AlisonY - The Golden Years

Welcome all for another year of mutterings and perhaps the odd book bullet. If you've been in CR for a while you know who I am - good to see you stopping by. If you're new, my thread promises uneven levels of posting and a mix of fiction and non-fiction reads. I never read SF / fantasy / horror and seldom read thrillers, but everything else is a possibility.

I'm a marketer's dream for a good personal development book, and enjoy popular science NF books and other odd bits in between.

Personally this year I'm striving to find a bit more quiet space, as I seem to run from one thing to the next at 100 mph. I promise not always to be depressing. New Year makes me mildly maudlin.

Last year I read 37 books, which was a decrease for me, but as long as I'm always reading something I'm fine with that. You can find my thread at: https://www.librarything.com/topic/352609#n8332822

2024 Reading Track

January
1. In Memoriam by Alice Winn - read (4.5 stars). 2023
2. The Science of Living: 219 Reasons to Rethink Your Daily Routine by Stuart Farrimond - read (3 stars). 2020.
3. The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng - read (3 stars). 2023.
4. Seven Steeples by Sara Baume - read (4.5 stars). 2022.

February
5. After Sappho - Selby Wynn Schwartz - read (4 stars). 2022.
6. All You Need to Know About Menopause - Catherine O'Keeffe - read (4 stars). 2023.
7. Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati - read (4 stars). 2023.

March
8. The Wolves of Eternity - by Karl Ove Knausgaard - read (3 stars). 2023.
9. I Lost Summer Somewhere by Sarah Russell - read (4.5 stars). 2019.
10. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion - read (4.5 stars). 2005.
11. I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish - read (4 stars). 2010.
12. How To Be a Complete and Utter Blunt by James Blunt - read (2 stars). 2020.
13. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn - read (4 stars).1962.

April
14. Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield - read (4.5 stars). 1930.
15. The Provincial Lady Goes Further by E.M. Delafield - read (4.5 stars). 1930.
16. The Provincial Lady in America by E.M. Delafield - read (4.5 stars). 1934.
17. The Provincial Lady in Wartime by E.M. Delafield - read (4 stars). 1934.

May
18. Festival Days by Jo Ann Beard - read (3.5 stars). 2021
19. Hold On To Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld - read (1.5 stars). 2004.
20. The Half-Finished Heaven Selected Poems by Tomas Transtromer - read (3 stars). 2001.
21. Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz - read (4 stars). 1956.
22. A Moth to a Flame by Stig Dagerman - read (4 stars). 1948.

June
23. The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken by The Secret Barrister - read (3.5 stars). 2018.
24. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray - read (4 stars). 2023.
25. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan - read (4 stars) 2012.

July
26. Any Human Heart by William Boyd - read (4.5 stars). 2004.
27. Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia by Hadley Freeman - read (4 stars). 2023.
28. The Dig by Cynan Jones - read (1 star). 2014.
29. Walking the Woods and the Water by Nick Hunt - read (4 stars). 2014.

August
30. The Children's Bach by Helen Garner - read (4 stars). 1984
31. The Human Stain by Philip Roth - read (3.5 stars). 2000
32. Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice by Matthew Syed - read (4 stars). 2010.
33. Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin - read (4.5 stars). 1981.
34. The Wife by Meg Wolitzer - read (3.5 stars). 2003.

September
35. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - read (5 stars). 2022.

October
36. A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor - read (3.5 stars). 1947.
37. The Rejects: An Alternative History of Popular Music by Jamie Collinson - read (3 stars). 2024.
38. Lie With Me by Philippe Besson - read (3 stars). 2017.
39. David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine - read (4.5 stars). 2023.

November
40. Mania by Lionel Shriver - read (3 stars). 2024.

December
41. The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton - read (3.5 stars). 2022.
42. Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before by Dr Julie Smith - read (3 stars). 2022.
43. Violets by Kyung-Sook Shin - read (4 stars). 2022.
44. I Was There by Alan Edwards - read (5 stars). 2024.
45. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin- read (3.5 stars). 1977.
46. Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour by Fay Blanchard - read (5 stars). 2024.

NF - 17
F - 27
P - 2

Published year:
2019-2024: 22
2014-2018: 4
2004-2013:5
2000-2004: 4
1980s - 2
1970s - 1
1960s - 1
1950s - 1
1940s - 2
1930s - 4

Happy New Year, Alison, and welcome back to Club Read! I will, of course, be following along as we meander through books and life. I hope you have a fulfilling and meaningful year ahead. Cheers!

I sincerely wish you health, happiness, contentment and many exciting books.

>3 labfs39:, >4 Ameise1: thank you both! Happy New Year to all.

>1 AlisonY: Great intro! I'll certainly be following along here.

>1 AlisonY: I love your opening picture. Happy New Year!

>1 AlisonY: I also am a fan of your thread topper!

Welcome to 2024.

I like your description: “I'm a marketer's dream for a good personal development book”. Wish you a Happy New Year a lots of comfy quiet space.

Interested to see where your reading takes you. And happy new year!

Happy new year Alison, I look forward to following your reading in 2024.

>6 SassyLassy:, >7 Julie_in_the_Library:, >8 markon:, >9 dchaikin:, >10 lisapeet:, >11 rhian_of_oz: Thanks for stopping by everyone and a very happy new year in return.

Hi Alison, I couldn't resist stopping in to check out your intriguing thread title. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Alison, I am always happy to find you here and am dropping my star with lots of love!

I'm looking forward to seeing your reads again!

Happy New Year, Alison! Your opening image is gorgeous.

Happy New Year, Alison. I will be following your reading this year. I will watch for your comments on The Science of Living: 219 Reasons -- the title sounds interesting, anyway.

OK! Found ya. Happy reading in 2024. Cheers!

>13 Jim53:, >14 Simone2:, >15 mabith:, >16 VivienneR:, >17 BLBera:, >18 rocketjk: Welcome all! I'm hopelessly behind on LT already, and haven't finished dropping my stars off everywhere, but I'll get there eventually!

Currently reading:

1. In Memoriam by Alice Winn

It blows my mind that this is a debut novel, such is its sophistication in pulling you in and holding you there. In Memoriam is a novel about the complexities of a gay love affair between two young men at a boarding house of Marlborough College and then at the front in WWI at a time when homosexuality was a crime punishable with a prison term.

Winn captures how the young men were wont to hide their true homosexuality behind the boarding school practice of fagging, which was common in the period, and the difficulty of admitting their true feelings to each other until their life hangs in the balance at the front.

More than just a novel about a forbidden love, it is a dramatic and heartbreaking depiction of life on the front for young public school teenagers who had hitherto been cloistered in the safety of their boarding schools in the rolling green fields of England. Its title is derived from a mixture of the poem by Tennyson and the regular in memoriam notices that are published in the Preshute boarding house's press bulletins.

Winn writes with such immense confidence about the period setting, both in the boarding school and on the battlefield, that she completely enfolds you and transports you to the era.

4.5 stars - this will definitely be up there as one of my favourite reads of 2024.

(Thanks to Caroline for the book bullet on this).

Great review 🤩
I've put it on my library wish list.

>22 Ameise1: I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I was a bit ambivalent towards it at the beginning, but once it gets going it's fantastic.

>21 AlisonY: Excellent review. Went onto my wishlist too.

I have wondered about this one, so I’m really happy to read your review. Looks like a great first book of your year.

>21 AlisonY: Hope you enjoy it if you get to it, Lisa.

>25 dchaikin: Always a delight to start the year on a reading high, Dan!

2. The Science of Living: 219 Reasons to Rethink Your Daily Routine by Stuart Farrimond

This was a Christmas gift off my wish list, and one of those filler type books to dip in and out of. I particularly liked reading it whilst eating my breakfast.

It's visually a very attractive book, with glorious infographics on every page. Split into morning, afternoon, evening and night sections, it covers a plethora of popular science questions.

From the title I'd hoped it would have new insights into best practices for good physical and mental health, but the content disappointed, and probably 90%+ was stuff I already knew.

3 stars - a nice book to gift to someone, but absolutely nothing new in the facts

Can I check before I get too far into this year's thread - are my book pictures showing up OK for everyone?

>21 AlisonY: Glad it was a hit for you too Alison. I'm recommending it everywhere.

>28 AlisonY: No broken image links for me, Alison. All look good.

>28 AlisonY: There had been a broken link in >20 AlisonY:, but all are fixed now.

ETA: Hi Allison! too bad The Science of Living didn't quite work out -- I was all set to add it to the wishlist and then I got to end of the review.

I'm seeing your book images, Alison. Great comments >21 AlisonY: on In Memoriam. I am definitely adding this to my WL.

>28 AlisonY: You're always a sure thing for book bullets in my direction, Caroline!

>30 labfs39:,>32 BLBera:,>31 ELiz_M: Thanks got confirming the links are working. I know sometimes the images can get broken.

3. The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

I'm aware I'm in the minority here, but I found this book to be just OK.

It's a tale within a tale type of novel. The writer Somerset Maugham and his private secretary come gay lover are staying with an old friend and his wife for a few weeks at their home in Penang. Whilst the wife is initially prickly and hard to read, eventually relations between her and Maugham (Willie) thaw as she tells him the story of her marriage and her involvement with a revolutionary fighting to overthrow the imperial dynasty of China.

It just didn't come together for me. Lesley, the wife of Willie's old friend, is the key character in the story and yet I could never warm to her enough to form an emotional connection with her back story. I liked Somerset Maugham's character, yet somehow Eng never really got going with him. The story of his own sham marriage and his gay lover didn't feel as if it had much purpose in the story other than to add some sensationalism as Lesley's own secrets were fairly dull and mundane. A third plot line, that of the murder trial of a close friend of Lesley's, also felt shoe-horned into the story simply to add a bit of spice. and somehow that too felt like a mediocre sub-plot in terms of how it was handled in the prose.

In summary, I just couldn't connect with either the story or the characters in this book. Every now and then it hooked me in for a few pages, but largely I was just looking forward to finishing it.

3 stars - lacklustre and emotionless.

Next up:

>35 AlisonY: The quilt on the cover of this book immediately took me back to Pantone's 2021 Colour of the Year, when they produced that combination of "Ultimate Grey" and "Illuminating", otherwise known as boring grey and yellow trying to cheer it up.
I'm cheering myself up with the idea that what appears to be grey on my screen may actually be blue, but I am doubtful.

Waiting for your review!

>34 AlisonY: I haven't read House of Doors yet, but suspect I would fall into your camp on it.

I loved HoD, but I’m sorry you slogged through. Never fun. Hope the Sara Baume works better.

>34 AlisonY: Have you read other works by TTE? I loved his first two novels and have held off reading this one for fear that I would be disappointed. I'm curious whether you just don't connect with Eng's style or if this book is simply not as good.

>36 SassyLassy: Sadly the quilt is grey and yellow... I'm only a few pages into this one, but so far so good. It's different - a prose poem of sorts.

>37 dchaikin: I wouldn't go so far as to say it was a slog, Dan, but it was underwhelming.

>38 labfs39: I wouldn't go by me, Lisa, as this was a 5 star read for a lot of people, but I just couldn't connect with it. I've not reading anything else by Eng to compare it with, but I just didn't get engrossed in the story.

4. Seven Steeples by Sara Baume

For no apparent reason, this book, out of the thousands on the shelves in Waterstones, has been calling to me every time I go in there, so I eventually succumbed and treated myself to a copy.

This is one of those works of fiction where nature and the small things in life are both the characters and the story. There is little plot to speak of, beyond a young couple deciding to move into a rural house at the foot of a mountain in Ireland and to cut themselves off from their past lives. Their families and friends cease to exist for them, and their world voluntarily shrinks to the house itself, their dogs, their old red van and the flora and fauna of the landscape around them.

The novel spans over seven years of them living in the house, and as each year passes their retreat from civilisation becomes more pronounced, both in terms of their appetite for small trips to the shops where other people will be found and also in their lack of interest in ever upgrading or replacing the few possessions they have, even when they reach their end of life. The joy of this novel is that this is not a negative but an observance of an alternative lifestyle, of slowing down and finding contentment through living semi off-grid and being at one with nature and the seasons.

The book blurb calls it a prose poem, which I get but also find a teeny bit misleading. Am I splitting hairs if I consider poetic prose to be closer?

If you enjoy slow fiction with a strong sense of place you will enjoy this. The minutiae details collectively are the story - the cobweb of the house spider, the diamond scales of the fish landing on the dog as they prepare dinner and staying in its fur for four days, the blue bath mat that stays on the washing line for so long it becomes part of the expected scenery outside.

4.5 stars - beautifully written. It will make you feel as if you've been walking around with your eyes closed.

>34 AlisonY: Sorry it didn't work so well for you.

>40 AlisonY: I read and enjoyed her Handiwork Alison.

>41 Caroline_McElwee: Is Handiwork on a similar type of theme, Caroline?

>42 AlisonY: It is a memoir Alison. My short note is here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/327968#7426319

>43 Caroline_McElwee: Sounds like another one I'd enjoy.

>40 AlisonY: glad you found a good read. Intriguing.

>21 AlisonY: Great review: this sounds like it would be wonderful to read but also heartbreaking.
>34 AlisonY: The House of Doors is on my list for this year; always good to see different perspectives on it.
>40 AlisonY: Lovely review. Bookshop serendipity is just the best.

>45 dchaikin: That kind of book's not for everyone, Dan, but I enjoyed it.

>46 rv1988: In Memoriam is great. It is sad in places, but there's enough going on so that somehow it never gets too gloomy.

I think I'm on my own wee island in not overly enjoying The House of Doors. Will be interested in your perspective.

And yes - love a bit of bookshop serendipity! I told myself of Seven Steeples grabbed my attention again is buy it. They'd moved it from where it was originally but somehow it still caught my eye, so obviously it was meant to be.

Seven Steeples sounds great, Alison. I love books with a strong sense of place. Have you read others by this author?

>48 BLBera: No Beth - this was my first Sara Baume, but I would definitely read more by her.

>40 AlisonY: That does sound interesting.

Great review of Seven Steeples, Alison.

>50 SassyLassy:, >51 kidzdoc: Thank you - definitely worth a read.

5. After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Booker long-listed a couple of years back, this is an interesting piece of...historical fiction? The author has created a fictionalised account of the interactions between prominent Sapphists and feminists from the late 19th century through to the early 20th century, post WWI. They're an eclectic mix of artists, writers, actresses, playwrights, poets and activists, some very well known (Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Sarah Bernhard), others less known (at least to me anyway) such as the Irish architect Eileen Gray, Lina Poletti, Natalie Barney, etc.

Weaving some fragments remaining from Sappho's writing, heralded as the first literary crusader of feminism and lesbianism, the book is a series of vignettes set in Greece, Italy, France and England as the lives of the different key players intertwine, either in real life or through their works.

I found the first third of this book absolutely fascinating, as I learnt about everything from the horrendous laws in Italy forcing a rape victim to marry their rapist to early attempts in the House of Lords to make lesbianism illegal. Whilst there is quite a lot known about British laws against homosexuality, I knew very little about how the hardships of lesbian women during this era, and it was fascinating to learn more about this from some incredibly interesting characters. I was slow at reading it, as I kept stopping on nearly every page to Google more about the characters I was being introduced to.

By the second third of the book, my interest waned a little. There were so many characters it became difficult to keep up with who was who, who knew who and how, and I felt the content, whilst fascinating to begin with, became a little repetitive. The final third piqued my interest again - I knew I was in the final stretches and so settled back into figuring out who each character was again.

4 stars - It's a book I was glad to finish, yet at the same time I'm glad I read it. It's well written, original and I learnt a lot from it.

>53 AlisonY: I think we came down in a similar place on this one Alison.

I was in Oxford when I read it, to see a pre-raphaelite drawings exhibition, and it made me think about how almost exclusively the subjects were female seen through the male gaze.

>53 AlisonY: An informative review for me. I have looked at reading this book but never gotten around to it. Looks like a good read even allowing for the slump in the second part.

>53 AlisonY: This has been on my shelf for a while. Your comments have prompted me to get it out and put it on the top of the pile of "read soon" books. It sounds pretty interesting.

>53 AlisonY: sounds about how I remember feeling. I kinda wish there was something to follow it up with.

>53 AlisonY: After Sappho is in my TBR pile. Thanks for the review.

>54 Caroline_McElwee:, >57 dchaikin: Yes, I read both your reviews and sounds like we were on a similar page with this one.

>55 kjuliff:, >56 BLBera:, >58 markon: I'm hesitant to go as far as recommending it as the middle section did seem repetitive and I glazed over a bit, but I enjoyed the first 100 pages so much and am still thinking about it, so to me it was worth reading overall. It's nicely broken up into short sections too which makes it easier to dip in and out of too, although I think that perhaps didn't help with keeping track of the characters.

6. All You Need to Know About Menopause by Catherine O'Keefe

The majority of you can look away now. For the small percentage who might be interested in this topic, I've read quite a few menopause books now, and they all have plus and minus points. As I get closer to choosing to make a jump to trying HRT, I wanted to remind myself of the salient points in one place without having to scour different sites on the internet.

I think this Irish book on menopause ticked the box in terms of the brush up on info I wanted to find. Nothing startling, but a concise collection of the key facts I wanted.

4 stars - sadly there's no pause button for menopause, so might as well go forward armed with all the facts and options.

7. Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati

This book was a Christmas gift; I was a bit unsure as sometimes I find bookshop books a bit twee and a blatant marketing assault by publishers on the converted, but overall it worked for me.

Alba Donati is a poet in Italy, and this book is written in diary format recalling a 6 month period in 2021, 2 years after she opened her bookshop in a remote mountainous village in Tuscany, the village of her birth. It's an imperfect book, but has enough to save it and make it worth a read.

Firstly the flaws. This is a story of community in the Italian hills as much of one of the bookshop (that's a plus, more on that later), and at times I felt Donati over naval-gazed. Sometimes her writing felt a little egotistical, and whilst I'm happy to take on board some self-promotion, it was missing a touch of self-deprecation here and there to balance things out. She also had a habit of throwing in the names of locals who I'm sure were referenced for the first time but spoken of as if we, the reader, must surely know who she was talking about.

My biggest gripe was that the supposed triumph of the bookshop in a remote village of 180 people also was never fully explained beyond Donati weaving some sort of bookselling magic. That's all well and good, and kudos to her, but I'd like to have understood the gaps in the story. How did she make it economically viable (and was it? In the 6 months chronicled, Italy was in and out of COVID lockdowns)? Does she excel at social media marketing (which is where I'd lay my bets)? Is the physical shop carried by its online shop? Is she a big enough name as a poet in her own right in Italy to make people want to make the pilgrimage to her bookshop? Donati sells it heavily around the plum tree in the garden, the flowers and the tea and buns. I've Googled it and it looks charming with a wonderful view (and what reader doesn't love a quaint bookshop), but both the garden and shop are tiny so I'm still wondering why people would make huge journeys from other corners of Italy just to buy books there. These are predominantly Italian customers; there are wondrous views-a-plenty all over that part of the world...



Was it savvy social media content encouraging women in particular to have FOMO over the experience Donati is marketing? Was it the COVID effect - an excuse for a lovely day out after weeks in lockdown? I'm happy for her, but please fill in the blanks!

Anyway, beyond that griping, I did enjoy both the virtual transportation to the Tuscan hills and the stories of the visitors to the bookshop and what they bought. If you have watched or read any of Dan Buettner's content on longevity blue zones, he talks about mountainous Italian villages where people live to ripe old ages on the back of daily physical exercise up and down steep village streets and vertiginous stairs in houses that cling to the side of hills. Also, how the innate sense of community and belonging keeps people happy in their old age, with the whole village engaging daily with their elderly neighbours. I got a strong sense of this from Donati's descriptions of her mum, who celebrates her 102nd birthday during the period chronicled, and it really does leave you with a sense of longing to be lucky enough to live somewhere so beautiful with such a strong sense of togetherness.

Donati concludes each diary entry with a note of the books ordered that day (again, no explanation - are these books bought in the shop or ordered online? There's no more than a handful each day - I can't imagine that paying anyone's rent). I took at least a dozen book bullet hits from these which I enjoyed - quite a few titles and authors I'd not heard of before.

4 stars - I'm not sure Donati left me wanting to make a pilgrimage to see her, and but nonetheless it was an enjoyable read, and I enjoyed my transportation to beautiful Lucignano.

>61 AlisonY: Alison, my library has a copy of it. I've put it on my list. Your review sounds like it might interest me.

