spiralsheep's GeoKIT and BingoDOG pets, 2021 (part 2)

Number of books on To Read shelves on 1st January 2021: 158
Number of books on To Read shelves on 1st February 2021: 156
Number of books on To Read shelves on 1st March 2021: 152

Wikis
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2021_GeoKIT
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2021_BingoDOG
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2021_SFFKIT

Number of countries unread on 1st January 2021: 56
Number of countries unread on 1st February 2021: 49
Number of countries unread on 1st March 2021: 44

Countries read 2021: Algeria, Antarctica, Antigua, Aotearoa, Australia, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Bahrain, Belarus, China, Congo, Denmark, Doggerland, Egypt, El Salvador, England, Estonia, Ethiopia, fantasylands, Finland, France, Georgia, Gibraltar, Greece (ancient), Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, India, Iran, "island full of noises", Italy, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lesotho, Lithuania, Mallorca, Martinique, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, North Korea, Norway, Oman, Paraguay, Persia, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, {secret places}, South Africa, spaaaaaace, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tahiti, Turkey, Uganda, UK, Ukraine, US

2021 Category Challenge GeoKIT

I completed my first tour of GeoKIT's seven categories on 8th Feb 2021. Onwards! :D

I completed my second tour of GeoKIT's seven categories on 29th March 2021. Can I manage a hat trick? Onwards! :D

• Europe:
- The Story of Tracy Beaker, by Jacqueline Wilson, 3
- Travels with Herodotus, by Ryszard Kapuscinski, 4
- How to Avoid a Tragedy, by David Henry Wilson, unrated
- Time Song: journeys in search of a submerged land, by Julia Blackburn, 4
- Family Album : three novellas, by Claribel Alegria, 3.5
- A Portable Paradise, by Roger Robinson, 5
- Incomparable World, by SI Martin, novel, 5
- The Book of Pebbles, by Christopher Stocks (author) and Angie Lewin (illustrator), 5
- Travels with my Aunt, by Graham Greene, 4

• Africa:
- The Desert and the Drum, by Mbarek Ould Beyrouk, 5
- Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe, by Doreen Baingana, 4
- Ways of Dying, by Zakes Mda, 5
- Sunken cities: Egypt's lost worlds, edited by Franck Goddio, 4
- The Dark Child, by Camara Laye, 3.5

• Asia:
- The Border : a journey around Russia, by Erika Fatland, 3.5
- Mischief Diary, by Nada Faris, 3
- The Girl Who Fell to Earth, by Sophia Al-Maria, 4
- The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, by Nizrana Farouk, 3
- The Corsair, by Abdulaziz Al-Mahmoud, 2.5

• Oceania:
- Tiare in Bloom, by Celestine Vaite, 4
- The Women in Black, by Madeleine St John, 4

• Polar:
- The White Darkness, by David Grann, 4
- Arctic Hero : the incredible life of Matthew Henson, by Catherine Johnson, 5

• Central and South America:
- Annie John, by Jamaica Kincaid, 4
- The Ladies are Upstairs, by Merle Collins, 4.5
- A Lady's Ride Across Spanish Honduras, by Maria Soltera, 3.5
- The Black Sheep and other fables, by Augusto Monterroso, 4.5
- Clean Slate: new and selected poems, by Daisy Zamora, 4
- The Underwater Museum: submerged sculptures, by Jason deCaires Taylor, 5
- Angel (revised 2011 edition), by Merle Collins, 4.5
- At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig by John Gimlette, 2.5

• North America:
- Talk Stories, by Jamaica Kincaid, 3.5
- Spell on Wheels Volume 2: Just to Get to You, by Kate Leth and Megan Levens, 3.5
- Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh, 1964, novel, 0.5
- Little Night / Nochecita, by Yuyi Morales, 4

2021 Category Challenge BingoDOG

I completed my first BingoDog card with 25 separate books, out of 31 read, on 11th Feb 2021. Onwards! :D

• Fewer than 200 pages
- Annie John, by Jamaica Kincaid, 4
- Family Album : three novellas, by Claribel Alegria, 3.5

• Time word in title or time is the subject
- Mr Tiger, Betsy, and the Blue Moon, by Sally Gardner, 3.5
- Little Night / Nochecita, by Yuyi Morales, 4

• Set in or author from the Southern Hemisphere
- The Girl Who Stole an Elephant, by Nizrana Farouk, 3
- The Women in Black, by Madeleine St John, 4

• Book with or about magic
- The Lord Sorcier, by Olivia Atwater, 3
- The Serpent's Egg, by Caroline Stevermer, 2.5
- City of Bones, by Martha Wells, 3.5

• Arts and recreation
- You're All Just Jealous of my Jetpack, by Tom Gauld, 5
- Baking with Kafka, by Tom Gauld, 4

• Classical element in title (earth, water, fire, air, aether, wood, metal)
- The Girl Who Fell to Earth, by Sophia Al-Maria, 4
- The Underwater Museum: submerged sculptures, by Jason deCaires Taylor, 5

• Name of a building in the title
- The Castle of Inside Out, by David Henry Wilson, 5
- At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig by John Gimlette, 2.5

• By or about a marginalised group
- The Story of Tracy Beaker, by Jacqueline Wilson, 3
- Ways of Dying, by Zakes Mda, 5

• Senior citizen as the protagonist
- The Ladies are Upstairs, by Merle Collins, 4.5
- Travels with my Aunt, by Graham Greene, 4

• Suggested by a person from another generation
- The Name of this Book is Secret, by Pseudonymous Bosch, 4
- Incomparable World, by SI Martin, novel, 5

• About nature or the environment (includes the sea)
- Time Song: journeys in search of a submerged land, by Julia Blackburn, 4
- The Book of Pebbles, by Christopher Stocks (author) and Angie Lewin (illustrator), 5

• Made me laugh
- Talk Stories, by Jamaica Kincaid, 3.5

• Shared with 20 or fewer LT members
- Mischief Diary, by Nada Faris, 1 member (me), 3
- A Lady's Ride Across Spanish Honduras, by Maria Soltera, 4 members, 3.5
- Arctic Hero : the incredible life of Matthew Henson, by Catherine Johnson, 19 members, 5

• About history or alternate history
- The Border : a journey around Russia, by Erika Fatland, 3.5
- Sunken cities: Egypt's lost worlds, edited by Franck Goddio, 4

• Title that describes you
- Department of Mind-Blowing Theories by Tom Gauld, 5
- The Black Sheep and other fables, by Augusto Monterroso, 4.5

• Book you heartily recommend
- The Desert and the Drum, by Mbarek Ould Beyrouk, 5
- A Portable Paradise, by Roger Robinson, 5

• Author you haven’t read before
- Tropical Fish : Tales from Entebbe, by Doreen Baingana, 4
- Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh, 1964, novel, 0.5

• Impulse read!
- A Tempest, by Aime Cesaire, 3.5
- How to Avoid a Tragedy, by David Henry Wilson, unrated
- The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, volume 2, edited by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Wirrow, 3

• One-word title
- Battlepug: War on Christmas, by Mike Norton, 5
- Angel (revised 2011 edition), by Merle Collins, 4.5

• With a character you think you'd like as a friend
- To be Taught, if Fortunate, by Becky Chambers, 4
- Clean Slate: new and selected poems, by Daisy Zamora, 4

• Dark or light in title
- The White Darkness, by David Grann, 4
- The Dark Child, by Camara Laye, 3.5

• Set somewhere you’d like to visit
- Travels with Herodotus, by Ryszard Kapuscinski, 4
- Tiare in Bloom, by Celestine Vaite, 4

• By two or more authors
- Spell on Wheels Volume 2: Just to Get to You, by Kate Leth and Megan Levens, 3.5
- Penguin Modern Poets 15 : Alan Bold, Edward Brathwaite, Edwin Morgan, 3

• With a love story included
- Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater, 1
- The Labyrinth Gate, by Alis Rasmussen (Kate Elliott), 3.5

• Read a CAT or KIT
- Mooncop, by Tom Gauld, for SFFKIT, 4
- The Corsair, by Abdulaziz Al-Mahmoud, 2.5

SFFkit from my To Read shelf

• January: sff book you meant to read in 2020
- Mooncop, by Tom Gauld, graphic novel, 4
- To be Taught if Fortunate, by Becky Chambers, 4
- Department of Mind-Blowing Theories by Tom Gauld, 5

• February: sentient things
- Mr Tiger, Betsy, and the Blue Moon, by Sally Gardner, 3.5
- Compulsory (Murderbot 0.5 short story), by Martha Wells, 5
- The Black Sheep and other fables, by Augusto Monterroso, 4.5
- Family Album : three novellas, Village of God and the Devil, by Claribel Alegria, 3.5

• March: Indiana Jones (archaeology and adventure)
- The Labyrinth Gate, by Alis Rasmussen (Kate Elliott), 3.5
- City of Bones, by Martha Wells, 3.5

• April: series
• May: time travel
• June: it's about the journey
• July: historical fantasy
• August: female authors
• September: near future / alternate reality
• October: creature feature
• November: short stories
• December: gothic fantasy

>5 ZacharyMay: Zachary May not, lol.

32/2021. I read Ways of Dying, by Zakes Mda, which is a novel set in an unnamed city on the coast of South Africa, presumably based on Cape Town, in 1993-4, shortly before the transition to inclusive democracy . The protagonist is a professional mourner who meets a woman from his home village at the funeral of her son in the city about twenty years after he last saw her. Unusually the story has a third person plural narrator, a collective "we", the people of the city and the village who have individually witnessed events but are recounting them from a communal perspective (I think this is a nod towards collective oral traditions of narrative and also omniscient ancestors). Most published fiction of around 200 pages is stripped to essentials but this novel is full of the telling small details of ordinary people's lives.

The usual "ways of dying" for each age group - accidents, violence, and illness - occur as natural events in various characters' lives. The average age of death in South Africa was falling from a high of 63 in 1991 to only 53 in 2004 (the lowest since 1972, although by 2020 it had returned to 64) but people continue on with daily life: they grow up, go to school, work, form relationships, have children, and care for families. The story ought to be depressing but, despite being confronted with the inevitability of all our demises, I found it life-affirming. After all, each day means more when we understand we have so little time on this earth, and the saddest way of dying is giving up on life while you're still alive. 5*

Those who profit from death: professional mourners, authors who make art about death, those who make money out of the business of death, and politicians.

Quotes

Sorry, but I collect tripe quotations: "The Archbishop earned his living during the week by selling tripe and other innards of animals in a trunk fastened to the carrier of his bicycle. He rode from one homestead to another through the village, shouting, 'Mala mogodu! Amathumbo!' in his godly baritone. This simply meant that he was touting his offal, encouraging people to buy."

Audiences on art: "As usual, they cannot say what the meaning is. It is not even necessary to say, or even to know, what the meaning is. It is enough only to know that there is a meaning, and it is a profound one."

GeoKIT: Africa (South Africa or Lesotho)
BingoDOG: By or about a marginalised group (or groups in this case)

Happy new thread! You have been very successful in your reading so far!

>8 MissWatson: Thank you! February is definitely going to be a slower reading month than January, but I've been lucky with some excellent books, which is always very encouraging.

>2 spiralsheep: Great job with your GeoKIT reading. February is generally a slower reading month for me as well, although I am not a really fast reader anyway.

>10 This-n-That: I don't think it matters how much or how fast someone reads, as long as they enjoy it. :-)

I need another Polar book for GeoKIT because lockdown means I can't currently borrow via inter-library loan any of the recs people previously kindly offered me and That One Book I really want costs about twice my book budget and rarely appears secondhand, boo! :D

Happy new thread! I laughed out loud at >6 spiralsheep: :D

>12 rabbitprincess: >6 spiralsheep: I flagged him on this thread earlier today, but I think he got flagged everywhere else he posted so it didn't take the normal 4 votes to get him removed.

>12 rabbitprincess: Normally I would opt for "Begone, foul dwimmerlaik!" but I couldn't resist "May not".

>13 thornton37814: Thank you for flagging. The crowd sourced anti-spam process on LT talk seems to work extremely well, especially when members with more time manage to flag a spammer's profile in addition to individual spam comments on each thread.

>7 spiralsheep: I have Zakes Mda's Heart of Redness on my shelf, been meaning to read it for ages. Hopefully your review will be the nudge to get to this author.

>15 charl08: I was considering buying another of Zakes Mda's novels because he writes so well, but the overt subjects aren't appealing to me although, having read Ways of Dying, I expect he creates much more out of his themes than I could guess from the summaries. I have to admit Heart of Redness doesn't pique my curiosity at all so I'd be interested to see what you make of it.

Happy new thread. Finishing your Bingo card this early in the year is impressive!
And (following from your last thread) I'm another one who hears Fisher & German Bight when you say "Dogger". >:-)

>17 Helenliz: Thank you!

Also, despite my tendency to pun easily and giggle often, I've never once laughed at "Scilly Automatic" because of the solemnity of the announcer.

Happy New Thread! I'm looking forward to following along!

