Chatterbox Launches Into 2019: Act the First

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Chatterbox Launches Into 2019: Act the First

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1Chatterbox
Editado: Ene 1, 2019, 2:06 pm



Entirely

by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963)

If we could get the hang of it entirely
It would take too long;
All we know is the splash of words in passing
And falling twigs of song,
And when we try to eavesdrop on the great
Presences it is rarely
That by a stroke of luck we can appropriate
Even a phrase entirely.
If we could find our happiness entirely
In somebody else’s arms
We should not fear the spears of the spring nor the city’s
Yammering fire alarms
But, as it is, the spears each year go through
Our flesh and almost hourly
Bell or siren banishes the blue
Eyes of Love entirely.

And if the world were black or white entirely
And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters,
A prism of delight and pain,
We might be surer where we wished to go
Or again we might be merely
Bored but in brute reality there is no
Road that is right entirely.

This was a poem written in 1940 -- just as MacNeice (a contemporary of Spender and Auden) was about to lose his edge and see his reputation as a brilliant young poet fade during his lifetime -- no worse fate can be imagined. Thankfully, work done in the last year or two of his life, and a posthumous look back at his life's total accomplishment means we get a chance to see a lot of his work still in print and understand how he fits into the poetry of his generation, as a bit of an outsider, who wasn't a committed revolutionary in the way that Auden was, but who had an impressive talent nontheless. And who had a kind of wry cynicism that I can relate to.

The picture is by August Macke (1887-1914), a German expressionist who painted in the era that helped shape MacNeice, and who died in the conflagration that would create the world that he responded to in his work: World War I. The contrast between the vivid colors and the sentiments in the poem are striking to me. I'm hoping to make it to an exhibit of works by Macke and a friend and fellow painter, Franz Marc (1880-1916), who was killed on the Western Front in 1918. This past year saw the centenary of the end of the First World War; 2019 will be the centenary of the Versailles Treaty, which created the world we inhabit today.

2Chatterbox
Editado: Ene 1, 2019, 2:06 pm

I read. A lot. And I like to talk about what I'm reading. I'll list my books here when I finish them, but I've kind of given up on doing mini-reviews. It has begun to feel too much like a form of tyranny... Because I read too much for it to feel like fun. In 2018, the total will be 420 books, and writing that many mini-reviews? Just -- nope.

On the other hand, if you want my thoughts on anything I've read, just ask me! I kind of like to think of my thread as what my ideal literary salon would be, if I could ever aspire to have one, and if I could ever imagine reposing gracefully on a chaise longue while presiding over it (without laughing hysterically at the image I'd present).

In any event: for those of you who don't already know me... I'm Suzanne, a rapidly aging freelance journalist/editor/writer/whatever, in my 50s, dividing my time between my home base in Providence, Rhode Island, and my former home in NYC. The former, I share with two cats: Cassie, aged 14, and Sir Fergus the Fat aged 6, who absolutely hate each other. What they share is an absolute addiction to Greenie treats, and both will go to extreme lengths to get them. At one point, I hid the container under my duvet at night. Sigh.

There's not much freelance work out there right now (or at least, not enough) and my family (brother, niece and two nephews, all teens now, living in Toronto, as is my mother) are in a bit of a state of turmoil stemming from my brother's divorce, while my father's health has sharply deteriorated this month. But reading helps. Sadly, I've lost my easy access to physical advance review copies from Amazon's review program, but still get e-galleys (hurrah!) and very much hope to get to the the ALA summer meeting for more advance review copies for free... My two favorite words in the English language are FREE BOOKS. In French? LIVRES GRATUITS.

It's my tenth year among the 75ers, and while I read a lot more than 75 books, my tastes probably cover the waterfront of most members. I read a lot of non-fiction, ranging from history to current affairs; some accessible popular science to philosophy. I am a big fan of mysteries, as long as they add great characters to the mix. I still read chick lit as lighter fare, and my fiction reading runs the gamut from Very Serious and Intense Works to the novels of the day. I'm averse to dubbing something an insta-classic because it's won an award or two, but I'm always curious to see what people are doing that's new and different, and trying to figure out or guess what might endure. I'm a relatively recent (five or six years now) convert to audio books, but only selectively -- it depends on the book and the narrator. They are great when I get migraines or go back and forth to NYC on a bus or am doing chores.

My ideal book? Anything in which I can completely immerse myself, and at the end, wish I hadn't read it, so that I could read it again for the first time...

This will be the fourth year that I'm also hosting a non-fiction reading "challenge" -- light on the challenge, since my priority is to give people a forum to encourage each other to read more nonfiction, introduce them to new authors and books, and just share their thoughts about what they're reading and lob a book bullet or two at each other. Come and join the fun -- we are kicking off 2019 by reading prizewinning works of non-fiction. This year, we'll have a number of new monthly themes, including graphic NON-novels!

The only "rules" of the road for this thread: please treat each other and everyone else's views with courtesy and thoughtfulness. If someone annoys you, don't make a drama out of it here, please; take it offline. This isn't Facebook. Let's focus on what we share and enjoy, please.

3Chatterbox
Editado: mayo 22, 2019, 7:29 pm

I always read far more than 75 books a year and so just keep a single ticker to track my total reading. I'll start new threads when the total number of posts hits between 250 and 300. I will try to keep the list current but last year, keeping up with mini-reviews of the books I read, with capsule comments, defeated me. So, this year, I will simply acknowledge that it's not possible.

This year I'm setting my goal at just above my 2018 level: 425. Hmmm....

If you want to see what I have been reading in real time, your best bet is to go to my library on LT, and look at the dedicated collection I've established there, under the label "Books Read in 2019". As I complete a book, I'll rate it and add it to the list. I'll also tag it, "Read in 2019". You'll be able to see it by either searching under that tag, or clicking on https://www.librarything.com/catalog/Chatterbox/booksreadin2019.

I do have some reading objectives -- I refuse to call them challenges or targets or anything else -- ranging from specific books to themes and even authors I plan to re-read. I'll note those down in the coming posts.




My guide to my ratings:

1.5 or less: A tree gave its life so that this book could be printed and distributed?
1.5 to 2.7: Are you really prepared to give up hours of your life for this?? I wouldn't recommend doing so...
2.8 to 3.3: Do you need something to fill in some time waiting to see the dentist? Either reasonably good within a ho-hum genre (chick lit or thrillers), something that's OK to read when you've nothing else with you, or that you'll find adequate to pass the time and forget later on.
3.4 to 3.8: Want to know what a thumping good read is like, or a book that has a fascinating premise, but doesn't quite deliver? This is where you'll find 'em.
3.9 to 4.4: So, you want a hearty endorsement? These books have what it takes to make me happy I read them.
4.5 to 5: The books that I wish I hadn't read yet, so I could experience the joy of discovering them again for the first time. Sometimes disquieting, sometimes sentimental faves, sometimes dramatic -- they are a highly personal/subjective collection!

The list starts here...

The January list:

1. Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country On Earth by Sarah Smarsh (finished 1/2/19) 4.4 stars
2. Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal (finished 1/4/19) 3.35 stars
3. The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons (finished 1/4/19) 3.85 stars (A)
4. *River of Darkness by Rennie Airth (finished 1/6/19) 4.7 stars (A)
5. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (finished 1/6/19) 4.2 stars
6. Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy (finished 1/8/19) 4.4 stars
7. *Before the Poison by Peter Robinson (finished 1/8/19) 4.35 stars (A)
8. The Reckoning by John Grisham (finished 1/9/19) 3.7 stars
9. *The Girl in the Cellar by Patricia Wentworth (finished 1/10/19) 3.1 stars (A)
10. Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age by Stephen Platt (finished 1/11/19) 5 stars!!!
11. *The Blood Dimmed Tide by Rennie Airth (finished 1/12/19) 4.7 stars
12. Little Culinary Triumphs by Pascale Pujol (finished 1/12/19) 4.2 stars
13. Golden State by Ben Winters (finished 1/13/19) 4.35 stars
14. The King's Justice by E.M. Powell (finished 1/14/19) 3 stars
15. Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo (finished 1/15/19) 4.4 stars
16. *Shadow on the Crown by Patricia Bracewell (finished 1/16/19) 3.8 stars
17. Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford (finished 1/16/19) 4.2 stars
18. North of Dawn by Nuruddin Farah (finished 1/17/19) 3.5 stars
19. Bewildering Cares by Winifred Peck (finished 1/18/19) 4 stars
20. *The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell (finished 1/19/19) 3.65 stars
21. The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer (finished 1/19/19) 4.4 stars
22. The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye (finished 1/20/19) 4.6 stars -- partly (A)
23. Rebel Heiress by Jane Aiken Hodge (finished 1/20/19) 3.6 stars
24. It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree by A.J. Jacobs (finished 1/20/19) 4 stars
25. Maulever Hall by Jane Aiken Hodge (finished 1/21/19) 3.4 stars
26. Keep You Close by Karen Cleveland (finished 1/21/19) 3.9 stars
27. Of Blood and Bone by Nora Roberts (finished 1/22/19) 3.7 stars
28. The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (finished 1/23/19) 5 stars
29. They Fought Alone: The True Story of the Starr Brothers, British Secret Agents in Nazi-Occupied France by Charles Glass (finished 1/24/19) 4.1 stars
30. *The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer (finished 1/24/19) 4.2 stars (A)
31. A Taste for Vengeance by Martin Walker (finished 1/25/19) 4.1 stars
32. *Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran (finished 1/26/19) 3.7 stars (A)
33. The Comforts of Home by Susan Hill (finished 1/26/19) 4.2 stars
34. With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial by Kathryn Mannix (finished 1/27/19) 4.35 stars
35. Arrest the Bishop? by Winifred Peck (finished 1/28/19) 3.35 stars
36. The Order of the Day by Éric Vuillard (finished 1/28/19) 4.35 stars
37. Paris by the Book by Liam Callanan (finished 1/29/19) 3.3 stars
38. Uneasy Lies the Crown by Tasha Alexander (finished 1/30/19) 4.1 stars
39. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil (finished 1/31/19) 5 stars
40. Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind by Michael Massing (finished 1/31/19) 4.7 stars (A)

The February list:

41. The Black Book by James Patterson (finished 2/1/19) 3.45 stars
42. Time and Time Again by Ben Elton (finished 2/1/19) 3.9 stars
43. The Victorian and the Romantic: A Memoir, a Love Story, and a Friendship Across Time by Nell Stevens (finished 2/2/19) 4.4 stars
44. Wanderer by Sarah Léon (finished 2/3/19) 4 stars
45. Judas Flowering by Jane Aiken Hodge (finished 2/5/19) 3.4 stars
46. *The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (finished 2/7/19) 4.1 stars (A)
47. On the Bright Side: The new secret diary of Hendrik Groen by Hendrik Groen (finished 2/8/19) 4.2 stars
48. *The Winds of War by Herman Wouk (finished 2/10/19) 3.85 stars (A)
49. Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee (finished 2/11/19) 4.3 stars
50. Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley (finished 2/12/19) 4.2 stars
51. Wide Is the Water by Jane Aiken Hodge (finished 2/12/19) 3.4 stars
52. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by John Radden Keefe (finished 2/13/19) 4.4 stars
53. Death is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa (finished 2/13/19) 4.5 stars
54. *The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart (finished 2/14/19) 4.3 stars (A)
55. Triple Jeopardy by Anne Perry (finished 2/14/19) 3.85 stars
56. Becoming by Michelle Obama (finished 2/14/19) 4.65 stars
57. The Killing Habit by Mark Billingham (finished 2/15/19) 4.25 stars
58. *The Hollow Hills by Mary Stewart (finished 2/18/19) 4.5 stars (A)
59. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (finished 2/18/19) 5 stars
60. *Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden (finished 2/18/19) 4 stars
61. The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison (finished 2/19/19) 3.7 stars
62. *The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart (finished 2/20/19) 4.3 stars (A)
63. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (finished 2/21/19) 5 stars
64. The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff (finished 2/22/19) 3 stars
65. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (finished 2/22/19) 3.65 stars
66. *Zoo Station by David Downing (finished 2/23/19) 4.2 stars (A)
67. The Body Lies by Jo Baker (finished 2/23/19) 4.7 stars
68. *Silesian Station by David Downing (finished 2/24/19) 4.2 stars (A)
69. Little by Edward Carey (finished 2/25/19) 4 stars
70. Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates (finished 2/26/19) 4.35 stars
71. *Stettin Station by David Downing (finished 2/26/19) 4.15 stars (A)
72. Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair (finished 2/27/19) 3.5 stars
73. *Potsdam Station by David Downing (finished 2/27/19) 3.9 stars (A)

The March list:

74. The Paris Diversion by Chris Pavone (finished 3/1/19) 3.6 stars
75. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (finished 3/2/19) 5 stars
76. The Power Game by Meg Keneally & Thomas Keneally (finished 3/2/19) 4.2 stars
77. The Demon Next Door by Bryan Burrough (finished 3/3/19) 3.7 stars (A)
78. Good Riddance by Elinor Lipman (finished 3/3/19) 3.85 stars
79. Berlin Book Three: City of Light by Jason Lutes (finished 3/4/19) 4.1 stars
80. *The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr (finished 3/5/19) 4.4 stars (A)
81. The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson (finished 3/5/19) 3.7 stars
82. The Red Daughter by John Burnham Schwartz (finished 3/5/19) 4.1 stars
83. *Lehrter Station by David Downing (finished 3/6/19) 4 stars (A)
84. The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem (finished 3/6/19) 2.3 stars
85. The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan (finished 3/8/19) 4.35 stars (A)
86. The Wall by John Lanchester (finished 3/8/19) 4.15 stars
87. *A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII by Sarah Helm (finished 3/10/19) 5 stars (A)
88. The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park (finished 3/10/19) 3.8 stars
89. I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (finished 3/11/19) 4.2 stars
90. The Innocence Game by Michael Harvey (finished 3/13/19) 2.75 stars
91. *Jane Seymour, The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir (finished 3/13/19) 4.1 stars (A)
92. Anna of Kleve, The Princess in the Portrait by Alison Weir (finished 3/14/19) 4 stars
93. Devil in the grove : Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the dawn of a new America by Gilbert King (finished 3/16/19) 4.4 stars
94. The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths (finished 3/16/19) 4.2 stars
95. *The Runner by Christopher Reich (finished 3/17/19) 4.1 stars (A)
96. The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick (finished 3/17/19) 3.4 stars
97. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (finished 3/17/19) 4.4 stars
98. The Burglar by Thomas Perry (finished 3/18/19) 3.75 stars
99. The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age by David Sanger (finished 3/19/19) 4.8 stars
100. *Black Roses by Jane Thynne (finished 3/21/19) 4.2 stars (A)
101. The White Devil's Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown by Julia Flynn Siler (finished 3/21/19) 4.8 stars
102. The Second Biggest Nothing by Colin Cotterill (finished 3/22/19) 4.35 stars
103. *The Winter Garden by Jane Thynne (finished 3/23/19) 4.15 stars (A)
104. *A War of Flowers by Jane Thynne (finished 3/24/19) 4.1 stars (A)
105. *Faith and Beauty by Jane Thynne (finished 3/25/19) 4.2 stars (A)
106. Banners of Silk by Rosalind Laker (finished 3/27/19) 3.35 stars
107. Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad (finished 3/27/19) 4.7 stars
108. *Sleeping Dogs by Thomas Perry (finished 3/28/19) 4 stars (A)
109. Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London by Claire Harman
110. *Solitaire by Jane Thynne (finished 3/29/19) 4.1 stars (A)
111. The Golden Wolf by Linnea Hartsuyker (finished 3/30/19) 4.35 stars
112. *The Informant by Thomas Perry (finished 3/31/19) 3.65 stars (A)

The April list:

113. The Glass Bees by Ernst Jünger (finished 4/1/19) 3.9 stars
114. Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness (finished 4/1/19) 3.6 stars
115. The Selection by Kiera Cass (finished 4/2/19) 2 stars (A)
116. Never Tell by Lisa Gardener (finished 4/3/19) 4 stars
117. *Vanishing Act by Thomas Perry (finished 4/4/19) 4.1 stars (A)
118. The Suspect by Fiona Barton (finished 4/5/19) 3.9 stars
119. *Death Benefits by Thomas Perry (finished 4/6/19) 4.2 stars (A)
120. The Lost Gutenberg: The Astounding Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey by Margaret Leslie Davis (finished 4/6/19) 4.5 stars (A)
121. Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini (finished 4/7/19) 3.3 stars
122. Inheritance from Mother by Minae Mizumura (finished 4/8/19) 5 stars
123. Crown Jewel by Christopher Reich (finished 4/13/19) 3.85 stars
124. Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham (finished 4/14/19) 5 stars
125. The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear (finished 4/15/19) 3.9 stars
126. *Dominion by C.J. Sansom (finished 4/15/19) 4.2 stars (A)
127. Women Talking by Miriam Toews (finished 4/18/19) 4.45 stars
128. Wild Grapes by Elizabeth Aston (finished 4/19/19) 4.1 stars
129. Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee (finished 4/20/19) 4.2 stars (A)
130. The Long Call by Ann Cleeves (finished 4/20/19) 4.2 stars
131. There There by Tommy Orange (finished 4/21/19) 5 stars
132. *Silence by Thomas Perry (finished 4/21/19) 3.9 stars
133. Bookshop of the Broken Hearted by Robert Hillman (finished 4/22/19) 4 stars
134. The Last Stone: A Masterpiece of Criminal Interrogation by Mark Bowden (finished 4/23/19) 3.65 stars
135. Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land (finished 4/24/19) 4.4 stars
136. The Darwin Affair by Tim Mason (finished 4/26/19) 4.1 stars
137. A Winter Away by Elizabeth Fair (finished 4/28/19) 3.65 stars
138. *Shadow Woman by Thomas Perry (finished 4/28/19) 3.8 stars (A)
139. The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott (finished 4/28/19) 4.3 stars
140. Afternoon of a Faun by James Lasdun (finished 4/30/19) 4.4 stars

The May List:

141. The Friends We Keep by Jane Green (finished 5/1/19) 3.6 stars
142. Someone Knows by Lisa Scottoline (finished 5/3/19) 3.35 stars
143. Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff (finished 5/5/19) 4.7 stars (A)
144. *Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (finished 5/6/19) 4.5 stars
145. A Forgotten Place by Charles Todd (finished 5/8/19) 3.7 stars
146. My Italian Bulldozer by Alexander McCall Smith (finished 5/8/19) 3.3 stars
147. *Blackout by Connie Willis (finished 5/9/19) 4.2 stars (A)
148. Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt (finished 5/10/19) 4.7 stars
149. The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson (finished 5/12/19) 4.1 stars
150. A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell (finished 5/13/19) 4.5 stars (A)
151. Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (finished 5/13/19) 3.9 stars
152. Old Baggage by Lissa Evans (finished 5/15/19) 4.2 stars (A)
153. Moneyland by Oliver Bullough (finished 5/16/19) 5 stars
154. Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity and Love by Dani Shapiro (finished 5/17/19) 4.5 stars
155. The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan (finished 5/19/19) 4.3 stars (A)
156. A Summer With Montaigne by Louis Compagnon (finished 5/19/19) 4.7 stars
157. *Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart (finished 5/21/19) 4 stars (A)
158. The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent by P.E. Moskowitz (finished 5/22/19) 4.35 stars

4Chatterbox
Editado: Mar 9, 2019, 5:05 pm

I failed miserably in several of my reading goal categories last year and succeeded completely in none. OUCH. Which, of course, doesn't stop me from setting a new batch of targets. You'd think I'd learn, right? But nope.

I still have the Staynes & Storey mysteries to read, and I am planning to read Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels.

Other than that? I need to focus on getting some books read and off my shelves... Especially those that I probably won't want to re-read, or might want to get a digital copy of. Or that have been hanging around for far too long...

ARCs in my living room...

Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart
Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear
The Island Dwellers by Jen Silverman
Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey
Varina by Charles Frazier
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
Melmoth by Sarah Perry
The Spy of Venice by Benet Brandreth
Traitor by Jonathan de Shalit
Midnight Blue by Simone van der Vlugt
How It Happened by Michael Koryta

NetGalley Stack of Shame

The Other Americans by Laila Lalani
Mother Country by Irina Reyn
The Farm by Joanne Ramos
Goulash by Brian Kimberling
The River by Peter Heller
Necessary People by Anna Pitoniak
The Removes by Tatjana Soli
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
Correspondents by Tim Murphy

Mystery Mania

The Second Rider by Alex Beer
Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions by Mrio Giordano
And Fire Came Down by Emma Viskic
99 Ways to Die by Ed Lin
Newcomer by Keigo Higashino
No Time to Cry by James Oswald
A Taste for Vengeance by Martin Walker Read
The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan Read
The Wrong Girl by David Hewson
Salt Lane by William Shaw
A Dangerous Crossing by Ausma Zehanat Khan
The Comforts of Home by Susan Hill Read
Uneasy Lies the Crown by Tasha Alexander Read

Light & Frothy

That Churchill Woman by Stephanie Barron
Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal Read
All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin
Maulever Hall by Jane Aiken Hodges`Read
The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton
When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger
The Memory Palace by Christie Dickason
Snobs by Julian Fellowes
The Adventuress by Nicholas Coleridge
The Ocean Liner by Marius Gabriel

5Chatterbox
Editado: mayo 22, 2019, 7:55 pm

Bedroom TBR Mountain

Sugar Money by Jane Harris
Ark Storm by Linda Davies
Cleopatra’s Sister by Penelope Lively
Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar
Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
No Man Dies Twice by Michael Smith
The Considerate Killer by Lene Kaaberbøl
The Very Marrow of Our Bones by Christine Higdon
The Rainy Season by Anna Jaquiery
Ensemble by Aja Gabel

The American Revolution

American Dialogue: the Founding Fathers and Us by Joseph Ellis
Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father by Stephen Fried
Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom by Russell Shorto
Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different by Gordon S. Wood
46 Pages by Scott Liell
The Unruly City: Paris, London and New York in the Age of Revolution by Mike Rapport
Tom Paine: A Political Life by John Keane
Of Arms and Artists: The American Revolution Through Painters' Eyes by Paul Straiti
A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America by Stacy Schiff

I Really Should Have Read This By NOW

There There by Tommy Orange Read
Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Mrs. Osmond by John Banville
A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
The Three Musketeers by Dumas
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

Personal Non-Fiction Challenge!!