>62 Ameise1: Look forward to hearing what you think when you get to it.

Back to my literary crush again for the first time in a while. It's a door stopper - I may be some time...

>64 AlisonY: I've still to get to him Alison. I do have the first of his autobiography in the tbr mountain.

Me too, Caroline. Enjoy, Alison!

Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop sounds like it would annoy me a bit too much as a former independent bookstore worker, but I'll definitely be passing it on to one of my aunts for the Italian angle. The store I worked in is very nice (has a lovely cafe, an art gallery focusing on local artists, a ceramics studio in the basement, live music on the weekends, and is generally the pride of the downtown area) but it still largely got by due to the cafe and the fact that owner was somewhat independently wealthy, owned the whole building (including an office that was rented out), and lived above the store.

>65 Caroline_McElwee:, >66 dchaikin: definitely start with My Struggle Book 1 if you're going to give Knausgaard a go some day.

>67 mabith: I suspect this book shop is also not paying for itself, Meredith.

>61 AlisonY: Great comments, Alison. I don't think Donati annoyed me as much as she did you. I mostly enjoyed my time in the Italian countryside. I suspect you are right about great marketing, but I don't see how this store can make any money.

>69 BLBera: No clue how the bookshop can support itself. I would have liked transparency on that to complete the picture, warts and all.

>21 AlisonY: Thanks for this review. I’ve managed to find it on audio. It’s on my tbr.

>71 kjuliff: That's great, Kate. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I'm hoping it translates well to audio format.

8. The Wolves of Eternity by Karl Ove Knausgaard

This is my 8th Knausgaard tome, and I've commented on previous reviews that somehow his writing bewitches me to the extent that he can make loading a dishwasher spellbinding (which is helpful, as often his writing contains plenty of domestic chores). However, like all good crushes, there comes a point when the shine wears off, when the things that originally made you see stars become the very points that start to grate on you. I fear I've reached that point with Knausgaard.

I don't know what changed for me with this novel compared to his previous, but the fairy dust was missing. Rather than my literary crush looking a bit less handsome close up, I hope it's simply that he missed the mark a bit with this one. Knausgaard's 'My Struggle' series focused on his and his family's day-to-day lives, but there was sparkle about him, a toe-curling honesty that was a bit like how reality TV draws you in despite your best intentions.

The first half of this book focuses on the character Syvert mostly, who has returned to his family home in Norway aimless and jobless after completing his military service. He (eventually) stumbles upon a secret his late father had been hiding, but you've got to grind through 200 pages of utter dullness which borders on depressiveness to get there. Once I was eventually on the hook, after another 200 pages the story changes to Russia and a completely new set of characters, and it was like starting all over again, taking another 200 pages to get into that. Eventually the two would become connected, but I think this would have worked better in an alternating chapter format as it was like starting a new book halfway in. The Russian section had long story digressions bearing little importance to how the stories would connect, with pages upon pages devoted to the character's musings about potential theses for her PhD. Not being remotely scientifically wired, I glazed over heavily after a while of this.

In true Knausgaard style, before the two key character's stories finally intertwine there's a random segue into an excerpt from a minor character's book called 'The Wolves of Eternity' which examines principally the theories of Russian librarian Fyodorovich Fyodorov, who believed in the complete resurrection of the dead - not to an eternal life in heaven but with the dead resuming their previous lives eternally on earth. Reading this, I felt how I did when he went into his massive tangent in Book 6 of My Struggle on Hitler - irritated on the one hand, but yet begrudgingly interested in the topic and admiring of his philosophising (despite it feeling rather tinged with a little self-importance - I have these ideas I want you to know I have, despite how tenuous the link to what you're currently reading).

When finally the two main characters lives intertwine (with a 20 plus year gap from where Syvert's previous story had finished up), it was fairly underwhelming, but by that stage I just wanted to get finished anyway. Often I've breezed through Knausgaard's doorstoppers not wanting them to end, but I felt I worked hard with my attention and interest for a lot of this beast of almost 800 pages.

3 stars - still musing on whether it's me or him. Perhaps I've just grown out of my crush. But here I am still thinking about the book a little. Damn that man...

>73 AlisonY: I had to chuckle at your review, despite commiserating on your "struggles" getting through it. I read the first in his myopic epic and bought the second, but never got beyond the first few chapters. I keep meaning to get it back out, but other (shorter) things always seem to shoulder their way in.

9. I Lost Summer Somewhere by Sarah Russell

I randomly came across one of Sarah Russell's poems online and I loved it, so my husband hit the mark by getting me this (and a few other titles) for Mother's Day at the weekend.

I absolutely loved this collection. It's slim - not even 80 pages - but there's such honesty, wryness and poignancy in her writing. It's an introspection of the ups and downs of life, of romances won and lost, of divorce, of death, of starting over, of aging.

I consider myself a late bloomer when it comes to appreciating poetry, and I think it's very individual. A bit like music, in the way a certain song can evoke all kinds of emotions in one person yet leave another cold.

I like Russell in these poems. She's smart. I can feel her occasional eye-rolling. She knows how life rolls.

This is the original poem that caught my attention (I noticed that some online took exception to the inference towards her current husband, but I get exactly what she's trying to convey):

If I Had Three Lives

After "Melbourne" by the Whitlams

If I had three lives, I'd marry you in two.
And the other? That life over there
at Starbucks, sitting alone, writing -- a memoir,
maybe a novel or this poem. No kids, probably,
a small apartment with a view of the river,
and books -- lots of books and time to read.
Friends to laugh with; a man sometimes,
for a weekend, to remember what skin feels like
when it's alive. I'm thinner in that life, vegan,
practice yoga. I go to art films, farmers markets,
drink martinis in swingy skirts and big jewelry.
I vacation on the Maine coast and wear a flannel shirt
weekend guy left behind, loving the smell of sweat
and aftershave more than I do him. I walk the beach
at sunrise, find perfect shell spirals and study pockmarks
water makes in sand. And I wonder sometimes
if I'll ever find you.

Another one:

After the Fact

There's the Fact
and After the Fact -
the silence of a new apartment,
hugging the kids too hard,
watching them manipulate.
It's his telling friends you took him
to the cleaners, cold stares
at soccer games.

After the fact is buying hundred dollar jeans,
then eating ramen for a week,
lying about your age,
your weight.
It's wondering if they're mama's boys
or gays still in the closet,
what to do with small talk,
stretch marks. It's settling
for a 6 because you're horny.

The Fact's a piece of cake.

4.5 stars - loved this collection. Will be reading more from her.

>75 AlisonY: I must be a late late bloomer as my love for poetry still eludes me. I like these poems though. They tell stories I can relate to without having to work hard.

>75 AlisonY: I consider myself a late bloomer when it comes to appreciating poetry, and I think it's very individual. A bit like music, in the way a certain song can evoke all kinds of emotions in one person yet leave another cold.

I agree, on both counts. I've gotten into poetry only in the last few years. The way that poems work or don't for different people seems very personal, even unpredictable, to me.

>76 labfs39: They tell stories I can relate to without having to work hard.

And that, in a nutshell, is the type of poetry I like! I need my poetry to be pretty straightforward but to hit the heart.

>77 Julie_in_the_Library: Exactly. Poetry is not something I can buy on a whim. If I don't know some of the writer's work already, I need to see it in a bookshop before I commit.

>75 AlisonY: Ouch, a BB, thanks Alison.

>73 AlisonY: Interesting review.

However, like all good crushes, there comes a point when the shine wears off, when the things that originally made you see stars become the very points that start to grate on you.

So well put. This happened with me with Kate Atkinson

>79 Caroline_McElwee: If you like the couple I posted you'll enjoy the whole collection, Caroline.

>80 kjuliff: Me too with Ian McEwan, Kate.

>75 AlisonY: I like both of these poems Alison. Have you considered posting them in the poetry thread?

I wish I read more poetry than I do - but it's hard to find and stick with a collection - narrative is so much easier to get caught up in. I have to be in the right mood and have some space to breathe to get stuck in to poetry.

>75 AlisonY: I love these. I will look for this collection.

Ive loved poetry since I was a kid and wrote quite a bit of it growning up. But the types of poem that I like ones where the language moves me into some reaction. I dont like poems that are just out there, ther appear to not have meaning (and no I cant think of an example) I know Im probably missing alot tho

>82 markon: Good idea, Arlene - will post them in the Poetry thread now.
>83 BLBera: Glad you liked them.
>84 cindydavid4: I wouldn't know where to start with writing poetry. I think I'd still end up with something akin to the rhyming rubbish I wrote age 6.

10. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

I've been meaning to read this for a number of years now and finally it found its way into my hands on a recent bookshop visit. A Waterstones bookshop opened a year or two back in the out of town shopping centre closest to me for popping in for some groceries on Saturdays, and although most welcome it's making my quick shopping trips for yoghurt and bananas considerably more expensive than before.

Didion chronicles in this memoir twelve months from the moment her husband drops dead at their kitchen table (whilst their only child was, incidentally, also lying critically ill in hospital battling sepsis). Although it's not a book I'd recommend to someone in the throes of grief, despite the circumstances Didion writes about I didn't find it a maudlin read.

Didion writes with utter honesty but never with self-pity, and her brisk matter-of-factness as she describes the most difficult of times feels insightful, brave and clear-eyed rather than sentimental (although it is a heartbreaking story). As a born story-teller who moved in some interesting circles with her writer husband, Didion's life at that time (and earlier in their marriage, which she recounts when unexpected things or places trigger memories) provided an unexpectedly interesting backdrop to this memoir on bereavement, a snapshot of a certain era in American history.

4.5 stars - I really enjoyed Didion's writing in this book, despite the difficult subject matter, and will definitely be seeking out some of her other essays and novels.

>86 AlisonY: I have this on my shelves. Your review makes me want to dust it off and actually read it!

>87 labfs39: I so enjoyed the style of her writing. I think in the future her essays rather than novels will call to me. She also includes excerpts of her husband's writing in the book, but his books seem to be mostly expensive secondhand copies, so I'm guessing he's fallen out of fashion and is out of print now.

>88 AlisonY: I read that when it first came out and was blown away by it. Her writing style is honest and moving, and as you say not maudlin. Her explaination of the year of magical thinking fits so well by the reality of grief, and how it hits us in different ways at diffreent times. We got to see Vanessa Redgrave in the one womans show on broadway too which was a wonderful adaptation

>89 cindydavid4: Oh Vanessa Redgrave would have been perfect for playing Didion. I bet that was something else.

I was thinking of getting it out, but the next Murderbot book came in at at the library, so I had to read that next. :-)

>91 labfs39: Next time!

>86 AlisonY: Great review, and a wonderful book. I have a slightly amusing story: for my 21st birthday, a dear friend gifted this to me, having read only the title and assuming it was some sort of self-help/positive thinking book. I still enjoyed reading it! But she was very sorry when she found it what it was about. Not exactly festive, but I love her writing. I'd recommend trying Slouching Towards Bethlehem next - her nonfiction essays.

>93 rv1988: whoa, really! Yikes, glad you were ok with that!

>93 rv1988: I can see how the title could be extremely misleading! I don't think I'd have appreciated the book as much at age 21.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is the title that's most caught my attention.

Hi Alison, you’ve been doing some interesting reading.

Catching up. I loved your Knausgaard rant. Cringed at that one poem 🙂 And found your Didion take very interesting. I want to read more Didion - but I don’t want more like this one. i want to read those books where she’s on the attack.

>93 rv1988: that’s funny. It’s such a beautiful title…

>96 dianeham: It's always quite random, Diane!

>97 dchaikin: Sorry about the cringing, Dan, but not sorry about the poem! ;)

Really looking forward to more Didion too in brighter times.

>86 AlisonY: While The Year of Magical Thinking does stand on its own as an study in grief, I think it is perhaps a book that should be read later in the process of reading her books, if a person is thinking of a more immersive experience.

>88 AlisonY: Combining Salvador (nonfiction 1983) and Democracy (fiction 1984) is an interesting pairing giving a good look at US foreign policy and intrigue for that time, something that always interested her.

>97 dchaikin: Like >93 rv1988: I would definitely recommend Slouching towards Bethlehem as a book where she's on the attack, and also as an early study in how her work would develop over time.

>99 SassyLassy: Thanks for the Didion tips - good to know.

11. I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish

Given the extreme horrors that are going on in Gaza at the moment, it felt only right to read something this year relating to Gaza, and I appreciate the couple of CRers who recommended this to be through their fine reviews. It's a difficult book to both read and to review, especially given that the horrors which the doctor who wrote this book describes back in 2009 were but the tip of the iceberg of what was to come in Gaza.

Izzeldin Abuelaish, who would go on to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, writes with eloquence about the modern day hell that is life in Gaza. Whatever your politics, it's hard to think of many other places in the world where such a large body people are hemmed into such a relatively small space with so little freedom of movement, their land borders, sea and airspace blockaded by Israel with the Palestinians having next to no control over the transportation of basic necessities such as food and medicine into their land. Complex geopolitical wrangling has existed for a very long time in this part of the world and there is fault on both sides, but Abuelaish tries to put his own politics aside and to instead put a human face to the real victims of this ongoing struggle.

The futility of guns and rockets in achieving any type of peaceful resolution to the conflict is core to Abuelaish's message in this book. As an eminent fertility specialist, he spent a considerable amount of his career working in a hospital in Israel, endeavouring to help couples regardless of their faith or nationality and building firm friendships with many Israelis. This, he believes, is a rare privilege in this part of the world, where Palestinians and Israelis have little opportunity to engage with each other, where they only know the 'other side' as faceless enemies, which makes peace all the more difficult. As such, he endeavoured to ensure his own children made the most of opportunities to attend peace camps with Israeli young people, and instilled a strong sense of love and humanity in his children's upbringing. Incredibly sadly, three of his daughters and a niece were killed when an Israeli tank opened fire from the street on the bedroom they were in, and Abuelaish works hard, not just in this novel but in the numerous talks he has given over the years, to prevent them from being faceless statistics - he wants us to see their faces, to know something of their individual personalities, the career dreams they had. He also wants us to know, however hard it is to read, the reality of this type of warfare, his daughters limbs scattered around the wreckage of their bedroom, one daughter decapitated. It's utterly harrowing, but I think it's important not to look the other way to the reality of other people's sufferings.

Coming as I do from Northern Ireland, I appreciate how what Abuelaish says about dialogue being the only route to peace is so true, and also how peace will never be established whilst two peoples are kept largely separated from each other. Peace requires getting to know each other, to stop demonising the other side as something less than human, to look for what we have in common rather than what divides us.

Peace seems further away than ever for Palestinians and Israelis at this point, but we must live in hope. At one point in his career, Abuelaish works with some Israeli doctors on the impact of conflict trauma on Palestinian children living in Gaza and Israeli children living near the border with Gaza. Fifteen years ago PTSD was already becoming endemic amongst these children - it's so difficult to think about what the future holds for the children of today in these areas.

4 stars - a true lesson in compassion but so very hard to read given current events.

12. How To Be a Complete and Utter Blunt: Diary of a Reluctant Social Media Sensation by James Blunt

Before anyone judges me horribly for reading this book, I have to defend myself by prefacing this review with stressing the point that this was a very random title I picked up in the library of the hotel I was staying in over the last few days in Edinburgh. I picked it up aiming to flick through the first few pages, and before I knew it twenty minutes had passed and I'd finished it (you may be surprised to learn that this is not highbrow literature).

James Blunt has been vilified pretty much non-stop since his 'You're Beautiful' song topped the charts for an inordinately long period of time, but having spent 20 minutes in his company in this book I have to say it seems that he brought much of that hatred upon himself. Getting abuse on a daily basis on Twitter, he decided at one point if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and embarked on a clever social media campaign which more or less entailed him coming up with a much better put down than those flung at him. About 20% of his retorts were aimed at the Tweet originator, but more often than not he simply slagged himself off more acutely in reply. This book is a collection of those Twitter exchanges.

I must admit I did chortle at a few of his replies, but mostly this book reminded me what a complete knob-end James Blunt is. Fair dues, though, he really doesn't care.

2 stars - I really can't recommend this, but thanks for a few smiles, Blunt.

>101 AlisonY: I'm glad you read and appreciated I Shall Not Hate (liked seems like the wrong word). I read it when it first came out—I can't image reading it now, it would be too, too depressing. Not only has there been no progress, but things are worse than ever. I'll be reading Apeirogon next month for my book club, and I'm dreading it a little, just because it's such a hard topic right now.

do you know if that author has spoken out on the latest war? curious what his thoughts might be.

>101 AlisonY: Great review of a difficult memoir. I heard Abuelaish in several different interviews on CBC radio after it came out, and he his message about dialogue being the only route to peace came out strongly each time.

Here's a current update on him for anyone interested:
https://www.dlsph.utoronto.ca/faculty-profile/abuelaish-izzeldin/

>102 AlisonY: Quite a follow up!

>103 labfs39: I get that. I read that it has quite a hopeful message, but it's hard to grasp onto hope right now.

>104 cindydavid4: Yes he has, Cindy, but still with the same message that he refuses to hate. As of the end of 2023 he'd lost 22 family members from the Israeli attacks on Gaza, most of them nieces and nephews. He's been vocal about calling for an end to the violence, but remains true to his values of dialogue and coming together in peace rather than hatred and separation.

>105 SassyLassy: Thanks! Our messages crossed in cyber space.

Yes, James Blunt was an unexpected follow up to a Nobel Peace Prize nominee....!

I think you're an exemplar of what it means to read eclectically right now, Alison. I may skip the Blunt book, but the Abuelaish interests me for the reasons you'd think. Thanks for putting it on my radar.

>105 SassyLassy: thanks for that link; he is brancing into other areas womens issues general health, gender gap along with continuing his work for peace. I so hope he succeds

>106 AlisonY: thats good to hear. Hope he wins the nobel prize.

>101 AlisonY: Wonderful comments on a timely book, Alison. I will search this one out sooner.

>108 lisapeet: Eclectic is such a kind way of saying totally random! I go where the reading winds blow me.

>110 cindydavid4: I think his Nobel nominations have been and gone in previous years, but he has won other peace prizes.

>111 BLBera: Thanks Beth. Timely but difficult for that very reason.

13. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Moving on swiftly from James Blunt to some credible literature...

I read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago not that long ago, so although One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a fictional novel I had a fair idea of what to expect. As with the Gulag Archipelago, what's startling in Solzhenitsyn's writing is that there's never any sense of self-pity, and black humour is always bubbling just below the surface.

This novel does what it says in the title. There's little reminiscing by the protagonist of life before the camp, nor wishing away the days to freedom (for as Ivan Denisovich knows, freedom may never come, with exile likely after he finishes his ten year sentence, if indeed another sentence isn't landed on him before that one finishes). The slim novel focuses on a regular day in this inmate's life in camp and is a glimpse into the reality of what millions of Russians endured - harsh work in extreme sub-zero temperatures in inadequate clothing with a belly half-empty from meagre food rations.

Given the extreme conditions that Solzhenitsyn writes of, his style intrigued me in this novel as it did in the NF Gulag Archipelago. Such is his protagonist's lack of self-absorption in the misery that's been inflicted on him, it's not a novel that left me with a profound sense of horror about the conditions the prisoners lived in. What sticks with me more is the grit and mental toughness of Solzhenitsyn (for this novel is undoubtedly based on his own experience as a prisoner). The novel even ends with a positive reflection by Ivan Denisovich, as he lies in his cold bunk with ice on the ceiling and his legs shoved into his coat sleeves, of all the things that had gone right that day, from not falling ill as he'd thought he would at the start of the day, to some extra rations for favours and his team not getting put to the worst of the work. It's remarkable, and perhaps that's the biggest insight of all - that those who survived were the people who were able to sustain the right mentality attitude and focus throughout these long sentences.

4 stars - an enjoyable read. Perhaps it would have been more shocking to me if I'd not read Gulag Archipelago relatively recently.

>113 AlisonY: Interesting review. Yes it’s often the case when you are impressed with a writer, you get another of their books too soon. I recently did that with Eastbound and The Heart.

In what order would you read those two Solzhenitsyn, or doesn’t it matter?

>113 AlisonY: remember reading both of those in college and was horrified "What sticks with me more is the grit and mental toughness of Solzhenitsyn (for this novel is undoubtedly based on his own experience as a prisoner)" yes, exactly. not sure Id say they were enjoyable reads, but certainly eye opening

>114 kjuliff: I don't think it matters which order you read them in, although the order I read them in was useful as I then already had historical knowledge of the gulags before reading the fictional novella.