>19 MissBrangwen: Thank you! I hope you're enjoying your first time on Category Challenge as much as I am. :-)

33/2021. I read The Serpent's Egg, which was Caroline Stevermer's first novel, and is a fantasy of manners set in a not-Elizabethan not-England, with a Queen. The big baddie is the Duke of Tilbury, who is a caricature of the historical Earl of Leicester, e.g. suspicious death of his wife. The author demonstrates at least a basic understanding of how her chosen social system would function in practical terms, but the plot didn't work for me and I didn't find any of the characters especially engaging. I don't want to spoiler anything that isn't immediately obvious from the beginning, but I note that the realm would be more peaceful if everyone with a francophone surname was arrested as soon as they appeared, lol, which I don't think was consciously intentional on the author's part. 2.5*

Quotes

The most affecting moment for me was when a wannabe murderer quotes one of Drayton's love poems, eep: "Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part." // Nay, I have done, you get no more of me; // And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart, // That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

There's also an erudite Shakespearean in-joke betting "it's a heron to a handsaw" people will misinterpret written messages, lol.

BingoDOG: Book with or about magic
SFFKIT: "Sentient things": only in the title as the magic thing collects consciousnesses but is probably not itself sentient (so I won't claim it)

>21 spiralsheep: ... the realm would be more peaceful if everyone with a francophone surname was arrested as soon as they appeared That sounds like a very good idea. >;-)

>22 Helenliz: Off with their heads! >;-)

(Apologies to all it may concern etc.)

An innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between a rock and a hard place
And I'm down on my luck,
Yes I'm down on my luck,
Well I'm down on my luck,
And I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns, and money,
The shit has hit the fan.
- Warren Zevon



34/2021. I read A Lady's Ride Across Spanish Honduras by "Maria Soltera" (pseudonym), an 1880s travelogue reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine, about an English spinster travelling coast to coast across the country by mule to become a school teacher serving colonists in their new banana plantations. As one would expect from non-fiction travel writing aimed at the readers of Blackwood's, who were a comparatively well-informed audience, this extended essay is full of astute observations and mildly amusing incidents. Perhaps more surprisingly the author is unafraid to compare cultural differences such as Mexican craftwork and Spanish names and Honduran sanitation favourably against their English counterparts, although it probably goes without saying that she also reproduces some racist and classist stereotypes. 3.5*

In conclusion: I'm now slightly bitter that no stranger has ever given me a revolver and a bag of coconuts.

Quotes

Opening paragraph: "It was the question of pounds, shillings, and pence. Should I take steamer from San Francisco to Panama, cross the isthmus, and from the Atlantic side enter Spanish Honduras? Or had I better travel by steamer as far as Amapala, and thence take mules and ride across the country to San Pedro Sula - my destination - a distance of about two hundred and nineteen miles? Thus was perplexed the mind of your globe-trotting servant "Soltera", as she pored over railway and steamboat guides and calculated expenses, in her comfortable but very costly bedroom in the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, in the month of June, in year of grace 1881."

Science fiction fans never change, lol: "as no company is better than uncongenial company, I tucked myself into a shady corner on deck, nursed the purser's cat, and read Jules Verne's 'Twenty Leagues under the Sea'." (sic)

GeoKIT: Central and South America (Honduras)
BingoDOG: Book shared with 20 or fewer members (4 of us total)

I hesitate to ask, but what would you want with or do with a revolver and a bag of coconuts?

That sounds worth exploring for being honest.

>25 Helenliz: It's not the revolver and coconuts in and of themselves, although I do like fresh coconuts, lol, it's more the desire to be in situations where a total stranger giving one odd things in good faith makes sense at the time. I mean, if someone gave me a revolver and a bag of fresh coconuts in my current situation then I'd arrange to hand the revolver in to the police (handguns are illegal here, obv) and eat / share the coconuts, which isn't a very interesting anecdote, but if I was in a different situation, such as on a steamer off the coast of Central America, then it might easily be a more interesting anecdote. I have had total strangers suddenly give me things, e.g. a ticket to a poetry reading by Sharon Olds, but mostly not in ways or with outcomes worth memorialising in writing.

It even sounds odd as a writing prompt: what would you do with a revolver and a bag of coconuts and/or how did you acquire those items?

>26 spiralsheep: Haha, my other half hates coconut (he can detect the minutest quantities of it in food, and complains if I'm making coconut macaroon tea from Davids Tea), so I imagine if I were in this revolver-and-coconuts scenario, the coconuts would be disposed of unceremoniously and in very short order.

>27 rabbitprincess: Oh, hating coconut must be a terrible affliction.

This whole scenario is now beginning to remind me of one of those "get x, y, and z, across the river" intelligence tests: you have a stranger, a revolver, and a bag of coconuts, and you need to cross Honduras from coast to coast. What do you do?

36/2021. I read The Black Sheep and other fables, by Augusto Monterroso, which is a collection of very short fables. They ask questions such as "Was Penelope weaving while she waited for Odysseus to stop travelling or was Odysseus travelling while he waited for Penelope to stop weaving?" and "If faith moves mountains then would fewer people die in landslides if we abandoned our faiths?" Clever, witty, mildly amusing. Readers who didn't receive a classical education might find a few glancing references to Aesop or Horace whooshing over their heads but Monterroso mostly uses ideas familiar to inheritors of "Western" education, e.g. the lion as king, the wise owl, the cunning vixen, etc. 4.5*

GeoKIT: Central and South America-ish (Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico)
BingoDOG: "title that describes you" (how could I, spiralsheep, possibly choose otherwise?! :D )
SFFKIT: "sentient things" in at least four fables, e.g. a mirror, lightning, statues, and a flute

37/2021. I read The Women in Black, by Madeleine St John, which is a novel about the lives of women working in the Ladies' Frocks Department at Goode's Department Store in Sydney, Australia, during the 1950s. Short, fun, female wish fulfilment. 4*

Quotes

Lol: "the doorman in his uniform of a lieutenant-colonel in the Ruritanian Army"

January sales: "The great doors were opened and the phalanx of grim-faced viragos cantered through the breach and down the marble steps: it took a good five minutes for the whole formation to pass him as the Ruritanian lieutenant-colonel, standing well clear, reviewed it."

Xmas at the beach: " 'Are you happy?' he asked her. 'Of course not!' said Magda. 'What a very vulgar suggestion. Are you?' 'Oh dear, I hope not,' said Stefan. "

GeoKIT: Oceania (Australia)
BingoDOG: Set in or author from the Southern Hemisphere

>30 spiralsheep: I'm taking a BB for that! Sounds like a great read!

>30 spiralsheep: So glad you enjoyed The Women in Black! Love the quote about happiness.

>31 MissBrangwen: It's in the territory half way between chicklit and Literature. The territory occupied by Barbara Pym and Muriel Spark etc.

>32 christina_reads: It was definitely the lightweight but smart and humane read I needed at the moment. And, yes, the Eastern European refugees are depicted perfectly in their self-deprecating humour combined with mild cultural snobbery. I know these people but in real life!

I've been reading poetry and novellas by Claribel Alegria in translation. Every time I read her name it strikes me as marvellously mellifluous (although when I was a child growing up on a farm there was, of course, a cow called Clarabelle >;-) ).

From Rain, by Claribel Alegria (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden)

Rain is falling
falling
and memories keep flooding by
they show me a senseless
world
a voracious
world – abyss
ambush
whirlwind
spur
but I keep loving it
because I do
because of my five senses
because of my amazement
because every morning,
because forever, I have loved it
without knowing why.

>34 spiralsheep: Wonderful! Thank you for sharing.

>34 spiralsheep: I like this ! I've placed a hold for Pequeña patria, the one work my library has for her.

>35 MissBrangwen: I do appreciate elegant simplicity.

>36 Dilara86: I've now read, in translation, poetry and fiction and "testimonies" (journalism) by Claribel Alegria and it's all been worth reading. I can see why she won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature! Her writing makes it possible to face the worst of humanity and understand it can be transformed into more than mere survival.

The following three novellas by Claribel Alegria were originally published separately so, to avoid a wall of text situation, I'm going to review them in separate comments but they've all now been printed in one book in the English translation (they might still be available separately in Spanish).

38/2021. I read Family Album : three novellas, aka Family Album : stories of Catholic girlhood, by Claribel Alegria, which is a collection of three novellas first published in Spanish between 1977 and 1985. The 1990 Women's Press edition has an absolutely fabulous cover image by Susan Alcantarilla!

1. The first novella, The Talisman, is mostly set in a Los Angeles convent school, with memories of childhood in Key West. It's told via the experiences, memories, and imaginings, of a girl, through the framing device of encounters with the nun who is her spiritual advisor. The style is elliptical, and readers who dislike having multiple characters introduced by name and then alluded to repeatedly before their identities become clear will hate this, lol. I thought it worked well, and I wouldn't have known it was a translation (props to translator Amanda Hopkinson and the commissioning editor at The Women's Press). Warnings for child sex abuse, domestic abuse, and animal abuse (yes, the dog dies), although more of this is implied than graphic depictions.

There's a clever magical realist scene change from the girl protagonist at boarding school to herself as an older woman:

"Next day she said she was feeling ill and didn't go down to the dining room at breakfast time. She began furiously brushing her hair in front of the mirror above the washbasin. Then she took a comb, made a centre parting and pulled locks of hair down over her eyes.
Great, she said to herself, now I need to paint two rings around my eyes and add some crows' feet. She took a piece of charcoal and began drawing. Brilliant, now I only need the glasses and books to complete the image.
She helped herself to Susan's glasses, put three books under each arm and regarded herself triumphantly in the mirror."

3.5*

>38 spiralsheep: Book 38 beginning in comment 38. :D

38/2021 cont. I read Family Album : three novellas, by Claribel Alegria, which is a collection of three novellas first published in Spanish between 1977 and 1985.

2. The second novella, Family Album, is mostly set in Nicaragua and France, and is told through the memories of the daughter of a large extended wealthy family. It uses family anecdotes, through both current experience and memories, to show Nicaraguan society divided into "market forces" driven "Conquistador" type people who take advantage of even their closest family members, and exploited "Indian" type people who care more about families and communities and society, in more conventional terms those who "take" and those who "give". The author also employs a traditional magical realist trope to make "the disappeared" literally disappear within the story. The present day here is 1978, although it was published with hindsight in 1982, i.e. after the tyrannicide of Somoza but before the USA-backed Contra terrorists were fully active and assassinating members of the legitimate FSLN government (also, mild historical spoiler, this is before Eden Pastora changed sides and was bombed by either the CIA or an FSLN faction depending on who you choose to believe).
Warnings for description of the torture of political prisoners (although the description is mild compared to reality).

A girl sneaks into her grandmother's bedroom:

"She knelt breathlessly at her bedside, and, taking the old lady's withered and yellow hand in her own, whispered, 'Mamita Rosa, you're a saint, and now you're about to die I want you to ask the Virgin to grant me three wishes.'
'What are they?'
'That I get away from here, that I love my husband very much, and that I become a writer.'
'I'll ask for the first two, but not for the last. I don't like the way poets live.' "

3.5*

Just a reminder that political history is the thing with observable facts and reasoned interpretation, while party politics is the thing with team colours and blatant lying, and while I'm fascinated by the former I've never been interested in the latter. The history of the word blatant is quite entertaining though.... >;-)

>38 spiralsheep: >39 spiralsheep:

38/2021. cont. I read Family Album : three novellas, by Claribel Alegria, which is a collection of three novellas first published in Spanish between 1977 and 1985.

3. The third novella, Village of God and the Devil, is set on the Spanish island of Mallorca, and features a wide cast of locals and especially incomers as characters, including "Robert" implied to be author Robert Graves. There's an early reference to The White Goddess embedded in this series of vignettes about the lives of ex-pats, in which increasingly extreme supernatural explanations are appended to ordinary events. Each tale, and especially the build-up of tales, ought to be disturbing but because they're presented as an anthropological study of ex-pats they seem prosaic. Perhaps the contrast between Robert's poetic responses and the protagonist Marcia's prosaic responses is deliberate as Alegria was an accomplished poet who also wrote fiction and journalism. From the anecdotes one might get the impression that ex-pats are a bunch of drug-addled weirdos. Ahem. And then there's a plot twist or two, bringing whole new layers of weirdness, which at this point seems normal for this milieu. I understand this story as an examination, with anthropology used as a semi-satirical medium, of the reactions of a specific class of privileged people to the threat of an extinction event caused by humans, in this case an analogy of nuclear war (although a search and replace for climate change would also fit), but the magical realist ending didn't work for me, which is, of course, a subjective perspective.

Not necessarily the compliment one wants from a corpse dresser at a wake:

" 'Since I turned twenty I've been dressing the dead and now I'm over seventy. You can figure it out for yourself.'
'Would you like cup of coffee?'
'I wouldn't mind.'
Marcia got up to pour her one, then the two of them went to sit down in a corner of the dining room.
'Do you know something?' the dresser looked at Marcia with tenderness. 'Up until now I've only dressed Majorcans, but I've taken a liking to you, and I'm going to dress you too.' "

3.5*

GeoKIT: Two of the three novellas are primarily set in Europe (El Salvador, US, Guatemala, Nicaragua, France, and Spain/Mallorca)
BingoDOG: Book less than 200 pages
SFFKIT: "sentient things" assuming the haunted skull in Village of God and the Devil counts

This was on my To Read eventually list but a recommendation from kidzdoc pushed it upwards. Then the book made me re-listen to Sade's song Paradise, which has a glorious video.

39/2021. I read A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson, which is a deservedly award winning poetry collection.

The opening section memorialises the disastrous Grenfell Tower fire in London from which 72 people died directly (and more have died and will die indirectly), deaths that should have been prevented by fire safety regulations. I'm not especially sentimental but the first poem already had me crying, as the author side-stepped trite or mawkish expression through carefully chosen imagery that is familiar enough to be comforting but also makes space for anger and grief. Roger Robinson has found not only his own voice but also voices for those silenced by death or deep mourning.