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe Read
Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister
The Immeasurable World by William Atkins
The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics by Salena Zito
Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich
Timekeepers by Simon Garfield
The Great American Outpost by Maya Rao
It’s All Relative by A.J. Jacobs Read
Unquiet Women by Max Adams
A World on Edge by Daniel Schonpflug
No Dancing, No Dancing: Inside the Global Humanitarian Crisis by Denis Dragovic
Sharp by Michelle Dean
Boundless: Tracing Land and Dream in a New Northwest Passage by Kathleen Winter
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn Read
Chopin’s Piano: In Search of the Instrument that Transformed Music by Paul Kildea
Dopesick by Beth Macy Read
1947: Where Now Begins by Elizabeth Asbrink
Border by Kapka Kassabova
Walking the Woods and the Water by Nick Hunt
In These Times – Jenny Uglow
The Victorian and the Romantic: A Memoir, a Love Story, and a Friendship Across Time by Nell Stevens Read
The Broken Road by Patrick Leigh Fermor

6Chatterbox
Editado: mayo 22, 2019, 7:51 pm

Reading Globally

The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Kenya)
The Plotters by Un-Su Kim (S. Korea)
Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo (Nigeria) Read
The Influence Peddlers by Hedi Kaddour (Tunisia)
What’s Left of the Night by Esi Sotiropoulos (Greece)
The Dinner Guest by Gabriela Ybarra (Spain)
The Story of a Marriage by Geir Gulliksen (Norway)
Estoril by Dejan Tiago-Stankovic (Portugal-Yugoslavia)
A Fortune Foretold by Agneta Pleijel (Sweden)
The Dove’s Necklace by Raja Alem (Saudi Arabia)
Inheritance From Mother by Minae Mizumura (Japan) Read
The Happy Marriage by Tahar Ben Jalloun (Morocco)
Red Birds by Mohamed Hanif (Pakistan)
Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
Polite Society by Mahesh Rao (India)
Disoriental by Négar Djavadi (Iran)
Death is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa (Syria) Read
China Dream by Ma Jian (China)
The Old Drift by Namwali Serepell (Zambia)
North of Dawn by Nuruddin Farah (Somalia) Read
Little Culinary Triumphs by Pascale Pujol (France) Read
77 by Guillerom Saccomano (Argentina)
Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad (Thailand) Read

Canadian Content

Women Talking by Miriam Toews Read
Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
The Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains by Yasuko Thanh
The Far Side of the Sky by Daniel Kalla
Serial Monogamy by Kate Taylor
Lost in September by Kathleen Winter
No Relation by Terry Fallis
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
The Break by Katherena Vermette

7Chatterbox
Editado: mayo 22, 2019, 7:33 pm

Book Purchases and Other Permanent Acquisitions In 2019

1. Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (Kindle, Xmas gift card from LT member) 1/1/19
2. The Third Wife by Lisa Jewell (Audible sale, $) 1/1/19
3. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (UK Kindle sale, $) 1/2/19 Read
4. The Kill List by Frederick Forsyth (UK Kindle sale, $) 1/2/19
5. Cemetery Road by Greg Iles (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/2/19
6. Goldstein by Volker Kutscher (UK Kindle Sale, $) 1/2/19
7. Midwinter by Fiona Melrose (UK Kindle sale, $) 1/2/19
8. Journey Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino (UK Kindle sale, $) 1/2/19
9. Game of Spies: The Secret Agent, the Traitor and the Nazi, Bordeaux 1942-1944 by Paddy Ashdown (UK Kindle sale, $) 1/2/19
10. Blood for Blood by Victoria Selman (Kindle First freebie) 1/3/19
11. The Snow Gypsy by Lindsay Jayne Ashford (Kindle First freebie) 1/3/19
12. The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/3/19 Read
13. A Bend in the Stars by Rachel Barenbaum (NetGalley) 1/3/19
14. Allmen and the Pink Diamond by Martin Suter (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/3/19
15. The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie (NetGalley) 1/3/19
16. You Will Be Safe Here by Damian Barr (NetGalley) 1/3/19
17. The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age by Leo Damrosch (NetGalley) 1/4/19
18. Polite Society by Mahesh Rao (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/4/19
19. Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/4/19 Read
20. Maskerade by Terry Pratchett (Audible, $$) 1/6/19
21. Devil's Fjord by David Hewson (NetGalley) 1/8/19
22. Wanderer by Sarah Léon (ARC from publisher) 1/8/19 Read
23. Louise's Crossing by Sarah R. Shaber (NetGalley) 1/8/19
24. The Almanack by Martine Bailey (NetGalley) 1/8/19
25. Too Bad To Die by Francine Mathews (Audible, $$) 1/8/19
26. Recursion by Blake Crouch (NetGalley) 1/9/19
27. Home Remedies by Xuan Juliana Wang (NetGalley) 1/9/19
28. The Man With No Face by Peter May (UK Kindle, $$) 1/10/19
29. The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson (NetGalley) 1/10/19 Read
30. The Berlin Spies by Alex Gerlis (Kindle, $$) 1/10/19
31. With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial by Kathryn Mannix (UK Kindle sale, $) 1/10/19
32. Harry Clarke by David Cale (Audible freebie) 1/12/19
33. The Last Days of August by Jon Ronson (Audible freebie) 1/12/19
34. Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind by Michael Massing (Audiobook, $$) 1/12/19 Read
35. The Bitter Taste of Victory: Life, Love and Art in the Ruins of the Reich by Lara Feigel (Kindle, $$) 1/12/19
36. The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/14/19 Read
37. Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler (NetGalley) 1/15/19
38. The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Chilbury (NetGalley) 1/15/19
39. Keep You Close by Karen Cleveland (NetGalley) 1/15/19 Read
40. The Body Lies by Jo Baker (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/16/19 Read
41. Dual Citizens by Alix Ohlin (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/16/19
42. The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/16/19
43. Message From the Shadows: Selected Stories by Antonio Tabucchi (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/17/19
44. The Children of the Ghetto: My Name is Adam by Elias Khoury (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/17/19
45. The Old Man in the Corner: the Teahouse Detective Vol. 1 by Baroness Orczy (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/17/19
46. Paris, 7 A.M. by Liza Wieland (NetGalley) 1/17/19
47. The Royal Secret by Lucinda Riley (NetGalley) 1/17/19
48. The Lines Between Us: Two Families and a Quest to Cross Baltimore’s Racial Divide by Lawrence Lanahan (NetGalley) 1/17/19
49. The Daughter's Tale by Armando Lucas Correa (NetGalley) 1/18/19
50. Breathe In, Cash Out by Madeleine Henry (NetGalley) 1/18/19
51. Bewildering Cares by Winifred Peck (Kindle Unlimited, Freebie) 1/18/19 Read
52. A Harp in Lowndes Square by Rachel Ferguson (Kindle, freebie) 1/18/19
53. Arrest the Bishop? by Winifred Peck (Kindle, freebie) 1/18/19 Read
54. The Fledgeling by Frances Flaviell (Kindle, freebie) 1/18/19
55. Thalia by Frances Flaviell (Kindle, freebie) 1/18/19
56. A House on the Rhine by Frances Flaviell (Kindle, freebie) 1/18/19
57. Fame Adjacent by Sarah Skilton (NetGalley) 1/22/19
58. Last Day by Domenica Ruta (NetGalley) 1/23/19
59. Diary of a Dead Man on Leave by David Downing (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/23/19
60. The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose (UK Kindle, sale, $) 1/23/19
61. Their Finest by Lissa Evans (Kindle, $$) 1/24/19
62. The Liar's Room by Simon Lelic (Kindle, $$) 1/24/19
63. A Winter Away by Elizabeth Fair (Kindle, gift card) 1/24/19
64. Murder in an English Village by Jessica Ellicott (Audible, sale, $) 1/24/19
65. Don't Let Go by Harlan Coben (Audible, sale, $) 1/24/19
66. The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World by Edward Dolnick (Audible sale, $) 1/24/19
67. Article 353 by Tanguy Viel (ARC from publisher) 1/25/19
68. The Republic by Joost de Vries (ARC from publisher) 1/25/19
69. Acts of Infidelity by Lena Andersson (ARC from publisher) 1/25/19
70. Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine by Barry Strauss (NetGalley) 1/25/19
71. The Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard (Kindle, $$) 1/25/19 Read
72. A Man Called Intrepid by William Stevenson (Kindle Sale, $) 1/27/19
73. Any Means Necessary by Jenny Rogneby (ARC from publisher) 1/27/19
74. Leona: The Die is Cast by Jenny Rogneby (Kindle sale, $) 1/27/19
75. Liars' Paradox by Taylor Stevens (Audiobook, $$) 1/27/19
76. Triple Jeopardy by Anne Perry (NetGalley) 1/28/19 Read
77. Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin (NetGalley) 1/28/19
78. The Map of Knowledge: How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found: A History in Seven Cities by Violet Moller (Edelweiss e-galley) 1/28/19
79. Fake Like Me by Barbara Bourland (NetGalley) 1/29/19
80. The Silent Widow by Sidney Sheldon & Tilly Bagshawe (NetGalley) 1/29/19
81. Murder Knocks Twice by Susanna Calkins (NetGalley) 1/31/19
82. Conformity: The Power of Social Influences by Cass Sunstein (NetGalley) 1/31/19
83. The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World by Peter Frankopan (NetGalley from publisher) 1/31/19
84. Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky (NetGalley, from publisher) 1/31/19
85. Working by Robert Caro (NetGalley, from publisher) 1/31/19
86. This Storm by James Ellroy (NetGalley, from publisher) 1/31/19
87. A Web of Silk by Fiona Buckley (NetGalley) 2/1/19
88. The Mausoleum by David Mark (NetGalley) 2/1/19
89. I am Yours by Reema Zaman (NetGalley) 2/2/19
90. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley (UK Kindle, sale, $) 2/2/19
91. The Reunion by Samantha Hayes (UK Kindle, sale, $) 2/2/19
92. Bottle Grove by Daniel Handler (NetGalley) 2/3/19
93. Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life by Louise Aronson (NetGalley) 2/3/19
94. Corporation Wife by Catherine Gaskin (Kindle Unlimited freebie) 2/5/19
95. Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee (Kindle, $$ gift) 2/5/19 Read
96. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (Kindle, $$ gift) 2/5/19 Read
97. On the Bright Side by Hendrik Groen (UK Kindle, $$) 2/5/19 Read
98. Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution by Menno Schilthuizen (Kindle sale, $, gift) 2/4/19
99. Smoketown: the Untold History of the Other Great Black Renaissance by Mark Whitaker (Kindle, $$, discounted/gift) 2/5/19

8alcottacre
Dic 31, 2018, 10:22 pm

Happy New Year, Suzanne!

9ChelleBearss
Ene 1, 2019, 9:04 am

Happy 2019, Suz!

10FAMeulstee
Ene 1, 2019, 10:34 am

Happy reading in 2019, Suzanne!

11katiekrug
Ene 1, 2019, 10:41 am

Cheers to a new year, Suzanne!

12The_Hibernator
Ene 1, 2019, 10:42 am

Happy New Year!

13drneutron
Ene 1, 2019, 12:15 pm

Welcome back, Suzanne!

14lindapanzo
Ene 1, 2019, 2:09 pm

Happy New Year, Suzanne. Good to see you back here.

15figsfromthistle
Ene 1, 2019, 2:10 pm

Happy New Year. Great topper!

16PaulCranswick
Ene 1, 2019, 7:38 pm



Happy 2019
A year full of books
A year full of friends
A year full of all your wishes realised

I look forward to keeping up with you, Suz, this year.

17EBT1002
Ene 1, 2019, 7:47 pm

Congrats on giving yourself permission to let go of writing mini-reviews, Suzanne. I am trying to do likewise in 2019 -- a comment or two, perhaps a mini-review if I feel inspired, but otherwise, it's on to the next book!

Happy New Year to you, my friend. I hope it brings better tidings.

18ronincats
Ene 1, 2019, 9:00 pm

Dropping off my star, Suzanne!

19banjo123
Ene 1, 2019, 9:40 pm



looking forward to following your reading, etc, in 2019!

20Chatterbox
Editado: Ene 1, 2019, 10:58 pm

Thanks for all the visits!! I hope to have some worthy comments about new books up shortly... I'm reading Heartland by Sarah Smarsh, a kind of antidote/riposte to Hillbilly Elegy, a female, less politically-driven/motivated memoir about growing up poor and what that means in the context of contemporary America. Very thought provoking...

>15 figsfromthistle: Thanks -- yes, I really love Macke's painting, the colors, the "blocky" style. I must, must, must make the effort to get to see this exhibit when I go back to NYC in about two weeks' time. It's so rare to see his work pulled together like this, unlike Klimt and Schiele (which I think also is on display at the Guggenheim.)

>17 EBT1002: Yes, a sentence or two, but perhaps sometimes not even that?? People will have to look at the lists I will continue to post, month by month - and if they are curious about a particular title, of course, I'll provide them with my thoughts. That's always happened anyway, as folks never wanted to page back through different threads looking for comments, and wanted me to post reviews on the book's page, which I do NOT want to do, unless it's a NetGalley or Edelweiss e-galley.

Argh, well, it's back to work in the morning... Piffle.

21Whisper1
Ene 1, 2019, 11:05 pm

HI Suzanne! Happy New Year. May you be healthy, may your furkids be well, may you find books that interest you immensely, and in between, may life treat you fairly.

I really like your creative categories, some of which are based on location in your apartment.

If I started to list all the places I squirrel away books, I would have to admit that I really am a hoarder. Alas, Bookoutlet.com had a huge sale over the Boxer day weekend. Many books acquired that are on my TBR list.
I was so contained in not buying a lot in 2018, then at the end of the year I went nuts!

I hope to be more present in 2019. At the risk of adding a lot more books to the TBR pile, I will be back often.

All good wishes!!!

22LizzieD
Ene 1, 2019, 11:58 pm

All good wishes for you this year, Suzanne. That includes more pain free days, more work that pays well and quickly, plenty of purrs, and lots of time for reading, reflecting, and letting us see the results!
When my eyes can stay open, I'll get back to the top to read.

23benitastrnad
Ene 2, 2019, 12:39 pm

I am back where I have internet access and am happy to see you here and posting. I didn't get as much reading done over the break as I wanted, but I did get lots of baking done. I became fairly adept at having the bread baking machine mix my bread dough, so I did manage to cut the time spent on working with dough. However, that free time did not translate to more time for reading.

24benitastrnad
Editado: Ene 2, 2019, 1:17 pm

Over the break I did manage to finish reading South Riding: An English Landscape by Winifred Holtby. This is a book that was published in 1935 and concerns how the British County Councils function. It was an interesting way to present the working of local government in a novel form. I was put onto this book because it was made into a BBC production and broadcast here on PBS about 6 years ago. I didn't get to see all of the production and so wanted to read the book. UA had the book in our collection so I checked it out. I have had it checked out ever since then and just kept moving it back in the stacks. I took it home this time determined to read it and I finally accomplished it. Once I got started in it, I enjoyed it. I will say that it is all tied up rather neatly in the end - perhaps to neatly, but it worked for me. I can see why it made a very nice BBC serialization for that reason. However, it is written in an older style, so I don't think that many readers today would have the patience for it.

25magicians_nephew
Editado: Ene 2, 2019, 2:11 pm

just to say How-de-doo and happy you will be along on the journey this year.

Quite unexpectedly as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe
And Ralph the Lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb —
Quite unexpectedly the top blew off.

And there, there overhead, there, there, hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness, the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing — nothing at all.

26Chatterbox
Ene 2, 2019, 2:45 pm

One day I want to read South Riding.

And one day, I want to meet an "armless ambidextarian"...

27Chatterbox
Editado: Ene 2, 2019, 4:14 pm

So, I have just finished reading my first book of the year.

1. Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh



There's a lot of buzz about this, and rightfully so. And a lot of comparisons to Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, which are interesting. The latter, written by a man from a similarly hardscrabble background, ends up with radically different conclusions. Partly, I think, because it comes from a man -- it's impossible for this kind of narrative NOT to be gendered because the experience of poverty, as Smarsh eloquently discusses, is radically different for women, and for mothers, and no man can experience that viscerally. Then, too, Smarsh comes to the conclusion that the American dream simply is flawed -- a cheat. The stories -- of all the women in her extended family, who became mothers in their teens -- are heartbreaking but also bleak tales of women who have no choice but to be strong and keep putting one foot in front of the other and laugh in the face of disaster and death. They have been cheated by our world and don't know it. The one quirky feature of this book that kept me slightly off balance was Smarsh's technique: she chose to write the book as if addressing her own unborn daughter: born to her in poverty, a small voice she argues spoke to her throughout her life and helped her focus on her other goals in life beyond repeating the family pattern. It's interesting, and clearly authentic, but quirky enough to also be slightly disconcerting when she says "you" referring to this spirit. 4.4 stars. Definitely recommended; a good start to the year!

28katiekrug
Ene 2, 2019, 4:29 pm

>27 Chatterbox: - Good comments, Suzanne. We rated it basically the same.

Onward!

29originalslicey
Ene 2, 2019, 5:29 pm

I love your list of TBRs. It would probably really help me to have such a visual list broken down by personal category. Especially to separate out TBRs of great literature from those that are fluffy beach reads to see which ones I actually get to.

30michigantrumpet
Ene 2, 2019, 7:25 pm

Greetings, Suz!! I read Heartland last year and was quite taken with it. The writing to an unborn daughter trope was off-putting, but understandable in light of her underlying theme of pregnancy, motherhood and childcare all significantly curtailing women's efforts to rise out of poverty. Because it fit in with this thread of argument, I was willing to give it a pass.

Read several of those on your TBR list. I would be interested in your eventual thoughts on It's All Relative, especially given your earlier interest in the topic. BIG fan of There There. On the other hand, it appears that I'm one of the few who wasn't utterly entranced by The Mars Room. Ah, well.

Any-hoo. I'm back on the threads now I've retired. I've dropped my star and shall return! Hoping to see you soon!

31Chatterbox
Ene 2, 2019, 9:08 pm

>30 michigantrumpet: I've kind of put off reading the A.J. Jacobs book, since it is one of the reasons I didn't get to write MY book.... GRRR. That said, I have no idea what happened to the woman who signed a book deal with Penguin to write about the same subject. Her book also was supposed to appear in 2017, and there's no sign of it popping up on any lists, so it's at least two years late at this point. Which makes me even angrier -- she derails my book and then doesn't deliver?? Grrrr. LOL.

>29 originalslicey: I just had to break 'em down somehow! I have lots of TBRs, and may add another category -- big chunkster non-fiction tomes that I need to donate from my shelves, but need to finish reading first. Don't know yet how to reduce that to to a pithy few words! The point being that I have TOO MANY BOOKS. I want to cut the number in half, roughly, before the end of this year. Somehow. Over the holidays, I reduced six shelves (out of, oh, 40 plus on my principal bookcases) from a double row of books to a single row.

32LizzieD
Ene 2, 2019, 11:43 pm

I will never confess that I have TOO MANY BOOKS. I always wanted a library. I have a library now, and I love it. I also have the luxury of living in our own house, so while a rational person might consider space, I don't.

33Chatterbox
Ene 2, 2019, 11:59 pm

>32 LizzieD: Yes, but I'm going to have to downsize soon, I suspect. Or at least, at some point in the next few years. I would love to keep all my books, but I can't manage. My landlord flinches when he sees all my books and makes comments about whether his flooring is safe (absurd, but...) I need to get it to a manageable number -- those titles I really value, that I will re-read, that I cherish for some reason. Not just those that have ended up here somehow. Several can safely be added to my Kindle, if I can find them cheaply, and take up less space. It costs money to move and money to rent the space needed. And absent a miracle, I don't have that. Just praying I don't end up living under an overpass with Sir Fergus the Fat grumbling about lack of Greenie treats.

34Caroline_McElwee
Editado: Ene 3, 2019, 7:44 am

>1 Chatterbox: Love the MacNeice and the Macke Suz.

I'm trying to participate in a few more threads this year.

>33 Chatterbox: totally fits my situation too. My landlord is in his 90s, and I've no idea what his family will do down the line, but with all my books, it's a scary thought to move, and getting a similar rent likely impossible (I've been here about 26 years). So a slow letting go of books began at the end of last year. A tiny amount. It needs to be much more this year and in the years ahead. If only there was a way to do it in one fell swoop, but so few places want hard copy books now, even if you are giving them away.

As I never buy a book I don't want to read, this is really hard. I'm sure for most LTers the book as artefact in itself is important.

35alcottacre
Ene 3, 2019, 7:29 am

>27 Chatterbox: Definitely have to read that one, since I just finished Vance's book.

36ChelleBearss
Ene 3, 2019, 11:39 am

>33 Chatterbox: I'm sure your floors can handle lots of books. Really now, how silly!

37Chatterbox
Ene 3, 2019, 1:13 pm

>36 ChelleBearss: Well, I've never had one collapse yet. I HAVE had a few anxious landlords, though. Go figure.

38Chatterbox
Ene 3, 2019, 1:24 pm

I'm reading Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal, which transplants Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to contemporary Pakistan. The idea was clever but it's not quite working for me; it's a bit too heavy-handed. Compensating for that is that I'm finishing up listening to The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons, which is more interesting than I anticipated -- I feared it would be a bog-standard romance, but nope. A notch above that.

39benitastrnad
Ene 3, 2019, 3:45 pm

I don't want you to feel bad, but I wanted to let everybody know that the American Library Association Winter Conference will be in Seattle, WA starting January 25 and ending on January 28. Most of the major publishers will be there on the exhibit floor with plenty of Advanced Readers Copy's (ARC's) for people to pick up.

Tim Spaulding, intrepid founder and leader of LT, and Loreanne, the web services librarian for LT, will be there in the ProQuest booth, so you can stop in and meet them. (Rock stars that they are. Yeah LT!)

At this point I don't know if LT will be able to give out free passes to the exhibit floor, but the LT people are checking on it. If you are an LT user and live close enough to Seattle it might be worth your while to make plans to attend on Saturday or Sunday and pick up some of those free ARC's.

I don't know if we will have a meetup - yet, but if there is positive response I will plan one. Usually, Saturday night works best for us to meet for food and book talking. I will let you know and will set up a separate thread for everybody if there is enough positive response.

40cushlareads
Ene 3, 2019, 3:56 pm

A belated happy new year from me, Suz. Looking forward to keeping up with you at least some of the time!

41Chatterbox
Ene 3, 2019, 4:36 pm

>39 benitastrnad: I've gone from being v. depressed to only mildly depressed.

For anyone considering this -- there are LOTS AND LOTS OF FREE BOOKS. Being an organized and book-acquisitive kind of person, I have scooped up as many as 100-plus ARCs to read. The best options are at Penguin Random House, Norton/Liveright and HarperCollins, IMHO.

42Familyhistorian
Ene 3, 2019, 6:45 pm

Looking forward to following along with your thread in 2019, Suzanne. Here's to a better year this year.

43Chatterbox
Ene 3, 2019, 7:55 pm

2. Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal.
Pride and Prejudice set in modern-day Pakistan. It kind of works because modern Pakistan rather resembles Regency England in terms of mores governing female expectations and behavior (virginity; marriage as the only respectable goal), which is entertaining). But ultimately the attempts to make it parallel Austen's book end up feeling strained and I kept wishing the author had tried to write something of her own, rather than a literary homage. It would have been more interesting. 3.35 stars. Meh.

44katiekrug
Ene 3, 2019, 8:10 pm

I've just started an Austen homage... By the Book is a re-telling of Persuasion (my favorite Austen) set on a college campus. I'm not very far into it, but I'm going to go out on limb and say it won't measure up to the original :)

45Chatterbox
Ene 3, 2019, 9:48 pm

>44 katiekrug: Well, few literary homages do live up to the original! That said, some fare better than others. Perhaps I'm just Austen-ed out? Colin Firth and his soaking wet shirt in that Masterpiece Theater show have a LOT to answer for...

46ronincats
Ene 3, 2019, 9:50 pm

Sorry to hear your tooth is acting up again, Suz. Mine was never an infection, but removing the filling and carving out the crack for a crown seems to have rescued my tooth from the nerve/tendon pain--I just had the permanent crown glued on this afternoon. Expensive, but the pain is gone. Hope yours responds to the meds.

47Chatterbox
Ene 4, 2019, 11:55 am

Speaking of Austen re-tellings, an Indian novelist whose debut novel I really, really liked -- Mahesh Rao, The Smoke is Rising -- has written an homage to Emma by way of Crazy Rich Asians, which sounds amusing. Called Polite Society with a scheduled publication date in August. I've requested an e-galley from Edelweiss, raving about Rao's debut. I've got his book of short stories, One Point Two Billion, on my list to read this year.

>46 ronincats: Ouch ouch ouch. Yes, I can't seem to knock this infection on the head. It's still twinging, but not as badly. I have a total of two pills left on the current antibiotics Rx and after that, gulp, it will be prayer?? I'm SO glad you have worked out a solution to your issue, even if it's a pricey one. No crowns for me for the time being, alas. I'm not sure there's a point, quite frankly. So many problems. Thanks so much, medication-induced dry-mouth! (Someone once asked if I was bulimic -- I asked them whether I LOOKED as if I were... *eyes roll*) The good part about being broke and having dental pain is that I eat a single meal a day, sometimes with a bowl of cereal as well. Ho hum. Maybe will lose weight??

48benitastrnad
Ene 4, 2019, 1:27 pm

I would like to use your thread to let people know that I am hosting a mystery challenge thread within the 75'ers Group.

Here is the link. https://www.librarything.com/topic/301787

For lack of a better title I christened it: Lackberg and Leon: A Scandicrime vs Venetian Mystery Challenge. I thought about doing something with North vs. South or Hot and Cold Climes Crime, but somehow it just didn't mesh. If one of you can come up with something let us know over on the new thread.

It is part of the 75 Books Challenge group. For a couple of years we have been doing a compare and contrast mystery group read and this year we selected the Erika Falck series by Camilla Lackberg and the Guido Brunetti series by Donna Leon as our two authors. Scandicrime vs. Canal Crime? The Ice Princess is our first book for this year.

If nothing else, drop a star on the thread and just lurk. We don't mind.

49Chatterbox
Ene 4, 2019, 8:57 pm

>48 benitastrnad: Thanks for the heads up! I've read a big chunk of the Lackberg mysteries, but may play catchup later.

I just got approved for the Mahesh Rao title noted in >47 Chatterbox:, which is excellent!

50paulstalder
Ene 5, 2019, 7:43 am



Happy new year.
I wish, that you may find a good and solid path in 2019

51ffortsa
Ene 5, 2019, 1:02 pm

Happy New Year, Suzanne. I hope the tooth issue gets resolved SOON. You don't need more pain in your life. And I hope the family upheaval doesn't weigh on you too much.

I'm very interested to read Heartland and make the comparison to Hillbilly Elegy.

>25 magicians_nephew: Nice poem, sweetie. Had to look it up to find the author was MacLeish.

52Chatterbox
Ene 5, 2019, 2:09 pm

3. The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons

An audiobook that I've been listening to, off and on, for weeks. Better than the rather predictable/banal plotline might suggest, thanks in part to some occasionally better than expected writing, some intriguing insights into characters, some unpredictable twists and turns and the author's avoidance of easy tropes. The main character's husband has walked out on her in 1950s London before the book opens -- no problem, you say? Well, she's from an orthodox Jewish community, so she's an "aguna" -- stuck, still married, but with a husband who is invisible. And she's not exactly a typical member of her community either, chafing at its restrictions, so when her path crosses with that of a young artist one day, and a whole new world opens up to her, she seizes at it. While George, the husband, joins the gallery of vanished husbands, Juliet herself ends up accumulating a collection of portraits of herself by the artists she ends up befriending and whose careers she fosters as a gallerist from the 60s onward. Interesting, a bit bumpy sometimes. 3.85 stars.

53Chatterbox
Ene 5, 2019, 8:32 pm

>51 ffortsa: Tooth is flaring up AGAIN and I'm out of antibiotics. WTF???
And I have to say that a really weird Xmas is one that leaves you grateful that a friend gives you a gift certificate for Whole Foods...

Migraine today, so I am "re-listening" to the first Rennie Airth mystery, River of Darkness. It's been a decade since I read it, at Christmas 2008, in Thailand. It blew me away; haven't re-read it since then. Sadly, there isn't an audio version of the equally good second book in the series. Or the third. Just books four and five. Sigh. But "re-listening" is great when one has a migraine, as I do, because it has been pouring rain all day long.