Gulag Archipelago is a completely different kind of read as its non-fiction, fairly lengthy and recounts the various gulag experiences of hundreds of people. The author takes you right from the different ways people were arrested through to their trials, experiences in different types of camps and exile afterwards (and of course his own experience). The novella zones in solely on a fictional account of a typical day in camp.

>115 cindydavid4: Yes, eye opening is certainly the right way to describe these books. It's so shocking the sentences people received, most often for doing nothing at all wrong. I didn't find them especially bleak, though, and much of that is down to Solzhenistyn's quite bouncy way of writing despite his subject matter.

If you want a different history of the gulag, try Anne Appelbaum's Gulag: A History. She was able to use newly opened archival data to document a wide range of issues, from the economics of the gulag to women's experiences. I found it eye-opening even after having read Solzhenitsyn and other gulag memoirs.

>116 AlisonY: Thanks Alison. I will probably reas The One Day in the Life first as I find fiction easier to read lately.

>117 labfs39: I've not heard of that book or author - thanks!

>118 kjuliff: The fiction is really a novella and would be a good audio bet, Kate. The non-fiction would be a bit of a slog on audio I suspect.

>119 AlisonY: Gulag: A History is very readable and is one of those books that changed what I thought I knew. One of the points she makes is that the gulag system had less to do with punishment and more to do with economics. Archival documents clearly show how the system was developed to foster development in remote areas, large-scale works like the White Sea Canal, mining, and more. The camps were convenient places to isolate criminals and political prisoners, but primarily they were a workforce (although to the people sent there, it was a punishment for sure). I have her book, Red Famine, on the Ukrainian famine that I might read next, as it would complement my recent reading on China well. I have three other of her books wishlisted.

I met Solzhenitsyn once, but it was in a situation where I was not allowed to acknowledge who he was (he was very reclusive during his time in Vermont). I was in such awe I'm sure I stumbled over my words, as mundane as they were.

Beautiful Easter Sunday. You've read some great books. Unfortunately my library doesn't have the book by Izzeldin Abuelaish.

>120 labfs39: That's interesting - that economic point of view didn't come across in either of Solzhenistyn's books. So cool that you got to meet him. I'd have been in awe too.

>121 Ameise1: Happy Easter! I am definitely a very random reader, but I'm OK with that!

Catching up. Terrific review of I shall not hate. I’m not sure i’ve read a review of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Very interesting. Thank you for reading and sharing. 🙂

>113 AlisonY: Great review, and how wonderful that you got to meet him. I'd have been tongue-tied too!

>123 dchaikin: Thanks Dan. It's an interesting read.

>124 rv1988: Oh it was Lisa who met him, not me. Agree - I'd have been starstruck too!

However, like all good crushes, there comes a point when the shine wears off, when the things that originally made you see stars become the very points that start to grate on you. I fear I've reached that point with Knausgaard.

As the unofficial president of the Philadelphia Area Knausgaard Fan Club I find this statement to be sacrilegious, and thoroughly unacceptable.

Great reviews of two of my favorite books of recent years, The Year of Magical Thinking and I Shall Not Hate.

Perhaps I've just grown out of my crush.

Hmph.

>126 kidzdoc: Lol! Come back to me Darryl when you've read Wolves of Eternity. I would defend him to the end on the My Struggle series, but this one.... not so much.

>75 AlisonY: I'm catching up and really enjoyed these two poems. I'm going to ask my library to buy the book, otw I might have to.

>128 Jim53: Oh I hope the library are able to buy it for you. It's a fairly slim collection but most enjoyable.

>126 kidzdoc: >127 AlisonY: Another big Knausgaard fan here, but I agree with Alison on Wolves of Eternity. It was a slog. I did enjoy The Morning Star, and I was expecting some sort of sequel to that with The Wolves of Eternity. Though the morning star appeared at the very end of wolves, it definitely could not be considered a sequel.

>130 arubabookwoman: Same on all fronts. I don't know what the missing ingredient was on The Wolves of Eternity, but as you say it felt a slog.

>127 AlisonY:, >130 arubabookwoman: Okay, that makes two fellow Knausgaard fans whose opinions I highly respect, so that's fair. It will be a while before I get to The Wolves of Eternity, as I still haven't read My Struggle: Book Five, My Struggle: Book Six, and The Morning Star.

14-17. The Provincial Lady Series: Diary of a Provincial Lady, The Provincial Lady Goes Further, The Provincial Lady in America & The Provincial Lady in Wartime by E.M. Delafield

This collection of four of E. M. Delafield's Provincial Lady books in one edition was an absolute delight. If you've not heard of this writer or these books before, completely ignore the cover of this edition as it is entirely inappropriate and of the wrong era.

Written in diary form in often truncated sentences, the first book in this series was written in 1930, and although containing fictional characters the books borrow much from Delafield's own life.

This woman was, in short, an absolute riot. Despite the setting being close on 100 years ago, the Provincial Lady's daily concerns feel almost modern, which is no doubt down to the razor-sharp wit throughout which feels ahead of its time compared to much writing of that era. She is the Caitlin Moran or Helen Fielding of her era, a writer whose very essence exudes from her protagonist with endless witticisms, self-deprecation and withering commentary on those that cross her path.

In the first book, The Diary of a Provincial Lady, our narrator documents with dry humour her daily struggles as a woman of relatively high social standing running a household. We're never told what her husband Robert's occupation is, but they move in upper middle class circles and have a small staff to manage the domestic chores in the household. The cook is fairly useless but formidable, and our Provincial Lady spends much of her time failing to work up the courage to address her about areas that need improvement, which reminded me of friends who work full time in demanding jobs yet are scared to confront their cleaner when they do a lousy job. Our protagonist has a busy mind, and although she accepts that household management is her responsibility it's not something she enjoys or wishes to prioritise when she can help it. She sends story offerings to her favourite publication Time and Tide, but at this stage this feels like a hobby also indulged in by many of her friends and acquaintances. She enjoys trips up to London and wishes to spend more of her time there, the country life being a little too dull, but despite governesses for her youngest child, boarding school for her oldest and a small household staff, money is always tight. Despite this, her spending is only occasionally curtailed, and she regularly gets indignant over the increasingly short patience of the bank over the state of her overdraft.

I am sure that every woman will acknowledge that choosing and creating one's own rich, elegant, and costly clothes is an extremely efficient cure for any worries about money.

In the second book, The Provincial Lady Goes Further, our narrator is shocked to have earned a book deal from her Time and Tide writing which considerably changes the financial circumstances of the family (echoing how Delafield found her way to publishing). Now a woman of independent means, she delights in spontaneously buying a flat up in London to support her need to spend regular time there for her work, when in reality the writing of the second book she's received an advance for is continually pushed to the end of her to do list as she's much too busy enjoying herself. Our protagonist has little ego or airs about her, and her regular disappointment in her appearance surely strikes a chord with so many modern females reading this book, despite the passage of time.

January 22nd - Robert startles me at breakfast by asking if my cold, which he has hitherto ignored - is better. I reply that it has gone. Then why, he asks, do I look like that? Feel that life is wholly unendurable, and decide madly to get a new hat.

In the third novel, The Provincial Lady goes on a promotional tour of America for her book and delights us with her mixed emotions on being away from her family for two months whilst having a whale of a time. Every telegram she receives she's convinced brings news of her children dying in some tragic accident, which of course never happens yet taps into the preposterous ideas that many of us mothers get into our heads when we have to leave our children for any considerable length of time. She attends the Chicago World Fair, delights that the English custom for tea seems to translate to cocktails in America, and insists on a trip to the Alcott house, which is her publisher's only concession on a whirlwind tour full of engagements. Despite her somewhat new rise to the fame, everyday worries continue to keep her feet planted firmly on the ground.

Write postcards, to Rose, the children, and Robert, and after some thought send one to Cook, although entirely uncertain as to whether this will gratify her or not. Am surprised, and rather disturbed, to find that wording of Cook's postcard takes more thought than that on all the others put together.

In the final book, The Provincial Lady in Wartime, our Provincial Lady chronicles her life up in London during the initial stage of WWII, dubbed the Phoney War. During this time she, along with all her friends and acquaintances, is keen to 'do her bit', yet there's so little happening she can't get anyone to take any interest in using her skills on a voluntary basis. It's an interesting (and of course amusing) account of a period I've not read about previously in WWII accounts, this desperation to call oneself to action and feeling the social and personal disappointment of not having any role of importance to undertake, and also waiting for the action to start which never seems to come. She eventually gets a position in 'the underworld' canteen beneath the Adelphi Theatre, where volunteers for the ambulance corps, etc. are occasionally training but more often than not hanging around waiting for something to happen.

I absolutely loved this series (which absolutely didn't need such a long review, but once I got started I couldn't stop myself). She's a funny and quirky writer, and it was an absolutely delight from start to finish. If you've enjoyed reads such as Mrs Bridge I can definitely recommend this.

Diary of a Provincial Lady - 4.5 stars
The Provincial Lady Goes Further - 4.5 stars
The Provincial Lady in America - 4.5 stars
The Provincial Lady in Wartime - 4 stars (the tightening of belts and loss of socialising during this early war period made this last book a little less entertaining).

This sounds right up my wheel well for when I need a British cardigan book. I'm reminded of the Mrs. Tim series, or Joyce Dennys' Henrietta books.

>133 AlisonY: oh those sound so much fun! must try them!

Those Provincial Lady books sound like an absolutely hoot. I'm definitely going to search them out.

$2 on kindle!

>133 AlisonY: Great review. This sounds delightful.

>137 cindydavid4: Thanks for the tip! I snagged a copy on Amazon for .99

>134 labfs39:, >135 cindydavid4:, >136 mabith:, >138 rv1988: I hope I haven't oversold them and that you enjoy them as much as I did!

the pressure is on! :)

The Provincial Lady books sound like a lot of fun. I will look for them. Great comments.

18. Festival Days by Jo Ann Beard

I'm very divided on this collection of short stories and essays. On the one hand, you can tell this is a writer who's honed her craft and writes impeccably, but on the other many of these stories are such raw accounts of uncomfortable topics it's hard to class them as enjoyable. Appreciable yes, but not overly fun.

For example, there's the story of the man who wakes up to find his apartment block is on fire and who jumps out the window. He survives but drops his cat in the process, who doesn't. Then there's the story of the woman dying of cancer, who opts for an assisted suicide, and another about the woman who's been attacked by stranger in her house and has to fight for her survival.

The stories feel incredibly real - you are in that burning building, you are watching that best friend suffer terribly through terminal cancer - and full points to Jo Ann Beard for pulling that off, but I don't think I really wanted to feel like a fly on the wall in these kind of circumstances.

The last few are essays based on Beard's own life - her husband leaving her for another woman, a girls' trip to India with a friend who's (also) dying of cancer. I preferred the short stories - I think Beard got a bit caught up in her craft in the essays, and they felt a little overdone at times.

3.5 stars - a very talented writer, but sad, difficult and uncomfortable subjects in these stories. I suspect Beard wants the reader to feel that discomfort, but... well, life's hard enough at times without living too graphically other people's tragedies.

19. Hold On To Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld

It's taken me over 8 months to finish this book, as I decided about a third of the way through I hated it but stubbornness kept me committed to finishing it.

I bought this book originally as it's a joint effort between Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté and I'd enjoyed a previous book of Maté's, although with a dollop of scepticism. The bit of the blurb that caught my eye was reattaching to your kids, and at the time that I bought this my (then) 13 year old was proving harder to communicate with and I was keen to recapture our bond.

The first few chapters had me nodding my head in some agreement, particularly in relation to immaturity and a tendency for some adolescents to need to fit in with their peers. So far our set of circumstances at home. But then Neufeld and Maté completely lost me. The book became full of sweeping statements and generalisations which I felt are totally unfair on the majority of our young people. It seemed totally lost on these two 'experts' that lots of kids want to fit in during their teens and that friends are an important part of your rite of passage through adolescence. In their eyes, spending time with peers means peer attachment issues and a slippery slope to bullying, aggression and goodness knows what else. There was no middle ground of teenagers figuring out who they are and coming out the other side OK - it was either devils or angels.

I do get and agree with the main point of the book, which is that it's important for children and young people to develop and keep a firm attachment with a parent/s or guardians / trusted adult, but for scientists to have written this book there seemed to be so much that was subjective and based on opinions rather than firm data.

And it went on and on and on about the same basic point, page after page in small print. Talk about repetitive and filler content.

So I'm delighted to at last to be done with this book that is a horrible read on several levels.

1.5 stars - I'm done now with both of them.

>144 AlisonY: That sounds terrible and I understand your impulse to plow through to the end, fueled by animus. So the book says to discourage kids from making friends and hanging out with them? Given that both my now (barely) adult children still have very strong friendships with kids they knew in high school and even middle school, this is clearly nonsense. And the early teen years can be tough, with all those hormones sloshing around.

>144 AlisonY: Yikes, sounds horrid. Thanks for taking one for the team and reading it so we don't have to.

>144 AlisonY: That book sounds dreadful. Where would we be without the friends we made in our teenage years? What sort of a parent clings to children like that? Like RidgewayGirl I can understand you being fueled by animus and reading to the end. Thanks for warning us.

>144 AlisonY: That's some of the worst parenting advice I've ever heard. Was this a pro–helicopter parenting thing? It makes me think of that red flag we learn to watch out for, how an abuser will try to prevent the abused from seeing their friends or family to break them down and make them dependent. Yeesh.

yeah I dont get it . Goes against everything that I have experinced in that area. does the book give any information about the author?

Just looked at the reviews here they seemed mixed, So glad I am not a parent who had to shift through the mire of advice....

>144 AlisonY: Ouch. This really sounds awful (and somehow infuriating)! And in the description says "This parenting classic"... is it really considered a classic (must read)?!

I've dilating drops in my eyes at the moment and my vision's all weird so excuse me not doing the proper reply thingy to your posts but replying to all above!

Yeah, I just thought it was a dreadful book. It was such a black or white viewpoint not allowing for shades of grey and seemed to forget that certain teen traits are to be expected, including looking more to their friends than parents at certain stages. A wee bit of teenage rebellion seemed totally off the cards.

I don't think the authors were saying children shouldn't have friends, but it was heavily pushing that they don't need them as much as parents think.

All told it was very unevenly argued and presented. I think these dinosaurs would like nothing better than for mothers to stay at home and employ themselves helicoptering over their kids and wholly distrusting their friendships.

That's so disappointing about the Gabor Mate book. My sister's kids have very few close friends (they've almost entirely been homeschooled), and the ones they have they don't see that often (my niece's best friend lives an hour away essentially), and it worries the heck out of me. They're 13 and 15 now and I'm constantly worried about how they'll adjust to adulthood, in most senses but especially socially. I'm sure my brother-in-law expects them to go to college (he's a college professor) and they will likely struggle so much in so many ways.

My sister would probably love the book, given how I've seen her questioning them over minor details after social occasions, in a very unsubtle way that I as a kid would have absolutely caught on to as "was this friend actually being friends with you or paying more attention to some other kid." I don't know if my niece sees that or if she's too naive still but it really freaks me out (I had four older siblings forcing me to be aware of things unsaid and minor mood currents). There are reasons my sister has trouble keeping in-person friends as an adult that I'd hate to see rub off on her. Kids can certainly pick up bad ideas from friends, but equally (if not more so) from parents...

>153 mabith: There's definitely no manual that comes with parenting, and certainly I don't know if my way is better or worse than other people's approach, but I do feel that friendships are a very important part of teenage years, and I think teens can be quite focused on their friends without necessarily being led down the wrong path.

I'm sure we're all guilty, like you say of your sister, of passing on our own not so great traits to our kids, even if we're conscious of those flaws and really don't want our kids to grow up copying them.

20. The Half-Finished Heaven Selected Poems by Tomas Transtromer

I've been reading this relatively slim volume of poetry for quite a long time. It felt challenging to my grey matter - I couldn't get the gist of what Tranströmer was getting at quite often.

When I first started this review, my thoughts were entirely negative. The poetry was pretentious, overwrought, the kind of poetry that made me think I would never enjoy poetry when I was younger. I started flicking back through the poems to validate my annoyance with it, but then to my surprise started to 'get' some of the poems a bit more. I wouldn't go so far as to say enjoy, but I understood and appreciated them the more I read them, and I realised I'd been speed reading a lot of them previously as I just wanted to finish the book.

I learnt a bit about myself and poetry in this little reading experience. I enjoy poetry that's straightforward and speaks to my heart. I'm not into poetry that requires me to 'figure it out'. I switch off; I lose attention.

Anyway, back to Tranströmer, I respect the abilities he had as a poet, but he's not for me. Here's an example of a couple of the poems - I'm interested in whether this speaks to others:

Black Postcards

I.
The calendar all booked up, future unknown.
The cable silently hums some folk song
but lacks a country. Snow falls in the grey sea. Shadows
fight out on the dock.

II.
Halfway through your life, death turns up
and takes your pertinent measurements. We forget
the visit. Life goes on. But someone is sewing
the suit in the silence.

A Winter Night

The storm puts its lips to the house
and blows to make a sound.
I sleep restlessly, turn over, with closed
eyes read the book of the storm.

But the child's eyes grow huge in the dark
and the storm whimpers for the child.
Both love to see the swinging lamp.
Both are halfway toward speech.

Storms have childlike hands and wings.
The caravan bolts off towards Lapland
and the house senses the constellation of nails
holding its walls together.

The night is quiet above our floor
(where all the died-away footsteps
are lying like sunken leaves in a pond)
but outside the night is wild!

A more serious storm is moving over us all.
It puts its lips to our soul
and blows to make a sound. We're afraid
the storm will blow everything inside us away.

3 stars - respectfully not for me.

>154 AlisonY: I've never had kids, unfortunately, so I can't speak to parenting, but I can say with absolute clarity that I wouldn't have survived adolescence or my later teen years without my friends, three of whom from those years, as I face down my 69th birthday, are still among my very closest friends.

>155 AlisonY: I hear what you're saying about Tranströmer: I wonder, though, how much we're losing in translation, as he originally wrote in Swedish, right? There are a few poems by him that I really do like, though. I'm thinking in particular of this one: https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/poem/allegro/

Editing to add, I do like the Bly translation better, and it shows how difference the translation makes. https://rebeccasnow.co/2016/04/21/bly-vs-fulton-transtromers-poem-allegro/

>157 rv1988: I did think as I was reading this collection about the fact that it was translated. It's boggling to me how translators manage to make it work for poetry - it must be so difficult. Interesting to read these comparisons - thanks for sharing.

My version was Robert Bly's.

My

>144 AlisonY: Thank you! I’m a bit behind you in that the first couple of chapters of Hold on to your Kids had me nodding along, only for me to start to hate the book soon after that. I stopped reading but have kept thinking I should give it another chance…but you did it first and spared me the effort ;-)

>154 AlisonY: This is true, we almost can't help pass some things down that we'd rather not. I think my mom was a brilliant parent in most ways but she and my dad both struggled with emotional availability/openness and that's certainly impacted my siblings and me to varying degrees.

I think the idea with friends as negative influences is that surely you want to confront that with kids when they're in your home still and you can talk about maintaining their own point of view and beliefs and such with them. It's not like that ends once they're 18 and out of sight. My therapist and I talk a lot about the help of going through these struggles while you have good adult support all around you vs in college/work once you're away from home and no one can really see what's happening.

>159 rachbxl: I'm delighted to spare you wasted hours and disappointment!

>160 mabith: I think the thing is that we all need a trusted adult or two to lean into, not just kids. And I do agree with that point in that book, but not the level of distrust it develops into the book around kids wanting to fit in with their peers.

To be fair there are a number of decent points in the book, but I just switched off after the sweeping generalisations.

>161 AlisonY: I mean, once you read something and think, "that's just not true," it's impossible to trust what that author is telling you.

>162 RidgewayGirl: 100%

21. Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

I very nearly bailed on this, but I'm glad I didn't. It took me a good 75-100 pages before anything enough happened to start grabbing my attention.

The book is set in Egypt just after WWI, and is the story of a family with an ultra conservative patriarch at its head. Inside his home he is a stern authoritarian with his meek, submissive second wife and their children. The balconies of the house are all covered with a lattice framework so no one can see the women inside and they can only peep out at the outside world (although even that is strongly discouraged), and they are rarely if ever allowed outside of the home. The boys of the house, whilst very much afraid of their father's authority, are allowed relative freedom, so long as they do not disgrace the good name of the family. Naturally life does not run smoothly for even the most domineering control freaks, which is where the narrative of the story goes.