The subsequent sections include poems about slavery, migration, Black Britishness or Black Britons if you prefer, and art. I laughed aloud at Slavery Limerick as I'm sure the author intended. 5*

From Blame

Meantime its tenants are left
to grieve in sterile hotels,
with nothing to bury but ash,
and survivors walk like zombies
trying not to look up
at the charred gravestone.

From The Ever Changing Dot (for Stuart Hall)

Look now: a picture of a grey-bearded man, hunched,
typing dense theory in empty, wood-panelled buildings,
someone intervening on his people's behalf,
creating a space and saying "Welcome."

GeoKIT: Europe (UK, England, Trinidad)
BingoDOG: Book you heartily recommend

>41 spiralsheep: This has been on my wishlist already and your review and recommendation, and the examples you quoted, reinforces that!

>42 MissBrangwen: Roger Robinson has found his voice(s) in A Portable Paradise. Strong recommendation from me. I've read his work before but his previous 2013 collection wasn't as good as this one.

>41 spiralsheep: A Portable paradise sounds brilliant! I'm not a big poetry buff, but those poems you shared are accessible and so very powerful.

>44 Jackie_K: I'm always wary of recommending poetry, because even the best plain language poetry evokes differing responses in different readers, but with this book I think Roger Robinson will reach a wide-ranging audience from regular readers like me to the first timers. I have especial admiration for anyone who can make poetry both meaningful and accessible.

February summary

To Reads: 152 (down from 156 last month)

Countries unread: 44 (down from 49 last month).

GeoKIT, 2nd round: 6 out of 7 categories, each covered by a different book.

BingoDOG, 2nd card: 10 out of 25 squares, each covered by a different book.

23. Mr Tiger, Betsy, and the Blue Moon, by Sally Gardner, 2018, children's novel, 3.5*
24. (poetry book, 3*)
25. Half a Soul, by Olivia Atwater, 2020, novel, 1*
26. The Ladies are Upstairs, by Merle Collins, 2011, short stories, 4.5*
27. Tiare in Bloom, by Celestine Vaite, 2006, novel, 4*
28. How to Avoid a Tragedy, by David Henry Wilson, 2003, play, unrated
29. The Castle of Inside Out, by David Henry Wilson, 1997, children's novel, 5*
30. Battlepug: War on Christmas, by Mike Norton, 2019, comic, 5*
31. Time Song, by Julia Blackburn, 2019, archaeology, 4*
32. Ways of Dying, by Zakes Mda, 1995, novel, 5*
33. The Serpent's Egg, by Caroline Stevermer, 1988, novel, 2.5*
34. A Lady's Ride Across Spanish Honduras, by Maria Soltera, 1884, travel, 3.5*
35. (poetry book, unrated)
36. The Black Sheep, by Augusto Monterroso, 1969, short stories, 4.5*
37. The Women in Black, by Madeleine St John, 1993, novel, 4*
38. Family Album, by Claribel Alegria, 1990, short stories, 3.5*
39. A Portable Paradise, by Roger Robinson, 2019, poetry, 5*

I was out for a walk and one of the villagers stopped me because he's just read Barnaby Rudge and wanted to enthuse to someone about Dickens. He found me a willing participant. I was coincidentally reading this novel set in the 1780s with references to the earlier Gordon Riots featured in Barnaby Rudge, although Martin's novel is more a child of Laurence Sterne and Tobias Smollett.

40/2021. I read Incomparable World by SI Martin, which is a picaresque novel about African American men in the Georgian London of 1786-7. As one would expect from this author the historical detail is impeccable and he glories in description. The characterisations drew me in immediately and the plot began to move quickly. Martin also manages to evoke the elusive spirit of London, which I can confirm hasn't changed much. The story follows two protagonists, Buckrum and William, whose pasts and futures are bound to third and fourth characters, Neville and Georgie George, all of whom were enslaved African Americans who fought for British loyalists against American revolutionaries and earned military evacuation to London in the early 1780s. One of these men is fading in respectable poverty, one lives more or less successfully on the fringes of society as a professional gambler, one has fallen face first into the underworld and imprisonment, while the last revels in his status as leader of a chaotic organised crime network who cares for nobody but himself and sacrifices the lives of people around him without a second thought. 5*

Warnings for, well, everything really: violence, sex, painful historical truths, and some racial slurs (none gratuitous and only one n-word).

One word spoiler for people who need to know if the ending is happy or sad: happy, surprisingly, and convincingly so.

Quotes

(One for Discworld fans) 29 May 1786: "This was William's second spring in London, and already he knew the routine. At the lilacs' last blooming the suburban poor would take their demands to the city-centre streets. Draymen, cabbies, builders, clerks and tailors marched shirtless and cudgel-handed from Shoreditch, Ratcliffe, Dalston and Somers Town. William had witnessed riots before: food riots in Boston and Charlestown, but nothing could have prepared him for the spectacle of English urban disturbance."

Lol: "out-of-the-way villages like Tottenham and Camberwell."

Christianity and slavery: "He didn't like church as a rule, especially a church like St Giles where black people formed a sizeable part of the congregation. It reminded him too much of his plantation life, when an overseer would ride down to the shacks on the Lord's day to read to kneeling slaves from the chapter in Ephesians where it beseeched obedience to 'them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling'."

Right to remain, subtle but ouch: "fight for the right to remain where you're unwanted"

Underclass lives: "falling yet again, from nowhere to nowhere else, plummeting through the banked-up years of failure, strewn with the husks of his ever dwindling selves."

And the missing Samuel Johnson quote would be: "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

GeoKIT: Europe (England)
BingoDOG: Suggested by a person from another generation (friend a dozen years older than me)

>47 spiralsheep: A BB for me. Thank you for the encompassing and very interesting review.

>48 MissBrangwen: You're welcome, and I hope you enjoy reading! :-)

I remember nearly buying Incomparable World when it was first published in 1996 but I foolishly decided I didn't want to read another Black crime novel and by the time I'd changed my mind it was impossible to find a copy. I'm so grateful for Bernadine Evaristo using her influence to secure this Penguin series of reprinted Black fiction.

>47 spiralsheep: >48 MissBrangwen: Same here. What a fascinating story!

>50 MissWatson: I'm an absolute history nerd so I couldn't have loved the book more. There are too many historical novels which either read like textbooks or, at the other extreme, have no realistic sense of the past at all. Incomparable World manages to balance the story and the history apparently effortlessly. IIRC it was also Martin's first novel!

>47 spiralsheep: I've made note to look for a copy of this one. I'm fascinated.

>52 RidgewayGirl: Provided readers don't mind the Hogarthian violence and sex then Incomparable World is a picaresque romp, but with a keen sense of historical realities (and a few justified but subtle barbs aimed at contemporary British society, because what would a picaresque novel be without satirical observation?).

>53 spiralsheep: I have just ordered it and I'm really looking forward to reading it!

>54 MissWatson: I hope you enjoy it! SI Martin even mentions Hessians (soldiers of German origin) a couple of times because his use of period detail is exemplary.

It was a cold sunny day until I'd walked halfway up the hills yesterday, then it was a white-out with wind so fierce I struggled the last few steps to the summit trig point. Nobody else in sight. Even the mountain cows had climbed down a 60degree slope to shelter from the wind. Most of them were eating the long dry grass hidden in crevices but one was casually munching on thorny woody over-wintered brambles! They truly are more like mountain sheep and goats than cows, lol. Shaggy bosses! :D

41/2021. I read Penguin Modern Poets 15: Alan Bold, Edward Brathwaite, Edwin Morgan, which is a 1969 collection of work by those three poets. This is at least a partial re-read for me. Alan Bold's work is justly neglected now, while Brathwaite has achieved classic status as a Caribbean poet, and Edwin Morgan is a national treasure in both Scotland and the rest of Britain.

Firstly, my review of the 60 page selection of Alan Bold's poems: no. 1*

Next, the 50 page selection of Edward (Kamau) Brathwaite's poems from his first three books Rights of Passage, Masks, and Islands, had a few good lines but on the whole they didn't make me want to re-read any further into his works. 3*

From The Emigrants: "In London, Undergrounds are cold.
The train rolls in from darkness
with our fears."

From South: "And gulls, their white sails slanted seaward,
fly into the limitless morning before us."

Lastly, the 50 page selection of Edwin Morgan's poems: YES. 5*

32 representative poems free and legal online here:
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/edwin-morgan/

GeoKIT: Europe (Scotland, Barbados, many other times and places)
BingoDOG: Book by two or more authors

>56 spiralsheep: Hahaha your review of Bold's poems says it all! I'm glad at least 1/3 of the book was good.

>57 rabbitprincess: From the Scottish Poetry Library's assessment of Scottish poet Alan Bold: "Although he published much poetry early in his adult life, it is for his independent scholarship on poet Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978) that he is generally remembered nowadays." I rest my case!

I wouldn't want to put anyone off reading Edward (Kamau) Brathwaite though because his work is quite varied and I'm merely less keen on the earlier poems (I also read a lot of poetry and am quite judgy, lol).

That moment at the end of the novel when radical, working class, suffragist rioters unquestioningly assist a notoriously arrogant/evil aristocrat in restoring the monarchy and then none of the main cast "heroes" care when the palace collapses on the working class people (and the palace servants) who made their success possible, and the monarch gives a speech and rides off into the sunset with all her troops without giving any orders to search for and help survivors, and the protagonists all get in a carriage and trundle back to their stately homes.

45/2021. I read The Labyrinth Gate, by Alis Rasmussen (Kate Elliott), which was her first fantasy novel, published in 1988. It's mostly a fantasy of manners set in an alternative magical England named Anglia in a vague pseudo-historical period combining 19th and 18th century tropes but with considerably more gender-equality. The word-building is good, the maguffin-based plot works well enough, and the characters are expanded somewhat from stock types. Entertaining, if you like the fantasy of manners genre (which I do), and a promising first novel. 3.5*

Quotes

"Chryse smiled, looking smug in her trim, tailored gown and matching military-style jacket, the legacy of the treaty of Amyan, the signing of which had caused military fashions to go out of style and Julian's sister to consign the outfit to her closet." (Presumably the rough equivalent of the Treaty of Amiens, 1802, in our world.)

"And in the center of the room, on a thin pillar of white stone, stood a cup, a golden chalice. It had no decoration whatsoever, but from it emanated a force that both attracted and repelled the eye."

Like most trendsetting fantasy of manners this quotes early modern English literature but with a couple more layers of world-building than most similar novels of the time.

BingoDOG: Book with a love story (the newlywed protagonists amongst others).

SFFKIT: Indiana Jones in fantasyland (an alt-history/fantasy archaeological expedition complete with political baddies, an underground temple, and magical religious items on altars).

>47 spiralsheep: Looking forward to reading this one. I love the shiny new covers penguin have commissioned for these ones. Hopefully just the first of many reissues.

>61 charl08: Incomparable World is a good book, especially for lovers of the picaresque, although I'm suffering from a terrible case of "I enjoyed this and want to hear other people enthusing about it now", lol.

I should take a look at the rest of the series and support it with my money but one of my goals for this year is to reduce my To Reads, and even my copy of Girl, Woman, Other probably won't get read until 2022 because I decided 2021 is my year for completing as many unread countries as possible.

>59 spiralsheep: Hahaha! I love Tom Gauld, he hits the nail on the head so very often!

>63 Jackie_K: I'm filled with GLEE every time I find a genuine Tom Gauld subplot in an actual novel in the wild! Even if it's an otherwise good book, the Tom Gauld moment brings me such unalloyed joy! :D

>41 spiralsheep: Turns out I already had this in my TBR list. Probably from Paul Cranswick.

>53 spiralsheep: Ooh, you made me go look up Hogarth. I learned something today! I too love historical fiction that hits that balance of research and story.

>59 spiralsheep: Lol. Now I'll have to be on the lookout in my reading too. Glee does seem the appropriate response.

>65 justchris: I found A Portable Paradise to be an emotional read but not a difficult one, and well worth it.

Apart from the adjective Hogarthian, his art is a good source for Black Britons in 18th century England (also cute pug dogs, lol):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Captain_Lord_George_Graham,_1715-47,_in_his_C...

I mean, technically having a recognisable Tom Gauld subplot detracts from a novel's literary credibility, but I'm not reading for literary credibility, so GLEEEEE! :D

47/2021. I read Clean Slate: new and selected poems by Daisy Zamora (translated by mother and daughter team Elinor and Margaret Randall), which is a collection of poetry from 1968-93 in both the original Spanish and an English translation which the author read, revised, and approved. Zamora demonstrates her ability to write on varied subjects, from both public and private life, in a range of differing forms, and she has the rare gift of being able to create both perfect miniature epigrams and thoughtful multi-page poems that have earned their expansiveness. 4*

Quotes

Precisely

Precisely because I do not have
the beautiful words I need
I call upon my acts
to speak to you.

El final (in the original Spanish because it works so well )

Y tenazmente seguimos buscando los recovecos
adivinando señas queriendo llegar primero al
final del cuento cuando lo verdadero lo único
lo cierto es que no hay no existe no lo sabre-
mos nunca.

The End (English translation)

Tenacious, we keep on searching corners
reading signs wanting to be the first
to reach the end of the story when
what's real what's true what we know
is there is no end it doesn't exist
we will never get there.

