Kerry (avatiakh) goes for 18 in 2018

This is my 10th year in the category challenge. I haven't been as present these past couple of years but we'll see how we go. I've sketched out 18 reading categories but will not be aiming for 18 books read in each.
I'll add my categories now, though will need to pretty them up etc

My current 2017 category challenge is here

1: New to me writers
2: Young at Heart
3: Crossing Over - YA books & graphic novels
4: European writers
5: Short Stories
6: Folk and fairy
7: Essays & poetry
8: Thrillers - crime, spies, mystery
9: BIG BOOKS
10: Focus - Arthurian literature
11: Foodie things
12: Reading about the Middle East with focus on Israel
13: ANZAC
14: Nonfiction
15: Science Fiction & Fantasy
16:Folio editions
17: General fiction
18: Keeping tabs: e-books and audiobooks

1: New to me writers:
Dive in and discover someone new, hopefully these discoveries will take place from my own bookshelves.
1) and the rat laughed by Nava Semel (2001)
2) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
3) The travelling cat chronicles by Hiro Arikawa (2015 Japan)
4) Call it sleep by Henry Roth (1934)

Possibles:
Mordechai Richler
Steve Sem-Sandberg - The Emperor of Lies
Parinoush Saniee - The Book of Fate
Arnold Zweig - The case of Sergeant Grischa

2: Young at Heart - children's books & picturebooks

1) The slave dancer by Paula Fox (1973)
2) The tales of Olga da Polga by Michael Bond (1971)
3) The Dogs of Winter by Bobbie Pyron (2012)
4) Leon by Helen Griffiths (1967)
5) The flying classroom by Erich Kästner (1934)
6) The Tygrine Cat: On the run by Inbali Iserles (2011)
7) The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (2000)
8) The Mapmakers' Race by Eirlys Hunter (2018)
9) Once by Morris Gleitzman (2005)
10) Then by Morris Gleitzman (2008)
11) Now by Morris Gleitzman (2010)
12) After by Morris Gleitzman (2011)
13) Soon by Morris Gleitzman (2015)
14) Maybe by Morris Gleitzman (2017)
15) A dark inheritance by Chris D'Lacey (2014)
16) Blue Dog by Louis de Bernières (2016)
17) Nevermoor: The trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend (2017)
18) The extremely inconvenient adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty (2017)
19) Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (2011)
20) Grace by Morris Gleitzman (2009)
21) Dog by Daniel Pennac (1982)
22) Goth girl and the Fete worse than death by Chris Riddell (2014)
23) The ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively (1973)
24) The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson (2018)
25) The Wild Robot by Peter Brown (2016)
26) The Marvels by Brian Selznick (2015)
27) Baby Monkey, private eye by Brian Selznick & David Serlin (2018)
28) Wolf Children by Paul Dowswell (2017)
29) A chase in time by Sally Nicholls (2018)
30) Tilly and the bookwanderers by Anna James (2018)

picturebooks

1) Tidy by Emily Gravett (2017)
2) Triangle by Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen (2017)
3) Yaffa and Fatima: Shalom, Salaam by Fawzia Gilani-Williams (2017)
4) Cinderella: an Islamic tale by Fawzia Gilani (2011)
5) Witchfairy by Briggite Minne (2016 Belgium)
6) Under the same sky by Britta Teckentrup (2017)
7) Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner (2009)
8) The language of angels: a story about the reinvention of Hebrew by Richard Michelson (2017)
9) Do not lick this book by Idan Ben-Barak (2017)
10) The uncorker of ocean bottles by Michelle Cuevas (2016)
11) Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime by Gloria Spielman (2011)
12) The New Neighbours by Sarah McIntyre (2018)
13) Swan Lake: A Retelling of the Classic Ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky by Anne Spudvilas (2016)
14) William's Waitangi Day by David Ling (2018)
15) My Teacher Is a Monster! (No, I Am Not.) by Peter Brown (2014)

3: Crossing Over - YA books & graphic novels

1) Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais (2017)
2) Words on bathroom walls by Julia Walton (2017)
3) Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubenstein / Lian Hearn (1993)
4) Doglands by Tim Willocks (2011)
5) Beck by Mal Peet (2016)
6) Ronit & Jamil by Pamela Laskin (2017)
7) The traitor and the thief by Gareth Ward (NZ, 2017)
8) Girl with a Camera: Margaret Bourke-White, Photographer by Carolyn Meyer (2017)
9) The Twelfth of July by Joan Lingard (1970)
10) The rules of survival by Nancy Werlin
11) The FitzOsbornes at war by Michelle Cooper (2012)
12) The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (2000)
13) Gullstruck Island by Frances Hardinge (2009)
14) The Fandom by Anna Day (2018)
15) The silver blade by Sally Gardner (2009)
16 Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve (2009)
17) A web of air by Philip Reeve (2010)
18) Scrivener's Moon by Philip Reeve (2011)
19) The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope (1974)
20) Beautiful Mess by Claire Christian (2017)
21) Not if I save you first by Ally Carter (2018)
22) Station Zero by Philip Reeve (2018)
23) The Dumpster Saga by Craig Harrison (2007)
24) The Invasion by Peadar Ó Guilín (2018)
25) The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson (1993)
26) Let sleeping dogs lie by Mirjam Pressler (2003 German)
27) The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser (2015 German)
28) The anger of angels by Sherryl Jordan (2018)
29) Bullet Boys by Ally Kennen (2012)

Graphic Novels:

1) Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D by David Kushner (2017)
2) Helen and the Go=Go Ninjas by Ant Sang & Michael Bennett (2018)
3) Aotearoa Whispers: The Awakening by Gonzalo Navarro (2011)
4) The lie and how we told it by Tommi Parrish (2018)
5) Saga Vol. 5 by Brian Vaughan (2015)
6) Saga Vol. 6 by Brian Vaughan (2016)
7) Saga Vol. 7 by Brian Vaughan (2017)
8) Saga Vol. 8 by Brian Vaughan (2017)
9) The End of Summer by Tillie Walden (2015)
10) I love this part by Tillie Walden (2015)
11) The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth by Ken Krimstein (2018)
12) Berlin: City of stones by Jason Lutes (2000)
13) Berlin: city of smoke by Jason Lutes (2009)
14) Berlin: city of light by Jason Lutes (2018)
15) Saga Vol. 9 by Brian K. Vaughan (2018)
16) The Coldest City by Anthony Johnston (2012)
17) The Coldest Winter by Antony Johnston (2016)

Fever Crumb trilogy by Philip Reeve
The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

4: European writers

1) Lullaby by Leïla Slimani (2016 French) (2008 Eng)
2)
3)
4)

Émile Zola

5: Short Stories
I have a lot of anthologies & story collections lying around needing attention
1) The Bet by Anton Chekhov (1889)
2)
3)

Men at War anthology edited by Ernest Hemingway

6: Folk and fairy - collections and nonfiction
I have several texts about folktales, mythology etc that I need to read.
1)
2)
3)

7: Essays & poetry

1) What makes a teacher? by Jack Lasenby (2004)
2) The book that made me edited by Judith Ridge (2016)

Poetry
1) Miximum Ca' Canny the Sabotage Manuals by Ida Börjel (2013 Swedish) (2016 English)
2)

8: Thrillers - crime, spies, mystery
1) The Guards by Ken Bruen (2001)
2) The Pyramid of Mud by Andrea Camilleri (2018)
3) The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (1939)
4) The Lady Killer by Masako Togawa (1963)
5) The Menorah Men by Lionel Davidson (1966)
6) Between summer's longing and winter's end by Leif Persson (2002)
7) Hellbent by Gregg Hurwitz (2018)
8) Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (2008)
9) The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915)
10) Alex by Pierre Lemaitre (2011)
11) Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland (2010)
12) The Broken Shore by Peter Temple (2005)
13) Marlborough Man by Alan Carter (2017)
14) In a house of lies by Ian Rankin (2018)
15) Blue Monday by Nicci French (2011)

Nicci French
Fred Vargas

9: BIG BOOKS - books over 650pgs and omnibus editions

1) Young Henry of Navarre by Heinrich Mann (1935)
2)
3)

I have a few in mind, already committed to reading
Young Henry of Navarre & Henry, King of France by Heinrich Mann
also want to read Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

10: Focus - Arthurian Literature

1)
2)
3)

YA & childrens:

1) Fintan's Tower by Catherine Fisher (1991)
2)
3)

Possibles:
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
The Sword and The Circle, The Light Beyond the Forest & The Road to Camlann by Rosemary Sutcliff
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
Hawk Of May by Gillian Bradshaw
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes
The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
An LT list here - http://www.librarything.com/list/154/all/Best-Arthurian-Fiction

11: Foodie things - cookbooks or culinary memoirs etc
1) Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race by Naben Ruthnum (2017)
2)
3)

Cookbooks:
1)
2)

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat
Ferment: A practical guide to the ancient art of making cultured foods by Holly Davis

12: Reading about the Middle East with focus on Israel - fiction & nonfiction

1) Letters to my Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi (2018)
2) Evacuation by Raphaël Jérusalmy (2018)

Aaronsohn's Maps by Patricia Goldstone
The secret book of Kings by Yochi Brandes

13: ANZAC reading - Australia & New Zealand fiction
1) Hangman by Jack Heath (2018)
2) Driving to Treblinka: A Long Search For A Lost Father by Diana Wichtel (2017)
3) The Lost Pages by Marija Peričić (2017)
4) Boy swallows Universe by Trent Dalton (2018)
5) Mutuwhenua by Patricia Grace (1978)
6) The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted by Robert Hillman (2018)
7) The bed-making competition by Anna Jackson (2018)

Storyland by Catherine McKinnon
The Memory Stones by Caroline Brothers
Her by Garry Disher

14: Nonfiction

1) Hello Refugees! by Tuvia Tenenbom (2017)
2) Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell (2017)
3) Jacob's room is full of books by Susan Hill (2017)
4) A Table for One: Under the Light of Jerusalem by Aharon Appelfeld (2001)
5) The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide (2001)
6) The New Zealand Cat by Rachael Hale McKenna (2017)
7) Out of the shadows: my life's journey from Mönchengladbach to Milton and beyond by Walter Hirsh (2013)
8) Man's search for meaning by Victor Frankl (1946)
9) Notes on a nervous planet by Matt Haig (2018)
10) Teacher: one woman's struggle to keep the heart in teaching by Gabbie Stroud (2018)

Belonging: the story of the Jews 1492-present by Simon Schama
The King of Children by Betty Jean Lifton

15: Science Fiction & Fantasy reading

1) The girl in the tower by Katherine Arden (2017)
2) The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams (1978)
3) Imposters by Scott Westerfeld (2018)
4) Child of an Ancient City by Tad Williams & Nina Kiriki Hoffman (1992)
5) In the dark spaces by Cally Black (2017)

Ian McDonald - River of Gods

16: Folio editions - I have collected several of these books and should read some

1)
2)

17: General fiction
for books that don't fit elsewhere

1) Powder and Patch by Georgette Heyer (1923)
2) Of mice and men by John Steinbeck (1937)
3) Less by Andrew Sean Greer (2017)
4) Vox by Christina Dalcher (2018)

18: e-books and audiobooks
I want to keep tabs on how many of these I read & also hope to make myself read more from my kindle app where I have built up quite a collection of cheap digital reads.
This will probably be a double up category as I will also be slotting these books into other categories.

e-books
1) Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais - kindle
2) Beck by Mal Peet - Overdrive e-book
3) The Lost Pages by Marija Pericic - kindle
4) Girl with a Camera: Margaret Bourke-White, Photographer by Carolyn Meyer (2017) - e-book

audiobooks
1)
2)
3)

and done. Might rejig a couple of categories before the new year.

Great set-up, Kerry. Your ANZAC section has my particular interest!

Looking forward to all the great recommendations that I know I will be getting here!

Have a great reading year! Post pics of the Folio books you read :)

>21 MissWatson: >22 DeltaQueen50: >23 rabbitprincess: thanks for your support.

I've decided to make my focus on King Arthur. My daughter and I have just been discussing Arthurian legend and so the decision was easy.
There's an LT list - http://www.librarything.com/list/154/all/Best-Arthurian-Fiction

Looks like a varied challenge. Will be stopped back by to see how it goes!

I see you have Reamde and River of Gods listed to read. I LOVED Reamde, couldn't put it down. Oh, that lovely Russian. River of Gods is also wonderful, very exotic.

>24 avatiakh: I've been planning to re-read the Mary Stewart four book set. I read them so very long ago, but remember them with such fondness. Maybe a group read if anyone else is interested?

Nicely done, Kerry! I like your categories, and the image for the big books category made me smile. So fun. Looking forward to following along with your reading.

Getting myself ready to accept BBs from you in 2018!

Your challenge looks great! I'm looking forward to seeing your ANZAC choices.

This looks promising once again! I'm looking forward to see which books you'll choose.

>25 cmbohn: Hi Cindy, thanks for visiting.
>26 majkia: Reamde was one of my selections for the Near future scifi October read and I never got past the first chapter of The Windup Girl. So hoping to deal with tWG by year's end and very keen to tackle Reamde as I've loved all the Stephenson books I've read so far (or should say, 'listened too!').
I loved McDonald's The Dervish House and have been meaning to tackle more of his work since reading it.

>27 majkia: A group read of the Mary Stewart's series would be a grand idea, I've done ok this year with the Poldark group read. I'll add it to the group read thread and see if there are any takers.

>28 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie. Thanks for visiting, I struggled a bit to find a 'big book' illustration, I didn't want to use images that I've used before. This one made me smile too.

>29 lkernagh: Please don't mention BBs. I get hit by so many.

>30 VivienneR: I run a ANZAC reading challenge over in the 75 books group. We didn't do that well this year but it's a good thread for getting some ideas from. I just finished The Starlings and liked it quite a bit.

>31 Chrischi_HH: I struggle to come up with a theme and just end up going for useful categories. My intention at one stage was just to call my categories after each room in the house that has books in it.

>11 avatiakh: I read Crystal Cave this year and I hope to continue with the series this year. I hope you enjoy it. I also read Reamde and enjoyed it (what a chunkster). You already seem to have a lot of good choices lines up. Have a great year!

Ooh, just remembered I have a copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight kicking around that I haven't read yet, as well as Malory, Chretien de Troyes and Geoffrey of Monmouth, which are left over from my university course on King Arthur. Will have to earmark one or more of those for reading next year!

Last summer I read The Mists of Avalon and really enjoyed the story from the women's point of view.

>33 mamzel: I'm quite excited for Reamde. I've been meaning to tackle Mary Stewart.

>34 rabbitprincess: My daughter would love to do a uni course on King Arthur. She's hoping to do one on folktales in her second semester next year.

>35 mamzel: I read The Mists of Avalon years ago and really liked it. It was a set text for my oldest daughter at high school and I read it after she'd finished with it.

Good luck with your 2018 reading! You have interesting categories, especially the Folio Society.

Hello Refugees! by Tuvia Tenenbom (2017)
nonfiction category

As I've said before Tenenbom has a distinctive style of writing, fairly irreverent, but he does give everyone he meets a chance to explain themselves. In this book he's asked by his publisher to go and look at the refugee issue in Germany. What follows is quite a fascinating read. Tenenbom can speak German, Arabic as well as Hebrew and English so combines on the street interviews with whoever he comes across with talks with Germans in positions of authority. The mix works well and gives the reader a look at a crosssection of opinion from all walks of German life.
First the Germans on why they welcomed an unlimited number of migrants - if we didn't it would confirm that we are Nazis, this way we look humane.
The refugees/migrants - are mostly miserable, stuck in group hotels/camps with nothing to do - no jobs, waiting endlessly for interviews so they can move forward, cramped, infrastructure not maintained, low grade meals. Problems with fighting between migrant groups and drugs. Weird viruses and skin infections afflict many.