Once I finally got into this book I enjoyed it. It reminded me of an Egyptian version of A Suitable Boy. The last quarter of the book focused more on the political situation in Egypt and the strive for independence from British rule. Although I appreciated the insights on this, I preferred when the storyline focused more on the domestic issues within the household rather than the impact on the family of external politics, despite the climax that this built up to.

4 stars - probably 4.5 stars for the middle half of the book, but I'm taking off a half star for the slow start and the political aspect of the last quarter which I didn't enjoy as much (although I expect many will have enjoyed that especially).

>164 AlisonY: I'm glad you ended up liking most of Palace Walk. It's a long book to not be enjoying.

Glad you found some enjoyment in Palace Walk, though you may want to skip the other two volumes and read something else if you want to try more Mahfouz. It's been a long time since I've read the trilogy, but from what I vaguely recall the political element just increases.

>164 AlisonY: Tempting review. Like you I had a little problem getting into it. I hope some day to get back into it. I used to love longish books but now I like shorter ones, even novella.

>165 labfs39: I agree - life's too short to be stuck in the middle of a bad book! I'm glad I stuck with it in the end.

>166 mabith: Thanks - that's good to know. I was wavering about whether I'd want to read the other 2 books in the trilogy, and you've made my mind up not to.

>167 kjuliff: I imagine long books become tedious to listen to via audio, Kate. Mind you, I think this would be a book that would lend itself well to audio. Maybe you'll come back round to it again one day.

>168 AlisonY: Yes audio isn’t always the best for long books. I need to be quickly engrossed in order to take on the long haul. The exception is when I’ve had previous positive experiences with other books by the writer..

>164 AlisonY: I started his quartet a couple of years back, but set the first aside as it was so slow and I wasn't in the mood Alison. As someone who has been fascinated with Egypt since a child, frustrating.

>170 Caroline_McElwee: The slow extended start to Palace Walk nearly lost me, Caroline.

>166 mabith: I agree with Meredith, if you weren't in love with Palace Walk, skip the rest of the trilogy.

22. A Moth to a Flame* by Stig Dagerman

Written in 1948, this Swedish classic typifies Nordic literature in its sparse darkness and tension throughout.

This slim novel begins on the day of the protagonist's mother's funeral. She is a woman who was generally not well liked by neighbours or family, but as his mother the young man loved her and is bereft by her loss. As the novel develops, his grief and confusion is heightened as his father brings the woman he was having an affair with whilst his wife was still alive into the young man's life, and he becomes bent on getting revenge on his father and his lover.

The first part of the novel I found to be quite difficult as the grief of the young man is pronounced and makes for bleak reading, but it slowly begins to reveal itself as a novel of some brilliance. Dagerman keeps the reader in an enthralled state of tension as the young man becomes more and more erratic and unreliable in thought and action as he tries to make sense of his grief and his confused feelings towards his father, his father's lover and his own fiancee. Through his thoughts, Dagerman explores the complexity of love and hate and how they are inextricably linked as two sides of the same coin.

Sadly Dagerman took his own life in his early 30s, and it feels as if some of his own wrestlings with life seep their way into the inner turmoil of the protagonist as he tries to make sense of what is unfolding around him.

4 stars - a dark and gripping novel that keeps you tense throughout.

* The novel was originally entitled The Burnt Child.

>173 AlisonY: Sadly this book isn’t available in audio. I so enjoyed your review. I did read up a little on Stig Dagerman and he was so prolific for one who died so young.

I can get his Wedding Worries but see it’s third in a series. Have you read it?

>174 kjuliff: Have you tried searching under The Burnt Child as well, Kate? It seems to be under either name depending on the publisher.

It was the first of his I've read so I can't comment on Wedding Worries. Will be interested in your thoughts if you read it.

>175 AlisonY: Yes I searched under both titles and also the author’s name. Yes I’ll let you know if I decide to read it. What lead you to The Burnt Child?- - review/recommendation?

>176 kjuliff: I think it was a random pick from a physical bookshop when I was delayed at an airport last autumn. It's been on my TBR for a while. It's 1 of 7 books in a Penguin translated series called Penguin European Writers. The others look very interesting too.

Sorry this one isn't on Audible. On the Penguin site they're all available as ebooks - is getting your digital reader to read it an option, or is that painful for trying to listen to novels?

>177 AlisonY: Huh, I had never heard of the Penguin European Writers series nor any of the authors they published. Interesting.

>177 AlisonY: I’ve tried the digital reader but it just seems to spoil the prose. I might try Wedding Worries as it’s meant to be one of his best works.

>173 AlisonY: On the list it goes Alison. Totally new to me.

>173 AlisonY: This sounds fascinating, and thanks for your great review. On to the list it goes!

>178 labfs39: I'd not heard of this series either, Lisa, until I saw it in a bookshop. Definitely plus points of sometimes shopping in the big new book stores.

>179 kjuliff: Will look out for when you read Wedding Worries, Kate. You seem to quite enjoy transkated short novels, so hopefully it's a good one.

>180 Caroline_McElwee:, >181 rv1988: it's quite bleak in places, so hoping you don't hate it! If you enjoy gritty, dark nordic novels, though, hopefully you'll enjoy it.

>182 AlisonY: I like dark and bleak, so will have a look for it after reading your review.

I hadn't heard of this Penguin grouping either, and just checked it out: https://www.penguin.co.uk/series/BWCK/penguin-european-writers
I see I can get another Merce Rodoreda book there, so that's a bonus.

>182 AlisonY: You seem to quite enjoy transkated short novels
So true Alison; I’ve never realized it, but looking back I see it. I’ll do a tagmash thing to see what comes up.

I’m trying to read Homeland now but though it’s translated (from Spanish) it’s long. Plus it’s unfamiliar territory - Basque terrorism - so tough-going.

>173 AlisonY: I read this (under the title The Burnt Child), and reviewed it here on LT in 2011 (gulp--has it really been that long ago?). I wanted to read more by Dagerman, so in the interim between 2011 and now (but probably closer to 2011), I bought The Island of the Doomed, which I haven't read yet. From the description it sounds kind of science fictiony, if that appeals. Wedding Worries sounds like it would be a good read. The audible version is apparently narrated by Dagerman's daughter.

I'm glad that you stuck with Palace Walk, Alison; that was a 5 star read for me.

>183 SassyLassy: Definitely worth a read if you don't mind dark and bleak.

>184 kjuliff: Fair play to you, Kate. Basque terrorism sounds like a tough read.

>185 arubabookwoman: Interesting that Dagerman went down a science fiction route in his writing - that will be a very different read to Moth to a Flame.

>186 kidzdoc: Yes I'm glad I stuck with it too, Darryl. It was worth the slog at the start in the end.

I don't usually go too far beyond work and the gym, but I've had a couple of interesting nights out of late. First up was the West End touring production of The Woman in Black at Belfast's Grand Opera House which was an interesting night out. It was a two man show (save for the occasional walk-by of the woman in black) - I enjoyed it, but think I would have perhaps enjoyed it more with a larger cast. Having said that, hats off to the two actors who had an impressive amount of lines to remember as well as shifting between different characters and accents.



Here's a picture of our small but perfectly formed Grand Opera House, which dates back to 1895:



Last weekend my husband and I went to see Dionne Warwick in the Ulster Hall in Belfast. It was a fairly small venue which was excellent for this 'an audience with...' style of evening. She only sang around half a dozen songs, with the rest of the evening being short excerpts from the documentary on her life and her then talking to the audience about that stage in her life. A few more songs would have been lovely, but in all it was a very enjoyable night with a legendary singer. At 83, I don't think she was up for singing more than a few songs.



The Ulster Hall's a very pretty venue too. For a small city, I think we do alright:

Your opera house is gorgeous. Good for you for getting out on the town.

>188 AlisonY: Gorgeous, indeed!

I'm impressed that Dionne Warwick is still performing. She has to be in at least her 80s, right?

>188 AlisonY: Sounds like you had a great time - and such beautiful venues!

>189 labfs39: Yep, love our opera house. It's so decadent inside.

>190 kidzdoc: She's 83, Darryl. Her voice isn't what it was, but she still sounded great. Her eldest son was on the drums and duetted with her on one song and his voice was phenomenal.

>Thank you - great couple of nights out.

>188 AlisonY: Sounds wonderful Alison. I'm glad Warwick respected her capacity. I saw Liza Minelli a few years back, and although she did most of her cannon, she sung them slightly differently. Then, in an encore she came back onto the stage with a lone trumpeter, and did one song where she hit all the high notes.

>193 Caroline_McElwee: That sounds amazing. Dionne passed over to her son to hit one of the very high notes, but he was so fantastic it didn't matter.

23. The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken by The Secret Barrister

I've wanted to read this book ever since having the misfortune to being dragged into a terrible legal case in a previous work role. I found the experience to be eye-opening for all the wrong reasons - I'd always assumed that truth is very quickly outed by the British legal system, especially when evidence to prove it is readily available, but instead discovered to my disgust that it was a system which could be frustrated and played by those in the know.

This book focuses on the British criminal courts (or at least those of England and Wales) rather than those that handle commercial cases, but a similar theme quickly emerges. Budget pressures have encouraged a 'stack 'em high' approach to the amount of cases the system is expected to process, with the result that the system is left full of holes. Crucial evidence is regularly not submitted on the back of CPS and police incompetence or resource pressures, unscrupulous solicitors have moved in with shoddy representation where legal aid low rates make it difficult for good solicitors to stay in the industry, and if you're a victim of a miscarriage of justice, forget receiving anything in the way of compensation following legal reform, even if you've lost 10 years of life wrongly convicted in prison, coming out to no job, no relationship, no home. And if you're charged with a crime and are found not guilty, if you don't meet the relatively low salary means test to qualify for legal aid, don't expect that your innocence will equate to a repayment of the six figure sum you've had to fork out for private legal representation - you'll see a minuscule amount returned.

It's a frightening picture painted by The Secret Barrister, and from my own small and unexpected experience with our courts I have little trouble in believing what he says.

In terms of readability, it was a little dense in legal facts and terms at times; I'd have enjoyed more case examples, and probably didn't need to know all of the detail The Secret Barrister included. But despite glazing over in places, it's an important read for any British citizen. As pointed out heavily in the book, no one expects to have brushes with the criminal courts, but many good people do, whether it's carrying out jury service, being a victim of crime, being in the wrong place at the wrong time and wrongly accused of a crime or simply making a mistake.

3.5 stars - my eyes are now wide open.

>195 AlisonY: Great review, Alison. Frightening, indeed.

>195 AlisonY: I'm sorry to hear that the British legal system is also in a sorry state. The US system is notoriously horrendous. I've been writing to a young man who is currently serving time in part because his case was heard on Valentine's Day and his lawyer was scheduled to leave for a trip immediately after. His lawyer declined to do much in the way of defense and called no witnesses so as to get out the door. At least the young man isn't black or he would be serving twice as long.

>196 kidzdoc: Terrifying.

>197 labfs39: The Secret Barrister speaks about unscrupulous lawyers like that who take the money and then do precious little to actually support their clients. It's very disheartening that the quality of your legal representation can be affected by the size of your bank balance.

Reading The Bee Sting - will be a little while...

24. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

This was a chunky one, but is one of those long books which never feels like a slog.

Set in modern-day rural Ireland, this hefty novel is a family saga about the unravelling of the Barnes family. Dickie Barnes' wife Imelda is at his throat as he's seemingly letting the family car business hit the rocks through ineptitude, but as each section of the book alternates between each family member we learn that no one is as they seem on the surface, with enough skeletons in the closet within the family to fill the local graveyard.

This is one of those books that's just a bloomin' enjoyable read. It's not highbrow literature, but it is eminently readable from the get-go. I don't think it's worthy of its Booker short-listing; in fact I don't think it's Booker material at all. This is mass-market fiction, make no bones about it, but it's fun and pulls you along. Randomly, in the sections about Imelda, punctuation gets omitted, which felt a bit contrived but probably instantly ticked some Booker short-list box.

The last quarter of the book gets a little over-dramatic and far-fetched, with an annoyingly inconclusive ending, but despite it's silliness and despite yourself it does get quite gripping.

4 stars - I almost gave this 4.5 stars just for being such a fun ride, but it's not in the same league as my other 4.5 star reads, so I have to be a little harsh. 4.5 stars for readability, but 4 stars overall as it strays into chick-lit territory. Worth a read, though.

>200 AlisonY: I thought the Imelda parts reflected her state of mind and lack of formal education. Those parts were my favorite although I was impressed at Murray being able to make me care for Dickie after all that came before his part. And the ending made me yell. The way a few articles made it seem like Murray had be deliberately slighted by not winning the Booker were interesting, if unconvincing.

>200 AlisonY: Great review especially this: "Randomly, in the sections about Imelda, punctuation gets omitted, which felt a bit contrived but probably instantly ticked some Booker short-list box." (Probably did). I enjoyed his other book as well The Mark and the Void which is a great send up of the banking crisis post-2008.

>200 AlisonY: Yes, I agree that the lack of punctuation seemed to reflect that her thoughts were all over the place, but still... I feel I've seen it too many times now as a Booker 'thing'. After I thought about the ending for a while it sat better with me, as I think whatever definitive ending he could have chosen would have been annoying for different reasons.

>202 rv1988: Must look out for The Mark and the Void. This author really wasn't known to me until The Bee Sting.

25. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

Despite swearing a few years ago that I was done with McEwan, here I am on book #14. And despite this sitting on my shelf for quite some time for that very reason, Sweet Tooth turned out to be a pleasant surprise, a return to McEwan's style that I enjoy.

The book jacket blurb refers to 'a web of spying' which felt quite misrepresentative of the novel. The protagonist, a young Cambridge graduate in the 1970s, is recruited into MI5 via an older professor with whom she was having an affair. However, this is not a James Bond-style novel; our main character is very low down on the MI5 ladder, working mainly on filing intelligence information about the Troubles, when she's given an additional job of vetting a young writer with potential for a literary programme funded by MI5 to influence the British educated class away from its increasingly anti-western position. The meeting with the would-be novelist sparks the beginning of a love affair, and the novel becomes much more focused on the story of their relationship, the development of her lover's writing career and the secret she is hiding from him in terms of her job and the real backers of his literary stipend.

It's a satisfying read reminiscent of the McEwan of old I used to enjoy. It's definitely not the best McEwan I've read, with an ending that left me indifferent, but it reminded me how enjoyable McEwan's prose can be and was an enjoyable way to while away a few hours.

4 stars - a little forgettable, but satisfying enough for fans who are still working their way through his titles.

>204 AlisonY: Despite swearing a few years ago that I was done with McEwan...

I have exactly the same relationship with him, and this book brought me back into the fold too. I think your review is spot on.

>205 SassyLassy: I find he seems to have become more 'miss' than 'hit' in his later years, but when he's at his best he's hard to beat.

>204 AlisonY: This has so far basked unread in the tbr mountain. Lessons brought me back.

>204 AlisonY: He is such an uneven writer. Or maybe it's that he ranges so far and wide that all the books he's written can't possibly appeal to everyone? Still, I do approach his novels with caution and I agree that Sweet Tooth was a fun but maybe slight addition to his work.

>208 RidgewayGirl: I loved McEwan’s earlier works but in the last 15 years they have become unreliable. I have read all his books over 30 years. I would automatically buy a new book of his as soon as it was published.

I didn’t like his last - Lessons - it read like a hurried autobiography. The last of his that I ,loved was On Chesil Beach.

>207 Caroline_McElwee: I'd recommend it as a decent 'between' book, Caroline. It won't leave any lasting impression, but it's an enjoyable sink into some decent McEwan prose for a few hours.

>208 RidgewayGirl: Slight addition is a good description. Unremarkable but inoffensive.

>209 kjuliff: On Chisel Beach is one of my joint McEwan favourites, along with Enduring Love. The Comfort of Strangers is one of his oldies that I've not got to yet that might be enjoyable. Lessons I also felt was a bit forgettable,

>210 AlisonY: The Comfort of Strangers was made into a movie with Judy Dench in the late 1990s. It’s a strange film. I only vaguely remember the book but watched the film on Prime a few nights ago.

>210 AlisonY: Enduring Love is probably my favourite too Alison, and the dark The Cement Garden one of his earliest, but I haven't read it since I first did in the 1980s, so not sure if I would feel the same now. I used to sometimes see him at work at his desk on my way to work back then. He lived in Clapham at that time.

>211 kjuliff: Oh - I might watch that. I normally like to do the book first, but I'm running out of things that interest me to watch on Prime and Netflix.

>212 Caroline_McElwee: I loved The Cement Garden too, Caroline. I think it was my first McEwan, and was a great example of him at his maddest best. That's very cool to see such a writing great at his work. I see no one interesting in my neck of the woods!

>213 AlisonY: The Battle of Algiers is well worth watching - it’s on Prime.

>204 AlisonY: >209 kjuliff: >210 AlisonY: I agree, I really enjoyed On Chesil Beach too. This does sound like it might be a quick, but not deep, read.

>214 kjuliff: Thanks - will make a note of this. Once my husband has stopped hogging the tele for the Euros!
>215 rv1988: It's definitely not a deep read, so it's a good book when you're maybe not hugely in the mood for reading and want something easy to get into which doesn't require much concentration. It won't be the best book you'll read, but it won't be the worst either.

A question for anyone who occasionally visits my thread: I've been thinking about my all-time 5 star reads and which of them I would potentially re-read. Disclaimer - I've NEVER re-read a book in my life (post the age of 15 or so). Interestingly (for me), although there are many books I've loved, I don't have a hankering to re-read most of them. The exceptions are as follows:

- To the Lighthouse (and it took me two goes to fall in love with this - I found it heartbreaking).
- The Mayor of Casterbridge (I cried)
- The Book of Ebenezer le Plage (reaffirmed by faith in humanity)
- Several of the books in Knausgaard's My Struggle series

I know many of you are happy to reread, but are there a few titles you could count on one hand which really make the cut?

I like to reread books, but that being said, I only make time to reread about 4-5 books a year out of the 80 or so I usually read. Most are classics. I find that I rarely reread anything written within my lifetime - though I've considered a few. (Toni Morrison's novels deserve rereads and I've read Beloved twice, I've thought about rereading Possession by A.S. Byatt, I reread Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies when the third in the series came out)

The classics I have reread and will continue to reread are:
all of Jane Austen's novels - I read at least one or two of these every year!
Anna Karenina
Middlemarch
Edith Wharton - I've reread Age of Innocence and would like to reread several of her other novels
Virginia Woolf - I've reread To the Lighthouse and would like to reread others
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner - I think I've read this 3 times and find something new every time
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

There are others, but those are the books and authors that spring to mind.

I really value re-reading. I have a terrible memory for plot (though I do tend to remember themes, characters, and what I was doing when I read the book). I find that a really good book will reveal something new on every reread. Though rereads are a small percentage of my reading, it is often more satisfying to me to reread a great book than to keep trying a string of mediocre new releases.

>217 AlisonY: So hard as I reread a lot - I don't believe you read the same book twice - that said if a book gets past 2 reads then it is not necessarily a comfort read, but it is a trusted read for one reason or another, tone, emotion, place etc.

I reread Woolf (this year I will reread her diaries for the second time), last year I read To the Lighthouse for the fifth time I think.

EM Forster's Howard's End, probably already read 5-6 times. Tone, characters, place.

The Great Gatsby I reread most years, though not the last two, 45 times to date. Quality of writing, mood, characters, era. I've also read Tender is the Night 3-4 times.

Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy and Levant Trilogy. Want to reread these again, third time. Characters, tone, places.

That is probably enough, but I have a collection called 'Thrice or More' which is probably not totally up to date, but has 50+ books on:

https://www.librarything.com/catalog/Caroline_McElwee/thriceormore

I'm not a big re-reader -- there are too many books I haven't even read *once* yet! -- but there is a small handful of books that I return to when I'm in specific moods.

A Stranger in the Kingdom, Howard Frank Mosher -- The fictional Kingdom County, Vermont, in which Mosher's novels are set is based on the part of the state where I grew up, and this novel is (loosely) inspired by actual events that happened one town over from mine when I was seven or eight years old. Mosher scratches my occasional itch of nostalgia for my childhood home.

Blue Heaven (and sequels), Joe Keenan -- When I need to laugh, I turn to these farces. My standard description is that if P. G. Wodehouse had been a 30-ish gay guy in New York in the late 1980s, this is the book he'd have written.