54benitastrnad
Editado: Ene 7, 2019, 12:12 pm

I have been wanting to read that series. Maybe 2019 will be the year. I have the first three on my shelves. However, I am trying to finish reading several of the series I have started. Or at least get caught up with them.

The book for my local Barnes & Noble Book group is Natchez Burning. I remember that you told me the Greg Illes books were really good. I won’t get it read this month, but I did put it on my bedside table.

Is Burning the first in that series?

55elkiedee
Ene 5, 2019, 10:43 pm

>24 benitastrnad: I think South Riding is very readable and accessible, and would particularly recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading fiction set between the wars (WWI and WWII), historical and contemporary, and who likes the social history side of it. I've read and enjoyed two of Holtby's other novels but this, her last and sadly published (1936) after her early death aged just 37 in 1935, is far and away her best. I think, Suzanne, you'd find it really interesting for the story about education for girls and women in the period - the central character is a 40 year old woman who has just been appointed as headteacher of a girls' school in a Yorkshire town.

I would also like to get to Rennie Airth's books some time - I have the first 4 for my Kindle (they were on offer in April 2017). So many books!

56LizzieD
Ene 5, 2019, 11:26 pm

I'm sorry about the tooth, Suz. Damn an infection that won't let up.
(Did I get rid of my Rennie Airth *River*? Surely not. I haven't read it.)
I am also a great lover of South Riding, the best of W. Holt's books, I think. It's not perfect, but it is a beautiful period piece.
I also found that The Blue was beautifully priced for Kindle, so I have it and am looking forward to it. I think you mentioned it on fb rather than here.
.... off to look at M. Rao.

57Chatterbox
Ene 6, 2019, 1:34 am

>56 LizzieD: Yes, The Blue is impeccably priced for Kindle, because Nancy is working directly with a small English publisher. Mini-advance, no marketing budget, but it's doing VERY well in terms of buzz. I'm so pleased for her. I thought I had mentioned it in my final thread of last year, but it's entirely possible I didn't -- I read it during the first dental pain bout. Sigh.

I know I have a paperback Rennie Airth somewhere, so lemme know if you don't find it. It will be deaccessioned as I now have digital copies as well. They are EXCELLENT audiobook additions, though.

>55 elkiedee: Yes, Rennie Airth is excellent -- DO read them. Tell you what? I'll do you a trade, and read South Riding if you try Rennie Airth? I'd compare him to the best of Val McDermid, but with a little less gratuitous violence. (Think The Grave Tattoo or some of her non-serial killer novels, even though the first three of Airth's DO involve serial killers.).

>54 benitastrnad: Are you thinking of Natchez Burning or Mississippi Blood? These are the first two of a trilogy that I confess I liked least of everything that Greg Iles has written. He took something like 2,200 pages to tell a story that should have been told in about 650 pages. I think his only really good books featuring Penn Cage (an improbable superman hero) are the first two, The Quiet Game and Turning Angel. Other good Mississippi based books are Mortal Fear and Dead Sleep.

I'm hoping that Cemetery Road, his upcoming chunkster, is better than the trilogy. But when it comes to e-galleys, I may read the new Julie Orringer novel (which about Varian Fry, who rescued artists from Southern France during WW2, and the Vichy regime, something I read about in the excellent non-fiction work, Villa Air-Bel by Rosemary Sullivan, first. I thought the non-fiction book was so fascinating and rich that I am very eager to read a good about these characters, and Orringer's last novel was good -- I think a lot of LT readers read The Invisible Bridge. Not highbrow literary fiction, but a thumping good read. It came out at about the same time as The Help.

58Chatterbox
Ene 6, 2019, 12:15 pm

Turns out I have to have a root canal. So I have to find money for a root canal. Which I don't have and can't find. I thought that was dealt with or mostly dealt with or going to be dealt with but not so. So... maybe I'll just have to lose THAT tooth too. Because I can't afford the f*****g root canal. Because at least four people have owed me money for years and nobody wants to pay me adequately for the work that I do.

I think I am going to go curl up in bed and cry now. Because it's turning into one of those days when you sorta wonder why bother?

59Caroline_McElwee
Ene 6, 2019, 12:36 pm

So sorry that things have started so badly for you this year Suz. Holding you in my thoughts.

60Caroline_McElwee
Ene 6, 2019, 12:44 pm

I'm so sorry to hear your year is not starting off well Suz. Keeping you in my thoughts.

61Chatterbox
Ene 6, 2019, 7:19 pm

>59 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline...

62m.belljackson
Ene 6, 2019, 7:58 pm

>58 Chatterbox:

Any chance an ex's girlfriend/wife/boyfriend might want to feel superior/sorry and influence the old guy to give you a quick loan for the dentist?

It happens.

63Chatterbox
Ene 6, 2019, 8:33 pm

LOL. Nope. The only affluent ex I had is, alas, dead. But full marks for creativity.

64Whisper1
Editado: Ene 6, 2019, 9:17 pm

>27 Chatterbox: You are off to a good start with Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth. I added to this to the tbr pile.

I'm so sorry that your tooth is acting up again.

>58 Chatterbox: Suzanne, I hoped 2019 would be a better year for you!

65Chatterbox
Ene 7, 2019, 2:28 am

After the "re-listen" of the first of the John Madden mysteries by Rennie Airth, I've decided I'm going to re-read all of the five books in the series. The downside? I'm struggling to find a good followup book to match River of Darkness! I'm in the mood for audiobooks that require minimal effort on my part. Oh well.

66avatiakh
Ene 7, 2019, 3:09 am

Oh, my sympathy for your dental misery. I hope you can find an acceptable solution.

I see you have two by Liz Nugent in your library and having just spent most of my free time today reading her Skin Deep, please give them a try when you feel in the mood for something dark. I hadn't heard of Nugent before but was looking through the Best Books of 2018 in the Irish Times and it was one of several I made note of.

67ChelleBearss
Ene 7, 2019, 10:06 am

Sorry to see your tooth issues have gotten worse! Hope you can get paid by the people that owe you so you don't have to lose that tooth.

68Chatterbox
Ene 8, 2019, 5:39 am

>66 avatiakh: Thanks for the prod! I will have to dig one of them out from wherever those ARCs have gotten to...

>67 ChelleBearss: I would VERY much like to be paid by these folks, who have literally owed me money for years. It's interesting that it's the corporate types who dither or don't pay -- not the media outlets. OK, so Money magazine doesn't pay me for my articles for 90 days, but at least they are up front about that. And they DO eventually pay. The few thousand I'm owed would comfortably pay for the root canal. And laughing gas so that I could tolerate the treatment!! LOL

Yes, it's 5:30 a.m. and I haven't slept. This is turning into a bad habit.

69Chatterbox
Ene 8, 2019, 6:03 pm

4. River of Darkness by Rennie Airth

My re-read of the first of this five-book series. Excellent; detailed characters, a suspenseful plot with a great last-minute twist. The aftermath of trench warfare, but true evil -- a good serial killer novel, if there can be such a thing. Really, it's hard to praise this too highly. At one point, I was ready to say, aha, the author missed something -- and then the detective noted that he himself had missed doing the thing that I had picked up on... 4.7 stars. I'm going to re-read at least the first three books, and am disappointed #2 and #3 aren't available on Audible, as I'm in the mood to re-read things I'm familiar with. Pshaw. (See #7)

5. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

One of a handful of Discworld novels that I haven't yet read; I'm going to try and read or listen to the few that remain this year. This one sends up the idea of religion, the inquisition, and gods. It's impossible to spell out all of Pratchett's witty and ironic comments, except that to say that since it's early on in the series, it's particularly strong. 4.2 stars.

6. Dopesick by Beth Macy

A very depressing book about opioid addiction, which, if you follow the news, doesn't really say all that much that is new, but does tie it up in a particularly coherent package that is calculated to drive a reader nuts about all those who fail to understand what's at stake. If you've read a lot about the topic, don't expect to suddenly shriek "Eureka!" But if you haven't, and want your eyes opened -- well, this will do it.

7. Before the Poison by Peter Robinson

I haven't yet managed to get into the Inspector Banks mystery series, though it was reading this novel, as an ARC, years ago, that convinced me that I should try. It's an odd kind of mystery novel since it's more of a puzzle-solving book: a Hollywood composer, originally from Yorkshire, returns to his roots, buys an old isolated Yorkshire mansion and moves in, to discover that back in 1952, the former owner, a doctor, was poisoned by his wife, who was later hanged for murder. But was she really guilty? Or was she convicted because she'd been having a fling with a much younger man? The narrator tries to go back 60 years in time to figure out what happened. And if Grace didn't murder her husband, what DID happen? If you don't need a lot of drama, and can cope with a slow paced narrative, this is the book for you. It combines the gradual unfolding of Grace's real life, and the narrator's own rebuilding of his own world after the death of his wife from cancer. 4.35 stars.

70benitastrnad
Ene 9, 2019, 11:35 am

well, my year is starting out well. I went to a First of the Year Wine Tasting party at a friends house last night. I got home about 9:30 p.m. Took the leftover food into the house and put it away. Then went to bed. I forgot to lock the car. The car sits in a carport that is very close to my bedroom window. Sometime during the night somebody got into my car and stole my purse. I keep everything in my purse, from my office keys, sunglasses (perscription), and my personal address book. Add to that I had just got back from my winter break and had cash in the car - about $400.00. This is what happens when you break your routines. I almost always lock my car and take my purse into the house. Today I will have to make the rounds of calling credit card companies and my bank. Yes, my personal checks were in there as well. I suppose this weekend I will have to get a new cell phone, but I confess I am hesitating about that and may not get one right first thing. I am more concerned with all the other stuff - including my pre-paid Starbucks card and my Alabama Credit Union cards. Not to mention the cash - which I will never get back. Also, I will have to pay for the replacement of the office keys. In 26 years of employment here I have never lost a set of keys. Say goodbye to that record. I even lost my little vice grip - both the needle nosed and the regular locking pliers, and I have had them for 25 years. And all of this was in a Dooney & Burke leather bag.

The policeman told me that there has been a string of thefts in the neighborhoods surrounding my little cul-de-sac. Plus, my bedroom window is less than 10 feet from my carport. Today is the first day of the new semester so I am sure that thieves were trolling the neighborhood and I was just tired and didn't pay attention to my regular routine. Now I can pay for it. I know where most of the next couple of days are going to spent. On my office phone canceling things and getting a new driver's license. I am going to need some of this in order to go to ALA in 2 weeks. How can you travel without ID?

71katiekrug
Ene 9, 2019, 12:13 pm

>69 Chatterbox: - I read River of Darkness waaaay back and remember liking it a lot. I plan to re-read it and continue on with the series.

72Chatterbox
Ene 9, 2019, 12:55 pm

>70 benitastrnad: Well, you CAN'T travel without ID. But you can get a birth certificate replaced pretty rapidly, I think -- or do you have a copy elsewhere? Your Social Security card or something with your address on it? With that, you can get your driver's license replaced, and you can fly. You can even use an agency to replace your passport within 48 hours, although I think you have to book either a flight or a hotel somewhere overseas (and then cancel it) to show that you need a passport.

I'm so sorry -- this is a horrible experience. I had a lot of money, and a Kindle, stolen from my bag on a train trip while I was in the washroom, and didn't realize until I got back to Providence. Thankfully, not my wallet (which was right at the bottom of the bag) but I had some cash in an envelope, and poof... I really needed it too. I had a migraine that day, or would have taken my bag with me. Which is something I now always do.

>71 katiekrug: I've already started the re-read of The Blood-Dimmed Tide, which is the second book in the series. I seem to be on a re-read binge, without enough oomph to read much new fiction, or at least serious fiction. January depression, I suspect.

73Chatterbox
Ene 10, 2019, 6:16 pm

Two disappointing books, and I'm being generous with the ratings here...

8. The Reckoning by John Grisham

Yes, I know, it's Grisham. But often he can be counted on to deliver at least a thumping good read. This wasn't one. This was one of those novels in which he was taking himself far too seriously. The book was overwritten and very poorly structured. The last-minute twist was utterly unconvincing and I found myself muttering, OK, so that had to be it, I guess, but really, I couldn't care less about this, and it didn't make me feel more sympathetic to one of the two heroes. Hero #1 is WW2 veteran, captured in the Philippines by the Japanese, who eventually escapes and manages to spend years as a guerilla in Luzon. That whole section, while dramatic, was completely superfluous to the plot, except -- sandwiched in the middle of the book -- to make us feel more warm and fuzzy about Pete Banning, who already has had whole sh*tload of trouble by then. Part 1 is when Banning, a reasonably affluent cotton farmer with 640 acres of land in Ford County, wakes up one day a few months after shipping his wife off to the loony bin and about a year after coming back from the war, and decides it's a good day to shoot the Methodist minister. But he refuses to say why. It's Mississippi; it's 1946. Well... It doesn't end well. That's part 1, then part 2 with the flashback to Banning's war service. Part 3 is 1947 to 1950 or so, and the lives of Pete's two young adult children, teens when he left for the war and now college students. That Methodist pastor's widow is now after Pete's land, egged on by a nasty manipulative type (a subplot that Grisham doesn't develop nearly as much as he could/should), and there's a lot of legal manoeuvering at great length, while the siblings try to discover the Great Secret Trauma that caused Pete to commit murder and cause the death spiral of their family. I just wanted to bash their heads together. Yeah, it was the south in the 1940s, but REALLY???? 3.6 stars, being generous.

9. The Girl in the Cellar by Patricia Wentworth

A re-read, on audio, which unfortunately accentuated the dreary and pedantic dialog. A girl suddenly comes to in a cellar, in front of another dead young woman, but doesn't know who she herself is or how she got there or who the other woman is. There's a letter in her pocket suggesting that she go to the family of her husband, but is she really married? There's one very very suspenseful chase scene, which is worth almost a full point. Which will tell you how predictable and banal the rest of this is. Now the Miss Silver mysteries are never terribly cutting edge, but often they are entertaining or whimsical. This was just dreary. 3 stars.

Thankfully, I have some better books en route.

74Chatterbox
Ene 12, 2019, 12:10 am

Reading:

Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age by Stephen Platt. Bloody brilliant. The LT reviews so far are silly. One refers to Amazon criticism that doesn't exist. Bizarro. It's excellent.

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye. Her latest -- and my, I love her ability to just YANK readers into a story and character. I'm alternating between reading the e-galley and listening to an audiobook. (I succumbed to temptation...)

The Blood-Dimmed Tide by Rennie Airth -- the second in the series of five mystery novels featuring John Madden. I've decided I'm going to do a binge re-read/re-listen to the whole series, as they are very good. I started off last year with a re-read of another favorite series, the Mountjoy novels by the late Elizabeth Pewsey/Elizabeth Aston, so this may be something I do each year to get it off to a good start.

After I wrap up one of these, I'm going to read the e-galley of Julie Orringer's upcoming novel, about Varian Fry saving artists and thinkers from WW2 (as chronicled in Villa Air-Bel, by Rosemary Sullivan, an EXCELLENT non-fiction book.) Orringer wrote The Invisible Bridge, which came out several years ago and that a lot of LT readers read and liked. (Indeed, this may be the year in which we get to revisit authors who haven't published in a while. Madeline Miller is just out with Circe, Jane Gillespie had her first novel published since Gillespie and I with Sugar Money (still on my TBR, for reasons that I cannot explain), and now I've just learned that Erin Morgenstern will have her first book since The Night Circus (of 2011, again read by a lot of LT folks) out toward the end of 2019.)

I've dipped into a newish non-fiction read, The Last Englishmen by Deborah Baker, about the final generation of young English middle/upper class types bred to run the Empire -- and the prologue includes a poem by Louis MacNeice (see >1 Chatterbox:) and discusses his first trip to India, at a time when his poetry wasn't what it had been and he felt condemned to a lifetime of writing BBC radio plays. It was in the dying days of the empire, and the book (I think) will focus in part on the experiences of his circle -- the Spenders, the Audens, including Michael Auden who was a mountaineer in the Himalayas), in a late imperial England and India, from the 1920s to 1940s/50s? I suspect it will be interesting, though it may end up following a few other books, including a new spy novel by Alex Gerlis and some stuff I have to read and return to the Athenaeum. Oh, and a Nancy Mitford tome for book circle meeting next week!

75Whisper1
Ene 12, 2019, 12:17 am

>74 Chatterbox: Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age is now on the tbr pile. Thanks for the heads up regarding this one.

76Chatterbox
Ene 12, 2019, 1:32 am

>75 Whisper1: It's fascinating, because it deals with the period BEFORE the Chinese and the English/Europeans clashed, when power was more evenly balanced. I knew about the Qianlong's riposte to George III that his empire had everything it needed and thus didn't need trade, but there's a broader context that is very intriguing. Platt provides a balanced, nuanced and sympathetic insight into the Chinese perspective. No, he isn't Chinese -- but on the other hand, contemporary Chinese scholars might struggle to write something unbiased on this topic, given the extent to which the "unequal treaties" China was forced to sign in the decades that followed these events continue to shape modern Chinese resentment of the West, and their foreign policy objectives, and sense of nationhood.

What's also intriguing is that after reading The Emperor Far Away about minorities who exist on the fringes of modern China, is comparing the role of Manchus during the Qing empire (which they created) and today, when there are few/no "full-blooded" Manchus who still identify as such in China, and the language is virtually extinct. From being an elite, they have... disappeared. Not literally, but intermarried and been subsumed by the Han Chinese majority, it seems. It's interesting that this happened so rapidly -- such a dramatic change.

77Chatterbox
Ene 12, 2019, 5:27 pm

I have finished two excellent books, to take the taste of the two mediocre ones out of my mouth.

10. Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age by Stephen Platt

This was every bit as good as I anticipated from reading the opening pages. The emphasis is less on the opium war itself (1839) than on the decades leading up to it from the initial significant British (and, to a lesser extent, other foreign) contacts with China, and examining the ways in which various factions on both sides read and misread each other (willfully or unconsciously) and how that produced a conflict that in turn created a century or more of misery and degradation for China, which in turn has profoundly shaped contemporary China's attitude to the West. Platt draws on both Chinese and Western sources, and what is intriguing to me, as someone who had read other accounts of later periods in Chinese history and earlier histories, is the extent to which Platt's book consciously attempts to highlight areas where misconceptions have occurred. For instance, neither side was monolithic in their views: the emperor struggled to find the right approach to address the growing problem of opium addiction, and the fact that this was also a Chinese problem (one that while the British met very eagerly, they didn't force on the Chinese to the extent that then-contemporary and current propaganda might suggest.) It's astonishing to read of one Chinese leader whose proposed solution to the issue was simply to give every addict a year to get clean and then to kill those who failed to comply - in light of the current opiate problem in the US, this attitude is, ahem, thought provoking. (The emperor opted to focus on dealers...) What astonished me is that right up to the last minute, it seems that there was no wish for any opium war, other than on the part of a handful of rogue elements on the English side (messers Jardine and Matheson, although they didn't want opium legalized, ironically; and an English consul whose job had, he admitted, affected his sanity) and perhaps one or two leaders on the Chinese side who wanted to return to a universe in which foreign goods didn't exist. Even Lord Palmerston -- who ended up fighting for his political life in order to pursue the first opium war -- had repeatedly sent a stream of instructions to the aforesaid consul to abide by Chinese laws, to do whatever it took to avoid conflict, etc. There is so much in this book that is of interest, even to someone who has read books about the second half of the 19th century, such as Julia Lovell's tome about the Opium Wars or Platt's own book about the later disintegration of the Qing empire, that it's an important one. It takes the reader from the true heyday of China, the mid-18th century and the reign of the Qianlong emperor, who could proudly and reasonably truthfully state that his empire had no real need for foreign trade, through the "Canton era", when that empire could dictate and shape the terms and conditions of trade (when one merchant snuck his wife into the British "factory", it caused a ruckus, as no women were allowed to leave Macao lest it be thought that foreigners were making permanent homes on Chinese territory). It's lively and thought-provoking, not just about the historical context or even China today, but about relations between nations in general. A must-read. 5 stars.

11. The Blood-Dimmed Tide by Rennie Airth

The second in my re-read of Airth's novels featuring John Madden, who now has left Scotland Yard to settle down to life as a gentleman farmer and husband to Helen, a doctor, who REALLY doesn't want her husband traumatized by more horrible cases like the one in mystery #1. But then crime comes to their doorstep: the murder of a local girl. And it seems to be part of a series of similarly brutal crimes. It's 1932, and oddly, there's a gap of several years in between the series. Could the criminal have gone abroad? Some very clever sleuthing is involved, and leads to Germany, and back again, and a truly nasty character. By two-thirds of the way through the book, the reader is following both the investigation and the criminal's next victim and those who love and surround her. Will the sleuths catch him before the next young girl is caught BY him? It's a race to the finish. 4.7 stars. These really are excellent novels, in terms of suspense, character development, atmosphere, plot and context. Not to mention writing. I look forward to re-reading #3.

78magicians_nephew
Ene 13, 2019, 4:01 pm

we liked Circe a lot - heard the author read and talk last year at the New York Public Library.

Highly recommended a real page turner

79Chatterbox
Editado: Ene 13, 2019, 6:50 pm

>78 magicians_nephew: Madeline Miller is one of those authors who simply needs to write FASTER.

12. Little Culinary Triumphs by Pascale Pujol

This was a Europa Editions novel -- I'll always scrutinize what they have on offer because it's usually fun or quirky or different. And this one (translated by Alison Anderson) def fit the bill. It took a while to get into it, even though it's short, as the different narrative strands had to come together. Even then -- well, it's quirky. The central character is Sandrine, who works at the local unemployment office and is way too smart, feisty and entrepreneurial (and manipulative) to stay there for long. Her 'tween daughter, Juliette, is a chip off the block, being a computer prodigy who turns out to have the ability to terrify grown IT specialists. The plot? Well, Sandrine decides to work the system, and some very personal networks, to pursue her lifetime ambition of opening a restaurant in Montmartre. Along the way we meet a work-shy super-Green lunatic, a Tamil chef whose Ayurvedic creations have superpowers, a glamorous granny and a Machiavellian media mogul. 4.2 stars. Fun, but -- quirky. (From the Athenaeum.)

80alcottacre
Ene 13, 2019, 7:21 pm

I really need to read Rennie Airth's books. They sound right up my alley. Unfortunately my local library does not have any of them.

81Chatterbox
Ene 13, 2019, 10:30 pm

>80 alcottacre: If I still have any of the physical copies here, I will set them aside and send 'em along. The first few books are reasonably cheap for Kindle (and I assume for Nook, too) -- only about $6 each. If I have hardcovers, it would be of the last two or three. I MAY still have paperbacks of the first two. They would be in line for de-accession anyway...

13. Golden State by Ben Winters

This was from NetGalley -- an upcoming book by the author of the trilogy about a policeman trying to do his job when a meteor is about to hit the earth, and a very quirky dystopian novel about a contemporary society in which slavery still exists in four states -- in a version that is a little odd. That should be enough to tell you that Ben Winters takes a different eye on the world. And yet this is eerily timely. He imagines California reinvented in the future as a state in which people can only speak the truth, and in which offenses against the objective reality are punished more heavily than any other kinds of crimes. You have to document your days, and monitor your exchanges with others; you are snooped on, and "reality" is archived. Because when reality isn't adhered to, well, we all know that people quarrel about what is real and what is fake and have their own versions of truth, and that way disaster lies, right? (Sound familiar at all??) Even novels are banned as pernicious, and one of the most intriguing and compelling scenes occurs when a "Speculator" (one of those individuals with the ability to distinguish truth from lies and restore order to the universe) encounters the compulsion that a hidden novel exerts... The plot starts out as a plain vanilla investigation for our veteran Speculator and his reluctantly-accepted new apprentice, a talented young girl on the job for only a day. But they discover more and more anomalies in the "truth", and then Laszlo begins to wonder what is REALLY going on -- but only when it may be too late for him... The plot may get a bit overly complex at the very end to the point where it trips over its own toes (the final twist isn't really needed), but the concept and the character of Laszlo are engaging enough to make this a Thumping Good Read and for me to give it 4.35 stars. Could have been more had it not veered off in six different directions in the final pages. It needed a tidier conclusion (for this type of novel.)

82ronincats
Editado: Ene 13, 2019, 10:37 pm

Hi, Suz. Just wanted to reply re: your comment on the Goss book on my thread. I found it entertaining, not deep. But being familiar with most of the literature being referenced, I am amused to trace the "logical" consequences in the next generation and I enjoy the historical setting and the interaction among the girls. YMMV.

ANd you may have hit me with a BB with Golden State.

83LizzieD
Editado: Ene 13, 2019, 11:06 pm

I'm at least bleeding from the Golden State BB. On the other hand, I have to read the last 2/3 of the trilogy and the standalone first, I guess. I'll also keep an eye open for *LCulinaryTs*. I kind of thrive on quirks.

84Chatterbox
Ene 14, 2019, 12:04 am

>83 LizzieD: I only read the first book in the trilogy. I'm fine with dystopias, not so much with apocalypses....

>82 ronincats: Entertaining is good! I'm reading a reasonable amount of fluff these days.