Tenenbom talks to those on the right and finds a lot of what they say is common sense but because it is not in line with government policy they are considered far right and ostracised. He meets assimilated German Turkish writer, Akif Pirinçci who since expressing anti-migrant views has been censored and boycotted by society. When he goes out on the street he is yelled at, spat at and is not welcome at many local restaurants. It's easy to spot his home, it's the only one on the street with broken steps and a paint spattered front door thanks to an antifa group. His cat detective books are no longer stocked by amazon.com (though they still sell Mein Kampf & Ku Klux Klan books), his e-books no longer available. His publisher Random House says he no longer exists and contacted Germany's leading bookstore chain, Thalia, to have all his works removed from the shelves. All this because he made a statement that was misreported by the media, he was reading from a book and it was taken as his view.
Tenenbom does say that this writer holds anti-migrant views but the backlash against him has been extreme. He's got written apologies from the media but nobody knows that because it's not general knowledge.
Tenenbom asks, when in the past does this happen to anyone? They hold a view that the migrants will bring more problems to the German society and for this they are ostracised by their community.

Tenenbom also meets many from the left of society including the Mayor of Koln, who struggle to not blame the influx of one million migrants on the many current problems Germany is suffering through - a rise in crime, drugs, the sex attacks in Koln during New Year's Eve etc.

Tenenbom contacts Daimler-Benz, which has a program to train refugees. The head of public relations sends a limousine to pick him up at his Stuttgart hotel; another Mercedes shuttles him to a factory with a showpiece integration program.
Here is the first refugee on the floor. His name, so he says, is Adhan and he is 26 years of age. He arrived in Germany in January 2014 and now he is an intern here…Watch, my dears, what Adhan is doing right now: Adhan screws the three-pointed star to the car hood. Yeah! This operation, the art of screwing, takes him two seconds. Ja! And he does it again and again; this is an assembly line, after all.
Adhan is the only refugee on the production line. And there is one more, sitting at a computer doing nothing in particular. And that is the entirely of Daimler’s integration program. It is grotesque, sad, and stupid.
“Hello Refugees” offers more subtlety and compassion than his previous books: The Germans wanted to feel well about themselves, but end up feeling ridiculous; the migrants hoped for a new life under German sponsorship and find themselves utterly and hopelessly lost.
“Hello Refugees” was commissioned by the German publisher Suhrkamp.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2017/09/10/germanys-refugee-crisis-looking-glass/

I've now read all his books.

Hangman by Jack Heath (2018)
thriller - ANZAC category
I received this review copy from Australian publisher, Allen & Unwin a couple of weeks ago through a goodreads giveaway. I read one of Heath's YA books a couple of years ago and liked it, thought it was a good book for boys, The Cut-out. Heath's first book was published while he was still at school, he's only 32 now and already has 20 books under his belt.
Hangman has already been optioned for a tv series by Homeland producer, Michael Offer and Heath has been commissioned to write a sequel.
This is rather a dark thriller and at first it's hard to be sympathetic with the main character, Timothy Blake, maybe because he has unpalatable secret, but for all that you do end up liking this guy. This has made Blake's life rather awkward in many ways but he now has a deal with the Houston FBI chief, solve a crime, save a child's life and we'll give you what you need to feed your habit.
This time Blake has a new FBI partner and a new kidnapping case to solve, one that proves exceedingly difficult.
I enjoyed reading this, a few parts where I'd rather not have ventured, but all up an entertaining read with enough humour and twists to keep me satisfied.

Here's a recent interview, I loved The Cleaner and this made me laugh -
Which writers inspire you? Jeff Lindsay (Dexter series), Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho), Joyce Carol Oates… there were moments in her book Zombie that made me feel physically sick. I love that. I was so horrified reading The Cleaner by Paul Cleave on a plane that I fainted, then vomited. That story became so notorious that the author sent me a signed copy. Which was nice, because I totally ruined the first one.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/weekend-australian-magazine/qa-jack-heath-a...

Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais (2017)
Crossing Over - YA books
Beauvais wrote this first in French and then translated it to English with some changes. The French edition was very popular and her profile as a writer soared over in France. I think the book has been snapped up for film. By day, Beauvais is a professor of children's literature at York University in the UK. She's been described as a French version of YA writer Louise Rennison.

I found this quite hilarious and would recommend it to all lovers of YA. Mireille, Astrid and Hakima are the winners of an ugly Facebook competition, they're the most ugly girls at their high school. The girls meet up and bond over this hateful social media bullying. They find a common interest in getting to Paris on Bastille Day for the French President's garden party...and decide to travel by bike, pulling a trailer from which they sell homemade pork sausages at each stop. They're accompanied by Hakima's older brother, who is in a wheelchair. Ttheir story is picked up by journalists and social media and the snowball effect begins. #3littlepiglettes

The slave dancer by Paula Fox (1973)
Young at Heart - children's

This won the 1974 Newbery and fitted the TIOLI challenge to read a book by a writer who died in 2017.
This is a haunting story of 13 yr old Jessie who is snatched while running an errand for his mother from New Orlean's streets. He's taken to a slave ship heading for Africa to pick up slaves, his job will be to play his fife when the slaves are up on deck, to get them to dance. A compelling though horrific read about conditions aboard ship and the type of men who manned these ships.

Driving to Treblinka: A Long Search For A Lost Father by Diana Wichtel (2017)
ANZAC - memoir
Wichtel is a well known journalist here in New Zealand, and this memoir has been extremely popular since it was published. She was born in Vancouver to a New Zealand mother and a Polish Jewish father. Her father had jumped from the train as it took Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka and her father was one of the very few survivors from his family. When she was 13 her mother took the 3 children back to New Zealand, her father was meant to tidy up some business affairs and follow but never did and died alone a few years later.
This is the story of how, years later, Wichtel puts the pieces of her father's story back together, it's also a reminder of how Holocaust survivors were haunted all their lives by guilt and memories of their lost families. Wichtel, being a journalist, injects more into this than just family memories, she also discusses other Holocaust books and psychology studies. The trips into Poland are detailed and helpful to other family researchers.

Wichtel writes for The NZ Listener, the only print media I still have a subscription for, it's a weekly roundup of politics, culture, arts & literature. http://www.noted.co.nz/the-listener/

Here's a recent review by Wichtel for The Choice by Edith Eger - http://www.noted.co.nz/currently/profiles/the-holocaust-survivor-who-once-danced...

Her husband, journalist Chris Barton, who now lectures on architecture has written two interesting articles which I came across while reading this book:
The architecture of murder and memorial
Being made redundant by the Herald, and other tales of modern journalism

The tales of Olga da Polga by Michael Bond (1971)
children's - Young at Heart
Another read for the TIOLI challenge to read a book by a writer who died in 2017.
A juvenile read about the 'adventures' of Olga da Polga the guinea pig and the other animals in her garden, Noel the cat, Fangio the hedgehog and William the hibernating tortoise. Very cute especially for the fan of guinea pigs.
There's about 13 books in the Olga series.

My daughter and I just went to the movies and watched Coco and loved it. Normally we wouldn't go to a children's animated film but she'd been told that it was good and it was excellent. We both came out with tears in our eyes, happiness mingled with the bittersweet.

The Guards by Ken Bruen (2001)
Thrillers category - crime, spies, mystery
Jack Taylor (#1). I decided to read this before watching the tv series. I loved the style of writing, very spare with large doses of dialogue. The main character is interesting and I can't wait to try the next one in the series. Jack is asked by the mother to investigate the supposed suicide of her 17 year old daughter.

Hello Refugees is my first BB of the year! Onto the wishlist it goes...

and the rat laughed by Nava Semel (2001)
New to me writers - fiction
And another read for the TIOLI challenge to read a book by a writer who died in 2017
This novella was recommended to me by Bianca a couple of years ago and I finally got going with it late last year. It's quite a challenging read, both the topic and the style.
From wikipedia: 'Semel was an Israeli author, playwright, screenwriter and translator and a member of the Board of Directors of Massuah, the Institute for Holocaust Studies at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak, and for many years was a member of the Board of Governors of Yad Vashem. A daughter of Holocaust survivors, she was active in second generation survivor groups, and her anthology of short stories Hat of Glass was the first published work in Israel dealing with the offspring of Holocaust survivors.'
http://www.ithl.org.il/page_13244 - Semel received several literary prizes, including the American National Jewish Book Award for Children's Literature (1990), the Women Writers of the Mediterranean Award (1994), the Prime Minister's Prize (1996), the Austrian Best Radio Drama Award (1996), the Rosenblum Prize for Stage Arts (2005), and Tel Aviv's Literary Woman of the Year (2007

The book is divided into 5 parts - the first is an old woman reluctantly recounting her experience as a young child, left in the care of Polish farmers during the Holocaust. They leave her isolated in a dark potato pit, where she befriends a rat and is visited and horribly abused by the farmers' son. The old woman is telling her story to her grand daughter, who is doing a class project, but her memories come across as broken and nonsensical.
The second part is a recounting by the granddaughter who builds her own version of what happened, a version that is completely sanitised and wholesome, even though the truth comes in at the edges so the reader builds their own picture of the truth.
Each part adds to the whole and makes one think about memory, remembering and how everything changes over time. What's important this generation could be looked at differently in a future technological world.

Artisans of Israel: Transcending Tradition by Lynn Holstein (2017)
nonfiction

I saw this on a display shelf at my library otherwise I doubt I'd ever have come across it. I enjoyed working my way through this coffee table book, reading some of the bios and enjoying the beautiful photographs of the different crafts from all over Israel. The text is repeated in Hebrew and Arabic at the back of the book.

publisher description: 'author Lynn Holstein is in search of a national identity in the artisanry of the still young country – and she finds it in the unifying pursuit for innovation.
Forty artists – including Jews, Muslims and Christians – tell their stories and show in five different trades how emancipation can be promoted through creativity. Working with one’s hands stands unfailingly at the centre of this reflection.
From the hybrid of cultural and religious backgrounds emerges a unique compilation from the fields of metalwork and jewellery, ceramics, textiles, paper and wood, one that portrays a sensitive and inspiring portrait of Israel and its inhabitants.'

The publisher offers an online flipbook - https://www.arnoldsche.com/en/New-Books/ARTISANS-OF-ISRAEL.html
_

You are reading an interesting mix of books.

>39 avatiakh: I loved The Cleaner as well and that quote made me giggle! I loved The Guards when I read it and the filmed series is excellent as well.

The Dogs of Winter by Bobbie Pyron (2012)
children's fiction / Young at Heart
I loved this one, can't believe I let it sit unread for so long. Pyron was inspired to write this by a news story that did the rounds a few years ago that referenced another feral child, Ivan Mishukov, who chose to live with a pack of dogs on the streets of Moscow rather than with other street kids. His story was also fictionalised by Eva Hornung in Dog Boy.
After Ivan's mother disappears after a domestic assault, Ivan ends up abandoned on the streets of Moscow. At first he's taken in by a group of children living in the train station, but eventually he drifts off into the company of a couple of dogs that he spots using the trains to get around the city.

Tidy by Emily Gravett (2017)
picturebook

Mr Badger loves to keep his surroundings especially tidy and the forest floor clean, watched on by his fellow creatures. When autumn comes he has to go into super cleanup mode, and then the leafless trees look so untidy so he cleans them up too. He ends up with an endless smooth concrete floor where the forest used to be and no way back to his sett before he realises that maybe he was overdoing it.
Fun read.
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>49 hailelib: Thanks for visiting. I try to have a few different types of books on the go at the same time.

>50 DeltaQueen50: I laughed reading that. The first book of Heath's that I read was a YA spy novel and I picked that up after reading his quest to read only woman writers for a year and blog about it.

Words on bathroom walls by Julia Walton (2017)
Crossing over - YA
This was an excellent read about a teen with schizophrenia. Adam is taking a new drug as part of an experimental trial, he also is starting at a new high school, as he makes friends he hopes that the drug will be a success and no oneWords on bathroom walls by Julia Walton (2017) will need to ever know that he's on medication and why.

Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubenstein / Lian Hearn (1993)
YA scifi - Crossing Over

Three children are abducted on their way to stay with their aunt, they're taken to another planet and forced to join an acrobatic troupe of children who perform for aliens. All is not what it seems to be.
This is quite a dark read, there is a bit of violence and just coldness at the treatment of the children who are mostly streetkids picked up from all around the world, all have acrobatic ability. The twist is quite creepy and I can imagine this being a memorable read for young readers.


Triangle by Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen (2017)
picturebook
Triangle plays a trick on Square and Square decides to retaliate but gets stuck in Triangle's doorway. Mischievious fun for the very little.

Doglands by Tim Willocks (2011)
YA - Crossing Over
This was another that had been on my shelves for a long while and it turned out to be a good read. It's all about dogs and their mystical lore. Furgal and his fellow sibling puppies are taken from their greyhound mother when her cruel owner sees that they aren't purebreds, they're lurchers. On the way to their unseemly end, Furgal is able to get one sister out of the box they're trapped in and off the back of the truck. His other two sisters aren't as fortunate, and don't survive. Furgal does manage to escape and vows to go back and free his mother. Before then he has to grow up, learn about being a dog, meet his wolfhound father and have some adventures.
I loved the doglore which included doglands, doglines and the spirit wind.
I hadn't come across the term 'lurcher' before.

Beck by Mal Peet (2016)
YA - Crossing Over
Mal Peet passed away before finishing this and had asked Meg Rosoff if she could complete the book, which she did.
It's the story of Beck, an orphan of mixed race parentage who is shunted off from the UK to Canada in the early 1920s as part of the British Home Children Scheme. So it becomes a coming of age survival story that mostly covers the time after he runs from the farm he is taken to. For me it's not as gritty as other books on Home Children, but overall it's a good read that also gives a look at the plight of Canada's indigenous people in this era.
So I only have one book by Peet left to read, his only adult novel, The Murdstone Trilogy which I've picked up before and struggled to get into.

Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell (2017)
nonfiction

Very addictive. Now all I want to do is visit Wigtown and The Bookshop. Bythell kept a diary for all of 2014, it's a sort of running commentary on staff, books acquired and sold and customers. This is at times soulful, funny in a 'Black Books' sort of way and informative. I loved it and could have read through a second year.
From time to time he discusses the effect that the evergrowing Amazon has on his business, he sells on Amazon Marketplace and at abebooks.
Each month begins with a quote from George Orwell's Bookshop Memories followed by a short opinion piece on a variety of subjects book or bookshop related. The book ends with a brief update on the business, staff and others who featured in the book.

The Bookshop, Wigtown - The biggest second-hand store in Scotland has a mile of shelving and over 100,000 books.

>58 avatiakh: That one is already on my wishlist, after hearing an interview on the radio with the author towards the end of last year. If it hadn't been already, it would be now! Definitely one I want to get hold of! (and Wigtown is on my must-visit list too. Although I'm in Scotland, it is still quite a long old trek away, although not impossible if we make a trip of it.

>58 avatiakh: I LOVED The Bookshop! The Scottish room was to die for.

>59 Jackie_K: Wigtown is lovely! If you decide to make a trip of it, I can recommend the place we stayed in when we went there :)

>60 rabbitprincess: I was actually thinking last night, as next year is a significant birthday, and I'm thinking I should celebrate all year (to try and temper down the denial aspect) by doing something fun every month of the year, that for one month I should suggest a long weekend in Wigtown.

>58 avatiakh: - That sounds like such a wonderful book! On to my wishlist it goes.

Sounds like a good read!

>59 Jackie_K: >60 rabbitprincess: >62 LittleTaiko: >63 cmbohn: Definitely a good read. His partner also wrote a memoir, Three things you need to know about rockets: A Real-Life Scottish Fairy Tale.

Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D by David Kushner (2017)
graphic biography / Crossing Over - YA books & graphic novels

This graphic nonfiction tells the story of how Dungeons & Dragons came to be and how it fared once it became a big business. Quite interesting, I have read that it doesn't quite tell parts correctly, though I'm not a D&D fanatic so was not so invested in the story. Kushner expanded on an article he wrote for The Wire and interviews with both creators before their deaths. The artwork is by Koren Shadmi who did a great job with Mike's Place.