A Leveled Field

The suitcase filled with infant's clothes
I kept so carefully,
the little girl crossing the street in her mother's arms,
or the ephemeral sight of a pregnant woman
waiting for a bus.

Whatever meeting/ Spark/ Lights the fire
of this heart caught unaware: dry hay, tinder
reduced to smoking ashes, a leveled field.

From Letter to Coronel Urtecho

I've been sending these words your way
as one would loose a dark and tightly woven braid,
freeing the hair to take flight
upon the wind.

BingoDOG: Book with a character you think you'd like to have as a friend (several of the characters and the author)
GeoKIT: Central and South America (Nicaragua)

Some of my citizen science has been used by a venerable British scientific institution to promote a historical woman scientist and her work for International Women's Day. I couldn't be more proud of my tiny contribution. :-)

The Labyrinth Gate sounds like a good one to read between more serious books.

>69 hailelib: That was exactly why I originally bought The Labyrinth Gate, for a change of pace, but with hindsight it's also interesting both as an innovative fantasy of manners subgenre novel and as Kate Elliott's first book before she became a well known bestseller.

I also just like reading widely for fun. :-)

>68 spiralsheep: Congratulations. Who is the scientist?

>68 spiralsheep: Congratulations. Do tell: who was she?

>68 spiralsheep: you can't just leave it at that?! Spill the beans!

>71 pamelad: >72 MissWatson: >73 Helenliz: Unfortunately revealing her name would make my offline name and probably also address much more easily findable, which I'd like to avoid, so I'll just polish my halo by suggesting that we should appreciate all people who do good science and especially those who have to work twice as hard to get half the recognition, and it's useful that reputable institutions are joining our own voices.

Seedheads and Hagstones, by Angie Lewin, watercolour, 2018, from The Book of Pebbles.



48/2021. I read The Book of Pebbles by Christopher Stocks (author) and Angie Lewin (illustrator), which is a non-fiction book on the natural history and art of pebbles. Stocks' text washes around Lewin's art like waves on the shore. I particularly enjoyed the anecdote about Barbara Hepworth comparing her paramour Ben Nicholson's head to "the most lovely pebble ever seen". At under 100 pages, if we discount the filler at the back, this book is small but perfectly formed, like a pebble. 5*

Quotes

"Sometimes at night I lie in bed and listen to pebbles being made. The sound is uncanny, yet oddly comforting, like the slow deep breath of a slumbering giant - or more prosaically, as they used to say on the Isle of Portland, like everyone in Weymouth swishing their curtains open and closed at the same time;"

Lmao: (...) "the nineteenth century was dismissed as a purgatory of smoke and stovepipe hats, blacking factories and bewhiskered patriarchs in funereal suits," (...)

Lol, have y'all seen that "prof or hobo" meme? Well: "Enthusiastically bearded, with his clothes in an apparently chronic state of mild disarray, Tandy embodies the Platonic ideal of a geologist," (...)

BingoDOG: A book about nature or the environment (pebbles!)
GeoKIT: Europe (UK)

Two photos by Jason deCaires Taylor, from The Underwater Museum.





49/2021. I read The Underwater Museum : the submerged sculptures of Jason deCaires Taylor with photos by Jason deCaires Taylor and two essays, by an art critic (5pgs) and a marine biologist (8pgs), which is a like a museum exhibition catalogue featuring the author's earlier works in Grenada and Mexico. The art photography is stunning, and the ecological intention of helping natural marine reef-building using carefully constructed sculptures of local people is fascinating. There are photos from the creation and installation of the sculptures, and later photos of organisms inhabiting their new undersea proto-reef homes. 5*

Quote

From Helen Scales, marine biologist: "the earliest artificial reefs are thought to date back to the sixteenth century in Japan, when people threw bamboo logs onto the seabed to attract fish and boost their catches."

Description: "A celebration of rejuvenation, the wings of the angelic figure in Reclamation are planted with reclaimed purple gorgonian sea fans that had been displaced from the natural reef after heavy storm surges."

BingoDOG: Element in title (water)
GeoKIT: Central and South America (Grenada and Mexico)

>75 spiralsheep: That sounds like a wonderful book and I love the illustration. It looks so soothing.

>76 spiralsheep: How interesting! I really like this, it's like urban art but under water! Thank you for sharing the pictures.

>74 spiralsheep: well we will applaud you and your researchee anyway.

You read a really varied and tempting array of books. The pebble one is currently calling to me.

>74 spiralsheep: I understand!

>77 MissBrangwen: The Book of Pebbles was soothing, yes, like sitting on a peaceful shore listening to the waves and looking around at the beach.

If you want to see more underwater sculptures then there are many more photos on google image search for "underwater museum" or "underwater sculpture".

>80 spiralsheep: I'll have a look (I remember your scrolling advice, too!).

>78 Helenliz: So many men giving lectures while their wives, sisters, daughters, and servants, measured and recorded out of sight and out of mind.

Boredom is an optional condition of the mind. I opt out! I was picking up my click and collect holds at the library on Monday and the librarian casually glancing at the books said, "Ah, yes, Graham Greene and John Fowles... no... Jane Bowles?!" It was most satisfying.

I can recommend The Book of Pebbles as lightweight but consistently engaging, like sitting on the shore listening to the waves and examining the beach. (And if you read it carefully you can probably regift it as a present... >;-) ).

>79 MissWatson: :-)

>81 MissBrangwen: Scrolling for edification and entertainment is definitely a better option, whether it's cute animals or landscapes or art.

>76 spiralsheep: That looks gorgeous! Onto the wishlist it goes!

>84 Jackie_K: I've left the book out so I can keep flipping through it. The essay by the marine biologist was interesting too, although I didn't think much of the art critic's contribution (only 5pgs, mercifully).

50/2021. I read Angel (revised 2011 edition) by Merle Collins, which is a novel about three generations of Grenadian women, during the thirty years from 1951 to 1983, that the author originally wrote and published in 1987 and then rewrote and republished with Peepal Tree Press in 2011.

This book is mostly written in Standard English but various characters also speak varieties of Grenadian Creole English and even Grenadian Creole French. There's more older Creole than I'm used to reading in Caribbean literatures and I was glad of the two page glossary at the back, especially for words of African or Carib or French origin, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to every reader although there's no deliberate obscurity (or obfuscation to use my own specialist vocabulary, lol) by Collins who clearly wants her work to be read as well as being representative. Many scholars consider this text to be a valuable archive of historic language in addition to a historical novel.

In form the novel is divided into chapters and each chapter divided into shorter scenes headed by Creole proverbs. In style and content this reads as much like an oral history collection as a novel, which is intentional on the author's part, with the structure following three generations of women in one family: through ageing and death, through motherhood, and through growing up and coming of age, through Independence from Britain, through the revolution, and through the US invasion.

The conclusion of the book is, of course, not happy: that Grenada doesn't count as a country with its own borders because economics dictate people must work abroad, and because the US (or any larger power) can impose its will through military or economic violence at any time it pleases; that those (men) who fight their way into leadership positions are often either destructively corrupt or destructively egotistical; that if only the chickens would work together as a flock then the chickenhawks would go home hungry more often than not, but chickens scatter by instinct and have to be taught their best hope is mutual aid. 4.5*

Quotes

Bush: "When she looked up, the other trees around had started rustling too as the breeze got stronger. She lowered her eyes, left them to their conversation, and went on inside."

Proverb: "Never trouble trouble until trouble trouble you."

Poverty ("caan" = can't): "'Well is so it is!' Cousin Maymay said, 'We caan let one another sink. Is you, is me. We ha hol one another up!'"

Education ("djab" = diables = devils): "We did just know bout Britain an we feel British, so we great! Poor djab us!"

Chickens and chickenhawks ("caan" = can't): "'Allyou self too stupid,' she said to the fowls, 'Don run when they try to frighten you. Stay together an dey caan get none!'"

BingoDOG: a one word title
GeoKIT: Central and South America (Grenada)

Just found this post, starred it and oh my am I going to be paying attention! Love your reading choices and looking forward to more gems from you

What is GeoKit and Bingo Dog?

I see you have a list of topics for month to month. I have some archaeology books lemme see if I can hunt them down

>87 cindydavid4: Hi friend! My main goal for this year is to continue reading around the world. You already know I'm reading for the Reading Globally quarterly themes (looking forward to your childhood theme next!). You introduced me to the Reading Through Time monthly challenges, which seem fun so far. And I participate in some of the Virago Modern Classics group reads too.

I'm also trying to clear my To Read shelf of some older unread SF & F by doing the SFFKit monthly reading challenges.

GeoKit is a mini reading challenge based on geography. This year it has 7 year long categories: Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Polar, Central and South America, and North America. I've completed one set and am 6 out of 7 for my second GeoKit journey.

BingoDog is a bingo card of 25 reading challenges. I've filled one card with 25 books read this year and my second card now looks like this (if I've got the code correct, lol):



I know all this probably sounds complicated, but I'm quite organised and it's helping me stick to my reading goals and clearing my To Read shelf slowly.

I like the idea of The Underwater Museum.

>89 hailelib: It was a lovely book to look at, and I especially liked the idea of using sculptures of local people to help marine life in their area. Apparently there are several more underwater museums and sculptures around the world now too.

51/2021. I read Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene, which is a novel about a dull retired English bank manager who becomes entangled with the life and travels of his rather more exciting aunt, via Brighton, Paris, the Orient Express, Istanbul, and Paraguay. A 1969 novel that, according to librarything common knowldge was published in 1938, lol. It's a typical Greene entertainment, the plot is largely irrelevant, only our protagonist is a fully realised character, the prose appears straightforward but is consistently quotable, and the frequent satirical barbs incisively punch upwards (or, at worst, occasionally sideways). I was entertained. 4*

Quotes

On premeditation: "'I have never planned anything illegal in my life,' Aunt Augusta said. 'How could I plan anything of the kind when I have never read any of the laws and have no idea what they are?'"

Punching up: "I comforted myself, as I read Punch, that the English character was unchangeable. True, Punch once passed through a distressing period, when even Winston Churchill was a subject of mockery, but the good sense of the proprietors and of the advertisers drew it safely back into the old paths. Even the admiral had begun to subscribe again, and the editor had, quite correctly in my opinion, been relegated to television, which is at its best a vulgar medium."

Paris: "(...) an American couple (...) were having tea. One of them was raising a little bag, like a drowned animal, from his cup at the end of a cord. At that distressing sight I felt very far away from England, and it was with a pang that I realised how much I was likely to miss Southwood and dahlias in the company of Aunt Augusta."

Kent from the Golden Arrow: "By the time we reached Petts Wood the buses had all turned green, and at Orpington the oast houses began to appear (...)"

Aunt Augusta ": her face looked as hard as a face stamped on a coin."

Christmas: "Christmas it seems to me is a necessary festival; we require a season when we can regret all the flaws in our human relationships: it is the feast of failure, sad but consoling."

On the new "Children's Corner" in a church (he would've been 9 years old): "'We shall unveil it at Easter, and I am wondering if we couldn't persuade Prince Andrew...'"

BingoDOG: senior citizen protagonist (retired protagonist and his aunt in her mid-seventies)
GeoKIT: Europe (England, Paris/France, the Orient Express, Istanbul/Turkey, Paraguay)

P.S. From Travels with my Aunt: "Also apparently the feast of St Thomas of Hereford who died in exile in Orvieto, but I doubt if the English have ever heard of him."

Au contraire, Mr Greene, I knew he was a medieval Bishop of Hereford, that his full name was Thomas de Canteloupe, and that he died abroad because he was attempting to get his excommunication by the Archbishop of Canterbury reversed by the Pope. I also know more than is necessary about his legal dispute with the Red Earl.

My local public library has been offering a sterling click and collect service during lockdown, for which I'm very grateful. However, the local council have now decided to allow a private for-profit Covid-19 testing business to use the same entrance and reception desk, and they've moved the desk away from the door so library patrons now have to pass through and wait in the same three small hallway areas as people who think they're ill with Covid-19 and want a test.

So no more library loans for me for the forseeable future. I also wonder what the librarians feel about this new arrangement where they work all day in the same space as people presumed to be actively infected with Covid-19, especially when the building has multiple entrances on two different floors that could be used at the cost of the private for-profit business paying for a separate receptionist.

>93 spiralsheep: Ugh, what a revolting decision on the council's part. Are they trying to *discourage* people from using the library?

>94 rabbitprincess: I can think of several possible scenarios but they're all bad and I would rather pretend there's some sort of positive interpretation I'm missing (hopefully not a Covid-19 positive interpretation). Every explanation that immediately springs to mind involves more money for the for-profit testing business (not having to pay for a receptionist) presumably with a kick-back to the council (higher rental for the space), possibly with pressure from central government (pro-business, anti-library and other public services, and still pro-"herd immunity" Covid-19 spreading), and I can't see any scenario which doesn't irresponsibly disregard the safety of the librarians and the library patrons. Argh.

My local community is usually better than this so problems which would be normal elsewhere are shown up as avoidable bad decisions.

Yep, that train of thought sounds all too likely :( Irresponsible is exactly the right word.

>96 rabbitprincess: I just keep thinking of how the librarians must be feeling.

>97 spiralsheep: Yes, the librarians are now at a much higher risk, and also for the elderly people living alone for whom library books are their link to the world and how they will have to choose to take a risk or be harmed by the lack of having something to fill their time.