85fairywings
Ene 14, 2019, 4:11 pm

Hi Suzanne. Golden State added to the wishlist

86brodiew2
Ene 14, 2019, 4:29 pm

Hello chatterbox! I am so sorry to hear of your purse being stolen. It's bad enough when you know a stranger has been in your car, and so near your window, but to have the money and cards taken is awful. I hope things have turned around since then.

>69 Chatterbox: River of darkness has been on my radar for three years now and I have started it twice, but never finished. I believe I have not given it a fair chance, being a squirrel, and dropping for the first shiny new thing that comes along. I will give this once another go.

>73 Chatterbox: Thank you for confirming what I have heard about Grisham's The Reckoning. Your review gives in detail what I have heard in brief. Burdensome. I'll take a pass.

>81 Chatterbox: Sounds fascinating. However, I have not had the pleasure of this author. It might be a little too complex for me. I may look for an audio.

87Chatterbox
Ene 14, 2019, 7:44 pm

>86 brodiew2: Oh, it was Benita who (alas) had her purse stolen from her car, not I. I don't drive, or have a car, and therefore this is one mishap that COULDN'T occur to me. Thankfully.

I love your description of having dropped a book for "the first shiny new thing". I suspect myself of doing PRECISELY the same thing.

>85 fairywings: Let me know what you think! It actually comes out next week (on the 22nd) so not as far distant as I had thought.

88fairywings
Ene 14, 2019, 10:45 pm

>87 Chatterbox: Apparently not till 4th February for release here in Australia, not too much later though so I'll keep an eye out for it.

89LizzieD
Ene 14, 2019, 10:59 pm

*sigh* Make me a third like you and Brodie who picks up the first shiny new thing, and in my case the second and third. *sigh*

90Chatterbox
Ene 14, 2019, 11:29 pm

>88 fairywings: Well, if it's any consolation, around about February I'll be envying you folks the release of the latest Meg & Tom Keneally historical mystery in the Monserrat series!!

Shiny new books, yummy....

91Chatterbox
Ene 15, 2019, 12:59 pm

From The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye, comes the description of a character as being "a few whiskers short of a rabbit." I may need to borrow this at some point...

92Chatterbox
Ene 16, 2019, 12:28 am

A quick book update:

14. The King's Justice by E.M. Powell

This was one of those books published by Amazon's own mystery imprint, Thomas & Mercer, and offered free to read (well "free" in exchange for a monthly fee...) by Amazon via their Kindle Unlimited program, which I think I'm going to dump in a month or two. It's a perfect example of Amazon's publishing and Kindle Unlimited -- not bad but not all that good, either. I understand perfectly why no major publishing house would pick it up -- it just didn't have the oomph factor at all. It's a pedestrian historical mystery set in 12th century England, with an investigation by the king's justice of the title and his reluctant sidekick, both of whom have issues that are vaguely hinted at here (apparently in one case, the author dealt with the latter's trauma in a prior novel.) Dead bodies keep appearing at a remarkable pace in a previously peaceful community of villeins and freemen and there's an obnoxious lord to deal with. All the usual tropes (yawn). A last minute twist that is a bit strained and for which there's no foundation. There's no real depth to either characters or setting, and while I read this, I was never committed to it. I may read the sequel at some point, if I keep Kindle Unlimited for long enough, but I wouldn't pay for either. 3 stars, and I'm being generous.

15. Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo

I heard some advance buzz about this Nigerian novel out of the UK, where it has been getting some "love" from indie readers. And it's deserved. While initially the tendency of characters to drop into Nigerian pidgin, toss in phrases in Yoruba and other Nigerian languages, etc. is frustrating, well, I don't get irritated when authors do that in French or German, so.... In a nutshell, five very disparate characters, all on the run from the rough areas of the Niger Delta, end up on the same bus heading for Lagos: a woman fleeing her abusive husband; two soldiers deserting after being told to commit atrocities against rebels fighting back against the oil industry and corruption; a girl whose parents simply vanished when her village was attacked, possibly by the same rebels -- and a member of one of those rebel groups, who rejoices in the name Fineboy and dreams of becoming a DJ. But in Lagos, everyone has a dream, and few have any ability to fulfill it -- and then the group's path crosses with that of, first, a corrupt government minister and then, one of the only idealistic Nigerian journalists out there. Will they emerge from the chaos that follows, and what does victory look like, anyway?? 4.4 stars.

93avatiakh
Ene 16, 2019, 4:41 am

I read Welcome to Lagos early last year and really enjoyed it. I hope they keep the UK cover for the US edition.
I also liked her The Spider King's Daughter.

>91 Chatterbox: "a few whiskers short of a rabbit." - I like this too

94magicians_nephew
Ene 16, 2019, 11:10 am

Around it was always " a few sandwiches short of a picnic"

I like the "Rabbit" one very much

95benitastrnad
Ene 16, 2019, 6:47 pm

Last call for the ALA Seattle meetup. So far I have had no takers and will only plan a meetup if there is some positive response. Tim Spaulding and Loreanne will be in Seattle for the conference, and would be available for a meetup if we are going to have one. If you are interested in a meetup let me know on my LT page and I will get something planned.

Lt is offering the free passes and I would encourage anybody who is close to or living in Seattle to take advantage of the offer. There will be plenty of swag in the form of ARC's from the publishers. These are usually free. There is also a full lineup of authors as the northwest is a hotbed of authors who will be signing copies at the conference.

Here is the url for the free passes and the instructions for filling in the form.

Hi Benita,

Thanks for reaching out and offering to set up a meetup! I'm happy to report that we do, indeed, have free, exhibit hall-only badges for ALA Midwinter.

Please direct anyone who'd like a badge here: https://www.compusystems.com/servlet/ar?evt_uid=313&oi=MuXZMs%2BGlqrHoIiGjo9....

That should automatically fill in the exhibitor invitation code. I just tested it out myself and was able to register successfully without any trouble.

If there's anything else I can do to help, please let me know. Definitely keep me posted as details get hammered out, so I can publicize the meetup in the State of the Thing this month!

Thanks again,
Loranne

Loranne Nasir
Member Support & Social Media Librarian, LibraryThing
LibraryThing | Facebook | Twitter

96Familyhistorian
Ene 16, 2019, 8:00 pm

The Rennie Airth books are so good but I only read the first two. Sometimes I just can't read the next one because I want to save it for later. Good to know there are five in the series, I only have four. I'll have to hunt down the last book and maybe read the third one in the series.

I hope your tooth woes are soon behind you, Suz.

97Chatterbox
Ene 16, 2019, 11:44 pm

>95 benitastrnad: Did you reach out to Marianne -- aka MichiganTrumpet? She definitely is going to Seattle. I will e-mail your info re passes to her.

I have had the most appalling day. I don't even want to discuss it. Let's just say I won't be writing for Money magazine any more. No great financial loss, as they paid me only $500 for a lot of work for each article, and only after 90 days, but the circumstances surrounding this are deeply unpleasant.

98Oregonreader
Ene 17, 2019, 1:26 am

Suzanne, I was a regular lurker around here a couple of years ago. Now, happily, I've rediscovered you and I'm already making lists of books from your lists.
I read South Riding last year and really enjoyed it. I'm also interested in the The Blood Rimmed Time. I hope this a wonderful year for you.

99Chatterbox
Ene 17, 2019, 2:41 am

>98 Oregonreader: Welcome back!! I have been utterly lousy at visiting others' threads in recent months. I appear to be becoming a digital hermit as well as a bit of a real-life one... But thank you very much for the good wishes, and I hope you'll drop by again. I'm about to read book #3 of the Rennie Airth series, so you can check in to see how the remaining volumes fare on re-reading...

I still smile thinking of "a few whiskers short of a rabbit." Lyndsay Faye has really captured the voice of her narrator in The Paragon Hotel. I'm alternating between audio and reading it.

Meanwhile...

16. Shadow on the Crown by Patricia Bracewell

I got tired of waiting for the author to produce volume three of this proposed trilogy and so decided to re-read the first two. They are about Emma of Normandy, who had a rather complicated history as an English queen starting in 1002, when the Danes are still raiding, and the Anglo-Saxons still retaliating. I appear to now be hooked on this period, after watching the TV series of The Last Kingdom, based on the series of novels by Bernard Cornwell set in Alfred the Great's England, and the two Viking novels by Linnea Hartsuyker. This book goes only from 1002 to 1005 -- the birth of the baby who would become Edward the Confessor, but not without a lot of stuff happening to him and his mother, Emma. There's a lot of imaginative novelistic liberties being taken here, but it's still better than many historical fiction tomes, which are thinly-veiled bodice rippers. One is left curious about how Emma plans to exercise any newfound power and deal with her enemies. So I'll re-read #2. This one: 3.8 stars.

17. Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

I had already read The Pursuit of Love a while ago, and so was glad when our book group moved on to discuss this quasi-sequel, set at roughly the same time and chronicling the adventures and misadventures of a cluster of terribly upper-class Brits, circa 1930 onward. I particularly loved the two youngest Radlett girls, who are sharp-witted, sharp-tongued and although only teenagers, in an era when girls were supposed to be young and naive, are inquisitive, feisty and serve as a kind of Greek chorus for all the antics of their elders (if not betters). Yes, the narrator is Fanny, one of those elders, by she often is simply the prism through whom we see Polly, the ostensible main character, and her extended family, as Polly tries to find love in a cold climate, via many missteps. 4.2 stars. A great showcase for the author's wit.

100Chatterbox
Ene 17, 2019, 11:40 pm

18. North of Dawn by Nuruddin Farah

Oh, what a disappointment this was. Farah is a well known/celebrated Somali author who now lives in South Africa; he has written novels that are seminal works of African literature. The concept of this was fascinating: a Somali couple in their late 50s/early 60s living in Oslo, cultured and cosmopolitan, raise a son who goes back to Somalia and, radicalized, joins al-Shabaab; his widow and her two children come to Oslo. The execution was, well, fairly dire. The prose was turgid, the dialog stilted and leaden and just unconvincing: it was there for exposition, not because people actually TALK in this way. Major plot events happen almost casually, and then the novel lurches onward to the next turning point. I got the sense that something much stronger lurked under the surface, but plot elements were there for seemingly no reason. For instance (this isn't a spoiler), the couple's elder child, a daughter, was adopted, but not told of that fact or so it seems (although there's also a contradiction in the text that suggests she was? But doesn't seem to remember?) Regardless, the point of that whole plot element remains obscure: it's not developed. It's just there because it's there. It doesn't shed any light on anyone's behavior or any plot twists. So why do it? There's a lot of stuff like that in here. I'm reluctantly giving it 3.5 stars, but mostly due to unrealized potential and the core idea. I think I'll have to read Maps or one of his early novels to see how/why he has earned such a big reputation. Because all this told me was that he can plot but doesn't seem to care much about whether his characters are convincing or not. Piffle.

101ChelleBearss
Ene 20, 2019, 9:37 am

>81 Chatterbox: I really like Winter's Last Policeman trilogy so I'll have to add this one to the list too!

102Chatterbox
Ene 20, 2019, 7:09 pm

19. Bewildering Cares by Winifred Peck

I have to be grateful to Kindle Unlimited for this book (a rarity, as most titles I get from them are definitely "meh"); a whole crop of books from a publisher rejoicing in the name of Furrowed Middlebrow (aka Dean Street Books in the US) are now available. Other authors include Frances Faviell, Elizabeth Fair, Rachel Ferguson -- mostly "women's literature" from pre-1960, and non-literary, hence the "middlebrow" part of the moniker. That said, what drew my attention was a blurb from Penelope Fitzgerald on this book, and it turns out that Winifred Peck was her aunt, part of the famous Knox family of clerics and writers. So, apples don't fall far from trees. Fitzgerald was a far more elegant writer, perhaps, and took her plots up a notch, but this novel was a delight -- along the lines of those by Angela Thirkell or even Barbara Pym. Set in the first winter/spring of the Second World War, it's the tale of about ten days in the life of a vicar's wife in the Midlands, and all the pettiness and generosity of people of that era -- before the Blitz began, before the Germans invaded France. Mrs. Lacely is a delight. She has given up library books for Lent, but struggles with the mere concept of a "Day of Quiet" in which all the local clergy wives gather together to feel virtuous and pray (she notes that it's much easier to manage this when a rural vicar's wife has several servants to anticipate her needs, and no one knocking at her door constantly.) The real crisis, though, is her husband's curate, who preaches a pacifist sermon, only to then collapse due to pneumonia -- creating real challenges to Christian charity. Do read this -- I can't do it justice in brief comments, but it combines a kind of "feel good" vibe with pointed yet never malicious observations about the vagaries of human nature. Yes, a bit dated, but... 4 stars.

20. The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell

My re-read of the second part of this proposed trilogy, published almost four years ago, makes me wonder WTF happened to part three?? The reader is left dangling. I may have to read Helen Hollick's fictional version of Emma of Normandy instead... I know she eventually ended up having an even more exciting life than dodging the Danes in this tome suggests, and her son ended up as Edward the Confessor, but really a four year gap is simply too long... And volume two starts to feel repetitive: more arguments with her husband (Aethelred the Unready, as he is known to history), more conflicts with Danes, more insight into the evil plots of Elgiva of Northampton... 3.6 stars.

21. The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer

First of all, I have to warn you that this book won't be available until May. But it will be worth reading, so get your requests in with the libraries now, or pre-orders, or whatever it is that you do... I think a lot of LTers read The Invisible Bridge, Orringer's prior novel, published in 2010 and the tale of Hungarians in Paris and Budapest before and during WW2. In this, she returns to the same era, but with a different focus, telling the story of Varian Fry, who facilitated the escape of more than 1,000 artists and writers from Vichy France, and whose story was brilliantly told in the non-fiction book, Villa Air-Bel by Rosemary Sullivan. Orringer is perhaps too over-wordy, and it takes her a long time to get to the point -- which lives are worth saving, and who is Fry to make these triage decisions in the midst of what is slowly becoming clear is a human catastrophe? That quickly (in Orringer's fictionalized retelling) becomes an even more personal dilemma when a former lover pushes him to include what he describes as a young scientific genius on the list of those who must flee the Nazis. Will the young Tobias displace someone even more valuable, when making his escape? And who is to decide what lives have most value, anyway? Orringer's Fry is a tortured soul, who finds in wartime Marseilles a city of others who are living on the edge, on borrowed time -- and Fry finally finds for himself a role that no one else but he can fulfill. It's a kind of tragic tale, of sorts, especially knowing the backdrop -- both largescale, and the fact that Fry's own efforts went unremarked on his eventual return to the US. Which is why it's worth reading about him now, whether you opt for this novel, or the simple non-fiction book by Sullivan. Or both... 4.4 stars

22. The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

I have to say that I really, really enjoy Lyndsay Faye's writing, and her ability to immerse readers in whatever world she chooses. This time, it's that of a young woman in the early/mid 1920s, who flees her life on the fringes of the mob in Harlem, and ends up in a different kind of mess when she arrives in Portland. It's the whitest city in the United States (African Americans are banned from living there, mostly...) but she ends up taking refuge at the Paragon Hotel, home to the city's transient black population, thanks to the Pullman porter who recognizes that the gunshot wound that causes her to flee New York is about to cost her her life. As she recuperates, she gets to know the hotel's other inhabitants, many of whom view her with suspicion (for one reason or another). The exception is a chanteuse named Blossom, larger than life and with more secrets than even the wily Alice might imagine (although I confess I guessed one of the big twists). When a young orphan whom Blossom had rescued and adopted vanishes on an outing to a local fairground, his disappearance prompts all kinds of secrets and hatreds to come oozing out of the hotel and the city as a whole. Faye has used a LOT of 1920s slang in writing this first person chronicle (divided between "then" and "now" segments, so we learn about Alice's past life and how she ended up in Portland only slowly), which can get aggravating after a certain point. She could have done a little less of that and made the same point, but if that's my only gripe in what was otherwise a "thumping good read" with very few plot snafus, revolving around the myriad ways in which people learn to "pass" in alien environments, then that makes this a good yarn. 4.6 stars.

23. Rebel Heiress by Jane Aiken Hodge

I started reading Jane Aiken Hodge's novels when I was a teenager, and gave up in my 20s, kinda fed up with the stilted narrative of some her later books. But I realized that there are several of her earlier novels now being reissued VERY affordably ($3 to $5) on Kindle and I'd acquired a few of them, so clearly it's time to tackle a few of those I overlooked. This particular book reminds me of a few of her other novels (the heroes aren't always who you think they are going to be; the villains may not be quite as villainous as you imagine...) and yet in its own way it's as fun to read as a Georgette Heyer novel (one of the latter's less fun romps, not nearly as good as The Grand Sophy, but still a decent mix of intrigue and romance, set against Napoleonic England/Europe, for the most part. In this one, the daughter of a British peer, long believed by him to be dead with her mother, travels from Boston to England on the eve of the outbreak of war, and must find a new role for herself, playing a role in society. Don't look for depth of character, but the plot makes this an entertaining story and a decent way to pass a snowy, miserable afternoon -- requires no thought or heavy lifting whatsoever.

103CDVicarage
Ene 21, 2019, 4:16 am

>102 Chatterbox: I've loved every Furrowed Middlebrow book I've read. Being a Vicar's Wife myself I'm always interested in books set in Church/clergy circles and am relieved that the role of Vicar's Wife has changed from what it was during the 20th century!

104benitastrnad
Editado: Ene 21, 2019, 12:08 pm

You will be thrilled to know that my local Barnes & Nobel Book Club is reading Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker is the selection for February. I told the group that I had a friend who really liked both of these books. It turns out that there were a couple of fans of Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell in the group.

As an aside - Have you read Thrall’s Tale? Or Long Ships? I read Long Ships a few years ago and enjoyed it. Lots in it about the early Christianization of Denmark.

105Chatterbox
Ene 21, 2019, 3:05 pm

>103 CDVicarage: Have you read the six-book series by Elizabeth Fair? That will be on my agenda later on. There's a mystery by Winifred Peck that was FREE on Kindle that I may read next -- Arrest the Bishop?. Or at least, I plan to read it soon.

>104 benitastrnad: No, I haven't read either of those! I do have Long Ships on my Kindle, and given my enjoyment of the Cornwell books and TV series, and the Linnea Hartsuyker tomes, I clearly will have to read it. A number of folks read it among LT 75ers back a number of years ago -- seven or eight??

106CDVicarage
Ene 21, 2019, 4:25 pm

>105 Chatterbox: Yes, I've read all of those and enjoyed them.

107Chatterbox
Ene 21, 2019, 8:17 pm

24. It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree by A.J. Jacobs

So, I finally read the book that put a kibosh on my own plans to write about family history (had he not signed a deal with S&S, and had another writer, Maud Newton, not inked her own book deal with Penguin for a book that still has yet to appear and was supposed to be published in 2016... I might have written "Bluebloods, Black Sheep and Missing Links: America's Obsessive Search for Its Roots." But no agent would take me on. Which is a pity, because I think I would have done a better job than this. OK, it's classic A.J. Jacobs -- he is at the center of everything and we see all the issues through his eyes as he struggles to invite all his myriad cousins to the world's largest-ever family reunion. Great material for what I refer to as "stunt non-fiction". (Like that book written by someone who ate nothing but fast food for a year, or other first person narratives -- Jacobs also has written about his attempts to live Biblically, etc.) Rarely do these books have a real, thoughtful edge, because they are partly about their subject, partly humor and partly memoir. And there's so much that is substantive about this particular topic that he touches on ultra-briefly, before skipping off to the next topic, that it made me slightly nuts. OK, it's readable for someone who is into thinking of the whole thing as quirky or bizarre -- the tone and approach encourage that. But it doesn't deal with the substantive element in any substantive manner -- how we define families. His way to address the complexities of modern family structures is to go to (no kidding) a gathering of polyamorous individuals. Erm, that's not really the issue when the problem is that many genealogy sites are run by folks who don't agree with same-sex marriage or transgender or gender-nonspecific folks, meaning that if you fall into one of those camps, you can't chronicle Tom's wedding to Steve. (Or at least, not on the 2016 version of the software that I have...) And adoptions are tricky, because you can't tie more than two parents to a single individual, etc. So yeah, I'm grumpy at his wasted opportunities and insistence on putting his whimsical stuff at the center. It's modestly amusing at points. Only for those who have no knowledge of the family history scene, though. I'm bending over backwards to be fair and give it 4 stars.

25. Maulever Hall by Jane Aiken Hodge

Decided to read this after finishing the other Aiken Hodge book, but it wasn't as good. Set in the 1830s, which isn't really her main period, and with too many quirky plots -- "Oh, so I'm actually your cousin!" -- revolving around a woman who loses her memory and finds herself in a stage coach, on a lonely road, with a child who isn't her own. (And who never even makes much of an appearance in the book as a person -- he apparently is deeply annoying and really just a plot device.) Honestly, this requires too many leaps of faith. Avoid it unless you're a massive fan. Thankfully it was a fast read of a book that cost me no money at all. 3.3 stars, again being generous.

26. Keep You Close by Karen Cleveland

After that, I needed something fast-paced, contemporary and mindless. I remember the author's last novel, Need to Know, as being very readable, and so turned to this advance copy of her second thriller. I had rather hoped it might be a sequel, but nope, and indeed this one ALSO ends with an ambivalent kind-of cliffhanger, making me think that Cleveland could morph into an unsatisfying genre novelist. Single mother/FBI agent Stephanie is stunned when a colleague shows up at her door to disclose that her teenage son, a high school senior, seems to be caught up in some kind of domestic extremist movement. Is this true? What has been going on with Zachary? If he is being framed, by whom and why? The complexities of the plot spin a little bit too much out of control, which may be one reason for the unsatisfactory ending and a few unconvincing plot twists, but by and large it's a good read that grabbed my attention and held it. 3.85 stars. Not a knockout, but a book worth getting from the library once it's out if you like genre thrillers. It's better than the latest "woman in peril" domestic thriller, anyway -- now THAT is a genre I'm really tired of...

108Chatterbox
Ene 21, 2019, 8:20 pm

Currently listening to Fatal Discord by Michael Massing, about Erasmus, Luther and the tug of war between humanism and what became rather dogmatic Protestantism. Both thinkers started out as reformers, and then their paths diverged. This is a LONG book, but it's very worthwhile.

Probably will read Arrest the Bishop? now, as I'm eager to find more Winifred Peck. Only three titles released by Furrowed Middlebrow, but she seems to have written at least 20. Piffle.

Not really in the mood for serious novels, clearly.

Damn, it's cold here. About 3 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, I used to go skiing in colder weather than this. But I was an idiotic teenager...

109LizzieD
Ene 21, 2019, 11:22 pm

Yippeee! Bewildering Cares is free for Kindle too, so I have it waiting on mine.
It sounds like a VMC or Persephone, but I don't recall seeing it from either publisher. Thank you!
I'm tapping my feet and fingers waiting to get my mitts on a copy of *Paragon H.* I'll keep Emma of Normandy in mind and add the new Orringer to my wish list if I haven't done it already. I did find a cheap copy of Villa Air-Bel and am looking forward to that. I only wish I read as fast as you.
And I wish that you may find things looking better everywhere you look SOON!

110elkiedee
Ene 22, 2019, 4:32 am

>109 LizzieD: Furrowed Middlebrow has reprinted some books by several authors who have also had books reissued by other publishers, eg Winifred Peck's House-Bound is a Persephone and several Rachecl Ferguson books - The Brontes Went to Woolworths is a VMC and more recently Bloomsbury Reader and Alas Poor Lady Persephone. They are now reissuing the Mrs Tim books by D E Stevenson, author of the Miss Buncle books (Persephone).

111Chatterbox
Ene 22, 2019, 9:59 am

I saw the "Mrs Tim" books, but while I adored the first Miss Buncle, I couldn't get much further. I will look out for more Winifred Peck, though...

112benitastrnad
Ene 22, 2019, 2:26 pm

I read one A. J. Jacobs book - the one about the encyclopedia Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World and I have not read another of them. I found Jacobs to be neither humble or smart, so that ended that. The book was OK, but it was not something that said to me that I should ever read another of his.

113Chatterbox
Ene 22, 2019, 2:34 pm

>112 benitastrnad: Exactly. The only reason I read this one was because it was on "my topic" and because I'm planning something in a related venture and thought there might be some kind of observation or data that were useful. I found one piece of info that was new to me in 300-plus pages. Hmm.

114m.belljackson
Ene 22, 2019, 4:36 pm

>112 benitastrnad: >113 Chatterbox:

He can be very funny in person!

115Chatterbox
Ene 22, 2019, 4:42 pm

>114 m.belljackson: I suppose that's possible. I just found the whole book so self-referential that it ended up annoying me tremendously. It's why I call this genre "stunt" non-fiction. It doesn't arise from a deep fascination for the subject, but from the author's interest in being interesting to people. If you see what I mean.

Which is fine, but...

I also don't like travel writers that make their misadventures, rather than the places they visit, the focus of their narratives. Part of the same phenomenon.

I opted to start re-listening (is that even a verb??) to The Grand Sophy when I woke up with (another) migraine this morning. I needed a comfort book that I didn't have to think about or actually read, and I had just mentioned that one, so...

116benitastrnad
Ene 22, 2019, 7:07 pm

The meetup in Seattle is settled. We are meeting on Saturday, January 26, 2019 at the Tap House Grill at 6:45 p.m. I made reservations for 8. This beer joint says it has 160 kinds of beer. Guess we will see. The address for the place is, 1506 6th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101. Phone number is (206) 816-3314.