Yaffa and Fatima: Shalom, Salaam by Fawzia Gilani-Williams (2017)
picturebook / Young at Heart - children's books & picturebooks

I found out about this book when reading Tablet's 2018 Sydney Taylor Awards article

This is an adaption of the Two Brothers folktale, one that is found in both Arab and Jewish traditional tales around Jerusalem but earlier sourced from either Persia or India. I read the picturebook One city, two brothers about 18 months ago which is based on the same tale, using it as a founding myth for Jerusalem - my comments here. There's an older version, The Two Brothers: A Legend of Jerusalem that my library doesn't have.
Gilani-Williams has retold the tale and instead of two brothers she has two neighbours, one Jewish and one Muslim. They both grow dates, are friends and when there is a drought, they both try to help each other under the cover of darkness.
The artwork is by Italian illustrator, Chiara Fedele. It's hard to judge the quality of the illustration as I was reading a digital version on a small screen. Overall the drawings are sympathetic and portray the way of life of both women accurately. The colour palette is brown, burgundy and teal. http://chiarafedeleillustrator.blogspot.co.nz/p/illustrations_20.html

Fawzia Gilani-Williams is currently doing Doctoral research at Worcester University into 'Muslim Children, Fiction and Character Education: children’s Islamic literature in Britain, USA and Canada since 1990.' She writes children's books about Muslim festivals, mainly Eid. Some of her earlier books were not well edited. I've requested her Cinderella: An Islamic Tale from the library.
There's a 2011 interview with her here: https://muslimkidsbooks.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/q-a-with-author-fawzia-gialni-w...

Jacob's room is full of books by Susan Hill (2017)
nonfiction

Another book about books from Hill. More rambling perhaps than Howard's End is on the Landing but equally enjoyable. Hill digresses on reading, writing, writers, books, those she still values and those she's happy to pack up and deliver to the local charity shop. There is also a natural world component, Hill observes the local birdlife, the badgers and changes of seasons. She reads a real diversity of books over the year and that's what makes it such an interesting read for me anyway.
I've made a list of books that I really should read, there were many more that sounded interesting but most of these are already on my reading radar -
Edith Wharton - The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth
RLS - Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Catherine Storr - Tales of Polly and the hungry Wolf
Paul Scott - Raj Quartet
Nabakov - Pnin
C P Snow - The Masters
Naipul - A House for Mr Biswas
Maddox - The good Soldier
Calvino- If on a Winter's Night a traveler
Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea
Judd - Devil's Own Work
Manning - Balkan & Levant trilogies - reread
Shirley Hazzard - Greene on Capri & we need silence to find out what we think:selected essays

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
fiction / New to me writers

Read this for the Bicentennial of the book's publication. I didn't know much about the book, just what I'd gleaned from popular culture over the years. I enjoyed my read and want to read some more about the book before I comment further.
I also watched the film Victor Frankenstein which stars James McAvoy & Daniel Radcliffe just to get in the mood. In the past year or so I've read two YA novels - Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley which features Frankenstein's monster & Strange Star by Emma Carroll which has Mary Shelley as a character and is also about building a monster.

18) Ronit & Jamil by Pamela Laskin (2017)
YA / Crossing Over - YA books

Another one I found out about when reading Tablet's 2018 Sydney Taylor Awards article

This verse novel is a retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. Laskin has decided to tackle the Israel-Arab conflict by casting her Juliet as Ronit, an Israeli girl while Romeo becomes Jamil, a Palestinian boy from Ramallah. The fathers meet through their work, Ronit's father is a pharmacist who visits Jamil's father, a doctor, at his East Jerusalem clinic to supply medicines and other medical supplies.
I found this quite insipid. I've read a bunch of YA verse novels and this one does not have the 'spark' that most of the others have. The language doesn't do it for me - '...he does not understand the wardrobe of feelings.' 'we can do it in the desert', '...I rise like bones, from the dead and my desire it grows like bones. I dream of you daily where I'm in your bones...'
It's also hard to know who is saying what.
Facts are obfuscated too - the barrier wall is described as 25 ft of concrete 435 miles long, when in fact most of it is a wire fence. Because of the fence there are fewer checkpoints, I mention this because checkpoints come up several times in the text.
The introduction also isn't that clear with facts, clouding issues by omission and over-simplification of a complex history.

I can't remember every great verse novel I've read but outstanding ones include -
Aleutian Sparrow, The Crossover & One
and here is a Book Riot List of 100 Must Read YA Verse Novels

For a YA romance along similar lines I'd suggest, All the rivers by Dorit Rabinyan. I didn't love this one by any means but it is based on real events in the writer's life.

Cinderella: an Islamic tale by Fawzia Gilani (2011)
illustrated story / Young at Heart

Gilani takes the Cinderella fairytale and adapts it for a religious Muslim audience. The fairy godmother becomes a long lost grandmother who never returned from Haj, there are prayers and pious behaviour through the book. The ball becomes a celebration at the palace for the end of Eid.
The artwork is by Shireen Adams and is sympathetic to the story and Islamic setting.
There's also Snow White: an Islamic tale.
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Cinderella

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Snow White

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cast warming up on stage

A few weeks back I bought $10 groundling tickets to all the plays in the Popupglobe Summer Shakespeare season. This is the third season and I was finally compelled to go. Yesterday we went to the first one, The Merchant of Venice by an all-male cast. Wow, it was really good.
Groundling tickets means standing up by the stage and getting picked on by the actors. You can see in the photo of the groundlings bar that the theatre is a temporary structure built out of scaffolding. Oh, Gratiano stood on the bar and had a couple of drinks while declaring he would behave himself to Bassanio - hilarious.

The Midsummer Night's Dream is featuring Maori faeries and they'll be speaking their lines in te reo (Maori), so that will be interesting. It's getting great reviews.

'The Pop-Up Globe, first conceived by Auckland scholar Dr Miles Gregory after reading a pop-up book to his daughter. Pop-up Globe is a three-storey, 16-sided, 900-person capacity theatre. It unites cutting-edge scaffold technology with a 400-year-old design to transport audiences back in time. No matter where they sit or stand in the theatre, audience members are never more than 15 metres from the heart of the action on stage. Sometimes they’ll even find themselves in the play.' https://popupglobe.co.nz/

The traitor and the thief by Gareth Ward (2017)
YA / Crossing Over YA books

This won the Tessa Duder Award (2016) for best YA manuscript. A fun steampunk adventure.
From his website: Gareth Ward, a.k.a. The Great Wardini is a magician, hypnotist, storyteller, bookseller and author. He has worked as a Royal Marine Commando, Police Officer, Evil Magician and Zombie. He basically likes jobs where you get to wear really cool hats – as writer and compere of Napier City’s inaugural Steampunk murder mystery evening he wore a rather splendid bowler.

Sin has lived on the streets since running away from an orphanage. He's part of a street gang of petty criminals when suddenly he's recruited to a training school for young spies (COG Covert Operations Group). Apart from the trials of making it as a student in spycraft amongst a mixed group of talented others, Sin soon finds himself in pursuit of a traitor as well as the truth behind who he is.
The world is Victorian steampunk with lots of steam and clockwork, and the plot twists and turns as everyone is guilty of harbouring secrets.
Lots of love for this one. I was on a couple of committees over the years with Tessa Duder, she's been a wonderful advocate for children's literature.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&obj...

The Lost Pages by Marija Peričić (2017)
fiction / ANZAC
This was a very enjoyable read. The author writes a fictional memoir of Max Brod, the literary editor of Franz Kafka. She became interested in Brod after reading about the fairly recent court case in Israel over the rightful ownership of Kafka's papers. Her debut book won the 2017 Vogel prize in Australia which was how I found out about it. I was interested because I had also read about the court case. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/08/franz-kafka-papers-israel-court-ru...

Peričić puts us fair and square into a Kafkaesque world, starting with Brod who is having difficulties writing his ambitious second novel and still basking in the triumph of adulation from his first book. Loved by his publisher and fawned on by women, his world slowly collapses as Kafka enters his life and becomes the new publishing sensation.
I've only read Metamorphosis, but feel that Peričić has drawn us into a world of Kafka's making rather than the world where Kafka lived. Fabulous.

You are reading quite a bit, Kerry! Glad to see you finished Frankenstein for the group read.

Your thread always has something really interesting on it. I like the idea of a pop-up theater!

A lot of good books too.

>74 thornton37814: At times I wasn't really in the mood for it but I got it done

>75 hailelib: I'm going back tomorrow for The Midsummer Night's Dream. It's raining now, I hope it isn't raining tomorrow.

Miximum Ca' Canny the Sabotage Manuals by Ida Börjel (2013 Swedish) (2016 English)
poetry

I came across mention of this poetry in an article, The writer’s calling is now, increasingly, an unremunerated one, and asked my library to buy a copy as Börjel is one of Sweden's respected poets and one of the most radical voices in contemporary conceptual poetry plus I wanted to read the book.
I enjoyed reading this, the translation feels flawless and the poetry is radical.
Publisher's description: 'At once practical handbook, philosophical inquiry, and series of fables set in Putin’s Russia, Miximum Ca’ Canny the Sabotage Manuals throws a wrench into the machinery of contemporary language, generating strange solidarities between saboteurs past and present. Sourced from political pamphlets and factory workers’ diaries, Börjel’s profound poem allows for the most expansive (and explosive) sense of sabotage. A how-to for the destruction of the present order.'
An interview with Börjel: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2017/03/23/12089/

I. Etymology
sabotage is an internal, industrial
process

The word is taken from the French sabot,
wood clog, and the French mill workers’
manner of protesting against the new
automatic looms by hurling
their clogs into them. So they removed and
aimed, took off their only pair of shoes and
threw them into the machine’s opening and walked
barefoot through naw

What was firmly rooted
lies rotted. What was cast solid
is perforated. Into those openings the
saboteur sticks her fingers.

General Advice to Lower Morale and Create Confusion
after completed sabotage resist the temptation to
linger and witness the result there are
of course occasions when it to the contrary would seem suspicious
if you walked away

From The Sabotage Manuals, by Ida Börjel

II. the sabotage manual
In nineteen-sixteen
Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW) publishes the handbook Sabotage:
The Conscious Withdrawal of the Workers
Industrial Efficiency authored by
Elisabeth Gurley Flynn

In nineteen-fourty-four
The American Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) publishes The Simple Sabotage
Field Manual, de-classified
in the year two-thousand-and-eight

The human factor. To widen a
margin of error.

Intentional stupidity goes against
human nature. The saboteur may
need to reverse her thinking. If
before she made sure to keep her
tools sharp, she can now let them grow
dull. What was brightly polished will now
be scratched; what was carefully tucked away can
now be left out. The assiduous grows full
of indolence. The keen grows torpid,

the firm begins to give way. When the saboteur
starts to think backwards about herself and hers
she does not let the opportunity slip
out of her hands. Anything might be sabotaged.

What was firmly rooted
lies rotted. What was cast solid
is perforated. Into those openings the
saboteur sticks her fingers.

A certain measure of humor in the following

proposition helps the tension and
fear dissipate.

Commit acts for which a large number
can be held responsible. So that it could have
been anyone.

Do not be afraid to commit acts
you can personally be held
responsible for, as long as you do not do it
too often and assuming that you have a
plausible excuse dropped the wrench
there by that circuit the little one cried
and kept me awake all night I
must have been half asleep well so
I dropped the key

…

Communication

now and then when I want half a day off and
they don’t give it to me I let the belt slither off
the machine so that it doesn’t work and I get
my half day I don’t know if you call it
sabotage but that’s what I do

delay give the wrong number happen
to disconnect forget

mutter make conversations difficult or
impossible to understand

distort telegrams so that additional ones need to be
composed sometimes simply by
changing a letter from “minimum” to
“miximum” then they won’t know if
minimizing or maximizing is at stake
a letter a punctuation mark to move a
comma from “access denied, control” to
“access, denied control”

at the screening of propaganda films place two or
three dozen large moths in a paper bag bring
to the movie theater place on the floor in an empty row
the moths will fly out into the theater
towards the light
and when they climb over the projector
the film becomes an agitated fluttering shadow play

so they will sound as though they were passing
through a thick cotton blanket with mouths
full of gravel
so that the line can no longer be used

so they do not move
but flutter disturb
the automated gaze

Leon by Helen Griffiths (1967)
children's fiction / Young at Heart

Thanks to Anita for alerting me to Helen Griffiths and her delightful books for children. This is my first one and I already know I'll be reading more if I can track them down. I got this one by inter library loan from our National Library and according to the stamps I'm the first to borrow it since 1984.

The story is set in 1930s rural Spain. Hilario saves Leon, an orphaned wild puppy who grows into a huge wolf-like dog. The love between boy and dog is strong but they must separate when Hilario goes to study in Madrid. Leon's life goes downhill once the shepherd that he's left with must go fight in the Civil War and doesn't return.

Powder and Patch by Georgette Heyer (1923)
fiction / General fiction
First published as The Transformation of Philip Jettan by Mills and Boon back in 1923. In 1930, the book was republished by William Heinemann minus the original last chapter as Powder and Patch.
I picked this slim volume up in a sale some years back and had meant to read it last year when I was reading a number of her books.
Philip must learn to be a man of fashion and style if he is to win the hand of Cleone, his childhood friend. His uncle takes him to Paris where he'll either sink or swim, but at least he will not be laughed at by those who know his country ways in London. Philip's transformation from bumpkin to social butterfly is almost too successful.
This was a quick enjoyable read.

The flying classroom by Erich Kästner (1934)
children's / Young at Heart

This fell apart as I read it, the glue was nonexistent and the pages fell out as I turned them. Kästner introduces us to a group of 4th form boys who are boarding at a private school. It is the last few days before Christmas and quite a lot happens as they rehearse the play 'The Flying Classroom' that one of them has written. The smallest boy has to find courage, and their leader, a scholarship boy finds out that his parents can't afford his fare home for the holidays. They also have to a scuffle with the boys from a neighbouring school, a long standing affair going back generations (think War of the Buttons) and to reunite their beloved housemaster with a long lost friend, Mr No Smoking who lives nearby in a converted train wagon. Lovely, lovely book.

Now want to read Kästner's memoir of his Dresden childhood, When I Was a Little Boy, my libary has a copy in the stacks thank goodness as used copies are very expensive.

>81 avatiakh: I'm glad to see you liked it. The picture on the cover looks familiar, does the English edition have the illustrations by Walter Trier?

>82 MissWatson: Yes, I just checked, illustrations are by Walter Trier. That's two illustrations on the cover - one is little Uli being suspended in the rubbish basket above the class and the other is Martin & his parents walking to the postbox to send a card to the housemaster on Christmas Eve.

>83 avatiakh: Ah, thanks. Those are the original illustrations and they still use them in today's editions. I only learned recently that Walter Trier was one of the first to emigrate to London when the Nazis seized power.

>81 avatiakh: I have never heard of that one, Kerry, but it looks delightful. I'll have to see if my library has it.

The girl in the tower by Katherine Arden (2017)
fantasy

Winternight #2. This sequel to The Bear and the nightingale is just as seeped in historical events and Russian folklore. Wonderful, all I'll say is read both books.
The final one is set for an August release.

The Pyramid of Mud by Andrea Camilleri (2018)
fiction
Commissario Montalbano #22. Montalbano must work out who is behind the murder of an accountant of a construction project, slowly all the threads begin to make sense amidst endless rain, thunder, lightning and lots of mud. Entertaining.

Tangleweed and Brine by Deirdre Sullivan (2017)
fairytales retold

I've only managed to read the first tale, 'Slippershod', and it's due back to the library. Just noting the book here so I remember to look out for it another time.
Irish Times: 'Fragmented fairytales with a feminist twist'

The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (1939)
fiction

Been on my tbr stacks for ages and taken on holiday so I could biff this old paperback when finished with it.
My first Ambler and I'll read others, it was a good read.
Latimer is a crime writer on holiday in Istanbul. He becomes obsessed with a man called Dimitrios who seems to have led a life of intrigue and starts to dig around all over Europe to find out more about him. He finds himself drawn more into the mystery and then into danger.

A Table for One: Under the Light of Jerusalem by Aharon Appelfeld (2001)
memoir

Haunting read. Appelfeld talks about how he found that he could only write in Jerusalem's cafes, and becomes part of the cafe culture of the 1950s and 1960s. He reflects on the life of Holocaust survivors and how many do not want to talk about it. He is a survivor himself and finds that he benefits from being in the quiet company of other survivors. He talks about the importance of Judaism in his life, not that he's particularly religious, just that he finds Judaism fascinating. Many Israelis are secular and don't appreciate the beauty of the Yiddish writers and solace he finds in studying Judaic texts. There's a lot to reflect on in this short book and I'm keen to read more of his work.
Last year I read and loved his The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping, I've also read his children's book, Adam and Thomas.