An Arrow's Flight, Mark Merlis -- A retelling of the Greek story of Pyrrhus, set in a world that is simultaneously ancient Greece and a contemporary urban gay neighborhood during the worst years of the AIDS pandemic. Sad, haunting, poetic -- very much an outlier for me, and not much like my usual reading at all, but there is something magical about it that I find hard to articulate.

I'm a big re-reader, to the extent that I had 15-20 books I'd check out from the library every single month to re-read when I was in 11-14, along with new books. It baffled my mom so much (she was a 'read through every fiction book in the library systematically' kid).

If I had to suddenly limit the re-reading, this is what might make the list:
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell -- I'm due a re-read of this now probably, but I want to go through it in print and do a really close reading and make notes in my copy.

Rebels and Traitors by Lindsey Davis -- a perfect historical epic that deserves every word.

The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg -- okay, cheating maybe, but he's my favorite.

Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake -- very funny, I've read it once a year for decades now, and it reminds me of my dad.

Circus Shoes by Noel Streatfeild -- nostalgic comfort and it reminds me of my mom.

The Voices of Glory by Davis Grubb -- The West Virginia novel that is most similar to where I grew up (of the ones I've read).

>217 AlisonY: I don't do that much rereading, either. The books I do reread, or consider rereading, are mostly those of authors whose grace and style on a sentence and paragraph level I love. I guess I'd say that I reread for the beauty of language, and/or insights into human nature, that an author delivers rather than for plot. A couple of years ago I completed my one-per-year read through the novels of Conrad, most of which were rereads for me. There are some less than thrilling works on that list, especially towards the end (I read the novels chronologically by publishing date), but many of Conrad's novels, especially the early and middle-career works, deliver the sort of writing and insight that draws me to reread books.

Another author who delivers these elements for me, in spades, is Philip Roth. I'm now working on a twice-a-year read-through of Isaac Singer's novels, most of which I've never read before. After that, I'm hoping to similar read through most of Roth's books: probably Portnoy's Complaint, The Great American Novel, and then all of the Nathan Zuckerman books.

When I was in a reading group, one of the rules was that you had to have already read any book you selected for the group when it was your turn, so that you wouldn't just pick a book off the best-sellers list that you hadn't read and that would turn out to be a stinker. Most of the guys would read a recently published book and then assign it to the group if they thought it was good, but when my turn came around, I would wander our bookshelves at home in search of a book that I felt like rereading and that I thought the group would enjoy, or at least hate in an interesting way. Off the top of my head, the books I reread in this manner were:

The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The Comedians by Graham Greene
A Manual for Cleaning Women, the brilliant short story collection by Lucia Berlin

All were absolutely worth rereading, to put it mildly.

ETA: I reread Crime and Punishment about 15 years back because several friends and I were talking about books and agreed to all read/reread C&P and then discuss it when we were done. In the event, none of the others read it, but I didn't mind because I was glad to have delved into it again.

There are some books on my shelves that call out to me each time I pass by, "Read me again!" Don Quixote has a voice rivaling the sirens of ancient myth. We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen sings loudly and sweetly, as well.

>220 KeithChaffee: I read Blue Heaven several years ago and loved it. I haven't read any of the sequels, however.

>222 rocketjk: Sequels are never as good as the original, of course, but I think Keenan's sequels come pretty close.

>217 AlisonY: I'm not a rereader as a rule, but I'm absolutely going to read The Book of Ebenezer Le Page again—it just feels like a world I want to revisit. I even bought another copy to replace the one that a friend borrowed and never returned.

wolf hall cant say how many times ive reread it but each time I did I sighed with satisfaction at the end. Others that come close:once and future king, the good omen, here be dragons, and Katherine oh and hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

eta far pavillions

>218 japaul22: A very solid choice, Jennifer. I hovered over Wolf Hall as well. Middlemarch I still haven't read - isn't that terrible? I've owned a copy for a year or so now, so I think I'll get to it this winter.

>219 Caroline_McElwee: Funny we have such similar reading tastes, Caroline. I did have a think about Howard's End as well, as I loved that.

>220 KeithChaffee: Those are all totally new authors and titles to me. Will take a look.

>221 mabith: Haven't read any on your list either, Meredith, so checking those out.

>221 mabith: I'm delighted that The Human Stain is on your list, Jerry, as I've just bought that as one of my holiday reads, so sounds like a good choice. I've not read the others that you noted as rereads, so might have to bump those up the list.

>224 lisapeet: Ebenezer Le Page is such a great book, isn't it? The main character is so well written.

>225 cindydavid4: Checking yours out as well, Cindy. Perhaps not my usual genre, though.

FOMO is definitely what stops me rereading. I feel I've so little time to read as it is it would be a travesty to reread a title when there are gazillions I still want to get to.

I'm an inveterate rereader, probably three or four books a year. As >219 Caroline_McElwee: says, you don't read the same book twice. Like >218 japaul22:, my rereads are mostly classics, but there are some contemporary authors whose books I will start again the minute I finish them - always a good sign!

There are books I've read five times and more, mostly Victorians. I guess these would count for the fingers of one hand. In alphabetical order:

Great Expectations
Jude the Obscure
Wuthering Heights
and in a lighter vein, Kidnapped and The Count of. Monte Cristo

Somewhere I read that it's better to know one book really well, than read others for fear of missing out, and then not remember a thing about them in six months. I keep that in mind whenever I think I should read something new instead of a reread.

>227 SassyLassy: Somewhere I read that it's better to know one book really well, than read others for fear of missing out, and then not remember a thing about them in six months. I keep that in mind whenever I think I should read something new instead of a reread.

Wise words indeed. Maybe I'll go crazy and do a reread at some point. And I am nodding my head to Great Expectations and Jude the Obscure.

>217 AlisonY: I enjoy reading several series of books, and depending on how long it takes for a new entry in a series to come out, I occasionally reread (or re-skim) the last volume before tackling the new one. Other than that, here are a few that I have enjoyed rereading over the years:
Guy Gavriel Kay, The Lions of Al-Rassan
Ursula K. LeGuin, several but especially The Left Hand of Darkness
Gene Wolfe, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, The Book of the New Sun
Barbara Brown Taylor, Home by Another Way and others
Madeleine L'Engle, Time Quartet

I've been doing less rereading lately, as there are always lots of shiny new things to read instead.

>229 Jim53: I also tend towards the new shiny things mentality. Looks like a great list.

26. Any Human Heart by William Boyd

Any Human Heart is written as a series of journals throughout the life of the fictional character Logan Mountstuart, from his public school days in 1920s England through to his final days as an elderly man in rural France in 1991. Such is the quality of Boyd's writing, I had to double check at one point that this character was in fact definitely fictional, as he weaves in a cast of famous names as bit characters in Mountstuart's life which ebbs and flows between wealth and poverty, love and sorrow, fame and invisibility, all played out across a backdrop of fascinating locations.

At it's heart it's quite a sad book, a chronicle of a life that superficially seems so have been so full yet ultimately echoes with loneliness.

4.5 stars - wonderful writing and very much recommended (I initially gave it 4 stars, but I've been suffering with a chronic sore throat and sinus pain behind my eyes for a few days now so am not in an overly generous mood, but when I compare it to my last 4 star reads it's head and shoulder above).

>231 AlisonY: I really must get to this, it has been in the tbr mountain for aeons Alison.

>232 Caroline_McElwee: Definitely up your street, Caroline.

Coming late to the question, but most of my rereads are for when I am in need of comfort. For the most part they are quick and light reads, but old friends. As my memory has worsened, I've started to reread classics that I read and loved decades ago. Occasionally I need to reread a book for my book club in order to refresh my talking points, and Song of Achilles was a delight to revisit for this reason and the only reread I've done this year. In 2023 I reread some Cherry Ames books of my mothers (comfort), Middlemarch, and Persuasion (classics).

>231 AlisonY: I love Any Human Heart—I've read it a couple of times, and always passed along any copy I had to someone who hadn't. I never felt the same about the rest of his books, though I've enjoyed them... but that one was special.

>231 AlisonY: Another thumbs up for Any Human Heart. It's difficult to make a not particularly attractive character someone whom the reader would care about.

>234 labfs39: That's an angle I hadn't thought of - how if you're not in the frame of mind for starting a new book for whatever reason there is comfort and familiarity in rereading a much loved book.

>235 lisapeet: I read the synopsis of his other books at the back of Any Human Heart and I have to say none of them had me rushing to add them to my wish list.

>236 SassyLassy: Another writer who sticks out in a similar way in terms of making you love a very flawed character is John Updike's handling of Rabbit Angstrom in the Rabbit series of books. I agree it's not easy to do, and I've been put off many a book because of its unlikeable characters. Maybe other writers make them two one-dimensional and fail at showing all the facets that make up a character.

There's a Prime series of Any Human Heart, but I'm currently resisting it out of principle as Amazon are charging for it beyond the usual Prime subscription.

27. Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia by Hadley Freeman

This is a book I've had on my wish list for a few months after reading an interesting review of it in The Times.

Hadley Freeman is a journalist (ex Guardian, now The Times), and as a teenager spent 2-3 years living in psychiatric wards being treated for anorexia nervosa. In this open account of her mental health struggles, she gives the 'insider's' view of this heartbreaking illness both from her own experience and that of others treated at the same time as her in some of the hospitals, as well as examining how treatment has / hasn't changed since the 1990s.

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder, with up to 10% dying within 10 years of diagnosis and up to 20% within 20 years. 20% of deaths are due to suicide.

Although desperately sad I found this an engaging and really informative book. Parts that stuck out for me included how seemingly innocuous some of the triggers to this dreadful illness were (her own trigger was a thinner girl in PE telling her she wished her legs could look 'normal' like her's), and how the drastic food reduction is a symptom rather than the issue itself, with the real issue being poor self-esteem and mental health often triggered by the onset of puberty. 90% of sufferers are girls, with many struggling to cope with the confusing transition from girlhood to womanhood, and as the average age of puberty is getting younger, so too is the age girls are developing anorexia.

As Freeman describes it, calorie counting and excessive exercising is a control mechanism for young girls terrified of all the things that feel so out of control in their lives. In her view it's not triggered by skinny models or even really about wanting to be thin, but is a mental disorder than shares commonality with traits of obsession (OCD is common for many sufferers) and addiction (ditto higher rates than normal of alcohol or drug abuse in later life). In the recent past it was thought that there was a strong correlation between autism and anorexia, and while this has been mostly debunked there is again a lot of crossover in traits and behaviours, although with different causes,

The author is also very honest about how she came to see extended hospital stays as a safe retreat from the world, somewhere where she didn't have to worry about anything beyond restricting her calorie intake and where life could be put on pause.

Another area that was thought provoking was the struggle of living life after so-called recovery; how anorexia food controls can be quickly replaced by other obsessive and/or destructive behaviour, and how difficult it is to develop a normal relationship with food after so many years of self-sabotage. Also how the body often keeps the score of the damage done to it in those years of self-starvation.

The bleak reality for any parent trying to help a child with anorexia is that in Freeman's view the only constructive thing a parent can do is to hand the child over to specialist in-patient help. No amount of cajoling, tough love or eggshell stepping will have any impact on a child with such serious mental health issues.

4 stars - not a sunny read, but an honest and well-written insight into such a grave mental illness.

>238 AlisonY: Frightening. What is the treatment for anorexia? Medication, CBT, talk therapy?

>239 labfs39: A bit of all of that. And although the food is a symptom not the real cause, they obviously also need to treat getting the patients to eat more. It seemed to be quite draconian in Freeman's day - you were forced to eat food regardless of whether it was a food you like the taste of or not. Now the methods seem to be a bit kinder.

>238 AlisonY: Thanks for this detailed review. I think the point you mentioned, about how "No amount of cajoling, tough love or eggshell stepping will have any impact," is something that is so hard to accept for so many. Perhaps its the vestige of some romantic idea that if you give someone enough love, it will solve everything, but in reality, as you said, sometimes professional help is the only answer. I'm glad to hear that today's methods are kinder than past techniques.

>241 rv1988: It must be absolutely horrendous for loved ones of someone suffering with anorexia. Akin to watching a slow suicide before your eyes and being so helpless to turn things around.

Dropping in and commenting on something from earlier in the thread - about rereading. I am also not one to reread books. This year I reread The Stranger because Morgan was reading it, and that was an interesting experience since I originally read it when I was 17, in high school. Other than that, books I've reread are: Catch-22, A Prayer for Owen Meany ... I feel like there is one other maybe, but that's all. I've considered it from time to time but tend to just jump to something new instead.

Hi Alison
>204 AlisonY: I put this one on my library list.

28. The Dig by Cynan Jones

Sometimes you have such a pronounced anti reaction to a book you wonder if you read the same novel as everyone else. I hugely disliked this novella, and only stuck with it for the small mercy that it was short.

The Dig has a solid 4 star average on LT and 4.5 on Amazon, and this blurb (from the jacket) made it sound an attractive read:

Deep in rural Wales, a farmer is struggling through lambing season when he becomes aware that his land is being stalked by a badger-baiter who brings with him the stark threat of violence. Built of the interlocking fates of these two solitary men, this is a searing story of isolation and loss, from a writer of uncommon gifts.

Nowhere does it warn you that despite its brevity Jones manages to squeeze in a horrifying amount of in-depth descriptions of animal cruelty and general animal horrors. The scene on badger baiting felt like it would never end - pages and pages of minute detail on torture that was simply unbearable, followed soon after by a grizzly scene of the farmer's ewe struggling to birth a deformed lamb with two heads, one of which comes off during the birth (at least I think it was during the birth - I simply had to skip over those paragraphs in the end as it was too unbearable to read).

Cynan Jones can write, I'll give him that, and certainly in vivid technicolour, but dear goodness - who on earth wants to read such graphic descriptions of cruelty? I honestly can't remember reading a book before which has made me feel so stressed - relaxed leisure time this was not.

1 star - Cynan Jones is definitely a writing talent, so I'll give him his due and a star for that, but otherwise horrifying. I could have read this in a night but I could only bear to read a few pages at a time once the badger baiting got going.

>226 AlisonY: Just wondering if you started The Human Stain. I just did and am completely engrossed, after getting over the opening chapters.

>246 SassyLassy: I'm glad you are enjoying The Human Stain. It's one of my favorite Roth novels.

>246 SassyLassy: Not yet. I'm hoping to read it on holiday next week so will compare notes when I'm back.

>245 AlisonY: This sounds excruciating. I was tempted after seeing the published reviews, but after comments from you and other readers, I'm going to pass.

>249 rv1988: I consider myself to have a string constitution when it comes to reading difficult topics, but this was just too graphic. I couldn't bear it.

29. Walking the Woods and the Water: In Patrick Leigh Fermor's Footsteps From the Hook of Holland to the Golden Horn by Nick Hunt

A few years ago, I read the first of Patrick Leigh Fermor's books about his magnificent walk across Europe in 1933 and thoroughly enjoyed it. This was a perfect follow up - a modern homage to PLF's wonderful pilgrimage as Nick Hunt seeks to recreate his historic walk in modern Europe, walking from the Hook of Holland to the Golden Horn in Istanbul.

Whilst the comparisons with PLF's walk were hugely interesting (the huge changes to the landscape often forced him on a different route to PLF's original), his own experiences were equally fascinating and a unique travelogue of the differing cultures across the different European countries. The further east he went the more interesting I found it as I haven't been to some of the countries he walked through. Hunt had done his homework, so his observations intelligently couple his experiences with the history and politics of the lands he was walking through.

What makes this a standout travelogue is the uniqueness of his endeavour - to travel across the entirety of Europe mostly by foot makes for an experience few other travellers can write about, and I enjoyed every minute of travelling with him. I would have liked to have understood some of the logistics of his travels a little more, as he tends to brush over the details a nosy Parker such as myself would like to know (he claims he didn't pre-plan his route, so just how much did he use a smartphone to find his way, for instance), but it probably would have taken some of the romance out of reading about his adventure, so I accept the omission of some of the practicalities I wondered about.

4 stars - a much recommended travelogue to many of Europe's hidden corners.

Thanks to Cindy for the BB on this one.

Back from a sweltering but very relaxing week on the Balearic island of Menorca and catching up on what I read. The Human Stain is still on the go - I expect to finish it in the next day or two depending on how busy this week is.



30. The Children's Bach by Helen Garner

This was a random bookshop purchase based on the attractive cover and great jacket blurb and made an enjoyable holiday read.

I'd not heard of the Australian writer Helen Garner before, but the accolades in the book couldn't have been higher:

There are four perfect short novels in the English language. They are, in chronological order, Ford Maddox Ford's The Good Soldier, Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Hemingway's The Sun Always Rises and Helen Garner's The Children's Bach. THE NATIONAL TIMES

Whether you agree with The National Times' shortlist or not, it's hard to ignore the famous names Helen Garner is being compared with.

I enjoyed this novella about a seemingly happily married couple whose relationship begins to fray following a chance meeting at an airport between Dexter, the husband, and Elizabeth, his old friend from university. As the lives of Dexter and Athena's family become inextricably tied up with those of Elizabeth and her family and romantic partner, Garner writes with spare matter-of-factness as each character is affected in different ways as their worlds collide.

It's a gritty, enjoyable short read. Garner doesn't romanticise the family fracture, but rather writes with a sense of inevitability of human fallibility rather than with any judgment.

4 stars - I'm not sure I quite agree with the extent of The National Times' accolade, but it's an enjoyable novella nonetheless.

Glad you had a good holiday Alison. It's a while since I read Garner.

>252 AlisonY: I’ve read every one of Helen Garner’s books, which is not surprising as she comes from my home town and I’ve met her socially. Several of her husbands have been published writers. She’s had a full and interesting life. She and Kate Atkinson (with whom she had worked on the TV mini-series SeaChangd) founded Actors for Refugees, to counter negative stereotyping of refugees and asylum seekers through public readings by volunteer performers around Australia. Her only child, Alice, is a successful actor.

One of her books was named this year in one of the best of 21st century books lists. I don’t remember which, but do remember the book- Joe Cinque's Consolation, which I highly recommend.

>251 AlisonY: Those kinds of treks are always interesting to me. Those landscape changes are probably colossal in places.

Did Hunt actually take a smartphone with him? That would be kind of disappointing, as Fermor would not have had any such device to guide him.

>252 AlisonY: Someone I had never heard about - a big gap I guess given the praise you quote!

>253 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I really enjoyed my time away.

It was much, much hotter than I'd expected (28 degrees and 81% humidity one night at 11pm), so at the beginning my anxiety soared as I've had skin cancer twice and this was our first foray back to a 'pool and beach' type of holiday in peak summertime for 20 years, since I had malignant melanoma. However, I got into the swing of a nice routine - I'd get up for an early walk along the coast by myself around 7:30am, and then often my husband and I were the first people in the pool whilst our teens slept. We've spent so long being mum and dad rather than husband and wife on holidays, and this year was the first time the kids have been old enough for us to feel comfortable leaving them to sleep on for a few hours in the morning while we enjoyed some time to ourselves. Once the kids woke up we'd have breakfast together and some time in the pool, and then in the hottest part of the day my son and I enjoyed getting back inside and hitting the gym a few times (although even with air conditioning the heat in there was insane).The main beaches were thronged with people which isn't my scene, but we found a lovely little quiet spot amongst the rocks with only a handful of people around and took our dips in the lovely warm bath of the Mediterranean from there around 6pm.

It's many years since I've been to Majorca and Ibiza, and Menorca was pretty much as I expected - a lot of tourist-driven development. But, at least in the south-east corner where we were it was done fairly tastefully - mostly low-rise whitewash buildings with pretty wooden gates and wonderful smelling floral hedges. The highlight was an evening trip to the old town of Ciutadella, which reminded me of a smaller Palma. Beautiful old buildings and a fabulous, buzzing atmosphere around the harbour.

, ,

>252 AlisonY: That is a really attractive cover and I would absolutely have bought a copy of this if I saw it in a bookshop.

>256 AlisonY: I'm glad your holiday was good, despite the heat.

>254 kjuliff: That's very cool to have hung out with Helen Garner. I'm not sure that she's as well known outside of Australia as she should be, but perhaps it's just me and everyone else knows of her. Noting the book you recommend - that's going on the TBR pile.