I am looking forward to meeting new people.

117Chatterbox
Ene 24, 2019, 9:30 pm

>116 benitastrnad: I envy you guys -- but have a fabulous time. I shall try to focus on reading good books here and not being TOO envious.

I did just finish an excellent tome -- The Salt Path by Raynor Winn, which I got as an ARC from Penguin (it will be out in the US in early March, I think) and read now because it's a prizewinner/nominee and thus fits this month's non-fiction challenge theme. It blew me away. I have a love/hate relationship with memoirs, many of which I find unreadable because the author is spending so much time staring at his or her navel. In this case, I was afraid that the starting point (the author and her husband embark on a long-distance walk of the Southwestern Coastal Path in England after losing their home in a court case -- a farm that is also their livelihood -- and after the husband gets a terminal illness diagnosis) would be too damn depressing. It was sad, but the tale of the way the duo tackle their challenges forthrightly, and how the physical hurdles give them strength and clarity of mind, was engrossing and captivating. It didn't hurt that a key point in this narrative is Pencarrow Head and Lantic Bay, just by Polruan in southern Cornwall. The first time I saw this particular stretch of land, I was walking across fields toward it on a footpath from inland toward the coastal path, and the shimmering sea, the path, the rocks, made a picture so beautiful that I remember standing there and bursting into tears. That corner of the world remains my favorite place -- yes, even though over the decades it has been transformed into a village full of holiday homes and resentful locals. When I die, I want my ashes scattered there. I don't know who will do this, but hopefully someone will. A pic I took of Lantic Bay remains my wallpaper on my desktop because just looking at it makes me happier. So I understand how this trip felt in a visceral way -- just as I remember how devastating some stretches of the pathway are, going up and do steep hikes (who on EARTH says you can Bude to Boscastle in a single day? They're insane). I've never done the whole pathway, but have managed perhaps a total of 100 miles of the 630-odd that these folks did. I'd love to think I could do more, but in the meantime -- there is this book. 5 stars. (Oh, and at times, Winn's husband is mistaken for Simon Armitage, which is kind of hilarious, as they don't realize who Armitage/Simon IS or what is going on...)

So that's my second five-star non-fiction book so far this year; no novels have reached those heights just yet. Once again I'm having a better year with non-fiction than fiction, and it's probably due in part to my own choices.

Migraine on and off for much of the last week, due in part of weather. We had an EPIC rainstorm here today, with really really high winds that shook the whole house. Flood alerts on my phone. Fun times. Ready for the head to stop hurting ANY TIME SOON?? Hint, hint.

118Caroline_McElwee
Ene 25, 2019, 5:45 pm

>117 Chatterbox: I really enjoyed that book too Suz.

119Chatterbox
Editado: Ene 26, 2019, 5:44 pm

Catching up...

27. Of Blood and Bone by Nora Roberts

The sequel to Year One, a fantasy/post-apocalyptic book, but not as good as the debut. Fallon Swift, she who save the world, is one of those "too good to be true" heroines, one whose flaws are just talents in disguise. And it's a book that doesn't really have a climax or a big epiphany -- it's too much of a transition book to be all that interesting. I still finished it, as I'm mildly curious about post-apocalyptic world building, but Roberts got all caught up in "magick" (yes she spells it with a k, of course, because why not?) and that got tedious. It also turns out that destroying nuclear weapons is remarkably easy. Who'da a thunk it? 3.6 stars. Not a book or series to buy... I got it from the Athenaeum.

28. The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

See my comments above in >117 Chatterbox:. Only my second five-star book of the year so far.

29. They Fought Alone: The True Story of the Starr Brothers, British Secret Agents in Nazi-Occupied France by Charles Glass

The author is remarkably sympathetic to two characters who struck me as being perhaps not all that appealing. One was captured by the Gestapo and while eventually shipped off to a concentration camp, spent a very comfy 11 months or so at the ave Foche HQ in Paris, doing custom drawings for his captors and essentially collaborating -- to an unknown degree. Yes, there was a court of inquiry, but... His brother was an equally controversial person, who was vocally pro-Fascist in the Spanish civil war (he married a Spanish woman) and yet fought the German invaders of France, but was someone who women, in particular found tough to work with (he constantly referred to them as "bitches" in his postwar briefings.) Glass seems to bend over backwards to excuse him and his actions. I dunno. It was an interesting story, and I recall many of the stories here without recalling each of the two brothers in particular. Only 4 stars, as I would have preferred a more thoughtful and balanced critique of wartime behavior -- what is real valor?

30. *The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer (A)

In the grip of a migraine, I "re-listened" to the audiobook version of this delightful Georgette Heyer novel, which is, I think, one of her best, with a particularly strong heroine who embarks on shaking up the lives of her cousins, aunt and uncle. Of course, it's not as if they asked her to do so... She just sees what she needs to do and acts on it, which is slightly wince-inducing to modern eyes, but still fun. 4.2 stars.

31. A Taste for Vengeance by Martin Walker

The most recently-published book in the Bruno, chief of police series, set in the Perigord region of France. I adored the first book (published in about 2009/2010) but by now am slightly weary of Bruno's ongoing romantic agonizing and endless descriptions of culinary concoctions that break up the narrative -- I could do with less of that. The plots remain interesting, although it's astonishing that so much crime can end up occurring in a small town in a rural corner of France! This one combines everything from the plight of the girl's rugby team star player (pregnant... and a contender for the national team) to the potential arrival of a team of murderous terrorists along with some unpleasant journalists (sigh). Bruno, of course, sets everything straight. 4 stars. I'm not in love with this series, but I get the advance e-galleys from Knopf, so... and the next one is already on my Kindle, so...

32. *Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran (A)

Another migraine, so another "re-listen" -- I find it hard to focus on new stuff when my head is banging away. I hadn't re-read this since it was first published, as my early impression was that the story of Cleopatra Selene and her time in Rome between the age of 12 and 16 or so was really a YA novel -- and nothing really altered that impression this time around, regardless of the author's attempts to transform it into a novel that adults can appreciate. The POV character remains Selene throughout (a shift in POV would have helped, perhaps) and that limits what can be said/done, even though her realization of what Augustus is capable of, with or without Livia's assistance, is adroitly done. (Full disclosure, the author has become a friend.) 3.65 stars.

Reading the "Bruno" novel whetted my appetite for some good mystery novels, so I'm finally reading the latest Simon Seraillier novel by Susan Hill, and then will move on to The Killing Habit by Mark Billingham.

120Chatterbox
Ene 27, 2019, 10:39 pm

33. The Comforts of Home by Susan Hill

I was very happy to delve back into the world that Susan Hill has created for her characters, and follow the strands of different plots -- a missing girl whose mother still wants resolution years later, even though police are convinced the guy is already behind bars for other murders; a series of arson attacks; a surprising murder in Simon Serailler's remote retreat in the Highlands. But it never quite gelled, even as Hill threw in everything but the kitchen sink -- Simon's post-traumatic problems and recovery from his horrible wounds at the end of book 8 (I actually thought Hill had killed him off...); his father's life after being accused of a crime; his sister's post-widowhood life and what's happening with HER eldest child. The novel kind of crumbles under all that weight, so perhaps it's not surprising that some plot threads (well, most) are resolved overly abruptly. 4.2 stars -- that's a tribute to the interest I still have in the characters Hill has created, and to her writing.

34. With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial by Kathryn Mannix

This was a disconcerting and yet strangely reassuring look at the process of dying, incorporating the perspective of any number of individuals from teenagers up to the very old. That said, most of Mannix's involvement has been with people suffering cancer or other untreatable illnesses, so there is a bit of a limitation on it from that perspective. Her emphasis on death comes from the palliative care perspective: when death is anticipated and perhaps may be a surcease of pain or trauma. It doesn't really address, except in a few cases, sudden death or death that results simply from old age/dementia, because those aren't really her patients. She does mention some of the points raised by Atul Gawande -- notably, by prolonging life, what we really have done, is to extend the number of years we live in extreme old age, which is something we really want to consider thoughtfully -- and I'd strongly suggest reading the two books in tandem, since they take different approaches to roughly the same topic, end of life issues. She also raises what I think are some very important topics about euthanasia, via a patient who upped and moved to Britain after feeling that his Dutch doctors were urging him to opt for it because they couldn't treat him any more. They mentioned it as a possibility every single day, reminding him that this was open to him, and seem to have crossed a line to the point where he felt he couldn't trust not to "subtly" urge it on him. So, recommended, with one or two cautionary notes. Mannix is a bit repetitive in the points she makes (which is fine) and while her examples of patients are vivid, she has a kind of sweeping statement that she has pretty much distorted all the details (gender, age, diagnosis, etc.) to the point where I kept wondering whether I could trust what she was saying. I understand WHY she did this (privacy....) but it creates a weird kind of credibility gap, or did for me. So, 4.35 stars; it could have been higher.

121LizzieD
Ene 27, 2019, 10:48 pm

Hope you'll start putting together some non-mingraine days, Suzanne. I'm sorry that the latest Simon S. wasn't up to snuff. I'll certainly read it when it's gettable because, like you, I'm interested in the characters. I wish that Ms. Hill would continue to find them as interesting as I do. I'd really rather that she kill off Simon (but not his family) if she doesn't genuinely care to keep up the quality.

122katiekrug
Ene 28, 2019, 9:25 am

The Salt Path is already on my WL but you cemented it there. And I really need to get back to the Simon Serailler series.... I've only read the first two!

123ffortsa
Ene 28, 2019, 7:17 pm

>122 katiekrug: I've also only read the first two Serailler books. Too many series to keep up with.

124Chatterbox
Ene 28, 2019, 10:11 pm

35. Arrest the Bishop? by Winifred Peck

This was a disappointment after my introduction to Peck's work in Bewildering Cares, but it was FREE for Kindle, so... Still, it was a bit of a yawn. I figured out the criminal(s) in this ecclesiastical crime, set in a bishop's palace in the aftermath of WW1 (although written in the aftermath of WW2. It felt much more dated than her previous novel and without any redeeming charm or any sense of a character that was "real". Just stock figures from mediocre "golden age" detective fiction. I'm giving it 3.3 stars just because it was reasonably well written, but honestly, it was absurdly predictable. If you want to pick it up for free for your Kindle, knock yourself out.

36. The Order of the Day by Éric Vuillard

This couldn't have been more of a contrast. Winner of the Prix Goncourt (in 2017, I think), this is somewhat reminiscent of Jean Echenoz is style -- little dialogue, somewhat meta-fictionesque. The author sets a lot of scenes for us, and describes them vividly, eloquently and poignantly, and draws conclusions, and leaves us to ponder the messages. The starting point is a meeting of German industrialists in early 1933, who have met at the behest of Goering, to fund the campaign to give the Nazis a majority, one that will finally enable them to overturn the last vestiges of parliamentary democracy. We meet them first as individuals; at the end, we meet them as heads of their enterprises -- Siemens, Agfa, BASF, etc. The story then leaps to a variety of set pieces in 1938, as the Germans set about the Anschluss, and taking over Austria. Vuillard pulls no punches in his contempt for the political players of the day. Hitler? "He said that in Hamburg he was going to build the largest bridge in the world. And then, clearly unable to restrain himself, he added that soon he would put up the tallest buildings in the and then the Americans would see that Germany built bigger and better houses than the United States." (If this sounds eerily reminiscent of a certain contemporary US politician, I don't think it's a coincidence...) In discussing Schuschsnigg, the Austrian chancellor, whom Hitler bullies into submission, Vuillard is equally scathing of the former's own failures. "Put himself in someone else's shoes? He had no idea what that meant. He'd never gotten into the shoes of the battered workers or the jailed trade unionists, or the tortured democrats; so the last thing we needed now was for him to get into the shoes of monsters! He hesitated. It was the very last minute of his very last hour. And then, as always, he capitulated. ... You just have to not ask nicely. He said no, firmly, to the freedom of the Social Democrats. He said no, courageously, to freedom of the press. He said no to the maintenance of an elected parliament. He said no to the right to strike, no to assemblies, no to the existence of parties other than his own ... And so, once his little moment of hesitation had passed, as a Nazi mob forced its way into the Chancellery, Schuschnigg the intransigent, Mister No....uttered a feeble 'yes.' " The writing and translation are both excellent. That said, it's powerful but slightly impersonal, however gripping. You'll still want to read it. 4.35 stars.

125Chatterbox
Ene 29, 2019, 4:28 pm

37. Paris by the Book by Liam Callanan

This should have been a big win for me. A book about Paris. About a mysterious missing person. About a bookstore in Paris. About writers and writing and creativity. But NONE of it ever clicked or felt convincing. The first person narrator, Leah, whose writer husband Robert, fails to return from what she assumes is one of his "writeaways" to their Milwaukee homes, ups and goes to Paris with their daughters following a clue in a cereal box. (Yup, really.) Other "clues" lead her to do other things that are equally improbable. And it's that element of improbability throughout the entire narrative that had me rolling my eyes. Leah and her teenage daughters keep spotting or thinking they spot Robert briefly, and ultimately I really just didn't give a damn. Worse still, I found I didn't much like or understand Leah. And the two daughters were two-dimensional. 3.35 stars. Not my thing at all, but it was a NetGalley book, so no harm, no foul. And I won't revisit this author.

126m.belljackson
Ene 29, 2019, 4:32 pm

>125 Chatterbox:

Too bad about this one - what an inviting title!

127Chatterbox
Ene 29, 2019, 9:53 pm

>126 m.belljackson: Yup, I feel kind of suckered. Books? Paris? That said, I'm sure other readers can/will overlook the things that just irritated me like fingers on a blackboard. It was one of those books; the kind I had a visceral response to.

128EBT1002
Ene 30, 2019, 6:16 pm

Suz, I'm so sorry the migraines are haunting you these days. Ugh.

But your thread reminds me that I want to return to the Susan Hill series. That the ninth one in the series gets more than 4 stars is a tribute indeed.

129Chatterbox
Ene 30, 2019, 10:59 pm

>128 EBT1002: They aren't quite as bad as they were, but still irksome...

I think I'm being generous to the Susan Hill book because I enjoy her attention to characters, and her writing. But in terms of plot it kind of falls apart, alas.

Meanwhile...

Still on my mystery kick:

38. Uneasy Lies the Crown by Tasha Alexander

The latest in the series featuring Lady Emily and her spouse, Colin Hargreaves, intrepid Victorian sleuths. Except now the Victorian era is over, because the opening chapter is set at Queen Victoria's deathbed, when she passes a mysterious piece of paper to Hargreaves. Then the first of the dead bodies pops up -- a murder mimicking that of Henry VI in the Tower of London, right up to the way he is clothed. Is it a threat to Bertie, the new King Edward VII? It's a good yarn, as other murders follow, each staged as the violent death of a former English king who met a premature end. But Lady Emily suspects that a different kind of royalty is involved and she chases clues into the East End of London. Good read, especially the flashbacks to the 15th century history of the Hargreaves family, which comes to a conclusion, making sense of a lot of Colin's history -- and setting the stage, I assume, for the next iteration. 4.1 stars.

130benitastrnad
Ene 31, 2019, 2:37 pm

#119
What is it with all these detectives being obsessed with food?

131benitastrnad
Ene 31, 2019, 7:24 pm

I am going to do some Mark style warbling about a book. I just finished Doubt by C. E. Tobisman. It is the first book by this author and is the first in the Caroline Audin series by Tobisman. The second book in the series won the Harper Lee Award for Legal Fiction that is given by the University of Alabama Law school, so naturally I had to read it. When I went to get the CD of the second I saw the first one was only $7.00. Why not I said? So I did. I liked this legal thriller. It had just enough action to be dangerous, but not that bloody over the top shoot'em up bang-bang action thriller type. It was very realistic. It was the right combination of footwork and moving around in conjunction with cyber work. This is an author who should get more publicity. Read this one, then talk it up to all your friends. That is what I am going to be doing. If you like detective stories you will like this one. Different setting, a little action, and a smart woman doing what she needs to do to keep the world going.

132Chatterbox
Ene 31, 2019, 7:39 pm

>130 benitastrnad:

It's a shtick. Better than cocaine (Sherlock Holmes) I suppose?

133ffortsa
Feb 1, 2019, 9:16 am

>130 benitastrnad: and it pads out the typically short mysteries like Camilleri's with some sensory pleasures.

134benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 1, 2019, 2:35 pm

Also, food is sexy right now. Not eating it, but making it. Preparing it. Watching it get made. Wishing you could eat it. Wishing you had enough time to make it. Food porn.

135Chatterbox
Feb 3, 2019, 12:19 am

>134 benitastrnad: For me, it's the "wishing you had enough time, energy and motivation to make it."

Sigh. I was just thinking today that I used to cook much more than I do now, in my late teens, 20s and into my early 30s. Moving to New York was the kiss of death for cooking. It was tougher to shop for food, my schedule made cooking to eat dinner a nutty idea (because I wouldn't be able to eat until 10 or so!) and, well, those damn migraines...

Of which I have one today. My latest Aimovig arrived, was promptly refrigerated, but when I withdrew the auto-injector, the little warning cards (there are two of them) both said it had been overheated. I have NO IDEA how, since it was in the coldest compartment in my fridge, and the power hasn't been off. Besides, it should be able to cope with being out of the fridge for a week! So now they have to send me a new dose and clearly my body is annoyed that it is running out of this stuff.

So, no books finished today.

136PaulCranswick
Feb 5, 2019, 8:13 pm

>134 benitastrnad: Hahaha I love food too, the thought of it and the preparation of it and the savouring of it. Makes me realise how much I miss my wife - the best cook I know.

137Chatterbox
Editado: mayo 22, 2019, 7:48 pm

Adding my ALA "loot" to my books acquired list, with thanks to Marianne & Benita!!

Book Purchases and Other Permanent Acquisitions In 2019 Part II

All of these are from ALA Midwinter, and were free advance review copies!!
(Picking up from where the count ended in >7 Chatterbox:)

100. Son of Two Fathers by Jacqueline Park
101. Killer Instinct by Zoe Sharp
102. The Night Visitors by Carol Goodman
103. At Briarwood School for Girls by Michael Knight
104. Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok
105. The Altruists by Andrew Ridker
106. The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
107. Bertie: The Complete Prince of Wales Mysteries by Peter Lovesey
108. Travelers by Helon Habila
109. Baby of the Family by Maura Roosevelt
110. Beirut Hellfire Society by Rawi Hage
111. Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
112. City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
113. Doxology by Nell Zink
114. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead Read
115. The Editor by Steven Rowley
116. The Missing Years by Lexie Elliott
117. More News Tomorrow by Susan Richards Shreve
118. In Paris With You by Clémentine Beauvais
119. Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna by Mario Giordano
120. The Islanders by Meg Mitchell Moore
121. The Lazarus File: A Cold Case Investigation by Matthew McGough
122. Lights All Night Long by Lydia Fitzpatrick
123. The Darwin Affair by Tim Mason Read
124. Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly
125. If She Wakes by Michael Koryta
126. Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn't by Edward Humes
127. The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear Read
128. The Wall: A Novel by John Lanchester Read
129. The Last Stone: A Masterpiece of Criminal Interrogation by Mark Bowden Read
130. The Club by Takis Würger
131. The Quintland Sisters by Shelley Wood
132. The Coronation: A Fandorin Mystery by Boris Akunin
133. Costalegre by Courtney Maum
134. The Night Swimmers by Peter Rock
135. House Arrest by Mike Lawson
136. The Night Before by Wendy Walker
137. The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell
138. My Coney Island Baby by Billy O'Callaghan
139. The Last Time I Saw You by Liv Constantine
140. The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
141. The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin
142. The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
143. The Better Sister by Alafair Burke
144. The Ventriloquists by E.R. Ramzipoor
145. The Lost History of Dreams by Kris Waldherr
146. America Was Hard to Find by Kathleen Alcott
147. The Oysterville Sewing Circle by Susan Wiggs
148. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
149. Learning to See by Elise Hooper
150. Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif

End of ALA books

151. The Red Daughter by John Burnham Schwartz (NetGalley) 2/6/19 Read
152. Courting Mr. Lincoln by Louis Bayard (NetGalley) 2/6/19
153. The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park (Kindle, gift) 2/8/19 Read
154. The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe (UK Kindle, sale, $) 2/10/19
155. Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe (UK Kindle, sale, $) 2/10/19
156. The Painter of Souls by Philip Kazan (UK Kindle sale, $) 2/10/19
157. The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China by Frank Langfitt (NetGalley) 2/11/19
158. Women with Money: The Judgment-Free Guide to Creating the Joyful, Less Stressed, Purposeful (and, Yes, Rich) Life You Deserve by Jean Chatzky (NetGalley) 2/11/19
159. Confessions of an Innocent Man by David Dow (NetGalley) 2/12/19
160. 77 by Guillermo Saccomanno (Kindle, gift) 2/12/19
161. Stone Mothers by Erin Kelly (NetGalley) 2/12/19
162. Blindsided by Kate Watterson (NetGalley) 2/13/19
163. The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park (paperback, gift) 2/13/19
164. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 by G.J. Meyer (Kindle sale, gift) 2/13/19
165. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (Kindle, gift) 2/13/19 Read
166. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Audiobook, sale, $) 2/13/19
167. Bones of the Earth by Eliot Pattison (NetGalley) 2/14/19
168. Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1768-1800 by François-René de Chateaubriand (Kindle, gift) 2/14/19
169. The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison (Kindle, gift) 2/14/19 Read
170. The Ditch by Herman Koch (NetGalley) 2/15/19
171. Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America by Ayaz Virji (NetGalley) 2/15/19
172. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (Audiobook sale, $) 2/15/19
173. A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism by Adam Gopnik (NetGalley) 2/19/19
174. Nature's Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present by Philipp Blom (Kindle, gift) 2/20/19
175. Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II by Svetlana Alexievich (NetGalley) 2/20/19
176. The Women of Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell (NetGalley) 2/20/19
177. Silicon States: The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What It Means for Our Future by Lucie Greene (Kindle sale, $) 2/20/19
178. Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward (NetGalley) 2/20/19
179. Savage News by Jessica Yellin (NetGalley) 2/20/19
180. How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee (NetGalley) 2/20/19
181. The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick (NetGalley) 2/20/19 Read
182. Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up by Tom Phillipps (NetGalley, from publisher) 2/20/19
183. Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times by Scott Pelley (NetGalley, from publisher) 2/20/19
184. Your Life is Mine by Nathan Ripley (NetGalley) 2/21/19
185. Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh (NetGalley) 2/21/19
186. The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene (Kindle, sale, $) 2/22/19
187. Vatican Vendetta by Peter Watson (Kindle, sale, $) 2/22/19
188. The Dancing Bear by Frances Faviell (Kindle freebie) 2/23/19
189. Dodge & Twist: A Sequel To Oliver Twist by Tony Lee (Audiobook freebie) 2/23/19
190. Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah (NetGalley) 2/25/19
191. Landscape of Lies by Peter Watson (Kindle, sale, $) 2/26/19
192. The Travelers by Regina Porter (NetGalley) 2/26/19
193. The Paris Diversion by Chris Pavone (NetGalley) 2/27/19 Read
194. A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea by Don Kulick (Kindle sale, $) 2/27/19
195. A Keeper by Graham Norton (NetGalley) 2/27/19
196. The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair (NetGalley) 2/27/19
197. One False Move by Robert Goddard (UK Kindle, $$) 3/1/19
198. Crown Jewel by Christopher Reich (NetGalley) 3/1/19 Read
199. City of Omens: A Search for the Missing Women of the Borderlands by Dan Werb (NetGalley, from publisher) 3/1/19
200. Watchers of the Dead by Simon Beaufort (NetGalley) 3/1/19
201. Black Death by M.J. Trow (NetGalley) 3/1/19
202. Berta Isla by Javier Maras (NetGalley, from publisher) 3/1/19
203. Where We Come From by Oscar Casares (NetGalley, from publisher) 3/1/19
204. The White Devil's Daughters by Julia Flynn Siler (NetGalley, from publisher) 3/1/19 Read
205. Time Song: Journeys in Search of a Submerged Land by Julia Blackburn (NetGalley, from publisher) 3/1/19
206. We Are All Good People Here by Susan Rebecca White (NetGalley, from publisher) 3/1/19

138Dianekeenoy
Feb 5, 2019, 9:09 pm

>137 Chatterbox: Hi Suzanne, I just finished The Editor and just loved it! And I have The Last Romantics coming from the library and cannot wait for The Island of Sea Women to come out. You must be so happy to have all these wonderful books!

139Chatterbox
Feb 6, 2019, 9:39 pm

>138 Dianekeenoy: Oh, trust me, I am!! I'm reading Zucked by Roger McNamee right now, as it was written by a friend and longtime source who shares many of my views about corporate behavior (and misbehavior); and also about 80 pages into Becoming by Michelle Obama. Both, so far, are excellent.

And I just got approved for an e-galley of one of the books that wasn't available at ALA Midwinter, so that's good.

It almost makes up for the fact that I had one of my few remaining work contracts canceled this week. The client canceled with the agency that hired me to do their blog posts -- not a quality issue, just a budget issue or some other change. Perhaps there will be more work from them, but it won't be a monthly sum. Which leaves me with almost nothing in income -- poverty line, basically. Literally. No exaggeration. If I can sell one story each month to the WSJ funds report, and continue at that pace, I won't earn enough to cover my rent, much less utilities, health insurance, etc.