The cover art is by his son, Meir Appelfeld, an accomplished artist.

The Lady Killer by Masako Togawa (1963)
crime
I really enjoyed this novel. Ichiro Honda has two lives, by day he's a computer expert living in Tokyo and joining his wife in Osaka most weekends. Every Tuesday and Thursday, he's the Hunter, going into nightclubs and bars looking for young women to seduce. The story gets darker when one of these young women gets pregnant and then commits suicide. The plotting is excellent as Honda is framed for the killing of several of his young victims.

The Bet by Anton Chekhov (1889)
short story

This 1995 edition was illustrated by Deborah Read and it is part of a series for teen readers. Quite a riveting storyline though I didn't like the ending.
"The young lawyer. A wealthy banker. And the bet of a lifetime. Imprisoned for life or ending life - which is the more humane? The lawyer truly believes in life at any cost so the banker sets a wager. Fifteen years of imprisonment for two million. The lawyer accepts his life behind a closed door with the promise of his reward. What could be better? What could be worse? Freedom, money, death. What price life?"

Girl with a Camera: Margaret Bourke-White, Photographer by Carolyn Meyer (2017)
YA

A fictional biography of photographer, Margot Bourke-White. Very interesting read about a young woman wanting to break free from the predictable role of marriage and motherhood to follow her heart and have a career. I'd never heard of her till a couple of weeks ago and then found this book.
She was the first female war photojournalist in World War II and the first female photographer for Life magazine, which featured one of her photographs on its very first cover.

Louisville, Kentucky, January 1937

The Menorah Men by Lionel Davidson (1966)
fiction
Another dusty paperback I want to read and discard. At times quite an adventure. A fragment from a Dead Sea Scroll hints at a possible treasure, the Menorah that Titus took to Rome, might have been a replica, the real one was buried somewhere in the Judean desert. English archaeologist, Caspar Laing is roped in to help the Israeli side. He struggles to decipher the hidden message in the scroll, knowing that Jordanian Arabs are also searching having found a duplicate scroll. Helps to have a knowledge of Israeli geography.

What makes a teacher? by Jack Lasenby (2004)
essay
Part of the Montana Estates essay series. Jack Lasenby writes about some of the teachers he learned from as an adult, most particularly those he came across while spending ten years deer-culling in the Ureweras. He's also been a school teacher, lecturer in English at the Wellington Teachers' College, and editor of the School Journal, so is well qualified to write on the subject.
Fascinating. Lasenby is one of my favourite NZ writers for children.

Between summer's longing and winter's end by Leif Persson (2002)
crime

Fall of the Welfare State Trilogy #1. I read the second book in this trilogy, Another Time, Another Life, a few years back, not realising that it was part of a series. I don't think reading them out of turn matters too much though. At the time I wanted to read it because it featured the Baader-Meinhof group and their seige of the German Embassy in Stockholm formed the background for the book's plot.
This book is about the lead up to the 1986 assassination of Olof Palme, Sweden's then Prime Minister. The killer has never been identified. The book details the various police departments and the Secret Police overseeing the threats to politicians in general. It showcases the over zealous, the lazy incompetents and the corrupt as well as the honest. Not always the best man gets to head the top departments. Persson draws attention to the travelling review, where an unpopular and/or incompetent cop gets glowing reviews and references from his cohorts in order that they can get rid of him to other pastures, that their problem moves on though unfortunately these disasters tend to rise through the ranks not always based on their abilities more due to their liabilities. A known phenomenon but little done to change it. The book also draws attention to the murky underworld of spying during the Cold War.
In 2016 Sweden reopened the investigation into his death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Olof_Palme
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/15/sweden-relaunches-olof-palme-inves...

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide (2001)
nonfiction

A charming read about how a neighbour's cat enters the lives of a Japanese poet and his wife. In detail Hiraide chronicles the cat's effect on them and the life they lead living in what was once a guest house beside the grander home and garden of their landlady.

93 - Bourke White was mentioned in The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson, about the invasion of Italy during WWII. I don't remember a lot, just that she was the first female war correspondent.

>98 cmbohn:

I looked her up on Wikipedia. She had an interesting life.

As always I have picked up a book bullet or two from you, Kerry. I definitely want to read Girl With A Camera and I am intrigued by The Lady Killer.

>98 cmbohn: She wrote an autobiography, Portrait of myself.

>100 DeltaQueen50: Both were really good reads.

Hellbent by Gregg Hurwitz (2018)
thriller
Orphan X #3. A good installment of this series, a big improvement over the second book. Nonstop action as Evan uncovers more layers into the Orphan programme and those who want him dead.

The Twelfth of July by Joan Lingard (1970)
YA fiction

Excellent read set in 1960s Belfast and the first in a series of five books featuring Kevin and Sadie. The Twelfth of July is a holiday in Northern Ireland, a day when Protestants celebrate the victory of Protestant William of Orange over the Catholic king,James II in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
In the lead up to the holiday Protestant Sadie, her family & friends are decorating their street, practicing for the big parade. Catholic Kevin and his best friend who live only a few streets away are looking to do mischief. Sadie and Kevin clash several times over the coming days until there is something more important for them both to worry about. Shows the tension in the streets, and how easy it would be for things to escalate.
Lingard manages to convey a realistic glimpse of life in the working class streets of Belfast. I love how Sadie is so full of pluck and hoping my library has the rest of the series. While this book is more like a middle grade read I think as the series progresses the books are more suited to YA.

Lullaby by Leïla Slimani (2016 French) (2008 Eng)
translated fiction
This sophisticated whydunnit won the 2016 Prix Goncourt Prize and the English translation has just been published, the US title is The Perfect Nanny.
From the first page you become aware that the nanny has brutally murdered the two young children in her charge, then been unsuccessful in her own suicide attempt. The book takes you back through her time with the family as well as occasional glimpses of her past life. So you read knowing that it will all end with the most despicable crime. You read and make judgement calls on the parents' continual reliance on their perfect nanny as they advance their careers, and yet knowing also that no-one deserves the fate of this young professional couple.
There were several times when I thought I couldn't continue reading this, knowing the fate of the two children weighs heavily on every page you read.

>86 avatiakh: - Ack... BBs taken! Duly making note of both books mentioned. ;-)

>105 lkernagh: Oh you wont be sorry. Such good reading.

>104 avatiakh: Adding this one to my list as well, and I see it's one of those books that is known under more than one title. I think the North American title is The Perfect Nanny - don't know why they changed it.

>107 DeltaQueen50: It's a hard read due to knowing how it all ends from the first page, but once done it's worth reading some of the commentary on the book.

Hello, Kerry! Finally made it to your thread - slightly reluctantly as I know you will hand out BBs as if they were free candy. And, sure enough, coming away with a few. Thanks. I think... :)

>109 -Eva-: Hi Eva. I've got news on the kitten front which I've plastered all over my thread in the 75er group.


My 75 thread - scroll up and down to get full story: http://www.librarything.com/topic/287003#6402038

>110 avatiakh:
Oh, my goodness, what little angels!!! You won’t get anything read now, you’re just going to sit and watch them (at least that’s what I would do).

>38 avatiakh: This is a fascinating review to read -- thank you for such a cogent summary of these perspectives on migrants and immigration in today's Germany!

>110 avatiakh: They are *beautiful*! Wow. I could just sit and look at them for loooong time.

Life has suddenly become interesting in your household, Kerry! Don't leave anything out on the counters!!

110 - That looks like trouble! Aren't kittens fun though.

>110 avatiakh: - Oh, they are adorable!!!

>110 avatiakh: Kittehs!!! They are so pretty! :D

>110 avatiakh: Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

>110 avatiakh: - Kittens!

Lots of reviews about to be posted. I haven't kept up my thread all year. Not a stellar reading year for me, I've failed at all reading goals as well.

The rules of survival by Nancy Werlin (2006)
YA
Riveting read about three children living with an abusive and vindictive mother. Some days can be fun, but then their mother, Nikki just goes off the rails and the two teens know that she's capable of anything. They try to protect their much younger half-sister from the worse of it. Matthew is looking for a hero to rescue them and when he comes across Murdoch standing up for a young child in a local store he thinks he's found his man.

Linda wrote a great review back in 2010 - '....Fate brings Murdoch into their lives. Then, when Murdoch dates their mother, they have a wonderful summer...until, Murdoch realizes the psychopathic behavior.
As Murdoch ends the relationship, he too becomes a victim of stalking and harassment from this very manipulative, sociopathic woman.
Murdoch is the only one who can help them.
While this is a dark tale, it is exceedingly well written and spot on regarding helpless children who deserve a better life.
This is a book that leads you through a dark tunnel to find hope and light at the end.'

Witchfairy by Briggite Minne (2016 Belgium) (2017 Eng)
picturebook

A sophisticated picturebook with illustrations by Carll Cneut. I didn't really fall for this one, I thought the story was a little contrived and the illustrations too sophisticated and slightly ugly.
A young girl fairy thinks her magic wand is stupid and runs away to live with some witches. Her mother finds her and together they continue to spend time with the witches every now and then.

The New Zealand Cat by Rachael Hale McKenna (2017)
non-fiction / photography

Finally my library loan came through for me, there have been a huge number on the queue for this one. Beautiful book of photographs of a lot of beloved cats accompanied by a few paragraphs telling us what makes this cat special. Many are rescue cats as McKenna worked with HUHA (Helping You Help Animals) to find some of these felines. A wide selection, many are maimed or have sad stories. The cat on the cover is Krona, and his original owner brought him to the vet to get put down as he couldn't find a new home for him. The vet refused and the cat eventually found a home at HUHA headquarters where he helps them foster dogs.
I own a copy of McKenna's beautiful The French Cat and by the by she lives in Wanaka.



She's done some lovely dog books as well. Just google her name and see some of her fabulous photos.

Out of the shadows: my life's journey from Mönchengladbach to Milton and beyond by Walter Hirsh (2013)
memoir / nonfiction /new zealand

Educator Wally Hirsh was New Zealand's Race Relations Conciliator and Human Rights Commissioner in the 1980s and had a rather high profile. His wife, Adele was secretary at the school that my older children attended so at the time I was more aware of her. Later in his career he became principal of the school before heading off to a very busy retirement of tramper, tour guide, adventurer, environmentalist and emerging potter.
I was interested to read this after coming across an old news item of the controversy surrounding the announcement of his appointment as RRC at the time. The Maori people were aggrieved that the position wasn't given to a Maori again. Also Hirsh was a prominent member of the Jewish community and a Zionist, and this was during the time of the antisemitic United Nations Resolution 3379 "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination" which was finally revoked in 1990.
Hirsh and his family left Germany in 1938 when he was only 2 years old, they were lucky to obtain visas to live in New Zealand through their father's cousin who already lived there. He describes growing up in small town Milton, where during the war years, the family was seen as German not German Jewish.
An interesting read, Hirsh introduced community schools in Wellington in the 1970s. The book is quite personal in many ways as he ties in through the years the way the extended survivors of this German Jewish family try to keep in touch when they have scattered all over the world.
I'd like to read more about his educational accomplishments.

The travelling cat chronicles by Hiro Arikawa (2015 Japan) (2017 Eng)
fiction / new to me writers

Rather delightful story of an ex-stray cat and his travels with his owner to find a new home for him. As they visit several of his old school friends who have offered to take the cat, there always seems to be a reason for them to stay together. The back story of the young man is slowly revealed through these visits and the end of the book is quite heartbreaking. I did shed some tears.
There's a note at the end of the book explaining why the cat on the cover bears no resemblance to the cat in the book, simply that the author and designer fell for this illustration which they found online. It's by Shuai Lui, a Chinese cerebral palsy sufferer whose work is supported by Chilture.com, a studio of disabled artists.

The FitzOsbornes at war by Michelle Cooper (2012)
YA

The Montmaray Journals #3. The last in the trilogy, just a lovely warm set of books, sort of in the vein of I capture the castle. Sophia keeps a journal starting in 1936 when she's 16 and this last book covers the war years and into her adult life. I read the first two some years ago and never got round to reading this one till now. The island kingdom of Montmaray is fictional and lies just off the coast of northern Spain.

Here's a brief description of book #1: Sophie FitzOsborne lives in a crumbling castle in the tiny island kingdom of Montmaray with her eccentric and impoverished royal family. When she receives a journal for her sixteenth birthday, Sophie decides to chronicle day-to-day life on the island. But this is 1936, and the news that trickles in from the mainland reveals a world on the brink of war. The politics of Europe seem far away from their remote island—until two German officers land a boat on Montmaray. And then suddenly politics become very personal indeed.

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (2000)
YA
His Dark Materials #3. A reread, or rather a listen this time to the audio. Took some time as I haven't had many opportunities to listen while driving of late, but an unforeseen drive to Hamilton for a funeral had me getting through 3 of the last 4 discs in one day.
This is an excellent trilogy, I was very surprised by how much I didn't remember of the last two books. I liked how this final book wrapped up, though I felt the time spent in the Land of the Dead did drag a little. I'm now able to pick up the first in his new series, The Book of Dust (which I haven't done...yet).

Gullstruck Island by Frances Hardinge (2009)
YA
I've had this for a few years and went to a talk last year by Hardinge that inspired me to move it up the tbr pile. This is a great story, I didn't fly through the book due to spending most of my time of late dealing with our 3 new little charges.
The book is set on an imaginary island with at least three volcanoes. The longest settled people are the Lace who have spun much of their lore around stories regarding the volcanoes. There are the Lost - special individuals who can leave their bodies behind and explore the island, returning to their earthly forms to give news from around the island, give weather warnings etc etc.
Hardinge is a volcano groupie and just had to write a book centred on volcanoes especially after spending time in New Zealand visiting numerous volcanoes on an earlier visit.
The US title is The Lost Conspiracy.

Under the same sky by Britta Teckentrup (2017)
picturebook

Very delightful, with die cut peek through shapes so that the pages are linked across the book. Basically, using the animal kingdom as the example, we are all different but all live under the same sky. The text is strong.


Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner (2009)
picturebook

A lonely young dragon makes friends with a young bird. A cute friendship story.
Rayner did the lovely Augustus and His Smile picturebook.

The Tygrine Cat: On the run by Inbali Iserles (2011)
children's fiction

This is the sequel to The Tygrine Cat which I read a few years ago and always wanted to get the sequel read as Iserles went on to write some of the Warrior Cats books and also now has a series about foxes, Foxcraft, that I'd like to read.
Mati is special, he's the last purebred Tygrine cat, his mother sacrificed her life to save him, sending him on a ship far from his homeland. Now that he's almost grown he must defeat the phantom that his enemy has sent after him and reclaim his birthright. Exciting reading for children.

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (2000)
children's fiction
The Queen's Thief #2. Finally finished this after starting early in March. I wasn't keen on the punishment dealt out to Gen in the first couple of chapters and this made me put the book aside for a couple of weeks. I hope to pick up the next book sometime soon.

The Fandom by Anna Day (2018)
YA

I read this to find out why it has a 'mature reader' sticker on it. A fantastical type adventure story where 3 friends and a younger brother dress up in cosplay of their favourite book & film, 'The Gallows Dance' for Comic-con. Somehow they end up in the story itself and with the main character killed off, Violet must step into her shoes and finish out the story so hopefully they all get to go home. Not as easy as they think especially as Violet must go to the gallows for the story to end.
This feels like a hodgepodge of several books and tv shows like Life on Mars. Every now and then Violet can hear her father or mother talking, and hospital-like sounds, so you sort of guess that she at least is in some sort of coma. It does have enough going for it to be a popular generic read, but there are more compelling reads out there.

I did like that the rebel Thorn's backstory included the loss of his great love, Ruth, and so he became a ruthless leader.

Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (2008)
crime
Enjoyed this first in the Shetland series. I've been reading really slowly of late so was pleasantly surprised to race through this one. A murder mystery on a Shetland island introduces us to a number of memorable characters.

The silver blade by Sally Gardner (2009)
YA
This is the sequel to The red necklace which I read when it first came out and then never got round to reading the sequel. The story is set in the time of the French Revolution and has mystical elements which work in very well with the time period. It contains whiffs of The Scarlet Pimpernel and The picture of Dorian Grey. Highly enjoyable and I didn't feel that forgetting the first book's plot detracted at all from my enjoyment of this one.