>255 SassyLassy: Well, Nick Hunt gives the impression that he didn't use his smartphone, and that his only guide was PLF's book, but he definitely had a smartphone with him as he talks of using a couch surfing online site for a lot of his stays (and if he truly didn't plan his trip as he maintains then he would have needed that to plan his stays on the hoof) and he also referred to using his phone for other purposes once or twice in the book. I don't see how he could have just used PLF's book as his 'map' for his route. For starters, PLF wrote his book 40 years after he actually took his journey, so there had to be a lot of inaccuracy / made up parts to his account. And then there's the fact that in one country (I can't remember which) he laments that the paths he had been following for weeks suddenly stopped. Well how on earth would you know if you didn't plan your journey with modern techno support that a particular random track puts you on the right path for the Golden Horn hundreds of miles away? I do believe that he didn't pre-plan, but I don't believe that he didn't use Google Maps whilst en route. I don't see how you could plot a route in modern day Europe solely with a compass as he would like us to believe in places.

I read in an online interview last night that he crowd funded to get the money to do the trip. He didn't mention that in the book, and whilst I've no particular issue with it, thinking about it some more I think I could have cut a bit of the romanticism of the trip with some hard reality. Being an adventurer costs money. This was not a trip made possible solely on the back of the generosity of the people he came across on his travels.

But hey - interesting nonetheless. At times I found myself thinking about how it's definitely a man's world out there. Whilst for sure there are women solo travellers out there, I for one would not have felt comfortable walking alone in very remote areas as Nick Hunt did.

>257 RidgewayGirl: Thanks Kay. I don't think I'm designed for very high temperatures, but I appreciate that for many people that's just normal summer weather. Something in between would be nice - now I'm back home it's a high of just 17 degrees today. Low to mid 20 degrees celsius is my sweet spot.

Great pictures, Alison, and glad you found a way to enjoy your vacation despite the heat. We love to go to cool weather places during the summer, because DC is outrageously hot. We've had about five 100 degree days (39 c) and over 40 days over 32c already this summer. Plus it's very humid so the "feels like" temp is quite a bit higher than the thermometer indicates. I hate it, especially since I work outside!

Looking in to Helen Garner . . .

>259 japaul22: That's seriously hot, Jennifer. How do you not end up a dripping mess of sweat, especially when in uniform?

>260 AlisonY: we are all a dripping mess of sweat every time! And, yes, the wool uniforms and plastic/fake leather hat and shoes don't help either. Luckily work pays for our dry cleaning . . .
I just spend every summer always wet - either from sweat or showers or swimming to try to cool off. :-)

>256 AlisonY: Lovely photos! And your son is so tall. My daughter is taller than I am too.

It sounds like you had a good schedule worked out for enjoying the water without scorching or sweltering with the hordes. I think it's important for parents to have together time without the kids, but hard to implement.

While in Florida I had heat exhaustion and a year later heat stroke, which rendered me unconscious for several hours. Since then I don't do well in heat at all. Since the world is only getting hotter, I've wondered if I should try heat training (trying to acclimate my body to hotter temps) or simply try and avoid it.

>261 japaul22: Wow. I can't get my head around just standing out in that heat, never mind in a wool uniform and performing at the same time. Hats off to you, Jennifer. I felt like I never stopped sweating for a week and that was wearing strappy cotton dresses.

>262 labfs39: Gosh that sounds dreadful, Lisa. Really quite frightening. My kids were getting sick of me as I was constantly hovering with the factor 50 and ushering them into the shade, but it's so easy to think the sun's not as strong as it is. Is your main issue now that you don't feel well in hot sun? I mostly avoid it since having skin cancer. I did go in the pool, etc. this holiday, but after that it was shade only. I'm naturally very pale so I do miss having at least a bit of colour, but I just won't take the risk of big sun exposure now.

Both my kids are way taller than me now. My son desperately wants to get to 6 foot, but he's been stuck at 5 ft 11 for quite a while now and at 17 this might be as tall as he gets. Missy has nearly 3 inches on me. My husband's tall, so they're all delighted they got his height genes and not mine!

>264 AlisonY: Now if I get too hot I get dizzy and nauseous. It's a bit ridiculous. I weed outside for 20 minutes then have to come in and cool off.

I slather the kids with sunscreen too, and they have to wear their sunhats. So many people are blasé about the sun, but I'm with you, better to be safe. I'm sorry you have had two bouts with melanoma. That must have been scary.

>256 AlisonY: It looks beautiful Alison, but certainly too hot for me. Sounds like you found a pattern that worked for you all though.

>265 labfs39: That must be difficult living somewhere that gets hot summers (and no doubt increasingly so).

I was fortunate to only have MM once. The other time I had basel cell carcinoma, which thankfully is much less likely to spread than MM (touch wood).

I'm now a bit of a fun sponge in the sun. I couldn't help but get irate on holiday when I saw people (usually Brits) allowing their kids to burn badly and still play out in the water.

>266 Caroline_McElwee: Too hot for me too, Caroline!

>267 AlisonY: Growing up here in Maine, we thought a day in the 80s was an amazing stroke of summer fortune. Now the heat index is setting records regularly. It's still hard for me to believe that Maine gets over 100F. Mindboggling.

>268 labfs39: When I was growing up in Melbourne Australia we would have what we called “heat waves” which would be broken by “cool changes” which would occur after 4-5 days of temperatures approaching 100F. The temperatures didn’t drop much in the night. It was bearable because we knew a cool change was coming, when the temperature would fall to the mid 80s. Most dwellings had no A/Cs. After work or school we’d all just go to the beach.

Here in New York in summer it stays hot all the time. My A/C is on 24/7 and people start saying it’s hot when the temperature is around 80.And there are no cool changes and A/Cs are essential.

>251 AlisonY: glad you enjoyed it

" (he claims he didn't pre-plan his route, so just how much did he use a smartphone to find his way, for instance), "

i really do not buy this for nothing else for his own safety, he would ave to plan somethings, but thats ok. I think otherwise it was a well written travelogue.

>258 AlisonY: ditto

>268 labfs39:, >269 kjuliff: It's so horrifying that climate change is already upon us. I find it almost too awful to think about - what the future will hold for our children and their children, etc. Those constant extreme temperatures must be hard to deal with for a sustained period. At the other end of the scale, although our summer temperatures are apparently rising too (not that you'd notice), our lot is destined to be much wetter summers, which I've mentioned before. That starts to get quite depressing, when you go for days or even weeks with only seeing grey skies. I've hardly worn a summer dress to work this summer at all - it's felt too wet to bother sloshing through puddles in sandals.

>270 cindydavid4: Excellent BB, Cindy. I enjoyed it.

Alison, we really do have several things in common! A few replies to posts you've made lately - my older son is also just under 6 feet tall and really hoping to get that last inch! He's only 14, but he had an enormous growth spurt early, which I read sometimes means the growth ends early too. We shall see - I always tell him he's a lovely height already, but he's athletic and wants the extra size.

I also find climate change so concerning, especially thinking about my kids and their future. It's a very helpless feeling. I feel like we are seeing hotter summers, especially that our low temperatures are so high, it just never cools off over night. And our winters have been very mild.

And somewhere I saw a post about clutter and yes I hear you on that! The kids get so many gifts (they are the only grandkids on both sides of our family) and also seem to bring home a lot of junk from school. We've just about convinced the grandparents to give needed or consumable gifts (this is easier now that they are older) like sports equipment, clothes, gift cards, money, and experiences. But still, so much accumulates. We do have a local group called "Buy Nothing" where people offer up items they don't need anymore, all for free. I've passed on a lot of things that way - like games we no longer play, clothes or sports equipments in good condition but outgrown, etc. It's a good alternative to trying to work out the logistics of donations and it's good to know it's being used and specifically desired rather than sitting in some charity's warehouse somewhere. Do you have anything similar where you are?

>273 japaul22: We're two peas in a pod! :) Yes, we do have freecycle groups in my area. There's a charity shop only about 4 miles away so I tend to drop things in there on a Saturday if I remember, but I'm awful for doing the decluttering and then leaving the stuff marked for out in a bag that stays in the house for eons.

31. The Human Stain by Philip Roth

My copy of this book has what I consider to be a very masculine cover which would put me off even lifting if off the shelf. Now I've read it, I conclude that it is a very masculine book, not necessarily in plot but in Roth's narrative voice. It's not something I overly notice in books as a rule, but it very much stood out to me in this book, and it's something that has me very much on the fence about how much I did or didn't enjoy it.

First, to the pluses. It's definitely a very well written and constructed book, although I found the last 20% unnecessarily dense as Roth lost himself in his characters' philosophising (which in turn lost my interest to an extent). The plot was clever, although I felt the ending petered out and was an anticlimax.

Now, preparing to shield myself with this next comment, I've noticed a bit of a difference between US books set in or around universities and UK fiction of the same ilk. The British books tend often to be set in one of the Oxbridge universities, with a focus more on the privilege classes that often goes hand-in-hand with that, whereas a number of US university books I've read tend to absorb the academia in the prose to the extent that they become a little self-indulgent. I'm aware that's a very sweeping statement which many will disagree with, and I'm happy to be wrong, but it's my impression from those I've read. I was certainly aware of Roth being more than a little consumed by his own cleverness at times in The Human Stain. However, for 80% of the book it was limited and I enjoyed his writing.

My main negative with the book goes back to that very masculine voice. Someone previously commented to me that if I like Updike's Rabbit novels (which I do), then I'd probably be OK with this one, but there's a subtle but important difference between the two. Updike manages to make his Rabbit character foolish and the butt of the joke through his womanising flaws, yet Roth's character of Coleman Silk was less likeable, coming across as self-important and egotistical despite his weaknesses being exposed.

I hated Roth's portrayal of his female characters. They were two-dimensional and seen so very much through the lens of a certain type of man. Faunia - illiterate but with good breasts. Somehow never seemed to mourn her two dead children - just easy to please and happy to please her man in the right way. Delphine - the clever academic who's unlikeable and sexually frustrated...

In all, I'm glad I read this, and I enjoyed it enough, but I won't rush to pick up another Roth novel.

4 stars for the writing talent, but ultimately 3.5 stars for enjoyability. I don't think I'd like to get sat beside Roth at a dinner party.

>274 AlisonY: Haha, same! In fact I have a giant bag of stuff in our guest room right now.

>275 AlisonY: I haven’t read The Human Stain because I’m not a Roth fan. Now I’m relieved because of your review I no longer feel that I should read it.

With regard to British and American universities in literature, I think part of the difference is the nomenclature of “professor”. In the UK and Australia a professor is a senior academic who has been promoted to the highest academic grade, usually based on their research and teaching achievements. In the US as I understand it a professor is a lecturer at a university. It takes year of research for a lecturer to reach the height of a professor.

So when a non American hears the word professor, we think of someone high up the academic ladder. Could it be that you are interpreting American professors in literature as making out to be intellectually superior when unwarranted?

Oxbridge in universities holds a special place in English literature. I don’t think there’s an American equivalent in fiction, though there is in real life. Could a book like Brideshead Revisited be written where the main characters meet at Yale? Could there be a Harvard undergrad walking around campus with his teddy bear like Waugh’s Sebastian?

>277 kjuliff: No it's not a title / status thing. It's just that the essence of the academia seems to seep into the style of writing for me. Perhaps its just me as I didn't do an Arts degree, but I wonder is there an obvious difference in US and UK universities from a learning style perspective that just makes it stand out to me.

>278 AlisonY: Oh I understand now. I did an Arts degree but I don’t really know about the content of US degrees. Their campus cultures seem a lot different than those of English-style universities.

>275 AlisonY:. The British books tend often to be set in one of the Oxbridge universities, with a focus more on the privilege classes that often goes hand-in-hand with that, whereas a number of US university books I've read tend to absorb the academia in the prose to the extent that they become a little self-indulgent.

I found this a really interesting comment, as it's something I've noticed, but haven't been able to articulate quite what it was, so glad you did. I think you've got it. In my mind, for the US writers, it's something I find in a group I would identify as NYC writers, although that's not an accurate description for all of them.

As to The Human Stain itself, I'd certainly agree with you about the masculinity, but I suspect my review when I get around to it, probably about three months from now, will differ somewhat - the wonderful world of LT!

>260 AlisonY: I'm glad it's not just me who's noticed the difference.

Look forward to your review of The Human Stain. I quite enjoyed it when I was reading it, but it was one of those books that the more I thought about it afterwards the more the cracks started to show. I definitely get why I think you enjoyed it.

32. Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice by Matthew Syed

Matthew Syed is an ex-British table tennis Olympian turned motivational speaker / journalist / writer. In this book he looks at the culture of success, particular amongst sporting elite, examining what separates those at the peak of their game (in whatever context) from the rest of us mere mortals.

Whilst I was initially concerned that a lot of the book could probably be summed up in a couple of pages (i.e. that talent matters much less than putting in the effort - a minimum of 10 years of dedicated focus), Syer does delve into several interesting sub-topic areas across his chapters, such as debunking the myth of child prodigies (again, it's all about thousands of hours of practice), the role the brain has in hardwiring complex sporting or musical pieces so that the sum of the parts become subconscious actions (and how 'choking' can occur when these elements become separated under stress), the psychology of how the best coaches most effectively praise the talent they're working with (and how this translates to education as well, with transformational results when comparing praise for effort versus intelligence) and the placebo effect, in particular how religious faith can have a placebo effect on settling athletes' nerves before big games.

The final chapter was also very interesting - debunking the theory of why black athletes are considered superior runners. Syers examines how racial stereotyping comes into generalisations about long-distance runners being 'east Africans' and sprinters 'west Africans', and how scientific research has shown that when top athletes from small hot spots of sporting success were gene tested, there was much more gene variation than expected, even within small towns. The evidence Syer finds from studies puts forward a counter argument to genetic physical advantage, i.e. that unequal opportunity is much more likely to play into black dominance of running events. In some African and Caribbean countries, running is the sport with the lowest economic barrier to entry, and in one particular hot spot town for long-distancing running in Kenya it was found that most of the top athletes from that area had to run in excess of 20km per day just to attend school (and also at high altitude).

All in all an enjoyable read with lots of interesting stories to back up Syer's arguments. Ultimately, however, it seems to mostly be intense dedication to practice that separates the wheat from the chaff.

4 hours - an interesting insight into how top talent is made, not born.

>275 AlisonY: The Human Stain was the book that put me off of Roth entirely. I found American Pastoral to be both brilliantly written and misogynistic in its portrayal of every single woman character in the book, but thought he was worth reading more of. The Human Stain dialed up the misogyny and the idea that women are either sex objects or termagants, without the incandescent writing as a distraction.

>256 AlisonY: Thanks for sharing bits about your vacation and the photos! They are lovely. You got me with The Bee Sting and MAYBE have convinced me to try another McEwan. I kind of thought I was done with him...

My favorite Roth was The Plot Against America, but he is so misogynistic. I have never warmed up to him much.

I read The Palace Walk years ago and only remember I found it a slog. Maybe I should revisit? I do a fair amount of rereading, mostly when one of my book club chooses a book I've already read. I've also revisited books I read in school that I barely remember.

>283 RidgewayGirl:, >284 BLBera: I didn't just imagine that Roth is more than a tad misogynistic then!

If you didn't love it the first time I wouldn't reread Palace Walk, Beth. I enjoyed it enough, but not so much that I'm going to read the follow on book in the series.

>285 AlisonY: >284 BLBera: I tried but could not get into Palace Walk, though I was expecting to like it.

And yes - I’m sure Roth was misogynistic, but many of his generation were. Even so-callled enlightened men.

never cared for Roth, tried to read goodbye columbusand portnoys complaint but didnt finish them too many Jewish stereotypes, too much weird sex (for me, at the time I was reading it as a teenage) oh and yeeh, misogynistIve heard good things about the plot against america but really dont want to read it.

>267 AlisonY: That must be difficult living somewhere that gets hot summers

yep esp when the morning tempertures are now in the 90s. Back when I was a kid, temps dropped low enough in the summer that you sometimes needed a sweater in the morning (50, 60 degress) all the building the streets and development in the last 60 years have created an urban heat island that traps the heat. what makes it worse is our 'monsoon season' when we get all our thunderstorms are down to a trickel. Used to be abel to time by when the storms rolled in for the day, Now we get dust storms and a few spits of water.

>287 cindydavid4: In Australia the NCP (equivalent of the Republican Party in the US) bannedPortnoy’s Complaint. I think I was still in university at the time, and read it later in the UK. The banning of books and the thinking that went along with it was one of the reasons I left Australia that first time.

I thought Portney’s Complaint was boring and can’t remember anything about the writing it I do remember that illegal copies were made in Australia. There’s an interesting article about the banning in the Guardian - here

33. Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin

I've been thinking long and hard about what I want to say about this book, or how to describe it. Certainly, what I thought by the end of the book was a major departure from my thoughts in the early stages, when I found myself losing the thread as the narrative continually shifts and doesn't support even the mildest attention wandering.

If you're unfamiliar with the background of this novel, Leonid Tsypkin was a Russian pathologist and fiction-writing hobbyist who, in the 1970s, fell out of favour with the Russian state when his son successfully left Russia. He wrote for 'the drawer', as there was never any chance that his work would be permitted for publication, until someone successfully smuggled out for him a copy of Summer in Baden-Baden to the US in 1981. It was serialised but promptly forgotten about until Susan Sontag found a dog-eared copy in a secondhand bookshop in Charing Cross Road and wrote an awe-filled essay about it, propelling it to the status of a supposed twentieth century literary masterpiece.

Susan Sontag writes the foreword in this Faber edition, and for once I wish I'd read the introduction before the novel, as I think it would have helped me make sense of it earlier and wouldn't overly have ruined it with spoilers.

The novel has two narrative threads - one is the story of the narrator (an autobiographical account of Tsypkin himself) who, on a train journey to Leningrad to pay homage to his literary idol Dostoyevsky, is reading the diary of Anna Grigor'yevna, Dostoyevsky's second wife. The second strand is a fictional account of the journey by Dostoyevsky and Anna to Baden-Baden on their honeymoon, and then of his last days back in Leningrad.

It's a unique novel in terms of form; paragraphs can extend for pages without a full stop, and in the same breath Tsypkin can switch from talking about Dostoyevsky and Anna in Baden-Baden to something the narrator sees out the window on the train, which greatly confused me at times until I got into the rhythm of his using first person for the narrator perspective and third person when speaking about Dostoyevsky. It's a melting pot of sudden switches between fiction, biography, criticism and autobiography, and I realised to my cost in the first half that this is not a book that can be read in five-page bursts over breakfast; it requires attention, close reading and concentrated periods of reading.

The reward of this book is that its style envelops you in the world of Dostoyevsky, Anna and the backdrop of Russian literature, past and (relatively) present. The narrative form, with its long sentences and paragraphs, creates a feverish sense of Dostoyevsky's mania and erraticism, of his hot-head childish and dramatic temperament and the demons he fights in terms of a sense of literary inferiority and his years in exile in prison in Siberia. In Baden-Baden he often runs like a lunatic between the gambling house and the pawnshop, pawning the clothes they are standing up in as his debts mount, acting crazed with Anna, yet when the red mist clears he's on his knees like a small boy gently begging for her forgiveness. As a reader we are caught up in that frenetic whirlwind of Dostoyevsky's thoughts and actions whilst our narrator sets out his own perspective on his life and legacy. Scattered throughout are Tsypkin's fan photos of key buildings and places that formed the backdrop to key parts of Dostoyevsky's novels, particularly Crime and Punishment, which somehow also add to the often melancholy sense of Dostoevsky's world.

Quite honestly, whilst I tried to make sense of it to begin with I couldn't wait to reach the end, yet once I'd settled into it I felt like starting it all over again once I'd finished, as no doubt I'd see it through new perspectives on a second read.

4.5 stars - the cleverest of writing which seeps into your pores. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, you're not in Kansas any more by the time you get to the last page.

When I was the librarian of Seattle Athenaeum, one of the board members gave me a copy of this. My cover is much less frivolous? looking and I've always been a bit hesitant to pick it up.



After reading your review, I feel as though I should at least read Sontag's introduction (also in my edition). Now if I can remember where I put it... in fiction, bio, or memoir...

It was my birthday last week and I got a fantastic haul of new books from generous friends and family. I'm now as overwhelmed and indecisive as a kid in a candy shop not knowing what to pick next as I still have a few newish titles in my own TBR pile as well, so I've outsourced the dilemma and tasked my daughter with choosing my books for the next while from my newly expanded TBR pile.

>291 labfs39: Oh I would absolutely think they are two completely different types of books from the two covers. Actually, I don't think either suits. Yours looks too academic / scholarly, and mine looks too frivolous.