No wonder I had nightmares all last night. Poor Cassie-cat, who kept trying to sleep on top of me!

I brought The Confessions of Frannie Langton with me on a quick 24-hour trip to NYC to deal with some mail forwarding for a friend, and pick up some paperwork here.

140Chatterbox
Feb 12, 2019, 4:40 pm

Wow, I'm way behind in my mini-comments here. I could blame migraines (which would be true) and depression (also true). Still, it's not as if I don't have time.

39. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil

Someone else at the Athenaeum wanted to read this, which meant that I had to return it!! And I'm glad that this gave met the impetus to read beyond the first 25 pages, because it's an absolutely fascinating and damning indictment of the opaque and inflexible quantitative models increasingly employed to do everything from suggest what you should buy to what news you should consume (trapping us in information bubbles, where every choice we make reinforces the idea that we just want more of the same, rather than a diverse array of info) to lending or even prison terms and probation. Ultimately, these algorithms tend to reinforce privilege and further disadvantage those who already struggle from paycheck to paycheck, making their lives still tougher by increasing the costs of everything from car insurance to groceries -- just because it's possible. Pithy and a must-read. 5 stars!!

40. Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind by Michael Massing

This was my final book for January, and another fabulous non-fiction read. Although I gather the author is a journalist, he did an incredible job in developing a fascinating thesis about religious/theological, political and social history, revolving around two divergent possible paths that COULD have been followed as people started pressing for reform of the Catholic church in the early years of the 16th century. He follows Erasmus, who at the outset of this was the more dominant player, reflecting the humanist tradition, and Martin Luther, with his more revolutionary proposals. Massing is able to shift back and forth in time, addressing scholasticism (for instance) with as much authority as he does the theological arguments advanced by Luther or the details of the political upheaval in the German states in the 1520s. If you have an interest in religion or political history, or intellectual history, this also is a must-read. I've rated it 4.7 stars rather than the full 5 only because it's so long and dense (an immense 1,000 pages, if you include notes, bibliography, appendices, etc.) that you have to read it slowly and carefully, and a few times I had to backtrack (I was listening on audiobook.)

For February:

41. The Black Book by James Patterson

Picked this up in a paperback sale, not expecting much other than a lightweight read as I recuperated from some heavy non-fiction, but it was as pacey as Patterson's books usually are, and had a more compelling and less cookie-cutter plot than many. A cop raids an upscale brothel, hoping to get a client to 'fess up to another crime, only to get himself embroiled in some very complex corruption schemes that nearly cost him his life (at least twice.) Nice and twisty, if about as substantive as cotton candy. 3.45 stars.

42. Time and Time Again by Ben Elton (finished 2/1/19) 3.9 stars

This novel of time travel has been hanging out on my UK Kindle for some time, and I finally succumbed and read it. A man who has lost everything he cares about, a former SAS officer, is roped into a quirky scheme by a former professor, who now, as head of the college that Sir Isaac Newton once attended, has opened a box left for his heirs to scrutinize on this date. It turns out to contain Newton's calculation of the physics of time travel -- that there will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to go back in time to a specific date and wipe out everything that came afterwards. Of course, the time traveler will wipe out his own later existence and have to recreate everything -- but given that the date in question is only a few months before June 1914 and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, which triggered WW1, what is that compared to the chance to avoid such a massive catastrophe and everything that followed? Especially since our hero has already lost so much of what counts in life, anyway... If he can stop the assassination and tweak history in one or two other ways... But the moral of this story, which has some truly mind-bending revelations in the latter half/third of the book, is to beware of what you wish for, and the world that you might end up creating, and that OTHERS may then want to alter... 3.9 stars. Intriguing, if sometimes hackneyed, and even though thinking through the scenarios sometimes made my head hurt. Made me think that it's time to re-read or listen to Connie Willis -- Blackout and All Clear -- again, though. And worth it.

43. The Victorian and the Romantic: A Memoir, a Love Story, and a Friendship Across Time by Nell Stevens

I started reading this quasi-memoir/quasi-novel/quasi-work of metafiction warily, as I had been less than thrilled by the author's debut, a memoir entitled Bleaker House, in which she tries to write a novel while living somewhere in the Falklands and existing on something like 1,000 calories a day. That struck me as the epitome of "stunt memoirs", a genre I loathe. This, on the other hand, fascinated and intrigued me. It's simultaneously the author's own story (possibly fictionalized?) of her attempts to write a PhD thesis about Mrs. Gaskell and the circle of writers and other artists who gathered in Rome in the mid-19th century (eg the Brownings, inter alia.) She juxtaposes that struggle with a definitely fictionalized version of Mrs. Gaskell's own trip to Rome at a critical point in her life, just after the death of her friend Charlotte Brontē and the publication of her version of Brontë's life, which would be much criticized. (Although in retrospect, some of what she was forced to retract may have been accurate...) It's about love and literature, in essence, and it's moving and thought provoking. 4.4 stars

44. Wanderer by Sarah Léon

This was an angst-driven novel, obviously in homage to Goethe and other German romantics whose music and lyrics underpin the themes. A composer spends half of his life in a wintry retreat, isolated from the world -- then suddenly, his former protegé shows up on his doorstep. The latter had rejected him years earlier and the rift had never been repaired. Now, suddenly, he shows up, coughing and obviously less than well, on our narrator's front door on a snowy evening. The genius pianist is a wanderer (German, he now lives in France; he loves to walk, even in deep snow, for hours at a time); and he is addicted to the music of Schubert (who wrote a song sequence about winter travel as well as a piece known as the wanderer. So there are a lot of high-level references here. And if you don't get those, you'll miss much of the point of this book, which resides in subtext, which I find annoying. That said, it's still beautifully written and translated, with the reader being filled in seamlessly on the past with narration in italics that weaves itself into the principal narrative so elegantly that it's stunning. But good writing isn't enough to levitate this novel to 5-star status. It's a thing of beauty, but self-consciously so, which leaves it at 4 stars for me.

141SandDune
Feb 12, 2019, 5:38 pm

>140 Chatterbox: I've just read The Victorian and the Romantic (or as it's called in the UK Mrs Gaskell and Me - which I think is a much better title by the way). I don't think I enjoyed it as much as you, but it was a worthwhile read.

142Chatterbox
Feb 12, 2019, 6:07 pm

>141 SandDune: I agree that's a much better title... Looking at the early ratings I don't think many people enjoyed it as much as I did; in some cases they quibbled over the novelization of Mrs Gaskell's life; in others ??? I confess I got a bit weary of her lovelorn agonizing and illnesses, but the insight into the PhD process and linking the fictional imaginings to her creative retelling of her own experience was intriguing and fresh for me.

143ffortsa
Feb 12, 2019, 8:13 pm

>140 Chatterbox: Weapons of Math Destruction has been on my radar for a while. Glad to know you found it fascinating and pertinent. I hadn't heard of Fatal Discord, but it sounds intriguing. A long listen, evidently, but probably easier than holding the book. I might try the Kindle, if it's available, or get the audio.

144benitastrnad
Feb 13, 2019, 10:03 am

Two years ago the College of Education here at The University of Alabama read Weapons of Math Destruction for the college wide faculty book discussion. It was the semester right after the election and we found so many things to talk about from that book. The book is amazing, in that it takes something that most people don't know about and think they can't understand and puts it in a from that makes it easy for people to understand as well as read. That is no mean feat for an author. I think she did an amazing job. This book helped me to better understand how insurance works, and how banking works, much better. It didn't make me an expert but it did push back the misty veils a bit. I think it is a very important book and I wish that more people would read it.

145Chatterbox
Feb 13, 2019, 12:56 pm

>144 benitastrnad: A very accurate, on-point assessment of why Weapons of Math Destruction is so crucial. It isn't just about how insurance or banking work, but how algorithms have changed the way they work. Indeed, I just read an article in the Washington Post about a long-term IRS employee forced to take out a payday loan to survive, simply because her FICO scores had tumbled so low due to the shutdown that even a sympathetic bank manager wouldn't give her alone to enable her to save her car (needed to get to work) from repossession. (This is someone who earns about $35k a year in a clerical/staff role, with 16 plus years on the job...) So, a bank manager who might previously look at the person to determine whether he/she is a good risk as a human being, disqualifies them out of hand because of the credit score, even though the circumstances for that decline have nothing to do with them as a person... It's bizarre and dangerous.

>143 ffortsa: Yes, "Fatal Discord" is worth reading. It's pricey for Kindle, which is one reason I got the audiobook (I paid much less for a credit on Audible that I could swap for the book, than the Kindle version costs.) That said, I may well add the Kindle version at some point down the road if it goes on sale, simply because it's so good and richly detailed. I'd like to be able to refer to it, and that just isn't possible with an audiobook in the same way. Don't try the physical book -- you'll cripple your hands!!!

My new Aimovig arrived yesterday and (after two doses that arrived spoiled) it was fine to take. So I did (two weeks after I should have taken the next dose, which is why my head has been so bad) and promptly woke up with a migraine this morning. Piffle.

146Caroline_McElwee
Feb 13, 2019, 2:46 pm

>140 Chatterbox: Some interesting reads there Suz.

147thornton37814
Feb 13, 2019, 4:47 pm

>107 Chatterbox: I really didn't like Jacobs' book that much. I think your 4 stars is more than generous.

148Chatterbox
Feb 13, 2019, 9:19 pm

>147 thornton37814: For me, the interest lay in the themes he explored, rather than the way he did it. There were aspects of it, from it being "all about ME, and aren't I FASCINATING!" that made me crazy. (I could have written a better book about these themes...) But he does manage to touch on many key issues, so I gave him points for that...

149ChelleBearss
Feb 14, 2019, 1:39 pm

Happy Valentine's Day!! ❤️💚💗💙

150Chatterbox
Feb 15, 2019, 1:31 am

Thanks for the cupid, Chelle, and happy V-Day to all!!

45. Judas Flowering by Jane Aiken Hodge

As a teenager, I read one of Aiken Hodge's novels that turns out to have been the middle book in a series of five about various members of this family over a 40-year timespan or so, and since many are now available for deep discount for Kindle, or I've been able to nab them for free, I thought I would try to read some of the others.Hmm. Mixed bag. This starts off in Savannah just as the American Revolution is breaking out and involves conflicted family loyalties and all kinds of improbable plot twists, as well as characters who seem to be one thing but end up being not nice but quite dreadful (a Hodge trademark.) Hart Purchis undergoes a transformation in loyalties and ends the book supporting the revolutionaries, and being forced to flee Savannah with the young woman he had saved from a mob, after all kinds of ups and downs. 3.4 stars. Meh.

46. *The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

This was an audiobook "re-read", picked up as the only kind of thing I could listen to with a migraine when I couldn't concentrate on a new book (listening to it, even) and couldn't read. I quite like this perspective on Anne Boleyn's too-well-known story: from the perspective of a sister who is also a rival. Unlike many readers, I don't feel that the author took too many historical liberties (as she certainly did in her books about the Plantagenets/the Wars of the Roses), and she is less of a lazy writer here than she became later on. Moreover, the audiobook is quite good. 4.1 stars.

47. On the Bright Side: The new secret diary of Hendrik Groen by Hendrik Groen

This is the sequel to the The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, which I read and relished a year or so ago -- originally published under a pseudonym (I think) in the Netherlands, and the first person diary-form chronicle of an elderly man living in an old-age home in North Amsterdam, writing about the adventures of the members of the fellow members of the "Old But Not Dead Club" and the daily indignities and larger tragedies that go along with living into your 80s and becoming invisible and irrelevant to the wider world. Excellent and appealing, if perhaps slightly too long this time. Sharply biting, sometimes poignant. Will be out soon in the US and already is out in the UK. 4.2 stars.

48. *The Winds of War by Herman Wouk

I have had this sitting on my Audible account for years -- literally, since I got my Audible account, I think. Finally got around to listening to it (another re-read) as part of my quest for books I already know well to listen to when seized by migraines. It has been many, many years -- perhaps 15 or 20 -- since I read this and its sequel, so I find myself interested in the level of detail in the book that doesn't exist in the miniseries, which I think I must have watched more recently. I first read the book while living in Japan, where it formed part of my very tiny library at grad school, and so got re-read multiple times. It thus became one of a handful of books that I came to know TOO well. Was living in Japan at the same time when the miniseries aired there, and saw it then. Every time I've come back to this book, something different has struck me. As I have grown older, it's the author's rather dismissive approach to his female characters, both in terms of how he describes them as people and in terms of the plot. They really aren't terribly convincing, even when they could be strong characters. This time around I even found myself with sympathy for Rhoda Henry, whom Wouk clearly despises as a character/person -- he loses no opportunity to paint her in a negative light. I think this will be my final re-read of these books. (I'm now listening to the sequel, which is MUCH longer.) 3.8 stars.

49. Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee

The author is a friend and longtime source of mine, as well as an early investor in Facebook. And he's a technology junkie, who always has been fascinated by the evolution of the Internet and the various businesses that it has enabled to exist. But in early 2016, he began to realize that the quest by Facebook to build a business without "friction" and to maximize revenues, via the use of data harvesting and marketing, conflicted with all kinds of democratic fundamentals, not to mention FB's own statements of principles with respect to "users" -- a phrase McNamee takes issue with. And while he is one of the privileged handful to have had easy access to Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg (he was an early mentor of Zuckerberg's), that access dried up the second he became critical or questioning of the business model. Which is when he got very curious indeed about how the technology really was being applied, the underlying algorithms, and the way that screen-based technologies, Google, FB, Twitter, etc. have developed technologies to monetize us, sometimes without our knowledge and in ways we don't even fully understand. When that monetization also involves manipulation, well, that crosses all kinds of barriers... Clearly, Roger wrote this rapidly, and there is repetition of key arguments throughout; stylistically, it's imperfect. But it's a Silicon Valley insider's view of what has gone wrong, which makes these insights particularly valuable (it's a great book to have read, as I did, only a few weeks after Weapons of Math Destruction, which also tackles the question of the misuse of quantitative models in myriad ways, from lending to prison sentencing.) I'm giving it 4.35 stars. Before you walk away from Facebook in disgust -- read it. And the issues it explores will explain why one of the presidential candidates among the Democrats who most interests me so far is Amy Klobuchar, for whom data protection and Internet privacy are big issues (along with climate change and other more predictable Democratic platform elements...) 4.3 stars

50. Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley

Another novel to which I had very mixed reactions. I found Hadley's character portrayals fascinating and vivid, and the heart of the plot -- how a core group of survivors of two couples responds when one person dies, and the ripple effects on a wider circle of family, friends and acquaintances -- to be fascinating and something I responded to. At least, I responded to it intellectually. And I reacted to some of the little vignettes in this, but others felt staged and posed and artificial. And ultimately the whole novel felt somewhat constrained and predictable: a lot of privileged people dealing in melodramatic ways with grief and agonizing over the ways they deal with it. It irritated me on as many levels as it appealed to me on. 4.2 stars.

51. Wide Is the Water by Jane Aiken Hodge

The second book about the Purchis family, in which Hart, now a privateer, is captured by the British while his wife is embroiled in all kinds of conspiracies. A lot of it is far too improbable, and Hart's British family entanglements are just downright silly, as his obliviousness. 3.3 stars.

52. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by John Radden Keefe

One in my ongoing streak of winning, top-notch non-fiction books. That said, if you think it's about a single woman's murder, you'd be wrong. At first I was confused, because that's how it's presented. But no: the opening chapters, in which the widowed mother of 10 children, ages 6 to 20, Jean MacConville, is kidnapped from her own Belfast home in front of those children by mask-wearing people in 1972, never to be seen again, is suddenly followed by the tale of Dolours Price, a teenager and child of IRA members radicalized on a peace march who goes and joins the IRA. In fact, perhaps only a third or a quarter of this book is devoted to the mystery of the woman snatched from her home, with the author spending significantly more time on key IRA figures like Price, Gerry Adams and "Dark" Hughes, for reasons that only start to become apparent halfway through the book. Did the IRA kidnap Jean, and if so, why? The book revolves around IRA "culture", including the death penalty meted out summarily to anyone believed to be a "traitor" or sneak, and Keefe addresses all kinds of crimes that people like Price certainly were involved in as part of the republican struggle to get the British out of Northern Ireland, as well as the broader sectarian violence and the toll it took on civil society in Ulster. But the Good Friday accords didn't put an end to bombs, and they didn't solve the mysteries of a handful of cases of people who had disappeared -- and ironically enough, it would be attempts to document IRA history at Boston College that would begin to lead to answers. This is a fascinating book, and Keefe does his best to remain a neutral observer in it all. 4.4 stars.

53. Death is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa

I think this Syrian novel has just been published and it's well worth seeking out. Three children, long since estranged from each other and their father, who has been living in the besieged town of S. until he fell ill, now have reluctantly teamed up to drive his dead body almost the length of the country, past countless checkpoints, to bury it in the same tomb as his long-dead sister. It's a country in which almost no one dies of normal old age any longer, as Abdel Latif has done, and in which the soldiers at one checkpoint even try to arrest his dead body because his name appears on a list of regime opponents. The tale gets more and more bizarre, the siblings' plight more and more extreme, the journey prolonged by the most extreme obstacles. A tale of the futility of war, of whether it's even possible to talk about "life" in a country dominated by war and death. Impressive. 4.5 stars.

54. *The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

Another audiobook re-read; the beginning of the four-book series by Stewart retelling the legend of Merlin and Arthur. I think I first read this six or seven years ago and very much liked it; I'm also enjoying the audio version a great deal. In this first book, we follow the very young Merlin from his earliest childhood to his coming of age and the conception of Arthur, an event that will divide Merlin from King Uther, his relative, who has just succeeded to the British throne. 4.3 stars. Will definitely be continuing to listen to this series quite soon.

55. Triple Jeopardy by Anne Perry

After endless books featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt dating back to the early 1980s, Anne Perry has begun a series with their son, Daniel, now aged 25 and a junior barrister, as the central character. This is the second in that series (I read it as an advance review copy) and while not as interesting in the first, is a BIG advance over what had become the rather tedious and repetitive series featuring the senior Pitts and her other characters. This outing for Daniel, in which he finds himself defending a British diplomat his American brother-in-law (a DC policeman) believes to be responsible for attacking a young woman on quite different charges of extortion, is a bit too convoluted, and left me wondering sometimes just who knows what, and why the book's plot had to be THAT tortuous. Still, I found it a good yarn and devoured it in nearly a single setting. 3.8 stars.

56. Becoming by Michelle Obama

Someone I know was at Harvard Law School with Michelle Obama and told me that her clearest memory of her in those years was how reluctant she was to talk to anyone but the other African-American students. That kind of surprised me, in light of the later tone of the Obama presidency -- so I was interested to read in this book Michelle Obama's acknowledgment (indirectly) of this and the reasons for this -- what it's like to exist as someone who has grown up within a majority black community to be suddenly placed in Ivy League colleges as a very small minority and not really feel as if you belong. I'm still not sure that she would understand how my friend A felt -- which was that her attempts to get to know the then-Michelle Johnson, whom she sat beside in three courses were spurned because A was white -- but I at least know how Obama herself felt. And there are many, many thoughtful and provocative insights throughout this exceptionally well-written and ruthlessly honest memoir. Not just the obvious stuff that has been written about -- that she had a miscarriage, that she doesn't like politics, etc. -- but more nuanced stuff. She writes about the way in which grief has a physical impact in a way that made me stop and reread a solitary paragraph several times. She writes about how easy it is to become trapped in a definition of success that you don't necessarily subscribe to, because it is a generally-held definition, and it's just, well, easier, to go along with it. Ironically, I found the final section, about the presidency, to be (on the margins) the least interesting of the three parts into which Obama divides the book. She does, however, capture the sense of bewilderment at what it means to become a public person brilliantly. Very strongly recommended. This is the rare memoir that is carefully constructed, conceived and written, but whose author -- while perhaps paying attention to some of the "optics" -- is more concerned about being honest in her account and in being understood and SEEN than in being liked by all her readers. Certainly, I came away feeling that this is an admirable and committed person, even if I also ended up feeling that she'd be less than interested in anything to do with me, because I simply wouldn't register on her radar as I'm middle class, educated, and benefit from the privilege that being white in a still racist society gives me. It's an interesting gut response, and I'm not sure how accurate it is, but the fact that I had it tells me Obama's recounting of her life story wasn't just fascinating but also ruthlessly honest, and the kind of voice that we hear too little of these days. 4.65 stars. If you don't read this, you'll be shortchanging yourself.

151benitastrnad
Feb 18, 2019, 3:49 pm

My local Barnes & Noble book discussion group discussed Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker yesterday. The group liked the book, but only one of them had finished it. (I haven't as I have several other books to get done and back to the library.) Several of them said that they were going to read the second book because they really liked the first one.

While they were talking about it, I kept thinking about The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson which I read several years ago and liked. That book was also set in the 9th century and was about the Christianization of Denmark - which at the time was what we know of as the modern countries of Denmark and Norway.

We also brought up the series by Bernard Cornwell - Last Kingdom - both the TV shows and the books.

There are fans of Hartsuyker out there. All of the members of this group are women and they like Svenhild.

152Chatterbox
Feb 18, 2019, 4:20 pm

>151 benitastrnad: I just picked up Mist Over Athelney by Geoffrey Trease, my fave children's author, to re-read, and what has struck me is how favorable/warm and fuzzy his view of Alfred the Great's wife is, compared with that of Bernard Cornwell's books (told through the eyes of a pagan/born Christian supporter of Alfred's). Generally, what I like about Trease's novels is that the royal characters are ancillary to the main story, and almost always include a strong female character. Trease was a socialist when he was writing back in the 40s, 50s, and on, and this was his way of showing that history was about real people and not just princes and princesses. Which is why I liked them so much -- people like ME could have great adventures!! Oh, and they were great plots and very well written.

153benitastrnad
Feb 18, 2019, 5:45 pm

#152
I think the same about the Rosemary Sutcliffe books. It was with great difficulty that I weeded some of them from the collection this last fall. They are still good books as I reread Eagle of the Ninth and then read Silver Branch and Lantern Bearers for the first time. Great stuff in those books - still.

154benitastrnad
Feb 19, 2019, 5:25 pm

Some of our co-readers are reading Louisa May Alcott books this month. I am not joining them, because I had read Little Women years ago and liked it well enough (along with Little Men and Eight Cousins) but the book never really came alive for me until before an ALA conference in Boston (before I knew you and Marianne) a couple of us librarians pooled our money, rented a car, and drove out to Concord to tour the home of Louisa May Alcott. It was a fantastic trip and I gained a new appreciation for Alcott, her talent, and her books.

Today during my lunch I started reading Girl From Yamhill: A Memoir by Beverly Cleary. You might remember her as the author of those childhood classics like Ramona and Her Mother and Henry and Beezus. A few weeks ago I went to a wine tasting party and the man who did the program did it on Oregon Pinot Noir wines from the Willamette Valley. The wines were from the area around McMinnville. McMinnville is 80 miles south of Portland, so perhaps you are familiar with it. He told us that McMinnville is the center of the wine growing region there, but that other small towns like Yamhill were also important growing areas in the Willamette Valley with their own appellations. That name rang a bell and it was several hours later when I realized that Yamhill was the home of Beverly Cleary. I want to go there! I checked out the plane tickets because Spring Break is coming up and I yelled Yikes! very loudly. Tickets from Birmingham to Portland are $657.00. That is too rich for my blood, so I will just have to dream of a Spring Break trip to Oregon. As an alternative I am taking a trip to Yamhill by reading the Beverly Cleary's memoir of her growing up years in Yamhill in the 1930's. Now if I do go there the place will not only be a wine place, but a book place as well.

I hope that someday a visit to Yamhill will do the same for Cleary that my visit to Concord did for my appreciation of Alcott. After that visit I read the Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Alcott and her father Eden's Outcasts. At some point I would like to go back to Concord and do a literary tour of all the literati homes in the area.

155magicians_nephew
Feb 20, 2019, 4:48 pm

Winds of War had its problems

i do think War And Remembrance is the better book. Maybe I'll dig out my hardbacked copy and give it another go

156benitastrnad
Editado: Feb 21, 2019, 12:15 pm

I started listening to City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab. She is considered a somewhat local author since she resides in Nashville and this title is on the ALA Notable Children's Books list for 2019. The book came into the library and I checked it out. It is 283 pages in length. I then discovered the recorded version in the public library collection so checked it out. I was surprised to see that it only had 4 CD's. The total listening length is 4 1/2 hours. That is a short book - even for children's books. When I looked at the printed book, I was shocked. If that printed book were a paper that a college student handed in it would be turned back because the author was obviously cheating. The book is at least tripe spaced between lines and probably more like 3 1/2 lines. The publisher really stretcheeeeeeeeeeeeed this book. It is really about a 200 page book, but in this modern age, that would put it squarely into the books for middle grades space. Those don't sell in huge numbers like YA books. Since the protagonist of this novel is in high school it was meant to be a YA book, but it would have been a short one. That might have made it look so NOT YA that they played a trick on us consumers. When I showed it to the students who work in our library we all got a good laugh because they get guidelines printed in the class syllabi that are very specific. Font style, size, and page formatting are all listed. No short papers! Clearly publishers don't have to follow those kinds of rules.

So far the novel is pretty good and the narration is well done.