Of course, over here, the libraries have been fully open for some time, albeit with plexiglass around the checkout desk.

I hope the vaccines will be widely available to your area soon.

>93 spiralsheep: That's very stupid, and quite unsafe. Perhaps some council incompetent is leaving it up to the library staff to find a solution.

>93 spiralsheep: -- Not a good decision on the part of the council.

>93 spiralsheep: I can't believe it - how sad and, as >96 rabbitprincess: said, irresponsible.

Sorry for the delayed response. I fainted, hit my head, and spent the latter part of yesterday in A&E being patched up and monitored. Hopefully I shall only be left with a small but dashing duelling scar. >;-)

>98 RidgewayGirl: >99 pamelad: >100 hailelib: >101 MissBrangwen: I agree with you all. And, yes, RidgewayGirl, any lapse like this always impacts most on already vulnerable people. Argh.

In other news, I have an appointment for my first dose of the world's most fashionable vaccine on Wednesday morning, and a community volunteer driver as the vaccination site is inexplicably over 5 miles from the nearest public transport in a field - another notable choice of location that impacts most on particular groups of people. Our annual mass flu vaccination, for the same number and groups of people, is offered by nurses at everyone's local NHS doctor(s) which are much more conveniently accessible.

>102 spiralsheep: over 5 miles from the nearest public transport in a field
Maybe they're trying to re-create Glastonbury? :) Glad to hear you're booked for the vaccine, and sorry to hear you had a trip to A&E! May the scar be dashing indeed.

>103 rabbitprincess: I quite like the idea of Glastonbury for elders and disabled people, but it would need accessible toilets! (Sorry, but I'm relentlessly practical on this issue as I have experience of organising outdoor events in the countryside.)

I asked my neighbours if I should claim it's a duelling scar, rather than an embarrassing argument with a fence post which I clearly lost, and they say if anyone could get away with such an outrageous claim it would be me. :D

>93 spiralsheep: Consider a raspberry well and truly blown towards the council and the private company. As everyone else has said, it sounds like a lose-lose situation, as is so often the case when private money comes into the equation.

>102 spiralsheep: Ouch! I hope it heals soon (but with suitably impressive duelling scar).

>102 spiralsheep: Ouch! And yes, claim it as a dashing scar. The phrase "You should see the other chap" needs to feature in your explanation at least once. >;-)

In a field? Really? That sounds practical (not).

>105 Jackie_K: Yes, I'm still horrified by the annexation of a public library and its staff by a private for-profit medical company who clearly care nothing for their own people's health. Why should I trust any business that doesn't even look after its own staff?!

>105 Jackie_K: >106 Helenliz: I was warned I'd have a truly impressive black eye and bruising across a swathe of my forehead but it's been over 24hrs and I have a very small egg, e.g. half a quail's egg, no bruising, and a nice dry scab (sorry if that's tmi but it's all good news). I'm generally lucky with my skin not scarring too much but I doubt if I'll get away with this one entirely. Over one eyebrow is perfect for a dashing duelling scar though and I shall certainly be stealing "You should see the other chap!" >;-)

And, of course, I don't have to worry about infection because I had my tetanus vaccination as a youngster.

>106 Helenliz: I mean, it's a field with a large car park so I assume they're set up for drive-through vaccinations, which will be convenient for them and people with access to cars but even in a rural area like mine that's not everyone (and our community volunteer drivers have been working non-stop for months to cover all the extra requests but with fewer drivers available). Hopefully NHS GPs will also offer vaccinations soon as they do an excellent job with flu every year.

Duelling scar, eh? Clearly the Regency romances have leapt the threads and infected you. Glad you're OK.

>108 pamelad: Thank you. Not a lot of duelling, other than verbal sparring, in Heyer (or Austen) and I haven't read most of the raunchier "Regencies". I have to admit I've probably read more about dodgy European student duelling societies, which is possibly more shaming than overly Romantic romances, lol.

>93 spiralsheep: How fascinating that they set up COVID-19 testing right at the library entrance! I wonder too if this is a symptom of lack of diversity among the decision makers -- I could imagine a group of higher risk decision makers choosing very differently than a group of decision makers at low risk.

>102 spiralsheep: Hope your head heals cleanly (and that you don't experience something similar again!).

>102 spiralsheep: Oh no! I hope you're not in too much pain!

>110 pammab: Yes, if the staff, and regular library users, had a vote then I'm sure the decision would have been different. Using an alternative entrance/exit also would have created at least one extra paid receptionist job at a time when people need employment.

Thank you! The hospital gave me a very thorough check-up before they let me go home.

>111 MissBrangwen: Absolutely no pain at all! I had a mild concussion but no bruising so far.

>108 pamelad: Or the Russians. Too much Pushkin and Turgenev cannot be good for one.

Me versus European classic literature. >;-)

>114 spiralsheep: Ha! :D

>114 spiralsheep: Oh, now that is what I call a proper duel!

>115 MissBrangwen: How bad is it that I'm still laughing at my own joke? It's bad, isn't it? :D

>116 MissWatson: Nicole the maid versus Monsieur Jourdain, Le bourgeois gentilhomme. Thank you, Moliere!

>114 spiralsheep: that's quite excellent! She appears to be getting the best of him.

>118 Helenliz: Yes, the satire against bourgeois Monsieur Jourdain for aspiring beyond his ordained place to become a gentilhomme is relentless, and iirc includes him being so bad at fencing that he's bested by his housemaid. But perhaps Moliere is at least correct that becoming an aristocrat wasn't as desirable as some people might think. Being a wealthy bourgeois had its own advantages.

52/2021. I read The Corsair by Abdulaziz Al-Mahmoud, which is a historical adventure novel about piracy and politics set in 1818-19 in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula along what was known as the "Pirate Coast". It was first published in Arabic in 2011 then translated into English in 2012 by Amira Nowaira. The cover is very traditional for this genre with a sailing boat on the sea, a map, a sword, and fancy lettering. The author has primarily written as a journalist and this was his first novel. Al-Mahmoud's journalistic background shows in the writing so it's clearly communicative and well paced, with short chapters and plenty of action, but it also tends to read as much like reportage as fiction. There are a few short infodumps but as this story was aimed at both Arab readers and a wider audience the detail is more often informative than obstructive.

One of the advantages for an author from a strict Salafi/Wahhabi Muslim state writing fictionalised history is that he can explore politics and human nature more freely than would be accepted in non-fiction, although he seems to have tried to portray the Wahhabi politicians more favourably than his other characters. There are no irredeemable villains or unbelievable heroes in this book, and individuals have multiple motivations both personal and political. The outside interference and reprisals to secure British Empire trade routes, the incoming influence of Wahhabi religious and cultural ideas, and the military imposition of Ottoman imperialism, are all shown as disrupting the uneasy regional balance of power. Nor does the author gloss over the violence of piracy and raiding, the widespread existence of slavery and racism (including Arab racism against Black Africans and Indians, including Muslims), or the stark contrast between the bare subsistence of poor fishing communities and the luxuries of their often self-declared rulers. The author, unfortunately, also includes his own presumably subconscious misogyny and one or two slight misreadings of historical culture based in that misogyny, although as only three women have brief speaking roles this doesn't make more than a passing difference (and to be fair that's still more women characters than in many "classic" adventure novels, especially historicals).

For me this was a mildly interesting read for the history and Qatari cultural influences but a slightly below average novel, although readers focused on the adventure aspect might enjoy it more than I did. 2.5*

Enquiring minds etc: did the Arab pirate Rahmah ibn Jabir wear an eyepatch? YES.

BingoDOG: Read a CAT or KIT....
GeoKIT: Asia (Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula)

Good news update: my NHS doctor's receptionist just phoned and offered me a Covid-19 vaccination so they are being given small quantities of the vaccine and are slowly working through their patients who can't go further afield ("afield", geddit?! >;-) ). So good vaccine news in my locality after all! And I still have a volunteer driver for my pre-booked appointment tomorrow.

Even with a carpark, a field seems an odd place to use for the vaccinations. They don't seem to be considering those who do not drive or have a vehicle of their own. My own appointment is about eight miles away but my husband is driving.

The Corsair sounds interesting for its location and subject. Too bad you didn't find it a better novel.

>120 spiralsheep: "Enquiring minds etc: did the Arab pirate Rahmah ibn Jabir wear an eyepatch? YES"
^ made me giggle.

Good news on the vaccine rollout!

I've just seen my first butterfly of 2021, a proud peacock! Spring has officially sprung. :-)

>122 hailelib: As long as they're offering multiple accessible locations, even if it's for a minority of people, then I'm satisfied. I just want the best for everyone.

The Corsair was a first novel, and a translation, and I'm sure some other readers would have enjoyed it more than me. It was at least interesting, and that's all I ask as a minimum return for my time.

>123 pammab: Does a pirate truly count if they're not missing an eye, hand, or leg though? >;-)

> VACCINE: I had my first jab an hour ago, it was the Oxford AstraZeneca (which I'm happy about), and I don't even have a bump or a bruise. So far so good! I hope you all get your jabs soon with as little fuss as possible. (My volunteer driver had the Pfizer a couple of months ago and said his arm was sore for several days.)

The tents and portacabin pods in a field with a large car park were arranged very sensibly and the staff were both efficient and friendly. Here's hoping the vaccine rollout continues well everywhere.

>124 spiralsheep: I'm scheduled for my first vaccine Tuesday. It will be either Pfizer or Moderna. I understand most people at that vaccination center receive Moderna. When I signed up it said I would receive one of the two.

>124 spiralsheep: yay! hope that's the worst of the side effects.

>125 thornton37814: Good luck! Let us know how you get on.

>126 Helenliz: Over 2hrs and not a sign of a reaction. Let's hope it's a swan-like vaccine and is paddling rapidly under the surface.

> My friend, male (this will become obvious), tells me there's medical research indicating that, "Even if your arm is bitten off by a shark immediately after you get vaccinated it will still work." Note: I live 80km / 50 miles from the nearest sea and it has no recorded incidents of shark attack. Male friend. I'm just saying.

>124 spiralsheep: Yay, such good news!

>127 spiralsheep: This made me giggle!

>128 MissBrangwen: About six hours after the vaccination I developed a slightly raised body temperature for which I, of course, took paracetamol because medical science is our friend. The temperature is good because it shows my immune system (officially overenthusiastic) is making plenty of anti-bodies so the vaccine is working. Yay! Note: people with less active immune systems, which is almost everybody on earth, will have even milder side effects.

>128 MissBrangwen: My male friends are showing their true worth today. From a discussion of real historical chat-up lines: "Your forehead makes a stately prospect, and shows like a fair Castle commanding some goodly country." (17thC)

>124 spiralsheep: Congratulations on getting your first dose. In Australia the vaccine rollout is going more slowly than planned, partly because of the EU ban on AstraZeneca exports. That's the one most of us will be getting, and fortunately it's being made here, so we're no longer dependent on imports. Also, there's no virus in the community at the moment, so it's not urgent. It's a different case in New Guinea, where the pandemic is raging. Australia has sent vaccines, equipment and staff, but it's a drop in the bucket. I hope the Federal Government makes a humanitarian decision, for a change, and does a great deal more, even if it means slowing down the vaccination program at home.

>130 pamelad: I hope everything continues to go better in Australia than here. Your "local" state politicians have shown some notable leadership, especially early on.

You already know I believe my government, and those with similar policies around the world, have failed their people. If we'd all followed the science-based lead from South Korea and New Zealand etc then we'd be in a better position to help those nations who don't have such developed public health infrastructure. In failing our own nation the government have also failed to put us in a position to help others. As the UK is a source of one of the world's most deadly variants we can't afford not to roll out vaccination here as soon as possible, to save lives here but also to prevent us being the source of another deadly variant.

But our PM is already warning of yet another preventable wave of Covid-19 later this year because he cba doing his job and nobody in England has the power to do it for him.

So angry. Over 135,000+ dead. I will never believe that older people are expendable, but I do think it's telling that we also have amongst the highest excess mortality rates in Europe for under-65s. It didn't need to be this way.

(And people who prioritise "the economy" should be angry too.)

>124 spiralsheep: My daughter saw a butterfly yesterday on the way home from school; unfortunately with the sun in my eyes all I saw was its shadow on the pavement! But I'll take that - I'm so so ready for spring!

>131 spiralsheep: Hear hear.

Boo! to the covid testing site at the library. Really, it makes one wonder about how local councils think things through.

Boo! also to the head injury. I hope you are healing well.

Congratulations on getting your vaccination. But watch out for sharks!

>132 Jackie_K: Any glimpse of butterfly counts. TBH I only saw the underside of the peacock's wings from inside my house but I'm good at IDing so I knew what it was. The primroses have begun to believe in spring. There are thumb-sized bumblebees looking for nesting sites. I was buzzed by a buzzard twice in the last week. And today my friend's spaniel flushed a muntjac from cover. So I've seen more wildlife in the last week than for the several previous months together. I was even happy to see molehills in my lawn, lol.

(So shaming that England was the source of one of the world's deadliest variants of Covid-19 when we had choices which would have prevented that from happening.)

>133 VivienneR: I'm still hoping there's a reasonable explanation for the Covid-19 testing centre entrance and reception being combined with the library, but I can't think of one at the moment.

I was very lucky the head injury wasn't worse, and I received excellent assistance from passers-by and the NHS emergency medical services both ambulance paramedics and at the hospital.