It's not often I have such a major flip-flop in thoughts about a book, but I definitely went from being confused and disengaged to getting why it's had such accolades.

>290 AlisonY: Well now I'm reconsidering this one. I tried reading it while on a work trip to Baden-Baden and quite disliked the few passages that I struggled through.

What made you pick this one up?

>294 ELiz_M: I can't remember how it first ended up on my wish list, but it was there nonetheless. I definitely felt like I was slogging for the first half. That's why I wish I'd read the intro from Sontag first, as it took me ages to figure out how to properly enjoy reading it and I think I would have got there quicker if I'd read that. Once I got into the rhythm I found it a very rewarding read.

>290 AlisonY: Sounds wonderful - noted.

Great comments on Summer in Baden Baden. It's one I will look for. So, what is your daughter going to choose for you to read next?

>292 AlisonY: Happy belated birthday! Outsourcing the choice sounds like a good idea. It would work for me because whatever someone chose for me would immediately be what I'm resistant to reading! ;)

I'm all caught up here now, it sounds like you had a lovely vacation. Your son is into death metal?

>296 SassyLassy:, >295 AlisonY: It's a slightly nervous recommendation as I can definitely see why people could dislike it, and for a while it was heading into DNF territory for me.

>298 ursula: Thank you! Yes, Oliver loves death metal. He wants a cereer in music, and it's a bit of a concern that this is his go-to genre! It's not exactly a popular choice.

>297 BLBera: She chose The Wife by Meg Wolitzer.

>290 AlisonY: I remember not getting on with this some years ago, I have a feeling I DNF it, but your review suggests it deserves another go. I gave my copy to a friend I remember, so will have to borrow it back if he still has it.

>292 AlisonY: Belated birthday greetings Alison.

Brave to outsource your reading choices for a while. Lovely to have a birthday haul though.
.

>301 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks for the birthday wishes. Definitely nervous with this recommendation to people, especially if you didn't like it first time around! But once I 'got it' I did enjoy it.

I quite like outsourcing my next read picks - I quite often get my daughter to do it for me, as otherwise I forever dither. I know I'm interested in reading them all, it's just in what order.

Belated happy birthday, Alison. May all your dreams come true.

Alison, so sorry for missing your birthday. I’ve been away with the fairies lately.

>303 Ameise1:, >304 kjuliff: Thank you both - most kind!

>290 AlisonY: A great review, this sounds fascinating. And, happy belated birthday. Books are indeed the best presents.

I loved The Wife! I will watch for your comments.

Summer in Baden-Baden sounds interesting, and I'm glad to know to read the introduction. So often I skip them because half the time they detail the entire plot without giving much information that actually improves the reading experience.

>306 rv1988: Thank you! I agree - books are the best presents. I still get so excited by the shiny covers.

>307 BLBera: Coming up. I may not be quite so enthusiastic.

>308 mabith: I'm the same. I usually skip the introduction and read it once I've read the book.

34. The Wife by Meg Wolitzer

(Not keen on this cover, incidentally. I don't like covers from film adaptations).

The Wife starts on an airplane as our narrator and her husband are flying to Helsinki where he will pick up a prestigious writing award for his services to literature. It's no spoiler to say that from the get-go the wife is waiting for the right time to tell her husband that she plans to leave him after forty-odd years together, this latest prize event tipping her over the edge, with the fabric of the novel setting the back story of their lives together and what has led to her making this decision.

It's an enjoyable enough novel, although perhaps a little too predictable and lacking originality in its direction. Going back to the beginning of their relationship in the 1950s, it's a familiar story of a smart woman stepping back before she's even got started to let her husband shine, and of course it wouldn't be a story of a dysfunctional marriage without her husband having a less than clean copy book when it comes to fidelity.

Meg Wolitzer is definitely a clever writer, but overall this novel was a little too obvious and needed a few more layers to it to really draw me in.

3.5 stars - would make a good holiday read, but overall a little forgettable.

>310 AlisonY: I enjoyed the book, and the film as well. yes it was predictable but for some reason it didnt matter

I'm with you on the film adaptation covers! I think I liked the novel a little more than you did. I will have to look back on my comments.

Happy very belated birthday! Love the vacation shots too, as a very much armchair traveler this summer.

And >245 AlisonY: thank you for the warning—I can take a lot of dark stuff in a book but not animal abuse, so I won't pick that one up ever.

I should visit your thread more often because it is always so interesting but that means it takes me ages to read.

Great photos from a summer vacation that sounded blissful, although I have to tell you, if you think 28C is hot, a summer visit to southeast British Columbia is not for you (maybe a winter ski trip?). Our July temperatures hovered around 38-40C. The cooler temperatures in the last week or so meant I had to get up for an extra blanket because it was a chilly 25C. My husband sits outside in blazing sun on the hottest days and often falls asleep. I've had neighbours phone me to ask if I should check on him. My unspoken response is usually "Are you kidding? I'm not going out in that heat!"

Since reading Philip Roth in the 70s he has not appeared on my reading list and that probably won't change. No, I wouldn't want to sit beside him at a dinner party either. :)

Somewhere along the thread I was reminded to pick up another Ian McEwan, one of my favourite writers. I don't think I've completed his work, so thank you for the nudge.

And happy belated birthday!

A very belated happy birthday to you. I hope the coming year is wonderful.

>311 cindydavid4:, >312 BLBera: I liked it well enough, but for me it was one of those books where I knew the whole way through that I'd forget about it pretty soon after.

>313 lisapeet: Thanks Lisa! No, don't pick up The Dig any time soon. It was so sickeningly graphic.

>314 VivienneR: Well good to see you here, Vivienne! No, I could not deal with 40C temperatures at all. You've definitely acclimatised from the temperate mizzle of Nor'n Iron!

McEwan and I have a love / hate relationship. He's so good when he's good that I can't bear it when he falls below par, which does happen with his novels from time to time (and I've found I've enjoyed his most recent books less than his older stuff). But still I end up boomeranging back to his novels. No doubt I'll finish them all - I can't be far off.

>315 Jim53: Thank you Jim! I count every year as a privilege.

>272 AlisonY: It's so horrifying that climate change is already upon us.

well its not like several folk around the world havent been warning us, at least since the 80s. Weve* had decades to do something. it will just get worse

*not we particulary but big business, governments (US China and India are the biggest cuprit) big oil,politicians and all the leaders who have popoed it .

>316 AlisonY: McEwan remains a favorite of mine. I agree his earlier works are better, but I still read every book he puts out there. The take on Metamorphis that he put out several tears ago - the one about Boris Johnson that he wrote in a week wasn’t so hot, though it was an amusing read. But overall I doubt he is going to improve with age.

>317 cindydavid4: I honestly can't even allow myself to properly think about it, as it seems we've left it too late now.

> I agree!

35. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

A modern day retelling of David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead is storytelling at its best, the kind of book that grabs you on the first page and holds you till the last (even though it's fairly chunky at 540 or so pages).

Set in rural Virginia, it takes the broad aspects of David Copperfield and applies it to the real location of Lee County, in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, where the decline of the main industries of mining and tobacco have left many families living in relative poverty. We follow our protagonist and narrator from birth through to late teens, as he mirrors the misfortune of David Copperfield and is passed from one dysfunctional adult to the next in early childhood. As the years pass and a young Demon becomes a teenager, we witness the sorrowful impact of a childhood of neglect through a series of bad choices he makes as a young man.

It's a sad and impactful book as we ride along with Demon through a virtually non-existent childhood into an inevitable adolescence of major wrong turns. Kingsolver creates a very likeable character in Demon, which enables you to stick with him as a reader despite the unravelling of his life. You root for him, wanting his luck to turn and for him to be loved and supported after a lifetime of being let down.

I've not read David Copperfield and I don't think it matters to enjoy this novel. Post reading Demon Copperhead I've read the synopsis of David Copperfield and can now see where Kingsolver took her various references and plot lines from, but the two can sit happily independently.

It's a long while since I read a Barbara Kingsolver novel, and I'd forgotten what a master storyteller she is. I never notice her writing style but simply get lost in the story itself, and to me that's the mark of a truly great writer.

5 stars - a simply great read to disappear into.

>320 AlisonY: I will have to read this. I’ve not read any of her books!

>321 kjuliff: It will be a chunky read on audio, Kate. The Poisonwood Bible is also terrific.

>322 AlisonY: I’ll look at both. I really need to read one.

>320 AlisonY: I've heard such mixed reviews of this one, it's nice to know that you loved it. It's also nice to hear that you don't need to have read David Copperfield first to enjoy it.

>320 AlisonY: Soon to be imbibed Alison. Glad it hit the spot for you, it's a while since I read Kingsolver.

>310 AlisonY: I don’t like Glenn Close though I have no valid reason. So I’ve not seen the movie of The Wife, and was sort of interested in the book but think now I might not like it. Have you read Wifedome which has a similar them? I’ve read neither but would be interested in your opinion of Wifedome if you’ve read it.

I also loved Demon Copperhead, Alison. Great comments. It deserved all of the prizes it won. For me, being familiar with David Copperfield made it even better, but I'm glad to see you could enjoy the Kingsolver without having read the Dickens.

>326 kjuliff: Im not Alison, but I can give you my thoughs The wife is a novel. wifedom is non fiction and should be a required read to those Orwell fans that dont know the truth. This is a biting account of Orwells treatment of his wife Eileen. the author makes good work of newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, and recreates the Orwells' marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in London. This is not a data dump, Funder makes this book read like a novel. I dont think you will be disappointed.

>328 cindydavid4: Cindy, I remembered that you really liked Wifedome a lot. I did want Alison’s opinion though as she’d just reviewed The Wife and wondered what she thought about it. I understand Wifedome is based on Mrs Orwell’s friend’s diary and I wondered how other wives of famous writers had bad husbands.

I suppose I am influenced by my experience of my own parents . Not that my father was famous but he was an actor well-known in his small circle. My mother put it out he that he abused her. I was there. He didn’t. They both shrieked at each other day and night.

It was like growing up on the set of the film, Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolfe. Had my mother’s best friend and confidant kept a diary, no doubt it would have painted my dad as a villain.

Just a thought …

>329 kjuliff: . If you look in her notes, its more than her best friend commentating. There is the whole scene at her death bed, witnessed by many, as well as the people she worked with in Spain when they both were there, and with her work with the gov. There is a reason this womans life was erased.

>330 cindydavid4: Thanks Cindy. I have moved Wifedom up a few notches on my tbr. I know Funder is a good researcher.

>320 AlisonY: Skipped this post as I was in the middle of reading the book, but finished the book two days ago, so have now read it. Having read David Copperfield four or five times, I think I was hung up on it as I read the Kingsolver. I knew the fate of most of the characters in advance, based on Kingsolver's adaptation of their names as well as their roles. However, everything you say about the novel it true; you just keep reading it, immersed in the story.

This afternoon I'm going to my book club, and Demon Copperhead is the book we will be discussing, so I'm really looking forward to it. I suspect a good number of them will have read the Dickens, however, I'm more interested in hearing how those who haven't saw this book as a sort of stand alone.

Just realized the cover on my edition is completely different, more in tune with the book I think.

>324 labfs39: I really enjoyed it, Lisa. I was a bit daunted given it's fairly chunky and I wasn't sure I was in the mood for a massive book, but it honestly hooked me really quickly which was a delight.

>325 Caroline_McElwee: I hope you enjoy it, Caroline. I hadn't read Kingsolver in such a long time either.

>326 kjuliff: No, I've not read Wifedome. I don't want to put you off The Wife - I did enjoy it, but I found it to be a very middling book, so I wouldn't go out of my way to especially enthuse over it. Cindy has caught me interest with Wifedom, though.

>327 BLBera: I agree, Beth. Definitely worthy of the plaudits.

>332 SassyLassy: Glad you enjoy Demon Copperhead too. I wonder if knowing the Dickens story could actually be a distraction reading it, as it seemed to be a bit for you.

I've given it nearly 80 pages but I just can't get into The Fortune of the Rougons. Sorry, but it's going to be a rare DNF for me. Maybe at another time I'd have ploughed on and got something out of it, but I'm not in the mood for that reading effort.

>334 AlisonY: have you read any other Zola? I firmly believe The Fortune of the Rougons is not the place to start. His books read easily as stand-alones. I started with Germinal, which I do think is a masterpiece.

>335 japaul22: Germinal is the only Zola I've read and I agree - it was sensational. The writing style in this one felt very different by comparison, and I just couldn't get into it.

I've been in a bit of a reading slump of late. There has been life stuff going on so my head's not been on concentrating on books, and I've found solace instead in easy-watch trash TV (currently binging 'Say Yes to the Dress Atlanta' - see what I mean?!).

However, last weekend a good pal and I enjoyed a meet up at the 75th Times Literature Festival in Cheltenham. There were some big name disappointments - Lionel Shriver and Alan Hollinghurst cancelled, which was particularly annoying as I'd invested in new hardbacks which I wouldn't otherwise have bought - but nonetheless it was a great weekend.

Our first event was fun, listening to Hugo Rifkind and Jonny Sweet talk about their dark comedic books set around British boarding schools (if you've not heard of either, Rifkind is a journalist for The Times and Sweet is a comedian). Both went to boarding school, so it was a fun discussion around their experiences, and the talk was moderated by Caitlin Moran.

Next we listened to Bryony Gordon, who was also a lot of fun, despite the focus of the conversation being around mental health (Gordon is a journalist for the Telegraph and is known for being a woman on the slightly larger side who often runs at events in her bra and knickers to bring awareness to what normal women's bodies look like).

Our final event on the first day was Alan Edwards - ex music PR to the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Spice Girls, David Bowie, and more - talking to Gary Kemp (ex-Spandau Ballet) and Guy Pratt (bassist who has worked with Pink Floyd, Madonna, The Smiths and many more) and regaling us with amusing stories of the crazy world of his job, where he had to be 24/7 available to deal with any PR crisis which could (and often did) crop up. We were at the top of the queue for a signing with Edwards, and awkwardly hadn't realised that Kemp and Pratt had also written books and were sitting beside him expecting us to want their books signed. Things only got more awkward when we completely transgressed book-signing etiquette and cheekily asked if they'd mind signing Edwards' book as we didn't realise they had written books and we hadn't bought any. They did, but rather begrudgingly (Pratt especially was put out, but hey - it was Alan Edwards moment, not theirs). Edwards book, incidentally, is 'I was There: Dispatches From a Life in Rock and Roll' (not sure why the touchstone isn't working).

On Saturday we enjoyed a morning browsing in a lovely Cheltenham bookshop before attending a fun freebie book discussion on transgender issues and then a really interesting talk entitled 'Keepers of the Flame, which was on the topic of people responsible for looking after literary legacies. On the panel were Virginia Woolf's great-niece, who told a fun anecdote about Mattel sending her estate a terrible Virginia Woolf Barbie for approval) and John Le Carre's son, as well as a literary agent who works with literary estate owners. A hugely interesting discussion.

Our final event was listening to Craig Brown (ex-Private Eye writer) talking about his fun book A Voyage Around the Queen, which sounds a fun collection of people's anecdotes as they briefly passed around the island of Queen Elizabeth II, possibly the most famous person to ever live in our lifetime.

All in all an enjoyable weekend, which as ever has unsettled me for a time about not spending my life simply following endless creative pursuits. Back to reality...

One thing we both noticed was a common thread of privilege amongst most of the author panelists. I'm not sure if this is more of a British thing or is a general theme in literature, but there were a great many Oxbridge alumni and children of famous parents. It did make me wonder about how easy it is for your average person in the street of great writing talent to make it onto the bookshelves these days. If you've not had a famous parent ahead of you to help open doors to writing opportunities, it seems instead you must largely be famous for something else before the hallowed doors of publishing will be open to you. Ghost writers must be doing a roaring trade in children's books in particular - it seems every ex-member of the royal family, premiership footballer, popular DJ and comedian is now an expert in penning children's books. God help our children. Is there much point in mere ordinary mortals slogging over the pages of a first novel the days?

>337 AlisonY: Sounds like a fab weekend Alison. I’ve tended to avoid big lit festivals, but I should give one a go. I’d have enjoyed the ‘Keepers of the Flame’ event.

I do enjoy good anecdotes, and sounds like there were a few.

Shame about the no show’s though.

>337 AlisonY: Thanks for that write up of your weekend. Glad you had so much fun despite those no shows. I've got to start going to more literary events now that I'm in New York (and most of the boxes are finally unpacked).

>337 AlisonY: I'm glad you were able to leave your cares behind for a weekend and submerge yourself in book talks. Did it reinvigorate your reading mojo? The few times I've been to literary festivals, I've left raring to tackle my TBR, as well as the books I picked up there.

All in all it sounds like you had a fabulous weekend. I wish you a relaxed one ahead.

>337 AlisonY: Thanks for sharing your weekend, Alison. It sounds like a lot of fun. I know what you mean about feeling afterwards that you need to spend more time on creative pursuits.

>338 Caroline_McElwee: I think you might be surprised by the Cheltenham Lit Fest, Caroline. It never feels like you're in the middle of hoards of crowds - it's all very well managed and spread out across a few venues.

>339 rocketjk: I bet NYC has lots of great literary events to go to, Jerry, once you get a chance to catch your breath from the move.

>340 labfs39: Thank you, and yes it did get my literary juices flowing again. I think it was more not feeling like I'd the patience for reading for a while rather than not being able to get into particular books.

>341 Ameise1:, >342 BLBera: Thanks for stopping by! And yes - now I'm thoroughly destabilised again about not spending enough time on arts activities!

36. A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor

This is an author who's been sitting in my 'must get to' pile for a long while. For me there were definite parallels between her style and that of Anita Brookner; there is an air of sadness and and a sense of 'what might have been' to all the characters, although perhaps with more flashes of dark humour than found in Brookner's novels.

Set in a small harbour town after WWII, the novel revolves around the interconnecting stories of the people living in the harbour front houses. The characters are every day people with their own private problems going on behind closed doors, but a common thread was loneliness, disappointment and regret, of loves lost and missed opportunities.

I didn't struggle to get into the story, and Taylor was clearly a skilled writer who deserves to have belatedly received the accolades she missed out on for a long time, but at times I struggled to want to pick it up. A lot of that was down to my own mood at the time - there is a bleakness to this novel, and I wasn't in the headspace for wanting to immerse myself in that sentiment.

3.5 stars - wonderfully written, but a little depressing at times.

>344 AlisonY: This is actually my favourite of hers Alison.

>345 Caroline_McElwee: I enjoyed it, Caroline, but I don't think it was the right time for me to read it. I do like a bleak British novel, but I have to be in the right frame of mind.

>344 AlisonY: I’d like to read some of her work. What can you recommend to start with?

>347 kjuliff: I'm probably not the right person to answer this as this was my first Elizabeth Taylor novel. I got the impression from other people's reviews that this title is a favourite from her work for many.

>347 kjuliff: I also liked Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, of which there is a very nice film with Joan Plowright playing Mrs P.

>349 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks. I’ll check out the film too.

currently binging 'Say Yes to the Dress Atlanta'

I had to Google that series, since I lived in Atlanta for 25 years before I moved back home to care for Mom in 2022 after my father died. Apparently it's set in Sandy Springs, a well to do suburb immediately north of Atlanta which happens to be where the hospital I used to work in is located. The women there are known for being incredibly pampered and vain, who put on make up and dress up to go to Whole Foods or Publix (our preferred supermarkets) or other shops. You couldn't pay me enough to watch a single episode of that.

>351 kidzdoc: Ha! Oh now - never say never, Darryl!

>352 AlisonY: Okay, you're right, Alison. That show is streaming on YouTube TV. I watched an episode and got to the 2:50 mark, which is a solid minute more than I can listen to Donald Trump speak.

Several years ago I attended a celebration of the contributions of Black British actors to the stage over 50 years at the National Theatre in London. Two Black British women sat alongside me, and after the performance had ended they asked what I thought of it. Naturally my American accent gave me away, and they asked where I was from. When I replied "Atlanta" one of them said, "is it like 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' there?" I laughed and shook my head, as some of the people there are like that, but fortunately very few of them.

>353 kidzdoc: I'm so proud of you for watching 2 mins 50, Darryl! Yes!!!!! It's all very hammed up, but when I need to watch something that requires zero brain cells it fits the bill nicely. And a bit of romance, however much skewed into reality TV, warms the cockles of my heart.

