gender / race discussion, as I have an odd perspective...

I went to Wesleyan College in Macon for my undergrad degree. It was the first college in the US to grant degrees to women back in 1836. HOLLA!! ;) Men are allowed to attend classes, but NOT allowed to graduate. Hence, men rarely attend. *Or at least back in my day that was the case.

I went to Fort Valley State University for my graduate degree, because they had a great Rehabilitation Counseling program. The school is considered primarily for black students, although whites do occasionally attend. I was one of a few in my graduate program; I'd say there were definitely more whites in the graduate programs versus the undergraduate ones, though I don't know why.

The Cheerios commercial was amazing and the first time I saw it, I got misty eyed. I didn't know it was a subject of controversy. *&^*#$^%#^*

102Helenliz
Dic 24, 2013, 3:53 am

Returning the compliment - Happy Christmas to you and yours, Rhian. I've enjoyed your breadth of reading and the interesting and amusing comments on that reading (and other subjects), so thanks for letting me gatecrash your thread(s).

103cushlareads
Dic 24, 2013, 4:15 am

Happy Christmas Rhian! Hope you have a lovely day. And thank you for putting me off Connie Willis - I will save room for an author I'll like instead.

104susanj67
Dic 24, 2013, 5:42 am

Rhian, best wishes for Christmas to you and your family. I liked J's comment about Day of the Triffids, which I have never read (but that would also annoy me). I hope you make it to 100!

105calm
Dic 24, 2013, 8:48 am

May you have a book filled Christmas, Rhian

106sibylline
Dic 24, 2013, 9:14 am

Merry Christmas, Rhian!


107wilkiec
Dic 24, 2013, 9:31 am

Hi Rhian,

108BLBera
Dic 24, 2013, 10:21 am

Merry Christmas, Rhian. I hope you and your family have a lovely holiday and all the best for 2014.

109DorsVenabili
Dic 24, 2013, 11:22 am

Happy Holidays to you and your family, Rhian! Must do a better job of keeping up in 2014.

110humouress
Dic 24, 2013, 11:27 am



Dropping by to wish you for the festive season, Rhian. I'm sorry we didn't get to meet this year; another time, definitely.

Wishing you and your family the very best for 2014.

111SandDune
Dic 24, 2013, 12:18 pm

A very happy Christmas and New Year to everyone! I won't have much time over the next few days to reply to everyone individually, as we have visitors and then are away for a few days. We have had a huge storm here, torrential rain and winds, our fence is looking rather the worse for wear but is still (sort of ) upright. And I finally made 100 - finished Middlemarch!

112lit_chick
Dic 24, 2013, 12:58 pm

Woot! FInished Middlemarch! Well done, Rhian. I am LOVING the Juliet Stevenson audio, which I know you also listened to. I think it's going to be another 5* read for me. Just finished a 5* in TransAtlantic. Doesn't get much better than that!

Merry Christmas to you and your family : ).

113qebo
Dic 24, 2013, 4:44 pm

114cameling
Dic 24, 2013, 4:57 pm

Have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season, Rhian.

115luvamystery65
Dic 24, 2013, 6:20 pm

Congratulations on hitting 100 Rhian!

Happy Christmas to you and the family!

116ronincats
Dic 24, 2013, 6:26 pm

Congratulations on hitting the 100 book mark, Rhian, and Merry Christmas!

117katiekrug
Dic 24, 2013, 6:28 pm

Merry Christmas to you and yours, Rhian!

118labwriter
Dic 24, 2013, 7:15 pm

Congratulations on the 100 mark, Rhian. And happy holidays, as well.



119PaulCranswick
Dic 24, 2013, 9:57 pm



Rhian, it was delightful being able to host you and Alan and J in Kuala Lumpur this August. Your thread mixes serious, literate discussion on a variety of topics germane to all of us with wry anecdotes about your life and is invigilated with good spirit, humour and honesty. You lead the UK contingent in posts to your thread this year.
Have a wonderful Christmas and persuade Alan to drop by once in a while. xx

120TinaV95
Dic 24, 2013, 11:04 pm

Merry Christmas, Rhian!

121ChelleBearss
Dic 24, 2013, 11:09 pm


Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!!

122AMQS
Dic 24, 2013, 11:42 pm

Rhian, best wishes to you and your family for a very merry Christmas!

123tiffin
Dic 24, 2013, 11:56 pm

I'm loving these cards popping up on everyone's threads! Happy Christmas, Rhian! Looking forward to following your reads for 2014.

124Chatterbox
Dic 25, 2013, 1:06 am

It's already Christmas chez vous, Rhian, and while there's no fancy gif (I love Chelle's elf, especially in light of the news out of Iceland that some real estate development has been banned so as not to piss off the resident elves), it comes with lotsa good wishes for a fabulous, book-filled Christmas! (Even though I happen to have liked Doomsday Book better than you did, perhaps because I didn't pick up on the cholera point and the malaria one simply didn't register... I'm clearly going to have to consult with you before trying to publish a historical novel...)

Merry Christmas!

125avatiakh
Editado: Dic 25, 2013, 6:08 am

I've been away from your thread for a while and missed lots of good discussion. I think Nicholas Dane by Melvin Burgess is worth looking out for, it's sort of Dickensian but based on the 1980s children's homes and abuse.
A Ya writer you might like if you haven't come across him as yet, is Julius Lester. He is Black American who grew up in the south and converted to judaism. His books are full of social issues. I've read his Othello, Guardian which is about lynching and When Dad killed Mom. His To be a slave won a few awards.