Thank you! Maybe my friend knows something we don't about sharks? Landsharks? Airsharks? An oncoming sharknado? Very worrying! ;-)

>134 spiralsheep: Oh yes, the bumblebees - they've arrived here in the past week or so too and I'm always delighted to see them. They're huge, I did wonder if they were the queens looking for somewhere to nest rather than the workers, which I seem to remember from last year being a bit smaller. The one I was able to ID was a white-tailed bumblebee (we had a lot of them last year, so I'm happy to see them back). We also have lots of tree bumblebees here, although they don't appear till a bit later.

>136 Jackie_K: I'm somewhat south of you so our fauna will be slightly different but many of the bumblebees here are solitary. They like burrowing their nests into the steep sunny slopes where the cows hooves have already scraped away the plant cover from the soil.

We've had bumblebees on the heather in the back garden, which is probably one of the few things in flower right now. Great big fluffy things they are - and that's as technical as my bee identification skills get!

Totally loving the shark attack post vaccine theory. Part of me wants to ask how that was shown... and why?!

>137 spiralsheep: I've just been reading about bumblebees (including the common ones here) - they're not solitary, but nest in places like compost bins, under sheds, underground, or in a shady corner of a garden. The ones I saw this week were checking out our ivy, which would make a great nest site! It sounds from what I was reading like it was indeed a queen - "The distinctive low-flying zig zag flight of a nest-site searching queen investigating holes in the ground, or piles of leaves is seen in spring." (from urbanbees.co.uk)

I saw a wasp the other day. I was not excited to see it.

>138 Helenliz: Disclaimer: I'm not a biologist but the person who told me about this is so if I get the details wrong then it's on me.

I'm guessing there are rare cases when someone has received a post-infection vaccine, e.g. rabies (or maybe a venom antidote), and then lost the limb, e.g. in a traffic accident, and can't be given another dose due to potential side effects or toxicity. But for whatever reason medical researchers decided they needed to know how fast vaccines and antidotes provoke immune responses in recipients so they've done tests. Spoiler tagged because it's research on animals.

An acquaintance of an acquaintance in a recent group chat (for which I don't keep logs because I'm not creepy, lol) was a research biologist who had worked on a study of mice who were given vaccines then immediately had the site of vaccination removed. Apparently all the mice had the same immune response expected from a normative vaccination process.

So it wasn't actually shark attacks but the principle is the same.

ETA: I'd assume the research has been published somewhere.

>139 Jackie_K: Bumblebees are great fun to watch because they're just about large and slow enough to track with our own eyes. When I lived further south we had slow worms living in our compost heap. Clue: they're not slow and they're not worms. Golden earth lightning.

>140 thornton37814: On an intellectual level I know that every creature has its place in nature but I've never been convinced about paper wasps on an emotional level. They do seem gratuitously annoying to humans. I suppose I'm not used to being casually annoyed by other species, except wasps and mosquitos and very few etcs. /spoiled British Isles inhabitant

>141 spiralsheep: wow! and thanks for the detail.
I will remember that should I be vaccinated and approached by a shark.

>143 Helenliz: Or an out of control Thomas Hardy era threshing machine (more literary than sharks?). >;-)

>142 spiralsheep: Oh I'm jealous - I'd love to see a slowworm!

>145 Jackie_K: Slowworms are the most spectacular creatures I've observed in the UK, and I've seen most fauna visible with human eyes + monocular / cameras. Highest likelihood of seeing them is to volunteer for a slowworm survey with a local wildlife group, but it doesn't feel the same as a sudden unexpected encounter with the golden earth lightning.

In other news, apparently the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine I'm being given has rebranded as Vaxzevria and I can't stop giggling because Vaxzevria sounds like a femme fatale alien queen from 1930s pulp sci-fi. :D

>146 spiralsheep: This is so funny! I had never heard of slow worms and looked them up, and of course I know this animal, I just didn‘t know its English name. In German it‘s a Blindschleiche, which roughly translates as "blind sneaker".

>148 MissBrangwen: Yes, I think an old English name for slowworm is blindworm, as in Shakespeare's MacBeth, so our languages and cultures think the same:

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

>149 spiralsheep: Ah, I wasn't aware of that! Thanks for sharing!
I think it's fascinating to discover these parallels (and differences) between languages.
And there are so many similarities between German and English.

>150 MissBrangwen: English and German cultures are so close in many ways, which makes our differences show in contrast. In nicknames and slang our languages reflect our cultures.

The discussion about slow worms is interesting. My son recently found one in the compost and we believed it to be a snake. Now I can give him more information!

>152 VivienneR: Slowworms love a nice warm compost heap, especially if there's a sunny area nearby where they can come out to bask. Where in the world, roughly, is your son?

VACCINE update to reassure everyone awaiting their jab. Reminder that I officially have an overactive immune system so when I'm making antibodies I tend to get more side effects than most people.

24-3 Vaccine at 11am. No symptoms. Taking paracetamol anyway throughout today and subsequent days for several reasons.

25-3 Minor aches and pains; temperature up and down marginally but nothing noteworthy; resting pulse up somewhat; minor rash on neck and chest with slight reddening but no itching or anything (rash disappeared when pressed lightly with a clear tumbler / rule / etc). Pottered gently around the garden in the afternoon.

26-3 Flu-type aches and pains; temperature up and down marginally but nothing noteworthy; resting pulse up somewhat; no rash. Stayed in bed all morning and sat indoors all afternoon. My reading concentration was slightly reduced.

27-3 No aches and pains; temperature up and down marginally but nothing noteworthy; pulse back down. Mostly back to normal-for-me. Normal activities.

Thanks to Oxford AstraZeneca and Vaxzevria, for my very desirable new antibodies, especially the research and development team with their leads Sarah Gilbert, Adrian Hill, Andrew Pollard, Teresa Lambe, Sandy Douglas, and Catherine Green. And also everyone who volunteered as a test subject, and any volunteers assisting with the rollout.

ETA: My second "booster" jab is booked for the beginning of June because the recommended gap for maximum effectiveness from the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is currently 8-12 weeks. :-)

>154 spiralsheep: glad to hear that you're back to normal. >:-) And I second the thanks to everyone involved, no matter how small their part.

I'm enjoying your recommendation, Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton.

I had a little arm soreness beginning the night I received the Pfizer vaccine. About 24 hours later, I began to notice a few hives popping up on the arm, but not in the immediate vaccine area. Later that evening I had redness and hives over quite a bit of the arm. By the next day, most of it cleared up. I still itch a little, but I'm not seeing hives. I understand they may reappear at some time, and that I can chalk that up to "COVID arm."

My vaccine round-up was probably not the best post to disappear after for a week, lol.

>155 Helenliz: Thank you!

>156 pamelad: I'm glad to hear it! I think I also recommended the original British 1945 film adaptation of the book, which has Margaret Lockwood in gowns and James Mason in boots and what more could anyone want?

>157 thornton37814: Congratulations on your vaccination! A few hives seem a worthwhile exchange for increased Covid-19 immunity to me. :-)

March summary

I completed my second GeoKIT 2021 round the world challenge this month!

To Reads: 153 (up from 152 last month but down from 158 on 1 Jan), because I bought 12 books although 7 were on my long term buy list and only 2 were true impulse buys (and The Underwater Museum was an excellent impulse!)

Countries unread: 43 (down from 45).

GeoKIT, 2nd round: 7 out of 7 categories, each covered by a different book.

BingoDOG, 2nd card: 21 out of 25 squares, each covered by a different book.

40. Incomparable World, by SI Martin, 1996, novel, 5*
41. Penguin Modern Poets 15 : Alan Bold 1*, Edward Brathwaite 3*, Edwin Morgan 5*, 1969, poetry, average of 3*
42. (poetry book, 4*)
43. (poetry book, 3.5*)
44. (poetry book, 3.5*)
45. The Labyrinth Gate, by Alis Rasmussen (Kate Elliott), 1988, novel, 3.5*
46. Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh, 1964, novel, 0.5*
47. Clean Slate, by Daisy Zamora, 1993, poetry, 4*
48. The Book of Pebbles, by Christopher Stocks (author) and Angie Lewin (illustrator), 2019, nature and art, 5*
49. The Underwater Museum: submerged sculptures, by Jason deCaires Taylor, 2014, nature and art, 5*
50. Angel, by Merle Collins, 2011, novel, 4.5*
51. Travels with my Aunt, by Graham Greene, 1969, novel, 4*
52. The Corsair, by Abdulaziz Al-Mahmoud, 2011, novel, 2.5*
53. Arctic Hero : the incredible life of Matthew Henson, by Catherine Johnson, 2008, biography, 5*
54. The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, volume 2, edited by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Wirrow, illustrated short stories, 2012, 3*
55. City of Bones, by Martha Wells, 1995, novel, 3.5*

I wondered where you were and was glad to see that you updated your thread today!

53/2021. I read Arctic Hero : the incredible life of Matthew Henson, by Catherine Johnson, which is a biography of African American Matthew Henson the famous Arctic explorer, written for children, with illustrations by Seb Camagajevac. Johnson is a reliable children's fiction author who has written both historical and contemporary fiction. She also made an excellent job of this non-fiction. Even bearing in mind her experience as an author, I was surprised how well she tackled the tougher issues in Henson's life story, especially his difficult childhood, the appalling racism he experienced, and his second Inuit family created outside conventional Western ideas of marriage. Most importantly, this is a perfect book for kids whether as interesting history or exciting adventure. 5*

GeoKIT: Polar (Arctic), which completed my second world tour of 2021 for GeoKIT on 29 March. \o/

BingoDOG: Book you share with 20 or fewer members on LT.

>161 spiralsheep: This sounds like a great children's book! I love seeing more and more examples of diverse children's lit.
And congrats on finishing your second GeoKIT world tour! I have yet to read books for Asia and Central/South America to complete my first, but I hope to do so soon!

>162 MissBrangwen: It was such a long time before Matthew Henson's achievements were widely acknowledged by anyone other than the Inuit, so it's good to see his history getting attention now, especially for a range of audiences.

Thank you! Travelling by book is keeping me sane(ish). I look forward to seeing more of your bookish journeys.

Speaking of Matthew Henson, Serial Reader just added his memoir to its holdings, and I am looking forward to reading it!

>164 rabbitprincess: I've read Matthew Henson's autobiography (which will come as no surprise to anyone here at this point, lol) and it's "of its time" because he was constricted in what he could say in a mainstream publication, especially when he needed to try to make money, but A Negro Explorer at the North Pole is still worth reading for its unique perspective.

ETA: The book is also available online:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20923

>165 spiralsheep: Yep, that's the text that Serial Reader will probably be pulling from. It converts Gutenberg books into "serialized" publications so you can read a bit at a time each day.

>166 rabbitprincess: Ah, thank you for the explanation. I'm not at all conversant with most electronic book tech and apps and online reading groups so I'm learning a lot from my fellow Category Challenge readers.

>153 spiralsheep: When I mentioned the slow worm conversation to my son he assured me that he had identified the creature as a snake (I forget which one) and showed me a photograph he took. It's a colourful, beautiful snake with red and yellow stripes, but not a slow worm. He lives near me just on the western side of the Rockies in British Columbia.

>154 spiralsheep: Congratulations on getting your vaccination. I'll be getting a Pfizer shot next week. Like you, I am very thankful for all the people involved in producing it.

>165 spiralsheep: I've had Mathew A. Henson's A Negro Explorer at the North Pole for some time but discovered that I downloaded it in the wrong format. Your post is a reminder to try again. I'm so glad his name is getting attention once more.

>168 VivienneR: Probably some kind of garter snake. Lucky him seeing it!

Good luck with your vaccination. One more week and I have the full protection afforded by the first dose. I shall be celebrating by continuing sensible social distancing, lol.

While I don't believe Peary and Henson reached the true geographic North Pole, or if they did then it's not verifiable, I do think they achieved what they set out to do and arrived as close to their goal as was possible with the navigation available to them at the time, so it's good to see them both credited for their teamwork with Ooqueah, Ootah, Egingwah, and Seeglo.

54/2021. I read The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, volume 2 edited by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Wirrow, which is a collection of extremely short illustrated stories tending towards gothy. Warning for self-harm. 3*

BingoDOG: Impulse read!

I read a lot of poetry, and many very short fictions seem lacking in depth by comparison. Although written-in-a-flash fictions and platitudinous epigrams have their niche and I certainly wasn't in a state of mind for complex poetry when I read the above collection. However life is short and the world includes cut and polished gems like this....

From Poem, by Maria Teresa Horta (translated by Ana Hudson)

First the forest and then
the wood
more mist than snow in the texture

Of the poem that grows, the paper that absorbs
line by line at first
each unshelteredness

Just catching up with your thread and loved reading about your citizen science contribution. Congratulations! Citizen science has contributed so much over the years.

Also, thanks for the sharing the details of your vaccination experience. My husband will be getting his first AstraZeneca shot tomorrow. I don't qualify yet, but I'll be booking an appointment as soon as I'm allowed to do so.

>171 mathgirl40: I've now accidentally also contributed to medical science, lol, as during my recent absence from LT I was diagnosed with a unique variant of an extremely rare health problem (and, yes, I got the necessary treatment immediately from the NHS and am recovering). I'm all for scientific discovery but hope never to be worth studying or writing a research paper about ever again. :D

Good luck to your husband with his first jab! I'm in favour of vaccinations as effective disease prevention that can work on a global scale, especially as one of my older brothers died of polio, so I'm glad to offer anecdotal reassurance to other people about covid-19 vaccination.