I break out in a sweat every time I watch the opening credits and I see the quick image of that massive Atlanta freeway I had to drive on by myself for work in my 20s long before the days of sat nav! I'd never seen so many lanes on a single road system - stressful was not the word. I'd like to go again, though. I only made it downtown one night on the few trips I made. Most of my time was spent way out in Alpharetta, but loved driving myself about up there and chatting with the locals.

>354 AlisonY: I avoid the Downtown Connector whenever possible, even though it was the most straightforward route to and from the hospital; I greatly preferred going from Midtown through Lindbergh and Buckhead to Sandy Springs during the week. Alpharetta and the northern suburbs, including Dunwoody, Milton and Roswell, continue to grow nearly exponentially, as is true for Midtown, and I would be willing to venture that you wouldn't recognize it now.

This is what my old neighborhood in Midtown Atlanta looks like, showing Piedmont Park in the foreground:

>355 kidzdoc: Lovely pic. What a pretty view with the park in the foreground.

37. The Rejects: An Alternative History of Popular Music by Jamie Collinson

Jamie Collinson focuses in this book on the people who were instrumental in the formation and/or sound of big name bands but who were sacked at some point along the journey. It starts promisingly with a chapter on Pete Best, The Beatles' original drummer, but although interspersed with a number of interesting chapters the book feels as if Collinson is grasping for content at times.

It's an uneven read; where Collinson has a particular personal interest in the group (e.g. Nirvana) he invests pages upon pages to the band, often straying significantly off at tangents away from the point of the book, yet for other bands he writes only a page, where he clearly knows precious little beyond the fact that person A was fired from band B. Collinson worked for a couple of indie labels, and some of his best chapters are where he is able to bring personal insight into the stories, but for many other bands his accounts read of someone who has simply researched a couple of different band member perspectives from memoirs and then stitched the key parts back together.

It's unfortunate, as the good parts of this book were enjoyable, but I just don't think Collinson had good enough material to keep to the focus of his subject matter.

3 stars - interesting for fans of indie and rock music in particular, but a bit of a flawed approach from Collinson.

38. Lie With Me by Philippe Besson

Lie With Me is short novella which is at least semi-autobiographical. The narrator is a successful French novelist (presumably Besson) who is looking back on his first love with another young man whilst they were both at the same school. The book is dedicated to the memory of Thomas Andrieu, who is Besson's love interest in the novel, so we must assume that there is at least some element of memoir to the account.

The book is largely a coming-of-age portayal of same-sex first love and the characters' differing perspectives of accepting (and hence becoming open about) their sexuality.

I really wanted to love this short book, yet I never fully connected with the characters enough to care about the storyline. Perhaps it was the style of prose, which was quite spare, or the short length of the book; I just never felt fully committed to the story as a reader.

3 stars - OK, but nothing remarkable. Perhaps I'm just not the target market for this novel.

(And not sure why there had to be so many references on the jacket and inside cover to Molly Ringwald being the translator. I mean, does no one remember how well she could pronounce Molière in 'The Breakfast Club?' movie? Clearly she was always destined for a French literary career. 😂)

39. David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine by Nicholas Doyle

I've no idea how to describe this utterly unique book but I absolutely loved it and will be one of my favourite reads of this year.

Nicholas Royle was a professor of English at the University of Sussex, and during the crazy times of the pandemic he decides to accept voluntary redundancy. This book is his swan-song, a collection of lectures delivered to an audience of no one except us readers, blending aspects of memoir, creative non-fiction (although he hates that phrase), essay, music, art and literary criticism and philosophy.

The basis of the book (although I use that word loosely, as it disappears off in many tangents) draws parallels between the tour de force creativity of Enid Blyton and David Bowie. Whilst they worked in different mediums, both brought unrivalled imagination and unique perspective to their art, a luminosity that needs balanced by the dark in order to work. The sun machine referred to in the title is an odd concept to grasp, but my take on it is the ability of a piece of amazing art or something which pervades the senses to have such an effect on you that it lifts the soul and makes the world that much brighter, whilst also acting as a kind of time-travelling device which can transport you in an instant back to a stored memory from the path, or propel you forward with a hunger and ambition for the future.

It's bizarre, it's amusing, it's thought-provoking and it's a rally cry for the importance of keeping literature and the arts alive in this modern world where the arts and creativity are increasingly viewed as something fanciful and irrelevant.

4.5 stars - it's niche and utterly up my alley as Enid Blyton was the hallmark of my childhood reading days and David Bowie is my favourite musician, so I can't say with any confidence that this book will speak to many others in the same way it did to me, but if you have a general appreciation of both and a love of literature and ideas I can highly recommend it.

Punctuated with requests to go off and listen to certain pieces of music (often Bowie songs, but not always), this would be a tremendous book to listen to on audio (if publishing licences permit the songs to be included).

Such a smart book. I feel a bit bereft now. Nicholas Royle taught me a lot between these pages.

>359 AlisonY: Ouch, you got me with this one Alison.

>360 Caroline_McElwee: It's extremely niche, Caroline, so I'm nervous about anyone taking a BB from me on this one!

Well it has David Bowie in the title Alison... but I liked your quirky description. I do quirky. No blame will reside with you if it doesn't work for me.

>362 Caroline_McElwee: Knowing what you enjoy reading and your appreciation of the arts, it very well might be something you'll enjoy, Caroline.

The Royle book sounds amazing, Alison. Wonderful comments. Off to find a copy.

>359 AlisonY: This one sounds like the sort of thing that appeals to me. I've just recently finished a listen through all of Bowie's albums in chronological order so seems a good time for it too. I never read much Blyton as a kid though, but I think I'll try and give this one a go sometime!

>364 BLBera:, >365 valkyrdeath: I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

>365 valkyrdeath: The book has inspired me to embark on a similar Bowie listening project. There are so many songs still unfamiliar to me. I prefer the tone and style of his voice as he got older, though; some of the Ziggy and Thin White Duke era songs I don't enjoy so much because of his early singing style.

Is there a thread anywhere on LT to share literary-inspired travel destinations / places to visit? If not I'll start one, as it's a topic I'm interested in.

>367 AlisonY: I haven't noticed one Alison, but I have tended not to stray beyond the groups I am a part of in recent years. There was always a literary or art pilgrimage whenever I travelled (not been abroad since 2019 sigh).

>367 AlisonY: I used to have one but it went dormant. Ill jump in! heres the original thread https://www.librarything.com/topic/241068#n5820694

40. Mania by Lionel Shriver

Oh Lionel. I'm sorry - this one just didn't hit the mark for me.

Mania tells the story of the unravelling of the protagonist's life as she increasingly rails against a super-woke world where an initiative called Mental Parity has taken hold in the US. People are no longer allowed to differentiate others on the basis mental aptitude, with the result that children are no longer tested in schools, university students automatically pass regardless of effort, and people are allowed to undertake skilled, dangerous jobs without appropriate knowledge or capability. Words such as 'stupid' are such an anathema to the MP movement that children can be taken away from parents if there is evidence of such words being used at home and livelihoods can be lost for a slip up.

To me this read like a novel where someone couldn't let go of an idea they had which needed much heavier editing. The first half really didn't absorb my attention - Shriver was trying too hard to be smart with her idea, but it required so much work to build up the back story so that events in the second half made sense that she left me yawning behind as a reader.

3 stars - saved only by the second half when it finally became vaguely interested. The first half had me close to a DNF.

>370 AlisonY: Thanks Alison. I could easily have borrowed that one. I find Shriver a very inconsistent writer. Apart from the Kevin and the tennis one, which ones would you recommend?

>370 AlisonY: I agree, Kate - when she's good she's very good, but she ebbs and flows. I felt with Mania similarly to how I did with The Mandibles. In both novels, she spends far too long setting the scene of this alternative reality she's basing the stories on. For someone who's got a lot of novels behind her now, they both read like first author rookie errors from that perspective.

I really enjoyed The Post Birthday World - my favourite after Kevin. Third favourite is So Much for That. I thought her short story collection Property was very enjoyable too (actually it's short stories bookended by two novellas). The Standing Chandelier, the first of the novellas, sticks in my mind as a very smart and wry read.

>372 AlisonY: the post birthday world is the only one of his I really liked of hers but im always a fan of times switcn stories and this is one of the best there is also the one when several adult children come home to sit Shiva for their farther. someone probably know, but fwiw i liked it

>373 cindydavid4: >372 AlisonY: I didn’t mind Double Fault but I might be mixing it up with Match Point - the Woody Allen film…

I seem to have been MIA from LT for a while for no reason other than I'm ridiculously busy. Work is insane, I've been doing a six week winter challenge at the gym and many of my evenings have been spent panic Christmas present buying online. I have been reading, but more dipping in and out of books until the last few days.

So, recently completed:



41. The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton

This is a follow up book to Burton's The Miniaturist, which I read and enjoyed back in 2017. I'm utterly useless at remembering the plots of books more than five minutes after finishing them, and often that felt a bit of a drawback when reading The House of Fortune as Burton only hints at what had happened in the past, and darned if I could remember what had actually happened or who was who in the original book. I sort of figured out bits of it by the end, but certainly it would have been better to have read them closer together.

I wasn't sure about this one for the first 50 pages or so. It felt a bit clunky and too try-hard with the characters, but eventually Burton found her rhythm with it and as the story unfolded it started to grip me. The family have fallen onto hard times in this second instalment, and as the daughter has come of age the household is divided on whether to quickly pursue a good marriage for her which will secure the futures of them all. The daughter has other ideas, and there are various plot twists as her future goes down a path none of them could have foreseen.

I really enjoyed the setting of 18th century Amsterdam in the first book, and that drew me in again a second time with this follow up. Highbrow literary fiction it's not, and there's more than a whiff of mass market fiction about it, but it's one of those books I class as 'just a good read', and they have there place for me every now and then, especially when life is busy.

3.5 stars - ticks the box of when you just need a good story to keep you turning the pages, but not as enjoyable as the first book.

42. Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before by Dr Julie Smith

I want to a literary event in 2023 where Dr. Julia Smith was one of the key speakers, but I wasn't interested enough to buy her book at the after book-signing. However, I noticed it when rummaging in a charity shop bookshelf a few months ago during a stressful life period and decided to pick it up.

It's taken me a month to read this book, and I don't expect I read it in the right way. This is essentially a book of mental health tools - how to deal with grief, stress, anxiety, self-doubt, depression, etc. - and I would think to get the most out of it one should use it as a support mechanism and zone in on the chapters which are affecting you most at a given time and do the exercises that are suggested. That being said, Smith covers a lot of ground in one book, which means the chapters are relatively brief and I'm not convinced how helpful they would be if you were needing some serious help in any particular area. I didn't come across anything startling that I'd not read in numerous places before, so perhaps this book is orientated towards people who don't normally read self-help books.

It was interesting whilst in the middle of reading this book to find it had charted highly in a list of the top 100 books ever sold in the UK that someone recently shared in LT. I don't think the book is remotely deserving of such an accolade, but I think it speaks volumes of society today, where more and more people are battling depression, anxiety, burnout and other manifestations of the way we sprint through life in the twentieth century.

3 stars - interesting enough, but I've read better books which have covered similar ground, just more quietly and without social media propulsion.

Ok, I’ll pass. Hope your stress is less now

I haven’t posted here in a while. You have been reading some great stuff this year

>377 dchaikin: Thanks Dan. Bit random as usual!

43. Violets by Kyung-Sook Shin

I'm finding it hard to figure out how to describe Violets. If I had to sum it up in one word it would be 'loneliness'.

San is an outsider from the moment she is born, ostracised within her small rural community. With an absent father and unreliable mother, the only solace she finds is in her friendship with another young girl, until one day something happens which destroys the friendship forever. Devastated, San eventually moves to Seoul where she finds some brief happiness working in a flower shop, cultivating the plants and developing a new friendship with the other girl who runs the shop, until a fleeting encounter with a womanising photographer starts her on a crazed, naive obsession which boils up old suppressed emotions to the surface.

It's a sad, dark book which I appreciated more than I can say I fully enjoyed. Shin's protagonist is one of life's overlooked people, who lives on the margins unseen, a person who life is never going to be kind to.

3.5 stars - the writing held my attention, but I was glad to reach the end.

4 stars - had to update the star rating as I keep coming back to thinking about this book, and how cleverly it's put together,

I keep thinking about Violets. I may well move it up to a 4 star read. It was rather cleverly done the more I think about it.

I’m intrigued by your review of Violets. Will you read any of fellow Korean Han Kang?

>381 dchaikin: I've read The Vegetarian already, Dan. I enjoyed it well enough,but haven't rushed to read anything else by the author. Again, it was pretty dark. Maybe that's a Korean literary hallmark, but I've not read more than these two to say definitively.

Whale has humor. But my experience with Korean lit is generally dark. Of course, it was a politically repressed country until roughly 1987. That may play role, especially for authors our age or older

>383 dchaikin: Of course, it was a politically repressed country until roughly 1987. And still is in some ways. Did you hear about the declaration of martial law a couple of weeks ago? Hundreds of people immediately rushed to Parliament (including 300 armed soldiers) and the presidential decision was overturned, but still.

>384 labfs39: - yeah. That so far seems a democratic success. But dangerous. Trumpy empowered minority move. But he may have overstepped.

>383 dchaikin:, >383 dchaikin:, >385 dchaikin: Interesting. There's definitely a tension in the two South Korean books I've read.

Goodness - after a bit of a slump I'm on a reading roll this week.:)



44. I Was There by Alan Edwards

This book was a signing from October's Cheltenham Literary Festival, and although the event was interesting I wasn't expecting too much of the book. Absolutely delighted to have been proved totally wrong on that front - I've been binge-reading this as much as possible over the weekend.

Alan Edwards is a big cheese in the world of PR, for the first 20 years or so focusing solely on the music industry but then widening his net to sport and general media personalities as the cult of the celebrity took over in the 1990s in the era of Brit Pop, then reality TV with Big Brother and the massive era of celebrity gossip filling tabloid newspapers and gossip magazines.

Edwards is absolutely justified in using his title 'I Was There'. Goodness, he was there in spades. Starting out at 20, he made a name for himself in the 1970s as the sole PR person in the UK who recognised that punk was the next big thing on the music scene, which solidified his credentials and opened up doors to major artists thereafter. You name it, this guy was in the middle of it from a PR perspective, working with massive names such as Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Big Country, Prince, The Spice Girls, Janet Jackson, Debbie Harry... the list goes on. What I liked about the book was that Edwards came across as a decent guy who's proud of what he's achieved and built up yet keeps his feet firmly on the ground, including being very honest about how his relationship with most of these stars, however close he felt he became to them, was usually seen as simply business from the star's perspective (which also translated to many, many firings over the year).

I don't know a great deal about PR, so it was interesting to learn about the craft through the many, many stories of famous personae Edwards has worked with, and how it evolved through the different eras, from the days of mainly print-only media when a lot of his job was damage limitation for hell-raising rockstars to the crazy times of Britain's tabloid press and the phone-hacking scandals through to today's modern era of social media and the use of holograms, etc. in major concerts, such as U2's concerts at The Sphere in Las Vegas. Edwards was in the middle of many seminal moments, such as being Michael Jackson's PR for his upcoming UK comeback tour when he died unexpectedly, and similarly being Amy Winehouse's PR up to her death. He signed with the Beckhams just before Victoria and David got engaged and as the whole 'brand Beckham' started to explode, and did the PR for The Spice Girls' sellout global tour.

Given Edwards has been on the periphery of so many major events of our time, I imagine it was a job to weed out what not to include from many, many stories, and there's certainly no filler material going on in the book. Every chapter packs a punch with insights from being around these major stars without reading like a betrayal of confidences - this man knows to stay on the right side of the line as his job in the industry depends on it.

5 stars - perhaps it spoke a lot to me as so many of my favourite artists feature in his stories, but I highly recommend this to any music fans who are interested in stories from the edge and insights into how the whole machine of super stardom works.

I wish you and your loved ones a happy and blessed festive season.

>388 Ameise1: A very happy Christmas to you too, Barbara.

Wishing you all happy Christmas / happy holidays. Here's a picture of Belfast's Christmas market in front of our City Hall.

>390 AlisonY: Oh, what a beautiful picture. Thanks for sharing it.

>390 AlisonY: How festive!

Beautiful! I have to get to Belfast someday. Cheers!

Beautiful picture. Merry Christmas

>359 AlisonY: >387 AlisonY: Oh, two good rock'n'roll (or maybe rock'n'roll adjacent, in the case of David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine?) wishlisters for me. Feels like there could be a good Bowie odd shelf to put together, seeing as he was such a touchstone for so many of us of a certain age. I'm thinking also of my (too long unread) copy of Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels, which I picked up solely for the title.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you and yours, Alison!

>393 rocketjk: We look forward to welcoming you some day, Jerry!

>394 dchaikin:, >395 lisapeet: Merry Christmas! Noting that book with Bowie in the title!

45. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

I adored Chatwin's In the Black Country novel, so as his legacy is sealed as much as a travel writer as novelist I thought I'd try one of his non-fiction travelogues this time around.

Travelling around Patagonia, this book is as much a collection of historical stories about individuals in Patagonia as it is an account of Chatwin's travels through it. The first part of the book focused more on his travels and the people he met as he went, and I enjoyed that more than later parts of his book where he seemingly ran out of things to say about this barren land and wrote heavily instead about the stories of various sailors, native Indians and robbers, etc. In the first half they were more interspersed with his travels to various towns, with many chapters referring to Butch Cassidy and his accomplices popping up in various parts of Patagonia, but I started to glaze over a little as the travel descriptions become the minority of his writing and the history took over.

Certainly he managed to invoke a wonderful sense of place where he focused on his travels, but there were too many names being thrown around as he got lost in his historical tales from the various towns and my interest waned.

3.5 stars - worth reading, but I'm a little disappointed that in the end this read less like a travelogue and more like a collection of research.

46. Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour by Fay Blanchard

I find Vanessa Bell such an interesting artist, both in terms of her art and her bohemian, avant-garde lifestyle. This book was curated to accompany an exhibition running at M.K Gallery up to early 2025, and thereafter for a few months at Charleston, Bell's famous country home in East Sussex.

It's a beautiful book to look at and I learnt a lot from it as well about Bell, the Bloomsbury Group and her unconventional domestic and business set-up with Duncan Grant.

Bell's style development is evident, with many different experiments with form, but it is her style which she described as 'domestic modernism' which I find most appealing - her use of colour and the stories contained in the rooms she paints.

5 stars - a beautiful and informative book. I only wish I could manage to see the exhibition.



(Thanks to Caroline_McElwee's thread for putting Bell's paintings in my head this year)

>398 AlisonY: A good exhibition catalog is always worthwhile. Her art looks fantastic.

>398 AlisonY: Oooh that looks lovely.

>398 AlisonY: This does look beautiful. Your rock'n'roll books sound fascinating as well. Good reading. I hope you are having a great holiday season.

>379 AlisonY: Violets sounds intriguing, thanks for a great review.

>390 AlisonY: lovely photo!

>398 AlisonY: Gosh, this sounds interesting. I have a mild interest in the Bloomsbury group in general, I'll look this up.

Happy New Year! I've enjoyed reading your thread and your reviews. Looking forward to next year.

>399 RidgewayGirl:, >400 lisapeet:, >401 BLBera:, >402 rv1988: It's a lovely book. Wonderful reading and a feast for the eyes over Christmas.

>402 rv1988: The Bloomsbury Group element definitely draws me in to Bell as well. Their domestic arrangements were simply bonkers - Vanessa Bell lived with her homosexual friend Duncan Grant for most of her life and was in love with him, despite also being married to Clive Bell (a very open marriage arrangement). Grant's lover David Garrett also lived with them for a period. As well as 2 children with Bell, Vanessa then had a daughter with Duncan Grant (unbeknown to the daughter until she was 18 - she thought Clive Bell was her father). David Garrett commented when she was in the crib that he would marry her one day, and low and behold Angelica did go on to marry this man 26 years older than her who'd been her father's lover. You couldn't make it up, could you?

It's a little sad, though, that in her lifetime Vanessa Bell was overshadowed by the success of her literary sister Virginia Woolf, and that she only has come to prominence in recent years as a trailblazing artist of her time.

She was part of that era that will never come to pass again, when the Bloomsbury Group were in full flow with all those famous literary names meeting together, and in the art world Vanessa Bell meeting in Paris with the likes of Picasso and Matisse. I find it so interesting.

>398 AlisonY: What a gorgeous book! I think I need that for the art and for more information on the group.