157Chatterbox
Feb 21, 2019, 11:31 pm

>155 magicians_nephew: Do you remember why you felt that War and Remembrance was the better of the two? I think I'm going to conclude that they are different, in that the first is a kind of windup, a ratcheting up of the tension, while the second volume (which is longer...) is the unfolding of all the themes and plot lines the author develops or sets out in the first. I think that perhaps I'm not completely convinced by some of the characters or at least, by his depiction of them, so I find his resolutions less than convincing. Wouk almost completely abandons the character of Madeline, the Henrys' daughter, and treats her about-face from ambitious young woman to married wife in Los Alamos by the end of book 2, as if it's matter of fact, and there's no foundation for it at all. I found Natalie falling for Byron Henry to be equally unconvincing -- a triumph of style over substance for this woman that he portrays as the epitome of a savvy, witty bluestocking? It makes no sense. And he really is quite disparging of his female characters. Pamela is flighty, but really wants nothing more than a father figure to love and look after her. Sigh.

158LizzieD
Feb 21, 2019, 11:58 pm

Ah, Suzanne, you have done your job and given me mortal book wounds with the Erasmus/Luther book and the Lady Emily series. Thanks. I'll hope to get to them and to Ms. Obama.
Hope the new, good Aimovig kicks in and takes out the migraines. While I'm hoping, I'll hope that a new, interesting writing project pops up offering you some decent money for your work.
I read the Wouks long ago and even went to a local discussion of *W&R*. I was quickly irritated that they tried to discuss it as literature and remember saying (snot that I was) that I would never expect Wouk to write the Great American Novel. I enjoyed flipping pages and then I let them go.

159benitastrnad
Feb 22, 2019, 12:52 pm

#157
I always felt that "Pamela" in Wouk's works was a thinly disguised Pamela Harriman.

160magicians_nephew
Feb 22, 2019, 2:03 pm

>157 Chatterbox: certainly the journalist in London is a not very thinly disguised Edward R Murrrow. But openly talking about Murrow's catting around in London at that time maybe was "too soon".

Wouk had a problem I think in making his hero a Navy man as the early parts of the story just don't have much to do with the Navy. So he's attached to am embassy and meets Hitler and others like that.

I think the second book with the war on is better and the writing about Natalie(?) the Jewish woman in Thereienstadt is pretty good.

His take on FDR is my biggest problem - making him seem both omniscient and omnipotent. It's the Readers Digest view on the war I guess

The chapters from the point of view of the German Major are pretty good though. And the discussion of the Battle of Midway is very good.

We didn't know enough about the war in Russia then - the records were still restricted - so those chapters are to be skipped over.

161Chatterbox
Feb 22, 2019, 2:20 pm

>159 benitastrnad: It's an interesting comparison, in that Wouk's Pamela has relationships all over the place and describes herself at one point as possessing the morals of an alley cat. But she doesn't seem to be a social climber, except accidentally. That said, Wouk could have be trying to depict her as one, and it simply didn't work...

>160 magicians_nephew: Yes, Wouk's FDR is downright saintly. He wants to save the Jews and is stopped only by obstreperous State Department types. And I completely agree with your view of this as the "Reader's Digest" view of the war. I suppose that having Warren be a naval aviator and Byron a submariner, Victor Henry had to be in a job that enabled him to be part of the navy and still connect all the other threads of the tale. Which meant a battleship guy dispatched to Berlin as part of the diplomatic mission. I found that convincing, though not really Victor Henry's ability to forecast the pact with the Soviets OR his willingness to bypass chain of command with that career-altering memo. And Aaron is such a selfish git that even in the 1930s, I think family members would have told him to sort out his own nonsense. Wouk takes great leaps to ensure that Natalie remains in peril along with her husband. Sigh. I think I know these books too well by now.

162katiekrug
Feb 22, 2019, 2:40 pm

You and Jim are making me want to re-read TWoW and WaR. I read them in my early 20s while working in DC, when I would snap up the thickest paperbacks I could find because I had such a long commute.

163Chatterbox
Feb 23, 2019, 4:08 pm

Speaking of Winds of War and War and Remembrance, there appear to be an almost surreal number of WW2 related novels and non-fiction books that came out last year or are due out this year. In non-fiction, I've already read Madame Fourcade's Secret War by Lynne Olson (very good) and They Fought Alone by Charles Glass (very mediocre; I still have D-Day Girls by Sarah Rose to read, although I've been put off by the assertion in the ARC that I have that hers is the first book to tell the story of women who fought for SOE. It absolutely is NOT. There have been some decent books, ranging from memoirs and biographies, to excellent books like A Life in Secrets by Sarah Helm, so the assertion is bizarre. What is equally odd is that all three are about the SOE or MI6 related activities in Occupied France.

On the fiction side there is Julie Orringer's long-awaited new novel, The Flight Portfolio, about Varian Fry and the International Rescue Committee, which is very good. Then I've just completed the extremely underwhelming The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff, who takes a very laissez-faire approach to facts and history. (In a prior book, she had people listening to the declaration of war -- world war 1 in 1914 -- on the radio/wireless. Erm, nope.) Jennifer Chiaverini, who is a mediocre writer (very stolid prose) has an interesting characters in her upcoming book, Resistance Women, about the circle of left-leaning, socialist and communists in Berlin prior to and during the war who funneled intelligence to the Soviet Union, and who were dubbed the Red Orchestra. I've dipped into it. Then I have ARCs of The Ventriloquists by E.R. Ramzipoor (resistance in Belgium), Paris 7 A.M. by Liza Wieland (Elizabeth Bishop dealing with rescuing Jewish orphans in 1937) and The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan (the home front in the UK).

Good grief. Yes, I suppose this year is an anniversary year of the beginning of the war in September, but... Is it just that people now find it easier to write about these issues now that they are at a safe distance in time and many of the people involved aren't with us any longer?

Meanwhile, I "re-listened" to Zoo Station in the last two or three days and really relished it. I don't know why I only gave it 3.5 stars when I first got the book, because after reading several mediocre books by Alan Furst, I now think that THIS series by Downing is excellent, especially the first three or four books. The debut novel is very well tied together, with an excellent contrast between the suspenseful and ominous atmosphere and the contrast with "ordinary" life. There are some great scenes of this, how ordinary life gradually morphs. I think I'll try to add more volumes of the series to my Audible library. That said, I have no time for Downing's follow-up series, featuring a Boy's Own-style superhero, unflawed and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. When things go wrong for him, you know you're supposed to think it's the fault of other people, and not because he ever made a mistake. Which is the great thing about John Russell, the hero of these earlier novels -- he's a nuanced, flawed character, who does his best to do the right thing, while acknowledging his cowardice.

A final note on this subject: last night at the Athenaeum, a North Carolina lawyer spoke about his passion project, editing and annotating a book originally published in 1947, From Day to Day by Odd Nansen, the son of Fridtjof Nansen, the famous Norwegian Arctic explorer and politician. He was arrested as a kind of hostage and held for more than three years in a variety of camps, including, ultimately, Sachsenhausen, and managed to keep a diary throughout -- a diary that this lawyer learned about when reading A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal. So, Timothy Boyce reads that, finds the reference to this Norwegian prisoner whose privilege is being able to receive Red Cross parcels, and who out of the blue, decides to use his parcels to bribe camp doctors to keep the young Tommy off lists for extermination after his toes were amputated following the Auschwitz death March in January 1945. Tommy's youth and innocence, meanwhile, somehow gave Nansen back a sense of hope, it seems. But Boyce couldn't find a copy of the diary: it had been published, well reviewed but sunk without a trace in the late 1940s. And he decided to get it reprinted. It took him six years to find a publisher (Vanderbilt University Press finally did it and the result is a massive 600 plus page tome, that I decided I didn't need to own -- the Kindle version costs less than $9, the hardcover that was being sold was about $40, plus tax, so nooo...) Interesting factoid: Buergenthal, whose book led Boyce to the Nansen diaries, became part of the Int'l Court of Justice (he moved to the US in his early teens, got a master's and PhD in law, focusing on human rights law because of Nansen...) and when the book was published, when he was in his early 80s, he wrote the preface for the new edition, just as Nansen had dedicated his own book to the young "Tommy", with whom at that point he had lost touch.

164paulstalder
Feb 23, 2019, 4:25 pm


I wish you a blessed weekend - soaring like this jackdaw

165Chatterbox
Feb 24, 2019, 3:05 am

>164 paulstalder: Thanks for the wonderful image and sentiment, Paul!!

166benitastrnad
Feb 28, 2019, 1:35 pm

I finished two books. One last night and one this morning. I listened to the Middle Grades novel City of Ghosts by the up and coming YA author Victoria Schwab. She writes fantasy. This one was a ghost story and just came out in December of 2018. It was a quick easy listen and perfect for Middle Schoolers. However, I have to say I was perplexed at first, because the book has 285 pages, but the recorded version is 4 CD's and just about 5 hours of listening time. 285 pages should be more like 7 hours of listening time. When I looked at the book I discovered why the discrepancy. The book is a classic example of a publisher stretching a book to the limits. The margins are very wide. The font size is huge - it must be 14 point. The lines have to be triple spaced or at least double and a half. This is clearly a case of a publisher making a short length novel longer so that it will appeal to a different audience. I showed this book to the students who work here and we all got a good laugh, because they are always trying to stretch assignments to meet requirements and they wouldn't be allowed to get away with that kind of blatant stretching.

167benitastrnad
Feb 28, 2019, 1:41 pm

The other book I finished this morning was Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson. I found this historical fiction to be delightful. It has had good reviews and I am going to encourage people to read it. It was light but not fluffy. It had a predictable plot, but it was engaging and I never got bored with it. The end made me cry and like Suz said somewhere, if a book can do that, it is worth its salt no matter what genre it is in. It is about the "Royal Wedding" - the one in 1947 and the book is filled with details of post WWII life in England. I found that as interesting as reading about how the actual wedding gown was created and sewn. The book is about the women who worked in the design shop of Norman Hartnell, the leading British couture designer of WWII years and post WWII in Britain. The book was also full of details of how these women were trained to do what they did, and how they worked. The novel centers around the beginnings of the paparazzi culture that we see in full blown effect today. This is not my usual fiction reading fare, but I really liked this book and hope that others will pick it up and read it.

168FAMeulstee
Mar 3, 2019, 5:02 pm

I see you passed the magic number toaday, Suzanne, congratulations on reaching 75!

169Chatterbox
Mar 3, 2019, 5:40 pm

170Caroline_McElwee
Mar 3, 2019, 5:52 pm

Congratulations. I'm never going to do that in two months ha.

171Chatterbox
Mar 3, 2019, 8:51 pm

>170 Caroline_McElwee: Probably because you are a normal, non-neurotic reader... Which is likely a good thing for your social life, relationships, etc. etc.

172Chatterbox
Mar 6, 2019, 6:35 pm

Has anyone else read The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem yet?? I loved Motherless Brooklyn and enjoyed Chronic City, so was looking forward to a post-Trump novel, but his??? He chose to write through the eyes of a female character and it was completely. utterly. unconvincing. He's trying to deliver a noir novel that says something Deeply Meaningful about Trumpian America in a surrealistic way, and he struggles and flounders. A big part of the problem is Phoebe, the main character, who is just flimsy. If she's supposed to be real, I have to wonder why Lethem chose to make such a vapid and unconvincing presence the first person narrator. There's nothing real or urgent here, just self-referential BS. And if that's what we're supposed to focus on, then WTF? A supremely annoying novel, salvaged somewhat by the writing, but only to 2.25 stars. Which is fairly damning, making it the worst novel I've read so far this year. Look, it's not the WORST -- but measured against what it attempts and pretends to do, and what Lethem could and should do, it definitely is. UGH. And it reinforces my sense that when older men try to see the world through the eyes of millennial women, they really flounder. You know, it's not about easy clichés... Supremely annoying novel.

173katiekrug
Mar 6, 2019, 9:14 pm

>172 Chatterbox: - So that's a no, then. Not that it had been on my radar but good to know :)

174Chatterbox
Mar 6, 2019, 10:01 pm

>173 katiekrug: Well, if you want my advice, yes, it's a no. Go read Motherless Brooklyn, which is bloody brilliant.

175Chatterbox
Mar 7, 2019, 7:52 pm

So, here's the list of the Walter Scott Prize longlist nominees (along with my highly subjective comments!!)

Little by Edward Carey: READ. Just read this, was underwhelmed. I liked the writing, struggled with historical inaccuracies and the distortions that turned some of the characters into grotesque-like figures. Creative, but...

A Long Way From Home by Peter Carey: I have an unread ARC...

After The Party by Cressida Connolly: Unread copy on my UK Kindle

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan: Unread e-galley somewhere

The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey: on my UK Kindle

Dark Water by Elizabeth Lowry: not yet published in the US and too pricey for me to be for UK Kindle (yet)

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller: Got this as soon as it appeared in the UK, plan to read soon.

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje: READ and liked this, although it's not my fave of Ondaatje's. Intriguing.

The Wanderers by Tim Pears: Plan/want to read, but need to read the first of the trilogy first.

The Long Take by Robin Robertson: I have an e-galley but am in no rush to read this Man Booker nominee.

All The Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy: The story intrigues me, but Sleeping on Jupiter didn't knock my socks off, so this is lower priority.

Tombland by C J Sansom: READ, and really really loved this. As with all the books in the series. Shardlake is an amazing character.

So my priority will be to read the novels by Cressida Connolly, Andrew Miller and Samantha Harvey, and to read the first of the Tim Pears trilogy. After that, I'll probably move on to Peter Carey's book and that by Edugyan.

So many books, so little time...

176TheWorstOffender
Mar 7, 2019, 9:28 pm

Este miembro ha sido suspendido del sitio.

177vivians
Mar 8, 2019, 10:57 am

Thanks for the great longlist comments. I'm planning to read all of them and am glad to have a headstart on having finished 4. I loved Tombland and The Wanderers, was less thrilled than most about Washington Black, and hugely admired Warlight. I think you introduced me to this prize and I 've always enjoyed all the new titles and authors.

178figsfromthistle
Mar 8, 2019, 11:28 am

>175 Chatterbox: I quite enjoy lists! So far, I've read two of them. I recently finished After the party. It will be interesting to see your comments on that one after you have read it.

179Chatterbox
Mar 8, 2019, 2:43 pm

For now, I just finished reading The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan, a new-to-me Irish mystery series. Very good... I just got approved for the sequel's e-galley, The Scholar, and may make that a priority. When my current migraine leaves...

180PaulCranswick
Mar 9, 2019, 4:42 am

Like the look of the Walter Scott longlist, Suz.

Will work my way through it but, knowing me, pretty slowly.

181Chatterbox
Mar 9, 2019, 5:07 pm

>180 PaulCranswick: I don't think I'll be any faster! I have a LOT of book stalagmites around here...

182Chatterbox
Mar 10, 2019, 3:01 pm

For those who are interested: the Kindle version of Milkman by Anna Burns, which won the Man Booker prize last year, is available for sale for $3.99 today only. Since I had gone grocery shopping and turned my spare coins into an Amazon gift certificate via a Coinstar machine, that was an easy decision. (I used the rest for a Kindle sale version of Lucia Berlin's short story anthology, which I didn't finish when I borrowed it from the public library several years ago.)

183thornton37814
Mar 10, 2019, 10:05 pm

>182 Chatterbox: I have the print book sitting next to my couch but I have a couple things ahead of it.

184Chatterbox
Mar 11, 2019, 5:08 pm

I just got approved for the NetGalley version of Anna of Kleve by Alison Weir, the latest in a series of six chunkster novels about Henry VIII's six wives. Two of the three so far have been quite good (the first, Catherine of Aragon, and then the third, about Jane Seymour), so I'm kinda looking forward to this and may prioritize it when done with the books I'm reading now...

185Chatterbox
Mar 12, 2019, 4:25 pm

Someone hacked into my credit card account and merrily started charging small amounts -- $10.81 to Walgreens (online); $25 to iTunes. Good grief. It will take a week or so to get the new card. Thank heavens for e-mail alerts -- I was able to catch this quickly.

186TheWorstOffender
Mar 12, 2019, 6:58 pm

Este miembro ha sido suspendido del sitio.

187Chatterbox
Mar 13, 2019, 2:43 pm

It was a doozy of a day. On top of that, when I called to find out where my Aimovig shipment was (it was scheduled for delivery today), I was told I had been "dropped" from the program -- which was supposed to give me this very pricey migraine medication (which actually works...) for 12 months as a bridge to insurance coverage, free. So they canceled the shipment and didn't tell me. I have had migraines in three of the last four days, including yesterday, so I was very unhappy about this and it took 40 minutes and a lot of bizarre stuff to get it sorted out. At least, I think it's sorted out. I'll have to call back tomorrow to verify. And call the dratted card company Friday to confirm that (a) the charges are disputed and (b) a new card is en route.

188ChelleBearss
Mar 14, 2019, 9:38 am

>182 Chatterbox: Kindle sales make me want a kindle sometimes! I have Milkman on hold at the library though

Sorry to see your card got scammed. Hope the credit card company wrote it off

189Chatterbox
Mar 18, 2019, 2:12 pm

I have been enjoying the "Monsarrat" mysteries by Thomas Keneally and his daughter, Meg, so much that after finishing book #3, The Power Game, and knowing that book #4 was out in Australia, I scoured Abeboooks for a copy. It arrived on Saturday... One of the few real books I have purchased this year.

190alcottacre
Mar 19, 2019, 12:07 pm

I have now scoured the 100+ messages I was behind and added tons to the BlackHole. Thanks - I think.

>81 Chatterbox: If you stumble across the Airth books and want to de-accession them, please do send them my way :)

191brodiew2
Mar 19, 2019, 2:52 pm

Hello Chatterbox! I hope all is well with you.

>163 Chatterbox: Excellent post. My two cents is that WWII is such a massive vehicle for storytelling, in a time when the enemy was clear and their purposes evil and unacceptable to all. Because the war reached into to many corners of globe, there are many true stories still to be told or approached from another angle as well as a fount for the fictional imagination of authors past present and future.

I love the WWII genre and yet, i have actively avoided Berlin Noir or espionage in Berlin during or after the war. Your mention of Zoo Station has sparked my interest, but I'm on the fence. I'm not sure where my prejudices lie regarding crime or espionage in Berlin, but my interest has never lay in that area. Should I take a chance?

192Chatterbox
Mar 19, 2019, 3:04 pm

>190 alcottacre: I will definitely do that. I think I should still have some, but am not sure where they are. Will look.

>191 brodiew2: Greetings! Yes, I see where you're coming from re WW2, especially the concept of a "clear" enemy, which enables someone to tackle a good vs evil story and remain believable. Also, I suspect that as the last veterans enter extreme old age or die, there is a sense that we want to capture those stories (often neglected in the war's immediate aftermath by those who had lived through it and wanted to get back to "normality", which meant putting their experiences behind them...)

It's interesting that you avoid what I embrace! I enjoy Berlin noir precisely because of the "noir" element, especially if it avoids the "easy" tropes and creates a great atmosphere and if the author can bring his/her characters to life. I did like Zoo Station and most of its sequels, because John Russell, the hero, is kind of an anti-hero: he really just wants to stay in Berlin and is forced to make all kinds of compromises (dealing with three different intelligence agencies...) because his half-German son, aged about 11 or 12 when the books start, resides with his ex-wife. At the same time, he has definite principles. So there's a lot of juggling -- how to do the right thing, how to avoid pissing off malicious or violent individuals, etc. This series also contains the only mildly convincing female character, his love interest, Effi, although even she isn't as well drawn as Russell is until we get to Potsdam Station. Downing just isn't great at female characters.

Meanwhile, if you want an interesting series, try those by the late Phillip Kerr, whose hard-boiled Bernie Gunther is a classic noir-ish cop, loathing the Nazis but forced to deal with them to stay alive. Most of his books (which should be read in order) combine postwar and pre-war or during the war narratives, which make them intriguing. So in essence, the series is about a German cop trying to come to grips with the postwar world, unable to shake off the legacy of the war itself. They are excellent. Also, Kerr's wife/widow, Jane Thynne, has written a much shorter series featuring an Englishwoman (whose mother was German) who moves to Berlin to try to make it in the film world, and finds herself embroiled in all kinds of stuff. I really enjoyed her characterizations, in particular, and may re-read those.

I'm trying to read an advance copy of Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini right now, but although it's a novel it feels like non-fiction with dialogue, and it's ponderous. Which is a shame, because the subject is fascinating.

193brodiew2
Mar 19, 2019, 3:18 pm

>192 Chatterbox: I do love reading you responses, chatterbox, even if I pop in every once in a while. I am familiar with Phillip Kerr, but I have never tried him out. I think, if I were to enter the genre, I'd do his first. The irony of all this Noir talk is that I went through an intensive film noir phase in my 20s and amassed quite a collection. Perhaps I should give it a try.

Apropos of nothing, I wish Rennie Airth was available on audio. That is where I will be approaching Kerr.

194Chatterbox
Mar 19, 2019, 4:05 pm

>193 brodiew2: You CAN get the first Rennie Airth mystery on audio (from Audible.com, at any rate...) And books #4 and #5 also are available. Why on earth the second and third aren't provided, I have no idea...

195brodiew2
Mar 19, 2019, 4:09 pm

>194 Chatterbox: Thanks for the heads up. My library has none on cd or by download. I'll check into King County. LOL

196Chatterbox
Mar 19, 2019, 4:30 pm

>195 brodiew2: A quick tip -- your first Audible book is free. And they are VERY good about returns -- so if you want to listen and return... Not strictly ethical, I suppose, but feasible.

197magicians_nephew
Mar 20, 2019, 3:53 pm

>192 Chatterbox: another vote for the Phillip Kerr / Bernie Gunther books

He wrote a rather strange alt-history book on the Teheran Conference which i was not crazy about but the first Trilogy of Bernie was amazingly good

198Chatterbox
Mar 21, 2019, 10:36 pm

>197 magicians_nephew: I've just started "re-listening" to the audiobook versions of the novels written by Kerr's widow, Jane Thynne, starting with Black Roses. Unfortunate choice of narrator, though, with odd mispronunciations that can't be attributed to different accents (English vs. North American.) For instance, the narrator uses the phrase "buried the lede/lead" (which should be LEED) as if it were the metal -- LEHD. It's laughable and annoying, as it's a hackneyed journalistic phrase that is pronounced the same way regardless of where one is, because it's to do with the lead-in to an article. Sigh.

199LizzieD
Mar 21, 2019, 11:08 pm

I didn't know Jane Thynne was Kerr's widow. Thanks, Suzanne.
Hope today was a good day and that tomorrow will be better.

200benitastrnad
Editado: Mar 22, 2019, 1:55 pm

I started listening to Empire Made: My Search For An Outlaw Uncle Who Vanished in British India by Kief Hillsbery. I had requested this one through ILL to listen to over Spring Break, but it didn't get here until Wednesday. I put my other book aside and will listen to this one first. So far it is good. I like the narrator, and am finding the details about the East India Company interesting as well. I think it was somebody here on LT who put me onto this title. Was it you?

201Chatterbox
Mar 22, 2019, 7:51 pm

>200 benitastrnad: Hmmm, I have this book (a NetGalley or ARC?) but I haven't read it yet, so I couldn't have recommended it.

On the other hand -- the upcoming Dr. Siri mystery by Colin Cotterill is a MUST READ...

202LizzieD
Mar 23, 2019, 12:30 am

Bellevue Square has just dropped into my price range, and I have a very nice copy here waiting for me to finish one something so that I can dive in!

203benitastrnad
Editado: Mar 23, 2019, 9:00 pm

#201
I am really liking Empire Made. It is an interesting combination of modern travelogue, genealogy research, and history of the East India Company. I even like the narrator. I think I am going to use this one for my real life book club’s travel month. We do a round robin discussion of the travel book of our choice, and this one might fit the bill for that discussion. But I’ll see as I get into it farther.

204Chatterbox
Mar 25, 2019, 3:21 pm

>202 LizzieD: I'll be really interested in your thoughts, Peggy! It's a bit "meta" and has references to Redhill's other work, including the pseudonymous mystery series, and it ends on a cliffhanger (which is annoying... and reminds me that I need to check into the sequel's timing.) I had a LOT of fun reading it, even though it constantly played with reality, but I know many other readers were "meh".

205Chatterbox
Mar 26, 2019, 12:02 pm

Migraines are affecting my reading life. It's a good thing I decided to "binge listen" to the Jane Thynne WW2 suspense/espionage yarns, as "re-listening" is about all I can do right now. That said, the narrator for these books mispronounces many words to the extent that they end up as malapropisms -- for instance, "rapprochement" ended up sounding like "reproachment", and on and on.

206ffortsa
Mar 26, 2019, 12:46 pm

How odd that this wasn't corrected. For a short time I was volunteering with a non profit that records for the blind, and the oversight and review was scrupulous.

207brodiew2
Mar 26, 2019, 4:24 pm

Hello Chatterbox! I am sorry to hear of your migraines. I hope they abate quickly.

Just because,m I thought I would report that I started listening to Presidents of War. Then I abruptly put it hold when The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. Both of them have promising starts.

208Chatterbox
Mar 26, 2019, 4:52 pm

>206 ffortsa: i suspect that it may be the difference between for-profit and non-profits? Who knows. Or perhaps whoever was reviewing it just didn't catch the isolated words that REALLY grated on me. I suppose most audiobooks have one or two phrases or words like that, but the frequency of these were surprising. Some were definitely English English versus American English (such as, when mentioning patent leather shoes, it's PAY-tent in the book rather than PAH-tent), which is fine, if somewhat irksome. But the Rue Jacob in Paris is NOT pronounced the rue YAH-cob. The J is pronounced in the French way, as in "je" (I) or "jeux" (games), or "Jean" (John).