55/2021. I read City of Bones, by Martha Wells, which is a 1995 fantasy novel, and was the author's second published novel. I've read her first and third novels and would say this one fits obviously between them in terms of her increasing skill levels. There's one minor hiccup where a passage has been incompletely edited out but it's irrelevant to the plot or a reader's enjoyment (pg122 first edition, where the question about bad water doesn't make sense in context). There's somewhat too much of the running in corridors trope which I'll excuse in low budget tv, such as old school Doctor Who, but not a novel. Also, if the protags were marginally better liars then a whole plot segment would have been redundant, lol. None of this is serious criticism, merely an explanation of my rating. 3.5*

BingoDOG: Book with or about magic
SFFKIT: Indiana Jones in fantasyland (the protag is an archaeological "relic dealer" in search of a macguffin)

Here endeth my March reading.

I'm embarrassed to admit I'd never heard of Henson. Clearly have some reading to do. My mum used to drag us round the Scott polar exhibition in Cambridge as a kid, so clearly I wasn't paying attention!

>174 charl08: Arctic exploration isn't as easy to romanticise as the race for the South Pole: no mountains or magnificent glaciers, evidence of fraudulent claims and tedious bureaucratic disputes, unedifying racism, and probably the first human to truly set foot at the geographic North Pole was flown in.

Wally Herbert's 1969 expedition via the Pole of Inaccessibility is interesting, and did useful science, but he was competing with a moon landing! And on our own planet it was already apparent that the Pole of Inaccessibility had nothing to compare with deep sea trenches in exploration or science terms.

>173 spiralsheep: Nice to see a review of one of Martha Wells's older titles! I feel like the only person on LT who hasn't read Murderbot (yet!), but I greatly enjoyed The Element of Fire and The Death of the Necromancer, and I have her Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy on my shelves.

Interesting discussion of your polar read. Sounds like a great children's book.

>176 christina_reads: I think Death of the Necromancer is the best of Martha Wells' pre-Raksura fantasy novels, but I'm not aware that she's ever written a bad book (although I have only read the rewritten version of Element of Fire). City of Bones is very imaginatively non-traditional (western) fantasy compared to the Ile-Rien series but has some strong thematic links with her later Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy.

>177 hailelib: I approve of children's non-fiction that is written for children, and isn't merely bowdlerised adult material. Arctic Hero : the incredible life of Matthew Henson by Catherine Johnson was a perfect example.

>172 spiralsheep: I'm glad to hear that you received treatment and are recovering, and that you also contributed to medical science in this way! I know exactly how you feel. I have an unusual eye condition and during one scan, the technician hurriedly called her student assistant over to take advantage of the "teaching moment", and then apologized for getting so excited about my condition. :)

I've not read any of Martha Wells's very early books, but I did enjoy The Cloud Roads as well as her Murderbot series. She seems a very versatile author.

>172 spiralsheep: Hopefully knowing what it is, even if rare, is a step forward.

>179 mathgirl40:. My Dad had a similar experience, he had a rare lung condition, and he'd go in every 6 months for a checkup and would always end up with a gaggle of Junior doctors on rotation so that they could at least see a case and maybe recognise it again. It took quite a long time for him to get a diagnosis and if that meant that someone else didn't have to wait as long, he was happy to be propped and poked about as necessary.

>179 mathgirl40: It's good to be useful, I suppose. >;-)

Last year when I had an appendectomy I literally joked with my surgical team that I was entirely happy to have a condition so common that it's used as practice for (supervised) junior surgeons, and joked about how I hoped never to need a senior surgeon.

This time my "lucky" senior surgeon had at least one departmental head hanging over her shoulder the whole time because he'd only ever heard of one other similar case and was fascinated. Fortunately for me the surgery was much less complicated than expected (they show you photos afterwards, lol) and only the related drug therapy was/is hellish.

I sincerely hope I never need to see anyone other than a nurse practitioner or GP ever again.

Although I did ask for a copy of any research paper(s) published about me because SCIENCE. :D

>180 Helenliz: My medical problem should be sorted now. The surgery was less complicated than expected. The intravenous drug therapy was/is hellish but hopefully I'll only need one round as I was in hospital so they took the opportunity to push to my limits. I haven't managed to read a book yet this month though and am considering resorting to children's fiction. Luckily Reading Globally's theme this quarter is fiction for and about children so I can justify a few more kids' books than usual.

"It took quite a long time for him to get a diagnosis and if that meant that someone else didn't have to wait as long, he was happy to be propped and poked about as necessary."

Good for your Dad, although I'm sorry to hear about his lungs.

It's amazing how fine the distinctions in differential diagnosis can be. It pays to be an expert in one's own health as far as possible, especially if one isn't a typical A but a sneaky B rather than an obvious Z.

The things one learns while reading no. 67447983464: apparently "bugger" originated as an ethnic slur against Bogomils (Bulgarians) spread by Catholics after an early 13th century crusade against their fellow Christians in southern France.

I learned this while reading about indigenous peoples in Brazil... in a book actually about Paraguay.

>183 spiralsheep: I just went and had a look at the OED entry online (my library system is part of their access via your library card number, which I really like). Quoted evidence is from 1340! Fascinating. Now if only I could *remember* interesting facts like this!

>182 spiralsheep: It's good to hear that your medical problem is sorted and I hope you will be fully well soon!

"It pays to be an expert in one's own health as far as possible". 100% agree with that. It's my experience, too.

>184 charl08: Fascinating indeed!

Glad you're doing better, but what a thing to go through!

>184 charl08: Yes, my library also has online access to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which is very useful for fact checking the internet on less well known people, but I'm not sure I want my library record to show I was looking up "bugger", lol. Oh well, for learnings, and for anyone interested who doesn't have access....

So, this is interesting to me as the first English reference for "bugger" is a religious text, Ayenbite of Inwyt, mostly famous for being written in Kent dialect (which is why I've previously read some of it although I don't remember any references to Albigenses / Bogomils):

Date 1340, text Ayenbite, "He ne belefþ þet he ssolde, ase deþ þe bougre and þe heretike." ("He doesn't believe what he should, as do the bugger / Albigensian and the heretic." - my translation.)

Circa 1450, text The Book of Vices and Virtues, "þe bogres and þes mysbileuyng folke." (Tag yourself, I'm the misbelieving folk.)

Date 1621, text Declaration by Protestants in France, "Their mouthes neuer opened, but to blaspheme and curse God, and to threaten iniurious bloody persecutions, against those of the Religion; whom they called rebels, traytors, bougers, olde sorcerers, and an accursed race." (Historical spoiler: the "blaspheming cursing persecuting" Catholics won.)

And the most recent notable reference....

Date 1989, text Weaver translation of Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum, "The bougres were simply Bogomils, Cathars of Bulgarian origin."

Fascinating.

>185 MissBrangwen: Thank you! I managed a walk around my garden yesterday, and have necessary business in town next week, but I'm missing the woods and the hills. Fortunately it's not fully spring here yet so I haven't missed the wild flowers.

>186 RidgewayGirl: Thank you!

( I don't recommend being ill enough to need emergency intravenous drugs for a week. 0* But at least I won't be sent a bankrupting medical bill!)

>188 spiralsheep: I ran out for something (drive-thru) this morning before traffic picked up and noticed how lovely all the spring flowering trees are. Unfortunately they also cause my allergy issues, but they are beautiful.

>190 thornton37814: Of the native trees here I've only seen the blackthorn in flower so far, but the village gardens are full of non-native flowering shrubs, especially yellow forsythia.

My father was allergic to birch tree pollen so you have my understanding and sympathy.

>191 spiralsheep: Although it's been snowing since late afternoon so everything is now under several inches of snow.

>192 spiralsheep: Wow! Here in central Scotland (Stirling) we've had a few bits of graupel (the polystyrene ball-type snow/hail hybrid) fall out of the sky, but that's been it. Mostly, although it's been cold, it's been sunny the past few days.

Sorry to hear about your health problems and the horrible drug therapy. Wishing you a speedy recovery. It's a terrible thing, that your older brother died of polio. Vaccinations have saved so many people from diseases that used to kill and disable millions.

I have just watched The Wicked Lady, and very much enjoyed it.

It’s bad enough to have common, but serious, health problems. Having an unusual one is even worse! Hope you are feeling better everyday.

>193 Jackie_K: We had huge fluffy wool-ball snowflakes late yesterday that I didn't think would settle because the ground was too wet but the quantity made it unstoppable. About 8cm / 3" on fences and sills this morning. I managed a walk as far as the village green, which is the first time I've been further than my garden (apart from hospital) for over two weeks! \o/ I texted my neighbours "I am just going outside (to the green), I may be some time." >;-) My garden had tracks from several species of larger birbs, two or more foxes, and at least one cat and one badger, all on their regular routes.

The forsythia I mentioned before but now with snow and icicles, although I expect it'll melt off by nightfall.

>194 pamelad: Thank you! Some younger people, old enough to be parents, don't remember what horrifying child-killers polio and measles and etc were before widespread vaccination programs. I hope they never find out, which is why I actively promote safe vaccination.

I'm so glad you enjoyed The Wicked Lady (1945). I'm always happy to find a new convert. Wicked Ladies for all! :D

>195 hailelib: Thank you! This morning I walked outside my garden for the first time since before I was in hospital, which was an exhausting but worthwhile achievement. I have to go into town next week on necessary business, but not until Wednesday, and I hope to finish my first book in April by the end of the second week before the 14th. Goals! :-)

Yesterday's snow melted away by dusk but I awoke to several inches of fresh snow this morning (which will also melt away by nightfall).

I finished my first book of April! \o/

56/2021. I read At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig by John Gimlette, which is a travel and history book focussing on Paraguay in South America. I found the author an unlikeable character and his often crude attempts to explain the, frankly, inexplicable history and society of Paraguay are an uphill struggle, although presumably less for the reader than the writer. Gimlette's not especially observant and his writing style is basic journalistic but one does feel he was trying his best. Of the 355 pages the first 115 are exclusively set within the capital city Asuncion and only feature interactions inside the mainstream urban middle to upper class, with not so much as a taxi driver, bartender, or retailer for variety. Gimlette does later attempt to wander further afield but appears handicapped by his limited Spanish and non-existent Guarani or Plattdeutsch.

There are all the atrocities one might expect: massacres of indigenous people; destruction of the environment (although as the environment includes horrors such as piranha fish one can sympathise to some extent); endless torturing and mass murdering dictators from 16th century Conquistadors onwards into the 20th century; pointless wars leaving up to 66% of the general population and 90% of the male population dead; long term extreme poverty and lack of healthcare. There are also less predictable outrages: the Jesuits who claimed for 160 years that they were protecting and educating indigenous people but who were responsible for many thousands of deaths while failing to produce even one indigenous Catholic priest; or the pacifist Mennonites resorting to fistfights with nazis on the streets of Mennonite colonies (readers will be heartened to know that even the avowedly right-wing Paraguayan army sided with the Mennonites and made the nazis leave for their own colony).

There's a single page map at the beginning, a double page chronology at the end, and a surprising four page Further Reading with fourteen sections that handily sum up the history of what European and US influences have inflicted on Paraguay without much addressing the cultures and people who were already there: Jesuits; Dr Francia; The War of the Triple Alliance; Eliza Lynch; The Mennonites; Utopians, Immigrants and Colonists; Chaco War; The Stroessner Years; Nazis; Natural History (three books all written by Englishmen before 1959); Travel and Exploration (only three books written after 1945, with the most recent from 1972); Paraguayan Literature (two books by Augusto Roa Bastos); English Literature (five books, with Graham Greene's two being the latest); General (only two specifically about Paraguay although they're both 1997 so that's something). 2.5*

Quote

After the trains stopped: "The railway carried on. It carried on swallowing up eleven billion guaranis a year. Not a ticket was sold nor an ounce of freight moved. Once, these magnificent trains had rumbled all the way across the country and connected with others for Buenos Aires, for Brazil and the sea. They'd carried fruit and soldiers, girlfriends, sugar cane, Australian socialists to their Utopias and Polish peasants as far from feudalism as they could get. Then, line by line, the system had been overwhelmed by weeds and its sleepers pillaged for cooking. In the last few years it had run a wheezy service to the suburbs, but now even those trains had stopped. // But the railway carried on. It carried on employing nine hundred railway staff. Some, perhaps ten per cent, were fantasmas – ghosts – and were purely imaginary, the Mickey Mouses and Donald Ducks. Those that were real were often just planilleros or ticket-boys; moonlighting between their railway jobs and other distractions."

BingoDOG: Name of building in title (Tomb)
GeoKIT: Central and South America (Paraguay)

57/2021. I read Little Night / Nochecita by Mexican / USian author Yuyi Morales, which is a resplendently illustrated bilingual English / Spanish children's book about Mother Sky playing hide and seek with her daughter Little Night while they get Little Night bathed, dressed, fed, and ready to go. 4*

BingoDOG: Time word in title / time as subject (Night)

GeoKIT: North America (Mexico / US)

>200 spiralsheep: Wow, what a beautiful illustration! That is really stunning.

>201 Jackie_K: Isn't it glorious? Sunset in mythic anthropomorphic form! And I love the way Mother Sky's braids as she looks down the rabbit hole echo the long jackrabbit's ears, while Little Night's hair is more like the smaller short-eared rabbits.

I might get that for my grandchildren!