The language of angels: a story about the reinvention of Hebrew by Richard Michelson (2017)
picturebook

Lovely children's story about Ben-Zion, the son of Ben-Yehuda who brought Hebrew into the daily lives of the Jewish people. Ben-Yehuda wrote the first Hebrew dictionary and made up many new words for the modern world. Ben-Zion was brought up speaking only Hebrew, which made for a lonely friendless childhood to begin with.
Not completely factual but very interesting to see how some new Hebrew words came to be.
The artwork by Karla Gudeon is sympathetic.

The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams (1978)
original radio show recordings / audio

I listened to the original radio recordings of the Primary and Secondary Phases which were fun, bizarre and included lots of sound effects. The behind-the-scenes cds were interesting and informative.
'The complete original full cast BBC Radio production. This CD box set contains both radio series (twelve episodes in all) plus Douglas Adams's Guide to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which takes a behind-the-scenes look at the much-loved comic science fiction phenomenon. Narrated by the original Voice, Peter Jones.'


The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915)
fiction
Richard Hannay #1. This was a re-read, though my first time was years and years ago so it was all new to me. I enjoyed this and have the next one on my kindle app ready to go. I picked up the last three books, old Penguin paperbacks, a couple of weeks ago so intend to read through the series.

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Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve (2009)
A web of air by Philip Reeve (2010)
Scrivener's Moon by Philip Reeve (2011)
Fever Crumb trilogy / Mortal Engines prequel
Read all three books this past week. Exciting prequel set in the world of Mortal Engines telling how London got its wheels. Fever Crumb is a young girl who doesn't know her parentage at the start of the trilogy, it turns out she's fairly special, brought up in the Guild of Engineers.

The book that made me edited by Judith Ridge (2016)
nonfiction
Lovely lovely recollections by a bunch of YA writers, mainly Australian, on which book made a significant impact on their lives early on and why. Such a diverse set of stories, I really loved this. Several writers/books I'd not heard of at all.

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope (1974)
YA fiction
This was a Newbery Honor Book and one I've had on my to-read list for a long while. I loved it, a magical Tam Lin retelling set just before Elizabeth I takes the throne.
Lady-in-waiting Kate must pay for her younger sister's impulsiveness in sending a letter in support of Princess Elizabeth to Queen Mary. She is to be exiled to a remote castle, the Perilous Gard, a place known only to a few as a source of power for the faerie world.
Recommended and now have Pamela Dean's Tam Lin out from the library.


All of this is true by Lygia Day Penaflor (2018)
YA
Decided to abandon this after 90-100 pages read, mainly that it's a library book and I don't want to waste my time on frivolous reads. I saw it on a list from Readings Australia, 'Best reads of 2018 so far' and the plot took my fancy. A young writer, newly and successfully published, befriends a bunch of privileged NYC high schoolers. Her next book is all about them. It's told in reportage style and that is quite compelling so would be a quick read, just not great characters enough to keep me going though will be enjoyed by teens.
I saw Sara's Face by Melvin Burgess suggested as a better read on the bookbag review site - 'uses a reportage style for a tense thriller that ponders on the nature of fame and celebrity.' I liked this one, I read it a few years ago.

Of mice and men by John Steinbeck (1937)
novella
I've been meaning to pick this up since the 75ers did the year long Steinbeck group read a few years back. So finally saw it on my phone's kindle app and started reading it a couple of weeks ago.
I loved it though as the story progresses you think that there's only one way this is going to end for it to be considered a classic and that does not mean all things rosy.

11095055::Alex by Pierre Lemaitre (2011)
crime
I first noticed Pierre Lemaitre when his book Blood Wedding came out and was on display at my local bookshop. Later on I picked up this paperback at a charity shop but only got round to reading it these past couple of days.
I found this quite a compelling read, the book is in three parts. It starts off almost as a horror story, a gruesome kidnapping, then twists. It was the first of Lemaitre's books to be translated to English and stars Police Commandant Camille Verhœven. There are 4 Camille Verhœven books and this is the second one.

Beautiful Mess by Claire Christian (2017)
YA
The manuscript for this book won the 2016 Text Prize, an award that I try to read all winners of. I'm still two books behind, the 2015 winner, The Book of Whispers and last year's winner, The Extremely Weird Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls which was recently published.

This was a very soulful story about two teens and their evolving relationship. Ava is still mourning her best friend, Kelly, who died in a suicide. She meets Gideon, new at the Magic Kebab where they both have part time jobs. Gideon is very different, he's into poetry and shuns social media. While he has many problems of his own, he helps Ava see beyond her grieving for her friend.
Beautifully done.

'Shortlisted under the title Waste, Beautiful Mess tells the dual stories of Ava, lost and angry at the world, and trying to figure out how to live without her best friend by her side, and Gideon, awkward, anxious and trying to figure out how to get by without freaking out. Beautiful Mess is a fresh and relatable story of grief, getting out of your own way and finding your tribe.' Publisher Michael Heyward.
‘Beautiful Mess is the most sensitive explanation of depression and how it affects lives that I have ever read. If you read any other book and felt a bit uncomfortable about the depiction of depression, read this one and understand more. Recommend it to your teenagers, your students, your friends with teen kids. It might help them understand and recognise themselves in some of the pages.’ The Sapling

eta: The author, Claire Christian, writes here about the background to her book, teenage mental health etc.
https://www.whimn.com.au/strength/mind/theres-something-seriously-wrong-with-the...

Call it sleep by Henry Roth (1934)
fiction / new to me writer
I took forever to read this book though that was completely due to me and nothing to do with the book. I started in September and read quite a chunk and then just didn't read more than a few pages at a time until earlier this month. I found the dialogue quite difficult to follow at times, then after finishing the book, read that this was deliberate by Roth, as English was a foreign language for the immigrant families, he wanted the reader to experience the same 'stumbling block' when reading.
Basically the story of a young Jewish immigrant boy, David, growing up in New York. His father sees him for the first time when he arrives with his mother from the Homeland. The father, the bearer of a ferocious temper, does not take to him at all. David is terrified of his father and his temper and this terror grows to reflect almost everything in David's world except for the sanctuary that his mother provides in her serene presence.

Lots of great reviews here on LT. I read the introduction once I finished the book and it gave some interesting insights.

Man's search for meaning by Victor Frankl (1946)
memoir
I only read the first part of this book plus the two prefaces. The second part is a description of Frankl's logotherapy and the third part is based on a lecture Frankl gave on logotherapy.
The first part is a memoir of Frankl's experience in the Holocaust and his insights into how he and others managed to survive their years in concentration camps. He developed his psychological theory of logotherapy from his experiences and I'm not in the mood to continue reading analysis of this so stopped reading after part one.

Not if I save you first by Ally Carter (2018)
YA

Entertaining action & survival yarn from Carter. I haven't read her other books but decided to try this one. It's mainly set in Alaska with a bit of a back story set in the White House. Maddie has spent the past six years living in the Alaskan wilderness with her father, an ex-Secret Service agent to the President. Things hot up when her ex-best friend, the son of the President, who has a reputation for misbehaving, gets sent to spend some time out with Maddie & her Dad. Then once her Dad has been sent on an urgent medical rescue, the Russian kidnappers turn up.
The story is exciting and well paced, just a bit too 'Presidential' for me. Great reading for teens, there's a touch of romance but mostly this is about getting out of a bad situation and surviving in the bitter cold. I liked that both teens brought needed skills to the party, Maddie was especially well adapted to the outdoors.

Helen and the Go=Go Ninjas by Ant Sang & Michael Bennett (2018)
graphic novel.

Bennett is a NZ film-maker and has done an award winning nonfiction book. This is his first graphic novel story. Ant Sang is a well known local illustrator with several books and a couple of graphic novels to his name. I'll try anything that has Ant Sang's name to it.
Helen is kidnapped and taken to a future dystopian world where it quickly turns out that the women should have kidnapped her boyfriend who is called Marion. Back in Helen's time he was on the verge of inventing 'peace-balls' which by 2355 have become mind control devices. The story is entertaining and actionpacked. The artwork is solid.

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Aotearoa Whispers: The Awakening by Gonzalo Navarro (2011)
graphic novel
Quite an impressive debut though I'm not sure if Navarro has published anything since. He's a Chilean transplant to New Zealand and wanted to give something back to his new community. The GN is aimed at young urban Maori seeking a reconnection to their culture.
13 yr old Kahi Moana walks through the streets of Christchurch (after the first earthquake and before the second), he looks at statues and the Cathedral and wonders where he fits in to it all. His father is Maori and his mother is English, rather than embracing both cultures, he feels like he doesn't belong anywhere. He picks up a 10 cent coin on the pavement - there is the Queen of England on on side and a Maori koruru (mask) on the other. He visits his Maori grandmother who tells him a couple of stories, one about Te Rauparaha, a chief & war leader from the 1800s who created the most famous of the hakas and the other is one of the Maui myths. As Kahi leaves the house, he's ditched his rapper $ chain and is now wearing a carved pounamu pendant, a koha from his grandmother.
All this in the first half of the GN, as I turned to part two I discovered that it was the same story but in Maori. So a bilingual GN, quite an achievement.
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Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race by Naben Ruthnum (2017)
nonfiction / food

This was an interesting read about the Indian diaspora and identity. How it manifests in food and books. If you are the second or third generation of Indian immigrants you are still expected to eat, cook and write like an Indian from India. About visiting India, the old country, and being annoyed that it hasn't stood still in time like your memories of growing up there.
Ruthnum grew up in small town Canada and his parents' bookshelves were full of typical South East Asian 'immigrant books' or 'curry books' as he calls them.

From a Canadian newspaper review -
'In the more literary currybooks discussed in the second section, Ruthnum laments that the internal battle over identity always plays out the same way: The protagonist's home country, frozen in nostalgic and authentic amber, offers a respite from feelings of displacement. But for second-generation people living in Canada, Ruthnum says, things are more complicated. He returns often to the very particular "weirdness" of being a racialized person in a diaspora, recognized as a tourist in your parents' home country, yet rarely accepted with no questions in the country of your birth. He knows his family's history in the "East" (Mauritius) informs his sense of self and his writing, but he resents the idea that this history must define him going forward. This internal push-and-pull is a classic currybook set-up, but in writing Curry, Ruthnum wants to change the ending to the story.' https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/review-naben-r...

Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland (2010)
crime
Emily Tempest #2. This was an entertaining crime read set in Australia's Northern Territory. Emily Tempest has a new job with the police, Aboriginal Community Officer. When there's a death of an old man at the Green Swamp Well Roadhouse her new boss thinks it's a cut and dried natural causes death, but Emily thinks otherwise....and gets into a lot of trouble while trying to solve the murder.
Will be going back to read the first book.


The Broken Shore by Peter Temple (2005)
crime
This was an excellent crime read. Police corruption, coverups and more. The book starts with the death of a local philanthropist, the murder is quickly pinned on some aboriginal lads from the nearby settlement. Detective Joe Cashin who is still recovering from injuries related to a big Melbourne investigation is asked to investigate. He's back living in his rural childhood home for some months and working with the local police.
The story is complex and unusual and Joe Cashin is in a lot of pain. The storytelling is exceptional and the characters are all well-rounded.

Fintan's Tower by Catherine Fisher (1991)
children's fiction / Arthurian
A children's fantasy based on Celtic myth. Jamie finds a book in the library that only he can read, it has his name on the cover and leads him and his sister into another world. I enjoyed this and will look out for others by Fisher.

From the author's note: 'the idea for this book came from an ancient poem called The Spoils of Annwn, so old and broken that it’s hard to read, but it seems to tell the story of a raid, made by Arthur on a tower in the Otherworld. I love the Arthurian myths, especially the Welsh versions, and from them I took a lot of elements of this story- Cai, the Oldest Animals, and the Cauldron itself.

Young Henry of Navarre by Heinrich Mann (1935)
historical fiction / big books
Long and absorbing read on how Henry IV came to be king. I enjoyed this and now have the sequel, Henry, King of France to read.
Blurb: 'Heinrich Mann's most acclaimed work is a spectacular epic that recounts the wars, political machinations, rival religious sects, and backstage plots that marked the birth of the French Republic.'


The lie and how we told it by Tommi Parrish (2018)
graphic novel

Couldn't be convinced on the illustrative style, I just don't go for how Parrish depicts people in this, everyone is ugly. The story is about a guy and a woman meeting by chance about 15 years after finishing highschool together. They end up spending the evening together socialising and both realise they have nothing much in common anymore.
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Saga Vol. 5 by Brian Vaughan (2015)
Saga Vol. 6 by Brian Vaughan (2016)
Saga Vol. 7 by Brian Vaughan (2017)
graphic novels
I read these over the past month or so and I have Saga #8 ready to pick up from the library. Scifi epic adventure about a cross-species family, whose races are at war with each other. Loads of interesting characters. Art by Fiona Staples.

Station Zero by Philip Reeve (2018)
YA
Concluding instalment of the Railhead trilogy. I enjoyed this trilogy set in a futuristic world where trains travel through special gates to other dimensions or planets. Control is key and the battle over empire, gates & trains makes for a fast moving fun read.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer (2017)
fiction
Winner of the Pulitzer Fiction (2018) Award. I thought this would be more comic than it was, mainly due to the playful cover art.
Novelist Arthur Less is about to turn fifty and his younger ex-boyfriend has just invited him to his wedding. Less feels like a failure and so accepts all the invitations that he's been ignoring and goes on a round-the-world trip to obscure events in order to not attend the wedding.
Sort of painful read that has bright points, just probably not my type of read. I did end up liking poor Less.

Boy swallows Universe by Trent Dalton (2018)
fiction

Magnificent coming of age story. I loved this big bold story weaved by Dalton, an Australian journalist. This is his debut novel and it is a highly entertaining book set in the rougher edges of Brisbane's urban sprawl. It's about Eli Bell, the second of two brothers who are told by his mother and step father that they are special. A celebration of the joy of family even through the roughest of experiences - family breakdown, drugs, criminals, cruelty, neglect, separation. Eli Bell shines through.

Dalton based the story on his own 1980s childhood. https://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/lifestyle/houdini-and-the-escapist/news-st...


Mutuwhenua by Patricia Grace (1978)
NZ fiction
Patricia Grace's first novel. The novel is about a young Maori woman who falls in love with a European (pakeha) New Zealander and after marrying him and moving to the city, realises that the strong spiritual ties to her Maori whanau (family) and land is threatening her happiness.
While fairly dated, the novel gives one a nostalgia for older simpler times. I liked that the book introduces the reader to the Maori concept of whangai.
'Whāngai is a Māori customary practice where a child goes into the care of relatives, such as a grandparent, aunt or another member of the same hapū or iwi. The arrangement can be flexible because the child can return to the care of the birth parents or another relative.
Whāngai placements may occur for many reasons, like giving a child to people who cannot have children, consolidating land rights, or passing down traditions and knowledge.'

The Mapmakers' Race by Eirlys Hunter (2018)
children's fiction, NZ

I loved Hunter's YA Finn's Quest trilogy which she finished up in 2004 and as far as I'm aware she hasn't published anything since then and has been teaching writing children's literature. So this was a lovely surprise and turns out to be a great read, I hope it gets published and promoted outside of NZ as it well deserves a large readership.
A bunch of children and their parrot travelling with their mother on a train to a map-making expedition and race, it's their last hope to make money since their father went missing....and the mother gets left behind at a train stop. The children must try to win the race themselves, they have all the skills, learnt from working with their parents on previous expeditions. Classic enjoyable story.

Once by Morris Gleitzman (2005)
children's fiction

Once #1. Felix has spent more than 3 years in a Polish orphanage, left there by his Jewish parents. He convinces himself that he has to seek them out and leaves only to encounter Nazis carrying out their Final Solution. Told from a naive child's perspective, Gleitzman does not shelter the reader from deaths and horror but does not dwell on this either.
There are 6 books in the series and I'm hoping to read them all by the end of the year.


Then by Morris Gleitzman (2008)
children's fiction
Sequel to Once. Gleitzman continues the story of Felix and also Zelda as they shelter on the farm of a sympathetic Polish woman. Excellent storytelling for this age group.