>207 brodiew2: That's quite a leap from non-fiction to sci-fi! Hope you enjoy the book(s) though.

I have wanted to read the last 75 pages of Bangkok Wakes to Rain, which is an intriguing novel by a Thai-born author, but... my head is too bad today.

209magicians_nephew
Mar 27, 2019, 3:29 pm

>207 brodiew2: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is classic Heinlein Sci-fi chock full of historical parallels and the fruits of historical research.

Squint (and take away the deax ex machina computer) and you could be reading about the American revolution.

Loads of fun. Enjoy!

210benitastrnad
Mar 27, 2019, 7:25 pm

#208
There have been occasions when I have been irritated by narrators who don't pronounce things correctly. Or where there are inconsistencies. I enjoyed listening to the Regency Romance spoofs by Lauren Willig. The narrator of the first two recorded books pronounced the name of the heroine as El-Louise. In book three, with a different narrator, it was pronounced as E-Loyse. Eventually I spoke to the Books-On-Tape, sales representative (the company who produced the recorded version, and is one of the top producers of recorded books in the U. S.). She told me that they had numerous complaints about that discrepancy, including from the author. Book 4 was narrated by the narrator of the first two books and the pronunciation of the name remained the same for the rest of the 12 book series.

I am listening to a recorded book now Empire Made: My Search For An Outlaw Uncle Who Vanished in British India by Kief Hillsbery. I am wishing mightly that I had a hardcopy of this book, as I would like to see the names of these places and people written out. Because I can't see the words, and am not familiar with the places, I can't tell if they are being pronounced correctly or not. But I sure would like to see them in print.

211Chatterbox
Mar 27, 2019, 9:44 pm

>210 benitastrnad: I only have a NetGalley copy of "Empire Made". At least, I think so. If I discover that it's a real ARC, I'll send it along to you once I have read it...

I did my first shift in retail since 1987 today. I have come full circle, from having to work retail to cover my costs while trying to make money from freelancing, to doing precisely the same. The difference? I'm now in my 50s rather than my 20s, and I have to work in Banana Republic rather than a bookstore. Still minimum wage, though...

212LizzieD
Mar 27, 2019, 11:57 pm

Oh, Suzanne. I'm sorry about the migraines and about the Banana Republic. I'm sick about the waste of talent, and the standing and the great unwashed American public and minimum wage. I've done my bit in retail too, but I was in my 40s and was at least in a Waldenbooks.
Oh! I knew that Redhill was a vaguely familiar name. He's Inger Wolfe! I really enjoyed that first mystery and will now be inspired to get back to the others; *Bellevue* comes first though, and I'll start it tonight.

213Caroline_McElwee
Mar 28, 2019, 3:03 pm

>211 Chatterbox: good luck with the new employment while you need it Suz. I don't envy you, I know how tough customer facing services can be.

214benitastrnad
Mar 29, 2019, 8:11 pm

Thanks for the offer of the print. I could get one from ILL, but since that is where I got the recorded version they might think it odd if I got the print copy and turn it down. We do have ILL police in our library.

Retail - I always said that when I retired I was going to go to work for Starbucks. I wanted to see for myself how it works from an employees point-of-view. However, now that I am into my 60's I don't know if I could last on a shift. Some days standing is hard. I wish you well at work and I know that just having some kind of work is good, but I hope that other things will develop for you.

I just finished my annual review and I really don't give an rats behind what it looks like. I am busy every day and working hard and if they can't see that without me filling in a bunch of text boxes, oh well - I am thinking that it may be time to get the heck out of Dodge.

Add to that the fact that my mother fell again and is not being a good patient at the hospital and my sister has her hands full as well, so I am trying to juggle lots of balls.

215Chatterbox
Mar 29, 2019, 8:28 pm

Second shift today. It was weird serving people attending an editing conference at a local hotel. Oh well...

But the upside was that someone told me that I provided the best service she'd ever had in a retail store. Which is positive reinforcement that I can use. Even though I'll only be earning (net, after tax) $26 or so per four hour shift. Ugh.

216m.belljackson
Editado: Mar 30, 2019, 10:28 am

>214 benitastrnad: >215 Chatterbox:

My daughter worked at STARBUCKS for a few years in Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin.

While she loved the discounts, the mostly friendly bosses and very friendly and fun staff,
plus the FREE bag of Beans each week, even all that was hard to balance with Cleaning the Bathrooms!

Yep, those same folks stirring up your brew also act all day and night as Janitors.

217Oregonreader
Abr 1, 2019, 12:21 am

Suzanne, I'm really sorry about the recurring migraines and having to work retail. I can well believe you provide the best service. I'm sure you treat customers as human beings.

I discovered the Tasha Alexander Lady Emily series on your thread. Thank you! There is nothing I love better than a mystery series with a young, smart, lady detective, preferably British.

218Chatterbox
Abr 1, 2019, 12:44 am

I discovered a fresh downside of working two days back-to-back at BR: an inability to walk or use my arms the third day. It took me nearly all of Sunday to be able to do more than shuffle. I barely made it to my 6 p.m. bus to NYC. Argh. I am going to have to get in better shape, although part of the issue is the damn arthritis.

Poor Cassie-the-cat also is suffering. Took her to the vet Saturday morning, and her thyroid issues are not under control.

>216 m.belljackson: So very glad that there are no customer toilets to clean! I don't know who does the employee ones, but so far, that issue hasn't arisen...

>217 Oregonreader: Glad you enjoy those! I will see if I can recommend some others in the same vein...

219benitastrnad
Abr 1, 2019, 5:22 pm

#216
I knew that as I tend to hang out at my local Starbucks late at night. That is when the employees get to clean them. I find that interesting as this same Starbucks has a window cleaner come to do the windows once a week.

220PaulCranswick
Abr 7, 2019, 5:00 am

Still you are still reading a little bit, Suz.

>218 Chatterbox: I am like you in wanting to get into better shape.

Have a great Sunday

221m.belljackson
Abr 7, 2019, 10:48 am

Thank you again for the Migraine "A" shot recommendation.
After nearly 2 months of doses, my daughter has had 2-l/2 WEEKS with no major migraines!

At last, something that has helped.

222Chatterbox
Abr 7, 2019, 12:30 pm

>221 m.belljackson: I am so, so, so glad that this has helped! It definitely has helped me, but it's also crucial, I think, to maintain a consistent dose in your body. I had delivery probs in the first few months of the year (which I hope are now resolved; this coming Friday will be the test case...) and that knocked me back.

My father has moved back to Canada from Mexico, but is much frailer than he recognizes or will acknowledge, apparently. He doesn't qualify for healthcare for 3 months, but the bureaucracy won't start that clock ticking until he has an address, and the airbnb doesn't count, apparently. FFS.

Meanwhile, the new retail job is hell on my joints.

OK, whining over.

I will just say that reading Inheritance from Mother by Minae Mizumura, about a woman in her 50s with strained relationships dealing with ailing elders is resonating right now...

223Chatterbox
Abr 12, 2019, 1:50 pm

New retail job is hellish in most respects, although I enjoy meeting people. But I'm struggling to walk, even.

My father's situation is slowly resolving, but it's taking a toll on what relationship I have with my brother, which is not good. He screamed at me for not answering my phone while I was at work (fire-able offense...) so...

Needless to say, have done little reading this week!! I'm either on the phone trying to sort out stuff for my father, at work, or trying to deal with an ankle that refuses to be walked on...

Good grief.

224LizzieD
Abr 13, 2019, 12:06 am

Continuing supportive thoughts winging your way....
I hope your father gets into a good place soonest.
Also hope that you get the weekend off, but that's a slender hope at best.
Third hope - that your aimovig supply arrived in good shape today.
Fourth hope - that Cassie is getting the help she needs. Our Elle is more and more fragile as that damn cancer works its way up to her left eye. We despaired of her yesterday, but today she's had some food, water, and pain meds and is playing a bit, stretching, and lying comfortably. It's a matter of time, but we'd love more.
And finally, that you get to read a good bit without interruption.
Love to you!

225ronincats
Abr 13, 2019, 12:19 am

Sorry life is being difficult, Suz. Strongly suggest taping the ankle. Glad your father's situation is resolving, up his for the brother, hugs for you and Cassie.

226Chatterbox
Abr 14, 2019, 2:57 pm

Cassie is doing OK, but still not where she should be. The second vitamin injection is on Thursday.

I'm still hobbling. By yesterday morning, I was OK again, but then worked a five hour shift and wrapped it up with the bad ankle, and two blisters.

The icing on the cake?? I almost died in an electrical fire in my home. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. (thank heavens I'm a light sleeper) hearing a weird noise. it sounded as if my cats were doing something strange, like scratching a piece of furniture. I finally turned on the light and got up -- and saw sparks and the occasional flame shooting out of an extension cord (one with all the right grounding stuff -- high quality) that I plug my AC into during the summer "cooling season". I don't pull it out of the wall, because the plug is located right behind a heavy chest of drawers. Something caused it to try hard to blow up. Thankfully, I was able to yank it out of the wall and smother the attempted flames with a spare sheet (now ruined). Then I had to clean up, open up every window in the place to try to air it out. It STILL smells like burned electrical equipment, which is horribly reminiscent of 9/11 and the stench from the "pile" at the WTC center, so of course I had PTSD nightmares.

Very, very tired of all this. But glad that I didn't burn the house down. I wish I knew what had caused it... No visible signs of anything. Worrying.

227Caroline_McElwee
Abr 14, 2019, 4:49 pm

Glad you caught the electrical fire Suz. Very unsettling for sure. And no doubt will take a while for the smell to go.

Sorry the retail job is taking it out of you too. I'm not on my feet too much during the day, but have a three hour round-trip commute each day. With pins and plates in my ankle and leg, I get where you are coming from.

228LizzieD
Abr 15, 2019, 11:41 pm

Oh. Horrors!!!!!
I'm aghast that you had an electrical fire and vastly relieved that you caught it. I wish you knew what had caused it too. Of course, we're all _____________ (fill in your own blank) that you, the cats, and your stuff are O.K. It doesn't take long for our lives to change drastically. Peace to you!
(I'm torn between reading a lot of Bellevue Square and Motherless Brooklyn. I compromise by reading a little of each.

229figsfromthistle
Abr 16, 2019, 7:32 am

>226 Chatterbox: Yikes!! Good thing you were there at the right time to keep everything under control!

Hoping you have a less stressful week.

230benitastrnad
Abr 16, 2019, 2:14 pm

Having an electrical fire of any kind is not good! Do you know if it was the cord or the outlet? If it is the outlet you should probably take some kind of action as it might happen again.

231Chatterbox
Abr 17, 2019, 10:24 am

>230 benitastrnad: I honestly don't know. I suspect it may have been the cord. I'm obviously not going to be using that outlet again...

At some point when I have room to breathe, I will call my landlord's office. Right now the apartment looks like a disaster zone (surprise, surprise) so I don't really want them fussing about my disorderly lifestyle. (I have been trying to sort out older clothes I won't wear any longer for the annual yard sale next month...)

232Chatterbox
Abr 17, 2019, 10:35 am

Meanwhile, a big shout out re my two best books of the month so far: Inheritance from Mother by Minae Mizumura, which is a novel that is eerily timely, a book about a Japanese woman and her sister and their complicated relationship with their elderly/dying/dead mother. "Inheritance" in the title refers to the complex mix of physical legacy (money) and what it means to a middle-aged woman, as well as to the more intangible psychological legacy flowing from the aforementioned complex relationship.

The other is Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham, about the dreadful accident at the Ukrainian (then Soviet) nuclear reactor in 1986, its causes and aftermath. At times this reads like a thriller: we know that a second (worse) chain reaction and explosion was avoided, but while reading, it's possible to forget that knowledge in the suspense of the narrative. And it offers a LOT of food for thought, especially in an era when fossil fuels are the focus of so much criticism. Is nuclear power a potential solution to the crisis that will follow, or do we run even greater risks, even if we have reactors not designed by fearful/paranoid Soviet era scientists? My only critique is that I wish Higginbotham had been able to devote more space/time to new kinds of reactors employing new fuels that are less extremely toxic, mentioned in the afterword and final chapter. It has piqued my curiosity about these. Long ago, prior to Chernobyl's meltdown, I recall reading a scholarly article about political decision making and specifically the ethics of making decisions that have short-term benefits for us today but that create poorly-understood long-term risks for our descendants -- do we have the right, ethically or morally, to take drastic steps like destroying the environment and/or building nuclear plants without a clear understanding of how to cope with accidents or safely store spent fuel for millennia?

Both books were 5-star reads for me...

233lindapanzo
Abr 18, 2019, 5:52 pm

Suzanne, did you do First to Read? I'm sorry to see that they're closing down. I've gotten some good, free books that way.

234Chatterbox
Abr 18, 2019, 9:03 pm

>233 lindapanzo: Yes, I did -- but was always a bit frustrated that I couldn't get them onto my Kindle and had to use my computer to read them on Adobe e-pub...

235lindapanzo
Abr 18, 2019, 9:59 pm

>234 Chatterbox: Same for me. Also annoyed that they’d disappear after a time. Even so, I always had so many points that I could get the book I wanted.

236LizzieD
Abr 20, 2019, 2:03 pm

>234 Chatterbox: >235 lindapanzo: Exactly so. I'm not at all inclined to join their new format. I just don't buy new books, alas.

Suzanne, I'm thrilled but bewildered, having just finished (?) Bellevue Square. Do I have this right? Michael Redhill has written a novel that purports to be a novel written by his second self, the mystery writer Inger Ash Wolfe whose second self is Ingrid Fox, which novel is narrated by her doppelganger, Jean Mason. I have no idea what just happened, but I enjoyed it. He can really write! I'll be up for the next one, and while I wait, I'll read the other IAW mysteries.
Thanks for the BB.

237Chatterbox
Abr 21, 2019, 6:06 pm

>236 LizzieD: I THINK you have got it. To the extent that I got it myself. Regardless, like you, I relished the ride...

Working retail is educational. You get to meet the most astounding variety of people. I have helped people find wedding dresses, wedding shower dresses, graduation dresses, new wardrobes after weight loss or gain, interview garb, etc. I met a woman who literally had to wait until her son was asleep to steal his elderly/fraying jeans and come in to try and replace them with identical (non-fraying/collapsing) new ones. (I found her two pairs, regular wash and gray denim...) I met a 22 year old who pointed at a shelf and ordered me to "get me that large t-shirt." I encountered a young guy waiting for his fiancee, who offered to help me hang garments back on hangers before reshelving. I also encountered a woman who threw clothes on the floor, yelled at me to help her "NOW!" (when I had nine other people in fitting rooms and a queue of people waiting for rooms, and wrapped up 80 minutes of trying on clothes by flinging clothes and hangers at me from about 10 feet away. Luckily she and her husband did spend $1,000. Will I see any of that?? Nope.

I now refer to the fitting rooms as "the black hole of Calcutta"....

And I have a migraine today.

But happy Easter/happy pesach to all.

238m.belljackson
Abr 21, 2019, 6:35 pm

>237 Chatterbox:

Do you read the daily comic RETAIL? Though mostly lower key than what you have described, there is a similar strain of disdain from many customers = finding the first half-filled cup of a slushy
on an aisle counter was the advent of Spring.

239Chatterbox
Abr 22, 2019, 12:29 am

>238 m.belljackson:, Nope, not familiar with that one, though clearly I should check it out...

240Chatterbox
Abr 22, 2019, 5:28 pm

Woot! Just approved by NetGalley for the upcoming Jackson Brodie book by Kate Atkinson, Big Sky. I think I'm going to re-read the first four books in this series before embarking on the new one, though...

241LizzieD
Editado: Abr 22, 2019, 11:19 pm

>238 m.belljackson: I loved *Retail* when our local rag carried it. Then I followed it online for a bit. You remind me that I need to get back to it.
I'm sorry that you are having your exposure to the great unwashed American public at this point in your life, Suz. Clearly, clothes selling is different from book selling.... I never had a customer throw anything at me, but I did grit my teeth daily. There was the regular customer who would open a book, bend it backwards to break its spine, and then if she wanted it, put the destroyed copy back on the shelf and take a fresh one. Or the woman who would browse magazines while her 2 year-old tore the ones at his level off the wall and then did more ripping, and flinging. Or "My friend told me about a book I want to read. It's blue." And so on.
I hope the migraine left quickly so that you didn't have to carry it to work with you.
Congrats on winning Big Sky! Around here she'd be Kate AtKINson.

242Chatterbox
Abr 24, 2019, 2:42 am

>It's a weird experience, that's for sure. I feel like I've come full circle, working part-time in retail while trying to earn a living from freelancing. The only problem is that last time, I was 25 or 26. Now I'm 57. Sigh.

That said, I have just finished Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land. It's excellent. I have to say I was astounded at the judgmentalism of some of the reviews, especially one that goes on and on and on about poor life choices, etc. This is a book by a woman of considerable talent, whose birth control failed during a short-lived relationship, and who opted NOT to have an abortion. She copes with domestic violence and the system, including people who tell her "you're welcome" when she uses food stamps/EBT to buy groceries. And some reviewers lambaste her poor planning or whatever. Holy Toledo. Someone else blamed her for not acknowledging the privilege of being white. What struck me, reading this, is that but for her writing skills, some of these critics might never have had their attention drawn to some of the important issues about what it's like to live in poverty; how earning $5 extra or "too much" in one period can mean losing the childcare benefit payment that she needs to have in order to go out and work at all... (Which of course means there's no incentive to earn more or try harder, right?) This book, and some responses to it, clearly show the rift in the US with reference to whether we're a society whose members help each other directly or indirectly, or one in which everyone is legally required to be self-reliant or just go off quietly somewhere to die of starvation. Sigh. 4.4 stars. It's very good.

243benitastrnad
Abr 24, 2019, 6:57 pm

>242 Chatterbox:
I have looked at buying Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive more than once. But so far haven't done so. I do hope that the library gets it so I can read it.

244Chatterbox
Abr 25, 2019, 6:30 pm

So, I have just crossed a new threshold. I filled out an application for SNAP benefits (to cover some food costs). By income, I definitely qualify... Scary.

245benitastrnad
Abr 25, 2019, 7:22 pm

>244 Chatterbox:
Don't feel bad about getting those. I have advised students to apply for them and to use them. I have also told them to apply for help on their electric bills. These programs were designed for the working poor, so use them.

246m.belljackson
Abr 25, 2019, 7:56 pm

>244 Chatterbox:

You have worked to pay the taxes that set up this program. Use it! You will soon have the income to help others again!

Rich people are benefitting from their support systems, so why not those people who really need help?

247magicians_nephew
Abr 26, 2019, 1:37 pm

Hang in there Suz.

248PaulCranswick
Abr 28, 2019, 5:25 am

Dropping by to wish you all the best, Suz.

249LizzieD
Abr 29, 2019, 11:42 pm

>246 m.belljackson: Amen!
Do what you need to to take care of yourself, Suzanne.

250ronincats
mayo 9, 2019, 7:46 pm

Suz, hope you and the cats are hanging in there. We miss you here.

251Chatterbox
mayo 9, 2019, 8:20 pm

>249 LizzieD: Sorry, I'm logging my reading but not much else!

Cassie has lost another half-pound and I'm very worried about her.

I have lost so much weight that I'm down at least a full size in jeans. Can't wear any of my old pairs because they literally slide off. Also have to order new Marks & Spencer knickers!! Good grief.

If anyone wants to read an excellent book about the #metoo movement, I'd recommend Afternoon of a Faun by James Lasdun.

252benitastrnad
mayo 9, 2019, 10:04 pm

I am deep into Pachinko for my real life book discussion group and lying it. It took about 150 pages to suck me in, but it is a good one. I heard Min Jin Lee talk in Atlanta while the Women's March was going on outside on Inaguration Day 2016. Then the book was nominated for so many awards and accolades, but when I first started this book I questioned why? Now I understand why. I stay up reading later later than I should- it is that good.

253magicians_nephew
mayo 10, 2019, 5:11 pm

>252 benitastrnad: Our book group had the same reaction to Pachinko - took a while to get airbourne and then was a good flight

254Chatterbox
mayo 10, 2019, 8:28 pm

I ended up liking it as well (echoing the slow start) but while I ended up thinking of it as a "good read", I didn't adore it. Perhaps because the story sprawled too much for me (and perhaps also because I'm reasonably familiar with the story of Koreans in Japan -- a friend's father was a Presbyterian missionary in Osaka and was ultimately deported for refusing to be fingerprinted in solidarity with his third-generation Korean flock. There is tremendous discrimination...)

255LizzieD
mayo 10, 2019, 11:48 pm

Hmmm. I could read Pachinko. Might.....
Oh dear. I wish you better for Cassie and for you. I am trying with varying success to take off my fat bit by bit since that's the way I put it on.
And having delayed and delayed, I need to tell you that we gave up our Elle today. I don't think we waited too late, and I wish we could have kept her longer, but it was time.

256Chatterbox
mayo 13, 2019, 7:00 pm

>255 LizzieD: Oh Peggy, I'm so sorry to hear about Elle...

Miss Cassie is still not doing great, but she is eating enthusiastically, even if not as much as she needs to and even if it doesn't stick to her in terms of calories and protein. She remains aggressive with Fergus (LOL, he's half her age, twice her size and TERRIFIED by her...) and affectionate with me.

Meanwhile, I'm April's employee of the month at Banana Republic. Go figure. Some of my former colleagues are picking up Pulitzers, meanwhile...

257Chatterbox
mayo 13, 2019, 11:50 pm

Just finished book #150, so I'm up to two times 75 so far this year. The pace of my reading has fallen off a bit with the new job. Sigh.

This was book #150...

Sonia Purnell's new book, A Woman of No Importance, about Virginia Hall, the now-famous (or somewhat famous) member of SOE and later OSS in occupied France, who failed to be treated honorably or equitably by her employers at the CIA following 1946. It's an honest but still rather reverential treatment of this remarkable woman that ends up somewhat too respectful of what probably were her flaws (including the difficulty in working with others) and doesn't really acknowledge that there were many, if any, jobs ideally suited to her in the postwar intelligence community, short of sending her undercover in Hungary or Czechoslovakia to organize anti-Soviet resistance. That said, it's a great biography of a figure too often overlooked in the histories of WW2 -- Hall, in spite of having a wooden leg (she named it "Cuthbert"), was easily one of the most effective resistance leaders throughout France, leading a group that liberated a swathe of the Loire region before even Paris was back in French hands. 4.4 stars. Listened to an audiobook by Juliet Stevenson, who usually is a wonderful narrator but this time around had some tics that really annoyed me -- cartoonish French and German accents when characters from both linguistic backgrounds were speaking, and mispronunciations, like the Dulles brothers being called "Dulls". Erm, nope. Generally a good audio, and Stevenson is an excellent narrator much of the time, which means that when she slips up, it's bad and noticeable.

258ronincats
mayo 13, 2019, 11:56 pm

Congrats on hitting my goal for the year, Suz. And I'm glad you were recognized for being the best at what it is you are doing!

259magicians_nephew
Editado: mayo 16, 2019, 8:45 am

When the war started Churchill famously said to his spymasters "Now! Set Europe Ablaze!".

That didn't happen -- and most of the "Jeds" and OSS people dropped behind enemy lines were captured in days or even hours.

That she survived at all is an epic feat. That she and her team were effective even in a small way is doubly impressive

260FAMeulstee
mayo 15, 2019, 4:40 pm

>257 Chatterbox: Congratulations on reaching 2 x 75, Suzanne.

261libraryperilous
mayo 16, 2019, 11:55 pm

re: the Walter Scott prize, I'm more enthusiastic about the ancillary list this year than the actual nominees. The Academy Recommends supplemental list contains a handful of books I thought would make the longlist. That said, The Western Wind is one of my all-time favorite novels. I've read it multiple times already. I'm rooting for it and pleasantly was surprised it made the shortlist.

262avatiakh
mayo 17, 2019, 2:28 am

Just dropping by to say that I went to an event with Artemis Cooper today at Auckland Writers Festival, she's very charming. She talked about all the biographies she's written, so lots of interesting tidbits about her subjects. A local journalist, Owen Scott, asked the questions and had just the right touch. Tomorrow she has another event devoted to Patrick Leigh Fermor but it's on too late for me.

263Chatterbox
mayo 17, 2019, 8:40 pm

>261 libraryperilous: I will go back and take another look at the supplemental list! I haven't yet read The Western Wind but have a copy somewhere -- I think it's an e-galley.

>262 avatiakh: Oooh, envy. Though I confess that while I loved her "paddy" bio, (since I love PLF too), it did feel a bit hagiographic. That said, I'm saving the final volume of Paddy's walking trilogy to read one day when I feel really downhearted. It's the one she completed or polished.

My own event here earlier this evening was with Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve, which is one of my favorite non-fiction tomes because it deals with 15th century bookhunter Poggio Bracciolini, and others, like Will in the World and most recently, a book about tyrants and tyranny based on Shakespeare's characters and inspired by, ahem, current events...

264ChelleBearss
mayo 18, 2019, 10:17 am

Congrats on 2x75 already!
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