Eta: Forgot to wish you a Happy new Year

126avatiakh
Dic 25, 2013, 6:31 am

Just discovered that I had mistakenly put your thread on ignore so that's why I haven't been reading and posting! I blame my iPad and slippery fingers!

127-Cee-
Dic 25, 2013, 8:33 am

Hi Rhian! Hope you are having a very merry Christmas!

128Morphidae
Dic 25, 2013, 1:16 pm

Have yourself a merry little book-filled Christmas!

129brenzi
Editado: Dic 25, 2013, 6:08 pm



Merry Christmas Rhian!

130Crazymamie
Dic 25, 2013, 11:07 pm



Merry Christmas, Rhian! Hoping that it was filled with fabulous!

131HanGerg
Dic 26, 2013, 6:42 am

Stopping by to wish you a very Merry Christmas Rhian! I've not caught up with your thread for a while, and I missed lots of great discussions.
The one about race in the US and UK was fascinating to me. The UK ends up coming out of it quite well, but I think we would be very silly to get complacent. Living in Devon, not one of the most racially mixed parts of the country, it was still possible to encounter people with some pretty suspect opinions. And my job last year, of overseeing the education and welfare of students in a secondary school that were not native English speakers, occasionally threw up some very ugly actions on the part of a small minority. In general, I think the school system and the kids were great, and a lot of work was done by my predecessor, and hopefully continued by me, to encourage kids to embrace the diversity of backgrounds in their school, but every now and then a kid, or sad to say, even an adult would make a comment that would show that if you scratched the surface, some rather nasty views were still lurking. Also, I'm not sure black/white relations are the forefront of the battle ground in the UK these days. Rather the issue seems to be religious or immigration based. So Muslims and those coming to UK as immigrants are the victims of a lot of prejudice. The huge amount of hang wringing going on about Roma gypsies from Romania coming to the UK when immigration rules are relaxed as part of EU accession would be a good example.
Here's a rather unsavoury example from one of our more rightwing newpapers http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/442719/Arrested-Romanian-laughs-as-he-s-led-awa...

Anyway, I didn't mean to be so Bah Humbug-y, as I really came here to wish you a Merry Christmas!! I just got swept up in this interesting debate!
Also, I wanted to say, I'm another with mixed feeling about Connie Willis. Like you I read Blackout and found it so annoying that I didn't read the concluding part. But I did like Doomsday Book. The bits in the future were very annoying, and all the faffing around related to the time travel was still frustrating, but the scenes of the suffering of the villagers in the Black Death packed a huge emotional punch for me, so I was willing to forgive the more annoying bits.
Also, I'm tempted by the Grayson Perry book. He's one of the public figures that I rate as being an exceptionally "Good Egg", without actually knowing too much about him. I really wanted to go to the exhibition he curated at the British Museum (called "Tomb of the Unknown Crafter"or something similar) a few years ago, but the queue for tickets was massive so I didn't go in the end. I just love the fact that a Turner Prize winning artist has a big enough public profile that he can appear on "Have I Got News For You", and be funny and entertaining on it as well! I also really like his ceramics, which I guess is the thing that shouldn't be lost sight of amongst all the other interesting things about him...
OK, sorry for such a rambling post, but your thread is so interesting I just had to respond to all these things!
Ok, here's a nice Christmas pudding as a reward for reading all that wittering....


Oh, one more thing! Go J!!! Calling out sexism at such a young age! Makes me hopeful for the future! Obviously a bright and sensitive young man you're raising there Rhian. Christmas best wishes to you and him, and all your loved ones!

132lkernagh
Dic 26, 2013, 5:23 pm

Hi Rhian - Stopping by with belated Christmas wishes and to wish you a

133SandDune
Dic 26, 2013, 5:43 pm

#131 Hannah I'm not sure black/white relations are the forefront of the battle ground in the UK these days. Rather the issue seems to be religious or immigration based. Hannah, I think you're completely right there, I wasn't trying to imply that there were no issues of that sort but my thoughts had been provoked by my reading Salvage the Bones so I was really focusing on the differences between black / white relations between the US and the UK rather than looking at the wider picture. I think I agree with you on Grayson Perry: whenever I see or hear him on the media he seems to have such a lot if interesting things to say. Love your knitted Christmas pudding by the way!

134SandDune
Editado: Dic 26, 2013, 6:07 pm

Merry Christmas to everyone whose posted: Hannah, Lori, Mamie, Bonnie, Morphy, Cee , Kerry, Suz, Tui, Anne, Chelle, Tina, Paul, Becky, Katie, Roni, Caro, Katherine, Nancy, Kerri, Roberta, Nina, Beth, Diana, Lucy, Calm, Susan,, Cushla, Helen.

Sorry I haven't got much time at the moment to get back to everyone individually but I hope you all had a great Chrismas!

135luvamystery65
Dic 27, 2013, 11:22 pm

Rhian I'll see you over on the 2014 group next week!

136tiffin
Ene 1, 2014, 5:49 pm

Haven't found you for 2014 yet, Rhian. I'll keep looking.