Now by Morris Gleitzman (2010)
children's fiction
The third book in the Once series. Felix has just turned 80 and his granddaughter, Zelda, has come to stay for several months while her parents are in Africa. She has a bad run in with the school bullies in her first week of school, followed by a devastating bushfire that threatens the entire community just outside of Melbourne.
Felix has spent his entire adult life saving children in his work as a surgeon to make up for the fact that he couldn't save the original Zelda back during the war.
Again great storytelling and the buildup to the fire and its aftermath is very real. He based this on the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires which devastated parts of Victoria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires
Must read Ash Road again. The next three books take us back to the young Felix again and there will be one final book not yet written. I own the next book, After and will start reading it.

Gleitzman recommends for those wanting to understand Australia's bushfires.
A Future in Flames by Danielle Clode
Black Saturday edited by John McGourty
Worst Of Days by Karen Kissane
Inferno by Roger Franklin

He also lists on his website the books he read for background on the Holocaust - https://www.morrisgleitzman.com/once.htm


After by Morris Gleitzman (2011)
children's fiction
Once #4. Continuing the series, this covers Felix's time with the partisans and the end of the war. Gleitzman covers a lot of territory in these books, managing to touch on most aspects of the Holocaust. I've already made a start on the next book, Soon.


Soon by Morris Gleitzman (2015)
children's fiction

Once #5. The war is over, Felix must learn how to survive the vigilante gangs and live in the ruined landscape of a once thriving city.


Maybe by Morris Gleitzman (2017)
children's fiction

Once #6. Last in the series though Gleitzman says he has one more to write. This was about Felix's journey to Australia and his first few days there.
I have to say this one is the weakest of the series and I'd only give it 2 stars. It also confirmed my impressions that started from about the third book and I felt more and more strongly as I read books 4 & 5. Each book has been a good read, though this last one is far too far fetched. I still think book 1 & 2 are probably a good introduction for children to the Holocaust, and book 3 is good too as it focuses more on Felix's granddaughter, bushfires and bullying.

I started to feel by book 3 that something was absent and then I realised that although these books are about Felix, a Jewish boy surviving the Holocaust, the books don't have anything much Jewish about them. All the people he meets and befriends are not Jewish. His protectors are Polish farmers & partisans, his first friend, Zelda, and then later Anna are both non-Jews. There is no talk at all about being Jewish, Felix is completely estranged from the religion. It's clear that his parents were assimilated Jews, but even so I felt that there should have been more Jewish content in the plot. The few Jews depicted are either victims or hoarders of valuables, there was not one Jew in any book who helps him.
Also Felix has too much say in what happens to him, by book 6 he is still only just 14 yrs old. I'm certain that any Jewish boy as well known as Felix by the end of book 5, would have been picked up either in Poland or Australia by a Jewish charity or Zionist organisation as they were very active after the war and it would have been far more realistic for this to have happened rather than where Felix ended up. This book, Maybe is very weak, the plot is very disappointing even though action packed, I did not like it.
So these last couple of books spoil the series for me, the adult reader, now I've come to the end. I've read too many Holocaust books written by survivors, and they are so so much more worth reading.

Do not lick this book by Idan Ben-Barak, illustrator Julian Frost (2017)
picturebook

Very clever & fun look at the different microbes out and about in our everyday lives. It also includes electron microscope images of our skin and teeth (very scary) etc.
This won the 2018 CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) NonFiction Award.

From the publisher: Idan Ben-Barak holds a BSc in medical science, an MSc in microbiology, and a PhD in the history and philosophy of science. His first book, Small Wonders: How Microbes Rule Our World has been published around the world and won the 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru SB&F (Science Books and Films) Prize for Excellence in Science Books, Young Adult category. An excerpt from his most recent book, Why Aren't We Dead Yet? The Survivor's Guide to the Immune System, was runner-up in the 2015 Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing.

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The uncorker of ocean bottles by Michelle Cuevas, illustrator Erin E. Stead (2016)
picturebook
Blandish story that will appeal due to it having a 'letters in bottles' theme. Lonely guy with no name collects and delivers the letters that arrive in bottles to his village. He never receives a letter for himself, so one day there is an invitation to a party addressed to no-one....and everyone in the village ends up at the party. The illustrations are lovely.
Illustrator Erin Stead is married to writer/illustrator Philip Stead, they collaborated on A sick day for Amos McGee.

Marlborough Man by Alan Carter (2017)
crime, NZ
Just realised as I was finishing reading this that it won the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Award for Crime Fiction a couple of weeks ago. I've been meaning to read this since it came out last year, mainly because of the setting in New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds. Carter does wonderful justice to the glorious landscape.
Alan Carter is from England and after living and publishing several award winning crime novels in Australia has moved to New Zealand and lives in the Marlborough Sounds.

Nick Chester is a police detective hiding in New Zealand with his family in a small provincial town after two years undercover in a northern UK city trying to bring down a notorious criminal. He's still a policeman and is helping on a local investigation into a child murder that has similarities to others when he realises that he's been identified and there are killers coming after him and his family. I enjoyed this.

A dark inheritance by Chris D'Lacey (2014)
children's

Unicorne Files #1of 3. I loved D'Lacey's The Last Dragon Chronicles, though didn't finish the series and will have to look it out at some time. Anyway this is an action packed read that starts when Michael Malone saves a dog from falling down a cliff. His act catches the interest of a bunch of unusual characters and turns this into a mystery cum scifi cum ghost story.
I have the next book so will probably pick it up soon.

Notes on a nervous planet by Matt Haig (2018)
nonfiction
This is a great read about how to survive in our switched on busy busy world, especially if you suffer from anxiety, panic attacks or depression. The 'chapters' are sometimes just a paragraph and the topics jump around quite a bit, but overall it does get you thinking about your own ability to switch off from social media for a time. I've followed Haig on social media for a long while and know that he suffered a bit from getting too political in his tweeting, he got trolled several times last year, so this book would have been good therapy for him. He no longer keeps his phone by his bedside and logs how long he spends on social media. He realises he was getting angry with people he didn't know who lived thousands of miles from himself and it was all affecting his own relationship with wife and children. He also now makes time for weekly catchups, face to face with friends, though this can be quite hard to arrange as everyone is so busy nowadays. The book also talks about living in a modern consumer society and the pressure to want more, be better, compare ourselves to impossible perfection etc.
The writer that Haig references most is Yuval Noah Harari and I've been wanting to read his Sapiens for a long while..


Blue Dog by Louis de Bernières (2016)
children's fiction

This is the prequel to Red Dog and in the author's note at the back of the book de Bernières says that the producer of the Red Dog film (which I loved) was so in love with the red cloud kelpie that he made a prequel film about where the dog's life started off. Before the film came out it was suggested to the publisher that de Bernières could write a tie-in novel. He was not interested at all but after reading the script, which was very good, he decided to take on the project though he did stray from the script.

This is a delightful story of a boy who ends up living on his grandfather's remote cattle station in northwest Australia while his mother recovers from a nervous breakdown after the death of his father.


Must read Red Dog


The Dumpster Saga by Craig Harrison (2007)
YA fiction, NZ

This was an entertaining read about two brothers. The family dynamics are great and Ben's new part-time job at the supermarket dressing up as a biscuit bear makes for hilarious reading. The plot revolves around a strange plastic helmet with propeller that Chesney, the younger brother, finds in a nearby dumpster. Add in Great Aunt Irene, the local tennis club committee, dwarves, a chicken costume wearing union official and an alien.
Harrison wrote the adult scifi, The quiet earth.

Nevermoor: The trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend (2017)
children's fantasy

Nevermoor #1. Good timing to read this as the next book is due out in a month or so. I enjoyed this quite a lot.
Morrigan Crow is a cursed child and about to meet her fate when she is rescued and taken to another magical world. I loved some of the imaginative features of the story.


The Invasion by Peadar Ó Guilín (2018)
YA
Greylands #2. The sequel to The Call. If you like your faerie dark and horrific then this is for you. This isn't as brilliant as the first book but is a fairly good sequel. A few threads left untied but overall our heroes manage to save Ireland from being taken over by the faerie folk out for revenge.


Saga Vol. 8 by Brian Vaughan (2017)
graphic novel

Ongoing read of this series. This one ended on a happier note than many of the others so maybe I should just leave it here.


The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson (1993)
YA
Ibbotson's romantic novels were repackaged as YA about ten years ago and I bought a few at the time after enjoying her magical books for children.
This was a pleasant light read, the outcome is known from the first page, just have to arrive there. Young Ruth is left behind in Vienna, through a mishap when her parents and extended family leave due to the growing threat posed by Hitler. She's rescued a few weeks later by an English academic colleague of her father who she's known since childhood through a quickly arranged marriage to get her on his passport. Many complications later...true love blooms.

Ibbotson's wikipedia page is interesting reading - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Ibbotson

Two books to report as 'did not finish'.
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Green Darkness by Anya Seton (1972)
fiction - I read about 40% of this before giving up. I just wasn't enjoying anything about the story. The reincarnation idea was ok, just found the story drawn out.
Carpentaria by Alexis Wright (2006)
fiction - I listened for about 3 hours worth but the story started injecting more and more mythological rambling till I just didn't feel the need to listen anymore. If it had been based on real aboriginal lore I probably could have stuck with it, but it was more of an invented modern mythology. I enjoyed Ben Okri's The Famished Road so I can do these books just not the 500-odd pages of this particular one.
Carpentaria is an award winning Australian novel by an indigenous author, just not appealing to me at this point in time.
'Alexis Wright employs mysticism, stark reality, and pointed imagination to re-create the land and the Aboriginal people of Carpentaria.'

Letters to my Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi (2018)
nonfiction
Excellent read. Halevi writes to an imaginary Palestinian neighbour living on the fringes of Jerusalem, a series of open letters about what it means to be an Israeli Jew. He covers religion, race, politics, history, hopes and dreams. There is no perfect book on the Israel/Arab conflict but this one is a helping stepping stone in building a reader's understanding to the region.
The book has been translated to Arabic and that version is available free online.
A lengthy review, 'Return to Sender' at Tablet Magazine - https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/261166/return-to-sender


Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime by Gloria Spielman (2011)
picturebook

I read an article about Marcel Marceau and then had a look at what books my library had about him. In the end I went with this picturebook as I wouldn't be able to fit in a biography at present. I was interested in Marceau's work with the French Resistance during WW2. He led many groups of Jewish children over the border to Switzerland. Truly an inspirational man.

The extremely inconvenient adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty (2017)
children's fiction

Kingdoms & Empires #1. I picked this up from the bookshop several months ago, I've read a couple of the author's YA books and just liked the look of this rather chunky hardback. The story runs to 500 pages and heads slowly but steadily to a great conclusion. I enjoyed reading it but wasn't totally immersed until the final 150 pages when the story threads finally started to come together.
Bronte has never known her parents who left to have adventures when she was a baby and so she has been brought up by her aunt and the Butler. After news arrives of their demise, their will stipulates that she must visit all her aunts to deliver gifts. She must travel across the kingdoms and empires all alone on this task and as the will has been stitched around with faerie thread, if she doesn't follow the precise instructions then her hometown will face dire consequences.
The next book comes out in November and is set in the same world.

The New Neighbours by Sarah McIntyre (2018)
picturebook

A bouncy story that is set in a tower block and the diversity of people who can live there. It's addressing the fear of some have of immigration and refugees in a fun way. My daughter and I discussed the book at great length, we both agree that the book is fun though doesn't capture the message entirely, as the new neighbours admit that they aren't like others of their 'people'. So even the Rat couple admit that Rat people have a bad reputation, which sort of defeats the story. Using a variety of animals rather than people, softens the xenophobia that builds up as the lambs make their way from the top floor to the bottom to finally meet the new Rat family.

A good interview with McIntyre here which explains her motivation to do this book: https://jabberworks.livejournal.com/795024.html
'I'm keeping my fingers crossed that kids will like this book just because it's about a bumbling group of animals all living together in an apartment block. But perhaps they will also think about prejudice, jumping to conclusions about people before they've met them or tried to get to know them. It's a story ultimately about healthy community and getting along, and the last picture in the book is one of hope and repaired relations.'

Let sleeping dogs lie by Mirjam Pressler (2003 German) (2007 English)
YA

A very thoughtful read. Johanna is almost 18 when she finds out that her family's department store was once owned by two Jewish families and that her much loved grandfather had been an enthusiastic Nazi Party member from the early 1930s. As Johanna grapples with her feelings about her family history she risks losing her relationship with her father. She finds out on a school trip to Israel where students meet up with Holocaust survivors who were former pupils of their school.
Pressler introduces the guilt factor that later generations of Germans must face when confronted with their family history. What do the Jewish survivors want or need? What can or should she do now that she knows?


The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser (2015 German) (2017 Eng)
YA

This book came home with me mainly because I fell in love with the cover art. I've been admiring the cover for quite some time and finally started reading it. The story is not bad but I never really engaged, possibly because I love Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series so much that an earnest YA fantasy set in and out of books is just not going to make the bar set by Mr Fforde.
Amy has lived with her mother in Germany all her life and now at 17 they are finally going home to a remote island off the coast of Scotland. Here she finds that her family is one of two that for many generations have had the ability to travel into books in some form of guardian role. This gift of book jumping only lasts for a few years and now there is a threat a thief is stealing story ideas and many books are coming under attack - Alice in Wonderland without the white rabbit, The Wizard of Oz without the cyclone, The Picture of Dorian Gray without the painting etc.
I liked that Amy's first friend in the book world is the melancholy Werther from The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Most books mentioned are classics like Peter Pan. The characters all socialise on the margins.


I've been following Anna James on twitter (https://twitter.com/acaseforbooks) for a couple of years now as she expresses her love for books in her job as a book person. Now her debut children's book, Tilly and the Bookwanderers (Pages & Co. #1) is out, I'm eager to read it as this seems to be a new trend - characters wandering in and out of books.

Swan Lake: A Retelling of the Classic Ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky by Anne Spudvilas (2016)
picturebook

Illustrator Anne Spudvilas does a dreamy dark Swan Lake, introducing each Act with a short text and then allowing the artwork centre stage. The characters are featured in ballet pose. Stunning.

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The End of Summer by Tillie Walden (2015)
graphic novel

I found this story rather vague and some of the characters were hard to discern from one another, but the illustration style and the world of the story were both compelling. Oh and there's a giant pet cat, I want one. Walden was offered a publishing deal when she was still in high school, she turned it down and waited a couple more years before accepting.


I love this part by Tillie Walden (2015)
graphic novel

A couple of school girls build a strong friendship over shared interests. The friendship tentatively takes a couple of steps further into attraction. The book is too short for a full exploration of the narrative or character development.

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (2011)
children's fiction

Like The Invention of Hugo Cabret this work is divided between illustrated pages and short blocks of text. At the start the text follows the 1977 story of Ben whose mother has recently died while the other story, told through illustrations only, is set many years earlier and follows a girl, Rose, and her adventures in 1927 New York.
The story itself is very good and how it all unravels is fascinating. Can't believe I took so long to read this.




Grace by Morris Gleitzman (2009)
children's fiction

Like Felix in the Once series, Grace is also a very naive character. She's been brought up in a strict almost cultish church environment. Her world is rocked when her father is expelled from the church and all contact with him is forbidden. I found parts of this fairly unrealistic but it is still a good read for all that.
I prefer Fleur Beale's series, I am not Esther, though her books are YA level.

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted by Robert Hillman (2018)
fiction
This Australian novel tells us three stories, first is Tom, a young farmer who fails at marriage but is bringing up the result of his wife's infidelity, a baby named Peter. Then comes Hannah, older than Tom and a Holocaust survivor. She opens a bookshop and marries Tom, we get glimpses of her European back story. And then there's Peter, taken away from Tom when he's only 5 or 6 by his mother, Tom's ex. He's forced to live with her in a repressive religious cult, and tries to run away several times, resulting in punishment.
The book was a slow read and I had to push myself to get to the end. I was not interested in any of the characters.