>203 hailelib: The story is very simple, and probably intended to be read to pre-school age children, but it's fun that the book is bilingual and the illustrations are fabulous, with sunset slowly darkening towards night.

The suggested age range on Amazon is 2 to 6 years. Great illustrations are a real plus.

>205 hailelib: I'd agree with that age range, as a bedtime story for the youngest and an early read for the older children.

I saw a lavishly illustrated British Museum exhibition catalogue, that was originally £25 in 2016, for £5 including postage which was an especial bargain because the 272 page large format book is printed on such good quality thick paper that it would have been too heavy for me to carry home! It then took me ages to read because I could only do so with it resting on a table, lol. Worth the time, effort, and every penny of £5 though. :D

Head of a Pharaoh, probably 3rd century BCE, found in the sunken city of Canopus at the western side of the Nile Delta.



58/2021. I read Sunken cities : Egypt's lost worlds edited by Franck Goddio, which is an exhibition catalogue mostly of recent Egyptian marine archaeology, published by the British Museum. It focuses on the lost cities of Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion, now under sea off the western Nile Delta, which first thrived during the Late Period when ancient "Greek" cultures in what are now Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece, established trade links with the richest Mediterranean culture of the ancient world in Egypt. The book then continues on into Greco-Roman ruled Egypt. I admit I'm more interested in earlier Egyptian periods, but it was interesting to see visible evidence of the powerful influence of earlier Egyptian civilisations on later Greek and Cypriot cultures, to read so many quotes from Herodotus now proven historically accurate, and to be reminded of the connections with Sappho's brother and her surviving poetry. The many photos of artefacts are also spectacular, although the displayed objects are mostly high status stone or robust metal items from religious offerings so the accompanying text concentrates on Egyptian religious culture rather than the daily lives of ordinary people. I confess that not being religious myself there are only so many goddesses with miraculous babies, resurrected gods, and chalices/situlas/ladles for his bodily fluids that I can look at before they all blend into a macédoine, lol. The Greco-Roman religious syncretists would love my brain.... 4*

BingoDOG: Book about history
GeoKIT: Africa (Egypt)

Remember: many of the beliefs people have about history are wrong. For example the pyramids, like most high status religious buildings around the world, were constructed by skilled tradesmen (not slaves) and we have documentary evidence that some of them went on strike for better pay and conditions - the earliest strike in recorded history. In fact ancient Egyptian economies were generally much less reliant on enslavement than ancient Greeks and Romans - in much of ancient Greece about a third of the population, 1 in every 3 people, were enslaved and even slaves who managed to buy themselves back were still legally obliged to work for their former owners and were not allowed to become citizens.

59/2021. I read The African Child, aka The Dark Child, by Camara Laye, first published in French in 1954, which is an autobiographical recollection of the author's childhood in a Malinke family in Guinea (then French Guinea), and is considered a classic of Malinke and Guinean literature. The English translation is by poet James Kirkup. Clearly written and informative. 3.5*

BingoDOG: Dark or light in title (Dark)
GeoKIT: Africa (Guinea)

(As this was originally published in 1954 I couldn't stop myself imagining Barbara Pym's less than angelic 1955 anthropologists reading this and getting upset because it renders their job of cultural anthropology superfluous without being sensationalist enough to elicit a grant for further research, lol.)

>207 spiralsheep: That does sound a bargain, exhibition catalogues are never cheap! That photo is spectacular.

>209 Jackie_K: There are a satisfying quantity of photos of items from the "sunken cities" before and during excavation in addition to exhibition images. If you google image search "sunken cities" and exhibition or something similar then you'll get an eyeful.

The sunken pharaoh reminds me of Shelley:

(...) Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
(...)
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

>207 spiralsheep:

The Egypt was a great find! The Shelley poem is very fitting.

>207 spiralsheep: I saw that exhibition in Berlin years ago, at least part of it, and loaned the catalogue to a friend before I had gotten round to reading it. She hasn't returned it yet. Must remind her...

>211 hailelib: I suspect many of the most popular exhibitions probably give rise to a pile of cheap secondhand catalogues a few years later. I should look out for more of them.

I couldn't look at the seabed statues surrounded by sand without thinking of Shelley.

>212 MissWatson: I'm missing going to museums. I hope you enjoyed the exhibition. The catalogue was more readable as a separate text than most catalogues are, although the endless ritual objects towards the end blurred together. I should probably learn to be a less diligent reader and skip more, lol.

My 60th book of the year and my second completed BingoDOG card with a different book for each of the 25 x 2 squares. \o/

60/2021. I read Fanfare for Tin Trumpets by Margery Sharp, 1932, which was her second novel and another mildly satirical comedy, also one of her few novels with a male protagonist. This story is about a young man who decides to spend a year trying to be a writer, of vaguely considered novels or short stories or plays or..., after his father dies and he inherits £100. He works out a frugal budget and rents a room with a friend attending teacher training college, but then our hero falls in love with an overbudget actress. Oops. This isn't as laugh aloud funny as some of Sharp's novels but even in the early novels her astute eye for human behaviour is always amusing to me (and it's definitely more Furrowed Middlebrow than some of her later more satirical work).

Quotes

The English Way of Death: "On Mr. French's death he had been surprised to feel practically no sorrow, only an additional warmth of affection towards his friend; and in view of the exceptional circumstances had even managed to mention this feeling in so many words. But that was a couple of days ago, and the incident could now be considered closed."

Make-up: "You want either," said Charlie Coe impartially, "to take some off or put some on. It doesn't matter which, but just now you look like a corpse."

Age and dignity, or not, lol: "The sunken mouth puckered into a grin, the beady eyes sparkled, her whole aged countenance was suddenly alive with that pure bawdy gusto that makes some parts of Shakespeare so unsuitable for the use of schools."

I love this expression but wouldn't use it because history has got in the way: "Get back in the oven!" (Because you're half-baked.)

BingoDOG: A book that made you laugh
GeoKIT: Europe (England)

>213 spiralsheep: I also miss museums. The only good thing about it is that I'm not lugging heavy tomes back to my hoard. I am one of those sad people who almost always buy the catalogue if it's full of scholarly articles. And then it takes me ages to read them because they are too heavy to hold comfortably.

Can you believe it? Yesterday I went to the bookshop for the very first time with the intention of buying a travel book. There was only a large selection and nothing that really appealed to me, but then I spotted Sowjetistan in a German translation in one corner! It was an instant buy of course. Ha!
So great, because without meeting you in this group it wouldn't have caught my attention at all.

>213 spiralsheep: >215 MissWatson: I miss museums, too. Even more than looking at the items I miss the calm and the atmosphere. The purpose of going somewhere simply to enjoy yourself and learn and revel in the beauty of it all, but also (at best) be alone with your thoughts for a short time and live in the moment while concentrating on what you see.

>215 MissWatson: >216 MissBrangwen: So, which museum in Vienna (or by the sea) are we meeting at in 2022? :D

My refusal to carry heavy catalogues home has saved me £hundreds but I admit I have a few regrets. That Tibetan art exhibition at the Royal Academy which lives in vivid colours in my memory....

"Even more than looking at the items I miss the calm and the atmosphere. The purpose of going somewhere simply to enjoy yourself and learn and revel in the beauty of it all, but also (at best) be alone with your thoughts for a short time and live in the moment while concentrating on what you see."

This is exactly how I feel about museums, and also about the sea!

>216 MissBrangwen: Sowejetistan is a truly worthwhile travel and history book that has earned its word count. I hope the German translation is as good as the English translation. The only better similar travel/history style books on the Soviet Union that I've read are those by Svetlana Alexievich, and Ryszard Kapuściński's Imperium.

>214 spiralsheep: You mentioned that Margery Sharp's books were close to autobiography and this one certainly sounds so, even though the protagonist is male. It's on my list.

>218 pamelad: I think the protagonist of Fanfare for Tin Trumpets is closer to an opposite of the young Margery Sharp in many ways. The novel that I believe is closest to a roman a clef is The Sun in Scorpio, although I'm sure she's no exception to the rule that writers tend to use what they know to form their fiction in various ways. I've read 20 of her 22 novels for adults and I can recommend them all as solidly written, amusingly satirical, middlebrow, "women's fiction" (in the sense that character is as important as plot), from the middle of the 20th century, and there's enough variation to read several close together without suffering from sameness.

I'm tempted to declare 2022 my middlebrow year of rereading Margery Sharp and Barbara Pym (with select Elizabeth Cadell mixed in for good measure).

>219 spiralsheep: Barbara Comyns could be worthwhile addition to your middlebrow list. I have read one book by Elizabeth Cadell, Parson's House, and didn't like it at all. Which of her books would you recommend?

I found what I'd written about Parson's House, so have now added a review to the book page.

>220 pamelad: Parson's House was not one of her better efforts imo. Cadell wrote romances, often romantic comedies, but she also wrote romantic suspense, romantic murder mysteries, romantic adventure stories, romantic ghost stories, and thinly disguised autobiography. I believe she also wrote one romance in which the protagonist doesn't get her man and he marries elsewhere, lol. I can't claim to have read a significant proportion of her 50+ novels, and those I have read aren't generally her most popular books.

Of the ten I've read I think A Lion in the Way, 5*, was notably better than the rest. My favourite romance was The Friendly Air, 4*. The best romantic murder mystery, very cozy, was Consider the Lilies, 3.5*. The best romantic suspense was The Yellow Brick Road but that was only average, 3*. I also seem to enjoy her Portuguese connections such as The Golden Collar, 3.5*, and The Fox from his Lair, 3.5*. I've generally found Cadell restfully reliable rather than exceptional. She's no Pym or even Sharp.

Finally, beware the three book Wayne Family series unless you begin with The Lark Shall Sing, and beware also novels renamed between the UK and US.

>220 pamelad: I think I've read at least one Barbara Comyns and didn't click but might be worth another chance now as my reading tastes have probably changed.

Have you read any Mary Wesley?

>222 spiralsheep: It's years since I've read Mary Wesley. I enjoyed her books then, but not enough to re-read them. How about Anita Brookner? Too gloomy? A fairly recent discovery is Ursula Orange, re-published by Dean Street Press: Tom Tiddler's Ground, Company in the Evening and Begin Again.

>221 spiralsheep: I'll give Elizabeth Cadell another try.

Oh my goodness, catching up and so sorry to hear you were ill -- but glad to hear you're mostly recovered. All good a few weeks on?

>200 spiralsheep: I knew exactly who wrote that picture book. I saw her art once, and I'll never be able to unsee it. So gorgeous.

>223 pamelad: I've only ever reread one of Mary Wesley's books, after about a quarter of a century, and because part of Wesley's style is simple prose paired with distinctive plots I agree that they're not especially good reread material.

I'm not entirely serious about declaring 2022 my year of rereading middlebrow women's fiction (I habitually read it anyway). It's still only April 2021! But I do sometimes feel that after a year dedicated to reading contemporary fiction from around the world, sometimes out of even my open-minded and cosmopolitan comfort zones, I might appreciate a year of rereads closer to home. But not too close to home, lol. I rarely read about notably self-destructive protagonists, and especially not self-destructive families, in the same way that I wouldn't watch reality tv or those ghastly home-truths talk shows, ugh. But, of course, if a writer is good enough then she becomes a worthy exception to my adjustable rules. So, yes, on my current To Read shelf I have some Penelope Lively for example that I'd make time for and a handful of Viragos. And the book chat in this group is definitely being noted on my lists of possible reads. As we've discussed before, recs, reviews, and reminders from people are much more interesting than algorithms.

I admit I've been very tempted by Tom Tiddler's Ground because of the title, and a song of the same name, and because it's set in my birth county.

>224 pammab: I've seen enough work by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera to recognise the Mexican elements of Yuyi Morales' art and, of course, her flowers remind me of the New Mexico elements of Georgia O'Keefe's art but you're correct that Yuyi Morales has a style of her own. Dreamers seems to be especially well regarded.

> I don't want to bore on about this here so I'll only say that the intravenous drugs I was given take time to flush out, especially if the body was already debilitated from serious illness and an emergency operation. That triple of multi-system illness + deep tissue operation + meds with inescapable side-effects is a hat-trick nobody wants to score. At two weeks on, where I am now, the inflammation everywhere from veins, muscles, brain, and lymph nodes, to my op site, is finally showing signs of diminishing so the healing can properly begin. And I'm doing comparatively well because I was fit for my age before this all began (apart from a mildly overactive immune system). But I'll emphasise that I am improving, slowly, and I've received good healthcare, and have no bills to burden my recovery. I've never missed the physical presence of my social network as much as these last few weeks however and, although we're now officially exiting full lockdown, many of my friends and neighbours are still justifiably cautious (as am I). My body's timing leaves much to be desired, lol.

>226 spiralsheep: Glad to hear you are on the road to recovery!

>227 christina_reads: Thank you! After sleeping through most of yesterday, today I managed a walk in the woods with some fascinating geology, accompanied by the scent of wild garlic and sun-warmed bluebells. \o/

>228 spiralsheep: It's good to hear that you were able to do such a lovely walk!

>229 MissBrangwen: Admiring pebbles and fossils in a stream is as close to the sea as I can get at the moment. I probably went too far but I find walking outside as good for my mental health as it is for my physical health after being stuck in a hospital bed for eight days. And I have a variety of good anti-inflammatory and anti-pain drugs! Better living through chemistry. :-)

Time for a third bingoDOG card, a third GeoKIT tour, and a third thread for 2021. Onwards! :-)