Vox by Christina Dalcher (2018)
fiction
I didn't like this one much at all. I wanted to read it after seeing some good reviews for it and then, the fact that the author was a linguist caught my interest. Anyway the book was more of a thriller than the intriguing read that I'd expected.
A new President has been voted in, mainly thanks to a fundamental religious leader supplying the necessary votes with his growing Pure movement. Now all females have lost their rights and must wear bracelets that restrict their vocal output to only 100 words per day, anymore and they receive an electric shock. No access to computers, paper or pens and cameras surveil for communication by sign language.

Teacher: one woman's struggle to keep the heart in teaching by Gabbie Stroud (2018)
memoir
This book is getting a lot of buzz here and in Australia. Stroud wrote an award winning essay in the Griffin Review in 2016 that got a lot of attention:
'I was burnt out because successive Australian governments – both left and right – have locked Australian education into the original model of schooling first established during the industrial revolution. Each decision made keeps us stuck in an archaic learn-to-work model, now complete with ongoing mandatory assessment of our student’s likely productivity and economic potential.

Fundamental to this model is the idea of standardising.

Standards, standardising and standardisation.

Making every kid the same.

Making every teacher the same.

If I was successful in my job, that’s what would happen.

Based on that, I don’t want the job any more.'

She was offered a book deal and this is the result. Teacher is a memoir of her years teaching, at once inspiring and also illuminating the plight of the teacher who wants to teach children but finds their life wound up in assessment and paperwork.

https://griffithreview.com/articles/teaching-australia/

The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth by Ken Krimstein (2018)
graphic biography

An interesting read. Having discussed the Frankfurt School with my daughter earlier this year when she was doing a sociology paper on culture, I felt fairly informed when the many intellectuals that Arendt hung out with in Germany and Paris were mentioned. I loved the illustrations and feel that this is a really good introduction into the world of Hannah Arendt.
I took note of two books out of many that Krimstein mentions -
Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt
Unlearning with Hannah Arendt by Mary Luise Knott
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Berlin: City of stones by Jason Lutes (2000)
graphic novel
Berlin #1. This graphic novel covers the end of the Weimar years in Germany, following the paths of several characters in Berlin. I have two more volumes out from the library to get read and like what I've read so far. The illustrations are very good.

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Berlin: city of smoke by Jason Lutes (2009)
Berlin: city of light by Jason Lutes (2018)
graphic novel

Books 2 & 3 of Lutes' Berlin trilogy continue the story of some intersecting characters in the last years of the Weimar Republic in Germany. A Jewish family, a young woman who seeks a Bohemian lifestyle, jazz musicians, communists and National Socialists, the poor and the rich. A worthwhile read.
There's an extensive reference list at the end of vol. 3.
An interview with Jason Lutes - http://www.tcj.com/its-going-to-be-600-pages-long-an-interview-with-jason-lutes/

Dog by Daniel Pennac (1982)
children's fiction
This was Pennac's first book for children and I think it was only translated and published in English after he won some fame for other books. A story about an abandoned puppy finally managing to find his rightful home with a young girl, Plum, after learning to survive on the streets. Pennac keeps away from the saccharine and has Plum being fairly selfish long before she realises that she loves Dog.


In a house of lies by Ian Rankin (2018)
crime
Rebus #22. Another satisfying read though poor Rebus is not in good shape. A missing person case from 12 years earlier becomes a murder investigation when the body turns up. Rebus now retired is on the sidelines, he was part of the original investigation.


The anger of angels by Sherryl Jordan (2018)
YA

I loved this alternate history story, set in medieval Italy, Jordan says she wanted to write about freedom of speech. Her main character is Giovanna, the daughter of a jester. They live in one of Italy's city states and her father holds a respected position at court.
The nearby city state is ruled by an oppressive usurper, a ruler who has a secret. Her father knows the truth about this duke and has written a play, The Anger of Angels exposing the secret in a riddle.
There's adventure, bravery and a dash of romance.


William's Waitangi Day by David Ling (2018)
picturebook

Illustrated by Nikki Slade Robinson. Another from David Ling's Duck Creek Press, this one looks at how a variety of New Zealand children and their families celebrate our national holiday, Waitangi Day. William is new to NZ, from China and doesn't understand the significance of the holiday. The story ends with William's family invited to a Waitangi Day hangi by a mother of one of William's classmates.
This is the type of book that a teacher will use in the classroom rather than one that children would choose for themselves.
I had a look at David Ling's website and there is a Chinese-English bilingual version of the book available.



David Ling Publishing also has published some interesting adult nonfiction over the years.
www.davidling.co.nz


Goth girl and the Fete worse than death by Chris Riddell (2014)
children's fiction

The second Goth Girl book. I thought I'd read through this series as the illustrations are quite delightful. Ada is the daughter of Lord Goth and while she seems fairly normal, nothing about her life is. Her governess is a vampire, her maid is a bear from Bolivia and now everyone at Ghastly Gorm Hall are too busy organising the Great Ghastly Gorm Bake-Off Fete to have time for Ada.

Blue Monday by Nicci French (2011)
crime
Frieda Klein #1. A new series for me to read. Set in London, Klein is a psychotherapist and in this book she becomes troubled by one of her patients who talks of troubled dreams which seem to tie him to the recent abduction of a child. I like the cast of characters surrounding Klein and the great twist in the story.
Looking forward to reading more of these.
Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife writers Nicci Gerrard and Sean French.


Evacuation by Raphaël Jérusalmy (2018)
novella

A strange little read. On a roadtrip to Tel Aviv with his mother, Naor is recounting the recent days he spent with his girlfriend, Yael and his grandfather (saba in Hebrew) in an empty Tel Aviv after it was evacuated due to missile strikes in an imagined conflict.
I enjoyed the surreal plot and the spare descriptive writing. I read his novella Saving Mozart a couple of years ago and will look out for his other translated work, The Brotherhood of Book Hunters. I believe he writes in French and lives in Israel.


Bullet Boys by Ally Kennen (2012)
YA

Action packed adventure story for teen boys. Three boys have a run in with soldiers from a nearby training camp. Later they find a hidden stash of rifles and other military equipment. The final confrontation takes place on the moors and is highly dramatic. The story is told from the POV of two of the boys, one is Alex, sensible, with outdoor skills learnt over the years from his gamekeeper father and the other is Max, rebellious, already in trouble and liable to do anything.


The ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively (1973)
childrens
I really enjoyed this one. It's been lying around the house for an age, I even thought maybe I'd read it before but hadn't. A family move into an old cottage having renovated the closed up attic into a bedroom for the son, James. Unfortunately the renovation has unsettled the ghost / poltergeist of an alchemist, Thomas Kempe, who once lived there in the 17th century. James gets blamed for most of the trouble that Thomas Kempe causes.


The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson (2018)
childrens

Anderson works with Baba Yaga folktales to create an engaging story that didn't quite work for me but will still enchant the younger reader and introduce them to the rich world of Russian / East European folklore. Marinka wants a normal life but as she's lived with her grandmother, a Baba Yaga, since she was a baby, life is anything but normal.

Currently listening to both Reamde and The Fellowship of the Rings on audio so that might boost my fantasy/scifi reading for the year.
I've really taken a hit on several categories but that was expected as my reading slumped this year and I tended to just pick up crime or YA books.

Wow, congratulations on posting so many reviews! I'm so glad you enjoyed Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard, which I absolutely love as well. Her other book, The Sherwood Ring, is also wonderful, if you want to read about ghosts and spies and the American Revolution. The other Tam Lin retelling that I really enjoyed was Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones.

Hi Christina, thanks for commenting. The Sherwood Ring is sitting in my library book pile right now, I requested it a couple of weeks ago. Read Fire and Hemlock many years back, probably need a reread as I remember loving it at the time. I did make a start on Tam Lin by Pamela Dean which is set in a US college but I didn't quite take to it. I've had a difficult reading year.

Wow, Kerry, that's quite a lot of reading. Glad to see you back among us. Also just reread The Perilous Gard as well as The Sherwood Ring and will look for the sequel to Nevermoor. Also a big Jasper Fforde fan, but interesting to see more plots around entering books.

You've been reading up a storm since I last visited your thread.

What a fabulous batch of reviews!

Great to see you back and posting. As usual I will leave your thread with a slightly longer wish list than when I first arrived. ;)

What a great selection of reading! Glad to see you back again. I'd like to hear more about the kittens.

>177 ronincats: hi Roni. I just finished Tilly and the bookwanderers, it's a real gem for book lovers.

>178 thornton37814: >179 lkernagh: almost a whole year of reviews

>180 DeltaQueen50: The perils of LT threads

>181 VivienneR: I'll add a few photos. I overdid it on my 75 books challenge thread so have held off for several months. They disrupted my reading quite a bit this year. Anyway we love them to pieces. We already had a female tabby who is unfriendly to all the family except for my daughter and just wanted a couple of cats that liked us. Our 3 gingers are delightful, each with their own personality and being brothers they back each other up. We also get visited daily by the neighbour's ginger cat, Hugo. They all hang out together in our rather large garden.
We intended to get two kittens but couldn't choose which one to leave behind at the SPCA so my daughter paid for the third kitten which she named Conrad, having just studied Lord Jim at university.

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown (2016)
children's fiction

I got the sequel, The wild robot escapes, out from the library before realising it was book #2, so took it back and got the first book out. I enjoyed this though at times it felt a little drawn out, I think children will gobble this one up and ask for more.
Roz is a robot who is shipwrecked on an island. She works out how to survive and is eventually befriended by the island's animals. It's really lovely showing how Roz fosters a gosling, makes friends with the animals and helps them through a harsh winter.


The Marvels by Brian Selznick (2015)
children's book

I really enjoyed this. The first half of the book is a wordless story, followed by about 200 pages of text. The illustrations tell the story of the Marvels, a family of famous actors. The text tells the story of a young boy who runs away from boarding school and eventually the two stories connect and reveal themselves. The artwork is wonderful.
Just requested his Baby Monkey, Private Eye from the library.


My Teacher Is a Monster! (No, I Am Not.) by Peter Brown (2014)
picturebook

Fun. Child thinks his teacher is a monster until he meets her outside of school. The teacher starts out as a complete monster and slowly morphs into a pleasant young woman by the end of the story. Same author/illustrator as in above novel The Wild Robot, where I forgot to add that the book illustrations were very good.

Imposters by Scott Westerfeld (2018)
YA
Set in the same world as the Uglies series but some years later. Frey is the hidden twin sister of Rafia and her father, the ruler of the city state, Shreve, uses her as the body double for Rafia, the First Daughter. Only a handful of people know of her existence. Full of action and excitement, a satisfying read set in a dystopian world.


Child of an Ancient City by Tad Williams & Nina Kiriki Hoffman (1992)
novella
Arabian Nights inspired story set in old Baghdad and Armenia. A caravan travelling from the Caliph to an Armenian prince is attacked by bandits and the survivors begin a hasty journey back to their own country. They are stalked by a vampyr who in the end offers them a storytelling challenge. Makes a change from the usual vampire fare and some of the stories are quite good as is the overall story. Took me an age to read the 80pgs, Tad Williams tends to do this to me.

My kittens turned 1 yr old last week -
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(1) Max checking out a gap in the shelves while I'm cleaning my bookcase (2) Max again (3) sharing a garden chair


Gaius, Conrad & Max snoozing in a corner of our garden.

The bed-making competition by Anna Jackson (2018)
novella

More a series of interlinked stories about two sisters. This was entertaining and quite brilliant. Jackson is a well known poet here in New Zealand and she wrote some of these stories when she was meant to be writing poems on a residency at the Michael King Writer's Centre.
This novella was one of the winners of the 2018 Seizure Viva La Novella Prize, the award includes publication. I have another 2018 winner home from the library, it's by Avi Duckor-Jones who is the son of writer Lloyd Jones. I hadn't heard of this prize before, Lisa from ANZLitLovers blog says that all the novellas she's read so far from the award's list have been very good. https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/10/17/the-bed-making-competition-by-anna-jackson-b...

http://www.seizureonline.com/viva-la-novella/


Baby Monkey, private eye by Brian Selznick & David Serlin (2018)
children's book
While this book is for emerging readers, the artwork is by Selznick and is more sophisticated than the text. The text is very big and bold, just a few words, while the illustrations are in Selznick style, soft pencil, considerable humour and lots of detail on the walls of the detective agency.
At the end of the book there is a Key to Baby Monkey's Office, describing the significance to the various items on display for each chapter/crime.
Also Serlin is Selznick's husband so it was a happy collaboration for them, based on a silly story they had often joked about.

Reamde by Neal Stephenson (2011)
fiction

I listened to the audio of this huge tome switching to paper copy for the last 100 pages when my iPod needed recharging and the action had vamped up to the point that I couldn't wait.This is a big story described as a technothriller and involving a popular online game, Chinese hackers, a computer virus, Russian mafia, Christian isolationists, Islamic terrorists and many others.


In the dark spaces by Cally Black (2017)
YA scifi

This won the Ampersand Prize in 2015 for a manuscript by an unpublished YA writer, an Australasian award. Since then it has been shortlisted for several awards and won the 2018 New Zealand YA Fiction Award. The cover won a design award as well.
It's a great scifi read about a young girl stowaway who is kidnapped by an aggressive alien troop who storm the freighter that Tamara has been hidden on, along with her toddler cousin. Hidden by her aunt who works in the kitchens, they are part of the blue collar workers who aren't allowed family on board and must survive in less gravity and cramped conditions, while the elite families in the outer ring of the freighter have full gravity and lots of food.

Saga Vol. 9 by Brian K. Vaughan
graphic novel

Latest instalment. I don't love this as much as others but this one leaves us on a bit of a cliff hanger so I need to read the next one.


Wolf Children by Paul Dowswell (2017)
children's fiction
About a small group of children trying to survive in Berlin just after the war ends. One of two brothers is still harbouring the indoctrination from his Hitler Youth Group and this could put the group in jeopardy. Great read, I also liked his Auslander and will look out for his Sektion 20 which is set in East Berlin during the Cold War.


A chase in time by Sally Nicholls (2018)
children's fiction

The Time-Seekers #1. A fun timeslip junior novel. On holiday at their great aunt's Applecott House which has been in the Pilgrim family for several generations, Alex and Ruby Pilgrim find themselves falling back into 1912 through a family heirloom mirror in the hallway. Here they meet their 'young cousins' and have an adventure with their dazzling young uncle and his new bride to be, just on the cusp of WW1 breaking out. At the end of the story they learn the fates of these distant relatives.
This is a great read for 9+. The second book, 'The secret in time', is due out in early 2020.

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The Coldest City by Anthony Johnston (2012)
graphic novel

First of two GNs, the other is a prequel, The Coldest Winter, which I've started but put aside while I deal with other library books with due dates hovering. This is set in the days before the Berlin Wall falls, when spies and intelligence officers are all hedging their double dealing bets. The British send in an agent to salvage a mission that has gone astray and led to the death of their #2 in Berlin. The story is told through her debrief when she gets back to London. Very good and great artwork by Sam Hart.

The Coldest Winter by Antony Johnston (2016)
graphic novel

The prequel to The Coldest City and illustrated by Steven Perkins. Trying to organise a defection during one of the coldest winters that Berlin has seen in 30 years. Perceval is on his last chance and has to make this succeed for any chance of taking over as station chief in Berlin.

Tilly and the bookwanderers by Anna James (2018)
children's

Pages & Co. #1. This debut novel is utterly enchanting. 10 yr old Tilly lives with her grandparents above their London bookshop, her mother disappeared when she was a baby and her father died before she was born. Like her grandparents, Tilly is a bit of a bookworm. One day two of her favourite book characters turn up for a visit and Tilly discovers the world of book wandering. Sort of a junior version of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next.

James works in the world of book publishing and promotion and really gets across the love of books and reading in this chunky junior novel. Can't wait for the next adventure.

Max tends to curl up in unusual places, here he is crammed into a tiny space between books and my printer.

I might be a little bit in love with your cats.

My first kitty (after moving out of my house) was orange, and she was such a companion, I haven't had the heart to get another orange one since we lost her, but the all-knowing looks of your kitties make a good case! There's something about orange kitties that just seem to beg you to be happy--at least to me!

Oh we love them to pieces. Our first cats were ginger, two brothers and we lost one fairly quickly while the other lived to a respectable old age. These three replace our beautiful fluffy black cat that disappeared a few years ago leaving his 'sister', a grumpy tabby behind. These three are very friendly and cuddly, just what the doctor ordered.
If you scroll down from here you will see all the photos I posted in my 75er thread when we first got them, I posted photos for 2 months and only read about 2 books: http://www.librarything.com/topic/287003#6402038

>185 avatiakh: They are very, very handsome!

Oooooh, your kittens are adorable! And, as usual, BBs flying around here...

Awwwwww what a gorgeous bundle of orange cuteness!!

Oh thank you for all the kittykat love!

I'm trying to plan my 2019 challenge at present.

I love your gorgeous cats! Good for you for taking all three siblings.

The Mediterranean by Armin Greder (2018)
sophisticated picturebook

Greder starts with the pulling of a drowned migrant from the Mediterranean and then follows the illicit arms trade - Europeans selling weapons to African warlords, causing war & conflict, fleeing of populations and hence the drownings in the Mediterranean. A wordless picturebook but the muted charcoal illustrations are story enough.

Flight of the Fantail by Steph Matuku (2018)
YA
While this starts out as a survival story, it then rifts into scifi territory. I can't say that I enjoyed it that much but it did keep my attention.
A busload of students out for a camping trip to a remote national park when the vehicle crashes down a bank and into a river. The few survivors find themselves not only battling nature, the elements and their injuries but also a strange psychosis that seems to affect most of them. The rescue operation is taken over by a shady corporation that owns the neighbouring land and is shrouded in secrecy, only when a few earth tremors reveal what's been hidden under earthworks for the past 50 years does the story begin to make sense.
There was a little too much gore and horror for me but I think the age group that the book is aimed at will probably love it.

This is one of two debut novels for Steph Matuku. The other is a magical book for children, Whetū Toa and the Magician.

If on a winter's night a traveller by Italo Calvino (1980 Italian) (1983 English)
fiction

Finally picked this one up and wow, what an interesting read. Basically you are twisted into knots plot wise while the main character chases his way through the book looking for a copy of a book that he's only read the first chapter of. So, of course, we end up reading the first chapter of several books, each one tantalising and then having to break away. Calvino taunts us and lectures us along the way. Brilliant but also frustrating at times.

Sabrina by Nick Drnaso (2018)
graphic novel
I didn't love this but can understand the positive reviews it's getting. Sabrina is a young woman who has gone missing. Her boyfriend is finding it hard to cope and goes to stay with an old school friend who works in the military somewhere very bland. They hardly communicate, life goes on but fake news & conspiracy theories surface when there are developments in the case. There are lots of reviews that explain the ideas behind the GN better than I even want to.

The Guardian - 'A clever and chilling analysis of the nature of trust and truth and the erosion of both in the age of the internet'
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/02/sabrina-nick-drnaso-review-graphic...

Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton (2018)
scifi

Salvation Sequence #1. I listened to the audio of this book, the first of a planned trilogy. I'm a fan of Peter F. Hamilton's work and this first book is really setting the scene for the next two. There are two story threads, one is set in the nearer future of the 23rd century and the second is set in the 5500s. In the future humans have scattered out across the galaxy, connected to Earth and across Earth by portals which have made other modes of transportation obsolete.
Captivating.

Starkey the gentle pirate by Peter Bland (2010)
picturebook

Delightful humorous poem that has been illustrated to perfection. Starkey, one of Captain Hook's pirates sets out on a quest to find treasure, but the adventure is the voyage itself.

'He only had one arm, one leg,
one ear and one good eye,
"But Starkey's more than half a man,"
you'd hear his shipmates cry."

Bland is a well known poet and actor here in New Zealand. I've just re-watched the film of Ronald Hugh Morrieson's book, Came a Hot Friday, which Bland stars in. I discovered he was a neighbour of ours where we previously lived when I was doorknocking up the street looking for our lost dog years ago. A bit disconcerting to have the door answered by a friendly face that you recognise but can't quite figure out why.

Quiet girl in a noisy world: an introvert's story by Debbie Tung (2017)
graphic novel

A brilliant little graphic memoir of Tung's angst as she navigates early adulthood and social/work life as an introvert. Includes all the awkward moments but also humour.

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A possibility of violence by D.A. Mishani (2013)
crime
Avraham Avraham #2. A suitcase with a fake bomb is left outside a daycare centre and Avraham is in charge of the investigation. He has to get this one right after the shambles of his last case. I enjoyed reading this, Avraham is an interesting character, he's lost his confidence and needs to be right this time.
I'm going to go on and read the next book in the series, The man who wanted to know.

The author blurb says that Mishani is a literary scholar who specialises in the history of detective literature.

There's a tui in our teapot by Dawn McMillan (2018)
picturebook

Introduces the reader to New Zealand's native birds in a comical manner plus the text is repeated in Maori, so a useful book in the classroom. It rhymes well on most pages though falls a little flat at the end. The illustrations by Nikki Slade Robinson are lively and humorous. Dawn's done some good picturebooks, several duds and a few wildly popular ones using toilet humour.
A useful feature is the illustrated glossary at the back about all the birds mentioned in the text.




Cook's cook: the cook who cooked for Captain Cook by Gavin Bishop (2018)
picturebook

I love Bishop's work and this latest is also memorable. It's a nonfiction look at Captain Cook's first voyage to the Southern Oceans through the eyes of his one handed ships cook, John Thompson. So the story of the voyage is punctuated by the interesting meals, recipes are included for the adventurous cook. Anyone for 'Dog and breadfruit stew' - Tahiti or Stingray soup - Australia. Lots of interesting facts about life on board ship in those times, and Bishop's lovely lovely artwork.

The Trokeville Way by Russell Hoban (1996)
YA
A quirky enjoyable read. During a fight with the school bully Nick hits his head on a wall and isn't feeling quite himself. On the way home he stops to talk to a busker, Moe Nagic, who says he used to be a rather good magician or illusionist until the love of his life, Zelda, his assistant left him. Nagic sells Nick a painting that has been made into a jigsaw and a gyroscope, saying it was possible to enter the painting by using the gyroscope. Once inside the painting Nick keeps running into people, Buncher the bully, the artist, Zelda and also Cynthia the girl he admires from afar as well as a younger version of his parents.

Hoban mentions the painting 'King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid' by Edward Burne-Jones and also quotes Tennyson's poem.

Past Tense by Lee Child (2018)
thriller
Jack Reacher #23. Still enjoying these. This time Reacher unexpectedly visits the town where his father was born and as always trouble is just around the corner.

The Truth Pixie by Matt Haig (2018)
children's book

Rhyming story about The Truth Pixie, a character from Haig's 'Boy called Christmas' series. Sweet and getting much love from his fans, it's a tale of a pixie who, thanks to a spell by her aunt, can only tell the truth which drives away friends and family. Chris Mould's illustrations are once again perfect for this style of writing.



'Constantly reassuring children that everything is fine is short-sighted, Haig believes, because it doesn’t help them to develop coping strategies and mental resilience. “It’s a natural instinct for parents to want to shield young children from everything. But it’s just putting off the problem.” Instead, he recommends telling kids that the world might not be OK – but as individuals they will be, because they will find a way to adapt. “When I was in a state of depression, there was nothing more depressing than reading about perfect happiness and unicorns and rainbows. You want to take someone in an even worse situation than you and then watch them deal with it. Then there’s a comfort.”

Haig says he started to write a non-fiction self-help book about mental health for children, but ended up feeling he was patronising his readers. “I thought I would take the same messages and put them into fiction and it would be more entertaining that way – and maybe more empowering, too.”'
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/18/can-picture-books-meet-the-crisis-...

My side of the diamond by Sally Gardner (2017)
YA
There's been mixed reaction to this book, either you love it or hate it. It's an alien encounter book set in Suffock, England. The book is written as a series of interviews by a mysterious journalist, Mr Jones, taken about eleven years after the disappearance of a teen girl who jumped from a tall building in London but whose body was never recovered, similar to the disappearance years earlier of a young couple who either jumped or were pushed from the top of St Pauls Cathedral and whose bodies were never found. Gradually all the missing details and explanations make sense of the unusual circumstances.
Having just finished a scifi book about alien encounters I was receptive to the book and found it reminiscent of 50s pulp scifi and an entertaining read.

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (2018)
crime
Cormoran Strike #4. I loved reading this, so taken with the relationship between Strike and his partner, Robyn. No need to say more.

A song for summer by Eva Ibbotson (1997)
YA

Another of Ibbotson's romance novels republished as YA. This one was fairly weak all said and done, still enjoyable enough. I don't have any of these romance novels left so at least I've cleared my shelves. I bought 2 or 3 when they were sold as YA about 10 years ago. Like the others, this one is set in Europe & London just on the cusp of WW2.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)
fantasy

LOTR #1. This was a 'reread' of about the 4th or 5th time, though I listened to an audiobook this time which I rather liked. So finally I listened to all the songs etc. that I had previously jumped over. The cover of my audiobook is completely uninspiring so have used the cover of my paperback copy that daughter has been reading.
I haven't revisited LOTR since the films came out and it was surprising how many details I'd forgotten, the films hardly intruded. My daughter is taking a summer paper on Tolkien so is reading them for the first time, she doesn't remember the films at all, we'll watch them over the New Year just before she starts the course.

142) The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang (2018)
graphic novel

Set in 19th century Paris. About a young prince who likes to cross-dress and the young dressmaker he hires to design his outfits. Sweet story about being true to yourself. Wang illustrated Cory Doctorow's In real life in a similar style.

The Keeper of the Isis Light by Monica Hughes (1980)
YA scifi
Isis trilogy #1. This won the 2000 Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association as the best English-language children's book that did not win a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier. I enjoyed this YA which I came across when reading about robots and AI in children's literature after reading The Wild Robot.
Olwen is just 16 Earth years old, she has been raised on a remote planet, Isis, by a robot charged with being her guardian after the death of her parents when she was just 4 years old. When a spaceship arrives it brings a new set of challenges for Olwen who is used to her solitary and happy existence as the planet's sole human inhabitant.
I've requested the next two books.

The man who wanted to know by D.A. Mishani (2013 Hebrew) (2016 English)
crime
Avraham Avraham #3. The last one in the series to be translated as far as I'm aware. Another police procedural, Avraham is leading his first murder investigation.
Alternate title: The Man who wanted to know everything

The Lost Witch by Melvin Burgess (2018)
YA
I'm a big fan of Burgess's work and I really enjoyed this book, an urban fantasy about witches being tracked down by The Hunt. Like Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels this book is being pummelled by critics as it doesn't steer the political correctness course. This time it's about a young girl being kept away from her family and then groomed by an older male witch. I didn't see it like that, there's too much magic involved, and anyway it's the darkness of the story that holds the reader.
Bea is only 13 when she discovers that she's a witch and could develop a great power. It's summer and all she really wants to do is skateboard, there's an older boy at the skateboard park who is coaching her to be a great rider, the last thing she can be bothered with is going off with this young gypsy girl to visit the other local witches who want to protect her from The Hunt.

A meal in winter by Hubert Mingarelli (2012)
novella

While it's beautifully written, it is about three German soldiers out hunting for Jews in the Polish countryside in the bitter winter. They find one then stop to cook a meal in a deserted hovel before returning back to camp.
I think anyone reading this also needs to know about Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning.

Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina & Ezekiel Kwaymullina (2018)
YA
Really different and very good by brother and sister writing team. Ambelin & Ezekiel Kwaymullina are Aboriginal storytellers from the Palyku people of Western Australia. Together they have produced a great YA novel. Beth is a ghost, she died a while back in a car accident but hasn't moved on. Her Dad, a police detective, can see and talk to her, her mother died when Beth was a baby. Together they travel to a rural town to investigate a fire at a children's home and discover many truths and disturbing history.

The Lessons by Naomi Alderman (2010)
fiction

This has been on my Mt tbr for simply ages so good that another one has bitten the dust. One of those books that is easy to read but you don't feel any connection whatsoever to any of the characters. I didn't like any of them. So overall an okay read that I wouldn't recommend to others.
About a group of six students at Oxford University and their lives after, narrated by James who can't believe his luck to be included with the privileged others. Their world is dominated by the aristocratic, super rich and unstable Mark who offers them a rundown stately house to live together while they're all at Oxford.

Kill Shot by Garry Disher (2018)
crime
Wyatt #9. Wyatt is a criminal with a fair sense of justice. This time he is doing burglaries on demand for a long time acquaintance, Kramer, who is languishing in jail. Proceeds are split between Wyatt and Kramer's family who have no other income. The latest job is proving rather difficult as Wyatt is being targeted not just by a determined detective but also by other criminals and his own target is on the wrong side of the law and about to make a break for it.
Enjoyed revisiting Wyatt's world though this one took a while to get going. The fun with these books is reading how Wyatt operates.

Mr Godley's Phantom by Mal Peet (2018)
fiction
I loved this, the final novel by Mal Peet and published posthumously. And then to note that he wrote it in New Zealand while a guest at Wellington's Victoria University.
Martin Heath is suffering from PTSD from his experiences in WW2 and takes on a job as driver and general dogsbody for old Mr Godley who lives in a remote rural location in the south of England. Martin's eyes light up when he realises the car he'll be driving is a beautiful Rolls Royce Silver Phantom. This is part mystery and part ghost story, and is beautifully written.

The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope (1958)
children's fiction
I loved this. A great ghost story, harking back to the era of the American Revolutionary War.

The anxiety of Kalix the werewolf by Martin Millar (2013)
urban fantasy
This is the concluding book in the Kalix trilogy. I really hope he writes another one though as I dearly love these characters. This is a wonderful comedic, dark urban fantasy that I should have read when it first came out as the book has been one of my guilty 'still unread yet bought within a week of publication' ones on my shelves. Kalix and her clan must go up against the werewolf hunters guild who have strong allies and a big injection of cash. Kalix must also navigate everyday life and deal with her anxiety and the social issues it brings. Moonglow and Daniel, her human flatmates, help with endless cups of tea and copious amounts of meat at the full moon.
The cover does nothing for me, I bought the first book by the cover and a very gushing blurb by Neil Gaiman (later covers are very unattractive).
I love Millar's Thraxas books, 'pulp fantasy noir', which he writes as Martin Scott.

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)
audio cd

LOTR #2. A reread of this favourite fantasy and one I can do with the films far behind me. I'll be watching them again over the New Year and before I tackleThe return of the King, just one of those things as my daughter will be studying Tolkien in January. She's already read the trilogy since her exams finished in November, reread The Hobbit and is walking around my copies of with Tree and Leaf & Beowulf trying to decide which to read next. She takes copious notes after each chapter.

22423701::Swim by Avi Duckor-Jones (2018)
novella

The manuscript won the 2018 Seizure Viva La Novella Award along with The Bedmaking competition by Anna Jackson and both were published recently. The Award is an Australia / New Zealand one that I hadn't heard of before.
Swim is about a troubled young man who is widely travelled and returns home to an isolated coastal beach due to his estranged mother's illness. He renovates the old family bach while planning on a swim out to a distant island he can just see on the horizon. He's an accomplished endurance swimmer, but his behaviour becomes increasingly anti-social as he sets his sights on his goal.
The book is full of vivid descriptions of nature, being in the sea, swimming and is a very good read. anzlitlovers wrote a great review which is what convinced me to pick up both these novellas.
Duckor-Jones is the son of New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones and won last year's NZ Survivor reality tv, spending his winnings on a school in Ghana where he'd previously been a teacher. I possibly posted this before but here is Lloyd Jones writing about his son - https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/07-07-2017/lloyd-jones-my-son-avi-the-winner-of-s...

The Isis Pedlar by Monica Hughes (1982)
childrens

Concluding volume in the Isis trilogy. Cut off from the rest of the universe, the small Isis community is taken in by a smart talking Irish pedlar who arrives from out of nowhere. He is soon followed by his daughter Moira who wants to take him off the planet and to leave the Isis community alone. Quite a good conclusion.

Wishing you and the feline family a Happy New Year filled with good health and good reading.

>224 avatiakh: Hooray, glad you loved this!

My 2018 stats from goodreads where I log all my reading including picturebooks
https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2018/1674550

>232 avatiakh: It took me a minute to find mine, but I found it. I'll upload shortly to my 2019 thread.